The events of 1968 had a strong bearing on his shift to a more conservative outlook. Excerpted from “POPE BENEDICT XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger.” (c) 2000 by John L. Allen, Jr.The Continuum. Joseph Ratzinger arrived at Tübingen [University] in 1966, still enthusiastic about the promise of Vatican II and ready to take his… Read More How the ’60s Changed Ratzinger
by Michael Davies.From Catholic, October 1996. The Catholic Church was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son made Man. He has promised His Church that She will continue to exist exactly as He constituted her until He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead. The Catholic Church is the Church that is indefectible. The… Read More Michael Davies on the Indefectibility of the Mass of Paul VI.
Like the Cross of Christ which for three hours appeared like the most terrible defeat, Truth can sometimes sound pessimistic, but Christians know that the terminus of all things lies far beyond pedestrian ideas of optimism / pessimism. The final word in the history of salvation is Optimistim beyond all earthly conceptions and expectations. Cardinal… Read More Like a Boat taking in water on every side…
“The living magisterium makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. “It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the… Read More Tradition and the Living Magisterium.
…the words of Benedict XVI in 2015, two years after his decision to resign due to failing health and insomnia. “As one sees the power of Antichrist spreading, one can only pray that the Lord will give us mighty shepherds to defend His Church against the power of evil in this hour of need.” It… Read More Rod Dreher on Benedict XVI and the Power of Antichrist
…the considerable numbers of trendy theologians and clerics who have fallen away from the teachings of the Sacred Scriptures (and the apostolic fathers who faithfully passed on these teachings) and appear to be selling their souls for the pleasures of this world. Dr. Ralph Martin received his BA from the University of Notre Dame in Philosophy… Read More Theologian Targets the Heart of the Problem
Commentary: ‘People of God’ was seen as the way by which the Church could express herself as an institution rooted in the mystery of the Trinity, yet present and active in the world. National Catholic RegisterFather Joseph Thomas February 26, 2024 How can we explain that the Church is an ineffable mystery, yet also a visible… Read More What Were They Thinking? Vatican II and the ‘People of God’
Hear Davies’ talk: What Happened at Vatican II? +++ Michael Treharne Davies (13 March 1936 – 25 September 2004[1]) was a British teacher and traditionalist Catholic writer of many books about the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council… Although Davies opposed French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s canonically-illicit consecration of four SSPX bishops in 1988 against the wishes of Pope John Paul II,… Read More Michael Davies. What Happened at Vatican II?
“THIS IS A question which has, in a sense, a frantically comic side. For the real question is not what are we to make of Christ, but what is He to make of us? The picture of a fly sitting deciding what it is going to make of an elephant has comic elements about it.… Read More What are we to make of Jesus Christ? by C.S. Lewis.
Updated. A couple of years ago our son asked me if I watched Michael Voris’ YouTube channel. I replied along the lines of, “Sometimes. Not very often. He’s been around for a long time; I know his thinking well enough. It can lead to wrong impressions, to schism or outright skepticism.” It can also minimize… Read More Michael Davies on Our Priests and Our Tribulation
2007: In the preface to the book John Allen wrote on the Popes ascendance, “The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church” by John L. Allen. “Because the new pope [Benedict XVI] has been a highly public figure generating diverse reactions,… Read More Benedict XVI, John Allen and Myself
Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register wrote, “The former cardinal-archbishop of Milan [Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini], a favorite of those pushing for heterodox reforms in the Church, had envisioned a permanent synodal Church in which the idea of collegial governance introduced at the Second Vatican Council could be better realized. The Jesuit biblical… Read More Martini’s Endless Dream
Bishops decry Media Assault on St. John Paul II. CNA Staff Newsroom, Dec 7, 2022 / 08:00 Journalists investigating secular and Catholic Church sources in Poland have called into question allegations by a Dutch writer that St. John Paul II “covered up” sexual abuse while still a bishop in Poland. On Dec. 2, Ekke Overbeek,… Read More Journalists contradict Overbeek ‘Cover up’ Story
Even if it may have caused more problems than it solved, Vatican II for the future Pope was in no small part about reintegrating loose and undisciplined elements of immutable Catholic doctrine with Christological and Eucharistic teaching. George Weigel writes, “In the years immediately after the Council, Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI), who… Read More Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on Reasons for Vatican II
By Michael Brendan Dougherty.National Review, 10/12/22. And six decades of pseudo-theologyYears ago, during a very brief meeting at New York University with the eminent English conservative Roger Scruton, I shared with him — an Anglican by tradition — my reservations about the Second Vatican Council and my interest in the old liturgy. He had no… Read More 60 Years Since Vatican II
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