The following letter exchange addresses some of the difficult questions Catholics are asking themselves today. Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, In your article “The Failure of Todaying: Abandon the Passé and Recover Tradition,” you wrote: “The reality is that the Church is already in schism. It is a virtual, unacknowledged schism, but no less real, spiritually, for…
A few years ago, my wife looked at me, after one of my rants about how bad things were getting in the Church, and asked me a simple question: “If this makes you so miserable, why are you still doing it?” I understood her question to be about my work, in particular, but also about…
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on the topic of introducing children to the traditional Latin Mass and making it fruitful for them. The first part is available here. NB: This article (and its companion piece) have been published, in rewritten form, as chapter 20 in my book Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius…
It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it… ― Flannery O’Connor, “The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor” At mid-life, I have absolutely no patience or charity for eunuch huckster priests who sell the LGBT lie like patent medicine. At 16, I bought…
Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on the topic of introducing children to the traditional Latin Mass and making it fruitful for them. The second part is available here. NB: This article, along with its companion piece, has been published in rewritten form as chapter 20 in my book Reclaiming Our…
In a new directive from Cardinal Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation For Divine Worship and the Sacraments, published with the approval of Pope Francis, Catholics are urged to recognize that virtual participation in the liturgy and the life of the Church is not a replacement for the real thing. The letter, published today, is entitled,…
On Aug. 20, Vice Adm. Yancy Lindsey, Commander, Navy Installations Command, announced that “religious services will be cut at bases where those services are readily available in the surrounding community outside the base” in order to “reduce redundancies and capture efficiencies” as part of a national realignment. Commander, Navy Installations Command, commonly referred to as…
We have carried the torch. We have rebuilt. And we have done what we said we never would: we have forgotten. Today, on the 19th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history, the internet and news channels will be filled with retrospectives on the day we all watched in horror as multiple attacks…
Some of the fondest memories I have from my childhood are of doing math and science projects with my dad. My father is a carpenter by profession and so our basement was and is filled with wood and metal, power tools and fasteners of all kinds. We readily put these scraps to use on such…
The Godmother: Madre Pascalina, a Feminine Tour de Force Author: Charles T. Murr Publisher: Enrique J. Aguilar 304 Pages $9.95 Kindle; $24.95 Paperback Charles Theodore Murr is a Catholic Priest from the archdiocese of New York now retired. During his time as a Seminarian in Rome in the 1970s, he had the blessing of befriending…
The Conversation with the Former Parishioner Even with all the good will in the world, Catholics who have decided to quit their Novus Ordo parish in order to attend the Latin Mass elsewhere often dread those meetings with parishioners they used to see near home—especially the cheerleaders for the postconciliar status quo. Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,…
