15 Forgotten Medieval 3-Ingredient Breads Peasants Thrived On For 500 Years

From Medieval Way

You've been told medieval bread was garbage. Stale, gritty, barely fit for animals. That's the story the modern food industry needs you to believe. Because if you find out that peasants in 1340 were eating bread with three ingredients that outperformed your grocery store loaf on shelf life, nutrition, and digestion, you might start asking why your "whole grain artisan" sourdough costs nine euros and molds in four days. Two years of digging through monastery records, manorial accounts, and reconstructed recipes from the British Museum, the Vatican Library, and excavated bakery sites in York and Lübeck turned up something they don't teach in culinary school. Fifteen medieval bread recipes. Three ingredients each. Most of them lasted weeks or months without refrigeration. Some of them were used as medicine. One of them kept entire armies alive on campaigns that lasted years.

Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | May

Traditional Catholic morning prayers to help start your day in a godly way! The month of May is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. May our devotion to the Blessed Mother increase more and more and help us to love her divine Son, Jesus, more and more. We've included the Memorare, the litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and a Spiritual Communion. Begin your May with 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.

The Only Group That Won't Honor Mary Is...'Bible Christians'

From Totus Catholica

The Quran mentions Mary by name more times than the entire New Testament does. An entire chapter, Surah 19, is named after her. Surah 3:42 declares that God chose Mary and purified her, choosing her above the women of all nations. Meanwhile, many Protestant Christians today will tell you that honouring Mary is idolatry. 1.8 billion Muslims honour the mother of Jesus. 1.3 billion Catholics honour her. 260 million Orthodox Christians honour her. The Hebrew name Miriam is the same as the name Mary. In Luke 1:48, Mary herself prophesied that all generations shall call her blessed. The refusal to honour her is not the ancient position. It is the 500-year-old anomaly. CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Fact That Will Challenge Everything You Think About Mary 1:04 Luke 1:48: All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed 2:08 Miriam: The First Prophetess and the Well That Dried When She Died 3:06 Irenaeus and Justin Martyr: Mary as the New Eve 3:44 Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant: Luke 1 and 2 Samuel 6 4:15 The Gevirah: The Queen Mother in the Davidic Kingdom 5:44 The Islamic Witness: Why a Hostile Witness Makes the Case Stronger 🌍 Website: https://totuscatholica.org/ 📿 Rosary Guide: https://totuscatholica.org/rosary ✉️ Contact: https://totuscatholica.org/contact 🔍 Examination of Conscience: https://catholicexaminationofconscien...

St John Baptist de la Salle Was a Trailblazer in Education

Today is his Feast Day. He founded the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, generally known simply as the Christian Brothers.

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

St. John Baptist de La Salle is regarded as the patron saint of all educators as he founded a unique religious order that is dedicated entirely to teaching.

While there have been many saints in the history of the Church who dedicated their lives to the education of children, St. John Baptist de La Salle was unique in his approach.

He felt drawn not only to educate the poor, but to train educators how to be good teachers in the classroom.

This divine calling led him to found the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (Christian Brothers) in the early 18th century.

No priests, only brothers

De La Salle was ordained to the priesthood in 1678, but he found that it was difficult to devote his time to education. He wanted to give everything to this vocation and so established a new type of religious institute that did not ordain priests.

The Catholic Encyclopedia provides the following reasoning as to why De La Salle chose this path:

Brother Lucard, the Annalist of the institute, thus sums up the matter: "Since the death of Henri L'Heureux, de la Salle was firmly convinced that his institute was to be founded on simplicity and humility. No Brother could, without compromising his congregation, allow himself to be diverted from his functions as a teacher, by devoting himself to special studies, the saying of the Divine Office, or the fulfillment of other duties obligatory on the sacred ministry." Therefore, no Brother can aspire to the priesthood nor perform any priestly function, and no ecclesiastic can become a member of the institute. This is the new rule that de la Salle added, and it is embodied in the Constitution of the institute.

Pope Leo XIV pointed this unique mission out in an address to the Christian Brothers on May 15, 2025:

Saint John Baptist de La Salle did not want there to be priests among the teachers of the Christian Schools, but only “brothers,” so that all your efforts would be directed, with God’s help, to the education of the pupils. He loved to say: “Your altar is the classroom,” thus promoting a reality hitherto unknown in the Church of his time: that of lay teachers and catechists, invested in the community with a genuine “ministry."

De La Salle wanted educators to be fully invested in the poor young people they taught and to give them everything they had.

As many educators can attest, this requires much time and energy, something a priest with many responsibilities is not able to fully give.

De La Salle is also seen as a founder of the modern pedagogy of education, grouping students by ability and not age and incorporating physical activity into the curriculum. With this method, students could work together on the same material, instead of with individual tutors -- thus this was the foundation of the modern classroom setting.

