What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

And so it begins

On TBS:

MIN @ CWS

I got this note:

I’ve been a long-time reader and occasional commenter on your blog.  Keep up the good work!
 
For the last six weeks, I’ve been trying my vocation at the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank in Sparta, Wisconsin.  This morning, the Today Show aired a four-minute piece on our abbey and its businesses, which plow a lot of money back into charities.  The piece opens with us singing lauds in God’s Own Tongue.
 
The clip is here:
 
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26945672/
 
One of my friends over at NLM was nice enough to post the link [You mean you went to someone else first?!?   o{];¬)  ] and I’m asking other Catholic bloggers to consider doing the same.  We ask for the intercession of Karl of Austria every Sunday at vespers for vocations.  Perhaps this piece was his answer.  [I will always be interested in Bl. Karl, after having known the late Msgr. Schuler’s interest in his cause and having met Otto von Hapsburg, and having been at Bl. Karl’s beatification.]
 
In more immediate realms, Archbishop Burke was also a good friend to our Abbey during his time in La Crosse and remains so today.  I’ve appreciated the way you’ve kept us all abrest of his latest statements.  We don’t spend a lot of time on the ‘net, but you’re a daily blog of obligation.  [Catchy!  "WDTPRS… Your Daily Blog of Obligation!"]
 
Best to you and God bless,
 
John Treat
www.subtuum.blogspot.com
 
p.s.  Your food posts make me very glad I’m an O.Cist. and not a Trappist, otherwise yesterday’s pork and the posts from your last trip would have been too much to bear.  We’re experimenting with a new hard cider business.  If any of the current run looks promising, I’ll see if we can send along a bottle or two.  [Oooo…. All WDTPRSers will pray for your success.  And, if it is good, I’ll push it for you here.]

Here we go:

I am watching the DVD I was given in Rome, The Papacy of Reason: Inside the Mind of Benedict XVI.  Since I was in this documentary, I was given a copy. 

It is really quite well made!  If you haven’t seen it, I recommend it.

I think it is available through EWTN, where it was broadcast.

Here is a small part (reduced to not great quality for the sake of faster loading) from the middle of the show, including the main section concerning liturgy.  You’ll see some famous people along with my unworthy self… Fr. Lang… Archbp. Ranjith…

There is a fascinating story in the Catholic Herald which you should all be looking at.

Fighting for Christendom with oranges and lemons

The Battle of Lepanto ended with scenes of surreal horror, discovers John Hinton

26 September 2008

A detail from Paolo Veronese’s The Battle of Lepanto (1572)

Empires of the Sea by Roger Crowley, Faber and Faber £20

It is a fair bet that Admiral Jacky Fisher, who ruled the serenely powerful British Mediterranean Fleet from Malta aboard his battleship Renown in 1900, must have pondered about a time when the whole of the Med was threshing with the great conflict between Christendom and Islam.

It was to resume in a sense with Churchill’s ill-fated plan to force a second front up the Dardenelles and bombard Istanbul with Jacky’s greatest battleship, the Queen Elizabeth, and others.

But Winston’s great First Sea Lord, and architect of the great dreadnought fleet which had its victory at Jutland, hated the plan – and sensationally resigned.

Back in 1453 the greatest jewel in Christendom, Constantinople, had fallen to the soldiers of Allah in the form of the Ottoman Turks under their fanatical ruler, Suleiman the Magnificent. Having charted this period when Islamic imperialism reached its zenith, author Roger Crowley now continues the momentous and bloody story in Empires of the Sea.

During most of the 16th century, Europe was threatened by Islam on every side. The flower of Hungarian chivalry was destroyed at Mohacs, and Vienna besieged. The proud Knights of St John were finally driven from their fortress island of Rhodes – from whose walls they could see the threatening cliffs of Turkey – after an endless siege in which every weapon was used, from cannon bombardments, to starvation and night raids – and fell back on Malta.

