A New Catholic Faith for Children to Abandon
Consider what a young child in our present-day will experience of the Faith. It will not be of community, sacrifice, beauty, and peace.
Two Gems from Silverstream Priory
Above: Silverstream Priory from the website. This past fall I’ve enjoyed reading two little books published by the good monks of Silverstream Priory. The first, Letters to a Soul, consists of fifty-five short letters of spiritual direction written by Dom Hubert van Zeller to an anonymous directee. Written in the social and ecclesiastical upheaval of…
Paul VI: Refounder of Catholicism
Religion Department Academics of a certain sort love to scandalize undergraduates by telling them that Jesus is a marginal figure in Church history; the real founder of the religion, they whisper, was Paul. In fact, they persist, the religion should really be called Paulianity. From the standpoint of Roman Catholicism, there is some truth to…
On Singing Gregorian Chant Artfully (Part 1)
This week and next, I will share practical and speculative points on singing Gregorian chant well that I have learned by leading scholas, by participating in them, and by listening to masters discuss what they do and why. My points are not put forward here as “Gospel truths”; they are merely an attempt to put…
The Last Testament of Cardinal Pell
In growing numbers under the pontificate of the Dictator Pope, priests, bishops, and cardinals have denounced His Holiness directly or indirectly. But this is the first time one of Pope Francis’s own Cardinals from his C9 Council has turned against him. And, as it turns out, it was published on the day before that same…
The Irish Fight for the Latin Mass – Part 1
Above: Doonagore Castle (“fort of the goats”), Doolin, Co. Clare, Ireland. Photo by Jesse Gardner on Unsplash In the English speaking world, the story of Catholicism during and after the Reformation is dominated by the experience of England. The sad tale of an ancient Catholic kingdom subjected to the yoke of Protestantism, of a systematic…
What if They Restrict the TLM Even More?
Above: Mass for the St Catherine Trust Summer School in the Shrine of St Augustine of Canterbury, Ramsgate, England. Photo credit: Joseph Shaw. Credible reports have now surfaced of a new document coming from Rome against the Roman rite. "It is scheduled for release sometime in April or May…" — Trad priest to @RobertMoynihan on…
Proselytizing the Popesplainers
Above: Pope Mobile in Thailand, 2019. The following information comes from an article from my esteemed colleague, Michael Haynes at LifeSiteNews, and I have mixed in my brazen and snarky commentary throughout. Before we continue, we should define a term, the term popesplainer. What is a popesplainer? Simply put, popesplainers are most of the talking…
3rd Sunday after Epiphany: “‘Vengeance is YOURS’, saith the Lord!” No… wait… that’s not how it goes.
We are looking at the Epistle readings for the Vetus Ordo on Sundays. This week we continue what we prayed last week. I say, “what we prayed,” because the readings themselves are part of a sacrificial offering, the Word being raised to the Father, as the Word made flesh was raised on the Cross, as…
The One Thread By Which the Council Hangs: a Response to Cavadini, Healy, and Weinandy
Above: photos of (left) Requiem Mass for Pope Benedict XVI at the Monastère Saint-Benoît, provided by the monastery, and (right) Mass in Mexico, by marianaarias of CathoPic. “Don’t touch that! If you do, everything will collapse!” The warning is clear enough. Any sensible person would rapidly desist, lest their one seemingly minor act bring…
Two “Disobediences” Compared
Take the well-informed young priests of today. They know, thanks to studying Benedict XVI and other authors, that the Novus Ordo has serious flaws and lacunae, to which the TLM can supply remedies. There was, after all, this “mutual enrichment” idea, although it tends to flow in one direction. So, they set about fixing what…
