Selfie defeating
Narcissism already has a new obsession
Is the Pope a Protestant?
When Pope Francis was asked last month how he was doing after surgery on his colon in July, he replied:…
Ex Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali converts to Catholicism
Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester and one of the best-known Anglican clerics, could be ordained as a Catholic…
Going for Goldberg
I sometimes think the classical record industry would collapse if it weren’t for the Goldberg Variations. Every month brings more…
Memory sticks
Technology is robbing us of the power to forget
All the rage
Why have we become so quick to anger?
A dangerous madness
The QAnon conspiracy theory may be absurd, but it can’t be ignored. It has already led to significant acts of violence, says Damian Thompson
Latter-day sinners
Are Mormons prepared to ignore their troubled history?
Brendel the Dadaist
How many people are celebrating the fact that, last week, one of Europe’s most inspired writers about music, modern art…
The Pope really doesn’t like Republicans
Last week we learned that Pope Francis has torn up the Catholic Church’s teaching that same-sex civil partnerships are gravely…
Fish and fire
Anyone who invited the Russian composer Mily Balakirev to dinner had to be jolly careful about the fish they served.…
The sinister Vatican plot against Cardinal Pell
Cardinal George Pell isn’t the sort of man to say ‘so there is a God after all!’ – but plenty…
Godforsaken: religion is vanishing from American politics
The United States has always been the world’s leading religious marketplace. Even before independence, the American colonies were more fervently…
The real reason for Pope Francis’s disgraceful Pompeo snub
Why did Pope Francis refuse to meet Secretary Pompeo in Rome this week? The obvious answer is that he didn’t…
What does Kamala Harris really believe?
When Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his running mate, the Religion News Service reported that she ‘now considers herself…
The keys to Beethoven
If you want to understand Beethoven, listen to his piano sonatas. Without them, you’ll never grasp how the same man…
Is Black Lives Matter a religion for woke white people?
The most memorable footage of the Black Lives Matter protests, and perhaps the creepiest, doesn’t capture any acts of violence,…
Viral contagion
The uncontainable spread of fake coronavirus news
The Pope rebuffs his liberal supporters by rejecting married priests
Pope Francis today issued his official response to October’s ‘Amazon Synod’, which discussed a plan to ordain married men in…
Beethoven wasn’t just history’s greatest composer but also one of its greatest human beings
Ludwig van Beethoven isn’t just my favourite composer: he’s my household god. There’s a bust of him on my mantelpiece.…
The cult of Trifonov is doing the pianist no favours
Grade: B– Deutsche Grammophon have decided that Daniil Trifonov’s new Rachmaninov piano concertos with the Philadephia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin…
In his new piano concerto Thomas Ades’s inspiration has completely dried up
There’s nothing like a good piano concerto and, sad to relate, Thomas Adès’s long-awaited first proper attempt at the genre…
If Richard Dawkins loves facts so much, why can’t he get them right?
Professor Richard Dawkins has written a book called Outgrowing God: A Beginner’s Guide. Its aim is to save children and…
Why did the Soviets not want us to know about the pianist Maria Grinberg?
Only four women pianists have recorded complete cycles of the Beethoven piano sonatas: Maria Grinberg, Annie Fischer, H. J. Lim…
How radical Islam taught the progressive Left to blame the Jews
It’s less than four years since Jeremy Corbyn’s hard-left sect seized control of the Labour Party, and yet already its…
