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Catherine PepinsterCatholic peer, former Government minister, last Governor of Hong Kong, Chancellor of Oxford University, Chris Patten can tick them all off. Now, as he tells Catherine Pepinster, faith, politics and the intellectual life come together as he masterminds plans for Pope Benedict’s visit to Britain Free
From the editor’s desk
Features
Music, prayer and pilgrimage – how the Hyde Park vigil will unfoldElena CurtiWhile most media attention has been given to the ceremony being held to beatify Cardinal Newman, many hours of planning have also gone into organising a prayer vigil in Hyde Park. To be held on 18 September, it is being billed as the most universal of the pastoral events that will be attended by Pope Benedict while he is here, writes Elena Curti....
|  Votes, vows and volunteersLuke BrethertonWith its idea of the “Big Society”, the coalition Government thinks it can tap into a natural territory for religious groups with their history of social enterprise and community organising.
But the religious approach has a vital characteristic that governments ignore at their peril... |
The nearly bishopJonathan Wynne-JonesSeven years after Dr Jeffrey John was obliged to withdraw from his appointment as Bishop of Reading, he has been shortlisted for a higher office. Will the openly gay but celibate cleric now become Bishop of Southwark, or will his liberal supporters be disappointed once more?...
| Parable of the prodigal WestRobert Mickensmickens100710.jpg]Top of Pope Benedict’s papal agenda is the return home of Catholicism to its European heartlands, and he has named one of his most trusted clerics, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, to direct a Pontifical Council for New Evangelisation to make it happen...
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 Ratzinger the romanticTracey RowlandThe second in our series on the thought and life of Pope Benedict explores how he focuses as much on the heart and beauty as on truth. And this means that Christianity can never be just another ethic, but remains centred on the person of Christ... |  ‘Meeting of hearts’Liz DoddPope Benedict sent an apostolic blessing to those who camped in the grounds of a Catholic college near Birmingham last weekend for the first ever festival to help young people considering
a vocation to the priesthood or the religious life... |
Stronger togetherTom GruffertyThe creation of pastoral areas – or clustering of parishes – is a subject that causes a great deal of apprehension, much of it arising from misunderstanding. But for the process to be successful, it must make use of everyone’s talents and not be rushed...
| A not so quiet lifeRobin Baird-smithThe writer Beryl Bainbridge was a convert to the faith, but while she was not a ‘Catholic novelist’, her beliefs surfaced in her work. Here, her one-time publisher recalls a consummate talent, their friendship and her eccentric world
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From inflamed to renewedDaniel McCarthyThe faithful live in newness of life when faith, hope and love burn within them and as they observe God’s command to love one another as Christ loved mankind, writes Daniel McCarthy...
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Columnists
 Clifford Longley‘The Catholic Church, on home territory here, could well make a virtue of virtue’  Christopher Howse‘Mr Paisley regards the Pope, on respectable theological grounds, as the Antichrist’
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Books and arts
Distatnt past now not so dark Free
The Birth of Classical Europe: a history from Troy to Augustine
Simon Price and Peter Thonemann
For an eighth-century Greek, the past was a measureless ocean with no port of call beyond a few generations – no chronological anchorage except for the Trojan War and its aftermath. ... |
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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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