Peter stood up in the midst of the brothers (there was a group of about one hundred and twenty persons in the one place). He said, “My brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled which the holy Spirit spoke beforehand through the mouth of David, concerning Judas, who was the guide for those who arrested Jesus. He was numbered among us and was allotted a share in this ministry. For it is written in the Book of Psalms: ‘Let his encampment become desolate, and may no one dwell in it.’ And: ‘May another take his office.’ Therefore, it is necessary that one of the men who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which he was taken up from us, become with us a witness to his resurrection.” So they proposed two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also known as Justus, and Matthias. Then they prayed, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this apostolic ministry from which Judas turned away to go to his own place.” Then they gave lots to them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was counted with the eleven apostles.
Psalms103(102),1-2.11-12.19-20ab.
Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all my being, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.
For as the heavens are high above the earth, so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our transgressions from us.
The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the LORD, all you his angels, you mighty in strength, who do his bidding.
First Letter of John4,11-16.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John17,11b-19.
Lifting up his eyes to heaven, Jesus prayed, saying: “Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.”
Saint Peter Damian (1007-1072) hermit then Bishop, Doctor of the Church Dominus Vobiscum; 5, 6, 10
Communion in the unity of the faith
The Church is united by a bond of mutual charity so strong that it is one in the plurality of its members and mysteriously whole in each, so much so that, if the entire universal Church is rightly presented as the only and unique Bride of Christ, we also believe that, through the mystery of the sacrament, each soul is the Church in its fullness. One in all and all in each, it is singular in the plurality of her members thanks to the unity of faith, and multiple in each of them thanks to the diversity of charisms joined by the cement mortar of charity, for all come of the One. (…)
The secret of this indivisible unity was revealed by the Word when he said to the Father, speaking of his disciples: “It is not for them alone that I pray, but for those also who, thanks to their word, will believe in me. Let all be one. » (Jn 17:20-21) If then those who believe in Christ are one, the whole body is present through the mystery of the sacrament, where the eyes of the flesh see only one member. (…)
The necessity of this communion in Christ was considered so certain by our Fathers that they included it in the symbol of the Catholic profession of faith and ordered us to repeat it often among the rudiments of the Christian faith. . For immediately after having said: “I believe in the Holy Spirit, in the Holy Church”, we add: “in the communion of saints”, so that in the very act in which we bear witness to God of our faith, we let us also affirm the communion of the Church, which is one with him. This communion of saints in the unity of faith is such that, believing in one Holy Spirit, they are admitted by the grace of adoption to the one eternal life.
Church Hate Propaganda in Canada: They Spent $8m and Found NOTHING
Canada’s ‘Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations’ has confirmed it has spent C$7.9 million (!) to uncover the “heartbreaking truth” of “unmarked graves” at the former Catholic residential school for Indians in Kamloops.
What everybody knew from the start: Not a single “mass grave” was found, despite a gigantic media propaganda storm by the oligarchs claiming their existence and even bringing Francis to his knees. It was all a hoax.
Also interesting: There has been no public disclosure of how the funds were used to find the non-existent mass graves, reports WesternStandard.news (9 May).
The announcement of the discovery of 215 graves of children [all died over a long period of time of natural causes] at the Kamloops Residential School site in 2021 by the ‘First Nation’, a PR organisation for Canadian Indians, caused an international outcry, including an ‘apology’ from Francis.
In reality, the Church did a heroic job in very difficult conditions to bring education and civilisation to generations of Canadians at the request of their government.
In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the holy Spirit.” When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”
Psalms47(46),2-3.6-7.8-9.
All you peoples, clap your hands; shout to God with cries of gladness. For the LORD, the Most High, the awesome, is the great king over all the earth.
God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; the LORD, amid trumpet blasts. Sing praise to God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise.
For king of all the earth is God; sing hymns of praise. God reigns over the nations, God sits upon his holy throne.
Letter to the Ephesians4,1-13.
Brothers and sisters : I, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, as you were also called to the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore, it says: “He ascended on high and took prisoners captive; he gave gifts to men.” What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended into the lower (regions) of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave some as apostles, others as prophets, others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ,
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark16,15-20.
Jesus said to the eleven: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents (with their hands), and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.
Saint Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) hermit and missionary in the Sahara Para. 46, psalm 23, Meditations on the Psalms
The Lord Jesus was taken up to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father!
“Rise up, O everlasting gates: let the King of glory enter! (…) Who is this king of glory? It is the Lord, God of the universe; he is the king of glory” (Ps 23:7.10). These verses apply marvelously to the Ascension of Our Lord received into heaven by the choirs of angels…
How good you are, my God, to console us for the sadness of the earth by the sight of your happiness… As a first duty you command us to love you… And if we fulfill this duty, it follows immediately and necessarily that we are from this world, throughout our lives, wonderfully, infinitely happy. We already share in a way the happiness of the elected, since like them we enjoy what makes them happy, like them we are happy because we know you are happy… In truth we do not see it clearly for them, but we do. we undoubtedly know (…).
When we are sad, afflicted by the sins of others or our own, by the physical or moral suffering of our neighbor or our own, when we feel discouragement coming, let us lift up our hearts, think that whatever happens to us in this world and in other, whatever happens to the whole world, our beloved is Jesus and Jesus is blessed: he ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of his Father and happy for eternity… When we love, if the beloved is happy, nothing is missing… our everything is happy, that’s all we need (…).
If we love him, let us look at him and thank him endlessly like the angels and like the Church at the sight of his glory: “We give you thanks for your immense glory” (…). Deign, my God, by your great mercy, to make the sight of your happiness our support here below and our eternal happiness! Amen.
CP&S comment – As many of our readers will already know, the outstanding priest, Fr John Hunwicke (of the renowned Fr Hunwicke’s Mutual Enrichment blog) sadly passed away a week ago after a long battle with cancer. His erudite writings on all things Catholic, especially liturgical matters, his profound knowledge of history, the Catholic Church and tradition, have broadened the minds of millions of readers. Here below is just a taste of one of his brilliant daily articles, written for the feast of Christ the King. He often prepared his articles days in advance… and they are still appearing on his blog right now as I write! He will be much missed. RIP good and faithful servant of the Lord.
On this yummy Feast of Christ the King, I find myself again wondering if a prophet-before-his-time has ever been so justified by subsequent events as Marcel Lefebvre. Here is piece I rote in 2017.
I am remindedof Archbishop Lefebvre’s book with the above title. When I first read that volume, I was struck by a great sense of familiarity … combined with an overwhelming awareness of unfamiliarity.
The familiarity? The understanding of Society which I found on his pages is radically similar to what, for most of its existence since 1559, would have been seen as the distinctive mark of Anglicanism … yes, even more so than ‘episcopacy’ or ‘Patristicism’. I invite readers to let their imagination take them back to the English countryside before the Industrial Revolution or the Catholic Revival; to the Squire and the Parson (each of them probably ‘two-bottle men’, or better) drinking to “Church and King” or “Church and State”. The understanding was that the Crown defended the Church, and the Church upheld the Crown (a view that ‘Gallican’ Frenchmen might have shared). There had been a decade of hiatus in the middle of the seventeenth century; but that had become just a bad memory. True, there were ambiguities after the Dutch Invasion; as Squire and Parson raised their glasses together, perhaps the candlelight glinted on some words etched into the glasses … Redeat Magnus ille Genius Brittaniae … and perhaps there was a bowl of water on the table … and perhaps Sophie Western in her lofty bower heard the drunken voices downstairs rise in song to ‘bless our King … soon to reign over us’ or to peer into a future ‘when the King shall have his own again’. But the implicit ideology, of a Christian state, of a ‘realm’, lay beneath it all.
