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From the NOR Dossiers

New Oxford Notebook by Pieter Vree

Transanity Is Taking Over. How Will the Church Respond?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

January-February 2024

Gender ideologues are at work in the Church -- no surprise. That they occupy positions of power and speak with authority is, however, cause for great concern.

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...And Justice for Some

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

November 2023

Catholic monuments, Catholic buildings, and Catholics themselves will continue to be attacked but the attackers have little to fear from the law.

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The Latest Episode of the Francis Follies

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

October 2023

We resist the urge to parse every questionable utterance that issues from the Pope’s mouth because the exercise is exhausting and not a little discouraging.

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The Woke Ethic & the Spirit of Protestantism

ON FERVENT & MANIC BUSYBODIES

Pieter Vree

September 2023

The woke project, like much of Protestantism, is led by a self-selected group of “the Elect” who see themselves as arbiters of excellence in moral matters.

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A Terrible Forgetting

ECONOMIC STRIVING CARRIES A GRAVE RISK

Pieter Vree

June 2023

The greatest factors for maximizing religious commitment seem to be poverty and persecution, and for minimizing religious commitment: wealth and security.

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Our Future Foretold

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

April 2023

Twice as many Hispanic Catholics do not attend Mass after the pandemic as before. Weren’t they the ones who were supposed to revive American Catholicism?

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Preaching Christ Customized

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

January-February 2023

To the list of things Jesus could have been but wasn’t, there is now one more to add: A new movement would recast Our Lord as a transgender woman.

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The Pontifical Academy for What?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

December 2022

The Academy for Life’s horizons are so broad that it seems to have lost sight of its mission to promote and defend the Church’s pro-life teachings.

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Is America Under Divine Interdict?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

October 2022

John Paul II wrote of political superpowers that all-consuming pursuit of profit and power are “forms of modern imperialism” and “real forms of idolatry.”

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Neocon Hubris & the Battle for Ukraine

EVER THE WARMONGERS

Pieter Vree

September 2022

Pat Buchanan warned in 1999 about expanding NATO to include Ukraine: “By moving NATO onto Russia’s front porch, we have scheduled a 21st-century confrontation.”

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The Great Deformer

ON THE FINAL PHASE OF FRANCIS'S TURBULENT PAPACY

Pieter Vree

July-August 2022

When Pope Francis told millions at the 2013 World Youth Day to "make a mess," he was also describing the modus operandi of his papacy.

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A Synod on What?

AN AMORPHOUS & ILL-DEFINED TERM AND EVENT

Pieter Vree

April 2022

How can the Synod on Synodality be a rebalancing of ecclesial powers? It is, after all, the brainchild of the most powerful of ecclesial figures.

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A Time of Reckoning

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

January-February 2022

The priestly sex-abuse scandal will bring the Church in America to the same sad state as her counterpart in France: discredited and depopulated, a shell of her former self.

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Traditionis Custodes: Taking a Bulldozer to an Anthill

TRADITIONALISTS AND POPE FRANCIS

Pieter Vree

October 2021

There are no protagonists in the latest liturgical drama, only antagonists. Nobody comes out clean, neither traditionalists nor Pope Francis.

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Some Dare Call It Schism

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

July-August 2021

The German Church has launched a program of reforms with elements that, if approved by the bishops’ conference, would contradict longstanding Catholic teaching.

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Dispatch from the Dead Letter Office

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

May 2021

The McCarrick report is a historical accounting that doesn’t hold anyone accountable, and it will have no practical consequences.

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Imbergoglios or Standard Franciscan Procedure?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

March 2021

Pope Francis is entitled to his opinions, and he’s not shy about sharing them in front of microphones. But his opinions don’t equate to magisterial pronunciations.

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Love on Trial

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

December 2020

The Episcopal Church contorts its theology to conform to the broader culture, but the culture has no real use for a Christianity remade in its image.

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Religious Persecution Is Rising. Do Catholics Care?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

November 2020

Our struggles in the U.S. are a far cry from the hard persecution that our coreligionists elsewhere in the world face on a routine basis.

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The Fires This Time

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

October 2020

July was a cruel month for attacks on Catholic churches. But the mother of them all wasn’t an act of destruction; it was an act of desecration, a hostile takeover of a former Catholic cathedral.

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Will the Coronavirus Lockdowns Usher in a Mustard-Seed Church?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

September 2020

The willful suppression of the sacraments by Catholic leaders could portend the diminution of the Church in both numbers and influence.

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Spendthrift Shepherds & Pervert Priests: Where Are They Now?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

June 2020

Here we follow-up on some disgraced prelates and their inner circles who did the dirty work of covering fraudulent, criminal behavior.

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A Deficit of Heroes

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

May 2020

We must maintain an emotional distance even from those who project an aura of holiness. Often, God’s holy ones are known only to Him.

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“Love” Conquers All

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

April 2020

What a crazy, mixed-up world we live in where even polygamists claim their lifestyles are part of their 'identity' and who they were created to be.

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Million-Dollar Bishops

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

March 2020

It’s no coincidence that financial corruption walks hand in hand with sexual immorality. Where you find one, you’ll often find the other.

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The Vatican’s Filthy Lucre

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

January-February 2020

Peter’s Pence doesn’t solicit funds for financial speculation that fattens the Vatican’s investment portfolios; the fund shouldn’t be used that way.

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A Peek into Papal Priorities

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

December 2019

Here’s your Pope: When pagan idols are removed from a sacred space, he apologizes; when his belief in the divinity of Christ is questioned, he’s silent.

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A “Deeper Understanding” of the Priesthood?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

November 2019

No temporal or civilizational events can override the sacramental necessity of the Catholic priesthood’s being reserved to men.

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You Can Say That?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

September 2019

China could well be poised to inherit the earth that the U.S. once commanded — especially if our comparative student bodies are any indication.

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Father Figuring

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

July-August 2019

The Catholic Church's sex-abuse problem is caused by predators who wear clerical collars and who are protected by a clericalist culture.

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The Myth of Meritocracy

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

June 2019

A meritocracy fits America’s sense of itself as free from the class-based social structures that defined the European countries from which our predecessors fled.

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Wuerl, the Flesh & the Devil

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

March 2019

The whole Wuerl saga goes to show — yet again — that many of the leaders of the Church aren’t so much interested in professing the truth as they are in protecting their prestige.

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An Outcast Among Organization Men

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

December 2018

Few are the churchmen who are willing to speak publicly about the root cause of the sex-abuse crisis: the scourge of homosexuality in the priesthood.

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Ecce Papa Franciscus!

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

November 2018

The Pope has convened a summit for February with the presidents of all bishops’ conferences to discuss ‘protection of minors.’

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At Last, a Reckoning?

NEW OXFORD NOTEBOOK

Pieter Vree

October 2018

Archbishop Viganò has cracked open the Vatican cone of silence and exposed what might be a Church-wide cover-up of McCarrick’s crimes.

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