EXCLUSIVE: Geert Wilders talks with Ezra Levant

Алилуя. Заслужена академічна капела України «Трембіта»

What We Found Inside This Church Destroyed by ISIS Took Our Breath Away

Beautiful video!!!!!!

https://vimeo.com/204789396

Church bells ring in Iraqi town retaken from IS

Iraqi Christians return to church damaged by IS

Giving Thanks in Front of a Broken Altar in Iraq

Rome in the Good Old Days

Rome in Color: the Holy Year 1950

Cardinal Spellman, Pray for New York!

February 22: Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter at Antioch

Peter was seven years in the Greco-Roman city of Antioch before he came to Rome.  

God bless the Orthodox Christians still there in Turkey.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Antioch

Pray for Milo

Response to Teen Vogue from a Pro-Life Teen

God Be with Cardinal Burke in Guam with a Big Broom to Clean Up This Pederasty

Ben Shapiro: The Myth of the Tiny Radical Muslim Minority

My Alma Mater Saint Agnes Schools in Saint Paul (USA)

"I visited my old high school St. Agnes this afternoon including its new wing built where the old gymnasium / auditorium used to be. Truly impressive changes from top to bottom, the structure merely the shell housing a rigorous academic and spiritual core. The curriculum is now classically-oriented and Latin is taught to all younger students, and there is even a year of Greek available as an elective for seniors. Choir is as accomplished as ever, with a strong band complementing it.  Crucifixes and other Catholic devotional effects are in every classroom, total school enrollment K-12 is up to nearly 800 from substantially less than that when I attended, and everyone seems on board with the direction of the school. Nice to see a few of my old teachers too. God bless St. Agnes in its continued faithful pursuit of a true counter-cultural Christian witness in both liturgy and education! May many souls be positively influenced by its witness!"

-John Kusske

A letter to Abp. Cupich from concerned Catholics in Poland and Germany

St Adalbert Church in Chicago

Save St Adalbert's!!!!!!!!

Rome Quotes

"With the many influences in Africa today determined to destroy Christianity, the presence of an excellent African clergy becomes all the more essential.  One such influence is Islam, which sees in the growth of Christianity the loss of Africa to the Moslem world; another is the sorcerer, whose importance in a pagan tribe is lessened by each conversion; and another is Communism."

-Glenn Kittler

Dear Pope Francis

84. Daily experience unfortunately shows that people who have obtained a divorce usually intend to enter into a new union, obviously not with a Catholic religious ceremony. Since this is an evil that, like the others, is affecting more and more Catholics as well, the problem must be faced with resolution and without delay. The Synod Fathers studied it expressly. The Church, which was set up to lead to salvation all people and especially the baptized, cannot abandon to their own devices those who have been previously bound by sacramental marriage and who have attempted a second marriage. The Church will therefore make untiring efforts to put at their disposal her means of salvation.

Pastors must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children's upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.

Together with the Synod, I earnestly call upon pastors and the whole community of the faithful to help the divorced, and with solicitous care to make sure that they do not consider themselves as separated from the Church, for as baptized persons they can, and indeed must, share in her life. They should be encouraged to listen to the word of God, to attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to works of charity and to community efforts in favor of justice, to bring up their children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace. Let the Church pray for them, encourage them and show herself a merciful mother, and thus sustain them in faith and hope.

However, the Church reaffirms her practice, which is based upon Sacred Scripture, of not admitting to Eucharistic Communion divorced persons who have remarried. They are unable to be admitted thereto from the fact that their state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the Eucharist. Besides this, there is another special pastoral reason: if these people were admitted to the Eucharist, the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage.

Reconciliation in the sacrament of Penance which would open the way to the Eucharist, can only be granted to those who, repenting of having broken the sign of the Covenant and of fidelity to Christ, are sincerely ready to undertake a way of life that is no longer in contradiction to the indissolubility of marriage. This means, in practice, that when, for serious reasons, such as for example the children's upbringing, a man and a woman cannot satisfy the obligation to separate, they "take on themselves the duty to live in complete continence, that is, by abstinence from the acts proper to married couples."

Similarly, the respect due to the sacrament of Matrimony, to the couples themselves and their families, and also to the community of the faithful, forbids any pastor, for whatever reason or pretext even of a pastoral nature, to perform ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry. Such ceremonies would give the impression of the celebration of a new sacramentally valid marriage, and would thus lead people into error concerning the indissolubility of a validly contracted marriage.
By acting in this way, the Church professes her own fidelity to Christ and to His truth. At the same time she shows motherly concern for these children of hers, especially those who, through no fault of their own, have been abandoned by their legitimate partner.

