On May 17, I published an article in the Italian newspaper La Verità about pope Benedict’s abdication. A few days before, in a renowned Italian geopolitical magazine called Limes, Professor Germano Dottori had argued that Joseph Ratzinger’s 2013 abdication, and …
Tag: pope Benedict XVI

An Aid in Experiencing the Striking Beauty of a Traditional Baptism
Image: Baptism illumination, circa 13th century. Although few things can match the natural beauty of a fall day in the upper Midwest, I still vividly recall my wife and myself making our way from the cool outside air into the …

Italian Geo-Strategist Fuels Debate Over Pope Benedict’s Resignation
An article published recently by an Italian geo-strategist and university professor has again sparked questions concerning the reasons for Pope Benedict XVI’s surprising resignation in 2013. Professor Germano Dottori, a professor at the Institute for Strategic Studies at LUISS-Guido Carli University in …

New Book Honoring Benedict XVI Includes Essay from Defender of “Remarriage”
On 1 April 2017, OnePeterFive reported that Pope Francis chose Professor Anne-Marie Pelletier to write this year’s Via Crucis Meditations which will be read on Good Friday by the pope himself at the Colosseum in Rome. Pelletier was a speaker …

What Pope Francis Can Learn from Pope Benedict about Humility
Which pope, long before being raised to the papal office, criticized “the all-too-predetermined dogmatic reading” [1] of the Bible, and later, having exercised that office, continued promoting this belief “that theology obviously has its own freedom and task, that it cannot …

The Ongoing Discussion about Pope Benedict XVI’s Resignation Receives New Fuel
Since the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013, speculations have never fully ceased as to whether he was pressured to do so, after all, in order to make way for a more progressive-leaning pontiff. Archbishop Luigi Negri …

A Plea to Youth Ministers: Give Up the Past and Embrace an Ageless Tradition
Some time ago, a Catholic priest wrote me a wonderful letter about tradition and youth ministry, which turned into a correspondence that struck me as worth sharing with a wider readership. So many of us face the issues discussed therein, …

Discovering a Church in Crisis: Personal Reflections of a Recent Convert
Editor’s note: The following is the first part of a series. Read Part II, Part III, and Part IV at the links. I. Introduction What is going on in the Church these days? How to understand the origin of our …

Back to the Four Marks: One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic after Vatican II
The four marks of the Church are One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. With so many changes having happened within the Church during the past century, many are left wondering: what vestiges remain of the Apostolic deposit of faith? In the …

We “Go Forward” in the Liturgy When the Sacred is Restored
This past Saturday Pope Francis travelled to the parish of Ognissanti (All Saints) in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the first vernacular Mass celebrated there by Pope Paul VI in 1965. Immediately following the Mass, the Holy Father exited …