I recently received a couple of apologetics inquiries that may not seem related on the surface, but that I believe are suggestive of a common problematic approach to the Mass. The first was about the propriety of Christmas pageants in church. The inquirer was very obviously put off by the common custom of small children acting out the Christmas story for the benefit of parishioners, and wanted to know if this kind of spectacle was appropriate in a church dedicated to the worship of God:...

It is not known how the town carpenter found out that his betrothed was pregnant. Perhaps she told him herself after returning from a months-long journey to visit relatives (Luke 1:38, 56). Written accounts would later report though that she was "found" to be with child, as if the news was not shared by the pregnant woman but...

Not long after John Paul II died, I received an apologetics question from someone who was corresponding with a hard-core Traditionalist—"probably SSPX" was how the Traditionalist was described to me. My inquirer reported that his correspondent believed John Paul II was "the worst pope ever," but let's allow the Traditionalist to put into his own words his position on the man who has since been canonized, and is now known to the world as St. John Paul II:

When I go surfing on the Internet, I have a wide range of web sites I visit—including strange sites maintained by eccentrics at both ends of the Catholic spectrum. I do this because I have found that you can find the most interesting things in the craziest places. For example, the other day I was browsing through a sedevacantist site.

In the midst of headlines that warned of impending doom on all fronts of the Church, I found a link to an English translation of an essay written in the...

On April 6, 1252, two Dominican friars hurried along a deserted road. They were in hostile territory, populated by religious extremists who wanted them dead because of their success in convincing those under the sway of the extremists' heresy to return to Catholic orthodoxy. Despite their precautions, the two were ambushed by hired assassins. One of the two, named Peter, died on the spot, but not before...