Fr. Z's Blog | Catholic commentary by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War!

Posted on 9 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter) has yet another attack piece against the important collection to be taken up this weekend for the Archdiocese for Military Services.

In other words they are attacking Catholic chaplains.

In the latest divisive hate piece Fishwrap has this suggestion:

Outside the clergy, a small, lay-led online effort seeks to offer Catholics opposed to the collection an alternative when the basket makes its way through the pews.

Catholics Against Militarism has made available on its website downloadable cards for Catholics opposed to the collection “to put in the collection basket instead of money, just to make their voices heard,” member Ellen Finnigan said.

The cards, in part, read: “A nationwide collection for AMS sends a message to American Catholics that the Catholic Church condones America’s current military activity and post-9-11 wars. … Church is no place to glorify the ideals of the professional military class, which run contrary to most, if not all, Christian beliefs and teachings, including the Christian Just War theory. Today, in a spirit of peace, I offer my dissent.”

Fishwrap upbraids those who create “divisiveness” or who use sharp rhetoric.

And yet here is Fishwrap attacking an established, recognized ministry to well over 1 million lay people, some of whom are children, some of whom are suffering in horrible life-threatening circumstances. Some of them are poor, they work for almost nothing.

How ’bout this. There is special collection for nuns every year.

CLICK TO DONATE

Do they deserve a handout after all the strife and division some of them create in the Church?

How about I create a card you can download and print to offer your disgust about the LCWR when it is time to take up a collection for women religious?

“A nationwide collection for women religious sends a message to American Catholics that the Catholic Church condones America’s women religious dissenting from Church teachings and causing scandal and confusion among the faithful. … Church is no place to glorify the ideals of the dissenting nuns, such as those of the LCWR and CHA, which run contrary to most, if not all, Christian beliefs and teachings, including just about everything in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Today, in a spirit of peace, I offer my dissent.”

Hey! I recognize a good idea when I see it. Liberals are the experts at division. This is a Leftist idea and tactic.

I don’t see the USCCB rushing to denounce the tactic. The Left gets away with this garbage all the time. Not this time. Let’s start a card campaign, too!

Look. For those of you in Columbia Heights, I am making a point about how the Left works. I don’t really want to start a campaign against the sisters. But the LEFT thinks this is a great idea: attack Catholic chaplains and then create division in parish churches by smearing the Military Archdiocese as warmongers. I am kidding. They are serious.

If this isn’t divisive, what is?

If we wanted to, we could play the game, too.

Remember that movie WarGames?

Joshua: Shall we play a game?
…
David Lightman: [typing] Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?
Joshua: Wouldn’t you prefer a nice game of chess?
[Jennifer laughs]
David Lightman: [typing] Later. Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War.
Joshua: Fine.

Whom shall we nuke next? How ’bout KANSAS CITY!

And Greg Reynolds is still excommunicated.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Liberals | Tagged Archd. Military Services, Fishwrap, National Schismatic Reporter, NCR
60 Comments

We also had the “Church Indifferent”.

Posted on 9 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Former-Father Greg Reynolds is still excommunicated.

The most wonderfullest and fluffiest Pope ehvur did this.

Always keep that in mind when you read liberal cant about how he is shaking things up.

There is an article about former-Father Reynolds who, like all dissenters, seems not to be able to shut up about himself.

This is an interesting tidbit about him…

After completing an economics degree at Monash University, Reynolds started questioning whether there was more to life. A friend of his mother’s suggested he enter the seminary, where others were surely grappling with such questions.

“I went into the seminary not even sure that God existed,” he says. “I didn’t put a time frame on it, but it was certainly just going to be a temporary arrangement, ’til I got a few answers and then I’d get out.”

He enjoyed it and began to think that he could be a priest. “But it’s a bit awkward if you don’t believe in God,” he says laughing. “So I gave God, if She’s [sic] out there, a bit of time, saying, ‘You’re going to have to sort this out because I can’t go on here indefinitely.’?”

You will by now be asking: “How the hell did this guy even get into the seminary in the first place?”

This sort of thing, the Greg Reynolds types, don’t just “happen”.

We have the Church Suffering, the Church Militant, and the Church Triumphant.

We also had the Church Indifferent.

