Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

Is Pont. Comm “Ecclesia Dei” building a bridge to the SSPX?

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Our friends at Rorate picked up something from Riposte Catholique (in French). Apparently, the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei” sent a letter to the General House of the SSPX in Menzingen, Switzerland. The letter is signed by the PCED’s Vice-President Archbishop Augustine DiNoia, OP.

A taste:

Abp. Di Noia therefore proposes a new, spiritual, approach. He asks both parties to move forward, each one for their part, to an examination of conscience focused on humility, docility, patience, charity. [Do I hear an “Amen!”? – On both sides, by the way.] The SSPX considers that this cannot exclude, considering the doctrinal questions at stake, the strict confession of faith. Especially considering that the dismantlement of faith, catechesis, sacramental practices adds weight to their considerations. Conversely, it is true, one could say that the continued degradation of the situation of the Catholic faith is a pressing invitation [to the SSPX] to leave their splendid isolation, and join the official rescue corps in the very spot of the accident. [As I have been hoping for years.]

An outline of the concrete solution is left, surely on purpose, somewhat uncertain by Abp. Di Noia. He recalls en passant that Rome expects from Bp. Fellay a response to the document that was given to him last June 14. But, besides that, he proposes to the SSPX a process that could be qualified as transactional:

– On the one hand, the SSPX would find anew the positive charism of the first years at Fribourg and Écône (it would try to reform what can be [reformed], first through the formation of traditional priests and by preparing them for a teaching in conformity with their formation). [They could be helpful, but I suspect they also have a lot of catch-up reading to do.]

– On the other, the SSPX still considering that certain passages of the teaching of Vatican II cannot be reconciled with the preceding Magisterium, it could discuss it, as long as it: [here goes…]

– abstains as a matter of principle from [discussing them in] the mass media; [good]

– does not establish itself as a parallel magisterium; [like the Magisterium of Nuns!]

– always presents the objections in a positive and constructive manner [good]

– bases all its analyses on deep and wide theological bases. [good]

More will come forth about this, but this is positive.

Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity.

And @Pontifex means “bridge builder”.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Benedict XVI, Brick by Brick, Magisterium of Nuns, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, Priests and Priesthood, SSPX, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The future and our choices, Vatican II, Year of Faith | Tagged Archbp. DiNoia, PCED, Pontifex, Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei", Pope of Christian Unity, SSPX
40 Comments

QUAERITUR: Do I say an “Amen!” in the 1st Eucharistic Prayer? POLL

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Novus Ordo: optional

From a reader:

I have not spent too much time observing the four Eucharistic prayers but I recall that, particularly in the Roman Canon / Eucharistic Prayer I, the priest has the option of saying “Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Are the people supposed to say the Amen, as is commonly heard, or is it reserved for the priest?

Good question.

Usus Antiquior: quiet and not optional

First, the Roman Canon (1st Eucharistic Prayer) is probably not commonly heard in many parishes. I suspect that younger priests are bring it back. It is hard to say how many use the traditional though optional (in the Novus Ordo) “Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Second, in the traditional manner of recitation of the Roman Canon, in the older form of the Roman Rite, the text “Through Christ our Lord. Amen.” comes several times and it is not an option. The priest must say it and no one responds. The Canon is silent, of course.

In the Novus Ordo version of the Roman Canon, there are no rubrical indications that the congregation is supposed to join the priest in saying “Amen” in that optional conclusion. I also did not see anything in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.

I conclude that, no, people are not to say “Amen” with the priest if he opts to use that conclusion in the Novus Ordo.

That said, I can’t see much harm being done by people saying “Amen”. I, for one, if I have to say Mass in English, use only the Roman Canon and I use that optional conclusion. Sometimes I hear some people quietly “amening” in the pews. Fine.

Frankly, we should just go back to a silent Canon and have done with the options.

Do I hear an “Amen!”?

Let’s find out.

Here is a little poll. Please pick your best answer and, if you are registered to comment, add your explanation, below.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, POLLS | Tagged 1st Eucharistic Prayer, Amen, Do I hear an "Amen!"?, GIRM, options, poll, Roman Canon
52 Comments

Dogs in church – an interesting case

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Haven’t we all seen the movie or TV show or read the book in which our hero is protected by his faithful but mortally wounded dog? Our hero – incredibly tough and even sometimes cold-blooded, now weeping has to put his own dog out of its misery?

Here is a story in The Telegraph that underscores the strange bond people have with their dogs, seemingly unlike the connection you humans have with any of your planet’s other critters.

