The Church is in the midst of a battle between warring ideologies in the secular and ecclesiastical courts. One combatant is a certain confederation of groups that push for the normalization of homosexuality in the Church and the redefining of sacramental marriage. The other combatant is the traditional, orthodox wing of the Church that promotes…
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…
The top-down annihilation of a developed orthodoxy into a mad-glad tambourine session seems to have been successful for a few decades. As I grow older in the Catholic Church, I’ve gradually become aware of the various effects of this post-conciliar crumble. But it’s another thing altogether experience it firsthand – especially in the sacrament of…
A university student once sent to me the following heartfelt letter. He expresses well the thoughts and feelings of many young Catholic men and women his age, who are open to a vocation from the Lord, but struggle with how to think about the whole matter. In my response, I try to clear away some…
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…
When the day comes where you bury your head in your hands and say, “This cannot be right,” start your search for the nearest Latin Mass. I am talking here about Mass in the “extraordinary form,” the Tridentine Mass, the usus antiquior, the Mass according to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. John XXIII in…
Fr. Longenecker has written some fine books and articles. Years ago, I enjoyed and benefited from his book on St. Benedict and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and his recent book on the historical veracity of the Magi is interesting. It would appear that in matters liturgical, however, Fr. Longenecker is out of his depth. Each…
Pope St. Pius X foresaw it. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen saw the signs of its imminent arrival. Michael Davies experienced it and documented its early attacks on the liturgy. Ross Douthat has chronicled its continued progress. Elizabeth Yore has put it into global context. Put on it whatever label you want, but the fact of…
Many of those who grew up in the pre-Vatican II era can’t understand why anyone born after, say, 1970 could possibly be attracted to the traditional Latin Mass. After all, they reason, who wants to go back to the days when the priest “turned his back to the people” and “mumbled in a dead language,”…
