Category: Nuntiatoria

The Apostolate’s magazine offers doctrinal instruction, theological reflections, and mission updates, preserving sacred tradition while addressing contemporary issues. Past editions feature catechetical articles, ecclesiastical commentary, historical insights, Apostolate news, and devotional resources, serving as a vital tool for clergy and laity alike.

Unity as a Weapon: The Hollister Suppression

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

It is a bitter irony of our times that the word “unity” is now wielded as a club to drive Catholics from the very altar that formed the saints. Bishop Daniel Garcia, on the eve of leaving Monterey, has chosen to terminate the Traditional Latin Mass at Sacred Heart, Hollister. He invokes Traditionis Custodes and urges the faithful to “join in unity” at the postconciliar table, as though unity could be manufactured by coercion and conformity.¹

This is not unity. It is exclusion disguised as unity. It is the age-old trick of the bureaucrat: to make a slogan the justification for silencing conscience. The families who prayed at that altar were not rebels, but Catholics clinging to the faith of their fathers. Yet in the name of “communion,” they are cast aside, told that their devotion is now a liability.²

Pope St Pius V, in Quo Primum, bound his successors and declared the Roman Missal to be used in perpetuity.³ Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that the 1962 Missal was never abrogated.⁴ But now bishops, citing Traditionis Custodes, behave as though the Mass of Ages is poison, its adherents to be cleansed from the Church in the name of uniformity. What was sacred yesterday is forbidden today. What nourished saints for centuries is treated as a threat to the faithful.

The irony grows darker: Traditionis Custodes was sold as a means to “foster unity,” but in practice it has become the charter of division. Unity is not achieved by erasing memory, or by enforcing amnesia upon the flock. It is achieved by continuity—by recognising that the faith is one precisely because it transcends the novelties of an age. The Roman Rite in its ancient form is not an enemy of unity; it is its surest guarantee.⁵

The faithful in Hollister are not the ones breaking unity. It is the shepherd who drives them from the fold who rends the seamless garment of Christ. By suppressing their Mass, Bishop Garcia has betrayed the supreme law of the Church: the salvation of souls.⁶ Instead of feeding the sheep, he has scattered them. Instead of binding wounds, he has inflicted them.

The saints did not kneel at guitars and microphones. They were formed at the altar of sacrifice, where priest and people alike bowed before the mystery of Calvary made present. And now, in Monterey, that altar has been declared closed—because unity, we are told, requires exile.

But Christ does not change, and His sacrifice does not expire. The Mass of Ages remains holy. And no decree, however draped in slogans, can erase what God has hallowed.

The Old Roman Apostolate
This moment reveals why the Old Roman Apostolate endures in its mission and charism. Born of fidelity to apostolic tradition, we have sought to preserve the perennial magisterium and the ancient liturgy in the face of novelty and rupture. We do not claim an easy path, nor do we delight in division; rather, we recognise a state of necessity, compelled by conscience to uphold what the Church herself cannot abolish. Our vocation is to witness to continuity when others proclaim rupture, to safeguard the faith when others dilute it, and to hold fast to the Mass of Ages as the surest anchor of unity.

The ORA does not exist as a parallel Church but as a remnant, crying out with the saints that the liturgy which sanctified them is holy still. We stand ready for reconciliation, but never at the price of truth. For unity without truth is falsehood, and obedience without fidelity is betrayal.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

¹ Bishop Daniel Garcia, Letter to the Faithful of Sacred Heart, Hollister, 14 September 2025, reported by Catholic News Agency.
² CIC 1983, can. 214: “The Christian faithful have the right to worship God according to the prescriptions of their own rite approved by the lawful pastors of the Church.”
³ Pius V, Quo Primum (1570).
⁴ Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum (2007), art. 1.
⁵ Benedict XVI, Letter to Bishops accompanying Summorum Pontificum (2007).
⁶ CIC 1983, can. 1752: Salus animarum suprema lex.

Ordinary Men, Dangerous Ideas

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

When Adolf Eichmann sat in his glass booth in Jerusalem in 1962, the world expected to see a monster. What it saw instead was a man—quiet, bureaucratic, unremarkable. That was the horror.

The Holocaust survivor Yehiel Dinur, who collapsed in the courtroom at the sight of him, later explained that it was not memory that overwhelmed him. It was the realisation that Eichmann was not a demon. He was ordinary. Evil, he saw, does not always come with horns and fire. It comes in the form of ordinary men surrendering their consciences to dangerous ideas.¹

That truth is no less urgent today. The ideologies have changed, but the mechanics remain. Islamism sanctifies violence as obedience to God. Secular progressivism dehumanises its opponents as “fascists” and “threats to democracy.” Even within the Church, leaders have repeated this language, denouncing fellow Christians at the Unite the Kingdom March as extremists while remaining silent about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, slain in America only days before for his public witness.²

The double standard is glaring. A mother praying outside an abortion clinic is branded a terrorist; a jihadist who slaughters families in Israel is excused as a “resistance fighter.” A Christian patriot with a banner is shamed by bishops; a leftist agitator screaming hatred is praised as a prophet of progress. When truth is inverted this way, society reveals not only political corruption but spiritual sickness.

