History shows that tradition is not sacrosanct (Opinion)

The most compelling question at present facing the Catholic Church in Ireland is the imminent disappearance of what has been a central and fundamental experience of Catholic life for centuries. 

It is this: in less years than we can count on the fingers of both hands – in other words in less than a decade – the provision of the central form of Catholic worship, the Mass, will begin to disappear, effectively, from Irish life.

This will happen for two very obvious reasons. One is that priests in Ireland are getting older and fewer and the overall number, for many years in free-fall, is now approaching a steep cliff-face. 

The second is that, extraordinarily, despite the fact that the word ‘crisis’ seems an accurate description to describe our situation there seems to be almost an official policy of ignoring this ‘elephant in the living room’.

Regular readers of this column will know that for many years I’ve traced this decline ad nauseam and I’m very aware that in raising this issue again, I’m covering old ground here and I need to apologise upfront to my regular readers and to crave their indulgence in repeating myself - yet again. 

I’m very conscious that in repeating myself I’ve become a Cassandra figure warning about the equivalent of the fall of another Troy and nobody is listening.

So, once more with feeling, here goes.

This ‘crisis’ is almost upon us because we are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to accept what for many are obvious solutions. Let’s put it in the starkest terms.

Without priests there will be no Mass and without Mass there will be no Catholic Church. There could be sufficient priests if we were prepared to countenance changing the present celibacy requirement for male priests and/or ending the present ban on women priests.

While it’s clear that both options are available and support for both is widespread among Catholics, both have been consistently avoided for centuries. 

But there seems to be no discernible appetite among Catholic Church authorities for belling this particular cat. Indeed the opposite seems to be the case, as the effort to ordain women deacons - what seems little more than a gesture to the central role women could play in Catholic life - has become illustrative of a constitutional incapacity to respond in any substantive way to the growing crisis. 

While some Catholics including many women see this as indicative of a fundamental prejudice against women - or even that contempt for women that we call misogyny - in Catholicism, authorities sometimes actually compound that diagnosis by self-consciously just looking the other way. 

There seems to be no prospect of movement as Catholicism seems forever stuck between that rock and this hard place.

So what can we do about it? The answer seems to be some version of that typical Irish response to sorting impossible dilemmas - ‘very little if anything at all’. But we could ordain married men (as distinct from waiving the celibacy requirement for ordination). And no doubt we will - eventually - before the last priests in Ireland have gone to God. But we’re keeping our powder dry for the moment.

We could welcome back priests who have exchanged the ordained ministry for a lay married life if they wanted to come back but that’s deemed unlikely - even though Pope Benedict in his day extended the same offer to Anglican clergy and indicated in so doing that marriage was not officially regarded as an insurmountable obstacle to ordination.

We could, and no doubt one day we will, ordain women and wonder aloud why it had taken us so long to see what so many are now accepting, including many theologians, that there are no credible theological reasons for banning women from ordination and that women’s ordained ministry has been sacrificed for centuries on the altar of an unwise respect for tradition at the expense of the rights of women and the needs of our Church.

But we are not allowed to go there yet. 

However, the bones of an approach might be contained in a strategy Pope Francis proposed in 2024 when he appointed a group of theologians to examine the possibility of finding a way of coping with ‘controversial doctrinal, pastoral and ethical solutions’, the ‘hot button issues’ as they are often called - LGBT, women’s ordination, etc. Francis’s death sidelined the impetus of the working party but at last the document has become available.

Probably its most valuable contribution is to chart a shift from what is technically called an ‘aprioristic’ approach to solving difficulties - a reliance on preconceived ideas rather than experience - towards an ‘inductive’ approach which relies on arguing from specific cases to a general rule. 

The group prefers to call ‘controversial issues’ by the name ‘emerging issues’, an approach that’s close to Francis’ belief that reality is greater than ideas and, implicitly, that in wrestling with difficult realities we learn what it means to be human and to be Church.

It will be interesting to see how Pope Leo will respond to a document, emanating from his hero, Francis, whose path to reform he has very often and very publicly endorsed. 

It might be expected that the recent positive response to his first major encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) on the difficult question of Artificial Intelligence may encourage him to find a way towards considering key questions around ordination that have already a secure base in theology and that will allow him to underline the importance not just of past tradition but of the future of the Church. 

The temptation so often voiced by traditional Catholics is that every tradition is absolutely sacrosanct - it isn’t, of course, as the history of the Church clearly shows us.

The past is not more important than the future - as common sense invariably instructs us.

Costs down but no ‘Leo bounce’: Peter’s Pence sees fall in revenue and expenses

Peter’s Pence, the annual global collection to support the ministry of the Holy Father, reported a drop in both revenue and expenses for the 2025 financial year in its annual disclosure.

The annual report noted that the fund continues to operate a deficit, though this was significantly reduced from previous years.

According to the annual statement, income to the fund totaled 57.6 million euros in 2025, with expenses running to 59.8 million.

This represented a modest drop compared to 2024, when the collection netted revenue of 58 million euros, but a sizable reduction in expenses — down from 75.4 million euros the previous year.

Contributions from dioceses around the world, where the annual collection is undertaken on the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, remained the single largest source of income to the fund, but fell in terms of revenue while rising as a share of total income at 34.7m euros (63% of revenue), compared to 39.8m euros (59%) in 2024.

Individual donations to the collection made up only 10% of returns in 2025, totalling 5.4m euros, compared to the much more robust collection of nearly 9m euros the previous year, making up 16% of revenue to the fund in 2024.

While hopes of a broad “new pope bounce” following the election of Pope Leo XIV in April last year did not materialize, the election of the first American to the see of Peter did have some effect: the United States remained the single largest source of donations by country, rising by both total donations and percentage of revenue compared to last year: 14.2m euros and 26.1% of revenue vs. 13.7m euros and 25.2% of revenue in 2024.

The drop in revenue for last year could be part of the reason Pope Leo acted to abolish a dedicated Vatican fundraising committee created by Pope Francis at the beginning of last year.

In September last year, Leo formally suppressed the Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede, or Commission of Donations for the Holy See, which sought to raise much-needed funds for the Vatican.

