Advice to Parents by St. Alphonsus
The following is "Advice to Parents," by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Saint and Doctor of the Church: The gospel tells us, that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad one cannot produce good fruit. We learn from this, that a good father brings up good children. But, if the parents are wicked, how can the children be virtuous? Our Lord says, in the same gospel, Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? (Matt. 7:16). So, it is impossible, or rather very difficult, to find children virtuous, who are brought up by immoral parents. Fathers and mothers, be attentive to this sermon, which is of [...]
A Marian View To the Church Crisis
Towards the end of an article at Tradition in Action, Dr. Marian T. Horvat, Ph. D wrote the following about Mary's own Triumph at the Cross. I will put Dr. Horvat's words in below italics and my own commentary in this bold-orange font. But at the same time that her own heart was pierced with sorrow, she told Ven. Mary of Agreda, she was given a deep understanding of the mystery of that final affront, that is, that from this last pouring forth of the Precious Blood and water, a new Church issued forth that would spread out through the whole world. And she composed a canticle of praise of [...]
The “Pontifical Academy for Life” Now Allows Euthanasia?
Photo Credit at top: "Pontifical Academy for Life." A new article at Crux is titled Vatican loosens stance on food, water for patients in vegetative state. It reports on the "Pontifical Academy for Life" which just released an 80 page pamphlet in Italian nearly eliminating past parameters on end-of-life issues. Shockingly, even the USCCB admits that pamphlet contains "an evolution of church teaching" on end-of-life issues. If by "evolution" we mean a moral descent beneath how pagans know how to treat their elders, then that is accurate. Now, according to Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the "Pontifical Academy for Life," (all three words being false by this point) their [...]
How To Detach While Loving People
Lay folks are getting more and more into Carmelite theology. And that is a great thing. Carmelite theology is all about detaching from creatures in order to attach to the Creator. For a Carmelite priest like St. John of the Cross, this was ascetically difficult but strategically simple: Detaching from creatures will automatically make a soul in grace cling more closely to the Creator. Thus, a monk can live alone with The Alone. What Eastern Rite Christians call askesis is to detach from all creatures (people, food, pets, comforts, pleasures, locations) in order to go deeper into the prayer life. Some of the greatest authors on this topic of ascetical theology [...]
Tucker Stumbles Across Fatima
Tucker Carlson recently had on his show the former Navy-man Jack Posobiec. Jack frequently attends the Traditional Latin Mass. Tucker seems to be on his way to Catholicism, or at least is taking his Christianity very seriously these days. I set the time stamp in the above video around 1:43:00 in a chapter called "The Subversion of Christianity." Part of their conversation goes like this: Jack: "And so maybe the fact that communism kills 100 million people actually is the point of communism. And it's not equality, justice, diversity, DEI, peace, land, bread... What if the point actually is the killing?" Tucker: "And maybe if the victims are disproportionately [...]
Reason and Order Discouraged in US Seminary?
And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.—Isaiah 3:4 Today, we're going to consider at who is allowed in a US seminary (the 6-7 year long post-graduate school where celibate men study for the Roman Catholic Priesthood.) But this article is not going to be macho. I am not going to argue for Catholic seminarians to weight-lift (admittedly a good idea) or know how to handle a firearm (also good idea) or to learn how to stave off feminism at their future parish (yet another good idea.) What worries me is that the very basics of male psychological health are being suppressed [...]
Bishops’ Indemnities Revisited
The Epoch Times recently estimated that 17,000,000 people have been killed by the "Covid-Vaccine." I believe that number is an extremely conservative estimate. Whether high or low, we now know that the injection causing so many deaths was not in fact a vaccine, but rather gene therapy made from aborted babies. It was released under emergency-use authorization by the FDA, and still has not been approved. Many Catholics died after taking it, including my own mother after taking a third dose. I wrote about her tragedy but good death here last year. Why did so many Catholics take it? Like most Americans of other religions, Catholics listened to their physicians [...]
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 [...]