In this video, we will interview the American politician, journalist, and activist Peter Sonski, who stood as the 2024 presidential candidate for the American Solidarity Party.
The American Solidarity Party is an American political party influenced by the teachings of Christian Democracy, and in particular, the teachings of the Catholic social tradition.
In this article, we will explore the nature of social and economic justice, the centrality of the family in social organisation, the concept of subsidiarity, and the sanctity of life.
You can visit the website of the American Solidarity Party @: https://www.solidarity-party.org/
18 February 2026
Justice, Solidarity, & Christian Democracy: An Interview With Peter Sonski (American Solidarity Party)
I voted for the ASP in 2016. From
Metaphysics: 1. Introduction, The Metaphysics of Aristotle
With Ralph McInerny (R+I+P), PhD, late Professor of Philosophy, Director of the Jacques Maritain Centre, & Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies, Notre Dame.
Mediæval Lenten Fasting Rules
From Dr Taylor Marshall
Medieval Lent was Harder than Islamic Ramadan
I have been told that medieval Christians would ridicule the Islamic season of fasting called Ramadan as weak, effeminate, and easy when compared to the austere Christian season of fasting during Lent or Quadragesima.
The Catholic Church has decreased the austerity of Lent over the centuries so much that Islamic Ramadan now appears as more challenging than Lent. Let’s take a look at Ramadan compared to Medieval Lent.
Rules for Islamic Ramadan:
- Duration? 29-30 days during the entire month of Ramadan.
- Fasting rules? Fasting completely from the break of dawn until sunset:
- food (zero calories and no food intake)
- drink (including water)
- sexual intercourse
- smoking
Rules for Medieval Quadragesima or “Lent”:
Nota bene: I’m using the standards of the Roman Church. The Eastern Churches have had various disciplines by jurisdiction. For this article, we are focusing only on the Roman rules. Perhaps we’ll study the Eastern fasting rules in a future post.
- Duration? 46 days. 40 Days plus 6 Sundays in the Roman Church.
- Fasting rules? Medieval Lenten rules (as described Saint Thomas Aquinas) were as follows:
- Ash Wednesday and Good Friday were black fasts: no food at all.
- No food from waking until 3pm (the hour when Christ died). This practice of fasting till 3pm goes back to the 5th century (see Socrates’ Church History V.22).
- No animal meat or fats (no lard).
- Fish was allowed. Click here to understand the theology of why fish was is allowed, but not meat.
- No eggs.
- No lacticinia or “dairy products”: milk, cheese, cream, and butter. However, Catholics of the British Isles before the arrival of Saint Augustine of Canterbury were still consuming dairy products and perhaps eggs during Lent. Roman influence brought this to an end.
- Wine and beer were allowed.
- Medieval Europeans during Lent subsisted on bread, vegetables, and salt.
- No sexual intercourse between spouses. Pagan kings were pretty pissed to learn about this after they married hot Catholic princesses.
- No Sundays off. All these rules apply for 46 days. The 6 Sundays in Lent were relaxed liturgically (less penitential), but the fasting and abstinence were not relaxed on Sundays.
- For the Good Friday black fast, many would begin fast from Maundy Thursday night till about noon on Saturday. The Easter Vigil was usually celebrated about noon on Saturday and this ended the Lenten fasting officially.
- Was it Changed?
- Breaking the no food fast before 3pm began to creep in as early as AD 800. The reason we English speakers call 12pm “noon” is because the liturgical recitation of nones (“ninth hour” or 3pm in Latin) was moved up by hungry monks more and more until nones(3pm) was celebrated as early as 12pm so that they could break fast and eat lunch!)
- In Germany, dispensations were given for consuming lacticinia or dairy products based on payment or performing good deeds. In honesty, wealthy people simply paid a fee to the diocese, and were allowed to serve and eat dairy in their homes during Lent. It was a popular “fundraising technique” by (German!) bishops.
- Dinner snacks were allowed at the time of reading Cassians book Collationes and so this snack became known as a “collation” – the term we still use today for a snack during fasting.
- With the advent of tea and coffee, it became allowable to have tea or coffee in the morning and this was considered as not violating the fast before nones.
- Over time, papal indults allowed meat on Sundays and then to other days of the week until only Friday remained “meatless.”
- Pope Paul VI’s 1966 Apostolic Constitution of Paenitemini changed Lenten practice to what it is today:
- No meat (only fish) allowed on Fridays in Lent.
