Dr. K’s Weekly Roundup, March 21 Edition

St. Benedict; Good News; Synod on Steroids; Liturgical Lessons; other fine articles & videos reviewed

A very blessed Feast of St. Benedict to all my readers and subscribers, and, in a special way, to any Benedictine monks, nuns, or fellow oblates who may be reading this post!

Last July, I wrote a substantial post here at Tradition & Sanity about why monasteries are so important, and what the life of an oblate is like. You might be interested in giving it a read in honor of today’s saint:

What We Learn from Monasteries—and What It Means to Be a Benedictine Oblate

Other recommended reading for the feast:

• Denise Trull, “Feast of the Transitus of St Benedict”

• Mark Cornelius, “Ora et labora et lege: St Benedict and the restoration of cult, culture and cultivation”

• Robert Keim, “The Rule of Christendom”

• For exceptional Beuronese art: “The Crypt of Montecassino Abbey”

Good News

You have probably figured out by now that this category means “good news” at any level — global or local, collective or personal, secular or religious, artistic or intellectual; whatever has lifted my mind or heart to God in joy over the past week. I share it because it may have the same uplifting effect on you. Older readers might remember that, way way back, the editors of The Latin Mass published for a few years a parallel magazine called Sursum Corda, which was nothing but good news. The editorial said: We live in a world, and a Church, that continually gives us bad news. Why not look harder and see how God is at work in spite of the mess? So, this section is a little revival of Sursum Corda for the internet age.

Sublime Sisterhood

Sometimes God is at work in the messiest of messes. That’s what Regis Martin tells us about in a very moving article on contemplative sisters who, making an exception to their usual claustration, began to visit with women on death row — and what a transformation in the condemned criminals this brought about.

New ICKSP church in Belfast

Wonderful news for northern Ireland: a dedicated TLM parish staffed by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, now in a renovated church well-suited to the sacred liturgy. If you’re on Facebook, you can find photos here. I’ll just share one of them. It’s very rare in the USA to have a church with two tiers like this, though I saw one up in Canada once.

Chasubles from Poland

It’s good to see Borromini-style Roman chasubles being produced, among other good offerings, by the Polish company Vestum (read more here). I grew up seeing such ugly vestments at my suburban New Jersey parish that every time I see a beautiful vestment, it’s a kind of healing balm.

Traditionis Custodes marches to its death

At Rorate Caeli, Kevin Tierney weighs in on why TC is doomed to fail, even if you just look at it through purely sociological lenses. Once you add the supernatural perspective, it’s toast. Our job for now is to persevere, to endure, and to work toward the restoration.

A masterpiece back in print and better than ever

Last October, my wife and I finished reading aloud Ronald Knox’s magnum opus, Enthusiasm. It’s a book I’ve had on my shelf for decades and always wanted to read, and now it’s done (took us a couple of months). What a fantastic book! So profound in its insights into certain forms of “ultrasupernaturalism” (as he calls it), and so exquisitely beautiful in style.

The only slightly irritating part is that he quotes French all over the place, without translation, and (a) my French pronunciation is bad, and (b) my ability to translate on the fly is so-so. This meant often pausing and typing in a couple of lines of Bossuet, Fenelon, Arnaud, Guyon, or whoever into DeepL before continuing. Yes, in 1950, I suppose a British writer could assume that any educated person would be fluent in French, but someone needs to bring out a new edition of Knox with translations at least in the footnotes.

Well, this has now happened. Cluny Media has just released a new edition of Enthusiasm (which has long been out of print) — in which they translated the copious quotations in French, placing them in the footnotes so as to leave the main text the way its author conceived it. I can’t begin to tell you what a help this is to the non-Francophone reader.

A full review is far beyond what I can manage at the moment but I will make two quick observations.

First, it is clear that what Knox means by “enthusiasm” in its full set of qualities cannot be applied to the traditionalist movement, BUT, that being said, there are some parallels to be wary of, such as the tendency to splinter into factions and to condemn anyone who is not of our subgroup’s way of thinking.

Second, it is also clear that the Catholic charismatic movement, which didn’t exist when Knox published his work, would fit the definition of enthusiasm he gives, and, as such, be worthy of skepticism. He notes that all enthusiastic movements involve exaggerations and distortions of legitimate principles, and this is certainly the case with the charismatics.

