These are the opening lines of a poem on lockdown and relates the experience of a resident of HMP Edinburgh. It is one of many poems submitted after prisoners were invited to express their feelings through verse. Freedom, in the sense of the unrestrained enjoyment of natural rights, is something
Continue reading‘Christian tradition has never recognised the right to private property as absolute and untouchable: “On the contrary, it has always understood this right within the broader context of the right common to all to use the goods of the whole of creation: the right to private property is subordinated to
Continue readingLate September and early October is a time when we are reminded by the Church of the importance and significance of angels. On 29 September we celebrate the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, Archangels, and on 2nd October we do the same for the memorial of The Holy
Continue readingONE OF THE SOBERING THINGS about trying to teach Moral Theology in almost any context, including a parish, is the realisation that a lot of Catholics think that the Church should only be concerned about issues such as sex, the family or some aspects of the sanctity of life. If
Continue readingThere is no getting away from the fact that forgiveness is hard and the bigger the hurt and injustice the harder it is to forgive. In this Sunday’s Gospel reading from St Matthew, St Peter asks Jesus, ‘How often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often
Continue readingON TUESDAY we kept the annual Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. This observance on 1 September was established by Pope Francis five years ago, following the example of the Orthodox Churches and his ground-breaking encyclical of May of that year, known by its Italian title Laudato Si’.
Continue readingEDUCATION has been in the news a lot this month, as it always is in August; this has been exacerbated by the breath-taking chaos surrounding A level and GCSE results in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Distress surrounding this will have affected some of you, both pupils and teachers
Continue readingIt’s been long overdue, but recently I’ve been dipping into the Holy Father’s encyclical letter, Laudato si: on care for the common home. As good as it is – and it is very good, being insightful and highly topical – sometimes just stopping to look around can bring about both
Continue readingI avidly read newspaper obituaries and some of them I keep. Just yesterday I was reading about William Wolff who passed away at the age of 93. He was a German Jew who escaped the Nazis to live and work in England. He was to enjoy a thirty-year career in
Continue readingABOUT TEN YEARS AGO, after the Requiem Mass of a well-loved parishioner, someone who was present, herself about to begin the process of becoming a Catholic, remarked to me that if we wanted to attract or interest people in the Catholic faith, we could perhaps simply, as part of doing
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