In 1725 the Christian Brothers were officially recognized by the pope, even though many in the Church were in opposition to a group of religious men who were not priests.

The Christian Brothers are still active today in over 80 countries, and one of their most popular saints is Wisconsin-native Blessed James Miller, who is sometimes referred to as a "martyr of education."

An Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre: By Bishop Athanasius Schneider

From The Remnant TV

Probably the most comprehensive discussion of the Modernist revolution in the Catholic Church – and how it relates to the Society of St. Pius X – ever delivered by a non-SSPX bishop. The SSPX is the largest fraternity of Traditional Latin Mass priests in the world and due to the state of emergency in the Church, they intend to consecrate bishops with or without papal mandate in July of 2026. This is an historic development and, in order to form an opinion on it, Catholics in the pews need to be armed with the truth and not deceived by partisan narratives that bend the truth. The man who is best qualified to help arm Catholics on this issue is Bishop Athanasius Schneider -- a non-SSPX bishop who was appointed by the Vatican to be an official apostolic visitor to the SSPX for the purpose of informing the pope as to what the priests of the Society of St Pius X are all about. This video offers an explanation of both sides of this controversy and, since Bishop Schneider is not SSPX, it has NOTHING to do with the usual tribalism that has a tendency to bury the truth in favor or one tribe or the other.

Cardinal Suggestions for Leo XIV

Whilst these are excellent candidates, I'm afraid that the Pope will repeat Francis's pattern of picking left-wing heretics like McElroy and Hollerich. Pray that I'm wrong!

From Crisis

By Filip Mazurczak, PhD

Pope Leo XIV is poised to pack the College of Cardinals. Here’s a strong list of candidates he should choose, and why.

Last month, Cardinal Juan José Omella of Barcelona turned 80, meaning that the number of cardinals who can participate in a conclave is below 120, the maximum number of electors established by St. Paul VI (Francis far surpassed this limit). In the next year, that number will decline further, implying a looming consistory for the creation of new cardinals. The men Pope Leo XIV will select to be his closest collaborators and, if they are under 80, elect his successor will tell us much about his vision of the Church. Here are a few suggestions for fine, saintly men who could help restore some of the ideological and geographical balance that was all too often missing under Francis.

In his picks of cardinals, Pope Francis frequently preferred strong ideological progressives. This was visible in the United States, for instance, where he typically gave the red hat to archbishops like Blase Cupich (Chicago), Robert McElroy (San Diego and later Washington), and Joseph Tobin (Newark), bypassing historical cardinalate sees with more traditionally-minded shepherds who had been appointed by Benedict XVI.

Sure, there were some exceptions. Although Francis inherited Gerhard Ludwig Müller, one of the most eloquent and uncompromising defenders of orthodoxy today, from Benedict as prefect of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith, it was the Argentinian pope who made him a cardinal. Most of his African picks, such as Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa, were also conservative, although that is more a reflection of the prevailing theological direction in sub-Saharan Africa—and even in that region, Pope Francis managed to appoint a pro-LGBTQ+ cardinal, the South African Stephen Brislin.

Most of [Francis's] African picks, such as Besungu of Kinshasa, were conservative, although that is more a reflection of the prevailing theological direction in sub-Saharan Africa. Still he also managed to appoint pro-LGBTQ+ cardinal Brislin.

Although conclaves are secret, many Vaticanistas are well-informed; for instance, given the results of the 2013 conclave, their assertion that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was the runner-up to Joseph Ratzinger in 2005 seems very credible. According to some Vatican specialists, in the first round of voting last year, the orthodox Hungarian Cardinal Péter Erdő was in pole position; later, his supporters transferred their votes to Robert Francis Prevost. Thus, if Leo enjoyed the confidence of conservatives, it would be, if nothing else, courteous to increase their visibility in the Sacred College.

Meanwhile, many of Francis’ nominations have come from countries with microscopic Catholic populations, such as Tonga (17,000 Catholics) or Mongolia (less than 1,500 members of the Church). I have nothing against the Tongans or Mongolians; conceivably, great Church leaders could emerge from such obscure—from a Catholic perspective—lands. However, this happened at the expense of many historical cardinalate sees that currently have no voting members.

Leo could restore some normalcy to the College of Cardinals by beginning with his native United States, giving the red hat to Archbishop José Horacio Gómez of Los Angeles, the largest U.S. see, for instance. (LA’s only living cardinal is Roger Mahony, no longer eligible to vote in conclaves due to age and disgraced by his handling of the sex abuse scandal.) Leo is a North American who spent 20 years as a missionary and bishop in Latin America; Gómez, meanwhile, is a native of Mexico who has ministered for decades north of the Rio Grande. The red hat for him would be a boon not only for ecclesiastical conservatives; it would also recognize the growing Hispanic immigrant imprint on the U.S. Church.

