In Memoriam

 

Beata Imelda: patroness of chijdren receding Holy Communion

Imelda Lambertini; the girl who died of love for the Eucharist.

From the age of 5, she desired to receive Communion, but there was no age for it yet. At 9, she entered the convent of the Dominicans, living solely to prepare for that moment.

On May 12, 1333, after Mass, a consecrated host appeared suspended above her head. Before the miracle, the priest gave her her First Communion.

Shortly afterward, Imelda was found dead, with a smile on her face. Her heart could not withstand the joy of receiving Jesus in the Eucharist.

Beatified by Pope Leo XII, she is the patroness of children receiving their First Communion. Her incorrupt body remains in the Church of St. Sigismund, in Bologna.

@Pai_estovir

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US bishops to consecrate America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

On June 11, 2026, as part of the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. bishops will consecrate the United States of America to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Parishes around the country are encouraged to join the bishops in celebrating the consecration of our nation to the Sacred Heart.

For more on local celebrations of the consecration: https://www.usccb.org/local-celebrations-consecration-united-states-america-most-sacred-heart-jesus

Pope Leo receives TLM Supporter Cardinal Simoni in private Vatican audience after Easter appearance

 For the second time …

AdVaticanum

Apr. 28, 2026

Pope Leo received Cardinal Ernest Simoni in a private Vatican audience on April 27, marking their second meeting since Easter Sunday. The Albanian cardinal, once sentenced to death under communism, presented a relic the Albanian martyrs.

The audience took place in the Hall of Popes and included around 40 members of the cardinal’s family. It marked the second notable encounter between the two men in recent weeks, following the Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi blessing on April 5, when Cardinal Simoni stood alongside the cardinal protodeacon during the papal appearance from the central loggia of St Peter’s Basilica.

Speaking afterwards to Vatican Media, Cardinal Simoni described the meeting in direct and emphatic terms. “All joy, all hope,” he said, describing the atmosphere of the encounter. He added: “It was an atmosphere of all joy, all hope, gazing upon the face of the Holy Father, which represents the face of Jesus, to proclaim to all men the news of Heaven, of peace, of brotherhood and of love for all the peoples of the world.”

 “Let us proclaim together for all the peoples of the world the peace that comes from Heaven,” Cardinal Simoni said.

At the conclusion of the audience, Cardinal Simoni presented Pope Leo with a gift connected to the history of Catholic persecution in Albania. “Coming to Italy from Albania, my thoughts are with the martyrs,” he said, before offering “the cross and a relic of the Albanian martyrs who gave their lives for fidelity, for the love of Jesus, for the salvation of the Albanian people, to see all men smile upon Heaven”.

A priest of the Archdiocese of Shkodra-Pult, he marked the 70th anniversary of his ordination earlier this month, on April 7, a milestone reached after a lifetime marked by persecution under Albania’s communist regime.

Arrested on Christmas Eve 1963 for celebrating a Mass deemed illegal by the authorities, he was initially sentenced to death before the penalty was commuted to 25 years of forced labour.

Released in 1981, he remained under suspicion and was still regarded by the regime as an “enemy of the people” until the collapse of communism in 1990 allowed him to resume public ministry. His testimony later came to wider attention during the papal visit to Albania in 2014, when Pope Francis listened to his account and referred to him as a “living martyr”. Two years later, he was created a cardinal in recognition of that witness.

Despite his age, Cardinal Simoni has remained active in maintaining links with communities attached to the Traditional Latin Mass. He is a defender of the older liturgical form and has longstanding associations with traditionalist institutes, including regular visits to the International Seminary of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest at Gricigliano, near Florence. He has been present there for major liturgical celebrations, including the Feast of St Joseph, and has spent periods such as Holy Week with the community in recent years.  

During a Pontifical Latin Mass for the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Burke in St Peter’s Basilica on October 25, 2025, Cardinal Simoni recited the prayer to St Michael the Archangel, describing it as a reminder that “the Devil exists, and the Church continues to fight”.

More: https://x.com/realadvaticanum/status/2049087212625461260?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

Scripture for today: the Diotrephes problem

N.B. The malicious words and works of Diotroephes are seen today in calumniators who, in attacking others by name within the community, commit mortal sin.

 3 John 1:5-10

5 Dearly beloved, thou dost faithfully whatever thou dost for the brethren, and that for strangers,
6 Who have given testimony to thy charity in the sight of the church: whom thou shalt do well to bring forward on their way in a manner worthy of God.
7 Because, for his name they went out, taking nothing of the Gentiles.
8 We therefore ought to receive such, that we may be fellow helpers of the truth.
9 I had written perhaps to the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the pre-eminence among them, doth not receive us.
10 For this cause, if I come, I will advertise his works which he doth, with malicious words prating against us. And as if these things were not enough for him, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and them that do receive them he forbiddeth, and casteth out of the church.

