Can I employ someone as a doormat?

Posted: 26 September 2011

Have you ever walked through the city and seen those people holding signs advertising something? They can be found on busy street corners or open air shopping malls. Their signs point the way to a restaurant lunch deal, the nearest bottle shop or cheap parking. You might have similarly seen someone outside a pizza shop waving a sign to passing traffic highlighting cheap lunchtime meals.

I have a problem with this; in fact we should all have a problem with this. It is not a problem with advertising; it is a problem with the fact that people are being used simply as sign posts. Sometimes the people are handing out advertising material as well and this lessens (a little) the problem because at least there is interaction with people as part of the job. However to simply strap a sign to a human person and have them stand in one place or even walk around effectively treats them as an object; it is below our dignity as people.

I am sure they get paid for this task, although of course it would not be much, but even so, payment does not make an unjust action just. I might decide to hire a person to lie across the threshold of my door so that I can wipe my shoes on them as I enter the house. I may pay them, and pay them well for being my doormat, but, is it right to use a person as a doormat? If someone freely chooses to sell their human dignity to me, am I able to buy it? I would say the answer is no.

Each of us is a personal subject, a being that thinks, perceives and intends. We belong to no one else. A subject directs what actions will take place. An object on the other hand, has actions directed to it, I am using a chair to sit on, I am using a mug to drink coffee. An object is always just that, an object, if my mug cracks, I will just get another one, it is dispensable. We begin to encounter problems when we lose the distinction between subjects and objects. If I turn a person into my doormat, I have made that person into an object, similarly, if I pay a person to act as a signpost.

The thing with human dignity is that it is innate; it is naturally within each of us. Dignity is not something that society bestows for passing certain milestones. It is not like acquiring a driving licence and it is not like graduating from university. It cannot be sold and it cannot be lost. That is why the life of the migrant, the intellectually disabled adult, the brilliant scientist, and the drug addicted gangster are all of equal worth. Christian tradition would say that every human person is sacred because they are created in the image of God but belief in the dignity of human life certainly extends beyond Christianity.

Early in his Pontificate, Pope John Paul II, wrote an encyclical titled, Laborem Exercens, which was on the subject of human work. The Pope wrote at length about the value of human work and that determining its value is not primarily in “the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person”. Whether one is employed to govern the nation or sweep the streets of that nation, John Paul writes that work must enable a person to become “more a human being and not be degraded by it”. A person who is working should never experience a lowering of their dignity.

It is not to say that difficult work or boring work is below a person, but when the person doing the task is seen as only an impersonal force and not as an individual then we begin to move into problems. Even though we all need to work to survive, the essential distinction is that work is for ‘the person’ and not the person ‘for work’.

If employers wish to erect signs advertising their products and services then they should seek permission from the council for a sign post, and not offer a “job” where the person is given no more value than a metal pole. Offering jobs that are below human dignity does not benefit society; they only serve to make all of us a little bit poorer because we begin to perceive things that are not normal as a part of normal life.

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Consultation did Marriage no good at all

Posted: 25 September 2011

Late last year Greens MP Adam Bandt put a motion into Federal Parliament that politicians seek out the views of their constituents in regards same-sex marriage. That motion was passed and MPs spent this year in “consultation mode” until last month when the period of official consultation ended. The position of Bandt and the Greens party in relation to same-sex marriage is of course well known. The consolation was really designed to create a bit of a smoke screen and advance the cause of same-sex marriage one step further. Besides the fact that numerous MPs disliked the idea of being told by the new kid on the parliamentary block how to do their jobs (as if they never consulted their constituents), in my mind the “consultation” process was a floored one from the beginning.

We live in a democratic nation and while that is a great blessing, it can lead us as citizens in that democracy to believe that our ability to decide on questions of ethics and morality is also a democratic right. If you walk outside now and ask the first ten people you see if the aforementioned consolation process was a good idea (regardless of their position on the issue) you would without a doubt get a very high ‘yes’ rating. If you pushed further about why those people believed it was a good idea you would likely get responses revolving around the ideas of democracy, freedom, listening to all opinions, majority consensus etc. Now that is all good and well if we are deciding on day-to-day matters of regulation and law, but for us to think that we can vote in the meaning of marriage in the same way that we vote in the Prime Minister is a misunderstanding of the “freedom” of true democracy.