Barbary pirates in scores of galleys and corsairs from Tunis and Algiers raided throughout the Mediterranean with virtual impunity, and even carried off "white slaves" from the villages of Cornwall and Ireland. The Knights of St John were themselves also ruthless slavers. But the Islamic raiders made sure to vandalise any Christian churches, symbols or ornaments they found in their path.

The Venetians, the arch-conservative "Swiss bankers" of the age, were interested only in neutrality and gold, even when St Mark’s basin was blockaded. And the rest of Christendom squabbled hopelessly among themselves – Valois against Hapsburg, Catholic against Protestant – and failed to rally together.

In 1543, in fact, the treacherous French collaborated with the Turks to sack Nice, then a Hapsburg possession.

The great contest was fought over a huge front, from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar, and featured the kind of characters you might not necessarily like to meet: Barbarossa, the pirate; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St John, last survivors of the Crusades, and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria. Its brutal climax came in a six-year period, 1565 to 1571, including the siege of Malta itself, the battle for Cyprus and the last-ditch defence of Lepanto – one of the single most shocking days in naval and world history.

It is on these thrilling set pieces that Crowley largely concentrates. The Siege of Malta in 1565 (some 600 Knights of St John versus an Ottoman army of around 30,000) was arguably the single most heroic siege in history, and full justice is done to the relentless drama of those four scorching summer months, when the roar of Turkish cannon could be heard in Sicily, 120 miles away, and even Protestant England prayed for the salvation of Malta.

The European powers were puny and reluctant over actually coming to help – even though they knew that, should Malta fall to the Turks, Suleiman would then be Lord of the western Mediterranean as well as the east. The knights and their gallant Maltese auxiliaries fought on alone, with unimaginable bravery, with all "the visceral brutality of the Homeric bronze age".

The cruelty and valour – fighting madness – were awful and impressive. Here is Jean de la Valette, head of the Order of St John, refusing to give one inch of ground; the Spanish knight, Captain Miranda, wounded and unable to stand, hauled himself into a chair and fought on, sword in hand. Here is an Italian traitor, "tied to a horse’s tail and beaten to death by children with sticks".

When the outlying fortress of St Elmo finally fell, the Turks mutilated the last survivors and floated them across to St Angelo nailed to wooden crosses, a "gruesome flotsam". La Valette’s instant riposte: execute all his Turkish prisoners and fire their severed heads back over into the Ottoman camp.

Such granite resolution eventually wore down the Ottoman army, even the incomparable janissaries in their ostrich-feather shakos, advancing on the Walls of St Angelo time after time, chanting verses from the Koran.

Unlike Rhodes, which eventually gave in, Malta stood firm and the Turks eventually sailed home.

Some may see comparisons in our own time. In World War Two Malta was besieged from the air by German and Italian bombers; the island’s only defence in the early days: three frail Gloucester Gladiator biplanes called Faith, Hope and Charity flown by RAF pilots who, once reinforced by Spitfires, brought the blitz to an end and secured, once more, the safety of the island.

The Battle of Lepanto in 1571 was the largest naval engagement until Jutland in 1916 and this time a shattering defeat for the Ottoman Empire, now ruled by Suleiman’s son, the unprepossessing Selim the Sot.

With a novelist’s eye for vivid scene-painting Crowley tells all: towards the end of the battle, in a scene of surreal horror, both Christians and Turks were running so short of missiles that they started throwing oranges and lemons at each other amid exhausted, hysterical laughter, adrift in a sea jammed solid with corpses. Forty thousand men died in four hours. Not until Loos in 1916 would this rate of slaughter be surpassed. But once more, Christendom was saved.

I posted this last year, but I put so much work into it that it deserves recycling on this feast of St. Jerome.

Some time ago, there was a discussion on one of our splendid Catholic blogs making mention of the burial place of St. Jerome perhaps in the Major Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. This is an interesting story and I dug into it a little. This is what I found.

