|
Sign up to our Weekly Newsletter.
|
|
Tina BeattieToday Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Lourdes, to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous. An academic who initially felt uncomfortable about visiting the shrine here writes about its extraordinary power Free
From the editor’s desk
| The mind of God Free Stephen Hawking's bestseller, A Brief History of Time, concludes with the passage that made the book famous. If a complete theory of subatomic physics were ever reached, he wrote, people would then be able "to take part in the discussion of ... | A humane immigration policy |
|
Features
Faith’s sure foundationsPeter StanfordCatholics suffering grievously for their beliefs are recalled in an exhibition currently showing at the first Catholic church to be built in Liverpool after the Reformation. There are relics of saints, monarchs and priests, and the first wave of the city’s Irish immigrants...
| Humbled yet exaltedDaniel McCarthyThe people of Israel were healed when Moses lifted up the brazen serpent and they gazed on it. Similarly, as Daniel McCarthy explains, when Christ was raised on the Cross he drew sinners to himself. This Sunday’s prayer recognises that through Christ’s offering of himself we are sanctified...
|
Turbulent priestsShaun MiddletonWith numbers dwindling, the National Conference of Priests appears to be in spiritual retreat, if not terminal decline. But, argues a former NCP officer, now is the time to grapple with such ecclesial hot potatoes as celibacy, sexuality, ministry and justice...
| Freedom behind barsJames ParkerThere is no material incentive for inmates of an American prison to undertake the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, but those taking part testify to their transformative power to liberate the mind and soul, and let their imaginations soar without hindrance...
|
Jails: why more isn’t betterPaul CavadinoThe prison system of England and Wales is seriously overcrowded. Now it wants to put even more people behind bars despite research showing that creating more prison places just creates more criminals. Only effective rehabilitation can bring the numbers down...
| A model for missionClare WardThe training and setting up of Parish Evangelisation Teams is the focus of this year's Home Mission Sunday,
which we celebrate on 21 September, a day of prayer for the spread of the Gospel in England and Wales...
|
|
|
|
Columnists
Clifford Longley‘The selfishness that drives the economic system is about to run out of road’ Christopher Howse‘Many take the name Cern to be a place, a charming village, perhaps’
|
Books and arts
The limits of factual morality Free The Secular Conscience: why belief belongs in public life Austin Dacey
In this philosophically intelligent but sociologically naive book the American philosopher Austin Dacey argues against the expulsion of belief, whether or not religious, from the ... |
|
|
|
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 ...
|
|
|