The Catholic Blog of Shane Schaetzel
What is the real state of the US Catholic Church? Well, it’s not good, but at the same time, it might not be as bad as we think. I started to run some statistics based on the EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Poll of the state of the Catholic Church. I decided that the best way to […]
Read More
As I wrote in my previous essay, The Catholic Church After Quarantine, the emerging Church is going to be very different than it is today. It’s not going to be what traditionalists want: a return to the pre-conciliar era. Nor will it be what the modernists want: a total transformation of doctrine and sacraments. No, […]
Read More
Arianism is a word we don’t hear much in the modern world, but it’s ideology permeates the entire planet both inside and outside of Christendom. Many Christians mistakenly believe Arianism was defeated centuries ago, but in truth, it never left us. It just morphed, changing forms, and remains with us today in many different manifestations. […]
Read More
Incarnation Catholic Church, Ordinariate Parish in Orlando, Florida with Bishop Steven J. Lopes on October 23, 2016. What is an Ordinariate parish? These are specialty parishes, designed to host a specialty liturgy that was originally designed to accommodate Anglican and Methodist converts to Catholicism. Thus, they are called the Ordinariates of English Patrimony (or “Anglican […]
Read More
Divine Worship Mass, Incarnation Ordinariate Parish in Orlando, Florida with Bishop Steven J. Lopes on August 13th, 2017 It’s a little known fact, and seldom reported, that regular diocesan Catholics, who have no historical attachment to Anglicanism or the English Patrimony, can join Ordinariate parishes as full-fledged members. This is how it works… The Ordinariates of […]
Read More
Faithful Catholics and American Patriots now find themselves on the same team, fighting against a cabal of Modernism, Marxism and Globalism that really and truly is hell-bent on world domination. Unlike the Soviet Union or the Nazi Third Reich, this cabal is not planning the military overthrow of Western Civilization, but rather a subversive and […]
Read More
The Divine Worship Mass, otherwise known as the DWM, is a traditional Catholic liturgy of the Eucharist that is celebrated in Sacred English (thee, thou, thy, thine, etc.) as typically seen in traditional English translations of the Bible and prayer books. It follows the basic pattern of the standard Ordinary Form Mass (Novus Ordo or […]
Read More
A cappello romano or saturno (because its appearance is reminiscent of the ringed planet Saturn) is a hat with a wide, circular brim and a rounded crown worn outdoors by Catholic clergy when dressed in a cassock. Along with the biretta, it’s become very popular in the United States among priests who wear cassocks. Many of […]
Read More
As a trained catechist, and Catholic apologist, I’m frequently asked by Catholic parents how to keep their kids Catholic. Let me begin by saying you have to do it yourself! You can’t trust Catholic schools or parish catechism programs to do it for you. We have 50 years of failed history as an example. If […]
Read More
For two-thousand years, Christian women have been covering their heads in prayer, whether it be in a chapel, or in public, or at home. It’s a custom as old as Christianity itself. (Technically, it’s older.) And Western women still do it, without even realizing it, and even if they’re not religious at all. Take, for […]
Read MoreA number of Catholics have contacted me recently, inquiring where they might find worthy, traditional, orthodox and reverent Catholic societies they might support in the wake of the current crisis now unfolding in the Church, both in the United States and worldwide. Naturally, the first thing I tell them is to support any traditional parish […]
Read MoreIn sharing the Gospel with the world, the Catholic Church has adopted a process called inculturation. This can basically be summed up as follows. The traditions of the Gospel have a central doctrinal core, which are based in Mosaic Judaism, but redefined according to Christ and his Apostles. Some traditions are essential and cannot be […]
Read MoreI’m not really a Latin kind of guy. I like attending the Traditional Latin Mass (Vetus Ordo of Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite) once in a while, and there was a brief time when I attended almost weekly, but to be quite honest with you, it’s not where my heart is. Anglicanism is what […]
Read MoreIf you’re looking for traditional Catholic towns in the Ozark Mountains, they can be found. These are towns were the local parish celebrates either the Traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form) regularly on Sundays or more often, and/or the Traditional English Mass (Divine Worship) regularly on Sundays or more often. These towns have no other Catholic […]
Read More
Inevitably, whenever starting a traditional Catholic blog such as this, I end up with two accusations. This comes from the hyper-polarity in the Catholic world today, which can only be remedied by a return to an interpretation of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) that is in continuity with the history and tradition of the […]
Read MoreAll Christians revere the Bible as the written word of God. Few, however, know why that is. In fact, most Christians just assume that to be the case without ever questioning it. They hear it from their pastors and their churches. Everybody says it. But how do we know the Bible really is the authentic […]
Read MoreThe statistics don’t lie. They can’t lie. They’re all telling the same story. Mainline Catholicism is imploding. It’s more pronounced in some areas than others, but with just a few exceptions, dioceses all across the United States are shrinking. They are in a state of managed decline, with parish mergers and closures. The priest shortage […]
Read More