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Today is Spy Wednesday, when the Church traditionally remembers the initiation of the betrayal of Jesus by his apostle, Judas Iscariot. It is interesting in the Gospel of Matthew that Judas approaches the chief priests with his proposal of conspiracy immediately after Our Lord rebukes the disciples for false compassion: And when Jesus was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, There came to him a woman having an alabaster box of precious ointment, and poured it on his head as he was at table. And the disciples seeing it, had indignation, saying: To what purpose is this...

After hours of delaying tactics by opponents, the United Methodist General Conference 2019 delegates passed The Traditional Plan 438 to 384. A last-ditch effort to bring the One Church Plan back was defeated in the morning and was followed by efforts to amend the Traditional Plan to address constitutionality issues raised by the Judicial Council, the church’s top court. The Rev. Tim McClendon, South Carolina, called for a vote on the Traditional Plan as amended, which affirms the church’s current bans on ordaining LGBTQ clergy and officiating at or hosting same-sex marriage.

Punishing Tradition Saginaw Catholics are rallying to support Fr. Eddie Dwyer, who is being stripped of his role as spiritual shepherd in the diocese of Saginaw and being sent without any duties to live in a very dangerous part of Saginaw's inner city. His final Mass at Saginaw's Our Lady of Peace was packed, especially with young people. During his homily, Dwyer related that one of his goals in three to six years was to "fill the church with crying babies." Seeing the packed pews, Dwyer said he was pleasantly surprised that his goal was reached so soon. Dwyer said in an announcement read...

Sawing off the branch on which he sits: Experts question Francis attack on popes over death penalty ROME, December 17, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has incited further controversy in a recent address expounding on his reasons for changing the Catechism of the Catholic Church on the death penalty. As LifeSite reported earlier, Pope Francis told a delegation from the International Commission against the Death Penalty in a Dec. 17 address that popes “in centuries past” ignored “the primacy of mercy over justice” in using the death penalty, which he called an “inhuman form of punishment” that is now “always inadmissible.”  Insisting that the change to n. 2267 of the Catechism is...

Pope Francis is departing from a 40-year tradition restored by St. John Paul II and moving the celebration of Corpus Christi from the heart of Rome to the neighboring seaside town of Ostia. The move marks the latest in several changes Pope Francis has made to the celebration of Corpus Christi since his pontificate began. Given the deep significance and beauty of the annual Eucharastic procession through the heart of Rome, the move is leading some to ask: Franciscus, quo vadis? Restoring a tradition Until this year, the annual candlelit Eucharistic procession immediately followed the celebration of Holy Mass at Rome’s Basilica of St. John...

The faithful participate in a walk on Palm Sunday ahead of Easter. Fr Christophe Nouveau leading the faithful in a traditional Latin Mass in Kisenyi, Kampala. Every Sunday morning, a special congregation of Catholics meets at the Uganda Catholic Management and Training Institute at Rubaga Cathedral, Kampala to celebrate the Tridentine Mass (traditional Latin Mass). This Mass, comprised of mostly young people, started three years ago when a priest who could lead it became available. Fr Christophe Nouveau is one of a kind in the country. “I was first contacted by some parishioners of Rubaga in late 2004 when I...

Have you ever been in a cemetery and saw coins laying on a tombstone? Col. Dave Taylor, a Vietnam War veteran, explained the tradition and the reason behind it. A coin left on a headstone lets the deceased soldier's family know that somebody stopped by to pay their respects. If you leave a penny, it means you visited. A nickel means that you and the deceased soldier trained at boot camp together. If you served with the soldier, you leave a dime. A quarter is very significant because it means that you were there when that soldier was killed.

"Israel has still not learned the lessons from the Holocaust. Had it taken the meaning to heart, it would stop the ongoing atrocities in Syria." We've been inundated with such messages every since the Syrian bloodbath commenced in 2011. While these vacuous statements are heard constantly, they reach a fever constantly pitch when Yom Hashoah season rolls around. According to this view, Israel is betraying its Jewish heritage by letting Assad butcher his people unopposed. I've always hated hearing people say this because it's the worst kind of virtue signaling. Imagine you were handed the keys: What would you do?...

The forty contemplative Little Sisters of Mary, the Mother of the Redemer, in Saint-Aignan-sur-Roe, France, are persecuted by their liberal bishop Thierry Scherrer of Laval, writes riposte-catholique.fr (February 27). The sisters run four old-peoples homes and formerly also served in the bishop’s house. Scherrer considers the sisters to be “too traditional”. He is specifically aggravated by the fact that they decided during their 2012 general chapter to return to the old habit. Because of a merger of the sisters’ nursing homes, Scherrer is now a member of the governing board of the civil association running them. No expert in...

