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{]:¬)

Rumors of war against the Apostolic Nuncio in Great Britain

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In the next year or so, a large percentage of the dioceses in England and Wales will be opening up as their bishops retire. That means the role of the Apostolic Nuncio in Great Britain is of critical importance.

The present Nuncio, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, has played his role in the appointment of excellent bishops so far, such as Bp. Mark Davies of Shrewsbury and Bp. Philip Egan of Portsmouth.

Now I read on the blog of Damian Thompson, this interesting entry. Keep in mind that this has unattributed information. Nevertheless, this is Damian’s story, he believes it, and we can give it some attention. You decide what to think about it.

The plot against the Nuncio

Enemies of Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the newish – and very impressive – Papal Nuncio to Great Britain, are plotting to have him removed from his job. Why? Because he’s doing it too effectively. It’s his responsibility to put forward names of suitable bishops to the relevant Congregation in Rome, which submits a name to the Pope. Recently, Archbishop Mennini secured the appointment of Mgr Philip Egan as Bishop of Portsmouth. This was a historic moment: Bishop Egan is not a slippery, platitude-spouting liberal of the sort traditionally promoted under Cardinal Hume, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor and Archbishop Nichols. He’s taking an axe to the Left-leaning bureaucracy of Portsmouth. (Read this fascinating Catholic Herald blog post by William Oddie for background.) The word from allies of Cardinal Cormac and Archbishop Vincent is: we must not allow this to happen again. And what better opportunity to plot against the Nuncio than a change of Pope? I just hope that Cardinal Ouellet, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, knows this is happening. If not, perhaps some well-connected priest who reads this blog might let him know.

Posted in The Drill | Tagged Apostolic Nuncio, Archbp. Mennini, Damian Thompson
19 Comments

25 March 1991: Archbp. Marcel Lefebvre – R.I.P.

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Under another entry a reader reminded us that on this day in 1991 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre died.

I learned of his death in an interesting way. I was that morning opening up our office (the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei“) because I was the first on in. There was a ring of the doorbell. It was then-Card. Ratzinger, who gave me the news that Lefebvre had died. He had just received a phone call about his death and stopped at our office on his way in to the Congregation.

Here are shots of his memorial card, which I have kept these years. I have it in a plastic holder, usually also with a short list of names of bishops for whom I say a Memorare after every Mass I say.

Lefebvre needs prayers. He died excommunicated, poor man.

In your charity, you might pray for him too.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Archbp. Lefebvre
50 Comments

JUST TOO COOL: Swiss Guards

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Enjoy!

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Posted in Just Too Cool, SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Swiss guards
15 Comments

You can never really “leave the Church”.

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I occasionally get an message from someone who explains in self-righteous high dudgeon that she is leaving the Church because of [INSERT FLIMSY EXCUSE HERE].

Over at his excellent blog, Ed Peters looks at a case of someone who said he left the Church.

This is instructive.

Is Magdi Allam still a Catholic?
by Dr. Edward Peters

Magdi Allam, “a prominent Muslim-born journalist baptized by Pope Benedict XVI” has now blogged about “leaving the [C]hurch because it is too ‘weak with Islam.’” Maybe it’s just me, but this modern proclivity to parade one’s spiritual angst in the blogosphere is wearing pretty thin. [It’s not just you, Ed.] Besides, as Chesterton remarked, there are a thousand reasons to leave the Church and only one reason to stay: It’s true. So, Magdi cited two or three reasons to leave the Church, and not reasons especially high up on the “Top 1000 Reasons To Leave the Catholic Church” list at that. Whatever.
Still I don’t know why some folks are so quick to assume that (a) Allam was not ‘really’ a Catholic, or (b) he was not adequate catechized, or (c) Allam’s abandonment of the Faith must be an embarrassment to Abp. Fisichella who shepherded Allam into the Church. If my sins cannot be laid at the feet of my parents or pastors why should Allam’s be charged to Fisichella? God has no grandchildren.
In particular, because of the indelible character conferred by Baptism (c. 845, and I’m presuming Confirmation, as Allam was baptized as an adult, c. 866), Allam will, for all eternity, be marked as a baptized and confirmed Christian. Now, one’s canonical identity is not easily turned on or off and nothing in the reports I’ve seen so far suffice for, say, schism or even formal defection. All I glean so far is one man expressing contempt for his obligation to conduct himself in accord with the requirements of communion (c. 209). But that does not make one a non-Catholic, that just makes one a bad Catholic.
Ultimately, Allam’s sacramental seal will either be a source of greater joy to him in Heaven (as, hopefully, he will repent of his deed) or of greater suffering for him in Hell (if his act is sufficiently imputable to him, as only God would know), but either way, Allam is, on these facts, still Catholic and should be regarded as a Catholic whose need for prayers is just a little more obvious than is ours.

