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Gavin Ashenden

May 08, 2024
Robert de Niro has been one of the more strident voices warnings about the danger of a Trump win in the American election.  When he played the Jesuit Mendoza in the film The Mission some years ago, he made an enormous impact on me and many others. He came to embody a gritty courageous Catholic
May 05, 2024
Easter and creeds go together, for many reasons. Not just because the creeds incorporate Easter, but also because they only exist because of Easter. What better way to celebrate Easter than to use the Nicene Creed as a love poem from God to his people? Almost every line, while familiar through repetition, has had the
May 03, 2024
Democracy is ill. It is under pressure from all sides. From suspicions of voter fraud, to frustration with a moribund two party system, there is an increasing sense that there is no point in voting.  Only too aware of that, Cardinal Vincent Nichols published a video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, this
April 29, 2024
Twice in the last twelve months friends have written to me warning me not to speak at particular conferences. They have advised me that I will be associated, toxically and perhaps beyond repair, with and by the “wrong kind of Catholic”.  They might be right. Guilt by association is now becoming a common currency of
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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.
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
October 07, 2022
We should take heart at Meloni's citing of Chesterton, writes Gavin Ashenden
September 27, 2022
The new Italian president describes herself as “Italian, Christian, woman, mother”, writes Gavin Ashenden
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.
August 26, 2022
An encounter with Mont Saint-Michel offers spiritual perspective
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
July 31, 2022
The modern culture of "victimhood" as perfected by Meghan Markle poses an important theological challenge to the Church
July 14, 2022
Can we be friends with people who want to destroy the church, asks Gavin Ashenden
June 30, 2022
The contagion of death brought forth by abortion will destroy our world, writes Gavin Ashenden
June 15, 2022
There is nothing Christian or compassionate about a dysfunctional asylum system, writes Gavin Ashenden
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)
May 20, 2022
The synodal way has ended up becoming a means of imposing secularism on the sacred, says Gavin Ashenden
May 06, 2022
Gavin Ashenden explores the Christian metaphysics in Douglas Murray's new book The War on the West
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