| A way out of the clergy crunch Free While the nation feels the impact of the credit crunch, Catholics are becoming aware of a clerical crunch - a shortage not just of credit but of clergy. The one-priest presbytery, which became the standard a few years back, is starting to look like a ... | Mr Brown’s unsteady alibi |
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Features
 Log in the Church’s eyeNicholas LashThe Bishop of Lancaster has accused university-educated Catholics of sowing dissent in the Church with their ‘misinterpretation’ of the teaching of Vatican II. Here, a leading theologian asserts the importance of education to discipleship, and says that perhaps the failings come from the top... | To a blessed eternityDaniel McCarthyWhen we offer ourselves to Christ, we come together with him in his own offering of himself, and thereby join in the glorification of God. Our continued participation in the liturgy transforms us, writes Daniel McCarthy, so that we can give ourselves ever more freely...
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 A therapy for lifeKajetan Kasinski, director of the Tavistock Mulberry Bush Day Unit for children with extreme behavioural difficultiesIn the latest of our series of interviews with those whose faith informs their work in social care, Terry Philpot talks to an eminent psychiatrist who says Catholicism works like a diagnosis to help him understand and make sense of what is happening... | Epicentre of the faithGregory HeilleAt the recent Synod on the Word of God in Rome, there were indications that preaching at Mass often left something to be desired. Here a professor of homiletics argues that the homily can be the heart of a mutually enriching conversation between faith and culture...
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The labours of ObamaMichael ByersAmerica’s new president will enter the White House on a tide of goodwill next January. But, conscious of the fickleness of popularity, he knows time will be against him as he squares up to some of the most Herculean of challenges ever faced by an untried leader...
|  Might of metaphysicsChristopher JamisonLying behind the current financial crisis is the same ethical lacuna that hinders effective debate over climate change – a lack of any clear moral compass beyond compliance with the law. What is needed is a return to the classical virtues... |
We are not aloneMalachy KeeganPrisoners’ Sunday takes place tomorrow. An exciting new initiative pioneered in south London aims to help former prisoners to avoid reoffending by giving them a sense of belonging in a small community...
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Columnists
 Richard Rodriguez‘Barack Obama is brown, but he is still described by many Americans as black’  Tim Hames‘The special relationship is about to become much easier to sell’
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Books and arts
Life as triumph over pessimism Free
Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy
William Oddie
In G.K. Chesterton's Autobiography, which scarcely contains a date, two elements stand out: the vision of life he grasped as a child, and the victory over "pessimism" ... |
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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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