w/c 25/05/25

ORDO

Dies	25 SUN	26 MON	27 TUE	28 WED	29 THU	30 FRI	31 SAT	01 Jun SUN
Officium	Dominica V Post Pascha	S. Philippi Neri Confessoris	S. Bedæ Venerabilis Confessoris et Ecclesiæ Doctoris	S. Augustini Episcopi et Confessoris	In Ascensione Domini	Feria VI infra Octavam Ascensionis	Sabbato infra Octavam Ascensionis	Dominica infra Octavam Ascensionis
CLASSIS	Semiduplex Dominica minor	Duplex	Duplex	Duplex	Duplex I. classis	Semiduplex	Semiduplex	Semiduplex Dominica minor
Color*	Albus	Albus	Albus	Albus	Albus	Albus	Albus	Albus
MISSA	Vocem jucunditátis	Cáritas Dei	In médio	Sacerdótes tui	Viri Galilǽi	Viri Galilǽi	Viri Galilǽi	Exáudi, Dómine
Orationes	2a. S. Gregorii VII Papæ et Confessoris 3a. S. Urbano I, Papæ et Martyre	2a. Feria II in Rogationibus 3a. S. Eleutherii Papæ et Martyris	2a. S. Joannis Papæ et Martyris 3a. Pro papa (vel ad libitum)	2a. Feria IV in Rogationibus 3a. In Vigilia Ascensionis	NA	2a. S. Felicis I Papæ et Martyris	2a. S. Petronillæ Virginis	2a. Pro Octava Ascensionis
NOTAE	Gl. Cr. Pref. de S. Paschalis	Gl. Pref. de Paschalis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Paschalis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Paschalis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Ascensione Domini	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Ascensione Domini	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Ascensione Domini	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Ascensione Domini
Nota Bene/Vel/Votiva	UK: S. Aldhelmi Episcopi et Confessoris	Feria II in Rogationibus Missa Exaudívit	Feria III in Rogationibus Missa Aqua sapiéntiæ	Feria IV in Rogationibus Missa Vocem jucunditátis

Lux in tenebris lucet

The light shineth in darkness — is a promise and a call. No matter how deep the confusion or how widespread the apostasy, Christ’s truth remains undimmed; it is for us to follow that light with courage, fidelity, and joy. 🔝

From the Primus

HE ✠Jerome OSJV, Titular Archbishop of Selsey

Carissimi, Beloved in Christ,

“Be ye steadfast and unmoveable: always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” — 1 Corinthians 15:58

In these days of confusion and apostasy, when the smoke of Satan continues to choke the sanctuary and the sacred is treated as profane, we turn not inward in despair but upward in hope. Our Lord, who is ever faithful, has not abandoned His flock. Though the hirelings scatter the sheep and wolves prowl in the garments of shepherds, the voice of the Good Shepherd still resounds in the hearts of the faithful remnant.

We write to you now not with dismay, but with resolution. For the hour is late, the battle great—but grace ever greater.

The Crisis Before Us
The passing of Pope Francis and the rise of Pope Leo XIV mark a pivotal moment. Some see in his gestures a return to stability. Others perceive only a reshuffling of the conciliar deck—new names, old errors. We have witnessed already a troubling continuity: episcopal appointments loyal to synodal novelty, not apostolic fidelity; theological ambiguity praised as pastoral sensitivity. And yet, we do not set ourselves up as judges of men’s hearts—but we do judge the fruits (cf. Mt 7:16).

While we rejoice that from the moment of his election Pope Leo gave hope to many through his use of traditional papal vesture—the mozzetta, the Evangelists stole, and the tiara in heraldry—let us not forget that, with the lone exception of Francis, all post-conciliar popes have likewise adorned themselves in symbols of continuity, even as they presided over rupture. We are not distinct from the contemporary Church merely for aesthetic reasons, but for doctrinal ones. And on this point, there remains, so far, precious little indication that the new pontificate will alter the course of the Modernist revolution which, for the better part of a century, has enthralled the Church and enfeebled her witness.

The disease afflicting the Church is not one of structure, but of soul. It is doctrinal dislocation—Modernism enthroned in seminaries, chancelleries, and curial halls. It is the rejection of hierarchy, of masculinity, of sacrificial priesthood. It is the heresy of horizontalism: that the Church exists merely to befriend the world, not convert it.

The Witness Required
In this storm, our task is clear: to stand firm, to teach clearly, and to sanctify without compromise. The Old Roman Apostolate is no sect nor separatist refuge. It is a bridgehead of resistance and renewal—grounded in the perennial Magisterium, nourished by the traditional rites, animated by the Holy Ghost.

We exhort our clergy: preach with fire, not fog. Form souls in the Catechism of Trent, not in therapeutic modernisms. Celebrate the Holy Mass reverently, consistently, and publicly. No compromise, no accommodation. The sacred must shine in our liturgy with such clarity that even the disillusioned may say, Surely God is in this place (cf. Gen 28:16).

To our lay faithful: be apostles of the home, witnesses in the world. If schools corrupt your children, remove them. If society mocks chastity, live it with joy. Form St. Joseph guilds for young men, who must learn again to be fathers, builders, protectors. Create spaces where beauty, order, and holiness reign—not as museum pieces, but as the living expression of God’s plan for human flourishing.

The Path of Fortitude
We do not promise earthly success. We promise the Cross. And in the Cross, victory. The Apostolate shall grow in the measure it is cruciform: poor in spirit, rich in grace; scorned by the world, beloved of God.

Let each of our chapels be a furnace of prayer, penance, and preaching. Let our missions—especially to the poor, the street children, the broken—proclaim not just charity, but truth. Let no man or woman who enters our care remain confused about what it means to be created male or female, called to holiness, and destined for Heaven.

A Word to the Shepherds of the Church
To our brethren in the episcopacy, especially those who still cherish tradition yet remain silent: now is not the time for diplomacy, but for confession. If you believe the Old Mass is a treasure, say so. If you know the “seamless garment” ideology has warped Catholic conscience, say so. If you see that the Synodal Way is a path to Babylon, say so. The souls of your people depend on your clarity.

Conclusion: The Time of Trial, the Triumph of Grace
Dear sons and daughters, the Apostolate exists not for itself, but for Christ and His Kingdom. The world will call you rigid, divisive, even dangerous. Take this as a mark of honour. For if the world hate you, know that it hated Him first (cf. Jn 15:18).

We commend you to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, to the chaste protection of St. Joseph, and to the glorious intercession of Sts. Peter and Paul. Stand fast. Pray the Rosary daily. Confess often. Make reparation. Consecrate your homes. And keep your eyes fixed on Him who reigns from the Cross.

In Christo Rege,

A Word of Thanks

We extend our sincere and prayerful gratitude to the generous benefactor who, in an act of quiet charity, has covered the subscription costs for the Selsey website for the coming year.

Your anonymous gift is a real encouragement, not only materially but spiritually, reminding us that the Apostolate is sustained by the unseen hands and hidden prayers of the faithful. May God reward you abundantly, and may St Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church and protector of all hidden works of grace, intercede for you and your intentions.

With thanks and blessings,
The Selsey Apostolate Team 🔝

Recent Epistles & Conferences

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Liturgical Notes

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ROGATIONTIDE

Overview:
Rogationtide refers to the period encompassing the Major Rogation (April 25) and the Minor Rogations (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Thursday). The word “Rogation” comes from the Latin rogare, meaning “to ask,” referencing the prayers of petition and supplication offered during these days, especially for the blessing of the crops and protection from calamity.

Major Rogation (April 25):
Older than the Minor Rogations, possibly instituted by Pope Leo the Great or earlier as a Christian substitute for pagan processions. It coincides with the ancient Roman feast of Robigalia, dedicated to averting crop failure. It is observed even if April 25 falls during Easter Week, though the liturgical character of the day is adapted.

Minor Rogations (Three Days before Ascension Thursday):
Instituted by St. Mamertus, Bishop of Vienne (c. AD 470), in response to natural disasters. Approved and extended to the universal Church by Pope Leo III (c. AD 800). They are penitential in character, marked by processions and the chanting of the Litany of the Saints.

Liturgical Characteristics:
Violet vestments are worn. The Litany of the Saints is recited or sung during processions, interspersed with collects. The Mass of Rogation (Missa pro Processione) is celebrated: “Exaudivit de templo sancto suo” (He hath heard from His holy temple), with proper prayers for mercy, protection, and fruitful harvest. No Gloria, no Alleluia, and no Te Deum, reflecting the penitential tone. Processions typically begin in the church, move around fields, streets, or the churchyard, and end at the church or a designated altar.

Themes:
Penitence and supplication
Prayers for agricultural blessing and preservation from natural disasters
A reminder of man’s dependence on God for material and spiritual sustenance

ASCENSIONTIDE

Overview:
Ascensiontide begins with the Feast of the Ascension (forty days after Easter Sunday) and extends through the Vigil of Pentecost, forming a liturgical bridge between Easter and Pentecost.

Feast of the Ascension (Thursday):
One of the most ancient and solemn feasts, universally attested by the fourth century. Commemorates Christ’s bodily Ascension into Heaven, marking the completion of His earthly mission and the beginning of His heavenly reign. White vestments are worn. The Mass Proper includes the Introit Viri Galilaei, the Gradual Ascendit Deus, the Alleluia Dominus in Sina, and the Gospel from Mark 16:14–20. The Paschal Candle is extinguished after the Gospel (in some traditions) or after the Mass, indicating Christ’s visible departure. The Credo is sung and the Gloria in excelsis is retained.

Liturgical Notes for the Octave (Tridentine Use):
The Octave of Ascension was historically observed in the Roman Rite (pre-1955). In the pre-1955 Missal, each day of the Octave had its own Mass formulary taken from the Ascension, without commemorating Saints’ feasts unless they were of higher rank. The weekdays between Ascension and Pentecost are days of prayer and preparation for the coming of the Holy Ghost, known as the First Novena. The Pentecost Novena, the prototype of all novenas, begins on Ascension Friday, culminating in the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Themes:
Christ’s glorification and the inauguration of His heavenly priesthood
Hope in the promise of the Paraclete
A contemplative period awaiting the descent of the Holy Ghost

Devotional Practices:
Participation in the Pentecost Novena
Meditations on Christ’s heavenly intercession and the coming of the Holy Ghost
Reading from Acts 1–2, reflecting on the nascent Church’s prayerful anticipation

Conclusion:
Rogationtide reminds the faithful of their dependence on Divine Providence and the need for reparation and humble petition. Ascensiontide directs hearts heavenward, anchoring Christian hope in the glorified Christ and stirring up desire for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Both seasons are rich in liturgical and devotional grace, orienting the faithful to live in faith, repentance, and expectation. 🔝

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Dominica V post Pascha: Missa “Rogáte”

The Fifth Sunday after Easter is a profound prelude to the Ascension of the Lord. The liturgical texts, particularly the Introit, Epistle, and Gospel, are imbued with themes of confident petition, divine instruction, and the maturation of prayer in union with Christ. As Dom Prosper Guéranger notes, this Sunday forms a hinge between Paschal joy and the coming solemnity of Pentecost, ushering in the Rogation Days and the Vigil of the Lord’s departure into Heaven¹.

“Rogáte, et accipiétis”—“Ask, and you shall receive.”
These words from the Gospel of St. John (16:23) form the heart of this Sunday’s liturgy. They are not merely an invitation to pray but a command, given in the context of Christ’s departure and the coming of the Holy Ghost. As Fr. Pius Parsch comments, “Our Lord here inaugurates the new era of prayer in His Name, for His Ascension will make Him the heavenly intercessor.”² The faithful are reminded that they do not pray as orphans but as adopted children through Christ, whose Passion opened the heavenly sanctuary to their supplications.

The Introit (“Declare it with the voice of joy”)
The Introit (Isaiah 48:20) exhorts the people to speak out with joy, for “the Lord hath delivered His people.” Though originally tied to the return from Babylonian exile, the Church here applies it mystically to the Resurrection and the liberation wrought by Christ. This joy, however, is not yet complete—for it points ahead to the Ascension and Pentecost, the crowning of Christ’s Paschal triumph.

The Epistle (James 1:22-27)
St. James exhorts the faithful to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only.” This passage offers a vital catechesis on the integrity of Christian life. As Fr. Leonard Goffine observes, it is not enough to listen to the Gospel; we must become its living icon. “Religion pure and undefiled before God,” writes the Apostle, “is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and to keep oneself unspotted from this world.”³ Thus, even amid Easter’s joy, the Church reminds us that the fruits of the Resurrection must blossom into works of mercy and virtue.

The Gospel (John 16:23–30)
Our Lord speaks tenderly of the day when the disciples shall ask the Father in His Name. No longer cryptic, His words open into clarity: “The hour cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs”. The Fathers saw in this a reference to the post-Pentecostal age—the time of the Church—when the Spirit of Truth will lead into all understanding. The faithful, through the Holy Ghost, will speak to the Father with the voice of the Son. Dom Guéranger beautifully writes, “The time for figures and veiled speech is over; now the Church must learn to speak the language of heaven through the Spirit sent into her heart.”¹

Rogation and the Turn to Earth
This Sunday anticipates the Rogation Days, those penitential processions and litanies begging God’s mercy on the land, the harvest, and the human condition. The Gospel’s call to ask and receive is thus not spiritual only—it becomes agricultural, communal, penitential. Earth and heaven are united in the faithful’s plea for grace. As St. Augustine preached, “Even the furrows are catechized with crosses; even the seeds are sanctified with prayers.”⁴

The Theological Horizon
What emerges from this Sunday is a theology of transition:

• from joy to responsibility,
• from Resurrection to mission,
• from the visible presence of Christ to the interior presence of the Holy Ghost.

The Church, like the Apostles, stands on the verge of absence and fullness. The faithful must learn to pray not with their lips alone but with the whole life formed in the pattern of Christ. The answer to prayer is not always visible gifts, but always communion with the Giver Himself. 🔝

¹ Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year: Paschal Time, Book III, trans. Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B.
² Fr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, vol. 3: Easter to Pentecost.
³ Fr. Leonard Goffine, The Church’s Year (1871 English Edition).
⁴ St. Augustine, Sermon 244, on the Rogation Processions (PL 38:1147).

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Missalettes (Dominica V Post Pascha)

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Spiritual Reflection: Ascensiontide

“And it came to pass, whilst He blessed them, He departed from them, and was carried up to heaven.” (Luke 24:51)

As the Paschal season nears its culmination, Ascensiontide calls us to lift our eyes and hearts above the world, to the One who has gone to prepare a place for us. The Lord, who came down in humility and walked among us in our frailty, now ascends in glory, drawing our gaze heavenward. Yet He does not abandon us—He elevates us.

The Ascension of Christ is not a departure in the manner of earthly goodbyes. It is the liturgical triumph of His earthly mission and the theological bridge to the descent of the Holy Ghost. In the words of Dom Gueranger, “The mystery of the Ascension shows us the glorified Humanity of our Redeemer taking possession of the throne prepared for Him at the right hand of the Eternal Father.”¹ His Ascension is our hope, for where the Head has gone, the Body is called to follow.

