Bishop Strickland Issues Strong Response To Pope Leo's Endorsing Wicked Blessings

Pope Leo upheld Fiducia Supplicans and the evil blessings Pope Francis endorsed in the document while telling the German Bishops to not go beyond them, for now (they'll ignore him, of course). Bishop Strickland responds to that unbelievable endorsement. Meanwhile, the scope of the coming SSPX excommunications has been revealed, and it's frankly shocking.

Inside the Gluttonous Lifestyles of the Medieval Nobility

From Chronicle – Medieval History Documentaries

In the medieval feudal system, the nobility were generally those who held a fief, often land or office under vassalage in exchange for military allegiance to their sovereign. Living alongside serfs, it was their duty to ensure that the peasants, craftsmen and clergymen were defended so that they could live in peace and act as judges to handle disputes. To explore the often ostentatious and gluttonous lifestyles of the nobility, Eleanor Janega visits Hedingham Castle, perhaps the best preserved Norman keep in Essex, England.

Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | April

Traditional Catholic morning prayers to help start your day in a godly way! The month of April is dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament. May our devotion to Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist ever increase! We've included the litany of the Blessed Sacrament and a Spiritual Communion. Give your first thoughts and energy to daily morning prayer. This video is a compilation of many traditional morning prayers Catholics say, and should not be considered a replacement for those who have an obligation to pray the Divine Office morning prayers.

This Demon Beat Up the Wrong Exorcist

From Totus Catholica

Many people believe the Catholic rite of exorcism is a medieval superstitious invention involving magic words and theatrical water. But the Hebrew word ruach ra, meaning evil spirit or injurious wind, is woven through the Old Testament. The book of Tobit, the incense of Aaron in Numbers, the scapegoat of Leviticus 16, and David's harp before King Saul. Ancient Jews were already fighting this battle with physical elements and authoritative commands. 

In Acts 19, the seven sons of Sceva freelanced an exorcism using the name of Jesus without apostolic authority. The demon physically beat them and said: Jesus, I know, and Paul I recognise, but who are you? Catholic exorcism is not magic. Magic manipulates hidden forces for what the user wants. The Catholic rite is an authoritative command in Christ's name backed by commissioned authority. The difference is everything. CHAPTERS: 0:00 Medieval Superstition or Ancient Jewish Warfare? 1:35 Ruach Ra: The Hebrew Bible on Evil Spirits 2:37 Tobit, Aaron's Incense and the Physical Roots of Sacramentals 3:40 St. Bede on the Fish in Tobit and What It Really Signifies 4:59 Leviticus 16: The Scapegoat Prefigures the Rite of Exorcism 5:27 David's Harp, Solomonic Traditions and Sacred Music 6:01 Why Holy Water Torments Demons Spiritually, Not Chemically 6:42 Protestant Objection: Is It Just Superstitious Magic? 7:28 Acts 19: The Sons of Sceva and the Danger of No Authority 8:28 The Catholic Church Fulfils the Temple Cult 🌍 Website: https://totuscatholica.org/ 📿 Rosary Guide: https://totuscatholica.org/rosary ✉️ Contact: https://totuscatholica.org/contact 🔍 Examination of Conscience: https://catholicexaminationofconscien...

From Long Island: Oldest Nun in the World Turns 113

I would say Sto lat, but Sister Francis Dominici has already lived a hundred years, so I'll just say, may God grant her many more happy years!

From Aleteia

By Cerith Gardiner 

At the tender age of 113, Sr. Francis Dominici Piscatella is proving once more how a life dedicated to God is beneficial.

There is something rather intriguing, and perhaps a little telling, in the fact that nuns so often seem to top the charts when it comes to longevity, as though a life shaped by prayer, purpose, and rhythm carries with it a kind of quiet resilience. One begins to wonder whether convent life holds some gently guarded secret, something between faith, community, and a refusal to be hurried.

And then there is Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella, who has just celebrated her 113th birthday on Long Island and is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest nun.

Born in 1913, she joined the order of the Sisters of St. Dominic in Amityville in 1931 at the age of 17. The devout record holder has lived through more than a century of change and, remarkably, through the pontificates of 11 popes, from Pius X to Leo XIV, witnessing 10 conclaves and a Church that has both shifted and endured across the decades. It is the kind of detail that quietly reframes everything, reminding us just how much history can be held within a single lifetime.

