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Be Angry

I’m angry, and if you’re paying attention, you should be too.

The past week has not been a good one for the cause of orthodoxy in the Church. Last week’s appointment of Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández as head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was a blow to anyone who cares about souls. Statements by Fernández since the appointment have only amplified how wholly unqualified the man is to be the Church’s guardian of doctrine.

Then yesterday another blow came. The participants in the upcoming Synod on Synodality were announced, including the papal selections. These latter picks are the men whom Pope Francis personally thinks are important to attend and vote on matters of grave importance to the Church. Among his selections from America are Cardinals Cupich, Gregory, and McElroy—confirmed progressives who have shown a willingness to jettison Church teaching for their own ideologies, as well as a disdain for traditional Catholic teaching and piety. They are card-carrying members of the McCarrick wing of the American hierarchy.

But those three men aren’t even the worst papal selections. No, that honor belongs to Fr. James Martin, SJ, promoter of all things gay. That’s right, the most infamous priest in America, the man who has done more to promote homoheresy in this country than anyone else, was selected by Pope Francis as a voting member of the upcoming Synod which will be addressing issues related to homosexuality.

Like I said, you should be angry, at least if you care about souls.

Now, it’s not fashionable in respectable Catholic circles to be angry, or at least to admit it. Doing so will label you a “mad trad” or some other epithet. After all, we are supposed to be joyful witnesses, right? We won’t convert anyone if we are sourpusses. Over and over we are told by professional Catholics that we must never be angry, that somehow it would be unchristian or at least in bad form.

Yet Our Lord got angry at times, and if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for us. And what most angered him? It was when religious leaders did things to scandalize the faithful and pull them away from God. When they proclaimed to be leading people to God but then said and did things that were contrary to his Father’s Will. This angered him greatly.

That is the situation we are in now. We have religious leaders—up to and most definitely including Pope Francis—who are actively working to undermine the Catholic Faith as handed on to us by our ancestors. They are sowing confusion among poor souls who often know no better and thus will go down a path that leads to eternal destruction. If this doesn’t cause some righteous anger in your heart, then I question your love of God.

We have religious leaders—up to and most definitely including Pope Francis—who are actively working to undermine the Catholic Faith as handed on to us by our ancestors. Tweet This

That being said, we cannot let anger rule and control our hearts. Yes, be angry, but make sure it is a righteous anger. Be sure it is not an anger that disturbs your peace. That means it also includes a complete trust in God—a trust that He is also angry and He will act in His time. He loves the souls being led astray even more than we do, and although He may seem silent now, He does not abandon His people. I would recommend meditating on Ezekiel 34, in which the Lord condemns evil shepherds and promises that He will save His sheep Himself.

So let us be angry, and in that anger work against the machinations of unholy men who seek the destruction of souls. But in our anger let us trust completely in divine providence and that Our angry Lord will work even through the evil around us for the good of His Kingdom. 

“Be angry, and sin not” (Eph 4:26).

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Personnel is Policy

This week saw two more Vatican scandals in a long line of scandals during the Francis papacy. On the surface they appear unrelated, but in reality they are examples of the same underlying problem. 

The more serious scandal of the two is that Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández as the new Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith—essentially, the Church’s doctrinal head. Who is Fernández? He is the ghostwriter of the doctrinally problematic Amoris Laetitia and also the author of a bizarre book on kissing, Heal Me with Your Mouth: The Art of Kissing. Putting Fernández in charge of the CDF is like putting the wolf in charge of the sheep. 

Fernández is scheduled to take over in September, right before the Synodality Synod begins its final push to rewrite the Catechism. Thus, Francis has in place someone who can rubber-stamp anything and everything the Synod produces, no matter how it strays from traditional Catholic teaching.

The other scandalous story coming out of the Vatican was the papal audience granted to the artist of the blasphemous “Piss Christ” display. After this was made public, I saw many popesplainers arguing that surely the pope doesn’t know the details of everyone he meets, and so an audience given to  Andres Serrano does not reflect an endorsement of his work.

This may very well be true, and I’m happy to concede that point. However, Francis has been pope for over a decade now, which means that the Vatican has been deeply shaped by him—every significant position at the Vatican has either been appointed by him or by someone he appointed. Thus, someone at the Vatican agreed to give Serrano a papal audience, and perhaps even praised him to the pope before the audience. And that person is there because of Pope Francis. While Francis might not have directly endorsed Serrano, he did so indirectly by his personnel decisions.

And this is how the two scandals are connected. It’s a truism that “personnel is policy.” Whether you are a leader of a nation, a company, or a Church, your biggest impact on the organization comes from who you pick in important positions. This was one of the biggest weaknesses of Donald Trump—although he talked a big game about draining the swamp, he too often appointed swamp-dwellers into positions of power and influence. 

In the case of Pope Francis, his appointments—from Cardinal Cupich to Fr. James Martin to Archbishop Fernández to everyone in-between—have implemented a program that has undermined Catholic teaching at almost every turn. As President Harry Truman stated when it comes to being in charge, “The buck stops here.” When it comes to the attack on Catholic doctrine we see coming from so many figures in the Church, we need to realize that ultimately it points back to one man.  

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Rainbow, Inc.

This past weekend my (adult) son and I went to the Cincinnati Pride Parade. Did I suddenly become an advocate for All Things Rainbow? Is Fr. James Martin now my spiritual guide? No, we were there in order to pray in reparation and witness to the love of the Sacred Heart.

In Cincinnati, the Pride Parade begins right next to the Cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. My son and I and a few other Catholics felt that Catholicism should be represented at the Cathedral, so we held images of the Sacred Heart and prayed the Rosary and the Litany of the Sacred Heart. It was an intense experience, and it left me with many impressions.

First, the Parade was massive. Again, this was Cincinnati, not New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco. We are the most conservative of cities by all accounts. But estimates were that 175,000 people went downtown for the Parade and/or the Pride Festival that followed it. The Parade began at 11am, and it was still going by at 12:20pm, after we had left. And that only represents the participants in the Parade, not the thousands that lined the streets to cheer it on. To say that the Pride Movement has captured our culture is an understatement.

Seeing the sheer number of participants was saddening, of course, but what truly filled me with grief were the many “normal” families in attendance. There were of course the drag queens, the old obese men in leather, and even the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence on display. This is to be expected. But there were also suburban families—mom and dad bringing their young children, all dressed in rainbows. I’m sure many of them are church-going, and likely they believe they are like those who joined Martin Luther King, Jr. in his civil rights marches. Yet in reality they are sacrificing their children to the Satanic forces within the Pride Movement.

What struck me the most about the day, however, was the massive corporate sponsorship of the event. Every single float and display in the Parade was sponsored by some corporation, such as Spectrum or Toyota or Fifth Third Bank. As someone who has attended over a dozen Marches for Life, I found such a corporate presence in stark contrast to those events. 

The most egregious example was at the very front of the Parade: Procter & Gamble. P&G is a Cincinnati institution, one of the area’s largest employers and a presence in the community since the 19th century. The company also has a reputation for being conservative and boring—it sells toothpaste and laundry detergent, for heaven’s sake, not anything flashy or controversial.

Yet P&G was all-in at the Pride Parade. They were a Diamond Sponsor and at the head of the Parade. Hundreds of P&G employees and their families were marching with matching t-shirts that said “Lead with Love” where the “o” was the P&G logo and the “v” was a rainbow heart.

But most startling were the “brand bicycles.” Perhaps a dozen bikes pulled individual chariots which held a drag queen with a brand such as Febreze or Tide advertised above his head.

Read that last sentence again. On the streets of one of the most conservative cities, one of the most conservative corporations—a blue-chip of blue-chip company—was using drag queens to promote their household goods. It’s not a matter of when we will fall; we’ve already fallen.

