Humane Catholic

Commemoration of John Keble (14 July), preached at St Mary’s North Melbourne, 15 July 2011 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness In 1833 John Keble preached a sermon from a very high pulpit to a group of legal and civic luminaries in a university city. Keble’s sermon, in its substance and context, holds almost nothing of relevance for the Anglican Church in Melbourne in 2011. It is, like most historical documents, so grounded in its own time and place that its purpose and cares have long been left behind. The notion of the Christian state, let alone the notion of that state becoming apostate in the manner of Saul in 1 Samuel 12, is an irrelevance to us here today. (I could here make a quip about CRI and School chaplaincy, but that is a story for another time.) Keble’s sermon is irrelevant – but not entirely. Two points, I think, bear repeating and revisiting, even in Melbourne in 2011. The first is Keble’s realisation that the church was in danger, and his r...

It’s an interesting experience; being a temporary minor media personality. The sermon immediately below in this blog was picked up by The Sunday Age, a Melbourne-based broadsheet, and turned into an article with the rather disarming title “Priest urges end to ‘forced’ religious education”. I had been contacted by Jill Stark from The Sunday Age, who had read my sermon, and having realized that she had some pretty basic facts incorrect, I decided that it was better to speak to her than not. As always, what comes out in print is never exactly what you would have written yourself . . . Nonetheless, although I was initially annoyed by the newspaper report, as time has passed I find myself much less so. I think that there are two reasons for this. First, because of the quite astonishing level of support for what I said both on this blog and in the newspaper. Apart from one rather intemperate phone call from someone involved at the senior level in Access and one pretty mild rebuking email f...

Sermon for Easter 4 15 May 2011 Preached at St Mary’s Anglican Church, North Melbourne “A different sort of Access” When I became vicar of St Mary’s, I discovered that one of the duties I had inherited with that title was to teach and coordinate religious education at Errol Street Primary School. I’ll be up front and admit that I wasn’t a duty I relished, but over a month or so late last year I took up the task, and enjoyed the interaction with the grade five and six students, as well as the younger students who were involved in the final Christmas session of the year. Fr Philip, who has taught RE for several years, was intending to take over these duties this year, freeing me up to do some other things. Things have worked out somewhat differently. Doubtless many of you will have seen in the papers and elsewhere over the last few months – even this morning in fact – that there has been quite a kerfuffle about the teaching of Special Religious Education in primary schools. What ...