In 1991 the Australian political scientist, sociologist and historian, Paul Duffy SJ, concluded his major study^₁ of the role and nature of the media by arguing that if Catholics are to take the Gospel seriously, they also needed to take the media seriously.

Pope John Paul II surprised many when he affirmed the insights of over a century of women’s activism: “Women’s dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they have often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitude. This has prevented women from truly being themselves and it has resulted in a spiritual impoverishment of humanity.” (Letter to Women #3)

The words and actions of Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI surely affirm, and inspire us all in the pursuit of the League’s mission of educating, promoting and defending the dignity of all our fellow human beings—whether elderly, pre-born, disabled, or hale and hearty.

The spontaneous gesture by Pope Francis to leave his papal entourage so that he could kiss a disabled man was a bioethics homily beyond words. The responding surprised delight on the man’s face, and those around him in St Peter’s Square, was a powerful visual counter-sign to a world where pregnancies are screened and the challenging end-of-lives patients are hastened to their death.

In his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Love in Truth, 2009), Pope Benedict XVI urges the societies of the world and the Church herself to take a “new trajectory of thinking … in order to arrive at a better understanding of the implications of our being one family” (n.35). This need to re-imagine the Church’s social mission seems more urgent than ever, especially as Christianity becomes caricatured or unheard in the midst of the often strident debates about human rights and equality, bioethical issues, asylum seekers, humane and sustainable economies, and what Benedict XVI calls the ‘ecology’ of love, sexuality and marriage.

There is distinct air of both surprise and hope at the announcement this week that Father Paul Bird, the regional head (provincial) of the Redemptorists will be the eighth Catholic Bishop for the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

It is interesting that commentators and bloggers from different theological quarters in the church have been united in their positive reception of the news.

Often the ethical, cultural and legislative campaigns for euthanasia are so unremitting that those many people defending the sanctity of life suffer a type of campaign “fatigue”.

Symptoms of this fatigue can include existential burn-out and a type of ethical depression. We can start to believe that those campaigning for euthanasia and assisted suicide have all the celebrities, all the progress, all the funding, all the media headlines and all the emotional energy. It is worth discussing just a few of the reasons for this experience.

In April this year, an independent and cross-party U.K. Parliamentary group released the Report of its Inquiry into Online Child Protection. The Inquiry was conducted not only with the working team of Conservative, Labour and cross-bench members, but was supported by 60 other British Parliamentarians. It was prompted by some of the findings of the 2011 Report Letting Children Be Children: Report of the Independent review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood (October 2011).

The last few decades have witnessed a rising tide of societal outrage and grief over the neglect or evasion of cases of child sexual abuse within once trusted institutions—the scouts, schools or churches. People question why it is that time and time again those in authority prevaricated, ignored the evidence or were simply too perplexed to face their suspicions squarely. These questions are justified.

At the same time, there is evidence of a disturbing double standard within the same sections of the public who would lynch all priests and school teachers for the crimes of a few.

Academics, media commentators and even ordinary members of the public increasingly assume these days that the population is divided into two distinct camps—those who are “believers” on one hand and those who are “unbelievers” on the other. The increasingly belligerent “new atheists” use this misconstrual to argue for the exclusion of the “believers” from public discourse and at the same time argue for the benevolent “neutrality” of the “non-believers”.

Associate Professor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini is something of an Australian landmark.   He is currently the Associate Dean and Head of the Bioethics Department at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne.

In an earlier blog, I wrote about a series of seminars that Professor Tonti-Filippini has organized in different parts of Melbourne, in order to outline his concerns about end-of-life decisions.