Thoughts on the Coronation
By Henry Hill On Friday, March 3, 2023, the sacred Chrism oil which will be used to anoint King Charles III at his coronation was consecrated at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.…
Tag: History
St. Gabriel Possenti and the Sanctity of Fighting
Familiarity breeds contempt, according to the old saying. Outside that, familiarity breeds something worse—complacency. Part of my own personal theory as to why Christianity has suffered a reversal of fortunes in the 20th and 21st…
Edmund the Martyr
“And then the heathens became madly incensed because of this faith, for he always asked Christ to his help. Then they shot at him with missiles, as if for their sport, until he was entirely…
‘Passionately Smashin’ Every Expectation’: A Review of Miranda’s Hamilton
by Meagan McKinstry In early 2015, a new show opened Off-Broadway at The Public Theater: a hip-hop musical about American founding father Alexander Hamilton. The idea sounds somewhat absurd – indeed, an audience laughed…
Wolf Hall and the Myth of the Moral Pragmatist
The BBC/PBS miniseries Wolf Hall is six hours of some of the most absorbing television (or just storytelling generally) I’ve ever seen. I have not yet read the books by Hilary Mantel on which the…
Ipswich, Willesden and Walsingham: Three Marian Shrines in Sixteenth Century England
Everyone likes a mystery. The story I am going to tell has elements of a good detective story: statues revered for centuries, royal agents bent on destruction of images, traditionalists trying to preserve sacred objects…
Faith, Fast, Feast and Festival: How Christians Commemorated the Death and Resurrection of Christ in Late Medieval England
Abstract This article aims to explain the importance of Easter to medieval Christians and points out some of the ways that they learned about their faith and celebrated the death and resurrection of their saviour.…
St. Patrick and the Pagans
There is no single person who is associated with Celtic Christianity more than Patrick. He was not actually Irish, but rather British, though he left the comfort of his home and family so that he…
Joe Biden: A Life Lived in Faith
When Joseph R. Biden Jr. was sworn in as president on January 20, 2021, he was only the second Catholic to become president of the United States of America and the first since John F.…
St Nicholas Owen: Builder of Priest Hides in Elizabethan England
In Elizabethan England it was against the law to practice the Catholic faith. Priests and sympathisers were arrested and treated brutally. Many died terrible deaths for their faith. Ingenious craftsmen were required to design and…