The following is a real exchange of letters, with identifying details edited out. The correspondence took place about three years ago. LETTER 1 Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, A mutual friend forwarded to me the letters between you and your priest friend entitled “Discovering Tradition: A Priest’s Crisis of Conscience.” Just as a sort of prolegomena, I…
Above: The Visitation by Flemish painter Willem Vrelant (d. 1481). This Saturday, July 2, is the usus antiquior feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This feast was instituted in 1389 by, in a way, two popes—Pope Urban VI as the one who intended to institute it, in hopes of obtaining the end…
“Forty Days” After His Resurrection Falling as it does between the great feasts of Easter and Pentecost, Ascension Thursday gets short shrift from modern Christians. Although it remains an unmoved (usually) Holy Day of Obligation for Roman Catholics (and, to state the obvious, the only one of such days that can never fall on a…
Above painting: St Catherine before the Pope at Avignon by Giovanni di Paolo (1403–1482), Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. In chapter thirteen of his Gospel, St. Matthew recounts a famous parable of the Lord: The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men were sleeping, his enemy…
Photo: Saint-François de Molitor, Paris, France. Why was the tabernacle removed from the high altar or kept away from the center of so many churches during the past fifty years? There are many reasons one could give for this decentering of our Lord Jesus Christ in the miracle of His abiding Eucharistic Presence among us,…
Painting: Maurice Denis, “Le mystère catholique,” (1889) After a number of years experiencing the annual cycle of readings in the traditional Latin Mass, I grew aware of the manner in which it approaches Gospels in general, which is freer and more subtle than we find in the Novus Ordo lectionary. In the latter, it seems…
To Catholics in the Anglosphere – especially in Ireland and the United States – today’s feast day is something of a mark of the faith. As a Michigander I’m blessed to see the grocery stores in my area start selling St. Patrick cupcakes three weeks ago. Besides the Polish paczkis for Fat Tuesday, St. Patrick’s…
The following talk was given at a Call to Holiness event at Assumption Grotto in Detroit on Sunday, March 6, 2022. Please note that the sound quality in the video improves at the 2’15” mark, at which time the lapel mic begins working. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, at an…
The claim is often made that the traditional Roman Rite brings out more clearly than the Novus Ordo does that the Mass is a true and proper sacrifice—the unbloody re-presentation of the bloody sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. As this dogmatic truth is a point of central importance for living the Catholic Faith and…
With a majority of German bishops now on record as voting for official permission for contraception and the legitimization of sodomy, it seems time to reexamine the irreconcilable contrast between two views of reality. The Church in her traditional Roman Rite frequently prays that we may receive the grace to “despise” (or, as Lauren Pristas…
In response to a recent article about the return of nuptial care cloths, one reader commented: It’s a beautiful, ancient custom. However, it was never part of the American ritual books (as far as I can tell.) Use it in France all you like, but ‘bringing it back’ in the US would be anachronistic and…
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