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{]:¬)

An 80th Wedding Anniversary!

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is some great news. A couple celebrated their 80th Wedding Anniversary. HERE.

On Nov. 25, 1932, FDR had just defeated Herbert Hoover, the daily newspaper cost two cents, and Ann Shawah said “I do” to John Betar in Harrison, N.Y.
Fast forward through 13 presidents and 80 years to 2012: the Betars are still happily married. After five children, 14 grandchildren and 16 great children, the couple from Fairfield, Conn., will celebrate their 80th wedding anniversary Sunday.
“We are so blessed. We are fortunate,” John Betar, 101, said.
“We are very fortunate. It can be repeated and repeated,” Ann, 97, echoed. “It is unconditional love and understanding. We have had that. We consider it a blessing.”
Humble Beginnings
John Betar met Ann Shawah growing up in the same Syrian community in Bridgeport, Conn. Betar immigrated to America as a young child in 1921 with his brother, he explained, joining his father who put down roots for them in Bridgeport. After attending grammar school, Betar began working as a fruit peddler and met Ann Shawah, the daughter of Syrian immigrants, in the neighborhood.
“I fell for her right away,” he said. “I used to have a Ford Roaster and I used to pick her and her friends and drive them to high school. Gradually she liked me and we got together.”
It was slightly more complicated than that. Ann was arranged to be married to another man, 20 years her senior, whom her parents thought would be the best provider for their daughter. The 17-year-old was less than pleased with the arrangement and taken with Betar, then 21. Breaking with tradition and going against her family’s wishes, the two eloped.
“At 17, you wonder if you’re making the right choice,” she said. “I had grown up with him and we had good times together and we knew each other very well. And it’s turned out to be 80 years. ….God seems to have been with us. And we’ve been very fortunate and wonderful.”

[…]

Read the rest there.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged marriage, wedding anniversary
15 Comments

Duhhhh…. Nice try, Fishwrap!

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It seems that the National catholic Fishwrap took exception to my little dig. Heh heh.

Michael Sean Winters got all excited and thought he scored a point. He is baiting me, of course, but I’ll take the bait this time.

Here is his piece:

More Idiocy from Zuhlsdorf
Michael Sean Winters

Father John Zuhlsdorf, the right wing priest who has a penchant for referring to NCR as the “fishwrap,” thinks Pope Benedict XVI had NCR in mind when he wrote this sentence: “Jesus’ freedom is not the freedom of the liberal.”

Let us stipulate: Jesus was not a disciple of Voltaire. But, Zuhlsdorf seems not to understand that in Europe, what is considered a “neo-liberal” [Ehem… the Pope said “liberal” not “neo-liberal”…] in America is considered a “neo-conservative.” That is to say, when Benedict makes the observation about the liberal conception of freedom, he is not necessarily using the word liberal the way John Boehner uses the word liberal. In fact, it is people like Zuhlsdorf and other conservative Catholics who have been trying to baptize the First Amendment these past few months who need to ponder Pope Benedict’s words. Jesus’ freedom was a positive freedom, a freedom for. The First Amendment’s guarantee of religious liberty – you know “our first, most cherished freedom” – suggests a negative conception of freedom, a freedom from. It is not only the writers at and readers of NCR who need to ponder the Holy Father’s words.

Michael… Michael… Michael…

Nice try.

I’m aware of what Pope Benedict means by “liberal”.

I wasn’t using “liberal” in terms of political economy.

I was using it in terms of “free thinkers”, such as those who write for NCR.

“Free thinkers” don’t think they need any kind of authority. In their lives or in anyone’s life.

They think they know what’s best for the Church. They don’t need a Magisterium and they don’t want anyone else to want a Magisterium.

They make up theology as they go.

Hence, their “freedom” is detached from authority, from authority of any kind.

THAT is what the Pope is talking about with “the freedom of the liberal”. The Pope’s point is that Jesus’ freedom, “the freedom of the truly devout person”, is freedom that recognizes authority.

Liberals don’t recognize authority.

Liberals don’t have a sense of humor either!

Try not to take yourselves so seriously.

Have a nice day!

And please take the time to send me a donation?

Posted in Benedict XVI, Dogs and Fleas, Green Inkers, Liberals, Lighter fare, Linking Back, Our Catholic Identity, Reader Feedback, The Drill, Throwing a Nutty | Tagged Fishwrap, liberals, Michael Sean Winters, NCR
56 Comments

Benedict XVI on ‘critical’ Scripture scholars

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Pope Benedict’s new book is out. There are some great quotes.

