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{]:¬)

A bit of fun at The Jesuit Post

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A bit of fun at The Jesuit Post today. Check it out.

And don’t forget to spot the bad Latin from a well-known person in the comments. Liberals…. whaddyagonnado?

Posted in Lighter fare |
9 Comments

Another tradition of centuries bites the dust!

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is really alarming. First, the Pope won’t use proper papal garb, then the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate are attacked by the Holy See, then Card. Kasper goes completely to the zoo on Communion for the divorced and remarried. Now this!

I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

It seems that King’s College is no longer going to have boys in their legendary choir! This is a huge blow to music.

The situation is explained in this video interview with the chaplain of the choir.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged boys choir, Cambridge, King's College
22 Comments

Papal peace doves get a new protector!

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Remember the problem that Francis’ papal peace dove had a while back? It had a really bad day when it was attacked by a crow and a seagull. HERE

I read now at ICN that there is a plan in place to prevent this from happening again.

Vatican introduces new security measure in St Peter’s Square

Vatican officials today are introducing a new measure to keep St Peter’s Square clear of marauding birds. A team in the Swiss Guards has been assigned the task of supervising a Sharris Hawk, [sic – surely this is Harris, no? Parabuteo unicinctus.] which will be brought out during the Weekly Audiences and the Angelus – on Wednesdays and Sundays.

On 26 January this year, two white peace doves were attacked by a crow and a seagull, seconds after they were released from a window in the Apostolic Palace by Pope Francis, accompanied by two young children. One dove lost several feathers in the fracas.

Swiss Guard and Sylvia

A spokesman for the Vatican Press Office said: “Such an event will not happen again.” He explained: “The hawk, which is called Sylvia, was bred in a wildlife centre in northern Italy and is highly trained. Her mere presence should act as a deterrent to any more attacks such as the one which took place in January. In addition however, she will act as an escort and protector to the peace doves after the ceremonies, accompanying the birds when they fly home from Saint Peter’s to their aviary, which is about one and a half a kilometres from the Vatican.” [Just about anything could happen to them over that distance. Think about it!]

With a wingspan of up to 120 cm (47 inches) Sharris Hawks originally come from the southwestern United States, Chile and Argentina. They have dark brown plumage with chestnut shoulders, wing underwings, white on the base and tip of the tail, long, yellow legs and beak.

For further pictures, visit the ICN Facebook page here.

Let us not forget the hawk that used to visit my old place, the Sabine Farm. HERE (with the legendary image from the great Vincenzo!)

Posted in Lighter fare |
12 Comments

Historic background of “April Fool’s Day”

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From History.com with my emphases and comments:

On this day in 1700, English pranksters begin popularizing the annual tradition of April Fools’ Day by playing practical jokes on each other.

Although the day, also called All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated for several centuries by different cultures, its exact origins remain a mystery. Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes. These included having paper fish placed on their backs and being referred to as “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolize a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person. [In Italy we still say “Pesci! Fish!” on this say when some prank is revealed.]

Historians have also linked April Fools’ Day to ancient festivals such as Hilaria, which was celebrated in Rome at the end of March and involved people dressing up in disguises. There’s also speculation that April Fools’ Day was tied to the vernal equinox, or first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when Mother Nature fooled people with changing, unpredictable weather. [Yah… right.]

April Fools’ Day spread throughout Britain during the 18th century. In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” in which people were sent on phony errands (gowk is a word for cuckoo bird, a symbol for fool) [I use this in one of my blog tags: Puir Slow-Witted Gowk. I picked it up from a character in Patrick O’Brian’s great books.] and followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks played on people’s derrieres, such as pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them.

In modern times, people have gone to great lengths to create elaborate April Fools’ Day hoaxes. Newspapers, radio and TV stations and Web sites have participated in the April 1 tradition of reporting outrageous fictional claims that have fooled their audiences. In 1957, the BBC reported that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees; numerous viewers were fooled. [Ah yes! But little do people realize that that’s true!] In 1985, Sports Illustrated tricked many of its readers when it ran a made-up article about a rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch who could throw a fastball over 168 miles per hour. [Best joke ehvurrr.] In 1996, Taco Bell, the fast-food restaurant chain, duped people when it announced it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and intended to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell. In 1998, after Burger King advertised a “Left-Handed Whopper,” scores of clueless customers requested the fake sandwich. [BTW, that the left-handed version wasn’t nearly as good.]

Posted in Just Too Cool, Lighter fare | Tagged Sidd Finch
5 Comments

HMS Alliance!

