Today, we remember the 174th anniversary of the conversion of John Henry Newman from Anglicanism to Catholicism. What makes this anniversary special is that next week, in a move that most fully encapsulates the old saying “truth is stranger than fiction,” Pope Francis will be canonizing the very same Newman who would have disagreed with…
It was the dawn of the 20th century. The hedonism of the Belle Époque whirled through Europe’s capitals; like Poe’s raven, the precursors of civilizational decay tapped at the windows of the West. The ideologies originating in the Age of the Enlightenment were nearing full fruition in what American historian Lawrence Sondhaus would term the…
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 gravely troubled by your slackening efforts against priests. You proceed as if they are equal…
Franciscan Catechism: Progressives’ Fake News on the Saint from Assisi Guido Vignelli Chorabooks 164 pages $15.61 paperback, $7.80 e-book If the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name “Francis” is perhaps not quite the same as it used to be, perhaps a quick read of Guido Vignelli’s Franciscan Catechism: Progressives’ Fake…
Sanctification: Neither as easy nor as impractical as we think Many people are wondering how to handle the current crisis in the Church, what they can do in practical terms, in a situation that seems increasingly apocalyptic and completely out of their hands. We’ve been dissatisfied with the answers we’ve had so far from the…
When looking at the problems facing both the world and the Church today, it’s tempting to try to reduce those problems to one and only one cause. Whether it be the sexual revolution, Vatican II, or certain political ideologies, we are attracted to simple answers to complex problems. That being said, there are certain causes…
March 7 is the dies natalis, the heavenly birthday — and therefore the traditional liturgical commemoration — of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, a Dominican friar who combined childlike innocence, guileless humility, and fervent prayer with one of the most towering intellects the human race has ever seen. He has been put forward by…
The Church is in the midst of a battle between warring ideologies in the secular and ecclesiastical courts. One combatant is a certain confederation of groups that push for the normalization of homosexuality in the Church and the redefining of sacramental marriage. The other combatant is the traditional, orthodox wing of the Church that promotes…
Many who have studied the life and pontificate of Pope Paul VI are convinced that he was far from exemplary in his conduct as pastor; that he not only did not possess heroic virtue, but lacked certain key virtues; that his promulgation of a titanic liturgical reform was incompatible with his papal office of handing on that…
A week before my high school graduation in 2002, the horrid priest abuse scandal broke. A few days later, the media swarmed our bishop following our Baccalaureate Mass. Thanks be to God, I had had only positive encounters with bishops and priests up to that point. A few months after the priest abuse scandal made…
Author’s Note: The following is largely excerpted from a longer essay that first appeared on OnePeterFive on August 8th, 2014, entitled In Search of The Curé: A Small Pilgrimage to Ars, which tells the story of a pilgrimage I took there in 1999. Unless otherwise noted, the photos below were taken on that journey. Saint…
Please help us to meet our expenses by donating today!
