Category: Words Of Popes

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

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