A Person’s A Person, No Matter How Small

Posted: 3 March 2016

My wife Jane and I have two little girls, Clare and Louise; Clare turns two this month and Louise is just over six months old. Clare is at a really fun – but albeit all consuming – stage. She loves nothing more than playing outside, and if she is not insisting on being pushed around in her plastic toy car, she is carefully dropping her toys in the wading pool, before picking them out of the water and starting all over again. Louise is beginning to shuffle around on the lounge room floor while learning about the world through studying a range of stuffed animals. Clare will now regularly come and lay down next to Louise on the floor and with an enthusiastic ‘hello’ proceed to take back those stuffed animals which she believes are her own. Everyday our daughters are growing and developing but they really are still just babies. They rely on us for everything, we are their nurturers and their protectors, their friends and their family. Their world is safe and secure because we make it that way for them.

But what if one afternoon in the middle of Clare playing outside I just walked away, leaving her in the backyard by herself with no food, no protection and no shelter. Her smile would fall and the frown would descend into tears, she would cry her eyes out, her nose would run and she would go to the back door yelling ‘mummy’, ‘daddy’, not understanding what had just happened. As night began to fall she would cry and cry, tears streaming down her face. She would be hungry and want her milk. She is not old enough to reason out her situation and create or find shelter in the yard. I really don’t know, or do I want to know, how she would cope. Would she even make it through the night?

Read the rest of this entry »

10 Steps to Beat Pornography

Posted: 12 April 2015

Pornography is a big problem in modern society, actually no; pornography is a huge problem in modern society. Did you know that 10-15% of all search engine requests and 20% of smart phone searches are for pornography? Studies show that 90% of boys and 60% of girls are exposed to pornography before they are 18 years old. In addition 70% of young men and 20% of young women view pornography every week and pornographic sites have more monthly visitors than Twitter and Amazon combined.

While the numbers are high, especially amongst males, it is not true that all men view pornography, and we must not allow ourselves to believe that pornography constitutes normal sexual behavior. However, especially for young men, if any sort of regular pornography use is not dealt with swiftly is risks becoming a debilitating addiction.

The good news is that authentic religious observation and involvement has been shown to contribute in a major way to lessening pornographic use and dependence. The following then, are ten steps to help beat pornography. The steps focus on the spiritual life but some of them will require major changes in one’s practical life, but if we are sincerely determined to regain control of who we called to be as men and women in Christ there is no other way.

1) Commit to go to Mass and receive Holy Communion every day. Holy Communion is food and strength for the journey and if we don’t have it atop our list then we are not serious about the battle. Getting to Mass everyday will almost certainly require earlier mornings or shorter lunch breaks but how much do we want success?

Read the rest of this entry »

A Stupid Nation Will Reap What It Sows

Posted: 21 September 2014

I was up later than usual the other night watching a fairly mainstream TV show on a fairly mainstream channel and in the break an ad appeared that initially caught me with its catchy tune. Then I registered the lyrics. The young men in their early 30’s were singing, “I’m looking for someone other than my wife…Ashley Madison’s right”, as they looked through images of equally young women on the computer. For those who may not know, Ashley Madison is an online dating service launched in 2001. The difference to other dating sites is that Ashley Madison targets those who are already married. Their slogan is ‘Life is short. Have an affair’. When the company launched in Australia in 2010 the Advertising Standards Bureau received a host of complaints and the television and billboard ads were subsequently withdrawn. However it is evident that there has not been enough pressure kept up since then, and the ads are back. (If you are one of those people who think a company marketing infidelity is problematic, and have time to let your feelings be known you can visit adstandards.com.au).

That our society seemingly approves marital infidelity and breakdown, goes some way to explain the ridiculous situation that transpired in Australia recently when it was discovered that the World Congress of Families (WCF) was due to hold a regional conference in Melbourne this past August. It all began with a misleading article on the popular but left-sitting website Mamamia accusing the group of just about everything short of war crimes. Whoever wrote the article suffered an apparent inability to separate objective statements about the goodness of traditional marriage and the nuclear family from subjective judgements about individuals who do not hold the same view. Read the rest of this entry »

Incest or Homosexuality: Which is Morally Worse?

