“The stone had been rolled away not to let Jesus out,
but to let the witnesses in.”

Mary Magdalene, arriving in the pre-dawn dark, at first concludes the worst: that the body has been stolen. She weeps. She does not recognise the risen Christ when he stands before her. She mistakes him for the gardener. Even the disciples, when they first hear her report, dismiss it as idle talk. The Resurrection enters the world quietly — almost reluctantly — and it asks not for immediate acclaim but for the slow, deepening recognition that transforms fishermen into martyrs.

Holy Saturday is the quietest day in the Christian calendar. The crowds have gone. The disciples are hidden behind locked doors. The shouting, the trial, the agony, the death — all of it is over. And in a garden outside the walls of Jerusalem, a great stone has been rolled across the entrance to a tomb, and sealed.

We tend to rush past that sealed stone on our way to Easter Sunday. But it is worth pausing here, in the silence, and asking what that sealed tomb actually means — and why it matters so much for everything that comes next.

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" — "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — is the opening line of Psalm 22. Attributed to David and composed around 1000 BC, this psalm was not an obscure text. It was well-known, regularly sung, and deeply cherished. Any observant Jew hearing those words would have immediately recognised them.

The debate provoked by the Open Iftar in Trafalgar Square has been, on the whole, a depressing spectacle. It has revealed a Christian community — or what remains of it in the British public square — that is more comfortable with reactive indignation than with the hard work of evangelical renewal. It has revealed politicians who invoke Christianity as a cultural marker while showing little evidence of any personal acquaintance with its actual content. It has revealed media commentators who can generate heat around questions of religious identity without shedding much light on what any of the faiths in question actually teach.

What it has not revealed — at least not prominently — is the Christianity we actually need. The Christianity of the Holy Week processions. The Christianity of the open door and the burning lamp. The Christianity of the priest who takes the gospel to the streets, not because he wishes to dominate anyone, but because he has been grasped by something he cannot keep to himself.

The current anxiety surrounding AI‑assisted writing is neither new nor particularly original. It is simply the latest iteration of a recurring cultural reflex: whenever a new intellectual tool emerges, a chorus rises to declare that “real work” is under threat. The same objections were levelled, almost verbatim, against electronic calculators in mathematics classrooms several decades ago.

The recent remarks of Pope Leo XIV urging priests “to resist the temptation to prepare homilies with artificial intelligence” merit careful and extended analysis. His concerns touch on the nature of preaching, the exercise of the intellect, the authenticity of pastoral communication, and the place of technological mediation in ecclesial life. Because the Pope is correct on several foundational points, it is all the more important to examine where his conclusions do not follow and where his diagnosis of artificial intelligence rests on conceptual misunderstandings.

As the Canons Regular of the Sacred Heart of Jesus prepare to enter a year dedicated to the Eucharist, three books have been chosen as guiding lights: In Sinu Jesu, God Is Near Us, and This Is My Body. Each approaches the Eucharistic mystery from a different angle — contemplative, theological, and missionary — yet together they form a coherent vision of renewal. These works will shape the CRSHJ’s prayer, formation, and outreach throughout 2026.

There are moments in history — and moments in our own lives — when the world confronts us with something so unjust, so contrary to the heart of God, that silence becomes impossible. The Scriptures do not ask us to pretend that everything is fine. They do not ask us to smile politely while the vulnerable are harmed. They do not ask us to be neutral when human dignity is trampled.

In fact, the Scriptures show us something quite different.

As we step into 2026, the Canons Regular of the Sacred Heart of Jesus begin our annual Donations Campaign — a moment each year when we invite friends, benefactors, and all who share our mission to stand with us in sustaining the pastoral, educational, and charitable work entrusted to our care. This is not simply a fundraising effort. It is a renewal of shared responsibility for the life of the Church, and for the people who rely on us for sacramental ministry, spiritual accompaniment, and practical support.

In recent years, the question of whether women should be ordained as priests has become a topic of lively debate in many corners of the Church and society. Some see the issue through the lens of equality, others through the lens of cultural change, and still others through personal experience of gifted, faithful women who serve the Church in countless ways.

These conversations are often sincere and heartfelt. But for the Catholic Church — and for the Canons Regular of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — the question of priestly ordination is not ultimately about cultural preference, personal ability, or institutional reform. It is about fidelity to what we have received.

We come today to reflect upon a question that has stirred debate, provoked misunderstanding, and, at times, caused deep wounds in the lives of countless individuals. The question is this: Is being gay or bisexual a choice?

