Cover story

A Time to Re-think and Re-imagine

Varghese Theckanath S.G. Montfort Social Institute (MSI), Hyderabad The BJP has captured the whole country, especially the Hindi heart-land. What does it mean? The immediate thought that comes to my mind is that the traditional, liberal, political discourse will have little space in the overall political discourse of the country. Although we have been brought […]

Blockheads do wear the dictatorial genotype on their sleeves!

Sooraj Mathew Pittappillil Any analysis of dictatorial propensities drives me back to a thought provoking short poem by the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran, The Scarecrow. The anatomy of fear is beautifully narrated there: Once I said to a scarecrow, “You must be tired of standing in this lonely field.” And he said, “The joy of scaring […]

Gender ideology is opposed to faith, reason, Vatican office says

Catholic Schools must help parents teach young people that biological sex and gender are naturally fixed at birth and part of God’s plan for creation, said the Congregation for Catholic Education. In a document published on June 10, the congregation said the Catholic Church and those proposing a looser definition of gender can find common […]

Group Feelings of Ethnicity, Race, Religion and Gender on the Rise

Rev. Dr. Pius Malekandathil, JNU, Delhi As a historian how do you understand the fundamentalist turn in many parts of the world to some sort of religious fundamentalism, which is happening in India, Arabia even in the West? Fundamentalism is a cancerous cultural sickness that is made to exist in religious spaces by power-mongers as […]

Avoid simplistic solutions to church problems

Berkeley, Calif.— Daughter of Charity, Sr Carol Keehan, speaking before graduates of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, encouraged them to keep the Gospels front and center in their academic pursuits while avoiding simplistic solutions to the various problems facing the church today. She called the sex abuse scandal and episcopal cover-ups […]

Countries that sell arms have no right to talk about peace

Nations that actively engage in arms dealing and help foment war in other countries should not expect to find peace in their own lands, Pope Francis said. During a wide-ranging interview with the Spanish news program, “Salvados,” which aired March 31, the pope was asked his opinion by journalist Jordi Evole regarding the Spanish government’s […]

Humanity is dirtying its own nest

We depend on nature for our survival yet it’s in a dire condition because of our destructive, uncaring ways. Tons of plastic waste have accumulated on the shores of the capital of the Philippines, Manila. A U.N. report on the environment warns that plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980. We humans, the species with […]

Hostility towards Western Governments

245 Million Christians Living In the Top 50 Countries Suffer High Levels of Persecution Dr. Keith D Souza S.J., Mumbai Why do you think Christians are persecuted all over the world? One of the crucial reasons for such a drastic and harmful development is that some of the materially advanced parts of the world have undergone […]

Eviction-facing Indian Catholics to fight Muslim charity’s claims

Goans oppose tourism project near 16th century basilica