12 03, 2024

Relevance, Compromise and Conversion

By |2024-03-13T03:48:58+00:00March 12th, 2024|Theology|

The Bad News: The above picture is a French Catholic priest recently snapped. According to the caption I read online, his Mass vestments reflect the uniform of the French soccer (football) team.  There are not many young people around him as you can see.  Clergy seeking "relevance" among peers in modern culture has made very few converts.  "We're the exact same as you, so please join our club!" Why? Why would I join a club of old people trying to act young? Below are graphs on the Catholic Church in the United States from Index of Leading Catholic Indicators, a book written in 2003 by Kenneth Jones, a graduate of [...]

30 12, 2023

Thanks to Benefactors This Year

By |2023-12-27T05:48:29+00:00December 30th, 2023|Theology|

Merry Christmas Octave to all readers, listeners, friends and family!  The top-left pic is the tiny Christmas tree of my hermitage.  The top-right is the Roman Breviary on my altar into which I have written the perpetual-petition to pray for "all benefactors, spiritual and material" in the Roman Canon of the Traditional Latin Mass.   As you know, my blog and channel has no ads or patreon.  This approach is very unique in the Catholic world, but it means my teaching can be free and modest for everyone.  Of course, I never charge for any sacraments or blessings.  That is why I am thankful to all you who support me, [...]

30 11, 2023

A “Springtime” of Vocations

By |2023-11-30T14:32:41+00:00November 30th, 2023|Theology|

I found a website called Christendom Restoration that graphed vocations before and after the Council, as seen above.  It used very advanced calculus on the growth of American seminarians versus years, such as S(t)=47247.8e -0.0846t and S(year) = 47247.8e -0.0846(year-1965) in order to reveal only significant statistics.  The above chart shows the Pre-Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Growth functions of seminarians in the United States.  As you can see, it uses "Springtime" in a sarcastic sense for what has happened since 1965. Earlier this year. Fr. Z posted the above graph.  Notice again that American priests were on the rise until Vatican II.  After that, it tanked... ...not so for tradition in [...]

2 05, 2023

When Can You Judge Another?

By |2023-05-03T01:59:03+00:00May 2nd, 2023|Theology|

When can you judge another?  The short answer is that you can never judge another's intention, but you are required to judge the object of another's deeds when he interacts with you or tries to teach you.  You are especially required to judge the object of another's deeds when his attempts at influencing you will affect your salvation or the salvation of those who are entrusted to you. Consider some quotes from Our Lord and the saints: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.—Mt 7:1-6 When some monks [...]

21 03, 2023

Regaining Purpose After Lockdowns

By |2023-03-20T19:09:29+00:00March 21st, 2023|Theology|

The Journal of the American Medical Association has an article titled "Addressing the Long-term Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and FamiliesA Report From the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine."  Regarding this article, the Richmond Times-Dispatch ran the stats from this on "Deaths among children and teens." Notice the upsurge of suicides and other poisonings (intentional or unintentional, often unknown to even the medical examiner) during lockdowns: The Richmond Times-Dispatch then comments on the above stats of children and teens: "Deaths of American children and teens spiked between 2019 and 2021, the result of increased car wrecks, shootings and drug overdoses, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University survey [...]

10 02, 2023

Don’t Be Shocked the Dems’ FBI Hates Real Catholics

By |2023-02-10T17:11:35+00:00February 10th, 2023|Theology|

p/c above by Daily Citizen.  The website UncoverDC (again, unlinked due to immodest ads) reported: The FBI’s Richmond Division would like to protect Virginians from the threat of “white supremacy,” which it believes has found a home within Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass. An intelligence analyst within the Richmond Field Office of the FBI released in a new finished intelligence product dated January 23, 2023, on Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE) and their interests in “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” or RTCs. The document assesses with “high confidence” the FBI can mitigate the threat of Radical-Traditionalist Catholics by recruiting sources within the Catholic Church. Following the above news, there's a [...]

7 02, 2023

A Circular Firing Squad of Catholics

By |2023-02-09T14:56:28+00:00February 7th, 2023|Theology|

Richard Williamson was born in the UK during WWII.  He converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1971.  He was later ordained a priest in 1976 and consecrated a bishop in 1988, both by Archbishop Lefebvre.  Bishop Williamson was a bishop for the SSPX and later departed from them.  Last year (in Spring 2022) I met Bp. Williamson in England and even stayed with him one evening.  I found him very intelligent and gracious.  However, you don't have to appreciate Bp. Williamson as much as I do to appreciate a prophetic quote from him below.  I think even people who find him too "extreme" or too "controversial" or too "disobedient" need to [...]

6 12, 2022

Six-Flags Over Colorado’s Catholicism

By |2024-02-21T17:33:16+00:00December 6th, 2022|Theology|

I was baptized, confirmed, worked as a city paramedic, and was later ordained a Catholic priest in the city limits of Denver, Colorado.  Amazingly, what would one day be the city limits of Denver was originally under the jurisdiction of at least six apostolic territories due to shifting Catholic boundaries.  (I am not here writing about different bishops.  Denver has had eight ordinaries—three bishops and five archbishops—since its foundation as a diocese in 1868.)  Rather, I am writing here that the land of northern Colorado (specifically Denver) was found under many different dioceses as ecclesiastical borders shifted. In my seminary (also in Denver) we took a class on the history of [...]

1 12, 2022

Building Catholic Utopias?

By |2022-11-28T22:46:06+00:00December 1st, 2022|Theology|

In Advent, we meditate on the Two Comings of Christ.  We meditate first on Christ's coming in the Incarnation and second on His glorious coming in the General Judgment.  We are reminded of the fragile and ephemeral nature of our life in exile on earth.  More now that ever, serious Catholics all over the world want to get their families to what "the better life," that heavenly fatherland.  And they are humble enough to know they need the help of other Catholic families and good clergy to arrive there. Conservatives are now building intentional communities with great foresight and circumspection to protect their families against the overreach of corrupt governments. [...]

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