|
Sign up to our Weekly Newsletter.
 |
|
Isabel de BertodanoBengali Hindus have been celebrating the biggest festival in their calendar, when worship of the female divine is paramount. Other Eastern religions also believe that a woman is a vehicle for divine presence on earth. But are Hindus right to draw parallels with the Virgin Mary? Free
From the editor’s desk
| What women wear Free Hostility and rejection based on religion are part of the history of the Catholic community in Great Britain. It was in living memory, for instance, that nuns in the streets of Britain could expect to be insulted, jostled or even stoned. There is therefore ... | Marriage a la mode |
|
Features
 The Korean mouse that roared Free Michael ByersNorth Korea?s announcement this week that it has carried out a nuclear test has shocked the world, arousing universal condemnation. It has also exposed the frailty of international diplomacy in the face of intransigence. Could this be the start of a new arms race?... | God?s love unfoldingThe understanding that our good works are performed in response to a divine initiative, and are prompted by the gift of God?s favour, is built into the structure of this prayer. Daniel McCarthy?s analysis shows how the human and the divine do not ultimately run in parallel, but intertwine...
|
4,000 veils in Blackburn, LancashireChris ChiversWhen Jack Straw, MP of a town with one of the largest ethnic populations in Britain, said he prefers Muslim women to remove their veils at his constituency surgery it attracted both opprobrium and approbation. The timing may not have been right but Straw?s concerns must be addressed...
| Englishman at the CouncilArthur WellsLast month marked the twentieth anniversary of the death of Christopher Butler OSB. He would have been a popular choice for Archbishop of Westminster and many believed that, like Newman in old age, he would receive a red hat. Instead he left the Church an enduring legacy...
|
 In solitude for companyElena CurtiFamous for her TV programmes and books on art, the Carmelite nun Sr Wendy Beckett has now written about a subject that is almost too close to her heart to discuss ? prayer. She talks to Elena Curti about the pains and joys of writing... | For enquiring minds ? and heartsDiana KleinConfirmation preparation allows a church to connect with its adolescents in a way that sidesteps stereotypes and answers some of the universal social and spiritual
concerns that come to the fore with particular urgency in these years
...
|
Becoming real in a mysterious worldJohn WijngaardsIn his Regensburg lecture, Benedict XVI asserted that St Thomas Aquinas? philosophy should remain a mainstay of Christian thinking. But, says this Thomist scholar, the Pope?s argument is flawed...
|
|
|
|
|
Columnists
 Clifford Longley?There is little room for discretion in favour of community penalties and against custody?  Christopher Howse?Revealed divine command is not irrational, but it is (like a plate of horse) unpalatable?
|
Books and arts
Long wessex road to destiny Free
Thomas Hardy: the time-torn man
Claire Tomalin
This book begins with a death - that of Thomas Hardy's first wife, Emma. They had been estranged for some time: although they still lived together, they had separate rooms and ... |
|
|
|
Can the Church support abuse victims on its own terms?
Elena Curti
The clear message that emerged from the symposium on child sexual abuse held in Rome from ... Is the Church too slow in recognising that academies are the future for Catholic schools?
Christopher Lamb
According to the chairman of governors at the Cardinal Vaughan School, west London, one ... Goodwin the scapegoat
Elena Curti
There was an old Sixties TV series, Branded, about a disgraced soldier that always began ...
|
|
|
