Somebody has to take the blame. It's an impulse as old as humanity itself, and it's nowhere near as dead as we'd like to think. This episode takes a deep dive into scapegoats.

In Act One, journalist Jörg Nowak returns from Papua New Guinea with firsthand accounts of witchcraft accusations, happening in over 40 countries today, and most of us have no idea. We look at how modernisation, male violence, and ancient superstition combine to put vulnerable women in the firing line, and what Sister Lorena's work rescuing and rehabilitating survivors looks like for those living through the nightmare.

In Act Two, Dr Chris Carter unpacks the thinking of René Girard, who traced scapegoating all the way back to the origins of human civilisation, through myth, ritual, and religion, to the foot of the cross. What does the Eucharist have to do with ending the cycle of sacrifice? And can we actually survive without scapegoats?

Show notes:

Learn more about George's work at: https://www.missio.com/english

Visit the Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst website: https://www.sandhurst.catholic.org.au

Welcome to the Common Home TV Podcast, and thank for joining us for another conversation at the intersection of faith, social justice, and the modern world.

In this episode, Fr Mans Bolli CSsR, priest and leader in digital mission for the Redemptorist of Oceania, is in conversation with Fr Bruce Duncan, a respected voice in Catholic social teaching and a mentor to many.

Together, they reflect on the first 300 days of Pope Leo’s pontificate, exploring continuity with Pope Francis, the importance of synodality, and the urgent call to live faith through action in today’s world.

From global challenges like war and climate change to the Church’s role in shaping conscience and public life, our hosts challenge listeners to consider what it truly means to live the Gospel today.

This episode was released after a period of pause following the Bondi attack, as we grieved in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters. In the final episode of In the Shadows of the Holy Land, we speak with Fr David Neuhaus SJ, an Israeli Jesuit priest, theologian, and one of the most important voices in Jewish–Christian relations in the region.

Born into a Jewish family shaped by exile and the trauma of the Holocaust, raised in apartheid-era South Africa, and later received into the Catholic Church, Fr David’s life has unfolded across some of the defining moral crises of the modern world. That journey has given him a way of seeing the Holy Land from the margins.

In this conversation, Fr David reflects on identity and belonging, the legacy of 1917 and the modern roots of the conflict, the misuse of Scripture in Zionism and Christian Zionism, and the dangerous illusion that security can be built on domination and exclusion. He speaks candidly about anti-Semitism, its reality, its horror, and its weaponisation, and about the Church’s struggle to speak clearly in the face of injustice.

Drawing on theology, history, and personal encounter, this episode wrestles with what it means to be prophetic in a time of war, how lament is not a failure of faith, and where fragile but real signs of hope might still be found.