SPIRITED THINKING SINCE 1888
Arts
The virtue of games
June 28, 2022
Nick Ripatrazone
Catholic education includes an emphasis on cultivation of the body through sport, says Nick Ripatrazone, introducing the young to fortitude and justice
Jack Kerouac at 100
June 28, 2022
Benjamin Ivry
The American writer Jack Kerouac, whose centenary fell this year, was adamant about the Catholic inspiration of his work, which he repeatedly referred to, in part to disarm his critics. In 1961, Kerouac claimed to one correspondent that his most celebrated novel, On the Road (1957), was “really a story about two Catholic buddies roaming
Off the Beton track: Confession reviewed
June 28, 2022
Arabella Byrne
Arabella Byrne finds Confession to be something of a penance, and longs for a more compelling treatment of the nuances and challenges of the seal
Exaggerated greatness: The Wreckers reviewed
June 25, 2022
Michael White
The most curious thing about Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers – a “neglected” opera, rescued from the shadows for this summer’s Glyndebourne festival – is its morality. Which is distinctly skewed. The curtain rises on an isolated coastal community who, led by their local pastor, seem to be devout. The opening chorus is a testament
On seeking the eternal buzz
June 25, 2022
Karl Gustel Wärnberg
Shane McGowan, the frontman of the Pogues, gives an account of his Irish Catholic roots and faith before the release of his new album
A Conversation in Colour
June 06, 2022
Fiona Campbell Hicks
The Catholic artist Fiona Campbell Hicks introduces an exhibition of iconography, photography and poetry at Farm Street Church, which explores a journey out of the trauma of the Northern Irish Troubles through her own work and that of her late mother, Margaret Campbell Lake Galilee is the lowest-lying lake on earth, and it was there
An “outstanding” opera and some “memorable” interpretations of Bach
June 06, 2022
Michael White
Margaret Attwood’s scary story of existence under a pernicious Christian fundamentalist regime, The Handmaid’s Tale, made grim reading as a novel, was unbearable to watch as a TV series, and wins few converts to theocracy in the operatic adaptation by Danish composer Poul Ruders which has just had a new staging at English National Opera.  Nearly three
A Passion Project
May 27, 2022
Michael White
In Oberammergau, the other week, an entire Bavarian village geared up for the opening of this year’s Passion Play.
O brother, where art thou?
May 27, 2022
Arabella Byrne
Despite its sexual violence, confused plot and distorted Catholic iconography, Arabella Byrne still admires Abel Ferrara’s latest film ‘Zeros and Ones’
Britten’s “Peter Grimes” is a tale for our times
May 02, 2022
Michael White
Covent Garden’s powerful production of “Peter Grimes” pulls no punches, writes Michael White The seaside town of Aldeburgh, in Suffolk, has a little Catholic church with a delightful garden that gets overlooked by visitors. Though many of them come as pilgrims, they are not there for religion. Aldeburgh’s pilgrims come in search of the composer
Warhol’s Catholic tastes
May 02, 2022
Nick Ripatrazone
Nick Ripatrazone finds the latest series about the artist perfectly depicts the startling paradoxes that guided his life and work The final episode of The Andy Warhol Diaries, a new six-part documentary series on Netflix about the pop artist’s life and work, examines how the HIV/Aids epidemic roiled New York City in the Eighties. Bronx
Raphael: A Renaissance genius
May 02, 2022
Gertrude Clarke
Raphael was, as Kenneth Clark put it, “one of the civilising forces of the western imagination”. For many of us, he is best known as the painter of exquisite Madonnas, which feature on artistic Christmas cards, their very familiarity preventing us from seeing them properly. Indeed, the two bored cherubs at the base of the
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