Dr. K’s Weekly Roundup, October 3, 2025

Happy (old-calendar) feast of the Little Flower!

Keeping the flame lit

Now that the ban on parish TLMs has taken effect in Charlotte, it is time to ask: What is to be done when bishops behave like ravening wolves? First and most importantly, the laity should remain faithful to the lights God has given them. That means not simply abandoning the TLM because it’s no longer convenient. There are two options: the Mooresville chapel (yes, it’s too small, but our forefathers at times had to put up with dungeon and sword), and St. Anthony’s chapel in Mount Holly (if you have your doubts, read this). In the future, it seems highly likely that further chapels will be opening.

For now, I wish to share a remarkable open letter addressed by a faithful priest to all the faithful of the Diocese of Charlotte. It was published first at Rorate Caeli, but I reproduce it below in full. Although directed to a specific situation, its words speak wisdom and encouragement to everyone.

Dear TLM Faithful of the Diocese of Charlotte,

You may not know me, but I am well-acquainted with your diocese and the challenges you face, as I regularly speak with your priests and many among your community. I am a priest in good standing, and though I would prefer to sign this letter openly, the current climate in the Church, though hopefully fading, requires me to remain anonymous for prudence’s sake.

As you embark on your liturgical exile this week, I am reminded of the letter the prophet Jeremiah sent to the Jewish exiles in Babylon as they adjusted to their new reality, far from their liturgical home (see Jer 29). Though I lack the prophetic charism, I feel moved to offer you this unsolicited message of encouragement.

First, unlike the people of Jerusalem before their exile, you have committed no sin. Your devotion to the traditional Mass, which has sanctified the Church and countless saints across centuries, remains both legitimate and praiseworthy. As Pope Benedict wrote: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

Moreover, thanks to Diane Montagna’s reporting, we know that the rationale for restricting the traditional Mass in Traditionis Custodes was based on falsified survey results from the world’s bishops. Take heart! A house built on the sand of deceit cannot endure the buffeting winds of truth.

The overly and needlessly harsh enforcement of Traditionis Custodes by your bishop is simply baffling. The world knows your priests advocated for a more compassionate and pastoral approach, yet their pleas went unheard. While the FSSP and ICKSP continue to expand into other dioceses, Bishop Martin declined such an invitation. While other dioceses received extensions from Rome, Bishop Martin would not request one. And though other bishops have provided multiple Mass locations, Bishop Martin, overseeing a diocese spanning nearly five hours by car, refused to do so.

Even more striking, Bishop Martin’s letter, read by your four pastors last Sunday, admitted: the designated chapel was never intended to meet your pastoral needs. “Understand that the chapel is not meant to accommodate all who currently attend the TLM in their parishes,” he wrote, suggesting you view it as “a shrine chapel you might visit occasionally.” Traditionis Custodes demands no such thing. This level of severity almost rivals Bishop Martin’s initial plan to cut the permissions short and begin the Mooresville Masses in a gym in July, before renovations were even complete. Public outcry forced the bishop to change his plan on the timing. I encourage you to continue to make your pastoral needs known, especially in light of Martin’s stunning admission that he never intended to provide for them.

Returning to Jeremiah, we recall the prophet’s advice to the exiles to prepare for a long stay: “Your exile will be long; build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce” (Jer 29:28). Without claiming prophetic insight, I urge the opposite: don’t unpack. The injustice and harshness you face cannot persist.

It is noteworthy that, as you are confined to your liturgical reservation, the TLM visibly returns to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome for the first time since the unhappy year of 2021 and TC. Soon, the world will witness an even more prominent Mass there, celebrated by Cardinal Burke during the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage. These events surely have the Holy Father’s approval. Additionally, Pope Leo’s recent Crux interview hinted at forthcoming dialogue with those devoted to the TLM. These developments offer hope for a softening of restrictions from the Vatican.

Like Jeremiah, who urged the exiles to pray for the city of their captivity, I encourage you to pray for Bishop Martin, who has forced you from your parishes and imposed this liturgical exile. As a Franciscan, pray that he discerns the difference between the obedience expected in a diocese and that of a religious order. Having served as a pastor for mere months throughout his decades of priesthood, pray that he grows in pastoral care and understands the harm caused by a my-will-is-law approach. And though it may sound sharp, I say the following with charity: based on what I have heard and read, both publicly and privately, Bishop Martin seems unwell. His evident need for constant attention and absolute control over others (to the point of prohibiting silent vesting prayers!) suggests something deeply unsettled and a need for healing.

