The US and Saudi Arabia are nearing a historic pact that would offer the kingdom security guarantees and lay out a possible pathway to diplomatic ties with Israel, if its government brings the war in Gaza to an end, people familiar with the matter said.

The agreement faces plenty of obstacles but would amount to a new version of a framework that was scuttled when Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, triggering the conflict in Gaza. Negotiations between Washington and Riyadh have sped up recently, and many officials are optimistic that they could reach a deal within weeks, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.

Such an agreement would potentially reshape the Middle East. Beyond bolstering Israel and Saudi Arabia’s security, it would strengthen the US’s position in the region at the expense of Iran and even China.

Read it all.

"US and Saudi Arabia are nearing a historic pact that would offer the kingdom security guarantees and lay out a possible pathway to diplomatic ties with Israel, if its government brings the war in Gaza to an end, people familiar with the matter said."
https://t.co/w4ZREGPJqu

— Amit Paranjape (@aparanjape) May 2, 2024

The United States has accused Russia of using chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops in violation of the international ban on their use.

The State Department issued a statement that claimed it was likely Russia had used the weapons, including the choking agent chloropicrin, to gain an upper hand during the conflict.

“The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield,” it said.

Read it all (subscription).

The #US State Department accused #Russia of having used chemical weapons in #Ukraine against Ukrainian servicemen – in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention:https://t.co/smyRoeyxCb

— Alex Kokcharov (@AlexKokcharov) May 2, 2024

Pour out thy Spirit upon all of thy sons and daughters, Almighty God, that like thy servant Elisabeth Cruciger our lips may praise thee, our lives may bless thee, and our worship may give thee glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

🎼Du Schöpfer aller Dinge, du väterliche Kraft,
regierst von End zu Ende kräftig aus eigner Macht.
Das Herz uns zu dir wendeund kehr ab unsre Sinne,
dass sie nicht irrn von dir.
EG 67, 4
Elisabeth Cruciger (1500-1535)

für den 20. Januar / Die Losungen für das Jahr 2024 S. 15 https://t.co/X6cliwKJws pic.twitter.com/XI6YgPr3dY

— Kazutoshi Hanasaki (@CaritasKhanasak) January 20, 2024

O Lord Jesus Christ, who hast gone to the Father to prepare a place for us: Grant us so to live in communion with thee here on earth, that hereafter we may enjoy the fullness of thy presence; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

"Roadside Beauty"#Flowers #BeautyInNature #HighwayBeautification #NorthCarolina #ThePhotoHour pic.twitter.com/0PQ202RXaJ

— Thomas R Fletcher (@ThomasRFletcher) May 3, 2024

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ”˜Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

“Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.

“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

–Matthew 7:1-12

Guten Morgen. Ich wünsche Euch einen schönen Tag und ein entspanntes und erholsames Wochenende 🙋‍♀️☕️🍀🌼🌺🌞🌸 pic.twitter.com/oR171kputF

— Eva Rossol (@willi_katze) May 3, 2024

But you cannot talk about the goodness of the human body without then immediately discussing the importance of the binary of bodily forms we are given as male and female.

With regard to the matter of biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (or some might say gender), we are keen to emphasise that while these can be distinguished, they cannot be separated. We recognise that how we live out our roles as male or female ‘is not simply the result of biological or genetic factors, but of multiple elements having to do with temperament, family history, culture, experience, education, the influence of friends, family members and respected persons as well as other formative situations.’ We also recognise that roles attributed to the sexes may vary according to time and space. Therefore, ‘rigid cultural stereotypes of masculinity and femininity are… unfortunate and undesirable because they can create unreasonable pressure on children to present or behave in particular ways.’ However, it is clear that the sexual identity of the person as man or woman is not purely a cultural or social construction and that it belongs to the specific manner in which the image of God exists (p 8).

I cannot think of a better short summary anywhere in Christian literature of the givenness of sex binary and its relation to the various expressions of sex difference in different cultural and social contexts. Sex difference is a given; but how that difference expresses itself in different cultures will vary.

Finally, the statement then sets out what all this means in a practical and pastoral response to those who are experiencing distress or confusion about their ‘gender identity’.

