A life too burdensome

Last month the Italian poet and muscular dystrophy sufferer Piergiorgio Welby was granted his wish when a doctor turned off the ventilator that had been keeping him alive. The Church refused Welby a Catholic funeral. But did this refusal accord with the Church?s teaching on when a person can be allowed to die?...

The true Nun?s Story

Her starring role in The Nun?s Story was one of Audrey Hepburn?s most remarkable performances. Behind that film and the novel on which it was based was a moving true story of vocation, faith and friendship, as a new play reveals...

Jewels snatched from the liturgical crown

For the first time this year, the Feast of the Epiphany will be celebrated in England and Wales not on the old established date of 6 January but on the nearest Sunday. It is a decision that some see as the symptom of a Church lacking in confidence...

Troubleshooter of the North

Robin Eames is stepping down after 20 years as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. His years on the political front line, encouraging communication between Protestants and Catholics, have borne fruit. But, as he tells Chris Ryder, his successor still faces difficult challenges...

Why I emigrated to Haifa

Driven out of Britain by her perception of increasing anti-Semitism, one of the United Kingdom?s leading Jewish academics has paradoxically found peace in the Israeli city that suffered most from last year?s conflict in Lebanon...

Our guided journey

The Magi travelled by the light of faith towards the adoration of the Christ Child in Bethlehem. The prayer for the Epiphany Mass, as Daniel McCarthy shows, expresses the way the path of our own life, illuminated by divine light, approaches the contemplation of the beauty of God...

The future needs resolve

It is necessary to think, talk, organise and plan if the community is to be helped towards a properly Christian sense of itself and towards a more fully Christian way of behaving...