We read in J.N.D. Kelly’s work Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies (Duckworth, 1975, p. 333 – emphasis mine) :

Apocryphal lives extolling [Jerome’s] sanctity, even his miracles, were quick to appear, and in the eighth century he was to be acclaimed, along with Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, as one of the four Doctors of the Church.[2] In the middle ages his works were eagerly copied, read, and pillaged; while towards the end of the thirteenth century the clergy of Santa Maria Maggiore, at Rome, were to persuade the public, perhaps themselves too, that his remains had been transported from Bethlehem to Italy, and could be venerated close to certain presumed fragments of the Saviour’s crib.[3]

Note 2: This was formally ratified by Pope Boniface VIII on 20 Sept. 1295: see Corpus iuris canonici II, 1059 (ed. E. Freidburg, Leipzig, 1879-81). The original number four (the list was later to be greatly expanded) was chosen so that the Doctors could match the Evangelists.

Note 3: The story of their alleged translation, in response to a visionary appearance of Jerome himself, is set out by J. Stilting in Acta Sanctorum XLVI, Sept. VIII, 636 (Antwerp, 1762); it is reprinted in PL 22, 237-40. Stilting also provides a discussion of its date, veracity, etc. on pp. 635-49.

In the Acta Sanctorum for 30 September, under the entry for St. Jerome, we find the following section with its articles:

LXV. Corpus Sancti ex Palestina Romam translatum, depositumque in basilica s. Mariae Majoris. The body of the saint was brought to Rome from Palestine, and put in the Basilica of St. Mary Major.
LXVI. Inquiritur tempus quo Sancti corpus Romam delatum. An investigation is made into the time when the body of the saint was brought back to Rome.
LXVII. Corpus Sancti depositum prope aediculam Praesepis, conditum deinde ibidem altare, sub quo positum, ubi mansit usque ad pontificatum Sixti V, quando dicitur clanculum ablatum & absconditum. The body of the saint was placed near to the small chamber of the Crib, established then right at the same altar, under which it was placed, where it remained until the pontificate of Sixtus V, when it is said to have been secretly taken away and hidden.
LXVIII. Corpus Sancti clanculum ablatum & absconditum dicitur, ne transferretur alio a Sixto V: deinde frequenter frustra quaesitum. The body of the saint is said to have been secretly taken away and hidden lest it were to be transferred to another place by Sixtus V: aftward it is frequently sought in vain.
LXIX. An reliquae, sub altari principe S. Mariae Majoris inventae, videantur illae ipsae, quae ut corpus S. Hieronymi ad illam basilicam fuerunt translatae. When the relics found under the main altar of St. Mary Major which had been transferred to that Basilica seem to be the very same as the body of St. Jerome.
LXX. Admodum verisimile & probabile inventas esse S. Hieronymi. Clearly the [relics] found are most like and probably of Saint Jerome.
LXXI. Respondetur ad objectionem ex reliquiis Nepesinis: reliquiae, quae verisimiliter sunt S. Hieronymi sub mensa principis altaris depositae. An objection is answered about the relics at Nepi: relics placed under the main altar which more than likely are those of St. Jerome.
LXXII. Reliquiae Sancti in pluribus civitatibus Italiae, Galliae, Germaniae, Belgii, & aliis provinciis. The relics of the saint in more cities in Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and other provinces.
LXXIII. Cultus S. Hieronymi: festivitates eius & Officia. The veneration of St. Jerome: his feasts and offices.

Here is the page where these articles begin. If you want to have a fuller experience of the joys (the chore) of reading the Acta Sanctorum for any length of time click here for a larger image.

I am speaking right now with a priest via skype who has just said his first TLM.

Some quotes:

"The more priests who start saying the older form of the Mass, other priests will find the courage to do so themselves.  Once you tell them that you got the things and learned to do it, it will give them the courage to do it also.  Maybe they think it is too hard, but when they see other priests…

... It’s all explained in the missal.  Just read it.  You don’t need the DVD going.  Just say the black and do the red…

... You are a thousand times more focused.  This is real. ...

... Having now said my first Mass, I am more motivated than ever to learn.  Questions occurred to me that didn’t occur when studying it.  ...

... I am infinitely more motivated now.  ... "

 

Te Deum laudamus!

I am happy to report that more and more bishops are being bishops… and publicly too!

Give this a few moments of your time, from California Catholic.