The Church, like the Apostles on Mount Olivet, now dwells in sacred expectation. In this in-between time—these days of longing between the Ascension and Pentecost—she teaches us to persevere in prayer, to await the Paraclete, and to prepare our hearts for the Spirit of Truth. This is the novena of the Church’s heart.

Ascensiontide is thus marked by three graces: detachment, longing, and promise.

• Detachment: Christ withdraws His visible presence that we might learn to walk by faith. “It is expedient for you that I go,” He had said (John 16:7), and now the disciples, once scattered and confused, begin to gather with purpose and prayer. Detachment is not rejection—it is purification, to desire the Giver more than the gifts.
• Longing: The disciples, as St. Leo the Great wrote, were “not saddened at being left behind, but filled with joy at the promise of what was to come.”² True longing is joyful—it does not grasp at what has passed, but looks to the fulfillment of Christ’s promise in the descent of the Holy Ghost and the heavenly homeland that awaits.
• Promise: In ascending, Christ pledges our adoption, glorification, and union with God. He does not merely promise to return—He promises to draw us with Him. The Ascension is the pledge that our flesh, assumed by Christ and now glorified, has a place in eternity.

Let us live these days as the Apostles did: in prayerful recollection, united with Our Lady, awaiting the Spirit. Let our hearts ascend with Christ, our affections be drawn away from vanity, and our lives be ordered by the promise of heaven.

For if we truly believe in the Ascension, then every sorrow is temporary, every sacrifice meaningful, and every Mass a glimpse of glory.

Veni, Sancte Spiritus. 🔝

¹ Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year: Paschal Time Vol. III
² St. Leo the Great, Sermon LXXIII On the Lord’s Ascension

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Missalettes (Rogation/Ascension)

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A sermon for Sunday

by the Revd Dr Robert Wilson PhD (Cantab), Old Roman Apostolate UK

Fifth Sunday after Easter

O God, from whom all things do proceed, grant unto thy humble servants, that by thy holy inspiration, we may think those things that are right, and under thy merciful guidance may perform the same.

Today’s Collect for the Fifth Sunday after Easter reminds us that God is the source of all good. It is by his grace that we are enabled to think, will and do all that is good. It is therefore right for us to pray in faith that by his holy inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by his merciful guidance may faithfully perform the same. The Epistle from St. James reminds us that in order to live out what we have just prayed in the collect we must be doers of the word, and not hearers only. Otherwise we will only be deceiving ourselves. “For if a man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his own countenance in a glass: for he beheld himself and went his way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty and hath continued therein, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed.” If we think ourselves to be religious, but do not practice charity in our lives, our religion is vain.  “Religion pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation and keep oneself unspotted from this world.”

The Western Church marks out the next three days (before Ascension Day on Thursday) as days of penitence and prayer on which the Litany of the Saints is said. The practice goes back to Mamertus, a fifth century bishop in Gaul, who set aside these days for prayer and abstinence in a time of disaster. The observance of the Rogation Days was gradually adopted in the rest of the Western Church. For example, in England the custom evolved of “beating the bounds”, in which parishioners joined their clergy in processing round the parish boundary, and the Litany of the Saints was said. The practice even survived the Reformation in England in a reduced form, giving thanks for the fruits of the earth and marking the parish boundary.

The Rogation Days were instituted in a time of disaster. The Roman Empire had fallen to the incursions of pagan tribes and it seemed that the civilised world had come to an end. The Church was engaged in the long process of evangelising the tribes who had replaced the Roman Empire, and was the only means of continuity between the collapsed older civilisation and the new world it would create under its own auspices. Indeed, much of the liturgy that we use and the practices that we observe derives from this period, such as the observance of these Rogation Days.

It is therefore especially important to observe these Rogation Days today, in which we now again find ourselves in a time of disaster. Much of what had previously been taken for granted seems to be coming to an end. It often takes a crisis situation like the present to reveal which house is built upon the rock, and which house is built upon the sand. Governments in the Western world have prided themselves on being free and open societies in contrast to totalitarian states such as China. However, the situation under the so called lockdowns which governments imposed a few years ago has considerably narrowed these contrasts and shown that totalitarianism is often never far from the surface, even in countries that pride themselves on being free and open. Governments have imposed controls that would normally be associated with a totalitarian state. Since all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, governments have been reluctant to give up the new powers that they have gained. The problem is that this is precisely the way that a state becomes totalitarian. It has also produced a major social and economic crisis.

We cannot therefore put our trust in princes, or in any government in this world. Ultimately they are all imperfect because human beings are imperfect. The only difference is that in so called civilised societies this imperfection usually manifests itself in more subtle ways than in an openly totalitarian state. It is therefore vital for the Church to watch and pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this present time of confusion. In the sixth century, St. Benedict withdrew from a world that seemed to be collapsing around him in order to seek the life of holiness. Yet, it was above all through the influence of the monks, not least the Benedictine rule, that learning and agriculture were preserved through the so called Dark Ages. The leaders of the pagan tribes saw the life of the monks, and sought conversion to what they saw as a higher form of life than their own (though inevitably their conversion was only partial and imperfect).

Some speak of the need to adopt a so called Benedict option in our own day. The Church must withdraw from being compromised by worldly standards and attitudes and follow the example of the saints and monks of the so called Dark Ages. In this way we too can transform the society of our own time. After all, as G. K. Chesterton once said, “it is not the Church that will drag us back to the Dark Ages. The Church is the only thing that got us out of them”.

Let us pray over these Rogation Days that this may again be true in our own time and place.d, he shall be saved”. These are indeed times of great trial and uncertainty, but they should embolden us to persevere. Let us pray for grace to persevere in our own time and place. 🔝

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St. Aldhelm/Fifth Sunday after Easter

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Aldhelm, as well as commemorating the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Aldhelm was one of the great saints of the early English Church. He lived in the late seventh century and the beginning of the eighth century. He was of noble lineage, but had a vocation to the monastic life, which he pursued at Malmesbury in the kingdom of Wessex. He studied at the famous school under St. Hadrian at Canterbury during the episcopate of St. Theodore of Tarsus, who was himself one of the great leaders of the early English Church. St. Aldhelm subsequently became abbot of Malmesbury and was regarded as one of the most learned men of his age. Though his writings have not subsequently been as highly regarded as those of his younger contemporary St. Bede, it was noteworthy in an age when holy men were usually wise rather than learned.

St. Bede himself thought highly of St. Aldhelm, stating that: “While Aldhelm was still a priest, and abbot of the monastery known as Maelduib’s town (Malmesbury), he was directed by a synod of his own people to write a notable treatise against the errors of the Britons in observing Easter at the wrong time and doing other things contrary to the orthodoxy and unity of the Church. By means of this book he persuaded many of those Britons who were subject to the West Saxons to conform to the Catholic observance of our Lord’s Resurrection. He also wrote an excellent book on virginity, which he composed in a double form in hexameter verse and prose on the model of Sedulius. He also wrote other books, for he was a man of wide learning, with a polished style, and, as I have said, extremely well read both in biblical and general literature.” When the bishop of the kingdom of the Wessex died his see was divided into two, and St. Aldhelm was appointed to the newly created see of Sherbourne, which he administered with great energy in what turned out to be the last four years of his life. He died on this day in 709.

In assessing the impact of the life and work of St. Aldhelm it is important to remember that during his lifetime political unity had not yet been attained in England. The country was divided into separate tribal kingdoms of Angles, Saxons and Jutes. These peoples had invaded and settled in the country after the withdrawal of the Roman army. The rulers were essentially tribal warlords and aggressively pagan. They had obliterated the limited progress Christianity had made in this country during the period of Roman rule. Christianity still survived among the Britons or Celts in other areas of these islands, but in England it had been largely displaced by the pagan Anglo- Saxons. They were not only aggressively pagan in the work of conquest. They were also warlike towards each other, forming separate tribal kingdoms who fought amongst themselves. However, starting at the end of the sixth century with the mission of St. Augustine to the kingdom of Kent and continuing during the seventh century to the other tribal kingdoms, the nation was gradually Christianised. The kingdom of Sussex was the last to renounce paganism through the work of St. Wilfrid.

The reason for stating all this is to make it clear that this country achieved religious unity before it attained political unity. When St. Bede wrote the Ecclesiastical History of the English people in the 730s he was able to speak of an English people because they shared a common faith, even though there was as yet no political unity. It would only be later in the ninth and tenth centuries that the nation would achieve political unity when the kingdom of Wessex alone survived from the Viking invasions and gradually united the rest of the country under one kingdom. But the country had already been Christian for many centuries before that. It had achieved cultural and religious unity before it had political unity.

All this was possible through the work of the Church. In contrast to the endemic tribalism and violence of the society it was evangelising it proclaimed a message of peace and reconciliation. The strength of the Christian Church lay in the monasteries, and the early bishops such as St. Aldhelm were essentially missionary monks. The monks were literate, they kept accounts, they planned ahead and they preserved the elements of civilisation in an age when it had essentially collapsed. The tribal warlords who ruled the different English kingdoms saw that the missionaries had a higher form of life than their own. They were consequently willing to become Christians themselves (albeit often in a somewhat rudimentary and unsatisfactory form). Christianity is today often seen as reactionary and backward looking and an impediment to human progress. But in the early ages of the history of our nation it was the main instrument of progress and reform. That is why the rulers of the tribal kingdoms wanted to become Christians themselves. It was not only an age of barbarism, but also an age of saints. It was the saints like St. Aldhelm who shone like a beacon the light of faith in an age of tribalism and violence. They gave the nation a cultural and religious unity at a time when political unity was impossible.

There is much that we can learn from this period today. Though our society likes to see itself as civilised it is in many ways reverting to the tribalism and violence that the saints of the early ages of our nation had sought to overcome. But the example of saints like St. Aldhelm gives us reason for hope when we are tempted to despair by the situation in which we now found ourselves. We must strive to follow their example today. As G. K. Chesterton put it. “It is not that the Church will drag us back to the Dark Ages. The Church is the only thing that got us out of them”.

Let us pray that we may be called to follow the example of St. Aldhelm and become lights to the world in our own time and place. 🔝

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Ascension Day

Today we celebrate the great feast of the Ascension. The Ascension marks the end of Jesus’ resurrection appearances to his disciples, and looks forward to the coming of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. It is important to observe this feast, not simply because it is sadly neglected today, but because the truth of the doctrine of the Ascension is fundamentally important to our faith. It teaches that the Word made flesh, who took man’s nature from the womb of his mother and lived and dwelt and suffered among us, after he was risen and glorified, did not abandon his human nature, but raised it to God’s right hand, where he now lives to make intercession for us until he comes in glory at the end of the age. St. Gregory of Nazianzen refuted those who denied the fullness of Christ’s humanity by stating that the unassumed is not healed, in other words Christ must truly become man in order to redeem man. The doctrine of the Ascension teaches us that this applies not simply to the earthly life of Christ, but that now that he is risen, ascended and glorified, he does not abandon his manhood. The Christian faith is not about the abandonment of our human nature, weak and fallen though it is, but rather the redemption of our humanity. But that comes by our becoming by grace what Christ is by nature, as he humbled himself to share our humanity that we might become partakers of the divine nature. But, in so doing, we become more, not less truly human, for we are enabled by grace to become what we were created to be.

A hymn by Christopher Wordsworth gives a clear exposition of the truth of this doctrine:

See the Conqueror mounts in triumph,
See the King in royal state,
Riding on the clouds his chariot
To His Heavenly palace gate
Hark! The choirs of Angel voices
Joyful Alleluias Sing
And the Portals High are lifted,
To receive their heavenly King.

Thou hast raised our human nature,
In the clouds to God’s right hand
There we sit in heavenly places,
There with these in glory stands
Jesus reigns, adored by Angels,
Man with God is on the throne:
Mighty Lord in thine Ascension,
We by faith behold our own.

“Man with God is on the throne”. In another context this might seem like blasphemous Humanism. Was not the Fall of Man caused by human pride and vanity in seeking to become like God? Was not the sin of those who built the Tower of Babel that they sought to build a tower that reached to heaven, a monument to human pride and vanity? Yes, it was, but that was because man sought to achieve glorification by his own efforts, and so the human race fell. But when the Word made flesh, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, came into the world, he sought glorification not by self exaltation, but by self giving, culminating in his sacrificial death for our sins. Now that he who by his death has destroyed death, is risen, ascended and glorified, he has raised our human nature on the clouds to God’s right hand to prepare a place for us, that where he is we also might ascend and reign with him in glory.

Pope Leo the Great states that “In all verity, it was a great and unspeakable joy for to see the manhood, in the presence of the holy multitude of believers, exalted above all creatures even heavenly, rising above the ranks of the angelic armies, and speeding its glorious way to where the most noble of the archangels lie far behind, to rest no lower than that place where high above all principality and power, it taketh its seat at the right hand of the Eternal Father, sharer of his throne, and partaker of his glory, and still of the very man’s nature which the Son has taken upon him. Wherefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us rejoice with worthy joy, for the Ascension of Christ, his exaltation for us, and whither the glory of the head of the Church is passed in, thither is the hope of the Body of the Church called on to follow. Let us rejoice with exceeding great joy and give God thanks. This day is not only the possession of paradise made sure unto us, but in the person of our Head we are actually begun to enter into the heavenly mansions above. Through the unspeakable goodness of Christ, we have gained more than ever we lost by the envy of the devil. We, whom our venomous enemy thrust from our first happy home, – we, being made of one Body with the Son of God, have by him been given a place at the right hand of the Father; with whom he liveth and reigneth, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen” 🔝

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Feasts this week

25 May — Dominica V Post Pascha
This Fifth Sunday after Easter, also called Dominica Rogationum, prepares the faithful for the Ascension. The Mass Vocem jucunditátis (Introit from Isaiah 48) speaks of joyful deliverance, resonating with the anticipation of the coming Paraclete. The Gospel (John 16:23–30) reflects Christ’s teaching on prayer and the coming of the Holy Ghost. The day includes commemorations of St. Gregory VII, Pope and Confessor, and St. Urban I, Pope and Martyr and in the United Kingdom, St. Aldhelm, Bishop and Confessor, the learned Abbot of Malmesbury and first Bishop of Sherborne. The Preface is of Paschaltide.

26 May — St. Philip Neri, Confessor (Duplex)
One of the great saints of the Counter-Reformation, Philip Neri (1515–1595) founded the Congregation of the Oratory. He is remembered for his radiant joy, charity, and miraculous gifts. The Mass Cáritas Dei emphasises his spiritual fatherhood. It is also Rogation Monday, and the Litanies and Rogation prayers may be observed. The second oration commemorates this, and the third is of St. Eleutherius, Pope and Martyr.

27 May — St. Bede the Venerable, Confessor and Doctor of the Church (Duplex)
The Anglo-Saxon monk and historian, St. Bede (673–735), was declared a Doctor by Leo XIII. The Mass In médio highlights the wisdom of ecclesiastical teachers. A commemorative oration of St. John I, Pope and Martyr, is added. This day is also Rogation Tuesday, with the relevant votive Mass Aqua sapiéntiæ often used in processions and supplication.

