Catholicism
Why I left the Church of England: an interview with Michael Nazir-Ali
Michael Nazir-Ali on his decision to join the Catholic church
Pope Francis is losing his culture war
Since I wroteabout the Pope’s declaration of war on the Old Rite, something unexpected and beautiful has happened. Many bishops…
The word ‘mother’ isn’t offensive. The Catholic church should say so
I’m used to waiting for the Catholic church to make sense. I’m a convert to Catholicism, and Catholic ideas sometimes…
Orcadian cadences: celebrating the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown
Maggie Fergusson on the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown
Audiences don’t want woke: comic-book writer Mark Millar interviewed
James Delingpole talks to comic-book writer Mark Millar about the joy of Catholicism, our sorry lack of male action figures and his childhood superpower
In defence of Flannery O’Connor
I have a thought for the students of Loyola University in Baltimore, Maryland: this Easter, why not resurrect Flannery O’Connor?…
Community music-making is the jewel in the British crown
Community music-making is the unifying jewel in the British crown, says James MacMillan
In America, politics has become a form of religion
When I finally head back to church this weekend, after a year of Covid-avoidance, it is going to feel a…
The Pope really doesn’t like Republicans
Last week we learned that Pope Francis has torn up the Catholic Church’s teaching that same-sex civil partnerships are gravely…
Godforsaken: religion is vanishing from American politics
The United States has always been the world’s leading religious marketplace. Even before independence, the American colonies were more fervently…
Amy Coney Barrett is the ultimate Walmart soccer mom
The biggest takeaway from the 2016 presidential election was that Main Street America was so sick of elites in Washington…
Downside’s downfall: the dissolution of a monastery
The dissolution of a monastery
How the Catholic church betrayed the dying
Of all the sad and surreal things to happen in the past few months, the Catholic church’s decision to abandon…
The woke war on religion
Though you wouldn’t know it from most American media outlets, the phenomenon of vandalizing and burning religious sites which is…
Black mass: the Georgetown Lecture Fund’s odd diversity campaign
The New York Times’s opinion editor resigned in disgrace earlier this month following a newsroom revolt over the publication of…
Why are musicologists so indifferent to their subjects’ love lives?
People often say that the battle for male gay rights has been won, at least in the West, and that…
Getting coronavirus does not bring clarity
I had thought that actually getting the coronavirus would bring clarity — that there would be some satisfaction in meeting…
Why I changed my mind about Catholicism
I grew up in a traditional English family, surrounded by cousins, chivvied by aunts, presided over by my grandmother, who…
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…
Spain has effectively obliterated Franco’s memory
Spanish restaurants in Germany are relatively rare, but not nearly as rare as biographies of General Franco. So when the…
Gerry Adams: from jail to the Dail
When I recently asked a sardonic Northern Irish friend what historical figures Gerry Adams resembled, the tasteless reply came back:…
A Muslim’s insights into Christianity
I’m not a critic, I’m an enthusiast. And when you are an enthusiast you need to try your best to…
By Patten or design?
My old friend Richard Ingrams was said always to write The Spectator’s television reviews sitting in the next-door room to…
The many, many resting places of St Thomas à Becket
A man in full A relic said to contain a fragment of St Thomas à Becket’s elbow arrived from Hungary for…
Equipped for life with a copy of Thucydides
‘What distinguishes Cambridge from Oxford,’ wrote A.A. Milne in 1939, is that nobody who has been to Cambridge feels impelled…