In this sense, if you wanted to call classical ‘cultural Anglicanism’ ‘Lefebvrian’, people might find you rather eccentric but you could make a strong case for your eccentricity; as long as you made it clear that you were referring to the old ‘High and Dry’ churchmen more than to the new enthusiasts of the Tractarian and Evangelical movements.
The unfamiliarity? A vivid scene described early in the Archbishop’s book: we are inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, where the painter David has been prostituting his skills in the interests of a new ideology, and has turned from oils to papier-mache. Instead of the altare Dei and the August Presence, there is a ‘mountain’ with a ‘Greek’ temple, occupied by an agreeable petitedanseuse deemed to be the Goddess Reason and surrounded by her associates singing ‘hymns’; then a small gathering moves off to the Assembly so that its President can embrace ‘la Deesse’. The date? 20 Brumaire, in the Year II. The Capetian uncrowned, the Redeemer dethroned, the very Calendar remade.
British Society has never since 1660 experienced quite such a brutal and total moment of discontinuity, which has marked the whole of later history and has bequeathed such rigidly defined polarities. If Britain had done a deal with Hitler in 1941, Buckingham Palace might very probably have been occupied by Wallace Simpson and a bevy of German Advisers, but EDWARDUS VIII DEI GRATIA REX INDIAE IMPERATOR would have appeared on the coins, the royal standard would still have fluttered from the flagpole, and there would … I suspect … have been a continuity of outward forms.
French history, on the other hand, has been marked by repeated discontinuities in the rituals and the forms, so that under Marshal Petain the Revolutionary motto and symbols in their turn give way to coins inscribed Travail Famille Patrie and bearing a Gallique Francisque. And what might a President Zemmour do?
I am inclined to feel that an Englishman has little hope of understanding Lefebvre (or possibly many other Frenchman) if he fails to understand this.
His Excellency the Archbishop described ‘the social doctrine of the Church’ thus: “Society is not a shapeless mass of individuals, but an arranged organism of coordinated and hierarchically arranged social groups: the family, the enterprises and trades, then the professional corporations, finally the state. The corporations unite employers and workers in the same profession for the protection and the promotion of their common interests. The classes are not antagonistic, but naturally complementary”. You could call this ideal ‘Corporatism’ and recall with distaste that it appealed to Mussolini; or ‘Toryism’ and remember that as early as 1749 Henry Fielding was ridiculing it as old-fashioned; but it has broad links with the Catholic High Medieval Society which John Bossy described in the 1980s and the disappearance of which the Anglican ‘Radical Orthodox’ Catherine Pickstock lamented as the basis of modern, atomised, individualism.
Our more gradual British revolutions and our shyness about disturbing inherited symbols deny us the clarity afforded to Frenchmen by the almost comic abruptness of their own episodic cultural transformations; but have we not now all … on each side of the Channel … ended up in very much the same place?
“Dell’ odio i tristi frutti.” Anyone who loves opera knows these words. They are taken from the prologue of Leoncavallo’s “I Pagliacci,” in which flaming jealousy first leads to fiery hatred and then to double murder.
However, the “sad fruits of hatred” are not only found in the opera but everywhere in the world, and the “Pagliacci” quote could also describe the current situation of the Church. Whoever hears it automatically thinks of the Lord’s greater words: “By their fruits you shall know them” (Mt 7:16), and indeed, the fruits of demonic self-hatred can be seen throughout the Church; they are the fruits of hatred of everything that is Catholic and perhaps even of hatred of God.
It is true, we live in sad times: Supernatural faith has been extinguished up to the highest ecclesiastical circles and has given way to a new atheism that seeks an unholy connection to the world and its ideas.
The consequences of this are terrible because they would mean the end of the Church and the papacy: where supernatural faith is absent, the pope becomes a mere dictator who only sets a political direction; God himself is just an empty formula.
The beginnings of this development go back a long way: they start with what Pope John XXIII called “aggiornamento” in 1962, the adaptation of the Church to modern times.
This went terribly wrong, and it had to; the Church is not a product that can be cleverly placed on the market and adapted to the times. Jesus Christ did not do this either, on the contrary, and St. Paul admonishes the Romans: “Do not conform to this world” (Rom. 12:2).
Anyone who does not believe in this principle no longer believes in anything at all – just like a large number of the highest prelates: Their faith has evaporated before everyone’s eyes and now only consists of a hollow belief in “climate change” mitigation and pointless church reform. The faithful, however, sense that they are only receiving stones instead of bread from these people (Luke 11:11); their exodus from the Church can no longer be stopped.
Sixty years after John XXIII, the bad seed has sprouted and threatens to choke the wheat, only now the “aggiornamento” has turned into a synodal madness that wants to destroy the Church once and for all.
Cardinal Gerhard Müller has aptly called this a “hostile takeover.” Catholicism is to be gutted, and this is precisely the plan of the current “Synod on Synodality”: They want to make the Church “fit for the future” by destroying its identity.
But please, who destroys something they love? Only hatred destroys, and hatred of Catholicism is now destroying the Church from within.
That is why this development also began in the innermost and holiest part of the Church, namely with the hatred of the liturgy that had been handed down for at least 1,500 years, which Paul VI replaced with a semi-Protestant Mass in 1970.
This process was unprecedented, and no other religion has ever allowed itself such an intrusion into its cult. But, as always, it got worse: in the meantime, the followers of the traditional Mass are being downright persecuted and insulted as “inidietrists” or “schismatics.” This was seen in drastic fashion at the funeral of the retired Bishop of Chur, Msgr. Vitus Huonder, who was buried by the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.
It is obvious: there is no greater hatred in the Church than hatred of the traditional Mass, but the question remains as to why that is.
One might answer: because the lie hates the truth and the darkness hates the light, and surely this is the mysterious root of what is currently happening in the Church.
To put it more simply: the “old” Mass is incompatible with everything that has begun since the “aggiornamento” of John XXIII and that Francis now wants to complete. The point is to bury the “old Church” alongside the “old” Mass so that the true Church can be replaced by a new church.
The fact that this new church has lost its faith in God has long since been made visible in the conversion of its altars: they are no longer oriented towards God but only towards the people. This says it all: the “aggiornamento” has opened the door to ecclesiastical atheism, and with it began the “hostile takeover” that we are now experiencing to its full extent.
This takeover is only possible if one deeply despises the faith, and it only appears to be supposedly “Catholic” if one first destroys what is truly Catholic. Let me put it this way: hatred of the traditional Mass is not only hatred of Catholicism, it is above all the precondition for synodal “church reform.” Or could you imagine a Solemn High Mass with the female “deacons” that Francis and his synod so long for? Hardly!
