Remnant Articles
Hatred, Wisdom and Easter: What’s the Connection? Featured
Written by Hilary White
Why do the ungodly hate believers so much? Because anyone who asserts that there was a Man who came back from the dead, and that following and obeying Him will lead us out of the grave, is a rebuke to them.
Sometimes the Bible is useful for more than just incensing at Mass.
In his homily on Ps. 63 that is set as the reading for the second Nocturn of Matins for Good Friday, St. Augustine tells us the reason the Pharisees and leaders of the Temple hated Jesus and wanted him dead.
“Hail Cross! Thou only hope of man. During this Passiontide increase the grace of the pious and purge sinners from their guilt.” (Vexilla Regis.)
The first four weeks of Lent were but a preparation for the intense grief of the Church during the final two. She knows that the enemies of Jesus seek His death and will lay their sacrilegious hands upon Him within twelve days. She asks us to climb the hill of Calvary with Him; to witness His Passion and death; to see the stone placed against the Sepulcher where His lifeless body is laid.
A Holy Week Reflection on the Traditional Latin Mass Featured
Written by Father Ladis J. Cizik
The CONSECRATION: Last Supper and Calvary
In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
The “Lord’s Supper” was a Biblical term adopted during the Protestant ‘De’-formation of the Church to deny the Sacrificial nature of the Mass and to replace it with a simple “memorial.” Protestants and Modernists* endeavor to separate the Christ-centered Sacrifice at Calvary from the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, turning a solemn event into a community-centered “happy meal.” However, Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition both affirm that Calvary was omnipresent in the very First Mass ever offered. That First Mass in the Upper Room was the Last Supper in which Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, anticipated His Salvific Death on Calvary. [*See the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis (39) where Pope Saint Pius X defines Modernism as “the synthesis of all heresies.”]
Benedict Breaks His Silence... with another Leaky Lifeboat Featured
Written by Christopher A. Ferrara
Still searching for his hermeneutic-- pray for Pope Benedict
Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference, has just publisheda previously unpublished interview of Benedict XVI in October of last year by the liberal Jesuit theologian (forgive the redundancy) Jacques Servais, a leading exponent of the Nouvelle Théologie once suppressed by Rome. Servais is an avid promoter of Hans Urs (“Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved?”) von Balthasar, who dropped dead days before John Paul II could accomplish the indignity of making him a cardinal.
Summorum Pontificum: Lifeline, or Anchor? Featured
Written by Patrick Archbold
That is what the motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum” felt like in 2007. It seemed like a lifeline for Tradition and the traditional Mass. Suddenly we could breathe again and it seemed like Tradition was saved from certain death. We, understandably, felt relieved and grateful.
The Remnant Demands a Retraction from Fr. Longenecker Featured
Written by Michael J. Matt | Editor
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
(Ooo, scary! Sounds like something right out of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Intelligence Report”. Let’s do backflips now to show our jailors how anti-fundamentalist and reasonable we all are.)
With life in an increasingly Christophobic world going from bad to apocalyptic, one wonders what motivates a relatively orthodox Catholic priest to wake up one morning and say: Today I think I’ll launch an Internet attack against all the traditional Catholics in the world.
The First Demotic Pope Scandalizes the Little Ones Featured
Written by Christopher A. Ferrara
Derived from the Greek root demos, meaning “the people,” demotic is a rich word that denotes or connotes all of the following: common, vulgar, popular, colloquial, the language of ordinary people, demagogic.
Francis is the first designedly demotic Pope in Church history. Unlike any Pope before him, he basks in the world’s unending praise precisely because he styles himself “the people’s Pope.” The world loves “the people’s Pope” for saying what the people want to hear as opposed to what the Church teaches in calling all men to be elevated from their fallen condition through the operation of sanctifying grace and the conformity of nations, laws and institutions to the Law of the Gospel and the Social Kingship of Christ. The disciples who abandoned Our Lord when He revealed the meaning of the Holy Eucharist declared: “This saying is hard, and who can hear it?” But so often when Francis speaks the world delights in replying: “This saying is easy, who can reject it?”
World War II Letters from a Catholic Soldier
Written by Michael J. Matt | Editor
Bing Crosby in 'Going My Way'
Editor’s Note: A certain blowhard critic of The Remnant has been prattling on lately about how we think everything was just great before Vatican II, and that if we could just get back to the old pre-conciliar days it would all be sunshine and lollipops from now on. Puh-leese!
Has this guy never heard of the Enlightenment? Pascendi? Pope Pius X's condemnation of the errors of the Modernists? Louis Veuillot? Father Denis Fahey? The only ones who thought everything was fine and dandy before Vatican II were the folks in charge of the Church at the time, starting with Pope John XXIII himself who in his opening speech at the Second Vatican Council blasted the 'prophets of doom' (READ: Traditionalists] who knew very well that all was not well in the Church before Vatican II.
Here's an interesting little letter from a World War II solider (Remnant founder, Walter L. Matt) to his parents back home in 1944, all about the subtle assault on Traditional Catholicism going on decades before Vatican II, evidenced even in now-classic Hollywood movies.
How to Stand Fast at the Foot of the Cross: A Meditation on the Mass Featured
Written by The Remnant
The doctrine of Christ is that we die to the world and join with Him on the cross. This teaching is beautifully expressed by St. Paul where he says, "I am nailed to the cross with Christ." (Galatians 2:19) To endure the suffering of the cross is necessary for salvation as taught by the Savior Himself: "Whosoever does not carry his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." (Matthew 14:27)
Lenten Meditation with Our Lady of Sorrows Featured
Written by Rev. Karl Clemens, C.SS.R.
Let us now consider Mary, the profoundly afflicted Mother of Our Lord. We read in the Revelations of St. Bridget (Book I, chapter 10), that the eyes of the Blessed Virgin were continually filled with tears as the time of the bitter Passion of her divine Son drew near, and that the thought of the approaching death of her beloved Jesus forced a cold sweat from her pores.
Emma “La Bicicletta” Bonino, abortionist
In 2010, after I had lived in Italy about two years and had begun to understand the byzantine complexities of this country’s politics, Emma Bonino decided to run for the office of governor of the region of Lazio. Once I found out what kind of person she was, I was seized with the urge to buy a crate of spray paint and go around Rome writing, “10,000 bambini assassinati non abbastanza per Emma ‘la Bicicletta’ Bonino,” on all her posters. “10,000 murdered babies not enough for Emma ‘the bicycle’ Bonino.” I thought of it every time I got off the train at St. Peter’s station in Rome where her face was plastered on nearly every surface. Somehow, I was disuaded from this course of action, and now I wish I had done it. Instead I wrote a few articles about her, and what she stood for, by way of an introduction to English speaking pro-life readers.