10th December 2015
Pope Francis formally inaugurated the Holy Year of Mercy in Rome when he opened the Holy Door at St Peter’s Basilica on 8 December. He was the first through the Door, followed by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the assembled throngs of cardinals, bishops and clergy. We diplomats were also fortunate enough to be allowed […]
22nd May 2014
One of the most extraordinary aspects of Pope Francis’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land on 24-26 May is how it has started to bear fruit even before it has begun. Sadly, the lands that he will be visiting – the crucible for some of the most intractable conflicts in human history – are not known […]
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4th November 2011
I paid my second visit to Assisi within a week when I attended, with Princess Michael of Kent standing in for the Duke of Edinburgh, the launch by the ARC of their Green Pilgrimages Network. ARC, the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, is an organisation launched in 1995. To quote them, they are “a secular […]