Tying Up Loose Ends & Weekly Roundup

A village church. Image from The New York Public Library (source)

Before we come to the Weekly Roundup and various other features, I’d like to start with some reflections that follow up on last week’s post.

Papal Postscript: Why the Shift?

My recent articles on Leo XIV — “My Hopes, My Fears, and My Prayers for Leo XIV” and “Taking the Long View: On Not Lionizing or Demonizing Leo, and the Crying Need for Dehyperpapalization” — have been some of the most widely read, shared, and discussed in Tradition & Sanity’s history.

They have also become the object of criticism.

I (and other traditionalists, such as Fr. Zuhlsdorf) have been sharply criticized by trads “further to the right,” so to speak, who accuse us of selling out because of our counsel to give Pope Leo a fair chance to get established before pouncing on him, and, generally, to shift our focus from the pope and the Vatican to more local affairs. They claim traditionalists have a duty to cry the alarm whenever error is given a platform — especially when that platform is the chair of Peter. They point out that Leo is repeating problematic statements and actions of Vatican II and of Pope Francis. They maintain that we “softies” are content as long as we have “smells and bells,” that we care more for lace than for truth. They have gone so far as to imply that powerful or wealthy sources have bought our silence. Et cetera.

Gee, I could almost wish I had anything to do with powerful or wealthy sources, but, for my own good, the Lord has spared me this temptation. Anyone who knows me — anyone who has been following my work over the past decades — knows that I speak the truth exactly as I see it, and exactly when and as I believe it to be most opportune and fruitful to speak it. I have been in big trouble many times in my life for speaking the truth, according to my conscience. I was involved in controversy in high school and in college, in my first place of employment and in my second place of employment, and ever since I went freelance. I can boast (but I won’t) of some very intense meetings at diocesan chanceries, confronted by hostile interlocutors. Not a week passes when someone does not unsubscribe, telling me I am either too harsh or too lax, too radical or too conformist. I have learned by long experience that you can never please everyone. Whatever you say, there will be opponents to either side.

No, I haven’t ever been afraid to speak the truth, come what may.

My advice on what it will take for long-term healing and restoration in the Church — namely, a certain decentralization, an attentiveness to cultivating one’s own interior life, and a zeal in restoring tradition locally, in the sacred liturgy as well as in catechesis, homeschooling, fine arts, and everything else — is my advice because I think it’s true, AND because I think that launching daily social media grenades at heretics or lunatics in high places can quickly become a pointless exercise in outrage-generation, since it obviously has no positive effect on those hierarchs themselves (or, perhaps, only the effect of kicking the hornets’ nest and giving them more excuses to crack down on the recalcitrant).

I think if people viewed Leo XIV as being rather like John Paul II — with all the good and the bad this implies — rather than as the long-awaited pope who will “scour the Shire,” they would be a lot less disappointed, and a lot more able to roll with the punches, and even appreciate the good as it comes.

Every pope since Vatican II has been a mixed bag except for Francis (whom I don’t see as a mixed bag, but as an unmixed catastrophe). All of them have promoted wonky interreligious dialoguing, for example; that is “par for the course.” To express shock or horror at this is like expressing surprise that movies nowadays are usually dumb, tasteless, and offensive.

What interests me more, as someone thinking in terms of decades-long dynamics and the slow rebuilding of the Church at the grassroots level, is the tone of the pontificate, the atmosphere, the ambiance, the signaling, the kind of space opened up by the pontiff’s way of managing. Let’s put it this way: the moment a pope wears a nice vestment, thousands of sacristies open up across the world and nice vestments are brought out again.¹ That small ripple effect, if it happens over and over, will have more consequence in the long run than handshakes with orange-clad Tibetan monks or whatever the meeting du jour is at the Vatican.

This may sound cynical, as if I’m downplaying or evacuating the significance of what the pope is saying/doing. Rather, I’m merely pointing out that what will be most decisive in the long run is not the easily forgotten daily agenda at the Vatican, but the sense transmitted by the pope of what can and cannot, should or should not, be done at the local level. In regard to that sphere, it’s fair to say that we’ve already seen a bit of a positive “Leo effect,” and I expect it to continue.

Even simply the relief at no longer having Fearful Francis around is enough to make some bishops relax, and some priests step up their game.

