And a response It Ain’t Broke, But Let’s Fix It Anyhow June 2004, NOR We picked up a Catholic magazine, and on the cover was one big headline, and it was a striking one: “Was Vatican II a Mistake?” In the background to the headline were a litany of post-Vatican II disasters: “practicing homosexuals in… Read More The New Oxford Review Exchange on Whether Vatican II Was Necessary
Biblical Interpretation in Crisis. On the Question of the Foundations: and Approaches of Exegesis Today by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 1988 (later Pope Benedict XVI) In Wladimir Solowjew’s History of the Antichrist, the eschatological enemy of the Redeemer recommended himself to believers, among other things, by the fact that he had earned his doctorate in theology… Read More Biblical Interpretation in Crisis — Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, 1988
Born in 1928 to Greek immigrants in Lackawanna, New York, Likoudis’ upbringing began in the Greek Orthodox Church. However, he experienced a profound intellectual transformation at the University of Buffalo’s Newman Club, where he encountered the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, Christopher Dawson and other Catholic luminaries. Likoudis converted to the Catholic faith in 1952.… Read More Theologian James Likoudis’ One-year Death Anniversary
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.
And replies. By What Authority Does C.S. Lewis Pontificate? By Thomas Storck | New Oxford Review. Thomas Storck is a Contributing Editor of the New Oxford Review. The great Anglican apologist and scholar C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) championed a concept he called “mere Christianity.” Although the term itself seems to have been coined by the Puritan… Read More Is There Such a Thing as “Mere Christianity”?
“The living magisterium makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. “It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the… Read More Tradition and the Living Magisterium.
Josef Pieper, the renowned Thomist, in his 1953 study, The Silence of St. Thomas (St. Augustine’s Press, South Bend, Indiana) reminds theologians and students of St. Thomas Aquinas that while Pope Pius XI in his 1923 Encyclical Studiorum Ducem insisted that the Angelic Doctor is to be esteemed by all Schools of Theology, he also reminded all… Read More St. Thomas Aquinas and the “Life-blood of Catholic Theology”
“The statement is likely to be embraced by conservatives and stir consternation among L.G.B.T.Q. advocates who fear it will be used as a cudgel against transgender people.” The Vatican on Monday issued a new document approved by Pope Francis stating that the church believes that gender fluidity and transition surgery, as well as surrogacy, amount… Read More NYT: Vatican Document Casts Gender Change and Fluidity as Threat to Human Dignity
Cardinal Müller, former head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Benedict XVI, asks in his book The Power of Truth, “How do the pope’s Magisterium and the Tradition of the Church relate? When he interprets the words of Jesus, must the pope be in continuity with the Tradition and the previous… Read More Cardinal Müller on ‘The Power of Truth,’ Our Times and the Magisterium
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?
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller wrote in 2023, “Throughout the history of the Church, whenever Popes have felt or behaved like politicians, things have gone wrong. In politics it is about the power of the people over the people, in the Church of Christ it is about the service of the eternal salvation of men, to which… Read More Peter, When you are converted…
… 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?’
Newsmax. “The Vatican has defrocked Father Frank Pavone — who has been described as “the most vocal Catholic priest in America for the pro-life movement” — in a move that has shocked Church conservatives. This past weekend the Catholic News Agency (CNA) revealed the full text of a letter from Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the Apostolic Nuncio to… Read More Fr. Frank Pavone and Contraception Rumors. Updated.
“Tucked at the end of a hotly debated passage in Lumen Gentium about the Church’s role in salvation comes one sentence that has not received as much attention. What follows the statement that “all the Church’s children” have received their holy Catholic faith not from merit, but from “the special grace of Christ,” is the… Read More The Most Harrowing Text of Vatican II
Rocco Buttiglione is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Pius V University in Rome, and a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. “… we reach the heart of the question which interests us. To appreciate its full scope, let us take G. W. F. Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of History’ as a point of… Read More John Paul II, Poland, and the Hegelian Menace
The who, what, where, when, and why of the Council by Michael J. Miller. Catholic World Report The famous black-and-white photograph of the Second Vatican Council in session, taken from a high balcony at the back of Saint Peter’s Basilica, shows more than 2,000 Council Fathers standing at their places in slanted stalls that line… Read More A Review of Roberto de Mattei’s “The Second Vatican Council: An Unwritten Story”
“But the common saying, expressed in various ways and attributed to various authors, must be recalled with approval: “in essentials unity, in doubtful matters, liberty; in all things, charity.” — Pope John XXIII: Ad Petri Cathedram (1959)
Credo Of The People Of God.Pope Paul VI – 1968. “Complete and Explicit …We believe…” With this solemn liturgy we end the celebration of the nineteenth centenary of the martyrdom of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, and thus close the Year of Faith. We dedicated it to the commemoration of the holy apostles in… Read More The Credo Of The People of God. Pope Paul VI.
“The living magisterium makes extensive use of documents of the past, but it does so while judging and interpreting, gladly finding in them its present thought, but likewise, when needful, distinguishing its present thought from what is traditional only in appearance. “It is revealed truth always living in the mind of the Church, or, if it is preferred, the present… Read More The Living Magisterium
April 4, 2005 In Defense of John Paul II, Peacemaker Justin Raimondo Antiwar.com Unfazed by the antiwar demonstrations that thronged the streets of London on the eve of war with Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was more concerned with the Pope’s disapproval as he prepared to meet with the Holy Father. After all, this was the… Read More Pope John Paul II’s Opposition to the Iraq War
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