w/c 15/06/25

ORDO

Dies	15 SUN	16 MON	17 TUE	18 WED	19 THU	20 FRI	21 SAT	22 SUN
Officium	Dominica Sanctissimæ Trinitatis	S. Barnabæ Apostoli	S. Basilii Magni Confessoris et Ecclesiæ Doctoris	SS. Marci et Marcelliani Martyrum	Festum Sanctissimi Corporis Christi	Feria Sexta infra octavam Corporis Christi	S. Aloisii Gonzagæ Confessoris	S. Paulini Episcopi et Confessoris
CLASSIS	Duplex I. classis	Duplex majus	Duplex	Simplex	Duplex I. classis	Semiduplex	Duplex	Duplex
Color*	Albus	Rubeum	Albus	Rubeum	Albus	Albus	Albus	Albus
MISSA	Benedícta sit	Mihi autem	In médio	Salus autem	Cibávit	Cibávit	Minuísti	Sacerdotes tui
Orationes	2a. Dom. I post Pentecosten 3a. Ss. Viti, Modesti atque Crescentiæ Mm	NA	NA	2a. A cunctis 3a. de S. Maria (vel ad libitum)	NA	2a. S. Silverii Papæ et Martyris	2a. Sabbato infra octavam Corporis Christi	2a. Dominica II Post Pentecosten 3a. Octava SSmi. Corporis Christi
NOTAE	Gl. Cr. Pref. de sanctissima Trinitate	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Apostolis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Communis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Communis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Nativitate Domini	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Nativitate Domini	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Communis	Gl. Cr. Pref. de Nativitate Domini
Nota Bene/Vel/Votiva

Tradere Quod et Accepi

To hand on what I also received — expresses the apostolic mission of fidelity to the deposit of faith, unaltered and undiluted. It affirms that the task of Nuntiatoria is not innovation, but transmission: to pass on, with clarity and conviction, the truth once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3).

From the Primus

HE ✠Jerome OSJV, Titular Archbishop of Selsey

Carissimi, Beloved in Christ,

As we come to the solemn celebration of Trinity Sunday, and prepare for the feast and octave of Corpus Christi, the Church lifts our minds from the confusion of the present moment to the eternal majesty of the Godhead and the abiding reality of Christ’s Eucharistic Presence. Yet these feasts are not liturgical ornaments; they are doctrinal anchors. In celebrating them, the Church is not inventing mysteries but handing on what she received. As St Paul writes to the Corinthians: Tradidi enim vobis in primis quod et accepi — “For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received” (1 Cor. 11:23).

This apostolic motto — Tradere quod et accepi — must now be ours. We are not the authors of the Faith, nor its editors. We are its custodians. Our mission is not to refashion the Church in our image, but to conform our lives to what has been handed down: through the Apostles, the martyrs, the Councils, and the sacred liturgy itself.

The Trinity: Reality, Not Analogy
On Trinity Sunday, we affirm the most fundamental truth of divine revelation: that God is One in essence and Three in Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is not a poetic image or a model of community. It is a metaphysical and revealed truth: one God in three co-equal and co-eternal Persons, distinguished by relation, not divided in nature. Any theology that diminishes the majesty or mystery of this doctrine is no theology at all, but capitulation to sentimentality or sociology.

The so-called “synodal” project in Germany exemplifies this drift — recasting divine mysteries in terms of human consensus, flattening doctrine into dialogue, and abandoning metaphysical truth for ideological relevance. But such movements do not renew the Church; they hollow her out. This year’s dismal priestly ordination numbers in Germany, compared with the growth in vocations among the FSSP and SSPX, offer a hard lesson: where tradition is preserved, faith flourishes. Where it is replaced by process, the Church withers.

Corpus Christi: Christ Our God, Present and Adored
The Solemnity of Corpus Christi, with its octave and procession, reminds us of another truth that modernity cannot abide: that Jesus Christ is truly present — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — in the Holy Eucharist. Not symbolically. Not figuratively. But really and substantially. This is why the Tridentine Rite treats the Eucharist with such awe: a second Host is consecrated and enthroned; the celebrant never turns his back on the Sacred Species; every genuflection, every veil, every rubric teaches the truth by how it worships.

Yet today, in too many places, this sacred Presence is doubted, diminished, or desecrated. As we saw recently, the US National Eucharistic Pilgrimage was met with protestors who mocked the monstrance as a “monstrosity.” But the deeper tragedy is that such irreverence often originates not from without, but from within — from bishops and priests who no longer believe what they celebrate, or who treat the Eucharist as merely a communal meal rather than the unbloody Sacrifice of the Cross.

Against this tide, Nuntiatoria testifies that to restore belief, we must restore the act of handing on: in doctrine, in liturgy, in sacramental discipline. We must worship as we believe, and believe as the Church has always worshipped.

Faithfulness in the Face of Cultural Collapse
Our commitment to tradere quod et accepi also demands that we speak into the public moral crisis with clarity and courage. This month, the UK Parliament will debate radical amendments to decriminalise abortion up to birth — removing every safeguard for the unborn and every legal protection for vulnerable women. This is not just legislative cruelty; it is spiritual blindness. When a nation refuses to recognise the divine image in the most defenceless, it has cut itself off from the Source of its own dignity.

Likewise, we have tracked with concern the case of Stephen Ireland and the wider safeguarding failures in UK schools, where radical gender ideology has been allowed to override parental rights and expose children to irreversible harm. This is not compassion — it is abuse under the banner of inclusion. To such confusion, we answer not with outrage alone, but with witness: the clarity of Christian anthropology, the beauty of chastity, the dignity of fatherhood, and the truth that God made them male and female.

All of this reflects a deeper malaise in our civilisation. As we have recently explored in Nuntiatoria, the warnings of men like David Betts and Dominic Cummings about the coming civil unrest in Britain are not unfounded. When you hollow out belief, erase identity, undermine family, and forsake the transcendent, society becomes ungovernable. As one commentator noted, “diversity is our strength” has become the lie we tell ourselves while we unravel.

Handing On the Faith — Not Just Defending It
Yet Nuntiatoria is not only a critique. It is a catechesis. That is why we continue to publish reflections on the liturgy, pastoral tools for chapels, formation for catechists, and apologetics for young men rediscovering their faith. Our work on “The Mastery of Self,” the critique of modernism, the sacramental catechism series, and our meditations on the traditional Holy Week — all form part of our response: to live what we have received, to teach it clearly, and to transmit it unchanged to the next generation.

Whether in the silence of adoration, the solemnity of procession, the clarity of a sermon, or the witness of a life ordered to God — the call is the same: Tradidi quod et accepi. I have handed on what I also received.

Let that be our motto — in liturgy, in doctrine, in protest, and in praise.

Let us adore the Most Holy Trinity. Let us honour the Most Holy Sacrament. Let us defend the Image of God in the child, the woman, the man, the family, the priesthood, the Church. And let us not falter.

With every blessing as these great feasts approach,
and in fidelity to the Faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 1:3), 🔝

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Recent Epistles & Conferences

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Liturgical Notes

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TRINITY SUNDAY

1. Rank and Classification
Trinity Sunday is a First Class Feast in the Roman Rite. It is celebrated on the Sunday after Pentecost, marking the beginning of the second half of the liturgical year, focused on the life of the Church animated by the Holy Ghost.

2. Liturgical Color
The color of the day is white, symbolizing the glory and purity of the Most Holy Trinity.

3. Office and Mass

• The Divine Office is of the feast, with the Te Deum at Matins and a proper hymn at each Hour reflecting the mystery of the Trinity.
• The Mass is proper: Missa “Benedícta sit Sancta Trínitas”.

4. Propers of the Mass

• Introit: Benedícta sit Sancta Trínitas — a doxological entrance expressing praise to the Triune God.
• Collect: A petition to profess the true Faith and be ever defended from adversity.
• Epistle: Romans 11:33-36 — A profound doxology on the inscrutable wisdom and providence of God.
• Gradual & Alleluia: Both trinitarian in content, including the triple invocation “Blessed be the Holy Trinity…”
• Gospel: Matthew 28:18-20 — Christ’s commission to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
• Offertory: Another trinitarian verse praising the triune unity.
• Secret: Requests sanctification of offerings in the name of the Trinity.
• Preface: The Proper Preface of the Holy Trinity, used only on this day and, thereafter, on all Sundays after Pentecost that do not have a proper preface.
• Communion: The verse again praises the Blessed Trinity.
• Postcommunion: A prayer that reception of the Sacrament may increase our devotion to the triune God.

5. Special Rubrics

• Gloria and Credo are said.
• The Proper Preface (Qui cum Unigenito Filio tuo) replaces the common Sunday preface.
• The Feast takes precedence over any commemoration that would fall on the same day.

6. Liturgical Spirituality and Theology
Trinity Sunday is not merely a doctrinal feast, but a culmination of the mystery unfolded through the liturgical seasons:

• Advent and Christmas revealed the Father sending the Son;
• Lent and Easter the Son’s redemptive work;
• Pentecost the sending of the Holy Ghost.

Now, the Church adores the Triune God, not through speculation, but in light of revelation and salvation history. The mystery is to be confessed, adored, and lived. 🔝

THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI (Thursday after Trinity Sunday)

I. Mass: Cibavit eos

• Gloria and Credo are said.
• Preface of the Nativity: Quia per incarnáti Verbi mystérium…
• Sequence: Lauda Sion Salvatorem is sung, standing, before the Gospel.
• Communicantes and Hanc igitur are from the Common.

II. Ceremonial Particularities for the Day

1. Consecration of a Second Host:
   During the Canon, the celebrant consecrates a second large host intended for exposition. This host is placed directly after the Communion of the celebrant into a prepared lunette and inserted into the monstrance, which is placed on the throne or the centre of the altar.
2. Conduct After Communion:
   After the Communion of the faithful, all in the sanctuary behave as in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed:
   • Double genuflections are made whenever crossing before the altar.
   • Ministers and servers never turn their back on the monstrance unnecessarily.
   • Silence and recollection are observed, with heads inclined toward the Blessed Sacrament.
3. Blessing and Dismissal:
   The celebrant gives the Blessing and Dismissal (Ite missa est) according to the rubrics for Mass celebrated in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed. The celebrant does not turn his back fully to the monstrance when giving the blessing.
4. Last Gospel:
   The celebrant reads the Last Gospel at the usual place at the Gospel side:
   • He inclines his head and shoulders toward the monstrance during the entire reading.
   • At Et Verbum caro factum est, he genuflects directly toward the exposed Blessed Sacrament.
5. Preparation for the Procession:
   After the Last Gospel, the celebrant removes the chasuble and puts on a cope, assisted by the ministers.
   • The celebrant also dons a humeral veil before taking the monstrance for the Eucharistic Procession.

III. The Eucharistic Procession

• The Blessed Sacrament, now exposed in the monstrance, is carried solemnly beneath a canopy.
• Incense is used, and candles are carried in procession.
• The faithful sing hymns, particularly Pange lingua and other Eucharistic chants.
• The procession concludes with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, following the usual ceremonial.

THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI (Friday to following Thursday)

Nature of the Octave: Privileged Octave of the First Class

• All days within the Octave use white vestments.
• Gloria is said each day.
• Credo is said on all days with solemnity or when required.
• Proper Preface of the Blessed Sacrament is said each day.

Office:

• The Divine Office includes proper antiphons and hymns throughout the Octave.
• Hymns composed by St. Thomas Aquinas (Verbum supernum, Sacris solemniis, Pange lingua, Adoro te devote) are appointed throughout.

Octave Day (following Thursday):

• The Mass of the Feast (Cibavit eos) is repeated in full, including the Sequence Lauda Sion.
• Another Eucharistic Procession may be held.

Other Liturgical Notes:

• A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who devoutly participate in the procession on the Feast or during the Octave.
• Sunday within the Octave, the Sunday Mass is celebrated, but the Mass of the Octave is commemorated (Collect, Secret, Postcommunion). 🔝

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Festum Sanctissimæ Trinitatis: Missa “Benedícta sit”

The Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and the Completion of the Work of Redemption
The Sunday following Pentecost in the ancient Roman Rite is crowned with the majestic feast of the Most Holy Trinity—a celebration instituted not at the behest of any particular event in salvation history, but to honour the eternal mystery of God Himself. As Dom Prosper Guéranger notes, the feast is the “summing up and crown of all the mysteries.”¹ After the cycle of Christ’s redemptive work is liturgically recapitulated from Advent to Pentecost, the faithful turn in adoration to the source of that work: the ineffable unity and trinity of the Godhead.

Liturgical Structure and Theological Weight
In the Tridentine Missal, the Mass of the Most Holy Trinity retains a venerable form, rich in doctrinal clarity and contemplative intensity. The Introit, Benedicta sit sancta Trinitas, invokes a blessing on the Holy Trinity and its indivisible unity, drawing us immediately into the central paradox of Christian faith. Goffine observes that the Church places this mystery before the faithful so that they may “adore it, not comprehend it,” as reason must give way to worship before the infinite.²

The Collect, deeply rooted in scholastic theology, beseeches the Lord to keep us steadfast in faith in the Trinity and in the unity of divine majesty. Here, the Missal reflects the mature thought of the Church, echoing the Trinitarian confessions of the early Councils, from Nicaea to Constantinople.

Epistle and Gospel: The Theological and Soteriological Frame
The Epistle, taken from Romans 11, underscores the unsearchable judgments and inscrutable ways of God. Fr. Pius Parsch remarks that this passage fittingly reminds us that the Trinity is not a doctrine to be dissected, but a mystery to be adored in humble silence.³ The doxology which ends the reading (To Him be glory for ever. Amen) points directly to liturgy as the proper response to divine revelation.

In the Gospel (Matthew 28:18–20), Our Lord sends forth the Apostles with the Trinitarian formula of baptism: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” This pericope affirms not only the divine nature of each Person of the Trinity, but also the Church’s mission to incorporate souls into this mystery through sacramental life. Baur emphasizes that this is the capstone of the Church’s teaching authority, founded on the revelation of the Triune God.⁴

The Preface and Unity of Worship
The Preface of the Holy Trinity, which replaces the Preface of the Nativity used in the older Roman Rite before the 9th century, gives full liturgical expression to the mystery being adored. It is a theological masterpiece in miniature: praising the “Unity in substance and Trinity in Persons,” affirming the “proper to each Person” while confessing their indivisibility. Gueranger sees in this the fruit of centuries of doctrinal struggle against Arianism, Sabellianism, and Modalism, now triumphantly proclaimed in the sacred liturgy.¹

Spiritual Application and the Virtue of Humility
As Goffine aptly observes, the practical response to the mystery of the Trinity is not speculation, but humility and sanctification: to live in the presence of the Triune God, baptized into His name, shaped by His grace, and destined for eternal communion with Him.² The faithful are invited on this day not to unravel, but to adore—to let the mystery of God draw them into deeper faith, hope, and charity.

Conclusion: The Feast as a Liturgical Doxology
Trinity Sunday thus stands as a liturgical Gloria Patri over the entire work of redemption. It is not merely a doctrinal postscript, but a reminder that all the Church’s prayers, sacraments, and labours are ad Patrem, per Filium, in Spiritu Sancto—to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Ghost.

To paraphrase Guéranger, this is the day on which the Church, taught by the Spirit who has been poured forth upon her at Pentecost, dares to pronounce the great and dread Name of God, in all its fulness—*and with this Name she blesses her children, seals her sacraments, and begins and ends all her works.*¹ 🔝

¹ Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, Vol. VIII: Time after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday.
² Leonard Goffine, The Church’s Year: An Explanation of the Epistles and Gospels, Trinity Sunday.
³ Fr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, Vol. 3, p. 274–276.
⁴ Ludwig Baur, The Light of the World: An Introduction to the Liturgy, Trinity Sunday.

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Missalettes (Trinity/Corpus Christi)

Latin/English

Latin/Español

Latin/Tagalog

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The Feast of Corpus Christi in the Traditional Latin Rite

The Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, stands as one of the most theologically rich and devotionally profound feasts in the traditional Roman Rite. Instituted in the 13th century, it is the Church’s solemn public thanksgiving and adoration of the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament. In the Tridentine liturgy, this feast is marked by sublime liturgical expression, deeply rooted in doctrinal precision, and celebrated with particular solemnity in both the Mass and the Procession.

Historical and Liturgical Origins
Corpus Christi owes its origin to the Eucharistic vision of St. Juliana of Liège, and its universal institution by Pope Urban IV in 1264 with the bull Transiturus de hoc mundo. The pope commissioned the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, to compose the Office and Mass of the feast, resulting in some of the most exquisite hymns of Eucharistic devotion in the Church’s treasury—Pange lingua, Lauda Sion, Adoro te devote, Verbum supernum, and Sacris solemniis.

Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his monumental Liturgical Year, notes that “the Holy Eucharist is the mystery of faith; it is the miracle of love… and therefore the Church, after celebrating the glory of the Blessed Trinity, hastens to pay homage to the mystery which flows from It.”¹ Corpus Christi, then, is a doctrinal feast that both proclaims the truth of the Real Presence and draws the faithful into acts of profound adoration.

Structure of the Traditional Liturgy
The Mass of Corpus Christi in the Tridentine Rite is framed around the theme of sacrificial worship. The Introit, Cibavit eos, taken from Psalm 80, proclaims: “He fed them with the finest wheat, and filled them with honey from the rock.” This antiphon is both literal and mystical—a declaration of Christ’s nourishing presence in the Eucharist.

The Epistle (1 Cor. 11:23–29) contains St. Paul’s apostolic account of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, warning of the danger of unworthy reception. The Gospel (John 6:56–59) includes the Lord’s words on eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood—passages that modernist theologians have too often allegorized, but which the traditional liturgy proclaims with unwavering literal faith.

Fr. Martin von Cochem, in his Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, emphasizes the harmony between Corpus Christi and the daily offering of the Mass: “What is here celebrated with great pomp is the same Sacrifice renewed each day on every altar—Christ present, Christ offered, Christ adored.”²

Lauda Sion and Eucharistic Doctrine
A unique feature of the Mass is the sequence, Lauda Sion Salvatorem, also composed by St. Thomas Aquinas. In this majestic hymn, the Church confesses the full doctrine of transubstantiation—“sub diversis speciebus, signis tantum, et non rebus,” under different appearances, mere signs, and not the reality of bread and wine remain.³ Fr. Pius Parsch calls Lauda Sion “a sung summa of Eucharistic theology,” where Thomistic clarity is married to liturgical poetry.⁴

The Procession and Public Witness
Following the Solemn Mass, the faithful participate in the Eucharistic Procession, a manifestation of the Church Militant adoring her Eucharistic Lord and claiming the world for Christ. The canopy, the incense, the ringing of bells, and the strewing of flowers all serve to honour the King hidden beneath the sacramental veils.

According to Fr. Leonard Goffine, the Procession “represents the journey of the Israelites through the desert with the Ark of the Covenant, and more so the journey of Christ through His Church until the end of time.”⁵ The faithful join in singing Pange lingua, culminating in the Tantum ergo before Benediction—another moment where doctrinal clarity and devotional intensity meet.

Spiritual Meaning and Devotional Invitation
The Feast of Corpus Christi, in the traditional rite, is not merely a theological celebration but a summons to Eucharistic life. As Fr. Johannes Baur puts it: “The Body of Christ is not only to be adored but to be received worthily, to transform us into Him Whom we worship.”⁶ The very structure of the liturgy presses upon the soul this dual call: reverent adoration and sanctifying communion.

