大象传媒

As Pope Benedict XVI enters the final week of his papacy we ask Vatican expert Robert Mickens what his final week will entail.
85 people were killed in last weekend's attack on Shia Muslims in the Pakistani city of Quetta following an even bloodier attack on a snooker hall there last month. Shahed Sadullah is a Pakistani journalist who tells us just what problems are facing the Shia community in Pakistan and what can be done.
Bob Walker reports from Todmorden where a hymn book written by the Chartist movement has recently been discovered in the local library and is thought to be the only copy that has survived. Two recent reports have provided striking insights into the way the churches are now engaged in the provision of welfare. More than half the Church of England's parishes provide some form of social service and church members are giving more time and money in this area. Edward speaks to Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester, who has expressed his concerns regarding the amount of support the church is providing.
The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has made his first appointment. Canon David Porter from Coventry Cathedral will be the Director of Reconciliation at Lambeth Palace. He tells Edward what his new role will involve.
Ever since the Roman Catholic hierarchy was re-established in England in the mid nineteenth century successive archbishops of Westminster have been made cardinals. But Pope Benedict hasn't yet given the current archbishop, Vincent Nichols, his red hat, so there will be no one from the Church in England and Wales voting in next month's conclave. Trevor Barnes reports on the complex relationship which has existed between the Vatican and the Catholic Church here and ever since the Reformation.
A group of prominent Catholics wrote a letter to the Independent newspaper this past week calling for "a more democratic process of electing key office holders" including bishops and cardinals. They want a pope who would, "redress the present imbalance in the exercise of authority in the Catholic Church". John Sullivan, professor of Christian Education at Liverpool Hope University and Father Alexander Lucie-Smith who writes for The Catholic Herald newspaper join Edward.