Summer Study Program on Galatians with Daily Traditional Mass

Overview: Each summer brings with it a number of opportunities for further education in congenial Catholic settings. This August 12-16, the Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine and the Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies are partnering with the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest to offer a five-day theology program studying the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians with the aid of St. Thomas Aquinas's superb commentary.

Fontgombault Sermon for the Feast of Sts. Peter & Paul: Love, in Truth, and without Compromise with the World

Sermon of the Right Reverend Dom Jean Pateau

Abbot of Our Lady of Fontgombault

Fontgombault, June 29, 2018

O God, Who hast made holy this day by the martyrdom of Thine Apostles Peter and Paul: grant unto Thy Church that, as from them she first received the faith, so she may in all things follow their precepts.(Collect)…

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

My dearly beloved Sons,

The Church, and especially the Church in Rome, has never accepted to separate those two pillars, the Apostles Peter and Paul; and to such an extent that in the first centuries of Christendom, the Pope, after he had celebrated Mass in the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter, would go to the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls to celebrate there a second Mass. Such a solemnity did emphasise the fact that it is the preaching of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul that the Church of Rome regards as her sole principle, and the foundation of her authority.

Yet, we have to acknowledge that these two men were very different, both in origin and training. 

Simon, whom Jesus called Peter, is an inhabitant of Capernaum, in the province of Galilee, and a fisherman on the Tiberias Lake. He’s a man who has learnt how to fight the forces of nature, to confront unexpected weathers, a concrete and artless man. He’s generous, he answers right away the calling of the Lord, he immediately leaves his nets, and follows Him. 

St. Paul is a Jew from the Diaspora, of Tarsus in Cilicia. He’s a member of the party of the Pharisees. Also, he’s a Roman citizen. After he has encountered Christ on the road to Damascus, he turns from a persecutor of Christians into a fervent and tireless propagator of the faith.

A Case Study of Rupture in the Lex Orandi: The Epistles of Lenten Sundays

One of the most striking areas of rupture and discontinuity between the traditional Latin Mass and the Mass of Paul VI is to be found in the passages of Scripture read on Sundays. The annual cycle of the old Missal, embodying the practice of well over a millennium, puts before the Christian people year after year essential truths of the spiritual life and fundamentals of morality to which we must always return. The three-year cycle of the new Mass, an unprecedented novelty against the backdrop of all historic liturgical rites, brings in a greater quantity and variety of texts but, as a result, diffuses the impact and substance of the message.

It is as if the canvas on which the painting is being executed is so large and the subjects so numerous that one cannot quite make out what the painting is of. There is not enough “useful repetition” to allow the words to sink in deeply and remain in the heart, rather than passing in one ear and out the other. As a friend of mine likes to say, education involves cutting the groove many times until a lasting mark is left. The enormous contrast between the two is appreciated perhaps only by those who have regularly attended both forms of the Roman Rite over a long stretch of time.

De Mattei: When public correction of a pope is urgent and necessary

Roberto de Mattei

Corrispondenza Romana

February 22, 2017

May a Pope be publicly corrected for his reprehensible behaviour? Or should the attitude of the faithful be that of unconditional obedience, until the point of justifying anything the Pope’s says and does, even if  openly scandalous? According to some, like the Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, it is possible to express “tète a tète” one’s dissent to the Pope, without, however, manifesting it publicly. This thesis nonetheless, contains an important admission. The Pope is not infallible, unless he speaks ex cathedra. Otherwise it would not be licit to dissent even privately and the path to follow would only be that of religious silence.  On the other hand, the Pope, who is not Christ, but only his representative on earth, can sin and make mistakes. Yet, is it true that he may only be corrected privately and never publicly?

“The Christian Liturgy as ‘Sacrifice of Praise’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews” — Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lecture at Norcia

This lecture was delivered on July 18, 2016, for the summer theology program in Norcia, put on by the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies and dedicated to the Epistle to the Hebrews. The lecture discusses Holy Mass as the most perfect sacrificium laudis and the Divine Office as central to the Church's life of prayer. The text is reproduced below in full.

Where the monks of Norcia offer up the sacrificium laudis

The Christian Liturgy as ‘Sacrifice of Praise’ in the Epistle to the Hebrews

Peter Kwasniewski

Where is the Christian liturgy in the Epistle to the Hebrews, or, to put the question more sharply, where is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?