We do not know if the decade between the beginning of 2013 and the end of 2023 will be remembered as among the most intense of the twenty-first century, but they have certainly been the most unpredictable of our lives. The decade, in fact, opened with a bombshell — the resignation of Benedict XVI on 11 February 2013 — and is drawing to a close with another bombshell, or rather, as it has been aptly called in a recent book by Julio Loredo and José…
As summer draws to an end, Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality is imminent amid general indifference, despite the grave consequences that it could have. And not even the dramatic and symbolic death of Putin’s latest victim, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has reawakened the attention of European public opinion to the grave problems that are gathering on the horizon. Yet the warning signs are not in short supply, and they do not concern only the economic aspects of the future, to which all are most sensitive. An article…
Since the time of the French Revolution, the destruction of historical memory has been part of the war unleashed against Christian civilisation. One need think only of the devastation of churches and monuments that took place between 1789 and 1795, along with the profanation of the basilica of Saint-Denis, when the tombs of the French sovereigns were opened and their mortal remains exhumed and scattered, with an evident symbolic meaning: every trace of the past had to be physically erased, in compliance with the Convention’s…
Just as the month of May is dedicated to Our Lady, that of June is traditionally dedicated to the Sacred Heart. Devotion to the Sacred Heart accompanies the spiritual life of every Catholic, and every year, in the month of June, it must be renewed, nourished, deepened. Nourishing and deepening a devotion means not limiting oneself to its sentimental aspect, although this too is important, because all true devotion comes from the heart, but also using reason to reflect on its nature and meaning. In…
Missione a Londra is the title of a brief volume that collects the memoirs of Count Stanislao Medolago Albani, secret chamberlain of Pope Saint Pius X (D’Ettoris Editore, Crotone 2023, edited by Luisa Maddalena Medolago Albani, with a preface by Marco Invernizzi). Stanislao Medolago Albani was born in Bergamo in 1851 to Count Gerolamo, a descendant of the famous Savoyard count, and to Benedetta de Maistre. After studying theology and philosophy at the Gregorian University, he played a very prominent role within the Catholic movement.…
Of all the months of the year, the month of March has special privileges. According to the Bollandist Fathers, it was in March that the world was created, it was in March that the Annunciation of the Word took place and the Redeemer was conceived, and it was in March that the Passion and death of Our Lord took place. The liturgy celebrates the most important Marian feast, the Annunciation, on 25 March and dedicates 19 March to St Joseph, protector of the Church and…
After ten years of pontificate, the point of arrival of the Pope Francis’s reign seems to be the October 2023 synod of bishops on the theme “For a synodal Church: communion, participation and mission”. To understand the semantic muddle of a “synod on synodality”, one must first distinguish between the two terms. A synod is a delimited historical event; synodality is a “path”, a “process” which, in the ideological landscape of Pope Francis, corresponds to the primacy of praxis over doctrine. The term “synod”, which…