This of course reveals the lie that the Rainbow Crowd is somehow oppressed or persecuted. It has captured the media, government, academia, and corporate America. Any institution with power now bows the knee to the Rainbow god. 

I won’t pretend that this isn’t discouraging. Seeing innocent young children being exposed to such depravity should fill any heart with righteous anger. Yet I still have hope in God’s action in the world. To my knowledge there had not been a Catholic presence at the Parade in previous years, but this year a couple dozen Catholics were there begging God for His mercy and witnessing to His love. May this mustard seed one day grow into a magnificent tree that overcomes the Satanic Rainbow Movement and brings many souls to Christ.

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Jumping the Gun on Sister Wilhelmina?

The biggest story among American Catholics this year is surely the incorrupt body of Sr. Wilhelmina Lancaster, foundress of the Benedictines of Mary Queen of Apostles. Thousands have flocked to venerate her body, and many, including me, are declaring it a miracle and Sister Wilhelmina a saint.

But some well-meaning Catholics are saying slow down: Shouldn’t Catholics wait for the Church’s official decision before believing Sister Wilhelmina’s body was kept miraculously incorrupt or that she is a saint? 

Well, yes and no.

Ultimately, it is the Church which has the final authority to make both determinations—if a miracle occurred and if she is a saint. Neither process has even begun. The local diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has issued a reasonable statement on the process, noting that “Bishop [James] Johnston is working to establish a thorough process for understanding the nature of the condition of Sister Wilhelmina’s remains.” It continues, “Bishop Johnston invites all the Faithful to continue praying during this time of investigation for God’s will in the lives of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles; for all women religious; and all the baptized in our common vocation to holiness, with hope and trust in the Lord.”

Bishop Johnston is entirely correct to not accept at face value the claims of the miraculous and to note a process must be followed to determine the nature of what happened to Sr. Wilhelmina’s body. Miracles are alleged all the time, and Catholics should not be so incredulous to believe every claim as legitimate. A bishop has a duty to protect his flock from charlatans and scammers, and so he absolutely should be cautious before proclaiming anything publicly.

Further, the Benedictine sisters also issued a balanced statement in which they express their support and respect for following the proper process. They state, “While we can attest to Sister’s personal sanctity, we know that incorruptibility is not among the official signs taken by the Church as a miracle for sainthood, and that all things must be subjected to further scrutiny, especially by the competent authorities in the medical field. The life itself and favors received must be established as proof of holiness.” Their acceptance of following the proper process is entirely appropriate and demonstrates their great faith.

Related Podcast:

Sister Wilhelmina: An American Incorruptible

However, respecting the need for a formal process does not mean that the faithful cannot believe, right now, that a miracle occurred, or that Sr. Wilhelmina is a saint. We don’t have to wait for the official process to be completed before personally accepting divine action in this regard.

In fact, this is how these things typically have worked in the past. When a miraculous event occurs, it is the faithful who accept and proclaim divine intervention, creating a devotion that spreads organically. In response, Church officials then investigate. 

Consider Lourdes. Catholics didn’t wait for the official Church declaration before believing that the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared to a young peasant girl or that a miraculous spring had arisen. It was only because of this widespread acceptance that Church officials decided to look into it.

The same is true historically in the case of canonizations. Most saints first had strong followings among the faithful before the process for sainthood even began. Again, throughout history it has been the strong following that instigates the process, not the other way around. It’s a “bottom-up” process, not a “top-down” one.

(An aside: today is the feast of Pope Paul VI, a perfect example of the modern tendency toward a “top-down” process. There was no significant devotion to this pope among the faithful after his death and his canonization was much more the Vatican imposing him on the faithful rather than the faithful desiring his canonization.)

But note that there are limits to the faithful’s acceptance of a miracle or the sanctity of a person before the Church makes a declaration. There must be acknowledgement that the Church has the final word on these matters, not the faithful. If the process were to discover some reason to doubt the miracle or a person’s sanctity, then the faithful must recognize the Church’s authority to reject the claims. 

Further, until the Church makes a proclamation these devotions remain private devotions. In other words, it would be inappropriate for liturgical celebrations to occur in honor of the miraculous event or for the person in question. There can be no Mass of “St.” Wilhelmina until the Church makes such a declaration. 

Catholics are wonderfully balanced when it comes to the miraculous: we are neither credulous, believing every claim of divine intervention, nor cynical, rejecting every claim. We are free to personally believe that God has intervened in the case of Sr. Wilhelmina’s incorrupt body, and also believe she led a saintly life, all while waiting for (and praying for!) the Church’s official declaration.

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The Dodgers’ Flip-Flip-Flop

The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the best-run organizations in baseball. In a highly-competitive league, where a team can win a World Series one year and be at the bottom of their division just a couple years later (I’m looking at you, Washington Nationals), the Dodgers have been at the top of their division for more than a decade. 

Yet recently this same organization demonstrated exactly how to give themselves a PR nightmare while also revealing the power of the Alphabet Mafia.

June is approaching, so of course most large corporations, which includes sports teams, need to determine how they will pay their protection money to the Alphabet Mafia. Corporate execs know that they must at least give lip service to the LGBTQ+ crowd else they face its wrath. Most baseball teams now host Pride Nights in which they celebrate sin to keep out of trouble on social media. 

The Dodgers wanted to use Pride Night to also “honor” various LGBTQ+ groups, and one of the groups they picked out was the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The name alone should instruct the ignorant that this is a vile anti-Catholic organization. But the SPI are far worse than a normal person could even imagine. I can’t even describe their activities, but suffice it to say that they originate in the pits of Hell. 

When the Dodgers’ decision was announced, many Catholics protested, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio. To their credit, the Dodgers rescinded their invitation to the blasphemous “Sisters,” and Catholics could at least have one small victory in the battle against the Alphabet Mafia.

Not so fast.

Yesterday, the Dodgers flip-flopped from their original flip-flop. They re-invited the anti-Catholic “Sisters,” stating, “[we] offer our sincerest apologies to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, members of the LGBTQ+ community and their friends and families”. Read the full statement, it reads like a hostage letter:

After the Bud Light debacle, some might wonder why the Dodgers would want to alienate those who follow the world’s largest religion. After all, that’s bad business. However, there are a couple reasons this is different than the Bud Light situation. First, most people will never know how evil the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are. They will accept at face value the description of them as doing “lifesaving work” and will assume they are just an oddly-named charity, not an organization founded on blasphemy and degenerate behavior. That’s different from putting a guy in makeup in your face and making you say he’s a girl.

But the economics of baseball also come into play here. Unlike football or even basketball, baseball is very much a regional support. The vast majority of a team’s revenue comes from the local economy, and a large chunk of that revenue comes from luxury boxes at the stadium, which are usually bought by local corporations. These boxes give companies an opportunity to impress potential clients and reward employees. 

So in a city like Cincinnati, the luxury boxes will be owned by local companies such as Proctor & Gamble and Kroger. But what type of companies dominate Los Angeles? You can bet that Hollywood and other woke sectors are big customers of the Dodgers, and they likely put major pressure on the team to rescind their rescinded invitation.

This is why “Go Woke, Go Broke” isn’t always the case. With Bud Light, you had a company spitting directly in the face of its core customer base. Further, it was easy to boycott, as there are many alternatives to Bud Light available. But it’s not like most people in America were going to attend a Dodgers game this year anyway, and even if a few Catholics in LA decide to boycott the team, the real money is coming from those who support their decision.

Ultimately, the problem is deeper than boycotts alone can solve. The reason the Dodgers can honor an anti-Catholic organization is due to the weakness of the Church in America. The Church has lost her moral standing in the eyes of most people, and so a group that mocks our faith isn’t seen as extreme anymore. While we should fight against these attacks, we won’t truly change the culture until the Church once again boldly stands for traditional morality without compromise.

