Francis Phillips, Author at Catholic Herald

Francis Phillips

March 10, 2020

I have been rereading Gentle Regrets: Thoughts from a Life (2005) by the late Sir Roger Scruton, who died in January this year. Many people have paid tribute to this great writer: a true polymath (when the word is too easily flung about to encompass transient pundits), Scruton wrote with knowledge and insight on subjects

A radical who lived in poverty in Africa

March 09, 2020

St Valentine’s Day has become associated with romantic love, even though Valentine was an early Roman martyr – that is, someone who dies as a witness to supernatural love. Christianity has inspired many people over the centuries to live and die (often a violent death) for love. Two lay people who chose in recent decades

What is the difference between us and the heroic Christian martyrs?

March 04, 2020

In Dana Gioia’s thoughtful essay, “To Witness Truth Uncompromised; Modern Martyrs”, one of his essays collected under the title The Catholic Writer Today and Other Essays (Wiseblood Books), he reminds us that these exceptional Christians “represent the perpetual challenge of believers to witness to their faith in a fallen world.” Sometimes we are inclined to

Have you tried the 33-day consecration to Mary?

March 04, 2020

The other Sunday my son brought back from his parish church a free booklet entitled “33 Days to Morning Glory”. By Fr Michael E Gaitley MIC, it is “A Do-It-Yourself Retreat in preparation for Marian Consecration.” My instinct was to throw it in the bin, a reflexive response to a surfeit of devotional material, all

Spiritual books: The need for healing, Fulton Sheen and the diary of a marriage

February 27, 2020

Dan Burke, founder and president of the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, has written Spiritual Warfare and the Discernment of Spirits (Sophia Institute Press, 128pp, £11.48/$14.95) from his personal experience of spiritual warfare – not the kind that requires formal exorcism but the more subtle and pervasive type that afflicts many people, though they do

The perfect Fulton Sheen book for Lent

February 24, 2020

It will soon be Lent and I have been reading Characters of the Passion by the late Fulton J Sheen, first published in 1947 and now reissued by Angelico Press. The ‘characters’ Sheen analyses are Peter, Judas, Pilate, Herod, Claudia (Pilate’s wife) and Herodias; in his inimitable style he conveys much wisdom such as, writing

We try to ignore death, but we need not be afraid

February 24, 2020

I recently watched a friend die. In hospital, receiving palliative care, his life had been mainly one of poor choices and emotional chaos. A Catholic, he had drifted away from the Church many years ago and was what one would describe as “lapsed”. In his case, it didn’t mean he rejected belief; he simply stopped

Christopher Hitchens and the longing ‘for a higher love’

January 22, 2020

What does it mean to state with confidence that you know someone’s disposition at death, especially if he is an avowed and public atheist? This question occurs to me because I have recently read The Faith of Christopher Hitchens by Larry Alex Taunton, published in 2016. The title is slightly misleading – Hitchens was not

The enduring strength of Les Murray’s marriage

January 22, 2020

I have been reading Flight from the Brothers Grimm: A European-Australian memoir by Valerie Murray, published in 1916 by Books Unleashed. Valerie is the widow of the Australian poet, Les Murray, who died in April last year and of whom a fellow Australian poet, Clive James, wrote in tribute – with typical Jamesian stylistic flourish

What ‘dignity’ really means

January 22, 2020

What do we mean when we use the phrase “human dignity”? For instance, those who advocate “dignity in dying” generally mean something very different from a traditional Christian perspective on what it means to be truly human. Thus, Human Dignity in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition (Bloomsbury), edited by John Loughlin, provides a thoughtful, necessary and scholarly

Books of the Year: The poet, the dissident and the bigamist

December 19, 2019

The Great Discovery (by Ulf and Birgitta Ekman, Ignatius Press, 280pp, £13.89/$17.95) is an engrossing book written jointly by a Swedish couple, formerly prominent Lutherans, who read and prayed their way into the Church over many years. They cite many signposts on their journey, not least the discovery of the role of Our Lady and

Cardinal Sarah’s profound meditation on the God of love

December 17, 2019

Having mentioned an interview between the late Sir Jonathan Miller and Norman Lebrecht in a recent blog on Advent, I am now thinking of another cultural giant who has recently died: Clive James. A friend has drawn my attention to an interview first broadcast in 2001 between James and the novelist Piers Paul Read in

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