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This book tells the stories of women and men of the Aquinas Academy, a centre of adult education in Sydney founded in 1945 by an Australian Marist priest, Austin Woodbury. The book places the personal narratives within the social, cultural and intellectual landscape of Australian Catholicism spanning seven decades. Chapters trace the founding vision of the academy as a Catholic institution of higher education affiliated with Saint Thomas Aquinas's university in Rome, the expansion of programmes of adult spirituality across the eastern Australian states and the growing place of contemplative and mystical prayer in a church rediscovering its spiritual core. Combining archival research and conversations with former students and staff about childhood, war, family and the struggles to make sense of losses and loves, the Aquinas Academy is a story ultimately about adults learning to grow up.

After more than 50 years as a lawyer, having been a clerk, Judge's associate, barrister, solicitor, law teacher, and five various types of judicial officer, Alan Hogan decided to retire, in order to do something different. He obtained a Masters degree, majoring in Biblical Studies, at the Catholic Institute of Sydney. He was astonished at how little he had known about the fundamental documents of his religion. This book is an attempt to share some of what he learnt about the New Testament with other Catholics, and with anyone else who may be interested. It is not so much a book about the New Testament as a plan for reading all the books that go to make it up, roughly in the order in which they were written, with such additional information as to make available the message that each author intended to convey.

Terrorism is the threat of the age, or so we are told, and inevitably associated with it is the word 'Islam'. The notion of the 'Muslim terrorist' has become a colloquialism in Western media. Interestingly, in all the history books about the Second World War, the phrase 'Christian fascist' is rarely seen in spite of the fact that skewed Christian theologies were used liberally by the Nazis to further their hatred. This points to a blind spot in Western understanding about the ways in which religious (and non-religious) ideology can be mutilated to serve hateful ends. We think we see it in Islam but we can't see it in ourselves. This book is dedicated to uncovering the many understandings of Islam we lack and the many misunderstandings we need to overcome.

We live in an evolving and increasingly complex global community and with this complexity comes a broad range of ethical issues. The Ethics: Contemporary Perspectives brings together scholars from across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, including disciplines as diverse as philosophy, law, medicine and the study of world religions, to discuss these broad ethical issues in contemporary society. Its aim is explore our complex world, addressing both old and new ethical issues through scholarly discourse. This collection of essays looks Extraterrestrial life. It looks at as a discipline itself and also the religious questions that arise in the investigation of the topic. It also looks at the topic of astrobiology and space exploration. The contributors are Christian theologians, ethicists as well as those who study and work at the International Space University based in France but with links around the world.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim majority nation in the world and at the same time has a growing Pentecostal/Charismatic movement, gaining more public attention, both for its size and wealth. Building on two years of research, thousands of member surveys, and visits to almost 300 churches, this book gives insights into the reasons for its growth. It explores the characteristics of the growing community and its social relations with other Christian communities as well as Muslims in Indonesia.

Frank Brennan has been a long time advocate for human rights and social justice in Australia. This collection of essays brings together some of his major addresses and writings on justice in the Catholic Church and in Australian society. Placing the individual's formed and informed conscience as the centre piece in any work for justice, he surveys recent developments in the Catholic Church including the handling of child sexual abuse claims and the uplifting effect of the papacy of Francis, the first Jesuit pope. He then applies Catholic social teaching and the jurisprudence of human rights to contested issues like the separation of powers and the right of religious freedom, and to the claims of diverse groups including Aborigines, asylum seekers, the dying, and same sex couples. At every step, he is there in the public square amplifying that still, small voice of conscience, especially the voice of those who are marginalised.

In this volume the personal journey of why a nurse chose to leave Acute Care nursing to be involved in Palliative Care nursing connect with a broader culture of Palliative Care nursing by interviewing those who chose palliative care nursing and examine the reasons for changes in careers from acute, curing based, nursing to Palliative Caring for those in end of life nursing. The longest section of the study travels the world of Palliative nursing with participant observers. It is about the actively working nurse and includes extensive analytical discussion of an attempt to understand the sense of professional change, and the significance of beliefs for the reasoning behind vocational transformation. The second section examines the interviews, the third addresses the heart of the research question and examines nursing moving from a curing model to a caring only approach when death of the patient is inevitable. The volume ends with a letter written by the author to her sons asking them to be there when her time comes at the end of life through a life limiting illness and requests her sons and the Palliative Care professionals observe her final wishes.

'Death is inevitable--none of us will escape it. Ending life with a terminal illness is a slow and rather lonely process. I am interested in the question of why some nurses choose to work in the field of palliative care. I am one who willingly stepped into the role of being with patients at their most vulnerable time ?when death became inevitable. My nursing history has spanned fifty years, of which the last twenty were in palliative care of terminally ill and dying patients. What was it that influenced me to move from a curing model to comfort caring only? My work is an account of how I discovered palliative care nursing after thirty years in the acute-care setting. I migrated to Australia at the age of seventeen after the violence of World War II and the death of my father in a refugee camp. It seemed that taking on nursing was the best way to settle into a new life. I was happy with general nursing but had a feeling that there was more I could contribute to my patient care. My mother's unexpected death with cancer was responsible for showing the way. She died in the hospice unit of the hospital where I was employed. Sitting by her side showed me another aspect of nursing that attracted me to a career change. I transferred to the Hospice after mother died and remained there for twenty years. Naturally I wondered why this change of direction happened.' - Susan Bardy