And in fact, on the day of her party, Sr. Piscatella, who declares to have "given up counting my years," was given a proclamation from Pope Leo.

In reality, the super senior's life, however, has been shaped less by grand events than by a steady and faithful rhythm. She entered religious life in her early 20s and spent decades teaching, forming generations of students with a consistency that feels almost unfamiliar today.

When asked about her years, she brushes them aside with gentle humor, remarking, “I have given up counting my years,” before describing her life simply as “beautiful,” which somehow says far more than a longer explanation ever could, as reported by ABC 7.

That sense of simplicity runs throughout her story. As a child, she lost part of her arm in an accident, an experience that might easily have limited her path, yet she refused to allow it to define her, insisting that there was nothing she could not do and going on to teach for more than half a century. There is no sense of drama in the way this is told, only a quiet determination that seems to have carried her forward without fuss.

A fidelity to something steady and enduring

It is perhaps this same clarity that shapes the advice she offers, which is disarmingly direct without being simplistic:

“Just learn what God wants you to do and do it.”

The line lands lightly, but it carries a depth that becomes clearer the longer one sits with it, suggesting a life not driven by constant reinvention, but by fidelity to something steady and enduring.

And when you look at it this way, it becomes easier to understand why so many religious sisters seem to share this quiet longevity.

One might think, for example, of the Brazilian Sr. Inah Canabarro Lucas, who also made headlines in recent years for her remarkable age and faith, another life marked not by spectacle, but by a similar rhythm of prayer, service, and community. There is no formula here, no guarantee that such a life leads to such length, yet there is something about it that feels ordered, as though time itself is held differently.

What stands out most is not simply that Sr. Francis has lived for 113 years, but how she has lived them. She is still described as mentally sharp, still engaged, still beginning her days in prayer, returning to the same source of strength that has accompanied her across decades of change. That consistency, far from feeling repetitive, seems to have given her life a kind of coherence that many might recognize as something to aspire to.

In the end, it is not really a question of uncovering a secret, but of noticing a pattern. A life shaped by faith, sustained by purpose, and lived without excessive urgency has, quite naturally, stretched across more than a century, and in doing so, offers not a formula to follow, but a quiet invitation to consider what it might mean to live well, rather than simply to live long.

The Top 6 Small Towns for Catholics in the USA

From Purely Catholic

Catholicism in the United States isn't just found in the massive cathedrals of New York or Chicago. It is etched into the dirt of rural outposts, mountain villages, and desert missions.

In this video, we map the faith of America by visiting six towns that represent the two halves of the American Catholic heart: the historic foundations and the new, rising frontiers. We look at how the faith survived in remote deserts for centuries and how it is being reimagined today in towns built from the ground up by modern pioneers.

The Quest for the True West

The True West is our homeland, Christian and European, rooted in Scripture, myth, and the great epics of Greece, Rome, Arthur, and the North.

From Crisis 

By Joseph Pearce

The quest for the true West is still possible, and it’s closer than you might think.

For the past two years, my students and I have been on the quest for the true West. We have journeyed together on a cultural pilgrimage across the vast literary landscape of Western and Christian Civilization. We have travelled in a time machine that has taken us across almost three thousand years of human history.

We have travelled through space as well as time, stopping at Troy, Ithaka, Thebes, Athens, Carthage, and Rome; and in England, Scotland, Denmark and Venice. We have been to Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, and to the Garden of Eden. We have travelled in a spaceship to the heavens, spending time on Mars. We have been shipwrecked with Odysseus and with five Franciscan sisters. We have wandered through wild wastelands with Arthurian knights, modern poets, mad scientists, and maddened monsters.

Moving from poetic allusiveness to prosaic explanation, my students and I have been on the quest for the true West as part of our travels together at Rosary College, a new online Catholic undergraduate institution offering a two-year Associate of Catholic Studies (ACS) in Integrated Humanities. As a founding faculty member, I have had the privilege, along with my students, to be a pioneer as we have navigated the first two years of classes, completing the curriculum and thereby the quest.

