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- The Catholic Church

South African campaigner and academic wins 2024 Templeton Prize

Posted on June 5, 2024June 5, 2024by Catholic Radar JM

A SOUTH AFRICAN psychologist, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, who served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), is this year’s winner of the £1.1-million Templeton Prize.

Professor Gobodo-Madikizela, who chaired the human-rights-violations committee in the Western Cape office of the TRC, has been a “guiding light within South Africa as it charts a course beyond apartheid, facilitating dialogue to help people overcome individual and collective trauma”, the Templeton Foundation’s president, Heather Templeton Dill, said on Tuesday. She had “a remarkable grasp of the personal and social dynamics that allow for healing in societies wounded by violence. . . Her work underscores the importance in contemporary life of cultivating the spiritual values of hope, compassion, and reconciliation.”

The prize, established by the late global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton, honours those whose achievements include “harnessing the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind’s place and purpose within it”.

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- Specialists Press
- The Catholic Church

The Church’s call for General and Complete Disarmament

Posted on May 29, 2024May 29, 2024by Catholic Radar An

(The Catholic Church).

At the first meeting of signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the Holy See warned that no country will proceed with nuclear disarmament “if in divesting itself of its nuclear arms, it feels that it will be left facing an imbalance of conventional forces inimical to its security.” It went on to highlight: “that is why Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty wisely commits all signatories to General and Complete Disarmament even as it binds them to rid themselves of nuclear weapons.”⁴⁴ The concept of General and Complete Disarmament does not mean the removal of literally all weaponry and defence capabilities. Rather, it encompasses eliminating weapons of mass destruction, reducing and regulating conventional arms, lowering military spending to only the level required for self-defence, and strengthening mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of conflicts.⁴⁵

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- Specialists Press
- The Catholic Church

Pastoral Reflection: Intricately woven by the Lord

Posted on April 30, 2024April 30, 2024by Catholic Radar Is

(The Catholic Church).

The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have issued a pastoral reflection on gender, highlighting the teaching of the Church but stressing that accompanying those struggling with gender dysphoria is “a complex but essential pastoral task.” The document, titled Intricately woven by the Lord: A pastoral reflection on gender by the bishops of England and Wales, emphasises that all are welcome in the Church, but says that the sexual identity of an individual is not a purely “cultural or social construction.”