28 May — St. Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop and Confessor (Duplex)
Sent by Pope St. Gregory the Great to evangelise the English, Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The Mass Sacerdótes tui recalls the dignity and fruitfulness of apostolic shepherds. This day is Rogation Wednesday, and the vigil of the Ascension is kept. Additional orations reflect both observances.

29 May — Ascension of Our Lord (Duplex I Classis)
A feast of sublime joy, commemorating the Lord’s return to the Father in glory. The liturgy of In Ascensione Domini features the stirring Introit Viri Galilǽi, the majestic Gradual and Alleluia, and a Gospel from Mark 16:14–20. The Preface de Ascensione Domini is used, and no other feasts are commemorated on this solemn day. This is the beginning of the Octave of Ascension.

30 May — Friday within the Octave of the Ascension (Semiduplex)
A feria of Ascensiontide, using the Mass of the feast Viri Galilǽi. The second oration commemorates St. Felix I, Pope and Martyr. This day continues the spiritual ascent with Christ toward Pentecost, preparing hearts for the descent of the Holy Ghost.

31 May — Saturday within the Octave of the Ascension (Semiduplex)
Another day of the Octave, still using the Mass of Ascension. It includes a commemoration of St. Petronilla, Virgin, believed by tradition to be a spiritual daughter of St. Peter. Her inclusion highlights the continuity of Petrine succession and virginal holiness.

1 June — Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension
This Dominica infra Octavam Ascensionis continues the celebration of Christ’s heavenly enthronement. The Mass Exáudi, Dómine (from Psalm 26) implores God to hear the prayers of His people, pointing toward the promise of Pentecost. The Preface remains de Ascensione Domini.

Throughout this week, the liturgical color remains white (albus), reflecting the triumph of the Resurrection and Ascension. The faithful are invited into an ever-deepening meditation on Christ’s heavenly priesthood and the coming of the Holy Ghost, while venerating saints whose lives mirror the apostolic mission. 🔝

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The Sanctity of the Marital Act: Faithfulness to Love and Life

The Catholic Church has always esteemed the sacrament of Holy Matrimony as a sacred institution, established by God from the beginning of creation and elevated by Christ to the dignity of a sacrament. At the heart of this union lies the marital act—an intimate expression of spousal love, which is both noble and holy when ordered according to God’s law.

Purpose and Meaning of the Marital Act
As the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches, the primary end of marriage is the procreation and education of children, followed by mutual aid and the remedy for concupiscence.ⁱ Thus, the marital act is designed by God to express not only the union of the spouses but also their cooperation with the Creator in the transmission of life.

Pope Pius XI, in his encyclical Casti Connubii (1930), declared:

“This conjugal union, by the will of God, is to be a sacred and inviolable bond. Nor can its nature be understood except in its totality: a communion of life, of love, and of duty, that is by nature ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring.”¹

This twofold purpose—unitive and procreative—cannot be separated without distorting the very nature of the act. Acts which are intentionally closed to the gift of life, even if performed within marriage, are not in accordance with the divine law and fall short of the sanctity God intended for marital love.

What the Church Forbids
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that sins against nature, meaning acts that are contrary to the due ordering of reason and nature’s design for procreation, are intrinsically disordered and always grave.² This includes any act that deliberately frustrates the natural end of the conjugal act. Similarly, St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church and Patron of Moral Theologians, repeatedly affirmed in his Theologia Moralis that such acts are grave matter and must be avoided if the marital embrace is to remain virtuous and chaste.³

These teachings are not optional or open to change. They represent the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church, which is infallible in matters of faith and morals when consistently taught throughout the ages. As Pope Pius IX confirmed in Tuas Libenter, Catholics must adhere not only to solemn definitions but also to teachings of the Church’s ordinary magisterium when they are universally held.⁴

Pastoral Guidance for the Faithful
It is not uncommon in our day for some to receive conflicting advice—even from confessors. Yet the faithful must remember that conscience is not formed by personal opinion but by truth. As the First Vatican Council declared:

“Faith is a supernatural virtue, whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe the things revealed by Him to be true—not because of their intrinsic truth as seen by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, who reveals them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.”⁵

When spouses are unsure, they are encouraged to consult traditional catechisms, sound moral theology manuals, and priests formed in the perennial teaching of the Church.

Above all, let no one despair. If mistakes have been made, or past errors were committed in ignorance, the mercy of God is abundant for all who seek Him with a contrite heart. As the Prophet says, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow.” (Isaiah 1:18)

The sanctity of the marital act, far from being a burden, is a path to deeper love, greater fidelity, and a share in God’s creative power. Let it be embraced with reverence, gratitude, and joyful obedience. 🔝

ⁱ Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part II, On the Sacrament of Matrimony
¹ Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, 1930, §§10, 54
² St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 154, a. 11
³ St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia Moralis, Lib. VI, Tract. III
⁴ Pope Pius IX, Tuas Libenter, 1863
⁵ Vatican Council I, Dei Filius, ch. 3

Q&A: What Should I Do If a Priest Contradicts the Traditional Moral Teaching of the Church?

Q: A priest told me that certain acts within marriage are not sinful, even if they are unnatural or closed to life. But I’ve read that the Church has always taught otherwise. Who is right?
A: In such a case, the Catholic must remain faithful to the constant and universal teaching of the Church, rather than the personal opinion of a particular priest. As Pope Pius IX declared in Tuas Libenter (1863): “It is not sufficient… to accept and revere the aforesaid dogmas of the Church, but it is also necessary to subject oneself to the decisions pertaining to doctrine which are issued by the Pontifical Congregations and which are accepted and approved by the Pontiff, even if they have not been published with solemn definitions.”¹

The moral tradition of the Church—especially when taught by its greatest theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori—represents the ordinary Magisterium, which is binding in conscience.

Q: But what if the priest says this is just outdated theology or private opinion?
A: Then he is mistaken. The common teaching of approved theologians on moral questions, especially when they agree across centuries, is not merely opinion. As the First Vatican Council taught: “In matters of faith and morals, belonging to the doctrine of Christ, the whole Church is always in agreement, and the judgment of the Church is to be held as irreformable.”²

This principle includes moral matters where the consensus of the saints, theologians, and magisterial teaching is clear and longstanding. According to St. Alphonsus Liguori, the moral unanimity of approved Catholic theologians provides moral certitude, and dissent from that tradition without compelling reason is rash and dangerous.

Q: Should I still confess something as a mortal sin if a priest tells me it’s not?
A: Yes, if it is known to be grave matter according to the traditional teaching of the Church. As the Roman Catechism (Catechism of the Council of Trent) states: “The faithful are to be admonished to confess not only mortal sins, but those also which are venial, and from which we daily fall.”³

More importantly, if an act is mortally sinful according to the Doctors and the Church’s consistent magisterium, it must be confessed regardless of what one modern priest might say. If there is confusion, it is safer to confess with humility rather than risk sacrilege or presumption.

Q: What if the priest dismisses me or refuses absolution?
A: If a confessor refuses to acknowledge objective sin or prevents you from confessing what you know to be grave matter, you may and should seek another priest. Pope Leo XIII, in Apostolicae Curae, taught that the priest is not the author of the sacraments, but their minister, bound to the Church’s intention and form.⁴

The Council of Trent explicitly warned that the sacrament of penance must be administered according to the divine institution, which includes not only absolution, but proper moral instruction and encouragement to repentance.⁵

Q: How can I identify a trustworthy confessor?
A: Look for priests who:

• Celebrate the traditional Roman Rite (1962 or earlier), which often reflects a deeper formation in the perennial theology of the Church.
• Adhere closely to the Roman Catechism, the writings of the Doctors of the Church (especially Aquinas and Alphonsus), and pre-Conciliar papal encyclicals.
• Preach the Four Last Things and emphasise the need for frequent confession, modesty, and fidelity to God’s law.

As Pope St. Pius X wrote in E Supremi (1903): “The chief cause of the present state of affairs is to be found above all in the fact that the teaching of sound doctrine, especially of moral theology… has been utterly neglected.”

In short, the confessor should be a man who believes what the Church has always taught, not one who substitutes his own judgments for the judgments of Tradition. 🔝

¹ Pope Pius IX, Tuas Libenter, 21 Dec 1863
² Vatican I, Dei Filius, ch. 3, Denzinger 1792
³ Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part II, On Penance
⁴ Pope Leo XIII, Apostolicae Curae, 1896
⁵ Council of Trent, De Sacramento Poenitentiae, Session XIV

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Forgotten Rubrics: The Conjoined Fingers of the Priest

One of the most reverent and expressive rubrics of the Traditional Roman Rite—now largely unknown or neglected—is the practice by which the priest, after the consecration of the Sacred Host, is to keep the thumb and forefinger of each hand joined until the purification of his fingers in the ablutions following Holy Communion. This seemingly small rubric reflects the Church’s profound Eucharistic faith and is rich in doctrinal, spiritual, and liturgical significance.

The Rubric Explained
From the moment the priest consecrates the Host—pronouncing over the bread the sacred words “Hoc est enim Corpus Meum”—he is henceforth handling not merely bread, but the true, substantial Body of Christ. In recognition of this awesome reality, the rubrics of the Roman Missal direct that:

“From the Consecration until the ablution of the fingers, the priest keeps the thumb and forefinger of each hand joined together, lest any particle of the Sacred Host be lost.”¹

This directive is not merely ceremonial; it expresses a theological truth: every particle of the consecrated Host is Christ whole and entire, just as every drop of the Precious Blood is likewise the whole Christ.² Hence, the rubrics insist on the greatest care to avoid the loss or desecration of even the smallest fragment.

Liturgical Authorities and Manuals
This rubric is described and reinforced in various standard works of Roman Rite ceremonial:

• The Celebration of Mass by J.B. O’Connell states clearly:

“The celebrant must join thumb and forefinger of each hand after the consecration of the bread and must keep them joined until they are purified.”³

• Fortescue, O’Connell, and Reid, in their authoritative The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, elaborate further:

“The celebrant must keep the thumb and forefinger of each hand joined after the consecration, even when genuflecting, opening the tabernacle, turning the pages of the Missal, or giving the blessing (which he does with the other fingers extended).”⁴

This constant attention—even while performing unrelated tasks during the Mass—signifies the continuity of reverence and the presence of the Divine Victim upon the altar.

Theological and Spiritual Meaning
This rubric safeguards and visibly proclaims three essential truths:

1. The Doctrine of the Real Presence: The rubric is based on the faith that Christ is truly, really, and substantially present under the appearances of bread and wine. This doctrine, infallibly taught by the Council of Trent, includes the belief that Christ is present whole and entire under every part of either species—a truth known as the doctrine of concomitance.⁵
2. The Sacredness of the Priest’s Hands: The anointed hands of the priest, configured to Christ at ordination, are consecrated precisely to offer sacrifice and handle holy things. By binding his fingers together after the Consecration, the priest treats the Eucharist with singular awe, not touching any profane object lest he contaminate the sacred contact.⁶
3. Liturgical Catechesis: The gesture teaches the faithful by action what the Church believes. Even without words, the joined fingers of the priest become a silent homily on Eucharistic reverence and caution, awakening or deepening the faith of those who behold him.

Historical Continuity and Modern Loss
This practice was universally observed in the Roman Rite for centuries. It is retained in the 1962 Missal of Pope John XXIII, which remains the norm for the Traditional Latin Mass.⁷ Yet it has largely vanished from the Novus Ordo Missae (the Mass of Paul VI), not by explicit abrogation, but by omission and simplification of rubrics. In many modern celebrations of the Eucharist, the sense of Eucharistic awe has declined proportionally with the disappearance of these gestures of faith.

This change represents more than liturgical preference—it signals a theological rupture. As noted by liturgical scholars like Martin Mosebach and Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the abandonment of precise rubrics often accompanies a diminished belief in the objective reality of the Sacrament.⁸

Restoration and Relevance
To recover this rubric is to reclaim a lost jewel of Catholic liturgical tradition. It is a vital part of the ars celebrandi—the art of celebrating the liturgy with truth, beauty, and reverence. For those attached to the traditional rite, the conjoining of the fingers should be faithfully taught in seminaries, observed in all Masses, and explained to altar servers and congregations alike.

Moreover, this practice—simple though it is—provides a powerful counter-witness in a culture that tends to treat the sacred as casual or disposable. In a world that forgets reverence, the priest’s joined fingers proclaim: “This is none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven” (Gen. 28:17). 🔝

1. Missale Romanum (1962), Rubricae Generales Missalis Romani, no. 528.
2. Council of Trent, Session XIII, Chapter III; Denzinger 876.
3. J.B. O’Connell, The Celebration of Mass: A Study of the Rubrics of the Roman Missal (London: Burns Oates, 1945), p. 196.
4. Adrian Fortescue, J.B. O’Connell, and Alcuin Reid, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, 15th ed. (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), pp. 216–217.
5. Council of Trent, Session XIII, Canon 3; Denzinger 884.
6. Roman Pontifical, De Ordine Presbyteri, the anointing of hands with Chrism signifies the sanctification of the priest’s hands for sacred service.
7. Missale Romanum (1962), throughout the Canon Missae and rubrical instructions post-consecration.
8. Cf. Martin Mosebach, The Heresy of Formlessness (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), pp. 30–45; Athanasius Schneider, Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church (Sophia Institute Press, 2020), pp. 55–66.

CURRENT AFFAIRS

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No Turning of the Tide: Leo XIV’s Inaugural Address and the Illusion of Change

The inaugural address of Pope Leo XIV, delivered before the College of Cardinals and representatives of Church and state, was dignified, eloquent, and undeniably more elevated in tone than many of the public utterances that characterised the previous pontificate. But it was not a turning point. It was not the restoration many have hoped for. It was, in fact, a continuation—proof that nothing essential has yet changed in the official theological trajectory of the postconciliar Church. The papacy may have changed hands. The style may be more refined. But in substance, Leo XIV has not yet said anything that Pope Francis did not already say—sometimes more bluntly, sometimes with less elegance, but fundamentally the same in content¹.

It is a subtle shift, and therein lies the real danger. Leo XIV has emerged not as the Pope of rupture, nor as the Pope of restoration, but as the Pope of redefinition by tone. Where Francis was provocative, Leo is diplomatic. Where Francis undermined tradition by action, Leo may do so by reinterpretation. His inaugural address refrained from the jargon of “irreversible synodality,” but kept the same horizon: a Church that seeks to walk with the world, rather than confront it with the claims of revealed truth².

Let us not be naïve. There is a strategic intelligence in Leo XIV’s rhetoric. Unlike his predecessor, he is not alienating the faithful with populist platitudes or overt scorn for “backwardist” Catholics³. Instead, he couches the same anthropocentric vision in the language of fraternity and spiritual longing. And yet, the vision remains horizontal. It is a vision that begins with man, not with God; one in which the Church’s mission is framed in terms of “accompaniment,” “coexistence of diversity,” and “welcoming difference,” not in terms of the salvation of souls⁴.

Take, for instance, his exegesis of Peter’s mission. Drawing from the final chapter of John’s Gospel, Leo XIV dwells on the nuances between the Greek verbs agapáo and philéō, reading into them a model of leadership grounded in affective love rather than doctrinal guardianship. This is no harmless spiritual reflection. It subtly shifts the centre of gravity away from the Petrine office as divinely instituted for teaching and governing the Church, toward a modern vision of servant-leadership defined by emotional resonance and relational closeness⁵.

