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{]:¬)

The Feeder Feed: Scruffy and Christological Goldfinch Edition

Posted on 13 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I haven’t posted much about the birds at the feeder. This, and a recent trip to the Detroit Institute of Art, gives me a chance to use a feature the blog’s software offers and which I have never used.

Here are the feeder pic in a “gallery”.

First, a curious but striking shot of the sky at sunset. There follow a Junco with a singular white tail feather, a very scruffy male Goldfinch, and a Red-breasted Nuthatch doing what it does best – hang around upside down.

Well… I am not sure I like this “gallery view”.

During a recent visit to the Detroit Institute of Art I spotted a Virgin and Child in which our little Lord has a firm grasp on a Christological Goldfinch.

I seldom lose an opportunity to post shots of … or even write out… a Christological Goldfinch.

Guess who painted this Virgin and Child, who happens to have a Christological Goldfinch.

(Hint: at the bottom of the painting we read: “BENOZZO GOZZOLI PINXIT”.)

Posted in On the road, The Feeder Feed | Tagged bird feeder, bird watching, birds, Christological Goldfinch, Detroit, DIA, goldfinch, Junco
5 Comments

Was a Council necessary? Explain in 200 words or less.

Posted on 13 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Bede Rowe of A Chaplain Abroad has an amusing post about the observance of the anniversary of the Second Vatican Council.

He begins:

There was a world wide consultation of Bishops before the initial preparation of the Council began.

I think of it as the beginning of one of my exams:

—————————————–

Name: ……………………
Class*: ……………………

Answer the following question in ink using only one side of the paper provided.

Question 1

“What do you think the coming Vatican Council should discuss?”

*In case of confusion, put your Diocese.

[…]

I would be tempted to move that asterisk down to the question itself!

There are lots of issues which could be discussed concerning the Second Vatican Council. One of them might be:

Was a Council necessary?

Explain in 200 words or less.

Pius XII had thought about a Council to conclude the work of Vatican I, which had been interrupted. He was advised against having a Council and, in fact, scrapped the idea. John XXIII, on the other hand, seemed determined to have one. Once it was underway, as some report, he seem to have tried to get it back into the box and failed. Then he died.

The Second Vatican Council still causes a lot of confusion, principally because people who talk about it a lot haven’t actually read the documents.

HEY! Here’s a novel idea!

Discussion of the Council might start with a close reading of the documents! (Dont have them? Buy them. USA HERE and UK HERE.)

And as you begin your project, how about a nice hot mug of Mystic Monk Coffee?

I have it from the highest authority that if the Council Fathers had had Mystic Monk Coffee… or Tea for that matter… none of the confusion that has devastated the Church for the last few decades would have occurred! Trust me on this one.

Do you want to cause confusion? No!

Do you want to issue documents that will be accused of ambiguity and even heresy? No!

Do you want to force Pope’s to use phrases such as “smoke of Satan” and “hermeneutic of continuity”? No!

Take it from me, friends, you had better refresh your supply of Mystic Monk Coffee right now!

How about trying the Monk’s Four Favorite, which comes also with a sample pack you could even give as a hostess gift! People still give hostess gifts, right?

Do it for… the children.

Mystic Monk Coffee…. it’s swell!

Posted in Dogs and Fleas, Mail from priests, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged John XXIII, Pius XII, Second Vatican Council
133 Comments

When the Global Killer Asteroid arrives, let’s do better than the Great Successor!

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

How are we going to get Bruce Willis up to 2011 AG5, that killer asteroid that’s heading our way?!?

Don’t ask North Korea’s Great Successor Kim Jong-un!

Whatever their next act is, Ladies and Gents, it’ll be a blast too.

I think I’ll watch a movie tonight.

UPDATE 13 April 0250 GMT:

Okay, I watched a movie and I regret watching it in the evening.

Do not watch Contagion before you go to bed.

And it is definitely NOT a good airplane movie.

