Anthony Albanese is a Catholic.

Down the Eastern seaboard, the three state premiers, Dominic Perrottet (NSW), Daniel Andrews (Victoria) and Peter Malinauskas (SA) are Catholics.

There are many other high-profile Catholics at ministerial level and as opposition leaders.

Others, like Queensland Premier, Anastacia Palaszczuk attended a Catholic school.

Given that Catholics make up only a fifth to a quarter of the Australian population, they seem to be overrepresented right now.

That could change quickly.

But federal politics has had a run of Catholic or Catholic-educated leaders, including Liberal prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, Nationals Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, and Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shorten.

Just to list their names makes it blindingly obvious that they are men (almost all men) with very different values.

They are not only spread across the political parties, but within the parties, they occupy very different places on the ideological spectrum.

Turnbull and Abbott are prime examples of deeply different values on matters like climate change and same-sex marriage, within one party.

If you look a little deeper, it is also clear that their adherence to orthodox, institutional Catholicism varies too.

That should not be surprising given the decline of Catholic church adherence in the wider community.

As only 10 per cent of Catholics are regular church attenders, it would be surprising if attendance by Catholic politicians was much different.

As more Catholics depart from official church proclamations, it would surprise if some Catholic politicians didn't too; but when it happens in the public eye, as it did recently over the Thorburn affair with Daniel Andrews and Archbishop Peter Comensoli, it is newsworthy.

All these facts together make for an interesting relationship between church leaders, who have many different political interests to pursue with government and political leaders of the same faith.

They can try to utilise the relationship during campaigns and policy debates, or they can be embarrassed by them if they appear to be neglecting church teaching.

It also raises questions for the political leaders themselves, whose faith can give them the inside running with church leaders and with some Catholic voters during election campaigns.

During the recent federal election campaign, for instance, there was plenty of mutual cosying up between Catholic church leaders and the then Labor Opposition.

Their faith can also be an embarrassment for political leaders at times when they would prefer not to be too aligned with the official church, for example when the latter is in disrepute over institutional responses to child sexual abuse or central to tricky policy debates such as education funding.

The relationship is becoming more complicated in recent times. Continue reading

We are all dealing with Covid—no one is excluded from this experience.

We know the grief of these times; those with secure incomes have had greater security, while those without this have suffered more.

Grief can emerge as feelings of hopelessness, resignation and anger.

However, now is a time for honesty and resilience.

When we can't see the path ahead, and our goals are frustrated, it is easy to lose hope in the future and in ourselves.

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.

It is the ability to spring back into shape.

It is a courageous virtue we see in those living and dealing with layer-upon-layer of grief.

We have choices about how we encounter these times; we have a choice to be hope-filled or not.

Hope provides a positive vision for the day and for the future.

Hope is a motivational desire to keep moving forwards. It is an optimistic state of mind. Hope can help us emerge from distressing and even tragic situations with a sense of purpose.

Hope builds resilience

Without hope, our mental and physical health can deteriorate.

Exercise, sensible eating, limited booze and good friends are all part of the jigsaw of hope-filled living.

People with high levels of hope have better physical and mental health, and are a tonic for those who are struggling.

Without hope, life becomes a lonely, isolated experience.

Hope gives a sense of personal meaning—particularly now—more extensive than what we own, where we work, what we think politically, what we have lost.

In fact, too much emphasis on these passing things can create social isolation.

On the other hand, Advent is a time to look at what gives value and brings life.

Goals

Advent is a time to review or modify your goals.

We all need realistic goals that fit the "new normal", and we need to consider the pathway and the required changes to achieve them.

For example, you might want a big overseas family holiday, but now you'll have to settle for a holiday in a nearby caravan park.

Embrace it!

Let go of the expectations that bind and bring anxiety and enjoy the simple.

It is time to let go of 2021.

Essential values

As if we need reminding now is a time to pivot in a way that focuses on our essential values, such as family, friendship and community.

It's a time to step out of ourselves; to recall and care for the needs of others.

It is a time to find new expressions that open up a world of hope and possibilities because they are new, different and challenging; a self-centred view of the world serves no one.

