Scalfari. Pachamama. The pope’s apology. Ending priestly celibacy. “Deaconesses.” The Amazon Synod has come and gone, and the results are already horrifying. Remember to mark your calendars for fasting and prayers of reparation on Saturday, Nov. 9 and Holy Communion on Sunday. This article is meant to be one answer to despairing souls asking what…
Even though Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said the laity would save the Church, many in the laity are acutely aware of their limitations. We can’t elect a pontiff, submit dubia, or run a diocese. In the ongoing civil war between orthodoxy and modernism, we are privates, not generals, colonels, or even lieutenants. It’s good to…
“Clericalism has a direct consequence in rigidity. Have you never seen young priests all stiff in black cassocks and hats in the shape of the planet Saturn on their heads? Behind all the rigid clericalism there are serious problems.” —Pope Francis, September 5, 2019 address to Jesuits in Mozambique Though it is one of the…
Victory is a theme dear to the hearts of Catholics, and that’s partly why the feast of October 7 means so much to us: it’s the glorious day Our Lady helped us save Christendom at the battle of Lepanto. In fact, it was originally called the Feast of Our Lady of Victory by Pius V,…
The Church’s most urgent need… How would you define it? Here is how Bishop Athanasius Schneider once answered the question: Before we can expect efficacious and lasting fruits from the new evangelization, a process of conversion must get under way within the Church. How can we call others to convert while, among those doing the…
Prayer is man’s richest boon. It is his light, his nourishment, and his very life, for it brings him into communication with God, who is light , nourishment, and life. But of ourselves we know not what we should pray for as we ought; we must needs, therefore, address ourselves to Jesus Christ, and say…
In 1917, the Blessed Virgin visited three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. Just a year earlier, the children were primed for this event by an angel of the Lord on three separate occasions. We often hear atheists and skeptics ridicule the Christian, as at a first glance we do not seem to see the kind…
A few months ago, when my family was cleaning out some old books, I came across my mid- 1980s glossy gold First Communion textbook. The book held such promise within its covers. Surely, it provided a glimpse of the treasures of our faith within its pages: Our Lord coming to us in the Eucharist, what…
Proponents of the restoration of liturgical sanity speak much about sacred music, and no wonder, given the power of music to transport us heavenward into the mysteries of God — or to stifle our prayer with paltry imitations of secular tunes. But we are no less committed to silence, music’s necessary counterpart and prayer’s inseparable…
The church was crowded with worshipers that Holy Thursday evening. James was late and had to look hard for a seat. There’s always a seat in the front, he said to himself and pushed forward. This was a Catholic church, after all, and people preferred to sit at the back. He found a spot in…
On Saturday, May 18, 2019, a Solemn High Mass was celebrated in the Mariners’ Memorial Chapel on the campus of the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), the first traditional Latin Mass celebrated there in fifty years. The following is an interview with Midshipman Brian Rainwater, 1/C, who organized and coordinated this historic event. Tell…
