John Menadue

John Menadue is the Founder and Editor in Chief of Pearls and Irritations. He was formerly Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser, Ambassador to Japan, Secretary of the Department of Immigration and CEO of Qantas.

John's recent articles

Josef Szwarc. Measuring our response to the refugee crisis of Syria and Iraq

PM RESCUE MISSION shouts the headline of the morning newspaper. My heart races with expectation that is immediately deflated by the first sentence: Australian will open its doors to more Syrian refugees fleeing the troubled nation but wont increase the overall humanitarian intake. The prospect of an increase was hinted at by a press release from the PM, Foreign Minister and Immigration Minister yesterday as the latter prepared to travel to Geneva for urgent discussions with the UNHCR and other partners to inform the governments consideration ofwhat further significant contribution we can make through our Humanitarian Programme to resettle...

John Menadue. The death of Aylan Kurdi may not have been in vain.

In the last week our media has been extensively covering the plight of Syrian and Iraqi refugees fleeing into Europe. Their reception has been mixed but the governments of Germany and Austria, and their people, have been extending help and kindness. I have posted three blogs in recent days on these issues: Mother Merkel and 800,000 refugees; Suffer the little children; Syrian and Iraqi refugees a time for a bipartisan and community response (Arja Keski-Nummi and Josef Szwarc). In response we are seeing the generosity and concern of many Australians. Premier Baird in NSW said We...

Brian McNair. News Corp and the future of public service media.

Ive been teaching students in Hong Kong about the relationship between politics and the media, and wanted to illustrate the sometimes problematic relationship between media and power. So I showed them Robert Pestons BBC Panorama documentary about the industrial-scale criminality of Rupert Murdochs UK red-tops in the era of Andy Coulson and Rebekkah Brooks (* on Friday August 28 Rebekkah was named as CEO for News Corp in the UK). Like most people with even a passing interest in the part played by News Corporation in British politics, I remember exactly what I was doing when the scandal broke...

John Menadue. Dont add to the disaster.

The government is considering adding to the disaster in the Middle East by instructing the RAAF to bomb targets in Syria. Will we ever learn from our past mistakes? In supporting the US invasion of Iraq, Australia helped trigger the tragedy that is now unfolding. Perhaps a million lives have been lost and refugees are flooding in their millions into adjoining countries and Europe. Our involvement has triggered both ethnic and sectarian conflict. Does Tony Abbott ever stop and think about his role in the Howard Government that helped sow the seeds of this disaster? In considering...

Suffer the little children

[caption id=attachment_4498 align=aligncenter width=199] The lifeless body of a child near the Turkish resort of Bodrum, early Wednesday 2/9/15 (Huffington Post)[/caption]

Bob Kinnaird. China FTA and binding trade treaties are undemocratic.

The China FTA and all international trade agreements are essentially undemocratic because they are binding on all future Australian governments. They provide incumbent governments with the opportunity permanently to limit the options open to the Australian people and to tie the hands of their political opponents when they take office. Most Australians and probably some Australian Parliamentarians would be astonished to discover that treaty-status trade agreements permanently limit the ability of future governments to make laws, regardless of the wishes of the electors. If the treaty-status China FTA is ratified by the Australian Parliament with ALP support in...

Arja Keski-Nummi and Josef Szwarc. Syrian/Iraqi Refugees: Time for a Bi-partisan and Community Response

Harrowing images and reports in our daily media give a human face to the grim words of the UN refugee agency: the number of men, women and children forcibly displaced by persecution, war and human rights violations is the largest on record. Nearly 60 million at the end of 2014 and greater since then. That Australia can and should significantly and as a matter of priority increase its contribution to the alleviation of the plight of so many people in urgent need is accepted by the major political parties and in many sectors of civil society. Last Wednesday...

John Menadue. Why are we so cruel? The problem starts at the top.

The news out of Manus and particularly Nauru shows how callous we have become. It is not that we are always as cold-hearted as this. The response to the attacks on Adam Goodes and the murder of an AFL football coach shows our generous and humane sideour better angels. But we dont seem to care about the cruelty being inflicted on children and women in Nauru. The Nauru government is corrupt. There is no rule of law worth the name. Magistrates are sacked by the government. In effect, we bribe the Nauru government to do our dirty work. Women...

