Since Pope Francis took office in March, almost everything he has said and done indicates that he is bent on carrying through a thorough reform of the Roman Catholic Church, beginning with the Vatican itself. Scarcely a month after taking office, he created an international group of eight cardinals to advise him on reform of Read more
These are the very early days of a phenomenon that will reshape Christianity forever, the coming of what theologians call the “Third Church.” The “First Church” was that of the original disciples and the generations that followed them, centred on the Mediterranean and making the first missionary advances into lands and cultures outside of Israel. Read more
Sometimes truth is so hard to stomach that even though it stares you in the face and shouts itself hoarse trying to be heard we remain oblivious to its presence. This may be because the emerging truth demands much of us. The truth I have to face is that the Christian religion I represent has Read more
Surgery without anaesthesia is a miserable and brutal reality in Syria. Doctors report that demolished hospitals and humanitarian blockades have left some Syrians to suffer, awake, through amputations and Caesarean sections. I saw similar horrors while working in a northern Syrian field hospital under airstrikes in August. I operated on children who had the bone Read more
The other night I was drinking with an American Catholic nun and her daughter.The mother had been married twice, once to a former priest. She had entered a convent straight out of high school and left to marry her high school sweetheart eight years later. Some time after the second marriage broke down and her Read more
I’m ashamed to say that I almost never interact with poor people. I like to think that I care, that I humanise the issue in my mind, that I don’t ignore it like so many do. But the truth is I am guilty of not caring — of failing to be touched by the humanity Read more
Could infanticide become legal here in New Zealand? The state of Victoria gives us a clue. A coalition of feminist groups, politicians and leading doctors campaigned for the decriminalisation of the state’s abortion law. The Abortion Law Reform Act was passed by the state Parliament in October 2008. Two medical ethicists have put the case for Read more
Rosemary McLeod referred to Bishop Justin Duckworth’s week in a monastic cell in front of Saint Paul’s Cathedral as a “performance piece” (Opinion, October 17). Justice Minister Judith Collins implied it was ridiculous and suggested this “sort of display” is “why people are leaving the Anglican Church”. Perhaps the symbol of a fenced in cell is Read more
The recent drowning of hundreds of illegal migrants off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa has caused a stir, as spectacles tend to. But, really, this is no more than a freak occurrence. Like mass shootings in America or child abductions by strangers, it is a statistically insignificant event attached to an emotive story. Freak Read more
It has been a big year for the Jesuit Order around the world with the election of one of their own, Jorge Bergoglio from Argentina, as Pope Francis. It has also been a big year for the Jesuits in Australian politics, culminating in the election of Jesuit-educated Bill Shorten as leader of the opposition Labor Read more