This curious dispensation

The document Anglicanorum Coetibus, just published by the Vatican, sets out how Anglo-Catholic parishes can come into the Roman Catholic fold. Here a church commentator examines what might happen when the plans are put into practice...

Where power resides

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is behind the plan to admit disaffected Anglicans to the Catholic Church en masse. Down the ages the CDF’s role has altered, but its status today makes it worthy of its old epithet, la Suprema...

Obama’s challenge from the Dalai Lama

The American President is due to arrive in Shanghai tomorrow on the first leg of his three-day visit to China at the invitation of President Hu Jintao. Economic issues will top the agenda, but it will be hard for Mr Obama to ignore the question of human rights in Tibet...

The meaning- seeking animal

In its deep-seated hostility to religious faith, Europe is an exception in the modern world. Yet history shows it is those cultures that respect faith that survive. Once they embrace hedonism, cynicism and relativism, warns the Chief Rabbi, they put their own future in doubt...

Very ordinary saints

On 16 November 1989, six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter were murdered in El Salvador, a country marked by unrest and extremes of poverty and wealth. Twenty years on, a fellow priest describes how their martyrdom helped pave the way for an end to the brutal civil war ...

Earth’s last chance

Faith leaders are being urged ahead of next month’s Copenhagen summit to play their part in making the world understand the moral imperative to combat climate change, possibly the last chance for action before its effects begin to wreak havoc...

For whom the drums beat

An asylum seeker from Cameroon claimed that his tribe tried to force him to become their chief through torture, and to engage in animist practices rejected by his Catholic faith. Despite the evidence, the Home Office believes he could relocate safely within Cameroon and is determined to send him home...

Renew your love life

In the prayer for this day, writes Daniel McCarthy, the faithful ask that, through following Christ’s command and receiving his body and blood, they may be changed in their inclinations, so that they grow ever more vigorous in their charitable endeavour...

Harvest of friendship

The UK’s first Interfaith Week begins on Monday with the hope of encouraging better understanding and dialogue between faiths. A member of an interfaith group in west London describes what can be done at local level to strengthen links between different faiths...

Sparky wines worth marking

...