Online misogyny is currently hitting the headlines, with prominent women columnists testifying to an unrelenting tide of sexually motivated aggression. It’s a narrative with which I have an enormous amount of sympathy, for as a female blogger I find that my comments box fills up with remarks of a sexually abusive nature with alarming alacrity. Read more
If there was one theme that permeated the National Catholic Conference for Youth and Young Adult Ministers (13-16 November) it was unity. It was expressed in the Gospel about sharing talents, in Bishop Peter Cullinane’s message that discipleship is possible only if we are united by Christ, and in keynotes addressing Christian unity and the Read more
The unusual and somewhat mysterious gestation process of Vatican documents came into the spotlight recently, thanks to a controversial white paper on economic justice. In essence, critics of the document – which called for a global authority to curb the excesses of financial markets – speculated that its authors had done an “end run” to Read more
It was five years ago this month that we launched On Faith. The idea was to inform and educate about all faiths (and no faith) and to initiate an on-going discussion about the role of religion, values and ethics in our daily lives. I hoped that after learning more, people would become more accepting of those Read more
I do not like labelling people as racist. I do not like the use of the word ‘racists’ at all. I am a Muslim and I attend a Catholic college. I have never been subject to any form of racism during my time in school although I have been subject to what I call a Read more
More than 100 New Zealand children who died last year would probably have survived had they lived in Japan, Sweden or the Czech Republic, a new documentary shows. In Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report, set to air this week, Wellington documentary maker Bryan Bruce shows a Swedish doctor footage of sick, scab-ridden schoolchildren suffering Read more
Because I’m Catholic, and therefore have some expertise in guilt, I’d like to start with a confession: I was under the impression that I was asked to speak tonight on poverty and inequality. Andrew Bradstock persuaded me that these issues fitted with the paper on alcohol and advertising, which I read while drinking a glass Read more
The Barna Group team spent much of the last five years exploring the lives of young people who drop out of church. The research provides many insights into the spiritual journeys of teens and young adults. The findings are revealed extensively in a new book called, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church…and Read more
The Sisters of St Francis are finally getting their due, in the pages of the New York Times, for demonstrating another way to occupy Wall St. Not long ago, an unusual visitor arrived at the sleek headquarters of Goldman Sachs in Lower Manhattan. It wasn’t some C.E.O., or a pol from Athens or Washington, or even a sign-waving occupier Read more
The Australian Senate chamber was almost empty yet the independent senator from South Australia knew his words would echo across the country, transforming the lives of two men and perhaps his own. As Xenophon rose to speak in Canberra, two nervous priests were watching him via the internet in Adelaide. Monsignor Ian Dempsey, a Catholic Read more