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Philippa HitchenPublic sentiment and political rhetoric is hardening against migrants in Italy, and legislators are proposing to restrict their rights radically. This means that the Vatican, bishops and church charities are set on a collision course with the Italian state, host of the G8 Summit Free
From the editor’s desk
| Euthanasia by stealth Free More than 100 British people, assisted in many cases by friends and relatives, have gone to Switzerland to end their own lives. Although assisting in another's suicide is illegal, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided on compassionate grounds ... | Honesty is the best policy |
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Features
 Declaration of interdependenceDavid GibsonTony Blair’s comments to a Catholic audience in the United States this week on the importance of communication have highlighted the growing role of lay Catholics in the American Church. But lay-clerical collaboration has been a troubled journey, and there could be rough seas ahead... |  Silvio’s burlesqueDavid WilleyFor the past month, Italian newspaper readers have been served up a daily diet of lurid tales about the sex life of their Prime Minister. But, ahead of this month’s G8 meeting in L’Aquila, is the latest betrayal one step too far for the people – and for the Church?... |
 Ahead of his timeOliver RaffertyThis month marks the death 100 years ago of the Jesuit George Tyrrell, excommunicated and vilified by the Church for his embrace of modernism. But, as the author of a forthcoming study of his work argues here, he was a man whose struggles resonate in our own age... | Wish you were here?Going off to camp for the summer used to be the province of the Scouts. Not any more. This year children can go to an atheist camp, subsidised by the foundation run by Richard Dawkins. Strawberry, aged 8, who has been to one such camp, wrote a letter home to her mother …...
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Unending in our praiseDaniel McCarthyThe faithful are formed by the many gifts they receive, writes Daniel McCarthy. This prayer reflects the way that our increasing maturity engenders an increasing readiness to give ourselves, as we appreciate ever more deeply the gifts of God, and respond accordingly...
| First, heal yourselfLen KoflerPope Benedict XVI stressed the importance of priestly formation when he launched the Year for Priests last month. A pioneering institute in Britain recognises that spiritual and intellectual development must be combined with a psychological approach...
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Worldly weddingsNicholas HenshallToday, even devout Christians sometimes have non-church marriage ceremonies. With humility, the Church could learn a good deal from the best ‘civil’ events – which can, according to Aquinas, still be sacramental...
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Columnists
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Books and arts
Machiavelli of the Ottomans Free
The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II – conqueror of Constantinople, master of an empire and lord of two seas
John Freely
When he heard the news of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III broke down in tears, and shut himself away in his quarters to pray ... |
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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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