Julianne Schultz. Why public broadcasting is worth saving.

In an age of global media abundance, the notion that public broadcasting is a mechanism to address market failure is beguiling. It is also fundamentally wrong. Public broadcasters have a unique national responsibility to provide a public good to citizens, rather than the more narrowly defined and easily measured mission of commercial broadcasters, to engage consumers and maximise the return to shareholders. Public broadcasters provide a return that is more complex to measure, but with the increasing sophistication of impact measurement, not impossible. The exact nature of the outputs and outcomes varies from one country to another, but...

Bob Kinnaird. China FTA truth still elusive

Two months after releasing the China FTA text the Coalition government has still not told the Australian people the truth about the labour mobility provisions in ChAFTA. The result is confusion even among usually well-informed commentators. Greg Sheridan Foreign Affairs Editor for The Australian says the clause in the FTA that says there is no need for labour market testing applies only to projects over $150 million (Shorten hits rock bottom with China FTA stance, The Australian, 27 August 2015). The fact is that FTA clause applies to all Chinese nationals on all non-concessional 457 visas and 400...

Sydney's Holroyd High School and asylum seeker children.

Refugees and their children face many difficulties in settling in Australia. But the evidence shows that after this settling in period, refugees and their children outperform Australian-born people in many areas. We see the results for refugee children in university-entrance exams and in university performance. One remarkable example is the experience of refugee and asylum seeker children at Sydney's Holroyd High School. The principal of Holroyd High School, Dorothy Hoddinott, was interviewed recently by Eleanor Hall on the ABC's The World Today. Read about the remarkable story of Holroyd High School and its students in the link below. ...

Stephen Harper. The closing of the Canadian mind.

Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has no greater foreign admirer than Tony Abbott who gushed about him when he visited Ottawa a year ago. Like Tony Abbott, Stephen Harper has attacked science and the media. He has weakened citizenship laws and supports polluters. It sounds very familiar. For an article in the International New York Times by Stephen Marche, see link below. John Menadue. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/opinion/sunday/the-closing-of-the-canadian-mind.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad

Stuart Harris. Who are we backing in Syria?

It would be a serious mistake for Australia to respond positively to the US request, that we presumably invited, to join in airstrikes on Islamic State (IS) in Syria. Such action would probably be against international law, and in any case be ineffective, while increasing IS recruitment and failing to resolve the undoubted problem. Like US policies towards Syria, it also lacks clear strategic objectives. IS, while certainly brutal is the armed opposition to the also brutal and corrupt Assad government, the overthrow of which ostensibly remains the prime target of US effort. More importantly for Australia, the civil war...

Sandra Jones. Dont worry about the kids: Let's just protect the alcohol industry

A recent study from Monash University found that a quarter of all alcohol advertising on Australian TV was during televised sports. Importantly, 86% of alcohol advertising between 6.00am and 8.30pm (that is, when kids are most likely to be watching TV) was during sports programming. The broadcast of alcohol advertisements on commercial television in Australia is restricted in order to limit the exposure of young people to alcohol advertising. Alcohol advertising is only permitted during periods of M (mature classification), MA (mature audience classification) or AV (adult violence classification) programs (which are restricted to between 8:30pm and 5.00am). ...

Clive Hamilton. Damned Lies, Minister Hunt and Climate Models.

If you believe what you read in the Daily Telegraph saving the planet must mean trashing the economy. Thats their story and theyre sticking to it, no matter what the evidence shows. If the numbers show the opposite, well, they have ways. And so last week the Murdoch tabloid took a bunch of numbers concocted in Environment Minister Greg Hunts office and turned them into the screaming headline ALPs $600B Carbon Bill. One of the most egregious beat-ups youll ever read, the story was chock full of terrifying predictions about what will happen if Australia joins global efforts...

Irfan Ahmad. As Morsi faces the gallows, where are the defenders of democracy?

In mid-June, an Egyptian court upheld the death sentence against the countrys first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi, whom the military deposed in July 2013. Death sentences against Morsi and 105 others were confirmed after Egypts grand mufti gave his approval. Many Islamic scholars (ulema) in the past spoke truth to power, for which they were jailed or executed. The mufti and the general who ousted Morsi, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, are instead sending democracy, freedom, justice and truth to the gallows. Amnesty International described the trials as grossly unfair and charades. Emmad Shahin, an academic of international repute, was...

