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In churchy news…
I read that Francis now has had published an “autobiography”.
Well! That was interesting, wasn’t it?
Imagine! “A fascination for what is not understood”?
When the powers that be go after celebrations of Mass in the traditional form, it’s because they can’t stand the people who want it. They see you with a condescending contempt which masks their fear. They see you as a living proof of their deficiencies and/or vices. You must be crushed so they won’t be reminded of how what they have done and are persisting in doing is a massive fail. It’s not just about the traditional Mass. It’s about the people.
In the autobiography he also says that priests devoted to Latin Mass could have “mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties”.
What does this remind me of? It’s right there… on the tip of my memory… what … was … it…?
Oh yes. Now I recall.
Seminary in the 1980’s. That’s the old technique, isn’t it? Anyone who was conservative was labeled psychologically damaged. Then they either forced men out the door or into a shrink’s office where they were supposed to reveal that they are really “gay” in order to be allowed to stay. Back in the day, when we weren’t referring to the seminary as The Hole, we called it Lubyanka.
I refer the readership to check out a page about the Soviet game of diagnosing dissidents with “sluggish schizophrenia“. HERE The idea was that anyone who opposed the Soviet regime must be mentally ill, since there was no raational explanation for objecting to the best thing ever.
Question the magnificent post-Conciliar springtime and you must be nuts. Desire something that deviates from the greatest thing since the Council of Jerusalem and you will be suppressed… in mercy and openness to diversity… while walking together.
If you want a copy of the autobiography, you don’t have to rush to the local bookstore before they sell out. You can get one by using this link HERE and I will, ironically, get a piece of the sale.
On a related note, I refer the readership to Tracey Rowland’s superb Catholic Theology (US HERE – UK HERE) wherein she explains various schools of Catholic thought including that of Francis (within the chapter on Liberation Theology). Dr. Rowland has sharp insights. The first page or so of her look into the thought of Francis bear special attention.
On related note, the tenacious Phil Lawler of Catholic Culture has a piece you should look to fill in some of the puzzle pieces. HERE
Also not unrelated is this…
Remember in 2013, when Pope Francis said there was a Gay lobby in the Vatican responsible for the corruption in the Curia.
In his autobiography, he talks about the box that Benedict gave him: “Everything is in here.” The “documents relating to the most difficult and painful… pic.twitter.com/KGcwNQ1erk
— Catholic Sat (@CatholicSat) January 14, 2025
In the category of “Things Which Won’t See Again The Light Of Day”.
On another note…
I hope this is real.
He doused his home in Catholic Epiphany holy water before the fire came.
Results: pic.twitter.com/eYeiv496YF
— Dr Taylor Marshall™? (@TaylorRMarshall) January 13, 2025
You know that using Epiphany Water, which is a “trad thing” because it’s full of lacy and interest in what isn’t understood, means that people in that house were divisive. They had audacity not to lose their home just like everyone else! Why don’t these people just conform?
In chessy news… HERE
White to move and mate in 2. How fast are you?
Hey Fathers! How about a clerical Guayabera shirt?
White to move and mate in 2. How fast are you?
[NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.]
The oldest trick in the book!
I was cut out by family, wife was told I was unstable. Nope, quite sound actually.
I remember being asked after a Baptism by my FIL, what we could’ve changed about today? I was told often what the youth want, funny thing is, I was and am the youth, and that’s not what I wanted.
Incredibly mean statements to say the least.
We could go on and on.
Enjoy the bankruptcies and retirement homes. We have a future.
Black’s King can’t move, so we want to force him to have to move:
1. Rg6! threatening Rh8 mate. If Black tries . . . Rf8+, then
2. PxR = N (not Q!) is checkmate.
If he instead moves his King by playing . . . KxR, then
2. g7g8 = Q (this time) is checkmate.
It took a few seconds to generate the idea, and about a minute to work out all the consequences. Thanks for the fun!
