Tony Abbott’s new role as senior trade advisor to the UK government has sparked controversy. Russell T Davies, the Dr Who screenwriter, and Sir Ian McKellan won’t be pleased at the confirmation that Tony Abbott, the former Australian PM, is to be a trade envoy for the British Government. They, and two dozen other people

Melanie McDonagh reviews The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos, by Sohrab Ahmari

Generous benefits for married couples and subsidised child care are helping to reverse population decline

The appeal of the Catholic Church to converts goes far beyond aesthetics, says Melanie McDonagh

Honest depictions of misdeeds and their repercussions happen so rarely, but the National Gallery got it right, says Melanie McDonagh

Underlying the medieval images of courtly love featuring unicorns we find Christ and his mother.

Even before we had the benefit of the Pope’s views on civil unions, we had a new encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, which was an opportunity for him to opine about the subjects close to him – openness to migrants and hostility to nationalism, for instance. However, it ended up as the occasion for a terrific fuss

59 per cent of those responding said they support changing the law to allow terminally ill and incurably suffering adults the option of a legal assisted death.

The exhibition explains the Christian concept of sin and salvation to an audience that may never have heard it before

John Finnis looks back on a public storm - and on his lifetime studying philosophy, law and Catholic teaching

The Global God Divide is the Pew Research Foundation’s new report on religion. Most of us, without reading a word of it, would probably guess quite correctly what it says. Europeans, and people in related Anglophone countries (Canada and Australia) are less religious than anywhere else. Poorer countries care more about God than rich ones.

For the political philosopher Larry Siedentop, “the only thing worse than religion is its absence”. And it’s the absence of religion right now that concerns him: specifically any understanding of Christianity. Because for him – and this is the argument of his most celebrated book, Inventing the Individual – it is Christianity that has formed

John Hume, the statesman and peacemaker who has died at the age of 83, was for a time a candidate for the priesthood in Maynooth seminary. He left, and subsequently married Pat Hone, but in the words of his political colleague Seamus Mallon, there was “a tinge of a cleric about him”. Mallon was referring