A year ago today Pope John Paul II was beatified in a ceremony at Saint Peter’s Square, just six years after his death. Last month I visited both John Paul’s hometown of Wadowice and the Archdiocesan Museum of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła in Kraków during a trip to Poland
The archives du Carmel de Lisieux have recently launched a new website, putting materials relating to the life and posthumous fame of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux online for the first time. The convent was the saint’s home during the last nine years of her life and its archives have been the guardians of her legacy ever since
Chapter published in Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon (eds), Studies in Church History 47: Sainthood and Sanctity (Woodbridge, 2011), pp. 376-89
Examining late medieval depictions of birth and motherhood involving holy figures, especially those featuring Saint Anne (mother of the Virgin Mary) and the Holy Kinship (the extended family of Jesus), this study reassesses the nature of the female spectatorship of these images, focusing on a group of prayer books associated with the houses of Anjou and Brittany, and the women who used them. Posing ‘questions about genders, spectators, and reception’ (p. 8), this is an ambitious art-historical enquiry
Since its Roman inception Valentine’s Day has ranged from a celebration of sexuality to a plea for purity
John Henry Newman rightly insists in his classic work on the subject that narrow specialisations produce narrow minds
Benedict has rejected the rich Catholic tradition of interpreting heaven in terms of the most intense human experiences
The identity of Saint James has been reinvented many times over two millennia, from Moor-slayer to Spaniard-killer to pilgrim
The beatification of the ‘priest of Solidarność’ offers a focus for remembrance of all who have defied authoritarian regimes
Margaret McBride has been excommunicated for authorising an abortion. It’s a decision that flies in the face of common sense
Sophia Deboick 
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