How to Meditate at the TLM.
A few years ago, I had spliced in scenes of the Passion of the Christ into a video on Vimeo of my own low Mass with the words I had thought came from St. Francis De Sales. However, a priest showed me the meditations did not come from De Sales. I believe he said the meditation preceded him in the medieval Catholic devotional life. Either way, you can use these words to meditate at each part of the Traditional Latin Mass: When the priest goes to the foot of the Altar: Jesus enters the garden. O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, Who wast pleased voluntarily to endure [...]
Schism: The Pressure-Release Valve to Heresy.
This is a long one, but I think it's worth the read. Before getting into the recent news in the Vatican, we need to go through a few definitions. Apostasy is the denial of Christ by a person who once claimed to be Christian. Heresy is the denial of one or several dogmas of the Catholic Church. Schism is to break ties with the Pope in Rome and/or the Holy See. However, the last definition requires some qualification. A Catholic cannot be called "a schismatic" for failure to join his heart and mind to a heretic. A Christian cannot be called "a schismatic" for failure to unite to a heretic. [...]
The Congressman and the Holy Mass Shooting.
Was this a hate-crime against Christians or not? Is there a connection to abortion in it all? Last year at a Catholic conference in Brazil, I met a Catholic Pakistani man named Joseph. He told me about his friend named Shagufta who was slated to be hung by the Muslim government in Pakistan simply for being a Christian. I immediately asked my friend, Congressman "Captain" Clay Higgins for help. (Congressman Higgins and I have been friends since 2016.) The Congressman quickly wrote this letter to President Biden, asking the US government to put pressure on Pakistan to stop killing Christians, starting with the freedom of Shagufta. Unfortunately, she is still [...]
Why Did Christ Establish His Church in Rome?
Why did Christ send two of His greatest Apostles to Rome? The classic answer is still the best answer: Christ chose to conquer the powerful Roman empire with the weakness of the cross of his many Roman martyrs, including Saint Peter and Saint Paul. In addition, the Greek language and the Roman roads united the Mediterranean world for a singular salvific Gospel to be preached to all peoples. While that old and standard answer is still simply the best in my opinion, I'm going to propose a secondary reason as to why the most prolific Church was placed in Rome: The Roman Empire conquered physically the way the Roman Church [...]
The Majesty of God or Ecumenism?
And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God, Who was seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”—Apocalypse 19:4. I have spent a lot of time around the Mediterranean the last two years in places like Greece, Egypt and Israel. This was primarily a reconnaissance mission to discover what it will take to get Muslims to become Christian, and to find what it will take to get Eastern Christians to become Catholic. The outcome of my travels, research and experiences was this: They will only become Catholic when we take our own patrimony seriously and stop denying our own Divine Revelation. Today's article is going [...]
St. Mariam of Palestine.
She is the only saint I have ever heard of with so many names. Perhaps it's because she was a Greek-Catholic who grew up in Arabic-speaking Palestine in the 19th century, almost got married-off in Egypt and later joined a French Carmel but took her final vows in India. This little Palestinian from the 19th century eventually got canonized and is now known as St. Mariam Baouardy and St. Mariam of Jesus Crucified (her religious name) and The Lily of Palestine (her devotional name.) As you probably know by now, I spent July 2025 living with Eastern Catholics in the Old City Jerusalem. (See the above picture of my balcony [...]
Why the “Bifurcated-Papacy” Still Matters.
This summer, Monsignor Nicola Bux claimed that Pope Benedict XVI wrote him about public accusations that he had bifurcated the papacy before he died. Among other things, the late Pontiff allegedly wrote the Italian priest in 2014: "To suggest that I resigned only from the exercise of the ministry and not from the munus is contrary to clear dogmatic and canonical doctrine. If some journalists speak of a 'creeping schism', they do not deserve any attention." Even if Pope Benedict XVI had written that (something I doubt) the late Pontiff is still the one to blame for that rumor that there was a "contemplative Pope" and an "active Pope" over [...]
Conquering Death Upon the Burial Site of Adam.
I didn't publicize this much on social media, but I took July 2025 as a retreat in the Holy City of Jerusalem. I knew that (due to the war) there wouldn't be many tourists there. And I was right. I lived in the Old City with some Eastern Catholics, only about 250 meters from the Church of the Resurrection (aka the Church of the Anastasis, aka the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.) The above picture is the stunning view from my balcony at night. From that balcony I could see everything from the Anastasis to the Mount of Olives. The grey dome in the middle of the picture is the [...]
Cardinal Newman and “the Development of Doctrine.”
John Henry Cardinal Newman was a 19th century British convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism. In full transparency, I should be clear that today I am not going to assess his controversial views of the inerrancy of Scripture or evolution. Also, the topic of whether Newman be a good candidate for a future valid canonization is better tackled by the WM Review here. Today, I am only going to assess his teaching on the "Development of Doctrine" and what that means for Catholics in the 21st century. As a Jesuit-educated 20 year old in the late 1990s, I had been told by many in my life at that point that all [...]
What If an Apostle Had Denied the Crucifixion?
Many traditional priests tell lay people to mind their own sins, not the Church crisis. Similarly, many anonymous traditional accounts online who stood against the last Vatican regime now promote the current one. The overlap between the two groups of trads is this: Don't pay attention to the new Church crisis. Yet both groups still (thankfully!) espouse the analogy that as Christ the Bridegroom had to go to Calvary, so also must the Catholic Church (as Christ's bride) go through her final Passion. However, that puts us in a very awkward situation, because the same people who tell us the crisis ended following the 2025 Conclave can point to no [...]