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 …
Category: Spiritual Warfare
Return to Lothlorien: When You’re Discouraged, Rest
There was a time before my own married and family life that a friend of mine slyly described this vocation as “a beautiful bed of roses … only that somebody forgot to de-thorn the roses.” I am told that much …
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 Netflix Conundrum and How We Can’t Escape Modernism
If you spend very much time in the social media tradosphere, you have likely witnessed the intermittent pleas by Catholics everywhere to cancel your Netflix subscription for the good of your soul and the souls of your children. These cries …
When in Florida: The Priest Who Refused My Wedding
The top-down annihilation of a developed orthodoxy into a mad-glad tambourine session seems to have been successful for a few decades. As I grow older in the Catholic Church, I’ve gradually become aware of the various effects of this post-conciliar …
Pius X Condemns Modernism: Relevant Then, Relevant Now
I offer this article in honor of Pope St. Pius X on his feast day in the calendar of the traditional Roman Rite – that is, September 3. On September 8, 1907, Pope Pius X issued his encyclical letter Pascendi …
Reminder for Suffering Catholics: Satan Plays the Long Game
Satan plays a long game. We know from the Gospel of Luke that Satan intended to sift like wheat Peter and the apostles. Writing recently in National Review, Fr. Benedict Kiely has called the Church’s present trial the “summer of …
Cornered, We Rise
All around us, the signs are there. The ship is going down. Institutions of all stripes are corrupted at all levels, and almost all of these institutions are polarizing themselves against any burning embers left over from Christendom. For centuries, …
A Litany For Florida in the Face of Hurricane Irma
It is easy to forget as we contemplate our growing mastery of the sciences and our technological prowess, but as Catholics, we believe that God governs the forces of nature through His ministers, the angels – specifically the choir of …