From Aristotle and Alexander the Great to admirals and academics, introducing some modern sculptures in Thessaloniki

Looking across Thessaloniki and the Thermaic Gulf from Vatopedi Monastery (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I have missed visiting Greece this year, especially my visits to Rethymnon, Panormos Iraklion, Piskopiano and Koutououfari in Crete and my friends there. The summer has passed, but I still hope to get back to Greece next year.

I was searching through old photographs recently to illustrate a blog posting when I realised I had taken many photographs over the years of sculptures in Thessaloniki – on the streets, in the parks and squares and along the seafront – but that I have never blogged about most of them.

I have been in Thessaloniki perhaps a dozen times, and there is an affinity with the city that I have excused with stories about my grandfather. I have been there for cultural events and exhibitions, for academic seminars, to write magazine and newspaper features, to meet friends, politicians and the Patriarch, to walk in my grandfather’s footsteps, on my way to and from Mount Athos, to visit museums, cathedrals, churches, monasteries and synagogues, to explore the streets and squares laid out by Ernest Hébrard after the great fire, to experience Good Friday and Easter, to look out at Mount Olympus, and to enjoy the evening sunset on the bay.

Aristotelous Square in the heart of Thessaloniki, with the statue of Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis to the right (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The well-known sights in Thessaloniki include the White Tower, the Arch of Galerius, the Rotunda, the Palace of Galerius and the fortified walls. My blog postings during the Covid-19 lockdown included ‘virtual tours’ of a dozen churches (18 April 2020), a dozen historic sites (21 April 2020), and a dozen Jewish sites (22 April 2020). I have written about history, architecture, politics, poetry, song and music, protests, trade unions, theatre, films, church life and Jewish life, monasteries and icons in Thessaloniki, about football and colourful local language, and about the minorities in Thessaloniki, including Catholics, Jews, Dönmeh and Muslims.

In addition, I am the co-author of a book published in Thessaloniki in 2023, and I have written the foreword to another published in Thessaloniki in 2024.

I came across my collection of photographs of sculptures in Thessaloniki after reading an interview in To Vima last month with one of the great modern Greek sculptors, Giorgos Georgiadis, who is now in his 90s, and whose statue of Aristotle on Aristotelous Square is one of the landmarks of the city.

These sculptures brought me on an odyssey of mind and memory, returning to the streets and squares, parks and buildings and the waterfront of Thessaloniki. Their topics and themes range across the full range and breadth of Greek history from Aristotle and Alexander the Great, through the Greek War of Independence in the 19th century and the incorporation of Thessaloniki into modern Greece in 1912, the Great Fire of 1917, and the Asia Minor catastrophe of the 1920s, through the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, the depressing post-war years of the civil war and the colonels’ regime, and through more recent economic crises in Greece and tensions in the Aegean between Greece and Turkey.

Walking along the waterfront in Thessaloniki with the White Tower and the monument to Alexander the Great in the distance (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Rather than leave these photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I decided to start an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki.

Many of these creations introduce some of the great modern sculptors of today in Greece. But there are reminders too of poets and politicians, architects and admirals, theatre and opera, musicians and the classical and philosophical legacy of Thessaloniki. There are links with other parts of Greece, from Athens to Crete, from Epirus to the Greek populations forcibly deported from western Anatolia a century ago.

Over the next few weeks, I invite you to join me in this minor odyssey of recovery and discovery. After reading that interview with Giorgos Georgiadis in To Vima last month, it seems appropriate that first of these sculptures should be his statue of Aristotle on Aristotelous Square.

Meanwhile, I have been listening once again to Θεσσαλονίκη μου (Thessaloniki Mou), a legendary Greek laïko/rebetiko anthem composed by the Manolis Chiotis, with lyrics by Christos Kolokotronis. The song, first recorded 70 years ago in 1956 by Stelios Kazantzidis and Manolis Chiotis, is an emotional homage to Greece’s second city, embracing it as the ‘great mother to the needy’:

Θεσσαλονίκη μου μεγάλη φτωχομάνα,
εσύ που βγάζεις τα καλύτερα παιδιά.
Θεσσαλονίκη μου μεγάλη φτωχομάνα,
όπου κι άν πάω σ' έχω πάντα στη καρδιά.

Θεσσαλονίκη μου ποτέ δεν σ' απαρνιέμαι,
είσαι η πατρίδα μου το λέω και καυχέμαι,
είσαι η πατρίδα μου το λέω και καυχέμαι,
Θεσσαλονίκη μου ποτέ δεν σ' απαρνιέμαι.

Thessaloniki, you great mother to the needy!
You are the one who gives the finest kids their start.
Thessaloniki, you great mother to the needy!
No matter where I go you’re always in my heart.

Thessaloniki, I will never be without you,
You are my home, I say it and I brag about you!
You are my home, I say it and I brag about you,
Thessaloniki, I will never be without you!

Next: Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square

I remember the events of 9/11 with horror 25 years later, but petulant Trump prefers to play a round of golf

The front page of ‘The Irish Times’ reporting the events of 9/11 25 years ago in 2001

Patrick Comerford

The events of ‘9/11’ 25 years ago, on 11 September 2001, are seared into my mind, my memory and my brain. It’s almost as if I can remember every moment of that dreadful, awful day.

At the time, I was the Foreign Desk Editor of The Irish Times, and had been since 1994. I was invited to lunch by some diplomats at the Korean Embassy in Dublin. On the surface I thought it was a follow-up to a short fellowship programme I had been on in Seoul a few years earlier, with the Korea Foundation and the Institute for Global Economics, in September 1997.

Over lunch, it became obvious those diplomats were working on behalf of the Korean CIA, seeking information on some marginal political figures who had allegedly visited North Korea that year.

I left lunch politely but briskly, leaving the two diplomats with the knowledge that I knew nothing that I could or would share with them. Moments later I was back in The Irish Times, where the News Room, the Foreign Desk and the Subs’ Desk shared the second floor.

It was eerie to walk into that atmosphere. Everyone was gathered around the television screens, watching as the horrors of the day unfolded before our very eyes. When the first plane hit the North Tower, everyone thought it was an accident or a plane crash. By the time the second tower was struck, we all knew the enormity of what was happening.

I was constantly on the phone with Conor O’Clery as he talked, watching the same scenes I was seeing on television, watching as people jumped from the Twin Towers, watching and knowing that this was human tragedy on a scale none of us had probably witnessed before.

He was then The Irish Times US correspondent, and was in Manhattan when the first plane hit the North Tower. I remember graphically how he told me he could see people hanging out of the windows beside and above where the fires were raging. He later wrote: ‘One man waved a white cloth as he clung to a window strut. Then a body fell from a window above him with arms and legs outstretched and plummeted some 100 storeys onto Vesey Street. Two other people fell in the succeeding minutes.’

The first identified Irish deaths that day were Ruth Clifford McCourt (44) from Cork and her four-year-old daughter Juliana who were on board the hijacked plane that hit the South Tower of the World Trade Centre.

I stayed at my desk into the early hours of the following morning as the news was updated constantly. I was one of the first people to hear that Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Wales, was safe in New York, and immediately phoned one of his close friends to let him know.

In all, 2,996 people died in the attacks – 2,977 in the attacks plus the 19 hijackers. At least 18 Irish people died in the 9/11 attacks, an estimated 1,000 victims had strong Irish-American heritage, including many police officers and firefighters.