With firm confidence she believes that those who have rejected the Lord's command and are still living in this state will be able to obtain from God the grace of conversion and salvation, provided that they have persevered in prayer, penance and charity.

The Via Media in the Roman Rite

At Vatican II the majority of the Fathers spoke on the primary position of Latin and for the use of the vernacular only in those sections of the liturgy which are directed to the people.  This fact has clearly found expression in Article 36, Sacrosanctum Concilium. 

Mass at Tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican Grottos

Thanks, Fr. Jason.  You all are in our prayers.  A great pilgrimage by all accounts! 

Jackie in Mantilla

March for Life in Washington, D.C. Greetings from Pope

Image from the Internet. 

Rome Quotes

"The Church is not a salad bar, from which to pick and choose what pleases you."

-John Cardinal O'Connor

Tomb of Count Enrico Pietro Galeazzi at the Pontifical North American College in Rome

He is the architect who designed the new College.  

Life story HERE.

Tomb of King St. Louis IX at the Acropolium at Carthage, North Africa

Heavenly Patron for Our Day

Apostolic Blessing from Pius XII on the Piano

LIFE image taken at the Palm Beach estate of Mrs. Rose Kennedy. 

Cardinal Antonio Caggiano of Argentina

Pray for the Spirit of Conversion

Cardinal Wojtyla

One of the greatest honors of my life was to meet him, to reverence his episcopal ring.  

He asked in English: "Where are you from?"

Sonnen Crest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnen

Reclaiming Catholic Culture Series at Church of St. Agnes

Very nice to see these inspiring cultural initiatives.  

Thanks, Richard!  

http://churchofsaintagnes.org/events/

A Great Canadian Politician

Rome Image

Snow Altar Mass on Mount Baker (USA)

Thanks, Fr. Pablo!

Green Alb for Army Chaplain

Vietnam. 

Catholic Humor vis-à-vis Pope Francis Insulting Everyone

"Insulting is a kind of killing, so don't insult each other, you 'Old maids, Fomenters of coprophagia, Rosary counters, Self-absorbed, Promethean neo-Pelagians, Ideological Christians, Rigid Christians, Modern gnostics, Superficial Christians, Slaves of superficiality, Museum mummies, Leprous courtiers, Long-faced, mournful funeral Christians, Sourpusses, Querulous and disillusioned pessimists, Pickled pepper-faced Christians, Askers for certainty in all things, Closed, sad, trapped Christians who are not free Christians, Little monsters, Creed-reciting, parrot Christians, Inquisitorial beaters, Smarmy, idolator priests, Vain, butterfly-priests, Religious who have a heart as sour as vinegar...'"

-Gregory the Great 

Rome Quotes

"Some converts are attracted to the Catholic Church by the witness of Her charitable work, others by the beauty of Her culture. What convinced me above all was the reasonableness and intellectual integrity of the Catholic Faith."

-Fr. Julian 

Liturgy Conferene in Oregon

http://www.sacredliturgyconference.org/

Rome Quotes

"When you marry people from Ukraine, there аre no desperate pleas to let the bride father's 'walk her down the aisle,' as they are unfamiliar with that custom. The Byzantine Celebration of the Mystery of Crowning begins at the back of the church with the formal betrothal, after which the couple walk together down the aisle to the singing of Psalm, 'Blessed is the man who fears the Lord... Your wife will be like a fruitful vine; your children like olive-shoots round about your table'."

-Fr. Athanasius 

Crisis in Authority Linked to Culture of Liturgical Abuse

#whywehomeschool

Once our schools abandon any common metaphysics, any common grounding of the human person and what it means for him to flourish, we are left with no good options when it comes to adjudicating moral and political conclusions. 

London Oratory Schola Cantorum Boys Choir (Hat Tip to Fr. Z)

Rome Quotes

"Face to face with us is drawn up the lugubrious array of the militant Godless, shaking the clenched fist of anti-Christ against everything we hold most sacred."

-Cardinal Pacelli

The Glory of the Roman Rite Inspires Conversion

The Fatal Blow: Winnipeg Statement of 1968

Answering the Goofy Attack on Gender

Why is Modern Art so Bad?

God Bless Cardinal Burke!

Be a Cistercian Monk in Bohemia

Is this your vocation?

Help fill the beautiful, empty monasteries of Europe.

This Cistercian treasure, located in the South of Bohemia, was founded in 1259.

