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. Tied down in a strategic frontline stalemate, Ukraine has faded from the headlines, especially after the October 2023 Hamas attack and Israel’s Gaza response. In a late-December 2023 Continue reading »
Religion and Faith
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 »
The invasion of Gaza, described by Pope Francis as ‘terrorism’, is causing strained relationships between Israel and the Vatican. One of the longest-term supporters of the Palestinians is the Holy See, the Vatican. Although the number of Christians in Palestine is small – 2.5% of the population of the West Bank (50,000), about 1,100 in Continue reading »
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. To really help antisemitism spread I’d do Continue reading »
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. The first was a letter from the bishops to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil asking the government to urgently bring Continue reading »
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. Chinese couplets (duilian 对联) are a pair of calligraphed sentences written in traditional Chinese that hang on the two sides of a Continue reading »
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 »
Consider an ant nest in far flung outer Siberia. The significance of that nest to people walking the streets of Sydney is virtually nil. Multiply that level of insignificance a trillion times, as in almost infinitesimally insignificant. That, we know today, is a true indicator of planet Earth’s place in the universe. If the ant Continue reading »
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 »
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.’ We continue to pray that Continue reading »