Columns

  • The frustrating struggle for humility

    Nov 10, 2019

    It’s hard to be humble, not because we don’t have more than enough deficiencies to merit humility, but rather because there’s a crafty mechanism inside of us that normally doesn’t let us go to the place of humility.

  • Stolen statues – and the need for ecological conversion

    Nov 01, 2019

    Last week, at least two conservative protesters crept into the Church of St Mary in Traspontina in Rome at dawn and stole wooden carvings of nude preg

  • The grace within passivity

    Nov 01, 2019

    As Christians, we say that Jesus gave his life for us and that he gave his death for us, but we tend to think of this as one and the same thing. It’s not. Jesus gave his life for us through his activity; he gave his death for us through his passivity. These were two separate movements.

  • The economy should serve the people

    Oct 26, 2019

    In 2013 the influential Atlantic website in a commentary Pope Francis’ Theory of Economics said the economist who most closely reflects the Bishop of Rome’s thinking was sociopolitical economist and anthropologist Karl Polanyi.

  • Grieving as a spiritual exercise

    Oct 26, 2019

    A deep psychological scar is the same as having some part of your body permanently damaged in an accident. You will never be whole again and nothing c

  • Land-grabbing displaces the poor

    Oct 19, 2019

    Scripture has so many passages about greed. Yet, these warnings often fall on deaf years.

  • Race, religion – and the fire of greed

    Oct 13, 2019

    Of late, the politics of race and religion has resurfaced in Malaysia, as if gasping for air after being submerged by last year’s political tsunami.

  • Creating and holding space for our brokenness

    Oct 12, 2019

    Some years ago I went on a weekend retreat given by a woman who made no secret about the fact that not being able to have children constituted a deep

  • SOS — Save Our Seas

    Oct 05, 2019

    Rising sea levels will displace hundreds of millions of coastal residents from their homes by this century. If we don’t take action to curb emissions, the rise could be as much as 60- 110cm by 2100.

  • Jesus Christ – the person and the mystery

    Oct 05, 2019

    We quite naturally tend to think of the word “Christ” as Jesus’ second name. We think of the name “Jesus Christ” like we think of names like “Susan Parker” or “Jack Smith”.