This time, at least it was not about sex. That is almost the only comforting fact to emerge from the fiasco in the Polish Catholic Church over the appointment of a new Archbishop of Warsaw. The dramatic last-minute withdrawal of Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus has damaged the reputation of Pope Benedict, who at best acted in good faith on bad advice, at worst ignored all the warning signs he should have seen. By his own admission, Archbishop Wielgus had been less than totally frank about his involvement with the SB, the Polish secret police under Communism. The exact nature of that involvement is still unclear, but his lack of candour was itself a sufficient disqualification. He asked to be forgiven, but had no right then to assume that he had been. So lack of humility seems also to be an issue.

The crisis has further divided the Church in Poland, already split between conservatives and not-so-conservatives (actual progressives, at least among the leadership, are scarce). It has made the Catholic Church look foolish and badly run, with decisions made on the basis of preconceived assumptions rather than on the facts. The Vatican was trying to micro-manage a local Church instead of relying on the judgement of those on the ground with better knowledge. Head office does not always know best.

The Bishop of Plock was already controversial when his name emerged from a tortuous consultation process where there was far from consensus about the best man to succeed Cardinal Glemp. Pope Benedict liked the look of him and decided to back his man, so to speak, regardless. But it is almost impossible for outsiders - even a Pope - to say to what extent certain embarrassing details of an individual's past life are sufficient to discredit him permanently, or are readily forgiven. Context is everything. The struggle in the hearts and minds of the Polish people between their faith and the externally imposed Marxist creed has left deep scars, not least in not knowing who to trust in a climate ...

The strongest argument for the death penalty was the simple invocation of the name of Hitler - or in more recent days, Saddam Hussein. What fate but death could possibly be appropriate for the world's most wicked men? But the appalling images and stories from Saddam Hussein's actual execution chamber in Baghdad have dramatically reversed the argument. Here was irrefutable proof that execution dehumanises not ...

Every human person is a someone, not a something. The essence of Benedict XVI's New Year message for peace is this simple affirmation that shows how close contemporary concerns for human rights are to gospel values. The Pope's particular point this year was that observance of human rights is the only sure route to peace, together with a warning that an inadequate grounding for the doctrine of rights quickly ...

Should the Government regard stable marriage as better than all other forms of family structure, particularly single parenthood and unmarried partnerships? This is the first question brought up by the publication of an interim report of the Conservative Party's Social Justice Policy Group, and the answer is undoubtedly "yes". It is not only Christian teaching that says that a permanent commitment between ...

Serious issues are raised by the Government's proposals to forbid discrimination on the grounds of homosexuality, particularly as they are likely to impact on the work of church welfare agencies. The Catholic Church is not alone in finding a key requirement - that voluntary adoption agencies treat homosexual couples on the same basis as married heterosexuals - an uncomfortable challenge to its moral convictions. ...