Viewpoint

Fr John Heagle, coordinator of Priests Against Genocide USA, writes: Silence is not always golden. Often, it is simply complicity with injustice. This is certainly the case for Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, a prisoner of conscience near death in an Israeli prison. Tragically, in the face of this war crime, most international government and religious leaders have chosen to remain silent. With this reflecti... Read More

In Belfast in the mid-1980s I watched a fully armed British soldier, shouldering a rifle, inspecting a coach for weapons. The coach was full of primary school children waiting to go to the Servite priory in Benburb for a weekend retreat away from home, a poor and rough part of the city. At Mass, there was a prayer in thanksgiving for 'new shoes' and, somewhat competitively, for deceased grannies, ... Read More

Deacon Mark Paine writes: In his sermon, a priest asked the congregation to think of the most profound spiritual experience that they had had in the past few months, a time when in prayer they had felt the presence of God. The implication was that all present must (or should) have experienced this. This priest went on to talk about the importance of having a deep, personal relationship with the p... Read More

In Brian Friel's play 'The Enemy Within' the dramatized character Columba (the Irish Abbot of the Monastery at Iona) is pressured by his brother and nephew to return to Ireland to lead upto fifty armed-clansmen 'straining for bloodshed' in order to rescue his Christian grand-nephew and niece-in-law held captive by 'heathen Picts' in Antrim. The raid would also confirm the clan's power and dominanc... Read More

The growth of secularism in the last century has resulted in the role of the Christian Churches in television coverage of history often being written out of the script. This is noticeable in otherwise well-made TV and radio documentaries, much less so thankfully in historical scholarship. The three episodes of James Rogan's Free Nelson Mandela, screened on Channel 4 in mid-June, provide a study of... Read More

Perhaps we have underestimated the importance of the Pope being an American, speaking a language which well over a billion globally understand. Many young people around the world learn English as a second language. And there is something immediate and arresting when Pope Leo writes or makes speeches in our own language about matters of great importance. There is also the sense that, with Trump and... Read More

'Superpower suicide' is a striking phrase used by the historian of totalitarianism, Professor Timothy Snyder. He argues the United States is in the process of committing 'superpower suicide', thanks to the Trump administration's geopolitical blunders. Two egregious examples are the unwinnable war with Iran and the inexplicable alienation of its traditional allies in Europe. It occurs to me that ... Read More

Watching the footage of the final moments of dying student Henry Nowak has impacted me in a way that I probably last experienced following the murder of George Floyd. I have the same overwhelming feeling of sadness and horror. The same feeling of betrayal because of the involvement of police officers who are meant to be the people who keep us safe. Once again I'm drawn to deeper reflection on the ... Read More

Football clubs and religion have features in common; there is belonging to a beloved community, high levels of commitment - capable of generating violence - knowledgeable commentators, rules, regulations and an informed debate about them. But the relative importance of noise and silence is not one of them. True, singing, hymns or chants and acclamation is part of celebration in both. But there is ... Read More

You bump into the past quite often in Berlin. There's the curated remains of the Wall, the vast architectural hymn to militarism of the Soviet war memorial in Treptow, and the disorientating claustrophobia of Daniel Libeskind's building housing the Jewish museum. To contemplate the confession of the Nazi horrors and the sufferings of war, spend time in the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, near the ... Read More

Mark Etkind writes: The just-published letter (referred to here) signed by religious leaders opposing antisemitism makes some good points - especially the message to 'our Jewish brothers and sisters. This country belongs to you as much as any of us.' But claims that 'the spectre of Jewish people being stabbed at random in the street, killed defending their synagogues and Jewish infrastructure bein... Read More

Mark Etkind, son of a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto and various concentration camps including Buchenwald - and co-organiser of Holocaust survivors and descendants against the Gaza genocide, writes: Thanks for you and your colleagues' coverage of the appalling antisemitic attack in Golders Green. But this horror should not be used to justify more restrictions on British people's right to protest. Sta... Read More

Dr Ian Linden gave this lecture at Queen's University Belfast on Saturday: Since Theodor Herzl encouraged Lord Rothschild and the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, to embrace a Jewish colonization of Sinai, Palestine and Cyprus in the late 1890s, the historical evolution of Jewish settlement in Palestine was marked by the paired imperial concerns, Ethnicity and Land. As Uganda, propo... Read More

To speak of creation as music is to marry physics and theology with awe: the cosmos is the score for God's ongoing song. "The morning stars sang together and the heavenly beings of God shouted with joy." (Job 38:7). Before light in creation, there was sound: the symphony of atoms and molecules vibrating and dancing to the rhythm and beat of Abba (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6), the compo... Read More