November 14, 2019 - Page 6 of 6

Keys of the Kingdom: in Peter’s faltering journey to sainthood there is hope for us all

April 07, 2024

Among the many wonderful paradoxes of Catholic faith, practice and history is that now-canonised saints did not always act so saintly. From St Monica’s alcoholism to St Athanasius’s irascibility to St Jerome’s chronic ill-temper, the tradition is replete with examples of inconstancy. It is perhaps not an accident that the earliest example of this phenomenon

‘Masters of Imitation’: The Sixteen’s 2024 Choral Pilgrimage does not disappoint

April 06, 2024

The Sixteen are on the road again, with their annual Choral Pilgrimage. Last year the theme encompassed the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, that covert (or not-so-covert) Catholic who flourished in the reign of Elizabeth I and even under her patronage. I wonder what her chief minister, William Cecil – who probably

On the Record: Music for Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, and the Annunciation

April 06, 2024

The cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris is due to reopen later in the year, painstakingly restored following the devastating fire five years ago this month. Amazingly, the celebrated Cavaillé-Coll organ survived with only minor damage. In the French liturgical tradition, much of the music for the Mass is improvised at the organ, often using the

Taiwan thanks Pope for ‘spiritual closeness’ in aftermath of deadly earthquake

April 06, 2024

ROME – After a massive earthquake shook Taiwan this week, leaving at least 10 people dead, the island’s Ambassador to the Holy See has thanked the world for its solidarity, and Pope Francis specifically for his spiritual closeness. “Right after the earthquake struck, the Taiwan government immediately activated the Central Emergency Operations Center, and launched

Catholic Relief Services in Holy Land ‘extremely concerned’ after deaths of aid workers in Israeli air strike

April 06, 2024

Mourners gather around the body of Palestinian Issam Abu Taha, a worker from the World Central Kitchen (WCK), who was killed in an Israeli airstrike along with other workers in the southern Gaza Strip on April 2, 2024. Getty Images. NEW YORK – In light of the deaths of seven World Central Kitchen workers in

New book on Venice could say more on religion’s role in the ‘impossible’ city

April 06, 2024

Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City Denis Romano Oxford University Press, £31.99, 904 pages The Renaissance scholar Francesco Sansovino (1521-1586) called Venice, and its watery setting, “the impossible in the impossible”. Situated in a tidal lagoon and built largely on artificial islands, the sheer improbability of magnificent churches and shimmering palaces emerging from

‘I’m a cultural Christian’, declares Richard Dawkins, the world’s most famous atheist

April 05, 2024

Richard Dawkins – one of the world’s most famous atheists – has declared himself to be a “cultural Christian”. The author of The God Delusion, a 2006 best-selling attack on the existence of God, made his remarks in an interview with Rachel Johnson for LBC radio in which they discussed how the Muslim season of

Nicaragua, the land where beauty queens are persecuted and spies film homilies of priests

April 05, 2024

Sat at a desk in an office close to Westminster Cathedral, Juan Sebastián Chamorro appears every inch a distinguished politician. He is a well-groomed man of 53 who speaks perfect English with a Nicaraguan accent, even mastering slang. He has after all had a little time to brush up on his second language because since

Europe’s liberal governing classes would have endless mass-migration and the ‘self destruction’ of traditional Europe: Catholic teaching shows us how to avoid both

April 04, 2024

What’s really behind the “migrant crisis”? Is it even a “crisis” anymore or has a normality been begrudgingly accepted that the borders of the ancient nations of Europe are now completely porous to the multitudes, which invariably includes criminals, terrorists and persons with no intention of assimilating to the religious or cultural landscape in which

Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday to be offered up for a ‘hurting world’

April 04, 2024

The Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday is occurring this weekend on 7 April. Celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday focuses on the gift of mercy and love given through Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. “Our goal [is] to show to the contemporary lost man the richness of God’s Mercy, from the

Children at Mass: Why are some people so intolerant?

April 04, 2024

I have just stomped in from an otherwise lovely day celebrating our eldest child reaching double figures. Children being rather more sophisticated today than they were in the 1980s – when the local Happy Eater represented the acme of fine dining for a 10-year-old – my son had requested lunch at our provincial branch of

Italy’s radical Islam problem highlighted in undercover documentary

April 04, 2024

A recent undercover investigation by an Italian news program has cast a troubling light on problems being caused by radical Islam in Italy, and which are gradually changing the fabric of society in a country that used to be a bastion of Catholicism in Europe. Aired by the Italian news programme Fuori dal Coro (Outside the Chorus)

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