May 2009
The meaning of Workers' Day
By Anthony Egan SJ, on 4 May 2009.May Day or Workers’ Day has just passed. How many of us, I wonder, know of its historical origins and how it links into Catholic Social Teaching on work?
Workers’ Day has its roots in the United States. In October 1884 the alliance of trade unions later called the American Federation of Labor [AFL] declared that from May 1, 1886 the working day was to be limited to eight hours and that the unions would try to see that businesses kept to the limit. To help get this accepted the unions prepared for a general strike on May 1, 1886.
South African elections 2009: an analysis
By Anthony Egan SJ, on 8 May 2009.The 2009 elections in South Africa were billed as the most competitive that the country has seen since the end of apartheid. Anthony Egan SJ analyses the voting that led to the victory of the African National Congress, and looks at the challenges facing President Jacob Zuma.
Continue reading Anthony's article on ThinkingFaith (Download PDF)
Besotted with God
By Chris Chatteris SJ, on 12 May 2009.As a young Benedictine, Bede Griffiths once described how in love he was with his newly-found religious life. He wrote to a friend saying how he loved everything about the monastery, even down to its very bricks and stones.
Grand Inquisitors
By Anthony Egan SJ, on 25 May 2009.In the classic novel The Brothers Karamazov (1879), Fyodor Dostoyevsky recounts the terrifying parable of the ‘Grand Inquisitor’. Christ returns, arriving in Spain, and is taken by the religious authorities before the head of the Inquisition where he is condemned for preaching a gospel of freedom, responsibility and conscience.
This is not, says the Grand Inquisitor, what the masses need. They cannot handle freedom. Give them bread, given them magic and miracles, give them discipline and order. By rejecting the temptations of Satan, Christ brought ordinary people unbearable duties. By accepting these temptations the Church has freed people from the burden Christ laid upon them. Christ is commanded to depart and not to return under pain of death…
