The Pope’s Tailor, Annibale Gammarelli, has passed away. He was There was an announcement of his death in L’Osservatore Romano. More HERE.
Signor Annibale was “un signore” in the full sense of that Italian concept.
Please stop and say a prayer for him.
From KIII TV in Texas. These sisters are a sister order to that of a holy sister with whom I worked in Rome.
CORPUS CHRISTI (Kiii News) –
In a time when our world is thirsty for hope and peace, one group of local women have agreed to give up their traditional ways of living as an action of love and faith. This sisterhood gave up family ties, material items and many freedoms just to pray specifically for total strangers.
Find out why they have decided to talk to the media for the very first time in a 3News Special Report: Pink Life.
Note the element of Adoration.
KiiiTV.com South Texas, Corpus Christi, Coastal Bend
These sisters spend time in adoration and interceding for us. Who knows how many things have been averted through their prayers.
We need much more of this.
Yet again we have cause to mourn the murdered. Yet again, in France.
We have serious decisions to make about our future. This is a war.
I strongly urge you to consider that this, friends, is coming our way, courtesy of terrorists of the Islamic State and practitioners of the Religion of Peace.
Deus, qui conteris bella, et impugnatores in te sperantium potentia tuae defensionis expugnas: auxiliare famulis tuis, implorantibus misericordiam tuam; ut, inimicorum suorum feritate depressa, incessabili et gratiarum actione laudemus.
O God, who bringest wars to nought and shieldest by Thy power all who hope in Thee, overthrowing those that assail them; help Thy servants who implore Thy mercy; so that the fierce might of their enemies may be brought low, and we may never cease to praise and thank Thee.
Please, everyone, give thought to what I have constantly asked: situational awareness.
Earlier today I posted about this Pokemon Go thing, which results in noses glued to screens and oblivion to surroundings. That is an exaggerated example of recklessness. But many people wander about with hardly less thought about their circumstances. One of the things I have suggested in the past is to seek out some training which might include situational awareness elements. Concealed carry weapon license training includes that, whether you would ever be interested in carrying a weapon or not, one way or another. That’s not the main point. The important thing is to learn to watch and to think and to react, to evade, to deescalate, to survive. If CCW training is the easiest way to start this process, then do it. It’s helpful. Will it prevent an attack with a truck on a street? It might help you to notice that it’s coming before it’s too late for you and those around you.
Also, GO TO CONFESSION. We don’t know when it will be our turn, no matter how situationally aware we are. Ask God to preserve us from a sudden and unprovided death.
A subitanea et improvisa morte… From a sudden and unprovided death, spare us O Lord.”
A sudden death can be a blessing. A sudden and unprovided death – unprovided in the sense of having no recourse to the sacraments when you are not in the state of grace – is a horrifying prospect. Make plans for, provide for, the needs of both body and soul for yourselves and those in your charge. You don’t know when your death will come, natural or not.
A while back I read a book, 
Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War by Sebastian Gorka. (UK HERE)
In this book, Gorka describes one of the reasons why these people choose terror.
According to the Pakistani general, there is only one target of importance in war: the soul of the enemy. The infidel foe must be converted to Islam or crushed. Lastly, since the only target that matters in war is the soul of the infidel, Malik concludes that the most effective weapon in war is terror. Here we see the relevance of his book to groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS. The enemy’s belief system must be utterly destroyed, and terror is the most effective way to do that. That is why 9/ 11 was so important. It is the highly symbolic suicide attacks, the crucifixions, the beheadings, the bombings of civilian crowds, and the videos of immolations that will destroy the will of the infidel to go on.
According to the Quranic concept of war, and because these terrorists are inspired to bring about the eschatological fulfillment of their religion, they wage war on the souls of the non-Muslim or, in their view, insufficient-Muslim. Their war has an eschatological view. They must destroy the spirit of their enemy. This is why they use terror and why they commit atrocities which they record and broadcast.
Gorka says that we have to discredit their “brand“, or this will go on and on.
Again, I ask you to kneel on those increasingly calloused knees and pray for the souls of the murdered and their poor families. Also, pray for our leaders – around the world – to find their RESOLVE.
This is war.
Do not lose heart. Do not be afraid. We might not know how our part in this story ends, but we do already know how the story ends.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.
St. Lawrence of Brindiso, pray for us.
St. Pius V, pray for us.
