Actually, this is much more normal, human, and less ridiculous than the men in business casual and women in pantsuits who rule the world because they flattered the right donors and won a plurality of the vote.
What strikes me as bizarre are these descriptions of the Roman Empire as if it’s some obscure piece of trivia, as opposed to a decisive factor in our daily life that helps explain our religion, language, appearance, names, architecture, laws, etc.
Baptism rates are so low in some countries that we’re seeing the first pagan generation since antiquity. And yet Rome is busy micromanaging the suppression of a liturgy that, just 15 years ago, it revived and promoted as good and legitimate.
Spiritual terrorism.
Protestantism (particularly in its contemporary American form) is utterly baffling. Many of the questions they debate were settled by the generation taught by the Apostles themselves. And yet people presume to debate these issues 1,900 years later on a blank slate.
The Pope’s collaborations with Meloni, along with his recent visit to Hungary, suggest the Church is gradually recognizing the obvious: The “far right” is a natural ally of the Church. It’s time to stop begging for scraps from the decadent vestiges of postwar Christian Democracy.
Pope Francis (R) and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni share a light moment as they attend a Conciliation auditorium event discussing the 'General state of the birth rate', in Rome, Italy, 12 May 2023. 📸 EPA / ANSA / Guiseppe Lami
#PopeFranics
#Meloni
#epaimages
There is an increasingly apocalyptic mood in the world and yet the Church is engaged in the navel-gazing “Synod on Synodality”, an exercise in self-parody with absolutely zero appeal to the millions of lost souls searching for the Truth.
I’m probably a “traditionalist” under certain definitions. But I don’t understand the impulse to stand apart from the broader Church. Being Catholic means being in communion with a billion people—many are poorly catechized, have bad taste, or are just bad. We’re still brothers.
In an effort to be “welcoming”, the Church ignores the many Catholics who are marginalized by secular society simply for adhering to Catholic teaching. The “welcoming” Church transforms what should be a spiritual refuge into yet another battleground in secular controversies.
“Integralism is bad because it diluted the Church’s mission by entangling it in worldly political matters,” the prelate said in between speaking engagements about climate change and migration.
While the ideology of nationalism is modern, the concept of nations is not. Notably, the 15th-century Council of Constance divided bishops into 5 nations:
-Italians
-Germans
-French
-Spaniards
-English
The bishops voted as nations (each with one vote) not as individuals.
When a Catholic is attacked for saying Catholic things, the last thing we need is fellow Catholics quibbling with the choice of words or finding a way to agree with the critics from some esoteric or idiosyncratic perspective.
A good time for prosecutors in districts that voted 86% for Trump to take a look at the business records and election filings of any Democratic politician who ever passed through their jurisdiction.
There is so much ignorance of these basic historical facts:
-Monarchs were typically allies of the common people against the aristocracy
-Feudal lords were often allies of peasants against the bourgeoisie
-Monarchical regimes better-protected minorities than democratic regimes.
One of the tragedies of the loss of the Papal States is that the “do something” impulses of the popes and Curia have been re-directed to tinkering with matters of doctrine and liturgy. Time perhaps better spent building roads in Umbria or setting tariff policy for Ancona.
We’ve seen that Christian sexual morality can endure only a few decades without authentic Christian belief. I suspect Christian morality about helping the poor and weak will also disappear soon (no matter how much the irreligious continue to pretend these are their own values).
Reading about the so-called absolutist regimes of the ancien régime, it’s always striking how the monarchs remained constrained by a web of competing legal claims of age-old institutions—often more constraining than the checks and balances of later rationalized constitutions.
We were told for decades that the Church was too big and complex to enforce orthodoxy, stop liturgical abuse, and regulate problem parishes and universities…but now Rome provides guidance about bulletins and bishops must scrupulously justify the “legality” of every Latin Mass.
I understand the impulse to defend the Latin Mass by noting that it draws converts and is disproportionately popular with zealous younger Catholics. But the unfortunate reality is that they know that. They don’t care. In fact that’s one of the reasons why they want it suppressed.
It took Protestant Great Britain *170 years* to adopt the scientifically superior Gregorian Calendar, which was promulgated by the Pope and implemented in most Catholic countries in 1582. A fact omitted from most discussions about historical religious attitudes towards science.
It’s shocking to see some Catholics claiming that Eucharistic processions are useless, counterproductive or even morally wrong (!) in certain circumstances. I don’t know how anyone who believes in the supernatural and spiritual aspects of our Faith could make such claims.
