The Australian Greens are inviting supporters to their National Campaign launch at 12 Noon, this Sunday 1 August 2010. It's in Canberra, as befit the national capital, at the National Convention Centre, Menzies Theatrette, Constitution Avenue.
The Greens are going all out for a victory for Lin Hatfield-Dodds in the ACT, which would immediately change the balance of power in the Senate.
Sadly, the timing of the launch does not seem to contemplate that many Greens supporters are churchgoers. I'll record the speech.
Meanwhile, while noting that it does not endorse any political party, the Australian Conservation Foundation has released this 2010 Election scorecard.
On 10 July, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft flew by much-cratered asteroid 21 Lutetia at a closest distance of 3,162 km, returning superb pictures. Luteria is quite large — 130 km in length and may be 4.5 billion years old. Rosetta raced past the asteroid at 15 km/s completing the flyby in just a minute. Lutetia has been a mystery; it has characteristics of the 'C-type' asteroid, a primitive bodies from the formation of the Solar System, and of the 'M-type', associated with iron meteorites thought to be fragments of the cores of much larger objects.
The flyby marks the attainment of one of Rosetta's main scientific objectives. The spacecraft will now continue to a 2014 rendezvous with its primary target, comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. It will then accompany the comet for months, from near the orbit of Jupiter down to its closest approach to the Sun. In November 2014, Rosetta will release Philae to land on the comet nucleus.
The pictures of 21 Lutetia reminded me at once of the "McHoo asteroid" which I saw as a boy in Eagle magazine. [Dan Dare pilot of the future : Safari in space. Eagle vol. 10 no. 7, 14 February 1959.]
Last night was the television broadcast of the final of the 2010 RAW Comedy Grand Final, held in Melbourne in April.
The first of the 13 contestants was Luke Heggie. He simply stood at the microphone with his hands in his pockets and reeled out one liners, with that one essential requirement for a comedy show — he was funny. The funniest in fact; he won the competition. I agree with the judges who said that Luke was a much deserving winner, with many jokes in his five minute spot. I and they liked his laid back style. Mr Heggie won a trip to compete in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
One of two special mentions went to Ronny Chieng who was funny most of the time.
Other than that, it was pretty much down hill all the way. Problem was, most of the other contestants weren't very funny at all, and most were boringly rude or crude (sigh). I didn't laugh. And these were the best of hundreds of entrants?
David Humphries explains the excruciating boredom of this election campaign, the "Battle of the bland" with some quotes (SMH 24 Jul 10):
Australian National University politics professor John Warhurst who say that both Abbott and Gillard, "Both run the risk of not allowing their instincts to see the light of day." "Each is much more flamboyant and interesting than they are allowed to show. A lot of Labor people don't know what Julia Gillard is about."
Mungo MacCallum: "They haven't got the guts to say anything, they're running so scared."
Campaigns, says MacCallum, are in the hands of the "usual suspects — economists, psephologists, astrologists, personal trainers, homeopaths, absurd reliance on focus groups". These "cut the balls off every known process of politics", says MacCallum, and "you end up with policies intended to offend nobody and therefore do nothing".
Andrew Hughes, a ANU specialist in political marketing says the Prime Minister is keeping the campaign as lacklustre as she can because "she's in the box seat and wants as smooth a race as possible". "Julia Gillard doesn't want you to think about it too much because that might get voters thinking more about 'brand Abbott', and you don't want consumers too interested in rival brands."
"Certainly Gillard doesn't want voters thinking too deeply about some of her assurances," Humphries concludes. Above all the goal is "don't offend, even if being all things to all people risks being nothing to anyone. "
Dealing with hecklers once was part of an astute leader's skills. A woman heckler at working-class Williamstown, in Melbourne in 1954, told Bob Menzies she wouldn't vote for him if he was the archangel Gabriel. "If I were the archangel Gabriel, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my constituency," Menzies shot back. He was the last PM in office when public meetings and radio broadcasts were the chief means of communication with the electorate.
Gough Whitlam was at Blacktown when another woman heckler interrupted his discussion of a plan to sewer western Sydney by demanding incessantly where he stood on abortion. "In your case, I'd make it retrospective," Whitlam told her. Imagine the furore that would be unleashed by such prime ministerial utterances today.
Sad that we’ve become so wimpy. No one can make even the slightest mistake. No one can change their mind. Politics is pickled and preserved in blandness. The 24-hour cycle makes risk-taking impossible.
Sixty years ago, Menzies and Ben Chifley did battle over control of the national means of production, over left versus right tensions tearing the world apart. The picture was big. Finding room for differentiation was easy.
We'd be better off with Beazley or Costello, thinks Greg Sheridan in in The Australian (22 Jul 10):
So far this has been a very low-quality election contest. It represents a serious regression in Australian politics, with less genuine policy discussion or commitment than ever before. Neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott has offered more than a thought bubble on national security or foreign affairs. . . . Both Gillard and Abbott are deficient in similar ways as national leaders. Both are running as opposition leaders against the Rudd government, a bizarre position for Gillard, who now seems exempt from all responsibility for the fiascos of the past three years . . . [W]e have two competing national leaders who are just about untutored in the key aspects of modern government. And it shows.
In many contexts Abbott is brave as a lion, but he seems to have a reluctance to do the boring nuts-and-bolts policy work of politics, and in this campaign he is running against his own beliefs and his party's values. Courage in politics mostly means policy courage. Neither Gillard nor Abbott is demonstrating courage, knowledge or competence in the critical areas of national policy. We deserve a better politics than this.
So it's tweedle dum and tweedle dee.
Except for Bob Brown and the Greens, that is. Which is why he's not invited to tonight's debate. He's not bland enough. Too risky. He might win.
Permit me to agree with the Greens' spokesperson Christine Milne (Friday 23rd July 2010).
Prime Minister Gillard's climate change policy announced today is an excuse for more delay on the climate crisis, the Australian Greens said today.
"Prime Minister Gillard is showing a complete lack of leadership on the climate crisis," Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said. "The Greens stand ready to work with a re-elected Gillard government to deliver a carbon price fast, and the community is clamouring for action, but the Prime Minister is making excuses for more delays instead of embracing the opportunity. Ms Gillard's announcement today does nothing to give certainty to business. Meanwhile, China is moving fast towards a carbon price and India already has a tax on coal, leaving Australia far behind.
What we have heard from the Prime Minister is recycled rhetoric from the past four years, a repeat of Labor's old failed climate approach, not any commitment to real action. Ms Gillard's talkfest is nothing more or less than trying to re-educate the community about the fatally flawed emissions trading scheme. We already have 150 people being elected right now to debate and make decisions on climate change — it's called Parliament, Prime Minister.
Leadership on climate would have seen the Prime Minister saying 'no more coal'. Instead, her promise on emissions standards for coal fired power stations is meaningless. There are 12 coal fired power stations on the books for Australia right now and Prime Minister Gillard's promise will not apply to these. The UK recently dropped its commitment to making new coal fired power stations 'carbon capture ready', acknowledging that it was meaningless. Instead they have committed to building no more coal fired power stations unless and until carbon capture is proven and adopted.
Whilst the Greens welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of $1billion for the renewable energy grid, this is a drop in the ocean over 10 years. Compares it to the $2.5 billion already allocated to carbon capture and storage and it is patently nowhere near what is needed to drive a renewable energy revolution.
For all of this year, the government has argued that it will not move on a carbon price because it does not have the Senate numbers to do so. Prime Minister Gillard is now saying that she will not support the Greens' proposal for a carbon levy even the Greens and Labor have the numbers to deliver one in the new Senate because we have to wait for her talkfest to finish.
The community will not accept that excuse.
It appeasr I'm not alone in agreeing that the PM is doing little or nothing. The Ageeditorial today:
PM evades on climate change
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard hasn't reinvented the wheel. But she's gone as close to that exercise in fatuity as she possibly can, by announcing a "citizens' assembly" made up of "real Australians" to consider proposals for a carbon-emissions trading scheme and other responses to climate change. There already is a representative assembly whose job it is to deliberate on changes in the law. It's called Parliament. And, unlike the assembly Ms Gillard has in mind, it is democratically elected. So why does the Prime Minister want to take from the people's chosen representatives the role of debating and scrutinising measures aimed at dealing with the most serious issue confronting the planet?