Alongside Ruth and Juliana McCourt, the other Irish victims include Father Mychal Judge, a Franciscan friar and FDNY chaplain who was officially designated as Victim 0001; Joanne Mary Cregan (32) from Dublin, who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower; Patrick Joseph Currivan (52) from Dublin, a passenger on one of the planes; and Kieran Joseph Gorman (35) from Sligo, working in the South Tower.

Public grief in Ireland was expressed by the thousands if not tens of thousands of people who queued at the US embassy in Ballsbridge to sign the books of condolences. The board of The Irish Times decided not to published the newspaper on Friday 14 September to coincide with the national day of mourning. It was the first time since the Easter Rising in 1916 that The Irish Times was not published.

In the aftermath, neither I nor any of my colleagues were offered – nor did we expect – trauma counselling. We took it as being part of the daily life of working journalists, no matter how deep, searing or lasting the impact and memories of the events that day would be for the rest of our lives.

Today, I am sure, all journalists have been recalling where we were on ‘9/11’ 25 years ago, on 11 September 2001. We have been recalling what we saw before our very eyes, but also thinking of the dead, the maimed, the heroism of rescue teams and first responders, and the unspoken, unutterable impact those events continue to have on our friends and colleagues.

After living through the trauma of September 2001, none of us could or should be labelled as ‘anti-American’. But all this goes some way towards explaining why I am disgusted that the present petulant president of the US has decided not to attend today’s solemn commemorations at Ground Zero.

Many of those memories of 9/11, of terror in the skies and of war, were vivid earlier this year as I flew back through the Gulf after Trump embarked on an illegal war that has neither been sanctioned by Congress nor budgeted for. I was flying from Kuching and Kuala Lumpur, through Muscat on Oman Air to Heathrow.

Trump would be prefer to be in time for the Irish Open at his golf in Doonbeg, Co Clare, than at today’s 9/11 memorial in New York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

All four living former presidents are attending the anniversary commemorations in New York, but it seems Trump has skipped the day, attending a smaller event at the Pentagon, seemingly because the organisers would not allow him to make a political speech.

Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton are there to commemorate the deadliest terrorist attack in US history, but Trump has not turned up, and instead the White House is represented by Vice-President JD Vance. Yet Trump likes to describe himself as a ‘proud New Yorker’ and claims he watched the events of 9/11 with horror.

The political writer and commentator Heather Delaney Reese pointed out earlier this week how often Trump has changed his own versions of where he was and what he did on 9/11.

Last Monday, he posted a video of himself with the words, ‘What Donald Trump saw at … Ground Zero hours after 9/11.’ The video was actually taken days later, on 13 September, when he was blocks away. In the video, he is wearing an immaculate black suit and a crisp white shirt as he told a German news reporter, ‘I have about 100 men working down here … and we have another 100 coming in a little while.’ He continued, ‘I was just down at Ground Zero. It’s a disaster, and I’ve never seen anything like this.’

Hours after he posted that video, he told Fox News a very different story, claiming: ‘I went down … like the following day. Very quickly afterwards, and we worked long and hard.’

Trump is not just saying he sent hundreds of workers to Ground Zero, which has never been proven after 25 years; he is now saying he himself ‘worked long and hard’ at Ground Zero, even though the video he posted this week shows him impeccably dressed without a speck of dust on him.

For 25 years, he peddled many different claims about how he experienced or responded to 9/11. His claim about sending his own workers to Ground Zero has never been verified. No-one has found evidence that Trump helped with the rescue efforts or that he arranged for his workers to join the rescue operation. A New York Newsday reporter spotted him on 13 September and described him wearing the exact same clothes, in the same condition as in the video he shared, down to the impeccably dressed black suit, pressed white shirt and red tie.

Trump has capitalised on the death and destruction that day to make it all about him.

In 2002, on the first anniversary, he said he ‘saw the whole thing’ from his apartment in Midtown Manhattan, four miles from the World Trade Centre, and that he had ‘two windows that are focused on the building’. once again placing himself inside the story of that day.

In 2015, Trump claimed he watched from Jersey City, New Jersey, as ‘thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down.’ But, as Heather Delaney Reese points out, that too never happened. It was an invented story to vilify Muslim Americans and to fuel hatred.

In 2016, he claimed he ‘helped a little bit’ to clear rubble at Ground Zero and that year, he also claimed he lost ‘hundreds of friends’ on 9/11. It is simply not believable that his own friends account for 5 or 6% of the people who died that day, and he has never named one of all those supposed friends.

In 2019, Trump boasted: ‘I was down there also … I was down there. I spent a lot of time down there …’ He had a new and different story by the 20th anniversary in 2021, when he claimed he heard creaking at a building near Ground Zero and told first responders, ‘That building is coming down,’ before he was grabbed by ‘two big firemen’ who moved him to safety. Every year, his stories get bigger and more grandiose. Every year, he gets closer to the rubble, works harder, stays longer, and saves more people.

Yet his lies go on, and on, and on. He falsely claimed this week he was lifted out of the rubble on 9/11: ‘Two fireman, big strong guys, they grabbed me under the arms – ‘got to get our of here!’ – and they literally lifted me up, and they started running with me.’

The truth is that Trump capitalises on 9/11. When a $500 million programme was set up to help businesses in Lower Manhattan recover from the economic impact of the attacks, he applied for and got $150,000 from the fund, even though he told a German television reporter on 13 September that his property at 40 Wall Street was not affected. He pledged to donate $10,000 to the Twin Towers Fund, although there is no record of that donation ever being made.



It is reported that Trump initially planned to attend today’s events in Manhattan. But he changed his mind after memorial officials reminded his team that politicians do not make political speeches at the site to maintain its nonpartisan stance. Instead, Trump is attending his own service at the Pentagon with Melania Trump, where, no doubt, he will make a vain, rambling, self-glorifying but incoherent monologue.

When Trump’s petulant decision was first reported, he issued a furious denial (28 August), claiming Maggie Haberman of the New York Times had ‘made up the story’. Instead of apologising, he then tried to cover his tracks, claiming: ‘I would love not to speak, because I’m speaking all the time, and this is a day to remember the victims, and their beautiful family members.’

But, perhaps, the real reason Trump is not in New York today is because he is due to travel to Ireland later today to attend the Irish Open at his golf club at his private golf club in Doonbeg, Co Clare, and it is easier and more convenient for him to leave from Andrews air base in Maryland than from New York or New Jersey, according to the New York Times.

America’s allies stood beside the US in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – Canada, Germany, Denmark, France Spain, the UK … all 18 allies of the US responded when the US invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty. All that is now forgotten by Trump, who instead calls Vladimir Putin a friend and threatens to annex both Canada and Greenland, which is a sovereign part of Denmark.

Of the 19 men who carried out the 9/11 attacks, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, and there was one each from Egypt and Lebanon. None was from Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan. But Trump is happily cosying up to the Saudi ruling royals and determined that the US should help Saudi Arabia developing its nuclear capabilities.

Putin has not just invaded Ukraine, without any repercussions in his relationship with Trump, but Russia is attacking the very allies who rallied beside the US in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Germany blames Russia for last month’s drone sabotage at Leipzig airport, calling it part of a ‘long series of attempts at destabilisation, disinformation, threats, sabotage and aggression directed at Europe.’

The Leipzig sabotage is not an isolated event on German soil. Europe has entered a new era of European security, and the Trump regime appears to be on the side of Russia rather on the side of Europe and closest allies, the countries that stood beside the US after 9/11 September, when the US was wounded and afraid and needed the world to stand with it.