Dog turns up to dead owner’s church every day
Two months after his owner died, a dog in Italy keeps turning up each day at the church she used to attend.

By Nick Squires in Rome

Ciccio, [“Pudgy”] a 12-year-old German shepherd, waits in vain in front of the altar of the Santa Maria Assunta church in the village of San Donaci in the southern region of Puglia.
He heads to the church as soon as the bells begin to ring each afternoon, just as he did for years when his owner was alive.
The woman, who was known in local dialect as “Maria tu lu campu” – “Maria of the fields” – died suddenly in November.
Ciccio attended the funeral, following his mistress’s coffin as it was carried into the church.
The dog’s devotion has so impressed villagers that they have adopted him as their own, giving him food and water and letting him sleep in a covered area outside the church.

The local priest, Donato Panna, allows him to sit in front of the altar during Masses, baptisms and other services.
He is now hoping to find a new home for the faithful hound.
His behaviour is reminiscent of Greyfriars Bobby, a Skye Terrier who became famous in Edinburgh for spending years guarding the grave of his owner.

I suppose this will bring up the whole “dogs in church” thing.

There is nothing per se wrong with an animal in a church, but the risks to the place’s sacral character are obvious. This, blessing of animals on certain days… in church… nooooo. Do it outside! We just had the feast of St. Anthony the Abbot yesterday. Years ago I stood outside a church in Velletri, Sant’Antonio Abbate, with my holy water bucket and blessed pigs and horses. In church? Not so much.

But, as hard-hearted as I am, I think I would give Ciccio a pass.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Lighter fare, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged animals in church, dogs, loyalty
53 Comments

@Pontifex Project: Week 3

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I missed last Tuesday. Since today is one of the two days per week when the Roman Curia is open in the evening, let us have Tuesday today.

I suggested a project using Twitter HERE. Let’s create a “stack” of tweets during the day. Concentrate your effort on a day and single theme instead of various scatterings over days when they might not be noticed.

I often use Echofon to tweet, a plugin for Firefox. I also use Tweetdeck. Makes it easier.

If some of you want to offer other language versions, post below.

Here is the collective tweet for FRIDAY, 18 January 2013. Copy. Paste. Repost. Retweet.

@Pontifex Holy Father, thank you for the example of giving Holy Communion to people who kneel #catholic

UPDATE LATIN:

@Pontifex_ln Gratias Tibi agimus ob Sanctae Eucharistiae distribuendae genuaflectentibus exemplum! #catholic

Posted in @Pontifex Tuesday Project, Benedict XVI, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged Holy Communion, Pontifex
11 Comments

The War on Boys continues? School shootings result?

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have a sneaking suspicion that the emotion driven, reason challenged, frenzy in the media about gun control has something to do with decades of systematic work in academia to emasculate boys and men.

Yes, sheer unethical politics is a factor, for political tactics are like water on a pavement: they finds every crack.

I want, for example, to know more about the connection not just with video games and the people who go to shoot up schools, malls or theaters, but also their connection with prescription drugs (you want to go there and read that!), which can often start in school because of some teacher.

I read this on LifeSite:

Eliminating feminist teacher bias erases boys’ falling grades, study finds
BY HILARY WHITE

January 17, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Has the Sexual Revolution, and the feminist ideology that drives it, pushed men out of universities by undermining boys in school as early as kindergarten? Some writers are beginning to connect the dots between the shift over the last few decades in educational practices from fact-based grading to evaluation based on “non-cognitive” and “emotional skills” and the drop in school performance of boys.

In the 1970s, feminist critics regularly complained that the school system favored “male thinking.” Facts, dates, rote learning, and math skills that were seen as “too masculine” for girls. In the intervening decades, feminists have made huge strides throughout the Western world, and education – particularly in the training of teachers – has been transformed as a result.

That most government policy makers and academics accept this as an unqualified success has left bewilderment as to how the new, more “fair” teaching styles have resulted in poor outcomes for boys and ultimately for the men they must become.

[…]

Read the rest there.

Posted in Liberals, The Drill | Tagged prescription drugs, war on boys
40 Comments

LONDON – 26 Jan: Lecture by James MacMillan!

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

O how I would love to be at this lecture in London!

James MacMillan, an accomplished composer of sacred music, will give a lecture on Sat 26 January (14.30 – 15.30) will give a talk for the Royal Philharmonic Society.

He wrote to me saying:

In this lecture I will focus on Elgar’s Catholicism and why it has been underplayed; the importance of religion in culture, and will cite TS Eliot’s suggestion that the rejection of religious tradition leads to the reduction of vision in the arts.

