Was sent this famous essay by C.S. Lewis on the need for punishment to be thought of retribution - if it is thought of as cure it diminishes the personhood of the perpetrator and is open to horrific abuse by the "silky tongued" therapists; if it is thought of as deterrent then the guilt or innocence of the perpetrator is of less importance, they are punished as an example to others.

Behind all this (like a vast mountain on whose side this argument is built) is that we live in a moral universe, that there is such a thing as natural law, and that it was placed here by God.  Speaking of mountains, a great quote from the end of the article on the relationship between love and mercy.

Mercy, detached from Justice, grows unmerciful. That is the important paradox. As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice; transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety. But we ought long ago to have learned our lesson. We should be too old now to be deceived by those humane pretensions which have served to usher in every cruelty of the revolutionary period in which we live. These are the ‘precious balms’ which will ‘break our heads’.

From former Communard, and present-day sit-com consultant, game-show panellist and vicar, Richard Coles:

If the dean of St Albans has got it tough, spare a thought for the archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan Williams, Anglicanism's greatest asset in his efforts to hold the Communion together, is left looking like a liability. I cannot think of another archbishop who has so obviously shouldered his cross, but I wonder if, in the long run, that kind of sacrifice might be the only way to turn darkness into light.  For this one is not going away and, when the present hoo-ha has died down, we are faced with the ineluctable necessity of hard theological and pastoral graft; first, to get some clarity about the moral status of homosexuality, and, second, to find ever more creative and imaginative ways of discerning the likeness of Christ in our ugly mugs.