A Catholic Take

November 13th, 2026 - A German cardinal says the quiet part out loud: ten years ago, a priest who could imagine ordaining women would never have been considered for bishop. "That's over now." Vatican journalist Michael Haynes joins Joe McClane to explain what Cardinal Reinhard Marx said in Munich, why it matters for every diocese waiting on a new bishop, and what the Church has already settled on the question.

Also with Haynes: Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former head of the Vatican's doctrine office, names "neo-socialist wokism" alongside communism and the French Revolution as a force set against Christianity, and warns against shrinking the Church into a humanitarian organization.

Then, Dr. Anthony Stine of Return to Tradition on two stories: a federal judge orders Iowa to let The Satanic Temple hold a holiday event in the State Capitol rotunda, and a Scottish archbishop is photographed beside the Grand Master Mason of Scotland at a Remembrance Sunday reception. What do Catholics owe the public square, and where is the line between civic courtesy and scandal?

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November 12th, 2026 - The Archdiocese of Portland has asked the laity to stop raising their hands, and to stop holding hands, during the Our Father at Mass. Its Office of Divine Worship says the orans posture belongs to the priest. Nick Cavazos of The Traditional Thomist joins Joe to explain what the Church's law says, where the practice came from, and why posture at Mass matters.

Then: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exposed the Soviet gulag and told the West, "Men have forgotten God." His grandson, Dmitri Solzhenitsyn, is a Russian Orthodox layman who has written a book on healing the thousand-year split between Rome and the Orthodox. He wants reunion, and he says it must come on Orthodox terms. Joe asks him the questions a Catholic has to ask.

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November 11th, 2026 -Did a Vatican cardinal just try to cancel what a pope personally granted? In July, a note from Cardinal Fernández's doctrine office said confessions heard and marriages witnessed by SSPX priests are invalid. Pope Francis granted those faculties himself. Now Die Tagespost reports that the Vatican's own legal office has tried several times to get the note corrected. Mark Lambert of Catholic Unscripted joins Joe to walk through what the July 2 note said, what Francis granted in 2015, 2016 and 2017, what Archbishop Arrieta said about who can undo a pope's act, and what a Catholic who went to an SSPX priest for confession should think right now.

Then, Dr. Janet Smith on Cardinal Joseph Bernardin: what do his admirers say, what do his critics say about the seamless garment and the bishops he promoted, and how should Catholics weigh grave accusations that have never been proven against a man who cannot answer them?

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November 10th, 2026 - The Archdiocese of Detroit is restructuring every one of its parishes, and draft plans could end weekend Mass at as many as 90 of them. When more than 600 Catholics from over 120 parishes rented a hall to learn

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November 9th, 2026 - Cardinal Joseph Zen, 94, wrote to the Church on the feast of St. Charles Borromeo and asked Pope Leo XIV to put a stop to the Synod on Synodality. Then, Jason Jones joins us on Israel's election: Eisenkot has the mandate, Netanyahu is fighting to stay, and the Iran war is still not over.

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November 6th, 2026 - Pope Leo XIV just made a theologian who criticized the Vatican's 2021 "no" to blessing same-sex unions an under-secretary in the Roman Curia, 17 days after naming her to the International Theological Commission. Mark Lambert of Regina Unscripted calls it "a growing incoherence." Plus, Dr. Anthony Stine asks why Latin Mass pilgrims were stopped at the obelisk in St. Peter's Square.

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November 5th, 2026 - Father Robert McTeigue, S.J. says some of the Church's leading men are "progressing us right off a cliff" - and he names Cardinal Fernández. Plus, Jesse Romero asks who lost the Catholic vote.

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November 4th, 2026 - Democrats took the House and the Senate. Abortion won in three of the four states where it was on the ballot. And the Catholic vote, which Trump carried in 2024, swung hard the other way. Nick Cavazos of The Traditional Thomist joins Joe McClane for both guest segments to go through what happened, why it happened, and what a faithful Catholic does now.

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November 3rd, 2026 - We welcome exorcist Fr. Carlos Martins to discuss Netflix’s new Catholic horror series, which follows "a group of Catholic schoolgirls involved in a drug-fueled initiation ritual that may summon the devil." What are the spiritual dangers of portraying demonic activity as entertainment, and what responsibility do filmmakers bear for the influence their work may have on young viewers? Plus, Michael Haynes of The Catholic Herald joins us to examine growing tensions among German bishops over their relationship with Pope Leo XIV. While former bishops’ conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing publicly criticizes the Pope, his successor, Bishop Heiner Wilmer, calls for full communion with Rome and rejects a separate German path. Which direction is the German Church really heading?

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November 2nd, 2026 - A Learjet 60 fell from 35,000 feet to a Palm Beach County road in about a minute on Sunday. Nine people died. In the final seconds of the air-traffic audio, under the mayday calls, a man's voice is praying the Our Father. On All Souls' Day, Fr. John Brancich, FSSP, on what a Catholic can do with sixty seconds – and what you should be doing now. First, one day before the midterms: Mike Koeniger on the House and Senate map, the polling fight, and Tucker Carlson's late-Sunday post claiming the Trump administration "may be within days of launching a nuclear strike on Iran." What he actually said, what nobody has confirmed, and what the Catechism says about it.

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