Sharing hope; being grateful

Hope is an invitation to step out of yourself and your own concerns and consider the needs of the bigger world in which you participate as a Christian-Catholic citizen.

Here is a thought.

It might be worthwhile driving up onto a high hill or mountain, getting out of your car and looking around at the vast, wonderful world you are living in and giving thanks.

And when there, look down from your mountain height and see the smallness of the city or town you live in and the smallness of the place where you work.

Then look at the infinite sky and the horizon and be grateful.

Gratitude is the heart of the Christian Eucharist.

Thanksgiving is central to our faith and at the heart of all our sacraments and liturgy.

As we stand with Christ before the Father, we stand as a community of grateful people, people called from darkness, anxiety and fear into God's life-giving light.

Gratitude mixes with hope to strengthen faith and increase charity. These are theological virtues, not sentimental ideas.

Without a robust theology of life a Christian community becomes just another social agency that will eventually fail.

Being a person of hope is the call of the Christian today.

Our ability to hope is not dependent on our vaccination status—we go much deeper than that.

Hope centred in Christ

Fear has the capacity to undo us and confuse our thinking reducing it to a mind-numbing daily sameness.

The Hebrew People believed and held their hope through the experiences of betrayal, warfare, exile, seemingly pointless meandering in the desert and oppression.

They waited, in hope, for times of joy, peace and well-being.

Christ, who stands before the Father, is the source of our strength, our spirit, our hope and our resilience.

Advent hope helps us navigate life's uncertainty with some clarity.

• Dr Joe Grayland is a theologian and a priest of the Diocese of Palmerston North. His latest book is titled: Catholics. Prayer, Belief and Diversity in a Secular Context (Te Hepara Pai, 2020).

In a 2019 survey, 44% of Americans - along with 45% of people across 34 nations - said that belief in God is necessary "to be moral and have good values." So what happens to a person's morality and values when they lose faith?

Religion influences morals and values through multiple pathways. It shapes the way people think about and respond to the world, fosters habits such as church attendance and prayer, and provides a web of social connections.

As researchers who study the psychology and sociology of religion, we expected that these psychological effects can linger even after observant people leave religion, a group we refer to as "religious dones."

So together with our co-authors Daryl R. Van Tongeren and C. Nathan DeWall, we sought to test this "religion residue effect" among Americans.

Our research addressed the question: Do religious dones maintain some of the morals and values of religious Americans?

In other words, just because some people leave religion, does religion fully leave them?

Measuring the religious residue effect

Recent research demonstrates that religious dones around the world fall between the never religious and the currently religious in terms of thoughts, feelings and behaviours.

Many maintain some of the attributes of religious people, such as volunteering and charitable giving, even after they leave regular faith practices behind.

So in our first project, we examined the association between leaving religion and the five moral foundations commonly examined by psychologists: care/harm, fairness/cheating, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and purity/degradation.

We found that religious respondents were the most likely to support each of the five moral foundations. These involve intuitive judgments focusing on feeling the pain of others, and tapping into virtues such as kindness and compassion. For instance, religious Americans are relatively likely to oppose acts they deem "disgusting," which is a component of the purity/degradation scale. This aligns with previous research on religion and moral foundations.

Most importantly, and in line with the religion residue hypothesis, we have found what we call a "stairstep pattern" of beliefs.

The consistently religious are more likely than the dones to endorse each moral foundation, and the religious dones are more likely to endorse them than the consistently nonreligious.

The one exception was the moral foundation of fairness/cheating, which the dones and the consistently religious supported at similar rates.

Put another way, after leaving religion, religious dones maintain some emphasis on each of the five moral foundations, though less so than the consistently religious, which is why we refer to this as a stairstep pattern.

Chart: The Conversation CC-BY-ND Source: Schwadel et al.

Our second project built on research showing that religion is inextricably linked with values, particularly Schwartz's Circle of Values, the predominant model of universal values used by Western psychologists. Values are the core organizing principles in people's lives, and religion is positively associated with the values of security, conformity, tradition and benevolence. These are "social focus values": beliefs that address a generally understood need for coordinated social action.

