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Letters

11 September 2011


 

  • INFORMATION

    Bill Morris and the 'haemorrhaging' Church

    • Pat Power
    • 28 October 2011
    40 Comments

    As a close friend I have been aware for a number of years of his problems with the Holy See. I admired how he tried to have an honest conversation with Vatican officials and finally with the Pope himself. I do not believe he always felt there was genuine reciprocity in the dialogue.

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  • INFORMATION

    University truth

    • Paul Beirne
    • 13 September 2011
    2 Comments

    'Melbourne College of Divinity's application to become a specialised 'university of divinity' followed a four-year process that was thorough, comprehensive, consultative and detailed. It was by no means 'an act of faith'.' Paul Beirne, Dean of MCD, responds to Neil Ormerod's article 'Future bites for theological colleges' 

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  • INFORMATION

    Frank Brennan responds to Paul Keating

    • Frank Brennan
    • 02 June 2011
    1 Comment

    I will happily commend Labor and the Greens should they follow Keating's challenge to further improve the native title package passed by the Howard Government. I don't claim any divine guidance for this. It's called politics.

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  • INFORMATION

    Former state governor derides Good Friday football

    • James Gobbo
    • 03 April 2011
    9 Comments

    The proposal that a match at the MCG could project an Easter message is ludicrous. The Easter message calls for time and prayerful reflection. Even Islamic and Jewish leaders have supported the special status of Good Friday.

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  • INFORMATION

    Refugee persecution is stupid

    • June Factor
    • 18 March 2011
    8 Comments

    A Sydney Morning Herald editorial 71 years ago declared that to persecute refugees 'is stupid from the purely practical point of view'. The practical and humanitarian reasons it outlines for welcoming refugees remain relevant today.

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  • INFORMATION

    Jenny Macklin to Frank Brennan

    • Jenny Macklin
    • 17 March 2011
    18 Comments

    Dear Father Brennan, I do not accept the way you have characterised the Government's actions in relation to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and the Intervention, and am concerned that your article could mislead people into considering that the Government's measures in the NT are discriminatory.

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  • INFORMATION

    Aid argument not 'anti-Catholic'

    • Gary Johns
    • 15 October 2010

    My article is not against the 'ethical and values-based mission of the Catholic Church'. Unfortunately, there is not and never will be aid enough for all. Also, unfortunately, some aid will be misspent, and some will be spent on projects that do no good.

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  • INFORMATION

    Defending Abbott and Santamaria

    • Gerard Henderson
    • 17 August 2010
    8 Comments

    How times change. Early in the 20th Century, it was Protestant Orangemen who warned Australians not to vote for a Catholic. In the early 21 Century, such warnings are now delivered by a former Catholic priest in a publication of the Jesuit Order. –Gerard Henderson, The Sydney Institute

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  • INFORMATION

    Disagreeing with Gerard Henderson

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 12 March 2010
    1 Comment

    Dr Henderson does Maritain a grave injustice in so cavalierly dismissing him as favouring the 'you-beaut idea to advocate Catholic/communist dialogue'. Maritain was strongly opposed to communist ideology, but he also recognised it contained positive elements, some of which he said were drawn with the Gospels.

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  • INFORMATION

    Santamaria and the bishops in politics

    • Gerard Henderson
    • 11 March 2010
    2 Comments

    Towards the end of his life, the French philosopher Jacques Maritan thought it was a you-beaut idea to advocate Catholic/communist dialogue between the Vatican and Stalin's heirs in Moscow. Santamaria made mistakes, yet on the issue of Soviet totalitarianism he was smarter than Maritan. 

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  • INFORMATION

    Helping Frank Brennan

    • Jim Wallace
    • 02 February 2010
    5 Comments

    The Australian Christian Lobby never claims to represent the views of all Christians any more than the Greens represent the views of all tree-lovers or Fr Brennan represents the views of all Catholics — just ask Cardinal Pell!

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  • INFORMATION

    Lessons from the Parliament of the World's Religions

    • Herman Roborgh
    • 05 January 2010
    2 Comments

    Other religions need not be a threat. As the Dalai Lama said, the problems facing the world are related to the ego and the emotions. And all the religious traditions of the world provide a path to confront one's selfishness and emotional struggles.

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  • INFORMATION

    Malcolm Turnbull's blinding clarity

    • John Ryan
    • 30 November 2009
    2 Comments

    Turnbull has forced his party to see thereis no way forward without serious internal reform. Maybe he will not beable to lead them on, but while lesser members seem blinded byseemingly irrational caution, Turnbull has called the game with ablinding clarity.

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  • INFORMATION

    Towards a national conversation about marriage

    • Mick Mac Andrew
    • 26 November 2009
    3 Comments

    I cannot accept that marriage is only about the recognition of people who love, however deeply, one another. The Commonwealth Government should instigate a genuine information campaign about marriage and allow all opinions to be tested against a rigorous criteria.

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  • INFORMATION

    Bringing theology home to the academy

    • Gerard Goldman and Terry Lovat
    • 24 November 2009

    It has been suggested, but surely not seriously, that the public university’s prime motive in including theology among its disciplines might be around financial benefit.

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  • INFORMATION

    CPRS a vital lever

    • Damien Quinnell
    • 19 November 2009

    Right now, Australian’s elected politicians will decide our fate when they vote on one of the most important pieces of legislation to come before the Federal parliament in recent history. All of us will be directly affected by what is about to happen when the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) is re-introduced into Federal Parliament.

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  • INFORMATION

    Obama's 'Not Bush' Nobel not good

    • Michael Brull
    • 27 October 2009
    4 Comments

    Everyone progressive, liberal and leftwards breathed a sigh of relief at the end of two long Bush Administrations. I too share the hope for change from the Bush era. Sadly, Obama's not the change we're looking for.

