Father Rupert Mayer, the “Apostle of Munich”

In 1937, Rupert Mayer stood in his pulpit at St. Michael's Church in Munich and preached against Hitler.

By then, Germany had been a Nazi dictatorship for four years. Most priests remained silent. Most bishops tried to negotiate with the regime. Most Germans cheered. Mayer preached the opposite.

He was 61 years old—a Jesuit priest in a black cassock, standing on a wooden prosthetic leg. He had lost his original leg 21 years earlier. Here is how he got there.

Rupert Mayer was born in Stuttgart on January 23, 1876, the son of a prosperous merchant. He wanted to be a Jesuit from his teens, but at his father’s request, he became a diocesan priest first. He was ordained in 1899 at age 23, and a year later, he finally entered the Jesuit novitiate.

By 1912, he had settled in Munich, the city he would serve for the rest of his life. After World War I, Munich was a broken place—full of jobless veterans, hungry families, and people drifting in from the countryside with no housing or hope. Mayer went to work. He collected food and clothing, found jobs, and walked the streets at night to visit the poor. He walked, then hobbled, then walked again on that wooden leg.

He had lost his leg during the Great War. Having volunteered as a military chaplain, he served in field hospitals and the trenches across France, Poland, and Romania. On December 30, 1916, a grenade exploded near him, destroying his left leg. He was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class—the first priest to receive one of Germany’s highest military honors.

Back in Munich, he never stopped. By 1921, he was preaching at St. Michael's and celebrating Mass at the train station at 3:10 AM so workers could attend before their early shifts. The city began calling him "the Apostle of Munich."

Then came 1933. Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, and the Nazi Party began closing Catholic schools and trying to replace Christian identity with Nazi ideology. While much of the clergy stayed quiet to protect what they had, Mayer went straight to the pulpit. He preached against the Nazis by name, stating that a Catholic could not be a National Socialist and that Hitler’s racial theories contradicted the Gospel.

The Gestapo began sending informants to his sermons. In 1937, they ordered him to stop speaking in public altogether. He obeyed the letter of the law by avoiding rallies, but he returned to his pulpit and preached harder than ever.

He was arrested on June 5, 1937. At his trial, he told the judge: "Despite the ban imposed on me, I shall preach further, even if the state deems it a punishable act." He was given a suspended sentence, but he didn't stop. He was arrested a second time in 1938, then a third time in 1939. This time, the Gestapo tried to force him to break the seal of confession to reveal the names of Nazi opponents. Mayer refused.

At age 63, the one-legged priest was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and placed in solitary confinement. His health collapsed quickly. Fearing that his death in the camp would create a martyr, the Nazis moved him to Ettal Abbey under house arrest in 1940. For five years, he was forbidden to preach, leave, or receive visitors. He waited and prayed while his country destroyed itself.

On May 11, 1945, American soldiers liberated the Abbey. A U.S. officer personally drove Mayer back to the ruins of Munich. He climbed back into his damaged pulpit at St. Michael's and told the congregation: "Even a one-legged Jesuit, if it is God's will, can live longer than a 'thousand-year' dictatorship."

He spent his final months preaching reconciliation and forgiveness, refusing to call for revenge. On November 1, 1945, while preaching during Mass on All Saints' Day, he suffered a stroke and collapsed. He died within minutes, still in his vestments, still in his pulpit.

Mayer’s story matters because when most chose survival over witness, he chose the truth. He could have stayed quiet, but as he told a Gestapo interrogator, ....

"I cannot be silent. I am a priest."

In 1987, Pope John Paul II beatified Rupert Mayer in Munich. Today, while streets and schools in Bavaria bear his name, much of the world has forgotten him. He was the Iron Cross priest who fed the poor, refused to break the seal of confession, and outlasted a dictatorship. His legacy remains: a wooden leg that stood firm against the Reich.