The Second Vatican Council’s document Lumen gentium at par. 14 has sobering words for those who think they want to leave the Church or who refuse to join it, knowing and believing the Church’s divine origin and claims.

This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.

“… could not be saved”.

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, The Drill | Tagged apostasy, can. 209, can. 845, defection, LG 14, schism
44 Comments

Excellent address by Archbp. Chaput on the attacks on religious liberty

Posted on 25 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has some remarks on religious liberty which I found on the site of the Witherspoon Institute. My emphases and comments.

Our First Right: Religious Liberty

[…]

Simply put, religious freedom is a fundamental natural right and first among our civil liberties. And I believe this fact is borne out by the priority protection it specifically enjoys, along with freedom of expression, in the Constitution’s First Amendment.

I’d like to make four brief points.

Here’s my first point: Religious faith and practice are cornerstones of the American experience. It’s worth recalling that James Madison, John Adams, Charles Carroll, John Jay, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson—in fact, nearly all the American Founders—saw religious faith as vital to the life of a free people. They believed that liberty and happiness grow organically out of virtue. And virtue needs grounding in religious faith.

To put it another way: At the heart of the American model of public life is an essentially religious vision of man, government, and God. This model has given us a free, open, and non-sectarian society marked by an astonishing variety of cultural and religious expressions. But our system’s success does not result from the procedural mechanisms our Founders put in place. Our system works precisely because of the moral assumptions that undergird it. And those moral assumptions have a religious grounding. [The Obama Administration is purposely attacking this foundation.]

When the Founders talked about religion, they meant something much more demanding than a vague “spirituality.” The distinguished legal scholar Harold Berman showed that the Founders—though they had differing views about religious faith among themselves—understood religion positively as “both belief in God and belief in an after-life of reward for virtue, and punishment for sin.” In other words, religion mattered—personally and socially. [NB] It was more than a private preference. It made people live differently and live better. And therefore people’s faith was assumed to have broad implications, including the social, economic, and political kind. [The Obama Administration is trying to change the parameters of religious freedom and our 1st Amendment rights. Listen for how they shift the language from freedom of religion to freedom of worship. The former means we have the right to a voice in the public square which includes expression and action according to our faith. The later means that we have the right to pray, but behind the closed doors of a church or our homes. To that end, the Archbishop continues…]

That leads to my second point: Freedom of religion is more than freedom of worship. The right to worship is a necessary but not a sufficient part of religious liberty. For most religious believers, and certainly for Christians, faith requires community. It begins in worship, but it also demands preaching, teaching, and service; in other words, active engagement with society. Faith is always personal but never private. And it involves more than prayer at home and Mass on Sunday—although these things are vitally important. Real faith always bears fruit in public witness and public action. Otherwise it’s just empty words.

The Founders saw the value of publicly engaged religious faith because they inherited its legacy and experienced its formative influence themselves. They created a nation designed in advance to depend on the moral convictions of religious believers, and to welcome their active role in public life.

Here’s my third point: Threats against religious freedom in our country are not imaginary or overstated. [OORAH!] They’re happening right now. They’re immediate, serious, and real. Last year religious liberty advocates won a significant and appropriate Supreme Court victory in the 9-0 Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC decision. But what was stunning even to the justices in that case was the disregard for traditional constitutional understandings of religious freedom shown by the government’s arguments [Let’s put a name to “government’s”… “PRES. OBAMA’S”!] against the Lutheran church and school.

Hosanna-Tabor is not an isolated case. It belongs to a pattern of government coercion that includes the current administration’s HHS mandate, which violates the religious identity and mission of many religiously affiliated or inspired public ministries; interfering with the conscience rights of medical providers, private employers, and individual citizens; and attacks on the policies, hiring practices, and tax statuses of religious charities and ministries.

Why is this hostility happening? I believe much of it links to Catholic and other religious teaching on the dignity of life and human sexuality. Catholic moral convictions about abortion, contraception, the purpose of sexuality, and the nature of marriage are rooted not just in revelation, but also in reason and natural law. Human beings have a nature that’s not just the product of accident or culture, but inherent, universal, and rooted in permanent truths knowable to reason.

This understanding of the human person is the grounding of the entire American experiment. If human nature is not much more than modeling clay, and no permanent human nature exists by the hand of the Creator, then natural, unalienable rights obviously can’t exist. And no human “rights” can finally claim priority over the interests of the state.

The problem, as law scholar Gerard Bradley points out, is that critics of religious faith tend to reduce all of these moral convictions to an expression of subjective beliefs. [The phrase “dictatorship of relativism” comes to mind.] And if they’re purely subjective beliefs, then—so the critics argue—they can’t be rationally defended. And because they’re rationally indefensible, they should be treated as a form of prejudice. In effect, two thousand years of moral experience, moral reasoning, and religious conviction become a species of bias. And arguing against same-sex “marriage” thus amounts to religiously blessed homophobia.

