Catholics tend to have a love/hate relationship with the concept of a homily. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis laments how everyone suffers when it comes to the homily. The priest suffers because he has to give it, and the laity suffers having to listen. This can be made worse by the fact that preachers can have […]
The Advent season includes the feasts of many popular saints, including St. Nicholas, St. Ambrose, St. Juan Diego, and St. Lucy. As I mentioned in my post about St. Nicholas, I didn’t learn much about the lives of the saints until I was an adult. I recognized St. Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day because they […]
Last week we kicked off the Fathers for Good Advent series with a reflection on the virtue of fortitude and discussed ways in which it can help us grow with our families in these blessed days before Christmas. (You can read Week One here.) This week, we match the cardinal virtue of prudence to our Advent […]
Growing up, Saint Nicholas Day meant three things: the fireplace, stocking caps, and the biggest pair of shoes you could find. It started the evening before, when we finished the family rosary. We always ended our rosary with the ‘blowing of the candle.’ Well, actually it wasn’t a candle, it was a little oil lamp […]
After they rejected the hierarchical Catholic Church, one of the early tasks of the protestant reformulators was to redefine what Church is; more precisely, to define the visible nature of the New Covenant community of God’s chosen people. It being clear to them through sacred Scripture that Christ Jesus actually did established a Church; they […]
How do we make “Keep Christ in Christmas” more than a bumper sticker in our family’s life? This Advent, let us prepare to welcome our Savior into our homes and into our hearts in a new and special way, setting our own pace for the season and setting aside the commercial pressures of the culture. […]
Just diving right in: 1. Do not get your news and information about your religion, your Church, your Pope, or anything even remotely related to any of the aforementioned, from secular mainstream media, whether televised, in print, or online. They are not with us, and they are not neutral. They are against us. Moreover, they […]
In the 13 years I have been a practicing Catholic, I have been a traditionalist all but two of them. As a result, I have received communion on the tongue and kneeling for eleven years. I’ve also found that the way we traditionalists receive communion is something that many Catholics outside of the Extraordinary Form […]
By now you probably have heard that a massive typhoon hit the Philippines last Friday. Named Haiyan (or Yolanda), the typhoon is reportedly the strongest ever recorded in history, with winds of 195 miles per hour and gusts up to 235 mph. Early reports coming out of the country say that as many as 10,000 people lost […]
Have you heard about how everything will be okay in this world once the Pope consecrates Russia to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, as stated by Our Lady of Fatima? Have you heard the latest revelation from Medjugorje? Maybe you wonder what the person calling themselves Maria Divine Mercy is saying. One thing is for sure: We […]
Not too long ago, I came across two seemingly different perspectives on the relationship between God’s action in our lives and our faithfulness. This question had been on my mind lately. After four years of infertility and now some roadblocks in the process of adoption, I’m starting to wonder “What gives?” I’m sure it’s a reflection […]
I remember during my dating days wanting to start a Bible study with a girl I was dating. She liked the idea, but asked “which commentary are we going to use in studying the Bible?” Puzzled, I said we wouldn’t be. We would just talk over the phone/in person about various Bible verses, what they […]
In our attempts as Catholics to convince the wider world of the reasonableness and truth of Christian belief, we are often accused of being more adamant about what we are against than what we are for. The dustup over Pope Francis’ recent interview1 illustrates clearly how this is the case. Amidst the rush to come […]
Sometimes I think we traditionalists get far to caught up in the details of this or that crisis in the Church today that we forget why we are fighting. We become very much like the dystopians of the Old Testament. We aren’t fighting to restore some golden age. We are fighting to reach the golden age promised to the faithful in Heaven. If we can use the things of this world and this present age to reach that point, then even better.
In a previous article, I outlined my belief that one of the greatest dangers facing Catholicism today is a lack of belief in the doctrine of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. This lack of belief stems from failing to appreciate the wide-ranging conclusions from such an event. I pointed out how this problem has led […]
In my previous column, we examined how the words of Pope Francis found echo in Pope Leo XIII. A lot of Catholics were also “scandalized” by another statement from Pope Francis. When an atheist asked if the point of their meeting was to convert him, the Holy Father Stated: Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes […]
Here we go again. Pope Francis gave another interview and already everyone is screaming. Other people have written about various aspects of it, but there’s one thing in particular I found interesting that I would like to talk about. This is the following statement everyone seems to be freaking out about: The most serious of the […]
In dialogues with Non-Catholics, most of the subjects you discuss won’t get you that far. Instead, they will frequently tell you something along these lines. “Jesus Christ didn’t found a religion, he founded a Church. That Church is based upon confessing Christ as your Savior. Catholics add to this and to the Bible with their […]
“But this I have against you, that you have forgotten your first love.” (Apocalypse 2:3) When it is asked what the biggest problem in the Church is, people respond in a variety of ways. Various Catholics cite the loss of the sense of sin, loss of the dignity of the human person, the dictatorship of […]
“The true protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man’s heart, and man’s heart that begs for Christ.” – Fr. Luigi Giussani, founder of Communion & Liberation. On Catholic Lane we are running two articles on the topic of charity with the aim of provoking the kind of conversation about this very important […]
“I praised the dead rather than the living, and I judged him happier than both that is not yet born, who has not seen the evils done under the sun.” (Eccl 4:4) In this statement, the Qoheleth offers much wisdom for todays Catholics, especially traditionalists. While at face value his words are a lamentation of […]
In today’s Church there is a growing success story which nobody is telling.
The lesson of Dostoyevsky’s works can be summed up like this: It is the Cross that focuses the human condition in all its bitterness and all its horror, and it is the Resurrection that proclaims the final response of God; His promise of freedom from sin, the overcoming of death, and abundant life at last. […]
Here is the schedule for the papal prayer vigil [as of Friday evening]. 5:45 pm (Rome time) — About 50 priests will begin hearing confession in designated areas under the Bernini colonnades. Pope Francis has asked that the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession) be made available throughout the evening because “true peace springs from a heart that […]