Posted in Liberals, The Drill | Tagged Greg Reynolds
37 Comments

“Latinitas” rediviva

Posted on 9 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is from News.va:

Presentation of the new journal “LATINITAS”

Vatican City, 8 November 2013 (VIS) – This morning a press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office to present the first issue of the new series of the journal “Latinitas”, published by the Pontifical Academy Latinitas, instituted by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2012. The speakers were Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture; Professor Ivano Dionigi, president of the Pontifical Academy for Latin and rector of the University of Bologna, and the writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi.

The first issue will include an article responding to the questions, “Latin for whom? Why Latin?” by the new director Ivano Dionigi, following an epigraph dedicated to Pope Francis.

The journal is divided into three sections: scientific (“Historica et philologica”); “Humaniora”, dedicated to contemporary literature in Latin, and “Ars docendi”, which considers didactic issues related to classical languages and cultures, ranging from antiquity to the present day.

The volume is completed by an appendix in Latin with “Breves de Academiae vita notitiae”, a brief summary of the main activities of the academy, the “Argumenta” or abstracts of the contributions to the journal in accordance with current international norms for scientific publications, and a useful “Index universus”. The new “Latinitas” will publish articles in Latin and, for the first time, in Italian and other languages.

Posted in Brick by Brick | Tagged Latin, Latinitas
13 Comments

What Francis says… what liberals hear…

Posted on 8 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Pope Francis says something like: “We need a deeper theology of women.”

What liberals hear: “The Pope is going to name women cardinals!”

That Francis might create females cardinals is patently absurd.

The cartoon, by the way, is from this week’s number of The Catholic Herald, the UK’s best Catholic weekly. You can get the entire paper in digital format (avoid that pesky late postal delivery) and look at the entire archive by getting a subscription. It is good for us in these USA to keep an eye across the pond. They are farther along in the culture wars than we and their experiences should be object lessons to us.

And former-Father Greg Reynolds is still excommunicated.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged cardinals, consistory, Pope Francis
43 Comments

New NYC Mayor pledges to expand abortion, wipe out crisis pregnancy centers

Posted on 8 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From Breitbart:

NYC MAYOR-ELECT DE BLASIO PROMISES TO WIPE OUT CRISIS PREGNANCY CENTERS

The city in which 41 percent of pregnancies end in abortion has elected a new mayor who is pledging to partner with Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers to expand their businesses even further by providing them with “city-sponsored” space to set up shop.
Bill de Blasio, who was elected Tuesday with 73 percent of the vote, [!] also pledged to help abortionists wipe out their main competition – pro-life crisis pregnancy centers – which he refers to as “sham” clinics. These centers offer women financial and logistical assistance to either keep their babies or place them with adoptive families.
LifeSiteNews reported that de Blasio expressed his view that since crisis pregnancy centers refuse to perform abortions, they do not offer “legitimate health care.” He has promised to continue the city’s appeal of a court order striking down a law aimed at closing down these centers.
Should the court appeal fail, however, de Blasio states he will “craft new regulations to prevent [crisis pregnancy] centers from masquerading as legitimate health care providers.”
De Blasio said that, in order to ensure a sufficient number of abortionists to meet the high demand, he will also continue to force doctors who train in city hospitals to perform abortions as a routine part of their training. The mandate is a NARAL-backed program that began under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and which de Blasio referred to as “groundbreaking.”
To make sure women can pay to have abortions, de Blasio has pledged to use ObamaCare to expand state-funded abortion coverage to more New York City women. [Get that? No matter where you live, this wicked man will try to force you to pay for this evil program. I hope you catholic Dems are happy.]
A self-described “democratic socialist,” [Or just Democrat?] de Blasio traveled to the Soviet Union as a student and honeymooned with his wife, in violation of the travel ban, in Cuba.
The mayor-elect spent many of his early adult years traveling to Nicaragua, where he supplied the Communist Sandinistas – whom he called “really inspirational” – and their allies with funds and food while working with the Quixote Center, a Maryland-based leftist Catholic group that once referred to American opposition to Communist leadership in Nicaragua as “spreading terrorism.”

What do you think about this?

I am waiting for Fishwrap to endorse de Blasio.

Posted in Liberals, Pò sì jiù, Religious Liberty, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged de Blasio, evil, NYC
60 Comments

“Missale Romanum cum lectionibus” now available online

Posted on 8 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A watershed.

The busy bees at Corpus Christi Watershed – apart from providing the great music resources for the older, traditional form of the Roman Rite – has now provided for your free download the whole of the 4 volume Missale Romanum cum lectionibus.