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  • INFORMATION

    In defence of people smugglers

    • Chris Bisset
    • 15 October 2009
    4 Comments

    Kevin Rudd calls them the 'vilest form of people on the planet'. How dare these impoverished, yet slightly entrepreneurial fishermen let their social consciousness blind them from considering the interests of white Australians?

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  • INFORMATION

    We’re not racist, we're just havin' a larf!

    • Meaghan Paul
    • 09 October 2009
    10 Comments

    I applaud Harry Connick Jr for pointing out the error in our Australian way of thinking. Laughing at someone else's expense is not harmless.

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  • INFORMATION

    Latin Mass correction

    • James McCarthy
    • 10 September 2009
    1 Comment

    Andrew Hamilton's article 'Disunity in the Year of the Priest' alleges that  three unnamed priests of the Sydney Archdiocese said their first Mass in Latin. Fr Hamilton clarifies his point and accepts responsibility for a factual error.

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  • INFORMATION

    In defense of Catholic schools

    • Stephen Elder
    • 25 August 2009
    1 Comment

    The misguided claims made by Ross Fitzgerald in a recent article in Eureka Street, How Catholic schools are failing the poor, cannot go unanswered.

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  • INFORMATION

    Catholic schools save governments money

    • Dan White
    • 24 August 2009
    2 Comments

    Ross Fitzgerald claims Catholic schools 'have become the instrument through which tax dollars are siphoned off public schools and given to the private sector'. His argument is a misrepresentation of the facts.

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  • INFORMATION

    The Sydney Institute favours neither side of politics

    • Gerard Henderson
    • 07 August 2009
    12 Comments

    Sarah Burnside asserted in Eureka Street that 'conservatives can draw on a plethora of high-profile think-tanks, including The Sydney Institute, to research and enunciate their ideas'. This is false. The Institute is a forum for debate and discussion and does not do research for any organisation or political party.

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  • INFORMATION

    Outrage over Aboriginal 'cooked alive' doco

    • Brian Haill
    • 18 June 2009
    3 Comments

    Was I the only Australian sufficiently outraged by the latest ABCTV 4 Corners program, 'Who Killed Mr Ward?', to put pen to paper? Too often white Australians' animals fare better than do Indigenous people. We are a racist nation.

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  • INFORMATION

    Students victims of 'violent' policies

    • Andrew McGowan
    • 16 June 2009

    When our universities enrol international students based on balance-sheet needs rather than strategies of international partnership and engagement, a whole branch of education policy is revealed as bankrupt.

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  • INFORMATION

    Swine Flu: The Musical

    • Brian Haill
    • 03 June 2009
    3 Comments

    Victoria, with its spate of swine flu cases, is no longer 'The place to be'. Prudence is one thing, but absurdity also needs to be recognised. Exhibit A: Archbishop Hart's instruction to priests not to offer chalices of wine during Communion.

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  • INFORMATION

    Fable of the furtive veteran

    • Mick O’Donnell
    • 24 April 2009
    1 Comment

    There he was, this hunched over figure of a man, sitting in one of the furthermost pews, detached, eyes withdrawn, his face pale, features old and weather beaten. John O'Malley was always a mystery.

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  • INFORMATION

    Why I hate the Church I love

    • Bill Farrelly
    • 10 March 2009
    11 Comments

    How can the Catholic Church possibly justify the excommunication of the mother of a nine-year-old girl in Brazil for authorising the abortion of twin girls her daughter was carrying as the result of being raped by her stepfather?

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  • INFORMATION

    Jason's story

    • Rob Salter
    • 03 March 2009
    4 Comments

    The $3 billion blowout in Federal Government spending on disability pensions highlights the financial side of a crisis in our midst. The story of Jason, a relative of mine who is an addict and on a disability pension, reveals a personal side.

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  • INFORMATION

    St Mary's 'beyond compromise'

    • Greg Windle
    • 23 February 2009
    7 Comments

    While it is tragic that the Church has refused to countenance ongoing discussion about homosexuality, women priests, and a host of other issues, neither can I see how the stance taken by St Mary's on these and other matters can advance the causes of religion or reason.

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  • INFORMATION

    No justice for St Mary's

    • Justin Coleman
    • 20 February 2009
    18 Comments

    The Archbishop has relied upon the evidence of those whom you rightly alluded to as 'spies'. The parish reply was not 'We will defy you' but 'Your information is flawed. Please come and see for yourself.' Do club members have to accept every idea of every coach who is thrust upon them?

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  • INFORMATION

    The Pope: first among equals

    • Andrew McAlister
    • 05 February 2009

    During Vatican II, which was first called 30 years ago last month, the pastoral leadership of the church attempted to bring Roman Catholicism into the 20th century. Why did the notion of a supreme Pontiff survive?

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  • INFORMATION

    The father of my soul

    • Joanna Thyer
    • 23 December 2008
    2 Comments

    Always on for a challenge, one of the first things Brian said to me that day was 'Who's your favourite character in the Bible?' and then 'We need women priests.'

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  • INFORMATION

    'They've never faced an angry man'

    • Phil Pyke
    • 19 December 2008
    2 Comments

    This was a known criminal with a history of violence. I drew my weapon, and yelled at him to get down on the ground. He ignored me, raised his arm, and possibly the weapon. Everything went into slow motion as I began to pull the trigger. I've often wondered what would have happened if I had shot him.

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  • INFORMATION

    Life of Brian, AIDS activist

    • Brian Haill
    • 01 December 2008

    It's close on a quarter of a century ago that I first became enmeshed in the world of HIV/AIDS. I found myself labelled an 'activist', catapulted into confronting my church over its attitude to condoms. Last week saw a return to the beginning.

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