Beech Forest in Autumn
The beech forest is the classic ‘wood’ covering most of old Europe, below the conifers on the steep slopes, and above the poplars and willows in the wetlands. I was…
The Dead Shrew on Dartmoor
I was walking through rolling vistas of rusty bracken and purple heather, on Dartmoor, with an unlikely straggle of lawyers and others. We’d just left Grimspound, the 4,000 year old…
Human Rights and the New Cosmology
I came across the paragraphs below in a Zenit report of the daylong forum organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See entitled “For Everyone, Everywhere: Universal Human Rights…
Who are the poor?
The current issue of Le Monde 2, the week-end supplement to Le Monde, the prestigious French daily, carries an interview with Professor Paul Collier. Along with Jeff Sachs, Paul Collier…
Shaking of the Foundations
Paul Tillich, the theologian, wrote a book in the 1960s that influenced a whole generation. It was entitled The Shaking of the Foundations. At the time it was the set…
Corporal Punishment
We have come a long way from a time when violence against children and young people in the form of corporal punishment was widely acceptable. Studies of childhood remind us…
The Ouzel in the Creek
The other day, on my way to work in Geneva, I saw my first ouzel. Also known as a dipper, it’s a cocky black bird with a white chest, that…
Friend of the Poor is no longer with Us
Yesterday, October 20th, Madeleine Cinquin, more popularly known as Soeur Emmanuelle, died at the age of 90 at a nursing home in Callian, France. Soeur Emmanuelle was a sister of…
Greed is no longer good
We all remember that famous Michael Douglas character quote from the movie Wall Street: “Greed is good”. Those were days of irresponsible and ruthless disregard for the common good. Unashamed…
DRC: The violence still goes on
A recent Amnesty International Report on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) draws attention to the continuing perpetration of violence against children and young people…