Note: Canon Law 209- 212; emphasis added. Can. 209 §1. The Christian faithful, even in their own manner of acting, are always obliged to maintain communion with the Church 212 §2 “The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires. §3. According… Read More Laity, Obedience, and the Pope
Foundational Command: Honoring Parents These verses establish the commandment as a lifelong principle of faith and blessing. Exodus 20:12 > “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” Deuteronomy 5:16 > “Honour thy father and thy mother, as the Lord thy… Read More Honor Thy Father and Mother
5/14/25/ I don’t know what it is like where you live, but here where I live in, yes, liberal Massachusetts, most immigrants I see on a daily basis appear to be very good and hard working persons. I’ve worked with some myself in the last couple of years taking care of very elderly clients with… Read More Deport Criminals Not Working Refugees Seeking a Way Out of Poverty
Justice and War. The Catholic Church distinguishes between two types of justice concerning war: jus ad bellum and jus in bello. Most of the time, when people discuss just-war theory, they mean jus ad bellum (justice before the war). Jus ad bellum refers to those four conditions described by Saint Augustine through which we determine whether a war is just before we… Read More Catholic Teaching on Proportionality in War
“May the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints, whatever good you do and whatever evil you endure, be for you a remedy for sin, an increase of grace, and the reward of eternal life. Go in peace”. — Traditional priestly prayer used with… Read More May the Passion Be For You A Remedy
Dear Readers, for your consideration, I offer this translation of an Italian article that reflects my present thoughts and sentiments regarding the election of Pope Leo XIV, despite initially being worried when I heard his name. Paolo DeottoNuovo Arengario via Rorate Caeli, 10th May 2025 The Philosophy of Leo XIII ? “Allow me today to speak only… Read More Leo XIV: “the hope of the Church and the world”.
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.
A Gorgeous Concept (one story) Album by Sinatra: ‘Watertown.’ Read more about it in Wikipedia. More importantly, give yourself a break and hear it. (Click the cover image) My feelings about Sinatra are similar to my feelings about The Beatles. James K. Fitzpatrick put it very well, “I think Sinatra was a musical genius…” “But…” … Read More Time Out.
We all know about the reported Christian sexual abuse cases which shamefully contradict the heart of our faith. But this phenomenon goes way beyond what the news media so often highlights. This problem is truly a global one involving both religious and secular individuals. Since Christians, Jews and Moslems are derivative of Abrahamic religion, over… Read More Sexual Abuse Coverup. Not Just Epstein: A Global Phenomenon
Return to the beginning. Notes: This is an illustration of C.S Lewis’ third talk of the third radio series called ‘What Christians Believe’. This became Chapter 3 of Book 2, in the book called ‘Mere Christianity’. One need not accept Lewis’ notion of a “mere’ Christianity to appreciate the insights which are sketched here and… Read More The Shocking Alternative by C.S. Lewis.
“The Russian intelligentsia produced a faith based upon a strange syllogism: Man is descended from the apes, therefore we must love one another.” — Vladimir Solovyev — On Lenin’s desk in the Kremlin there stood, for most of the years he worked there, a strange bronze statue of an ape gazing with an expression of… Read More Lenin, the Ape and the Skull
Pope Francis was a remarkable impactful man. It took me the whole of ten minutes to forget him. It was frankly embarrassing and painful watching him, living in his own digs, chasing the cameras for over a decade to ensure that the peoples of the world understood him to be the only really humble Pope,… Read More Francis and Leo.
