“It is fashionable for Catholic liberals to decry the pre-conciliar Church as concerned with little more than personal piety and indifferent to the injustice and suffering in the world. This is a monstrous travesty of the truth as every adult Catholic must surely know. Never in the history of our planet has so much concern… Read More Michael Davies on the Merciful, Ever Welcoming Church
Countering Increasing Irreverence and Disrespect. By Gerard T. Mundy | New Oxford Review. April 2024. Gerard T. Mundy is a writer who teaches philosophy at a New York City university. The sacred territory of the Catholic altar, at which the Lord Himself is consecrated and the tabernacle holding the Lord is expected to repose, commands respect… Read More A “Cleansing of the Altar” Is Long Overdue
AP. A step back in time’: America’s Catholic Church sees an immense shift toward the old ways. “… The progressive priests who dominated the U.S. church in the years after Vatican II are now in their 70s and 80s. Many are retired. Some are dead. Younger priests, surveys show, are far more conservative. “They say… Read More In This Post-Francis Era – Immense shift toward the old ways.
By Edward Pentin. Being a Catholic in 2024 is no easy endeavour. The West is undergoing a massive de-Christianization, so much so that Catholicism appears to be vanishing from the public sphere. Elsewhere, the number of Christians being persecuted for their faith is on the rise. What’s more, the Church has been struck by an… Read More Lay Movement Launches International Campaign for ‘Total Freedom of the Traditional Liturgy’
Catholic World Report. Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency: This was the threefold watchword. Christopher R. Altieri. “Five years ago, the Pontiff railed against “abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth…” His record since has been abysmal and even scandalous.” “Pope Francis has refused to defrock a confessed child molester or even remove him from… Read More “Pope Francis’s ‘all-out battle’ against clerical abuse has been a failure”
“Canterbury Cathedral, where St Thomas Becket was martyred just next to the nave, is hosting a “90s Silent Disco” over two nights Feb. 8-9. 3,000 people expected to take part. Faithful are protesting against the event with prayer vigils outside @CburyCathedral”. Faithful Catholics are being taunted all over Europe, the United States and beyond by… Read More Canterbury Cathedral
“For more than 50 years, the vast majority of the world’s most prominent archaeologists and historians have proclaimed that there is no hard evidence to support the Exodus story found in the Bible. In fact, they say that the archaeological record is completely opposed to the Bible’s account. This view of extreme skepticism has spread… Read More The Exodus: Patterns of Evidence
Gregory Dipippo, New Liturgical Movement “… A fascinating documentary broadcast on NBC in mid-1968 about “The New American Catholic”, which proves the truth of the adage that nothing goes out of fashion so quickly as modernity. “As someone raised in the Church in the 1970s, I found all the talk here about “renewal” (et similia)… Read More The New American Catholic Documentary, 1968
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
“What makes for kitsch is not the attempt to compete with the photograph [as Greenberg believed was true of representational art] but the attempt to have your emotions on the cheap—the attempt to appear sublime without the effort of being so. And this cut-price version of the sublime artistic gesture is there for all to see… Read More Spiritual Beauty in Art: Never Cheap, Never Kitsch, Never Rupnik
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.
“While the Sacraments of Confession (also called Reconciliation or Penance) and Baptism are distinct, they share some profound similarities because both are sacraments of forgiveness and restoration. Similarities: 1. Both Forgive Sins: – Baptism forgives all sins—both original sin, which we inherit from Adam and Eve (cf. Romans 5:12), and any personal sins committed… Read More Confession is Like “A Second Baptism”
Vaclav Havel waves to crowds in Prague, shortly before becoming Czech president in December 1989. Kamila Valenta writes in America, “I was 17 years old when I heard the Lord’s Prayer spoken in public for the first time. It was in November 1989 during the Velvet Revolution, which brought freedom to Communist Czechoslovakia. The crowd… Read More The Lord’s Prayer, Freedom, and the Spiritual Vaclav Havel
—Sacred Traditio, Sacred Liturgy, Sacred Space, Sacred Scripture. “Try to wrap your head around…” — Culture critic, Florence, Italy
“…The Christmas season represented rich pickings for the priest hunters [in Elizabethan England]. As one of the great celebrations of the Catholic Church, it was disapproved of by some Protestant reformers. More than that, it was a great opportunity to flush out Catholic priests – all of whom had been outlawed by the state during… Read More The Secret ‘Priest Holes’ of England
By Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene, O.C.D O my Savior, Word of God, how can I doubt that You are coming upon earth to save and sanctify me? Why do I not go to You with complete, loving confidence, when You have spared nothing to show me Your infinitely merciful love? Your Incarnation, Your… Read More The Greater Interior Silence of Advent
“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
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
Why Were Authorities so Quick to Rule out Arson in the Notre Dame Conflagration? BY Roger Kimball, Apr. 17, 2019 I feel I must hand it to those stalwart souls investigating the devastating conflagration at the Cathedral of Notre Dame… The flames were not quenched at the 12th-century masterpiece of Gothic architecture when the authorities… Read More An Old Flame We Do Not Forget. Notre Dame.
Catholic Critique 