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{]:¬)

POTUS and issues of human life

Posted on 29 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is part of a post at Life Site. You should read the whole thing there.

Obama’s Pro-Abortion Record: The List Goes On and On..

Dear LifeNews.com Readers,

Today, LifeNews.com updated our exclusive and extensive listing of the pro-abortion and anti-life actions President Barack Obama has taken in two and a half years since taking over the White House.

Some say that a president doesn’t have much effect on issues like abortion, embryonic stem cell research, or promoting abortion abroad. But Obama has proven otherwise — as he’s forced Americans to spend millions of embryonic stem cell research, taxpayer-funded abortions, and spent tens of millions promoting a new Constitution in Kenya that legalized abortions there.

He’s pushed Obamacare and pushed abortion funding and paying for drugs that can cause abortions in Obamacare, refused to de-fund Planned Parenthood, cozied up with pro-abortion leaders, and put staunch anti-life activists in key policy positions and judgeships who will have an impact on pro-life laws for a generation.

In the a few short months since our last update of this important Obama Abortion Record document, here’s what he’s done:

April 11, 2011 – Refuses Speaker John Boehner’s request to cut taxpayer funding to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

April 14, 2011 – Obama administration castigates The Vatican over family planning.

April 19, 2011 – Obama Easter breakfast has pro-abortion religious leaders.

May 2, 2011 – Report shows the Obama administration met with abortion advocates during consideration of Obamacare.

May 10, 2011 – Senate confirms pro-abortion Obama judicial pick Edward Chen.

May 11, 2011 – Obama schmoozes with Planned Parenthood abortion business president, Cecile Richards.

May 17, 2011 – Obama administration targets peaceful pro-life advocate for prosecution.

May 19, 2011 – Names pro-abortion Morgan Christen to a federal appeals court position.

June 1, 2011 – Denies Indiana’s request to de-fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

June 2, 2011 – Obama administration approves more taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research.

June 17, 2011 – Defends forcing taxpayers to fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business in court.

July 7, 2011 – Report shows Obama policies resulted in 300 tax-funded abortions in Washington, D.C.

July 21, 2011 – Demands that New Hampshire make taxpayers fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

July 21, 2011 – Fines a peaceful pro-lifer $25,000.

August 1, 2011 – Forces insurance companies to pay for abortion drugs under Obamacare.

August 19, 2011 – Obama administration found to have spent taxpayer funds promoting pro-abortion Obamacare during the 2010 elections.

August 19, 2011 — Obama administration approves more taxpayer-funded embryonic stem cell research.

August 22, 2011 – Vice President Joe Biden fails to condemn China’s one-child, forced abortion policy.

August 23, 2011 — Obama administration calls children “sexual beings,” pushes sex on them.

[…]

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged abortion, POTUS, pro-life
15 Comments

Do you have some news?

Posted on 29 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Share some news… hopefully good news.

Also, post, if you care too, some good point from the sermon you heard for Sunday.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
42 Comments

What to do with obsolete ICEL Missals – “Sacramentaries”

Posted on 28 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

People have been asking what to do with obsolete editions of the lame-duck Sacramentary. I have made some suggestions in the past.

The Canadian Bishops gave their own suggestion.

For real.

De-commissioning the Sacramentary

1. After the Prayer after Communion, the Priest pauses for a moment of silence and then reminds the faithful of the many events this book has been a part of in these or similar words:

Dear Friends in Christ; today is the last (Sun)day in which this Sacramentary will be used. It has served our community well for many years: it has been present at baptisms, funerals, marriages, and above all at the countless Masses that have been prayed in this church. We pause to give thanks for all that God has done by means of the words contained in this book, and trust that God will continue to bless us in the years ahead.

All pray silently for a time. Then the Priest, with hands outstretched says:

Father of light and wisdom,
We praise you for your gifts:
for giving us the power to see
and the ability to write and read
and to use the arts of printing.

Bless + this book as it is taken out of service
and grant that all who have used it or heard its words
may grow in wisdom and grace
before you and all your people.

Father, we praise you through Jesus Christ your Son
in the love of your Holy Spirit,
now and always and for ever.

All: Amen.

2. The Mass continues in the usual way with the Final Blessing. After the Dismissal, the Deacon, or in his absence the Priest closes the book for the final time, saying:

For everything there is a season.
At the closing of this book,
we look to the opening of a new season of grace.

3. The Sacramentary is carried out in the procession by a server or other appropriate minister.

4. The Sacramentary is then reserved in the sacristy, a parish library or museum, or disposed of in a dignified manner.

Well… Say The Black and Do The Red, I suppose.

Look. It is clear that they want to give people a sense that the book used is worthy of some respect. Right?

By the way, there are no indications here for the music to be used.

