RIP Pere Hacques Hamel, Marytr

It was ten years ago, and the pain remains intact.

On July 26, 2016, Father Jacques Hamel was murdered as he celebrated Mass in his church in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, a victim of Islamist barbarity.

Today, we honor the memory of this man of goodness. We think of his loved ones and all those whom this attack has wounded forever.

In the face of barbarity, we will yield nothing. France will always stand united, determined to protect and eradicate this scourge.

@Gabriel Attal

The blood-stained alb of Catholic priest Father Jacques Hamel is being displayed at Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray church, the place where he was murdered on this day in 2016 by Islamic State terrorists while celebrating Holy Mass.

Image: Pierre Amar

@Sachenittiyil

Cardinal Burke says Latin Mass is ‘intimately linked to the very identity’ of Catholic Church

Cardinal Burke said that the Traditional Latin Mass is ‘missionary’ and attracts young people through its sense of the sacred and transcendent.

Pilgrimage on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Summorum Pontificum, Pontifical Mass in Vetus Ordo Mass in Latin, Holy Mass at the Saint Peter's ChairShutterstock

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Patrick Delaney

LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Raymond Burke has again strongly defended the traditional Latin Mass, recently calling it “an invaluable treasure of the Church that must be preserved and cherished, for it is intimately linked to the very identity of the Roman Catholic Church.”

The American cardinal made the remarks in an interview with Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, the organizers of the annual Chartres pilgrimage, during this year’s Pentecost weekend event in late May, though it was only released on July 14. The pilgrimage drew a record 20,000 participants, with an average age of 22, despite the intense heat and ongoing restrictions on the ancient rite in many dioceses.

Speaking on the theme of mission, Cardinal Burke emphasized that the liturgy celebrated according to the older use (usus antiquior) of the Roman Rite is itself missionary. “It is evident that this liturgy is missionary,” he said. “This is seen by its fruits now as in centuries past, for it attracts through its sense of the sacred and of the transcendent. This is particularly evident with the younger generation, which has a deep thirst for the spiritual in an increasingly horizontal world.”

The cardinal also addressed concerns about the compatibility of devotion to the traditional liturgy with the Second Vatican Council. He rejected any suggestion that Catholics who attend the Mass according to the 1962 liturgical rites are somehow less than fully Catholic or opposed to the Council. “It is obviously possible to be fully Catholic while experiencing the sacraments according to the Books of 1962,” he stated. “It is absolutely unacceptable to claim the contrary.”

He pointed out that the 1962 liturgical rites were the very ones used by all the Council Fathers during the Second Vatican Council itself. Any claim that fidelity to these books requires rejecting the Council or the validity of later forms of the sacraments is, according to his teaching, historically and theologically unfounded.

More: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-burke-says-latin-mass-is-intimately-linked-to-the-very-identity-of-catholic-church/

Obedience

 

Bishop Erik Varden’s theology of longing, beauty and hope

 

Daniel Dominic

Jul. 15, 2026

What explains the remarkable rise of Bishop Erik Varden? From an atheist teenager pierced by Mahler to one of the Church’s most influential writers, his theology offers a compelling vision of the human person, the Cross, and the longing for God

In recent times, few Catholic voices have attracted as much attention as Bishop Erik Varden. A Trappist monk, a convert to the Catholic faith from atheism, former Abbot of Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, and now Bishop of Trondheim, Varden is one of the Church’s most prominent writers. His theological contribution received papal recognition when Pope Leo XIV personally invited him to preach the annual Lenten retreat to the Roman Curia, later published as Alight with Hidden Glory.

Varden’s growing popularity, however, is not only the result of his appointment to the episcopacy or his invitation from the Holy Father. At a time when many are thirsting for spiritual nourishment, his conferences, interviews and retreats have found a wide audience. Drawing upon Scripture, the Fathers of the Church and contemporary culture, Varden synthesises these influences into a fluid, moving and compelling style of preaching, leading people into a deeper communion with Christ.

Bishop Varden was born in Norway in 1974 and baptised into a Lutheran family. When reflecting on the “seeds of his vocation” as a young man, Varden recalls that he “was privileged to grow up in a home marked by goodness, and kindness, and generosity… It wasn’t explicitly religious, but it was always respectful” (The Napa Institute, 2026). He then describes his outlook as a teenager: “I was very skeptical of established religion when I was fourteen… and I relished my own sense of autonomy and independence and declaring myself removed from all that.” He admits that around this time he identified himself, “with a degree of self-satisfied pride… as an agnostic and even an atheist.”

There was, however, a decisive change when Varden was fifteen years old. He recounts that listening to Mahler’s Symphony No. 2“pierced” him. “I listened to that music and it wounded me, or it revealed a wound in me. It revealed to me that I was carrying something within me that was somehow greater than I was.” This became a decisive turning point, not only because it “set” him on the path towards pursuing his education abroad, but also because it confronted him with what Aristotle calls catharsis: the ability to encounter “normally hidden emotion… [and the] depths in him or herself” (Varden, 2023, p. 14).

After completing his schooling in Norway, Varden attended Atlantic College in Wales before studying Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge. During this period, he encountered serious believers, including a Muslim roommate, who “challenged me intellectually… and encouraged me.” He also made his first visit to a Trappist monastery, an experience that both “frightened” and “haunted” him because of its “degree of radicality”. Yet it was precisely this encounter that drew him towards Catholicism, and at the age of nineteen he was received into the Catholic Church.

