Having known Cardinal Pell since 1967, the author George Weigel introduces his friend’s candid Prison Journal

In his new book, The Irony of Modern Catholic History (Basic Books £25 / $30), George Weigel traces the root of debates at the recent Amazon synod to a fracture within reformist theologians at the Second Vatican Council. Although the drama of Catholicism and modernity is often described in terms of a battle between traditionalists and modernisers,

As he was growing up on the plains of Kansas in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it’s unlikely that young Charles Joseph Chaput, a member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, imagined himself a major figure in Catholic history. Educated by Capuchin Franciscans and impressed by their commitment to simplicity of life and service,

A quarter of a century of friendship with Cardinal Avery Dulles, SJ, who died 10 years ago this month, left me with many happy memories. Two of them involve his investiture as a cardinal in February 2001 and bring his accomplishment as a theologian into focus. On the evening of February 23, Cardinal Dulles celebrated

In God’s Hands: The Spiritual Diaries By Pope St John Paul II, William Collins, £25 As many will remember, John Paul II’s longtime secretary and confidant, Stanisław Dziwisz, did not burn the “personal notes” left by the late pope, as John Paul had instructed in his will. Rather, Dziwisz, who was named Archbishop of Kraków

Vatican II was intended as a call to unity and evangelism, but its legacy has been an escalation of intra-Catholic wars. It is time to embrace John XXIII’s original vision  GEORGE WEIGEL Fifty years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, the Church is still bedevilled by competing and often mutually antagonistic answers to

Vatican II was intended as a call to unity and evangelism, but its legacy has been an escalation of intra-Catholic wars. It is time to embrace John XXIII’s original vision  GEORGE WEIGEL Fifty years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, the Church is still bedevilled by competing and often mutually antagonistic answers to

Vatican II was intended as a call to unity and evangelism, but its legacy has been an escalation of intra-Catholic wars. It is time to embrace John XXIII’s original vision