Catholic bishops have called for new treaties to regulate weaponised drones and lethal autonomous weapons systems. In a new paper, “Called to be Peacemakers”, the bishops of England and Wales also call for a “global moratorium” on lethal autonomous weapons systems. In this podcast, Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, talks to Bishop William Kenney, one of the authors, about the challenges and opportunities facing the Catholic Church and wider community on the latest weapons technologies, the continuing debate over nuclear deterrence, and what we can all do to help. Read the latest Tablet article on the paper here. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, discusses with Fr Alban McCoy OFM Conv the question of Pope Francis and his approach to the war in Ukraine, and where this fits in the context of just war theory. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

Following on from Plato and Socrates, in the second in our series on why truth still matters, Fr Alban McCoy, OFM Conv, and Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor of The Tablet, discuss St Thomas Aquinas, 750 years after his death. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

Journalist Ruth Gledhill is in conversation with Catholic priest, philosopher and theologian Fr Alban McCoy OFM Conv in the first in a new series of podcasts. Subscribe to The Tablet. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

Award-winning writer and former Financial Times journalist Jimmy Burns’ latest book A Faithful Spy, based on previously undisclosed personal private papers of former MI6 and MI5 officer, Walter Bell, gives a remarkable insight into the working of British Intelligence. In this Tablet podcast, Emily Buchanan of the BBC talks to Jimmy Burns about the book and some of the startling things that he uncovered during his research. In this article in The Tablet Jimmy Burns gives further insight into the life of Walter Bell. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

The 2023 synod summit in the Vatican ended with a series of openings for reform, including on the role of women, training of priests and a re-think of the church’s sexual teaching.  For those in the hall, a vast majority agreed that the synod process and style — which saw cardinals and lay people gathered around tables listening to each other — is how church business should be done in the future.  But what happens next? Synod 2023 is the first of two assemblies, with another due in October 2024.  In this episode, I talk again to Myriam Wijlens, who took part in the synod as an expert adviser. Professor Wijlens, a theologian and canon lawyer who has been closely involved in the synod process, stressed a general agreement that women need an enlarged role in the church but a “struggle” over how this should happen in practice. The question of women deacons is to be further studied, and Wijlens said a “conclusion” to the discussion over the possibility of women deacons could take place at the synod next year.  Professor Wijlens teaches at the University of Erfurt in Germany. She said that the new synod process marks a “tremendous shift”, which gave everyone the same amount of time to speak, whether they were an Asian woman or a European cardinal.  “There was a general agreement: we have to attend to this question [of women]”, she said. “And there was a great agreement that women do make up the larger portion of active participants in the life of the Church. And then there comes a struggle because we all come from different cultures and from different backgrounds. How does that unfold in real life, on the ground?”   Professor Wijlens points out that a critical challenge is implementing synodality at the local level. But it can no longer be a question of waiting for the authorities in Rome about what to do.  “How can Rome say what you have to do in the inner city of London and in the inner city of Manila or the countryside of Alaska at the same time,” she said. It is up to bishops and local leaders to “take up your own responsibility” and implement synodal reforms in their local areas.    The Church’s Radical Reform podcast is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham in partnership with The Tablet.    Producer: Silvia Sacco Editor: Jamie Weston  Subscribe to The Tablet --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

In October 2023 we began a series of articles on Family Matters, the first of which was by our very own Editor, Brendan Walsh. Brendan wrote movingly and candidly about his experience of first-time fatherhood in his early 60s. Other articles followed covering themes of adoption, welcoming strangers into your family, the death of a child, being a mother with cancer, an unconventional upbringing, and grandfathers. Three online webinars accompany this series, the first of which was on 8 November with Brendan Walsh and Carina Murphy, who was diagnosed with cancer five years ago when her children were five and nine years old. This is the conversation between Brendan, Carina and Tablet readers, introduced by deputy editor Maggie Fergusson.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

