“[T]he decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form…. [Language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts…
Rorate Caeli has the scoop on what is, if you think about it, a not-entirely-surprising story: It was only a matter of time. Ever since Bishop Richard Williamson eventually caused the Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX / SSPX) to force his own expulsion from that Society in 2012, the watch has been on for him to…
We all know the story: Adam and Eve, the perfected human beings who are the parents of our entire race, were placed into the lush, fruited environs of the Garden of Eden and given dominion over it. Robed only in their innocent, unblemished flesh, they were called to fecundity, temporal bliss and communion with their…
The futile closed circle of therapeutic navel-gazing hangs on like an overused joke in a few places still, one of them being the Church. The priest and people facing each other during the entire liturgy is a vestige of the illegitimate seizure and subjection of 2,000-year-old liturgical development by primitivist vandals in the post-Vatican period.…
The sexual revolution, and the Baby Boomer generation that launched it, has often been said to have embraced as its motto Jeremiah’s phrase of “Non Serviam!” “Of old time thou hast broken my yoke, thou hast burst my bands, and thou saidst: I will not serve. For on every high hill, and under every green…
The Lord said to Cain: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (Gen 4:10). The voice of the blood shed by men continues to cry out, from generation to generation, in ever new and different ways. – Evangelium Vitae “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his…
Minimalism, in its proper context, can be beautiful. We see this in the peaceful feeling of an uncluttered house, a simple graphic design, the clean lines of good architecture, or the stark contrast of a cherry blossom against the white backdrop of a Japanese silkscreen print. But when it comes to Catholicism, there is a danger in…
I had just entered the seminary when Cardinal Ratzinger’s book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, came out. I had an English copy expressed to me and brought it with me into the chapel as my spiritual reading during our daily community Holy Hour. One of the older men knelt next to me as I was…
“The real reason I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not a disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine, but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not…
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Rorate Caeli, Cardinal Burke answered questions on a number of the most pressing topics on the minds of Catholics today. Perhaps most notable to readers of 1P5 is this exchange (with my emphasis): Rorate Caeli: What words of encouragement can Your Eminence give to traditional Catholics who are struggling…
It was originally reported that a traditional Latin Mass would be offered for our benefactors yesterday, March 1st, by the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem at their priory in Charles Town, WV. Through an administrative error, we got the dates mixed up. The Mass was actually celebrated at 11:15 AM today, March 2nd. I sent…
