Dr. K’s Weekly Roundup, September 12, 2025

Charlie Kirk and the sundering of America, the ecclesiastical Cold War, Roman news, Liturgical Lessons, monarchy, and more

I wish you all a blessed feast of the Holy Name of Mary. This feast commemorates the Christian victory over the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, a decisive turning point attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and the devotion of the armies led by King John III Sobieski of Poland. It is a most appropriate day to invoke her heavenly aid against enemies who batter the gates or infiltrate the castle.

The past two weeks have been rough: the transgender shooting of Catholic schoolchildren in Minneapolis, the racially motivated killing of a Ukrainian refugee by a multiply convicted madman on a commuter train in Charlotte, and the assassination of conservative Christian motivator Charlie Kirk in Utah. The common thread connecting all three events is radical leftwing insanity.

Charlie Kirk

I will admit that, until Wednesday, Kirk wasn’t really on my radar. I’m of a different generation and follow different figures. But on the day he was murdered, I happened to be in a business meeting with several young men, and the impact on them was instant and visceral: he had been a hero of theirs, someone they cheered for and looked up to, someone who spoke to them and for them. These fans of Kirk understood immediately the significance of what had taken place: the cold civil war between the hard Left and normal “faith, family, flag” Americans had just been dramatically escalated.

Fr. Clinton Sensat’s reaction on Facebook summed it up best:

I admired Charlie Kirk a great deal.

I didn’t always agree with what he said, though I did agree with most of it. But there are two things Mr. Kirk held as absolute values, and with them I completely concur:

He believed in our Lord Jesus Christ.

And he believed in the power of rationality.

The second is not unrelated to the first.

Mr. Kirk made a living, it is true, but I believe he had something deeper. I believe he experienced a vocation, a mission, a duty.

I watched video after video of him welcoming challenge, welcoming correction, and yet piercing the bubbles of contemporary idols. I watched him pivot, argue, listen, respect, and offer rejoinder. He was a fierce debater, but an honest one.

And again and again I watched as people did more than disagree with him.

They hated him.

In their eyes, he wasn't "wrong." He wasn't mistaken. He was an infidel. He was a blasphemer against the current godless orthodoxy. That's how they treated him.

I've been sitting with the news of his attack and death for a little while. My thoughts have been jumbled and emotional. (I'm really sick too, which doesn't help.) But I think I finally know who he reminds me of:

Charlie Kirk was a latter-day Socrates.

Athens was prosperous, liberal, enlightened, educated. Sophisticated people from around the world moved to her streets. She was everything that the West today aspires to be.

And Athens killed Socrates. For "corrupting the youth."

Why?

Because Socrates was uneducated. He was a blue collar military vet, ugly and offensive, who asked impertinent questions. Again and again he exposed the pretensions of those who believed they knew. And he did it under a divine calling, according to his own testimony.

Socrates is a great man, carrying the aureate halo of classic magnificence, the mellowing patina of centuries of veneration. But everything we can see tells us most of his fellow citizens found him annoying, irritating, frustrating, and ultimately worthy to be murdered.

Had we walked the streets of Athens 2400 years ago, we wouldn't have known Socrates's later greatness. We would have merely seen an opinionated man, tricksy in logic, fierce in debate, uncomfortably pressing society on its assumptions. Who does that remind you of?

I think Charlie Kirk is a latter-day Socrates. And I do not say that lightly.

Pray for Mr. Kirk's family. Pray for his soul. Pray for his murderer. Pray for all the witnesses, who will now be traumatized. And pray for our nation.

It is a dark day when a man is murdered simply because he asks uncomfortable questions. May God have mercy on us all.

Rusty Reno reminds us that these questions were much more uncomfortable to the old liberal guard than to Gen Zers who welcomed Kirk’s bold but affable manner of discussing substantive issues.

