Fourteen Years and an Appeal

Every year on the Feast of St. Peter and Paul it has become custom for me to write an anniversary post commemorating the founding of this blog, which (in its current form) was launched on June 29, 2007. Today I am celebrating fourteen years of Unam Sanctam Catholicam.

But beyond celebrating this enduring blog, I also wanted to give you some news and make an appeal.

First, I want to let you all know I am going to be taking an extended break for awhile. Nothing is wrong in my life or anything, I am just fairly busy and I want to disconnect for a time. I have a lot of books and projects I am involved with, and I also just want to step away from online Traddie-dom for a bit. 

One project I am going to be working on this year is switching over the sister site to a new format. I have been operating www.unamsanctamcatholicam.com since 2012 on a Joomla template that has become woefully clunky and outdated.  I am migrating that site and all its content over to a much sleeker Wordpress-based template that will make it a lot more aesthetically pleasing and easier to navigate. I don't expect this will be done before the end of 2021, but I am going to be spending a lot of time on it.

As I break and revamp the sister site, I'd like to ask you to consider making a financial donation to support the work of Unam Sanctam Catholicam. 

What is this "work" you ask?

Unam Sanctam Catholicam is consistently one of the top-ranked Catholic blogs in the English speaking world. It has been in the top 100 for the past decade and has occasionally been in the top 10. It's content has been 4.3 million times; an average of 38,500 people read our articles every single month. That's 38,500 readers every month being exposed to our articles about the goodness, truth, and beauty of the Catholic faith—articles devoid of clickbait, not beholden to any organization or authority, written in a spirit of patient reflection without pretension. Granted, that means you sometimes have to deal with my own stupidity, but at least there's no commercial angle or institutional gags on my content. I am a fool, but you get to enjoy my foolery without any hook.

My free RCIA notes and outlines have been downloaded 80,000 times and show up first for the Google search "RCIA notes." That's 80,000 people who chose to go with my outlines—full of quotes from the Catechism, Aquinas, the Councils, and the Fathers—instead of any number of the garbage RCIA resources floating around out there.

Countless people have messaged me over the years saying the Bayside article I did back in 2013 had helped them come out of the Bayside hoax. Ditto for my articles over the years on Medjugorje.

I am not a social media influencer. I have never tried to monetize this site by turning into a subscription service, nor have I ever hocked "premium content." I don't make a living from this blog; if I feel like posting I do, and if I don't I don't. 

That being said, a little bit goes a long way. If you've ever been entertained, edified, or educated by Unam Sanctam Catholicam, please consider helping. There’s many ways your contributions can benefit Unam Sanctam Catholicam: 

• I would like to get my RCIA notes and outlines translated into Spanish and then Arabic. I'd like to be able to pay people for this translating work.
  
  
• As I mentioned above, I am revamping the USC sister site. I would like funds to help pay for the redevelopment and obtain improved design elements of the new site.
  
  
• While I work as a professional writer, I also self-publish works on matters of interest to traditional Catholics. For example, the USC Ebook, Laudato Si: The 40 Concerns of an Exhausted Layman, The Book of Non-Contradiction on harmonizing apparently divergent biblical accounts, and most recently, Power from On High on the history of theocratic monarchy in the Christian west. Your donations allow me to (a) spend more time working on these passion projects instead of grinding away at the corporate stuff, and  (b) help me pay professional copywriters and artists to improve the quality of these self-published works. 

In the meantime, I have a lot on the docket for the rest of 2021. Here are just a few of the articles I have in the works for the next sixth months (hopefully):

• The legend of St. Maternus
• Use of ostrich eggs in the traditional liturgy 
• Various book reviews
• The Church and autopsies
• St. Gregory of Narek
• Cuss words in the Middle Ages
• Medieval clerical opinions on beards
• English bishops and the pallium journey to Rome
• Gemstones in the writings of St. Hildegard
• Part 3 in my series on the Nephilim (hopefully)

If there is something else you would like to see me write about, please do not hesitate to shoot me an email at uscatholicam[at]gmail.com. Thank you for your patronage over the years. Please use the Paypal button below to make a donation; if you'd like to send a check in the snail mail, message me at uscatholicam[at]gmail.com and I'll let you know how. And as always, follow us on Facebook. May the Lord richly bless you.

CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION TO UNAM SANCTAM VIA PAYPAL

Please Help Injured TLM Choir Director

My brethren, I am coming to you today with a request for prayers and material support for a dear friend of mine, Mr. Bill Price, who has been critically injured.

Bill has been a personal friend of mine for ten years. He is a good man with a love of God and the Traditional Latin Mass. He is a talented musician; for many years he has been the Choir Director of the Gregorian Schola at St. Mary, Star of the Sea in Jackson Michigan, cantoring at the weekly TLM. He is also a talented graphic designer; he designed the covers to several of my publishing projects, including War Against the Papacy and Hermits and Anchorites of England. Bill is engaged and planning to be married next month to his fiance, Sipkje. I've played guitar with Bill many times; just last week we were eating dinner together laughing and catching up over a few beers.

