The recent Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, accusing Pope Francis of heresy, precipitated a large number of commentaries. A common response was to cite ecclesiastical law for the proposition that “no one judges the pope” and then ask, “So what is the point of accusing him of heresy?” This is another…
Recently, my grandson Thomas received his first Holy Communion at a parish I have visited only a few times. My wife and I assist at Mass at a different parish, in part because it offers the traditional Latin Mass. The day after Thomas’s first Holy Communion at the Novus Ordo church, some children at our…
As a Millennial who was weaned on the Novus Ordo Missae, I have been inescapably molded by its main architect, Abp. Annibale Bugnini. Yet there is so much that I didn’t know about Bugnini and his revolution of the liturgy. I didn’t know, growing up, that a man infamously alleged to have been a Freemason…
Over the years, many people have written to me for advice about attending Mass when their local situation is deplorably bad. The most common scenario I have been asked about is the following: “Our local parish has only the Novus Ordo, and it’s celebrated with altar girls, extraordinary ministers, communion in the hand, and music…
The following letter and my reply are a real exchange. The priest kindly permitted the publication of a version in which identifying personal details have been removed. We believe that there are now many priests in a situation of conscience similar or even identical to what is described here, and that reading this may help…
The indefatigable blogger Fr. Dwight Longenecker is at it again. In a new article from March 15, 2019, entitled “Tradition is the Democracy of the Dead,” he writes to assure us that he is a lover of tradition — but not excessively. He rightly says one should be or become Catholic for the sake of…
Author Martin Mosebach, who is not a fan of interrupting sacrosanct actions, suggests in The Heresy of Formlessness that the priest’s sermon metaphorically rends the liturgical garment in two. Mass begins with what is sacred, gets abruptly disconnected by human speech from the sermon, then resumes with the sacred mysteries. As Mosebach explains, “when the…
In G.K. Chesterton’s story “The Queer Feet,” Father Brown says: A crime is like any other work of art. Don’t look surprised; crimes are by no means the only works of art that come from an infernal workshop. But every work of art, divine or diabolic, has one indispensable mark — I mean, that the…
In my 21 years in Japan, I have attended three funerals. The first, for my wife’s godmother, was a Catholic one, while the other two were not. As my wife is Japanese and is the only Catholic in her family (she converted in her mid-twenties), whenever there is a death in her family, the funeral…
You will often hear from people who lived through the “great” post-Vatican II reform of the Mass that, despite the loss of reverence and sharp drop in attendance, it was good to have the Mass in the vernacular. Surely, understanding what goes on in the Mass is important. Yet, surprisingly to some, understanding every prayer…
My article “Twelve Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo” was greeted with a barrage of snide remarks, flustered dismissals, relativistic claims about “tastes,” and soberly framed objections. As a philosopher and theologian, I care little for empty rhetoric, but I care very much about rational objections, which deserve a response. I have seen every…
Please help us to meet our expenses by donating today!
