When Angus Hanton released Vassal State in April last year, he aimed his crosshairs at Britain’s economic servitude. It’s a sharp, absorbing read – a forensic dissection of how the UK has been reduced to little more than a corporate outpost for American capital.

But if you stop at the spreadsheets, you miss the real story. Hanton tracks the economic collapse with precision. Vassal State is, in many ways, an autopsy of sovereignty. It catalogs the institutions gutted, the utilities sold off, the high streets bulldozed to make way for yet another Starbucks. It reveals how American investors dictate British policy, how US tech firms extract rents from a country they don’t even bother to live in. Every page feels like a ledger of loss.

Pope Leo XIV has described a terrorist attack on a Greek Orthodox church in Damascus as “vile” during his Wednesday general audience at the Vatican.

Authorities say at least 25 people were killed on Sunday, 22 June, after a suicide bombing at Prophet Elias Church. Dozens of people were also injured. Syrian authorities say ISIS is believed responsible for the attack.

“We entrust the victims to the mercy of God and raise our prayers for the injured and their families,” Pope Leo said in St. Peter’s Square.

All Saints Catholic Church in the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, has been at the centre of increasing public controversy after hosting a “Pride Mass” on June 15, Trinity Sunday.

The Mass, which saw the sanctuary decorated with a rainbow flag, began with 70-year-old Fr Fred Daley – who openly identifies as gay – bowing to the congregation and saying “Namaste”. The priest then encouraged parishioners to wave at those joining from home and acknowledged that the service was taking place on the “territory of the Onondaga nation”. After the introduction, Fr Daley asked the congregation, as it is Pride Month, to give a round of applause to the “LGBTQ folks”.

Pope Leo XIV recently issued a stark warning that deserves far more attention than it received. Speaking at a conference on AI and ethics, the pontiff warned that artificial intelligence could disrupt the cognitive, emotional and moral growth of young people. Then, without elaboration, he moved on, leaving the audience to quietly wrestle with the weight of what had just been said.

This restraint is quintessentially papal – diplomatically measured, carefully worded and devastatingly understated. When the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics expresses concern about something affecting children, the reality is invariably worse than his measured language suggests.

YoungHoon Kim, a South Korean scientist reputed to have the highest recorded IQ in the world, has publicly affirmed his Christian faith on social media. On 18 June, Kim posted a message on X declaring: “As the world’s highest IQ record holder, I believe that Jesus Christ is God, the way and the truth and the life.” The post quickly went viral, amassing over 14 million views and more than a quarter of a million “likes” within two days.

“Jesus spoke to the crowd of the kingdom of God and cured those who needed healing” (John 9:11)

Before miraculously multiplying food for the five thousand, Jesus was teaching and healing them. His disciples, predicting a problem, wanted to send them away. But Jesus instead tells them to provide for the crowd, and helps them achieve it, so that he can keep close to his flock: he wanted to keep teaching and healing them.

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged politicians to take inspiration from St Thomas More as a perfect example of a public servant.

The American-born pontiff said that the former Lord Chancellor of England, who was beheaded by King Henry VIII on 6th July 1534, was so committed to the service of truth that he was willing to die for it.

Leo said: “During the Jubilee of the Year 2000, St John Paul II indicated St Thomas More as a witness for political leaders to revere and an intercessor under whose protection to place their work.

There’s a difference between doubt and defiance. One builds faith. The other destroys it.

We live in an age where religious obedience is mistaken for oppression, and moral clarity for arrogance. Among Catholics, this confusion has spawned something quietly devastating: cafeteria Catholicism, the bespoke, pick-and-choose approach to doctrine that sanctifies dissent by calling it discernment.

In his sermon at a Pontifical Mass on 11 June 2025 at Northampton Cathedral, Bishop Athanasius Schneider described the Holy Mass as the eternal sacrifice of Christ and the Church’s greatest treasure. Preaching during his visit to the UK for the Latin Mass Society’s 60th anniversary celebrations, which culminated in the Faith and Culture conference on Saturday, he urged Catholics to approach the Eucharist with deep reverence, interior purity, and outward humility, following the example of saints, martyrs, and monarchs.
Northampton Cathedral, 11 June 2025

Once upon a time, shows with an obviously Biblical message had one thing in their favour – almost no-one watched them. This meant that the pressure to live up to high standards or chase ratings was minimal. That changed with The Chosen, a sleeper hit that gained traction five seasons in. It was surprising that such an overtly religious show, one that made the life of Jesus its central theme, found such a large audience – yet it pushed the bar higher for any successors in the genre.