Posted: 2 August 2014

The bizarre nature of modern logic was on display once again when an Australian judge recently compared incest to homosexuality. In dealing with a criminal case of incest between siblings, Judge Garry Neilson, said that just as gay sex had once been socially unacceptable, “a jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured”. The bizarreness I am referring to though, is not on the part of the judge, but rather the response to the comments by politicians and media.

First to clarify; the case that was being tried was against a 58 year old man who was accused of raping his sister in their family home in 1981 when he was 25 and she was 18. The man had already pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his sister some years earlier when she was only 10 year old. The judge did not allow the prosecution to admit the evidence of the earlier assault, stating that the two events occurred in different contexts, and by the time of the incident in question, when the woman was 18, she had already been in sexual relationships with two men and had a young child. The judge went on to say to the jury, that the “only reason” incest is still a criminal offence is because of the high risk of genetic abnormalities from consanguineous relationships, but, “even that falls away to an extent [because] there is such ease of contraception and ready access to abortion”.

The day after this story reached the media, the State Attorney-General, Brad Hazzard, took the rare step of involving himself in a criminal trial, referring Judge Neilson to the Judicial Commission for review, and moving to prevent the judge from sitting on any further criminal trials until the matter had been investigated. Mr Hazzard was “extremely concerned” and “appalled” at the judge’s comments and made the somewhat definitive statement that, “Incest is completely reprehensible, unacceptable, disgusting and criminal”. Media agencies reported on the judge’s remarks as “ill-informed”, “disgraceful” and an insult to “every gay and lesbian person in Australia”. Perhaps they would be interested to know that consensual incest is already legal in France, Russia, Belgium, Argentina and China, amongst other nations. Read the rest of this entry »

Should I Destroy My Rolf Harris CD?

Posted: 9 July 2014

By now we all know that the Australian-born and British-based entertainer Rolf Harris was convicted on twelve counts of indecent assault against four girls aged as young as seven years old. He was sentenced to just under six years in prison for crimes committed between 1969 and 1986. As soon as the jury reached its verdict public murals of his were being painted over and plaques that had been put up in his honour were taken down. He was stripped of music industry awards and even an honorary doctorate from the University of East London. On the off chance that he is still alive when his sentence is over, there is very little possibility the man would ever be able to redeem his name.

For fifty years Rolf Harris was considered a living treasure of both the United Kingdom and Australia; loved by children and adults alike for his brand of unique music, mastery of the ‘wobble board’ and eclectic mix of paintings, (including a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate her 80^th birthday). His conviction brought forth a range of reactions from shock to anger to relief, as well as a fresh range of allegations from other women about supposed indiscretions.

My question is though, what do I do with my Best of Rolf Harris CD? Admittedly, I find Jake the Peg rather catchy and still have fond memories of the primary school Christmas concert when we sung Six White Boomers. I have read the news reports of people burning their autographed wobble boards and consigning their Harris paintings to the bin but I am just not sure if this might be an overly hasty response. Not for one moment am I excusing Rolf Harris or attempting to lessen his crimes which are amongst some of the worst possible, but can the good that he has produced in the arts and entertainment still be seen for what it is; good? Read the rest of this entry »

In Google We Trust

Posted: 12 June 2014

I love Google. I use that little search bar numerous times every day. If I want to know what to cook for dinner, study the history of sandpaper or find out the time in Nigeria the method is always the same…Google. And it is a rare occasion when Google lets me down. Sometimes I have only fragments of information but sure enough, more often than not, Google knows what I am after. There are even times when I know the information I need is written somewhere very close by, but instead I’ll search for the information online. There is no doubt that our ability to find information so quickly on so many popular and obscure topics is one of the primary advantages of life in the 21^st century. But just as every cloud has a silver lining, so every silver lining has a cloud.

Google was given its name as a derivative of googol which is the number one followed by a hundred zeros. The mission of Google’s two founders was to organise the seemingly infinite amount of information on the web. And it would seem that they really have succeeded. With over 2 trillion searches made through Google last year it’s clear that the world is keen to get its hands on as much information as it can. And rightly so, for information is a wonderful thing. The word ‘information’ is derived from the Latin stem informare meaning a sort of “formation of the mind”. This etymological meaning helps us to see that information is not only stuff we surround ourselves with, but in a much more profound way it shapes our very thoughts and thus the way we respond to situations. Read the rest of this entry »

Dick Smith Foods, Microsoft & Cooperation in Evil

Posted: 19 February 2014

In 1999 Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith created Dick Smith Foods to provide Australian owned and produced alternatives to the increasing number of foreign owned products. In a number of cases Dick Smith’s determination to support local growers has seen factories reopened, jobs saved and family security restored. Since it began, Dick Smith Foods has given all its profits – some $5.1 million – to over 350 community based charities including the Salvation Army, the Institute for Deaf and Blind Children and the Royal Flying Doctors Service.

