May 24, 2025
As democracy, freedom of speech, human dignity and rights come under increasing threat even in the heart of the western nations, we are being forced to realise we cannot take these elements of our western civilisation for granted anymore. While essential for our lifestyles in free nations, none of these facets are self-evident or self-perpetuating. […]
May 17, 2025
Nestled in the valley between the European Union institutions in Brussels is the Chapel for Europe, a reconstructed former convent chapel resurrected as an ecumenical worship space for EU politicians and staff. The chapel stands as a reminder of the spiritual values the founding fathers of Europe believed were essential for lasting peace in Europe. The […]
May 9, 2025
Headlines the world over yesterday announced the new pope, Leo XIV. Headlines exactly 75 years ago today, May 10, 1950, announced a new audacious plan for peace: ‘France takes the nations by surprise’. ‘Sensational decision’. ‘Schuman bomb’. It was a plan inspired by the teachings of Pope Leo XIII, renowned for his 1891 encyclical Rerum […]
May 3, 2025
‘Is this the time you are going to make Israel great again?’ Sometime between the Resurrection and the Ascension – where we happen to be today in the church calendar – the disciples ask Jesus this question on one of the several occasions when he appeared to them over a period of forty days. Luke […]
April 26, 2025
Flags around the globe hang half-mast as Catholics and people of goodwill world-wide mourn the passing of Pope Francis. We find ourselves in a most fragile moment of geo-political affairs with much hanging in the balance, especially in Ukraine and Gaza. As world leaders converge on Rome for Francis’s funeral, the foreign affairs committees of Britain, […]
April 19, 2025
Three years ago, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a mere three weeks old when a performance of Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion took on new dimensions of pathos for me. I wrote then that the parallel of the false accusations, lies and unjustified suffering inflicted on Jesus with the unjust suffering of millions of innocent […]
April 12, 2025
Some came from Balkan societies where war memories are still fresh. Others were studying in Bucha, Ukraine, where just three years ago over 500 civilians and prisoners of war were butchered by Russian invaders. They were among the mainly eastern and central Europe students attending a conference held in a Dutch monastery this week on […]
April 5, 2025
Germans, Poles and Ukrainians have had to work hard on forgiveness and reconciliation since World War Two. As a German now working in Poland, Fr. Manfred Deselaers has devoted much of his life to German-Polish reconciliation and Christian-Jewish dialogue at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer in Auschwitz. From this experience, and in an effort ‘to […]
March 29, 2025
‘The monastic era is a page of European history best quickly skipped over.’ At least, that is the attitude of many protestants and evangelicals towards a movement that was dissolved by Protestant rulers like Henry VIII to make way for the Reformation. Monasteries were reputed to be places of corruption and hypocrisy, wealth and worldliness, […]
March 22, 2025
When global developments or personal difficulties cloud our perspectives, it helps to step back and reflect on our wondrous existence and God’s sustaining grace. We can easily lose sight of how much we are surrounded by wonders and improbabilites, and of how we are being constantly upheld by God’s sustaining grace. The beauty of flowers, […]
March 15, 2025
One of Amsterdam’s best kept secrets is how the city was first put on the European map in the 14th century through a miracle. While many Amsterdammers know nothing about this event, for Dutch Catholics it is no secret. In fact, tonight, after midnight, 7000 of them from all over the Netherlands will be walking […]
March 8, 2025
In twenty-four years of writing Weekly Word, this week’s edition is for me the saddest. The events of the past days and weeks are forcing us to face new realities. The America with which all post-war generations have grown up – symbolised by the Statue of Liberty welcoming the world’s ‘tired, poor, homeless, huddled masses […]