The danger lies not only in what is done but in how it is spoken. When political leaders label their opponents “Nazis” or “enemies of humanity,” when bishops rebuke the faithful more harshly than they rebuke the spirit of the age, the result is the same: people cease to be treated as neighbours. Once dehumanised, they can be silenced, punished, erased. History shows that the road to atrocity begins not with bullets but with words.³

Here the wisdom of the Church resounds. St Augustine warned that fallen man justifies his corruption unless restrained by grace.⁴ St Thomas Aquinas taught that a law contrary to the natural law is no law at all but a perversion.⁵ Pope Pius XI condemned Nazism as a false religion.⁶ Pope Leo XIII warned that when the authority of Christ is rejected, conscience loses its compass and men are “driven headlong into every excess of error and crime.”⁷ The ideologies of our time—whether Islamist or secular progressive—repeat this pattern. They make evil appear good, and they sanctify hatred in the name of righteousness.

But here is the paradox for us, my beloved brethren. We cannot resist evil by mirroring it. We cannot fight dehumanisation with more dehumanisation. We must oppose lies, yes, and boldly. We must defend truth, yes, and courageously. But we must do so without losing charity. For the Cross teaches us that Christ conquered not by hating His enemies, but by offering Himself for them. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Lk 23:34)

This is the Church’s path: to proclaim truth without compromise and to live it with sacrificial love. To expose the rhetoric of the world for what it is—poisonous, dangerous, destructive—yet not to be poisoned by it ourselves. To recognise, even in our fiercest adversaries, men made in the image of God, and to call them to repentance.

Eichmann’s ordinariness is a warning: ideology can make any man capable of horror. The rhetoric of our age is a warning: dehumanisation always prepares the ground for persecution. And Christ’s Cross is the answer: only love, grounded in truth, can break the cycle.

We must not be naïve. The age of tolerance has revealed itself as an age of ideology, and Christians will be its scapegoats. But let us not tremble. We know the pattern. We have seen it before. And we know, too, that the final word is not the banality of evil, but the triumph of grace.

Ordinary men, dangerous ideas. That is the danger. Ordinary Christians, faithful to Christ. That is the hope.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

Footnotes
¹ Yehiel Dinur, interview with Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes (CBS News, 1979).
² Reports on the Unite the Kingdom March, September 2025; cf. coverage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, State Farm Stadium Memorial, Glendale, AZ, 21 September 2025.
³ Cf. contemporary political rhetoric: President Joe Biden’s remarks, “MAGA Republicans a threat to democracy” (Philadelphia speech, 1 September 2022); Labour MPs on gender-critical feminists, Hansard debates 2023–25; Canadian federal cases against pro-life campaigners, 2023–24.
⁴ St Augustine, De Natura et Gratia, ch. 3.
⁵ St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 93, a. 3.
⁶ Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, 1937.
⁷ Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 1885.

The Tyranny of Fear: Paracetamol, Autism, and the Age of Distrust

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

There was a time when the family medicine cabinet represented the ordinary mercies of Providence — a fever brought down, a headache relieved, a child comforted. Yet in our present age, even the simplest remedy is caught up in a theatre of fear. Paracetamol, known in America as Tylenol, has been transformed from a trusted household staple into the villain of a thousand conspiracies. What has changed? Not the substance of the drug, but the substance of our culture.

We live in an era where suspicion is stronger than truth, and fear louder than reason. The story of paracetamol and autism tells us less about medicine and more about the sickness of the modern mind.

Science and Its Distortions
Let us begin with the facts. A major Scandinavian study published in JAMA Psychiatry (2023) compared siblings — one exposed prenatally to acetaminophen, another not — and found no association with autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability¹. In plain speech: within the same family, the presence or absence of paracetamol exposure made no difference.

Yet a different review, published in 2025, proclaimed the evidence “strong” for a link. Social media seized on this word, “strong,” and translated it into “proven.” A Johns Hopkins study in 2019 observed correlations in umbilical cord blood, and activists declared a “direct connection”². Even images were invented to persuade: a grotesque diagram showing vaccination, fever, Tylenol, and finally a weeping child labelled “autism.”

Here we see the perennial temptation: to mistake suggestion for certainty, association for causation. The lie has wings; truth must walk on crutches.

Regulators, Lawsuits, and the Spectacle of Fear
What then do regulators say? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed adding a caution to labels, not because causation is proved, but because in our climate of suspicion, silence itself would be seen as complicity³. The European and British authorities have stood firm: paracetamol remains the recommended analgesic in pregnancy, when used prudently⁴.

And what of the courts? In 2024, American lawsuits alleging that Tylenol caused autism were dismissed. The judge ruled that the expert testimony failed the very test of scientific reliability. Yet though the law cast out the claim, the idea remains in circulation, because fear feeds on itself⁵.

The courtroom has become theatre, the news cycle a pulpit of panic. In such an age, the burden of proof is no longer on the accuser but on the accused.

The Moral Disease Beneath the Medical Debate
What is at stake is not merely whether paracetamol is safe, but whether our civilisation can still distinguish truth from error, evidence from conjecture, prudence from hysteria.

This age of distrust is the child of modernism: once we deny objective truth in theology, it is not long before we deny it in science. If there is no Magisterium in the Church, there will be no authority in medicine. If we will not believe the prophets, neither will we believe the epidemiologists.

We have seen this same drama play out in the vaccine debates. The Church affirms that parents have the duty of prudence, not of panic. To refuse all medicine out of fear is not holiness but presumption. To treat speculation as revelation is to exchange science for superstition.

The Catholic Response: Prudence and Trust
What then should a Catholic do? The answer is as old as St. Thomas: virtue is found in prudence, the golden mean between recklessness and cowardice.

Paracetamol has been used for generations. The most rigorous studies show no causal link with autism. Regulators advise moderation, not abstinence. The Church teaches that the goods of creation are not to be despised, but received with thanksgiving and discernment.