Freedom is one of the most misunderstood words in modern language. We commonly perceive freedom to be the ability to do as we please, and to some extent that is true. Freedom does allow us the privilege to choose the direction we will walk, to decide the shape of our lives. However, as we all know, our freedom is not absolute, in fact, when you break it down we are not very free at all. You did not choose when or where you would be born. You did not choose your family. Your initial attitudes to the world when you were young are most often shaped by your parents and their personal attitudes. So while human persons crave freedom above all else, we exist with the tension of only a partial freedom.

True freedom though will always be a preeminent good because it is what allows us to be great sinners or great saints. Freedom is of course God’s gift to mankind and He will never impinge upon our personal freedom. That being said, there are some choices that we are simply not free to make. If we recall the story of our first parents in the Garden of Eden we will recall the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was planted in the centre of the Garden. The man and the woman were “free” to eat from any tree in the garden but that particular tree they were not even permitted to touch. The deep truth hidden in this story speaks to us very much of freedom. It tells us that even though we have the ability to choose subjectively in our lives whether we should walk left or walk right, we do not have the ability to objectively declare that left will now be right and right will now be left. We can choose to share or to steal but we cannot decide that stealing will be a virtue and sharing will be a sin. The essence of morality has been planted within us, just like the tree in the garden.

The first man and woman misused their freedom because they attempted to do something they could not do and that was to reach out and take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Each person since has been given the same freedom, we can choose to obey or disobey but we should not be so foolhardy to think that we can create our own realities. The job of government is not to create new realities, it is to help and assist people to choose good realities. When government takes it upon itself to “decide” the definition of marriage it is overstepping its boundary, it is failing to realise that we are not our own gods. Putting forward a consolation about an issue such as marriage has only served to further confuse people into believing that their freedom is much greater than it actually is.

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Not a faith of rules but of perfect love

Posted: 25 September 2011

For many of us – myself included – we can say easily and without much thought “I trust in God”, but in reality how many of us really do, and to what extent? There are some beautiful words from Christ in chapter seven of Saint Matthew’s Gospel:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For the one who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your son asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.”

These are the very words of Christ, the Son of God and God Himself. They should fill us with great hope. If we cannot believe these words deep within our being, then there are no words we can believe. Admittedly, these words are not easy. Yes, they are easy when everything is going as we desire but when life turn sour or when our plans tend to differ from God’s, it is then that we face the temptation to turn and walk our own way. Essentially all sin and all vice is us deciding to walk our own way. It is us not trusting that God’s only desire is to provide for us out of His love.

We think we know what will make us happy, well actually, we do know what will make us happy, it is to be loved and to give love in return. What we are not so clear on, is working out how to love rightly in every situation. If God really is the personally loving God that Jesus Christ told us about then should we not be willing to hand our whole lives and its direction to him? If we do not constantly come back to God as a God of love and learn from Him, then we will begin to see Him and all of Christianity and her teachings as merely rules given by a harsh taskmaster.

All this talk of trusting in God though is an unachievable ideal, if we do not incorporate the grace of God into our life. The secular world says that all you need to be happy is within, but this is wrong, or at least, it is incomplete. We are creatures, wonderfully made creatures, but still only creatures and fallen ones at that. We struggle to do what we know we should do. Our desire and our will are often in conflict. The only way to perfection, to reach the plan of God for our life, is with sanctifying grace. You might say to yourself, “I will be ok, I just need to toughen up” but without grace you will fail as certain as the sun will rise tomorrow.

We must ask for God’s grace every day, if necessary we must pray for the desire to desire God’s grace. There is a popular image of Christ standing at a door knocking but the door has no handle. The door represents our hearts. The Lord stands and knocks but he will not force entry into our lives, only we can open the door to the Lord, and we can be assured that the moment we do, his grace will come flooding in. It is primarily in the sacraments that we receive this grace; these are the channels of blessing that Christ left for us. Frequent Holy Communion and Confession will feed and purify our souls. We should cling to the sacraments like we would to a life vest in the ocean. St Augustine once wrote, “Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you”. This needs to be our plan for life.

