About the Christopher Dawson Centre

‘DWARVES ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS…’

‘It is true that Christianity is not bound up with any particular race or culture. It is neither of the East or of the West, but has a universal mission to the human race as a whole…’

– Christopher Dawson

 ‘Bernard of Chartres used to say that we are like dwarves sitting on the shoulders of giants, for we see more and farther than they, not by the sharpness of our own eyesight or the loftiness of our bodies, but because we are raised up and lifted on high by their colossal greatness.’                                          

– John of Salisbury

The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies
Contact Details

DIRECTOR:  Alexander Sidhu

 Head Office:  Melbourne, Victoria  
Email:  director@dawsoncentre.org

About our logo

The Centre’s device is a candle, signifying Reason, set within the Cross, the symbol of Faith.  The open book contains the motto of Oxford University – Dawson’s alma mater – Deus Illuminatio mea, the opening words of Psalm 27 (‘the Lord is my Light and my Salvation; whom then should I fear?’)

About the CDC

Following his installation as Archbishop of Hobart on 17 September 2013 the Most Reverend Julian Porteous signaled a determination to advance the Catholic Intellectual Tradition within the Archdiocese and beyond.  He took steps to establish the Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies, in honour of a man who is considered to have been the greatest English-speaking Catholic historian of the twentieth century.

Who was Christopher Dawson?

‘Secularization of culture is seen in its most striking form in the Communist State, where alone as yet the elimination of religion has been carried to its logical conclusion.  Nevertheless, the same tendency exists elsewhere; in fact, it permeates the whole outlook of modern civilization.  The average man lives more totally in the State than in the past, and even when he is not consciously hostile to religion, he no longer conceives it as a vital activity which must hold its central place in human life and society.’

Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) was brought up an Anglican, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1914, and is principally known for his powerful defence of the vital role of the Christian religion as a major strand of Western culture.  The aim of the Centre named after him is ‘to promote awareness of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and Cultural Heritage as essential components of human civilization’.

 

BRISBANE SATURDAY 1 JUNE

Seminar and dinner in collaboration with the Australian Classical Education Society. The keynote speaker will be Andrew Kern, founder and president of the US Circe Institute.  

BOOK HERE

COLLOQUIUM 2024

The 2024 Colloquium will be on SATURDAY 6 JULY

Topic:  Authentic Humanism and the Crisis of Culture

The after-dinner speaker this year will be Emeritus Professor Steven Schwartz AM FASSA, formerly Vice-Chancellor of three universities (Brunel, Murdoch and Macquarie) and currently Senior Fellow of the Centre for Independent Studies.

BOOK HERE

21 July, 2022

Last Saturday’s Colloquium was the big event of our year.  It lived up to our expectations and indeed soared beyond: all papers were well and evenly matched in their force and relevance.  

Putting to one side for a moment our due sense of triumph on the conclusion of an intensely engaging conference, I cannot fail to observe that much was said there had the power to depress and sadden us.  The awful truth is that when ten experts in their several fields talk about freedom of speech and religion today, a certain gloom settles upon their audience: traditional rights of expression and even the law itself are yielding to the power of wokery in western countries. 

Not only is free speech curtailed, but being merely suspected of harbouring inappropriate thoughts can be dangerous.  Jobs have been lost, livelihoods destroyed, for the expression of errant ideas.  ‘Sadly, you can say what you like around the kitchen table at home’, said former Human Rights Commissioner Gillian Trigg in 2017.  ‘Sadly,’ mark you!  Can this really be happening?  Do many of our nation’s leaders and law-enforcers actually regret that intimate conversation within the family circle cannot be placed under surveillance – yet – and duly corrected or even penalized?  Sadly it appears to be so.  A totalitarian impulse within certain sections of western democratic society looks to be well entrenched, a longing to control, a nostalgia for the powers to which the privileged have always felt themselves entitled.

So much for sadness and depression.  Confidence and optimism overwhelm gloom, and the sun shines more brightly when you can see more clearly what you have to face and have an informed hope of winning the war, even if some skirmishes don’t go our way.  For a start, most of those present at the colloquium have firm confidence in the Grace of God and the certainty of final victory.  Another source of encouragement was the opinion expressed by several speakers that the gulf between actuality and delusion has widened now almost to breaking point, and that the whole woke myth based on the false creed that you are what you think you are will sooner or later implode under the sheer weight of its own nonsense, as ordinary people wake up, speak out and take strength from each other.  

I suppose the longing to see our dreams come true is a perfectly normal human tendency, particularly among children.  But its continuation into adulthood seems to be a peculiar weakness of our own times, helped along perhaps over the last several decades by those sweet, beguiling words of Walt Disney:

‘Makes no difference who you are,

Anything your heart desires will come to you…

…When you wish upon a star

Your dreams come true.’

Brought up on that sort of thing, as so many of us have been, it’s easy to believe that we can be male or female, black or white, or that unborn babies are not really human, or anything else we want –  and that mere wishing can make it so.

For the first time we videoed everything and will soon upload all presentations to our YouTube channel.  The proceedings will also be published in book form later this year.