We recognise that such pastoral accompaniment is complex, encompassing legal, medical, psychological, theological, spiritual and pedagogical elements. It takes place within the context of ever-changing and polarising developments in the political, cultural and commercial spheres…

Thus it is that we speak to those adult members in our Catholic communities who have chosen to transition socially and medically: ‘You are still our brothers and sisters. We cannot be indifferent to your struggle and the path you may have chosen. The doors of the Church are open to you, and you should find, from all members of the Church, a welcome that is compassionate, sensitive and respectful’ (p 8).

Read it all.

What does a biblical understanding of ourselves as humanity created male and female in the image of God say to the current debates about gender identity? How have the Catholic bishops expressed this, and why is this statement significant? https://t.co/N6cwCylvKz

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) May 1, 2024

A pair of glasses from Meta shoots a picture when you say, “Hey, Meta, take a photo.” A miniature computer that clips to your shirt, the Ai Pin, translates foreign languages into your native tongue. An artificially intelligent screen features a virtual assistant that you talk to through a microphone.

Last year, OpenAI updated its ChatGPT chatbot to respond with spoken words, and recently, Google introduced Gemini, a replacement for its voice assistant on Android phones.

Tech companies are betting on a renaissance for voice assistants, many years after most people decided that talking to computers was uncool.

Will it work this time? Maybe, but it could take a while.

Read it all.

"Tech companies are betting on a renaissance for #voiceassistants, many years after most people decided that talking to computers was uncool.

Will it work this time? Maybe, but it could take a while."https://t.co/HougUGelmm

— Stephen Loynd (@loyndsview) May 2, 2024

Its opponents have been vocal, with many arguing the bill creates a likely pipeline to a recreational marijuana program in the Palmetto State.

Law enforcement turned out to staunchly oppose the bill, as they have done in the past, at an earlier meeting of the ad hoc committee April 23. The most vocal opponent was SLED Chief Mark Keel.

“This bill does not follow that tradition of the medical model, which is why, in my opinion, it is not about medicine. This bill is about legalizing marijuana in South Carolina,” Keel said. “Once we go down that road, we’re not going to be able to claw it back.”

The Greenville County sheriff and chiefs of police from Myrtle Beach, West Columbia and Chapin echoed his concerns.

Read it all.

South Carolina House snuffs out medical marijuana again. Now what? https://t.co/5URTfLcyXr

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) May 1, 2024

For this purpose, then, the incorporeal and incorruptible and immaterial Word of God comes to our realm, howbeit he was not far from us [Acts 17:27] before. For no part of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining present with His own Father. But He comes in condescension to show loving-kindness upon us, and to visit us. And seeing the race of rational creatures in the way to perish, and death reigning over them by corruption; seeing, too, that the threat against transgression gave a firm hold to the corruption which was upon us, and that it was monstrous that before the law was fulfilled it should fall through: seeing, once more, the unseemliness of what was come to pass: that the things whereof He Himself was Artificer were passing away: seeing, further, the exceeding wickedness of men, and how by little and little they had increased it to an intolerable pitch against themselves: and seeing, lastly, how all men were under penalty of death: He took pity on our race, and had mercy on our infirmity, and condescended to our corruption, and, unable to bear that death should have the mastery–lest the creature should perish, and His Father’s handiwork in men be spent for nought–He takes unto Himself a body, and that of no different sort from ours. For He did not simply will to become embodied, or will merely to appear. For if He willed merely to appear, He was able to effect His divine appearance by some other and higher means as well. But He takes a body of our kind, and not merely so, but from a spotless and stainless virgin, knowing not a man, a body clean and in very truth pure from intercourse of men. For being Himself mighty, and Artificer of everything, He prepares the body in the Virgin as a temple unto Himself, and makes it His very own as an instrument, in it manifested, and in it dwelling. And thus taking from our bodies one of like nature, because all were under penalty of the corruption of death He gave it over to death in the stead of all, and offered it to the Father-doing this, moreover, of His loving-kindness, to the end that, firstly, all being held to have died in Him, the law involving the ruin of men might be undone (inasmuch as its power was fully spent in the Lord’s body, and had no longer holding-ground against men, his peers), and that, secondly, whereas men had turned toward corruption, He might turn them again toward incorruption, and quicken them from death by the appropriation of His body and by the grace of the Resurrection, banishing death from them like straw from the fire.

–Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word

Today the Church of England celebrates Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher of the Faith, 373

Image: Section of the east window of Pusey House Chapel, St Giles', Oxford. Photo by Lawrence OP, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via flickr pic.twitter.com/2wAQDA0njB

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) May 2, 2024

Uphold thy Church, O God of truth, as thou didst uphold thy servant Athanasius, to maintain and proclaim boldly the catholic faith against all opposition, trusting solely in the grace of thine eternal Word, who took upon himself our humanity that we might share his divinity; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

From a discourse by Saint Athanasius, bishop

On the incarnation of the Word
The Word of God, incorporeal, incorruptible and immaterial, entered our world. Yet it was not as if he had been remote from it up to that time. For there is no part of the world that was ever without his… pic.twitter.com/rSYwqFSe3Q

— Fr. David Abernethy ☦️ (@philokalia_min) May 2, 2024

O Lord, we most humbly beseech thee to give us grace not only to be hearers of the Word, but also doers of the same; not only to love, but also to live thy gospel; not only to profess, but also to practise thy blessed commandments, unto the honour of thy holy name.

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek all these things; and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.

–Matthew 6:25-34

“The whole world changed colour when I lost Beth,” Mr Palmer says. “People call it devastation: it’s too small a word. I was completely shattered. It was like being smashed to the ground.

“I was a firefighter [at Manchester Airport]. I’d spent years and years dealing with life-and-death situations. I taught trauma to first responders, and was very often on the other end of a defib. But losing my little girl just destroyed me.”

Feeling suicidal himself, he couldn’t talk to his family and couldn’t work, he says. The only thing that got him out of bed in the early days was his dog, Monty, whom he walked in the middle of the night so that he didn’t have to meet people. “I was in an awful place. But little things started happening.”

He felt compelled to write a journal — something that he had never done before — and discovered this to be an outlet for his anger and despair. He asked for help, and found good people in a counsellor, a local suicide-bereavement service, and the airport chaplain, George Lane.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

After his daughter’s death, Mike Palmer became one of ‘3 dads walking’ to raise awareness of young suicide. He talks to Catherine Larnerhttps://t.co/QVcXmHHCMd

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 28, 2024

A steady 27% of Americans say the most important problem facing the U.S. is immigration, topping Gallup’s open-ended trend for the third consecutive month, the longest stretch for this particular issue in the past 24 years.

The latest results are based on an April 1-22 Gallup survey, as elevated numbers of migrants continued to seek entry at the U.S. southern border. Immigration tied with the government as the top issue in December 2023, when the number of migrant encounters at the southern border set a record for a single month. In February, as a bipartisan measure to address the issue failed in the U.S. Senate, immigration overtook the government as the nation’s most important problem and has remained there since.

In addition to these recent instances, immigration has topped Gallup’s most important problem list four times since 2000 (either alone or tied with another issue), including at several points in 2014, 2018 and 2019. However, 2024 is the first time that immigration has remained the top issue for multiple successive months.

Read it all.

Immigration is Top U.S. Problem for Third Straight Month. 27% of Americans say the most important problem facing the U.S. is immigration. Yet Congress still can’t fix it. It’s been almost 3 decades since the last major reform. https://t.co/6aQJ1YB7VJ

— Esther Valdes Clayton (@Esther_Valdes) May 1, 2024

The terrorism warning light may not be flashing bright red, but it’s certainly blinking again, with senior officials concerned about a possible attack inspired by an offshoot of the Islamic State or perhaps by the war in Gaza or simply because our porous southern border could offer a pathway to mayhem.

A chilling assessment came from FBI Director Christopher A. Wray in an interview with NBC News last week. “As I look back over my career in law enforcement, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a time when I’ve seen so many different threats, all elevated, all at the same time.” He said concerns were rising before Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel, but since then “it’s gone to a whole other level.”

Wray told Congress this month that he worried that lone-wolf extremists or small groups could draw “twisted inspiration” from events in the Middle East. He added that “the potential for a coordinated attack” like the ISIS-K terror rampage at a Moscow auditorium in March was “increasingly concerning.” What keeps him awake, he observed in a speech this month at Vanderbilt University, are what then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called “unknown unknowns.”

Read it all.

A similar threat matrix as the one we face in Europe at the moment.
”The FBI director’s concerns over terrorism are at ‘a whole other level’” https://t.co/o2ceHV1dqD

— Hans Brun (@stellapolaris10) May 1, 2024

The proportion of human beings living on the margin of subsistence is estimated to have fallen from close to 80 per cent in 1820 to just under 10 per cent in 2018. What makes this decline even more remarkable is that the global population rose from 1bn in 1820 to 7.7bn in 2018. Rising prosperity has also helped double global life expectancy to 71 years. In brief, we have moved from a world in which life was, for the great majority, indeed “nasty, brutish, and short” to something altogether better.