Christ said “be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect”. He would not have set us such a high goal if we were not given the means to do it. Let us never forget we are the creatures of a God of love, a God who loved us so much that he died, not for humanity as some general concept, but for you and for me personally. The only way to our true happiness is through God’s plan. Sometimes God’s plan is difficult but there is no reward without a struggle, no crown without a cross. When we unite ourselves to the cross of Christ our burdens are lifted and we will find the happiness we desire.

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Un-married – There’s no Such Thing

Posted: 25 September 2011

It was recently reported that Hollywood actress Liz Hurley had been granted a divorce from her husband, Arun Nayar. The report stated that the divorce was number 17 on a list of 28 couples being granted “quickie divorces” that day. We have become so used to our near 50% divorce rate, and celebrities who have made divorce and remarriage an art form, that sometimes it needs to be stated quite clearly: divorce makes a mockery of marriage and it actually makes no sense.

Divorce is an unnatural reality that has been sold as a normal and necessary part of life. I must emphasise here that this is not a criticism of any person who has sought a divorce but rather a brief consideration of the concept of divorce. Marriage, the commitment of one man and one woman united as husband and wife, is as old as humanity. Marriage is not the invention or the property of Church or State. The Church, following Christ, raised marriage to the level of a Sacrament. The State, desiring good social cohesion, regulates marriage. Neither can control what marriage is. Marriage can no more be adjusted to unite two men than it could be adjusted to exclude fidelity from the vows. What makes marriage something is that it is not everything, it has parameters.

Divorce, on the other hand, is certainly a man-made invention. And it must rank as one of the most foolish ideas we have come up with. Foolish, because divorce attempts to change reality, attempting to say that what did exist, no longer exists. The concept of divorce is synonymous to the way that we might decide that instead of two and two totalling four, it should now total five. To do such a thing would be illogical, it would go against truth. I am looking out the window right now and it is raining. Would it make a difference to the reality if I was to declare that the rain was instead a fine sunny day? No. Because the rain is the reality; it’s not my reality, it is the reality.

When a couple marries, they publicly make free vows to enter into a life-long and exclusive relationship. Would the State ratify a marriage if the bride turned up with two grooms or if the groom only wanted to sign up to marriage for five years? It would be impossible to sanction such a ‘marriage’. Yet, in a bizarre and nonsensical twist, a man and woman who have vowed to enter into marriage and have had that marriage ratified, can turn around in five months, five years or 25 years and request that the State no longer see them as married. How is this possible? When a couple is married, they are married. One cannot un-marry. Just as I cannot eat my lunch and then un-eat it. What is consumed has been consumed. And then as if that is not illogical enough, once ‘un-married’, the parties involved can find another person they wish to marry and the State will allow them to declare vows of permanency once again.

Now there may be reasons that a couple can no longer live together in marriage, they may need to physically separate and seek out some sort of civil declaration of separation for the good of children etc. This, however, is very different to the State declaring that their marriage no longer exists. There are some realities that are beyond human manipulation. Mathematics and marriage are two of those realities. Two and two always equal four and a validly contracted marriage remains a validly contracted marriage.

There are instances when people appear to make vows to marry and yet it becomes obvious later on that they were not able to properly make those vows. Perhaps they were coerced or perhaps they had no genuine intention to honestly keep the vows. In that case, there has been no objective marriage even though they may have cut a very nice cake and danced the bridal waltz. Those examples form the work of the Catholic Church’s marriage tribunals which examine the actual validity of a marriage if it is called into question. The work of the tribunals, however, is completely different to the State declaring that a marriage was existent but now is not.