In this podcast, from a Tablet webinar on the Synod on Synodality, Ruth Gledhill, assistant editor, The Tablet – talks to Professor Renee Kohler-Ryan, National Head of the School of Philosophy and Theology and Rev Professor Eamonn Conway, Professor of Integral Human Development, both of the University of Notre Dame Australia. This was one of a Tablet series of webinars on Synodality, in partnership with the University of Notre Dame, Australia. To sign up for future Tablet events, go here. Tablet podcasts are available on all the usual podcast apps such as Apple, or can be listened to via our dedicated page on our own website.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

The reflections of Fr Timothy Radcliffe have been one of the highlights of the October 2023 synod assembly in the Vatican. The English Dominican friar led the synod participants on a retreat before the synod gathering and offered wise reflections and spiritual guidance. Some have called him the “spiritual father” of the synod.  In this episode, I sat down with Fr Timothy to discuss the synod process and how to navigate disagreement in an increasingly polarised world and church. Fr Timothy led the worldwide Dominican Order from 1992-2001, the first English friar to do so. He knows the universal Church and the workings of the Vatican and has attended several synods.  “I think to see Roman Curial cardinals sitting with young women from Latin America and Asia and listening, really listening. I think that’s what is most transformative,” he told me.   The process of listening, he says, is the “foundation for any subsequent things to happen” and that both individuals and the Church collectively need to be “changed” before they know which changes need to be made. On one occasion in the synod, he referred to a story that had been told to participants about a bisexual woman who had taken her own life as she did not feel welcomed by the Church. “The question always put is: is the Church’s teaching going to change? That’s not the issue. The issue is, will we love and welcome our fellow human beings?” he says. “If we love them, and listen to them and make them part of our lives, if there are evolutions to happen, they will happen. But you don’t start by asking what changes have to be made.” He stressed that the synod is counter-cultural because it demands people listen to those with whom they disagree.   “We inherit a tradition, Catholicism, which does actually believe in reason,” he pointed out. “We see a lot of irrationality in our society because people don’t believe in reason anymore, but the Church does, and this should act in a healthy way to open not just our hearts but our minds, so we listen attentively with all our intelligence to what the other person is saying, and try to see how even if we disagree it bears some tiny seed of truth that we need. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t turn out, when we look back, that one of the great roles of the Church will be to carry on believing in reason.”  Talking about indifference or scepticism of the synod among the clergy, Fr Timothy said there needs to be a “positive, affirmative vision of the priesthood” to ensure more priests get on board with the synod process.  Finally, he talked about his recent health struggles and how Pope Francis took him by surprise and phoned him while he was in hospital.  The Church’s Radical Reform podcast is sponsored by the Centre for Catholic Studies at the University of Durham in partnership with The Tablet.  Producer: Silvia Sacco  Editor: Jamie Weston    --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message

In Losing a Kingdom, Gaining the World, Dr. Ambrogio A. Caiani tells the story of the Catholic Church in the modern age. Beginning with the aftermath of the French Revolution and the democratic rebellions of 1848, Caiani follows the Church's evolution that sees three popes being forced out of Rome, the secular power of papacy being destroyed, a disastrous series of concordats with fascist states in the 1930s and the Church’s retreat into a fortress of unreason. As Catholicism lost its temporal power it made huge spiritual strides expanding across the globe and gaining new converts in America, Africa and the Far East; losing a kingdom but gaining the world, he writes. In this Tablet podcast, assistant editor Ruth Gledhill talks to the author about why he wrote the book, some of his discoveries and their implications, and what he hopes to do next.     Ambrogio A. Caiani grew up in Ireland and spent his summers in Italy and France. Since his early childhood he has had a passion for history, politics, and religion. He was educated at the Universities of York and Caiani received his doctorate from Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge in 2009. He is currently Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Kent. He is the author of two previous books: To Kidnap a Pope, Napoleon and Pius VII 1800-1815, which won the Franco-British Society Book Prize 2021, and Louis XVI and the French Revolution 1789-1792.   --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-tablet/message