Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
Feminist Rhetoric and the Ordination of Women
In March 1992, I attended a historic event: the ordination of Australia’s first Anglican women priests. Not long before the event, I was gathered with the other clergy around Archbishop Peter Carnley when he announced his intention to ordain them without waiting for the Appellate Tribunal, the Church’s High Court, to offer its view on the legality of doing so. The time for waiting was over, he said, the Holy Spirit was speaking through him! In his ordination homily, he used feminist rhetoric to frame his message: this was about rescuing the suicidal woman, trapped in the attic against her will, madly peeling away the yellowed wallpaper. What’s beneath this rhetoric: justice, equality, freedom, the Gospel, clerical power, or just an unpapered wall?
Kay Goldsworthy can tell us. She was ordained in that first group of women. In May 2008, she was installed as Assistant Bishop in Perth. In March 2015, she was installed as Bishop of Gippsland. In February 2018, she was installed…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