I have these precious volumes, useful especially because they allow the priest to say the Novus Ordo from one book alone (something Annibale wanted to prevent). It was great for travel… back when I said the Novus Ordo alot, that is.

Click HERE

Be aware, however, that on every single page of the PDF, Corpus Christi Watershed placed an announcement that is time limited. This is super annoying. It will be even more annoying after “early 2014”.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged Corpus Christi Watershed, Missale Romanum cum lectionibus
17 Comments

A 1st TLM experience: “I had the sense that that Host was REALLY consecrated.”

Posted on 7 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Some will find this provocative. I find it to be true.

I had to make a call to a local parish office today, and while chatting with the secretary, found out that she attended her first Extraordinary Form Mass on Christ the King Sunday. [Last Sunday of October.] I asked her what she thought, and her response was:

“I had the sense that that Host was REALLY consecrated.”

She went on to explain that she understands that the two masses are the same, [Both are valid.] but that she definitely felt there was something more solemn going on in the Sung Latin Mass.

Her comment made my day, and I thought it might make yours as well!

This comment opens up many issues.

First, she isn’t saying that a Host is more consecrated because it is the Extraordinary Form. To be clear: When I consecrate a Host in the Ordinary Form it is not more or less consecrated than it is when I use the Extraordinary Form. Nor is it more or less consecrated were I to consecrate using the Maronite Rite or the Ambrosian Rite or the Byzantine Rite or the Braga Rite. Nor is it more or less consecrated than when I am eventually named a monsignor or, for my sins, a bishop, cardinal or pope.

However, considering Mass merely from the point of view of the bare minimum of validity is dangerous.

We mustn’t fall into that trap.

Mass is more than the sine qua non, all important, valid consecration. Mass is a whole.

Yes, something more is going on during a Missa Cantata in the traditional form, and even more in the Missa Solemnis and even more in the Missa Pontificalis. It is important that the older, traditional form be revived, relearned, reclaimed far and wide. We need its influence. We need it to rehabilitate liturgical worship in the Latin Church everywhere. No initiative of “New Evangelization” or of renewal of the Church will have any concrete effect unless we renew our liturgical worship.

THEREFORE, I am deeply grateful and encouraged when I hear from seminarians that they and most of their seminarian colleagues are open to and/or eager to learn and then to use the Extraordinary Form.

Benedict XVI gave us a vision and a mission. The vision and the mission remain. They have not been superseded. They have not been cancelled, annulled, repudiated. As I have said before, it is time to take the training wheels off and ride the damn bike! If you want the TLM, work for it. If it is hard, keep working. This is NOT the time to ease up. This is exactly the time to keep pressing onward, petitioning for more and more and more, not just for little crumbs off the liberal cool-kids’ table. Young priests will be with you. Support them 250%.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM | Tagged EF, Extraordinary Form, OF, Ordinary Form, TLM
70 Comments

Shocking Halloween tabernacle news!

Posted on 7 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the often amusing Eye of the Tiber comes this sad but all too common Halloween report:

Man Dressed As Tabernacle At Halloween Party Ignored; Is Moved To Corner Of Room

Austin, TX–According to reports from several eyewitnesses moments ago, 27-year-old Austin man Emmanuel Dickens, who showed up to a Halloween party dressed as his favorite tabernacle, was promptly ignored and escorted to the corner of the room. The party’s host Thomas Martin told Eye of the Tiber that having the man there was “for some reason just kinda putting a damper on the fellowship thing” he was going for. “It’s not necessarily that he’s not wanted at the party,” Martin said. ”It’s just that it’s a bit awkward when everyone’s trying to catch up and chit-chat, and he’s just standing there not saying anything.” Kimberley Wilson, who also attended the party, reported that she had a pleasant, though brief, conversation with Dickens, but that it was difficult to focus on what he was trying say. “Well, no one else was talking to him, and he was relegated to the corner like he had some kinda disease. I thought I’d say hello, but it’s kinda hard when everyone’s talking so loud. Not to mention the David Haas Pandora station blaring in the background. I couldn’t understand anything he was trying to say.” At press time, Martin was considering moving Dickens to another room altogether.

Maybe it could share space with brooms and buckets.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged tabernacle
13 Comments

NCEA took money from Gates Foundation to promote “Common Core” in Catholic schools

Posted on 7 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There has been a lot of talk about Common Core.

The Cardinal Newman Society has an interesting piece about this.

