The Vatican personnel's decisions about the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage are among the most petty and vindictive I have ever seen. Having granted permissions, they rescinded them at the last moment. 1. They forced Vespers to begin earlier so that many would miss it. 2. They disallowed the pilgrims from entering St. Peter's in procession to profess their Catholic faith and union with the successor of Peter (!). 3. They declared last-minute that the Mass at St. Mary's could last "only one hour," which, of course, obliterated the carefully planned solemn pontifical Mass. 4. They said "no official photographs," in an echo of Roche's "no listings of the TLM in bulletins." Such absurd and offensive steps have predictable consequences: they make the Vatican look desperate and out of touch; they alienate and radicalize traditionalists; they rhetorically strengthen the SSPX's case. If the Vatican's desire is to create further division, polarization, and resentment while fueling the traditionalist fire, they have done a brilliant job!

All of these Catholics are in good standing, in communion with the Holy Father, and have no affiliation with the @SSPXEN -TSF

Continuing his catechetical series on Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et spes, Pope Leo XIV reflects on the challenges facing marriage and family in the world today: “Today, we consider the dignity of marriage and the family in the context of contemporary challenges. The council fathers recognised the well being of all in society is closely linked to the health of marriage and the family. And sought to present a renewed vision of conjugal love as an intimate partnership. Which reflects the life of the Trinity, and is rooted in and enriched by the redemptive power of Christ. Let us, therefore, pray for God's blessing and protection upon all families.”

La meilleure façon de mesurer l’impact de la visite du pape Léon XIV en France n’est peut-être pas de regarder le nombre de personnes présentes, les gros titres ou même les commentaires de gens comme moi, mais simplement de voir comment les Français eux-mêmes y réagissent. Ce témoignage est magnifique. Il y a quelque chose de profondément émouvant chez cette personne qui cherche à expliquer pourquoi, depuis la venue du Pape en France, la vie lui semble différente : d’autres centres d’intérêt, d’autres désirs, et même un nouveau sentiment de légèreté. C’est finalement à cela que sert un voyage apostolique. Léon est venu en France et a parlé sans détour du Christ, de conversion, d’espérance et de la redécouverte d’une identité chrétienne que beaucoup pensaient en train de disparaître. Et maintenant, discrètement, nous commençons à en voir les effets. Quelque chose s’est passé en France. Peut-être commençons-nous seulement à comprendre à quel point cela a été important.

It’s pretty easy to publish a one-sided statement when you forbid the other side from speaking in public. Propaganda 101.

Not at all. This was a mutual decision by Fr. Ripperger and his bishop. Sounds like it was for the good of Father and his community. It’s not retributive. See the Diocese’s statement.

US bishop bans Prayer to St. Michael at the end of Mass We endure a wicked time when bishops think it good to ban the TLM and devotions to St. Michael, Angels, and St. Francis at the end of Mass to enforce the lie ofa return to the "noble simplicity of the Roman Rite" This is what Bishop Mark Beckman of Knoxville has announced on the 16th October 2026 "Having reflected on the importance of celebrating the liturgy in accordance with the mind of the Church, I do not think it appropriate to add additional prayers associated with the celebration of the Mass itself. Therefore, I have asked our priests to catechize the people of God as we move away from additional prayers recited together immediately before, during, and immediately after Mass." What weasal words in an attempt to justify ruling the faithful like a pagan king This only benefits the devil Synodalism is not Catholicism etcatholic.org/2026/10/st-mi…

So we did the Carlo Acutis video. I was surprised to learn while researching the topic that both Sergio Meloni and Fr. John Hardon might have had their contributions to the Eucharistic Exhibition quietly removed to make it seem like Carlo did much more than he did. We didn't go heavily into the economist article and instead watched Antonia Acutis proclaim she had over a dozen private miracles. All in all the whole story seems highly suspicious and little to no direct evidence of Carlo Acutis working on the website still exists. Antonia has the motivation to create this narrative, which, would explain why contributions from Fr Hardon appear in a 2009 book and disappear in 2016. youtube.com/live/NxwF389nzdI

Avoiding vaccines is falling for propaganda. Lives were destroyed by preventable disease. Time to humbly admit you were tricked. Actual evidence shows far beyond reasonable doubts that covid vaccines saved lives & antivaxxers' misinformation cost lives.