Kirk’s organization is Turning Point USA. His ambition was to turn young people away from the left’s agenda and toward a conservative outlook. In recent years, he was pushing on an open door. Polling suggests a rightward tilt in Gen Z attitudes. And his arena was the university, the implacable Vatican of the now-dying multicultural and open society consensus. I’m not privy to private conversations among Ivy League professors, but I’d be surprised if they are not characterized by horror and disbelief about the “vibe shift,” which is affecting every sector of society, especially their students.

As I’ve often documented here at Tradition & Sanity, an analogous vibe shift is occuring in the Catholic Church. And the bishops are generally as out of touch with it, or horrified by it, as the hard Left. Indeed, these categories overlap to a large extent: if not as extreme, the Catholic episcopacy tends to be soft Left on many social issues and at least tolerant of the hard Left, not wishing to rock the boat by publicly standing up against it.

The political meaning of Wednesday’s murder is unmistakable. In the words of Brian Almon:

This is a clarifying moment in American history. Over the past month we have watched a transgender terrorist murder Catholic schoolchildren, a career criminal casually stab a young woman in the throat on public transit, and now the preeminent voice of the conservative movement assassinated in broad daylight.

We know who the enemies of freedom and social order are. We’ve known all along. Those political and media figures who call Christians and conservatives “Nazis,” “fascists,” and “enemies of democracy” share responsibility for what happened yesterday. Every judge who let a violent criminal go free because of the color of his skin, every elected official who told their supporters to harass their opponents, every teacher who taught their students to hate—all share responsibility for where we are today.…

Yesterday is proof that the radical left will not allow us to make America great again without a fight.... There is no coexistence with people who want you dead. There will be no “coming together,” no reminder that “we’re all Americans” or “we all bleed red.” There are countless people within our country who are enemies of the good and the beautiful, enemies of truth, enemies of social order, and enemies of you and me.

Eric Sammons comments:

The increase in political violence today makes me wonder if we too are in a revolutionary era, at least politically speaking. It’s become obvious to most everyone that our current liberal democratic system doesn’t work; contrary to its promises, we are on a clear path to less freedom, less order, and less respect for the common good. The current system is simply powerless to defend its citizens against the evil forces at work in the world. So what will replace it?

Sven R. Larson urges us not to underestimate the message of the moment:

Conservatives need to draw the right conclusions, especially from Charlie Kirk’s death. We need to acknowledge to ourselves, and recognize together, that even if we are not at war with the left, they are at war with us.

Even if we do not consider them our enemies, they consider us to be their enemies. Even if we simply think of the Left as our political opponents, the Left think of us as their personal enemies. Their ideology prescribes exactly this approach to politics: from Lenin’s declaration that the Communist Party is the embodiment of the working class to Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, the Left has learned—generation after generation—that conservatives are not opponents. They are enemies and should be treated as such.

We need to recognize that the Left by definition considers us unworthy of having a dialogue with. We need to reciprocate that point. We do not need, and should not want, a dialogue with the hard Left.

Many conservatives will intuitively reject this idea. To them, a dialogue with your opponents is the only way forward in a civilized society—after all, wasn’t that what Charlie Kirk was all about? Yes, Charlie Kirk wanted a dialogue with his opponents. But his assassination proves that those whom he considered his ideological opponents in reality were his enemies. Enemies will not hesitate to use violence. They assault, destroy, and stop at nothing to silence anyone who does not share their views.

Lest someone think this kind of language exaggerated, the evidence on its behalf is out there in spades, writes Lauren Smith at The European Conservative:

While we should do everything to honour Kirk’s memory, we would also do well to remember the names and faces of the people who jumped up to justify or even celebrate this young man’s murder.

At the time of writing, the authorities are yet to find the individual responsible for the shooting. Nor do we have an official motivation. We don’t know for sure if the person who pulled the trigger came from the Left. But we certainly know what the Left thinks of the shooter. Before Kirk’s death had even been confirmed, ghouls with social-media accounts crawled out of the woodwork to express their joy. Their overwhelming consensus was that Kirk was a fascist hate-monger who deserved to die.