The US president seems far more comfortable praising the man threatening NATO allies than standing beside the allies who stood beside the US for decades. Trump has not condemned what happened in Leipzig, he has not used the word sabotage, terrorism, or aggression. Instead, he sent the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, to Moscow for secret talks with Russia’s intelligence chiefs, and Trump has said: ‘So far, I think Russia’s behaved quite well.’ This stands in sharp contrast to the way he speaks about Canada, Denmark, Spain, the UK and France, for example.

As Justine McCarthy wrote in The Irish Times last week, Trump is coming to Ireland not because he like Ireland’s 40 shades of green but because he likes golf. She described him as a ‘greasy-fingered sex-offender’.

She said the protesters who take to the streets in the coming days are on the side of the ‘75 million Americans who didn’t vote for him in 2024 and the masses joining them as he free-falls down the opinion polls may find succour in the sight of a picket. Ditto the Greenlanders he wants to rule; the Ukrainians he promised he’d save, within 24 hours, from Russia killing them; the Palestinians whose land he eyed up for a Mar-a-Lago-on-the-Med while Israel was slaughtering them with US weapons; the Spanish he called “hopeless, bad people”; the Canadians he aspires to turn into Americans; the Iranians on whom he has waged an unprovoked war; the Afghans, Haitians and Somalis whose countries he called “shitholes”; the Europeans whose countries he deems to be “decaying” and, as he says: “I know Europe better than anybody”; the women of the world whose bodies he feels entitled to grope, including E Jean Carroll whom he denied sexually assaulting because “she’s not my type”, but a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.’

She added: ‘If the killing of 120 children by a US strike on a school on day one of its war on Iran is insufficiently horrific to cool Ireland’s ardour for Trump, people of west Clare might consider the Cold War landscape that has emerged in their own backyard. Ships set sail from the Shannon estuary with produce from Aughinish Alumina that ends up being smelted in Russia, by companies which supply the Russian military industry. US warplanes stop over at Shannon Airport loaded with soldiers and – for all we know, because there are no inspections – their guns. And up the road in Doonbeg, their president swings a nine iron.’

This is not a state visit, or even an official one, she points out. It’s a jolly for a man whose idea of ‘fun’ is sinking ships. If Irish democracy is worth its salt, it will not hide the protesters away from view by blocking roads and erecting barriers to keep them out of sight, she said. Democracy demands that the people must not only have their say, but that what they say must be heard.

Donald Trump would rather miss the 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero today than be late for the Irish Open at his private golf course in Co Clare this weekend. We know now what he thinks of the 9/11 dead, what he thinks of the allies who stood behind the US in the aftermath of 9/11, and he should hear loudly and clearly over the next few days what the Irish people think of him – that he is a felon, that he is a war-monger, that is an authoritarian misfit, and that he has no place in a civilised society other than in a jail.

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 126, Friday 11 September 2026

‘Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye?’ (Luke 6: 41) … an image in the Talbot Inn in Loughton, Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar and the week began with the and the week began with the Festival of Creation in Christ or the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity XIV, 6 September 2026).

In the Jewish Calendar, Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה) begins at sunset tonight (Friday 11 September 2026) and ends at nightfall on Sunday (13 September 2026). Rosh Hashanah, literally ‘head of the year’, is the Jewish New Year. According to Jewish tradition, the holiday commemorates the creation of humanity and serves as a day of divine judgment. It is the first of the High Holy Days and begins the Ten Days of Repentance, culminating in Yom Kippur, which begins at sunset on Sunday 20 September and ends at nightfall on Monday 21 September.

Later today, many of us, I am sure, will be reflecting on the horrific events of ‘9/11’ 25 years ago on 11 September 2001. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:

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.

‘Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye?’ (Luke 6: 41) … street art in Plaza de Judería in Malaga (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 39-42 (NRSVA):

39 He also told them a parable: ‘Can a blind person guide a blind person? Will not both fall into a pit? 40 A disciple is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher. 41 Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? 42 Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Friend, let me take out the speck in your eye”, when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.’

‘First take the log out of your own eye’ (Luke 6: 39) … autumn logs by the River Ouse in Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

For some days, the Gospel readings have taken us through the ‘Sermon on the Level Place’, Saint Luke’s equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount, which we began reading yesterday with Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes (Luke 6: 20-38).

As we continue this sequence of readings from Saint Luke’s Gospel, we read sayings whose parallels in Saint Matthew’s Gospel (see Matthew 15) are addressed to the Pharisees, but here are addressed to the disciples.

In this reading, Christ makes two points.

Firstly, the blind cannot lead the blind. The disciple, left to himself or herself, does not know very much and depends on the teacher. But once the disciple is fully trained and has learnt everything it is possible to discern from the teacher, then the learner becomes an extension of the teacher. At that point, the disciple shares the teacher’s knowledge and wisdom and can, in turn, be a guide to others.

We ought to listen carefully to what Christ says to us and make it part of our own lives. Only then can we effectively lead others to him.

But, secondly, we need to be mindful about sitting in judgment on others. Christ uses a graphic image of someone trying to remove a speck of dust from another person’s eye while there is a large ‘log’ in their own. How can I see properly to correct the vision of my fellow disciple or Christian when my own vision is so distorted?

The faults I so easily see in others are often trivial in comparison with my own shortcomings. Of course, much of the energy I exert in gossip and in putting down others may be sub-conscious attempts to compensate for my own shortcomings. Instead of lifting myself up by changing my ways, I can try to drag others down.

But then, our judgments so often are based purely on external behaviour. We usually have no idea of the inner motives or intentions of other people, or an awareness of their inability to behave in way other than the way then do.

How often, when I am quick to criticism other people behind their backs am I equally quick to say those things to face-to-face. Yet, how often, when I am asked professionally to offer an objective evaluation of a person’s behaviour or their fitness for some responsibility, do I shy away from those responsibilities?

What is true sight and true light?

During a visit to Liverpool many years ago, I visited Hope Street, and there above the Hope Street entrance to the former Royal School for the Blind was the inscription: ‘Christ heals the blind, for who denies that in the mind dwell truer sight and clearer light than in the eyes?’

Both this morning’s reading and that inscription also find interesting parallels in Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’ (The Republic, Book VII).

No one, of course, denies the idea that the mind possesses truer sight and clearer light than the eyes. In an account of Socrates in The Republic, Plato argues that our earthly senses can be misleading and that true understanding is found through the intellect and the forms, not the physical senses.

In Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave’, prisoners mistake shadows on a wall for reality. When one prisoner is freed and sees the true objects and the light of the sun, he finds the ‘reality’ of the cave far less clear than the true world, even though his eyes are pained by the light. This illustrates that physical sight can be deceptive, while the intellect understands a higher reality.

Plato believed that the intellect and reason, not the senses, provide true understanding and wisdom. The mind's perception is superior to the deceptive nature of physical vision.

He recalls Socrates’ allegory of the cave. Socrates has compared a philosophic education to leaving a dark cave and emerging into the light. He notes that, when you leave the dark and enter the light, it takes your eyes awhile to adjust; you cannot see at first.

Imagine leaving a dark cinema in the middle of a sunny day: it is hard to see outside at first.

So, the philosophers need to leave the cave and have their eyes adjust to the bright outside world. Once this happens, though, Socrates argues that they must be forced to go back into the dark cave, to rule.

The cave, it turns out, is an image of the city with its conventional opinions, as opposed to the truth. Socrates notes that, when the philosophers go back into the cave, it will also take some time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Imagine, now, going back into that dark cinema in the middle of that sunny day; it is hard to see inside at first.

Socrates is comparing bodily vision to intellectual vision. There are two possible causes for someone who has bad bodily vision: they might be going from the dark to the light; or they might be going from the light to the dark. So too with intellectual vision: someone with bad intellectual vision may be going from the dark cave of opinions to the light of the truth, or they may be going from the light of the truth back to the dark cave of opinions.

