February 21, 2012
A German Pope in Rome and a Muslim baroness from Britain teamed up last week as unlikely allies against ‘militant secularisation’ in Europe, including Britain. Pope Benedict XVI spoke of threats from ‘aggressive forms of secularism’ when he visited Britain in 2010. Last week, Britain’s first female Muslim cabinet minister, Baroness Warsi, echoed his words […]
February 13, 2012
Thanks to some guy named Valentine, the cash registers are ringing up sales of greeting cards, chocolates, roses, lingerie and perfumes this week all over Europe and beyond. Not a bad business, in both senses of the word. Few would be able to tell you who this Valentine was, however. Maybe some casanova or […]
February 6, 2012
The chaos of the Dutch railways caused by the snowstorm last Friday delayed the new professor’s arrival at his own inauguration – just as well for my wife and me caught up in the same confusion of delays and detours on our way to the Free University in Amsterdam. Garbed in cap and gown, Professor […]
January 30, 2012
Most of us living on this planet today have no living memory of the Holocaust. Yet it is a dark chapter of the human story all of us need to remember. Frankly we’d prefer not to have to think about this ‘stain on Europe’s history’. Some even try to deny it ever happened, despite overwhelming […]
January 23, 2012
Journalists were quick to recognise the irony of the bizarre tragedy of the Costa Concordia on this centennial year of the Titanic sinking. Human hubris and flagrant disregard of caution in the pursuit of pleasure has thrust a screaming metaphor in our European faces, with the Italians in the front row seats. Two weeks ago […]
January 16, 2012
weekly word: Each time we gather as the Hope for Europe Round Table, we remind ourselves why. This time, over the past two days, that question was more pressing. If we can believe the media these days, Europe really is becoming the hopeless case. Some years ago, sociologist Grace Davie wrote a book called Europe: […]
January 9, 2012
Last Friday was Epiphany, the day on the Church calendar marking the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, and thus the revelation of the Christ to the Gentiles. A good day therefore for an ‘epiphany’–a revelation–about the new year. I was leading a group of students on a historical walk through old Amsterdam […]
December 19, 2011
George Frederick Handel could never have dreamed that his ‘Messiah’ would become a worldwide phenomenon, performed in thousands of concert halls, churches and auditoriums every Christmas, and enjoyed by millions more via radio, television and countless recordings. Europe may well have become the most secularised continent in the world but Advent still continues to draw […]
December 12, 2011
No one can safely predict what the long term fallout will be from last week’s European summit in Brussels. Some hail David Cameron’s ‘No’ to the EU as a heroic parallel to Henry VIII’s snub to Rome, endorsing the Reformation in England. Others fear Britain will have to re-learn the costly lesson of the sixties […]
December 5, 2011
Christians had a special responsibility in moments such as Europe’s current crisis, President Jerzy Buzek of the European Parliament told participants of the European Prayer Breakfast in Brussels last week. Today’s crisis was one of values, not economics, he added. Material development had not been accompanied by spiritual development. Yet competitiveness needed justice. Jobs needed […]
November 28, 2011
One of the signs of hope in a rather gloomy Europe is a growing grass-roots ecumenism of the heart. Never in the last millennium has there been so much positive interaction among Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox believers in Europe. The European landscape has been shaped since 1054 by the Great Schism between the Greek and […]
November 21, 2011
This week I read what the global ‘Occupy’ movement is really all about. It’s basically a global mourning for three iconic figures: Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. Their deaths have left us in a world with no Jobs, no Cash and no Hope! Okay, so maybe we need to dig a little deeper […]
