by Thomas Storck. What is needed is a real debate on religious questions providing a rational public apologetic for the faith. “For we were not following fictitious tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his grandeur.” – 2 Peter 1:16 The… Read More The Catholic Faith Is Not a Noble Lie
While every age is a mixture of blessings and hardships, good ideas or actions and bad, the Middle Ages were once depicted as especially dark. But modern scholarship has long known that is a very superficial judgment. + 25 myths about the Middle Ages You Likely Thought Were True (YouTube) For example, Farming has always… Read More Those Awful Middle Ages
By Thomas Merton. ONE of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane. I do not doubt it at all, and that is precisely why I find it disturbing. If all the Nazis had been psychotics, as some of their leaders… Read More A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichmann
Mass. June 2025. Now You See Him. Now You Don’t. Who or what here is front and Center at Mass the whole time? And Who is casually picked up – with one hand! – put back down and de-emphasized quickly, then passed around in what appears to be the real climax of the present liturgical… Read More Dismal Liturgies
One body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Father of us all” — Eph. 4: 4-6 Every ecclesial community brings its tradition(s) to bear in the exegesis and understanding of Scripture. Even independent Protestant Fundamentalist pastors and larger Protestant denominations(1) employ their traditions [i.e., their received community understanding of texts] as a… Read More Catholicism, Tradition and Protestantism
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by Stephen Hand In Evelyn Waugh’s stunning classic, Brideshead Revisited, there is a scene which presses on my mind these days as I ponder so many forces gathering against a Church weakened greatly by the sins of her own children, both clerical and lay. All of us. It is the time when Sebastian, Lord Alex… Read More Lord Marchmain’s Long Hate
“Let Us Make Good Use of Time“. By Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D. 1. Time passes and does not return. God has assigned to each of us a definite time in which to fulfill His divine plan for our soul; we have this time and shall have no more. Time ill spent is… Read More Time Passes and Does Not Return
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
“And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun.”— Joseph Pearce Note: I do not consider Pope Benedict XVI to have been perfect. Which pope in history was? Even Pius XII allowed the infamous Teilhard de Chardin to remain a priest in the… Read More Benedict XVI by Joseph Pearce
Whatever trouble has been wrought by apostate clergy, or otherwise indifferent power blocks in the Church today, the prophecies concerning the infiltrations of Christ’s Mystical Body, as the climax of history approaches, makes it clear that Catholic Christians are to be vigilant. Macaulay urged us, not to forget that all branches are cut off from… Read More Macaulay on the Catholic Church
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.
Put the news aside for a time. If unhappiness is growing consider it a reset signal to return to philosophy where all education and earthly wisdom began. …This is an excellent series, very informative and very fair to Catholic, Protestant and Enlightenment philosophies. Thales to Sartre and beyond. 81 comprehensive episodes. One can learn something… Read More Dr. Arthur Holmes Lectures. A History of Philosophy.
Excerpt from Richard Evans‘ The Third Reich in Power [Footnotes found in book]. CATHOLICS AND PAGANS. Hitler both admired and feared the Catholic Church, which at the time of his appointment as Reich Chancellor claimed the allegiance of about 20 million Germans, or one-third of the population, mostly in the South and West. Like Bismarck… Read More Richard Evans on Hitler and the Catholic Church.
“In Archbishop Georg Gänswein’s memoir, Nothing but the Truth — My Life Beside Benedict XVI, there are some passages which confirm that the pope emeritus, in relation to ethically sensitive issues, was in full harmony with the Magisterium of the Church and in significant discord with the magisterium of Pope Francis albeit presented with extreme grace… Read More On abortion and gender Benedict and Francis are irreconcilable
— from Part II of the Catholics & American Life Symposium. New Oxford Review. January-Febuary 2025. On Christmas Day 1886, 18-year-old Paul Claudel — raised Catholic but delinquent in his faith — was listening to vespers in Notre-Dame de Paris. It was an event that “dominates my entire life,” he later recounted. “My heart was touched, and… Read More Karl Keating: Catholics & American Life
And replies. By What Authority Does C.S. Lewis Pontificate? By Thomas Storck | New Oxford Review. Thomas Storck is a Contributing Editor of the New Oxford Review. The great Anglican apologist and scholar C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) championed a concept he called “mere Christianity.” Although the term itself seems to have been coined by the Puritan… Read More Is There Such a Thing as “Mere Christianity”?
