Little more than a week ago the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, knelt together in prayer at the tomb of St Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey in a poignant demonstration of ecumenism and friendship between Catholics and Anglicans. The moment was perceived by many as a further sign of the growing reconciliation between the two Churches. Yet within just a couple of days, Dr Williams was told by Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith – the CDF – of bold plans by the Roman Catholic Church to enable groups of Anglicans – possibly entire parishes and even dioceses – to leave the Anglican Communion for Rome. Dr Williams then appeared once more alongside the Archbishop of Westminster, this time at a press conference announcing Rome’s plans. On this occasion, his demeanour was distinctly different. He appeared discomfited, and reddened under questioning.

The decision by Rome to set up a canonical structure or “ordinariate” making it easier for groups of dissenting Anglicans to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church comes at a difficult time for the Anglican Communion, which the Archbishop of Canterbury has been struggling to stop fragmenting over the issues of homosexuality in the clergy and the appointment of women bishops. Indeed, the ordination of women as priests, and recently as bishops in the Anglican Communion – a change to which the Church of England is also now officially committed, is cited by Anglicans who welcome this move by Rome as a cause of their current disquiet.

A number of priests and laity of the Church of England became Roman Catholics in the 1990s, following the General Synod’s decision to approve the ordination of women priests. Many of them said then that they were not accepting the teachings of the Catholic Church as a whole simply because they disagreed with ...

Something of a consensus is emerging in the social ­sciences that the biggest handicap a child can face is the absence from the family of a father figure. Although it would be wrong to assume all children of lone ­mothers are damaged goods, it is clearly no help to integral personal development, as even those ideologically unsympathetic to traditional family patterns are coming reluctantly to recognise ...

In Washington, an agonised policy debate is taking place  over Afghanistan. The American-led invasion began eight years ago in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists. It was clear that the Taliban, then the masters of Afghanistan, were hand in glove with the al-Qaeda leadership, both groups being violently anti-Western, Islamist in ideology and ruthless in action. Some response was inevitable ...

Weeks before he was elected Pope in 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spoke in a Good Friday meditation of “filth in the Church”, a remark interpreted as a denunciation of those involved in clerical child sex abuse. Cardinal Ratzinger had more insight than most into the grave sins committed by priests against innocents: as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he had read plenty of reports ...

News emerged as The Tablet went to press this week that the Pope is to visit Britain next year – the first papal visit since that of John Paul II in 1982. On that occasion the visit was a pastoral one, as it co-incided with the Falklands War, and so it was deemed politic not to favour England and Wales with an official visit at a time when the United Kingdom was in conflict with Catholic Argentina. But this time, ...