That empty feeling you have is the fact that, since the aftermath of World War I, there are no longer any states that trace their legitimacy, at least in part, to succession from the Roman Empire.
DeSantis’s campaign was based on the premises that:
1. many Trump voters were disillusioned by his Covid response and tired of distractions
2. conservative elites were serious when they said they wanted to move on
3. The donor class would compromise and coalesce around him (ha!)
The Holy Roman Empire has direct continuity with Ancient Rome. The papacy recognized the Roman emperors in Constantinople for centuries after 476. In 800, Leo III simply recognized a rival claimant, as had occurred countless times in Roman history.
The phase out of the Latin Mass with “accompaniment” and “instruction” for its adherents is such a cruel farce built on the false premise that TLM attendees don’t know or understand the Novus Ordo. In reality, most grew up with it and still attend it frequently or even usually.
"Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality,” said President Kennedy in 1963.
Catholic arguments against the death penalty are rooted in mushy sentimentalism masquerading as moral theology and empirical claims that are contestable and contingent. It’s really just an emotional response by Europeans and Latin Americans to the trauma of war and dictatorship.
The statue, placed atop an ancient Roman column, was a gift from Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies to Pope Pius IX—to honor Our Lady, of course, but also in final satisfaction of the feudal tribute owed by the Kings of Sicily/Naples ultimately dating back to the Norman conquest.
In a time-honoured tradition to mark the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a firefighter makes the 27-metre climb to place a garland on the statue of the Madonna in Piazza Mignanelli.
As for the third premise, the donors soured on DeSantis when they realized he actual was serious about social issues, breaking corporate power, and on more restrained foreign policy. They soon decided that they’d rather try their luck with, Haley, a candidate beholden to them.
A topsy-turvy aspect of political discourse is that the decidedly Christian concepts of universal charity and solicitude for the poor are viewed as “secular”, while basic tenets of sexual morality observed by most cultures throughout human history are deemed “religious”.
The insufferable “historian here” crowd is symptomatic of the broader trend of smuggling in left-wing propaganda under the guise of “expertise”. But it’s particularly amusing to see historians pretend historical expertise is akin to, eg. medical science or structural engineering.
A great and sadly little known Pope:
-A prophetic voice against the First World War
-Nearly bankrupted the Vatican due to his generosity to the poor and refugees
-Issued an encyclical in praise of Dante
-Last Pope to die a Prisoner in the Vatican.
On this day 100 years ago, Pope Benedict XV died and entered into his eternal reward.“Il Piccoletto” was known for his immense generosity, using his private revenue to help the poor of Rome, and for his devotion to Our Lady, particularly under the title of Mediatrix of All Graces
Incompetent? Assembling and supplying in just 3 years a multinational army to conquer a territory thousands of miles away, with difficult to non-existent land and sea supply routes, and then holding it for 90-200 years is the opposite of incompetence.
Depicting the crusaders as square jawed handsome chads with coiffed silky hair is genuinely peak comedy. These people were half dead from dehydration and shitting themselves and incompetently stumbling from one fuck up to the next.
The Church should obviously minister to doubters, unbelievers, etc. But that should never come at the cost of denying Catholics a place where it is normal and normative to believe in Catholic teaching.
Overshadowed by its more powerful neighbor, Canada is a sparsely populated petrostate nominally ruled by Queen Elizabeth. Real power is wielded by its premier, Justin Trudeau—heir of Pierre Trudeau, the colorful Cold War-era strongman from the country’s francophone minority.
Promoting a Catholic alternative to the dominant regime ideology sounds like the opposite of fascist collaborationism. But I suppose it’s hard to see that if you believe Catholicism and Liberalism are the same thing.
“He was indeed a great winner of battles. Victories delivered at the price of fallen men, sacrificing all for success regardless of setbacks, killing half his soldiers with marches beyond human ability. Little matter: conscription gave him more raw material.”
-Chateaubriand, 1814
Here is the ending paragraph on the film. It doesn’t even say anything about who won or lost these battles, just a lament that ‘war’ should ever take place
Pathetic
Debate about acceptance or rejection of Vatican II misses the point. Most traditional-minded Catholics do not reject that council. Rather, they reject its conflation with Catholicism itself, as if the purpose of the Church is to serve as the guardian of the Revolution of 1965.