The commission, of which Vatican financial officials were quietly critical as ineffective and unfit for purpose, was replaced by Leo with a working group “to formulate proposals regarding the general issue of fundraising for the Holy See, along with the definition of an appropriate structure.”

The most dramatic change to Peter’s Pence, year over year for the fund, came in the amount of money disbursed for different works.

While Peter’s Pence allocated the same amount for charitable projects and priorities of the Holy Father in 2025 as 2024 (13.3m euros), the fund slashed its contribution to the Vatican’s curial departmental and operations budget by 20m euros — 61.2m down to 41.2m euros in 2025. This drop was mirrored in the percentage of the total papal budget, which includes the curia, covered by Peter’s Pence — 17% in 2024, down to 10% in 2025.

The effects of that drop in contribution to the Holy See’s general operating budget are likely to have significant impact on the curial finances which, as recently as last year, were touting a turnaround in fortune.

A budget statement released by the Vatican in November 2025 for the previous financial year reported that the Vatican’s structural budget deficit was almost halved between 2023 and 2024, dropping from 83.5 million euros to less than 44.5 million. External donations, financial investment performance, and operational income generation were all up over the same period.

According to the budget statement, despite years of cost-cutting measures, operational costs still grew by nearly 40 million euros from 2023 to 2024. According to the report, “2024 could be a turning point if [emphasis original], after years of stable or growing operating deficit, the Holy See [sees] the reduction of its operating deficit in the coming years.”

However, even amid the headline good news of shrinking deficit, the 2024 budget statement was greeted with caution in some quarters, while some questioned if the financial turnaround was “more mirage than miracle” given that the budget gap of tens of millions of euros was filled by a significant one-off realization of capital gains through the sell-off of investments, the proceeds of which appeared to have gone to shoring up the Vatican bottom line, not into reinvestment.

A similar one-off realization of gains through the sale of stable assets and investments in 2023 triggered abnormally large returns for the Peter’s Pence fund in that year, though the increased revenue was not sustained in subsequent years.

And Vatican financial officials have privately warned that APSA, the Holy See’s asset manager, newly re-delegated by Leo last year to handle curial investments, remains unreformed in its processes and structures and its profit statements unexplained and unreliable.

Since being elected pope, Leo has sounded a public note of cautious optimism regarding Vatican finances, saying that while reforms need to continue he does not “lose sleep” over the crucial budget deficit.

'Thank God we have some justice', say mother-and-baby home survivors

"We are not victims anymore – we are survivors."

That is how Caroline Hearn describes the journey which campaigners like her have been on.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has passed legislation for a public inquiry and financial redress scheme relating to mother-and-baby institutions.

The secretive institutions for unmarried women and girls, and their children, operated for around seventy years, and were mainly run by religious orders.

Caroline was one of the survivors who watched the final debate of the legislation at Stormont.

She said her experience when she was a teenager had left "a lot of deep scars".

She was 15 when she was taken to Thorndale House, run by the Salvation Army in north Belfast, in 1971.

"You worked from seven o'clock in the morning to seven at night, even though you were pregnant," she said.

"You were treated like the lowest of the low.

"There was no counselling, there was no talking about how you were feeling."

She recalled being "sent out to work" in a factory six weeks after giving birth, at a time when the Troubles was at its height.

"I was almost killed in a bomb. It's on my records that they called me lazy, that I didn't want to work because I didn't want to go back to that place of work," she said.

"When you came home from work, you had to take part in making teddy bears or knitting of crafts which would be sold.

"You handed over your money as well – you didn't have much left for you and your child.

"You were frightened, you were scared – it was a terrifying time."

Caroline is in the group Birth Mothers and Their Children For Justice.

She said: "We can hold our heads up in pride. I spent 54 years with my head down in shame – I have no intention of doing that again."

Another member of the group, Colette Breen was 16 when she became pregnant.

"I ran away from home, and the social worker brought me to Marianville in Belfast."

It was an institution in the south of the city, which was run by the Good Shepherd Sisters.

"You were up at seven o'clock for mass and breakfast, and then you had to do work.

"It was like a prison, you had to follow the rules. I tried to break out, and the police brought me back," she said.

"I was punished – I couldn't read my letters, as the nuns had to read them first.

"I couldn't have phone calls."

She said she was sent to a maternity unit in a taxi on her own to give birth.

"The whole thing was a secret, and it was very lonely.

"I never told anybody about it until about seven years ago."

Now 72, said she had been treated for mental health problems since she was 21 as a result of her suffering.

Colette Cassidy's birth mother was also in Marianville.

She said she found out she was adopted when she was in primary school, and "another girl told me in class".

"Even though I had a very good upbringing, there's always been a bit missing. I've never felt I fitted in anywhere."

She found out who her birth mother was last year, with the help of the group – after searching since 1993.

"Colette (Breen) went with me to her grave when I found out where she was buried.

"It was slight closure, in a way."

In relation to the passage of the legislation, she said: "Thank God we have some justice.

"There's so much that needs to be done – so much has been covered up, and so many wrongs done by the Catholic and Protestant churches. They have to be held accountable."

Redress scheme

The bill has set up a redress scheme, under which any mother or child who spent time in an institution will be entitled to a standard payment of £12000.

£2000 will be paid to the family members of mothers and children who have died since 28 April 1953.

The devolved government estimates the scheme will receive around 10,000 applications, with payments totalling £90m.

It is understood the public inquiry is expected to last around three years and will cost around £14m.

The inquiry will further investigate the issues raised in a report due to be published soon, by the Truth Recovery Independent Panel.

It was commissioned to gather evidence in a non-confrontational setting.

The work to design the investigatory process began after research by university academics in 2021.

It found that more than ten thousand women and girls spent time in the institutions, and that a number of them had become pregnant as the result of sexual crime.

First Minister Michelle O'Neill said the institutions were "built on the foundations of systemic misogyny".

"Within their walls, women and girls were stripped of dignity, silenced and shamed.

"This legislation is another step towards putting that right through truth, acknowledgement and redress."

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said: "While legislation alone cannot undo the suffering endured across all parts of our society, we hope this marks the beginning of a new phase."

