Robert Harris never meant to write novels. A political journalist, who, at 30, moved from the BBC to become political editor of the Observer, he enjoyed writing longer pieces; and between 1982 and 1990, he penned five works of non-fiction.

During the 2011 Ryder Cup in Medina Golf Club, Chicago, television cameras captured Rory McIllroy as he looked into a cloudless sky to see ‘GO RORY!’ being spelt out by a plane emitting puffs of smoke from its bowels. He stopped, took out his phone and took a photo.

It’s an unusual title to put on your CV but breaking away from the ordinary is key to his success, reckons Paddy Power’s Head of Mischief, Ken Robertson.

Amid claims by Bishop Michael Smith that funeral Masses are being ‘dumbed down’, Fr Paul Crosbie notes that they are as much about offering comfort to the living as it is praying for the peaceful repose of the dead

A recent speech by Pope Francis held clear echoes of a centuries-old tradition stressing the need for radical, progressive action, and insights on matters of social justice, writes TP O’Mahony

FOR decades, women have been waiting for a change in the Catholic Church’s attitude towards them, and now once again with the election of a new pope many are harbouring similar hopes.

He was supposed to be ‘God’s Rottweiler.’ AN Wilson looks at the paradox of Benedict XVI, a man who seemed more complicated than many of us wanted to imagine when he appeared.

THE resignation of Pope Benedict has prompted much debate about his legacy but another question also arises — why do so many people in this country continue to care about an anachronistic institution that doesn’t want them as members?

The pope is planning to stay out of the public eye following his retirement at the end of the month and will probably not even write any more, his brother said after talking with him.

With a few words in Latin, Pope Benedict XVI did what no pope has done in more than half a millennium, stunning the world by announcing his resignation and leaving the already troubled Catholic Church to replace the leader of its one billion followers by Easter.

Carlo Martini, who was buried yesterday, was for progressives in the Church a symbol of the fading dream of open reform, writes Tom Heneghan

THE banter of the two men strolling into the conference hall spoke volumes.

I am appalled to read the recent report that Pope Benedict has cracked down on dissent and good priests such as Tony Flannery and Gerard Moloney.

Dan Buckley profiles a priest at odds with some dogmas of the Church

THE level of anxiety ahead of the Pope’s visit to Britain meant anything short of a disaster would be seen as something of a success from the Vatican’s point of view.

IT’S a great pity that you chose to reprint (April 28) Christopher Hitchens’s ridiculous defamation of Pope Benedict XVI in which he presents a preposterous argument for charging the pontiff with involvement in organised crime.

The Vatican today tried to defuse growing anger over remarks by the pope's top aide that the paedophile priest scandal was caused by homosexuality and not the church's celibacy rule.

The Pope is refusing to comment publicly on individual sex abuse cases rocking the Catholic church because they were not his responsibility, his private secretary said today.

A Vatican lawyer has denied the Pope tried to impede the defrocking of a California priest who sexually abused children.

The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a US priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including “the good of the universal church”, according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature.

POPE BENEDICT XVI kept mum on paedophile priest scandals rocking the Roman Catholic Church during his Easter Mass yesterday, as Christians across the world marked the resurrection of Christ.

A priest who investigated allegations of sex abuse on around 200 deaf children over 24 years defended the Vatican's handling of the case today, saying it was unfair to drag the current Pope into the scandal.

POPE Benedict XVI opened Holy Week yesterday amid one of the most serious crises facing the church in decades, with questions about his handling of cases of paedophile priests and the Vatican acknowledging its “moral credibility” was on the line.

Protesters gathered outside the main Catholic church in the UK today to call for the Pope’s resignation over clerical sex abuse.

Pope Benedict XVI has opened the church’s solemn Holy Week amid increasing questions about his own handling of cases of sexual abuse of children by priests.

STEVEN GEIER says that four times in the mid-1960s, the Rev Lawrence Murphy coaxed the then-14-year-old student into a closet at St John’s School for the Deaf just outside Milwaukee and molested him, using God to justify his actions.

The pope was kept more closely informed of a German priest’s abuse case than previous church statements have suggested, the New York Times claimed today.

A US Roman Catholic archbishop warned a top Vatican office led by the future Pope Benedict XVI about a priest who may have molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to documents obtained by The New York Times, but the priest never was defrocked.

A diocese in the Pope's native Bavaria said today four priests and two nuns are to be investigated in connection with sexual abuse allegations.

THE Catholic Church paedophile scandal is moving like a contagion from one country to another, but the implications of the German complaints are potentially more damaging to the Vatican than any others.

THE Vatican has denied that its celibacy requirement for priests was the root cause of the clerical sex abuse scandal convulsing the Church in Europe and again defended the Pope’s handling of the crisis.

Germany’s sex abuse scandal has now reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese disclosed that while he was archbishop a suspected paedophile priest was transferred to a job where he later abused children.

CATHOLIC authorities in Germany announced two major abuse investigations – one into the renowned choir once led by Pope Benedict XVI’s brother and another into what everyone, including the Pope, knew about the sexual and physical abuse of students.

THE Pope’s brother admitted yesterday that he slapped pupils across the face after he took over a renowned German boys’ choir in the 1960s and was aware of allegations of physical abuse at an elementary school linked to the choir, but did nothing about it.

The Catholic Church today said its child abuse scandals were only part of a wider problem.

AN ever-widening sexual abuse scandal involving Germany’s Roman Catholic Church spilled into the heart of Pope Benedict XVI’s homeland yesterday when a former member of a boy’s choir led for 30 years by his brother claimed he was a victim.

The Pope has been criticised for his response to the Murphy Report into the cover-up of child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

The murder of an innocent schoolgirl almost four decades ago was tonight being investigated in the wake of two harrowing reports into the cover-up of clerical abuse.

THE people who abused children in our industrial schools were “the dregs of society in a certain sense”.

YOU carried a full-page feature article by TP O’Mahony who was highly critical of Pope Benedict XVI (July 12).

ARCHBISHOP of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin yesterday rejected claims that Pope Benedict XVI led a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic priests.

Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin today rejected claims Pope Benedict XVI led a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Catholic priests.

The European Union’s justice chief Franco Frattini today condemned threats made against Pope Benedict XVI and called on European governments to rally around the pontiff’s message.

THE Vatican yesterday expressed deep concern over a possible new scandal set off by an African archbishop who announced he was championing the cause of married priests in the Roman Catholic Church.

A cardinal and one-time papal contender has said that condoms were the “lesser evil” in combating the spread of Aids, the latest senior churchman to diverge from the Vatican’s opposition to artificial contraception.

LAST Sunday’s gatherings in Rome, Poland and elsewhere to mark the first anniversary of Pope John Paul’s death were exactly what you would have expected: big, atmospheric, emotional events.

ROYALTIES for Pope Benedict XVI’s writings and speeches? The Italian publishing world is aghast.

ONE of the unique privileges of Italian football referees is that they get to have audiences with the Pope.

POPE BENEDICT XVI decried what he called the mistaken idea that leading a virtuous life was “boring” as he marked yesterday’s 40th anniversary of the end of Vatican Council II, which sparked modernising reforms in the 2,000-year-old Roman Catholic Church.