keywords: Personal Relationships
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ARTS AND CULTURE
On the day of their departure I covered their faces with kisses. A dark cloud seemed to settle. For the last ten years I'd been a mother. What was I without them? My first impulse was to get busy filling my social calendar. But something stopped me. Somehow I knew I was just trying to stave off the inevitable: having to spend time with myself.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 30 August 2017
6 Comments
'There was one controversy in which Lionel Bowen was involved that does provide good lessons for the contemporary Catholic considering the desirable law or social policy on a contested issue - lessons for the citizen weighing what is for the common good. Back in 1979 there was debate in the Parliament on a motion which was framed to stop Medicare funding of abortions. Bowen, a strict Catholic, was strongly opposed to the motion. He did not think the motion was about abortion. He thought it was about money.' Frank Brennan's 2017 Lionel Bowen Lecture
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AUSTRALIA
- Barry Gittins
- 11 August 2017
6 Comments
‘Would I lie to you? Would I lie to you honey? Now would I say something that wasn't true?’ The Eurythmics’ hit from 1985 has been played repeatedly in my head of late as I negotiate life as a Dad.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 26 July 2017
11 Comments
In our society ethical questions such as those to do with marriage, crime and punishment, the beginnings and endings of life, and freedom of speech are often highway issues. Protagonists establish in advance the right way to go, keep their foot down and their eyes on the road without noticing the terrain the highway traverses. Road signs indicating another destinations or alternative routes are ignored and towns by-passed. Certainty is gained; understanding of country is sacrificed.
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AUSTRALIA
- Christine Burke
- 30 June 2017
29 Comments
The origins of hospitals, schools and social services can be traced back to the efforts of people of faith. Much poetry, art, drama and literature grapples with the deeper meaning of life in dialogue with a larger vision found through the everyday challenges of our lives. This religious urge can re-emerge as nationalism, racism, greed, or narcissism, and these have no inherent counter force to question their authenticity. The truths at the base of great religions reorient us towards love, peace and justice.
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RELIGION
- Stephen de Weger
- 07 June 2017
69 Comments
The sexual revolution and Vatican II was a release from 'parental control' resulting, for many, in the sudden emergence of full-blown psychological adolescence with its risk taking, experimentation and lack of a fully developed sense of responsibility. Many clergy either slid into adolescent liberalism or, collapsing under new adult demands of freedom, retreated into reactionary conservatism. Others grew up and moved on, into new ways of being 'celibate'. Clergy misconduct is found in all three groups.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Andrew Hamilton
- 02 June 2017
10 Comments
The strident public debate about global warming and the threat it poses has died down. Few knowledgeable people deny its reality. At the same time, powerful interest groups and politicians appeal to the need for economic growth in order to weaken any international commitment. At such a time it is worth returning to Laudato Si, Pope Francis' passionate exhortation to care for the environment. Its most significant insight is that the environment is not something outside ourselves. We are part of it.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 25 May 2017
7 Comments
In each of us is a personal centre able to reflect, to wonder, to explore the world and to evaluate it, to long and to love, to make decisions, and to engage freely with other human beings. Privacy is the gate that allows us to leave and others to enter the garden of our deepest selves. If it is torn off its hinges we shall live on a shallow level, preoccupied with defending ourselves. That is why the invasion of our privacy by governments and corporations in order to control our lives is unjustifiable.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 17 May 2017
As the Church of 2030, we need to be more attentive to the contemplation of believers and our experience of spiritual realities, as well as the preaching of the church. Pope Francis has no time whatever for the notion of the Church as a perfect society. But, there is no way that Francis wants to abandon the ideals and the commitment to truth and justice so well exemplified by his predecessors John Paul II and Benedict.
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RELIGION
- Frank Brennan
- 15 May 2017
The reconciliation of this vertical relationship is possible only through the mediation of Jesus who embodies, lives and dies the reality of this reconciliation. He puts us right with our God and thereby establishes the basis for right relationship with each other. In many countries such as Australia, Timor Leste and South Africa, the public rhetoric and programs for reconciliation have, at least in part, been informed and underpinned by this theological perspective.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 12 May 2017
3 Comments
Public celebrations of family life such as the International Day of Families should be uncontroversial. But they sometimes focus on the definition of the family, with the claims of the stable nuclear family of father, mother and children set against the claims of other kinds of family groupings. These discussions should not distract from such larger questions as: why are families of any description important, and what qualities are needed if they are to be effective?
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 13 April 2017
5 Comments
Sometimes events coincide happily. At other times the coincidence rings strangely. This year Youth Homelessness Matters Day is celebrated the day before Easter Sunday: desolation confronts happiness, penury plenty, and deprivation plenitude. When events clash most sharply, they may also illuminate one another most brightly. The Easter stories invite deep reflection on home and on homelessness, on finding a home and being made to feel at home.
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