Catholicism
The Catholic church’s cowardly betrayal
Of all the sad and surreal things to happen in the past few months, the Catholic church’s decision to abandon…
The woke war on religion
Though you wouldn’t know it from most American media outlets, the phenomenon of vandalizing and burning religious sites which is…
Black mass: the Georgetown Lecture Fund’s odd diversity campaign
The New York Times’s opinion editor resigned in disgrace earlier this month following a newsroom revolt over the publication of…
The music deafens
People often say that the battle for male gay rights has been won, at least in the West, and that…
An infectious uncertainty
I had thought that actually getting the coronavirus would bring clarity — that there would be some satisfaction in meeting…
Why I changed my mind about Catholicism
I grew up in a traditional English family, surrounded by cousins, chivvied by aunts, presided over by my grandmother, who…
The Pope is wrong to change the Lord’s Prayer
Is the pope a Catholic? You have to wonder. In the old days, a pope’s remit was modest: infallible, but…
Spain has effectively obliterated Franco’s memory
Spanish restaurants in Germany are relatively rare, but not nearly as rare as biographies of General Franco. So when the…
Gerry Adams: from jail to the Dail
When I recently asked a sardonic Northern Irish friend what historical figures Gerry Adams resembled, the tasteless reply came back:…
A Muslim’s insights into Christianity
I’m not a critic, I’m an enthusiast. And when you are an enthusiast you need to try your best to…
By Patten or design?
My old friend Richard Ingrams was said always to write The Spectator’s television reviews sitting in the next-door room to…
Barometer
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for…
An Oxford treasure trove
‘What distinguishes Cambridge from Oxford,’ wrote A.A. Milne in 1939, is that nobody who has been to Cambridge feels impelled…
Let’s renew the EU
There is more to the idea of Europe than narrow economic considerations. The Remain side needs to say so
Following the followers
In his new book Apostle Tom Bissell has an advantage over writers who go looking for Jesus: he can start…
Dying of the light
Finding St Peter’s is not straightforward. I approach the wrong way, driving up a pot-holed farm track between a golf…
One holy mess
This novel, John Irving’s 14th, took the sheen off my Christmas, and here are the reasons. The comments on…
Lessons from Utopia
Thomas More’s 1516 classic is a textbook for our troubled times, says William Cook
He knew he was right
A highlight of this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival was the Rough Magic Theatre Company’s production of The Train, a musical…
The Pope’s moment
On Tuesday, Pope Francis set foot in the United States for the first time in his life. His plane touched…
Theatre of politics
Sam Leith on the year 1606, when plague and panic were rife — and all the world really was a stage
Gothic mysteries
This is a muddle of novel (originally published last year by Tartarus Press in a limited edition), though there are…
Benedict’s back
Quietly, discreetly, the Pope Emeritus is offering a different vision to that of Pope Francis
Double thinking, double lives
Jan Morris on the inconsistency and paradox that has characterised Italian thought over the centuries — and the desperate search for certainty
In praise of affectation
Jonathan Beckman 20 February 2016 9:00 am
Aversion to pretentiousness was probably an English trait before Dr Johnson famously refuted Bishop Berkeley’s arguments for the immateriality of…