Free Republic

As any Catholic master of ceremonies will tell you, it takes only the tiniest sartorial mishap to lend a Python-esque flavour to moments of the utmost solemnity. On 1 July the rebel traditionalist Society of St Pius X (SSPX) created four new bishops in defiance of Pope Leo XIV during a five-hour open-air Latin Mass in a Swiss alpine meadow. The consecrating prelates wore dark-red velvet chasubles over scarlet-and-gold dalmatics with matching gloves. They descended from their thrones bearing sacred chrism. Afterwards the new bishops stood in a row, mitres perched on their heads for the first time. For traditionalist...

[Catholic Caucus] Legal Positivism and Liberalism Drive Hatred of the SSPXThe Catholic faith certainly requires obedience. But obedience to what?Just imagine waking up every day of your life and telling yourself that you have to be obedient and in communion with Cardinal Victor “Tucho” Fernandez for the salvation of your soul because of a title he holds at the Vatican.Now imagine having to convince yourself that Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, a respected Archbishop in good standing with the Catholic Church for decades, excommunicated himself and became schismatic because he needed to find a way to preserve the faith as it always...

Can the Vatican Ban the Latin Mass? Catechism Says “No”A canonically-approved catechism, supported by many catechisms of the past, answers whether the Vatican has the authority to shut down the traditional Latin Mass.Lately in Rome, the city where rumors are often reliable news, murmurs have been circulating that the Vatican may soon impose a more rigorous edict of suppression for the Traditional Latin Mass, and perhaps for other rites as well (e.g., the sacraments and divine office). Should such an edict appear, it will once again raise two major questions of “practical theology” for universal debate, namely: (a) Does the...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Strickland: A ‘confused understanding of authority’ has invaded the ChurchSt. Robert Bellarmine wrote: 'Just as it is licit to resist a Pontiff who attacks the body, so it is licit to resist him who attacks souls, or who disturbs the civil order, or, even more, who tries to destroy the Church.'The following is a May 3, 2024, letter from Bishop Joseph Strickland, the bishop emeritus of Tyler, Texas. Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,“Roma locuta; causa finita est!” “Rome has spoken; the matter is finished!” In these pastoral letters that I have been publishing, I have been...