The Pope follows Joachim Gnilka in the theory that Mary is the ultimate source of Matthew and Luke’s accounts of the birth of Christ. They agree that the Lord was born at Bethlehem (pace those who think He was born in Nazareth). There were Marian traditions circulating. After Mary’s assumption. these accounts were added to the beginning of the Gospels. How, when, etc., the Pope doesn’t go into. Why couldn’t Mary be the source? She was there after all. Did she lie about the angel? Why does Luke insist in a couple places that Mary pondered things in her heart? Did Luke just lie?

The Pope tackles this and slips in a little dig at ‘critical’ exegetes:

“Naturally, modern ‘critical’ exegesis will tend to dismiss such connections as naive. But why should there not have been a tradition of this kind, preserved in the most intimate circle and theologically shaped at the same time? Why should Luke have invented the statement about Mary keeping the words and events in her heart, if there were no concrete grounds for saying so? Why should he have spoken of her “pondering” over the words (Lk 2:19; cf. 1:29) if nothing was known of this?” (p. 16).

Very well done.

The Holy Father’s book presents a real defense of the historicity of the infancy narratives.

US hardcover HERE. Kindle HERE. Unabridged audio HERE. Large print HERE.
UK hardcover HERE. Kindle HERE. Large print HERE.

Posted in Benedict XVI | Tagged Benedict XVI, infancy narratives, Jesus of Nazareth
2 Comments

QUAERITUR: Does the obligation to do penance on Fridays bind us under pain of sin?

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I advised a friend that Catholics are either to abstain from meat on Fridays or to substitute another form of prayer, good work, or abstinence; and that she should confess if she failed to do this. In the confessional, the priest sharply rebuked her and told her it was absolutely done away with. Is there a document that I can refer her to that vindicates this position? And should we be confessing when we omit the abstinence or act of charity/prayer

The country is not identified, so let’s confine this to these United States of America.

I refer you to the U.S. Bishops’ 1966 document called On Penance and Abstinence. This document, following Paul VI’s changes in the matter, still has force. It was not abrogated by can. 6 of the 1983 Code or by subsequent legislation. On Penance and Abstinence did away with the obligation to abstain on Fridays under pain of sin.

The bishops urged Catholics to continue to do penance by abstaining from eating meat, or to substitute some other form of penance, but they did not legislate any penance, under pain of sin.

These norms still have the approval of the Holy See. Until the law is changed, Catholics these United States are not bound, under pain of sin, to do anything penitential on Fridays. We are merely “strongly urged” to do so!

At this point let’s reflect collectively on Luke 17:10 on doing only do what is absolutely expected of us. What was it the Lord said of those types? Something about “unprofitable servants”?

At the same time, it is reprehensible that any confessor would sharply rebuke a penitent for confessing something she thought was a sin.

Sinners should be treated kindly by their confessors.

If someone thinks some act or omission is sinful and does it or fails to do it, there is definitely some element of sin. A good confessor, it seems to me, would explain the situation and educate, form the penitent’s conscience.

This is why it is important that seminarians be taught well what the Church’s law really says. The law can put people at ease, comfort them.

Let us pray that the U.S. bishops will soon clarify the issue of Friday abstinence by reasserting the traditional practice and the universal law. Let us urge them to take concrete steps to do so, and swiftly.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The future and our choices, Year of Faith | Tagged can. 1251, can. 1253, can. 6, Friday penance, mortal sin, penance
26 Comments

I have a dream …. Find a home for Roy!

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In another post, I wrote about Sr. Maureen Fiedler’s Fishwrap column about Mr. Roy Bourgeois and the grave injustices done to him by the Vatican’s male oppressors and their Maryknoll minions.

I was so moved by her piece, so disturbed by her litany of injustices, that I am now forced to ask myself -and you, dear readers – some hard soul-searching questions.

Why won’t Sr. Fiedler help Mr. Bourgeois with deeds and not just easy words at NCR?

Fiedler must help Bourgeois to join her order and become a nun.

The sisters in favor of women’s ordination should throw the doors of their houses open to men.

Until they do, they are perpetuating medieval discrimination in their ossified female power-structures.

Fiedler is a Sister of Loretto. They surely have lots of empty rooms available. Why should those rooms be empty when men like poor Roy are out on their ears? Men like Roy… how that name rings now in our ear. Nay rather… all men!

