For 500 years, the painted wooden effigy of St George that adorns a chapel in the Spanish town of Estella has been locked in a silent struggle against his old foe, the dragon. Today, however, the saint faces a different battle thanks to a feat of restoration that has prompted comparisons with the infamous “Ecce Homo Monkey Christ” and exasperated the mayor.An attempt to freshen up the 16th-century polychrome statue has left St George with a rosy pink face and a bold, red-and-grey suit of armour. The restoration is believed to have been carried out by a handicrafts teacher at the request of the parish authorities of the Church of St Michael.

The mayor of Estella, which lies south-west of Pamplona in the Navarre region, is demanding to know why the council was not consulted before the work went ahead. Koldo Leoz told the Guardian: “The parish decided on its own to take action to restore the statue and gave the job to a local handicrafts teacher. The council wasn’t told and neither was the regional government of Navarre.”(theguardian)…[+]

A secret MI5 report that resulted in Northern Ireland’s police covertly prioritising intelligence-gathering over fighting crime has been made public after almost 40 years.

The report resulted in detectives of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) – now the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) – being ordered never to arrest a suspected terrorist without consulting the force’s intelligence-gathering section.

Detectives were also told that anyone who was arrested could be recruited as an agent rather than charged with a criminal offence. As a consequence, a number of British agents are now known to have been involved in murders, bombings and shootings, while continuing to pass on information about their terrorist associates. What cannot be known is whether the strategy eventually helped to resolve the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles – during which more than 3,500 people were killed – or whether it prolonged it.(theguardian)…[+]

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, who has been accused in France of straining the country’s secular foundations by seeking to mend ties with the Catholic church, has held an unusually long meeting with Pope Francis.The two men spoke for nearly an hour in the official papal library in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, the longest time the pontiff has spent in a meeting with a head of state.

The Vatican said the pair discussed protection of the environment, migration, and multilateral commitment to conflict prevention and resolution, especially in relation to disarmament. They also spoke about prospects for resolving conflicts in the Middle East and Africa and the future of Europe, it said. At the end of the private audience, Macron gave the pope a rare copy of Georges Bernanos’ 1936 novel The Diary of a Country Priest.

“I’ve read this book many times and it has done me good. It is a book that I have always loved very much,” the pope told Macron, who was accompanied in the public part of the meeting by his wife, Brigitte. The pontiff gave Macron a medallion of Martin of Tours, a 4th-century saint who is depicted cutting his cloak in half to give to a beggar in winter. “This means the vocation of those who govern is to help the poor. We are all poor,” the pope told Macron as he gave him the medallion.(theguardian)…[+]