The extract appearing here is from George Cardinal Pell's Prison Journal, Volume 1: The Cardinal Makes His Appeal. George Weigel introduced the work to readers of the Catholic Herald in a short essay, which appeared on our website earlier this week. Both the extract and Weigel's essay are featured in the January / February issue of the Catholic Herald.

Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement this week to work together for the development of Nagorno-Karabakh -- an ethnically Armenian region -- which has been a major theatre in several conflicts, including the war the countries fought last year. The Armenian Ambassador to the Holy See, Garen Nazarian, spoke with the Catholic Herald late last year to provide the Armenian view of the most recent war with Azerbaijan, which broke out last September.

Constance Watson spoke with actor Julian Sands, who can currently be seen in the films The Painted Bird and Yeh Ballet. Mr Sands has just completed work on Terence Davies’ film, Benediction: The Story of Siegfried Sassoon.

Chapter House columnists and contributors to this page share their favorite Christmas story, book, movie, or music.

The cold came on so fast this year. We’d had a couple of cold snaps in northern Appalachia this fall; it even snowed a little on November first. But the real wintry cold came in with a wind storm this weekend. It went from t-shirt weather to near freezing in six hours, and this time

The culture of patronage in the arts has been fundamental to the Church

Long before its collapse became evident, three writers foretold the decline of the Irish Church – and worried about what would come next

St Mary of the Angels in Gloucestershire is a monument to the care and devotion of two remarkable women, says Rachel Morley

St Augustine and Aquinas led Jennifer Frey to the Faith. Now she wants Catholic and contemporary philosophers to ‘talk more to each other’

It was a joy to see a live audience after so long

I’m struck by the way this word has caught on in new guises. It’s a very old word: Chaucer used it, as did Shakespeare; and it became routinely used for any formal break from an activity, such as between university terms. It developed the general meaning of “holiday” in American English during the 19th century,

In 1681, when Charles II’s mistress Nell Gwyn travelled to see the king in Oxford, an angry crowd jostled her coach. In response, Nell pointed out to the crowd that, despite her scandalous relationship with the monarch, she was at least a Protestant. Renowned as a comic actress of considerable skill, Nell’s remark exposed two