Last week I stepped out of my comfort zone and into a dilapidated church hall in Brighton where I played table tennis with a group of young adults with learning disabilities. I didn’t distinguish myself. I’ve always had a problem with physical co-ordination. Anyone caught in the hailstorm of ping-pong balls I sent on to

To Herald readers: a charity without chuggers needs your support

Hostility from the authorities, and apathy from its own clergy, have put the Ordinariate’s future in danger. But there could be a simple solution

The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham is a canonical structure for ex-Anglican clergy and lay people who have been granted – by a mighty and irrevocable decree of Pope Benedict XVI – their own English Missal based partly on The Book of Common Prayer. The experiment has not been a runaway success, as

The excitement around the new Syro-Malabar diocese is not the first time British Catholics have looked forward to change

The creation of Britain’s first Syro-Malabar eparchy. The spread of Oratories inspired by the charism of St Philip Neri. The revival of failing parishes by priests of the Old Rite. The foundation of a community of nuns who uphold the Magisterium by fighting abortion. The flourishing of a new school of evangelisation, bursting with energy

For Catholics and other Christians in the Middle East, the atrocity at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray is far from unimaginable

Vatican II and the internet have brought consumer choice into churchgoing. Some see that as a danger – but with imaginative leadership, it could be an opportunity

When you go to Mass on Sundays, do you shop around? Thirty years ago, that question would have struck most Catholics as bizarre, even in poor taste. They supported their local parish, even if they didn’t feel terribly comfortable there. If they “shopped around”, it was only between Masses, not churches. They might go to

On June 23, Catholics in England and Wales will be confronted by the same question as everyone else: “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” We are given only two possible answers – “Remain” or “Leave”. The Church is not officially taking sides and therefore we

The faithful are being nudged towards a ‘Remain’ vote not only by England’s cardinals but also by the Pope. But how many Catholics will take their advice?

At the Easter Vigil, I found myself with my right hand resting on the right shoulder of a young friend, David Oldroyd-Bolt, who was being received into the Catholic Church. On his left shoulder rested the hand of my former Daily Telegraph colleague Dr Tim Stanley, a historian who is also television critic of this