Welcome registrant:
SursumCorda91
I had posted a Mom’s Stuff Page – hoping to learn what things are and what they might be worth. Someone reached out to buy something. Nice. So much better than something my mom made going off into the void.
Today I had a house inspector come to inspect my place and my mom’s house.
Mine is good to go. However, my mom’s house needs a new roof, which is going to really hurt. I knew it was coming, by looking at it, but the news was still a real blow. Time to get estimates, I guess. The rest of the house is okay, water heater, A/C. There are some valves that need work, but that’s small stuff. There is so much to do. Power washing, probably painting. It’s intimidating. My main “handy man” was once the maintenance guy for a large parish and is a faithful practicing Catholic who serves Mass and has been life-long KC. He knows all sorts of people for services, which helps. We sat down and strategized. I think we need to get a 10m dumpster to start with, rather than haul loads.
Also, we got her car tidied up for 1) sale 2) use (would have to get plates and insurance). Low mileage: 2014 SUV with 46K.
I suspect more than one of you have faced these things. Please ask St. Joseph to help me.
I get this, but think about it.
? ? pic.twitter.com/lalqKvaYHg
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) June 25, 2026
More than 20 professors at Franciscan University are calling on the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) not to proceed with its planned consecration of bishops on July 1.https://t.co/gdoH9G079d
— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) June 25, 2026
I can guess what’s up. I don’t think this bodes well for the non-bishop members of the SSPX. Lay people are not members: they just go to their chapels. The SSPX is a fraternity of priests, though there are brothers and sisters.
Now this is interesting…. Infovaticana notes that in the past week, Pope Leo has held three meetings with Cardinal Victor Fernandez, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
These haven’t been happenstance encounters; they’ve been formal, scheduled events,…
— Philip Lawler (@PhilLawler) June 26, 2026
Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links. US HERE – WHY? This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, and now also my late mother’s place. At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.
White to move and mate in 4.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
From my friend Fr. McTeigue (aka One Of The Gooduns):
I would not be surprised if there is an organized pressure campaign to “persuade” (or to make them an offer than cannot refuse) those within the Church who have been supportive of the VO Mass to openly campaign against the upcoming consecrations.
But once again I find this all very confusing. The consecrations will change nothing except to make it easier for the FSSPX to provide sacraments to the faithful.
And what can the FSSPX do to Rome except embarrass them by comparing what the Church used to teach with what many Bishops are teaching today? And if Rome is always right (as they think they are), why would this bother them.
Asked a friend who went to FUS —
FUS is resting its document on Pastor Aeternus, Chapter 3.
This does not mean that when the pope says “jump” the faithful are to respond, “how high?”, especially not when it comes to bishops, especially very much not when it comes to episcopal rights, duties, and responsibilities that come directly from Christ. (Aside, as you are interested in the liturgy, it is important to keep in mind that the liturgy is its own independent thing and that the Pope doesn’t have absolute sovereign authority over the liturgy — it is not his plaything. If you follow the logic of the FUS document, liturgy and implicitly scripture are the playthings of the Pope. That is not how PA is to be taken.) The consecration of a bishop is first and foremost a liturgical action of a bishop that stems directly from Christ, not the Pope. As such, the Pope’s governance on matters of ordination are not that of an absolute sovereign but rather that of a servant of the servants of God. The liturgical action is entrusted to the bishop directly, not indirectly via the Pope. The bishop is bound to follow the dictates of the liturgy, which exists as its own independent source of revelation, per Ratzinger.
I clearly remember being in classes at FUS with the issue of papal authority coming up. Vatican II goes a decent way to restoring the episcopate (though not far enough).
Let me pull LG 27 in full:
—-
27. Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them (58*) by their counsel, exhortations, example, and even by their authority and sacred power, which indeed they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is the chief become as the servant.(169) This power, which they personally exercise in Christ’s name, is proper, ordinary and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church (NOTE: This is not the Pope and VII says that), and can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful. In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.
The pastoral office or the habitual and daily care of their sheep is entrusted to them completely; nor are they to be regarded as vicars of the Roman Pontiffs, for they exercise an authority that is proper to them, and are quite correctly called “prelates,” heads of the people whom they govern.(59*) Their power, therefore, is not destroyed by the supreme and universal power, but on the contrary it is affirmed, strengthened and vindicated by it,(60*) since the Holy Spirit unfailingly preserves the form of government established by Christ the Lord in His Church.