For those who are deeply interested in such topics as Montanism, Donatism, Catharism/Albigensianism, Jansenism, Quietism, Quakerism, Methodism, Revivalism, and Pentecostalism, this is a book not to be missed.

Premiere of traditional Catholic’s concert Magnificat

I had the great joy of meeting in person a few weeks ago in Florida, at the Catholic Family New conference, the composer Patrick Brill, author of the recently released The Great Sacred Music Reform of Pope St. Pius X.

The other day he shared with me his absolutely gorgeous Magnificat, Op. 31, a half-hour multi-movement work for chorus and orchestra that was premiered this past December 28 at the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Catholic Cathedral in Moscow. The performance and the recording are exceptional. Brill stands among those composers, like Elam Rotem, who choose to write using classical forms, completely eschew musical modernism. Just give this work a listen and you’ll see what I mean:

The opening movement makes a fine use of the descending sequence, and has a superb architecture. My favorite movement is “Ecce enim,” which has the feeling of antique polyphony (I’ve always been partial to slow and tranquil music). The “Quia fecit” counterpoint with the brass is deeply satisfying. At “Et misericordia” Brill brings in chant lines of his own devising and then employs the medieval technique of organum precisely at the point when the singers are singing “from generation to generation,” as if to emphasize the underlying unity of Catholic sacred music across time. An inspired decision!

This Magnificat is like Bach’s: a spiritual concert in honor of God and the Virgin Mary, not a setting for Vespers. And there’s nothing wrong with that: St. Philip Neri himself encouraged the performance of oratorios in Rome as sacred recreation. Brill wrote to me: “It is also my great hope that this work will contribute in some way to inspire the Russian people to a deeper love for Our Lady and her Holy Son, as we move ever closer to the conversion of Russia by means of the collegial consecration of Russia by the pope in union with the bishops.”

Good beer and lots of it

Julian’s latest, at Catholic World Report, talks about the flourishing of a great local brewing company that is beginning to occupy a bigger stage: “God, beer, and evangelization by the pint: The story of Tridentine Brewing.”

Synod on Steroids

The big news this past week is that Pope Francis has been reported as having signed off on a three-year extension of the wild and wooly Synod on Synodality that will culminate in something rather like Vatican III in October 2028: a gigantic gathering, but this time of “bishops, clergy, monks, friars, nuns, and lay men and women.” Meanwhile, no one yet knows what exactly “synodality” means, why we should be interested, or what kind of binding force (if any) it could possible have. Archprogressive Christopher Lamb is so excited that he commits an Ecclesiology 101 blunder:

By that stage [October 2028] Francis would be 91, so his move could mean that a conclave takes place while this reform initiative is ongoing. In that scenario, whoever is chosen as the next pope would be tasked with continuing the reform process Francis has started.

Foolish man, Lamb should know that Francis can’t bind his successors in anything merely disciplinary or administrative like this. (Or should I say, foolish journalist to report it this way?) The next pope could come in and say, “Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for all your input. Now go back home and get to work on things that really matter, and forget about all those plane tickets.”

Of course, critiquing this windy and tedious “meeting on meetingality” is like shooting fish in a barrel, but the periodic recrudescence of the topic gives writers an opportunity to bring forth sparkling prose. I am thinking in particular of Fr. Gerald Murray’s “Processes, Accompaniment, Implementation: Synodality Forever!” and Jeff Mirus’s “On ‘synodality’—and why the Hydra doesn’t run the Church.” From the latter:

All of this endless emphasis on meetings and discussions, on the cataloguing of desires and recommendations, on the inclusion of everything under the sun in the deliberations of the very custodians of the Gospel itself—yes, all of this endless interpersonal blather—has created an ecclesial atmosphere in which the Gospel of Christ appears to be in flux, and the mission of the Christ’s Church appears to be in doubt. The Church puts herself in grave danger when she substitutes inclusion for conversion. The Church atrophies when she substitutes consensus for Truth.

In other pope-related news:

March 19th marks the ninth anniversary of Amoris laetitia (it was released on April 8, 2016), Pope Francis’s post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation on the pastoral care of families. Since that time, CWR has published several pieces addressing various sections and aspects of the document. The following essay, which is the result of extensive work and thought by two notable moral theologians [E. Christian Brugger and Fr. Peter Ryan, SJ], considers in detail some essential questions and ongoing concerns about the controversial eighth chapter of the document. This essay is longer and more academic than most CWR pieces, but we believe it is an important contribution to vital theological, moral, and pastoral questions that remain unanswered and debated.