Chart: The Conversation CC-BY-ND Source: Schwadel et al.

For this project, we asked a single group of study participants the same questions as they grew older over a period of 10 to 11 years.

The participants were adolescents in the first wave of the survey, and in their mid-to-late 20s in the final wave.

Our findings revealed another stairstep pattern: The consistently religious among these young adults were significantly more likely than religious dones to support the social focus values of security, conformity and tradition; and religious dones were significantly more likely to support them than the consistently nonreligious.

While a similar pattern emerged with the benevolence value, the difference between the religious dones and the consistently nonreligious was not statistically significant.

Together, these projects show that the religion residue effect is real.

The morals and values of religious dones are more similar to those of religious Americans than they are to the morals and values of other nonreligious Americans.

Our follow-up analyses add some nuance to that key finding.

For instance, the enduring impact of religious observance on values appears to be strongest among former evangelical Protestants.

Among dones who left mainline Protestantism, Catholicism and other religious traditions, the religion residue effect is smaller and less consistent.

Our research also suggests that the religious residue effect can decay.

The more time that passes after people leave religion, the more their morals and values come to resemble those of people who have never been religious.

This is an important finding, because a large and growing number of Americans are leaving organized religion, and there is still much to be learned about the psychological and social consequences of this decline in religion.

The growing numbers of nonreligious

As recently as 1990, only 7% of Americans reported having no religion.

Thirty years later, in 2020, the percentage claiming to be nonreligious had quadrupled, with almost 3 in 10 Americans having no religion.

There are now more nonreligious Americans than affiliates of any one single religious tradition, including the two largest: Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism.

This shift in religious practice may fundamentally change Americans' perceptions of themselves, as well as their views of others.

One thing that seems clear, though, is that those who leave religion are not the same as those who have never been religious.

Given the rapid and continued growth in the number of nonreligious Americans, we expect that this distinction will become increasingly important to understand the morals and values of the American people.

• Philip Schwadel Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Sam Hardy Professor of Psychology, Brigham Young University
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

Mutual hostility began with the 1789 French Revolution.

Until then monarchical France bathed in the glory of being recognized as the ‘elder daughter of the Catholic Church'.

But the revolutionaries saw the Church, like the aristocracy, as a pillar of the old regime that had to be rooted out, often by violence.

Many took their cue from the Enlightenment philosopher Diderot: ‘Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.' Anti-clericalism and de-Christianisation of the State became features of the revolutionary tradition that has continued until today, albeit in muted form.

The Islamist terror attack in Nice's Notre-Dame — two worshippers and the church's sexton murdered by attempted decapitation — had a remarkable effect.

President Macron immediately flew to Nice and made a very significant, sober and original speech:

"I want to express, first and foremost, the nation's support for the Catholics of France and elsewhere. After the assassination of Father Hamel in summer 2016, once again Catholics are attacked in our country, threatened before All Saints' Day celebrations.

"The whole nation is at their side and will remain so in order that religion can continue to be freely exercised in our country because our country knows that.

"Our values are that everyone is allowed to believe or not believe, but that all religions can be practiced.

"Today the whole nation is beside our Catholic compatriots.'

What is striking in this speech is that ever since the 1905 Separation, French heads of state have attempted to keep the Catholic Church at arm's length — even in its times of crisis — as a demonstration of neutrality.

After the 2016 Islamist assassination of Father Hamel as he prayed, President François Hollande — while not lacking in compassion — went no further than declaring that: ‘To kill a priest is to profane the Republic'.

Macron has gone further, putting France's arm around French Catholics and — most significantly — Catholics abroad.

Is this a breach in the tradition of rigorous state neutrality and a return to France as protector of French Catholic enclaves around the world, as was the case in the 19th century when they were under attack in Syria and the Lebanon?

If it is indeed Macron's intention that France move to defending more actively Catholic minorities abroad, that should be supported by other western governments.

Christian minorities generally have been forsaken by Western governments and their media, unlike minorities such as Uighurs in China.

