Roy Bradley Oration 2025 – Michael Lapsley

The seventh Roy Bradley Oration was delivered by Michael Lapsley from South Africa on Sunday 26 October 2025 – 5.30pm AEDT via Zoom.

A compelling and skilled speaker, author and group facilitator, Fr Michael Lapsley SSM speaks to the question,

How do we respond together in life giving ways when terrible things happen? 

In a world where genocide continues unabated with ongoing wars in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Ukraine/Russia and Myanmar what is our role?

Fr Michael reflects on what enabled him to make a redemptive response to a failed attempt to assassinate him. He considers the importance of healing memories to transform rather than transmit our woundedness and why both “knowledge” and “acknowledgment” are important to break the chain that turns victims into victimisers as individuals, communities and nations.

 

Further Reading and Listening:

Michael Lapsley, Redeeming the Past: My Journey from Freedom Fighter to Healer Orbis Books, 2012

Michael Lapsley, Costly Forgiveness: The Bomber and Me Plough Quarterly No. 2: Building Justice Autumn 2014

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/peacemaking/costly-forgiveness

Book of Role Models https://bookofrolemodels.com/father-michael-lapsley/

Reflecting on 30 years of SA Democracy: Father Michael Lapsley SABC 2024

The Father Michael Lapsley Story

https://youtu.be/tef2AwcIZsw?si=Les2tjD576Vz1Q88

Priest and Partisan: A South African Journey of Father Michael Lapsley Michael Worsnip, Ocean Press, 2002

Neutrality or Co-option, Michael Lapsley Mambo occasional papers, no.16

“Reflections in time of Covid” can be emailed on request