#figures of note

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TIL about Jean de Sassenage, Bishop of Grenoble in 1219, who wrote a pastoral letter to surrounding French dioceses describing the effects of a flood in his diocese and sing for aid from them. He was in his 80s at the time, and I wish I knew more

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From Artemis II to Pope Francis: A change in perspective

As we mark the anniversary of Pope Francis’ death, a reflection from Artemis II offers a strikingly similar invitation: to see differently.

As he journeyed toward the moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission, astronaut Victor Glover found himself doing something profoundly human: looking back. From that distance, Earth no longer appears divided or complicated, but whole, fragile, and astonishingly beautiful, and it was from that vantage point that he offered an Easter reflection that feels all the more striking for its clarity: "As we are so far from Earth and looking at the beauty of creation, I can really see the Earth as one thing." What he describes is not merely visual, but almost existential, because what disappears at that distance is not the planet itself, but the way we usually perceive it. As he went on to say: "You’re on a spaceship called Earth… created to give us a place to live." The image gently reframes everything, because from that perspective, the divisions that occupy us begin to lose their weight, and what remains is something shared, something given, something that was never meant to be fragmented. The astronaut gave an important reminder: "You are special, in all this emptiness… you have this oasis." There is something unmistakably Easter-like in that recognition, because it shifts the focus away from what is broken toward what has been given, not by denying suffering, but by placing it within something larger. Easter itself is, at its heart, a change in perspective. The Resurrection does not remove suffering or erase what has happened, but it transforms how it is seen, revealing that what once appeared final is not, and that even death does not have the last word. It is difficult not to think, here, of Pope Francis, who, speaking from hospital on March 2, 2025, offered a strikingly similar insight when he said, with characteristic simplicity, "From here the war appears even more absurd." From space, the Earth appears as one; from a place of illness, war appears absurd; and in both cases, what emerges is not a new reality, but a clearer one, as though distance allows us to see what proximity obscures. Pope Francis went further still, reflecting that "human fragility has the power to make us more lucid about what endures and what passes," a phrase that takes on a particular resonance today, as we mark Easter Monday, the day on which he died, and which now carries, alongside its quiet joy, a deeper sense of perspective. What both voices suggest, in very different ways, is that when we are removed from the center of things, whether by distance or by fragility, we begin to see more truly, not because the world has changed, but because our way of looking at it has. Easter invites precisely that shift, not by taking us out of the world, but by inviting us to see it differently, to recognize that beneath everything that divides and distracts, there remains something that holds, something that does not pass, and something that, once glimpsed, is difficult to forget.

Bolded emphases added.

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Thinking about

how one of the most complete fossils we have of a Neanderthal female was discovered by three women (Dorothy Garrod, Jacquetta Hawkes, and Yusra; Yusra, a Palestinian field hand, was the first to touch Tabun 1).

how the site described as "the most convincing example of a Neanderthal deliberate burial" (La Chapelle-aux-Saints) was discovered by three Catholic priests (Amédée & Jean Bouyssonie, brothers, and Louis Bardon)

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an 1842 portrait of Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini (x). Today (May 12th, 2025) marks the 171st anniversary of his death.

In the 1830's the British government was on a crusade to suppress the African slave trade. […] By 1838 Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary, was growing impatient. Slaves were still being shipped by the thousands from Africa to Cuba and Brazil. Consequently, he looked to the United States and the Papacy for help. [...] Palmerston had more reason for optimism with regard to the Papacy. In 1815 Pope Pius VII had issued a brief condemning the slave trade in response to an appeal from the British foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh. In July, 1839, Thomas Aubin, the British consul in Florence, wrote to the pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini, asking for a declaration from the Holy See. Aubin noted that the British had been working for years to suppress the trade. While most European countries had willingly co-operated with them, the British had trouble with certain countries which were "in spiritual communion with the Holy See." Aubin was sure that a public declaration on this subject by the pope would be "most advantageous to the cause of humanity and would render a great honor to the Roman government."

When Gregory learned of Aubin's letter, he decided to put the matter before the cardinals who served in the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. […] To assist the other cardinals in their deliberations, Lambruschini drew up a lengthy memorandum on the subject. In his report, he sharply criticized the British government for its long record of hostility towards the Holy See. Considering these tensions, he declared that it would be neither "convenient" nor "useful" for the pope to make any allusion to the British if he were to issue a letter.

