During this last week in Ireland, the highly charged and internationally supported “Yes” Referendum campaign, stepped into overdrive. As the Referendum date on 25 May draws closer, well-known Irish actors and rock stars, often ex-pats, have joined the chorus calling for the repeal of article 40.3.3 (the 8th Amendment) of Ireland’s Constitution. The 8th Amendment (voted […]
When my father died, through all the tears and grief, I remember how dazed my family all were by the number and types of people who came to his requiem. There were many well known faces of course but also those we had never before known. What came through again and again, were the comments […]
In the Second Part (of the Second Part) of his Summa Theologiae (question 129), Saint Thomas Aquinas explores an intriguing quality of character he calls “magnanimity” (literally: big-spiritedness). To do this he draws upon the more ancient classical thought of “The Philosopher” – Aristotle, Socrates and Cicero but he also moves beyond them. St Thomas […]
It is marmalade making time again. The dank, cold and late-Winter regional gardens are lit up by hope-giving globes and ovoids of fluorescent citrus: lemons, cumquats, grapefruit and, best of all, Seville oranges – those flattish but elegant packets of bitter-sweetness. There is something of the lost-arts and civilisation about marmalade making. And because it […]
Dr Edward Sri the widely published theologian, best-selling author and presenter will bring the Catholic faith alive from 7-12 September with over 20 events and talks around Sydney and Melbourne. Dr Sri’s multi-media tour entitled The Catholic Faith Explained (see the program), organised by the rapidly growing Sydney-based Parousia Media, is like his vocation, aimed […]
Sometimes, when logical argument fails to persuade and when the issue is complex, the only way to deal with unbearably large and serious moral drama is with absurdist humour or cutting satire. Dean Swift, Flannery O’Connor and G K Chesterton were just a few of the creative Christians who had acute and serious reasons for […]
Friday 23 June marks the Church’s Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus this year. The celebration is a moveable feast tied to the Feast of Corpus Christ and it celebrates mystical insights into the mystery of God’s love in Jesus Christ: “These two loves to us impart, Divine love in a human heart” as […]
Eastertide, those liturgical days spanning from Easter Sunday to Pentecost, can be a puzzling period for us embedded in a very secular understanding of time and history. By week five or six of the Easter period, we can experience Paschal-tide fatigue. We put away the vivid iconography and purifying practices of Lent and Holy Week […]
The recent film, Hidden Figures, is based upon a bestseller book (which is more historically consistent), Hidden Figures: The Untold Story of African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, the daughter of an African-American father who worked as a research scientist at NASA. Hidden Figures, as directed by Theodore Melfi, […]
Father Paul Gardiner SJ OAM 1924-2017 Best known for his thorough and dedicated role as a postulator in the official documentation of the life of Saint Mary MacKillop, Fr Paul Gardiner SJ died peacefully on the 18 March at 2.30am at the age of 93 in his beloved Penola, South Australia. Fr Peter Joseph, parish […]
When I was a little girl, I remember asking my father whether the local police came in to enforce the keeping of Lent. I think I had been shocked to see some children in the street (in the days when kids were free to roam around on late summer days) licking ice creams and munching […]
Only a few millimetres of popular headline space greeted the news that scientists had grown a number of genetically modified pig embryos with the insertion of modified human body (somatic) cells. The experimental creatures were called in the scientific media, “pig-human hybrids”, or echoing the stuff of myths and legends: “pig-human chimeras.” It was notable […]