Our Lady of Victory, pray for us.
I was sent this image. I had to share it.
I could, wag that I am, replace those darts with the names of a few liberal tweeters. But that might be just a tad bit mischievous.
Keep smiling. Keep that shield up. Keep that sword sharp. Keep that chin-strap tight. And keep…
GOING TO CONFESSION!
I am not entirely sure what Pokeman is. Not my generation. However, apparently this is now a thing you do with your mobile phones, rather like geocaching. I heard one talking TV head praise it because at least it got young people outside for a while.
Even as I am typing this out, I had an SMS from a priest that some nitwit designated his parish as a place as a “gym” to do this Pokeman thing. People are now trespassing here and there on parish property. There was a group “training” in the “gym”. They were drinking. The police helped them to leave. He even had someone wander into Mass with his nose buried in his smartphone. “I don’t want to be liable for some underage person drinking and then falling off a wall and breaking his or her arm.”
This new thing could be a serious annoyance with legal ramifications.
QUAERITUR: Is there any benefit that can come from it for “evangelization”?
I rather doubt it, since the players will also probably have ear buds in and will be oblivious to context and decorum.
Arlington Cemetery tweeted: “We do not consider playing ‘Pokemon Go’ to be appropriate decorum on the grounds of ANC. We ask all visitors to refrain from such activity.”
That said, back when I was a seminarian in Rome I was involved with a Gregorian chant schola. I persuaded the rector of the basilica where I was assigned for weekends to let them sing at Sunday Mass. He was skeptical, but he acquiesced. There was nothing to lose, since there were generally about 4 people in church for Mass. Since the basilica is along a tourist route, we left the doors open. People wandered in. They heard the music. They stayed. Slowly but surely regular attendance at Sunday Mass grew. The point is, once they were inside the place, there was something to get their attention. (As an aside, the rector thought it was his preaching. The choir politely smiled.)
Meanwhile, my priest friend writes: “If I was programming it, I’d make sure all the wandering included the center lane of the closest interstate. Don’t these chuckleheads have a job? Society has its bread and circuses while everything collapses.”
Father is clearly annoyed.
So, ….Pokeman on your stoopid phone.
Good thing?
Bad thing?
Potential?
Utter waste?
UPDATE:
I received a note:
I cannot say how responsive the company is on this issue, but they do have a form available to report a Pokemon Go location that is on private property:
https://support.pokemongo.nianticlabs.com/hc/en-us/ requests/new?ticket_form_id= 319928
On 5 July 2016, in London, Robert Card. Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, gave a powerful address at a conference on liturgy. Card. Sarah appealed to priests to say Mass ad orientem. Let’s call it the… Sarah Appeal™.
I fully expect that there will soon be a tremendous backlash unleashed on all who support the Cardinal’s proposal.
Frankly, when the other day I saw in the Bolletino that Card. Sarah had been granted an audience with Pope Francis, I wondered if the Cardinal might not have in his stars the same lot as Card. Burke. Francis wanted a different direction for the Signatura so he moved Card. Burke to be the Patron of the Knights of Malta. Now that Card. O’Brien is over 75 and has, therefore, no doubt offered his resignation to His Holiness as Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher, that group of Knights might be opening up. Who knows? In a light-hearted exchange with a priest friend it was quipped that if the Holy Sepulcher isn’t a possibility, perhaps the Knights Who Say “Ni!” are available.
You’ve gotta look for some humor in life in the Church these days, friends. That’s how you know that you not a liberal. But I digress.
It is early to tell, very early, but my spidey-sense tells me that Card. Sarah’s speech marks a turning point.
Through history, there have been short speeches with long effects. Sometimes they are delivered to small crowds, such as the Gettysburg Address. Sometimes they are broadcast to many, as in Churchill’s 13 May 1940 radio call-to-arms. Sometimes they are given by the famous, as in Martin Luther King’s 28 August 1963 speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Sometimes the speech-maker is relatively unknown, as in Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech at the Women’s Convention, Akron, Ohio. You can make your own list of short history-changing oratory.
Every once in a while, a Cardinal makes an important speech that both reveals the state of the Church and the speech leaves an enduring mark.
For example, on 12 May 1879, John Henry Card. Newman gave his formal “Biglietto” Speech, when he was given the red hat. He spoke about liberalism in religion. “Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion.” He talked about the replacement of revelation by natural virtues as “a great apostasia.”
