To a degree not yet as widely recognized as it should be, Pope Francis – Jorge Bergoglio, S.J. – is showing himself to be an admirable disciple of his Jesuit forerunner Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J. (1881-1955), the Piltdown paleontologist and “Omega Point” mystagogue, who exercised an enormous influence on the young Jesuit Turks of…
Part of the problem with Pope Francis’s change to the Catechism on the legitimacy of the death penalty – a decision on which he is doubling down in the face of worldwide opposition from theologically literate Catholics – is that it fundamentally misconstrues the role of a catechism. A catechism is not, and has never been…
The time from Michaelmas until the Hallowtide, for me, has always been a time to reflect upon Hell itself. After all, as fall settles on the Northern Hemisphere, people tend to reflect upon the afterlife as the days grow shorter and darker. And didn’t Christ talk about perdition quite a bit? It used to be…
I offer this article in honor of Pope St. Pius X on his feast day in the calendar of the traditional Roman Rite – that is, September 3. On September 8, 1907, Pope Pius X issued his encyclical letter Pascendi Dominici Gregis, On the Doctrine of the Modernists. The Modernists in question were a group…
The debate over the pope’s recently announced changes to the Catechism on the subject of capital punishment are being hotly debated in every corner of the Catholic world. Some are saying this change is a mere “development of doctrine.” Some think it’s not a change in doctrine at all, but an adjustment to practical application.…
In light of today’s news that the pope has “changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church about the death penalty, saying it can never be sanctioned,” we are reprinting this as a reference point for concerned Catholics. –SS, 8/2/2018 When the first version of this column was originally published in March 2015, it was occasioned…
Justice Anthony Kennedy recently announced his resignation from the United States Supreme Court. Good riddance. What Shakespeare said about a traitor’s life in Macbeth applies equally well to Kennedy’s life on the Supreme Court: “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” In other words, Kennedy’s decision to resign during the current presidency…
Translator’s Note: Roberto de Mattei’s paper, presented today in Rome, is entitled “The roots and historical consequences of Modernism”. It provides a detailed study of the origin of the present theological confusion in the Church in the ideas embraced at the time of the so-called “Modernist crisis” of the early 20th century. The teaching of Maurice…
In light of the revelations about the secret life of Cardinal Theodore “Uncle Teddy” McCarrick — a man who has been described with alarming frequency over the years (even though these warnings have gone largely unheeded) as a homosexual predator who took advantage of vulnerable seminarians under his spiritual authority — we wish to present…
Imagine eating the sun—and imagine you could do it without perishing. What would happen? You would receive into your body the source of light and warmth. You would have within you all the light and heat that you could possibly ever need or want. No more heating bills, no more lightbulbs, no more winter trips…
That joking retort we heard as children, “Is the pope Catholic?” is starting to look like a serious question. Asked five years ago about a “gay lobby” in the Vatican, Pope Francis responded, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” As judgment was thought to…