What Leo XIV offers, then, is a personalist recasting of the papal office: Peter is no longer the confessor of the truth who confirms the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32), but the empathetic listener who “walks with” the flock. He does not mention the Cross. He does not invoke the authority of the Magisterium. He does not speak of the Four Last Things, or of the One True Church as the Ark of Salvation. He speaks of the papacy as an office of accompaniment, in a Church of “restless history,” with open arms and listening hearts. This is Franciscan theology, softened and reset to a higher register⁶.

Indeed, much of the language could have come verbatim from Evangelii Gaudium or Fratelli Tutti⁷. The idea of the Church as a “leaven for a reconciled world,” or of fraternity among “all men and women of good will,” is indistinguishable from Francis’ own vision of the Church as moral voice in the global community—not as the Mystical Body of Christ through which alone salvation comes⁸.

Even the call for unity, presented in stirring tones, is never grounded in doctrinal integrity or hierarchical communion. It is a unity based on shared emotions and mutual appreciation. There is no sense that unity flows from truth, from fidelity to the apostolic deposit, from common worship in the One Faith. Instead, unity is proposed as a social good, a harmony of differences. This is not Catholic ecclesiology. It is a pneumatology without boundaries—a Vatican II echo chamber still reverberating⁹.

Of course, some may argue that it is too early to judge. That we must give Leo XIV time. But we must also be honest. A pope’s inaugural address is never just a personal reflection—it is a programmatic statement. If a new direction were intended, it would have been signalled here. And yet the speech lacks any reference to the restoration of the traditional Latin Mass, to the crisis in vocations, to the collapse of Catholic identity in education, family life, or moral teaching. There is no word on Eucharistic reverence, no warning about the doctrinal confusion plaguing the Church. Instead, we are told to “sail the seas of life,” to “build a new world where peace reigns.” The slogans have been polished, but they are still slogans¹⁰.

In truth, this pontificate is not beginning with a clarion call, but with a soft murmur—a murmur which lulls many into false comfort. The faithful must not be seduced by tone. We must look to doctrine, to the language of precision, to the silence where there should be thunder. And in that silence, we must continue to guard the treasures of the faith, handed down to us from the saints, defended by councils, and sanctified by centuries of tradition¹¹.

The late Pope Benedict XVI once spoke of the “hermeneutic of continuity.” But what we face now is the hermeneutic of sentiment: a theological method that retains Christian vocabulary while reconfiguring it to serve a different anthropology. The question for us is not whether Leo XIV will be more polished than Francis—he already is. The question is whether he will lead the Church back to the narrow way, or continue to accompany it toward a wide road of compromise. So far, there is no evidence of change. Only a change in tone. And as ever, tone without truth is a mask, not a mandate¹². 🔝

¹ This was the central point of discussion in several traditionalist analyses and echoed by commentators such as Matt Gaspers and Bishop Athanasius Schneider in the days following the inauguration.
² The term “irreversible synodality” was used by Pope Francis in his 2023 address at the Synod on Synodality and became a symbolic phrase for structural change without doctrinal clarity.
³ Pope Francis’s 2022 denunciation of “indietrists” and his repeated use of the term “backwardists” to describe traditional Catholics were unprecedented and often deeply divisive.
⁴ Salus animarum suprema lex esto – “The salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church” (1983 CIC, can. 1752), but this doctrine is rarely articulated in postconciliar pastoral theology.
⁵ Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus, ch. 3: “To this teaching authority all are bound to submit… not only in matters of faith and morals but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.”
⁶ Cf. Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia §312, which places listening and accompaniment above correction and clarity, reflecting the same theology Leo XIV’s inaugural hints at.
⁷ Especially Fratelli Tutti §8, where Francis proposes a “new dream of fraternity” that includes “all people of good will,” bypassing the need for shared supernatural faith.
⁸ Cf. Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis Christi (1943), §22: “Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have received the laver of regeneration and profess the true faith.”
⁹ Vatican II, Lumen Gentium §15 and Unitatis Redintegratio §3–4 laid the groundwork for these ambiguous ecclesiologies now taken for granted.
¹⁰ The call to “sail the seas of life” and “become one family” appears almost verbatim in Leo XIV’s inaugural address (19 May 2025), lacking grounding in ecclesial doctrine or sacramental theology.
¹¹ Cf. Traditionis Custodes (2021) and Responsa ad Dubia (2021), which dramatically restricted the Traditional Latin Mass—yet Leo XIV’s address was silent on the issue, despite its centrality to many of the Church’s most faithful young families and vocations.
¹² Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), condemned modernists for emptying dogmatic formulae of their content while preserving the language to deceive the faithful (§13).

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Scattering the Seed or Diluting the Word? An Analysis of Pope Leo XIV’s First General Audience

Pope Leo XIV’s first general audience—an address styled as a continuation of the Jubilee catecheses of Pope Francis—chose as its subject the parable of the sower (Mt 13:1–17). Delivered with gentle optimism and rich with pastoral imagery, the catechesis reaffirmed several truths of the Gospel: the prodigality of divine grace, the mystery of human receptivity, and the hope that God’s Word will bear fruit. Yet a closer reading reveals notable absences—of judgment, repentance, and conversion—that weaken the message’s theological force. In this, it becomes necessary to weigh the Pope’s words against the fuller witness of the Tradition, especially as preserved in the writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.

The Seed is the Word—and the Word is Christ
Leo XIV rightly identified the seed in the parable as the Word of God, a truth echoed by the Fathers. St. Jerome comments, “The seed is the Word of God that falls into the hearts of men,”¹ while Origen notes that Christ Himself is the divine Logos, sowing Himself into the world.² The Pope’s assertion that Christ is both the Sower and the Seed reflects a sound theological instinct, resonating with the Pauline vision in Romans 10:17: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ.”

However, the parable does not merely reveal divine generosity; it also discloses a divine judgment. While Leo XIV speaks of the Word reaching us in “every situation,” he offers no reflection on the fact that three of the four soils fail to yield fruit. St. John Chrysostom, preaching on this very parable, warned, “The Lord does not only sow, but demands fruit; for if we remain hard of heart, the Word bears no benefit.”³ The Pope’s gentle tone obscures this crucial call to conversion.

Soil and the Mystery of the Heart
The Pope interprets the “soil” in the parable as our hearts, communities, and the Church—a plausible pastoral extension. Yet his message tends toward universal optimism: that even when we are distracted, shallow, or burdened by cares, God continues to sow in hope. Here again, truth is present but insufficiently qualified.

St. Augustine, in his Sermon on the Parables, is clear: “Not all who hear will be saved. The same sun softens wax and hardens clay.”⁴ He underscores that the fault lies not with the seed, but with the disposition of the hearer. Leo XIV’s omission of this moral imperative reflects a tendency inherited from Pope Francis’s preaching: to stress inclusion over interior transformation, hope over holiness, and process over penance.

“Wasteful” Generosity or Divine Justice?
The Pope refers to the sower as “wasteful” in a surprising but poetic turn, meant to illustrate the divine liberality of God’s love. While such imagery may appeal to a contemporary audience, it risks romanticising what the Church Fathers saw as a deeply serious theological moment.

St. Cyril of Alexandria insists that “Christ does not waste His Word; rather, He gives it freely, though not all are worthy.”⁵ The sower is not careless but sovereign. He knows the outcome, yet still sows—an act not of sentimental hopefulness but of sovereign mercy and justice.

The Absence of the Call to Conversion
Perhaps the most glaring omission in the address is the call to repentance. The parable, according to the Lord’s own interpretation (Mt 13:18–23), concerns the failure of many to bear fruit due to hardness of heart, worldliness, and superficial faith. St. Gregory the Great warns that “without the labor of penance and the cultivation of virtue, no soul can become fertile soil.”⁶

Leo XIV briefly mentions that we should not be discouraged if we are not “fruitful soil,” and urges us to ask God to make us better. This is true and encouraging—but too tame. It avoids the sharper edge of the Gospel: that many reject the Word and will be judged. There is no mention of sin, penance, or the spiritual battle for salvation. In a time when catechesis is desperately needed to correct doctrinal confusion and moral laxity, this gentle ambiguity does little to re-establish clarity.

Hope as Virtue, Not Feeling
The address ends with a meditation on Vincent Van Gogh’s The Sower at Sunset, suggesting that the sun—not the sower—is central, symbolising God’s providence in ripening the harvest. While artistically evocative, the turn to modern art introduces a sentimental motif in place of theological reflection. Hope, in the Christian tradition, is not simply optimism in mystery, but the infused theological virtue by which we confidently expect eternal life, as promised by Christ.⁷

By contrast, Pope Leo XIV’s treatment risks reducing hope to a vague encouragement rather than a supernatural virtue rooted in the Cross, the sacraments, and the teachings of the Church.

Conclusion: A Seed of Good Will, But Not Yet Fruitful Doctrine
There is much in this first address that reflects a sincere pastoral desire to encourage, uplift, and accompany the faithful. The theological truths are not false—but they are incomplete. Like seed scattered on thin soil, the words inspire momentary reflection, but do not yet root the soul in the depth of divine truth.

A first address sets the tone for a papacy. If Pope Leo XIV wishes to lead the Church back to fertile ground, he must recover the fullness of the parables—not merely their poetry, but their urgency. In the words of St. Ephrem the Syrian: “The parables are ladders by which we may climb—but only if we desire to ascend.”⁸

Let us pray this papacy does not settle for scattered seed and fading sunlight, but tills the soil, purges the thorns, and preaches the Cross—not merely the warm glow of the sun. 🔝

¹ St. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew, Book II, on Mt 13:1–23.
² Origen, Homilies on Matthew, Homily 9.
³ St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 44.
⁴ St. Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 1.
⁵ St. Cyril of Alexandria, Glaphyra on the Pentateuch, Vol. 3.
⁶ Pope St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, Book 23.
⁷ Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1817–1821.
⁸ St. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on the Diatessaron, 1.12.

Fraternity Without Truth? A Traditional Catholic Response to Pope Leo XIV’s Interreligious Address

“Unity in faith is the foundation of true communion, not mere human fraternity.”

On 19 May 2025, Pope Leo XIV delivered a speech in the Clementine Hall to representatives of various Christian denominations and non-Christian religions. While offered in a spirit of cordiality, the address represents a continuation—indeed, an intensification—of the ecumenical and interreligious trajectory begun at Vatican II and expanded under Pope Francis. For traditional Catholics, however, this raises deep concerns about doctrinal clarity, the nature of the Church, and the perennial mission of conversion entrusted to the successors of the Apostles.

The Echo of Francis, the Silence of Tradition
From the outset, Pope Leo praises Francis as “the Pope of Fratelli Tutti,” affirming his promotion of “universal fraternity” and “interreligious dialogue” as the paradigm for his own pontificate. But what does this fraternity consist of? It is telling that the Holy Father lauds interpersonal encounters that “without taking anything away from ecclesial bonds” nevertheless bypass them in favour of human connection. Here again, we see the substitution of subjective relationality for the objective bond of faith and sacramental incorporation into the Mystical Body of Christ.

This shift away from supernatural faith is not new. As Pope Pius XI warned in Mortalium Animos (1928): “The union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ, which they have unhappily left.”¹

To praise unity as an aspiration detached from doctrinal submission to the one true Faith is to offer a false peace—pax sine veritate.

Nicene Creed as Platform for Pluralism?
The speech invokes the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea and its formulation of the Creed “shared by all Churches and Ecclesial Communities.” But this is a dangerous half-truth. The Nicene Creed, as defined in 325 and completed at Constantinople (381), is a dogmatic definition binding on all Christians. It is not a vague spiritual banner to be interpreted diversely. Pope Leo’s invocation of Nicaea is historically ironic: that Council anathematized the Arians, and subsequent councils condemned Monophysites, Nestorians, and other heresies now represented in the very “ecclesial communities” welcomed here.

St. Paul, after all, did not say “speak your truth in fraternity,” but rather: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5).

Synodality as Ecumenical Vehicle?
Leo XIV affirms his commitment to synodality—an ambiguous postconciliar concept—with the claim that it is “closely linked” to ecumenism. But what does this imply? The answer, perhaps unintentionally, comes later in the address: synodality is not about deeper fidelity to Tradition, but about expanding participation “in the spirit of human fraternity.” In short, it is democracy in the service of pluralism—not hierarchy in service of revealed truth.

Indeed, Pope Pius XII explicitly warned: “The Church is not a democracy, nor was it instituted as one by its divine Founder.”²

Religious Dialogue Without Conversion?
Nowhere in this address does the Pope exhort non-Catholics to conversion, baptism, or union with the one true Church. Instead, Judaism and Islam are praised as fellow searchers of the will of God, and the 2019 Abu Dhabi Document—whose formulation that “the diversity of religions is willed by God” was condemned as “heretical” by Bishop Athanasius Schneider³—is approvingly cited.

But the Catholic Church has always taught the contrary: “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these [non-Christian] religions. Yet she proclaims and is in duty bound to proclaim without fail, Christ who is ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life’.”⁴

Dialogue cannot replace evangelisation. Friendship must never substitute for mission.

A Peace Not of This World
The speech closes with calls for global disarmament, ecological development, and economic equity—laudable temporal concerns, but insufficient as a Gospel. The Apostles did not gather the nations to dialogue about shared social concerns; they preached repentance and the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus Christ.

As Pope St. Pius X thundered: “There is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no moral civilization without the true religion.”⁵

Peace without conversion is merely the calm before the storm. Only the Peace of Christ, in the Kingdom of Christ, can satisfy the cry of the human heart.

Conclusion
While Pope Leo XIV’s tone is measured and his intentions presumably charitable, the theological substance of his address continues the problematic conciliar paradigm: elevating fraternity above faith, dialogue above doctrine, and encounter above evangelisation. Traditional Catholics must view such speeches not as hopeful signs, but as calls to renewed witness—firm in doctrine, clear in mission, and faithful to the unchanging truth that outside the Catholic Church “there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins.”⁶ 🔝

1. Cantate Domino, Council of Florence, 1442 (Denzinger 714).
2. Mortalium Animos, Pope Pius XI, 1928, §10.
3. Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII, 1943, §61.
4. Bp. Athanasius Schneider, Christus Vincit, Angelico Press, 2019, p. 130.
5. Nostra Aetate, Vatican II, 1965, §2—emphasis added.
6. Pope St. Pius X, Letter to the French Bishops, June 13, 1907.

Pope Leo XIV’s Appointments: A Traditional Catholic Appraisal of Continuity and Concern

In the days following his inauguration, Pope Leo XIV has begun to reveal the direction of his pontificate through a series of significant appointments. For traditional Catholics observing closely, these early decisions suggest not rupture with the legacy of Pope Francis, but continuity—albeit under a new tone and diplomatic finesse. Indeed, as Nuntiatoria observed last week, Pope Leo XIV’s theological style may differ in decorum, but not yet in doctrine or direction.