I’ve said already that Leo XIV is bound to make mistakes. So are we all. I’ve already admitted that I have fears about his pontificate. So have we all. I’ve stated candidly that I still think we are better off with him than with his predecessor, by a long shot, and that I’m willing to tolerate quite a bit of underwhelming performance if it means buying time for the changing of generations and the promotion of tradition at the grassroots. That is what will change the Church over time, not a superhero pope who anathematizes “the errors of Vatican II” (whatever exactly they may be) and consigns Francis to the hall of shame with Honorius.

We might someday have such a pope — I’ve called him Gregory XVII, the author of the imaginary encyclical Ut Impleretur Instauratio — but if this blessing is to be given to us, we ourselves must be the ones who bring him forth: he will come from a traditional family, in a milieu where the Faith is believed and lived with full integrity, but also with human decency and a well-rounded measure of normalcy. He will probably come from a family that has eschewed the internet and smartphones. More to the point, he will come because the way has been prepared by countless Catholics who, sanctifying themselves in the daily round of prayer and penance, have become worthy to have their prayers for a mighty pope of orthodoxy answered. For this, too, is traditional Catholic teaching: prayers are more efficacious the holier those who offer them are.

Yes, in the end, I am absolutely committed to the proposition that a single traditional Holy Mass, surrounded and infused with beauty, reverently offered to the Almighty by a priest and people in love with the Lord, is more efficacious in obtaining the conversion of the pope, the renovation of the hierarchy, and the restoration of Tradition throughout the Church, than an infinity of blog posts or tweets or Substacks pointing out errors, heresies, crimes, and whatnot.

Is it a performative contradiction that I am writing this in a Substack post, which I will then share by social media?

No. If what I’m saying is true, then it is of capital importance to convince people to act according to the truth, for we are free, and we can choose how we ride the rapids of this new pontificate. It is crucial, above all, for priests everywhere not to follow imperious and illicit diktats to abandon the traditional Mass and sacramental rites and blessings but to continue offering them generously and fervently. If I am right, it is not by blind obedience to the suicidal policies of a teetering hierarchy that the Church will be renewed but by giving the Lord the absolute primacy of adoration that is His due and our duty.

If there is ever to be renewal, it will come not by constant preoccupation with popes and bishops, but by placing first things first, come what may: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.” Follow the Lord on this way of the Cross, and let the dead bury the dead — let the dead documents be buried under their own ever-compounding weight, let the dead examples evaporate into the nothingness of historians’ footnotes, let the liturgical reform be unplugged from its artificial ventilator and die.

Pragmatically speaking, the pope is not as powerful as we think he is, and we are more powerful than we think we are. This is the recalibration I am speaking of.

If Catholics everywhere, especially the clergy, embraced tradition more and more fully in their own sphere of activity — ready to accept, even to rejoice in, whatever temporary persecution or opprobrium this would entail — the restoration we hope for and long for would surge ahead and become irresistible. It is nothing other than timidity on the ground that prevents it from gaining momentum. (Concerning this, I encourage readers to take a moment and read the following post from last November: “Bloodbath in Tyler: Why (and How) Traditional Catholics Must Resist the Suppression of the TLM.”)

The change of tack, for me at least, was not a matter of external pressure of any kind. It was the result of reflection on the past twelve years.

In that period, I was closely involved in the drafting and promotion of many public statements about the crimes and heresies of Pope Francis (the last one, dated May 2, 2024, was also, in many ways, the most comprehensive). I do not at all regret my involvement with these initiatives; it seemed the right thing for the duration of that “pontificate from Hades.” However, I saw these statements and petitions pile up into a veritable mountain of protest, making not the slightest bit of difference in any of the corridors of power.²

Meanwhile, I witnessed the growth of traditional Catholicism here, there, and everywhere, and assisted countless priests and laity in discovering and spreading tradition (and in coming to the realization of the impossibility of “reforming the reform” — the subject of my last book, Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed, a culmination of my work on liturgical matters thus far). This is where efforts met with success, hard work yielded fruit. If I am turning my attention away from Rome toward the “peripheries,” it is because of a growing conviction that the only way to affect the center decisively is to cultivate the peripheries.