My emphases and comments.

“At least five members of the audience walked out”

Bishop Soto stuns national homosexual ministries conference

(Editor’s Note: For the complete text of the bishop’s speech, see related story in today’s edition, “It is sinful.”)

When two Catholics from Southern California learned that Sacramento Coadjutor Bishop Jaime Soto was to be the keynote speaker at the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries conference in Long Beach on Sept. 18, they decided to attend themselves to see and hear the talk in person. They say what they witnessed was a bishop who “courageously but gently” gave a clear presentation of Church teaching on sexuality.

After California Catholic Daily reported on Bishop Soto’s plans to attend and speak at the conference (“Birds of a feather?” Sept. 15, 2008), many readers expressed disapproval or worry over how to interpret the soon-to-be Bishop of Sacramento’s decision.  [I disapprove of people who complain when bishops address dissidents.  That’s what bishops are supposed to do, right?]  Bishop Soto will take over the diocese from retiring Bishop William Weigand on Nov. 30. The National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries, based in Berkeley, is a network of local ministries that has the reputation of taking, at best, an ambiguous stance on the moral character of homosexuality and homosexual acts.

But there was nothing ambiguous about Bishop Soto’s remarks to the group. “Sexual relations between people of the same sex can be alluring for homosexuals, but it deviates from the true meaning of the act and distracts them from the true nature of love to which God has called us all,” Bishop Soto said. “For this reason, it is sinful. Married love is a beautiful, heroic expression of faithful, life-giving, life-creating love. It should not be accommodated and manipulated for those who would believe that they can and have a right to mimic its unique expression."  [No ambiguity.]

At least five members of the audience walked out during the bishop’s address. When he finished speaking, there was general silence—with only a very small number applauding. [I would love to have been there.]

The chairman of the conference then announced that the bishop would answer questions at a reception that would be held in another room. That led to widespread expressions of disapproval from members of the audience, who said they wanted to be able to express their responses immediately. It was agreed that those who wanted to speak would line up. The bishop was told twice by the chairman that he was free to leave if he wanted—or to stay and listen. Bishop Soto stayed and sat quietly listening to every response. [Excellent.]

A series of about eight speakers came to the microphone to express their unhappiness with what the bishop had said—and what they felt he had not said. One woman said, in essence, "We know what the Church says. What we wanted you to talk about is the value of our lived experience as lesbian women and gay men."  [?!?  Instead… he told them what they need to hear in charity.]

Two speakers—one man and one woman—thanked the bishop for his address and voiced their agreement with what he had to say.

While the audience members were responding to the bishop’s remarks, a board member of the National Association of Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries came up to one of the tables in the room and said, "On behalf of the board, I apologize. We had no idea Bishop Soto was going to say what he said."

 

What an interesting event that must have been.

In an another entry I quoted a Latin phrase which sparked some additional conversation.  This is a good opportunity to reenter the Sabine flow of things on WDTPRS, for I am indeed back at the Sabine Farm.

I quoted: Vae tibi tam nigrae, dicebat caccabus ollae.

Commenter Jeff offered:

“’Alas, so black you are,’ said the pot to the kettle.”

Which is fine, though I would do it more like:

“’Woe to you, so black you are!’ said the fry pan to the cook pot.”

I am not dead sure about frying pan and cooking pot for these instruments, but I am guessing based on my reading of a recipe in the late 4th early 5th century cookbook attributed to the 1st century Apicius, De re coquinaria.

Here is the recipe. Let me know what you think – aside from the fact that it looks pretty good.  Did I get the pans right in your opinion?

3. Gruem vel anatem ex rapis: lavas, ornas et in olla elixabis cum aqua, sale et anetho dimidia coctura. rapas coque, ut exbromari possint. levabis de olla, et iterum lavabis, et in caccabum mittis anatem cum oleo et liquamine et fasciculo porri et coriandri. rapam lotam et minutatim concisam desuper mittis, facies ut coquatur. modica coctura mittis defritum ut coloret.

ius tale parabis : piper, cuminum, coriandrum, laseris radicem, suffundis acetum et ius de suo sibi, reexinanies super anatem ut ferveat. cum ferbuerit, amulo obligabis, et super rapas adicies. piper aspargis et adponis.