There’s more, though. When religious belief is redefined downward to a kind of private bias, then the religious identity of institutional ministries has no public value—other than the utility of getting credulous people to do good things. [Rawls popped into my mind at this point.] So exempting Catholic adoption agencies, for example, from placing children with gay couples becomes a concession to private prejudice. And concessions to private prejudice feed bigotry and hurt the public. Or so the reasoning goes. This is how moral teaching and religious belief end up being branded as hate speech.

Here’s my fourth and final point: From the beginning, believers—alone and in communities—have shaped American history simply by trying to live their faith in the world. We need to realize that America’s founding documents assume an implicitly religious anthropology—an idea of human nature, nature’s God, and natural rights—that many of our leaders no longer really share.

Click to buy.

We ignore that unhappy fact at our own expense. [I would say… at our peril.]

Charles J. Chaput, a Capuchin Franciscan, is the archbishop of Philadelphia and the author of Render Unto Caesar.

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, Religious Liberty, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged 1st Amendment, Archbp. Chaput, HHS mandate, Pres. Obama, religious freedom, religious liberty
10 Comments

Cooking in the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue

Posted on 24 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have adjusted, again, to not having a full kitchen, but I have not surrendered. I cook as I will. I even make Julia’s recipes! But ….

…tonight I made a “Cornish Hen” with with spices, and curry, in my toaster oven:

After an hour or so…

With some salad.

I look forward to the time after Easter when I can invite guests and push my tech to the edge.

Cooking is a joy. You adjust to the circumstances and use the tools available.

Posted in Fr. Z's Kitchen, Lighter fare, SESSIUNCULA |
27 Comments

Go to the blog of Mulier Fortis

Posted on 24 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Check out the blog of Mulier Fortis. Something’s up.

I am particularly happy to review her cats’ kill list.

Posted in The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged Mulier Fortis
9 Comments

Pope Francis sermon for Palm Sunday – REVISED

Posted on 24 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I had originally worked with the official text that was released. The Pope changed his sermon and here is the revised text. That‘ll teach me! This is going to be a big challenge for people following his sermons. He departs from his text a lot.

However, once again he talks about the Devil! Excellent.

Pope Francis sermon for Palm Sunday:

____

1. Jesus enters Jerusalem. The crowd of disciples accompanies him in festive mood, their garments are stretched out before him, there is talk of the miracles he has accomplished, and loud praises are heard: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Lk19:38).

Crowds, celebrating, praise, blessing, peace: joy fills the air. Jesus has awakened great hopes, especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world. He understands human sufferings, he has shown the face of God’s mercy, he has bent down to heal body and soul.

This is Jesus. This is his heart which looks to all of us, which sees to our sicknesses, to our sins. The love of Jesus is great. And thus he enters Jerusalem, with this love, and looks at us. It is a beautiful scene, full of light – the light of the love of Jesus, the love of his heart – of joy, of celebration.

At the beginning of Mass, we too repeatedit. We waved our palms, our olive branches, We too welcomed Jesus; we too expressed our joy at accompanying him, at knowing him to be close, present in us and among us as a friend, a brother, and also as a King: that is, a shining beacon for our lives. Jesus is God, but he lowered himself to walk with us. He is our friend, our brother. He illumines our path here. And in this way we have welcomed him today.

He illumines our path here. And in this way we have welcomed him today. And here the first word that I wish to say to you: joy! [He will explore three words, as he did in the first sermon he gave after his election.] Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy born of having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, in our midst; it is born from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! And in this moment the enemy, the devil, comes, often disguised as an angel, and slyly speaks his word to us. Do not listen to him! [This is FANTASTIC! The Pope mentioned the Devil, our Enemy, twice in the first two days of his pontificate. Here he mentions the Enemy again. Clearly this man is intent on making us aware of the spiritual warfare being waged.] Let us follow Jesus! We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy, this is the hope that we must bring to this world. Please do not let yourselves be robbed of hope! Do not let hope be stolen! The hope that Jesus gives us.

