The Plot Against Pell

Never have I seen such vituperation and opprobrium directed against anyone as I have seen in the press directed against Cardinal Pell over many months, if not years. . . . it seems to me that there is no chance Cardinal Pell could ever receive a fair trial, so poisoned has the public's mind been. 

Geoffrey Horgan, former Victorian Crown Prosecutor

     At trial the accused's guilt must be established beyond reasonable doubt. On the other hand, Cardinal George Pell, one time Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne might be unique in that his innocence was established beyond any reasonable doubt - but not before he served more than 400 days in prison for a crime he could not possibly have committed.

Reparations for Slavery?

      You will no doubt be aware of a recent movement to claim reparations for West Indian populations in general from Britain in particular and Europe in general because of past slavery. Here we see two popular tropes: (1) negative experiences have permanent, intergenerational effects, and (2) those poor dark skinned people can't possibly improve themselves without the help of a (left wing) white saviour. Let us shine a more rational light on the subject.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary (Part 1 of 4)

     St. Joseph is nowhere mentioned during Jesus' ministry, least of all in places where you would expect it, so it is normally assumed that he had already passed away by then. Nevertheless, complications would have arisen if he had died while Jesus was still a teenager. Probably, therefore, Mary and Joseph were married for 20 to 25 years. Yet it is an article of faith in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, and accepted by many of the Reformers, that this marriage was never consummated, that it was completely sexless and, not only that, but this was a good thing, an act of piety. This doctrine is held with an emotion which is highly resistant to logic. Centuries of devotion to the Holy Mother has turned her, in the view of many, into an ethereal figure on a pedestal far above normal human experience. Along with centuries of the monastic adulation of celibacy, it means that idea of her being carnally touched by a man produces an almost visceral response that it is an attack on her sanctity. Anyone would think that a virtuous wife and mother is less holy than a virgin! Also, it is a teaching of their church, and their world would start to collapse if they at once admitted that the church might have got it wrong.

      Nevertheless, it has got it wrong.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary. (Part 2 of 4: Sacred Tradition)

     In Part 1 we looked at what the Bible says, or doesn't say, about the purported perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Now we shall examine the earliest Christian writings to see whether they can provide any evidence for the doctrine.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary (Part 3 of 4: Stepsiblings)

      You will often hear it said that Jesus' brothers and sisters were the children of Joseph by an earlier marriage. After all, their attitude towards Jesus resembles the resentment of older children over the success of the baby of the family. I suppose younger children never resent their eldest brother. Nevertheless, there are a couple of problems with this, irrespective of the lack of evidence.

The Perpetual Virginity of Mary (Part 4 of 4: Cousins)

      St. Jerome is famous as the scholar who produced the Vulgate, the standard Latin translation of the Bible. As such, his other writings became hugely influential. Jerome was a monk particularly obsessed with ascetism: the denial of the pleasures of the flesh. And he had a special animus against marriage, even going so far as to say that St. Peter had wiped out the filth of marriage with the blood of martyrdom. The warmth of married love was outside of his world view; he seems to have no concept of marriage except as a channel for sexual desires. Virginity was the highest virtue, and marriage, according to him, was of value only in producing more virgins. So you may guarantee that he did not take it lightly when another writer contradicted this world view.

The Chancellor in Tears

       "It's enough to make a grown man cry!" That's the sort of thing one would say about the Labour Government in the United Kingdom these days. But recently the world was presented with the spectacle of the second highest officer in the UK cabinet, the chancellor (finance minister), Rachel Reeves bursting into tears in Parliament. To this, The Guardian ran an opinion piece entitled, "Crying in the Commons: why are women's workplace tears a source of shame?" Well, as an ethologist i.e. a zoologist who specialises in behaviour, let me explain.

Coming Up Trumps in America

      I see that the lunatics are still in charge of the asylum over in the U.S. How is it that an advanced democracy like the United States can't put up a better choice than between two flawed characters such as Trump and Harris? In 2016 it was a choice between the mad and the bad. This time it was between the mad and the sad. Nevertheless, as an Australian I was praying for a Trump victory. Anything else was too terrible to contemplate.

Once More: the Moral Panic Over Domestic Violence

      It is hard to believe it is 9½ years since I wrote Why I Didn't Wear a White Ribbon, in which I provided the true statistics for domestic violence in Australia, and put them in perspective. Since then the figures have only got better, but everybody claims they have got worse, and they talk about an "epidemic of domestic violence". 28 women killed by their partners or ex-partners in the first four months of 2024, or one every four days! That certainly sounds like a spectacular increase since last year. Or is it?

Aboriginal Issues

       Despite being an Australian, I have a significant library on the North American Indians, mainly because they had a wider variety of lifestyles to those of our own Aborigines. They were hard done by by the Americans. However, that does not mean that their lifestyles were idyllic. The tribes tended to break down into two categories: the predators and the prey, the latter being the smaller tribes. Constant warfare was the order of the day, sometimes with unimaginable cruelty.

     The Australian Aborigines were also hard done by by white Australians. But that also does not mean that their lives were idyllic.