“FURTHERMORE, if anyone has once been apprehended in schism or heresy, or confessed or condemned for these, such a person can never be elected Roman Pontiff; otherwise, the election would be null and void, nor will it be revalidated by the passage of time or long possession, and anyone, when this offense appears, may withdraw from his obedience, without waiting for any declaration in this regard, according to the Bull of Paul IV, Cum Ex Apostolatus, and therefore has an exception that can be presented against the election of the Pope.”
—- Carolo Antonio Thesauro SJ, De Poenis Ecclesiasticis Praxis Absoluta et Universalis, 1831
“VITALIS was a soldier, and the father of Saints Gervasius and Protasius. Coming one day into Ravenna, in company with the judge of Paulinus, there was being led to execution, for his having confessed the Christian faith, a certain Ursicinus, a physician. Vitalis observing that his courage was somewhat staggered by the tortures, cried out to him: ‘Ursicinus! thou that art a physician, and curest other men, take heed lest thou wound thyself with the dart of eternal death!’ Encouraged by these words, Ursicinus bravely suffered martyrdom. Whereupon, Paulinus was exceedingly angry, and ordered Vitalis to be seized, tortured on the rack, and then thrown into a deep pit, where he was to be buried alive by stones being thrown upon him. This done, one of the priests of Apollo, who had excited Paulinus against Vitalis, was possessed by a devil, and began shouting these words: ‘O Vitalis, Martyr of Christ, thou burnest me beyond endurance!’ Mad with the inward burning, he threw himself into a river.”
— Dom Prosper Guéranger, “St. Vitalis, Martyr, The Liturgical Year
“HE could not restrain his feelings when he saw nature born again with her Saviour in these days of spring, the flowers blossoming under the steps of his Risen Lord, the birds celebrating his victory in their harmonious songs. His heart was full to overflowing with love and poetry; he touched the flowers gently with his stick and upbraided them, saying, ‘Hold your peace, hold your peace.’ ‘To whom do these lands belong?’ he said one day to a companion. ‘to whom do these lands belong, I say? You do not understand. They belong to our great God.’ And his biographer relates that he was rapt in an ecstasy of love and carried some distance through the air. ‘Love God, my brethren,’ he repeated to all those he met. ‘love God, who so well deserves our love. Do you not hear the very leaves on the trees telling you to love God? O love of God, love of God!”
— Dom Prosper Guéranger, “St. Paul of the Cross,” The Liturgical Year
Two years ago I wrote about peace-loving Communists in St. Louis who staged a riot outside city hall in 1932. (TTH, Feb. 22, 2024) They “demanded” more welfare handouts to more people.
Two weeks ago, a group of Communist-trained agitators returned to city hall and tried for twenty minutes to shout down the mayor of St. Louis as she was giving a speech. They “demanded” more of other people’s money to benefit victims of a tornado last year. Five agitators were arrested and charged with peace disturbance.
Standard Communist operating procedure in both cases. They are so funny. They would have us believe they possess a “right” to “demand” other people’s time, attention, or money, and a “right” to shout down anyone they please whenever they profess good intentions. Aha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Of course they have no such rights because there are no such rights. Communist agit-prop is so predictable. (more…)
THIS is a cute graphic. Most of it’s true, but there’s one inaccuracy. Trump has not made a single “dumb” decision.
It’s all been a series of smart moves to enrich himself and be the chaos agent he was hired to be. He’s done a great job, energizing those who hate him and demoralizing those who don’t.
The fake assassination attempts are getting old though. The script writers need to move on.
MY life is but a weaving Between my God and me; I may but choose the colors — He worketh steadily. Full oft He weaveth sorrow, And I, in foolish pride, Forget He sees the upper And I the under side.
IN HIS recent reverential visit to the third-largest mosque in the world, Bob Prevost, aka “Pope” Leo XIV, followed in the footsteps of his five Vatican II predecessors in open apostasy, all of whom have scandalously honored Islam as part of their One World, All-Religions-Are-True-and-All-Believers-Are-Super-Nice Religion. Prevost’s visit to a mosque in Algeria on April 13, 2026 came at a time when Muslims continue to engage in violence against professed Christians in Africa, including some 50,000 killed in the last 14 years in Nigeria alone.
Pope Leo XIV [who removed his shoes in accordance with Muslim custom] marked the beginning of his apostolic journey to Africa with a visit to the Grand Mosque of Algiers, where he highlighted the site’s spiritual significance and paused in silent meditation.
Welcomed by the Rector of the Mosque, Mohamed Mamoun al Qasim who offered words of fraternity, the Pope said “I thank you for these reflections and for these important words during this visit, from a place that represents the space that belongs to God, a divine and sacred space, where many people come to pray and to seek the presence of the Most High in their lives.” (Source; emphasis added.)
It was not necessary to visit an actual mosque or bow in prayer in a mosque in order to engage in friendly dialogue with Muslims. There is nothing wrong with friendly discussions with Muslims and in fact charity is owed them. But worshipful prayer in a mosque? No. The Grand Mosque of Algiers is not a space that belongs to God. It is a space that denies God and puts in His place an idol, which is why the Crusades were launched and why true popes had to work to liberate Christians captured, killed, surgically castrated or enslaved by Muslims. According to author Robert Davies, 1.25 million European Christians were captured and enslaved by Muslims from 1500-1800. But all that is of the past. The important thing is what Muslims still believe:
O People of the Scripture! Do not exaggerate in your religion. Say nothing about Allah except the truth: that the Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, is but a messenger from Allah and His Word which He communicated to Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say “Three.” Enough, it will be better for you. Allah is but One God. Glory to Him. To have a son…To Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth…And Allah is sufficient as a protector. (Koran: Surah An-Nisa, 171) [emphasis added]
A quick reminder:
“Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either.”