SOURCE: Buzzing America on Facebook

“OnlyFans is a mortal sin”

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Also:

“Meanwhile, the Church:

"The only major US Church body that has expressly referenced OnlyFans by name is the US Catholic bishops (USCCB), who did so in order to condemn it."

@honestpollster, Mark Mitchell, of the Rasmussen report

Leo XIV: Between the social encyclical and the change of an era

by ANDREA GAGLIARDUCCI on 25 MAGGIO 2026 · 2 COMMENTS · in VATICAN

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical – a social encyclical – should have clarified whether a transition between the old and the new world truly took place. The impression, arising from several clues, is not only that the transition is yet incomplete, but that it has yet to begin.

What do we know so far from Magnifica Humanitas, Leo XIV’s first encyclical?

We know that the first social encyclical in history, written by another Leo, Leo XIII, was signed on May 15, the anniversary of Rerum novarum.

We know that this encyclical has as its subtitle “On the Safeguarding of the Human Person in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

We know it is to be presented by Cardinal Michael Czerny, who appears to have played a very significant role in the encyclical, and by Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, as well as by Christopher Olah, one of the co-founders of AI giant Anthropic.

We know this is a social encyclical.

Then we have the leaks, the unofficial information, which helps us understand how the encyclical will be structured. We know that the Italian edition will be long: 231 pages in volume, divided into five chapters and a conclusion, and covering 245 points.

And then we have expectations, fueled by rumors. It’s a social encyclical that takes a broad view of the entire theme of social doctrine, retraces it, seeks to trace continuity with history, and identifies a discontinuity within it. And this discontinuity was born precisely from the explosion of artificial intelligence.

The Holy See has never demonized technology, and it won’t do so now. But it has always maintained clear principles of social doctrine, from subsidiarity to solidarity, which certainly must be part of a world in which private companies are becoming more important than states, and personal profit risks being detrimental to the common good. That, too, is a crucial tenet of the Church’s social doctrine.

It’s easy to expect the encyclical to contain these specific references. It’s also easy to imagine that the theme of multilateralism, or the shared responsibility of states to contribute to the common good, will also be present. The Holy See has been pursuing, for years, a reform of the United Nations that is truly representative of all nations. Leo XIV, and with him the Holy See, has addressed the crisis of multilateralism in several speeches. Really, all the social teachings of the popes bear witness to this.

If these are likely to be the themes of the encyclical, one wonders how it is destined to have a real impact or contribute something new.

On the one hand, it is fair to note that popes should not introduce novelties at all but rather ensure continuity. True, but the continuity should create space for an innovative contribution, a new thought that, among other things, Leo XIV called for during his trip to Africa and that Cardinal Pietro Parolin evoked in celebrating the 325th anniversary of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the school of the pope’s ambassadors.

It is here, however, that we see how the transition from the old to the new world has not yet begun.

The encyclical is presented by two of the cardinals who most closely represent Pope Francis’s thinking, albeit in different ways. Czerny brought to the Vatican a particular sensitivity to migrants, combined with a love of popular movements and a closeness to the most politically progressive voices.  A Jesuit, naturally curious about the secular world, Czerny was Pope Francis’s right-hand man in managing a dicastery that had traditionally been, above all, intellectually vibrant, like the old Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Fernandez was Francis’s man, the first promoted by the pope and the last great friend to arrive in the Curia, even presented with an autographed letter from Pope Francis that highlighted what he was expected to do as “Guardian of the Faith.”

Leo XIV, in short, has relied on the Old Guard, and that could indicate either the persistent lack of a true generational change in the Vatican, or that Leo has yet to look to the future and therefore must rely on the past.

The risk is that an encyclical that should be a generational transition is actually still rooted not in the history of the Church, but in a particular pontificate.

