Loud headlines in both the religious and secular press last week repeated a trope that has become familiar over the past few years: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI was speaking out in dramatic ways. Benedict was quoted as saying that the church is threatened by “a worldwide dictatorship of seemingly humanist ideologies,” using same-sex marriage, abortion Read more
As a faith leader, I firmly believe that God sometimes allows devastating events to impact our lives to help us redefine or rediscover our priorities and core values. Though the long-term effects of the coronavirus are yet to be determined, what is clear is that the crisis has forced every one of us to change Read more
COVID-19 has done more to enliven the liturgical debate than anything else in the last decades. The vast amount of material produced in the run-up to Easter was astounding. It’s been a long time since I have seen so much that guided, challenged and questioned our liturgical response to lockdown. It was as if the Read more
Tracing those who have been exposed to Covid-19 is an important step in winding down socially and economically crippling lockdowns. Manual tracing is resource-intensive and ineffective. A number of countries, including Singapore and Australia, have adopted smartphone apps using Bluetooth. New Zealand seems likely to follow a similar path. These apps vary in detail but Read more
My children’s parochial school is about as low-tech as it is presently possible for an institution to be. That has actually been a good thing in an era of “distance learning.” It was obvious from the start of the coronavirus pandemic that the students could not be expected to attend a battery of Zoom classes Read more
There has never been a more critical time than now to think about who you would want to speak up for you should you become sick and dying, and what matters to you most. “Contemplating one’s death may be the most profound form of meditation. Death is the backdrop of life, and at times like Read more
Spiritual direction, counselling and supervision are traditionally people-centred services; face-to-face, and in-person activities and the Coronavirus and lockdown threatened to place more pressure on people in need of these very human services. For six years I have been working at developing and enhancing a digital and in-person practice, mainly for people I accompanied who moved Read more
Religion is always implicated in times of crisis in manifold ways. Although the present Covid-19 pandemic is still in its early stages, we already see significant religious responses from across New Zealand. But religion doesn’t merely respond to a crisis, it is also reconfigured in the process. Beyond the familiar To understand these reconfigurations, it Read more
One common refrain I have heard frequently (and even said myself) over the last six weeks of the pandemic shutdown has been: “I could never have imagined something like this!” This is a sentiment that makes perfect sense to me. Our current reality is one that is hard to anticipate in its particularity — pace Read more
My husband and I moved to the U.S. 16 years ago. We didn’t know a soul in the college town where he would be starting graduate school, and with just six months of marriage under our belts, we barely knew one another either. But God provided a new family through the local church: An older Read more