10 October, 2024
Dear Reader,
I suppose you’ll think I’m blowing my own trumpet, but I once won a debate on air with the formidable and rather scary radio talk-show host and ex-senator Derryn Hinch. But the fact is that I was just very lucky.
It was 20 years ago and I was then rector of St John’s College in the University of Sydney. The University administration wanted to buy a few acres of our property, land that lay between our college and their own territory, to build a new medical centre. We were willing, even keen to sell, but felt bound to stipulate that we would only do so if the building were not used to terminate or experiment with human lives.
Amazingly the University senate agreed. But you can imagine that we became the focus of a howling storm of protest from many left-leaning staff and students, and of course the good old media. You can always rely on the media – they’re always there when you don’t need them, aren’t they? Christians are always the same, they said, interfering in matters that didn’t concern us. We’re meant to keep out of politics.
So I had a call from a radio station in Melbourne asking if I’d take an interview. I agreed. While I was holding the line I was luckily able to hear the preceding minutes of the broadcast and, to my horror, realised I was going to be up against Hinch himself, the manslayer. I listened to him saying to his audience something to the effect that ‘the idiot coming on next is one of those religious nuts who want to impose their bigoted opinions on ordinary decent people’.
So that was a real blessing: I was given a couple of minutes to get ready not just to defend ourselves but to go on the offensive. It was easy to do, because anyone – all of you who read this – if given just a moment to think, can recall names like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Janani Lumum (Archbishop of Uganda. murdered by Idi Amin), Oscar Romero (Archbishop of San Salvador, murdered by a military junta). All were martyrs who ‘interfered’ by trying to impose their bigoted views on ordinary decent people. So I asked Mr Hinch if he thought they should have shut up.
I’m pleased and not a little chuffed to report that Hinch rather handsomely conceded defeat. If I had had more time I could have added many more names, as all of you could too: both Peter and Paul, for a start, then martyrs such as St Laurence, who told his persecutors under torture that the real treasure of his Church was the poor.
Not all of those who stood up for matters of conscience became martyrs: a few actually got away with it, like St Ambrose of Milan who excommunicated his emperor for permitting a massacre of civilians. Now there were no Occupational Health and Safety laws in those days, but if there had been, accusing your emperor of murder would have been on top of the list of unsafe work practices. Surprisingly in Ambrose’s case the emperor folded – and did penance. Bishop von Galen (the ‘Lion of Münster’) preached against Nazism throughout the war; they often considered killing him, but his popularity set the price too high.
Thomas a Becket wasn’t so lucky, nor were many of the protestant reformers, such as Cranmer, Lattimer and Ridley; nor (I’m bound to say) many of the counter reformers, people like Edmund Campion and John Fisher who stood up for the ‘old religion’.
Even among Christians – within the very household of Faith – there have always been ‘decent, ordinary people’ (as Derryn and others would say) who don’t like religious fanatics meddling with their comfortable values: remember the cry against Tony Abbott, often from fellow Catholics: ‘Keep your rosaries off our ovaries’? The sad thing is that many Christians, in every age, have themselves been nominal believers, Laodiceans, ‘Cafeteria Christians’, who pick and choose what they’re comfortable with, don’t like upsetting people, and (this is the worst bit) would sooner leave fellow Christians to the wolves than be embarrassed by them. Cardinal Pell learned that the hard way.
Somebody observed that the chief of the cardinal virtues in the modern Church is no longer Charity, not even Faith and Hope, but Prudence.
With best wishes to all, as ever,
David Daintree
FOR FURTHER READING
COVID’S LONG SHADOW
The Brownstone Institute has published Gary Scarrabelotti’s article Joseph Pieper, Discourse and the Age of Covid. Pieper is a great modern philosopher in the classical tradition.
GLOBAL GOVERNMENT –
WHEN DID WE VOTE FOR THIS?
In recent years, the UN has had a weak record in the pursuit of human flourishing. Tens of thousands of children die every day of malnutrition and the effects of bad water, and the culprit is always identified as something abstract (‘climate change’, ‘gender equality’ and so forth), yet rarely sheeted home to human indifference and greed. It seems our elected leaders, having confused their priorities, are offloading their responsibilities on to unelected cabals and NGOs. Oh, for an Edmund Burke to address the General Assembly! Our society ought to be ‘a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.’