As recently as 1970, the rate of “extreme poverty” was still 50 per cent. This extraordinarily rapid recent reduction in the proportion of people living in extreme poverty is due to the huge progress in the much reviled age of economic globalisation. I will never regret this achievement. It shows that the combination of global economic opportunity with external assistance worked.

A crucial source of the latter has been credits from the International Development Association. Contrary to what many feared, ending extreme poverty was not like trying to fill a “bottomless pit”. As a recent report from the World Bank, The Great Reversal, notes, South Korea, China and India were once beneficiaries of IDA credits: 60 years ago, IDA was even informally known as the “Indian Development Association”. Progress has been remarkable and still is: life expectancy in IDA countries rose from 58 to 65 years between 2000 and 2021.

Read it all (subscription).

We risk a lost decade for the world’s poor: Covid, post-Covid inflation, war-induced spikes in energy and food prices and rising interest rates had dire effects and ‘the risk of a lost decade, or perhaps something even worse.’ ⁦@FT⁩
https://t.co/U9G0n5GPOv

— Monica Araya (@MonicaArayaTica) April 30, 2024

Almighty God, who didst give to thine apostles Philip and James grace and strength to bear witness to the truth: Grant that we, being mindful of their victory of faith, may glorify in life and death the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Lord Jesus Christ, Wisdom and Word of God, dwell in our hearts, we pray, by your most Holy Spirit, that out of the abundance of our hearts, our mouths may speak your praise. Amen.

Sur le chemin de la vie, avance pas à pas, Sion 🥾🧢😍🇨🇭#valais #suisse #switzerland pic.twitter.com/1VgYYyDNFl

— Délèze Dominique (@DelezeD) May 1, 2024

And the LORD said to Moses, “Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel, You shall be holy; for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God.

–Leviticus 19:1-4

#HelloMay Skye Bridge, Kyleakin, Isle of Skye #Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿@angie_weather @ThePhotoHour @StormHour @VisitScotland pic.twitter.com/DHpLND1W2b

— James MacInnes (@Macinnesplant) May 1, 2024

New Youth Director for St. Paul’s Anglican in Summerville

Josh Wills has accepted a call to serve as the Director of Youth Ministries at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Summerville. Josh has been serving in youth ministry since 2017, most recently serving as the Youth and Young Adult Director of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Lexington, SC. He holds a BS in Youth Ministry, Family and Culture from Columbia International University and is getting his MDiv from the same university. He will begin at St. Paul’s Anglican in June.

Read it all.

The Latest Edition of the #Anglican Diocese of #SouthCarolina Enewsletter https://t.co/Xbgoid57cU #parishministry #media #youthministry #religion #lowcountrylife #faith [Josh Willis, diocesan photo] pic.twitter.com/nd95dLZRaO

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 1, 2024

The 70-year-old added: “With certain comedians now, people are having fun with them stepping over the line, and us all laughing about it.

“But again, it’s the stand-ups that really have the freedom to do it because no one else gets the blame if it doesn’t go down well.”

Seinfeld has previously said he had been warned not to perform his act at colleges because “they’re so PC”.

Students “just want to use these words – ‘that’s racist, that’s sexist, that’s prejudiced’”, he said, adding: “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Read it all.

He's 100 percent correct. One of the toughest jobs in America these days is comedy because everyone gets offended at a glance, and no one can laugh at themselves. | Jerry Seinfeld blames "extreme left and P.C. crap" for downfall of TV sitcoms https://t.co/TRHB3YYkUn pic.twitter.com/g01Ta6IYAM

— Paul Kelly (@pk500) April 30, 2024

In answers to British magazine Evangelicals Now, Rico Tice underlined that it is “vital” form him to express a “clear separation from a church that no longer affirms Biblical orthodoxy, especially with regard to preaching repentance”.

The fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury had not given “a substantive response” to the call by Rico Tice and others to “resist the influence of cultural values when they are in opposition to those of the Bible” led him to this decision.

The author and evangelist described himself as “a cradle-to-grave Anglican” who identifies most with Anglicans in the Global South when it comes to the authority of the Bible.

Anglican Communion movements such as Gafcon and GSAFC have been very critical with what they understand as a shift in Christian doctrine of the Church of England on issues like human identity, sexuality and marriage.

