Mugabe throws the first stone

It was the moment that the Zimbabwean president had waited for. Allegations of adultery against Archbishop Pius Ncube have silenced the one man who has consistently criticised Robert Mugabe and kept the attention of the world on his dictatorial excesses...

We should mind the gap

With Dickensian disparities between rich and poor once again a feature of life in Britain, church-based and other charities will be looking beyond donations to a long-term solution and a new campaign...

Let down ? but for one Samaritan

At 2 a.m. on a London street, a mugging leaves the writer not only bruised and battered but disillusioned about human nature. Then came help from an unexpected quarter...

Behind the Cold War bluster

While many were making merry invoking the words of Le Carr? during this month?s diplomatic spat between Britain and Russia, old warriors meeting in Moscow were secretly moving ?deterrence? into the twenty-first century...

Ahead of his time

Ninety years ago this August, Benedict XV sent his ?Peace Note? to the warring nations of the First World War. Joseph Ratzinger took the same papal name in acknowledgement of his predecessor?s courage. But in 1917, this prophet was ignored...

A moment of reconciliation

Mass celebrated for young offenders together with the Pope?s motu proprio reminded a former chairman of the Latin Mass Society of the real meaning of communion...

No sign of a rapprochement

From De Lubac to Lefebvre, France has long been a place of passionate argument about Catholicism and the liturgy. Publication of the Pope?s motu proprio has provoked intense debate and has consequences not only for celebration of the Mass but a wider vision of the Church...

In close harmony

If a church is to be a spiritual community, then its members need to learn how to communicate and how to support one another. For one congregation, that meant changing the way funerals are conducted...

Key to the sea and sky

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Tablet Summer Reading

We asked our reviewers which books they will be taking on holiday this year - and what they recommend...