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.
Update: July 2025. Did Pope Francis Mislead the Church Regarding Traditional Latin Mass Survey? Traditionis Custodes: Taking a Bulldozer to an Anthill. Traditionalists and Pope Francis by Pieter Vree, editor |New Oxford Review, October 2021. “Nobody comes out clean…” In January 1985 President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, signed the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits federally… Read More Traditionis Custodes. New Oxford Review.
You may be a traditional Catholic with ten beautiful home-schooled children who are each proficient in academics and in the arts. You may contribute substantially to both your church’s financial soundness and, to all appearances, to her reputation for spiritual integrity and growth . You may work hard, have a secure financial portfolio of stocks,… Read More The Successful, Proud, and Conflicted Traditionalist
“There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of liturgy growth and progress are found, but not a rupture. What was sacred for our ancestors remains sacred and great for us and it is not permissible that it be suddenly prohibited altogether, nor that it be judged as… Read More “What was sacred for our ancestors remains sacred and great for us” — BXVI
… but pay attention to what is said” — Thomas a’ Kempis, The Imitation of Christ. Begging With Confidence January 27, 2024 Around us, evil on evil is unfurled? “Fear not,” said Jesus, “I’ve overcome the world” (Jn. XVI, 33). On the last day of 2023 a Franciscan priest of the Capucin Friary of Morgon… Read More “Do not inquire, ‘Who said this?’
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.
Tuesday Update: 11/14/23 Bishop Strickland Calls for Prayers for Pope Francis, Warns of Forces Corrupting Catholic Church WSJ: Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland, a vocal critic of the pope, has “warned of ‘blasphemies emanating from Rome’”(WSJ 11/12/23) “Ousted Bishop Speculates on the Reasons the Vatican Removed Him. National Catholic Register: ““I really can‘t look to any… Read More Pope Francis Fires Conservative U.S. Bishop. Updated.
“Pope Francis oversees a curia where the Relator General for the Synod on Synodality claims the Church’s teaching about homosexual acts is “false,” where the head of the Pontifical Academy for Life endorses a book that calls for a complete reversal of the Church’s teaching on contraception, and where the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of… Read More Hard to Believe History Will Be Kind
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.
Updated. Cardinals Mueller and Burke on the German Synod and beyond. “Bishops are accusing brother bishops of schism and heresy — and it’s all over the most fundamental and crucial doctrines of the Church.” Signs of the times. “Desecration is the act of depriving something of its sacred character, or the disrespectful, contemptuous, or destructive… Read More Pontificate of Francis 10 Years Later
National Catholic Register: “The book, which offers insights into Pope Benedict XVI through the eyes of a direct witness, should be understood as a memorial, not an indictment. …of course, there is Archbishop Gänswein’s open anger and surprise at being abruptly relieved of his post as prefect of the Papal Household by Pope Francis, without… Read More Archbishop Gänswein’s New Book on Benedict XVI
From the book Benedict XVI Defender of the Faith “Having stressed that the traditional Mass was “never abrogated,” he sought to ensure the freedom of the faithful to be present at the celebration of the Mass by replacing John Paul II’s earlier indult and Motu Proprio, which had relied on the good faith of the… Read More Joseph Pearce on the Heart and Mind of a Real Shepherd
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
By Catholic Worker, Dr. Larry Chapp Michael Sean Winters is either hoping we are naïve enough to not remember the Reporter’s long and problematic history, or he thinks we are stupid enough to not be concerned with incoherent zig-zagging. The folks over at the National Catholic Reporter must think we have poor memories or no… Read More The “Hypocritical Ultramontanism” of The National Catholic Reporter
Fr. Brian Harrison, a well-known theologian who has long been conversant with traditionalist polemics thinks so, and he stated his reasons publicly in the pages of The Wanderer back in January, 2022 Archbishop Viganò Vs. The Novus Ordo By Fr. Brian W. Harrison, OSThe WandererJan. 27, 2022 Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, former papal Nuncio to… Read More Did Archbishop Vigano Overreach Regarding the Mass of Paul VI?
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
“But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31) — The Great Deformer. On the Final Phase of Francis’s Turbulent Papacy by Pieter Vree, editor New Oxford Review. August 2021.… Read More The Effects of Limiting The Traditional Latin Mass
NCRegister 7.22.22. “The Archdiocese of Washington posted the letter with the decree and liturgical norms online Friday morning. The new protocol requires priests in the archdiocese to obtain permission to offer the Ordinary Form of the Mass ad orientem, “to the east” in Ecclesiastical Latin, in which the priest and the congregation together face the tabernacle during the… Read More Wilton Gregory restricts Traditional Latin Masses Further
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
“Vile Attack”. “Erase him from memory of the Church.” Speaking to an Italian newspaper, the pope emeritus’ personal secretary noted that such people ‘never loved him as an individual, his theology, his pontificate.’ Edward Pentin, February 10, 2022, National Catholic Register VATICAN CITY — Archbishop Georg Gänswein has claimed that a movement is not only… Read More Archbishop Ganswein: Progressivist Forces Want to Destroy Benedict XVI’s Life and Work
Summorum Pontificum Not Motivated by Lefebvre Schism Benedict XVI: “The reauthorization of the Tridentine Mass is often interpreted primarily as a concession to the Society of Saint Pius X. This is just absolutely false! It was important for me that the Church is one with herself inwardly, with her own past; that what was previously holy… Read More Bishop Athanasius Schneider on Liturgical Renewal
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
“For the Carrying Out of the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum“. April 30, 2011 Ad Orientem: Benedict XVI wrote,”a common turning to the east during the Eucharistic Prayer remains essential. This is not a case of something accidental, but of what is essential. Looking at the priest has no importance.” Ecclesia Dei: “For the Carrying Out… Read More Instruction Universae Ecclesiae
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller (Former CDF Prefect) on the New TLM Restrictions: Unity is not sterile uniformity. “The clear intent is to condemn the Extraordinary Form to extinction in the long run.”
NYT: Pope Francis Is Tearing the Catholic Church Apart (Revisited). By Michael Brendan Dougherty.The New York Times.August 13, 2021. In the summer of 2001, I drove up to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to find what we called “the traditional Latin Mass,” the form of Roman Catholic worship that stretched back centuries and was last authorized in 1962, before… Read More All I Really Need to Know in Theology I Learned From … Mr. Rogers?
Catholic Critique 