Austen Ivereigh

When Fr Roger Schutz founder of the ecumenical monastic community at Taiz eacute in south-east France attended the April 2005 funeral of Pope John Paul II he received Communion from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger This raised a few eyebrows at the time — Shutz was a Protestant pastor — and gave ri

How many Catholics do you need for a parish There is no fixed figure of course in a depopulated area it might be very few in a built-up area it would be many more In the Diocese of Leeds in England – -an area which includes swathes of rural Yorkshire as well as some big towns — the bishop h

The confiscation nbsp of more than 300 Bibles from four American evangelicals arriving in China on Monday did not happen because Christianity is illegal there Bibles are not banned in China indeed 10 000 bilingual copies of the Bible are being distributed for free in the Olympic Village reported

Sometimes the deepest of revolutions can take place with just a few gestures the choice of language you use to address your people How you dress Who you appoint The shoes on your feet These can point to a profound shift in power much more than crowds of angry sans-culottes or fire-breathing pol

Fernando Lugo the Catholic bishop who became president of Paraguay was sworn in last Friday His assumption on the Feast of the Assumption took place in Asuncion the country s capital named after — you guessed it nbsp — Our Lady of the Assumption But there are so many other remarkable fea

An inflatable church on a beach on the Adriatic coast of Italy is proving a hit with sunseekers The BBC has the story – with an explanation by a priest of what s it all about Video clip here The 30-foot chiesa gonfiabile — the style is not exactly Baroque — is the idea of street-evangelising

Disinternment discomfits — and all the more when the remains to be transferred are those of John Henry Newman the famous nineteenth-century English convert cardinal The British government has now allowed nbsp Cardinal Newman s exhumation and transferral to a marble sarcophagus in a church in Bi

An interesting follow-up to the previous post on the 8-years-old correspondence which came to light days ago which charted the Archbishop of Canterbury s evolving views on homosexuality Leading bishops in the Church of England have published a letter in the London Times defending Dr Williams and

Just as Dr Rowan Williams heads off for some well-earned rest after saving the nbsp Anglican Communion nbsp letters have come to light which chart his changing position on the gay question more than 20 years ago An evangelical Christian in Wales with whom he corresponded on the issue of homosexual