Washington Post. 5/8/25. Pope Leo XIV spent two decades working in Peru’s poorest enclave and appears to be in the mold of Pope Francis — who carried a legacy as “the people’s pope” for his outreach to those on society’s margins. The Chicago-born pontiff is the first American to lead the Catholic Church, and while… Read More What we know about Pope Leo XIV’s political and social views
I suspect most of his legacy will be allowed to fade away. It will matter only to small aging liberal sects until they pass too. The history of the Church shows this. Who thinks of Hans Küng much anymore? Certainly not Catholics. That there is a so-called ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in Catholicism is a ridiculous thing. Certainly… Read More The post-Francis Era
What is actual grace? Actual grace is a supernatural help from God that enlightens the mind and moves the will to shun evil and do good 1 2. It is a transient help given by God for the performance of salutary acts, present only during the action itself 2 3. Here’s a breakdown of actual grace: Nature of Actual… Read More Actual Grace. What Is It?
Environmental Socialist Naomi Klein says Elon Musk and some “fascist” Maga friends have “given up on this world” and given in to a secular “Apocalyptic Fever”. In consequence they are using this planet, she says, to extract from this world fossil fuels, critical minerals, water…”anything that can be used for energy and money with a… Read More Artificial World? “End Time Fascism?” Third Temple?
Breaking Points and The Points Guy. “Real ID is a new government-approved identity document, with new security standards for driver’s licenses and state identification cards. It officially goes into effect May 7. Travelers’ identification cards will have to meet new, beefed-up standards in order to be used for federal purposes, including passing through airport security… Read More Real ID Enforcement Begins. Where are we headed?
“May the first…not be your last”. Catholic Worker 92 years old this month. The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker, International Labor Day, on May 1, marked ninety-two years since Dorothy Day distributed 2,500 copies of The Catholic Worker in Union Square, boldly competing with the Communists’ The Daily Worker, and quickly edging it out in popularity, printing more… Read More The Original Catholic Worker’s deliberate Alternative to Communism
“The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners —-of whom I am the worst16 but I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him… Read More God Is Not Out To ‘Get’ us. He is Out to Heal Us.
New Oxford Review, May 2025 and Fox News. The Face of Evil. Authorities in Kansas are investigating a possible hate crime after St. Patrick Church in Wichita suffered “extensive vandalism,” including the beheading of a statue of St. Patrick, the breaking of candles and windows, the burning of an American flag, and the scrawling of… Read More Terror in the Church
His Excellency, The Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, OFMCap, writes at First Things of the Francis Papacy and the near future: “… an interregnum between papacies is a time for candor. The lack of it, given today’s challenges, is too expensive. In many ways, whatever its strengths, the Francis pontificate was inadequate to the real issues… Read More The Post-Francis Era
When we work we are either building or destroying. Written in 1948, the truths set out here are more timely than ever. By Carol Robinson, Integrity magazine. Nothing could be more unnatural by way of discovering one’s life work than the current, debasing system of “job-hunting.” … Back of today’s perusal of the want-ad columns,… Read More Vocation Versus Job Hunting. The Catholic Alternative.
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
Helen Pluckrose outlines some of the arguments later explored in depth in her bestselling 2020 book, Cynical Theories (co-authored with James Lindsay). The essay charts the pernicious influence of postmodernist thinking on two generations of academics and activists. If you want to understand how we got to a place where microaggressions are denounced as violence… Read More Postmodernism and its ImPaCt
Permitting direct and complete taxpayer funding for a faith-based school for the first time. Washington Post 8/30/25 “A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared open to allowing the creation of the nation’s first public religious charter school in Oklahoma, a blockbuster move that could reshape American education and redraw the boundary between church and state.… Read More Supreme Court appears open to approving state-funded religious schools
April 28, 2025 by Mitch Teemley We’re all a little bit racist. And sexist. And ageist. And a dozen other-things-ist. An ist is simply a bias or leaning, either away from or toward something. We lean toward what we know, and away from what we don’t. And we all know our own race better than anyone else’s, so we’re all a… Read More Becoming Part of a Bigger Family
Camille Paglia: Pedophile Sex Revolutionary. Why is Camille Paglia being promoted by self-described conservatives and classical liberals? Paglia says “Contemporary gays who try to distance themselves from this issue of boy-love are in effect committing cultural suicide. They’re cutting themselves from all the highest achievements of gay men….. Because I am a woman, and therefore… Read More Camille Paglia, conservatives and classical liberals
“The threat of Totalitarianism isn’t over. It Isn’t even close to over”. Author Rod Dreher discusses his book and new Angel Studios documentary series, Live Not By Lies. What does it mean to refuse to live by lies? Dreher responds by drawing upon the warnings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the testimonies of other survivors of… Read More
.Social Justice Usage Source: Wikipedia, entry “cisgender” Cisgender (sometimes cissexual, often abbreviated to simply cis) is a term for people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. For example, someone who identifies as a woman and was assigned female at birth is a cisgender woman. The term cisgender is the opposite of the… Read More Cisgender. By James Lindsay
See also, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and a New World Order. Our complex theological predicament, which only the hierarchical Church may, in time, formally adjudicate. By Stephen Hand. 2015. If Francis and Cardinal Kasper have taught us anything over the past few years, it’s that without resurrecting that final “checkmate,” which popes from the… Read More John XXIII, Benedict XVI and Francis. 2015.