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A special note from the editor of Crisis Magazine

Last week I wrote to ask for your gift to Crisis Magazine. This is one of only two annual fundraising appeals we make in any given year, and this spring we need to raise $75,000. 

Sad to say, we’ve received only a fraction of that.

Now, it’s possible my first appeal escaped your notice. I understand about being busy.

But I also know this about you: You’re one of us.

You read our articles and nod your head at the common sense you find there. You’re encouraged to realize that you’re not alone, that you’re not the only one who laments the widespread complacency in the Church and the corruption in the government. You know that leaders of both Church and State too often gaslight us to think everything is fine, when you know—and we know—it’s not. So you find yourself stirred up, ready to take bold action in your corner of the world. You’re moved to pray more, learn more, do more.

You believe in our powerful mission to speak light into a darkening age.

In short, you’re exactly the person we at Crisis need right now. We need you to be not only a reader but a partner. Otherwise, we can’t get this done. 

We’re not just any publication; we’re a lone voice crying out in the wilderness on matters of Church and State. Without your help, we could be gone, and the hard and hopeful truths we tell will be swallowed up in the sea of falsehood. 

Please make your gift today. Don’t wait for someone else. Don’t take it for granted that we’ll be here without you.

We need a lot of you to dig deep, to do what you can. A big gift would be so impactful – if you could do $12,500 to sponsor Crisis for about a month, that would be tremendous. A gift of $3,000 would cover us for a week.

Could you keep us online for one day, with a gift of $500?  

Or better yet, would you become a monthly donor by choosing that option on our secure donation form here.

Whatever you can give, please give today. Think about the gift that Crisis is to you, the value you receive from the writing that you find nowhere else but Crisis. As best as you can, please match that.

Crisis is a mission, and our content doesn’t cost readers anything to access. But it is worth so much. 

Please be more than a reader. We need you to be a partner today with your gift. 

Together we can restore our wounded Church and culture through our prayers and this work.

Thanks and God bless,

Eric Sammons
Editor-in-Chief

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Naked and Unafraid

Today, publications like ours face a new and very serious crisis: Censorship.

And it’s not just the blocking of contrary ideas from social media platforms, the literal drowning out of alternate voices on college campuses, nor the longstanding biases of major media.

Those are bad enough (and they are plenty bad).

But what worries me most is the self-censorship that results from the hubris, the lies, the insults, and even physical attacks of today’s cancel culture.

It used to be that people would self-censor out of simple prudence, to avoid conflict, maintain a job, or as an act of Christian charity.

Now people are afraid to say what they think or write what they believe because of the backlash they risk facing. 

Do you support marriage, true marriage? You’re ignorant and a hater. 

Do you believe a person’s sex is “assigned at birth” and not changeable at will? You’re cruel and evil. 

Do you believe abortion should be outlawed? You’re a misogynist who wants women to be slaves.

Such name-calling is foolish, but it is genuinely intimidating to normal people. Human beings are social, and we need community. People will do almost anything to avoid being an outcast, even if it’s just psychological and not physical isolation. 

That’s what’s so unfortunate—the self-imposed censorship of the past few decades has largely silenced Christian conservatives and led to the acceleration of our decline as a republic. 

And let’s face it, that’s precisely the result the revolutionaries transforming our world desired.

But you know who isn’t intimidated? 

Who doesn’t shrink from insults and attacks?

Who tells it like it is—“naked and unafraid”—no matter the consequences?

Crisis Magazine. 

We’re going to tell the truth as we see it no matter what. We don’t care who disagrees with us or mocks us or even tries to take us down. To us it’s a rugby match out there, and the dirtier and bloodier our uniforms get the better.

What other publication—Catholic or otherwise—would publish an article on why divorced dads should avoid dating and remarriage in order to better love and lead their children? 

Or an article challenging common practices from tattoos to surrogacy to gender surgeries headlined “Theology of the Body vs. Body Mutilations”? 

Or an editorial that declares without apology, “The blunt reality is that the papacy of Francis, by any Catholic measure, has been a disaster”?

As you can see, we’re not making friends with people who want to fit in. That’s OK; we’re not trying to just go along and get along. We’re trying to wake people up. 

We’re informing, inspiring, and emboldening our readers to speak the truth in an era of lies!

If we’re having that effect on you, will you help us to continue doing it for others?

This is the time of year we come to readers like you to ask for your spiritual and financial assistance to continue this mission. It’s a team effort; we can’t do it without you. 

Right now, we need to raise $75,000 from our grassroots army of supporters to complete our website upgrade and pay all our bills. We want to maintain our online platform, produce our podcast, and continue to hire the best writers out there to make our content as bold and beautiful as ever.

People come to us for answers and we want to keep providing them!

Will you please help support the mission of Crisis Magazine with a tax-deductible gift today? Could you sponsor the magazine for a month with a gift of $10,000? Or for one week with a gift of $2,500? Could you keep us going for a day with a gift of $500?

If not, could you make a gift of $50, $75, or $100?  We need your gift, whatever it is.

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The most important way you can give is to become a monthly donor by choosing that option on the donation form. 

For a site that provides content each and every day, monthly donations provide us the security and stability we need to operate throughout the year.

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Please support us so we can push back hard against the prevailing censorship with the gleaming swift sword of truth. 

Don’t be afraid, friends. We’re not.

Thanks and God bless,


Eric Sammons
Editor-in-Chief

P.S. Please take this opportunity—it only comes twice a year—to make your most generous gift to support the bold voice of Crisis Magazine. It will bear tremendous fruit!

You can donate online
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You can send a check to:
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800-888-9344

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Archbishop Paglia’s Anti-Life, Anti-Catholic Crusade

The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, has exposed his contempt for life yet again. This time, he’s publicly endorsing assisted suicide while making a mangle of the Church’s moral authority.

First, Paglia channels his inner Mario Cuomo by stating, “Personally, I would not practice suicide assistance, but I understand that legal mediation may be the greatest common good concretely possible under the conditions we find ourselves in.” If the Archbishop were American, I would swear he sounds like he’s running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But Paglia’s endorsement of assisted suicide isn’t the real problem; his anti-life views are just a symptom of his anti-Catholic morality. He dismisses the Church’s teaching authority by stating that the Church is not a “dispenser of truth pills.” Then he states,

The contribution of Christians is made within the different cultures, neither above — as if they possessed an a priori given truth — nor below — as if believers were the bearers of a respectable opinion, but disengaged from history.

“As if they possessed an a priori given truth?”—that’s exactly what the Church possesses! While Paglia is trying to sound humble, he’s actually expressing supreme arrogance. For he is assuming that the Church comes up with her own morality, as if it is man-made. Yet all that the Church possesses—including her moral teaching—has been given to her as a gift from above. Its source is God Himself, Who is Himself “a priori.”

In Paglia’s view of how the Church’s teachings comes about, she must interact with society to adapt her morality according to the latest findings of (pseudo-)science and the latest cultural fads. It is not given to her by God, through both reason (natural law) and revelation. Thus, even the command “thou shalt not kill” is up for debate and discussion and “development.” Such a view upends all of Church teaching; it is no longer founded on a rock, but on sand.

Paglia goes on to state, “Between believers and non-believers there is a relationship of mutual learning.” When it comes to settled moral teachings, this is simply false. Catholics have nothing to learn from non-Catholics, for to suggest this is to suggest that Catholics should no longer learn from God Himself but instead from fallen man. Again, it is arrogance masquerading as humility.

Of course, the great scandal here is that the anti-life, anti-Catholic Paglia is the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Every day he remains in office diminishes the moral authority of that academy as well as the moral authority of the pope who oversees it.  