See what I mean? 

I could call that caccubus a roasting pan, I suppose, but I think frying pan fits.

Now that hunting season is coming, and some ducks and other birds will be coming my way to die and to be eaten – bless them – I might have to try this.  On a shelf I have the English edition of Apicius someone worked up.  This recipe is included!

I’ll let you work on your own perfect versions of the recipe for Crane or Duck with Turnips before I post what this English edition worked up with modern measures.

Horace might have had something like this at the original Sabine Farm!

Maybe Augustine ate something like this in North Africa, at least before his enforced poverty in his monastic mode in Hippo.

I don’t say this idly, either.

And if he did, I bet he would have used implements like these which follow. 

These I found in the British Museum a few short days ago.  They were found in the site of ancient Carthage. One dish is inscribed with the family name Cresconius, who were prominent in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. 

This hoard of silver was could have been hidden when the Vandals swept through Carthage (on their way also to Hippo, where Augustine died in 430 during the siege).  More likely is that it was squirred away around 400 during the Donatist controversy Augustine fought in so strenuously.  Remember that in 405/06 Augustine wrote an anti-Donatist work called Contra Cresconium grammaticum et donatistam. 



Did this silver belong to the fellow against whom Augustine wrote?  Possibly.

In the meantime, Sabine autumn is setting in with splendor.

Here come the apples on the tree next to the chapel.  They are wonderful and I am picking and cooking with them.  More on that below.



Colors are coming.  I love this time of year.

Weather can be dramatic, which adds to the vistas.





Tonight I am not making crane, but rather a stuffed pork roast.

Pork was the default meat for the ancient Romans, by the way, just as it is in Chinese.  Romans didn’t like to eat beef.  Anyway, after my long absence, I had to get some groceries and found this roast at an absurdly low sale price and figured I could eat it for a few days, after observing the Feast of the Archangel Michael.   The apples will be reduced with some peppers I grew, along with herbs such as thyme and a little lemon peel and perhaps a touch of gin for the botanicals and its stringency at just the right moment.  The stuffing has rosemary, parseley, sage, thyme and fennel, all from the garden.

For the jansenistic types who hate good food cheaply but creatively made, or the idea that someone somewhere might be eating a decent meal, I figure this whole thing cost about $6, including the bread, excluding the cost of seeds at the beginning of spring and the price of about two ounces of gin (though I use more to make a martini in honor of the angelic choir).  Dunno what the gas for the oven cost.

I might use a few table spoons of flour to make gravy at the end. 

Whew!  This is getting expensive!

Still… it’ll feed me for probably three days, I think. 

Yes, I think I’ll have that martini now.

Cheers!

UPDATE:

Here are the results.

But first, someone asked how I made the apple sauce.  Simple.  I peeled and cored the apples, cut them up, tossed them in the pan with some stuff, added water cooked them down.  Easy peasy.



The stuffed pork roast after a 350 degree oven for … a while.



Plated and ready to go down the little red lane.  I had some juice and scrapings from the pan, but I had to get some gravy I made another time and froze.  Just didn’t have enough.



And a shot from this morning, because it was so beautiful.

In the BC Catholic, weekly of the Archdiocese of Vancouver we find the following.

My emphases and comments.

Extraordinary form of Mass alive and well

By Cleveland V. Stordy

Pope Benedict XVI has been encouraging the offering of the Mass in the older form, from the 1962 Missal. That’s certainly happening in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, where the Mass is being offered in its "extraordinary form" regularly in three parishes.

First, the "extraordinary form" of the Mass has a new formal home at Holy Family Parish in Vancouver.

Archbishop Raymond Roussin, SM, named the parish the official home for the Latin Mass earlier this year. The parish will be administered by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter for the next five years. There are two Fraternity priests in the archdiocese.

The older form of the Mass in Latin is also being offered at St. Ann’s Parish in Abbotsford.