The ultimate goal of this great work of destruction can already be seen in Germany, and it is only for this reason that Francis is giving the ex-Catholic bishops free reign there.
The sad fruits of hatred, on the other hand, have no chance. This is shown warningly and cruelly in “I Pagliacci” – and the Bible shows it too. Certainly, “I Pagliacci” may be a gloomy opera about fools. Nevertheless, the tragic main character, Canio, recognizes himself at the end. He realizes that his hatred is poisoning his heart and bears harrowing witness to this in the famous aria “Vesti la giubba.” Such self-awareness is currently a long way off in the Church.
The little skirmishes between the Curia and the Germans are just a ruse. The real battle plan looks different: Rome will not stop the decisions of the German “Synodal Way”; instead, they will be exported from Germany to Rome and paid for in cash by the rich Germans. Yes, it is as Jesus said: “You will recognize them by their fruits!” And these fruits stink to high heaven!
Sometimes, you wish the final curtain would fall, and all this would just be a tragic opera. Nevertheless, faith teaches us to be confident: the time of confusion and apostasy will end. Then, the Church will return to the true Catholic faith – and to the traditional liturgy. Frankly, it has no other choice; people are now fleeing in droves and going to where the “old Mass” is celebrated.
The great Pope Benedict XVI recognized this prophetically, and the good fruits of his pontificate will stand the test of time, even if people want to destroy them now.
When Peter entered, Cornelius met him and, falling at his feet, paid him homage. Peter, however, raised him up, saying, “Get up. I myself am also a human being.” Then Peter proceeded to speak and said, “In truth, I see that God shows no partiality. Rather, in every nation, whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him. While Peter was still speaking these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word. The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also, for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter responded, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?” He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
Psalms98(97),1.2-3ab.3cd-4.
Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done wondrous deeds; His right hand has won victory for him, his holy arm.
The LORD has made his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice. He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation by our God. Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands; break into song; sing praise.
First Letter of John4,7-10.
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John15,9-17.
Jesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.”
Saint John Cassian (around 360-435) founder of monasteries Conference 11 : On Perfection, Chapter 13
The fear of love
Whoever then has been established in this perfect love is sure to mount by a higher stage to that still more sublime fear belonging to love, which is the outcome of no dread of punishment or greed of reward, but of the greatest love; whereby a son fears with earnest affection a most indulgent father, or a brother fears his brother, a friend his friend, or a wife her husband, while there is no dread of his blows or reproaches, but only of a slight injury to his love, and while in every word as well as act there is ever care taken by anxious affection lest the warmth of his love should cool in the very slightest degree towards the object of it.
There is then a great difference between this fear, to which nothing is lacking, which is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and that imperfect fear which is called the beginning of wisdom, and which has in it punishment and so is expelled from the hearts of those who are perfect by the incoming of the fullness of love. For there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. 1 John 4:18. And in truth if the beginning of wisdom consists in fear, what will its perfection be except in the love of Christ which, as it contains in it the fear which belongs to perfect love.
This then is the fear belonging to perfection, with which we are told that the God-man, who came not only to redeem mankind, but also to give us a pattern of perfection and example of goodness, was filled.
Russell Brand was baptised on Sunday, he says – in the River Thames, despite his tongue-in-cheek fear of catching a virus – and he’s thrilled about it. He thanked those who embraced his decision, while expressing understanding of those who are cynical. He’s not perfect, he explains; he knows he’s going to make mistakes, but ‘this is my path now,’ he says. ‘I’m so grateful to be surrendered in Christ.’
Speaking as a Catholic, this writer can’t but consider the advantages of baptism in church: waters freed from viruses and demons through exorcism, holy oils, and proper storage, might have been preferable. Yet it’s impossible not to feel hopeful for Brand, and to wish him – and the other right-wing celebrities who have been drawing closer to Christianity of late – great things for the future. There’s a place for cynicism, but there’s also and always room for hope.
Though he doesn’t say he’s joined any specific church, give him time. His wife is Catholic; add to that the fact that only the other day he was teaching his 11 million followers on X to pray the rosary. First, devotion to the Blessed Virgin; next, Catholicism? Like freshly-admitted convert Candace Owens, we’ll be hearing of Russell at the Brompton Oratory next, clad, perhaps, in the sackcloth and ashes of a conservative blazer and tie. Now that would truly be putting on the new man.
The rosary was a step on the road for Tammy Peterson, wife of the religiously reluctant Jordan. The story of her terminal cancer diagnosis and cure is well known. Against all the odds, she was completely (and miraculously, she believes) restored to health and joined the Catholic Church this past Easter. ‘I know what brought me here,’ she told interviewers after the ceremony. ‘I’ve been looking for Mother Mary since I was a little kid.’
Historian Tom Holland spoke a few weeks ago about his own dealings with the Queen of Heaven. Raised Anglican, the young Holland quickly lost his faith. But over the years he came to see Christianity as the moral foundation of western civilisation, and, though still agnostic, began to attend Anglican services at St. Bartholomew the Great – coincidentally, the only place in London where the Blessed Virgin is said to have appeared.
At Christmas of 2021, Holland attended St. Bartholomew’s midnight service in some distress. He had just been diagnosed with bowel cancer, and the outlook was not good. As the ceremony ended, he found himself glancing over to the spot where Our Lady is said to have appeared. He decided that he might as well head over there and – not to put too fine a point upon it – pray. ‘No atheists in a foxhole,’ he told himself. This was his first prayer since childhood, Holland says. On the spot where the Blessed Virgin came down from heaven, he sent up a heartfelt plea for help. ‘Come on. Please.’
From that point on, he says, all kinds of things began to go right. Today he is well and cancer free. Was it miraculous? Holland thinks it possible. It could have been a remarkable series of coincidences, he says – but is that ungrateful to the Virgin? Yes, a friend tells him. And he can’t but be captivated by a God who would deliberately fly in the face of his every prejudice as a Protestant agnostic, confronting him not just with a supernatural intervention, but with Mary, with intercessory prayer, with the medieval and the Catholic – all the sorts of things with which he most emphatically doesn’t identify. ‘If it’s true,’ he says, ‘God has the most wonderful sense of humour!’ Perhaps the Mother of God has a sense of humour, too.
Jordan Peterson says that the Catholic Church’s ‘insistence upon the divine nature of the mother’ is something that ‘the West desperately needs’. Peterson hasn’t got the first part quite right, since Catholics believe Our Lady is human, not divine. Nevertheless, he’s onto something, despite his unwillingness to speak plain English. (Dr. Peterson, if by chance you’re reading this: your saint-covered tuxedo is truly, well, iconic.)
Art historian Kenneth Clark spoke glowingly of the essential influence of the Blessed Virgin on western civilisation, she who taught ‘tough and ruthless barbarians’ the virtues of tenderness and compassion, she who inspired them to build cathedrals, compose music, make art – but also to respect women and defend the weak. When the Protestant reformers sought to ban veneration of Mary, how must a simple Catholic have reacted? Not just with principled outrage, but with a sense that a significant part of his emotional life was under threat.’ As indeed it was, Clark says: the heretics sought ‘to deprive him of that sweet, compassionate, approachable being who would intercede for him, as his mother might have interceded with a hard master.’