'We should be transparent'

The Salvation Army said: "We ran mother and baby homes with the intention of caring for vulnerable women and children but testimonies like these show that there were people in our care whom we let down and for that we are profoundly sorry.

"We are deeply saddened to hear of the traumatic experiences that some people endured in the care of The Salvation Army many decades ago; the hurt of which they still carry.

"We welcome the various processes and inquiries underway to understand more about how women and their children were treated in Mother and Baby Homes.

"It is right that we should be transparent about the times in our past when we failed to provide the support and care that people needed and deserved."

The Good Shepherd Sisters have previously said they would offer the investigation their "fullest cooperation" and they regretted they "could not and did not always meet the multi-faceted needs of these women".

New exhibition on Tuam Mother and Baby Home opens at Galway City Museum

A new exhibition on the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, and other institutions, has opened at Galway City Museum.

It's the first installation of its kind in Ireland, and is the result of a collaboration between University of Galway and Galway City Museum.

Survivor Stories: Tuam and Ireland's Institutional Past tells the stories of 18 survivors, through audio and visual exhibits, with an accompanying podcast.

It provides an insight into Ireland's historic treatment of single mothers and their children, and the legacy issues still faced by survivors today.

The exhibition will run at Galway City Museum from now until this September, and there will be a programme of public talks, workshops and screenings alongside it.

General House Statement Following the Episcopal Consecrations

Statement of 1 July 2026

On 1 July 2026, the feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, at the Seminary of Saint Pius X in Écône, Switzerland, in the presence of Fr. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the Society of Saint Pius X, and a very great gathering of priests, religious, and faithful, His Excellency Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, assisted by His Excellency Bishop Bernard Fellay, conferred episcopal consecration upon Bishop Pascal Schreiber, Bishop Michael Goldade, Bishop Michel Poinsinet de Sivry, and Bishop Marc Hanappier, to serve as auxiliary bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X, without jurisdiction. 

The Society sincerely regrets that, owing to exceptional circumstances, these consecrations had to be conferred without the authorization of the Holy Father. It regrets in particular that the Superior General of the Society was not afforded the opportunity to meet personally with His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, in order to set before him filially the grave reasons which rendered this ceremony necessary. 

The profound joy inspired by these episcopal consecrations cannot, however, be overshadowed. By securing the means necessary for the preservation of the sacred heritage of Tradition, the gift of these four new bishops constitutes truly a very great grace for the Society itself and for the whole Church. 

The Society of Saint Pius X rejoices deeply in this and raises to God a fervent act of thanksgiving, thanking in particular the Most Blessed Virgin Mary for having permitted this transmission of the fullness of the priesthood, for the greater glory of God, the honour of Holy Church, and the salvation of souls. 

Écône, 1 July 2026

High Court orders Enoch Burke's release from prison

The High Court has ordered Enoch Burke’s release from prison, despite the schoolteacher’s ongoing refusal to comply with a court order not to trespass at his former place of work.

Burke has spent more than 700 days in jail across different spells over his contempt of court orders banning him from his former workplace, Wilson’s Hospital School, in Co Westmeath.

Judge Brian Cregan on Wednesday said he would release Enoch Burke notwithstanding his contempt of the court order, for reasons including the “material change” in circumstances arising from the recent refusal of Burke’s appeal against his dismissal from the school for gross misconduct.

The judge was sharply critical of Burke in a judgment ordering the teacher’s release, describing him as an “unwelcome intruder” intent on disrupting staff and pupils at his former school.

The school suspended and later dismissed Burke over his conduct towards then-principal Niamh McShane at a school religious event in June 2022.

The confrontation arose in circumstances where Ms McShane had earlier directed teachers to address a student by a new name and with the pronouns “they” and “them”.

Enoch Burke, an evangelical Christian, has maintained that this request went against his religious beliefs.

When he continued to trespass at the school following his suspension, the school sought court orders banning him from the premises.

Burke has continuously breached the order banning him from the school, resulting in his attachment and committal to prison on several occasions.

Enoch Burke was formally let go from his position at the school in May after a disciplinary appeals panel threw out his appeal against his dismissal from the school.

In his judgment, Mr Justice Cregan said that it was clear Mr Burke was an “unwelcome intruder” at the school “intent on causing as much disruption to the education of its young pupils as he can, in his campaign against transgenderism”.

The judge said Enoch Burke was entitled to his religious views and was entitled to turn up at the school gates and protest his dismissal.

“However, what he is not allowed to do is trespass upon the school property, enter the school corridors, disrupt the education of the pupils, try to bully and berate security guards, and disobey court orders. These are the actions of a teacher who has completely lost his moral compass,” the judge said.

He added: “Mr Burke makes much of the fact that his conscience will not let him call a pupil by their preferred pronoun. Yet his conscience seems undisturbed when he deliberately disrupts his pupils’ education and undermines the proper functioning of the school.”

Despite these criticisms, and notwithstanding Mr Burke’s repeated refusal to give an undertaking not to trespass at the school, the judge ordered Enoch Burke’s release from prison.

Outlining the reasons for Mr Burke’s release, the judge noted a “material change” in circumstances arising from a disciplinary appeals panel’s decision to refuse Burke’s appeal to his dismissal from the school.

Burke has now exhausted the internal appeals process in respect of his employment at the school, his dismissal has been confirmed, and the Department of Education has ceased paying his salary, the judge noted.

“Absent any legal proceedings which might be brought by Mr Burke in respect of his dismissal, this dispute is now at an end and it is appropriate to release Mr Burke,” the judge said.

The judge said Burke’s reasoning for continuing to show up at the school was his insistence that he was still an employee at the school, and that he had a duty to show up and teach, and that this would remain the case until the completion of the appeals process.

“It is now clear that this hopeless fiction is at an end. In those circumstances, it should be clear to Mr Burke that he has now reached the end of the road of the internal disciplinary procedures and that his position as a teacher in this school is now permanently at an end,” the judge said.

The judge also said Burke’s release is unlikely to cause great disruption at the school between now and September, given it is closed for summer break.

The judge said that if Burke returns to the school for the new academic year, the school can bring a new application to have Burke committed to prison.