Ever since Ms Gillard assumed the Labor leadership, and with it the prime ministership, she has talked evasively on climate policy. In her first news conference, she acknowledged the urgency of the need to reduce carbon emissions, and pledged that she would "reprosecute" the case for setting a carbon price. But this could not be achieved, she said, without first building a national consensus on the issue. As The Age has noted before, however, this approach is as likely to produce more of the present paralysis on climate policy as it is to result in real change. The only matters on which consensus is ever likely to be achieved are those that are uncontentious, which is why democratic politics is not about consensus. It is about building majorities, and if the Prime Minister is as committed to reprosecuting the case for pricing carbon as she purports to be, she should be making that case now, in the election campaign. Instead, however, she has effectively chosen to defer the matter again — and treated this country's elected institutions with contempt in doing so.
Ms Gillard is obviously sensitive to this sort of criticism, because in announcing the new citizens' assembly she said: "It is vital to be clear what I mean by that community consensus — I do not mean that government can take no action until every member of the community is fully convinced." Yes, Prime Minister. But why then speak of consensus? And why, instead of campaigning forthrightly on the need for an emissions trading system, tell voters that anything that might involve unpalatable changes in their way of life will be vetted by what amounts to a glorified focus group?
Details of the citizens' assembly proposal are sketchy, but the Prime Minister has said that assembly members would be representative of the broader population in age ranges and geographic origin, and chosen by an independent authority. She has not said what that authority would be, or how it would make its choices. Nor has she explained who will be on the expert commission that will explain the science of climate change, or how that will be chosen. Worst of all, in her public utterances she is content to appear blithely indifferent to the redundancy of all this new apparatus. The government already has available to it the advice of the CSIRO, and other scientists working in universities and research institutes. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are well known, and mischievous attempts to undermine the credibility of those findings, such as the so-called University of East Anglia emails affair, have persuaded only those already disposed to see human-induced climate change as a myth. The great majority of the world's climate scientists think otherwise, and the evidence of successive opinion polls is that most Australian voters do, too. Ms Gillard does not have to build a majority for effective action on climate change. It already exists. She does, however, need to summon up the resolve to take that action.
[. . .] The Prime Minister knows the case for emissions trading. She should be taking a plan of action, not procrastination, to this election.
If today's report on ABC news, also written up in the SMH (22 Jul 10) is correct, the opposition has good grounds for criticism of former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's shambolic management of his government. It's reported that Mr Rudd sometimes had his 31-year-old chief of staff deputise for him at meetings of the national security committee (NSC) of Cabinet and at Cabinet's four-member strategic budget and priorities committee (SPBC), but Mr Rudd has denied that the reports are correct.
The Rudd Government centralised many key decisions for endorsement by SPBC and subsequent rubber-stamping by the full Cabinet. Given that Mr Rudd pulled so much of the key-power into the 'gang of four' it's astonishing that he convened it when unable to attend except by proxy.
The ABC quoted unnamed Commonwealth officials and Cabinet sources as saying they had been shocked at Mr Rudd's attitude to the NSC, the key Cabinet body which makes decisions on defence and national security, often attended by the are often attended by the Chief of the Defence Force and the heads of intelligence agencies. ABC 24's political editor, Chris Uhlmann, said Commonwealth officials had told the ABC that the way the national security committee had been treated by Mr Rudd was emblematic of the chaotic nature of his government and that its work had been compromised by Mr Rudd's attitude.
Peter Hartcher of the SMHhas it right in his comments this morning (19 Jul 10) about Labor and Liberal election offerings. This election campaign is going to be dull, dull, dull.
"Neither leader" he says " is attempting to offer a vision, or an ambitious reform program, and each promises no net new spending of public money." Some quotes:
Both Gillard and Abbott have constructed their campaigns by a focus group audit of the Rudd government, stripping away anything that might be unpopular, difficult or complex.
It's the politics of the lowest common denominator.
It's the sort of leadership that the 19th-century French democrat Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin described: "There go the people - I must follow them, for I am their leader."
So instead of an expansive election about how to solve the problems facing Australia, it will be a reductionist campaign about the negatives of the other, full of the vehemence of small differences.
. . . [Gillard] will lead the nation by keeping the Rudd program, minus the most controversial bits.
. . .[Abbott] is forging ahead with his protest vote strategy.
. . . It’s the political dynamic of the double negative — I’m promising to do less than Kevin Rudd, says Gillard, and I’m promising to do less than Julia Gillard, says Abbott.
[T]here is no transformative reform, and no ambitious national agenda. A modest set of offerings for a time of modest ambition.
Yes, Mr Rudd failed by personally trying to do to much, sometimes all at once , sometimes in fits and starts. But the answer is not to do nothing, but to plan for the long term, to choose priorities judiciously and to delegate wisely — things Mr Rudd singularly failed to do.
Following a visit from Prime Minister Gillard (The words 'trip to Yarralumla' are symbolic in Australian politics!) the Governor-General has agreed to dissolve the House of Representatives. It is quite some months before the Parliament was due to expire. The latest possible date for a House of Representatives election is Saturday, 16 April 2011.
Once the election timetable kicks in, there's a 'caretaker' period, when the government may not ask the Public Service for advice for use in the elections. One advantage to the government in delaying elections is continuing access to the Public Service departments for advice and information. In the run up to the previous election, we in the Public Service were being asked by the then government for all manner of policy briefings and preparations, with in-confidence new ideas, nick-named 'Secret Squirrels'.
This time around there has been little opportunity for that. We wait to see what the Government may announce by way of new policy, but much of what it wants to do is already announced and being implemented.
The ALP's election slogan is "Together, let's move Australia forward". And the Greens TV ad is about (you guessed it) "moving forward". Meanwhile, the Liberals are content to "Stand up for Australia." and the Nationals are "for a regional Australia".
Let the world please take note. The Hon Kevin Rudd MP does not speak for Australia. Whatever conversations he has with the UN Secretary General or anyone else are in a private capacity.
Meanwhile Mr Lauries Oakes's huff-and-puff questioning about Mr Rudd's conversations with his successor as Prime Minister, widely featured in today's news is of no consequence whatsoever. At the press club yesterday Oakes asked the Prime Minister whether she had reneged on a deal made with Mr Rudd the night before he lost office. "Can I ask you is it true that Mr Rudd told you that night that he was working towards an October election," Mr Oakes asked. "Is it true that Mr Rudd indicated to you that if closer to the election polling showed that he as an impediment to the re-election of the government and that if that leading Labor figures ... agreed he would voluntarily stand aside." Oakes then asked Gillard whether she had described Rudd's offer for a deal as "sensible and responsible," only to later to decline the deal.
Whether or not what Mr Oakes suggests is correct, there's no hanging offence in any of it. Quite to the contrary. Ms Gillard acted in accordance with the will of the majority of her parliamentary party. What is Mr Oakes on about?
If Mr Rudd or his representatives were Mr Oakes's source as Labor sources suggest, it would signal that the former PM is now very much a dangerous loose cannon and best abandoned overboard. But Mr Rudd has denied feeding political reporting Oakes any information about his meeting with Gillard. "Like the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd has not made nor will he make any comment on private discussions," his spokesman is reported to have said.
Ms Gillard was elected unopposed by the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party to be its leader and consequently appointed by the Governor-General to be Prime Minister of Australia. That's how it works.
There's an actor who hopes to fit the bill
Sees a shining city on a hill
Step up close and see he's blind
Wined and dined
All he has is pose
And that's the way it goes — George Harrison.
If Mr Rudd does not want this for his heritage, he and his friends will do well to be silent.
The Australian Greens, whom I support, are looking for donations to get this advertisment shown on TV. I'm not sure whether it works or merely puzzles.
Ross Gittins is not my favourite commentator, but he makes a good point this morning (SMH 14 Jul 10).
Excuse me, but what's the tearing hurry? We've had a new Prime Minister for five minutes, but we're being rushed off to an election before we can get her measure. Why? Is there a fear, if the election were delayed until October, the gloss would have worn off and we'd see Julia Gillard in a less hopeful and flattering light? Is the new leader's fleeting honeymoon all that stands between Labor and electoral defeat? Is Labor's record in government that bad? Is Tony Abbott such a formidable opponent?
I'm not impressed by what we've seen of the Gillard government so far. We've seen the triumph of political expediency over good government. From her first day she's left little doubt three running political sores — the mining tax, resentment of boat people and the vacuum left by Labor's abandonment of its emissions trading scheme — needed to be staunched quick smart if the government's re-election were to be secured.
