American Reform

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Your weekend read is here! “The immanent common good of political society must, accordingly, contain in a perfect manner all these classes of goods: exterior goods (wealth, abundance, and sufficiency of useful goods), interior goods of the body (health, robustness: sufficiency and abundance of means for the perfect development and preservation of the race, with its accompanying bodily well-being — sufficiency of delightful goods), and interior goods of the soul (sufficiency and abundance of resources for the perfect development of the faculties and habits of the soul: arts, sciences, culture, virtue — sufficiency of honorable goods).” — Fr. Santiago Ramírez Only at The Journal of American Reform.

The Pope is 'not to be publicly contradicted' – Fr Palmieri on the non-infallible magisterium Fr Domenico Palmieri SJ explains that while the 'merely authentic' magisterium may theoretically teach error, its exercise was not to be publicly contradicted even if assent is suspended. Here's why: https://www.wmreview.org/p/palmieri-xxxii-s2

Whether you agree with it or not, the “traditionalist movement” has always rejected Vatican II and the subsequent reforms as a departure from Catholic doctrine as it had always been taught and received. This is explicit in the very founders and intellectual leaders of the “movement”: Abp. Lefebvre, Bp. Castro de Mayer, Fr. Saenz y Arriaga, Abbe de Nantes, Msgr. Guérard des Lauriers, etc. It cannot be watered down to claiming Vatican II is merely ambiguous or that the attachment to the Traditional Mass is based on externals and preference. X 🔗

If you were designing a government to be generally unstable, tending towards anarchism, here are some elements that would be introduced: • Elections for President every four years • Popular sovereignty, i.e. civil authorities rule in the name of the people • Rejection of hereditary aristocracy • Ban on religious tests for public offices • Legislature makes law independent of the authority of executive and judicial powers • Judiciary interprets laws independent of the authority of the executive and legislative powers • Executive enforces laws independent of the authority of legislature and judiciary • Individual liberties are superior to the common good • Truth and error in moral and religious matters are to be afforded equal rights (freedom of speech and press) X 🔗

Fr. M.L. Guérard des Lauriers, O.P., on the case of Liberius and its relevance to the current Crisis in the Church: “Besides, sedevacantists, or at least the [R.P. Guérard des Lauriers] and those who follow him, are in no hurry to be proven right; they know that time works, under the sway of Eternity, in favour of Truth. They would therefore have done, in 357 when Liberius went astray, precisely what [M. Michel Martin] and others reproach them for having done, in 1965 when Montini went off course. If, within the Church, which is holy, an unprecedented, most grave, scandalous, catastrophic event occurs, it is certainly fitting to exercise the instinct of most holy Faith — that is, to examine and judge this event, as far as one is able, ‘with the Eye of God.’ But it is fitting, by that very fact, in order to avoid the shadow of error, to observe the consequences, to analyse the causes, using indulgence toward persons and rigour as to principles. It is fitting, in a word, to take some distance. If, then, ‘present-day sedevacantists had lived in 357,’ they would have waited ten years, as in 1965; and they would thus have witnessed the accession of St Damasus, only too glad by then to be freed from having to concern themselves with Liberius, leaving the care of judging him to God… and, of course, to historians! But present-day sedevacantists are realists. They are living in 1981. And fifteen years after 7 December 1965, the Athanasius [ed. Msgr. Lefebvre] who had arisen has vanished, in an absurd and desperate collusion with a most faithful disciple and zealous continuator of Montini. Neither Damasus, nor Athanasius. An unprecedented crisis, which consequently requires an unprecedented cause. It would therefore be vain, and hence harmful, to await, for the Church, a resurgence similar to those recorded by ‘history.’ For it is only in a human sense that ‘history is a perpetual recommencement.’ Supernaturally, history is not cyclical; it is polarised by the ‘end.’ It excludes all recommencement, because every instant integrates the whole of the past; and because God Himself inscribes therein an order whose perfection is, by nature, incompatible with repetition. Neither Damasus, nor Athanasius, but the end of an age.” — Cahier, no. 6, pp. 25-6. X 🔗

Read my newest for Integrity Magazine! “Should Traditionalists support a Catholic-Muslim alliance against Jewish power?” https://integritymagazine.org/2026/08/11/should-traditionalists-support-a-catholic-muslim-alliance-against-jewish-power/