A bishop, since he is sent by the Father to govern his family, must keep before his eyes the example of the Good Shepherd, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister,(170) and to lay down his life for his sheep.(171) Being taken from among men, and himself beset with weakness, he is able to have compassion on the ignorant and erring.(172) Let him not refuse to listen to his subjects, whom he cherishes as his true sons and exhorts to cooperate readily with him. As having one day to render an account for their souls,(173) he takes care of them by his prayer, preaching, and all the works of charity, and not only of them but also of those who are not yet of the one flock, who also are commended to him in the Lord. Since, like Paul the Apostle, he is debtor to all men, let him be ready to preach the Gospel to all,(174) and to urge his faithful to apostolic and missionary activity. But the faithful must cling to their bishop, as the Church does to Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Father, so that all may be of one mind through unity,(61*) and abound to the glory of God.(175)
—-
Further (and hopefully Gemini/Grok sources things correctly here as I don’t have access to my Denzinger currently)
Following Vatican I, the German Bishops gave a collective voice to episcopal rights… “by virtue of the same divine institution upon which the papacy rests, the episcopate also exists; it too has its rights and duties, which the pope has neither the right nor the power to change.” (German Bishops’ Conference, Collective Declaration of the German Bishops, Jan.–Feb. 1875 [DH 3112]). Because bishops are “appointed by the Holy Spirit and stand in the place of the Apostles,” they are “not mere tools of the Pope, nor papal officials without personal responsibility.” (Collective Declaration, DH 3115). Pope Pius IX explicitly confirmed this defense, stating that it left “nothing to be desired” in explaining that papal primacy does not diminish the episcopate. (Pope Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Mirabilis Illa Constantia, March 4, 1875 [DH 3117]).
The SSPX bishops do have more than a leg to stand on to go ahead with the consecrations based on divine mandate and the care of souls. The FUS call for “more dialogue” is confusing. /// aside — FUS really pushes hard a hermeneutic of continuity reading of Vatican II in its courses. That hasn’t actually lined-up with what is going on from the Vatican since BXVI abdicated. Both SSPX and more or less official Vatican policy reads Vatican II with a hermeneutic of discontinuity. All one has to do is to point to Pope Leo’s recent address a few days ago about how the bishops need to “listen to the spirit” and “learn synodality together.” /// Confusing because there really isn’t a goal to this dialogue posited by signers of the document. “Everyone is united if they just do what the Pope wants.” That isn’t unity, sure isn’t dialogue, and isn’t the divine constitution of the Church according to Vatican II. Besides, what does the Pope really want other than “no consecrations”? Not sure. That is a problem.
And yes, the Pope is fully within his right to, as you say, “decide who his friends are and who his friends are not.” It will be a capricious act though, because why have the Popes backdated the Chinese consecrations over the years and then not backdate the SSPX? Whim of the sovereign is not a good place to hang one’s hat, and if anything good comes from the possible excommunications, perhaps it will be the Vatican arguing the “I told you to jump” position more definitively and perhaps for the good of the Church, the whole post enlightenment “will of the sovereign” grounded in nothing other that the “will to power” can be delt with. There are massive tensions in ecclesiolgy that really need to be lanced out, one way or another, and the syndol path isn’t a way forward — that will just cause the poison to fester. Why? Because fraternity, not charity, is the guiding principle there. And if you notice, the FUS letter is all about fraternity, along with having no concept of the SSPX position. “Your love for the beauty of the traditional liturgy and your reverence in worship” is what FUS thinks the SSPX is hung up on. FUS is mistaking the fruit of the position for the root of the position. Notice as well this line: “He offered his body on the cross, and his mystical body, his Church, is not to be divided.” I recall well FUS professors lamenting the division in the Church (militant). The whole point of my FUS degree was to rebuild and fix the division in the Church by applying the hermeneutic of continuity as a guiding principle for realigning parishes to the will of Christ. But the point was that division EXISTED and was a horrible thing. Not that the SSPX or some other group was going to come along and create division…but that the division existed and the FUS degree would enable those who had it to fix the division.
1. Qg6+ Kh8 forced
2. Qh5+ then whether Kg7 or Kg8
3. Rg3+ Bg4 forced
4. Rxg4# mate
Looking at LifeSite’s analysis of the SSPX’s 154 point Profession, there are some clear problems in it.