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

While I was reading this story about the Archbishop of Atlanta’s new residence and wondering why the National Schismatic Reporter wasn’t paying any attention to it – they are usually all over this sort of thing – I spotted this very cool video on the sidebar of the news site.

This is about a WWII era British submarine, HMS Alliance. It is the only one of its kind remaining. It has been refurbished, brought back to its pristine character, and can be visited in Portsmouth, where you can also find HMS Victory and Mary Rose. If you haven’t been to the Historic Dockyard, you are in for a treat. The sub is part of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, on the same side of the harbor as the Historic Dockyard, not too far a walk, judging from the map and my memory.

Here is a video:

The Brits do this sort of thing really well. Be sure to visit the Imperial War Museum and the War Rooms, both in London.

UPDATE

In other news, HMS Surprise is getting an overhaul.

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged HMS Alliance, HMS Surprise, Portsmouth
10 Comments

Beautiful lies about Evil

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I’ve gotta hand, once again, to Ed Peters for this great, clear, hard-hitting post at his blog In The Light Of The Law. He has no combox and so he doesn’t mind if I repost from time to time. That said, be sure to head over there, spike his stats by way of a sign of appreciation for his good work.

Beautiful lies about Evil are more effective than ugly lies about Good

April 1, 2014 [This is NO JOKE. Deadly serious.]

Used to be, the Father of Lies told lies that were not simply false, but lies that looked ugly.

The Nazis proclaimed, for example, that Jews were miserly, baby-sacrificing vermin. Such lies achieved, in the terrible short-run, their intended impact, but, from a rhetorical point of view, the tactic of ‘uglifying’ the good suffered from the flaw that eventually derails all lies so crudely launched, namely, their own off-putting ugliness.

Seriously, who, having seen one of Goebbels’ propaganda films, wants to recall images of rats running through dank sewers or defecating in sacks of grain? The disgust engendered by such images made their hateful message too revolting to recall, or at least, too nauseating for most people to dwell on for very long. Ugly lies collapse (if only in the long view of history) not only because they are false, but because their very ugliness flees in face of the patent beauty and goodness of those whom they purport to describe. The staying power of an ugly lie is not able to sustain evil over the long run. The Father of Lies has figured that out, I suggest, and has changed tactics.

Today, Evil does not tell ugly, viscerally off-putting lies about Good; instead, Evil tells beautiful, attractive lies about itself. And nowhere is this more the case than with abortion propaganda.

A Students for Life of America webpage, scoring tax-payer funded abortion propaganda now on at the University of Michigan, shows a typical pro-abortion image (albeit with a superfluous red X drawn thru it).

Look first at the picture: warm sunlight peeking between a flowering horizon and soft clouds offering life-sustaining moisture. That visual image has absolutely nothing to do with abortion, of course, but it sure looks attractive.

Now read the words on the pro-abortion image: abortion is A GIFT FROM GOD. Wow, a gift from God! What could be better than a gift from God?

Now read the quote from abortionist Dr. Susan Wicklund (also gently pictured): “Abortion is about life, quality of life for infants, children, and adults everywhere and in every sense of the word. Life, not death.” Every phrase, friends, every warm, wonderful, heart-tugging, empathy-demanding, sun-shining phrase is a lie. But what an attractive lie it is.

Gone, I think, are the days of Evil telling ugly lies about babies (like the abortion advocate who referred to unborn babies as “parasites”—I thought I was listening to Goebbels’ granddaughter). Babies are too cute to curse, and everyone knows it. [But that doesn’t stop them for to long.]

So, instead of telling ugly lies about babies, the Evil One tells beautiful lies about abortion.

The Devil’s counter-move to the rise of easy and available ultrasound?

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, HONORED GUESTS, Liberals, The Drill | Tagged abortion, Dr. Susan Wicklund, Ed Peters, lies, The Enemy, The Father of Lies, University of Michigan
16 Comments

Interesting celebrant of Pontifical TLM at SS Ternità in Rome: a very non-trad leading Auxilary close to Pope Francis

Posted on 1 April 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

No fooling… on Sunday one the Auxiliary Bishops of Rome went to the official parish for the Extraordinary Form in Rome, SS Ternità dei Pellegrini (real Romans say Ternità rather than Trinità). There are some good photos at NLM.

Here is an account with comments from a friend in Rome who attends the parish (edited):

Yesterday the auxiliary Bishop for the Centro Storico, [The historic center of Rome] His Excellency Most Reverend Matteo Maria Zuppi celebrated Mass at our parish.