Yet we must also be vigilant. The family is the first guardian of life. If we surrender discernment to lawsuits and internet images, we fail in our duty. Prudence requires both attentiveness to scientific evidence and resistance to the theatre of fear.

Conclusion: The Tyranny of Fear and the Triumph of Truth
My beloved, what the paracetamol debate reveals is the deeper malady of our age: the tyranny of fear. In a culture that no longer believes in truth, every whisper becomes an accusation, every study a conspiracy, every medicine a menace.

But Christ did not die to make us slaves of suspicion. “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). The Christian is called to discern, not to panic; to reason, not to rage. The medicine cabinet is not the tabernacle — it does not hold the Bread of Life. Yet neither should it become the idol of fear.

We must walk the narrow way: trusting in God, using His gifts with prudence, rejecting both complacency and hysteria. For if fear reigns in the mind, faith cannot reign in the heart.

And so I say, with Fulton Sheen: “Truth does not need to be defended, only proclaimed.” The truth is this: no evidence proves that paracetamol causes autism. The greater danger lies not in a bottle of tablets, but in a culture addicted to fear.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

  1. U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, In re Acetaminophen ASD/ADHD Litigation, dismissal ruling 2024; appeals pending.
  2. Gustavson, K. et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2023 – Scandinavian sibling-comparison cohort study.
  3. Wang, C. et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2019 – Johns Hopkins cord blood study.
  4. FDA, “FDA announces proposed labeling changes for acetaminophen products,” 2025.
  5. EMA/MHRA joint statements, 2025 – guidance on paracetamol in pregnancy.

Be Not Deceived: The Church Does Not Change

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

The Perennial Mission
The faithful are told today to wait. To be patient. To sit down and talk. But talk is not the mission of the Church. The mission of the Church is to proclaim.

When St Peter stood before the crowds at Pentecost, he did not convene a dialogue circle. He proclaimed Christ crucified and risen, calling men to repent and be baptized.¹ When the martyrs were dragged before magistrates, they did not hedge their testimony with cautious qualifications. They confessed their Lord even unto death. Their words were clear, their witness uncompromised — and because it was clear, it was life.

The Temptation of Ambiguity
Yet now we are told something very different. We hear a voice suggesting that doctrine might change, if only attitudes first change.² This is not Catholic teaching. Truth does not follow fashion. Truth does not bow to the polls or wait upon consensus. Truth is Christ Himself — “the same yesterday, today, and forever.”³

Ambiguity may sound like compassion. It may win the world’s applause and soothe troubled ears. But ambiguity starves souls. The people of God cannot live on probabilities. They need certainties. They need the living bread of truth, not the stones of hesitation.

Unity Without Truth Is a Lie
Families who built their lives around the Mass of the saints now find the doors locked against them, told that “unity” demands their exile. Bishops invoke obedience while exiling the faithful from the very liturgy that nourished saints, martyrs, and missionaries. Unity at the expense of truth is not unity. It is choreography. It photographs well but it does not save.

The Church is not a debating society. It is the Ark of Salvation. The voice of Peter is not meant to echo the shifting winds of culture but to confirm the brethren in the faith. When Rome speaks in riddles, the sheep scatter. When pastors equivocate, wolves circle.

The Sacred Liturgy Is Not Negotiable
The liturgy is not a toy to be handed down by one generation and withdrawn by another. It is not an experiment in pastoral policy. It is the heartbeat of the Church. To suggest that its survival depends upon the decisions of committees and consultations is to treat the holy as negotiable.

The Mass of Ages has never been abrogated.⁴ It cannot be abrogated. It was sanctified by the Council of Trent, handed down through the centuries, and confirmed by Benedict XVI: “It is permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated.”⁵

This Mass is not a preference. It is a patrimony. To place it on probation is to suggest that tradition itself is provisional. But what is immemorial cannot be annulled. What sanctified the saints cannot be forbidden.

The Peril of Probability
What has been said of marriage and sexuality? That change is “highly unlikely,” at least in the “near future.” But this is the language of politicians, not of shepherds. This is the vocabulary of probability, not of proclamation.

Dogma admits of no such uncertainty. Vatican I solemnly declared: “That meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be a recession from that meaning under the pretext or in the name of a deeper understanding.”⁶

St Vincent of Lérins gave the true measure: the faith develops as a body grows, “strengthened with years, expanded with time, elevated with age,” yet always remaining the same.⁷ A living organism matures; it does not mutate. Doctrine may deepen, but it does not reverse. To speak of doctrine as “unlikely” to change is already to deny its immutability.

The True Unity of the Church
Unity in the Church is not built on compromise. It is not held together by committees or processes. It is not preserved by avoiding offense. The unity of the Church is the unity of faith, of sacraments, and of governance under Peter. Unity without truth is a counterfeit.

The Apostles did not keep silence to maintain appearances. They spoke boldly. St Paul withstood Peter “to his face” when clarity demanded it.⁸ The Fathers thundered against heresy, even when emperors pressed for compromise. The martyrs shed their blood rather than leave the impression that truth was negotiable.

A Call to Clarity
My dear friends, beware the soft words that mask hard betrayals. Beware the “codes” that promise continuity but deliver confusion. The bar for Catholic orthodoxy is not “better than Francis.” The bar is Christ, who said, “Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.”⁹

We are called to clarity, not choreography. To confession, not conversation. To sacrifice, not slogans. The Church does not live by “highly unlikely.” The Church lives by “Amen.”