I’m really sorry Fr Z but even the prospect of giving you a ‘cut’ would not induce me to buy ‘Hope’. Nothing more guaranteed to lose you whatever of it you have left.
Everything will be revealed at the end of time, so we needn’t despair.
*
The box pictured could be a nothing-burger and just full of stuff; or the box could be the actual dossier prepared for Benedict XVI on the corruption within the Holy See and further afield, I imagine. Benedict is looking at it and gesturing towards it. Pope Francis, meanwhile, is grinning. None of these postures indicate anything malicious in and of themselves.
*
But imagine if Pope Francis asked to be photographed with *the box* inside of which was *the dossier(s)* in full view, as a warning-shot that he would use its contents to blackmail everybody named inside?
Dear Fr. Z,
I was wondering if the full title of Pope Francis’ new memoir is “Custodian of Hope”?
Also, that box from Benedict makes me think of the last scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’m sure it is in a very “safe place” and Francis has “top men” reviewing it right now! ;-)
Dear Fr Z
I’ve no doubt that Dr Marshall’s observation about the house spared from the fires is true. Friends of ours in the town of Wingello, NSW, Australia experienced a similar event in 2020 when their house which should have been razed was not. The article at https://superflumina.org/miracles-at-wingello.html tells the full story.
God bless
Mark
Rh4, (any move)
Rh8#
I have been considering two interpretations for that phrase “fascination for what is not understood.” If it is referring to divine mystery which cannot be understood by the human intellect, then a preference for the Novus Ordo Mass should be condemned too, because the Novus Ordo Mass should also be presenting theological mysteries, as for example Pope Paul VI says in “Missale Romanum,” “we have decided to add three new Canons to this Prayer. In this way the different aspects of the mystery of salvation will be emphasized.” If, however, that phrase is referring to Latin, then I would say to Archbishop Bergoglio, “Dear Jorge, Actually I understand the Latin quite well. You should probably not make assumptions about what people do and do not understand. Best wishes, An American Layman, Ph.D. in Classics and Renaissance Studies.”
Phil Lawler’s wife, Leila, has a very interesting ‘take’ on Francis’s approach to argument or controversy on her Substack: https://leilamarielawler.substack.com/p/the-bulverism-of-pope-francis?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=1i2dg&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
“unhealthy for the liturgy to become ideology … rigidity … ecclesiastic…individualism … sectarian worldliness”
What gross hypocrisy!
When they finish using those fire fighting planes in LA, they might fill them with Epiphany water and do a drop or two over the Vatican. It wouldn’t hurt!
Various other trad site have excerpted a blurb in “Hope” in which the Holy Father rehashes one of his favorite anecdotes about an American Cardinal regales the pontiff with a tale of setting straight a couple whippersnapper young priests. Allegedly, the youthful clerics had the bright idea of wanting to offer the traditional Latin Mass, but were put in their place by the wise cardinal who told them to go master Vietnamese and Spanish before learning Latin. Considering that this is like the fifth time Pope Francis has told this tale, it’s obvious that he considers it some sort masterstroke put-down, a veritable check-mate in his long-running duel with trads. To me, however, the anecdote shows little other than how hopelessly out of touch that the Holy Father is. He accuses trads of trying to live in the past, but who exactly is living in the past? This ain’t 1955 anymore. What American diocese in 2025 is so teeming with young priests that Cardinals can get away with treating their young staff like fools and idiots, as in this anecdote? The Holy Father’s mentality is stuck in an era in which an authoritarian cleric (e.g., say, a Jesuit provincial in 1970s Argentina) lords over his underlings with an iron fist and demands and receives total obedience. Give a young priest a smart-alecky order to go master Vietnamese, and you’re just as likely to see him quit to become an IT manager than embrace his subservience. And besides, in an era of Duolingo and YouTube, who in the heck needs anyone’s permisssion to learn a language?
