BY STEWART SLATER If it was the Fisherman’s ring which got the media’s attention (the $500,000 figure quoted is, apparently, a resale estimate for an item which will never be sold), the new Pope’s cross is no less worthy of note. A gift from his Order when he was elevated to the Cardinalate, it contains fragmentary remains of Saints Augustine, Monica (a rare example of … Continue reading From the Pope to Paddington
BY MICHAEL HURLEY As a small part of the world is vaguely aware, the Catholic Church is preparing for a “synod” (a fancy term for a meeting of bishops), amorphously called the “Synod on Synodality.” Since the publication in June of Instrumentum Laboris, the working document for the first session of the synod coming this October, the perennial grumbling within the Catholic commentariat has reached … Continue reading It’s Time We Stopped Judging the Divorced & Remarried
BY ROGER WATSON With the Holy See in the grip of a South American Communist and the long but not so gradual decline of the Roman Catholic Church since the 1960s and the disaster known as the Second Vatican Council, nothing really surprises me any longer when I grit my teeth and join the faithful each Sunday morning for weekly Mass. From the caterwauling in … Continue reading Cafod Olé
BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN The advantage of church closures this year during lockdowns has been the emergence of Masses and other church services online. “How can virtual services be a positive?” I hear you traditionalists and conservatives chuntering. Well, first up, you can be as rude as you like about a priest’s sermon real-time, without having to put up with the death stares from the blue … Continue reading Render Unto Caesar
