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Character in the Courtroom

The confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett’s appointment to the United States Supreme Court were fascinating. These days, Parliament is not necessarily held in high regard in the UK and politics in the US is not held in high regard either. However, the Select Committee hearings and meetings of All Party Parliamentary Groups are a real credit to all politicians. Politicians at those hearings actually question each other and question witnesses in a far more interesting and skilled way than interviewers do on your average edition of BBC Newsnight, where the objective seems to be to catch politicians out so that politicians, in turn, play a boring, defensive game.

Catholic teaching on usury and interest – continuity amidst change

Carlo Crivelli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Finance and banking are institutions heavily associated in most people’s minds with modernity and the development of modern economies. While there is a certain truth to that, in the sense that the scale and reach of such institutions accelerated in the nineteenth century, it disguises the fact that most of the tools, methods and institutions associated with modern finance attained their mature form in the Catholic world of mediaeval Europe.

The truth and freedom

It appears so simple: whoever believes he holds the truth is a threat to freedom. Or, as was stated in Centesimus annus by John Paul II: “…those who are convinced that they know the truth and firmly adhere to it are considered unreliable from a democratic point of view since they do not accept that truth is determined by the majority, or that it is subject to variation according to different political trends…” (Centesimus Annus, 46).

Ecological virtue

Pope Francis discusses ecological virtue in Laudato si and provides illustrations of what it might be, in many cases very beautifully; however, he does not provide a systematic account of ecological virtue. That is the aim of this article based on the virtue scheme of Saint Thomas Aquinas. As a prelude to that, it should be noted that all the world religions and many environmental organisations speak in similar terms.

Tax transparency: some moral and economic considerations

Price transparency and visibility are vital components of consumer protection in fair markets: laws and regulations protect consumers’ rights by requiring businesses to ensure their prices are visible and transparent. This is especially important when people purchase complex financial products. However, when it comes to tax, the term ‘tax transparency’ has come to signify exclusively the transparency of taxpayers’ financial affairs (referring to initiatives such as cross–national exchange of tax–related information by tax authorities), while transparency of the tax burden borne by individuals themselves receives little attention. Most people are not aware of the total amount of tax they pay and studies show that they under-estimate the amount of tax they pay substantially.

Freedom to speak and to pray

This post by Philip Booth considers freedom of speech, conscience and religion in the context of specific laws in the UK which allow a great deal of administrative discretion in restricting those freedoms.

Utilitarianism’s Epistemic Space

I read the previous two posts on this blog with great interest, and I welcome this opportunity to bring a theological perspective to bear on some of those discussions. In this piece, I want to discuss a passing comment from Trevor Stammers’ post, in which he acknowledges the necessity of employing utilitarian reasoning when faced with the ethics of triage. This acknowledges situations whereby an ethical philosophy considered woefully problematic in normal circumstances, might be permitted due to the extreme complexity at play.

Covid-19: Love in a time of War

In an open letter to his parish of St Mark’s, Cambridge weeks before the Government’s “Stay at home” message was issued, Prof of New Testament, Richard Bauckham wrote “During the past week I have had the weird sense of a society preparing for an imminent outbreak of war…The analogy with war came to me last week and I might then have thought it over-dramatic. But now everyone is using it. The difference from the great wars is that the “home front” is now the front.”

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