Let me offer one concrete example, which I’ve written about elsewhere at greater length: it is because there was a single bishop, Marcel Lefebvre, and many priests, who were all too stubborn to give up the traditional rite that the Vatican eventually came around and said: “We need to take this phenomenon seriously.”³ If everyone had just rolled over and played dead (the Jesuit perinde ac cadaver) when Paul VI issued his various assaults on divine worship, there would be no traditional Catholicism left. If, today, a sizable minority of priests — and I have diocesan priests most of all in view — simply refused to stop celebrating the TLM, you can be sure that sooner or later a “canonical solution” would be found, and the initial hardball penalties would be rolled back.

Yes, it will take guts. Incredible guts. Have we got them?

The ongoing revolution in the Church relies on sheepish compliance. The revolution has lodged itself in the liturgy as in the pulsing heart of the body, whence it spreads through the entire cardiovascular system. It is there, at the heart, that we must be counterrevolutionaries most of all. This is no “preference” for “lace over courage,” “quiet over clarity,” “vestments over vigilance”; it is no “soft voice of surrender” (puh-lease!). Exactly the contrary. It’s asking for boots on the ground, battle readiness, and decisive engagement on the front lines.

It seems to me that people who think Leo XIV is a notorious heretic should just throw up their hands, become sedevacantists, and stop bothering the rest of us, who are trying to live in a messy world, and trying to act where we can actually make a difference.

Lastly: people sometimes ask me why I’m so hopeful that traditional Catholicism will slowly inch its way ahead and eventually become dominant in the Church. One reason is theological: I believe Divine Providence has made tradition perennially fruitful and that it will prevail due to its inner force of truth. But another reason is sociological, as David Ayers explains in “Liberalism in the Pews”: the mainstream Church is going down the tubes at a pretty quick rate, as regards acceptance of self-destructive immorality and “doctrine lite,” and this is only likely to increase, even accelerate, as time goes on. Who will be left standing (or kneeling, as the case may be)?

An illustration of why we need to act

Today, the Bishop of Charlotte, North Carolina, “implementing Traditionis Custodes,” has ended the TLM at all parishes in the diocese.

Charlotte was a diocese in which tradition flourished, under its former bishop and the wise policy of Summorum Pontificum. More than 20 parishes used to offer the TLM, so I’ve been told. Then, it was cut down to 4.

Now, all that is shattered — in the name of a cynical "unity." How synodal. How pastoral. How catholic.

Meanwhile, tradition-loving faithful are segregated off to a single yet-to-be-named chapel somewhere in the diocese. The ecclesiastical Jim Crow laws continue.

As I said earlier, I sincerely hope the local clergy will have the courage not to comply. Laws against the common good — and the spiritual flourishing of clergy and faithful by the fruits of tradition obviously belong to that good — are no laws at all. Compliance only empowers and emboldens tyranny.

Just imagine if the TLM suddenly sprang up again at 20 parishes. What then? Would the bishop cancel all those priests? Would he shut down a dozen parishes? He can’t get clergy and vocations from thin air. I have said before, and I will say it again: the lack of concerted group resistance is one of the main reasons wicked bishops run roughshod over the Church.

Liturgical Lessons

A huge sale on TLM books from TAN

The famous and beloved TAN Books, located in the aforesaid wolf-governed diocese of Charlotte, has duly and properly launched a 75% sale (!!!) on all books about the TLM, to do their part in spreading knowledge and conviction at a dark moment. You can get my Turned Around for $7.49 (list price $29.95), my Once and Future Roman Rite for $8.24 (list $32.95), and my Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence for $7.49 (list $29.95). Now’s a fantastic opportunity to stock up and buy multiple copies to distribute to friends, family, clergy, and religious. Here’s a screenshot of some of the offerings in this category:

Censorship in the 1969 Lectionary

Say it isn’t so! Actually, those who’ve paid attention to liturgical discussions have long known that the new lectionary is an artful exercise in selective reporting, but we are in Dr Agnieszka Fromme’s debt for laying out just how selective it can be, in a masterful two-part series at NLM.

