Newman on Our Definite Service

Chris Altieri, the Rome Bureau Chief for the Catholic Herald, describes the Church as "in a rough patch".

Covering the Catholic Church as a journalist - working at the heart of Mother Church in Rome - Chris has the gruelling and often thankless task of finding the facts behind the stories and presenting Vatican news clearly and honestly.

John Henry Newman knew God has a specific plan for all of us, but how can we put our best foot forward in our mission?

"In good times and in bad, the answer is right before us. 'Lead, kindly light,' Newman famously prayed – and the light that leads us never fails, though often it shows us the way mere inches at a time.

"Newman was no stranger to controversy, nor to trial and even great desolation. The Church of his day was not less plagued with faithlessness than is our own...

"...The great thing, in times like these, is to look to the little things: Confident in Christ’s final victory over death, secure in the knowledge that His Church shall triumph, we plug away."