Flashes
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The peace of the Resurrection and the call to end war
The argument that enemies hide among civilians does not grant unlimited permission to inflict mass casualties on noncombatants. Civilian infrastructure like power grids and food supply chains cannot be obliterated simply because soldiers also depend on electricity and sustenance to carry out their operations.
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Mercy, joy and the nearness of God
People arrive at liturgy seeking love and mercy but leave without feeling them. The gap between what the words intend and what worshippers experience raises an urgent question: what is the liturgy actually revealing about the God we gather to meet?
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Sexual morality is over-emphasised — Pope Leo
Freedom of religion, equality, justice for men and women — these are the moral questions Pope Leo XIV says the church should be leading on. His pointed critique of the over-emphasis on sexual ethics echoes a growing frustration among Catholics who feel the tradition’s full moral vision has been narrowed and distorted.
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Synodal journey shifts from excitement to episcopal control
When Irish bishops launched the Synodal Pathway in 2021, they had no idea Pope Francis was about to announce a global process weeks later. The coincidence forced a rapid restructuring of Ireland’s entire approach, folding its national ambitions into Rome’s wider timeline.
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Banksy captures our moment
A Banksy statue appeared overnight on a London street — a man in a suit, stepping into thin air. Banal at first glance, the figure crystallises something all the year’s op-eds have failed to: the breathtaking gap between political confidence and political vision in our time.
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A passive voice is how we hide from the wars we choose
We have constructed an entire vocabulary of evasion around war. Violence “erupts,” conflicts “spiral,” casualties get “reported” — all passive, all subjectless. Leo XIV punctures that fog by insisting someone chose this, restoring human agency and accountability to every act of destruction.
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The dire straits of Anzac Day
Every year Australia and New Zealand remember soldiers who died on a Turkish beach. In 2026 that remembrance collides with a new war over a strategic strait, raising urgent questions about whether nations ever learn from past losses.
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Finding clever ways to slow-walk synodality
A pattern is emerging across dioceses where emphasis falls on spiritual process rather than structural outcomes. By foregrounding the journey and downplaying the vision for shared governance, bishops can appear synodal while avoiding real institutional change.
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Doing theology in times of political crisis
The collision of political sovereignty and ecclesial authority exposes fundamental questions of legitimacy within a fragmented normative landscape. Appeals to tradition obscure irreducible complexity, crisis functions as rhetorical apparatus, and the inexorable dynamics of imperial decline reconfigure authority itself—compelling discernment between authentic moral critique and instrumentalised religion.
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The hidden theology of “our young people now leave us”
What is the spiritual impact on the congregation when children and youth depart for their groups near the beginning of a service? Why are the adults who remain in the main church building typically the ones who are seen to remain in worship and teaching?
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