Catholic Rigorous Vortex

The Vortex Catholics deliver what they perceive as the hard-hitting truth and where they believe lies and falsehoods are trapped and exposed. They are ultra-critical of Pope Francis (some news outlets devoting most of their writing to it), The Bishops (especially Bishop Robert Barron) and any Catholic they deem unworthy (Fr. James Martin, Mark Shea and Jimmy Akin just to name a few), and several developments in church practice and theology since Vatican 2 (especially how terrible the Novus Ordo mass is).  Yet there is some really good content mixed in with all the negativity.


The Rigorous Catholics often declare something sinful where there is no teaching by the church that certain things are sinful. Examples are Harry Potter and that women who work outside the house are commenting a mortal sin. Again, some really good material as well.

I lump both of them together as the

Catholic Rigorous Vortex (CRV)

Some people will love all they say and think people who critize them (like I am) are modernist heretics. I believe that some of the material they present may cause doubt in the faithful and the scrupulous catholic. Yet some things they speak of are beneficial and helpful to spiritual growth. A mixed bad of wheat and chaff.

To Paraphrase Archbishop Chaput Vortex Catholics “create division, confusion, and conflict within the Church. Actions of that nature run contrary to Christian tradition. They are sincere, but also destructive.” 

Bishop Robert Barron comments on what type of folks they can be. “There are, to be blunt, a disconcerting number of such people on social media who are trading in hateful, divisive speech, often deeply at odds with the theology of the Church and who are, sadly, having a powerful impact on the people of God.”- -Social Media’s Power to Build and to Destroy

Another name for the Catholic Rigorous Vortex was coined by Dave Armstrong. This article explains about it..
Radical-Catholic-Reactionaries  (RCR)

 Even if some of the below folks are hostile to the pope and Vatican 2, anti-Semites and declare certain things as sin that are not sin, they can still proclaim some truths about Christ and his Church.

It is true that some of them are preaching Christ out of malice and rivalry; but there are many as well whose intentions are good; some are doing it out of love, knowing that I remain firm in my defense of the gospel. There are others who are proclaiming Christ out of jealousy, not in sincerity but meaning to add to the weight of my chains. But what does it matter? Only that in both ways, whether with false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and for that I am happy.  Philippians - Chapter 1: 15-18

There is a difference between the CRV/RCR and a Traditionalist.

I would say that anybody who believes the Catholic Tradition is a Traditionalist. Traditionalists tend to say that anybody who embraces a particular aesthetic is a Traditionalist, with the unfortunate corollary that those who do not embrace the aesthetic do not embrace the Tradition. That, unfortunately, is part of the message that tends to get telegraphed and those of us who embrace the Tradition, but can take or leave the aesthetic, feel as though we are regarded as second-class Catholics. It’s something Traditionalists urgently need to address.
-Mark Shea Am I a Catholic Traditionalist? (Well, YOU Decide!) (October 14, 2015) Quoted in Dave Armstrong’s Blog BEFC

People may decide what box to put me in. I think I’m in a pretty good place. I now use the word radical Catholic reactionary for folks who want to classify obedient, orthodox Catholics such as myself as somehow second-class Catholics. Hence, I’ve been called a modernist, neo-Catholic, neo-conservative, Vatican II lover, a Novus Ordo Catholic, an integrist, even a money-grubbing, unscrupulous apologist who makes a living by ill-gotten gains, by some.
But I’m just an . . . orthodox, obedient, devout Catholic, who loves Holy Mother Church, loves the Holy Father, and the Blessed Virgin Mary (to whom I have a great devotion: lots of writings defending her and Catholic Mariology)
- Dave Armstrong Am I a Catholic Traditionalist? (Well, YOU Decide!) (October 14, 2015) Biblical Evidence for Catholicism

There are many, many differences among trads, and with them all comes a variety of opinions on a whole host of matters. And our Tradition allows room for these sorts of diversifications. It's not that these differences are inconsequential; I have very strong opinions on most of these points, but I am not so certain in them that I would accuse those who don't agree with me of being subpar traditionalists. What I reject, as what Odendorf rejects in his article, is the idea that there is some sort of Traditionalist "magisterium" that can authoritatively define what a Catholic traditionalist ought to look like and proclaim those who do not adhere to this version of traditionalism to be "unacceptable."

The very existence of traditional Catholic blogs attests to the fact that there are many out there interested in examining Tradition, defining what a traditionalist is, and promoting a return to traditional Catholicism. But there is no one website or blog, no organization, no one author, no one order or society, no one publication, no one prelate, no one individual who authoritatively speaks for Catholic traditionalists, and whom to disagree with is to risk ostracism. There is no trad Magisterium.
- Boniface No Trad Magisterium Friday, (February 20, 2015) Unam Sanctam Catholicam

As much as some Traditionalists dislike the current state of the papacy, they still acknowledge the pope as pope.

The theological weakness of sedevacantism is an inadequate concept of the nature of the Church. Without realizing it, they believe in a Church which can fail -- and such a Church is not the Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ. The Church that He founded cannot fail, for it is indefectible (i.e. it cannot fail). It will continue to exist until the Second Coming as a visible, hierarchically governed body, teaching the truth and sanctifying its members with indubitably valid sacraments. To state that we have no pope is to claim that the Church is no longer visible and hierarchically governed, which, in effect, means that it has ceased to exist. Catholic theologians accept that a pope could lose his office through heresy, but it would have to be such notorious heresy that no doubt concerning the matter could exist in the minds of the faithful, and a statement that the Pope had deposed himself would need to come from a high level in the Church, most probably a general Council. Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre warned in 1979:

"The visibility of the Church is too necessary to its existence for it to be possible that God would allow that visibility to disappear for decades. The reasoning of those who deny that we have a pope puts the Church into an inextricable situation. Who will tell us who the future pope is to be? How, as there are no cardinals, is he to be chosen? The spirit is a schismatical one. . . And so, far from refusing to pray for the Pope, we redouble our prayers and supplications that the Holy Ghost will grant him the light and strength in his affirmations and defense of the Faith."
Michael Davies:A Heretical Pope? A Heretical Pope? (12/7/2005, Free Republic

Ubi Petrus, Ibi Ecclesia. The famous quote from St. Ambrose of Milan which translates to - Where Peter is, there is the Church.

It is a statement identifying that the unity of the Church is centered on Peter, the papacy.  Without the papacy, there is no Church

To discredit the Pope himself is an assault on those who are weak in faith and could potentially abandon the faith. 

Making snide remarks about the pope, printing them, circulating them among average citizens, how is that different from what Martin Luther did.  He too thought that the Pope was corrupt and needed to be straightened out; that what he was doing was right.

Does the pope sometimes say things that are confusing or could be said better? Sure EVERYONE does.  But to raise those quotes to such a high level as the lefties do, or to denigrate them so badly as the opposite camp does is a disservice to the faithful.

Where Peter there is, there is the Church – even if a given Peter does need assistance or even correction – it shouldn’t be going on in the secular press and certainly shouldn’t be going almost as sport among Catholics.

Pray for the Holy Father, instead of sniping at him OR distorting and using him.

- Michael Voris: It always comes back to the Pope (3/13/14) Church Militant

Well, Francis I, first of all, the name is so evocative. I mean, people around the world love St. Francis, the Italians certainly do. He resonates, his simplicity, his humility and Bergoglio is known for that in Argentina.

He lives in an apartment. He doesn't live in a big fancy mansion or a condo. People like that. He takes the bus to work. He's a very humble man of the people.

He's often spoke about social justice for the poor, the inequities in South America and that we need to rethink and think about how are we to distribute the many gifts we have been given?

That will play well, not only in Latin America, but in many other parts of the world.
-Raymond Arroyo

Listed below are some examples of the Catholic Rigorous Vortex and some worthy quotes (if I could find them). I’m sure there are more folks I could add to this list and some I could take off. I could easily post all the problems I have with the CRV folk, but instead I’d rather find the good that they do. The links to these popular Catholic sites do not imply an endorsement of these Catholic evangelists or the content of their podcasts or websites. I don’t necessarily agree with all the opinions expressed in such material. Some of the material produced by these Catholics should be critiqued and denounced. But It is also good to remember that everyone listed below is a brother and sister in Christ by baptism and does their best to love Christ and his church. We are called to love and respect them, even if we must correct them from time to time.

CRV Top Personalities

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Bishop Athanasius Schneider
When I received my First Holy Communion, there was a group of children, and the priest arranged everything in a very beautiful way. With a candle in hand, we went through the Communion rail to the high altar, to the highest step, and there
we received Holy Communion from the high altar, kneeling, as the deacon kneels on the top step: there I received my First Holy Communion. It was so beautiful for me—and unforgettable. My mother and the priest gave us a beautiful instruction. They said, “You will receive your Savior and God in this little Host. And He is living there.” And this I remember: “He is living. Be careful, He is living, and this is your Lord!” Since then, it has always been so for me: He is living there! I thought, when I received the Lord, He is living and He is entering into me. For me, the Host is so holy because there is my God, as both my mother and the priest had told me.
Bishop Athanasius Schneider -Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age  (2019)


In my view—and Benedict XVI has written very well about this—there can be no opposition between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form. I believe that it is important to keep alive the so-called Extraordinary Form of the Mass to maintain a stronger link with Tradition. I also celebrate many Holy Masses in the Ordinary Form, and it is not a problem for me, but I adhere strongly to the vision that Benedict XVI expressed in his Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. I think that it is a very good thing for the Church to celebrate the Rite of the Mass in its two forms.
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CARDINAL RAYMOND BURKE (2) — Faith And Tradition (December 21, 2017) oclarim.com


Church Militant Serving Catholics
The power of the sacraments are real. They change your life. Saint Therese of Lisieux said, “All is grace.” My experience coming back to the Faith made that crystal clear. There were a number of difficulties I struggled with before my return to the Faith; when I started accessing the sacraments of penance and the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord simply took many of them away, or so greatly reduced their power that they were no longer a struggle for me. The sacraments of the Catholic Church are life-changing, and life-giving.

