The innovative Huffington Post looked at the question by asking a small sampling of American primary grade teachers how they decided to handle the rights or wrongs of his killing with their young charges.  It was interesting to read how they attempted to provide information and process class discussions without undue indoctrination or emotion.

President Obama in a somber and non vengeful manner announced that Bin Laden’s death was the end result of a firefight.  This indicated that death rather than capture was the only option. He concluded with the words “… one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.”  His demeanour was in contrast to the jubilation and delight of crowds across the United States.

Yet the fact remains that an unarmed man was killed in cold blood rather than captured and tried under the rule of law.  Was that the lesser of two evils?   Would his capture have resulted in greater retribution and terror than his killing would undoubtedly cause?  Mainstream Christian leaders, Catholic and Protestant, have been cautious in their comment.  While they have condemned terror and Bin Laden’s atrocities, I haven’t seen one public statement from them that the killing was morally wrong. Was it?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in dealing with the question of crime and punishment under the heading ‘Legitimate Defence’, tends to be somewhat nuanced and open to different interpretations.  But it states: “If bloodless means are sufficient to defend human lives against an aggressor and to protect public order and the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.” (2267)

St Paul writes “Never try to get revenge; leave that my friends to God’s anger. As scripture says: Vengeance is mine – I will pay them back, the Lord promises.” (Romans 12:19)

A moral dilemma indeed.

This maxim about the influences on the first years of a child’s life, though couched in today’s non-sexist language, is as true today as when attributed to an early Spanish Jesuit in the 16^th century.

I read with concern, not as an educationist but as a mother, our Education Minister’s cuts to early childhood education teacher trainee incentive grants, and the resultant increased fees being charged by childcare centres.

It seems to me that over the years ECE has been the poor relation to its primary, secondary and tertiary cousins in the education sector.  But its importance is critical not just as an investment in a child’s learning process, but to assist those families – probably now a majority in our society –  where mothers are obliged to work to provide for their families and are therefore reliant upon childcare facilities.

Although it was some years ago that my son attended pre-school, I am grateful for the opportunity we had to invest in his future at a kindergarten which had highly qualified teachers along with the added bonus of “catholic character”!

There is much research on the effects of quality pre-school education on children’s cognitive, intellectual and social development.  We know that good quality early learning and the stimulation of peer and caring adult interaction, whether at home or at pre-school, helps children cope more easily with the social and educational challenges of their early school experience.

We parents would not accept having only 80% of qualified teachers for our children’s primary and secondary education.  We know that there are greater developmental milestones and skills in those years from birth to age five than at any other time in life, so clearly it is not only foolish, but also irresponsible to cut back on this sector.

As Christians, we understand that we share in God’s creative process, and our children are our greatest gift and our greatest responsibility.  As the Lebanese philosopher Khalil Gibran puts it – we are the bows from which our children, as living arrows, are sent forth.

It gives rise to an interesting reflection.  It’s a fair question to ponder the place of prayer and faith in our lives, and especially on how we tend to clutch at straws in desperate situations.  Of course there are those who pray faithfully in thanksgiving for the gifts they have received and for the needs of others while others confine themselves to prayers of petition in times of need.

There seems to be a flickering flame of faith in the human heart (regardless of religious belief) that reaches towards a higher power when overcome by terrible trauma. Theologians and philosophers have explored this phenomenon over the centuries.  We know it is the basis for the recovery of addictions such as alcoholism. The NZ Herald wrote, “Please bring them home, he implored some higher power” in reporting on a Member of Parliament who was discussing the tragedy.  Jesus referred to it. “Come to me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11.28)

There have surely been fewer times in our history when prayer is more important. When we identify with those families who cling to hope yet fear the worst, when we imagine the fear of the men who may have survived or been killed in horrific circumstances and when we sympathise with the rescue team leaders who had have to make the hard decisions about human life and safety.

Thank God that the media in our increasingly cynical and secular society is giving prominence to faith and prayer, and that many of our public figures who would not refer to prayer under normal circumstances are readily offering their thoughts and prayers to those affected by the tragedy.

At a time, particularly in an economic downturn, when the clients and stakeholders of these and other companies are struggling with redundancy and subsistence wages, multi-million dollar salaries seem little short of obscene.

The divide between the very rich and the poor in this country is widening, and recent tax breaks coupled with increased GST have not benefited those on low incomes.

