From the Holy Father’s Address to the Participants of the Plenary Session of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

Also the study documents produced by the various ecumenical dialogues have great relevance. Such texts cannot be ignored, because they are an important, though temporary, fruit of the common reflection matured throughout the years. Nevertheless, they are to be recognized Read More »

The true religion is not a book. It is a communion — a mystical body — by which man is united to God and therefore made holy, beginning in this life a relationship that is meant to continue for all eternity in beatitude. Yes, the true faith is a revelation from on high. Yes, a portion of that revelation has been transmitted to us in the inspired canonical scriptures. But what those scriptures and the rest of that revelation declare to us is how to enter into vital communion with the Holy Trinity through the Sacred Humanity of Jesus Christ.

We aspire to the direct vision of God in eternity, and we achieve that by seeing and hearing Him in time through faith and charity. Read More »

The Mystery of the Immaculate Conception is not something on the borderlands of the Christian religion; rather, it stands front and center in the true Faith. This is because the Immaculate Herself is so wrapped up in the divine decree for the redemption of men, that her perpetual sinlessness and fulness of grace form a continuum with what the faith teaches about Jesus (Christology) and His Salvation (Soteriology).

Blessed Pius IX expressed this truth in Ineffabilis Deus, the encyclical wherein he defined the dogma: Read More »

[Originally authored 13 December 2003, the Feast of Sancta Lucia]

At this time of the Christian Feast of the Nativity, when we are also expectantly considering the coming year of 2012 (as was so in 2003) and the pressures of deepening war and religious conflict, we more openly allow ourselves to consider the foundations of things.

Did the Incarnation happen? Or was it an illusion, or even a deception? Did the Humility of God come into history in such a quiet way in Nazareth unto a pure and lovely woman, and then later also consent to be humbly born in Bethlehem? Read More »

Some months back, I received a telephone call from a sedevacantist madman who challenged me to a debate on whether Pope Benedict XVI is the pope. This individual should know that debates are not the way we do our apostolate. I have nothing against debating, but we engage in other apostolates that take up our time, I believe, more profitably: publishing, street evangelism, our school, night classes here at the Center, putting on conferences, various youth apostolates, public outreach to spread the traditional Mass, and giving talks on a Catholic America. Read More »

Tomorrow is the Feast of Christ the King, the glorious Christian festival instituted by Pope Pius XI to remind the world of the truth taught by his own papal motto: Pax Christi in regno Christi (the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ). There will be no peace among nations without the social reign of Jesus Christ. And what is that? In brief, all nations, as moral persons, have a duty to acknowledge Jesus Christ, his moral law, and his true religion. By accepting this duty, they accept the social reign of our Lord. Read More »

At the end of the Rule of St. Augustine, the Doctor of Grace — who was also a monk and father of monks — enjoins his disciples to observe its precepts “not like slaves under the law, but like freemen established under grace”¹. The recent feast of St. Nicholas of Tolentino provides but one of the numerous proofs that the Rule of St. Augustine works. Not only did the African Doctor successfully cook his recipe for holiness, so did numerous of his spiritual progeny. Read More »