Roberto de Mattei. “In the Gospels, Jesus makes use of many metaphors to describe the Church He founded. One of the most fitting is the image of the boat threatened by the tempest (Matt. 8:23–27; Mark 4:35–41; Luke 8:22–25). This image was often used by the Church Fathers and saints, who spoke of the Church… Read More The “true reform” that the Church needed in the 20th century
“This memory seems a lifetime ago, and yet I knew him best not in a crowd, but in the classroom. We read his theological works in graduate school, and through them, he opened the horizon of my heart to Jesus. Just this past summer, I revisited his life through his memoirs… best not in a… Read More Reflecting on Pope Benedict XVI: Lessons from His Life and Faith
“…Although they express their astonishment that We should number them amongst the enemies of the Church, no one will be reasonably surprised that We should do so, if, leaving out of account the internal disposition of the soul, of which God alone is the Judge, he considers their tenets, their manner of speech, and their… Read More On the Doctrine of the Modernists. Pope St. Pius X – 1907
(1) The Odyssey, an epic Greek poem [attributed to Homer], tells the story of King Odysseus and his heroic struggle against the gods. The tale begins when the ship of Odysseus is blown off course on the way home from the Trojan Wars. In his effort to get home, Odysseus lands on an island where… Read More Lashed to the Mast
“Society has to defend itself to a certain extent against the tyranny of the [nihilist] state.” Rocco Buttiglione (Italian: [b. 6 June 1948) is an Italian Union of Christian and Centre Democrats politician and an academic. He was a close friend of Pope John Paul II. Buttiglione’s nomination for a post as European Commissioner with a portfolio that was to include civil… Read More Rocco Buttiglione on Philosophy, Politics, and Economics
St. Antoninus writes: In the Event of the Most Grave Confusion(s): “The people are not oblidged to know…” And St. Thomas Aquinas on whether one must avoid (ipso facto or otherwise) excommunicated persons before sentence has been passed Principles St. Antoninus, commenting on the Great Western Schism. (1054 A.D.) “The question was much discussed and much… Read More In the Most Grave Confusion(s): “The People Are Not Oblidged to Know…”
“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
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
When the heretic Hans Kung met with Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, Kung said it was a deeply personal conversation. Benedict said he “respected” Kung’s “path” (without agreeing with it all). He urged Kung to teach students in regard to world religions and in other areas; and so, again, an ominous pluralism was seen to… Read More Hans Kung and Benedict XVI
Kathryn Jean Lopez June 23, 2025 8:37 PM. National Review. Our good friend in these parts, health-care-policy expert and delight Sally Pipes, CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, writes in Forbes: Advocates say these laws spare the terminally ill from unnecessary suffering. But a closer look at Europe and Canada—where physician-assisted suicide has been legal and common for… Read More The Assisted-Suicide Danger Zone
Words of His Holiness Benedict XVI At the Luncheon With Cardinals.Hall of Dukes, Apostolic Palace.Monday, 21 May 2012. Your Eminence,Dear Brothers, At this moment my words can only be of gratitude. A “thank you” first of all to the Lord for the many years he has given me; years filled with many days of joy,… Read More Benedict XVI: “Evil Wishes to Dominate the World”
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.
Since American Leftist and globalist ideologues were in the process of cancelling mothers, other women, and girls even up to official White House documents before 2024 (and doubtless will try again and again); and since indeed they will not allow the traditional scriptural definition of women and girls, we no longer celebrate the American and… Read More Regarding the American ‘Mother’s’ Day
Finishing off what the French Revolution began. Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C. (born Anton Schneider on 7 April 1961) is a Catholic prelate, serving as the Auxiliary Bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan. Schneider is known for his traditionalism. He has criticized clergy members who he believes do not fully adhere to the faith and instead surrender to what he calls a “cruel pagan world.” In 2014, he… Read More Goal of Mass Islamicization of Europe: Destroy Christian Past
Dr. Ralph Martin: “How can someone be appointed Archbishop of Washington, DC, after expressing views contrary to the Catholic faith? This is the question being raised by many within the American Catholic Church after Cardinal Robert McElroy’s recent appointment as Archbishop of Washington, DC. Appointments like this are causing many Catholics to wonder what is… Read More A Time of Trouble. Cardinal Robert McElroy.
“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
In a recent letter to American Catholics, “excommunicated” Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano delivered a reasonable and cogent body blow to globalists, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Pope Francis (Jorge Bergoglio) for failing to teach the whole Catholic Faith and for actually exploiting the poor and vulnerable. This website and its editor does… Read More Archbishop Vigano’s Body Blow
He writes, “Pope Francis has already done irreparable damage to the office of the papacy itself. Never again will a (non-ex cathedra) papal teaching just be accepted by the Faithful without scrutiny or criticism. It is done. It cannot be undone. Francis has left his mark, and it’s permanent”. If we do not elect a… Read More Is Shane Right?
