Bricolage and the Battle for the Catholic Imagination Catholicism has always possessed a vivid symbolic imagination. The Church embraces a sacramental worldview, filled with signs and mysteries — miracles, apparitions, relics, saints, and sacred gestures...

New one by me. I trace the roots of today’s Catholic outrage machine, from post–Vatican II prophecy culture to online conspiracy networks, and show how “bricolage” thinking helps explain why certain narratives spread so fast on Catholic social media.

wherepeteris.com/bricolage-an...

The SSPX: Could It Have Gone Any Other Way? Update: The SSPX has formally declined the offer of dialogue. Last Wednesday, I published a backgrounder on the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), in which I attempted to lay out why the SSPX’s planned con...

The Vatican offered the SSPX dialogue. The SSPX (updated) said no.

A look at five decades of refusal — and why antisemitism, abuse, and an unrepentant culture make reconciliation impossible and probably undesirable.

wherepeteris.com/the-sspx-cou...

Bricolage and the Battle for the Catholic Imagination Catholicism has always possessed a vivid symbolic imagination. The Church embraces a sacramental worldview, filled with signs and mysteries — miracles, apparitions, relics, saints, and sacred gestures...

New one by me. I trace the roots of today’s Catholic outrage machine, from post–Vatican II prophecy culture to online conspiracy networks, and show how “bricolage” thinking helps explain why certain narratives spread so fast on Catholic social media.

wherepeteris.com/bricolage-an...

Bricolage and the Battle for the Catholic Imagination Catholicism has always possessed a vivid symbolic imagination. The Church embraces a sacramental worldview, filled with signs and mysteries — miracles, apparitions, relics, saints, and sacred gestures...

A long read but Mike Lewis has something here in this analytical framework drawing from Lévi-Strauss. Recommended.

"John Paul II insisted that truth requires unity of faith and reason — precisely the unity that bricolage disrupts"

wherepeteris.com/bricolage-an...

Concerns Over Archbishop Coakley’s Election as USCCB President BALTIMORE — In a closely contested vote at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) fall plenary assembly in Baltimore on November 11, 2025, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City was ele...

This is an excellent piece by @mfjlewis.bsky.social... Really hard to believe @usccbofficial.bsky.social's commitment with migrants...
wherepeteris.com/concerns-ove...

Straight Answers: The Reasons Behind Restricting the Latin Mass Traditionalists often argue that Traditionis Custodes and diocesan limitations on the Tridentine Mass are unnecessary, punitive, and directed at sincere Catholics who only want to worship as their anc...

Time for some real talk.

Many Catholics devoted to the Tridentine Mass believe the recent restrictions are arbitrary or unjust—but the reasons behind them are real, concrete, and specific, and those reasons may be hard for some to hear.

wherepeteris.com/straight-ans...

Straight Answers: The Reasons Behind Restricting the Latin Mass Traditionalists often argue that Traditionis Custodes and diocesan limitations on the Tridentine Mass are unnecessary, punitive, and directed at sincere Catholics who only want to worship as their anc...

Time for some real talk.

Many Catholics devoted to the Tridentine Mass believe the recent restrictions are arbitrary or unjust—but the reasons behind them are real, concrete, and specific, and those reasons may be hard for some to hear.

wherepeteris.com/straight-ans...

This is just textbook 1930’s fascism

False orthodoxy and fired professors Catholic social media has been abuzz in recent days over the news that three professors at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit were dismissed from the faculty by Archbishop Edward Weisenburg. Eduardo Ech...

The removal of three outspoken critics of Pope Francis from Sacred Heart Seminary exposes a deeper crisis in the U.S. Church—where dissent from the Magisterium is masked as fidelity and ideology masquerades as orthodoxy.

wherepeteris.com/false-orthod...

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to cancel nearly half a billion dollars in federal funding for mRNA vaccine development is the "most dangerous public health decision" ever, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm said.