Lambrushini also noted that there were many defenders of slavery and the slave trade in the Church who could offer a host of reasons to justify them. Among other points, they would make reference to Abraham and Jacob and other patriarchs owning slaves; to St. Paul's counsel to slaves to obey their masters; and to the Council of Gangra (330) and other councils which appeared to affirm the legitimacy of slavery and the slave trade. None of these claims impressed him much: "All of these arguments tending to excuse or justify slavery and the trafficking of Negroes have their responses, and have been refuted by the expert writers and theologians."

Lambruschini felt that the time was propitious for the pope to issue a new statement. Arguing that Pope Gregory should draw on the writings of his predecessors, he provided the pope and the cardinals with the copies of relevant papal pronouncements and the Holy Office statements dating back to the 1400's. He also took up the sensitive matter of whom the pope should address. At the time, neither Spain nor Portugal nor any of the Latin American republics had diplomatic relations with the Holy See. [Note 15: "All these countries were controlled by liberal, anticlerical regimes"]. If a letter were directed to the rulers of these states, there was a good chance it would never be published. He noted that a letter could be sent to the bishops of these nations, but he feared such a move would antagonize the political leaders.

When the cardinals met with the pope, they agreed that he should issue a public declaration on the slave trade: it would not be directed to any person or nation in particular, and no reference would be made to Great Britain's role in it. A letter was promptly drafted by one of the cardinals and edited by the pope. In the final version, Gregory noted that due to the Church's influence, "there were no slaves allowed amongst the great majority of the Christian nations" in the Middle Ages. Subsequently, however, Christians, motivated by sheer greed, began to traffic in Indians and Negroes. This trade had been repeatedly condemned by the Holy See. He listed five of his predecessors who had forbidden it: Pius II (1462), Paul III (1537), Urban VIII (1639), Benedict XIV (1741), and Pius VII (1815). As the practice was still widespread among Christians he felt obligated to add his voice to those of the earlier popes and "vehemently admonish . . . that none henceforth dare to subject to slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods, Indians, negroes, or other classes of men." Lay Catholics were informed that they would face excommunication if they disobeyed, and clergy, too, were sternly warned not to oppose this teaching. [...] In December 1839, Pope Gregory XVI issued In Supremo[.]

John Quinn ("'Three Cheers for the Abolitionist Pope!': American Reaction to Gregory XVI's Condemnation of the Slave Trade, 1840-1860"). Bolded emphases added.

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Fr. Jimmy Coyle, and his younger sister Marcella. (x)

She had lots of pictures of him, but he looked the same in them all: thick curly hair and eerily pale eyes, that stared straight at you until you put the cardboard lid back on. The most important thing about him, for us as kids, was that he was dead: shot on purpose by the Ku Klux Klan which was American for Very Bad Men. In her story, and we only had her story, he died on the porch, where he'd been reading his breviary. We pictured a porch, long and wooden. We pictured the sort of reliable sunlight that might make a porch possible. We slanted the sun's rays for evening, and pictured the good-looking Irish priest with the strange eyes looking up from his Divine Office to find Very Bad Men coming up the porch steps with guns. We pictured him dead: head back with a look of surprised piety, his breviary open and fluttering at his feet, the rocking chair still creaking. It was iconic, a vivid movie scene that never left us.

Sheila Killian, Marcella and Jimmy's grandniece, and author of Something Bigger.

Today (8/11/24) marks the 103rd anniversary of the martyrdom of James Coyle, murdered by a Klansman for performing an interracial marriage involving the assassin's daughter.

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(left) Portrait of Catherine, an African Woman, by Albrecht Dürer. (right) Study of an African Man, by Albrecht Dürer.