The problems of 'trans-ecumenism' when Canterbury goes to Rome.

Pope's Leo's effusive hospitality does little to engage with and confront reality.

GAVIN ASHENDEN. APR 28 ∙ PREVIEW

Is ecumenical respect a one-way street? There was a great deal of respect at the meeting between Pope Paul 6th and Archbishop Michael Ramsey in March 1966 marked a moment of proximity on the trajectory of the possible return of schismatic Anglicanism to the mother Church that may never have been closer. 

Anglicanism had experienced a deep wave of nostalgia for the sacrament of the Mass which gave birth to the Anglo Catholic movement. Rome had begin the process of negotiation with the spirit of the age that was to move it closer to the novelties of the Reformation Churches in the Second Vatican Council.

Nearly sixty years later, the trajectory of Anglicanism has been torn out of orbit and moved not only beyond the reconciling reach of the most hospitable of ecumenical gestures from Rome, but in the judgement of many, beyond the boundaries of orthodox Christianity itself.

Sarah Mullally is not only the first woman to be ‘produced’ by the appointments system of the Anglican establishment, but she represents a rebuke to orthodox Christianity not only in her person, but also in her convictions.

She is the expression of a Church that has drunk deep from the rage of contempt and antipathy that is an aspect of feminism, and carries a full range of progressive views which she imposes on the tradition of the Church like a rebuke.

The right to kill children in the womb is one of those views. The right to promote sterility in adult romantic relations is another.

If she represents the full impetus of secular feminism in its assault on deeply embedded Christian belief and culture which the Catholic Church represents, the Catholic Church should temper the respect it owes to the head of a Protestant denomination with a degree of caution and wariness.

In fact, there was no caution or wariness in Pope Leo’s greeting of the feminist pro-abortion Anglican woman archbishop. 

Should there have been? Should niceness and diplomatic politeness have been modified by fidelity to those values Sarah Mullally repudiated?

More: https://open.substack.com/pub/drgavinashenden/p/the-problems-of-trans-ecumenism-when?r=2x82t4&utm_medium=ios

Catholicism loses members in most countries surveyed: Pew

 Many Catholics left the faith or joined the Protestant Church as the latter showed gains in several regions 

People worship at the Satchmo Summerfest Jazz Mass, honoring New Orleans jazz legend Louis Armstrong, in historic St. Augustine Catholic Church on Aug. 3, 2025. (Photo: AFP)

By Gina Christian, OSV News

Published: April 25, 2026 05:15 AM GMT

A new analysis from Pew Research Center has found that Catholicism has lost more members than it has gained in most of the 24 countries surveyed, while Protestantism has seen net gains in several nations, especially Latin America.

The shifts are due to religious switching, or leaving one's childhood religious identity for another in adulthood.

Pew published its findings April 23, based on data from its surveys of 24 countries spanning Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America, North America and sub-Saharan Africa.

The center's 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study provided the data for the U.S., while international data was drawn from surveys conducted during the spring of 2024.

Pew noted the latter data included additional countries not referenced in the April 23 analysis, since the overall percentages of Christians in those nations was too small (1% or less) to statistically differentiate between Protestants and Catholics.

Those who leave Catholicism "tend to join Protestantism or disaffiliate from religion altogether," said Pew, noting that "disaffiliation is especially common in parts of Europe and Latin America."

In contrast, those who leave Protestantism "tend to become religiously unaffiliated," said Pew, which defines "religious nones" as atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular."

Even with the losses sustained, Catholicism remains the majority religion in eight of the 24 nations studied, with Poland, the Philippines and Italy topping the list.

Pew noted that 96% of the Polish population was raised Catholic, with 92% still identifying as such in adulthood. The Philippines, where 88% are raised Catholic, has also seen a high adult retention rate, with 78% of that nation's adults still regarding themselves as Catholic. In Hungary, 57% of adults identify as Catholic, with 59% of the population having been raised Catholic.

Italy has experienced higher losses, with 89% of the nation's adults raised Catholic, and 67% of them identifying as such.

In Mexico, 66% of adults regard themselves as Catholic, although 87% of the nation's population is raised in the faith. In Peru, where 81% are raised Catholic, 63% of adults still identify with the faith.

Spain sees 80% of its population raised Catholic, but just 45% identify as such in adulthood, while in France, with 60% raised Catholic, only 34% of adults describe themselves as such.

In the U.S., less than one third (30%) are raised Catholic, and only 17% of adults describe themselves as Catholic. Those figures are slightly higher in Canada, where 39% are raised Catholic and 20% of adults identify as such.

More: https://www.ucanews.com/news/catholicism-loses-members-in-most-countries-surveyed-pew/113001