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'I have been asked to provide a spiritual reflection for Fred who was not always given to spiritual conversation. I find the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah helpful. He came to bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives, bring freedom to the oppressed and sight to the blind. Fred did all these things, sometimes brusquely.' Frank Brennan on the 20th anniversary of Fred Hollows' death.
I showed up on First Street one day, when I was about twenty, thinking that I would perhaps magnanimously volunteer for the day, or get into a long cool intense conversation with Dorothy Day, or be instantly hired as genius-writer-in-residence, or something like that.
On Friday evening, Eureka Street's inaugural Discerning Conversation took place between former prime minister Kevin Rudd and Fr Frank Brennan. It was the end of a week during which federal Parliament enacted legislation for offshore refugee processing. But the Rudd-Brennan conversation began with the recollection that Queensland politicians rejected individual greed following the Fitzgerald Inquiry in '89.
The news that Aurora accused James Holmes had sought psychiatric help may broaden the Australian discussion of the secrecy of confession. The exemption of certain privileged conversations from the duty of disclosure may be justified on the grounds of the public good.
The spectre of sexual abuse has become a defining moment for the Church; one that, if not addressed more universally, more openly, and more humbly, poses a serious threat to the Church's life and authority. We are, after all, dealing with something akin to crimes against humanity.
I have always associated Peter with words like chivalrous, knightly, courtly and courteous. He was courteous and elegant in conversation, listening intently to even the most inarticulate of people. But knights’ business is to fight.
'And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, and we saw his glory, full of grace and truth' (John 1:1, 14). In the second-last conversation I had with Peter, we agreed that that text should be the Gospel for his Requiem. There is a sense, I’m sure, in which every poem that Peter wrote was an instance of the Word becoming flesh.
The homosexuality debate in church and society is an uneasy and often destructive conversation that should not be entered into lightly. Both sides thus need to beware: ‘Conservatives’ if they slip from opposing homosexual acts to opposing homosexual people. The ‘liberals’ for frankly writing, as Michael Kirby admits, ‘very easy pieces’. Well before Malcolm Fraser, Jesus said (Christian) ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’. Kirby, and the FUP authors, in Bonhoeffer’s terms, are cheapening grace.
When he became Archbishop of Canterbury, he brought with him the hopes of liberal Anglicans and the scrutiny of conservatives, as he appeared likely to lead the Anglican Church further towards acceptance of progressive views. His success or failure would have to be about conversation, not about decree.
The battle between Rudd and Gillard supporters was a nasty affair and it is hard to see that good will come out of it for anyone. But its defects provoke reflection about the qualities that might enable public conversation to contribute to an enhanced sense of human possibility.
The misreporting of the Australia Day 'riot' is but one example of a growing nexus of hysteria, racism and ignorance in Australian media. It is time to rein in the increasing distortion of our social and political conversations, and require responsibility as well as freedom of speech.
Those who have been aware of racism in the Constitution and prepared to tolerate it, have effectively blessed the attitude that it's acceptable to regard Indigenous Australians as second class citizens in theory as long as we treat them as equals in practice.
169-180 out of 200 results.