It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now, our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. (Romans 12:11)
PUT ANOTHER WAY, the night is always darkest before the dawn. So, for heaven’s sake, don’t give up now!
The Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans could be retitled the Epistle of St. Paul to the Traditionalists, so relevant is it to our situation. In the previous chapter of Romans, in fact, we find the Pauline inspiration for the very name of this newspaper: Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.
My father chose this 51 years ago, not out of arrogance – i.e., we are the remnant – but rather as a pledge of fidelity to the remnant, whose faith and final perseverance our holy scriptures happily foretell.
This is a decidedly Catholic Institution, and I am decidedly and unapologetically Catholic. ~Justice Thomas
Back in May, during Christendom College's Class of 2018 graduation exercises, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a commencement address for the ages.
When I first watched it, I was left speechless, moved to tears, in fact. My wife and I are alumni of Christendom College, and for us this speech may just be our proudest Christendom moment.
But there's more to it than that. For those interested in gaining a better understanding of what we Catholics have lost over the past fifty years, this speech by a Catholic gentleman and scholar of the old school, formed in the last days of the old Church, is just the ticket.
A JUSTICE FOR ALL SEASONS: Clarence Thomas v. Jimmy Martin
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
The late scholar Mel Bradford once used the wording “remembering who we are” as a title to a book of finely-honed essays about his beloved Southland. It seems to me, as Bradford so artfully and gracefully suggested in his writings, that it is memory, both individual and collective, which is essential not just to the passed-on heritage of any culture, but to the very existence of that culture. We remember the deeds, the sayings, the handed-down lore, the usages, and the faith of our fathers and grandfathers (and mothers and grandmothers). Their lessons, their admonitions, their successes (and failures), their examples, even their everyday customs inform us and our actions, and, indeed, help shape our lives and view of life. Historically, these are in many respects the very same accoutrements that give definition and offer the earliest structure to our existence, that define us, and that also provide an inheritance which we, in turn, impart to our offspring and descendants.
Remembering Who We Are…Hope in the Midst of the Ruins of Our Culture
By: Dr. Boyd D. CatheyOn the lighter side. . .
A debate has been raging for centuries among the Eastern Orthodox over whether Moscow is the “third Rome”. Constantinople, the capital of the eastern wing of the old Roman Empire, was the “second Rome,” the Third Romers argue. To be sure, Constantinople held out long after the “first Rome” fell to invading barbarian hordes. St. Augustine wrote City of God in the early 400s to explain why the sack of the West by the Visigoths was not the Christians’ fault, but by that time it was already too late, Third Romers say. The spirit of Rome had moved on, settling in the East until it, too, fell. When Sultan Mehmed II sacked Constantinople in 1453, there was the same panic as in Rome itself a thousand years before. Where would the third “Rome” be?
The “Third Rome” Found—In Brooklyn!
By: Jason Morgan | Remnant Correspondent, TOKYO
Father John Aurelio, 1979 (a mere ten years after the promulgation of the New Mass). Of course, some forty years later he was credibly accused of abusing kids.
Editor’s Note: This article (by a Professor of Law Emeritus at The Catholic University of America) first appeared in The Remnant back in 2006 under the original title: “The Great Moral Flaw in the Second Vatican Council”. We’re posting it here to reiterate the central point made in the RTV video—Before Bergoglio: John Paul II, Assisi and Vatican II—that it would be a serious sin of omission (or at least intellectual laziness) to fix all or even most of the blame for the current auto-demolition of the Catholic Church on the insufferable Pope Francis or even on the clerical sexual abuse crisis itself; two obvious and predictable effects of the crisis.
BREAKING THE OATH: Before they started abusing kids they were abusing God
By: Professor Raymond B. MarcinNew from RTV. . .
Down in the Underground, Michael Matt asks: Has everyone forgotten about life before Bergoglio?
Enough with the clerical sex scandal! We get it! It's worse than bad! But it's also an effect...NOT the root cause.
Pope Francis didn't start the fire, so let's find out who did.
Have we not seen this before: A reformer using abuse in the Church as an excuse to attack Her and make a name for himself?
Rod Dreher, another shallow Vatican II convert who never really got the Faith, has carved out a nice gig for himself as a professional ex-Catholic. Absurdly enough, he is being lauded and feted by still-practicing Catholics around the world for his book The Benedict Option despite his public declarations that the homosexual priest scandal proves that the Catholic Church has deceived her members by claiming to be the Church that Christ founded with a promise of indefectibility. For example: “I was naive about the Catholic institution, and saw in retrospect that I idolized it to a certain degree. Because I believed what the Catholic Church said about itself, I set myself up for a very big fall.”
Rod Dreher’s Luther Option: A Book Review of Sorts
By: Christopher A. Ferrara
Cardinal McCarrick and the Boys: Could he have been any more obvious?
Author’s Note: Back on June 30, 2002, I wrote the following Remnant article on the now-infamous Dallas meeting of bishops (convened under the pretense of addressing the clergy sex abuse crisis). That utterly impotent meeting would go on to produce the now-laughable “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People”, drafted by — wait for it! — Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
At the Dallas meeting, Uncle Ted was allowed to make a mockery of the entire Conference by prancing around like a lady from "The View", pretending to care about victims of clerical sexual abuse while his brother bishops sat on their hands and said nothing about the biggest abuser of them all.
We know how that story ended.
The Remnant Blasts Complicit Bishops...Sixteen Years Ago in Dallas
By: Michael J. Matt | Editor
The Benedict Option?
(Pope Francis asks Patriarch Bartholomew to “bless me and the Church of Rome” at the Orthodox Church of St. George in Istanbul.)
Editor’s Note: Anyone reading The Remnant for a period of time can attest to the fact that in these dark days of confusion we have long been committed to “uniting the clans” against the enemies of Christ’s Church whenever possible. Now more than ever before, those who can “pray the Creed with us, and mean it” (as the late, great Dr. William Marra used to say) must be considered brothers in arms. The following article pulls no punches. It is written by a diocesan priest, Father Richard Munkelt—an academic not given to the kind of pot-stirring polemics all the rage on social media. This is not a “spitting contest” with Rod Dreher—a well-known and talented writer with whom Father Munkelt has been acquainted for many years. Instead, this is a priestly tour de force on the fundamentals of Catholicism, closely following and critiquing Mr. Dreher's recent articles on the Catholic Church. We are publishing it not because we have some personal animus against Mr. Dreher, who left the Church over the clerical scandals, but rather because we seek his return to the fold, while encouraging others not to follow the dangerous and misguided path he’s taken.
Enough, Mr. Dreher! (An Open Letter from a Concerned Catholic Priest)
By: Fr. Richard MunkeltNew from Remnant TV. . .
This RTV Short presents some iPhone footage and audio of Bishop Robert Morlino's last Old Rite Confirmation service at St. Mary's Parish in Pine Bluff, Wisconsin in 2018. Remnant editor, Michael J. Matt, filmed parts of the ceremony, since he was on hand to have one of his daughters confirmed. The iPhone quality isn't great but the Bishop's words to the young people are very moving. His very last words to them, in fact, were the words of the Hail Mary. Bishop Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, was one of the few good shepherds who didn't flee for fear of the wolves. He will be greatly missed.