It is unfortunate that the U.S. seems to have lost out on a chance to have a president that truly understood the need to competently use government to break the left’s control over all aspects of society. But it was good that DeSantis ran and gave (at least some) voters a choice.
Charles III exhibits a rare combination of dated progressivism and stubborn traditionalism. The kind of melange you might see in an eccentric older Jesuit.
Dubia:
-What measures must a parish take to avoid interaction with unclean trads. Should separate entrances be created?
-May TLMs be held during daylight hours, or is the risk of intermingling too great?
-What ritual sanitation measures must be taken after a parish holds a TLM?
Catholic and secular liberals love to invoke Galileo. But if there is any lesson to be learned from the “Galileo Affair” it’s that the Church should be hesitant to stick its head out in support of the scientific consensus on any particular issue.
“It is no longer possible to doubt the human— ‘anthropic’— origin of climate change,” the Pope writes (
#11
). That statement, an essential key to the argument of the entire document, is plainly, demonstrably wrong. 3/8
I’ve said this before, but Catholic publishers should be commissioning martyrologies for the many 21st-century martyrs. Rather than being reduced to statistics, we need to know the names, faces, and stories of these heroic Christians.
More than 50 people are feared dead in southwestern Nigeria after gunmen opened fire and detonated explosives at a Catholic church where worshippers had gathered for Mass.
No, they don’t. Recent generations have been taught revisionist and critical history without learning the foundational narrative that is being revised and critiqued. And the internet enables the presentation of information without context or proportion. All a recipe for disaster.
This is one of the more interesting narrative collapses I've seen.
The 200 body-sized "mass grave" at a former Native Residential School was detected by LIDAR-style techniques that likely just found tree roots. "Zero" actual bodies have been unearthed...
The King should not let this government be formed. Sánchez is effectively bargaining away the kingdom’s territorial integrity so that he can remain in power.
Grotesque.
BREAKING:
Head of Spain’s 3rd largest party
@vox_es
,
@Santi_ABASCAL
after news of amnesty deal btw Sanchez & the separatists & news of Vox’s founder being shot:
“Either the gov will be on trial or all of us opposing the state coup will be put in prison”
“Synodality” is when the head of the Holy Office (or whatever it’s now called) issues a confusing and provocative document without consulting or warning the bishops and then trickles out further confusing explanations and defenses while insisting the document is perfectly clear.
This is a very important point. Church leaders baselessly assume that traditional-leaning Catholics will never defect from the Faith and, if they do, that just shows their faith was shallow. All other groups are given endless accommodations in an attempt to keep them in the fold.
But this isn’t true about leaving an empty pew. Many of these families would otherwise have lapsed. You can tell because if you spread them across all the NO parishes within 40 mins drive they would still leave a lot of empty pews. Where are all the other young families?
Today we can definitively identify the sites of countless events of 300 years ago. And yet many act like it’s inherently questionable that 4th-century Christians could reliably identify where Christ was crucified or where St. Peter was buried.
War hawks need to be reminded that imperfect peace and compromise are often preferable to bloody conflict.
War skeptics/pragmatists need to be reminded that sometimes honor demands uncompromising resistance at all costs.
I had forgotten about this 2014 letter from Pope Emeritus Benedict on the occasion of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage. Further proof that Summorum Pontificum was intended to promote the TLM in the life of the Church, and was not merely a conditional concession to the SSPX.
This has gotten less attention than Alfie Evans, but once again Italy has conferred citizenship on an English child who has been denied treatment by the NHS in an attempt to get her transferred to Bambino Gesù hospital in Rome.
Concedere la cittadinanza italiana per salvare Indi Gregory, la neonata inglese affetta da una grave malformazione a cui verrà staccata la spina su decisione di un tribunale inglese e contro il parere dei genitori, è un atto di civiltà che ci rende orgogliosi di essere italiani.
Within the subculture of committed Catholics under age 40 (at least in certain countries) devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass may be a minority view, but it is considered normal and legitimate. In two decades it will be hard to find a priest or bishop who *hates* the TLM.
If someone’s response to the murder of a million civilians in war was to point out the killing of 100 combatants, you would rightly think that person lacked the capacity for moral reasoning. So too with those who bring up the death penalty in abortion debates.
We visited Vatican City several years ago. I can’t even calculate the amount of wealth stored within its walls in the name of helping the poor & the sick.
Excellent frescos tho
It’s all so grimly comical. An official Latin translation perhaps was not considered necessary until it was realized that the Latin document could be used as a means to make material alterations.
