From a reader:
I have been now to a couple excellent confessions where as a
suggestion or a penance the priest has asked me to say a particular
prayer, “found in my prayer book”. Sorry to say, I do not have a
prayer book and have resorted to looking up the prayers online. I
would like to obtain a good prayer book. What would be a good one to
get?
I will leave this open to suggestions from readers.
The other day I posted a video about confused liberal feminist protesters challenging a good young priest, after Mass, outside the Cathedral of Kalamazoo, MI. HERE. The video was made by the protesters.
Fr. Ted Martin did a video response. Nuthin’ fancy. Just straight at ya’.
[wp_youtube]J3PRRTIE-L8[/wp_youtube]
A reader sent me some good news:
The new bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, Switzerland, has given the Basilica of Notre Dame in Fribourg, a beautiful and historic church, to the FSSP! [Fraternity of St. Peter] A FSSP priest will be in charge of all pastoral activities, and a diocesan priest will be administrator for the first year, then hopefully a FSSP will be appointed pastor.
Bishop Morerod is a youngish Dominican involved with the SSPX dialogue before he was named bishop. I’m pretty sure he was rector of the Angelicum, too. [Yes, he was.]
WDTPRS kudos to Bp. Morerod.
When it comes to parish closures we need to get out of the box and start thinking.
I listened to SSPX Bp. Fellay’s sermon for the ordinations to the priesthood today in Econe
Our friends at Rorate have some English. Audio in French is here. BTW… I haven’t heard many “normal” bishops speak at an ordination with this sort of fervor about priesthood. But here is what he said about the current situation…
[…]
Certainly, you ask of me, ‘What is happening with Rome?” If up to now we have said almost nothing, it is because we do not have much to tell you. Up to now, things are at a stage, we can say, of a full stop. In the sense that there have been tos and fros, there have been exchanges, effectively, dealings, proposals, but we are at the point of departure. The point of departure in which we had said not being able to accept, not being able to sign. We are there, that is all. We see, on one hand, this situation getting complicated, it has been two, three years I have said before, in Rome, before the contradiction. Since 2009, I have said it, and I repeat it, and well that takes place every day. It is the state of the Church, what do you want? There are those who try, who wish to move further, we can say, on Progressivism and on the consequences of Progressivism. There are others who wish corrections to take place. And we, in the middle, we have become as a ping-pong ball, that everyone hits. We know that in the end, in the end, the Church will find herself again, and to us belongs this yearning of not being satisfied with a certain, let us say, comfort. With a situation that is simply not normal. We cannot become in the end used, because we are in a situation in which we do whatever we want, to consider the state in which we find ourselves as normal. This isn’t true. Simply not true. It is normal that we seek, with respect for all conditions that are necessary, evidently, to recover this title, that is ours, to which we have a right, of Catholics. This doesn’t mean that we must place ourselves simply in the hands of the Modernists, this has nothing to do with it.
But it is a difficult situation, difficult, everything seems electric, we see clearly that the devil runs unchained on all sides. And therefore, this is the time for prayer. It is a difficult moment. For us, about us, all sorts of things are said. Dear God, the only thing we wish for is to make God’s will, that is all. The will of God is expressed in facts. … It is also clear that we cannot bring good to all the Church than by remaining faithful to this heritage of the Archbishop. From which come these famous, I don’t know, “conditions”, “assurances”, that we have presented several times, that must ensure that the Society will remain what it is. If, at a certain time, a collaboration is conceivable, when, how, well the circumstances will show it.
[…]
So, who knows what is up with them. When I hear these sermons, I always keep in mind that he has a particular audience and that he must be very careful not to alienate them.
Meanwhile, mark on your calendars to pray for the SSPXers who will soon meet in Chapter:
The SSPX annual General Chapter takes place from 9-14 July.
The SSPX has invited everyone to pray a novena to the Holy Ghost from 30 June – 8 July. The novena will consist of praying the Veni Creator Spiritus with the addition of 2 invocations:
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us. (3 times)
St. Pius X, pray for us.
The text of the Veni Creator Spiritus with translation. HERE
I will be praying this novena and I encourage you to do so in solidarity with the SSPX and especially for the cause of full canonical recognition for the Society.
Former Speaker of the House and Arm-Chair Doctrix of the Church Nancy Pelosi, if she weren’t so harmful to our nation would be hilarious.
