If You've Never Watched The Catholics, Now is the Time!

In 1972 Brian Moore wrote a short novel titled Catholics about a remote abbey on an island off the coast of Ireland. [online here] It's the year 2000 and the monks continue to offer the Latin Mass after Vatican II and even after Vatican IV. The Protestants have long been acclimated to the new Church and the new faith. The move now is to incorporate the Buddhists and a conference is scheduled in which the head of the order is participating. 

The monks have become an embarrassment and stumbling block to the new church. Ever since a television crew televised the Mass thousands of Catholics from all over the world flock to the liturgy offered on the mainland. The crisis comes when the head of the order in Rome sends a young priest to examine the abbey and order the monks to immediately adopt the new mass. There are no more private confessions. No one is required to believe that the bread and wine really become the Body and Blood of Christ at the consecration. No clergy are allowed to resist. They are ordered to conform.

Did Pope Benedict Leave Signs that He Remained the Pope?

It may seem strange, but I will begin answering that question by looking at William Shakespeare. For decades scholars argued about who Shakespeare really was. Some insisted that Christopher Marlow was the true author of the plays. The Earl of Oxford was another. In recent years more and more evidence shows that, in fact, Shakespeare was Shakespeare. 

He was the son of John Shakespeare, a recusant who kept the faith, a local low-level politician who resigned his office rather than take the oath of supremacy. His son William's missing years were probably spent being educated on the continent which explains his broad knowledge of Italy, particularly Venice. Another indication of his Catholicism was his ownership of a house in London used for secret Masses. It was exposed when a floor collapsed under the weight of several hundred Catholics hearing the Mass. [Brief article on Shakespeare's Catholicism.]

"Sacredness Begins with Claritas" and Good Church Architecture!

Did you ever read Michael Rose's book, Ugly as Sin? It describes the impact of ugly churches on the faith. The Russians knew all about how to dehumanize. They adopted the bauhaus style of architecture which is promoted as simple and functional. But, in reality, it is boring and ugly. One can hardly even call it an architectural style. It's like children cutting holes in a box to make a door and windows and calling it a house. The purpose, in an atheistic society, was to treat man like a beast, eliminating the true, the good, and the beautiful from his life.

On the Feast Day of St. Pius V Let Us Reform Our Lives!

In the old calendar, today is the feast of Pope St. Pius V, a courageous reformer. He put into Catholic practice many of the reforms of the Council of Trent. His holiness was obvious to the flock he served. An interesting bit of trivia relates to his impact on publishing and printing. He ordered that all books have the author and publisher announced on a title page. Prior to that many printers omitted the authors and their own responsibility for the book. Think of that the next time you look to see the publisher of a book and the date it was printed. I did that just yesterday with two books by Walker Percy to see which one was published first.

Do You Worship Christ or His Vicar on Earth?

I can't get over the number of foolish Catholics who practice papolatry. What is that, you ask? The word is so infrequently used that it's not even in some dictionaries. But here's the meaning:

Papolatry refers to the excessive reverence or worship of the pope. It is derived from the combination of "papa," meaning pope, and "latry," which denotes worship or adoration.

Really! Yes, some Catholics put the pope right up there with Jesus Christ, the head of the Church. After all, since the pope is the "visible" head of the Church, he must be a saint who never gets anything wrong. Right?

Pope or Politician? Looking at West Virginia.

Poor Wheeling-Charleston, a diocese that covers the entire state of West Virginia! What has Pope Leo done to you, conservative state that cooperates with ICE? He's named a bishop committed to the illegal invasion as your spiritual father. In fact, the bishop is himself an illegal invader who's never apologized for or repented of his own criminal entry into the country. Let's face it, most of those who enter illegally claim a right to be here and a right to help themselves to the wallets of citizens. Hospitals closing and schools overwhelmed? Citizens victimized by criminals? No problemo for the leftist thugs.

Termites in the Church...

During my middle school years, my parents rented a lovely home on Juniper Lane in Falls  Church, Virginia. The street got its name from an enormous Juniper tree that occupied a plot along the road. I think it was in the center and the road went around it on both sides, but that memory may not be accurate. At any rate, it was an impressive sight! Much more than the picture above.

Building the Faith in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia

Our SSPX community in Linden, VA recently started a website that is now online. I invite and encourage you to visit virtually and then join us for Sunday Mass if you live in the area or are visiting. If you've never been to a Traditional Latin Mass it will no doubt seem a little uncomfortable at first. What's going on? Why is the priest doing that? Where am I in the book?

The Argument for the SSPX from Supplied Jurisdiction

If the Society and priests who minister to me are about to be declared schismatic and excommunicated, I want to know the rationale and justification for their consecrating bishops without a papal mandate. Canon law 1387 from the 1983 revised code of 1917 says this about those consecrations:

Can. 1387 Both the Bishop who, without a pontifical mandate, consecrates a person a Bishop, and the one who receives the consecration from him, incur a latae sententiae excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. [For anyone who wants to read the law, the entire 1983 code is online here.]

The "Gospel" of Fairy Tales

My husband and I went to the opera last Sunday -- not a complicated opera, but a simple opera. We saw Hansel and Gretel in the English version at Shenandoah Conservatory. What a delight! And, as I watched, I thought how right G.K. Chesterton was in his essay on Fairyland where he describes the mistaken notion of poets to think the fairies operate with a freedom that is really license to do exactly as they please. Chesterton vehemently disagrees:

I think the poets have made a mistake: because the world of the fairy-tales is a brighter and more varied world than ours, they have fancied it less moral; really it is brighter and more varied because it is more moral.