Keywords: Public Institutions
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 20 May 2021
29 Comments
20 May marks the five hundredth anniversary of a chance event with large consequences. In 1521 a stray cannonball ricocheting off a castle wall in a minor skirmish broke the leg of a knight defending the castle. It had large consequences for him and for the world. The long convalescence of Ignatius Loyola after the siege of Pamplona changed the direction of his life and shaped the church and world that we inherited.
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AUSTRALIA
- Michele Madigan
- 13 May 2021
9 Comments
A state government has an obligation to do what is possible within the limits of state resources to help its people, to make the state an inclusive place where all have access to essential services and housing. However, over the last few weeks, with the announcement of the funding restructure for homelessness services, this idea of a fair go seems to have dissipated.
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AUSTRALIA
- Barry Gittins
- 01 April 2021
11 Comments
We don’t want to admit the truth of who we are as a nation: there are Australians who are violent toward the people they say they love the most. Living among us are those who take what they want, out of entitlement, privilege and the naked use of power.
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FAITH DOING JUSTICE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 18 February 2021
37 Comments
We live in a time when around the world so many lives seem not to matter. Whether they be Uighur lives, women’s lives, Black lives, Yemeni lives or refugee lives. So widely disregarded in practice, the large claim that every life has value, however, oftentimes has to be justified. The ultimate reason is that each human being is precious and has an inalienable dignity. No person may be used as a means to another’s end.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Andrew Hamilton
- 28 January 2021
10 Comments
A serious discussion of freedom of speech must move beyond it as an individual right to see speech as communication. It will then consider all the relationships, personal and public, involved in communication. It presupposes that people share a common commitment to truth. Freedom of speech flows from that deeper human responsibility and freedom to seek truth.
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 24 November 2020
21 Comments
The discussion in Australia as to how such atrocities are to be approached is telling. The call for responsibility has varied by degrees. Most tend to some variant of the rotten apple theory: a few particularly fruits that may be isolated and extruded from the barrel. Culpability can thereby be confined, preserving the integrity of other military personnel and, importantly, political decision makers.
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RELIGION
- Robert Christian
- 12 November 2020
31 Comments
Now the question is: will the Republican Party revert back to its pre-Trump days, continue down the path of Trumpian populism, or seek an alternative to both? No matter which path is pursued, American Catholics will likely play a key role in shaping the party’s future direction.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 10 November 2020
7 Comments
With Joe Biden securing the electoral college votes necessary to win the White House, the concern is whether the transition of power will be one marked by paroxysms of rage and disruption. Donald Trump is promising not to go quietly.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 22 October 2020
11 Comments
In the choppy waters of public conversation, rulers have recently attracted much attention as they have bobbed along on its surface. This is not unusual, but in these months the attention has been more frenetic and perhaps harder to read. Whether it be Trump, Johnson, Andrews, Ardern, Berejiklian or Pope Francis, there have been unusual eddies about them that merit reflection.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Barry Gittins
- 22 October 2020
1 Comment
The UN describes itself as ‘a global forum where countries can raise and discuss the most difficult issues, including problems of war and peace’. Saving lives that would otherwise be taken in wars is the big-ticket item; the reason the body was formed. So, 75 years on, how would the UN be graded in terms of achieving those five tasks?
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 07 October 2020
47 Comments
Pope Francis’ latest encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti is, as we might have anticipated, a reflection on our times. The burden of the encyclical is to commend fraternity and social friendship and deplore selfishness and hostility in the response to the crisis.
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AUSTRALIA
- Cristy Clark
- 27 August 2020
13 Comments
If you are feeling disengaged and cynical about our political system, it turns out that you are in the majority. And that is concerning.
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