In the modern context of Eucharistic neglect and irreverence, the traditional Latin Rite’s observance of Corpus Christi stands as a necessary corrective. It unites catechesis, worship, and witness in one glorious outpouring of the Church’s love for her Eucharistic Lord. 🔝

1. Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year: Time after Pentecost, Volume I (Fitzwilliam: Loreto Publications, reprint), p. 238.
2. Fr. Martin von Cochem, Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (TAN Books, 1896), p. 303.
3. Lauda Sion Salvatorem, Sequence for Corpus Christi, lines 31–32.
4. Fr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, Vol. 3 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1953), p. 288.
5. Fr. Leonard Goffine, The Church’s Year, 1875 English edition, Corpus Christi entry.
6. Fr. Johannes Baur, The Light of the World: Liturgical Meditations (Herder, 1954), p. 357.

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A sermon for Sunday

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

Trinity Sunday/First Sunday after Pentecost

All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold, I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world.

Today, we celebrate Trinity Sunday, as well as commemorating the First Sunday after Pentecost. The doctrine of the Trinity is often seen as a product of abstract theological speculation unrelated to everyday life. In fact, as today’s Gospel reading from St. Matthew shows, it is fundamental to the Christian understanding of God. St. Matthew records a resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples in Galilee in which he said that all power had been given to him in heaven and earth, in other words he fully shared in the divine sovereignty over all things. He told his disciples to teach all nations the good news of salvation through his life, death and resurrection, to baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that he had commanded them and promising his abiding presence with them to the end of the age.

In the commandment to baptise in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is implicitly contained the doctrine of the Trinity. The early Church had a great deal of difficulty in finding an adequate terminology to explicate this doctrine, but it was necessary to do this, not for the purposes of abstract theological speculation, but to guard the deposit of the faith once delivered to the saints. Christianity was first and foremost a way of life rather than a system of dogmas, but some dogmas were necessary to safeguard the basis of the Christian life, and to prevent the Church from falling into error. There was only one God, the maker of all things and judge of all men, but he had taken our human nature upon himself in the coming of Jesus into the world and revealed his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Against Arius it was necessary to state at the Council of Nicea that the Son fully shared in the nature of God, being of one substance with the Father. But, as St. Athanasius also affirmed, the Father is different from the Son solely in that he is Father and not Son. Likewise, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the Church at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit fully shared in the nature of God, but the Holy Spirit was also distinct from the Father and the Son. There were not three Gods, but one God, but the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were really distinct, being three Persons in one substance, for that which we believe of the Father, the same we believe of the Son and of the Holy Ghost without any difference or inequality.

It is important to emphasise this point today because it is sometimes supposed that we can replace the language of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, with that of Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier. However, the problem this creates is that it does not give us a language where we can clearly distinguish three Persons in one God. If we speak just of the Creator, the Redeemer and the Sanctifier, we are either left with describing three different gods, the creator, the redeemer and the sanctifier, or we are reduced to simply describing three aspects of the one God and have no way of clearly distinguishing them. Speaking of one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as the Holy Trinity, three Persons in one God, enables us to safeguard the Christian doctrine of God from error.

Having said all this, it is also important to recognise that all our human language about God is limited and imperfect, for we can never truly comprehend God in this life. St. Paul emphasises this point when he speaks in today’s epistle of the “depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things: to him be glory for ever.” The doctrine of the Trinity is necessary to safeguard the distinctive nature of the Christian doctrine of God, but we must be humble enough to recognise the limitations of all our language about God and that we can never fully comprehend God.

It is fitting that the Gospel for the First Sunday after Pentecost (which we are commemorating today) is from St. Luke, when Jesus warned his disciples about the danger of judging others. Our fallen human nature leads us to look at the mote in our brother’s eyes, when we often do not address the problem caused by the beam in our own eye. It is important to speak the truth in charity. We cannot pass any final judgment on another human being because we cannot fully see into their hearts, for the heart of man is known only to God. When we discern that by the standards of the orthodox Christian faith others have fallen into error, we must be clear that if say we cannot follow their principles, we cannot judge their persons, because we ourselves are also fallen and fallible human beings. Throughout Christian history there have been those who have been so convinced that others are in error that they have harshly condemned and persecuted them. They have thought in so doing they were being faithful to the Triune God, and they may well have technically been more orthodox than their opponents. However, the nature of the Triune God is charity, and we ourselves are being unfaithful to the Triune God if we do not ourselves manifest the spirit of charity in our Christian witness. It is all too easy to see the mote in our brother’s eye and be blind to the beam in our own eye. God has declared his divine power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity, and we must pray for grace to forgive others as we too have been forgiven. There is an old saying that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. The best way for us to manifest our faithfulness to the orthodox Christian faith is by showing charity in our dealings with one another, praying that the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with us all evermore.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 🔝

Corpus Christi

Today we celebrate the great feast of Corpus Christi, the institution of the Christian Eucharist, the bread from heaven which gives life to the world. The principal day for celebrating the institution of the Eucharist is the Mass on Maundy Thursday, when we relive the moment on the night on which he was betrayed, when Jesus invested his death with sacrificial significance, in broken bread and poured out wine. But there is in a sense too much also going on in the great liturgies of Holy Week and Easter for us to fully focus on this one theme. Hence, in the thirteenth century, the Church set aside the Thursday after Trinity Sunday for the celebration of the institution of the Eucharist.

Indeed, the Church sets aside not only this day but an octave for this theme. Devotion to the real presence of Christ in the sacrament of the altar is especially associated with St. Thomas Aquinas, and it is his hymns that are sung in the offices in the Breviary for this octave.

While the Church has always honoured the Eucharist as the principal act of Christian worship, devotion to the sacramental presence of Christ was especially strong in the middle ages. The host came to be elevated after the words of institution in the Canon of the Mass to show to the faithful that the bread and wine had now been consecrated. A bell was rung and lights were held before the sacrament. A procession was held with the sacrament on this day, and the sacrament was exposed in worship for the veneration of the faithful. A custom also arose of blessing the people with the sacrament, which formed the basis of the later service of Benediction.

But, we might say, surely the sacrament was instituted in order to be eaten? Many of these devotions arose at a time when communion was infrequent and the adoration of the presence of Christ in the sacrament was often a substitute for the regular reception of the Body of Christ in Holy Communion. The belief that these practices were an abuse of the true purpose of this sacrament led to their abolition in the countries of the Reformation. The Protestant Reformers said that the sacrament had been instituted for the communion of the faithful and it was wrong to use the sacrament outside of this context. While this might seem to be a return to the period before the extra- liturgical cultus of the sacrament had become prominent, in practice it led to the increasing marginalisation of the sacrament from the consciousness of the faithful in the Protestant churches. Celebrations of the sacrament came to be restricted to occasions when a sufficient number of communicants could be secured.

As is so often the case, it is not a case of either or, but both and. It is certainly true that in the middle ages the extra- liturgical cultus of the sacrament came to be more prominent in the minds of the majority of the faithful than the regular reception of Holy Communion. But that is not an adequate reason for suppressing the cultus of the sacrament. The experience of the Protestant Reformation shows that abolishing the extra-liturgical cultus of the sacrament and placing all the emphasis on the reception of Holy Communion led the sacraments to become less prominent in Christian worship, while communion remained infrequent. Christ should be adored wherever he is especially present, and it is therefore right that the presence of Christ in this sacrament should be adored. If we are truly conscious of the real presence of Christ we ought to desire to be partakers of his Body through the regular reception of Holy Communion. The Christian Eucharist is not simply an occasion in which Christ is worshipped and adored, nor an occasion for the reception of Holy Communion, but is both the central act of Christian worship and adoration, and an occasion when we become partakers of the living bread which gives life to the world in Holy Communion.

It is important to understand the nature of the sacramental presence of Christ. If we ask ourselves where Christ is present now, our answer must be that he is risen, ascended and glorified, he ever lives as our great high priest who presents before the Father his perfect and all sufficient sacrifice offered for us in time and history. But in the Christian sacrament he is re-presented before us as the great drama of our redemption is replayed, as we make a solemn memorial of how he invested his death with sacrificial significance in broken bread and poured out wine. It is rather like how a tape recording enables us to share in an event that has already happened. It is not a repetition of the event, for the event has already happened once and for all, but it is a replaying of the event to us. In the same way the Christian Eucharist is not a repetition of the sacrifice which Christ offered once for all in time and history as an atonement for our sins, but rather an occasion in which the great events that led to our redemption are re-presented to us in the here and now. Though we seem to see many different celebrations from our limited perspective within the realm of time and space, in truth there is only one celebration, one sacrifice, one Eucharist, one Mass. Now that Christ is risen, ascended and glorified, he ever lives to re- present before the Father his perfect sacrifice made once for all in time and history. Just as the incarnation is not about the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but rather the taking up of manhood into God, so the sacrament is not about the division of Christ into separate celebrations, but rather the identification of the separate celebrations with his sacrifice. It is not so much that we receive him, as that he receives us, so that we can become by grace what he is by nature. It is a sacrament of unity rather than of dispersion.

Here, beneath these signs are hidden
Priceless things, to sense forbidden;
Signs, not things are all we see:
Flesh from bread and blood from wine,
Yet is Christ in either sign
All entire, confessed to be.

They too, who of him partake,
Sever not, nor rend, nor break,
But entire their Lord receive.
Whether one or thousands eat,
All receive the self same meat,
Nor the less for others leave.

Nor a single doubt retain,
When they break the host in twain,
But that in each part remain,
What was in the whole before.
Since the simple sign alone
Suffers change in state or form,
The signified remaining one
And the same for evermore.

Thou, who feedest us below!
Source of all we have or know!
Grant that with thy saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see thee face to face. 🔝

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The Mystery of the Trinity and the Filioque Controversy: Doctrine and Deviations

At the very heart of the Catholic faith lies the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the hierarchy of the truths of faith” (CCC §234). Yet no dogma has been more frequently challenged or more central to schism than this one—from ancient heresies to the enduring division between East and West over the word Filioque. This article explores both the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity and the historical controversies that surround its expression.

The Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity
The Church confesses that in one divine essence (ousia) there are three coequal and coeternal Persons: the Father, unbegotten; the Son, eternally begotten of the Father (ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula); and the Holy Ghost, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son (qui ex Patre Filióque procédit). These three Persons are distinct in relation but share one and the same divine nature.

The mystery is not a human construct, but divinely revealed in Sacred Scripture and fully manifested in the Incarnation of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. St. Gregory Nazianzen (†390) expressed this mystery poetically: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendour of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One.”¹

The doctrine is defined dogmatically in the Council of Nicaea I (325) and the Council of Constantinople I (381). The Creed of these Councils, known today as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, proclaims belief in the Holy Ghost “who proceeds from the Father.” The Western Church, however, would come to add the word Filioque—“and the Son”—a development that would become a point of great contention.

The Filioque Controversy
The Filioque was introduced into the Latin version of the Creed in the 6th century, first in Spain, as a response to Arianism. It spread gradually throughout the Frankish lands and was officially adopted in Rome under Pope Benedict VIII (†1024). The revised Creed thus read:
“Et in Spiritum Sanctum… qui ex Patre Filióque procedit.”

While the Western Church viewed this addition as a legitimate theological clarification of the Spirit’s eternal relation to the Son, the Eastern Church rejected both the theological content and the unilateral modification of a Creed established by an Ecumenical Council.

Eastern theologians, most famously St. Photius of Constantinople (†893), condemned the Filioque as a distortion of Trinitarian theology. The East maintains that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone, as the sole “fountain of divinity” (monarchia tou Patros). They argue that adding Filioque undermines this monarchy and confuses the persons of the Trinity.

Doctrine or Division?
The question arises: does the Filioque actually represent a difference in doctrine, or is it a difference in theological expression?

The Western Church, following St. Augustine (†430), taught that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son—not as from two sources, but as from one principle. As the Council of Florence defined in 1439: “The Holy Ghost is eternally from the Father and the Son; He has His essence and His subsistent being at once from the Father and the Son, and proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and a single spiration.”²

Augustine had stated: “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally, but not without the Son.”³

The East, however, while rejecting the Filioque formula, does not reject the idea that the Holy Ghost is sent by the Son or that He proceeds “through the Son” in the economy of salvation. Some Eastern Fathers, such as St. Epiphanius and St. Cyril of Alexandria, explicitly used the formula “from the Father through the Son”—a phrase that closely resembles the Latin tradition’s per Filium.

In this light, many contemporary theologians and official Church statements have concluded that the difference is not a contradiction in dogma, but a divergence of theological emphasis:

• The East safeguards the monarchy of the Father as the sole origin of divinity.
• The West stresses the communion between Father and Son, with the Spirit as their shared gift of love.

The 1995 clarification by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity acknowledged this convergence: “The Greek and Latin traditions are complementary rather than contradictory: both traditions affirm the same mystery of the Spirit’s origin from the Father, while the West adds that He proceeds through and with the Son.”⁴

Historical Heresies on the Trinity
To better grasp the significance of the Church’s precision in Trinitarian doctrine, it is helpful to recall the principal heresies the Church has condemned:

1. Modalism (3rd century): Claimed the Trinity is merely one Person in three modes or roles.
   Condemned by Pope Callixtus I.
2. Arianism (4th century): Denied the divinity of the Son, calling Him a creature.
   Condemned at Nicaea I (325).
3. Semi-Arianism: Asserted the Son was only similar in substance (homoiousios) to the Father.
   Rejected at Constantinople I (381).
4. Macedonianism: Denied the divinity of the Holy Ghost.
   Condemned at Constantinople I (381).
5. Tritheism: Claimed the Trinity is three separate gods.
   Refuted by St. John of Damascus.
6. Subordinationism: Held that the Son and Holy Ghost were inferior to the Father.
   Contrary to Catholic dogma of consubstantiality.
7. Unitarianism (post-Reformation): Denies the Trinity altogether.
   Still influential in some sects today.

These heresies arose not merely from ignorance, but from rationalistic attempts to reduce divine mystery to human comprehension. As St. Hilary of Poitiers wrote: “There is no degree in the Trinity; all are coequal, coeternal, consubstantial.”⁵

Conclusion: Unity in Mystery
The mystery of the Trinity is not a dead formula but a living reality—God’s own inner life into which we are invited through grace. While the Filioque remains a wound in East-West relations, there is growing recognition that the division may be more historical and ecclesial than dogmatic.

As Pope Benedict XVI once said, “Where there is shared faith, there is hope for reconciliation.” And as the Church Fathers taught, fidelity to the Trinity is fidelity to the very nature of divine love: unum in essentia, trinum in personis—one in essence, three in Persons. 🔝

1. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31.14
2. Council of Florence, Laetentur caeli, July 6, 1439 (Denzinger 1300)
3. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, XV.17.29
4. Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, The Greek and Latin Traditions regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit (1995)
5. St. Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, Book II

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The Feast of Corpus Christi in the Traditional Latin Rite

The Feast of Corpus Christi, celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, stands as one of the most theologically rich and devotionally profound feasts in the traditional Roman Rite. Instituted in the 13th century, it is the Church’s solemn public thanksgiving and adoration of the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Blessed Sacrament. In the Tridentine liturgy, this feast is marked by sublime liturgical expression, deeply rooted in doctrinal precision, and celebrated with particular solemnity in both the Mass and the Procession.

Historical and Liturgical Origins
Corpus Christi owes its origin to the Eucharistic vision of St. Juliana of Liège, and its universal institution by Pope Urban IV in 1264 with the bull Transiturus de hoc mundo. The pope commissioned the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas, to compose the Office and Mass of the feast, resulting in some of the most exquisite hymns of Eucharistic devotion in the Church’s treasury—Pange lingua, Lauda Sion, Adoro te devote, Verbum supernum, and Sacris solemniis.

Dom Prosper Guéranger, in his monumental Liturgical Year, notes that “the Holy Eucharist is the mystery of faith; it is the miracle of love… and therefore the Church, after celebrating the glory of the Blessed Trinity, hastens to pay homage to the mystery which flows from It.”¹ Corpus Christi, then, is a doctrinal feast that both proclaims the truth of the Real Presence and draws the faithful into acts of profound adoration.

Structure of the Traditional Liturgy
The Mass of Corpus Christi in the Tridentine Rite is framed around the theme of sacrificial worship. The Introit, Cibavit eos, taken from Psalm 80, proclaims: “He fed them with the finest wheat, and filled them with honey from the rock.” This antiphon is both literal and mystical—a declaration of Christ’s nourishing presence in the Eucharist.

The Epistle (1 Cor. 11:23–29) contains St. Paul’s apostolic account of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, warning of the danger of unworthy reception. The Gospel (John 6:56–59) includes the Lord’s words on eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood—passages that modernist theologians have too often allegorized, but which the traditional liturgy proclaims with unwavering literal faith.

Fr. Martin von Cochem, in his Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, emphasizes the harmony between Corpus Christi and the daily offering of the Mass: “What is here celebrated with great pomp is the same Sacrifice renewed each day on every altar—Christ present, Christ offered, Christ adored.”²

Lauda Sion and Eucharistic Doctrine
A unique feature of the Mass is the sequence, Lauda Sion Salvatorem, also composed by St. Thomas Aquinas. In this majestic hymn, the Church confesses the full doctrine of transubstantiation—“sub diversis speciebus, signis tantum, et non rebus,” under different appearances, mere signs, and not the reality of bread and wine remain.³ Fr. Pius Parsch calls Lauda Sion “a sung summa of Eucharistic theology,” where Thomistic clarity is married to liturgical poetry.⁴

The Procession and Public Witness
Following the Solemn Mass, the faithful participate in the Eucharistic Procession, a manifestation of the Church Militant adoring her Eucharistic Lord and claiming the world for Christ. The canopy, the incense, the ringing of bells, and the strewing of flowers all serve to honour the King hidden beneath the sacramental veils.

According to Fr. Leonard Goffine, the Procession “represents the journey of the Israelites through the desert with the Ark of the Covenant, and more so the journey of Christ through His Church until the end of time.”⁵ The faithful join in singing Pange lingua, culminating in the Tantum ergo before Benediction—another moment where doctrinal clarity and devotional intensity meet.

Spiritual Meaning and Devotional Invitation
The Feast of Corpus Christi, in the traditional rite, is not merely a theological celebration but a summons to Eucharistic life. As Fr. Johannes Baur puts it: “The Body of Christ is not only to be adored but to be received worthily, to transform us into Him Whom we worship.”⁶ The very structure of the liturgy presses upon the soul this dual call: reverent adoration and sanctifying communion.

In the modern context of Eucharistic neglect and irreverence, the traditional Latin Rite’s observance of Corpus Christi stands as a necessary corrective. It unites catechesis, worship, and witness in one glorious outpouring of the Church’s love for her Eucharistic Lord. 🔝

1. Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year: Time after Pentecost, Volume I (Fitzwilliam: Loreto Publications, reprint), p. 238.
2. Fr. Martin von Cochem, Explanation of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (TAN Books, 1896), p. 303.
3. Lauda Sion Salvatorem, Sequence for Corpus Christi, lines 31–32.
4. Fr. Pius Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, Vol. 3 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1953), p. 288.
5. Fr. Leonard Goffine, The Church’s Year, 1875 English edition, Corpus Christi entry.
6. Fr. Johannes Baur, The Light of the World: Liturgical Meditations (Herder, 1954), p. 357.

