By Garrison Keillor The beauty of quarantine is that you don’t have to see people you don’t want to see, which simplifies life, just as memory loss does. Life comes down to basics. Sleeping, eating, talking, reading, writing, cooking, doing your business. Days are so quiet that a cup of ginger tea might be a…
Author: Fr. Michael Campion
In the Harsh Light of the Virus
Michael Banner in THE TABLET, 25 June 2020 A leading moral philosopher argues that the coronavirus has not posed new ethical problems, but it has strikingly illumined two major features of the social landscape that society and the Church usually prefers to ignore: race and class Academics, living sheltered lives (and in the case of…
Homily, St Peter and St Paul 2020
The Church is honouring today two of its great preachers and missionaries – St Peter to fellow Jews and St Paul to ‘the nations’ (Gentiles). Both suffered martyrdom under the reign of the Roman Emperor, Nero. Following the great fire (64-67AD) that destroyed much of Rome, Nero persecuted Christians. Peter was crucified on the Vatican…
Bishops outline ‘new normal’ for Masses
By Liz Dodd in THE TABLET, 25 June 2020 The Sunday obligation to attend Mass in England will not be reintroduced when public worship resumes on 4 July, the Metropolitan Archbishops said today in a statement outlining the “new normal” for liturgies as lockdown eases. In a message to Catholics this morning Cardinal Vincent Nichols,…
We need the facts if we are to take risks
By Jenni Russell in THE TIMES, 26 June 2020 Risk preoccupies us all. Set free, told by the prime minister that hibernation is over, what daily choices should we make between safety and the chance of debility or death? Lockdown was the simple stage. It offered maximum security. Now the continuous assessments of the risks…
Homily 12th Sunday of the Year (A) 2020
I couldn’t have been much older than about seven or eight when I first became aware and quite frightened of the prospect of going to hell. It was on a dark winter’s afternoon when Sr Mary of the Angels read out passages from the Old Testament of the Bible which left her class in no…
Homily, Corpus Christi (A) 2020
Today in the Catholic Church, and in some Anglican and Lutheran Churches as well, is the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. It originated in 1264 and is observed every year to celebrate what we call the Real Presence – Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity – of Christ in the elements of…
The dark side of Dickens’ genius
Charles Dickens, who died 150 years ago, was loved for storytelling that embraced justice, compassion and redemption. He was also a brute to his loyal wife. The author of a new biography suggests that great holiness and artistic genius might both be sometimes driven by a divided personality. By A N Wilson in THE TABLET,…
Women and the post-Covid Church
By Tina Beattie in THE TABLET, 4 June 2020 A few weeks before lockdown, I was asked to contribute a short piece to the Christian magazine Reform, offering a Catholic perspective on the topic, “This is my body. Really?” The editor Steve Tomkins approached me recently, asking if I wanted to tweak my closing paragraph…
How Catholics can use this time without the Eucharist to grow closer to Christ
By Robert Flock in 'AMERICA, The Jesuit Review', 8 June 2020 In many places around the world, including my diocese in Bolivia, we are unable to celebrate the Mass and other sacraments in public due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Schools are closed and catechism classes are canceled. These activities are considered ill-advised and are often…
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