The past week I’ve been in Illinois and Indiana giving lectures (in Lombard, IL, “Due Obedience and Peter’s Successor”; in Batesville, IN, “Duty and Responsibility: How Authority Can Avoid Self-Destructing”; in Carmel, IN, “Understanding Obedience: The True Virtue and Its False Imitations”). That’s my excuse for the more-than-usual randomness of the following roundup, but still, you may find it interesting. Actually, from what I can tell, people really seem to enjoy these Friday miscellanies, so let’s go!
Review of MOTA 3
Talk about a fun conversation! Kennedy Hall (Mere Tradition/Kennedy Report), Timothy Flanders (OnePeterFive), Matt Gaspers (Catholic Family News), and I got together to do a tag-team review of “Guardians of Tradition,” the third and final episode of the Mass of the Ages Trilogy. You can watch it here:
Does papal authority have any limits?
We all know that it does; but articulating what they are is the challenge. In this conversation Kennedy and I talk about the recent book Ultramontanism and Tradition, picking out highlights from it, and presenting some of the arguments and insights we found in the pages of that dynamite anthology. I think it’s good we are having such conversations: they are long overdue.
With Fr. McTeigue again on the Catholic Current
Fr. Robert McTeigue is one of the world’s greatest “good Jesuits,” a true credit to St. Ignatius of Loyola and a bearer of the Good News across the air waves. I’ve been on his show on Station of the Cross at least half a dozen times. In our most recent conversation we delve into “Are there limits to religious obedience?” (religious in the general sense, not the sense of monks & nuns). The audio may be listened to here.
Lecture from Rochester
You might recall I went up to Rochester, MN, to talk about “Weapons and Warfare in the Prayer of the Church.” Here’s that talk, recording on an iPhone (in case you couldn’t tell):
Reviews of Thomistic Mystagogy
Urban Hannon’s little book continues to conquer the world for the Angelic Doctor and the Traditional Latin Mass. (The differences between different medieval uses, and the slow developments they witnessed between Thomas’s time and ours, are not the point here, for by the 13th century there is already such a solid core of commonality that we can instantly recognize our TLM in what Aquinas is describing!).
Pater Edmund Waldstein reviews Thomistic Mystagogy here, and Clemens Victor Olderdorf here.
Favorite articles by other writers
Please read Michael Foley’s beautiful piece “Spiritual Eructation” at New Liturgical Movement, on the proper relationship between the Bible and the liturgy (here).
Also highly recommened: “The ‘Private’ Mass from Its Origins to the Thirteenth Century,” a paper first read at the CIEL conference in Rome and now graciously shared with NLM in translation. In it, Canon Gilles Guitard summarizes his detailed research into the ancient (indeed, early Christian) origins of the private or low Mass, the history of its development and reception, and its theological justification. I would say this ranks among the most important articles I've read in the course of the past few years. There has never been a better defense of the practice, so often criticized (though not for the same reasons) by Eastern Christians and by progressive liturgists. The article was published in two installments at NLM: part 1 and part 2.
A comfortable reader
A friend on Facebook sent me a photo of her Friday night “relax with a book.” The book was… The Once and Future Roman Rite.
Traditional retreats
A question I am frequently asked: “Where can I go on a retreat that is led by a traditional priest who will also offer the TLM"?
I am happy to say there is at least one such place I know of, the St. Teresa of Avila Retreat Center:
A parting recommendation
I feel like we are at a crucial juncture in the western world, as if we are being forced to make a choice between saving our civilisation’s collective soul or watch its utter destruction. And this little website feels like a chance for me to plant my flag, and invite others to stand up for this culture that has been like no other in human history, which we are in danger of losing forever.
These are the eloquent words of Hilary White, at her Substack The Sacred Images Project. I’ve mentioned her before, but I make a point of doing so again because she is doing something special and important that practically no one else is doing. I consider hers a “sister Substack” to mine.
Don't forget the sspx retreat houses. They have been so great in the traditional teaching of the Ignatius exercises and making a general confession. All while assisting the Roman Rite and Compline at night.
I love this quick capture, thank you for sharing. I'm looking forward to catching it all. Thank you for "staking your flag"!