On 3 August 1941 Clemens Card. von Galen gave a speech, a sermon, in the Cathedral of Münster against the Nazi euthanasia program. As a result, Hitler suspended the program which had already killed a hundred thousand people. Hitler couldn’t touch von Galen physically, but he retaliated by having three priests beheaded. They had distributed von Galen’s sermon. Von Galen gave three sermons against Nazism.
On 18 April 2005, Joseph Card. Ratzinger delivered a sermon at Mass “pro eligendo Romano Pontifice“, which probably was a major factor that catapulted him in to the See of Peter. This is the sermon in which he said: “Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”
You can probably come up with examples of your own.
It seems to me that Card. Sarah’s London ad orientem appeal will prove to be a catalyst that will set in motion significant change. As often happens with catalysis, however, violent reactions can occur. And, if I remember my college chemistry rightly, catalysts remain even after the reaction occurs, so that reactions can keep on occurring down the line. Catalysts have an enduring effect.
Each priest who takes up Card. Sarah’s catalytic call will in turn become a catalyst in his parish or wherever he serves. The way priests say Mass has a knock-on effect in congregations.
Carefully review what Card. Sarah said (read the whole this HERE). In part:
I want to make an appeal to all priests. You may have read my article in L’Osservatore Romano one year ago (12 June 2015) or my interview with the journal Famille Chrétienne in May of this year. On both occasions I said that I believe that it is very important that we return as soon as possible to a common orientation, of priests and the faithful turned together in the same direction—Eastwards or at least towards the apse—to the Lord who comes, in those parts of the liturgical rites when we are addressing God. This practice is permitted by current liturgical legislation. It is perfectly legitimate in the modern rite. Indeed, I think it is a very important step in ensuring that in our celebrations the Lord is truly at the centre.
And so, dear Fathers, I humbly and fraternally ask you to implement this practice wherever possible, with prudence and with the necessary catechesis, certainly, but also with a pastor’s confidence that this is something good for the Church, something good for our people. Your own pastoral judgement will determine how and when this is possible, but perhaps beginning this on the first Sunday of Advent this year, when we attend ‘the Lord who will come’ and ‘who will not delay’ (see: Introit, Mass of Wednesday of the first week of Advent) may be a very good time to do this. Dear Fathers, we should listen again to the lament of God proclaimed by the prophet Jeremiah: “they have turned their backs to me and not their faces” (2:27). Let us turn again towards the Lord! Since the day of his Baptism, the Christian knows only one direction: the Orient. “You entered to confront your enemy, for you intended to renounce him to his face. You turned toward the East (ad Orientem), [NB] for one who renounces the devil turns towards Christ and fixes his gaze directly on Him” (From the beginning of the Treatise on the Mysteries by Saint Ambrose, Bishop of Milan). [De mysteriis 2,7 – Ingressus igitur, ut adversarium tuum cerneres, cui renuntiandum in os putaris, ad orientem converteris; qui enim renuntiat diabolo, ad Christum convertitur, illum directo cernit obtutu.]
I very humbly and fraternally would like to appeal also to my brother bishops: please lead your priests and people towards the Lord in this way, particularly at large celebrations in your dioceses and in your cathedral. Please form your seminarians in the reality that we are not called to the priesthood to be at the centre of liturgical worship ourselves, but to lead Christ’s faithful to him as fellow worshippers united in the one same act of adoration. Please facilitate this simple but profound reform in your dioceses, your cathedrals, your parishes and your seminaries.
We bishops have a great responsibility, and one day we shall have to answer to the Lord for our stewardship. We are the owners of nothing! Nothing belongs to us! As St Paul teaches, we are merely “the servants of Christ and the stewards of the mysteries of God. Now it is of course required of stewards that they be found trustworthy” (1 Cor. 4:1-2). We are responsible to ensure that the sacred realities of the liturgy are respected in our dioceses and that our priests and deacons not only observe the liturgical laws, but know the spirit and power of the liturgy from which they emerge. I was very encouraged to read the presentation on “The Bishop: Governor, Promoter and Guardian of the Liturgical Life of the Diocese” made to the 2013 Sacra Liturgia conference in Rome by Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland in Oregon in the USA, and I fraternally encourage my brother bishops to study his considerations carefully.
