Religion and Faith
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‘The credibility of the Gospel is at stake’: Pax Christi calls on faith leaders to speak out on behalf of Gaza
Faith leaders should stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people and should call on the Australian government to condemn all violence that threatens a just future for the people of Palestine, Israel and the Middle East. Continue reading »
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Thinking about peacebuilding in Australia on St Patrick’s Day
You would think that the suffering we are now seeing, including on and after October 7, would also compel international leaders to negotiate a peaceful future. There is no future in hate. Continue reading »
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What is Zionism?
One only needs head into the city on a Sunday in order to hear it: loud and vociferous condemnation of Israel and – together with it – the evils of Zionism as a political philosophy. But what is Zionism? I would imagine that many of those who so loudly condemn it would be hard placed Continue reading »
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Israel and Judaism part company
Every religion is rooted in core beliefs or dogmas but is judged or weighed by the character it espouses and the values with which it identifies. Belief is verified or condemned by the way life is lived. Christianity is known to espouse “love your neighbour as yourself” or, “do to others as you would have Continue reading »
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Amidst strategic stalemate, Ukraine war remains Vatican priority
Two years since the Russian invasion, Ukraine has faded from the headlines. But not in the Vatican and for the man who might be the next Pope. Continue reading »
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Here, while others are not: A meditation on peacebuilding
When our father was one of those Australian soldiers fleeing the advancing Nazi army in Greece, an aircraft suddenly appeared. He jumped into a ditch on one side of the road. Others of his mates jumped into a ditch on the other side of the road. The guns in the plane killed all those on Continue reading »
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Vatican – Israel rupture over Gaza
The invasion of Gaza, described by Pope Francis as ‘terrorism’, is causing strained relationships between Israel and the Vatican. Continue reading »
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The perfect recipe for a real antisemitism crisis
If I wanted to increase antisemitism, I imagine I’d do a lot of really evil stuff under a Star of David flag while adamantly insisting that my actions are inseparable from the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. I’d kill children by the thousands and commit genocidal atrocities. Continue reading »
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Pope Francis would find PNG refugee conditions an eye-opener
In December, an impressive young Papua New Guinean named Jason Siwat, the director of the refugee program for the Catholic Bishops Conference of PNG and the Solomon Islands, travelled to Canberra bearing two important documents. Continue reading »
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The materialisation of Chinese Christianity
As the Lunar New Year approaches, many Chinese families clean the front door of their home and hang poetry around it. This is a rich and age-old Chinese tradition, both cultural and religious. Continue reading »
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Why is Christian persecution often met with indifference?
It has never been more dangerous to be a Christian than today. According to the newly released 2024 World Watch List – an authoritative survey by Open Doors, an organisation that supports persecuted Christians – 365 million Christians, or one in seven, are at high or extreme risk of persecution every day because of their Continue reading »
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Ant nest theology
Consider an ant nest in far flung outer Siberia. Continue reading »
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The agony of Michael Gawenda
Michael Gawenda, former editor of The Age and Walkley award-winning journalist, published his memoir ‘My Life as a Jew’ last year. Actually, it’s only part memoir, since much of it is reserved for polemics against Jews and Gentiles who are critical of Israel. The rest traces his life journey from an anti-Zionist Bundist youth to Continue reading »
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Division, terrible suffering, and learnings about peacebuilding
Amplified by the terrible sufferings in many places, and by the divided voices, especially as regards Israel/Gaza, we have some learnings about peacebuilding that it might be timely to reflect on. ‘Cease-fire,’ of course, is just a less vivid way of saying ‘we will stop killing people we don’t know.’ Continue reading »
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Efforts to suppress Palestinian history defeated
From the first days in their Jewish day schools and youth organisations, young Jews are drilled with the lie that Palestine was ‘a land without people for a people without a land’. From its inception, the Zionist movement has sought to suppress Palestinian history and narratives. Whenever there are exhibitions or events or publications featuring Continue reading »
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The need for theological reform
In the mid-1980s when I was at Boston College, a Jesuit university, one of the lecturers commented that the Catholic Church hierarchy was fearful of a schism in the church. Too late, he remarked, it is already here, informally. He pointed out that the majority of students at that Catholic university no longer believed the Continue reading »