Michael has said that the most important thing we do at this apostolate takes place in our chapel. Without prayer, we have nothing, and we cannot do the work we do. Our prayer life is everything; it starts our day, it punctuates our day throughout (we gather at noon to pray the Angelus as well as at 3 p.m. to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet), and prayer ends our day. Prayer is everything. It reminds us of our total dependence on God, and gives us the opportunity to thank Him for the great gift of being able to work to advance His Kingdom.
Christine Niles From Saigon to Surfing and Beyond: The Unlikely Saga of Church Militant’s Christine Niles Regina Mag

One of the glories of the Catholic faith is its pure simplicity and its simple purity, just like Our Blessed Mother. All children resemble their mother, and she is the Mother of the Church, so of course the Church resembles her in this area. All that is required of us is a purity of heart — a single-mindedness of desiring Heaven — like she had. It's why St. Augustine said, "Love [God] and do as you will."

Purity and simplicity share in common with each other the notion of clarity. Everything we need to know in the Catholic Church is very clear: purity and simplicity, bound together with clarity.

Another example is the teaching on the Blessed Sacrament — the Real Presence. This teaches that Jesus Christ is really, truly and substantially present — Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity — under the appearance of bread and wine.

It can't get much more straightforward than that. And don't make the mistake that just because something is cloaked in mystery, it isn't clear. The "how" or "why" or even "what" of something doesn't detract from its simplicity or purity. The Host, which looks and tastes like bread, is Jesus Christ, pure and simple.
- Michael Voris- Purity and Simplicity: His Mother reflects Him.  (January 29, 2020) Church Militant

Also, and this is important for our equilibrium on the heaving deck of Peter’s storm tossed Barque, of all the possible universes God could have created, He created this one and not some other.  He knew every one of us before the creation of the cosmos, and He called us from nothingness into existence in this particular universe at this particular time according to His unfathomable plan.   We have a role to play in God’s economy of salvation.  We have to trust that we are exactly when and where God wants us to be.  If we have been born into troubling times, then we are precisely where we are to play our role.  We are in the right place and the right time.   Trust in God’s divine providence.  He knows what he is doing.
And I will remind you that we weren’t promised a bed of roses when we were baptized.  We who are Christ’s disciples will all drink at least some drops of the chalice He drank on Calvary.   It is our task to be faithful, brave and persevere.
-Fr. John Zuhlsdorf  ASK FATHER: “I’m seriously considering adopting some form of sedevacantism”  (January 7, 2019) Fr. Z’s Blog


Let’s face it. Catholicism is weird. This is true for ignorant outsiders and for dissenting insiders. Like the Hebrews of old, Catholics are a peculiar people, a people set apart (Deuteronomy 14:2; Psalm 4:3; 1 Peter 2:9).That a man who grew up in Nazareth is the God of the universe and that He founded a Church (after suffering torture and death and rising from the dead) and gave her sacraments and the gift of infallibility – is by definition, weird.

See, once you accept the weird label, things get easier and become clearer.

Transubstantiation in which bread becomes the very body of God. Or the incorruptible saints whose bodies do not decompose. Or the miracle of Lanciano in which, during the eight century AD, the Host turned into myocardial (heart) tissue of an adult male with AB blood type – a phenomenon can be see to this day.

Weird, no?

Here’s my question: are these supernatural realities any weirder than some of the natural ones discovered by modern physics? The natural world around us features plenty of weirdness. What would be much stranger is if the teachings of the Church God founded were less weird than the world He made.-
Patrick Coffin, Catholicism is Weird (May 24, 2017) National Catholic Register

Sensus Fidelium 100% Catholic 100% of the time. no preservatives but do concentrate
 “Whenever a father fails to pray, suffer and do good works in order to merit graces for his wife and family, he fails in the most important task of husband and father." –
 Fr. Chad Rippenger

“You know there’s a problem in a culture when smoking’s a mortal sin and sleeping with your girlfriend is a virtue.”
- Fr. Chad Rippenger

"Stop sinning. Because every time you sin, you wound yourself. Not only spiritually, but psychologically. Every single time you sin you’re messing up your psychological faculties so you just have to stop it.” - Fr. Chad Rippenger

“The only way to lead a truly free life is in virtue. Because in virtue, all of the lower faculties are subordinated and they don’t affect our judgment and therefore they don’t hack away at our freedom. True freedom consists in self-discipline, in interior self-control, . . . - Fr. Chad Rippenger

Taylor Marshall Stay Salty My Friends
Jewish ethnicity in itself does not save. The Old Covenant is no longer salvific. Nevertheless, the Jewish people continue as a sign to the Gentiles, and Gentiles should revere the Jewish people as kinsmen of Christ. After all, is it not the case that Catholics worship a Jewish Rabbi as the very Son of God and identify Him as the Jewish Messiah? The faith and flesh of Israel are integral to the humanity of the Redeemer. Catholics also show great veneration for the Jewish maiden, Mary the Mother of the Messiah and extol her as the Queen of Heaven. The original Apostles, from which every Catholic bishop succeeds, were Jewish. Jewish authors wrote every book of the Catholic Bible, with the exception of the Gospel of Saint Luke and the Book of Acts. The liturgy of the Mass derives from the prayers of the Jewish synagogue and temple. We teach our children the Hebrew stories about Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, David, Esther, and Daniel. We employ Hebrew words in our liturgy: “Amen” and “Alleluia.” The vestments, incense, candles, processions, jubilees, and many of the priestly customs likewise derive from Jewish practice. Many Jews who visit a Catholic Mass often comment that it all seems so very Jewish. The reason for this is that the Catholic Church grew out of the Judaism of its original Rabbi and High Priest, Jesus the Messiah.
Taylor Marshall-The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity (The Origins of Catholicism Book 1) 


OnePeterFive -  Rebuilding Catholic Culture. Restoring Catholic Tradition.

America is wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and currently functioning as secular. No wonder it has devolved into a secular state rife with bacchanalia, eugenics, and collectivism — symptoms of a republic in name only.

Timothy Gordon-Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome

 Timothy Gordon Youtube RETROGRADE programme of recovery. OnePeterFive
Catholic Republic author and 9-tailed scourge of heterodoxy. One of the godfathers of “Bro-man Catholicism.” RULES FOR RETROGRADES podcast

Therefore, for Catholics, science and philosophy are consistent with Truth (capital T) — that is, with theology — because, as Thomas Aquinas says, “[lower, scientific] truth cannot contradict [higher, theological] truth.” Recalling this Thomistic principle, Hans Urs von Balthasar adds that “Thomas never fails to remember the way in which being points critically to the eternal, hidden God nor the way in which reason points noetically to the possible revelation of that God, and consequently he wants all metaphysics to be seen as oriented towards theology.”17 That is to say, man uses his natural intellect with science and philosophy to discern the order and intelligibility of the universe. And he can even derive theological meaning from it.
Timothy Gordon-Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome

Peter Kwasniewski OnePeterFive

Catholics, however, think and act differently about time. We find ourselves in the unfolding of the liturgy’s temporal and sanctoral cycle; we situate our lives upon a calendar that precedes and supersedes the civil calendar, and opens onto eternity.  The passage from life to death and death to life, a passage of which we never cease to be reminded by the cycle of seasons and the two off-rhythm calendars we live by, does not, fundamentally, leave the Christian melancholy. He see himself as a “work in progress,” even as is the entire cosmos, and the Church in those of her members who are living in time. Our reality is not all at once, like a “fact,” but a reality that God is shaping as He leads it towards Himself.
At the End of One Year and the Start of Another: Stability within the Cycle Monday, December 31, 2018, New Liturgical Movement

That is why to be pro-life in its most profound sense is to be pro-liturgical life. As the Second Vatican Council says about the baptized: “Participating in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the source and culmination of the whole Christian life, they offer the Divine Victim to God, and offer themselves along with It” (Lumen Gentium §11). “The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time, it is the font from which all her power flows” (Sacrosanctum Concilium §10). The font from which all her power flows ... The power to welcome children, to love them into the Church, to care for them over all the years; the power to value every human person, well or ill, hale or handicapped, conscious or comatose, embryonic or elderly; the power to build a culture of life, a culture of beauty, a culture of intellect consecrated to the truth—all this flows from the Holy Mysteries. Without the Church’s liturgy, we fail to grasp the infinite dignity God has bestowed on us in Christ. We miss out on the flesh-and-blood encounter with the Source of Life, Life incarnate, Life outpoured for eternal life.
Peter Kwasniewski Why pro-life Catholics should strive for a higher and deeper life, Mon Oct 9, 2017 Lifesite News

Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.
How will this right and duty be exercised? Among other things, the Second Vatican Council declares that “steps should be taken so that the faithful may … be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them” (SC 54), and that “the Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy; therefore, other things being equal [ceteris paribus], it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” (SC 116).[5]
Wherever the teaching of the Council is being followed, we will find a common practice of singing the Ordinary of the Mass, that is, the prayers that don’t change from day to day—the fixed prayers of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei; the responses like “Et cum spiritu tuo,” “Amen,” “Deo gratias,” and “Sed libera nos a malo.” These prayers that everyone sings together are some of the most important in the entire liturgy. And we sing them in Latin (or, for the Kyrie, in Greek). We are fulfilling the Council’s request. In such communities, one also finds the regular chanting of the Propers, the most beautiful melodies ever composed in human history. The same Council said: “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites” (SC 36.1).
“Song Befits the Lover”: Understanding the Place of Gregorian Chant in the Mass  September 2, 2015


