Above: the celebrated heretic, Hans Küng (1928-2021). One can only hope and pray that the celebrations for him have not continued for eternity in the fires of hell. Requiescat in pace. Ave Maria. In our last essay we discussed some of …
Category: Ultramontanism / Spirit of Vatican I

The Pre-Vatican II Decline of Theology
If we want to address the problem of hyperüberultramontanism, we are going to need to talk about a decline in theology that occurred before Vatican II. We need to understand the roots of these issues and how they developed in …

Rethinking the Papacy
I have an image from a particular event playing in my mind. The event takes place in a large entertainment auditorium. The auditorium is modern par excellence, meaning it’s as ugly as sin. The ceiling is comprised of funky clam-shaped …

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Ultramontanism and the False Spirit of Vatican I
When we released our editorial stance last year we identified one error above others which seems to be at the root of our current crisis: the false spirit of Vatican I. This false spirit – meaning a false interpretation of …

How Protestants, Orthodox, Magisterialists, and Traditionalists Differ on the Three Pillars of Christianity
Historically and theologically, there are three “pillars” of Catholicism: Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium. All are necessary; all are mutually implicated; and none of them is absolute, in the sense that it can be taken as greater in every respect than …

St. John Henry Newman’s Conscience Against the Pope and the Vaccine
One can only presume that the relative unpopularity of St. John Henry Newman’s “Letter to the Duke of Norfolk” comes from its very name. A tract called “On Papal Infallibility and the Duty of Conscience,” written as it is by one of the greatest …

The Failure of the Ultramontanist Hermeneutic of Continuity
Translator’s Preface: The following book review, which appeared in German at kathnews.de on January 4, 2022, is illuminating for many reasons. In describing the oddity of a new (but not updated) German translation of a book written by Bishop Rifan …

Pornocracy and the Coming Reign of Antichrist
In our first essay we discussed some of the horrors of the three pornocracies of the Church, and suggested the term “Third Pornocracy” to be an accurate historical description of our own epoch. It is helpful, I believe, because the …

Are Traditionalists Guilty of “Private Judgment” Over the Popes?
Author’s Note: Readers who follow Rod Dreher at The American Conservative may have noticed an article published on December 18th in which he cites my article from OnePeterFive on the Responsa ad Dubia document, followed by a quotation from a …

The Third Pornocracy: What We Are Living Through
Pornocracy. The term was coined to refer to the period that Cardinal Baronius called “the dark age” (saeculum obscurum): the tenth century Papacy. Protestants attempted to use this term to discredit the Church as entirely corrupt, but they failed to …