Category Archives: Journalism
John Cavadini review of Pope of Good Promise in The Tablet
Francis: Pope of good promise 15 October 2015 by Jimmy Burns, reviewed by John Cavadini In his lively, sometimes compelling biography, Jimmy Burns sets out to offer his reader “fresh insight into a key spiritual figure of our times”, cautioning the reader that, nevertheless, this is “not a hagiography”. It is not, he assures us, the story of a “picture-book saint”, but of a “complex man” with a “mixed record”. For example, the book’s most searching chapter, “The Dirty War”, sifts through the evidence for the Jesuit provincial Jorge Bergoglio’s …
Catholic Herald Book Review
Book review: From ‘little devil’ to rescuer of fallen women by Jane Taylor posted Thursday, 8 Oct 2015 The future Pope Francis greets the faithful in Buenos Aires in 2009 (AP) This latecomer on the Pope Francis biography scene is fresh, vivid and beautifully crafted Francis: Pope of Good Promise by Jimmy Burns, Constable, £25 With so much now on record about Pope Francis and at least three weighty biographies by well-known Catholic writers published during the past two years, the question has to be: what’s new here? Jimmy Burns …
12 people who ruined Catalonia
From a haughty count to a tax fraudster, via a very vengeful dictator. By Jimmy Burns 9/29/15, 5:36 PM CET Updated 10/2/15, 11:54 AM CET As pro-independence parties win a majority in the local Parliament but fall short of 50 percent of the popular vote, we name 12 people responsible for Spain’s potential constitutional crisis. 1. Wilfred the Hairy: Perhaps the Knight of the White Moon who defeated Don Quixote on Barceloneta beach was really Wilfred the Hairy — Guifré el Pilós in Catalan. The legendary 9th Count of Barcelona, …
From Viña del Mar 1906 to London 2012: A Chilean family story
From Viña del Mar 1906 to London 2012 – A Chilean family story “Mientras escribo estoy ausente,Y cuando vuelvo ya he partido, voy a ver si a las otras gentes les pasa lo que a mi me pasa… “While I write I am absent and when I return I have already left; I am going to find out if other people experience the same thing as I do, if they are as many as I am, if they look like each other, and and when I have found all this …
A CUBAN DIARY by Jimmy Burns 21/3/2008
A version of this article was published in The Tablet Just a small group of Cubans are with us on the Air France from Paris to Havana, and they are the only non-tourists on the plane, apart from the Chinese Olympic volley ball team. They are members of the national judo team, and have just been on a pre-Olympic warm-up tour of northern Europe. While the Chinese spend the flight playing computer claims, like automats, the Cubans crack jokes, eat, and play music. Their physiotherapist has bought a Zorro suit …
Teetering on the brink
Focus on Spain 1 – the economy The Tablet With unemployment now at 25 per cent, Spain is becoming the sickest man of a sick Europe. Its austerity solution to its debt-ridden economic woes has sapped people’s confidence about their future. Fears are growing that an almost inevitable bailout could be coupled with insurrection It is just as well that Spaniards still have their fiestas. Spring is traditionally that time of year in Spain when Spaniards put the winter gloom behind them and usher in warmer weather, returning bird song, …
Cristina Fernández picks a fight
Argentina’s president never appears in public without a heavy layer of make-up. “I put it on like I am painting a door,” she told her authorised biographer, Sandra Russo. Indeed, Russo’s book dedicates a whole chapter to the subject that many believe holds the key to who Cristina Fernández really is. One western diplomat in Buenos Aires – a woman – told me: “She really is beautiful when you meet her close up, and she is intelligent.” Her critics question her political credentials behind the mask. “Cristina uses her femininity, …
Is the sun setting on the Spanish Church?
Catholicism in Spain It was announced this week that the Pope will visit Spain in November. The news comes during a tense phase in Church-State relations after the Spanish Senate approved a new abortion law on 25 February. It is the latest round in a battle that the secularising government seems to be winning Last year an estimated one million people demonstrated in Madrid when the proposals to liberalise the abortion law became public. Now that it looks set to become law, the Spanish bishops’ conference has approved a new …
Tribute to Michael Richey
This Obituary by Jimmy Burns appeared in The Tablet on the 21/1/2010 Mike Richey’s death at the age of 92, three days before Christmas Day ,marks the passing into history of the last of a group of English Catholics who left an enduring mark on the 20th century. On the day of Mike’s birth , his father George , a distinguished British officer who had fought in the Matabele War, the Mashona rebellion and the Boer War, wrote to Mike’s mother Adelaide,from the western front: “We are busy preparing for …
The brave women of Buenos Aires By Jimmy Burns
Published by The Financial Times March 13 2010 In the Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, around the central pyramid that commemorates the overthrow of colonial Spain, a neat circle of painted white bandannas marks the spot where Las Madres de Mayo – some of the bravest women in the world – protested in the last decades of the 20th century against Argentina’s bloody military junta. When I was in the square earlier this year the only protest was, ironically enough, that of a makeshift camping site set up by Malvinas, or …