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The Dynamics of Restricting Liturgical Rites

The essential argument of Pope Francis and others who wish to restrict or even ban the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass boils down to “If a liturgical rite is causing people to embrace bad theology, then it should be banned.” Since some attendees of the TLM are embracing a bad ecclesiology (i.e., “schismatic tendencies”), then the TLM itself should be removed from the equation, they believe.

On the surface, this is a plausible argument. After all, one of the fundamental maxims of Catholicism is lex orandi, lex credendi, which means the law of prayer is the law of belief. In other words, how we pray and worship greatly impacts what we believe. So, if a liturgy is influencing bad belief, perhaps it needs to be curtailed by Church authorities.

However, let’s examine this argument a little more specifically in today’s situation, and dig into the track record of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), as well as the Novus Ordo Mass (NO). After all, if a liturgical rite can be blamed for the bad theology of some of its attendees, then all rites should be examined to ensure we remove any and all offending liturgies.

The TLM as celebrated today is the result of an organic development that stretches over a millennium in the past. How the TLM is celebrated in 2023 isn’t much different than how the Roman Rite was celebrated in 1923, 1223, or 623. Millions of Catholics have been formed in their beliefs by this Mass during this long time, including saints such as St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Maximian Kolbe. 

Of course, this liturgy also formed many of the great heretics of the past, such as John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. In other words, the traditional Roman Rite does not have a 100% batting average, producing only orthodox believers. Due to the fallen nature of man, there will always be those who attend a perfectly orthodox liturgy and still end up professing heresy. But on the whole, it’s hard not to be impressed with what the traditional Roman Rite has produced; it was the bedrock of medieval Christendom, the most glorious and authentically Catholic era of all time.

The Novus Ordo, it goes without saying, has a much shorter history, having been instituted in 1970. Now for those who argue that the NO is simply an organic reform of the TLM, I would just note that this is not what those who wish to restrict the TLM are saying. They are treating the NO as fundamentally different from the TLM; after all, they are claiming that the TLM is harmful to the faithful (why else would you restrict it?) whereas the NO is not. They are implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) arguing that the Novus Ordo didn’t reform the traditional Latin Mass, it replaced it.

But in the short history of the NO, what do we see? In the West at least, we see mass apostasy: millions of Catholics, who grew up in the NO, have left the Church. Just as troubling, a majority of those who still regularly attend the NO are functional heretics. As just one example, polls show that almost 70% of Catholics in America do not believe in the Real Presence. Other indicators, such as the widespread Catholic acceptance of artificial contraception, confirm this tragic reality. 

Now, just as the traditional Roman Rite produced some heretics such as Martin Luther in the midst of centuries of widespread orthodoxy, likewise the NO has produced saints in the midst of 50 years of widespread heresy. Of course, since the new Mass is so, well, new, there are only a few canonized saints of this era, but suffice it to say that many holy people have attended the NO for either their whole lives or at least for a large section of it.

That being said, if we are going to establish the standard that “a liturgical rite that causes people to embrace bad theology should be banned,” it’s hard not to see which of the two liturgies should be eyed for retirement. The contrasting track records of the TLM and the NO, when put side-by-side, are clear.

If we are going to establish the standard that “a liturgical rite that causes people to embrace bad theology should be banned,” it’s hard not to see which of the two liturgies should be eyed for retirement. Tweet This

To be clear, I’m not arguing here for the restriction or elimination of the Novus Ordo. I’m arguing against the logic promoted by the pope and others to curtail the TLM. It places the blame for supposed bad actors away from the individuals and toward a practice that has over 1,000 years of proven value. Should 16th century popes have banned the traditional Roman Rite because it was what Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli grew up in? Of course not, such a suggestion is absurd. But it’s actually less absurd than the idea that today’s TLM should be shut down because of issues with a few YouTubers and mean tweeters. 

When the Church has a problem with individuals in her midst that are sowing dissent, she has a mechanism to deal with that: confront the individuals and call them to retract their problematic views or be excommunicated. The fact that Church leaders today don’t do that but instead direct their ire on a venerable and proven rite of the Church suggests that the issue is not what they claim it to be.

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10 Years of Confusion, Political Ideology, and Scandal

Today is the 10th anniversary of the election of Jorge Bergoglio to the papacy. It’s customary on anniversaries to look back and reflect on the years spent together, but my mom also told me if I can’t say something nice, I shouldn’t say anything at all, so I’m not sure what to do today. I guess I’ll ignore mom.

The blunt reality is that the papacy of Francis, by any Catholic measure, has been a disaster. It’s not that he hasn’t at times done some good acts or spoken some good words; it’s that the overall thrust of his pontificate has been one of confusion, political ideology, and scandal. 

In the first year of his papacy Francis uttered the infamous words, “Who am I to judge?” and ever since then he has done far more to confuse the faithful than confirm them. While popesplainers have created a cottage industry trying to explain why the plain meaning of Francis’s words are not his actual meaning, most reasonable people have understood that he means what he says, even when what he says makes little sense. Further, his individual statements are not spoken in a vacuum: while one might be able interpret each of his more troublesome statements in a fully Catholic sense if we squint enough, when taken as a whole over ten years, it’s clear that Francis wishes to undermine many of the practices—and even teachings—Catholics have held dear for centuries.

There’s one thing, however, about which the pope is not confused: his political agenda. Pope Francis has turned the Vatican essentially into a political NGO. While every pope rightly should comment on politics, the office of the papacy isn’t to advocate for the latest United Nations initiative or World Economic Forum plan. It’s to proclaim the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ as found in the Catholic Church. Yet Francis seems to use his moral authority not to urge people to convert to Catholicism (in fact, he appears to abhor conversions), but to push the latest globalist political agenda, such as combating climate change or immigration reform. By associating himself—and thus the Catholic Church—with these worldly goals, he diminishes the ability of the Church to rise above political differences to point to a spiritual path to salvation.

And while the media—particularly Catholic media—want to ignore it, this papacy has been rife with scandal. Beyond the scandal of Francis’s own confusing words, there are the multitude of scandals involving abusive prelates and priests who have received preferential treatment if they are ideologically aligned with Francis. The public revelation of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick as a monster seriously undermined Francis’s stated goal to clean up the Church. Here was a man who was known as a predator by many high-ranking Catholics—including the pope himself—yet he was placed in the “inner circle” by Francis early in his pontificate. 

Countless other scandals have littered the past 10 years, but the most recent one regarding Fr. Marko Rupnik, S.J. might be the most troubling. The accusations against Rupnik are shocking, and the fact that he seems to still enjoy favor at the Vatican in spite of those accusations reveal a deeply dysfunctional Curia. Combine the Vatican’s inaction when it comes to Rupnik with its jihad against traditional Catholics and you have a recipe for a Rome in shambles.  

Confusion, political ideology, and scandal have been our continual companions the past 10 years, and there’s little reason to believe that will change while this pope still reigns. Some Catholics attempt to explain these problems away (or even claim they are good things!); other Catholics try their best to ignore them. Sadly, many Catholics have broken communion with the Catholic Church, for atheism/agnosticism, Orthodoxy, or sedevacantism. While each person is responsible for his own decisions, Pope Francis will also have to answer for these defections on his day of particular judgement. 

For my part, I still see hope in the midst of these problems. If nothing else, the misadventures of Pope Francis have allowed Catholics to more deeply understand the papacy, both its authority and its limitations. While many orthodox Catholics might have lived in a state of blissful hyperpapalism under John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Francis has reminded us that the true head of the Church is Jesus Christ, and his Vicar is not guaranteed to be faithful to Him in everything he does. 