Pray for Holy Mother Church. Pray for those in authority, that they may speak as shepherds, not as politicians. And hold fast — hold fast to the faith once delivered to the saints, the faith that does not change, because it is the faith of Christ Himself.¹⁰

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

  1. Jude 1:3.
  2. Acts 2:14–36.
  3. Crux, interview with Pope Leo XIV, September 2025.
  4. Hebrews 13:8.
  5. Council of Trent, Session XXII, Canon 9.
  6. Benedict XVI, Summorum Pontificum (2007), Art. 1.
  7. Vatican I, Dei Filius (1870), ch. 4, §13.
  8. St Vincent of Lérins, Commonitorium, ch. 23.
  9. Galatians 2:11–14.
  10. Matthew 5:37.

The Footsteps of St. Wenceslaus — A Reflection in the Cold

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

We sing of him at Christmas: “Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen…” The carol offers a kindly image — a monarch braving snow to feed the poor. But the real Wenceslaus was more than a carol figure. He was a ruler, a reformer, and a martyr, slain at the threshold of the Mass. His life is not a seasonal tale but a burning witness to the truths our own age is desperate to forget.

Faith Before Throne
Born around 907, Wenceslaus was raised by his grandmother, St. Ludmila, who taught him Christian faith in a land still divided by paganism.¹ His mother, Drahomíra, resented this and arranged Ludmila’s murder — a family feud that was also a spiritual war.²

As duke, Wenceslaus built churches, fostered missionary work, and consecrated his people’s life to Christ.³ The rotunda he founded at Prague Castle in honor of St. Vitus became the heart of Bohemia’s Christian identity.⁴ Some traditions even record that he consecrated himself to virginity, seeking to reign with undivided heart.⁵

Politics and Betrayal
Surrounded by powerful enemies, he submitted tribute to King Henry I of Germany, a prudent act to spare his realm.⁶ Yet this earned him scorn from ambitious nobles and his own brother Boleslaus. On 28 September 929 (or 935), as Wenceslaus walked to Mass at Stará Boleslav, he was ambushed and slain at the church door.⁷

His people immediately honored him as a martyr. Miracles were reported at his tomb, and his relics became a focus of devotion.⁸ Though he was a duke in life, posterity hailed him as king — not by title, but by truth. He embodied the rex justus, the just ruler who governs by justice and holiness.⁹

The Carol and the Witness
Centuries later, John Mason Neale enshrined his memory in the carol “Good King Wenceslas”, setting the legend to the medieval melody Tempus adest floridum.¹⁰ Though the story is poetic invention, it reflects the enduring conviction: his authority was measured not by conquest but by charity.¹¹

Lessons for Our Time

  1. Christ the King above all kings. Pope Pius XI taught in Quas Primas (1925) that rulers must recognize Christ’s sovereignty, for “men must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.”¹² Wenceslaus lived this truth: he bowed before Christ even when it cost him power and life.
  2. Martyrdom is the summit of witness. The Second Vatican Council affirmed in Lumen Gentium that martyrdom “conforms the disciple to his Master by freely accepting death for the salvation of the world.”¹³ Wenceslaus was struck down not in battle but on the way to Mass, showing that fidelity to Christ and His sacrifice is worth dying for.
  3. The Eucharist is the heart of the Church. The Council of Trent declared that the Eucharist is “the source and summit of all worship and religion.”¹⁴ Wenceslaus’s murder at the church threshold is a stark reminder: to abandon the altar is to abandon everything. Today, when the sacred liturgy is restricted, trivialized, or attacked, his witness cries out to us to defend it with our lives.
  4. Authority without sacrifice is tyranny. Wenceslaus shows that leadership is measured not by domination but by service. In an age of careerist politicians and worldly bishops, his memory challenges us: true authority kneels before the altar and steps into the storm for the poor.
  5. Hope in the saints. Legends said he sleeps beneath a mountain, ready to rise in his people’s need. This myth speaks to the deeper truth of the communion of saints: those who died in Christ intercede still. When the Church trembles under betrayal, we are not abandoned.

A Saint for the Church in Crisis
Our world grows cold with unbelief. The poor freeze in body and soul. Families fracture. Leaders falter. Bishops barter away doctrine for applause. Yet Wenceslaus speaks still. He tells rulers: serve with sacrifice. He tells shepherds: never betray the altar. He tells the faithful: Christ is King, and His Kingdom will not be shaken.

The carol may warm our homes at Christmastide. But the martyr warms the Church with his blood. His footprints in the snow still mark the way — the way of charity, the way of fidelity, the way of the Cross. If we follow them, they will lead us not to sentiment, but to sanctity; not to compromise, but to Christ the King.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

  1. Council of Trent, Session XIII, Decree on the Eucharist, ch. 5.
  2. Wenceslas I, Prince of Bohemia – Britannica, accessed Sept. 2025.
  3. “Saint Wenceslaus” – Franciscan Media, accessed Sept. 2025.
  4. Britannica, Wenceslas I.
  5. Wikipedia, Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia.
  6. Czech Center Blog, “St. Wenceslas,” 2022.
  7. Britannica, Wenceslas I.
  8. Britannica and Wikipedia, Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia.
  9. Britannica, Wenceslas I.
  10. Hymnology Archive, Good King Wenceslas.
  11. Wikipedia, Good King Wenceslas.
  12. Scholastic, “Good King Wenceslas (Annotated Text).”
  13. Pius XI, Quas Primas (1925), §1, §19.
  14. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (1964), §42.

