There is a “strong need” in the Church and in the world, “to rediscover the meaning and value of the conjugal union between man and woman on which the family is founded”

Pope Francis, addressing the Roman Rota, Vatican News, 27 January

I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching, which says that every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin

Pope Francis, explanatory letter to Fr James Martin, Vatican News, 28 January

General Synod will be making important decisions, which effectively can be considered as an Existential Choice for the Church of England. It will choose between two increasingly incompatible privileges: to be a wife or a mother. Wife to the State through Establishment; Mother to the Anglican Communion

Revd Joshua Penduck, “A Tale of Two Privileges”, Fulcrum-Anglican.org, 17 January

From the very word go, I’ve been conscious that we’ve been fallen, but from my mother I got this sense of the possibility of redemption

Frank Field, interview in The Observer, 29 January

I think it would be jolly nice if there was [life after death]. My friend Barbara Wootton used to say the worst of it was that if you argued with bishops that this is all there is, and you were right, you would be denied the pleasure of [saying] “I told you so.” I feel a bit like that

Ibid.

It is very clear that the state Church of England and the society it purports to represent are not remotely in step. Justin was keen for me to see that they are moving forward, but conceded that any progress, as I would see it, if it happens at all, will be glacial

Sandi Toksvig, video following meeting with Justin Welby, 26 January

A chinwag with the affable host of QI over a couple of flat whites at Costa were, it seems, not enough to overturn millennia of Judeo-Christian teaching

Gareth Roberts, Spectator Coffee House blog, 27 January

Care doesn’t produce financial wealth, and good care doesn’t rely on output but on intangible qualities like kindness, listening, valuing. . . Good care recognises that contribution to the common good comes in many different guises, few of which are primarily financial

Isabelle Hamley, Council for Christian Unity, Thought for the Day, Radio 4, 25 January

When the road to the new vicarage was constructed I wrote to the council suggesting the name of the new road be ‘Christ’s Close’ [cheesy]. They replied that they could not accept my idea because their policy was not to name roads after living people

Simon Rowbory, Twitter, 28 January

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