Further, times of trial, such as we live in now, are the best times for growing in holiness. It’s widely accepted that the best way to physical fitness is to put stress on your body in various ways, whether through weight-lifting, running, fasting, or other strenuous activities. Likewise, spiritual fitness only comes through stress as well: being pushed to choose the Lord in spite of temptations to leave him. In an era of a troublesome pontificate, we must decide to follow Christ and cling to him in spite of the confusion, political ideology, and scandal that currently emanates from Rome. 

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The FBI Tags TLM Communities as Homes for “Violent Extremists”

It would be understandable if someone who attends a traditional Latin Mass (TLM) parish would feel a bit paranoid these days. After all, there’s rumors that Pope Francis is planning to release a “Traditionis Custodes 2.0” soon, in which the TLM will be further restricted and celebrating any of the other Sacraments in the traditional form will be prohibited. That alone could make the average TLM-goer feel as if he has a target on his back.

But that’s just the beginning. This week it was revealed that the FBI is looking into “radical traditional Catholic” parishes as possible enclaves of white supremacy and “racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists.”  Former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin released a secret report from the FBI Richmond (VA) Division that detailed how the FBI views traditional Catholics.

As someone who regularly attends the TLM, I found this report a fascinating look into the fantasy world in which the FBI apparently operates. Comparing my own parish to what is written in this document is like comparing apples to rotten oranges. The “Rad Trad” community is often accused of participating in crazy conspiracy theories, but it has nothing on the FBI’s foray into tin-foil-hat-level conspiracies as seen in this report.

The Executive Summary of the report states that “radical-traditionalist Catholics (RTC) are typically characterized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) as a valid church council; disdain for most of the popes elected since Vatican II, particularly Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II; and frequent anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ, and white supremacist ideology.” I’m a little surprised the Feds didn’t say RTCs like to torture puppies and steal candy from babies.

Of course these accusations look like the talking points from the Catholic Left that combine a little bit of truth with a whole lot of lies. It’s true that RTCs are at least critical of Vatican II (almost all I know do not reject it as a “valid church council”), and they are also critical of Pope Francis and even Pope John Paul II (but “disdain” is a loaded word). But then the stereotypical laundry list of “antis” is simply a lazy way of saying, “We don’t like them so we’ll smear them with the latest woke insults.”

The concern of the FBI is that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs)” will find an attractive home among RTCs because the two groups supposedly have similar views and ideologies. As the report states, “Catalyzing events in which RMVEs and RTC adherents might have common cause include legislation or judicial decisions in areas such as abortion rights, immigration, affirmative action, and LGBTQ protections.” Did you hear that, Catholics? If you (rightly) oppose the Left’s political views, you might just be a violent extremist!

Also interesting is that the FBI actually mentions a few groups. It names Church Militant in report itself, stating, “investigations have noted a growing overlap between the far-right white nationalist movement and RTCs. Illustrative of this has been the increasing collaboration of the far-right Catholic media outlet Church Militant with the America First/“groyper” movement.” Even more revealing is an appendix to the report which lists nine organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center defined as “hate groups,” including Catholic Family News and The Remnant.

My initial reaction when I saw the SPLC list was disappointment that our sister publication OnePeterFive wasn’t included! At this point, being labeled a “hate group” by the vile SPLC should be considered a badge of honor. While I’m not overly familiar with every group on this list, I feel confident that none of them are actually hate groups.

Another sign of the sad state of this report is that multiple footnotes used to back its claims are from the far-left websites like Salon and The Atlantic. Not exactly trying to be objective, are we, Mr. Fed?

While it might be easy to laugh at this report it does reveal a sinister attitude among many of those in positions of power. At a time when Antifa and BLM terrorists are roaming our streets, the FBI thinks the 15-passenger van with the Pray the Rosary and FSSP bumper stickers is the real threat to our democracy. 

My advice to fellow TLM-goers is two-fold.

First, all orthodox Catholics, whether we consider ourselves traditional or not, should see this as a move against all of us. The so-called “Rad Trads” are just the first line of attack for the elites who wish to silence and even destroy Catholicism. Don’t fall into the error of thinking that the Feds won’t eventually turn their sights on non-traditional Catholics just because you went along when they wanted to silence traditionalists.

Second, while it’s true that our elites hate us and want to see us disappear, don’t allow that disturbing reality to blossom into paranoia and break one’s peace. If some FBI agent tries to infiltrate a TLM community, he’s likely to find generous, salt-of-the earth people (of various races and ethnicities, by the way). Perhaps if he stays long enough, he might end up realizing the beauty of the Catholic Faith and might himself eventually be tagged a “radical-traditionalist Catholic.”

[Update 2/10/23: Since this was published, the FBI has announced that they will be retracting this report as it “does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI.” In other words, they got caught.]

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The Great Pat Buchanan Signs Off

Pat Buchanan—political pundit and three-time presidential candidate—announced he is retiring from writing. Buchanan hasn’t been as much in the spotlight in recent years, but those of a certain age can remember when he was almost as big of a political player as Donald Trump. And in fact, he was Trump before Trump (and a lot better, too!)

Buchanan first hit the political scene working in the Nixon White House in the early 1970’s as President Nixon’s assistant and speech writer. While this might seem a low-level job, Buchanan had a great impact on Nixon’s presidency and the Republican Party in general. It was Buchanan, for example, who came up with the phrase “silent majority” that helped bring many Democrats to the Republican fold.

After Nixon left office Buchanan launched a highly successful career as a political pundit, hosting or contributing to various radio and TV shows. There was a time when any political show worth its salt would have to include Buchanan either in their lineup or as a regular guest. He spent two years in the mid-80’s working for the Reagan White House, but in the early 1990’s he decided to run for office himself…and boy, did he make a grand entrance.

In response to President Bush (the elder) reneging on his promise of “no new taxes,” Buchanan launched his own campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 1992. At first this seemed a quixotic campaign: what Republican would vote for a TV commentator against an incumbent President? But Buchanan’s campaign gained serious momentum, and he had a strong showing in the New Hampshire primaries, forcing Bush to move to the right to compensate.

Buchanan ran again in 1996, and this time he won the New Hampshire primaries against the favorite, the incredibly bland and boring Bob Dole. At one point it looked like Buchanan had a serious chance to grab the nomination, but Dole’s establishment political machine eventually prevailed, steamrolling Buchanan on Super Tuesday.

In 2000 Buchanan ran once more, this time securing the nomination of the Reform Party (Ross Perot’s party). He garnered few votes in the national election, and his days of running for office ended as he returned to full-time punditry.

What made this former speech writer so popular in the 1990’s? In a sense, he was the “anti-Bush.” George H.W. Bush was the perfect representation of the “country club Republicans,” the rich, white men who wanted to control world affairs from the White House and cared little for the “little guy.”

However, with an influx of working-class voters into the party during the Reagan years, many Republicans felt distant from that brand of conservatism. In addition, as the Democratic Party moved more and more to the radical Left (a movement that still hasn’t slowed down), its working-class voters also felt alienated and saw Buchanan as a possible alternative.

If this sounds familiar, it should, because it’s essentially the model used even more successfully by Donald Trump in 2016. Trump, whether intentionally or unintentionally, often imitated Buchanan. Trump’s hesitation about foreign interventionism reflected Buchanan’s own foreign policy views. His support for tariffs and emphasis on helping working-class people also emulated Buchanan’s campaigns. 

Buchanan, of course, is far better than Trump, both as a person and a candidate. He is extremely intelligent, understanding complex issues and with an ability to explain them to non-experts. Further, he is a faithful Catholic who strongly believes—and practices—what the Church teaches. A Catholic could be forgiven for dreaming what the country would be like if Buchanan and not Trump had been the one to achieve the presidency.