Today’s Gospel sayings warn us against either form of blindness, but also warn us against leading others when we are not aware of suffering from one or other – or both – forms of blindness.

Blind Socrates … a statue by Pietro Magni (1817-1877) of Milan in the Botanic Gardens, Dublin, and previously in the gardens of Iveagh House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 11 September 2026):

In my prayers this morning, I am remembering the horrific events of 9/11 25 years ago, on 11 September 2001, the dead, the injured, the maimed and the traumatised, all who lost family members, friends, colleagues and livelihoods, the brave first responders, and journalists like my colleagues in The Irish Times who worked hard through that difficult day to make sure the world knew the truth and the facts.

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 6-12 September 2026 (pp 36-37), is ‘Turning Pain into Glory’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Reflection by Nolene Sheppard, Leader of a Women’s Empowerment Group, Magnificat, and Ukraine Aid Project Support Lead at Saint Thomas à Becket, Hamburg, Germany.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Friday 11 September 2026) invites us to pray:

Father in heaven, we pray that by your grace the work of the Magnificat group may be strengthened to bring guidance, stability, and hope to refugee women and children residing in Germany too.

The Collect of the Day:

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.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Lord God, the source of truth and love,
keep us faithful to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship,
united in prayer and the breaking of bread,
and one in joy and simplicity of heart,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Merciful God:
your Son came to save us
and bore our sins on the cross:
may we trust in your mercy
and know your love,
rejoicing in the righteousness
that is ours through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

An inscription above the Hope Street entrance of the former Royal School for the Blind, Liverpool (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

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 84, Thursday 30 July 2026

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers at a kiosk in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church, and the week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today remembers William Wilberforce (1833), Olaudah Equiano (1797) and Thomas Clarkson (1846).

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.

‘The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind’ (Matthew 13: 47) … fishing boats and nets by the harbour in Iraklion (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 13: 47-53 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 47 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind; 48 when it was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good into baskets but threw out the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

51 ‘Have you understood all this?’ They answered, ‘Yes.’ 52 And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’ 53 When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place.

‘When [the net] was full, they drew it ashore, sat down, and put the good [fish] into baskets’ (Matthew 13: 48) … a sign outside a fish shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflection:

We have more weeping and gnashing of teeth in this morning’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 47-53), more separating of the righteous and the evil, and more people being thrown into the furnace of fire.

But we also have some more images of what the kingdom of heaven is like:

• Casting a net into the sea (verse 47);

• Catching an abundance of fish (verse 47);

• Drawing the abundance of fish ashore, and realising there is too much there for personal needs (verse 48);

• Writing about it so that others can enjoy the benefit and rewards of treasures new and old (verse 52).

So there are, perhaps, four or five times as many active images of the kingdom than there are passive images.

And we hear that ‘every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52).

When the Revd Stephen Hilliard was leaving The Irish Times to enter full-time parish ministry, the then deputy editor, Ken Gray, joked that he was moving from being a ‘column of the Times’ to being a ‘pillar of the Church.’

Later, when I asked Stephen to define the different challenges of journalism and parish ministry, I was told: ‘In many ways they’re the same. We’re supposed to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.’

Nadine Gordimer, in a lecture in London, once argued that a writer’s highest calling is to bear witness to the evils of conflicts and injustice. But that is the calling of a priest too.

When I was moving from journalism in The Irish Times, another colleague asked me, in a tongue-in-cheek way, whether I was moving from being one of the Scribes to being one of the Pharisees.

In my 30 or more years as a full-time journalist and writer, I had tried to work at the point where faith meets the major concerns of the world.

Since leaving The Irish Times back in 2002, I continue to write regularly in other formats too. My daily blog has been a daily exercise: I continue to write occasionally for The Irish Times, the Wexford People, and for local and church-based newspapers and magazines, as well as contributing regularly to books and journals.

But, just as ministry is never exercised as a personal right but always in communion with the Church, so too journalists and writers never write for themselves, but need to heed the needs of editors and readers.

There is a time to be silent in ministry, and there is a time to be silent as a writer. I am humbled whenever I listen to Leonard Cohen’s song, If it be your will. He ended many of his concerts singing this poem, which for me is about submission to God’s will, accepting God’s will, leaving God in control of my spirit. It is a song that I hope is heard at my funeral (later rather than sooner):

If it be your will
That I speak no more
And my voice be still
As it was before
I will speak no more
I shall abide until
I am spoken for
If it be your will

If it be your will
That a voice be true
From this broken hill
I will sing to you
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing
From this broken hill
All your praises they shall ring
If it be your will
To let me sing

If it be your will
If there is a choice
Let the rivers fill
Let the hills rejoice
Let your mercy spill
On all these burning hearts in hell
If it be your will
To make us well

And draw us near
And bind us tight
All your children here
In their rags of light
In our rags of light
All dressed to kill
And end this night
If it be your will

If it be your will.

Until then, I shall continue to write.

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … catching up with the news in ‘The Irish Times’

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 30 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Thursday 30 July 2026, World Day Against Trafficking in Persons) invites us to pray:

God of freedom and justice, we pray for all who are trapped in trafficking and modern slavery. Bring an end to systems and practices that exploit the vulnerable, strengthen those who work to rescue and protect, and lead your Church to act with courage and compassion.

The Collect of the Day:

God our deliverer,
who sent your Son Jesus Christ
to set your people free from the slavery of sin:
grant that, as your servants William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson
toiled against the sin of slavery,
so we may bring compassion to all
and work for the freedom of all the children of God;
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.

The Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
who inspired William Wilberforce, Olaudah Equiano and Thomas Clarkson to witness to your love
and to work for the coming of your kingdom:
may we, who in this sacrament share the bread of heaven,
be fired by your Spirit to proclaim the gospel in our daily living
and never to rest content until your kingdom come,
on earth as it is in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflections

Continued tomorrow

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52) … newspapers on sale in Athens (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

‘Every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven … brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old’ (Matthew 13: 52)

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 82, Tuesday 28 July 2026

‘The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom’ (Matthew 13: 38) … a field ready for the harvest near Lismore, Co Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are continuing in Ordinary Time in the Church and this week began with the Eighth Sunday after Trinity (Trinity VIII, 26 July 2026). I am on my way to Luton this morning to catch a flight to Dublin for a short, one-day family visit. But, as the day begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read 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.

Harvest or weeds? … a field near Cross in Hand on the northern edges of Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 13: 36-43 (NRSVA):

36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ 37 He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!’

Fields of green and gold beside Comberford Hall, between Lichfield and Tamworth in rural Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This morning’s reflection:

There are some positive images in today’s Gospel reading (Matthew 13: 36-43) of the righteous shining like the sun in God’s kingdom and chilling images of others being thrown into ‘the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth’.

But throughout history, humanity has stooped to burn what we dislike and what we want to expunge, and we have done it constantly.

We have been burning books as Christians since Saint Athanasius ordered the burning of texts in Alexandria in the year 367. In the Middle Ages, and sometimes even later, we burned heretics at the stake. When that stopped, we burned anything deemed to be an occasions of sin.

They were burned publicly as an accompanying theme for the outdoor sermons of San Bernardino da Siena in the early 15th century. These included mirrors, cosmetics, fine dresses, playing cards … even musical instruments, and, of course, books, song sheets, artworks, paintings and sculpture. In his sermons, the book-burning friar regularly called for Jews and gays to be either isolated from society or eliminated from the human community.