In the circumstances, the judge said Burke should be released. The judge noted that Burke is still in contempt of the court order restraining his trespassing at the school and will remain so until he purges that contempt.

“Whilst Mr Burke is perfectly entitled to his own religious views, he is not entitled to his own truth. Every time Mr Burke says that he is in prison because of his opposition to transgenderism, that is a clear falsehood ... The truth is Mr Burke is in prison because he is trespassing on school property,” the judge said.

“Mr Burke is entitled to his religious views on transgenderism. He is free to shout those views from the rooftops – so long as he remains outside the school gates and does not trespass and disrupt the education of the young pupils at the school,” he concluded.

The judge said he would rule later in the month on the calculation of fines accrued by Burke over the course of his dispute with the school.

He also said he would give further time to three of Mr Burke’s family members – brother Isaac, mother Martina and sister Ammi – to make submissions on a potential order banning them from attending court hearings in person.

The trio have been removed from several hearings in Burke’s various lawsuits on account of disruptive behaviour.

Catholic Diocese Appeals for Prayers after Priest, Two Franciscan Brothers Kidnapped in Cameroon

Cameroon’s Catholic Diocese of Nkongsamba has appealed for prayers for the safe release of a Priest and two members of the Fraternity of Franciscans of Emmanuel (FFE) who were abducted in the country’s North-West Region.

In a Tuesday, June 30 statement, the Vicar General of the Cameroonian Episcopal See announced that Fr. John Bosco Bihkong, a Priest serving in the Diocese of Nkongsamba, and two FFE members were kidnapped during the night of June 27.

According to Mons. Joseph Tchinda Dountio, Fr. Bihkong had traveled to his native village of Melim, near Ndop in the North-West Region of Cameroon, to celebrate his first Mass on Friday, June 26.

He was accompanied by Br. Sylvester Sewong, Guardian of the FFE convent in Kékem, and Br. Marie Rodrigue Sop, who is preparing for perpetual profession. The three were abducted the following night.

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way,” Mons. Dountio said.

He said the Local Ordinary, Bishop Dieudonné Espoir Atangana is appealing for prayers for their safe release.

“Bishop Dieudonné invites the People of God, as well as all people of goodwill, to pray and support the Franciscan Brothers of Emmanuel for the release of these servants of God,” he said.

No details were provided regarding the identity of the kidnappers, their motives, or whether contact had been established with the abductors.

Cameroon's North-West Region is one of the two English-speaking regions that have experienced years of insecurity linked to the country's Anglophone crisis. 

Clergy, women and men Religious, and other civilians have periodically been targeted in abductions as violence has persisted in the region.

Is King Charles’ redefinition of the monarchy a rejection of God? (Opinion)

On Wednesday, Buckingham Palace published a significant change. King Charles III, supreme governor of the Church of England, will now “protect the space for Faith within the multi-faith nation.”

This is a huge and important step that moves the monarchy’s spiritual role beyond its traditional Anglican roots and toward religious diversity, removing its connection to British Christianity.

This new language seems like a natural follow-up to the 2023 coronation, which combined traditional ceremony with greater inclusivity. 

“Defender of the Faith” was still announced in Westminster Abbey during a Church of England service, but leaders from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and other faiths also took part.

The event kept its constitutional foundation while showing that the monarchy now sees itself as a guardian of a much broader spiritual landscape in modern Britain.

To understand why this is important, we must look at the origins. In 1521, Pope Leo X gave Henry VIII the title “Defender of the Faith” after the king, possibly with help from Thomas More and Cardinal Wolsey, wrote a strong defense of Catholic teaching against Martin Luther.

At that time, it was high praise for a monarch who stood firm as the Reformation began to divide Christian unity across Europe.

Then came a dramatic change. When the pope refused to annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the English Reformation began. By 1534, Henry was named the supreme head of the Church of England. Rome took away the title and excommunicated him, but Parliament restored it by law in 1544, turning a papal honor into a lasting symbol of English independence.

Every British monarch since the Tudor era (1485-1603) has kept the title. Elizabeth I used it while dealing with Catholic plots and strengthening Protestantism. The Stuarts faced Puritan challenges and civil war. By the Georgian period, “F.D.” (Fidei Defensor, which translates to “Defender of the Faith”) appeared on coins, and Queen Victoria carried the title across a large empire.

Queen Elizabeth II provided a visible Christian example for seven decades. At a time when politicians, an increasing number of church leaders and much of the media seemed to move away from faith, she remained a constant presence.

Her regular church attendance, Christmas messages filled with Scripture and reminders of the birth of Christ, and her quiet personal faith gave the country a sense of moral stability and, many believed, divine favor. Elizabeth II did not just hold the title; she also lived it with sincerity and comfort.

Her son, King Charles III, has taken a different approach. Even before becoming king, Charles said he preferred the title “Defender of Faith” to reflect today’s diversity, and he has shown real interest in Islam and other religions. The 2023 coronation, with its multifaith aspects, and the recent palace statement continue in that direction.

Charles and Camilla’s attendance at Muslim events and Ramadan gatherings is a clear contrast with the late queen’s more Christian-centered focus.

Britain today is clearly multifaith. Christianity now shares public life with large Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and growing non-religious communities. The Church of England’s numbers keep falling. Supporters of the new definition say it is a practical step for social unity, while critics see it as a loss of the historic Protestant foundation.

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary this week, the country remains grounded in its founding ideals, which reflect biblical principles and “one Nation under God,” but Britain’s path may be diverging from that.

While the U.S. has tried, though not perfectly, to maintain a Judeo-Christian moral base, Britain appears to be moving toward greater pluralism. For many conservatives in both countries, this feels like a crucial turning point for Western civilization.

With Queen Elizabeth II’s death and Charles’ recent statement, some religious voices are asking whether Britain is experiencing the loss of God’s special mercy and favor. The monarchy’s old role as defender of the Protestant faith, established during the Reformation, may now be evolving into something broader.

“Protecting space for Faith” sounds welcoming, but does it really protect the historic agreement or make the monarch’s spiritual duty mostly symbolic? These questions are central to larger Western debates about keeping our Judeo-Christian heritage in the face of secularism, migration and fast cultural change.

