Pope Benedict lived up to his title of pontifex, or bridge-builder, when he allowed the wider use of the Tridentine rite – more properly the Extraordinary Form of the Mass – in the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum of 2007. There has been 13 years for this concession to advance its stated aim: to foster reconciliation

The US Bishops’ Conference is to issue a teaching document “on the beauty and power of the Eucharist”.  It is overdue. In 2019, a Pew survey suggested that barely a third of US Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This is a scandal, evidence of a failure of grassroots catechisis,

Rumours have been circulating that Pope Francis is planning some kind of restriction on the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (EF), the “Traditional Mass”. This form of the liturgy clearly still has opponents in the Church. Its supporters regard it as, potentially, being a key driver of the Church’s revival, because of the counter-cultural zeal

This opinion piece will not be tactfully phrased. Many essays in the past few days have tried to balance both positive and negative views of Traditionis Custodes, the new motu proprio issued by Pope Francis concerning the traditional Latin Mass. This article reflects my experience from the trenches. (I was my diocese’s vicar for clergy

Pope Francis has placed very significant restrictions on the saying of the old Mass, abrogating the much more permissive or generous policy of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI. It is the pope’s call to make. I hope people will accept it or work within proper channels to modify the restrictions. Pope Francis himself could reverse

Reviewing a book called Inquisition: The Reign of Fear by Toby Green, Quentin de la Bedoyere warns against apologetic attempts to rationalize the Spanish Inquisition. He was the science editor of the Catholic Herald, and the son of Michael, who edited the newspaper from 1934 to 1962. The review was titled “Inquisition apologists are missing

Though it has just been rejected by his successor, Benedict XVI’s motu propio Summorum Pontificum made many people happy when he issued it in 2007. Liturgical scholar Alcuin Reid celebrated the statement as a needed application of the real intentions of the Second Vatican Council. He had reason to say this. A monk of the

1) In his motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis says St. John Paul II’s indults were only meant to heal the breach with Archbishop Lefebvre, not to have the traditional latin Mass as a continuing reality in the Church (my paraphrase). He quotes Pope Benedict XVI on “allowing” the TLM, which seems to buttress the point

Forty-some years ago, I sat in on meetings of the presumptuously-named Philosophers Club, which met in the home of its San Diego founder, a young man who would go on to become the leader of the American Humanist Association. Members of the club prided themselves on their rationality. They eschewed religion. Most were atheists, others

Yes, someone said that -- not a complete crank, either -- in an article for a third-tier conserative American publication that was essentially a rant, says David Mills, who took up his pen mainly because the author of the screed annoyed him. "The article's a rant by an ideologically marginal writer, writing in a marginal publication," but the author of the piece "does represent a large section of American conservatism, who think as he does."

The Scottish accountant, novelist, and Catholic convert, Bruce Marshall escaped Paris just two days before the Germans invaded, served in the army through the war, and then returned to France when the war ended. Perhaps best known now for Father Malachy’s Miracle and The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith, he also wrote spy stories

A friend had taken a perilous road trip, to save a family in danger of being killed. My friend’s a pro-life activist, who stands outside abortion clinics and talks to people in a friendly way. If expectant mothers going into the clinic are willing, she befriends them, and she gets them what they need so