Grace and Peace in 2026

Happy New Year everybody! As has been custom here at Unam Sanctam from time immemorial at New Years, it's time for my annual recap!

I want to extend sincere thanks to all my supporters, both those known to me and those known only to God, for 2025 was truly a tremendous year for USC and my affiliated projects. I saw growth, blessing, generosity, engagement, and support across the spectrum that made 2025 one of the best years ever for Unam Sanctam Catholicam. 

In terms of publishing, it was an exceptionally productive year. I published a total of 61 new essays (34 on this blog, 27 on the website), which is pretty standard for the year, but I also did a record 14 video essays for the USC YouTube channel, which exploded this year, growing from about 4,500 subs last January to nigh on 10,000 as of today, from 10K hours watched in 2024 to 31K in 2025 (if you haven't subscribed to the YouTube channel yet, please head over and give a brutha a sub; we've got a lot of solid content there!) All praise and thanks be to God for this most excellent year.

Elsewhere, I also continued my series on the Concilium's attack on confession at New Liturgical Movement with an essay entitled "Mortal Sins Before Communion? No Problem!" as well as published thirteen articles on Catholic Exchange this year, many of them biographies of Catholic monarchs. Other essays appeared on the now-defunct Catholic Family News, as well as the new Pelican+ app. 

With the blog and website together pulling 1.65 million views in 2025 and the Facebook page grown to 14,100 (a growth of around 9% since last year) Unam Sanctam Catholicam remains a potent voice in the traditional Catholic space—and a fully independent one at that, not administered by any apostolate, outside organization, media enterprise, or for-profit venture. It remains, as it was founded, a humble little place for me to post my brain farts. 

Cruachan Hill Press, our little affiliated publishing imprint, moved more books than ever this year. The most popular item was by far the St. John Ogilvie Prayer Book, which picked up a lot of steam this year through word of mouth referrals and positive online reviews (check out this lovely review on YouTube). If you'd like to pick up a copy for 15% off, I am still running the promo with the code UNAM at checkout). We will have some interesting new titles in 2026, including something special on the history of monasticism in Britain.

Now, on to the part that is always a feature of my New Years' posts: a list of my personal favorite articles of the year from the blog and website:

Latin and the Contextual Understanding of Ritual: Human understanding is not purely cerebral; a fair amount of it comes from contextual clues that are spatial and non-verbal. This is what people (like Charlotte's Bishop Martin) fail to appreciate when they make the argument that "nobody understands Latin today."

The Monastic Sign Language of Medieval Cluny: A lovely little article on the system of hand signs used by the monks of medieval Cluny, with photos and videos demonstrating some of the most common gestures.

Pius IX Did Not Give Jefferson Davis A Crown of Thorns: In which I debunk an old myth about Pius IX and the President of the Confederacy.

Taking My Non-Binary Friend to Tenebrae: A touching story about a positive experience I had taking a non-Catholic, bi-sexual, polyamorous, non-binary, they/them "blue hair" to the Good Friday tenebrae service.

Communion for the Bride and Groom Alone: Weddings are some of the worst occasions of sacrilegious communions in the Church today. What are the benefits of restricting Holy Communion at weddings to the bride and groom alone?

Pageantry in the Missions of St. Junipero Serra: How the famous missionary to the Californias used vibrant liturgical pageantry to enrich his missionary worship and impress souls with the majesty of the Catholic religion.

Dancing, Moral Panics, and Boomerism: If we look at the history of certain Catholic attitudes towards dancing in the last few centuries, we see that it has often coincided with immense social transformation and deep-seated concerns about whatever young people are doing. 

"Vindicate Me, O God": A Defense of the Psalms: When you pray the psalms humbly—when you really give yourself over to them and let them speak on your behalf—they have a way of shaping you. We have to let the Psalms work on us as God intended, instead of presuming to stand in judgment over them.

The Penance of Peter Abelard: While most of us are familiar with the scandals of Abelard during his youth, far fewer are familiar with how Abelard met his end—in an admirable spirit of penance at one of Christendom's most renowend monasteries.

Bishops See Reverent Novus Ordo as a Gateway Drug: This article from June proved to be prophetic: bishops see the "reverent" Novus Ordo as a transitionary ritual tending towards the Traditional Latin Mass and will seek to restrict things like altar rails, communion on the tongue, Latin, and ad orientem even in the Novus Ordo.

The Poetry of St. Clare: This article presents all the extant poetry written by St. Clare of Assisi, offering us insights into the spirituality of this remarkable saint.

Special thanks are due to Matt Gaspers, Murray Rundus, Brian McCall, Gregory DiPippo, Peter Kwasniewski, Joseph Johnson, Kevin Tierney, Erlind Sulko, Amanda Grigar, Phil Blosser, Conor Gallagher, Jonathan Arrington, John Joy, Rob Marco, Jessica Fellmeth, Alex Barbas, Aaron Drahushchak, Tony Schiavo, Laurence Gonzaga, Angie Allen, Fr. Scott Archer, Konstantin Staebler, Ivan Noel, British Phil Campbell, and all those who have helped me, wished me well, or promoted my work in 2025. May the Lord richly bless you all and keep you in His goodness.

May anno Domini 2026 bring us grace, blessing, and peace in the kingdom of Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior.