A Unified Theory of “Backwardism”
What was so awful about the pre-Vatican II Church that its memory needs to be obliterated and those who hold to doctrines that are ancient in provenance must be labeled as “rigid” and psychologically damaged?
‘The Love of Tradition Brings People Together’
An interview with the Reverend Canon Matthew Talarico, Director of Vocations and Provincial Superior of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. Q: What led you to choose your priestly vocation in the Institute and your personal devotion to the Traditional Latin Mass? I came to know the Traditional Latin Mass when I was … Read more
First Reactions of Teenage Boys to the Traditional Latin Mass
The first Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI was promulgated when I was a friar in religious formation. As young friars, we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity the pope was extending to experience the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), and we quickly fell in love with everything about it. Learning and celebrating … Read more
Millennials, Authenticity and the Latin Mass
My wife and I have recently started regularly attending our local Latin Mass in the Extraordinary Form. We took our two young boys one Sunday in July, shortly after the news of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sins jumpstarted the current round of clergy sex scandals. We had previously attended about once a year just to mix … Read more
Restore or Rebuild the Church and the Mass?
Our youngest daughter and I recently found ourselves at a Latin High Mass at the beautiful Oratory of St. Francis de Sales in St. Louis. It had been a few years since I had been there; while my attraction to Mass in the old “extraordinary” form has been strong, and opportunities abound in St. Louis, … Read more
The Traditional Mass: A Remedy for Modern Man’s Spiritual Ills
King Henri IV, after a long and bitter fight for the French Calvinist cause, finally sought to quell the fires of religious war by adopting his country’s traditional faith. “Paris is well worth a Mass,” he is rumored to have said, confirming the impression that he continued to reject Romanish ritual in his heart, even … Read more
Reflections of a Summorum Pontificum Pilgrim
Over the weekend of September 16, 2017, I was privileged to attend the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in Rome, marking the tenth anniversary of promulgation of the motu proprio that has restored to the Church the “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite. This is a short reflection on the experience. The city of Rome remains the … Read more
A Traditional Society of Priests That Practices True Mercy
If I remove the central reason for a thing to exist, it will slowly cease to exist, and even what it had will be lost. On the other hand, if I proclaim and reinforce that central reason, the thing will not only continue to exist, but will likely even increase and bear fruit in due … Read more
The Best Priest I Ever Knew
I may be something a bit rare in Catholic circles, both a convert and a revert. Between my conversion in 1985 and my reversion in 1993, I lived the life of a non-practicing orthodox Catholic. There really is such a thing; someone who for various reasons is not practicing but who does not question any … Read more
On the Restoration and Promotion of the Traditional Mass
The third anniversary of the election of Pope Francis seems an apt time to take stock of the state of the Traditionalist movement within the Church. While the term may encompass various goals for the Church, I focus here on its essential aim, namely the restoration and promotion of the Tridentine liturgy. The reign of … Read more
Which Papal Document will Renew the Earth?
It was my intention to offer a fulsome commentary and critique of Laudato Si. However, as I commenced my third and closest reading of the document, I found myself overwhelmed by its voluminous nature, meandering and mixture of solid proclamation of Christian teaching with incoherent detours into all manner of political controversy. My principal concerns … Read more
Spiritual Renewal Paul VI Spoke of Has Not Yet Materialized
Earlier this month, Pope Francis celebrated the Saturday Vigil Mass at All Saints Church in Rome in order to mark the 50th anniversary of the so-called “first Mass in Italian.” For, in this parish, on March 7, 1965, Blessed Paul VI celebrated Mass partially in the vernacular for the first time, according to a reformed version … Read more
On Integrating Latin Mass Parishes into Church Life
During the past few decades there has been a sharp rise in the number of Catholics attracted to what Pope Benedict XVI called the “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite. This phenomenon has manifested itself in the foundation of traditional orders, the vocation boom that these orders are experiencing, the establishment of new parishes and … Read more
Liturgical Wisdom from the Mouths of Children
This past Yuletide, my husband and I decided to escape the Minnesota winter by taking our family to South Texas. We had a joyfully green Christmas, with our children running wild on the beach while the Gulf of Mexico lapped at our toes. We didn’t miss the snow. Of course, there are always drawbacks to … Read more
What the Traditional Mass Means to Me
I came to the Church through the Traditional Latin Mass. I would have converted anyway. It was becoming more and more obvious that the Church was where I belonged, and it seemed pointlessly obstinate and even artificial to remain apart from her. But the Traditional Mass made the situation clearer, because it made it more … Read more
Popularity of Latin Liturgy is Not “Unfortunate”
In an article on the website Millennials, sponsored by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, William Bornhoft accuses “TLM Millennials” of hindering the new evangelization by favoring the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). Bornhoft, a recent college graduate, makes a number of groundless assertions about TLM supporters and about the liturgical reform promulgated at the … Read more
Love for Latin Liturgy More than a Fashion
As a lover of traditional liturgy, I was momentarily excited by a report last week that, for once in my life, I might actually be hip to the trends. It would be a nearly-unprecedented thing for me, and I’m still not sure how to feel about it. But according to a recent second-hand report, Pope … Read more
The Rise of Latin Mass Youth
Liberal bishops dismissed Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic constitution authorizing wider use of the traditional Latin mass, as a bone thrown to over-the-hill conservatives. But Pope Benedict XVI probably wrote it more for the young than the old. One of the points he stressed in his letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum was that “what earlier … Read more
Addressing the Church’s Attrition Problem
It’s no secret that the Catholic Church has an attrition problem. As Father Thomas Reese points out in his column “The hidden exodus: Catholics becoming Protestants,” the findings of the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, point to a stark reality: One out of … Read more
They Will Know We Are Traddies by Our Love
Over the course of the seven years I’ve been writing on Catholic topics, I made no attempt to hide that I was flirting with, then later became, a “traditionalist” Catholic. The process was, for me, a surprising one, since despite my liturgically conservative tastes, my first few exposures to the Gregorian liturgy left me cold. … Read more