And yes, I dare hope that the encyclical also touches on the issues of digital identity studied by Justice and Peace in the mid-1990s, or that it goes back in time to consider two documents on the 1986 global economic crisis from the same pontifical council. And again, I’d like to hope that it will be noted that in 1986, the UN declaration on the right to development called for the defense of integral human development, thus betraying the presence of a Catholic negotiator (from the Holy See? Who knows…) who had been quite successful.

The big problem, however, is that this historical perspective has been largely missing from Francis’s pontificate and risks being absent even in the first encyclical of this pontificate. It is a particularly long encyclical, and everything suggests it will be composed of countless quotations, attempting to provide continuity

Much will be interesting, but nothing will be new.

Thus, the first major act of Leo XIV’s pontificate risks being merely a declaration of intent, demonstrating, however, that Leo XIV is a pope of a new generation but still somewhat in the shadow of the old. This is an interesting fact, considering that, in his recently published Augustinian writings, Leo XIV’s thought appears in line with the history of the Church, but also personal, and in its own way innovative in its approach.

The big question is whether this encyclical will mark the end of an era or the continuation of one.

But there is a positive aspect. Since it is a very long text, everyone can read it and take from it what they see fit. Obviously, there will be manipulation on both sides. But it will also offer the opportunity to delve deeper into the Church’s thinking. Leo XIV obviously approves of the text and will even present it personally.

But one wonders whether this is a compromise text or the text Leo XIV really had in mind when he began the project.

We may be waiting for something further in the future to mark a real generational shift in thinking.

Piety Toward Tradition: Not a Choice but a Given

The difference between a Catholic mentality and a modern one

PETER KWASNIEWSKI

April 30, 2026

A person I was corresponding with once wrote that he was “wrestling within himself about what is the right attitude to take toward tradition.”

I replied: “Perhaps you were speaking rhetorically; for surely it is obvious that tradition is to be preserved unless there is a demonstrable corruption in it? And by that, I mean something like a typographer’s error in a printed missal (as happened commonly enough in the Renaissance period), or a legitimate custom distorted past recognition due to the superstition of a group of enthusiasts somewhere.”

The fact that in this post-Vatican-II period we tend to view tradition as problematic, as something to be “wrestled with” until we figure out what to do with it, is not a sign of our sophistication but a sign of our decadence.

Of course, tradition presents us with many challenges, and to that extent it should prompt us to wrestle with our own interpretation of events, symbols, and ideas. But tradition as such is something we should humbly stand before and learn from. We let it challenge us; we do not decide whether it should do so.

Piety and meekness

Fr. Matthew McCarthy, FSSP, once preached:

If we extend Augustine’s notion of pietyto include not only [accepting] the Scriptures but [accepting] the whole Catholic tradition, the pious do not condemn what they do not yet understand and thus render themselves unteachable, but rather offer no resistance—are meek—and thus can be formed by that tradition. And note the order: it is not on account of understanding that one embraces the tradition: rather, the meek and piousmust first be formed by the tradition to come to an understanding of it: understanding and wisdom are the highest and last of the gifts, preceded by piety….

Then, speaking of those who lack this piety, who set themselves up as judges over tradition, Father said, again citing Augustine:

They are not without influence in the highest levels of the Church. They are “rendered unteachable” and thus “venture to condemn that which seems absurd to the unlearned.” Masters of sophistry, dishonouring millennia of tradition, they set aside [in the new lectionary] not only the words of St Paul, but even of Our Lord Himself. As one commentator asked: “Do these men not fear God?”

We must combine piety toward our forefathers with meekness toward our inheritance, which excludes any revolutionary overthrow:

Meekness and piety are two facets of stability. On account of piety, the tradition directs successive generations to that perpetual and stable inheritance: and meekness, stability of desire, prevents being diverted from that end.

