Some nuts and bolts.
First, a note a thanks to all of you who are sending e-mail to me. I can’t possibly answer all the e-mail: there is simply too much! So, please forgive me if you don’t get a response. Your e-mail reports and links are really helpful.
Second, the "stuttering" of the combox is still a problem. Perhaps part of the repeat posting can be avoided by clicking the SUBMIT button only once. I often compose comments in Notepad, btw, when I am afraid I might lose my text through a glitch.
Third, some of you have recently given donations through the Donation button on the left side bar. They are very helpful and I am grateful. You help keep my chin above the waves! Tomorrow I will take the latest list of donors with me to the altar: Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary – and remember you at the Memento of the Living.
Fourth, the PODCAzT stats are pretty good. I am waiting for another one to hit 1000 before I start making another. Though… my muse might seize me.
Finally, here is a brief snapshot of where my software says you may be connecting from. Don’t expect precision. I deleted entries like "United States".
Bondville, Illinois
Anchorage, Alaska
Dresden, Sachsen
Memphis, Tennessee
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Viola, Illinois
rd. Pest
Kastel Kamblelovac, Spl…
Rochester, Minnesota
Lavagna, Liguria
Brisbane, Queensland
Langsett, Barnsley
Millwood, New York
Paris, Ile-de-France
Goose Bay, Newfoundland
Chorley, Wigan
Pisa, Toscana
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Crawfordsville, Indiana
Saint Benedict, Oregon
Grand Junction, Colorado
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Schinnen, Limburg
East Dean, Wiltshire
Havant, Portsmouth
Charlottesville, Virginia
Windsor, Ontario
Langdon, North Dakota
Toledo, Ohio
San Jose, California
Odessa, Florida
South Jamesport, New York
Germantown, Maryland
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Seattle, Washington
Columbus, Ohio
Burbank, California
Plano, Texas
Bowie, Maryland
Atlanta, Georgia
Weston, Massachusetts
Venezuela
East Wenatchee, Washing…
Oakdale, Pennsylvania
Brisbane, Queensland
Langsett, Barnsley
Millwood, New York
Emmitsburg, Maryland
Velden, Limburg
Mesquite, Texas
Raleigh, North Carolina
Miami, Florida
Vienna, Virginia
South Bend, Indiana
Berkeley, California
Vass, North Carolina
Kansas City, Missouri
Irvine, California
Batavia, Ohio
Irving, Texas
Towson, Maryland
Beloit, Kansas
Livonia, Michigan
Stevenage, Norfolk
Germantown, Maryland
Denver, Colorado
Denton, Texas
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Cordova, Tennessee
Windsor, Ontario
Mesa, Arizona
Fort Collins, Colorado
Houston, Texas
Holmdel, New Jersey
Brighton, Michigan
Greensboro, North Carol…
Los Angeles, California
Brooklyn, New York
Calverton, New York
Brighton, Michigan
Franklin, Louisiana
Ottawa, Ontario
Washington, District of…
Naples, Florida
Kamloops, British Colum…
New York
Manassas, Virginia
Waverley, Massachusetts
Stevenage, Norfolk
Springfield, Virginia
Warren, New Jersey
Kingston, Ontario
Mount Clemens, Michigan
Cincinnati, Ohio
Lubbock, Texas
Campobello, South Carol…
Campbell, Victoria
Muskegon, Michigan
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Chicago, Illinois
Malanay, Pangasinan
Denver, Colorado
Kobersdorf, Burgenland
Stevenage, Norfolk
Loading ...
Yes! Finally made the list.
Hmmmm…. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia! I know there a number of readers from here.
College Station, TX here. Aggieland. Tradition-minded. Home of St. Mary’s Catholic Center, the Catholic beacon of the South. Send your kids here if you want them to keep their Catholic faith.
Father,
Any word from the Bishop of Dallas? You mentioned it a few days ago, I’m eagerly awaiting what he has to say :)
Dear Fr. Z,
RE: Stuttering
I have had the experience of posting on your blog, only to be told that what I wrote did not go through. However, I have found it often does go through, so I ignore the message and come back.
Any word from the Bishop of Dallas?
[Hmm, Jenny Z must be in Plano or Irving; I think that my server is in Mesquite.]
Yes, we are all waiting in joyful hope.
Father Z, I forget what causes that comment stuttering, as you call it, aside from hitting Submit more than once, but I think it was something to do with the anti-spam validation slowing stuff down, from what I remember of my own trials and errors with those. Do you use Akismet? That works really well.
Also, that comment box expanding off the right edge of the window is apparently a problem in some themes but not others, and for users of Internet Explorer (only?). The solution is for you, Fr Z, to go into your blog settings, to Presentation, Theme Editor, then click the link to the Comments.php file. Go down to the line where it says “textarea name=comment” and find in that line where it says “cols=90%” or whatever % it says. Change it from whatever percent to a plain number, like 60 or something, save it, and then see how it looks, and if it still does that. That should fix it.
Another suggestion: type your comment into the box and copy the entire text onto the clipboard before clicking submit. Then open another tab in your browser and let the submission grind away until it is done while you keep reading in the new tab. If something goes wrong with the submission, return to the comment box and paste the copied text back in.
A comment on the previous posting about the high altar being ripped out:
The article states that the priest DID receive permission from his bishop for the mass. The problem was that he actually said the mass in a neighboring diocese.
