The standard complaint against traditionalists, that we are demanding and obnoxious, has surfaced yet again in the Catholic blogosphere. This time it comes to us courtesy of the site Unam, Sanctam, Catholicam (a blog which I appreciate and enjoy reading on occasion). In his most recent post, however, Boniface (the author’s pseudonym) addresses the perceived problem…
A true patron saint for our times.
As a child, I revered my father and I didn’t understand him. I instinctively knew that my survival depended upon him. My father was a hard worker. He was industrious. He could create something out of nothing: a garden, a tree house, an addition to our home. He was a dispenser of my material happiness;…
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a longer three-part study of how the Freemasons in the world have responded to Pope Francis and his papacy. Without further introduction, we continue herewith the collection of quotes and varied evidence to show just how much Masonry approves of Pope Francis. Part Two of Three Parts:…
Today, 28 April, the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net has published an important report written by a Maltese Knight about a recent audience with Cardinal Raymond Burke in which the (“de facto suspended“) Cardinal Patron revealed much of the background of the current crisis in the Order. Burke, who has not spoken publicly on the matter himself,…
When Fra’ Matthew Festing abdicated his position as Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta — at the pope’s direct request — it left many scratching their heads. How could he allow himself to be pushed out so easily? How was it that his earlier resistance to interference in the sovereign order over which…
I’ve never been to Norcia, but before the seemingly-endless series of earthquakes that ravaged the town and destroyed the Basilica of St. Benedict, I would imagine it as my friend Hilary White described it, or as it was captured so beautifully in the photographs and descriptions (like the one above) offered by Julian Kwasniewski. Just the other…
One sunny autumn day, as I was taking a walk throughout my neighborhood, I spotted a man whom I had never met before, and who I knew did not live in the neighborhood. After briefly talking, he reached into his pocket and handed me something. It was a dollar bill with a picture of Benjamin…
(Image: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger at an ordination of FSSP priests in Wigratzbad, Germany, 1990.) The usually cautious and reserved Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) has now given its current opinion concerning the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and on its possible formal re-integration into the structures of the Catholic Church. Father Bernhard Gerstle – the…
Yesterday, 22 April, there took place the important lay conference in Rome which was organized by the Italian publications La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana and Il Timone and which was dedicated to a public critique of the post-synodal exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Already today, there have been several articles about this event published, among them by Dr. Sandro Magister,…
I seem to be developing a particular love and admiration for our corvid friends lately, with a pair of clever and beautiful magpies visiting my garden in Norcia quite regularly and huge numbers of crows and ravens in that ancient valley. It struck me a while ago just how frequently they appear in Christian history…
