Why does God let that happen?" or, similarly, Why does God allow suffering?" were, obviously, questions that most people had, and coming together as a group meant we could discuss the question and share ideas.

Although we could never know we have the correct answer to the question, as we don't know God's "mind", we did have an interesting discussion that went along the following lines:

Used as an argument against God, it's a fundamentally flawed one, as it's really saying: if God doesn't behave in the way I expect, God cannot exist. We cannot use something's own behaviour to disprove that something - it's a cirular argument that falls flat.

In no other field do we say, the evidence shows it does not behave as we expect, so we must disregard all our previous evidence and it must not exist; rather, we develop our understanding. When we realised the Sun didn't go around the Earth, we didn't stop believing in the Sun, but we developed our understanding.

We base our expectations on the Christian understanding of God and as such now take it for granted that God loves us. Before Jesus, there was widespread belief in vengeful gods, such as the Greek and Roman gods of war, and even many Jews at the time of Jesus believed if someone suffered it was because they had sinned and so deserved it. As such, they would have no trouble in accepting that suffering and God can exist together.

It was Jesus' teaching that taught us that God loves us and wants all people to go to heaven, and that suffering is not a punishment for sin - which was a complete paradigm shift. So now we must reconcile a loving God and the existence of suffering.

We do know that God didn't exempt himself from suffering, as Jesus came to Earth and suffered many of the same temptations and sorrows that we do, before he was crucified - one of the most horrendous ways invented for anyone to be executed.

So we have a God who has experienced our suffering and suffers with us.

Although we know that God has experienced suffering, suffering still exists. But, a lot of suffering in the world is often caused be people, or at least people have the power to stop it. For example, the rich nations consume much more food than they need, while others in the world needlessly go hungry. There is only so much money in the world, and while the richest 26 people in the world have a combined personal wealth greater than that of the poorest half of the world's population combined, many of the world's poorest are dying because they cannot afford what we would consider cheap medicine.

Some people may be the cause of suffering, but God has given all people free will to do as they choose so they may strive to behave in such a way that is acceptable to God, rather than behave in such a way that would make it impossible for them to be with God in heaven - by committing a mortal sin.

While God loves everyone, even those who are hurting others and causing much suffering, God doesn't "strike them down", because they have the free will to change their ways. God doesn't love someone and so ignore their bad behaviour, God loves them and hopes they will change their ways. After all, all of heaven rejoices when a single sinner is converted.

Even we have a similar experience of love. Consider a child who is mean and violent to their siblings. The parent doesn't drug the naughty child into a stupor, or send them away, so the other siblings can have an easier time: the parent will encourage the child to behave appropriately and kindly towards their siblings, and the parent hopes the wayward child will change his or her ways, all the while loving that child - the actions of the child may be hated, while the child always remains loved. And should the child change their ways, the parents would rejoice.

Jesus told a parable that explains why those who cause suffering are not removed: The kingdom of Heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. While everybody was asleep his enemy came, sowed darnel all among the wheat, and made off. When the new wheat sprouted and ripened, then the darnel appeared as well. The owner's labourers went to him and said, 'Sir, was it not good seed that you sowed in your field? If so, where does the darnel come from?' he said to them, 'Some enemy has done this.' And the labourers said, 'Do you want us to go and weed it out?' But he said, 'No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest; and at harvest time I shall say to the reapers: First collect the darnel and tie it in bundles to be burnt, then gather the wheat into my barn.' Then, leaving the crowds, he went to the house; and his disciples came to him and said, Explain to us the parable about the darnel in the field. He said in reply, The sower of the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world; the good seed is the subjects of the kingdom; the darnel, the subjects of the Evil One; the enemy who sowed it, the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; the reapers are the angels. Well then, just as the darnel is gathered up and burnt in the fire, so it will be at the end of time. The Son of Man will send his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of falling and all who do evil, and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth. Then the upright will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Anyone who has ears should listen.

Darnel is a weed that looks like wheat until harvest time. A shoot that might have looked like darnel could have turned out to be wheat at the harvest, just as a person who led a bad life cannot be weeded out because they might change their ways before the end.

While we may never completely understand why God allows suffering, being able to discuss this and other topics is not only a good way to develop my understanding and a good reason why I go to church, but it gave me the opportunity to meet and spend time with people I would otherwise never have met.

Regrettably, if we look back in history it becomes clear that we cannot rely on the moral code that we now take for granted.

A study of historical ethics in "Text, Cases and Materials on Medical Law and Ethics", by Marc Stauch and Kay Wheat tells us: If we turn to the roots of our western tradition, we find that in Greek and Roman times not all human life was regarded as inviolable and worthy of protection. Slaves and 'barbarians' did not have a full right to life and human sacrifices and gladiatorial combat were acceptable... Spartan Law required that deformed infants be put to death; for Plato, infanticide is one of the regular institutions of the ideal State; Aristotle regards abortion as a desirable option; and the Stoic philosopher Seneca writes unapologetically: Unnatural progeny we destroy; we drown even children who at birth are weakly and abnormal. Whilst there were deviations from these views, it is probably correct to say that such practices...were less proscribed in ancient times. Most historians of western morals agree that the rise of Christianity contributed greatly to the general feeling that human life is valuable and worthy of respect.

