Saturday, July 18, 2020, marked the 150th anniversary of the definition of papal infallibility by the first Vatican Council in the constitution Pastor Aeternus, as a dogma of the Catholic faith, to be held by all Catholics under pain of losing their eternal salvation. On the same occasion, the same Vatican council, under the headship…
“No one is ever allowed to disobey the pope. Period.” The statement is made repeatedly on social media, usually in an attempt to end a debate. It’s taken as a given. No sources cited, no documentation provided. It’s merely assumed. It is, after all, obvious. But is it? Does the Catholic Church actually teach this?…
Back in 1994, my inquiry into the claims of the Catholic Church took a decisive turn. I transitioned from reading books in the safety of my own home to visiting actual parishes and signing up for RCIA. At this point, I found myself bombarded with kitsch. I didn’t know enough about the Mass itself to…
It was Mark Twain who, albeit tritely, said it best: “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme.” Spectators from all sides of the Pachamama controversy, whether they be Catholic or apostate idol-worshipers, might be interested to learn that this is not the first time such a situation has been contested within the Church.…
“The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine — but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.” —Hilaire Belloc People are making a killing off panic. Whether it is panic…
An ailing Benedict XVI made a short trip home to Germany to visit his even more infirm brother. In more sane times, this would have caused normal human reactions from Catholics, such as wishing the brothers well and perhaps offering a prayer for their well-being. Given that sanity is not 2020’s speciality, many of the…
Abp. Viganò’s latest open letter continues the vital conversation about the nature of Vatican II and the extreme necessity to properly respond to this “pastoral event.” This conversation must happen openly among the bishops who are courageous enough to face the difficult questions honestly. Instead of a spirit of “dialogue” among the bishops, there has…
The latest epistle of Viganò has provoked a wider controversy than has his other recent letters, especially as it comes within days of a highly publicized letter to President Trump that the latter approvingly tweeted about. Remarkably, at least one member of the “mainstream” episcopate has made a statement that is not a pure vilification…
Oxford-educated archaeologist Sir William Ramsay, embarking on a journey to investigate the historicity of the Gospel records and Acts, was skeptical. Taught by liberals and having adopted prevalent errors on the alleged late origin and supposed non-historicity of the Gospels and Acts, Sir William fully expected his own work to corroborate those liberal theories. Instead,…
The Old Covenant is not abolished. All our male children are circumcised on the eighth day (Lev. 12:3). We make sure to do no work on the seventh day, and we put to death whoever does any work (Ex. 35:2). We offer all our firstfruits to the Lord (Deut. 26:1–2). We keep all the feasts…
We have heard it all before. “The Second Vatican Council was not the problem; the problem was the ‘Spirit of Vatican II.’ The documents themselves are not that bad. Modernists hijacked the confusion after the Council, Traditionalists who bash Vatican II probably don’t even know anything about the documents. Archbishop Lefebvre even signed most of…