All liturgical ministers should make a examination of conscience periodically. For this I recommend part II of the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis of Benedict XVI (22 February 2007), “The Eucharist, a Mystery to be Celebrated.” It is almost ten years since this Exhortation was published as the collegial fruit of the 2005 Synod of Bishops. How much progress have we made in that time? What more do we need to do? We must ask ourselves these questions before the Lord, each of us according to our responsibility, and then do what we can and what we must to achieve the vision outlined by Pope Benedict.
At this point I repeat what I have said elsewhere, that Pope Francis has asked me to continue the extraordinary liturgical work Pope Benedict began (see: Message to Sacra Liturgia USA 2015, New York City). Just because we have a new pope does not mean that his predecessor’s vision is now invalid. On the contrary, as we know, our Holy Father Pope Francis has the greatest respect for the liturgical vision and measures Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI implemented in utter fidelity to the intentions and aims of the Council Fathers.
Card. Sarah put his finger directly on a huge wound that must be dealt with before true renewal can take place: Holy Church’s all important liturgical worship. He identified something that would be a great contribution to that renewal: ad orientem worship.
That means that he must be attacked, discredited. Those who support his proposal must be intimidated, silenced, crushed. They must not be allowed to create effective, enduring changes.
One of the reasons why I think there will be an attack on priests who support the Sarah Appeal™ is because the liberal elite hear in it a criticism of their projects perpetrated in the name of the reforms called for by the Council Fathers in Sacrosanctum Concilium. They think the suggestion that, perhaps, we could say Mass as our forebears did for so long is an accusation that they were wrong all along. In fact, the versus populum thing was built precisely on a sandy foundation of incorrect scholarship which experts such as Louis Bouyer and Joseph Jungmann eventually repudiated. However, by the time they did that, the fix was in.
Another reason why there will be harsh blow-back for anyone who supports the Sarah Appeal™ is because ad orientem worship is an invitation to conversion. In another post, I alerted you to a priest who touched on the moral dimension that ad orientem invokes. HERE Ad orientem worship is itself an implicit call to right conduct. That’s certainly a reason for Satan to hate it, to move his agents to stomp it and those who support it into the dust whence Adam came. That’s why the Enemy will move his pawns, bishops and … queens… into action. NB again what Card. Sarah quoted, above, from St. Ambrose De mysteriis.
Speaking of “mysteries”, another reason why ad orientem worship will be ferociously resisted is because it is yet another corrective toward producing during Holy Mass the apophatic conditions in which the worshiper might have an encounter with Mystery. This encounter is both alluring and frightening. It is alluring because we who are in the image and likeness of God are restless to be with God, who in this life is utterly mysterious, whom we can only glimpse darkly, as if in a glass or perhaps through the crack in the rock as He passes on the other side. It is frightening because it moves us to deal with the reality of death, the knowledge that one day we will cross over. Holy Mass must prepare us for death. But if we are too afraid to deal with this, then we fill our liturgical worship with myriad distractions. We eliminate silence. We reduce music and ornament to the lowest sort of thing. We banalize the language and eliminate anything too challenging. We do all that we can to eliminate the difficult, challenging apophatic conditions that are the necessary propaedeutic for that alluringly frightening encounter. If Holy Mass is not helping you to get ready for your own death, it isn’t fulfilling one of its most important purposes.
Card. Sarah placed his finger directly on a huge wound. His speech will some day be recognized as an important turning point, a healing point. But remember that, as Augustine once pointed out, the doctor doesn’t stop cutting just because the patient screams for him to stop. Things will get mighty noisy and ugly before this is over, my friends.
Therefore, clean your house.
Examine your consciences, look over your vocation and your duties, and GO TO CONFESSION!
And please, I beg you, pray for me. I can feel it on the horizon. Pray for all priests and bishops. Pray that their minds and hearts be opened and that their actions reflect a loving balance of prudence and courage.
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I am engaged to a girl who was raised attending a SSPX chapel her entire life. We will be married by a diocesan priest in the traditional form. She is unsure whether she can receive communion at a Novus Ordo mass, since she was raised being taught (by Society priests and family) that the Novus Ordo is shot through with humanism and that it is a mortal sin to participate if you know of its corruption. We plan on attending mainly traditional diocesan masses as a married couple, only really attending Novus Ordo or Society masses for family functions. This is all fine and well with me.
