Frank Tenison Brennan
SJ AO (born 6 March 1954) is an Australian
Jesuit priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
,
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
lawyer and academic. He is known for his 1998 involvement in the
Wik debate when
Paul Keating
Paul John Keating (born 18 January 1944) is an Australian former politician and unionist who served as the 24th prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He previously serv ...
called him "the meddling priest" and the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
classified him as a
Living National Treasure. Brennan has a longstanding reputation of advocacy in the areas of law, social justice, refugee protection,
Aboriginal reconciliation and human rights activism.
Early life and education
Brennan is the first born son of Sir
Gerard Brennan
Sir Francis Gerard Brennan (22 May 1928 – 1 June 2022) was an Australian lawyer and jurist who served as the 10th Chief Justice of Australia. As a judge in the High Court of Australia, he wrote the lead judgement on the Mabo decision, whi ...
, a former
chief justice of the
High Court of Australia and Patricia O'Hara, an anaesthestist.
Brennan is a
fourth generation Australian. He is of
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
descent on both sides of his family and has
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
ancestry from his paternal grandmother.
Brennan studied at
Downlands College
, motto_translation = Strong in Faith
, city = Toowoomba
, state = Queensland
, country = Australia
, coordinates =
, type = Private, secondar ...
in Toowoomba, and at the
University of Queensland
, mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work
, established =
, endowment = A$224.3 million
, budget = A$2.1 billion
, type = Public research university
, chancellor = Peter Varghese
, vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry
, city = B ...
where he graduated with
honours
Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
in
arts
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
and
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
. He then studied at the
Melbourne College of Divinity
The University of Divinity is an Australian collegiate university of specialisation in divinity. It is constituted by eleven theological colleges from eight denominations. The University of Divinity is the direct successor of the second oldest ...
, where he graduated, again with honours, in
divinity
Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.[divine< ...](_blank)
. He was awarded a
Master of Laws
A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...
in 1981 as a result of further study at the
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...
, where he resided at
Newman College.
Career
Brennan's contact and involvement with
Aboriginal Australians
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...
began early in his priestly ministry. In 1975 he worked in the inner
Sydney parish of
Redfern with priest activist Fr
Ted Kennedy
Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic ...
, where he also met and worked with
Mum Shirl among others who were founding indigenous Australian legal, health and political initiatives.
In 1997, he was ''rapporteur'' at the Australian Reconciliation Convention and the following year he was appointed an Ambassador for Reconciliation by the
Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
Reconciliation in Australia is a process which officially began in 1991, focused on the improvement of race relations between the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia and the rest of the population. The Council for Aboriginal ...
. On 10 December 2008 he was appointed as the chairperson to the
Australian Government
The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...
's National Human Rights Consultation Committee.
[ In 2009 this independent committee consulted with the Australian community about the protection and promotion of human rights. On 30 September 2009, it reported its recommendations to the attorney general, the Honourable Robert McClelland MP.
Brennan is a professor of law in the Public Policy Institute at the Australian Catholic University,] a visiting professorial fellow at the University of New South Wales and served as the founding director of the Uniya Jesuit Social Justice Centre in Sydney from 2001 to 2007.[ In 2005, he returned to Australia from a fellowship at Boston College.
During 2011, Brennan was critical of the refugee policies of the Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, saying that she has led the Labor Party into moral decline and that the Malaysia Solution is morally derelict and tantamount to "offshore dumping".
On 15 August 2017, Brennan stated that if the law was changed to require clergy to report child sexual abuse learned of during confessionals he would consider breaking it. Brennan told ABC Radio National that "I as a Catholic priest would have to make a decision, whether in conscience, I could apply with such a law." He also said that "I think it would make children more vulnerable and not less."
During the 2017 ]Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey
The Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey was a national survey designed to gauge support for legalising same-sex marriage in Australia. The survey was held via the postal service between 12 September and 7 November 2017. Unlike voting in ...
, Brennan dissented from traditional Catholic teaching, telling the media he would vote yes and stating that "We've got to factor that in to the common good argument about what's necessary." He stated that, while in the context of Catholic marriage he would continue to uphold marriage as being between a man and a woman, he considered the issue of civil marriage to be separate. Following the survey, Brennan was appointed by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull
Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia.
