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Keywords: Virtues

  • RELIGION

    What is a welcoming church?

    • Paul Collins
    • 20 September 2022
    5 Comments

    The word ‘Catholic’ is derived from the Greek Καθολικός (katholikos) meaning universal, of the whole, and the entire tradition is the very opposite of sectarian, particularist, narrow. It is most truly itself when it’s embracing and inclusive.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Sadness and forgetting: Queen Elizabeth II, monarchy and empire

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 20 September 2022
    7 Comments

    When more nuanced commentary around the passing of Queen Elizabeth II came to the fore, it was hard to avoid the difficult realities of the British monarchy and an institution that has not, through its history, delighted those conquered in its name. With Elizabeth II, it was notable that she let an opportunity to engage the topic of empire in Britain’s collective memory go begging.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Democracy – Fraternity = Catastrophe

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 15 September 2022
    3 Comments

    To say that democracy is under threat is now a truism. And to sustain democracy is a complex task. People need to believe in it and experience its benefits. This demands a deep grounding, founded on our shared human dignity and on our shared responsibility to shape our own lives within the community on which we depend.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Why does poetry matter?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 August 2022
    11 Comments

    In most circles poetry doesn’t matter. It doesn’t put bread on the table, nor raise people to revolt nor even make news unless a grizzled footballer is outed for secretly writing poems. Even in churches poems and hymns are altered to improve their orthodoxy in matters of faith, gender, race or modernity, but rarely their poetic quality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The unfashionable virtues of time and patience

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 30 June 2022
    11 Comments

    If NAIDOC and of the Australian Catholic Church are to achieve their goals time and patience will be required. Yet both show signs of justifiable impatience. This year the theme of NAIDOC Week is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! Its tone is urgent, expressing frustration at the resistance to change but also the recognition that new possibilities have opened. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    A felicitous career

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 April 2022
    4 Comments

    The quality of Niall’s writing is evident in An Accidental Career, though easily unnoticed. It lies in the clarity of her thought, her exact choice of words, the alternation of anecdote and reflection and the self-effacement that creates a direct link between the reader and the work itself. Her writing has the rare gift of simplicity. The precision of the title is characteristic of the book as a whole.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Untangling the cords of Anzac Day

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 21 April 2022
    34 Comments

    This year Anzac Day promises to be a subdued celebration with local events in which people who have fought in wars and their relatives can take part. Few will be able to travel to Gallipoli to remember the invasion. The focus of the day will remain rightly on the sorrow of war and not on the heroic achievements of soldiers or on deemed distinctive Australian qualities displayed at Gallipoli. The association of soldiers at Gallipoli with footballers playing their games on Anzac Day will seem not only crass but ridiculous.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Best of 2021: Why corporatism, not capitalism, is the root of social harm

    • David James
    • 04 January 2022
    3 Comments

    There really is no such thing as ‘capitalism’ — or rather there are so many capitalisms that the word is altogether too imprecise to be useful. A much better term to identify the problems, even evils, of modern developed economies is ‘corporatism’. This can be precisely identified and its transgressions and general harm are getting worse.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Falling on one's sword

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 October 2021
    16 Comments

    During her last year in office Gladys Berejiklian divided people over her response to the Coronavirus. Even her critics, however, praised her decision to resign from office after the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) announced that it was investigating her conduct. 

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  • ECONOMICS

    Why corporatism, not capitalism, is the root of social harm

    • David James
    • 06 July 2021
    16 Comments

    There really is no such thing as ‘capitalism’ — or rather there are so many capitalisms that the word is altogether too imprecise to be useful. A much better term to identify the problems, even evils, of modern developed economies is ‘corporatism’. This can be precisely identified and its transgressions and general harm are getting worse.

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  • EDUCATION

    What's the point of schooling?

    • Tim Hutton
    • 29 June 2021
    62 Comments

    The question being asked, however, is one that puts the cart before the horse. The question of ‘What do you want to see in the national curriculum?’ presupposes the answer to another question: What even is the purpose of schooling?

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  • RELIGION

    The Church should learn from democracy’s spirit of equality and participation

    • John Warhurst
    • 22 June 2021
    57 Comments

    Democracy is a modern ideal, still fighting for acceptance in some parts of the world. It has had to be fought for by brave advocates. The church by contrast is an ancient pre-democratic institution, which shows in its hierarchical organisation and undemocratic internal processes. 

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