De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

This is from an article at  The Catholic Thing Fr. Mark A. Pilon  writes:  'We have failed to maintain discipline about truth. When we are unwilling to defend the truth, truth itself becomes mere opinion.' 'Vatican II had affirmed the authority and responsibility of individual bishops as true successors of the apostle [but] after the Council discipline mostly collapsed, at least when it came to safeguarding the faith. Witness the open and massive dissent from Humanae Vitae - a formal reaffirmation of a constant teaching of the Universal Ordinary Magisterium, which was defined as infallible by both Vatican I and Vatican II. It’s hard to think of anyone among the “clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries” openly disciplined by his bishop for dissenting from this teaching. Part of the problem was that several bishops were, themselves, dissenters, though secretly out of fear for repercuss...

Luther as the Devil’s Bagpipes by Eduard Schoen, circa 1535. So in the modern Catholic Church under Pope Francis, we see young Catholics kicked out of a Catholic Cathedral for praying the Rosary, while Protestant heretics are lauded and welcomed. The Youtube video below shows Police removing a group of young Catholics from the cathedral in Brussels after they recited the rosary out loud, disrupting a service celebrating the Reformation. The Catholic Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula hosted the service with the United Protestant Church in Belgium, the country’s largest Protestant denomination. UPCB president Steven Fuit, who preached at the service, said the event sent a “strong ecumenical signal” (yes it does, the wrong one!). However, several young Catholics disrupted the ceremony by reciting the rosary at the back of the Cathedral, preventing the pastor from beginning his sermon. The video shows police eventually breaking up the group and escorting them outside. ...

I thought this was a really good film. It is specifically promoting the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, but it speaks to me of the whole of the faith and Mass especially: As Msgr Charles Pope writes ; Many Catholics do not know of the rich heritage that has to some degree been denied them by modernity. The TLM is the form of the Mass that most of the saints knew. With only minor variations and additions, this form of the liturgy has existed for well over a thousand years. The, Latin, the chants, the eastward orientation, the often-deep silence—all of these reach across the centuries like treasures. A lot of things come and go, but the TLM has stood the test of time; it is a heritage that belongs to us. Moving accounts of discovery of the treasure of Catholic inheritance; something counter cultural- something beautiful - something different - something transcendent. What comes across is the desire to do something beautiful to worship & praise God. The community fosters...

The 'corrections' continue to fly in Rome! A year after Pope Francis clashed with Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, a new embarrassing public rebuke for the Cardinal emerged yesterday. In a letter , released by the Vatican on October 22, Pope Francis said he wanted to correct several points made in a “ commentary ,” which Cardinal Sarah sent him and which was published on several websites in a variety of languages. The Pope’s letter noted that most of the websites “erroneously” cited Cardinal Sarah as the author of the commentary. This is a strange comment from the Pope. How do we reconcile the fact that Cardinal Sarah wrote the commentary but the Pope seems to think he didn't? If Pope Francis thinks Cardinal Sarah did not write it, why write to him to correct him? *IMPORTANT UPDATE: Father Z offers an important clarification on this point here * The commentary looked at changes Pope Francis made to the Code of Canon Law in t...

Labour MP, Rupa Huq, Saturday 14th October 2017, standing much closer to the pavement than those on the pro-life vigil and proudly facing them down. These same pro-choice protestors that she described as a problem in Parliament, on Monday 16th October 2017 (from Caroline Farrow's blog post on this subject) I am very behind with my blogging: so sorry reader! Part of the reason is that I am very, very busy in real life (which is very joyful and positive thing), but the other part is I am simply overwhelmed with a volume of " bloggable" material at present! I start blogging and then something else crops up I feel I have to blog about. The net result is a blog management page full of half-written blog ideas and lists of links I hope to insert into posts at some nebulous point in the future. I have to post this blog, which I intended to post about a week ago, because it is so important. I hope my delay in writing this out and haste in typing it up now will not serve ...