Several other priests and parishes have also expressed interest in using the extraordinary form. Father John Horgan, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Vancouver, has offered the Mass using the 1962 form several times in the last year.

[I think it is very important that when a bishop establishes a "personal parish", that priests not allow that to be the end of the story.  Summorum Pontificum aims at making the TLM and sacraments with the older, traditional forms more widely available, not isolated in a ghetto parish.  I applaud "personal parishes"!  Don’t get me wrong.]

One of these occasions was requested by family members of the late U.S. political columnist William F. Buckley Jr., who died in February. Buckley, a devout Catholic, had been a great promoter of the "traditional Mass," so his family thought it appropriate for a memorial Mass offered in Vancouver.

Over 125 friends and parishioners participated in the late June Mass, which included some music under the direction of Mark Donnelly, a brother of St. Jude’s pastor Father Lawrence Donnelly. A choir director at Holy Family Parish, he is known for singing in the chorus of Vancouver Opera and for singing national anthems at Vancouver Canucks hockey games.

Father Dominic Carey, the superior of the Society of Saint John in Paraguay, recently visited Sts. Peter and Paul Parish and offered the Mass in the older form for a week; each day more and more parishioners attended, some using old Latin-English missals for the first time in their lives.

Father Carey, who grew up in Vancouver and attended the Seminary of Christ the King at Mission, belongs to a new priestly institute that offers the Mass in both the 1962 and current forms. He has just received his doctorate in liturgy from the Benedictine university in Rome and is now teaching at a diocesan seminary in Paraguay.

Father Horgan believes that the two forms of the Mass can be mutually enriching, as Pope Benedict wrote in his letter to bishops of July 7, 2007.

Father Horgan has had a personal indult (permission) since 1989 to use the older form for Mass. He explained that its prayers and ritual gestures can be a powerful aid to the "active participation" requested by the Second Vatican Council.

"Active participation is first a thing of the mind and heart," [Yes.]  Father Horgan said. "We have to be more deeply united to the saving action of Jesus in His Paschal Mystery. The reverent awe which characterizes the extraordinary form is a powerful aid to disposing our souls to return `love for love.’"

Some of the differences between the two forms of the Mass are readily apparent. In the 1962 form of the rite, Communion is only given on the tongue, by an ordained minister, to kneeling recipients, and Mass was usually offered with priest and people facing the Cross together on the same side of the altar.  [But all of these things are also proper for the Novus Ordo… it is just that they are nearly never implemented as they should be!]

This is sometimes referred to as the priest "having his back to the people," but scholars and devotees of the older form of Mass reject this language, pointing out that most people at Mass offered in its ordinary form have their backs to other participants.

Different Mass prayers and readings are also used.

Pope Benedict has said that the readings of the Mass in the 1962 form may now be read in the vernacular directly, without having first to be read in Latin. Further changes are foreseen, such as the insertion of some of the modern prefaces, new developments of the lectionary, and the inclusion of modern saints’ feasts.  [We’ll see.]

"The Pope does not see this form of the Roman Mass as a museum piece but as a living form of the Church’s prayer," Father Horgan said. "Participation in this extraordinary form is not a sign of nostalgia for the past, but an appreciation of a rich expression of worship.

"His generous provision of this form of the Mass is not only an attempt to bring separated groups such as the Society of Saint Pius X back into the fullness of unity, but also to remind the whole Church that what was good, useful, and beautiful for 1,500 years is still a true and important part of the living Roman rite."

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter has had two vocations from the Vancouver archdiocese: Fathers Philip Creurer and Joseph Orlowsky.

In addition Father Mark Bachman, OSB, of Our Lady of the Annunciation Parish in Clear Creek, Ok., a native of Sts. Peter and Paul Parish; and Brother Vianny Marie, OSB, from St. Ann’s Parish in Abbotsford, are devotees of the older form of the Mass.

Excellent article.  And WDTPRS applauds Archbp. Roussin.

 

Archbishop Raymond Burke is living up to his middle name: Leo.

