Joanna Bogle

Joanna Bogle, DSG (née Nash) is a British Catholic journalist, writer and broadcaster.

Biography

Joanna Nash was born to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother, she was raised in her mother's faith. She worked for the Richmond Herald and later the Surrey Comet newspapers after leaving school.[1]

She has written a weekly column for the Catholic Times and has been described by fellow Catholic writer and journalist Peter Stanford as "a forceful, eloquent and youthful firebrand who has made it her business, with some success, to act as a counter-balance to Cristina Odone on the chat-show and soundbite circuit."[2]

Her biography of 19th-century humanitarian Caroline Chisholm, The Emigrant's Friend, was published in 1993. Her most recent project was about Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough and Sister Katherine Flanagan, two British Bridgettine nuns in Rome who hid 50 Jewish refugees in their guesthouse during the Nazi occupation.[3]

Bogle is a founder member of the Association for Catholic Women in England and a contributing editor to the Catholic journal Voices. She married Jamie Bogle, an Australian-born barrister, in 1980.

In 2013, she was made a Dame of the Pontifical Order of St Gregory the Great in recognition of her unstinting work for the Catholic Church.[4]

Opinions

A conservative who believes the Catholic Church should advocate fundamental truths rather than liberal attitudes;[5] Bogle is opposed to the ordination of women priests.[6] In 1999 Bogle opposed the recommendation of the Broadcasting Standards Commission to use BCE and CE in place of BC and AD.[7]

In 1998, she criticised the decision of the church to honour Rupert Murdoch with a knighthood: "It sends out the message that you can make a living out of something – soft pornography – that is regarded by the Church as sinful, and yet you can be awarded for it. The Knighthood of St. Gregory is supposed to be about honour and chivalry and splendour. To give it to Murdoch is ridiculous and wrong."[8]

She believes Catholics, and Christians generally, are under sustained assault in the UK and should assert themselves.[9] According to Stanford, Bogle's criticism of the hierarchy represents a minority of Catholics in Britain.[10]

In March 2009, Bogle participated in a debate on Channel 4 News with Dr Rachel Baggaley, head of Christian Action's HIV programme, and presenter Jon Snow, on the Church's policy towards AIDS in Africa. Snow described it as the fierciest debate in which he ever participated.[1]

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 Sharyn McCowen "Author ‘lost my cool’ in AIDS debate on TV – A Conversation with Joanna Bogle", The Catholic Weekly (Australia), 16 August 2009
  2. ↑ Peter Stanford "Unholy battle for faithful readers", The Independent, 20 February 1996
  3. ↑ Jerome Taylor. "British nuns who saved wartime Jews on path to sainthood", The Independent, 2 June 2010
  4. ↑ John Newton, A Well Deserved Honour, article in: Oremus, Westminster Cathedral Magazine, June 2013, p. 30.
  5. ↑ Joanna Bogle "The Catholic church is not a democracy", Opendemocracy, 17 April 2005
  6. ↑ Joanna Bogle "Women Priests — No Chance", Catholic Education Resource Center, 1997 article
  7. ↑ Joanna Bogle and Rabbi Charles Middleburgh "Is it millennium madness to drop AD and BC?" The Guardian, 8 May 1999
  8. ↑ Steve Boggan "Catholic anger at Murdoch's papal knighthood", The Independent, 17 February 1998
  9. ↑ Joanna Bogle. "Anti-Catholic Nastiness in England", Catholicity website, 7 August 2007 (Reprinted from InsideCatholic.com)
  10. ↑ Peter Stanford. "Pope Benedict's visit: Beleaguered Catholic church struggles against secular tide", The Observer, 29 August 2010

External links

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