Personally, I rank Pat Buchanan up there with Ron Paul as my favorite modern politicians. Buchanan was fearless, saying the most controversial things (he wrote a whole book attacking Winston Churchill!) without worrying about how it might impact him in the polls. He was also willing to change his views after careful consideration. He began his career as a foreign policy hawk, parroting the neocon narrative about the need for American interventionism, but eventually he recognized the folly of those views and became one of the country’s leading advocates for peace and non-interventionism. 

In recent years, mostly due to Trump’s influence, the Republican Party is starting to catch up to Buchanan’s views, and it couldn’t come soon enough. Although Buchanan is retiring from public writing, it’s my hope that the next generation of conservatives look to Pat Buchanan (and not Trump) as a model for the future of the movement. 

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The Devilishly Heretical Fr. James Martin

I’m currently under Twitter suspension again, this time for offending the sensibilities of Big Gay (I dared suggest that gay men were inordinately attracted to young men and even boys). While I’m banished to the social media nether regions (no pun intended), the chaplain of Big Gay, Fr. James Martin, is at it again.

It started when the Catholic League tweeted, “It’s true that Pete Buttigieg is legally married, but that is a legal fiction.”

For those unaware, Pete Buttigieg is the current United States Secretary of Transportation. A former Catholic who is now Episcopalian, he “married” another man, Chasten Glezman, in a private ceremony at the (Episcopal) Cathedral of St. James in South Bend, Indiana in 2018. 

Fr. Martin, who opines incessantly on social media about All Things Gay, of course could not let that statement of plain Catholic (as well as natural law) teaching go unchallenged. He responded simply, “Pete Buttigieg is married.”

This is typical Martin fare. He makes a statement that he clearly wants to be interpreted in a heretical way but is written so that he has plausible deniability if by some miracle a Church hierarch should challenge it.

Remember that the Catholic League acknowledged that Buttigieg is “legally married,” but called it a legal fiction. So when Martin says that Buttigieg is “married,” without any qualifier, the most plain meaning (and the one Martin wants you to have) is that Buttigieg’s gay “marriage” is a true marriage, not just a legal one.

At the same time, Martin’s lack of a qualifier allows him some wiggle room were he to be challenged by a superior. He could just claim, “I was just talking about the legality of the marriage under U.S. law—I wasn’t saying it was the same as a heterosexual marriage!” 

In making such weaselly statements, Martin imitates that master liar, Satan. In the Garden of Eden, the devil urged Eve to eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. When Eve objected that God told her she would die if she did, the Old Snake responded, “You will not die” (Genesis 3:1-4). In a certain sense, the devil is telling the truth; after all, after Eve eats the fruit she doesn’t immediately drop dead. But of course Satan’s half-truth conceals his lie, for he knew that by eating the fruit Eve will die—she will break her communion with God and be under the reign of sin and death. 

So as we can see, Martin’s playbook is as old as mankind itself, tracing all the way back to our first parents’ Fall. His ambiguous, partially-true statement is far more effective than an outright lie; it allows those who want to be deceived to claim a Catholic covering for their deception, and it fools the naive into letting Martin off the hook.

Later Martin feigned shock at the considerable backlash to his tweet: “Surprised this got so much attention. Like it or not, Pete Buttigieg is legally married. You may disagree with same-sex marriage (or not). But @SecretaryPete is married in the eyes of the state, and his church, as much as anyone else is. To claim otherwise is to ignore reality.”

But of course Martin was not surprised—he got the exact reaction he intended by the words he used. He wanted people to believe he was putting Buttigieg’s faux-marriage on par with a marriage between a man and a woman. Perhaps if this was the first time Martin had made such a two-faced statement we might give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s clear from his history that he uses these statements to further push for his heretical desire to normalize homosexual relations.

When dealing with the devil (or his minions) Catholics need to oppose half-truths and ambiguities with clear, direct, and fully-true statements. In this situation, we need to state directly that Fr. James Martin is a heretic who should not be allowed to continue his public ministry as a priest. If we mitigate that truth in any way, trying to defend Martin or giving him the “benefit of the doubt,” we simply fall for the trap designed by the devil himself and practiced to perfection by Martin.

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Moving Epiphany: Reducing Men to Cogs in a Machine

Today is January 6th, and although in the media this day is quickly becoming the Feast of the Great Insurrection, for Catholics January 6th has always been the magnificent Feast of the Epiphany. Yet in recent years in the United States January 6th is only the Feast of the Epiphany when it’s lucky enough to fall on a Sunday.

Even though Epiphany is one of the most ancient feasts on the Christian calendar (being celebrated at least as far back as the 2nd century—even older than Christmas!), our bishops decided that it wasn’t important enough to deserve us setting aside time during our busy weeks to celebrate it. Instead, for our convenience, they set aside Epiphany itself on this day and move it to a nearby Sunday when we can (hopefully) squeeze it into our schedules. 

I understand the reasoning for this decision, even if I think it unfortunate. Our bishops recognize that many Catholics do not revolve their lives around the Church calendar and so if Epiphany were celebrated during the week, many, if not most, Catholics would simply let the day go by and not even realize it was a feast day. They would not attend Mass and the day would be completely forgotten. But if Epiphany is moved to Sunday, the thinking goes, then at least those Catholics who have Sunday Mass as part of their schedules will celebrate this important feast. 

The logic is reasonable…and completely wrong-headed.

As John Grondelski notes in a Crisis article today, the Church gives us a calendar that is not in conjunction with the secular calendar, and we would do well to conform our lives more to that liturgical calendar. Having feast days that stick out, so to speak, reminds us of the events that led to our salvation. These special days prevent us from falling into a utilitarian routine which is only based on the workweek and the demands of this world. 

When important feasts like the Epiphany fall on a weekday, we are given an opportunity to escape from the mundane tasks of this world and enter into the infinite mysteries of our Faith. We allow the infinite to touch our very finite world.

In a way, the bishops trying to fit the liturgical calendar to the demands of the secular calendar remind me of the attempt during the French Revolution to change the calendar into 10-day weeks. It was touted as being in keeping with the “new man,” who revolved around work and his duties to the State. Of course it failed miserably, as man was not made for this world, but the next.

Likewise, when we prioritize the secular calendar over the liturgical calendar, we reduce man to cogs in a materialistic machine, who cannot escape the demands of the five-day work week, even to celebrate one of the most important feasts of the year. 

Moving Epiphany to the nearest Sunday, while it may have been done with the best of intentions, sends the wrong message to Catholics. It tells us that secular demands—work, school, etc.—are more important than the demands of our Faith. It tells us that we should not re-order our lives to the Faith, but instead just fit it in where convenient. Sadly, we see that too many Catholics today have taken this cue from the bishops and do exactly that.

Moving Epiphany to the nearest Sunday, while it may have been done with the best of intentions, sends the wrong message to Catholics. It tells us that secular demands—work, school, etc.—are more important than the demands of our Faith.Tweet This

If we want to see a revitalization of the Catholic Faith in our time, we need to put the Catholic Faith first in our lives. One small way to do that would be to move Epiphany back to January 6th, where it belongs.

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The Rebranding of the Latin Mass Movement

Does the Latin Mass movement need a “rebranding?”

If you ask the good folks responsible for the Mass of the Ages documentary series, the answer is a resounding “yes.” They love the traditional Latin Mass and lament the fact that less than 2% of Catholics attend that liturgy. They argue that one of the biggest reasons for that small number is the perception that surrounds regular attendees of the Latin Mass: that they are “mean” and “unwelcoming,” and overall have an insular attitude.

But if you ask many long-time Latin Mass attendees if the movement needs a rebranding, they will likely bristle at the suggestion. They defend the overall way Latin Mass goers comport themselves, and feel that an effort to rebrand is falling for stereotypes and even gaslighting from Church officials.

It’s a battle between the Latin Mass New Guard (most of the Mass of the Ages team consist of younger and relatively more recent attendees of the old rite) and the Old Guard. 

