Ambivalent archbishop

Rowan Williams? recent visit to Rome was to develop relationships and seek progress on ecumenical dialogue. Both were achieved, as he tells Catherine Pepinster, but his own response to the Vatican seems a combination of pleasure and misgiving...

O Little Town of Bethlehem

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The road back to Damascus

Since Syria was forced to pull its troops out of Lebanon last year, ending a 29-year occupation, the latter has seen a tentative democratic revival. A newly assertive Hezbollah is attempting to bring down the Government and re-establish control by its powerful neighbour...

High-minded climb in the Andes

Ecuador?s president-elect is super-confident and intellectually gifted, but after trailing in the first round he acquired a common touch that helped him win. While his scepticism about conventional politics may yet land him in trouble, his vision for the country has so far proved inspirational...

Did Turkey change the Pope?

He may have disappointed thousands of journalists eager for a Regensburg-style story but, for most, Benedict XVI?s first visit to a Muslim country was a bravura performance of conciliation. The question remains of whether this was a diplomatic triumph or a genuine turn-about...

From earth and from heaven

On the Second Sunday in Advent, we ask for the wisdom of Christ, so that we may be reborn in baptism, and take on his divine nature as he became a human being like us...

Welcome gifts from Greece

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Time to search your soul

In preparing for the arrival of God incarnate, we need to understand why Christ came. We cannot do this without recognising the reality of evil in the world and of sin in ourselves...