8 06, 2023

The Suicide of Altering the Faith

By |2023-05-29T15:29:02+00:00June 8th, 2023|Theology|

Before becoming Pope, Pope Pius XII wrote this in 1933:  "I am concerned about the confidences of the Virgin to the little Lucia of Fatima. This persistence of the Good Lady in face of the danger that threatens the Church is a divine warning against the suicide that the alteration of the Faith, in its liturgy, its theology, and its soul, would represent. I hear around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments, and make her remorseful for her historical past. Well, my dear friend, I am convinced that the Church of Peter must affirm her past, or [...]

6 06, 2023

Why Is Celibacy Higher than Marriage?

By |2023-05-26T15:26:05+00:00June 6th, 2023|Theology|

Realizing that most of my readers are lay, and realizing how the priest—child scandals have tanked not only the low trust placed in celibates not only by secularists but even by good Catholics, this blog has to tread on pretty raw ground.  Let me stay at the outset that although Divine Revelation definitively holds it as true that celibacy is a higher vocation than marriage, the saints are clear that the priest's salvation is normally harder to attain than that of a lay person, due to the higher level of scrutiny at his particular judgment.  This is obviously due to the duties and high-calling he has ostensibly answered in life. [...]

1 06, 2023

Who Is Sister Mary Wilhelmina OSB?

By |2023-05-31T22:03:30+00:00June 1st, 2023|Theology|

From Fr. David:  Mary Elizabeth Lancaster was born on the 13th of April 1924 in St. Louis, MO.  She entered Benedictine religious life as a teenager.   Later in life, Sr. Mary Wilhelmina founded the traditional congregation Queen of Apostles.  There, she died on 29 May 2019.  Four years later, on 18 May 2023, she was exhumed and found incorrupt.  (Incorrupt means minimal corruption to a deceased body, and this is normally seen as a sign of God affirming great sanctity in the life of the deceased.)  The following guest post is written by Mother of Wildlings, @ravenousreader. Who was Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster? Most Catholics know her as the “Incorrupt [...]

30 05, 2023

Spiritual Warfare in the US Military

By |2023-06-01T20:48:48+00:00May 30th, 2023|Theology|

From Fr. David Nix:  Robert Green was my parishioner when I was a parochial vicar at a traditional parish on the East Coast.  As the inside cover of his new book reads, Robert "has become one of the Navy's most vocal figures in the fight against the unlawful implementation of the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  Banned from his building and fired from his position leading a 650-person unit, he is the author of numerous impactful internal Navy complaints, multiple whistleblower reports to Congress, and a key source of evidence for ongoing Federal Court cases related to the military vaccine mandate."  Following Memorial Day, I believe this blog was best to [...]

25 05, 2023

A Tale of Two “Sisters”

By |2023-05-25T14:30:45+00:00May 25th, 2023|Theology|

As much as I dislike placing a blasphemous image of a "Sister of Perpetual Indulgence" (top left) next to a real saintly nun (Sister Mary Wilhelmina Lancaster OSB above to the right) it has to be more than coincidence that the two biggest stories in the US Catholic world this week both have to do with women religious.  The top left is a group of men mocking female-religious in Los Angeles.  The top right is a real Benedictine foundress of a female congregation found incorrupt in Missouri just this week, May 2023. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI henceforth, also top left pic) are a group of men who dress up in [...]

23 05, 2023

How to Offer Yourself at Holy Mass

By |2023-05-20T01:18:49+00:00May 23rd, 2023|Theology|

As many of you know, the three parts of sacrifice as found in both the Old Testament and New Testament is 1) The offering and 2) The slaying and 3) the consummation of the victim. Regarding the second of those three, most of the Catholic world is unaware that the dual-consecration of the body and the blood entails the slaying. St. Gregory Nazianzus wrote, "The priest sunders with unbloody cut the body and blood of the Lord, using his voice as a sword." Keep in mind that St. Gregory was the Archbishop of Constantinople in the 4th century. That means he is very early and very Eastern in Church history, [...]

18 05, 2023

“I Will See You Again.”

By |2023-05-18T12:53:14+00:00May 18th, 2023|Theology|

A little while, and you will see me no longer, and again a little while and you will see me.—St. John 16:16 John 16 is one of the most intimate chapters of the New Testament. Jesus has just washed the feet of the Apostles (chapter 13) and then we have several chapters of Him explaining at the Last Supper the Father's love for the Son and the Son's love for His own Apostles. This is just before the arrest of Jesus Christ. As most of you know, St. John spends nearly half of his Gospel on the Triduum prayer and the Passion and Resurrection, and a large part of this [...]

16 05, 2023

One of the Original “Canceled Priests”

By |2023-05-19T18:05:11+00:00May 16th, 2023|Theology|

The top left is the late Fr. Enrique Tomas Rueda and the top right is the late Bishop Bonaventure Broderick.  Both are, in some sense, among the original "canceled priests."  I re-publish this tragic but inspiring account of Fr. Rueda written with the permission of Remnant Newspaper. Tu Es Sacerdos in Aeternum—by Thomas Ryan I hadn’t heard from Fr. Rueda in at least two months when an email message, forwarded multiple times, showed up in my inbox last month indicating he’d died. In time, I would learn there was some rather bizarre news associated with that of Father’s passing. Fr. Enrique Tomas Rueda was a native of Havana, Cuba. In fact, he’d [...]

11 05, 2023

Complacency and Gratitude

By |2023-05-13T06:13:21+00:00May 11th, 2023|Theology|

The above is a picture I look of the art behind the main altar of the new Immaculata Church in St. Mary's, Kansas. While walking around the town of St. Mary's last week, and while praying in the new Immaculata Church, I started to wonder about all the Things We Lost in the Fire which was the title of last blog post regarding the history of the past 100 years in St. Mary's, Kansas and even the last 100 years of the Catholic Church at-large.  The former seems to have been a microcosm of the former, especially in her demise under the Jesuits.  But the renewal of the former (under [...]

8 05, 2023

Things We Lost in the Fire

By |2023-05-08T14:15:14+00:00May 8th, 2023|Theology|

As seen in the picture I took above, I visited the new Immaculata Church in Kansas.  The new $42M Church was consecrated (dedicated to God) on the third of May, 2023. The Immaculata was built by the SSPX.  They are canonically-irregular but not schismatic.  Remember that in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI lifted the putative-excommunications previously placed on their bishops.  Even the current Vatican recognizes all their Masses as valid, and even all their confessions as both valid and licit.  Although I have no desire (nor intention) to leave my Archdiocese and apply to the SSPX, I very much admire their adherence to keeping the ancient Catholic faith during this time of near-global [...]

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