Breaking news
The Italian Army has been brought in to ferry coffins out of Bergamo, Northern Italy, as its morgue and its crematorium struggle to cope with the surge in fatalities from the coronavirus pandemic. Harrowing photos from the town show officers wearing protective hazmat suits as they work to store bodies in churches and halls. It … Read more
Every weekend and holiday, Cameron Newham is out from dawn to dusk, in rain, sun, hail and biting winds, fulfilling his quest to photograph all 12,000 of England’s rural parish churches. Always working alone — ‘other people tend to get rather bored’ — he takes pictures of, well, pretty much everything. A nice view from … Read more
Churches across the UK deliver Sunday services to mass audiences online via Facebook as coronavirus social distancing measures take hold Church of England and Church of Scotland have now banned mass worship Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to broadcast service on radio today Churches in the UK to ‘start an entirely new way of doing … Read more
Church of England bans use of the Common Cup for Holy Communion in bid to stop spread of coronavirus Wine, used during Eucharist, will not be given to people having Holy Communion St Paul’s announced measures to try to stop the spread of the deadly COVID-19 The Anglican cathedral said it would remain open for worshippers … Read more
Rome has closed down all its Catholic churches in Italy’s latest drastic step to halt the coronavirus outbreak. Worshippers have been exempted from attending Sunday Mass in a shutdown announced by the Pope’s deputy in Rome last night as Italy’s death toll passed 1,000. Cardinal Angelo De Donatis said Rome’s 900 churches will be closed until … Read more
Record-breaking bat plague causes severe damage to 10,000 churches with at least two already abandoned Church of England estimates that 60 per cent of its 16,000 churches have bats The bats leave floors and walls caked with corrosive droppings and urine There are 3,000 more than in the last study which was done in the late … Read more
BOOK OF THE WEEK THE MOTHER OF BEAUTY by Nigel Andrew (Thorntree Press £10, 244 pp) We English have a world-class literature, it is often said, with Dickens and Shakespeare, but we’re not so good on art and music. If it’s great symphonies you want, you have to turn to Germany and Austria; for painting and … Read more