NEW JOURNAL – EDUCERE
That admirable organisation Logos Australis has just launched its new journal Educere. You can see a free full advance review copy of the first number here. Volume 1, issue 1 contains articles by Kenneth Crowther, David Daintree, Karina Hepner, Natalie Kennedy, Paul Morrissey and Andy Mullins.
A CLASSICAL RENAISSANCE
Dr Patrick Egan recently interviewed Kon Bouzikos, president of the Australian Classical Education Society. Listen to it here.
KEVIN DONNELLY’S FORUM NOW ONLINE
All presentations from Dr Donnelly’s Forum on Classical Education (Brisbane 24 September) are now online:https://www.mcclelland.academy/educationseminar.
The speakers are Iain Benson, Colin Black, Robert Carver, Kenneth Crowther, Simon Haines and Anna Krohn.
EVIDENCE-BASED TEACHER-LED LEARNING
Distinguished educator Steven Schwartz advocates educational rigour in this article aptly titled Greater Expectations. You may need to join Substack to read it, but it’s worth doing (there’s no charge).
A wise and clever article tactfully offered without further comment.
ARE DEI AND CHRISTIANITY COMPATIBLE?
So asks Archbishop Porteous here. There’s no easy answer: In an increasingly complex and interrelated world, regulation becomes necessary to ensure the smooth running of society. There is now a new vocabulary in vogue: ‘governance’, ‘compliance’, ‘risk management’, ‘work, health and safety’. As the compliance industry develops it has become more sophisticated and at the same time, more subjective…
COMING EVENTS
COLONIALISM: A MORAL RECKONING
The Revd Dr NIGEL BIGGAR,
Chairman of the Free Speech Union (UK),
Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford,
will speak on his latest book.
Saturday 19 October at 6.00 pm
St Mary’s Cathedral Centre, off Harrington Street, Hobart
FREE ADMISSION BUT BOOKINGS ESSENTIAL to director@dawsoncentre.org
Read more about Prof Biggar here.
The talk will subsequently appear on our YouTube channel.
CHESTERTON SOCIETY ANNUAL CONFERENCE
At Campion College, Sydney, on Saturday 2 November. Details Here.
DAWSON CENTRE SUMMER SCHOOLS
JANUARY 2025
LATE AND ECCLESIASTICAL LATIN
Monday 6 to Friday 10 January 2025
Venue: Notre Dame Priory, Colebrook, Tasmania
The Latin school assumes some prior knowledge of the language and leads participants through a selection of important readings in poetry and prose, sacred and secular, from authors such as Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Peter Abelard, Aquinas, the Carmina Burana, and even Dante. In date our selections range from the poet Virgil to the abdication speech of Pope Benedict! There will also be a segment on palaeography when participants can handle real medieval manuscripts. Note that this course does not take any position on the liturgical use of Latin, but it recognises that Latin remains the official language of the western Church and acknowledges the insistence of the last four popes that Latin must be preserved! Accommodation may be available on request at the Priory. Enquiries to guestmaster@notredamemonastery.org.
BIBLICAL GREEK FOR BEGINNERS
Monday 13 to Friday 17 January 2025
Venue: Fr John Wall Memorial Library, 131 Tower Road, New Town, Tasmania
The New Testament and Koine Greek school is for beginners who want to experience the excitement of reading parts of the Bible in the original language. We shall read extracts from the Gospel and Epistles, as well as some important passages from the Septuagint (the ancient Greek version of the Old Testament), as well as some pieces from the early Fathers of the Church and the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
For all booking details and enquiries, email director@dawsoncentre.org
SUMMER SCHOOLS
BOOK NOW ONLINE
MEDIEVAL LATIN & BIBLICAL AND KOINE GREEK
2023 COLLOQUIUM BOOK
WOKERY – A WAKE-UP CALL FOR THE WEST, the complete proceedings of last year’s Colloquium, is now on sale. The cost is $35 (postage included). ORDER ONLINE HERE or write to us at director@dawsoncentre.org.