I may have to watch some Lucille Ball episodes to get that TEOTWAWKI stuff out of my head or it is going to be a looong night..

Posted in Global Killer Asteroid Questions, Lighter fare, TEOTWAWKI, The future and our choices | Tagged Bruce Willis, contagion, Great Successor, Kim Jong-un, North Korea, pandemic, TEOTWAWKI
14 Comments

What about Pres. Obama’s surrogate Hillary Rosen? Huh?

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Hillary Rosen, the left-wing political and lesbian activist and Obama operative, thinks that Ann Romney, the DCIS cancer surviving, MS enduring mother of five, has

“actually never worked a day in her life”.

[wp_youtube]T_BRWBUVhyc[/wp_youtube]

Does that jive with your experience of women who stay at home to raise children? They’ve never worked a day in their lives?

In one article I read about this dust up, Hillary Rosen, who has among other things worked for Huffington Post, is described as:

Rosen has twins with Elizabeth Birch, with whom she separated in 2006. She was in 2004 the interim director for the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender lobbyist organization. Birch was the executive director of the group for eight years

Hillary Rosen is very interesting.

Hillary Rosen is – or was – an Obama surrogate.

Now that real America is rising up in anger at Rosen’s comments the Obama campaign is pushing her off the cliff, even though they think what she thinks.

They have a distorted view of women and the family. Let us never forget that Pres. Obama’s choice for HHS secretary said that part of the strategy of paying for Obamacare is to reduce the number of live births, state-senator Obama was a proponent of infanticide legislation, and candidate Obama said that he would want to see his daughters “punished” with a baby.

The Obama campaign treats women as objects of their lust for office and power.

The problem for the Obama people is that Rosen made the mistake of saying what she – and her overseers – really think.

I would love to hear what you women readers think about Hillary Rosen’s attack on Ann Romney.

Posted in The Drill, The future and our choices, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged 1st Amendment, Ann Romney, DCIS, family, HHS, Hillary Rosen, MS, Pres. Obama, women
50 Comments

U.S. Bishops Issue Call To Action To Defend Religious Liberty

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the website of the USCCB:

April 12, 2012

Urge strong lay involvement

Outline threats to First Freedom at all levels of government and abroad

Call upon dioceses to pursue religious liberty fortnight, June 21-July 4 [Mark your calendars. Get things going.]

WASHINGTON—The U.S. bishops have issued a call to action to defend religious liberty and urged laity to work to protect the First Freedom of the Bill of Rights. They outlined their position in “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.” The document was developed by the Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), approved for publication by the USCCB Administrative Committee March 13, and published in English and Spanish April 12.

The document can be found HERE.

“We have been staunch defenders of religious liberty in the past. We have a solemn duty to discharge that duty today,” the bishops said in the document, “… for religious liberty is under attack, both at home and abroad.”

The document lists concerns that prompt the bishops to act now.Among concerns are:

• The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate forcing all employers, including religious organizations, to provide and pay for coverage of employees’ contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs even when they have moral objections to them. Another concern is HHS’s defining which religious institutions are “religious enough” to merit protection of their religious liberty.

• Driving Catholic foster care and adoption services out of business. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia and Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities adoption or foster care services out of business by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.

• Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Despite years of excellent performance by the USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require USCCB to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. Recently, a federal court judge in Massachusetts turned religious liberty on its head when he declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion.

The statement lists other examples such as laws punishing charity to undocumented immigrants; a proposal to restructure Catholic parish corporations to limit the bishop’s role; [This is a complicated point, since in some states parishes are separate corporations. There are real advantages in that, since the assets of a whole diocese can’t be attacked through one institution.] and a state university’s excluding a religious student group because it limits leadership positions to those who share the group’s religion.

