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Visiting the domain of an antipope: the Palmarian pontiff
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Visiting the domain of an antipope: the Palmarian pontiff
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Gavin Ashenden

Reflections on a pilgrimage to a Jordan Peterson rally: the good, the bad and the evil
April 23, 2024
Last week I made my first visit, or pilgrimage even, to a Jordan Peterson rally in Oklahoma in the United States. I and my YouTube colleagues from “Catholic Unscripted” had been invited to a behind-the-stage event following his appearance. Although I had once been invited to take part in an academic seminar probing Peterson’s ideas
Where is the outcry from British Churches on ‘nightmarish’ nature of Scotland’s new ‘thought crime’ law?
April 03, 2024
Not so very long ago, there was a simpler time when discussion about JK Rowling in Catholic circles was generally limited to a discussion between diocesan exorcists and fans of the Harry Potter books. Back then, the diocesan exorcists warned Catholic parents against allowing their children to read Harry Potter (or reading the books themselves)
How the State failed ‘WASPI women’ and Secularism and Feminism failed all women
March 30, 2024
In re-reading Aemon Dufy’s Stripping of the Altars, I was very struck by the way in which rood screens incorporating Mary and John at the foot of the cross became so important.  The restoration of the Catholic faith in Queen Mary’s reign saw one of the most substantial efforts to re-catholicise the parish churches involved, getting
Is there another Islamic agenda behind the national Muslim war memorial to the brave soldiers who died for us during two world wars?
March 15, 2024
Timing is everything.  The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that the government will fund a national war memorial to those Muslim soldiers who fought on our side during the two world wars and in subsequent conflicts. We have also been reminded that other religions have similar memorials. And that is true. But is there anything more
Are the dark gods back: Enraged crowds, psychosis and possession?
March 05, 2024
After watching the videos of mobs of supposedly progressive students at Manchester University, shouting, swearing, threatening, intimidating and attempting to terrify a handful of their contemporaries – who had the temerity to set up a pro-life student society on campus – it’s hard not to ask the question: What on earth possessed them?  Sometimes there are moments when idiomatic language
There’s an easy-to-miss difference between sanctity and profanity that we must not forget
March 02, 2024
Recognising Christ is not always as straightforward a theological or spiritual task we would like it to be. For reasons that may become apparent, I have myself had difficulties in the past distinguishing Christ from a vicar called Cecil. To my surprise these have recently returned to haunt me. In the days when I was
The beauty and power of music can bring us into the presence of the Divine
February 24, 2024
A book on sexual passion, which was authored by Cardinal Fernández of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, has recently been rediscovered. It claims, without subtlety or embarrassment, that sexual climax ushers one directly into the presence of God. Unsurprisingly it has caught the attention of the Catholic world, raising objections and questions.
Enlightenment pragmaticism versus sacred revolt
February 20, 2024
To rave in the nave or not to rave in the nave? The disturbances about what should or should not happen in a cathedral have divided Christian opinion in the UK. This is perhaps partly because the differences between the Protestant and the Catholic minds run deep. It’s not driven only by differences in the
Will we allow cyborg ambition and abortion to defeat Christian protest? 
February 13, 2024
Stephen Green, an evangelical Christian with a distinguished record in protest, was arrested at the beginning of February and charged, after holding a placard depicting words that mentioned a womb (taken from Psalm 139) within the statutory buffer zone near an abortion clinic.   Reflecting on the precedent of the government of the day silencing religious
The meaningless vacuity of just being ‘nice’
January 28, 2024
The week of prayer for Christian unity has changed its character over the years. It used to be the ecclesiastical version of birdmen leaping off a beach pier contest; summed up as “see how far you can’t actually fly in a batman or birdman suit before crashing into the sea below after your hubristic impractical
God Save the (agnostic) King! But can the monarchy survive a non-religious future ‘Defender of the Faith’?
January 22, 2024
When Henry VIII decided to solve his dynastic succession problem by sacking the Pope, he had to put aside the somewhat inconvenient fact that his people had been Catholic for at least a thousand years; 1,300 if you go back to St Alban. The price paid for his quest for a legitimate male heir was the destruction
What are we to make of the exotic and sensually esoteric theology of Cardinal Fernández?
January 11, 2024
The exotic contents of Mystical Passion: spirituality and sensuality written 25 years ago by now-Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández have been well covered in the Catholic press by now.  Responses have ranged from a mixture of horror at what appears to be an exercise in theological pornography at one end, to at the other, a sympathetic reminder that sex and
In defence of Giorgia Meloni and G. K. Chesterton
October 07, 2022
We should take heart at Meloni's citing of Chesterton, writes Gavin Ashenden
What do we know about Giorgia Meloni’s Christian faith?
September 27, 2022
The new Italian president describes herself as “Italian, Christian, woman, mother”, writes Gavin Ashenden
How far can the new ‘woke’ religion go?
September 08, 2022
    The ambitious and muscular Left in politics has often seen the Catholic Church as their enemy. And what has been particularly interesting about the woke movement is the way in which it has veered between being a political and cultural reform movement at one moment, and a fully blown authoritarian religion at another.
The mysterious and sublime Mont Saint-Michel
August 26, 2022
An encounter with Mont Saint-Michel offers spiritual perspective
Stonewall’s #IVFforAll campaign hides an ugly reality
August 11, 2022
Having children is about bestowing life on new human beings, not a means of shoring up the existential needs of grown-ups, says Gavin Ashenden
Coercive victimhood – the Trojan horse of cultural change
July 31, 2022
The modern culture of "victimhood" as perfected by Meghan Markle poses an important theological challenge to the Church
Friendship in an ideologically polarised age
July 14, 2022
Can we be friends with people who want to destroy the church, asks Gavin Ashenden
Why we must choose life
June 30, 2022
The contagion of death brought forth by abortion will destroy our world, writes Gavin Ashenden
Rwanda has become the latest battleground for the soul of the West
June 15, 2022
There is nothing Christian or compassionate about a dysfunctional asylum system, writes Gavin Ashenden
In celebration of the Jubilee – looking forward and back
June 01, 2022
  Three score years and ten was considered a life time. The psalmist certainly thought so:- “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90)
Speed dating, secularism and schism: the world of ecumenical dialogue
May 20, 2022
The synodal way has ended up becoming a means of imposing secularism on the sacred, says Gavin Ashenden
How secular intellectuals are saving the Church
May 06, 2022
Gavin Ashenden explores the Christian metaphysics in Douglas Murray's new book The War on the West
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