The Coronation Oath has not changed, but the public’s view of the monarch’s role is clearly shifting.

Balancing a 1,700-year Christian history with today’s multifaith society is not easy. The way in which the British monarchy handles this challenge will reveal much about the country’s future identity and unity.

Church of England is the last place that should be playing the race card

It is little remembered that many of the BBC’s ideals were biblically inspired. Its two mottos – “Nation shall speak peace unto nation” and “Quaecunque” (“whatsoever”) – are both drawn from scripture. 

The first alludes to the prophets Isaiah and Micah, and the second to St Paul’s injunction to think on “whatsoever things are true”.

Even Broadcasting House, when it was opened in 1931, was dedicated as a “temple of the arts and muses” to “Almighty God” Himself.

Nearly 100 years later, the Archbishop of York, the Most Rev’d Stephen Cottrell, has given us his contemporary Christian perspective on public service broadcasting in an address to the Religion Media Festival. They have diverged somewhat from the wisdom of these earlier visions.

Cottrell rightly said in his address that we cannot understand the world around us, this nation, or even our individual selves without an understanding of faith. He correctly identified a general lack of religious literacy that can contribute to escalating tensions within society. He also spoke of the general lack of trust in contemporary media. However, his remedy for this is in tension with some essential tenets of biblical thought.

He argues that “21st-century Britain is a network of communities”, many of which “find their identity in ethnic origin and religious faith more than geographic location”.

Public service broadcasting, he says, needs to reflect diversity, and that trust can only be rebuilt when everyone feels included. This needs more than “presenters with a regional accent”.

Aside from it being unclear what has made Archbishop Cottrell think the BBC doesn’t reflect contemporary British diversity – perhaps, thanks to a life of prayer, he hasn’t switched on a television in the last 30 years – it is troubling he thinks that we should be content with a future vision of broadcasting, and our nation itself, divided up into “communities”.

One constant note of scripture is for people within a nation to live peaceably at unity. “How good and joyful a thing it is to dwell together in unity” says the psalmist, and “Jerusalem is builded as a city that is at unity”.

Unity is cherished by encouraging respect for the “goodly heritage” – a maintenance of the shared laws, customs and culture which give a nation its character and coherence.

In particular, in both Old and New Testaments, as much as one must cherish the stranger, so too must strangers honour and adapt themselves to the laws, customs and culture of their hosts, if they wish to be part of the host society.

It is not for strangers to fracture the coherence of their host society. Rather, they must come to it as good guests, with humility. Christ counselled that when a guest is invited to a feast, they should sit in the lowest place so that the host could say “friend, move up higher”.

Why, therefore, does he call for the BBC to use its still considerable power to foster a Britain ever more Balkanised and fragmented into ethnic enclaves, when it could be acting to engender a sense of unity, based on inspiring its inhabitants to respect and adapt themselves to a more than a millennium-old shared culture rooted in Christian values?

One of the greatest sources of mistrust in contemporary media is not, as he says, a lack of diverse representation, but because too often it has tried to paper over the cracks in the nation’s Balkanisation and the growing failure of the multicultural project.

However, Cottrell would like the new digital media, which is less restrained and has done most to bring home this failure, to be muzzled by extra regulation: anything to avoid spreading “hatred”.

Is stifling the freedom of digital media to report on problems we can often see with our own eyes going to enhance trust? Archbishop Cottrell’s approach is strikingly at variance with the demand for press freedom by one of our greatest Christian thinkers John Milton, who reminded us that our God-given reason endows us individually with the capacity to sift truth from falsehood: “Who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?” he wrote.

Does the Archbishop not trust us enough to discern the truth unaided, or realise that frank conversations about “whatsoever things are true” are our best hope of peacefully healing the divides that afflict us?

Diocese to shut two cherished Catholic churches

Two of Jersey's seven Catholic churches will close in July to save money on repairs and maintenance after income has dropped.

St Mary and St Peter Church in St Helier and St Patrick in St Clement will both shut after the usual Sunday Mass on 12 July.

The move was agreed by the Bishop of Portsmouth, who looks after the Catholic church in Jersey, after the parish consulted parishioners in November 2025.

The Diocese of Portsmouth said it spent 17% of the parish budget on maintaining buildings and 11% on running them in 2024-25, whilst income dropped by nearly 6% and donations through the offertory had declined by 37% over the last five years.

The diocese said all seven of the island's Catholic churches hold "a cherished place in the life of our parish".

A spokesperson added: "The potential closure of a church is not taken lightly, and should be approached with prayer, discernment and respect for the impact it may have on those with whom we form our one island Catholic parish."

The diocese said the two church closures "will enable us to focus our resources" to "better serve" the five other churches and would "release financial resources, both in terms of the money currently spent keeping these churches open and funds from a possible sale", to support its mission and parish on Jersey.

It added "we have started to come together much more than we used to" for services and Christmas and Easter celebrations after the three Catholic parishes merged in 2009.

St Mary and St Peter Church, which is one of the churches to close is within a mile of the island's largest Catholic church St Thomas' Church in St Helier, which is attended by three quarters of the parishioners who go to Mass.

The closures mean the Polish Sunday morning mass will move to Our Lady's Church in St Martin and a Sunday evening English mass will cease as the parish clergy, pastoral council and finance committee, agreed that six Sunday Masses in English was enough, parishioners were told.

Archbishop Eamon Martin opens major new seminary extension in Dundalk

On Sunday, Archbishop Eamon Martin dedicated the new seminary church at the Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary in Dundalk, and also marked the inauguration of the new seminary extension.

The Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary is located in the heart of Dundalk on De La Salle Terrace. The seminary was established in 2012 as an initiative of the Archdiocese of Armagh to form priests for the ‘New Evangelization’. 

The priests formed in the seminary come from families of the neo-catechumenal way, and serve both in the Archdiocese of Armagh and also in missionary placements assigned by the Archbishop.

To date, eleven priests have been ordained and incardinated in the Archdiocese from the Dundalk seminary. They receive their human, pastoral and spiritual formation in Dundalk and their academic formation in Philosophy and Theology at Saint Patrick’s Pontifical University at Maynooth. 