While I applaud Dr. Brugger and Fr. Ryan for entering the lists again, it is at the same time fair to say that:

1. These matters have been already clearly laid out over and over, but the protest gains no traction with the Establishment, in whose vested interest it is to change moral teaching or to wink at its practical disappearance;

2. We are long, long past “questions and concerns” about a “controversial” chapter. Several stances taken by Pope Francis are at least materially heretical, as was painstakingly demonstrated years ago, with academic rigor, in Defending the Faith Against Present Heresies and Dispelling the Fog. Yet the former book was banned on Amazon, and the latter is an expensive volume published in Europe, so neither had the impact it should have had.

One incidental benefit of this latest essay at CWR, however, is that you could send it to conservatives who might otherwise not give ear to anything written by traditionalists.

For those who may still be struggling with the issue of whether Francis is the pope (a debate that has been conducted among such figures as Lamont, Mazza, Harrison, Gaspers, and Siscoe), I’d recommend this recent essay, by a Benedictine monk, in defense of Francis’s occupation of the chair of Peter — however badly he is utilizing his office.

Liturgical Lessons

Why should we build beautiful confessionals?

Why did our forefathers lavish such care and artistry on confessionals and put them in such prominent places? In the slow process of rebuilding after the postconciliar bombing campaign, we must have the humility to learn from our predecessors. That's my theme in my article this week at NLM, illustrated by a gallery of confessionals that I photographed in Sicily last month.

Speaking of the Sacrament of Penance, First Things published a superbly written long review of a new book For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America by James M. O’Toole (Harvard University). The review is very informative on the various dimensions of the problem and will be of special interest to those who have followed Phillip Campbell’s work at NLM on the progressivist subversion of the sacrament, which I’ve shared in recent roundups. The reviewer draws a number of obvious conclusions, but others will only be inferred by the intelligent reader…

Careful with litniks

A good friend of mine uses the expression “litniks” to refer to the vast array of Liturgical Movement authors, especially from the ’50s and ’60s. One must always be very careful using their materials, because they are a veritable patchwork of truths and errors, many of which they inherit from otherwise great authors. Case in point: in one of my all-time favorite articles by him, “The Myth of a Sunday with No Mass,” Gregory DiPippo starts by giving a magnificent exposition of the huge construct built up by liturgists (all the way back to Gueranger and Schuster!) to explain the anomalies surrouunding the Second Sunday after Lent. And then he systematically dismantles the construct. I’d call this a case study in how careful one has to be with Liturgical Movement authors.

The traditional lectionary is superior

The claim can be defended a hundred ways (and I’m planning to write a book about it soon), but let’s just have a look at a seasonal example.

The traditional Roman lectionary places a greater emphasis on the duty to be chaste and to fight against sexual sin than the new lectionary does. You can see this vividly in the Epistles of Lent, as I demonstrate in an article at Rorate Caeli.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that know not God.... For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification.... (Epistle for the 2nd Sunday of Lent)

While we all know that there are many causes for the abysmal decline in sexual morality since the 1960s — so that by now most baptized and even "practicing" Catholics are living at odds with one or another divine precept connected to the 6th or 9th commandments — it is obvious that jettisoning, in 1969 (of all years!), these hard-hitting annual (not biennial or triennial) readings from St. Paul that sternly teach on this matter could not possibly have been helpful in stemming the tide of the Sexual Revolution. To put it mildly.

Once again, we see that the TLM, as developed under Divine Providence and inherited by us, responds better to the “signs of the times” than the modern fabrications of we-know-better scholars. And that is because, whatever the times may be, fallen human nature and the liberating Gospel of Christ do not fundamentally change.

It is also possible that some reformers, the Bernard Häring and Charles Curran types, did not want the same moral message to be retained, and that they downplayed it on purpose in the new lectionary. When you look at the sex-abuse crisis, you can see, at any rate, that this de-emphasis played right into the hands of Satan.