Why, for instance, shouldn't French and British development aid be tied to state recipient's respect for Christian minorities in countries such as Pakistan or Bangladesh?

The second part of Macron's speech was a robust defense of France's values of free speech and laïcité — the rigorous outlawing of religion from the State sphere. But here is where France has a problem. Continue reading

Cr Henare O'Keefe made the comments during a council committee meeting to discuss an update of a suicide prevention plan written by the Hawke's Bay District Health Board. Read more

Two facts about contemporary Australia seem to me to be so significant, they constitute the clearest possible warning about the direction our society is taking.

Fact #1

We are experiencing a mental health crisis and, in particular an epidemic of anxiety, with two million sufferers from an anxiety disorder last year alone.

Add to that the rates of depression and other forms of mental illness, and we start to look like a very sick society.

Imagine how concerned we would be if a more visible disease was occurring on such a scale. Because the symptoms are silent and invisible - sufferers are not coughing, limping or bleeding - we are generally unaware of the extent of mental illness.

There are many specific triggers for anxiety in individual cases, of course.

Relationship breakdown, job insecurity, rent stress, loss of faith, addiction to an IT device (strongly correlated with high rates of anxiety), lack of sufficient "nature contact" time… even a concern with the future of the planet itself.

But when anxiety and depression are occurring on such a large scale, we need to look beyond individual, personal triggers to some more basic, societal factors that might be driving such a widespread epidemic.

Fact #2

We are a more fragmented society than we have ever been in our history.

Consider the impact of such social changes as these:

• The single person household is our fastest-growing household type, already accounting for one household in four, and projected to rise to one in three within the next decade. Not everyone who lives alone feels lonely, of course: many solo householders revel in their sense of freedom and independence, but when every third or fourth household contains only one person, the risk of social isolation is greatly increased. (The UK government has acknowledged the problem by appointing a minister for loneliness.)
• Our rate of divorce and other forms of relationship breakdown remains stubbornly high, with the fallout affecting families and friends as well as the couples themselves. Roughly one million dependent children now live with only one of their natural parents, with regular, and often disruptive, access visits to the non-custodial parent.
• Our birthrate is at an historically low level, which means the valuable role of kids as a kind of social lubricant in the local neighbourhood has diminished.
• We are more mobile than ever, moving house, on average once every six years. Thanks to almost universal car ownership - that other form of mobility - we are spending more time than ever in those little bubbles of social isolation.
• We are busier than ever - so busy that we now greet each other with How y'going - busy? as though not to be busy would be disgraceful. (When did busyness become a virtue, rather than a sign of inefficiency and wrong priorities?)
• The busier we are, the less time and energy we have for nurturing the relationships that create healthy neighbourhoods and communities.
• We are caught in the grip of the IT revolution - that paradoxical phenomenon that promises greater connectedness than ever, yet makes it easier than ever for us to stay apart. (No wonder the heaviest users of social media are also the most likely to report a heightened sense of loneliness.)

More could be added to that list - such as the effects of increasing income inequality, and a housing stock that is no longer appropriate for the way we live - but you get the idea: there's an accumulation of societal factors putting pressure on the stability and cohesiveness of local neighbourhoods.

In my view, the health of a society can best be gauged by the health of its local neighbourhoods, since that's where we must learn to get along with people we didn't choose to live amongst.

Take another look at those two facts: increased anxiety and increased social fragmentation.

They are really two sides of the same coin, inextricably linked: fragment a society and watch the level of anxiety rise. Continue reading

• Image: GoodSams

I can see why people don't want politics to be all about personality. Our age is dominated by a celebrity culture that's often superficial.

People rightly don't want superficial selfishness to seep into our politics. We want politics to be a contest of ideas - an informed forum for debating how our country can be better.

But I think some of what we label as ‘personality politics' is legitimate, even essential.

That's because part of what we call ‘personality politics' is also about a politician's personal values and ethos. And values - commitments that reflect our view of what a good life is - matter in politics.

Don't just take my word for it.

Here's British writer George Monbiot, in his just released book, Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis: "Values are the bedrock of effective politics.