Bishop Michael Pham: Pastoral Inclusivity and the New American Face
Appointed to lead the Diocese of San Diego, Bishop Michael Pham’s profile emphasizes a narrative of pastoral inclusivity and cultural engagement. A Vietnamese refugee and former auxiliary bishop, Pham is lauded for his work with ethnic communities and his psychological and theological training. His episcopal motto, “Unitatem in Christus” (“United in Christ”), underscores the postconciliar preference for unity over clarity. While his orthodoxy has not been publicly challenged, his appointment fits the now-familiar mold of bishops selected less for doctrinal fortitude than for demographic symbolism and cultural diplomacy¹.

Sister Tiziana Merletti: The Feminisation of Ecclesial Governance
The elevation of Sister Tiziana Merletti to Secretary of the Dicastery for Consecrated Life—serving under another woman, Sister Simona Brambilla—continues Pope Francis’s project of “expanding roles for women in the Church.” A canonist and former superior general of the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, Merletti has been an active voice in the International Union of Superiors General. Her appointment underscores a redefinition of Church governance structures that, while not sacramental, unmistakably shifts theological optics. Traditional Catholics must ask whether such moves, under the guise of administration, prepare the ground for a broader anthropological revisionism in the Church’s understanding of sexual complementarity².

Cardinal Baldassare Reina: Strategic Rebalancing or Mere Optics?
More promising is the appointment of Cardinal Baldassare Reina as Grand Chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. This move displaces the controversial Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who was widely criticized for steering the Institute away from its original magisterial moorings under Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Caffarra. Reina, with a background in biblical theology and seminary formation, may signal a modest rebalancing toward doctrinal fidelity in areas of marriage and family. Yet whether this represents genuine reform or simply reputational management remains to be seen³.

Cardinal François-Xavier Bustillo: A Franciscan of the Secular Age
The appointment of Cardinal Bustillo as special envoy to the Sacred Heart anniversary in Paray-le-Monial was symbolically significant. A Conventual Franciscan, Bustillo is known for his insistence that “differences are beautiful and should not lead to division.” While his pastoral charisma is evident, his theological emphasis on embracing diversity without a robust framework for truth or hierarchy risks perpetuating the same relativist confusion that plagued much of the last pontificate. Celebrating the Sacred Heart should mean reasserting Christ’s kingship, not muting it for the sake of sentiment⁴.

Fr. Avelino Chicoma, S.J.: Jesuit Justice and Social Priorities
The naming of Father Avelino Chicoma, a Peruvian Jesuit, to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development furthers the social justice trajectory embedded by Pope Francis. With academic ties to migration studies and human development, Chicoma’s priorities align with the horizontalist ecclesiology characteristic of the Jesuit order today. Traditional Catholics will recognize in such appointments the danger of reducing the Church’s mission to a humanitarian NGO, a theme Pope Benedict XVI famously warned against⁵.

Bishop Beat Grögli of St. Gallen: The Ghost of the “Sankt Gallen Mafia” Returns
Perhaps most troubling is the appointment of Beat Grögli as Bishop of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Grögli has publicly expressed openness to changing Church teaching on homosexuality, contraception, and women’s ordination. His academic pedigree—from Fribourg to Innsbruck—mirrors the European progressive theological currents that shaped the infamous “St. Gallen Group.” This appointment is not just symbolic; it places a man openly dissenting from perennial doctrine in a see historically linked to ecclesiastical subversion. It is a signal—whether witting or not—that Pope Leo XIV is not severing ties with the ecclesial agendas of Francis’s inner circle⁶.

Conclusion: Continuity, Not Conversion
These appointments suggest that Pope Leo XIV has chosen, thus far, to continue along the trajectory set by his predecessor. He may moderate the rhetoric, but the underlying theological vectors remain unchanged: increased feminisation of governance, a preference for socio-political engagement over doctrinal clarity, and a toleration—if not endorsement—of theological experimentation in Europe’s most liberal dioceses.

For traditional Catholics, these developments must be met with prayer, vigilance, and a renewed commitment to forming enclaves of faithful resistance. As ever, the standard remains the same: “What was true before, is true now.” The Faith does not evolve; it is handed down. And in times of confusion, fidelity to that deposit becomes the greatest form of reform. 🔝

¹ San Diego Diocese website; AP coverage of Pham appointment, May 2025.
² Catholic News Agency, “Pope appoints nun to Vatican dicastery,” May 2025.
³ CNA, “Cardinal Reina replaces Paglia,” May 2025.
⁴ Detroit Catholic, “Bustillo on Church unity,” May 2023.
⁵ Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 2005.
⁶ Reason and Theology, “Concerns about Bishop Grögli,” May 2025.

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A Shroud for the Unborn: The Seamless Garment and the Collapse of Catholic Moral Hierarchy

The “seamless garment” hypothesis—most closely associated with Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in the 1980s, and later promoted by figures such as Cardinals Blase Cupich and Robert Prevost (now Pope Leo XIV)—posits that all life issues must be treated as part of a unified moral vision. This idea is often couched in terms of a “consistent ethic of life,” wherein abortion, capital punishment, nuclear disarmament, poverty, health care, and immigration are all placed on the same moral plane. It draws its name from the seamless tunic of Christ (John 19:23), which was not torn apart but kept whole—a metaphor for the integrity of Catholic moral witness.

From a traditional Catholic perspective, the seamless garment hypothesis deserves both careful attention and critical scrutiny.

1. Confusion of Moral Hierarchies
Traditional Catholic moral theology, grounded in the doctrine of the natural law and clarified by the Magisterium (e.g., Pope Pius XII, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Council of Trent), maintains a clear distinction between intrinsically evil acts and prudential judgments. Abortion, for instance, is intrinsically and gravely immoral, always and everywhere. By contrast, issues like immigration policy or welfare provision involve prudential judgments on which Catholics may legitimately disagree.

The seamless garment approach, however, tends to flatten this moral hierarchy, treating all threats to life as morally equivalent. This leads to a false moral equivalence between, for instance, the murder of an unborn child and a government’s failure to provide universal healthcare. Such a conflation undermines the force of the Church’s perennial condemnation of abortion and euthanasia, which are always wrong and never justified.

Critique: As Cardinal John O’Connor once warned, the seamless garment can be “used as a shroud to hide the corpses of the unborn.” By failing to acknowledge the unique gravity of certain sins, it risks promoting a kind of pastoral relativism, where clarity is sacrificed for ideological cohesion.

2. Political Instrumentalisation of Catholic Social Teaching
Bernardin’s theory emerged during a time when the American episcopate sought to bridge the ideological divide between “liberal” and “conservative” Catholics. However, in practice, the seamless garment has served progressive political agendas, particularly by left-leaning clergy and bishops such as Cupich and, more recently, Prevost/Leo XIV.

In their application of the theory, figures like Cupich have often downplayed the non-negotiable character of life issues like abortion or same-sex unions, while emphasizing climate change, gun control, or immigration. This instrumentalizes Catholic moral theology to align with secular political platforms—particularly the American Democratic Party—rather than upholding an integral Catholic worldview.

Critique: Such use departs from the warnings of Pope Pius X (Notre Charge Apostolique, 1910) and Pope Leo XIII (Immortale Dei, 1885), both of whom warned against subordinating the supernatural mission of the Church to political ideologies. A properly ordered “Catholic social teaching” must begin with the primacy of divine law and the supernatural end of man, not a set of policy preferences dictated by modern liberalism.

3. Undermining the Concept of the Common Good
Traditional Catholic social doctrine—especially in the writings of Aquinas, Leo XIII (Rerum Novarum), and Pius XI (Quadragesimo Anno)—grounds the common good in objective moral order and the right worship of God. The seamless garment tends to reduce the common good to material welfare or “life quality” as determined by temporal conditions, rather than man’s final end, which is union with God.

By focusing disproportionately on bodily and social goods, this approach tends to neglect the spiritual and eternal dimension of life issues, including the necessity of conversion, sanctifying grace, and adherence to revealed moral norms. It subtly shifts the Church’s witness from salvation to social activism.

Critique: This amounts to a functional humanism, eerily echoing the errors condemned in Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), where St. Pius X warns of replacing supernatural religion with a moralizing humanitarianism.

4. Theological Reductionism and Loss of the Supernatural
Figures like Cupich and Leo XIV frequently interpret Catholic teaching through the lens of personalist or existentialist philosophies, which prioritize subjective experience and relationality over objective truth and revealed doctrine. The seamless garment hypothesis, under this influence, becomes a tool to reinterpret moral absolutes in terms of narrative coherence and pastoral “accompaniment.”

This reflects the broader modernist error of immanentism, where theological truths are judged by their felt human relevance, not by their objective reality as revealed by God. It also aligns with the Synodal Way’s push toward softening or revising perennial teachings under the guise of mercy and inclusion.

Critique: Such moves are dangerous precisely because they undermine doctrinal clarity and the immutability of revealed truth. As Vatican I taught infallibly, “the doctrine of faith which God has revealed… must be retained ever with the same sense and the same understanding” (Dei Filius, 1870).

Conclusion
The seamless garment hypothesis, while superficially appealing as a unified pro-life ethic, is fundamentally flawed when judged by traditional Catholic standards. It confuses moral categories, politicizes the Faith, subordinates eternal truths to temporal goals, and replaces the supernatural with the sociological.

What is needed instead is a hierarchical and integral moral vision—one that upholds the primacy of the spiritual, the non-negotiability of intrinsic evils, and the true common good of man: eternal life in union with God. 🔝

Suggested Authorities for Further Reading:

1. Servant of God Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ: writings on moral theology and modernism
2. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II–II, q. 64–66 (on justice and murder)
3. Pope Pius XII, Allocution to Midwives (1951)
4. Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei and Sapientiae Christianae
5. Pope Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis
6. Germain Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus

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Leo XIV and the Shadow of Rerum Novarum: A Name Without a Mandate?

When the new pope chose the name Leo XIV, many assumed it signalled a deliberate echo of Pope Leo XIII and his groundbreaking 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, the magna carta of modern Catholic social teaching. In an era plagued by widening inequality, ideological extremism, and moral confusion, the invocation of Leo XIII seemed to promise a return to a vision of society rooted in the natural law, the sanctity of labour, the rights of private property, and the Church’s perennial role as mater et magistra. Yet, it is already becoming clear that while Leo XIV may have taken the name, he appears increasingly unlikely to uphold the substance.

Rerum Novarum is too often quoted and too rarely read. Its legacy has been misrepresented by those who reduce Catholic social teaching to slogans for redistribution or weaponise papal language to support ideologies explicitly condemned by Leo XIII himself. The encyclical, far from offering theological cover for socialism or secular humanitarianism, lays out a distinctively Catholic vision of society—hierarchical, sacramental, and rooted in the family, not the state. It condemns both the exploitative excesses of laissez-faire capitalism and the godless collectivism of socialism, charting instead a third way grounded in justice, charity, and the moral law¹.

Leo XIII’s concern was not merely for economic reform, but for the restoration of Christ’s kingship in the temporal order. He writes: “The Church… interposes in order to shape the actions of men to a true and virtuous life, to remind them of their duties, and by the power of her divine teaching, to lead them to salvation.”²

Such language—so unapologetically supernatural—is largely absent from the early speeches and writings of Pope Leo XIV. Instead, we hear much of “solidarity,” “ecological conversion,” and “universal fraternity,” echoing the language of Fratelli Tutti, but noticeably detached from the clear doctrinal moorings that grounded Leo XIII’s teaching in natural law and revealed truth³.

If Leo XIV intends to revive the social vision of his namesake, he must first resist the modernist temptation to dilute or invert its principles. For instance, Rerum Novarum unequivocally defends private property as a natural right: “The first and most fundamental principle… is the inviolability of private property.”⁴

Yet under the guise of “equity” and “integral human development,” today’s Catholic leaders—Leo XIV included—often downplay this principle in favour of state-led redistribution schemes that erode the family’s autonomy and inflate the power of technocratic regimes⁵.

Nor does Rerum Novarum envision the Church as a non-governmental organisation among others. Leo XIII is clear: the Church’s role is not to reflect the secular zeitgeist, but to form consciences, sanctify labour, and transform society through conversion and grace. When the new pope surrounds himself with advisors known more for their political commitments than doctrinal fidelity, when appointments elevate bishops who flirt with synodalism and relativism, we must ask: is Leo XIV a successor in name only?

Moreover, Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum defends the natural family as “a true society, older than any state.”⁶ But how credible is a return to this vision when the new pontificate has thus far remained ambiguous about pressing threats to family integrity, such as gender ideology, and continues to platform clerics who undermine the Church’s perennial teaching on sexual morality?

To be sure, Leo XIV has made promising gestures—his replacement of Archbishop Paglia at the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family was quietly welcomed in traditional circles. He has, on several occasions, reaffirmed Catholic teaching on gender and biological reality. But these scattered acts do not yet form a coherent witness. If Leo XIV is serious about reclaiming the legacy of Leo XIII, he must not only speak of social justice, but return to the theological foundation that makes it possible: the kingship of Christ, the authority of the Church, the sanctity of the family, and the primacy of grace.

In the final analysis, Rerum Novarum is not a toolbox for policy-making. It is a call to rebuild Christian society. If the name “Leo” is to mean anything more than a marketing gesture, the current pope must align himself not with the modernist reinterpretations of Catholic social teaching, but with the original vision: one which placed Christ, not man, at the centre of the social order.

Until then, Leo XIII’s words remain prophetic—and unanswered: “There is no need to bring in the State. Man precedes the State; and possesses, prior to the formation of any State, the right of providing for the sustenance of his body.”⁷

A name may be borrowed. A legacy must be earned. 🔝

1. Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891), §15–20.
2. Ibid., §28.
3. Cf. Francis, Fratelli Tutti (2020), esp. §§114–120; compare with Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, §3.
4. Rerum Novarum, §5.
5. Cf. Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931), §79: “the State must not absorb the individual or the family.”
6. Rerum Novarum, §12.
7. Ibid., §7.

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In Other News…

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Bureaucracy on the Road to Chartres: Rome’s Clampdown on Traditional Pilgrimages

Each year at Pentecost, thousands of faithful Catholics lace their boots and shoulder their banners for the pilgrimage from Notre-Dame de Paris to Chartres Cathedral—a visible, vibrant witness to the vitality of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and the spiritual hunger of young families and priests drawn to the Church’s ancient rites. But this year, the road to Chartres has been shadowed by a new bureaucratic obstacle: a coordinated move by French bishops, reportedly under direction from Cardinal Arthur Roche, to curtail the freedom of priests to celebrate the traditional sacraments en route¹.

The developments, first reported by Rorate Caeli, centre around a letter dated 6 May 2025 from Archbishops Jordy of Tours and Lebrun of Rouen. The letter, addressed to the bishops of France, outlines “directives” issued by Cardinal Roche on 8 April. The timing is provocative—just weeks before the Chartres pilgrimage, and mere days into the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, who has so far remained silent on the matter. Though the document bears Roche’s name, many now await to see whether the new Pope will endorse or correct his predecessor’s increasingly aggressive policy toward traditional communities².