Last week, Bill fell over 20 feet from a scaffolding. He broke his right leg in three places, both tibia and fibula. The breaks are severe; the injuries are requiring multiple surgeries to correct. In the meantime, Bill is out of work for at least three months, possibly more. He has no health insurance to cover his medical bills. Obviously, with Bill about to marry and start a family, these are pressing concerns.

In your charity, please consider making a contribution to help pay for Bill's mounting medical expenses. You can click here to make a donation to help Bill and Sipkje .

God bless you my friends. Even if you can't donate, please pray for Bill. He is a dear friend and a worthy Catholic man.

St. John of the Cross Academy Building Appeal

Blessings and grace!

The following is some information about Saint John of the Cross Academy, a classical Catholic academy in the vicinity of Lafayette, Louisiana. They are fundraising to construct some new facilities and asked me to promote the project, which I am happy to do.

Saint John of the Cross Academy was founded in 2015 by Tim and Nick  Trosclair and Peter Youngblood with the express purpose of implementing a truly classical and Catholic education. The three had a collective twenty years of experience in diocesan, public, and independent schools, and were frustrated by the insurmountable obstacles to actually teaching anything, let alone to implementing either a true Catholic or classical education. These obstacles resulted from at least four of the following causes: First, pure bureaucratic sloth and lack of any idea of subsidiarity, coupled with a daily dose of garden variety incompetence. Second, class sizes that demonstrate an overemphasis on financial stability (usually resulting from a board that does not understand the principles of education and prefers wealth to wisdom). Third, a clear lack of understanding of what a classical education means. Fourth, a clear lack of understanding of what a Catholic education means (these last two are the most damaging).

For this reason, we decided to remove ourselves from the modern system and place our families and pupils deep within the traditions of Holy Mother Church, as well as the classical heritage of our own western civilization.

The Academy follows four guiding principles:

● First, the Academy must set as its highest end the worship of God in the Traditional Latin Mass.Closely connected with this is praying the Divine Office, which tills the soil of the heart to better receive the infinite graces flowing from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (as of now we are able to daily pray the little hours from Prime to None).

● Second, the Academy must be rural and utilize the land in order to incarnate the Benedictine principle ora et labora so that the pupils may be truly immersed in the prayer and work of God.

● Third, the Academy must remain small, allowing the tutors and pupils the ability to learn from one another and grow in virtue. This is why our bylaws state that the Academy can operate at a maximum tutor to pupil ratio of one to eight.

● Four, the Academy must be classical in its very essence. This means that both the content (fundamentally the Latin and Greek languages) and the method of teaching must comply with the content and methods of those who have taught in this tradition--from Socrates to St.Thomas Aquinas and beyond.

The successes of the program have necessitated a plan for growth to get out of their current quarters (a converted garage) into something more conducive to the Academy's vision. With that in mind, the families of St. John of the Cross Academy have purchased 14 acres of land in rural Sunset, Louisiana in hopes of realizing their vision. They are trying to fund raise $40,000 to build a modest school building. 

Here is the land they have already purchased and hope to develop:

Since Tim Trosclair is a friend and long-time patron of this blog, I told him I would help spread the word about the work of St. John of the Cross Academy. I encourage you to review their materials and their appeal and consider making a donation for this worthy cause. Saint John of the Cross Academy is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Tax ID: 47-4658860.

Website of St. John of the Cross Academy

Click here to read more about the Academy's appeal.

To make a donation, please click here.

Please share this with anyone you know who might be interested in supporting this pious endeavor, especially those who live in Louisiana and might have the prospect of getting acquainted with the project in a more personal way.

Pax et bonum

+AMDG+

Appeal for an Oblate of the ICRSS

In the interest of furthering the advance of Catholic Tradition and supporting, I am happy to present the profile and appeal of a wonderful young man who has just been accepted into the oblatehood of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in Wausau, Wisconsin. As you probably know, members of traditional priestly fraternities are required to pay the full cost of their tuition. Please read about Kevin Koski - a young man I met last year at the Catholic Identity Conference - and consider supporting his vocation financially. Here is a message from Kevin:

Salvete! My name is Kevin Koski and I am a new candidate for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. I am 27 years of age and was born and raised in Central Maine. A cradle Catholic, I attended a Catholic elementary school in Augusta. In 2010 I graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. in Kinesiology: Exercise Science. I went on to perform missionary work in Denver and study theology for a year at Franciscan University of Steubenville. At Franciscan, I aided implementation of the Traditional Mass on campus. It was in September 2012 that I began discerning a religious vocation. I am now entering formation due to a fervor to help build the Church back to Her former glory. Moreover, by being formed in the Institute’s charism and spirituality, I hope to be an integral part of the restoration of authentic Catholic culture by promoting the classical Roman Liturgy and the superior beauty and euphony of the compositions found in sacred music.

Checks can be made out to Kevin Koski and sent to 6 Townsend Street,Augusta, ME 04330. If you do choose to donate, please mention that you did so as a result of seeing this post. If he gets a good response, maybe we can feature more seminarian and oblate appeals in the future, as does Rorate and other traditional blogs.

Just to make sure everything is on the up and up, here is a copy of Kevin's letter of acceptance from the Institute: