Niall Gooch, Author at Catholic Herald

Niall Gooch

Freer than we used to be?: We have replaced an imperfect sexual culture with a ruinous one

March 09, 2024

That wise old bird GK Chesterton one wrote that “if men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they will be governed by the ten thousand commandments.” I often think of this line nowadays, especially with regard to how approaches to social and economic policy manage the reality of human nature. If we do

There is a wealth of peaceful, prayerful heritage in the old churches across our land

February 21, 2024

Within a day’s hike from my house in a quiet corner of Kent, there are at least four ruined or abandoned chapels. My father, a retired Anglican clergyman who likes to keep his hand in, takes a regular service in a church that dates back eight centuries. An hour’s drive across the county brings you

Come on you Spurs!: Too much efficiency and rule-following can stunt our lives

January 08, 2024

In November, Tottenham Hotspur – my team – played Chelsea. It was one of the most extraordinary games in recent footballing history, with no fewer than nine appeals to the video assistant referee (VAR). VAR is a relatively recent addition to professional football; it has only been used in England since 2019. The point of

When the wind has flayed the trees: melancholia and the season

December 01, 2023

Melancholy memories are part of the Christmas experience for many. Every Advent Sunday, I turn to a lovely poem by former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, “Advent Calendar”. “He will come like last leaf’s fall,” it begins, “One night when the November wind / has flayed the trees to the bone”. And later: “He will

A time to keep silence?: The Church’s problems will not be solved by papal grandstanding

November 01, 2023

Pope Francis’s pontificate has now lasted well over a decade. In that time, he has published three encyclicals and six apostolic exhortations, the most recent of which came out last month, on the feast of St Francis of Assisi. He has also issued dozens of apostolic letters and motu proprios. This is not especially unusual

Countering scepticism and the value of apologetics

September 27, 2023

I have a distinct memory of the first time I ever knowingly encountered outspoken scepticism about Christianity, in the playground of my primary school. The occasion is hard to fix exactly in time – it was sometime between Year 3 and Year 5 – but I know the place where it happened to within a

Critics are wrong to accuse Pope Pius XII of inactivity during Holocaust

September 20, 2023

Pope John XXIII, that short-serving but consequential pontiff – he was in office for less than five years, but was responsible for convening the Second Vatican Council – was by all accounts a gentle, pacific and kindly man. It was almost certainly an unpleasant surprise to him, therefore, to discover in the Vatican apartments an

Positive parallels between the Commonwealth and the Church

August 30, 2023

Positive parallels between the Commonwealth and the Church. How do you hold together a large multinational association of highly diverse peoples in the modern world? That is a question with which many Catholic leaders are grappling at present, in various different ways. Consider the often furious debates around 2019’s Amazon synod. These debates focused on

An app to reveal how the BBC has long given up on neutrality

August 21, 2023

John Reith, the first Director-General of the BBC, was intensely high-minded. A Scottish Presbyterian, he imbued the organisation with a sense of seriousness and moral purpose which endured long after he left the role of DG in the 1930s. The adjective “Reithian”, still in occasional use today, was coined to refer to his emphasis on

The Church has a part to play in preserving culture, the arts and sciences

August 02, 2023

The 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, the great English composer of polyphonic sacred music, fell on July 4. On that day Cardinal Nichols himself presided at the evening Mass in his own cathedral and the choir used Byrd’s settings for the whole service. The homily touched on the details of Byrd’s long

How are the mighty fallen – or pushed

July 01, 2023

We should beware unelected bodies censuring our politicians. I have heard it said that one of the great symbols of democratic government is the sight of a removal van outside Number 10 Downing Street. Ours is still, more or less, an era of peace, freedom and plenty. This means we easily lose sight of how

The Catholic case for exploring the Deep

June 23, 2023

The bad news emerged on Thursday. Wreckage was found, two miles down in the Atlantic Ocean, close to the wreck of the Titanic, which all but confirmed that the submersible Titan had suffered a catastrophic accident. The most likely scenario, according to the experts, was “implosion” – a sudden total failure of the pressure hull.

1 2 3 … 6 →

The closure of St Benet’s Hall should matter to anyone who cares about education

October 07, 2022

Christianity has an irreplaceable function in education, writes Niall Gooch

Sin as its own punishment

September 02, 2022

Niall Gooch gives his take on 'Breaking Bad' and 'Better Call Saul'

The dangers of invoking the “culture of death” concept

August 15, 2022

We must not conflate intentional killing with the withdrawal of certain kinds of treatment, writes Niall Gooch

A tribute to priests

July 26, 2022

The assistant priest of our parish – long since retired but still regularly saying Mass – died a couple of weeks ago. Sadly I didn’t really know Fr Francis. A former Anglican, he served for almost twenty years at an Anglo-Catholic parish in our town before being received into the Church in 1997. He