January 24, 2014 - Catholic Herald

Reading ‘On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage Across Britain’ can leave you yearning for a bit more religious commitment

May 12, 2024

On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage Across Britain by Oliver Smith Bloomsbury Continuum, £20, 256 pages A book about pilgrimage should make me a pushover as a reader. I love reading about pilgrimage, especially when imprisoned in the Catholic Herald basement office, forced to realise my pilgrimage dreams vicariously through books such On This

Vatican weighs up potential Trump return in its approach to European elections

May 12, 2024

ROME – Although non-Europeans may not be paying attention – and, for that matter, a fairly wide swath of the European population itself isn’t exactly riveted either – but elections for the European Parliament loom large on June 6-9, when voters will select 720 representatives who will chart a course for the EU for the

The infernal serpent: Understanding envy may prove salutary in the end

May 12, 2024

“I don’t envy you.” When someone says that, they are implying that you will have a bad time dealing with whatever, or whoever, you’re about to encounter. It’s a discouraging remark which often comes with a note of reproach, suggesting that you shouldn’t be doing whatever it is. This is odd. If envy is a

What does it mean if we are ‘kept’ in the name of the Father?

May 12, 2024

“Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name” (John 17:11-12). In Sunday’s Gospel, our lectionary translation opts for a variant in the manuscript tradition, but the other

Douai Abbey: a place extolling the English Benedictine temper and charism

May 12, 2024

“A monastery is above all this: a place of spiritual power.” Pope Benedict, as ever, got to the heart of the thing when he addressed these words to Benedictine monks at Heiligenkreuz, outside Vienna. Monasteries serve all sorts of functions – repositories of tradition, places of architectural and cultural interest, sometimes social hubs. But unless they

World Communications Day and Catholic journalism’s role to ‘guide and inspire’

May 12, 2024

On the Sunday before Pentecost the Catholic Church celebrates the role of communications media and focuses on how it can best use such platforms to promote the Gospel values. World Communications Day, also know as Communications Sunday, was established by Pope Paul VI in 1967 as an annual celebration to “encourage us to reflect on

UK Parliament abortion vote on 15 May: ‘A time to raise our voices and not lose heart’

May 11, 2024

Bishops rarely comment on Bills in Parliament. Lay Christians, informed by their faith, freely and sincerely adopt different political views and propose different solutions to the practical problems and great challenges of our time. Yet, when the bishops voice “deep alarm” about a legislative measure in Parliament it is a moment when the faithful, and

US archdiocese ‘refused to comply’ with sexual abuse investigation, Washington attorney general claims

May 11, 2024

Amid a campaign for the governorship, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced on 9 May that he has taken legal action against the Archdiocese of Seattle, alleging that it has “refused to comply” with his investigation into whether the three Washington dioceses used charitable funds to cover up allegations of child sex abuse by clergy.

Catholic Herald Institute hosts inaugural symposium to examine recent Synod in Rome

May 11, 2024

The Catholic Herald Institute hosted its inaugural symposium “The Synod: The Room Where it Happened and What Happens Next?” in New York’s Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in Greenwich Village on 18 March. The conversation, the first in the Institute’s “Conversations in the Spirit” series, was moderated by Michael La Civita, director of communications

An exorcist is needed to sort out Eurovision 2024 and Ireland’s troubled contestant

May 11, 2024

Myopia has plagued my family as far back as can be traced. The family vault holds images from the end of the 1800s of women in their forties all wearing glasses. My grandparents’ 10 children and 39 grandchildren all wear glasses. My own children wear glasses. My brother went out with a girl who dumped him once

EXCLUSIVE FROM THE ARCHIVES: Tolkien’s 1945 letter to the Catholic Herald on ‘the Name of Coventry’

May 11, 2024

In early 1945, a contributor to the Catholic Herald suggested that the city of Coventry could be named for a medieval Catholic religious house. Professor J. R. R. Tolkien, reading this, and having done his research, wrote in to correct the record and share his thoughts on Catholicism’s place in the study of Anglo-Saxon etymology

On Pilgrimage With: Anita Boniface, writer and chaplaincy volunteer

May 11, 2024

Where would you go? A place I’d like to revisit on pilgrimage is Aylesford Priory in Kent. I often went there as a child and young adult with my family and our beloved neighbours Cis and Arthur. Visiting Aylesford planted in me a fondness for church and the Catholic faith at a young age. It’s

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