They threw off their habits. Will they never throw open their doors?

If the Sisters of Loretto are not ready to open their arms and hearts and doors, would Roy fit in better with the work of Sr. Simone Campbell’s group? The Sisters of Social Service? Where are the Nuns on the Bus? Do they have a seat for him? In the front of the bus and not in the back?

Perhaps Roy could help promote the goals of the Catholic Health Association by joining Sr. Carol Keehan by uniting himself with the Daughters of Charity. His experience protesting the School of the Americas could be invaluable in the quest for comprehensive family-planning at catholic hospitals nationwide.

Why aren’t men like Roy allowed to show solidarity with the women he defends by joining them as a nun in their institutes?

Why won’t women like Sr. Fiedler invite men like Roy to become nuns? WHY?

This is an intolerable injustice.

Maureen, you are judging Roy by the parts of his body, not by the content of his character.

Fiedler and her kind are guilty of the same thing she launches at the teeth of “Vatican officials”. She clings to discrimination and obsolete power-structures.

It is time for a reckoning and real conversion. Until this injustice is corrected with real actions are these sisters any better than Sheriff “Bull”?

I believe, dear readers, that we shall overcome!

I have a dream of equality. Let us all dream together that Maureen will, as spokesperson for the Sisters of Loretto, one day show that women religious have finally opened their hearts, that they have at last broken the encircling chains of discrimination, that they at last, at long last, have reached out to men with deeds and not just empty words on the website of the NCR.

Posted in Liberals, Lighter fare, Linking Back, Magisterium of Nuns, Women Religious | Tagged equality, Roy Bourgeois, Sr. Maureen Fiedler
24 Comments

Sr. Fiedler’s spittle-flecked nutty over Mr. Bourgeois

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sr. Fiedler with an ERA button

Sr. Maureen Fiedler is one of our favorites at National catholic Fishwrap.

This could be an great exercise for a fundamental theology class: count the errors.

No… there may be too many to cover in a class period.

Only someone like Maureen could present something so deeply tangled and confused.

Roy Bourgeois: a man of conscience
Maureen Fiedler

Last night, I was stunned [shocked!] — but not totally surprised — to hear the news that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had dismissed Fr. Roy Bourgeois from the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers.

My first reaction was a prayer of solidarity with Roy, whom I have long admired as a man of conscience and whom I count as a friend. [And thus reason goes out the door.]

But I also exhaled a loud sigh of dismay. This is the latest sign that the Catholic church is moving backward into the 19th century with all deliberate speed. [LOL! Right. I am not sure that many sane people think this is happening. I look around at the Church and still see the 1970’s.] It is another move by the Vatican that puts its actions at odds with the core message of the Gospel [LOL!] and with the document on the Church in the Modern World from Vatican II: “Every type of discrimination … based on sex … is to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God’s intent” (No. 29). [Dopey. The prohibition of women’s ordination is not discrimination. It also isn’t just a “policy”.]

[Get this! Swallow your Mystic Monk Coffee and put down the mug.] It is a sign that Vatican officials refuse to read or understand the extensive scholarship on the question of women’s ordination, scholarship that has so thoroughly refuted their arguments that any intelligent opponent of women’s ordination would have given up long ago. [HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!]

It is yet another action that suggests that Rome’s desire to shore up its all-male power structure comes before anything else. [This is is, isn’t it. For people like Fiedler, the ordination of women is about power/oppression. She is, no doubt, incapable of seeing the theological issues through any other lens that that of the civil rights/anti-war protests of the 1960’s.] The Vatican’s fear of women, women’s gifts and women’s powers is on display yet again for all to see. [HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!]

My real sadness in all this: The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers cooperated in the process. [They did? When did they do that? If Maryknoll cooperated why did the CDF have to get involved and override their vote about Roy?] I don’t know if, in the end, their leadership voted to dismiss Roy (the press release is unclear on that), but they did ask Roy to recant his stand. [They would have to do that, wouldn’t they.] To Roy’s credit, he refused. He refused to give in to the medieval and oppressive process [LOL!] that asked recantations and threatened dismissal for his stand of conscience. That process — in this instance and in other settings — flies in the face of all that is good and holy and respectful of persons. [This is total melt-down, isn’t it. Kinda fun.] It is not Catholic in the deepest sense of that word. True Catholicism respects conscience.

