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Catholic medical community ‘deeply concerned’ by Biden’s nursing home plan
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Catholic medical community ‘deeply concerned’ by Biden’s nursing home plan
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Catholic medical community ‘deeply concerned’ by Biden’s nursing home plan
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Niall Gooch

Bending the rules in children’s literature
June 01, 2023
In common with most parents, I have devoted considerable time and energy to teaching my children that stealing is wrong, that they should obey the law, and that they ought to try hard at school because education is important. I have also read them, with great enthusiasm and delight, the following books. Danny, The Champion
Clergy ID cards are nothing more than a gimmick
May 16, 2023
France has traditionally been regarded as “la fille aînée de l’Église”, the oldest daughter of the Church, reflecting the fact that there have been Christians there, in communion with Rome, since the second century. Irenaeus of Lyon, who died in 202AD, was one of the first great defenders of orthodox faith, having been taught by
The Green Man on the King’s card
May 12, 2023
In the weeks leading up to the coronation, 2,000 invitations landed on doormats across the UK and the wider world. Perhaps in a last few citadels of Old England they were carried into oak-panelled breakfast rooms on silver trays by liveried footmen – or perhaps not. Either way, the design of the invitation is striking
Why Pope Francis chose Hungary for his speech on ‘ideological colonisation’
May 01, 2023
A year or two ago I speculated about whether Pope Francis had intended a snub to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán by only visiting his country very briefly. It seems I was wrong because the Holy Father has been enjoying a rather longer stay in Hungary in the last few days. Part of his agenda was
What will the Pontifical Academy for Life conclude on the use of artificial intelligence?
April 11, 2023
In recent months, there has been a lot of discussion on social media of artificial intelligence, or AI, following the release of extremely powerful new forms of the technology. Programmes like ChatGPT can write complex essays and poems, create fake photographs and videos, and sustain convincing conversations on many different subjects.  Just a few days
How to properly encounter beauty, truth and goodness
March 28, 2023
Easter Monday will be my 40th birthday. Inevitably, reaching such milestones is liable to induce a certain amount of reflection on what one has made of life so far, and what still remains to be done. I don’t think I have anything remarkable to add to such a well-worn subject. However, as I reach what
The German synod’s plan for a Church without boundaries
March 15, 2023
One way and another, becoming a parent is an extremely reliable confirmer of common sense. A few of the obvious ones include: boys and girls are generally different; too much passive screen entertainment is bad for you; getting what you want all the time makes you dissatisfied and spoiled.  Just recently I have been musing
It is easy to get distracted from what really matters in life
March 04, 2023
It is easy to get distracted from what really matters in life For the first week of February, chez Gooch was a plague house. All of us were ill with a nasty gastric flu. My six-year-old daughter, normally a dynamo, spent an entire day lying on the sofa. During this enforced sojourn, she engaged in
The undiscussed impact of abortion on the economy 
February 01, 2023
Even as the Tory government stumbles resignedly towards what will probably be a cataclysmic defeat in the next election – some opinion polls suggest they will lose more than 250 seats – reformers on the political right are setting out ideas to solve the country’s big problems; low birth rates, low productivity and low economic
The enduring power of the Christian funeral
January 09, 2023
I have heard it said that every funeral, whatever the scale and whatever the setting, ought to be in some sense a confrontation with death. Modern secular funerals increasingly dodge that confrontation, with growing trends for bright colours, upbeat songs and relaxed dress codes. Jokes and light-hearted eulogies are the order of the day. The
January blues
January 01, 2023
How our spiritual resources help us endure the bleak midwinter
‘Christmas, A Message of Hope’: a GB News special for the festive weekend
December 23, 2022
The fading of Christian faith as a vital force in modern Britain is nowhere more evident than in the broadcast media; its growing coarseness and profanity, its reliance on sentimentality and its worship at the altar of the Self. Even when religious matters are mentioned or discussed, it tends to be through the lens of
Christian culture must be defended at all costs
November 17, 2021
The end of Christendom will bring many trials and difficulties for Catholics
Can the “Synod on Synodality” help the church?
October 27, 2021
Will the "synod on synodality" be helpful or constructive for the Church?
On the urgent need for better homilies
October 14, 2021
The length, style and quality of homilies is a subject for debate within the Church
The Assisted Dying Bill poses a murderous threat to society
September 25, 2021
Once we have admitted into law the principle that patients can be intentionally killed, it is very difficult to control the wider application of that principle.
Why Catholics need rituals
September 09, 2021
On the last day of the summer term, it was prize-giving at my children’s school. The chapel was full of youngsters, scrubbed and polished and shining in their best uniforms. The Head Boy and the Head Girl wore their gowns of office. The Headmaster and the Chairman of the Governors were also dressed for the
In praise of ‘an odd-looking building’
April 24, 2021
Westminster Cathedral is not only one of the finest churches in the capital, but one of London’s best buildings of any kind. The exterior is glorious, with its neo-Byzantine domes and bold patterning. The mosaic over the west door — liturgical west, at any rate — portraying Christ the King is quite unlike anything I’ve
In praise of church ladies
April 13, 2021
After Mass on Easter Sunday, a sweet elderly woman came up to us and gave each of my children £2 because they had been so well-behaved and because she wouldn’t have a chance to see her own grandchildren this Easter. I say this not to boast about my children’s behaviour in church, which is, shall
Investigating a local saint
April 09, 2021
About twenty minutes’ drive from my house is St Augustine’s golf course, near Ramsgate in Kent. If you make a mess of your approach to the green on the eighteenth hole, your ball may end up in a small enclosure between the fairway and a minor road. This enclosure, bound by an elderly wooden fence
A grammar of longing
April 01, 2021
It seems very apt somehow that some of the key milestones in the easing of the Covid-19 restrictions should fall around Easter. Monday of Holy Week saw the resumption of outdoor sport and the beginning of the end of the strict ban on close-quarters household mixing. The first Monday after the end of the Easter
Why should Catholics care about Jordan Peterson?
March 25, 2021
If you spend any time at all on social media, you have probably heard of Jordan Peterson, the Canadian academic. Until about five years ago he was a fairly obscure figure, outside of his field of psychology. He had a successful academic career in the US and Canada, and wrote a highly ambitious book of
Finding fault, seeking grievance
March 18, 2021
The prolific Evangelical writer Adrian Plass, best known for his gentle satires of Christian foibles, invents in one of his books a short ditty: Freely I confess my sins, For God has poured his grace in. But when another lists my faults, I want to smash his face in. Many a true word spoke in
The real solution to empty churches
March 11, 2021
A short video was doing the rounds on Twitter a few weeks back, showing the demolition of a French church, the Chapelle Saint Joseph, in Lille. The video shows the east end of the church already gone and the chancel gaping open, as a JCB with a long extendable arm crashes its way through the
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