I became a priest on a hot summer’s day at Lichfield Cathedral. I was as prepared as I thought I could be for the vows I was about to take. What I wasn’t prepared for, though, was the whole paraphernalia …
How sacrifice lost its significance
Education, writes Roberto Calasso in The Ruin of Kasch, comes with a paradox: “it consists above all of things that cannot be learned — or of things that represent what cannot be learned.” Calasso drops the remark almost in passing, …
Have yourself a countercultural Christmas
In Lapland, just inside the Arctic Circle, you can visit Santa Claus at any time of year, because that’s where he lives. No doubt this requires a plentiful supply of Santas (I hope nobody under the age of seven is …
Claire Keegan’s faithless Christmas Carol
Most modern Christmas “classics” look and feel as fake as a tinsel-draped plastic fir-tree. Though streaming services and Hollywood studios try to persuade us that their latest twist on the Elf who saved Christmas from the Grinch while Santa had …
Beauty has become our enemy
I was walking through the chaos of Times Square recently when, in search of some minor relief, I reflexively raised my head and focused on a space in the middle distance where I have been conditioned to expect the calming …
The Ukrainian priests fighting for Putin
How many of Ukraine’s priests are working for Putin? The nation’s security services are determined to find out. Last month, the SBU raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv looking for Russian citizens, cash, and pro-Russian literature. Priests at …
How manifesting was corrupted
Mindlessly scrolling through football transfer rumours on Twitter recently, I noticed some Liverpool fans trying something a little different. The club’s owners weren’t doing the business they wanted, so it was time, one fan suggested, to gather their mental forces …
Secularisation is leading Britain astray
In the middle of the night, I am often haunted by the thought of weeds and mould breaking through the parquet floor, of the roof falling in, or the space being populated by pigeons not parishioners. The creeping damp is …
America’s conservatives would never elect a Hindu
Here in America, the most surprising storyline in the Conservative Party’s latest psychodrama is the fact that Rishi Sunak has emerged from it. It is impossible to imagine someone like him being chosen to lead the Republican Party, America’s closest …
Charles will be our Perennialist King
King Charles III has often been accused of heresy. As the Prince of Wales, his early support of environmental activism and his (tenuous) involvement in the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset marked him out as a dissenter who might break …
The coronation of Ron DeSantis
Late last week, 50 Venezuelan migrants arrived by plane in Martha’s Vineyard, the summer getaway for America’s rich and powerful. Their presence on the island — a liberal haven that has been untouched by the ongoing border crisis — was …
Millennial Catholics are faking it
Christians of convenience are nothing new. As early as the second century, the sect-hopping Peregrinus milked Christians for money and fame, until they found out he was eating food sacrificed to pagan idols. But there is something shocking about the …
The infidels will not be silenced
Thirty-three years ago, when I was a teenager in Nairobi, I was a book burner. The year was 1989, the year of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and I was seduced by the rising tide of Islamism. I greeted the …
Can depression be cured?
Was depression invented by the American elites in the Nineties? Since Prozac was introduced in 1987, it is true that the “major depressive disorder” — coined in the medical literature of the Eighties as a stop-gap measure — has taken …
Is this the end of Pope Francis?
For well over a year, a nasty rumour has been floating through the Vatican that Pope Francis is terminally ill with cancer. I was told it was true by an Italian prelate in an apartment just a stone’s throw from …