I'm not a huge fan of professional controversialist Milo, I find his confrontational style counter productive, but I know he does shine an interesting light on some issues (if you have no idea who I am talking about, you can glean some background here ). Very interestingly, he has reported (a couple of days ago) that he was sent a series of questions by America Magazine, the controversial Jesuit magazine which has celebrity priest-come-courter of controversy, especially heresy James Martin, as a contributing writer and editor-at-large. I have posted about Father James Martin on numerous occasions, here when he was called out by Archbishop Chaput for failing to speak with authenticity about homosexuality, here when Pope Francis appointed him to the Vatican communications team(!!), here when he called for the "entirety of the Church's sexual ethics to be rewritten", here when he said that Jesus learnt about His mission from various women he met during His pu...

Following numerous posts on this blog and elsewhere regarding the scandal of the Catholic Education Service issuing guidelines for schools which carried a clear and blatantly anti-Catholic anthropology which they have admitted was copied directly from websites which support an LGBTQI lifestyle, a petition has been raised to ask for clear guidance from the bishops. Please consider adding your name to this! Caroline Farrow writes: A number of concerned Catholic parents all over the country have been writing to me, expressing their worry that their child's Catholic school is embracing transgenderism and adopting an approach of validating children's gender dysphoria. As well as being a potentially devastating approach for the individual children experiencing this, it's also affecting other children who are being co-opted into accepting that gender is fluid and forced to share changing rooms and facilities. A petition has been launched to encourage the bishops to issue ...

This is far from "news" at this point, but my mind has been else where the last few days so I have not had the presence of mind to post it here. That being said I think it is great news, encouraging and very positive, and so worth sharing with my readers. A press release from Lancaster Diocese announces that, following hard on the heels of a second church ( English Martyrs ) in Preston being given over to the care of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest , the Diocese of Lancaster and the Institute announce that the Sisters Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus Christ Sovereign Priest , the female branch of the Institute, have accepted Bishop Michael Campbell’s invitation to establish a House in Preston in the Diocese of Lancaster! The arrival date for the contemplative (but not enclosed) Sisters has yet to be determined, but it is hoped that the Sisters will arrive as soon as possible to set up their first UK foundation at St Augustine’s Presbytery, Avenh...

The Benedictine Dom Hugh Somerville -Knapman has written an excellent and incisive blog on the Correctio Filialis here . His jumping off point is some of the bizarre rhetoric spouted by Massimo Faggioli as I noted here recently. Quoting Faggioli on Twitter, Dom Hugh exclaims: his breathtaking self-contradiction needs to be noted: accusing those who support the old Mass of being “rupturist”, he then says that what he labels an “extraordinary form of catholic theology” can have “no possible coexistence” with “an ordinary form of Catholic theology”. How can asserting that modern theological opinion cannot exist with doctrine established over the centuries be anything other than “rupturist”! Faggioli really displays his ignorance in this rant and Dom Hugh appears quite astounded by the depth of it! This either/or approach to Church teaching—either you are modern or you are wrong—as well as his subtle and pernicious cooption of the name of Joseph Ratzinger in apparent support o...

Photograph: Paul F. Abbott Last Monday evening I travelled to St. Patrick's Church in Soho Square London to attend the presentation given by Bishop Mark O'Toole, Bishop of Plymouth for The Guild of Our Lady & St. Joseph . The talk Bishop Mark gave was to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the publication of the Catechism and entitled “How to be a disciple making disciple - Prayer, Faith, Loving Service and the Sacramental life". I have bumped into Bishop Mark a couple of times since he was ordained Bishop. At Buckfast Abbey where the School of the Annunciation is based.  Indeed Bishop Mark drew attention to the blessing the school constitutes in his address: ...as the local bishop I want to say what a great blessing it is to our diocese. Theological reflection and expertise within the Catholic tradition, is a limited resource in the South West, and indeed more widely in the English speaking world. It is good for us to have the School among us. I first me...