As far as representations of slaves are concerned, ancient historians have isolated factors such as smallness of stature, shortness of hair, and posture of the body that they claim denoted slaves in representations from ancient Greece, but it is not possible to do this in Renaissance Europe. Occasionally, the depressed or despairing expression of the African indicates that the person depicted was probably a slave. This is the case with the portrait in silverpoint by Albrecht Dürer of a young black African woman called Katharina, whom Dürer encountered in Antwerp in the house of one of his patrons, the Portuguese factor João Brandão. Described by Dürer in his diary as Brandão's Mohrin, or Moor, she was very probably his slave rather than simply his servant, although as we shall see, slavery was not legal in the Low Countries, and the word does not convey any legal meaning. Katharina was black, as is shown by Dürer's drawing, but his diary does not make this clear. Dürer himself inscribed the year, her name, and her age —twenty years old— on the drawing, so these are not in doubt. Katharina's infinitely faraway expression, her downcast eyes, and her hair covering are movingly captured by Dürer. The artist also drew a second black African, a man, at around the same date. Although the date "1508" appears on the drawing, alongside Dürer's monogram, the date is not considered secure. Nothing is known of this man, and it could be that he is the Diener or servant of the same João Brandão whom Dürer writes he drew after 14 December 1520. With a mustache and beard in addition to close, curly hair, this African is less likely to have been a slave than Katherina, as beards were usually forbidden to slaves, and his expression is less obviously despairing.

- Kate Lowe ("The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe," from Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe). Reformated to avoid a wall of text.

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‘Pope of Turtle Bay’ blesses NYC neighborhood — but some say his bell’s too loud

(Original Article; pictures also taken from the article.) Bolded emphases added.

A bearded disciple with a bell and a cross marches around Manhattan’s East Side every Sunday morning, ringing his toll and blessing the neighborhood. While locals have no issue with the man spreading the good word, some say he does it so loudly it could wake the dead. “For most people, you’re out on the weekend, you’re working the whole week, you want to rest on Sunday,” said Silvia Gerber, a Turtle Bay resident of two decades. “You don’t want to be awakened by this bell.” She said she first started hearing the bell ringer two years ago. “I can hear it from blocks away,” Irene O’Halloran told The Post. She said the bell is obnoxious and stands out from the rest of the city’s noise - constant emergency sirens, car horns and roaring bus engines. “It’s not a pretty church bell. It’s a nuisance noise, and he just keeps going,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. People who say, ‘You live in a city, it’s always loud,’ don’t realize how annoying this bell is.” The Pope of Turtle Bay, who only identified himself only as Nickolai, parked his blue Honda Civic on East 47th Street at 8 a.m. one Sunday this month before donning his signature chime and crucifix. For the next 20 minutes, he paraded around the neighborhood, stopping to bless Holy Family Catholic Church on East 47th Street, the Church of the Covenant on East 42nd Street, the United Nations building, and to give money to a homeless man who goes by the name of “Knife.” “For me, the bell is whatever. It’s not something to get worked up over,” Knife said. “Very much evil in this world,” Nickolai told The Post before driving off in his car, which was loaded with religious iconography, including crosses, bibles and pictures of saints. Others insist Nickolai is harmless and only adds to the colorful tapestry of NYC characters. “One way New York has changed for the worse in recent years has been in the decline, the dearth of quite harmless eccentricity,” Turtle Bay resident Alan Rau posted on Nextdoor in response to Gerber’s complaints. “This is what adds to the fabric of the city. Not everyone can be as ‘normal’ (i.e., non ‘creepy’) as you - something for which we should thank God.” One artist captured Nickolai bearing his cross and made an NFT out of it, which runs for about $450 worth of cryptocurrency. “This type of character intrigues me a lot,” Colombian photographer Julian López said in a text. “He made me wonder a lot of things about him: Who is this guy? What did he want to communicate by carrying that cross? How often does he do it? I was impressed by the decisive way in which he walked. I followed him for almost 15 blocks and nothing made him stop, not even a red light.”

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The Jesuit son of General Sherman - Aleteia

Thomas Sherman, the son of General William Tecumsah Sherman became a Jesuit, comparing his vocation to "falling in love." It's not clear tha