False orthodoxy and fired professors Catholic social media has been abuzz in recent days over the news that three professors at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit were dismissed from the faculty by Archbishop Edward Weisenburg. Eduardo Ech...

The removal of three outspoken critics of Pope Francis from Sacred Heart Seminary exposes a deeper crisis in the U.S. Church—where dissent from the Magisterium is masked as fidelity and ideology masquerades as orthodoxy.

wherepeteris.com/false-orthod...

"Ultimately, The Sacred Heart: A Love for All Times by Dawn Eden Goldstein is more than a book about a devotion; it’s a heartfelt invitation to draw closer to Jesus Christ, whose Sacred Heart remains open to each of us."
— @mfjlewis.bsky.social in @wherepeteris.com. wherepeteris.com/rediscoverin....

I see that the Bishop of Winona-Rochester has announced and named his quarrel with "the extreme Catholic left." I presume he means the "woke" Catholics.

It is embarrassing to explain this but there is no Catholic left. Left and woke aren't ontological categories and a bishop owes his care to...

My Sister’s Heart One of the most formative events of my life happened a year before I was born. When she was about six weeks old, my sister Katie—my parents’ firstborn, the answer to prayer after years of infertility—...

Today is the fourth anniversary of the death of my dear sister Kate. I wrote this two days after she died.

wherepeteris.com/my-sisters-h...

I think each of them revealed their true colors. I was initially a fan of all three, but each of them eventually showed that deep down their ego came first.

“What’s wrong with the Church in your country?” Last year, I spent two weeks in Rome. During my visit, I met with many interesting people from all around the world, from Church officials to Vatican journalists to clergy and seminarians working and ...

As I wrote several years ago.

wherepeteris.com/whats-wrong-...

Spain and Mexico have a few movements but mostly, yes.

Trump’s Salvadoran Gulag To be deported, one does not need to be a drug dealer or a terrorist; apparently, having tattoos and being Venezuelan is enough.

“To be deported by Trump, one does not need to be a drug dealer or a terrorist; apparently, having tattoos and being Venezuelan is enough,” @adamserwer.bsky.social writes:

Schism is "the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff." They are well past that point. So the question is whether the Church will actually do anything. It's extremely rare for the Church to act.

Personally, I think (just my opinion) they have both automatically excommunicated themselves.

I don't think these characters are salvageable. Obviously the Church will go on. But there's obviously big money funding a schism.

Strickland, Altman, and the Making of a Parallel Church Recent videos uploaded to YouTube have revealed that on March 20, 2025, Bishop Joseph Strickland, emeritus of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, celebrated a public Mass at Mary, Mother of the Light Maronit...

Everything is bonkers here in the Catholic Church in the United States.

wherepeteris.com/strickland-a...

I figured it out.

I think it needed to be retranslated because it was really inaccurate - not just the people's parts but the prayers of the priest.

I think the failed 1998 translation sounded better because it was in actual English. But they inserted ideological changes too, and that sunk it.

In the Latin Mass, they also elevate the host and chalice AFTER the consecration, not during, so it's like you miss the whole thing as it's happening.

It's interesting but there are a few elements that I prefer in the current Mass. For example, being able to see, hear, and pray along with the priest during the Eucharistic prayer. In the TLM, he whispers it in Latin with his back to you.

The ideology extends far beyond the liturgy. My guess is that most of the people in the anti-Francis movement don't actually go to the Latin Mass. They just like the idea of it.

Strickland did toss in some chant and there was incense, if I recall correctly. But my guess is that the music and so forth is what the congregation is used to.

It's a Novus Ordo guitar Mass held in a Maronite Church.

Strickland, Altman, and the Making of a Parallel Church Recent videos uploaded to YouTube have revealed that on March 20, 2025, Bishop Joseph Strickland, emeritus of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, celebrated a public Mass at Mary, Mother of the Light Maronit...

Everything is bonkers here in the Catholic Church in the United States.

wherepeteris.com/strickland-a...