One day, when the Catholic church finally decides to ordain women, Roy will be recognized as a prophet and a saint. In many quarters of the church, he already is.

She is unhinged.

Forget Maureen’s spitttle-flecked rant for a moment.

What get’s my goat in this is how the once magnificent Maryknoll has been destroyed. They have sunk so low that Roy Bourgeois is now their poster child? They have sunk so low that the CDF had to clean their house? Think about how amazing Maryknoll was once upon a time.

Corruptio optimi pessima!

Posted in Liberals, Throwing a Nutty, Women Religious | Tagged CDF, Corruptio optimi pessima, Fishwrap, Fr. Roy Bourgeois, Maryknoll, Sr. Maureen Fiedler
44 Comments

NYC/NJ 24 November – (Usus Antiquior) Altar Server Retreat and Solemn Mass

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I received notice from friends in New York that they are sponsoring a Retreat for Altar Servers (of the Mass according to the 1962 Missal).

WHAT: Server Retreat for the Extraordinary Form, Solemn Mass.
WHEN: Retreat – Saturday, 24 November starting 10:30 AM. Mass – 3:00 PM.
WHERE: Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Newark, New Jersey.
WHO: Any male who does or wants to serve Mass, etc., in the Extraordinary Form. (Anyone can come to the Solemn Mass.

The retreat is this Saturday, 24 November, at the Church of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Newark, New Jersey. It begins at 10:30 AM. It includes three spiritual reflections as well as altar server instruction and review. For those who can afford it, there’s a small admission cost to cover lunch ($10) which is included.

The retreat concludes with Solemn Mass Pro Pace at 3 PM as part of the Forty Hours Devotion that the Pastor of Mt. Carmel in Newark, Msgr. Joseph Ambrosio, holds every year over the last weekend before Advent.

Any man who serves the Mass or would like to learn to serve the Mass may attend the retreat.

Of course, everyone is invited to assist at the Solemn Mass. (If you’re anywhere in the area, you should try to assist at this Mass and then visit the nearby Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. It’s one of the most beautiful cathedrals in this country.)

The coordination of the Retreat and Solemn Mass was made possible by the generous hospitality of Msgr. Ambrosio and with support from the Agnus Dei and Regina Coeli Councils of the Knights of Columbus. The Regina Coeli Council is dedicated to the Usus Antiquior, by the way.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Brick by Brick, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged KfC, NYC, retreat, Usus Antiquior
5 Comments

Benedict XVI: “If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God.”

Posted on 21 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In his new book, Jesus of Nazareth, Vol. 3, the Holy Father gives us a great observation about God that flies in the face of modernist thought.

Here is a comment about the virgin birth of the Lord. Is it historical? Is it true?

Thus, Benedict:

Naturally we may not ascribe to God anything nonsensical or irrational, or anything that contradicts his creation. But here we are not dealing with the irrational or contradictory, but precisely with the positive—with God’s creative power, embracing the whole of being. In that sense these two moments—the virgin birth and the real resurrection from the tomb—are the cornerstones of faith. If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God. But he does have this power, and through the conception and resurrection of Jesus Christ he has ushered in a new creation. (p. 57)

Classic Ratzinger.

US hardcover HERE. Kindle HERE. Unabridged audio HERE. Large print HERE.
UK hardcover HERE. Kindle HERE. Large print HERE.

Posted in Benedict XVI | Tagged Benedict XVI, God, Jesus of Nazareth
13 Comments

Blog maintenance update

Posted on 20 November 2012 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The blog now lives on a new server.

There have been glitches, of course. One by one they are being resolved.

The latest glitch is with the mobile theme. The “pro” version stopped working. It was timing out. I could barely get to the settings page within the admin area. However, I activated the free version of the plugin, and it works. I am not sure whether it supports all mobile devices, however. Not much I can do about that at this point. It is possible on my iPhone to switch off the mobile theme. Just go to the bottom of the page. It loaded very quickly for me. I’d like to fix the fancier theme, of course.

I had email problems and had to change my settings. That ought to be resolved.

I am still get many fake registrations from vile spammers. If you have registered and nothing happened, I probably deleted your registration either because there were so many fakers in the queue that I despaired and just axed everyone or because in the “biographical” part of the registration, there was not enough there to convince me that you were for real. Sorry, I am under siege.

In any event, I have had reports that the blog is faster now. I hope that is also your experience.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes |
8 Comments