A Defence of Truth, Liberty, and the Common Good: Oppose an official definition of Islamophobia

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

Britain stands at a crossroads. A government Working Group, chaired by the former Conservative MP Dominic Grieve, is presently preparing a definition of “Islamophobia.” This body was created by the government in February 2025 and given six months to produce its recommendations, without Parliament having a say in the matter. The public consultation has already closed, and if the Group adheres to its timetable, its recommendation—drafted in secret—will be delivered within weeks. The government intends then to roll out this definition across public bodies, urging them to embed it in speech codes, so that anyone who falls foul of the new standard can be punished¹.

The justification given for this extraordinary measure is that Britain has witnessed a rise in anti-Muslim hostility since the terrorist attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023². But this argument is deeply flawed. Our nation already possesses robust laws that protect people from religious hatred and discrimination. These laws apply equally to Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and all faith communities³. The way to protect Muslims is to enforce those existing statutes, not to introduce what would amount to a Muslim blasphemy law by the back door.

As Christians, we affirm that all men and women are created in the image of God and deserve equal dignity and justice. To single out one community for special protections would be an affront to that principle. It would contradict the Scriptural command that believers should not “have respect of persons” (James 2:1). Such privileging of one faith over others risks exacerbating tensions rather than fostering harmony. Even Fiyaz Mughal, the Muslim founder of Tell MAMA, has warned that “any definition that marks out one community is going to cause major social divisions”⁴.

The dangers are not theoretical. An official definition of “Islamophobia” would have a chilling effect on free speech. Already, those who have raised legitimate concerns—for example, the disproportionate involvement of some Muslim men of Pakistani heritage in grooming gangs—have been accused of Islamophobia. Baroness Casey, in her official report, confirmed that one reason officials failed to act on the grooming scandals was fear of that very label⁵. Sarah Champion MP, one of the few politicians willing to speak honestly, was even shortlisted for “Islamophobe of the Year” by the Islamic Human Rights Commission⁶.

Britain has a storied tradition of religious tolerance. Surveys show that nine out of ten of our people are comfortable living alongside those of different religious beliefs—more than anywhere else in Europe⁷. This is a heritage of which we should be proud. To jeopardise it by elevating one faith to a privileged status would be to exchange harmony for resentment, and equality for division.

We must also remember that Britain deliberately abolished its blasphemy laws in 2008⁸. It was recognised then that in a plural society no religion should be shielded from criticism. To introduce an official definition of “Islamophobia” now would be to resurrect blasphemy law in another form, this time for the benefit of one faith alone. Such a step would undermine freedom of speech and conscience and betray the Christian heritage that shaped our liberties.

Beloved faithful, this is not a mere matter of policy but of principle. We are called to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). To be silenced by fear is to become complicit in falsehood. Caesar must never dictate which truths may be spoken.

Therefore, I urge you to act. Write to your Members of Parliament and to your councillors. Tell them plainly that you oppose the creation of a privileged status for Islam, that you stand for equal treatment under the law, and that you will not see Britain’s freedoms traded away. You may use the draft letter we have provided below, and you can obtain the contact details of your representatives quickly and simply via www.writetothem.com.

If we fail to speak now, we may soon find ourselves unable to speak at all. Let us not be that generation. Let us stand for truth, liberty, and the common good.

Draft_Letter_IslamophobiaDownload

Footnotes

  1. UK Government announcement, creation of the Working Group on anti-Muslim hatred, February 2025.
  2. Government rationale cited in media reports following the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
  3. Equality Act 2010, Part 2 (Protected Characteristics), including religion or belief.
  4. Fiyaz Mughal, quoted in public commentary on proposed definitions of Islamophobia.
  5. Louise Casey, Independent Review into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham (2015).
  6. Islamic Human Rights Commission, Islamophobia Awards 2017, shortlist included Sarah Champion MP.
  7. European Values Study, data on tolerance and acceptance of religious diversity (latest UK survey).
  8. The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished by section 79 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008.

The Enduring Gift of Christian Sexual Ethics

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

The ordering of human love has always been decisive for the health of civilisations. At stake is not simply the happiness of individuals, but the stability of families, the nurture of children, and the vitality of culture itself. Christianity, from its beginning, proposed a vision of sexuality that was at once demanding and profoundly humane. Far from repressing joy, it elevates it—integrating passion with fidelity, openness to life, and the dignity of persons.

The Church has never been content to leave the most intimate of human acts to shifting preference. From Genesis onward, marriage is revealed as covenant: “The two shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24; Mt. 19:5). Christ confirmed this order, declaring: “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Mt. 19:6). Sexual intimacy belongs to marriage, marriage is permanent and faithful, chastity before marriage prepares for fidelity within it, and openness to life crowns it with fruit. Virginity and celibacy point to the higher truth that human fulfilment ultimately rests in God.