“Charlie Kirk isn’t a martyr,” read one post on X, with over 300,000 likes, “he’s a casualty of the violence he incited.” Another, now deleted post, with more than 200,000 likes, read: “Charlie Kirk was a genocide apologist, anti-immigrants, anti-abortion, anti-women’s rights, anti-anything human rights, very racist and Islamophobic. I’m not saying he deserved it, but he deserved it.” “Breaking,” said another tweet, from a user with the trans flag in his screen name, “Charlie Kirk loses gun debate.” That one racked up more than 400,000 likes. Another deranged leftist wrote: “Maybe Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have spent years being a hateful demagogue fascist and this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe he should take some personal responsibility.” Almost 180,000 likes. A professor at the University of Toronto felt emboldened to make a post under her full legal name, saying “shooting is honestly too good for so many of you fascist cunts.”

When this is what people really think, you know that civil unrest and upheaval are soon to follow.

This is why, incidentally, I am glad to see that an online database has been created to document everyone who has expressed elation or approval about the murder of Charlie Kirk. If you are aware of people who, in their legal names, have applauded this assassination, please enter the information at “Exposing Charlie’s Murderers.”

Nick Freitas, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, had the courage to post on social media:

I am told that as a state representative this is the moment where I’m supposed to express my heartfelt condolences and then stand in solidarity with those on the other side of the aisle as we condemn political violence and stand unified as one people.

But we aren’t “one people” are we?

The truth is we haven’t been for some time now, and there is really no point in pretending anymore, if there ever was.

We are two very different peoples. We may occupy the same piece of geography, but that is where the similarities seem to abruptly end.

I convinced myself for a long time that whenever the left called me a racist, a bigot, a sexist, a fascist, a “threat to democracy” for even the most innocent of disagreements, that it was simply hyperbolic rhetoric done for effect.

And now the “effect” is a widow and two orphaned children, because the left couldn’t bear the thought of a peaceful man debating them and winning.

I don’t think they realize it yet, but murdering Charlie is going to be remembered as the day where we finally woke up to what this fight really is.

It’s not a civil dispute among fellow countrymen. It’s a war between diametrically opposed worldviews which cannot peacefully coexist with one another. One side will win, and one side will lose.

Charlie tried to win that fight through argumentation, through discussion, through peaceful resolution of differences.

And the other side murdered him.

Not because he was “extreme” or “inciting violence” or any other hyperbolic slur they hurled at him. They murdered him because he was effective. Because he was unafraid. Because he inspired others and made them feel like they had a voice, that they were not alone. And he did it at the very institutions which have fomented so much hatred toward conservatives.

I don’t want to “stand in solidarity” with the other side of the aisle. I want to defeat you. I want to defeat the godless ideology that kills babies in the womb, sterilizes confused children, turns our cities into cesspools of degeneracy and lawlessness…and that murdered Charlie Kirk.

Social media is aflame right now with leftist celebration of Charlie’s death.

I wonder if any among them understand what has just happened. If there is a Yamamoto somewhere in their midst warning that all they have done is awoken a sleeping giant.

I doubt it. I think they gave up such introspection and self-awareness long ago.

I don’t know exactly what will happen next. I just know that it won’t be the same as what has happened in the past.

There will be thoughts and prayers…Charlie would have wanted prayers. Not for himself but for those left behind and for the country that he loved.

But then there will be a reckoning.

My Christian faith requires me to love my enemies and pray for those who curse me. It does not require me to stand idly by in the midst of savagery and barbarism...quite the opposite.

So every time I feel tired, every time I feel discouraged or overwhelmed, I am going to watch the video of a good man being murdered in Utah…I will force myself to watch it…and then I will return to the work of destroying the evil ideology responsible for that and so much more.

Rest with God Charlie, your fight is over.

Ours is just beginning.

Do you want to see what gives the liberals nightmares? What they would mow down if they could? On August 30 the liberal newspaper The Guardian published an article called “Book burning, Latin prayers — and a lot of kids: inside the American ‘trad family’ movement,” by J. Oliver Conroy. (The subtitle describes the movement as “alarmingly retrograde.”)

