Constance Watson

Fearing is believing

A genuine awe of God will help you to put into perspective all the man-made, confected terrors politicians keep throwing at us
‘the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. so said franklin d roosevelt in his 1933 inauguration speech. he was paraphrasing the ameri...

Lost your bottle? Turn to Mary

The Church offers scant advice on how to make a good marriage, but the miracle at Cana, as orchestrated by the Blessed Virgin, is a good place to start
last saturday, i found myself – not for the first time and definitely not for the last – at a hen party. the minute you turn 30, hen parties...

Saving face

Freeing oneself from the clutches of social media is a tremendous palaver but is worth it to escape something that has become ineffably sinister
last month, after 13 short years, i deleted my facebook account. the site, at last, has lost any of the allure it once had (more on that lat...

Smaller wedding – stronger sacrament?

Lavish pre-lockdown weddings are yet to return, but scaled-back services are a blessing not a curse
i wonder whether we should really be lamenting the latest delay of so-called freedom day quite so much. confusingly, under new rules there w...

'I've got to be obsessed'

Lady Antonia Fraser speaks to <I>Constance Watson</I> about her latest historical biography
lady antonia fraser greets me from behind a mountain of books as i enter the drawing room in her holland park home. she is sitting, resplend...

Who wants to live forever anyway?

As the government tries to keep us all alive, a raft of new material 
suggests there is nothing to fear from the afterlife
have you seen correggio’s assumption of the virgin ? it’s horrifying. &nbsp; the feast of the ascension was celebrated last month and idle c...

For a bestseller, just add religion

From Chaucer to Dan Brown, stories with an ecclesiastical hook succeed in distracting us from an increasingly Godless world
how do you solve a problem like maria? so asked the nuns of nonnberg abbey in the sound of music . (pause, please, in remembrance of christo...

The friars shaking up internet radio

"go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”: the bible is consistent in its message that it is our duty to spread the wo...

The friars shaking up internet radio

From a cramped studio in Hampshire, Franciscan friars are serving up prayer, ethical debate and even a comedy drama

The rural Catholic crisis

one of british catholicism’s most significant divides is between urban and rural. the church is most visible in towns and cities: there are ...

The order of unsung heroes

‘between believers, we have a better understanding of each other,” the grand hospitaller of the order of malta tells me. he is characteristi...

Meet the 21st-century contemplatives

‘i didn’t want to be a nun at all,” the sister tells me. “the impression that i had is that nuns were miserable people that slept in coffins...

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