Category: Journal

The Orphaned Altar: On the Crisis of Episcopal Fatherhood

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

A Silent Crisis Beneath the Surface
There are moments in the Church’s history when the gravest crises are not those proclaimed in thunder from the pulpits or the decrees of Rome, but those suffered in silence by her sons. Such is the case today, when many priests—those who once came to the altar aflame with the love of God—now minister beneath the shadow of a wounded fatherhood. Their suffering is seldom spoken of; yet it gnaws at the heart of the Church. It is the hidden trial of a generation of priests orphaned not by heresy or persecution, but by the cold neglect of their spiritual fathers.

The crisis of fatherhood—so visible in society, where fathers have abdicated responsibility for their children—has entered the sanctuary. Bishops, once spiritual patriarchs who guided their clergy as sons, have become administrators, functionaries, and managers of decline. Their governance too often resembles the bureaucracy of a corporation rather than the heart of a father. The result is an orphaned presbyterate: weary, mistrustful, and fearful. What begins as administrative efficiency ends as spiritual sterility.

The Fatherhood that Gives Life
The priesthood, by its nature, is relational. Every priest must stand both in persona Christi and sub episcopo, in filial obedience to his bishop as to a father in Christ. The bishop’s ring signifies not only governance but spousal fidelity to the Church and paternal love for his priests. St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote, “Where the bishop is, there is the Church”¹—yet he also meant that where the bishop is not father, the Church withers into institution.

In the golden age of the Fathers, bishops were shepherds whose charity bound together the presbyterate and flock in a single spirit. St. Gregory the Great described the bishop as “a watchman set upon the walls of Israel”², one who guards both the purity of doctrine and the souls of those under his care. The bishop’s first duty was not strategy but sanctity. He was to pour himself out for his priests, that they might pour themselves out for their people.

But today, that supernatural fatherhood is often eclipsed by managerial pragmatism. Meetings replace mentorship; compliance replaces counsel; fear replaces fraternity. Many priests now dread a summons to the chancery more than the final judgment. They no longer expect paternal concern, only procedural rebuke. In such a climate, holiness becomes private heroism rather than shared pursuit.

The Withering of Fraternal Communion
The health of the Church depends not on policies but on love. When bishops cease to love their priests, when priests no longer feel the warmth of fatherly affection, the supernatural life of the Church begins to bleed away. The priest, deprived of affirmation and guidance, turns inward. Some grow cautious, preaching only what offends no one. Others grow hardened, their zeal dulled by cynicism. Still others, desiring escape, fill their lives with distractions and comforts.

In earlier centuries, the bishop’s household was a school of holiness. Priests were formed by the example of their prelate’s prayer, fasting, and simplicity. But in many dioceses today, bishops live in splendid isolation, surrounded not by brothers but by lawyers, secretaries, and consultants. The house of prayer has become an office; the mitre, a badge of status. The faithful look on, bewildered, while the priests beneath such leadership struggle to remember why they first left all to follow Christ.

The Holy Curé of Ars laboured eighteen hours a day, hearing confessions and offering the Holy Sacrifice with tears. His sanctity rebuilt a nation scarred by revolution. Yet he would be dismissed in many modern dioceses as “too pious,” “too rigid,” or “insufficiently pastoral.” His zeal is out of fashion because the supernatural has been eclipsed by the sociological. Bishops speak of accompaniment but rarely of conversion; of mercy but seldom of repentance. They wish to smell like the sheep, yet too often smell only of politics.

Bureaucracy and the Eclipse of the Supernatural
One of the great deceptions of our time is to confuse activity with vitality. Endless consultations, synodal reports, and policy documents give the illusion of motion while the soul of the Church languishes. The very structures designed to support priests have become labyrinths of paperwork. The priest who once found solace in his bishop’s blessing now finds himself mired in compliance forms and risk assessments.

It is not administration that kills, but the substitution of administration for fatherhood. When the shepherd delegates the care of souls to committees, his priests are left to fend for themselves. “Feed my sheep,” said the Lord to Peter³—not “survey them,” nor “appoint a task force.” Yet many priests live as though their father has forgotten those words. The Church cannot be governed as a corporation without ceasing to be a family.

The Psychological and Spiritual Toll
Behind the statistics of declining vocations lies a deeper tragedy. Priests today are among the loneliest men in society. Studies show widespread distrust between clergy and bishops⁴; many confess to isolation, anxiety, and fear of reprisal. The priest who preaches the moral law risks complaint; the one who maintains reverence in the liturgy risks accusation of rigidity. In such conditions, virtue becomes suspect and mediocrity safe.

Some priests respond with stoic endurance; others withdraw into a safe professionalism that avoids controversy but also avoids conversion. A few, deprived of spiritual fatherhood, lose themselves to the very world they were ordained to sanctify. Thus the bishop’s failure to father becomes the devil’s victory twice over—first by silencing truth, then by corrupting its messenger.

A Mirror of the World’s Fatherlessness
The collapse of paternal identity among bishops mirrors the world’s wider loss of fatherhood. The same cultural forces that have made earthly fathers absent, fearful, or effeminate have also weakened spiritual fathers. Many bishops, trained in the post-conciliar decades of experimentation and ambiguity, have never known genuine paternal formation themselves. They were not taught to command with love, nor to love with authority. They are products of a therapeutic age that mistrusts both discipline and sacrifice.

And yet the Church can no more survive without fathers than a family can. When bishops cease to be fathers, priests become orphans, and the faithful—children of those priests—grow rootless. The contagion of fatherlessness spreads from chancery to rectory, from rectory to home, until the very idea of authority is despised. The devil, who hates the name “Father,” rejoices in such a hierarchy.

The Patristic Measure of True Shepherds
The Fathers of the Church would scarcely recognize many of today’s episcopal priorities. St. Cyprian taught that a bishop must be “united in heart with his priests, sharing their labours, their tears, and their dangers”⁵. St. John Chrysostom warned that the bishop who neglects his clergy commits a sin against the Body of Christ. St. Gregory Nazianzen resigned his see rather than become a mere functionary, declaring that “to lead others, one must first be purified oneself.”

This is the pattern of episcopal life the Church once held up as ideal: ascetical, paternal, prophetic. The bishop was not an administrator of budgets but a man of prayer, whose tears could baptize a diocese. When such men led, their priests followed willingly—even unto martyrdom. The vitality of the early Church sprang not from programs but from the living transmission of holiness.