Later in Florence, the supporters of Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects, including cosmetics, art, and books in 1497.

On the other hand, Franz Kafka’s last request to his friend Max Brod in 1921 was to ‘burn all my diaries, letters, manuscripts … completely and unread’.

But, more recently, the Nazis staged regular book burnings, especially burning books by Jewish writers, including Thomas Mann, Karl Marx and Albert Einstein. Extremists of all religious and political persuasions want to burn the symbols and totems of their opponents, whether it is Pastor Terry Jones burning the Quran and effigies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in Florida or jihadists burning the Twin Towers in New York.

Today we are witnessing efforts by the Trump regime to suppress free speech by journalists in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the BBC and the Associated Press, capriciously excluding journalists from the White House press pool, demeaning women journalists as ‘Miss Piggy’ and threatening to strip NBC and ABC of their licences to broadcast.

The hypocrisy of these threats is aggravated by claims from the Trump regime that it is defending free speech when it attacked Britain and other European countries for seeking to curb violence and racism on US-based social media platforms.

The limits of our extremists seem to be defined by their inflammatory words.

But who is being burned in this morning’s Gospel reading?

Who is doing the burning?

And who will be weeping and gnashing their teeth?

Contrary to many shoddy reading of this Gospel reading, Christians are not asked to burn anyone or anything at all. And, if we have enemies, we are called not to burn them but to love them.

Christ has been speaking by the lake first to the crowd, telling them the parable of the wheat and the weeds (verse 24-30). The word that we have traditionally translated as tares or weeds (verses 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 36, 38, 40) is the Greek word ζιζάνια (zizania), a type of wild rice grass, although Saint Matthew is probably referring to a type of darnel or noxious weed. It looks like wheat until the plants mature and the ears open, and the seeds are a strong soporific poison.

Christ then withdraws into a house, and has a private conversation with the Disciples (verses 36-43), in which he explains he is the sower (verse 37), the good seed is not the Word, but the Children of the Kingdom (verse 38), the weeds are the ‘Children of the Evil One’ (verse 38), and the field is the world (verse 38).

The harvest is not gathered by the disciples or the children of the kingdom, but by angels sent by the Son of Man (verses 39, 41). It is an apocalyptic image, describing poetically and dramatically a future cataclysm, and not an image to describe what should be happening today. It is imagery that draws on the apocalyptic images in the Book of Daniel, where the three young men who are faithful to God are tried in the fires of the furnace, yet come out alive, stronger and firmer in their faith (see Daniel 3: 1-10).

The slaves or δοῦλοι (douloi), the people who want to separate the darnel from the wheat (verse 27-28), are the disciples: Saint Paul introduces himself in his letters with phrases like Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, Paul, a doulos, slave, or servant of Jesus Christ (see Romans 1: 1, Philippians 1: 1, Titus 1: 1). The same word is used by James (see James 1: 1), Peter (see II Peter 1: 1) and Jude (see Jude 1) to introduce themselves in their letters.

In the Book of Revelation, this word is used to describe the Disciples and the Church (see Revelation 1: 1; 22: 3).

In other words, the apostolic writers see themselves as slaves in the field, working at Christ’s command in the world.

This is one of eight parables about the last judgment found only in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, and six of the seven New Testament uses of the phrase ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ (ὁ κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὁ βρυγμὸς τῶν ὀδόντων) occur in this Gospel (Matthew 8: 12; 13: 42; 13: 50; 22: 13; 24: 51; and 25: 30; see also Luke 13: 28).

When it comes to explaining the parable to the disciples in today’s reading (verses 36-43), the earlier references to the slaves in the first part (verses 27-28) are no longer there. It is not that the slaves have disappeared – Christ is speaking directly to those who would want to uproot the tares but who would find themselves uprooting the wheat too.

The weeding of the field is God’s job, not ours. The reapers, not the slaves, will gather in both the weeds and the wheat, the weeds first and then the wheat (verse 30).

Farmers are baling the hay and taking in the harvest in many places already. In a few weeks’ time, many farmers will be seen burning off the stubble on their fields to prepare the soil for autumn sowing and planting new crops. In this sense, the farmer understands burning as purification and preparation – it is not as harsh as city dwellers think.

It is not for us to decide who is in and who is out in Christ’s field, in the kingdom of God. That is Christ’s task alone.

Christ gently cautions the Disciples against rash decisions about who is in and who is out. Gently, he lets them see that the tares are not damaging the growth of the wheat, they just grow alongside it and amidst it.

But so often we decide to assume God’s role. We do it constantly in society, and we do it constantly in the Church, deciding who should be in and who should be out.

The harvest comes at the end of time, not now, and I should not hasten it even if the reapers seem to tarry.

The weeds we identify and want to uproot may turn out to be wheat, what we presume to be wheat because it looks like us may turn out to be weeds.

We assume the role of the reapers every time we decide we would be better off without someone in our society or in the Church because we disagree with them about issues like sexuality, women bishops and priests, and other issues that we mistake for core values.

The core values, as Christ himself explains, again and again, are loving God and loving others.

It is not without good reason that the Patristic writers warn that schism is worse than heresy (see Saint John Chrysostom, Patrologia Græca, vol. lxii, col. 87, On Ephesians, Homily 11, §5). We do not need to demythologise this morning’s reading. Christ leaves that to the future. This morning we are called to grow and not to worry about the tares. That growth must always emphasise love first.

When some members of the Church have sought to ‘out’ or ‘throw out’ people because of their sexuality they have caused immense personal tragedy for individuals and their families and friends – weeping and gnashing of teeth indeed.

When I want a Church or society that looks like me, I eventually end up living on a desert island or as a member of a sect of one – and there I might just find out too how unhappy I am with myself!

But if I allow myself to grow in faith and trust and love with others, I may, I just may, to my surprise, find that they too are wheat rather than weeds, and hopefullu they may realise the same about me.

‘The field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom’ (Matthew 13: 38) … harvest fields in Fisherwick, between Lichfield and Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Tuesday 28 July 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 26 July to 1 August 2026 (pp 22-23), is ‘Lives in Transit’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Tuesday 28 July 2026) invites us to pray:

God of mercy, hold close all who are weary and long to return home, particularly refugees. In their endurance, be their strength; in their uncertainty, be their peace; and in their suffering, be their hope that does not fail.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty Lord and everlasting God,
we beseech you to direct, sanctify and govern
both our hearts and bodies
in the ways of your laws
and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul;
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Strengthen for service, Lord,
the hands that have taken holy things;
may the ears which have heard your word
be deaf to clamour and dispute;
may the tongues which have sung your praise be free from deceit;
may the eyes which have seen the tokens of your love
shine with the light of hope;
and may the bodies which have been fed with your body
be refreshed with the fullness of your life;
glory to you for ever.

Additional Collect:

Lord God,
your Son left the riches of heaven
and became poor for our sake:
when we prosper save us from pride,
when we are needy save us from despair,
that we may trust in you alone;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow


Franz Kafka’s last wishes … a video in the recent exhibition, ‘Kafka: Making of an Icon’, in the Weston Library in Oxford (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

Visiting Westcott House, Cambridge, is like standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of Anglicanism

Westcott House on Jesus Lane is one of the two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

During this week’s walking tour of Cambridge, when I showed a visiting friend from Ireland around the Cambridge I have felt a part of for almost 20 years and that has been a part of me too, we visited a number of colleges, chapels and churches, including King’s College and Jesus College and their chapels, and Sidney Sussex College and Christ’s College.

