The Pope is to waive his own rules so he can preside in person over the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman during a papal visit to Britain next year, according to sources close to the Vatican.Pope Benedict XVI will personally take charge of the ceremony to declare the Victorian convert Blessed when he visits England in early September at the invitation of Gordon Brown.The Pope has previously insisted that all beatifications are carried out by a Vatican official in... Read more

As the Advent season approaches, McNamara’s Blog will be getting into the Christmas spirit. The “Quote of the Day” will be related to Advent and Christmas, while a new daily feature for Advent will be Christmas music. Today’s selection is an oldtime favorite: Read more

Hark, a herald voice is calling;“Christ is nigh,” it seems to say;“Cast away the dreams of darkness,O ye children of the day.” Lo, the Lamb, so long expected,Comes with pardon down from heaven;Let us haste with tears of sorrow,One and all to be forgotten. Roman Breviary, Hymn En clara vox redarguit at Lauds (Tr. Caswall) (Ambrosian, 5th cent.) Read more

The Shoes of the Fisherman is a 1963 novel by the Australian author Morris West, as well as a 1968 film based on the novel. The book reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for adult fiction on June 30, 1963, and became the #1 bestselling novel in the United States for that year, according to Publishers Weekly. Set during the late 1980’s at the height of the Cold War, The Shoes of the Fisherman opens as protagonist... Read more

Guillaume Dufay (Du Fay, Du Fayt) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer in Europe in the mid-15th century. Dufay was among the most influential composers of the 15th century, and his music was copied, distributed and sung everywhere that polyphony had taken root. Almost all composers of the succeeding generations absorbed some elements of his style. The wide distribution of his music... Read more

Jacopo d’Antonio Sansovino was an Italian sculptor and architect, known best for his works around the Piazza San Marco in Venice. Andrea Palladio, in the Preface to his Quattro Libri was of the opinion that Sansovino’s Biblioteca Marciana was the best building erected since Antiquity. Giorgio Vasari uniquely printed his Vita of Sansovino separately. His masterpiece is the Library of Saint Mark’s, the Biblioteca Marciana, one of Venice’s most richly decorated Renaissance structures, which stands in front of the Doge’s... Read more

On this day in 1885, Pope Leo XIII issued Spectata Fides, On Christian Education. Read more

Guido Pieter Theodorus Josephus Gezelle was an influential Dutch language writer and poet and a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium. Born in Bruges, he was ordained a priest in 1854, and worked as a teacher and priest in Roeselare. He was always interested in all things in English and was given the prestigious right of being the priest for the ‘English Convent’ in Bruges. He died there in a small room, where it is still forbidden to enter. He was... Read more

Alice Meynell was born in Barnes of wealthy parents and was educated privately by her father. She spent much of her early life in Italy and converted to Catholicism on reaching her majority. She married Wilfrid Meynell in 1877, working with him on his periodical, Merry England, and assisting him with the rescue of Francis Thompson from poverty and opium addiction. In addition to writing numerous poems and critical essays, Alice Meynell was one of the leading literary figures of... Read more

Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to Leonardo da Vinci for his enormous range of interests, and has been honoured with the title “master of a hundred arts”. Kircher was the most famous “decipherer” of hieroglyphs of his day, although most of his assumptions and “translations” in this field have since been disproved as nonsensical. However, he... Read more