The Roots of Renewal
The renewal of the priesthood will not begin in offices or conferences. It will begin when bishops again become fathers, and priests sons. True fatherhood does not flatter; it corrects, encourages, and forgives. It does not isolate; it draws near. It does not fear holiness in its sons; it rejoices in it. Bishops who imitate Christ the Good Shepherd will attract vocations even in desolate times, because love always begets life.

What can the faithful do in the meantime? First, pray and fast for priests and bishops. The Rosary is no longer optional in this war for souls. Offer reparation for the sins of shepherds, but also for their wounds. Many bishops act as they do because they have forgotten that they, too, were once priests trembling at the altar. Pray that they may recover the simplicity of their first Mass.

Second, give your priests the warmth of genuine friendship. Invite them into your homes. Encourage them when they preach the truth. Write to them when they are maligned. Many have never heard a layman say, “Father, your priesthood has changed my life.” Such words can rekindle hope more powerfully than any policy.

Finally, resist the temptation to despair. The priesthood belongs to Christ, not to bureaucrats. The same Lord who called Peter from his nets can still raise up saints from the ruins of clericalism. When the hierarchy forgets the Cross, God raises prophets from the laity. The Church’s renewal will come not from strategy but from sanctity.

The Model of the Crucified Father
Christ on the Cross is the image of every true bishop: arms outstretched, heart pierced, blood spent for his children. In Him, authority and love are one. The world can imitate compassion, but it cannot imitate Calvary. It is there that spiritual fatherhood finds its meaning—not in power, but in sacrifice. The bishop who forgets this becomes an official; the priest who forgets it becomes a hireling.

When bishops once again weep for their priests, and priests once again lay down their lives for their flocks, the Church will bloom even in the desert. Until then, we live in the long Lent of ecclesial fatherlessness. Yet even now, grace is not absent. Among the ruins, there are still fathers who love and sons who obey, still altars where the Lamb is offered in purity and faith. In that hidden fidelity, the Church endures.

A Call to Courage and Contrition
Every bishop should kneel before his priests and ask himself: “Do they see in me the face of Christ? Do they hear in my words the voice of a father?” If the answer is uncertain, repentance is the only path forward. The episcopal palace must again become a house of prayer. The miter must be exchanged for the towel of the servant. The shepherd must rediscover the smell not only of the sheep but of the Cross.

The world’s night grows darker, and the Church must shine the brighter. Our age does not need bishops who blend into the world’s noise, but men who bear within themselves the stillness of Gethsemane. Priests will find their courage again when they see courage on the cathedra; they will become holy when holiness is enthroned above them.

Conclusion: Hope Through Paternal Renewal
The renewal of the Church will not come from the top down, nor from the bottom up, but from heart to heart—from father to son. When bishops once more speak to their priests as fathers, when priests rediscover in their bishop the image of Christ, the channels of grace will open again. And from that grace will flow the courage to confront the world’s darkness with divine charity.

Let us therefore pray not for new strategies but for new hearts: hearts of fathers, hearts of sons, hearts conformed to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who is both Priest and Victim, Shepherd and Lamb. Then the orphaned priests of our time will cease to wander, and the Church will once more be known not for her structures, but for her sanctity.

  1. St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, 8:1.
  2. St. Gregory the Great, Regula Pastoralis (Book II, ch. 4).
  3. John 21:17.
  4. The Catholic Project, Catholic University of America, Survey of American Catholic Priests (2022).
  5. St. Cyprian of Carthage, De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate, 5.

The Mute Martyrs: Spain, Truth, and the Triumph of Conscience

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

When the Provincial Court of Málaga acquitted two Catholic priests and a journalist accused of “hate speech” for criticising radical Islam, it did more than correct a miscarriage of justice. It restored, if only momentarily, a flicker of sanity to a Europe increasingly afraid of its own Christian conscience.

The Crime of Speaking Clearly
Fr Custodio Ballester and Fr Jesús Calvo were not zealots of intolerance, but witnesses to truth. Their supposed crime was to say aloud what many silently know: that ideologies rooted in coercion and violence cannot be reconciled with divine charity or human freedom.¹ For this they were denounced by the Association of Muslims Against Islamophobia and dragged through the courts for nearly a decade.

The priests were accused of violating Article 510 of the Spanish Penal Code, which criminalises the incitement of hatred.² Yet their statements, though forthright, did not call for violence or discrimination; they called for repentance and discernment. To confuse the two is to make law itself a servant of error.

In his article The Impossible Dialogue with Islam, Ballester did not vilify Muslims; he questioned the ideology that inspires persecution of Christians in the Middle East and suppression of conscience in Europe.³ For this, he was first condemned by a lower court and only later vindicated by a higher one. How telling that in modern Spain, the plea for reasoned dialogue is branded “hate,” while genuine intolerance parades as virtue.

The Dictatorship of Relativism
The court’s ruling on 20 October 2025 rightly concluded that “not even intolerant or offensive speech loses protection if it does not promote hatred or violence.”⁴ This principle—so obvious in the light of natural law—has become controversial in a Europe that prizes sensitivity above truth. The acquittal is therefore not only legal but moral: it re-affirms the right to speak the truth even when the world calls it unkind.

We are witnessing what Pope Benedict XVI called a “dictatorship of relativism”⁵—an order where every conviction must apologise for existing, and every dogma must disguise itself as dialogue. Such relativism disarms the Church, replacing her bold confession with timid sentiment. When the priest is forbidden to name evil, society forgets how to distinguish it.

Freedom Ordered to Truth
True freedom of speech is not the liberty to wound, but the liberty to warn. Christian charity requires clarity; silence in the face of error is not compassion but complicity. The Málaga court, perhaps unwittingly, has upheld a profoundly Catholic truth: that freedom detached from truth is licence, but freedom exercised for truth is holiness.

Fr Ballester, speaking outside the courthouse, declared: “If proclaiming the Gospel in public becomes illegal, Spain will cease to be the land of martyrs and become the land of the mute.”⁶ His words recall the courage of St Vincent Ferrer and St John of Ávila, who also faced powers that feared the light of truth. The question before modern Europe is the same: shall we suffer to speak, or consent to be silent?

A Call to Christian Witness
The outcome in Málaga should strengthen every Christian who dares to defend faith and reason in public life. It proves that truth can still be spoken, even when costly. Yet the length and bitterness of the trial remind us that the battle is not legal but spiritual. What is on trial in our age is not merely expression—it is the Word Himself, “made flesh and dwelling among us.”⁷

When laws of “tolerance” are turned against the Gospel, Christians must respond not with resentment, but with steadfastness. Our answer must be witness. For Christ has told us: “The truth shall make you free.”⁸ But He did not say it would make us safe.

