Bp. Olmsted (D. Phoenix) issues pastoral letter to priests about importance of Confession

Posted on 28 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the onset, Fr. Z Kudos to His Excellency Most Rev. Bp. Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix for his new Pastoral Letter on CONFESSIONS!

The letter is called “Apostles of Mercy” and it is directed to the Priests of the Diocese of Phoenix

Some high points:

With this letter, I invite you to consider with me our priestly calling to serve our people by hearing confessions. Let us reflect on three things: our role as an apostle of mercy, second, our experience as a penitent, and third, our experience as a confessor.

[…]

We priests have the privilege and duty of promoting the sacrament of Reconciliation.  Not only are we ministers of God’s mercy in the confessional, we are also called to be its chief promoters and catechists.  Like St. John Vianney, Christ charges us to bring the good news of God’s infinite mercy to His people. Regular preaching and systematic catechesis about the sacrament is valuable, even essential today, for a number of reasons:

[…]

It is worth noting that historically, Catholic churches have the venerable tradition of building beautifully ornate confessionals that are conspicuously placed in the church. More than merely offering a suitable place for confessions, the confessionals in our churches should be clear expressions of the importance of this sacrament in Christian life. Confessionals, according to Church law, are to provide a fixed screen for the sake of both the priest and the penitent.

[…]

It follows that we priests, who regularly experience the mercy of God by going to Confession, grow in our capacity as Christ-like confessors. Having been encouraged ourselves, we are better able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.

Our own frequent experiences of God’s mercy in confession help us to be understanding and patient with other penitents in their weaknesses. We then are able to speak convincingly of our Lord’s mercy, awakening in others a greater desire for conversion and sanctity.

[…]

 

 

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New Evangelization, Priests and Priesthood, The Drill, Year of Faith | Tagged , , , , ,
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WI Sheriff urges people to arm themselves, get training, because of cuts to law enforcement.

Posted on 28 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is a phrase which is becoming more popular:  I carry a gun – because a cop is too heavy.

Here is a story from Milwaukee which a friend forwarded.

Keep in mind that Milwaukee is not exactly a bastion of conservatism.

Wisconsin sheriff urges residents to arm themselves

A sheriff who released a radio ad urging Milwaukee-area residents to learn to handle firearms so they can defend themselves while waiting for police said Friday that law enforcement cutbacks have changed the way police can respond to crime.
In the 30-second commercial, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr. says personal safety is no longer a spectator sport.
“I need you in the game,” he says.
“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” he adds. “You can beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back. … Consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm so you can defend yourself until we get there.”
The ad has generated sharp criticism from other area officials and anti-violence advocates. The president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs’ Association, Roy Felber, said it sounds like a call to vigilantism.
“That doesn’t sound too smart,” Felber said. “People have the right to defend themselves, but they don’t have the right to take the law into their own hands.”  [That is not what the sheriff said, though, is it.]
Under Wisconsin’s “castle doctrine,”[yep] someone who uses deadly force against an unlawful intruder to their home, business or vehicle is presumed to have acted reasonably. A spokeswoman for the state Department of Justice said that as of this week, there are about 155,000 concealed carry permits in Wisconsin.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Clarke said he just wants people to know what their options are. While self-defense isn’t for everyone, some people see personal safety as their own responsibility, he said, and they should be trained properly.
“I’m not telling you to `Hey, pick up a gun and blast away.’ … People need to know what they are doing if they chose that method — to defend themselves,” he said.

[…]

Read the rest, included some of the hysteria of the left, over there.

My take.

I agree with the sheriff.

Moreover, the issue of being trained, taking the classes is the key here, not just buying a gun.

I have taken concealed carry weapon license classes for multiple states. I have taken defensive hand gun classes. I have been shot numerous times in role-playing scenarios, as a matter of fact. This is sobering stuff, once you get into it.

In these classes a lot of time is spent on the law and the consequences of displaying, brandishing, discharging a weapon in a self-defensive or home invasion situation. They impress on you that one you do this, your life changes. Also, they go over very carefully what the “castle doctrine” is a about. They hammer away that you don’t shoot a guy because he is walking out the door with your flat screen TV. A human life is not worth it. Could you shoot him? Yes, and you would legally be within your rights. But it would be just plain wrong to shoot a guy over property like that. A lot of the training focuses on trying de-escalate conflicts so that it is not necessary to defend yourself physically.

