The Guilds

Anthony Esolen has an interesting article on the guilds called "Leo's Guilds a Far Cry from Today's Unions" on the Crisis Magazine website. He writes: "Let us turn at last to the guilds. These were associations of craftsmen in the Middle Ages, centered in towns. They trained boys in manual labor that required much skill: there were guilds for shoemakers, carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, silversmiths, milliners, masons, glazers, and so forth. The university, in fact, began as a student and faculty union, a guild for scholars...." READ WHOLE ARTICLE. See also two articles on the Guilds by Russell Sparkes on our Economy site.

Ecological conversion

Pope John Paul II, right from the beginning of his papacy, insisted on the importance of the environmental question and called for what he called "ecological conversion" on the part of Catholics. Ecological concern became, with him, an integral part of Catholic social teaching, and his successor, Pope Benedict, had carried on this tradition. These teachings are now enshrined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Further details can be found in the relevant section of our web site. At the beginning of February the Centre for Faith & Culture welcomed Dr Glenn Juday, from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, to give a couple of seminars at the Catholic Chaplaincy and St Benet's Hall, Oxford, on environmental stewardship, and the challenge of educating Catholics on the realities of ecology and the ways in which we can contribute to a more responsible use of creation.