Special Candlemas Deal, Top Ten Posts from 2024, and Weekly Roundup

Today I’ll do three things: talk about the limited-time offer, showcase the ten most popular posts from 2024, and tackle the usual weekly roundup.

Special Candlemas Deal

For twenty years, I taught philosophy, theology, and music at the university level, in Europe and in the USA. While I was already promoting the cause of traditional Catholicism in many ways, I believed the Lord was calling me to devote 100% of my time to it as a writer, speaker, and publisher. In 2018, I made a “leap of faith” to freelance work, and have never regretted the step even once.

With the amount of work I’m now putting into Tradition & Sanity — three articles a week, with the research, writing, revising, and image collecting that goes into them, the responses to comments, emails, inquiries, and other aspects of the platform — with all of this, I have reached a crossroads where I need to boost the paid subscriptions to make it a sustainable long-term project for me and my family.

We (Julian and I) enjoy writing for you and want to keep Tradition & Sanity going long into the future!

To make it possible for you to show your support, we are offering a Candlemas Special of 25% off the subscription rates:

If you value and benefit from what you find at Tradition & Sanity, please help us continue this apostolate for traditional Catholics.

In addition to Thursday’s always free article, a paid subscription gains you:

• Full access to Monday’s feature articles

• Full access to the growing archives of articles since our founding in 2023

• And more to come, as we turn the corner on our second anniversary in April!

Thank you for reading Tradition & Sanity. We know there are lots of excellent Substacks out there (competition is good, and when it’s free from invasive advertising and data collection, it’s even better! — hurray for the Substack platform), so the time you spend reading our posts is much appreciated, and, with God’s help and your support, we will keep providing you with nourishing and thought-provoking content throughout 2025 and beyond.

If you’ve already subscribed, consider giving a gift subscription:

Most Popular T & S Articles from 2024

I thought it would be fun, and helpful for newer readers, to share last year’s Top Ten Posts from Tradition & Sanity. The current number of views ranges from 10,700 to 16,700 (though it will keep growing if some of you decide to check them out!). In order from #10 to #1 . . .

#10, at 10,700 views:

#9, at 11,200 views:

#8, at 11,100 views:

#7, at 11,800 views:

#6, at 12,400 views:

#5, at 12,800 views:

#4, at 13,200 views:

#3, at 14,000 views:

#2, at 15,300 views:

And, in the #1 spot — which fills my heart with delight — at 16,700 views:

What will 2025 bring…? It’s in the hands of Divine Providence.

Weekly Roundup, January 24 Edition

Good News

Conference in Orlando

I don’t quite know if this counts as “good news” but I couldn’t think of where else to put it. The Catholic Family News conference this year, dedicated to “The Catholic Plan for Social Order,” will be held in Orlando on March 1-2. My talk is entitled: “On the Education of Saints, Scholars, and Statesmen.” Hope to see some of my readers there!

For more information and tickets, visit here.

Dancing in Steubenville

I don’t know if it’s too late to get your ticket to “The Pride and Prejudice Ball” taking place tomorrow night, but if you’re near Steubenville you might reach out to see if tickets are still available. This, in my view, is the kind of social event that should be happening everywhere: good fun, in good taste.

Back to the Land!

A great article by Julian on the resurrected and booming Catholic Land Movement, with interviews of some farming families and news about the recent trip to Rome to meet Vatican officials. Actual and prospective homesteaders, be sure to read this.

The Abbot of Norcia in Menlo Park, CA

If you are on the West coast and can get to this event on January 28, do so! Fr. Abbot Benedict of Norcia is a man worth listening to and meeting in person, and his topic sounds delightful, not to mention the free wine. Registration here.

Trump’s First Week in Office

If this isn’t good news (at least secularly speaking), I honestly don’t know what would count. If interested, read Eric Sammons’s “The Greatest First Week in Presidential History”; Kennedy Halls’s “Can We Finally Go Back to Having Kings?”; Nick Hallett’s “Trump’s First 3 Days: A Bold Blueprint for Europe’s Conservatives.”

Serious Catholic schools . . .

. . . are on an upward swing. So reports the Cardinal Newman Society.

The Bad and the Ugly

Why the Pope Shouldn’t Be a Psychoanalyst

In a fantastic article of this title, Dr. Tomasz Dekert discusses how Fr. Bergoglio admits to having sought out psychiatric help, and then shows how he falls into the classic pattern of psychologizing his opponents. Benedict XVI did not fall into this mental trap, which seems to afflict the 1960s nostalgics particularly badly (along these lines, see the interesting article by Fr. Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, OP, written back in 2007 but never published in English until this week at NLM).

