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Viewpoint

Personal opinion pieces on a wide range of Catholic issues by different writers.


Ian Linden: How Social Justice came in from the cold

Dr Ian Linden

One of the anomalies of English Catholicism is that Catholics working for social justice have in the past been made to feel they are oddities, peripheral to the main life of the Church, worship, sacraments, and prayer, a troublesome add-on, sometimes vaguely threatening. Yet the St Vincent de Paul Society active in every parish and the red boxes of the Pontifical Mission Societies (MISSIO today) i... Read More


Ian Linden: Genocide - Speaking Truth to Power

Hope and joy are wonderful gifts. The hostage crisis ends, the endless bombing and killing in Gaza stop. You would not think that Gaza had seen two previous ceasefires with exchanges of prisoners and captives and a brief flow of humanitarian aid. Palestinians have bitter grief and unimaginable suffering to digest: both genocide and a new form of Middle East apartheid. The road to their future has... Read More


Viewpoint: No decision about me without me: Cheap peace in Gaza

Mother and child on ruin of their home

As Donald Trump stood beside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and announced a 20-point plan to "end" the war in Gaza, there were no Palestinians in the room. If Hamas fail to agree to the plan then the genocide continues. This is not peace. It is "colonialism" rebranded. It echoes what Dietrich Bonhoeffer once called "cheap grace", a grace that demands nothing, changes nothing, costs nothing. To... Read More


Ian Linden: Christian nationalism - the silence of the bystander

Photo by Kelsey Todd on Unsplash

Powerful forces are dismantling democracy in America. President Trump's murdered ally and influential supporter, Charlie Kirk, was given a five hour funeral ceremony in a packed Phoenix stadium on 21 September. It was both spectacular and unprecedented. Oration after oration, from the President, Vice-President and key leaders at high levels of the administration, fused Christian Nationalism with t... Read More


Occupation not PA harms Christians in Palestine

Icon on Separation Wall around Bethlehem

A Jerusalem Voice for Justice: an ecumenical witness for equality and a just peace in Palestine/Israel has issued the following statement in response to Mr Netenhyahu's false claim at the UN about Christians in Palestine. On September 26, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Netanyahu defended Israel's genocidal war in Gaza and ... Read More


Ian Linden: Lost or mislaid in translation?

Dr Ian Linden

English-speaking Catholics might have expected some benefits from a Native English-speaking Pope: a return to the good English of the old pre-2011 Missal, nothing lost in translation, promises of visits. But Leo has seemed reluctant to communicate in English. And the British are notoriously bad at foreign languages. We need to try harder. Perhaps going to Mass on holiday abroad might help. The wor... Read More


Christian Zionism is not Christian

Pro-Palestine vs pro-Israel demonstrators, New York 23.12.23 (Shutterstock Image by Syndi Pilar)

When Israel closed the borders to aid in March, humanitarian organisations warned of an impending human-made famine in Gaza. Five months later, the images of skeletal and listless children are heartbreaking. I look at those images and think that in different circumstances, this could be my child. Even if I can't do anything, I need to see. Irrespective of how upsetting it is to look into the eyes ... Read More


US Viewpoint: We can never say, 'We knew nothing about that'

During World War II, historical accounts vary as to how much German citizens knew about Nazi subhuman prisoner work and extermination camps. The evidence seems to reveal that some Germans had a clear understanding of the horrors that were happening, while others knew very little. According to Wikipedia, after the war a common German response to the Holocaust - the mass execution of Jews - and the ... Read More


Ian Linden: Palestine - Is it too late for two states?

One placard reads: 'Only justice can bring peace to Israel and Palestine'

At the United Nations General Assembly in September, three members of the G7 are set to recognise the State of Palestine joining the 147 of the 193 UN member states who already recognise a Palestinian State. The UK's own announcement of support on 29 July was influenced both by France and by pressure from the Parliamentary Labour Party as well as Labour's own members. Canada followed suit. Japan m... Read More


Ian Linden: Naming the horrors in Gaza

Demonstration at CoE Synod

Protests from authoritative sources at the horror in Gaza are growing. A number of professors in genocide and holocaust studies, a handful Jewish, are now condemning as genocide the conduct of Netanyahu's government and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). There has been reluctance to do so. The majority have not come to this conclusion. The memory of the Holocaust plays a unique role in Jewish and W... Read More


US Deacon: Fourth of July Reflection on Patriotism

Photo by Zoltán Cse on Unsplash

Deacon William T Ditewig, PhD, from the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, writes in his blog: Deacons Today: Servants in a Servant Church: "Non Sibi Sed Patriae": A Reflection on Patriotism 4 July 2025 Commander William T Ditewig, United States Navy (ret.) Most citizens of the United States are disheartened by the current state of political affairs in our country. There appears to be no gradation of ... Read More


Ian Linden: Schooling for troubled times

Dr Ian Linden

When Orla Guerin, the distinguished BBC foreign correspondent, broadcasts from a distant land, and Pat McFadden MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is interviewed here in Britain, you know things are bad. But at least you can begin to understand them. And Pat McFadden has that gift for making you think everything is all right: you should go to bed and it will be better in the morning. Everyt... Read More


Ian Linden - Trump and Iran: History as selective memory

Donald Trump - screenshot

There would not now be a war between Israel and Iran without President Trump. It has been evident for two decades that there were only two ways of stopping Iran going nuclear: either diplomacy or war. On 14 July 2015 the USA, France, China, Russia, Germany, and the EU/UK agreed a Joint Plan of Action, (JPCOA), a nuclear deal to limit and monitor Iran's stockpile and enrichment of uranium in exchan... Read More


Ian Linden: Gaza - Is the tide turning in Israel?

Dozens of Jewish groups - including children of Holocaust survivors - have joined national peace demonstrations in London

No-one who has looked at the images of extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust Memorial of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem will underestimate the impact of the appalling 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and hostage-taking on Israelis and Jews worldwide. No-one watching the daily TV coverage of the civilian dead and dying amongst the rubble of Gaza, and listening to radio reports of attacks on Palest... Read More

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