So, does the Latin Mass movement need a rebranding?

As a Latin Mass “Middle Guard”—I’ve attended the TLM for more than 11 years now, but I don’t date back to the pre-Summorum Pontificum days—I find myself caught in the middle of this debate. On the one hand, I recognize the negative perception many Catholics—and many Catholic leaders—have of Latin Mass attendees, but on the other hand, I also think much of this perception is set by those in power who fundamentally oppose the spread of the Latin Mass for reasons far deeper than “mean trads.”

First, I will admit that I’ve experienced negative influences within the “trad” world, particularly online. I’ve been labeled a “semi-trad” more times than I can count because I don’t always subscribe to the pure traditionalist line. I’ve seen faithful Novus Ordo-attending Catholics attacked by traditional Catholics for the slightest infraction of what certain traditionalists think is “true Catholicism.” So I won’t argue that there’s a problem there.

Yet I would also argue that there’s a problem everywhere, due to the Fall. I’ve seen nasty Catholics from every subgroup in the Church. Try to kneel and receive Communion on the tongue in a more liberal parish—then you’ll see mean and unwelcoming in spades. Or witness the nasty looks you get if you dare not hold hands during the Our Father (at least, in pre-Covid days). Or just see how nasty Catholics can be online talking about how nasty traditional Catholics are.

So while traditional Catholics should be more charitable and humble, so should all Catholics. I’m not convinced that it’s a problem specific to traditional Catholics.

Yet Pope Francis himself supports and endorses this negative perception of traditional Catholics every time he talks about them. In fact, he gave this perception as the reason he was restricting the Latin Mass in his motu proprio Traditionis Custodies. He also claimed that many bishops had complained to him about the attitude among traditionalists, which is why he felt he needed to curtail the TLM.

But to be blunt, this is gaslighting. First, Diane Montagna demonstrated that the bishops’ did not oppose the Latin Mass as Francis claimed. Second, it’s hard to believe that the pope would think contradicting his predecessor and causing massive headaches for bishops around the world would be the proper response to a few mean trad tweeters. 

So if, as most regular Latin Mass attendees believe, the Latin Mass is superior to the Novus Ordo, why do so few Catholics actually attend it? Is it because of a negative perception that needs rebranding?

While I won’t argue that a rebranding on some levels wouldn’t help, I don’t think that’s the fundamental issue at play. My own experience working for a diocese leads me to believe it’s deeper than that.

From 2011-2016 I worked directly for a bishop as a diocesan director of evangelization. During that time I attended the Latin Mass, and I wasn’t the only chancery employee who attended the TLM. Our bishop had invited the FSSP into the diocese to celebrate Mass at three locations across the diocese. He celebrated the confirmation of two of my daughters in the traditional form. In other words, he was obviously friendly to the Latin Mass, and he had positive perceptions of Latin Mass attendees.

That being said, he would have never allowed more Latin Masses in his diocese. Why? Again, not because he had a negative impression of the Latin Mass movement, but because he, like almost every bishop, perceived Catholicism through a modern, post-Vatican II lens. He accepted as foundational the belief that the Novus Ordo is the Mass of the Church, and that the Latin Mass, for all its beauty and grandeur, is simply a relic that a few Catholics still cling to but will eventually fade away. 

He didn’t think this out of animosity to anyone, but simply as the reality on the ground. Even if the Latin Masses grew in attendance (which they did), that would not dissuade him from his fundamental presuppositions.

No rebranding would likely change that bishop’s mind, nor the mind of most bishops and clerics. The issue is much deeper, and changing the minds of our Church leaders involve radically shifting their views about the purpose of the liturgy and even how Catholics live their faith. It’s not just convincing them that traditionalists are nice.

Again, I’m not opposed to the rebranding efforts of the Mass of the Ages team—anything to promote the Latin Mass to a larger audience is a good thing, in my mind. But it will take much more than a rebranding effort to get Church leaders to become more receptive to expanding the celebration of the Latin Mass.

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Musk’s Twitter Still Silencing Catholics

The Elon Musk takeover of Twitter promised to usher in a new era of free speech on the social media behemoth.

Not so fast.

While Leftists have been throwing conniption fits about the very idea of letting people express opinions contrary to their own, conservatives have been rejoicing that perhaps now we can speak the truth without fear of banishment to the nether regions of the online world (like Parler!). And while it does seem like Musk is opening Twitter up (he recently restored Trump’s account), there are apparently still limits to what you can say on Twitter, as I recently found out.

Last March, I tweeted the following:

While I know these statements are controversial, they are all objectively true. At the very least, they are views held by millions of people today (including all faithful Catholics), and have been held by almost everyone for most of human history. Further, in no way do I call for harassment or violence against anyone.

Yet a few hours after that tweet I received a notice from Twitter stating that my account was locked for “hateful conduct.”

I was required to delete the tweet in order to restore my account, which I eventually did.

Yesterday I decided to see if Twitter has really changed since the Musk takeover. So I tweeted out the March notice from Twitter and restated the content of my original tweet.

Same result:

I realize a lot of the suspension process is likely automated, and it’s not like Musk has been in charge long enough to make systemic changes at the company, but it was still disappointing to see that controversial statements that counter the woke establishment are still not allowed on the world’s biggest social media platform.

There is an appeal process when your account is locked, but I didn’t bother back in March since I knew it would be pointless. This time, however, I decided to appeal to see if perhaps Musk’s influence has filtered down to that level.

Until then, I’ll remain locked out of Twitter, which honestly isn’t the worst thing during this penitential season of Advent.

UPDATE 12/1/22 2:20PM ET: My appeal failed:

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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You can handle the truth

“What is truth?”

So asks Pilate, in one of the Gospel’s most compelling exchanges.

For the worldly, the cynical, those without faith, truth is a moving target.

Here’s this week’s latest example:  Sam Bankman-Fried, the Democrat-donating wunderkind and “benevolent billionaire,” has come to light as just another con artist, running afoul of securities laws. His cryptocurrency exchange FTX, valued at $32 billion earlier this year, is in a free fall, investors have lost millions, and the ripple effects are just beginning.

Lies always unravel. And despite Pilate’s tragically dismissive remark – as he looked at Our Lord, who is Truth itself, and yet was unable to see it.

Truth does matter.

This is the folly of today’s journalism. Big Media pretend to be referees when they are truly players, using their reputations and authority to move people and politics according to their agenda. 

Like Pilate, it’s not truth they’re after; it’s power.

And they’re wrong. They miss how the story ends: not with humiliation, powerlessness and death, but with the Resurrection.

Turns out, worldly human power comes to an end. Truth, however, is everlasting.

And you, Crisis reader, can handle that truth.

Here at Crisis Magazine, we don’t deceive. We don’t play games. We don’t suppress uncomfortable facts or try to manipulate readers. We just tell it like it is. We’re not afraid of the truth – we’re all about it.

When you read Crisis, you are getting the most urgent news in the Church and culture from the most reliable sources in order to be well-informed Catholics and citizens. And you get so much more – you get a fearless perspective on the news, with honest, faith-informed, and finely written commentary.

If the truth is hard to hear, so be it. We will tell it anyway. In fact, inconvenient truth is our bread and butter.

That’s why you trust us. That’s why you read Crisis.

And frankly, that’s why I need to ask for your help today. Other media depend on advertisers, and so they have to watch themselves – there is always a bit of looking over the shoulder in case someone is upset with an article. 

We don’t have those worries – but we also don’t have that revenue.

You know about the need to pay for truthful content these days. So, will you visit our secure online donation form so we can keep publishing the urgent, hard-hitting, interesting and cutting-edge content that makes Crisis your go-to source on the issues of the day? 

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Will you please help our work and our growth at Crisis Magazine with a tax-deductible gift? Could you sponsor the magazine for a month with a gift of $10,000? Or a week with a gift of $2,500? Perhaps for a day with a gift of $500?

