Opinions

In a world that is characterized by all sorts of violence (physical, economical, racial, psychological, sexual, etc.), a fanatic and intolerant aspect manifests itself with preoccupying intensity in the three monotheistic religions (Christianism, Judaism and Islam). Apart from constituting a…

Four years today, President Obama announced in Prague his vision and commitment to seek a world without nuclear weapons. Alyn Ware, Global Coordinator for Parliamentarians for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, reports on a number of anniversary actions, and asks whether…

While it is the US of A that appears as the most ‘belligerent’ in the current Korea’s crisis – if this is not too weak a term for practices and thus threats of a nuclear attack – questions need to…

By Ken Butigan. This past Monday hundreds of Episcopalian bishops, clergy and lay people challenged the U.S. culture of violence by prayerfully enacting the Stations of the Cross in the streets of Washington, D.C. Drawing on what for Christians is…

In the early 1980s, as a student in New Zealand with no income, I could not afford inter-city travel and so spent a lot of time hitch-hiking between my home-town of Tauranga and my university town Hamilton. Once I was…

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. As one of the longest and one of the most costly wars in U.S. history, the true costs in dollars, lives, environmental contamination and opportunity costs may…

Tomas Young was in the fifth day of his first deployment to Iraq when he was struck by a sniper’s bullet in Baghdad’s Sadr City. The single bullet paralyzed him from the chest down, and changed his life forever. Now,…

The Catholic Church has a mottled history, this is well known. Now, we have this fine message from its spiritual leader, the Pope, an Argentinian. What does a humanist see in this message? Certainly, it is a timely message. It…

Pope wrong to meet Mugabe.   Francis sends the wrong signal.   Mistake to invite and greet Zimbabwean tyrant “The Pope has made a huge error of judgement by inviting and greeting the Zimbabwean President. He should have shunned Mugabe as a…

Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, aged 76, was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Wednesday 13 March, 2013. He will take the name Francis I. He was proclaimed as the first…