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Blue Christmas
A Meditation for Those who are Grieving Loss during this Christmas Season, 2023 Continue reading »
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Suffer the little children to come unto me…
Well, not so if they are Palestinian children that Israelis keep killing time and time again. It is part of what Israelis calls ‘mowing the grass’. Continue reading »
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Losing my religion
Theology has long been used to justify war. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s happening again in the Middle East. Continue reading »
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The relational consequences of October 7
Overhead, suddenly, there was a noisy helicopter. I didn’t look up. Then I noticed that I hadn’t looked up. If I was in a place of terror from the sky, I would have looked up. Continue reading »
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The day after: Destroying Gaza will only yield future war
At the core of the cycle of violence in Israel and Palestine is “the studied blindness of two people to see the other, to accept that they have a legitimate place on the landscape”. Without such acceptance, this horrific war in Gaza will not be the last. Continue reading »
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Enemy twins: Israel and Hamas unite to massacre innocents
Hamas’s refusal to recognise Israel as a state is as absurd as Israel’s belief that the current massacre of Palestinians will destroy Hamas. If all this were mere stupidity it would be bad enough, but the consequent violence against innocent people is extreme and it is accelerating. Continue reading »
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Culture and Religion, Defence and Security, International relations, Israel / Palestine, Politics, Religion and Faith
Israel does not have the right to ‘defend itself’
Over the last few weeks we have been bombarded with a number of assertions,advanced firstly as mere mantra, but then appearing as axioms, or self-evident truths.Israel has a right to defend itself; and Israel has a right to exist. I wish to question whether these two statements are as axiomatic as our Prime Minister and Continue reading »
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Massacre of the Innocents
The UN is calling the Israel-Hamas war a ‘graveyard of children’…. an adult conflict, in which the young are suffering most. What we see on our TV screens every night is impossible to watch. Did Netanyahu see the young lad who had just carried the decapitated body of his friend from the rubble. If so, Continue reading »
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Hoping against hope: The Synodal process and prospects for equality for women in the church
The most pressing challenge for the Catholic Church remains addressing women’s inequality in its ranks. The current Synod on Synodality offers some hope, but there are huge roadblocks. The likelihood of equality for women in the Church requires a leap of faith, extremely long-term thinking, and hoping against hope. I cannot see it happening in Continue reading »
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Israel has “Form” and much of it is brutal
Albert Einstein once said that Palestinians (Jews, Christians and Muslims alike) lived in peace and worked together before the European Jews were sent to Palestine. He also said that if Jews could not co-exist peacefully with Arabs “then we have learnt nothing in 2000 years of civilisation”. Continue reading »
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Blindly supporting Israel, the West abandons the values it claims to stand for
Leaders of the US, Britain, Australia and Western countries, instead of learning from history, are failing to bear their responsibility for the creation of an Israeli colonial regime in Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people. Despite the massacres, ethnic cleansing, aggression, wars, occupation and gross violations of international law committed by Israel since Continue reading »
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Genocide: Israel uses cover of Gaza crisis to Judaise “Area C”
An aside to what is happening in Gaza is events occurring in the West Bank, where there has been little focus. Reports in recent days have drawn attention to attempts by settlers – read the Israeli government – to “Judaise” Area C and to push Bedouins out of the West Bank. Continue reading »
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Culture and Religion, International relations, Israel / Palestine, Politics, Religion and Faith, World
Israel will never be safe until Palestine is free
No attempt to “explain”, rationalise, find some counter-“equivalence” for, nor any attempt to see matters through the eyes and the experiences of the murderers rather than the immediate victims can justify or forgive the barbaric massacre of Israeli children, women and men by Hamas warriors after they broke out of Gaza. It does not forgive Continue reading »
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Gaza genocide exposes fundamental bias in the state-corporate news media
On BBC Newsnight, host Kirsty Wark listened to Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission to the UK, describe how six of his family members had been killed by Israeli air strikes. Wark reacted oddly: ‘I’m sorry for your own personal loss. I mean, can I just be clear, though, you cannot condone the killing Continue reading »