The Old Year and The New Year – COMMITTING TO TRUTH

Benedict, Vox Ecclesiae (“Benedict, Voice of the Church”), the 265th Bishop Of Rome, held the motto Cooperatores Veritatis, (Coworkers in Truth) until his death four years ago on December 31, 2022

Only God is omniscient. We work to do the best we can to understand God’s truth in a house and in houses where there are many mansions.

On the first of January , 2020, Cardinal George Pell made a both calm and impassioned plea for truth from the church in his prison journal:

“Christians have as much right to participate in public life and discussion as any other group, and we need to be active and vocal. To be cowed into silence would be shameful, and to be drowned in political correctness would be worse.”

The traditional Latin mass of January 1 almost defines goodness or the Latin Virtus (originally manliness) as raising the voice.

Psallat altitúdo cœli, Psallant
omnes ángeli * Quidquid est vírtutis
unquam Psallant in laudem Dei *
Nulla linguárum siléscat Vox et omnis
cónsonet: Sæculórum sǽculis (Let the height of heaven sing;
sing all angels; whatever has life, sing
and praise God. No tongue shall be
silent; sing, every voice: for ever and
ever.)

Let us sing.

The Truth.

As best we can,

Geoff Fox, December 31-January 1, 2025-2026, Melbourne, Australia

The Holy Innocents

The above depiction of the massacre of the innocents was painted by Rubens.

Today is the feast of The Holy Innocents, the babies and infants recorded by Mathew as murdered by order of Herod because of his fear of the Newborn King.

Six years ago today George Pell wrote in his prison journal: “The church, like Jesus, cannot avoid the clash between good and evil, love and hate, faith and darkness.”

Yesterday, a beautiful flower in front of the Mary Grotto at St Aloysius Church reminded me of Cardinal Pell’s singular and complex greatness.

I wrote these words:

Apud Tormenta Cotidiana Spes Nostra Vehemens Consanat …….

Among daily torments, our strong, savage hope heals ………

Cardinal Pell asked to have these words on his tomb: “Vehementer amavit Dominum et Ecclesiam (Vehemently he loved the Lord and the Church)”

The depiction below of the massacre of the innocents was probably painted by Thomas Schmid.

Geoff Fox, December 28, 2025, Melbourne, Australia

OUR SUFFERING IS GOD’S PRUNING

On December the 18th, 2019, in his prison journal, Cardinal George Pell wrote “Our suffering is God’s pruning …… no pruning means little fruit.”

6 days later on Xmas Eve, the Cardinal went on to a quote about Xmas by Saint Edith Stein (pictured above), which had been sent to him from Ravensburg, Germany:

“In front of the crib you are connected to all those who are scattered all over the world and beyond. That’s a comforting secret.”

Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Stein’s saintly name) was a nurse, teacher and philosopher, who died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in 1942:

Some things like people, childhood and babies do not thrive with pruning.

Perhaps Hitler’s “final solution”, a.k.a. the Holocaust, is proof of that

Whatever human pruning may or may not be necessary is best left to God.

All life is sacred.

Geoff Fox, December 18, 2025, Footscray, Australia

HOLY MOTHER CHURCH – ITS ALL ABOUT FAMILY

On this date six years ago, Cardinal Pell’s entry in his prison journal was and is for me a wonderful account of how his church was his very broad extended family metaphorically speaking.

The entry started with reporting receiving a copy of the above artwork, Filippo Lippi’s Madonna and Child from “Pauline, a good friend and a Scot from London …..” (The painting shows Mary as a doting mum to Jesus who is held up by two angels.)

The penultimate thought of the Cardinal’s entry that day is this lament:

“Holy Mother Church in Australia and elsewhere has formidable strengths ……. even in a deeply polarised society. But a fundamental decline has to be acknowledged. The challenge is to slow this down and reverse the trend.”

How very true!

Omnia omnibus,

Geoff Fox, December 17, 2025, Melbourne, Australia

Tony Abbott – A Loyal Friend and Not A Yes-Man

Six years ago today on December 3rd 2019, Cardinal Pell described a well publicised visit to him the previous day by former Prime Minister Tony Abbott as a “….. public gesture ….. worth much more with the general population than learned articles.”

Today I showed the above picture of Mr Abbott, talking with US president Barak Obama, to my traditionally educated friend Gaye.

She said that body language indicated that Obama did not like what he was being told and that the former Australian Prime Minister was clearly not a Yes-Man.

Geoff Fox, December 3, 2025, Melbourne, Australia

The Mythology Of Progress

On Decmber the first six years ago in his prison journal Cardinal Pell wrote of (the modern world’s) “……. mythology of progress, a mirage of inevitable and universal progress …….” as being “……. exploded again in the crimes of the twentieth century.”

What is truly good is not transitory. It lasts.

Today is the feast day of Saint Eligius, whose honesty reminds me of what I sense reading the Cardinal’s prison journal.

St Eligius is pictured above, in a Juan de Valdés Leal painting of the mid 1650’s, kneeling with a sitting Saint Anthony of Padua before the Virgin Mary.

Beauty and true faith are a great combination.

Geoff Fox, December 1, 2025, Melbourne, Australia

Martyrdom – Nations In Decline Forget God’s Truth

Six years ago today, on the Feast Day of St Edmund the Martyr, Cardinal Pell wrote in his prison journal:

“As Christianity declines in Australia, it is almost inevitable that this gap will be filled by the diabolical. …….. God of love, as you exist, please lead us to the truth.”

Geoff Fox, November 20, 2025, on the train home from a trip to St Marks anglo-catholic Abbey just outside Camperdown, Victoria

Young And Pell Benedictus – Well Spoken

Today, the 23rd of September, 2025 in the historic Our Lady Of The Rosary Church in Kyneton, I read these wonderful words above the pews “ad Jesum per Mariam”.

On the 23rd of September 2019, Cardinal George Pell quoted these other wonderful words from Pope Benedict in his prison journal:

“Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power.….

… Fidelity to the truth … alone is the guarantee of freedom.” (These words were sent to the cardinal by a correspondent in Connecticut.)

13 years before the Cardinal quoted these words, on the 23rd of September 2006, 60-year-old folk-rock singer-songwriter Neil Young was named artist of the year at the Americana Honors and Awards in Nashville, Tennessee for the protest album Living With War released by Young earlier that year.

The album included the following lines:

Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain/For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain/America! America! God shed his grace on thee/And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea, to shining sea

Protesting in 2006 against war waged by America a long way from America, Young turned to God for restoration of social cohesion, writing :

“We’re lookin’ for a leader/With the Great Spirit on his side” (from the song Lookin’ For A Leader)
“We kill and we’re killed again/And when the night falls/I pray for peace
……. I take a holy vow/To never kill again/Try to remember peace” (from the song Living With War)

“Both sides are losing now ……. Thousands of children scarred for life/We had a chance to change our mind/But somehow wisdom was hard to find ……..”
(from the song Shock and Awe)

Today, inspired in Kyneton by the greatness of George Pell and Pope Benedict and Neil Young and words above the pews in a 168 year old church, I create this fusion of their ideas in the spirit they make me feel:

Fidelity to truth can bind us good to brotherhood/With the Great and Holy Spirit on our side/Through every Mother Mary we vow with pride/Never to kill again finding wisdom per Mariam,/With God and at our best,/Consummatum est.

Would Charlie Kirk have liked this?

Geoff Fox, September 23, 2025, Kyneton, Australia