With less than two weeks left of the Year of our Lord 2025, it seems appropriate to reflect on the 50 that have come and gone since the apple fell and fireworks lit up the sky to mark the new year.

The late Pope Francis declared 2025 a Jubilee Year, themed ‘Pilgrims of Hope’, but on the international stage, darkness continues to crowd out both hope and light.

The brutal genocidal campaign waged by Israel against the Gazan population led to more than 60,000 being killed in a vicious two-year onslaught. The truce that came into effect in October has not prevented Israel from killing almost 400 Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire.

Peace and justice will continue to be cruelly denied the Palestinian people, just as it was for generations prior to October 7, 2023.

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Leona O’Neill: No, Sir Richard, you are not getting my children to send them to war

Violence against Christians in Nigeria and the Sahel region of Africa by Islamic extremists has led to thousands being killed and village communities destroyed, illustrating how intolerance of minority faith communities is a worryingly persistent theme across the globe, as the Bondi Beach atrocity demonstrated.

This was a year in which the Nobel Peace Prize was sullied (not for the first time) by being given to Maria Corina Machado.

The US government is breaking international law by killing........

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