| Hope and the Kingdom Free Pope Benedict XVI's lucid and profound encyclical Spe Salvi - "Saving Hope" - failed to gain much notice in the secular media but deserves serious attention in the Church, both for what it says and for what it signals. Of the three theological ... | A way out of the mire |
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Features
 A virtue saved from neglect Free Bruce Williams Hope is the poor relation of faith and charity, its fellow theological virtues, and the Pope’s encyclical Spe Salvi focuses our attention on it once more, emphasising how life-changing it can be. A Dominican theologian here points also to wider implications for the Church... |  Sense of justiceConor Gearty A new commission replacing those overseeing racial equality, disability rights and equal opportunities has been given a vast range of tasks, but the real surprise is the reappearance of a language of human rights. Will the divide within its remit cause internal tension within this new super-body?... |
Bringing Iran in from the coldIan LindenAmerican intelligence reports this week claimed that Iran has stalled on its nuclear programme. President Bush remains unconvinced that the country is no longer a threat. But one alternative that could yet enhance peace in the region is for the West to adopt a more conciliatory approach...
| Patrons of the political artsSigmund SternbergThe case of David Abrahams has focused attention once more on the way political parties are funded in Britain, and the influence that donations might have on MPs. Here, a major donor to Labour argues that the time has come for benefactors to step aside and let the state take over...
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And what of this world?Tom WrightThe Pope’s encyclical on hope provides a moving account of this theological virtue. From an Anglican perspective, writes the Bishop of Durham, it offers a surprising account of purgatory but disappointingly little about the renewal of the earth or the coming of the kingdom...
|  Putin marches onKonstantin Eggert The United Russia landslide in parliamentary elections this week, which were effectively a referendum on the president, will allow him to hang on to the reins of power, even though he is barred from standing in next year’s presidential elections... |
Not by our merits aloneDaniel McCarthyAs Advent continues, this Prayer over the Gifts reflects on our dependence on God and the need for his mercy. Our hope is in his tenderness and his generosity towards us, a generosity made manifest at Christmas. Daniel McCarthy is our guide to the prayer...
| Christ’s protector and ours, tooSr Wendy BeckettOne of the eight surviving pre-iconoclastic images of Mary is to be found in a museum in Kiev. In her second reflection in our Advent series, Wendy Beckett gazes on a sixth-century icon of the Virgin and Child that reflects the totality of God’s love...
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Wait, and seeDavid RobertsFor some people the Christmas story is their only contact with the Gospel.Advent provides, literally, a God-given opportunity to engage with the Christian message in an ever deeper way...
|  In hope we were savedPope Benedict XVI This is an edited version of Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi, published in Rome on 30 November... |
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Columnists
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Books and arts
Meeting of minds and dreams Free
Fr Victor White, OP: the story of Jung’s ‘White Raven’
Clodagh Weldon
In Thomist theology, evil is regarded as absence of good, privatio boni, a doctrine never easy to accept. On the other hand, what is the alternative? Are we caught up in a cosmic ... |
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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 ... The pain of being a coeliac Catholic
Sr M, guest contributor
"Whoever comes to me, I shall not turn (him) her away" (John 6:37). Many readers will recognise ...
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