The article also claims that the bishop of the neighboring diocese has previously asserted that the traditional mass is “against the will of God”. I find that hard to believe, but that “booklet” from the dutch Dominicans is hard to believe too.
We may see more of this. Some bishops may resort to such tactics in order to try to thwart the traditional mass since they can no longer simply forbid it.
Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia here. Anway, jst saw the live broadcast of the Papal Mass in Austria, ugliest vestment ever seen on the Holy Father, it must have stressed him up to wear sumting that looks like it was designed and coloured by school childrens. Actualy, school kids can do better than that
The RSS feed is always delayed for some reason.
[Hmm, Jenny Z must be in Plano or Irving; I think that my server is in Mesquite.]
Plano-ish… sort of in between Plano and Dallas :)
Austria calling, and I must respectfully disagree with Patrick Jude’s rather uncharitable disparagement of the Papal vestments. I saw the broadcast too, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with those vestments unless one insists that anything not made in (or along the aesthetics of) the 18th/19th century is unacceptable by definition. Actually they were rather nice, and the entire Mass was a textbook example of how beautiful and reverent the NO Mass can be when it’s done right. Vivat Benedictus XVI!
Father I notice that Toronto seems to have been dropped from your list and yet I send in to this blog a couple of times a day. Quid feci tibi? aut in quo contristavi te? responde mihi.
May I ventrue to suggest that the stuttering is caused by the fact that when one hits “submit comment” nothing happens to let one know that anything has transpired except if one forgets the anti-spam word. So one just clicks again to be on the safe side. Hmmm… an awful lot of “ones” in this sentence aren’t there.
Raphaela, alot of people are going to disagree with you. They looked like tie-dye, or like someone washed gold vestments with too much bleach and a new pair of jeans. I don’t think anyone is against tasteful modern vestments, but those particular ones are really in questionable taste outside of a 1968-1973 aesthetic. Maybe that’s still a contemporary aesthetic in Austria, but for some (many?) of us, it’s passé and quite gauche, and such would not even be suitable for secular wear. It’s certainly not dignified, which is the first quality that should be associated with any vestments. Especially on this pope! Come on, the man is eighty years old, an academic genius with a long and distinguished career, and deserves and has earned the dignity that he so manifestly possesses in his bearing, even aside from being, you know, the Pope, and yet people are dressing him (and all the other concelebrants) up like this?! It’s rather ridiculous, if not scandalous. And where did they come from? Did old Sister Mary Peace Moonflower and older Sister Agnes Patchouli Lavalamp of the Order of The Holy Nineteensixties make them as the last set of vestments before they retire? Far out, man!
Anyhow, in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2003 English translation based on the 2002 Latin IGMR text, numbers 344-345 say this: “It is fitting that the beauty and nobility of each vestment derive not from abundance of overly lavish ornamentation, but rather from the material that is used and from the design. Ornamentation on vestments should, moreover, consist of figures, that is, of images or symbols, that evoke sacred use, avoiding thereby anything unbecoming. The purpose of a variety in the color of the sacred vestments is to give effective expression even outwardly to the specific character of the mysteries of faith being celebrated and to a sense of Christian life’s passage through the course of the liturgical year.”
So, I suppose that those vestments might evoke the “sacred use” of whatever the whale puked up in addition to the Holy Prophet Jonah, but otherwise not much else. They’re just a mess, not things of beauty, nobility or edification.
Don’t forget New Zealand, please!
We’re still missionary territory and desperately in need of trad. priests (besides SSPX)- only two in the country-they’re both 80 yrs old
Father Zuhlsdorf,
Now that I finally have an mp3 player and can listen wherever I am, I’ll be listening to your podcasts more often. In fact, I’ll probably listen to them while I hand illuminate my copy of Summorum Pontifium. (:-)>+
Why don’t you do a series where you teach us some Church Latin? You could use the 1962 Missal as the basis, which would both teach some Latin and give people a better understanding of the Forma Extraordinaria at the same time.
Lastly, you need to make these podcasts easier to download via different podcast software. Like through an RSS feed. Let’s not give iTunes the monopoly on Father Z. After all, iTunes and iPod already have way too much of a monopoly on the market for such overrated products. And because the market is flooded with iPod stuff, people tend to buy even more iPods. And thus a mediocre product is needlessly perpetuated.
Break the chain, Father! Step outside the box. Be counter cultural. Just say no. Don’t be one of the “pod people.”
If you already own an iPod, sell it and buy something else. I got a Sansa e280. It’s 8 gigs with a microSD slot. Better than iPod at half the price. But if you need more space, there are iPod alternatives that have hard drives, too.
See this site for help:
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
In fact, we need to rename “podcasts,” which were obviously named for the iPod. Even if they weren’t, it still sounds too similar.
In your case, why not just call them “Zcasts”? That sounds much cooler than merely changing the “s” to a “z” in “podcast.” It might catch on, too, so that pretty soon all podcasts will be known as “Zcasts.” Don’t follow the trends… SET the trends!
Now, about that Blackberry… (;-)>+
Fr Z, I know that there is such a thing as a button that when you hit it (a ‘submit comment’ button in this case) you cannot push it again. After it is pushed once it is not ‘pushable’ anymore. They are usually used for things like paypal where you are making a payment. Could be useful on here though cause it would stop people from making multiple posts.
Timothy: It perfect okay with me if people want to make multiple entries with the button… the donation button on the left side bar, that is!
o{];¬)