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 …
The Anti-Christ now rules us all
Throughout history, the poets, the prophets and mystics have usually done a better job of predicting the future than pundits, politicians or scientists. Generally the reward for their perspicacity is to be ignored or laughed at, but luckily they are …
The Church has weaponised safeguarding
When Anthony Trollope submitted the manuscript of Barchester Towers, the publishers rejected it as over-the-top. They thought the Church of England couldn’t possibly behave in this kind of way. Bless. They did and they still do.
Now I have to …
How the Church attacks its own
When Anthony Trollope submitted the manuscript of Barchester Towers, the publishers rejected it as over-the-top. They thought the Church of England couldn’t possibly behave in this kind of way. Bless. They did and they still do.
Now I have to …
The nuclear family has failed
When people talk about the structure of the family, they often find themselves arguing for or against the “nuclear family”, which consists, on most tellings, of a father and mother, with perhaps two or three children in their care for …
Passover in war-torn Odessa
Odessa, Ukraine
The soldier leans through the car window and stares at me. He has the guileless but wary eyes of a child; he can’t be much more than 18. I’ve just crossed the border from Moldova into Ukraine and …
Was Jesus a revolutionary?
Easter is the time when Jesus Christ is said to have risen from the dead, having hung on a cross for six hours between two thieves. We are told that one of the thieves was saved, which Samuel Beckett described …
The future of Anglicanism is African
The future of the Christian religion in England is not to be found in the southern shires or the former mill towns of the North. Out there, the voice and tenor of the Bible is a thinning force, a hoarse …
The problem with anti-woke liberals
In the summer of 2005, hundreds of recent college graduates gathered in a giant auditorium in Houston for a lesson in “diversity, community and leadership”. At 20 years old, I was the youngest of the bunch. The organisation Teach for …
Inside the surreal Dutch lockdown
Amsterdam
Sitting respectfully in our ‘pews’, we put our hands together… and clap. This is not a service but a comedy night. And Amsterdam’s newest ‘church’ is really a theatre for debate and cultural centre in disguise. Incensed by the …
The annihilation of Michel Houellebecq
In Michel Houellebecq’s startlingly long new novel, the 735-page Anéantir, our Everyman protagonist Paul Raison is returned by family illness to his childhood bedroom. There, in typical Houellbecqian fashion, he jabs us with a completely heterodox, completely confident provocation: Matrix …
Vaccine purity has infected the West
“Mocking anti-vaxxers’ deaths is ghoulish, yes — but may be necessary,” declared Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik earlier this week. Those who have “deliberately flouted sober medical advice” by refusing vaccination should, in Hiltzik’s view, “be viewed as receiving their …
Why we cling on to Christmas
In the strangest of times, the strangest of festivals. Dulled by familiarity, piled over with good food, buried in torn wrapping paper, drowned in good drink: can we see Christmas again for what it is?
In days that seem unprecedented, …
Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace 1958
Aldous Huxley shares his visions and fears for this brave new world.
Source: Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace 1958…