Ben Sixsmith, Author at Catholic Herald

Ben Sixsmith

My experience of Catholics has tested my agnosticism

September 29, 2020

We all know our actions have consequences for others, but we might not know, and never know, what they are or even whether they existed. Sometimes they are unintentional, resulting not from our deliberate plans but from chance encounters. Such indirect consequences shaped my perceptions of the Catholic faith. My grandfather was devoutly Catholic. When

The regrets of the man who volunteered to go to Auschwitz

October 17, 2019

The Volunteer By Jack Fairweather Custom House, 528pp, £20/$28.99 Who on Earth would volunteer to enter Auschwitz? It sounds like suicide and indeed it could have been. When the Polish officer Witold Pilecki accepted Nazi imprisonment in order to infiltrate the camp, it was not the infamous house of mass murder that it would become.

Is there any stopping the surrogacy revolution?

March 07, 2019

One way to keep up with the state of progressive thought is to browse the new releases from Verso Books. This year they promise titles such as Radical Happiness; Revolting Prostitutes; The Xenofeminist Manifesto; and Collected Works, Volume 3 from a curious author called VI Lenin. Another interesting book is Full Surrogacy Now. Full Surrogacy

A new journal will challenge academic groupthink – and devotees of free speech

November 22, 2018

The Journal of Controversial Ideas will offend progressives. But let's remember that controversy is not valuable in and of itself

Film: A test approaches for the Polish Church

October 11, 2018

The Polish film Kler (“Clergy”) was controversial even before its release. Directed by Wojciech Smarzowski and featuring household names such as Robert Więckiewicz and Jacek Braciak, the film depicts priests struggling with vice and weakness amid a Church marked by corruption and hypocrisy. A confrontation between the Polish Church and cultural industries was inevitable. Ida

How influential is Poland’s Catholic Church?

December 14, 2017

Western media paints Poland as a hotbed of extreme nationalism. The truth is far more complicated

Poland’s endless argument

December 14, 2017

John Paul II is everywhere in Poland. His face smiles down from photographs. He stands in statue form. I have a little stone engraving of his face – I don’t know where it came from. If somebody came here and knew little of the Church they would think he, not Francis, was Pope. This is

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