Theresia Hiranabe. "My dreadful experience of war": a Japanese perspective.

FEATURE, The Good Oil, August 18, 2015 For Japanese Good Samaritan Sister Theresia Hiranabe, the seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II is a timely opportunity to share her dreadful experience of war and how it led her to the Good Samaritan Sisters. BY Theresia Hiranabe SGS* The seventieth anniversary of the end of World War II is a good reason to tell my dreadful experience of war and in the end how it led me to the Good Samaritan Sisters. On December 8, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbour. This brought Japan...

John Menadue. The Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.

I have frequently raised my concerns about the ability of the Department of Health and Ageing to develop good health policy and manage health reform. A test of the new Minister is whether she can help facilitate the necessary reform. See below links to two earlier articles I wrote on this problem. The first is a capability review of the Department of Heath and Ageing by the Australian Public Service Commission. The second is a report by the Australian National Audit Office of DHA's administration of the Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement. Both reports raise very serious issues. https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/blog/?p=3411...

Nicholas Reece. How Australia's cartel-like political parties drag own democracy.

In a modern democracy like Australia, political parties are the main delivery mechanism of change. But recent events suggest these vehicles for change have become incapable of changing themselves. For the ALP it is the rejection of internal democratic reform and the failure to modernise the relationship with the union movement. For the Liberal Party it is an entrenched and embarrassing under-representation of women in its senior ranks. Recent attempts at internal reform by the major parties have been miserable flops, as they cling to the economic and social structures of a bygone century. And the Greens are no better....

Naval shipbuilding in South Australia is a waste of money.

In this blog on 19 August, I reposted an earlier blog from Jon Stanford on 'The government's new naval shipbuilding policy'. Hugh White, a columnist at The Age and Professor of Strategic Studies at the Strategic and Defence Study Centre, ANU, has written a recent article on the same subject. The article is consistent with the thrust of Jon Stanford's earlier article. See link to Melbourne Age article below: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/naval-manoeuvres-a-costly-exercise-to-secure-votes-not-borders-20150816-gj0fjh.html

John Menadue. Saving lives at sea!

To justify its harsh refugee policies, the government has been telling us that their policies are designed to save lives at sea. What hypocrisy! And only last week we saw at the ALP Federal Conference, former Labor ministers justifying their turn-back policies as a means to reduce drownings at sea. Please spare us this charade. The objective of our inhuman refugee policies is overwhelmingly political, to be seen to be tough on boat arrivals and win electoral support as a result. The object of the present government has been to deride the Labor party for its alleged...

David Holmes. Australia's climate politics on a high wire.

(or - Murdoch and Abbott in climate dial duet) While the politicisation of climate change has transformed climate reporting into something of a circus, the Coalitions announcement of a 26% emissions reduction target on 2005 levels for Australia by 2030 has surely placed its climate policy on a dangerous high wire. The high wire is not that the target has been set too high. It is that trying to balance this defeatist target is going to lead to the collapse of Direct Action, and will impair the ability of the Coalition-News Corp publicity machine to defend fossil fuels....

Walter Hamilton. It's not the apology, stupid!

We must not let our children, grandchildren, and even further generations to come, who have nothing to do with that war, be predestined to apologize. This comes from the statement issued during the week by Japans Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific. It is perhaps unfair to highlight one sentence from a longish document, but, in my reading of it, this accurately summarizes its abiding sentiment. Abe wants to draw a line under the past. He wants to end the culture of contrition that, he believes,...

Peter Day. Sallys worth it.

Harry Anslingers dream to rid the world of drugs was given legs in 1930 when he was appointed the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics. He was a brilliant bureaucrat with a grand vision underpinned by prohibition; a man who single-handedly turned a marginalised, underfunded Bureau into an uncompromising and powerful war machine. But, as Johann Hari reveals in his compelling book Chasing the Scream the first and last days of the war on drugs, Anslinger was also a zealot and racist: The most frightening aspect of marijuana, [Anslinger] warned, was on blacks....

Mark Triffitt and Travers McLeod. Entitlements scandal is a sign of political rot.

