PHOTO: ALAMY/BILL CHIZEK PHOTOGRAPHY
The US Supreme Court may be about to make a radical ruling on the legal right to abortion 27
COLUMNS
Melanie McDonagh’s Notebook ‘He listened intently to everyone he met; no one felt that they were boring in his company’ / 6
CONTENTS 7 MAY 2022 // VOL 276 NO. 9451
FEATURES
4 / A revolution of the heart Martha Hennessy has in her later years drawn closer to the Church and the
activism of her grandmother, Dorothy Day / BY MADOC CAIRNS
8 / The keeper of the flame John Wilkins did more than rescue The Tablet from closure – he made the paper
essential reading, even in the Vatican / BY MICHAEL WALSH
8 / ‘He embodied all it means to be a Christian’ Friends and colleagues offer their reminiscences of a man who cared deeply
about the Church, his work and the people around him
13 / Sacred rulers
When emperors lose touch with reality, trouble tends to follow. An eminent political historian is not shocked by current events in Ukraine / BY DOMINIC LIEVEN
Clifford Longley ‘John and I were both wary of the expression “Catholic journalist”’ / 14
REGULARS Word from the Cloisters 15 Puzzles 15 Letters 16 The Living Spirit 17
NEWS
24 / The Church in the World / News briefing 25 / Francis ‘suffers and cries’ over Ukraine
27 / View from Rome 28 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing
29 / New archbishop appointed to Cardiff
COVER: THE MUGHAL EMPEROR MUHAMMAD SHAH, 1764, BY MUHAMMAD RIZAVI HINDI; ALAMY/NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY
ARTS / PAGE 18 Television Mother Teresa LUCY LETHBRIDGE Exhibition Walter Sickert DAVID V. BARRETT Theatre Prima Facie MARK LAWSON Radio Faith in Journalism D.J. TAYLOR
BOOKS / PAGE 21
Christopher Bray The Ceiling Outside: The Science and Experience of the Disrupted Mind NOGA ARIKHA Ysenda Maxtone Graham The Premonitions Bureau SAM KNIGHT Morag MacInnes Shadowlands MATTHEW GREEN Suzi Feay Mother’s Boy PATRICK GALE
For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk
7 MAY 2022 | THE TABLET | 3