On the 65th Anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's Priestly Ordination

On this, the 65th anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's priestly ordination, we want to join Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world in wishing him every joy and blessing.

We sorely miss his brilliant teaching, leadership and profound personal holiness on the Chair of St. Peter.  Indeed, he seems to us like the brilliant, dazzling dawn that often precedes the most horrific storm.  We thank God that we have his clear, faithful teaching to fall back upon during this time of rudderless chastisement.  May God richly bless him and draw countless souls through him.

The following is our post which commemorated Pope Benedict's 85th birthday.

Today is the 85th birthday of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, and this week we will mark the 7th anniversary of his election to the Chair of Saint Peter.  For this gentle, kind, brilliant, holy teacher and shepherd, we give thanks to God and pray that he continues as Christ's 265th Vicar on Earth for many more years.

In these seven years, he has undertaken 23 international trips, including the first state visit by a Pope to England and Scotland (Pope John Paul II made a pastoral visit in 1982).  He has made 26 pastoral trips throughout Italy.  He has presided over 4 synods of bishops and 3 world youth days.  In 3 encyclicals and in all of his many books, homilies, letters and addresses he has spoken powerfully, clearly and from the heart, to the heart.  One of his frequent references to his predecessor and friendship with Christ provides a beautiful example:

Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us?...And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation....When we give ourselves to Him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.

His contributions to building the unity of the Church and healing old divisions have been monumental and historic.  There has never been such friendship and collaboration with leaders of the Orthodox churches as there has been throughout this pontificate.  Through his apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus he has provided a bridge through which thousands of Anglicans and other Protestants are entering the Church, while maintaining their own rich patrimony.  Through his Apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum he has restored the Roman Church's own patrimony, ending nearly a half century of division and conflict and restoring reverence and beauty to sacred liturgy.  And in the English-speaking world he has restored a faithful and reverent translation of the Roman Missal.  He has been tireless in seeking reconciliation with those alienated by false interpretations and reckless innovations following the Second Vatican Council.

Most importantly, his joyful, faithful and total submission to the service of Jesus Christ and His Church has inspired vibrant, new, evangelical growth throughout the universal Church that has also spawned a boom in religious and priestly vocations.

For all of this and so much more, we wish Pope Benedict God's richest blessings, a happy birthday and heartily proclaim "Viva il Papa!"

The Rise and Fall of Pope Francis

Many have said that we deserve this awful pontificate on account of our own failings. Then let us make amends now, with prayer and Catholic action, that the madness descended upon us as a divine chastisement may, by a divine favor, be brought to an end at last.

Yet again Francis has told us what he thinks, yet again the Church is rocked by scandal, and yet again the Vatican has had to issue a “clarification” in an effort to calm the storm. As the whole world knows by now, during rambling remarks at a “pastoral conference” for priests of the Diocese of Rome at Saint John Lateran on June 16, Francis declared that “the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null” because the spouses “don’t know what they say” when they say “Yes, for life.”

But Francis is also “sure” that couples in the countryside of northeast Argentina who cohabit out of the husband’s superstitious fear of marriage vows, avoiding Catholic nuptials until they are grandparents, have “a true marriage, they have the grace of marriage, precisely because of the fidelity they have.”

Read more at The Remnant >>

Westminster Abbey Choir and Congregation - "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty"

Pat Buchanan: Has Trump Found the Formula?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Stripped of its excesses, Donald Trump’s Wednesday speech contains all the ingredients of a campaign that can defeat Hillary Clinton this fall.

Indeed, after the speech ended Clinton was suddenly defending the Clinton Foundation against the charge that it is a front for a racket for her family’s enrichment.

The specific charges in Trump’s indictment of Clinton: She is mendacious, corrupt, incompetent and a hypocrite.

On Today's Brexit Referendum

"There'll always be an England,

And England shall be free,

If England means as much to you

As England means to me."

Pat Buchanan: Trolling for War with Russia

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Some 50 State Department officials have signed a memo calling on President Obama to launch air and missile strikes on the Damascus regime of Bashar Assad.

A “judicious use of stand-off and air weapons,” they claim, “would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process.”

In brief, to strengthen the hand of our diplomats and show we mean business, we should start bombing and killing Syrian soldiers.

Yet Syria has not attacked us. And Congress has not declared war on Syria, or authorized an attack. Where do these State hawks think President Obama gets the authority to launch a war on Syria?

The Latest Outrage from the Man Purporting to be Pope

As we recently notified our readers, we have determined that the surest way to safeguard our faith is to disregard anything uttered by the man purporting to be the most recent successor to Saint Peter.  Whether he has a drinking problem, is as one publication has suggested, "entering his dotage," or just an old fashioned anti-Pope, we are not sure.  But we don't need advanced degrees in ecclesiology, theology, or church history to know that this "Pope" is aberrant and in no way in communion with his predecessors, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Church Tradition and teaching.  We pray that God in His mercy will send a conclave and restore to the Chair of Saint Peter a truly Catholic pope.

The following article by Damian Thompson appeared in The Spectator.

Pope Francis says most marriages today are ‘invalid’. This is a disaster for the Catholic Church

By Damian Thompson

Pope Francis, spiritual leader of a billion people, has just informed them that ‘the great majority’ of sacramental marriages are invalid because couples don’t go into them with the right intentions. He was speaking at a press conference in Rome. Here’s the context, from the Catholic News Agency (my emphases):

‘I heard a bishop say some months ago that he met a boy that had finished his university studies, and said “I want to become a priest, but only for 10 years”. It’s the culture of the provisional. And this happens everywhere, also in priestly life, in religious life,’ he said.

‘It’s provisional, and because of this the great majority of our sacramental marriages are null. Because they say “yes, for the rest of my life!” but they don’t know what they are saying. Because they have a different culture. They say it, they have good will, but they don’t know.’

Uh? You can read the full report here but you won’t be much the wiser. The Pope, thinking aloud in the manner of some maverick parish priest after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, has just told millions of his flock that they are not really married.

Did he mean to say that? What does he really think? What authority do his words carry?

And why should Catholics even have to ask these questions? Francis’s off-the-cuff ramblings on matters of extreme pastoral sensitivity are wreaking havoc in the Catholic Church, as I’ve written here.

Ross Douthat of the New York Times has just tweeted this response:

I suspect that even the Pope’s most liberal admirers will have difficulty extricating him from this mess.