But what hasty, amateurish patch-up jobs we've seen. Wayne Swan has fudged up figures purporting to show the revenue cost of the deal done with the three biggest mining companies was minor, whereas sharemarket analysts are saying the extra tax to be paid by the companies will be minor. Then we had the fearful muddle over the Timor solution the Timorese hadn't agreed to, and now we're getting the climate change policy you have when you don't have a climate change policy.
The trouble with all this is it's terribly reminiscent of Kevin Rudd.
Just so.
Gittins asks, "So what are Gillard's priorities?" I rather hope that it will no longer be the Prime Minister’s priorities, but the government's priorities that we are asked to assess when we vote. And we know enough of those to make our choice. Its not Gillard that I'll be voting for our against, it will be the Australian Labor Party.
The Rt Revd Dr Brian Castle, Bishop of Tonbridge, reminds that Anglicans continue to be victims of Zimbabwe's forgotten persecution.
As I left the Anglican church in a suburb of Harare, my Zimbabwean host said: "Don't forget us." Yet the persecution of Anglicans in the diocese of Harare, which is spreading, is being seen and remembered by few Christian communities across the world. My hosts do not worship in the fine building that was built by the Anglicans themselves—some told me that they even made the bricks with their own hands, freely and willingly giving their labour as a gift to God—but in a colourful marquee in a supporter's garden.
The marquee is so packed that some have to worship outside; the joy, energy and silences in the worship are indicators of the depth of commitment to God and each other. But not far beneath the surface is the pain of being exiles, forced from the spiritual home, built to the glory of God, that is rightly theirs.
Like all the congregations in the city and surrounding areas, they have been forced out of their place of worship by the police on the orders of Nolbert Kunonga, former bishop of Harare and avid supporter of Robert Mugabe. Kunonga was elected bishop in 2001, but his increasingly pro-Zanu-PF political stance alienated many Anglicans and he withdrew himself from the church in 2007, taking the church's assets with him, including cars, clergy houses and access to churches.
There have been long and costly legal wrangles, but the courts are reluctant to rule that these assets, illegally held by Kunonga, do not belong to him.
[Zim Dailyreported on 5 May 2010 that Zimbabwe's partisan Supreme Court had declared ZANU-PF apologist Bishop Nolbert Kunonga and his board of trustees legitimate and granted them control of all properties belonging to the Anglican Diocese of Harare.]
Some court rulings, such as a decision that churches be used at different times by different groups, are flagrantly ignored by the former bishop, who has the power to summon police to support his cause.
A small number of priests followed Kunonga and have remained in their vicarages mustering only a handful of people into church on Sundays. Kunonga has described Mugabe as a prophet and, like Mugabe, wanted to cut off links with the west and change the Anglican church into a mouthpiece for Zanu-PF. He failed in this and was told by the Church of the Province of Central Africa that he was no longer a bishop, and has since taken every opportunity to identify the Anglican church with the Movement for Democratic Change. This has attracted the ire of Mugabe's Zanu-PF.
In Harare, arrest, threats and beatings can be the rewards of Christian commitment. Congregations meet in a variety of locations. As well as in tents, worship may take place under trees, in street squares and in supporters' gardens. But nowhere is safe. One priest told me how his congregation of 1,000 was given permission by the authorities to meet close to the church building but, when they did so, 21 canisters of tear gas were fired into the gathering as they were worshiping, a group of women were detained for four days and he himself was arrested.
At the recent Bernard Mizeki festival, an annual gathering in honour of Zimbabwe's first martyr, a heavily armed police force prevented the pilgrims from gaining access to the shrine, despite public assurances of safe passage from a government minister. The festival took place in a nearby showground, where the largest gathering in recent memory was witness to the fact that persecution and harassment strengthen the Christian faith.
The Anglican church's persecution at the hand of the Zimbabwean government points to disarray within as well as the inexplicable influence of a disillusioned former cleric. What is also inexplicable is the way in which the plight of Zimbabwe's courageous Anglicans has been ignored by so many. "Don't forget us," said my Zimbabwean host.
The Society of Archbishop Justus, which operates the domain anglican.org and provides internet services to Anglicans worldwide, has published online Peratoran Sembahyang, the 1969 translation into Malay (now Bahasa Malaysia and very similar to Indonesian) of the principal services of the Book of Common Prayer. The translation was published for the Diocese of Sabah shortly after its creation.
I always find it pleasing to remember my own time in Sabah, now decades ago!
Ya Tuhan, maha berkuasa, semua hati manusia terbuka di-hadapan Tuhan; semua kehendak-nya diketahui oleh Tuhan; satu apa pun tiada tersembunyi daripada Tuhan: Suchikan-lah pikiran hati kami supaya kami dengan semporna mengasehi Tuhan, dan membesarkan Nama-mu yang kudus dengan sa-patutnya: oleh Isa Almaseh, Tuhan kami. Amin.
Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
CAMRA Inc. presents the Wilhelm Quartet from the Royal Academy of Music, London
Marciana Buta (violin), Margaret Dziekonski (violin), Glen Donnelly (viola), Hetty Snell (cello), with Colin Forbes (piano).
Beethoven - String Quartet in F minor Op. 95 'Serioso'
Schumann - String Quartet in A major Op. 41 no. 3
Brahms - Piano Quintet in F minor
Saturday 31 July 7.30pm
Pre-concert talk by members of the Wilhelm Quartet: 7.10pm
at St Philip's Church, cnr Moorhouse & Macpherson Sts, O'Connor.
$35 / $30
As part of an IHT special on net worth (18 May 10), which I read while on holiday in Thailand, Anne Bagamery recommended five check points on "How to Retire Comfortably"
Choose your venue wisely. Where you are living when you retire need not be where you end up, but moving gets harder as time goes on. If you move to reduce costs, factor all of them in: Low property prices may not make up for high health-care costs, rising property taxes or travel expenses to see family.
Know your benefits. Many pre-retirees have an outdated idea of how much they’ll have in pension income and how much health care will cost. But laws and policies change, generally not to the benefit of retirees. Sit down at least a year in advance with a benefits expert and get the correct, up-to-date information.
Have a cushion handy. The best insurance against rising costs is to have liquid assets set aside to throw off income or draw down in an emergency. Salt away as much as you can in the years leading up to retirement. Do not count on being able to sell illiquid assets, like real estate, in an emergency, as the market may be against you just when you need it most.
Lowball your budget. Living below your means is the best way to ensure that you do not outlive your money. Even if your pension is lower than your final salary, aim to keep monthly expenses at least 25 percent below your monthly fixed income, at least at first. Bank the rest to add to your cushion (see above).
Stay out of debt. Paying interest, otherwise known as rent on money, is a bad idea when you are earning a salary. On a fixed income, it is positively foolish. Before you retire, pay off credit cards and other consumer debt. Once retired, don't take on any more unless you can pay it off easily each month.
No.s 2, 3, 4 and 5 — Check.
No. 1 — Hmmm. Where is the best place for us to be in retirement? Right where we are seems OK for now.
While traveling to Portugal on 13 May 2010, Pope Benedict XVI insisted insisted that
. . . attacks against the pope or the church do not only come from outside; rather the sufferings of the church come from within, from the sins that exist in the church. This too has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way: the greatest persecution of the church does not come from enemies on the outside, but is born from the sin within the church, the church therefore has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the need for justice. Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice. In one word we have to relearn these essentials: conversion, prayer, penance, and the theological virtues.
This followed the Pope's meeting with the victims of sexual abuse in Malta, during which he pledged to bring those responsible for the abuse to justice. He has since accepted the resignations of some senior European clerics and release the findings of a report into another, now dead, who had long been immune from criticism. As Scott Stephens, the ABC's Online Religion and Ethics Editor wrote,
These measures, though culpably slow and dreadfully inadequate, are sufficient proof of Benedict's moral superiority to his much-loved predecessor, and of the rightness of the claim that he has done more than anyone else in the Vatican to deal with perpetrators of sexual abuse and those that protected them.
But during [the 13 May] press conference, Benedict demonstrated something else. He demonstrated just how important symbolic — or rather, liturgical — gestures are going to be in effecting the healing and purification the Catholic Church so desperately needs.
Again addressing the sexual abuse crisis on 11 June, Benedict XVI begged forgiveness, saying that his church would do "everything possible" to prevent priests from abusing children. "We, too, insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again," Benedict told thousands of priests and the faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square on 11 June 2010 for celebrations marking the end of the Vatican's Year of the Priest.
Forgiveness is God's generous gift to us all, a gift we should readily give to each other, a gift that Benedict must assuredly receive. But now is the time for him to act, with "deeds consistent with repentance" (Acts 26.20), to "bear fruit worthy of repentance" (Matthew 3.8). Permit me to agree with the editorial opinion of the New York Times (8 Jul 10).
