The meltdown of the Church in the West since the Second Vatican Council doubtless has many and complex causes, but I am convinced that the foremost cause of it is the fact that churchmen[1] have betrayed much of Catholic Tradition and legislation, and have merited divine punishment as a result—let us call it a period…
Charles Coulombe’s interesting remark in a recent article that Pius XII, for all his intransigence against dogmatic modernism, allowed Father Karl Rahner, S.J., to be the editor of the prestigious Denzinger prompted me to take up the question of Rahner’s theology and the immense influence it has had on modern Catholic discourse. His influence is…
In early August of 1968, a stylish and brilliant convert from Anglicanism, and at this time a pastor of a flourishing parish in Suffolk, was driving his “fast and comfortable Jaguar” from Bury St Edmunds to London. He took a friend, Edgar Hardwick, parish priest of Coldham, with him. When he pulled up to his…
The following is a real exchange of letters, with identifying details edited out. The correspondence took place about three years ago. LETTER 1 Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, A mutual friend forwarded to me the letters between you and your priest friend entitled “Discovering Tradition: A Priest’s Crisis of Conscience.” Just as a sort of prolegomena, I…
Above: Bishop Karl Josef von Hefele and Bl. Pius IX. In his fascinating book Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church,[1] John W. O’Malley details the movements, ideas, personalities, and events that coalesced in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870. My intention here is not to furnish a complete account, much…
Above: The Visitation by Flemish painter Willem Vrelant (d. 1481). This Saturday, July 2, is the usus antiquior feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast was instituted in 1389 by, in a way, two popes—Pope Urban VI as the one who intended to institute it, in hopes of obtaining the end…
Above: Upside down Pyramid, Bratislava. Like a piece of upside-down modernist architecture, the new papal apostolic letter Desiderio Desideravi: On the Liturgical Formation of the People of God is daringly balanced on one point: that the new liturgy of Paul VI is the fulfillment of the Second Vatican Council’s demand for liturgical reform in Sacrosanctum Concilium. On the truth…
If you have ever shown up early to church and found yourself quietly paging through your hand missal—let’s say, a Saint Andrew Daily Missal reprint from 1945—you might have stumbled across a section of Mass formularies that may be unfamiliar owing to the rarity of their use. Some of these will be identified as Votive…
Readers past a certain age may remember the momentous role played in our lives as Catholics by the book-length interviews released by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and, later, Benedict XVI. The first of these and in some ways the most impressive for its time was The Ratzinger Report of 1985. Reading it today can still raise…
Historically and theologically, there are three “pillars” of Catholicism: Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium. All are necessary; all are mutually implicated; and none of them is absolute, in the sense that it can be taken as greater in every respect than the others. Each is first but in a different way. There is an almost Trinitarian…
A member of a traditionalist religious congregation that has enjoyed good canonical standing with Rome for a long time sent me an adaptation of the great hymn “Jerusalem” (words by William Blake, set to music by C. Hubert H. Parry), with a commentary, and the prefatory remark: “This Anthem of Holy Defiance is my response…
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