The Fathers called these principles beautiful. St. Augustine described chastity as “the beauty of the soul” which brings harmony to desire.¹ St. John Chrysostom called the Christian household “a little Church,” where fidelity mirrors the love of Christ and His Bride.² St. Jerome observed that consecrated virginity does not diminish love but ennobles it.³ Their vision was later reaffirmed by the magisterium: Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii taught that marriage is ordered both to the procreation of children and the mutual perfection of the spouses;⁴ the Second Vatican Council in Gaudium et Spes called marriage “a covenant of irrevocable personal consent”;⁵ and St. John Paul II in Familiaris Consortio declared that “the future of humanity passes by way of the family.”⁶

What has this ethic produced in practice? The social sciences confirm what revelation declared. Decades of research show that children raised in stable, married families are healthier, better educated, and more emotionally secure. A Princeton study led by W. Bradford Wilcox concluded that intact marriages reduce child poverty, improve school performance, and lower delinquency.⁷ Anthropologists have demonstrated that monogamous marriage, historically rare, restrains elite polygamy, reduces male violence, and directs energy into family provision. Joseph Henrich called this shift “the domestication of the male,” essential for peaceful and productive societies.⁸

Where intimacy is safeguarded by fidelity, health is preserved. The Centers for Disease Control consistently note that stable, monogamous unions carry the lowest risks of disease and psychological harm.⁹ By insisting on covenantal love, Christian morality provides a natural safeguard for trust and well-being. By demanding equal fidelity from husband and wife, it elevated the dignity of women. What theology first declared, anthropology now confirms: monogamous marriage fosters greater equality between the sexes and deeper paternal investment in children.¹⁰

This vision is also life-affirming. In the ancient world, Christians distinguished themselves by refusing to expose infants, insisting that every child is a gift. Roman historians noted the peculiarity of this practice.¹¹ Today, the same openness to life challenges a culture that too often views children as burdens. In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI warned prophetically that to separate love from life would lead to marital breakdown, the exploitation of women, and demographic decline.¹² His words have proven true. Nations that embraced contraception and abortion as norms now face collapsing birth rates and an uncertain future. Italy, Spain, and Japan all record fertility rates far below replacement level, leaving questions of intergenerational care and economic survival.¹³

Even psychology lends its voice. Walter Mischel’s well-known studies on delayed gratification showed that the ability to restrain desire predicted better outcomes in education, work, and health decades later.¹⁴ Christian chastity, far from being denial, is a school of virtue. It trains men and women to master desire, not be mastered by it. It is preparation for fidelity in marriage and a foundation for self-possession in all of life.

The witness of celibacy and virginity adds another dimension. St. Paul called it a gift enabling undivided devotion to God. Far from undermining society, celibate communities have enriched it: monasteries preserved learning, cultivated land, and cared for the sick; religious orders established schools and hospitals that endure to this day. As Rodney Stark has shown, the radical witness of virginity and celibacy drew many to the Church, impressed by the joy of lives wholly consecrated to Christ.¹⁵

By contrast, the world’s departure from these principles is plain. In the United States, more than 40% of children are born outside marriage.¹⁶ Researchers such as Sara McLanahan have shown that these children face higher risks of poverty and educational disadvantage.¹⁷ Across Europe, loneliness has reached record levels among young adults, often linked to unstable relationships and the decline of family bonds.¹⁸ The United Kingdom has reported the highest rates of syphilis in seventy years.¹⁹ Meanwhile, nations that suppress openness to life now face demographic winter.²⁰ And cultural observers like Mary Eberstadt have argued that the weakening of family life contributes directly to social fragmentation, as individuals seek identity in causes and ideologies when they no longer receive it from kinship and home.²¹

These are not condemnations but clarifications. They show by contrast how the Christian ethic, lived authentically, provides remedies for today’s wounds. By calling men to be faithful protectors, women to be honoured partners, and children to be cherished blessings, it nurtures harmony. By connecting intimacy with covenant, it safeguards trust. By linking love to life, it renews generations.

Christian sexual morality is not a burden but a gift—an enduring framework through which love finds its truest form. Where it is embraced, societies flourish; where it is neglected, they falter. Demanding, yes—but profoundly humane. It orders love to truth, and life to abundance. In the words of St. John Paul II: “Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible to himself… if love is not revealed to him.”²²

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

¹ St. Augustine, Confessions, Book X.
² St. John Chrysostom, Homily XX on Ephesians.
³ St. Jerome, Against Jovinianus, Book I.
⁴ Pius XI, Casti Connubii (1930), §23.
⁵ Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes (1965), §48.
⁶ John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio (1981), §86.
⁷ W. Bradford Wilcox, Marriage and Child Well-Being: Research Findings (Princeton/Institute for American Values, 2011).
⁸ Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd & Peter J. Richerson, The Puzzle of Monogamous Marriage, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (2012).
⁹ CDC, Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance Report (2023).
¹⁰ Joseph Henrich, The WEIRDest People in the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).
¹¹ Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44; cf. Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians, §35.
¹² Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (1968), §17.
¹³ UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Fertility and Family Planning 2022.
¹⁴ Walter Mischel, The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control (Little, Brown, 2014).
¹⁵ Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (HarperOne, 1997).
¹⁶ CDC, National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 72, No. 2 (2023).
¹⁷ Sara McLanahan & Isabel Sawhill, Marriage and Child Wellbeing Revisited, Future of Children 15:2 (2005).
¹⁸ European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, Loneliness in the EU (2022).
¹⁹ UK Health Security Agency, Sexually Transmitted Infections Surveillance Data (2022).
²⁰ UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Fertility and Family Planning 2022.
²¹ Mary Eberstadt, Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics (Templeton Press, 2019).
²² John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis (1979), §10.

The Brit Card Returns?

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A Catholic Warning on Sir Keir Starmer’s Digital ID Plans

By the Archbishop of Selsey

We are told that salvation will come by means of a card. Not the holy card that carries an image of Christ or His saints, but a digital one — cold, impersonal, glowing with the light of a screen. Prime Minister Keir Starmer assures us that this “Brit Card” will solve our immigration woes and bring order to a troubled land. Yet it is not a solution, but a mirage. It will neither stop the boats nor restore justice. What it will do is place yet another chain upon the wrists of free men and women.

