The Lord said to Cain: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground” (Gen 4:10). The voice of the blood shed by men continues to cry out, from generation to generation, in ever new and different ways. – Evangelium Vitae “Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his…
Minimalism, in its proper context, can be beautiful. We see this in the peaceful feeling of an uncluttered house, a simple graphic design, the clean lines of good architecture, or the stark contrast of a cherry blossom against the white backdrop of a Japanese silkscreen print. But when it comes to Catholicism, there is a danger in…
I recently kicked up some dust about the recent elevation of Gregory of Narek, a tenth-century Armenian monk, to the status of a Doctor of the (entire Catholic) Church. The debate drags on at my own blog, and my own efforts to make sense of this decision are still underway. The finer points of dyotheletic…
I had just entered the seminary when Cardinal Ratzinger’s book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, came out. I had an English copy expressed to me and brought it with me into the chapel as my spiritual reading during our daily community Holy Hour. One of the older men knelt next to me as I was…
“The real reason I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not a disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine, but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not…
In an exclusive and wide-ranging interview with Rorate Caeli, Cardinal Burke answered questions on a number of the most pressing topics on the minds of Catholics today. Perhaps most notable to readers of 1P5 is this exchange (with my emphasis): Rorate Caeli: What words of encouragement can Your Eminence give to traditional Catholics who are struggling…
It was originally reported that a traditional Latin Mass would be offered for our benefactors yesterday, March 1st, by the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem at their priory in Charles Town, WV. Through an administrative error, we got the dates mixed up. The Mass was actually celebrated at 11:15 AM today, March 2nd. I sent…
The rise of liberal Protestantism and its later Catholic equivalent, Modernism, sowed many seeds of doubt in the minds of Christians about the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible. If ‘error’ is defined as a false assertion, it is not uncommon to find Catholic teachers today who nonchalantly maintain that Scripture contains plenty of errors.…
It’s been quite a week. I’ve spent a good bit of my time clearing snow and not writing, but a lot of stories of note have hit my inbox. Here’s a roundup of the most significant ones I’ve seen: Five Cardinals Book stolen from participants’ mailboxes at last year’s Synod on Family (Fr. Z) – the importance…
On March 15, 1994, a virtual tsunami struck the Liturgy of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Antonio Ortas wrote a document to the Episcopal conferences announcing that the Vatican had, for the first time, permitted altar girls. Over 20 years later, many question the impact of this decision as the Church continues to reap…
The recent declaration of Gregory of Narek as a Doctor of the Church universal raises important questions about ecclesial unity, ecumenism, papal authority, and the very nature of Christ. As one blogger* described the quandary: The [Armenian Orthodox Church], the body to which Gregory belonged, has formally and persistently rejected the authority of the Council of Chalcedon, was not in…
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