BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: The pursuit of happiness
Yes, I’m in pursuit of it. Happiness. I’m on the lookout for notable examples of the phenomenon, to see if I can make any sense of where it happens and where it doesn’t. I might record them in a book, too, as something to turn to on rough days, to lift the spirits a bit by the recollection of being caught up in the infectiousness of an unaffectedly happy person. Hey, it’s no sillier than collecting spoons or snow domes, is it? Little reminders.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: To Krakow and back
On the face of it, I shouldn’t have much enjoyed this trip to World Youth Day with seventy others from our diocese. I’m not really made for group touring. ‘On your right… And now on your left… Keep together, please.’ I like to poke around on my own and search out little curiosities that no one pays much attention to, to spend the time as I want.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: Statement of acknowledgement and apology
In my five years as Bishop of the Diocese, this is the second commission of inquiry before which I have appeared. There is a very considerable difference in scope between the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (‘Royal Commission’) and the Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: Christian fundamentals
I have an old grievance about the way a relatively small group has appropriated to itself, in Australia at least, both the designation and the popular image of ‘Christians’.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT:Foreign Parts
Everybody seems to think that I should write about going to World Youth Day. I’m inclined to believe it would be more useful to write about it while I’m there, or even afterwards, but perhaps there’s something to be said for laying out my expectations, hopes and foreshadowings. People seem to think so. By the time you read this, I and the other 70-odd pilgrims will be about to depart.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: Visiting a detainee
It is a big, new carpark, and in the early afternoon there are a couple of hundred vehicles in the visitors’ section. Villawood Immigration Detention Centre. I’ve come to see an old mate of mine who is awaiting deportation to New Zealand. He is not a ‘boat person’.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
“I’ve been up to London to look at the Queen…” So the old nursery rhyme has it. Before you read this, on April 21 in fact, Queen Elizabeth will turn 90 in real life.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT: 2016 Easter message
Read Bishop Bill's 2016 Easter message and watch an accompanying video.