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The Irish Church has lost its fervour, yet retains its fierce independence. But without outside intervention, it will continue to flounder
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Those who want to overturn the ancient discipline are energetic, well organised and influential. But can they persuade Pope Francis to make such a radical change?
The world’s largest male religious order is suffering an identity crisis and a decline in vocations. Can the first Jesuit pontiff lead it out of the doldrums?
Its Church is dogged by empty pews, scandals and a hierarchy beguiled by the latest social trends. Soon it could become little more than a heritage agency for ancient churches
Old-style socialists like Jeremy Corbyn may be atheists but they are less likely than the liberal Left to be ideologically opposed to religion
Author and actor Eric Bogosian has created a work of history that reads more like a spy thriller
The Irish Catholicism that used to define so many English cities now seems as remote as Newman and Manning
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The economic crisis, corruption and political dysfunction have left the Irish longing for a vision of society that has more to it than property prices. Is the Church up to the challenge?
Billions of euros pour into the German hierarchy’s coffers every year thanks to the church tax. Hardly anyone goes to Mass, but it means the bishops can bully Rome
Cardinal Joachim Meisner: a fearless champion of orthodoxy to the end
Cardinal Meisner’s life reminds us there was once a very different kind of German Catholicism