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What’s in the box? A lot. That’s why it’s big. Two items I’d like to see: Gagnon’s report (Murder on the 33rd Degree by Fr Charles Murr – now there’s a book to buy using Fr Z’s link!) and the full Third Secret. Not sure that’s in that box though.
Nothing in the world is going to make me buy, let alone read, ‘Hope.’ There is, however, an excellent book by Saint John Paul II with the word ‘hope’ in the title. A much better read.
The dishonesty of the description of the traditional Mass is breathtaking: “…a taste for …clerical ostentation, which is none other than an ecclesiastic version of individualism.” While the personality of the celebrant in the old Mass is subsumed in the celebration, the Priest in the new Mass seems to scream “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT MY FACE! BE ENTERTAINED BY ME!” Which partially explains the mania for building theater-in-the-round “worship spaces.”
The good Father wrote: “Seminary in the 1980’s. That’s the old technique, isn’t it? Anyone who was conservative was labeled psychologically damaged. ”
The 70’s, still flush with the drug-induced optimism and utopian pronouncements of the 60’s, wasn’t much better in seminary either (at least in the northeast, and especially in the SJ houses of formation.). Pretty much the only difference between the residence and the coed residence halls was that there were fewer females in the residence than the halls. At least for the normally-oriented men, if need be (just saying that gives me the shivers). The other side didn’t need such diversions. The undercurrent that celibacy (of either orientation) was optional as long as you were ‘discrete’ ran rampant.
And if you objected…see Father’s observation above. While you have to live with the consequences of your decision…50 years later, it still can weigh on you, whether it was by your hand or someone else’s.
One other possibility,
Rh6 (or h1 … or h5), …
… , Rf8+
Pxf8Q#
… , (any other move)
Rh8#
This problem with Pope Frances and his friends goes back to Genesis. The ideal is also the judge.
_
When we humans look up, see the ideal there, and say, “I want to give up my love for useless, worldly things and do whatever I can to reach up and join the beautiful ideal,” we are behaving like Abel, who went to some effort to give God his best, and life went well for him. We compare ourselves to the ideal, are judged by it, and accept humbly our state well below it. We stive toward perfection, knowing we might never reach it, being stupid. With that attitude, things start to spiral upward in the light of beauty, truth, and goodness. Soon we realize that there is no limit to the heights we can reach. It’s exhilarating!
_
When we humans look up, see the ideal there, and say, “Yes, it’s a beautiful ideal, but I refuse to give up my love for useless, worldly things, or go out of my way to reach up and join the ideal, which really isn’t THAT beautiful to me… anymore,” we are behaving like Cain, whose offering to God was somehow subpar, and life was not going well for him. We compare ourselves to the ideal, are judged by it, and think it’s not fair. We attempt to pull the ideal down to our lowliness. We belittle striving toward perfection, deciding it is not such a worthy goal, being prideful. With that attitude, things start to spiral downward into the darkness of vulgarity, deception, and evil. Soon there are no limits to the depths of our downward spiral. Then we must kill the ideal. It’s exhilarating!
_
In my opinion, this is the spirit of our current pontificate. First, it wanted to belittle the Latin Mass, then it wanted to pull the Holy Mass down to its level (Vatican II), now this spirit wants to kill the Mass of the Ages. A tale old as the first human beings born of man—but God is in charge, and the light shines in the darkness…
Pope Francis’ derogatory statements against “rigid” traditional Catholics are very hard to bear.
He should just be open and say, “I despise traditional Catholics”.
If I were to hear a priest talk like that, I would NEVER go to him for confession- except when I’m dying and need to confess my sins before I die.
Following Jesus’ command to love my neighbors and enemies it’s my duty to obey Jesus to pray for the Pope every day-mainly praying that he will die in the state of grace. He’s a very hard man to love but I have to love him like Jesus loves him.
Enough straw men from Bergoglio to stock all the corn fields in Oz.