The British people have spoken, and their voice has confounded all expectations. Almost immediately after the polls closed in the General Election at 10pm on Thursday night, a nationwide exit poll indicated that the Conservative party, led by David Cameron, the prime minister since 2010, was going to win far more seats than predicted. What … Read more
Since almost the beginning of the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops that considered the “Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization” over a fortnight in Rome last October, the Church has been wrought with anguished debate on the future of marriage and human sexuality. That’s the way the matter has been reported in … Read more
On 14 July, the General Synod of the Church of England voted in favor of allowing women to become bishops. The measure had previously been rejected in 2012 by the Synod, the Church of England’s deliberative and legislative body composed of “houses” of bishops, clergy and laity, when it failed to gain the requisite two-thirds … Read more
In the UK there is a ban on all prisoners from voting in elections. This applies to all prisoners who have been convicted, i.e. are not on remand awaiting trial or detained without conviction in psychiatric hospitals. The ban includes European, Parliamentary or local elections and any referendums that might be held, such as on … Read more
Recently visiting Northern Ireland for the G8 meeting at Lough Erne, President Obama said this during his now-traditional speech to local young people: If towns remain divided—if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages … Read more
The Monty Python film, Life of Brian, has a scene in it where Reg, the leader of a group of Jewish rebels, asks what the Romans have ever done for the Jewish people. The assembled group chip in with ideas one-by-one, undermining the implication that the Romans have brought nothing by hardship to Israel. Reg … Read more