Between a rock and a hard place

As Archbishop Vincent Nichols prepares to succeed to the Archdiocese of Westminster, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales faces increasing and often conflicting pressures. Here an observer looks at these and how the conference has dealt with them in recent years...

Agony of L’Aquila

More than 200 victims of the Abruzzo earthquake were laid to rest in a mass funeral on Good Friday, but for the homeless survivors, the misery may only be beginning, if past experience of rebuilding in corruption-riddled Italy is anything to go by...

A delight in company

For many parishioners, God remains a punitive figure, chalking up sins to be punished. Here, a parish priest describes how his rediscovery of a simpler theology of nature and grace, with God grounded in the ordinariness of people’s lives, transformed his mission...

Smoke machines, amp stacks and grace

For almost three decades the rock band U2 has managed to combine Christian spirituality with an appeal to many who are sceptical about religion. And what the group’s members insist on is an engagement with those who suffer most...

Resurrection song

In his homily for the Easter Vigil Mass, reproduced here in full, Pope Benedict asked what Christ’s rising from the dead means for us today, explaining what lies behind the symbolism of light and water, and the deep significance of the alleluia...

Called to the NHS

A group representing Catholic doctors has existed for almost 100 years in the UK, but as medical ethical dilemmas increase, that group has now evolved into a new organisation with a broader membership, and its first conference is taking place this weekend...

Grasping after God

The means by which the faithful lay hold of the divine mystery – prayer, love of neighbour, the laying on of hands, the Eucharist – are concrete. Expressed in this prayer, writes Daniel McCarthy, is the desire that the outward might transform the inward...

Worship begins at home

Since they have few church buildings, the profile of Eastern Catholics in Britain is low even though their numbers are not. The constraints have had an effect on the way the communities celebrate their liturgies that may have lessons for the Western Church...

Regrets, I've had a few

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