Other topics include the history and deep resonance of Catholic and American visions of religious freedom, the recent tactic of reducing freedom of religion to freedom of worship, [!] the distinction between conscientious objection to a just law, and civil disobedience of an unjust law, the primacy of religious freedom among civil liberties, the need for active vigilance in protecting that freedom, and concern for religious liberty among interfaith and ecumenical groups and across partisan lines.

The bishops decry limiting religious freedom to the sanctuary. [This is IMPORTANT. This is what the Obama Administration is trying to do. They are trying to shift, with a shift of language and by direct attacks, the influence of religion out of the public square and confine it to inside churches or homes. They are working to repress any influence that opposes their agenda and therefore they are undermining religious liberty.]

“Religious liberty is not only about our ability to go to Mass on Sunday or pray the Rosary at home. It is about whether we can make our contribution to the common good of all Americans,” they said. “Can we do the good works our faith calls us to do, without having to compromise that very same faith?”

“This is not a Catholic issue. This is not a Jewish issue. This is not an Orthodox, Mormon, or Muslim issue. It is an American issue,” they said.

[…]

Be sure to go read the rest there.

Discuss.

And don’t give me any blatteroon blather about “the bishops for decades have been weak and they brought this on themselves”. That is pointless. We are all in this now.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Blatteroons, Brick by Brick, Dogs and Fleas, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged 1st Amendment, freedom of religious, freedom of worship, Obama Administration, Pres. Obama, public square, religious liberty, USCCB
35 Comments

WDTPRS Easter Thursday – diversity and wholeness

Posted on 12 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Collect for the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form caught my eye:

Deus, qui diversitatem gentium in confessione tui nominis adunasti,
da, ut renatis fonte baptismatis
una sit fides mentium et pietas actionum.

This is a modern tinkering with an ancient prayer. In the post-Tridentine Missal there is a prayer from Holy Saturday after the 10th prophecy: Deus, qui diversitatem gentium in confessione tui nominis adunasti: da nobis, et velle, et posse quae praecipis; ut populo ad aeternitatem vocato, una sit fides mentium, et pietas actionum.

In the Gregorian Sacramentary this shows up on the Thursday in the Octave of Easter, when the Station is at XII Apostoli. That just happens to be today, of course.

Pietas actionum is hard. When used for humans, pietas has to do with “duty”, but when it is applied to God it is more along the lines of “mercy”. But a further distinction must be made a our pietas. When applied to us humans and in respect to created things pietas is “dutifulness, conscientiousness” while in respect to our pietas toward God it is a sense of duty that verges strongly towards “love, affection, loyalty, gratitude”. In other words, when applied to us but in respect to God, it taps into the content of the virtue of religion, what we owe to God by the fact that He is God. In a sense, contained within the distinctions about pietas are the two-fold commands of Christ to love God and, flowing from that love of God, love then ourselves and our neighbor in the proper way.

When I deal with pietas I get this image, from the medieval period and heraldry of the pelican “in her piety”. There is a symbol of Christ and His Church as a pelican who, in time of famine and drought, pierces her own breast with her bill to feed her chicks from her own blood. This sort of piety harks to the sense of pietas as “duty”. This is what she must do for her young. And, in a sense, the chicks then must drink!

Perhaps you have sung the hymn by St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274) called Adoro Te devote, in which we find the words, “Pie pelicane, Iesu Domine, / me immundum munda tuo sanguine. … O dutiful pelican, Lord Jesus, cleanse me, unclean, in your blood.”

ULTRA-LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who united a variety of peoples in the profession of your Name,
grant to those reborn in the font of baptism
that there may be one faith of minds and (one) duty of actions.

What on earth does that mean?

SMOOTHER VERSION:
O God, who united diverse peoples in the profession of Your Name,
grant that for those reborn in the font of baptism
there may be one mind in faith and one love in action.

