| Africa awaits a new dawn Free A new Government in Zimbabwe was the necessary but not sufficient condition for rescuing it from the appalling state into which Robert Mugabe has allowed it to sink. He has now blocked regime change by terrorising his opponents, the Movement for Democratic ... | A divided church |
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Features
Can Obama do it for Catholics? Free Michael McGoughIn the last presidential election the Catholic vote was decisive in giving George W. Bush a second term in the White House. But there are signs that Catholics may be deserting the Republicans and the Democrat candidate is making great efforts to woo them...
| What are you doing up there?Aidan RossiterThere is a huge variation in the way that priests preside at Mass, which can range from wonder-filled celebrations to perfunctory walk-throughs. The key is to remember the ancient principles of good liturgy, and that it is not only the laity who must actively participate – it is the priest, too...
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Apostolic defendersDaniel McCarthyThis year the Solemnity of Peter and Paul replaces the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. While the prayer for the Solemnity is addressed to the Lord, explains Daniel McCarthy, it establishes the apostles as intermediaries, through whose prayers God grants Christ’s atonement to us...
|  Life choicesTimothy LavinStatistics published last week show that half of teenage pregnancies in England and Wales end in abortion. But for those who decide to keep their babies there is the prospect of help in the form of an innovative programme imported from the United States... |
 Mellow rebelPaul VallelyMarking his eightieth birthday earlier this year by celebrating Mass twice, Hans Küng remains the Church’s most progressive theologian. Tempered a little by age, he is still committed to radical reform of the Church,as he explains to Paul Vallely
... |  Food into fuel tanksAlex KirbyThe United States has invested heavily in biofuels but there is growing evidence that the trend is playing a significant role in the world food crisis. Land turned over to ethanol production comes at the cost of many impoverished people going hungry... |
Too much to bearVictoria CombeReligious affairs correspondents gathered in Cardiff on 20 June for the funeral of one of their colleagues. As they mourned his untimely death they reflected on the pressures of reporting religion today and the toll it can take on their faith...
| Our lost childrenMichael HolmanViolent crimes by teenagers cause inevitable headlines and claims that harsher punishments will solve the problem. But this approach ignores the true cause –
that young people are being failed by a society that has lost its nerve
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Home before darkDaniel O’LearyAdvancing age is a time when people look back over the way they have come, and consider the essence of a lifetime on earth. But it is also a period of looking forward – to the homeland to which God calls the faithful to return...
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Columnists
 Tim Hames‘Mr Mugabe has ruined a nation of immense potential and stolen re-election by violence’  Peter Stanford‘Them and us. The underclass and the middle class. The gulf isn’t getting any smaller’
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Books and arts
Poetry’s serious endeavour Free
Geoffrey Hill: collected critical writings
Ed. Kenneth Haynes
The Oxford philosopher J.L. Austin famously developed a theory of "speech acts". His doctrine, very roughly, was that in speaking, one may be performing an action ... |
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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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