If you are looking for some lighter reading today, zip over the Sandro Magister’s page. He has a post about how the semi-official journal of the Holy See La Civiltà Cattolica (edited by Jesuits, ), promotes Francis as a master of eloquence. It’s director is the great fan of Pier Vittorio Tondelli, Fr Antonio (“2+2=5”) Spadaro, SJ.
I promise you that this is not from The Onion. It is from the other “Onion”, La Civiltà Cattolica (edited by Jesuits).
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
Loading ...
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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
651-447-6265
on If Vatican II was supposed to usher in a new “springtime”…: “If I remember Church history, we are consistently very bad at getting any council right until the generation(s) which lived…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “21)… Usually the priest understands what the penitent wants to say, even if the penitent is struggling to say it.…”
on Fr. John Hollowell’s brain tumor was miraculously healed at Lourdes.: “What a great blessing!! I hope that many souls are converted and won for Christ through this humble priest’s witness…”
on If Vatican II was supposed to usher in a new “springtime”…: “monstrance : How is it borderline heretical ? Removing the fluff, he says : “The Church … no longer offers…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “@mo7 i know a priest like that. sweet old fellow – nearly 80 years old. i avoid his line as…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “You won’t believe this, but it is true. Once I got to church early well before mass to go to…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “ALL: There will always be someone whose says, “But Father! What about this?” or “What about that?” or “Some people…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Be brief. Be blunt. Begone!”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “I thought that in confessions of devotion it was ok to confess temptations so that you would get the extra…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Succinctness could be a sub-virtue of any of the four cardinal virtues.”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “How do you handle a rambling priest? I have one wonderful priest who must spend 10-15 minutes with you giving…”
on Daily Rome Shot 645 and an Action Item!: “Are the third and fourth lines referring to two women, one named Constantia Att(h)ica and the other Artemia, or three…”
on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Also, writing down the details runs the risk of losing the written item….having once found someone’s “list” on the church…” on Sign posted on confessional door: “GET TO THE POINT!” Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “Be brutal (accusing oneself). Be brief. Be gone.”
on Fr. John Hollowell’s brain tumor was miraculously healed at Lourdes.: “Thank you, Lord, and Mother Mary!!”
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...
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
Loading ...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.
Loading ...
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Use my code for a discount
Visits tracked by Statcounter
since Sat., 25 Nov. 2006:
In other news, the documents of Vatican II are hailed for their clarity.
The question is, did the Pope and his hagiographer lift this directly out of Orwell, or did they imagine that they were being completely original? I keep getting images of pigs walking upright on their hind feet and writing on the side of a barn when I read this…
This cat is a prisoner of a bubble of his own design. Give me strength. Over the edge.
From the article:
If there is something during these years that the pope has taught to journalists – and to anyone who may wish to listen to him – it is that what he says requires a correct interpretation on the part of the other. […] And this entails that one keep in mind not only “that which he says,” but also “to whom he says it, when, where, with what tone and in what way.” […] The fear of being misinterpreted induces many not to speak, and drives those who must do so because of their office to “bulletproof” their language. This is why, when the pope without too much rhetoric sets himself to dialogue, at the least it is necessary to listen well to what he says and how he says it. Removing the question marks from his questions, depriving his statements of temporal nuances, translating his suggestions into dogmas, decontextualizing a phrase… all of these expedients, adopted inadvertently or in bad faith, are tantamount to mocking a fish after it has been taken from the water.
So, what the author is saying (on behalf of the pope) is that nobody can know what the pope means about something. For:
(a) what the pope means can only be understood in terms of what the other person in the dialogue takes from the pope’s comment.
(b) only what the other person understands in the context of his own particular situation and his own particular comments back has meaning;
but
(c) even the other party, if he doesn’t take into account ALL of what the pope says, and how, and when, and after what other comment, and what he DIDN’T say, etc, will be “decontextualizing” what the pope says, and … NOBODY can ever know if he caught all of the context that the pope had in mind. So nobody can actually understand him.
Take the worst results of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, and Kierkegaard, and roll them all into one amorphous (relativistic) heap, and voila: the absolute destruction of communication. “You mean whatever you mean, I mean whatever I mean, and never the twain shall meet.”
And this passes for subtle brilliance. Sure … the brilliance of a tailor marketing new cloth that is so beautifully fine it can’t be seen by anyone of lesser quality.
TonyO wrote, “So, what the author is saying (on behalf of the pope) is that nobody can know what the pope means about something. . . . even the other party, if he doesn’t take into account ALL of what the pope says, and how, and when, and after what other comment, and what he DIDN’T say, etc, will be “decontextualizing” what the pope says, and … NOBODY can ever know if he caught all of the context that the pope had in mind. So nobody can actually understand him.”
Well done! What I’ve been struggling to say all this time, and you’ve said it for me. Thank you!
I like to read the Holy Father in the context of what Saint Thomas Aquinas had to say about various moral and theological subjects. If what the Holy Father and the Angelic Doctor say about a topic are in accord, then I conclude that I have understood Pope Francis well. If Aquinas and Francis don’t seem to be in accord, then I conclude that a decontextualizing of what the Pope said must have taken place. I consult the other Fathers and Doctors of the Church, the Documents of Trent, and our own Catechism, and try to reconcile what the Pope said with one or more of these. Once I’ve done so, I know I’ve taken into account all he said, as well as all he meant to say, thereby ensuring that I’ve caught all of the context that the pope had in mind, and move on from there, feeling that I have understood. And if I can’t reconcile them, then I deconstruct and reinterpret Francis’ words to comport with the Church document that most closely fits what I think he thinks he said. In that way I can be certain I’ve actually understood Francis.
Works for me!