In the phrase “una sit fides cordium et pietas actionum” we have an expression of Christian wholeness. Just interior faith alone does not suffice for the Christian life, nor do mere outward actions of charity and mercy. Pope Benedict spoke to this in his first encyclical letter Deus caritas est. All good outward actions are good not just because they are performed, but because they are performed from charity, the a deep sacrificial love which reflects and imitates the Lord on the Cross.

CURRENT ICEL (2011):
O God, who have united the many nations in confessing your name,
grant that those reborn in the font of Baptism
may be one in the faith of their hearts
and the homage of their deeds.

The is a great play with diversity and oneness. In the first line there is “variety”, diversitas and in the last line there is unity. Christ is the unifying force and baptism is the means.

There is even a play with the forms of words… diversitas gentium… pietas actionum… (unitas) mentium.

Consider now again my reference to Christ’s two-fold command.

Posted in WDTPRS | Tagged EASTER, Latin, liturgy, Octave, pelican, pelican in her piety, pietas, piety, prayer, sacrifice, St. Thomas Aquinas, worship
4 Comments

Condom-promoting Nun v. U.S. Catholic Bishops. The Magisterium of Nuns is still shrill.

Posted on 11 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On Indy.com we find this. There is a backstory which the article will explain:

There’s good news and national news at RecycleForce, the Eastside non-profit that provides jobs and re-entry assistance to ex-offenders.

Less than a month after having $20,000 in grant money yanked away by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the organization has made up the loss, thanks mainly to a local foundation and a Catholic businessman.

Meanwhile, there’s a larger story, told by The New York Times last week. RecycleForce was listed as one of nine recipients of Catholic Campaign funds that have been cut off in the face of pressure from conservative Catholic groups opposed to contraception, abortion and gay rights. [Note the stress on “rights”, as if conservatives want to deny “rights” to people. Conservatives want to uphold natural law.]

Merely being associated with a disapproved entity could bring the axe. RecycleForce is such a case. It hosted AmeriCorps personnel for health tutorials, which included distribution of condoms to prevent AIDS and other disease, a common scourge of ex-convicts. Learning of the service, the Catholic Campaign refused to pay the final half of a sorely needed $40,000 grant, even after RecycleForce agreed to banish the condoms.

As has happened elsewhere, RecycleForce found rescuers, including Catholics, who were outraged by what they saw as dogmatic rigidity overriding common sense. [The classic liberal pitting of intellect against authority, reason against faith, as if they are not to be reconciled.]

The Health Foundation of Greater Indianapolis, funder of the AmeriCorps project, gave $10,000. A man who asked to remain anonymous, citing his deep involvement in Catholic charities, gave a like amount. He and Betty Wilson, executive director of the foundation, both saw a vital good deed — an indirect deed at that — being punished. [Conservatives are mean.]

Concurring is Barbara Battista, a Catholic nun and president of the Indiana Academy of Physician Assistants. [Get those elements? Now she will place herself OVER the bishops. She is an expositrix of the Magisterium of Nuns.]

“Please, let’s ask the Hoosiers, not our bishops, [!] what we want RecycleForce to do,” she said by email.”I bet that condom bowl will be put back out! I am a health-care provider gratefully working in a public facility.We happily have free condoms in our exam rooms.”

Thomas Gray, [“whipped” minion and] vice president of RecycleForce, submits that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which runs the Campaign, has become “trapped” in cultural politics.

[…]

The rest is available there. It is slimy.

UPDATE 12 April 17:50 GMT:

More about the Nun Who Pushes Condoms, HERE.

And some of her compatriots, HERE. An excerpt, just so you know which crowd of women religious she runs in…

[…]

Since I ordinarily live on the south side of Chicago and am a registered Democrat, I have been an ardent supporter of Barack Obama. I remember when he was a member of the Illinois State Legislator [Legislature]. He supported the Illinois Hunger Coalition on several of our legislative endeavors including universal school breakfast and summer feeding programs. [He also actively promoted direct infanticide.]