When does a political system become corrupt? When is the line crossed from garden variety rorting by a few members of parliament to institutionalised abuse of taxpayers' money by the system? The latest scandal over politicians' entitlements has been like lifting the proverbial rock to discover a deeply, ethically challenged netherworld. One flagrant folly scuttled out, only to be followed by a horde of others. Individual politicians have responded by pointing the finger at everyone and everything except themselves. This includes blaming their transgressions on a system of entitlements they created. The public has reacted with disgust....

John Menadue. Liberal Party misuse of Royal Commissions.

Dyson Heydon is in the news again. Several weeks ago he appeared to question the credibility of Bill Shorten as a witness before the Trade Union Royal Commission. He also had unusual things to say about the credibility of Julia Gillard when she appeared before the Commission. See below a repost of an article on the Liberal Party and royal commissions. John Menadue   REPOST With the Abbott Government there is a pattern of using Royal Commissions to attack former and current ALP leaders. See the links below to two earlier posts on the...

Trans Pacific Partnership and consumer rights.

The consumer magazine Choice has recently carried articles by Sarah Agar about the TPP and what might be traded away in terms of cheaper medicines, public interest laws and food labelling. This report was updated on 29 July, about a fortnight before Trade Minister Andrew Robb decided that he would walk away from the TPP negotiations. This article in Choice is a useful background on many of the key issues that were at stake. Fortunately the government has decided that the TPP was balanced too much in favour of corporate interests and at the expense of consumer interests. John Menadue....

John Menadue. The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership.

The Senate saves the day on the Trans Pacific Partnership. Often the Senate is seen as obstructive or worse. But it has performed a very useful purpose in helping to derail the Trans Pacific Partnership. Hopefully the TPP will not be put back on track. According to the New York Times, our Trade Minister Andrew Robb told the TPP negotiating ministers in Hawaii that the Australian Parliament read Senate would not accept the further restrictions on trade in pharmaceuticals which the US was proposing. He was apparently concerned that to accede to the US demands would...

John Menadue. Parliamentary reform and the new Speaker.

In my post of 12 May this year Democratic renewal and our loss of trust in institutions, I wrote about our loss of trust in so many institutions including our parliament and political parties. If Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten want to improve public debate and restore some faith in our public institutions the election of new speaker Tony Smith provides an opportunity to change course. The most trusted of our institutions are all public institutions; the ABC, the High Court and the Reserve Bank. The least trusted are political parties and the expenses mess triggered by Bronwyn Bishop...

Jane Tolman. Facing up to dementia.

As I reflect on the ongoing complaints at federal and state level about our ailing health system, widespread community concerns and a medical culture which is still often hospital- and doctor- centric, I wonder how we will be able to sort it all out. In the 20th Century, when average life expectancies were in the 60s and 70s, we died from a range of illnesses, but often from vascular diseases (heart attacks and strokes) and cancers. With our increasing longevity, the 20th Century diseases are being replaced by the neurodegenerative diseases of the 21st Century. These include Parkinsons, motor...

John Menadue. Dont tamper with citizenship.

The Australian Government has presented new legislation that would enable the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection to revoke Australian citizenship for dual nationals who might have been involved in terrorism activities. There would be no judicial review. As a result of an apparent disagreement in Cabinet, the government has deferred a decision on how to deal with sole Australian nationals who might be linked to terrorism. This is a massive overreaction for largely party-political purposes promoting fear of terrorism and feeding anti-Muslim sentiment in the community. Determined not to be wedged on the issue the ALP...

Focus on tax avoidance, not GST hike.

Michael West, in the SMH continues his many articles on tax avoidance by major international companies who operate in Australia. He mentions many of them, including Big Pharma, Google, Paypal, Newscorp. He comments 'How long can [these companies] continue to treat Australians as fools. While multinational tax avoidance remains so rife, how can governments possibly claim a democratic licence to his ordinary Australians with a hike in the GST.' See link to article below:   http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/focus-on-tax-avoidance-not-gst-hikes-20150802-gipm9k.html

Arja Keski-Nummi. Half a Step Forward ALP Policy on Refugees and Asylum

There is more to the ALP policy on refugees and asylum than what we heard from the media, focused as it is on factional battles and the language of back- flips on contestable pieces of public policy such as boat turn backs. As always in such a highly charged area of public policy the devil is in the detail. Labor however gets it about right in focusing on the priority for international engagement and the development of regional and bilateral responses to population displacement. But this policy also hardens the shift in asylum and refugee policy begun when Labor...

