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Author: John Honner

  • RELIGION

    Flowers for Father Rahner

    • John Honner
    • 02 April 2024

    Karl Rahner, a Jesuit priest whose ideas helped modernize the Church, left an indelible legacy on contemporary Catholicism. On the 40th anniversary of his death, what can a flower left at his niche tell us about the lasting bonds between belief, memory, and the enduring search for human connection?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A cogent argument for voting Yes

    • John Honner
    • 24 August 2023
    13 Comments

    You might think that, if anyone could pull off the establishment of a treaty, a great poet and a great policy maker, working in harmony, would surely have the best chance. But this was not the case: when Judith Wright and H.C. Coombes advocated for a treaty throughout their lifetimes, they were unsuccessful. 

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  • RELIGION

    Cathedrals and caravans

    • John Honner
    • 27 February 2023
    3 Comments

    The word synodality may not be familiar to many, but it's a word that Pope Francis has been emphasising throughout his papacy. It refers to a Church that listens and travels together, with everyone having something to learn from one another. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The Aboriginal Tent Embassy: Then and now

    • John Honner
    • 28 July 2022
    4 Comments

    The ‘Land Rights Now’ banner is hoisted against the wind, and the marchers set off for the Embassy. A young Aboriginal woman walks ahead of the banner. She has dyed her hair red. She turns and leans into the wind to face the marchers, holding a megaphone to her mouth. ‘What do we want?’ she shouts, ‘When do we want it?’ And she keeps going, exhorting the marchers. We reply ‘Land Rights … Now!’ The crowd tires before she does.

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  • RELIGION

    Child protection, compliance and conversion

    • John Honner
    • 07 September 2017
    5 Comments

    In the Christian gospels the child is the exemplar, par excellence, of what God's world is meant to look like. In social policy, on the other hand, the child tends to be portrayed as a powerless innocent. In recent years, the Catholic Church has failed the standards of both gospel and society: on the one hand by discounting the importance of children and not listening to children, and on the other hand by not having appropriate practices and policies to ensure the safety of children.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The opposite of Australian swimming hubris

    • John Honner
    • 01 August 2012
    10 Comments

    The Spit Baths consist of two swimming areas bounded by boardwalks built on piles sunk into Middle Harbour. At low tide there is barely enough water to swim in. Olympic medallist John Devitt does time trials in just a few feet of water. There is no black line on a sterile tiled floor, just sand and seaweed.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why we lost the Ashes: it’s politics, stupid

    • John Honner
    • 07 January 2011
    3 Comments

    The fortunes of the English and Australian cricket teams follow the fortunes of their nations' conservative governments.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2009: Rudd faces ugly story of abused innocence

    • John Honner
    • 13 January 2010

    The Prime Minister offered his apology to those who spent their childhood in care, via a carefully crafted speech. He said it is an 'ugly story' that must be told without fear or favour. Some who worked in or were associated with these children's homes may not like this judgement. November 2009

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Rudd faces ugly story of abused innocence

    • John Honner
    • 17 November 2009
    16 Comments

    The Prime Minister offered his apology to those who spent their childhood in care, via a carefully crafted speech. He said it is an 'ugly story' that must be told without fear or favour. Some who worked in or were associated with these children's homes may not like this judgement.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Stars point to brighter future for Forgotten Australians

    • John Honner
    • 10 November 2009
    3 Comments

    A sports hall in Berry, NSW, has won a coveted international architecture prize. This has a special significance for this month's Federal Government apology to the 'Forgotten Australians' who suffered abuse in institutional care.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The banker who'd played the gentleman's game

    • John Honner
    • 10 November 2008
    3 Comments

    My favourite banker was Peter May, graceful batsman and cautious captain of the English cricket team in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He once broke his umbrella on the way to work, playing an imaginary cover drive at an imaginary fast bowler.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Poultry parable for homeless youth

    • John Honner
    • 12 August 2008
    21 Comments

    Imagine a young person in State care trying to access the rental market with no money or employment history. Beryl the Chook was last in the pecking order, but through a 'constructive alliance' her strengths began to overcome her defecits.

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