2007: In the preface to the book John Allen wrote on the Popes ascendance, “The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope was Elected and Where He Will Take the Catholic Church” by John L. Allen. “Because the new pope [Benedict XVI] has been a highly public figure generating diverse reactions,… Read More Benedict XVI, John Allen and Myself
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
A World Over analysis begins in hope then almost immediately enters into the darkness of what the Church is now facing: possible formal “heresy and schism”. Raymond Arroyo, Robert Royal and Canon Lawyer Fr. Gerald Murray. (CNA) “… The consistory will be held on Sept. 30. By Oct. 1 there will be 136 cardinal electors… Read More Shaking the Foundations. A “Hostile Takeover” of the Catholic Church?
Updated. Gavin Mortimer, of The Spectator UK, writes, “The riots that have ravaged France in recent days have given Eric Zemmour a second wind. The leader of the right wing Reconquest party has been on the airwaves and in the newspapers, saying, with a touch of schadenfreude, ‘I told you so’. In a television interview on… Read More France’s riots are fuelling division over Europe’s migrant crisis and depopulation
by Gregory Caridi.A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life.June 03, 2021. “… The issue of improper correction of prelates has existed since the Church’s inception, and it is not likely to be resolved any time soon, particularly in a world that has become especially protective of the right to public speech, public criticism,… Read More How to Correct Bishops Correctly
Damian Thompson associate editor of The Spectator writes, “Ludwig van Beethoven had a profound faith in God. He was born and raised a Catholic and on his deathbed he asked to receive the Last Rites. He told the priest, ‘I thank you, ghostly sir – you have brought me comfort.’ One of his closest friends,… Read More Why didn’t Beethoven Go to Mass?
…and Interview With the Authors, Shaun Blanchard and Stephen Bullivant. Note: The book under discussion here represents only one of a number of interpretations of Vatican II and it’s fruits which are found at this website. See Labels / Categories for others. — Editor. “There is a story, perhaps apocryphal, that sometime in the 1950s,… Read More Addressing a “Different Kind of Crisis”? A New Introduction to Vatican II
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
Never more timely. Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979). A formidable scholar, prolific author, and Catholic University professor for 23 years, Archbishop Sheen was also a pioneer of the new evangelization. A charismatic radio and television personality and a zealous preacher of the Gospel, his whole-hearted embrace of modern means of communication gave him access… Read More Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on False Compassion
“The project’s aim, according to tax records, is to “empower the church to carry out its mission” by giving bishops “evidence-based resources” with which to identify weaknesses in how they train priests… Some of the men who are part of the Renewal project were also involved in the July 2021 outing of a prominent priest, Monsignor Jeffrey… Read More WaPo: Catholic group spent millions on app data that tracked ‘gay’ priests
How To Cope Practically, Emotionally, and Spiritually When Your Loved One Is Seriously Ill “If you’ve picked up this book, chances are good that someone you love is seriously ill – and you have been thrust into the role of a caregiver. Like most caregivers, you probably feel scared, anxious, and maybe even a little… Read More Walking the Way of the Cross for Caregivers
CNA. Jan. 21. This week, health officials in New York City said they plan to begin offering free, city-funded abortion pills at four sexual health clinics, delivering up to 10,000 abortion pills a year. The plan, drawing consternation from pro-life advocates, is a product of an increasingly polarized post-Roe v. Wade legislative climate at the local, state,… Read More Now that the March for Life is over, a snapshot of a shifting abortion landscape
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 Dave Carlin.The Catholic Thing. Decades ago, American conservatives used to say that liberalism was “creeping socialism.” It wasn’t true at the time – although it may well be true of today’s liberalism, a very different and far more leftist kind of animal than the liberalism of the old days. From the late 1940s until… Read More Improving the Church
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
Updated. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s new book, To Change The Church: Pope Francis And The Future of Catholicism … is an urgent, compelling work of popular religious journalism. Douthat reads the signs of these anxious times with acute clarity and far-seeing vision. This book is must reading for every Christian who cares about the fate of… Read More Revisiting the 2018 Dreher / Douthat Interview: the Great Gamble of Francis.
“Concerning the value of the Mass, Padre Pio said: “If men only appreciated the value of a holy Mass they would need traffic officers at church doors every day to keep the crowds in order.” Padre Pio was asked what his Mass meant to him. He responded: “It is a sacred participation in the passion of Jesus.… Read More St. Padre Pio and the Mass.
