Opinion Archives - Catholic Herald

Opinion

September 14, 2021
Nick Thomas

Has the pandemic got the better of the business two-piece?

August 29, 2021
Niall Gooch

The internal debate about the Latin Mass has little effect on the Church’s outreach and is unlikely to reverse the decline of Catholicism in the West

Suppression of the Traditional Rite

August 26, 2021
Jaspreet Singh Boparai

With the clergy seemingly intent on blotting out tradition, the Church finds itself engaged in another unedifying culture war

Kneel before God, not the NHS

August 20, 2021
Gavin Ashenden

Former Anglican priest Gavin Ashenden is disappointed by the promotion of secular worship by the Church of England

The Vatican’s trials: Pell’s Redemption

August 04, 2021
Melanie McDonagh

Melanie McDonagh on how the Vatican Trial of the century highlights the injustice to Cardinal Pell

Threats to the Extraordinary Form

August 01, 2021
The Catholic Herald

Pope Benedict lived up to his title of pontifex, or bridge-builder, when he allowed the wider use of the Tridentine rite – more properly the Extraordinary Form of the Mass – in the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum of 2007. There has been 13 years for this concession to advance its stated aim: to foster reconciliation

Mending a fractured American Church

July 30, 2021
The Catholic Herald

The US Bishops’ Conference is to issue a teaching document “on the beauty and power of the Eucharist”. It is overdue. In 2019, a Pew survey suggested that barely a third of US Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is a scandal, evidence of a failure of grassroots catechisis,

The Extraordinary Form: a call to arms

July 29, 2021
Joseph Shaw

Rumours have been circulating that Pope Francis is planning some kind of restriction on the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (EF), the “Traditional Mass”. This form of the liturgy clearly still has opponents in the Church. Its supporters regard it as, potentially, being a key driver of the Church’s revival, because of the counter-cultural zeal

Four Reasons Francis had to restrict the traditional Latin Mass

July 21, 2021
Msgr Eric Barr

This opinion piece will not be tactfully phrased. Many essays in the past few days have tried to balance both positive and negative views of Traditionis Custodes, the new motu proprio issued by Pope Francis concerning the traditional Latin Mass. This article reflects my experience from the trenches. (I was my diocese’s vicar for clergy

Francis could do what he did, but that’s not the crucial thing

July 21, 2021
Robert P. George

Pope Francis has placed very significant restrictions on the saying of the old Mass, abrogating the much more permissive or generous policy of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI. It is the pope’s call to make. I hope people will accept it or work within proper channels to modify the restrictions. Pope Francis himself could reverse

Don’t apologise for the inquisition

July 21, 2021
Lessons From the Archives

Reviewing a book called Inquisition: The Reign of Fear by Toby Green, Quentin de la Bedoyere warns against apologetic attempts to rationalize the Spanish Inquisition. He was the science editor of the Catholic Herald, and the son of Michael, who edited the newspaper from 1934 to 1962. The review was titled “Inquisition apologists are missing

Summorum Pontificum a restoration after a gross impoverishment

July 18, 2021
Lessons From the Archives

Though it has just been rejected by his successor, Benedict XVI’s motu propio Summorum Pontificum made many people happy when he issued it in 2007. Liturgical scholar Alcuin Reid celebrated the statement as a needed application of the real intentions of the Second Vatican Council. He had reason to say this. A monk of the

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