Coronavirus: How Should Churches Respond?
In the period before the lockdown, religious leaders used that precious time to be too inward looking and seemingly less concerned for the poor, and there are lessons in that, argues RAYMOND PERRIER. They...
Category: Raymond Perrier
South Africa’s Time for Resurrection
For many Catholics, this year’s Holy Week is an experience of “virtual church”—those truly observing the lockdown, or people like my parents in their 80s, who are too scared to go outside, have stayed...
The Catholic Church And Human Rights
On March 21 we commemorated the 1960 Sharpeville massacre with Human Rights Day. What greater injustice to human rights can there have been than to regard some human beings as superior to others because...
Lent: A Detox of the Soul
Purification, ritual cleansing and sacrifice are not words that we often hear used by Catholics these days. But, even if the words are not used, they are important concepts in our religious tradition and...
Why Is It So Hard For Us To Say Sorry?
A cheesy cartoon from the 1970s had the slogan, “Love is… never having to say you are sorry”. I think that as Christians we should beg to differ, because one of the marks of Christian...
New year, New Budget!
It’s January. You are feeling the aftermath of the excesses of Christmas, New Year, gift-buying, partying and summer holidays. Your pocket and bank account are probably feeling rather depleted. You are not the only...
From the Margins to the Centre
The sight of people from the Amazon with traditional clothes and instruments participating in a Mass in one of Rome’s grand baroque churches will be one of the defining images of this papacy. When...
Our Church Must be an Open Club
When he announced the convening of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII proclaimed that he wanted “to open the windows and doors of the Church so that we can look out and others...
We Need to Talk About Mental Health
As a society we are getting better at talking about all kinds of subjects that were once taboo: gender-based violence, diverse sexual orientations, life-threatening illnesses, bullying at work or at school, and addictions. But...
Get The Story From The Homeless
The Denis Hurley Centre in Durban recently launched a campaign with the web-based news site Daily Maverick to invite South Africans to look into the eyes of homeless people and get to know their...
Mary Magdalene and Me
I share a birthday with Mary Magdalene – her feast day that is. In his article “How Mary Magdalene the Apostle Was Slandered” Günther Simmermacher provides some very useful insights into how and why...
Who Teaches the Teachers?
The Roman poet Juvenal asked: “Who guards those who do the guarding?” In the same way, we might ponder to ask “Who educates those who do the educating?” As a society — and as...