During their formation the students avail of missionary placements in various parts of the world and in parishes of the archdiocese.

The original building of the seminary was renovated and officially opened in November 2016. In February 2022, the foundation stone was laid for the new extension works for the housing and formation of seminarians, and for the mission of the seminary itself in hosting and welcoming visitors.

Of the eleven priests formed and ordained from 2012 to 2026, ten were ordained over the last five years. Currently there are fifteen seminarians in formation, and the new building’s capacity can provide accommodation for up to eighteen.

Archbishop Eamon Martin said the opening of the new extension at the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Dundalk marks a major moment for the Archdiocese of Armagh and the wider Church, describing the project as part of the ongoing mission to proclaim the Gospel in modern Ireland.

In his homily, Archbishop Martin said seminarians are being formed for a life rooted in prayer, Scripture and the Eucharist, but also one that may involve hardship and missionary work at home and abroad.

He praised those involved in developing the seminary over the past 15 years and highlighted the international background of many of its students.

He also said Ireland, once a country of missionaries, now “needs mission herself”, adding that the new facilities in Dundalk would serve as a beacon of faith and renewal for future generations.

US supreme court rejects appeal from lawyer punished over effort to remove abusive priest

The US supreme court has rejected an appeal from an attorney who was fined $400,000 after taking steps to get an abusive Roman Catholic priest removed as chaplain of a high school campus.

In a notice on Monday, the supreme court’s justices indicated without explanation that they would not take up the case of Richard Trahant, whose clients include dozens of people victimized by a clergy abuse scandal that drove New Orleans’ Catholic archdiocese into federal bankruptcy court.

Monday’s ruling all but closed the book on one of the most contentious chapters of that bankruptcy protection case, which the New Orleans archdiocese filed in 2020.

Trahant’s work on the archdiocesan bankruptcy positioned him to learn that a New Orleans priest named Paul Hart had secretly admitted to his religious superiors that he had sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl in the early 1990s after meeting her through his duties as a clergyman.

Hart was reported in 2012 to the church for that behavior and confessed to it during a confidential internal investigation, according to hundreds of legal documents previously reviewed by the Guardian.

State law applicable in New Orleans sets the legal age of sexual consent at 17. The US’s Catholic bishops, nonetheless, had made 18 the age of consent under canon – or church – law in 2002.

A board advising then New Orleans archbishop Gregory Aymond recommended removing Hart from public ministry, saying the case involved someone who was now considered a minor under canon law.

But Aymond let Hart continue in ministry because the age of consent under canon law in the early 1990s was 16.

Aymond then assigned Hart to a New Orleans Catholic high school – Brother Martin – when it asked for a chaplain in 2017. And Hart was still in that role when Trahant became aware of his past in late 2021 through his representation of clergy abuse claimants involved in the archdiocesan bankruptcy.

Trahant was alarmed at the realization. Brother Martin is all-boys school, but girls participate in activities there, including on its dance team. He notified the principal of Brother Martin – who, coincidentally, was Trahant’s cousin – and informed him that Hart had “a credible allegation from [the] past that involved a minor”. The principal, Ryan Gallagher, later said in a deposition that Trahant would not elaborate, saying a protective order in bankruptcy court prevented him from giving specifics.

Separately, Trahant emailed this journalist to keep Hart on his “radar” – but again, would not elaborate on what that meant, according to legal documents stemming from the case.

Aymond and the archdiocese in short order provided Brother Martin with the details about Hart’s misconduct with the 17-year-old girl. Hart retired as the school’s chaplain in January 2022 after Brother Martin requested that Aymond remove him from its campus, claiming he was taking time off because of brain cancer.

This journalist, meanwhile, published an article in New Orleans’s Times-Picayune newspaper about many of the circumstances surrounding Hart’s departure, using methods and sources other than Trahant.

After that article, the federal judge in charge of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy, Meredith Grabill, ordered an investigation into what she characterized as “a violation of the protective order” in the case. It soon homed in on Trahant, who contended that he never revealed any confidential information about Hart in his communications with Gallagher or this journalist.

Depositions from Gallagher and his Brother Martin colleagues, reviewed by the Guardian, showed the school got the specifics about what Hart had done from the archdiocese. And, in a report obtained by the Guardian, court investigators conceded there was evidence supporting Trahant’s denial that he provided any confidential information to this journalist.

Yet Grabill effectively ruled that what Trahant had done was enough to constitute a protective order violation. She fined him $400,000, a figure that by Monday’s supreme court decision had grown by about $60,000 because of interest.

And she expelled four of Trahant’s clients from a committee of clergy abuse survivors negotiating a settlement to resolve the bankruptcy protection filing that the archdiocese made in 2020.

Trahant later asked New Orleans’s federal court and the US fifth circuit to overturn his punishment. But they left the sanction in place.

He then asked the US supreme court at the beginning of May to provide him relief, arguing – among other things – that his due process rights were violated in the course of being punished.

Attorneys for the New Orleans archdiocese waived their right to respond to Trahant’s petition before the supreme court denied his petition on Monday.

Trahant on Tuesday issued a statement challenging the archdiocese to direct the fine he was left owing toward clergy abuse survivors.

Adding that “this entire saga hurt my clients, my wife, my kids and my co-counsel,” Trahant also said: “I maintain I did what I did to protect children.”

One of Trahant’s clients who was expelled from the survivors committee, James Adams, said Monday’s supreme court ruling essentially “affirmed the protection of sexual predators over the safety of children”.

“The courts have clearly stated [that] if you try to expose sexual abuse of minors within the Catholic church, you will be punished,” Adams said.

Another Trahant client and expelled committee member, Jackie Berthelot, echoed Adams, saying: “It seems that if you speak up against predators who roam our schools, … you would be punished severely.

“It’s a shame that somebody who spoke up against abusers and always has supported victims’ rights would be penalized in such a harsh manner as Richard has.”

Hart died at 70 about nine months after his removal from Brother Martin. Aymond retired from the New Orleans archdiocese in February, about two months after the organization and its insured agreed to pay approximately $305m to hundreds of clergy abuse survivors to resolve the bankruptcy.