"They represent the importance we place on fundamental ways of being, offering a guide to what we consider to be good and worthwhile."

We see the values of politicians in the policies they talk about. But we also see their values in how they carry and conduct themselves personally, and how they interact with others.

Here's where ‘personality' can be relevant.

At a concrete level, having politicians with good personal values matters because they're meant to represent us. They should make us proud, not just in how they represent New Zealand overseas, but also in how they are as people around the country.

People were confident that Helen Clark, when she was Prime Minister, took seriously New Zealand's commitments overseas.

Many liked John Key's relaxed but affable way of interacting with people domestically. It is not too idealistic to hope that politicians should reflect the best of who we are as a country.

Relatedly, politicians don't just represent us - they affect us. They're role models.

President Donald Trump's bullish, aggressive style is legitimising bullish aggressiveness in the American population. We have many sides of who we are as people, and politicians draw out certain qualities in us.

Canadian writer Naomi Klein has said we must recognise "our inner Trump" that's being tapped into by the current US presidency.

Continue reading

• Max Harris, author of The New Zealand Project, is a PhD student at All Souls College in Oxford, England.

Stephen Dedalus
Class of Elements
Clongowes Wood College
Sallins
County Kildare
Ireland
Europe
The World
The Universe

Most of us will, no doubt, remember writing a similar extended address as children, following through the logic of this series of ever-larger locations. The last two entries in Dedalus's list are, obviously, redundant in any real address. Only an alien sending a postcard home from another universe would think to add them. We are all, in some loose sense, ‘citizens of the world', or at least its inhabitants.

And yet, as adults, we don't usually think about much outside our immediate surroundings. Typically, it is our nation that defines us geographically, and it is our family, friends, and acquaintances who dominate our social thinking. If we think about the universe, it is from an astronomical or from a religious perspective. We are locally focused, evolved from social apes who went about in small bands. The further away or less visible other people are, the harder it is to worry about them. Even when the television brings news of thousands starving in sub-Saharan Africa, what affects me deeply is the item about a single act of violence in a street nearby.

Life is bearable in part because we can so easily resist imagining the extent of suffering across the globe. And if we do think about it, for most of us that thinking is dispassionate and removed. That is how we as a species live. Perhaps it's why the collective noun for a group of apes is a ‘shrewdness'. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon Magazine
• Image: Globalization and Autonomy

A couple of years ago, the idea of God came up, in an incidental way, in the Contemporary Moral Theory course I teach. I generally try not to reveal my particular beliefs and commitments too early in the semester, but since it was late in the course, I felt I could be open with the students about my lack of religious belief. I will never forget the horrified look on one student's face. ‘But Professor Jollimore,' he stammered, ‘how can you not believe in God? You teach ethics for a living!'

I shouldn't have been surprised by this reaction. But I always am. We were 12 weeks into a class that discussed a great variety of recent moral theories, none of which made the slightest reference to any sort of divine power or authority, but this made no difference. After 20 years of living in the US (I was born in Canada), I still tend to forget how many people here assume, simply as a matter of common sense, that the very idea of ‘secular ethics' is an abomination, a contradiction, or both.

I don't want to suggest that this attitude is influential only in the US. It is simply more prominent here. In polls and studies, a majority of Americans don't trust atheists and say they would not vote for a presidential candidate who did not believe in God. ‘Religion' and ‘theology' are still frequently cited in the American media as if they were the sole aspects of human existence responsible for matters of value. ‘We need science to tell us the way things are; we need religion to tell us the way things ought to be,' as people around here like to say. I have spent my career studying the way things ‘ought to be', outside of the scaffolding of any faith or religious tradition. No wonder I find such sentiments rather frustrating. Continue reading

Sources

• Aeon Magazine
• Image: examiner.com

Parihaka is a community approximately 55 Kilometres southwest of New Plymouth. In the 1870s and 80s, under the leadership of Tohu and Te Whiti, they resisted the Crown's confiscation of their customary lands with non-violent protest, which included ploughing lands taken to pay for the land wars, replacing or changing their fences moved by the army and removing survey pegs.

