Rudd and Abbott are longer prime ministers but both now serve the nation in other ways.

This conversation is to hear their views, as people of the Gospel, as Christians, on how they engage within the public life and society in Australia.

The conversation is in response to Craven's book, "In the Shadow of the Cross".

The host of the event is the Archbishop of Melbourne, The Most Reverend Dr Peter Comensoli.

In opening the conversation, Comensoli said that both Abbott and Rudd are men of faith who have given great service to Australia and in doing so have brought something of the life of the Gospel into their various roles.

The following is an introductory summary. The full video follows at the bottom of these introductory remarks.

Kevin Rudd

If you're a person of Christian faith and therefore you are animated by the Gospel then it's very difficult, and I think improper for us, to simply adopt a form of cafeteria Christianity; a smorgasbord Christianity where we just pick and choose.

If you're alive to what is written in the Gospels; the challenges to our individual souls, our own individual salvation, our own individual relationship with God, these challenges are equally about our relationship with our fellow human beings and more broadly responsibilities for the creation itself.

Of course, if you want to anchor this in a core piece the New Testament it is simply the great commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart and the soul and your strength, and love your neighbour as yourself; and on these two things hang all the law and the prophets.

For those reasons, for me, it has always been an inseparable question that if you are engaged in a spiritual relationship with your understanding of God on the one hand that it cannot be clinically separated from your responsibilities to your fellow human beings

Not just those physically next door, not just those who happen to be in the same town that you grew up in, not just those folks that you know or may form part of what modern society describes as the nation-state but in fact the tradition of Caritas and Catholic Care; regardless of whether we know these people personally or not.

The final thing I'd say is there is a debate, often in the public political process, about whether this responsibility for our fellow human beings; our brothers and sisters, whether that is a discretionary individual decision; that is an act of private charitable choice, or whether it is a responsibility through society acting through the common agency of politics to help look after our fellow human beings by that way through the proper provisioning.

For example, basic and elementary welfare basic and elementary health care basic and elementary education basic and elementary fundamentals for being a human being whose individual dignity is respected and for being a productive member of society maximizing their human individual and creative potential.

Tony Abbott

Obviously, I take religion seriously, although I don't claim to be a particularly good Catholic.

But, I think the main job of religion is not to make us perfect but to make us better and obviously as better people we will bring something of that to public life.

I look at the public life that I've been part of, that there are lots of people in our public life who take their faith seriously and they cover a very broad political spectrum.

I think anything between the hard green left and the ultra-libertarian right is fertile ground for Christians.

This idea that Christian social teaching is able to say this specific policy rather than that specific policy; I'm just very sceptical about that.

So I think that the main role of the church when it comes to public life is encouraging more good people to go into public life encouraging people to be the best they possibly can be, but leaving the detail of policy whether we prefer more government or less government any particular situation, whether we think that there should be a greater focus on this issue or that issue in any particular situation

I think the what and how of any is best left to the people in public life rather than to be pontificated upon from the outside.

• Those keen to get to the content, the conversation proper begins at around the 4 minute mark.

• Video by Archdiocese of Melbourne.
• Narrative by in Flashes of Insight

In a lecture, Mr Rudd said the cardinal needed an "ecological conversion".

This was a phrase used by Pope Francis in Laudato Si'.

Mr Rudd said the Cardinal's view that the Church should stay out of politics and climate change policy was deeply at odds with the ethical imperative to protect the environment as well contradictory of Pope Francis's views.

"The Pope says the science on climate change is sufficiently clear. Cardinal Pell says it is not and further that the purported science is without foundation," Mr Rudd said.

Cardinal Pell has previously said that the Church has "no particular expertise in science" and "no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters".

Mr Rudd said Cardinal Pell's comments were illogical.

"To contend that a necessary prerequisite for engagement in these ethical debates in the public square is to be a professionally qualified climate scientist . . . would render his own contribution to these debates null and void, as Cardinal Pell is qualified in none," he said.

Mr Rudd said Christians should not be prevented from forming ethical views on public policy just because they don't have a science degree.

He added that climate change was the "greatest moral challenge of our time".

In Laudato Si', the Pope took aim at "committed and prayerful" Christians who "ridicule expressions of concern for the environment" using "realism and pragmatism" as an excuse.

"What they all need is an ecological conversion," the Pope said.

"Perhaps the Pope had Cardinal Pell in mind when this paragraph was written," Mr Rudd suggested on Tuesday.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: The Guardian

It seems a betrayal to even write these words. I'm a progressive Catholic who longs for a church that is more welcoming of women, homosexuals and divorced people.

I want a church where the hierarchy spends more time talking about liberating the poor and oppressed and less time lecturing about birth control.

I pray for a church that comprehensively faces the causes of child sexual abuse so we can have confidence such systematic evil will never occur again.

Francis - global superstar, media darling, a truly modern pope - is the best hope people like me have had for many years, right? He's the second coming of John XXIII, isn't he?

I confess that I am starting to doubt it.

Francis swept into the Chair of St Peter with such animation and apparent determination to up-end the traditional notions of how popes ought to behave.

Washing the feet of prisoners, including women and Muslims. Refusing to live in the Apostolic Palace. Apparently calling a woman who married a divorced man in a civil ceremony to assure her it's OK to go tocommunion. Refusing to judge homosexuals.

"I love this guy," proclaimed the Daily Show's Jon Stewart. Catholics everywhere - especially progressive Catholics, but also those who were lapsed or just bored - enthusiastically agreed.

Last month Francis made a curious comment in an interview marking the second anniversary of his election as pope:

I have the feeling that my Pontificate will be brief: four or five years; I do not know, even two or three. Two have already passed. It is a somewhat vague sensation. Maybe it's like the psychology of the gambler who convinces himself he will lose so he won't be disappointed and if he wins, is happy. I do not know. But I feel that the Lord has placed me here for a short-time, and nothing more ... Continue reading

• Kristina Keneally is a former premier of NSW.

While they are finding it difficult to comment on all the social and moral implications until more facts become available they say, "we can certainly say this, that while Papua New Guineans are not lacking in compassion for those in need, this country (unlike Australia which is a stable and thriving nation of immigrants) does not have the capacity at this time in its history to welcome a sizeable influx of refugees and provide for their immediate needs and a reasonable hope for a new and prosperous beginning. The leaders of Papua New Guinea and Australia surely know this and therefore appear to be making a very unwise decision."

"Papua New Guinea is rightly proud of the protection guaranteed by its Constitution to all people, citizen and non-citizen alike. We refer particularly to the section on freedom and liberty of the person (section 42) in the PNG Constitution. So is it right to bring people across our borders against their wishes? Is it right to imprison people who have not broken our laws? The implication that resettlement in PNG would be a deterrent is offensive to Papua New Guinea."

Source

• The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea
• Image: ResourcesO.new.com.au