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I was a pagan as a child. Not by choice, but as a consequence of lacking any access to the Word of God. In the 1980s Romania, catechizing an Orthodox child (whose parents were members of the Communist Party) was a highly unlikely event Pavlik Morozov’s myth, the hero-child that denounced his own father, generated caution.

In a world dominated by artificiality and instant gratification, we are becoming masters at controlling our circumstances and environment.

How should addictions be understood? Addiction is usually regarded as a failure of the will, or as a sickness. Lately, the tendency is for the younger, educated generation to embrace the second answer. The idea that addiction is a failure of the will, a sin, from a Christian perspective, is seen as outdated.

Christmas involves a financial and, at the same time, an emotional expense. Even in times of crisis, the spending season lasts longer than the holiday itself.

While few people can remember the details of their first hit, everyone can identify with the rush of satisfaction, the tingling delight that starts on the tip of your tongue and then courses through your entire body.

When I was four years old, my younger brother was born. My parents focused on my brother and spent less time with me. It was only 40 years later that I discovered how this had affected me.

Even if our "relationship with work" is often a complicated one, about which we do not always have the best feelings, we should remember that our jobs are more than just sources of income.

“Mister Watson, come here, I want to see you.” With this message, Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant, Thomas Watson, launched the telephone. The door had opened to distant, personal and instant contact.

Each day we are confronted with situations that make us wonder how human life can have such a low value in the eyes of some of our contemporaries—those contemporaries who live in freedom and (at least feigned) democracy, who are educated and socialised in the same civilisation as ours, often even in the same community or under similar civil laws and with broadly...

Soviet soldier Bakhretdin Khakimov was declared missing in action during the war in Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of 15,000 USSR soldiers and more than a million Afghans. Thirty-three years later, his family found out he was alive, living as a true Afghan among his former enemies.

I thought to myself: Is there an alarm or is it an end of day signal?

When the fear of war overwhelms our thoughts, let us not forget that we are not alone, that God will end our suffering and give us a new and everlasting life.

Their common dream was to take the Gospel to the far reaches of the earth. In the early 1950s, young men Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian were with their families in South America, working in Christian missions. The future was to bring them together in an extremely dangerous dream.

JS: What is NAIDOC Week? Why is it significant?  DG: NAIDOC Week celebrates Indigenous culture—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their achievements and their contribution to the nation.

Five decades ago, when the World Organization for Social Psychiatry was established, many thought it was a joke. Others, being more analytical, tried to prove that mental illness can only be an individual experience; that the problem always exists only in an individual and never in a group.