✝️ Posting for WP

God bless the USA

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” – I Thessalonians 5:16-18
 
 
The Weekly Flashback:
 
“Hard Love”
 

 
“Left It In The River”
 

 
“Say A Prayer”
 

 
J

✝️
True conversion. A testimony.

☘️
The Hail Mary

Hail, Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

pensacola, florida

Poor Caitlin Clark…good gosh….

Sophisticated stone machining in ancient Egypt

… granite boxes with lids carved and polished from single pieces

… tube-drilled holes, some into interior corners that are a challenging position even with modern drills … start at about 6:00 for a complete narrative of important features

They hid evidence of ancient granite machining in Egypt – until now


Sometimes you find in the comment threads below the article a comment that is brilliantly insightful, even moreso than the article under which it appeared. I do not know MB or his comment history, but this is one to ponder. God bless all who read here on this historic anniversary of the Declaration of Independence-Our Apple of Gold. It is lengthy, but worth the effort.

MB
July 2, 2026 at 12:51 pm

St. Irenaeus, whose feast day is tomorrow in the 1962 missal, is the one who gave us the “four marks of the Church” – that it is “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic”, which was of course later used in the Nicene Creed. He did this at a time when there were many false and heretical churches and such around (the 200’s – some things never change).

Certainly we can rank these marks in terms of importance, and the most important is unquestionably apostolic, that is, that the church can trace its way back to the apostles. Any church that cannot do this is fraudulent. All Protestant churches fail on this mark (and all the others for that matter, but failing on this alone delegitimizes them).

The second most important mark is oneness – i.e. keeping Jesus’ command of John 17. This is where eastern churches in schism with Rome fall short, and, unfortunately to an extent, the SSPX. They are apostolic but in losing their oneness they lose a bit of legitimacy (but not validity – being apostolic gives that). But this leads into the third most important mark.

The third most important mark is holiness. Most people seem to not realize what this word actually means. It does not mean to be good/nice/well-thought of/etc. or “good deed doer”, rather, it means to be a people separate from the world, a people who reject the ways of the world and worldliness in general, in favor of the divine life of God. It means adhering to God’s commandments instead of what the world thinks is right and wrong. It is where the word “holocaust”, as a sacrifice to God, comes from – something dedicated wholly to God. The Israelites were once holy, in that they were once God’s chosen people. The heresy of modernism is a direct attack on the holiness of the Church, as it seeks to make the Church more like the world. Prior to Vatican II the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church was unquestionably holy, using this definition of holiness (the correct definition). But since Vatican II (not necessarily because of it, but rather because of the evil so-called “spirit of Vatican II”) the Roman Rite has lost holiness. Under Francis and now Leo holiness in the Roman Rite has virtually vanished. The mainstream of the Roman Rite has, for the first time in its history, lost one of the four marks. Leo seems much more concerned with spouting off elitist left-wing secular ideas and no concern with leading the Church to holiness – being a people apart. In fact, rejecting the world seems like it would be anathema to him. He is of course continuing what his immediate predecessor did, and to a lesser extent all the post-Vatican II popes.

This puts all modern Catholics whose “eyes are opened” (i.e. those who do not sleepwalk in their faith) in a terrible spot. We have to chose between a church that has oneness but is not holy (the mainstream Roman Rite) or a church that breaks the oneness but is holy (the SSPX). There is not an obvious answer to this, and I would not criticize someone for choosing one over the other. Sure, it is easy to say that we should favor oneness over holiness, as it is a bit more important, but holiness attracts while worldliness repels. There is ultimately no point in belonging to an unholy church, as the primary mission of the Church is to get people to heaven. To get to heaven we must desire it and look toward it, and break our wordily attachments. That is the reason we give up things for Lent, for example.

We are in an ultimate crisis situation when the pope and most of the hierarchy is drawing our eyes away from heaven and toward the earth. Maybe one is lucky to have access to a traditional novus ordo or Ecclesia Dei community, but these exist only by leave of the increasingly unholy hierarchy of the mainstream Roman Rite. As it becomes less holy squashing these bastions of holiness will be important on its agenda, in its race to become as much like the rest of the world as possible.

One thing is for sure – the SSPX is correct about the Church being in crisis.

A comment below the editor’s commentary on the excommunication of
the SSPX. On Crisis Magazine. 7-1-26