From the Archives, Author at Catholic Herald

From the Archives

Muggeridge on the meaning of life in a monastery

July 24, 2021

Journalist and eccentric Christian Malcolm Muggeridge visits a monastery during lambing season and thinks of the fantastic moment when men first saw their God in the likeness of a lamb.

Elizabeth Jennings: The Catholic bag-lady of poetry

July 18, 2021

The poet Elizabeth Jennings was born on this day in 1926. A devout Catholic, she attended St Anne’s College, Oxford, where she lived all her life, before working as a librarian then in publishing before writing full-time. Her “sincere and scrupulous work” has been praised for its “unassuming technical craft”, “emotional restraint,” and “sensitivity towards

Convert Stories: Charles Moore joins the universal Church and finds his politics challenged

July 12, 2021

Interviewed in 1998, when he was edited The Daily Telegraph, the Tory journalist Charles Moore describes entering the Church when one's family doesn't like it, his support for Vatican II, and his thoughts on England and Catholicism.

The patron saint of footballers … is an Italian

July 11, 2021

Ten years ago, reporting that the Vatican had named St Luigi Scrosoppi as the patron saint of footballers, the Catholic Herald's editors noted that "The Vatican has stressed that his care is extended to all players; one trusts, therefore, that his favours would be neutrally bestowed in a tight World Cup final between England and Italy."

The Catholic Herald reviews The Hobbit

July 09, 2021

The Catholic Herald reviewed J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit about a month after it appeared. The review in the “Children’s Catholic Herald” section was headed by a picture of Tolkien, much younger than the pictures of him we usually see. The caption read: “Professor Tolkien discovered the Hobbit. He is not really a professor of

C. S. Lewis: At first sight a disappointment

July 07, 2021

The poet Elizabeth Jennings reviews a book of reminiscences about C. S. Lewis, whom she heard lecture when a student at St Anne’s college. The book, Light on C. S. Lewis, included contributions from Owen Barfield, Stella Gibbons, Austin Farrer, Kathleen Raine, and Neville Coghill, but not J. R. R. Tolkien. Jennings — whose New

Prayer, Penance, and a Purring Motorcar: A Visit to England’s Silent Monastery

July 01, 2021

Then chairman of The Catholic Herald, Peter Sheppard, had been invited by Fr Michael Seed to visit the Carthusian monks of Parkminster. His report on his visit to England’s silent monastery appeared in the issue of 30 June 2006. Can you imagine spending every day in silence, in private prayer? As Fr Michael Seed

Chesterton the catholic Catholic

June 30, 2021

Michael de la Bedoyere was the editor of The Catholic Herald and a friend both of G. K. Chesterton’s and his biographer Maisie Ward. Here he reviews the biography, titled simply Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which appeared in early 1944. The full review can be read here. It appeared in the issue of 14 April 1944. He

Chesterton the Prophet: Ronald Knox Remembers His Friend

June 14, 2021

To all men of good-will in my generation, the death of Chesterton appears (in various degrees) like an overshadowing of the sun. His philosophy, or some echo of it, gave colour to the things of this world, and was the earnest of better things to come. Many others, like myself, must have been so saturated

Holy Week: When the Church Takes Up the Cross

March 30, 2021

The Cross is the sign of God's love. When Jesus says, "Take up your cross and follow me," he's also asking us to offer our difficulties to him and pointing us to those others with whom we share the Cross.

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