This is the reason that the Catholic Church cannot not recognise divorce; it makes no sense, and it makes even less sense to un-marry someone and then have them re-marry. The Church is the servant of reality; she is the servant of the truth. Pontius Pilate said to Christ before he had Him condemned Quid Est Veritas, what is truth? Pilate was not asking a genuine question as much stating that truth was what he would declare it to be. It seems in regards to divorce, society joins Pilate in also declaring what truth will be.

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Love, not Hate

Posted: 23 September 2011

It seems that everywhere I look there are people who are going out of their way to annoy me! People who insist on driving at 70km even though the limit is 90km. People who have personal phone conversations on the train. People who chew with their mouths open. The list could take up this entire column! There are situations, however, that are beyond ‘annoying’, situations that can affect us in serious ways.

I was recently speaking to some friends who run a franchise business and the franchise director is really making life very difficult for them, to an extent that it is affecting their ability to run their business. The director tells lies, is obnoxious and rude. More than just affecting business, though, when we encounter people like this it can adversely affect our happiness. We begin to boil on the inside, it consumes us at work and at home, we begin to hate the person and are led into personal sadness and depression. These sorts of situations will play out for all of us in different ways through our lives but how can we respond?

It seems to me that there really are only two answers: we can burn with hate for the person or we can burn with love for the person. Love?! What?! The person who is causing us harm and grief in whatever way, is most often acting out of their own pain. They might be having family problems; perhaps they are insecure or lonely. Mother Teresa often spoke of loneliness as the greatest poverty especially in the modern Western world, and even a person who appears to have it all (family, career, assets etc) can be deeply lonely. Whatever it is, there is probably a pain in their heart.

Our encounter then with the person who is causing us so much grief should before anything else be seen as an opportunity to show love. One of my all time favourite movie scenes is in the film ‘Karol’ which tells the story of the life of Karol Wojtyla prior to him being elected as Pope John Paul II. Karol lived as a Bishop in Poland, which suffered at the hands of the Nazis and, once they had moved out, the communists moved in. Both movements were ones of hate. Seeing the Church as their largest threat, the communist leaders planted spies all around Bishop Wojtyla. One particular spy was sent as a student into Wojtyla’s university lectures. The spy also bugged the confessional to find anything he could which would accuse Wojtyla of encouraging a violent uprise against the regime. Day in and day out, this spy listened to the pain in the hearts of those who came to Confession and he heard the love of Christ that was offered to them by Wojtyla.

In a very moving scene, the man, who could no longer live with himself, approaches Wojtyla to confess to being a spy. “Even though I hated you, your words slipped inside of me like water through a crack. You speak of love. Such a sick word”. And with that he broke down in the forgiving arms of the future Pope.

The point is that we all know the typical response to those who cause us pain. It is to cause them pain back. But there is another way and, amazingly, there is no weapon against it.

Love will break down any barrier because every hardened heart, every cruel boss, every offensive individual we meet desires love.

But it’s not enough just to smile at the person when we see them and avoid them like the plague the rest of the time. We need to love them, actively.

In the autobiography of St Therese of Liseux, she tells the story of a particular nun who irritated her to no end and made her life miserable. Therese reaches a point where she writes “I reminded myself that sentiments of charity were not enough; they must find expression, and I set myself to treat her as if I loved her best of all.” Therese loved this fellow nun, not just in words but with actions. She looked past what displeased her to see the person with all their pain, and their hurt but also their gifts and talents.

Whoever is causing you trouble is not going to be any worse than the communist spy but, even if they are, the key is to love them, love them actively, love them like you would love the most important person in your life. You will turn your difficult situation around but most important you will genuinely help someone and become a better person yourself.

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Greatest Gift for Children is Brothers and Sisters

Posted: 23 September 2011

Why is it that everyone does what everyone else does? Yes, we all carry iPhones and drink Coca Cola but what I find most intriguing is why everyone stops at two children? Why is Mum, Dad, Johnny and Jenny considered the perfect sized family in advertising and in reality? It is no great revelation to note that the current total fertility rate in Australia is around 1.9 children per woman compared to the 3.4 children that was the case only fifty years ago.

We are not even replacing ourselves anymore.