From CNSNews:
Pelosi on Obamacare: I Knew Ted Kennedy ‘Would Go to Heaven and Help Us Pass the Bill’
By Elizabeth Harrington(CNSNews.com) – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that “It’s pretty exciting” that the Supreme Court upheld the health-care law’s individual mandate as a tax, saying now Sen. Ted Kennedy can “rest in peace.”
“I knew that when he left us he would go to heaven and help pass the bill,” Pelosi said of the late Massachusetts Democratic senator.
“Now I know he was busily at work until this decision came down, inspiring one way or another. And now he can rest in peace.”
[…]
As one of my interlocutors wrote to me:
I guess when they overturn it, she’ll say, “He must have been on vacation in Heavenisport.”
The Holy Father’s sermon for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul with my emphases and comments. (He gently addresses the issue of “scandal”. Look for it!)
Your Eminences,
Brother Bishops and Priests,
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We are gathered around the altar for our solemn celebration of Saints Peter and Paul, the principal Patrons of the Church of Rome. Present with us today are the Metropolitan Archbishops appointed during the past year, who have just received the Pallium, and to them I extend a particular and affectionate greeting. Also present is an eminent Delegation from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, sent by His Holiness Bartholomaios I, and I welcome them with fraternal and heartfelt gratitude. In an ecumenical spirit, I am also pleased to greet and to thank the Choir of Westminster Abbey, who are providing the music for this liturgy alongside the Cappella Sistina. [Guaranteed to reveal just how far the Sistina still needs to go!] I also greet the Ambassadors and civil Authorities present. I am grateful to all of you for your presence and your prayers.
In front of Saint Peter’s Basilica, as is well known, there are two imposing statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, easily recognizable by their respective attributes: the keys in the hand of Peter and the sword held by Paul. Likewise, at the main entrance to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, there are depictions of scenes from the life and the martyrdom of these two pillars of the Church. Christian tradition has always considered Saint Peter and Saint Paul to be inseparable: indeed, together, they represent the whole Gospel of Christ. In Rome, their bond as brothers in the faith came to acquire a particular significance. Indeed, the Christian community of this City considered them a kind of counterbalance to the mythical Romulus and Remus, the two brothers held to be the founders of Rome. A further parallel comes to mind, still on the theme of brothers: whereas the first biblical pair of brothers demonstrate the effects of sin, as Cain kills Abel, yet Peter and Paul, much as they differ from one another in human terms and notwithstanding the conflicts that arose in their relationship, illustrate a new way of being brothers, lived according to the Gospel, an authentic way made possible by the grace of Christ’s Gospel working within them. Only by following Jesus does one arrive at this new brotherhood: [NB] this is the first and fundamental message that today’s solemnity presents to each one of us, the importance of which is mirrored in the pursuit of full communion, so earnestly desired by the ecumenical Patriarch and the Bishop of Rome, as indeed by all Christians. [Benedict XVI is the Pope of Christian Unity.]
In the passage from Saint Matthew’s Gospel that we have just heard, Peter makes his own confession of faith in Jesus, acknowledging him as Messiah and Son of God. He does so in the name of the other Apostles too. In reply, the Lord reveals to him the mission that he intends to assign to him, that of being the “rock”, the visible foundation on which the entire spiritual edifice of the Church is built (cf. Mt 16:16-19). [Quaeruntur:] But in what sense is Peter the rock? How is he to exercise this prerogative, which naturally he did not receive for his own sake? The account given by the evangelist Matthew tells us first of all that the acknowledgment of Jesus’ identity made by Simon in the name of the Twelve did not come “through flesh and blood”, that is, through his human capacities, but through a particular revelation from God the Father. By contrast, immediately afterwards, as Jesus foretells his passion, death and resurrection, Simon Peter reacts on the basis of “flesh and blood”: he “began to rebuke him, saying, this shall never happen to you” (16:22). And Jesus in turn replied: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me …” (16:23). The disciple who, through God’s gift, was able to become a solid rock, here shows himself for what he is in his human weakness: a stone along the path, a stone on which men can stumble – in Greek, skandalon. [What an interesting way to refer to the “scandals” surrounding the Holy See at the moment.] Here we see the tension that exists between the gift that comes from the Lord and human capacities; and in this scene between Jesus and Simon Peter we see anticipated in some sense the drama of the history of the papacy itself, characterized by the joint presence of these two elements: on the one hand, because of the light and the strength that come from on high, the papacy constitutes the foundation of the Church during its pilgrimage through history; on the other hand, across the centuries, human weakness is also evident, which can only be transformed through openness to God’s action.
