Features

“A soldier cut off her breast”: Rohingya survivors recount atrocities

Thursday, May 10th, 2018
rohingya

The mass exodus of the Rohingya from Myanmar became international news in August of 2017. But the military’s campaign against the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, actually began years earlier — and since 2012, a small network of citizen activists have been risking their lives to secretly film its impact. Their harrowing footage, and the Read more

Pope Francis’ environmental message pays off at Mission Estate winery

Monday, May 7th, 2018
Mission Estaate, Environment, Sustainability, Green, Pope Francis

2018 is the twentieth anniversary of the Mission Estate Winery’s environmental certification, and winemaker Paul Mooney continues to be extremely passionate about sustainability. Ahead of its time Mooney says “Mission is also being sustainable because it’s the right thing to do”. “The Mission’s focus is very much in line with Pope Francis’ commitment to sustainability”, Read more

How your parish can help those suffering from depression

Monday, May 7th, 2018
depression

During Holy Week 2016, an obituary written by a woman in Duluth, Minnesota caught national media attention. Eleni Pinnow wrote the obituary for her young adult sister Aletha. She began, “Aletha Meyer Pinnow, 31, of Duluth (formerly of Oswego and Chicago, Illinois) died from depression and suicide on February 20, 2016.” There it was, front Read more

Catholic groups use ‘social innovation’ to help refugees

Thursday, May 3rd, 2018
refugees

In the time it takes you to read this article, about a hundred people around the world will be forced to leave their homes because of persecution, war or violence. In fact, more people are displaced now than at any other time in human history — some 65 million, 22 million of whom are classified Read more

Being forgetful might make you smarter, study says

Thursday, May 3rd, 2018
forgetful

You know those people who always boast about having a perfect memory? Maybe they shouldn’t, because having total recall is totally overrated. That’s according to a new paper in the journal Neuron, which concludes that forgetting things is not just normal, it actually makes us smarter. In the new report, researchers Paul Frankland and Blake Read more

Evangelising by train

Monday, April 30th, 2018
train evangelisation

In an effort to reach out to local people, a German Catholic priest from the Diocese of Limburg has adopted the habit of taking a weekly train journey during which he makes himself available to chat to other passengers. Father Olaf Lindenberg has experienced enormous success with his simple idea of setting out to meet Read more

The case of Alfie Evans: what does Catholic tradition say?

Monday, April 30th, 2018
alfie

Emotions are high; a child is being removed from medical interventions that have been keeping him alive; doctors and staff, the entire U.K. judicial system, are being condemned by pundits and excoriated by social media. The case has roiled the United Kingdom and the public is taking sides in the streets and across the internet. Read more

#MeToo shows the dangers of end-less sex

Thursday, April 26th, 2018
metoo

In our astonishing cultural moment, people—and not just those in gender studies departments—are engaged in serious conversations about sex and power. One interpretation of the #MeToo phenomenon is that sexual harassment is not about sex at all but only power. There is truth in this view. The power dynamics in film producer Harvey Weinstein’s room, Read more

A new type of Catholic emerges: the conservative dissenter

Thursday, April 26th, 2018

The tables have turned under Pope Francis. And a new type of Catholic has formed: the conservative dissenter. In the past, conservatives prided themselves on loyalty to the pope and being in lockstep with all papal teachings, while progressives called for limits to papal power. The devotees of tradition used to argue that liberals who Read more

What did Pope Francis mean when he said the unborn and the poor are equally sacred?

Monday, April 23rd, 2018
abortion poor

When Pope Francis insisted that the lives of the unborn and of the poor are “equally sacred,” he was not trying to shift the focus of Catholics from fighting abortion to fighting poverty, he was trying to show they are part of the same battle, said Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Read more