Pray for him, bear your exile and the sufferings therein with patience, offer these sufferings as a sacrifice, and trust that your return is near. Through your stripes, you can help mend these liturgical wounds. Return follows exile; renewal follows persecution; restoration follows destruction.

“For behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people…and I will bring them back to the land which I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it” (Jer 30:3).

Pope Leo disappoints

Now that Leo XIV has shown that he continues to hold the error he held as a cardinal, namely, that the death penalty is intrinsically immoral and to be put on the same level as abortion, it is well to remember why this cannot possibly be true in any real or possible universe. A little over two years ago, I formulated why in an article that has gained a lot of traction: “The Horns of the Death Penalty Dilemma.”

The extent to which some Catholics fail to grasp what is at stake in the death penalty debate is simply breathtaking. For example, some think that Francis’s word “inadmissible” simply means that capital punishment is no longer the best prudential decision. No. He repeatedly said it was “per se contrary to the Gospel and to human dignity” and that it could never be rightly chosen. This matter has been covered extensively (for instance, in my lecture “What Good is a Changing Catechism? Revisiting the Purpose and Limits of a Book”), but the papolaters refuse to study; their ears are plugged up with wax.

The pope has no authority to contradict the universal ordinary magisterium.

Here’s a brilliant formulation from my friend Phillip Campbell:

It’s really not too difficult to discern an authentic maturation of doctrine from a rupturous deviation. A helpful rule of thumb: If you can say, “The Church believed X and therefore believes Y” you are looking at development. But when someone says “The Church believed X but now we believe Y” you’re dealing with a deviation.

I will admit that my hopes for Leo XIV have begun to be dashed. While I do not see him as a rabid anti-traditionalist (indeed, he is not a rabid anything, and his personality and style are an obvious improvement on his predecessor, which, admittedly, is a very low bar to surpass), his comments on the Senator Durbin dust-up were both clumsy and scandalous, while his blessing of a block of ice (!!!) at a climate control meeting was downright bizarre, as nearly every commentator across the spectrum noted.

We must keep praying and not despair. It is never a “cop out” to urge prayers, for those who are good can become better, while those who are bad can be prevented from getting worse. There is never a time to “give up” on Leo. But by the same token, it does us no good to ignore the fact that he has added more scandal to Cupich’s scandal, and that’s no credit to him. Imagine, instead, if he had backed the 10 U.S. bishops who called Cupich to account for his proposal to award a partial-birth-abortion proponent. That would look a lot more like the much-vaunted synodality.

(Oh, and if you like that kind of thing, a Catholic writer has seriously proposed praying the “Synodal Mysteries” of the Rosary. Putting parody out of business?)

Meanwhile, Durbin himself has announced he will not receive the award Cupich offered to give him.

Good News

Shall we have some much-needed good news?

The Pilgrimage for the Restoration on its 30th Anniversary

Stuart Chessman reports:

Yesterday we had the joy to be present at the 30th “Pilgrimage for the Restoration” at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York. It was a perfect day for this event. The contingents of pilgrims made their way to the shrine carrying their banners and often pushing their strollers; their order, discipline and demeanor were impressive. As far as I could see, the organization of the event seemed very thorough and competent…. If numbers alone were the only criterion of success, this year’s Pilgrimage for the Restoration was an outstanding achievement. One of the leaders estimated there were 700 to 800 pilgrims present; more may have joined for the concluding Mass. It is a dramatic improvement in participation compared to the situation around 2013.

As I’ve often said, traditional Catholicism, the soul of Christendom, will be rebuilt by families and local communities and small steps like pilgrimages, not by grandiose platforms and statements and top-down solutions. We need to be the ones who are left standing with lamps alight when everything else has toppled down (as indeed it will do, more and more rapidly in the coming decades).

Michaelmas Dance

You will recall one of the three co-authors of this Substack’s (unjustifiably) controversial article “Why Catholics Should Learn to Dance,” Dorothy Cummings McLean. She writes an excellent blog called Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party and over there she posted the other day on their annual Michaelmas Dance. This is the kind of thing we should be seeing everywhere.

