Karl Schmude speaking on "The Qualities of Christian Civilisation: The Transcendence of Goodness, Truth and Beauty."

The secularised condition of Western civilisation has now reached an advanced stage of spiritual exhaustion and cultural disintegration. Yet this has not yet brought about a realisation of the religious foundations of our culture, and the extent to which its character was shaped by, and continues to depend upon, Christian insights and impulses.  While other elements such as Greek philosophy and Roman law and organisation were crucial, Christianity supplied the underlying inspiration and unity of Western civilisation. This paper explores the qualities of Christian civilisation through the eyes of the three transcendentals that correspond to ultimate human desires – goodness, truth and beauty.  It cites ways in which the Christian expression of these principles gave birth to distinctive moral, intellectual and artistic traditions that may inspire and inform a rebuilding of the walls of Sion.

Karl Schmude has combined a long career in universities with freelance writing and speaking.  He served for 16 years as University Librarian at the University of New England in Armidale NSW.   He is a co-founder of Campion College, an independent institution of Catholic inspiration which offers an integrated undergraduate degree in the Liberal Arts.  It is now in its fourteenth year of operation.  Karl has written widely for Australian and overseas journals on subjects associated with religion and culture – particularly literature, history, and education.  He is President of the Australian Chesterton Society, editor of its quarterly newsletter, The Defendant, and author of a short biography of Chesterton. In 2014 the Christopher Dawson Centre published his biographical booklet on Christopher Dawson.

Colloquium 2019

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Dr Peter Cunich speaking on: "Praying for the Dead: The Role of intercessory Prayer in the Construction and Maintenance of Christian Communities"

The Catholic Church’s ancient doctrines concerning purgatory and the communion of the saints supported the development in medieval Europe of localised Christian communities which included in their ranks both the living and the dead, and in which the living, through their intercessory prayers, played a central role in assisting the dead to make the transition from purgatory into heaven. While praying for the dead is still a regular feature of the prayer life of Catholic parishes in the modern world, the practice has gradually been drawn into the domain of private prayer, with only limited recognition now being given to the role of the whole community of the faithful in praying for deceased members of the parish. In this paper, I will outline the medieval practices of communal prayer for the dead, and discuss some more recent examples of Catholic groups that have used prosopographical means to reconstruct and maintain a vibrant sense of community which encompasses both the living and the dead. I will ask whether these examples perhaps suggest a largely forgotten but nevertheless potent means by which every faith community within the church might strengthen their bonds of community and help to maintain a flourishing sense of Christian identity within a secularised world.

Peter Cunich is an historian of early modern Europe with a research focus on the dissolution of the monasteries and state finance in sixteenth-century England, but he also writes on the history of higher education, nineteenth and twentieth-century missionary activity in East Asia, and the history of the Catholic church in Australia. He is currently writing a biography of Roger Bede Vaughan OSB, second archbishop of Sydney.

Christopher Dawson Centre

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Philippa Martyr speaking on: "‘Your Healing Shall Spring Up’: psychological and spiritual interventions for rebuilding a wounded Church"

Contrary to popular opinion, the Church in Australia is not being persecuted. It is experiencing the inevitable consequences of decades of liturgical abuses, doctrinal dissent, and sexual revolution on the part of both clergy and laity alike. Both the people of God and its ecclesial leadership need profound spiritual healing – but where do we start? The US-based Grief to Graceprogram offers a model of healing which is working to restore wounded, abused and scandalised clergy and laity by identifying and expressing individual injuries, and then re-uniting these powerfully to the Passion of Christ.

Dr Philippa Martyr is a historian, writer, researcher, and psychology student. She lives in Perth, and currently teaches at the University of Western Australia.

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Prof Kurti will look at the claims that lie behind the concept of human rights. Behind any rights claim lies, he argues, a moral claim, and that moral claim is, essentially, a claim about human dignity. Therefore defence of the right to religious freedom matters because it amounts to a defence of fundamental claims about human identity and personhood.

Peter Kurti is a Senior Research Fellow in the Culture, Prosperity & Civil Society program. He is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia, and Adjunct Research Fellow at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture at Charles Sturt University. He has written extensively about issues of religion, liberty, and civil society in Australia, and appears frequently as a commentator on television and radio. In addition to having written many newspaper articles, he is also the author of The Tyranny of Tolerance: Threats to Religious Liberty in Australia, and Euthanasia: Putting the Culture to Death?, both published by Connor Court. Peter is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an ordained minister in the Anglican Church of Australia.

Peter Kurti: Rights, Morals, Dignity - Why defending religious freedom matters

The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies (CDC) is an independent, not-for-profit think tank, dedicated to promoting awareness of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and Cultural Patrimony as essential components of human civilisation.
The CDC’s focus is cultural and historical.  Its supporters represent a wide range of opinion but have in common a desire to preserve and reinforce the intellectual traditions and practices of the West.
Since its establishment in 2013, the Centre has taken a lead in cultural and political debate in Tasmania.  It supports the rule of law, and representative democracy. Specific research areas include Christianity in Australia, the defence and promotion of Christian culture as a central component of education in Australia, and Democracy and Freedom in the West.
The CDC publishes a wide variety of research papers and supporting opinion pieces, runs short courses, and hosts an annual Colloquium on a subject of high topical significance.
The Christopher Dawson Centre for Cultural Studies will seek to encourage critical reflection and research on the history, literature, philosophy and theology that characterize Christian civilization and culture, in order to raise the profile of these vital disciplines in intellectual life and to reclaim the high ground. These humane studies remain an essential key to the full and mature understanding of the underlying currents of Australian life. In this ‘Asian Century’ it is more important than ever to maintain our sense of proportion and hold fast to that synthesis of Faith and Reason that has been gifted to the world by the Christian Tradition.

Christopher Dawson Centre

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