Editor’s note: Vivifica is a pen name for two Catholic university students studying theology. Established in the summer of 2017, Vivifica aims to revive and restore Catholic traditions through web videos, blogging, and parish missions. Each Sunday, during holy days of obligation, and during the week when we can, we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of…
Editor’s note: originally published in February, 2017, we are re-posting this today in light of dismissals by some media outlets that the Vatican would ever consider a new, contraception-friendly pastoral “re-interpretation” of Humanae Vitae. The nature of the statements and gestures below — and the sheer number of them — should put any confidence that Humanae Vitae could…
Back in May, we shared a report from veteran Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, who had gotten wind of an alleged Vatican commission formed to study — and possibly to revisit — the teachings on contraception found in Humanae Vitae. Within a month’s time, the existence of this commission was confirmed by Professor Roberto de Mattei in…
A reader wrote to me earlier this week and said, “Here is a link to a ‘financial’ article that maps very closely to what is going on in our Church.” I read it, and I found it to be excellent. Here’s an excerpt of the most relevant bits: Lies, half-truths and cover-ups are all manifestations…
Though the rumors have been stirring for a while now, John-Henry Westen of LifeSiteNews reports today that sources in Rome are talking about a possible plan to ghettoize the Traditional Latin Mass: Sources inside the Vatican suggest that Pope Francis aims to end Pope Benedict XVI’s universal permission for priests to say the Traditional Latin…
This is a post about gratitude. Gratitude to all of you. Gratitude to one special person in particular, too. But before I get to that, with our third anniversary online just a few days away, I think some history is in order. Not long after Pope Francis was elected, I quit my job as Director…
Mass of Saint Gregory the Great by Master of Portillo (1520-1525). Far too often these days liturgical discussions pertaining to the Roman Rite start with the popular myth that the Traditional Latin Mass only dates back to the sixteenth century and the Council of Trent (1545-1563). While some make this claim simply due to a lack of catechesis,…
Image: Interior of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Roanoke, Virginia. When I was a teenager, and when it came to considering the state of life to which God was calling me, I had strong, gripping hopes and dreams for what I wanted to do – but an even stronger, more gripping fear of letting my…
At Mass this morning, a baby girl was sitting in the pew directly in front of me. She had wide, inquisitive eyes and dark, fuzzy hair that stood on end. Her carrier was turned in such a way that she was staring right at me throughout the first parts of the Mass, and every time…
‘It is not permitted to be present at the sacred rites of infidels and heretics in such a way that you would be judged to be in communion with them’. – St. Alphonsus Liguori, Theologia Moralis, Lib.5, Tract. 1, Cap. 3. I don’t even know where to start. Thanks to a tip from a reader this morning, I headed over…
Image: Cardinal Müller and Pope Emeritus Benedict — Source Today, 19 July, there appeared a new interview with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. It is an interview which he had given in early July to the prominent secular German news agency DPA (German Press Agency); this…
