The single most damaging change made in the name of, the “spirit” of the Second Vatican Council, was the “turning around” of our altars. We should recover ad orientem worship.
The video highlights the Traditional Latin Mass, but ee need ad orientem worship for both the Novus Ordo and the Traditional Mass.
CLICK!
Was there a good point or two about made in the sermon you heard for your Mass of Sunday obligation? Let us know.
For my part here, “up North”, to the small gathering, I pointed to the silence of the people at the meal when the Lord cured the man with “dropsy”. They had set a trap for Him, seeing if He would cure on the Sabbath. I used to point of silence to speak about the nine ways in which we can be guilty for sins committed by other people (not just Original Sin). We can be guilty of the sin of another by
Depending on the dictates of the principle of fraternal correction, there are times when we simply cannot be silent about certain things, particularly when they have to do with grave matters of justice.
I mentioned that now St. Theresa of Calcutta, in front of the odious Clintons back in the day, was not silent.
Finally, we can’t be silent in concrete concern for the poor, not just those who are hungry for bread, as St. Theresa said, but who are spiritually and emotionally hungry. Be concerned for the concrete cases in front of you, not the abstract poor out there somewhere. Don’t be silent in action in their regard.
That’s a taste. I did this pretty much off the top of my head since I didn’t expect a “congregation” (small though it was).
Did your priests mentioned St. Theresa of Calcutta today?
Here is the video of St. Theresa of Calcutta at the famous National Prayer Breakfast. There was sustained applause. The odious Clintons did not applaud.
Please take the time to watch this. Make sure your children see it. Share it around.
Here is some good news.
My friend Fr. Jeffrey Keyes has posted about saying his first Low Mass in the Extraordinary Form. HERE
Photos there.
Sample:
Once priests learn the older Form, they ever after say the newer Form in a different, renewed way. In turn that has a knock-on effect in their parishes.
This is why libs and aging hippies fear it.
When someone has been sacked for dissent from Catholic teaching or because of some immoral “lifestyle” choice, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, good riddance. On the other hand, I would – by orders of magnitude – prefer that they change their ways and keep their positions (provided they were competent, etc.). Card. George once said that Americans can be simultaneously hedonistic and puritanical. This crops up in an unforgiving spirit which some people manifest: they bash people who were public sinners. Don’t we want people to convert? I do.
Anyway, I saw this at CWN:
A New Jersey priest has been suspended from public ministry because of his persistent homosexual advocacy.
Father Warren Hall revealed on Twitter that he had been suspended by Archbishop John Myers of Newark, because his public statements and actions are “confusing the faithful.” Last year Father Hall had been removed from his post as chaplain at Seton Hall University because of his outspoken support for homosexual causes.
Father Hall indicated that he thought his suspension showed that Archbishop Myers was out of step with Catholic thinking. He wrote on Twitter that “@Pontifex’s Reform are taking too long.”
Kudos to Archbp. Myers.
While I would rather see this guy change his ways and work to undo some of the scandal he has caused, my only comment until that happens is: Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I like what the monks are trying to accomplish at Silverstream Priory. BTW… I use the altar cards on my personal altar: I found that I liked them better than those which I used for years. But I digress.
Many people read this blog. I often wonder what might be possible if even a quarter of the readers donated $5 a month. There is power in numbers. A few of you are doing some heavy lifting. Perhaps more of you can get involved.
Hence, on the note of many of you getting involved, I ask you also to consider giving help, even in a small amount, to Silverstream. Here is an email I received from Dom Mark Kirby, the Prior:
Dear friends of Silverstream, beloved in Christ,
Dom Elijah, our newly–appointed cellarer (general manager) came to me yesterday, invoice in hand, with doleful news. We have exceeded the budget (based on projected cost) for Phase One of the current renovations. The required works proved to be more extensive than what the architect and engineers originally foresaw: entirely new electrical wiring, heating, plumbing, and fire alarm systems had to be installed to make our monastery, built in 1846, safe and habitable.
Phase One covers only 11 cells, bathroom facilities and a central “energy centre” or boiler house. I am obliged to appeal to all our friends to help us meet these onerous expenses.
Please give whatever you can — 5, 50, 100, 500, 5000, 10,000, 50,000 — in euros or in dollars, by September 8th, Our Lady’s Birthday. No gift is too small, and no gift too large. We shall ask Our Lady to reward your generosity to us. Heartfelt thanks.
Information on giving is at: HERE
http://www.cenacleosb.org/help/
Father Prior & Community
P.S. Dom Benedict and the new postulants are missing from the photo above! We are growing!