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Forgotten Rubrics: The Seventh Candle

The Apostolic Flame in the Traditional Pontifical Mass
If you have ever attended a Solemn Pontifical Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite—or in certain reverent Novus Ordo celebrations—you may have noticed something unusual. On the high altar, there are not merely six candles. A seventh candle stands in the center, just behind the crucifix. Its presence is deliberate, not decorative. What does it signify?

Six Candles: Fullness of the Priesthood
Traditionally, six altar candles symbolize the light of Christ radiating from His ordained ministers. They echo the Menorah of the Old Covenant, whose seven branches burned continually before the presence of God in the Temple sanctuary¹. In the New Covenant, these six lights evoke the ministerial priesthood, which, though real and effective, does not bear the plenitude of the apostolic office.

The Seventh Candle: Apostolic Presence
When a bishop—a successor of the Apostles—celebrates Mass, the Church in her liturgical tradition adds a seventh candle. This extra flame is a rich theological symbol. It proclaims that the Apostolic Church is visibly present. The bishop alone possesses the plenitude of the sacrament of Holy Orders; he governs, teaches, and sanctifies in the name of Christ, not merely by delegation but by divine institution².

The seventh candle, therefore, is not a privilege of personal rank, but a sacramental sign: the Apostle is among us.

Scriptural and Patristic Symbolism
This symbolism is deeply rooted in Scripture. In the Apocalypse, St. John sees seven golden candlesticks, which Christ explains are the seven churches (Apoc. 1:20). The bishop, as visible head of the local church, is the living image of this apostolic unity. He is a sign that Christ walks among His churches.

The Fathers also affirm the bishop’s central role. St. Ignatius of Antioch writes: *“Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be; just as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”*³

Positioned Behind the Crucifix
Why is the seventh candle placed behind the crucifix and not above it? Because the bishop is not superior to Christ. He stands at the altar not in his own name, but in persona Christi Capitis. His light is not his own; it is drawn from the light of the Cross. As the Crucifixion is the source of all priestly power, so too is it the source of episcopal authority.

A Rare Sign of Fullness
A simple priest does not light a seventh candle, for he does not bear the plenitudo potestatis. Only the bishop, who wears the ring of spiritual espousal and carries the pastoral staff, may rightly illumine the seventh light. It is a reminder of both apostolic authority and the heavy burden it carries: to teach the truth, govern with justice, and sanctify with holiness.

Conclusion: Heaven Touches Earth
Next time you see that seventh candle burning, pause. You are witnessing a mystery. The visible Church is gathered in her apostolic fullness. The bishop stands at the altar, not as a functionary, but as a successor of those whom Christ sent into the world. And in that sacred moment, heaven touches earth. 🔝

¹ Cf. Exodus 25:31–40; cf. Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, vol. I, Advent, p. 325.
² Lumen Gentium, §21: “Episcopal consecration confers, together with the office of sanctifying, also the office of teaching and ruling…”
³ St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 8:2.

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“This Is My Body”: The Forensic Consistency of Eucharistic Miracles and the Relics of the Passion

Visible Signs of an Invisible Mystery
Throughout her history, the Catholic Church has taught and believed that at every Mass, the bread and wine offered on the altar are truly changed into the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ. This doctrine of transubstantiation, dogmatically defined at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and reaffirmed by the Council of Trent (1545–1563), is not based on sensory evidence but on the words of Christ and the authority of the Church⁷. Nevertheless, in certain rare instances, the veil of the sacrament is momentarily lifted by divine intervention, and the Real Presence becomes manifest not only to the eyes of faith but to the senses and even to forensic analysis.

Such Eucharistic miracles, though exceptional, are well documented. They serve not to establish doctrine, but to confirm faith, especially in times of confusion, sacrilege, or disbelief. What is particularly striking is that in multiple cases, across different continents and centuries, the same anatomical, biological, and pathological features have been discovered in consecrated Hosts that have become visibly altered.

Recurring Forensic Features
The most consistent and scientifically examined Eucharistic miracles share a remarkable unity. Among the best documented are:

• Lanciano, Italy (8th century): A Basilian monk doubting the Real Presence witnessed the Host turn into visible flesh and the wine into blood. Scientific analysis conducted in 1970 by Dr Edoardo Linoli revealed that the flesh was human myocardial tissue from the left ventricle, and the blood was type AB, containing all proteins normally found in fresh human blood¹.
• Buenos Aires, Argentina (1996): A desecrated Host was stored in water to dissolve, in accord with liturgical norms, but later took on the appearance of bloody tissue. Analysis by Dr Ricardo Castañón Gómez found it to be human heart muscle, with living white blood cells, indicating vitality at the time of sampling⁴.
• Sokolka, Poland (2008): A Host accidentally dropped during distribution was similarly stored to dissolve but later revealed red tissue. Two pathologists, Prof Maria Sobaniec-Łotowska and Prof Stanisław Sulkowski, determined that the tissue was living cardiac muscle that had fused with the structure of the bread³.
• Tixtla, Mexico (2006): During a parish retreat, a Host began to exude a red substance. It was later confirmed by independent forensic examination to be human heart tissue from the left ventricle, rich in macrophages and leukocytes, again consistent with living tissue undergoing extreme stress⁶.

These cases all reveal:

• Human cardiac tissue, specifically myocardium from the left ventricle¹²³⁴⁶
• Blood type AB²⁴⁵⁶
• Indicators of traumatic injury or agony¹³⁴⁶
• Cellular vitality at the time of analysis, especially in Buenos Aires and Tixtla³⁴⁶
• No detectable artificial insertion or tampering, and in the case of Sokolka, an unexplainable biological integration of the tissue with the Host³

Such convergence cannot be attributed to environmental factors, fraud, or local piety. It suggests a singular origin and meaning: the revelation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, sacrificed for mankind, truly present in the Most Holy Eucharist.

Correspondence with Relics of the Passion
What renders these findings even more significant is their striking match with ancient relics associated with Christ’s Passion, especially the Shroud of Turin and the Sudarium of Oviedo.

The Shroud of Turin, venerated as the burial cloth of Christ, bears the image of a crucified man consistent with Gospel descriptions. Forensic studies led by Dr Frederick Zugibe and Dr Baima Bollone confirmed that:

• The blood on the Shroud is human and of type AB².
• The stains show high concentrations of bilirubin, indicating trauma-induced blood degradation typical of torture and asphyxiation².
• The image reveals wounds of scourging, crowning with thorns, crucifixion, and post-mortem piercing, consistent with Christ’s Passion.

The Sudarium of Oviedo, a linen cloth historically associated with Christ’s face in death (cf. John 20:7), also exhibits:

• Human blood of type AB⁵
• Blood and serum separation, confirming death by suffocation
• Geometric congruence with bloodstains on the Shroud, indicating it covered the same person’s face after death⁵

The forensic correspondence between these relics and the Eucharistic miracles is profound:

Feature	Eucharistic Miracles	Shroud/Sudarium
Blood Type	AB	AB²⁵
Tissue Type	Cardiac (left ventricle)	Cardiac implications from stains²
Signs of Trauma	Inflammation, leukocytes	Bilirubin, scourge wounds²⁵
Tissue/Blood Vitality	Evidence of living cells at sampling	Blood separation at death²⁵

This biological coherence across centuries forms a pattern that is not only medically impressive but theologically consistent with the Catholic doctrine of sacrificial love, revealed in Christ’s Passion and perpetuated in the Holy Eucharist.

Theological Implications
The Eucharistic miracles do not establish new doctrine, but they illuminate the Church’s unchanging faith. That the Hosts reveal heart tissue, and that this tissue shows signs of agony and love, is a visible sign of the doctrine that the Eucharist is not merely the presence of Christ, but the presence of Christ crucified, offered anew in an unbloody manner on the altar.

The Council of Trent taught:

*“In the blessed sacrament of the holy Eucharist, after the consecration of the bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and man, is truly, really, and substantially contained under the species of those sensible things.”*⁷

In the Eucharist, we receive not merely Christ’s glorified presence but His Passion, as He continues to intercede for us as priest and victim. That the sacred tissue revealed in these miracles consistently comes from the left ventricle of the heart, the very source of blood and symbol of divine charity, recalls the words of Pope Pius XII in Haurietis Aquas:

“The Heart of Jesus is the chief sign and symbol of that love with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the eternal Father and all mankind.”

Conclusion
In an age marked by doubt, sacrilege, and forgetfulness of the sacred, these Eucharistic miracles, when faithfully interpreted, do not call for credulity but for reverence. They do not replace the doctrine of the Church, but reinforce it with visible witness. They invite us to return to the altar with renewed awe, and to recognise in the Sacred Host not a symbol, but the living, suffering, and glorified Lord.

The same Blood, the same Heart, the same agony—given in every Mass, that we might live. 🔝

¹ Dr Edoardo Linoli, Relazione Medico-Scientifica sul Miracolo Eucaristico di Lanciano, 1970.
² Dr Frederick Zugibe and Dr Baima Bollone, Shroud of Turin Forensic Studies, 1998–2002.
³ Prof Maria Sobaniec-Łotowska and Prof Stanisław Sulkowski, Histopathological Report on the Sokolka Host, 2009.
⁴ Dr Ricardo Castañón Gómez, Forensic Report on the Buenos Aires Host, 1999.
⁵ Dr M. Whiting, Forensic Study of the Sudarium of Oviedo, Spanish Centre for Sindonology, 2001.
⁶ Diocesan Commission Report on the Eucharistic Event at Tixtla, Diocese of Chilpancingo–Chilapa, 2013.
⁷ Council of Trent, Session XIII, Chapter IV; cf. Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae, §1374.
⁸ Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, 1956, §54.

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CURRENT AFFAIRS

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Israel and Iran on the Brink: War Erupts Amid Years of Escalating Tensions

Direct conflict between Israel and Iran has erupted after decades of covert warfare and proxy entanglements, as Israel launched an unprecedented aerial assault deep into Iranian territory, striking nuclear and military facilities. Iran has responded with force, triggering fears of a regional conflagration.

Operation Rising Lion: Israel’s High-Stakes Offensive
In the early hours of 13 June 2025, Israel deployed nearly 200 aircraft in what it dubbed Operation Rising Lion, launching coordinated strikes against approximately 100 sites across Iran. Among the targets were the Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities, IRGC bases, missile depots, and suspected command-and-control centres. Initial reports confirm the deaths of several high-ranking Iranian military officials, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) chief Hossein Salami and General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s top military commander¹.

These are among the most significant military casualties suffered by Iran in decades. Israel has not officially confirmed its targets, but IDF sources have briefed that the strikes were intended to cripple Iran’s nuclear weapons capability and disrupt the IRGC’s regional operations.

Iran’s Response: ‘A Declaration of War’
The Iranian government swiftly condemned the attacks, calling them a “declaration of war” and vowed a “severe and decisive” response². Within hours, Tehran launched over 100 drones and ballistic missiles toward Israeli targets, most of which were intercepted by Israel’s advanced Iron Dome and Arrow defence systems. Iran has also begun mobilising its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, heightening the risk of a multi-front escalation.

U.S. and International Reaction
Washington confirmed it had prior warning of the Israeli operation but denies direct involvement. President Harris called for restraint, stating: “The United States supports Israel’s right to self-defence, but urges all parties to avoid regional escalation.” Meanwhile, European capitals have urged urgent diplomatic intervention. A joint statement from the UK, France, and Germany urged the UN Security Council to convene “without delay”³.

Oil prices spiked by over 7% following the strikes. Major airlines rerouted flights away from Iranian and Israeli airspace, citing fears of further attacks. Tel Aviv and Tehran remain on high alert, with emergency measures in place.

From Cold Conflict to Hot War: Historical Background
Hostilities between Iran and Israel have long simmered below the surface. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran’s regime designated Israel the “Little Satan” and severed all diplomatic ties. Since then, both nations have engaged in decades of proxy conflict: Iran through Hezbollah, Hamas, and Shi’a militias across the region; Israel through cyber-operations, covert assassinations, and precision strikes against Iranian assets in Syria.

Previous flare-ups have included:

• April 2024: Iran launched a massive drone and missile barrage dubbed Operation True Promise. Israel intercepted most projectiles and responded with limited retaliation against radar sites near Natanz⁴.
• October 2024: Israel conducted Operation Days of Repentance, targeting Iranian military infrastructure in Iraq and Syria, as Iran resumed uranium enrichment at nearly weapons-grade levels⁵.

But until now, direct strikes on Iranian soil — particularly on nuclear facilities and top leadership — have been avoided. This marks a fundamental escalation.

Theological and Geopolitical Stakes
The conflict pits two competing visions of regional order. For Iran, the resistance axis (through Hezbollah and others) serves its apocalyptic Shi’a theopolitical worldview. For Israel, nuclear Iran is an existential threat — one it has vowed repeatedly to confront if diplomacy fails.

Many analysts note that the Iran-Israel struggle increasingly defines the strategic fault lines of the Middle East. Sunni Arab regimes, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have grown closer to Israel through shared concern over Tehran’s ambitions. The Abraham Accords have further isolated Iran diplomatically, while China and Russia continue to court Tehran as a counterweight to Western influence.

A Broader Conflict Looms
What happens next is uncertain. Both sides have suffered losses, and mutual deterrence may still hold. But if Iran activates its proxies or if further Israeli strikes provoke internal Iranian destabilisation, the region could unravel.

The Church calls for prayers for peace and for the protection of innocents caught between empires. The Holy See has issued a statement urging immediate diplomatic efforts, “lest the smoke of missiles obscure the light of reason and justice.” 🔝

¹ The Times (London), “Israel strikes Iran’s nuclear programme and kills General Bagheri,” 13 June 2025.
² The Guardian, “Iran calls Israeli strikes ‘a declaration of war,’” 13 June 2025.
³ Financial Times, “Israel takes its biggest gamble yet,” 13 June 2025.
⁴ The Pillar, “Operation True Promise: What Iran’s attack revealed,” April 2024.
⁵ AP News, “Israel targets Iranian military sites in Iraq, Syria,” October 2024.

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Pope and Indian Bishops Mourn Victims of Air India Crash as UK Confirms British Casualties and Survivor

AHMEDABAD, 12 June 2025 — Pope Leo XIV and the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) have expressed profound sorrow and solidarity after the catastrophic crash of Air India Flight 171, which claimed the lives of at least 241 people shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad International Airport. The London-bound Dreamliner, laden with fuel for a transcontinental flight, exploded after failing to gain height, crashing into a densely populated residential zone.

In a statement released from the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened by the tragedy,” offering “heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives” and commending “the souls of the deceased to the mercy of the Almighty.”¹

The CBCI likewise called the crash “heartbreaking,” urging all Catholics and people of goodwill to pray “for the eternal rest of those who have died and for comfort to the bereaved.”²

Death Toll and Nationalities
The death toll officially stands at 241, including 181 Indian nationals (12 crew), 53 British nationals, and several others from Portugal and Canada. The aircraft, reportedly filled with fuel for over 7,000 miles, was unable to gain altitude and crashed into the compound of BJ Medical College, damaging multiple buildings and reportedly killing at least five medical students.³

Several multistory residential blocks were shattered and scorched in the explosion, adding to fears of further casualties on the ground.

British Response and the Sole Survivor
Among the passengers were 53 British nationals, many of them dual British-Indians. In a remarkable development, officials have identified Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 38-year-old British-Indian man, as the sole survivor of the crash. He was seated near an emergency exit and managed to escape before the fire consumed the wreckage. He is currently in hospital, reportedly conscious and communicating.⁴

The UK Foreign Office has activated a crisis centre, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the crash as “devastating,” assuring the families of victims that they will receive full consular support.⁵ Investigators from the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) have joined Indian and U.S. teams in examining the cause of the crash.⁶

King Charles III and Queen Camilla also released a statement expressing their sorrow and prayers for the victims and their families.⁷

Local Catholic Witness

Archbishop Thomas Macwan of Gandhinagar, who heads the Catholic Church in Gujarat, told CNA:

“There are no words to describe this tragedy. I went through the list of passengers and could identify the names of at least four or five Christians. There could be more, as surnames are common to different religions and only first names will reveal the identity.”⁸

He added that “the visuals of charred buildings at the crash site adds to fears of more deaths.”

Among those reported on the manifest was Vijay Rupani, former chief minister of Gujarat, though his fate has not yet been confirmed.

Prayers Amid Grief
The Catholic bishops concluded their statement with a message of hope and solidarity:

“We stand in solidarity with the victims and their families, and with all the rescue personnel working tirelessly at the crash site.”

As India and the international community mourn, the Church joins in commending the victims to the mercy of God, praying for healing and peace. 🔝

¹ Pope Leo XIV, Message of Condolence, 12 June 2025.
² Statement of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, 12 June 2025.
³ CNA report; BJ Medical College casualty update, 12 June 2025.
⁴ The Guardian, “Briton is sole survivor of Air India crash,” 12 June 2025.
⁵ UK Prime Minister’s Office statement, 12 June 2025.
⁶ AAIB briefing, 12 June 2025.
⁷ Royal Family Communications Office, 12 June 2025.
⁸ Interview with Archbishop Thomas Macwan, CNA, 12 June 2025.

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A Line in the Sand: Parliament Considers Full Abortion Decriminalisation in England and Wales

On Tuesday 17 June, Members of Parliament will consider one of the most extreme abortion measures ever proposed in the United Kingdom: the full decriminalisation of abortion for women, permitting the procedure up to birth for any reason, with no criminal penalties and without medical oversight. If adopted, this would amount to the effective abolition of all remaining protections for unborn children in English and Welsh law.

The key amendment, tabled by Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi to the Criminal Justice Bill, seeks to repeal sections of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (sections 58 and 59), along with related provisions of the Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, removing criminal liability for women who procure or perform their own abortions at any stage of pregnancy.

This would make England and Wales one of the most radically permissive jurisdictions on abortion in the world—outpacing even Canada, which has no gestational limit in law, but maintains regulated clinical oversight. In the UK, no such clinical requirement would remain for abortions carried out by the mother herself.

A Legacy of Legal Drift
Since the Abortion Act 1967, abortion has been legally permitted under certain medical grounds, initially constrained to 28 weeks’ gestation, and later reduced to 24 weeks under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990. Crucially, abortion remains a criminal offence in the UK unless carried out under those legal parameters. The 1967 Act provides doctors with a defence from prosecution—not a general right to abortion.

While prosecutions have been rare, the criminal law still serves an important purpose: deterring late-term or unsafe abortions and protecting the life of the viable unborn child. Under the proposed change, all criminal penalties would be removed for women, even for self-induced abortions at full term, with no requirement for medical supervision, assessment of gestational age, or inquiry into coercion, abuse, or sex-selection.

Supporters of the amendment claim it will “modernise” the law and protect women from punishment. But critics argue it will dismantle the last legal recognition of unborn life, render viable children unprotected, and expose vulnerable women to greater exploitation and danger.

Medical and Legal Warnings
Hundreds of doctors, nurses, and midwives sounded the alarm last year when a similar amendment was tabled by Labour MP Diana Johnson. Their open letter to MPs warned:

“If offences that make it illegal for a woman to perform her own abortion at any gestation were repealed, such abortions would, de facto, become possible up to birth for any reason including abortions for sex-selective purposes, as women could mistakenly or wilfully mislead abortion providers about their gestational age.”¹

They further cautioned against the grave health risks to women posed by self-administered late-term abortions. A government review of abortion data between 2017 and 2021 found that:

“The complication rate for medical abortions that happen in a clinical setting is 160 times higher for abortions at 20 weeks and over compared with those under 10 weeks.”²

Without legal boundaries, women—especially those under duress, in abusive relationships, or subject to trafficking—would have no external protection or accountability. Providers would have no mandate to investigate red flags. Pro-life commentators have described the proposals as a form of abandonment, not liberation.

