o{]:¬)

Fr. Z is Moderator of the Catholic Online Forum and the ASK FATHER Question Box. The WDTPRS columns appear weekly in The Wanderer. Fr. Z lives in Rome, though he is often in the USA. He is available for retreats and conferences. E-mail
LOGIN


   Fr. Z on WDTPRS

↑ Grab this Headline Animator


Recent Posts
  • A very sad Fr. Z and the promise of a Mass
  • Alaskans, take note!
  • Help WDTPRS in the 2008 Weblog Awards
  • Statement for WDTPRS from the Spokesperson for H.E. Card. Schönborn
  • Former Sen. Daschle (D-SD) as Sec. of Health and Human Services?
  • 19 Nov. 1863: The Gettysburg Address
  • WSJ on the Synod on Scripture
  • Bp. D'Arcy on the new translation

  • Recent Comments:

    • opey124: Ha ha! There was a men’s store that advertised “Mens dresses half off” on the side of...
    • Pseudomodo: “St. Joseph is Patron of the Church. You must pray a lot to St. Joseph in this situation, that he...
    • Andrew: The current syntax could actually suggest: “Traps for disposable mice”. Checking the trusty...
    • enrico: The cardinal and his spokesman, with such arrogant and silly statement (is Vienna an oriental rite diocese?...
    • priest up north: Robert, While I acknowledge that we must be vigilant, not becoming self-righteous, truly is it...
    • Chris: Here’s something to ponder: All we hear from Obama is “hope.” All we hear from the Vatican...
    • RANCHER: If the Bishops fail to take firm and public action (offering to dialogue just doesn’t cut it) against...
    • Christopher Sarsfield: Jordanes, Read the comments in the thread. Even the people defending Fr. Newman, have the same...
    • Dr. Eric: Jayna, Your picture isn’t half as bad as I’ve seen this aberration. I’ve seen people...
    • jarhead462: Oliver- Your synapses are misfiring again. Semper Fi!

  • VOTE!
    My site was nominated for Best Religion Blog!

    Visit the new WDTPRS Store!
    Buy WDTPRS stuff!

    Calendar

    September 2008
    S M T W T F S
    « Aug   Oct »
     123456
    78910111213
    14151617181920
    21222324252627
    282930  


    Subscribe to ... The Wanderer

    Subscribe to ... The Catholic Herald - UK






    This blog is hosted by

    Joyent


    Thanks for the support!






















    Add to Technorati Favorites

    Add to Google Reader or Homepage

    Add to My AOL

    Subscribe in Bloglines

    Powered by FeedBurner


    Where Fr. Z will be:
  • Upcoming Events:
  • Events
    • No events.
  • 30 September 2008

    ITE GEMINI

    CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 6:28 pm

    And so it begins

    On TBS:

    MIN @ CWS


    • • • • • •

    VIDEO: A CEO whose income is ZERO: Lasermonks on MSNBC

    CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 5:39 pm

    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:

     
    icon for podpress  Lasermonks on MSNBC: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

    • • • • • •

    VIDEO: The Papacy of Reason: Inside the Mind of Benedict XVI

    CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 3:57 pm

    I am watching the DVD I was given in Rome, The Papacy of Reason: Inside the Mind of Benedict XVISince 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…

     
    icon for podpress  Papacy of Reason - excerpt: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download



    • • • • • •

    1571 Battle of Lepanto: in 4 hours 40,000 dead

    CATEGORY: SESSIUNCULUM — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf @ 10:25 am

    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

    Picture
    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