Christianity formed a new standard, higher than any which then existed in the world previously.

Rome had a social caste system, with women having no legal independence and no independent property. However, early Christianity, as Pliny the Younger explains in his letters to Emperor Trajan, had people from every age and rank, and both sexes. Pliny reports arresting two slave women who claimed to be 'deaconesses' in the first decade of the second century. There was a rite for the ordination of women deacons in the Roman Pontifical (a liturgical book) up through the 12th century. For women deacons, the oldest rite in the West comes from an eighth-century book, whereas Eastern rites go all the way back to the third century and there are more of them.

In Jesus' time, in Jewish society, if a woman were ever in the streets, she was to be heavily veiled and was prohibited from conversing with men. In Jewish law, the testimony of women in court wasn't recognised, unless it was a trivial matter. However, the New Testament refers to a number of women in Jesus' inner circle and there are several Gospel accounts of Jesus imparting important teachings to and about women: his meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well (who was the first person he told he was the Messiah), his anointing by Mary of Bethany, his public admiration for a poor widow who donated two copper coins to the Temple in Jerusalem, his stepping to the aid of the woman accused of adultery, his friendship with Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus, the presence of Mary Magdalene, his mother, and the other women as he was crucified, and, most importantly, the first person to learn that Jesus was resurrected (the most important news in the entire universe) was a woman, Mary Magdalene. Jesus' respect for and kindnesses towards women was highly disapproved of by those who strictly upheld tradition.

It was common in the Greco-Roman world to expose (to the elements, so they would die) female infants because of the low status of women in society. However, the church forbade its members to do so. Greco-Roman society saw no value in an unmarried woman, and therefore it was illegal for a widow to go more than two years without remarrying. Christianity did not force widows to marry and supported them financially. Pagan widows lost all control of their husband's estate when they remarried, but the church allowed widows to maintain their husband's estate. Christians did not believe in cohabitation. If a Christian man wanted to live with a woman, the church required marriage, and this gave women legal rights and far greater security. Finally, the pagan double standard of allowing married men to have extramarital sex and mistresses was forbidden. Jesus' teachings on divorce and St. Paul's advocacy of monogamy began the process of elevating the status of women, so that Christian women tended to enjoy greater security and equality than did women in surrounding cultures.

In the ancient world infanticide was not legal, but it was rarely prosecuted. A broad distinction was popularly made between infanticide and infant exposure which was practised on a gigantic scale with impunity. Many exposed children died, but many were taken by speculators who raised them to be slaves or prostitutes. It is not possible to ascertain, with any degree of accuracy, what diminution of infanticide resulted from legal efforts against it in the Roman empire. It may, however, be safely asserted that the publicity of the trade in exposed children became impossible under the influence of Christianity, and that the sense of the seriousness of the crime was very considerably increased.

It is clear that previous generations behaved in such a way that we would deem so abhorrent that their behaviour is hard to believe, and that in relatively recent history we've seen laws that legalised the holocaust while criminalising the hiding and protecting of Jews, made slavery legal but freeing slaves was illegal, and legalised racial segregation but made protesting rasicm a criminal offence. Furthermore, considering that government propaganda has caused countries' populations to participate in or be complicit with state-sponsored genocide - Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Pol Pot in Cambodia, Rwanda, and many more - it seems clear that legality is not a guide to morality. Rather than relying on transient governments, or other transient populist movements, who might find it beneficial to supress one group for the benefit of itself or others, we very much do need a force in the world that guides our morality.

Christianity, and other religions, specify an absolute moral code, which has been to the benefit of millions of people throughout the ages. But, today, as we take our rights for granted, the rules can often seem not only restrictive to its followers, but providing them no advantage for adherance.

In the same way that a child might not understand why they can't just eat ketchup for dinner, and might feel quite hard done by, behavioural restrictions based on a moral code - in other words, "doing the right thing" - can often seem disadvantageous to the adherant. But just as the child's parents know a balanced diet is healthier for the child - and the child will come to learn this - doing the right thing can often have unexpected benefits.