There is a growing awareness among intellectuals on the right, those above but also the likes of Douglas Murray, Paul Kingsnorth, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, even Richard Dawkins, that only the remnants of Christianity are keeping western civilisation from the abyss. Many are looking back on the Enlightenment, wondering how the great liberal project could have failed.
Claiming to rid the world of ‘superstition’, the Enlightenment thought to pave the way to a glorious new future. But in turning away from Catholicism, freethinkers and reformers together cut western culture off from the life-giving inspiration of the Blessed Virgin. And we’re surprised our civilisation is running out of steam? The only surprise is that it’s lasted so long.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — It was the music that changed first. Or maybe that’s just when many people at the pale brick Catholic church in the quiet Wisconsin neighborhood finally began to realize what was happening.
The choir director, a fixture at St. Maria Goretti for nearly 40 years, was suddenly gone. Contemporary hymns were replaced by music rooted in medieval Europe.
So much was changing. Sermons were focusing more on sin and confession. Priests were rarely seen without cassocks. Altar girls, for a time, were banned.
At the parish elementary school, students began hearing about abortion and hell.
“It was like a step back in time,” said one former parishioner, still so dazed by the tumultuous changes that began in 2021 with a new pastor that he only spoke on condition of anonymity.
It’s not just St. Maria Goretti.
Across the U.S., the Catholic Church is undergoing an immense shift. Generations of Catholics who embraced the modernizing tide sparked in the 1960s by Vatican II are increasingly giving way to religious conservatives who believe the church has been twisted by change, with the promise of eternal salvation replaced by guitar Masses, parish food pantries and casual indifference to church doctrine.
The shift, molded by plummeting church attendance, increasingly traditional priests and growing numbers of young Catholics searching for more orthodoxy, has reshaped parishes across the country, leaving them sometimes at odds with Pope Francis and much of the Catholic world.
The changes are not happening everywhere. There are still plenty of liberal parishes, plenty that see themselves as middle-of-the-road. Despite their growing influence, conservative Catholics remain a minority.
Yet the changes they have brought are impossible to miss.
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 they’re trying to restore what us old guys ruined,” said the Rev. John Forliti, 87, a retired Twin Cities priest who fought for civil rights and reforms in Catholic school sex education.
Doug Koesel, an outspoken 72-year-old priest at Blessed Trinity Parish in Cleveland, was blunter: “They’re just waiting for us to die.”
At St. Maria Goretti, once steeped in the ethos of Vatican II, many parishioners saw the changes as a requiem.
“I don’t want my daughter to be Catholic,” said Christine Hammond, whose family left the parish when the new outlook spilled into the church’s school and her daughter’s classroom. “Not if this is the Roman Catholic Church that is coming.”
But this is not a simple story. Because there are many who welcome this new, old church.
They often stand out in the pews, with the men in ties and the women sometimes with the lace head coverings that all but disappeared from American churches more than 50 years ago. Often, at least a couple families will arrive with four, five or even more children, signaling their adherence to the church’s ban on contraception, which most American Catholics have long casually ignored.
They attend confession regularly and adhere strictly to church teachings. Many yearn for Masses that echo with medieval traditions – more Latin, more incense more Gregorian chants.
“We want this ethereal experience that is different from everything else in our lives,” said Ben Rouleau, who until recently led St. Maria Goretti’s young adult group, which saw membership skyrocket even as the parish shrank amid the turmoil.
They are, Rouleau said, happily out of touch with a liberal city like Madison.
“It’s radical in some ways,” Rouleau said. “We’re returning to the roots of the church.”
If this movement emerged from anywhere, it might be a now-demolished Denver football stadium and a borrowed military helicopter carrying in Pope John Paul II.
Some 500,000 people descended on Denver in 1993 for the Catholic festival World Youth Day. When the pope’s helicopter landed just outside Mile High Stadium, the ground shook from the stomping.
The pope, whose grandfatherly appearance belied an electric charisma, and who was beloved both for his kindness and his sternness, confronted an American church shaped by three decades of progressive change.
If the church is often best known to non-Catholics for its opposition to abortion, it had grown increasingly liberal since Vatican II. Birth control was quietly accepted in many parishes, and confession barely mentioned. Catholic social teaching on poverty suffused churches. Most priests traded in their cassocks for plain black shirts with Roman collars. Incense and Latin became increasingly rare.
On some issues, John Paul II agreed with these liberal-minded Catholics. He spoke against capital punishment and pushed for workers’ rights. He preached relentlessly about forgiveness – “the oxygen that purifies the air of hatred.” He forgave his own would-be assassin.
But he was also uncompromising on dogma, warning about change and cracking down on liberal theologians. He urged a return to forgotten rituals.
Catholics “are in danger of losing their faith,” he told crowds at the final Denver Mass, decrying abortion, drug abuse, and what he called “sexual disorders,” a barely veiled reference to growing acceptance of gay rights.
Across the nation, fervent young Catholics listened.
Newman Centers, which serve Catholic university students, became increasingly popular. So did FOCUS, a traditionalist organization working on American college campuses. Conservative Catholic media grew, particularly the cable TV network EWTN, a prominent voice for increased orthodoxy.
Today, conservative Catholic America has its own constellation of online celebrities aimed at young people. There’s Sister Miriam James, an ever-smiling nun in full habit who talks openly about her hard-partying college days. There’s Jackie Francois Angel, who speaks in shockingly frank detail about sex, marriage and Catholicism. There’s Mike Schmitz, a movie-star handsome Minnesota priest who exudes kindness while insisting on doctrine.
Even today, surveys show most American Catholics are far from orthodox. Most support abortion rights. The vast majority use birth control.
But increasingly, those Catholics are not in church.
In 1970, more than half of America’s Catholics said they went to Mass at least once a week. By 2022, that had fallen to 17%, according to CARA, a research center affiliated with Georgetown University. Among millennials, the number is just 9%.
Even as the U.S. Catholic population has jumped to more than 70 million, driven in part by immigration from Latin America, ever-fewer Catholics are involved in the church’s most important rites. Infant baptisms have fallen from 1.2 million in 1965 to 440,000 in 2021, CARA says. Catholic marriages have dropped by well over two-thirds.
The shrinking numbers mean that those who remain in the church have outsized influence compared with the overall Catholic population.
On the national level, conservatives increasingly dominate the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference and the Catholic intellectual world. They include everyone from the philanthropist founder of Domino’s Pizza to six of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Then there’s the priesthood.
Young priests driven by liberal politics and progressive theology, so common in the 1960s and 70s, have “all but vanished,” said a 2023 report from The Catholic Project at Catholic University, based on a survey of more than 3,500 priests.
Today’s young priests are far more likely to believe that the church changed too much after Vatican II, tangling itself up in America’s rapidly shifting views on everything from women’s roles to LGBTQ people.
“There really aren’t very many liberals in the seminaries anymore,” said a young, recently ordained Midwestern priest. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the turmoil that engulfed his parish after he began pressing for more orthodox services. “They wouldn’t feel comfortable.”
