Author: Julia Meloni

Schismatic Synodality: Personal and Ideological Origins
Fr. Serafino Lanzetta has an excellent new book out called The Symphony of Truth. As a writer with a focus on the roots of Pope Francis’s pontificate, I found this book fascinating. From multiple angles, Fr. Lanzetta tells the backstories …

Six Takeaways From Pope Francis’s War on the Latin Mass
When Pope Francis released the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, he dropped what Dr. Peter Kwasniewski calls an “atom bomb” on the traditional Latin Mass. Now, as the fallout accumulates and the rubble builds up, Kwasniewski has edited and released From …

The Weapon of the St. Gallen Mafia is Synodality
Cardinal Martini Lives on. This is a story about the origins of the “synod on synodality.” It is a story about dreams—and déjà vu. All his life, Carlo Maria Martini (pictured above left) was a dreamer. In the Italian documentary …

The St. Gallen Mafia and the Latin Mass
About a decade ago, in a Southwestern church in a run-down part of town, I saw it for the first time. From a back pew, I glimpsed something beautiful, perfect. Seeing the priest celebrate it was like being plunged into …

St. Jean Vianney versus the Counterfeit Priests
PREFACE: I shall not endeavor to explain how these two letters fell into my hands. I shall only note how curious their contents are in light of the debates surrounding the upcoming Amazon Synod. 1. My dear Wormwood: I am …

The Spirit of Paganism Looms over the Amazon Synod
Something ancient — paganism — is “struggling to be born” again. It’s slouching toward birth, like Yeats’s “rough beast,” laboring to arrive for its hour. It’s emerging amid the rise of what exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger ominously describes as the …

The Amazon Synod’s Long Game Is More Radical Than You Think
It’s 2029, and, by necessity, you’re attending a “group-conducted” Mass celebrated by Jerry the bus driver, Charles the bank manager, and Josh the carpenter. You’re in the Church dreamed up by the Amazon synod’s radical muse, Bishop Fritz Lobinger. After …

What I Didn’t Know about Bugnini and the Liturgy
As a Millennial who was weaned on the Novus Ordo Missae, I have been inescapably molded by its main architect, Abp. Annibale Bugnini. Yet there is so much that I didn’t know about Bugnini and his revolution of the liturgy. …

The Ave Maria of Notre Dame
It was a video that brought so many of us to tears: a crowd kneeling and singing “Ave Maria” while Notre Dame burned. “Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu,” they beautifully sang as the camera panned to a shot of raw …
Cardinal Parolin: The Next Pope?
Last year, Archbishop Viganò alleged that Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis’s handpicked secretary of state, was “complicit in covering up the misdeeds” of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Despite that grave accusation, Antonio Socci says that meetings of cardinals about a possible …
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