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Where Peter Is

Seven Years in the SSPX

On a sunny Santa Clara mountainside, I stood in shocked silence. It was lunchtime at the retreat center, and the buffet was ready. Prayers were said, and everyone stood. An unassuming woman in a loose-fitting dress leaned over to me and to the other women, and said, “Stand by your chairs until the...

July 1: Pope Leo XIV faces the SSPX schism

Note: This article was originally published June 27, 2026 in Spanish by the Spanish digital media outlet EL ESPAÑOL as “León XIV, ante el cisma de los ‘tradicionalistas’ de la Sociedad de San Pío X: dan misa en latín y quieren sus propios obispos.” Translated into English and published on Where Peter Is...

Is Vatican II Binding? The SSPX and the Optional Council

While speaking with reporters on the evening of Tuesday, June 16, outside Castel Gandolfo, Pope Leo XIV was asked about the decision of the leadership of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) to consecrate four new bishops without papal approval on July 1 in Écône, Switzerland. The pope replied: “We are still considering making another...

Traditionalists in the Tempest: A Review of Faith in Crisis

Faith in Crisis is an auspicious book which may serve many Catholics navigating the present chaotic conditions of the World and the Church. I have found this project much needed, especially as a Catholic Worker that still feels an increasingly idiosyncratic identification with traditionalist and integralist thought, even as both categories seem eclipsed...

Pope St. Paul VI on the binding nature of Vatican II teaching

[Editor’s Note: On June 16, Pope Leo XIV commented on the divisions between the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) and the Catholic Church, noting of the SSPX that “they refuse to accept certain fundamental elements of the Church, starting with various points of the Second Vatican Council.” Many SSPX sympathizers have resurrected...

Sexuality Is Not the Church’s Only Moral Issue

For decades, public discourse about Christianity — especially Catholicism — has revolved around sexuality: who people sleep with, who they marry, what they do with their bodies, what is permitted, what is sinful. In the age of social media and constant polarization, those debates have only become louder. Scroll through enough debates online...

Deception Day: New Spielberg film stirs a satanic panic

In February, President Donald Trump announced that he would declassify the government’s confidential files on UFOs — or unidentified aerial phenomena — and have the Pentagon post them online on a rolling basis. Excitement over disclosure was already very high among enthusiasts, but the next month it took an unexpected spiritual turn. On...

Preaching Without Prompts

For better or worse, preachers have always used “canned” content. There has been a wide variety of “homily hints” resources to draw upon, long before the advent of artificial intelligence. Given that, is there anything new or different in generating a homily with AI – especially if those in the pews don’t know...

God Does Not Want Suffering

In the past couple of weeks, two readers reached out to me asking if I had ever written anything about how theology about suffering is misused in coercive ways within the Church. Then yesterday, unprovoked, a friend sent me this excerpt from an address Pope Leo gave this past week in Spain: This...