| Courage and cowardice Free The image of the Catholic Church as an unchanging monolith seems to be crumbling before our eyes. The conventional wisdom - that it is bad for the laity to see their pastors as fallible human beings disagreeing among themselves - has given way under ... | Human cost of targets |
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Features
 ‘I have learned the lesson’Benedict XVIAfter he lifted the excommunications of four Lefebvrist bishops, Benedict XVI found himself on the receiving end of some harsh criticism. In this unusually personal letter to all Catholic bishops, he explains why he did what he did, and offers his thoughts on the quality of that criticism... |  Build a sure foundationChris BainThe values and practices that led to the current financial meltdown are discredited. As leaders of the richest nations prepare to for the G20 summit, the director of Cafod urges them to base a world economy on the rock of justice and solidarity, rather than the sand of self-interest and greed... |
 Beacons of peaceAnthony O'MahonyThe Syrian Catholic Church recently elected its new patriarch. The appointment is important not only because the Syrian Catholics have a significant presence in the Middle East and Asia and a thriving diaspora, but also because of their influence on global Catholic identity... |  ‘A purposeful end to life’Catherine PepinsterCatholic thinkers and health-care workers met in Oxford last week to consider increasingly pressing issues surrounding dignity in suffering and death.
While the subject of assisted dying was thoroughly aired, new answers remained elusive
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Growing up with sinMartin A. JakubasA thoughtful celebration of the scrutinies for children preparing to be fully initiated into the Church helps them towards a sense of sin, and to understand the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but also helps others to return to a proper use of confession...
| He enlightens all heartsDaniel McCarthyThe prayer after Communion this week is an affirmation of God’s illumining all people born in this world, says Daniel McCarthy, and contains an entreaty that the faithful reflect on things which are worthy and pleasing to God...
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Knowing the unknownTom HeneghamThis year’s winner of the Templeton Prize is a renowned French physicist who has reflected and written over many years on the discoveries of quantum physics. They suggest that reality, he says, is fundamentally mysterious...
|  A better bet than a bankDominic PrinceOnce again Ireland’s Catholic priests were out in force for this year’s Cheltenham Festival and, says Dominic Prince, if you are going to gamble you will do so more profitably by following their tips... |
Light at the end of the Lenten journeyNicholas King SJIn John’s gospel, the Cross is an instrument of torture and death as well as the means by which Jesus is glorified. Nicholas King reflects on the nuances in meaning when Jesus says he will be ‘lifted up’...
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Columnists
 David Blair‘Not many prime ministers, even in Pakistan, have dabbled in hijacking airliners’  Christopher Howse‘Surely Benedict’s letter is like no other ever written by a pope to the world’s bishops’
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Books and arts
Exhausted, redundant, undefeated Free
Marching to the Fault Line: the 1984 miners’ strike and the death of industrial Britain
Francis Beckett and David Hencke
St John's colliery in my home town of Normanton, West Yorkshire, was always known as "the Catholic pit". It was sunk in the grounds of Newland Hall, from where Knights Templar went ... |
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Can the Church support abuse victims on its own terms?
Elena Curti
The clear message that emerged from the symposium on child sexual abuse held in Rome from ... 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 ...
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