In the daily of the Italian Bishops Conference, Avvenire, His Excellency the Prefect of the Signatura spoke with candor on many issues, including the situation of pro-abortion Catholic politicians and, of great interest to us here, Summorum Pontificum.

Your Excellency, you are known also as a bishop favorable to the Motu Proprio by which the Pope derestricted the use of the pre-Conciliar Mass…

True.  I remember also the happiness with which the Holy Father presented this document in a preview for a restricted group of prelates to which I was invited.  The Pope with this courageous gesture wanted to reaffirm that in the Church the liturgy must develop in an organic way, without having to avert to traumatic ruptures, something which unfortunately occurred in the post-Conciliar period.  Personally, I don’t find any difficulty or any contradiction in celebrating Holy Mass according to the Novus Ordo or according to the so-called rite of St. Pius V.  The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum was a wise move, which, I am convinced, will bring out good fruits in the Church.

But, Excellency, don’t all these characteristics of yours run the risk of painting you as a harsh conservative…

Good things must always be conserved.  Insofar as "harsh" is concerned, those who know me at least a little bit, know that that doesn’t correspond to who I am.

When His Excellency Most Rev. Raymond Burke was moved from being Archbishop of St. Louis to Rome as the new Prefect of the Apostolic Segnatura, many people asked me if this was an example of promoveatur ut ammoveatur, that he was promoted to get him out of the USA before the American election cycle heated up.

I calmly responded "No, I don’t think so.

My less clam interior reaction was closer to: HA HAH HAHAHAHA!  O HO HO HAHAHA!

In other words, it makes no difference on what side of the Atlantic he is working, Raymond Burke is a serious bishop, a man of integrity, who won’t be silent when called on to give his views on issues which Catholic bishops must speak about.

This is in from Catholic News Service:

U.S. archbishop at Vatican says Democrats becoming ‘party of death’

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

ROME (CNS)—The Democratic Party in the United States "risks transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death,’" said U.S. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, prefect of the Vatican’s highest court.

An interview with the former archbishop of St. Louis was published in the Sept. 27 edition of Avvenire, a daily Catholic newspaper sponsored by the Italian bishops’ conference.

The newspaper asked the archbishop, the new head of the Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature, for his reaction to reports that his Vatican job was designed to get him away from St. Louis.

"I have too much respect for the pope to believe that in order to move someone away from a diocese he would nominate him to a very sensitive dicastery like this one," said the archbishop, whose office is in charge of ensuring that lower church courts correctly administer justice in accordance with canon law.

Archbishop Burke was asked if he knew that the August Democratic National Convention in Denver featured a guest appearance by Sheryl Crow, a musician whose performance at a 2007 benefit for a Catholic children’s hospital the archbishop had opposed because of her support for abortion and embryonic stem-cell research.

"That does not surprise me much," the archbishop said. "At this point the Democratic Party risks transforming itself definitely into a ‘party of death’ because of its choices on bioethical questions as Ramesh Ponnuru wrote in his book, ‘The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts and the Disregard for Human Life.‘"

Archbishop Burke said the Democratic Party once was "the party that helped our immigrant parents and grandparents better integrate and prosper in American society. But it is not the same anymore."

Pro-life Democrats are "rare, unfortunately," he said.

Archbishop Burke also was asked about being one of a few U.S. bishops to publicly ban Catholic politicians who hold positions contrary to church teaching from receiving Communion.

"Mine was not an isolated position," the archbishop said. "It was shared by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver, by Bishop Peter J. Jugis of Charlotte (N.C.) and by others."

"But it is true that the bishops’ conference has not taken this position, leaving each bishop free to act as he believes best. For my part, I always have maintained that there must be a united position in order to demonstrate the unity of the church in facing this serious question," he said.  [Amen.]

"Recently, I have noticed that other bishops are coming to this position," he said, especially after Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., "while presenting themselves as good Catholics, have represented church teaching on abortion in a false and tendentious manner."

Archbishop Burke said he is convinced that a 2004 letter from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to the U.S. bishops and canon law say "it is not licit to give holy Communion to one who is publicly and obstinately a sinner. And it is logical that one who publicly and obstinately acts in favor of procured abortion enters into this category."