The most obvious reason for this significant drop would have to be the introduction of the contraceptive pill in 1960. The main function of ‘the pill’ is to disturb a woman’s normal cycle of fertility by confusing her body into thinking it is pregnant thus suppressing ovulation. (If ovulation does occur the pill’s second line of defence is to make the mother’s womb inhospitable to the newly created embryo and the little guy is eventually flushed out, most often without anyone knowing).

However, the pill’s less obvious but more subtle effect has really been to fundamentally change the way that husbands and wives look at themselves, their sexuality and their families. The pill subliminally causes us to separate love-making from child-making and when that happens human beings can begin to see love as less to do with the other and more to do with the self. One doesn’t have to look far to see an advertisement that will make it clear who the most important person in the world is (if you are not sure, it is you).

We are told that the less inconvenience we live with the better our lives will be but is that really true?

I am actually writing this on an airplane to London to go to a conference. And can I say that this trip has caused me a fair bit on ‘inconvenience’, I had to rearrange my schedule while I am away, I had to pack a bag (I hate packing) and I had to get up at 5am this morning to get to the airport at 6.30am so I could sit around for three hours waiting to fly out.

However, I would have been labeled a fool if I declined the trip so I did not have to pack a bag. Why? Because the greater good of travelling to a new place and encountering new people is an obvious good. So I can’t help but wonder why we view children differently? Are not the difficulties of raising children outweighed by a new life? Every child in the world is a source of joy and the greatest gift we can receive. Children are the visible sign of the love of a couple, so why stop the sign of our love at only a couple of children?

There is a two year old on this plane who has been wandering up and down approaching strangers and saying “I’m Dante, what’s your name” and everyone he encounters smiles and interacts with the little boy. This is why it surprises me that so many couples choose to have two or three children and stop there.

Have we all become so subservient to contraception, as if it is our master? Why are there not more people who think outside the contraceptive square? And I don’t only mean those Catholics who heed the Church’s vision for life and love and reject contraception for what it is. I also mean average married couples who might say to each other “hey we love children, let’s have lots!”
We really need to get out of our heads that two children are normal. It is only ‘normal’ in a post-industrialised world and in the scheme of things, across time and culture, that is fairly insignificant.

One friend made the point to me recently that perhaps our obsession with two children is partly thanks to the motorcar; after all, to go from a Commodore to a Tarago can be a big deal.

Perhaps the concept has merit, but even so, where are the people who don’t care about the mould, who just love life and want to surround themselves by it?

Pope John Paul II once said that the greatest gift that parents can give their children is the gift of brothers and sisters. Children are good for each other, good for parents, good for marriages and good for society. So if you are reading this and feel like breaking out of the 1.9 children mould, may this be a small encouragement.

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Smoking and ‘Safe Sex’ – The Great Hypocrisy

Posted: 22 September 2011

Last month, the Federal Government unveiled draft legislation to introduce plain packaging laws for cigarettes. Health minister Nicola Roxon was unequivocal in her determination to put the final nail in the coffin of the tobacco industry.

Showing off the new compulsory olive green packaging with the vivid images of clogged arteries, cancerous gums and gangrene-infected feet, the minister declared, “We are going to ensure that in Australia there are no remaining avenues for tobacco companies to market and promote their products, particularly to young people. Gone are the days when people can pretend that cigarettes are glamorous.”

I have never smoked, have never had any desire to smoke and nothing frustrates me more than walking down the street and breathing in the secondhand smoke of the person puffing away in front of me, but this latest legislation push does cause me to wonder about the haphazard approach that federal policy takes to the health of its citizens.

What is most frustrating is the hypocritical approach given to other public health issues, in this instance the deceptive and fallacious ‘safe sex’ campaign that is sold to young people via various well designed and sexy governmental websites and videos. The current, official, safe sex, Federal Government website tagline is “STIs are spreading fast, always use a condom”. This is accompanied by a young, naked, attractive couple embracing one another.

