Catastrophes pull us up short and make us think. Martin van Beynen writes “We sat on the patchy grass in Hagley Park for the National Christchurch Memorial Service last week”… “I wondered about God and what exactly we thought we were doing by directing so much of the service to a nebulous, supernatural entity who obviously meant Read more
This editoral addresses the need there is to care for the Urban Rescue Teams, Firemen, Policemen who worked on the front line in Christchurch. Some of them then went straight on to Japan. They appeared as giants bestriding the rubble. They did work that was demanding both physically and emotionally. They they were well trained, Read more
Richard Beck recently set the religion blogosphere atwitter with a post entitled, “How Facebook Killed the Church.” Beck argues that rather than replacing face-to-face relationships with so many digital doppelgangers, “Facebook tends to reflect our social world,” extending and enriching established friendships rather than, by and large, inviting the development of new ones that take Read more
This month’s reflection from Pat Lynch begins with with a message of active support and good will to our Christchurch colleagues who continue to adjust to the tragedy of February 22nd and continues with some thoughts on how he views the Kiwi approach to life. “It is salutary to look back over the last generation Read more
Peter Callander is a professional counselor and therapist from Australia. He helped run Tasmania’s first Rachel’s Vineyard retreat in 2005 and was also the therapist at Singapore’s inaugural retreat in March 2010. He has been involved in the work here ever since. Callander has had extensive training in various forms of therapy and has worked Read more
Since God has nothing to do with the advent of earthquakes – or fires, floods, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions or tsunamis for that matter – I rather prefer the legal term “force majeure”, which defines “an event that is a result of the elements of nature, as opposed to one caused by human behaviour”. So after Read more
I’ve written about Cardinal George Pell before on the Sopabox, speaking a little of my admiration and affection for the man who is so often criticised and even demonised by many within and outside the Church. As the author of a column in one of Australia’s largest Sunday newspapers, he has a big reputation and Read more
There are surveys which suggest that 90 per cent of Catholic priests are happy in their job, but yet some recent media on the subject would suggest that we are in an insurmountable crisis of faith in this country. Much of the criticism aimed at the Catholic Church, sometimes from within its ranks, is aimed Read more
Did you ever stop to consider that no moral or political judgment can be made without reference to the nature, purposes and ends of the human person? There is a kind of theory, or perhaps more properly simply an “aura”, surrounding modern liberal democracies which causes us to imagine that a sound social order demands Read more
“It is heartbreaking to see Pakistan’s founding principles betrayed by its blasphemy laws” In the history of some countries there comes a period when political and factional murder becomes almost routine — Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, Germany and its neighbours in the early 1930s. It has invariably been the precursor of Read more