In 1943, Australia was living in the shadow of World War II which it had entered as a nation in 1939 under prime minister Robert Menzies. The global war against tyranny had become all too real for Australia. In 1942 there was the Japanese bombing…
An experienced and grounded mental health professional remarked in an informal and recent conversation: “Everyone I speak with is weary and anxious … they are certainly not ready for 2025.” I have noticed this phenomenon. Even though time waits for not one of us, it…
When I was young, I often wondered how it was that my father, Francis Xavier Duffy (1927-99) – a father of 11 children with a travelling full-time profession, a garage full of furniture repair and making, and a garden that was as close to self-sufficient…
My last public appearance for the Thomas More Centre in 2024 was a joyful one. It started with an invitation from Katrina Currell (from St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Timboon) to talk about the vision and the work of the Thomas More Centre with representatives from…
In an intriguing and lyrical short poem, the Nobel Prize-winning, Anglo-Irish, Celtic-revivalist poet William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) in The Seven Sages grazes over the passing on of tangible wisdom, humility and narrative from one generation to the next. In the poem Yeats published in 1933…
The weeks in the wake of the American celebration of Thanksgiving are always salutary for us in Australia. We so often think of ourselves as self-made or we take our good fortune lazily for granted. Actually, it is impossible to take the life of the…
In 1989, the writer Paul Gray published an intriguing interview in the AD2000 journal in which he asks the great agnostic late 20th-century Polish philosopher, Leszek Kołakowski (1927-2009), to comment upon the state and role of the Catholic Church. He answered plainly that the role…
In a simple brochure about the Thomas More Centre, we try to convey something of a potted overview of the mission and aims of the TMC. We explain that the TMC is a “formational movement” that aims to foster “the common good” in the development of an…
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…
This week, we’re taking the opportunity to provide an update concerning TMC events, courses, and interviews. UPCOMING EVENTS BRISBANE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27 – TALK ON COURAGE. Dr Craig Heilman will be giving a TMC talk at Indooroopilly Library entitled, “The Virtue of Courage: Can it Still…