Sometimes, the shift toward orthodoxy happens slowly. Maybe there’s a little more Latin sprinkled into Mass, or an occasional reminder to go to confession. Maybe guitars are relegated to Saturday evening services, or dropped completely.
And sometimes the changes come like a whirlwind, dividing parishes between those thirsting for a more reverent Catholicism and those who feel their spiritual home has been taken from them.
“You’d leave Mass thinking, ‘Holy cow! What just happened?’” said another ex-parishioner at St. Maria Goretti, whose family eventually left the church, describing the 2021 promotion of a new pastor, and a sudden focus on sin and confession.
Like many former parishioners, he spoke only on condition of anonymity, worried about upsetting friends still at the church. Diocesan clergy did not respond to requests for interviews.
“I’m a lifelong Catholic. I grew up going to church every Sunday,” he said. “But I’d never seen anything like this.”
The new outlook has spilled across America.
In churches from Minnesota to California, parishioners have protested changes introduced by new conservative priests. In Cincinnati, it came when the new priest abandoned gospel music and African drumming. In small-town North Carolina, it was an intense focus on Latin. In east Texas, it was a right-wing bishop forced out by the Vatican after accusing Pope Francis of undermining church teachings.
Each can seem like one more skirmish in the cultural and political battles tearing at America.
But the movement, whether called conservative or orthodox or traditionalist or authentic, can be hard to define.
It ranges from Catholics who want more incense, to Latin Mass adherents who have brought back ancient prayers that mention “the perfidious Jew.” There are right-wing survivalists, celebrity exorcists, environmentalists and a handful of quasi-socialists.
There’s the Catholic news outlet railing against the Vatican’s “wicked entourage,” and the small-town Wisconsin priest who traces COVID-19 to a century-old prophecy and warns of looming dictatorship. There’s the recent “Catholic Prayer for Trump,” a $1,000-a-plate dinner at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort, featuring a string of conspiracy theorists.
Yet the orthodox movement can also seem like a tangle of forgiveness and rigidity, where insistence on mercy and kindness mingle with warnings of eternity in hell.
Looming over the American divide is Pope Francis, who has pushed the global church to be more inclusive, even as he toes the line on most dogma.
The orthodox movement has watched him nervously from the first days of his papacy, angered by his more liberal views on issues like gay relationships and divorce. Some reject him entirely.
The U.S. church has “a very strong reactionary attitude,” he told a group of Jesuits last year. “Being backward-looking is useless.”
You can find this new vision of Catholic America at Latin Masses in Milwaukee, the pews crowded with worshippers even at noon on a weekday. It’s in conferences held in California wine country, at reinvigorated parishes in Tennessee and prayer groups in Washington, D.C.
And it’s at a little Kansas college built high on a bluff above the Missouri River.
At first glance, nothing seems unusual about Benedictine College.
Students worry about unfinished essays and the complexities of dating. They wear cutoff shorts on warm autumn afternoons. Football is huge. The cafeteria food is mediocre.
But look deeper.
Because at Benedictine, Catholic teaching on contraception can slip into lessons on Plato, and no one is surprised if you volunteer for 3 a.m. prayers. Pornography, pre-marital sex and sunbathing in swimsuits are forbidden.
If these rules seem like precepts of a bygone age, that hasn’t stopped students from flocking to Benedictine and other conservative Catholic colleges.
At a time when U.S. college enrollment is shrinking, Benedictine’s expansion over the last 15 years has included four new residence halls, a new dining hall and an academic center. An immense new library is being built. The roar of construction equipment never seems to stop.
Enrollment, now about 2,200, has doubled in 20 years.
Students, many of whom grew up in conservative Catholic families, jokingly call it “the Benedictine bubble.” And it might be a window into the future of the Catholic Church in America.
In a deeply secular America, where an ever-churning culture provides few absolute answers, Benedictine offers the reassurance of clarity.
“We don’t all agree on everything, obviously,” said John Welte, a senior majoring in economics and philosophy. “But I would say everyone has an understanding of, like, truth.”
“There are certain things you can just know in your mind: This is right, and this is wrong.”
Sometimes, people here quietly admit, it goes too far. Like the students who loudly proclaim how often they go to Mass, or the young man who quit his classics course because he refused to read the works of ancient Greek pagans.
Very often, talk here echoes the 13th-century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who believed God could be found in truth, goodness and beauty. Sometimes, they say, that means finding God in strict tenets about sexuality. Sometimes in the haunting beauty of Gregorian chants.
“It’s a renewal of, like, some really, really good things that we might have lost,” said Madeline Hays, a pensive 22-year-old senior biology major.
She takes the church’s rules seriously, from pre-marital sex to confession. She can’t stand modern church architecture. She’s seriously considering becoming a nun.
But she also worries about poverty and America’s wastefulness and the way Americans –including herself – can find themselves slotted into the political divide without even knowing it.
She wrestles with her belief in an unerring Catholic doctrine that can see good people, including some of her own friends, as sinners.
Yet she doesn’t want change.
“The church wouldn’t be the church if it changed things it had set down as, ‘This is infallible doctrine and this will not change through the ages,’” she said.
They understand that in Benedictine’s small, mostly closeted gay community. Like the young man, once deeply religious, who suffers in silence as people on campus casually throw around anti-gay slurs.
He’s thought many times of leaving, but generous financial aid keeps him here. And after many years, he’s accepted his sexuality.
He’s seen the joy that people can get from Benedictine, how some will move back to Atchison after graduation, just to stay close.
But not him.
“I don’t think I’ll come back to Atchison – not ever.”
For decades, the pews at St. Maria Goretti were filled with the families of plumbers, engineers and professors from the University of Wisconsin, just a couple miles up the road. The church is a well-kept island of Catholicism tucked into the leafy residential streets of one of America’s most liberal cities.
Like so many other parishes, it had been shaped by the ideals of the 1960s and 1970s. Poverty and social justice became tightly interwoven with sermons and parish life. Gay people felt welcome. Some of the church’s moral absolutes, like the contraception ban, became forgotten dogma.
Change arrived in 2003 with a new bishop, Robert C. Morlino, an outspoken conservative. Many liberals remember him as the man who lambasted the message of acceptance in the modern hymn, “All Are Welcome.”
His successor, Bishop Donald J. Hying, steers clear of public battles. But in many ways, he quietly carries on Morlino’s legacy, warning about “the tangled thinking of Modernism.”
In 2021, Hying named the Rev. Scott Emerson, a onetime top Morlino aide, as pastor of the Madison church.
Parishioners watched – some pleased, some uneasily – as their spiritual home was remodeled.
There was more incense, more Latin, more talk of sin and confession.
Emerson’s sermons are not all fire-and-brimstone. He speaks often about forgiveness and compassion. But his tone shocked many longtime parishioners.
Protection is needed, he said in a 2023 service, from “the spiritual corruption of worldly vices.” He has warned against critics – “the atheists, journalists, politicians, the fallen-away Catholics” – he said were undermining the church.
For some, Emerson’s changes were welcome.