Polls Defy the Narrative
Contrary to abortion lobby claims, public opinion in the UK remains firmly against decriminalising abortion to birth. A May 2025 nationally representative poll commissioned by SPUC and conducted by Whitestone Insight found:

• Only 5% support abortion up to birth
• 60% oppose abortion on demand at any stage for any reason
• 53% oppose abortion when the child could survive outside the womb
• 64% believe abortion is a matter of life and death and that the law should reflect that
• 46% support reducing the 24-week limit
• 62% support retaining abortion as a criminal offence in some cases
• 58% believe the cost-of-living crisis pressures women into abortions they don’t truly want³

These figures reflect consistent trends across several years of polling. A ComRes survey commissioned in 2019 showed that 70% of women supported lowering the gestational limit from 24 weeks. A Savanta poll in 2023 showed that only 1% of British women favoured extending the time limit to birth⁴.

An Ideological Agenda
The push for decriminalisation stems not from medical necessity but from ideological activism. Major abortion providers such as BPAS (British Pregnancy Advisory Service) have long lobbied for “abortion on demand, for any reason, up to birth.” BPAS CEO Clare Murphy said in 2022:

“We need to get abortion out of the criminal law altogether… the time has come to treat it as we would any other form of healthcare.”⁵

But abortion is not like other healthcare procedures. It uniquely involves the taking of innocent human life. Stripping it of all legal gravity trivialises its moral and medical seriousness—and leaves both women and unborn children at risk.

The Catholic Response
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales has not yet issued a public statement on this particular amendment. However, numerous bishops including the Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate and Catholic lay organisations—including the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), CitizenGO, and March for Life UK—have called upon Catholics to contact their MPs and attend the protest in Westminster on 17 June.

Archbishop John Wilson of Southwark, writing in 2023 on related legislative threats, warned:

“There can be no true progress in a society that ignores the rights of the most vulnerable. Our moral duty is to protect life from its very beginning to its natural end.”⁶

A Way Forward
This is not merely a political matter but a profound question of moral anthropology. What does it mean to be human? Does viability grant protection? Is abortion a right—or a grave injustice cloaked in euphemism?

If Parliament accepts this amendment, it will mark a point of no return—a declaration that unborn life has no legal value, and that women may be left to endure trauma, coercion, and medical harm without recourse.

Pro-lifers are calling on all people of good will to:

• Sign the petition hosted by SPUC and CitizenGO
• Contact your MP and express your opposition to the decriminalisation amendment
• Attend the demonstration in Westminster on Tuesday, 17 June, if at all possible
• Pray and offer penance for the conversion of our nation and its lawmakers

As Pope Benedict XVI once stated, “A society is judged by how it treats its weakest members.” By that standard, the soul of Britain stands at the edge of a precipice. 🔝

¹ Open Letter from Healthcare Professionals to MPs on Decriminalisation of Abortion, 2024
² UK Government Complications Review, 2017–2021, Department of Health and Social Care
³ Whitestone Insight Polling for SPUC, May 2025
⁴ ComRes Survey, January 2019; Savanta ComRes for The Telegraph, July 2023
⁵ BPAS Statement, BBC Radio 4, Woman’s Hour, 2022
⁶ Archbishop John Wilson, Statement on the Value of Life, August 2023

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Carlo Acutis to Be Canonized: Pope Leo XIV to Declare First Millennial Saint on 7 September

Pope Leo XIV has announced that Blessed Carlo Acutis will be canonized a saint of the Catholic Church on Sunday, 7 September 2025, marking a historic first: the Church’s recognition of a millennial as a canonized saint. Acutis will be canonized alongside Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, symbolically uniting two lay witnesses of sanctity across generations.

A Saint for the Digital Age
Born in 1991 in London and raised in Milan, Carlo Acutis is often called “God’s influencer” for his deep devotion to the Eucharist and his pioneering use of the internet to evangelize. By the age of 11, he had built a website cataloguing Eucharistic miracles around the world—an effort that combined technical brilliance with theological depth¹.

Acutis died at age 15 in 2006 from fulminant leukemia. His cause for canonization was opened in 2013, and he was beatified by Pope Francis in Assisi in 2020 following the recognition of a miracle involving the healing of a Brazilian boy with a rare pancreatic disease².

In a speech to pilgrims earlier this year, Pope Leo XIV praised Acutis as “a sign that sanctity is possible in every age—even in ours, amid screens and social networks,” urging young people to “live online with the same integrity with which the saints lived in the world.”

The Second Miracle
In May 2025, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints confirmed a second miracle attributed to Acutis: the inexplicable recovery of a 21-year-old Costa Rican woman following a catastrophic brain injury sustained in a bicycle accident in Florence in 2022. According to medical documentation, she awoke from a coma days after her mother prayed at Acutis’s tomb in Assisi³.

This second miracle cleared the final hurdle for canonization.

Frassati and Acutis: Two Lay Apostles United
Pope Leo XIV also confirmed that Acutis will be canonized together with Pier Giorgio Frassati, a 20th-century layman known for his charity and devotion to the poor. Frassati died in 1925 at the age of 24, and was beatified by John Paul II in 1990, who called him “the man of the Beatitudes.”⁴

The joint canonization will underscore the holiness of lay life, especially among the young—a message Pope Leo has emphasized repeatedly since his election in April.

A Delayed Celebration Rescheduled
Acutis’s canonization had originally been planned for 27 April 2025 to coincide with the Jubilee of Teenagers during the Holy Year. However, the sudden death of Pope Francis on 21 April 2025 delayed the ceremony. Pope Leo XIV, elected just days later, recommitted to the canonization and set the new date during a June meeting with cardinals and Vatican officials⁵.

Significance and Anticipation
The 7 September canonization is expected to draw tens of thousands of young Catholics to St Peter’s Square. For many, Acutis represents a bridge between faith and modern life: a teenager who enjoyed video games, Pokémon, and social media, yet pursued daily Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and selfless charity.

His mother, Antonia Salzano Acutis, told reporters she hopes her son’s life inspires “a generation that does not fear holiness.”

The Church’s recognition of Carlo Acutis stands as a powerful affirmation: sainthood is not reserved for the past. It is alive, relevant, and within reach—even in a digital age. 🔝

¹ See: “Who was Carlo Acutis, the Italian teen set to become the first millennial saint?”, Times of India, June 13, 2025.
² “First millennial saint: Carlo Acutis to be canonized Sept. 7,” AP News, June 13, 2025.
³ Ibid.
⁴ “Pope Leo to canonize Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati,” Reuters, June 13, 2025.
⁵ Ibid.

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Vatican-China Relations Shift: Pope Leo XIV Appoints Underground Bishop as Auxiliary with Beijing’s Approval

In what may signal a new phase in the uneasy détente between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China, Pope Leo XIV has appointed Bishop Joseph Lin Yuntuan — a formerly unrecognized “underground” bishop — as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Fuzhou. Notably, the appointment originated in Rome and was subsequently accepted by Beijing, reversing the usual sequence under the controversial 2018 Vatican-China agreement.

An Unprecedented Development
The Holy See announced the papal appointment on June 11, confirming that Pope Leo had signed it into effect on June 5. This timeline aligns with Beijing’s formal recognition of the bishop — a rare convergence between Rome and the Chinese Communist Party’s Religious Affairs authorities. According to senior mainland clerics cited by The Pillar, the appointment marks a noteworthy break from precedent, whereby the Chinese state typically names bishops first, with Rome offering ex post facto acknowledgment, if any.

One source framed the change memorably: “It was a case of the cat letting the mouse eat the grain this time.”

Bishop Lin’s Long Road to Public Office
Joseph Lin Yuntuan, now 73, was clandestinely consecrated a bishop in 2017. A product of the Fuzhou diocesan seminary, Lin has long served the faithful of the underground Church, particularly as apostolic administrator during leadership vacancies from 2003–2007 and 2013–2016. Despite his episcopal consecration, until this month he had held no recognized office in either the eyes of the state or the Vatican’s official records.

Fuzhou has been a flashpoint in the fraught ecclesial landscape of China. After the 2018 provisional agreement, many of its clergy and faithful rejected state control via the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). Archbishop Peter Lin Jiashan — Lin Yuntuan’s predecessor but not relative — was similarly an underground bishop who was only accepted by the state in 2020, ten years after his appointment by Pope Benedict XVI. Jiashan died in 2023.

A Papal Move, Not a Political One?
Archbishop Joseph Cai Bingrui, who succeeded Jiashan in January, reportedly requested the appointment of an auxiliary bishop. Sources suggest that Cai, considered acceptable to local state officials, persuaded them to approve Lin’s appointment — indicating that the papal decision may have been shepherded through by local goodwill rather than negotiated from Rome.

If this is indeed a Vatican-driven initiative rather than a concession to Beijing’s authority, it may point to a shift in strategy under Pope Leo XIV, who is widely viewed as less ideologically aligned with the Vatican Secretariat of State’s conciliatory approach to China than his predecessor. Whether this shift is systemic or symbolic remains to be seen.

Contrast: The Xinxiang Controversy
The Lin appointment comes in stark contrast to the April 29 unilateral “election” of Fr. Li Janlin as bishop of Xinxiang during the sede vacante. This was orchestrated entirely by the CPCA and occurred in defiance of canonical procedure and Roman oversight. The Vatican has issued no statement on Li, despite Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin’s claim that his name was approved by Pope Francis before his death.

This raises canonical tensions: Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu, the underground bishop of Xinxiang since 1991, remains unacknowledged by the Chinese government and under effective house arrest. His status — and that of many other underground bishops — remains a source of painful ambiguity for Chinese Catholics.

Looking Ahead
The Vatican-China agreement, renewed for another three years in October 2024, continues to be criticized for its opacity and apparent concessions. Nevertheless, Bishop Lin Yuntuan’s appointment may offer a modest but significant precedent: a canonical episcopal nomination by the Successor of Peter, accepted — rather than dictated — by the Communist state.

If replicated, this could point to a recalibration in the balance of ecclesiastical authority between Rome and Beijing. Yet the Church in China remains a divided body: underground bishops remain imprisoned or unrecognized, and state-backed “bishops” often operate in spiritual and doctrinal ambiguity.

Whether Pope Leo’s move signals the beginning of a firmer papal hand or a momentary exception remains to be tested — not least in the hearts and minds of China’s long-persecuted Catholic faithful. 🔝

1. The Pillar, “Leo names underground bishop as auxiliary, Beijing agrees,” June 11, 2025.
2. Vatican Press Office, Bollettino 11/06/2025.
3. “China’s State-Sanctioned Bishops and Rome’s Silence,” AsiaNews, April–May 2025.
4. Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to Chinese Catholics, 2007.
5. Cardinal Pietro Parolin, interview with Avvenire, May 2025.
6. “Who is Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu?”, Catholic World Report, June 2025.

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‘We Will Take the Beauty for as Long as We Can Have It’: Young Catholics, Priests, and Public Push Back Against Charlotte’s Latin Mass Restrictions

The Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in Charlotte, North Carolina, has received a temporary reprieve—but not a permanent solution. On June 3, Bishop Michael Martin announced a delay in implementing diocesan restrictions that would have suppressed the ancient rite in parish churches, consolidating it instead into a single non-parochial chapel. The decision, which postpones the directive from July to October 2, came amid vigorous grassroots and clerical protest—and has left the faithful both relieved and wary.

The Announcement and Its Immediate Effect
Bishop Martin’s original May 23 policy aligned with the Vatican’s Traditionis custodes (2021), restricting the celebration of the usus antiquior to designated locations. The plan would have ended TLM in four parishes, relocating it to a single chapel with two permitted Sunday Masses. His reversal, announced after widespread outcry, extended the timeline to the date when the current Vatican dispensation expires.

“It’s really great that our bishop is very involved in the diocese and is among the people and seems to have been listening,” said Patrick Gallagher, 20. “We are just relieved that our bishop is listening to us.”¹ Others, like 24-year-old Augusta Westhoff, described the moment with cautious gratitude: “I just had so much joy and gratitude to God that we are able to attend Latin Mass for at least a few more months.”²

Young Voices, Lingering Doubts
While many young Catholics were encouraged by the delay, most remain skeptical about the bishop’s ultimate intentions. “I certainly hold no hope that the bishop will support the faithful in requesting an additional extension from Rome,” said Filumena Martin, 29.³ Gallagher added, “The people I have talked to all feel like he does not want the Latin Mass in his diocese.”⁴

Michael Kissam, a layman who attends both forms of the Roman Rite, agreed: “At the end of the day, the statement does not reverse the intention of Bishop Martin’s original statement. It is a pause… but I fear… we are going to repeat this again in September.”⁵

Priests and Pastors Join the Appeal
Support for the Traditional Latin Mass has not come solely from the laity. Four pastors of affected parishes have formally urged Bishop Martin to reconsider, asking that he request a further dispensation from Rome. According to Catholic Culture, the priests warned that the proposed changes “marginalize and discriminate” against faithful Catholics, and invited the bishop to engage directly with Latin Mass communities.⁶

This pastoral intervention gives added weight to lay concerns, revealing that tensions are not limited to a “young trad” demographic but are also shared by clergy tasked with shepherding these communities.

The Leaked Liturgical Norms and Further Disquiet
The controversy intensified with the leak of draft diocesan liturgical norms. According to America Magazine and OSV News, the document proposed restrictions on Latin usage, the elimination of altar rails, and the normalization of Communion in the hand—proposals interpreted by many as a further attempt to reshape liturgical identity in the diocese. The diocese responded by stating that the norms were under internal review and not yet promulgated.⁷

Still, traditionalists reacted with alarm. “To imply that Catholics were sitting in Mass like dumb animals… is bonkers. And kind of insulting,” one lay commenter noted.⁸

A Broader Survey of Catholic Opinion
The situation in Charlotte reflects a growing tension across the Church. A First Things analysis noted that 69% of American Catholics support continued access to the TLM, and 76% believe those who prefer it should be accommodated. Only 21% think its adherents harm Church unity.⁹ This data challenges the narrative that traditionalists are divisive or marginal, revealing instead a majority who favour liturgical plurality.

Strategic Delay or True Listening?
Some see the delay as a political calculation rather than a pastoral concession. Gallagher remarked, “I think that moving the deadline… may be an attempt for Bishop Martin to get some of the heat off of his back.”¹⁰

Others, like Westhoff, interpret it as an opening: “It seems many Church leaders may be awaiting instruction from Pope Leo XIV… we will pray fervently that our new pope brings true unity through restoration of the Latin Mass.”¹¹

A satirical take from the Bellarmine Forum condemned the diocese’s communications strategy as “patching a stained-glass window with tape,” and likened the public messaging to crisis PR rather than episcopal leadership.¹²

Conclusion: Not a Goodbye—Yet
For now, the faithful in Charlotte continue to attend the Mass of Ages—but under a cloud of uncertainty. “We will take the Latin Mass for as long as we can because it’s really good and beautiful and I love attending it,” Gallagher said.¹³

But many remain on alert, fearing that October will bring the final blow to their parish celebrations of the TLM—unless either the Vatican, or their bishop, has a further change of heart. 🔝

1. Jack Figge, The Pillar, June 6, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Catholic Culture, “Charlotte priests urge bishop to reconsider,” June 7, 2025.
7. America Magazine, “Leaked liturgical norms in Charlotte spark backlash,” June 2025.
8. Rorate Caeli, user commentary thread, June 2025.
9. First Things, “Bishop Martin is Out of Touch,” June 2025.
10. Figge, The Pillar, June 6, 2025.
11. Ibid.
12. Bellarmine Forum, “Latin Mass in Charlotte and the PR Catastrophe,” June 2025.
13. Figge, The Pillar, June 6, 2025.

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Resignation of Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke: A Quiet Reproach of the Synodal Path

On 8 June 2025, Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke, O.S.B., quietly submitted his resignation from the Diocese of Eichstätt, Bavaria—five years before reaching the customary age of retirement. His stated reasons, “inner fatigue” and doubt over the spiritual fruitfulness of the German Church’s current direction, offer a subdued but striking commentary on the crisis afflicting German Catholicism.

Monk, Bishop, Pastor
Born on 20 July 1954 in Elsendorf, Lower Bavaria, Gregor Hanke entered the Benedictine Abbey of Plankstetten in 1972 and made his solemn profession five years later. He was ordained a priest in 1981 after theological studies at the University of Salzburg and the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.¹ In 1993 he was appointed prior of the Abbey, becoming abbot a year later. His early leadership was marked by a Benedictine emphasis on liturgical life and ecological stewardship of the Abbey’s extensive landholdings.

In October 2006, Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Bishop of Eichstätt, the youngest diocesan bishop in Germany at the time.² He took as his episcopal motto In Sapientia Christi—“In the Wisdom of Christ”—a phrase that would come to frame his final reflections on episcopal ministry.

A Difficult Episcopate
The Diocese of Eichstätt, home to Germany’s only Catholic university, has been the locus of several conflicts in recent decades. Hanke’s episcopate witnessed a damaging financial scandal involving overseas property investments, public disagreements with the university’s board over leadership appointments, and the continuing fallout of clerical abuse revelations. In 2024, he took a temporary leave due to surgery, a moment which appears to have crystallized his decision to withdraw from active episcopal governance.³

In his resignation letter to diocesan staff, Hanke wrote:

“I feel an inner fatigue… Given the upheaval and the decline, we are necessarily developing pastoral programs and concepts for the future. But to what extent is our ‘system’ of the Church in Germany proving spiritually fruitful?”⁴

His concern was not merely managerial. It was spiritual. Hanke questioned whether the Church’s current emphasis on structure, programming, and institutional identity had eclipsed the primacy of conversion and sanctity.

A Gentle Rebuke of the Synodal Way
Hanke was one of four diocesan bishops—alongside Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Bishop Stefan Oster, and Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer—to openly express misgivings about the Synodal Path (Synodaler Weg).⁵ The initiative, a joint project of the German Bishops’ Conference and the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), has called for controversial reforms including same-sex blessings, lay participation in governance, and a re-examination of the male-only priesthood.

Without polemic, Hanke challenged whether such reforms respond to the Church’s deepest need. He cited Pope Francis’s 2019 Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany, which urged a return to evangelization rooted in personal conversion and the freshness of the Gospel:

“The Pope provided inspiration for a spiritual path… He spoke of the ‘bite’ of the Gospel, which must be felt, and of the primacy of evangelization, which begins with evangelizing oneself.”⁶

In resigning, Hanke signaled his belief that renewal cannot be legislated through structures but must flow from sanctity, sacramental life, and fidelity to the Church’s supernatural mission.

Retiring to the “Second Row”
What sets Hanke’s resignation apart is its tone. He announced that he would no longer wear episcopal insignia or perform pontifical functions unless requested by his successor. He intends to live out his remaining years simply as Fr. Gregor, offering pastoral ministry in a non-episcopal role, before eventually returning to his monastic community.⁷

His decision echoes that of other European bishops who have resigned early due to “inner fatigue,” including Bishop Valerio Lazzeri of Lugano (2022), who resigned at 59, and Msgr. Ivan Brient of Rennes, who declined episcopal consecration citing burnout.⁸ Such gestures reflect not only the personal strain of ecclesiastical office in an age of upheaval but perhaps a deeper recognition of the limitations of bureaucratic models of reform.