Nuntiatoria article for background

Footnotes
¹ “Freedom of speech and religion in play as Spanish priest prosecuted for denouncing radical Islam,” Catholic World Report, 3 Oct 2025.
² Código Penal de España, art. 510 (Incitación al odio).
³ Fr Custodio Ballester, El diálogo imposible con el Islam, 2017.
⁴ “Spanish court acquits priests and journalist accused of hate crime for criticising radical Islam,” Catholic Herald, 20 Oct 2025.
⁵ Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at the Pro Eligendo Pontifice Mass, 18 April 2005.
⁶ Abogados Cristianos press statement, Málaga, 20 Oct 2025.
⁷ John 1:14.
⁸ John 8:32.

A Primer for Catholic Parents: The Principles of Catholic Teaching on “Sex Education”

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

The Parental Duty in Catholic Education
When Catholic parents entrust their children to schools established by the Church, they rightly expect that the instruction provided will be faithful to Catholic doctrine. This duty extends not only to the moral content of teaching but also to the subjects taught. The Church has always upheld a clear and comprehensive body of doctrine, transmitted from the apostles, against which mere human theories or social trends hold no weight. Yet in many Catholic schools today, especially in the West, civil authorities have pressured educational institutions to adopt programmes of so-called “sex education” that conflict with both divine and natural law.

The Primary Educators of the Child
It is indeed necessary that children, at an appropriate time, be instructed about the realities of human reproduction and the moral obligations that accompany these truths. However, the responsibility for this instruction belongs to parents alone. This duty is given directly by God and cannot be rightfully taken over by the state, by educators, or even by bishops. Parents may, for practical reasons, delegate certain aspects of education—such as mathematics or science—to others who possess the requisite expertise, but this delegation always proceeds from the authority of the parents and remains under their supervision.¹

The Limits of Delegation
The Church teaches that parents, strengthened by the grace of the sacrament of marriage, have the responsibility and privilege of evangelising their children and forming them in virtue.² Teachers, priests, and catechists share in this mission only insofar as parents freely authorise them to assist in what properly belongs to the family. Certain subjects—such as the training in personal virtue, purity, and moral discernment—cannot be delegated. The state may require that citizens be educated for civic duties, but its jurisdiction ends where the intimate and moral formation of the child begins.

The Superiority of the Family over the State
The Church firmly rejects any attempt by governments to replace or control parental authority. Leo XIII warns that when the state “sets aside the parent and sets up a State supervision,” it violates natural justice and destroys the structure of the home.³ The Catechism reminds us that the family is the primary school of solidarity and virtue, and that parents must protect their children from “compromising and degrading influences.”⁴ Indeed, Leo XIII affirms that the family is “a society very small, one must admit, but none the less a true society, and one older than any State.”⁵

This principle is also recognised in civil law. The European Convention on Human Rights explicitly protects the rights of parents to educate their children in conformity with their religious and philosophical convictions (Article 2, Protocol 1) and recognises family life as a sphere of privacy and protection against state interference (Article 8). These provisions reflect what the Church has always taught—that the family possesses rights anterior to the State, grounded in natural law and divine order.

Moral and Practical Formation
Parents naturally instruct their children in language, manners, modesty, and virtue. To neglect these areas or to surrender them to institutions is to abdicate a sacred trust. Among these responsibilities lies the duty to educate children about human reproduction and sexuality—matters that require both moral maturity and personal sensitivity. No classroom teacher can judge with precision the appropriate time or method for every child, since these depend upon individual development, temperament, and grace.

Cautions on Implementation and Parental Vigilance
In recent years, Catholic-approved Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) programmes—such as Life to the Full by Ten Ten Resources—have been widely adopted, reportedly by the majority of Catholic schools in England and Wales.⁶ While the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) and the Catholic Education Service (CES) state that RSE should promote chastity, dignity, and respect for life, traditional Catholic commentators have expressed serious concerns about the way such programmes are implemented.

Traditionalists, including the Society of Saint Pius X (UK District), warn that some RSE programmes risk undermining the parental role and present sexuality in an overly naturalistic or psychological manner, divorced from the supernatural virtue of chastity.⁷ They argue that materials sometimes prioritise “risk mitigation” or “self-esteem” over moral formation and fail to acknowledge humanity’s wounded nature and need for grace.⁸ The danger, they note, is that RSE lessons become exercises in information rather than formation—transmitting biological facts without grounding them in moral and theological truth.

Scholars examining traditional Catholic resistance to sex education likewise record the same concern: that Catholic schools, even when guided by Church documents, can inadvertently “supplant rather than supplement” the parental role.⁹ In mixed or collective settings, discussions of sexuality risk becoming occasions of curiosity or embarrassment rather than of virtue. The Church has consistently warned against “collective or public sex education” that ignores the discretion and modesty owed to each child’s stage of development.¹⁰

When RSE Becomes a Contravention of Parental Rights
In principle, Relationships and Sex Education can be delivered within Catholic schools without violating parental rights. However, in practice, such rights are frequently compromised or constrained by state mandates and the secular assumptions underlying modern educational frameworks.

RSE contravenes parental rights when it:

  • introduces sexual or moral content without parental knowledge or consent;
  • normalises behaviours contrary to Catholic moral teaching, such as contraception, cohabitation, or same-sex acts;
  • pre-empts parental judgment about a child’s readiness for such instruction;
  • or discourages withdrawal through social pressure or institutional policy.

These practices directly violate both the natural-law right of parents to form their children in moral truth and the legal right protected under Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees education in conformity with parental convictions.¹³ They also conflict with the Church’s explicit teaching that “it is incumbent on parents to strain every nerve to ward off such an outrage, and to hold exclusive authority to direct the education of their offspring.”¹²

The Poison of Naturalism
The recurring fault identified by traditional Catholic critics is the persistence of naturalism—the belief that moral formation can be achieved through reason or social conditioning alone, without recourse to divine grace. As Pius XI explains, such approaches “refuse to recognize the inborn weakness of human nature” and disregard “the means of grace” by which purity is preserved.¹¹ The Church teaches that because fallen man bears the wounds of original sin—ignorance, malice, weakness, and concupiscence—mere human instruction cannot preserve chastity without spiritual formation and sacramental life.

Parental Vigilance and Partnership
For this reason, parents must be vigilant regarding what is taught in the name of “Catholic education.” They should review all RSE materials used by their children’s schools, exercise their right to consultation and, if necessary, withdraw their children from any lessons inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. True partnership between home and school means not merely compliance or trust, but collaboration under parental authority. The right to know, to approve, and to object is not only a civil entitlement but a duty arising from the parental vocation.

