De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

This is a very long chat but very informative and interesting if you can find the time. As always, I love the way Michael Matt articulates the power & beauty of Catholicism, both in context of family life and the positive benefits for the wider society. Personally, I find this profoundly evangelistic; it is what calls me to, and affirms my practice of the faith, and I feel it is a narrative which many, many family men would find equally attractive and compelling, yet it is a perspective we hear so rarely. Frankly, I can't hear enough of it! In addition, this discussion also covers a lot of information about the importance of the liturgy and the history of the traditionalist movement. Many of us who were happy to accept Vatican II and the new Mass because it formed one cohesive whole with Church teaching are turning towards a more traditionalist perspective given what has gone on in Rome since the election of Pope Francis. There are lots of references that the work of the c...

The Paris-Chartres Pilgrimage occurs every year on the Feast of Pentecost in early summer, and is a multi-generational, multi-national gathering of Catholics who draw closer to God through the centuries-old act of pilgrimage. The walk is roughly 62 miles over 3 days—beginning at daybreak on the Saturday before Pentecost, and ending with an afternoon mass on the Monday after Pentecost. The trek takes 8,000-10,000 pilgrims from the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, through the French countryside to the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Chartres. Participants brave the weather, blisters, and humble food and accommodations as an act of faith and an act of reparation in these modern times. If you want to get a flavour of the pilgrimage, I recommend you check out CC Father's blog , where he has kept a valuable record of his experiences on the pilgrimage over a number of years and with numerous children in tow. Last year, Cardinal Burke offered the Mass at Chatres and received an extr...

I read an interesting article this morning from Germany in which a retired German priest asks   "are German bishops leading the church into a "priestless desert"?" Indeed he is correct; they are. The number of Catholic priests in the country is rapidly plummeting as older priests die or leave ministry and they aren’t replaced by newly ordained ones. Since 1990, the number of priests in Germany has dropped from 20,000 to 14,000. On 18 March, Cardinal Reinhard Marx — Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising and President of the German Bishops’ Conference — spoke at a diocesan meeting and revealed a stunning fact. In the year of 2016, only one new seminarian entered the diocesan seminary of Munich. According to the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net . Although Fr. Fleiner has correctly identified the vocational crisis in Germany, his solutions seems old, tired, liberal and extremely short sighted: Priests should be allowed to marry. I have a dea...