Aspicientes in Jesum

 These are of course early days, but I am already suspecting that the College of Cardinals have been rather clever. They have elected a man ...

Today I have read a lot of articles from the mainstream press predicting the election of one liberal candidate or another, This is, of cours...

 Erik Varden

 Well, he's gone, God rest his soul. And whatever our feelings might be, it is time now to say with the ancients, De mortuis, nil nisi b...

 The Italian Post Office has produced a handsome new stamp, featuring Pope Benedict. He is not forgotten! You can read about it (in Italian)...

 This is a very long shot indeed. For decades I have been trying to trace my godmother, Peggy Brosnan, about whom I know very little. It sud...

Happy Easter, everyone!  

 I strongly resent being lectured that I must 'accept Vatican II' by people who believe less of what that council teaches than I do....

 This German Synodaler Weg stuff is, I suspect, the result of Paul VIs shake-up of the Roman Curia in the sixties and seventies, something ...

 Nearly four years! I do not think that anyone can accuse me of logorrhrea! But with Traditiones Custodes, and still more with the recent Re...

My dear friends; I have picked up on the internet that there is a certain sadness that I no longer post regularly on this blog (formerly Val...

A devout and good young man is keen to join the Society of St Pius X. I can understand that. I have always wanted to be simply a priest as ...

For Thomas More, the thing that makes the difference is what is called by others Lex orandi, lex credendi . I mentioned how he had, with Era...

It is well known that St Thomas More vigorously resisted the Reformation in England and ultimately paid for that resistance with his life. ...

Like some of you, I don't find this particular pontificate easy, and I have really tried (see earlier posts). I have been rebuked on Fac...

There seems to be quite a row blazing about whether St Augustine was black or not. Does it actually matter? The proposition was first made ...

Cardinal Sarah's comments on the convergence of the two forms of the Roman Rite have drawn much comment around the Interweb, not least o...

I've been turning over in my mind the proposition that Pope Francis may have some providential role to play in the Church's life. I ...

Today I went to Tesco—it was on my way, and has usually parking spaces—to buy some fish for lunch. Over the display cabinet was a big sign: ...

Well, it's been over a year since my last post, so I don't know who will read this, but it's something I want to get off my ches...

From Mary Kenny's column in the Catholic Herald, 21.8.15: When sentencing for minor offences, Irish judges may order the convicted to...

What a lot of nonsense is being posted about these supposed Catholic relics at Jamestown ! The fact of somebody being buried with some bones...

My name does not appear among the signatories of the letter supporting Catholic teaching concerning marriage and family life. I'm not re...

Today I went to the Requiem Mass of a remarkable woman. Her name was Maria Jesusa Gutierrez y Rodriguez, but I and everyone else always kn...

Anyone else notice this? Pope Francis in the Philippines: The Wizard of Oz: I'm encouraged that, like Pope Benedict, he enco...

Yesterday a priest friend drew my attention to an interview given by Cardinal Kasper, and printed in the July/August 2014 edition of the per...

So why did I go quiet, then? Well, simply because I found myself in disagreement with some of the prudential judgments of the Holy Father....

The Pastor in Valle has been into his tomb, found it not entirely to his liking, tried poking his nose out as Pastor in Valle Emeritus (it...

Well, all good things come to an end. A month from today (7th September) I will be celebrating my last Mass in the Valle Adurni, for I have ...

I have just watched a recording of the meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem. You can watch it here; there is ...

At last! Something sensible from a bishop on the subject of the Internet, blogs and all that. In this case, it is the coadjutor archbishop...

The funny thing about this video is that in France, the priest shown would be considered definitively conservative and, well, rather un-Fren...

I never realised that Cervantes fought at Lepanto. It seems particularly appropriate on the feast of St Pius V that The History Blog should...

So Popes John XXIII and Pope John Paul II are now saints. This doesn’t worry me the way it worries some people. I study history, and I kn...

A picture for Karen. Traditions must be upheld, after all.

p.s. I think these two screen shots must be the most reproduced without attribution or acknowledgement in recent internet history!

Within living memory the Church of the low countries—the Netherlands and of course Belgium—was confident and flourishing, sending missionari...

As you would expect, The Tablet has been hardly able to contain itself since the election of Pope Francis. Paeans of praise arise from thei...

Looking with a friend the other day at the Exsultet from the Hereford Missal (you know, the way you do), we discovered this rather wonderful...

The action of Michael Olson, the very new Bishop Olson of Fort Worth, a mere three weeks into his pontificate, in forbidding (or, more accur...

People have often admired the rigorous approach to fasting taken by the Eastern Churches. Our Western custom was once similar, but was dimin...

From last week's Tablet, about one of the new Cardinal-designates, Fernando Sebastián Aguilar, former Archbishop of Pamplona, lauded b...

The late Monsignor Alfred Gilbey is supposed to have described the Knights of Malta as 'a very elaborate way of doing very little good...