64. I finally profess that the Old Covenant has been fulfilled, surpassed, and rendered obsolete by the New Covenant (the end of the paragraph is non-problematic)
The adjective translated as “New” in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin means actually renewed, so that understood properly there has only been One Covenant, renewed in and by Christ Who, therefore did not “surpass” it nor render it “obsolete”.
145…. agnosticism attacks the knowledge of God
Yes well those who have never been agnostics most often have no understanding at all of it — a proper agnostic will in fact be open to the possibility of conversion (as I was, joyfully) and so open to gaining knowledge of God. Furthermore, to claim that this is somehow an “error of the Council” as they do here is utterly absurd, as agnostics are NOT informed by the teachings of that Council !!
145…. false ecumenism attacks the uniqueness of the Church
If you read Mortalium animos and Unitatis redintegratio with some care, you realise that the latter document did not revoke or replace the former — so that false ecumenism remains condemned by the Church, and indeed Unitatis redintegratio details the forms of ecumenism that are to be rejected by Catholics, which is to say any sorts of ecumenism that are contrary to the Catholicity and the Deposit of Faith. And that without express permission by your Bishop, Catholics remain in principle forbidden from attending any ecumenical event.
145…. collegiality and synodality attack the divine constitution of the Church in her hierarchy
The SSPX attack collegiality whilst proclaiming their own collegial rights to act as they wish to. This is the pot calling the kettle black.
If they wanted to denounce the abuses that occur by overreaching collectivism in many Bishops Conferences or indeed the existence itself of these Bishops Conferences, they would be more coherent, but in attacking “collegiality” they seem not to comprehend that their own Fraternity is precisely an example of collegiality.
They’re right about “synodality” though …
LifeSite’s own critique of the SSPX positions on the Liturgy, on Magisterium is quite pertinent and needs not be added to.
Have you talked with a real estate agent yet? They can offer good advice on a large variety of issues. In fact, in this tight housing market, you may be able to sell it “as is” including the furnishings.
I have asked this question before to various priests and knowledgeable people, and tried to find any commentary by the Church Father’s on it, but no one seems to be able to answer my question:
Regarding Jesus’ statement, “…upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail over it.” It seems to me “gates” are defensive structures, not offensive ones. So no one uses gates to attack, but to defend. So reason tells me “…the gates of hell shall not prevail…” would imply that if one preaches the Gospel assertively, the gates defending hell will not prevail over the preaching of the Word of God, and will fail, and Satan’s kingdom and possessions will be overcome. I do not see how the “gates of hell” has anything to say about protection of the Church, except in the attack it makes on Satan’s strongholds, and not that the Church cannot be overcome by the attacks of Satan (especially if there is a deliberate refusal to preach the Gospel.)
Can anyone shed light on this for me, and explain how it came to be the phrase is used to say the Church will never be defeated by Satan?
Fr.Z:
About your mother’s house, if she had several books (and you aren’t in a huge hurry to put the house on the market) you may want to call a book collector to do some appraisals for sale. My dad did this years ago for my uncle’s old place (he literally had a library in his home).
About antiques…I am a guy so I know nothing about antiques.
You could probably go through clothes and see what can be donated. I did that after my dad passed away (and since he and I were similar size I pilfered some of them myself as did my brother).
Here’s another thought: you may want to see if the police museum in your native place would like some of your mother’s things – you have posted about that in the past about your mother which is an interesting piece of history.
Hope this is worthwhile information for you Fr. Z.
@fac – gates are portals, the use of which can either be entry or exit. As the castle / fort / motte and bailey were traditionally the way of stamping your authority over a region (“let’s build a castle” was the medieval equivalent of “send in a gunboat”); the gate of the city was where the power was – where power exuded from, where the tax collectors encamped. So it is used in the sense that a gate is a symbol of power.
Our prayers are with you. I know you miss your Mom. The hard part is now, handling the earthly remnants of her earthly life.
1. R-g3+
If . . . . . . . . K-f7
2. R-g7+ . . K-e8
3. Q-g6+ . . B-f7
4. Q×f7#
If . . . . . . . . B-g4
2. R×g4+ . . K-f7
3. R-g7+ . . . K-e8
4. Q-g6#
The interposition of Black’s Bishop fails on both variationa.
It is possible that the house insurance may pay for a new roof.
If not, sell the house as is, reduced price but over and done. Let the new owner, made aware of it of course, take care of the roof.