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Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre participated in the discussions of the drafting of the conciliar documents of the Second Vatican Council. On November 1, 1970, Bishop Charriere agreed to Lefebvre’s request to establish a religious society, and the Society of Saint Pius X was formed.[1] They were given a pia unio (pius union) status, with the caveat of being an ad experimentum for six years, liable to change because of its provisional status. On June 10, 1971, Lefebvre said: How can I agree to abandon the Mass of all ages or to admit to place it at the same level as the…
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Matthew 1:18-25 is cited by Protestants as the main proof that Mary was not perpetually a virgin: Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take…
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It should be noted that among the Greeks there is not always a clear distinction between whether the procession of the Holy Spirit being described is specific to the economy or the eternal manifestation. Gregory Thaumaturgus (213-270) “[There is] one Holy Spirit, having substance from God, and who is manifested through the Son; image of the Son, perfect of the perfect; life, the cause of living; holy fountain; sanctity, the dispenser of sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father who is above all and in all, and God the Son who is through all. Perfect Trinity, in glory and…
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Gregory the Great But know further that it has come to our ears concerning him, that he has given money on usury; which thing you ought to enquire into thoroughly, and, if it is so, elect another, and without delay hold yourselves aloof from a person of this kind. For we will on no account lay hands on lovers of usury.[1] Leo the Great [H]e who gets deceitful gain from lending his money on usury is shown to be both an alien from God’s tabernacle and an exile from His holy hill, and in seeking to enrich himself by other’s…
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Christopher Columbus was, and still is, an icon among Italians and Italian Americans. Part of the reverence for this explorer is his Catholicism which drove him to convert the American natives. Contrasting the Catholic esteem for Columbus was the Ku Klux Klan, who chose Leif Erikson as their sea-faring icon. Erikson, who discovered America several centuries before Columbus, was hailed by the KKK as a Viking without Catholic faith.[1] Early sources of Erikson, however, paint a completely different picture of the courageous voyager. In the Saga of Erik the Red, the story of Erikson follows: Eirik had a wife who…
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Richard Matheson’s haunted house novel begins with a commission from a dying Rolf Rudolph Deutsch, a wealthy man determined to acquire conclusive evidence of whether the soul survives death. He offered $100,000 to Dr. Lionel Barrett, a level-headed physicist and parapsychologist, to investigate the now deserted house once owned by Emeric Belasco. If Barrett could survive and prove what follows death by staying in the house for one week, the money was his. He accepted, and joining him was his wife Edith, and two spiritualist mediums Florence Tanner and Benjamin Franklin Fischer. Tanner chose a life of celibacy to focus…
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Persia was a land that has known dualism. The ancient Iranian religion, Zoroastrianism, posited, according to W. B. Henning, “that the world had been created by a good and an evil spirit of equal power, who set up to spoil the good work.”[1] In the third century, Manichaeism developed from this thought of a cosmic struggle of good and evil. It was a cluster of various belief systems, patching together an incoherent religion. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes it as “purported to be the true synthesis of all the religious systems then known, and actually consisted of Zoroastrian Dualism, Babylonian folklore,…
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Relating to the filioque debate is how the three persons of the Trinity are to be contrasted while each maintaining uniqueness. Many Eastern Orthodox today are of the opinion that the logical origins of the persons are sufficient for preserving the individual hypostases. Resorting to ‘relations of opposition,’ that is, differentiating the relations of each person, is a Latin invention, so they claim. It is not untrue that Latin West accepted this doctrine. For example, the 16th Council of Toledo professed: 296 Let the designation of this “holy will”-although through a comparative similitude of the Trinity, where it is called…
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There are several traditions of Muhammad’s final words contained in Islamic religious documents.[1] Sahih al-Bukhari relates: When the disease of Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) got aggravated, he covered his face with a Khamisa, but when he became short of breath, he would remove it from his face and say, “It is like that! May Allah curse the Jews Christians because they took the graves of their prophets as places of worship.” By that he warned his follower of imitating them, by doing that which they did.[2] Ironically, this is exactly what happened to Muhammad’s grave. The Green Dome in Medina was…
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In the various sources of NFP, there are a plurality of terms used to denote the reason where NFP may be licit. E. Christian Brugger, who teaches at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado, says that “The Latin term ‘iustae causae’ is sometimes translated ‘well grounded reasons,’ sometimes ‘serious motives’, and sometimes ‘grave reasons.’ But the term is simply the plural of ‘iusta causa,’ which literally translates ‘just cause.’”[1] On October 29, 1951, Pope Pius XII taught: Then, there is the serious question today as to whether and how far the obligation of ready disposition to serve motherhood…
Eclectic Anecdotes
Writings of all that is interesting