Bracing for the Synod on the Family... and praying to the Blessed Virgin

"And, if I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned yet do not have charity, it profits me nothing." St. Paul, 2 Corinthians, 13:3
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It should not be too much, should it, to expect, at the very least, honesty from our bishops? After all of the physical, psychological and pecuniary harm that the laity have endured through clerical abuse of persons and power, perhaps clarity and transparency should be the rule of the day?  Surely to facilitate a centripetal rapprochement between the hierarchy and the faithful, the faithful should be reassured by demonstrated hierarchical faithfulness to the beautiful teachings of Our Lord and his apostles governed by the Spirit of Penance and Charity? 

Editor’s Note: I’m very pleased to introduce a new columnist to our stable of writers. Though Mr. Carter hails from the other side of the pond, in London, he and I made our acquaintance on The Remnant website (RemnantNewspaper.com) where he has become a frequent and valued contributor. The article which follows is an apt introductory piece because it is a new writer’s overview of an old position on the New Mass—one which The Remnant has held from the very beginning. With the Synod on the Family now looming large and threatening formal schism in the Church, it is so important for Catholics to recall how the human element of the Church arrived at this nightmare. Nothing that is happening now under the disastrous reign of Pope Francis would have come as a surprise to my father, to Michael Davies, to Archbishop Lefebvre and to the rest of the pioneers of the traditional Catholic movement who’d insisted from the very beginning that the New Mass was the touchstone of the revolution. With 20/20 hindsight, it is so easy to see that they were right all along— lex orandi, lex credendi, it is indeed the Mass that matters. Many thanks, Mr. Carter for a brilliant reminder of what the Catholic counterrevolution was all about when you and I were kids, and what it must become again if a true Catholic counterrevolution is to take root. Welcome aboard. MJM

After my return to the Church in 2005 (I was living and working in Moscow at the time), I attended the Novus Ordo regularly. I was edified by the friendship shown to me by the parish priest and by what I could see of the lives of my fellow regular Mass-goers and despite my misgivings about certain elements of the Mass at which I assisted, I was able to quash the memories of my parents’ struggles as two of the early English Traditionalists and the grief and pain they suffered every day of their lives at the Revolution which toppled everything they held dear.

This weekend our nation celebrates Labor Day. The origins of this national holiday go back more than a hundred years, when many workers in factories and fields were grossly overworked and often underpaid. Since that time in affluent America the rights and dignity of workers have made significant advances, often through the intervention of government, which imposes worker-friendly standards upon employers. How ironic then that on this extended weekend, intended for the rest and recreation of laborers, this same government which claims to care about workers has now imprisoned one of its own public servants.

I am speaking of the county clerk in Kentucky, who sits in a jail cell over this three day weekend for the alleged crime of refusing to authorize and issue same-sex marriage certificates to homosexual couples.