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[Catholic Caucus] Tradition and Traditionalism: Let us not be "men of little faith" - by Father Richard CipollaFather Richard CipollaIn that by now well -read article posted at Messa in Latino just a few weeks ago in which a representative of that web site engaged in a conversation with Andrea Grillo, the famous (or infamous) professor of Sacramental Theology at the Pontifical University of Sant’Anselmo in Rome, I was of course, struck by Professor Grillo’s un-Catholic statement that “Tradition is the future”. The image that sprang to my mind is the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice in Wonderland. Or...

[Catholic Caucus] The Game: What Now For the Traditional Mass Under Francis? - Op-EdDuring the pontificate of Pope Francis, we have seen a careful game being played by the Vatican and their allies when it comes to dealing with Catholics drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass. When they attempt to downplay traditionalists, they are an irrelevant sect, with numbers so insignificant none should take them seriously. After this approach, they then flip, treating traditionalists as a threat to the unity of the Church, a threat so severe the ordinary rights of clerics and the faithful must be curtailed. This mentality...

[Catholic Caucus] “Before the Egghead Fell Off the High Wall and Shattered into a Thousand Pieces”: Charlier on GrilloThe devotional map of the late 19th century depicts the Holy Mass as the center of the unity of the triumphant, struggling and suffering Church. As in heaven, so also on earth.If Andrea Grillo were a professor at a German theological faculty, we could confidently put his interview to one side—irrelevant drivel, like most of what is produced by theology professors. But although he would fit very well into the German environment, his position as a liturgy teacher at a papal university...

[Catholic Caucus] Grillo on “Child Popes,” Mass Scandals, and Incurable TradsAbove: dramatic performance of H. C. Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”y article last week analyzed a revealing blog post from the influential Sant’Anselmo professor of liturgy Andrea Grillo, whose work was a major influence on Traditionis Custodes. In fact, he finds it difficult to restrain his enthusiasm for his brainchild, whom we may nickname “T.C.” For T.C.’s first birthday, as if to tell him some fanciful bedtime story, the professor wished to relate the tale of how a wonderful papal diktat came into existence. (Quotations in the paragraphs that follow...

[Catholic Caucus] Coincidences? I think not.I recently wrote:I am convinced that one of the reasons certain bishops and priests seem determined to suppress the TLM and isolate, marginalize the people who want it is because the TLM unsettles, disturbs, annoys, irritates, needles, vexes clerics involved in one of the sins that cries to heaven.[…]The first thing you would have to do is change the way people worship. Change how they pray, and over time over time you change what they believe. In the Vetus Ordo the changers perceive an obstacle to changing the Church’s doctrines, especially in the sphere of...

One of the dumbest things a country can do in a recession is raise taxes. Yet, after pronouncing the end of austerity, Italy's "grand coalition" government, led by Enrico Letta, is going to hike the VAT. Why? It seems they need to hike the VAT to pay for a decrease in property taxes. Recall that Silvio Berlusconi was only willing to take part in Letta's grand coalition on condition property tax hikes were rolled back. Letta agreed to do that, but now Letta says Italy needs revenue hikes to make up for it. Grand Coalition Splintering Curiously, the International Business...

Euroskeptic deputies were denied several of the European Parliament’s top committee posts on Monday (7 July), as the assembly’s centrist groups joined forces to shut them out. The committees elected chairpersons and vice-chairpersons using the “D’Hondt method” on the relative sizes of the EU assembly’s seven political groups. Twenty one of the 22 committee chair posts, and the vast majority of the 88 vice-chair roles, were uncontested and elected by acclaim. However, the conservative EPP, center-left S&D and liberal ALDE groups on the petitions committee joined forces to reject Eleanora Evi, a member of the euroskeptic EFDD group from Italian...

A great sense of alarm is spreading among ordinary Europeans today, especially in the south and east of the continent. Now even the elitist media are giving us the worst international news since the Cold War. Americans do not want to hear this, either. Well, you may not be interested in evil, but evil may be interested in you. Listen up. This could be important. The Washington Post just told us that a dictatorial strongman has risen to power in Hungary, a man named Viktor Orban. In a two-hour parliamentary session, Orban forced radical changes in the Hungarian constitution to...

A great sense of alarm is spreading among ordinary Europeans today, especially in the south and east of the continent. Now even the elitist media are giving us the worst international news since the Cold War. Americans do not want to hear this, either. Well, you may not be interested in evil, but evil may be interested in you. Listen up. This could be important. The Washington Post just told us that a dictatorial strongman has risen to power in Hungary, a man named Viktor Orban. In a two-hour parliamentary session, Orban forced radical changes in the Hungarian constitution to...

... After fading in the polls, Grillo's Five Star Movement (M5S) is surging back, its cause boosted by the scandal at Italy's third-biggest bank, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS). Since MPS was always beholden to the left, the scandal proves to many Italians what Grillo has always claimed – that Italy's politicians are all the same and, in a phrase he used several times at his rally, should be mandati a casa – sent packing. ... No one with a conviction – and that includes Grillo, found guilty of manslaughter after a fatal accident – can be an M5S...