In 1866, when Pope Pius IX’s secretary of state learned that the Habsburgs had lost the Battle of Sadowa, he exclaimed “Casca il mondo!” – the world is collapsing. “Good God,” he cried out as he struck his face, “what is to become of us?” For decades, the popes had positioned themselves as the spiritual

Cardinal Sarah's opponents have attacked his views and called for his sacking. His response has been a gracious silence

A growing crowd wants Cardinal Robert Sarah’s head on a platter. Open a liberal Catholic periodical and you are likely to find a call for the dismissal of the Guinean cardinal who heads the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship: “It’s past time for [Pope Francis] to replace Cardinal Sarah” (Maureen Fiedler, National Catholic Reporter); “New

How my boyhood anti-Catholicism came to an unlikely end

Post-Vatican II ugliness coincided with a collapse in the Church’s ministry to the marginalised. When beauty returns, so will Catholicism’s universal appeal

It is no secret that Catholic worship has become less beautiful. JF Powers, the impish Catholic writer, counted as dear friends many artists who were enthusiastic about liturgical reform at the time of Vatican II. As much as he loved and admired them, he could not approve their work. When he attended Mass at St

Should Christians regard the Trump presidency with hope or trepidation?

On the night of Barack Obama’s election in 2008, the Princeton campus erupted in ecstatic shrieks and sighs. I had not voted for Obama, and I hated much of what he stood for (“marriage equality”, “the right to choose”, “data”, all that). But as students streaked by the window, I felt a touch of faith,

It is embarrassing to recall that I didn’t think my grandparents were Christians. They were Catholics, you see, and so I believed that they worshipped the chipped statue of Mary that stood atop their China hutch. I must even have thought that they intended to hoist themselves into heaven with the rosaries that hung on

At the centre of the china cabinet in my grandparents’ farmhouse, amid porcelain, crystal, and family portraits, stands a plate painted with the images of Jackie and John F Kennedy. For people in their household and countless others, the Kennedys were a symbol of arrival and achievement, a sign of a time when it was

Catholic women used to wield colossal power. The Pope's commission alone can't bring back those days

You might think that progressives would be rejoicing under the current pontificate. Instead, they are fretting about the future