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[Catholic Caucus] Retired Vatican archivist takes dim view of postconciliar eraCWN Editor's Note: In an interview granted to an Italian newspaper following his recent retirement as prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archives, Bishop Sergio Pagano offered a dim assessment of the life of the Church following the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). “Sadly, after the Second Vatican Council there was a general disarray: too many expectations,” he said. “Disorder was created in discipline, in seminaries and in pontifical universities. In doctrine there was an ever deeper crisis.” “And in this climate of uncertainty, a glaring confusion prevailed,” he continued. “I see...

Young Believers Are Fueling a Renaissance of Catholic Culture The Sisters of Charity of New York announced last year that it will not accept any new members. The announcement was more of a formality than anything else, as no one has joined the order in more than twenty years. Founded by St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1817 and recognized as the Sisters of Charity of New York in 1846, the order had more than 1,300 sisters in the 1960s. Today, only 154 sisters remain, and their median age is eighty-five years old. The Sisters of Charity of New York isn’t...

ITE MISSA EST: How modernizing the Church gave rise to ChristophobiaThere can be no dispute that the mission of the Church is to glorify God, to seek the Salvation of souls, to serve the poor, and to Evangelize – to spread the good news of the Gospel to all corners of the World: to build the Kingdom of Christ on earth. But among the chief duties of the Catholic Church is to hold the powerful in society to their duty to the welfare of the citizenry, to protect those human rights which derive from Divine Law, and to demand that...

Marcel De Corte's 1970 Letter to Jean Madiran “On the New Mass” - First Translation into English - "Paul VI is a man full of contradictions"(The following text was published in no. 140 of Itinéraires, February 1970. It was translated by Gerhard Eger for Rorate Caeli.)I must admit to you, my dear Jean Madiran, that I have been tempted more than once to leave the Catholic Church wherein I was born. If I have not done so, I give thanks to God and to the good peasant’s common sense with which he has blessed me. The Church—I murmur to myself...

[Catholic Caucus] Synodal ecclesiology is an ecclesiology without ChristThe following interview shows what happens when the Church as the People of God is promoted at the expense of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. Synod becomes a law unto itself without reference to Christ.The Venezuelan theologian Rafael Luciani is a Professor at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas (Venezuela). He is also an associate professor at Boston College (USA) and an advisor to the General Secretariat of the World Synod in the Vatican and the Latin American Bishops' Council CELAM. Luciani's research focuses on Christology, ecclesiology, Latin...

[Catholic Caucus] Some Reflections for Our Catholic Friends Who Freely Denounce Traditional CatholicsAs Catholics, we hear that we are schismatics, heretics, and enemies of the Church; as those who refuse to take experimental Covid shots, we hear that we are science-deniers and enemies of society. And, thanks be to God, none of that unhinged nonsense impels us to abandon what we know is right.“And why seest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye; and seest not the beam that is in thy own eye? Or how sayest thou to thy brother: Let me cast the mote out of...

From Pius XII to Paul VI to Cardinal Roche: The Difference One Word Can Make - Article by Paolo PasqualucciThe current Catholic hierarchy, starting with the Pope, often refers to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) as the basis for the “reforms” it continues to carry out in the constitution of the Church (with synodality), in doctrine (with the ecumenical Declaration of Abu Dhabi), in Christian morality (with unprecedented concessions - liturgical and otherwise - to irregular couples of all kinds) and to justify its constant fight against the ancient rite of the Mass, also known as the “traditional Mass”, whose...

[Catholic Caucus] EXCLUSIVE: Abp. Viganò Clarifies His Position Following DDF Ruling — Part IIn this exclusive interview, which will continue in a further installment, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò clarifies various aspects of his position following the Vatican’s announcement that he was “found guilty of the reserved delict of schism” on July 4 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). In this first installment, he explains more precisely what he means when he distinguishes the Catholic Church from the “conciliar church,” describing it as “an overlap of two entities — Church and anti-church — in the same Hierarchy,”...

Bishop Schneider: Modernism condemned by Pius X ‘has been realized in all its devastating consequences’'To fight against heresy is a truly noble and selfless act, an expression of an authentic love for one’s neighbor,' Bishop Schneider told LifeSiteNews.Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, kindly granted LifeSite an interview about his new book, Flee from Heresy: A Catholic Guide to Ancient and Modern Errors (Sophia Institute Press), whose publication date is today.In this new interview (please see full text below), the prelate discusses the atmosphere of heresy and relativism in our Church today. “There reigns a ruthless relativism,”...

The fight for tradition after Vatican II is as old as the council itselfFollowing Vatican II to our present hour, writers and artists have rallied to the defense of tradition. We see this in the responses of many highly capable minds grappling with the same questions at the beginning that we are grappling with today.Throughout the decades following Vatican II, many great thinkers and artists have understood the importance of preserving Catholic tradition, including the magnificent rite of the Mass in the Tridentine form. They have recognized both the acute danger to the faith and the cultural impoverishment posed by...

