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The gift of reconciliation
The sacrament of reconciliation, or confession, is one of Church’s great gifts to the faithful. Properly conducted, by confessor and penitent, it is a grace-giving ritual.
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Refugees of superior fibre
I applaud your editorial “South Africa’s great failure” of July 1 regarding our lack of charity towards those people from other countries seeking a better life in South Africa. What is often overlooked is that, like our own ancestors who fled oppression and poverty in their mother-countries, seeking a better life for themselves and their children, these refugees are for the most part of a superior moral fibre.
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Growing up with kids
Whenever your children are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God’s omnipotence did not extend to his own children.
St Paul’s leadership challenge
God calls people in the circumstances of their lives, and every person has a duty to discover their purpose in life.
The American Republican politician and Christian youth minister Ron Boehme has correctly said that true greatness is “knowing your calling and developing the character to fulfil it”. Leadership is a calling, and God uses the kind of person one is to make one a leader. Read more…
Zimbabwe and a new Constitution
By Clutton Patsika
The Zimbabwean crisis which has led to a recession spanning nine years is usually blamed on a flawed constitution that has been abused by those in power. Being the supreme law of the land, a constitution must be set for the common good of that country not to benefit only a few.
Betting to lose
The emergence of Internet gambling should give us cause for alarm, especially in light of suggestions that on-line casinos are an increasing threat to stability in marriages.
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It’s not a sin to criticise the Church
The Vatican Letter by Cindy Wooden (“A safer, healing Church”) concerning child abuse in Ireland refers. Ideas concerning acceptable physical punishment have changed in the past 50 years or so, and controlling youngsters in industrial schools when they have never been controlled by their parents is no easy task. Sexual abuse, however, has always been considered thoroughly evil.
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Mortal and venial sin – the difference
My very Catholic mother (a convert) taught me that sin was sin, and Jesus never graded it into mortal and venial categories. Jesus declared to the woman that her faith had healed her and she must sin no more. The difference between mortal and venial is either a Catholic tradition or invented by the Church. I’m not sure which.
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Those old school days
Ever since I can remember, my three older siblings have insisted that while they were all born in maternity hospitals and then taken home after a few days, I was born at home and after a few days my mother was taken to hospital. It was July 15, 1943, and the Allied High Command celebrated the occasion of my birth by invading Sicily. Two months later my father left the Dutch Reformed Church and converted to Catholicism.
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How politics destroys the soul
There’s a dictum which, if I’m not mistaken, is ascribed to Franz Kafka: In the battle between yourself and the world, support the world. I’ve always been troubled by this outlook on life, and have easily chosen Christ’s warning against the world. The side I wish to choose in battle with myself is that of God.
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