In part 1, she lays the groundwork with a brief history of lectionaries (always one year, to match the liturgical cycle) and identifies dogmatic principles that governed the choice of readings in the liturgy. Part 2 incorporates many tables showing how the “expanded” lectionary deliberately sidesteps these dogmatic principles. Her sobering conclusion:

Numerous biblical texts have been altered in the new lectionary, revealing a clear trend toward a theology more aligned with Protestant and modernist interpretations. ... Important passages such as the warning against unworthy reception of the Eucharist or the teaching that sanctification is a lifelong process have either been entirely omitted or significantly weakened. ... These changes in the new lectionary represent a shift toward a theology that emphasizes personal, subjective experience and a “simplified” understanding of grace, while the traditional Catholic teaching on the interplay of faith, works, and the sacramental order is increasingly diluted.

Pilgrimage in Spain

A perfect example of how Catholics are making a difference: thousands are walking on pilgrimage, now in several countries of the world, accompanied by traditional priests who offer only the TLM en route. These pilgrims are tough: they will not be dissuaded by episcopal diktats (like those recently circulated in France) telling them that they may only do A, B, and C, or that they need permission for X, Y, and Z. They’re ready to stand out in the middle of a field, in the heat or the rain, and devoutly hear Holy Mass offered under a tent.

Registration is now open for "the Spanish Chartres pilgrimage," that is, the pilgrimage from one great center of Spanish Catholicism to another, Oviedo to Covadonga, July 26-28, 2025. You can read more about it here. I will be hiking this route in July and look forward to meeting all pilgrims, especially the English-speaking ones! A North American chapter is forming, led by Jeff Inferrera. You can contact him for details.

Can we identify the “trad clans”?

Timothy Flanders endeavors to do so in his latest at OnePeterFive. He identifies and defines: 1. Original Trad Godfathers and Godmothers; 2. The Zealous Papists; 3. The Defensores Fidei.

Liturgy as conversion powerhouse

And there are still those who think that the great Roman liturgy of tradition can’t communicate to modern men... Listen to Joseph Pearce:

We will conclude our song of remembrance to the singers silenced by the First World War with the German poet and playwright Reinhard Sorge, who was only 24 years old when he was killed in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Astonishingly for one so young, Sorge has left a formidable legacy. As a 19-year-old disciple of the anti-Christian iconoclastic philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Sorge wrote The Beggar, an egocentric surrealist drama in which, in a series of violent scenes, he expresses disgust with various types of people whom he deems unfit to warrant the ideal of the Nietzschean Übermensch (“Over-Man,” i.e., Superior Man or Superman). Sorge was awarded the Kleist Prize for this avant-garde and truly pioneering work which is credited as laying the foundations for surrealist theater.

By the age of 21, Sorge had outgrown both the ideas of Nietzsche and the faddishness of modern art. To the dismay of his modernist admirers, he and his new wife were received into the Catholic Church in September 1913, the ultimate act of rebellion against the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. The decision had been precipitated by the spending of Holy Week on his knees in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, during which he immersed himself in the liturgy, observing every detail with his artist’s eye for beauty. “Thenceforth my pen has been and forever will be Christ’s stylus,” he proclaimed, “until my death.” He was true to his word. Everything he wrote in the little time he had left prior to his death was fervently Catholic.

Imagine how different the position of the Church would be today if she had a serious and solemn religious rite to offer the world in every church.

Speaking of Joseph Pearce, Robert Lazu Kmita did a delightful interview with him. Highly recommended.

Reparation in “Pride Month”

Agreed: “Public Sin Demands Public Reparation.” And bishops should be leading the charge.

New Vendee announces: “Once again, the enemies of Holy Church will be parading their perversion in our family-friendly community (the Mandeville, LA Lakefront). We are responding yet again.” Such things should be done everywhere to combat the demonic pride that June will “celebrate.”

Theological Threads

Happy 1700th Anniversary!

On May 20 came the 1700th anniversary of the start of the Council of Nicaea. (I plan to commemorate this in a delightful way, later on; stay tuned!) Massimo Scapin writes:

The Council of Nicaea in 325 not only shaped Christian doctrine but also left an enduring mark on liturgy and sacred music. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, born from that great ecclesial assembly, remains a cornerstone of Christian belief and has inspired countless musical compositions over the centuries. Works like Vivaldi’s Credo in E Minor illustrate how art can powerfully express the mysteries of faith, creating a timeless dialogue between tradition and the human spirit.

