Here’s a piece I wrote recently for The Catholic Weekly:
Here’s the story:
“Catholic school students have been banned from wearing their school uniform at tomorrow’s climate strike event in Hobart.
In making the ruling, Catholic Education Tasmania said the strike was ‘not an educational event’ and not part of the school curriculum.
Executive director Gerard Gaskin said there would be differing opinions among parents, students and staff in school communities about the events.
Dr Gaskin argued the goals of the strike were not specific, and it was not clear if organisers shared the vision of Pope Francis or the Catholic position on a range of social issues. He said for those reasons, students attending should not wear their uniform.
Really now. A march in support of an issue about which the Pope has written an entire encyclical is not something with which Catholic students are permitted to identify their Catholic faith? Because there might be some people there who are not Catholic or who hold non-Catholic views? Seriously?
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6 Responses
Too bad they don’t have a comments section. I wanted to see if ruffled Aussie feathers look the same as ruffled Yankee feathers.
hi australian here. Mark, what are the “several of []our more extermination-worthy animal species” that you are referring to? If you mean cane toads, they’re from Hawaii, technically they’re on the US.
There are many things in land, sea, and sky on Monster Island that fill me with terror.
Mark, there is nothing – nothing – in Australia that cannot be dispatched within thirty seconds by an adult on dry land armed with a garden shovel.
Taipan snakes… boxing kangaroos… redback spiders… magpies… one just has to be alert. (Hence Aussie kids grow up amazed at American or British films where children run barefoot through long grass).
Yeah, sharks, stingrays and crocodiles are tougher, but one stays out of the water where they live.
Whereas North America’s got freakin’ polar bears wandering through town after dark. The world’s largest land predator. Takes three or four bullets to bring one down.
And mountain lions… rattlesnakes… Even the alligators seem to prefer dry land more than our crocs do.
Of all the things that I’ve read about, it’s those tiny little “box?” jellyfish that sound terrifying. I want to at least think about what’s killing me before I die.
I got my first stingray sting in Santa Barbara the summer before last. They have proliferated like never before. Guessd whst feeds on the stingrays? Adolescent great whites.
The sam summer that I was stung, I enrolled two of my boys in a surfing class in Summerland. The water was so clear that year you could see the great whites prowling around. When they got too close the surf instructors on paddleboards would blow a whistle if they got too close.
One of my kids was like, “but Mama I don’t want to go anymore”. I said, “the $300 is unrefundable. Get out there you wuss.”
*ok, sorry for not rereading my drivel. My husband is rushing me to watch the sunset. I just had my nails done and they are impossible to type with.