POLL: Halloween costumes in church next Sunday at Mass

Posted on 24 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

DO YOU HAVE A BLOG?  Please link!  Let’s get a strong participation in this poll and discussion.

A priest reader sent a suggestion for a WDTPRS POLL.

Next Sunday coincides with the Eve of All Hallows.  A “hallow” is an old word for “saint”.

For the sake of this poll, let’s consider dressing as saints for All Saints Day the same as Halloween costumes.  They both involve a costume and coming into church for Sunday Mass.

We will exclude “All Saints” parties held at the parish for children.  This is about coming to church for MASS on Sunday in a costume.

Chose your answer and then give your comments below.   For example, you might opine about whether costumes at Mass would be okay, or wicked, or just cute, or irreverent…

Next week we can have a followup poll to see what actually happened.

Knowing your parish as you do, do you expect children (or adults) will come to church for MASS on Sunday in Halloween costumes?

  • No, I don't think that will happen at my parish. (88%, 1,645 Votes)
  • Yes, I expect some people will show up in costumes. (12%, 223 Votes)

Total Voters: 1,868

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Posted in POLLS | Tagged ,
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QUAERITUR: Masses for dead Protestants

Posted on 24 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I was reading your post regarding “Masses for things instead of for people”. I remeber reading The Prophecies of Anne Catherine Emmerich, and reading this: ‘more Protestant souls stayed in Purgatory the longest not because they were worse than anyone else, but because so few people prayed for the repose of their souls or offered up Masses for their soul.’

Since both my parents were Protestant, would it be permissible to have a Mass said for them? I mentioned this to one priest who used to be at our parish and he didn’t seem too keen on the idea, although he never gave a direct ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Yes!  It is not only permissible, it is laudable to pray for the dead, Catholic, non-Catholic, Christian, non-Christian.

It is a work of mercy to pray for the dead.

People don’t have to be Catholic for us to pray for them…. early and often.

Also, this is not about having a funeral for non-Catholics.  That is a different matter.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box |
38 Comments

Bishop assaulted in Canada

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I suspect this sort of thing is going to happen more and more frequently.

From CBC:

B.C. bishop severely beaten

One person is in custody after the Roman Catholic bishop of Kamloops, B.C., was severely beaten at the city’s cathedral.

RCMP were called to the Sacred Heart Cathedral in the B.C. Interior city on Friday night, and found Bishop David Monroe bleeding on the floor of the church rectory. Police believe he had been beaten with a blunt object.

Monroe, 69, was rushed to hospital, along with another priest who dislocated a shoulder trying to fend off the attacker.

“We pray for the bishop and for the conversion of the guy who hurt the bishop,” said Rev. Derrick Cameron. “Certainly, he [Monroe] could have died if we weren’t there. Timing-wise, he would have bled to death.”

The assailant fled the church, but police say they tracked down the suspect.

“We started backtracking to see what else had gone on in the evening, and one thing that did catch our eye was that a couple hours previous there was an adult male that was brought to the Kamloops hospital by some family members who were concerned for his mental health,” said RCMP Staff Sgt. Garry Kerr. “They said his mental state was quite deteriorated and he was apparently having some delusions of some sort involving religion.”

Kerr said police found the man in a shed at his father’s home on the north shore of Kamloops. It appears he swam across the Thompson River.

Monroe, who has been bishop since 2002 of the 155,000-square-kilometre central B.C. diocese, was taken to hospital with what Kerr described as serious injuries. He was expected to be released Saturday.

“I was at the hospital [Friday] night and was able to speak … very, very briefly with the bishop…. The most severe injuries the bishop had were all above the neck and face and [he was] severely, severely beaten,” Kerr said.

“We are fortunate, quite frankly, that it was not a double murder … I mean, the scene was that horrific, and I am just glad to say that he [the suspect] is in custody.”

The suspect, whose name has not been released, was undergoing a psychological evaluation. He was scheduled to appear in a Kamloops court on Monday.

If I say that I feel nervous when I see deranged people coming at me in my house with blunt objects, will I be fired from my liberal blog?

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
30 Comments

QUAERITUR: Late evening Sunday Masses

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Several churches in my area hold Sunday Mass in the evening, in addition to in the morning. Is it permissible to attend these Masses if we cannot make morning Mass, or is it even permissible to hold Mass on Sunday in the evening?

