Books published by ATF Press

'A cloth spread under an apple tree can catch only apples', wrote Antoine de Saint Exupery in Terre des hommes (Land of Men), (English title: Wind, Sand and Stars), 'and a cloth spread under stars can catch only stardust ... What was most marvellous was that, there, standing on the planet's rounded back, between this magnetic cloth and those stars, was a man's consciousness in which that star-fall could be reflected as in a mirror.' And a few pages further on he writes: 'I was but a mere mortal lost between sand and stars, aware simply of the sweet pleasure of breathing.' From the author of those lines to the writer of the first well known verses of the Bible: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth ...', stretch centuries of time and an intellectual and cultural abyss as well. What could there be in common between the pilot of the first air route from Toulouse to Dakar and the direct descendants of Semitic nomads? Certainly not much, but for those star-pierced nights that deserts alone can offer for contemplation, combined with the tormenting question: what a thing is man, confronted by the cosmos, magnificent and terrible at the same time? This question has been haunting humanity from the beginning and gnaws at each of us: 'Who am I? Where did I come from? Where does my destiny lie?' To these questions, the desert dwellers, and the aviator lost like all their brothers in humanity, have given the same response. Certainly we are mortal beings, lost in the middle of the cosmos as in a desert, crushed by the weight of reality as by the immense celestial vault. And yet, we are unique, singular, irreplaceable; we are not less than the consciousness of the world, and, believers among them will say, we are even created in the image of God. Is that courage or lack of awareness, pretentiousness or faith?

In these reflections on leadership in Church and State, Frank Brennan states ideals and proposes practical challenges in addresses ranging from his non-partisan 'Light on the Hill' address to the Australian Labor Party after the 2013 federal election to his address to the representatives of the world's Jesuit universities. He reflects on the leadership of past prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser. He offers insights into tested leadership with his ANZAC Centenary Address in the Harvard Memorial Chapel. He challenges church leaders to be more transparent and compassionate in their responses before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He draws inspiration from leaders like Pope Francis, El Salvador's Archbishop Oscar Romero and Redfern's Fr Ted Kennedy. Frank writes with the conviction that we the people are seeking spiritual and political leaders who can inspire us to dedicate ourselves to taking up the burdens of the fallen in the Great War and, with the same high courage and steadfastness with which they went into battle, to setting our hands to the tasks they left unfinished (some of which they could not possibly have imagined a century ago), and giving our utmost to make the world a better and happier place for all people, through whatever means are open to us. As well as being bloodied and tested, our new leaders need to be nurtured, encouraged, and espoused. They need strong moral contours to navigate the modern demands of leadership when taking on the big issues like climate change and entrenched inequality.

Auschwitz n'est pas un simple fait historique : c'est un arche¿type de notre trage¿die. Comment peut-on sortir d'une telle barbarie contem- poraine ? Pour y re¿pondre, l'auteur nous invite ä un exode hors de la pense¿e occidentale qui a nalement abouti au totalitarisme (e¿cono- technobureaucratie). Le point de de¿part d'une telle entreprise consiste en une ge¿ne¿alogie de l'ontothe¿ologie qui a conduit ä la de¿shuman- isation et ä l'e acement d'autrui. Pour en sortir, une conversion du regard est indispensable. L'auteur propose donc de scruter la pense¿e de Gre¿goire de Nysse et de Mai¿tre Eckhart a n d'y de¿couvrir un courant enracine¿ dans la pense¿e he¿brai¿que, qui l'irrigue de manie¿re souter- raine. C'est une voie d'exode vers l'accueil de l'autre, voie par laquelle le monde contemporain peut retrouver l'humanite¿.Hisao Miyamoto, ne¿ en 1945 ä Nagaoka (re¿gion de Nigata, Japon), fre¿re dominicain, ancien e¿le¿ve de l'E¿cole biblique de Je¿rusalem, professeur e¿me¿rite de l'universite¿ de Tokyo (Graduate school of Artand Science), ancien professeur de l'universite¿ Sophia (Universite¿ je¿suite - Jöchi, Faculty of eology and Graduate School), est actuelle- ment directeur du Centre de la culture chre¿tienne ä la Tokyo Junshin University. Il a longtemps anime¿, comme pre¿sident, la Japanese Society of Medieval Philosophy et la Japanese Society for Patristic Studies. Ses recherches couvrent plusieurs domaines, qu'il conjugue : Bible, patro- logie, philosophie me¿die¿vale (notamment omas d'Aquin et Mai¿tre Eckhart), dialogues avec les penseurs contemporains (H Arendt, E Levinas, J-L Marion, G Agamben) ainsi qu'avec les penseurs japonais ä travers les äges.Il donne aussi de nombreuses confe¿rences, tant au Japon que dans d'autres pays d'Asie, notamment la Core¿e du Sud.

Ecological Aspects of War reflects on warfare in the larger context of planetary relationality – not only the limits that must be respected in human conflicts, but also the impact of war on the larger created order. From the ancient legal constraint that fruit trees should not be destroyed in siege warfare (Deuteronomy 20) to the incarnational embedding of Christ in the material world, there is a broad range of theological issues to consider in re-imagining our relationships within the biosphere. This admirable Australian discussion demonstrates afresh how Christian theological traditions envisage an inter-species responsibility, and in addition, takes the necessary step of including Muslim and Buddhist perspectives on these most pressing issues. Australians’ ecological footprints are among the heaviest on earth. Australia is a combatant in its longest running war. Despite this, ecological, economic and military crises and are largely absent from public discourse and most Australians continue to live, and our governments continue to operate, as if the earth had no limits and the war did not exist. Situating questions of war and peace in an ecological framework, contributors use varied faith perspectives and approaches to highlight the interconnectedness of all life and the interrelationships between war and violent economic systems that normalise destructive commercial-industrial practices and promote irresponsible patterns of consumption and waste production. Ecological Aspects of War has the potential to help us muster the collective spiritual, moral and cultural resources needed to come to grips with the ecological, economic and military crises in which we are complicit and to imagine and create non-violent life-giving alternatives. It is a timely and important contribution.