The directives stipulate that:

• Priests ordained before the 2021 motu proprio Traditionis Custodes must obtain permission from each diocesan bishop through whose territory the pilgrimage passes in order to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass³.
• Priests ordained after 2021 must apply directly to the Dicastery for Divine Worship for permission⁴.
• All priests are strongly encouraged to be able to celebrate the Novus Ordo⁵.
• Confessions during the pilgrimage must be heard using the new rite of penance⁶.

To those unfamiliar with the Chartres pilgrimage—organized by the lay association Notre-Dame de Chrétienté—these may seem like procedural clarifications. In reality, they are calculated restrictions, aimed at subjugating the most successful traditional Catholic event in the world to the regime of Traditionis Custodes. The pilgrimage is not a diocesan initiative. It is lay-led and international, drawing priests and pilgrims from around the globe. Yet, under the guise of “unity,” every priest must now negotiate a web of diocesan red tape just to offer the Mass of the Ages along a 60-mile route walked by over 18,000 pilgrims in 2024⁷.

Observers have noted that the directives effectively place traditional priests under a presumptive ban unless explicitly licensed at every step of the journey⁸. The contrast with priests offering Mass in the modern rite—who face no such burdens—is stark. And the message is clear: Tradition is to be tolerated, at best. It is not to flourish.

That these directives come from Cardinal Roche is unsurprising. His tenure as Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship under Pope Francis was marked by a zeal for uniformity and central control⁹. Critics within and beyond France have described his approach as punitive, excessive, and lacking any pastoral sensitivity¹⁰. But the question now posed is whether Roche speaks for Pope Leo XIV.

The new pope’s silence has unsettled both reformers and restorers. His inaugural address was steeped in the rhetoric of continuity and mercy, but devoid of concrete signals. Will he correct the course of his predecessor, or allow the machinery of suppression to grind on?

The pilgrimage to Chartres is more than a spectacle—it is a symbol of resistance, reverence, and renewal. The families, scouts, seminarians, and clerics who make the three-day journey embody a living tradition that no decree can extinguish. That is why they are feared. That is why they are targeted. And that is why the world is watching to see whether Pope Leo XIV will allow their shepherds to scatter them on the road.

Until then, the pilgrims walk. And the smoke of the thurible, mingled with the dust of the path, continues to rise toward Chartres. 🔝

¹ “The Bishops of France and Cardinal Roche Still at War Against the Traditional Pilgrimages of France,” Rorate Caeli, 19 May 2025.
² Ibid.
³ Ibid. The directive invokes the disciplinary framework set by Traditionis Custodes (2021), art. 5.
⁴ As per Roche’s April 8 2025 instructions cited in the Rorate article.
⁵ Ibid. Emphasis on integration into the “liturgical life” of the Church echoes Desiderio Desideravi (2022).
⁶ Ibid. This would appear to contradict existing permission for use of the older form of confession under Universae Ecclesiae (2011), art. 21.
⁷ “Pilgrimage to Chartres,” Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, official statistics, 2024; Le Figaro, Pentecost coverage, 2024.
⁸ Analysis based on implications of multiple diocesan authorisations. Cf. Catholic Herald, editorial, 12 May 2025.
⁹ See Cardinal Roche’s circulars, especially the 2021 “Responsa ad Dubia” on Traditionis Custodes.
¹⁰ Commentary from Dom Alcuin Reid, Fr Claude Barthe, and anonymous sources cited in La Nef, April 2024.

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Christ the Bridegroom and the Sacramental Nature of the Episcopate

“The Church has no right to innovate, because she has no right to change what God has revealed.”
—St Vincent of Lérins¹

In every age, the perennial doctrine of the Church is tested by the spirit of the world. In our time, few doctrines provoke such confusion or controversy as the Church’s insistence that only men may be admitted to Holy Orders. Yet this teaching, far from being a sociological custom or cultural inheritance, belongs to the very fabric of the Church’s sacramental and incarnational reality. To challenge it is not simply to critique an institution—it is to attempt to rewrite the sacramental order of Christ Himself.

Let us then speak plainly: the bishop is and must be a man not because of merit or worthiness, but because of metaphysical and sacramental conformity to Christ, who is the Bridegroom of the Church.

Ontological Sacramentality and the Icon of Christ
The bishop is not merely a religious functionary. He is not a community-appointed leader, nor a representative of human consensus. He is an icon of Christ the Head and Bridegroom of the Church, ordained not by democratic selection but by apostolic succession and divine election. As the Second Vatican Council taught, the bishop “represents Christ the Teacher, Shepherd and Priest, and acts in His person” (in persona Christi)².

This sacramental identity requires a natural and symbolic conformity to Christ as male. Not because masculinity is superior, but because it reveals something essential about Christ’s nuptial relationship with His Bride, the Church. The bishop’s maleness is not incidental, but essential: a visible, sacramental expression of the invisible mystery he is consecrated to make present.

Equality of Grace Does Not Mean Sameness of Role
Much confusion arises from conflating spiritual equality with sameness of vocation. Some cite Galatians 3:28—“There is neither Jew nor Greek… male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”—as though it abolished all distinctions in ecclesial function. Yet St Paul’s own writings make clear that equality in salvation does not erase the created order or the differentiation of vocations. He insists: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:11–12)³.

The same Apostle who proclaimed baptismal equality affirmed the male nature of priestly leadership—not as an act of exclusion, but of fidelity to the divine pattern.

Christ the Bridegroom and the Church as Bride
This divine pattern is nuptial. Christ reveals Himself not as a generic human, but as the Bridegroom who lays down His life for His Bride. The Church, in her liturgy, doctrine, and mysticism, receives this identity from the very Incarnation. The bishop, as the one who offers the sacrifice, feeds the Bride with the Bread of Heaven, and guards her holiness, does so in the person of the Bridegroom. He does not merely “represent” Christ. He re-presents Him—mystically, sacramentally, and in his very personhood.

This is why the Church has always recognized the male priesthood not merely as disciplinary custom, but as divinely instituted. St John Paul II, in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), solemnly declared: *“the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful”*⁴.

This reiterates the consistent witness of tradition, confirmed by the Responsum ad Dubium of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1995), which declared that this teaching belongs to the deposit of faith and requires definitive assent⁵.

Harmony, Not Hierarchy
Critics of the male priesthood often assume that the Church’s theology reflects a patriarchal power structure. Yet this is to misunderstand both the nature of the Church and the meaning of fatherhood. The bishop is not a lord, but a father. He is not a master, but a bridegroom, called to self-sacrifice. In the words of Christ: “He who would be first among you must be the slave of all” (Mark 10:44).

To see the bishopric as “power” is already to have misunderstood the sacrament. The bishop is not elevated for his own sake, but to lay down his life for the Church. As St Augustine said: *“To be a bishop is nothing else than to begin to be under a heavier burden”*⁶.

A Sign of Apostasy: Where Women’s Ordination Leads
Herein lies the real danger. Those ecclesial communities that have embraced the ordination of women have not thereby drawn nearer to Christ or holiness. They have, almost without exception, drifted into heresy, immorality, and apostasy. The so-called Old Catholic Church of Utrecht, once regarded as a bastion of tradition, has become indistinguishable from liberal Protestantism. The Lutheran churches of northern Europe and the Anglican Communion—especially the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the United States—have abandoned even the pretense of fidelity to Scripture and the Catholic tradition. They ordain women, affirm same-sex unions, deny the uniqueness of Christ, and bless moral perversions that the Apostles condemned.

This is no coincidence. The rejection of the divinely instituted male priesthood is a symptom of Modernism—that “synthesis of all heresies”⁷ which St Pius X warned would hollow out the Church from within. Modernism exalts subjectivity over truth, experience over doctrine, and self-expression over divine revelation. When it reaches the sanctuary, the altar ceases to be a place of sacrifice and becomes a stage for performance.

A Grave Threat Within the Church
This is why current calls within the Catholic Church—especially in Germany’s Synodaler Weg and elsewhere—for the ordination of women (whether as deacons or priests) are not merely misguided. They are threats to the integrity of the faith. They mask themselves in language of inclusion and justice, but their fruits are division, rebellion, and desacralisation. They reflect the spirit of the world, not the Spirit of Christ.

Pope Francis, despite his ambiguity on many doctrinal matters, has repeatedly reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that the priesthood is reserved to men. Yet the push for so-called “female diaconate” is increasingly used as a Trojan horse to reopen what the Magisterium has definitively closed. Even high-ranking cardinals have toyed with the idea, undermining the unity and clarity of the Church’s witness.

Conclusion: The Bishop as Sacramental Father
The bishop is not a career path. He is not a manager. He is not a performer on a liturgical stage. He is a mystical sign of the world to come, a sacramental father, a guardian of the heavenly garden, conformed to Christ not only in voice and gesture but in flesh and vocation.

This is why the bishop must be a man: because Christ is the Bridegroom, and the Church is His Bride. And only one formed in the image of the Bridegroom may sacramentally stand in His place, offer His sacrifice, and prepare the Bride for her heavenly Spouse.

To alter this is not progress. It is apostasy.

Let the Catholic faithful, then, resist with all their strength the secularisation of the sanctuary, the collapse of sacramental identity, and the deception that blurs nature, grace, and truth. Let them hold fast to what was believed always, everywhere, and by all. 🔝

1. Pope St Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis (1907), §39.
2. St Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, 23.
3. Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 21.
4. 1 Timothy 2:11–12. See also 1 Corinthians 14:34–35.
5. Pope John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, 4 (1994).
6. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Responsum ad Dubium, 1995.
7. St Augustine, Sermon 339A, On the Anniversary of His Ordination.

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The Street Children Crisis: A Global Scandal Hidden in Plain Sight

Across cities and slums, train stations and marketplaces, the faces of millions of forgotten children stare blankly at a world that has passed them by. They are the street children: the orphans, the abandoned, the runaways, and the trafficked. From the favelas of Brazil to the alleyways of Manila, from Delhi’s rail platforms to Nairobi’s backstreets, these children survive—often by theft, begging, or prostitution—in a world that ignores their suffering.

This is not a marginal phenomenon. It is a global humanitarian crisis with devastating social, psychological, and spiritual consequences.

Latin America: Broken Homes and Broken Streets
Latin America is home to hundreds of thousands of street children, particularly concentrated in cities like Bogotá, Quito, and Rio de Janeiro. In Colombia, as many as 130,000 children are believed to live and work on the streets¹. Ecuador’s capital, Quito, has an estimated 6,000 street children, while in Brazil, the figure is well over 200,000, many of whom are victims of domestic violence or abandonment².

Many form tight-knit groups or informal gangs for protection, but these groups often bring further danger. They are easy targets for organised crime, child prostitution networks, and drug cartels. According to studies in Brazil, up to 70% of street children report experiencing police violence³.

The Philippines: A Generation at Risk
The Philippines faces one of the most acute street child crises in Southeast Asia. UNICEF and local estimates put the number of street children at 250,000 nationwide, with 30,000 in Metro Manila alone⁴. These children are often divided into three groups:

• Those who work on the streets but sleep at home.
• Those who both live and work on the streets.
• The abandoned or orphaned, entirely street-dependent.

They are prey to sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and substance abuse. Over 85% of Filipino street children have been exposed to inhalants or other drugs⁵. Cases of HIV/AIDS and STIs are increasing among these children, particularly among girls forced into prostitution, sometimes by their own families.

South Asia: Tragedy at Scale
In South Asia, the numbers are staggering. India alone accounts for an estimated 500,000 to 1 million street children⁶. In major cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Kolkata, children are found living near railways, in shantytowns, and on city pavements. The 2021 Indian census counted over 92,000 homeless children, though NGOs argue this vastly undercounts the problem.

In Pakistan, over 1.5 million children live on the streets⁷, driven there by poverty, domestic abuse, and war. Many of these children are recruited into begging mafias or used in bonded labor.

In Bangladesh, UNICEF estimates that 600,000 children live and work on the streets. Nearly 72% are illiterate, and many suffer from untreated disease, violence, and exposure to human trafficking⁸.

Africa: A Generation in Peril
Sub-Saharan Africa faces its own grave crisis. In Nairobi, Kenya, estimates suggest there are 60,000 to 100,000 street children, often orphaned by HIV/AIDS or abandoned due to poverty⁹. In Lagos, Nigeria, an estimated 100,000 children live without stable housing or adult care. UNICEF reports similar patterns in Tanzania, Ghana, and South Africa, where the growth of urban slums exacerbates child displacement.

These children live without access to clean water, food, or medicine. They are frequently abused by law enforcement or recruited into gangs and trafficking rings.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia: The Forgotten Front
In Ukraine, the war has worsened a long-standing issue of institutional neglect. Even before the current conflict, over 100,000 children lived in orphanages or state care facilities, many of whom eventually became street children when they aged out or ran away¹⁰. Russia and Romania also report tens of thousands of children living on the streets or in informal shelters.

A Global Pattern of Exploitation

Across all these regions, certain patterns recur:

• Family breakdown (due to poverty, divorce, substance abuse, war).
• Lack of education and basic healthcare.
• Widespread sexual and economic exploitation.
• State neglect and law enforcement abuse.
• Vulnerability to trafficking and child labour.

Many of these children are not merely “on the streets” but are caught in exploitative cycles, often serving the pornography and trafficking markets described in recent interviews by Tim Tebow and dramatised in films like Sound of Freedom.

A Call to Christian Witness
The Church cannot turn away from this crisis. Tim Tebow’s recent advocacy for the Renewed Hope Act, aimed at expanding U.S. efforts to identify and rescue children from sexual exploitation, is only one facet of a much broader battle. As Christians, we are compelled not only to act but to remember that every street child bears the face of Christ.

The early Church rescued the children of pagan Rome from infanticide. Today, we must rescue them from indifference.

“Let the little children come to Me,” said the Lord. But how shall they come if they are enslaved, brutalised, and discarded by those who should have protected them? 🔝

¹ UNICEF Latin America Regional Data 2023.
² Human Rights Watch, Brazil: Police Violence Against Street Children, 2020.
³ Save the Children, Latin America and the Hidden Crisis, 2022.
⁴ Department of Social Welfare and Development, Philippines, and UNICEF 2023 reports.
⁵ Better Care Network Philippines, 2023.
⁶ National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (India), 2022.
⁷ Azad Foundation, Pakistan Street Child Assessment 2021.
⁸ UNICEF Bangladesh, 2022.
⁹ Street Families Rehabilitation Trust Fund (Kenya), 2023.
¹⁰ Lumos Foundation (UK), Children in Institutions in Eastern Europe, 2022.

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Why We Must Turn to St Joseph: The Primus’s Call to Form Boys and Men in the Spirit of the Holy Patriarch

In light of the growing evils of child exploitation, fatherlessness, and moral collapse witnessed across the world—from the street children of Manila and Medellín to the hidden abuse in Western homes exposed in the trafficking of minors—the Old Roman Apostolate is renewing its call for every mission and chapel to foster deep and living devotion to St Joseph, the chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin and guardian of the Redeemer¹.

This directive from the Primus is not devotional ornament. It is a matter of spiritual urgency.