Read it all.

The well-known author of ‘Christianity Explored’ says he has not received “a substantive response” from the Archbishop on where the Church stands on issues of marriage and sexuality. https://t.co/SqtgG7QbVA

— Evangelical Focus (@Evan_Focus) April 29, 2024

There is not a lot of running in the gospels: the pace is rather more exploratory, leading from Galilee to Jerusalem where the drama of redemption is to be played out. This journey could not be rushed because there is much to learn on the way.

But when people do run, it’s a sign that something profound and significant is happening.

In the gospel of Mark, when Jesus gets out of the boat on the far side of the sea of Galilee, in the land of the Gerasenes, a man possessed by mental illness sees him and runs directly towards a person he instinctively knows will engage with his torment.And when Luke recounts the story of the prodigal son, it is the elderly father who runs towards the boy he thought he’d lost, in order to welcome him back to life.

Matthew and Mark both note that as Jesus is about to die, someone runs to get him a drink of vinegar, so that one final detail of the Old Testament could be fulfilled: ‘And when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drink’ (Ps 69.21).

Read it all.

In his Easter day message from @ChiCathedral
Bishop Martin Warner encouraged us to introduce our family, our friends, this generation into the peace and the joy that Jesus Christ promises all people and especially those, in Gaza and Israel and Ukraine. https://t.co/3bxJEYsdur pic.twitter.com/NYHKZcq3jp

— Chichester Diocese (@ChichesterDio) April 1, 2024

Gracious God, we bless thy Name for the vision and witness of Sarah Hale, whose advocacy for the ministry of women helped to support the deaconess movement. Make us grateful for thy many blessings, that we may come closer to Christ in our own families; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Episcopal Church also commemorates Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, Editor & Prophetic Witness, 1879

Editor of Godey's Lady's Book, Sarah Hale used her position to support improvements in family life/the status of women & successfully campaigned for a uniform Thanksgiving Day in US pic.twitter.com/7Y9cgQwU7l

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) April 30, 2024

Almighty God,
who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ
have overcome death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life:
grant that, as by your grace going before us
you put into our minds good desires,
so by your continual help
we may bring them to good effect;
through Jesus Christ our risen Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

It is Beltane tomorrow, the beginning of Summer. The fire starts to burn just a little bit brighter. This morning, sunrise on Glastonbury Tor. pic.twitter.com/a91t0xuhvz

— Michelle Cowbourne (@Glastomichelle) April 30, 2024

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to thee, when my heart is faint. Lead thou me to the rock that is higher than I; for thou art my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy. Let me dwell in thy tent for ever! Oh to be safe under the shelter of thy wings!

–Psalm 61:1-4

The Stray, Harrogate pic.twitter.com/SVXRKshSYj

— Visit North Yorkshire (@visitnorthyork) April 30, 2024

The General Synod has committed itself to “taking the necessary steps to raise up and support a new generation of lay and ordained leaders from estates and working-class backgrounds”…. But it will fail in this task if it continues to give the impression that it prefers candidates for ordination who are university-educated and middle-class.

As the Principal of Emmanuel Theological College, the Revd Dr Michael Leyden, said this month: “Without greater diversity within the formational pathways we have, we will continue to give the impression that the Church of England prefers middle-class clergy — but that does and will continue to hinder our engagement with the communities we’re called to serve in Christ’s name”….

His remarks resonated with me. I have a practical-theology degree now, and am a priest; but I started out as a habitual truant who left school at the age 15 with not a single qualification. I went on to be a van assistant for Curry’s Electrical; a failed stand-up comedian; a successful store manager for Argos; and ended up, eventually, as an Anglican priest in Burnley and a bestselling author who was diagnosed with dyslexia in his late forties.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

"I implore the wider Church to go mining for these individual human beings of raw material that, once excavated, reveal an abundance of 24-carat potential — 24-carat potential that can change the direction of travel for the Church."https://t.co/gr22g79710

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 29, 2024

In the context of our responsibilities as a wider society, we are grateful to the medical, nursing and care staff who support our loved ones in their last weeks, days and hours. Sadly, however, palliative care is underfunded and limited in Scotland, and our Parliament should focus its energies on improving palliative care rather than on contemplating assisted suicide or euthanasia.

