Ann Widdecombe, Author at Catholic Herald

Ann Widdecombe

November 15, 2018

How easy it is to score a century from the pavilion. I wish I had a penny for every time I heard that adage at Westminster. I heard it again in my imagination as I thought of the Home Office trying to absorb the Church’s latest pronouncements on penal reform, set out in A Journey

Mind the pastoral gap

October 18, 2018

“You dodged it,” I smiled at my priest as the congregation was filing past him after Mass, and he grinned, knowing what I meant. The theme of the readings and sermon had been divorce and Our Lord’s uncompromising views upon the matter. And Fr Costello had looked at every aspect except the one that a

Repent for the past, but look to the future

September 13, 2018

Eight years ago all the press could talk about before the visit to Britain of Pope Benedict XVI was child abuse. The media predicted the week would be at best a failure and at worst a disaster, but had to re-write the script on day one when the sun and 70,000 people came out to

Forgive us our trespasses

August 23, 2018

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, brings credit on the Church of England, but Bishop Peter Hancock, who has criticised his being allowed to preach and give communion, does not. Twenty-six years ago Carey failed to act upon complaints about Bishop Peter Ball, who was eventually sentenced to 15 months for indecent assaults and

Why Britain punishes Christians

July 12, 2018

The pattern is now fully established: public figure says homosexual acts are sinful and public figure is forced to resign. Tim Farron was not able both to lead the Liberal Democrat Party and hold to traditional Christian teaching, and the latest casualty is Richard Smith, lately mayor of Ferryhill, Co Durham, who on his private

The difference between the IRA and ISIS

June 14, 2018

Norman Tebbit, the former Tory cabinet minister who was injured in the Brighton bombing while his wife was left permanently paralysed, has clashed with the Anglican Bishop of Leeds after the latter linked the IRA with Christianity. “I would most certainly deny a link,” he wrote in an email to the Rt Rev Nick Baines.

Why the Met got away with it

May 17, 2018

I am in two minds about the Catholic theme at the Met Gala, which has so offended some Catholics but seemingly amused others. It is quite undeniable that Anna Wintour would not have got away with an Islamic or Jewish theme, but that much said, what really mattered was how respectful or otherwise the outfits

Ann Widdecombe: Religious life: a radical proposal

April 19, 2018

I went to Buckfast Abbey for the Good Friday service, to my local church in Bovey Tracey for the Easter Vigil and to the Anglican church in Widecombe-in-the-Moor for the Sunday morning service. The reason for this now well-established sequence is that my brother’s widow comes to stay with me for the Triduum and likes

Sacraments are more than rituals

March 15, 2018

Meghan Markle has been baptised into the Church of England with water from the Jordan. I cannot see that it much matters where the water came from but rather what on earth this ceremony was about. Ms Markle was also confirmed at the same time. Baptism is a sacrament recognised by all the major branches

When God came to the Big Brother house

February 22, 2018

Those wanting more than the rat race are ready to listen - even when starring on reality TV

When God came to the Big Brother house

February 22, 2018

Take heart! When that secular, vulgar, sex-fuelled reality programme, Big Brother, was down to its last three survivors, two of us were practising Christians – one Catholic, one Evangelical – who had borne open witness to Christ throughout. Often the modern view is that it is not safe to express Christian views and that people

God help the Cof E

December 21, 2017

When I left the Church of England in 1992, I contrasted its think-whatever-you-want-to-think approach with the discipline of the Roman Church. Recently two separate and very different events threw that contrast into stark relief. The first was the daft exhortation by the Very Reverend Kevin Holdsworth, the rector and provost of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow,

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