Antoinette in the Cévennes is a daffy French farce premised on a lovelorn hike through the picturesque villages of the Massif Central. There’s a man, and a donkey. Turns out the donkey is preferable. But the film’s real enchantment lies in the deceptively casual contrast between the loose leafy hills and tight stone hamlets of rural France. This also makes it a weepy, because such a story – such a walk – couldn’t happen here.
Sure, we have bushwalks and city-walks. We have the occasional pretty village – Sofala or Carcoar. But you can’t walk between, much less include half-a-dozen in a six-day loop, with or without donkey. We don’t do villages. What we do, with so much wealth and choice, is just two things: developer high-rise and developer sprawl. That’s it. Two building-modes and both – in the absence of anything resembling planning – are developer-driven. The latest instance is Lendlease’s egregious despoliation of Mount Gilead – now rebadged Figtree Hill.
He called for reform of the Papacy, for a rethink on clerical celibacy, and for the removal of obstacles to unity with other churches
“Are not the resemblances between the Communist and Catholic systems striking?” he said. “Are not both absolutist, centralist, totalitarian, in short, enemies of human freedom?”
Hans Küng, a Roman Catholic theologian and priest whose brilliantly disputatious, lucidly expressed thoughts in more than 50 books and countless speeches advanced ecumenism and provoked the Vatican to censure him, died on Tuesday at his home in Tübingen, Germany. He was 93.
The death was confirmed by Nadja Dornis, a spokeswoman for the Global Ethic Foundation, which promotes Dr. Küng’s ideas.
Dr. Küng, who as an 11-year-old Swiss boy knew he wanted to be a priest, stood at the center of Christianity’s great upheavals in the latter half of the 20th century. His relentless challenges to the church hierarchy caused his critics to call him the greatest threat to the church since Martin Luther, even the Antichrist.
As a liberal, he criticized church policy on governance, liturgy, papal infallibility, birth control, priestly celibacy, the ordination of women, mixed marriages, homosexuality, abortion, the meaning of hell and much else.