James Jeffrey, Author at Catholic Herald

James Jeffrey

August 15, 2019

Given the size of Texas – it’s the second largest US state, and three times the size of the UK – opportunities abound for finding hidden treasures and surprises. Among the most enchanting of these, especially if you are Catholic, are its Painted Churches. Set within the rustic idylls of the rolling fields of the

Why on earth did Eritrea shut down Catholic health clinics?

July 04, 2019

The Eritrean government has seized and shut down all the country’s Catholic-run health centres in apparent retaliation for Eritrea’s bishops releasing a pastoral letter in April requesting “a national reconciliation process to guarantee social justice” for all Eritreans. In early June, the authoritarian government, dominated by President Isaias Afewerki since 1993, ordered the 22 health

A stroll in the desert makes me wonder: has the West lost the secret of contentment?

March 28, 2019

It had been a day of searing heat in the city of Logiya in Ethiopia’s north-east Afar region. It’s a tough neighbourhood, containing the Danakil Desert, one of the hottest places known to man: temperatures in the naked plains frequently soar above 50°C (122°F), exacerbated by the fierce blowing of the Gara, which translates as

I joined a Catholic men’s group – and it wasn’t as cringeworthy as I thought

August 26, 2018

It turns out older white men can offer something of value too

James Jeffrey: Wisdom of the greybeards

August 23, 2018

Sometimes I look in the mirror and have grave doubts about my decision: I’ve joined a Catholic men’s group. What’s more, it’s an American one – in Texas, no less – and this stirs a deep-rooted fear that I’ve become ensnared in some sort of Evangelical Bible study. What have I become? Hanging out with

South Sudan: Waiting game

May 24, 2018

A country racked by war and famine is counting on a visit from Pope Francis South Sudan has a special place in the Pope’s heart. In February he designated a day of prayer for the world’s youngest state, which, because of war and famine, is in a near constant state of humanitarian crisis. A month

Ethiopia’s recovery isn’t all it seems

March 29, 2018

Addis Ababa Ethiopia is a fascinating, country-sized petri dish that reveals what happens to a society and its people as a nation moves from backwardness to modernity. When I first visited Addis Ababa in 2000, I sipped beers in corrugated iron-roofed shacks as seasonal rains turned surrounding dirt tracks into quagmires. Now the city has

James Jeffrey: Maybe civilians aren’t so bad

August 31, 2017

The Camino de Santiago across the mighty pastoral breadth of northern Spain is no normal pilgrimage. Far from it: non-believers appear to outnumber believers. Then there is the contradictory character of it all: a mind-boggling mixture of the sacred and profane, spanning candle-lighting in Baroque churches and incantations from Spanish priests, to lusty fiestas and

The trials of Ethiopian Catholics

June 01, 2017

Ethiopia is one of the earliest cradles of Christianity, the second nation after Armenia to adopt Christianity as a state religion. But Catholics have struggled here ever since seismic events in the early 17th century crushed their burgeoning religion in this most religious land. Eventually Catholics made a small comeback, but nowadays devotees of the

James Jeffrey: Djibouti revisited

February 23, 2017

Addis Ababa Escaping my cramped, clammy hotel room in Djibouti just wasn’t possible one evening. I sorely wanted to – this Horn of Africa coastal port is an intriguing place to wander as a journalist – and no one was stopping me. No one, that is, except the cast of the 1980s Brideshead Revisited television

Is journalism worse than war?

November 03, 2016

On a seemingly relaxing Sunday afternoon at an Ethiopian friend’s house, I received a phone call with news that earlier that day more than 100 people had drowned or been crushed to death. A stampede had ensued at an annual festival – to which I’d been invited with the press pack – after protesters and

What secular charities can’t do

August 11, 2016

As tears emerge behind the slit of 20-year-old Gada’s black face veil, Marianne Vecchione, a Catholic missionary, reaches over and clasps her hand in both of hers. After more than a minute’s silence, Gada still can’t answer the question: “How bad was it in Yemen before you left?” Escalation of the war there led to

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