"The great Father Zed, Archiblogopoios"
-
Fr. John Hunwicke
"Some 2 bit novus ordo cleric"
- Anonymous
"Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a traditionalist blogger who has never shied from picking fights with priests, bishops or cardinals when liturgical abuses are concerned."
- Kractivism
"Father John Zuhlsdorf is a crank"
"Father Zuhlsdorf drives me crazy"
"the hate-filled Father John Zuhlsford" [sic]
"Father John Zuhlsdorf, the right wing priest who has a penchant for referring to NCR as the 'fishwrap'"
"Zuhlsdorf is an eccentric with no real consequences" -
HERE
- Michael Sean Winters
"Fr Z is a true phenomenon of the information age: a power blogger and a priest."
- Anna Arco
“Given that Rorate Coeli and Shea are mad at Fr. Z, I think it proves Fr. Z knows what he is doing and he is right.”
- Comment
"Let me be clear. Fr. Z is a shock jock, mostly. His readership is vast and touchy. They like to be provoked and react with speed and fury."
- Sam Rocha
"Father Z’s Blog is a bright star on a cloudy night."
- Comment
"A cross between Kung Fu Panda and Wolverine."
- Anonymous
Fr. Z is officially a hybrid of Gandalf and Obi-Wan XD
- Comment
Rev. John Zuhlsdorf, a scrappy blogger popular with the Catholic right.
- America Magazine
RC integralist who prays like an evangelical fundamentalist.
-Austen Ivereigh on
Twitter
[T]he even more mainline Catholic Fr. Z. blog.
-
Deus Ex Machina
“For me the saddest thing about Father Z’s blog is how cruel it is.... It’s astonishing to me that a priest could traffic in such cruelty and hatred.”
- Jesuit homosexualist James Martin to BuzzFeed
"Fr. Z's is one of the more cheerful blogs out there and he is careful about keeping the crazies out of his commboxes"
- Paul in comment at
1 Peter 5
"I am a Roman Catholic, in no small part, because of your blog.
I am a TLM-going Catholic, in no small part, because of your blog.
And I am in a state of grace today, in no small part, because of your blog."
- Tom in
comment
"Thank you for the delightful and edifying omnibus that is your blog."-
Reader comment.
"Fr. Z disgraces his priesthood as a grifter, a liar, and a bully. -
- Mark Shea
The two priests who celebrate the EF the most often in our diocese are also the youngest (and outwardly very devout).
We aren’t getting many vocations in our diocese right now… but those that we do have (in the last 10 years anyway) have been awesome! We are so thankful for them.
As my Jewish Grandmother used to say – “From your lips to God’s ears!”
Ditto those comments by Fr. Blake here in Texas.
Exactly.
YESSS!!!! Watch out libbies! We young folks are making headway!
I’ve noticed this as well in the Catholic nursing home where my husband and I volunteer. There are several retired priests in “independent living” who come to Mass every day, but who do not say Mass nor concelebrate. One day several months ago the regular priest had an emergency and could not come to say Mass, and the one “retired” priest who was there asked the Deacon to do a “Communion Service”. His superiors have now informed him that he must say Mass when the regular priest cannot show up…but he still does not concelebrate. I don’t understand. I thought priests had to say Mass every day if the are capable?
Agree, the more recently ordained or professed religious are bright lights of hope, clearly cheerfully loyally unafraid. We pray for their work and also give thanks for those unseen, unknown “more senior” mentors in various forms who give encouragement, who by that themselves remain young at heart. Ad multos annos to those giving joyful assent to God’s call.
“…or at least in Latin. ”
Great!!!
What about priests assisting in choro?
Having been in the parish Church early in the morning between Sunday 6:30am and 9:30am Masses, I was present when my pastor would come out unexpectedly to do a private Mass (moreso in the past when we may have had one too many priests onsite for the number of Masses).
Watching him, alone with God in the serenity of that private Mass (usually 1962 Missal), I could only imagine how deeply he was able to immerse himself in the Mystery.
I am glad to see younger priests seeking these opportunities. I think it only deepens their understanding and experience of the Sacrifice of the Mass.
Elizabeth,
The obligation is on the Bishop, not the priest.
Hidden One,
I think 90%+ of priests I see in choro are the younger variety as well. The older ones want to concelebrate or sit in the pews.
And yes, Fr. Blake is 100% right on the subject.
I never forgot the “Don Camillo” film in which he takes out of his hat the most basic instruments and in the middle of Communist Russia celebrates Mass, alone, in his hotel room.
M
I am enjoying these observations. I have been in a masters degree program at a seminary for 10 years and I have noticed a big difference between the seminarians when I first began and the seminarians now. They are in general much younger (most of them are young now, versus most of them being late vocations), and they are earnest in a different way about different things.
Before anyone gets too judgmental, I’d like to propose a theory. It often occurs to me that, much as the sort of people who like this blog prefer a certain sort of man with certain sorts of ideas for priesthood, the Holy Spirit has always called all sorts of men with all sorts of ideas to be priests. Perhaps the sort of man He is now calling is fitted to the Church as it is becoming, while the loosey-goosey, anything goes pastors that now seem more than a little wacky are right where they are FOR A REASON. They came. They stayed. Hardly anyone else did. As Fr. Andrew Greeley asked in one of his books (I’m paraphrasing) — “Doesn’t keeping a vow mean anything anymore?” In an age where so many people break every vow they make to other people, including leaving their own children, they stayed. Tens of thousands of priests left, but they stayed. Maybe they were reluctant, some of them; maybe they didn’t know how to do anything else; maybe some of them stayed for the wrong reasons. But they stayed. Maybe that was the only sort of man who WOULD stay in the crazy decades since Vatican II. Maybe, much as they might not like to think so, they kept and made the Church what it is so that exactly the sort of men who are now entering seminaries would be inspired to enter it.
That’s what I think, anyway.
Gail, that’s a beautiful and charitable thought. And in the eyes of the Lord, there may not be much difference between the story of the medieval priest so ignorant he could only say a few broken prayers who was saved by his confused devotion to Mary, and a modern priest so ignorant he doesn’t know he should stick to the words in the book being saved by his confused devotion to the the confused pieties he was taught were right. Ignorance is ignorance, and God is kind to those who know no better. Also, anyone who really worked to help others, however oddly and wrongly, will have a reward for that. We may not be as bad off in God’s eyes as we think.
That said, of course it’s better and more sure to do everything the way Jesus taught the Church to do it. But I don’t doubt that even some of the really annoying loosey-goosey priests are personally holy and do try to serve their flock and their Lord.
Right on.
The older priests had to cope with all the all the upheaval of the 1960s and some must have seriously questioned their vocation. Accommodation to the new order of things must have been a spiritual struggle for many, and having come through it with their priesthood intact they are not likely to want to go back to the way things were. [I think you are on to something.] Middle-aged priests were formed according to the ‘new church’ ethos. Those with more traditional views knew better than to rock the boat; one told me of the hostile reception he would get from his peers if for instance he introduced Latin into the NO Mass. Younger priests don’t carry all this baggage; in training they will toe the liberal line if that is what it takes to be ordained, but they discern the direction the Church is taking, and they know that even the most liberal bishop will not refuse them a parish, given the shortage of priests. [Not so sure about that.]