The papal nuncio to Great Britain has let it be known he has begun consultations to find a successor to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor as Archbishop of Westminster. In that spirit The Tablet has been publishing a range of opinions from Catholics, lay and clerical, and today we complete the exercise with a list of the names, which - as far as it is possible to tell - the nuncio might be considering. It is necessarily impressionistic and not entirely serious, though we resisted the temptation to tell our readers which members of the animal kingdom each candidate most reminded us of. In any event, nuncios usually profess not to be interested in names, only in the appropriate characteristics - minus zoological references - that people feel he should be looking for.

The new archbishop, who by custom becomes a cardinal not long after appointment, will be for England and Wales the visible face of the Catholic Church, by whose performance and utterances it will largely be judged. With one or two reservations, the field is a good one, perhaps better than on previous occasions. There is a wealth of talent among the bishops of England and Wales, leadership potential in the priories and monasteries of those nations, plenty of good intellects waiting for larger challenges. A willingness to take advice and an openness of mind are to be preferred to a fixed agenda, for Britain is a very complex society that needs constant study if it is to be at all understood. It is a place of paradoxes - secular but not just secular, multicultural but with all the problems of multiculturalism, a place with a firm identity that is unsure of itself. It needs loving in all its complexity and confusion, therefore, by someone who can convincingly project the compassion and humility of Christ.

This is no role for a haughty prelate. One who merely berates the English and Welsh for their ungodliness will not be listened to - vision is always better than condemnation. Nor one whose main concern seems to ...

The most interesting American presidential primary contest in living memory has drawn to a close, with an outcome that 12 months ago would have seemed truly extraordinary. The young Illinois Senator Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan and mother American, has pipped Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and clear favourite last year, to the finishing post, represented by winning a total of 2,118 or more committed delegates ...

Relations between Christians and Muslims have never been more sensitive nor crucial to the peace and prosperity of the planet. Both have their fundamentalists, to whom outright conversion of the other is the only acceptable goal. The mainstream in each case, meanwhile, finds dealing with its own fundamentalists almost as tricky as dealing with the other faith. The Church of England is to debate a motion at its summer ...

Three major events in the past week have offered insights into the family of today and the family of the future. First, there was the wedding of the Queen's grandson, Peter Phillips, and Autumn Kelly, attended by the divorced and remarried parents of both bride and groom, together with their new spouses. It was a complicated situation familiar to many Catholics who suffer as much from marital breakdown as the rest ...

Cardinal John Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster at the time of the publication of Humanae Vitae 40 years ago this summer, described the crisis of authority it triggered as "the greatest shock the Church has suffered since the Reformation". With hindsight that was an exaggeration, though the encyclical brought about a profound change in the way Catholics saw the Church. Remarks a week ago by Pope Benedict ...