Remnant Articles
Good Friday for Christians in America?
Has the persecution begun already?
What can we learn from Indiana's war on religious liberty?
Michael Matt talks about Governor Pence vs. Garcia Moreno, the Kingship of Christ and the coming purge of all things Christian.
New from Remnant TV: Indiana and the Coming Crucifixion of Christ Featured
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
Remnant Editor’s Note: Back in February of 1973, the late, great French thinker, Jean Ousset—author of Action, the definitive guide to Catholic action—wrote a letter to a Catholic who having witnessed the auto-demolition of the Church in France, had lost his Faith. Originally written in French, Ousset’s letter was translated into English by Michael Davies who noted at the time that Ousset “depicts the current dark disorder as a call to action rather than a cause for despair.”This little known letter by Jean Ousset is as relevant today as when it was first published, perhaps more so, given that faithful Catholics in 2009 are subjected to a daily barrage of scandals and blasphemies never conceived of in 1973. Far from justifying despair in us, however, the darkness we see all around us is a subject for meditation, really—for action!—for as bad as things have become in Europe, the Americas and all across the world, we can see through Hell’s very refusal to give up the fight against the Cross that the triumph of Christ the King is inevitable. If through Catholic action we can keep despair at bay no matter how futile our efforts may seem, given the diabolical might of the opposition, we will see the triumph of the Immaculate Heart
To Fly from the Cross: A History of Dark Disorder in the Catholic Church Featured
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
SSPX claims and reopens St. James Church, once slated for destruction by the Diocese of Pittsburgh
An incredible saga endured by the parishioners of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ended in victory on Saturday, March 28, 2015 when Fr. Niklaus Pfluger of the Society of St. Pius X celebrated the Traditional Latin Mass before a crowd of 560 people in historic St. James Catholic Church in the West End of Pittsburgh.
Traditional Catholics began organizing to preserve the Traditional Latin Mass in the Pittsburgh area almost immediately after the imposition of the Novus Ordo Mass in the early 1970s. After celebrating Mass in various locations (including individuals’ basements and rented hotel ballrooms) the faithful purchased St. Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Chapel on the south side of Pittsburgh in 1977. This chapel was small but adequate for an extended period of time. The Society of St. Pius X acquired the apostolate of Our Lady of Fatima in 1991 and moved the celebration of the Mass to an old school building in Collier Township in the Pittsburgh suburbs. This location was larger but was not ideal for the celebration of the Mass.
In his letter to Catholics suffering at the hands of Arian heretics, the great St. Athanasius writes: "I know moreover that not only this thing saddens you, but also the fact that while others have obtained the churches by violence, you are meanwhile cast out from your places. For they hold the places, but you the Apostolic Faith."
Today Athanasius smiled, for in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States of America a gathering of faithful Catholics witnessed a truly remarkable event: the dedication ceremony of new Catholic Church.
Athanasius Smiled: Taking Back One of Our Places
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
My previous article discussed Karl Keating’s latest exercise in traditionalist bashing: his self-published book The New Geocentrists. Herewith some further considerations prompted by the book.
The positions this newspaper has taken on the crisis in the Church since the immediate aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, when The Remnant was founded, have been vindicated beyond reasonable dispute by historical events. Only the obtuse or the willfully blind can continue to maintain that the “renewal of Vatican II” has been anything but an unprecedented disaster, leading Paul VI himself to lament very early on that “the smoke of Satan” had entered the Church—which, indeed, it had thanks to the “opening to the world” Pope Paul likewise lamented as “a veritable invasion of the Church by worldly thinking.”
To Discredit the Traditionalist Movement: What Really Motivates the Neo-Catholic Witch Hunters
By: Christopher A. Ferrara
PRESS RELEASE FROM "SUPPORT FOR MARRIAGE LETTER" COORDINATOR
In a dramatic turn of events, nearly 500 priests from England and Wales have written a letter in defence of the ‘traditional teaching on marriage and human sexuality’ in anticipation of the forthcoming Vatican Synod on the family. This letter comes at a time when a growing number of Catholics are concerned that the gathering of Church leaders in Rome, scheduled for October 2015, will seek to re-think Gospel teaching on marriage, sexuality, repentance and grace. Some Cardinals, particularly from Germany, have suggested that Holy Communion could be received by those in second and non-marital unions, or that active homosexual relationships could receive some positive recognition.
