Catholicism

‘What!? But they won’t let you in!’ and ‘What!? But they’ll detain you at the border!’ and ‘What!? But they’re all nuts over there!’ were just some of the responses from friends and colleagues at my announcement that I was heading to the US for three and a half weeks’ work. But my visa was valid and accepted at passport control, I wasn’t thrown in jail, and the people whom I met and worked with were perfectly sane, perfect hosts and a perfect delight. First up was the Minnesota Orchestra, where I conducted two concerts of my own music and more well-known works by Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov. Also on the

Ordinary Romans, famous for their cheerful working-class familiarity, loved Pope Francis for his common touch. For the first time in living memory, they will have the opportunity of turning out on the streets to say their final farewells to a Pope, as Francis willed that he be buried in the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore on the Esquiline hill rather than in the vaults of St Peter’s. His will be the first papal burial procession to the Basilica since Clement IX’s in 1669. Unlike his predecessors, though, Francis insisted on plainness, economy and simplicity. His first arrival in the Vatican as Pope was by public bus. His departure, in

There are two untraditional ways to take your leave of this world in Britain. The bleaker is the ‘direct cremation’ method whereby, with no prayers and no mourners, a funeral director will take your remains from mortuary to crematorium to be burnt without troubling your friends and relations. The other is the ‘celebration’. According to Co-op Funeralcare in its new report, called ‘Go Your Own Way’, no fewer than 68 per cent of people it polled regard funerals as a celebration of life, up from 58 per cent five years ago. Out go prayers, black funeral dress and solemnity; in come Doctor Who themes, glittery coffins and guests dressed in

The Hollywood adaptation of Conclave, Robert Harris’s thriller about a conspiracy to rig a papal election, won’t be in cinemas until November. But judging by the trailer released last week, its starry cast, crafty plot and spectacular cinematography – jets of smoke scattering cardinals as an explosion shatters the Sistine Chapel – will instantly erase memories of The Two Popes, Netflix’s risible Oscar-nominated fantasy in which Benedict XVI secretly chooses Cardinal Bergoglio as his successor. Perhaps only four cardinal-electors are conservative Latin Mass ritualists, and none stands a chance Harris’s novel was published in 2016 and diplomatically set some years in the future, since the unnamed Holy Father lying dead

It was Benedict XVI’s election as Pope, his speeches and his writings that prompted my conversion, and it was his words at Bellahouston Park during his 2010 visit to the United Kingdom that first made me seriously consider my vocation. Without Pope Benedict XVI I would not have become a priest. His passing is for me incredibly personal, but it’s not just because of that, that I find him so incredibly difficult to sum up, it’s because whatever his detractors and admirers insist, he didn’t follow an ideology so much as a person.  ‘Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter

Few institutions can match the global prestige of Oxford University. Just look at the gifts lavished on it, like offerings brought to some mighty emperor of the ancient world. There’s the Saïd Business School, controversially funded with £50 million from Wafic Saïd, who helped to broker the British-Saudi arms deal. There’s the carbuncular Blavatnik School of Government, criticised by Russian dissidents for how the funder made his millions. There’s the new student housing at St Peter’s College, partly paid for with a donation whose original source was the mid-20th-century fascist demagogue Oswald Mosley. Yes, people do sometimes ask whether there’s any cash the university won’t accept. And now they have

If you think your diary looks busy over the next few days, spare a thought for Pope Francis. The 85-year-old, who was confined to a wheelchair for several months this year, is preparing for a big weekend. He will be spending it in the company of the world’s cardinals – the red-clad figures who are supposed to be his closest advisers but seldom meet en masse in Rome these days. Now the pope has finally decided to gather them together – in the Eternal City’s unforgiving August heat. The pope will be adding to the cardinals’ number today. Tomorrow, he will be dashing off to L’Aquila, the Italian city that