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