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The number of students taking Religious Studies (RS) at A-level has decreased by 3.5 per cent in England, and by 24 per cent in Wales. This is despite an overall increase in the total number of students taking A-levels. 14,690 students took an RS A-level in England in 2023, compared with 15,216 last year. In...

Do you keep encountering roadworks? No wonder. There have been more than 200,000 of them in the UK over the past three years – due to the need to fix faulty water pipes. Here is another depressing statistic: an average of 159 road repairs has been carried out every day since the start of 2020,...

‘Silver Sunday’ is 1st October – the ‘national day for older people’. So perhaps this is a good month to consider what churches can do to support their older people. Nearly one in five people in England and Wales is aged over 65. The over-70s currently make up around a third of the Church of...

Modern Halloween celebrations have their roots with the Celtic peoples of pre-Christian times. In those long-ago days, on the last night of October, the Celts celebrated the Festival of Samhain, or ‘Summer’s End’.  The priests, or Druids, performed ceremonies to thank and honour the sun.  For there was a very dark side to all this:...

Sundays of the Month Editor:  Continuing our new feature, as we thought you might find it helpful to know what the Sundays of each month are called… 3rd September             13th Sunday after Trinity 10th September           14th Sunday after Trinity / Education Sunday 17th September           15th Sunday after Trinity 24th September           16th Sunday after Trinity...

St Drithelm is the saint for you if you have ever wondered what lies beyond death, or have had a near-death experience.    He was married and living in Cunningham (now Ayrshire, then Northumbria) in the 7th century when he fell ill and apparently died.  When he revived a few hours later he caused panic among...

St Giles was an immensely popular saint in the Middle Ages, and no wonder:  he was the patron saint of cripples.  In those days, there were many people who, once injured, were never really whole again.  Even today, a serious injury – either physical or mental or emotional, can leave us damaged for months, years...

The Anglican Church in Australia still honours the New Guinea Martyrs of 1942.  These brave men and women, 10 Australians and two Papuans, refused to leave their missionary work on the island as the Japanese military forces advanced.  As one tribute to them put it: ‘They knowing full well the risk, elected to stay with...

Pope Gregory never called himself ‘the Great’, but instead ‘the Servant of the Servants of God’.  Nevertheless, Gregory was one of the most important popes and influential writers of the Middle Ages.  The son of a very rich Roman senator, he left the service of the State upon his conversion as a young man.  Gregory...

Did you ever feel that God was calling you to do something big for Him, even though you were not quite sure of the details? If so, Birinus is the saint for you. He was a French Benedictine monk who in 634 was made a bishop at Genoa, and sent by Pope Honorius 1 to...

You are walking down the road when a beggar approaches you for money.  What do you do?   If, instead of giving money, you buy him/her coffee or a meal, then you are in good company:  you are following in the steps of the first ever Bishop of Venice. Laurence Giustiniani (1381 – 1455) was born...

Captain Allen Gardiner is a saint for anyone who refuses to give up on their calling.  For this courageous and indomitable man founded what became the South American Mission Society, though he sacrificed his own life in the process. Gardiner had not started out to be a missionary.  Born in 1794, he had left Berkshire to...