Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News QLD

Archbishop Coleridge urges legal professionals to build their judgments on rock of justice

byJoe Higgins
19 July 2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA
Rule of law: Archbishop Mark Coleridge said the rule of law is one of humanity’s great achievements, which was achieved across time and across many cultures and is “not yet complete – since the rule of law is always under threat and therefore requires constant vigilance”.

Rule of law: Archbishop Mark Coleridge said the rule of law is one of humanity’s great achievements, which was achieved across time and across many cultures and is “not yet complete – since the rule of law is always under threat and therefore requires constant vigilance”.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

QUEENSLAND Governor Paul de Jersey, Queensland Supreme Court chief justice Catherine Holmes and many of the state’s brightest legal minds filed into St Stephen’s Cathedral to begin the legal year with a blessing in an ecumenical liturgy led by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge this morning. 

Dozens of judges and lawyers from across the state and federal levels attended the Law Year Church Service, which is an ecumenical service hosted by different Christian churches each year.

Archbishop Coleridge, reflecting on the Gospel, urged the legal professionals to listen to the words of Jesus who spoke of the wise man who built his house on rock. 

He said the rock in our culture was the rule of law, “which we regard as the foundation of the civilised society – worthy of the human being and even of God”.

“Without this, human societies become little more than a brutal play of power in which the strong trample on the weak, human dignity counts for nothing and God is completely ignored,” he said.

“Such societies are built on sand; when the flood rises and the river bursts, they quickly fall and great is their ruin.”

Archbishop Coleridge said the rule of law was one of humanity’s great achievements, which was achieved across time and across many cultures and was “not yet complete – since the rule of law is always under threat and therefore requires constant vigilance”.

Law year: Dozens of judges and lawyers from across the state and federal levels attended the Law Year Church Service, which is an ecumenical service hosted by different Christian churches each year.
Law year: Dozens of judges and lawyers from across the state and federal levels attended the Law Year Church Service, which is an ecumenical service hosted by different Christian churches each year.

He said while the law changed over time and reformed, if those changes and reforms “unsettle or even violate” the transcendent truth at the heart of the law then “we are moving from rock to sand”.

“That is not the change or reform we need,” he said.

“It will not lead to justice.”

Related Stories

Bishops prepare to elect new Conference president

Winners and losers for the Church in this year’s budget

Mission order supporters looking for Brisbane faithful to join Christ-centred trip

He said the justice that is the bedrock of civilised society embodies a wise balance – a balance of the individual and community, of the particular and the universal, of freedom and constraint, of mercy and rigour, of change and changelessness. 

“The letter of the law will doubtless guide you in the search for that balance, so too will your skill in interpreting the letter, but more will be needed – which is one reason why we gather this way in this place on this morning,” he said.

“In so far as you find that balance in this legal year, you will not be self-serving legal functionaries building on sand, but wise servants of justice building on rock.

“You will have a deep and strong foundation; those floods may rise and the river bursts the banks, there will be no great ruin but instead a true flourishing because you will stand firm and so too will the community which you serve.”

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Bishops demand asylum seekers freedom eight years on

Next Post

Germany’s floods wreak havoc, claim a heavy toll

Joe Higgins

Related Posts

Australia’s historic Plenary Council gathering that could reshape the Church
News

Bishops prepare to elect new Conference president

3 May 2022
Winners and losers for the Church in this year’s budget
Australia

Winners and losers for the Church in this year’s budget

1 April 2022
Mission order supporters looking for Brisbane faithful to join Christ-centred trip
QLD

Mission order supporters looking for Brisbane faithful to join Christ-centred trip

31 March 2022
Next Post
Germany’s floods wreak havoc, claim a heavy toll

Germany's floods wreak havoc, claim a heavy toll

Protesters speak out against euthanasia laws as premier introduces bill

March for Life targets Queensland's "dangerous" voluntary assisted dying bill

New leadership: Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge with the newly-named ACU Chancellor Justice Martin Daubney.

Justice Martin Daubney and Virginia Bourke named ACU chancellor and pro-chancellor

Popular News

  • From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”
News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

by Mark Bowling
24 May 2022
0

BRISBANE Archbishop Mark Coleridge has used the feast day of Our Lady, Help of Christians to call...

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

24 May 2022
Life ‘is always sacred and inviolable’, Pope Francis says

Life ‘is always sacred and inviolable’, Pope Francis says

23 May 2022

From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

23 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping