$16.5 million in bribes, 16.5 million refugees, 16.5 million tourists and 16.5 million readers

There are 16.5 million people of Italian ancestry living in the US (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

This blog continues to reach more and more readers, and for the second time this month it has passed a half-million marker, reaching the staggering total earlier yesterday of 16.5 million hits since I first began blogging back in 2010.

I almost missed the significance of the 16 million figure which was passed two weeks ago (6 September) while I was on a weekend visit to York and Durham. Since then, there has been another half a million hits in the space of a fortnight.

After I began blogging in 2010, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. It climbed steadily to 2 million, June 2015; 3 million, October 2016; 4 million, November 2019; 5 million, March 2021; 6 million, July 2022; 7 million, 13 August 2023; 8 million, April 2024; and 9 million, October 2024.

But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal this year, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), 11 million a month later (12 February 2025), 11.5 million a month after that (10 March 2025), and 12 million early in May (3 May 2025).

The figures claimed steadily throughout June, July and August, from 12.5 million early in June (6 June 2025), 13 million less than two weeks later (17 June 2025), 13.5 million a week after that (24 June 2025), 14 million a week later (1 July 2025), 14.5 million ten days later (11 July), 15 million two weeks after that (25 July 2025), 15.5 million less than a month later (23 August 2025), then 16 million earlier this month (6 September 2025), and 16.5 million in the early hours of Friday (19 September 2025), hours before I had awoken.

So far this month, this blog has had almost 830,000 hits by noon today, and it looks like having over 1 million hits by the end of the month for the fourth time.

In July, for a third time, this blog had more than a million hits in a single month, with 1,195,456 hits in July; June 2025 was the second month that this blog had more than 1 million hits in one month, with 1,618,488 hits by the end of that month. These figures follow January’s record of 1 million hits by the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025).

So far this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in June, four were in January, and one was in July:

• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 82,043 (23 June 2025)
• 81,037 (21 June 2025)

• 80,625 (22 June 2025)
• 79,981 (19 June 2025)
• 79,165 (20 June 2025)
• 69,722 (18 June 2025)
• 69,714 (30 June 2025)
• 69,657 (1 July 2025)

This blog has already had over 7.1 million hits this year, over 44 per cent of all hits ever.

Queen’s University Belfast … tourism visits to Northern Ireland have doubled and are now put at 16.5 million a year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

With this latest landmark figure of 16.5 million hits this week, I once again found myself asking questions such as:

• What do 16.5 million people look like?
• Where do we find 16.5 million people?
• What does £16.5 million, €16.5 million or $16.5 million mean?
• What would it buy?

The UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Dr Adam Abdelmoula, said earlier this month that about 16.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria. He added that more than 6 million Syrians remain internally displaced, while more than 6 million others live as refugees around the world. He noted that about 24% of the country’s housing stock has been damaged or destroyed in recent years. The number who ever get to the UK is tiny within the overall, overwhelming enormity of this dire situation.

The overall population of the city of Lagos in Nigeria was estimated at 16.5 million last year (2024).

There are 16.5 million people of Italian ancestry living in the US.

An oft-quoted statistic says 16.5 million tourists visit Greece each year, more than the country’s entire population. But the actual figure for tourists in Greece each year is now almost double that, with over 30 million visitors a year.

Tourism visits to Northern Ireland have doubled since the Good Friday Agreement from 7.5 million in 1998 to 16.5 million.

China Eastern Airlines and its subsidiaries Shanghai Airlines and China United Airlines carried almost 16.5 million passengers during the annual Spring Festival travel rush last year.

The Irish tech founder Niall Crosby left a will valued at €16.5 million after he died in a helicopter accident last year (July 2024).

Oxfam GB put 265 jobs at risk of redundancy earlier this year after it faced a forecast £16.5 million deficit in unrestricted funds.

When Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort went on trial on tax and bank fraud charges, it was revealed he had $16.5 million in unreported taxable business income between 2010 and 2014. The US Internal Revenue Service revealed in court how Manafort’s unreported income included foreign wire transfers to US vendors like landscapers and clothiers, wire transfers to buy property, and income improperly reclassified as loans.

Manafort was jailed twice on multiple charges – and he was then promptly pardoned by Donald Trump.

Stephen Calk, former chair and CEO of the Federal Savings Bank, was an economic adviser to Trump during the 2016 presidential election campaign. He was jailed in 2022 for bribing Paul Manafort with $16.5 million in high-risk loans ‘to try and buy himself prestige and power.’ Calk was convicted of financial institution bribery and conspiracy to commit financial institution bribery.

A Reuters report last year revealed that Timothy Mellon, heir of the Pittsburgh-based Mellon banking family, had given the pro-Trump MAGA Inc at least $16.5 million since 2022. He also gave at least $20 million to the pro-Trump America First Action Inc during the 2020 presidential election.

So, 16.5 million buys a lot of votes and a lot of influence, and seems to even buy a way out of jail for some people.

Once again, this blog has reached another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.

A continuing and warming figure in the midst of all these statistics continues to be the one that shows my morning prayer diary reaches up to 80-85 people each day. It is 3½ years now since I retired from active parish ministry. But I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches averaged or totalled 560 to 580 people a week.

Today, I am very grateful to all 16.5 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I am grateful for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.

It is often said Greece has 16.5 million tourists, but the numbers are now almost double that (Photograph Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 131, Saturday 20 September 2025

The Sower and the Seed (see Luke 8: 4-15) … an image in the East Window in Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and tomorrow is the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV) and the Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist (21 September).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers John Coleridge Patteson (1827-1871), First Bishop of Melanesia, and his Companions, Martyrs in 1871.

Later this afternoon, I may go to watch the last game of the Cricket season at Stony Stratford Cricket Club. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a reflection on the Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

‘When it grew, it produced a hundredfold’ (Luke 8: 8) … blossoming trees and shaded gardens in Platanias in suburban Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 8: 4-15 (NRSVA):

4 When a great crowd gathered and people from town after town came to him, he said in a parable: 5 ‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6 Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it withered for lack of moisture. 7 Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. 8 Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’

9 Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10 He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that

“looking they may not perceive,
and listening they may not understand.”

11 ‘Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. 12 The ones on the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13 The ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. 14 As for what fell among the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. 15 But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.’

‘When they hear the word … [they] bear fruit with patient endurance’ (Luke 8: 15) … summer blossoms on a tree in the old town in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Reflection:

In the Gospel reading yesterday (Luke 8: 1-3), we hears how Jesus was going around the towns and villages, preaching the Good News of the Kingdom, accompanied by the 12 disciples and a number of women who supported his work.

People from the town come to hear him, and he teaches them in this morning’s reading (Luke 8: 4-15) in the form of a parable, the well-known parable of the sower. The parable is told in two stages.

The first stage is the parable itself. The emphasis is on the sower sowing. He scatters the seed all over, as Jesus scatters his teaching among the people – in the towns and villages, in the countryside, on the mountainside, by the lakes and shore.

Some of the scattered seed falls on the path, some on rocks, some among brambles and some on good soil. Even though some of the seed that the sower scatters inevitably withers and dies, some which will find fertile soil and flourish.

So it is with the Word of God and the Word of Jesus. It is a message of confidence and hope for the future of the Kingdom. In the Gospel, it is Jesus’ disciples who are the fertile soil. Christ is the Sower, the seed is the Word, those spoken to are the soil.

Clear as the parable is, the disciples ask for an explanation. Jesus tells them that the inner secrets of the Kingdom are for them, they are given τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας (ta mysteria tis basileias), the mysteries of the kingdom.

The word ‘mystery’ (μυστήριον, mysterion) refers to something hidden, a secret or religious mystery, not known to uninitiated, ordinary people. The Church came to use this word to refer to a sacrament, particularly to the Eucharist. We still use the word mystery in this way.

It is found at least three times in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in referring to the Eucharist: ‘we … have duly received these holy mysteries’; ‘so shall ye be meet partakers of these holy mysteries’; and ‘he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries, pledges of his love.’

We think of the word ‘mystery’ in terms of a genre of novel or a problem to be solved. But the word mystery in Greek is μυστήριον (mysterion, but usually as the plural μυστήρια, musteria).

It comes from the Greek word muo, to shut the mouth. It relates, therefore, to a secret teaching, the kind of revelation that is passed on in whispers, revealed only to the initiated.

In the Hebrew scriptures, God is the ‘revealer of mysteries’ (Daniel 2: 47). The Wisdom literature talks about ‘the secret purposes of God’ (see Wisdom 2: 22).

In the Gospels the word μυστήριον (mysterion) is used to refer to the secret meaning of parables (see Matthew 13: 11; Mark 4: 11; Luke 8: 4-15; Luke 9: 1-10).

This noun had originally been used in reference to the secrets of ancient mystery cults, but it is generally used in the plural in the New Testament to refer to a number of doctrines not known earlier in the Bible. Saint Paul uses it in a technical, theological sense, setting forth the notion that Christ is the mystery, the secret plan of God that has always been implicit in creation but is now made explicit in Christ. Christ is the predestined mystery of God revealed within the fullness of time. In receiving him, people receive salvation.

In many liturgies, the Eucharistic acclamation after the words of institution is: ‘The Mystery of Faith.’ In many Churches, when we celebrate the Eucharist, we are inviting people to approach Christ and to meet him in these sacred mysteries.

What if, in this morning’s Gospel reading at the Eucharist, Christ is scattering the Good News of the Kingdom among all people, offering it to all who will hear, whether they bear fruit or not, but is reminding the disciples, reminding us as the Church, that we have been entrusted with the sacred mysteries of the kingdom in the Eucharist?

If we hear and understand the word, then we are invited, sacramentally to meet Christ in the sacred mysteries, the Eucharist.

‘A sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path’ (Luke 8: 5) … a pathway through the fields in Comberford, between Tamworth and Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Today’s Prayers (Saturday 20 September 2025):

The theme this week (14 to 20 September) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), has been ‘Standing in Solidarity with the Church in Myanmar’ (pp 38-39). This theme was introduced last Sunday with a programme update from Rachael Anderson, former Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Saturday 20 September 2025) invites us to pray:

Heavenly Father, help us to pray without ceasing for our sisters and brothers around the world in countries where Christian persecution is on the rise. Thank you that they follow Jesus no matter the cost. Help us to do the same.

The Collect:

God of all tribes and peoples and tongues,
who called your servant John Coleridge Patteson
to witness in life and death to the gospel of Christ
amongst the peoples of Melanesia:
grant us to hear your call to service
and to respond trustfully and joyfully
to Jesus Christ our redeemer,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened by the blood of your martyr John Coleridge Patteson:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Collect on the Eve of Saint Matthew:

O Almighty God,
whose blessed Son called Matthew the tax collector
to be an apostle and evangelist:
give us grace to forsake the selfish pursuit of gain
and the possessive love of riches
that we may follow in the way of your Son Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Collect on the Eve of Trinity XIV:

Almighty God,
whose only Son has opened for us
a new and living way into your presence:
give us pure hearts and steadfast wills
to worship you in spirit and in truth;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

The Sower and the Seed … an image in the East Window by Mayer & Co in Saint Michael’s Church, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org