Nicholas Tonti-Filippini AO: Honouring a rare flame

November 13, 2024

Great public intellectuals are not common in the self-consciously pragmatic culture of Australia. Even rarer is it to find a philosopher who draws from an unapologetically faith-informed mind and hope-guided experience of long-term chronic pain and illness.

The late, widely revered Catholic ethicist, Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini (July 5, 1956 - November 7, 2014) was a bright and rare flame in this respect. His prodigious capacity and appetite for authentic intellectual and ethical engagement made him at once daunting and compelling as a debating partner or commentator in Australia and internationally.

There was almost no issue that Professor Tonti-Filippini would not pierce with his intense gaze and no prime minister, head surgeon, media pundit or prelate with whom he would not bring vigorous engagement. He never shied away from "hot-button" issues, but he always peeled away the superficial and glib and challenged everyone to think more deeply and to care more profoundly for the issues involved.

Nicholas’ life was constantly overshadowed by the severity of his chronic and life-threatening auto-immune condition. With extraordinary heroism and humour, he continued to work at a pace that would outstrip his colleagues and whole teams of researchers. He was a Knight of Obedience in the Knights of Malta and he brought to his chivalric service a deep and abiding voice and witness to the importance of well-researched and humane palliative care.

The editor of the ABC’s Religion and Ethics page wrote of Nicholas at the time of his death in 2014:

"His was a moral vision infused by a sense of the graced vulnerability and mutual-givenness of human life - a vision which cannot help but overwhelm the modern mantras of 'dignity' and 'autonomy'."

Nicholas would bring finely researched and considered argument to the highest levels of ecclesial, governmental and institutional debate, but was endlessly generous in his availability to students, voluntary groups, puzzled journalists and even to random members of the public who sought him out.

Nicholas was particularly supportive of Dr Joseph Santamaria’s efforts in the early years of the Thomas More Centre's development. His workshops, presentations and articles were always outstanding, and they inspired many of the young participants of the TMC Summer Schools to dedicate their vocations to healthcare, the support of marriage and family and to fertility education.

Nicholas never wanted Catholics to huddle in closed shops or ghettos and he prodded and encouraged the TMC to think more expansively and broadly. As fellow ethicist Archbishop Anthony Fisher wrote:

"There is a perennial temptation for Christians to write off the surrounding culture as corrupt and irredeemable and to retreat into enclaves of the like-minded, speaking a language only we understand. Nick always resisted this temptation, taking the wisdom of Jesus Christ and his Church out into the public realm, confident that in every human heart there is a hunger for such wisdom."

At the 1994 TMC Summer School he presented a particularly masterful lecture on the link between Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae and Pope John Paul II's Familiaris Consortio, which participants would refer to long after. He ran a memorable workshop in 1996 that challenged the participants with making moral decisions in daily life.

Nicholas was both hospitable and daring in his encouragement of students of bioethics or students of life. He was honoured posthumously becoming an Officer of the Order of Australia for his contributions to tertiary education and development, especially for his work as Associate Dean with the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family (Melbourne).

It is the human encounters that many remember. During the mid-1980s, in the first two days of my time as part-time research assistant at St Vincent’s Bioethics Centre (the first such institution in Australia), Nicholas suggested that I replace him for his lecture to some hard-bitten hospital nurses – the next day! Laughing in delight at my terrified expression, he handed me his notes on “virtue in nursing” and a few books from his shelves and told me to go to it! So many other apprehensive students were likewise thrown into life by Nick.

This November 29, the Thomas More Centre in Melbourne is honoured to be part of the organising team - which includes Professor Tonti-Filippini’s wife and collaborator Dr Mary Walsh - in promoting the inaugural Nicholas Tonti-Filippini Oration. The event will begin with a memorial Mass celebrated by Archbishop Peter Comensoli at St Patrick’s Cathedral to which all are welcome, and then will feature Professor Tracey Rowland’s delivery of the oration at the Park Hyatt hotel nearby. Book your spot here.

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre

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