The “Universal Call to Holiness” Was Always There
Vatican II's Lumen Gentium's chapter five is titled "Universal Call to Holiness" and it includes this sentence: "Therefore in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness." By "cared for by it," it simply means lay people. In other words, lay folks are also called to holiness. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with that sentence. But it's also super obvious, so something else is behind it. What is it? I don't know, but there's an old Protestant myth that Catholic priests and nuns told lay people they're not called to holiness. Have modernists run with this in Vatican II? We [...]
The Grey Wolves of Modernist Ambiguity
p/c North American Whitetail. Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits.—Mt 7:15-16. Many traditional Catholics today rip on the ultra-leftists because it's easy to knock out of the park really low-hanging fruit like "Clown Masses" or social-justice warriors to oppose Eucharistic rallies because it detracts from the poor or even pro-abortion "Catholics." Trads tackling people that far left on the political and theological spectrum are after "easy likes" on Twitter and Instagram. The bigger problem is that neo-conservative (non-traditional) priests who may be found making pro-life statements or be seen headlining at a national [...]
A Nanny-Church to Match the Nanny-State
Recently, Archbishop Viganò wrote, "Change – or better still, aggiornamento – has been so much at the center of the conciliar narrative that it has been the hallmark of Vatican II and has posited this assembly as the terminus post quem that sanctions the end of the ancien régime – the regime of the 'old religion,' of the 'old Mass,' of the 'pre-council' – and the beginning of the 'conciliar church,' with its 'new mass' and the substantial relativization of all dogma." Now, before everyone calls Viganò a "schismatic" for simply putting those two words "conciliar church" in scare quotes, we have to realize that some important clergy (who have [...]
How To Pray for the Enemies of Holy Mother Church
My post-Mass meditation usually comes from a 19th century book of Jesuit Meditations. It's a phenomenal book. The meditation following Sunday's Mass was about enduring persecutions in light of the Sermon on the Mount. Before we get to the topic at hand, How To Pray for the Enemies of Holy Mother Church, I want to highlight a few other parts of Sunday's meditation on enduring persecutions. One of the most astonishing insights the anonymous Jesuit author made is that false-accusations make us already like Christ on earth. It reads: "And besides, is not the glory of being thus made like to the Son of God on earth before we [...]
Trump Shot But Alive
This evening, on the 13th of July 2024, President Trump was shot in the ear at a rally in Butler, PA. It was obviously a failed assassination attempt. Trump got up triumphantly as seen in the picture above. One America News reports: "Butler county district attorney Richard Goldinger said the shooter is dead after injuring former President Trump, killing one audience member and injuring another in the shooting." Here's the most important tweets I have seen so far: Impeached. Arrested. Convicted. Shot. Still standing. pic.twitter.com/ys50YJfdyZ — Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) July 13, 2024 Joe Biden and the Democrats don’t get to wiggle out of this with half hearted statements. They framed [...]
You Did Not Irretrievably Botch Your Life.
Fr. Walter J. Ciszek S.J. wrote: Though our situation may have been somewhat unique, the temptation [to give up] was not. It is the same temptation faced by everyone who has followed a call and found that the realities of life were nothing like the expectations he had in the first flush of his vision and his enthusiasm. It is the temptation that comes to anyone, for example, who has entered religious life with a burning desire to serve God and him alone, only to find that the day-to-day life in religion is humdrum and pedestrian, equally as filled with moments of human misunderstanding, daily routines, and distractions. It is [...]
The Four Virtues Needed in this Church Crisis
In a Vatican-approved apparition from the 16th century, the Mother of God appeared to a Spanish nun living in Quito, Ecuador in what became known as Our Lady of Good Success. (Yes, I know I normally criticize those who do transliterations when a translation is required, and yes I know "Good Success" is a transliteration not a translation. But Good Success is what it has become in English, so we accept it in common usage. Common usage is also a part of linguistics, even when it gets sloppy on the translation front.) In any case, while we know the divine aspect of the Catholic Church remains always pristine as the [...]
To the “Catholic Clergy” Who Said “It’s OK” to Take “the Vaccine.”
And to all the "Catholic" and "pro-life" organizations that said you can just "follow your conscience" on destructive gene-therapy from aborted babies because that's what the USCCB said... please watch this four and a half minute video so you can repent and make public reparation for misleading your flock: https://youtu.be/WXc1wdCx0GE?si=M5Vjzmt6ZAMZveRf
“Alternative Lifestyles” Before the Destroyed Temple
Jesus left the temple and was going away, when His disciples came to point out to Him the buildings of the Temple. But He answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”—Mt 24:1-2 The above is Jesus Christ's own prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, just days before His Passion. Of course, God gave them 40 years to repent for killing Christ. When they did not, Jerusalem was razed by the Romans in 70AD. Not only early Christian sources, but even other Jewish and Roman [...]
Ecclesiology and Liturgy are a United Front
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 [...]