Hundreds of Priests in England and Wales urge Vatican Synod to end confusion over Marriage and Sexuality
By: Press ReleaseWhatever happened to Catholic nuns? Whatever happened to Catholic schools? Whatever happened to the Catholic Mass? Why is Pope Francis giving us the 'thumbs-up' when the Catholic Church is crashing down all around us?
Michael Matt and Christopher Ferrara discuss. . .
New From Remnant TV: 'Give Us Back Our Catholic Church!'
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
I don’t have any answers for the questions I will pose below, but I think, with less than eight months to go before the next installment of the Synod to End the Family, now might be a good time to at least open the discussion: what do we do when the Cardinal Kasper’s New Paradigm is officially in place?
Simply put, can a Catholic in good conscience continue to attend a parish where the priest has agreed to go along with the New Paradigm? And if not, what then?
Ultimately, I believe we are in a situation in the Church so dire that only the long view of history is going to be able to determine what is really happening. But this is not to say that we who are living in it are unable to discern what our duty is here and now. I propose, therefore, only to start the discussion by asking some obvious but painful questions, and to perhaps illumine it with a few easily verifiable facts.
Dear fellow friends of The Remnant,
Greetings once again from Fr. Jonathan Romanoski, FSSP, in Guadalajara, México. I would like to give you an update on our apostolate down here in the land of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Empress of the Americas.
We moved two years ago from the Church of St. Peter where we had been for four years, to an historic church in the center of town dedicated to the oldest Marian title in all of Christendom - Our Lady of the Pillar. The oldest church indeed as it was begun by Our Lady herself during her lifetime around the year AD 40 when she visited the apostle St. James who was sent to evangelize the land of what is now Spain.
Arriving at Zaragoza, St. James had made but few converts and was tempted by sadness to despair when Our Lady appeared to him, descending from the clouds upon a pillar, which she left planted there, asking him to build a shrine in her honor, which she promised would remain till the end of time and which would be the source of grace for the conversion of that land which was to become a great nation.
Viva Cristo Rey: Traditional Catholic Restoration in Mexico
By: Fr. Jonathan Romanoski
In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Welcome to the Traditional Latin Rite Mass by which the Roman Catholic Church had worshipped Almighty God for centuries prior to Vatican Council II.
It is an ancient maxim of the Church that how we worship is how we believe. In Latin, that is called lex orandi, lex credendi …The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays...” That is why, for centuries, the Church resisted changing one iota of the Sacred Liturgy for fear that it would change our Catholic beliefs. In the wake of Vatican II, radical changes to the Mass have taken place, which resulted in a New Order of Mass (the “Novus Ordo”). We will now review just a few of these changes, that will be noticeable to you, and see how they may have impacted our Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith; which was preserved intact for centuries by the Traditional Latin Mass.
The Latin Mass 101: Sermon to First-Time Attendees
By: Father Ladis J. Cizik
An attack on traditionalists by the Holy Father does, however, suggest an attack on Tradition itself, on 2000 years of liturgical heritage and the established moral order of Holy Mother Church—the defense of which, no matter how inadequate, is what makes a Catholic a traditionalist.
What is so troubling for many of us is this idea that if Pope Francis is correct in administering these scoldings of Tradition, and if he is right in attempting to establish a new orientation for the Church and the papacy, then it would seem to stand to reason that the Church historically and traditionally was wrong or at least seriously mistaken in both her praxis and teaching for a very long time. By his own admission, Francis is trying to move the Church out of the darkness of her old ways and into the light of modernity. For nearly 2000 years of Church history, no pope ever spoke of such an idea other than to condemn it as patently false.