President Donald Trump’s policies on immigration “is not policy, it is punishment”, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez has said.

Last week, Trump ordered the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles following sometimes violent protests stemming from his increased efforts to deport unregistered immigrants from the city.

The President’s move has been opposed by both Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles and California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Israel’s Ambassador to the Holy See has defended the country’s new military offensive against Iran as a service to global peace and security, and said the Pope can be an “influential” moral voice in advocating for justice and nuclear disarmament in the region.

Speaking to Crux, Israeli Ambassador to the Holy See Yaron Sideman said there is “absolutely foolproof concrete” evidence that Iran is close to achieving nuclear capabilities, and that any nuclear weapons produced would be used to attack Israel.

ROME – Reviving a tradition that reaches back to the 1600s, Pope Leo will spend most of July and at least part of August at the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo, located about an hour’s drive south of the Vatican in the hills above Lake Albano.

The Prefecture of the Papal Household issued an announcement today that Pope Leo will begin his stay at Castel Gandolfo on Sunday, July 6.

Bono has finally done it. After four decades of swagger, sermons, and sunglasses, the U2 frontman has scored his first UK number-one hit as a solo artist. The track is a reimagined version of “Desire”, an old flame reignited, tied to his recent documentary Stories of Surrender

For most artists, reinvention is the beginning of the end. For Bono, it’s proof that he’s still got gas in the tank—and God on his mind.

U2, meanwhile, is having a modest chart revival of its own. “Atomic City” just clawed its way back into the UK’s physical singles chart, like a ghost returning to remind you it never left. There’s something poetic about it. Bono goes number one on his own—but never really alone. When he rises, so does the band. They’re a package deal. Like faith and doubt. Or Ireland and rain.

Pope Leo XIV has warned the Church about the challenges being created by artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and social media In today’s world.

Speaking to the bishops of Italy, the pontiff said such developments, along with the data economy, “are profoundly transforming our perception and experience of life”.

“In this scenario, the dignity of the human being risks being flattened or forgotten, replaced by functions, automatisms, simulations,” he said today.

“But the person is not a system of algorithms: He is a creature, a relationship, a mystery,” he explained.

The ancestry of Pope Leo XIV has been traced across more than 15 generations and four continents, encompassing African American, French, Spanish, Sicilian and Cuban roots. According to a report published by The New York Times Magazine on 11 June 2025, his maternal grandparents from New Orleans’ Seventh Ward were described in early 20th-century records as “black,” “mulatto” and “free persons of colour.” His family tree includes enslaved individuals, slaveholders, Spanish hidalgos, French Canadian settlers and Sicilian immigrants. Genealogists have also confirmed that he is distantly related to a number of public figures, including Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Justin Trudeau, Madonna, Justin Bieber and Jack Kerouac.

Blessed are the biohackers, for they shall inherit the cloud

Christian transhumanism sounds like a contradiction – and maybe it is. For decades, transhumanism has belonged to atheists and techno-futurists. It is a gospel of wires and willpower, where man becomes God, silicon replaces spirit, and immortality is engineered rather than earned. This is Prometheus 2.0, with better branding and venture capital. Yet in the land of megachurches and microchips, something strange is stirring. A growing number of Christians in America now argue that resurrection and mind-uploading might not be at odds. That CRISPR and salvation could coexist. That eternal life through technology is not a betrayal of faith, but its fulfilment – an upgrade, not a heresy.

“All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that [the Spirit] will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:15).

God is Father, Son and Spirit, and the three Divine Persons communicate with each other and with us.

There are many scriptural passages where Jesus speaks to his Father, but only a few in which the Father speaks to the Son: at his Baptism (“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:21) and just before his Passion (“I have glorified [your name], and I will glorify it again.” John 12:28).

He has only been in office for a month, but every word and action of Pope Leo XIV has been analysed extensively by the media trying to determine the mentality of the new pontiff. Though as Leo himself pointed out on 24 May: “Popes pass away, but the Curia remains.”

Most of what Leo has done, since being elected pontiff on 8 May, just a few weeks after Pope Francis died on 21 April, was already prepared for his predecessor, including the men Leo has appointed bishops, and the meetings with officials he has held. Even many of his homilies and speeches were probably drawn from things originally written by or for Francis.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is trying to help counter the widespread violence that has broken out in the city during protests against federal immigration operations in LA.

Unrest in the city, home to a large Latino population, broke out on 6 June after immigration raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at multiple sites, resulted in dozens of arrests of what authorities claimed were illegal migrants and gang members.