“Whoever confesses the Son also has the Father.”
— John, Chapt. 1:2
And this:
Apostasy
Objection 2. Furthermore, infidelity lies in the intellect. Apostasy, on the other hand, seems to reside more in outward actions or words, and even in the inner will, as we read in Scripture: “A apostate man is worthless; he goes about with a lying mouth; he winks, rubs his feet, and chatters with his fingers; his heart is full of evil, and he always stirs up conflict” (Prov 6:12). Likewise, if someone were to circumcise himself or worship at the tomb of Muhammad, he would be considered an apostate. Therefore, apostasy does not belong directly to infidelity.
— Saint Thomas Aquinas, Theological Summa – Part II-IIae – Question 12 [quoted here]
Vatican II’s Declaration Nostra Aetate, nn. 3 set in stone for the future of the Conciliar Church the notion of Islam as worshipping the Christian God: (more…)
“GOD often works more by the life of the illiterate seeking the things that are God’s, than by the ability of the learned seeking the things that are their own.”
“[ST.] John Climachus observed that ‘to the spiritual man patience is more essential than food,’ and justly so; for food strengthens the body, and preserves it from weakness, but patience fortifies the soul, and without it no virtue can be firm and solid. But as we are bound to take more care of the soul than of the body, it is evident that we ought to be more solicitous for patience than for food. For, in the words of St. Peter Damian, ‘the man whose patience breaks down may have other virtues, but he will never have their strength and solidity. Patience is concerned in all that we have to resist, in all that we have to deny ourselves, in all that we have to endure, in all that we have to adhere to, and in all that we have to do. This includes all human acts that bear the character of duty or devotedness, whether those acts be purely interior, or come forth into the exterior life and conduct. For wherever patience fails, the act is weak and the work imperfect.
“[T]HE effect of treating sex as only one innocent natural thing [is] that every other innocent natural thing [becomes] soaked and sodden with sex. For sex cannot be admitted to a mere equality among elementary emotions or experiences like eating and sleeping. The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant. There is something dangerous and disproportionate in its place in human nature, for whatever reason; and it does really need a special purification and dedication. The modern talk about sex being free like any other sense, about the body being beautiful like any tree or flower, is either a description of the Garden of Eden or a piece of thoroughly bad psychology, of which the world grew weary two thousand years ago.”
“HUMAN souls are sick, and sick with a terrible disease: they are tired of the truth and afraid of it! In souls that are still Christian this disease manifests itself in a lack of horror for heresy, in a chronic state of complacency towards error, in a certain fascination for snares, often in a shameful eagerness to let oneself be caught. It is not an entirely modern ailment, for it is rooted in the very heart of man. ‘I love to be caught,’ exclaims St. Augustine. Father Faber speaks of it as the characteristic political physiognomy of our time. The liberal siren conceals her poisonous locks, shows her rosy face, and holds the cross in her hand. She easily lures victims to the brink of the abyss; she seduces the eyes, the reason, the heart. Unless the spirit of obedience guards us, we are taken captive. We must be eternally vigilant, in order to remain the same, in order not to become suddenly different. (more…)
Springtime of nature’s beauty, springtime of Easter joy, springtime of weddings. You are now enjoying this threefold spring; you are reveling in it almost as if the world around you is drawing together everything in your life for you. However, if you interrupt for a moment the sweet converse of your honeymoon and happen to read a paper, you will find in its columns another life and another world: operations of war, immense battles on land, at sea and in the air, but also magnificent examples of generosity towards those who suffer, of dedication, heroism and sacrifice.
In the midst of these dreadful upheavals, dear sons and daughters, you yourselves in a great and beautiful act of Christian faith have not been afraid to establish your new families, well knowing and believing that the unperturbed renewal of spring in the tumult of human events is neither mockery nor jest, nor the cold indifference of blind nature nor an empty fancy of foolish dreamers, but witness and proof to our senses of the reality of life and beauty reborn of that supreme and paternal “love which moves the sun and the stars,” whose abiding care never for an instant deserts the governance of the universe, and whose mercy controls and moderates the turmoil of humankind. Is not your faith really a reliance on the sovereign Hand of God, gentle and strong, watchful, alert, perpetually guiding the events of this world, great and small, sad and joyful? Learn the beautiful and lofty lesson God gives you in the threefold spring which you are living in these days and which confirms your trust.
OH, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
EASTER is more than a day. It is — or it should be — an entire season, a time of spiritual joy that complements the earthy pleasures of spring.
“The practice for this holy season mainly consists in the spiritual joy which it should produce in every soul that is risen with Jesus. This joy is a foretaste of eternal happiness, and the Christian ought to consider it a duty to keep it up within him, by ardently seeking after that life which is in our divine Head, and by carefully shunning sin which causes death. During the last nine weeks we have mourned for our sins and done penance for them; we have followed Jesus to Calvary; but now, our holy Mother the Church is urgent in bidding us rejoice. She herself has laid aside all sorrow; the voice of her weeping is changed into the song of a delighted Spouse.
