A New Catholic Faith for Children to Abandon
Consider what a young child in our present-day will experience of the Faith. It will not be of community, sacrifice, beauty, and peace.
Martin Luther King and Planned Parenthood
Above: Martin Luther King at a press conference in 1964. By the time Martin Luther King Jr. had taken his seat in 1960 on Planned Parenthood’s committee on the study of contraception, his views on how artificial birth control could be used to reduce Black family size were well-known throughout the United States. King had…
Octave of the Nativity: Depend on God in a new year of Salvation
Merry Christmas to you all on this Octave of the Nativity of Our Lord. In her wisdom Holy Church knows that we need time to rest within the liturgical celebration of awesome mysteries of our salvation: the Lord’s Birth, His future Sacrifice, and the Divine Motherhood of Mary. We have this pause as the liturgical…
4th Sunday of Advent: Saving Fire
Some context for our 4th Sunday of Advent and for our Epistle reading are in order. The 4th Sunday of Advent originally did not have a Roman Station church because of the linkage between Ember Saturday and Sunday. Eventually, to bring the Sunday into harmony with other great Sundays it gained a Station at the…
2nd Sunday of Advent: Living in the Unity of Faith
For this 2nd Sunday of Advent the Roman Station church is the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem where the wooden beams of the Cross and relics of the Passion brought to Rome by the Empress Helena were deposited and are venerated still today. Last week we were stationed at St. Mary Major where…
Two Saints at the Start of Advent: Bibiana and Francis Xavier
In the traditional calendar, December 2 is the feast of St. Bibiana, Virgin and Martyr. Having been imprisoned for her faith, she refused the sexual advances of her jailer, and was beaten to death with lead-loaded thongs. The Collect for her feast is magnificent: Deus, omnium largitor bonorum, qui in famula tua Bibiana cum virginitatis…
1st Sunday of Advent: Our Savior expects to find us ready
In 589 Deacon Aigulf trekked home to Tours with relics he had collected in Rome. St. Gregory of Tours relates in his Historia Francorum that Aigulf saw with his own eyes the disasters that struck Rome that year. The Tiber rose to such a flood that buildings were washed away, ancient temples destroyed, and the…
The “Magna Carta” of The Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music Celebrates 100 Years
One hundred years ago, on November 22, 1922, the new Pope Pius XI († 1939) issued the motu proprio Ad musicæ sacræ restitutionem, with which he set up what is now the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome. Although monumental, this was not the first papal action in this regard. “The liturgical-musical ‘conservatory’ of…
A Moment of Christendom: the St. Louis Patronal Procession
Above: Patronal Festivity in Saint Louis, Missouri, 2022 On August 25th, my alarm clock rang at 3:45 a.m. The previous evening, we chant enthusiasts had parted with the words, “Tenebrae et Matutinum” (dark and early). With solemn vespers, we had ushered in the third annual Festival of Saint Louis, a liturgical whirlwind in honor of…
Post-Election: the Law of Politics is the Salvation of Souls
This past Tuesday, American Catholics – and all of those fighting for the rights for the lives of the unborn – were dealt another setback with the loss of 5 constitutional Amendments to safeguard the unborn in Montana, Kentucky, Vermont, Michigan, and California. This is similar to what happened in 2020 when the US Supreme…
Russian Errors in Bolshevism, Vatican II and Schism
Above: Coronation celebrations. Entrance of Nicholas II to the Kremlin. May 9, 1896. In this third and last installment, we tackle the real errors of Russia as they led to the deadly Revolution that masked and obscured her and the parallels with the other revolutionary event mid-century known as the Second Vatican Council. In addition,…