Praise and Caution from Peers
Reactions to Hanke’s resignation were mixed. Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference and leading proponent of the Synodal Path, thanked him for his “mediating position” amid controversy and acknowledged his “increasing difficulty” with the process.⁹ Christian Gärtner, chair of Eichstätt’s diocesan council, praised Hanke’s modesty and longstanding advocacy of time-limited episcopal service.¹⁰

The next Bishop of Eichstätt will be appointed through the 1924 Bavarian Concordat, a rare arrangement in which the cathedral chapter submits candidates to the Vatican and the Bavarian government retains a limited veto right.¹¹

A Sign for the Church in Germany
Hanke’s departure may be viewed not merely as a personal retreat but as a symbol of the tensions tearing through the German Church: between pastoral charity and structural reform, between faithfulness and novelty, between the sacramental and the procedural.

In leaving the “first row,” Bishop Hanke may have delivered his most enduring pastoral act—witnessing to the truth that the Church’s deepest renewal will come not from reinvention, but from recollection of her soul. 🔝

¹ Wikipedia, “Gregor Maria Hanke,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Maria_Hanke
² Vatican Press Office, Bollettino, October 2006.
³ CNA Deutsch, “Bischof Hanke tritt zurück,” June 8, 2025.
⁴ Bishop Hanke, Letter to Diocesan Staff, June 8, 2025.
⁵ CNA Deutsch, “Vier Bischöfe gegen Synodalen Rat,” Jan 27, 2023.
⁶ Pope Francis, Letter to the Pilgrim People of God in Germany, 29 June 2019.
⁷ Hanke, Letter, June 8, 2025.
⁸ Bishop Lazzeri, Resignation Statement, Diocese of Lugano, 2022; Msgr. Brient, Public Statement, Archdiocese of Rennes, 2022.
⁹ Bishop Georg Bätzing, Statement, German Bishops’ Conference, June 8, 2025.
¹⁰ Christian Gärtner, quoted in CNA Deutsch, June 9, 2025.
¹¹ Bavarian Concordat, Article 5, signed 29 June 1924.

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The Collapse of Catholicism in Germany: Synodal Failure, Financial Crisis, and a Traditionalist Countercurrent

The Catholic Church in Germany is undergoing a profound and multi-dimensional crisis. Despite being one of the wealthiest national churches in the world, it is haemorrhaging members, witnessing an unprecedented collapse in vocations, and selling off church properties at an accelerating pace. The much-heralded “Synodal Way” has not reversed the decline—it may even have deepened it. Meanwhile, traditionalist seminaries under the SSPX and FSSP are quietly growing, offering a stark theological and demographic counterpoint.

Falling Membership and Revenue
In 2024, the number of Catholics in Germany fell below 20 million for the first time, standing at approximately 19.77 million—just 23.7% of the population¹. Over 321,000 left the Church that year, a decline slightly less than 2023 (402,694) and 2022 (a record 522,821)². The trend is unmistakable: German Catholicism is in demographic freefall.

Since membership determines participation in Germany’s Kirchensteuer (church tax), the financial impact is stark. While church tax revenue nominally peaked in 2022 at €6.85 billion, inflation-adjusted figures show it was already in decline. In 2023, income fell by nearly €330 million to €6.51 billion³—its lowest real value since 2011. With continued departures, the German bishops’ conference has projected that one-third of church properties—up to 40,000 buildings—may be decommissioned or sold by 2060⁴.

The Synodal Way’s Unfulfilled Promise
The Synodal Way, launched in 2019 and concluded in 2023, was intended to rejuvenate the Church by promoting structural reform and democratization. It focused on issues such as women’s ordination, blessings for same-sex couples, and governance restructuring. But it has not brought renewal.

Pope Francis warned the German bishops in 2022 that the Synodal Way risked creating “parallel churches” and could sever unity with the universal Church⁵. Many German Catholics, however, appear more disillusioned than invigorated. Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops’ conference, admitted that the record departures are “alarming” and show “the Church is in a wide-ranging crisis”⁶.

Ordinations Collapse Across the Dioceses
The vocations crisis is especially acute. In 2024, only 29 men were ordained to the diocesan priesthood across all of Germany⁷. That is a 76% drop from the 122 ordained in 2004. Eleven of the country’s 27 dioceses—including once-vibrant sees like Limburg and Münster—recorded zero ordinations this year. In the five East German dioceses, only two ordinations took place, both involving older men⁸.

Benedictine Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke of Eichstätt, who resigned in June 2025 citing “inner fatigue,” expressed grave concern about the spiritual fruitfulness of the Church in Germany, suggesting that structural reform alone cannot answer the deeper malaise⁹.

Parish Closures and Clerical Contraction
Alongside falling ordinations, parish closures are accelerating. From 2023 to 2024, the number of official parishes dropped from 9,418 to 9,291¹⁰. In Trier, Bishop Stephan Ackermann’s plan to consolidate 903 parishes into just 35 pastoral units has been described as a transformation of the Church’s presence in entire regions¹¹.

Church buildings, including heritage structures, are being demolished or deconsecrated due to lack of use. In Immerath, North Rhine-Westphalia, the town’s 19th-century church was demolished in 2018 after the congregation dwindled to fewer than 60¹².

Traditionalist Countercurrent: SSPX and FSSP
While the diocesan Church falters, traditionalist communities are quietly growing.

The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), which remains in full communion with Rome and offers the traditional Latin Mass, reported 201 seminarians in 2023—the highest number in its history—including 10 Germans¹³. Its Wigratzbad seminary remains a beacon for traditional vocations.

The Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), canonically irregular but influential, reported 268 seminarians and 707 priests globally as of June 2025¹⁴. Its German seminary in Zaitzkofen ordained two priests and three deacons in 2024¹⁵.

Theological clarity, reverence in worship, and resistance to doctrinal relativism are the main attractions for young men discerning vocations in these institutes. In contrast to diocesan structures marked by ambiguity and experimentation, these seminaries offer continuity with the Church’s liturgical and theological heritage.

Conclusion: A Fork in the Road
Germany’s national Church is in collapse. Reformist strategies centred on institutional democratization and accommodation to secular culture have failed to reverse decades of decline. Financial pressures, demographic implosion, and a crisis of priestly identity point to a bleak trajectory.

And yet, a small but resilient counter-movement persists. Traditionalist communities—however controversial—are bearing fruit where modernist initiatives wither. For many, they represent not nostalgia, but hope: a re-rooting of Catholic life in timeless worship and unambiguous truth.

The coming decades will reveal whether the Church in Germany doubles down on its failed strategies or learns from those quietly thriving on the margins. 🔝

¹ Statista, Membership of Catholic Church in Germany 2001–2024.
² DBK Jahresstatistik 2023 (German Bishops’ Conference).
³ Kirchensteuerbericht 2023, Finanzkommission der DBK.
⁴ Tagesschau.de, “Wie viele Kirchen in Deutschland künftig schließen müssen” (2023).
⁵ Vatican News, “Pope to German bishops: Synodal path must stay linked to the Church” (2022).
⁶ DBK Press Release, June 2024.
⁷ Katholisch.de, “Priesterweihen auf historischem Tief” (2024).
⁸ Domradio.de, June 2024.
⁹ Bistum Eichstätt, Presskonferenz, 8 June 2025.
¹⁰ DBK Jahresstatistik, 2024.
¹¹ Trierer Volksfreund, “Die neue Pfarrstruktur in Trier” (2022).
¹² Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, “Abriss der Immerather Kirche” (2018).
¹³ FSSP, Seminarians and Ordination Report, 2023.
¹⁴ SSPX.org, Global Statistics, June 2025.
¹⁵ SSPX Zaitzkofen, Ordinationsbericht 2024.

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Poland’s Primate Removed from Abuse Commission Project Amid Internal Church Dispute

Commission now led by John Paul II postulator Bishop Sławomir Oder; Survivors and critics express doubt over renewed delays

At the close of their plenary session this week, the Polish bishops announced that Archbishop Wojciech Polak, Primate of Poland and chief delegate for the bishops’ child protection office, will no longer oversee the creation of an independent commission into clerical sexual abuse. In his place, they appointed Bishop Sławomir Oder, a canonist best known as the postulator for the canonization of Pope John Paul II.

The commission, first proposed in March 2023, had stalled for two years amid growing public and internal ecclesiastical tensions. While Polak supported a robust, independent investigation covering abuses by clergy from 1945 onward, his stance was reportedly opposed by several fellow bishops wary of its investigative scope and legal implications.

Survivors’ advocate Robert Fidura, who helped coordinate a landmark 2024 meeting between bishops and victims, remarked that the change signals a likely restart from scratch: “The slate has been wiped clean.” Journalist Tomasz Terlikowski, a frequent critic of the Church’s handling of abuse, was more scathing: “One of the few committed, knowledgeable, and truth-seeking hierarchs has been removed. This is a clear signal that the episcopate does not want the truth, does not want justice, does not even want ordinary human keeping of one’s word.”

Internal Legal Objections
In a development that may have precipitated Polak’s removal, the bishops’ legal council issued a damning February 2025 memo contesting the commission’s draft operating statutes. The council, in which Oder has served since March 2023, challenged both the form and scope of decisions taken in June 2023 to authorize the commission. They claimed the vote lacked procedural notice and that the intended commission appeared more judicial than historical, potentially infringing on the Holy See’s exclusive authority over bishops.

Polak dismissed the council’s opinion as non-binding and denied that the commission was ever intended to interrogate bishops. Nevertheless, these criticisms laid the groundwork for a shift in leadership.

Oder’s Appointment and Plans
Speaking on June 12, Bishop Oder emphasized the need for “precision in legal formulations” and promised that his team would draw on lessons from foreign commissions to avoid past mistakes. He said that revised documents will clarify the commission’s mandate, structure, access to archives, and funding. However, no concrete timeline has been announced, nor have the new team’s members been named.

Oder’s legal credentials and proximity to the late Pope John Paul II—a figure increasingly scrutinized for his handling of abuse cases while Archbishop of Kraków—raise further questions about how independent and far-reaching this body will be. The timing of the original commission’s proposal in 2023 followed the release of a critical documentary alleging that Karol Wojtyła knowingly re-assigned abusive priests prior to becoming pope.

Broader Context
Poland’s bishops initially committed to a historical inquiry with access to both ecclesiastical and state archives, following the example of similar commissions in France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. Yet the persistent delays and internal resistance have led many to suspect institutional foot-dragging.

A March 2025 plenary session had insisted that the commission remained necessary and would move forward. But this week’s decision suggests a significant retreat from the model envisioned by Polak. His five-year tenure as delegate for the bishops’ child protection office saw some steps toward greater accountability, including initiatives in victim support and transparency. His sidelining, however, may now stall momentum.

What happens next—and how much public trust can be salvaged—will depend not just on whether the commission is established, but on whether it is empowered to tell the full truth. 🔝

¹ Statement of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Katowice, 12 June 2025.
² Robert Fidura, cited in press response, 12 June 2025.
³ Tomasz Terlikowski, Facebook/X commentary, 12 June 2025.
⁴ Legal Council Memorandum, Polish Bishops’ Conference, February 2025.
⁵ Oder, S., Press Conference, Katowice, 12 June 2025.
⁶ “Francuska komisja niezależna” et al., precedents in European episcopal abuse inquiries, 2019–2023.
⁷ Documentary: Franciszkańska 3, TVN24, March 2023.

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Washington Bishops Sue Over Law Threatening Seal of Confession

A constitutional confrontation between Church and State has erupted in Washington, where the bishops of the three Catholic dioceses have filed a federal lawsuit challenging a new law that would compel priests to violate the seal of the confessional under threat of civil penalty.

On 2 May 2025, Washington Governor Robert Ferguson signed into law legislation designating clergy as mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse and neglect—without exemption for sacramental confession. This final version of the bill, Senate Bill 5375, departed from earlier drafts by explicitly excluding priests from protections afforded to other confidential relationships, such as attorney–client or spousal communications.

The law is scheduled to take effect in July. Violations carry a penalty of up to 364 days in jail and a $5,000 fine¹.

‘Temporal punishment or eternal damnation’
On 29 May, the Archdiocese of Seattle, the Diocese of Yakima, and the Diocese of Spokane jointly filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. They are joined by individual priests and represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, First Liberty Institute, and WilmerHale.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and Article I, Section 11 of the Washington State Constitution². In particular, it accuses the state of:

• Religious discrimination, by targeting clergy uniquely for exclusion from confidentiality protections;
• Coercion, by forcing priests to choose between “temporal criminal punishment and eternal damnation”;
• Interference, by intruding into the internal governance of the Catholic Church.

Jean Hill, Executive Director of the Washington State Catholic Conference, stated: “Confession offers the faithful a confidential space to seek God’s mercy and guidance. This trust is sacred, and any law that jeopardizes it risks discouraging those who recognize the harm they have caused from seeking moral guidance.”

The inviolable seal
The sacramental seal of confession, established in divine law and defended in canon law, is absolute. Canon 983 §1 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law states: “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.” A direct violation of the seal incurs an automatic (latae sententiae) excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See³.

As such, no priest may comply with the law without risking eternal consequences. Washington’s bishops have declared they cannot and will not comply with the mandate, insisting that the law asks the impossible.

Disparate treatment under the law
The lawsuit highlights the statute’s discriminatory wording:

“Except for members of the clergy, no one shall be required to report under this section when he or she obtains the information solely as a result of a privileged communication.”

While secular confidences are shielded—attorney–client, spousal, domestic partner—priests alone are denied this safeguard, an exclusion the bishops argue amounts to an unconstitutional targeting of religion⁴.

Ironically, the dioceses’ internal safeguarding policies already exceed those required by state law. Both clergy and lay employees must report any suspected abuse—except what is learned in sacramental confession, which remains protected by unbroken ecclesiastical tradition⁵.

Federal attention and broader implications
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on 5 May that it had opened an investigation into the law’s compatibility with the First Amendment. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon stated the department would evaluate whether Washington’s statute constituted “coercion of religious actors to violate core tenets of their faith”⁶.

Washington now becomes the first state to mandate reporting by clergy without any exception for the confessional. By contrast, most other U.S. states explicitly include such an exemption. In 2016, the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the seal of confession as immune from state compulsion⁷.

A test case for the soul of religious liberty
This case now stands as a major legal and moral test. If upheld, the law could undermine the Church’s sacramental discipline across the United States. If struck down, it may reassert the strength of constitutional protections for religious practice in the face of political pressure.

As Archbishop Paul Etienne and his fellow bishops await judicial response, one thing is certain: the sacramental seal is not negotiable. 🔝

¹ SB 5375, Washington State Legislature, 2025.
² Archdiocese of Seattle et al. v. State of Washington, filed 29 May 2025, U.S. District Court.
³ Codex Iuris Canonici (1983), can. 983 §1.
⁴ Becket Fund Press Release, 29 May 2025.
⁵ “Washington bishops sue over seal of confession,” CNA, 29 May 2025.
⁶ DOJ Religious Liberty Division Statement, 5 May 2025.
⁷ State v. Seal, Louisiana Supreme Court, 2016.

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FBI Disseminated Anti-Catholic Memo to Over 1,000 Staff: Concerns Over Targeting of Traditional Catholics Deepen

Newly released documents reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation distributed an internal memo portraying traditionalist Catholic groups as potential domestic threats to over 1,000 employees before retracting the controversial document.

The Richmond Memo: A Wider Distribution Than Previously Known
The original memo, leaked in early 2023 from the FBI’s Richmond Field Office, identified so-called “Radical Traditionalist Catholics” (RTCs) as likely recruitment targets for “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists.” While the FBI swiftly rescinded the memo after public backlash, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Heritage Foundation has now revealed that 1,241 FBI employees received the document before its withdrawal¹.

Critics argue this shows a systemic failure within the Bureau, not just a local lapse in judgment. “The memo never should have been approved, distributed, or drafted,” said Mike Howell, director of the Heritage Oversight Project, which obtained the documents. He added that the sheer scale of distribution “makes it impossible to write this off as one rogue analyst.”

Misunderstanding or Malice? Bureau Scrutiny of Traditional Catholics
The memo described RTCs as those who “reject the Second Vatican Council” and adhere to “anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology,” a generalisation many believe grossly misrepresents Catholic traditionalists. Catholic leaders, including Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond and members of Congress, condemned the document as a serious threat to religious liberty².

At the heart of the memo was the linking of legitimate Catholic religious practice—particularly the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings—with extremist ideology. The FBI even cited the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a source, an organisation long criticised for ideological bias and for labeling mainstream Christian groups as hate groups³.

Fallout and Broader Implications
While the FBI issued a retraction and claimed the memo did not reflect its institutional views, internal damage and public mistrust linger. A Congressional report released in August 2023 suggested the FBI had used surveillance tools to monitor Catholic churches and clergy under the guise of investigating extremism—a claim the Bureau denied, though it admitted to exploring “tripwire” informants within religious communities⁴.

This new revelation that over 1,200 employees received the memo raises renewed concerns about internal vetting procedures, ideological bias, and the potential for federal overreach into constitutionally protected religious spaces.

A Growing Pattern of Ideological Targeting?
This case is seen by many traditional Catholics as part of a broader cultural pattern. As theologian Dr. Peter Kwasniewski commented in the wake of the original memo, “What the memo revealed is not a legitimate security concern but a theological and liturgical prejudice masked in bureaucratic language.”⁵

Similarly, historian Tom Holland has warned of a creeping secular fundamentalism that regards orthodox Christianity as a cultural threat rather than a moral anchor⁶.

Conclusion
The disclosure that the FBI’s anti-Catholic memo reached such a large audience within the agency undermines prior claims of a localised misjudgment. It intensifies the call for accountability and greater transparency, especially as America’s Catholics—particularly traditionalists—navigate an increasingly hostile political and bureaucratic landscape. 🔝

¹ Heritage Foundation FOIA request results, as reported in Ground News, 12 June 2025.
² Bishop Barry Knestout, Statement on FBI Memo, Diocese of Richmond, February 2023.
³ SPLC report cited in the FBI memo, later criticised for ideological bias by National Review and First Things.
⁴ U.S. House Judiciary Committee Interim Report on FBI surveillance of Catholic groups, August 2023.
⁵ Peter Kwasniewski, Tradition and Treachery: How Bureaucracy Misreads the Faith, 2023.
⁶ Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, Harper, 2019.

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“The Monstrance Is a Monstrosity”: Public Mockery of the Eucharist and the Catholic Response

A Two-Front Assault on the Real Presence
Catholics across the United States are encountering a fresh wave of blasphemy and hostility toward the Holy Eucharist — not from legislatures or courts, but from streaming platforms and sidewalk agitators. In May and June 2025, two television shows aired scenes that mock the Blessed Sacrament with sacrilegious irreverence. Simultaneously, the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage has come under coordinated verbal assault from anti-Catholic protestors who have stalked pilgrims through multiple dioceses.

The convergence of these profanations signals more than media vulgarity or street theatre. They reveal a fundamental truth: the Eucharist still provokes, because the Eucharist still matters.

Media Desecration: From Sarcasm to Sacrilege
On May 24, Your Friends & Neighbors (Apple TV+) broadcast a scene in which a man enters a Catholic church, removes the ciborium from the tabernacle, mocks the Sacred Host as “crackers,” and distributes them to his ex-wife before initiating a sexual act on a pew¹.

On June 3, Hacks (HBO Max) featured a character irreverently receiving Communion and then splashing the Precious Blood on a priest’s vestments during a conflict².