Survivors initially were told they could begin receiving payments in April. But a later bankruptcy filing pushed that back potentially to the fall.

Castel Gandolfo once again becomes the Pope's summer residence with Leo XIV

The Prefecture of the Papal Household has released Pope Leo XIV’s summer schedule, confirming that on the afternoon of July 6 he will travel to the Pontifical Villas of Castel Gandolfo to begin his summer rest period.

According to El Debate, this move also marks the return of the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo as the Pope’s summer residence. 

During Pope Francis’s pontificate, the building ceased to serve that purpose and was opened to the public as a museum—an arrangement that now ends, restoring the property to its original function.

The same report indicates that the Apostolic Palace is being prepared once again to welcome the Holy Father, while Leo XIV will no longer stay at Villa Barberini, where he had resided during previous visits to Castel Gandolfo. 

The decision is said to be motivated in part by security concerns, as access to that villa makes it more difficult to manage the presence of the faithful and visitors who come to greet the Pope.

Masses and Angelus in Castel Gandolfo

The schedule published by the Holy See includes several public celebrations during the Pontiff’s stay. On Sunday, July 13, Leo XIV will celebrate Mass at 10:00 a.m. in the Pontifical Parish of St. Thomas of Villanova and, at 12:00 p.m., will lead the recitation of the Angelus from Liberty Square.

On July 20, the Pope will travel to Albano Cathedral to celebrate the Eucharist at 9:30 a.m. He will then return to Castel Gandolfo for the Angelus and, later that afternoon, will return to the Vatican.

As is customary during the summer period, the Holy See has announced that private audiences will be suspended throughout July. There will also be no general audiences on Wednesdays July 2, 9, 16, and 23, with the regular schedule resuming on July 30.

Return in August

The calendar includes a second summer stay in Castel Gandolfo during August. On August 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, Leo XIV will celebrate Mass at 10:00 a.m. in the Pontifical Parish and will afterward lead the Angelus.

Finally, on August 17, after the Sunday Marian prayer, the Pontiff will return definitively to the Vatican, concluding his summer rest.

With this return to Castel Gandolfo, Leo XIV revives a tradition upheld for decades by his predecessors and restores the historic Apostolic Palace to its role as the Pope’s summer residence.

Cardinal Fernández, after the consecrations of the FSSPX: «We hope that dialogue will be possible in the future»

After the consecrations of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X in Écône and its entry into schism with Rome, journalist Michael Haynes has exclusively revealed that the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, has acknowledged that the FSSPX did not accept the dialogue proposal put forward by the Vatican, although he assured that the Holy See maintains hope of resuming conversations in the future.

Despite the consecrations ultimately taking place, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith made it clear that Rome does not consider the possibility of a future rapprochement to be closed. 

“We hope that in the future, thanks to the action of the Holy Spirit, it may be possible,” he stated, expressing his confidence that dialogue can be resumed, although he acknowledged that “we will need time.”

Homily of Pagliarani in Écône: «We want the faith of the Church to remain in the Church. And we want the Church for the faith and in the faith.»

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Gentlemen, dear brother priests, dear sisters, dear faithful: at last this day has come. What joy it is to see you so numerous, gathered from the four corners of the world.

First of all, I wish to thank the generosity of all those who have prepared this day: of all who have prepared it materially with dedication; of all the brother priests who have prepared hearts, minds, and intellects for this day; and of all of you, who have made the effort to travel as pilgrims to this place, to Écône, on what is certainly a historic day.

What, precisely, is the meaning of this day? Why are we here? How are we to understand these consecrations?

These consecrations are an event that divides, before which it is impossible to remain indifferent. What do they mean for us? Above all, this ceremony must be a manifestation of faith. This is very important.

We do not choose what we must believe or cease to believe. We cannot modify, reinterpret, or reconsider the faith. We simply have the duty to preserve the faith that the Church has always taught. We must love it, we must live by it, and we must hand it on.

If we truly love Our Lord, we have the duty to share His gifts, which come to us above all through the faith. Whoever lacks the desire to transmit the faith gives the sign that he himself does not live by the faith. And the more the faith is attacked, the more it disappears, the more urgent these duties become.

For without faith it is impossible to please God. It is impossible to live well. It is impossible to be saved. And today we are taking exceptional means, proportionate to that need.

Some might then consider that we find ourselves before a dilemma: we choose the integral faith, but we separate ourselves from the Church. We would therefore be choosing between the faith and the Church. To preserve the faith, would we be breaking with the Church?

It is a false dilemma.

One belongs to the Church, above all, by faith, by the integral profession of faith, by the integral profession of the faith of the Church. Just as one belongs to a nation because one speaks the same language, shares the same identity and the same culture; just as one belongs to a family because one bears the same surname and lives in the same house; so too one belongs to the Church because one professes the same faith.

It is, therefore, a false dilemma into which we cannot enter, because we cannot choose between the faith and the Church. No one can do so. We want the faith of the Church in order to remain in the Church. And we want the Church for the sake of the faith and in the faith.

It is very important to understand this, even if those who stand before us do not wish to understand it. And all of this is not an opinion, nor a sensibility, nor an option: it is a necessity.

We are accused of not loving the Pope. We are accused of not respecting him. But it is precisely because we love the Pope, sincerely, as the Vicar of Christ, as the head of the Church, that we do not wish to continue seeing the Pope humiliated alongside false shepherds, representatives of false religions. How many times have we seen this over all these years?

It is because we love the Vicar of Christ that we no longer want this humiliation for the Pope, a humiliation that falls upon the entire Church, treated on an equal footing with false religions.

We have explained it many times. We have explained it in almost every language that exists upon the face of the earth. Why has it not been understood? Why, in the end, do we speak a different language?

We speak the language of faith. We want the faith, in all its simplicity. It is not complicated. The Creed is not complicated. The profession of faith that the future bishops have just made is not complicated. Everyone can understand it.

We want the language of faith, the language of Tradition. And before us we encounter a language that is situated on another level, that speaks of other things. It is the language of inclusion, of listening, of dialogue, and of accompaniment.