Yes, it is permissible to have Mass at any time of any day (except on Good Friday and the times of Mass on Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil).

If the Mass is on a Sunday you fulfill your Mass obligation, even if it is in the evening, even until midnight.

That said, I don’t think it is a good idea to have lots of Masses in the evening on a Sunday.  Let Sunday be Sunday.  Let people go to Mass on Sunday morning and then give the rest of the day to good things people should do on Sundays.   I fear that these late Sunday Masses merely enable people to put off going to Mass because, in the morning there are “better” things to do.

And that said, yes, there are those situations in which a person may be genuinely impeded from going to Mass on Sunday morning.  That is why there is a Saturday vigil and sometimes late Sunday Masses.  Still, this should not be common.  That is my opinion.

Nevertheless, the Church’s law is very permissive in this regard and the faithful have the right to avail themselves of Masses at any time of the day or night.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box |
55 Comments

Body scanners unveiled at JFK Airport; Napolitano doesn’t volunteer

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the NY Daily News:

Body scanners unveiled at JFK Airport; Homeland Security Sect. Janet Napolitano doesn’t volunteer

BY Christina Boyle
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Airline passengers might want to consider a trip to the gym before heading to the airport now that high-tech body scanners have been unveiled at Kennedy Airport.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yesterday hailed them as an important breakthrough for airport security and the fight against terrorism.

Yet when it came to testing the devices – which produce chalky, naked X-ray images of passengers – she turned the floor over to some brave volunteers. [For which I am sure we are grateful.]

“These machines represent an important way to stay ahead of the ever-evolving threat that faces the aviation industry,” Napolitano said.  [Gotta wonder about that.]

About 300 of the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines are operational already at 62 airports across the country, and 450 will be in place by the end of the year, officials said.

JFK will have a “substantial” number, but officials would not reveal the exact figure.

Machines will be installed at Newark and LaGuardia airports within weeks. [Great.  Another terrorist driven industry.]

The machines work by projecting low-level X-ray beams at the passenger’s body to produce an image.

Any nonmetal objects hidden on the passenger’s body that wouldn’t be detected by the old-style scanners are easily spotted.

Going through one is optional for all travelers, but Napolitano hoped to ease any fears that airport staff would use them to leer at passengers.

“Those who read the images are not actually physically at the gate, so they cannot associate an image with an individual person at all,” she said.

“And the machines are set so that no image is retained.”

cboyle@nydailynews.com

Posted in Global Killer Asteroid Questions, Lighter fare | Tagged , ,
23 Comments

QUAERITUR: Masses for things instead of for people

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

Father, is it appropriate for a person to ask a priest to offer Mass for a non-human intention, like “for a bountiful harvest” or “for good weather”? Canon law says (c. 901) that a priest can offer Mass for anyone, living or dead, but it is also more general (c. 945 ff) in saying the priest can accept an offering to apply a Mass “for a specific intention.” I find it odd to hear an intention that is not directly for a person(s). But, is it ok? I know there are votive Masses for various needs. Perhaps that answers my question.

Yes, that answers your question.

Masses can be said for intentions that are not for humans, living or dead.  The intention can be in some way associated with, for example, the common good.  You pointed out that there are Votive Masses for various intentions.  Some of my favorites ar, in the 1962 Missale:

  • Mass in time of war
  • Mass for the forgiveness of sins
  • Mass for the grace of a good death
  • Mass for the preservation of ecclesiastical vocations
  • etc.

There are also some additional orations that can be added, such as:

  • to ask for rain
  • to ask for humilty
  • etc.

Of course all of these things come back to what we are asking God to grant to the living.

We can bring all our cares and needs to the altar.  The Church has Mass formularies for many occasions.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box | Tagged
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WDTPRS 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time: “In His will is our peace.”

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Let’s look at this week’s Collect, a prayer having a precedent in the 1962MR as the Collect for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost.  It was also in the Veronese and Gelasian, ancient sacramentaries both.

COLLECT – (2002MR):
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus,
da nobis fidei spei et caritatis augmentum,
et ut mereamur assequi quod promittis,
fac nos amare quod praecipis.

