The Tablet - International Catholic weekly newspaper

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Spirituality

For almost all of her 40 years, a Suffolk-born psychiatric nurse-turned published poet and passionate atheist felt little but contempt for Catholicism. But then, in less than a year, after a springtime epiphany she was received into the Church. This is her journey Free

Latest News

‘Disappointment’ over women bishops change

Religious liberty fight goes public

Georgetown defends Sebelius invite

Orthodox denounces Western Church

Christian Aid targets big business

From the editor’s desk

New light on the Reformation Free

The news that the Lutheran and Catholic Churches are to embark on a joint review of their shared history sets an example that others could usefully follow. Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has announced ...

Steps towards racial justice

Convicting and sentencing two men for the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in south-east London 18 years ago has stirred conflicting feelings. In part, it is cathartic: at last, some justice has been done. But there is cause for shame at ...

Texts in full

Secularism - good or bad?
Archbishop Nichols and Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor take opposing views

The two most senior clerics in England and Wales set out on the same day contrasting visions of the threats posed to Christianity by secularism.

In a lecture at ...

Clare Short: ‘Church gave me best of values that have continued into my political and adult life'
Former Labour minister offers candid and fond reflection on her Catholic upbringing

I've chosen as my theme the link between a Catholic childhood and radical politics. I fear this may be slightly self-indulgent and autobiographical but there are some points ...

Features

‘You are loved, Stephen’Conor Taaffe

The conviction this week of two racists for the killing of Stephen Lawrence comes 18 years after the schoolboy was knifed in south-east London. The case had profound consequences for race relations and policing in Britain. But at its heart lay the loss of a young man and his violent death. Here, the then advertising manager of The Tablet recalls how he and his wife encountered Stephen just after he was attacked, and sought to comfort him as he lay dying...

The revolving door – women who join, leave and return to the Catholic ChurchChristopher Lamb

After almost 60 years as a practising Catholic, Olivia O’Leary decided she had had enough. In a recent essay on RTE radio, one of Ireland’s best-known broadcasters explained how she left the Church two years ago, primarily over its refusal to ordain women as priests, writes Christopher Lamb....

From Communist princess to Catholic penitentPeter Stanford

When Stalin’s only surviving child died in November last year aged 85, she was portrayed as perpetually restless. Yet recently released correspondence with an English priest reveals that her Christian faith – and Catholicism in particular – was a constant in her life...

Sanguine in the face of a fraught futureEmma Klein

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met this week after peace talks stalled 18 months ago over the continuing refusal by Israel to stop Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied territory of the West Bank. So what is it like to be Jewish and live amid the tension?...

Capitol investmentMichael Sean Winters

A recent report claims that huge sums are spent on lobbying by religious groups in the United States. But an analysis of the US bishops’ work in this area shows that it is comparatively frugal, carefully targeted and highly effective...

Riojas on a rollN. O’Phile

Columnists

Catherine Pepinster

‘The party that owes its origins to Methodism has a similarly strong link to Massgoing’

Laurence Freeman

‘Without notice or consultation, it had appeared on public land for private profit’

Books and arts

Prince of the dark arts Free
Machiavelli: a life beyond ideology
Paul Oppenheimer
The best way to approach such enigmatic Italian modernists as Italo Calvino, Umberto Eco and even the Sicilian Leonardo Sciascia is to think of them not as literary nephews of Jorge ...

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