My experience in taking these classes is that the other people in them leave with their eyes rather widened and with serious expressions.

The key to what the sheriff urged was the training, not just the arming.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Liberals, The future and our choices | Tagged , , , ,
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NYC 1-3 Feb – a great Forty Hours, and an item for art lovers – Brumidi!

Posted on 28 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My trip to the nation’s Capitol has the painter Brumidi fresh in my mind.

Here is some great news sent from a friend in New York City about more work by Brumidi together with a sacred event everyone in the area of Manhattan will want to take in.

_____

The Church of the Holy Innocents in Manhattan will celebrate the restoration of its monumental Mural of the Crucifixion by Constantino Brumidi with the first traditional Forty Hours’ Devotion in the Archdiocese of New York since the Second Vatican Council.

The Forty Hours Devotion will take place over the first weekend of February and conclude with a Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool on Sunday, February 3rd at 10 AM coram sanctissimo (in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament). There will be sign-up sheets at the back of the Church of the Holy Innocents for those who would like to commit to adoring the Blessed Sacrament in the Church during the periods of Exposition.

The Forty Hours Devotion begins on the First Friday of February, February 1st, at 6:00 PM with a Solemn Votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament (in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite). This Mass concludes with the Exposition and Procession of the Blessed Sacrament. The First Friday All Night Vigil begins after this Mass and will continue until 4:00 AM.

The Forty Hours continues on the First Saturday of February, February 2nd, at 1:00 PM with a Solemn Mass for the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Candlemas (in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite). This Mass will include the blessing of candles and procession.

At 4 PM there will also be a Pontifical Mass (in the ordinary form of the Roman Rite, versus populum and in English) for the Solemnity of the Dedication of the Church celebrated by His Excellency Dominick Lagonegro, Auxiliary Bishop of New York at which he will bless the restored Mural.

The Forty Hours Devotion concludes on the First Sunday of February, February 3rd, at 10:00 AM with a Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool coram sanctissimo for the Feast of the Dedication of the Church celebrated by His Excellency, James C. Timlin, Bishop Emeritus of Scranton. This Mass concludes with the Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Reposition.

Posted in Just Too Cool, The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged , , ,
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Tulsa Day 1

Posted on 27 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am in Tulsa! There is a conference for priests on exorcism sponsored by the Diocese and Bp. Slattery which I have wanted to attend for the last three years.

The evening began, however, with sung (Novus Ordo) vespers in the cathedral, with Bp. Slattery.

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Lovely building, not large but warm.

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Nearby there is a magnificent large church, Methodist?, art deco!

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R and R with some priests.

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I am now officially exhausted.

Tomorrow the conference begins, but we had some good discussions tonight during supper and I learned a few useful things.  This should be a helpful few days.

 

Posted in On the road, What Fr. Z is up to | Tagged , , ,
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Fishwrap’s Kennedy wrong about Flannery’s heresy.

Posted on 27 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Over at the Fishwrap, the National Schismatic Reporter (the paper of record for heretics which has hijacked the name “Catholic”), failed-priest Eugene Cullen Kennedy wrote a thought – not a very good thought – about the Irish heretic Fr. Flannery, who is being corrected by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Thus, Eugene Cullen Kennedy, defending Flannery, in a piece entitled “Fr. Flannery’s grasp of theology better than that of his silencers“:

“Consider just two of those that Flannery is being forced to sign off on if he wants to continue his work: Christ’s having established the church in hierarchical form and the assertion, employed constantly by bishops to legitimate their authority, that they are the direct descendants of the apostles.

“If anything, Christ called together a college of apostles, and the collegiality to which Vatican II returned is a far better image than the hierarchical form that was adopted from the hierarchical cosmological view of the universe and expressed in secular kingdoms, including the Roman Empire, whose provinces and proconsuls provided the model for laying out the governance of the church.”

The problem with these agèd hippies is that they don’t read the documents.

Shall we now look together at what the Vatican II really said?