- 1 meal and 2 collations (snacks) allowed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
Ramadan vs Medieval Lent:
- Both have no food at all until 3pm (Catholic) or sundown (Muslim).
- Both have no sex allowed at all, but the Muslim is allowed at night.
- Only the Catholic is restricted on kinds of food (no meat, dairy, eggs), whereas the Muslim can eat steak every night.
- Muslims may not drink even water during the daylight, but Christians may.
Conclusion: Medieval Christians were Tough
For the Medieval Christian, he would have seen the chief difference between Lent and Ramadan as the Muslims having a “reset” every single night with refreshment with food and sex every 24 hours. Whereas the Christian had to wait until Easter. The Muslim had daily sprints. The Medieval Christian had a marathon that ended on Easter.
So could you do it? No sex, butter, or bacon for 46 days? No food daily till 3pm? Tell me what you think about these old Lenten rules. Is it good or bad that the Church changed them?Cardinal Cupich Politicizes Ash Wednesday Mass
Is anyone surprised? He is a FrancisCardinal after all.
Nothing is sacred to the Modernists.
Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | February
Traditional Catholic morning prayers -- an excellent way to start your day off strong! The month of February is devoted to the Holy Family -- Jesus, Mary, and St. Joseph. It is my hope that these prayers increase your devotion to Our Lord and His Holy Family. Begin each day with 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.
Atheist Demands: 'Where Did Jesus Get His Y Chromosome?'... Then This Happens
From Totus Catholica
The Virgin Birth's Impossible Genetic Proof (DNA Science)
Science says every human male gets his Y chromosome from his dad. The Creed says Jesus had no human father. The Church says it's a miracle you've misunderstood - the virginal conception isn't a biological accident, it's a divine creative act.
Human males are XY, females are XX. No woman naturally produces a Y chromosome. Even in rare cases of virgin birth in animals, you only get females because mammalian development requires both maternal and paternal genetic signals. If Jesus was biologically male, He needed a Y chromosome - and if Mary conceived Him virginally, there was no human sperm.
📌 The Point: The science doesn't disprove the virgin birth - it shows you exactly how impossible it would be without God. The Y chromosome question is about whether God can create and whether salvation comes from Him or from us.
📖 Core Sources
The Genetic Facts:
Human males are XY, females are XX; Y chromosome carries 106 protein-coding genes responsible for male development, transmitted exclusively through the paternal line
Mammalian parthenogenesis (unfertilized eggs developing into organisms) produces only females due to genomic imprinting - certain genes require both maternal and paternal contributions to function properly
Natural virgin birth of a male mammal is impossible
Scripture:
Luke 1:35 - Angel Gabriel to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you"
Luke 1:38 - Mary's response: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word"
Matthew 1:18 - Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit before she and Joseph came together
Catholic Teaching:
CCC 496 - "From the first formulations of her faith, the Church has confessed that Jesus was conceived solely by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, affirming also the corporeal aspect of this event"
CCC 464 - Jesus Christ is true God and true man; the incarnation means the eternal Son assumed a human nature from Mary by a unique creative act of the Holy Spirit
CCC 456 - "The Word became flesh for us men and for our salvation" - virginal conception protects the truth that Jesus is not merely another human teacher but the eternal Son taking flesh
Early Church & Councils:
St. Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110 AD) - "Jesus as truly of the race of David according to the flesh, Son of God according to the will and power of God, truly born of a virgin"
Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) - Christ is perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity; consubstantial with the Father as to divinity, consubstantial with us as to humanity, "like us in all things but sin"
Lateran Synod (649 AD) - Mary "conceived without seed and incorruptibly bore Jesus, her virginity remaining indestructible"
What the Church Does NOT Define:
No chromosomal mechanism, no molecular pathway, no genetic blueprint for how the Holy Spirit accomplished this miracle
The church leaves the mechanism open while binding the fact of virginal conception
The Catholic Understanding:
Miracle and natural law operate in different categories - the miracle is not that nature produced something unusual, but that God acted directly to create what nature alone could not
Think of Adam, who also had no biological parents yet possessed a complete human genome, including a Y chromosome - God miraculously provided whatever was necessary
Christianity is not claiming a rare biological trick; it's claiming divine creative power
📺 Chapters
0:00 - The Genetic Tension: Males Need Y Chromosomes, Females Don't Produce Them
2:32 - What the Church Binds Us to Believe (CCC 496, Ignatius, Chalcedon)
4:30 - What the Church Does NOT Define (No Chromosomal Mechanism Specified)
5:07 - The Miracle Is Divine Creative Act, Not Biological Accident (Think of Adam)
6:10 - Objections: "Science Disproves It," "Only Two Gospels Mention It," "Makes Sex Dirty"
7:30 - What This Mystery Reveals About Salvation (CCC 456)
🌐 Connect
📿 https://totuscatholica.org/rosary
🌍 https://totuscatholica.org/
✉️ https://totuscatholica.org/contact
🔍 https://catholicexaminationofconscien...