A Call to Restore Catholic Integrity
Catholic schools must remember that they exist not to reflect the prevailing culture but to redeem it. To comply with statutory RSE obligations while neglecting the Catholic vision of purity and grace is to betray their mission. The teaching of human sexuality must always be presented as part of the call to holiness—never as a technical or social matter detached from faith. Where government policy or secular expectations conflict with divine law, Catholic schools must stand firm in fidelity to Christ and to the Magisterium.

As Pius XI urged, parents must “strain every nerve to ward off such an outrage” as the corruption of family life by worldly influences and to “hold exclusive authority to direct the education of their offspring.”¹² In our time, this vigilance is not merely prudent; it is indispensable to preserving innocence, virtue, and faith in the hearts of children.

¹ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2225–2226.
² Ibid.
³ Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 14.
⁴ Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2224.
⁵ Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, 12.
⁶ Catholic Education Service, “Relationships and Sex Education,” catholiceducation.org.uk.
⁷ Society of Saint Pius X (UK District), “Sex-Ed in Catholic Schools,” fsspx.uk.
⁸ B.R. Taylorian, The Opposition of Traditionalist Catholics to Sex Education (University of Central Lancashire, 2024).
⁹ Ibid.
¹⁰ Society of Saint Pius X, “The Catholic Attitude to Sex Education,” fsspx.uk.
¹¹ Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri (1929), 65–67, citing Silvio Antoniano, On the Christian Education of Children (“The Golden Treatise”).
¹² Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, 42.
¹³ European Convention on Human Rights, Article 2 of Protocol 1; Article 8.

Statement: On the Peacehaven Mosque Arson

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The Archbishop of Selsey has issued a statement condemning the arson attack on Peacehaven Mosque, expressing sorrow, solidarity with the Muslim community, and a call to peace, charity, and justice across Sussex.

At about 9:50 p.m. on Saturday, 4 October, a fire broke out at a building on Phyllis Avenue, Peacehaven, used as both a mosque and community centre. The blaze caused damage to the front entrance and also destroyed a vehicle parked outside, though thankfully no injuries were reported. Sussex Police have confirmed that the incident is being treated as arson and as a possible hate crime. Detective Superintendent Karrie Bohanna described the response as a “fast-moving investigation” and appealed for witnesses, urging anyone with CCTV, doorbell, dashcam, or mobile footage from the area to come forward.

His Grace has issued the following statement:

Coat of arms of S.E. Hieronymus Lloyd, Archbishop of Selsey, featuring a blue shield with yellow fleur-de-lis and stars, surrounded by ornate decoration and the motto 'Deus Caritas Est'.

[Begins] The news of last night’s deliberate fire at the Peacehaven Mosque has brought sorrow and grave concern to all people of faith and goodwill across Sussex. Such an act—whatever its motive—strikes at the heart of neighbourly peace and the moral fabric of our common life. It is not only a crime against property, but an offence against charity and conscience.¹

We extend our sincere sympathy and solidarity to the Muslim community of Peacehaven, assuring them of our prayers and friendship. The deliberate desecration of any place set apart for the worship of God wounds the entire community. Every religion that seeks the good and the true must be free to gather in peace, without fear of hatred or reprisal.²

The Lord commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves.³ This is not a sentiment, but a sacred duty. In moments such as these, Christians must be first to denounce violence, to comfort the afflicted, and to rebuild trust where it has been broken. Let us stand together against all forms of hatred—religious, racial, or ideological—and reaffirm our shared commitment to peace rooted in justice, truth, and respect for human dignity.⁴

I urge the faithful of the Old Roman Apostolate to remember in their prayers the victims of this attack, those who serve in our emergency services, and all engaged in restoring safety and concord in our towns and villages. May Almighty God bring healing to the injured hearts of our neighbours, strengthen our communities in mutual respect, and turn every act of darkness into an occasion for greater light. [ENDS]

✠ Jerome Lloyd
Titular Archbishop of Selsey
Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate

1 Sussex Police, “Appeal for Information After Arson in Peacehaven” (October 5, 2025).
2 Cf. Vatican II, Dignitatis Humanae, 2 – “Religious freedom, which men demand as necessary to fulfill their duty to worship God, has to do with immunity from coercion in civil society.”
3 Mark 12:31.
4 Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2304 – “Respect for and development of human life require peace. Peace is not merely the absence of war… but the work of justice and the effect of charity.”

A line of lit candles in the foreground with a sunset over a town in the background, creating a serene and reflective atmosphere.

Statement: On the Appointment of the New Archbishop of Canterbury

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On 3 October 2025, Downing Street announced that Dame Sarah Mullally, currently Bishop of London and former Chief Nursing Officer for England, has been appointed the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman ever to hold the post in the 1,400-year history of the office. Her confirmation is scheduled for January 2026 at St Paul’s Cathedral, with her installation at Canterbury Cathedral in March.

The Titular Archbishop of Selsey, as Primus of the Old Roman Apostolate, has issued this statement to place the appointment in its wider historical and theological context, noting the irony of the timing, the sadness of further division, and the necessity of prayer — above all, for the conversion of Dame Sarah and of England itself to the fullness of Catholic faith.

His Grace has issued the following statement:

Coat of arms of S.E. Hieronymus Lloyd, Archbishop of Selsey, featuring a blue shield with yellow fleur-de-lis and stars, surrounded by ornate decoration and the motto 'Deus Caritas Est'.

[Begins] The announcement of Dame Sarah Mullally as the next Archbishop of Canterbury has been greeted as a historic milestone: the first woman to occupy the See of Augustine in its long history. As Catholics, we do not meet such news with rancour, but with prayerful reflection — and with a sense of history that brings both sorrow and hope.

It is not without irony that this appointment comes in the very week when the Catholic Church in England and Wales marks the 175th anniversary of the restoration of the hierarchy by Blessed Pope Pius IX.¹ In 1850, after centuries of persecution and suppression, the Church regained the fullness of her episcopal order in these lands. Bishops were once again set over dioceses, restoring to the faithful the visible structure of apostolic government that had been interrupted since the Reformation. It was, and remains, a sign of continuity with the ancient faith first planted here by St Augustine of Canterbury in 597.²

The juxtaposition could not be more striking. On the one hand, Catholics recall with thanksgiving the providential renewal of true apostolic order. On the other, the Church of England presents to the world a figure who embodies the innovations of recent decades. Dame Sarah’s own story is admirable in many respects: a distinguished career in nursing, service as Chief Nursing Officer for England,³ and a respected tenure as Bishop of London. Yet her elevation is also symbolic of the different path the Church of England has taken — one that has sought renewal not in fidelity to the deposit of faith, but in adaptation to cultural change.

