Michael Brendan Dougherty

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Pope Francis Is Tearing the Catholic Church Apart

InternacionalIglesia Católica

In the summer of 2001, I drove up to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to find what we called “the traditional Latin Mass”, the form of Roman Catholic worship that stretched back centuries and was last authorized in 1962, before the Second Vatican Council changed everything. Back then, conservative Catholics called people who sought it out “schismatics” and “Rad Trads”.

The Mass-goers there weren’t exactly a community; we were a clandestine network of romantics, haters of Pope John Paul II, people who had been jilted by the mainstream church and — I believe — some saints.

There I learned that the Latin language was not the only distinguishing feature of this form of worship.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalIglesia Católica

Mercurius had a problem in 532 AD. He had just been elected pope, but he had been named after a pagan God. So he did something that Catholics have become quite good at: making a novel act fit into a pre-existing tradition. Mercurius asked to be called John II, after Pope John who had been martyred at Ravenna in 526 after a fallout with the Ostrogothic king, Theodoric. If Christ renamed Simon as Peter, it eventually became settled that Peter’s successors should have a new name as well.

Today the name a pope chooses for himself is more than just a name — it’s a not-so subtle indication of the direction he hopes to lead his pontificate.…  Seguir leyendo »