“Tribulation worketh patience“—Rom. 5:3 St. Francis de Sales writing of tribulations and patience says that there is always the danger that, “Some word will escape that may sour the heart, and disturb its peace for a considerable time,” But “when nothing is said … the storm subsides, anger and indiscretion are put to flight…” “A… Read More On Patience. By St. Francis de Sales
Danger Signs of “Catholic Group Cult Behavior,” and 4 to. Excerpt, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, National Catholic Register, April 24, 2017. 4 “Danger Signs of Cult-Like Behavior, and 4 Antidotes” … what are the danger signs? First of all, if a religious community or a religious leader (or leaders) seems too good to be true — guess… Read More In Messy Times They Can Seem Smart, Sometimes Even Pious. But …
Trent Horn earned master’s degrees in the fields of theology, philosophy, and bioethics. He serves as a staff apologist for Catholic Answers, where he specializes in teaching Catholics to graciously and persuasively engage those who disagree with them. Trent models that approach each week on the radio program Catholic Answers Live and on his own podcast, The Counsel… Read More Trent Horn: What Charlie Kirk Gets Wrong About the Catholic Church
… and the state of the Church.. unfinished controversy? | New Oxford Review 2001. Cardinal Walter Kasper famously contested Cardinal Ratzinger’s defense of the “ontological primacy of the universal church” over the local churches. By Philip Blosser | April 2002Philip Blosser, Professor of Philosophy at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, North Carolina. “When Cardinals clash in… Read More Revisiting The Kasper-Ratzinger debate
National Catholic Register. With a saintly long-ranging spiritual vision, Ven. Fulton J. Sheen saw the roots of today’s crisis firmly planted and growing in 1974, but he gave us an antidote. Joseph Pronechen July 29, 2018 “First of all, we are at the end of Christendom,” Archbishop Fulton Sheen solemnly said during a television show in… Read More Archbishop Sheen’s Warning of a Crisis in Christendom. 1974.
… in your pocket. I don’t want money or offerings. Keep it for your family, your neighbors, and Christ’s poor. I only want to share content that will possibly edify, inform, and console in this time of global and ecclesial destabilization. Here at this website I mostly share the invaluable work of others, past and… Read More Catholic Critique. If there is any value in this website, please keep your money…
“… several years after my Bat Mitzvah, I started to ask myself deeper questions: What is the real purpose of our human existence? What really happens when we die? And God, why do YOU feel so far away? I felt like I received a fantastic introduction to God, but I was still, somehow, craving more: I wanted a… Read More Why Recognizing Jesus as the Messiah Is the Culmination of My Jewish Faith
National Catholic Register. The hearing followed the unveiling of the House Judiciary Committee’s report detailing the results of a monthslong investigation into a leaked internal FBI memo that discussed investigating Catholics as potential domestic terrorists. FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on… Read More FBI Director Grilled After Release of New Report on Targeting of Catholics
Truth does not change with the changes in political parties, current philosophies or trends. ” a thing cannot be and not be at the same time”— St. Thomas (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 1, chap. 84) “…reason’s first principle is the principle of contradiction. He who denies this principle affirms a self-destructive sentence. To deny this principle… Read More Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange on Reason and The Law of Non-Contradiction.