This decision also has ecumenical consequences of the highest order. Whatever fragile hopes once existed for reconciliation between Canterbury and the apostolic Churches — Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and the rest — have now effectively been set aside. Both the Catholic Church⁴ and the Orthodox Churches⁵ have spoken with one voice: Holy Orders are of divine institution, and the Church has no authority whatsoever to ordain women. To install a woman as Archbishop is therefore not only an ecclesiological innovation but a definitive signal that the Church of England has chosen a path of permanent separation from apostolic Christianity. If reunion with the successors of Peter and Andrew was once a dream, this decision has placed it far beyond reach.

Meanwhile, the fruits of this progressive path are already evident. Since the ordination of women in the 1990s, Anglicanism has suffered defections of clergy and laity, dwindling attendance,⁶ and deep fractures across the Communion. The recent controversy surrounding the election of the new Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, provoked strong reactions both within Britain and across the Global South. Christian Concern described the appointment as “tragic,”⁷ while the Archbishop of Nigeria declared that his province “cannot share communion with a church that has departed from the teachings of the Bible.”⁸ Such division illustrates how fragile Anglican unity has become. The appointment of a woman to Canterbury is likely to deepen those divisions, not heal them.

And yet, our response must not be triumphalism. For Catholics, the sight of Canterbury in confusion and fragmentation is never a cause for satisfaction, but for sorrow. The See of Augustine was once the beacon of unity in England, and its decline is bound up with the spiritual decline of the nation itself.

We must therefore pray. We must pray for Dame Sarah Mullally’s conversion to the fullness of truth, that she may yet come to see the beauty of the apostolic faith unbroken in the Catholic Church. We must pray for those Anglicans who still hunger for unity with the Church Christ founded. And above all, we must pray for the conversion of England itself, once known as Our Lady’s Dowry, that this nation may return to the faith that sanctified its saints and martyrs and alone can secure its future.

In this week of anniversaries, we are reminded of two paths: one of restoration, when the Catholic hierarchy was re-established in fidelity to apostolic order; the other of innovation, which risks further disintegration. History will judge which path leads to life. For our part, we remain committed to witness, to charity, and to prayer — confident that the truth entrusted to the Church will endure, and that England will, in God’s time, find its way home. [ENDS]

¹ Pius IX, Universalis Ecclesiae (1850), restoring the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales.
² Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, I.25–26, on Augustine’s mission to Kent in 597.
³ UK Government, Department of Health archives, “Dame Sarah Mullally, Chief Nursing Officer for England” (1999–2004).
⁴ John Paul II, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994): “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women.”
⁵ Inter-Orthodox Theological Consultation, “Women and the Priesthood,” Chambésy (1988), reaffirming that priestly ordination is reserved to men.
⁶ Church of England, Statistics for Mission 2022; Harriet Sherwood, The Guardian, 24 Oct 2024, reporting a fall of 169,000 worshippers in four years.
⁷ Newsweek, “Gay Archbishop’s Appointment Criticized by Christian Group,” Jul 2025, on Cherry Vann’s election in Wales.
⁸ The Times, Aug 2025, quoting the Archbishop of Nigeria rejecting communion with the Church in Wales after Vann’s appointment.

Statement: On the Manchester Synagogue Attack

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On 2 October 2025, during Yom Kippur and the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, worshippers at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester were attacked when a car was driven into them and the assailant began stabbing. Two were killed, three injured, and the suspect shot dead by police. The assault came days after the Labour Party Conference passed a motion accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, a decision that critics warn fuels antisemitism by blurring political criticism with hostility toward Jews. The same conference also saw 66 arrests connected to Palestine Action, proscribed in July as a terrorist group for violent direct action.

The attack coincided with Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza on the same morning, triggering worldwide protests and leading British Transport Police to warn of disruption to the rail network. This juxtaposition illustrates how global flashpoints quickly ignite local tensions. Together, inflammatory rhetoric, militant protest culture, and violent acts form a dangerous climate in which faith communities in Britain—particularly Jews—find themselves increasingly at risk, requiring both police protection and the moral clarity of leaders willing to resist incendiary language.

His Grace has issued the following statement:

[Begins] It is a sad commentary on our times that a nation once shaped by the Christian faith must now guard its places of worship with armed police. On the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels—when the Church prays that God’s messengers watch over His children—our Jewish neighbours in Manchester were attacked as they gathered for Yom Kippur. To assault men and women at prayer is not merely a crime against their persons; it is, in the language of the Gospel, a scandal against “the little ones,” an affront that cries to Heaven itself (cf. Matt. 18:6). Two souls were taken, others wounded, and the peace of sacred worship shattered by hatred.¹ ²

The very fact that synagogues, mosques, and churches now require visible police protection is itself a sign of how deeply our society has lost its bearings. Once, the sanctuaries of God were regarded as places of refuge. Today, they are seen by many as potential targets. This is not progress, but regression into barbarism. And it is doubly grievous because it is unnecessary: no free and ordered society should have to surround its worshippers with barricades and firearms.

Nor is the disorder confined to houses of prayer. The British Transport Police, on the very day of this outrage, issued urgent warnings of attempts to disrupt our railway system by activists angered at Israel’s interception of the Gaza flotilla.³ That civil authorities must prepare for protests designed to obstruct the arteries of public life shows how fragile our peace has become. Protest is a right; deliberate disruption and intimidation are not. When demonstrations are framed as confrontations rather than appeals to conscience, they cease to be witnesses to justice and become engines of discord.

What makes this climate more perilous still is the rhetoric of our political leaders. Only days before the Manchester attack, the Labour Party Conference resounded with motions declaring that Israel is guilty of genocide, demanding embargoes and boycotts.⁴ ⁵ The leadership attempted to soften the wording, yet the hall would not hear it. The applause that greeted accusations of complicity and shouts of “mass starvation” during a Chancellor’s speech reveals a dangerous reality: hyperbolic rhetoric has become the currency of political discourse.⁶ But words are not neutral. In a society already strained by division, reckless words become tinder for extremism. To condemn violence after it has erupted while indulging in the language that stirs it up is not leadership but abdication.

This confluence of factors—the attack on a synagogue during Yom Kippur, the militant tactics of protest groups, the irresponsible hyperbole of politicians—illustrates a culture where rhetoric, activism, and violence are dangerously entangled. Arrests at the Labour Conference of 66 individuals linked to Palestine Action, a group proscribed in July as a terrorist organisation for violent direct action, underline the shift from legitimate protest into militancy.⁷ ⁸ And that Israel’s interception of the flotilla should occur on the very morning of the Manchester attack is a sobering reminder of how global flashpoints and local hatreds now feed one another in real time.

