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UK Parliament passes Rwanda refugee bill that is ‘as inhumane as it is absurd’
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Francis Phillips

Spiritual books: a humbling conversion story
March 14, 2019
Subtitled Our Journey to the Catholic Church, The Great Discovery, by Ulf and Birgitta Ekman (Ignatius Press, 280pp, £13.75/$17.95 ) is a more unusual story than most. Ulf Ekman was the founder and pastor of Word of Life, a Swedish non-denominational church with a worldwide congregation that grew to 200,000, and both he and his wife had converted to Christianity
Accepting suffering is hard, but not impossible
March 13, 2019
Professing Christians always tremble a little at Christ’s commission, that we take up our cross daily in order to follow him. Yes, we want to do so – but to accept the suffering this will entail is, humanly speaking, hard; indeed, without grace it is impossible. My thoughts are occasioned by reading Defying Gravity: How
Why are civil authorities so scared of prayer vigils?
March 11, 2019
It is sad to learn that Richmond Borough Council has recently followed Ealing Council in approving an exclusion zone around an abortion clinic. Last year Ealing Council used a Public Space Protection Order to prevent pro-life supporters from approaching people or praying within 200 metres of a Marie Stopes Clinic. In neither case has there
How bad is the current crisis? Look to Church history
March 08, 2019
Last week my brother went to a meeting with fellow parishioners and the local bishop to talk about the parishioners’ dismay at the conviction of a former local priest for paedophile offences. On Sunday our parish priest invited anyone who was distressed at recent revelations in the Church to come and see him for advice
When artists led the Church out of crisis
March 07, 2019
How Catholic Art Saved the Faith By Elizabeth Lev Sophia Institute Press, 320pp, £15/$19 At the end of last year I visited the Mantegna and Bellini exhibition at the National Gallery in London with agnostic friends. Cultured but not Christian, they admired it all, especially a small painting of a wistful Madonna and Child by
How do we make sense of the aftermath of Vatican II? This book is a clear guide
March 04, 2019
I have just been re-reading Turmoil and Truth: The Historical Roots of the Modern Crisis in the Catholic Church by Philip Trower, which I reviewed for the Herald in 2003 when it was first published (paperback are available on Amazon). It still bears reading today as we are still living in the aftermath of Vatican
Why priests need our prayers now more than ever
February 22, 2019
An article in Catholic World Report for Monday, titled “A priest who offered his life in reparation for the sins of priests” by Dr Patrick Kenny, has caught my attention. Dr Kenny is the editor of To Raise the Fallen: A Selection of the War Letters, Prayers and Spiritual Writings of Fr Willie Doyle SJ,
A beautiful introduction to the greatest story ever told
February 19, 2019
Having grown up in a Catholic milieu in the 1950s, I am always slightly envious of friends who are converts from Protestant or evangelical churches and who speak with loving familiarity of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament.) As a child I knew about the saints and the sacraments but the Mass readings, as with
A book every young Western man should read
February 15, 2019
Every conversion story is different, yet all of them share the same ultimate conviction: that the Catholic faith is the truth, both in what it has to say about the meaning and purpose of life as well as in its self-understanding as the one Church founded by Christ. These thoughts are stimulated by my reading
Spiritual books: how to sanctify your daily life
February 07, 2019
First published in 1946, when the future Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was Bishop of Lublin, Sanctify Your Daily Life (EWTN/Gracewing, 192pp, £15.50/$18.95) precedes the communist takeover of the Polish government (which happened shortly before he became primate of Poland in 1949). Nonetheless, Wyszyński would have followed events in Russia in the previous decades and known that
What gave the Coptic Martyrs such steadfast courage?
February 05, 2019
I have recently read The 21: A Journey in the Land of Coptic Martyrs by Martin Mosebach (translated by Alta L. Price), an acclaimed German novelist, essayist and poet. He is a Catholic which makes sense when you read it; his reflections are too perceptive to have been written by someone without religious belief. His
A book that shows how unique and irreplaceable mothers are
January 29, 2019
I ended a previous blog discussing The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es, by quoting a letter written in 1942 by the mother of the young Dutch Jewish girl, Lien de Jong, as she was forced to surrender her only child into the hands of strangers in order to save her life from the
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