"If the Church were to accommodate herself to the world in any way that would entail a turning away from the Cross, this would not lead to a renewal of the Church, but only to her death."
Joseph Ratzinger
Get updates in your inbox
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
Recent Comments
- on ASK FATHER: Is the priesthood dominated by men who are varsity-level players or 3rd and 4th stringers?: “TonyB: I don’t make anything out Sheen’s defense of Chardin, since I haven’t read it or seen it. However, firstly,…”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1692: Farsighted Roman: “That is a French Book of Hours at the Morgan Library, containing the Hours of the Virgin and the Office…”
- on ASK FATHER: Is the priesthood dominated by men who are varsity-level players or 3rd and 4th stringers?: “You bring up Chardin, and I’m personally dubious about his theology, but what do you make of Ven. Fulton Sheen’s…”
- on PODCAST – Voices of the Fathers 05 – St. Jerome’s wide open spaces: “Thank you for this, Fr. Z. I appreciate the Latin even though my understanding is below rudimentary.”
- on Daily Rome Shot 1692: Farsighted Roman: “Black to move and mate in 4 1. … Qh3+ 2. Kg1 {or Bg2} Rxd1+ 3. Bxd1 {or Qf1} Re1+…”
- on ASK FATHER: Is the priesthood dominated by men who are varsity-level players or 3rd and 4th stringers?: “Someday, I would love to meet a priest who doesn’t use his education, his travels, and his office to make…”
- on ASK FATHER: Is the priesthood dominated by men who are varsity-level players or 3rd and 4th stringers?: “I agree that priests can excel in diverse areas and that prayerfulness and goodness are more important than brilliance. That…”
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Federated Computer… your safe and private alternative to big biz corporations that hate us while taking our money and mining our data. Have an online presence large or small? Catholic DIOCESE? Cottage industry? See what Federated has to offer. Save money and gain peace of mind.
ABORTION PILL RESCUE NETWORK
Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
Donate using VENMO
GREAT BEER from Traditional Benedictine Monks in Italy
Good coffee and tea. Help monks.
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.
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!
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful. Zelle and Wise are better, but PayPal is convenient.
A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often 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...
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT com
“in any way” , how does this phrase reconcile with the hundreds and hundreds of statements from Pope Paul VI, Bishops and Priests both during and after the Second Vatican Council, when it was so often said “the Church must open herself (accommodate) to the modern world”? The entire NO Mass was writeen in a way to drop it Catholocity, no? That surely is turning away from the cross, but I am sure many will argue a loophole or split hairs saying well, not really. Turning to face the people, with a Priest back to the cross could be interpreted as such as well.Not only the numerous examples of how it has happened but the statements of the hierarchy did and sometimes still do involve the exact opposite of what the Pope says. That is one of the biggest problem today is the ambiguous or contradictory statements coming from Rome and the hierarchy that lay people just don’t have the stomach to “finesse them” into a hermeneutic of continuity. We just want clear, concise, no loophole interpretive statements.
AMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN !
Where did Car. Ratzinger write this wonderful assertion ?
Wonderful quote. Where does it appear in his writings?
The protestants turned from the Cross and we can see where it has led. A Crossless Christianity, Archbishop Sheen called it. And how many expensive, ugly, barren modern Catholic Churches have no Crucifix other than the required processional one? How many only have an image of the Risen Christ? We indeed must also preach and pray as did St. Paul who knew Christ and Him crucified.
Blaming the protestants isn’t the answer to everything, JosephMary. The contemporary Catholic church does a whale of a job denying the cross too.
Amen! It’s time that people start facing up and adhering to what the Church teaches, whether they like it or not. And those in authority need to charitably use it to show people the truth. Without compromise!
“to accommodate herself to the world”
I just returned from 11:30 Mass in my parish. Children’s choir (God bless them) sang mostly treacly-sweet songs, though a few were ok. No Latin at all. At the closing prayer, our Pastor scrubbed the closing (“The Lord be with you.”) to bring to our attention the GREAT singing today, and so we all applauded the choir. Then, after he processed out, we applauded again.
I feel utterly helpless here. I don’t know our paster personally–he’s new–but I wanted to say, “Father do you realize the Pope considers applause at Mass completely unacceptable, as it shows a serious misunderstanding about what the Mass is?”
Thank God I resisted the temptation, and just left w. my kids.
This “accomodation” is as pernicious as ditching “Veritatis Splendor” as I see it. The sober, but joyful, chaste beauty of our liturgy has been upended for a Disney-style celebration that veils the REAL PRESENCE of our Risen Lord.
Amen to that quote of our Papa when he was a Cardinal!
It says it all!
We need to watch our language here – or more precisely our use of language.
“Open to” does not necessarily mean “accommodate” (it might be to some, not to others including me)
The Church is indefectible. hence it cannot turn away from the Cross, for the Body of Christ hung on that cross once for all.
And the Church cannot die, so what is Papa Ratzinger saying? (what’s the context?) [If memory serves, this was in the context of an examination of the overly anthropocentric tone of Gaudium et spes, which can go very wrong when the proper corrective paragraphs do not correct the false reading.]
Modernism (as defined) and the abuse of “higher” Biblical criticism go back to the turn of the 20th Century. Post-modernism, with its lack of objective truth, may be easier to attack. The Church has been successful against both with its emphasis on objective truth.
But readers may want to remember that the organized Church has been under attack since even before it was big enough to be organized. There’s no need to be surprised.
Salutationes omnibus.
Hi, Mike,
Could you please help me a second, and please understand I’m not trying to criticize you? First, I agree with the Holy Father and with you, in that I believe applause is inappropriate at Mass, especially when the bloody “music ministers” are applauded.
Why is it, then, that the Holy Father is surrounded by applause whenever he offers Mass in the open? I remember his first Christmas Eve Mass as Pope, and there was applause everywhere at the conclusion of Mass.
Mike, could you help me, here, and can anyone reading enlighten me? I’m being serious; I’m not trying to cause trouble, be disrespectful or start a fight. I mean no harm.
Bob–no problem, although I have never been to a Mass with the Holy Father present. My sense, from what you say, and from experience of Masses w. Cardinals present, etc., is that specifically applauding the music of a liturgy is what the problem is, for it’s an offering, an act of worship, of prayer. As my 14 yr old son says, we don’t applaud after praying (“good prayer, man”).
Applause for B16, for his presence, his words in a homily, is in a separate category. That’s how I see it, although I may be off here.
I wonder if Sr. Keehan of the Catholic Health Ass’n. would be able to offer any plausible rationalizations of how this quote might
not apply to her organization. From the post above describing the CHA’s endorsement of the current health care legislation, I’d
say “Sr. Accommodation” should have been her name in religion.