Massimo Faggioli is a Church historian, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and contributing editor to Commonweal magazine. He was on the faculty at the University of St. Thomas (St. Paul, Minnesota) from 2009 to 2016, where he was the founding director of the Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship (2014-2015). Since 2017 he has been an adjunct professor at the Broken Bay Institute - The Australian Institute of Theological Education in Sydney, Australia. Faggioli is big defender of Pope Francis and well known for being quick with the ad homs and sparse on the theology. Last weekend, he publicly stated that the faith of today is different from the faith of the Saints, the faith of our fathers. He stated that what was Catholic once, is not Catholic anymore. Problem is the theological view conveyed by some of most active promoters of the Old Mass – theological views that are not Catholic anymore — Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoF...

Cardinal Burke explains his appointment to Edward Pentin: Cardinal Raymond Burke has said his appointment last week as a member of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s highest judicial authority, is not a full-time position but will allow him to serve as one of the court's judges when requested. “Some of the faithful have misunderstood the appointment, thinking that I am now returning to serve full-time in the offices of the Apostolic Signatura,” Cardinal Burke said in an Oct. 2 statement responding to enquiries from journalists. “Members of the Roman dicasteries, apart from the prefect, do not serve full-time but offer their assistance, when it is requested by the prefect.” The cardinal added: “The members of the Apostolic Signatura serve as judges — when they are called to do so — of the various cases which are brought to the Apostolic Signatura for resolution. Also, from time to time, the Apostolic Signatura holds a plenary session of its members...

I was genuinely shocked to see the Pope turned Bologna Cathedral in a dining hall. This was a "Solidarity Lunch" with the marginalised, prisoners and refugees apparently, although there seems to be quite a few clergy at table too (there are a number of pictures here ). #Pope has 'solidarity lunch' with refugees, prisoners + marginalised in #Bologna 's San Petronio Basilica. Photos: @oss_romano pic.twitter.com/ShyhWyCWOX — Christopher Lamb (@ctrlamb) October 1, 2017 One of the worst, most damaging post Vatican II moves has been the loss of the sense of Sacrifice from the Mass, instead, it was replaced with the idea of the Eucharist as a communal meal (I have explored this in more detail here ). This has led to a growing profanation of the Blessed Sacrament which concerns anyone who believes in the Real Presence . Pope Francis has demonstrated solidarity with this communal meal thing before, as reported here in The Catholic Herald . If this spectacle is...

I thought this was an interesting article by Dr. Jeff Mirus at Catholic Culture . It is uneccesarily critical of the Correctio filialis , it seems to me, suggesting that, because there is nothing in any sense “official” or “canonical” about the filial appeal, it is a futile effort, in fact, just one of SIX corrections issued to Pope Francis so far as Edward Pentin reports : "This is the sixth major initiative in which both clergy and laity have expressed concerns about the Pope's teaching, particularly emanating from Amoris Laetitia . Despite the repeated pleas and warnings of chaos and confusion, Francis has refused to respond or acknowledge the initiatives which are as follows, in chronological order: In September 2015, just ahead of the second Synod on the Family, a petition of nearly 800,000 signatures from individuals and associations around the world including 202 prelates was presented to Pope Francis, calling on him to issue words of clarity on the Church...

There has not been any substantial academic response to the Filial Correction as I have noted in other posts , but there has been a visceral emotional one. It strikes me that those who support Pope Francis pastoral over doctrinal approach (an approach condemned as Marxist by Cardinal Müller recently) on this is issue are progressives who never mention his stance on the reality of the devil , or gender ideology . That tells me something. It tells me that what they want is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but something more in line with the world, more attuned to the social zeitgeist. A something expressly identified in the encyclical Pascendi Dominci Gregis as the synthesis of all heresies and defined as Modernism. The Modernist says that in previous centuries, the dogmas of the Faith, such as the dogmas of the Trinity, were true, but since dogma evolves, it may no longer be true today. For the Modernist, dogma evolves into whatever accommodates the needs of the current culture...