Pray for Ireland, a land where faithful Catholics now form a minority in a pagan nation, a situation which is analogous to the experience of faithful Catholics in the Church. May God convert their nation and our nation of the United Kingdom to defend human life from conception to natural death.

As the battle over the life and death of Alfie Evans intensified in the full glare of the onlooking world, I was among those who could not comprehend the unswerving logic of an entire machinery, governmental and ecclesiastical, locked on course for the snuffing out of a precious human life, that of little Alfie, who from his hospital bed lay blissfully unaware of the extraordinary tumult surrounding him, a tumult inside and outside the hospital, in the courts, in the media, around the whole world.

I cannot help but feel that in ages past, Alfie Evans might have lit the blue touchpaper of civil unrest, mass demonstrations, even calls for revolution in a country like the United Kingdom. The sheer powerlessness felt by those following the case of Alfie and his parents, those close to him and those far away, apart from a committed and passionate team surrounding the family, an intense gathering of supporters outside the hospital, manifested itself in cries from the heart on social media,…

A reader asked me for my response to 'Gaudate et Insultate', I've read some excellent analyses of the document and I don't think I can add much to it, so I thought I might as well sing what we can see is going on, what others have noted, based on The Dentist Song, from the hit musical Little Shop of Horrors. That song's about a brutal, sadistic dentist. Not like our Pope, obviously. He isn't a dentist.

The Franciscan pontificate is unpredictable and volatile, as well as risible. From day to day it scandalises and shocks the Church.

The next Pope will have to learn from the many serious mistakes made during this pontificate and should already, while a Cardinal, be examining where Francis has gone wrong, as well as the partial success (if you can call it that) of his extraordinary public relations efforts, efforts which have now led to the most amazing apology in all of human history, the kind of stupendous apology that marks a Pope who called abuse victims liars and slanderers out as a living Saint. Really, he should be canonised now. But, here's what I'll be looking for from the next Pope, should God in His mercy give one to the Church.

1. I hope that the next Pope believes in the Catholic Faith. It's a big one this and I think that the Catholic Church in the next pontificate requires someone who believes the religion into which they were baptised. It really helps people…

A link was shared recently to Haaretz documenting the anti-semitic remarks of Cardinal Maradiaga concerning the 'Jewish media' and the 'whipping up' of the abuse crisis in the Church from early 2013. A little while before ++ Maradiaga's 'it was the Jews' diversion, I recall Cardinal Sodano suggesting, publicly, to Pope Benedict XVI that the abuse crisis was a kind of manufactured phenomenom attended by the 'feigned' outrage of media. I think he had intended these words to be a form of consolation to the then Pope(after all we know what a loyal a creature ++ Sodano is) but one could tell from Benedict XVI's face what he thought of ++Sodano's words: 'You're not helping.'Such were the kind of men hovering around Benedict XVI. I think Cardinal Bertone (what is he up to nowadays?) called the Vatican a nest of 'crows and vipers', or something such like.


Many of us,at that time, had no idea what kind of persons were such individu…

“They’re not punished. Those who repent obtain forgiveness and enter the ranks of those who contemplate him, but those who don’t repent and can’t be forgiven disappear. A Hell doesn’t exist, what exists is the disappearance of sinning souls.”
Well, obviously (cough), there's no way (Hosea!) the Pope said this. Indeed, given that Eugene Scalfari is so 'creative' with the truth and apparently just makes up his own mind what the Pope has said from memory having interviewed him, why should we even believe that this interview even took place. If Scalfari isn't a trustworthy reporter of people's quotations, should we even believe the story that this interview happened?

The comings and goings of Vatican communications and denials whenever the Pope gives a controversial interview to Scalfari aside, and putting aside also whether the Pope said it (personally, I don't take anythingFrancis says seriouslynow, anyway) its worth examining what he 'probably / possibly…