Every morning Saint Francis de Sales recommends meditating on this:
God had no need for you, yet He made you.
He made you out of nothing.
He did not need you, and you do not add to Him
Yet out of nothing, He made you solely out of Love.
Consider also the times you’ve betrayed God, but specifically how He brought you back when you repented…
He had no need to bring you back, but He did.
Solely out of His immense love for you, and you in particular.
Remember that God loves you.
- @BeSaintly
Monsignor Nicholas Bux is a priest and theologian whose work has spanned academia, pastoral ministry and service to the Roman Curia. Born in Bari, southern Italy, in 1947 into a modest family, he studied at the Pontifical Gregorian University before being ordained in 1975 by Archbishop Anastasio Ballestrero, the Discalced Carmelite archbishop later known for overseeing the first modern scientific examination of the Shroud of Turin in 1978.
A specialist in Eastern liturgy and sacramental theology, he obtained a doctorate at the Pontifical Oriental Institute and went on to teach in his native Bari, Jerusalem and Rome. His service to the Holy See began under Pope John Paul II, who appointed him a consultant to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A collaborator of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, he contributed to synodal preparations and Eucharistic texts, and later served during Benedict XVI’s pontificate in roles connected to synodal assemblies and papal liturgies.
AV: Monsignor Bux, since leaving Rome and your responsibilities in the Roman Curia, what have you been doing? How have you been spending your time? Are there any particular projects, writings or pastoral activities you are currently working on? How did your work and apostolate develop following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, particularly during the pontificate of Pope Francis?
Monsignor Nicholas Bux: After concluding my collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff upon Benedict XVI’s resignation, I continued working until 2019 with the Congregation for the Causes of Saints and until 2021 with the Congregation for Divine Worship. Having reached the age limit for teaching theology in a faculty, I have continued giving conferences in Italy and abroad, and publishing on topics related to Eastern liturgy, ecclesiology and ecumenism.
During the pontificate of Pope Francis, in which the Magisterium experienced a serious crisis, I devoted myself to explaining the reasons why one must remain in the Church, resisting despotic forms and avoiding the mistake of placing oneself outside it. By dying within the Church – like the grain of wheat that falls to the earth – one contributes to overcoming the crisis and renewing it. Together with theologian friends, we promoted the Scuola Ecclesia Mater, an Italian network of clerics and laity, with study sessions and spiritual exercises.
Along with Cardinals Caffarra, Brandmüller, Burke and Sarah, we continue to advance the idea and practice of the “reform of the reform” of the liturgy and the Church according to the thought of Pope Benedict, as well as the international Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage at the end of October in Rome.
I can say, in light of the Pope’s latest address to the French bishops, that we were right.
AV: Looking back on the years spent in the Curia, particularly your service at the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, what were the most significant challenges or moments you faced?
NB: In 2009, after a plenary meeting of the Congregation that had decided to propose to the Pope the inclusion in the Missal of certain rites from the Vetus Ordo Missae – for example, the Offertory, to be used ad libitum – the news was leaked by someone, and an alarm was sounded by those who feared an attack on the post-conciliar liturgical reform, so everything was stopped.
Another issue we began to address was that of mega-concelebrations. The rite of concelebration promulgated by Paul VI in 1965 prescribed no more than 50 concelebrants so that they could “stand around the altar”, even if not all could immediately touch the altar table and pronounce the words of consecration over the bread and wine. These are the intention and external action required for a true concelebration and simultaneous consecration. Otherwise, saying “This is my body … this is the chalice …” does not correspond – to use the liturgists’ terms – to the truth of the sign, because one should say “That is my body …”
These are the conditions for the validity of a concelebrated Mass, so that it is sacramental and not merely a ceremony, as Pius XII affirmed. The limit set by Paul VI has disappeared in the current Missal, so doubts arise about the validity of the celebration when the number of concelebrants overflows the presbyteral area or when it takes place outdoors in enormous spaces, where non-liturgical equipment of the concelebrants is added – hats, sunglasses, water bottles and cameras.
