"It is troubling how many people expect applause, recognition, when they have not even begun to learn an art or craft. Instant success is the order of the day; 'I want it now!' I wonder whether this is not part of our corruption by machines. Machines do things very quickly and outside the natural rhythm of life, and we are indignant if a car doesn't start at the first try. So the few things that we still do, such as cooking (though there are TV dinners!), knitting, gardening, anything at all that cannot be hurried, have a very particular value." (May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude, W W Norton, 1973, 15.)

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The sex-abuse crisis is global

And the Vatican knows it
JPope Francis and bishops

2018 was the year that many Catholics finally accepted that the church's sex-abuse crisis is truly a global problem. Hence the Vatican's decision to bring the presidents of all the bishops' conferences together in Rome to discuss the issue between February 21 and 24.

The abuse crisis forces us to look at the interconnectedness of the church, and to resist the spirit of our time, which not only closes borders and builds walls, but also blinds us to how what's happening in one part of the world relates to what's happening in another.

Of course, we Catholics have all been taught that the church is the Body of Christ, and that if one member of that body suffers, the entire body suffers. Read more