Paula of Rome was truly a woman of the world. Born to a prominent, wealthy Roman family in 347 AD, she married a senator, Toxotius, with whom she had five children. A person in such a position would have wanted for nothing, and indeed, Paula didn’t. Until the age of 32, Paula lived a life…

If people of faith are going to sustain Christian commitment in a world swirling with endless possibilities for re-invention they need to have had an authentic experience of God, writes Fr Michael Kirwan SJ The prominent Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner made an astonishing claim about how he saw the future of the Church and of…

Charlie Chaplin is one of the few silent film stars likely to be known well even by people who have never seen a silent film. The American comic, whose character ‘The Tramp’ was iconic in the silent era, unsurprisingly makes the Vatican list of 45 significant films. The film they chose is the last film…

In 360AD Athanasius of Alexandria – one of the great Doctors of the Church – published a biography simply titled Life of Anthony. In it, he told the story of an illiterate and holy man who out of devotion to God went out into the desert to put into practice Christ’s words to the rich…

Maria Morrow The word “fear” has such a negative connotation to us. We fear our kids getting hurt. We fear spiders. We fear failure. We fear a tragic and untimely death. In other words, we fear the things that we don’t like or want. And sometimes our fears stand in the way of our goals…

If ever there was a saint for the poor, humble and marginalised, it must be the Canadian Alfred Bessette, or St André Bessette. Born in Quebec on August 9, 1845, he was orphaned by the time he was 12. He was forced to work to support himself, travelling from place to place and taking up…

Released in 1937 and directed by Jean Renoir, the talented son of a great French painter, La Grande Illusion set itself deliberately against the trend toward jingoism present in 1930s Europe. Set during WWI, it tells the story of French prisoners of war who continually try to escape from German camps; and about the German…

Scholars say German professor-pope stands the test of time writes Maria Wiering Beginning well before he was elected pope in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI made substantial contributions to theology and Catholic thought through his prolific writing, academic lectures and long-form interviews, say scholars who study his work. In the wake of his death, Benedict has been…

Pope Francis thought it a good idea to hone in on the life of St Francis de Sales on the 400th anniversary of his death and so should we, writes Jason Osborne On December 28 Pope Francis released an apostolic letter Totum Amoris Est (‘Everything Pertains to Love’), to mark the fourth centenary of the…

Starring Catholic convert Alec Guinness as a mild-mannered bank attendant who happens to be in charge of shipments of gold, The Lavender Hill Mob is a whimsical 1951 comedy made by Ealing studios. It gets onto the Vatican’s great films list from 1995 under the ‘art’ section. It is an odd choice for the Vatican’s…