Our only real dispute is what we will teach our children regarding the Novus Ordo mass. I think that any future children should be taught that although we prefer the TLM, it is permissible from time to time to attend a Novus Ordo. [Like the two of you say you are going to do for family functions.] She is not sure what she thinks about this. … If we ask a Society priest about our dispute we get one answer, if we consult a Novus Ordo priest, we get another. Any comment on this matter would be VERY welcome.
The sacrament of matrimony binds a man and a woman together for life. They share in the “communio totius vitae … the communion of the whole of life”. It’s not merely a partnership, or a living arrangement, but a covenant. The parties remain separate and distinct. It is a good thing when a married couple have some different interests, opinions, attitudes. However, they come together as one to signify, not only to themselves but to the Church and the whole world, the intimate love that God has for his people.
From that unity which is a hallmark of marriage, it follows that serious differences of opinions can make a marriage difficult. The more serious the matter, and stronger the disagreement, the more grave the problems that could arise. Different tastes in food, music, clothing can sometimes be a challenge, but mature people usually work those out. Different views of politics or economics can be the subject of heated arguments, but most couples work them through. Some couples have found workable arrangements concerning divergent philosophies or religious differences. For many couples, they spell disaster to their relationship.
If she truly believes that hearing Mass in the Ordinary Form is a mortal sin, and that it would be best not to attend Mass at all rather than be somehow tainted by attending an Ordinary Form Mass, then you have serious issues to iron out before your big day, especially if you are of the mind that your future offspring must not be wholly isolated away from the Novus Ordo.
It may be tempting to think, “Well, she’s wrong. I’ll have to work at changing her mind sometime along the way.” I, however, warmly recommend that you both have a loving heart to heart and mind to mind talk or four and figure out what to do about this together.
Pius XI wrote in his encyclical Casti connubii, “By matrimony the souls of the contracting parties are joined and knit together more directly and more intimately than are their bodies.” You might just read some of that encyclical together.
When it comes to holy Mass, which should be central to the life of the marriage, serious disagreements about validity and efficacy are not going to be just a little bump to run over. Start working this through now. Each time you talk about it, you might start by saying a prayer for the swift and complete canonical reconciliation of the SSPX. After that, keep calm and don’t let any rancorous words pass your lips. Remember, in your role as husband and father, you will be the head of your little “domestic church”. I’ll bet that, given her upbringing, she will resonate with that. Therefore, ask St. Joseph to help you both in figuring this out.
I was sent the text of the official letter that His Eminence Vincent Card. Nichols sent to the priests of the Archdiocese of Westminster as a reaction to the unofficial, personal appeal made by Robert Card. Sarah, Prefect of the CDW, to priests to say Holy Mass ad orientem.
Here is Card. Nichols, with my emphases and comments:
In response to a number of enquiries, in the light of Cardinal Sarah’s recent personal comments, I take this opportunity of reminding all priests of the importance of ensuring that every celebration of the Liturgy is carried out with all possible dignity. Whether the celebration of the Mass is simple or elaborate, it should always be characterised by that dignity which helps to raise our minds and hearts to God and which avoids distracting confusion or inappropriate informality. [Who would disagree with this? However, I double-checked Card. Sarah’s talk. Unless I missed it, Sarah did not speak about dignity or informality.]
I also remind our priests that the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, approved by the highest authority in the Church, states in paragraph 299 that ‘The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible. [His Eminence cites a widely circulated but inaccurate translation of GIRM 299. We’ve been over and over this ground.] The altar should, moreover, be so placed as to be truly the centre toward which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns. The altar is usually fixed and is dedicated.’
A clarification from the CDW in September 2000 addressed the question as to whether GIRM 299 excludes the possibility of celebrating Mass ‘versus absidem’ (ie ‘eastward’ facing), and confirmed that it does not. [That same CDW clarification also explained the Latin of 299.] But it also ‘reaffirms that the position towards the assembly seems more convenient inasmuch as it makes communication easier’. [“Communication” of what?] Thus the expectations expressed in GIRM 299 remain in force whenever the Ordinary Form of Mass is celebrated. [This is a false conclusion. More, below.]