When in Rome…

The times, they are a-changin’... The following book was spotted at the Daughters of St. Paul bookshop in Rome. Imagine that! (If you don’t have your own copy of Close the Workshop yet, you can get a signed one from here, or pick it up from Angelico Press or Amazon.)

Flowers for a great man

A friend of mine attends the TLM at the parish when Michael Davies is buried. Today he sent me photos of 100 daffodils from Wales being planted around the great writer’s grave. May the soul of this faithful servant of the Lord rest in peace.

Liturgical Lessons

Setting the record straight

I am very pleased that Catholic World Report ran this devastating rebuttal of a recent article purporting to be a “review” of Yve Chiron’s history of traditionalism when, in fact, it was a tendentious polemic against a phenomenon the author dislikes. Writing the rebuttal is the eminent Dr. John Pepino, who translated the Chiron book in question (as well as several other pertinent titles). Read it for a master study in dissecting misinformation.

Why not go with pop culture?

In “The Cross Conquers the World,” Fr. Kevin Drew offers us a mighty rant on Life Teen and weak-kneed Christianity.

Cast fire on earth

The best homily I’ve ever read for St. Michael’s feastday was preached at a traditional Catholic parish and posted at Rorate Caeli. Don’t miss it.

Speaking of Rome… We know things are not great at the Vatican. I hardly need to belabor that point. But the fact that a well-attended Solemn Mass in honor of St. Michael the Archangel was offered on September 29th in St. Peter’s Basilica tells us that some kind of thaw has begun (as one might also surmise from Leo XIV’s having recently received in audience Cardinal Sarah, Cardinal Burke, and Archbishop Pozzo, three major supporters of freedom for the TLM). While the monsignor who offered this Mass has done it the past few years, it was always a quiet affair. Now people are coming out into the open again.

White nationalists?

The old lie is being trotted out again that TLM supporters are white nationalists and racists. Oh, so THAT’s why TLM congregations tend to be so ethnically diverse and racially integrated! I had been wondering! Five years ago, I shredded this nonsense in an article: “How the Traditional Liturgy Contributes to Racial and Ethnic Integration.” Also relevant is an article by Rob Marco.

Homiletic speculations

I have long been interested in the question of the homily or sermon at Mass: Is it actually part of the liturgy? And how could we improve its quality? As to the first question, I argue no, it’s not, but here’s a very intelligent case from a fellow traditionalist who thinks the opposite. I welcome this dialogue.

Continual upheaval

Here’s a remarkable snapshot of the insane pace of liturgical change in the past 70 years. Last Saturday, September 27, 2025, would have been celebrated like this:

• Pre-1956: SS Cosmas & Damian – observed for something like 13 to 14 centuries.

• 1956: BVM on Saturday (following the abolition of semi-double feasts in Cum nostra), which happened only in 1957;

• 1962: Ember Saturday — the changes to the computing off the first Sunday of the month in BR1961 rubrics would have caused this only in 1964 and 1969 before the Ember Days were to be decided by local bishops, i.e., lost altogether;

• 1970 new calendar: St Vincent de Paul (moved from July 19th to his dies natalis) — celebrated for 55 years.

In such circumstances, the sense was bound to prevail that, on the one hand, immemorial tradition meant nothing, and, on the other hand, anything could change and probably should change. And that’s only one step away from “make-it-up-as-you-go-along.” In other words, rapid change is a hothouse for antinomianism.

Foley at his best

As regular readers know, I will always share Dr. Michael Foley’s superb columns at New Liturgical Movement in which he analyzes the theological and spiritual riches of the Latin prayers of the traditional Roman rite. His most recent in the series on the Roman Canon is, in my opinion, one of his very best: “The Simili modo: Canonical Modifications, Part II.” Here, he brilliantly demonstrates how the mysterious phrase “mysterium fidei” at the heart of the consecratory formula of the Precious Blood can be seen as the axial point of the entire Eucharistic prayer. Remarkable and not to be missed.

Also commendable is his column today: “A Review of The Roman Canon and The Words of the Missal.”