Britain stands at a crossroads. If we cannot distinguish between reasoned debate and rhetorical excess, between peaceful protest and militant confrontation, between legitimate political disagreement and hatred of a people, then we will reap more violence, not less. Our Jewish neighbours know this only too well. The Old Roman Apostolate joins them in grief, in solidarity, and in prayer that their Guardian Angels will watch over them in these dark days.

Let us, therefore, commend the souls of the dead to the mercy of God, pray for the healing of the wounded, and stand against every form of antisemitism. And let us pray for our leaders—that their tongues may be guided by wisdom, their policies shaped by justice, and their hearts moved to protect the peace of our communities. [ENDS]

  1. Associated Press, “Car and knife attack at UK synagogue on Yom Kippur kills 2 and injures 3,” 2 Oct 2025.
  2. Reuters, “Four injured, apparent attacker shot by police near UK synagogue on Yom Kippur,” 2 Oct 2025.
  3. British Transport Police, “Urgent warning issued ahead of planned protest activity,” 2 Oct 2025.
  4. The Guardian, “Labour Party conference backs motion saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” 29 Sep 2025.
  5. LabourList, “Labour delegates lock horns over competing Palestine motions,” 30 Sep 2025.
  6. Al Jazeera, “Pro-Palestine activist interrupts Rachel Reeves’ speech, demands end to UK arms supply to Israel,” 29 Sep 2025.
  7. The Guardian, “Police arrest 66 for alleged Palestine Action support near Labour Conference,” 29 Sep 2025.
  8. The Guardian, “UK MPs vote to proscribe Palestine Action as terrorist group,” 2 Jul 2025.

From Ruin to Restoration: The Story of Catholic England

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

On the feast of St Michael, 29 September 1850, Pope Pius IX restored diocesan bishops to England and Wales. Nicholas Wiseman, made Archbishop of Westminster, cried out with joy that Catholic England was “restored to its orbit in the ecclesiastical firmament.”¹ That orbit had been broken for nearly three centuries. The Church in England had lived in eclipse. It had been stripped of its altars, mocked by its enemies, betrayed by its rulers, and sustained only by the blood of martyrs and the courage of recusants. What was restored in 1850 had first been shattered in 1559, when Elizabeth’s Act of Supremacy and Act of Uniformity outlawed the ancient Mass.²

The parish altar, once the heart of every village, was torn down. Chalices were hidden in cupboards, vestments ripped for rags, bishops thrown into prison, priests exiled or compelled to conform. Families were dragged to court, fined into ruin for missing the new services. By the 1580s, a Catholic who refused to attend owed £20 each month, a fine calculated to destroy.³ In 1570, Pope Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth in the bull Regnans in Excelsis.⁴ To Catholics, it was a defence of truth; to the Crown, it was proof of treason. Parliament tightened the law still further. In 1585, the Act against Jesuits and Seminary Priests decreed that any priest ordained abroad who returned home should die as a traitor, and any layman who gave him shelter could share his fate.⁵ From that moment, the presence of a Catholic priest on English soil was a hanging crime.

Yet priests came anyway. Edmund Campion, Oxford’s golden boy, traded honours for a disguise and a chalice. He moved by night, heard confessions in barns, preached Christ in attics. Caught, racked in the Tower, he went to Tyburn in 1581 and told his judges they condemned their own ancestors. He died with calm defiance.⁶ Margaret Clitherow, the butcher’s wife of York, opened her home to fugitives. When arrested, she refused to plead, knowing that a trial would force her children to betray her. For this she was crushed to death beneath stones in 1586, thirty-three years old, pregnant, praying for her killers.⁷ Nicholas Owen, a Jesuit carpenter, turned wood and stone into weapons of survival. He built priest-holes so cunning that many remain hidden even now. He saved countless priests, then died under torture in 1606.⁸ More than three hundred Catholics were executed under Elizabeth and James, many for nothing more than saying Mass.⁹

For those who lived, recusancy meant a slow martyrdom. Fines ruined estates, laws excluded children from schools, informers prowled villages. Whole communities gathered at midnight for a furtive Mass, watchmen posted on the lanes. Rosaries were fingered in whispers, catechisms taught in secret, faith lived under constant threat. The Armada of 1588 convinced Protestants that Catholics were Spain’s agents. The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, the folly of a few, stained the entire community with treason. Bonfires and sermons each November renewed the suspicion. Later, Titus Oates’s fabricated Popish Plot in 1678 sent innocent men to the gallows.¹⁰ In 1780, the Gordon Riots set chapels aflame and mobs howled “No Popery!” in the streets.¹¹

Rome did not abandon England. In 1623, Pope Gregory XV appointed William Bishop as Vicar Apostolic, the first of a line of bishops without dioceses, shepherds of shadows who confirmed children in barns and ordained priests abroad.¹² And in London, Richard Challoner sustained the hidden faithful with his revision of the Douai-Rheims Bible and his Garden of the Soul (1740), a book of prayers that became the catechism of generations who had no parish or procession but carried the Church in their hearts.¹³

By the late eighteenth century the storm began to lift. The Relief Act of 1778 permitted Catholics to inherit land, though it provoked the Gordon Riots. The Act of 1791 allowed registered chapels and schools, still under scrutiny.¹⁴ At last the great Relief Act of 1829 swept away most remaining restrictions. Catholics could sit in Parliament, hold office, live as citizens.¹⁵ The long night of penal times was ending.

But the missionary structure of vicariates could no longer suffice. Catholics were multiplying, parishes thriving, schools spreading. In 1850, Pius IX restored the hierarchy by Universalis Ecclesiae. Thirteen dioceses were created, with Westminster as metropolitan. Wiseman, newly made cardinal, was appointed archbishop.¹⁶ Protestant England fumed. Lord John Russell railed against papal aggression in his “Durham Letter.”¹⁷ Effigies of the Pope were burned, and Parliament passed the Ecclesiastical Titles Act forbidding Catholic bishops to use Anglican titles.¹⁸ But the storm passed, and the hierarchy endured.

Catholic England was visible once more. Parishes multiplied, schools flourished, orders revived, Irish immigration filled churches, and converts like John Henry Newman gave prestige. Westminster Cathedral rose in 1895 as a sign of permanence.¹⁹ Through two world wars Catholics fought, served, and suffered alongside their countrymen. Chaplains brought the sacraments to the trenches, parishes endured the Blitz. By mid-century, Catholics were no longer outsiders. The old stigma of recusancy was gone.

