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[Full
Feature Article] |
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 When
Pope Benedict looks through the window of his papal apartment, over the
Piazza San Pedro and out to the world beyond, consider what he sees…
Christians
and Muslims comprise half the world’s population. Half of that
half, however, is suffering an identity crisis so severe that
Islam recently replaced Catholicism as the world’s largest
religion. The Vatican’s Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, compiler of
the Annuario Pontificio, recently confirmed that “For the
first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have
overtaken us.”
In Europe,
Christianity is dying, of course, and the remnant that somehow
hangs on is gradually being driven underground by a neo-fascist
European Union, which, by the way, is currently cajoling
Poland—one of the last holdouts of old Europe—to make sodomy and
abortion as Polish as golonka ....MORE>>> |
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The Catcher in the Rye |
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Catholic Educators and the Death of Innocence |
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 The
abiding devotion Catholic educators nationwide have for a book
which not only accepted the loss of innocence as a necessary
precondition for adulthood, but also broke the barrier of
decency fifty years ago for profanity and lewdness, is
unfathomable. This
popular coming-of-age novel, at once the most banned and
best-selling book of all time, and which caused the banishment
of two teaching nuns devoted to it from a Catholic college fifty
years ago by their bishop,2 has, nevertheless,
quietly remained on the required reading list in Catholic high
schools for decades and is universally hailed as an American
classic...MORE>>> |
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What Is To Be Done? |
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Tradition and
the Epic Struggle for the Soul of the Western Church |
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 In times
of national crisis, the Russian intelligentsia will formally
address this question to their countrymen.[1]
Now I believe the time has come for traditionalist Catholics to
do the same. With the issuance of Summorum Pontificum
(SP) the strategic situation has shifted dramatically. That is,
Pope Benedict XVI has done what we have long been asking the
Supreme Pontiff to do: get us a first down then hand us the
ball. I fully realize that this initial article will not satisfy
everyone. The people who read The Remnant are not likely
to be without strong opinions or shy in their expression, and
Traditionalists in general are tough—pardon the expression—nuts.
How else could they have survived forty years in the modernist
desert? Despite scarcity and massive opposition, they somehow
managed to retain access to the traditional sacraments and to
catechize their children within a hostile secular and
ecclesiastical culture. Such people are not now about to take
marching orders from anyone.....MORE>>> |
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Nostra Aetate and the
Good Friday Prayer |
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Pope
accused of fomenting "anti-Semitic riots"? |
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The Good
Friday prayer controversy continues to rage, and has now
achieved proportions that are at once both comic and alarming.
Responding to continued pressure from liberal Jewish spokesmen,
including Abe Foxman and Walter Homolka, the Vatican Secretariat
of State issued a “communiqué” on April 4th that
purported to “clarify” the meaning of the revised prayer.....MORE>>> |
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Dialogued to Death |
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Catholics Support Suspension of Inter-Faith Dialogue |
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One
positive fallout from the brouhaha over the Good Friday prayer is
that “inter-faith dialogue” was inadvertently exposed for the
wobbly house of cards it has always been. The moment Peter brought
Christ the Savior of all men back to the table,
his “dialogue partners” began packing up their goodies in
disgust, and down went the card house. What does that tell us about inter-faith dialogue.....MORE>>> |
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Catholic Bashing! |
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Pope Compared to
Adolf Hitler |
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by Christopher A. Ferrara
"What is the value of
a church that could not assert God’s fundamental teachings
during the Third Reich?"
