Faith · Interviews · Society · People

Continuing our Papal Readings: the second part of Pope Francis's interview with Carlos Herrera

Continuing our Papal Readings, I offer the second part of Pope Francis's interview with Carlos Herrera. Read attentively; Saint Peter will be checking later. On euthanasia - We live in a culture of rejection. What is useless is thrown away. The old are disposable material: they irritate. Not all

Faith · Interviews · Society · People

Pope Francis in a Spanish radio interview on migrants, the European Union and Catalonia

Pope Francis has given a long interview to Spanish radio. And, it seems, for the first time. I have listened to the two-hour conversation with the pontiff, restored to health by the grace of God, and made notes on the most important points. Whether or not you have already

NB! · Faith · Interviews · People

Pope Francis returns to duty after illness; yesterday he gave a lengthy radio interview to the Spanish journalist Carlos Herrera

Architecture · Faith · Observations · Heritage

Plastic windows installed in the Church of Cosmas and Damian in Kaluga, built in 1794

Plastic windows have been installed in the church of Cosmas and Damian in Kaluga, built in 1794. A very beautiful church in a very lamentable state now conforms perfectly to the spirit of the age and offers a picturesque example of our attitude to a heritage that has not yet

Close-up of a painted terracotta head of a man with parted lips, upturned gaze and short dark hair.

NB! · Faith · Art · Museums · Paris

Painted terracotta head of a Franciscan monk by Guido Mazzoni, 1475, Louvre

Head of a Franciscan Monk. Guido Mazzoni, painted terracotta sculpture, a kind of living painting frozen in place. 1475. The year fourteen hundred and seventy-five, exactly so. Collection of the Louvre

Faith · Art · Museums · Observations · Heritage

When You Look Back and Realise That the Past Cannot Be Changed

A fragment of a bench from the church of Staffarda Abbey, not far from Turin. The wooden sculpture is housed in the museum of Palazzo Madama in Turin itself, while the Abbey, meanwhile, shows a distinct shortage of period furnishings, so that local historians and art historians are seriously murmuring

Faith · Art · Humour

Andrea Mantegna, 1480-1490

Andrea Mantegna, 1480-1490. The Virgin and Child with Saints. Beside them stand Joseph, the righteous Elizabeth, in all likelihood with Joachim, and the little John the Baptist, two teeth freshly cut, the only one who has allowed himself to stick his tongue out at the Saviour. That very friend

Archive · Faith · Rome

Pius XII proclaims the dogma of the Assumption of Mary at St Peter's on 1 November 1950

A not-so-old photograph from Saint Peter's Basilica, 1 November 1950, when Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the taking up of the Mother of God into heaven, body and soul, at the end of her earthly life.

Architecture · Faith · Observations · Mores

A Moscow family bought a 1908 log house in Tarusa and opened a café in the yard

A touching piece about how a young family left Moscow, buying in Tarusa an izba of 1908 that was once a dependency of the Holy Trinity Convent community. The house was sold by the elderly granddaughters of its first owner, who chose these buyers precisely because they were the only

NB! · Faith · Moscow · Observations

A Very Sad Piece of Visual Evidence from the Exhibition at the Sretensky Monastery

Faith · Art

Bathers on Luca Signorelli's 1490 panel from an altar in a Siena church

Naked bathers, incidentally, of the fifteenth century. The year is 1490, and the work is by the early Renaissance painter Luca Signorelli. This panel was originally part of an altarpiece in one of the churches of Siena, and served as a backdrop for a sculpture of Saint Christopher wading across

NB! · Faith · Art · Humour