One of the theological colleges we visited was Westcott House, the Anglican theological college on Jesus Lane in the heart of Cambridge, squeezed between Sidney Sussex College to the west and All Saints’ Church to the east, and across the street on Jesus Lane from Jesus College, as well as the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Wesley House.

When I stayed at Sidney Sussex College on courses organised by the IOCS, I became well acquainted with Westcott House, and I have often mused that it Westcott was the one theological college in England – or, perhaps, Ripon College Cuddesdon – I would like to have trained at had I not trained in Ireland.

I stayed in Westcott House once many years ago during a residential meeting of USPG trustees, and I have been there for chapel services and for seminars organised by the IOCS, when the lecturers have included Archbishop Rowan Williams, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Metropolitan John Zizioulas.

Westcott House on Jesus Lane, Cambridge, is squeezed between Sidney Sussex College and All Saints’ Church and across the street from Jesus College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is one of two Anglican theological colleges in Cambridge, the other being Ridley Hall. Westcott stands in the Liberal Catholic tradition in Anglicanism, but the college accepts ordinands from a range of traditions in the Church of England and other Anglican churches. Its main activity is training men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of England, and it is part of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

The chapel at Westcott is at the heart of the community life. Its uncluttered simplicity provides ideal sacred space for a range of services from sung high mass to said Morning Prayer, from adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to ‘prayer and praise’ services.

As we strolled around the grounds of Westcott House, my friend and I compared notes about theological training in England and Ireland, the accommodation and facilities provided for ordinands and their families, the links theological colleges and students ought to be encouraged to have with the university, and the links the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein developed with Ireland thanks to his friendship with a former ordinand at Westcott, Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury.

Westcott House was founded in 1881 by Brooke Foss Westcott, one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House was founded in 1881 as the Cambridge Clergy Training School. Brooke Foss Westcott (1825-1901), the then Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, was its first president, and he later became the Bishop of Durham.

Westcott was a distinguished New Testament scholar and one of the ‘Cambridge Triumvirate’ of biblical scholars and theologians, alongside Joseph Barber Lightfoot (1828-1899) and Dublin-born Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892). Together, they produced The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881), shaping modern Bible translations, and leading to the Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version and eventually the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

Westcott House was the result of Westcott’s passionate concern to raise the standard of clergy education and to equip clergy to meet the challenges of parish ministry. He was also exercised by the way in which the Church of England was increasingly dominated by parties and factions, and he refused to be labelled with any factional affiliations or labels.

In its history, Westcott House has said: ‘As a scholar, educator, priest and prophet, Westcott’s legacy to the Church of England challenges sectarianism, ignorance, complacency and empty faith. This is the spirit which Westcott House seeks to honour today, drawing students from all backgrounds to prepare them for ministry in this historic centre of Christian learning.’

Visiting Westcott House is an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of theological giants (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

I once described staying in Westcott House as an experience that could be compared to standing on the shoulders of the theological giants of the Church of England, and even of wider Anglicanism. Today, Westcott House describes itself as ‘the home of a diverse, inclusive and international community of people who share a vision of ministry to all society’.

The Revd Dr Helen Dawes has been the principal of Westcott House since 2021. Previous principals have included Peter Walker (1962-1972), later Bishop of Ely, Mark Santer (1972-1981), later Bishop of Birmingham, and Canon Chris Chivers, who chaired the Trustees of USPG. The first Irish-born principal was William Derrick Lindsay Greer (1902-1972), later Bishop of Manchester.

The boot scarpers at the entrance, depicting a rabbit and a pig, are a heraldic pun on the surname of Bertram Cunningham (1871-1944), who was the principal in 1919-1943.

Notable staff members have included Earl (Gregory) Collins, formerly of Glenstal Abbey and Abbot of the Dormition Abbey, Jerusalem, author of the Glenstal Book of Icons, and now Canon Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral; Canon John Collins and Dean Alan Webster, later of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London; Don Cupitt, later Dean of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; John Habgood, later Archbishop of York; Hugh Montefiore, later Bishop of Birmingham; Mary Tanner, later European President of the World Council of Churches; Canon Angela Tilby; and two former Archbishops of Canterbury, Robert Runcie and Rowan Williams.

Notable alumni include: the Revd Professor John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist and theologian, who wrote extensively on quantum physics and theology; John Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich and author of Honest to God; Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; and Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford until 2024.

The chapel is at the heart of daily life in Westcott House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Dr Maurice O’Connor (Con) Drury (1907-1976), who left Westcott House after a year as an ordinand, was an Irish psychiatrist, is known for his accounts of his conversations and close friendship with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He studied philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, where his tutors included Wittgenstein. Drury and Wittgenstein remained close friend and Drury was among a group of friends present at Wittgenstein’s deathbed in 1951.

After leaving Westcott House, Con Drury studied medicine in Trinity College Dublin, thanks to financial assistance from Wittgenstein and friends, including the economist John Maynard Keynes. He took part in the Normandy landings, and later was the resident psychiatrist at Saint Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, and a lecturer in TCD and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

His son, Dr Luke Drury, an astrophysicist, was elected president of the Royal Irish Academy in 2011. Another son, Paul Drury, who died in 2015, edited The Star, Evening Herald, Irish Daily Mail and Ireland on Sunday, and was also deputy editor of the Irish Independent.
Con Drury’s papers are held in the library of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

The architects of Westcott House included Temple Lushington Moore, who was born in Tullamore, Co Offaly (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Westcott House is now Grade II listed, and visually it can look like the cloisters of All Saints’ Church, which is adjacent and was designed by George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907).

The main buildings were built in 1899-1929 around an attractive Tudor-style courtyard. The north range was designed in 1899 by the architectural practice of GE Grayson (1834-1912) and Edward Ould (1852-1909), the west range in 1912 by Hartwell Simpson, the east range and south part in 1914 by the Tullamore-born architect Temple Lushington Moore (1856-1920). Temple Moore was also the architect of Pusey House, Oxford; his only son, Richard Temple Moore (1891-1918), was killed when the RMS Leinster was torpedoed and sunk off Dublin a mere month before the end of World War I.

Temple Moore has been described as ‘England’s leading ecclesiastical architect from the mid-Edwardian years’. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner said that he was ‘always sensitive in his designs and often interesting.’ His designs reflect his Anglo-Catholic practice and values. His work can be seen across England; he is known for a series of fine Gothic Revival churches built about 1890 and 1917 and he also restored many churches and designed church fittings.

The chapel and other buildings at Westcott House were designed in 1923-1929 by the architect Percy Richard Morley Horder (1870-1944), who also worked on Chapel Court in Jesus College and designed the Jesus College boathouse (1932).

Westcott House is in an idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Since the 1985 report Faith in the City, Westcott House has retained a commitment to develop expertise and capacity in the fields of urban ministry and mission.

Through a partnership with the Diocese of Manchester, the college has pioneered patterns of context-based learning and innovative approaches to contextual theology for over twenty years. These approaches have been widely imitated and developed by other theological education institutions. The college has also developed a programme for continuing ministerial development through the Westcott Foundation.

The college provides training pathways in conjunction with the University of Cambridge and the Common Awards, validated by Durham University, as well as opportunities for independent study for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees through the wider Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University.

Today, Westcott House is a collection of beautiful buildings overlooking the gardens of Old Court, and it offers a peaceful and idyllic college setting in the heart of Cambridge.