– Hans Christian Andersen. To love the gift of music is to love life. This website is not a church. It is, rather, a website that tries to testify, after Christ, to all the gifts God has given us in creation, including poetry and music and all of the other real arts. What a gift… Read More Time Out. “Where words fail, music speaks.”
The question is a painful one but must be asked regarding the Pints With Aquinas mystery and ETs. Daniel O’Connor writes, “One year ago today, Matt Fradd invited me on to Pints with Aquinas. You need to hear the story of my being cancelled. It’s about something much bigger than Mr. Fradd.” The O’Connor book,… Read More Is Jimmy Akin Popping All His Buttons?
Artificial Intelligence: Garbage In, Garbage Out? New Oxford Review. Christopher M. Reilly, Fredericksburg, Virginia, New Oxford Review, Letters. November 2024. I greatly appreciated Bob Weil’s article “Wrestling for Truth with ChatGPT” (Sept.). He describes the inherent flaws of generative artificial intelligence (AI) with a deft hand. He also suggests a crucial element of responsibly managing… Read More A.I. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
“Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen from the grave.” Are there any who are devout lovers of God? Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival! Are there any who are grateful servants? Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord! Are there any… Read More Let No One Despair! Forgiveness is risen! St. John Chrysostom. St. Francis de Sales.
[As used by the Franciscan Fathers on their missions]. See also: Christ’s Victory Over Death and Postmodern Despair. + First Station: Jesus is Condemned to Death 0 Jesus So meek and uncomplaining, teach me resignation + Second Station: Jesus Carries His Cross My Jesus This Cross should be mine, not Thine! My sins crucified thee!… Read More A Short Way of The Cross
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…
“In an enlightening and profound episode, Michael Knowles sits down with the esteemed Bishop Barron to explore the deep spiritual significance of Easter Sunday and the solemn observances of Holy Week. This interview delves into the heart of the Christian faith, unpacking the mysteries and traditions that define this pivotal time in the Christian calendar.… Read More The Authority of Christ v. The Power of Pontius Pilate
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
LBC interviews Gavin Ashenden on PopeFrancis on Palm Sunday 2025, on Death, resignation of popes, & the Latin Mass. ++ Cardinal Gerhard Müller and participants of the 13th Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage Oct. 26, 2024 St. Peter’s Basilica. + Summorum Pontificum Conference Celebrates Benedict XVI’s Liturgical Legacy (2015) + Cardinal Raymond Burke offers Traditional Latin Mass,… Read More LBC interviews Gavin Ashenden on Pope Francis.
“When The Waste Land was published in 1922, T.S. Eliot changed the course of literary history. Hailed as the most influential English-language poem of the twentieth century, this masterpiece of modernist poetry was born not only from a shattered world—but from Eliot’s own psychological collapse. In this in-depth lecture, we explore the rich historical, philosophical,… Read More April is the Cruelest Month
Catholic Critique 