CatholicVote responded with a public letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on June 5, denouncing the broadcast and launching a petition that exceeded 350,000 signatures in 72 hours³.

Fr. Gerald Murray, pastor and canonist, called the Apple episode “a vicious and intentional attack” and said it reflected “a mindset of hatred and venomous contempt for God and the Church”⁴. Fr. Robert Sirico added that the scene, however absurd, demonstrated the enduring symbolic weight of the Eucharist: “They want to attack Christ, so they attack the Eucharist”⁵.

The Pilgrimage Confronted: Mockery on the March
Meanwhile, the 3,340-mile National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which began in Indianapolis on May 18 and will conclude in Los Angeles on June 22, has been increasingly disrupted by organized protestors. Most visibly, members of the Church of Wells — a controversial sect based in East Texas — have followed the pilgrimage from Peoria through Oklahoma to Dallas⁶.

On June 4, protestors in Dallas shouted through bullhorns, carried children with inflammatory signs (“The monstrance is a monstrosity!”), and attempted to block parish entrances⁷.

“This is no longer incidental opposition,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress. “They’re trying to bait Catholics into a viral video moment. But we’ve instructed pilgrims to keep their eyes on the Eucharist and ignore them”⁸.

Bearing the Cross in Silence
Despite the harassment, pilgrims report spiritual growth. “My heart hurts,” said Leslie Reyes-Hernandez on June 6. “But it draws me deeper into prayer”⁹.

Fellow pilgrim Ace Acuña described the experience as a living Passion: “I didn’t expect this. But I’ve never prayed more fervently. It’s like walking the Way of the Cross”⁹.

Bishops and Clergy Speak Out
Several bishops have condemned both the media mockery and the protestors’ disruptions. Bishop Thomas Paprocki stated plainly: “This is Satan doing his work through the false lens of ‘art.’ But he only attacks what is true. The Eucharist is Jesus”¹⁰.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski reminded Catholics that hostility toward Christ’s Sacramental Presence mirrors His earthly ministry: “This should not surprise us”¹¹.

Msgr. Charles Pope wrote, “Satan doesn’t mock Methodist wafers. He mocks what is holy, because he fears it”¹².

Reparation, Not Retaliation
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that reparation for sin and sacrilege is made through “prayer, an offering, works of mercy, voluntary self-denial, and above all the patient acceptance of the cross”¹³.

Anthony DeStefano echoed this call in militant terms: “When the Eucharist is mocked, we don’t wring our hands — we go to our knees. Not in surrender, but in defiance”¹⁴.

What Catholics Must Do

• Make reparation: Organize Holy Hours, public Rosaries, and personal acts of penance.
• Restore reverence: Encourage kneeling for Communion, Eucharistic Adoration, and silence in church.
• Speak with clarity: Defend the Real Presence with words and actions.
• Walk with Christ: Join the pilgrimage, spiritually or physically.

As Jason Shanks said when asked if families should still attend: “The protestors are bringing their children. And we’re bringing Jesus”⁸.

Conclusion: The Presence that Provokes
The world mocked Christ in the streets of Jerusalem; it mocks Him still in digital streaming and on suburban sidewalks. Yet He remains — in every tabernacle, in every procession, in every whispered “Amen.”

Let Catholics respond to mockery not with outrage, but with fidelity. Let us kneel before the monstrance, mocked though it may be — for there is Christ, truly present, truly exposed, truly adored. 🔝

1. Your Friends & Neighbors, Apple TV+, Season 1, Episode 6, aired May 24, 2025.
2. Hacks, HBO Max, Season 3, Episode 2, aired June 3, 2025.
3. CatholicVote.org petition and letter, June 5, 2025.
4. Fr. Gerald Murray, statement to National Catholic Register, June 11, 2025.
5. Fr. Robert Sirico, interview with Register, June 11, 2025.
6. Jack Figge, The Pillar, “NEC pilgrims face protestors,” June 5, 2025.
7. The Pillar, ibid.
8. Jason Shanks, quoted in The Pillar, June 5, 2025.
9. Press conference, Reyes-Hernandez and Acuña, June 6, 2025.
10. Bp. Thomas Paprocki, National Catholic Register, June 11, 2025.
11. Abp. Thomas Wenski, ibid.
12. Msgr. Charles Pope, ibid.
13. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1459.
14. Anthony DeStefano, Register, June 11, 2025.

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The Time to Repent—or the Time to Manage? Fr. McTeigue’s Jeremiad on Vocations in America Contrasted with Global Trends

In a searing reflection on the collapse of priestly vocations and Catholic identity in the United States, Fr. Robert McTeigue paints a picture of institutional death masked by managerial optimism. His critique, trenchant and unrelenting, suggests not merely a personnel crisis but a spiritual one: a Church that no longer forms, attracts, or inspires its men.

Yet this American crisis does not look the same everywhere. While McTeigue outlines a Church in the West beset by apostasy, banality, and bureaucratic liturgy, Catholicism in the Global South—particularly in Africa and parts of Asia—shows markedly different signs. This expanded analysis will contrast McTeigue’s diagnosis with current global data and question whether the real division is not just geographic, but theological and anthropological.

McTeigue’s American Crisis
McTeigue locates the crisis of vocations in three principal failures:

1. The destruction of the Catholic family, brought about by an uncritical acceptance of contraception, divorce, and economic structures hostile to traditional life.
2. The desacralisation of worship, replaced by therapeutic moralism, insipid music, and effeminate liturgy incapable of inspiring masculine self-gift.
3. The refusal to name past errors, particularly the failure of postconciliar reforms in catechesis, religious life, and priestly formation.

The result? Parishes shuttering, young men absent from seminaries, and bishops offering index cards in pews while sidestepping the hard questions of doctrine and culture.

The African and Asian Exception
Yet, while dioceses in Boston and Chicago declare bankruptcy, the seminaries of Nigeria and Vietnam are overflowing. Consider the following data points:

• Nigeria now produces more vocations than nearly any country in the world. In 2023, the Diocese of Enugu had over 600 seminarians in formation—more than most entire countries in the West¹.
• In Vietnam, despite government persecution, vocations remain strong and are growing in some dioceses. Families in rural areas frequently encourage priestly vocations as a mark of honor and sacrifice².
• Uganda, home of the heroic St. Charles Lwanga and the martyrs, reports continued growth in both male and female vocations. The Church remains counter-cultural and robust³.

This begs the question: what accounts for the difference?

Culture, Worship, and Sacrifice
Where McTeigue sees tepid worship as inimical to male formation, global experience supports his thesis. Vocations flourish in communities that emphasize:

• Strong family life, especially where traditional roles are respected and fatherhood is honored.
• Reverent, beautiful liturgy, even where the Novus Ordo is celebrated, but done so with solemnity, chant, and seriousness.
• A clear theology of the priesthood, not as a social worker or institutional manager, but as alter Christus—one who offers sacrifice on behalf of the people.

In much of Africa and Asia, Catholicism is embraced not as a diluted humanism but as a demanding religion that calls men to self-denial, leadership, and martyrdom if necessary.

European Data: A Warning
Conversely, the situation in much of Europe aligns closely with McTeigue’s American diagnosis:

• In Germany, despite billions in Church tax revenue and an advanced bureaucracy, vocations have collapsed. In 2022, only 48 men were ordained in the entire country⁴.
• In France, dubbed “the eldest daughter of the Church,” the number of diocesan ordinations in 2023 was 88, despite a population of over 65 million. The archdiocese of Paris—once a powerhouse—now often ordains fewer than 5 men a year⁵.

The difference? In these countries, the “synodal path” has been fully embraced, preaching inclusion, listening, and structural reform rather than penitence, doctrine, and conversion.

Latin America: A Divided Picture
Latin America presents a more complex picture. While still producing many vocations, especially in rural areas, countries like Brazil are witnessing serious declines. As liberation theology, Pentecostalism, and cultural secularism grow, priestly vocations falter. The Amazon region in particular—where the 2019 Synod suggested relaxing celibacy—has become a battleground over the very meaning of the priesthood.

What the Global Trends Confirm
Fr. McTeigue’s conclusion that young men are not inspired by therapeutic religion but by heroic sacrifice finds clear support worldwide. The data suggest:

• Where family, liturgy, and doctrine are strong, vocations rise.
• Where bureaucracy, ambiguity, and horizontalism dominate, vocations collapse.

This aligns with Pope Benedict XVI’s oft-repeated observation: “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”⁶

Conclusion: The Church Must Choose
Fr. McTeigue’s American Jeremiad is not an isolated lament, but a warning echoed by global experience. Where the Church proclaims Christ crucified, forms men in sacrifice, and worships with awe and reverence, she continues to bear fruit. Where she flatters the culture and forgets her supernatural mission, she dies.

If there is to be a revival of priestly vocations, the Church in the West must stop managing decline and begin preaching repentance—not because the Church is doomed, but because her mission is eternal, and her God is not mocked. 🔝

1. Enugu Diocese Vocations Report 2023, Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria
2. Vietnam Catholic Bishops’ Conference 2023 Statistical Yearbook
3. Uganda Episcopal Conference Annual Report, 2023
4. German Bishops’ Conference Vocations Summary 2022
5. La Croix, “Ordinations en baisse,” June 2023
6. Benedict XVI, Homily at the Inauguration of His Pontificate, April 24, 2005

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USCCB Abuse Report 2024: Decline in Allegations, but Structural Problems Persist

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has released its latest annual report on the implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, covering the period from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024. Despite a noticeable decline in the number of abuse allegations since the post-McCarrick peak in 2019, the 2024 report reveals that the crisis of clerical sexual abuse—and its underlying cultural and theological dimensions—remains far from resolved.

902 Allegations, 717 Accused Clerics
A total of 902 new allegations of sexual abuse were reported by 855 survivors during the audit period, involving 717 clerics. This represents a significant drop from the 4,434 allegations reported in 2019, but remains a sobering figure. The majority of reports (61%) were submitted through attorneys, indicating a continued preference for legal intermediaries over ecclesiastical processes or pastoral outreach¹.

Current-Year Cases: A Minority, But Not Absent
Only 26 allegations involved abuse said to have occurred during the current reporting year. Of these, seven involved male minors, seventeen female minors, and two were of unspecified gender due to lack of detail². Just two cases were substantiated, while thirteen remain under investigation. Four were unsubstantiated, and four could not be proven. Notably, three cases were not reported to public authorities at the time of the audit³.

Credibility and Homosexual Abuse

Of the 902 allegations:

• 7% were deemed credible
• 5% unsubstantiated
• 26% under investigation
• 62% unable to be proven

More significantly, among allegations that were found credible:

• 84% of those involving diocesan clergy and
• 74% involving religious order members
  entailed same-sex abuse (i.e., male-on-male sexual misconduct)⁴.

This trend—long observed in previous reports—continues to challenge the post-conciliar narrative that frames the abuse crisis solely in terms of power and clericalism, ignoring the evident correlation with homosexual predation.

Financial Cost: Over $266 Million This Year Alone
The abuse crisis continues to exert a heavy financial toll on the Church in the United States. In the 2023–24 period, dioceses and eparchies paid out $242,799,401, including:

• $163.1 million in settlements
• $6.1 million in other payments to victims
• $63.4 million in attorneys’ fees
• $4.1 million in additional costs⁵

Religious institutes reported a further $23,565,150 in costs—likely an underestimate, given that only 64% of male religious institutes submitted data to the report⁶.

Since 2013, the total financial burden related to abuse claims has exceeded $2.28 billion, not including indirect costs such as declining trust, parish closures, and vocational attrition.

Child Protection Efforts Continue
On a more hopeful note, dioceses and religious orders together spent $36.5 million in 2023–24 on safeguarding programs and child protection initiatives⁷. These include safe environment training, background checks, and the work of diocesan review boards. Yet the marginalization of traditional Catholic teachings on sexual morality and the ongoing presence of dissent within seminaries and diocesan leadership undermine these otherwise sincere efforts.

Conclusion: Symptoms Treated, Causes Ignored
While the decline in current-year abuse cases reflects improved safeguards and perhaps some healing, the 2024 report underscores the unresolved root causes of the crisis: a loss of moral clarity, failures in seminary formation, and a culture of impunity in the episcopate. The persistence of same-sex abuse in substantiated claims demands renewed attention to the theological and spiritual dimensions of chastity and priesthood—areas largely neglected in the Charter’s implementation.

Without such reform, the Church in the United States risks managing the crisis administratively rather than confronting it prophetically. 🔝

¹ USCCB, 2024 Annual Report, p. 17.
² Ibid., p. 18.
³ Ibid., p. 19.
⁴ Ibid., p. 27.
⁵ Ibid., p. 31.
⁶ Ibid., p. 39.
⁷ Ibid., pp. 33, 41.

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Beneath the Decline: Why the 2024 USCCB Abuse Report Should Not Reassure Too Quickly

The release of the 2024 annual report by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People reveals both progress and peril. At first glance, the numbers seem encouraging: a steep decline in abuse allegations, fewer current cases involving minors, and continued investment in safeguarding. But behind these metrics lies a sobering truth: the American Church risks mistaking administrative containment for authentic renewal.

A Crisis Shrinking—or Receding from View?
With 902 allegations reported in the most recent audit year—down from over 4,400 in 2019—many will rightly breathe a sigh of relief. But as CNA and Catholic World Report have observed, most of these new reports concern abuse that occurred decades ago. Over half of the clerics accused are deceased¹. This reality shifts the question: are there truly fewer abuses occurring, or has public reckoning merely run its course for the time being?

Complacency Is the New Threat
According to OSV News, a growing concern is institutional complacency². Diocesan review boards—critical instruments in vetting allegations—are not uniformly operational or transparent. Moreover, participation in mandatory safe environment training programs has decreased in some dioceses. These signs suggest that some bishops may interpret the statistical decline as a reason to scale back reforms, rather than deepen their commitment.

A Church that fails to be vigilant is a Church that invites repetition.

Clericalism is Not the Only Pattern
The 2024 report again confirms a critical—but often ignored—detail: among credible cases, 84% of diocesan clergy abuse and 74% in religious orders involved same-sex abuse³. Yet the USCCB, and most Catholic media, continue to avoid naming this reality, preferring a language of abstract “misconduct” or blaming “clericalism.” This intellectual evasion hinders authentic reform. Any genuine renewal must reckon not only with structural failures, but with moral and theological distortions—especially regarding sexuality, celibacy, and formation.

Accountability Must Extend to the Episcopate
One of the lingering scandals of the abuse crisis is the absence of episcopal accountability. As National Catholic Register and others have noted, the USCCB’s reporting system contains no direct mechanism for evaluating bishops’ performance in handling allegations, other than self-reporting and audits conducted by third-party firms paid by the dioceses themselves⁴.

This glaring deficiency undermines public trust. Survivors, families, and faithful clergy have long called for a system where bishops are not merely reviewers but reviewed. Pope Francis’s 2019 Vos Estis Lux Mundi has offered some structure for this, but implementation remains patchy and often opaque.

Survivors Need More Than Settlements
While financial compensation continues—$242.8 million by dioceses in 2023–24 alone—the report also notes that 1,434 survivors received pastoral or psychological care during the audit period⁵. This is commendable. But money alone cannot heal spiritual wounds. The Church must recommit to long-term accompaniment, truth-telling, and visible contrition.

Toward Reform Rooted in Holiness
If the Church hopes to emerge from this crisis purified, not merely less scandal-prone, it must renew its interior life: a return to holiness in the clergy, orthodoxy in teaching, integrity in governance, and justice for the wounded. Administrative reports, however necessary, are not substitutes for repentance. The true audit is not statistical but spiritual.

As one bishop recently told Nuntiatoria privately: “We cannot manage our way out of this crisis. We must be converted out of it.” 🔝

¹ Catholic World Report, “USCCB abuse report: Allegations and costs down,” June 10, 2025.
² OSV News, “Complacency is the next threat, not crisis,” June 11, 2025.
³ USCCB, 2024 Annual Report, p. 27.
⁴ National Catholic Register, “Credibility and oversight still lacking,” June 10, 2025.
⁵ USCCB, 2024 Annual Report, p. 20.

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Pride and Apostasy at Canterbury: The Fall of a Sacred Trust — And Signs of Hope

The rainbow flag flew once more above one of the oldest Christian educational institutions in the world this June. The King’s School, Canterbury — founded in 597 by St. Augustine of Canterbury to bring the Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons — marked “Pride Month” by hoisting the banner of sexual revolution above its historic halls, nestled beside Canterbury Cathedral, the former seat of Catholic England.

The Rainbow Above Canterbury
That the school borne of England’s baptism now parades itself under the colours of disordered sexual ideology represents not only a local tragedy but a national one. Catholic theologian Gavin Ashenden, himself an alumnus of the school, mourns the capitulation: “Their morality is one that surrenders… the Christianity that has been celebrated in this place for over one and a half thousand years.”¹

As England forgets that June is traditionally consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the country’s once-Christian institutions now devote it to Pride — parades celebrating sin, not sacraments; ideology, not identity in Christ. The King’s School is not alone. Eton College and other prestigious schools now adopt the same programme of “inclusion,” publicly advancing what Ashenden rightly identifies as a “new pagan collectivism.”²

Canterbury Cathedral itself has not resisted the trend. In 2024, the Anglican dean, an openly homosexual clergyman, permitted multiple “silent discos” in the nave — including one on the Feast of the Assumption.³ The symbolism is unambiguous: sacred spaces, emptied of holiness, are repurposed for revelry in defiance of the Church’s moral witness.

A Wider Crisis: Middlesbrough’s Scandalous Apostasy
This capitulation is not confined to Canterbury. The Diocese of Middlesbrough, under Bishop Terence Drainey, offers perhaps the most egregious example of episcopal complicity in LGBT+ activism. In 2022, Bishop Drainey called for the Church to re-examine its teaching on “sexuality, gender and identity… in light of modern scientific discoveries and of the lived experience of people with different sexualities.”⁴

This agenda is now institutionalized in the diocese’s official LGBT+ Ministry, coordinated by Fr Tony Lester, whose April and May 2025 newsletters promote scandalous falsehoods and gender ideology. In April, Fr Lester celebrated “Brother” Christian Matson — a biological woman living as a man and styling herself the first “transgender religious.” Matson’s talk, advertised as “appropriate for the whole family,” was held up as a model of inclusion.⁵

In May, Fr Lester praised the activism of Maxwell Kusma, another biological woman identifying as a “transgender man,” who attacked the Vatican’s 2024 document reaffirming scientific reality and Church doctrine on sex and gender.⁶ Neither newsletter acknowledges the unambiguous biological and moral truths articulated in Catholic teaching:

“Sex is defined by how that organism is structured to function during the reproductive act… This is why sex is a binary trait.”⁷
“Intersex conditions are not additional sexes on a spectrum; they are rare disorders… not identities.”⁸
“Catholic health care services must not perform interventions… that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex.”⁹

The Ministry’s chairman, Dr Johan Bergström-Allen — an openly homosexual layman — also called publicly on BBC Radio Five Live for the Catechism to be rewritten, arguing that Scripture and doctrine must be brought into line with “updated science.”¹⁰

A Wound in the Side of the Church
These distortions are not mere misunderstandings; they are organised campaigns to subvert Catholic moral teaching from within. The diocese’s leadership does not propose repentance or chastity, but affirmation and “celebration” of grave sin. Bishop Drainey’s silence in the face of heresy — and at times his explicit endorsement — is a wound in the side of the Church.

