Peter Stanford
Luther’s Value
“For sheer human courage Martin Luther is hard to outdo”
Good Writer, Bad Picker
Elizabeth Jane Howard showed deep emotional insights as a writer, but could not apply them to her own life
We Shouldn’t Let Old Men Rot Away In Jail
As the prison population ages, more and more elderly, often disabled inmates are left in their cells, unable to cope yet fearful of release
Pietro Lavini
The Capuchin friar single-handedly returned a medieval church in Italy’s Appenine mountains to its former glory
Tombstone Stories
‘An everyday ramble round a graveyard subliminally corrects any tendency to assume ourselves immortal’
The Healing Power of Forgiveness
A new project allows crime victims to move on — by pardoning those who attacked them
If England Had Remained Catholic
Did the Reformation rescue us from theocracy? Or are we poorer without pilgrims, saints and feasts?
Lisieux, France: Relics of Thérèse
The veneration of saint’s relics largely died out after the Reformation, but the bones of one 19th-Century nun inexplicably attract millions of pilgrims from around the world today
Not a Tall Order
Growing numbers of men are over six foot and have to endure painfully small train seats. The modernisers of our railways must heed their cries
The Pope was Powerless
Until the Vatican opens its archives, speculation about Pius XII’s failure to condemn the Holocaust should not be used to indict all religion
Will the green agenda be killed off by the pandemic?
‘Will the green agenda be killed off by the longer-term coronavirus recovery? Or might the closure of so much business, and the cleaner air that results from planes not flying and factories not working, give us extra years to gain control of our environment?’
Why T.S. Eliot still matters
His contemporaries’ reputations have diminished. But Eliot’s has grown: he is the poet who shows us what can be saved from the ruins
Music’s in the house
Rappers have found a role in lockdown: chronicling coronavirus with topical tunes. Most people, though, are rushing to the safety of the past