Venice: The Remarkable History of the Lagoon City Denis Romano  Oxford University Press, £31.99, 904 pages The Renaissance scholar Francesco Sansovino (1521-1586) called Venice, and its watery setting, “the impossible in the impossible”. Situated in a tidal lagoon and built largely on artificial islands, the sheer improbability of magnificent churches and shimmering palaces emerging from the depths creates an abiding sense of the surreal in those fortunate enough to visit. Denis Romano’s new work seeks to make the miracle comprehensible. It spans a vast temporal sweep: from descriptions o ..read more

Easter time seems to get me reflecting on Tolkien’s Catholic imagination. I have previously written about how the dynamic of grace was portrayed in the experiences of the hobbit-protagonists of Tolkien’s Middle Earth sagas.  A key facilitator to this dynamic is, of course, the wizard Gandalf and the various ways in which he plays a Christ-like role, or otherwise serves to at least indicate the Divine action in some way. Gandalf offers spiritual and moral guidance to the hobbits and often speaks for, or of, what we might call Divine Providence. In fact, the word that most aptly captures Ga ..read more

Orbital Samantha Harvey Jonathan Cape, £14.99, 136 pages Samantha Harvey’s Orbital is a quirky little novel, which charts a day in the life of six astronauts on a space-station, their relationship with each other, and ultimately, with the planet from which they come. They have been blasted into space to conduct experiments; they whizz round the atmosphere 16 times in 24 hours, 250 miles up. It’s an exhilarating experience, for them and for us. These captives of chosen circumstances see more in a single day than most of us can hope to see in a lifetime. They are separated from life on earth by ..read more

Into the Heart of Romans NT Wright SPCK Publishing, £19.99, 224 pages British scholar and Anglican clergyman NT Wright (who as Bishop of Durham was once one of the Church of England’s most senior prelates) is among the most influential theologians of the past century, and, since the death of JDG Dunn, the world’s preeminent interpreter of St Paul. Wright’s ability to illuminate the long-shrouded promises of God to His image-bearing creatures in elegant and passionate prose has shaken the stale cage of Christian theology, which has for centuries been polluted by the Platonic supposition that ma ..read more

Normal Women: 900 years of women making history Philippa Gregory William Collins, £25, 688 pages Shortly after I finished reading Normal Women, I rocked my friend’s newborn baby to sleep. While she napped in my arms, we traded birth stories. Shortly after that, I sat by my grandmother’s side in hospital, holding her hand as she died. Birth and death: women’s work since time immemorial. And yet it is strangely absent from this 600-page rollercoaster through British history from 1066 to the present. Its focus is the economic and legal position of women – which, don’t get me wrong, is absolutely ..read more

The pattern of behaviour shown by Jesuit leadership in the management of the high-profile Rupnik scandal has centuries of institutional practice behind it. That’s according to Ulrich Lehner, a prominent historian at the University of Notre Dame, who has just published a German-language study of the Jesuits’ historical handling of abuse in their ranks. In a broad-ranging conversation with Crux in March, Lehner explained that in fact, what may appear to be a relatively recent development in the life of the Church is really the current chapter in a long-running crisis, the roots of whic ..read more

Despite the resulting popular legend, Protestant reform in Great Britain did not consign Catholicism to historical oblivion; for too long, by general consent, the study of Catholicism in Britain operated in a silo. The dominant version of history held that Catholics disappeared at the Reformation – apart from the odd execution for treason – before reappearing in the 19th century thanks to immigration, to become, by the mid-20th century, a distinct but weird branch on the fringes of national life. On the other side, at the start of the 20th century, confessionally-motivated Catholics began work ..read more

Ferulas and Thuribles: Surviving Stonyhurst in the 1960s John Mulholland Self-published, £20 + p&p, 483 pages The book is subtitled Surviving Stonyhurst in the 1960s. I entered Stonyhurst College in 1953, remaining and thriving there (not just surviving) until 1959. I ought to add that I found the collegiate experience at Stonyhurst exceptionally enjoyable, with a balance between a first-class education, academic excellence, the development of character and self-discipline, including great competition in all sports, and a massive infusion of culture and appreciation of music, not to mentio ..read more

Apologia: A Memoir Fr Aidan Nichols Gracewing, £12.99, 164 pages With St John Henry Newman, Fr Aidan Nichols has found the “need to be similarly apologetic” about his life and theological work. Mostly “a human story”, the tale gives him an opportunity to justify some of his actions, as well as to make “an appeal to the Church universal”. A widely respected academic, in 2019 Fr Nichols was among 19 signatories of an open letter to the bishops of the world which urged them to ask Pope Francis to clarify certain aspects of his teaching. Since then he has found his concerns and criticisms to have ..read more

Encounters: Experiences with non-human intelligences DW Pasulka St Martin’s Essentials, £21.99, 256 pages It is tempting to dismiss this as a very silly book. Its style manages to be both breathless and repetitive as the author tries her utmost to persuade you that she is about to reveal something momentous. Unsurprisingly, given the principle subject matter (unexplained phenomena like UFOs), there are no revelations and there is nothing of moment. Such value as Catholic scholar of religion Diana Pasulka’s Encounters has lies elsewhere, however. What it shows is that the world, and notably the ..read more