Karl Rahner agrees, suggesting that laughter shows we are on good terms with reality and hence with God. Laughter praises God because it foretells our final state in heaven when we will be in an exuberance of joy.
Anyone who has ever tried to overcome an addiction can answer that question. A clear head, a clear vision of what's to be done, and a solid resolution to leave a bad habit behind is only a half-job, a first step, an important one, but only an initial one. The tough part is still ahead.
Cormac Murphy-O’Connor tells Cole Moreton and Edward Malnick that the Catholic Church is in rude health and he is still, aged 80, its faithful servant Cormac. Murphy-O’Connor could have been wearing ermine and sitting in the House of Lords by now.
Art can save your soul – providing pride does not get in the way. I also read recently the moving testimony of a convert from Islam, whose journey into the Church was aided by Michelangelo’s Pieta in St Peter’s. Again, the French (secular) Jewish philosopher, Simone Weil, was deeply influenced by the metaphysical poets in her own journey towards acceptance of Christianity (though she chose not to be baptised).
If you put all the books you own on the street outside your house, you might expect them to disappear in a trice. But one man in Manila tried it - and found that his collection grew. Hernando Guanlao is a sprightly man in his early 60s, with one abiding passion - books.
Nikos Kazantzakis once suggested that there are three kinds of souls and three kinds of prayers: When I look at life, I also see three great struggles, not unlike those so poetically named by Kazantzakis. And each of these has a corresponding level of Christian discipleship.
Several years ago, I was at church meeting where we were discussing liturgical rubrics. There was heated discussion over a number of issues: Should the congregation be standing or kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer? What is the most reverent way to receive communion? Should laypersons be allowed to cleanse the chalice and cups after communion?
They will be looking for work. But as they sleep in the bed that was theirs when they were ten, and eat "a proper" breakfast made by their mother, they must wonder how to reconcile their return to a childish life with appearing autonomous and ambitious in job interviews.
Cardinal Carlo Martini has denounced the church's conservatism from beyond the grave – he's right on some counts. So was Martini right about the church being quite so out of date? Indeed, is it the place of the church to adapt wholesale to the spirit of the age? Or rather, does it not have a role to speak out against the ideas of the times, to be prophetic?
The rich are getting richer, and we are almost beyond surprise at how rich that is. Every day, our newspapers, our televisions, and the internet, report financial compensations that, even just a generation ago, were unimaginable. And what's our reaction? Difficult to judge. We express indignation and protest that this is out of proportion, even as we nurse a not-so-secret envy: I wish it was me!
The Education Secretary talks about the bishops, free schools and his admiration for the Pope. “Education Secretaries come and go,” he says, “but the Catholic Church’s role in education is global and enduring.”
Multi-culturalism is not, as its detractors claim, an ideology. It is simply a fact. It is not an aim, but a description. London has 300 languages spoken inside its vast boundaries. It gets along, by and large, without any particularly violent consequences from this unparalleled amalgamation of cultures.
In religious discernment, how we recognize God's voice in our lives.? Does God speak in whispers or in thunder? Does God speak in pain or in blessing? Does God call us out of this world or more deeply into it?
What sportsmen and women need are facilities, encouragement from an early age, expert training and coaching, and a climate that breeds excellence. Financial rewards are incidental.
In recent times there has been a great deal of talk about “the God particle”, mixing cosmology and religion, often with a touch of irony. This definition seems to allude to a recomposition of science with God, with a formula that seems to want to resolve the issue without problems.
The innocent victims are at present the citizens of Aleppo, Syria’s second city. The rebels held important districts until the Syrian army launched overwhelming force against them. As ever, women and children are particularly at risk.Aleppo has a significant Christian population, and no doubt Pope Benedict had them in mind when he called for an end to the bloodshed.
A priest involved in preparations for the Olympics says the Games will be an extraordinary moment for Catholics in Britain. Viewed with the optic of faith the Olympic Games (July 27 to August 12) and the Paralympics (August 29 to September 9) may reveal the glory of God that is, as St Irenaeus of Lyon said, humanity fully alive.
When someone close to us dies by suicide we live with a pain that includes confusion ("Why?"), guilt ("What might we still have done?"), misunderstanding ("This is the ultimate form of despair") and, if we are believers, deep religious anxiety as well ("How does God treat such a person? What's to be his or her eternal destiny?")
While Saudi rulers found room to accommodate the demands of the International Olympic Committee to include women athletes, they also clearly acknowledged that – in their view at least – this did not merit billing as a pivotal moment of reform in a nation that still bans women from driving or traveling without the approval of a male guardian.
Missionaries working in rural Basilan province challenged the government and the Catholic Church Friday to do something about the spate of violence in the province, after another bloody incident this week. “We question those in authority, what have you done to protect and grant justice to the lives of the people?” the Claretian Missionaries said in a statement