Sharing Dick Smith’s desire to support and sustain Australian farmers, I recently put a post on my Facebook page promoting Dick Smith Foods and encouraging people to buy their products. While I usually enjoy a good debate, I was surprised to see one take place beneath my post, with a number of people commenting that they wouldn’t support Dick Smith Foods because of the man’s enthusiasm for national and international population reduction targets.

Now while I don’t agree with his assessment on the population issue (I actually wrote an article on the myth of overpopulation some months ago), it can sometimes be imprudent to reject the good being done in one instance because of a negative aspect in another. Especially in the case of Dick Smith Foods the profits and ideals of the company have nothing to do directly with issues of population control. It is all good and well to stand up to the immorality of the usual ‘life issues’, abortion, contraception, euthanasia etc., but we shouldn’t do that at the expense of not standing up to the immorality of other justice issues such as the right to have a job, earn a fair wage and feed ones family. If we pray for the life of unborn babies on Sunday but don’t support justice for working adults on Monday are we completely balanced? Read the rest of this entry »

Why is the Catholic Church against IVF?

Posted: 5 May 2013

If you take a quick poll of the next ten strangers you encounter and ask them about the Catholic Church and its attitude towards in vitro fertilization (IVF) you are likely to get two responses: half will not realise the Church has a concern with IVF and the other half will state how ridiculous it is that the Church is concerned about a process that can bring children to couples who are unable to conceive. Actually the Church has more than a concern; the Church has taught since IVF came about, that the process is “gravely immoral”. Not that the Church just made up this teaching when IVF began in the late 1970s, rather it applied its ongoing understanding of sexuality to this particular question. None the less, couples considering IVF as a last hope don’t like being told that their choice is gravely immoral so it’s worth considering just what the real problem is.

IVF presents a host of problems. First, it has no guaranteed success. The success rate of IVF is generally 50% for women under thirty but falls to just 20% for women under 40. Second, IVF costs a lot of money. Each treatment cycle can cost a couple around $3000 (after government assistance) whether there is success or not. Third, IVF has health risks. About 30% of IVF patients experience at least a mild case of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) which causes swollen, painful ovaries. While mild cases can be treated with over-the-counter pain medication a small percentage develop severe OHSS which may require hospitalisation. Fourth, IVF creates a life by destroying others. A usual cycle of IVF produces multiple embryos to assist with the success rate and also to store if a couple wishes to try for more children further down the track. However the truth is these embryos are mostly unused. There are 120,000 embryos sitting in frozen storage in Australia, the majority of which will be eventually destroyed with about 90% of IVF couples choosing to discard them. It is worth remembering that an embryo is no longer just an egg or a sperm, it is a new human life. A couple must ask themselves if the birth of one of their children justifies the deliberate creation and destruction of a few of their other children. Read the rest of this entry »

There is only one morality…is it yours?

Posted: 2 March 2013

I was having a conversation with someone the other day and the topic turned briefly to politics. In discussing the various political parties I made the comment that while I don’t have any favoured political party, I would vote for a party on the basis of their stance on moral issues e.g. abortion, same-sex ‘marriage’ etc. After all, if a political party doesn’t understand the nature of marriage or respect the value of human life, I don’t really care how wonderful their economic policy might be. The person I was speaking with, who was also a person of the Christian faith, thought that to vote that way might be good for me, but it was not something that could or should be practiced by those who have no faith. This person believed it was better to encourage people to focus on issues we held in common such as the value of education and the importance of good healthcare.

