The sexual abuse crisis has polarised the Church, and injured us all. Those who have survived clerical and other sexual abuse need the Church's healing power, but they are often alienated and unwelcome because they are seen as troublemakers. Innocent people scandalised by the crisis also need the Church's healing power, but they are sometimes unable to forgive the victims for coming forward.

So how can we bridge this apparently unbridgeable gap? This presentation will examine the impact of sexual abuse on the individual, the impact of trauma, and how we as a Church - all of us - can begin to help restore to victims their full dignity in Christ. It will also describe Grief to Grace, a new sensory-based model for healing sexual abuse that follows the Sorrowful Mysteries."

What is a Catholic person to do in the face of so much turmoil in public life? Should we retreat, or should we respond by entering more fully into the public square? St. Augustine of Hippo was perpetually preoccupied with such questions. This presentation will explore some of what he has to say, and some of what we can learn from him, about maintaining a spiritual life while becoming involved in matters of public concern.

Renee Kohler-Ryan is trained in philosophy and is the Dean of the School of Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame Australia, Sydney. She has a forthcoming book on the thought of St. Augustine and contemporary philosopher, William Desmond, on moral and political philosophy. She teaches in areas of Catholic Thought including Philosophy of the Human Person, Moral Philosophy, and Philosophy of Art. She is writing a book on the Catholic Imagination, to be considered by Catholic University of America Press.

Abstract: We often associate sloth with laziness, but is it possible for a culture to be productive and still be slothful? In this talk, Dr Matthew Tan explores how Sloth is arguably the most pervasive of the deadly sins first by understanding it by its original name, the vice of Acedia. Taking its cue from the writings of the desert father, Evagrius of Pontus, the talk would take a deep dive into what the vices do to the life of monastic virtue, and how acedia acts as a spiritual opiate whose affects are more than just spiritual. It will end by looking at how monastic practice can give us clues into providing new responses to this ancient vice.

Bio: Dr Matthew Tan is the private secretary of Bishop Tony Randazzo in the Archdiocese of Sydney, and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in a Theology at the University of Notre Dame Australia. He received his doctorate in Theology from the Australian Catholic University and his License in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome. He is the author of two books, the most recent of which is "Redeeming Flesh: The Way of the Cross with Zombie Jesus". He runs the blog "the Divine Wedgie" on the Patheos Catholic blog channel, and will soon be launching his theological side project "AwkwardAsianTheologian.com".

Dreams form the flipside of human consciousness: they are perennially fascinating and unpredictable. They have shaped history, art, culture, science, and religion in countless ways. Christianity accepts them as sometimes divinely inspired, but early psychology saw them as ‘the royal road to the unconscious’, or as a primordial soup of symbolism. So what are dreams? Why do we have them? Do Christians dream of Biblical sheep? And what attention – if any – should we pay to them?

Anthony Krohn has practised in administrative law since 1990, as a solicitor from 1990 to 1997, and as a barrister from 1997 to the present. He has appeared in many refugee and migration cases in the Federal Circuit Court, the Federal Court and the High Court of Australia, and the Supreme Court of Nauru. His migration and refugee practice has also taken him to the High Court of Australia - in its original and also its appellate jurisdictions - and to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

This Speaker's Forum featured a presentation of a paper entitled “The Duty to Disagree: Recovering the Art of Moral Disagreement" by Scott Stephens, editor of the ABC Religion & Ethics blog, and co-host of the Radio National show 'The Minefield' with Waleed Aly.

In the face of atheist critiques many believers seek to downplay the relationship between religion and violence. In contrast the work of acclaimed thinker Rene Girard suggests a more complex relationship than is often assumed, one that challenges modern assumptions about human nature and which proposes new significance for Judeo-Christian revelation.

John Joseph Haldane is a Scottish philosopher, commentator and broadcaster. He is a papal adviser to the Vatican and is credited with coining the term Analytical Thomism. He is himself a Thomist in the analytic tradition. Haldane is associated with The Veritas Forum and is the current chairman of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

John Haldane spoke for the Dawson Society in Perth in 2016 on the topic of “Holding Fast through Stormy Waters”.