The Xerophagists were Catholic Masons who, after the ban on Freemasonry by Pope Benedict XIV on 28 April 1748, continued to secretly meet as Freemasons.

Xerophagist comes from the Greek and means: 'those who live without drinking.'

#Freemasonry #Freimaurerei #Masonry #2B1ASK1 #History #Religion #Literature #RomanCatholic

Book review: ‘The Wonder’ by Emma Donoghue

There is a film adaptation, but read the book first: you won’t be able to put this page-turner down until the very end!

An English nurse gets a curious invitation to spend several weeks in a remote Irish village. Her one and only task is to monitor an 11 year-old girl who allegedly hasn’t eaten anything in four months. Having worked under Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War, the nurse – Lib Wright – is a highly experienced and very rational person, but still unprepared for what she is about to witness. The child claims to live solely on ‘manna’ from heaven, as she describes it, and there’s nothing to disprove her supernatural claims. 

Is this a genuine miracle resembling those of some of the medieval female mystics, or an elaborate hoax?

Emma Donoghue’s novel The Wonder paints the image of post-famine rural Ireland of the 1850s as a desolate, desperately poor and backward country, ruled by superstition and folk Catholicism. This serves as more than a fitting background to this psychodrama in which the wider national disaster translates into messed up family dynamics and a morbidly distorted sense of religiosity. It is not a flattering portrayal of Ireland, nor of the Catholic Church; least of all of the ‘traditional family’ as the locus of oppression and trauma.

While dealing with extremely difficult and upsetting subjects, the author doesn’t succumb to cheap thrills of overly graphic descriptions. The novel is a suspense story more than anything else: although the plot is somewhat predictable, the eerie atmosphere of the miracle girl’s home is sustained throughout. 

Not having seen the film adaptation yet, I can only hope it did justice to the strong gothic vibe of the book.

‘The Wonder’ by Emma Donoghue was first published by Little, Brown and Company in September 2016; 304 pp.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Emma Donoghue’s talk about the women who inspired The Wonder

Is The Wonder based on a true story?

Pope Leo offers thanks for ‘great gift’ of Francis, one year on from his death

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.rappler.com/world/global-affairs/pope-leo-xiv-remarks-francis-first-death-anniversary-april-21-2026/

Pope Leo, in Cameroon, decries world ‘ravaged by tyrants’

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.rappler.com/world/global-affairs/pope-leo-xiv-cameroon-trip-decries-world-ravaged-tyrants/

Statement of the Old Catholic Churches International on President Trump's Attack on Pope Leo XIV

Issued by the Right Reverend Greer Godsey, OSFoc, Presiding Bishop Greer Godsey

April 13, 2026

We have watched with grave concern as President Donald Trump launched a public attack tonight on Pope Leo XIV, calling the Holy Father "weak" and "terrible" and demanding that he "stop catering to the Radical Left." The cause of this attack is clear: Pope Leo called for peace. He asked that wars cease. He condemned the idolatry of force.

That is not weakness. That is the Gospel.

We do not share all things in common with the Roman Catholic Church. Our tradition is distinct, and our independence from Rome is long-established. But on this we have no ambiguity: a political leader who attacks the leader of the world's largest Christian communion because that leader dared to say "enough with war" has revealed something important about himself and about the values he serves. Those values are not the values of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Book of Isaiah is not a radical left document. The Sermon on the Mount is not soft on crime. The command to seek peace and pursue it is not a foreign policy failure. It is the Word of God.

We stand in solidarity with Pope Leo XIV's call for peace, for the protection of civilian life, and for the dignity of every human person caught in the crossfire of war. We call upon all Old Catholic faithful, all clergy, and all persons of good will to reject the weaponization of Christian language in service of military aggression, and to pray for the courage of those who speak truth to power at cost to themselves.

Pax et Bonum.

The Right Reverend Greer Godsey, OSFoc
Presiding Bishop, Old Catholic Churches International

#oldcatholic #romancatholic #trump

Statement of the Old Catholic Churches International on President Trump's Attack on Pope Leo XIV

Issued by the Right Reverend Greer Godsey, OSFoc, Presiding Bishop Greer Godsey

April 13, 2026

We have watched with grave concern as President Donald Trump launched a public attack tonight on Pope Leo XIV, calling the Holy Father "weak" and "terrible" and demanding that he "stop catering to the Radical Left." The cause of this attack is clear: Pope Leo called for peace. He asked that wars cease. He condemned the idolatry of force.

That is not weakness. That is the Gospel.

We do not share all things in common with the Roman Catholic Church. Our tradition is distinct, and our independence from Rome is long-established. But on this we have no ambiguity: a political leader who attacks the leader of the world's largest Christian communion because that leader dared to say "enough with war" has revealed something important about himself and about the values he serves. Those values are not the values of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Book of Isaiah is not a radical left document. The Sermon on the Mount is not soft on crime. The command to seek peace and pursue it is not a foreign policy failure. It is the Word of God.

We stand in solidarity with Pope Leo XIV's call for peace, for the protection of civilian life, and for the dignity of every human person caught in the crossfire of war. We call upon all Old Catholic faithful, all clergy, and all persons of good will to reject the weaponization of Christian language in service of military aggression, and to pray for the courage of those who speak truth to power at cost to themselves.

Pax et Bonum.

The Right Reverend Greer Godsey, OSFoc
Presiding Bishop, Old Catholic Churches International

#oldcatholic #romancatholic #trump

Statement of the Old Catholic Churches International on President Trump's Attack on Pope Leo XIV

Issued by the Right Reverend Greer Godsey, OSFoc, Presiding Bishop Greer Godsey

April 13, 2026

We have watched with grave concern as President Donald Trump launched a public attack tonight on Pope Leo XIV, calling the Holy Father "weak" and "terrible" and demanding that he "stop catering to the Radical Left." The cause of this attack is clear: Pope Leo called for peace. He asked that wars cease. He condemned the idolatry of force.

That is not weakness. That is the Gospel.

We do not share all things in common with the Roman Catholic Church. Our tradition is distinct, and our independence from Rome is long-established. But on this we have no ambiguity: a political leader who attacks the leader of the world's largest Christian communion because that leader dared to say "enough with war" has revealed something important about himself and about the values he serves. Those values are not the values of Jesus of Nazareth.

The Book of Isaiah is not a radical left document. The Sermon on the Mount is not soft on crime. The command to seek peace and pursue it is not a foreign policy failure. It is the Word of God.

We stand in solidarity with Pope Leo XIV's call for peace, for the protection of civilian life, and for the dignity of every human person caught in the crossfire of war. We call upon all Old Catholic faithful, all clergy, and all persons of good will to reject the weaponization of Christian language in service of military aggression, and to pray for the courage of those who speak truth to power at cost to themselves.

Pax et Bonum.

The Right Reverend Greer Godsey, OSFoc
Presiding Bishop, Old Catholic Churches International

#oldcatholic #RomanCatholic