Reflections for October 2023

Which of our laws are most important? Sometimes it’s easy – a law against murder is more important than a law about fraud, and we really don’t care much about a law regarding speed limits. Some tie us in knots. Is a law protecting freedom of speech more important than one that prevents riots, or […]

I grew up with a version of Christianity that had no political content whatsoever. If anyone had suggested there was any relationship between religion and politics I think the reaction would have been bafflement. As I grew older I became aware of the many linkages between Catholicism and politics, historic and current, from the close

This week Isaiah is at his most exuberant: “a feast of rich food and choice wines, for all peoples” as God “wipes away the tears from every face” and “destroys death forever”. (Isa 25:6-19a) This is followed by the caressing tranquility of Psalm 23.  But in our reading from Matthew’s gospel (Mt 24:1-14), Jesus continues

Our readings this week may seem harsh. God is going to tear down his vineyard, the house of Israel, because of the way the people have behaved. In the gospel Jesus is again going after the “the chief priests and the elders of the people”, the leaders both religious and secular. Last week he told

This week Ezekiel joins in with the theme of how God is unfair, or not. The question he’s addressing concerns individual responsibility (Ez 18:25-28). And he clearly didn’t have much impact on Jewish thinking, since we still hear in Jesus’s time how the general attitude was that people’s misfortunes were a result of their parents’