Undergraduate sets Card. Roche straight

It’s not hard to hit the side of a barn with a ball. Nor is it difficult to poke holes in the specious claims of the Prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship. Yet it can be done with style and dignity, and that is how this Durham undergraduate handles it in The Catholic Herald. I find the following paragraph especially on-point:

While Cardinal Roche dismisses some traditionalist groups as “clamorous”, it is worth noting that clergy who express support for the TLM often face marginalisation. High-profile figures such as Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Joseph Strickland have faced demotions or removal from their positions for their outspoken defence of tradition. Many other clergy remain silent out of fear of similar retribution. The real issue is not whether traditionalists are too loud, but rather why their voices are being suppressed. If the TLM were as insignificant as its critics claim, why is so much effort being made to silence it?

What Colmcille Carberry may not have realized yet — or perhaps he’s prudently chosen to be diplomatic and to pretend — is that the pope and his henchmen care about the unity of the Church as much as they care about dogma on faith and morals, which is to say, very little if at all. They must silence that which loudly proclaims integral, traditional Catholicism. And that is why they will succeed, ultimately, as much as a man will succeed in moving a mountain by kicking it repeatedly.

Inflexible order, profound silence, and infinite space

In what is certainly my favorite reading from the past week, Leila Marie Lawler uses Romano Guardini to help articulate the fundamental difference between rival conceptions of the liturgy, traditional and modern. Guardini is an author with his strong and weak points, but in this passage he really does describe the only form of worship he knew: the traditional Roman Rite.

The liturgy has something in itself reminiscent of the stars, of their eternally fixed and even course, of their inflexible order, of their profound silence, and of the infinite space in which they are poised. It is only in appearance, however, that the liturgy is so detached and untroubled by the actions and strivings and moral position of men. For in reality it knows that those who live by it will be true and spiritually sound, and at peace to the depths of their being; and that when they leave its sacred confines to enter life they will be men of courage.

The Hymnal-Industrial Complex

Michael Hichborn is one of the unsung heroes of the Church at this time, doing the heavy lifting required to expose the unsavory connections and backstories behind the organizations to which millions of Catholic dollars go each year. In his most recent study he demonstrates that the people who are selling you goopy bilge in heretical hymnals are, in fact, totally wedded to the progressivist ideology:

A new report by the Lepanto Institute reveals that the two largest publishers of Catholic hymnals in the United States, Oregon Catholic Press (OCP) and GIA Publishing, are fleecing parishes in the United States with annual licensing fees. Additionally, leadership for the OCP-GIA joint venture, One License, as well as the heads of GIA are involved in the promotion of abortion, LGBT activism, women’s ordination, and even outright sacrilege.

Alec Harris, president of GIA Publications, and his wife, Carollina Song, have financially supported the abortion-funding Chicago Foundation for Women and are vocal advocates of same-sex “marriage.” GIA’s School Music License, which sells streaming rights for school performances, is run by Brenna Horn-Cronin, who is in a same-sex “marriage.”

In 2013, Horn-Cronin committed sacrilege by distributing the Eucharist to a homosexual activist to whom Cardinal George had explicitly denied Communion. Meanwhile, her lesbian partner actively promotes women’s ordination to the priesthood on social media.

Read the rest here. The US bishops should order the priests of this country to cease and desist purchasing OCP and GIA products. But they won’t. In any case, clergy and musicians who know their sacred music are already getting it from better, trustworthy, traditional sources, like the Liber Usualis and the Graduale Romanum — and some might consider adding The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Hymnal.

Other Fine Articles & Videos

Fr. Matthew Solomon has a profoundly searching article, “A Conclave in the Offing: The Tale of the Tragic Hero,” that I cannot recommend highly enough. A lot packed in here. A little taste:

The best measure of the Church’s present situation is not just the crisis we are in, but rather the fact that we cannot get out of it. The Church has faced many crises in Her past and will do so long after we are all dead and buried. However, the full measure of our present state is that we are not showing any signs of getting out of it. New programs to “renew”, “energise” and “empower,” the catholic faithful spring up like clover in the morning only to wither by noon. They are all without roots (Mk 4:6) — as the Gospel tells us. These programs, financed by the donations of Catholics, fail those generous Catholics because they are the fruit of a catholic culture that is tragically misguided.

