An appropriate photo of the new Bishop of Hong Kong, His Excellency Most Rev. John Tong Hon.
Your support is important. Thanks in advance.
To donate monthly via Continue To Give use your phone's camera to activate the Q code or text 4827563 to 715-803-4772 (US) for a link.
For Zelle and Chase, etc., use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com.About this blog…
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
“I’m Fr. Z and I warmly endorse this message!”
ABORTION PILL RESCUE NETWORK
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
I am delighted to have been approved as an affiliate of Chess.com and House of Staunton.
Polls
Loading ...
Use FATHERZ10 at checkout for 10% off
Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Do you have a faithful Catholic website that needs competent and reliable tech support?
NEW OPPORTUNITY – 10% off with code: FATHERZ10
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
on UPDATED – My View For Awhile: deepest darkest Brooklyn: “As to the scratched windows, there are TWO theories. #1 If the scratches are on the inside, those are from…”
on LENTCAzT 2023 – 37: Thursday Passiontide – The counterpart to the Prodigal Son: “Thank you, Father, for these LENTCAzTS. From a genuine laugh at “humbly accepted care of it” regarding the station church…”
on UPDATED – My View For Awhile: deepest darkest Brooklyn: “Godspeed Fr. Z. When flying over the cities, I always look down and think of all the souls in all…”
on From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 23-03-28 – A trip to the convent: “Dear Father Zed, I repeat my now regular and sincere compliments for the pants-of-arms design: laugh-out-loud hilarious! Your apostolate now…”
on Daily Rome Shot 704: “This must be setting some teeth on edge in Rome… “Bravo”, I say! A day or a dollar (or a…”
on From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 23-03-28 – A trip to the convent: “Awesome Coat of Arms. Extra Large Butter Pants”
on POLL: Covering images for Passiontide, 5th Sunday of Lent – 2023: “Stations of the Cross: veiled with the rest of the statues and images or left unveiled? I have seen it…”
on From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 23-03-28 – A trip to the convent: “I once went on a retreat that was not hosted by, but located at a monastery where all the sisters…”
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful.
That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Be a “Zed-Head”!
CHALLENGE COINS!
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
Loading ...This is really useful when travelling… and also when you aren’t and you need backup internet NOW! I use this for my DMR “Zednet” hotspot when I’m mobile. It’s a ham radio thing.
If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
WDTPRS POLL
Loading ...Fr. Z’s stuff is everywhere
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
GREAT causes to support
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
How interesting, especially given the green hat behind him. Some Chinese bishops use a purple galero on their
arms–technically incorrect, but due to the fact apparently ‘wearing a green hat’ is an idiomatic expression in Chinese
meaning…I can’t remember but it’s something bad. Perhaps Fr. Selvester can comment.
Matthew: Green is correct for a bishop. An archbishop gets the violet. Hong Kong is a Diocese, not an Archdiocese. But in Chinese, if memory serves, “dài lùmào to wear a green hat” is the equivalent of “putting on horns”… to be a cuckold.
If he were a US elected official, he would be Hon John Tong Hon–a nice chiasmus.
A green hat is the sign of a cuckold. And from some of the readings from my google search (Caveat Lector)on why it is the sign of the cuckold, in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties men whose female relatives were known to be prostitutes were made to wear green hats.
RBrown: Instead, he must settle for Mons John Tong Hon
I suppose this would make an enthusiastic American-style St. Patrick’s celebration a little problematic.
Fr. Z,
From a video I saw, there was a delegation from Taiwan who came for business and the American company thought they’d do it up really clever and have a St. Patrick’s Day party with Pot’s O’ Gold, Leprechauns, and Green Hats for everyone!
The Taiwanese group embarrassingly wore the green hats. But complained to management that they had to wear the hats and the deal with the American company was off!
At least outside of China, archbishops also have green galleri, just with more tassels.
I think some of various prelates and monsignori are permitted violet ones.
That’s not a green galero, is it? More like aqua blue or teal.
I know little of Bp. Hon, but Cdl. Zen is one of my heroes.
Fr. Z, perhaps you can tell us a bit about the man?
Thanks for posting the photo. I just got the news through your post. I was born in Hong Kong. I met the new Bishop a few times years ago. Will keep him in prayers.
In ancient Chinese, there was only one word for green and blue and all colors in between- Qing (Cheeng.) Later came Lan for blue and Lu (with the Umlaut over the U) for green.
I have just one small minor little detail. It it is improper to use two honorific prenomial titles. You can say The Most Rev. Archbishop X, or His Excellency, Archbishop X, but not His Excellency, the Most Rev. X, and certainly not His Excellency, the Most Rev. Archbishop X (granted that should be objected to because it\’s gaughty). Reasoning? Most Rev. and Excellency are honorific titles, while Archbishop is Jurisdictional.
it is quite amusing to read the discussion about the green hat here.
Thanks to Dr. Eric now I know the etymology behind it, having always taken it for granted without asking why.
We have real experts here, including father Z.
The green/blue color problem in Chinese bedevils scholars to this day. It is particularly vexing because usages of “qing” vary so much over place, time, and context. Now, as far as antiquity, we actually have the use of “lan” (as in indigo) appearing as early as the Classic of Poetry, and Chinese literature does not get any older then that (although “qing” might appear on oracle bone writings, though here it might mean “young”)Etymologically “qing” seems to be associated with the color of a newly shooted plant (hence its secondary association with youth). “qing” can also mean “black”. Like “sheng”, “qing” seems to be one of those words that has simply worn many hats over the centuries, and defies easy definitions.
James,
how interesting. Is that a particular rule of English? Other languages certainly can and do. In Latin it is “excellentissimus ac reverendissimus dominus”, in Italian “Sua Eccellenza Reverendissima”, and in German “Seine Hochwürdigste Exzellenz” or even the exact equivalent of what you object to in English “Seine Exzellenz, der Hochwürdigste Herr (Erz-)Bischof NN.”.