Immigration has transformed the Catholic Church in the UK and, says Sophia L Deboick, Brexit will change it once again
The Guardian, Comment is Free: The Vatican may protest, but traditional funerals are dead and buried
A new decree forbids Catholics to scatter ashes, and insists on the sanctity of the cemetery. But in terms of burial options, the Vatican are way behind the times
Paper: The Saintmaker – Céline Martin, Thérèse of Lisieux and the Creation of a Religious Commodity
Paper given at the ‘On commotions and commodities. Catholic celebrities in 19th and 20th century Europe’ international workshop held on 22nd June at the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp (part of the ERC-funded Stigmatics project)
The Quietus: An Interloper In The World – Confessions Of A Heretic Reviewed
Sophia Deboick considers the English-language version of Adam ‘Nergal’ Darski’s autobiography, a work of more than just sensationalism for its own sake, via the Polish people’s love for scrambled eggs, The Voice and polarising views on religion
Lecture: ‘There’s no doubt – I’m one of the devout’: Fandom and Popular Cults, Sacred and Secular
Guest lecture given on COM 5218 Celebrity and Fan Culture module, Richmond American International University, London, on 16th October, at the invitation of Associate Professor of Communication, Dr Fred Vermorel
Blog: Fulton Sheen Relics Row
Last week saw the abrupt halting of the cause for the beatification of Fulton Sheen – Auxiliary Bishop of New York in the 1950s, later Bishop of Rochester, and Emmy Award-winning TV personality, with programmes that got audiences of 30 million at his peak
Blog: An Angel in the Trenches, A Bestseller in the Shops – Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Commercial Religion and the First World War
The First World War saw some of the richest (and kitschest) pieces of material devotional culture produced by the Carmel of Lisieux
Blog: Jesus of the Potatoes – Saint Faustyna and the Divine Mercy Devotion
Having just waded through all 644 pages of the Diary of Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska (1905-1938), Polish nun of the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and founder of the internationally popular Divine Mercy devotion, I’ve resolved to try to make sense of it in the context of the modern history of popular Catholic culture
The Guardian: The devil’s own job
For all his modernising, Pope Francis has enlisted a very old enemy in his battle against secularism
The Guardian, Cif Belief: Must the Catholic church dehumanise John Paul II to make him a saint?
Sadly, the process of canonisation seems to require stripping the former pope of his personality, to fit the sterile mould of a saint
Sophia Deboick 
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