-
1 week ago | 
anglican.ink | Damian Thompson
After Pope Francis died, it took the Roman Catholic Church just 17 days to choose a successor in Pope Leo XIV. It has been well over 6 months since Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby resigned and we are only just making sense of those chosen to sit on the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), that will recommend his successor. Even then, it’s unlikely we will know more until the autumn. Why has it taken so long?
-
3 weeks ago | 
thespectator.com | Damian Thompson
RomeIn the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from evil spirits that, according to reliable sources, they arranged for a priest to conduct what’s known as a “minor exorcism” outside the walls of the Vatican.
-
3 weeks ago | 
spectator.com.au | Damian Thompson
RomeIn the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from evil spirits that, according to reliable sources, they arranged for a priest to conduct what’s known as a ‘minor exorcism’ outside the walls of the Vatican.
-
3 weeks ago | 
spectator.co.uk | Damian Thompson
In the days before the conclave that elected Pope Leo XIV, traditionalist Catholics were so worried about interference from evil spirits that, according to reliable sources, they arranged for a priest to conduct what’s known as a ‘minor exorcism’ outside the walls of the Vatican.
-
1 month ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Damian Thompson
The election of Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, is a stunning surprise – and not just because he is the first American to become the successor of St Peter. Catholic traditionalists were confident that, after the radical turbulence of Pope Francis’s 12-year-reign, cardinals wanted a move away from a progressive, even secular, focus on social justice and climate change. It looks as if they will be disappointed.
-
1 month ago | 
spectator.com.au | Damian Thompson
The 133 cardinal electors who will process into the Sistine Chapel tomorrow are feeling battered and confused by the prospect of choosing a new pope in a ruthless digital age. Many of them show it in the faces, flinching at the sight of the press. The cardinal-electors must elect a man of shining moral integrity.
-
1 month ago | 
spectator.co.uk | Damian Thompson
The 133 cardinal electors who will process into the Sistine Chapel tomorrow are feeling battered and confused by the prospect of choosing a new pope in a ruthless digital age. Many of them show it in the faces, flinching at the sight of the press. But the journalists are struggling, too. For centuries, the interregnum between a pope’s death and the vote has been a season of mud-slinging – an opportunity for supporters of various cardinals to kick their rivals.
-
1 month ago | 
dailymail.co.uk | Damian Thompson
When the world's cardinals met in Rome last Monday for the first of their crucial pre-conclave discussions, they raised 'the issue of clerical abuse', according to a Vatican spokesman. The cardinals are forbidden to reveal anything that was said. But behind closed doors, the preparations for the conclave – which starts on Wednesday – are already mired in scandal.
-
1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Damian Thompson
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words “con profondo dolore” from a cardinal standing in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. Two hours earlier, Pope Francis “è tornato alla casa del Padre” – “had returned to the house of the Father”. Most people won’t have noticed a curious detail: the cardinal was speaking Italian with a pronounced Irish brogue. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the papal ‘Camerlengo’, was born in a Dublin suburb.
-
1 month ago | 
thespectator.com | Damian Thompson
At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words “con profondo dolore” from a cardinal standing in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. Two hours earlier, Pope Francis “è tornato alla casa del Padre” – “had returned to the house of the Father.” Most people won’t have noticed a curious detail: the cardinal was speaking Italian with a pronounced Irish brogue. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the papal “Camerlengo,” was born in a Dublin suburb.
