It can be bewildering, when reading about modern liturgical reforms in the Catholic Church, to compare reality (such as the disappearance of Gregorian Chant in the liturgy) with the intention, rationale, or official narrative (Gregorian Chant should have pride of place in the liturgy). While the fruits of these reforms are increasingly well documented, what…
Author and talk show host Dennis Prager accurately observes that there is no greater concept in the first five books of the Bible than that of “distinction.” More specifically, it is the clear separation God makes between certain things: God and man, animal and human, life and death, sacred and profane, good and evil, male…
Positive trajectories and luminous developments are a rare commodity in our current ecclesial environment, despite this being part and parcel of the mission of the Church. Therefore, it was with a surprised enthusiasm that I greeted the news of the forthcoming broadcast of a TLM accompanied by Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas on…
One day, following Mass, a Polish man, in his fifties, shared a childhood story with me. It seems that he and his brother were serving Mass with another boy who, to their frustration, was being deliberately unruly and obstinate. The two brothers, no doubt higher in the pecking order of altar boys, made threatening gestures…
The following letters are based on a real epistolary exchange. Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, It is obvious that things are not at all well with the Catholic Church today. This is true whether we look at the morals of the clergy and the faithful or what they believe (or don’t believe) or how the Mass is…
The noble Latin language that nourished piety for centuries; the serenity of Gregorian plainsong; the splendor of priestly attire; and the visible emphasis on the sacrificial nature of the Mass, wherein the Lord of glory makes His offering upon the Cross present anew for the benefit of the living and the dead — to one…
The traditional Catholic lectionary — dating back to the first millennium of Christianity and, since the Middle Ages, included in the contents of the altar missal itself — includes far fewer readings than the revised (postconciliar) lectionary used for the Novus Ordo Mass. However, this is not a strike against the former, since the lectionary,…
The month of November is a time to contemplate the reality of death and remember the souls of our deceased brothers and sisters. This is a brief account of the funeral of Sister Wilhelmina of the Holy Rosary, the foundress of an extraordinary community of Benedictine nuns. On the feast of the Ascension this year,…
The Amazon Synod is finally over. Three weeks of nonsense, tree-hugging, and pagan idolatry was mixed in with the important issue of the supposed female diaconate. The issue of the female diaconate was studied in 2002. Pope Francis later convened a commission in 2016 to study the issue again, and earlier this year, it revealed…
John Senior is a household name for three often overlapping categories of people. He is known for his list of the so-called “thousand good books,” a canon that seeks to nourish the intellectual and imaginative habitat of a thoroughly Christian worldview, indispensable to the appreciation of the “great” books. He is also known for his…
Recently I received the following email, and since it brought up a topic that I am sure an increasing number of parents have to deal with, I would like to share it and my response. Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, My family and I attend a weekly TLM at our parish, or we occasionally drive about an…