This got me thinking, are moral issues private issues? Are my beliefs in particular key issues of morality dependent on my belief in a Supreme Being and adherence to a religious system? There are plenty of faithful and well meaning people out there who live by a strong moral code and are probably unable to annunciate any reason for their choices apart from their religion. Of course if someone decides to live an upright life because their faith encourages them to do so that is fantastic. However, it seems to me that we really need to be able to give better reason for living a certain way than because ‘God says’. I am not meaning to lessen the importance of God, but in a secular state God does not feature highly, and there is a growing secular movement hinging its success on telling people that certain aspects of morality are specific to religion and therefore not applicable to a large portion of society. If they are correct, if abortion is only a problem for the Pope, and if marriage between a man and a woman is just a venerable tradition, then it is true that believers have no right to encourage their chosen morality upon those who do not share their faith. But what if they are wrong? Read the rest of this entry »

Modesty. A Sign of Respect for Men and Women.

Posted: 4 November 2012

So there I was at the train station minding my own business when a young lady walked past wearing a pair of tights. At least I think they were tights. It might have been black body paint for all I know, as it looked like she was wearing nothing at all below the waist. I have since been informed by a reliable source that tights are very much in fashion, which would explain why so many women seem to be getting around in them.

Now I am all for fashion, (after all it was in the name of fashion that I sold my maroon microfiber suit on eBay), but I question the appropriateness of an item of clothing that only serves to draw attention to the body and not the person. Regardless of why she was wearing the tights, as that young lady walked down the platform the message she sent was ‘don’t worry about who I am, just have a look at my body’. And that is exactly what an array of men did as they watched her move down the platform. I am certainly not stating that all men’s fashion is worthy of the human person either, but there is no question that women’s clothing that has the most tendency to be provocative. Read the rest of this entry »

Are We All Sexual Perverts?

Posted: 21 October 2012

Recently the Sydney Opera House hosted the Festival of Dangerous Ideas which brings together a host of speakers on a variety of controversial topics. Not one to shy away from controversy I attended a couple of sessions including We are all Sexual Perverts by an American psychologist Jesse Bering, whose basic premise was that each person has within them certain desires that others would find offensive and indeed disgusting. Professing himself to be an active homosexual, Bering believes that while society has become accepting of homosexuality (once called a ‘behaviour’ but now popularly referred to as an ‘orientation’) we should consider why we might be less accepting of the approximately 547 other ‘paraphilias’ ranging from arousal by stuffed animal toys (plushophilia), machines (mechaphilia) or even trees (dendrophilia).

While many of the stranger paraphilias raised laughter amongst the audience, Bering also spent time considering more well known philias such as paedophilia and zoophilia (bestiality), posing the question of how we might respond to someone who had a tendency towards these even though they had never acted upon them. Bering believes that all paraphilias should be accepted and respected because the inclination has nothing to do with whether or not the person has committed some kind of social transgression. Interestingly and correctly Bering did state that without belief in some type of divine creator who had mapped out a design for sexuality who were we to judge a person’s interior sexual desires as more or less worthy than our own. Bering admits that his interest in the whole topic is attributed to his own homosexuality and a childhood lived among “conservative and religious” people which had led him to a sympathy for others who find themselves in minority sexual categories. Read the rest of this entry »

Is truth possible?

Posted: 5 August 2012

I was filling in an online form recently and the security question at the end was “2+9=” and I had to type in the answer to submit the page. I found it interesting that this very mainstream form on the website of this very mainstream company was not only telling me that there was objective truth but that they actually knew what it was! If I had tried to type in that 2+9=5 I would have been told I was wrong. No message was going to appear and tell me that while they respected my freedom to believe that 2+9=5 they preferred the response to be eleven. The message would very simply say, ‘Incorrect, try again’.

I found this small incident amusing because for the most part we exist in a ‘truth free’ society where definitive statements are not welcome. Our society does of course acknowledge right and wrong but these are mostly understood to be established by the Parliament and upheld by the police. Something that is ‘right’ today can be declared ‘wrong’ tomorrow by a simple legislative adjustment. People have lost the idea that there is a genuine reality that is bigger than the law. To declare that something is right or wrong is very different to stating that something is true or untrue. Read the rest of this entry »

No food…but plenty of condoms

Posted: 25 July 2012

I opened the newspaper this week to read the headline that Australia will be doubling an aspect of its foreign aid to $50 million to assist the poor women of the world. What a wonderful idea. Perhaps the aid will be going towards vital medication to women in Sub-Saharan Africa; perhaps food and vitamins to women in South Asia; or perhaps it will pay for education and training in more effective farming methods? No. The money will go completely towards ‘family planning’. And not just our $50 million, add to that half a billion dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a total amount from worldwide governments and the private sector of $2.6 billion. This amount was committed during the recently held family planning summit in London. So that is $2.6 billion for condoms, contraceptive pills and IUDs (small devices placed in the uterus which release a chemical to prevent pregnancy). Add to this an army of frontline health workers to go into these far flung places and educate women about how to best stop having children. This is family planning that has as its aim the destruction of the family.