As we read in Ecclesiasticus 3:33: Water quencheth a flaming fire, and alms resisteth sins.
It’s coming to a neighborhood near you.
Via Express:
Vicars told ‘don’t wear dog collars in public’ over fears jihadists are planning attacks
Worries knife-wielding ISIS jihadists will target churches were raised by experts and revealed by churchmen.
New counter-terrorism advice is being urgently issued to vicars and churches across the UK this week over fears an attack on British Christians is now likely.
The new security measures follow the murder of a priest by two Islamic State killers in France last month, amid fears a similar attack could now happen in the UK.
Experts warned a terrorist attack on churches “is coming”.
Places of worship in the UK, which are ‘easy targets’ for jihadists, are now being urged to take precautions and increase security.
A document called Counter Terrorism Advice for Churches urged religious leaders to prepare for terror strikes and to be on alert for attackers, who are likely to be armed with knives.
ISIS has threatened Christians before and has launched an effective genocide against the faith in lands it has seized in the Middle East.
Last Sunday Catholic Priest Albert Pandiangan was stabbed during by an ISIS-inspired knifeman during mass in Indonesia – who then tried to detonate an explosive device but failed.
Catholic priest Jacques Hamel, 85, had his throat slit by knife-wielding monsters wearing fake explosive belts when he was taken hostage at his church in Normandy on July 26.
The slaying has prompted guidance to be rewritten for religious institutions in the UK.
Ex-police officer Nick Tolson, who has advised the Home Office on counter-terrorism measures since 2012, has drafted the new tougher security recommendations.
He told the Mirror: ”Since the French attack we have to look at the possibility of an attack on a church in this country.
The risk level has gone up.
“Churches in the past were considered low risk – now we know an attack is coming… and churches are one of the easy targets.
“It’s likely to be a knife – not a machine gun, but we are covering that too.”
Read the rest there.
It could be a good idea to have a discussion about security at your parish.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.
St. Pius V, pray for us.
Martyrs of Otranto, pray for us.
Our Lady of Victory, intercede for us with Christ the High Priest.
I was alerted by a reader about this sad development via Portale Italradio:
Vatican Radio to leave Short Wave for Daily Mass and Rosary
No more short waves for two of the most followed liturgical broadcasts of Vatican Radio. As from 1 August 2016, Latin Mass at 05:30 UTC [Novus Ordo] and Rosary prayer at 18:40 UTC will be broadcast on the usual frequencies only on Sundays and catholic holy days. No motivation [reason] is until now available.
The decision has been taken earlier this week by the Vatican Secretariat for Communications.
Both broadcasts were especially meant to reach isolated people, travelers and all those who are prevented to attend a Mass in their country or to have a free access to the Internet.
Italradio express deeply concern for a totally inexplicable decision, a “hertzian-suicide” as we define it in a word.
As from 1 August the Mass is broadcast on SW only on Sunday and holydays: 15595 kHz. 3975 kHz
6070 kHz at 05.30 UTC. The Rosary prayer on 11625 kHz, 3975 kHz, 6070 kHz, 9660 kHz, 9755 kHz at 18.40 UTC.
Also, concerning Vatican Radio:
Vatican Radio to leave Short Wave?
Short wave transmitting centre at Santa Maria di Galeria (Rome) might be closed ina near future, Vatican Radio French and German newscasts stated, commenting the phasing out of short wave for daily Mass and Rosary prayer on weekdays, as from 1 August 2016. A new organization of Vatican media would enhance investments on digital media.
According to the French service this modification paves the way to the “démantèlement progressif des antennes du centre d’émission de Santa Maria di Galeria” (progressive dismantling of antennas at Santa Maria di Galeria transmitting centre) the German service predicts its “Abschaltung” (disconnection).
No further information was found in both English and Italian programmes.
Vatican Radio transmitting centre is one of the most important broadcasting facility in the world and a reasearch center for telecommunications, highly respected everywhere. Many International broadcasters do exchange air time with Santa Maria to cover areas such as Africa, the Middle East and Europe. A closing down of the center will be a terrible strike to International broadcasting co-operation and a enormous waste of investments carried on for over 50 years. Italradio fiercely opposes the end of operation.And today…
Radiotelevisione Vaticana, alla fine sarà solo portale internet?
