The Practical Parson

 Recently, the Society of Saint Pius X has garnered international attention and criticism, for seemingly going against the Roman Catholic church in consecrating 4 new bishops to serve their numerous parishes, schools, and other institutions.  The Vatican announced that the entire society was now excommunicated; and publicly charged/ accused the SSPX of an act of Schism.  Now anyone who is connected with one of the historical churches understands and agrees that Schism is something that should be avoided at all costs, as it is a division within the b body of the faithful; something which should always be avoided when  possible.  However, when Schism occurs, the blame game begins; and often it is not who is "in the right", but rather who is LOUDEST that gets to accuse the other of the crime.  I would argue that, far from being the Mother church of Unity, Rome itself is the creator of Schism and division in much of church history.  Now this should not be ...

 As the clock ticks down to the planned episcopal consecrations by the Society of Saint Pius X on July 1st, there is a lot of philosophical grandstanding taking place across social media and religious news outlets.  The majority of Roman Catholic outlets and clergy seem to tow the predictable line that the SSPX is going to be straying into schism because of 'disobedience to the pope', an assumption presumably confirmed by the current bishop of Rome's own words on the matter this week at Castel Gandolfo.  The entirety of the assumption of schism centers around the SSPX's rejection of the majority of what has come to be attributed to the Second Vatican Council, although no one can ever quite cite what source from the council documents they proclaim the SSPX to be in revolt on.   At the very heart of the matter is, in plain fact; the very issue that the Roman church takes with other sacramental churches: liturgy and intent.  These 2 issues can be summed up qui...

Today, possibly one of the world's most pointless and impotent organizations voted to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.  They decried the "humanitarian" crisis which they claim Israel has perpetrated on the people living in Gaza, and demand an immediate ceasefire.  The secretary General of the UN claims he has never before encountered such a horrendous situation and loss of civilian lived on his watch as secretary general. In total, there are 13 (registered) major wars/ armed conflicts currently ongoing across the globe. On the continent of Africa alone, millions of lives have been lost to civil war and Islamist terrorist uprisings for over 25 years.  In the north of the European continent, of course we have the Russian-Ukrainian war which has been going on for almost 2 years at this point.  Do you want to know what every other war or armed conflict in the world has in common, not shared with the Israel-Hamas conflict?   A United Nations resolution demanding a ce...