OnePeterFive

Eric Sammons OnePeterFive

Apologetics is just one aspect of evangelization, and is often not the most important aspect. We are called to be witnesses, not just explainers. So how have we witnessed the Resurrection? We have experienced first-hand the power of the Resurrection in our own “resurrection” at baptism. After all, St. Paul says that in baptism, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Our first-hand witness of the power of the Resurrection doesn’t end with baptism, however. Every time we go to confession, we are raised from our sins into new life in Christ. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive the Risen Christ. Without the Resurrection, the sacraments have no power; they are just stale, man-made religious rites. When we tell people how Christ has changed our lives, we need to emphasize that it is the Risen Christ who has done this, for what can a man long dead do for us today?
Eric Sammons-The Resurrection and Evangelization 4/29/2019

The Resurrection of Christ is the most important event in history, both world history, and our history. Without it, our lives are hopelessly confined to this world. But with it, this world can become the beginning of a life of eternal happiness with God in heaven. This is the good news; this is what we need to emphasize in our evangelization. Like St. Peter and St. Paul, we must make the Resurrection the central focus of our preaching, and of our lives. The Resurrection and Evangelization
The Resurrection must be the central focus of our preaching, and of our lives
-The Resurrection and Evangelization 4/29/2019

Steve Skojec OnePeterFive

 It’s been a while since the Church was viewed by the non-Catholic world as such a central force for good, and so worthy of protecting. But there is nothing to keep it from becoming such again. We need merely to remember our incredible story, and the story of our Savior, and tell it to the world through not just apologetics and essays, but art and music, architecture and film, liturgy and devotion. We have more tools at our disposal to be creators of culture than ever before, and the power of Catholicism lies not merely in the present, but in the past. It lies in the hands not simply of the Church militant, but the Church triumphant. Like any family, we draw strength not only from our works, but from our customs and traditions. We cannot flourish if we do not remain connected to our history.
- Our Unchangeable Faith: Catholicism as a Cultural Force, January 7, 2014 Catholic Vote

Some of the most striking supernatural lessons are learned in the most ordinary ways. God infused things like the coffee bean, the grape, and the grain of wheat with a hidden nature that can only be experienced through something formulaic, even rigid. Whether roasting and brewing coffee, fermenting wine, or baking bread, man acts as a sort of priest over nature as he carefully oversees their transformation. Thus, if he is properly disposed, he will have an insight into the supernatural role of the ordained priest who consecrates bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord, thereby allowing us to experience and to adore His hidden nature.   

God imbues a sacramental order into the things of this world to help us grasp these higher concepts. God infused the world with order and beauty and goodness, and the paradigmatic expression of these attributes in created things takes place every time a Mass is said inside a church. We know from our kitchens, tables, vineyards, bakeries, art studios, and writer’s desks that all truly good things are to be prepared with care. Once this is accomplished, they are then to be savored and protected and enjoyed.
It is therefore only fitting that we thank God both after meals and after Mass. Maybe even after coffee. The Rubrics of Coffee
Steve Skojec September 16, 2010, Crisis

Of those who are willing to speak to the world through culture and the arts, it must be conceded that their message is often the last thing the world needs to hear. That’s why it’s so important for the faithful to once again inspire and create culture, not only in an explicitly religious sense, but through the wider lens of the Catholic worldview. This is the worldview that encompasses both sinners and saints, that professes belief in a God made Man who ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, and died on a cross. Catholicism encompasses the breadth of human experience, from the height of ecstasy to the darkness of death. We have something to say because our Faith does not find hope in the notion of sinless man, but in the recognition of fallen man redeemed. The Well-Sheltered Catholic, May 5, 2012 Crisis

To a child, magic is not at all an outlandish thing. They live every day in a world of endless possibilities. Around any corner, there might be a fire-breathing dragon; under every bed or in the dark corners of any closet, a horrible lurking monster. The living room sofas and their scattered pillows are merely islands of safety amidst a sea of molten lava. Fairies are no doubt real if you stay up late and go out deep enough into the woods to catch one. Countless hours are spent discussing amongst themselves just which three things they’ll wish for when they finally come across an ancient, genie-filled lamp.

Why should our children not contemplate this mysterious (if almost entirely mythologized) saint, ever unseen but as consistent as clockwork, who loves us so much that he gratuitously brings gifts to the children of the entire world, accomplishing superhuman feats of logistics and undetectable intrusion all in the course of one cold and starry night as we ready ourselves to celebrate the birth of our Heavenly King? We know that he expects the best from us, but we sense, as we imagine his twinkling eyes and barely-concealed smile beneath the downy drifts of his magnificent beard, that he wishes for all the world to find whatever small goodness we have done and nurture it into a roaring flame of virtue, like a glowing ember found beneath the ash pile of our misdeeds and sins. Santa Claus embodies what is most attractive about fatherly goodness; he is stern not from cruelty or anger, but because he earnestly desires our right action. He is loving and kind not because he is soft and emasculated, but because he wants to share the goodness of his great bounty with us, and so ennoble us by his gifts.

In the blossoming young mind, the almost unbearable excitement of the Santa Claus story, properly cultivated, can’t help but set the stage for the incredible mystery of the Infant Christ, who comes to us as an unmerited gift to grant us every good thing; Whose very blood was shed to show us the great mercy of God and the infinite bounty of heaven.
 
The story of Santa Claus need not diminish the great mysteries of Christmas when it can exist alongside of them and point us in their direction. We believe in a God who is good, who gives freely, who is everywhere, who always watches – who knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake! It’s not such a stretch to see that Santa Claus can be viewed as a type of Christ, and if we allow our children to believe in him, we should do what we can to ensure that he points them toward the mystery of the Incarnation and the true meaning of Christmas.
The Ethics of Jolly Old Elfland November 30, 2018
Dec 15, 2014. Crisis

H.J.A. Sire OnePeterFive
THE AGE OF software, economists and pocket calculators has been caught napping; that of chivalry has crept up behind it and taken it unawares. A hundred years ago the Order of Malta appeared a more honorific memory of the crusades; it’s Grand Master was an Austrian nobleman treated as a sovereign prince only by his own Emperor and the Holy See; it numbered little more than a thousand knights drawn from the innermost circle of the European aristocracy. Today the Order exchanges ambassadors with nearly sixty governments; it has more than ten thousand knights in thirty-nine national associations throughout the world; it’s decorations have been proudly accepted by republican heads of state from Africa to the United States; and above all conducts an international Hospitaller activity with few equals in size, modernity and efficiency.
Henry Sire The Knights of Malta: A Modern Resurrection (Jun 30, 2016)

HILARY WHITE OnePeterFive
It is easy to be intimidated by the notion of “living a life of prayer”. One looks at the saints, floating and bilocating and being unruffled by being flayed alive and whatnot, and figure they’re some kind of Special Humans. Maybe it’s like the spiritual equivalent of genetics or something; some people are just born to be superheroes. Whatever the answer, you know one thing FOR SURE: that ain’t you. And you mostly just pray, when you remember to, that you’ll be spared the apparent ravages and social embarrassment of excessive saintliness, telling yourself that maybe Purgatory won’t be that bad, and anyway is probably the best you can aim at.

So, what is with all the floating and bilocating and stigmata and all that, anyway? How did the martyrs make jokes during their gruesome deaths? How did the seven sons of the Maccabees, with manly cheerfulness, declare their preference for being tortured to death rather than betray God? How did Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego walk about in the midst of the flames of the furnace of Nebuchadnezzar singing hymns of praise to the Lord?
All the saints say the same thing: mental prayer is the way to get this super-abundant unction, the way to become a saint. “But what is it?” you ask the great Abba Antony, whose mountain you have climbed for a day and a night with great pains.
“Mental prayer?” he replies as though it is inconsequential. “Ah, nothing more than this: to think about divine things, to ask God for help and to thank Him for his gifts.”
- Prayer is scary; do it anyway. Dec 01, 2018

Christmas carols were given to us by God to preserve the glorious reality of the Incarnation and Christology in general – through whatever horrors and distortions the modern world has to throw at the Faith- Silent night, Dec 24, 2018

John Zmirak  OnePeterFive

The highest, the very highest, number I have ever seen cited for Catholics who accept and obey the Church’s ban on artificial contraception is 5 percent.

On a grave moral issue where several popes have invoked their full moral authority short of making an infallible declaration, 95 percent of U.S. Catholics (the number is surely higher in most of Europe) have rejected the guidance of Rome. They are not “bad Catholics” so much members of a new, dissenting sect – which happens to occupy most of the seats in most of the churches, and many of the pulpits and bishop’s offices, too.

We need that other 95 percent. And given that the key issue on which most dissent hinges today is contraception, we need to do a much better job conveying the Church’s position to ordinary people. 

Many Catholics oppose abortion, and treasure the sacraments, and love their spouses, and even have decent-sized families – all of it without understanding or accepting Humanae Vitae. Millions of psychologically normal, hard-working, well-meaning people have blundered into dissent, and ended up in the same camp with bitter heretics like Charles Curran, over this single issue. That single dissent softened them up to drift away from the Church on other issues, as well. 
We shouldn’t count these people out of the Church as we would those who willfully accept abortion or polyamory. We need to listen to their real questions and objections and do a much better job explaining ourselves. Or else that’s who we’ll go right on talking to – ourselves/

It isn’t normal for the Church to consist just of saints and zealots, ascetical future “blesseds,” and Inquisition re-enactors. Faith is meant to be yeast that yields a hearty loaf of bread.
John Zmirak The Shame of the Catholic Subculture (February 1, 2014)

Excerpts from The Bad Catholic’s Guide to the Catechism, by John Zmirak

CRV General

Catholicism An Online journal edited by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Saint Benedict Center, N.H.

