Cafod, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, is a success story the Catholic Church in England and Wales can be proud of. Indeed, such is the quality of its staff that Lesley-Anne Knight, head of its international office, has just been elected secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, the world's second-largest aid organisation after the Red Cross. She succeeds Duncan McLaren, who in an interview with The Tablet just before its recent General Assembly called somewhat prophetically for a greater role in the organisation for women. He also questioned whether its internal structures were "fit for purpose", and Ms Knight made an urgent plea to the Assembly for their overhaul.

Caritas Internationalis' strength relies largely on the success of its constituent agencies, all 162 of them, such as Cafod in England and Wales and Catholic Relief Services in the United States. Its devotion to subsidiarity is admirable, and means that it can take on the distinct flavour of local churches. There is no doubt, for instance, that part of the success of Cafod comes from the sense of its ownership by the Catholic community in England and Wales. Merely to be the local branch of a vast international organisation would be to lose this distinctiveness. And in policy formation, unlike the more general character of the Catholic Church, ideas flow as freely upwards as they flow down. When Ms Knight calls for a new mandate,  she may find herself dealing with different expectations from the local grass roots than from the Vatican, with which Caritas Internationalis has formal links. But these are good tensions to have in an international body like this one.

On the other hand Caritas International may find itself punching below its weight in the global arena precisely because it does not have a single identity and a single name. It would surely be acceptable to Catholic supporters of Cafod, for instance, if it became known as Cafod-Caritas. Such a small adjustment ...

Democracy is not entirely understood by the Catholic Church. During the 2004 presidential election in the United States, certain Catholic bishops intervened to warn Catholic electors not to back Senator John Kerry because, despite his personal opposition to abortion, he refused to impose that view via legislation. They threatened to withhold Holy Communion from him if the opportunity presented itself. That was the ...

The snatching of a small child from its loving parents is an unfathomable act of evil, which is why the world has been so moved by the plight of the McCann family these last four weeks - moved also by their dignity and faith, and by their utter determination to restore their four-year-old daughter Madeleine to their arms. Any minute their search could end in the joy of her recovery or the grief of finding her dead ...

The very limited progress made by the American troop surge in Iraq means President Bush is fast running out of options. Under pressure in Congress and from public opinion to withdraw, he instead sent in reinforcements, following advice from his army commanders that lack of troops on the ground was the reason that parts of central Iraq, including areas of Baghdad, were slipping out of anybody's control ...