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Canterbury, England, Jul 19, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The skull of St. Thomas More may be exhumed and preserved to coincide with the 500th anniversary of his historic martyrdom, according to a spokesperson for St. Dunstan’s Church in Canterbury, England, the Anglican church in which the relic reportedly currently rests.

As the church begins the initial steps in a “permissions process,” Sue Palmer, churchwarden at St. Dunstan Parochial Church Council (PCC), told CNA the council welcomes input from everyone interested in the saint and “would very much welcome communication with the Vatican.”

“It is unusual to have any relics in an Anglican church, especially those of a Catholic saint, and the PCC see this as an opportunity for ecumenical outreach and cooperation,” she said.

After More was beheaded in 1535 on the orders of King Henry VIII, his head was initially placed on a spike and displayed on London Bridge as a warning to those who dared to challenge the authority of the monarch, but it was later retrieved by More’s daughter, Margaret Roper.

Following her death in 1544, Margaret — along with her father’s head — was buried in the Roper’s family vault in St. Dunstan’s Church, Canterbury, and it has remained there ever since.

However, plans are now in place for the quincentenary of More’s death, which will occur in 10 years, and the church wishes to explore the possibility of exhuming and preserving what remains of the martyr’s relic as a tribute to his significance for Catholics and other Christians across the U.K. and the rest of the world.

A statement issued by St. Dunstan’s Church on July 6, the 490th anniversary of More’s execution, explained: “The 500th anniversary of More’s death is going to throw the spotlight on us and our church as a center of worship, pilgrimage, education, and hospitality because the head is the only remaining relic of Thomas More — his body is somewhere in St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, but it is not possible to determine precisely where, so St. Dunstan’s Church is really important and the focus in 10 years’ time will very definitely be on us.”

The statement continued: “We won’t be able to keep him to ourselves — ecumenically and globally we have a responsibility both to the relic and to Christians and scholars throughout the world, and judging by the comments in our visitors’ book, having the relic deteriorating in a vault is not good enough for many who venerate Thomas More.”

The statement went on to explain that the work to exhume the relic would need to begin as soon as possible, so the PCC has agreed that, subject to all the necessary permissions, the head is to be exhumed and then what remains of the relic will be conserved and exposed for pilgrims to visit and venerate.

Palmer emphasized that there are no plans to “display” the relic. “It makes him sound like a museum exhibit and our church is not a museum, nor is the relic an exhibit,” she said. “Anything considered would be done in consultation with the diocesan advisory committee, osteoarchaeologists, the wider (Catholic and non-Catholic) community, and anyone else interested in Thomas More. At all times it would be respectful and dignified, and be part of the story of our church and what it has to offer everyone.”

Palmer said there was good evidence to suggest that what remains of More’s skull is certainly within the Roper family vault. 

“Several openings of the vault in the last 200 years have noted the presence of the head in the niche, and the vault was last opened in 1997, so we have firsthand evidence of it still being there,” she said. “More’s body is in St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, but I don’t believe it’s possible to establish which remains are his.”

About 1,500 people are believed to be buried in the crypt of the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula, the former parish church of the Tower of London, the name of which refers to the story of St. Peter’s imprisonment under Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem.

Palmer went on to explain that the next steps in the permission process would be discussions with specialists, writing a faculty application for consideration by the diocesan advisory committee, and ultimately waiting for a decision from the commissary general, which she emphasized was “not guaranteed.” The commissary general is the equivalent of a diocesan judge.

St. Dunstan’s church is open seven days a week, with many pilgrims — both individuals and groups — who specifically visit to venerate St. Thomas More.

“Many have expressed a desire to have the relic preserved and possibly placed in a reliquary above ground rather than in a sealed vault as it is at present,” Palmer said. “Conservation and the possible commissioning of a reliquary, as well as obtaining all the relevant permissions, will take time.”

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 19, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV once again expressed his closeness to the people of Ukraine by sending packages of food destined to families who have suffered from the Russian army’s recent onslaught of attacks.

Thanks to the mediation of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity — the dicastery in charge of the pontiff’s charitable works also known as the Office of the Papal Almoner — and donations from the faithful, the aid will reach the village of Staryi Saltiv and the city of Shevchenkove, both affected by Russian bombing.