Finally, may I emphasise that the celebration of the Church’s Liturgy is not a place in which priests are to exercise personal preference or taste. [His Eminence is right, of course. However, Card. Sarah’s appeal was based on a great deal more than taste or preference. To reduce this to a question of “taste” is a disservice to the serious issue of our worship and our identity.] As the last paragraph of the GIRM states so clearly, ‘The Roman Missal, though in a diversity of languages and with some variety of customs, must in the future be safeguarded as an instrument and an outstanding sign of the integrity and unity of the Roman Rite’ (399).
+Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
On the conclusion the Cardinal makes about versus populum being the “expected” orientation in the Ordinary Form….
With due respect to His Eminence, no. That’s not right.
A consultation of the Latin edition of the Missale Romanum (which is the normative text) shows that, many times in the GIRM, the priest is described as “versus ad populum… having turned to the people”. Elsewhere, he is described as “ad medium altare deinde reversus … then having turned back again to the middle of the altar”.
This description of the priest as turning back and forth between altar and people occurs again and again in the GIRM. Have a look (e.g., 24, 146, 154, 157, 158, and 165; and also look at 181, 185, 243, 244, 257, 268).
This same description (prescription, actually) of the priest turning to the people and then back to the altar is found, for merely one example, at the time of the “Ecce Agnus Dei” at 132 in the Ordo Missae in the Missale Romanum. The priest is described as “versus ad populum“, which presumes that he wasn’t “turned to the people” before. After the people respond with their “Domine, non sum dignus“, the priest is described as “versus ad altare… “. “133. Et sacerdos, versus ad altare, secreto dicit… And the priest, having turned to the altar, says quietly:…”.
The priest (sometimes the deacon) is repeatedly described at turning to the people and then turning back to the altar.
So, no, the GIRM does NOT favor versus populum celebration of the Ordinary Form.
But you have to have recourse to the Latin to see that.
Moderation queue is ON.
From a reader…
QUAERITUR:
I have a baby due in a few weeks and it is, of course, my responsibility to baptize him promptly in the Catholic Church . I have attended the required class and paid the fee at my parish; however, I honestly have no one I can ask to serve as a Godparent. My friends and family live across the country and I hardly know anyone in my new area. I don’t want to delay baptism until I can travel home (several months after birth). My parish is holding firm to this “preference”. Must there be a Godparent? Thanks for your wisdom and guidance!
First, congratulations.
Canon 872 says that there should be a sponsor “insofar as possible” (quantum fieri potest). This means that a sponsor isn’t required for the validity of the sacrament. Nevertheless, it is important to have at least one. Can. 873 makes provision for two, but no more than that. It also says that if there are two, there must be one male and one female.
Anecdotally, it seems that, as families get smaller, as folks move more frequently, and as fewer people actually practice their faith, it is getting more difficult to find good godparents.
It could be useful for parishes to provide a roster of good, faithful, committed Catholic parishioners willing to serve as godparents for those, like our interlocutor, who are in a bind. Perhaps could be a good apostolate for some lay people to start up, a Confraternity St. John the Baptist for Baptismal and Confirmation Sponsors.
St. John the Baptist, by the way, is the patron saint of godparents, not St. Vito of Corleone. Although, there is potential in being able to run your finger down the roster of willing parishioners and saying “I’ll give you a Sponsor you can’t refuse.”
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
EAW on ROME 26/10-11 – Day 35: Penultimate: “Safe travels home, Father!”
on Germans… “for many” in the Consecration formula, rather than “for all”: “I find it curious that the German bishops are apparently not considered in schism for changing the actual form (words)…”
on ROME 26/10-11 – Day 33: All Souls: “Like many others I have some family members that I disagree with on several issues. However, one thing a few…”
on Germans… “for many” in the Consecration formula, rather than “for all”: ““ it undermines the authority of the Roman Pontiff in the matter of the regulation of the Church’s sacraments.” My…”
on ROME 26/10-11 – Day 35: Penultimate: “Safe travels to your destination. Let us know how +Atticus is doing. Saw an interview of the CEO of United…”
on Germans… “for many” in the Consecration formula, rather than “for all”: “Jesus, save your Church.”
on ROME 26/10-11 – Day 35: Penultimate: “The illumination is a fun one. It literally shows Christ the Pharmacist, which is not a title you read every…”
on ASK FATHER: “Why isn’t the Male Only Holy Orders a Dogma?”: “TonyO: Don’t you realize that the “spirit of Vatican II” only speaks in one direction can can only be discerned…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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