It is all the more tragic because it contradicts the clear and urgent witness of Pope Leo XIV. In his recent statement, the Holy Father affirmed that “harmonious and peaceful societies” depend on the family, founded on the union of man and woman — “a small but genuine society, and prior to all civil society.”¹¹

Faithful Catholics must therefore, in a spirit of charity and filial respect, resist these distortions. John Smeaton rightly exhorts the faithful to write to Bishop Drainey and respectfully oppose this scandal.¹²

Signs of Hope: Fewer Flags, More Faith
And yet, not all is lost. While rainbow flags still fly, they are fewer this year. Beneath the surface of this apostasy, signs of renewal stir. The English Dominicans recently announced their largest class of novices in three decades. Fr Thomas Crean OP commented: “Where sin abounded, grace did more abound” (Rom. 5:20).¹³

Gavin Ashenden proposes that the return to the Sacred Heart is not only fitting but necessary: “True love confronts disorder… Paganism fell once before at the feet of the Sacred Heart. If Catholics return to this most sacred of devotions, it will fall again.”¹⁴ 🔝

1. Gavin Ashenden, quoted in Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register, 11 June 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Diocese of Middlesbrough Synod Consultation Synthesis, April 2022.
5. Middlesbrough LGBT+ Ministry Newsletter, April 2025.
6. Middlesbrough LGBT+ Ministry Newsletter, May 2025.
7. The New Atlantis, Issue 50, Fall 2016.
8. Sax, L. “How Common is Intersex?” J. Sex Res., Aug 2002.
9. USCCB, Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body, 20 March 2023.
10. BBC Radio Five Live interview, April 2025; cited in Voice of the Family Digest, May 2025.
11. Pope Leo XIV, Address to the Diplomatic Corps, May 2025.
12. John Smeaton, Catholic Action UK, 11 June 2025.
13. National Catholic Register, 10 June 2025.
14. Gavin Ashenden, The Catholic Herald, June 2025.

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Catholics Urged to Resist Bishop Drainey’s Promotion of LGBT+ Ideology

John Smeaton’s 11 June 2025 commentary highlights growing concern among faithful Catholics regarding the activities of Bishop Terence Drainey of Middlesbrough, who continues to promote LGBT+ ideology under the guise of pastoral ministry. At a time when Pope Leo XIV has reaffirmed the Church’s perennial doctrine on marriage and the natural law, Bishop Drainey’s approach—explicitly calling for a re-examination of Church teaching in light of “modern scientific discoveries” and the “lived experience” of those identifying as LGBT+—has been seen as a direct challenge to the magisterium¹.

Fr Tony Lester, coordinator of the diocesan LGBT+ ministry, reinforces this dissent in successive newsletters. In April 2025, he promoted a talk by “Brother” Christian Matson, a woman living as a man, praised as “the first openly transgender religious,” and welcomed by Bishop Stowe in Lexington. In May, Fr Lester gave sympathetic attention to the complaints of Maxwell Kusma, a “transgender man” who criticised the Vatican’s rejection of gender ideology. In neither instance did Fr Lester acknowledge either Church teaching or the scientific consensus on human sexual dimorphism².

Smeaton contrasts this with clear Catholic moral guidance: the Church teaches that medical interventions aimed at “transforming” sexual characteristics are gravely immoral, even while affirming compassion for those suffering from gender dysphoria⁵. He cites respected scientific research affirming the binary nature of sex³ and clarifying that so-called “intersex” conditions are rare disorders, not alternative sexes⁴.

Equally troubling is the media activism of Dr Johan Bergström-Allen, openly homosexual chairman of the diocesan LGBT+ Ministry and member of the diocesan communications team. Following the election of Pope Leo XIV, Bergström-Allen appeared on BBC Radio to call for a revision of the Church’s teaching that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” His views were rebutted by theologian Dr Alan Fimister, who affirmed that neither Scripture nor science provides grounds for doctrinal revision.

Smeaton concludes by calling on faithful Catholics to resist such scandal with respectful firmness. In light of Pope Leo XIV’s recent reaffirmation of the family as the foundation of a just society, Catholics have both the right and duty to defend the deposit of faith against ideological subversion. Letters of filial concern may be sent to Bishop Drainey at 16 Cambridge Road, Middlesbrough, TS5 5NN, or via email: bishopsecretary@rcdmidd.org.uk. 🔝

1. Parish Consultation Diocesan Synthesis, Synod on Synodality, Diocese of Middlesbrough, April 2022.
2. Transgender Belief in Pediatrics: A Call to Heal Minds, Embrace Bodies, Save Lives, The John Paul II Academy for Human Life and the Family, Spring 2025.
3. McHugh, P.R. & Meyer, L.S. “Sexuality and Gender,” The New Atlantis, No. 50, Fall 2016, p. 90.
4. Sax, L. “How Common is Intersex?” Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 39(3), 2002.
5. USCCB, Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body, 20 March 2023.

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St. Charles Lwanga and the Ugandan Martyrs: A Witness Against Lust, Cowardice, and False Pride

A Light in the Fire
In an age obsessed with personal autonomy and the gratification of desire, the example of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions blazes like a fire of contradiction. The young Ugandan catechumen, martyred on June 3, 1886, stood not only against the political tyranny of his day but also against the spiritual tyranny of lust — a tyranny which still enslaves countless souls today.

Lwanga, chief page in the court of King Mwanga II of Buganda, protected his fellow pages from the predatory advances of the king. Many of these pages were young boys, vulnerable to the whims of a monarch given over to his passions. Lwanga, himself a convert and still new in the Faith, chose to become a spiritual father and guardian, risking his life to shield others from the violation of their innocence. This is the heart of fatherhood: to lay down one’s life for the good of the weak, to preserve their purity, to stand in the breach.

Purity is Power
Our world mocks chastity as repression and upholds lust as liberation. Yet St. Charles Lwanga proves the opposite. He was free because he was chaste. The king, despite his throne and harem, was enslaved — to pride, to lust, and finally to rage when his desires were thwarted. It was this spiritual slavery that drove him to murder.

As King Mwanga’s wrath intensified, Lwanga did not waver. The night before their arrest, he secretly baptized four catechumens, including St. Kizito, just 13 years old. He prepared them not only for martyrdom but for eternity. That courage, rooted in purity and fidelity, gives us a profound witness of what it means to live — and die — for Christ.

Spiritual Fatherhood in a Fatherless Age
Charles Lwanga was not a biological father. But in every way that matters, he fulfilled the vocation of fatherhood. He taught the Faith, guarded the weak, and gave his life rather than surrender those under his care to evil. In a culture that scorns the authority and responsibility of men — reducing fatherhood to a biological fact or a disposable role — Lwanga’s legacy is revolutionary. He proves that spiritual fatherhood is not only possible, but necessary.

He is the antidote to a world in which men are taught to abdicate, to seduce, or to hide. In the face of evil, he stood up. And when the flames reached his feet, he forgave. “You’re burning me,” he told his executioners, “but it’s like water you’re pouring to wash me. Please repent and become a Christian like me.”^1

A Prophetic Witness for Our Time
The Ugandan Martyrs are especially relevant in June, now widely known as “Pride Month.” Against the backdrop of celebration for identities built around the disordered use of human sexuality, the witness of these young men — many teenagers — offers a painful but hopeful contrast. They remind us that the body is not a tool for pleasure or power, but a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19). And they show us that true pride is found in fidelity to Christ, not in rebellion against His law.

The Church in Uganda Today
The blood of the martyrs has borne fruit. Uganda today is approximately 36% Catholic and 29% Anglican, with over 80% of the population professing Christianity. The Uganda Martyrs’ Shrine in Namugongo remains one of Africa’s most visited pilgrimage sites — a place where their sacrifice is remembered, and their intercession sought.

When Pope Paul VI canonized the 22 Catholic martyrs in 1964, he declared: “These African martyrs herald the dawn of a new age. If only the mind of man might be directed, not toward the pursuit of destruction, but toward the love of Christ and the building up of His Body, the Church!”^2

A Call to Courage
In a world increasingly hostile to Christian witness, especially in the realm of sexual ethics, St. Charles Lwanga and his companions challenge us not to compromise. They call bishops and priests to defend the purity of the young, to teach without fear, and to lead with the strength of martyrs. They call parents to raise saints. And they call young people to pursue holiness, even when it costs everything.

Ugandan Martyrs, pray for us — especially the young, especially the tempted, and especially the timid. 🔝

¹ From the Acta Sanctorum and traditional accounts cited during the canonization process of the Ugandan Martyrs.
² Homily of Pope Paul VI, Canonization of the Ugandan Martyrs, October 18, 1964.

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Catholic Priest Abducted by Boko Haram in Borno State—Another Blow to Religious Freedom in Nigeria

A Nigerian Catholic priest formerly serving in the United States has been abducted by Boko Haram militants in the embattled northeastern state of Borno. The attack occurred on 1 June 2025, when Reverend Alphonsus “Daniel” Afina and his companions were ambushed by insurgents near a military checkpoint on the Gwoza–Limankara Road. One person was killed, several were injured, and nine others were seized alongside Fr Afina.

A Priest in the Line of Fire
Fr Daniel Afina had recently returned to Nigeria after years of missionary service in the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska (2017–2024), where he was known for his work in remote indigenous communities. At the time of his abduction, he was serving as project coordinator for a Christian NGO involved in humanitarian outreach in northern Nigeria.

According to reports, Boko Haram launched a sudden assault using rocket-propelled grenades against the convoy transporting Afina and NGO personnel. A staff member was killed during the attack, while others sustained injuries. Boko Haram later confirmed they had taken Fr Afina captive and allowed him to contact both his family and ecclesiastical superiors. His bishop in Alaska confirmed the communication.

A Pattern of Targeting Clergy
This abduction follows a disturbing pattern of escalating attacks on Catholic clergy and religious workers in Nigeria. According to the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, dozens of priests and seminarians have been abducted in recent years, many by Islamist groups including Boko Haram and its splinter faction ISWAP (Islamic State in West Africa Province). Some have been murdered, others ransomed, and many remain missing.

Fr Afina’s capture reaffirms fears expressed by Nigerian bishops that the country is failing to protect Christian communities and religious personnel in zones plagued by jihadist insurgency. The Diocese of Maiduguri, which encompasses Borno State, has been among the hardest hit. Entire parishes have been destroyed, and priests continue to risk their lives to provide the sacraments and coordinate aid.

The Silence of the State
To date, there has been no official statement from the Nigerian government regarding Fr Afina’s abduction. Neither the military nor the Ministry of Internal Affairs has confirmed any efforts toward his rescue. This silence is consistent with the Nigerian authorities’ broader failure to stem the tide of Islamist violence, despite repeated international appeals and billions in security funding.

In a May 2025 statement, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto lamented: “When pastors are abducted, it is not just the life of one man that is threatened. It is the voice of conscience being silenced, and a nation’s failure being exposed.”¹

The Witness of Martyrdom and Fidelity
The story of Fr Afina is not only one of violence but also of missionary courage. His willingness to return to Nigeria and minister in areas known for danger speaks to a deeper reality of priestly sacrifice. Like so many others—Bishop Michael Eneja of Enugu, martyred seminarians like Michael Nnadi, and the countless faithful who continue to worship under threat—Fr Afina embodies the Church’s undying witness in the face of evil.

As one former parishioner in Alaska noted, “He always said the Lord would never ask him to run away from danger if souls were in need. Now we see he meant it.”

A Call to Prayer and Advocacy
As the Church continues to face persecution across Nigeria, Catholics are urged to pray for Fr Afina and those kidnapped with him. Traditional Catholic communities are especially asked to offer Masses and Rosaries for their release and for the conversion of their captors.

International bodies and the Holy See must also renew pressure on the Nigerian government to prioritize religious freedom and civilian protection—not merely in words, but in coordinated action.

Latin Prayer for the Captives
Domine Iesu Christe, qui dixisti: “Pacem relinquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis,” libera famulum tuum Danielem et omnes capti, ab omni periculo, et da eis fiduciam in tua misericordia. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

English Translation
Lord Jesus Christ, who said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you,” deliver your servant Daniel and all those taken captive from every danger, and grant them trust in your mercy. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. 🔝

¹ Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, Sokoto Diocese, statement on Christian persecution, May 2025.
² AP News, “Nigerian Catholic priest who had recently served in the US abducted by extremists,” June 2025.
³ Ground News, “Boko Haram Abducts Catholic Priest, 9 Others, Kills 1 in Borno,” June 2025.
⁴ Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria, “Annual Report on Clergy Safety,” 2024.

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In Other News…

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Riots in Ballymena: From Vigil to Violence in Northern Ireland

What began as a solemn show of support for a local victim of alleged sexual assault has rapidly devolved into some of the worst civil disorder seen in Northern Ireland in years. Riots have erupted in Ballymena and spread to surrounding towns, fuelled by anti-immigrant sentiment, social media agitation, and longstanding tensions over crime, identity, and community trust¹.

The Trigger: A Local Crime with Wider Consequences
On 7 June, two 14-year-old boys were arrested in connection with the attempted rape of a teenage girl in Ballymena². The appearance of a Romanian interpreter in court quickly became the focus of rumour and outrage, despite police caution against assumptions³. Though neither accused has been publicly identified by nationality, speculation on social media played a decisive role in inflaming tensions⁴.

A vigil was held on 9 June in support of the victim’s family. While initially peaceful, it soon fractured. A large crowd diverted to Clonavon Terrace—the site of the alleged attack—and a mob began attacking homes and vehicles, throwing petrol bombs, bricks, and fireworks at police and emergency responders⁵.

Escalation: Disorder Masquerading as Justice
The following nights saw further escalation. Over 32 PSNI officers were injured as police deployed water cannon and plastic baton rounds to regain control⁶. Violence extended to Larne, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey, and Belfast, where fire was set to a leisure centre being used for emergency accommodation⁷. The PSNI have made multiple arrests and are pursuing further suspects with the help of CCTV and mobile footage⁸.

While initially justified by some rioters as a demand for justice, the violence has increasingly targeted immigrant families—many from Eastern Europe, the Philippines, and South Asia⁹. Some residents have placed Union Jacks or signs reading “Filipino family here” on their doors to avoid being attacked¹⁰.

Political and Ecclesial Reaction
Northern Ireland’s political leaders, including First Minister Michelle O’Neill, have condemned the riots unequivocally¹¹. PSNI Chief Superintendent Gillian Kearney described the events as “racist thuggery,” while urging the public not to allow “misinformation or prejudice” to drive violence¹².

There has been widespread public sorrow for the victim and concern for the welfare of vulnerable foreign families now caught in the crossfire. Some churches in the area have opened their doors as shelters and gathering points for community prayer and dialogue¹³.

Analysis: Moral Confusion and the Collapse of Order
What we are witnessing is not simply the reaction to a heinous crime, but the collapse of communal trust and the dangerous vacuum left by decades of moral relativism and political inconsistency¹⁴. A society unable to affirm the rule of law or the dignity of all human life—native or foreign—breeds chaos under the guise of justice¹⁵. Vigilantism and racism are not substitutes for righteousness.

For the faithful, this moment calls not only for prayer, but for firm witness: justice for the innocent, protection of the vulnerable, and peace based on truth, not hysteria. Catholics must remember the admonition of Pope St. John Paul II: *”A society that permits injustice, under whatever guise, lays the foundation for its own destruction”*¹⁶. 🔝

1. Time Magazine, “What to Know About the Northern Ireland Riots,” 11 June 2025.
2. The Times (UK), “Teenage Boys in Court After Ballymena Assault,” 8 June 2025.
3. Belfast Telegraph, “Police Urge Calm Over Online Speculation,” 9 June 2025.
4. Washington Post, “Anti-immigrant Riots Follow Sex Assault Arrests in Northern Ireland,” 11 June 2025.
5. The Guardian, “Second Night of Rioting in Ballymena,” 10 June 2025.
6. BBC News NI, “Over 30 Officers Injured in Ballymena Violence,” 11 June 2025.
7. Irish News, “Larne Leisure Centre Set Alight Amid Spreading Disorder,” 11 June 2025.
8. PSNI Press Release, “Update on Ballymena Public Disorder Investigation,” 12 June 2025.
9. Sky News, “Immigrant Families Targeted in Northern Ireland Riots,” 11 June 2025.
10. Times of India, “Filipino and Romanian Families Mark Homes to Avoid Attack,” 11 June 2025.
11. Northern Ireland Executive Press Office, “First Minister Condemns Riots,” 11 June 2025.
12. PSNI Media Centre, Remarks by C.Supt. Kearney, 11 June 2025.
13. Church Times, “Local Churches Open Doors to Riot Victims,” 11 June 2025.
14. Benedict XVI, Address to the German Bundestag, 22 September 2011.
15. Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§1956–1960; cf. Romans 2:14–15.
16. Pope St. John Paul II, Homily at Yankee Stadium, New York, 2 October 1979.

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Britain on the Brink: Civil Unrest, Identity Collapse, and the Crisis of Legitimacy

As Britain faces its gravest legitimacy crisis in generations, serious voices—from former Downing Street advisers to academic specialists—are warning that the country may be sliding toward civil unrest. While officialdom continues its self-soothing rituals, a growing body of evidence points to a nation at risk of fragmentation along lines of identity, class, and trust.

The Crisis of Legitimacy
According to David Betts, an academic affiliated with King’s College London, Britain exhibits many of the key markers of a state drifting toward internal collapse. Drawing on established civil conflict literature, Betts highlights three central symptoms: elite overreach, collapsing trust in institutions, and factional polarization based on identity rather than policy¹. These are not speculative claims. Betts’s analysis is grounded in official government data on social cohesion, academic consensus on civil war causes, and the observable breakdown in Britain’s political and civic life.

Dominic Cummings, former adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, corroborates this grim picture. In recent interviews, Cummings described the UK government as a hollowed-out administrative state where unelected bureaucrats wield more power than elected ministers². He states that ordinary voters increasingly view politics as a “fake TV show,” and now speak of civil conflict not as a fringe fantasy but a practical concern.

Multiculturalism Without Integration
One of the core themes in Betts’s recent writings is the structural instability produced by decades of immigration policy divorced from integration. He argues that Britain has become a “jigsaw puzzle of identity-based tribes”³—communities living in cultural isolation, often competing over access to public resources. In such a society, the traditional foundations of law, norms, and national identity cannot hold. Without a shared pre-political loyalty, civic cohesion dissolves into tension and factionalism⁴.

This concern has been echoed by politicians across the spectrum, including David Cameron, who in 2011 conceded that “state multiculturalism has failed.” Yet policies have not only remained unchanged—they have intensified, with successive governments adopting frameworks (such as anti-Islamophobia definitions) that critics say criminalize dissent⁵.

The Expectation Gap
Another concept central to Betts’s thesis is the “expectation gap”—the distance between what citizens believe democratic participation can achieve, and the unchanging reality of political paralysis. British voters have repeatedly demanded lower immigration, safer streets, and improved public services. Yet nothing changes. Politicians make promises, but courts, treaties, and bureaucratic inertia prevent action. This leads to a sense of betrayal and fuels public contempt for all institutions⁶.

Cummings describes this as a kind of mass political despair. Britons outside Westminster increasingly feel abandoned: wages have stagnated, infrastructure crumbles, and crime is visible and unpunished. In contrast, elites remain insulated from these pressures—retaining wealth, access, and cultural authority⁷.