Sally Reed, a British poet and once stauch atheist and anti-Catholic, viewed the Church's teaching that pornography and sex outside marriage are wrong with ridicule and as outdated - it was a teaching that she saw as controlling, in which she saw no benefit, and certainly wasn't a teaching that she followed. However, as a result of her unlikely conversion, she says: It astonished me, even then, to think I had ever thought of the Church as sexually repressive. In Western post-femenist culture, with its obsessions with pornography and extreme sexual acts, normal women, in the eyes of some men, are diminished, certainly boring, almost rendered obsolete. The Church made me feel the reverse - fully human, fully a woman; sensual and potent in my very ordinariness.
Almost without realising it, my old objections to Church teaching had fallen away. I had already, by faith, understood the Eucharist. The other sacraments (like marriage) now had my faith and understanding too.

In the late 19th century, a lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess Alice of Tuscany, Blessed Mary Theresa Ledóchowska, gave up her grand circumstances to found a convent, so she could dedicate herself to fight to abolish slavery of black Africans. She edited and published a magazine, which made its debut in 1889 - a time not receptive to a woman publisher - which was distributed across Europe. Alongside the magazine, for over 25 years, Mary Theresa Ledochowska toured Europe enlisting help for the cause.

The magazine, and her talks, relayed the horrors of slavery in Africa, as reported by the missionaries based there, to galvanize public support for its abolition. The contributions made by those who read her publications, and to whom she spoke, helped, among other things, to buy slave children out of slavery, to care for them and set them truly free.

Without her support, the priests on the ground witnessing the slavery, and the platform of the Catholic Church and subsequent support from European congregations, many more people would have suffered in slavery, and slavery would not have been abolished in Africa as soon as it was.

Unfortunately, the fight against slavery is not over.

In many countries human trafficking and slavery still exist. There still exist villages, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, where the poverty is so crushing that some parents will sell their children to escape it. There are still human traffickers who prey upon poverty-striken children, luring them away from school and an education with the immediate attraction of smartphones and other modern luxuries, only to sell the children into sexual or domestic slavery.

In many cases Religious Sisters are the last hope against this evil. In more than 80 countries, Sisters are fighting against human trafficking and slavery, and rehabilitating its victims. The Sisters confront impoverished conditions and unimaginable depravity every day, and their work can be thankless and demoralising. Two Sisters from Assam, India recounted how it would often take a decade to see any marked improvement in a traumatised survivor to whom they were offering loving accompaniment, together with the necessary services such as shelter, counselling and skills training.

Such a bleak outlook rarely attracts major donations.

Nevertheless, the Sisters undertake physically punishing journeys daily to reach the most vulnerable villages. International NGOs tend, for the most part, to be concentrated around major cities. It is simply too expensive to attempt to maintain offices in rural areas, especially in a country the size of India. Sisters, by contrast, have community houses and anti-slavery projects throughout the country, helping people avoid being trafficked and helping those who have escaped and survived.

If the Sisters were grouped together into one NGO, they would be the world's largest by far. Without the support and donations of the congregations to whom they relay the reality of their experiences, many more people would fall victim to slavery.

Closer to Home

Unfortunately, modern slavery is not just a far away problem. Many people are trapped in modern day slavery in this country, forced to work in terrible conditions against their will.

Amid growing concern that many of the 18,000 hand car washes in the country are exploiting workers, the Church of England and the Catholic Church in England and Wales joined together to create a phone app, the "Safe Car Wash App", which allows drivers to enter their location then flick through a series of slavery indicators, such as whether the car wash only accepts cash, whether workers are living on site, or if some of them seem fearful. Within the first five months of the app's launch, British drivers uncovered almost 1,000 potential cases of modern slavery.

That is just one example of the good members of the church endeavour to help others, which is only made possible by all those that attend church.

Another example of collectively helping others is the support of 120,000 refugees who had been forced to flee their homes when ISIS swept across the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq.

Arriving in the refugee camps of Kurdish northern Iraq with nothing or very little, the 120,000 were entirely dependent on the charity of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) and other organisations for food, shelter, medicine and schooling.

When ISIS were defeated and the refugees could return to their homes, ACN and other Christian charities were instrumental in helping rebuild their towns and villages.

Without the support of the Christian charities and the money they raise "back home", many people would have been left without food, shelter, medicine and other things they had once taken for granted in their previously comfortable lives.

The Vatican has formally called for nuclear disarmament. Similarly to when the church was opposed to slavery, but slavery was not immediately outlawed by the world's governments, the world still has thousands of nuclear weapons. It took the action of hundreds of people to help those suffering slavery, with the help of those who stood out as conduits for change, such as Blessed Mary Theresa Ledochowska, to change the world.

Blessed Mary Theresa Ledochowska didn't start off knowing she would tour Europe to raise money to buy children out of slavery and garner support for pressuring governments for the abolition of slavery. She did what she felt she could do, and she saw it through. Any member of the church, current or yet to join, with the support of their community and the wider church, could be the person to lead others in the fight against nuclear weapons. Or, any member might be moved enough to help out in one of the many soup kitchens run by a church. Whatever the cause, whatever the impact, without people and the help of a supportive group, good intentions are like musical notes without instruments.