In 1866 Te Whiti orders weapons to be put aside, never to be seen again. In 1879 Maori Ploughmen were sent to plow confiscated lands to reassert rights to the land. Te Whiti calls for no violence or fighting. Ploughmen are arrested but do not resist.

1881 - 5 November - Troops invade Parihaka. Tohu, Te Whiti and all Parihaka men are arrested for leaving Parihaka in response to a Govt proclamation. Houses and cultivations are destroyed and livestock slaughtered or confiscated.

Many were arrested for their actions and imprisoned for many years without trial. In the present day, the people of Parihaka continue to restore Tohu and Te Whiti's legacy and seek healing of historic injustices. They strive to keep alive ideals of community empowerment, self-sufficiency and peaceful action of their ancestors.

Source:

• Caritas
• Image: NZ History Online

In his book Arbuckle argues that a values-based approach would change healthcare and systems and be a much better approach to healthcare than the current financial perspective.

In Humanizing Heathcare Reforms, Arbuckle suggests that without being able to identify clearly the values and goals that unite their members, healthcare organisations are unlikely to be able to meet the demands of the constant and varied pressures they face.

Dr Maria Theresa Ho, Former Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Head of the Medical Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Australia, says the message the book conveys is "critically relevant, timely and desperately needed."

The book is described as a much needed, very-accessible book, and as an essential read for anyone interested in a better approach to healthcare reform.

During 2010 Fr. Arbuckle worked at Campion Hall, Oxford University, researching issues confronting the National Health Service in England. In 2011 he gave the Martin D'Arcy Memorial Lectures at Oxford University upon which this book is based.

Those interested can order the book from Amazon.

Source:

• SMNZ
• Image: HPSI

It was a powerful symbol of Poland's deeply felt Roman Catholicism, a reminder of the scenes in the 1980s when, inspired by Polish Pope John Paul II, people prayed in the streets and brought down Communist rule.

But modernity intruded on this recent moment of spiritual contemplation. The size of the crowd meant some worshippers, who arrived late, had to listen to the mass standing outside a sex shop with signs in the window offering "exotic dances".

Society in Poland is changing and with it, the relationship between the Polish people and the Catholic church.

In this country where, since the end of Communist rule, prime ministers have sought the blessing of the church before making important decisions, Catholicism is losing its influence.

Opinion polls show that the number of people who go to church or pray regularly is in decline.

And now a series of initiatives - on in-vitro fertilization (IVF), ending state subsidies for the church, and homosexuality - is challenging Catholicism's role at the heart of the state.

"We want to separate the secular state from religion," said Andrzej Rozenek, a lawmaker with the ultra-liberal Palikot movement. It surprised many by becoming the third biggest party in parliament in an election last year.

"We're trying to show Poles that there are other values." Continue reading

Image: Reuters

I never hear: "I want my child to be virtuous."

Virtuous?

Who talks about virtue anymore?

Well, outside of the Church, not many. (Okay, let's be honest, even most Catholics today don't talk about virtue.) In general, talk of being virtuous has been replaced by talk of having "values" — even though virtues and values are not synonymous.

Here's how I see it. Continue reading

Image: Catholic Lane

Ricky Gervais is working on a new show,"Afterlife", about an atheist who died and went to heaven - the point being made that believers don't have the monopoly on morality.

"All too often religious people equate faith with moral behavior", says Pamela Taylor. "As a Muslim, I can attest to the fact that this is not always the case. As a former atheist, I can also attest to the fact that I was raised not only with a strong moral orientation, but also with the theoretical background, critical thinking and analytical skills needed to make sound moral choices."

She says that, when she was growing up, one of the things she found distasteful about believers was "how easily they seemed to go against their own moral code, ostensibly because God would forgive them."

Read Taylor's Column in the Washington Post

Pamela K. Taylor is a North American Muslim science fiction writer and poet. Taylor has been involved with Muslims for Progressive Values (co-founder), Islamic Writers Alliance (former director) and supporter of woman imam movement
Pamela K Taylor's website
Image: Islam and Science Fiction