A quasi due mesi dall’annuncio dato da Mons. D. E. Viganò a San Marino, trova conferma nella stampa nazionale che entro fine anno nascerà la Radiotelevisione Vaticana, un nuovo ente per il quale il quotidiano “La Repubblica” (31.08.2016) scrive che “a 85 anni dalla nascita della prima stazione radio pontificia progettata da Guglielmo Marconi, alla fine dell’anno in Vaticano nascerà un unico polo di trasmissione radiotelevisiva col compito di potenziare la diffusione nel mondo “della parola e la missione del Pontefice al servizio della Chiesa e del Vangelo, per la promozione umana, la difesa dei poveri, della pace e dei diritti umani e religiosi” attraverso “le immagini, le parole e i più significativi eventi ecclesiali, beatificazioni, viaggi papali, udienze”.
Quando Italradio ha recensito la conversazione con San Marino RTV il progetto già appariva chiaro anche se la unificazione non dovrebbe significare obbligatoriamente la fine dell’emittemte che, invece, con le recenti chiusure di ulteriori onde corte, pare profilarsi al sorgere di un progetto del quale – aggiunge Orazio La Rocca su “La Repubblica” – i “programmi, finalità e nuova dirigenza del nascente polo radiofonico pontificio saranno annunciati – si apprende in ambienti vicini alla Segreteria per la Comunicazione – “prossimamente”, prima della fine dell’Anno Santo”.
Riprendendo anche quanto preannunciato da Mons. D.E. Viganò all’inizio di agosto su “Prima Comunicazione” (HERE) il quotidiano romano sottolinea che la struttura “trasmetterà, 24 ore su 24, attraverso un grande portale internet accessibile a tutti, mediante il quale oltre alle attività del Papa e della vita della Chiesa si potranno seguire trasmissioni di approfondimento, dirette, commenti, cronache di eventi religiosi, informazioni giornalistiche e politiche seguite dalle 40 redazioni estere dell’attuale emittente radiofonica, per un totale di circa 60 lingue diverse”.
Portale internet ci pare chiaro che non sia una radio ma qualcosa di diverso e che pericolosamente vada a mettere in un angolo gli ascoltatori di tutto il mondo a favore di un gruppo di prescelti per ricevere il messaggio che rischia di perdersi nella marea di informazioni della rete. Una rete, perdipiù, notoriamente controllabile e bloccabile da governi e sistemi economici.
Ci auguriamo che le inevitabili semplificazioni giornalistiche ci abbiano finora impedito di vedere ciò purtroppo appare in tutta la sua gravità: una certa perdita di indipendenza che in un mondo pieno di frontiere, solo la Radio assicura al messaggio del Papa e all’informazione (libera) che la Radio Vaticana ha garantito per 85 anni.
I have quite a bit of driving in store for me on Thursday. That means that I won’t be able to check the moderation queue as often as I can when I am not on the road.
Folks, I’m sorry about moderation queue and about the registration and all that. I had to require registration some years ago because, frankly, really nasty people targeted the blog’s combox.
Lately, I have used the moderation queue more often lately because I don’t want the place to devolve into the hideous, un-Christian invective, defamation and lies that characterize the liberal (and some not liberal) “catholic” sites, such as Fishwrap. Look over there sometime. Brrrrrrr. And sometimes I, well, save you from yourselves, as it were, and close rabbit holes.
Perhaps one day, with a little more support, I will get some people to help with the moderation. Until there, I can’t always be on top of every queued comment or registration.
Also, please note that some people write to me to say that they cannot register. When I look them up in the database, I usually find that they are already registered. I then set a new temporary password for them and that solves it. However, people who are really people, and not vile spammers or bots (who – if they don’t repent – will roast in the deepest cinders of Hell) are usually approved pretty quickly provided they too that “About You” part in the registration form seriously.
Anyway, thanks for the patience.
Meanwhile…
Today it was announced that Pope Francis created a “Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development” through a Motu Proprio published on today in L’Osservatore Romano. More from Vatican Radio HERE.
The Dicastery will come into effect on 1 January 2017 and will be especially “competent in issues regarding migrants, those in need, the sick, the excluded and marginalized, the imprisoned and the unemployed, as well as victims of armed conflict, natural disasters, and all forms of slavery and torture”.
On that same date, four Pontifical Councils will cease to exist and will be incorporated into the new institution.
A dicastery is an official “department” of the Curia. Congregations and Councils are both “dicasteries”.
I suspect that this new Dicastery will eventually be made into a Congregation.
One thing that occurred to me is that by squishing four dicasteries that usually have a Cardinal as their head into one dicastery, he eliminated three curial cardinal positions. This is what I predicted he would do shortly after he was elected: he would cut down the Curia and, thereby, shift power away from the Curia to regions. If he wants to maintain the number of electors – and he probably will – he can now give a red hat to three bishops “out there” somewhere in the world, not excluding Maseru in Lethoso, Juneau in Alaska, or even Tawara, Nauru and Funfati.
