Social

The wind is blowing and it is snowing at the Siret Customs Point. Refugee groups stream by, women with children clinging to them, and the words of a little girl from another war, concluded almost eight decades ago, keep running through my mind: “And this was imprinted in my mind, that when my father is not home, it is war.”

Adults who choose not to have children are often portrayed as selfish people, so preoccupied with their own lives that the prospect of the sacrifices that raising a child would entail seems repulsive to them. Is this view fair or is it just an unfair judgement?

Imagine yourself entering a shopping mall with your sunglasses on. Even though the lights are shining brightly, you cannot see them. Everything around you is dark and cold. But as soon as you remove your glasses, the world comes alive: the windows of the shops shine attractively, you see the brightly-coloured clothes, and the dazzling screen of the phone blinks with an incoming...

The stakes are high when it comes to identifying the one to whom we should pray, and we can discover who by answering an apparently simple question: Can we expect prayers to be heard no matter who we address them to?

I feel like every time I’ve tuned into the news lately, I’ve heard a story about a woman dying from intimate partner or domestic violence (DV). It is heartbreaking and sickening. 

Making any choice denies the possibility of at least one other choice. When confronted with this truth, young people often find themselves unprepared for life’s big choices.

After 27 years of marriage, billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates publicly announced their divorce in May, sending shockwaves across the globe.

Could it be that, beyond economic, political or geostrategic difficulties, there are obstacles to the ideal of the common good that are inherent in human nature? And if something specific to human nature stood in the way of achieving this ideal, would it not lead to failure, regardless of overcoming all other difficulties?

When I'm tired I can't love! Many times I have lived this reality and even assessed it as the exact end of love.

Although poverty remains a part of our world, love still works wonders.

I was born and grew up in Haiti, a country located in the Caribbean, about a one hour and a half flight from Miami. Haiti occupies one third of the island Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic occupies the other two thirds). 

Aside from fuelling jokes about how women impose unrealistic standards on men, or how men are just grown-up children who want their wives to be their mothers, the expectations couples place on their relationship define how they relate to each other, and influence marital satisfaction.

In 2016, I noticed advertising for a new quiz show called Hard Quiz coming to ABC TV in Australia.

"It was dark inside the wolf." Like a chef who reinterprets a traditional dish for an expensive urban restaurant, writer Margaret Atwood proposed to the students of her masterclass a reinterpretation of the story "Little Red Riding Hood", in line with the most current tastes and attention skills: a Little Red Riding Hood that lives in the present moment.

Early exposure to technology helps children accumulate information quickly, opening up new ways for them to understand the world. At the same time, however, the online environment can put many of its most vulnerable users at risk.