[…]

Posted in Dogs and Fleas, One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged Archd. Indianapolis, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, CCHD, Democrats, infanticide, magisterium of nuns, Pres. Obama, RecycleForce
57 Comments

QUAERITUR: English translation of Breviary to fulfill duty of saying the Office

Posted on 11 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a seminarian:

Just wondering if the new Latin / English Breviaries put out by Baronius Press fulfill the canonical objection of priests?

Particularly, can a priest say the English translation and fulfill his obligation? I am currently a seminarian and find that the English translation of this Breviary is much more literal than the 1970’s ICEL translation.

Can. 276 requires that clerics fulfill their Office “in accordance with their own approved liturgical books”. If the translation in the Baronius edition has ecclesiastical approbation, then it is acceptable. If the translation is not approved, then praying the Latin whilst glancing at the English would be acceptable.

However, as I look at the Decree in the front of Vol 1 of the Baronius edition in question, a Decree issued by Bp. Bruskewitz, I read:

In accordance with Canons 826 §3 and 827 § 3, permission is hereby granted for the English translation and the editorial material to be published for private use, not for liturgical use.

Recitation of the Office by those bound to it is a liturgical act. So, I am of a mind that a cleric does not fulfill his Office by saying just the English. He does so by using the Latin.

Also, on p. xxii of an introductory note in the Baronius edition I read:

It should be stressed that the English translation is primarily provided as a guide to help those with little or no Latin understand the text of the Office. While we hope that by providing a bilingual version of the Breviary we will make it more accessible to those who wish to use this form of the Hours, it is the Latin text which is the approved form of the Church’s prayer.

So, my answer is “No, using the English does not fulfill a clerics obligation.”

Lay people who are not religious or consecrated virgins bound to say the Office can do exactly as it pleases them.

By the way, as a seminarian I would not let ANYONE else know that you are using that book regularly. Take your cue from Matthew 6:6 and be like the man who prays in his room with the door closed.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests | Tagged English, Latin, liturgy, Office, prayer, Roman Breviary, worship
34 Comments

Card. Burke on the HHS mandate: “There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”

Posted on 11 April 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In an interview, Raymond Card. Burke has offered his view on Pres. Obama’s attack on religious liberty, his erosion of the 1st Amendment, his duplicitous, anti-Catholic… okay.. you get it.

From Life News with my emphases:

Thomas McKenna: “It is beautiful to see how the faithful have rallied behind the Hierarchy….How does your Eminence comment on the union of solidarity of our bishops?”

Cardinal Burke: “Yes, I have received emails and other communications from lay faithful who say that they are supporting their bishops 100% and they have communicated to their bishops their gratitude and assured them that they want them to continue to be courageous and not to be deceived by any kind of false accommodations which in fact continue this same kind of agenda which sadly we have witnessed for too long in our country which is totally secular and therefore is anti-life and anti-family. I admire very much the courage of the bishops. At the same time I believe they would say it along with me that they are doing no more than their duty. A bishop has to protect his flock and when any individual or government attempts to force the flock to act against conscience in one of its most fundamental precepts then the bishops have to come to defend those who are entrusted to their pastoral care. So I am deeply grateful to all of the bishops who have spoken about this and who are encouraging the members of their flock to also speak up because our government needs to understand that what is being done with this mandate is contrary first of all to the fundamental human right, the right to the free exercise of one’s conscience and at the same time contrary to the very foundation of our nation.” [Do I hear an “Amen”?]

Thomas McKenna: “So a Catholic employer, really getting down to it, he does not, or she does not provide this because that way they would be, in a sense, cooperating with the sin…the sin of contraception or the sin of providing a contraceptive that would abort a child, is this correct?”

Cardinal Burke: “This is correct. It is not only a matter of what we call “material cooperation” in the sense that the employer by giving this insurance benefit is materially providing for the contraception but it is also “formal cooperation” because he is knowingly and deliberately doing this, making this available to people. There is no way to justify it. It is simply wrong.”