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
By Michael Brendan Dougherty.National Review, 10/12/22. And six decades of pseudo-theologyYears ago, during a very brief meeting at New York University with the eminent English conservative Roger Scruton, I shared with him — an Anglican by tradition — my reservations about the Second Vatican Council and my interest in the old liturgy. He had no… Read More 60 Years Since Vatican II
In 2008 Nikolas Kozloff wrote in the New York Times, “During the 1980s and 1990s Benedict, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, acted as John Paul II’s doctrinal czar. At the time, John Paul was in the midst of a fierce battle to silence prominent Church liberals. “This conception of Christ as a political figure, a revolutionary,… Read More Catholic Social Teaching and Liberation Theology
“Where the Church goes other ways, it goes astray“. NCRegister: “We have seen claims that Benedict’s and Pope St. John Paul II’s teachings have been ignored or even overturned during this pontificate. Is this website meant partly as a means to ensure his teaching remains alive and accessible in the face of this?” At a… Read More New Website Explores the Life and Work of Pope Emeritus
“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
By John L. Allen. National Catholic Reporter.March 1, 2013. Now that the papacy of Benedict XVI is over and the sede vacante has begun, the period before the white smoke rises over the Sistine Chapel will be filled with commentary and speculation about the looming conclave, much of it based on time-honored conventional wisdom about… Read More Debunking Conventional Conclave Wisdom. 2013.
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
“Abortion is often talked about as a grave act. But bringing a new life into the world can feel like the decision that more clearly risks being a moral mistake…The fact that a quarter of women, regardless of their beliefs, also decide to end pregnancies at some point in their lifetimes: are they not acting… Read More The New Yorker: Is Abortion Sacred?
— Trent Horn on the double standard of those Catholics who push “LGBT Pride“. — Also critiques Fr. Martin’s LGBT Outreach website — Why French Postmodernists were pro-pedohilia: Foucault, Sartre, Derrida, Barthes, Simone de Beauvoir, Deleuze… 1968 was the powderkeg. “The Catechism’s teaching on homosexuality and homosexual acts is based on Christian anthropology not bad… Read More Trent Horn Reviews Fr. James Martin Documentary
BXVI: “We have to reflect on what was insufficient in our education, in our teaching in recent decades. There was, in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, the idea of proportionalism in ethics: It held that nothing is bad in itself, but only in proportion to others. With proportionalism, it was possible to think for some… Read More Benedict XVI: The Church Links Pedophilia to the Error of Proportion-alism in Ethics.
Benedict XVI: “The true threat for the Church, and thus for the Petrine service … comes from the universal dictatorship of apparently humanistic ideologies. Anyone who contradicts this dictatorship is excluded from the basic consensus of society. One hundred years ago, anyone would have thought it absurd to speak of [The rainbow revolution]. Today those… Read More Benedict XVI: The “Spiritual Power of AntiChrist”
“On August 13, 1961, the Communistgovernment of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany) began to build a barbed wire and concrete “Antifascistischer Schutzwall,” or “antifascist bulwark,” between East and West Berlin. The official purpose of this Berlin Wall was to keep so-called Western “fascists” from entering East Germany and undermining the socialist state,… Read More Far Left Power. A New Berlin Wall.
Matt Taibbi writes at his TK News site, “News2Share and Ford Fischer recap the history of “Progressive Anti Abortion Uprising,” or “PAUU,” a group mentioned in this space during anti-abortion demonstrations last December. The group’s director of activism, Lauren Handy, was arrested along with eight other group members in connection with an incident in 2020 when they allegedly blocked access… Read More Progressivist Prolifers on Trial
By John Waters 3 . 23 . 20 /First Things Magazine. Recently [2020], while speaking in the Italian city of Bari, Pope Francis mentioned contemporary “populist” politicians—specifically, those who describe recent waves of migrants traveling from Africa to Europe as an “invasion.” “I grow fearful when I hear certain speeches by some leaders of the new… Read More ON LOVING THY NEIGHBOR
Statement on the Ukraine conflict – A Call to Peace and End to War. Los Angeles Catholic Worker. “We are anti-war. We believe war is a moral failure stemming from our unwillingness to actively work for peace. From the individual to the collective national level, the prioritizing of shortsighted self-interest has created this crisis. Victims… Read More The Russia – Ukraine Tragedy
Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “The church will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes . . . she will lose many of her social privileges.… Read More The Church Will Become Small
The Figures Behind the Evangelists. By Frederick W. Marks.The New Oxford Review.Dec. 2021. One of the most powerful arguments for the reliability of the Gospels is the fact that two of them were written by eyewitnesses: Matthew and John. There is another fact, however, that is equally important. The other two evangelists, Mark and Luke,… Read More The Gospels of Peter & Mary
“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
“…[T]here is no shortage of those who today are railing against him “They are free to do so, but I can affirm that I have never found in him any shadow or attempt to hide or minimize anything. Nor can his sensitivity in dealing with things with a profound moral sense be mistaken for uncertainty… Read More Finishing Off a Pope too Traditional?
New Ways Ministry and the Synodal Process. National Catholic Register. “As the Church embarks on a two-year synodal process, the confusing optics of the recent New Ways Ministry controversy have only deepened a sense of unease regarding the Synod on Synodality and its impact.” Read more But is it not a long way from there… Read More “Confusing Optics”
Groomer Schools 1: The Long Cultural Marxist History of Sex Education. Many want to get their paws on children without legal consequence. James Lindsay, New Discourses. [Skip Ads]. And Part 2… here — Why Woke Marxists Resent and Attack the Materialist Success and Comforts of the West —- Exploiting January 6 for a major Power… Read More Woke Ideology and Targeting the Innocence of Children
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