The message is all about condoms stopping everything from HIV to Chlamydia to Gonorrhoea. The site contains interactive games and activities to get across the condom message. It even ran a national competition to design a ‘condom tin’ to make carrying condoms “as normal as carrying your mobile phone”. The problem is that the condom is not dealing with the issue, it is just skirting around it. And the issue which no government in the 21st century would be game enough to speak out about is sexual promiscuity.
In 2005, the government banned terms such as ‘light’, ‘mild’ and ‘extra mild’ on tobacco packaging as it gave the false impression that some cigarettes were less harmful than others.

Yet here we are in 2011, still telling young people that it is fine to toy with diseases such a HIV and Syphilis so long as they use a thin rubber sheath. There was a major TV ad campaign run last year in which the entertaining and simplistic message was “Anyone can get Herpes” (anyone who is having promiscuous sex, that is). Before that there was the highly visible campaign promoting the cervical cancer vaccine ‘Gardasil’ which was given out free by the Australian Government to any females aged 12 to 26.

The aspect that was not highly discussed in the popular media was that cervical cancer comes about as a result of the human papilloma virus which is a sexually transmitted disease. So, instead of speaking to 12 year olds about the value of who they are and what sex is, we injected them with a vaccine.

In these campaigns, we see something very different to what goes on in the war against tobacco.

The government is closing down all avenues left for the promotion and sale of tobacco products, yet in the ‘fight’ against deadly sexually transmitted infections the best they can say is, wear a condom and get an injection. What they are not saying is that a sexually promiscuous lifestyle is fraught with the risk of disease and heartache.

What is needed in the ‘safe sex’ campaign is an injection of truth. The safe sex message is all about information; it needs to be about formation. What young person wants to put themselves at such a high risk of disease? Women who use the pill for four years or longer prior to their first full term pregnancy have a 52 per cent higher risk of cancer than those not on the pill. That sort of risk is seemingly acceptable, yet last year Toyota recalled 26,000 cars because 0.3 per cent of them experienced a slow brake fluid leak.

What about the fact that girls who are sexually active are more than three times likely to be depressed as girls who are abstinent prior to marriage? Teenage boys who are sexually active are more than twice as likely to struggle with depression and are more than eight times likely to attempt suicide.

Those who are sexually active prior to marriage have a significantly increased risk of divorce. For a man who marries as a virgin, his chance of divorce is 63 per cent lower than a non-virgin. For girls, it is 76 per cent lower when they marry as virgins.

Sadly, general Western society has fallen into the pit of relativism so we are impotent (excuse the pun) to stand up and actually say that promiscuous sex is not glamorous, that it is better to wait until marriage to be sexually active because there is a far higher chance of happiness on every level and a genuinely decreased risk of a diseased body and diseased emotions. After all, there is no condom for the heart.

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Choosing Religion, Buffet-style

Posted: 22 September 2011

I recently went away to a monastery for a time of silent retreat. As there were a few other people staying at the same time, there were brief conversations shared during meals.

On one of the evenings we were having dinner, Darren, who had just arrived for a “getaway”, was proceeding to tell us a little about himself. Darren was a young man in his mid-30s, the sort of guy you would not want to get on the wrong side of, well built with tattoos down both arms but a genuinely kind man. He was sharing how he was fascinated by different religions and loved to learn about what different faiths believe.

One of my fellow retreatants asked Darren what religion he was, to which he replied that he was a “Buddhist Jew”. Now, of course, there is no official religion of Jewish Buddhists and I would be willing to wager that Darren was officially neither a Jew nor a Buddhist. It was far more likely that his name was scribed into the baptismal register of the local Protestant denomination as a child but that he was not actively raised in any faith.

I am certainly not out to condemn this chap, though. He is no doubt responding to the movements of God in his life and as, St Edith Stein beautifully said, “All who seek truth seek God, whether this is clear to them or not”. I will be looking forward to being reunited with Darren at the ‘eschatological banquet’ (to quote a scripture professor I know).

The whole matter raised in my mind, though, the growing trend of buffet-style religion. It is the notion that one is able to wander down the shopping aisle of faith and select those elements one feels most comfortable with at that particular moment in time. Now granted, Buddhism would probably not have such a problem with this concept but Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a religion. The world’s major religions though, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, certainly do have an issue with the ‘pick and choose’ mentality because they do not consider religion is simply about whichever path one prefers to use in climbing the mountain of eternity.