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
Julian Kwasniewski, of the Imaginative Conservative, writes “… Far more of an academic than figures like Belloc, Chesterton, or Evelyn Waugh, Tolkien was not an apologist like his friend C.S. Lewis. Consequently there is less material in which he explicitly speaks of the Church or his relationship with the Church during the last decade of… Read More Tolkien and Vatican II
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
William F. Buckley Jr. called out a major aspect of the spiritual struggle in our time, increasingly atheistic education, 1951: “I had always been taught, and experience had fortified the teachings, that an active faith in God and a rigid adherence to Christian principles are the most powerful influences toward the good life… A number of… Read More The Struggle of Our Time
James Day. On September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI took to the dais of the University of Regensburg’s Aula Magna to offer a few “memories and reflections.” Contrary to the resulting rebukes, the 79-year-old pontiff knew exactly what he was doing. Catholic World Report Pope Benedict XVI took to the dais of the University of… Read More Benedict the Brave: The Regensburg Address. Islam, reason and faith.
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
Brad S. Gregory is Dorothy G. Griffin Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Notre Dame, a world-class historian, and award-winning author of Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe and The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard… Read More The Reformation: Historical Conditions, Unintended Consequences
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
Edward Feser writes, “Fathers have the authority to teach and discipline their children, but this authority is not absolute. They may not teach their children to do evil, and they may not discipline them with unjust harshness. Everyone knows this, though everyone also knows that there are fathers who do in fact abuse their children or teach… Read More The Church permits criticism of popes under certain circumstances
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.
Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a British Canadian computer scientist and cognitive philospher most noted for his work on artificial neural networks. From 2013 to 2023, he divided his time working for Google (Google Brain) and the University of Toronto, before publicly announcing his departure from Google in May 2023, citing concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.[13] In 2017, he co-founded… Read More The Godfather of AI Has Regrets
Jason Whitlock. Jason Lee Whitlock (born April 27, 1967) is an American sports columnist, podcaster, and former football player. He hosts a program for the conservative media company Blaze Media titled Fearless with Jason Whitlock. Whitlock is a former columnist at The Kansas City Star, AOL Sports, Foxsports.com, and ESPN. He was a radio personality for WHB and KCSP sports stations in the Kansas City area. Whitlock played Division… Read More Evangelical Sports Columnist and Activist Call Out “Catholic” President
Attacking the prevenient natural order, finitude itself, gender theory is ground zero. Dr. Margaret McCarthy, interviewed by Dr. Larry Chapp here, “received her doctoral degree in theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute at the Lateran University in Rome (1994), with a dissertation on the contemporary theology of predestination. Since then, her teaching and writing… Read More Gender Theory: “The Atomic Bomb of Nihilism”
Despite the attempts on the part of recent popes like John Paul II and Benedict XVI* to correct the situation, not a few Protestants are, most traditional Catholics have long known, more biblically literate and theologically coherent today (despite the exegetical errors of Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and the rest), more traditional, and more empiric in their approaches to… Read More Yes, them.
Updated. Fox News: “Pentagon denies secret UFO retrieval program after whistleblower bombshell“. In any case, whatever it all turns out to be, whether altogether mundane or something else, we know that one day Christians can expect “wicked deceptions” to descend upon the earth, originating from “principalities and powers … the rulers of the world of… Read More Rumors of “Aliens”. Deep State(s) Psy-Ops? ‘Signs and Lying Wonders’?
Edward FeserFebruary 25, 2024 Popes speak infallibly when they either proclaim some doctrine ex cathedra, or reiterate some doctrine that has already been taught infallibly by virtue of being a consistent teaching of the ordinary magisterium of the Church for millennia. Even when papal teaching is not infallible, it is normally owed “religious assent.” However,… Read More What Counts as Magisterial Teaching?
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”
… 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?’
Update: Without prejudice to the objectionable personal belief system of Jeffrey Sachs, noted below, there appear to have been developments in the political significance of Sachs: + Insider turned political heretic, Jeffrey Sachs, in discussion with Tucker Carlson (August 2024) ~~~ Pope Francis names Jeffrey Sachs to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences —May 2023: Sachs on… Read More Jeffrey Sachs. Who he is ideologically and Why It Matters
Calls for “an ecology of the human being”. BBC: “Pope Benedict has called for “an ecology of the human being”. Pope Benedict XVI has suggested that the need to save mankind from a destructive blurring of gender roles is as important as saving the rainforests. He explained that defending God’s creation was not limited to… Read More Pope Benedict XVI Laments Blurring of Genders. 2008.
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
Catholic Critique 