The money will go to sustain the current contraceptive use by 260 million women in 69 of the world’s poorest nations. It will further ‘help’ another 222 million women who want to use contraception but do not have access to it. I wonder who spoke to these 222 million women? It is no secret that much foreign aid has for years been dependent on women signing up to family planning programs. If you have five hungry children and your next ration pack is dependent on having a device stuck up your uterus, it may not leave a great deal of choice. As we all know a mother will sacrifice everything for her children, and in this case her very dignity as a woman. Too often it is truckloads of contraceptives that make it across war-torn and famine-ridden borders instead of truckloads of food, water and medicines. Read the rest of this entry »

Violence again Women. Australia says…Yes

Posted: 7 July 2012

In 2004 the Federal Government funded a $20 million campaign with the slogan, ‘Violence against Women. Australia Say No.’ The campaign was to bring awareness of violence occurring behind closed doors. As part of the campaign a TV ad was produced with a selection of men justifying why they assaulted women and the slogan making it clear that such behaviour was not tolerable. More recently a government campaign was launched called ’The Line’ which encouraged young people to consider where they would draw the line regarding issues such as ‘hooking up’ sexually at parties. The message in response to this possible quandary was not to engage sexually with someone unless there was mutual consent.

It may seem on face value that Australia is serious about stamping out abuse but I wonder just how serious we really are. While all these sorts of campaigns are of some value they fall into the interesting category of a secular government trying to teach morality. While a government may make laws to try and enact a particular behaviour they are seemingly unable to plug the illogical and confusing holes that appear in their attempts. Read the rest of this entry »

The Scandal of Unfaithful Priests

Posted: 10 June 2012

I had a few ideas in mind for this particular column but on the day I sat down to write it the story broke of a popular Sydney priest who had just announced to his congregation that he had secretly married a woman one year earlier and had since been living a double life. Immediately this priest was across the media in print and radio stating his case and decrying the Church for her laws on clerical celibacy. And as was to be expected the majority of commentary came out in favour of him and against the Church. This priest has always been very diligent in teaching the faith and bestowing the sacraments which makes the story even more disappointing but what is most disappointing is the harm and scandal such a situation does to the Church and to the people of God.

First it must be said that we are all fallen. Each of us has our individual temptations and we often struggle to be faithful to the higher ideals we know we should embrace. Some struggle to moderately use alcohol, others struggle with lust, others struggle with anger. The scandal is not in our struggle and the scandal is not even in our falling into sin. The scandal is when we portray our vices as virtues, try to justify our erroneous judgement and then sell that judgement to others as a truth to be believed. Read the rest of this entry »

Theology of the Body as it was in the Beginning

Posted: 21 December 2011

People ask a lot of questions of the Catholic Church, especially in regards morality. “What is the problem with sex outside of marriage?” Why is contraception immoral?” “Why does marriage have to be between one man and one woman?” People used to challenge Jesus with similar questions. At one point a group of Pharisees came up to Christ to ask him if divorce was permissible. To their surprise though He did not simply point them to the written law but instead he invited them to consider that “from the beginning God made them male and female” and created a marriage bond that could not be broken. The Pharisees complained that Moses had allowed them to divorce, but even though this had happened, Christ looked deeply at them and said “but from the beginning it was not so.”

Why direct the people to the beginning and not just the written law? Because Christ was directing them to the law written on their hearts. We exist in a fallen world, in a world where we struggle to do what is right, where the body and the spirit battle one another. However, it was not always like that, there was a time when humanity knew what it was to love God, love others and love themselves rightly. This time was before Original Sin entered the world and we read about it in just a few short passages in the book of Genesis. Thirty years ago a young Pope John Paul II began to give a series of addresses that delved back into the beginning so that we would know better the answer to the questions, ‘Who am I’ and ‘What does it mean to be human’. These addresses are known today as the Theology of the Body. Read the rest of this entry »