Fr. Jonathan Cotton

St Buenos Spirituality Centre in North Wales is thriving with a variety of Retreats. Just back after a week on Team, accompanying five people on their spiritual journey. When's your next Retreat?

Great fun! More like this!

We must make this clip live in infamy. The criminality of Israel, and the abject shame of US, Britain and the other genocide apologists at UNSC. The Palestinian representative holds a mirror to them, so that they can see their ugliness, this will ring through the ages. #NeverForget Gaza…

Nine-year-old Miguel Lopes, a Catholic child with Down syndrome, expressed great happiness upon becoming an altar server, as reported by Aleteia.

Let’s be crystal clear: 1. We reject feeding Palestinians without freeing them, rebuilding without restoring rights, or managing a population instead of ending an occupation. 2. Gaza is not empty land to be redesigned. It belongs to its people and is an inseparable part of Palestine. 3. Our future cannot be discussed without us—or reduced to a technical or humanitarian problem instead of confronted as a political and legal historic injustice. 4. Palestine is not without an address. There is one address: the State of Palestine and its national institutions—born of a 100-year struggle and recognized by 160 countries. From my talk yesterday at Oxford University. Full lecture: youtu.be/HE9-9mr-kyE?si…

Putin’s bombing of Ukraine’s power plants, aiming to freeze Ukrainians to death, is what Hitler did in 1944. The Kremlin’s newspaper, Pravda, reported on November 5, 1944: "...Kyiv's power plants suffered the most extensive destruction during the occupation. The savage Germans wanted to leave the city and its residents without power, without heat..." And attempts to starve Ukraine into submission is what Stalin did during the Holodomor. davidalton.net/2023/11/23/cas… Will dictators never learn that while they can make innocent people suffer - and rob them of their human dignity and freedom - ultimately, tyrants never succeed in crushing the human spirit. Freedom loving democracies must stand with Ukraine in its darkest days. Lady Liberty and Lady Justice will have their day. @ZelenskyyUa @BenWallace70 @LiamFox

Wow, this speech from Mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani 👏💯 "They command us not to believe what we see" "They compel us as George Orwell wrote nearly 80 years ago, to reject the evidence of our eyes and our ears" "And they would succeed, were it not for the many among us who read the scripture, but who live the scripture" "Those who refuse to abandon the stranger" "I speak of Renee Good, whose final words to the man who murdered her moments later were: I'm not mad at you" "I speak of Alex Pretti who died as he lived, caring for the stranger. Here was a man who held the hand of the afraid and the afflicted in their final moments" "Here was a man who dedicated his life to healing those who he never met" "ICE shot him 10 times because he did something they could never fathom doing, he extended his arm towards a stranger" "Not to push her down, but help her up" "Let us offer a new path: one of defiance through compassion"

In 1933, in Paris, a baby girl was born into a loving Jewish family. Her name was Francine. At the time, there was nothing to suggest that her childhood would be devoured by history. Seven years later, the world she knew vanished. In 1940, her father, Robert, was captured by the Germans and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp in Austria. From behind barbed wire and watchtowers, he found a way to send a message home. It wasn’t sentimental. It wasn’t long. It was urgent. Run. Leave immediately. Don’t wait. Francine’s mother, Marcelle, listened. In the summer of 1942, she took her nine-year-old daughter by the hand and fled toward the border, hoping speed might save them. It didn’t. They were arrested. Because Robert was a French POW, mother and child were spared immediate deportation. Instead, they were labeled “hostages”—a word that sounded almost merciful until you learned what it meant. Over the next two years, they were moved again and again through France’s transit camps: Poitiers. Drancy. Pithiviers. Beaune-la-Rolande. Each stop was colder, hungrier, closer to disappearance. On May 4, 1944, that fragile protection ended. They were ordered onto a train bound for Bergen-Belsen. Each prisoner was allowed one small bag. Marcelle chose carefully. Hidden among the essentials were two pieces of chocolate—a luxury beyond measure, meant for moments when despair or starvation might otherwise win. Bergen-Belsen was not a place of sudden death. It was worse. It was decay stretched over time. Hunger gnawed constantly. Disease spread unchecked. Corpses were stacked like discarded objects. Hope thinned by the day. Francine was ten years old. One day, in the middle of that nightmare, she noticed a woman lying apart from the others. Pregnant. Alone. In labor. So weak she could barely breathe, let alone survive childbirth. Francine reached into her pocket. She felt the chocolate. It was her last piece. Her mother’s insurance against collapse. Something that might have meant one more day of survival. She hesitated. Then she gave it away. That single act—small, almost invisible—changed everything. The sugar gave the woman enough strength. Enough energy to endure the pain. A baby girl was born in a place designed to erase life. Against all logic, both mother and child survived. Weeks later, Allied troops liberated the camp. Francine lived. Her mother lived. And somehow, unbelievably, they found Robert again. A family scarred beyond repair—but alive. Time moved forward. Francine grew up. She became a teacher. Then something more: a witness. She devoted her life to Holocaust education, traveling, speaking, refusing to allow memory to fade into abstraction. Decades passed. At a conference many years later, a woman stood up before speaking and said she needed to do something first. “My name is Yvonne,” she said. “I’m a psychiatrist from Marseille.” She walked toward the audience. “I’m looking for Francine Christophe.” Francine raised her hand. Yvonne placed something gently into it. A piece of chocolate. “I’m the baby,” she said quietly. For a moment, no one spoke. Because everyone understood: this was not coincidence. This was history closing a circle. Fifty years earlier, a starving child had chosen compassion over self-preservation. That choice had grown into a life—a doctor who now helped others heal. A life that existed because kindness had appeared in the darkest possible place. Francine Christophe is now in her nineties. She has children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. She still tells her story. Still insists on remembrance. That piece of chocolate was never just food. It was proof that the Nazis failed. They tried to destroy empathy. They didn’t. They tried to erase human worth. They couldn’t. In a camp built to strip people of their souls, a ten-year-old girl proved that love can survive even there. Some acts of kindness echo for generations.

