Libby Purves, Author at Catholic Herald

Libby Purves

Libby Purves: Is my crib hobby getting out of hand?

December 22, 2016

The other day, in a brief, frivolous Chunnel-hop to Lille Christmas market, I tried to reclaim a mental map of what was my home town in the late 1950s, with Dad posted to the consulate and me trotting across town to the convent. I found St-Maurice, the huge church where I was confirmed with all

Libby Purves: What I owe my ‘crazy’ nuns

October 20, 2016

I sometimes get into quite heated arguments about nuns. The problem occurs when I meet fellow 1960s women who went to bad convent schools. They relate horror stories of humourless (and, in some cases, dangerously stupid) nuns, who preached hellfire, imposed weird exotic punishments and daily excoriated the fearful, frightening, filthy world of sexuality. Not,

What I owe my ‘crazy’ nuns

October 20, 2016

Our nuns taught us that strong, well-organised women can run things without being bossed about by men

Libby Purves: What humanist funerals are missing

July 07, 2016

From the back of the church, striding, almost alarming, booms the celebrant: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The service rolls on: full of awe, placing mankind’s fragility at its heart, laying it before the altar: “Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of

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