In the spring of 1878, General William T. Sherman opened a letter from his oldest son Thomas, a young man for whom he held great hopes. At 22, Tom had studied at Georgetown and Yale, and had graduated from law school. Sherman envisioned a bright future for Tom, one which would ensure the family’s security. The letter, however, left him shocked, distressed, even furious. Tom wrote that he wasn’t going to continue as a lawyer, but was joining the Jesuits that summer. The General told Tom in no uncertain terms that he had betrayed him, his sisters and mother, who looked to him for support in their old age. (He always felt his army salary didn’t go far enough.) It’s not clear that Sherman ever fully forgave his son. While Mrs. Sherman, a devout Catholic, was overjoyed, her husband held a lifelong skepticism toward religion in general and Catholicism in particular. Born Tecumseh Sherman to Protestant parents, he was orphaned early and raised by Catholic neighbors who insisted on his being re-baptized. His baptism occurred on June 28, 1829, the feast of St. William, and he was renamed William Tecumseh. But as his biographer John Marszalek notes, Sherman “refused to call himself a Catholic or practice that creed.” Yet his children were all raised Catholic. Ellen Sherman actively supported Catholic causes, numbering many priests, bishops and even cardinals among her close acquaintances. The General, however, frequently berated what he called her “unnatural fascination for the Church.” Born on October 12, 1856, Thomas Ewing Sherman was the grandson of one United States Senator and the nephew of another. His father, a central figure in the American Civil War, served for two decades as commanding general of the U.S. Army. Raised in Washington, D.C., among the nation’s political elite, through his mother Tom was on intimate terms with the country’s leading Catholics. Priests and bishops were frequent guests at the Sherman home. One family friend who made a strong impression on him was Father Peter DeSmet, a Belgian Jesuit who worked extensively with Native Americans. The General complained that Ellen “thinks religion is so important that everything else must give way to it.” He told young Tom: “I don’t want you to be a soldier or a priest but a good useful man.” Nonetheless, it was while at Georgetown that Tom became seriously interested in the Jesuits, who ran the university. But he went on to study law at Yale. After graduation, he practiced law for two years in St. Louis. By 1878, he had made his decision to join the Jesuits. Although his father felt he was shirking his family duties, Tom wrote his sister Minnie:

"People in love do strange things … Having a vocation is like being in love, only more so, as there is no love more absorbing, so deep and so lasting as that of the creature for the Creator. What a grand thing it is to be, as it were, shooting straight at one’s mark, living every hour, performing every action in preparation for the great hereafter."

The preparation program for the Jesuits can last up to a dozen years, and Tom started his novitiate, where he said his position “quite corresponds to that of a cadet in the army,” in England. Back in America, he studied philosophy and taught at St. Louis University, a Jesuit school founded in 1818. There he preferred public speaking to teaching, but he made a strong impression on his students, several of whom followed him into the Jesuits. As the son of a leading national hero, Tom Sherman was something of a celebrity, a man set apart. In 1889, he was ordained to the priesthood, but in a separate ceremony from the rest of his class. His mother’s close friend, Archbishop Patrick Ryan of Philadephia, performed the ordination. The event was national news, and Father Sherman looked forward to a promising career. While most Jesuits take up teaching or parish work after ordination, Sherman seems to have written his own ticket as a popular lecturer. His biographer Joseph Durkin writes that he “had a flair for the dramatic and an acute sense of the theatre.” One peer described him as “always hungry” for a podium. No doubt his name and background helped draw crowds. And draw crowds he did. In time, however, he butted heads with his superiors, who felt that fame might be going to his head. Durkin describes him as “a high-strung individualist of an extreme refinement of nature and a disposition unusually sensitive.” Ordered to take a break from the lecture circuit, he went over his superiors’ heads to Rome, and got a leave of absence from the Jesuit order. During the Spanish-American War, he obtained a chaplain’s commission without consulting the Jesuits. For several years, Sherman drifted from one Jesuit assignment to another until he suffered a nervous breakdown in his early 50s. Institutionalized for several years, he traveled around the country from one Jesuit community to another. “Having served in six provinces,” he wrote a friend, “I am attached to none.” In a fit of despair he wrote, “I am utterly at a loss what to do … no peace is possible for me.” In the fall of 1914, Sherman formally withdrew from the Jesuits. For several years, unattached to any diocese or religious order, he wandered around the country before settling down in Santa Barbara, California, where family members looked after him. For much of this time, Durkin writes, he was “allergic to the mention of the word ‘Jesuit.'” Just before his death at age 77, however, Father Thomas Ewing Sherman reconciled with the Jesuits and renewed his vows. After many years of unrest, General Sherman’s son died a Jesuit. He was buried in their cemetery at Grand Couteau, Louisiana. Interred next to him is Father John Salter, a nephew of Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America.