19 April 2002
 Ch?vez?s miraculous conversionAusten Ivereigh and Owain JohnsonLast week the world looked on baffled as Venezuela?s President was ousted in a military coup and then restored to office, all in a weekend. But as our South America correspondent and executive editor report, the hitherto anticlerical Hugo Ch?vez did not spend his 48 hours of seclusion idly. Church in the WorldAgencies demand Israeli withdrawal from West Bank towns |
AfricaReligious leaders welcome peace pact | AmericasMexico concedes abuse problems |
AsiaChristians divide on Musharraf?s poll | EuropeBishops promise help over sex abuse cases |
RomeVatican to halt general absolution |
So why did it happen?
The received version of the English Reformation ? Protestants good, Catholics bad ? has been destroyed by the revisionists. But in that case, why did the Reformation happen at all? The Reformation has been rescued from the Protestants; does it now have to be rescued from the Catholics? A historian launches a two-part discussion....
?Don?t cry ? you?ll never stop?
The Israeli army has been rampaging through towns in the West Bank in the search for terrorists behind the suicide bombings. In Bethlehem some 280 Palestinians have sought sanctuary in the Church of the Nativity, which is besieged. An English volunteer in one of the Bethlehem refugee camps acted as a human shield....
Identity crisis in Iran
Iran is a leader in the Islamic world, but its mix of religion and politics throws up contradictions which are far from resolved. An associate professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies recently visited the country which the President of the United States has linked with Iraq and North Korea as part of the ?axis of evil?....
A stitch in time
Most people would not associate fine needlework with prisons, but they would be wrong. In ten jails across Britain, male as well as female convicts are queuing up for the chance to create things of beauty, which are sold on to leading designers. It gives prisoners an absorbing project and cash to use when their sentence is served....
