Synodality did not begin in 2021. It began in Jerusalem, around AD 49. Synodality, I keep reading, is confusing, maybe even undefinable. I recently sat through three days of it in practice, and nobody seemed confused. On July 6, Catholic News Service reported that the bishops representing North America in the synodal process...
Nearly two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Decimus Junius Juvenal wrote a phrase destined to outlive the empire that inspired it: panem et circenses — “bread and circuses.” In his Satire X, he denounced how a citizenry that had once been the protagonist of public life had ultimately surrendered its political freedom...
“At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.’” (Lk 10:21) I have always appreciated...
One of the stranger developments surrounding the illicit Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) episcopal consecrations on July 1 was the sudden outbreak of agreement among Catholics across the spectrum that the Society had gone too far — they had committed a schismatic act and had incurred automatic excommunication from the Catholic Church....
As we begin a new, unfortunate chapter in the relations between the Catholic Church and the Society of St. Pius X, it is striking to see the casual indifference most SSPX adherents display toward the grave penalties imposed on them by the Vatican. Indeed, more than casual indifference, one senses an untroubled...
On a fall day in 1946, a twelve-year-old girl knelt before Pope Pius XII in the Vatican. He placed his hand on her head and blessed her as a Catholic war hero, honoring her for defending Poland against the Nazis. The name given to the Pope was Stefcia Skołkowska. She was one of...
The Vatican has clarified the role of the Pope in the wake of a controversial statement by US Ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch. The Holy Father’s “one true mission” is to be a spiritual shepherd who proclaims the Gospel. Any other roles he plays, including his position as a head of...
A review of Louis Massett’s Traddyland: Memoir of a Radical Traditional Catholic. Compared with other high-demand and fundamentalist religious movements, radical Catholic traditionalism has produced remarkably few memoirs by those who have experienced it from within. The most notable include Patricia Walsh Chadwick’s 2019 Little Sister, recounting her childhood in the 1950s and...
Through the Scriptures, Tradition, liturgies, and devotions, people can encounter the living Christ and experience his love, healing, and freedom. But what happens when the women and men in the Church who are tasked with teaching doctrine, preaching God’s word, or presiding over the sacraments, do so with carelessness or coercion? What harm...
Concerning the July 1 Society of St Pius X (SSPX) episcopal consecrations and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (DDF) decree declaring excommunication, many have reached out to me as a retired canonist and Catholic apologist — one who once specialized in the SSPX’s 1988 consecrations and excommunication. Sifting through contradictory...
Between 2018 and 2024 I worked intermittently on writing an ambitious series of essays in moral theology, which was eventually serialized on Where Peter Is. I think I made an important argument, but I am not sure in retrospect that I made it well; I wish I were not vain enough for that...
In a recent podcast, Cardinal Kurt Koch, the Vatican’s Prefect for Promoting Christian Unity, said of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), “I’m not entirely sure one can already speak of schism.” The interview was conducted on July 2, 2026, and published that day on the website of the German edition of...
Popular Posts