The Pope's Duty
When rolling scandal forced the American Catholic bishops conference to take action against pedophile priests, the prelates issued a tough policy requiring accused child molesters be reported immediately to secular authorities. This mandate finally acknowledged that crimes against children should take priority over bureaucratic church policies that served to cloak rogue priests and bishops in a fog of ecclesiastical evasion.
Eight years after the American church's overdue order, it is shocking that Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican have not yet applied it to the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandal has erupted in other nations, leaving parents concerned about a repetition of the harrowing experience in America, where more than 700 priests had to be dismissed across a three-year period. Yet the Vatican is reportedly working on new "guidelines" — not mandates. They are likely to fall short of zero-tolerance and other requirements in the American church that parishes and communities be alerted to abusers.
It is becoming clear that, as a Vatican administrator for two decades, the future pope handled the pedophilia scandal with no great distinction. Church policy under his aegis was too often a study in confusion and frustration for diocesan authorities looking for firm guidance from Rome, according to an investigative report by Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger in The Times. Alarmed bishops in English-speaking nations put unusual pressure on the Vatican to have a secret meeting in 2000 to consider stronger countermeasures.
Unfortunately, a dynamic policy has yet to emerge. As new reports arise of pedophile abuses and diocesan cover-ups in Europe, Chile and Brazil, Benedict has had to face the scandal and its victims more directly. He has put aside defensive Vatican complaints about anti-Catholic persecution and admitted the problem is "born from the sin in the church."
In this spirit, Benedict has the obligation to shepherd not just guidelines but credible mandates that all priest-abusers and bishops who abetted their crimes face disclosure and punishment.
More (16 July 2010). The Vatican has shot itself in the foot so many times on this issue, it's legless.
Tone-Deaf in Rome
There was not much to like in the Vatican's news conference this week about its pedophilia scandal, but among all the defensive posturing and inept statements, there was one real stunner: The citing of the movement for the ordination of women as a "grave crime" that Rome deems as offensive as the scandal of priests who sexually assault children.
Calls for ending the ban on women priests are only a blip on the ecclesiastical radar screen. Yet Vatican officials gratuitously raised them at the news conference, while they offered limited antidotes to the crimes of sexual abuse and the long history of bishops dithering and covering up these crimes.
They doubled the internal statute of limitations to 20 years for defrocking abusers. Yet they failed to emphasize the problem as a state crime as the American bishops did after being forced to dismiss more than 700 priests. "It's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law," one prelate airily declared, insisting Rome's existing "guidelines" — not mandates — are sufficient for prelates to obey civil laws.
American bishops finally signaled an end to recycling serial predators through parishes by committing to zero tolerance and requiring secular authorities to be alerted from the beginning. These two steps should be embraced by the Vatican worldwide.
A third measure proposed by the Catholic laity panel that investigated the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is no less important — that there must be consequences for culpable bishops who protected pedophile clergy and paid hush money to victims. Neither the American bishops nor the Vatican have dared so far to bring offending prelates to full accountability.
Catholic parents, their trust violated, deserve to hear clear and firm countermeasures for enacting Pope Benedict XVI's promises for reform. Red herrings about female priests only display the tone-deafness of the Vatican's dominant male hierarchy.
In her brief but finely crafted address to the United Nations General Assembly on 6 July 2010, the Queen spoke with the authority and wisdom that comes from a lifetime of service as Head of the Commonwealth of 54 countries.
New challenges have also emerged which have tested this organisation as much as its member states. One such is the struggle against terrorism. Another challenge is climate change, where careful account must be taken of the risks facing smaller, more vulnerable nations, many of them from the Commonwealth.
The Queen avoids political controversy. All the more remarkable, therefore, that she should speak of climate change. The Queen, for one, accepts the reality of global warming as beyond political controversy.
It was remarkable to me that even at my junior level, chaos in the former Prime Minister's office and work methods had a significant impact on my work and well being. Therefore I welcome Leonore Taylor's report in the Sydney Morning Herald (8 July 10) that:
Julia Gillard has promised the nation's top mandarins she will rein in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and that it will no longer have the over-bearing role it had under Kevin Rudd — implicitly criticising the way the bureaucracy operated under her predecessor.
At a lunch with departmental secretaries two weeks ago on her first full day in the job, Ms Gillard said advice and expertise across the bureaucracy would be respected and her department would go back to its primary function of co-ordination and providing her with advice, rather than trying to initiate and oversee all main policies.
Sources say she told the officials she understood the past three years had been difficult for many of them and that the processes of government had not always worked efficiently.
Under Mr Rudd's leadership many public servants complained that the prime minister's office was chaotic and had become a bottleneck, and that his department — which expanded enormously over the past three years — had assumed too much power.
Taylor also notes that:
Ms Gillard has also reorganised her office to allow government processes to work more methodically. . . . Many senior public servants have said that in recent years they held back paperwork until Mr Rudd was overseas and Ms Gillard was acting as prime minister because she dealt with it more quickly.
No doubt Prime Minister Gillard is keeping some departments busy as she 'clears the decks' for an election. But that's the job. We wait to see how reasonable and efficient she is in the way she uses the Australan Public Service.
During her recent visit to New Zealand, Bishop Jefferts Schori is reported as suggesting that the proposed Anglican Covenant is a type of "cheap grace", an "enlightenment response to postmodern" era disagreement. It was a legal move to avoid the harder "work of the heart", of building relationships in the face of diversity, she said.
In Eureka Street (8 Jul 10) Andrew Hamilton ponders "The strengths and shortcomings of Church apologies". In the churches", he says "pastoral letters go back a long way. So does scepticism about the value of carefully prepared words." Paul warned of the mismatch between rhetorical eloquence and the Christian message. Jesus advised against pre-prepared words. James wrote about the dangers of the human tongue.
"Given this history, one can understand the ambivalence about letters and the inclination to avoid reading them, " Hamilton says. Letters of apology are powerful symbols. They require their writers to take a position and stand to it. They speak of requires strength, make the writer vulnerabile, and can be "extraordinarily effective". But, "However much we might want it, no symbol nor letter of apology can write the slate clean." "Words are powerful symbols, but the hungry and the injured do not live by words alone."
In the Catholic Church such an apology is a public act of confession, which includes the commitment to seek reconciliation, to make reparation where possible, and not to sin again. The symbol presupposes that the Church is more than a collection of individuals, that its members are accountable to one another, and that that the Bishop has the responsibility to act on its behalf.
Which brings me to my question about all this. I'm at a loss to understand how an institution is able to apologise. Institutions—companies, governments, nations, and churches—do not have souls or minds, people do. (If the church universal, the Body of Christ, has a 'soul', that inner being is the Holy Spirit, who, unlike church people, is sinless.)
Institutions do not sin, people do. If a company breaks the rules, the directors must apologise and, most likely, resign. If members of a church are sexually abused, the people responsible should be dealt with and culpable leaders should personally apologise and, most likely, resign. Evil doers who are dead are dead, and will receive the judgment and mercy of God. We cannot apologise for them.
In the Anglican church we employ a collective confession each Sunday: "Merciful God, our maker and our judge, we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do: we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves; we repent and are sorry for all our sins."
I often challenge myself to say:
"I have sinned against you . . .
"I have not loved you . . .
"I have not loved my neighbours . . . I repent . . .".
It seems more authentic.
I acknowledge that Prime Minister Rudd's apology to Australia's "stolen generations", for example, was a powerful moving step forward on the path to reconciliation. Even at the time, however, I wondered how he could apologise for any one else but himself and those who had invited him to do so on their behalf. I guess that was most of us.
Some perspectives on the asylum-seeker debate, circulated by Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young.
The vast majority of people seeking asylum in Australia arrive by plane.
95% of asylum seekers arriving by boat are found to be genuine refugees.
Just 3441 asylum seekers were given refugee status in Australia last year, roughly 1% of the total migration program for that year (they were not all boat people).
In comparison, around 50,000 people over-stayed their visa last year alone — mostly people with business, student or holiday visas.
Australia only accepts 1% of the worlds' refugees.
It is not illegal to arrive in Australia seeking asylum.
We had hoped that Australia had moved past this. The Greens believe that, in the country of the fair go, we should be able to embrace a decent and compassionate attitude to refugees.
