On 4th October, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis published an apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum (Praise God). This is a summary of that document.
Read more >>Laudate Deum – a summary
Category: Common Good
Unpicking stereotypes about diversity
The modern mantra of “equality, diversity and inclusion” (EDI) is proclaimed with alacrity in the corporate and education worlds. This is an important agenda, if understood correctly, but the phrase is often used to close down rather than open up discussions.
Read more >>There are many future saints in prison
‘We incarcerate more people than any other country in Europe. Far too many people in our prison system are there as a result of mental illness. And every year, for far too many people, prison is a death sentence, as a consequence of suicide or violence.’ This is how Pact’s CEO Andy Keen-Downs opened our 10th Sir Harold Hood Memorial Lecture event last week.
Read more >>Child euthanasia – the next stop on the slippery slope
Talk to Oxford University Students by Lord Alton of Liverpool
I want you to imagine Marie. It is 2025 and Marie is a 15-year-old Canadian girl. Three months ago, her relationship with her first boyfriend ended and she remains heartbroken. Life doesn’t seem worth living anymore. Her self-esteem has plummeted. She feels less popular, less attractive and less talented than most of her friends at school. And, in her state of distress, she reasons the rest of her life will be worthless and miserable. Not uncommon for girls her age, Marie has been ill with anorexia in recent years. Her recent circumstances have led her to relapse. So, her parents take her to the local psychiatric hospital to see a doctor.
Read more >>Politics as life-long engagement
I remember the scene clearly: it was just after midnight and the house lights were switched on in the auditorium of the Teatro Argentina in Rome. Moving from stage lighting to the lighting of the whole house was meant to affirm the role of the audience in the dawning of a democratic process in Eumenides, the third play in Aeschylus’ The Oresteia cycle, as a vote is cast on Orestes’ charge. Is he guilty or innocent? Athena, then, declares the theatre to be a court crowded with people. Sadly, while the lights revealed the glories of the theatre’s internal box features, it also revealed how the seats had emptied during the performance. As the show ran so late, many of the spectators had to leave early to catch public transport.
Read more >>Organ harvesting and trading
In his encyclical, Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis highlights the related practices of slavery, trafficking in person, women subjugated and forced to abort and kidnapping for organ harvesting or organ trafficking. He notes that, whether by coercion, deception, or by physical or psychological duress, human persons, created in the image and likeness of God, are deprived of their freedom, sold, and reduced to being another person’s property.
Read more >>Love the Stranger – youchat’s “perspective”
This week’s post on the Catholic social thought blog is a bit different. Instead of the usual article written by one of our authors, the article is a reflection on the document published by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Love the Stranger, which has been produced by youchat which is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Specifically, youchat was asked to produce an article summarising the document. The article follows (no changes have been made to the original produced by youchat).
Read more >>Culture, compassion, consistency and conscience – addressing public policy challenges
In this longer article, Archbishop of Southwark, Most Rev John Wilson, argues that re-evangelisation and the revival of a Christian culture is necessary if we are to successfully make progress in addressing public policy challenges
Read more >>Love the Stranger
Fr Manuel Barrios Prieto, Secretary General of COMECE (Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union), introduces the new document, published by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Love the Stranger.
Read more >>“Now, I’m a Union Man”? – Catholic social teaching and trade unions
The band “The Strawbs”, perhaps most famous for “Now, I’m a Union Man”, was formed at St. Mary’s before it was a university (they were originally called “The Strawberry Hill Boys”). The lyrics of that song, don’t really accord with Catholic social teaching on unions (“I say what I think, that the company stinks”…”With a hell of a shout, it’s ‘Out brothers, out!’ And the rise of the factory’s fall”…“And I always get my way If I strike for higher pay”…), but it is a good song and forms an interesting preface to an article on Catholic social teaching and trade unions.
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