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Dec 5, 2024 | 
catholicherald.co.uk | Serenhedd James
Because the Hunchback of Notre-Dame was discovered on Quasimodo Sunday – hence his name – people often think that Victor Hugo’s novel Notre-Dame de Paris starts at Easter. Not so; it opens with scenes of carousing and bell-ringing in medieval Paris on the feast of the Epiphany in 1482. The commotion had been caused, as Hugo puts it, by anticipation of “the twin ceremony of Twelfth Night and the Feast of Fools, which had fallen on the same day since time immemorial”.
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Nov 27, 2024 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Serenhedd James
The sheperds’ dial, Corpus Christi Professor Helen Moore, the President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, proclaims on her college website that “Corpus is a close-knit yet outward-looking community where talented people from all backgrounds are encouraged to flourish”. It seems strange, then, that such a cosy community should also be a crucible for vigilantism, which in January reportedly drove Alexander Rogers, a 20-year-old student, to suicide. The inquest into Mr Rogers’s death, conducted...
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Nov 17, 2024 | 
catholicherald.co.uk | Serenhedd James
‘Have you got the map?” I did not have the map. Why would I have had the map, when I was doing the driving?
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Nov 9, 2024 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Serenhedd James
Credit: David Williams A desperately upsetting open secret that has been whispered around Oxford since January has finally come into the light. Alexander Rogers, a 20-year-old materials science student at Corpus Christi College, took his own life after an allegation made against him by another student appears to have led him to believe that he had no other choice, or reason to live, when his peers – some of whom he regarded as close friends – chose to ostracise him. The coroner has concluded...
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
catholicherald.co.uk | Serenhedd James
Fed up with the fickle English weather, I decided I wanted beauty and beer so booked a last-minute weekend trip to Tallinn. In addition to the sunshine, it also meant that I could visit a friend who is presently an officer serving with the NATO taskforce in Estonia. The British Army demurely calls Operation Cabrit its “Forward Land Forces” in the Baltic States. More straightforwardly, His Majesty’s Armed Forces are there to deter anyone else from being there instead.
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Nov 5, 2024 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Serenhedd James
The Conservative party has a new leader, and the Americans have gone to the polls; in Oxford, meanwhile, either Elish Angiolini, Dominic Grieve, William Hague, Peter Mandelson, or Jan Royall will soon emerge as Chancellor-elect and the University’s next titular head. The absence of any wildcards suggests an impatience on the part of the electorate for the unsatisfactory smorgasbord that was initially presented. The first-round voting blocs crystallised early on.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
catholicherald.co.uk | Serenhedd James
Much has happened since the Catholic Herald last landed on doormats. I travelled to New York in early October and did not expect to return to London as Editor-in-Chief, but here I stand. I am grateful for the many kind messages that have arrived since the news broke. It is very much business as usual at 8 Cromwell Place.
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Oct 22, 2024 | 
catholicherald.co.uk | Serenhedd James
Educating in Faith: A History of the English Catholic Public SchoolMark Cleary, Sacristy Press, 256 pages, £19.99The cover of Mark Cleary’s Educating in Faith is something of a parable: “a projected but unrealised plan” for Downside Abbey, near Bath, with monastery and school either side of a fine church – two lungs, if you like, of the same monastic body. A differently splendid version of Downside was built, but that did not meet expectations either.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Serenhedd James
Credit: RMAX When Chris Patten announced his intention to retire as chancellor of the University of Oxford in February, the cogs of academic administration began to turn. Eight months later, they have produced an outcome of exquisite chaos. The traditional quorum of proposers has been set aside, and anyone who fancies their chances has been encouraged to stand. Twenty-one years ago a procession of black gowns, 8,000 strong, shuffled towards the ballot box. This time voting will be online, and...
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Aug 15, 2024 | 
catholicherald.co.uk | Serenhedd James
In medieval England the glorious midsummer feast of the Assumption was known as “Our Lady in Harvest”. At the top of Bredon Hill, on the knife-edge of Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, it’s not hard to understand why. The air hums late into the evening as the farmers work hard to bring in the crops. Wild apple trees in the hedgerows are bent over with fruit.