Begging the reader’s pardon for being so personal, I begin with an odd confession, one that I hope will be fully justified sociologically and theologically in the lines that follow: I don’t identify as a white man.
No, I don’t mean that I identify as a black, brown, red, or yellow man, either; I mean I don’t think of myself as white. I think of myself first as a Catholic, a member of the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, and only secondarily — by way of ancestry, of blood and DNA — as a European (a genuine Euro-mutt: French, Spanish, and German, with a dash of Polish). In light of my first identity, this latter is comparatively trivial. I emphasize comparatively because it is not utterly inconsequential. I love my parents, and my grandparents, and I rather like having their genetic matter as part of the material side of my hylomorphic composite. But what makes that ancestry trivial in comparison is that it comes from nature, whereas being Christ’s is a matter of super-nature. It is by supernatural adoption, not flesh and blood, that we are “born of God” (Cf. Jn. 1:13, 1 Jn. 3:9, 1 Jn. 4:7).
Brother André Marie Racist Ideology and the Blood that Really Matters Dec 11, 2019

Fatima Promoting the full messege of Fatima

This is St. Joseph’s workshop — old and quaint!
 So we will enter for a little space,
 And watch with loving eyes our favorite Saint,
 As to and fro he moves about the place.
 His placid brow no trace of care betrays,
 A heavenly look of peace is resting there,
 How calm his face — how self-controlled his ways!
 His very attitude suggests a prayer.[1]

At the beginning of time “the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it” (Genesis 2:15). In part, Adam was created to work, to participate in the creativity of God through stewardship of the gifts bestowed on mankind by our Creator. In essence, Adam was a gardener, therefore work in the truest sense was ordained to be a blessing.

A prayerful work-ethic is a great bulwark against complacency and idleness. No matter our jobs, we will spend many of our waking hours working. We must seek ways to make holy our work days in order that our sinful inclinations will be perfected. Finally, in our culture that is increasingly hostile to the Gospel, a truly masculine Catholic man can make Christ known through the way he carries himself at work. Our actions and performance may be the only Gospel our coworkers have ever seen.  Saint Joseph, Model of Workmen, Pray for Us!
Kennedy Hall -Saint Joseph, Model of Workmen by Tuesday January 28th, 2020

Twelve Apostles; twelve articles of the Apostles Creed; twelve days of Christmas; twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost; twelve tribes of Israel; twelve loaves of proposition in the temple sanctuary; twelve chiefs of Ismael; Jesus was twelve-years-old when He was first teaching in the temple; twelve baskets of fragments left over after the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; the Woman of the Apocalypse had a crown of twelve stars; the tree of life in the vision of the Apocalypse bore twelve fruits; and, in the natural order, we have twelve months of the year.
Our Lord appeared to His Apostles and disciples twelve times during the forty days between His resurrection and His ascension. Two of the dozen apparitions are known from tradition; the other ten are recorded in Holy Scripture.
Brian Kelly Twelve Apparitions of Christ Between His Resurrection and Ascension, Jul 29, 2013 

Fish Eaters:  The Whys and Hows of Traditional Catholicism
But the Latin High Mass is so long!

"Can you not watch one hour with Me?"

 Yes, the traditional High Mass is longer than the Novus Ordo Mass, but don't think of it that way; think of it as the amount of time it takes to watch a few episodes of "Friends."

 Look, a microwaveable McMass isn't healthy; you really need to slow down and eat something substantial. Take some time....

 Shhhhh...quiet yourself. Breathe in the sounds of bells that call you here, and the stillness between the chimes. Contemplate. Don't you know why you've been summoned? It is the Lord's Day! Christus resurrexit! -- and a miracle will occur again at the Altar when the bread and wine become the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ -- the Pure Offering as predicted by Malachias (Malachias 1:10-11). Has the "Our Father" ever sounded so beautiful as when it is chanted in the same ancient melody heard by Sts. Augustine and Thomas, Catherine and Joan -- made our brothers and sisters by the very sacrifice which will be re-presented today? Pray for His coming. Offer your life to Him -- your joys, your sorrows, your suffering. Give yourself to Him as He gave Himself to you at Calvary and gives Himself to you now in the Eucharist. Look at the Crucifix above the Altar and behold the Lamb Who appears "as it had been slain"; He pours out His life for you, now and ever and unto Ages of Ages. Kneel when you receive Him, and tell me if it doesn't feel right and, more importantly, is not right. Savor the sweetness of the incense that blesses this holy place. Can you locate yourself in time, Christian, as you sit in that pew praying as your ancestors have done for two millenia and as the Saints do now in Heaven with the angels beside them? Or are you both in time and touching eternity?

 Here's the bottom line: though "emotional highs" and "good times" aren't the purpose of the Sacrifice, you will emotionally take from the Mass what you bring to it, and the more you understand the Mass, its Sacred purpose, its history, and, most of all, the more you pray the Mass, the more you will "get out of it" emotionally. Everyone has bad days - days they are sick, tired, distracted, easily bored, or just not "in the mood" to be at Mass (and that's OK); but it remains true that these challenges are problems with you, not the Mass. And it remains true that the Mass is not about us, but about honoring, glorifying, beseeching, and appeasing God, and offering to Him His Son. I imagine our Israelite ancestors didn't find the incessant slaying of lambs and red heifers entertaining after a thousand years or so.- The Traditional Mass: Introduction


RORATE CÆLI International, traditional Catholic blog. We pray for and respect the hierarchical Church
And the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6)

What indeed is the feast of Corpus Christi about?  The Body of Christ. In so many ways this feast is the summation of all the feasts of the year:  Christmas, Epiphany, Holy Week, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity.  For this is the feast of the abiding reality, the abiding presence of the Lord Jesus Christ in his Church.  Corpus Christi.  It makes all things real. For Christ is not some mythical figure who came down from Mount Olympus to do his magic and then went away never to be seen again. This Jesus Christ, who ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father with his humanity, his humanity and your humanity and my humanity, whose glorified Body is in heaven, this Jesus Christ dwells among us truly and bodily as Corpus Christi, the Holy Eucharist, in which and by which he gives himself to us more deeply and more really than any of us can give ourselves to each other, no matter how much we love the other person.
Fr. Cipolla's Sermon for Corpus Christi By Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla  6/23/2019 

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Crisis Magazine   A Voice for the Faithful Catholic Laity
Fr. George W. Rutler
 “Social media” has changed culture in ways that even the brilliance of Sylvester II and Bi Sheng could not have imagined, and the invention of the Internet has multiplied incalculably the impact of Gutenberg’s mechanical innovation. As with the sixteenth-century pamphleteers, the present reality and potential test the virtue of prudence. Sometimes aggressive journalism tells the truth in ways that embarrass defensive apologists. The idle mind might wonder whether Charles Borromeo or Francis de Sales would have used “blogs”, but the prolific correspondence of saints like these comes close to “tweeting,” their intellectual and literary superiority notwithstanding. Later, the saints Anthony Mary Claret in Cuba and Maximilian Kolbe in Japan would study printing and become exemplars of effective Catholic journalism.

This simply is a reminder that the scandals, vulgarities, and inarticulate thought that bombard social media may falsely give the impression that the present confusion in the Church is unprecedented. It may be singular in some ways, but it is certainly not without antecedent disgraces. It is fortunate that in the days of the Papal States, for instance, investigative journalists were rare. This is not to excuse the current state of affairs, but there might have been similar—or perhaps even worse—temptations to despair of had earlier ages had access to the Internet.
Pollyanna Among the Prophets January 27, 2020

Austin Ruse
What we know is that anything good, or true, or beautiful is from God. Wherever you see these things, hear these things, experience these things, you have a direct experience of the Beatific Vision, even if you don’t know it.
There is so much ugliness in the world, everywhere you look; even worse, everywhere my young daughters look. But is it enough to call it out, legislate against it, campaign against ugliness? A fter all, this is what many of us do, perhaps most of us do. That is what I do.

Perhaps turning the other cheek in this day and age does not simply mean being nice to our enemies and meekly taking the blows. Perhaps it means all that and something more. Maybe it is about showing them a competing way, a better way, and inviting them to come and see, like Andrew said after he met Christ. Come and see this better way. I had always thought that meant getting someone to the sacraments. But I now know it can also mean getting someone to something like the Appaloosa Festival.

Beauty need not be just Mozart motets, the paintings of Michelangelo, or the philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas. It can also be what I saw in the Blue Ridge Mountains on Saturday. I saw the Gothard Sisters wailing on their violins, kicking up Celtic heels, and whooping out sweet harmonies. It certainly was for my daughters who have listened to little else since Saturday afternoon. This, too, is the good, the true and the beautiful, and what one of the organizers told me is “soft evangelization.”

There was a moment at Appaloosa when the scales from my eyes truly fell. Those same Gothard Sisters were giving a workshop on Celtic dance. My daughters were in the circle, bare feet in the dirt, kicking up dust, holding hands with their partners, people of all ages dancing and watching. And I thought this: The darkness cannot enter here. The darkness cannot find an opening here. All here is the good, the true and the beautiful. All here is light, light that cannot be overcome, light that will eventually and inevitably overcome the darkness that surrounds us. That is the good, the true and the beautiful.-
Okay, Now I Get the Good, the True and the Beautiful-September 9, 2016

Fr. Martin, I know you are aware of my work, as for years I’ve called out the pattern of ambiguity, confusion, and error that I believe you deliberately embrace relative to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. I’ll never waver in challenging that pattern, now or in future. But I ask your forgiveness for those times I’ve written about your work in ways that you found personally wounding and for any lack of charity or respect I’ve shown you in past. Perhaps you and I could one day “reason together” about such things, as brothers in Christ. I’d gladly do so cordially and charitably in private. I pledge that in future I’ll assiduously avoid similar pitfalls.