Turn to the principal document of Kennedy’s much-vaunted Second Vatican Council, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium:

19. The Lord Jesus, after praying to the Father, calling to Himself those whom He desired, appointed twelve to be with Him, and whom He would send to preach the Kingdom of God; and these apostles He formed after the manner of a college or a stable group, over which He placed Peter chosen from among them. …

20. That divine mission, entrusted by Christ to the apostles, will last until the end of the world, since the Gospel they are to teach is for all time the source of all life for the Church. And for this reason the apostles, appointed as rulers in this society, took care to appoint successors.

For they not only had helpers in their ministry, but also, in order that the mission assigned to them might continue after their death, they passed on to their immediate cooperators, as it were, in the form of a testament, the duty of confirming and finishing the work begun by themselves, recommending to them that they attend to the whole flock in which the Holy Spirit placed them to shepherd the Church of God. They therefore appointed such men, and gave them the order that, when they should have died, other approved men would take up their ministry. Among those various ministries which, according to tradition, were exercised in the Church from the earliest times, the chief place belongs to the office of those who, appointed to the episcopate, by a succession running from the beginning, are passers-on of the apostolic seed. Thus, as St. Irenaeus testifies, through those who were appointed bishops by the apostles, and through their successors down in our own time, the apostolic tradition is manifested and preserved.

22. Just as in the Gospel, the Lord so disposing, St. Peter and the other apostles constitute one apostolic college, so in a similar way the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are joined together. […] But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope’s power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head. This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff.

That’s what Vatican II really says, my friends.

Kennedy doesn’t have a clue.  To get one, he could start by reading Lumen gentium.

Posted in Blatteroons, Liberals, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, Throwing a Nutty, Vatican II | Tagged , , , , , ,
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Changes in the Roman Curia affecting catechesis and seminaries

Posted on 26 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I was busy yesterday and missed this at News.va.  The Holy Father changed the “competence” of some dicasteries of the Roman Curia.

He moved responsibility for Catechesis from the Congregation for the Clergy to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization by means of a Motu Proprio called Fides per doctrinam.  He also moved governance of seminaries from Congregation for Catholic Education to the Congregation for the Clergy by means of a Motu Proprio Ministrorum institutio.

Posted in Benedict XVI, New Evangelization, Seminarians and Seminaries | Tagged , , , , , , ,
56 Comments

My View For A While

Posted on 26 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The March For Life was a great experience. I will seriously consider doing it again next year.

At the airport I was able to enjoy for the first time the fruits of TSA Pre-check, which made security seem almost like the good ol’ days.

The plane is full of people heading back to the Midwest, and even my native place, after the March.

Lunch, to the accompaniment of the Goldberg Variations, for reasons some might pick up. No Dean and Deluca alas, or left overs.

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Tomorrow, Tulsa and a conference on exorcism.

Posted in On the road, What Fr. Z is up to |
14 Comments

One priest’s tips for a better celebration of Holy Mass

Posted on 26 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At the site of the UK’s best Catholic weekly, The Catholic Herald, there is an interesting piece by a priest who gives tips for a better celebration of Holy Mass, am improved ars celebrandi.  There are tips for the priest and for congregation.

Let’s see what you think about them.

• Start the Mass on time. If it says six o’clock, then let it be six o’clock, not five past or seven past.
• The priest should turn up in good time. Seeing a flustered looking chap rush in at one minute to does not help. After all, Mass is important, and for important events we always turn up in good time, don’t we? Besides, ones needs to prepare.
• Wear a chasuble, and make sure it is the correct colour.
• When you preach, it really is not a good idea to go on too long. And to help you keep within a reasonable time frame it is a good idea to plan the sermon. Less really is more when it comes to saying things: say it concisely and people may get what you are saying; say it in a prolix manner and your meaning may well get lost in the verbiage.
• The same goes for bidding prayers. Short and sharp. And do we need them in the week? I doubt it.
• Do not leave bits of the Mass out. The Opening Prayer, the Creed, the second reading – why do these sometimes fall by the wayside? There can be no good reason for this.
• Do not ad lib, and especially do not as lib during the Eucharistic Prayer. The people surely want to hear the words of the Church not the words of Father Joe (or whatever he is called).
• When celebrating Mass, look at God, not at the people, especially not at the strangers in Church (you never know, one of them might be a spy from the Catholic Herald.)

All of the above applies to the celebrant, but there are some points that ought to be recognised by the faithful.