“A lot of us were like, ’Hey, more confession! Sweet!” said Rouleau, who ran the parish young adult group. “Better music!”
But the parish – which in mid-2023 became part of a two-church “pastorate” amid a diocese-wide restructuring – was shrinking fast.
For decades, many traditional Catholics have wondered if the church would – and perhaps should – shrink to a smaller but more faithful core.
In ways, that’s how St. Maria Goretti looks today. The 6:30 a.m. Friday Mass, Rouleau says, is increasingly popular among young people. But once-packed Sunday Masses now have empty pews. Donations are down. School enrollment plunged.
Some who left have gone to more liberal parishes. Some joined Protestant churches. Some abandoned religion entirely.
“I’m not a Catholic anymore,” said Hammond, the woman who left when the church’s school began to change. “Not even a little bit.”
But Emerson insists the Catholic Church’s critics will be proven wrong.
“How many have laughed at the church, announcing that she was passe, that her days were over and that they would bury her?” he said in a 2021 Mass.
“The church,” he said, “has buried every one of her undertakers.”
Work was the daily expression of love in the life of the Family of Nazareth. The Gospel specifies the kind of work Joseph did in order to support his family: he was a carpenter. This simple word sums up Joseph’s entire life. For Jesus, these were hidden years, the years to which Luke refers after recounting the episode that occurred in the Temple: “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them” (Lk 2:51). This “submission” or obedience of Jesus in the house of Nazareth should be understood as a sharing in the work of Joseph. Having learned the work of his presumed father, he was known as “the carpenter’s son.” If the Family of Nazareth is an example and model for human families, in the order of salvation and holiness, so too, by analogy, is Jesus’ work at the side of Joseph the carpenter. ~Saint John Paul II, Redemptoris Custos, #22
Reflection: Every age has its challenges. Therefore, every age needs a role model to look up to and to help the faithful navigate the particular challenges of their day and age. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Saint Joseph was especially held up to the faithful who engaged in the daily toil of work to support themselves and their families with dignity and love.
Work was not part of God’s original plan for humanity. Recall that when Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you! In toil you shall eat its yield…” Thus, working “by the sweat of your brow” is a consequence of Original Sin. However, we must not see this consequence as something evil, but as a means by which we now fulfill our human mission. Human labor has dignity because it is an act of obedience to the will of God and is a participation in the work of God, the work of creation.
The invitation to turn to Saint Joseph as the patron saint of workers emerged over the past two centuries as societies went through drastic social and economic changes. Through the eighteenth century, most societies remained the same as they had always been. The majority of people tilled the land and raised animals to provide food for their families. Some engaged in various trades: a carpenter, blacksmith, tailor, baker, or shoemaker. With the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, societies began to change. Machines were developed to perform tasks that had been performed by hand. Workers moved into cities to labor in factories of mass production, and many of the individual tradesmen were left behind. And though production increased, new abuses also arose. Child labor, long hours, unsafe work environments, and low wages were among the new problems. These problems especially affected family life. In response to these new societal problems, the Church held up Saint Joseph as a model for all to emulate.
In 1889, Pope Leo XIII pointed the faithful to Saint Joseph. Unchecked capitalism began to tear families apart as profit started to become the goal of work, rather than as a means of providing for one’s family. An even greater concern was the introduction of the philosophy of socialism, which was coupled with atheism. Socialism presented itself as a friend and ally to the worker, but it did so through objectively distorted means. It sought to eliminate religion, the family, and private ownership of property. Instead, each individual was to become a subject of the state, while the state took the place of God. Work was for the fatherland or motherland, not primarily to care for one’s family. In Saint Joseph, workers had someone to emulate. Saint Joseph did not work to get rich. He was not a servant of the state. He was not an oppressed laborer who needed liberating. He was a family man who found dignity in work as he provided for his family in a humble way.
On May 1, 1955, in an address to the Catholic Association of Italian Workers, Pope Pius XII took devotion to Saint Joseph one step further. He confronted the growing concerns posed by communism and its socialist philosophy on human labor and family life by instituting the Feast of Saint Joseph the Worker. “The humble craftsman of Nazareth not only personifies to God and the Holy Church the dignity of the laborer, but he is also always the provident guardian of you and your families.” May 1 (May Day) was chosen for the feast because socialist countries celebrated “International Workers’ Day” on that date. A Catholic feast, honoring the laborer in the person of Saint Joseph, was a fitting way of combating socialist ideology and restoring the dignity of labor to its proper place.
Though socialism and communism have faded in many parts of the world, they certainly have not gone away. Their philosophies continue to permeate many political systems. Unchecked capitalism also remains a threat to healthy human development and family life when the common good is overshadowed by selfish gain. The answer is simple: Go to Saint Joseph! We do not have to become intellectuals who comprehend all of the economic and political systems of our times. Instead, we must all turn to holy role models whom we can imitate. For the laborer and the family, Saint Joseph is a just man, a faithful spouse and father, a hard worker whose primary concern is for his family, a guardian and protector, an obedient servant of God, one who is humble and hidden from the spotlight, but faithful in all he does.
As we honor Saint Joseph the Worker, ponder your own call to engage in the dignity of work. As you do, put your work into proper perspective. What is the goal of your work? Do you work in an excessive way, seeking excessive gain? Do you grumble about your work and feel as though it is beneath you, holding you back from personal fulfillment? Strive for the virtuous way of Saint Joseph. Work hard to fulfill your vocation in life, and avoid excesses and extremes. We are made for love, for family, for faith, for charity, and for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. If your goals in life are anything other than these, then go to Saint Joseph the Worker and choose him as your model.
Prayer: Saint Joseph, God gave you great responsibility in life, which you embraced with loving devotion and hard work. You found dignity in your labors as you sought to fulfill the will of God by caring for your family. Please pray for me, that I will always keep the right priorities in life, never wavering from my duty to labor, and never laboring in vain for selfish profit. I choose you as my model and intercessor this day and always. Saint Joseph, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.
Today in the Novus Ordo it is the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena. Today, 29 April was her “birthday” in 1380 at the age of 33. In the older calendar, her feast is 30 April.
During her life she carried out a vigorous “apostolate” to important people and was a major force in persuading the Pope to return to Rome from Avignon.
Catherine was dedicated to works of mercy toward the poor. She had a mystical experience, called the “mystical marriage”, which is the frequent subject of medieval and renaissance art.
Catherine had dictated much of her “writings” because for a long while she didn’t know how to write. She eventually did. Her writings are exemplary Tuscan literature of the era.
Her major work is the Dialogue between her soul and God, written mostly in a state of ecstasy.
In her Dialogues (ch 124), St. Catherine’s conversations with God, the Doctrix of the Church writes that the Enemy, demons, incite people to unnatural sins (homosexual acts) but that they don’t stick around to see it happen, because those acts are too repulsive even for them.
Those acts are so contrary to nature that they offend their angelic intellect, even though they are fallen and apostate. They want the sin to take place and they incite it, but it is so offensive to them that they absent themselves when it is happening.
Here she describes demons inciting men to these acts. GOD is talking at this point…. also about PRIESTS.
