The present crisis in the Catholic Church might be seen as the last hurrah of the spirit of Vatican II. If rumors are to be believed, Pope Francis is preparing new restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. This combined with the dissent being fomented by the German Catholics and widespread modernism and … Read more
Recently I ran into an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in a few years. Although we live in the same city, we originally “met” 20 years ago in a formerly-prominent Catholic blogger’s combox. Seeing him reminded me how long I’ve been active in the online Catholic world, and it also reminded me how toxic … Read more
Many Catholics are divided on the subject of abortion. Even though Church teaching on this matter is crystal clear (CCC 2270-2275), Pew Research reported that more than half of U.S. Catholics favor legalized abortion (i.e. “pro-choice” Catholics), and a subset from this group upholds that the Church ought to reverse her teaching on abortion to … Read more
Often, prophecies come from the most unexpected of places: a talking donkey, an old man in the Jewish temple, three poor Portuguese children. One can add to that list a prominent Southern Presbyterian theologian, Confederate army chaplain, and virulent anti-Catholic by the name of Robert Lewis Dabney. For it was Dabney who discerned (and feared) … Read more
The United Nations is persistently pursuing “sustainable development,” a goal with which some in the Church hierarchy, even the pope, seem to be onboard. This is troubling in a time when many see U.N. global initiatives as thinly-veiled Marxist ploys. Still, no matter what the subject, it seems such a reasonable question when someone chimes, … Read more
The Word of the Month is RADISH. I’ve long told my students that one really interesting thing about the Roman Empire is that nobody seemed to care much about what we call “race,” that is, a large group of people, not bound by ethnicity, who share a few physical characteristics held to be definitive and … Read more
Now that parishes are opening up again, I’ve been disheartened to see row upon row of empty pews. I also read a post on social media recently that made me especially sad: “Once the pandemic is over, can’t we please still stay at home and watch Mass on TV? I really like the ease of … Read more
The Vatican announced recently that the next synod of bishops will now extend over a two-year period of various “phases.” According to Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, the hope is to turn the synod from “being an event into a process.” This worries me. The idea of a sort of … Read more
There’s no doubt we’re living in a time marked by extreme divisions. Whether it be political candidates and parties, economics and foreign policy, marriage and abortion, gender and race—we are a divided nation and a divided people. Religion is not exempt from the plague of division. Today, Catholics are extremely divided on a host of … Read more
Update 6/15/21: Recently, the Lozier Institute learned that Sanofi-GSK used abortion-derived HEK293T cells to produce pseudovirus in some of their confirmatory lab tests. This was also the case for the Inovio and Novavax vaccine candidates mentioned in the article, the latter of which was reported this week to be close to seeking FDA approval. … Read more
One of the most important distinctions we can make during these troubled times is between philosophy and ideology. Philosophy is the search for truth employing the universal human faculty of reason. Therefore, philosophy is for everyone. An ideology, on the other hand, is limited to a set of ideas that does not have a universal … Read more
Catholicism is the future of culture in America and the Western World. Why? Because Catholicism understands that humans are cultural animals and that we have a rich and splendid cultural inheritance rather than proclaiming a deracinated and orphaned inheritance or advancing an ideology of self-hatred and cultural destruction in the name of progress. Humans are … Read more
Beowulf, the Old English epic, probably dates from the early eighth century, a golden age of English Christianity when the land was awash with saints. The Beowulf poet, who was almost certainly a monk, was a contemporary of St. Bede the Venerable, a Doctor of the Church, and St. Boniface, the English apostle to the … Read more
The rumors appear to be true: Pope Francis is planning to rescind Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict’s 2007 motu proprio liberalizing the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), which Benedict dubbed the “Extraordinary Form” of the Latin Rite. This at a time when the TLM has been flourishing while most of the Church is experiencing … Read more
H.W. “Harry” Crocker III has taken it upon himself to resurrect the reputation of George Armstrong Custer, perhaps the most politically incorrect man who ever lived. Custer was the Army officer who, surrounded by whooping Injuns, lost his scalp at Little Bighorn. Except, to Crocker’s telling, Custer lost nothing that day on Little Bighorn, not … Read more
The learned and the mighty have been weighing in now for weeks regarding the ongoing scandal of Catholic pro-abortion politicians, particularly Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden, and the question of giving and receiving the Holy Eucharist. I wonder if the USCCB will listen to a voice like mine. I am not a theologian … Read more
In late February, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) dropped an electrifying remark during a debate on the pro-transgender Equality Act: “What any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.” Nadler’s words were an outrageous dismissal of God—and of Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), who had just cited Scripture while arguing that attempting … Read more
Recently, President Joe Biden spoke out strongly against the numerous anti-Semitic incidents in the United States during the last two weeks, which coincided with the deadly conflict between Israel and Hamas. He also surprised many Israelis with his steadfast support for Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas’s rocket attacks. Just last week, Biden, along with First … Read more
It will soon be thirty years since the implosion of the Soviet Union. That liberating event took place on the last day of August in 1991, exactly twenty-one months after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Will there be celebrations to mark the anniversary? Not if Europe and the West have grown so forgetful of … Read more
Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School— the Jesuit-run high school which famously disobeyed the Archdiocese of Indianapolis over its refusal to fire a teacher in a same-sex union— continues to pride itself in its LGBT inclusivity. The school, which is named after a Jesuit martyr tortured and killed for preaching the Faith to the Iroquois (something that … Read more