Many years ago, before I entered seminary, I remember hearing about a conservative priest who went to dinner at the home of his more progressive parishioners.  Before or after dinner, one of the spouses said to the priest, "Why don't you relax and take your collar off?"  The priest replied, "Why don't you relax and I keep the collar on?" I thought that was quite a funny zinger when I heard the story about 25 years ago.  But now I wonder why a conservative priest would ever spend time with progressive parishioners unless his goal was to convert them.  And I don't think talking to them that way is going to convert them. However, the above account illustrates that liberals and conservatives (and as we will see, traditionalists) treat priests in different ways.  Because I have roots in all three [...]

At the end of summer 2024, I was in Western Europe and Western Africa on different missions.  While in Europe, I was about to offer Holy Mass a pro-life center and I noticed after donning my alb and cinture that I had the rest of my vestments on a car seat (see above picture.)  As it was a pro-life center across from an abortion center, the car seat was clearly destined for a poor family who would say "no" to abortion after being abortion-minded.  (Notice I don't say that we hope they would say "yes" to life, as saying "yes" to life already happened the minute they chose to unite as man and woman.) In any case, I pulled out my phone before Mass and snapped the above picture because Mass vestments on a car-seat at a pro-life center beautifully [...]

Below are two interesting questions I received on email.  I publish with his permission: Dear Father Nix, Please be so kind and share with me your explanation of following passage: Mark 6:1-6 "Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He [...]

Fr. Prümmer wrote the definitive book on Catholic morals in 1921. His section on Magnanimity is worth printing out and putting on your wall (as I did in my hermitage:) "The characteristics of this virtue are well portrayed by St. Thomas following the teaching of Aristotle: the magnanimous man a) takes a restrained delight in even the greatest honors offered to him, b) remains unruffled both by prosperity and adversity, c) willingly helps others although he himself asks hardly anyone to help him, d) does not fawn upon important personages neither does he allow his liberty to be restricted by their authority, e) is not ambitious, f) expresses his opinions boldly when necessary for he has no fear of man, g) forgets injuries received, h) moves slowly in the external acts of his body." Now, let me give a few [...]

Late last week I visited a family that lives an hour and a half from my hermitage.  The wife of the family has been my friend for 20 years.  The husband has been my friend for about 10 years.  They have six children.  After a nice dinner of street tacos, they asked me for blessings with St. Charbel oil that I keep in my car, confessions for everyone, and a blessing of the home.  Upstairs, three boys share a room and three girls share a room.  The family loves outdoor sports and they seem afraid of nothing.  That is why I was surprised at what happened next. The oldest girl, who is 16 years old, (who we will call "Sarah") insisted on the blessing because said strange things was happening in her room.  She said that during the second week [...]

Some people debate online if I'm a hermit because I asked to leave parish life or because I was kicked out of so many parishes.  The fact is that I asked to leave parish life because I wasn't willing to fight with lay "Eucharistic Ministers" about their lack of Eucharistic vigilance.  The problem is that I thought the next Novus Ordo parish would magically have more care for the Eucharist.  Of course, I was wrong. Thus, I switched entirely to the old seven sacraments.  The pain of the battle in the Novus world led to the glory of now using all the ancient rite sacraments—which I would not give up for a billion dollars to my favorite pro-life organization.  God frequently uses evil for good. But let's say those lying about me were correct about me and I was actually [...]

Even though I recently read these intense parameters about how Catholics must always avoid all prayer with schismatics and heretics, I get an idea of which tribes in the world have never heard the Gospel from a Protestant website called Joshua Project's Unreached of the Day (JPUD.)  Some examples of tribes who have never heard the Gospel (or barely have heard the Gospel) are seen in the above screenshots of those targets of prayer as created in the catalogue of JPUD.  Yes, I admit it's sad that Protestants have a website like this, but Catholics do not. For the last 500 years of Protestantism, they only threw missionaries on the scene within the last 100 years (for the most part.)  Sadly, nearly every missionary congregation within the Catholic Church got sunk in the 1960s and 1970s in the name of [...]

We all know the Bible and saints put the interior life far ahead of the exterior life.  However, the enemy of human nature often convinces us that we're the exception.  Like fools, we take the bait.  But then something befalls us (eithr good or bad) to remind us how dependent we are on the Blessed Trinity.  We see it's exactly as Jesus told the Apostles:  Without Me, you can do nothing.—John 15:5.  Nothing is nothing is nothing.  Every drop of a successful apostolate (even online or on the streets) is dependent on union with Christ. In light of this, I've taken on some new resolutions of mental prayer and exercise because I've (yet again, as I never learn my lesson) become convinced of the interior life above the exterior life.  One thing that helped me is this simple paragraph put [...]

More and more diocesan priests are becoming interested in becoming a diocesan hermit under Canon 603.  That's what I am.  (My rule of life with approved apostolates is here.)  Some traditionally-minded Roman Catholic priests have contacted me over the last few years because they want to offer the traditional sacraments and no longer want to do the Novus Ordo Missae (NOM.) What is interesting about the men contacting me is that they (like me) do not have the personality of being a hermit.  But they are more willing (and more likely) to live alone than to compromise their conscience anymore in typical parish life in the United States.  As more and more traditional (and even semi-traditional) young priests in parishes are seeing that they cannot in good conscience follow such orders as Traditiones Custodes (TC) they contact me furtively.  They wonder [...]

As you know, for the first seven years of my priesthood, I offered the new sacraments.  The last seven years I have offered exclusively the old sacraments.  But now I'm switching from a 1962 TLM Missal to a 1939 TLM Missal.  This has little to do with the papacy or obedience or rebellion or political statements or trying "to be more trad than the next priest." To be honest, when I first heard traditionalists speak of the decision to Restorethe54 in place of the 1962 Missal, I thought, "Wow, nothing is good enough for these snotty traditionalists!"  (And this was after I had switched to the TLM that I was tired of this infighting!)  But it turns out it was not infighting.   The more I studied, the more I saw that the freemason Archbishop Hannibale Bugnini was already reducing [...]