I feel very honoured to have been invited to chair the 3rd annual Joe Grech Memorial Colloquium on Ethics & Migration in Melbourne on 22 August. Bishop Joe was a great friend of people on the move, especially those who are forcibly displaced. Details are available from the Australian Catholic Migrant & Refugee Office.
Check out my new site www.social-spirituality.net for posts on why cluster bombs should be banned, action that we can take, and a prayer.
Here’s a presentation that I prepared for the Perilous Journeys course on mission, morality and migration. Catholic Social Teaching & Migration
Join me at the Catholic Institute of Sydney for a course on the morality of migration. We will use Catholic Social Teaching as a framework for response. The course will be offered in intensive mode over three weekends. MS594IssuesinMissiology
The other day while eating chicken for lunch I recalled the horrified response of a colleague to a platter of pigeons served for lunch at a meeting in Java. “Arghh I’m not eating that – look at the heads! Look at the beaks!” Indeed, the entire little birds, complete with heads, beaks, eyes and feet, were laid out in rows like casualties. I regret to say that my response was somewhat dismissive of my colleague’s dismay: “They kill the whole animal in order for us to eat them you know – not just the legs and wings”. It is easy… Read More »Pigeon Platters, Alienation & Ethics
The Swiss Guard are armed and willing to use force if necessary, but, as far as I know, they have never used cluster munitions. So why was the Holy See so eager to be one of the first states parties to ratify the Convention to Ban Cluster Munitions which will enter into force on 1 August 2010? Catholic Social Teaching holds the use of lethal force to be always regrettable but, in certain limited circumstances, to be acceptable. Even when the strict conditions for a just war (jus ad bellum) are met – and they rarely are – there are… Read More »Vatican Beats the Drum on Cluster Munitions
This is the text of a talk that I gave at the Newport Arms for Spirituality in the Pub. It reflects on how we acquire and use ‘treasure’ and the place it occupies in our lives. EthicsWealth&SomeThoughtsFromIgnatius