The Justice and Peace Commission of the Auckland Diocese suggested to the government long before the Budget, that proposed tax changes provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate concern for lower income earners, if they adopted a significant tax-free threshold at the lower end of the scale.  The Australian government established a threshold of $A16,000. No tax-free threshold was allowed in Godzone.

The government’s own calculator shows that a worker on the minimum weekly wage receives a net income increase (after changes to income tax and GST) of $4.13 or 0.8% per week.

A worker on the Prime Minister’s salary (which itself is modest compared with that of some corporate bosses) receives a net income increase of $242.96 or 3.2% per week.

It is self evident who is disadvantaged.

“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice, for they shall have their fill.” (Matt 5: 6)

But this matter also raises a question that needs far more discussion. How are the standards set by the regulatory bodies of broadcasting and the press applied?   There is clearly a double standard in the way our media, and their watchdog bodies discharge their obligations to uphold these standards.

The standards cited were decency, fairness, good taste and discrimination.  These standards apply to our state broadcasters and also to commercial radio and television  . Here is the anomaly.  The commercial channel C4 owned by Mediaworks twice screened programmes that were clearly in breach of the above standards. They were Popetown, which lampooned Pope John Paul 11 and a SouthPark episode called Bloody Mary which lampooned Mary the mother of Jesus and Pope Benedict

Neither Mediawords nor the Broadcasting Standards Authority upheld the complaints of Catholic Communications, and even an appeal to the High Court to overturn the BSA ruling did not succeed.  So why fish of one and foul of another? It’s not OK to insult, even in humour, our civic leaders and politicians, or to denigrate public figures because of their appearance or physical characteristics, and neither should it be, but it is OK to do the same about Mary and the Pope, so it seems.

Even if we were to take religion out of the equation, the question of respect for the dignity of the individual and for basic human values, as well as plain good manners and good taste remains to be addressed if we are ever to reach our ideals of becoming an inclusive society.

An account of alleged past questionable behavior on the part of a former rugby great and the women described by Laws as “slappers” is certainly distasteful, and it does TVNZ and the NZ Herald no credit to dredge up and dwell upon all the nasty details.  He is quite right; this is gutter journalism that does not serve the public interest, and is destructive of people’s dignity and any efforts they make to rebuild their lives.

Laws asks, why should Brooke be branded and condemned for past transgressions of a morally reprehensible, albeit not criminal nature?  Agreed.  Why, after all these years, does an anonymous woman decide to go to the media with her story?  Who knows!

But getting back to Michael Laws. What he fails to understand is the difference between what he calls “slapper’s remorse” and the possibility of redemption and forgiveness.  He wrote tellingly in condemnation of media grubbiness and its humiliation of Robin Brooke, but whatever this woman’s past and whatever her motives she does not deserve to be gratuitously humiliated and degraded by Michael Laws. Justice is a two-way street.

All of this reminds me of the words of Jesus when speaking about condemning the sin, not the sinner, and of his forgiveness and compassion to the woman with the alabaster jar, and to the woman about to be stoned to death when caught in the act of adultery, with his challenge that only the one without sin might cast the first stone.

However, the Charter did acknowledge that programming should contribute to intellectual, scientific and cultural development, and promote wide and informed debate and critical thinking.  It was committed to providing understanding of the diversity of our cultures and particularly to promote Maori language, concerns and culture.  It is debatable whether that actually happened to any great extent, but it imposed a degree of responsibility on TVNZ at least to pay lip service to the ideals of the Charter.

Sadly, this latest move to repeal the Charter means that TVNZ will have no such responsibility and become, as one media commentator put it, a mere “cash cow” for the government and “a mass market entertainer” no different from its local rivals whose main objective is to generate as much income as possible. Perhaps one should make an exception of Maori Television, whose programmes do so often recognise the spiritual and cultural dimensions of our society.

Art and beauty, regardless of specific religious beliefs, are a path towards the transcendent. This point was made very compellingly in an address which Pope Benedict gave recently to a gathering of the world’s artists – people of different faiths – who were invited to meet with him in the Sistine Chapel.  He spoke of the need for a return of spirituality in art in a world lacking in hope with increasing signs of aggression and despair.

It is clear that there is an increasing interest today, especially among younger people to explore the deep and meaningful issues of life.  Once we no longer have a responsible public broadcaster in TVNZ that teases out these issues in its programming, our taxes will support just another populist broadcaster that seeks to provide for the lowest possible standard of popular taste and opinion.

This is something we should all think and pray about, and discern how we might raise our voices and mobilise our resources.