This is very important for all of us for a host of reasons:

1) the man is no traddie. A bishop from the clergy of the Sant’Egidio community (Andrea Riccardi anyone?), is not someone you expect to want to be with us. And yet he asked to come and celebrate Mass. [Next… INVITE HIM!]

2) he’s said to be very close to the Pope, and he certainly shares a lot of his style.

3) he was very kind and very nice to us. He took the time to speak with all who wanted to during the post-Mass “coffee and donuts”. He was very amiable, repeating how sorry he was for the inevitable mistakes he made not being used to the traditional missal and rubrics.

[NB] 4) His homily was neither about the risks of reneging on the Council nor about risks of “instrumentalizing” the old Mass or neopelagianism and such. It was about the Gospel and the Epistle of the Laetare Sunday, and the service to the universal Church we all need to be involved in as a parish and as individual Catholics to feed the people with the spiritual food of the Gospel and when necessary also with the food the body needs. [Excellent. It is best that the sermon not be so self-conscious.]

The pajama traddies in their mom’s basement will try to destroy this thing via comboxes, but if there was anything I didn’t detect due to wishful thinking, I don’t know. Those with any working synapses left felt really consoled and reassured by yesterday. At least I know I did.

Another person who was involved sent this (edited):

Some people in the liberal part of the blogosphere note that Pope Francis just got rid of the “bling bishop”, and – what a coincidence – the bling-bishop also just happens to like the trad Mass.

People have been giving the impression that Francis is not keen on the “trad thing”. [On the other hand], the Pope is completely cool with having the guy who is doing most of the actual bishoping in Rome celebrate the trad Mass.

More photos HERE.

This is a good development. No fooling!

Posted in Brick by Brick, Francis, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM | Tagged Bp. Zuppi, FSSP, SS. Trinita dei Pelegrini
13 Comments

New Ecumenical English Missal? Committee members named?

Posted on 31 March 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am sure that you have all seen this piece by now from this liturgy site HERE. My emphases and comments:

New Ecumenical English Missal

A rumour has been growing about a possible review of the Roman Catholic missal translation, but no one anticipated the announcement of a New Ecumenical English Missal Project, which will mean that the words for the whole Eucharist will be the same across a number of significant English-speaking denominations. [Wound’t haters of the new translation be thrilled?]

Pope Francis, ever taking people by surprise, in only the second year of his papacy, pointedly, on the feast day of a woman saint, St Theodora (April 1), is formally signing [So… did he sign it “informally” earlier … or not sign it at all?] the declaration that he has the agreement of significant English-speaking churches and ecclesial communities to work [discrimination against the insignificant!] towards a new Ecumenical English Missal.

Real dissatisfaction with the recent English-language missal translation has been present from the start. [And still now.]

January this year the Irish Association of Catholic Priests [aka Ass. of Catholic Priests] and an article in the Tablet [aka The Bitter Pill] said that a review of the Missal translation has been promised. Fr. Paddy Jones has just finished 21 years directing the national liturgy office in Ireland, and in the office’s bulletin New Liturgy he has an editorial on the topic. “A review is promised, though the mechanism of such a review is not known”, wrote Fr Jones.

Like other surprise announcements of Pope Francis, this one goes totally beyond expectations. In the document entitled (still surprisingly in Latin!) Aprilis Stulte ‘Dies (translation of the Latin here), the pope reveals that a board will oversee a commission of English-language liturgical, linguistic, and musical experts.

Four people will form this board. The four are (left to right in the photo above) Bishop Susan Johnson (National Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada), Pope Francis, the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori (Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church), and the Most Reverend Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury). The gender and church-background mix is seen to be no accident. [How could it be?]

One of the strongest criticisms of the current English Language Missal Translation is its gender-exclusive language. Prior to this current translation many texts were shared ecumenically. This new work, however, will move beyond a few shared texts. The whole text will be usable by English-language liturgical churches. Insiders predict that the commission will start by trying to bring together the best of the rejected 1998 translation and The Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer.

[…]

Read the rest there. That is if you haven’t figured out that this is a joke.

I’ll have to ponder this, and reactions to it, during the day.

Posted in Lighter fare |
49 Comments

Special needs child and mom commercial

Posted on 31 March 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I don’t watch a lot of TV and I loathe most commercials. This commercial, however, I thought was pretty great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzIg0vw8gNY&feature=player_embedded

Also, I must note that my father has been a Mass Mutual financial adviser for decades and I have policies myself. Aside from that, the message of that commercial was pretty spiffy.

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged Mass Mutual, special needs children
8 Comments