Christ is our victor, even in the midst of battles that seem lost or lopsided. I’d like to call on all Catholic writers to discern prayerfully whether this, too, might be your personal moment to rise to this new occasion and fresh need for voices of hope and healing. Every Catholic can do this—from professional writers to readers who are “combox warriors” for the faith—all across Catholic media.
Let us all work together to “write the good fight” with both truth and charity, and in a way that lets us finish the race knowing we’ve led others to the same glorious finish that is our deepest aspiration.
Jim Russell Writing the Good Fight (February 17, 2020 )

Regina Magazine -  Inspiring. Intelligent. Catholic.
 “Glorify the Lord in your bodies,” St. Paul wrote in Corinthians. The way we treat the body, then, is a visible witness of discipleship. Of course, a healthy body alone does not encompass the fullness of St. Paul’s teaching.  Many great saints have been afflicted with less than ideal health, and acceptance of illness can often be part of our spiritual journey. 

From its foundation in the Resurrection of Jesus, Christianity alone among religions has expressed the deep connection, and ultimately, the permanent unity of body and soul. New Age philosophies, which are modern variations on eastern spiritual traditions, attempt to link body, mind, and spirit, but it is only in Christianity that we find the belief that each human person is a unique, unrepeatable, and eternal body and soul.

 Jesus, who by any measure has to be one of the most fit persons in history, continuously prayed, and referred all His actions and efforts to the Father in Heaven. For Jesus, and for us, prayer is the most essential element of fitness.

What about exercise? The Bible speaks of good stewardship; we honor our Creator by taking good care of his creation. And we can look to our Savior. He walked everywhere. Walking is great exercise, free, and available to almost everyone. Pilgrimage, a long and noble tradition in the Church, has the added benefit of directly combining prayer with physical effort.

Jesus makes clear that there are times to feast and times to fast. We take pleasure readily in the feast, but without a period of fasting, what is there to make the feast day special?

The Church long ago established every Friday as a fast day, and every Sunday as a feast day, corresponding to the day of Christ’s death and the day of His Resurrection. Even keeping this simple arrangement will help us focus more on what is and is not important about the food and drink choices we make. And as Catholics, we know that the Bread of Heaven itself, shared during Holy Communion is our ultimate nourishment.

The relationship of body to spirit is much more than incidental. Christians can honor the body through a program of health, fitness, and prayer, to increase physical and spiritual health, promote a deeper relationship with the Lord, and prepare our bodies and our souls for the life of the world to come. Our model is Christ himself. We should aim to make our earthly lives more like His: to pray, to fast, and to heal.
Losana Boyd   Prologue of   “Our Bodies, Our Souls.”  

CRV News
Catholic Family News Catholic Family News is a Traditionalist Catholic monthly publication of Catholic Family Ministries.

As Holy Week began and the Church was entering ever more deeply into the Passion of Our Lord, Divine Providence permitted an event that can serve as a deep allegory of our times.

Yesterday in Paris (Monday of Holy Week), the Cathedral of Notre Dame, icon of the Age of Faith and spiritual heart of France, erupted in a blazing inferno. Viewed from the air, the great cross shape of the cathedral could be seen ablaze.

In addition to its universally recognized towers and stained glass rose windows, Notre Dame also housed many priceless spiritual treasures, including the Crown of Thorns. St. Louis IX (1215-1270), King of France, brought the Crown back to France from the Crusades and commissioned the Sainte-Chapelle in the palace across the road from Notre Dame to house this incredible relic of the Passion. Since the French Revolution, the Crown of Thorns has been kept in the cathedral.

According to multiple news sources, a priest and several Parisian firefighters braved the flames to enter the building and rescue the Crown which Our Lord chose for His Kingship. According to reports, the linen tunic of St. Louis was also rescued. This relic of the Saint-King confounded scientists since linen should not have survived intact for so many centuries.

The events of this Holy Week can represent our times. As the Church of Christ is engulfed by the fire and smoke of the devil who tries with ever more vehemence to demolish the Church, for those with eyes to see through the haze of smoke, the Passion of Our Lord remains untouched, unassailed, offering us the grace to find our way out of this crisis.

Let us pray for the brave souls who rescued the Crown of Christ the King. May He Who reigns from the Cross reward their service by granting them the grace to remain in, or return to (as the individual case may be), the Faith of their fathers, the Faith that built this extraordinary monument to the worship of God and the continuation of His Sacrifice in the Mass.
Crown of Thorns Emerges from Notre Dame Inferno Brian McCall April 16, 2019

John Vennari
(Honestly I can’t find anything worth quoting from this guy, where he isn’t complaining about something in the church. But I like some of the titles of his articles. May he Rest in Peace.)

Now it is true we are called upon to be good stewards of God’s creation, and it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of this even from non-religious sources. I grew up on those “Don’t be a litterbug” TV ads, and perhaps the message kept my street a bit cleaner than it might have been otherwise.
 The Hermeneutics of Watermelons

Saint Pius X insisted that Sacred Music must be composed of three elements: it must be holy; it must be true art; and it must be universal.
Saint Pius X held up Gregorian Chant as the infallible measuring rod by which all church music must be gauged:
“... Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for Sacred Music, so that it is fully legitimate to lay down the following rule: the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes: and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple.
John Vennari Fusion Catholicism

Lifesite News Life, Family & Culture News
Often when you hear the pro-life/pro-abortion debate, what is disheartening is that even some of those who identify as pro-life make a little exception.  
You’ve heard it before … “I am pro-life except, except in cases of rape.”
I want everyone to realize ––especially the ‘excepters’–– that you’re talking about me, and everyone like me.  
Life is life, no exceptions.  Life is a gift, no exceptions.  Life is precious, no exceptions. 
How I was conceived, doesn’t define who I am.  What has formed me is the courageous choice of my birth mother and my adoptive parents:  They chose adoption, she chose life.  And every blessing I’ve had flows from this choice. 
Nathan concluded:
We are called to build the pro-life generation by living pro-life lives, and to witness to those around us so that they can see it and live it as well.  We must not leave a legacy of endings, but rather a legacy of beginnings and hope. 
 Man conceived in rape: You’re not pro-life if you’d make ‘exception’ to kill people like me Wed Jan 29, 2020 

Lifesite Personalities
Jonathon Van Maren From the front lines of the culture wars
And that sums it all up, does it not? The arrival of a newborn child is hope itself, perhaps even more so when the world around her seems to be darkening. I didn’t truly understand this until my daughter was born, but it is true. A child gives you a reason to fight harder for the things you love, to create a safe home for her to have a childhood, and to bear whatever burden you must to ensure that for a few precious years, she might live carefree. Yes, the world is often an ugly place. But that reality means that a little child creates a contrast so vivid than even those who do not like children cannot help but smile when they hear a baby’s giggle or see a huge, unfeigned smile of unrestrained joy.

That is why hundreds of thousands of people will march today: For those 3,000 little children that will be brutally killed today, and every day, until we end the killing and restore protection for every human being, regardless of age. That is why so many people will not stop staffing crisis pregnancy centers, and counseling outside of abortion clinics, and doing street outreach, and flooding social media with the pro-life message, and volunteering for candidates who promise to stand up for the pre-born. We have seen what abortion is, and what it has done to human beings just like us. We have seen their faces, and we cannot forget them.
Jonathon Van Maren Every newly created child should be a sign of hope to the world. That’s why pro-lifers march today (Jan 24, 2020)

 Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God
Yom Kippur the holiest day of worship given to the Jewish People of the Old Covenant by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This year, for me, who grew up in a Jewish home celebrating this most Holy Day (Yom Kippur = the Day of Atonement), it is deeply moving.

So why am I sending this out as an email to you, most of whom do not come from a Jewish background? Because, dear ones, it is your heritage as well. There is nothing Catholic that does not stem from the Jewish roots of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is what Our God, the only God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God Who sent His Son into the world, has given – to the Jewish People and to us, both Jew and Gentile, who would, by faith and baptism, be grafted and regrafted onto the Root which is Israel (Romans 11:11-24). And the only reason we can be grafted onto the Root is because that which Our Lord gave the Jewish People as a promise of redemption was fulfilled – after 1,500 years of the Mosaic Law – in the once-for-all sacrifice of the true Lamb of God, the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. (cf. Leviticus chapter 16, especially vv. 29-34; also 1 Corintians 5:7, 1 Peter 2:4, Hebrews 9:8-14).
Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God Mother of Israel’s Hope.org /October 11, 2019

We walk the streets in full habit.  When I was 20, I was a single Jewish woman who didn’t know Christ.  The shortening of nuns’ habits had an enormous impact on me, however.  I felt a deep and immediate loss.  Twenty-six years later, the same “holy shock” went through me when I was challenged to look into the claim of the Catholic Church that it was the one true Church founded by Christ.

My dream has long been to return the hemline of the religious habit to the floor and to the world, as the glorious sign to God that it is.

I recently spent time studying religious life in Ireland, where I was greeted by sisters in pantsuits and running suits.  You would have no clue if you saw them in the street that they were sisters.  It is deeply grievous to me.
I think many sisters abandoned the habit because they had the mistaken notion that religious had to be like the people to whom they ministered.  But the people do not need religious to be one of them, just as children don’t need their parents to be peers or friends, but to lead them to heaven. 

Other sisters got tired of the habit, because they thought it was hot, uncomfortable and too difficult to maintain.
I feel like a hanger for the habit.  I walk the streets and shopping malls wearing it.  People come up to me all the time asking, “Are you a nun?  I thought they were extinct!”  People ask me for prayer.  It brings hope to the world.

