Thomas Pink

L’aube et l’étole du père Jacques Hamel, après ce terrible 26 juillet 2016. À Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, une plaque a été placée à l’endroit même où il a versé son sang à la suite du Christ. « Celui qui perdra sa vie à cause de moi et de l’Évangile, la sauvera ».

Cavafy wrote a lovely poem about what Ithaca means. More insightful than Nolan’s take. I translated it into his metre, iambic pentameters. open.substack.com/pub/armanddang…

These commitments are unfunded. The lobby fails at almost every opportunity to deal with the substance of political decisions rather than the manner or style in which they are delivered.

The 1948 Russell vs Copleston debate on the existence of God 🔗⬇️ Four things stand out: (1) the exceedingly high level of the debate (2) the erudition of both men (3) the respect they show one another (4) the fact that this aired on the BBC 🔗youtu.be/wMsbD1L5IlQ?si…

I'm always astonished by how wooded parts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex remain. In summer months, you look out from the high points to see a seeming forest spread at your feet.

Following a standard workplace safety check, I have just received an email from a university administrator in which my custom of keeping books on the shelves in my office is described as "the unnecessary storing of combustible materials".

Read for my Exclusive on: Canonist Archbishop Arrieta breaks down the Vatican’s response to the SSPX bishops Leading canonist Archbishop Arrieta confirms that the faculties granted to SSPX priests to hear confessions were conferred by a pontifical act. Therefore, he states, “an act of the same nature is required to revoke it.” Furthermore, AdVaticanum contacted Archbishop John Joseph Kennedy, Secretary for the Disciplinary Section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, to ask whether any apostolic letter, pontifical mandate, or other papal act had been issued revoking those faculties. The Dicastery declined to answer and responded only with the words: “No comment.” On more recent developments, Archbishop Arrieta was not available to comment further on these developments due to his schedule, having already filed his answers prior to the Society’s preliminary recourse. However a priest close the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith told AdVaticanum that the appeal is unlikely to be granted. The case concerns a latae sententiae penalty based on a well-known offence. The Dicastery did not “impose” the penalty — it is automatic — but simply “declared” it in the decree for the public knowledge of the faithful. The only way to lift a latae sententiae excommunication requires, as a starting point, the offender’s repentance for the act committed.

Archbishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, former Secretary of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts and canon lawyer, speaks exclusively to AdVaticanum about the Vatican’s response to the SSPX’s latest episcopal consecrations, explaining what the recent decree means in practice for the Society, its clergy and the faithful, including the validity of SSPX confessions and marriages. ✍️ @NiwaLimbu1988 Read Here: advaticanum.com/article/canoni…

Now Fully Transcribed and Searchable: The Explosive Vatican II Diaries of Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton -novusordowatch.org/2026/07/joseph…

Andy Brent

On this day, July 17 in 1794, in the midst of the French Revolution, 16 Carmelite sisters were guillotined: 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns, three lay sisters, and two tertiaries. They were executed near the end of the “Reign of Terror,” and are venerated as true saints and martyrs for the faith. One of the nuns, 78 year old Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified, was heard to say to her executioners, “I forgive you, my friends. I forgive you with all that longing of heart with which I would that God forgive me!” Collectively, these nuns are now remembered as the Martyrs of Compiègne. In the years of the French Revolution many thousands of other Catholics were killed by the guillotine, shootings, mob violence, forced drownings in the Vendee, and other forms of butchery. Two years earlier, in August 1792, the government ordered all women's monasteries closed; the seizure and removal of the Compiègne convent's furnishings occurred on 12 September, and the sisters were forced to leave the convent. Their superior, Mother Teresa. made arrangements for the 20 sisters living in the convent at the time to hide in the city in four separate apartments and find civilian clothes for them to wear, since the wearing of habits and religious apparel had been outlawed. There are no surviving relics of the Martyrs of Compiègne because their heads and bodies were buried, along with 128 other victims executed that day, in a deep, 30-feet square sand-pit in the Picpus Cemetery. They were beatified by Pope St. Pius X on May 27, 1906, and canonized by Pope Francis on December 18, 2024. We ask the Martyrs of Compiègne — pray for us!

Catholic Conclave: The French Revolution did not finally destroy the Carmel of Compiègne but the post-Conciliar years did. Closure announced 21 April 2026. Feast today of the Carmelites Martyrs of Compiègne, executed 17 July 1794 #CatholicX cathcon.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-fr…

In anticipation of the feast of the Carmelite Martyrs of Compiegne tomorrow, I'm posting my annual round-up of posts and articles I've written on the subject. My latest post is a small collection of news clippings and ephemera about the Carmelites' beatification in 1906.

This is wonderful. An interactive guide to the Iliadic Catalogue of Ships. Created by a Wharton prof using AI: catalogue-of-ships.netlify.app

Funeral for Mrs Marygold Turner: Thursday 30 July 2026 at 2.00 pm St Margaret’s Church, Bethersden (The Street, Bethersden TN26 3BT) Celebrant: Canon William Hudson ICKSP Month's mind Requiem: Monday 27 July 6:30pm, Corpus Christi Maiden Lane, London.

Great paper! People will do many things to avoid tax, including hanging on to life a little longer when inheritance tax is cut. Also evidence that abolition of IHT in Australia in 1970s reduced deaths just before the abolition. And obviously more deaths just after.

Notable that Koch is a survivor from the Benedict era, in post since 2010. Strikingly he also notes the "problem...where basically all churches & ecclesial communities are treated as equivalent, so that it is essentially a matter of indifference which church you belong to".

It's a bit inside Catholic baseball but this is indeed an interesting interview. "It could lean toward self-righteousness if we simply condemn the [SSPX] and say they are on the wrong track, without asking whether there are fundamental deficits in the Church today that are being recalled by the Society...the unresolved question of the relationship between the two forms of the one Roman Rite...Pope Benedict showed a path there; Pope Francis curbed it somewhat radically."

"Nothing in the July 2 documents changes the practical canonical situation for the faithful." rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2026/07/canoni…

Most academics would make terrible politicians and they shouldn't waste their time trying to turn their research into ersatz politics that I guarantee you will have no impact except on the continuing viability of academia.