Precursor Incidents and Flashpoints
Betts and Darnton draw attention to recent riots in Northern Ireland as an example of how quickly identity-based violence can erupt. There, masked youths attacked police in response to an alleged sexual assault involving foreign nationals. While such an event might once have remained localized, it quickly escalated, drawing in national media and igniting broader resentment⁸.

Similar dynamics are unfolding across Europe and the United States. In Los Angeles, violent protests erupted after immigration enforcement actions. Betts warns that Britain often lags behind the U.S. by five to ten years—meaning such scenes may soon play out here.

Statistical Forecast and Policy Paralysis
Betts estimates, based on civil conflict literature, that in a country exhibiting the risk factors Britain now does, the chance of civil conflict each year is roughly 4%. Over five years, this accumulates to an 18.5% probability of unrest or insurgency⁹. These numbers are not absolute predictions, but serious indicators derived from existing models and data.

Meanwhile, political responses remain wholly inadequate. Both major parties—Labour and Conservative—acknowledge voter concerns but are unable or unwilling to address them. Britain remains shackled to international treaties, judicial activism, and administrative inertia. Even senior civil servants privately admit the system cannot reform itself¹⁰.

Low-Level Lawlessness and Social Resentment
The perception that Britain now operates a two-tier justice system is widespread. High-profile incidents—from lenient sentences for violent crimes to obvious failures to stop illegal immigration—convey a message of selective enforcement and institutional bias¹¹. Petty crimes, unpunished fare-dodging, and nightly reports of illegal Channel crossings all feed the sense that the rule of law no longer applies equally.

As Betts notes, this leads to what he calls the “breaking of the spell” of legitimacy. Once citizens no longer believe that the system is just, trust evaporates and political violence becomes thinkable. In Betts’s chilling words: “If you have legitimacy, you have no insurgent problem. If you lose it, you will.”

What Comes Next?
Betts warns that civil conflict in Britain is unlikely to begin as a dramatic rupture. Instead, it will resemble a Latin American–style “dirty war,” starting with chronic low-level violence and growing into something more destructive. Strategic attacks on urban infrastructure, rising rural-urban division, and increasingly hardened identity blocs could spiral into systemic failure.

Unless a radical, truthful reckoning takes place soon—one that restores national cohesion, renews legitimacy, and insists on real integration—the conditions for unrest will only deepen. Britain, Betts and Cummings suggest, is not unique in this. France, the U.S., and other Western nations are walking the same knife-edge. But Britain, they warn, may be among the first to fall. 🔝

¹ Betts, David. “The Coming Crisis of the West,” UnHerd, 2024.
² Cummings, Dominic. Interview with Sky News, May 2025.
³ Betts, David. “Multiculturalism Without Integration,” The Telegraph, April 2025.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ “Labour’s Islamophobia Definition Could Criminalise Free Speech,” The Critic, February 2025.
⁶ Betts, David. “Expectation Gap and Civil Disorder,” The Darnton Report, March 2025.
⁷ Cummings, Dominic. “Collapse of Trust in Westminster,” The New Culture Forum, 2025.
⁸ “Riots in Ballymena After Sexual Assault Allegations,” The Telegraph, June 2025.
⁹ Betts, David. “Conflict Forecasting in the UK,” The Darnton Report, 2025.
¹⁰ “System Paralysis and the Deep State,” UnHerd Interviews, 2025.
¹¹ “Two-Tier Justice System?” Justice Watch UK, May 2025.

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Britain’s Burden of Elite Guilt: How Moral Psychosis Undermines the Nation

In a searching and provocative conversation with Winston Marshall, Times columnist and former Olympian Matthew Syed offered a wide-ranging critique of Britain’s ruling class and their tendency toward moral self-flagellation. What emerged was not only a defence of British civilisational achievement, but an urgent warning: the internalised shame of Western elites is not merely misguided—it is disabling our national ability to think and act in our own defence.

A Moral Psychosis at the Heart of Power
Syed’s thesis is stark. “A succession of ministerial flubs,” he writes, “has jeopardised our future with a moral psychosis that has spread through elite consciousness.”¹ This psychosis manifests most clearly in post-colonial guilt—a pervasive belief among those in law, politics, and culture that Britain’s historical record is not only imperfect (a reasonable position) but irredeemably evil. Such a framework encourages leaders to see Britain not as a nation worth preserving, but as an empire that must continually pay penance.

This explains, in part, our government’s repeated retreats in cases like the Chagos Islands, where Britain has already paid reparations to displaced islanders but now finds itself subject to fresh demands driven by international lawyers such as Philippe Sands. These actors, Syed argues, seem emotionally invested in British defeat.² The same applies to the asylum crisis, where judicial interpretations of outdated post-war treaties render deportation nearly impossible—despite public opposition and repeated electoral mandates.

The Rewriting of British History
According to Syed, this elite guilt distorts our moral lens: Britain’s abolition of the slave trade, the Africa Squadron’s tireless patrols, and the empire’s foundational role in spreading the rule of law are buried beneath a selective narrative of exploitation.³ Celebrated historians like Nigel Biggar, who attempt to offer a more nuanced view of empire, find themselves marginalised.⁴ Publishing houses and media institutions, Syed notes, now fear even the suggestion that Britain’s legacy might include anything good.

This self-contempt is not merely academic. It undergirds policies on net zero (“We polluted first, therefore we must pay first”), immigration (“We oppressed their ancestors, therefore we must accept all who arrive”), and military spending (“We are unworthy of national self-defence”).⁵ And because this narrative is rarely challenged, the working-class majority—who remain instinctively patriotic—are governed by people increasingly alienated from their own nation.

How Britain Became “WEIRD”
To explain the psychological root of this phenomenon, Syed draws on the work of Joseph Henrich, whose acronym WEIRD—Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic—captures the unique moral outlook of modern liberal societies.⁶ Unlike clan-based cultures where trust is localised and nepotism expected, the West historically built systems of trust that transcended kinship: the common law, impartial judiciary, merit-based hiring, and the moral universality of Christian ethics.

Much of this transformation, Syed observes, stemmed from the Church’s medieval prohibition on cousin marriage, a rule which broke down tribal structures in Europe and fostered intermarriage across local boundaries.⁷ Over time, these restrictions led to the emergence of the nation-state. In England, St. Augustine’s mission initiated a cultural shift that ultimately enabled King Alfred to unite warring tribes through a shared religion, language, legal code, and history.

In contrast, in tribal societies like Pakistan—where Syed’s father was born—cousin marriage and clan-based loyalty remain strong. Syed recounts how bribes are seen not as corruption but as moral redistribution within the tribe.⁸ The lesson? Britain’s rise was not inevitable but the product of deep, long-standing cultural reform that fostered trust, cooperation, and broad-based civic identity.

The Weaponisation of Guilt
Today, those hard-won civilisational goods are under attack—not from without, but from within. The elite narrative reduces British identity to a one-dimensional story of oppression, inviting international courts and activist lawyers to rewrite our sovereignty. Meanwhile, external adversaries like Russia and China exploit this guilt, knowing that destabilising the developing world increases migration pressure on the West.⁹ As Syed notes: “Asylum is asymmetrical.” Migrants do not flee to Beijing or Tehran. They come to London, Paris, and New York. Why? Because Western civilisation works.

Yet our leaders seem determined to apologise for its success. Elite lawyers like Richard Hermer, Syed notes, have built careers on defending individuals who joined ISIS or fought against British interests.¹⁰ The refusal to deport dangerous individuals is not due to lack of evidence—but due to an inherited ideology that interprets Western power as inherently unjust.

Diversity, Unity, and the Purpose of Nations
In one of the most passionate sections of the interview, Syed tackles the modern obsession with “diversity.” He draws a crucial distinction between cognitive diversity, which strengthens problem-solving, and box-ticking identity quotas, which weaken meritocracy and obscure real forms of difference.¹¹ Unity, he argues, is a necessary precondition of diversity. Without a shared national purpose—without being British together—diversity becomes fragmentation.

Syed compares this to sports: Olympic patriotism involves cheering for one’s nation while respecting others. It is not chauvinism, but constructive pride.¹² Nationalism, rightly understood, is a force for cohesion and common good. But today, nationalism is smeared as xenophobia, even while foreign authoritarian regimes cultivate intense national loyalty.

Conclusion: Time for Moral Clarity
Syed’s analysis invites a sober but necessary conclusion. Britain is not suffering from a deficit of resources or ability—it is suffering from a deficit of moral confidence. Our elite institutions are trapped in a cycle of performative guilt, blind to their hypocrisy, and disconnected from the majority they claim to lead. They have mistaken shame for virtue and forgotten that nations, like individuals, cannot thrive if they despise themselves.

If the West is to endure, its leaders must learn to tell the truth about its past—not to glorify it, but to see it whole. The story of Britain includes injustice, yes, but also immense courage, sacrifice, invention, and global good. To erase that legacy is not humility. It is historical vandalism. And in the world we now face, such moral confusion is not only indulgent—it may prove fatal. 🔝

¹ Matthew Syed, The Times, “How Elite Guilt Is Undermining Britain,” 2024.
² Syed criticises Sands’s The Last Colony for emotionally driven, partial advocacy against Britain.
³ The Africa Squadron (1807–1867) captured over 1,600 slave ships and freed an estimated 150,000 slaves.
⁴ See Nigel Biggar, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (William Collins, 2023).
⁵ On net zero ideology as elite penance, see Syed interview timestamp 25:00–26:00.
⁶ Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous (FSG, 2020).
⁷ Bans on cousin marriage were enforced by the Church from the 6th century, encouraging exogamy and state formation.
⁸ Syed recounts visiting Pakistan, where bribery and nepotism are culturally endorsed within clan networks.
⁹ See Syed, timestamp 37:00–38:00, on Russia’s strategic interest in refugee flows destabilising the West.
¹⁰ Hermer represented Shamima Begum, al-Qaeda affiliates, and argued against deportation of convicted terrorists.
¹¹ See Syed’s Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking (John Murray, 2019).
¹² See Syed, timestamp 56:44–57:03, on nationalism in sport as a model of civic solidarity.

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Faith, Fiction, and the Meaning Crisis
Why Christianity Alone Offers a Path Through the West’s Cultural Collapse

We cannot solve the meaning crisis without Christianity. That is the central claim running through a recent long-form interview with commentator Conor Tomlinson—a claim increasingly echoed across the post-liberal right, in pulpits, podcasts, and print alike. In a wide-ranging discussion that touches on masculinity, political decay, online radicalism, and spiritual hunger, Tomlinson returns repeatedly to the idea that the West is perishing not for lack of data or democracy, but for lack of faith.

This essay evaluates the key arguments from that conversation, particularly where Christianity, narrative, and meaning intersect. In doing so, we draw upon the works of C.S. Lewis, Tom Holland, and, where helpful, Bishop Robert Barron, to illuminate and test the claims made.

Truth, Science, and the Collapse of Moral Authority
Tomlinson begins by challenging the New Atheist assumption that truth and morality can be derived from science alone. Scientific knowledge, he argues, is not self-justifying: without an ethical framework that values truth as a good in itself, science becomes a mere tool of power.

“You can’t build a binding consensus off the basis of scientific observations or rational thought experiments,” he says, “especially if you don’t start with a truthful premise.”

This echoes C.S. Lewis, who warned in The Abolition of Man that without a transcendent standard of value, societies produce “men without chests”—rationalists bereft of virtue¹.

Christianity and the Foundations of Human Dignity
One of the strongest themes in the discussion is that Christianity uniquely grounds the dignity of the human person. Tomlinson appeals to Tom Holland’s Dominion to argue that concepts such as human rights, the equal value of women and children, and the moral imperative to care for the weak did not emerge from secular Enlightenment rationalism, but from the radical claims of the Gospel.

“It was only Christianity that stated the revolutionary concept that children themselves will inherit the kingdom of heaven… that the weak and feebled have as much capacity for moral dignity as the strongest man.”

Holland himself, a secular historian, acknowledges that the idea of intrinsic human dignity—Imago Dei—is culturally Christian². Absent that foundation, Tomlinson argues, rights become little more than “wish lists,” easily ignored by those in power.

Faith vs. Delusion: Is Christianity Just Another Leap?
A provocative exchange compares belief in the Resurrection to belief in gender transition: both are said to contradict observable reality and require faith. Tomlinson rejects the comparison by distinguishing the fruit of belief. Christianity, he notes, fosters sacrifice, joy, and community; transgender ideology often leads to sterility, physical harm, and despair.

“Faith is an instrument to seek certainty. What matters is the conclusion you come to.”

This reframes faith not as irrational credulity, but as a necessary foundation for moral and spiritual agency. For Tomlinson—as for Pascal, Lewis, and many Christian thinkers—faith is not the enemy of reason, but its condition. We believe in order to understand.

The Trilemma Revisited—and Expanded
Tomlinson invokes Lewis’s famous “liar, lunatic, or Lord” trilemma, only to find it inadequate for modern sceptics who doubt the historicity of the Gospel accounts themselves. He counters by citing the coherence of the Gospel narratives and their power to inspire enduring ethical transformation across languages, styles, and cultures.

“If the ethic there is true for all peoples everywhere, then there must be something to it.”

Here again we find resonance with Bishop Barron, who often points to the explosion of the early Church, the martyrdom of the apostles, and the internal consistency of Christian doctrine as evidence of the Resurrection’s plausibility³.

The Narrative Void and the Death of Meaning
Perhaps the most culturally urgent section of the interview is the diagnosis of the loss of a shared narrative. Britain, like much of the West, is described as a “nation of strangers.” Multiculturalism, rootless consumerism, and the rejection of Christian heritage have produced a society in which no common story binds its people together.

“Without a shared and binding narrative, you cannot have a cohesive culture—but one does not exist at the moment.”

This claim recalls Alasdair MacIntyre’s thesis in After Virtue: our moral language persists, but the underlying metaphysical and theological framework has disintegrated⁴.

Faith, Meaning, and Male Despair
A recurring sub-theme is the crisis facing young men. Tomlinson links male despair—whether manifesting in inceldom, online radicalism, or pornography addiction—to the absence of meaningful ends. These men no longer believe the game of life can be won, and therefore retreat from it.

He argues that Christianity offers not only consolation, but a vocation—a path to virtue, self-mastery, and sacrifice. Secular ideologies, by contrast, offer only coping mechanisms or illusions.

“The beliefs you put faith into can be self-propagating or self-limiting. Christianity builds; trans ideology castrates.”

Here Lewis’s critique of subjectivism in The Abolition of Man is again apt. A generation raised on expressive individualism cannot build civilization—they can only dismantle it.

Conclusion: The West’s Only Path Forward
Tomlinson’s core thesis is as simple as it is subversive: you cannot build a civilization on secular humanism, algorithmic distraction, or political slogans. You need a creed. Christianity, for all its historical failures and present obscurity, remains the only moral and metaphysical framework with the depth, breadth, and beauty to answer the crisis of meaning.

“You can only run against the brick wall of reality for so long. Eventually, you break.”

What is needed now is not merely a political reformation but a spiritual one—a rediscovery of faith, narrative, and the sacred story of redemption that gave the West its soul. 🔝

¹ C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, HarperOne, 2001 (orig. 1943)
² Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, Little, Brown, 2019
³ Robert Barron, Catholicism: A Journey to the Heart of the Faith, Image Books, 2011
⁴ Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981

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The Meaning Crisis Misdiagnosed
Why Progressive Christianity Offers No Cure for the West’s Moral Amnesia

Progressive Christian voices today increasingly speak of the “meaning crisis.” They, too, lament alienation, youth depression, and a culture addicted to dopamine and distraction. But unlike traditional Christian responses—rooted in sin, sacrifice, and salvation—the progressive version offers therapy instead of theology, inclusion in place of conversion, and a gospel without repentance. In so doing, it only deepens the void it claims to fill.

This article contrasts the growing revivalist instinct among young men returning to orthodoxy (as explored in our recent piece on Conor Tomlinson’s interview) with the therapeutic, immanent, and often deconstructed gospel preached by mainline and liberal Christian institutions.

A Different Gospel for a Different Crisis
Where thinkers like C.S. Lewis or Tom Holland identify Christianity as the moral root of the Western conscience, progressive theology often regards Christianity as part of the problem—a power structure to be decolonized, reimagined, or post-critically reinterpreted.

For example, in progressive theological circles:

• Sin is reframed as systemic oppression or personal shame, not rebellion against God.
• Salvation is reinterpreted as psychological integration or social liberation, not the forgiveness of sins.
• Christ’s Resurrection is sometimes described symbolically—as “the triumph of hope”—rather than as an historical, bodily event.
• Faith becomes lived experience, not assent to truth.
• The Church’s mission is seen as affirming identities, not transforming lives.

As Bishop Robert Barron has noted, this is the immanentizing of the Christian message: “When Christianity is reduced to a vague commitment to social justice, it loses its power to save because it ceases to be about the supernatural.”¹

Progressive Proposals: Ritual Without Repentance
In a culture starving for transcendent meaning, progressive Christianity offers rituals stripped of transcendence. Labyrinth walks, drag liturgies, climate lament services, and “inclusive eucharists” are attempts to fill the God-shaped hole without reference to the Cross.

These practices mimic the form of religion while discarding the substance. As Conor Tomlinson warned in his discussion, many today have “replaced faith with ritual.” But rituals detached from dogma do not heal—they pacify. They provide emotional relief but not spiritual rebirth.

Narrative Fragmentation: The Progressive Blind Spot
Traditional Christians argue that the loss of a shared narrative—the Gospel—is at the heart of the meaning crisis. Progressive Christians, however, tend to treat narrative as a problem to be pluralized. They avoid meta-narratives and elevate “lived experience,” insisting that all identities and stories are equally valid.

But this commitment to radical inclusivity prevents any binding story from emerging. If the Church has no right to declare one story true—that Christ died and rose to save sinners—then it has no foundation on which to build culture. The Church becomes just another NGO with incense.

As Alasdair MacIntyre warned, once moral discourse fragments into competing emotive claims, no real deliberation is possible. The result is not harmony but chaos².

Human Rights Without Christ
Progressive Christians often appeal to “human rights” and “dignity” without grounding these in Christian metaphysics. The assumption is that secular liberal values can carry moral weight on their own.

But as Tomlinson, Holland, and Lewis have argued, these values—equality, compassion, forgiveness—are not self-evident universal truths. They emerged from centuries of Christian thought. Remove Christ, and they begin to unravel. Humanism without the Incarnation is like a cut flower: it may appear vibrant for a while, but it is already dying.

The False Promise of Moral Neutrality
Progressive theology tends to present itself as the compassionate middle ground between secularism and orthodoxy. But its refusal to affirm moral absolutes—on sexuality, truth, or divine judgment—renders it morally paralyzed. It cannot oppose cultural collapse because it has already conceded to it.

“A God without wrath,” wrote H. Richard Niebuhr, “brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”³

This is precisely the gospel many progressive Christians now preach. It is not surprising, then, that it fails to inspire sacrifice, stir conversion, or build the cathedrals of tomorrow.

Conclusion: A Crisis Cannot Be Cured by Its Cause
Progressive Christianity mirrors the culture’s disease—individualism, moral relativism, and identity worship—instead of offering the cure. It affirms the wounds rather than binding them.

As young men and women begin to search, once again, for rootedness, certainty, and moral courage, it is not the progressive church they are flocking to—but the ancient one. They want meaning that costs something. They want a Cross. 🔝

¹ Bishop Robert Barron, “The Trouble with Reductionist Christianity,” Word on Fire
² Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981
³ H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America, Yale University Press, 1937

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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

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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