Audio taken from a virtual press conference in which four Catholic bishops from England and Wales discussed their autumn plenary meeting. Bishop Paul Mason, who chaired the press conference, spoke about the Church’s safeguarding work, Bishop John Arnold discussed four resolutions concerned with environmental matters, Bishop John Sherrington addressed the issue of buffer zones around […]

Patrick O’Dowd, the director of Caritas Salford, spoke to us recently to give an overview of what the charity is doing to ease the burdens of struggling families in the north west of England. Patrick relayed some shocking statistics about the devastating effects of the crisis, with hundreds of thousands of children lacking the bare […]

We have two interesting years ahead of us in the life of the Catholic Church. 2025 is a Jubilee Year where the theme is ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. In the lead-up, not only do we have a two-part Synod of Bishops meeting in Rome in 2023 and 2024, we also prepare for the Jubilee with two […]

Every year, millions of pilgrims from around the world visit the foothills of the French Pyrenees to walk in the footsteps of Saint Bernadette at Lourdes. It’s one of the world’s busiest Catholic pilgrimage sites with around five million pilgrims visiting each year. It’s estimated that over 200 million people have visited the Marian shrine […]

As the Social Justice department of the Bishops’ Conference launches a new revised edition of the Bishops’ teaching document on the environment The Call of Creation, Bishop John Arnold, our episcopal lead for environmental matters, has been speaking to us about the current ecological crisis, our responsibilities as Catholics and custodians of the created world, […]

An awful lot of water has passed under the bridge since our summer At the Foot of the Cross podcast. In a month in which we lost our longest-serving monarch, it’s only fitting that we start by discussing the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Tributes, mourning, Requiem Masses, Bishops’ messages of prayer and […]

In this audio interview, Cardinal Arthur Roche, Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, takes us through the Consistory that saw him elevated to the rank of Cardinal by Pope Francis. He explains the role of cardinal, how it impacts on his work in the Roman Curia and […]

The director of a new Ukrainian Welcome Centre in central London has urged Britons to keep their hearts and doors open to Ukrainians who are arriving in the UK fleeing the war in their homeland. Andriy Marchenko talks to us about the Centre, based at the cathedral of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy […]

The Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of the Holy Family has opened a Welcome Centre in London in partnership with the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain. Based at the Eparchy’s cathedral near Bond Street in central London, the Centre provides a single point of contact for essential information for arrival, settling and long-term living in the […]

Welcome to At the Foot of the Cross – a monthly podcast from the secretariat of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. This episode is something of a summer offering, covering July and August. We’re joined by our regular guest Canon Christopher Thomas, General Secretary here at the Bishops’ Conference. We start with […]