Newsround sometimes carries some interesting press pack reports. Last Wednesday the first item on Newsround was a report from Sumaiya about modern-day slavery. Newsround's In The News discussion board included a topic on apologising for the Slave Trade. Some board users did not feel the need to apologise for what happened 200 years ago.

PlantyPie (U5956849) remarked in Message 6:

If there gana apogise for that might as well apogise for all the kids in the victorian times who had to sweep chimmneys,or all the kids Nike have got making trainers.And yeh it was bad but all those people concernred are probbaly dead.Start apogising for things that are happening now.

PlantyPie does have a point. Some people in the Church have said Britain should apologise (See blog 25 March 2007), but shouldn't they be doing more to condemn present day injustice - like present day poverty and lack of human rights in some countries.

People are executed in China, and their organs sold, in what has now become a transplant industry. The Anglican Church is growing in China, but it's only growing because it keeps silent on "difficult" matters like these executions which take place on a daily basis. In Britain it's not surprising that many see religion as a moral void, and it no longer has the hold over politics, the public and politicians which it once had.