After becoming a Catholic, Varden did not initially intend to become a monk. However, after a confessor told him, “You will be a housemaster in this place for the next 40 years of your life,” he began to reconsider his future. Having completed a doctorate in Historical Theology, he felt drawn to explore a monastic vocation and joined Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in 2002, making his solemn profession a few years later.

Following his Licentiate in Sacred Theology in Rome, he was ordained to the priesthood in 2011. In 2015, he was elected Abbot of Mount Saint Bernard, becoming the first abbot born outside Britain or Ireland in the monastery’s history. His abbacy coincided with a period of renewal and growth, including the development of the monastery’s brewery and greater public engagement through retreats, conferences and writing. In 2019, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop-Prelate of Trondheim in Norway. Consecrated a bishop in 2020, Varden has continued to combine pastoral leadership with writing and preaching, becoming one of the Church’s most influential voices. Beauty, however, remained a recurring theme throughout his life. Just as Mahler’s music awakened in him a longing for transcendence, his later writings repeatedly present beauty as the means by which God wounds the heart and draws it towards Himself.

At the heart of Varden’s theology lies a deeply Augustinian understanding of the human person. In a time of uncertainty both in the secular world and within the Church, Varden asks a fundamental question: what does it mean to be human? He answers this simply in Chastity: “To be human is to exist with the sense of an absence to be filled. Only in the light of our human substance’s longing for union with the divine do our lesser yearnings make sense” (Varden, 2023, p. 14).

More: https://x.com/realadvaticanum/status/2077245942714286316?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

 

Goodbye, Benedict

 

Now, always, a visitor. And, so, Arrivederci!

Leo XIV: Some keys for interpretation

by ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI on 13 LUGLIO 2026 · 1 COMMENT · inVATICAN

Pope Leo XIV’s visit to the US ambassador’s residence to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States spoke volumes.

It was also a clear sign of how much this pontificate has to say – and it’s much more than one might think.

Speaking to Italian media, US Ambassador Brian Burch said the pope is frustrated by the fact that his actions are often interpreted purely politically, or worse, as in conflict with the US administration.

It’s not that there aren’t any disagreements – even the ambassador hasn’t denied them – but in reality, not everything concerns Trump and the United States.

But this should also prompt broader reflection.

Leo XIV doesn’t reason on “small” issues, but on broad lines.

Pope Francis had a love for detail, and for symbolic positions that clearly showed which side the pope was on.

He demonstrated this, for example, with his “remediation cardinals,” the cardinals appointed to redress past situations in each of his nine consistories; or again, with his visit to the Russian embassy at the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.

Seen in the proper light, his letter appointing then-Archbishop Fernández as prefect of the former Holy Office was another example, an act completely outside of protocol but aimed at constructing a precise narrative.

Leo XIV, on the other hand, doesn’t reason about reactions, much less specific reactions. Rather, he seeks to hold firm to principles and apply them in many ways, sometimes even pragmatically, but without ever deviating from the general idea or allowing it to degenerate into specific issues.

Ambassador Burch’s story, therefore, does not just tell a detail, but allows us to understand how we can read the pontificate of Leo XIV.

There are probably three criteria to consider.

The first criterion is that the pope does not speak in response to specific questions, and, in fact, he is very careful not to do so. The most striking example of this attitude is the urbi et orbi address last Easter.

Such occasions, it bears mention, have always been used by popes to address the most pressing global issues. For many decades, it has been a geopolitical speech – often called the pope’s “State of the World Address” – and frequently has included many references to specific war situations.

Leo XIV, however, imposed a different style.

His speech before the blessing Urbi et Orbi contained no direct references to conflict scenarios. He had specific requests for the world’s powerful, but didn’t going into the specifics of any region of the world.

In short, the pope has decided not to focus on details, but on principles. Therefore, his every message cannot be interpreted as a specific response to some political issue, especially with regard to the United States, since he is an American pope.

In fact, that wasn’t his approach as the General of the Augustinians, and it certainly cannot be as pope.

Ambassador Burch also noted that the pope feels deeply American but is keen to demonstrate that he is a pope for everyone, not just the United States. This is also the reason behind the pope’s decision not to return immediately to his homeland, but to first schedule a number of trips that demonstrate his concern for the entire world.

The second criterion is that of normality.

More: https://x.com/andygag/status/2076544300016423369?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

The Egyptian Queen who became a Catholic

Catholic Fun Fact: Queen Nazli of Egypt converted from Sunni Islam to Roman Catholicism in 1950. Following her conversion, she adopted the Christian name Mary Elizabeth. Born Nazli Sabri, she was the Queen Consort of King Fuad I and later the Queen Mother to Egypt's last reigning monarch, King Farouk. Her relationship with her son fractured completely after she left Egypt for medical treatment in 1946 and eventually settled in California. In 1950, Queen Nazli supported the marriage of her youngest daughter, Princess Fathia, to Riyad Ghali, a Coptic Christian commoner. King Farouk was deeply enraged by this union. 

In August 1950, he officially stripped both his mother and sister of their royal titles, rights, and allowances, forbidding them from ever returning to Egypt. Definitively cut off from her homeland, Queen Nazli chose to formalize her lifelong appreciation for French Catholic education by being baptized into the Roman Catholic Church later that same year.

Queen Nazli passed away penniless in Los Angeles on May 29, 1978, at the age of 83. Because of her faith, she received a Roman Catholic funeral service and was interred at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, under her baptized name, Mary Elizabeth Fouad.