 Celibacy is not just a matter of not having sex. It is a way of admiring a person for their humanity, maybe even for their beauty. |
| Seeking the good is not primarily about rules and commandments. |
| Most religions live from a narrative that shapes their relationship with the divine other, God or the gods, and with the human other, the stranger. |
| Our society has lost confidence in the power of reason, except perhaps scientific reason. |
| The trouble is that after nine years as a Jack of all trades and Master of the Dominican Order, I have no expertise on anything except airports and exotic foods. |
| All the Abrahamic faiths are marked by violence. |
| This evening I wish to suggest that we Christians should accompany people on their pilgrimages. Specifically we should travel with people as they search for the good, the true and the beautiful. |
| Thinking that morality is all about commandments is a relatively new way of thinking, since the Reformation. |
| Despite all the lunacy of the last century, all the absurdity of war and genocide, we believe that humans being are rational and are made to seek the truth. |
| We can identify with Frodo and Sam, setting off not knowing quite where they are going and what they are to do. |
| The next challenge for Christianity is to remind Europeans that we are called to seek the truth. |
| Christians can bring peace to multi-religious Europe because we are able to understand the role of faith in the lives of other believers better than atheists. |
| To be a preacher requires two apparently contradictory qualities: confidence and humility. |
| I believe that my own Christian faith does indeed make universal claims. |
| At the centre of Christianity is community; we are gathered by the Lord around the altar. |
| We need a place in which we may flourish and be ourselves. |
| Clearly a big challenge for Christianity is how to remain in contact with the millions of people who look for God but do not come to Church. Topics: Christianity |
| What can the Church do? If she stands by her moral teaching, then she will be seen as standing in judgement over a vast percentage of Europeans. |
| The unutterable violence of the Holocaust shook our confidence in the possibility of telling any story of faith at all. |
| To be frank, I suspect that today there is little respect for Christianity as source of moral teaching about goodness. |