EXCLUSIVE: National Catholic Education Association Gets Gates Foundation Grant to Promote ‘Common Core’ in Catholic Schools

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation paid the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) more than $100,000 to support teacher training and materials on implementing the Common Core school standards, The Cardinal Newman Society has discovered.
The $100,007 grant made in September will only fuel division over the NCEA’s public encouragement for Catholic schools to adopt the Common Core standards, despite serious concerns about the standards’ academic quality and impact on schools’ Catholic identity.
The revelation comes even as The Cardinal Newman Society and other Catholic groups and dioceses—led by the National Association of Private Catholic and Independent Schools (NAPCIS)—are co-sponsoring a meeting in New Jersey with Catholic school superintendents, principals and educators to discuss concerns about the Common Core, a controversial education reform movement funded largely by the Gates Foundation.
Yesterday the Newman Society released a survey of principals from the top-ranked Catholic high schools in the Society’s Catholic High School Honor Roll, that found that the principals oppose Catholic schools rushing to adopt Common Core without careful analysis.
Patrick J. Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society, will appear on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET to discuss the survey and concerns about the Common Core. The show will be repeated Friday at 1 a.m.and 9 a.m. ET, Sunday at 7 p.m. ET, and Monday at 10 p.m. ET.
The NCEA recently launched a revised website for its Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative (CCCII), which offers resources and advice to Catholic schools planning to adopt the controversial Common Core standards. In addition to the Gates Foundation grant, sponsors of the CCCII include William H. Sadlier, Inc., a leading Catholic textbook publisher, and Riverside Publishing, a national testing company—which potentially could reap large profits from the Common Core’s adoption by Catholic schools.
The Gates Foundation has also made grants to other Catholic entities to promote Common Core. This year it granted $248,343 to DePaul University for Leading with Algebra, described by the University as “a partnership between DePaul and the Chicago Public Schools to support the implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics in algebra for grades 6-8.” And in 2010, the Gates Foundation granted $556,006 to the Cristo Rey Network, in part to implement Common Core in the nationwide network of Catholic schools.
The Gates Foundation has come under fire from Catholic and pro-life organizations for its substantial “family planning” grant program to encourage the use of contraceptives in developing countries.

[…]

Read the rest there.

You can always find headlines from the Cardinal Newman Society on the right sidebar of this blog.

Posted in Dogs and Fleas, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged Catholic education, Common Core, NCEA
15 Comments

QUAERITUR: Weddings on Sundays or Holy Days of Obligation?

Posted on 7 November 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Can a couple get married on a holy day of obligation?

What about (more generally) on a Sunday (which, in a certain sense, is a holy day of obligation)?

The Rite of Marriage may be used anytime except during the Triduum.

A marriage that is celebrated on Sunday or a Solemnity, utilizes the prayers and the readings of the day. One of the readings from the wedding liturgy can be substituted, except on Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, or any Holy Day of Obligation. Such weddings would necessarily include the Gloria and the Creed, and, I would argue, a collection! (Just to make it truly Catholic.)

That’s the universal law.

A local parish may have (a wise) rule against weddings on Sundays or Holy Days. Father may, moreover, refuse to permit them for legitimate reasons (e.g., he will already be celebrating two Masses that day, or it would put an undue burden on the organist, servers, custodian, etc.).

If a couple reeeeeeeally wants to be married on Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation, they are welcome to do so at, I suggest, a regular scheduled parish Mass for that day, in the context of the parish Mass. This would mean no dramatic “look-at-me” entrance, no outrageous floral displays, no special seating for family members or the bridal “court,” and the music must be suited for the feast being celebrated.

I can hear the little shrieks of protest even now. “We’ll do it at 3:00 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, we’ll supply our own priest, we’ll supply our own musicians!” Fine. If the pastor is willing to accommodate this, God bless his little pastoral heart. If not, he is perfectly within his rights to refuse to do so.

As an aside, regardless of all the promises solemnly sworn on stacks of Bibles and cross-my-hearts, situations like this – “We’ll provide everything for the wedding!” – nearly always result in problems… from the visiting priest who accidentally leaves the key in the tabernacle, to the guest organist who spills Mountain Dew on the console, to the headaches from phone messages like “SHE got to have HER wedding on Sunday, why can’t I?”

People have the right to the sacraments. They should not be impeded from receiving the sacraments. However, they must be reasonable about the time and the place for the reception of the sacraments.