Thomas Jansen

Merkel’s fourth mandate

Six months after the election of September 24 2017 the Federal Republic has restored a government legitimized by Parliament. On March 14 Angela Merkel was re-elected federal Chancellor for a fourth term. She was sworn in with her 15 cabinet ministers on that same day. She is again representing Germany at the European Council under […]

Humanitarian crisis

For over ten years Syria has been the theatre of a heinous, fratricidal war that we have come to learn about through the images circulated by news media, those very images we thought we would no longer see other than in old documentaries on the Second World War broadcast on television every now and then. […]

Avenues and horizons

“It is not important that we think the same things, that we imagine and hope the same identical destiny. Instead it is extraordinarily important that, given the faith of everyone in their own original contribution to the salvation of man and the world, everyone be allowed to breathe freely, each with their own intangible space […]

Traditions

On the night of Saturday, March 17, will take place the “silent procession” that every year passes through the centre of Amsterdam to commemorate the Eucharistic miracle. On March 15 1345 a seriously ill man received the anointing of the sick and the holy communion. The following morning however, the Host was found unscathed among […]

Analysis

Thebrutal murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina seems to have opened Pandora´s box of Slovakia’s political life.  The alleged contacts between persons associated with criminal life – including suspected links to the Italian Mafia – and political representatives of the State that Jan Kuciak had been investigating and writing about, resulted in […]

Armed conflicts

(from New York) Hala is eight years old. A incendiary bomb blasted out her home in Aleppo. The burn affected 70% of her body and she was left disfigured. Hozaifa, a 17-year old youth, was coming home from school in Idlib when a bomb blew off his limbs and left him on a wheelchair. Over […]

Technology and solidarity

Talent, knowledge and the yearning to improve humanity. It’s the profile of 120 millennials (45% female, 55% male) from 60 universities worldwide, who participated in the first “Vatican Hackathon” challenge held a few days ago in the Vatican. Young people from 28 Countries took up the challenge of finding solutions to today’s major problems through […]

Apostolic visit

Pope Francis will travel to Tallinn next September 25. It’s the last leg of a visit that will start in Lithuania (Vilnius and Kaunas, September 22-23), pass through Latvia (Riga and Aglona on September 24) and end in the Estonian capital. The motto of the program in Tallin is “Wake up, my heart” (Mu süda, […]

Reflection

“The senses help us to grasp reality and at the same time to situate ourselves in reality. Not by chance did Saint Ignatius appeal to the senses for the contemplation of the mysteries of Christ and truth.” I will use this expression, pronounced by Francis in his address to the Roman Curia on December 21, […]

Memory

With the demise of Cardinal Karl Lehmann I lost a friend and a faithful companion: in theology, Episcopal ministry and ecumenical commitment. We shared our theological commitment since the 1960s; our visions, based on the joint experience of the Second Vatican II, converged: a theology rooted in the Bible, that constitutes its very soul; a […]