Conroy wants us to think suspiciously about the “trad families” he’s reporting on, but frankly they all seem to be doing a fabulous job and I rejoice for them all. Indeed, the author is so good at describing what he actually sees that his attempts to make them look less admirable (the usual slurs about fascism, whiteness, romanticism, etc.) backfire, it seems to me, and they are left looking like interesting, fulfilled, and purposeful families.

Mike argued that families like his have retreated to timeless values and institutions that can withstand the buffeting cultural winds. “It’s like, OK, we’ve seen these storms before,” he said. “Family’s important. Land is important. God is important. And those are the cores, and with them we can weather whatever is going on out there.” The pronouncement carried a gentle hint of challenge. Everyone feels this too, he seemed to be saying, even if they are scared to admit it.

Libs, you have nothing to offer humanity, and the sooner trads (of various sorts) take over, the better.

Ecclesiastical Cold War

As mentioned above, the Kirk murder and reactions to it remind us that an analogous divide exists in the Church. There are, as it were, two churches, masquerading as one, sharing the same “geography” but not the same faith.

At Rorate Caeli, we read about the malevolent Andrea Grillo, architect of Traditionis Custodes, fulminating against the cultus of Carlo Acutis.

There are criticisms to be made of the Acutis canonization, but mostly regarding (as often in recent decades) an accelerated procedure, not the person himself. By all accounts, Acutis was really a fine boy who, despite growing up in a secularized, barely nominally Catholic, family, was saved by a supernatural love for the Blessed Sacrament. And yet it is Acutis’s love for the sacramental Christ that is the fulcrum of Grillo’s hatred for him and his canonization. And it reveals a lot about the spirit behind Traditionis Custodes, and why it is such a malevolent, erroneous, perverted, and perverse document.

(A sidenote on Acutis’s companion in heaven, Pier Giorgio Frassati: if you read about Frassati’s life, he was not only full of joy and dedicated to the poor, he was a man of deep prayer, devoted to the traditional Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and the Rosary. In contrast to what the modernizing reformers of the 1960s insisted, traditional ways of worship were obviously no impediment to his engagement with the Faith or his sanctification; on the contrary. And neither was his smoking of a pipe, which has often been airbrushed out of banners. And there’s a wonderful fringe benefit to his canonization: it gives American Catholics something additional to celebrate on his feastday, which is July 4th.)

In her article ““Do Not Be Conformed to the World…or to Church Leaders,” Sheryl Collmer helps us to understand why blind obedience has never been and could never be Catholic:

The word of the day for Catholics is “unity.” For the sake of it, entire congregations are ghettoized (TLM), bishops exiled (Strickland), faculties gutted (Sacred Heart), and dioceses fractured (Charlotte). Strange to think that the peculiar synodality project is more or less based on giving every wayward lifestyle and viewpoint a podium but the faithful who have dedicated their lives and relationships to Christ are pressed into passive, conforming ranks.

One of the many things the heavy hands on the tiller of the Church don’t realize is that unity cannot be forced. In the short term, they may be able to line people up like identical service robots, but it only fuels an equal and opposite reaction farther down the road. It’s Newtonian psychology.

Conformity in an evil age asks us to deny common sense, which is our use of reason. For unity’s sake, we’re told to believe that the Mass attended by almost every saint we’ve ever loved is now something pernicious. The “needle in every arm” campaign asked us to ignore the fact that a novel technology had no long-term safety testing. 1984’s Winston Smith had to swallow the non-sense that freedom is slavery and ignorance strength.

Are we surprised to discover, just to take one example, that (as a new report from the Lepanto Institute documents)

Detroit Archbishop Edward Weisenburger has a history of concealing clerical sexual abuse, according to revelations of a Church-commissioned investigation that examined the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, where Weisenburger served 16 years as Vicar General.

As Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City from 1996 to 2012, Weisenburger not only wielded immense influence—but used it to suppress accountability for priestly sexual abuse of minors. Investigators discovered that he routinely instructed staff to “destroy after reading,” oversaw the mass deletion of his own emails following his departure, and even enabled a defamation lawsuit against an abuse survivor, all while hypocritically claiming to support transparency.

