Proponents of the restoration of liturgical sanity speak much about sacred music, and no wonder, given the power of music to transport us heavenward into the mysteries of God — or to stifle our prayer with paltry imitations of secular tunes. But we are no less committed to silence, music’s necessary counterpart and prayer’s inseparable…
The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a profound work of tremendous meaning, mystery, and beauty. For this reason, I think Catholics need to review just what the Mass is, considering that over the last 60 years many people were rendered ignorant, and those who did know have forgotten, a result of the strong Protestant…
The Church tells us we should venerate Sacred Scripture, study it, pray with it, because it is the Word of God spoken to mankind, to the Church, to the heart and mind of each believer. It is uniquely inspired by God Himself, free from error, and always beneficial to the soul [i]. Yet this does not…
Death, Memory, and Oblivion Toward the midpoint of his 1,000-page Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand describes the death of culture in violent terms: [U]ntil the beginning of the nineteenth century and the triumph of the machine, culture had not yet been strangled by civilization. The expression of the spirit, the gift of giving form … penetrated…
So much has been written about the renaissance underway in many dioceses and parishes across the country. With the increasing number of Tridentine Latin Masses that are offered, the newly ordained priests who bring orthodoxy and the Roman Canon to their parishes, and the renewed interest in our Catholic patrimony, the Church in the United…
The church was crowded with worshipers that Holy Thursday evening. James was late and had to look hard for a seat. There’s always a seat in the front, he said to himself and pushed forward. This was a Catholic church, after all, and people preferred to sit at the back. He found a spot in…
We hear a lot nowadays about “Eucharistic inhospitality,” a phrase generally abused, but we would do well to reflect on a previous and far more damaging exclusion from the table that has cast a long and still lengthening shadow over the Church. ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a king, his queen, and forty-five honored…
On Saturday, May 18, 2019, a Solemn High Mass was celebrated in the Mariners’ Memorial Chapel on the campus of the United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA), the first traditional Latin Mass celebrated there in fifty years. The following is an interview with Midshipman Brian Rainwater, 1/C, who organized and coordinated this historic event. Tell…
Editor’s note: We share the following exchange to show the widening rift between two liturgical camps in the Catholic Church, what exactly that rift entails, and what might be done to fix it. Our goal is to shed light on the truths of the Catholic faith, even when those truths are uncomfortable. Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,…
Spain is blessed with a deep Catholic soul. Yes, despite the gradual apostasy of Western civilization. Yes, even despite the unhappy post–Vatican II “reforms.” And yes, despite even the ever accelerating and ever deepening quagmire in which the Church finds herself of late. The Archdioceses of Toledo (Castilla–La Mancha) and Valencia are especially renowned in…
Again and again as of late, we see Catholic bishops and the pope making statements that seem to call into question the basic attributes of Hell, particularly the insistence of the Church that Hell is a place of eternal punishment and separation from God, and that it is not empty of human souls. Most of…