Whom shall he choose!
Time will tell.
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
My brother, who was baptized in the Catholic Church as an infant and received the sacraments of Holy Communion and Confirmation at the usual ages for our diocese, was received into the Greek Orthodox church by chrismation in 2003. He did that shortly before going through a Greek Orthodox marriage ceremony to a Greek Orthodox woman who was allowed to remarry in her church. The woman was divorced from her Greek Orthodox husband and had a child with him during their short marriage together. I did not attend the chrismation or the wedding ceremony.
Would my brother be considered to be defected from the Catholic Church? Also, after the chrismation ceremony would he be required to follow the Catholic laws for entering into a valid marriage? (I do realize that the woman he went through the ceremony with was not from the standpoint of the Catholic Church eligible to marry, but let’s leave that aspect of the situation aside for the moment.)
For this answer, I turned to a trusted canonist who also posts here, Fr. Tim Ferguson. The following is his response:
This is some highly complicated canon law. When the 1983 Code of Canon Law came into effect (November 27, 1983) something never before heard of entered into our canonical system: the notion that one could, by some formal act, defect from the Catholic faith and thereby free oneself from the obligation to observe certain ecclesiastical laws, most notably, the law of canonical form for marriage. Since the Donatist controversy had been settled in the fourth century, the operational principle of the Church had been – semel Catholicus, semper Catholicus.
The 1983 Code did not, technically, allow someone to cease being Catholic, but opened up the notion that one could be free from certain ecclesiastical laws by one’s own actions – not by a dispensation given by the hierarchy (though, it could be legitimately argued that the norms of the 1983 Code themselves represent the actions of the hierarchy. That’s a great discussion for canonists, theologians, Latinists, and a 20-year old bottle of scotch).
In 2006, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith clarified just what an act of formal defection entailed. An act of formal defection requires three things: a true decision to leave the Church, a manifest action of one’s decision in written form, and the reception of that decision by a competent ecclesiastical authority (e.g. a bishop or one who takes the place of the bishop, or at least the proper pastor of the one defecting). The prevailing understanding is that these three conditions, as they make up the definition of the formal act, are essential and apply from November 27, 1983 – any supposed formal act prior to that point did not actually free the person making such an act from the requirement to observe canonical form.
With the motu proprio Omnium in Mentem, of October 26, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI closed the loophole and has, effectively, returned the Church back to the position before November 27, 1983. While it is still possible to formally defect from the Catholic Church, such a defection has absolutely no canonical effect.
So, on to our interlocutor. Unless the gentleman in question wrote to his Latin Catholic bishop stating that he intended, by his reception of chrismation in the Greek Orthodox Church, to formally defect from the Catholic faith, and unless the bishop received that letter and accepted it as a formal act of defection (which he would have signified by ordering a notation be made in the gentleman’s baptismal record, then the gentleman in question never left the Catholic Church. His reception of chrismation was actually a simulation of a sacrament, because confirmation (the Latin equivalent of the Greek chrismation) cannot be repeated.
Now, another curve ball – while Catholics are obliged by ecclesiastical law to observe canonical form and marry before a Catholic priest or deacon with the appropriate faculties, since March 25, 1967 (by the decree Crescens matrimoniorum), Latin Catholics marry validly when they marry an Orthodox person in the Orthodox Church. Permission from the Latin bishop is only required for liceity, not validity. (Eastern Catholics could validly marry an Orthodox person in the Orthodox Church in 1965, but we don’t need to get into that here).
And the final curve – from what we know here, it does not seem that the woman this gentleman attempted to marry was actually free to do so. We’d need to know more about her first marriage, of course, but unless that first marriage lacked Orthodox canonical form, or had been declared null by a Catholic tribunal, then she wasn’t free to marry and her attempt at marriage to our still-Catholic friend appears to have been invalid.
The whole matter will need to be sorted out by the local Catholic tribunal, which, hopefully, will have some expertise in Orthodox matters, but the bottom line remains the same – the man is still Catholic, and still obliged to observe ecclesiastical law.
Moderation queue is ON.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
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on Germans… “for many” in the Consecration formula, rather than “for all”: “Jesus, save your Church.”
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A Daily Prayer for Priests
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Please give whatever you can — 5, 50, 100, 500, 5000, 10,000, 50,000 — in euros or in dollars, by September 8th, Our Lady’s Birthday. No gift is too small, and no gift too large. We shall ask Our Lady to reward your generosity to us. Heartfelt thanks.