Blood on the Rising Sun

Nearly 200 Japanese were beatified this week in in Nagasaki, bringing the total number of officially recognised martyrs to more than 400, although many thousands more died for their faith during the often brutal shogunate persecutions of the seventeenth century...

Obama’s winning option for the poor

Traditionally in US presidential elections, the proportions of the well-off and the elderly who register to vote far outweigh the proportions of younger and poorer people. Barack Obama managed to change all this – to astonishing effect...

Real message in a virtual world

A great many new groups have been formed in the Church in recent years to address the problem of young adults leaving the Church. They have been set up both by individuals and by religious orders to look at ways of attracting Catholics who may lose a central focus for their faith once they leave school. Some offer the experience of community living, others see catechesis as their central role, but what most have in common is use of the internet as a way to set up virtual communities. In the second part of our series on youth ministry we look at newer Catholic organisations and also at Jewish initiatives taken by the Orthodox and Reform Synagogues....

Still come all ye faithful

Despite still having the builders in, Westminster Cathedral staff are providing not one but two carol services this year and, as choristers rehearse while weaving their way around scaffolding poles, they promise a couple of traditional Advent evenings to remember...

Small triumphs of the future perfect

In a series of meditations for Advent, the pianist Stephen Hough takes four piano pieces, with which he has lived for many years and recorded, and connects them to some of the spiritual themes of the season. This week, the subject is darkness to light...

Robinson, right and wrong

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s criticisms of the Church, published last year, are still making waves. Here, a fellow Australian argues that the bishop’s case is undermined by his particular understanding of the nature of Christ...

Rome works it out

In a week when the Vatican says it forgives John Lennon’s ‘bigger than Jesus’ remark, Guy Consolmagno reflects on the soundtrack of the 1960s...

Among passing things

At the start of the new liturgical year, Daniel McCarthy turns his attention to the Prayers After Communion. For the first Sunday in Advent, the image of the pilgrim Church making its way towards a heavenly destination is reinterpreted...

An end to shame

There are many Catholics who decline to make room in their lives for Confession. As part of Advent it is worth thinking more imaginatively about ways of helping people back to something that brings so many undoubted graces...

Tablet Traveller

Transformed by Thérèse - Solitude in the heart's depths - Into the lions' den - Bridge to faith...

Rollicking band of pirates we

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