Sadly, both Labor and Liberal are once again locked in a race to the bottom, opting for harsh new policies for asylum seekers. Both Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Liberal Leader Tony Abbott want to re-visit off-shore processing of asylum seekers. Both leaders want policies that 'deter' asylum seekers from asking Australia for protection with policies that will be harder on refugees and more harmful to children in detention. The Greens believe this is wrong. We recognise that the small number of people who arrive by boat seeking protection deserve to have their case heard and be treated humanely. Fleeing persecution is not an orderly process. We need a system that recognises this while still assessing who has a genuine reason and right to protection and who does not. Those found to be refugees should be welcomed into our community and those who are not must be returned home safely.
SMH journalist Lenore Taylor, perceptive as usual, had it right when she wrote (7 Jul 10) that
Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott have an identical aim: to get their name and the words "tough" and "boat people" into the same sentence.
The fact that neither has a thought-out "tough" policy that would actually stop asylum seekers risking their lives to find a new home is apparently beside the point.
No country in the world has one of those and in any event none of this is really about the fears or circumstances of the alleged "flood" of asylum seekers arriving on our shores. It is entirely about the fears of the swinging voters. With an election campaign perhaps just 10 days away, our politicians are not focused on the Indian Ocean but on the marginal seats.
The Prime Minister made an excellent case yesterday as to why there is really nothing to fear from the current rate of boat arrivals, but then gave her full support to all the decent Australians who were fearful nonetheless. She tapped right in to their resentment by insisting refugees should not get an "inside track to special privileges", without providing any evidence that they ever have.
Likewise, Abbott, "didn't have answers either."
Abbott was tapping in to voters' fears, too. The Coalition, he said, would do "whatever it takes to keep our borders secure and our country safe". He didn't explain how asylum seekers pose a threat to our safety.
Taylor rightly concludes that "neither leader is in a hurry to explain how their very, very tough policy would actually work."
It's possible that Dr Jeffrey John may become the next Bishop of Southwark. Although Dr John, the Dean of St Albans, is understood to be celibate, in line with Church of England teaching, he has registered a civil partnership with his long-term companion Grant Holmes.
The Crown Nominations Committee has been meeting to select two names to go forward in order of preference to Prime Minister David Cameron, whose recommendation will be placed before the Queento be approved by the Queen.
Philip Giddings and Chris Sugden of Anglican Mainstream have said that, "Given the contested state of the Anglican Communion, an appointment which does not meet those requirements in the Church of England would bring to an end any hope there might be of holding the Communion together."
The appointment of Dr John would meet the "requirements of the Church of England".
I doubt nevertheless that it is worthwhile or necessary for the so-called Anglican Communion to "hold together" in its present dilapidated state. Why bother? Our oneness in Christ or as a family of Anglicans does not require or depend on a supra-national organisation in which the power rests with disputatious senior clerics.
The arguments about Israel's land and sea blockade of Gaza made me wonder what happened to Gaza's airport.
Airports in Palestine, including Gaza, were important stops in the prestigious network of Imperial Airways. Palestinian Airways, founded in July 1937 by Pinhas Rutenberg, began with flights between Haifa and Lydda using 2 Shorts S.16 Scion 2 planes. Palestine Airways ceased its operations in August 1940 and its aircraft were taken-over by the Royal Air Force during the second world war.
During the fifties and sixties, there were no air services to Gaza while flights to the West Bank were operated through Jerusalem's Kolundia Airport (JRS). Regional flights were flown to JRS by several Arab airlines, most of the traffic being carried by those registered in Jordan. The Six Days war in 1967 saw Kolundia airport taken over by the occupation.
An international airport in the Palestinian Authority's territory was difficult for Israel to accept for both security and symbolic reasons. Israeli restricted possible sites to the Gaza strip and required close and direct Israeli supervision. Construction of the Yasser Arafat International Airport [GZA] was the best that could be accomplished before a peace agreement. Work started in January 1996. The costs were mainly covered by donations from Japan, Europe and Morocco. Located near Rafah, GZA had a single runway that could handle most airliner types including the Boeing 747 and was designed for up to 700,000 passengers yearly.
Palestinian Airlines began operating from Port Said in January 1997 with two Fokker F-50s donated by the Dutch government and a Boeing 727 donated by Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The airline transferred its base to GZA and started operating scheduled flights from Gaza in November 1998, flying to Amman and Cairo. Two De Havilland Dash-8s were purchased in order to reinforce regional frequencies and two Canadair Regional Jets were ordered and there were plans for the lease or purchase of 3 Boeing 737s in order to expand the network towards Athens, Rome, Frankfurt, Paris and London. Palestinian Airlines' highest level of operation was in the Summer of 2000. Other airlines flying to GZA at that time Russavia, Tarom, Royal Air Maroc, Royal Jordanian and Egyptair.
The airline was grounded in October 2000 following the start of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and was forced to move to El Arish International Airport in Egypt when on on December 12th 2001 GZA was bombed by the Israeli army and the control tower destroyed. On 10 January 2002, the US$60 million runway was completely destroyed by the Israeli army, shattering hopes for the resumption of flights to the airport.
Not much chance of a Berlin style airlift, sadly. Meanwhile, the airport staff are waiting (picture above).
Tom Speight, writing for The Commonweal (14 June 10) makes it clearer than I have read anywhere else, that BP was willfully and culpably negligent in bringing about the circumstances that allowed the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Every oil or gas rig ought to be able to anticipate, and prepare for, the kind of problems that led to the spill (gas "burps," equipment malfunctions, operator error). Such an offshore well, drilled at such a depth, obviously posed a big risk, and it should not have been drilled without contingency plans, proven shutoff methods, and back-up equipment sitting on the shelf, ready to be used. After all, blowouts happen even in well-developed and comparatively stable oil and gas fields, and recent years have seen several underwater blowouts off the coasts of Mexico and Australia. Since the oil and gas beneath the seabed are under such intense pressure that oil oozes out of natural seeps against the pressure of five thousand feet of ocean (measured in tons per square inch), this kind of drilling can be like punching a hole in a pressurized propane tank. . . .
BP's entire drilling operation was shoddy. The seals on the blowout preventer—the device designed to keep oil and gas from spurting out of the well—disintegrated a month before the accident and were never repaired. There was no acoustic failsafe switch, a device that could have triggered the blowout preventer and shut the well off even after electrical power was lost and the rig was destroyed (though of course this would have helped only if the blowout preventer was in working order to begin with). There was no backup blowout preventer, and there was no spill-response unit on standby. BP's representative on the rig ordered the Transocean drilling crew to remove some of the drilling mud from the borehole and replace it with seawater, which would have allowed BP to begin producing oil and gas from the well sooner, but which also left the well unable to contain the high-pressure oil and gas. . . .
"No one could have foreseen this" is a shabby excuse. Blowouts do happen. Thousands of books have been written on oil-rig safety, and many of the safety measures or redundancies that could have saved the Deepwater Horizon are mandatory on oil rigs off the coasts of other countries. Acoustic switches used to be mandatory on drill rigs in U.S. waters, until the Bush administration dropped the requirement, and they are still mandatory in most countries that drill.
Speight goes on to mention BP's very bad safety record in the Unites States and to argue for "consistent, legally enforced measures" to manage the risks involved.
As Mark Speeks sets out in The Tablet, the Gulf of Mexico spill highlights ethical concerns about drilling for oil in some of the most fragile ecosystems on earth. There are also serious concerns for pension funds that hold BP shares.
It is arguable whether the major oil companies match the criteria for an ethical investment. With many of the most obvious and easily accessible sites for drilling in production or exhausted, the oil industry is encroaching on remote pristine areas of outstanding beauty worldwide, threatening such areas as the Canadian Arctic tundra, once too difficult to reach.
While the companies promise to behave responsibly, no matter the efforts to minimise risk, the threat to the environment is ever present while the profit motive often places a limit on safety measures. And, of course, as the world gropes for a viable alternative, oil will remain for some time to come the essential lubricant for all our economies.
At least it can be said that oil is essential for transport and the manufacture of our medicines, fertilisers and many other products. There are other products that are more questionably ethically, such as tobacco and alcohol and dubious fanatical instruments.
Ethical investors can perhaps feel like sheep surrounded by wolves, uncertain whether the necessity of investing wisely for the short and long term means surrendering or compromising their most cherished beliefs. Indeed, in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus told his disciples that he was sending them out in exactly those terms. The remedy Jesus recommended was to be "as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves". . . .
