Serenhedd James

Singing together again

As regulations are relaxed, congregations ought to be in fine voice
it was sunday morning, and i was wallowing in a deep bath when my hostess knocked on the door. “mass is at ten. will you play?” this is not ...

Rediscovering Ronnie

The extraordinary literary legacy of convert-celebré and crime writer Ronald Knox is the gift that keeps giving
a few years ago i returned from the bodleian to find a small parcel in my college pigeon hole, placed there by the senior tutor. it containe...

Let's get physical

As a return to socialising beckons, it’s worth reflecting on the 
trials and tribulations of this year spent under lockdown
since march 2020, i and many of the other denizens of east oxford have become intimately acquainted with the trees of aston’s eyot, a former...

Habits of prayer

The Church should encourage the long-term practical viability 
of those communities dedicated to the religious life
sarah sands’ recent book, the interior silence: 10 lessons from monastic life , was reviewed in these pages last month. elsewhere in the iss...

"An outstanding Catholic priest"

Tributes continue to pour in for Mgr Mark Langham, the popular chaplain whose passing in January has left a void
the death of mgr mark langham in january has left a void in many people’s lives, for his influence was immense. urbane, witty, humane and im...

The battle of the papal biographers

As Pope Francis sends the religous book market into overdrive, <i>Serenhedd James</i> investigates the new blockbuster battleground
there is a magnificent scene in paolo sorrentino’s the young pope in which pius xiii, played by jude law, sits open-mouthed at a table in th...

John Ryan – gently lampooning the Catholic sixties

<I>Serenhedd James</I> on how John Ryan, the Catholic Herald’s brilliant cartoonist, defined the spirit of the Sixties
i did not know that captain pugwash was a catholic until i recently encountered him making his confession—of the sin of envy, at the success...

Notre-Dame reopens: but has the quest to restore its beauty succeeded?

because the hunchback of notre-dame was discovered on quasimodo sunday – hence his name – people often think that victor hugo’s novel notre-...

Enjoying some of the finest music ever written stunningly performed thanks to The Sixteen's Choral Pilgrimage

the sixteen are on the road again, with their annual choral pilgrimage. last year the theme encompassed the 400th anniversary of the death o...

The Church and the Crown: Catholicism and the English Monarchy

after four and a half centuries, is all at last forgiven? in east hendred in oxfordshire a catholic church and presbytery sit opposite each ...

People like us: Kim Samuel and Bishop Erik Varden on community, belonging and togetherness in a post-Covid world

i cannot now remember the number of times that i have sat in the sheldonian theatre in oxford, wearing an academic gown of either red or bla...

"We are here to stay and struggle”– Cardinal Pell on the Church's power of endurance

The Australian Cardinal returns to Oxford to deliver the Newman Society's annual Thomas More Lecture
flanked by two enormous eighteenth-century portraits of long-dead judges, on saturday 13th november cardinal george pell delivered the oxfor...

Tony Harding: Reaping the wisdom of nearly 70 years of priesthood

to bath on a sunday evening, to ja hansom’s magnificent church of st john the evangelist, just around the corner from the station on south p...

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