How do you solve a problem like Patricia Bartlett? The Lower Hutt morals campaigner was ejected from her nunnery in 1969 for her too-vocal convictions, and became a thorn in the side of politicians and film censors for 25 years. Establishing the Society for the Promotion of Community Standards in 1970, the diminuitive Bartlett made Read more
Sobbing and shaking, Mohamed Abdallah tries to explain why he still wants to risk crossing the Mediterranean Sea in an inflatable boat. He sits in a migrant detention centre in Zawya, Libya, surrounded by hundreds of fellow asylum seekers who nearly died this week at sea. They survived only after being intercepted, detained and brought Read more
Today is the seventieth anniversary of the execution of the German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Along with Bonhoeffer, six other members of the German resistance, including Hans Oster, Karl Sack, and Wilhelm Canaris, were killed by the Nazis at the Flossenbürg concentration camp on April 9th, 1945. Although seventy years have passed, Bonhoeffer’s Read more
How can we do the right thing? Force Majeure If you had lived in Germany in 1939, would you have helped protect Jews or gone along with their systematic extermination? If you had been an MP 10 years ago, would you have milked your expenses for what they were worth? And if you and your Read more
From where I’m standing, the city-sized Baogang Steel and Rare Earth complex dominates the horizon, its endless cooling towers and chimneys reaching up into grey, washed-out sky. Between it and me, stretching into the distance, lies an artificial lake filled with a black, barely-liquid, toxic sludge. Dozens of pipes line the shore, churning out a Read more
This summer, Pope Francis plans to release an encyclical letter in which he will address environmental issues, and very likely climate change. His statement will have a profound impact on the public debate. For one, it will elevate the spiritual, moral and religious dimensions of the issue. Calling on people to protect the global climate Read more
Religion, as certain members of the media never fail to remind us at this time of year, seems to be on the decline, and for disgruntled secularists, the end cannot come quickly enough. But the death of God, at least in the hearts of most human beings, is a Western illusion. New demographic projections suggest Read more
Eighteen years ago, Lisa Miller, now the director of clinical psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College, had an epiphany on a New York subway car. She had been poring over the mountains of data generated by a three-generation study of depressed women and their children and grandchildren. The biological trend was clear: Women with severe—and Read more
It’s 8.10 pm at the Vatican City and just a few meters away from Saint Anne’s Gate (Porta Sant’Anna) is a grey Fiat Ducato van. Its boot is filled with canned food, milk, juices, crates of fruit and toothbrush and toothpaste kits. Before getting in, a small group of people recite the Our Father. There Read more
This June, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Turin, Italy, home of the famous Shroud of Turin, which many believe is the 2,000-year-old burial cloth of Jesus Christ. The pope’s June 21-22 visit will include time venerating the Shroud at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. Francis will then visit the tomb Read more