It cannot be seriously doubted in our time that since the Second Vatican Council not a little of what has been called “Catholic ecumenism” has in fact gone off the Church’s traditional dogmatic rails. But for all that the principle cannot be doubted. It was doubtless the seemingly radical abruptness of the Church’s turnaround regarding… Read More Traditional Catholic Ecumenism
“For the first time in over fifty years, a Catholic bishop has published his own comprehensive presentation of the Faith–what to believe, how to live, and how to pray as Christ taught. Sure to be a classic for generations to come, Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith offers a clear and readable summary of Catholicism… Read More Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith. Athanasius Schneider.
Fundamentalist Protestant incomprehension of the Catholic doctrine regarding Mary as the Mother of God is largely and essentially an incomprehension of the Incarnation itself, whereby the Word, who is God, was made flesh (John 1:1; 14). It is rooted in a failure to contemplate, with the Catholic Church, the stupendous implications of this wondrous mystery.… Read More Our Blessed Mother, Mary, in the Order of Grace
Bends over backwards to save ubiquitous travesties. “A few months ago, I visited Lourdes for the first time, and when I saw the mosaics, I groaned out loud. Father Rupnik’s style is immediately recognizable, and my first thought was that the art would forever be tainted… Three years ago, he was even briefly excommunicated …… Read More America Magazine Compares Rupnik Cartoons to Caravaggio.
Why Catholic Critique? To confess the Faith to any who wish to hear or see. “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9)…” “If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples…” (Jn. 8:31) This website is a small,… Read More Catholic Critique
“New World Order Without God”… Who needs the old Progressivist desire for a Third Vatican Council to mitigate Church teachings when they can have almost anything they want through an incremental permanent synodal Church? A lot of the infiltrators who maneuvered their way into the highest positions in the Church by pretending to be pious… Read More Cardinal Müller challenges Pope Francis
Damian Thompson associate editor of The Spectator writes, “Ludwig van Beethoven had a profound faith in God. He was born and raised a Catholic and on his deathbed he asked to receive the Last Rites. He told the priest, ‘I thank you, ghostly sir – you have brought me comfort.’ One of his closest friends,… Read More Why didn’t Beethoven Go to Mass?
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
“Master, do you not care that we perish?” — Mark iv. 38. “… we bear in mind what was promised about the holy church and him who said that the gates of hell will not prevail against it (by these we understand the death-dealing tongues of heretics); we also bear in mind what was prophesied… Read More The Gates of Hell — (Formal Heresies within and without) — Do Not Prevail
By Joseph Pearce. As mentioned earlier … I was honoured to be asked to write the introduction to the first Spanish edition of the play, Sir Thomas More, which was authored by Shakespeare in collaboration with several other contemporary playwrights. Querying some of the assertions that I made in that introduction, a Spanish correspondence wrote to… Read More Shakespeare, Thomas More, and Henry VIII
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
Weaponizing Jesus, Flowers, Rainbows… It was never a controversy about skin color for Catholics, despite NCRs disingenuous claims. The problem went much, much, deeper. “First unveiled on NBC’s Today Show in 2000, Janet McKenzie’s painting, Jesus of the People was the first place winner of the National ‘Catholic’ Reporter’s global competition to identify an image of Jesus… Read More Why NCRs Androgynous ‘Jesus 2000’ Was a Problem
No Conceivable…Justification” for aerial warfare, “dreadful weapons”. Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, head of the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII and John XXIII, wrote in 1947: “The extent of the damage done to national assets by aerial warfare, and the dreadful weapons that have been introduced of late, is so great that it leaves both vanquished… Read More What Could These Men Possibly Have Had in Common?
Benedict XVI: “The true threat for the Church, and thus for the Petrine service … comes from the universal dictatorship of apparently humanistic ideologies. Anyone who contradicts this dictatorship is excluded from the basic consensus of society. One hundred years ago, anyone would have thought it absurd to speak of [The rainbow revolution]. Today those… Read More Benedict XVI: The “Spiritual Power of AntiChrist”
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