Announcing a Complete Guide to the Theology and Use of the Chapel Veil

Os Justi Press's latest release is a revised and expanded new edition of Anna Elissa's Mantilla: The Veil of the Bride of Christ, this time in full color. (It first came out 9 years ago in Indonesia and quickly become a favorite of many readers until it sold out; it was time for a superior presentation, with better distribution channels.)

Mantilla: The Veil of the Bride of Christ is the most thorough, insightful, and serene guide to veiling ever written—one that will equip you with answers to your own questions as well as the never-lacking questions of friends, relatives, and strangers.

Resting her account on Scripture and Tradition as interpreted by the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and papal, liturgical, and canon law texts, Anna Elissa—a wife, mother, psychiatrist, and lay Dominican—offers arguments of fittingness on behalf of veiling, responds to common objections against it, offers practical advice for choosing, wearing, and even designing mantillas, and shows how the veil contributes to a Eucharistic way of life that treats femininity as a gift, a treasure, and a mystery.

To illustrate and verify her points, Elissa presents a substantial collection of testimonials from women of all ages about their experience adopting and wearing the veil—and from men, too, including clergy, about why they value the practice and its return.

Appropriately for a work about the language of signs and beauty, Mantilla is graced with exquisite artworks in color.

In his foreword, Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Antonio Guido Filipazzi describes the book as a "beautiful surprise." Whether you are a long-time veiler, a skeptic of veiling, or simply curious to learn more, this is the book for you!

Paperback, 5" x 8", 152 pp. $16.95

(Hardcover and ebook also available.)

From Os Justi Press or any Amazon outlet.

New Book Defends All-Male Liturgical Ministry, Subdiaconate/Minor Orders, and the Proper Roles of Clergy and Laity

I’m pleased to announce the release of my latest book, Ministers of Christ: Recovering the Roles of Clergy and Laity in an Age of Confusion (Crisis Publications).

When this project was first conceived over a year ago, my initial idea was to write a critique of Paul VI’s attempted suppression of the subdiaconate and minor orders, of John Paul II’s permission of altar girls, and of Francis’s innovation of female “acolytes” and “lectors.” During its writing, however, the scope of the book considerably broadened to include a full-scale presentation and defense of the traditional sevenfold manifestation of Orders — priest, deacon, subdeacon, lector, acolyte, exorcist, and porter — together with an explanation of the distinct but mutually supporting roles of clergy and laity. In order to accomplish this, I stepped back further to look at the distinction and complementarity of the sexes in the order of creation and the order of redemption, a perspective that provides the ultimate foundation for the Church’s entire teaching on states of life, roles, and ministries. In this way the book serves as a response to the “gender madness” that has afflicted the world and has increasingly infected the Church.

Announcing the Establishment of a New Traditional Religious Order for Women: Filiae Laboris Mariae

(Rorate congratulates this community on their auspicious beginnings with a Solemn High Mass, and asks its readers to help spread the word among young ladies who may be searching for a traditional religious order with an active apostolate. Please note that the community has a new mailing address.)

ON JUNE 9th, 2017, with the permission of the local Ordinary, His Excellency Bishop James Vann Johnston, Jr., a new semi-contemplative traditional community of religious sisters will begin ad experimentum in the Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph. The beginning of the community and the entrance of the first two postulants will be celebrated with a Solemn High Mass in honor of Our Lady, Mother of Divine Grace, at Saint Mary’s Parish at Independence, MO, at 12:00 Noon.

The charism of the Filiae Laboris Mariae is to assist the Blessed Virgin Mary in her apostolic mission of bringing souls to Christ. Labor Mariae carries out its apostolic mission especially through prayer, above all liturgical prayer, and by making known the truth, goodness, and beauty of life in Jesus Christ in His Holy Church through works of the apostolate. The charism finds expression in three intimately connected ways or “labors,” because the sanctification of God’s people is Our Lady’s labor; it is her work, the work of the one who, clothed with the sun and crowned with twelve stars, still wails aloud as she labors to give birth (cf. Rev. 12:1-1). The threefold labor through which the members of Labor Mariae participate in Our Lady’s apostolic mission is:

EXCLUSIVE: BISHOP ATHANASIUS SCHNEIDER INTERVIEW WITH RORATE CAELISSPX; Women and foot washing; consecrating Russia; anti-pastoral bishops and much more

Last week, Rorate Caeli interviewed His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider, one of the most visible prelates working on the restoration of the traditional Latin Mass and faith, on numerous topics. 