The Crisis of Masculinity and the Lost Father
Across every continent, we see the same grim reality: young boys grow up without fathers, or worse, under abusive or absent men². Male violence, addiction, and indifference destroy families, crush vocations, and drive children into the hands of traffickers, pimps, and cartels³. Meanwhile, Western boys face not exploitation of the body, but a psychological starvation—raised by screens, medicated into passivity, and robbed of purpose by a culture that mocks fatherhood and despises virtue⁴.

We are not facing merely a social crisis. We are facing a collapse of Christian manhood.

St Joseph: Just Man, Silent Warrior, Model for All Men
In St Joseph, we see the antidote. The Gospels say little of him, but his silence is the silence of strength, not passivity; of contemplation, not cowardice. He protects, he provides, he obeys the voice of God. He is not a tyrant, but a guardian. Not a brute, but a builder⁵.

The Primus has often repeated that “the renewal of society must begin with the renewal of the man.”⁶ And the model of that renewal is not found in celebrities or politicians—it is found in the carpenter of Nazareth.

Practical Devotion: The Duty of Every Chapel
To this end, the Primus urges all ORA clergy and mission leaders to take concrete steps:

• Enthrone a statue or icon of St Joseph in every chapel, ideally as part of a visible shrine for men and boys to gather before or after Mass⁷.
• Promote the Seven Sorrows and Joys of St Joseph as a weekly devotion for fathers, workers, and boys in formation⁸.
• Establish regular men’s prayer groups, sodalities, or St Joseph Guilds, with the explicit aim of forming Catholic men to be holy husbands, fathers, brothers, and servants of Christ in society⁹.
• Encourage the spiritual adoption of fatherless boys, especially among widowers, unmarried older men, or established fathers¹⁰.
• Preach regularly on St Joseph’s virtues: chastity, obedience, courage, silence, industriousness, humility, and fidelity¹¹.

Where possible, parishes should use St Joseph’s feast days—especially March 19th and and the Patronage of St Joseph, on the Third Sunday Post Pascha—as focal points for men’s retreats, conferences, or vocational missions¹². Priests should make the connection between the restoration of fatherhood and the restoration of liturgy, doctrine, and culture.

Young Men Must Be Equipped for Battle
The Old Roman Apostolate has seen particular growth among young men—those disillusioned by a decadent society, hungry for reverence, and yearning for truth¹³. We must meet that desire, not only with aesthetics, but with formation. These young men must be equipped to be:

• Spiritual warriors, disciplined in prayer and virtue.
• Providers, capable of sacrifice and labour.
• Protectors, who recognise their strength is for the weak.
• Witnesses, able to confront a hostile culture with clarity and charity.

The Primus has declared that St Joseph is the key to forming such men¹⁴. In him, boys find a father. Youths find a guide. Men find a companion. And societies find renewal.

Conclusion: The Hour is Late
The evil we face is not abstract. It wears the face of the trafficked child, the drugged teenager, the passive father, and the priest too timid to preach the Gospel.

But God is not silent. He gave us St Joseph not only to guard the first coming of Christ, but to prepare us for the second. Every Old Roman chapel must become a place where the sons of St Joseph are raised up to build, to guard, to lead, and to love.

As the Primus said in his 2025 Lenten conference: “In a world collapsing under the weight of absent fathers, false shepherds, and faithless men, it is time for Joseph’s sons to rise.”¹⁵

Let us answer that call. 🔝

¹ Cf. Matthew 1:18–25; Luke 2:1–52.
² UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2023: For Every Child, a Home, esp. chapter on paternal absence.
³ UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2022, pp. 32–34.
⁴ Mary Eberstadt, Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics (2020).
⁵ Pope Leo XIII, Quamquam Pluries (1889), §3–6.
⁶ From the Primus’s Ad Clerum, Lent 2024.
⁷ ORA General Pastoral Directives, §14.
⁸ Cf. Manual of Indulgences (4th ed.), p. 301.
⁹ ORA St Joseph Guild formation guide, 2025.
¹⁰ Based on the model of spiritual fatherhood outlined by Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, §24.
¹¹ Pius XI, Redemptoris Custos, §5–10.
¹² ORA Liturgical Calendar, rubrical notes for 19 March and 1 May.
¹³ ORA Vocations Office, Report on Chaplaincy Growth (2024–25).
¹⁴ From the Primus’s address at the Feast of St Joseph, Brighton Oratory, March 19, 2025.
¹⁵ Lenten Conference: God’s Law and Human Flourishing – A Call to Return, 3rd Sunday of Lent 2025.

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A Tale of Two Gestures: JD Vance, the Papal Ring, and a White House Welcome

Vice President JD Vance’s now-infamous refusal to kiss the ring of Pope Leo XIV at the pontiff’s inaugural Mass was justified, in Vance’s own words, on the grounds that he was “not there as JD Vance, a Catholic parishioner,” but “as the Vice President of the United States.” Such religious gestures, he implied, would be out of place in the realm of statecraft. Yet, days later, the White House hosted Louis Prevost, the Pope’s older brother—a private citizen with no public office or noteworthy distinction—solely by virtue of his familial connection to the Vicar of Christ.

The irony could not be more pointed. Vance, himself a Catholic convert, declined a traditional act of religious homage to the Pope on the pretext of official neutrality, while the administration he represents honoured the Pope’s brother not as a U.S. statesman, but precisely as the Pope’s brother.

The False Division Between Private and Public Man
Vance’s justification enshrines a liberal separation of Church and State not only in governance, but within the man himself. This bifurcation was roundly condemned by Pope St. Pius X, who rebuked the notion that the Catholic must somehow be separated from the citizen:

“The same people who want the citizen to be freed from all influence of the Church, would subject the Church to the State. This double error stems from the same false principle: that the Church and the State must be separated.”¹

The vice president claims he was constrained by diplomatic protocol. But even were this true, he was not prevented from showing a gesture of personal reverence to the spiritual father of his faith—a father who claims not only ecclesiastical authority, but as Pope Boniface VIII infallibly declared in Unam Sanctam, a necessary role in every human creature’s salvation:

“We declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”²

This includes rulers, presidents, and vice presidents. It especially applies in so-called “mixed matters,” such as education, morality, marriage, and religious freedom—areas where the spiritual power of the Church must inform and even constrain the exercise of civil power.³

To pretend otherwise is not to honour protocol; it is to deny the rightful lordship of Christ over all aspects of life, including the political.

Louis Prevost: Honoured Because He Is the Pope’s Brother
Louis Prevost is indeed an American citizen. But he is not a diplomat, not a cleric, not a public official, and not a cultural luminary. His presence at the White House was extended entirely because of who his brother is—namely, the Bishop of Rome. His own comment made the point plain: “I’m a MAGA type, and I have my beliefs. He’s my brother and he’s the Pope. He’s more liberal than me, but he’s not woke.”

Why, then, was he received with fanfare by both President Trump and Vice President Vance? Why should a private citizen be honoured diplomatically for his familial relationship to the Pope, when the Pope himself is denied a symbolic gesture of respect from a Catholic statesman?

Instrumentalising Religion While Denying It
This episode exposes the fatal contradiction in modern American diplomacy: religion is permitted and even celebrated when it serves political optics, but rejected when it calls for humility, allegiance, or the bending of the knee.

Mr. Theo Howard of The Two Cities Podcast put it succinctly in comments to LifeSiteNews:

“The dogma of separation of Church and State, that Vance no doubt believes he is simply following, leads, effectively, to a separation of Church and State within Vance’s soul, demonstrating why the Church has always condemned it.”

In other words, the Catholic politician who seeks to “balance” faith and public life by compartmentalising them ends up fracturing his integrity. He is one man at Mass, another at the podium. One man in his conscience, another in his office. But as the Church teaches, grace builds upon nature—it does not dismember it.

A Closing Word
The Church has never demanded that Catholic statesmen turn the State into a theocracy. But she has always demanded that they submit in conscience and in act to the authority of Christ’s Church in matters of faith and morals. That submission includes, when appropriate, public acts of honour to the Pope, not as a foreign dignitary, but as the universal pastor of souls.

When such gestures are refused in the name of neutrality, while family members of the same Pope are received in the name of symbolism, it is clear what has happened: the modern state does not mind religion, so long as it kneels to politics.

Let Catholics take heed—and beware. 🔝

¹ Notre Charge Apostolique, Pope St. Pius X (1910)
² Unam Sanctam, Pope Boniface VIII (1302)
³ Immortale Dei, Pope Leo XIII (1885), nn. 13–15: “The State… must not only not forbid the Church from exercising her rights, but must aid her in the discharge of her duties.”

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Terror in D.C.: The Targeted Killing of Israeli Diplomats and the Rising Spectre of Ideological Violence

The deliberate and brutal killing of two young Israeli embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. on May 21, 2025, has sent shockwaves across diplomatic and religious communities, raising urgent questions about the intensifying climate of anti-Semitic violence and the politicization of terrorism under the guise of “solidarity.”

The victims, Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, were not only diplomatic staff serving the State of Israel but were reportedly preparing for engagement. Their deaths came at the hands of Elias Rodriguez, a 31-year-old man from Chicago, who, according to FBI reports, declared at the scene: “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.” Witnesses said he shouted “Free Palestine” as he was arrested.

Federal authorities have charged Rodriguez with first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials, and terrorism-related crimes, citing clear ideological motive. An FBI affidavit revealed that Rodriguez authored a 900-word anti-Israel manifesto found on his person, filled with incendiary rhetoric justifying armed violence against Jews and diplomatic representatives of the Israeli state. The language used in the document mimicked radical slogans seen at recent pro-Palestinian rallies, particularly those that have conflated legitimate political grievances with open incitement to violence.

This attack comes in the wake of heightened tensions globally and a disturbing pattern of antisemitic incidents in Western cities, particularly in the United States and Europe, where pro-Palestinian activism has increasingly tolerated – and in some cases promoted – slogans, chants, and imagery advocating the destruction of Israel and the demonization of Jews as a people.

Milgrim and Lischinsky, remembered by colleagues as devoted to diplomacy and peacebuilding, were targeted not for any military act but because of who they were and whom they represented. Their deaths are not isolated tragedies but emblematic of a growing ideological war that couches terrorism in the language of resistance.

The Jewish community, already rattled by synagogue attacks and rising hostility on campuses, now faces yet another trauma – this time on the very doorstep of American civil society. The fact that the shooting occurred near a Jewish museum, a place dedicated to memory and education, underscores the symbolic nature of the crime.

This tragedy has been widely condemned by U.S. and Israeli officials, but critics have noted a disturbing silence or downplaying from sectors of the progressive left, where opposition to Israel is often veiled in the language of anti-Zionism, yet functionally indistinguishable from anti-Semitism when it results in murder.

Indeed, one must ask: how did the political discourse in Western democracies allow such hatred to fester unchecked? The normalization of slogans calling for intifada, the tolerance of hate-filled chants on university campuses, and the failure of law enforcement to prosecute clear threats in public protests have all contributed to a culture in which a man like Rodriguez might feel justified in his act.

The theological and moral implications for Christians are also grave. As defenders of human dignity and custodians of peace, we cannot allow ourselves to be manipulated by a secular narrative that divides the world into victims and oppressors based on identity politics. The gospel of Christ is not a revolutionary manifesto, and those who preach violence while invoking the language of justice stand condemned by the very moral law they claim to serve.

From a traditional Catholic standpoint, the case of Elias Rodriguez is a stark reminder that ideological violence is a form of spiritual deception. It perverts genuine compassion into hatred, substitutes moral reasoning for emotive tribalism, and replaces the cross with the clenched fist. As Pope Pius XI warned in Mit Brennender Sorge, ideologies that exalt race, class, or nation above the dignity of man as a creature of God are not only heretical but demonic.

The Church must respond not with platitudes, but with truth spoken clearly and courageously: the lives of Lischinsky and Milgrim were not expendable. Their blood cries out—not only for justice, but for a restoration of moral order in the public square. If the West is to retain any vestige of its Christian heritage, it must reject the culture of revenge and reclaim the gospel of peace—not as a mask for cowardice, but as a call to courage, justice, and sanctity. 🔝

¹ FBI Affidavit quoted in multiple news outlets confirmed the suspect’s statement at the scene.
² [Justice.gov], Federal charges filed in District of Columbia, 22 May 2025.
³ Washington Post and Daily Wire reports confirm manifesto contents and ideological motive.
⁴ Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, 1937.
⁵ Numerous reports from ADL and other watchdogs have documented a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents post-October 7, 2023.

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Myocarditis, Mismanagement, and the Global Response to COVID Vaccine Side Effects

The interim report issued in 2025 by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Ron Johnson, laid bare a deeply troubling pattern: senior officials within the Biden administration deliberately downplayed the risks of myocarditis linked to mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. The report presents a meticulous timeline of withheld warnings, distorted messaging, and institutional preference for pharmaceutical collaboration over public protection¹.

Yet this failure was not confined to the United States. Across the world, other governments and health authorities faced the same warning signs. Their responses varied — some took early action to mitigate risk; others followed the American path of delay, redaction, and reassurance. What emerges is a complex, and often damning, portrait of the global biomedical establishment during the most aggressive public health campaign in recent history.

The United Kingdom: Surveillance, Acknowledgment — and Silence
In the UK, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) acknowledged cases of myocarditis and pericarditis as adverse events following mRNA COVID-19 vaccinations. These were most frequently observed in males under 30, especially after a second dose. Though the MHRA updated product literature and advised caution, it adopted the language of rarity and proportionality. The benefits, it maintained, outweighed the risks².

What was missing was proactive public communication. While Yellow Card data showed hundreds of myocarditis cases, there was no national alert akin to the CDC’s proposed but aborted Health Alert Network bulletin. Critically, affected individuals and advocacy groups such as the Scottish Vaccine Injury Group reported feeling “abandoned” by the NHS and excluded from formal inquiry proceedings³. As of 2025, victims are still lobbying to be included in the upcoming UK and Scottish COVID-19 inquiries.

Canada: Quiet Corrections
Health Canada took a more measured approach. As early as mid-2021, it published surveillance data confirming an increased risk of myocarditis among males under 40, particularly after Moderna’s Spikevax. Product labels were amended to reflect these risks, and physicians were given updated guidance⁴.

Nevertheless, similar to the U.S. and UK, these responses were largely bureaucratic rather than pastoral. There was no coordinated public campaign to inform parents or schools, and few mechanisms for compensation. The state acknowledged the problem but refrained from confronting the public trust implications. Only in provinces like Quebec and Alberta did local officials begin speaking more openly about vaccine-related injuries.

The European Union: Scientific Precision, Public Ambiguity
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) confirmed a causal link between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis or pericarditis as early as July 2021. Product information was amended accordingly, and an official PRAC signal assessment acknowledged increased incidence among young males aged 16–30⁵.

However, the EU’s technocratic structure made public communication opaque. Most European citizens learned of these risks not through televised briefings or leaflets, but from independent physicians and international media. Moreover, the EU did not harmonize its recommendations across member states. While some countries like Sweden and Finland suspended Moderna for younger males, others continued administration with little restriction or contextual explanation⁶.

Global Meta-Analyses: The Data Confirms the Warnings
A multinational study published in The Lancet in early 2024, reviewing data from over 99 million vaccine recipients, found increased rates of myocarditis and pericarditis consistent with prior concerns. The absolute risk remained low — estimated at 1–4 cases per 100,000 — but concentrated in predictable demographics: adolescent and young adult males, especially following a second dose⁷.

