The media and the online ecosystem have been alive with polarised headlines and images depicting more widely the fragmentation and social upheaval – particularly heightened since the covid-19 experience – throughout England and in the United Kingdom. As is common these days, there are vastly different narratives straining to account for the current crisis. I…
This August marks the 80th anniversary of publication of the final cosmic/dystopian volume That Hideous Strength (THS) of C.S. Lewis’ first fictional series, written well before the uber popular Narnia series. One leading educationalist has told me that he reads THS every year, partly because it is an exciting story but especially because it contains so much prescient wisdom…
If there was ever the need to be reminded that nobility is a quality of the soul and character and not of social status or political power, Professor Mary (Sheehy) Shivanandan (1932-2025) was a clear and convincing demonstration. Professor Hayden Ramsay, the new president of the Catholic Institute of Sydney, recalls meeting her near the Trevi Fountain…
Just before the opening prayers of the Mass for the Unborn Child on Sunday, March 23, attended by a full-to-standing-room congregation in St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney’s Archbishop Anthony Fisher delivered a pithy warning about the dangers of a recent bill before the NSW Parliament. The Archbishop explained that the 2025 “Cohn” Bill would radically deny…
Like so many of the recent and more historically distant popes, St John Paul II reflects upon the centrality of St Joseph for the Christian faith. In his apostolic exhortation Redemptoris Custos or The Guardian of the Redeemer (1989), John Paul II unfurls the many forms of guardianship undertaken by Joseph, despite the fact that his appearance in the…
I was a multi-tasking student in my twenties. I worked at least three jobs each week, bicycling between venues: teaching RE at a girls’ college, researching bioethics at the St Vincent’s Bioethics Centre and alternatively pulling beers or popping champagne bottles at the Arts Centre for opera buffs and others. Studying theology part-time was my…
There are reports, images and videos emerging gradually from the recent back-to-back “superstar” conferences in London recently. Australia’s Professor Tracey Rowland’s article, “A Week at Canary Wharf”, in the always topical Catholic World Report captures very well the “vibe”, the promise and the adroitly skimmed philosophical and theological differences that were evident in the ambitious Alliance for Responsible Citizenship…
At the time of writing, Pope Francis at 88 is critically ill. On the hour news commentators report him rallying, slipping and improving by small and swinging increments. It seems like the end of an era, but who can tell? In the wider world, something of a more frenetic teetering on the brink pervades these…
This week London Docklands, once a flurry of the creaking timbers, navvies and tarred rigging of imperial trade, has become a busy hub of big ideas by notable figures across many fields. We have yet to digest all this mind-exchange, debate and speech-giving, and perhaps even more importantly to see the fruit of the private chats and…
Last Christmas, my generous and book-loving husband gave me a reprint of a now-classic book. The book, The End of the Modern World: A Search for Orientation, by the eminent Italo-German priest and theologian Fr Romano Guardini (1885-1968), has been reprinted by the Brooklyn-based publishers, Angelico Press. The cover art designed by Angelico Press is evocative. It…