The Pope’s recent comments on marriage, which have raised a few eyebrows, do at least contain one statement with which I wholeheartedly agree. It is this: “Marriage is the most difficult area of pastoral work.” As for the rest of what the Pope has said, most of this raises a “Yes, but…” response from me. Read more
In a strange twist to last week’s big meth bust in Northland one commentator ruminated on that popular theme, the decriminalisation of all good-times drugs. I call them good-times drugs because people use them to make their lives seem more exciting and themselves more interesting – a compelling reason why they should stay banned. We shouldn’t encourage delusion. Read more
It was a honking big needle the nurse held up as my very sick friend pulled up his sleeve. I really, really don’t like needles, but I stayed by his chair as the nurse pushed the needle into the underside of his upper arm, because that was a spot that wasn’t all bruised from IV Read more
Recently a friend, who I admire very much, posted that she is letting a streak of her glorious hair go gray. It’s not that she’s against dye, or anything like that, but that she is undertaking to accept where she is now. Then she asked the question, ‘how are you practicing self acceptance?’ It was Read more
Diagnosed with Down Syndrome before she was born, a US woman’s doctor recommended she abort her unborn child. But Courtney Baker and her husband, despite being told their quality of life would suffer, decided to proceed with the pregnancy and gave birth to little Emersyn Faith, known fondly as Emmy, 15 months ago. Last month Read more
“Unrealistic lust is a great place to kick off” a relationship. That’s the counsel the advice columnist for the liberal English newspaper The Guardian gives to a woman who doesn’t know whether to move in with a boyfriend who won’t even say that he loves her. Save “duty sex” for later, Mariella Frostrup continues. “The Read more
When we were children we thought of God as being somewhere “up there” looking down on us. As we grew in faith and life experience, God seemed closer, closer, until we recognised God within us. This was not something we were told. We could actually feel it and there were no words to describe it. Then Read more
I started taking piano lessons when I was fourteen and enjoyed playing, as difficult as they were, the “two-part inventions” of J. S. Bach. I’ve been playing them ever since, and so my life was been shaped in part by these supremely crafted little works of art. I wish I could demonstrate here how Bach Read more
There was a very moving scene at the state funeral of Malcolm Fraser in March last year, when Vietnamese Australians thronged outside the church carrying placards which read: “You are forever in our hearts: farewell to our true champion of humanity: Malcolm Fraser.” I honour Fraser, but not because he opened our borders to fleeing Read more
The ability, or even tendency, to make stupid remarks is not, at least officially, a prerequisite for being made a curial cardinal. But neither does it seem to hurt the odds of one’s wearing a red biretta around Rome. In 2011, a Spanish bishop claimed that Cardinal Ennio Antonelli, then head of the Pontifical Council Read more