2024. I awakened this morning unexpectedly thinking of a painful absence, the absence of the sounds of Church bells, which, when we were young, summoned us to to prayer and Mass. Not that we always appreciated this when young to be sure. But it was always there. It was just there, like the rising and… Read More The Absence of the Bells
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
This week Raymond Arroyo, Father Gerald Murray, and Robert Royal break down new reports suggesting Pope Leo may be easing the Latin Mass restrictions through broader exemptions. They examine what this means for bishops, traditional communities, and whether these changes signal the beginning of a quiet shift away from Traditionis Custodes. The Posse also unpacks… Read More “Generous Exemptions” from Pope Francis’ Restrictions on The Latin Mass On Route?
What follows is a critique of Calvinist Apologist James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.. “…that you may know how you ought to behave yourself self in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” — 1 Timothy 3:15 By Stephen Hand The living… Read More White Lies
“A new purge of the Traditional Latin Mass is spreading across the United States and Europe — but why now? Raymond Arroyo and Fr. Gerald Murray dig into what’s driving this wave of restrictions and whether Pope Leo’s latest teaching document on the poor truly holds up. From the crackdown on the Tridentine rite in… Read More Latin Mass Purge Continues
“A major area of distress for [Dorothy Day] in the 1970’s was what seemed to her the erosion occurring in the spiritual life of her fellow Catholics, including those in the Catholic Worker movement. More than ever Catholics seemed attentive to social issues she had been raising for forty years, but they were increasingly neglectful of the… Read More Dorothy Day and Catholic Tradition
By Victor Bruno | New Oxford Review, October 2025 Victor Bruno is an author whose writing has been featured in VoegelinView, The Political Science Reviewer, In Medias Res, Sacred Web, The Fortnightly Review, and elsewhere. He has two books published in Portuguese, the latest being René Guénon Revelado (2023). He also writes the newsletter Cartas da… Read More The Danger of Equating the Church with the Mass
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.
And Fulton J Sheen on the meaning of Palm Sunday. Homily of Benedict XVI, Palm Sunday, 2006. To understand what occurred on Palm Sunday and to know what it meant not only for that time but for all times, a detail is important, which became for his disciples the key to understand that event when,… Read More “The Cross Is the Tree of Life” – Benedict XVI
Fr. Gerald Murray & Robert Royal discuss Pope Francis’ new book, Hope: The Autobiography, the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy as next Archbishop of Washington. Full Disclosure: for many decades and to this day, my wife and I have regularly attended the Traditional Latin Mass with profound gratefulness. We attend the Novus Ordo Mass when… Read More Fr. Gerald Murray and Robert Royal on Francis
Edward Pentin. National Catholic Register. Traditional Latin Mass communities are flourishing around the world with rising vocations and strong Mass attendance but their existence was ignored in the Synod on Synodality’s October assembly and final report. VATICAN CITY — One of the persistent criticisms of the final assembly of the Synod on Synodality has been… Read More Why Was the Synod So Silent on the Traditional Latin Mass?
Mocking retro-politics, retro-sexual morality and “Q-Anon Adjacent” traditional Catholics: “Beneath the veil of the internet’s ‘Trad Caths’”. “… there’s been an uptick in “Trad Cath” content — internet for “traditionalist Catholic” — promoting traditions like the Latin Mass and women wearing veils in church. A lot of these traditions are vibes and aesthetic-based, and easily… Read More NPR and the TLM
In this interesting interview, despite the heading given by Maike Hickson, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller says he believes Pope Benedict XVI understood liturgical development in the context of sacred Tradition correctly, without prejudice to previous expressions of the same sacred Sacrifice. Diversity of rites have always existed side by side in the Church. Müller accepts diversity… Read More Cardinal Gerhard Mueller on Misunderstandings of Liturgical Substance and Unity
“With Romano Guardini, Fr. Pius Parsch is another key player from across the Rhine in the Liturgical Movement. Like Guardini, he was both a theorist and a liturgical “experimenter,” seeking to embody his ideas in new ceremonies. Johann Bruno Parsch was born on May 18, 1884 in Neustift, in Moravia, which was then under the… Read More 50 Years of the New Mass: Pius Parsch
Larry Chapp: Traditionis Custodes’ 3 Years On: Pope Francis’ Latin Mass ‘Motu Proprio’ Has Generated Division, Not Unity Three years after the promulgation of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, imposing severe restrictions on the celebration of the Mass in Latin, controversy over the use of the old Latin Mass is as strong as ever. Therefore, if Pope… Read More Traditionis Custodes’ 3 Years On
The Pillar. “Prominent U.K. figures in the arts, business, journalism, and politics have appealed to the Vatican not to impose new restrictions on the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass. In a letter to the Times of London, published July 3, more than 40 signatories, Catholic and non-Catholic … Read More UK cultural grandees urge Vatican to keep TLM in new ‘Agatha Christie’ letter
“He regards the liturgy as reactionary and effeminate” Damian Thompson. A month ago, 18,000 young people walked on pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres Cathedral in order to demonstrate their love of the Traditional Latin Mass — an intricate and solemn ceremony which, to the horror of Pope Francis, is attracting an unlikely following among Generation Z Catholics. Inside the… Read More Will Pope Francis kill the Latin Mass?
