Over at his blog at The American Conservative, Rod Dreher shares a couple of emails from readers about their experiences in the Catholic Church in both Canada and the United States. The stories are awful, but they’re not surprising. The …
Category: Featured Commentary

Mercy is for Sinners
I have a love-hate relationship with confession. I hate it because it’s never very comfortable to admit the stupid, shameful, ridiculous things I do. I wait in the line with a head full of exaggeration, thinking of myself like a …

Cancelling Flannery O’Connor
Over at The Catholic Thing this morning, Randall Smith has an delightfully scathing piece entitled “The Artificial Jesuit” (a reference to one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories). Smith tackles the decision made by Fr. Brian F. Linnane, S.J., president of Loyola University …

Steve Skojec & Joseph Sciambra Talk About Catholic Cults, Homosexuality in the Church, & the Legionaries of Christ
Last week, I was invited to be a guest on Joseph Sciambra’s new show, Finding Our Father. The topic was Catholic Cults and Homosexuality in the Church, with a specific focus on my experiences spent with the most notorious of …

The Rebelling Peasants
“Social distancing.” The “distancing” part is obvious enough: stay at home, and if you have to venture out, maintain the six-foot buffer zone. The “social” part is more difficult; we rack our brains for ways of overcoming our isolation, spending …

The World Has Gone Crazy, but Maybe Not Quite as Crazy as We Fear
Would you like to listen to this article instead? You can do so here: My wife and I went to the bank recently on a business-related errand. Unlike a number of other states, in Arizona, our banks are still open. …

In New Book, Benedict XVI Confirms His Resignation but Clings to Confusing Theology
In the writings of the Second Vatican Council, and those of the post-conciliar popes, it’s hard not to detect a certain drift toward an increasing obscurity of language. When one goes back and reads older enyclicals, or papal bulls from …

The Church Is a Mess, and the SSPX Situation Is Driving That Home
It’s 2020, and right now, the Catholic Church looks like a giant dumpster fire. For the past seven years, we’ve had a pope who has seemed hell-bent — literally — on undermining or even directly contradicting the truths of the …

1P5 Podcast #62 – Coronavirus Update #3, Cardinal Pell, New Female Deacons Commission
The latest update on the coronavirus situation, an in-depth look at the Cardinal Pell decision, and news about a new commission set up by the pope to examine female deacons. Again. Audio Only: Related Links: Evidence from Wuhan’s morgues, crematoriums …
The Backhanded Compliment: Fr. Longenecker on Traditionalists
In his latest column, “Bishop Barron Takes on the Rad Trads,” Fr. Dwight Longenecker manages to insult nearly all traditionalists (“they’re not all nut jobs”: gee, thanks!), while at the same time, to his credit, says something important that probably …
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