And in today’s Gospel there emerges powerfully the clear promise made by Jesus: “the gates of the underworld”, that is, the forces of evil, will not prevail, “non praevalebunt“. One is reminded of the account of the call of the prophet Jeremiah, to whom the Lord said, when entrusting him with his mission: “Behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you!” (Jer 1:18-19). In truth, the promise that Jesus makes to Peter is even greater than those made to the prophets of old: they, indeed, were threatened only by human enemies, whereas Peter will have to be defended from the “gates of the underworld”, from the destructive power of evil. Jeremiah receives a promise that affects him as a person and his prophetic ministry; Peter receives assurances concerning the future of the Church, the new community founded by Jesus Christ, which extends to all of history, far beyond the personal existence of Peter himself.
[Next…] Let us move on now to the symbol of the keys, which we heard about in the Gospel. It echoes the oracle of the prophet Isaiah concerning the steward Eliakim, of whom it was said: “And I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Is 22:22). The key represents authority over the house of David. And in the Gospel there is another saying of Jesus addressed to the scribes and the Pharisees, whom the Lord reproaches for shutting off the kingdom of heaven from people (cf. Mt 23:13). This saying also helps us to understand the promise made to Peter: to him, inasmuch as he is the faithful steward of Christ’s message, it belongs to open the gate of the Kingdom of Heaven, and to judge whether to admit or to refuse (cf. Rev 3:7). Hence the two images – that of the keys and that of binding and loosing – express similar meanings which reinforce one another. The expression “binding and loosing” forms part of rabbinical language and refers on the one hand to doctrinal decisions, and on the other hand to disciplinary power, that is, the faculty to impose and to lift excommunication. The parallelism “on earth … in the heavens” guarantees that Peter’s decisions in the exercise of this ecclesial function are valid in the eyes of God.
In Chapter 18 of Matthew’s Gospel, dedicated to the life of the ecclesial community, we find another saying of Jesus addressed to the disciples: “Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 18:18). Saint John, in his account of the appearance of the risen Christ in the midst of the Apostles on Easter evening, recounts these words of the Lord: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven: if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (Jn 20:22-23). In the light of these parallels, it appears clearly that the authority of loosing and binding consists in the power to remit sins. [GO TO CONFESSION!] And this grace, which defuses the powers of chaos and evil, is at the heart of the Church’s ministry. The Church is not a community of the perfect, but a community of sinners, [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] obliged to recognize their need for God’s love, their need to be purified through the Cross of Jesus Christ. Jesus’ sayings concerning the authority of Peter and the Apostles make it clear that God’s power is love, the love that shines forth from Calvary. Hence we can also understand why, in the Gospel account, Peter’s confession of faith is immediately followed by the first prediction of the Passion: through his death, Jesus conquered the powers of the underworld, with his blood he poured out over the world an immense flood of mercy, which cleanses the whole of humanity in its healing waters.
Dear brothers and sisters, as I mentioned at the beginning, the iconographic tradition represents Saint Paul with a sword, and we know that this was the instrument with which he was killed. Yet as we read the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles, we discover that the image of the sword refers to his entire mission of evangelization. For example, when he felt death approaching, he wrote to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight” (2 Tim 4:7). This was certainly not the battle of a military commander but that of a herald of the Word of God, faithful to Christ and to his Church, to which he gave himself completely. And that is why the Lord gave him the crown of glory and placed him, together with Peter, as a pillar in the spiritual edifice of the Church.
Dear Metropolitan Archbishops, the Pallium that I have conferred on you will always remind you that you have been constituted in and for the great mystery of communion that is the Church, the spiritual edifice built upon Christ as the cornerstone, while in its earthly and historical dimension, it is built on the rock of Peter. Inspired by this conviction, we know that together we are all cooperators of the truth, [A phrase from Paul which was Card. Ratzinger’s episcopal motto.] which as we know is one and “symphonic”, and requires from each of us and from our communities a constant commitment to conversion to the one Lord in the grace of the one Spirit. May the Holy Mother of God guide and accompany us always along the path of faith and charity. Queen of Apostles, pray for us! Amen.
