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In a contemporary society where the focus lies amid a whirlpool of egocentricity, self-gain and self-improvement, one must question where the true motive for giving service lies. While the 'ethic of duty' is the ethic of the social gospel movements, Kant believed religion was only valuable because it caused one to lead a good moral life. Thus it is possible to argue that the habit of giving true service lies in the 'ethic of love'.
Malcolm Turnbull's justification for calling for the introduction of electronic voting is that roughly six per cent of voters failed to correctly fill in their ballot papers on Saturday. Electronic voting would stop this senseless waste. Ignoring the fact that electronic voting would disenfranchise the roughly 5.9 per cent of voters whose democratic wish is to draw male appendages on their ballot, Turnbull has a point.
I watched the 'crying chairs' from my psychology clinic disappear into the truck. Many people over the years had nestled in one of those voluminous chairs and wept, whispered, or shouted their rage, sorrow and despair. Now it was time to leave my counselling office so I surrendered my sturdy armchairs for a greater good.
I saw the toy shop out of the corner of my eye and glazed over rows of plastic toys behind the window display. They looked cheap, mass-produced and sad, seemingly anticipating a more vibrant future than gathering dust. One item practically screamed at me and stopped me in my tracks.
In her tweed skirt and sensible shoes, 60-something church elder, Sigrid, doesn’t look like a revolutionary. She carries neither iPhone nor gun. But revolutionary she is, having been at the heart of a movement that toppled an oppressive regime, thawed the Cold War and brought down the Berlin Wall.
Meetings between holiness and politics are inherently dramatic. Think of Jesus' trial, of A'Beckett's murder, of Luther at Worms, of Romero's last sermon. These were tragedies. In Fr Pierre Ceyrac, a French Jesuit priest who died last week, politics and holiness met dramatically, but as comedy.
Among Westerners and locals alike, Moscow seems to be afloat on scurrilous innuendo, focused on Putin's bully-boy tactics, fondness for young women and pathological greed. Still, since the eruption of street protests after last December's parliamentary elections, the narratives appear to be shifting.
The visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Great Britain last year prompted an interesting experiment. The Church asked for lay volunteers to deal with media enquiries. At first glance this could be construed as an exercise in corporate spin with a focus on persuasion and not on truth.
One website proudly proclaimed that Egypt's protests were a safe space for women. In fact women were on the frontline. They were part of a long history of women who have struggled for recognition of their human rights in Egypt. Published 15 February 2011
Many Australians have reached a point of believing that the difficulties afflicting Aboriginal communities demand the heavy handed, and often humiliating, approach. But the Philppine grassroots Gawad Kalinga model, based on 'the giving of care', offers a realistic alternative.
The Church of the 21st century should be the exemplar of due process, natural justice and transparency. While there can be little useful critique of the final decision of Pope Benedict to force the early retirement of Bishop Bill Morris, there is plenty of scope to review the processes leading up to it.
Nearly a third of regular poker machine users are problem and at risk gamblers, who spend more than $7 billion a year at pokies, amounting to 60 per cent of total losses. No wonder the gaming industry is threatened by proposed measures aimed at making the machines safer.