• Don’t answer your mobile in Church. And when you do, which you should not, do not converse in a loud voice on the said phone, especially during the Eucharistic Prayer. In fact, just switch the thing off.
• Arrive on time.
• Yes, you have lots of important things to discuss with your neighbour, but surely they can wait twenty minutes? After Mass, you can talk to your heart’s content. During Mass, talk to God. Silently.
• Leave your shopping alone. No need to rustle through the contents of that bag at all.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged , ,
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“Zero Question” – NCReporter’s use of “Catholic” in title is canonically illicit.

Posted on 26 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

“Finn was too kind to them.”

That is Prof. Ed Peters, canonist over at his fine blog, In The Light Of The Law.

Peters has written about the Bp. Robert Finn’s column about the National catholic Fishwrap… Reporter.  Bp. Finn, bishop of the place where the Fishwrap is headquartered, has finally called them out.  In effect NCR is not a Catholic paper or web source.

Thus, Peters…

Recognizing the National Catholic Reporter for what it is (actually, for what it isn’t)

Bp. Robert Finn (KC, MO) has a very good column on a local bishop’s responsibility over local media in regard to the promotion and protection of the Catholic Faith. [I wrote on that HERE] Most folks, however, will likely skim the first part of the essay, and go right for Finn’s critique of the National Catholic Reporter in the second.

In my opinion, Finn was too kind to them.

NCRep has carried on a steady tirade against ecclesiastical authority in general, and against numerous Church teachings in particular, for several decades, but the last few years have seen a shrillness that should discomfort even its dwindling number of friends. Besides my own efforts to reply to them (e.g., July 2010, October 2009, March 2009) Fr. Z’s blog has long served as a clearing house for reasonable, Catholic responses to the NCRep (what a thankless task that is). [You are welcome.] I won’t try to summarize his efforts here, but I will recall my own experiences of the unprofessionalism of the NCRep (March 2011, January 2011) and wonder again whether its one-time editor Joe Feuerherd ever retracted his 2008 “bishops be damned” screed in the Washington Post. If he did, I missed it.

Finn’s remarks re the NCRep focus on their use of the name “Catholic” in their title and it is here that he goes too gently, I think, against their continued use of that title. Finn writes: In light of the number of recent expressions of concern, I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name “Catholic.” While I remain open to substantive and respectful discussion with the legitimate representatives of NCR, I find that my ability to influence the National Catholic Reporter toward fidelity to the Church seems limited to the supernatural level.”

First, I would have expressly argued that NCRep’s use of the word “Catholic” in their title is canonically illicit per Canons 216 and 300. There is simply zero question about this assertion, for they “claim the name Catholic without the consent of the competent ecclesiastical authority.” Second, once one is shown to be acting illegally under canon law, a number of canonical responses to illicit activity come into play including precepts, the invocation of penal law, and certain sacramental consequences for organizational leadership. Not to mention, of course, those supernatural tools that a prayerful bishop thinks of first in times of trial. Thus, my opinion that Finn is being too kind; at the very least, there are more arrows in his quiver than a quick read of his essay lets on.

Anyone who follows American Catholic media issues knows that, over the years, some other groups using the name “Catholic” for their operations—groups with, frankly, a better claim to be Catholic than the NCRep could ever assert—have dropped that name when asked or directed to do so by ecclesiastical authority. Such actions speak directly to and well of their sensus Ecclesiae. [A good example is that of Michael Voris’s initiative.  The changed their name after a dustup with the Archd. of Detroit.  Say what you will about that dustup, but in the end Voris and company followed authority.  Fishwrap reviles authority.]

The most notorious and neuralgic refusal to comply, however, remains that of the National Catholic Reporter.

I’m all for the “consequences” phase now.  Forget the dialogue.

The New Evangelization also requires a sweeping of the floors.

Prof. Peters does not have an open combox.  I bet I know why!

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, 1983 CIC can. 915, Brick by Brick, Liberals, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices, Year of Faith | Tagged , , , , , ,
26 Comments

FOLLOW UP -March for Life: Where was NCR? LCWR? Nuns on Bus? CHA?

Posted on 26 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am looking for March for Life photos of the banners and contingents from the Fishwrap (National catholic Reporter), the Catholic Health Association, the Nuns on the Bus, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

Anyone? Photos?

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, Liberals | Tagged
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