The illusion of control
A digital ID cannot halt the tide of those who cross our borders unlawfully. It cannot compel deportations. It cannot restore sovereignty. It can, however, make the ordinary citizen a suspect in his own land, compelled at every step to prove his right to exist. Starmer offers us not control, but control’s shadow — a symbol without substance, a gesture that punishes the innocent while ignoring the guilty.

History’s warning
This nation has rejected ID cards before. In 1952 they were cast aside, deemed a nuisance unfit for peacetime liberty. The Lord Chief Justice himself dismissed them as an unnecessary burden¹. When Tony Blair revived the idea in 2006, the Identity Cards Act provoked outrage. The scheme was repealed in 2010, with Theresa May condemning it as “intrusive, bullying, ineffective and expensive”². The British people knew, and still know, that a free citizen does not live by papers, and that liberty dies not with a shout but with the quiet submission of one more form, one more scan, one more demand to “show your pass.”

The dignity of the person
Catholic truth tells us that man is made in the image of God. The state is not our master, but our servant. Leo XIII proclaimed that “man precedes the State” and that governments must respect the “natural and inalienable rights of the individual”³. Digital ID systems invert this order. They make rights conditional upon verification, reducing the child of God to a barcode on a screen.

We have seen where this leads. In China, identity cards and facial recognition cameras are the tools of a Social Credit System that punishes the “untrustworthy” and rewards compliance. The body may still walk free, but the soul is shackled. Pius XI warned against precisely this tyranny, a state that “absorbs the individual in the collectivity”⁴. The chains may be digital, but they are chains nonetheless.

A false solution to a real problem
Immigration is a grave matter. Justice demands that borders be secure; charity demands that the vulnerable be treated with compassion. Both are betrayed when leaders offer a false cure. Digital ID is aspirin for a cancer — a placebo for a dying patient. It gives the impression of action while the disease advances unchecked.

And let us not forget the law of unintended consequences. Big Brother Watch warns that such a system would birth a “Papers, please” society, where access to housing, banking, even a doctor’s visit, would depend on the state’s permission. Already 63% of Britons do not trust their government to guard such data safely, and tens of thousands have voiced their opposition⁵. They are right. A government that cannot patrol the Channel cannot be trusted to guard the keys to your very identity.

The choice before us
The question, then, is not one of efficiency, but of destiny. Do we still believe in man as a free creature under God, or do we bow to the idol of the state that seeks to number, catalogue, and command its subjects? For “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor 3:17). And where the Spirit is absent, liberty dies.

My brothers and sisters, Britain must not trade its soul for a digital card. This proposal is not progress but regress, not modernity but bondage. Let us recall the instinct that led our fathers to cast aside ID cards in the past: the instinct that told them a man’s word, his character, his citizenship, were worth more than any paper or plastic.

Conclusion
If we accept this scheme, we risk becoming a people who no longer trust our own freedom, who no longer trust the God who gave it, but who clutch instead at the cold comfort of bureaucracy. This is the very slavery from which Christ came to deliver us.

Britain must reject the “Brit Card.” Not out of nostalgia, not out of partisan rancour, but out of fidelity to truth and freedom. For if we forget that man is more than a number, then one day we will wake to find that the number has replaced the man.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

  1. Big Brother Watch, Checkpoint Britain (Sept 2025), pp. 4–6.
  2. Lord Chief Justice Goddard, Willcock v Muckle (1951).
  3. Theresa May, Statement on the repeal of the Identity Cards Act, 2010.
  4. Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891), §7.
  5. Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (1931), §78.

The Silence That Betrays

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

It was inevitable that Cardinal Cupich’s decision to bestow an award upon Senator Dick Durbin would provoke indignation. The senator’s record on abortion is no secret: he has voted to preserve and expand the destruction of the unborn for decades. That a Catholic bishop should present him with a “lifetime achievement award” in the name of the Church is not only puzzling but scandalous.¹

And thanks be to God, there are bishops with the courage to speak. Bishop Paprocki in Springfield, Durbin’s own ordinary, raised his voice immediately.² Archbishop Cordileone in San Francisco also joined him, warning that honoring a Catholic politician who defends abortion gravely undermines the Church’s witness.³ Bishop Conley of Lincoln followed soon after, calling the decision “shocking and bewildering” and urging Cardinal Cupich to reconsider.⁴ These are shepherds unafraid of wolves.

But the greater scandal lies not in Chicago’s award, but in the silence that followed it. Out of more than four hundred bishops in the United States, only three have spoken. Three voices against four hundred mute throats.

What does this silence betray?

It betrays a fear of men greater than the fear of God. It betrays the confusion of shepherds who imagine unity means inaction, and charity means complicity. It betrays a hierarchy that has grown so accustomed to ambiguity that clarity now feels like extremism.

History records that Pilate washed his hands in silence.⁵ Caiaphas tore his garments but said nothing for truth. Today, when infants are torn limb from limb in the very clinics Senator Durbin defends, silence is not neutrality but complicity.

Some will say: “But unity, Archbishop! Unity must be preserved!” Yes—but unity in what? In false witness? In collective equivocation? True unity is not built on silence but on truth. The early Church was united because Peter confessed Christ as Lord, not because he sought to appease Caesar. St. Paul did not hesitate to resist Peter “to his face” when the Gospel was endangered.⁶

Others will say: “But dialogue, Archbishop! We must keep the door open.” Dialogue is a means, not an end. If dialogue becomes a pretext for honoring those who defy God’s law, then it is no longer dialogue but betrayal. The world already applauds Senator Durbin for his politics. What he needs from the Church is not applause but correction.

