One hundred years ago, Catholics were Catholics.  Some were good Catholics and some were bad Catholics.  But we didn't have political terms like "liberal Catholic" or "conservative Catholic."  All Catholics one hundred years ago were traditional Catholics because that's all there was.  However, Vatican II fractured Catholics all over the world.  Now, every Catholic needs an adjective to describe where he is on a spectrum.  Of course, Jesus Christ never designed it to be that way. As much as I dislike political terms, we will—for the sake of brevity—look at six common die-hard attitudes towards the TLM using terms that are found on that spectrum from left to right.  Following [...]

p/c New Liturgical Movement, NBC. The priest sunders with unbloody cut the body and blood of the Lord, using his voice as a sword.—St. Gregory Nazianzen. The above is a quote from an Eastern Church Father (recognized as a saint by both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Christians.) St. Gregory in that quote means that the dual consecration at Mass (the bread becoming the body and the wine becoming the blood) effects a mystical and unbloody separation of the body and blood. This is because it happens in two separate sets of consecration. In a mystical way, this separation of blood from body somehow comprises the fact that [...]

The featured image above is a picture of the last scheduled TLM in the Melbourne, Australia Cathedral (which just took place this June of 2024.) Although there are serious theological and historical errors in it, the liturgical letter Desiderio Desideravi (henceforth DD) is correct in at least one sentence, in that it identifies the liturgical debates between traditionalists and modernists as primarily ecclesiological, not liturgical. It reads, "The problematic is primarily ecclesiological."  (I first noticed the importance of that sentence when it was recently mentioned on Return to Tradition.) The second half of that paragraph including that sentence reads: "The problematic is primarily ecclesiological. I do not see how it [...]

Last week in Florida, a woman demanded Holy Communion from a 66 year old priest named Fr. Rodriguez.  When he quietly informed her in that Communion line that she had to be a practicing Catholic, she grabbed numerous hosts (the body of Jesus Christ) in his ciborium.  As she crushed them in her hand, he had no arms to push her away, so he lunged at her and bit her forearm to defend the Holy Eucharist.   I do not believe he broke the skin, but it appears he was still charged by police. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llVcGN2gJqw The question of a priest physically repelling a lay-assailant upon a ciborium or chalice is [...]

p/c Notre-Dame De Fontgombault Several years ago, as I was switching from the new sacraments to the ancient Roman sacraments, I stopped at a parish in Tampa one afternoon.  I asked the parish secretary if I could offer Holy Mass there.  She asked who was going to attend my Mass.  I said I was alone.  She looked bewildered.  No youth group?  No family of origin traveling with you?  The parish secretary only thought of the Mass in anthropocentric terms:  If no one was there to receive Holy Communion, why would this priest show up at her parish and try to offer Mass alone?  It was as crazy to this lady [...]

The most common question I receive from my readers is: "Do I have to attend a Novus Ordo Mass on a Sunday when there is no Traditional Latin Mass nearby?"  I was going to title this article that very question, but then I realized that question is only sixty years old. Then I thought to title this article: "Is it a mortal sin to skip an irreverent Mass on Sunday if I can't get to a reverent Mass?" but that was too long. I then realized the entire topic of the Third Commandment was at stake. What does Church history tell us before 1960? Dr. Peter Kwasniewski emailed me the [...]

The three grades (so to speak) of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) are listed in order of ascending solemnity: Low Mass: In this Mass, a lay person will probably just hear the priest whisper the Roman Canon without a choir or any chanting.  The above featured-image is me offering Holy Mass at a side altar in Portugal.  Notice that I have a server in that picture, but I never have a server in my hermitage for my daily low Mass.  Only two candles are lit upon the altar, whether the priest has a server or not.  Of course, in a low Mass it is still God the Son offering Himself [...]

Thirty years ago this month, I attended World Youth Day (WYD) in Denver, CO with Pope John Paul II. It took place days before my 15th birthday. Some estimates believe one million people showed up to the events at the old Mile High Stadium (see above photo) and the final Mass at Cherry Creek Reservoir (see below photo.) My own mother was one of the chaperones for WYD '93 and my little brother (12 years old at the time) was one of thousands treated by Denver General Paramedics for dehydration at the final reservoir Mass. This was a special event for my family since Denver is where we were born [...]