The conundrum of being in the world and yet not of it creates a constant tension. . . . A Christian approach to ethical investment should not seek to withdraw from the world, fearful of contamination, but recognise that there are no pure choices and engage in the battle. . . . Justice, love and the common good are not ideas that should be banished from the boardroom but embraced. Moreover, a profound sense of responsibility for our actions and their effect on the environment is no mere box-ticking exercise but a humble recognition of our stewardship of creation. . . . In practice, it means attending shareholder meetings and asking questions. It means seeking out like-minded shareholders so that resolutions can be placed on the agenda for voting. It means not re-electing directors who don't listen to their shareholders. It means understanding a company's articles of association. It means agitating for meetings with management and boards. It also means using the press. . . .
Only by answering how the world could be different can Christians engage honestly with big business. It isn't enough to be an Elijah denouncing the powers that be when there are few, if any, alternatives. . . . Preferential ethics has no place in the Christian lexicon. Situational ethics have. Risks and bad consequences can—and must be—accepted once it is understood that sin is part and parcel of a world that struggles to become the Kingdom of God. . . . The Christian vocation is to engage in each individual battle: making sure that better decisions are made and more precautions are taken.
Doesn't look much does it? Especially compared the spectacular pictures from the Hubble telescope of which we've seen so many. But the the dot in the top left of this 2008 picture is now confirmed by researchers of the Gemini Observatory as the first of a planet outside the solar system.
It was taken by the Observatory's adaptive optics system in infrared light and shows the star 1RSX J160929.1-210524 and its planet. The planet is eight times the mass of Jupiter and orbits more than 300 times farther from the star than our Earth is from the sun.
System 1RXS J160929.1-210524 is unusual as the planet's extreme separation from the star challenges common planetary formation theories. The host star, which has an estimated mass of about 85 percent that of our sun, is located approximately 500 light-years away in a group of young stars called the Upper Scorpius Association that formed about 5 million years ago. The planet has an estimated temperature of over 1,500 °C, explained by its relatively young age.
The research, also to be published in the Astrophysical Journal, were led by David Lafrenière of the University of Montreal Department of Physics and a researcher at the Center for Research in Astrophysics of Quebec. Lafrenière and his colleagues won Canada's 2009 NSERC John C. Polanyi Award for their capturing of the first-ever image of a planetary system outside of our own solar system. Since 1RXS 1609, several other 'exoplanets' have also been found.
I find it intriguing that we can learn so much about relatively small objects so far away.
What reason could Julia Gillard possibly have for personally opposing same-sex marriages? As Labor leader she can claim to be upholding party policy, even though the ALP in her home state of Victoria has voted overwhelmingly to end that policy. But as a "personal" stance, her opposition to gay people marrying is inexplicable.
She is an atheist, so it can't be because she believes God ordained marriage as a holy sacrament and condemns homosexuality as a sin. She has no children, so it can't be because she believes there's an obligatory link between procreation and the right to marry.
She is in a de facto relationship, so it can't be because she opposes legally recognising different types of relationships. She is a female leader, so it can't be because she believes in some kind of profound biological difference between the sexes. And as our first female Prime Minister, she can't believe that discrimination in the past justifies discrimination into the future.
Why then, in the list of Gillard's often-stated personal values — belief in equality, choice, inclusion — is there a caveat that says "except if gay couples want to make a lifelong commitment"?
Gillard's opposition to marriage equality will be deeply disappointing to the 60 per cent of Australians who believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry and the 80 per cent of same-sex partners who believe they should have the right to marry. It is particularly frustrating and embarrassing at a time when same-sex marriages are allowed in an increasing number of places overseas. . . .
[M]ost ordinary Australians will continue to scratch their heads over the fact that there is no conceivable reason, even the weak reasons other political leaders put forward, why our new Prime Minister would violate all her own principles to personally oppose two men or two women tying the knot. Their conclusion will be that the real reason for Gillard's "personal" view must be entirely political and therefore quite cynical.
Read it all. Croome shows that, given that she is un-religious, none of the arguments Ms Gillard might advance for her views stand up.
Jane Kramer's long article in the New Yorker "A Canterbury Tale: The battle within the Church of England to allow women to be bishops." (26 Apr 10) offers insights into the dilemmas faced by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Church generally in trying to resolve deep-rooted disagreement—and not only about the role of women in ministry. Some extracts:
An Archbishop of Canterbury is not a Pope. His authority is limited; by canon law, it extends no farther than his Canterbury diocese. Rowan Williams's moral and spiritual influence, as Primate of All England, is considerable, but he does not "rule" the Church of England—or, for that matter, the churches of the Anglican Communion, whose eighty million members in more than a hundred and sixty countries make up the third-largest Christian denomination in the world. Anglicanism's offspring churches are, for the most part, national, and constitutionally independent.
There is no formal covenant holding those churches together. Their one connection has been their common bond with the mother church in England, and Williams is determined to preserve what remains of that bond. It may be a lost cause. Schism is hardly new to Christianity, and many Anglicans believe that a case can be made for a smaller, more cohesively just church. But insofar as it is Williams's cause—or, as he sees it, his responsibility to a legacy of "Christian imagination" under attack from all sides—he has been urging patience to a few thousand angry female priests at home. He told me that the "most fundamental reason" for his own patience, during eight years as England's Primate, remains a reluctance to rule—"to invent powers I don't have" is how he put it. "I don't believe that is the role of a bishop or an archbishop," he said. " 'Agonizing' is a strong word and a melodramatic word. But it's real for a lot of people, and the agonizing question is how long you can go without compromising the dignity of women in the Church." A few weeks later, after a lesbian priest was elected to serve as a suffragan bishop in Los Angeles, Williams begged the Americans to reconsider. In March, her election was confirmed.
... [Rowan's friends] suspect that the qualities of mind that distinguish him as a scholar . . . are precisely what undermine him as a leader. "Rowan is the only one who can hold us together—he has the humility, the holiness, and the intellect," John Pritchard, the Bishop of Oxford, told me. "But the job is a misuse of his skills, which are spiritual and theological. Instead, he's got the politics of the Church to handle, and the danger is that we will lose the battle to the kind of people who want to win victories. The issue of women bishops is a straight choice. A bishop is a bishop is a bishop, not a male or a female one. . . . As a pastor, I can understand and care for the people who don't want women, but as a bishop I would say that we can't withhold truth and justice in the name of unity. Not anymore." Judith Maltby put it this way: "My feeling is that Rowan's head is in the right place—he knows that taking away the right to discriminate is not a form of discrimination. But he's an emotional man. The pull of that Anglo-Catholic tradition works on him. He's been bending over backwards to save the marriage—even now, when it turns out that those guys were seeing another woman, in Rome. I have great affection and respect for him. We all do. It would mean so much for the Church if he were to say, just once, 'I want to be the one who welcomes women to the House of Bishops.' "
The great Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch—whose new book "A History of Christianity," or, in America, "Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years," prompted Williams to write, "It will have few, if any, rivals in the English language"—told me, "Rowan has enormous grace, he gives his opponents space, but he has a lack of killer instinct, which I'm afraid is a necessary quality for leadership." MacCulloch, who is gay, trained for the Anglican priesthood, withdrew as an ordained deacon, and later explained his decision this way: "I was determined that I would make no bones about who I was; I was brought up to be truthful, and the truth has always mattered to me. The Church couldn't cope and so we parted company. It was a miserable experience."
. . . "I think we suffer these days from a short-term memory of history," Rowan Williams said, that morning at Lambeth Palace. "I used to teach early church history, and occasionally I'd say to people, 'Go and read about the fourth century if you think we've got problems.' In the fourth century, you have bishops invading other bishops' territories to ordain people, you have three rival bishops in one of the great cities of the empire at the same time, you have a group in North Africa claiming that they alone are the true church and everyone else is wrong. You have basically half a century of really bitter and sometimes violent confrontation around the words of the Creed, and what you learn from that, apart from quite a bit about human sinfulness, is don't expect Christian conflicts to resolve themselves quite cleanly. Take a deep breath!"
. . . Williams admits that the lessons of fourth-century Christian conflicts are cold comfort to women fighting for equality in their church in 2010. Most of the conflicts dividing the Anglican world today have settled directly on them and, if not on them, on the openly gay priests who are waiting in line behind them—the result, in part, of an epidemic of literalism that is hardly confined to Anglicans. "One of the odd things about fundamentalism in its American form, but not exclusively, is that it's paradoxically a very modern thing," he told me. "A crude nineteenth-century reaction to a crude nineteenth-century scientism—a kind of mirror image of that positivist yes-or-no knowledge that you can pin down." He described it, in England, as a wholesale rejection of intellectual engagement and intellectual depth in Scripture and compared it to what was happening in Islam. "I've sometimes argued with people on the other side of the river here, in Parliament, saying, Don't talk about fundamentalist and modern Muslims, talk about primitivist and traditionalist Muslims—ones who only know the Koran and ones who actually know what it is like to have a thickly textured cultural and intellectual Islamic life."
