Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s famous adage, “Save the Liturgy, Save the World,” nicely sums up the way God’s presence and grace are conveyed through the sacraments and how our disposition to receive the graces they provide is enhanced by well performed ritual. A liturgy filled with beautiful physical things helps us, body-soul composites that we are, to…
Shortly after my wife and I were married in 1998, we were able to spend some time in Venice. Visiting the churches there was a particular delight, as there was so much to discover. I recall especially the church of St. George with its spacious choir and sanctuary, and Santa Maria dei Miracoli with its…
When the story first broke in April that the CDF had, with the pope’s explicit blessing, rejected the German Bishops’ intercommunion handout, people weren’t sure what to think. Nobody had seen the communication, and it was very intentionally kept under wraps by the Vatican. At the time, I issued a cautionary note about thinking that…
A few days ago, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), restated the Church’s infallible teaching about the ordaining of female priests in the Catholic Church. The statement was followed by many speculations. For example, some people ask whether this Ladaria text really corresponds to Pope Francis’…
I spent last Saturday in DC, attending the Pontifical High Mass offered by Archbishop Sample of Portland, Oregon, in thanksgiving of the tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum. The last time such an event was held in main body of the largest Catholic church in the United States, the year was 2010. On this occasion, it…
Last month, we shared some information with you about an upcoming event at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. Namely, Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, will offer a pontifical Solemn Mass in the Traditional Rite on Saturday, April 28, at 1PM — that’s next Saturday, so mark your…
Far too often, people will hear fallen-away Catholics say something like this: “I stopped going to church because I just wasn’t being fed.” What do they mean by this statement? What might the metaphor of hunger and lack of nourishment be able to teach us? Those who dwell in the ambit of traditional Catholicism will…
Image: screengrab of SanctaMissa.org My name is Steve, and I go to the Latin Mass – but I don’t know Latin. It’s been this way for years. At first, when I started out attending an indult Mass in the days before Summorum Pontificum, I thought someone might notice. But I was good at masking the symptoms, and…
The following guest post was written by Father Eric Andersen, pastor of St. Stephen Catholic Church in Portland, Oregon. St. Stephen’s is a parish which offers both forms of the Roman Rite. Many Catholics do not know their liturgical heritage. Experiencing a Solemn Traditional Latin Mass for the first time can seem so unfamiliar. At first, one…
During Easter, not only did a German priest and monk declare that he could well imagine a female pope in the future, but Cardinal Christoph Schönborn – whom Pope Francis has called a “great theologian” and to whom the pope entrusted the public interpretation of Amoris Laetitia – gave an interview in which he appears to express…
You were born in 1938. You grew up in a parish where multiple Sunday Masses were packed with Catholics. Some of your earliest memories are of the hats and veils the ladies wore as the final touch on their Sunday best, the men’s dapper suits and polished shoes. You learned your catechism in Q&A form—and…
