Stumbling into Sterkfontein
Sterkfontein is one of several sites in the World Heritage area labelled ‘The Cradle of Humanity‘, just northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. A group of us undertaking the first ever…
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…
Major funding helps work against trafficking
The following article was recently posted on the Catholic Religious Australia website. CRA is the peak body representing all Religious Congregations in Australia:- Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans…
The world’s poor stand to lose the most
Aid agency representatives October 24, 2008 Aid and financial crisis. Photo: Dyson Governments are spending billions to save stricken companies. From another quarter comes a plea for them to offer…
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…