22nd April 2016
There are many oddities in English history. One is that our patron saint is St George. It is an ecumenical oddity. His feast day, 23 April, is both a Solemnity in the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church in England, and a ‘Feast’ in the Church of England calendar (and he is a major saint […]
14th April 2016
How could the British embassy to the Holy See contribute to the Shakespeare 400th anniversary this year? There is an extraordinary programme of official events organised under the Shakespeare Lives banner, but the Vatican was not an obvious element. And although the Royal Shakespeare Company had performed Shakespearean excerpts before Pope Paul VI in 1964, the […]
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6th April 2016
The Pope’s announcement at St Peter’s on 3 April that he is calling for a collection on behalf of the long suffering land and people of Ukraine was a significant gesture. On 24 April, all Catholic parishes in Europe will raise money for a country that since the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 […]
31st March 2016
After recent days, we can now add Brussels, Lahore and Istanbul to the growing litany of places directly affected by extemist violence. This was committed apparently in the name of religion, against targets variously identified by the perpetrators as Christians, Israeli tourists, and ordinary “secular” citizens, going about their normal lives. The words “religious” and […]
23rd March 2016
March 1966 saw an historic visit to the Vatican, the first official visit by an Archbishop of Canterbury since – incredibly – Thomas Arundel in 1398. Rightly, it will be much celebrated during the year ahead. The visit had been made possible by the Second Vatican Council, which formally opened up the Roman Catholic Church […]
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15th March 2016
On 14-16 March we are celebrating Northern Ireland. One of Northern Ireland’s best-known, and best-loved writers is Clive Staples Lewis, who was born in Belfast in 1898. His most famous works are the Narnia series, following the adventures of the Pevensie children (based on a group of children who were evacuated to stay with him […]
10th March 2016
Last week I accompanied the Holy See Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, on a visit to the United Kingdom. He came at the invitation of the British government, so inevitably much of his time was taken up in official meetings with a wide range of government ministers. He visited five different Departments […]
26th February 2016
In May this year, the first World Humanitarian Summit will be held in Istanbul. The United Kingdom sees this as a real opportunity to take stock of how humanitarian aid around the world is distributed, and to improve the effectiveness of delivery to ensure that aid reaches those most in need. Humanitarian aid needs to […]
19th February 2016
The Pope’s latest trip, to Mexico, and comment to journalists on his return that he’d like to go to China, has set me thinking about the way travel has changed Papal interaction with the world over the last fifty years. It is difficult to believe that before Pope Paul VI, Papal travel outside Italy was […]
10th February 2016
Pope Francis is on record as calling modern slavery “a crime against humanity”. Over 200 years since the British Parliament abolished the transatlantic slave trade and began an international campaign, led by the Royal Navy, to eradicate it, the Home Office estimates that there are around 13,000 potential victims of modern slavery in the UK […]
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