No, this is not surprising. Scratch the surface of an opponent of the TLM and you will uncover moral depravity, theological heterodoxy, spiritual desolation.

To take another example:

The Argentine archdiocese of San Juan de Cuyo has sent a protocol to parish priests, parish vicars, Catholic school administrators, and catechists in which, in view of First Communions and Confirmations, it decrees that “catechumens (of any age) will receive Holy Communion only standing and in the hand.”

As anyone knows who knows anything about liturgical law (even for the Novus Ordo!), this requirement is absolutely beyond the power of a bishop to dictate. It is ultra vires. But progressive prelates do as they please, because they are tyrants who answer to no higher authority than themselves.

This is why I am so glad to see the continuing success of the deeply moving documentary Bread, Not Stones. Edward Pentin brought it further attention in an article at National Catholic Register: “‘Bread Not Stones’ Spotlights Charlotte Diocese’s Latin Mass Suppression.” In this one-hour film, the preternatural evil of the anti-TLM campaign is on full display for any man of good will to see.

To what extent were our current woes were unleashed specifically by Vatican II? Why was it summoned, what did it accomplish, what did it fail to do that needed to be done, what “processes” did it set in motion, what does it continue to represent as a symbol? These remain burning questions for those who would understand modern Church history. I was glad to take part in a roundtable discussion with some esteemed colleagues last Monday:

To quote Phil Lawler, here’s what liberal intelligence looks like (I know, it’s an oxymoron, if not a contradictio in terminis):

There’s nothing funny about the school shooting in Minneapolis. But I couldn’t help but chuckle at a New York Times piece that said “We May Never Know” the motivations of the killer—even though he left behind a manifesto explaining them. Similarly, when Illinois Governor Pritzker downplayed the extend of violent crime in Chicago—after a Labor Day weekend that saw 54 shootings!—I had to wonder how many shootings it will take to constitute an emergency.

Both of these things make me think of the state of the Church. First, there are Catholics who still go around thinking that the liturgical reform was innocent of evil and intended to be in continuity with tradition and reverence—even though we now have reams of documentation to prove the opposite. And you have Catholics who still speak as if the Church is not in a state of emergency, even after decades of spiritual (and sometimes physical) abuse. Whether they’re at fault or not, such people exhibit the same kinds of “liberal intelligence” as the Times and Pritzker.

For many people, the million-dollar question resolves to: Is Pope Leo XIV part of the problem or part of the solution? Maybe this question is too simplistic as stated. Many who are currently writing about Pope Leo have a shallow understanding of the political situation at the Vatican. Two recent articles offer a more detailed picture of the complexities, and I recommend them to your attention: Gaetano Masciullo’s “Vatican Media and the Bergoglian Curia: A Hegemony Threatening Leo’s Voice” and Fr. Claude Barthe’s “The Pontificate of Leo XIV, a Transitional Stage?”

The Athanasius of our age — Bishop Athanasius Schneider — speaks the unvarnished truth concerning the LGBTQ+ Jubilee Pilgrimage, in an interview called “Spiritual Criminals and Murderers of Souls.” And Erick Ybarra offers an intense meditation on the expression “All Are Welcome.”

Pontifical Mass at Vatican

One very positive sign this past week was the news that the annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in Rome at the end of October will once again be allowed to hold a Traditional Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Altar of the Chair in the Basilica of St. Peter’s, to be celebrated by Cardinal Burke. This Mass had been done for many years in a row but was then forbidden the last two years in accordance with the strangulation policy of Traditionis Custodes. And you can be sure that it did not happen without Leo XIV’s express agreement. Here’s the revised schedule:

Yes, we all know that the Mass of the Ages should need no “permission” (!) to be offered in the Basilica of St. Peter’s, of all places in the world. And yet… the significance of this overture should not be missed. As Joseph Shaw writes:

Allowing the Traditional Mass in St Peter’s is an official act, but it is not legislation, nor is it a significant change of personnel. These things will happen in due course, but what this tells is something more fundamental: a change of policy, which will surely soon be reflected in legislation, or at least in how legislation is implemented by officials.