Wilful blindness over climate change.

The former head of NAB, Cameron Clyne, has published an opinion piece in the SMH about the failure of political and business leaders to address the issue of climate change. He said that business leaders overwhelmingly support the need for a market based carbon trading system. In respect of Maurice Newman, he said that he had never encountered such thinking in the Australian business community. For a full report of Cameron Clyne's article, see link below:   http://www.smh.com.au/environment/cameron-clyne-former-head-of-nab-criticises-canberras-wilful-blindness-over-climate-change-20150802-gion1o.html

Warwick Elsche. Bronwyn, the captains pick.

The loss of Bronwyn Bishop from the role of Speaker in the Federal Parliament is a blow to the Abbott Government. Bishop was not the least talented in a Government which despite the supposed neutrality of the office she seemed never to cease to be a part. In her chaotic 22 month reign as Speaker of the House of Representatives she was, in the eyes of long-time parliamentary watchers, the least competent, least impartial and most disruptive person ever to hold that office. Yet, given the ministerial performance of some from Tony Abbotts front line,...

Andrew Pridham. Adam Goodes and Rosa Parks.

Before last weekend's match between the Sydney Swans and the Adelaide Crows, the Chairman of the Sydney Swans, Andrew Pridham, gave a very challenging speech about Adam Goodes and racism in Australia. He said that recent events are a seminal moment in our history. He commented that Adam Goodes 'has shaken the nation's conscience'. He added 'Change only occurs when someone takes a stand. Rosa Parks, who in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to stand for a white person in the coloured section of a bus. She was arrested. She was later to become the face of the civil...

Mack Madahar. Nurse Practitioners: Challenges and Opportunities.

Nurse Practitioners were provided access to the MBS in November 2010. Besides limited access to pathology/radiology, nurse practitioners were provided with four time-tiered MBS item numbers for professional attendances. While most nurse practitioners have established themselves in public hospitals, primarily because of the relative financial certainty it provides, there are a handful of NPs trying to establish a niche in primary care. There is tremendous amount of debate in primary care about burgeoning Medicare costs and the ability to offer fully subsidised primary care. Whilst GPs are well placed in primary care, primary health care nurse practitioners have demonstrated...

Marcus Woolombi Waters. We all know and admire the Haka ... so why not one of our own?

The first I heard of the Adam Goodes Bumala-y Yuurrama-y (war dance) I was in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I had been watching my son play rugby. It was a carnival (under 12s) and they had just lost the grand final. After leading for the entire game, players and parents alike watched helplessly as the opposing team swept down the field from sideline to sideline, much like the legendary Mark Coyne try in State of Origin. Every tackle was made but players kept offloading the ball and passes were sticking until a boy went over the try line, taking the corner...

Tim Soutphommasane. Adam Goodes has made some people feel uncomfortable.

Racism comes in many forms: overt and covert, crude and subtle. The harms of racism also come in many forms. We know from a large body of research that racism can lead to stress, negative emotions, psychological damage, even physiological effects. We don't always focus, however, on racism's impact on our civic health. What I mean by this is the impact racism can have on the civility and cohesion of our society. Because when someone is subjected to racism, it can have the effect of undermining their standing as a fellow member of our community, and can have a...

Cathy Alexander. On climate change, the states may yet save the day.

Climate campaigner Al Gore has been in Australia again - but this time he didnt share a stage with a beaming Clive Palmer. He didnt go anywhere near Canberra. And he had good reason. Gore, the former US vice-president who travels the world spruiking action on climate change, wanted to meet with state governments and city councils instead. He has jumped on an emerging trend: a broadening of responsibility for addressing climate change. Under the United Nations system it is national governments that are supposed to make emissions pledges and enact policies. Some are doing so. But...

John Menadue. Our health system is sustainable.

To justify an increase in the GST, Premier Baird has joined the long list of conservatives who keep telling us that our health system is unsustainable. Earlier the Treasurer, Ministers for Health and the Commission of Audit warned us in one way or another that the Australian health service is unsustainable, particularly with an ageing population. The fact is that it is sustainable. . We need to keep modernising Medicare but by almost any international comparison we have one of the best and most sustainable health services in the world. We need to keep our problems in perspective....

