The ordination season is upon us once again. As advertised in this issue of NEW DIRECTIONS, bishops of The Society will be ordaining men to the priesthood in churches from Liverpool to Camden and Horden to Portsmouth, and many points [...]

ST GILBERT AND ST HUGH, GOSBERTON CLOUGH The Lincolnshire village of Gosberton has a splendid 14–15th c. cruciform church, one of the very finest in the county (no small praise). At the end of the 19th century, residents of the [...]

Conrad O’Riley enjoys an authoritative biography of Pope Francis THE GREAT REFORMER Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope Austen Ivereigh Allen & Unwin, 464pp, hbk 978 1760113285, £20 On 27 June 1992, twenty-one bishops were consecrated in Buenos [...]

Christopher Smith visits the Christian Resources Exhibition, and finds himself puzzled as to what Christian resources might actually be As they say in the diary columns: To Docklands, for the Christian Resources Exhibition. I’d never been, and a colleague had [...]

The Father by Florian Zeller at the Tricycle Theatre, Kilburn, the latest fine French play beautifully translated by playwright Christopher Hampton, will no doubt be said to be about dementia. If I had been told that, I would probably have [...]

What’s the point? Andy Hawes is Warden of Edenham Regional Retreat House I have been in the parishes I serve for a fairly long spell (26 years) and yet I have no clear idea of the spiritual life of many [...]

devotional The message of Evelyn Underhill Dana Greene The mystical life is, for Underhill, the spiritual life because all true religion has a central mystical element. This does not mean that all those who lead the spiritual life have lives [...]

Arthur Middleton on the persecution of Christians On 4 June we commemorate Justin Martyr (AD 155), and on this day we might well think prayerfully about those Christians who are being persecuted by Islamists because they are Christian, and murdered [...]

DEFINING BEAUTY The Body in Ancient Greek Art British Museum 26 March–5 July Admission £16.50, members/under 16s free If time is short or you need one of the savoury pancakes from ‘Abeno’ in Museum Street you might visit the first [...]

Betty Jarrett writes about the pastoral care of those bereaved by suicide I count myself very fortunate in that in my twenty-five years as a practising psychotherapist not one of my clients committed suicide. That did not mean that some [...]