In honor of this moment, I urge you to buy lots of WDTPRS coffee mugs.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Lighter fare | Tagged Canadian Bishops Conference, ICEL, Missale Romanum, Sacramentary
43 Comments

Requiem for an ICEL translation

Posted on 28 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In England the new translation of the Ordinary of Mass will be used beginning September. Therefore, this Sunday was the last Sunday people will be constrained by law to hear the lame-duck ICEL version in force for these last few sad decades.

My friend Fr. Ray Blake, the great PP of Brighton, has this comment:

Evening Mass is finished and it was the last Sunday Mass with old translations, somehow I think we should have had a wake, some act to mark its passing, like the medieval burial of the Alleluia. It isn’t saying farewell to friend, I’m glad we have fished with it.
We have been using the new translations at weekday Masses for little while now, just so Sunday next I am used to them and we have a few people trained to make the new responses, so during the week I am just going to put the loose page of the old Missal Propers out and the little paperback interim Missal.

Maybe I might put the old Missal out somewhere under a black pall.

It marks the end of an era, I suspect someone will offer the “old Mass” at 3.25pm on the third Sunday at some forsaken felt bannered country church for a few elderly sandalled hobnob eating tamborinistas.

Just a note on translation, we had in England for the first reading, “You have seduced me, and I let myself be seduced”. Americans had, “You have duped me…”. I’d prefer being “seduced” than “duped”. Yuk!

Posted in Brick by Brick, Mail from priests, Our Catholic Identity, The Drill | Tagged Fr. Blake, ICEL, New Translation
45 Comments

QUAERITUR: If I forget to confess a mortal sin, am I still forgiven?

Posted on 28 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

If i forget to confess a mortal/grave sin in the confessional, when i fully intended to confess it before i walked in, is it still absolved?

If you truly forget to confess something, but otherwise make a good confession, then everything is forgiven. However, you ought to confess what you forget and then later remembered at an early opportunity.

Be diligent your your examination of conscience.

Always do your best. That’s all we can do.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box | Tagged confession, examination of conscience, mortal sin, sacrament of penance
38 Comments

CatholiCon Continues in Houston

Posted on 28 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The new media conference CatholiCon continues today in Houston under the guidance of Catholic Underground and Almighty God. Fittingly, the conference began with sung Vespers on Friday and resolves with Holy Mass on Sunday. Today there will be more workshops. Since I am not nearly as tech savvy as some of the participants and all of the organizers, I have been learning a great deal.

The participants here have been outstanding. Truly nice people.

During the conference in my contributions, I was asked to speak to common points between new media and tools of social communication and, this may not surprise, sacred liturgy. I tried stressed especially that Holy Church is all about communication. The Church communicates us upward, lifting our prayers and sacrifices on high, and communicates the graces God offers to us. Christ is, as the document Communio et progressio 11, describes, the “Perfect Communicator”. In the Incarnation, that mysterious, communication of God and man, He reveals man more fully to himself (GS 22) in the fact of the Incarnation and in His words and deeds. He continues to communicate in Holy Communion, in the voice of the Church teaching, even in the words and deeds of the baptized when they are conformed to His will.

Holy Church’s greatest means of communication is her sacred liturgy.

There are many conclusions we can draw from these starting points.

Furthermore, making the link between social communication and sacred liturgy is a “natural” also because the first two documents of the Second Vatican Council were, Sacrosanctum Concilium, on liturgy, and Inter mirifica, on social communications, both promulgated together by Paul VI on the same day, 4 December 1963.

The issue of new media is going to critical in any consideration of “New Evangelization”. But new media needs not only a savvy use of cutting-edge tools. We need a deeper “theology of communication”.

In any event, this has been a great event. You might think about participating at CatholiCon next year. It has been a rich experience.

Posted in Brick by Brick, New Evangelization, On the road, Our Catholic Identity, The future and our choices, What Fr. Z is up to |
3 Comments

Sunday Mass prayers – WDTPRS links

Posted on 27 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Keep your ears open so that on Monday you can tell the readers here about Sunday Mass and perhaps some good point from the sermon.

In the meantime, some grist for the Sunday Mass mill ahead of time.

OF – WDTPRS 22nd Ordinary Sunday: the virtue of religion

EF – WDTPRS 11th Sunday after Pentecost: what Christ does for us

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
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Small request

Posted on 27 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My Google Friends thingy has been hovering around 950:

How about helping to get it over 1000?

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
7 Comments

QR Code and You

Posted on 27 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Lots of these today at Catholicon.

Let’s have a WDTPRS poll.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Mail from priests, On the road, What Fr. Z is up to | Tagged code, QR
26 Comments

QUAERITUR: Deacons and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament

Posted on 27 August 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

A deacon did Benediction at our parish today (full-fledged, cope and all.) Is that legitimate?

Yes, in the Latin Church deacons, transitional or permanent, can preside at, give, Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. They dress in their choir dress (cassock, surplice) surmounted by a diaconal stole an cope. A biretta would be used to come to the sanctuary of the Blessed Sacrament is not already exposed, and to leave the sanctuary.