Freddy Gray

There's excitement in Christian circles today about the first meeting of Pope Francis and Archbishop Welby. The two men have important things in common. Both reached their positions of power from unusual backgrounds: Welby from the evangelical HTB movement; Francis from the Society of Jesus. Both have spent quite a lot of time attacking unregulated financial capitalism. Both shun traditional pomp. They both speak to a charismatic Christianity, modern and global, which stresses social justice and proselytisation above theological rigour and tradition. They are also Christians with whom secular liberals can do business. But will having such apparently compatible leaders make any meaningful difference to Catholic-Anglican relations? The Catholic blogger William Oddie says no.

What is a red line, exactly? We've been hearing a lot of talk about 'red lines' from our politicians in recent weeks in relation to Syria, chemical weapons, and western intervention. 'Red Line' has become a sort of post-Iraq diplomatic catchphrase. It translates, roughly, as  the 'point at which we, the West, will definitely — and we really mean it — intervene, so take us seriously, ok?' But where has it come from? Is it connected to 'redline', the mechanical word for the maximum engine speed at which an internal combustion engine can operate without overheating? Is it to do with the red laser lines that alarm systems use? The thin red line? 'Redlining' in Microsoft Word? Or has it actually been around for ages?

We've had a lot of horrible news this week, and inevitably that means a lot of tragedy tweeting. You know the sort of thing: a terror attack or a natural disaster happens, and everybody hops on the internet to share their reactions and emote ad nauseam. There's not much point railing against this. Twitter is here to stay. But please — just so we don't all go mad — can we lay down some basic DO NOT rules for tweeting in the wake of an appalling major news story? Below are the first eight that spring to mind, but please do add more... 1. Do not take to Twitter to say: 'There aren't words ... Just pray4victims'. If you don't have words to say, then shut up. If you want to pray, just pray. Don't bloody well tell everyone else to. It's obnoxious. 2.

Over the next few days, we'll all have to swallow gallons of journalistic effluvium about the great Alex Ferguson, who announced his resignation this morning. We will be told about the legendary gum-chewing manager who transformed humble, working-class Manchester United into a world-topping global brand. We should, however, be expressing relief that a man who has done so much damage to English football is at last quitting. First off, we now have the cheering possibility that Manchester United's boring dominance of top-flight football will finally end. This year they won the Premier League without at any stage playing all that well. Other teams just couldn't get their act together. This makes a mockery of the Premier League's claim to be the best in the world.

My name’s Freddy and I’m an online gambling addict. The problem started a few years ago when I opened an account on Betfair.com. At first it was small bets on football games, maybe the odd greyhound. A fiver here, a tenner there. Click, click, click. It was fun. Pretty soon, however, the hobby had developed into a minor obsession. I moved on to the harder stuff: cricket, tennis, even X Factor results. I had some wins but more losses: £20; £30; oops, there goes a hundred. Click, click, click. Then I downloaded the Betfair app onto my phone. Tap, tap, tap. I realised things had gone too far when I had almost all my savings on Andy Murray to win a quarter-final somewhere. He did, happily. But I got short odds — and it was Andy Murray, for goodness sake.

I couldn't get Richard Dawkins to reply to Theo Hobson's excellent article on 'the new new atheists'. Probably, he didn't see my message. Or maybe he thought it beneath him. Or maybe like God he just doesn't respond to all our entreaties. There's no doubt, though, that Theo's piece touched a nerve among the godless trolls of the web -- just look at the comments section. Theo must be on to something. The new atheist spring of the 2000s is wilting. Dawkins suddenly seems like a strange anachronism. In his place, a humbler and more honest atheism is emerging, led by brilliant minds like our very own Douglas Murray on one hand and Alain de Botton on the other.

