Abstract
Drawing upon personal experiences as a Catholic priest and a human rights lawyer who has worked mainly in Australia; as chair of the National Human Rights Consultation for the Rudd Government in 2009; as a participant in the public debate in the lead up to the 2017 Australian plebiscite on same sex marriage; and, as a member of the Australian government’s expert panel set up to report on freedom of religion in the wake of changes to the marriage laws, the author of this chapter offers a series of reflections on the contemporary relevance of religion in the public square.
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David Speers interviewed Archbishop Mark Coleridge on Skynews on 28 September 2017. When asked how Catholics could vote, Coleridge answered at some length: ‘Catholics we’re a big mob. Anyone who thinks we’re monolithic does not know the Catholic Church. It’s like herding cats. Catholics are going to vote “yes”, some are going to vote “no”, some are not going to vote at all. Some are going to vote “yes” for one reason, some for another; ditto with “no”. To think of a Catholic vote all going one way is just naïve. Of course it’s possible to vote “yes”. It depends why you vote “yes”. It’s possible to vote “no” but equally it depends why you vote “no”. And we’ve seen some awful stuff on both sides of the debate, or all sides of the debate, because there aren’t just two sides As a Catholic you can vote “yes” or you can vote “no”. I personally will vote “no” but for quite particular reasons. But I’m not going to stand here and say you vote “no”; and you vote “yes” and you’re a Catholic, you’ll go to hell. It’s not like that.’
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Brennan, F. (2020). The Contemporary Relevance of Religion in the Public Square. In: Babie, P., Sarre, R. (eds) Religion Matters. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2489-9_12
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