On the site of the Royal Philharmonic we read this blurb:

James MacMillan is one of today’s most successful living composers and is also internationally active as a conductor. His musical language is flooded with influences from his Catholic faith, social conscience and Scottish heritage. Taking Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius as a starting point he will examine the idea of Elgar as a visionary artist and explore how social, cultural and religious thought, combined with the pioneering spirit and drive of Edwardian Culture in England, shaped artistic thought through the Twentieth Century and beyond. Celebrating the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Bicentenary and linked to the LPO’s performance of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, these events are a part of the Southbank Centre’s The Rest Is Noise Festival.

I envy my friends in London.

Posted in The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged Dream of Gerontius, Edward Elgar, James MacMillan, T.S. Eliot
4 Comments

“Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King…”

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

As I read in the Huffington Post:

[…]

Most people think [Martin Luther King, JR] would be the last person to own a gun. Yet in the mid-1950s, as the civil rights movement heated up, King kept firearms for self-protection. In fact, he even applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A recipient of constant death threats, King had armed supporters take turns guarding his home and family. He had good reason to fear that the Klan in Alabama was targeting him for assassination.

William Worthy, a journalist who covered the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, reported that once, during a visit to King’s parsonage, he went to sit down on an armchair in the living room and, to his surprise, almost sat on a loaded gun. Glenn Smiley, an adviser to King, described King’s home as “an arsenal.”

As I found researching my new book, Gunfight, in 1956, after King’s house was bombed, King applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama. The local police had discretion to determine who was a suitable person to carry firearms. King, a clergyman whose life was threatened daily, surely met the requirements of the law, but he was rejected nevertheless. At the time, the police used any wiggle room in the law to discriminate against African Americans.

Ironically, the concealed carry permit law in Alabama was promoted by the National Rifle Association thirty years earlier. [30 years earlier… to help blacks defend themselves!] Today, the gun rights hardliners fight to eliminate permits for concealed carry, as Arizona has done.

Eventually, King gave up any hope of armed self-defense and embraced nonviolence more completely. Others in the civil rights movement, however, embraced the gun.

[…]

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Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, The Drill | Tagged concealed carry weapon, gun control, Martin Luther King, National Rifle Assocation, NRA
9 Comments

File not found…

Posted on 18 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Yep… says it all.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged computers, file not found, Zuhlsdorf's Law
9 Comments

A blogger’s conversion to altar rails and kneeling for Communion (POLL)

Posted on 17 January 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Deacon Greg Kandra has had a bit of a conversion about altar rails. Here is a taste.

Okay. I’ve changed my mind. It’s time to bring back the altar rail.

Hey, I’m as surprised as anyone else that I feel this way.

Two years ago, I rhapsodized on the Feast of Corpus Christi on the theology behind standing to receive communion, and defended it. And why not? I’ve received that way for most of my adult life; I even remember the Latin church’s experiment with intinction back in the ’70s. Standing and in-the-hand always seemed to me sensible, practical and—with proper catechesis—appropriate.

But now, after several years of standing on the other side of the ciborium—first as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, now as a deacon—and watching what goes on, I’ve had about enough.

I’ve watched a mother receive communion, her toddler in tow, then take it back to the pew and share it with him like a cookie.

[… other horrid examples…]

Beyond that, I’m reminded week after week that people have no uniform way to receive in the hand. There’s the reverent “hands-as-throne” approach; there’s the “Gimme five,” one-hand-extended style; there are the notorious “body snatchers” who reach up and seize the host to pop into their mouths like an after-dinner mint; and there are the vacillating undecideds who approach with hands slightly cupped and lips parted. Where do you want it and how?? [I hate that.]

[…]

The fact is, we fumbling humans need external reminders—whether smells and bells, or postures and gestures—to reinforce what we are doing, direct our attention, and make us get over ourselves. Receiving communion is about something above us, and beyond us. It should transcend what we normally do. [DING! Say the magic woid, win a hunn’ed dallahs.] But what does it say about the state of our worship and our reception of the Eucharist that it has begun to resemble a trip to the DMV?

Our modern liturgy has become too depleted of reverence and awe, of wonder and mystery. The signs and symbols that underscored the mystery—the windows of stained glass, the chants of Latin, the swirls of incense at the altar—vanished and were replaced by . . . what? Fifty shades of beige? Increasingly churches now resemble warehouses, and the Body of Christ is just one more commodity we stockpile and give out. [yup]

[…]

After what I’ve seen, I agree with him. We need to get off our feet, and on our knees.

Bring back the communion rail. It’s time.