The newspaper asked Archbishop Burke if he ever wondered why the issue of Communion for Catholic politicians was almost unheard of in Europe, where abortion is legal in most countries.

"I don’t know if Catholic politicians in Europe are more coherent, although I would have some doubts," he said.

However, he said, "I am convinced that the church must always be very clear on this point."

 

I very much admire Archbp. Burke.

My recent posting about the question on administration of the sacrament of anointing led to some interesting comments.  Someone mentioned the Apostolic Pardon, or Apostolic Benediction.

It is critically important that you – as a person who is going to die one day – know what this is.

It is vitally important that you – as a person whose loved ones and friends will die one day – know what this is.

It is fundamentally important that priests – as God’s ministers of pardon and the gatekeepers of heaven – know what this is so that they can give it.

The Apostolic Pardon, or Benediction, forgives temporal punishment due to our sins.  If anything remains from our lives, provided we die in the state of grace, for which we have not done adequate penance is forgiven us through the Apostolic Pardon.

The older form of the Apostolic Blessing:

Ego facultate mihi ab Apostolica Sede tributa, indulgentiam plenariam et remissionem omnium peccatorum tibi concedo et benedico te. In nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spirtus Sancti, Amen. ... By the faculty given to me by the Apostolic See, I grant you a plenary indulgence and the remission of all your sins, and I bless you. In the Name of the Father and the Son + and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the newer form I think the words "et benedico te" were removed.

When it comes to forms of Anointing, Penance and the Apostolic Pardon, I always use Latin. 

This is a marvelous faculty, given by Holy Church to the priest so that he can grant this remission of temporal punishment and forgive sins.  Used in conjunction with the Last Rites, confession, anointing, and Viaticum, a soul is well prepared to go on to judgment.

I was just talking to a friend who told me about a very curious thing which Speaker Pelosi (of Meet The Press gaf fame) said to Sec. Paulson.  This is in a New York Times story:

Paulson Begs

The New York Times highlights the defining moment of yesterday’s White House meeting on the bank bailout bill when Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson "got down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to ‘blow it up’ by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal."

Said Pelosi: "I didn’t know you were Catholic. It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans."

Paulson sighed, "I know. I know."

 

"I didn’t know you were Catholic." ?

"I didn’t know you were Catholic." ?!?

Speaker Pelosi…  Vae tibi tam nigrae, dicebat caccabus ollae.

How glib.

After everything you have said on television, Speaker Pelosi, and how you vote  ... 

I found this on Catholic Culture:

Beatification of Cardinal Newman: decision tomorrow?
September 29, 2008

A Vatican panel examining the healing of a Massachusetts man will meet tomorrow to rule on whether the cure, attributed the intercession of Cardinal John Henry Newman, is miraculous, reported the Daily Mail. (The Vatican has not confirmed the schedule, and an official announcement would probably come only when the Pope approves the formal decree, but the report appears accurate.)

Now that I am back home, I am catching up on news and mail.

I was aware during my recent travels that Fordham University was planning on giving an award to Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.  The prize is the Stein Prize in Ethics.

Now as I read more about this, and people continue to send me e-mail, I am left scratching my head even more than I did when I first heard the news a couple weeks ago.

Justice Breyer has been a long-time supporter of abortion rights.  Not just abortion, but partial birth abortion.  He wrote majority opinion for the 2000 case Stenburg vs. Carhart.   This decision overturned state laws restricting partial birth abortion.  Justice Breyer also supported the pro-partial birth abortion position in 2007 in Gonzales vs. Carhart.

Fordham University is a Catholic University. They are giving an ethics award to a Justice who has supported something morally and ethically indefensible: partial birth abortion.

I don’t understand this.

Can someone explain to me how this works? 

Is there anything that would disqualify someone from being given an award by a Catholic university if this doesn’t?

Could they not have found someone, Catholic or non-Catholic I don’t care, who at least does not actively argue for and enable one of the evilest things that can be done to defenseless human beings?

What am I missing?