More: https://x.com/realadvaticanum/status/2052321082980680092?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w
In the United States, the Catholic Church is facing a silent decline in vocations. An underlying question is: Can the Church regain its vitality without placing the sacred and Tradition at the heart of its mission?
For two decades, priestly ordinations in the United States have been plagued by chronic stagnation. It is a kind of plateau that actually masks a profound decline. While there were approximately 454 ordinations in 2005, the figure for 2025 is projected to reach a paltry 428. Over the past twenty years, the number of new priests has consistently fluctuated between 450 and 550 per year.
This figure might appear stable to a casual observer. Yet, it represents a true demographic low. To compensate for the retirement and death of the massive "baby boom" generation, the American Church would need 1,000 ordinations annually.
With less than half the necessary numbers, the priesthood is shrinking: from 42,000 priests in 2005, the United States now has only 34,000. This silent hemorrhage testifies to a crisis that discourses on inclusion struggle to conceal.
The report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) details the origins of the priests to be ordained this year in the United States: 62% are white, 17% Hispanic or Latino, and 11% Asian. African Americans make up only 5%. 74% were born in the United States. 5% come from Vietnam, 3% from Mexico, 2% from Colombia, and 16% from other countries.
The pool of vocations remains quite classic: 79% of future priests indicated that they had been active in parish life as altar boys, youth activity leaders, or catechists. For 70% of them, the figure of the parish priest they attended played a major role in their vocation.
CARA also notes that 93% of those preparing for ordination were baptized Catholic at a very young age. In 86% of cases, both their parents were Catholic. Only 7% converted to Catholicism later in life. 28% of those preparing for ordination had a parent who was a priest or religious. 96% have one or more siblings.
How can we explain the observed decline? It is clear that a significant portion of the American episcopate seems to have succumbed to internal secularization.
By prioritizing social themes (unconditional defense of migrants, integral ecology, or the fight against climate change) at the expense of preaching about the last things and holiness, the Church has sometimes transformed itself into a kind of confessional NGO, a phenomenon that the late Pope Francis denounced — paradoxically — in his time.
When some bishops systematically relay voices opposed to the actions of the Trump administration, they often forget that the heart of the priesthood does not consist primarily in managing migration flows, but first and foremost in the salvation of souls.
In the United States, as on the other side of the Atlantic, the future of Catholicism lies not in surrendering to the spirit of the times, but in rediscovering Tradition. The few American dioceses whose seminaries are filling up are those that are following this trend.
(Source : cath.ch – FSSPX.Actualités) Illustration : Flickr / Diocese of Sacramento (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
You may have heard the rumors recently that, should the Society of St. Pius X go through with consecrating new bishops in July, the Vatican plans to excommunicate not only the bishops involved, but every single priest of that society as well. You may also know that the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X have appealed to a state of emergency in the Church to justify the consecrations in defiance of Rome’s wishes, stating that the salvation of souls takes precedence over obedience to the Holy See. The Vatican denies this, seeing only disobedience and, apparently, the intention to start a “new” church in the proposed consecrations; it is this charge of schism, of intending to break away, which is the given reason for the excommunication.
What I find interesting in this dispute is the whole notion of a “state of emergency.” I do not know if it has a specific meaning in canon law, about which I am wholly ignorant, but I do know that it is largely a political term of art, referring to when the normal workings of government, the constitution, are suspended or some sort of calamity has rendered their operations null and void. It has a history in civic legal systems, but alas, I am ignorant of those as well. Perhaps there is some esoteric reason for it that I am simply too ignorant to understand, but the assertion that the Church is obviously not in a state of emergency seems—well, it seems deranged to the point of madness, as of someone who is suffering a psychotic break with reality.
More: https://x.com/pontificatormax/status/2051661883489308761?s=46&t=IydJ-X8H6c0NM044nYKQ0w