For the last two years, the Traditional Catholic pilgrims of the Ad Petri Sedem Pilgrimage have not been allowed a TLM in the Basilica of St Peter. One official document explained that parishes should not list TLMs in their newsletters because to do so would ‘promote’ it, and this idea came to have a wider application. Prominent churches and prominent celebrants would have the effect, it seemed, of ‘promoting’ the Church’s ancient liturgy, at least, according to some people.

Why a legitimate form of the Church’s liturgy should not be ‘promoted’ was not easy to understand. Traditionis custodes, after all, allowed the TLM to be celebrated for the ‘good’ of the Faithful: if it was good for people, surely the more people hear about it and attend it, the better. In any case, the effort to suppress this kind of ‘promotion’ was already faltering early this year. As we discovered when we were organising Bishop Athanasius’ little tour in June, many bishops were perfectly happen for him to celebrate the old Mass in their dioceses, and it wasn’t necessary for these Masses to happen in holes in the ground.

With this new and clear signal from Rome, all bishops and religious superiors around the world who are open-minded about the Traditional Mass — a high proportion of them — will feel much more confident about allowing celebrations. Those who are, for whatever reason, hostile to it, will find it harder to justify obstructing it. We will all breath a little more easily after today.

Our joy will not be complete, of course, until the other pieces of the puzzle are in place: a clarification of the place of the TLM in the life of the Church, giving it, we hope, a position of honour, if not of prominence. It is enough, for now, to know that we are moving in the right direction.

I therefore enthusiastically endorse the advice of Rorate Caeli:

Our call to Catholics in Europe, and those in other continents who are able to attend [the pilgrimage on Oct. 24-26], is: PLEASE GO. Make our numbers great and known. Make our voice heard as loudly as possible.

In Defense of Online Traditionalists

“Online Catholicism” often gets a very bad rap, especially from those who overuse the word “toxic.” Eric Sammons at Crisis Magazine offers us a more thoughtful angle when explaining why, on the one hand, huge numbers of Catholics are leaving the Church, and yet there is an upsurge in converts:

Consider the average cradle Catholic growing up in the Church today. His primary experience of Catholicism is his local parish, which is sadly often effeminate, non-threatening, and weak. It’s full of 1970’s musical ditties and insipid homilies and hordes of older women dominating parish life (picture the army of Extraordinary Ministers invading the altar when it’s time to distribute Holy Communion).

There’s nothing about this experience to suggest that Catholicism has the answers to today’s nihilistic culture. It doesn’t fight against the lies young people experience every day—lies about human sexuality, lies about the family, and lies about the purpose of life. Instead it just tells them to be nice. When the average young cradle Catholic thinks this is what Catholicism represents, he simply leaves as a young adult in his search for real answers to today’s problems.

Now consider the average young non-Catholic today. He’s never stepped foot in a Catholic parish. He might know a few Catholics, but most of them aren’t serious about the Faith so they don’t talk about it much. But he does encounter and interact with Catholics online. And these Catholics are far more likely to present a Catholicism that’s masculine, robust, and offering real answers (the Church’s answers!) to today’s problems. It rejects the weak Catholicism that became dominant starting in the 1970’s.

This is attractive, and so a growing number of those non-Catholics are deciding to become Catholic. Further, they’re much more likely to then enter the Church through a parish that’s more traditional and more unapologetic about being Catholic.

In short: cradle Catholics walking out with a yawn is nearly all that we would be seeing, were it not for people encountering a more robust and traditional Catholicism, first online, and then in person.

Upcoming Lecture

Speaking of doing things in person… If you happen to be in the area of St. Louis, Missouri, please come to the lecture I’m giving there on Saturday, September 27. Details in the flyer below. After the Q&A, I’ll be signing and selling copies of my books Once and Future Roman Rite, Turned Around, and Close the Workshop.

