The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been granted its sought two-year extension. It will run for five years. That is appropriate. I predicted on the night Julia Gillard announced the commission that it would take five years to do its work. I am still worried about this extended federal royal Read more
Pope Francis grabbed headlines recently when he announced that Rome had lifted the block on sainthood for Archbishop Óscar Romero of San Salvador, who was shot dead while saying Mass in 1980. But much less attention was given to another of the pope’s actions, one that underscores a significant shift inside the Vatican under the Read more
Parents are one of the most influential factors when talking about bullying – in that they are the most likely to be able to prevent it. The way parents model appropriate interactions and communication to their children (for example, resolve disagreements, be assertive when appropriate) will impact on how their children interact with others – Read more
How much do you value your privacy? Probably a great deal. Consider all the things that you would not want to happen to yourself. You would not want anyone to read your letters. You would not want anyone looking through the windows of your house while you were at home. You would not, in this Read more
With young adults constantly facing the camera, schools and parents need to find creative ways to instill the value of self-worth to the selfie generation. On a recent Monday morning, Clare Harper’s cousin sent her a picture of herself for “Selfie Monday” via Snapchat, a texting and image-sharing service that deletes pictures soon after they Read more
Now is not a good time to be a Christian – especially, if you are a Catholic. Read The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, listen to the ABC or read Irfan Yusuf’s recent piece and it’s obvious that the critics are on a roll. Wendy Squire’s op-ed in The Age provides a good illustration of Read more
Maybe it’s because of September. Maybe it’s because the great Patrick Lencioni will be on campus next week. Maybe it’s because my desk is a pile of papers each facing a different direction … but I have been thinking a lot about work recently. I looked up saintly advice on how to do it better. Read more
If you want to understand how Pope Francis is planning to change the Catholic church, then don’t waste time searching for clues in the charming, self-effacing press conference he gave on the plane back from South Korea on Monday. It’s easy to be misled by the Pope’s shoulder-shrugging interviews and impromptu phone calls. On his Read more
Is there anything left to say about Israel and Gaza? Newspapers this summer have been full of little else. Television viewers see heaps of rubble and plumes of smoke in their sleep. A representative article from a recent issue of The New Yorker described the summer’s events by dedicating one sentence each to the horrors Read more
Convert, leave, or die. That’s the trio of awful options ISIS is giving to Christians in Iraq. Sadly, there’s an all-too-familiar ring to this ultimatum. These were the exact options given to all Catholic clergy in Ireland when England instituted the penal laws against Catholics several hundred years ago. When William of Orange defeated his Read more