Religion

‘Until the last decade or so,’ writes Maryanne Confoy, ‘most people thought of spirituality, if they thought of it at all, as something for other people.’ It is certainly true that there is a new and quite sudden interest in spirituality in this country, and this book on the spirituality of Morris West is a timely addition to the growing tradition of – what can we call it? – ‘wisdom writing’ in contemporary Australia. It might be a symptom of the turn of the millennium, it might be a reaction to the craziness and fragmentation of the modern world, it might be a sign of cultural disorientation and the search for roots – however we attempt to account for it, spirituality and the quest for meaning is back on the public agenda and is in great demand. Just ask your local bookseller.

Gerard Henderson takes as the subject of this important book the relations between the bishops of the Catholic Church and its lay organisation, the Catholic Social Studies Movement during the period from 1940 to the 1960s. The study is particularly welcome as neither Church nor Movement were given to public self-exposure. Henderson, by using the files of the National Civic Council and the minutes of relevant episcopal committees, has given us an insight into the conflicts within the church over its role in political activity in this period

The decisive influence on Australian politics and culture has been the fact that our society has always included a large minority who, even if they considered themselves British, were definitely Irish and not English. The fact that this minority has been Catholic and, as a result, has felt itself discriminated against, has shaped the church into an Irish rather than a European mode, so that, as Campion points out, not only was to be Irish to be Catholic, but to be Catholic was to be Irish.

The Monash University team at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Melbourne has achieved great success in its endeavours to relieve infertility by the production of ‘test-tube babies’. This collection explains what goes on, discusses moral and legal problems relating to the programme, and gives a preview of what might lie ahead. The contributors include members of the medical team, their clients, and moral philosophers and theologians.

On page eleven of this book, Australians are called an engagingly innocent people ‘splendidly unthinking of anything but the simplicities of affluent living.’ On page twelve, they are called ‘lazy and uncreative’. On page 311, the author writes: ‘Yet in spite of a widespread belief (mainly self-generated) that we are a nation of yahoos, we have as much capacity for some unique kind of greatness as the people of any other race and nation.’