Additionally, the study flagged two previously undetected neurological disorders: acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and transverse myelitis. These were rare but significant enough to warrant global attention. Despite this, the WHO and most national health authorities maintained full-throated support for continued vaccination campaigns.

Comparative Lessons: Transparency, Not Triumph, Was Needed
What unites these findings across jurisdictions is not simply the existence of risk — which all vaccines entail — but the consistent reluctance of state institutions to speak plainly. At critical junctures, governments prioritized compliance over clarity, marketing over medicine. The preferred idiom was always: “safe and effective,” not “safe for most, but not all — and here is what to watch for.”

The U.S. Senate report is damning not because it reveals unknown facts, but because it lays bare what officials knew privately and concealed publicly. The same patterns are traceable in the UK’s Yellow Card delays, Canada’s quiet adjustments, and the EU’s scientific obfuscation. Across the West, the story is one of hesitancy — not among the public, but among those in power to admit error or ambiguity.

Conclusion: A Call for Moral Clarity
The Catholic tradition teaches that public authority has a grave duty to safeguard the common good by telling the truth — especially when that truth is uncomfortable. The integrity of public health does not lie in universal slogans, but in moral courage. That courage was sorely lacking across much of the world’s pandemic response.

For young men affected by myocarditis, for grieving families, and for a generation taught to trust science without caveat, justice requires more than amended leaflets. It demands repentance and reform — both medical and moral. 🔝

¹ Senate Report on the Biden Administration’s Handling of COVID Vaccine Side Effects (2025).
² UK MHRA Yellow Card Summary: http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions
³ Scottish Vaccine Injury Group and media reports, The Scottish Sun, March 2024.
⁴ Government of Canada Vaccine Safety Reports: health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/vaccine-safety
⁵ European Medicines Agency: Signal Assessment Report, July 2021.
⁶ Reuters, Le Monde, and national health ministry statements (2021–2022).
⁷ Patone et al., The Lancet, “Risk of Myocarditis Following mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination: A Meta-Analysis”, Feb. 2024.

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Speech on Trial: The Robinson Case and the Frailty of Freedom in Modern Britain

The imprisonment of Tommy Robinson—born Stephen Yaxley-Lennon—has reignited critical questions about the real state of freedom of speech in the United Kingdom. Far from the brutish simplicity of a criminal conviction for slander or hate speech, this latest legal episode exposes the ambiguous and tightening confines within which controversial public figures are permitted to operate.

In October 2024, Robinson was sentenced to 18 months in prison for contempt of court, specifically for breaching a 2021 High Court injunction that prohibited him from repeating allegations against Syrian refugee Jamal Hijazi¹. These allegations stemmed from an incident at a West Yorkshire school which gained international media attention after Robinson released a viral video claiming Hijazi had attacked other pupils. That claim was later ruled defamatory in a 2021 libel trial, and Robinson was ordered to pay £100,000 in damages².

The controversy deepened with the release of Silenced, a documentary produced and released by Robinson in 2023, in which he sought to prove the veracity of his original claims. The film did not merely speculate; it featured extensive interviews with individuals described as teachers, students, and social workers—eyewitnesses, not anonymous sources or avatars for his narrative³. These participants offered testimonies that they believed confirmed patterns of violent behaviour consistent with Robinson’s original assertions.

Nevertheless, the British judiciary was not persuaded. In the court’s view, the documentary constituted a direct breach of the 2021 injunction. The fact that Robinson believed the content to be true, or that it included live testimony, was irrelevant. What mattered, according to the High Court, was that the claims had already been adjudicated as false, and their repetition—regardless of new packaging—violated the prohibition⁴.

More troubling still is the nature of Robinson’s imprisonment. Though the contempt charge was civil in nature, he was incarcerated in conditions comparable to those reserved for the most dangerous offenders. Due to confirmed threats from fellow inmates, Robinson was held in solitary confinement for the majority of his term⁵. Legal appeals against these conditions were dismissed, with the courts citing prison safety and order, despite acknowledging the mental and psychological toll of prolonged isolation⁶.

Even Robinson’s early release in May 2025—cut short by four months after judicial recognition of a “change in attitude”—was immediately followed by new criminal charges for alleged harassment of journalists during a period of national unrest in 2024⁷. He is scheduled to appear in court on June 5. Separately, he also faces trial in October for refusing to surrender the PIN to his mobile phone during a police stop in 2023⁸.

It is not necessary to endorse Robinson’s politics or polemics to see the deeper peril here. British authorities have asserted, in effect, that once a narrative is judicially declared false, its repetition—however documented, however sincerely believed, however grounded in further inquiry—can result not just in civil liability but incarceration. When truth-seeking itself becomes subordinate to prior legal rulings, the marketplace of ideas ceases to function.

This case reveals not merely a judgment about one man, but a systemic warning: in Britain today, “free speech” is conditional not on truth, but on consensus—or worse, decree. Speech is permitted so long as it does not disrupt the approved narrative. Attempts to question or reframe the legal record, even with new evidence, risk being reclassified as contempt.

In a world where misinformation is rightly scrutinised, the possibility of redress, correction, or contradiction should remain sacred. When the state possesses not only the power to punish defamation but also the authority to criminalise its contestation—even via documentary, even by witnesses—it claims for itself a kind of infallibility that is neither liberal nor just.

In this light, the Robinson affair is less a referendum on one man’s character and more a cautionary tale about the fragility of our speech protections. The question is not whether Tommy Robinson is right or wrong. It is whether a citizen—even a controversial one—is allowed to make his case.

If we are honest, the answer from today’s Britain seems chillingly clear. 🔝

¹ High Court ruling on contempt for breaching the 2021 injunction related to Jamal Hijazi.
² Hijazi v. Yaxley-Lennon, libel trial judgment, July 2021 – £100,000 damages awarded.
³ Documentary Silenced (2023) includes interviews with named teachers, students, and social workers asserting support for Robinson’s claims.
⁴ Judgment notes from October 2024 contempt trial affirm breach of court order regardless of perceived truthfulness.
⁵ Reports of threats to Robinson at HMP Woodhill and subsequent placement in solitary confinement for protection (Evening Standard, March 2025).
⁶ High Court ruling dismissing appeal against solitary confinement: necessity cited over punitive intent (ITV News, March 2025).
⁷ Charges of harassment stemming from August 2024 incidents during civil unrest in Southport (Reuters, May 2025).
⁸ Trial for failure to provide phone PIN pending October 2025 (The Sun, May 2025).

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The End of Life or the End of Ethics? An analysis of the Assisted Dying Debates in Scotland and Westminster

As of May 2025, legislation permitting assisted suicide for the terminally ill has passed crucial stages in both the Scottish Parliament and the House of Commons. These developments—praised by secular humanists and condemned by Christian ethicists—mark a pivotal shift in the moral foundations of British public life. At stake is not simply a question of autonomy, but the meaning of suffering, death, and the human person.

Scotland: Breaking a Moral Barrier
On 13 May 2025, the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, introduced by Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, passed its Stage 1 vote with 70 votes in favour, 56 against, and one abstention¹. McArthur, in defence of the bill, claimed: “We cannot continue to leave this in the ‘too difficult’ box. That would be unforgivable.”¹

His language—cast in the rhetoric of compassion—echoes the modern tendency to frame moral dilemmas as administrative failures. But opposition voices warned of a deeper abandonment.

Pam Duncan-Glancy, Labour MSP and disability campaigner, declared: “Today’s vote leaves me heartbroken. It sends a message to people like me that our lives are less valuable, more disposable. That message is wrong.”²

Even First Minister John Swinney expressed reservations, stating that the bill would require “very careful further consideration.”³

Proponents such as Fraser Sutherland of Humanist Society Scotland hailed the vote as “a major step forward towards choice and compassion at the end of life.”⁴ Dr Gordon Macdonald of Care Not Killing countered bluntly: “This bill undermines suicide prevention. The message it sends is that some lives are no longer worth living. That is not progress—it is despair wrapped in a policy.”⁴

Amy Dalrymple from Marie Curie Scotland noted the deep crisis in palliative care: “One in four people in Scotland don’t get the end-of-life care they need. Legalising assisted dying without first fixing this is a moral failure.”⁵

England & Wales: Parliament Risks Sacrificing the Weak
On 29 November 2024, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons, 330 to 275⁶. The bill, introduced by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, would permit physician-assisted suicide for those deemed to have six months or less to live.

Leadbeater told the House: “Put simply, if we do not vote to change the law, we are essentially saying that the status quo is acceptable.”⁷

But Conservative MP Rebecca Paul issued a stark warning: “This bill will harm far more people than it will help. The so-called safeguards are illusory. Vulnerable people—especially the elderly and disabled—will feel pressure to end their lives for the sake of others.”⁷

Dame Esther Rantzen, a campaigner with terminal cancer, defended the bill as “safe and well considered,” while Labour MP Naz Shah objected: “Rushing through such legislation with insufficient scrutiny—removing even the requirement for High Court oversight—is not just careless; it is unjust.”⁸

The Royal College of Psychiatrists, which had previously supported reform, withdrew its endorsement in May 2025, citing the failure to adequately safeguard those with mental illness⁸.

The Church’s Immutable Witness
In contrast to political fashions and emotive appeals, the Catholic Church’s teaching remains clear and unchanging. The Catechism of the Catholic Church declares: “An act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator.”⁹

Pope Pius XII, addressing the World Congress of Anesthesiologists in 1957, declared: “The right to dispose of one’s own life is not conceded to man. That right belongs only to God.”¹⁰

The Church does not teach that life must be prolonged by extraordinary means, but it does insist that directly killing the innocent—even out of compassion—is always gravely immoral. The suffering of the terminally ill can be redemptive. It bears witness to the Cross, in which Christ Himself gave meaning to pain and death.

A Society Without a Soul
The rise of assisted dying is not merely a shift in policy; it is a sign of civilisational fatigue. When death is presented as a form of care, and doctors are recast as facilitators of suicide, the moral logic of Hippocrates is inverted. The vulnerable—those most in need of our compassion—are recast as candidates for erasure.

Both Parliament and Holyrood have been warned. A nation that permits the deliberate ending of innocent life under the banner of choice cannot long defend the sanctity of life in any sphere. Compassion without truth becomes cruelty. And law without natural law becomes licence.

As these bills advance, faithful Catholics must raise their voices—not in bitterness, but in prophetic clarity. Let no one say the Church was silent when Parliament contemplated legislating despair. 🔝

¹ Scottish Parliament Debate, 13 May 2025 – Stage 1 Vote Results and McArthur’s Remarks (BBC News Live, “Assisted Dying Bill,” 13 May 2025)
² Statement by Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP, same debate (BBC News Live, ibid.)
³ Remarks by First Minister John Swinney, Scottish Parliament Official Report, 13 May 2025
⁴ Quotes from Fraser Sutherland and Dr Gordon Macdonald (BBC Scotland, “Assisted Dying Bill Debate,” 13 May 2025)
⁵ Testimony of Amy Dalrymple, Marie Curie Scotland, reported in The Times, 14 May 2025
⁶ House of Commons, Division List: Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, 29 Nov 2024 (Hansard)
⁷ Commons Debate, Second Reading – Kim Leadbeater and Rebecca Paul (Hansard, 29 Nov 2024)
⁸ Naz Shah MP and Royal College of Psychiatrists withdrawal (Financial Times, 15 May 2025)
⁹ Catechism of the Catholic Church, §2277
¹⁰ Pope Pius XII, “The Prolongation of Life,” Address to Anesthesiologists, 24 November 1957

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Archbishop Mathew’s Prayer for Catholic Unity
Almighty and everlasting God, Whose only begotten Son, Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd, has said, “Other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd”; let Thy rich and abundant blessing rest upon the Old Roman Apostolate, to the end that it may serve Thy purpose by gathering in the lost and straying sheep. Enlighten, sanctify, and quicken it by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, that suspicions and prejudices may be disarmed, and the other sheep being brought to hear and to know the voice of their true Shepherd thereby, all may be brought into full and perfect unity in the one fold of Thy Holy Catholic Church, under the wise and loving keeping of Thy Vicar, through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who with Thee and the Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth God, world without end. Amen.

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Old Roman TV

OLD ROMAN TV Daily Schedule Lent 2025: GMT 0600 Angelus 0605 Morning Prayers 0800 Daily Mass 1200 Angelus 1205 Bishop Challoner’s Daily Meditation 1700 Latin Rosary (live, 15 decades) 1800 Angelus 2100 Evening Prayers & Examen 🔝

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Litany of St Joseph (Sunday 11th May 2025)

Lord, have mercy on us.	Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.	Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.	Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.	Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of heaven,	have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the World,	have mercy on us.
God the Holy Spirit,	have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God,	have mercy on us.
Holy Mary,	pray for us.
St. Joseph,	pray for us.
Renowned offspring of David,	pray for us.
Light of Patriarchs,	pray for us.
Spouse of the Mother of God,	pray for us.
Guardian of the Redeemer	pray for us.
Chaste guardian of the Virgin,	pray for us.
Foster father of the Son of God,	pray for us.
Diligent protector of Christ,	pray for us.
Servant of Christ	pray for us.
Minister of salvation	pray for us.
Head of the Holy Family,	pray for us.
Joseph most just,	pray for us.
Joseph most chaste,	pray for us.
Joseph most prudent,	pray for us.
Joseph most strong,	pray for us.
Joseph most obedient,	pray for us.
Joseph most faithful,	pray for us.
Mirror of patience,	pray for us.
Lover of poverty,	pray for us.
Model of workers,	pray for us.
Glory of family life,	pray for us.
Guardian of virgins,	pray for us.
Pillar of families,	pray for us.
Support in difficulties,	pray for us.
Solace of the wretched,	pray for us.
Hope of the sick,	pray for us.
Patron of exiles,	pray for us.
Patron of the afflicted,	pray for us.
Patron of the poor,	pray for us.
Patron of the dying,	pray for us.
Terror of demons,	pray for us.
Protector of Holy Church,	pray for us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,	spare us, O Jesus.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,	graciously hear us, O Jesus.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,	have mercy on us, O Jesus.
He made him the lord of his household	And prince over all his possessions.

Let us pray:
O God, in your ineffable providence you were pleased to choose Blessed Joseph to be the spouse of your most holy Mother; grant, we beg you, that we may be worthy to have him for our intercessor in heaven whom on earth we venerate as our Protector: You who live and reign forever and ever.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Note: Pope Francis added these titles to the Litany of St. Joseph in his “Lettera della Congregazione per il Culto Divino e la Disciplina dei Sacramenti ai Presidenti delle Conferenze dei Vescovi circa nuove invocazioni nelle Litanie in onore di San Giuseppe,” written on May 1, 2021:

Custos Redemptoris (Guardian of the Redeemer)Serve Christi (Servant of Christ)Minister salutis (Minister of salvation)Fulcimen in difficultatibus (Support in difficulties)Patrone exsulum (Patron of refugees)Patrone afflictorum (Patron of the suffering)
Patrone pauperum (Patron of the poor)

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