COLUMN
Joy Marie Clarkson ‘Manners communicate something about our view of the dignity of others’ / 11
REGULARS
Word from
the Cloisters 15
Puzzles
15
Letters
16 The Living Spirit 17
CONTENTS
22 APRIL 2023 // VOL 277 NO. 9499
FEATURES
4 / Europe’s special case
Pope Francis will next weekend visit Hungary, a country taking a controversial and divisive path of social and political reform / BY MARC ROSCOE LOUSTAU
6 / In the steps of St Francis
Ahead of a forthcoming exhibition, the director of the National Gallery in London took a group of art critics on a pilgrimage to Assisi / BY JOANNA MOORHEAD
9 / For pollinators’ sake
If we hand the choice of plants and planting to algorithms in the name of insect diversity, are we really gardening at all? / BY ISABEL LLOYD
10 / The more I learn, the more I love
In the third in our series of conversion stories, a young Catholic describes how the death of his father prompted a search for God / BY CAMERON GARDEN
EDUCATION
12 / Name that plant in order to save it
British children display a worrying lack of knowledge about nature, but teenagers will soon be able to study for a GCSE in natural history / BY MARY COLWELL
13 / Lessons for life
Pupils love RE as a subject, parents love it too, but not new teachers whose recruitment has dropped by a third / BY KATHRYN WRIGHT
NEWS
24 / The Church in the World / News briefing 25 / Rome rules out role of laity in episcopal elections
27 / View from Rome
28 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing
29 / Missal returns to historic home after four centuries
COVER: EL GRECO, SAINT FRANCIS RECEIVING THE STIGMATA, 1590-95. ©THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
ARTS / PAGE 18
Exhibition
This Fragile Earth LAURA GASCOIGNE
Radio
Love Stories:
Borstal Boy
D.J. TAYLOR
Theatre
Hamnet; A Little Life
MARK LAWSON
TV
The Diplomat
LUCY LETHBRIDGE
BOOKS / PAGE 21
Austen Ivereigh
Ravenous: How To
Get Ourselves And
Our Planet Into
Shape HENRY DIMBLEBY
AND JEMIMA LEWIS
Guy Stagg
The Marriage
Question: George
Eliot’s Double Life
CLARE CARLISLE
Marcus Tanner Speed reading on broken families