[Lively discussion about the SCOTUS decision is HERE.]
There is alot of speculation about what Chief Justice Roberts did and why in his majority opinion effectively upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by coming at it as a tax rather than tackling it under the Commerce Clause. I am sure we are now all referring to Obamacare also as ObamaTAX.
And the HHS attack on religious freedom still stands.
In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius Roberts wrote (biretta tip to The Motley Monk for the quote):
“Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.”
Charles Krauthammer opines in the Washington Post about the what and the why. Without pyschic powers or Robert’s coming clean, this might be as close as we get to answers, and he speaks his piece in about 750 words (amazing). Mind you, I am not by this saying one way or another that Roberts what right to do what he did. Some who are both reading- and analysis-challenged will claim that. For me, Krauthammer’s explanation is the most plausible I have found. Here it is with some (regretted) cuts:
Why Roberts Did It
He’s the custodian of the Court’s reputation. [There it is.]
By Charles KrauthammerIt’s the judiciary’s Nixon-to-China: Chief Justice John Roberts joins the liberal wing of the Supreme Court and upholds the constitutionality of Obamacare. How? By pulling off one of the great constitutional finesses of all time. He managed to uphold the central conservative argument against Obamacare, while at the same time finding a narrow definitional dodge to uphold the law — and [NB] thus prevented the Court from being seen as having overturned, presumably on political grounds, the signature legislation of this administration.
Why did he do it? Because he carries two identities. Jurisprudentially, he is a constitutional conservative. Institutionally, he is chief justice and sees himself as uniquely entrusted with the custodianship of the Court’s legitimacy, reputation, and stature. [I think what we are seeing here is an application of an interpretive principle which I often use in looking at things that happen in and to the Church: ad intra and ad extra.]
[…] [I hate cutting any of this, it is so well-written.]
… Roe v. Wade, which willfully struck down the duly passed abortion laws of 46 states. The result has been four decades of popular protest and resistance to an act of judicial arrogance that, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once said, “deferred stable settlement of the issue” by the normal electoral/legislative process.
More recently, however, few decisions have occasioned more bitterness and rancor than Bush v. Gore, a 5–4 decision split along ideological lines. It was seen by many (principally, of course, on the left) as a political act disguised as jurisprudence and designed to alter the course of the single most consequential political act of a democracy — the election of a president.
[…]
How to reconcile the two imperatives — one philosophical and the other institutional? Assign yourself the task of writing the majority opinion. Find the ultimate finesse that manages to uphold the law, but only on the most narrow of grounds — interpreting the individual mandate as merely a tax, something generally within the power of Congress.
Result? The law stands, thus obviating any charge that a partisan Court overturned duly passed legislation. And yet at the same time the Commerce Clause is reined in. By denying that it could justify the imposition of an individual mandate, Roberts draws the line against the inexorable decades-old expansion of congressional power under the Commerce Clause fig leaf.
Law upheld, Supreme Court’s reputation for neutrality maintained. Commerce Clause contained, constitutional principle of enumerated powers reaffirmed.
That’s not how I would have ruled. I think the “mandate is merely a tax” argument is a dodge, and a flimsy one at that. (The “tax” is obviously punitive, regulatory, and intended to compel.) Perhaps that’s not how Roberts would have ruled had he been just an associate justice, and not the chief. But that’s how he did rule.
Obamacare [ObamaTax] is now essentially upheld. There’s only one way it can be overturned. The same way it was passed — elect a new president and a new Congress. That’s undoubtedly what Roberts is saying: Your job, not mine. I won’t make it easy for you.
It seems plausible.
What I worry about, however, is that there is now a dangerous, eroding constitutional precedent.
POLL
Please vote and give an explanation in the combox. And please stick to this topic.
After posting about the Seven Minutes of Terror, I was curious about Curiosity, the newest Mars Rover heading to the Red Planet.
Intrepid little Spirit isn’t working any more, since it became mired and died. Opportunity is working, but depends on wind storms to keep its solar panels clean.
Curiosity is altogether new.
Here is another video:
[wp_youtube]d1coV7XqE1M[/wp_youtube]
BTW, did you know that a certain kind of curiosity is a sin? Yes, indeed! Be wary of curiositas, which in this information age is a serious problem which can harm your soul. Curiositas is not studiositas!
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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