Posts By Date - Catholic Herald

January 02, 2024

Here, there and everywhere: it’s a grand life, if one doesn’t weaken

January 02, 2024

On a sunny day, West Knock International Airport (which is rather a grand title for what amounts to a couple of runways and sheds in a field in County Mayo) must surely have one of the most picturesque landing approaches in the world: all verdant green grass with cotton-wool sheep, azure blue skies and the

Catholicism and the corrida: a response

January 02, 2024

The Catholic Church must sever its ties with bullfighting, argues Fr Terry Martin. Pope Francis famously wrote in Laudato Si’ that “Every act of cruelty towards any creature is contrary to human dignity.” Paragraph 2418 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church also states: “[I]t is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer

‘On the tenth day of Christmas my true love sent to me’…A Wassail Cup for a party

January 02, 2024

Since the celebrations are still going on, the following beverage is drunk as part of the tradition of “wassailing”, an ancient English Yuletide drinking ritual that “has been practised in Britain for centuries”, notes the National Trust. Ingredients can be scaled down to suit numbers: 6 pints brown ale (3.4 litres) 1 lb (450 g)

Fit for a King: the beginnings of Christian iconography

January 02, 2024

Charles Scribner reflects on the beginnings of Christian iconography, starting at the crib. Ever since I was a schoolboy soprano, my favourite chorus in all music was Haydn’s triumphal setting of the opening of Psalm XIX, the climax of Part 1 of his Creation: “The heavens are telling the glory of God: the wonder of

‘England and The Papacy in the Early Middle Ages’, by Benjamin Savill

January 02, 2024

England and The Papacy in the Early Middle Ages Benjamin Savill Oxford University Press, £83, 352 pages Relations between England and the papacy famously go back to the early beginnings of both the English nation and the English Church, at least as far as the official mythologising of each would have it. “Non angli,” quipped

Dealing with war and refugees as a priest in Rhodes and Israel

January 02, 2024

The island of Rhodes, in the Aegean Sea, has always been a gateway between East and West. As the parish priest here for the past 23 years, I have learned to adjust to the ebb and flow of the movement of people and to serve them in the best way I can. Migrants and refugees

Encounters: Experiences with non-human intelligences

January 02, 2024

Encounters: Experiences with non-human intelligences DW Pasulka St Martin’s Essentials, £21.99, 256 pages It is tempting to dismiss this as a very silly book. Its style manages to be both breathless and repetitive as the author tries her utmost to persuade you that she is about to reveal something momentous. Unsurprisingly, given the principle subject

The Seven Deadly Sins

January 02, 2024

Anthony Kenny introduces our new mini-series. Moralists and theologians enjoy attaching numbers to quite abstract entities, such as the Four Cardinal Virtues and the Seven Deadly Sins. The enthusiasm for enumerations can be seen already in Plato. He set out three parts of the soul: reason, temper and appetite. Each part had its characteristic virtue:

One of the Herald’s chaplains answers your questions: Tackling religious ‘myths’

January 02, 2024

Our daughter, Felicity, is starting Year 9. She is really good at science and wants to be an engineer. Getting her to Mass hasn’t been easy for a while. Last Sunday she told us she is never going again and refuses to be confirmed. She asked how we could possibly believe in “those religious myths”,

Culture wars are nothing new: Mince pies were popish abominations to Cromwell’s Puritans

January 02, 2024

With the Christmas period continuing through to early January, might I urge Catholics to “hold the line” – to keep their trees and decorations up and to keep their supply of mulled wine and mince pies abundant. These things are important – though folk may not realise it, they’re at the centre of a long

The battle for Ireland’s Catholic soul will not slacken in 2024

January 02, 2024

Literary critic Harold Bloom said that all poets must confront their precursors in a type of “Oedipal struggle in order to create an imaginative space for themselves”. He felt that those who came late to the scene of cultural upheaval go through a process of “misreading” their predecessors. It appears as if progressive Ireland