So the Vatican admits that the Italian and English translations of Traditionis custodes are faulty, and that the Latin text, published 4 months after the motu proprio came into force, is the authoritative text. Ladies and gentleman, the Catholic Church in the 21st Century.
The “Luther” name-calling is unbelievably stupid. Throughout history countless spiritual and temporal figures have criticized and defied the Pope. But being a heresiarch is fundamentally different. (And, of course, it’s progressives who actually want to Protestantize the Church).
After almost 10 years, I’m retiring the “Chateaubriand” username. No particular impetus—my views and interests remain the same, as does my admiration for Chateaubriand. I just thought it was time for a change.
Many have criticized the “Lepanto Institute’s” tweet for displaying liberal/modern/Americanist assumptions. Fine.
But the community note has a similar fault. Absolute power ≠ dictatorial arbitrariness. There are still expectations of procedural regulatory and rationality.
The precious baby in the womb. The miracle of life. Amidst the political and legal controversies, let’s not forget what today’s victory is all about: after 50 years, the U.S. has finally removed the barbaric pseudo-legal barrier to protecting the weakest, most helpless among us.
The Church has spent immeasurable time and effort debating ways to make itself more relevant, less challenging, less “medieval”, less otherworldly. And yet one of the most popular saints of living memory, Padre Pio, represents the opposite of all of that.
This is the beauty of an authoritative magisterium. I have neither the desire nor the theological or scientific qualifications to “think for myself” on this issue. The Church says that Adam and Eve were real people and the ancestors of all of humanity. So I gladly accept it.
The teaching of the Catholic Church acknowledges that the whole OT is not literal (e.g. CCC 362), while *also* teaching that interpreting the symbolism correctly leads us to believe in actual first parents who fell (e.g. CCC 375).
-England hasn’t been successfully invaded since 1066
-Pre-unification Italy was ruled by “foreigners”
-Conflating monarchy with dictatorship and conflating Christian monarchy with “Enlightened” absolutism.
Tell me about a common historical myth that makes your hackles rise. I don't mean actual disinformation like Holocaust denial; I mean stuff like "Napoleon was short!"
For me it's probably "corsets were torture devices for the rich" and "romantic love is a very modern concept."
@Vermeullarmine
No, no you must understand: All bad things that happen in non-liberal regimes (historical or hypothetical) are *because of* the lack of Liberalism. All bad things that happen in Liberal regimes are *in spite of* Liberalism.
324 years is indeed a long time. Long enough for the *distant* descendants of barbarian tribes to become assimilated organically into the western Roman peoples over whom they ruled and long enough for the Eastern Romans to also develop into something different.
So what if it is a “religious claim”?
And even accepting the dubious premise that “religious” claims should not be a basis for law or policy, the claim that life begins at conception is no more “religious” than the claim that we should love our neighbors and care for the poor.
Fun fact. To believe abortion is murder one must possess a belief that a human life begins at conception, not with a 1st breath.
And either way, that is (wait for it)... a **religious** claim.
An excellent example of “fact-checking” that simply asserts falsity by pointing to irrelevant additional “context”. And in this case, it’s not at all clear how the circumstances are *mitigated* by the fact that she was arrested pursuant to a *law* that targets silent prayer.
The best response to Protestant critiques of Catholicism is to express befuddlement and ignore it. These strange sects only remain relevant due to accidents of history like the weather of the English Channel, the Prussian military, and English settlement policy in North America.
Traditionis Custodes and the recent instructions do many things. But “return control over the Latin Mass to the bishops” is not one them. Anyone still parroting this line is either lying or hasn’t bothered to read the documents.
As some Catholics attack Archbishop Cordileone, it is worth remembering that in every era there are Catholics who—for reasons of cravenness, heresy, or lust for power—side with the Church’s enemies. It is outrageous, but we can take some small comfort in knowing it is not new.
There are countless scenarios in which committing homicide might save a person from grave hardship. And yet, somehow, no one ever invokes such scenarios as arguments against criminalizing homicide.
I’ll take the grannies, nonnas, and abuelas with their red rose pro-life stickers over the expensive marketing stunts of this astroturf operation any day.
So I’m outside the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in DC, and Catholics for Choice is here projecting messages onto the church in support of abortion rights.
The protest coincides with the basilica’s “prayer vigil for life,” happening inside.
When the Titanic sank, everyone agreed that the women and children should get priority in saving over the men. Ergo men are not living human beings and are not entitled to any legal protections.
