Image: screen grab via CBS News. In what may just be the most unintentionally humorous headline in Catholic news this year, we get this triple-negative from J.D. Flynn at Catholic News Agency (CNA): “Wuerl denies prior denials denied knowledge of McCarrick seminarian abuse“ It reminds me of the old saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a…
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has once again written an open letter, this time addressed to former cardinal Theodore McCarrick and dated January 13, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In it, Viganò notes that “throughout these months,” McCarrick hasn’t “given any sign of repentance” for his “crimes against minors and abuses against seminarians” and…
Records have surfaced indicating that Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the former archbishop turned apostolic administrator of Washington, D.C., knew about allegations of sexual abuse against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick as early as 2004, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reports. A report about one such allegation was forwarded by Wuerl to the apostolic nuncio in D.C. at…
Various sources are being heard from the Vatican saying two pontifical maneuvers are imminent, which will take the form of two motu proprio. The first will be to decree the elimination of the Prefecture of the Papal Household. The prefecture is the organism concerned, in general, with the appointments and audiences of the reigning pontiff,…
Jan 10, 2019 (OnePeterFive.com) – Portuguese bishop Manuel Linda of Oporto, whose comments in a recent interview to secular media seemingly contradicted the dogma of the Perpetual Virginity of Our Lady, now insinuates that the current sex abuse crisis is a “phenomenon primarily of Anglo-Saxon countries.” Bishop Linda made his remarks during an interview with…
You will often hear from people who lived through the “great” post-Vatican II reform of the Mass that, despite the loss of reverence and sharp drop in attendance, it was good to have the Mass in the vernacular. Surely, understanding what goes on in the Mass is important. Yet, surprisingly to some, understanding every prayer…
My article “Twelve Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo” was greeted with a barrage of snide remarks, flustered dismissals, relativistic claims about “tastes,” and soberly framed objections. As a philosopher and theologian, I care little for empty rhetoric, but I care very much about rational objections, which deserve a response. I have seen every…
I’ve been under the impression for a while now that everyone knew about Msgr. Battista Ricca, who is the director of the Casa Santa Marta (where the pope lives) and was the pope’s hand-picked liaison – his “eyes and ears” – on Vatican Bank reform. But I saw a post from a well informed Catholic…
When the day comes where you bury your head in your hands and say, “This cannot be right,” start your search for the nearest Latin Mass. I am talking here about Mass in the “extraordinary form,” the Tridentine Mass, the usus antiquior, the Mass according to the Roman Missal promulgated by St. John XXIII in…
A while back, I linked to my friend Pat Archbold’s multi-part series on “actuating the schism.” It was long. It was involved. And it wasn’t particularly optimistic. Today, I’m linking to Pat’s latest piece. It’s significantly shorter – basically a full page of bullet points. I think it’s fair to say it’s more important. And…
I often relay the anecdote that it was Steven Ray’s book on the papacy, Upon This Rock, that gave me the final intellectual push to convert – but mostly it was the opening quote, which brought me about 90% of the way even before delving into the scholarship within. “When Christ at a symbolic moment…