Visit the monastery of Vyšší Brod and discern if this is your call:

http://www.klastervyssibrod.cz/History/text-1[en]

Cardinal Ottaviani: Patron for Today

Pray for Pope Francis

Alice von Hildebrand told me she prays a rosary every morning for the Pope.  She began this under the papacy of Pope Bergoglio because he needs prayer. 

VIVIA IL PAPA ROMANO!

Cardinal Ottaviani: Pray for Us!

Letter From the Vatican in Latin

It was a joy to received this letter from the Vatican, just a few days before the historic papal abdication in 2013.  It celebrates the birth of Baby von Sonnen.  God bless and preserve Pope Benedict: sto lat!

Sacred Music Symposium!

This is very exciting news.

Please participate - especially if you are a music director!  Ask your pastor if your parish can sponsor you.  

See here for more details:

http://www.ccwatershed.org/symposium/

February 11 Anno Domini 2013

Image from the Internet. 

Rite of Ordination in USA

Beauty of the Roman Rite in Mexico

Sacred Liturgy in Germany

We Support Cardinal Burke!

Glorious Mass in the See of Krakow in Poland

Beautiful Parish Life in Italy

Clear Creek Abbey - Glimpse into the Cloister

Thomas Aquinas College, Aerial View

An Introduction to Thomas Aquinas College

Slideshow of NEW Thomas Aquinas College New England Campus

Pray for Persectuted Christians in Syria

Aleppo was a Christian holdout through hundreds of years of Islamist persecution.  Cardinal Spellman made a visit here during World War II, to the Jesuit chapel.  He called upon the Greek and Armenian bishops.    He saw the citadel both from the ground and air.  From there he flew to Baghdad and saw from the air what is thought to be the Garden of Eden.     

The World's Most Persecuted Minority: Christians

Cuban Catholics

It was a joy to sit next to these ladies in the front row of Havana Cathedral.  

They remind me of all that was and remains great in this former Spanish colony.  

The Faith lives on.

All of us are fighting for the souls of our nations.

The important thing is to keep the Faith even amid a torrid persecution.
    

Cuban Altar Boy

Havana Cathedral.  Pray for this young man.  Cuba needs native priests and sisters.  All the nuns and priests you meet here are from somewhere else in Latin America or Spain. 

Holy Oils in Havana Cathedral

Downtown Havana Cuba Monument in Latin

Havana Univeristy: San Gerónimo de La Habana

The original Royal Pontifical University of Saint Jerome of Havana.  Pontifical status granted by the munificence of Pope Innocent XIII.  

The greatest foundation of support for Cuban culture has been the Catholic Church. 

Catholic Havana

Havana's New Mosque

Opened in 2015.  Located next door to the former U.S. Embassy in Havana. 

Pray for the conversion of these people to the Catholic Faith, through the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima.  

Wooden Street in Havana

To prevent the noise of carriage wheels in front of the Governor's Palace. 

Pre-Cuban Revolution US Embassy in Havana

The Horter Building, in the heart of Havana.

Bring Back the Ferraiolo

Cardinal Tisserant's Secretary Weighs in On Amoris Laetitia Fiasco

"One of the worst sins a man can commit is adultery, divorcing his wife and marrying another, (Mt. 19:9), separating what God has united.  Based on this principle, I do not see how the set of guidelines produced by the two bishops of Malta can be accepted, since they clearly state that the door is open for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

Pope Benedict XVI condemned clearly and finally the theory of the internal forum, and I am unnerved not so much by the commentaries of the bishops, but by the attitude of the Holy Father, who appears to be encouraging bishops to modify the theology of sin and confession.  Let us pray that God protect His Church!"

-Mons. Pedro Lopez-Gallo

Source: http://www.bccatholic.ca/opinion-and-editorial/6855-many-uneasy-over-bishops-letter-romes-silence

A Day in Old Havana

A traditional Cuban highball and cigar, is just what the doctor ordered when in Rome.

The Cuban mojito was invented in Havana.  So was the Wide Churchill.  They go well together, after dinner, on a cobbled street in Old Havana.   

The darker the rum the better.  Havana Club is what is served.  The custom here is nice -- the bar man places the bottle next to your glass, for you to pour your own.

Bacardi has not been sold here since the Revolution (their magnificent former Art Deco headquarters in Havana remains, appropriated by the Red Communists and never given back).

Music is nice, too.  Remember to pray for Cuba.  The people have suffered too long.  When you visit and spend your money, you greatly help the starving masses, strangled by a corrupt government.