Speaking from a Christian perspective, Jesus is not called ‘Jesus Christ’ because His surname was ‘Christ’ but because Christ means Messiah and that is what Jesus claimed to be. The Gospels cite Jesus referring to Himself as “the way, the truth and the life”. You would have noticed that Jesus used the definitive article, the. Not merely a nice guy, or a social liberator, Jesus claimed to be the true God. That statement made by Jesus leads us to two possible conclusions, (1) He is wrong; which means He is a liar and quite possibly a madman and we should have no part of Him or Christianity, or, (2) He is exactly who He says He is; the Son of God who was born of a virgin, who preached about eternity, established a Church on the rock of Peter, died on a cross, rose again and ascended into heaven. We must choose between one option or the other, liar or God; it is impossible for there to be a middle ground.

It is from this standpoint that Christianity, and specifically Catholicism, states that she possesses the fullness of truth. There is, of course, no shortage of people out there who will say that it is sheer arrogance for anyone to state that they offer the fullness of truth, but think about it; if Jesus is really who He said He was and if the Gospels really contain the story of His life, what else is Christianity going to say, indeed what else can she say?
There will continue to be many good people like Darren who begin the journey (or live the entire journey) taking a little from column A and a little from column B, seeing Jesus as a good man but not being able to take the next step in proclaiming with the Apostle Thomas, “my Lord and my God”. Thankfully, we know that God leads all people to Himself and will always bless a heart that is responding to truth, beauty and goodness in the best way it can. Living our own faith with surety and making genuine friendships with those around us is another way to share the great joy of faith.
Far from arrogance, Christianity calls us to the greatest mystery and reality that we will ever know. Each of us is completely free to choose what we will believe but at some point a genuine choice must be made. Happiness cannot be found in the shopping aisles of faith. Eventually we must take it all or leave it all.

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Software, Music, Movies: To Copy…or Not?

Posted: 22 September 2011

Last week I reached the conclusion that in order to save a life of regular chiropractic visits, I could no longer carry around my large, heavy laptop, so I bought a new netbook (a mini laptop). I was telling my housemate that the netbook came with a simple version of Microsoft Word and Excel and that I would probably need to buy the full version in the future. His immediate suggestion was that I could get a copy of a friend’s full version to save me buying one. It did make me think … would that be ok? Could I just ask a tech savvy friend to upgrade my computer at no cost?

To say that media piracy is a large industry would be an understatement. Five years ago, media piracy was estimated to be worth over $50 billion per year and that was when most of it was through CDs and DVDs. With the growth of online file sharing, all that is needed now is an internet connection. With the ease that a person can now obtain free copies of the latest software or movie it does not seem like media piracy is coming to an end anytime soon. I have heard it said, though, that media piracy is a victimless crime and some go even further to claim that such corporations deserve to lose sales because they are greedy and charge the public too much for their products.

But … even if movie tickets do cost too much and even if Windows does advertise a new upgrade every 12 months, does that justify piracy? At its most basic, piracy is taking something that does not belong to us. The average citizen would not go into a department store and take a shirt or a microwave without paying for it, yet piracy is the very same act of taking something that one does not own.

Most people who have heard of the Ten Commandments know that in there somewhere is something about not stealing. In fact, you probably didn’t need the Ten Commandments to tell you that stealing was not a good thing. Thanks to our fallen natures, though, most of us still manage in varying ways to convince ourselves that in certain instances it will be ok to break (or maybe just bend) certain laws. But is this really a way to live, by the letter of the law?