...Rabbi Walter Homolka
I am convinced that the putative “division” among
traditionalists over the Pope’s revision of the ancient Good
Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews is largely the
result of a misunderstanding of the issue. It should hardly be
necessary to say this yet again, but there are still some among
us who do not, or will not, recognize what The Remnant
and its writers are really saying in this controversy: No
one at this newspaper, and no traditionalist in the entire
“movement” so far as I can tell, had any desire to see the Pope
revise the traditional prayer. As I wrote on these pages exactly
two weeks before the prayer was revised:....MORE>>> |
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Pope's
Baptism of Prominent Muslim Sends Message: |
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Be Not Afraid to Acknowledge Christianity as the Truth |
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by John-Henry Westen
On
Saturday night at the Easter Vigil in St. Peter's Basilica in
the
Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI baptized Magdi
Allam, one of
Italy's most prominent Muslims
who upon his conversion took the name Cristiano - which means
Christian. Allam, the Deputy Director of one of
Italy's largest newspapers -
Corriere della Sera - wrote of his baptism the following day,
saying, "Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic
religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith . . . For me it
is the most beautiful day of [my] life."....MORE>>> |
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Traditional Mass
Comes to Prison |
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A Prisoner's
Testimony |
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A great
accomplishment was made for the counter-revolution in the Church
this past Christmas. Prisoners were allowed to attend a
traditional Mass in the Prison Chapel on Christmas Eve......MORE>>> |
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Spitzer's
Fall: |
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What it
means for New York's bishops and the working moms they employ |
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WHEN THE
NEW YORK CATHOLIC BISHOPS went to Albany Tuesday, March 11, to
oppose Governor Eliot Spitzer's abortion bill and the
legalization of civil unions, they brought with them a list of
troubling policies they are lobbying NY lawmakers to support:
more government-funded health care, "essential services" for
illegal immigrants, the reduction of green-house gases in the
form of a gas tax, and, most troubling in my opinion, increased
access to public-funded child day-care for working families.....MORE>>> |
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The
Good Friday Prayer Controversy: |
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Terminated by
La Civiltà Cattolica |
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by Michael J. Matt
In his March 7, 2008 column, “A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the
Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews”, journalist Sandro
Magister resurrects two early February articles—one by
Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the pontifical
council of culture, and the other by Rabbi Jacob Neusner, a
professor of Jewish history and theology at Bard College in New
York. While the Rabbi’s article is useful to those rightly
attempting to quell concerns and protests raised especially by
the assembly of Italian rabbis after the release of Pope
Benedict’s revised Good Friday prayer, the article by Ravasi
contains so much convoluted language where Jewish/Christian
theology is concerned that it’s difficult to ascertain with any
degree of certitude what the Archbishop’s objective in writing
it might have been......MORE>>> |
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Flectamus
Genua |
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Quo Vadis? |
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The Good Friday Prayer
By
the end of his career-long war of words with the noted Socialist
George Bernard Shaw, the great G.K. Chesterton wrote the following
of his arch nemesis:
My principal experience, from first to last, has been in arguments
with him. And it is worth remarking that I have learned to have a
warmer admiration and affection out of all that argument than most
people get out of agreement. Bernard Shaw, unlike some whom I
have had to consider here, is seen at his best when he is
antagonistic; I might say that he is seen at his best when he is
wrong. I might also add that he generally is wrong. Or rather,
everything is wrong about him except himself.
[1].....MORE>>> |
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Dom Gérard,
RIP |
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Founder of Monastery at Le
Barroux Dies Suddenly |
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 Dear
friends,
Maybe you know the sad news: my abbot emeritus and founder Dom
Gérard Calvet is gone. Coming back from a funeral in his family,
he had a blood problem in the brain on Wednesday and died
yesterday, Thursday at 13.26. He was 80 years old.
Please pray for the repose of his soul, and for our community.
May God bless you all.
Fr. Basile (Rémi) VALUET o.s.b.
Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine
F–84330 LE BARROUX
FRANCE Dear
Father Basile:
We hasten to express our deepest condolences to
the monks at Le Barroux on the passing of their most excellent
founder, Dom Gérard.
Having had the great honor of meeting your founder on two
occasions and having been the recipient of his truly Christ-like
hospitality at the Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine, I will always
remember him as the soldier of Christ and noble son of St.
Benedict who inspired so many to follow Christ and defend His
Church in a time of great uncertainty. May he rest in
peace and may he look soon upon the Face of the One he served so
well and so faithfully in life. Eternal rest grant unto him, O
Lord.
Michael Matt
Editor, The Remnant |
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Theology of the Body |
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From David
Bowie to Superman to Christopher West |
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DEAR
REMNANT EDITOR: Theology of the Body (TOB) and Christopher West
are often on my mind, and not without causing me stress!
Monica Ashour, MTS (a teacher of the Theology of the Body)
writes (see
www.tobet.org/adultstoteachteens.asp) of the Fourth National
Theology of the Body Forum in Dallas, Texas, October 26, 2007:
“Think about Mass. We use our bodies to glorify God and be
in a deeper union and communion with Him and the whole Church”;
Pope John Paul II says “marital intercourse, next to the Mass,
is the most powerful way to combat the devil”. Huh?.....MORE>>> |
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Pope
Challenged Over Catholic Dogma |
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International Declaration in Support
of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI |
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Today, February 12, 2008, the international Rabbinical Assembly,
representing some 1,600 conservative rabbis worldwide, issued a
"resolution" declaring that it is "dismayed and deeply
disturbed" over Pope Benedict's reiteration of Catholic doctrine
on salvation in the recently revised Good Friday Prayer.