I love the habit.  I’d sleep in it if I could.  I suspect some of those sisters who abandoned it regret it.  They’d go back to it, but fear their community would ostracize them if they did.
Mother Miriam of the Lamb of God -Mother Miriam’s Heart for the Family and Church: Interview with Jim Graves July 6, 2015

John-Henry Westen editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com

Caesar Augustus decreed that all should go to the town of their births to be registered for a census! ‘Are you kidding me, are you serious? I’m just about to give birth here. Joseph made this beautiful crib and everything is all ready.

‘And where are we going to find a hotel at this late date?’ And when they didn’t, they had the cave – and were grateful for it.
In the midst of all that suffering there were what we might today call ‘random acts of kindness’ from the shepherds and kings.
But their challenges were only beginning. Remember, they had to abandon their home to flee to Egypt. So in all likelihood a beautiful cradle that the carpenter painstakingly made for his Son would have never been used by the Child.

Even in Egypt, the Holy Family would have heard of the suffering ‘they’ had caused with Herod’s decree of killing all the children under two in the hunt to kill baby Jesus.
How then did Joseph and Mary in the midst of all these sufferings experience joy?

It is simple faith. They believed, with a faith with no doubt whatsoever, that God loved them. They knew the truth that God loved them more than any other ever could. A constant, faithful, ardent and true love which never fails and is more present in hardship than any other time.  They relied on this love, they lived in this love, they lived for this love.
John-Henry Westen editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews.com Christmas is actually about losing friends and family  (Dec 24, 2013)

Remnant Newspaper A National Catholic Newspaper established 1967
Sadly, our society has become completely numb to the killing of the unborn child, which is now claiming the same number of lives as the entire population of England each year. Pope Pius XII was able to describe our modern attitude to sin in a radio address which he made on the 26th of October 1946 to the U.S. National Catechetical Congress in Boston, when he said: ‘The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin.’

These words were later quoted by John Paul II at the Synod of Bishops in October 1983.

We often talk of the lack of positive role models in society, and when it comes to role models for mothers, we can turn to Mary for inspiration. At Guadalupe in December 1531, Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego as an expectant mother, just about to bring the Son of God into the world. She was wearing a black maternity bow of the same type that the Aztec women wore to show that they were with child, called a ‘nahui ollin’.  Her womb was an inviolate sanctuary protecting Jesus, and so Mary is surely the perfect model of motherhood and also the protector of the unborn child.
This was affirmed by Pope John Paul II on his visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1999, when he entrusted the cause of life to her protection:

“Grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God.”
Paul De Marco God’s Take on Abortion: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you”   Sunday, (July 28, 2019) Remnant Newspaper

Remnant Personalities
Michael J. Matt EDITOR of the Remnant
This will be the fourth Christmas since my father passed away. I suppose everyone misses deceased family members most this time of year; I know I do. My father loved Christmas! I sometimes wonder, in fact, what impact his larger-than-life celebrations of the birth of Christ had on the faith of his nine children, each of whom continues to practice the old Faith to this day. He believed that, just as Advent— the “mini-Lent”—was to be kept well, with plenty of spiritual and corporal works of mercy, so too should Christmas be fêted with all the merrymaking and gusto a Catholic family can muster He knew that children are not born theologians who can grasp the intricacies of the great mysteries of Faith at an early age. The Faith needed to be lovingly spoon-fed to them, and so the childlike customs of Christmas were for him tailor-made to instill love for the Faith before children were old enough to even begin to understand it. 
Michael J. Matt EDITOR of the Remnant Waiting for the Christ Child  Daughters of Mary, Mother of Israel’s Hope Advent/Christmas Newsletter 2019

Christopher Ferrara
 If Human freedom is viewed under the aspect of the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty, here too Christendom was a haven of true liberty in comparison with political modernity and its attendant cultural and moral degeneracy. For it was none other than the philosophers, scientists, composers, musicians and artists of the Christian centuries who gave the Western world deep insights in to the nature of man, the university system, innumerable scientific discoveries, and indisputably the greatest works of art, architecture, music and literature the world has ever seen. Who in this Age of Liberty has remotely approached the philosophical depth of Saint Thomas, or the creative triumph of Michaelangelo, Dante, Palestrina, or the mystery-imbued splendor of the architects of Notre-Dame de Chartes?
-Liberty, the God that Failed.

Dr. John Rao.
(Below is the author’s words, greatly edited by the editor of this whole piece. I kept the ideas I liked, reformed some of them, and throw out some ideas into the fire.)

"Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep" (Rom. 13:11)

I resolve to remember that I myself am not the Catholic Church, that I may have my own misconceptions regarding what she teaches, and that I cannot exclude my own pet heresy from the judgment of the whole of the Catholic Tradition.

I resolve not to waste any more time fretting about what Second Vatican Council said or did not say.

I resolve to remember with pride the Holy Roman Empire, thereby calling to mind the historical truth that Christendom is meant to be an international community---not a society of arrogant, parochial, nationalist caves.

I resolve to remember that many Protestants do believe in Christ, are shocked by the wickedness of the contemporary world, should not be attacked as persons, and may often be allies in one battle or another.

I resolve to remember that it is not the rebirth and enhancement of the knowledge of antiquity and science that is the problem with the Renaissance and Modernity, but the way in which many of the supporters of the Renaissance and Modernity destroyed all sense of the supernatural, worshipping nature and seeking to gain power over it with a willful, irrational, and ultimately absurdly magical spirit.

I resolve to remember that belief in “American Exceptionalism” is an assault on the universal Catholic moral vision and the entire concept of international Catholic Christendom. I resolve to remember that “my country, right or wrong” is a principle condemned by Blessed Pius IX in his Syllabus of Errors.

I resolve to remember that there are indeed many confused people “out there” whom I must not treat offhandedly simply because they do not know of or have not yet accepted the whole Catholic position. I resolve to do my best to play Virgil and Beatrice to all those “lost in the woods”.

And, finally, I resolve to do two difficult things simultaneously: remember that we are living through a crisis that is unprecedented in the entire history of the Church, and that we must retain a spirit of joy and a sense of humor through this apocalyptic madness nonetheless. For our “drama” is, after all, part of the Divine Comedy, and Christ will win in the end.

Viva Cristo Re!

Dr. John Rao. A Traditionalist New Year’s Resolution: (The Remnant, December 31, 2015.)
To be “Speakers of the Greatest Words and Doers of the Greatest Deeds”

The Wanderer National Catholic Weekly Print Edition Founded Oct. 7, 1867 Our Second Century of Lay Apostolate

The midnight Mass of Christmas, when celebrated with all the “pomp and circumstance” that befits the Incarnation of the Son of God, can be a very powerful spiritual event in our lives, leaving in its wake impressions that can profoundly shape the course of our path in entering the new year to follow. Even those Catholics who sadly neglect their faith for most of the year feel instinctively drawn to it and show up in large numbers.

Since the 1960s, it has been the mindset of certain liturgists to denigrate and even denounce much of what constitutes popular devotion as unwelcome distractions or diversions from “pure liturgy.” There is in some of this rhetoric the stale scent of arrogant elitism, a mentality that scorns as “theologically uninformed” the heartfelt piety of the faithful.
Of course, for theologians and liturgists who want to overturn and uproot the traditional theology of the Church and the sacraments, longstanding popular devotions represent a “threat” to their agenda, because such devotions continue to teach and enshrine in the souls of the faithful a traditional understanding of who God is, the divinity of Christ, the Real Presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and the intercessional roles of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints.

Despite all this anti-devotional propaganda and nonsense, there has been a huge revival of popular devotions, thanks to the energetic promotion of these practices by Pope St. Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, as well as the re-evangelization of many American Catholics by the EWTN television network and faithful Catholic news outlets and publishers.

Popular devotions make visible and tangible what we witness and profess invisibly in the sacred liturgy. When understood in this way, popular devotions can be seen for what they truly are, valid forms of Catholic worship that amplify the meaning of the sacred liturgy and its influence upon our lives.

This latter point can best be illustrated by the special devotions that in many countries mark the days of Holy Week, and in particular Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Earlier we reflected upon the Christmas imagery of Christ as a baby borne beneath a baldachin of gold cloth. Here we turn to a ceremony in which the figure of Christ slain for our sins is carried beneath a canopy of black cloth. It may seem a bit out of place to be discussing a Good Friday rite at this time of the year; yet even now in January, Lent and Holy Week loom on the horizon, and indeed, the mystery of Good Friday is with us daily in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

In his description of the heavenly liturgy as recorded in the Book of Revelation, St. John speaks of seeing Christ as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6). The vivid funeral imagery of “the Lamb who was slain” in the Santo Enterro procession reminds us that the death of Christ wasn’t just a theological abstraction — that His sacrifice meant a death as real as our own. Devotional rites such as this help us to visualize the sacred mysteries that are veiled in the sacraments. And they communicate the eternal truths to us through our senses, inviting the human heart to respond to its Creator with love.
JAMES MONTI The Spiritual Power Of “Popular Devotions”   (January 23, 2020) The Wanderer

Other CRV Personalities

Pro-Life and/or Political CRV
What distinguishes Mother Angelica from just about any other Church leader is her humble origins. She is truly of the people; the product of a working class, dysfunctional immigrant family. That tortured biography would make her more sensitive to the struggles of the common man and allow her to give voice to their greatest hopes. Hers is a story of faith's power to transform and redeem, not only one life, but millions of lives. Mother Angelica loved Christ enough to offer Him everything, even her voice and her independence.

