From Vin Totton ~ The Diocesan Justice and Peace Council has been responding with great concern to the proposal to re-use Medomsley Detention Centre for people seeking asylum. I, a member of Holy Name, visited the infamous Yarls Wood Detention Centre in Bedford and found it soulless and depressing. Detention is regarded by those operating…
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The contradictions of Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview
by Matt Malone, S.J. in 'America' (The Jesuit Review), 8 March 2021 In the summer of 1999, after a hot and stuffy train trip from London, I boarded a hovercraft and crossed the Solent, the strait that separates Great Britain from the Isle of Wight, the largest and second-most populous island off the coast of…
George Harrison’s coronavirus comeback – what’s on your pandemic playlist?
By William Bole in The National Catholic Reporter (USA), 6 March 2021 If you happened to be inside a hospital early in the pandemic, you might have heard these words floating through the corridors — "The smiles returning to the faces. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here." They're lyrics from "Here…
Homily, Third Sunday of Lent (B) 2021
We have just heard an account of Jesus performing a symbolic act known as The Cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem (John 2:13-25). The reconstructed Temple was world renowned at the time, making Jerusalem, as the Roman historian Pliny wrote, by far the most distinguished city of the East. It was thronged, especially at the…
Homily, Second Sunday of Lent (B) 2021
For this second Sunday in Lent our First Reading (Exodus 22: 1-2,9-13,15-18) is about another major Old Testament figure with whom God entered into a covenant. Last Sunday we had the first such agreement with Noah. It is followed today by one with Abraham and next Sunday by the covenant with Moses. These interim covenants…
Is it realistic to expect Joe Biden to ‘convert’ everyone to the Catholic view on abortion?
by Clifford Longley in THE TABLET, 24 February In reply to Helen Watt's blog re Biden and abortion It has puzzled me a long time why Catholics are so much more engaged with the abortion issue than members of other Christian churches. All Churches start their response to abortion from the same base line – the…
Homily, First Sunday of Lent (B) 2021
Close to the city of Mosul in Northern Iraq lie the ruins of the ancient Biblical city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire and the largest and most powerful city in the world for some 50 years. Its might is celebrated in Lord Byron’s poem - The Destruction of Sennacherib – which recountsbiblical…
Homily, Sixth Sunday of the Year (B) 2021
Brothers and Sisters, whatever you eat, whatever you drink, whatever you do at all, do it for the glory of God. Never do anything offensive to anyone - to Jews or Greeks or the Church of God: just as I try to be helpful to everyone at all times, not anxious for my own advantage but…
Opposition to Francis rooted in opposition to Vatican II
By Michael Sean Winters in The National Catholic Reporter (USA), 8 February 2021 At the end of January, Pope Francis delivered an important address to participants in a meeting of the National Catechetical Office of the Italian Bishops conference. It warrants attention from all the local churches because it shows, I think, why the opposition to Francis…
Homily, Fifth Sunday of the Year (B) 2021
The Book of Job, written about 4/500 years before the time of Christ, is a fable that addresses the problem of why God permits evil and suffering in the world. Why does God allow evil to thrive and for good people to suffer, for bad things to happen to good people? This book in the…
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