This same Assembly voted to formally pressure the Vatican
to "clarify the text's meaning."
However, the text is perfectly clear, and the Pope is not
obliged to alter or "clarify" Church teaching in response to
"resolutions" adopted by non-Catholic organizations.
Besides, the Pope's magnanimous decision to revise the
Prayer in the first place has already addressed any possible
concerns the Rabbinical Assembly might profess to have.
We are deeply concerned that such public relations
tactics could become a precedent for interference in the affairs
of the Church by pressure groups that do not share her beliefs.....MORE>>> |
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Pope's Good
Friday Prayer Sparks International Furor |
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As the whole world knows by now, this week the Vatican
released Pope Benedict’s revised version of the traditional Good
Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews. What some feared
might entail a dismantling of the traditional prayer has at
least in one sense served to reinforce it. The text of the
new prayer reads as follows:
Let us also
pray for the Jews: that God our Lord might enlighten their
hearts, so that they might acknowledge Jesus Christ as the
Savior of all mankind. Let us pray. Let us bend our knees
(kneel). Please rise.
Almighty and eternal God, whose desire it is that all men might
be saved and come to the knowledge of truth, grant in your mercy
that as the fullness of mankind enters into your Church, all
Israel may be saved, through Christ our Lord. Amen.....MORE>>> |
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A Papal
Masterstroke |
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The reports were true: The Pope has changed the traditional Good
Friday prayer for the
conversion of the Jews. But, amazingly enough, the change
is another positive development in this papacy, although I would
never have thought so until I actually read the text of the new
prayer......MORE>>> |
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Peter
and the New World Order |
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Within
days of the posting of my article calling on Roman Catholic
traditionalists to recognize the sea change between this
pontificate and the last one, two more positive developments
have occurred....MORE>>>
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Peter
and the Wolves |
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Has The
Remnant gone soft, or has it merely recognized a monumental turning
point in history? |
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As this
article goes to press, the worldwide media are abuzz with
unconfirmed reports that Pope Benedict will alter the
traditional Good Friday prayer for the conversion of the Jews in
response to agitation from a few Jewish groups, especially Abe
Foxman’s Anti-Defamation League. Foxman has been griping about
the prayer ever since the Pope liberated the traditional Latin
Mass from its pseudo-legal quarantine during the last two
pontificates, a development that has sent tremors of alarm
throughout the Novus Ordo Seclorum. Why? Because, to
quote Foxman, it is “a theological setback to the reforms of
Vatican II.” .....MORE>>> |
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Where
Do We Stand? |
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Tradition and the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI |
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Pope offers Mass ad orientem,
Sistine Chapel, Sunday January
13, 2008
Editor, The Remnant: Yes, there is much good in the Holy
Father’s new encyclical on hope. But there is at least one
apparent problem. Paragraph 46 implies that “the great
majority of people” are admitted to Purgatory, and thus, eventually,
to eternal life. Such an assumption conflicts with Our Lord’s
dire warnings in Matthew chapters 7 & 20. Our Savior has a
very different perspective on salvation than, for example, Hans Urs
von Balthasaar. The Church needs a clarification from the Holy
Father on this item. …A
Remnant Reader
Michael Matt
Responds:
Many thanks for your note. I’m happy to publish it since I
agree this could be a flaw in an otherwise welcome development.
As a friend recently observed of Spe Salvi, “Who would have ever
dreamed that, following a pope who made us apologize for Galileo, we
would get an attack on Martin Luther, Francis Bacon and the whole of
the Enlightenment such as the one found in Benedict’s new
encyclical?”.....MORE>>> |
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"My Books Are
About Killing God" |
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Thank God
his movie is about a box office flop |
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It will take a “few extra drinks to be merry at New Line's
Christmas party tomorrow night after ‘The Golden Compass’
resoundingly bombed during its opening weekend,” reports The
New York Post (Dec. 9, 2007). The film, which cost $180-$200
million to produce (not including approximately $30-$40 million
more in marketing costs) made only $26 million during its
opening weekend:....MORE>>> |
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