Bad Fruit from a Bad TreeThe Gospel of last Sunday reads: “At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. By their fruits you will know them.” These words brought to mind the sentiments expressed by a modernist rector of a diocesan seminary many years ago. He was lamenting the ever-increasing numbers of conservative Catholic candidates entering the seminary, despite his best efforts to bar their entry or vet them out. In exasperation he once said that it would be better to have no seminarians...

Swiss Bishop Eleganti: Vatican II contains ‘ambiguity,’ young Catholics love the Latin Mass‘Today's young believers, as I was able to see very well as a young bishop, know nothing about the (Second Vatican) council and are not interested in it. They have hardly read any of the texts, but feel attracted to the old liturgy,’ Bishop Marian Eleganti said.Personally, I do make a distinction between Vatican I, which presented an infallible dogmatization, and Vatican II, which avowedly wanted to be (only) a pastoral council. It is understandable that it wanted to incorporate the top statements of Vatican I into the...

[Catholic Caucus] Glaringly Obvious Signs that the Spirit Guiding Francis’s Synod is NOT HolyAs we can grasp from the considerations that follow, the Synod on Synodality is perhaps the most vile offense against God taking place in the world today because its leaders suggest that the Holy Ghost is guiding the Synod, whereas it is obvious that the guiding spirit is Satan.“In a synodal style, decisions are made through discernment, based on a consensus that flows from the common obedience to the Spirit.” (Synod on Synodality Preparatory Document)Not many Catholics appear to care much about the ongoing Synod on Synodality,...

Lefebvre, Viganò and the Post-Conciliar Struggle Against the Catholic Church’s EnemiesArchbishop Carlo Maria Viganò began his recent statement (responding to accusations of schism) by quoting Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre from 1979:“‘When I think that we are in the palace of the Holy Office, which is the exceptional witness of the Tradition and of the defense of the Catholic Faith, I cannot stop myself from thinking that I am at home, and that it is me, whom you call ‘the traditionalist,’ who should judge you.’ So spoke Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1979, when he was summoned to the former Holy Office, in...

[Catholic Caucus] Accept or Reject the New Mass?Just days after Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum, Italy’s Bishop Luca Brandolini—who had been a close collaborator of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini—stated, “This day is for me a day of grief. I have a lump in my throat and I do not manage to hold back my tears…Today, a reform for which so many labored, at the cost of great sacrifices…has been canceled.”Hard as it may seem to avoid laughing at the absurdity of claiming that allowing the ancient form of the Roman Mass the rather second-class and exceptional status of an “extraordinary”...

How and Why Do Traditional Priestly Institutes Fit Within Francis’s Synodal Church?By prohibiting Traditional Latin Masses other than those offered by the ex-Ecclesia Dei communities (e.g., the FSSP and ICKSP), the new document would dramatically reduce the number of Traditional Latin Masses, harming souls in various ways. On June 13, 2024, the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity published a “study report” entitled The Bishop of Rome. Primacy and Synodality in the Ecumenical Dialogues and in the Responses to the Encyclical Ut unum sint, which helpfully outlines how the various pieces of Vatican II’s ecumenical movement fit together to form a...

[Catholic Caucus] Defending Catholic Tradition with Vatican journalist, Aldo Maria Valli"Most bishops are increasingly doubtful about this papacy and there are criticisms. However, these are expressed in hushed tones, never openly." -Aldo Maria Valli Journalist, writer, and television personality, Aldo Maria Valli (born in Rho, Milan, on February 3, 1958) is one of the most esteemed Italian Vaticanists. What initially drew my attention to him is the path he took from a Catholic perspective influenced by the currents animated by the "spirit of the Second Vatican Council" to the discovery of the perennial Catholic Tradition. Today, he is part of...

Do We Really Need a “New Ecumenism”?If we could, in a phrase, sum up Western man’s chief flaw, we might say: he never knew when to stop innovating.Innovation and striving towards new ways of developing culture is, of course, a strength of the West. But if one is always discontent with the greatness he achieves, he risks tinkering too much, innovating himself into ruin. Is this not what was done with the Second Vatican Council and its ecumenism? Our elites grew tired of the bastion of the Church of the Pius popes, for there was the allure that the breakaway...

Pope Francis to Lutherans: ‘Jesus Christ is the heart of ecumenism’Pope Francis this morning received a delegation from the Lutheran World Federation at the Vatican and stressed that “Jesus Christ is the heart of ecumenism.”In his talk given during the audience held in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican, the Holy Father called this encounter “an important gesture of ecumenical fraternity.”The pontiff recalled the visit of this delegation to Rome three years ago, an occasion in which they reflected on the upcoming 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea in 2025 as an ecumenical event.In this context, he noted...

[Catholic Caucus] The Faith of Pope Pius IX’s Qui Pluribus is Alone Capable of Defeating Catholicism’s Enemies In 1846, Blessed Pius IX began his first papal encyclical, Qui Pluribus (On Faith and Religion), by describing his purpose in writing to the Church’s bishops:“Its purpose is to urge that you keep the night-watches over the flock entrusted to your care with the greatest possible eagerness, wakefulness and effort, and that you raise a protecting wall before the House of Israel; do these as you battle with episcopal strength and steadfastness like good soldiers of Christ Jesus against the hateful enemy of...