“I wish thee to know, dearest daughter, that I require in this Sacrament from you and from them as great purity as it is possible for man [PRIESTS] to have in this life. On your side you ought to endeavour to acquire it continually. You should think that were it possible that the angelic nature should be purified, such purification would be necessary with regard to this mystery, but this is not possible, for angels need no purification, since the poison of sin cannot infect them. I say this to thee in order that thou mayest see how great a purity I require from you and from them in this Sacrament, and particularly from them. But they act in a contrary way, for they come full of impurity to this mystery, and not only of that impurity to which, through the fragility of your weak nature, you are all naturally inclined (although reason when free-will permits, can quiet the rebellion of nature), but these wretches not only do not bridle this fragility, but do worse, committing that accursed sin against nature, and as blind and fools with the light of their intellect darkened, they do not know the stench and misery in which they are. It is not only that this sin stinks before Me, Who am the Supreme and Eternal Truth, it does indeed displease Me so much and I hold it in such abomination that for it alone I buried five cities by a Divine judgment, My Divine justice being no longer able to endure it. This sin not only displeases Me as I have said, [NB:] but also the devils whom these wretches have made their masters. Not that the evil displeases them because they like anything good, but because their nature was originally angelic, and their angelic nature causes them to loathe the sight of the actual commission of this enormous sin. They truly enough hurl the arrow poisoned with the venom of concupiscence, but when their victim proceeds to the actual commission of the sin, they depart for the reason and in the manner that I have said. Thou rememberest that I manifested to thee before the plague how displeasing this sin was to Me, and how deeply the world was corrupted by it; so I lifted thee with holy desire and elevation of mind above thyself, and showed thee the whole world and, as it were, the nations thereof, and thou sawest this terrible sin and the devils fleeing as I have told thee, and thou rememberest that so great was the pain that thou didst receive, and the stench of this sin, that thou didst seem to thyself to see no refuge on this side of death, in which thou and My other servants could hide so as not to be attacked by this leprosy. Thou didst see that thou couldest not remain among men, for neither small nor great, nor old nor young, nor clerics nor religious, nor prelates, nor lords, nor subjects, were uncontaminated in body or mind by this curse.“
St. Catherine makes it pretty clear what God thinks of sodomy and all the other unnatural acts that fall into that fell category. So hideous, so offensive are those sins that even demons who provoke them won’t stick around while they are being committed. Demons can, however, and will, stick around the places where those acts were committed.
This is clear, charitable talk. It is not the vague and slippery lulling of certain homosexualist activists who are so very popular with those who have given into the wisdom of the world.
Catherine is, by the way, a declared Doctor of the Church. When she writes in the Dialogue about something, it is a good idea to pay attention, at the very least.
Catherine’s head is in Siena. Her body is in Rome, in the Dominican church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva.
You can go behind the altar in the church where the back of the altar’s chamber is op. The faithful pray there, touch the tomb, leave messages of petition.
Around the block facing the church is the little chapel which was where St Catherine died.
There are also the relics of martyrs here, which I am guessing come from the time when relics from Santa Prassede were distributed among Roman churches in the 1800’s. Just a guess.
This stone is next to the door going into the little chapel. It is talking directly to you, the reader.
When he (Saul) arrived in Jerusalem he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. Then Barnabas took charge of him and brought him to the apostles, and he reported to them how on the way he had seen the Lord and that he had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. He moved about freely with them in Jerusalem, and spoke out boldly in the name of the Lord. He also spoke and debated with the Hellenists, but they tried to kill him. And when the brothers learned of this, they took him down to Caesarea and sent him on his way to Tarsus. The church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria was at peace. It was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord, and with the consolation of the Holy Spirit it grew in numbers.
Psalms22(21),26b-27.28.30.31-32.
I will fulfill my vows before those who fear him. The lowly shall eat their fill; They who seek the LORD shall praise him: “May your hearts be ever merry!”
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; All the families of the nations shall bow down before him.
To him alone shall bow down all who sleep in the earth; Before him shall bend all who go down into the dust.
And to him my soul shall live; my descendants shall serve him. Let the coming generation be told of the LORD that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born the justice he has shown.
First Letter of John3,18-24.
Children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth. (Now) this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth and reassure our hearts before him in whatever our hearts condemn, for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything. Beloved, if (our) hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence in God and receive from him whatever we ask, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit that he gave us.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John15,1-8.
Jesus said to his disciples: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He takes away every branch in me that does not bear fruit, and everyone that does he prunes so that it bears more fruit. You are already pruned because of the word that I spoke to you. Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me will be thrown out like a branch and wither; people will gather them and throw them into a fire and they will be burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”
Blessed Columba Marmion (1858-1923) Abbot Christ model and source of priestly sanctity p.52
I am the vine, you are the branches (Jn 15:5)
Jesus Himself has willed to confirm by a comparison our faith in His sanctifying influence: “I am the vine,” He said “You are the branches” (Jn 15:5). The branches have life, but they do not themselves provide the sap which nourishes them. They are constantly drawing their vitality from the sap which comes from the parent stem. So it is for the members of Christ: their good actions, their practice of the virtues, their spiritual progress, their sanctity, belong to them certainly; but it is the sap of grace coming from Christ which produces these wonders in them. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in me;” (Jn 15;4)
In Jesus everything radiates life: His words, His actions, the different phases of His life. All the mysteries of His life on earth, those of His childhood, as well as those of His death, possess an ever efficacious power of sanctification. In Him the past is not effaced: “Christ dieth no more: death shall no more have dominion over Him.” (Rm 6:9) He never ceases to pour into our souls His supernatural life. But too often our inattention or lack of faith paralyzes the effects of His action in our souls. For us to live is to possess sanctifying grace; to make our thoughts, our affections, and all our activity emmanate from Christ.
Lutetiae parisiorum, die XXI mensis aprilis, dominica III post Pascha
International Campaign for the Total Freedom of the Traditional Liturgy
Being a Catholic in 2024 is no easy endeavour. The West is undergoing a massive de-Christianization, so much so that Catholicism appears to be vanishing from the public sphere. Elsewhere, the number of Christians being persecuted for their faith is on the rise. What’s more, the Church has been struck by an internal crisis that manifests itself in a decline in religious practice, a downswing in priestly and religious vocations, a decrease in sacramental practice, and even a growing dissension between priests, bishops and cardinals which, until very recently, was utterly unthinkable. Yet, among all the things that can contribute to the internal revival of the Church and to the renewal of her missionary zeal, there is, above all, the worthy and reverent celebration of her liturgy, which can be greatly fostered thanks to the example and the presence of the traditional Roman liturgy.
Despite all the attempts that have been made to suppress it, especially during the present pontificate, it lives on, continuing to spread and to sanctify the Christian people who are blessed to be able to benefit from it. It bears abundant fruits of piety, as well as an increase of vocations and of conversions. It attracts young people and is the fount of many flourishing works, especially in schools, and is accompanied by a solid catechesis. No one can deny that it is a vector for the preservation and transmission of the faith and religious practice in the midst of a waning of religious belief and a dwindling number of believers. This Mass, due to its venerable antiquity, can boast of having sanctified countless souls over the centuries. Among other vital forces still active in the Church, this form of liturgical life stands out because of the stability given to it by an uninterrupted lex orandi.