In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ set a radical challenge when he said, “Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt 5:48). This means that those who genuinely want to call themselves followers of Christ are called to live a radically new moral vision, one that begins in the heart and spills over into the way they live and act in the world.
So, while the Ten Commandments were given to a people who needed the law because they desired to break the law, Christ calls for a change of heart so that the first question is not ‘how far can I go before I break the law’ but, rather, ‘how much can I show love in all that I do’? Christ calls His disciples to not begrudgingly follow copyright laws to avoid getting caught, but, rather, open their hearts to love their brothers and sisters who have created these goods for the world to enjoy and so use them justly and in fairness to all. Genuine faith cannot be about rolling up to Mass on Sunday, singing loudly from the hymn sheet, but going home afterwards to listen to music we illegally downloaded the night before on a computer powered by software that we never purchased. If a Christian really looks to Christ and looks to live justly, then piracy becomes something that stops them being an example of holiness.

It may be tougher (and it will be more expensive) to buy what we need instead of taking it but we must grow in our desire to do what is right in all things and to set an example to our own family and friends. Sometimes, we have very good motives; we may want to help out a friend by lending them a program to copy that they cannot afford, but we cannot do an evil even if a good may come from it.

Admittedly, it is a big step to throw out those copied movies and clear our computer of pirated software but this is part of the radical nature of belief. Best that we get to the gates of eternity having never upgraded to Windows 7 than have St Peter accuse us of theft.

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Bucks Parties: An Opportunity for Men to Step Up

Posted: 22 September 2011

My good friend (let’s call him Tom) got married recently and in preparation for this joyous occasion the customary buck’s party was organised.

We were informed that this particular event was to be held in two parts: The day events would include a round of golf, lunch and a game of bowling; the night event would include a selection of more ‘adult’ activities.

While golf and bowling are rather tame activities in and of themselves, they did involve Tom being dressed in a blonde wig, a frilly pink dress and being obliged to carry around a life size, blow up doll all day.

To add to the excitement, during the travel to the various destinations, the hired mini van had been well equipped with a number of sexualised games and activities for both the groom-to-be and his fellow travellers.

I was later told that night activities (which I missed) involved dinner via Nyotaimori (the practice of serving sushi on the body of a naked woman), much drinking and a visit to a city strip club.

Bucks’ parties are traditionally an opportunity for a man to spend time with his close male friends and engage in activities that might not be possible once married.

It is a sort of ‘rite of passage’ from adolescence to adulthood but perhaps it is worth considering what we are including in this rite?

I am not sure how an event involving strippers and sex games can be considered as preparation for anything more than a life of unfaithfulness (and the evening my friends had was rather tame compared with other bucks’ nights).

The idea of quality time with one’s friends makes sense, but if an activity such as attending a strip club would be completely out of bounds after marriage, how on earth could it be justifiable before marriage?

What does it say about a person’s view of the value of sexuality and the dignity of the human person to watch a paid stranger provocatively remove their clothes?

How can a man stand on top of a bar with a stripper one weekend and stand before the altar of God the next weekend making vows to love with a love that is faithful and true?
Perhaps to a degree, one can excuse (maybe) someone who has had no formation in the sacred character and nature of marriage, someone who knows nothing of the meaning of sexuality as a gift to be shared with one’s spouse and not with everyone that comes along … but … to those who are practising their faith and call themselves Christian, the excuse is severely weakened.

One does not stumble into a strip club without some idea of what is going on and one cannot claim to be watching a woman take her clothes off as merely something to do while enjoying a round of beers with the guys.

My friend Tom is a faith-filled man, a good man. He actually called me prior to the buck’s party to pre-warn me about what might transpire.

Unfortunately, though, warning those who may be offended is not enough; we must lead by example. Each of us needs to decide what type of man we are going to be.
Do we stand by and let things happen, or do we take a stand and make things happen?
There are moments in every life in which a man can rise up and say “I choose to walk another way, to walk in the way of what is right”.

For a man who is getting married, the statement to his best man might translate to, “I’m looking forward to the buck’s night you are organising but we won’t be mocking sex or using women as objects”.

There can be no confusion about where we stand on such an issue, it is non-negotiable.
The buck’s night preparation provides a valuable opportunity to show our friends that the dignity of the human person is something we prize above all else.

What more honourable gift can a man give as sign of his undivided love?

A man should not avoid a strip club because he thinks his fiancé may not like it; he should avoid a strip club because it is a place that declares ‘sex and love have no value’ and a real man knows that is a lie.

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