Cardinal William Levada, the new head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has yet to gain a reputation as either a hard man or a soft man. But on the basis of one of the most wide-ranging interviews he has given since his appointment last year - he was formerly Archbishop of San Francisco - he is certainly entitled to credit as an open-minded one. If his words (reported on page 27) indicate a general policy, there is a discernible thaw in the theological ice age that marked the papacy of Pope John Paul II. That pope was holy, charismatic, learned and immensely intelligent, and saw himself as parish priest of the world, Polish-style. The downside of this strength was that there was only one opinion that mattered in the Church, and that was his own. His successor, Pope Benedict, had, as Joseph Ratzinger, acted as his doctrinal policeman. In appointing Cardinal Levada he presumably knew what he was getting - a man who admitted in this interview that "the Magisterium is usually far behind on the evolution of moral challenges. Usually the Magisterium won't take a position on issues that evoke opposed opinions that can both claim to stand on solid faith arguments." Perhaps for "won't" one should read "shouldn't".

Cardinal Levada is clearly no fundamentalist. He understood the role of the successors of the apostles as being to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges, in a world where such challenges grow exponentially. "That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another ... The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigating different hypotheses or collecting knowledge, its mission is to give those processes orientation."

It would be a mistake to over-interpret his remarks. He also said, for instance, that the Church has to have a way of ...

Almost the whole burden of preserving the Anglican Communion from schism now rests on the shoulders of the Episcopal Church in the United States. It has about seven months to decide whether to comply with a tough package of conditions drawn up by the Anglican primates in Tanzania this week. If they fail, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will refuse to invite their bishops to the next Lambeth Conference ...

The report by the Von Hügel Institute into the needs of recent Catholic migrants in London throws down a challenge to which the Church must respond. As a result of the accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union and Britain's relatively open-door policy towards them, tens of thousands of mainly young migrants find themselves away from home with only one familiar institution to turn to - the ...

The key subtext to the recent row over the right of Catholic adoption agencies to discriminate against homosexuals was the widespread public perception that the Catholic Church is a homophobic institution - a position reinforced by gay lobby groups, which regard the Church's defeat over the adoption issue as a singular triumph over a powerful enemy.

This ought not to be the case. It would be wise of the ...

The proposed "compromise" by the Government over the fate of Catholic adoption agencies is in truth a defeat for the Catholic Church and a victory for those who have been opposing any exemption to the new regulations against homosexual discrimination. But the Government's position has to be confirmed by Parliament, and MPs have yet to test the strength of Catholic feeling in their constituencies ...