“What makes for kitsch is not the attempt to compete with the photograph [as Greenberg believed was true of representational art] but the attempt to have your emotions on the cheap—the attempt to appear sublime without the effort of being so. And this cut-price version of the sublime artistic gesture is there for all to see… Read More Spiritual Beauty in Art: Never Cheap, Never Kitsch, Never Rupnik
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.
In Proclamation, Word, Deed … against all infiltrations, apostasy and persecutions. 2 Cor 4:5-7 – 5 “For we preach not ourselves, but Jesus Christ our Lord; and ourselves your servants through Jesus. 6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of… Read More As Francis Decreases We Pray Jesus Christ Increases
St. Joseph the Worker Shrine, Lowell, Massachusetts. Jesus calms the storm. This Week’s Messagefrom Fr. AmesseApril 23, 2023 In a month, we will celebrate the “40 Hours Devotion.” The Holy Eucharist will be exposed on the altar for approximately 40 hours. St. John Neumann made the 40 Hours Devotion popular as Bishop of Philadelphia (1852-1860). … Read More He Is Here. And He is Not Silent.
“New World Order Without God”… Who needs the old Progressivist desire for a Third Vatican Council to mitigate Church teachings when they can have almost anything they want through an incremental permanent synodal Church? A lot of the infiltrators who maneuvered their way into the highest positions in the Church by pretending to be pious… Read More Cardinal Müller challenges Pope Francis
Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register wrote, “The former cardinal-archbishop of Milan [Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini], a favorite of those pushing for heterodox reforms in the Church, had envisioned a permanent synodal Church in which the idea of collegial governance introduced at the Second Vatican Council could be better realized. The Jesuit biblical… Read More Martini’s Endless Dream
…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
Adam and Christ Romans 5: 12 Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned— 13 sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to… Read More One Race, One Blood
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
—Sacred Traditio, Sacred Liturgy, Sacred Space, Sacred Scripture. “Try to wrap your head around…” — Culture critic, Florence, Italy
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
Bill Gates’ Global Agenda and How We Can Resist His War on Life. — Vandana Shiva. By Vandana Shiva, originally published. by Independent Science News. The following excerpt is from Vandana Shiva’s new book Oneness vs. the 1% (Chelsea Green Publishing, August 31, 2020) and is reprinted with permission from the publisher. In March 2015, Bill Gates showed… Read More Bill Gates: His Know-how of Future Markets
“The Christo-centricity of teaching is being weakened; Christ is being moved from the centre”. THE VATICAN TODAY Commentators of every school, if for different reasons, with the possible exception of Father Spadaro, SJ, agree that this pontificate is a disaster in many or most respects; a catastrophe. 1. The Successor of St. Peter is the… Read More Cardinal Pell’s Pessimistic Assessment of the Pontificate of Francis
John Chrysostom (347 – 407 AD)Doctor of the Church. [Homily Two on the Gospel of St. Matthew by St. John Chrysostom] “But tell me, who of you that stand here, if he were required, could repeat one Psalm, or any other portion of the divine Scriptures? There is not one. And it is not this… Read More St. John Chrysostom: The Word of God for the Wounded
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
Are Catholic prelates really moving in on Francis with a view to ousting him as a report indicates? “Vatican plot to force Pope Francis to resign: Conservatives wage ‘secret plan’ to put the liberal pontiff under so much stress he will step down, Italian cardinal reveals’ — Daily Mail, 1/9/22 I’d be surprised if this happens… Read More Moving in on Francis?
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.
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
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.
By Solange Hertz. The readers of Time magazine were assured in the summer of 1992 that “within the next hundred years … all states will recognize a single global authority.” The author of the article was Strobe Talbott, member of the CFR, former Rhodes Scholar and President Clinton’s roommate at Oxford. Mr. Talbott, at that… Read More The Family’s Threat to Utopia
“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.
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
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
“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
Why Were Authorities so Quick to Rule out Arson in the Notre Dame Conflagration? BY Roger Kimball, Apr. 17, 2019 I feel I must hand it to those stalwart souls investigating the devastating conflagration at the Cathedral of Notre Dame… The flames were not quenched at the 12th-century masterpiece of Gothic architecture when the authorities… Read More An Old Flame We Do Not Forget. Notre Dame.
Do Christians and Moslems Worship the same God? Well, in some ways… The letter of Pope St. Gregory VII (1073-1085): Gregory . . . to Anazir, Islamic king of the province of Mauretania Sitifensis in Africa. “Your Highness sent to us within a year a request that we would ordain the priest Servandus as bishop according… Read More Christians and Islam. Same God?
He says misguided Traditionalists were manipulated “by Jews” for over 50 years, that Ratzinger / Benedict XVI was “imprudent,” for issuing Summorum Pontificum — E. Michael Jones on Vatican II Cardinal Raymond Burke in a letter addressing Francis’ Motu Proprio, dated July 22, 2021, notes, “Pope Benedict XVI responded to the affirmation, “The reauthorization of… Read More E.Michael Jones. Very Little Sympathy for TLM Catholics
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.”
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”
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.
A brief comparison of liturgy from the 2nd century and liturgy today “While there exist many different liturgical rites within the Catholic Church, each with their own unique traditions, the basic structure of the Mass across all these rites is the same as it it was in the 2nd century. When compared side-by-side, surprisingly little… Read More 155 A.D. The Mass According to Saint Justin Martyr
Catholic Critique 