In a motu proprio letter dated January 17th, the pope has made official an action that has been rumored for some time: citing a change in the conditions that had “led the Holy Pontiff John Paul II to the establishment of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei” (PCED) in 1988, Francis has suppressed the commission and…
Monsignor Nicola Bux is a highly respected clergyman and former consultor to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith who had been involved with Pope Benedict XVI’s restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass in July of 2007. He also recently wrote a foreword for a book written by Professor Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the former…
Our parish has sixty-two programs, projects, and ministries. I counted them. Have you miscarried? There’s a project for that. Do you struggle with pornography? A parish ministry can help you. Don’t have enough to eat? We have a program to assist you. What if you are in your seventies or older and feeling abandoned by…
Editor’s note: This article is Part II of a series. For Part I, click here. The traditional Mass can be compared to a tournament. At the beginning of a High Mass, the priest (knight) processes in with the deacon and sub-deacon (squires) and all the acolytes, torchbearers, and other servers (pages). The priest is arrayed…
Photo credit: Paweł Kula Editor’s note: This article is Part I of a two-part series. For Part II, click here. Author’s note: This article dwells particularly on the vocation to the priestly life. For the most part, the things said about the priesthood are also applicable to the religious life in general. Also, even though about…
Image: Interior of St. Andrew’s Catholic Church in Roanoke, Virginia. When I was a teenager, and when it came to considering the state of life to which God was calling me, I had strong, gripping hopes and dreams for what I wanted to do – but an even stronger, more gripping fear of letting my…
I’ve had the privilege of being able to attend the traditional Latin Mass for going on nine months now. I can say without hesitation that this transition has been the single best change of my life. I’ll forever have an ongoing love story with Catholic tradition, and I’ve been blessed to discover that nowhere is Catholic…
Editor’s note: The following is Part II of a four-part series. Read Part I, Part III, and Part IV at the links. The Sacred Liturgy “Lex orandi, lex credendi.” The order of Mass expresses and teaches Catholic doctrine. The changes to the Mass, sadly, are an example of a break from tradition – a “hermeneutic of…
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 present dilemmas, and what to do about them? Like many of you, I’ve wrestled with…
