William Cash, Author at Catholic Herald

William Cash

One fallen king, one risen king: Braving the weather to find Arthur and early Christianity along Hadrian’s Wall

April 01, 2024

It was January, and I needed to get out of the house; away from emails and the effects of a seemingly never-ending Christmastide. The punitive bell of Lent was still months away. When my wife said “I’ve never seen you look so unwell,” it was time to act. I texted an old pal: “My 19-stone

Letter from the Editor: A very Happy Easter to our readers

March 31, 2024

Back in 2022, I visited the Garden of Gethsemane – where the Lord’s Passion began with His arrest. Beside the ancient olive grove – some gnarled trees date back 1,000 years – is the Basilica of the Agony (originally a crusader chapel) where I knelt with my wife at the bedrock of stones, encircled by

Letter from the Editor: Keeping our souls and churches in good (and sacred) order

March 27, 2024

Is nothing sacred? At the Catholic Herald we have argued in our articles that the Church of England has crossed such a line in allowing the naves of some of the UK’s greatest cathedrals – including Canterbury – to be temporarily repurposed for cocktail-fuelled silent discos (in which the revellers dance to music coming through headphones)

A journey of contrasts: leading Herald pilgrims along the Way of St Francis

January 27, 2024

The Agony and the Comedy. On the evening before our motley group of 14 Herald pilgrims headed off on our 108 km trek from Terni towards Assisi, we gathered at a little wine café across the street from our modest hotel for “welcome drinks”. As I entered the café, I was glad to see some

New tricks bring an old Da Vinci to life in Amsterdam

January 14, 2024

William Cash soaks up the sights and sounds of a new immersive Leonardo da Vinci show in Amsterdam. Following the success of such immersive art shows as David Hockney’s Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at London’s Lightroom, and Van Gogh Alive, which toured the UK, a new blockbuster interactive show about the life

Letter from the Editor: Jeremy Irons, the Cotswolds, charity and Da Vinci

January 01, 2024

On a chilly night early in December, I attended a wonderful charity dinner at Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire which raised money for WellChild, the national charity for very ill children with complex medical needs. The festive evening, hosted by Sudeley’s chatelaine, Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe, included a walk through the “Spectacle of Light” gardens, where St

Da Vinci Genius: ‘a dynamic interactive show, perfectly suited to do justice to Leonardo’s eclectic oeuvre’

November 30, 2023

AMSTERDAM – Following the success of such immersive art shows as David Hockney’s Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away) at London’s Lightroom, and the Van Gogh show – now touring UK – a new blockbuster interactive show about the life of Leonardo da Vinci has just opened in Amsterdam’s Design District. With a brilliant

Letter from the Editor: Assisi, the Synod, and Israel-Palestine

November 06, 2023

While Pope Francis opened the Synod on Synodality in Rome on St Francis’s feast day, I was some 80 dusty miles away, co-leading, with Mgr Keith Newton and our guide James Jeffrey (see his ‘Life & Soul’ Asissi Diary) our latest Herald pilgrimage along the Way of St Francis. Over the course of 70 miles

Thomas More College of Liberal Arts: Life lived in the Truth in a colonial farmhouse

November 01, 2023

William Cash on why small is beautiful for the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts. When your educational headquarters is what the Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College calls more of a “colonial farmhouse” than a sprawling campus, it’s difficult to compare the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts with, say, Boston College. But

Gloria, Dowager Princess of Thurn und Taxis: Fervent campaigner for conservative Catholic values and practices

September 26, 2023

From biker princess to Catholic activist. When I last wrote about Gloria, Dowager Princess of Thurn und Taxis – aka the Harley Davidson-driving “Punk Princess” – in the summer of 2007, I was summoned to the Festival Thurn und Taxis Schlossfestspiele in Regensburg, to visit her late husband Johannes’s family’s vast 500-room castle about an

Portugal is facing the new world once again

August 25, 2023

With its sixth cardinal on the way and a papal visit to Lisbon last month, a new special relationship between Portugal and the Vatican is being forged. William Cash investigates. For this year’s World Youth Day (WYD) at the start of August, Pope Francis became a spiritual magnet for a million and a half youthful

A deeply-loved bon viveur and deathbed convert: Augustin Hochschild, 1965-2023

August 05, 2023

IT WAS FRIDAY MARCH 17, and the Portuguese mountain rain had been falling from the heavens all morning on our 60-mile walking pilgrimage to Fátima when my phone pinged. We were in the Valeda Mata, still three days’ march from the shrine, on a barren goat track miles away from any village, let alone a

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Martyr in the Cathedral

January 01, 2021

William Cash attended Vespers in Canterbury Cathedral to commemorate St Thomas Becket’s martyrdom on the 850th anniversary of his murder. Canterbury Cathedral today calls it ‘Evensong’ but in the 12th century it was known as ‘Vespers’ – or ‘the lighting of the lamps’. As every British schoolboy knows – or used to know – it

John le Carré: Novelist of the moral battlefield

December 14, 2020

John le Carré, who has died aged 89, was the successor to Graham Greene in that he created his own bleak and grey, moral universe in which betrayal and love were interchangeable. Like Greene, who thought le Carré’s 1963 debut The Spy Who Came in from the Cold was the “best spy novel I have

Will next 2021 be the ‘Year of the Nun’?

December 09, 2020

According to Literary Hub, the influential American book site, 2021 could be the ‘Year of the Nun’. This verdict followed the recent news that an expected blockbuster of next year will be an epic new ‘historical nun’ novel of ‘consuming passions’ by National Book Award finalist bestselling author Lauren Groff (published by Riverhead in Sept).

How UK Disability History Month has brought out my inner Hospitaller

November 23, 2020

I like to listen to listen to Classic FM whilst mulling over the day ahead during a dawn bath. I confess that I switch off when – and it’s usually around 6.45 am – the presenter starts trying to engage me in the fact that it’s a day or month of particular Awareness. Examples of

The elephant in the room

September 30, 2020

It was a long wait – 70 minutes – before religion raised its limpet head in the Trump v Biden bare knuckle verbal TV brawl in Cleveland. Even then, it was a throwaway insult directed towards Trump before the debate descended again into a cacophony of circus farce, traded insults, and shouting: ‘This guy and

A Handmaid’s Tale (a tall one, too)

September 29, 2020

If Democrats in the Senate push against SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s religious convictions or practices, they are unlikely to make much headway, and will almost certainly pay the price for it on the campaign trail and at the polls. ‘Do you have concerns about the group?’ wrote the Guardian US journalist – hopefully, no

A Canterbury Tale – part III

July 26, 2020

Part Three. “I’ve never had to change the stamp date by three months before”, said the curate at Winchester Cathedral after I asked for my pilgrim’s passport to Canterbury. I had 140 miles to go and it looked like I was going to be alone on the Pilgrims’ Way. After the Catholic Herald walk into

A Canterbury Tale – part II

July 19, 2020

Part two. On the 800th anniversary of the Translation of the saintly bones of St Thomas Becket, The Times reported that York University had built a 3D computer version of the famous shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury. The virtual shrine looks a little like a computer game, showing pilgrims prostrating themselves in a fever of

A Canterbury Tale

July 12, 2020

Part One On Tuesday, 7 July, after a two week, 150 mile pilgrimage on foot from Winchester to Canterbury, I knelt in prayer on the worn marble flagstones on the Trinity Shrine of the cathedral to commemorate the memory of Archbishop Thomas Becket. Instead of the thousands of bishops, priests and members of the public