But even as the Church grew strong in public, new storms rose from within. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) sought renewal but brought upheaval. The traditional Latin Mass, the anchor through centuries of persecution, was replaced. Vocations fell. Catechesis faltered.²⁰ The faith that had survived rope and rack now waned in an age of comfort. Meanwhile Britain itself drifted into secularism, with laws liberalising abortion and divorce, reshaping family life, and eroding Christian morality. Later decades exalted ideologies hostile to Catholic truth. Attendance dwindled, parishes closed, vocations dried up. The diocesan structure restored in 1850 still stands, but the Church it governs is weakened.

And yet the story is not finished. The martyrs still speak. Campion from the scaffold, Clitherow from beneath the stones, Owen from the hidden chamber, Challoner from the secret chapel. They endured not only for their own age but for ours. Their sacrifice is our summons. The England that once outlawed the Mass now shrugs at it. Indifference has replaced hostility. But the demand remains the same: fidelity to Christ, whatever the cost.

If Catholic England was restored to its orbit in 1850, it must not drift into eclipse today. The Church that survived rope and rack must not surrender to compromise. Catholic England will be truly restored only if her children reclaim the fidelity of the martyrs, the patience of the confessors, the courage of the recusants. The dawn broke once before. It can break again. But only if the faith that endured the darkness burns as brightly in our own time.

  1. Nicholas Wiseman, Pastoral Letter from out of the Flaminian Gate (1850).
  2. Statutes of the Realm: 1 Eliz. I, c.1–2 (1559).
  3. 23 Eliz. I, c.1 (1581).
  4. Regnans in Excelsis (Pius V), 25 February 1570.
  5. 27 Eliz. I, c.2 (1585).
  6. Evelyn Waugh, Edmund Campion (1935).
  7. John Mush, A True Report of the Life and Martyrdom of Mrs Margaret Clitherow (1586).
  8. Michael Questier, Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England (2006).
  9. John Bossy, The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850 (1975).
  10. John Kenyon, The Popish Plot (1972).
  11. Norman Davies, The Isles: A History (1999).
  12. Catholic Encyclopedia, “England (Ecclesiastical History).”
  13. Richard Challoner, The Garden of the Soul (1740).
  14. 18 Geo. III, c.60 (1778); 31 Geo. III, c.32 (1791).
  15. 10 Geo. IV, c.7 (1829).
  16. Universalis Ecclesiae (Pius IX), 29 Sept. 1850.
  17. Lord John Russell, “Durham Letter,” Hansard (1850).
  18. 14 & 15 Vict., c.60 (1851).
  19. Owen Chadwick, The Spirit of the Oxford Movement (1990).
  20. Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy (2004).

The Halal Meat Debate and the Christian Conscience

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

The debate over halal meat in Britain has once more risen to national prominence, and rightly so. Parliament has heard petitions about animal welfare; campaigners have spoken of religious liberty; and politicians have traded rhetoric about British identity. Yet in all this clamour one vital question is forgotten: the conscience of the Christian.

We live in an age that prizes transparency, yet when it comes to our food — the very substance that sustains life and, in the Eucharist, becomes the Body of Christ — our society traffics in ambiguity. In Britain today, halal-certified meat, sometimes stunned, sometimes not, enters the general food supply with scarcely a word of disclosure. Schoolchildren, hospital patients, soldiers in barracks may all be eating meat prayed over in the name of Allah without ever knowing it.¹

Case Study: Newcastle University
In May 2025, Newcastle University’s catering service introduced halal-only chicken and lamb across several outlets. Students soon raised complaints: some were unaware until after eating, others said they felt deprived of choice, while Christian and secular students alike objected to being compelled to consume food ritually consecrated in another faith.² After pressure from the Students’ Union, the university agreed to review provision, but the incident illustrates the wider problem: without transparency and alternatives, consumers are left with no meaningful freedom of conscience.

Here lies the injustice. The Apostle Paul taught the Corinthians that meat in itself is indifferent, yet warned: “If any man say to you: This has been offered in sacrifice; do not eat, for his sake that told it, and for conscience’ sake” (1 Cor. 10:28).³ The principle is plain: Christians cannot knowingly share in the rites of another religion, nor can they be compelled to do so in ignorance. To obscure the truth about what we eat is to force believers into a silent participation, stripping them of the freedom of conscience that is the hallmark of true liberty.

The Restore Britain campaign has seized upon this issue, raising alarms about halal-only menus in schools and even in parts of the military. They have called for a ban on non-stun slaughter, appealing to animal welfare and cultural integrity.⁴ Their concern strikes a chord, for no Christian can remain indifferent to truth or to the slow erosion of our Christian heritage. But the danger is that zeal for justice may give way to hostility, that righteous concern for conscience may be disfigured by rhetoric that stirs division rather than illuminating truth.

The Christian answer is not prohibition but clarity. Muslims and Jews must be free to follow their dietary laws. That is a legitimate exercise of religious liberty. But Christians, too, must be free to decline participation in rites they do not share. That is an equally legitimate exercise of conscience. True pluralism is reciprocal: one liberty does not trample another. The solution is as simple as it is just — mandatory labelling of meat, procurement reform in public institutions, and transparency in supply chains.⁵ With truth, conscience is protected. Without truth, liberty collapses into coercion.

Under the Equality Act 2010, religion and belief are recognised as protected characteristics. This means that Christians, like members of other faiths, are legally entitled to have their convictions respected in public life, education, and the workplace. Where food or services risk conflicting with conscience — such as being compelled to consume ritually consecrated meat without disclosure — Christians have a lawful basis to request transparency and fair treatment. The Act upholds that no one should be discriminated against or coerced in matters of faith.

Let us not deceive ourselves. This debate is not merely about animals, nor merely about politics. It is about the soul of our society. A civilisation that conceals the truth about its food will soon conceal the truth about its faith. The lie at the butcher’s counter becomes the lie in the classroom, the hospital, the courtroom, the parish church. What begins as silence in the marketplace ends as silence in the conscience. And silence in the conscience is death to the soul.

Christ said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). It is time to apply that wisdom in Britain today. Let Muslims be Muslims, Jews be Jews, and Christians be Christians — but let none be compelled to share in another’s rite against their conscience. This is not intolerance; it is honesty. It is not exclusion; it is justice. In the end, it is not prohibition that will protect our faith and our freedom, but truth.

