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Letter from a Catholic Mother About the TLM Which clergy will defend real Catholicism as the stakes increase? Below is a letter I received from a mother of a large family. She and her husband gave me permission to publish it. I am keeping them anonymous, as well as their bishop and diocese.The TLM community in my diocese is suffering greatly. We are still mourning the loss of our Latin Mass; that school of holiness, valor, beauty, and love. It was our identity; the light of our families and the means of constant conversion in which we were all deeply...

[Catholic Caucus] Florida AG, Catholic conference spar over vaccine exemptions The Catholic conference says the state cannot require it to offer religious exemptions to vaccines.The state of Florida and the bishops of Florida are embroiled in a heated debate over vaccine policies in the state’s Catholic schools.The state government is expanding religious exemptions to required childhood vaccines, and the attorney general has demanded that Florida’s Catholic schools comply in order to maintain eligibility for state scholarships and vouchers.But the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops says the state is violating its freedom of religion by attempting to dictate its application of...

Florida’s Catholic AG pushes back on archbishop for rejecting vaccine exemptions ‘Should Muslim schools teaching sharia law in violation of Florida law nevertheless get state funding? I don’t think so,’ Florida AG James Uthmeier said. Florida’s attorney general has met the archbishop of Miami’s refusal to provide vaccine religious exemptions at diocesan Catholic schools with sharp criticism.Early this month, Florida AG James Uthmeier warned the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops that Catholic schools may be disqualified from state-funded scholarships and vouchers due to their denial of vaccine religious exemptions. On Monday, Archbishop Thomas Wenski ironically insisted that Uthmeier’s challenge to...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo authorizes bishops to remove superiors of autonomous monasteriesCatholic podcaster Ryan Grant called the new canon law rule ‘one the most revolutionary changes in the history of the Church.’Pope Leo XIV on Thursday issued a new regulation allowing a diocesan bishop to dismiss the major superior of an autonomous monastery.The Vatican rescript, signed by Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, grants the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life “the authority to authorize the competent diocesan Bishop to issue the decree of dismissal,” according to the document Rescriptum ex Audientia Sanctissimi.Catholic podcaster Ryan...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV Authorises Bishops to Dismiss Monastic SuperiorsIn a Rescriptum ex Audientia Sanctissimi approved on March 25 and published on May 28, Leo XIV introduced a new procedural faculty concerning the governance of religious institutes and monasteries.The measure grants the Vatican Congregation for Religious the authority to permit a diocesan bishop to dismiss the superior of a monastery under canon 699 §2 of the Code of Canon Law.The Dicastery is led by Sister Simona Brambilla, Prefect, and Sister Tiziana Merletti, Secretary.The rescript is signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State. It also notes that Pope Francis had...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Schneider asks Pope Leo XIV for authoritative document to protect Latin MassBishop Athanasius Schneider suggested Pope Leo pen an apostolic constitution to ensure long-term legal stability for the Traditional Latin Mass and establish liturgical peace.Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said he proposed the promulgation of an apostolic constitution to regulate the coexistence of the traditional Latin Mass and the post-conciliar Roman rite to Pope Leo XIV.On January 14, Schneider, auxiliary bishop of Astana in Kazakhstan, stated in an interview published by the Cofraternity of Our Lady of Fatima that he personally suggested to Pope Leo the issuance of...

[Catholic Caucus] “If I Were the Bishop”The following op-ed, by guest writer Mark Rose, is in the style of Paul Harvey’s “If I were the Devil.”If I were the Bishop—if I were the successor to the Apostles, charged with the care of souls in the United States—I’d want to make the Church irrelevant. I wouldn’t do it with persecution; that only makes the faithful stronger. I’d do it with “modernization.”I’d begin by whispering that the old ways are dead. I’d convince you that we need to “update” the Church, not to convert the world, but to be liked by it....

[Catholic Caucus] No Room at the Inn: A Christmas Music Video for the Latin MassA Tribute to Traditional Catholics in Charlotte, Tennessee, and DetroitNo Room at the Inn is a simple folk ballad written as a protest and a prayer in the wake of the quiet extinguishing of the Traditional Latin Mass across large swaths of the United States. It is for Catholics who have watched parish doors close, altar rails removed, and ancient worship pushed to the margins under the language of “unity,” “implementation,” and “pastoral care.”The title is not metaphorical flourish. It is descriptive. The Latin Mass has...

Suppressing the Holy Mass Has Never Worked… And It Won’t NowWhat if a European country had suppressed the Catholic Church and Her Holy Mass relentlessly, non-stop for 300 years—a time period longer than the United States has even been in existence? Generation after generation of ruthless state-run Catholic suppression. How could that nation possibly remain Catholic? Well, just ask the Irish! The truth is, in spite of millions of Catholics over the centuries losing their freedoms, their earthly possessions—and in the end, their very lives—at the hands of suppressors, this unholy activity has never worked particularly well against the Church...

[Catholic Caucus] The Demented War on Altar Rails Moves North -- to PennsylvaniaAfter Charlotte, the war on Altar Rails moves north.This past June, Rorate reported on a Pennsylvania parish reeling from a persecution of traditional pastors. The year has not even ended, and the parish (Mary, Queen of Saints, in Aliquippa), under new administration -- now its Novus Ordo will have the use of altar rails banned. You may kneel if you want to (they can't abolish the general law), but without any support. It's at the newest bulletin online for December 14, page 4.