Rapenik’s Manual

At Catholic World Report, J.J. Ziegler has published a damning exposé of the little-known and rather sickening spiritual theology of Marco Rupnik as found in his published writings, as well as a useful (and frankly frightening) overview of his prominence in the Catholic Church of the past several decades.

Father Rupnik writes that in non-Christian religions, the Holy Spirit’s work “is recognized through active charity, in experience as an expression of self-gift, as peace, motivation for creative, inclusive encounter” (p. 45). Later, he writes that “wherever the wind of the Spirit blows there is a flourishing, an opening to life, because the first sign of life according to the Spirit is openness” (p. 129). Father Rupnik is surely not developing a systematic list of signs of the Holy Spirit’s presence, but one notes the omission of joy, faithfulness, self-control, modesty, and chastity, traditionally reckoned among the fruits of the Holy Spirit....

“Christian faith is not a religion, but a relational act,” Father Rupnik declares. “Religion, on the other hand, is an expression of the individual, an individual’s natural, instinctive need” (pp. 111-12). Religion gives rise to “very precise metaphysical certainties, a sort of creed” that demands fidelity to its “literal sense.” Religion “generates an ethic that regulates daily behavior, offering reassuring certainties to the self.” Religion “can be the last hiding place in which the individual self lurks so as not to have to give in and die” (p. 112).

Suffice it to say, Rupnik develops his “spiritual theology” in a way precisely calculated to seduce and rape the mind and… then more.

McElroy, you cannot hide

In an interview called “Network of Evil in the American Episcopacy,” Michael Hichborn and Janet Smith lift the lid on the stinking corruption in the American hierarchy, and let the light of truth pierce in. May God purify His Church and rid it of the wickedness in high places.

Janet Smith, in “Reading Tea Leaves and Church Documents,” wonders why it’s so hard to interpret modern church documents. The answer, which she demurely hints at, is that it’s a strategy of deliberate obfuscation.

Does the Holy Spirit pick the pope?

Not really — not directly, the way He inspires the authors of Sacred Scripture. I explain why not in my popular article “Games People Play with the Holy Spirit.” But there was a time when it seems that the Holy Ghost actually did hand-pick the man who was to be pope.

They say that Fabian [feastday January 20] . . . was chosen to the office (of the Papacy) through a most wonderful manifestation of divine and heavenly grace. For when all the brethren had assembled to select by vote him who should succeed to the episcopate of the church, several renowned and honorable men were in the minds of many, but Fabian, although present, was in the mind of none. But they relate that suddenly a dove flying down lighted on his head, resembling the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Savior in the form of a dove. Thereupon all the people, as if moved by one Divine Spirit, with all eagerness and unanimity cried out that he was worthy, and without delay they took him and placed him upon the episcopal seat.

It remains to be seen if this unusual method will ever be used again, but I’m sure that more than a few of us would wish it could be at the next conclave.

Liturgical Lessons

Dr. Pitre’s continuing humiliation

Gregory DiPippo has published the third installment in his series on the egregious historical errors made by Dr. Brant Pitre in his video presentation on active participation. This installment covers some mistakes that are so glaring and so ridiculous that one feels genuinely embarrassed for a scholar who would go so far out of his zone of expertise.

Sacred symbols

Robert Lazu Kmita, “Return to Paradise or the Mystery of Rebirth”:

To someone not initiated into the symbolic universe of the Roman Catholic Church, the liturgy, the Sacraments, and the interior of a church building mean nothing. Invisible to physical eyes, their profound and coherent meanings remain inaccessible. Comparing this situation to a foreign language doesn’t help because someone seeing a page written in, let’s say, Japanese, knows for sure that there is a language he does not understand. Yet, it is a language that, even if not comprehended, is rich with meanings. In the case of the sacred symbols, however, a profane observer sees only elements made from familiar materials: water, oil, fire, bread, wine, etc. These are things he could even use without realizing he is committing sacrilege because all of these are commonplace in the profane context of our everyday lives. So, an observer whose mind is not attuned to perceive their meanings will see nothing more than that. The only intelligible things, partially, to an accidental participant in a Sacrament or the celebration of the Holy Liturgy, would be the words spoken by the celebrants of the sacred mysteries. But even those words do not fully reveal their meanings.

This is just the reason why the Church had the instinct, from early on and all through her history, to augment the grandeur of the surroundings and the beauty of the vessels and furnishings to be used with these ordinary things (water, bread, wine, oil), precisely in order to help us to see that they are elevated in their use (and even in their being) as compared with everyday items. The trend in the 20th century toward simplifying and domesticating rites and objects in fact promotes desacralization and unbelief; a sort of reverse mystagogy.

Christ the Lord takes what is common and makes it supernatural: this is the burden of Fr. Richard Cipolla’s superbly eloquent homily on the wedding feast at Cana.

Arrogance vs. receptivity

The same author (a favorite of mine, if you can’t tell) offers a wonderful critique of the false modern mentality of progress applied to liturgical studies:

The discussions I have had with a specialist in liturgical studies have consistently left me astounded. I emphasize that my interlocutor was not just any theologian but a true scholar of liturgies: he knew a wealth of historical details about the various rites of the Catholic Church, and being a priest himself, he was familiar with them not only from the outside. And yet, most of the time, what he explained had a single conclusion: “those who came before” (Saints and Doctors included) were wrong, and the liturgy needed to be corrected. Evidently, the Novus Ordo mass had already made many of these corrections, but they were insufficient. Moreover, something similar should also be done with the rites of the Eastern (or Byzantine) Catholic Churches, which use the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, presented condescendingly as being ‘behind’ the Novus Ordo liturgy. The details don’t matter. What matters is the core: those before were wrong, and we, today, must correct their mistakes....

In this light, to consider that the priest’s position during sacred readings in the liturgical context is the result of a historical accident is utterly absurd. When it comes to Sacred Scripture and the Church’s worship, we can be sure that the Holy Spirit has not overseen the transmission of accidents. What we have received are contents that challenge our capacity to understand, often exceeding it. The only thing a true interpreter of Holy Tradition can do is to prayerfully and meditatively ask what their profound explanation is and what divine reasons lie behind them.

His thoughts parallel mine from yesterday’s article at T&S, “The Acorn and the Oak Tree,” even down to our discussion of the historical-critical method. Robert Lazu Kmita and I often find that we are thinking and writing about identical topics at identical times, without the other being aware of it. A spiritual synchronicity.

Silent prayers that built a civilization

Dr. Michael Foley gives us a brilliant article on the prayer said during the mixing of water and wine at the old Mass:

The prayer does not speak simply of human nature (or more literally, human substance) but of its dignity. God did a wonderful thing when He endowed mankind with its dignity, and He did an even more wonderful thing after that dignity was marred by sin, namely, He elevated it even more, deigning to be made a partaker of it....

One of the chief ways that Christianity developed its concept of human dignity was through this prayer. Fr. James McEvoy and Dr. Mette Lebech argue that the ‘Deus qui humanae substantiae’ made a significant contribution to the conceptualization of human dignity even before its use at the Offertory, and that after it was included in the Offertory, it created an association between human dignity and the holy exchange of gifts....

The ‘Deus qui humanae substantiae’ is a celebrant’s private prayer said in a low voice, and yet an entire civilization’s concept of human dignity was shaped by it. Not everything needs to be said aloud at Mass in order for it to have an impact.

He notes that, bizarrely, the liturgical reformers crippled this prayer precisely in that respect in which it seemed most allied to the humanistic concerns of the last Council. They really couldn’t manage to not mess up whatever they touched, could they?

A different “octave” of SS. Peter & Paul

January 18th used to be one of two feasts of St. Peter’s Chair. This created an “octave of Christian Unity” from January 18th to the Conversion of St. Paul on January 25. Gregory DiPippo tells us the fascinating history of the January 18th feast (now observed only by the FSSP and pre-55 communities) and shows how beautifully arranged are the old-calendar feasts from January 18 to 25.

Magisterium, obedience, and liturgy

The Collegium Sanctorum Angelorum has released a “position paper” that seeks to accomplish the following:

The faculty’s deliberations about how to pursue tradition has resulted in the position paper below, which gives reflections on magisterial authority, the virtue of obedience, the traditional Latin Mass, the responsibility of the clergy and the laity regarding the traditional Latin Mass, and the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes. It will serve as the basis for decisions we make about the best way to proceed in our pursuit of the truth and embracing tradition in that pursuit.

