At the Pentecost Octave, the Church celebrates an end and a beginning. It is the close of the Paschal cycle, which celebrates the close of the Old Covenant. This is the beginning of the Time after Pentecost, celebrating the birth of the Church under the New Covenant not of the letter, but of the Spirit…
When I was growing up, I distinctly recall hearing, more than once, presumably well-meaning teachers and preachers say something like the following: “The Church kind of forgot about the Holy Spirit for a long time, and with Vatican II, we remembered Him. This is now the Age of the Spirit.” Intriguingly, the age of the…
On a frigid December evening in 2012, thirty-five of us lowly officer candidates at Navy Officer Candidate School (OCS) line up outside the base’s dining hall in Newport, Rhode Island. After another grueling day of military drill practice, academic classes, and inspection preparations, we are salivating at the thought of dinner. At the entrance, United…
Integralism is a word that gets argued over a great deal among the American Catholic Twitterati. A lot of them are still having their old dispute over the limits of the Church with regard to the State, that never-ending problem of “who’s boss” between the American Constitution and the pope. But the word “integralism,” understood…
Blind optimism and bleak pessimism both inflict havoc. An optimist opens the windows of the Church to the world to allow in the “fresh” air. As the stench and filth of the world choke out the life of the Church, the pessimist then declares that everyone and everything will perish. “Things cannot get any worse,”…
Editor’s note: originally published at LiturgyGuy.com, we are reprinting the following TLM survey results here at the author’s request, as we believe they are of interest to our audience. Traditional Latin Mass National Adult 18-39 Survey by Fr. Donald Kloster Diocese of Bridgeport, CT [email protected] Contributors: Sha Balizet Fisher, Ph.D., Steve Tschopp (Statistics), Brian Williams-liturgyguy.com,…
“Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust, thou shalt return.” I’m old enough to remember the priest murmuring that as he smeared ashes on my forehead, conveniently bared of my perpetual bangs by my Catholic school beanie. The words seared. I remembered them all year and waited for them the following year. Then…
It snowed this month. Not the heaviest snow I have ever seen, but still snow, with wind that bent the trees. A sort of snow squall. And here in a suburb of New York City, on the ninth of May — May, the “pretty little month,” when the dogwoods bloom with their blood- stained white…
In the afternoon 180 years ago, on May 27, 1840, the Genoese violinist and composer, who surprised the world for his splendid technique and the great innovations brought to his instrument, died in Nice, then part of the kingdom of Sardinia (Savoy-Piedmont), at the age of 58: Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840). His biography states that when…
In 2019, over 10,000 Catholics left the Church in the diocese of Munich and Freising. In 2018, another 9,000 left. Why is the German Church hemorrhaging Catholics? We explore the question. Also: amidst rumors that priest are baptizing babies using squirt guns to maintain social distancing, we take a look at some of the issues…
Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute is a pro-life rock star. I’ve never seen a guy work harder to dig in and identify every detail of corruption going on within putatively Catholic organizations, document it, and expose it. It’s often thankless work. It isn’t always well-received by bishops, and certainly not by staffers at large…
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