A Pentecost Miscellany

[May 28, 2023] Happy Pentecost brethren! I have had so many things in my mind recently, but as I am sure I will not have time to flesh most of them out, today I am presenting you with a miscellany of my recent ruminations. I may develop these further in future posts, but who knows. Enjoy my brain dump!

Response to Julian Kwasniewski & Rob Marco on Men's Groups

[May 20, 2023] Earlier this month, Mr. Rob Marco published an article at Crisis called "Why Your Catholic Men's Group Will Eventually Fold." It is an excellent piece that reflects the author's dissastisfaction with Catholic men's groups and speculates on why they seem to be characterized by shallowness, posturing, and ephemerality. Robert Greving wrote a follow up called "Why Your Catholic Men's Group Should Eventually Fold," building on the reflections of Mr. Marco with what I would call a more sociological approach, observing that men's groups reflect the modern tendency to try to programitize and officialize things that are meant to be organic. Both of these articles are thought-provoking and I recommend you read them both, especially before perusing the rest of my piece.

Newman's Development of Doctrine

[May 12, 2023] I was recently privileged to join Steve Cunningham on the Resistance Podcast on the Sensus Fidelium channel to talk about St. John Henry Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. It was an excellent discussion on a very timely subject. If you'd like to listen to the talk, you can do so here. The entire video is around 55 minutes long.

Losing Our Liturgical Innocence

[May 3, 2023] One of the most formative books in the development of my own thought on Catholic liturgy and tradition was The Heresy of Formlessness by German author Martin Mosebach (Ignatius Press, 2006). Though relatively unknown in America at the time, Mosebach is a well-known voice for Catholic Tradition in the German speaking world. After seventeen years, Heresy of Formlessness remains an illuminating book that puts the liturgical rupture of the past four decades in perspective from the point of view of the layman in the pew. 

Bishop Huonder and the SSPX

[Apr. 29, 2023] The big news this week has been the revelations by Bishop Vitus Huonder, retired Bishop of Chur (Switzerland) that Pope Francis had told him privately that the Society of St. Pius X are not in schism. 

Traditional Catholic media sources have been abuzz with essays and podcasts jubilantly framing these revelations as a vindication for the position of the Society and traditional Catholic media, who have consistently maintained that the SSPX is not in a state of schism. 

I, on the other hand, believe this to be a nothingburger, for three very important reasons:

Repetitions of the Sign of the Cross in the Mass

[Apr. 23, 2023] One of the changes made by the post-Vatican II reformers to the Mass was the elimination of many of the signs of the cross, which were seen as superfluous and repetitive.

Now, it is the case that the Extraordinary Form of the Mass contains abundantly more signs of the cross than does the Novus Ordo—forty-eight times! (I have also heard forty and fifty-two) But does the fact that this sacred gesture is repeated so often mean that it is superfluous? Is it a medieval "encrustation" that has been uselessly repeated and multiplied until it has lost all meaning?

Three Types of Scandal

"Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal comes", our Lord tells us in the Gospel of Matthew (18:7). Scandal has been defined in the Church's tradition as an act or omission on our part that, through our bad example, leads another to commit sin or lose faith. Our Lord warns us in the above cited passage that to do such a thing is particularly heinous; as if it is not bad enough that we destroy our own souls, scandal causes us to drag others down with us into the mire of our sin, sometimes by actively leading others into sin, sometimes just by causing them to be shaken in their faith by our poor example. Jesus levels dire consequences against those who lead believers to sin, warning that it would be better to have a stone about our neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea than be guilty of scandal.

Statistics on Motu Proprios 1978 - Present

[Apr. 16, 2023] A few days ago I saw an interesting tweet by Matthew Hazell noting that in 2023 alone Pope Francis has already issued 50% more motu proprios than Pope Benedict had throughout his entire pontificate.

The point got me wondering what subjects have occasioned motu proprios in recent history. I began reviewing the motu proprios of the last three popes, comparing not only how many but their purpose. The following are some statistics my cursory research revealed. 

Pius VI and the Synod of Pistoia

]Apr. 15, 2023] One of the most brazen attempts to undermine the traditions of the Church prior to the post-Conciliar age occurred at the Synod of Pistoia in 1786, held in the region of Florence under the presidency of Bishop Scipio de Ricci, Bishop of Pistoia and Prato.

The Synod of Pistoia was the last gasp of the Gallican movement, which attempted to detract from the authority of the Holy See by transferring much of the governance of national churches over to their respective governments and synods of local bishops. It asserted radical innovations in Church governance and proposed sweeping reforms that touched on everything from monastic discipline to the sacramental theology to the order of the liturgy. In many places, the acts of Pistoia anticipate the thinking of the theologians of the Nouvelle théologie responsible for the calamities that followed the Second Vatican Council.

Are Traditionalists "Rebels of Korah"?

[Apr. 11, 2023] Bad biblical analogies are the bane of modern religious discourse, and those wielded by opponents of traditionalism are among the worst. Case in point is the comparison of trads to the rebels of Korah from the Old Testament Book of Numbers. Numbers 16 tells us that Korah was a Levite and relative of Moses who resisted Moses' authority. Korah and his partisans were smitten by the power of God as punishment for their rebellion; in the New Testament, certain "ungodly persons" who "reject authority" are compared to the rebels of Korah (cf. Jude 1:8, 11). 

Four Reasons for the Resurrection of Jesus

[Apr 9, 2023] "If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain" (1 Cor. 15:14). The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the centerpiece of the Faith, what St. Paul called the matter "of first importance" (1 Cor. 15:4) in Christian preaching. In this article, we shall consider various reasons why, in God's infinite wisdom, He ordained the Resurrection of Christ in the grand plan of salvation history.

It Is Not Wrong to Assume Someone Has Gone Straight to Heaven

We are all familiar with the modern spectacle of funerals as immediate canonizations rather than occasions for prayer and penitence for the deceased. Contemporary discomfort with the doctrines of hell and purgatory—and a profound lapse in catechesis on the gravity of sin—has transformed funeral masses into a "celebration of life," in such a way that the bereaved are not enjoined to pray for the dead. Everybody just seems certain that grandma is among the choirs of angels and doesn't give it a second thought.

Some Nonsense from Cardinal Cupich

[Mar. 12, 2023] Back on February 27, Cardinal Blaise Cupich published an article in America Magazine entitled "Critics of Pope Francis' Latin Mass Restrictions Should Listen to JPII."  In this essay the good Cardinal accused traditional Catholics who resist Traditionis custodes of a plethora of faults—ingratitude to the generosity of Benedict XVI and John Paul II, undermining the See of Peter, resistance to the Holy Spirit, and, that most tiresome canard, rejection of the Vatican II. He attempts to tie embrace of the Novus Ordo with acceptance of Vatican II.

The Church as a Barnacle Encrusted Ship

[Mar. 3, 2023] It has frequently been observed that the liturgical reform of the mid-twentieth century was founded upon false principles of archaeologism or antiquarianism, a fallacy whereby something is held to be better or purer the older it is. If you are not familiar with the concept of archaeologism, I humbly recommend my essay "What is Archaeologism?" on the Unam Sanctam Catholicam website.

"Preserve His Church from Falling Into Error" — The Canonization of St. Bonaventure

I was recently made aware of a fascinating text from the pontificate of Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484) with import to the infallibility of canonizations. The text in question is the 1482 Superna caelestis, the canonization bull for St. Bonaventure.