Pope Francis
Wildly entertaining Pope-off: The Two Popes reviewed
The Two Popes stars Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce — that’s two reasons to buy a ticket, right there —…
Abba, Twitter vs Instagram, and papal selfies: the modern face of the Catholic Church
As a lifelong Catholic, I’ve often thought that two of the Church’s chief characteristics are a) how weird it is…
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…
An exposé of high-ranking gays in the Catholic Church bears the fingerprints of the Pope’s closest advisors
The publication of In the Closet of the Vatican by the French gay polemicist Frédéric Martel has been meticulously timed…
Pope Francis raises the white flag
Just before Ireland voted overwhelmingly to end the country’s constitutional ban on abortion, Catholics in the fishing village of Clogherhead…
A tale of two Sarahs: the cuddly bishop vs the terrifying cardinal
If you’re looking for a snapshot of the state of global Christianity today, a good place to start would be…
Why local radio is thriving
It’s 50 years since the first local radio stations were launched by the BBC in yet another instance of the…
Islam’s “barbaric fury”
Andrew Urban has lived up to his famous namesake, Pope Urban II (1088-1099), in his warnings that evil thrives when…
Let’s renew the EU
There is more to the idea of Europe than narrow economic considerations. The Remain side needs to say so
The devil in footnote 351
What the Pope didn’t just say about divorce
Sins of the fathers
Damian Thompson admires a Chilean film about paedophile priests which, unlike Spotlight, dares to explore social and psychological complexities
Pope vs church
Francis’s haphazard reforms risk sparking a Catholic civil war
This year, Catholic conservatives are ready for Pope Francis
Where will Francis's Synod on the Family take the Church?
The Pope’s moment
On Tuesday, Pope Francis set foot in the United States for the first time in his life. His plane touched…
Portrait of the week
Home In his Budget, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, slowed the planned rate of bringing in £12 billion…
Benedict’s back
Quietly, discreetly, the Pope Emeritus is offering a different vision to that of Pope Francis
The Spectator’s notes
People write about ‘Grexit’ and ‘Brexit’ as if they were the same, but they need not be. Grexit is about…
Oh God, don’t let the Pope be a climate fanatic
In his latest encyclical Pope Francis will apparently describe global warming as a ‘major threat to life on the planet’.…
My part in a masterpiece of political correctness
Damien Hirst, Grayson Perry, James Delingpole: all winners of major art prizes. I was awarded mine last week by Anglia…
Portrait of the week
Home Launching the Conservative party manifesto, David Cameron, the party leader, told voters he wanted to ‘turn the good news…
The power of collective grievance
When last Sunday Pope Francis took the brave step of acknowledging the Armenian tragedy as the ‘first genocide of the…
The Catholic crack-up
It’s not just Vatican infighting any more. Pope Francis has a potential schism on his hands
The Vatican
The sun has only just risen in Rome and we are standing bleary-eyed in a short queue outside the Vatican.…
The joy of six
Why I’m glad to have five children, with a sixth on the way
The Spectator’s notes
Pope Francis is favourably compared to Pope Benedict in the media. I hope it is not being slavishly papist to…
