Sedevacantism: from Latin sedes, “seat, bench, throne,” and the verb vacare, “to be empty.” As a legal term denoting a temporary episcopal vacancy, sede vacante is unimpeachable. My objections begin with the addition of the notoriously modern suffix “-ism,” with all its implications of continuance and ideological coherence. Human societies, from the most primitive tribes…
This week’s task is scary. The Gospel for this 8th Sunday after Pentecost presents probably the most difficult of the Lord’s parables to explicate. This week we hear the Parable of the Unjust Steward from Luke 16. Context: For the last few chapters of Luke we have been presented with Our Lord telling many parables.…
Editor’s note: in line with our editorial stance to “unite the clans” and our efforts to provide charitable debate on the SSPX issue among traditionalists, we publish this critique of John Salza compiled by a concerned writer who is not affiliated with the SSPX. This piece is not intended to attack Mr. Salza. On the…
On Friday, July 29th – one year and thirteen days after the promulgation of Traditionis Custodes – Bishop Michael Burbidge of the diocese of Arlington, Virginia announced severe restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. This comes on the heels of our neighboring archdiocese in Washington, DC issuing their own restrictions. Though Wilton…
Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Fr Chad Ripperger, Dr Peter Kwasniewski, Msgr Alberto Turco, Dr William Mahrt, Dr Edward Schaefer, Fr Mark Bachmann OSB, Mr Nicholas Lemme… these are the speakers of the online International Gregorian Chant Conference, Sept 25 – Oct 2, hosted by the Gregorian Chant Academy. How did I manage to organize an International…
Edmund J. Mazza’s article at OnePeterFive on July 21st, 2022, (‘Solzhenitsyn on NATO, Ukraine, & Putin’) misses the mark so badly that I decided it must be publicly challenged. At the same time, my intention here is to at least call the reader’s attention to the American Traditionalist Catholic propensity to see more or less…
Above: Catholic counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre. The crisis the Church is experiencing today is certainly unprecedented in its characteristics, but it is neither the first nor the last in history. Think, for example, of the attack suffered by the Papacy in the years of the French Revolution. In 1799 the city of Rome was invaded…
Charles Coulombe’s interesting remark in a recent article that Pius XII, for all his intransigence against dogmatic modernism, allowed Father Karl Rahner, S.J., to be the editor of the prestigious Denzinger prompted me to take up the question of Rahner’s theology and the immense influence it has had on modern Catholic discourse. His influence is…
In a previous article (here), I made the case that the pope, when he exercises his non-infallible teaching authority, as he typically does in encyclical letters, apostolic exhortations, letters to bishops, etc., does not speak therein with the full authority of the Church (as he does when he speaks ex cathedra), but rather with his…
It is a rainy Tuesday evening, and a large group is gathered in the parish hall at St. Paul VI Roman Catholic Church. Not just women are gathered, which is odd for this parish, but men too. And children, countless children. Very odd indeed. An older lady, dressed in a smart looking pink jumpsuit, steps…
Today is the Feast of St. James the Greater, the apostle “friend of the Lord” together with Peter and John. Nine hundred years ago, in 1122, while the last stone of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was being laid, Pope Calixtus II (†1124) announced the first Holy Year of Compostela for 1126, establishing that…
