I wanted to learn how to chant. Those inky little square notes zigzagging across the four-line staff were as exciting to me as the markings on a pirate treasure map. My first attempts were in large scholas in which experienced chanters guided the whole group the same way foreign guides shepherd timid tourists: they know…
The French Revolution and its daughter movements defined the social question of the 19th century, which, as I have noted elsewhere, the Magisterium from Pius VI to Pius XII answered with authority and clarity. But, as Pope Benedict observed in his famous “hermeneutic of continuity” address in 2005, it was the legacy of the American…
We have heard it all before. “The Second Vatican Council was not the problem; the problem was the ‘Spirit of Vatican II.’ The documents themselves are not that bad. Modernists hijacked the confusion after the Council, Traditionalists who bash Vatican II probably don’t even know anything about the documents. Archbishop Lefebvre even signed most of…
Twitter is stupid. Change my mind…in 280 characters or fewer. To that I add Instagram; Netflix; Snapchat; and, hypocritically, Facebook as being more or less worthless. Present a meme to convince me otherwise [i]. Our reliance on social media has been amplified to beyond epic proportions since the worldwide COVID-19 lockdown began. This is a…
In this latest episode of the podcast, we’ve got a look at this week’s COVID-19 numbers, and the good news is there’s a silver lining. Steve reports on several interesting developments, including some really surprising results in a universal testing experiment that happened in Boston, as well as an overview of President Trump’s plan to…
Epistle: 1 John 5:4-10 Gospel: John 20:19-31 Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we who have completed the Easter holy days, may, through Thy imparting, retain these effects in our ways and our life. – From the Collect for Low Sunday This Sunday could be called the Sunday of Many Names. Along with Low…
As the COVID-19, Chinese communist, Wuhan coronavirus pandemic (pick your modifier) crisis continues, faithful Catholics from all sides have divided on the issue. The spectrum of opinions ranges from those faithful Catholics taking the virus very seriously and advocating for great caution to those other faithful Catholics dismissing the whole thing as an overblown and…
On the night between March 26 and 27, 250 years ago, the great painter, interpreter of the splendors of the Venetian aristocracy, died suddenly: Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770). While the Vatican Post Office celebrates him with a stamp, we approach the greatest artist of the eighteenth-century Venetian painting in our usual way: through passion for music.…
How often the saints pass by each year on the Church’s calendar, and we think: “Hmm, that saint — I wish I knew more about him,” and that’s it. In a better year than this one, we might be fortunate to assist at Mass that day and hear a set of orations asking for the…
One among the many irrefutable proofs of the resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ that even serious non-Christians are forced to contend with is the testimony of Flavius Josephus, first-century Jewish historian and eyewitness to the remarkable fulfilment of Our Savior’s prophesies regarding the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Bp. Eusebius praises Josephus for…
And in the end of the sabbath, when it began to dawn towards the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalen and the other Mary, to see the sepulchre. And behold there was a great earthquake. For an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and coming, rolled back the stone, and sat upon…
