Keywords: Option For The Poor
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 24 October 2013
'Here is a pope who is not just about creating wiggle room or watering down the teachings of the Church. No, he wants to admit honestly to the world that we hold in tension definitive teachings and pastoral yearnings — held together coherently only by mercy and forgiveness.' Frank Brennan's Wallis Lecture presented in Hobart on 24 October 2013 and Launceston on 25 October 2013.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 07 September 2013
12 Comments
How clever of you to choose the day of the federal election for me to offer these reflections. I come amongst you, not as a publisher or journalist but as an advocate in the public square animated by my own religious tradition as a Jesuit and Catholic priest engaged on human rights issues in a robustly pluralistic democratic society.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 29 July 2013
14 Comments
Australian cycling great Stuart O'Grady says using drugs was the only way he could be competitive at the 1998 Tour de France. Graham Richardson — famed for his 'whatever it takes' approach to politics — says Labor's PNG solution is cruel but 'politically brilliant' and has given the party a competitive edge. In years to come, Labor party elders will realise the cost of this competitiveness.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 14 May 2013
27 Comments
Australian governments of both political persuasions have reassured the Australian public that they are decent and special when it comes to dealing with the Timorese over disagreements in the Timor Sea. Time for such special pleading is over. For the good of ongoing relations between these two unequal neighbours, it is time for Australia to commit to negotiating final maritime boundaries.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 15 April 2013
15 Comments
Under the Coalition's version of the National Broadband Network, super-fast access is not lost for those who can afford the internet connectivity equivalent to a business class flight. Those who cannot however will make up the large new underclass of the digitally disadvantaged.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 22 March 2013
1 Comment
'Transformation and empowerment will come through the exercise of kindness and tenderness, accompanied by the practical abilities inculcated by a rounded Catholic education.' Frank Brennan's address at the Transformation and Empowerment Symposium marking 50 years of the Signadou campus of ACU, 22 March 2013.
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MEDIA
- Beth Doherty
- 20 March 2013
1 Comment
The power of social media was manifest during the days following the announcement. Images of the Pope washing and kissing the feet of women, cancer and AIDS patients, and the poor, went viral. Francis himself recognised that the often maligned and misunderstood work of the media can play a part in spreading a message of justice.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 03 December 2012
10 Comments
Today is the 158th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade rebellion, often seen as the source of our ‘fair go’ ethos. Wealthy landowners and businessmen controlled the government, as they do today. Governments anxious for private sector investment give free reign to James Packer and others, at cost to the common good.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 06 November 2012
23 Comments
The phrase 'enforced adoption' conjures up visions of babies being wrenched from a wailing mother’s arms, or babies being spirited away in the dead of night. Of course it wasn’t like that: girls signed the requisite consent forms. But the idea of force is there, because the notion of choice rarely was.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 01 November 2012
'Even without the political static which is drowning us all out down there in Canberra, there is real doubt whether the Gillard bluff 'Don't get on a boat because you might end up in Nauru' can do what the Howard bluff could not deliver.' Full text from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's Law and Justice Oration at the Law and Justice Foundation 2012 Justice Awards Dinner, Parliament House, Sydney.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 29 October 2012
'Though land rights and self-determination provide no utopia for the contemporary indigenous Australian community, they have belatedly put right an ancient wrong. The cost and inconvenience are unavoidable. Terra nullius is no longer an option.' Full text is from Fr Frank Brennan's keynote speech at the Central Queensland Law Association Conference, Mercure Capricorn Resort, Yeppoon, 27 October 2012.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 21 August 2012
Text is from Fr Frank Brennan SJ's opening keynote address at the Higher Degree Research Retreat, Rydges Eaglehawk, Canberra, 4 August 2012.
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