Turnbull grad ...
to serve on a Philip Ruddock
Philip Maxwell Ruddock (born 12 March 1943 in Canberra) is an Australian politician and the current mayor of Hornsby Shire.
Ruddock is a member of the Liberal Party of Australia and currently the state president of the party's New South W ...
-led review into religious freedoms.
In November 2019, it was announced that Brennan would be one of 20 members of the Senior Advisory Group to help co-design the Indigenous voice to government set up by Ken Wyatt
Kenneth George Wyatt (born 4 August 1952) is a former Australian politician who was a member of the House of Representatives from 2010 to 2022, representing the Division of Hasluck for the Liberal Party. He is the first Indigenous Australian el ...
, the Minister for Indigenous Australians. The group is co-chaired by Wyatt, Marcia Langton
Marcia Lynne Langton (born 1951) is an Australian academic. she is the Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. Regarded as one of Australia's top intellectuals, L ...
and Tom Calma
Thomas Edwin Calma, (born 1953), is an Aboriginal Australian human rights and social justice campaigner. He is the sixth chancellor of the University of Canberra, a post held since January 2014, after two years as deputy chancellor. Calma is th ...
.
In 2019-20, Brennan was critical of the prosecution of Cardinal George Pell
George Pell (born 8 June 1941) is an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy between 2014 and 2019, and was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers between 2013 ...
for child abuse. He equated the trial to a left-wing version of the broken criminal justice system in Queensland during the 1970s, and said that even Aboriginal people had not been treated as prejudicially by the worst of 19th-century judges.[Travesty of justice: ‘trusted’ institutions fail Pell, public](_blank)
The Australian; 11 April 2020
Honours
In 1995, Brennan was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gov ...
(AO) in recognition of service to Aboriginal Australians, particularly as an advocate in the areas of law, social justice and reconciliation. In 1996, Brennan was jointly awarded with Pat Dodson
Patrick Lionel Djargun Dodson (born 29 January 1948) is an Australian politician representing Western Australia in the Australian Senate. He is a Yawuru elder from Broome, Western Australia. He has been chairman of the Council for Aboriginal ...
the inaugural Australian Council For Overseas Aid Human Rights Award. In 1998 he was named a Living National Treasure during his involvement in the Wik debate. In 2002, Brennan was awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal
The Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal is an award in the Australian honours system. The award is presented to those who perform Humanitarian aid, humanitarian service in a foreign country, in particular those working in dangerous environments ...
for his work as director of the Jesuit Refugee Service
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) is an international Catholic organisation with a mission to accompany, serve, and advocate on behalf of refugees and other forcibly displaced persons, that they may heal, learn, and determine their own future. Fou ...
in East Timor
East Timor (), also known as Timor-Leste (), officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, is an island country in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the exclave of Oecusse on the island's north-west ...
.
Brennan has been awarded, '' honoris causa'', a Doctor of the University from the Queensland University of Technology
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...
and a Doctor of Laws
A Doctor of Law is a degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country and includes degrees such as the Doctor of Juridical Science (J.S.D. or S.J.D), Juris Doctor (J.D.), Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), and Legum Doctor ...
from the University of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales (UNSW), also known as UNSW Sydney, is a public research university based in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the founding members of Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensiv ...
.Citation for D.Ll. ''honoris causa'' at University of New South Wales
Bibliography
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* Winner of the 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Award
The Queensland Premier's Literary Awards were an Australian suite of literary awards inaugurated in 1999 and disestablished in 2012. It was one of the most generous suites of literary awards within Australia, with $225,000 in prize money across ...
.
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References
External links
Brennan's selected talks and transcripts
from Uniya, Jesuit Social Justice Centre (20012007).
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brennan, Frank
Officers of the Order of Australia
20th-century Australian lawyers
Australian people of Irish descent
Australian Jesuits
1954 births
Living people
Recipients of the Centenary Medal
Australian people of German descent
Australian Catholic University faculty
Australian Roman Catholic priests
21st-century Australian lawyers