The private member’s bill to introduce assisted suicide for those aged sixteen and over, recently published in the Scottish Parliament, amounts to a rejection of the common responsibility we owe to each other and to those who are ill and dying.

Campaigners call it ‘assisted dying’ when what is really meant is assisted suicide. Palliative care and the process by which families and communities accompany and support those in the final moments of their lives is what we all usually mean by assisted dying. What is now being proposed is that doctors hand a lethal concoction of drugs to a patient to kill themselves. It is a direct, intentional action to end the patient’s life and truly crosses a Rubicon in Scotland.

Read it carefully and read it all.

We heard the Scottish Catholic bishops letter against the assisted suicide bill in Scotland read out at Mass at Castlebay, Barra this morning. A very well-argued document which deserves wide dissemination.

— john milbank (@johnmilbank3) April 28, 2024

Terrorism is a grisly theatre of violence, for which mega events offer a tempting stage. Black September, a Palestinian group, gripped the world’s attention when it took nine Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympics in 1972. is likes to strike at big, crowded venues: the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, the Manchester arena in 2017 and now Crocus City Hall.

These days the West has largely turned away from the long “war on terror”, having expended much blood and treasure to destroy the main jihadist groups. But extremists are on the march again. They have re-emerged in havens old and new, and are thriving in cyberspace. Furthermore, Israel’s war in Gaza is all but certain to radicalise a new generation.

The history of global jihadism is one of reinvention under pressure from the West. After September 11th 2001, America and its allies overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan and evicted al-Qaeda. American forces killed its leader, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan in 2011. Then his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was eliminated by a drone strike in Kabul in 2022. Al-Qaeda has yet to name a new leader. Meanwhile is, al-Qaeda’s even more wanton progeny, caused a sensation by carving out a “caliphate” across large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, drawing volunteers from Europe and elsewhere. Its last stronghold was destroyed in 2019 and is has lost four leaders since that year began.

Even so, jihadists fight on.

Read it all.

These days the West has largely turned away from the long “war on terror”, having expended much blood and treasure to destroy the main jihadist groups.

But extremists have re-emerged in havens old and new, and are thriving online https://t.co/hUdgKYtJAQ 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 30, 2024

Unschooled, Catherine spontaneously learned to read while in her anchorite cell, but she could not write for most of her life. Undeterred, Gardner tell us, she would dictate multiple letters to different scribes, simultaneously:

We see her dictating simultaneously to these three young men three letters: one to Pope Gregory, another to Bernabo Visconti, and a third to a certain nobleman. … She dictates first to one, then to another. At times, her face is covered by her hands of veil, as though she is absorbed in thought. … Then suddenly, all three of the scribes stop writing, look puzzled, and appeal to Catherine for help. They have all taken down the same sentence, not knowing for whom it was intended. Catherine reassures them saying, “Dear sons, don’t trouble over this, for you have done it all by the work of the Holy Spirit. When the letters are finished, we will see how the words fit in with our intentions, and then we’ll arrange what had best be done!”

By this same method was her book, The Dialogue of Divine Providence, dictated, and Catherine, in typical detachment, would refer to that masterpiece as “the book in which I found some recreation.”

Detachment was the key for Catherine; a virtue she cultivated from early childhood when she was forced to labor for her family as punishment for refusing marriage. It was a startling contrast to the society around her which, still dazed by the cruel efficiency of the plague, took refuge in the tangible and the worldly, becoming all-too-attached to material possessions, recreation, honors, and titles. Because she was detached, she was able to assess clearly what others could not, to see what must be done when others would not.

It was this detachment that made her the necessary instrument to bring the vacillating and weak Pope Gregory XI back from Avignon to Rome. “Be a manly man,” she urged him. “Wanting to live in peace is often the greatest cruelty. When the boil has come to a head it must be cut with the lance and burned with fire and if that is not done, and only a plaster is put on it the corruption will spread and that is often worse than death. I wish to see you as a manly man so that you may serve the Bride of Christ without fear, and work spiritually and temporally for the glory of God according to the needs of that sweet Bride in our times.”

Read it all.

Today's the feast of St Catherine of Siena, 14th Century Italian mystic and Doctor of the Church. She's on the left in this glass at Blakeney, Norfolk, with St Theresa of Avila, St Agnes and St Bridget of Sweden by Powell & Sons, installed in 1912 as part of what is I think their… pic.twitter.com/bs8jzeRBVY

— Simon Knott (@SimoninSuffolk) April 29, 2024