American missionary Horace Tracy Pitkin was beheaded when a mob burst into his Mission compound as part of the Boxer Uprising. This was an armed anti-Christian, and anti-imperialist insurrection in China between 1899 and 1901, towards the end of the Qing dynasty. During the latter part of the century, China’s borders had become more penetrable than ever before due to the disastrous Opium Wars of the 1840s and the inroads of the imperial foreign powers. In this climate, anti-f

Today we travel to Connecticut in the USA where Martha A. Marcellino was born in 1951. She is now known as Mother Noella Marcellino, a Benedictine nun who has become famous around the world because of her expertise in cheese making. The cheeses crafted by the Benedictine nuns at the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut are widely sought after. When Noella left home, in 1969, her name was Martha Marcellino. She was the youngest daughter in a family of gifted, heads

Today we travel to Florence in Italy where the English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning died. Married to another poet – Robert Browning, she had become so highly regarded towards the end of her life and she died at a young age of 55, that by 1850, the year of Wordsworth’s death, she was prominently mentioned as a possible successor to the poet laureateship and was a popular a rival to Tennyson. She died in the morning of the 29th of June 1861 in the Casa Guidi in Florence, s

Today in 1906 Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson finished his dystopian science fiction novel called Lord of the World that centres upon the reign of the Antichrist and the end of the world. Writing that evening in his diary, "I have finished… and really there is no more to be said. Of course, I am nervous about the last chapter – it is what one may call just a trifle ambitious to describe the End of the World. But it has been done" Pope Francis has recommended Robert Hugh Benson’

year 2008 and travel to St Andrews in Scotland were the French polymath, Rene Girard was given honorary degree at St Andrews. Beginning his academic career as a literary theorist, Girard developed a theory of ‘Mimetic Rivalry’ which he first used to interpret literature, but became a theoretical tool to understand the development of human culture and particularly the role of religion. His influence in different academic fields as varied as anthropology, economics, sociology

Today in 1988 we remember the death of one of the greatest theological minds of the 20th Century. Hans Urs Von Balthazar died just two days before a ceremony in Rome would have formally granted him the position of Cardinal. This was quite a turnaround in his reputation within the Church, which had been damaged after leaving the Jesuits in 1950 to work with the Community of Saint John. As a Jesuit novice in the 1930’s, the young Hans Urs was studying theology at Fourvière, in

Today we remember how in a remarkable meeting in Rome Pope Pius XI missioned the American Jesuit John LaFarge to draft an encyclical on ‘racialism’ as he felt the topic was the "most burning" one of the time, particularly the rise in influence of the racist ideology of National Socialism in Germany. It was drafted during the summer and given to the Pope by the end of the year. However, it was never promulgated, as Pius XI died in early 1939. The Pope had already released an

It was in Flushing Meadows in New York where the American evangelist Billy Graham today began what he said would be his last North American crusade. What he called ‘crusades’ were effectively large-scale preaching missions, and had started in 1949 in Los Angeles. Because of these crusades, it is asserted that Graham preached the gospel to more people in person than anyone in the history of Christianity. This is a brief look at his life, his impact, his critics and his legacy

Today in 1941 we travel to Russia where the American Jesuit Walter J. Ciszek was arrested under suspicion of being a spy for the Vatican and sent to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. He had slipped into Communist Russia to work as an underground priest. He would eventually be released, 22 years later. in a prisoner exchange. His memoir ‘With God in Russia’ which gives an account of his clandestine missionary work was originally published in 1964 and has been translated into nume

Today we remember the beatification of Kateri Takakwitha, a Mohawk woman. Born in 1656 in what is now New York state, she belonged to the Mohawk Nation, part of Iroquois Five Nations. Though her mother was not born a Mohawk, she was adopted into their society, presumably after being captured in war, and married a Mohawk man. Four years after her birth a smallpox epidemic hit her village, killing both her parents and leaving her permanently scarred and visually impaired. Whil

Today in 1834 in Chicago, Cyrus McCormick, a Christian inventor died. He patented the world’s first workable agricultural reaper, increasing wheat productivity all over the world. He make a fortune from it, and gave much to charity. Born in Virginia, his father was an inventor called Robert McCormick Jr. who had seen the potential of the design for a mechanical reaper and applied for a patent. Having worked for 28 years on a horse-drawn mechanical reaper to harvest grain

The pioneering priest and physicist George Lemaitre died today. He is famous for proposing the "Big Bang theory" of the origin of the universe. His theories helped modern scientific cosmology take a huge leap forward, and as a scientist and priest he had deep insights regarding the relationship between science and faith. From an early age he wanted to become a scientist priest and as he living in a coal mining region in Belgium, his father directed him to study Mining Enginee

Today in 1902 Lord Acton died. John Acton was the English Catholic historian, died in Bavaria, Germany. Now famous for his saying “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” One of the great personalities of the nineteenth century he has been described as “the magistrate of history,” He made the history of liberty his life's work; indeed, he considered political liberty the essential condition and guardian of religious liberty. His 60,000-volume libra

Today in 2015, the ground-breaking encyclical Laudato Si was published. Building on the body of the Church’s social teaching it continues the kind of reflection on modern-day problems that began with Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum,” on capital and labour, and John XXIII’s “Pacem in Terris,” which addressed the crisis of nuclear war. "Laudato Si,” which addresses a newer urgent crisis - caring for our common home. The early drafts were written by Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ, and

George Loveless, a ploughman, community leader and Methodist preacher returned from exile today in 1837, from what was then known as Van Deimens Land (Tasmania). Transportation to Australasia was brutal and about 162,000 convicts where transported from the UK between the 1780’s and the 1860’s. Few ever returned from such a sentence as the harsh voyage and rigours of slavery took their toll. Loveless had been arrested with five other farm labourers from Tolpuddle, as they wer

In 1833 the young Anglican priest John Henry Newman, while traveling on a ship from Italy to France, wrote the words to the hymn, “Lead Kindly Light Amid the Encircling Gloom.” It was to become famous and there are many stories of how it was sung spontaneously in times of danger Originally an evangelical priest in the Church of England, Newman was a very gifted communicator, and he became the "Select Preacher" at Oriel College, Oxford university. However a difference with t

The energetic leadership and conciliatory skills of Archbishop Stephen Langton forced King John to grant his seal to Magna Carta at Runnymede, near Windsor, on the banks of the River Thames. At nearly 4,500 words long, at least in the English translation of the original Latin, the Magna Carta is seen an important symbol of liberty today, held in great respect by the British and American legal communities, and seen by some as the greatest constitutional document of all times.

Today we remember how church bells rung out, bravely, around the country in defiance of the Communist party in Hungary who had severely restricted church activities. We look at the bold and stubborn leadership of their Bishop and the diplomatic headache it caused the Vatican at the height of the Cold War. It was at the end of the Second World War and three years earlier in 1945, at the famous Yalta Conference in Ukraine Europe had been effectively divided into spheres of in

Jérôme Jean Louis Marie Lejeune was born today in 1926. He would become a medical doctor and was a pioneering researcher all his life. He would go down in history as the Doctor who identified the double chromosome that was the cause of what had become known as 'Downs syndrome'. However his work with Downs children turned him to a passionate advocate and defender of them and he was distraught when he discovery was used widely in prenatal tests routinely as a step to aborting