ETHICS AND RELIGION IN CORRUPTION

You probably picked up in my previous post that I was born into a devout Catholic family and that I was a devout Catholic boy. I am still a practising Catholic, although there are many, many things about the institution that I would wish were different.
Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, I was studying to be a priest. I must be a slow learner because it took me so long to work out that that was not the life for me. The religious order that I belonged to placed great store on preaching, so I was trained to be a preacher.
My writing benefited there from having a teacher who encouraged my imagination. There were simple things. He would bring in the Readers Digest and challenge us with the ‘It pays to increase your word power’ section. We would discuss the ‘Towards more picturesque speech’ offerings. He introduced us to Rudolph Flesch and his approach to writing plain English. I don’t know who he was quoting when he told us often that creativity does not consist in saying things for the first time, but observing the world around us, submitting those observations to our own thought processes and expressing them in a fresh and individual way.
The theology implied in chapter 21 of Corruption reflects my spiritual perspective. Forgiveness is a critical (though often overlooked) part of the Christian value set. Of course, you find it in other belief systems as well. Nelson Mandela instituted his truth and reconciliation program in South Africa. Throw in Mahatma Ghandi. You don’t need to listen to the Dalai Lama for long to pick up on the same theme. At the grass-roots level, I was impressed with the statements of forgiveness uttered by so many Muslims after the massacre in the mosques in New Zealand. These are people who make for a better world.
When it says, ‘we invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future’, the ‘Statement from the Heart’ issued by the First Nations people at Ularu in 2017 seems to me to be a cry for reconciliation and a willingness on the part of the victims to take the initiative in bringing it about. As an Australian, I am ashamed that there has been so little response to it. If this makes me part of the woke cohort, I can live with that.
It will be obvious that my religious beliefs have a lot to do with the perspective of Corruption. The issues are ethical or moral rather than legal. In the real world, when you have ministers of the crown saying that there is nothing illegal in doling out taxpayers’ money to enhance their electoral prospects, they are probably right. But we all know it’s not right. It, along with so many other things, is corruption.
Here endeth the sermon.

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