Liturgical Lessons

Holy Week, cont’d

The NLM series on practical advice for implementing the pre-55 Holy Week continues with Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. There is a lot of pastoral, rubrical, and practical wisdom contained in this piece. In particular, clergy, MCs, choir directors, and keen students of the sacred liturgy will not want to miss it.

African inculturation imposed by Europeans

The African Sentry writes:

All studies in African Traditional Religious worship and nature religions show how silence has always been the heart of liturgy, avoiding of all kajanja (Luganda, excitement) and uncomely conduct or exaggerations like ululation, clapping, dancing and what have you. If anything, the Tridentine Latin Mass fitted the African mentality and attitude towards worship than this dancy-fancy innovation. Truth is, many African animists themselves do not dance during their supplications and rites of worship for fear of annoying the ancestral spirits. Here was a bishop, wishing to do the unthinkable…

Of course I do not wish to task the mind of the reader with how the reformers wasted the time of humanity. Many things that have followed the Vatican II ‘liturgical reform’ are absurd, and the arguments advanced for developments like ‘liturgical dancing’ were based on falsehoods and thus the destruction of the liturgy has followed.

Eating for dear life

Why is “manducate” used in the consecration formula? Michael Foley explains, in his fascinating post on the “Qui pridie” of the Roman Canon:

Craig Toth speculates that the basic classical Latin verb for eating (edere) fell out of favor in “vulgar” (popular) Latin and that it was replaced with other verbs like manducare and comedere. By the composition of the Canon, manducare was a perfectly respectable synonym for eating, despite its uncouth origins. Manducare originally meant “to chew, to eat with avidity”; And Manducus, “the Chewer,” "was a masked stock character that figured in the popular Atellan farces and in processions (pompae). The grotesque mask was fashioned with huge, widely gaping jaws and clattering teeth."

It would therefore be highly inappropriate, but not technically incorrect, to translate Accipite et manducate ex hoc omnes as “Take and chow down on this, all of you.” One wonders if there is not a hidden providence in this arresting diction. Manduco, manduconis is the Latin word for a glutton or gourmand. Could Our Lord be telling us to be positively eager and avaricious when it comes to receiving Him sacramentally?

Foley’s commentary on the consecration formula for the chalice — “The Simili modo: Biblical Background” — is, as always, very much worth reading.

Other Noteworthy Articles and Videos

William Eby writes about “The Symbolic Structure of the Hail Mary”:

The Eastern Christians have an ancient prayer, called the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Although it is brief and simple, it contains a richness and depth that is incomparable. Some even say that it is a condensed summary of the gospels.... Having meditated upon this prayer, I have often contemplated what the Western Church’s counterpart to the Jesus Prayer might be. The Hail Mary is the clearest answer, since it is likewise short and meant to be repeated as is the Jesus Prayer. Thinking of the Hail Mary in this light, I immediately began wondering what theological riches are contained within the Jesus Prayer of the Western Church.

Sweet silence. Can it be incorporated into pedagogy? Read Rebecca Rook’s “The Sound of Silence.”

How did Holy Scripture influence The Lord of the Rings? Robert Lazu Kmita explains in “Tolkien’s Apocalypse.”

Robert Keim introduces “Western Culture’s Most Famous Sick, Miserable Wretch,” referring of course to the prophet Job.

This sort of thing needs to be happening all over the place: “Two Weeks Into Cellphone Ban At Evanston High School: ‘Kids Aren’t Phone Zombies.’”

Melody Lyons, “6 Ways to Stop AI Brain Rot and Come Alive Again.”

Charles Coulombe discusses monarchy:

Gavin Ashenden and Sebastian Morello, “In Search of the Renewed Catholic Mind”:

Sendoff

In this 9-minute video we get to see how the traditional Redemptorists, the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer on the island of Papa Stronsay in Scotland, harvest and store enough fish in the summer to provide for their needs all year long:

Thanks for reading and may God bless you!