And Fr. Perricone chimes in with customary vigor:

Nicaea is a decisive blow to this fey counterfeit of Faith. Its articles stand like a mighty Alpine range, each peak more imposing and elegant than the next. How many parishes this year will celebrate this auspicious anniversary? Rejoice in its muscularity? Celebrate its summons to heroic struggle to defend it? Stand in rapt awe of the saints of millennia who embraced unspeakable deaths to defend it? Eagerly imitate St. Nicholas in coming to blows with Arius, the archenemy of the salvific Nicaean Catholic Faith? If they will not, we must! Raise your fiery torches and lift your voices till they grow hoarse. All in gratitude for the Nicaean articles which are the sure steps of our ladder to Paradise.

The Fathers on the Papacy

At a time when Orthodox writers are more and more boldly denying the confession of their own Church Fathers in order to distance themselves from papal primacy, Erick Ybarra is on hand to remind us of some hard-to-explain-away statements. Erick has just come out with a handy 62-page book, The Roots of the Papacy: The Patristic Logic, which I can recommend. Church Fathers plus logic: what’s not to love?

A new book from Os Justi

Above is the latest release from Os Justi Press: Barren Beds Over All Tellus: The Catholic Case Against Contraception.

The Catholic Church has always taught the immorality of taking steps to obstruct the conception of children or to prevent their birth. The teaching is logical, irreformable, and deeply beneficial to individuals and society as a whole. Yet countless men and women suffer immense personal harm from not knowing the truth or not living in it. And part of the reason is that they have never heard anyone explain it to them in a way that makes sense.

Dom Pius Mary Noonan does exactly this, in a clear and compelling pamphlet that will help all who read it to come to a better understanding, or to understand for the first time, what is at stake in this momentous moral issue. He thus vindicates the Lord's promise: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” — free to love totally and generously, in harmony with the superior wisdom of the Creator.

Available directly from the publisher or from any Amazon outlet.

A plea to lovers of books

The wonderful Wiseblood Books has posted a message that I, as a writer and a publisher, agree with entirely:

As you may know, we have a like-hate relationship with Amazon. On the one hand, it provides a place to sell our books, allowing us to reach a wider audience. On the other hand, Amazon’s model, like that of so many big corporations, is based upon the digestive process — taste the competition, especially the small and the local, chew it up, swallow it, absorb it, and . . . you get the idea. Still, Amazon is there and must be dealt with in some way. And the way we’ve chosen is to try to use it as a tool without getting absorbed into its maw, either as a small press or as buyers ourselves. For example, we prefer to purchase our books directly from publishers or from one of our local bookshops. Over the last few years, sales on our website have increased to the point that more than half come directly through the Wiseblood store, so we’re guessing that like us, you tend to go to Amazon after considering other options. We are really grateful for that extra effort because it truly does help us to stay in business and allows us to better remunerate our authors.

Recently, one of our authors asked about soliciting Amazon reviews. Or, as she phrased it: “What’s the best way to beg people for Amazon reviews?” She hadn’t done that when her book first came out because she felt awkward and embarrassed and wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. Our advice: Just ask. Put out a social media post or send an email to your friends and family asking them to consider leaving a review. Post a request on your website. Just ask. It can’t hurt and it might help.

After giving that advice, it occurred to us that we should follow it! And so, dear readers, if you are inclined, please leave an Amazon review for any (or all) of our books on Amazon. [...] These reviews really do help.

I make this plea my own. If you have read and enjoyed ANY of my own books, or any books from Os Justi Press by other authors, please take a moment to leave an Amazon review. Thank you! It makes a difference.

The neighborhood fox…

…came back again last week for a nap in my backyard. He seems to like it in the long grass.

Thank you for reading, and may God bless you.

1. We may regret that a single man’s sartorial preferences should carry so much weight across the entire globe, and that is correct: it should not. That’s my entire point: we need to recover an understanding of the Faith that is not simply a weather-vane responding to the latest pope’s choice of MC or airplane interview.

2. I won’t deny their value as documentation for the future.

3. I acknowledge that the fight was also about Catholic doctrine; however, the liturgy, doctrine, and morality should never be separated, in keeping with the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi; and this means, among other things, that there is no solution to the Church’s doctrinal and moral crisis without restoring traditional liturgy AND without acknowleding and living according to its primacy. There’s a reason lex orandi comes first in this axiom.