National Catholic Register. COMMENTARY: Cardinal Fernández’s clarification of ‘Fiducia Supplicans,’ the Pope’s solidarity with the Jewish people, and the lack of priests at the Synod on Synodality were addressed by the Holy See last week. Father Raymond J. de Souza Vatican February 7, 2024 On the feast of St. Blaise, the Vatican cleared its collective throat… Read More Reset Saturday At the Vatican
The Rosary of the Sick, linked here, was recorded at this Shrine. My wife, Diane, and I made a short pilgrimage to the Shrine for Christmas Mass, staying over nearby in Harvard Square. Mary the Finder of Grace. “The Basilica and Shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help informally known as The Mission Church is a Roman Catholic basilica in the Mission Hill neighborhood… Read More Christmas in Harvard Square and Roxbury
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
What did the first Christians believe about the Eucharist? How did they follow Jesus’ command, “Do this in remembrance of me”? How did they celebrate the Lord’s Day? What would they recognize in today’s Mass? The answers may surprise you. In The Mass of the Early Christians, respected author, scholar, and television host Mike Aquilina reveals… Read More The Mass of the Early Christians. Mike Aquilina.
Damian Thompson and Luke Coppen of The Pillar In the ancient Syro-Malabar Church of south India, clergy who try to change the liturgy do so at their peril. At St Mary’s Cathedral Basilica in Ernakulam last December, a long-standing dispute over whether the priest should face the people led to scenes in which protestors attacked… Read More “Inside the world’s most vicious liturgy wars.” Or… Monkeying Around With Ancient Liturgy.
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
Christmas Liturgy 2022 View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stephen and Diane Hand (@stephen.hand.12)
January 29, 2022 Gregory DiPippo, of the New Litugical Movement wrote, Denis Crouan, the French founder and president (since 1988 or so) of the organization Pro liturgia, which promotes “the Mass as Vatican II truly intended it”, with Latin, chant, ad orientem, etc., has declared such efforts to be a “waste of time”, and thrown in the… Read More The cri de cœur of Liturgical Scholar Denis Crouan
“Concerning the value of the Mass, Padre Pio said: “If men only appreciated the value of a holy Mass they would need traffic officers at church doors every day to keep the crowds in order.” Padre Pio was asked what his Mass meant to him. He responded: “It is a sacred participation in the passion of Jesus.… Read More St. Padre Pio and the Mass.
See also First Things, Burying Benedict by Matthew Schmitz Intro, Inside the Vatican magazine “Pope Benedict XVI is very old now, and lives mostly in silence and prayer. “Therefore, he is no longer able to defend himself against attacks on his thought as he once did, quite effectively, in his own words, with his own strength of… Read More Canceling Pope Benedict
A brief comparison of liturgy from the 2nd century and liturgy today “While there exist many different liturgical rites within the Catholic Church, each with their own unique traditions, the basic structure of the Mass across all these rites is the same as it it was in the 2nd century. When compared side-by-side, surprisingly little… Read More 155 A.D. The Mass According to Saint Justin Martyr
Catholic Critique 