Earlier, Williams had told me, "We—Anglicans generally—didn't spot soon enough the degree to which the different parts of the community were drifting apart . . . and the degree to which we'd become too used to talking to ourselves and to the liberal Western world, and left other bits of the world talking to themselves. And somehow we didn't quite get hold of that." He kept returning to the subject of Africa. He said that colonialism had left "a deficit of trust" and that "a bitterness and anger arises these days from the sense that someone else is taking up the decisions, just as they always did . . . that someone makes a decision about gay bishops in the United States and we're the ones who have to have our churches burned by local fanatics. . . . These are very religious societies, and Anglicans can easily feel that they are being left exposed, left looking weak, unconvincing, compared with strong answers coming from elsewhere. . . . Occasionally, I've said to people, 'You think of Peter or Henry"—Peter Akinola, in Nigeria, and Henry Luke Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda—"as ultra-conservative. Let me introduce you to a few of the people to their right so you can see that they are liberals in their own context.' They are trying to maintain some elements of traditional Anglican discipline and spirituality, to present Anglicanism as a credible faith in their society, and it's not easy and they feel that we are making it harder." He said that, under the circumstances, some "mutual self-restraint" among Western Anglicans could be considered a "gift" to the whole Church.
I was often mystified to hear priests, both conservative and progressive, attribute Williams's own restraint to Hegel. "He's a Hegelian!" Jonathan Baker, at Pusey House, told me. "He thinks that truth comes out of conflict." Giles Fraser, the liberal canon at St. Paul's Cathedral, in London, said, "It's Hegel! You take the two poles and bring them together and the little guy gets crushed between them." It seemed to me that the Archbishop had exhausted himself resisting conflict. He wants justice for women in the Church of England; Pauline Perry remembers a dinner at Lambeth Palace, the year Williams was enthroned, where his wife, Jane, raised her glass to the ordination of female bishops, and when I asked him about the elevation of Katharine Jefferts Schori he said, "I think the greatest tribute you can pay to women's ministry is that it has come to look ordinary to have a female in that position." Liberals in the Church remember another, more impassioned Williams—the Oxford professor who, in the late eighties, delivered a luminous speech called "The Body's Grace," about the theological possibility of same-sex union; or the young bishop who, in the early nineties, put his career on the line by joining a brilliant gay priest named Jeffrey John to speak with his evangelical predecessor at Canterbury, George Carey, on behalf of gays in the clergy. Ten years later, as Primate of All England—under threats of "impaired Communion" from conservative African bishops and conservative priests at home—he stunned those liberals by asking Jeffrey John, who was set to become England's first gay bishop, to renounce the appointment. John did.
It may be that Williams's ideas have changed, but in all likelihood it is simply that his job has changed. The women urging him on now are really trying to remind him that, however broad his concern and compassion necessarily are, he is also the Primate of a Western country where women priests—as well as a good number of openly gay priests—have played an impressive role in revitalizing Christian practice and, one would have to say, the Christian imagination. When he talks to them about restraint and patience—about the fullness of time and the "positive side to Anglican diffuseness and slowness of decision-making" and his own anguish "trying to counsel patience to people who are suffering more than you are"—they say, as many of them did to me: The fullness of time is fine, but it's God's time. We are living now.
There's been some celebration that our new Prime Minister is a woman. A woman as prime minister may have been remarkable a generation ago, but not now. If it is possible for a man to be a feminist, I suspect I am a feminist. Yet, to me, Ms Gillard's being a woman is one of the least remarkable things about her.
Perhaps I react this way simply because female leadership is something I'm entirely used to and comfortable with. For at least three quarters of my working life I've been supervised by women and had women under my leadership. Right now, every one my work superiors is a woman ... all the way to the top (director, branch head, division head, deputy secretary, secretary, minister, prime minister ... and governor-general and monarch as well, for that matter.) Every other member of my work section is a woman, and over half my branch. Their ideas and performance are much more important than their gender.
The rector of my local church, both deacons and about half the other leaders are women. The Rotary club of which I was a member for some years had one the highest proportions of women members among local clubs — about half. Other community organisations I support have women in leadership — and so on.
There is more to do to bring equality for women in Australia. But, thankfully, leadership by women is not extraordinary.
Headlines from earlier posts
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Abuse and preposterous theology (15 Jun 10) - Eugene Cullen Kennedy emeritus professor of psychology at Loyola University Chicago argues in National Catholic Reporter (10 Jun 10) that preposterous theology is at the root of the sex abuse ...
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Go to sleep - or else! (13 Jun 10) - CAMRA's Month of Sundays has been a delightful success — a series of Sunday afternoon concerts by Canberra singers accompanied by Colin Forbes. It was a small relief to discover ...
Dae Han Min Guk! (12 Jun 10) - The South Korean team is off to a good start in the World Cup defeating Greece 2-0 and reminding me of my visit to Korea at the time of the ...
Will 2010 be a diving contest? (12 Jun 10) - The spectacle and skill of world-class football is undeniable and exciting. But I find it a frustrating game to watch. The outcome often seems arbitrary to me. A single lucky ...
Celebrating the Worst of Travel (11 Jun 10) - Reviewing Doug Lansky's book The Titanic Awards: Celebrating the Worst of Travel (Perigee Trade) Joe Lansky says (NYT 17 May 2010) that "If you're like most seasoned business travelers you ...
A very good newspaper (10 Jun 10) - For me one the small pleasures of holidaying in SE Asia is to read the International Herald Tribune daily. It's not widely available in Australia although of course there's a ...
A strange mix of rush and delay (05 Jun 10) - Returned to work this week after two months break. I enjoy my colleagues and many of the work tasks. In his recent Quarterly Essay David Marr put his finger on ...
Wolfhagen's Autumn equinox (04 Jun 10) - I do like the work of Australian landscape artist Philip Wolfhagen. This is his Autumn equinox: the loss of the sun 2009 (200 x 160 cm) recently added to the ...
Beached in Thailand (29 May 10) - James and I enjoyed our beachside holiday at Jomtien in Thailand where a friend generously lent us his apartment. Most of the time we went for an early-morning swim or ...
not too much is on holiday. (02 May 10) - not too much is on holiday. There may be a Twitter update or three (see left of page). ...
A feast of music for St Philip (02 May 10) - With a Litany adapted from Psalm 150 and a commissioning prayer the refurbished Hill Norman and Beard organ at St Philip's church was recommissioned on St Philip's Day 1 May ...
An 16th century ancestor and a Man U cousin? (30 Apr 10) - By combining family records with published research done by others my earliest know ancestor that I have discovered thus far is one Richard Scholes (1510-1550) a yeoman of the village ...
The thing thou seekest is already with thee (29 Apr 10) - [L]et him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day lay this . . . precept well to heart which ...
Climate change: a good place to (re)start (28 Apr 10) - Neither Liberals nor Labor can claim any glory on climate change. As David Pembernethy writes in The Punch (27 Apr 10) I'm just trying to work something out here. Since ...
The unmeasurable value of learning (25 Apr 10) - Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard is doing battle with the teachers' union which resists administration of nationally standardised literacy and numeracy tests to primary school students especially because it ...
One of many: Captain Ernest Pither Hitchcock, MC, DCM (24 Apr 10) - Thinking of ANZAC Day St. George's Day and other events Ekkelsia asks "How do we handle the pain of memory the echoes of triumphalism the cry of the victim and ...
Doing nothing when one ought (perhaps) to be doing everything. (20 Apr 10) - A Delight of J.B. Priestley's was:Doing nothing when one ought to be doing everything. It must not be confused with simply doing nothing at any time which is mere sloth. ...
The big show (18 Apr 10) - The NGA's show of masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay is at an end after 467 000 visitors which probably means many more than 467 000 Australian opinions about the worthiness ...
Nor his ear too dull to hear (18 Apr 10) - The remarkable thing about the way in which people talk about God or about their relation to God is that it seems to escape them completely that God hears what ...
Eyjafjallajökull (18 Apr 10) - The disruption to air services and the large financial losses to airlines and their customers due to ash and grit from Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull volcano show just how vulnerable the ...
