De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

  The SSPX crisis cannot be understood through caricature. Many Catholics instinctively recognise the reality of the collapse in catechesis, liturgy and ecclesial confidence which the Society of Saint Pius X has spent decades warning about. That is precisely why this present moment is so dangerous. In my latest article I argue that the deepest problem posed by the SSPX is not that everything they say is false. It is that much of what they say contains enough truth to persuade serious Catholics. But has permanent resistance now begun evolving into something more troubling? Is a movement originally formed to preserve Catholic Tradition gradually drifting toward a parallel ecclesial mentality in which the visible Church herself is increasingly viewed with suspicion? I explore: • the growing crisis of trust in ecclesial authority • the “state of necessity” argument • the dangerous rhetoric now emerging around the consecrations • Donatist parallels and remnant ecclesiology • why the exi...

  I really feel there is a disconnect over the SSPX ordinations where many Catholics have reduced it to a conflict between Tradition and Modernism. They then feel hurt and confused when people like Fr Gerald Murray for example criticise the SSPX. The facts are the SSPX position denies the promises of Christ and misrepresents the Vatican position. In this essay I go through the argument with examples. Read the full essay here .

  The announcement that the Society of St Pius X intends to consecrate new bishops on 1 July has provoked a predictable reaction. The word “schism” has been deployed quickly and confidently, often without any reference to canon law, Church history, or Rome’s own recent precedents. For many commentators, the case appears settled before it has even been examined. But Catholic theology has never operated on slogans. The question is not simply whether episcopal consecration without papal mandate is illicit. Everyone agrees that it ordinarily is. The real question is whether the Church still possesses the juridical and moral coherence required to condemn such an act unequivocally in the present circumstances. In my latest Substack essay, I argue that this moment cannot be understood without grappling seriously with three uncomfortable facts. First, the 1983 Code of Canon Law itself explicitly recognises situations of necessity that excuse or mitigate even the gravest canonical pena...

I found two things particularly valuable and consoling last week. The first, as I noted here , was a summary of the current situation regarding Amoris Laetitia from Father Raymond J. de Souza in the National Catholic Register. It feels very unnatural to me to be at odds with a pope and I doubt myself and pray about it constantly. yet I cannot shake the feeling that there is something fundamentally at odds with the faith in this. Seeing the events threaded together in de Souza's article reaffirmed my concerns, and therefore my determination to stay true to my faith, and not a false, damaging interpretation of it. Why am I bothered? Why does it matter? Because being Catholic is at the centre of my life. It is the defining characteristic of my home and family, and when Church teaching is attacked, my family and I are attacked in a most direct way. Fr de Souza catalogues the key events in the Amoris Laetitia debacle: The posturing of the German Church since the 70...

Further to the SSPX disruption at Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral I blogged about here , the Jewish Daily reports Pope Francis' vocal criticism of the act: Pope Francis, reacting to the disruption of a recent interfaith Kristallnacht memorial, told Latin American religious leaders visiting the Vatican that “aggression cannot be an act of faith.” “Preaching intolerance is a form of militancy that must be overcome,” Francis told the delegation on Tuesday. The pope made his remarks a week after fundamentalist Christians disrupted a Jewish-Christian ceremony at a Buenos Aires cathedral marking the 75th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom. “Pope Francis has already had a number of meetings with leaders of other faiths, but he never fails to surprise us with his sensitivity and the deep interest he shows for his interlocutors,” said Claudio Epelman, the executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress. Epelman, also the head of World Jewish Congress relations...

A Woman attending the Kristallnacht ceremony tries to remonstrate with the protesting SSPX members Each year in Buenos Aires, before he assumed the papacy, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio joined his good friend Rabbi Abraham Skorka to lead the annual gathering of Catholics, Jews and Protestants in the Metropolitan Cathedral which commemorates Kristallnacht ; the  pogrom of Nazi-led mob violence in 1938 when at least 91 Jews were killed and 30,000 were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked, as the attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Over 1,000 synagogues were burned (95 in Vienna alone) and over 7,000 Jewish businesses destroyed or damaged. It was the event that launched the genocide that killed 6 million Jews. The name Kristallnacht comes from the shards of broken glass that littered the streets after Jewish-owned stores, buildings, and synagogues had their windows smashe...