[Catholic Caucus] Tennessee bishop limits celebration of Latin Mass to small chapel once a monthAfter banning the Latin Mass at all parishes in the Diocese of Knoxville, Bishop Mark Beckman will now allow a monthly TLM in a retreat center chapel, which is likely too small to accommodate the faithful. Featured ImageThe Diocese of Knoxville under Bishop Mark Beckman will limit the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) to just one chapel at a retreat center once a month after previously announcing the suppression of all parish TLMs in the diocese, the bishop announced in a letter on Tuesday.In...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Müller criticizes bishops banning Latin Mass, says they should focus on ‘salvation of souls’Cardinal Müller said it is ‘very problematic’ for bishops to crack down on the traditional Mass and that they are ‘not interested first in the salvation of the people.’ Cardinal Gerhard Müller, during a Q&A session at the 2025 Call to Holiness Conference in Michigan with exorcist Father Chad Ripperger, asserted that it is “problematic” and “not pastoral” for bishops to place restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).Cardinal Müller was responding to a question about why the Church gives the...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo poised to grant ‘generous’ exemptions to Traditionis custodes, UK bishops told“Leo will ask Cardinal Arthur [Roche, prefect of the dicastery] to be generous.”Sources close to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales told The Pillar that Pope Leo appears poised to grant widespread exemptions to Traditionis custodes, without revoking the motu proprio itself. Archbishop Miguel Maury Buendía, apostolic nuncio to Great Britain, gave a recent address to the plenary assembly of the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and Wales, informing the bishops that the Vatican would “be generous” when asked to dispense from the restrictions to...

[Catholic Caucus] Kneeling Is Now Rebellion: The War on Reverence ContinuesFrom Charlotte to Greensburg to Beijing, the hierarchy that once died for the Faith now enforces compliance against it; even as Rome preaches “reverence” while punishing those who practice it.The War on ReverenceIn Charlotte, North Carolina, the faithful have just learned that Bishop Michael Martin has decreed the removal of altar rails across his diocese beginning November 30, the first Sunday of Advent. Parishes with temporary kneelers must remove them. The justification? Allegiance to the “norms” of the U.S. bishops’ conference.Hiraeth In Exile is a reader-supported publication. To receive new...

Cardinal Müller warns bishops are pushing traditional Catholics towards the SSPXCardinal Gerhard Müller has warned that some bishops are effectively forcing conservative Catholics to stay at home or seek refuge with the Society of Saint Pius X. In a wide-ranging interview with EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said: “I heard from some bishops that Catholics who do not want the newer form of the liturgy can either remain at home or go to the Lefebvrians [FSSPX].” He called instead for dialogue, saying, “We must be very open, speak with the...

[Catholic Caucus] By their fruits you shall know them: The Spiritual Fruits of Summorum Pontificum and the Traditional Mass are Astonishing It is not the Rite that divides, but the exclusion:Let us judge it by its fruitsFirst, those who love the traditional Mass are excluded, and then they are accused of excluding. They are set apart, and then that marginalization is used as proof that they are “divisive.” It is a perfect circle of exclusion and blame. But the reality should be precisely the opposite: when the Vetus Ordo coexists with the ordinary form, it does not generate division, but...

[Catholic Caucus] The Unspoken Trial of the Orphaning of Our PriestsA type of bishopric anti-fatherhood has led countless priests in America to live out vocations tainted by fear, torment, and silent despair.Crisis editor Eric Sammons​ has made written ​and spoken pleas for laity calm in the aftermath of Pope Leo XIV’s odd ice-block blessing and refusal to condemn Cardinal ​Blase Cupich’s decision to award a pro-abortion politician with a lifetime achievement honor. ​Even on gasket-blowing days like yesterday, when the Chicago-native pontiff promoted his fellow Chicagoan Cupich to the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State​, Sammons’ call for calm...

[Catholic Caucus] Do Not Be Conformed to the World…or to Church LeadersWhen the culture is benign, being a conformist works. But in a malignant culture, where the devil roams freely at the highest levels, beware conformity; it can kill body and soul.The word of the day for Catholics is “unity.” For the sake of it, entire congregations are ghettoized (TLM), bishops exiled (Strickland), faculties gutted (Sacred Heart), and dioceses fractured (Charlotte). Strange to think that the peculiar synodality project is more or less based on giving every wayward lifestyle and viewpoint a podium but the faithful who have dedicated their...

[Catholic Caucus] The Purging of Faithful Catholics ContinuesLast month, Detroit Archbishop Edward Weisenburger severely restricted the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass in his archdiocese—an archdiocese that has had some of the most flourishing Latin Mass communities in the country, if not the world. Not content, however, with one act of pettiness, this week Archbishop Weisenburger decided to double down on his attack on faithful Catholics, expanding beyond the typical traditionalist punching bags to target established and well-respected seminary professors. On Wednesday night, news broke that Dr. Ralph Martin and Dr. Eduardo Echeverria had been removed from their positions as...

[Catholic Caucus] The Detroit PurgeThe massive loser annointed by Cupich (and accepted by Francis) to ruin Detroit, Edward Weisenburger, has reached a new phase in his Stalinist conquest of the Archdiocese.First, as Stalin, he found a minority to bully and persecute: the Trads are the Kulaks, who had to be frozen out and, if not outright eliminated, ghettoized. Which was what was done with the most massive culling of diocesan Traditional Latin Masses in the United States. The Traditionalists were the canary in the mine.Symbolic action was then taken against those who were completely part of the establishment, but had...