Showing 1 - 4 of 4
How to save the modern Catholic Church from itself
News, John Lloyd, Published on 03/09/2018
» When the pope is given a cool, even combative, welcome in the Republic of Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church is in trouble. The country had been -- from its founding as the Irish Free State in the early 1920s after a violent break with the United Kingdom -- deeply influenced by Catholic teaching in the framing of its laws and the management of its institutions. It is now solidly secular -- and it has a list of hard questions to put to the Church.
Italy's right to make wrong choice
News, John Lloyd, Published on 04/06/2018
» The Italian crisis is over, and has just begun. Its dimensions go far beyond Italy; they are now European, even global. The near three-month long improvisations on a theme of governance ended Thursday with the announcement of an administration headed by Giuseppe Conte, a law professor with no government experience tasked with running a cabinet controlled by the leaders of the two parties which form that administration -- a signal of weak, divided and warring politics at the summit of power for the foreseeable future.
Why Putin is still – genuinely – popular in Russia
News, John Lloyd, Published on 22/03/2018
» Vladimir Putin won big on Sunday. According to the central election commission, the Russian president glides into his fourth term after winning his biggest-ever election victory, with nearly 77% favouring him. His nearest rival was an affluent multi-millionaire communist who got more than 11% by presenting himself as a Putin-plus, with a programme of nationalising the oligarchs' property instead of merely controlling it.
Once centres of hope, political parties are dying
News, John Lloyd, Published on 03/01/2018
» There's little difficulty in showing that some of the most venerable political parties of the democratic world may be facing terminal crises. The difficulty is in determining if government by a party or parties -- the sustaining base of administrations the democratic world over -- can last.