They fail because they have no depth; and they have no depth because they are not drawn from the Church’s Tradition (Mk 4:20; 2 Thess 2:15). In the English-speaking West and in much of Western Europe, so many new programmes take inspiration from the “success” of Evangelical or even Pentecostal movements. Programmes like Alpha and Divine Renovation, although well intentioned, are essentially a protestantisation of the Catholic faith.

Is the study of Latin important?

Secular educators think not, but the Catholic tradition has always known better. Indeed, even Protestants studied Latin for many centuries after the rupture with the Church, because they had the common sense to recognize its pivotal role in Western and Christian civilization and in the training and perfection of the mind. Daniel Gallagher weighs in: “Latin and the Big Questions.”

The via media for Christian paintings

David Clayton, in “Both the Chaos of Jackson Pollock and the Sterility of Photorealism are Incompatible with Christianity,” well articulates something my wife (a painter) and I have talked about for years: the problem with the fad for hyperrealism or naturalism in recent “revivalist” Catholic art. We need to learn more from the Middle Ages and from the East, and less from Bouguereau and academicism.

Authentic Christian art strikes a balance between abstraction and realism, rejecting the extremes of Abstract Expressionism—where meaning dissolves into unrecognizable chaos—and Photorealism, which reduces reality to soulless or meaningless matter. Rooted in a worldview shaped by faith and philosophy, the Christian artist uses partial abstraction to blend naturalistic forms with spiritual depth, revealing the soul and invisible truths of existence. This tension, distinct from modern art’s dualistic pitfalls, defines its unique purpose and beauty.

Is the UK on the verge of a dirty civil war?

I listened to this podcast last weekend and it was both impressively argued and disturbing in content.

One line from Dr. Betz that has haunted me: “Legitimacy is a kind of magic that makes the government work.” Political legitimacy fails when a government ceases, in the eyes of its people, to care for their basic needs. When that legitimacy fails, then conflict, even war, inevitably breaks out.

I’d also recommend a short related article by Mark Steyn, “Moving On to the Next Phase.”

Also related: Rob Roos’s “The Lessons of the 1930s: Have We Truly Learned Anything?”

History does not repeat itself exactly, but those who pay close attention recognize recurring patterns. The Great Depression of the 1930s—preceded by excessive debt and culminating in a stock market crash—not only led to economic collapse but also triggered political instability, radicalization, and the rise of totalitarian ideologies. Chaos and uncertainty made citizens susceptible to simplistic solutions offered by both fascists and communists. As we know, this ultimately resulted in an unprecedented global catastrophe. Now, nearly a century later, we find ourselves in another crisis—not due to excessive private debt, but due to unprecedented national debts, the threat of war, and a political elite trading freedom for control.

The pressure-cooker situation Dr. Betz points to in his very calm and rigorous way is also a recurring theme for the US Vice President (God bless him and keep him).

U.S. Vice President JD Vance doubled down on his criticism of Europe, stating that the continent is “at risk of engaging in civilizational suicide” by not protecting its borders and allowing in millions of migrants from other parts of the world.

In an interview with Fox News, Vance said many European countries “are unable to or unwilling to control their borders. If you have a country like Germany where you have another few million immigrants coming in from countries that are totally culturally incompatible with Germany, then it doesn’t matter what I think about Europe, Germany will have killed itself.”

Doing justice to medieval women

Aaron Patttee of Maintaining the Realm argues that we have seen a consistent refusal to engage medieval women on their own — feminine — terms. And in this way, historiography has become misogyny:

It has long been the mission of modern writers—or even an obligation depending on who one asks—to dismantle any views of the medieval world that portray women as anything but chattel…. Rather than rely upon actual medieval sources who regularly invoked their faith, enlightenment prejudices compose the bulwark of the historical reference, paired with a projection of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale upon every century.

Thumbs up on dancing

To close on a somewhat lighter note: a friend of mine recently said to me: “Wait, there’s a debate over social dancing?” I had to break it to him that, yes, there are Catholics who think well-regulated, formal, social, traditional dancing (i.e., NOT nightclubs or raves or mosh pits or whatever) is sinful for the unmarried. He was nonplussed, to put it mildly.

We’ve dealt with this whole debate in “Why Catholics Should Learn to Dance” and “The Great Good of Social Dancing.” I was therefore happy to see another nice article appear elsewhere on Substack, called “Dancing as an Allegory of Catholic Marriage.”

Thank you for reading and may God bless you and St. Benedict intercede for you!