The boot scrapers at the main entrance to Westcott House, in the shape of a rabbit and a pig, are heraldic puns on the name of Bertram Cunningham (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Four weddings and some Wolseley funerals: stories of marriage and divorce in a Staffordshire family

Wolseley Hall, destroyed in a serious fire in the early 1950s and demolished in 1966 … the ancestral home of the Wolseley family

Patrick Comerford

I have been writing in recent weeks about the divorce scandal in the Talbot and Chetwynd family that becoming a sensation far beyond polite social circles in Victorian Rugeley and Lichfield in the 1860s and filled column after column in newspapers across the world.

During my summer rambles through Stafford, Rugeley, Wolseley, Lichfield and Tamworth, I was reminded of some of these marriages and divorces, with stories that must have created gossip among people who saw themselves at the centre of social life in south Staffordshire 150 or 200 years ago.

William Henry Chetwynd (1811-1890) and his wife Blanche Mary Talbot (1836-1898), 25 years his junior and a niece Henry Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, were involved in a sensational divorce case in 1864-1865. The gossip created by the case of Chetwynd v Chetwynd echoed, in many ways, the attention a century earlier to the bigamy and divorce trials involving the widowed Sir William Wolseley (1692-1779) and the widowed Ann Whitbey (1724-1782), a case that dragged on in civil and church courts over two years, from 1752 to 1754.

But I was reminded too during those summer walks of at least four other marriages in the Wolseley family down through the generations that were interesting and colourful. They may not have created scandal in the same ways but, at times, they saved the Wolseley family from what seemed like certain financial and social ruin.

The coat-of-arms used by the Duques de Losada y Lousada … but were they really entitled to their titles? (Source)

1, The Jamaican planter: was he a Spanish duke?

Marianne Wolseley (1813-1881) of Wolseley and Count Francis Baruch Lousada (1813-1870), who was born into a rich family of sugar planters in Jamaica, were married in Saint George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, on 25 November 1834. Marianne’s father, Sir Charles Wolseley (1769-1838), had succeeded as the seventh baronet in 1817 and was a radical politician who was at the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and was surety for some of the victims of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. He was jailed in 1820 for sedition and conspiracy, and his political activism threatened the financial stability of his family.

However, his daughter Marianne managed to avoid her own possible financial and social ruin in 1834 when she married Count Francis Baruch Lousada. The Baruch Lousada family in Jamaica commissioned a Spanish herald and genealogist to produce a set of lurid, expensive-looking but specious documents enabling them to claim they were the successors to the titles of the Duque de Losada.

Isaac Lousada (1783-1857) assumed the title of Duque de Losada in 1848, and after he died his eldest son, Emanuel de Lousada, lost little time in making himself known as the Duke de Losada y Lousada, drafting and fabricating a family tree for an entry in Burke’s Peerage.

It is a pointless genealogical exercise to explain his claimed link to the Spanish duke, and there is no logical way to trace how the dukes inherited – in Spain – a moribund Italian title that had been held by someone they were not related to. The creative, but nonetheless fictitious, explanations are found in the work of the Spanish herald and genealogist, the gullibility of the genealogical authorities in Spain and London, and the audacity of Emanuel.

The reward for the whole escapade and the social and political compensation for the expenses in pursuing this genealogical deception were many: Emanuel received a British passport in 1862; his brother Francis married into the minor ranks of the British nobility when he married Marianne Wolseley, wangled another title in the court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and became a British diplomat in the US. Indeed, three further members of his immediate family went unchallenged in their use of the title of duke.

Another version of the coat-of-arms used by the Duque de Losada y Lousada … Marianne Wolseley was daughter-in-law of the first duke, sister-in-law of the second duke, and mother of the third and fourth dukes (Source)

In polite Victorian society, most people seem never to have queried the standing of the soi-disant dukes, overlooking their peculiar change of name, their use of a hybrid coat of arms and the lack of official authentication. Members of the Lousada family married into leading Sephardic families in England, including the Montefiore and Mocatta families.

Twelve years Marianne and Francis were married, Francis was given the title of Marchese de San Miniato by the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1846. It was said widely at the time that he paid for the title while Marianne was a lady-in-waiting in London to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany.

Francis Lousada was the British Consul in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and died in Boston in 1870. Marianne died on 1 November 1884 in Tarvis in Carinthia, Austria, now Tarvisio in Italy. Their eldest son, Horace Francis Lousada (1837-1905), succeeded his father as the second marchese and his uncle as the third duke. The fifth and last duke, Edward Eugene Lousada (1853-1941), returned to live in Jamaica.

The confirmation by Pope Leo XIII of Anita Murphy, later Lady Wolseley … a painting in the Villa Magistrale on the Aventine in Rome

2, the daughter of an American Papal ‘marchese’:

Marianne Wolseley’s marriage to this soi-disant marchese, and the titles used by her children create a story with many parallels in that of the marriage almost 30 years later in 1883 of her nephew, Sir Charles Wolseley (1846-1931), the ninth baronet, and Anita Murphy, the daughter of an Irish-American magnate, Daniel T Murphy, who bought the title of marchese from the Pope.

Sir Charles Wolseley may have found a role model or inspiration in his aunt Marianne, for he married into a wealthy family with a title that had been bought and in the hope of rescuing lost fortunes and social status.

Esther (née Chichester) Grehan wrote from London in 1882 to her husband in Dublin, Stephen Grehan (1859-1937), describing how Charles came to London to look for an heiress. My interest is added to by Stephen’s descent through his mother from the Langton and Comerford families of Danganmore Castle, Co Kilkenny. In her letters, laden with snobbery, elitism and disdain, Esther describes how Charles was introduced to two Irish-American Murphy sisters from San Francisco, who were ‘vulgar but pretty.’ He fell in love, but had a reputation as a fortune hunter, and was distraught when he was rejected.

But, undeterred, Charles married the elder sister, Anna Theresa (Anita) Murphy in 1883. Her father, an Irish-American entrepreneur Daniel T Murphy, founded the pioneer house of Murphy, Grant & Co, and was living in San Francisco. Anita, her sisters and her mother had moved to London, and they moved in fashionable circles in England and Europe. Anita was confirmed by Pope Leo XIII and a painting of Anita and her sister at their confirmation by Pope Leo XIII was once in the Wolseley family collection, and was still at Wolseley in 1971 when I interviewed Sir Charles Wolseley for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

Later, Anita was presented at the Court of Saint James. She visited Osborne, the royal residence on the Isle of Wight, where she met Queen Victoria and Princess Beatrice, ancestor of the Mountbatten family. In her diary, Anita tells how she turned down a proposal of marriage from Prince Luigi del Drago, an Italian whose family included many cardinals and princes. Back in England, Anita’s first choice as husband was George Brundenell-Bruce, then known as Viscount Savernake and later 4th Marquess of Ailesbury. But Willie, as he was known, was an incessant gambler with an excessive lifestyle, and he brought his family to the brink of financial disaster. Eventually, he married Dolly Tester, a music hall actress, and Anita had a fortuitous escape from certain calamity.

Anita’s father, Daniel T Murphy, was a self-made multi-millionaire who had more money than he could spend. In 1857, he married Anna Geoghagan, also from an Irish family. The couple were the parents of four daughters, Isabella (Issy), Helene (Nellie), Anna Theresa (Anita) and Frances (Fanny), and three sons, Eugene, Daniel and Samuel.

Daniel Murphy visited his wife and daughters in London at least once a year. He was a staunch Roman Catholic and donated $5 million to Pope Pius IX. In return, the Pope made Murphy first a Knight and then a Knight Commander of the Order of Saint Gregory. Pope Leo XIII, who confirmed two of his daughters in Rome, gave Murphy the Grand Cross of Saint Gregory, and with a royal and papal patent of nobility, gave him the papal title of marchese or marquis, with the right of succession to his eldest son and his heirs.