Commonplace fidelity (11 Apr 10) - Great virtues are rare: the occasions for them are very rare; and when they do occur we are prepared for them we are excited by the grandeur of the sacrifice ...
Balls in two dimensions (06 Apr 10) - Verlyn Klinkenborg writes in the NYT's Editorial Notebook (5 Apr 10) about the alleged enchantment of The Ball in Flight.[B]ecause it's a warm Sunday afternoon the ball is in play ...
Anxiety: creative and destructive (05 Apr 10) - It is not possible to make a simple separation between the creative and destructive elements in anxiety; and for that reason it is not possible to purge moral achievement of ...
Χριστός ανέστη! Talleyrand's advice (04 Apr 10) - Χριστός ανέστη!Christ is risen. Alleluia!M. Lepeaux on one occasion confided to Talleyrand his disappointment at the ill success with which he had met in his attempt to bring into vogue ...
A poem for easter (01 Apr 10) - i thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which ...
Isis (01 Apr 10) - Contemporary sculpture can be very beautiful. This is Isis by Simon Gudgeon given to the Royal Parks Foundation by Paul Green's Halcyon Gallery. It was unveiled on the shores ...
The announcement of humility (26 Mar 10) - On the Feast of the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary nine months before Christmas we rejoice in the miracle of the Incarnation and rightly honour the Virgin Mary who ...
Turn off the lights: the heavens are telling the glory of God (25 Mar 10) - In Eureka Street (26 Mar 10) Sarah McKenzie laments wasteful light pollution that hides from us the glory of the night sky. "When" she asks "was it decided that the ...
Tea table delights the eye (21 Mar 10) - Bronwyn Watson writes in the Weekend Australian review (20-21 Mar 10 p. 11) about this work The tea table : (L'heure de thé) by Kate O'Connor c.1928. [Mixed media 78.5 ...
Lady Loch and an ancestor (13 Mar 10) - This is the Lady Loch a 487 ton steam vessel built in Melbourne by Campbell Sloss & McCann in 1886 for the Department of Trade & Customs of the colonial ...
Assembling one's ahnentafel (13 Mar 10) - I have just learned about the idea of the ahnentafel a simple but ordered way of listing one's forbears. In such a list each person's father has a number double ...
Ruddy rude (12 Mar 10) - Simon Benson in The Daily Telegraph (12 Mar 10):Prime Minister Kevin Rudd took his health war against NSW a step too far yesterday in what appeared to be a deliberate ...
Australia must not join the Internet censors club (12 Mar 10) - Letter from Jean-François Julliard Secretary-General of Reporters Without Borders to the Hon Kevin Michael Rudd MP Prime Minister of Australia. Paris 18 December 2009 Dear Prime Minister Reporters Without ...
By guess or by . . .? (11 Mar 10) - In case you are wondering what all those public servants are working on as they burn Mr Rudd's midnight oil. Source: Dilbert.com ...
Israel doesn't want peace (10 Mar 10) - The White House Office of the Vice President For Immediate Release March 09 2010 Statement by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Jerusalem "I condemn the decision by the government of ...
A benevolent dictatorship seems more palatable? (10 Mar 10) - Brendan Brown writes in The Punch (3 Mar 10) that he is "All ready to go to the election with no-one to vote for." My problem exactly. [. . .] ...
The changing of microseconds (02 Mar 10) - I don't mean in the least to diminish the terror and severity of the Chilean earthquake but I have long enjoyed horological and geophysical trivia. Richard Gross a geophysicist at ...
Sininggazanak (02 Mar 10) - The opening ceremony of the Vancouver Olympics had First Nation "welcome poles." The welcome poles reminded me of sininggazanak that I knew about in when I was in Sabah decades ...
One thing I asked of the Lord (28 Feb 10) - Today my birthday falls on a Sunday. What a joy it was that Psalm 27 was sung this morning as the psalm of the day:One thing I asked of the ...
Chip, chop Gunns? (26 Feb 10) - It isn't the finest thing to rejoice at the failure of others but in case of Gunns Ltd I shall have no difficulty in making an exception. Surely it is ...
Something has to give, Mr Rudd (22 Feb 10) - Mr Garrett can hardly be blamed for installers who fail to provide reasonable service and householders who allow payment for poor work. "It seems suppliers were more avaricious or householders ...
A serious potential for mistakes (22 Feb 10) - A Government Minister has acknowledged that it has put excessive strain on federal officials with a consequent risk of administrative failings such as those that have bedeviled the now-axed home ...
Five ways of happiness (21 Feb 10) - Tal Ben-Shahar Lecturer in Psychology from Harvard University has made a study of the sources of happiness. On Big Think he gives several practical happiness tips. ...
Brian as Not the Messiah (19 Feb 10) - I've never liked the Monty Python movies (sorry). To me they are more stupid than funny! Least of all (for the very obvious reason) have I liked Life of Brian. ...
Ceremony and sainthood (19 Feb 10) - It is announced that Mary MacKillop is to be canonised on 17 October 2010. I am sorry that this has happened as it burdens Australian Christians with temptation to a ...
Warp speed policy (16 Feb 10) - Dennis Atkins says in the Courier Mail (7 Feb 10) that:Kevin Rudd and his team are diving into the policy bottom drawers — and some top drawers — to find ...
Kairos Palestine: a moment of truth (15 Feb 10) - Michael Marten writes in Ekklesia (15 Feb 2010) about "what some regard as the most significant Christian theological statement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in many years" A Moment of Truth ...
Just do the sports (14 Feb 10) - For an review of the way-too-long Winter Olympics opening ceremony who better to ask than a journalist of the Vancouver Sun? Canada is a great country. I'd be happy to ...
Coded Morse (12 Feb 10) - She knew the words she wanted to say—about seeing Morse or at least her mind knew. Yet she was aware that those words had homodyned little if at all with ...
So much art, so many people, so little time (11 Feb 10) - The newspaper reports that with half of its four-month season left the National Gallery's Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh Gauguin Cezanne and beyond expects to record its 200 000th visitor ...
Cetacean calumny (11 Feb 10) - I was signatory no. 464 816 of Patrick Bonello's petition at Whales Revenge with over a million signatures opposing commercial whaling. Its words are simple and to the point.We ...
Nietzschean tips for insomnia (11 Feb 10) - I know there are problems (especially for Christians) with Nietzsche's Übermensch leading to the 'death of God' in Thus spoke Zarathustra but amidst the philosophising there are some practical tips ...
Naked rambling (08 Feb 10) - A British man Stephen Gough 50 known to the press as the 'naked rambler' has been gaoled more than once for refusing to wear clothes. The campaign of the ''Naked ...
Daleks, robots or opening windows? (04 Feb 10) - Following the heat wave last November the Australian Education Union has advised teachers to place thermometers in every classroom gym hall and staff room in the ACT and to ask ...
Glorious insult (03 Feb 10) - A colleague sent me these. Some are well known. These glorious insults are from an era before the English speech was dumbed down to clichés. Now we need some equally ...
Thanks Mr Obama, but a 'phone call will do (03 Feb 10) - It's confirmed that Mr Barack Obama will visit Australia during March and address a joint sitting of Parliament probably on 18 March which would require a special recall of MPs ...
Jarousky, Pluhar and Monteverdi - fabulous. (30 Jan 10) - Monteverdi: Teatro d'Amore L'Arpeggiata directed by harpist and lutenist Christina Pluhar with countertenor Philippe Jaroussky soprano Núria Rial and others. Virgin Classics 2009. ...
A short bang on the Big Bang (27 Jan 10) - On the theory of the Big Bang as the origin of the Universe I. What banged? II. Before banging how did it get there? III. When it got there where ...
Heaven cannot hold him (22 Jan 10) - With a hat tip to Louie Crew I must post this performance by the choir of King's College Cambridge of the 1911 setting by Harold Darke of In the Bleak ...
On 10 July, the European Space Agency's 
Last night was the television broadcast of the final of the 
Following a 
CAMRA Inc. presents the
The arguments about Israel's land and sea blockade of Gaza made me wonder what happened to Gaza's 
Doesn't look much does it? Especially compared the spectacular pictures from the Hubble telescope of which we've seen so many. But the the dot in the top left of this 2008 picture is now 
There's been some celebration that our new Prime Minister is a woman. A woman as prime minister may have been remarkable a generation ago, but not now. If it is possible for a man to be a feminist, I suspect I am a feminist. Yet, to me, Ms Gillard's being a woman is one of the least remarkable things about her. 