Lent Is the Perfect Time for This Corporal Work of Mercy
I haven't "had" to attend a funeral since my BIL died, but I've often attended the funerals of even those I didn't know, because of this very thing.
From Aleteia
By Theresa Civantos Barber
Attending wakes and funerals is not just a work of mercy, but an act of compassion and respect for the loved ones left behind.Fewer people are going to wakes and funerals these days, according to surveys by the National Funeral Directors Association. The number of respondents who had attended a funeral in the past five years dropped from 10.3% in 2013 to 3.7% in 2019.
For Catholics, this trend is concerning. Burying the dead is a corporal work of mercy, something we must make time to do even when it’s hard.
This trend also sets us apart concerningly from most human beings throughout history. For millennia of human existence, mortality rates were much higher, and death was just about omnipresent. The luxury of being able to avoid reminders of death is unique to modernity.
But is the privilege of being able to ignore death a luxury, or a curse? Awareness of how brief life really is helps us to appreciate and enjoy it more. Cutting ourselves off from this unavoidable reality makes for a shallower experience, and we miss out on opportunities to grow in empathy and compassion.
This last point was eloquently highlighted in a gem of a column in the Chicago Tribune this month. The writer, Mary Wisniewski, described how she grew up going to funerals:
I come from an enormous family, which means I had to go to lots of wakes and funerals … I got used to funeral parlors—their hard, outdated and overly formal furniture, dim lighting, terrible artwork, weak coffee and stale cookies.
It’s becoming increasingly rare nowadays for parents to take this approach of bringing kids along to memorial services. Perhaps they reason that the child may not be ready for exposure to death. But death is natural and unavoidable, and children often are better at handling these things than we give them credit for:
My folks didn’t worry that we kids were getting exposed too early to death—death was part of life, and we had to go up to the casket, kneel and say a prayer.
Parents may also worry that kids won’t enjoy it. But Wisniewski points out that it doesn’t really matter if visitors want to be there or not:
My parents didn’t care whether my siblings and I were having a good time or not, because the wake was not for our amusement. It was not about us. It was for the consolation of people who had lost someone special.
Making time to go to a wake or a funeral, even when you don’t want to, and even when it’s inconvenient, not only honors the life of the person who has died but also is one of the most meaningful ways to support those left behind.
Wisniewski goes on to explain that her own mother very recently passed away. Dealing with death first-hand made her realize just how important it is for friends and family to come to memorial services. She uses the analogy of a quilt:
… when someone close to you dies, even if it’s expected, it’s like a bomb has gone off. And you and your family are wandering around in the rubble, shivering in the wind… At this time, the visits and calls from friends are like the pieces of a quilt. And the quilt pieces come together into a blanket and warm you, getting you through this time of shock and sorrow.
It really doesn’t matter if visitors have much to say or stay for long, she says. Simply the fact of being there is enough. When one is grieving, it helps so much to have others pause their busy lives to come and sit alongside for a little while.
“What you’ll give to a grieving family” by coming to the memorial service “is priceless,” Wisniewski writes.
It’s good advice, old-fashioned and a little unusual nowadays, but as true as ever: If you can, always go to the wake or funeral. You’ll never regret it.
State of Emergency: Is the Society of St Pius X in Schism?
From The Remnant TV
In this episode of the Remnant Underground, Michael Matt dives into a 40-year-old controversy that has everything to do with apostasy in the Church, as well as chaos in the cities of the world.
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s 1988 decision to consecrate bishops without the approval of Pope John Paul II resulted in a worldwide Catholic counterrevolution that changed history.
Was Archbishop Lefebvre an evil schismatic trying to destroy the Church, or was he a resistance fighter who saved Catholic Tradition from certain destruction?
