Posts By Date - Catholic Herald

November 23, 2017

A funeral Mass is more than a consoling memorial

November 23, 2017

People don't like to think of Purgatory - but praying for the dead is an important act of charity

If church schools won’t fight the cult of gender ideology, who will?

November 23, 2017

Gender relativism is an abdication of responsibility and a threat to the teaching of truth

‘The belief context has become much weaker’: an interview with Gabriele Finaldi

November 23, 2017

The National Gallery director on religious art, family singalongs, and the Marian painting that survived the Puritans

Can Catholic schools resist the new gender confusion?

November 23, 2017

Our schools are under pressure to accept radical new ideas. Will they succumb?

The courageous few

November 23, 2017

Portsmouth council voted by 33-1 last week to seek a ban on pro-life vigils. Bishop Philip Egan, who took part in a vigil in the city just last month, offered a chilling assessment of the vote. “The council’s decision,” he said, “is yet another example of the ever more draconian restrictions being placed by our

The big story of the past seven days

November 23, 2017

✣ Australia votes for same-sex marriage What happened? Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney has said he is “deeply disappointed” after Australia voted for same-sex marriage. In a postal vote, the Yes side won by a margin of 62 to 38 per cent, gaining 7,817,247 votes against the No campaign’s 4,873,987. Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has

The best of the Catholic blogosphere

November 23, 2017

✣ Highlights from the week online 113 years and still thankful to the Lord The oldest person in France is reputedly a nun, Sister André, who at the age of 113 lives in a retirement home for religious in Toulon. La Croix interviewed Sister André (it was translated by Catholic News Agency), and heard her

Papal reform ‘will upset people’, says archbishop

November 23, 2017

Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark has said that Pope Francis’s reforms on liturgical translation are “going to upset some people”, but that the bishops welcome the change. At a press conference after the bishops’ annual plenary meeting, Archbishop Smith was asked about the Pope’s motu proprio, Magnum Principium, which gives bishops’ conferences more power to

Priest: we have to abandon the word ‘Christmas’

November 23, 2017

An Irish priest has urged Catholics to abandon the word “Christmas”, saying that its meaning has been hijacked. Fr Desmond O’Donnell told the Belfast Telegraph last week: “We’ve lost Christmas, just like we lost Easter, and should abandon the word completely. “We need to let it go. It’s already been hijacked and we just need

‘Draconian’ crackdown on pro-lifers alarms bishop

November 23, 2017

Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth has expressed dismay at efforts to ban pro-life vigils outside an abortion clinic in his diocese. The bishop said a recent decision by Portsmouth City Council was part of “ever more draconian restrictions” on freedom of religious expression. The council voted 33-1 to do “all within its powers” to prevent

Zimbabwe leaders hope for ‘birth of a new nation’

November 23, 2017

The president of Zimbabwe’s Catholic bishops’ conference has joined other Christian leaders in calling the departure of Robert Mugabe an “opportunity for the birth of a new nation”. The Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations, which includes Bishop Michael Bhasera, conference president, and Fr Frederick Chiromba, its general secretary, appealed for an interim government to be

The poor are our ‘passport to paradise’, says Pope

November 23, 2017

People have a basic choice in the way they live: either striving to build up treasures on earth or giving to others in order to gain heaven, Pope Francis has said. “What we invest in love remains, the rest vanishes,” the Pope said in his homily on Sunday, the first World Day of the Poor.