This question is not merely academic. It touches upon the dignity of human persons, the integrity of families, the justice of societies, and the compassion of communities of faith. To answer it wrongly is to risk perpetuating prejudice, to justify discrimination, and to burden souls with guilt for realities they did not choose. To answer it rightly is to affirm truth, to defend human dignity, and to extend the hand of justice and mercy.

The thesis I advance today is clear: being gay or bisexual is not a choice. It is not a lifestyle selected from a menu of options, nor a preference adopted at whim. It is a natural variation of human sexuality, deeply rooted in biology, psychology, and lived experience.

Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, today we stand before the mystery of the Temple—not merely as a building of stone, but as a living reality, a sacred dwelling, a sign of communion between heaven and earth. The readings appointed for this feast—the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica—draw us into a profound meditation on the nature of the Church, the holiness of God’s dwelling, and the zeal of Christ for the sanctity of His Father’s house. But more than that, they invite us to recognise that we ourselves are temples of the Holy Spirit, living stones built into a spiritual house, called to holiness, to communion, and to transformation.

In this hour, when wealth is flaunted as virtue and poverty is dismissed as failure, the Gospel speaks with thunderous clarity. Pope Leo XIV, in his Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te, reminds us:

“The path to salvation is not widened by wealth, but narrowed by its misuse. The rich must learn to walk barefoot, or they will not pass through the gate.”
— Dilexi Te, §58

This letter is a call to repentance. To conversion. To mercy. It is a mirror held up to those who have built fortresses of comfort while Christ stands outside, hungry and ignored.

The Canons Regular of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (CRSHJ) issue this statement with solemn urgency. Across the United Kingdom and the wider world, we are witnessing a dangerous distortion of the Christian Gospel. Nationalist-fascist movements are hijacking Christian language, symbols, and theology to sanctify exclusion, authoritarianism, cultural supremacy and to justify persecution. This is not merely a political concern—it is a spiritual crisis…

There is a quiet dignity in the priest who walks into a hospital room, a prison cell, a battlefield, or a family kitchen—not to preach, but to be present. Not to solve, but to accompany. Not to impose, but to listen. This is chaplaincy, and it is not a specialisation reserved for a few. It is the very heart of the priesthood. The priest is not first a manager of sacraments or a guardian of doctrine, but a bearer of presence—a living icon of Christ who dwells among the wounded, the weary, and the waiting. In this light, chaplaincy is not a branch of ministry; it is the trunk. It is the core vocation of every priest, whether he serves in a parish, a cathedral, a school, or a monastery.

The discipline of mandatory priestly celibacy in the Latin Church, long upheld as a sign of spiritual dedication and pastoral availability, has come under increasing scrutiny in recent decades. While Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (Paul VI, 1967) remains the most authoritative magisterial defence of this practice, its arguments—though elegant and sincere—must be re-evaluated in light of apostolic precedent, theological anthropology, psychological insight, and the lived experience of clergy and laity alike over the last 58 years.

There are moments in history when the moral compass of a nation spins so wildly that silence becomes complicity. Today, the United Kingdom teeters on such a precipice. The recent proposals by Reform UK—led by Nigel Farage—to retroactively abolish settled status for millions of lawful residents, including over three million EU citizens, mark not merely a political shift but a spiritual and moral collapse. It is a descent into cruelty, arrogance, and betrayal. And it demands a prophetic response.

Today, we are confronted with one of the most perplexing and provocative parables in all of Scripture. Jesus tells us of a steward—a man entrusted with the administration of his master’s goods—who is reported for squandering what was not his. He is summoned, confronted, and dismissed. And in the face of his impending unemployment, he devises a plan. He calls in his master’s debtors and reduces their debts. He rewrites the promissory notes. He remits what is owed. And then, in a twist that unsettles our moral instincts, the master commends him—not for his honesty, but for his prudence.

What are we to make of this?

There comes a time when silence is not prudence but betrayal. When prayer, unattended by action, becomes a mockery of the God who hears the cry of the oppressed. When the Church, called to be the Body of Christ in the world, becomes instead a mausoleum of pious intentions and ornamental liturgies, while the world burns in the furnace of authoritarianism, fascism, and the calculated erosion of human dignity.

On the afternoon of 10 September 2025, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk stood before a packed auditorium at Utah Valley University. Known for his combative style and unapologetic rhetoric, Kirk was in the midst of a public Q&A session when a young man posed two pointed questions. Moments later, Kirk was fatally shot by a sniper.