Birthdays for older people are often embarrassing and full of unwelcome wrinkles and reminders of the passage of time. Birthdays remain important anniversaries even of those who have passed through life into the next. And this week has been a constant reminder of birthdays. We are now in Pentecost time. The Feast of Pentecost is sometimes…
In his retirement years, my father, Francis Xavier Duffy (1927-1999) and his brothers, like many Australians, became fascinated by our family history. His detective work had him browsing through newspapers, ship manifests, and church records from Galway to small Australian towns such as Maldon in Victoria. It also involved him reaching out to other people…
Many of the tributes published recently for the Scottish-American social and moral philosopher Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre, who died in the United States on May 21 at the age of 96, are tinged with personal experiences and memories. That many of these originate from warring worlds of thought reflects the genuine perplexity many experience when attempting to…
A few years ago, in preparation for an article on the importance of cultural memory, I interviewed the organisers of what has become a most impressive and effective project called simply The Biography Program sponsored by The Knights of the Order of Malta in Victoria and Tasmania. The very full title of this very ancient Catholic order founded in…
Thanks for your patience… we encountered a technical problem publishing this TMC newsletter. Perhaps it was meant to be as this is our 70th edition of the TMC Newsletter and now coincides with the election of Pope Leo XIV. The new pope, formerly Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost born in Chicago in 1955 is a relatively…
In these times there is much secular media and church chatter about the deliberations for the selection of the next pope in the Catholic Church. A great deal of this is simply ill-informed and stereotypical political banter. There is also some intelligent discussion which indicates that the role of the pontiff and of the Church…
“I am a servant of Christ, my God, and trusting in Him, I have come among you voluntarily, to bear witness concerning the Truth.” (Attributed to St George, soldier & martyred pre-315 AD) Each day during the Easter Octave is treated by the liturgy and lectionary of the Church to be an extension of the…
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…