Next time that you happen across something moving or insightful, inspirational or challenging on EWTN's television or radio feed, do me a favor. Stop for a moment and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the brave and battle scarred woman who gave so much for that message-- the cloistered nun who built a media empire on faith. Her love is still reaching millions around the world; quietly, gently, powerfully.
Raymond Arroyo

Fr. Frank Pavone
The Eucharist is a sacrament of faith. The Consecrated Host looks no different after the consecration than before. It looks, smells, feels, and tastes like bread Christians are used to looking beyond appearances. The baby in the manger does not look like God; nor for that matter does the man on the cross. Yet by faith we know He is no mere man. The Bible does not have a particular glow setting it off from other books, nor does it levitate above the shelf. Yet by faith we know it is uniquely the Word of God. The Eucharist seems to be bread and wine, and yet by faith we say, "My Lord and My God!" as we kneel in adoration.-

The same dynamic of faith that enables us to see beyond appearances in these mysteries enables us to see beyond appearances in our neighbor. We can look at the persons around us, at the annoying person or the ugly person or the person who is unconscious in a hospital bed, and we can say, "Christ is there as well. There is my brother, my sister, made in the very image of God!" By the same dynamic we can look at the pre-born child and say, "There, too, is my brother, my sister, equal in dignity and just as worthy of protection as anyone else!" –

Some people will say the child in the womb, especially in the earliest stages, is too small to be the subject of Constitutional rights. Is the Sacred Host too small to be God, too unlike Him in appearance to be worshipped? The slightest particle of the Host is fully Christ. Eucharistic Faith is a powerful antidote to the dangerous notion that value depends on size.-

Fr. Peter West
Christians don't fear death, nor do they cause death. When the early Christians embraced the faith, they rejected abortion and infanticide that were common at that time. The Second Vatican Council called abortion and euthanasia infamies that poison human society. It said they do more harm to those who practice them than to those who suffer the injury. Sin always hurts the sinner more than anyone. Judas and Pontius Pilate did more to harm themselves than they did to hurt Jesus.
Self-Sacrifice in the Defense of Life- February 20, 2008

 All of us are called by Christ to serve, to spread His Gospel of mercy and life. What kind of disciples will we be? Will we be like the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. John the Apostle and St. Mary Magdalene who stood faithfully at the foot of the Cross or will we be like Peter who denied Jesus, Judas who betrayed him, Pontius Pilate who condemned an innocent man or the crowd who called out for Barabbas?-

Laura Ingraham

 I think we need to go into hostile environments because that's the only way we're going to be able to bust the myths out there that continue to circulate unchallenged in different professions and different walks of life. I think it's imperative that Catholics not shy away from the media, from universities, from teaching. It's critical. If we retreat and retreat among ourselves, I don't think that's what the Scriptures say we should do and it's not going to be helpful for the future of the Church. I think we need to evangelize and spread the good news.

in How Radio Star Talked Her Way Into the Church Judy Roberts NCatReg

E. Michael Jones, “The Blessed Mother, bearer of the Logos Incarnate, had brought the logos to the warring, disillusioned, and defeated tribes of Mexico and had created out of this warring diversity one nation with a Messianic mission. Mexico was the "cosmic race." Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as a mestiza, the mixture of European and Native American races. She was the cosmic symbol of the race mixing which the English had feared since the moment they had set foot on the soil of the New World. She was the symbol of Mexican identity. She was the symbol of Catholic race-mixing and the antithesis of England's (and later) America's and (still later) Germany's short-lived ideology of racial superiority.”
E. Michael Jones, Ethnos Needs Logos: Why I Spent Three Days in Guadalajara Trying to Persuade David Duke to Become a Catholic (2015)

Abby Johnson
 “My God is in the business of miracles. And my God does not want anyone to suffer in hell. He wants all of his children to come to him—yes, even those of us “monsters” that are in or have been in the abortion industry. Hate comes from hell. Mercy comes from Christ. When we have hate in our hearts, our spirits are damaged. Be careful with your words. Not only are you a living witness of Christ and his truth, but you could put your own soul at risk. “Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15). When we hate, we are no better than those who kill.”
Abby Johnson― The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories (2016) Ignatius Press

Dr. Janet Smith
Conception is an astonishing thing for it involves a creative act by God. A sperm does not have an immortal soul. And an egg does not have an immortal soul. But human beings do. So where did we get that immortal soul? We didn't get it from the sperm. We didn't get it from the egg. Only God can create a human soul. And when God creates a new human soul he does what he did at the beginning of the universe. He brings into existence something that did not exist before. He makes something out of nothing.
Dr. Janet Smith Contraception: Why Not? Catholic Education Resource Center

There is no storeroom of preexisting souls. It is very important to realize that God created your soul and the soul of every other human being individually. He willed you into existence. And he wants you to exist for eternity. He entrusts babies to spouses. He is saying: "This soul belongs to me. I want this immortal soul to be part of the loving community that I am setting up for an eternity. And I'm giving this baby to you to do the best that you can to raise up to be a citizen of the heavenly kingdom. Certainly this person has free will and I don't expect you to make any guarantees. But I want you to do the best that you can to return this baby to me."
Dr. Janet Smith Contraception: Why Not? Catholic Education Resource Center

When spouses are engaging in an act of sexual intercourse during the fertile time of the month, they are sending an invitation to God to create a new human soul. When sperm meets egg he answers that invitation. He answers that invitation if it's made through rape or if it's made through in vitro fertilization. He honors the rules that he has set up. He doesn't want babies conceived through rape. He doesn't want them conceived through in vitro fertilization. But when sperm meets egg, he says, "I've set up these laws; I'm going to respect them. But what I want is human beings to be responsible. They should be sending me an invitation only when they are prepared to accept the gift of a child."
Dr. Janet Smith Contraception: Why Not? Catholic Education Resource Center

Robert Spencer
Here’s why the life of Muhammad [and Jesus] matters: Contrary to what many secularists would have us believe, religions are not entirely determined (or distorted) by the faithful over time. The lives and words of the founders remain central, no matter how long ago they lived. The idea that believers shape religion is derived, instead, from the fashionable 1960s philosophy of deconstructionism, which teaches that written words have no meaning other than that given to them by the reader. Equally important, it follows that if the reader alone finds meaning, there can be no truth (and certainly no religious truth); one person’s meaning is equal to another’s. Ultimately, according to deconstructionism, we all create our own set of “truths,” none better, or worse than any other.

Yet for the religious man or woman on the streets of Chicago, Rome, Jerusalem, Damascus, Calcutta, and Bangkok, the words of Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Krishna, and Buddha mean something far greater than any individual’s rendering of them. And even to the less-than-devout reader, the words of these great religious leaders are clearly not equal in their meaning.”

Milo Yiannopoulos
Whatever my own mother’s shortcomings, I learned that motherhood is the greatest vocation, and one that God banned all men from. That’s why I think it’s sad that today’s feminists, as Chesterton observed, despise motherhood and all the other chief feminine characteristics. The idea that men and women shouldn’t be different — shouldn’t have different interests, strengths, and ways of relating to Creation — is insane, and it’s empirical fact that trying to deny these differences makes all of us less happy.[…] -Passion

“Be twice as funny as you are outrageous, because no one can resist the truth wrapped in a good joke.”
― Dangerous

Respected CRV

Jesus was a Jew. This fact may escape the casual reader of the New Testament, but it is crucial to understanding Jesus and the book written about him—the Bible. Unhappily, in 21st century America we are far removed from the land of Israel and the ancient culture of Jesus and his Jewish ancestors.
Let me ask you a few questions. Were you born and raised in Israel? Did you study the Torah with the rabbis from an early age? Have you traversed the rocky hills and dusty paths to celebrate the mandatory feasts in Jerusalem? Do you speak Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic? I havn’t found anyone in my Catholic parish who has these credentials.
Without this background, we are at a great disadvantage when studying the Bible and its central character.
When we open the pages of our English Bible, we find a Jewish book! The setting revolves around Israel and the worship of Yahweh.
With one exception, the more than forty biblical writers were all Jews, and the exception was most likely a Jewish proselyte. (Do you know who the only non-Jewish author in the Bible is? I’ll give you a few hints: he was a physician, one of St. Paul’s co-workers, and he wrote the first history of the Church.)  
The point is, how can we understand the Bible and the teaching surrounding our Lord Jesus and salvation without understanding his people, his culture, and his Jewish identity? Knowing That
by Steve Ray on December 28, 2018


So, God has “written” two poems: the physical world and the Church.  God is a poet, He is an artist, and his two great works of art reveal much about Him as an artist. You can learn a lot from looking at the paintings of an artist or by reading the pages of a poet.  Just as any poet can be understood by reading his work, so God can be understood to some degree by reading his poetry.
Go out at night and look at the sky –  ponder the masterpiece of God’s creation. Look at the symmetry and beauty of a flower, the power and creatures of the oceans, the majesty of mountains and thunderstorms. Then look at the Church around the world as she redeems sinners. Think of the billions of people that have accepted her embrace and been born into a heavenly family, a culture of love and blessings. Two marvelous, breath-taking creations.
Any you? You are part of God’s two creations, you are written into his poetry and painted on his canvas.  He treasures you.  You are not a random mass of molecules that happened to appear on lonely planet earth spinning meaninglessly around the sun. No, you are part of God’s glorious poetry that angels admire and God cherishes. Be proud, be thankful!  Live worthy of your place in God’s heart. Crap, Castration & Two Creations – Colorful New Testament Wording
by Steve Ray on October 27, 2018
Steve Ray Crap, Castration & Two Creations (May 28, 2010) catholicconvert.com

Terry Barber
I think most people associate evangelization with Fundamentalist Christians and pseudo-Christian groups such as the Jehovah’s witness. But according to the teaching of Vatican II, it is the main duty of Catholic men and women to “bear witness to Christ” in our lives and in our works. In our home, on the job, in our social group or professional circle, we must show forth “the new man created according to God in justice and true holiness”. The Gospel of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed by what we say and do. This is evangelization.
The Key to sharing your faith is living always in the presence of God. In the first place this means living a sacramental life of frequent Communion and regular confession. You must also have an active prayer life. Being aware of God’ presence in your life means you will always be asking, “Lord what do YOU want me to do in this situation?” And I must tell you that living in the presence of god is essential in order to practice virtue and to keep away from sin. The Catholic Church needs laypeople who want to live in the presence of God, who know the truths of the Faith, and who are willing and able to share them with others.
Terry Barber How to Share Your Faith With Anyone  (2013)

What makes the teachings of the Catholic Church so suitable to good living are its abiding principles: natural law, natural rights, human dignity, subsidiarity, as well as its overarching focus on the other. These are the elements that make Catholicism special. The golden rule teaches that we should treat others the way we want others to treat us. This is true, but it is a platitude. Catholicism provides the meat on the bones it offers a more exacting guide to the attainment of the good society.
-Bill Donohue Catholic League    News and defending the Catholic Church.

