Leo XII: the Forgotten Post-Revolution Pope
Above: portrait of Annibale della Genga, Leo XII by Charles Picqué (1828). Two centuries ago, on September 28, 1823, a “zealous” Pope was elected: Leo XII, whose original name was Annibale della Genga. François-René de Chateaubriand, French author and diplomat, said of him in his letter dated January 3, 1829: I spent an hour yesterday […]
The Marxists Feared Her
I remember that January when I got the news. I had just given the Hildebrands’ work to my daughter who was completing a senior project on Aesthetics. I gave her Dr. Alice’s The Privilege of Being a Woman and she was so moved that she started buying copies to give to her friends. And then […]
From Liberal Democracy to Global Totalitarianism
An excessive desire for liberty at the expense of everything else is what undermines democracy and leads to the demand for tyranny. —Plato In a 2022 lecture at Notre Dame, Alasdair MacIntyre argued that the claims and conceptions of universal and inalienable human dignity as reflected in documents such as the 1948 United Nations’ […]
The 1978 Investigation into Vatican Freemasonry, pt. II
Above: Albino Luciani, John Paul I. Read part I here. Some light at the end of the tunnel shone with the more positive reception of Archbishop Gagnon’s evidence, with the next Pontiff, John Paul I. The new Holy Father did not waste time and did not put off Gagnon’s request to present his report. Unlike […]
17th Sunday after Pentecost: This is where the real darkness happens.
The Lesson or Epistle for Mass on the 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Vetus Ordo is from Ephesians 4:1-6. [Brethren:] I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in […]
Why the Synod on Synodality is Doomed
Image credit: Michael Matt. A very shrewd observer once remarked that all political power is mechanical. He meant that all political success is the result of human effort, usually strenuous effort, and not something one could count on to occur naturally, like the tides. Political power is only gained or wielded through human effort. What […]
The 1978 Investigation into Vatican Freemasonry: Discovering the Smoke of Satan
In its foreword, Murder in the 33rd Degree by Father Charles Murr, stipulates that since 1738 with Pope Clement XII’s encyclical, Eminenti Specula, the church’s condemnation of Freemasonry had remained the same, best expressed in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, Canon 2335: “Those giving their name to masonic sects or other associations of this […]
Strickland: “I Cannot Resign” But…
In a new statement from Bishop Strickland, His Excellency says the following: I have said publicly that I cannot resign as Bishop of Tyler because that would be me abandoning the flock that I was given charge of by Pope Benedict XVI. I have also said that I will respect the authority of Pope Francis […]
Bestselling Picture Book Philosophy: Trite or Uplifting?
Above: Pen and watercolour of a Charlie Mackesy sketch by Daran Tate I was sitting in a blue armchair, reading under the yellow light of a standing lamp one evening. A difficult experience and change of pace in life was just past me; with an international move behind me and new friends, new work, new […]
Bishop Athanasius Schneider on the Validity of Pope Francis
There is no authority to declare or consider an elected and generally accepted Pope as an invalid Pope. The constant practice of the Church makes it evident that even in the case of an invalid election this invalid election will be de facto healed through the general acceptance of the new elected by the overwhelming […]