Francis frequently spoke of his preference for the Church of the “peripheries,” often in lands affected by war, crimes against humanity, and poverty. Such a description perfectly matches Ukraine, which, since 2022, has been subjected to a full-fledge Russian invasion. Why, then, did Francis deprive Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the primate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church—the largest Eastern Catholic Church—of the red hat? Interestingly, before returning to Ukraine, Shevchuk was an auxiliary eparch in Buenos Aires; he and Cardinal Bergoglio knew each other well before 2013. Was this omission a well-intentioned but craven attempt at not irking Putin?

In recent years, Shevchuk has become an internationally famous churchman, becoming an outspoken advocate of the dignity of his people, who often find solace in God, under Russian domination, bringing to mind the brave Venerable József Mindszenty several generations before. According to Tess Livingstone’s superlative biography of the late Cardinal George Pell, the Australian prelate saw him as having “the makings of a future pope.”

Speaking of Pell, his close collaborator and successor as Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, O.P.—he was the Australian cardinal’s auxiliary bishop—is another compelling candidate to be a cardinal. Fisher is a brilliant defender of Catholic teaching with a Ph.D. in bioethics from Oxford. From assisted suicide to abortion and in vitro fertilization, the world today needs clarity on bioethics issues. Not to mention that in terms of Mass attendance, orthodoxy, and vocations Australia had long been in the doldrums, resembling Germany or the Netherlands, the continent is now enjoying a remarkable Catholic revival among the young thanks to the strong leadership of Pell and Fisher.

Although Christianity originated in the Middle East, today the region’s Christian presence is shrinking, due to the violence of both Islamic and Zionist extremists. Western meddling in the region—such as the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq which created instability that led to ISIS-led violence, which, in turn, caused the Arab nation’s Christian population to decline by 90 percent—hasn’t helped. Demographically, the most Christian nation in the region is Lebanon, where nearly a third of the population is Christian. There, Christians and Muslims live in overall harmony, with power-sharing enshrined in the nation’s constitution (Lebanon’s constitution requires the president to be Christian, for instance).

Today, however, Lebanese Christianity is as fragile as ever, as Israeli bombs fall on Christian schools and churches. While the Middle East did have several representatives at the last conclave, Lebanon’s only cardinal, Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, head of the Maronite Church, could not vote as he was 85. A year later, al-Rahi remains the Maronite patriarch. During this challenging time for Lebanese Christians, it would be beneficial for the pope to name a younger Maronite patriarch with conclave voting rights and the energy to defend his people and make him a cardinal ASAP.

Many of Francis’ changes to the College of Cardinals were meant to reflect greater geographic diversity. His choices were less “Eurocentric,” and many Europeans whom Francis named to the Sacred College were Vatican officials or diplomats rather than residential bishops. Yet a fifth of the world’s baptized Catholics still live on the Old Continent, which in some parts (including, notably, France and the United Kingdom) is experiencing impressive revival. Europe has nevertheless been battered by decades of secularization and needs strong leaders to avoid the fate of Asia Minor or North Africa in the long term.

Many of Francis’ changes to the College of Cardinals…were less “Eurocentric,” and were Vatican officials or diplomats rather than residential bishops. Yet a fifth of the world’s baptized Catholics still live on the Old Continent…

There are numerous European residential bishops Leo could elevate to the Sacred College. They include the popular spiritual writer and Trappist Erik Varden of Norway, who recently preached the Lenten retreat for Leo’s Roman Curia. Like Sweden’s Anders Arborelius, Varden is a convert from Lutheranism with a deep interior spiritual life. A red hat for Varden could be recognition of the ongoing Nordic “Catholic awakening,” as many descendants of the Vikings are becoming jaded with militant secularism, finding an alternative in Catholicism—not the dominant Lutheran Church, which is becoming like the salt that has lost its taste (Matthew 5:13).

Leo could also consider a red hat for Francesco Moraglia, the patriarch of Venice. Despite its current lack of a cardinal, in the 20th century alone the patriarchate produced three popes, all of whom have been raised to the altar: Sts. Pius X and John XXIII as well as Blessed John Paul I. Moraglia is a strong defender of the family who, like his namesake from Assisi, was born into a wealthy family yet chose a life of austerity (his residence is furnished with accessories from IKEA, not the Doge’s Palace).

While Slovakia remains one of Europe’s most Catholic nations, it has never had a cardinal during a conclave (Cardinal Jozef Tomko, one of St. John Paul II’s closest collaborators, was just one year too old to vote in 2005). Maybe Leo could consider making a cardinal of Greek-Catholic eparch Cyril Vasiľ, S.J., of Kosice, proof that “conservative Jesuit” is not necessarily an oxymoron.

Given the examples of Ambongo Besungu, Müller, and Arborelius mentioned in this article, not all of Francis’ cardinalate nominations were questionable. Yet a new pontificate is an opportunity to rethink those parts of Francis’ experiment with cardinals that did not go so well and led many saintly, wise men to be excluded from the Sacred College.