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Trump or DeSantis?

It’s the most anticipated heavyweight bout since Ali vs. Frazier. Donald Trump officially announced this week that he’s running for president in 2024, and it’s well-known that he only has one serious competitor for the GOP nomination: Florida governor Ron DeSantis (even though DeSantis hasn’t announced his run yet).

This puts conservatives in a quandary: Trump or DeSantis? The former president who brought down Roe, or the governor who faced down the Covid Regime? The man who promised to make American great again, or the one who made Florida a great place to live? 

Except to the most extreme partisans, it’s not an easy choice. Trump, after all, is the man most responsible for the fall of Roe v Wade. That is a gigantic mark in his favor that should never be forgotton. He also is the person responsible for breaking the useless establishment neocon cabal controlling the GOP (although it is trying to make a comeback). And, perhaps most tellingly, he’s the man deeply hated by all the worst people. Every enemy of conservatives considers Trump their primary enemy, and that is revealing.

DeSantis too has formidable credentials. More than any politician in the Western world, he’s the face of resistance to the inhuman and oppressive Covid regime. After briefly going along with the insanity, he quickly pivoted and fought relentlessly against the lockdowns, the mandates, and the overall totalitarianism pushed in the name of “science.” He also has been a leading fighter against the rise of wokeism, another totalitarian movement that wants to corrupt our kids and cancel any opposition.

Both candidates have their weak spots as well. Trump was not good when it came to the Covid response—he listened to Fauci far too long, pushed an experimental vaccine on the populace, and supported lockdowns even after it was clear they didn’t work. He also has Mt. Everest-sized baggage. While many of his supporters rightly point out how most of that is unfair or even based on lies, conservative voters have to decide if it makes him unelectable. The poor results for Trump-backed candidates in the recent mid-terms is not promising on that account.

DeSantis, on the other hand, as the weakness of all preliminary candidates—he’s untested on the national stage. There have been many Republican governor golden boys in the past who petered out when it came time to run for president (Scott Walker, anyone?). While DeSantis has that golden shine right now, only time on the national scene will reveal if it’s just surface deep. His views on many important topics are relatively unknown at this point. How would he handle the Russia-Ukraine situation, for example? What would he do about inflation? It’s easy to be popular when you’re only known for one or two things; the difficulty is maintaining that popularity after people really get to know you.

So who should conservatives coalesce behind? Trump or DeSantis? DeSantis or Trump?

I think the right answer, at least for now, is to punt on the issue. The Republican primaries aren’t for another 14 months, so there’s no need to rush to a decision. Heck, it’s even possible that a dark horse candidate will emerge. Let the candidates make their cases— and confront each other face-to-face. If DeSantis can survive what will surely be a brutal, scorched-earth opposition campaign from Trump, then perhaps he will be the conservative choice. But if DeSantis withers in the spotlight, then Trump likely will be the GOP nominee for president for the third time. Either way, the road to the Republican nomination will be more lively and more entertaining than it has been in a long time.

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Tough News

If the midterms proved anything, it’s that we have a lot of work ahead of us in the fight against abortion, open borders, transgenderism, and the endless bullying of the Left.

We experience this bullying here at Crisis Magazine, currently celebrating our 40th year as a Catholic publisher. On multiple occasions we’ve received a surge of emails from people telling us how offended they are by one of our authors and demanding we “cancel” them.  

Not surprisingly, the names or emails of the indignant correspondents rarely appear in our databases. Which means these are organized efforts of non-Crisis readers to create torrents of criticism to exterminate a message they don’t want anyone to hear. 

If they’re doing this to us, imagine the pressure being exerted on leaders of our economy and culture. And given how, well, wanting many of these leaders have been found to be in courage and conviction, they soon find themselves celebrating biological males winning at women’s sports and beauty pageants, and countenancing surgical sex change—aka mutilation—operations for children. 

Courage is a virtue — and it’s a virtue we strive to uphold every day here at Crisis Magazine. 

At Crisis, we long for the return of Christendom — and we have our hand to the plow helping to bring it about with boldness and clarity. We face down the bleakness of yet another age that rejects God — and a Church that too often sits idly and impotently on the sidelines — and proclaim the truth. We are not always welcome, but we are needed. 

To reach who we need to with our unflinching content, we make Crisis Magazine free to readers. But it is by no means free to produce, which is why we rely on loyal readers like you to sustain our work. 

As you know, we do not launch multiple fundraising campaigns throughout the year, although research shows that such pesky approaches actually produce the most revenue. Because we want to edify and not annoy, we only run two, and now is one of those times.

Will you please help support, sustain, and grow Crisis Magazine with a tax-deductible gift? Could you sponsor the magazine for a month with a gift of $10,000? Or a week with a gift of $2,500? Perhaps for a day with a gift of $500?

If not, could you make a gift of $25, $50, $75, $100, or even $250? Every gift helps!

You can also donate cryptocurrencies by using this link here.

We do a lot on our shoestring budget, which means your gift will go a long way.

Your gift will be doing immense good for the Church and the world, and I promise you we will be good stewards of your donation.

The most important way you can give is by becoming a monthly donor to Crisis Magazine. This gives us the stability we need to operate month in and month out. In fact, it is this type of support that keeps us from having to run fundraising campaigns all year long!

You can become a monthly contributor by choosing that option from the drop-down menu on our secure online donation form.

Please consider supporting us with the most generous gift you can afford. By doing so, you are supporting your Church, country, and resisting the perishing of Christendom itself. The news is tough, yes, and the time is short, but we’re a people of hope who believe in the power of human agency. Let us continue proclaiming the truth while we can.

Thanks and God bless!

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Understanding the Papacy in a Time of Confusion

Hello, I’m Eric, and I’m a book geek.

You see, I collect books like some people collect comics or baseball cards. And I even read many of the books I collect!

As a book geek, I get excited about a lot of books that come out, but I’ll admit I’ve been anticipating one book more than any other this year. It’s actually a book I’ve contemplated writing myself, but I’m glad someone else did.

What’s the book? The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox by Erick Ybarra. In this magisterial (over 700 pages!) work from Emmaus Road Publishing, Ybarra surveys history and theology to make a case for the papacy in the light of Eastern Orthodox criticisms.

What I like about Ybarra is that he is extremely fair to all sides. As a recent example, see this article where he explores the “Recognize and Resist” movement in light of 1st millennium Christian practice—he clearly takes into consideration all views before coming to his conclusions.

Most apologetical debate between Catholics and Orthodox regarding the papacy today is, frankly, less than helpful. Each side presents the evidence of the 1st millennium as if it’s a slam dunk for their side. But history isn’t so clear, as Ybarra acknowledges. In the preface, he writes,

When I commenced my studies [of the papacy], I had thought the case for Catholicism was far more compelling than any case for Orthodoxy could afford. As of now, I am thoroughly convinced that this debate is not concluded with a first round knockout for either side. I now sense that if Catholicism does win this debate, it only wins by going the full distance of twelve rounds and by a remarkably close call.

This is typical of Ybarra: he gives as much credit as he can to opposing arguments, while remaining true to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

The reason I’m so excited about this book is that I think it addresses the fundamental issue in Catholicism today: what is the role of the pope in the Church? In an era of such confusion surrounding the papacy—What, if any, are its limits? What is our duty in following the pope?—I suspect that Erick’s book will help lay the groundwork for a better understanding of the papacy.

I’ve already started reading The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox and I look forward to working my way through it. While the tome is understandably pricey, I recommend it for anyone wanting to dig deeper into this important topic.

I hope to have Ybarra on the podcast soon to discuss the book, but until then, check out this interview I did with him last year about Eastern Orthodoxy.

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