As of this post, the manuscript for my book, The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God ., is being edited by the publisher, Xulon Press  I hope to list a publication date soon, and it will be available through amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as Xulon...

Today a growing number of the young people I teach do not accept Church teaching on marriage, believing that so-called same sex marriage is a civil right, much as is free speech. Above is a video I plan to use in my classes, which is very timely in our current political environment.

If one truly wanted to celebrate Vatican II, one would not turn to the dissident Jesuit magazine America . Notice the authors, none of whom were present at the council, as was our present Holy Father  who is my choice when it comes to learning about the Second Vatican Council. Let us pray for these dissenters, who cannot see that their subjective vision for the Church is fading, fading, fading....

There is no shortage of media coverage, punditry, horse racing, issue ads, and blogging on the upcoming election. How is one who accepts Christ as King to also exercise one's civic responsibility in choosing our governmental leaders?  The best statement I have seen addressing this is the following by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput: (take it to heart):   "The way we lead our public lives needs to embody what the Catholic faith teaches -- not what our personalized edition of Christianity feels comfortable with, but the real thing; the full package; what the Church actually holds to be true.  In other words,  we need to be Catholics first and political creatures second.   "The more we transfer our passion for Jesus Christ to some political messiah or party platform, the more bitter we feel toward his Church when she speaks against the idols we set up in our own hearts.  There’s no more damning moment in all of Scripture than John 19:15:...

I began my book by taking note that many Catholics after Vatican II were told by pastors, curates, religious or theologians that the sacred council had changed certain aspects of Catholic theology or practice, and consequently had never read the documents of Vatican II for themselves. So it is good to see the  popular Catholic  press publishing recent orthodox works on the council, but I still am of a mind that  Catholics   so as not to be hoodwinked, should read the documents for themselves! The manuscript is currently receiving a copy edit, and so I anxiously await the completion of the process, and...publication!

In the Smoke of Satan I have woven throughout my narrative Catholic teaching on spiritual warfare. While we should not see the Devil under every rock, we must remember with St. Peter that he does prowl about, seeking to devour us- why make it easier for him ?

Chapter 3 of my book fondly recounts childhood memories of attending daily Mass, said then in what today is referred to as the Extraordinary Form. Here is a piece on the likelihood of the Holy Father offering his first public Mass in the Old Rite....

In Chapter Three I discuss how the pill has contributed in no small way to the oversexualization of American culture, resulting in, among numerous other vices, the objectification of the human female. A tree is known by its fruit....

Overview of Manuscript: The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God by Timothy Wallace Taking as his point of departure Pope Paul VI’s observation that seven years following the close of the Second Vatican Council conditions in the Church were such that it was as if “the Smoke of Satan has entered the Temple of God,” the author recounts how it was that the misimplementation of the council’s documents resulted in the emergence of what Henri De Lubac termed “a different Church from that of Jesus Christ,” all under the guide of updating ( aggiornamento ) and renewal. Pope Paul was of the mind that by 1972 the greatest need in the Church was to be defended against the adversary power of darkness, the Devil. For the Pope the unmistakable signs of the Evil One’s penetration of the Church were a vast undermining of Catholic moral teaching (particularly sexual morality), the ideological seduction of fashionable theological errors (particularly neomodernism) which spawned doctrinal uncert...

I anxiously await publication of my now complete an edited manuscript  of my book, which this blog has since the beginning of the year previewed. God willing, it should be out in the very near future, and available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and of course the publisher, Xulon Press. I promise to postupdates in this space...

Recently Jimmy Akin posted on his blog an analysis of Paul VI's Smoke of Satan Homily, which, having authored  book on the wisdom of the homily, is spot on. In Chapter 1 I write: During the course of my research for this book, Cardinal Virgilio Noe, the chief Vatican liturgist during the pontificate of Paul VI, in an interview with the Roman Petrus website, related that when Paul spoke of the “smoke of Satan” entering the Catholic Church, he was referring to liturgical abuses. In that denunciation, he said, the Pope “meant to include all those priests or bishops and cardinals who didn’t render proper worship to the Lord, celebrating Holy Mass badly because of an errant interpretation of the implementation of the Second Vatican Council.” While I agree this was indeed a concern, I believe that the Holy Father’s subsequent remarks on this subject discussed above do not take away from the book’s argument, and, were the Pope alive, he would agree with his former master of cerem...

It is said that Napoleon said to the Pope, "I will destroy the Church in one year."  The response of a cardinal to Napoleon was, "Sir, we have been trying to destroy the Church for 1800 years I doubt that you will be able to destroy it in one."  The cardinal's response to Napoleon show that of course the Church was founded on weak humans.  The cardinal was not saying that the clergy or church faithful were trying to destroy the Church on purpose but rather their sinful humanity would destroy the Church if it was not founded by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit.  If it were not for the guidance of the Holy Spirit these weak human popes, preists and lay people surely would have destroyed the Church, but the fact is that the gates of hell will never destroy the Church the Truth. Hence, the silliness of Martini's complete lack of the transcendent (and the National Catholic Reporter's, for that Matter)....

In Chapter 5 of The Smoke of Satan , I wrote: I am one of the generational Catholics schooled in the Faith by the teaching of the Baltimore Catechism prior to Vatican II, which the postconciliar religious education establishment had branded as defective pedagogy; my quarrel with them is not over their contention concerning the style of teaching, but rather their view that the truths of the Catholic faith on the existence and nature of God, the creation and Fall, the Incarnation and Redemption, and the Church set down in the Baltimore Catechism were defective as well. Vatican II’s Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church mandated for the future that a “directory should be composed concerning the catechetical instruction of the Christian people; this directory will consider the fundamental principles of such instruction, its disposition and the composition of books on the subject,” taking care that particular attention should be given to the views expressed...