By Matthew Syed in THE TIMES, 4 December 2019 As of yesterday morning, we knew him only as Lukasz. We knew, too, that as Usman Khan — a deranged fanatic — was seeking to wreak carnage upon the very people seeking to help him, Lukasz was in the basement of Fishmongers’ Hall washing up. That…
Blog
Homily, First Advent (A) 2019
Although it’s just the beginning of December, nearly everywhere you go shopping now you’ll hear Christmas music. It cheers up the otherwise dark and gloomy time of year as the sun gets lower and the days get shorter. The Christmas music started in the shops straight after Halloween and since then retailers have been using…
Homily, Christ the King C 2019
With the latest revelations and speculation about Prince Andrew, Royalty once more in the UK is the stuff of headlines in newspapers, radio and TV talk shows. How members of the Royal family behave, what they wear, how their children dress and how and with whom they socialise fills social media all over the world,…
Christmas Cookie Recipe
Christmas Cookies Recipe (According to the Revised Translation of the Roman Missal) Serves: you and many. Cream these ingredients, that by their comingling you may begin to make the dough: 1 chalice butter, 2/3 chalice sugar. In a similar way, when the butter is consubstantial with the sugar, beat in: 1 egg. Gather these dry ingredients to…
Homily 33rd Sunday C 2019
A journalist heard about an old Rabbi who visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem to pray there twice a day, every day for over five decades. In an effort to check out the story and report on it, she went to the holy site and, sure enough, there he was. She watched the old man…
Review: Why did so many Catholics leave after Vatican II?
By Timothy P. O'Malley in 'America: the Jesuit Review', 14 November 2019 Speculation on why Catholics leave the church runs rampant in the news media. Some commentators blame impoverished catechesis and liturgy, or ecclesial reforms run amok after the Second Vatican Council. Others focus on the abuse of power among clerics, the exclusion of women…
Calls for Cardinal Nichols to resign over safeguarding failures
by Catherine Pepinster in THE TABLET, 11 November 2019 Lawyers acting for dozens of victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests have called for Cardinal Vincent Nichols to resign. The call came in a letter, published below and in The Tablet this week following the Cardinal’s lengthy evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child…
The shocking lies of the election campaign, and why this matters
From Clifford Longley in THE TABLET, 9 November 2019 When Bill Deedes was appointed editor of The Daily Telegraph in 1974, he asked his proprietor, Lord Hartwell, if he had any guidance to give as to editorial policy. "Just give Conservative Central Office a ring," was his Lordship's advice. Lord Deedes, being a life-long Tory…
‘It might be a bestseller but we need a new version of the Bible – strictly for women’
By Caitlin Moran in The Times, 9 November 2019 Last week, I took a pleasant trot around the British Library’s Permanent Treasures exhibition. I don’t want to spoiler it for those who like to be viscerally, borderline dangerously surprised by literary displays, but there’s a lot of Bibles in it – printed, scribed, lavishly illuminated; in English, Hebrew and…
McAleese calls on Pope to do more for women
From THE TABLET, 8 November 2019 Former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, has called for the “culture of deference” towards priesthood in a clericalised church to be stripped away and for women to insist on being listened to on equal terms. Speaking at a conference in Trinity College Dublin on "Women the Vatican Couldn’t Silence",…
Sunday Mass: Saturday 4pm, Sunday 10am 