Focus

  • Coronavirus, mental health and the spiritual life: A priest psychologist offers tips from St Ignatius

    Aug 08, 2020

    Since 2014, Fr. Roger Dawson has run a retreat house in the idyllic countryside of north Wales. When the U.K. went into lockdown in March, he was forced to cancel retreats. But he was determined to find a new way of offering spiritual direction.

  • A Church that is poor?

    Aug 01, 2020

    Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City and chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said in a statement, that the “Catholic Church” encompasses the hundreds of individual Catholic dioceses, parishes, schools, social-service agencies, and other organisations that collectively employ thousands of people, and so is not prohibited from receiving taxpayer-backed federal aid.

  • The church needs women cardinals

    Aug 01, 2020

    Last week, La Croix and The Tablet both reported on an interview with the president of the French bishops' conference, Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort.

  • Hagia Sophia and places of religious freedom

    Jul 25, 2020

    A Turkish court abrogated that decree earlier this month when it announced that it had revoked Hagia Sophia’s status as a museum, which had become a monument of relative harmony and a symbol of the secularism that was part of the foundation of the modern Turkish state by Atatürk.

  • The Roman Curia is being reformed as Cardinals retire

    Jul 18, 2020

    It is perhaps the most ambitious project of the current pontificate: attempting to truly reform the mentality and structures of the Catholic Church’s central – and, up until Francis arrived, centralising– bureaucracy known as the Roman Curia.

  • Church must help ethical post-pandemic economic recovery

    Jul 11, 2020

    Fr Paul Daisuke Narui SVD, an economist and the Bishop-elect of Nigata in Japan, reflects on how the Church must help make sure post-Covid-19 economic recovery is based on ethical investments that protect the poor and the environment from exploitation and neglect.

  • Bible Sunday Message — July 12, 2020: Reading the Bible with the heart

    Jul 04, 2020

    The Word of God is not just a mental concept or an idea or an expression of a thought. It is a living person, “someone you can touch with your hands, and hear with your ears and see with your own eyes.” (1 John 1:1), in short, the Word of Life.

  • From Distraction to Dedication: An Invitation to the Centre

    Jul 04, 2020

    Some years ago, during the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, Father General Adolfo Nicolás sketched points for a possible letter to the Society. Although he never wrote the letter, he did share these points with a few friends. The following text, while still rough and informal, expresses clearly the direction of his thinking. With the permission of Fr Nicolás, we share it now.

  • Vatican releases document on integral ecology

    Jun 27, 2020

    The Vatican released a document on Thursday that offers a guide to Catholics, and all Christians, regarding our relationship with God’s Creation.

  • The whole planet is experiencing a crisis

    Jun 20, 2020

    At this most serious moment there is a need for guidance to accompany us and help us understand the meaning of what we are living through.