Eureka Street

Author: Richard Leonard

ARTS AND CULTURE

The time to look away from abuse crisis has gone
- Richard Leonard
- 28 January 2016
18 Comments
This is one of the angriest films you will ever see. In the Bible we hear about righteous anger, where God or humanity realises something is so wrong and sinful that 'holy anger' is the first and right response. At its best in the scriptures this anger leads to justice, making things right. Spotlight is an occasion for holy, righteous anger and every adult Catholic should see it.
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RELIGION

A messy birth and a vulnerable baby
- Richard Leonard
- 18 December 2014
21 Comments
At a Christmas party, I met the charge nurse of the maternity ward. Pleading that because I was a celibate I would never be at a birth, I enquired if I might be allowed to come and see'. … Mary and I met six hours into her labor, which was an unusual circumstance within which to meet your birthing partner.' She had very little small talk, maybe because she had no breath at all.
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RELIGION

A funny thing happened on the way to the Vatican
- Richard Leonard
- 18 March 2013
8 Comments
Francis stood there alone for the cruellest time. This is why members of royal families never appear on balconies alone: you can only wave so often. The Latin Americans went nuts. This guy is now the most famous Argentine ever, jumping Che, Evita and Maradona. Like 'Francis', they specialise in one-name handles too, but with friends like that ...
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Cinema: the secular temple
- Barbara Creed and Richard Leonard
- 18 March 2009
3 Comments
People have stopped going to church, but they still have an eye for and an expectation of the mystical. At the cinema, spectators, primed by the structures of the cinema itself, enter into a mystical experience with the shadow world being played out before them.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Critics with the measure of a good film
- Richard Leonard
- 03 October 2007
1 Comment
Accepting a peer award recently, Sydney Morning Herald film critic Paul Byrnes declared serious film criticism to be in trouble. 'Much of the public now believes that a great film can't be great unless the box office makes it great.' He has a point.
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CONTRIBUTORS

Richard Leonard SJ
- Richard Leonard
- 17 May 2007
Rev Dr Richard Leonard SJ is the director of the Australian Catholic Film Office and author of Movies That Matter: Reading Film Through The Lens of Faith.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Walking through a human zoo
- Richard Leonard
- 02 April 2007
1 Comment
With his mother coming and going from the house and his life, Augustine has to find his way to adulthood. Running With Scissors feels like walking through a human zoo where we observe the insane antics of one caged character after another.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Politically correct dancing
- Richard Leonard
- 02 April 2007
1 Comment
A new ocker comedy depicts young protégés at a suburban dance school immersing themselves in choreographies about starvation, people dying of AIDS and the nuclear holocaust.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Finding God in the Dark: Spirituality and the Cinema
- Richard Leonard
- 27 February 2007
1 Comment
This is the full text of a speech given by Richard Leonard SJ in Queensland on spirituality and cinema, on the occasion of the opening of a new spirituality centre.
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ARTS AND CULTURE

Jesuit premise fails but resilience of humanity proved
- Richard Leonard
- 21 August 2006
2 Comments
As the fascinating Seven Up documentary series develops, the supposed principle of St Ignatius—'give me a boy until he is seven, and I will give you the man'—is found to be increasingly untrue.
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RELIGION

Dan Brown’s favour to Christianity
- Richard Leonard
- 29 May 2006
1 Comment
A good read, a tedious film, a historical mess, and great publicity for the Catholic Church. Richard Leonard looks at The Da Vinci Code.
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Author: Richard Leonard