What do Catholic theologians say about the theological possibility of error — distinct from the fact of it ever having occurred — in the non-infallible papal Magisterium? “Strictly speaking, it is possible that this teaching (presented in an encyclical) is in error. There are a thousand reasons to believe that it is not. It probably never was, and it is usually certain that it never will be, but absolutely speaking it could be, because God does not give the guarantee here that He gives to the doctrine when it is formulated as a definition.” — Fr. Thomas Pègues “The non-infallible acts of the papal magisterium do not impose an obligation to make an act of faith; they do not demand unconditional and definitive submission. But decisions of this kind, because they come from the supreme teacher of the Church and possess important natural and supernatural guarantees of their truth, must be accepted with internal, religious assent. This obligation can only cease to exist in the extremely rare case that someone who is capable of making his own judgement on the matter in question, after repeated, conscientious examination of all the reasons, comes to the firm scientific conviction that the decision must be based on an error.” — Fr. Franz Diekamp X 🔗

🕵️‍♂️ Watchlist ➸ Dr. E. Michael Jones ➸ Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamay ➸ Philos Project, CCAA and “Hebrew Catholics” ➸ Michael Knowles ➸ Trent Horn ➸ Gideon Lazar ➸ Dr. Ed Feser ➸ Dr. Joseph Shaw ➸ Matt Walsh • It’s “un-American” to want to preserve European identity - [1] • America is about human rights - [1] ➸ Chris Rufo ➸ Tucker Carlson ➸ Charlie Kirk ➸ Matt Fradd • Wearing a kippah as a joke - [1] ➸ Andrew Klavan • Downplaying the sinfulness of sodomy - [1]

Imagine welcoming a “Muslim-Catholic alliance” in England of all places to “save it from its own wretchedness”. Oh, and EMJ is talking about a Jewish convert doing this. X 🔗

Delicious. Trump won Ohio by ~11 points in 2024. A Ramaswamay defeat in November means a number of things: • The avoidance of a normalizing non-Christians in Republican politics • The avoidance of normalizing Indians in Republican politics • A decisive blow to liberal economics of colorblind meritocracy • A void for a future nationalist Republican candidate to step into • Acton, though victorious, will be deeply unpopular in the climate of rising antisemitism • Headwinds against the Silicon Valley network behind Vivek and Vance NEVER VIVEK. If you are a true Ohioan, at minimum, you need to withhold your vote this upcoming November — not only in order to punish the GOP, which is long overdue, but to prevent the greatest evil which is the normalization of Hindu, Indian anchor-babies having power in the party. X 🔗

In 1982, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger approvingly gave the following reflection on the revolutionary character of Vatican II: “If one is looking for a global diagnosis of the text [of Gaudium et spes], one could say that it (along with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter-Syllabus.” X 🔗

Inspired by and following the revolutionary “Declaration on ‘Religious Freedom’” of Paul VI, the Catholic States of Spain, Italy, Colombia and Malta were suppressed in keeping with the new doctrines. — Importantly, all law must be understood in accordance…

Inspired by and following the revolutionary “Declaration on ‘Religious Freedom’” of Paul VI, the Catholic States of Spain, Italy, Colombia and Malta were suppressed in keeping with the new doctrines. — Importantly, all law must be understood in accordance with the legislator and his mind, manifested exteriorly. Dignitatis Humanae cannot reasonably be understood at variance with the official clarification and implementation of Paul VI and John Paul II. More on the rupture of Dignitatis Humanae at The Journal of American Reform

“Man is the principle and end of woman. ‘vir est principium mulieris et finis’ (I. 93. 4 ad 1). The principle: for this reason God created woman from Adam, so that man might be the principle of the entire human race, and so that he might love woman all the more intimately, remaining united with her in indissoluble fidelity and domestic cooperation. As Christ is the head of the Church, so man is the head of woman (1. 92. 2). But the end of woman is man because, for his sake, she was created by God the Lord as his helper for the propagation of the human race (I. 92. 1).” - Fr. Gallus Maria Manser, O.P. Read the full essay at The Journal of American Reform.

My newest essay is up for Integrity Magazine. Taylor Marshall’s shifting ecclesiology: Is he abandoning the ‘Recognize and Resist’ position? https://integritymagazine.org/2026/08/07/taylor-marshalls-shifting-ecclesiology-is-he-abandoning-the-recognize-and-resist-position/