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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
Saint110676 on ASK FATHER: If a priest explains away a mortal sin, and the penitent believes him, is the absolution valid?: “Is confession the time to discuss the “theology of sin” or moral theology? Should we priests not simply give absolution…”
WVC on RIP Patrick Stewart … my competitor!: “For the Patrick Stewart Star Trek fans here – the famous episode “There Are FOUR Lights” seems very applicable to…”
hwriggles4 on RIP Patrick Stewart … my competitor!: “Fr. Z is saying a tribute to Capt. Picard: Make it so.”
Fr. John Zuhlsdorf on ASK FATHER: If a priest explains away a mortal sin, and the penitent believes him, is the absolution valid?: “Please don’t try to come up with odder and rarer situations. We know that there were/are priests who tell/have told…”
mickeyfitz on ASK FATHER: Definition and the duties of a pastoral associate. : “TonyO: I suspect that the stability of a pastor’s appointment ultimately depends upon the good faith of the bishop and…”
mickeyfitz on ASK FATHER: If a priest explains away a mortal sin, and the penitent believes him, is the absolution valid?: “In the questioner’s scenario, could it also be possible that the penitent mistakenly believed that something was a sin, but…”
ProfessorCover on ASK FATHER: If a priest explains away a mortal sin, and the penitent believes him, is the absolution valid?: “Oh! What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.n”
Felsenwatcher on ASK FATHER: If a priest explains away a mortal sin, and the penitent believes him, is the absolution valid?: “Thank you for your comments on this question. Consider another scenario. [I don’t want to get into a rabbit hole…”
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Recent Posts
- ASK FATHER: If a priest explains away a mortal sin, and the penitent believes him, is the absolution valid?
- ROME 26/10 – Day 30: With apologies to the Bard
- RIP Patrick Stewart … my competitor!
- ROME 26/10 – Day 29: hard to read inscription
- ASK FATHER: Definition and the duties of a pastoral associate.
- ROME 26/10 – Day 28: Natalis Dies
- You knew this had to happen
- ROME 26/10– Day 27: Vigil
- Rush: on …what’s going on now
- ROME 26/10– Day 26: Rube Goldberg
- My Annual St Crispin’s Day roundup with Henry V speech!
- ROME 26/10– Day 25: King things
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Feast of Christ the King (N.O.: 30th Ordinary)
- Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage 2026… *sigh*… Vatican Bars Annual TLM Pilgrimage from ENTERING St. Peter’s Basilica
- ROMAE, die XXIII Octobris, A.D. MMXXVI
- 23 October – St. Severinus Boethius: “A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven.”
- ROME 26/10– Day 22: Colors and courses and Coco
- ROME 26/10– Day 21: fountain
- 21 Oct – St Gaspar del Bufalo – “Hammer of Freemasons”
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-10-12 – Brainstorming!
- Not a huge fan, but the question is dead on right…
- ROME 26/10– Day 19-20:
- Are things as bad as the seem? Auctores scinduntur.
- ROME 26/10– Day 17-18: How very sad
- WDTPRS – 21st Sunday after Pentecost: My strengths support yours. My sins weaken us all.
- A matter of grave concern: People who pray together before or after Mass.
- ROME 26/10– Day 16: Baronius… and traitors
- ROME 26/10– Day 15: munch
- ASK FATHER: “Are the faithful who go to the SSPX being sacramentally forgiven in confession, or not?”
- 15 October (4 Oct 1582) St. Teresa of Avila, Calendars, Chess, and You
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
- Prosper of Aquitaine (+c.455), De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem 22.61
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- The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Your support is important. Thanks in advance.
To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT comDonate 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!
Don’t rely on popes, bishops and priests.
“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”- Fulton Sheen
Therefore, ACTIVATE YOUR CONFIRMATION and get to work!
Send Snail Mail to Fr. Z
Fr John Zuhlsdorf
Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
733 Struck St.
PO BOX 44603
Madison, WI 53744-4603
For email HERE
- “The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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?
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To donate monthly I prefer Zelle because it doesn't extract fees. Use
frz AT wdtprs DOT comAs for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
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Category Archives: ASK FATHER Question Box
ASK FATHER: Firearms at Mass, laity and priests – UPDATED
In the wake of the recent horrible Texas church massacre, I now have several email conversations going on – with laity and clergy – about having a concealed firearm in church. This is an issue which needs sober assessment by … Read More
ASK FATHER: The usual requirements for gaining indulgences
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Do all indulgenced works (eg visiting the Bl Sacrament for 30 mins) carry with them the three usual requirements (Communion, Confession & prayer for the Pope’s intentions)? In the Norms for gaining indulgences in the Enchiridion … Read More
ASK FATHER: How much “work” on Sunday?
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I know we are to abstain from unnecessary servile (manual) labor on Sundays. How strict should we be with discerning whether the labor is “necessary” or not? For example, can mere convenience justify a small amount … Read More
ASK FATHER: How to “pray for the Pope’s intentions” if I don’t like them or him?
From a reader… QUAERITUR: With the pope not being what I would call a friend to the traditional mass, my wife has asked how do we pray for his intentions? Can we as lay people be critical of the pope? … Read More
ASK FATHER: Priests don’t say daily Mass in the parish
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Is it the case that any Masses that a parish priest says, other than on a Sunday, are “private Masses” and, therefore, it is entirely up to him whether or not he says them? This is … Read More
ASK FATHER: Mass obligation and falling asleep during Mass
From a reader… QUAERITUR: This morning at Mass (All Saints), as I held a sleeping toddler and fought fatigue myself, I recalled the Holy Father’s recent words (echoing St. Therese of Lisieux) about not being too upset about falling asleep … Read More
ASK FATHER: Too much Precious Blood consecrated. Who should consume?
From a seminarian… QUAERITUR: First and foremost I have to thank you immensely for this blog, which has greatly helped me and some of my brothers from our Seminary down here in Brazil (where stuff like those on Fishwrap are … Read More
ASK FATHER: Can a Permanent Deacon perform a Baptism according to the Old Rite?
From a permanent deacon… QUAERITUR: Can a Permanent Deacon perform a Baptism according to the Old Rite? I would be using the booklet entitled “Baptism” published by Angelus Press. My old pastor, the late Msgr. Richard Schuler, used to tell … Read More
ASK FATHER: Irreverent priest at a funeral Mass.
From an upset reader… QUAERITUR: I went to a funeral Mass and the priest was not reverent of the person who passed. He rapped his knuckles on the coffin numerous times. He paraphrased the readings and the consecration. He reprimanded … Read More
ASK FATHER: Catholic alternatives to Boy Scouts, now that they’ve gone crazy
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Are there good Catholic alternatives to the Boy Scouts of America, now that they have put the final nail in their own coffin by deciding to admit girls? What a huge disappointment this is. I was … Read More




