With this much-needed aid, which follows the aid sent in June, the Holy Father renews his gesture of solidarity with the victims of the bloody war that began in February 2022.

Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, told Vatican News that “charity does not go on vacation” and that Pope Leo XIV asked them to “act as quickly as possible.”

The trucks with the food packages left for Ukraine from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Basilica of Santa Sofia (Holy Wisdom) in Rome, which has become a center of solidarity for all Romans and a point of reference for the Ukrainian community in the Italian capital. In addition to the food, essential items were also donated.

On June 13, the Holy See also sent a truck with humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Food and essential items as well as mattresses, furniture, and children’s supplies also left from the Roman basilica.

On that occasion, Krajewski stated that the Vatican’s mission of solidarity has continued uninterrupted by the invasion of Ukrainian territory by the Russian army.

On the boxes containing the aid delivered directly to families in need, the words “Gift of Pope Leo XIV to the people of Kharkiv” can be read in Ukrainian and Italian.

On July 9, Pope Leo XIV took time out from his summer vacation in Castel Gandolfo to receive the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. During their meeting, the two leaders discussed the ongoing conflict and “the urgency of pursuing just and lasting paths of peace.”

The pope also expressed his profound sorrow for the victims of the war and renewed his spiritual closeness to the Ukrainian people, encouraging all efforts aimed at the release of prisoners and the search for shared solutions.

Leo XIV also reaffirmed the Holy See’s willingness to welcome representatives of Russia and Ukraine to the Vatican for possible peace negotiations.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Feast date: Jul 19

St. Arsenius, an Anchorite, was born in 354 at Rome and died in 450 at Troe, in Egypt.

Theodosius the Great, having requested the Emperor Gratian and Pope Damasus to find him in the West a tutor for his son Arcadius, decided on Arsenius, a man well read in Greek literature, a member of a noble Roman family, and said to have been a deacon of the Roman Church. Upon receving the request to become the tutor of young Arcadius, he left and reached Constantinople in 383, and continued as tutor in the imperial family for eleven years, during the last three of which he also had charge of his pupil's brother Honorius.

Coming one day to see his children at their studies, Theodosius found them sitting while Arsenius talked to them standing. This he would not tolerate, and he ordered the teacher to sit while the pupils to stood.

Upon his arrival at court, Arsenius had been given a splendid establishment, and probably because the Emperor so desired, he lived a very great lifestyle, but all the time felt a growing inclination to renounce the world. After praying for a long time to be enlightened as to what he should do, he heard a voice saying "Arsenius, flee the company of men, and thou shalt be saved." Thereupon he embarked secretly for Alexandria, and hastening to the desert of Scetis, asked to be admitted among the solitaries who dwelt there.

St. John the Dwarf, to whose cell he was conducted, though previously warned of the quality of his visitor, took no notice of him and left him standing by himself while he invited the rest to sit down at table. When the John was half finished with his meal, he threw down some bread before Arsenius, bidding him with an air of indifference to eat if he would. Arsenius meekly picked up the bread and ate, sitting on the ground. Satisfied with this proof of humility, St. John kept him under his direction. The new solitary was from the beginning most exemplary, yet unwittingly retained some of his old habits, such as sitting cross-legged or laying one foot over the other. Noticing this, the abbot requested some one to imitate Arsenius's posture at the next gathering of the brethren, and upon his doing so, forthwith rebuked him publicly. Arsenius took the hint and corrected himself.

During the fifty-five years of his solitary life he was always the most meanly clad of all, thus punishing himself for his former seeming vanity in the world. In like manner, to atone for having used perfumes at court, he never changed the water in which he moistened the palm leaves of which he made mats, but only poured in fresh water upon it as it wasted, thus letting it become stenchy in the extreme. Even while engaged in manual labour he never relaxed in his application to prayer. At all times copious tears of devotion fell from his eyes. But what distinguished him the most was his disinclination to all that might interrupt his union with God. When, after a long period of searching, his place of retreat was discovered, he not only refused to return to court and act as adviser to his former pupil the Emperor Arcadius, but he would not even be his almoner to the poor and the monasteries of the neighbourhood. He invariably denied himself to visitors, no matter what their rank and condition and left to his disciples the care of entertaining them. His contemporaries so greatly admired him because of this, that they gave him the surname "the Great".

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