May

4

In Defense of Christmas

May 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Today’s skeptics, who seem to reject something traditional just because it’s traditional, cannot sit still during the holy season of Christmas without mocking the notion that Christ would have been born on December 25th.  If it were just the unbelievers who engaged in this mockery, it would be expected, since unbelievers, by their very nature, [...]

Jan

28

The Heresy of Dual-Covenant Theology

January 28, 2008 | 2 Comments

I have just finished reading “The Old Covenant: Revoked or Not Revoked?” by Dr. Robert Sungenis. It is a study debunking the notion, now regnant in liberal theological circles, that the Old Covenant still stands side-by-side with the New Covenant. According to this novelty, in essence, God’s “A Plan” and God’s “B Plan” are both [...]

Oct

18

Vatican II: Some Clarity, Please

October 18, 2007 | 4 Comments

Recently, I witnessed a very animated discussion between a Scripture scholar and a religion teacher. The subject of the disputation was Biblical inerrancy. The scholar is a highly intelligent man, but a liberal. (In fairness to him, I must say that he avoids the more ridiculous ideas of biblical scholars, such as the fantastic “Q [...]

Sep

10

Recent Posts on Modernism

September 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The last three posts were all on Modernism, or subjects closely related to Modernism. This is my (slightly belated) celebration of the 100th anniversary of Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Pope St. Pius X’s wonderful encyclical condemning that heresy. The encyclical was published on September 8, 1907, the Feast of Our Lady’s Nativity.
The vigilant pope’s definitive condemnation [...]

Sep

10

How the Popes and Other Catholic Leaders in the 19th Century Responded to Modernity

September 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment

The eighteenth-century Enlightenment mounted a severe offensive against the Church, one which combined various malignant cultural and intellectual trends that had gradually come into ascendancy since the Renaissance. “For the most part, the Church did not respond to this attack very well.”[1] However, the nineteenth century saw a change in this, “an immense religious revival, [...]

Sep

10

The Relationship of Americanism to Modernism

September 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment

It would be a gross oversimplification to put an equal sign between the words “Americanism” and “Modernism,” as if the former were merely the American embodiment of the latter. However, while we must avoid this facile identification of the two, so too must we appreciate the points of agreement between them. Not only were there [...]

Sep

9

What did St. Pius X mean when he called Modernism “the synthesis of all heresies”?

September 9, 2007 | 7 Comments

This phrase – “the synthesis of all heresies” – shows up toward the end of the Encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, placed in the context of a rhetorical question.[1] After an apology for taking so long to explore the entire scope of the Modernist doctrines, even disclosing “certain uncouth terms in use among the Modernists,”[2] the [...]