2. The second word. Why does Jesus enter Jerusalem? Or better: how does Jesus enter Jerusalem? The crowds acclaim him as King. And he does not deny it, he does not tell them to be silent (cf. Lk 19:39-40). But what kind of a King is Jesus? Let us take a look at him: he is riding on a donkey, he is not accompanied by a court, he is not surrounded by an army as a symbol of power. [Zechariah 9:9 – “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.” Abraham rode an ass when he took Isaac for sacrfice to the mountain. Moses rode an ass. Abimelech’s 30 sons rode asses as a sign that they were the rulers of 30 cities. David rode an ass and he had Solomon ride an ass as a sign that he was David’s successor and then Zadok and Nathan anointed him. Riding on an ass is in itself a sign of Christ’s kingly character.]He is received by humble people, simple folk who have the sense to see something more in Jesus; they have that sense of the faith which says: here is the Saviour. Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honours reserved to earthly kings, to the powerful, to rulers; he enters to be scourged, insulted and abused, as Isaiah foretold in the First Reading (cf. Is 50:6). He enters to receive a crown of thorns, a staff, a purple robe: his kingship becomes an object of derision. He enters to climb Calvary, carrying his burden of wood. [Abraham, as priest, had Isaac, the victim, carry the wood. Christ, carrying the wood, is both sacrificing priest and the sacrifice.] And this brings us to the second word: Cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the Cross. And it is precisely here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! It reminds me of what Benedict XVI said to the Cardinals: you are princes, but of a king crucified. [It is great that he quotes Pope Benedict.] That is the throne of Jesus. Jesus takes it upon himself… Why the Cross? Because Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including the sin of all of us, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. [sporcizia… when I hear this word now in the context of a papal address I cannot help but to think of Benedict, even before, Card. Ratzinger, decrying the “filth” that there is in the Church.]

Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money that you can’t take with you and have to leave. When we were small, our grandmother used to say: a shroud has no pocket. [excellent image] Love of power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And – as each one of us knows and is aware – our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbour and towards the whole of creation. Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Jesus does for us on the throne of the Cross. Christ’s Cross embraced with love never leads to sadness, but to joy, to the joy of having been saved and of doing a little of what he did on the day of his death.

3. Today in this Square, there are many young people: for twenty-eight years Palm Sunday has been World Youth Day! This is our third word: youth! [He did this three word pattern thing in his first sermon as Pope, to the Cardinals in the Sistine Chapel the day after his election.] Dear young people, I saw you in the procession as you were coming in; I think of you celebrating around Jesus, waving your olive branches. I think of you crying out his name and expressing your joy at being with him! You have an important part in the celebration of faith! You bring us the joy of faith and you tell us that we must live the faith with a young heart, always, a young heart, even at the age of seventy or eighty. Dear young people. With Christ, the heart never grows old! Yet all of us, all of you know very well that the King whom we follow and who accompanies us is very special: he is a King who loves even to the Cross and who teaches us to serve and to love. And you are not ashamed of his Cross! On the contrary, you embrace it, because you have understood that it is in giving ourselves, in giving ourselves, in emerging from ourselves that we have true joy and that, with his love, God conquered evil. You carry the pilgrim Cross through all the Continents, along the highways of the world! You carry it in response to Jesus’ call: “Go, make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19), which is the theme of World Youth Day this year. You carry it so as to tell everyone that on the Cross Jesus knocked down the wall of enmity that divides people and nations, and he brought reconciliation and peace. Dear friends, I too am setting out on a journey with you, starting today, in the footsteps of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI. We are already close to the next stage of this great pilgrimage of the Cross. I look forward joyfully to next July in Rio de Janeiro! I will see you in that great city in Brazil! Prepare well – prepare spiritually above all – in your communities, so that our gathering in Rio may be a sign of faith for the whole world. . Young people must say to the world: to follow Christ is good; to go with Christ is good; the message of Christ is good; emerging from ourselves, to the ends of the earth and of existence, to take Jesus there, is good! Three words, then: joy, Cross, young.

We are living out the joy of walking with Jesus, being with Him, carrying his Cross, with love, with a spirit that is always young!

Let us ask the intercession of the Virgin Mary. She teaches us the joy of meeting Christ, the love with which we must look to the foot of the Cross, the enthusiasm of the young heart with which we must follow him during this Holy Week and throughout our lives. Amen. (E così sia…. May it be so.)

___________

No explicit mention of the Year of Faith. I believe that Francis has mentioned the Year of Faith at least once, but it is not so far very high on his list of things to talk about.

The audio…

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Some images of him preaching.

"And in this moment the enemy, the devil, comes, often disguised as an angel, and slyly speaks his word to us. Do not listen to him!"

"And it is precisely here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! It reminds me of what Benedict XVI said to the Cardinals: you are princes, but of a king crucified."

Posted in Francis, SESSIUNCULA, Year of Faith | Tagged Palm Sunday, Pope Francis
90 Comments

JUST TOO COOL: Billboards for CONFESSION! Promoted by which bishop?

Posted on 23 March 2013 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I think the world of Bp. Slattery of the Diocese of Tulsa. He initiated a liturgical renewal in the diocese, he has been supportive of the Clear Creek Monastery, he sponsored workshops for exorcists. A few more bishops like this and… who knows what we could do?

A reader sent me this.

Bishop Slattery promoted an effort for confessions. He even has billboards. This doesn’t need more explanation.