Saturday, 12 March 2011 18:27

As it continued to grow, Web's family multiplied exponentially as the circle of experience became more peopled, more common, and more mainstream ordinary. The academic backbone and its idyllic foundational principle of the free exchange of information, like body and soul, was still there but a larger hungrier and more omnivorous force had started to propagate and push things around.

Monday, 29 November 2010 22:31

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs a self-made compositional technique called tintinnabuli -- allowing each note its fullness and the opportunity to dialog.

His music often finds its inspiration and influence in Gregorian chant and his, Summa, originally composed for 4-part choir, echoes the fullness of this approach. Pärt's work is often enlarged and adapted for larger string orchestras but it is never diluted.

Friday, 15 October 2010 16:13

I knew a great writer who also had an extraordinary gift for drawing. When he was a young man he made drawings which had some kinship with those of William Blake. But he felt that in doing so he obeyed a sort of dark inspiration, with so to speak a forbidden ease; he thought he was guided by the devil. He gave up drawing completely. It was possible for him to do this. It would not have been possible for him to spoil his drawings by betraying his vision.

At this point a serious issue arises, which we shall discuss later on; and a remark which seems quite important to me can be made right now: for an artist to spoil his work and sin against his art is forbidden by his artistic conscience. But what about his moral conscience also, his conscience as a man is here on the alert. For moral conscience deals with all the acts of a man; moral conscience envelops, so to speak, all the more particularized kinds of conscience -- not moral in themselves, but artistic, medical, scientific, etc. -- of which I just spoke. There are no precepts in natural law or in the Decalogue dealing with painting and poetry, prescribing a particular style and forbidding another. But there is a primary principle in moral matters, which states that it is always bad, and always forbidden, to act against one's own conscience. The artist who, yielding to ill-advised moral exhortations, decides to betray his own singular truth as an artist, and his artistic conscience, breaks within himself one of the springs, the sacred springs, of human conscience, and to that extent wounds moral conscience itself.

Wednesday, 18 August 2010 11:58

Borgmann is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montana In Missoula, where he has taught since 1970. He was born and raised In Freiburg, Germany, in a Catholic household. At a relatively early age he was drawn to philosophy through his encounter with the lectures and writing of Martin Heidegger. Borgmann’s most recent book is Power Failure: Christianity in the Culture of Technology

Saturday, 12 June 2010 09:23

All eyes are on South Africa for the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the Church is making the most of this unprecedented media moment. Archbishop of Durban, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier OFM, blessed the main stadium in Port Elizabeth, signed the official play ball, and symbolically blew the vuvuzella -- a plastic horn used in African sport to express unity and cheer. The Archdiocese has produced a 15 minute film and set up a powerful web site to profile the living faith, the role of sport in African culltures and also to advocate charity and dialogue with other religions and cultures.

It also warns of the sexual "tourism" and exploitation of the vulnerable that can accompany such events. Cardinal Napier writes, "Remember that the only true victory is one that enshrines the dignity of the person!" Churches within the vicinity of the major venues are actively publishing Mass times and holding special highly visible events in an attempt to keep the spirit of sport focused on the spirit of Chirst -- sport's true nature. 

Sunday, 23 May 2010 13:36

"Of Gods and Men" is the true 1990s story of a monastery in Algeria which after years of caring for local Muslims is threatened by war between militants and the army.

The movie was acclaimed by critics at Cannes and had audiences in tears.

It is based on the beheading of seven monks in Tibiherine, northern Algeria, in 1996, during Algeria's eight-year civil war between government forces and Islamists.

The film also touches on the sensitive issue of France's history in north Africa, with one Algerian character explicitly blaming colonialists for the social problems which he says gave rise to Islamic extremism in the country.