With the Society of St. Pius X again planning to consecrate bishops without a papal mandate, Michael falls back on real life experience -- as one who lived through it the first time -- to help people answer the key questions:
- Is the Society of St. Pius X in schism?
- Is there a state of emergency that warrants their disobedience to Rome?
- Should the SSPX consecrate bishops in 2026?
- What about the Fraternity of St. Peter?
- Why does the Spirit of Vatican II still dominate all of this?
Fasting & Abstinence Rules
Lent begins today. A handy guide to the practice of Lent. See my post later today on how hard the rules used to be.
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From the SSPX
Fast and Abstinence required by the Church
Throughout the centuries, the Church has changed the ecclesiastical laws regulating penance, sometimes becoming more strict, sometimes relaxing the discipline.
Only the Church can hold us guilty of mortal sin for failing in this or that specific act of penance.
“Rules for penitential days under present Church law” details the bare minimum of penance which we must accomplish under pain of mortal sin.
However, we certainly offend God by neglecting penance completely over a length of time. Also, one will easily fall into mortal sin who confines penance to only those days and acts required by the current law.
“Guidelines for traditional penitential practices” spells out the strongly recommended practices which were observed until just after the Second Vatican Council.
Rules for penitential days under present Church law
In 1966, Pope Paul VI promulgated a new set of regulations for fasting and abstaining by his apostolic constitution, Paenitemini. These new rules are listed in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, Canons 1249-1253 and all Roman Catholics are bound to strictly observe them.
There are two sets of laws that apply to the Church's penitential days:
- The law of abstinence: this refers to abstaining from meat.
- The law of fasting: this refers to the quantity of food taken, thus also refraining from eating between meals.
Who is bound to observe these laws?
- The law of abstinence binds all Catholics, beginning on the day after their 14th birthday.
- The law of fasting binds all adults (beginning on their 18th birthday) until the midnight which completes their 59th birthday.
- The law of abstinence forbade the eating of flesh meat and of broth made of meat, but did not exclude the use of eggs, dairy products, or seasonings made from the fat of animals.
- The law of fasting prescribed that only one full meal a day was taken with two smaller meals that did not equal the main one.
- As to the kind of food and the amount that might be taken, the approved customs of the place were to be observed. It was not forbidden to eat both flesh meat and fish at the same meal, nor to interchange the midday and evening meals.
- Abstinence is obligatory on all Fridays of Lent, except Solemnities (i.e., Ist Class Feasts).
- Fasting and abstinence are obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.
- Abstinence on all Fridays, though not obligatory under pain of sin, is “especially recommended.”
- Fasting on all weekdays of Lent, though not obligatory under pain of sin, is “strongly recommended.”
- The law of abstinence bound all Catholics, beginning on the day after their 7th birthday.
- The law of fasting bound all Catholics, beginning on the day after their 21st birthday and ending at the midnight which completed their 59th birthday. [Note: The USA's particular law had lowered the obligatory fasting age to 18.]
- The law of abstinence forbade the eating of flesh meat and of broth made of meat, but did not exclude the use of eggs, dairy products, or seasonings made from the fat of animals.
- The law of fasting prescribed that only one full meal a day was taken with two smaller meals that did not equal the main one.
- As to the kind of food and the amount that might be taken, the approved customs of the place were to be observed. It was not forbidden to eat both flesh meat and fish at the same meal, nor to interchange the midday and evening meals.
- Abstinence was obligatory on all Fridays, except on Holy Days of Obligation outside of Lent.
- Ash Wednesday
- Fridays and Saturdays in Lent
- Good Friday
- Holy Saturday (until midnight)
- Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday)
- Vigil of Pentecost
- Vigil of Christmas
- [NB: both the Vigils of the Immaculate Conception and of All Saints were omitted from the 1962 calendar]
- Sundays throughout the year and Holy Days of Obligation outside of Lent cancelled the fasting and/or abstinence of any penitential day which coincided.
- If a fast-day Vigil fell on Sunday, the fasting and abstinence associated with the Vigil were not anticipated on the Saturday, but dropped altogether that year.
- Ember Wednesdays and Saturdays
- Vigil of Pentecost
- all other weekdays of Lent including Saturdays
- Day of Fast and Abstinence
- Ash Wednesday
- Good Friday
- Friday of Lent
- All Ember Wednesday, Friday and Saturday
- The vigils of All Saints, Christmas, Pentecost, Immaculate Conception.
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