Certainly, some places of worship have been granted, or rather tolerated, where this liturgy can be celebrated, but too often what has been given by one hand is taken back by the other, without, however, ever managing to make it vanish.
Since the massive decline during the period immediately following the Second Vatican Council, every attempt has been made on numerous occasions to revive religious practice, to increase the number of priestly and religious vocations, and to preserve the faith of the Christian people. Everything, except letting the people experience the traditional liturgy, by giving the Tridentine liturgy a fair chance. Today, however, common sense urgently demands that all the vital forces in the Church be allowed to live and prosper, and in particular the one which enjoys a right dating back to over a millennium.
Let there be no mistake: the present appeal is not a petition to obtain a new tolerance as in 1984 and 1988, nor even a restoration of the status granted in 2007 by the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, which, recognizing in principle a right, has in fact been reduced to a regime of meagerly granted permissions.
As lay people, it is not for us to pass judgment on the Second Vatican Council, its continuity or discontinuity with the previous teaching of the Church, the merits, or not, of the reforms that resulted from it, and so on. On the other hand, it is necessary to defend and transmit the means that Providence has employed to enable a growing number of Catholics to preserve the faith, to grow in it, or to discover it. The traditional liturgy plays an essential role in this process, thanks to its transcendence, its beauty, its timelessness and its doctrinal certainty.
For this reason, we simply ask, for the sake of the true freedom of the children of God in the Church, that the full freedom of the traditional liturgy, with the free use of all its liturgical books, be granted, so that, without hindrance, in the Latin rite, all the faithful may benefit from it and all clerics may celebrate it.
Jean-Pierre Maugendre, Managing Director of Renaissance Catholique, Paris, France
April 22, 2024
This appeal is not a petition to be signed, but a message to be disseminated, possibly to be taken up again in any form that may seem appropriate, and to be brought and explained to the cardinals, bishops and prelates of the universal Church.
Si Renaissance catholique a l’initiative de cette campagne, c’est uniquement pour se faire l’interprète d’un large désir en ce sens qui se manifeste dans l’ensemble du monde catholique. Cette campagne n’est pas la sienne, mais celle de tous ceux qui y participeront, la relayeront, l’amplifieront, chacun à leur manière.
Renaissance Catholiqueis a Paris-based movement of lay people working to reestablish the social reign of Christ.
God puts us where we need to be. A radical statement for an article on the Titanic, I know. But on April 10, 1912, God placed Catholic men and women on board the Titanic to offer prayer and hope when it was needed most.
Three priests are known to have sailed on the Titanic: Father Juozas Montvila of Lithuania, Father Josef Peruschitz of Bavaria, and Father Thomas Byles of England, who had converted to Catholicism while studying theology at Oxford.
When Father Byles boarded the Titanic, he did not know that his greatest service as a priest was about to begin. He planned to enjoy the voyage and then officiate at his brother’s wedding when the ship reached New York City. However, Father Byles was needed in a different role.
Titanic survivors recall that on the morning of Sunday, April 14, 1912, Father Byles said Mass in the third class section of the ship and gave a homily that included references to lifeboats.After Mass, the priest and Mass attendees resumed their typical schedules.
Father Byles was seen on deck near midnight when the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink. When crewmen urged the priest to get in a lifeboat, he refused and ministered to passengers trapped in second and third class areas. Titanic survivor Mary Ellen Mockler recalled, “We saw before us, coming down the passageway, with his hand uplifted, Father Byles…. ‘Be calm, my good people,’ he said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolution and blessings.” Fellow survivor Agnes reported, “When the Titanic went to the bottom, Father Thomas B. Byles stood on the deck with Catholics, Protestants, and Jews kneeling around him. Father Byles was saying the rosary and praying for the repose of the souls of those about to perish. To many he administered the last rites of the Church.” Titanic survivors stated that neither Father Byles nor any of the other priests on the Titanic took seats in the lifeboats. They remained on deck to hear confessions and administer last rites.
The example set by Fathers Byles, Montvila, and Peruschitz may have inspired survivors Ellen Mocklare and Anne Kate Kelly to imitate their life of service. Both women entered the convent years after their rescue at sea.
As the priests stayed on deck, another Catholic, Margaret Brown, helped passengers get into lifeboats. History books and Hollywood filmmakers have named her the Unsinkable Molly Brown, but Margaret never referred to herself as Molly. Friends and family members called her Maggie.
Born in 1867, Maggie was one of eight children in an impoverished Irish Catholic family. By the age of thirteen, Maggie was stripping tobacco leaves in Hannibal, Missouri, to help support her family. She moved to Colorado where she met and married James Joseph (J.J.) Brown in 1886. Maggie and J.J. had two children and faced financial struggles in the early years of their marriage. They became immensely wealthy when J.J. developed a way to safely extract gold from the Colorado mines. Although she now had the money to live a life of leisure, Maggie Brown devoted her time to soup kitchens and other charitable organizations that helped women and children.
Maggie Brown was in Europe in 1912 when she purchased a ticket on the Titanic so that she could visit her grandson who was ill in the United States. As a first class passenger, she was quickly offered a seat in a lifeboat. In the rush for survival, many lifeboats were launched into the sea with empty seats that could have been filled. Maggie Brown is said to have demanded that her lifeboat not leave until it had taken on as many passengers as possible. When she and others were rescued by another ship, the Carpathia, Maggie collected funds and clothing from its wealthy passengers to aid the Titanic’s survivors shivering on the decks.
Before and after her voyage on the Titanic, Maggie Brown put her Catholic faith in action. While living in Colorado, she raised money to build the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, St. Joseph’s Hospital, and Catholic and public elementary schools. Throughout her life, she was deeply interested in questions of justice and equality. She teamed with Judge Ben Lindsey to develop the first juvenile court in the United States. It became a model for the country. Maggie Brown’s concern for the poor led her to invite the Red Cross to use her home in Newport, Rhode Island, in times of emergency. She knew that money was of no use unless it relieved the suffering of others.
The crew of the Carpathia met the Titanic lifeboats in the icy sea because they had received a distress call sent through a newly developed system of wireless telegraphy. Only twelve years earlier, Guglielmo Marconi, aided by the work of Father Jozef Murgas, a priest from Pennsylvania, proposed a system of communicating by radio waves sent over long distances. Jack Phillips, a wireless operator onboard the Titanic, used Marconi’s equipment to send a distress call. The Carpathia followed the coordinates provided by Phillips and rescued over seven hundred passengers who had jumped into lifeboats. Without Marconi’s invention there may not have been any survivors of the Titanic.
Catholic faith and leadership brought hope on the night of the Titanic tragedy, 112 years ago this month. Priests onboard the ship sacrificed their lives by staying on deck to administer sacraments. Maggie Brown used her leadership skills to get as many people as possible into lifeboats. The wireless telegraphy developed from the work of Father Jozef Murgasa and Guglielmo Marconi brought the Carpathian to rescue Titanic passengers. Fortified by their faith, Catholics on the Titanic saved lives.
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
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