Murphy enjoyed showing his American friends the papal patent, but he never used the title in public and his wife continued to be known in London only as Mrs Murphy and not as marchesa.

Anita Murphy and Sir Charles Wolseley were married on 17 July 1883 in the Catholic Pro-Cathedral in Kensington. The four bridesmaids were her three sisters, Nellie, Frances and Isabella, and a Miss Bedingfeld. The wedding Mass was said by the Revd Cuthbert Wolseley, OP, a Dominican priest and a younger brother of the groom – he was born Robert Joseph Wolseley (1850-1920). The wedding was blessed by Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, Archbishop of Westminster, and there was a telegram from Pope Leo XIII.

The newspapers of the day delighted in lengthy lists of the titled and public figures who attended, including the US ambassador and poet James Russell Lowell, the Duke of Norfolk, Prince Doria Pamphilji, a son-in-law of the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Marquis of Bute and Lady Londonderry.

Anita (Murphy) Wolseley tired of life at Wolseley Hall and travelled abroad, alone … it was divorce Catholic-style in the early 20th century

On the day Anita and Charles were married, Mrs Murphy gave her first-born a cheque for $5 million drawn on the Bank of England. Daniel T Murphy died within two years in the Windsor Hotel, New York, on 3 June 1885. Many of his business interests passed to his brother Henry M Murphy and son, also Daniel T Murphy. His wife had arrived from England earlier that week and was with him when he died, as were two of his sons and a daughter.

In his will, dated 15 May 1883, Murphy left various bequests to the Catholic Church and family members, with his daughters receiving at least $50,000 each, even if that meant his sons received less. At first, Anita’s inheritance was estimated at $2 million, but Charles Wolseley never got his hands on it. By the time the marriage contract had been signed, Daniel T Murphy had died Anita’s sisters contested their father’s will. When Anita received her money, it was for her personally and not for her husband.

Jeannie Wolseley later said the marriage was relatively happy to begin with; the couple were the parents of two sons, Sir Edric Charles Joseph Wolseley (1886-1954) and Colonel William Wolseley (1887-1977). But Anita soon tired of life at Wolseley Hall and in rural Staffordshire, and she began travelling abroad, alone. She sent Charles a regular allowance, but this dropped steadily. It was divorce Catholic-style in the early 20th century.

By 1919, he had to sell almost all the contents of Wolseley Hall and several hundred acres of his estate. A broken man, he moved to Surrey and died on 30 January 1931, and was brought back to Rugeley to be buried in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda churchyard, where he had donated the East Window by Hardman and Powell; Anita died on 11 October 1937.

The grave of Sir Charles Wolseley (1846-1931), the ninth baronet, in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda churchyard, Rugeley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

3, Colonel William Wolseley and the Catholic Church:

When Sir Charles Wolseley died in 1931, the Wolseley title and estate passed to his elder son, Sir Edric Wolseley, tenth baronet and grandfather of the late Sir Charles Wolseley. Their younger son, Colonel William Wolseley (1887-1977), also had an interesting life and his life story is also the story of yet another interesting Wolseley marriage.

William Ralph Joseph Wolseley was born in London on 1 July 1887, the younger son of Sir Charles Michael Wolseley and Anita Murphy. He was a captain in the Staffordshire Yeomanry during World War I, and was mentioned in dispatches and decorated. He was a Justice of the Peace for Shropshire from 1939, and during World War II he was a colonel in the Royal Pioneer Corps.

William Wolseley married a vicar’s granddaughter, Ruth Gertrude Hargreaves (1893-1962), in Gnosall on 10 November 1923. Ruth was one of three daughters of Colonel Robert Halstead Hargreaves (1861-1909) of Knightley Grange, near Eccleshall. Her maternal grandfather was the Revd Charles Holden Steward (1859-1915).

The Wolseley family were staunchly Catholic, but when William married Ruth, the vicar’s granddaughter she would not agree to bring up any future children as Roman Catholics. In order to go ahead with the marriage, William had to leave the Catholic Church and he was excommunicated.

Ruth (Hargreaves) Wolseley (left) as a child with her sisters Violet (centre) and Nancy

Family members tell me Ruth ‘smoked cigars like a chimney and swore like a trooper’. She was, by all accounts, a tiny woman with a very domineering character, who probably gave William little choice but to leave the Catholic Church in order to marry her. They lived at Knightley Grange, and during World War II Ruth was in the Women’s Land Army and the WVS. Although William was devoted to Ruth, family members believe his decision to leave the Catholic Church caused him great upset in later life.

Ruth and William were the parents of a son and daughter: Robert William Hargreaves Wolseley (1924-1998), and Veronica Ruth Theresa Rose Wolseley (1928-2019). Ruth died at Knightley Grange in 1962, William Wolseley died in 1977. Some of the more valuable contents of Knightley Grange were sold off at auction over two days in June 1966, and the property, which had been in the Hargreaves family for over 100 years, was sold in 1967.

The house at Knightley Grange was finally demolished in 2019.

The house at Knightley Grange where Ruth and William Wolseley lived after they married in 1923 was demolished in 2019

4, Another American in the family:

William Wolseley’s elder brother, Sir Edric Wolseley (1886-1954), was the grandfather of the late Sir Charles Wolseley (1944-2018), the 11th baronet. A painting of two of the Murphy girls at their confirmation by Pope Leo XIII was once among the paintings in the Wolseley family collection. It was still at Wolseley Park in 1971 when I interviewed Sir Charles for the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury.

It was a well-edited feature, with a fine photograph of Charles and his first Anita (Fried) and their eldest daughter. They warmly welcomed me to Wolseley Park House, more features followed on the Dyott, Anson, Levett and other families, and I built up a portfolio that helped to set me up for a 30-year career as a journalist.

At the time, I was in my late teens training as a chartered surveyor, and Charles Wolseley was then a chartered surveyor with Smith Gore in Lichfield, driving a trademark red sports car around town, commuting daily between Lichfield and Wolseley.

Charles and Anita were divorced in 1984, and later that year he married the American writer Imogen (Jeannie) Brown (1943-2024), who was researching a book on American heiresses who married impoverished English aristocrats.

When Charles and Jeannie had to move out of Wolseley to Penkridge after he was declared bankrupt, she talked about the painting being so large that it would be better placed in a museum in San Francisco. Today it is in the Villa Magistrale on the Aventine in Rome, where it was identified some years ago by Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen when he was the Hungarian Ambassador to the Vatican.

Sir Charles Wolseley and his second wife, Imogene (Jeannie) Brown, in 1992 … after their bankruptcy, they relied on the generosity of neighbours and friends

Family members recall how Charles and Jeannie Wolseley spoke openly of their situation and how people would come up to Charles in the supermarket in Rugeley and place a £10 note in his hand. Frequently they discovered gifts of food, money and even a car delivered to the house.

‘They were clearly a strong couple,’ a family member told me.

I wrote to him when I heard about his problems, enclosed a cutting of that full-page feature in the Lichfield Mercury and the Rugeley Mercury. I thanked him for an opportunity that secured a career in journalism that lasted most of my adult life, and thanked him too for that offer at Smiths Gore.

Despite his divorce and remarriage, Charles seems to have had a happier relationship with the Catholic Church than his uncle William. Charles died on 5 March 2018 and his funeral took place in Saint Joseph and Saint Etheldreda Church on 24 March 2018. His widow Jeannie died in Rugeley two years ago, on 11 July 2024, and her funeral was held in the church on 26 July 2024.

The Wolseley Arms by the River Trent near Rugeley in Staffordshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)