Here’s a bit of trivia about me: My great-great-grandmother on my dad’s side was a full-blooded Mexicana. For whatever reason, this trace of Mexican blood manifested itself quite strongly in me – more so than in my other family members – and I credit my swarthy skin, thick black mane, and Pancho Villa-like mustache to this lineage.To celebrate our family’s Mexican heritage, on Christmas Eve we would eat tamales, enchiladas, sopapillas, and pozole. Both my brother Larry and I eagerly devoured everything on the menu except for the pozole, which we despised. (For those of you who don’t know,...

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday angrily protested Chairman Chuck Grassley's decision to vote on one of President Trump’s nominees to a federal appeals court position, over objections from a Democratic senator from the nominee's home state. Under Senate tradition, home-state senators have had the right to delay or veto nominees before they are taken up in committee, and the process has started only after these senators have returned their "blue slip" on the nominee. But on Thursday, Grassley's committee ignored that tradition and approved the nomination of Michael Brennan of Wisconsin to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court...

Strange Moments In Liturgical History – How a Paragon of Liturgical Tradition May Have Caused Unintended Effects Msgr. Charles Pope • September 12, 2017 • I have been asked by a number of people what I think of Pope Francis’ recent decision to remand a lot of the task of translating sacred texts to regional bishops’ conferences. To be honest, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I share many of the concerns about how the norms will be applied and how consistently accurate translations will be assured, but on the other, I do not know if it...

The flagship school for the diocese of Jefferson City has updated its handbook with clear Catholic instruction to counter the LGBT agenda being foisted on schools. Just in time for the new school year, St. Joseph Cathedral School, has posted on their website a handbook, which on page 65 reads, "Students may not advocate, celebrate or express same-sex attraction in such a way as to cause confusion or distraction in the context of Catholic school classes, activities or events." An inside source, who spoke on condition of anonymity told Church Militant their joy at this surprise turn of events as...

Early in 2017, ABC breathlessly reported, “Hair loss and balding are something we associate with aging, not a younger population, yet more and more millennials say they're experiencing hair loss.” Theories include diet and health problems. But Moneyish.com didn't hesitate to conclude: “Millennials are going bald from too much stress.” We live in a rich, safe, successful country. Why is there so much stress? Why do so many young people feel they are under siege and about to be overrun? Perhaps we should look at what public schools, in tandem with higher education and the media, tend to emphasize. Namely,...

First of all, today is the Feast Day of the Blessed Trinity, and so we would wish all of you a Happy Feast Day, and in particular we would wish the Eternal Father a Happy Father's Day! For those who are unaware or need to be reminded, belief in a Trinitarian God, that is Three Persons, One God, comes to us from our elder brothers and sisters in the faith, the Jews. The belief in the Trinitarian God as described is the universally accepted criteria to receive and accept the designation as a true Christian. So we Catholics should be...

“Please recall: In 2009, then-President Obama was invited to throw out the first pitch before the Nats home opener against the Phillies, a game everyone from Philadelphia was also invited to attend. Obama declined. From The Post: ‘President Obama has turned down an invitation to throw the ceremonial first pitch at the home opener of the Washington Nationals against the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday. Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said today that Obama, who returned from an eight-day overseas trip this week and is planning to leave for Mexico and Trinidad next week, would not be doing the honors.’”

The progress of centuries has often returned to the Rule of St. Benedict as a repository of timeless wisdom, capable of guiding any community of God-seekers to peace and holiness. One cannot help but be struck by the way Benedict emphasizes that the young monks’ voices ought to be given a fair hearing. Benedict was not exactly egalitarian (he frequently counsels the beating of the refractory, for example), but he recognized, with St. John Cassian, that age does not automatically equal wisdom and that young people can have the perspective needed by the community at a given moment. “And on...

Posters in Rome were not an insult to the pope, but were providentially arranged for his instruction. Pray that Francis will revisit this matter and learn by it. And let him "dig, dig," that he might discover his own "rigidity" against tradition Pope Francis seems to have taken offense over an anonymous poster campaign which called into question his mercy. On February 4, Romans woke up to more than 200 posters of a stern-faced pope plastered all over the city, with a caption that asks, “But where is your mercy?” The unidentified posters accused Francis of having “ignored cardinals” and...

We must admit that most of western nations live under values and ideas that literally erase national culture and history. I live in France, and I can see that every single information in this country is shared and analyzed from a leftist point of view, from history facts in school programs to modern geopolitical phenomenons. I've studied with attention what french kids learn in school today: there are no alternative lessons to the critisism of monarchy, to the praise of French revolutions and leftist reforms in the XIX and XX centuries. Television programs and news put an incredible amount of...

Many years ago, I read an interview with a famous “dissenting” theologian, as they are sometimes euphemistically called, (one who has now passed to his reward, and shall therefore remain nameless), in which he talked about the many things that had permanently disappeared from Catholic life, and of which younger Catholics would therefore never any experience or memory. As I recall it, funeral Masses in black vestments were named among them, and this was said with something of a wistful tone, since even the most obdurate revolutionaries could hardly deny the powerful sense which the tradition Requiem communicates of the...