David Holmes. Tony Abbott, Rupert Murdoch and coal.

As the latest State of the Climate report reaffirms 2014 to be the hottest on record, the NSW Liberal Party is pressing ahead with plans for a Carnival of Coal in August. The partys upper house whip, Peter Phelps, has appealed to members to download a sticker for MP office doors in support of the upcoming carbon love-in. It says: I loved carbon before it was coal. The Liberal paleo-love for coal, which Tony Abbott has declared good for humanity, is at least a point of differentiation with Labor. Labor does not promote such slogans at all even if,...

Shiro Armstrong. A risky Trans-Pacific Partnership deal.

The largest hurdle for the 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement the US presidents ability to get Trade Promotion Authority, or fast track has been cleared. Many people think that the TPP can be wrapped up in a few months. There are still difficult issues to resolve, but they are trivial compared to the ability to get a straight up-or-down vote in the US Congress, without which the deal would be a non-starter. The remaining issues can easily be horse-traded at the political level and compromises can be made in order to complete the deal. The temptation...

John Menadue. Militarisation, the new norm.

I was surprised recently on arriving at Sydney Airport to see the new Australian Border Force (ABF) decked out in their new military-style uniforms. The personnel looked like part of the Australian Defence Force instead of Customs and Immigration officers. There was clearly a new message being conveyed. But perhaps I should not have been so surprised as I had seen online only a few days earlier the launch of ABF in Canberra with the mandatory 10 Australian flags backing our Prime Minister, the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, the Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Border...

John Menadue. A graph on boat arrivals for lazy journalists.

I have reposted below an article I wrote on 8 December last year pointing out that Tony Abbott did not stop the boats. But the debate proceeds, assisted by journalists who still claim that Tony Abbott stopped the boats. He didn't. So that my argument can be better understood, see the graph below which reveals quite clearly that there was a dramatic fall in boat arrivals from July 2013 when Kevin Rudd announced the policy that future boat arrivals would not be settled in Australia. We may argue about the wisdom of this policy, but it effectively stopped the...

John Menadue. The real problem is partisanship, not expenses.

I have yet to hear anyone who supports the spending by Bronwyn Bishop of $5,000 in taxpayers money for a helicopter ride from Melbourne to Geelong for a Liberal Party fundraiser. It is surprising however that, as a member of parliament, she attracts so much attention for this relatively small misuse of public money, but little mention is made of large scale indulgences of companies that provide private travel, yachts, holidays and entertainment for senior executives at the expense of the taxpayer.. But the real issue at the moment is the damage that Bronwyn Bishop has been doing to...

Bob Kinnaird. More government dishonesty on China FTA

Now that Federal Labor Leader Bill Shorten has publicly stated his opposition to the China FTA labour mobility provisions, the Coalition is ramping up its attack on union and political critics of the deal. Trade Minister Robb lead the charge this week, with allegations of union falsehoods and a racist scare campaign over the China FTA that do not stack up (Don't give credence to union scare campaign, AFR, Letters, 21 July 2015). The main alleged union falsehood is that Chinese companies will be allowed to bring in their own workforces at the expense of Australian jobs. ...

Patty Fawkner. Mary Magdalene: friend, icon, model

We have yet to balance spirituality and sexuality in the Church especially in regard to women. Womens leadership and spiritual influence will be compromised until we do, writes Good Samaritan Sister Patty Fawkner. I thank my father for my friendship with Mary Magdalene. I was a young woman when, after a brief illness, my father died of cancer. It was the first time Id lost a loved one. I was devastated. My gnawing grief for my darling Dad made me interpret well-meaning words of sympathy as hollow pious platitudes. God seemed nowhere to be found. I felt...

Brian Johnstone. Pope Francis, Laudato Si and Cardinal Pell.

Cardinal George Pell has criticized Pope Francis ground-breaking environmental encyclical. As Pell told the Financial Times on Thursday, July 14, Its got many, many interesting elements. There are parts of it which are beautiful, he said. But the Church has no particular expertise in science the Church has got no mandate from the Lord to pronounce on scientific matters. We believe in the autonomy of science. In the encyclical Laudato Si Pope Francis engages his readers on three levels; the first is that of science, the second is that of faith and theology the third is that of...

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