Blogs and Articles

Blogs and articles written by Columban missionaries covering the broad range of Columban mission.

Latest Blogs and Articles

23rd June 2011
Food – Taking back responsibility
by Ellen Teague
“Eleanor’s courgette has grown so much this past week, and she’s checking it all the time”. My friend’s young daughter was in the children’s programme at the National Justice and Peace Network of England and Wales Conference last weekend in Derbyshire – ‘Our Daily Bread – Food security, People and Planet’.

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23rd June 2011
No patents on life
by Ellen Teague
I was married in 1980. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador was martyred in 1980. Solidarity challenged the Soviet-backed government of Poland in 1980. The Iran-Iraq war broke out in 1980. Yet, perhaps more momentous than any of these was a landmark case in 1980 in the U.S. Supreme Court where a judge ruled that, for the first time, forms of life could be patented. A scientist, Ananda Chakrabarty, was permitted to patent a bacterium that he had genetically engineered to digest oil spills.

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23rd June 2011
Engineering Life: Ethics and Genetic Engineering
by Fr Sean McDonagh
In debating the ethics of genetic engineering it is essential to develop an appropriate ethical framework for the discussion. This will demand a major shift away from the almost exclusively human or homocentric focus which has been so pervasive in the Western ethics and wider cultural tradition for almost two thousand years.

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23rd June 2011
What part of ‘No’ don’t mining companies understand?
by Ellen Teague
The world’s largest mining company has been urged to halt its coal mining operations on the Indonesian island of Borneo by representatives of indigenous people who report that mining “has destroyed our forests, rivers and livelihoods”. A day ahead of BHP Billiton’s London AGM on 21 October, they spoke to an “alternative report”, presented at the House of Lords during an evening meeting chaired by Baroness Sue Miller of Chilthorne Domer.

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23rd June 2011
Fr Frank Nally speaks about Mining in the Philippines
by Fr Frank Nally
On the occasion of the release of the report “Mining or Food” by the Working Group on Mining and the Philippines. Fr. Frank Nalley introduces the food problems created through mining activities in the Philippines with an interview with Fr. Roberto Reyes from the Asian Human Rights Commission.

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$Nathalie Marytch speaking an interdenominational Women\'s world day of prayer on 4th March 2011$ 15th June 2011
How many loaves have you? (Mark 6:30-44)
by Nathalie Marytsch
This was the title given to this years’ interdenominational Women’s world day of prayer on 4th March 2011,which was dedicated to Chile this year . Nathalie, Bernardita (from Chile) and Rose (from the Philippines) were invited to a Service in a Methodist church in Selly Park, Birmingham. Nathalie spoke of her country with great pride. She writes:

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13th June 2011
The Bonn Climate Change Conference
by Fr Sean McDonagh
Sean McDonagh reports on the challenges facing the important Bonn Climate Change Conference in the lead-up to the major summit in South Africa later this year.

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31st January 2011
When it rains it pours!
by Fr Sean Martin
We continue to go to Court to answer charges brought against some committed Christians, Subaanen tribal people and protectors of the environment by mining companies. These include charges against myself and Columban Sister Patty Adonaire, who is a missionary from Peru, simply because we support the local people in affected villages of San Jose Parish in Midsalip, Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines.

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$Nathalie Marytch speaking an interdenominational Women\'s world day of prayer on 4th March 2011$ 28th January 2011
The Living God
by Jonah Jane Enterina
On 26 January, Columban Lay Missionaries attended a talk given by Jose Henriquez, one of the Chilean miners who was trapped in the San Jose Mine and successfully rescued in October 2010. He spoke of his ordeal and haow his faith kept him going. Here, Filipina lay missionary Jonah Jane Enterina offers a short reflection about that.

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14th December 2010
Catholics at Copenhagen
by Fr Sean McDonagh
Every since my first meeting of the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC), I have been interested in a “Catholic presence” at these conferences.

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