Those who like their rosy view of the Vatican unsullied by sordid reality need to heed Ronald Knox’s famous advice – “a bad sailor keeps clear of the engine room”. Murmurings and mutterings over the last few years that the Catholic Church’s engine room was misfiring have suddenly been turned into hard fact, with the leaking of ­documents that are gravely embarrassing to the papacy of Benedict XVI, the arrest of his butler on suspicion of being the source of those leaks, the forced resignation of the head of the Vatican bank, serious allegations of corruption, and an air of faction-fighting in an apparent attempt to force out the Vatican’s second most powerful figure, the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Cardinal Bertone was appointed by the Pope shortly after the start of the pontificate. As Archbishop Bertone, he had previously worked for Cardinal Ratzinger at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it was apparent that the incoming Pope wanted his own man at his right hand.

This seemed to indicate a lack of confidence in the more obvious options, either to continue with Cardinal Angelo Sodano or appoint someone of the same background. The leaked docu­ments do indeed suggest that Cardinal Bertone has failed to impress, but to them must be applied the classic test – cui bono? In whose interests is it to suggest this? Italian journalists have been assembling suspects, insinuating that the accused butler was a mere pawn in the hands of much more important people. Similarly with the dismissal of Ettore Gotti-Tedeschi as head of the Vatican bank, a personal appointment of Cardinal Bertone. The banker was accused of misconduct, but again, cui bono?

It is right to recognise alternative possibilities. It may be that the growing dysfunctionality of the Vatican as an effective civil service was simply because the man in charge, the Secretary of State, was not up to the job. But it is also ...

“Send her victorious, long to reign over us” is the often-repeated prayer at the heart of the British national anthem, and it has been more than adequately answered, especially the last part. This weekend’s eagerly anticipated national celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee signifies that this has been a long reign indeed, one of the longest in the English monarchy’s long history.

The anthem began life as an ardent prayer for deliverance from the Jacobite Catholic threat in 1745. Now this loyal sentiment is to feature in the liturgy this Sunday by order of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, when congregations will pray “O Lord, save Elizabeth, our Queen”. It is a biblical phrase; for instance in the first book of Samuel (10:24), King James version, it is reported: “And all the people shouted, and said, God save the King.” This is an important part of the symbolism of Christian kingship, for it affirms not only that the sovereign is God’s anointed one but also that the office carries onerous duties as well as privileges.

What distinguishes Queen Elizabeth II – like her father George VI, but not all their predecessors – is that despite being a constitutional monarch with no real political power, she has managed to perform her duty to the full. The Jubilee will therefore take on the character of a genuine and sincere “thank you”. She has been a fine symbol not just in her office, but in her person. She is female and she is now elderly, and both categories need the affirmation and dignity that she gives them.

This distinction between office and person applies to the symbolism of royalty in general. The office represents continuity, linking the nation with its past, even as the content of the memory changes. Imperial glory was at the heart of the Coronation service in 1953. The diversity of races and faces that will be visible in the crowds this weekend symbolises ...

On 26 March 2000, Pope John Paul II made one of the most telling gestures of his pontificate. He placed a signed letter in a crevice of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the age-old Jewish way of communicating a special prayer to the Lord God of Abraham. The letter demonstrated beyond doubt that for him there was no going back to the days when Jews were reviled by Christians for having committed “deicide” ...

With his public stance on gay marriage, and now over rules requiring Catholic institutions to make contraceptives part of the compulsory health care they must provide, President Barack Obama risks driving religiously minded American voters into the arms of his enemies.

On gay marriage he could have kept quiet, knowing how neuralgic the issue was becoming, as he was not announcing policy, just his opinion ...

Is there a right time to talk about gay marriage? Or to put it another way, is there a wrong time? In answering the latter question, certainly one Cabinet minister of the Coalition Government – a Government whose leaders are publicly committed to its introduction – would seem to think so. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond made it plain this week that he thought there were more important and immediate issues ...

The remarkable series of television documentaries made by Michael Apted, which began with 7 Up in 1964 and continued with 56 Up this week, has charted the lives of a dozen or so British children. It was evident from this week’s episode that for those educated in the 1960s, being born into very ordinary circumstances is no bar to enjoying prosperity. For the first few decades after the Second World War, politicians ...

In Britain, the anniversary of the day 67 years ago that hostilities ceased in Europe slipped by this week with scarcely a mention in the media. Across the English Channel, by contrast, it was marked in France by a public holiday, as it is every year. In the Netherlands, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, liberation from the yoke of Nazi militarism is also marked by a public holiday. It is even commemorated on ...

It is only three months since an international symposium on clerical child abuse was held in Rome, causing many observers to believe that the Church was beginning to understand the full scale of the scandal. There were wise words from Mgr Charles Scicluna, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), who deals with abuse cases, urging church leaders to put the protection of children above all else ...

“We were made for love” could well be a song played by the radio DJ Chris Evans, on whose show the former Abbot of Worth, Fr Christopher Jamison, pops up from time to time in a slot called “Pause for Thought”. In fact “We were made for love” is a comment made by Pope Benedict XVI to the young people of Britain during his 2010 papal visit and is quoted in a new document on vocations ...