In this wide-ranging interview, His Excellency thoughtfully expounded on issues critical to the Church in this great time of crisis. Read the entire interview so you don't miss His Excellency's thoughts on the current status of the SSPX, women's participation in the Mass and the washing of women's feet, whether Russia was ever truly consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Summorum Pontificum and anti-pastoral bishops and much, much more. 

All may reprint/repost this interview -- but you must credit Rorate Caeli. 

Click here to follow @RorateCaeli on Twitter

*NB: words in bold by Rorate for emphasis:

POST-SYNOD CHURCH & UNBELIEVERS IN THE HIERARCHY

Rorate Caeli: In the recent Synod, we will not know the legal impact it will have on the Church for some time, as it’s up to Pope Francis to move next. Regardless of the eventual outcome, for all intent and purposes, is there already a schism in the Church? And, if so, what does it mean practically speaking? How will it manifest itself for typical Catholics in the pews?

H.E. Schneider: Schism means according to the definition of the Code of Canon Law, can. 751: The refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with those members of the Church who are submitted to the Supreme Pontiff. One has to distinguish the defect in belief or heresy from schism. The defect in belief or heresy is indeed a greater sin than schism, as Saint Thomas Aquinas said: “Unbelief is a sin committed against God Himself, according as He is Himself the First Truth, on which faith is founded; whereas schism is opposed to ecclesiastical unity, which is a lesser good than God Himself. Wherefore the sin of unbelief is generically more grievous than the sin of schism” (II-II, q. 39, a. 2 c). 

The very crisis of the Church in our days consists in the ever growing phenomenon that those who don’t fully believe and profess the integrity of the Catholic faith frequently occupy strategic positions in the life of the Church, such as professors of theology, educators in seminaries, religious superiors, parish priests and even bishops and cardinals. And these people with their defective faith profess themselves as being submitted to the Pope. 

The height of confusion and absurdity manifests itself when such semi-heretical clerics accuse those who defend the purity and integrity of the Catholic faith as being against the Pope – as being according to their opinion in some way schismatics. For simple Catholics in the pews, such a situation of confusion is a real challenge of their faith, in the indestructibility of the Church. They have to keep strong the integrity of their faith according to the immutable Catholic truths, which were handed over by our fore-fathers, and which we find in in the Traditional catechisms and in the works of the Fathers and of the Doctors of the Church.   

Women's Fashions

Mater Castissima

Some excerpts from the writings of the late Don Vincenzo Cuomo, exorcist, (R.I.P. July 18, 2009) against the indecent fashions that are now spreading even into sacred places. Unfortunately, we rarely hear anyone today condemn these shameless fashions. We miss zealous priests like Don Giusppe Tomaselli, Don Lindo Ruotolo and Don Vincenzo Cuomo:

"Looking back at the summer season now over, we need to acknowledge, unfortunately, that nothing has improved with regard to women’s fashions, which have become increasingly more indecent. Nudism, these days, has even crossed the thresholds of our churches!

"There is a topic which has become taboo: women’s fashions. Who talks about it? Is it all acceptable? And if something isn’t acceptable, who should illuminate, rebuke and correct? Nudism, alas, has become increasingly more brazen and intrusive, fomented by [TV] shows, newspapers and billboard advertising […] We are now witnessing the globalization of immodesty, since the idea that a woman is not a woman if she isn’t provocative has taken root in [the minds] of the masses. It first began with the shortening of sleeves and then - sleeves disappeared altogether.