Cardinal Chito reading the sermon prepared by Pope Leo XIV for the Mass for Amoris laetitia: “Marriage preparation programmes in parishes are commendable, but such courses along are insufficient, for they must be preceded and supported by an education in love that accompanies a person’s growth from childhood.”

The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. #NoDeathPenalty

What you still have is a universal disciplinary law that rejects the intrinsically evil nature of adultery. For as Eric says the main cited reason is the matter of "good of the children" (ie maintaining a peaceful home environment for them). But such a means (adultery) is not justified by the end. Further more, it denies the need for repentance for the sin of adultery to receive absolution. And that is because of this denial of the intrinsic evil of the action of adultery. Again, in what Eric describes, AL describes, and Buenos Aires describes (and there is no other interpretation) the three criteria for mortal sin are being met by those unrepentant in their adultery. Grave matter: Adultery has universally been taught to be grave matter Full knowledge: Again, the matter at hand are not situations of ignorance pertaining to the mortally sinful nature of the act but of adulterers believing the means of unrepentant adultery are justified by another end. Deliberate consent: The matter at hand are situations in which the two adulterers deliberately persist in adultery. So if you wish to argue the ability to bind and loose, to retain and remit (or in this can downgrade to venial sin), you necessarily have to create an expection that is incompatible with the Catholic Church's teaching on the nature of mortal sin and/or thr grave matter intrinsically that is adultery. Thus, Eric attempting to perform as the Dupreme Court did with Obamacare where the ACA said it was a penalty imposed on those who chose not to have insurance but that would make it illegal. This was dobe because the crafters of the ACA did not want the penalty to be viewed as a tax for legal and political reasons. So instead of scrapping the ACA, which would have been necessary if the Court accepted what the government intended Judge Roberts reinterpreted the penalty as a tax allowing the ACA to persist.l legally, as otherwise, the ACA would be struck down. So while there is an interesting attempt at mental gymnastics being performed, it does not change the reality that by the universal moral teaching of the Catholic Church that Amoris Laetitia is still an intrinsically evil universal disciplinary law with the ecclesiological consequences that necessarily follow from an institution claiming to be the Catholic Church but simultaneously having the ability to promulgate a universal disciplinary law that is intrinsically evil.

This is encouraging.👇🏻

Pope Leo XIV outlines the purpose of this Synodal meeting discussing Amoris laetitia: “The Church has spent these 10 years receiving Amoris Letitia and walking with families in very different circumstances. We too bring stories of what God has done among us. Their stories gathered along the path of mission, stories of conversion, of unexpected fruit, and of the relationships God has woven within families, is our communities have sought to accompany them. Together with the difficulties we have faced, the questions that have emerged, and what we have learned along the way, they give us confidence as we begin our work together. Let us place them before the Lord, share them with one another. Seeking to recognise what God has been doing among us, and where His spirit is leading the Church today.”

My friend @LarryChappGS22 offers a characteristically thoughtful and hopeful reading of this week’s Amoris Laetitia meeting, and I think he may have identified something important about Leo XIV’s emerging method of governance. Larry’s argument is that Leo does not intend to spend the week reheating the bitter controversies surrounding Chapter 8, but to recover the much larger question which Amoris addresses: what has happened to marriage and the family in a culture which increasingly struggles even to understand their meaning? That makes sense to me and I really hope he is right! The crisis of divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion is not an isolated phenomenon, it sits downstream from a far deeper anthropological crisis in which permanence, sexual difference, sacrifice, fidelity and even the idea of marriage as a vocation have become increasingly unintelligible. But I would add one important qualification to Larry’s analysis. The ambiguities surrounding Chapter 8 were real, and their consequences were real. They cannot simply be transcended by changing the subject. At some point the Church still requires clarity about how pastoral accompaniment relates to objective moral truth and sacramental discipline. Perhaps Pope Leo’s instinct, however, is that the way to get there is not through another ecclesiastical civil war, but by recovering the foundations first: Christ, Christian anthropology, marriage as an indissoluble sacrament, the family as a domestic church, and the call to conversion which accompanies the Gospel. If that is what Leo is doing, Larry is right that we may be beginning to discern a pattern in this pontificate: not pretending the controversies do not exist, but refusing to allow the controversies to determine the horizon within which the Church thinks. That would be a very different approach indeed. ncregister.com/commentaries/…