As the school year comes to an end, my students will move on to the next stage of their own individual quests. Some will transfer to one of the Newman Guide colleges which accept the credits the students have earned at Rosary College, such as Ave Maria University, Catholic University of America, and Thomas More College of the Liberal Arts; others might move forward with the Associates Degree to pastures new within the wide world of unfathomed opportunity that awaits them.

As for me, I am looking forward to repeating the same quest with a new set of adventurous and pioneering students next year. To quote Bilbo Baggins, who can ever tire of going “there and back again”? Who would not want to visit far-off times and places to meet ageless heroes and villains and timeless saints and sinners?

We’ll leave the Shire and our own familiar homes, our hobbit holes, to relive the epic and tragic adventure of classical antiquity. We will find ourselves in war-torn Troy, the besieged city. We will live with the legacy of the adulterous lust of Paris and Helen, with the arrogance of Agamemnon, the anger of Achilles, and with Hektor’s heroic defense of hearth and home. The war over and the city destroyed, we’ll join Odysseus on his long journey home, his desires and those of his men wrecked on the rocks of their own recklessness. We’ll watch Telemachus come of age and will admire the pristine purity and loving loyalty of Penelope.

We’ll admire Antigone’s defense of religious liberty and the rights of the family against the encroachments of the tyrannical state; we’ll witness Oedipus’ hapless fall in Thebes and his glorious resurrection at Colonus; we’ll witness Aeneas as a prisoner of lust in Carthage, and we’ll pity poor Dido and her self-destructive passion; we’ll glory at the founding of Rome.

And then comes Christ, who changes everything…

And so, with the coming of Christ, we’ll move into the literary landscape of the Christian Middle Ages and will be in awe at Christ’s mighty presence.

It is Christ who empowers Beowulf, the mightiest of warriors, as he defeats demonic monsters with the supernatural sword of grace; it is Christ, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, who empowers Dante to escape the dark wood of sin and the circles of Hell and to ascend Mount Purgatory and through the very heights of Heaven. It is Christ who accompanies the holy parson on the pilgrimage to Canterbury; and it is Christ who guides Gawain to the Green Knight’s castle.

Moving into the early modern period and to the age of Shakespeare, we’ll visit the gutters of Venice with its vengeance and usury and will ascend to Belmont, the beautiful mountain, in the presence of the heavenly Portia. Thence to “something rotten” and “murder most foul” in Denmark, to a world of regicide, fratricide, homicide, and suicide; a world of espionage, lies, and betrayal in which the truth is revealed supernaturally and purgatorially and in which flights of angels sing the self-sacrificial victim to his rest. Thence to “something wicked” in Scotland and more murder most foul, and finally to the world of King Lear and its worldly wickedness and holy foolishness, its Machiavellian madness and Franciscan folly.

After descending into the puritan hell of Milton, we move to the modern period, to the age of Romanticism, neo-medievalism, and to the resurrection of Rome and the Catholic literary revival. We find ourselves in a different sort of hell from Milton’s, a manmade hell unleashed by the madness of Frankenstein; and then we ascend to heaven with St. John Henry Newman, who sings a hymn of praise to Our Lady of Walsingham, the “Pilgrim Queen,” as she returns to claim the throne of Merrie England after her centuries of exile; we find ourselves with other exiles, with five Franciscan sisters exiled from their homeland, who are destined to die in a shipwreck praising the Lord their Deliverer.

As the quest nears its end, we will find ourselves in G.K. Chesterton’s nightmare in which the forces of anarchy fight against the peace of God, and in T.S. Eliot’s wasteland in which the desert of modernity thirsts for the living waters of baptism and the renewal it promises. Finally, we will follow C.S. Lewis “out of the silent planet” to Mars, where the heavens reveal heavenly truth.

As one quest for the true West ends, the next one beckons. This is the adventure, the excitement, the exhilaration of a good Catholic education in the integrated humanities. This is what is to be found at the Catholic classical academies that are springing up across the country and at the good Catholic colleges listed in the Newman Guide.

Those wishing to go on such an adventure need look no further than these schools and colleges. Those wishing to join me specifically on next year’s adventure, beginning this fall, need look no further than the Rosary College website. Sign up. Buckle up. And enjoy the ride!

Divine Liturgy for the Sunday of the Paralytic

Today's Divine Liturgy from the UGCC Church in Australia. You may follow the Liturgy here.