Israel's piracy

Oh boy! Israel has again misjudged the issue and caused havoc when compassion and kindness (and ethics) would have been a great deal better. Then there is the small matter of piracy on the high seas – boarding a ship in international water is piracy, pure and simple. This is something that the world condemns the Somali pirates for doing - attacking and boarding ships in international waters (hi-jacking them?) and then escorting them to their own base.

No matter how they justify their actions and however the Israelis “spin” the issue they are no better than the Somali pirates regarding this matter. They deserve to be pilloried.

No one would choose to live as the Palestinians are living in Gaza. No one would naturally choose to do what the Palestinians are doing without (in their eyes) a just cause. Can’t the Israelis see that all the Palestinians want is some recognition and recompense for land unjustly taken from them in 1947? The Palestinians want to get on with their lives in peace – but peace with justice.

From an ethical point of view the Israelis need to ask themselves two questions, “Are we treating the Palestinians the way we would like to be treated?” And secondly, “If everyone did what we are doing would the world be a better place?” If the answer to either question is “No” and I suspect it would be then why, Oh why are they doing it? Can’t they see that violence just begets violence and that the use of force is the last resort of the morally bankrupt?

The Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church is instituting an old/new form of liturgy. It is old because it seems to revert to the ‘old fashioned’ form emphasising sin and redemption and less of the softer tones of forgiveness and mercy but it is new in that it is a change from the immediate past. It appears as if the Church is trying to revert back to the old days and ‘scare’ people into being ‘good’ – the Pope says people need to be ‘woken up’ – whatever that means. The trouble is that reverting back to the ‘old days’ will give the church hierarchy more power and control.

Isn’t it this power and control that got the church into the trouble it’s in now? What with paedophile priests being exposed seemingly everywhere surely they (the hierarchy) should learn from experience and accept that it was the ‘old’ form of the church that gave rise to these abhorrent practices.

Changing the form of the liturgy will not achieve anything. A much deeper and more fundamental change in the hierarchy is needed.