| Conscience and the whip Free The Government Chief Whip, Geoff Hoon, has been asked by Catholic Labour MPs to extend the categories under which they are allowed a "conscience" vote to include various issues raised in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill ... | Towards a child-friendly UK |
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Features
 Softly, softly Free Gerald O’Collins A teaching document published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith yesterday provides a seasonal wake-up call to evangelise. But it maintains a more conciliatory tone than its ‘One True Church’ document issued last July that upset leaders of other Churches... |  Hymns for a thousand tonguesAndrew Bradstock ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ is one of our most popular carols and has even inspired the design of this year’s Christmas stamps. Its composer, Charles Wesley, born 300 years ago this month, is one of the most celebrated hymn writers in the English language, yet he remains in the shadow of his brother, John... |
 We are what we buildJohn Merivale The best design is the embodiment of our beliefs, from our notion of aesthetics to Christian ethos. And a new church building or religious house is a way for faith to engage the culture in which it finds itself. According to one architect, the nuns of Stanbrook have managed it, but others haven’t... | Converted by the penRobert HarveyNewly published letters between a deeply devout poet, the Marchesa Maria Curtopassi, and one of Italy’s leading anticlerical intellectuals, Benedetto Croce, reveal the sincerity of his acceptance of the existence of God. The surprising result has been a message of reconciliation from the Vatican...
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 Transformed by God’s lightSr Wendy Beckett A friend’s skilful detective work enabled Wendy Beckett to track down the most elusive pre-iconoclastic icons of Mary in Rome. Among them is a Madonna and Child finally brought to light after being hidden under later layers of paint... | Kabul at the crossroadsRaymond WhitakerGordon Brown’s new aid package for Afghanistan is a rejection of a ‘muddling through’ strategy. And as our correspondent discovered, it’s a much needed policy. Unemployment is high, money has been squandered, and the Taliban is resurgent...
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 At the heart of hopeD. Vincent Twomey One of Benedict XVI’s former students and a current member of the influential Ratzinger-Schülerkreis analyses the Pope’s second encyclical,
Spe Salvi, which he argues highlights the most urgent need of our day... | On the thresholdPeter McGrailAll transitions take time, and Advent is a period of transition par excellence.
It is possible to embrace the uncertainties and unresolved issues typical of such times and recognise them in the season’s liturgies
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Fulfilling his planDaniel McCarthyThe Prayer over the Gifts for the third week in Advent recalls God’s
gift of himself to us in the Incarnation, as Daniel McCarthy explains. The mystery hidden for generations is at last revealed...
|  In God they trustGerard Baker Religion continues to play an integral part in American politics. But, as the Mormon candidate Mitt Romney is finding out, it increasingly has to be the ‘right’ sort of religion... |
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Columnists
 Tim Hames‘To deny people a choice on a ballot does not fit well with the “new politics”’  Nicholas Pyke‘The plan is a quiet acknowledgement that a decade of policies has been futile’
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Books and arts
New battle for the soul of Europe Free
God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s religious crisis
Philip Jenkins
The Moor's last sigh" marks the site near Granada where the last Muslim king of Spain is said to have wept as he contemplated the ruin of a once great civilisation, overwhelmed ... |
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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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