For sedevacantists, it is Katie bar the door at the next conclave. A stubborn refrain from a subset of Catholic traditionalists accompanied the press’s bedside vigil during Pope Francis’s hospitalization. The narrative was elementary: Francis is in error. He has signaled heretical attitudes. Moreover, the Saint Gallen Gang short-circuited divine guidance by lobbying the 2013 conclave for Francis’s benefit. Thus, he is not really the pope. The Chair of Peter stands empty. It follows, then, that all of Francis’s appointments to the cardinalate are invalid. Continue Reading

Luce: Mascot of Vatican Surrender to Pop Culture

Maureen Mullarkey

January 13, 2025

Luce is the name of the official mascot/logo for Rome’s 2025 Jubilee. A kitschy cartoon pilgrim derived from the cult-of-cute in Japanese comic books and animation, it is the brainchild of the Dicastery for Evangelization. Artificially child-like, Luce signals Vatican surrender to the hegemony of Pop culture. Competing for ratings in an image-saturated culture—one that values spectacle over argument—Mother Church has to entertain the customers. She needs to lighten up, lift her hems a bit, and show a little ankle. That means renovating the Church’s traditional symbolic system. Continue Reading

Trump, Thanksgiving, & the Puritan Mind

Maureen Mullarkey

December 1, 2024

Politics is outside the bailiwick of Studio Matters. Yet election of the once-and-future President Trump was so remarkable, so exhilarating in its implications, celebration is mandatory. There should be dancing in the streets. Fireworks, too . But all I have is words. Permit me, please, just a few of them. Just this once. It was June, 2015, when Donald Trump came down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his run for the presidency. I scoffed at the news. Continue Reading

Ripperger, Exorcism, et al., Part 2

Maureen Mullarkey

September 30, 2024

Catholic televangelism is not what it was when Fulton Sheen pioneered it. In the following clip from a 2023 segment of the Chris Stefanick Show, Ripperger appears authoritative, reasonable, and self-assured. It is the demeanor of a tenured prof holding forth in the faculty lounge. “Demons understand human psychology the same way St. Thomas does,” the prof intones. That ought to have been a howler. But no. Chris Stefanick is dazzled at Ripperger’s facile equivalence between Thomistic theology and “cutting edge psychology”—neither of which he demonstrates any acquaintance with. Continue Reading

Chad Ripperger: Cautionary Notes

Maureen Mullarkey

September 28, 2024

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a publicity-conscious demonologist everything stinks of sulphur. Fr. Chad Ripperger is a celebrity exorcist with a vigorous following in certain Catholic circles. His disapproval of the Harry Potter series is well known among fellow traditionalists. He deems Harry Potter a wizard of dark magic, a caster of real spells and, consequently, a baneful influence. It is an odd stance for a man with a bent for soft-core spell casting himself. Prior to the 2020 election, Ripperger recommended two prayers for “breaking oppression and sending evil back before the election is called.” Continue Reading