Two important things happened on the weekend of 6-7 June.  A court upheld the right to protest in large numbers in public, even in times of real or manufactured health scares.  This has implications for lockdown policies.  The second important thing to happen was that we can go to Church again.  For this, we should, all of us, bend the knee.

The Covid scare has taken even further the tendency for politicians, ideologues and interest groups of all stripes to politicise death.  Already seen during tragedies and natural disasters, political actors rush to embrace crises, and they now even sometimes make them up.  Death counts are now a part of daily political life, and the new currency of political debate.  This is an unseemly development.

The ruling class is real, and it dominates our culture.  It is also embedded in the modern, intrusive, all-powerful state.  The current COVID scare provides a perfect case study of the sources and consequences of our democratic dilemma.  The people have seemingly handed over their sovereignty to the State, without noticing what this surrender means.

The current time is a crazy time of postmodern politics, where previous certainties and categories are no longer relevant.  Trying to make sense of it all is an extreme challenge.  But there are ways of understanding the new politics, and of explaining how it all came about.  What hope there might be for a better future is less certain.

Many of us in lockdown, have been denied the comforts of the Sacraments for around two months.  This shameful abuse of power by the State has been at great cost to souls.  In both Australia and New Zealand, though, some true shepherds have emerged.

The recent public and legal focus on the George Pell case obscures many other, less publicly known cases of innocent Catholic priests being falsely accused of sex crimes.  One relates to Fr John Fleming.  His awful story needs to be told and the lessons from it learned.

We are asked to forgive our enemies, as core business of Christian life.  How do we best forgive, in a culture of non forgiveness?  Who and what should we forgive?

The COVID scare has hit us like a meteor, without warning and with great consequences for our freedoms and our rights.  Is what the State says right?  Is our way of life under threat?  And does the State even know what it is doing?

Pell Derangement Syndrome is alive and well, post the High Court's exoneration of the Cardinal.  The reactions of the Get Pellers, while entirely predictable, are a cause of considerable concern, not just to supporters of the Cardinal, but to all who value a civilised society and proportional responses to past heinous sexual crimes against the young.

There is something rotten in the State of New South Wales.  The State is run by paid lobbyists who control the Liberal Party.  And the interests and philosophies of these puppeteers are decidedly not those of mainstream folks who believe, naively, that they control the governments that they vote for.  The governments are puppets.

As debates rage over the origins and impacts of COVID 19 and whether draconian government policy response here and overseas have been appropriate and effective, now there is a proposed tracking app that the Government is introducing.  Bill Muehlenberg asks - What could go wrong with a Government App?

Accepting that the Victorian institutions involved in getting Pell need reforming, this two part essay explores the uncanny parallels between the Pell case here and similar cases in the UK, and draws lessons from these in charting a course towards reform.

Accepting that the Victorian institutions involved in getting Pell need reforming, this two part essay explores the uncanny parallels between the Pell case here and similar cases in the UK, and draws lessons from these in charting a course towards reform.

A Melbourne college run by Jesuits is fostering an environment which favours deviant sex but bullies Catholics who try to uphold traditional teaching on sexuality and marriage.

While many are delighted by the High Court's decision in the Pell case, unease and questions remain, especially about the operations of the justice system in Victoria.  One core question is - why weren't these questions asked by Australia's media?

George Pell's enemies, long determined to have him answer for the Australian Catholic Church's sex abuse sins, got their man - until the High Court's acquittal this week.  But were Pell's enemies only in Australia?  He made enemies in the Vatican as well, with his attempted reforms of the Vatican's finances.  Maybe Rome played a part in the Get Pell campaign too.

The state has now officially declared war on conservative Christians.

Condemnation of contraception was not limited to church leaders; in the early twentieth century, social commentators, and even presidents rejected the use of artificial contraception in the strongest words. For example, US President, Theodore Roosevelt, called contraception “the one sin for which the penalty is national death; a sin for which there is no atonement.”

Has the world finally, conclusively gone mad?  What on earth has happened to “perspective”?  Why have we the people allowed the Deep State to just get a whole lot deeper, and broader?  Now the State controls the elderly, churches, clubs, small businesses, large businesses, community groups.  In short, it totally controls us all. 

The Vatican’s 2004 Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum stated that “the faithful always have the right to receive Holy Communion on the tongue” (n.92) and that it was never licit to deny Holy Communion to anyone who has no impediment to receiving (n.91). This directive was reiterated in 2009, when the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued another clear statement on the reception of the Holy Eucharist.

Whatever the outcome of the upcoming High Court appeal by Cardinal Pell against his conviction on sex abuse charges, and despite the continuing social media tirades against the man and the undying hatred expressed by Pell haters against his small band of public defenders, there has been a recent, ever-so-subtle turn in elite opinion towards the possibility of an Alfred Dreyfus/Lindy Chamberlain scenario here.  That the man may have been wrongly convicted.  This is evidenced by some support for Pell’s innocence from unlikely quarters, and suggests hope against hope for justice.

So let’s save the planet by killing everyone.

When the dissing of a stalwart figure of good governance and sensible policy like the late Roger Scruton can lead to his reputation being shredded, and have that shredding rubber stamped by a “Conservative” Government and its standard bearing ministers committed to, above all else, “public relations”, we need to stop and think about what drives our modern governments. 

Melbourne’s prestigious Newman College is showing open support for LGBTI students, while actively discriminating against those who uphold the Church’s teaching on sexuality. Newman College is a residential campus for Catholic University of Melbourne students and was established more than a hundred years ago.

Donald Trump famously opined in the lead up to his memorable victory in 2016 that America had been led by “stupid people”. It seemed to resonate, because true. I wonder what Trump would make of today’s political, corporate and community leadership in Australia.