An elderly man in a white cassock and skullcap cups his hand to his ear, with a television camera visible on the right.

Faith · Observations · Humour

Post author questions the words of a man he links to globalization

Pope Francis has urged priests to beware of the polite, well-educated devil: the one who rings the doorbell, waits to be invited in, and then takes over the house. It is curious that this is said by the very same man who is on friendly terms with the devil

NB! · Faith · London · Observations

Donkeys on the Steps of St Paul's Cathedral in London on the Day of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem

Donkeys on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral in London on the day of the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem. As is well known, Jesus entered the city riding on a donkey, while the crowd cried "Hosanna" and strewed his path with palm branches. The

Faith · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Pope Francis's Patek Philippe gift turned out to be an April Fools' joke

Pope Francis was recently photographed in a Patek Philippe Tiffany Blue, just like Leonardo DiCaprio's. The watch, issued to mark 170 years of collaboration between Tiffany and Patek Philippe, was, so the legend went, a gift to the Pontiff from the watch house; in the end it turned

An elderly man in white vestments and a red and gold stole speaks from a window with raised hands behind a transparent lectern.

NB! · Faith · People · Rome

Death of Pope John Paul II on 2 April 2005 and his canonisation in 2014

On 2 April 2005 Pope John Paul II died. His pontificate was one of the longest in history. In 2014 John Paul II was canonised

NB! · Faith · Cinema · Observations · Pop Culture

How Do You Like Christopher Walken as an Orthodox Hermit?

Faith · The East · Art · Society

Metropolitan Germanos Blesses the Banner of the Insurgents at the Monastery of Agia Lavra

Today is Greek Independence Day. Every Hellene remembers 25 March 1821, when the Greek revolution against the Ottoman occupation began

A vaulted frescoed hall with a woman in a pale gown on a throne at the centre, surrounded by people in red robes.

Aristocracy · Faith · Art · London · Museums · Mores · People · Rome

Painting by Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1910, from the Tate collection

Lucrezia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI. Frank Cadogan Cowper, 1910. Tate Museum

Painted sculpture of a nude curly-haired child holding an apple in a raised hand, on a green base, in front of a multi-tiered altarpiece.

Faith · Art · Museums · New York

Sculpture of the Infant Jesus with an apple dated 1470 at the Metropolitan Museum

The Infant Jesus with an Apple. 1470. Metropolitan Museum

Detail of a painting: an archangel in a blue robe with large wings reaches toward a pedestal bearing a coat of arms, with smoke rising above it.

Faith · Art · Humour

Reynaud Levieux's 1663 painting of the Archangel Gabriel appearing to Zechariah, and Gabriel's patronage in Catholicism

The Archangel Gabriel appearing to Zacharias. Reynier Levy (Reyno Levye), 1663. In the Catholic Church the Archangel Gabriel is regarded as the patron saint of telecommunications: radio, television and, presumably, the internet.

Faith · Nature · Ethnography

The parasitic plant Peter's Cross in bloom in France and in Russian folk beliefs

In France, toothwort is already in full bloom, a most beautiful parasitic plant that has no chlorophyll of its own and lives by attaching itself to the roots of other plants. In Russian it is called "Peter's cross" (petrov krest) for the shape of its rhizomes,

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Paris

The Play of Light in the Stained Glass of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris

Faith · Observations · Society

To the Pope's ruling that any baptised lay Catholic, women included, may head the departments of the Vatican: the new apostolic constitution has a preamble stating that the Pope, bishops and other ordained…

This truly overturns the millennial foundations of the Catholic Church. The new constitution maintains that the presence of lay Catholics in leading roles in the Curia is necessary because of their familiarity with family life and social reality. As though priests lived in some other reality; and if they do,