In his Monday column at First Things, Italian journalist and veteran Vatican-watcher Marco Tosatti gave voice to what had previously been little more than a whispered rumor: that a group was at work, with Vatican knowledge and support, on a kind of interfaith liturgy: [T]here is the matter of the “Ecumenical Mass,” a liturgy designed…
Today, 28 October, an encouraging piece of news comes to us. At the Conference on Humanae Vitae which takes place in Rome, at the Pontifical University St. Thomas Aquinas, and which was organized by the lay organization Voice of the Family, Professor Josef Seifert – a former member of the recently reformed Pontifical Academy for…
Today I watched a short but moving video about a Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, that was founded at the close of the Second World War. Once filled with 84 monks, it has now dwindled to only handful, who are being forced to leave because there are not enough of them — in good enough…
In a two-part essay at Public Discourse (here and here), E. Christian Brugger has responded to Edward Feser and Joseph M. Bassette’s new book on capital punishment (By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment). Feser and Bessette argue that the Church’s traditional teaching on the moral permissibility of the death penalty…
“A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere … the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie.” When I was 13, I attempted suicide for…
Monument of Leonidas, Thermopylae, Greece. Image courtesy of Ava Babili. The Battle of Thermopylae, in 480 BC, was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states and Xerxes I’s Persian Empire. While a Greek army of some 7,000 men blocked a pass for seven days against an army of over 100,000, eventually, they failed after being outflanked.…
Do we really know when this “crisis” started? Many of those concerned about our ongoing – and suddenly calamitously escalating – crisis look mainly back to the last 50 years for causes; it is certainly undeniable that the period immediately following Vatican II has seen the most precipitous drop in the relevant statistics in our…
In light of the Filial Correction and its aftermath, we are witnessing how faithful Christians who have always adhered to the Church teachings are being accused of contradicting themselves. It is alleged that not adhering to the wildest interpretations of Amoris Laetitia and other papal or episcopal statements contradicts Catholic obedience. In the light of…
Things are escalating again. Pieces, falling into a puzzle with a picture we cannot make out, bit by bit. I recently hinted at my own perception of an increase in activity transpiring behind the veil between this world and the next. I suspect many of you sense it, too. Earlier this week, as I was ruminating…
Written by John F. Salza, Esq. Part One of a Two-Part Series Part I – Part II Now that it has been published (on November 14, 2016) that Pope Francis has refused to answer the dubia of the four Cardinals (Brandmüller, Burke, Caffarra and Meisner) issued to him on September 16, 2016 concerning his erroneous and even…
According to the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net, Pope Francis is considering allowing the ordination of so-called viri probati. These “tested men” are said to have “proved their worth” by living virtuously in their marriages and in parish life, indicating a proposed relaxation of the requirement of celibacy in the priesthood for these men who would…