The two-State solution with Israelis & Palestinians living side by side in peace & security is the only viable path to a just & lasting peace. The occupation must end. The inalienable rights of the Palestinian people must be realized. International law must be respected.

NEW: Cardinal McElroy and other interfaith leaders: “The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti – two U.S. citizens devoted to civic engagement and to caring for their immigrant neighbors – have left communities in Minneapolis and across the nation grieving, shaken, and rightly outraged. Their deaths are a profound moral failure, and they demand our collective attention and response. As faith leaders in the greater Washington, D.C. region, we affirm the sacred worth of every human life. That commitment includes – and compels us to stand with – immigrants and others who are especially vulnerable in this moment. We condemn without reservation the use of indiscriminate and lethal force against civilians. The actions we have witnessed in recent days represent a grave departure from our nation’s deepest moral commitments and from the values of human dignity, restraint, and accountability that our faith traditions uphold. When the power of the state is exercised without regard for life, justice, or the common good, the foundations of democracy itself are put at risk. We speak out now from a place of deep love for our nation and a growing concern that our own local communities will potentially experience the same loss of life and turmoil we are seeing in Minneapolis. Renee and Alex were killed while seeking justice for their community. We honor their lives by refusing to look away and by calling, together, for accountability from those entrusted with authority. At this pivotal moment in our nation’s life, we are faced with a choice: whether to allow fear, cruelty, and disorder to define us, or to respond with courage, conscience, and moral resolve. We stand with our neighbors, fellow clergy, and state and local leaders who have called on national authorities to end practices that place people in harm’s way. Throughout history, people of faith have been called to speak when human dignity is threatened. We believe that call is before us now. Communities in the greater Washington region have already experienced the fear and disruption caused by aggressive enforcement tactics, including incidents near schools and houses of worship – places that should remain sanctuaries, not sites of intimidation. We will not accept the tearing apart of our neighborhoods or the normalization of dehumanization. We urge government officials at every level to recommit themselves to policies that uphold life, dignity, and the rule of law. And we call on all people of conscience to work together for a society in which every person can walk their streets without fear, and with the knowledge that they are seen, valued, and protected.”

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese condemned extremist Israeli settlers’ terror, saying it is not merely violence, and stressed that armed settlers roam the occupied West Bank with impunity while the world remains silent. Her statement came in response to the horrifying attack on Abu Ayoub in the village of Fakhit, an assault captured by security cameras. The settlers brutally attacked and beat Abu Ayoub, who is now hospitalized with a fractured skull after undergoing emergency surgery overnight.

“The plug has been pulled on humanitarian services. Over the past days, utility providers have severed electricity and water one by one to UNRWA’s schools, health centres, and other service provision points across occupied #EastJerusalem. These actions come against the backdrop of the anti-UNRWA laws amended late last month by the Israeli parliament, forcing utility providers to suspend services to UNRWA. We need electricity to light up classrooms and offices, to keep life-sustaining medication cooled, and to heat buildings. We need water to keep our premises clean, and simply to wash hands. Electricity and water are among the basic preconditions of dignified healthcare and education. In October last year, the @‌CIJ_ICJ ruled that Israel has the obligation to ensure access to the essential supplies of daily life, including food, water, medical supplies and services, and to facilitate the work of UNRWA in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem where Israel is not entitled to exercise sovereignty. It further noted that the Israeli laws were impeding UNRWA’s operations. The amendments take these Israeli laws a step further. These cuts are a deliberate effort to weaponise basic necessities in the attacks by Israel – a @‌UN member state – against UNRWA, at the expense of critical services and access to fundamental rights for #Palestine Refugees. They are designed to end our longstanding presence in East Jerusalem, which in itself predates the Israeli occupation.” — @GRFriedrich, Director of UNRWA Affairs in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem

Eleven countries (includ UK) sign joint letter of condemnation of Israel’s demolition of ⁦@UNRWA⁩ offices in E Jerusalem calling it ‘an unprecedented act against a UN agency by a UN member state’ gov.uk/government/new…

Our own Blessed Michael Cyprian Tansi, a Mount St Bernard Monk, inspired Cardinal Arinze, who Shares Memories of the Priest Who Could Become Nigeria’s First Saint | National Catholic Register ncregister.com/interview/card…

Exactly- keep their promises!

Cardinal Tobin regarding ICE funding: "I think if we are serious about putting our faith in action, we need to say 'no,' each one of us. What saying ‘no’ looks like today is by telling the truth about what is happening and honoring those whose lives are upended.” ncronline.org/news/cardinal-…

Winter is worsening an already catastrophic situation in #Gaza. Plunging temperatures, rain and floods hit families living in tents and half-standing buildings after two years of war. Humanitarian access must be sustained, aid must be unrestricted, so that it can reach the people who need it.

Are the world's leaders listening and prepared to act?

I am following the situation in Ukraine with sorrow, and I am close to and pray for those who suffer. The continuation of hostilities has increasingly serious consequences for civilians, and widens the rift between people, driving away a just and lasting peace. I invite everyone to intensify efforts to end this war.

Alex Pretti Renee Good Children of God