Philip F. Lawler
In his World Day of Peace message, Pope Benedict made another important point about the state of religious freedom around the world. “At present,” he observed, “Christians are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith.” The reality that Christians bear the brunt of persecution seems improbable to those of us living in the West, in countries where liberal secularists are accustomed to depicting Christians as the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

Sometimes the persecution of Christians is accomplished by governments, as in Saudi Arabia or China, where police routinely raid illegal church meetings. Sometimes the violence is done by extremist groups that the government cannot or will not control, as in Pakistan or Iraq. Sometimes the distinction between official persecution and unchecked gang violence is blurred, as in India, where police stand by while Hindu mobs attack churches. But in all these cases, government policies are to blame: for carrying out, or encouraging, or winking at, or failing to stop the persecution.
The persecution will surely continue, if the governments of the Western world do not exert more diplomatic pressure. And our governments’ policies are not likely to change unless we, the Christians of the West, demand it.
Philip F. Lawler -Time to Take Religious Freedom Seriously (April 28, 2011)

Aiden Nichols, OP
There is a difference between the ordinary person who may discuss these things occasionally over a pint of beer at the local pub, or worry about them for a while before dropping off to sleep, and the person who makes a serious lifelong commitment to struggling with them and turns that commitment into a part of his or her very self-definition. For one cannot say, I’ve finished theology; now I’ll move on to another subject. There is a sense in which one might say something similar of Akkadian grammar or the family tree of the Hapsburg dynasty, but one cannot reasonably assert it of exploration into God’s revelation, which is, by definition infinite in its implications for human understanding. To be a theological student in the full sense of those words cannot be a temporary state or a preamble to something else, such as the ministerial priesthood or an all-round education. Rather, it is a solemn engagement to developing over a lifetime the gift of Christian wonder or curiosity, which is the specifically theological mode of faith. As theologians, then, we commit ourselves to the lifelong study and reflection which the satisfaction of such curiosity will need. Our faith is from now on, in St. Anselm’s words, fides quaerens intellectum, “a faith that quests for understanding.”
Aiden Nichols, OP  The Shape of Catholic Theology (1991), pp. 18-19.

Barbara Nicolosi
If your child has talent — real, artistic talent — then the world desperately needs them and they’ve been given to this time. That vocation is such a special gift that if they run from it, it will destroy them. So you can’t take that kid and tell them be safe, to be a DRE, or a nurse, because you’ll just lose them in another way.  Maybe they won’t stop going to church, but they will lose their joy in life.
Barbara Nicolosi  Christians in Hollywood: the crucial role of parents and the Church


Jesse Romero Catholic Author • Radio Host • Evangelist
God has a 'direct will' - that is when he directly causes something to happen by his own designs, like "the flood at the time of Noah", "parting the Red Sea for Moses", and "creating a soul to infuse a preformed human being at conception." God has a 'permissive will.' That is why God allows people to do dumb things and kill themselves or end their life early as a result of their own choices. God knows exactly what their going to do even before they do it, but he lets them follow their own free will. 


Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.
The Church’s liturgical year is both the safeguard and the promoter of Jesus’ primacy.  The climax of the Church’s liturgical year is the Feast of Christ the King. But then it begins again with Advent, the preparation for the Solemnity of the Nativity, the birth of Jesus, the incarnate Father’s Son.

Christmas is founded upon an event, a liturgical celebration, that took place nine months earlier on March 25, the Annunciation.  On that feast, the Church joyfully recalls the coming of the archangel Gabriel to Mary.  He is sent by the Father to announce to her that by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit she will conceive a son, whom she is to name Jesus – YHWH-Saves.  Gabriel informs Mary that her son will inherit the everlasting kingdom of David and will be called the Son of God.
In these conjoined events, we celebrate the singular significance of Jesus.  Yes, Jesus is a man conceived and born of a woman. But conceived in Mary’s womb by the power of the Holy Spirit.  No other event in the history of the world comes close to this marvelous truth, and, therefore, no other human being, past or future, can be greater than Jesus, the eternal Son of the living God.
This is his divine identity, and it is unique to him.  No other religion lays claim to such a truth, and no founder of any other religion claims to have God as his very own divine Father.

The best Mohammed can do, for example, is to profess that he is the greatest prophet – a  far cry from the truth that Jesus is the Son, the very Word, of his heavenly Father.

Not surprisingly, then, the Church marks the dawn of the new calendar year, January 1, by celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, for with the birth of her son the dawn of a new and eternal life appears.  Mary, in herself, is the proclamation and the defender of the mystery of the Incarnation.  To honor Mary as the Mother of God is to honor her human son as the Father’s divine Son.
Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. The Primacy of Jesus and the Church’s Liturgical Year Sunday, (December 8, 2019)

Rogue CRV

aka Catholic (Louie Verrecchio)
Let that sink in deeply. There’s something very thrilling about this awareness. The Lord Himself, He who knitted us together in our mother’s womb and can number the hairs on our head, has recruited us to serve as warriors for Christ the King at this time of battle. He wills that we should emerge victorious, even if only in eternity. Who, therefore, can be against us?
How blessed are we!

Toronto Catholic Witness What doth it profit a man to attend Latin Masses, but not live like the Good Samaritan?
Whatever Francis may or may not have done can in no way be compared to iniquity of the High Priest Caiaphas, who orchestrated the greatest crime in human history, the crime of Deicide, who committed the gravest in of Blasphemy denying the Divinity of Our Lord. Did Jesus depose Caiaphas? No, He allowed Himself to condemned by the "Pope" of the Jewish Church, to be Crucified in obedience to His Father. When on the Cross did He succumb to the jeers of the Jews to come down from the Cross? No, He remained faithful even when it was most painful to do so.

We too must imitate Christ. Anything less is to re-crucify Him ourselves.

Father forgive them for they know not what they do, He prayed.

Can we do any less?

When are we going to start praying for the Pope, instead of cursing him? What doth it profit a man to attend Latin Masses, but not live like the Good Samaritan?
-Part II: Pope Francis ~ Pope or Antipope? Is Pope Francis a heretic, schismatic?

Vox Cantoris (David Anthony Domet)
If the oldest known music for the Gloria is simply "too hard" for our modern, educated selves what on earth did they before the 900's since Guido Aretinus de Arezzo was born in 995. When this monk first devised a method of writing down music on lines and spaces, this Gloria, the first written down by him was already being sung!

But you, dear reader, dear Canadian Catholic are too dumbed down to sing something which was written so long ago we only know that it is 1,100 years old because that is when quill was put to parchment.

You dear reader, dear Canadian Catholic are just too, too dumb and will find it much, much "too haaaaarrrrrd" to sing something sung by your Catholic ancestors so long ago that the Chinese had not yet invented gun powder and movable type.- Eleven hundred year old Gloria is "too hard" for you! –

On the last Sunday of Advent, the first word of the Introit or Entrance Antiphon in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms is "Rorate." Many of you are already familiar with the Advent Prose, Rorate Caeli from Mass (if it even sung) or from the new music player in the background. The prose is four verses and is not the same as the Introit, though they both take up the text in Latin, "Drop down ye heavens from above and let the sky rain down the Just One" -Another Rorate

Unam Sanctam Catholicam
There is tremendous variety among traditional Catholics.
Some like the Divine Mercy Devotion, others do not.
Some believe in the Great King and Era of Peace, others don't.
Some are Distributists, others ardent Capitalists.
Some attend the EF Mass exclusively while others (like myself) go to the EF sometimes and the Novus Ordo sometimes.
Some trads are monarchists, others are not.
Some traditionalists are deep into the culture of smoking tobacco and drinking fine wines and beers, a kind of 'classy Catholicism', while others couldn't care a lick for smoking or drinking.
Some are willing to openly criticize a sitting pontiff, others believe this crosses the line.
 Some argue women should never wear pants, others aren't so strict on this.
Some pray in Latin, some don't.
Some attend SSPX Masses, others want nothing to do with the Society.
Some are Thomists, some Augustinians or followers of other theological traditions.
Some think the failed Consecration of Russia is the crux and center of all the modern Church's problems, others see this only as a small part of a larger picture.
You get the point. .- Boniface

 Robert Sungenis, Ph.D
You see, salvation is not a matter of pomp and circumstance, for it can come to a little baby, or to a 105 year old great-grandmother, neither of whom can walk or talk very well. God uses the very things the world takes for granted, like water, to show the “wise” that they must humble themselves before God to receive salvation.
- Jesus Teaches Us How to  Interpret the Bible – Catholic Style