Monsignor Karel Kasteel Talks About His Experience and thoughts throughout that long period. His reflections are his own. CNS: Now 92, Monsignor Kasteel has witnessed some of the most consequential moments in the modern history of the Catholic Church, including the Second Vatican Council, the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI, and decades of change… Read More He worked in the Vatican for 70 years. Served 8 Popes.
Note: What to make of this. Our (former SSPX!) priest and I both appreciate some of Thomas Merton’s writings, as you might know, but our stance is critical, not naive or magisterial in any left-wing sense. That is the approach this website takes towards many thinkers on many subjects: take the wheat and leave the… Read More Merton’s Criticisms of Easter Liturgy. Circa 1968.
“How did exemptions become the rule? What did Vatican II actually say about Latin and Gregorian chant? The Council called for Latin to be preserved in the liturgy and gave Gregorian chant “pride of place” – so how did both largely disappear from ordinary parish life? Raymond Arroyo, Fr. Gerald Murray and Robert Royal examine… Read More Latin, Gregorian Chant and Vatican II. Reform or Rupture?
By Mark Brumley, Catholic World Report. June 2020 Recently, the Second Vatican Council’s legitimacy and value have again been challenged. Some observers behave as if Benedict XVI saw Vatican II as a problem and proposed a “hermeneutic of continuity” to overcome the problem. Some people who act this way think Benedict XVI’s approach has failed. … Read More Benedict XVI, Vatican II, and the “hermeneutic of reform”. Opinion.
Fr. Chad Ripperger writes, “The juridical concept of the deposit [of Faith] requires that it is not the property of the guardian. In other words, it is not the person who receives it that has ownership of it, but of the consigner who is handing it over to him to keep it in a safe… Read More The Binding Force of Tradition
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
by Michael Davies.From Catholic, October 1996. The Catholic Church was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son made Man. He has promised His Church that She will continue to exist exactly as He constituted her until He comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead. The Catholic Church is the Church that is indefectible. The… Read More Michael Davies on the Indefectibility of the Mass of Paul VI.
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
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.
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
“With Romano Guardini, Fr. Pius Parsch is another key player from across the Rhine in the Liturgical Movement. Like Guardini, he was both a theorist and a liturgical “experimenter,” seeking to embody his ideas in new ceremonies. Johann Bruno Parsch was born on May 18, 1884 in Neustift, in Moravia, which was then under the… Read More 50 Years of the New Mass: Pius Parsch
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
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
Home diocese of the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. (CNA) “… The decision to drastically downsize the diocese comes amid declining Mass attendance there as well as a prediction of a shrinking number of priests. Seventy percent of the 145 total priests ministering in the diocese are over the age of 50. According to the diocese’s projections, in… Read More Peoria Diocese to reduce the number of parishes in the diocese by half
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.
“There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of liturgy growth and progress are found, but not a rupture. What was sacred for our ancestors remains sacred and great for us and it is not permissible that it be suddenly prohibited altogether, nor that it be judged as… Read More “What was sacred for our ancestors remains sacred and great for us” — BXVI
If it is true that John XXIII controversially determined it was neither opportune nor wise to conclude the Council with the anathemas which usually follow Church councils, it is also true that the Councils of Trent and Vatican I (the latter had been interrupted in the last century and needed completion) were specifically cited and… Read More The Hermeneutical Firewall Protecting Vatican II
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.
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
“…[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?
Summorum Pontificum Not Motivated by Lefebvre Schism Benedict XVI: “The reauthorization of the Tridentine Mass is often interpreted primarily as a concession to the Society of Saint Pius X. This is just absolutely false! It was important for me that the Church is one with herself inwardly, with her own past; that what was previously holy… Read More Bishop Athanasius Schneider on Liturgical Renewal