Choosing the island over the mainland

In his treatise Against the Donatists, St. Optatus of Milevis writes:

The Church is rightly called Paradise, but it belongs to the wide world. Nor do I pass over the fact that you have said openly that the Church is (as we believe) a Paradise—a thing which without doubt is true—a garden in which God sets His little trees. And yet you have denied to God His rich possessions by compressing His garden into a narrow corner, claiming without reason everything for yourselves alone. Surely the plantations of God, through different precepts, have different seeds. The just, the continent, the merciful, the virgins are spiritual seeds. Of these seeds God raises little plants in His Paradise. Grant to God that His garden be spread far and wide. Why do you deny to Him the Christian peoples of East and North, also those of all the provinces of the West and of innumerable islands—with whom you share no fellowship of communion—against whom you—few in number and rebels—are ranged, in isolation?

The attitude of the modern liturgist, who cuts off the witness and practice of Christian peoples of many centuries and provinces, choosing only his isolated narrow corner of modernity and claiming superior judgment over them, is in this respect identical to the Donatist’s attitude criticized by Optatus. Both the ancient Donatist and the modern liturgist are ecclesiological separatists, confiners, compressors, deniers.

More at Pelican + https://x.com/drkwasniewski/status/2049861503113650184?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w

BREAKING: “Leo XIV’s new encyclical makes Christ equivalent to mere human beings“

 ANALYSIS

A first look at Pope Leo's first encyclical 'Magnifica Humanitas.'

Pope Leo XIVAdri Salido/Getty Images

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Gaetano Masciullo

Mon May 25, 2026 - 5:53 am EDT

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — While Pope Leo’s new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas,tackles transhumanism and new technologies, it also departs from theological Tradition on issues such as human dignity and the doctrine of just war.

On May 25, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”) at 11 AM Italian time. In the lengthy document, the Pope argues that humanity today finds itself at a crossroads. We have a choice between building a new “Tower of Babel,” marked by self-sufficiency and the idolatry of profit, and rebuilding “Jerusalem,” a project of co-responsibility and communion under the gaze of God. However, the document presents problematic doctrinal elements, particularly the reaffirmation of the doctrine of infinite human dignity by Francis.

Despite its attention to Christ, the five-chapter encyclical is clearly oriented toward man and his dignity. In fact, by reaffirming Francis’ error of the infinite dignity of man, Leo XIV makes Christ and the human being — regardless of religion and state of grace — equivalent. In other words, Christ becomes the symbol of humanity:

For this reason, as a believer among believers, I invite everyone to contemplate, in the face of the Son of God, the grandeur of humanity that shines a light also on the era of AI. […] This human face is the fullness toward which history is moving. It is the mystery of “recapitulation”: the certainty that the Father has decreed to bring all things, those in heaven and those on earth, back to Christ, the one Head (cf. Eph 1:10). In this plan, nothing will be lost that is authentically human. Indeed, everything will be purified and reunited in the One, who gathers every fragment of life, every tear and every authentically human achievement, rescuing them from nothingness and delivering them, redeemed, to the Father.

The document explores the problem of artificial intelligence, but also addresses a wide range of anthropological, social, and political problems. The Pope identifies AI as an “accelerator” that places traditional social categories in crisis.

Magnifica Humanitas begins with a series of general principles from the Social Doctrine of the Church. Among these, in addition to the infinite dignity of man, are the notions of the common good and the universal destination of goods.

The first principle is the “State’s responsibility to ensure cohesion” among individuals and to “harmonize the different sectoral interests with the requirements of justice” so that society may have a “shared vision.”

The second is a guarantee to everyone of the use of natural resources and the products derived from them and also — in one of the document’s most innovative theses — “immaterial and cultural goods” such as patents, algorithms, digital platforms, technological infrastructures, and data. In other words, the encyclical suggests that all this should be state property, or at least strongly regulated by states. It should not be individual property in an absolute sense; Magnifica Humanitas assumes that public ownership of material goods guarantees a broader diffusion of the knowledge necessary for present-day development.

More: https://www.lifesitenews.com/analysis/breaking-leo-xivs-new-encyclical-makes-christ-equivalent-to-mere-human-beings/