A Pastoral Appeal
I urge Christian families, schools, chapels, and institutions: do not be afraid to ask your suppliers plainly how the meat you are being offered has been sourced and prepared. Request transparency about whether animals were stunned, and whether the meat has been consecrated in the name of another faith. This is not an act of hostility but of integrity. When consumers calmly but firmly demand clarity, suppliers and institutions will learn that conscience matters. And in defending conscience, we defend not only our faith but the freedom of all.

Here is a sample letter template that Christian families, schools, chapels, or institutions could adapt when writing to their suppliers, asking for transparency about meat sourcing and preparation. It is courteous but firm, framed around conscience and integrity.

Supplier_Transparency_Request_Letter_EqualityActDownload

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

Footnotes
¹ UK Parliament, Non-Stun Slaughter of Animals, Westminster Hall debate, 9 June 2025, Hansard HC Deb 9 June 2025, c39WH.
² Newcastle University Students’ Union, debate over halal-only provision in campus catering, reported May 2025.
³ 1 Corinthians 10:28.
⁴ Restore Britain campaign materials, e.g. Rupert Lowe MP, Facebook post, 2025; ConservativeHome, “The Tory cause could be strengthened by Lowe’s Restore Britain,” 15 July 2025.
⁵ RSPCA, “Clearer labelling needed on method of slaughter,” Campaign briefing, 2023; UK Government, Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015.

The Westminster Declaration: Conscience or Compromise?

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By the Archbishop of Selsey

The new Westminster Declaration has brought before us once again the perennial question of how Christians must witness to truth in a society increasingly hostile to the divine law. Conscience, rightly formed, is not a private instinct but the echo of God’s law written upon the heart. The Declaration rightly identifies threats to life, marriage, education, and freedom, but these concerns must be situated within the broader framework of Catholic doctrine, lest our testimony to Christ be reduced to mere cultural conservatism.

There is a danger, in our present moment, of multiplying words where a few burning words of witness would suffice. The first Westminster Declaration had the ring of prophecy: it spoke of conscience and truth, life and marriage, with the clarity of martyrs. The new Declaration, though well-intentioned, reads more like a petition to Parliament than a trumpet blast to the nation. By citing statutes, rulings, and commissions, it risks grounding Christian witness in the shifting sands of policy rather than the rock of divine law. Yet one cannot deny that the issues of education, gender, and technology now cry out for attention. The challenge is whether Christians will stand as witnesses, or merely as lobbyists.

The Church has always taught that man’s first and fundamental right is the right to know, love, and serve God. Pope Leo XIII, in Immortale Dei (1885), made clear that the foundation of civil society rests upon the recognition of God as supreme Lawgiver and Judge, and that rulers are bound to govern according to His eternal law.¹ Likewise, Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925) reminded the world that true peace and justice cannot be secured except under the Kingship of Christ.² These encyclicals, and others like Libertas Praestantissimum (1888), affirm that liberty has meaning only when ordered to truth and virtue.³ Freedom of conscience cannot mean license to error; rather, it means freedom from coercion in obeying the law of God.

It is precisely here that we must contrast the perennial doctrine with the ambiguities introduced by Dignitatis Humanae (1965). While the Council insisted that it “leaves untouched traditional Catholic doctrine” (§1), it nevertheless advanced the novel claim that every person has a natural right not to be restrained from publicly professing even erroneous religious belief (§2). This formulation, vague and unqualified, was a rupture with the consistent teaching of the popes from Gregory XVI (Mirari Vos, 1832) to Pius XII, who maintained that although error may at times be tolerated for the sake of public peace, it can never be clothed with a natural right.⁴

This ambiguity has borne bitter fruit. What was once prudential toleration has been transformed into a supposed liberty to promote error, even in public institutions. In the decades since Vatican II, secular governments, often citing “religious liberty” in conciliar language, have come to treat the true religion and false religions as juridically equal. Worse still, they have turned this principle inward, using it to deny Christians the very right to profess truth, because truth is redefined as one “opinion” among many. The irony is stark: in the name of religious liberty, Christians are increasingly coerced into silence, while ideologies opposed to the natural law are granted legal protection and cultural dominance.

Contemporary Catholic critics foresaw this danger. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre argued that Dignitatis Humanae “turns its back on the doctrine of Gregory XVI and Pius IX,” and that by equating liberty with the right to profess error, it would produce “apostasy in practice.”⁵ Romano Amerio, in Iota Unum, noted that Vatican II’s declaration “changes the concept of tolerance into a right of error, which is absurd and destructive of truth itself.”⁶ Michael Davies, writing in Religious Liberty and the Second Vatican Council, warned that the document’s ambiguity was “the Trojan horse through which liberalism would capture the Church.”⁷

The martyrs of England bore witness to a different vision. They resisted unjust laws not with elaborate petitions to Parliament, but with the silent eloquence of their sacrifice. St Thomas More affirmed before his execution that he died “the King’s good servant, but God’s first.” In this he exemplified the Catholic understanding of religious liberty: obedience to lawful authority, but never at the expense of divine law. Their blood confirms the truth that rights are not created by the State, nor grounded in shifting social compacts, but flow from the sovereignty of Christ the King.

The Westminster Declaration of 2025 addresses many urgent matters: gender ideology, parental rights in education, and the moral challenges of artificial intelligence. Yet we must be clear that our defence of life, marriage, and conscience is not simply a matter of civic freedom or cultural heritage. It is rooted in the sovereignty of Christ the King, the unchanging law of God, and the mission of the Church to sanctify the world. To forget this is to reduce Christian witness to political advocacy.

As Pius XII once warned, “A people that separates itself from God becomes enslaved to error and passion.”⁸ Our task is not only to preserve the remnants of Christian conscience in law, but to proclaim anew the social Kingship of Christ, upon which the true rights and dignity of man depend. Only then will any declaration bearing the name of Westminster avoid becoming a political manifesto, and instead recover the prophetic power of a Christian witness rooted in the Cross.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

  1. Pius XII, Address to the International Union of Catholic Women’s Leagues (29 September 1957).
  2. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (1 November 1885), §§3–6.
  3. Pius XI, Quas Primas (11 December 1925), §§18–19.
  4. Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum (20 June 1888), §§16–17.
  5. Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (1832); Pius IX, Quanta Cura (1864); Pius XII, Allocution Ci Riesce to the Roman Forum (1953).
  6. Marcel Lefebvre, Open Letter to Confused Catholics (Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1986), pp. 39–41.
  7. Romano Amerio, Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the XXth Century (Kansas City: Sarto House, 1996), §210.
  8. Michael Davies, Religious Liberty and the Second Vatican Council (TAN Books, 1992), pp. 117–119.

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.