One third of divorced and remarried Catholics, who have not had their first marriage annulled, receive Communion, according to a Tablet survey. More than 4300 people from around the world completed a questionnaire on www.thetablet.co.uk between 3 and 14 October about what they’d like to see from the synod on the family. Nearly 85 per Read more
A feminist theologian who is a director of UK Catholic weekly The Tablet has been banned from speaking on church property in a Scottish archdiocese. Archbishop Leo Cushley of St Andrews and Edinburgh has ordered the Edinburgh Circle of the Newman Association to cancel an event at which Professor Tina Beattie was due to speak Read more
British Catholic weekly The Tablet has announced it will no longer be using Robert Mickens as its Rome correspondent. The Tablet suspended Mickens in March after he called Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI “The Rat” and anticipated his death in a Facebook comment. The publication stated an inquiry would be carried out. About a month later, Read more
There have been calls from some quarters to reform Confession, and a recent Tablet article listed many reasons why Catholics said they had stopped going. Even a cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, has called for “proper reform to the sacrament” – an idea Pope Francis has signalled he does not want to look at. Recently I came Read more
Most remarkable about the consultation regarding sex, marriage and family life, in which the Catholic Church has asked Catholics throughout the world to take part, is its brave implication that things have to change. One sentence in the official document accompanying the Vatican’s questionnaire is an example of this. As a result of the current Read more
Since Pope Francis took office in March, almost everything he has said and done indicates that he is bent on carrying through a thorough reform of the Roman Catholic Church, beginning with the Vatican itself. Scarcely a month after taking office, he created an international group of eight cardinals to advise him on reform of Read more