A “consistent ethic of life” that forgets the unborn is not consistent at all. It is a seamless garment torn to shreds. To praise Durbin’s defense of immigrants while ignoring his contempt for the child in the womb is to strain out the gnat and swallow the camel.⁷

Bishops are not called to be managers of ambiguity. They are successors of the apostles, stewards of the mysteries of God. When they stand mute in the face of scandal, the faithful are left to wonder: do these men fear Caesar more than Christ?

St. Thomas More once observed that “qui tacet consentire videtur” — “silence is taken for consent.”⁸ And the oft-repeated warning remains true, even if its precise source is debated: that the triumph of evil requires only that good men do nothing.⁹

The faithful are watching. The world is watching. And Heaven itself bears witness. Our Lord will not ask whether we preserved institutional decorum or avoided conflict among ourselves. He will ask: Did you speak for the least of my brethren? Did you defend the child in the womb? Did you feed my sheep with truth?

The Chicago award to Senator Durbin is a scandal. But the greater scandal is the silence that has followed it. The blood of the unborn cries out to heaven, and too many shepherds pretend not to hear.

It is time for the trumpet to give a clear sound.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

  1. Commonly attributed to Edmund Burke; no exact wording found in his works. See The Yale Book of Quotations (Yale University Press, 2006), p. 98.
  2. National Catholic Register, “Cardinal Cupich: Senator Durbin Award is About Immigration, Not Abortion,” Sept. 2025.
  3. The Pillar, “Paprocki: On Durbin award, ‘I had to say something’,” Sept. 23, 2025.
  4. America Magazine, “Paprocki, Cordileone oppose Chicago award to Durbin,” Sept. 23, 2025.
  5. LifeNews, Steven Ertelt, “Bishop Conley Joins Call For Cupich To Abandon Award For Dick Durbin,” Sept. 24, 2025.
  6. Matthew 27:24.
  7. Galatians 2:11.
  8. Matthew 23:24.
  9. Thomas More, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies (1529), bk. 2, ch. 14.

The Immorality of Contemporary Liberality

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The Immorality of Contemporary Liberality
By the Archbishop of Selsey

The assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the grotesque spectacle of rejoicing which followed it, exposes the moral bankruptcy of our age. A young father was slain before the eyes of his wife and children, and those who claim the mantle of tolerance and compassion mocked his widow and sneered at his orphaned children. What calls itself liberalism today has betrayed its own name. It betrays the immorality of contemporary liberality.

The hollow promises of liberalism
We are told that liberalism stands for equality, dignity, and justice. Yet its record is one of betrayal. In Britain, Parliament has stripped the unborn of all legal personhood, calling this progress. In Scotland, ministers denounce the Church’s moral teaching as “harmful” even as they preside over grotesque scandals of waste and mismanagement. In Westminster, MPs have enriched themselves by placing relatives on public payrolls and by exploiting insider access for private gain.

In the United States, legislators who speak of defending democracy profit from privileged stock trades. The Biden family’s financial dealings with foreign powers continue to cast a shadow over the White House. In Europe, Members of Parliament were found to have accepted bribes from regimes notorious for human rights abuses, even as they lecture the world on transparency. These are not isolated failings; they are the fruit of a system rotting from within.

Liberalism has become a mask: a language of compassion that conceals cruelty, a rhetoric of justice that cloaks corruption, a show of equality that disguises domination.

Freedom without truth is slavery
The problem, however, is deeper than politics. By rejecting God, liberalism has enthroned the self as absolute. Freedom has been redefined as license, and truth reduced to opinion. Thus abortion is celebrated as healthcare, euthanasia as dignity, and the dismantling of family life as equality.

Scripture tells us that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Without the Spirit, there is no liberty—only slavery to vice, ideology, and sin. What our age parades as compassion is in fact cruelty; what it trumpets as progress is regression into barbarism.

St Augustine warned that a society without justice is nothing but a band of robbers. True freedom, he taught, is not the indulgence of passion but the service of God. Our civilisation, built on self-love to the contempt of God, has become enslaved. This is the earthly city, crumbling under the weight of its own corruption.

The culture of death unmasked
The murder of Charlie Kirk, mocked by those intoxicated with ideology, is one symptom of a broader sickness. It belongs to the same culture that sacrifices children at the altar of choice, abandons the elderly to “assisted dying,” strips innocence from the young in the name of inclusivity, and dismantles faith and family in pursuit of a false equality. This is the culture of death unmasked, and it is the logical fruit of a civilisation that has severed liberty from truth.

The Kingship of Christ
The only remedy is not a return to some imagined golden age of liberalism, but the recognition of the Kingship of Christ. When Christ is denied, tyranny follows; when He is acknowledged, true liberty and peace are possible. We must recover this vision if civilisation is to be saved. Not a politics of corruption and hypocrisy, but a politics of truth and charity. Not a false freedom that enslaves, but the true freedom of the children of God.

A warning and a hope
The immorality of contemporary liberality stands exposed. It cannot renew civilisation, for it has rejected the Author of civilisation. Yet there is hope. The City of God endures, built on the love of God even to the contempt of self. Christ remains King, and His truth cannot be silenced.

I grieve with Charlie Kirk’s family and commend his soul to the mercy of God. But I also warn our nations: if you persist in false liberality, you will reap corruption and death. Only by returning to God’s eternal law, only by bowing to the Kingship of Christ, will civilisation be renewed. For only His City will triumph, and only His truth sets men free.

✠ Jerome Lloyd
Titular Archbishop of Selsey