Generally, I find it quite a good statement. One might quibble with this or that but it presents a coherent and defensible, indeed a truly Catholic, stance.

The war inside the Church

Someone left a comment on this Substack that I wanted to share more widely (I’ve cleaned up the English, as it was written by a non-native speaker):

We have a new priest in our church. His first day, he removed the crucifix from the altar, told the altar boy that he didn't have to use the paten during communion, removed the veil from the tabernacle. Weeks later he removed the kneeler. Stopped the Leonine prayers, including the St. Michael Prayer, that the other young priest used to pray every weekday Mass. My wife asked him if he could bring back the kneeler at least during the week, he told her: “Definitely not.” We were devastated with the changes. He got the same idea as the bishop that kneeling disrupted the communion line, slows it down, plus he says receiving communion standing and on the hand is more reverent!

If this is a parish founded prior to Vatican II, it probably went from traditional to modern during and after the Council; then, under a “Ratzingerian” priest, from modern to (more) traditional; and now it’s going from traditional back to modern. As always, it is the simple faithful who suffer the most.

There is a war going on in the Church between two diametrically opposed visions. Is it any surprise that many want to have nothing to do with this ecclesiastical conflict and seek refuge either in the TLM (including the SSPX), or in Orthodoxy, or in non-attendance?

I despair of Catholic conservatives, attached to their nice local church, who do not see that hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles is just the kind of sudden reversal that this man and his wife have suffered. Without a principled, uncompromising adherence to tradition, there is no solution at all.

And this is why, although I greatly respect him, I do not find Cardinal Sarah’s promotion of the “reform of the reform” — which he repeated in a recent address in Rome to 500 priests — to be at all convincing any more. And yet, part of the message of his talk on “Beauty and the Mission of the Priest” will surely resonate with every reader of this Substack:

I have said before, particularly in the light of the evident fruits that these rites have brought forth in recent decades, that “Despite intransigent clerical attitudes in opposition to the venerable Latin-Gregorian liturgy, attitudes typical of the clericalism that Pope Francis has repeatedly denounced, a new generation of young people has emerged in the heart of the Church. This generation is one of young families, who demonstrate that this liturgy has a future because it has a past, a history of holiness and beauty that cannot be erased or abolished overnight.”

I maintain that. And whilst I understand that, at present, many priests find themselves in a very difficult position in respect of the usus antiquior, I encourage you never to forget or deny the profound truth taught by Pope Benedict: “What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behoves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place” (Letter to Bishops, 7 July 2007).

The fact that 500 priests went to hear this message in the heart of Rome should tell us something. The younger clergy, certainly, do not want this campaign against tradition, and they will outlive it — if only they persevere.

Vocations

Fr. Looney, in “Is the Church Really Ready for Revival?,” writes:

While some bishops, like my own, have an optimistic mindset regarding revival and its potential needs, there are other (arch)dioceses that seem content with decline and have no interest in renewal or revival. Closing churches and reducing the availability of the sacraments and the presence of Christ in the tabernacle is seen as more convenient than converting hearts and filling pews with people who desire the sacraments. In an ideal world, there should be a need to establish more churches because of the demand; but alas, the availability of clergy to serve those parishes is not yet there.

The unspoken premise, however, is this: if we want a revival in vocations, we need a return to traditional liturgy. That is what feeds, fascinates, attracts, and multiplies vocations. Nearly all the official policies of the Church at this moment in time are precisely the opposite of what we would need for a flourishing of priestly vocations.

Meanwhile, it hit the news that Bishop Robert Barron is considering starting a religious order to do Word-on-Fire-style evangelization. Naturally, this generated a whole vein of humor, which seemed largely playful (I wish him well and I hope he does the Lord’s will, which I don’t claim to know in his regard; it’s enough work to figure it out for oneself!). For example, I suggested that they should specialize in “Ignition spirituality” (forgive me, St. Ignatius). And they might call the place where a group of them lives a “House on Fire.” Their work habit might be called “Pants on Fire.” Okay, ‘nuff a that…

Last Thought

I happened upon two photos that strike me as a perfect visual summation of the difference between tradition and modernity. They are both (believe it or not) cloisters for Bridgettine nuns. The one is beautiful, fits harmoniously into its natural environment, and supports a life of prayer and service. The other is brutalist, lifeless, a blemish on the landscape, more like a prison than a monastery. It is hard to believe that anyone could be so blind as to think that the latter is choiceworthy.

Thank you for reading, and may God bless you!