Political Musings

You couldn’t make it up

From our friends at the European Conservative:

A Swiss wind instrument repairman is set to spend ten days behind bars after refusing to pay a fine imposed for what authorities deemed an “offensive” Facebook comment about biological sex. Emanuel Brünisholz, from Burgdorf in the canton of Bern, was convicted under Switzerland’s anti-discrimination laws after responding to a December 2022 post by Swiss National Council member Andreas Glarner. In his reply, he wrote: “If you dig up LGBTQI people after 200 years, you’ll only find men and women based on their skeletons. Everything else is a mental illness promoted through the curriculum.”

Perhaps it’s not surprising that we read the following about the Catholic Church in Switzerland:

“The objective has to be that the Church diminishes in an orderly manner.” Urs Brosi, the general secretary of the Roman Catholic Central Conference of Switzerland, said that Friday while presenting the latest Church statistics. Thus, even the representatives of the Church have given up the hope that their institution can preserve today’s dimensions. In any case, nobody talks any more about the possibility of a “return to religion” in Switzerland — let alone that the churches could even grow again.

Behold, the New Pentecost. But those who long for the old rite? Écrasez l’infâme!

Slovakia shows how it’s done

Wonderful! I mean, it’s absurd that we have reached a point where something like this is even necessary, but at least sanity prevails in SOME places:

Slovakia has taken a decisive step to defend its cultural traditions and national sovereignty, as parliament approved a landmark constitutional amendment on Friday, September 26th, that enshrines the recognition of only two sexes—male and female—and places Slovak law above European Union legislation in matters of national identity. The amendment, passed with 90 votes in favour in the 150-seat parliament, underscores the country’s right to determine its own course on ethical and social issues.

Nick Fuentes

Over at Crisis Magazine, a good piece by John Mac Ghlionn (you’ll recognize the name) on Nick Fuentes: what his rise signifies, and how it should be met.

Morello on Coulombe

In the latest issue of The European Conservative’s print magazine, Sebastian Morello writes a crisp review of Charles Coulombe’s The Compleat Monarchist, a book which, in fact, lives up entirely to its title. (To enlarge the pictures, simply head over to this article on my actual Substack and then click on them.)

Other Notables

Robert Keim on Scripture

Keim has been giving us a wealth of riches on Scripture at Via Mediaevalis. In a recent post he discusses one of the most charming traits of the medievals: the directness and simplicity with which they communicate, as you can see in their fresh and vivid Bible illustrations. In another post, he writes:

The Song of Songs leads us, in a way that is unique among divinely inspired literature, along the path of love, and at the same time it is a treasure of eloquence that we comprehend more fully as we learn to love more truly. The standard explanation of Song of Songs is that it speaks allegorically of the union between Christ and the Church. My mind, easily wearied by elusive or overpolished abstractions, isn’t sure what to do with this. I can’t visualize it, can’t feel it, can’t relate to it. I need something more, and Bernard supplies it.

Get outdoors for your brain

In “The Slot Machine in Your Pocket,” Robin Phillips discusses how limitation is essential to mental health:

Stayer, whose meticulous mind is reflected in a measured and deliberate speaking style, told me of a plethora of studies his lab has undertaken to identify brain-based measures of cognitive restoration. A great outdoorsman who loves the wilderness of Eastern Utah, Strayer has been particularly intrigued by the restorative effects of time in nature. In study after study, he and his colleagues have proved that benefits of time in nature include enhanced creativity, better attention, improved working memory, and healthier functioning in the brain regions associated with emotional regulation....

The solution to abundance of information, like abundance of food, will be found in the arts of self-limitation and askesis. A healthy individual recognizes that even though he may be hungry and even though food may be readily accessible, he can wait until the next meal. Similarly, we are coming to realize that even though digital stimulation may be only a click away, we need to take measures to limit the availability of digital distractions, protect our attention, and preserve silence. When we crave noise and stimulation, those are often the times when we most need to lean into greater stillness and quietude; when we most feel the urge to fill up life’s silences with distraction, those may be the very moment when God is calling us to submit to the pause.

Healthy recreations

Robert Lazu Kmita helpfully compiles into one place recommendations of “Good Games for a Virtuous, Joyful Family.”

A Musical Send-off

Palestrina as you’ve never have heard him before, but as his contemporaries might well have done, depending on their local circumstances: a solo singer accompanied by viol consort. It’s a very different experience of the music.

And Geoffrey Burgon’s lovely setting of the Nunc Dimittis, sung by the incomparable Gesualdo Six:

Thank you for reading and may God bless you!