Spain's polarising polls

Elections have consolidated a growing ideological divide on the Iberian peninsula as the returned premier prepares to lock horns with the new traditionalist head of the Spanish bishops’ conference...

Whose cells are they anyway?

Under pressure from scientists, the Government looks set to allow human cells to be used to create hybrid embryos without seeking donors’ consent. Such a move means that even a blood sample could be used to create a cloned embryo ...

Common cause

Discussions between the Catholic Church and human-rights activists have often focused on what divides them. But a recent Dublin conference suggested that what they share is crucial...

Divided we fall

Two Catholic environment campaigners respond to Austin Williams’ accusation of ‘creeping Malthusian misanthropy’ in last week’s Tablet and explain why addressing global warming is essential to the survival of humanity...

Where angels gladly tread

In the past, Catholics walked labyrinths as part of their Lenten observances, and as an aid to prayer. But the history of these twisting paths is as circuitous and mysterious as the patterns themselves...

St Patrik's Day special feature

Ireland in the heart of England - Order on the front line ...

Our own betrayal of Christ

As we consider Judas’ betrayal of Jesus it can be tempting to focus on the failings of others. In this meditation for Holy Week, the late Cardinal Basil Hume reminds us that Christ died not just because of the sin of Judas but because of the sin of the whole world....

Through Passion to glory

We cannot be reconciled to God by our own efforts. But, as Daniel McCarthy explains, through the Incarnation, Christ’s death, and his enthronement ‘at the right hand of God’, humanity is enabled to share in divine life ...

A time to be born

In the past 1,000 years the Pauline imagery of death and resurrection has dominated the liturgy associated with baptism. But the early Church placed a much stronger emphasis on birth and rebirth – right down to the feminine form of the font...

As drunk as a wheelbarrow

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