A trolley problem for the abortion issue:
In a burning building there is a newborn baby in one room and 5 frozen embryos in another room. You only have time to get to 1 room.
Which would you save?
The proportion of TLM attendees who exclusively attend the TLM is small. The proportion who deny the validity of the Novus Ordo is even smaller. The real purpose of the crackdown is not to defend the Novus Ordo but rather to denigrate and even question the validity of the TLM.
We apologize deeply for the email that was sent today. $14.92 was our average donation amount this week. It was an oversight on our part to not make the connection to a year of colonization, conquest, and genocide for Indigenous people, especially before Thanksgiving.
“What did Jesus leave his friends and family?”
300 years after Alexander’s death, his last remaining successors were marrying their sisters and in thrall of eunuchs, soon to be snuffed out by Rome.
300 years after Christ’s death his followers converted Rome.
The West is defined by two men who claimed divinity :
Jesus Christ
and
Alexander the Great
(whom Caesar modelled himself after)
Many ask "What would Jesus do"... Only Napoleon asked "What would Alexander do"
Fewer ask "What did Jesus leave his friends and family"
.
Many
If representative democracy works as it’s supposed to, one of Ireland’s major parties (all of whom supported the referendum) will adjust its positions to earn the support of these voters. We’ll see if that actually happens.
Ireland has voted No in the Family referendum.
The final result has been just announced at Dublin Castle with 1,021,546 people, or 67%, voting No and 487,564 people voting Yes | Follow live updates:
Traditionis Custodes and the instructions treat the TLM as an insidious abuse that the Church tolerated but is now stopping. When in reality the TLM was expressly permitted and even promoted until July 2021. The implication is that Summorum Pontificum was always illegitimate.
Pro-lifers aren’t demanding that Republicans campaign on unpopular policies that have no near-term chance of success. Instead we object to:
-affirmative support for early-term abortions
-disavowal of federal policy making
-no reaffirmation of longstanding policy on federal funds
It’s amazing how the people who for the last 7 years have hyperventilated about Russian infiltration and domestic subversion, and casually deployed accusations of insurrection and treason are effortlessly pivoting back to their denunciation of Cold War anti-communist hysteria.
So true. "Every man must have an attitude to the French Revolution - must make a decision about it somehow - as part of the stand that he generally takes in life." Herbert Butterfield, 1949
“The right to rule is not necessarily, however, bound up with any special mode of government. It may take this or that form, provided only that...rulers must ever bear in mind that God is the paramount ruler of the world”
-Leo XIII, Immortale Dei
Supporters of the Trump prosecutions have an infantile and caricatured concept of what show trials look like. It’s not something that’s done only by openly sinister people with funny hats and silly accents. Show trials always have a plausible veneer of legality—that’s the point.
"Americans know that Marco Rubio is lying. Americans know we are a nation of laws. Americans know that these jurors do a noble job. You have these people going out there saying these outrageous things." --
@joenbc
on Sen. Rubio comparing verdict to 'communist show trials'
A good king respects and values critics whose loyalty to the realm is unquestioned. A tyrant places personal loyalty above all else, even to the point of favoring sycophants who obviously have no regard for the interests of the realm.
Average lapsed Catholic: “I fell away from the Church. It’s just too obsessed with rules.”
Also average lapsed Catholic: [spends countless hours scrutinizing whether balls have crossed lines on the ground, the relative positions of two players on the field, etc]
Few things are more pathetic than Catholics insisting that one is not a good or serious Catholic unless one embraces ideas that were universally recognized as heterodox a few years ago. Nobody actually believes this, but I suppose they feel the need to commit to the act.
The “mode of thinking” explained: Many were previously cold on Trump because he challenged political norms. But prosecuting a political opponent before an election on a strained legal theory in an highly biased forum is a worse —paradigmatic, even—norm violation. Hope this helps.
I don’t even know what to say about this remarkable exchange. But I wanted it preserved for the record, because the mode of thinking on display is probably not uncommon on the right and just unfathomable to me.
Not particularly shocking that the people who were descended from the original Romans, spoke and wrote in their language, lived among their buildings, and worshipped in the Roman liturgy, were not deferential to Greeks who happened to call themselves Romans.
Children/parenthood is threatening to some people because it is a source of happiness and fulfillment that is not dependent on wealth, status, or luxury forms of “self-discovery”. They are resentful because the joy of parenthood is unearned.