We want the faith. And then, in the faith, we accompany persons. Why speak of accompaniment before speaking of the faith? Where is someone accompanied if the truth has not first been transmitted to him? Where is a person led if the way has not first been shown to him?

It is necessary to restore the order: first the faith; then the Christian life; and finally, accompaniment.

Precisely for this reason we are here. We are not here to affirm a sociological identity. We are not here to defend a particular sensibility. We are not here to create a parallel Church.

We are here because we believe. Because we believe that the Church of all time remains the Church of today. Because we believe that Tradition cannot disappear. Because we believe that Our Lord does not abandon His Church. And because we believe that the Catholic faith must remain integral until the end of time.

That is why these consecrations do not constitute a rupture. They constitute a continuity: a continuity with the faith of all time; a continuity with the Catholic priesthood; a continuity with the sacrifice of the Mass; a continuity with everything that the Church has handed on for twenty centuries.

It is precisely this that we wish to preserve. And to preserve it not only for ourselves; that would be selfishness. We want to hand it on. We want to deliver it to future generations. We want that in fifty years, in one hundred years, in two hundred years, there may still be priests who celebrate the Holy Mass, who preach the true faith, and who administer the sacraments as the Church has always administered them.

For the Church does not begin with us. Nor will it end with us. We are simply a link in a chain. We have received. We must hand on. Nothing more.

And this demands sacrifice. For preserving the faith has a price. It has always had one. The martyrs paid that price. The confessors of the faith paid that price. The holy bishops paid that price. Saint Athanasius paid it. Saint Hilary paid it. Saint John Fisher paid it. Saint Thomas More paid it. Monsignor Lefebvre also paid that price. And we must accept to pay it likewise.

Not because we seek suffering, but because we do not wish to betray Our Lord. For fidelity costs. It has always cost. And it will always cost. But that fidelity is never sterile.

It produces fruits. It produces vocations. It produces Christian families. It produces souls who love God. It produces hope. And that is precisely what we see today.

Look around you. Look at these families. Look at these young people. Look at these priests. Look at these seminarians. Who can say that Tradition is dead? Who can say that it no longer has a future?

No. Tradition is alive. It is profoundly alive. And that life does not come from us. It comes from Our Lord.

Precisely because this work is not ours, we have no fear. We do not know what will happen tomorrow. We do not know what the consequences will be. We do not know what trials we shall have to face. But we know one thing: the Church belongs to Our Lord. It does not belong to us. It has never belonged to us. And it will never belong to us.

That is why we can have confidence. Because it is He who guides His Church, not we. We need only remain faithful: faithful to the faith, faithful to the Mass, faithful to the priesthood, and faithful to the grace received. That suffices.

Some ask why four bishops. The answer is very simple: because we must secure the future. We do not know how much time Providence will grant us. We do not know how long the present bishops will live. We cannot wait until we find ourselves in an emergency situation. Prudence requires us to foresee, not to act when it is already too late.

That is why these consecrations are an act of prudence. Not a challenge. Not a provocation. Not a declaration of war. An act of prudence at the service of the Church. Nothing more.

I would also like to say a word to the four future bishops.

Dear friends, you are about to receive an immense grace. But you will also receive a very heavy cross. You must never seek your personal interest. You must never seek honor. You must never seek power. You must disappear so that Our Lord may be known.

You must be bishops to hand on, not to innovate. You must preserve, not invent. You must be men of prayer, men of sacrifice, men of doctrine, and men of charity. For truth without charity wounds, and charity without truth deceives. You must always keep both united, as the Church has always done.

Never forget that the bishop exists to sanctify souls. Not to administer a business. Not to direct an organization. Not to become a public figure. He exists to lead souls to Heaven.

That will be your judgment. You will not be asked how many conferences you have given, nor how many projects you have carried out, nor how many applauses you have received. You will be asked whether you have preserved the faith, whether you have transmitted grace, and whether you have sanctified the souls entrusted to you. That is all. And that suffices.

That is why we entrust you today in a very special way to the Blessed Virgin. She preserved the faith when almost everyone had fled. She remained at the foot of the Cross. She never doubted. She never abandoned Our Lord. May she form you. May she protect you. May she keep you faithful to the end.

Dear faithful, I would also like to address you.

Without you, this work would not exist. You have remained faithful. You have accepted sacrifices. You have traveled many kilometers to assist at the Holy Mass. You have educated your children in a Christian manner. You have supported our seminaries. You have prayed for our priests. You have suffered with us. And today you also share this joy.

Never think that your fidelity is of no importance. It is thanks to families like yours that the Church continues to live. It is thanks to your daily fidelity that Our Lord continues to reign in souls.

Continue to be simple. Continue to be profoundly Catholic. Never seek controversy for its own sake. Never seek to overcome anyone. Seek only the truth and live that truth with humility.

We have no enemies. We have souls to love. We have persons for whom to pray. We have a Church to serve. And we have a Heaven to conquer.

That is why we must always preserve peace: the peace that is born of truth, the peace that is born of grace, and the peace that is born of trust in God.

Never allow bitterness to enter your hearts. Never allow resentment to replace charity. Never allow trials to make you lose hope.

For God directs all things, even when we do not understand; even when it seems that everything is collapsing; even when the Church passes through the night.

Victory already belongs to Our Lord. He has conquered the world. He has conquered sin. He has conquered death. And therefore we can walk with serenity.

We do not know how long this crisis will last. We do not know how it will end. But we know how history ends. And it ends with the triumph of Christ.

That is why we must not be afraid. We must pray. We must work. We must remain faithful. And we must always keep an immense hope.

Dear friends, these consecrations are not a point of arrival. They are a point of departure. From tomorrow a still greater work will begin. It will be necessary to continue forming priests, to continue preaching, to continue sanctifying souls, to continue building Christian families, and to continue handing on the faith in its integrity.

That is our duty. And, with the help of God, we shall continue to fulfill it.

Let us now entrust this day to the Blessed Virgin Mary. May she preserve the Church. May she protect the Holy Father. May she strengthen our new bishops. May she sustain our priests. And may she obtain for us the grace to remain faithful until the last day of our life.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.