After almost a week of media breast-beating about the Philpott case, a creepy consensus is emerging over benefits for children. Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative backbencher, wants child benefit to be limited in future to a family's first two children. Lots of Tories agree. So does former Tony Blair speechwriter, Philip Collins. 'This would save £3.3 billion if it were applied to all recipients,' he writes in his Times column today. 'Many working people take the responsible view that, though they would love another child, they cannot afford it. Well, yes. No doubt out there is a degree of feckless fecundity among claimants, and that's a bad thing. We should not incentivise greedy people to have children just so they can have more cash.

Does being gay make you a better historian? ‘Immensely, immensely,’ says Diarmaid MacCulloch. ‘From a young age, four or five onwards, I began to realise that the world was not as it pretends to be, there are lots of other things there. You learn how to listen to what is being half-said or implied, and that’s a transferable skill.’ MacCulloch knows what he’s talking about. He’s Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford and one of Britain’s most distinguished living historians. In academic terms, he’s on a par with David Starkey, who also happens to be gay. Like Starkey, MacCulloch is a Tudor specialist who has branched into other areas and television work.

Haven't you heard? Today is the official launch of the People's Assembly, a grassroots movement to amplify 'progressive opinion' in the public square. Think Arab Spring, but for Brits who don't have quite as much to rage about. It's being launched by Owen Jones, Mark Steel, Caroline Lucas, and other such luminaries. The main thrust of their campaign seems to be against cuts. 'It’s springtime for opposition to the nightmare of austerity,' says Jones, deftly combining metaphors. 'The People’s Assembly offers the one thing missing from British politics: Hope.' Hope and change! Springtime! Who doesn't want that? The trouble is, I'm not so sure that actual people agree with the People's Assembly's founding premise.

So the new Pope was 'cosy with dictators', according to the papers. The only sources for that assertion seem to be Latin Americans left-wingers who are obviously and implacably hostile to the Catholic Church. The most damning 'evidence' appears to come from an anti-clerical conspiracy theorist called Horacio Verbitsky, who has alleged in a book called 'The Silence'  that the Catholic Church and Cardinal Bergoglio were complicit with the murderous military dictatorship during Argentina's 'dirty war'. One doesn't have to be a papist to regard all these hastily re-heated allegations as dubious. (But it helps.) The papers have dug up various other Latin Left 'activists' to attack the new Pope.

Some striking facts about Pope Francis. Fact one: the Cardinals have elected a 76-year-old with only one lung. This undermines the idea that Pope Benedict stepped aside so that a younger, dynamic CEO-style figure would take charge, someone who could handle the exhausting job of running the Church. Instead the Cardinals went for a man of great individual piety who has lived a long and holy life. Fact two: we have the first Jesuit Pope. Traditionally, the Jesuits have been seen as a potential rival power base to the papacy. Now they are the papacy. The Jesuits have been, in recent decades, associated with the left, even the wacky wing of the Catholic Church. Bergoglio is not -- let's be clear -- the sort of anti-tradition radical that Catholic trendies are praying for.

Some wag has gone around Rome putting up spoof 'Vota Turkson' posters. This is a reference to the Ghanian Cardinal Peter Turkson, who has been much-tipped to be the first black Pope. Turkson has a lot of support, it seems, and not all of it sardonic. Many Catholics say now is the time for an African Pope. And there's a sense that it might take someone from the developing world to knock the Roman Curia -- widely thought to be an arcane and corrupt body - into shape. But as I've written in this week's magazine, a number of Vatican insiders think that, far from being an outsider, the next Pope must be an Italian. Only an Italian, it's said, can understand and fix the complex problems within the Curia.

In a corner of the Sistine Chapel, below Michelangelo’s hell, is a door to the little chamber they call ‘the room of tears’. Some painter-decorators are in there, frantically doing the place up. That’s because, in a matter of days, a new Pope will be led into the room. According to tradition, at that moment, as he first contemplates the magnitude of his role, he will weep. A myth, you might think. But we can be sure that the next Supreme Pontiff — whoever he is — will have plenty to sob about. Since Benedict XVI’s resignation two weeks ago, each day seems to have brought yet more bad news. Scandal is swarming around the upcoming papal conclave like a Biblical plague.