LAME-DUCK ICEL (1973 translation of the 1970MR):
Almighty and ever-living God,
strengthen our faith, hope, and love.
May we do with loving hearts
what you ask of us
and come to share the life you promise.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:
Almighty eternal God,
grant us an increase of faith, hope and charity,
and cause us to love what You command
so that we may merit to obtain what You promise,

Today we pray to God the Father for an increase of the theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.

WDTPRS 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time: "In His will is our peace."By baptism we were endowed with a supernatural life.  As the German writer Josef Pieper (+1997) describes, a supernatural life can be described as having three main currents.

First, we have some knowledge of God surpassing what we can know about Him naturally because He reveals it to us (faith).  Second, we live by the patient expectation that what we learn and believe God promises will indeed be fulfilled (hope).  Third is an affirmative response of love of God, whom we have come to know by faith, and also love of our neighbor (charity).

While natural human virtues are acquired through education and discipline, the three theological virtues faith, hope and charity are given to us by God.  They are fused into us with grace at baptism.

Looking at the positive development of the theological virtues, we can say that faith logically precedes hope and charity, and hope precedes charity.  From the negative point of view, considering their unraveling and loss, we lose charity first of all, and then hope and, last of all, our faith.  Charity is the greatest of the three, followed by hope and then faith.

The theological virtues perfect and elevate everything virtuous thing man can do naturally.  They can be considered logically, one at a time, but are all three intimately woven together.  St. Augustine (+430) says, “There is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope without faith” (enchir 8).  The goal of the virtuous life, as we read in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1803), is to become like God.  Living the theological virtues concretely reveals image of God in us as well as the grace He gives to His adopted children.  Today we pray for their increase.

Faith is the starting point for all salvation and meritorious actions.  “The righteous shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4; Rom 1:17; Gal 3:11; Heb 10:38).  Living faith works through charity.  Furthermore, ““faith apart from works is dead” (cf. James 2:14-26).  “When faith is deprived of hope and love, it does not fully unite the believer to Christ and does not make him a living member of his Body (CCC 1814).”  “The virtue of hope responds to the aspiration to happiness which God has placed in the heart of every man; it takes up the hopes that inspire men’s activities and purifies them so as to order them to the Kingdom of heaven; it keeps man from discouragement; it sustains him during times of abandonment; it opens up his heart in expectation of eternal beatitude. Buoyed up by hope, he is preserved from selfishness and led to the happiness that flows from charity (CCC 1818).”  “The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which ‘binds everything together in perfect harmony’” (CCC 1827).

This Sunday we also pray to love what God commands.

Doing what another commands is not always very pleasant.  Our wills and passions rebel and we prefer to command rather than be commanded.

It is easy, from the worldly point of view, to think that by being the commander, rather than the commanded, we can find peace.  Surely each one of us desires peace and happiness and we seek after the means to attain them.  If we attach our hopes to the created, passing things of this world to find peace and happiness we are inevitably disappointed.

All created things, including people, can be lost.   They cannot be the foundation of lasting peace.   Even the fear of their loss lessens our peace in this world.  God alone gives the peace and happiness we seek.  He alone is eternal, unchanging, forever trustworthy.  We cannot lose God unless we ourselves reject Him.  And, in the end, God, the source of peace, remains in command.

WDTPRS 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time: "In His will is our peace."In Canto III of the Paradiso of the Divine Comedy the poet Dante is in the Heaven of the Moon. He encounters the soul of Piccarda.  Dante queries her about the happiness of the blessed in heaven wondering if somehow, even in heaven, souls might be disappointed that they do not have a higher place in celestial realm.

In response Piccarda utters one of the greatest phrases ever penned and or recited (l. 85):

In His will is our peace. / It is that sea to which all things move, / both what it creates and what nature makes…

We are all made in God’s image and likeness, made to act as God acts.  He reveals something of His will to us.  When we obey Him we act in accordance with the way He made us and what He intended for us.  In obedience we find happiness and peace, even amidst the vicissitudes of this troubling and passing world.

Our Collect prays that we “love what you command”.  This is a prayer for happiness.  The theological virtues provide the key.

E ‘n la sua volontade è nostra pace.  In His will is our peace.

Posted in WDTPRS | Tagged , ,
5 Comments

Fun internet retro-ads for internet stuff

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I picked this up from His Hermeneuticalness Fr. Finigan, whom I wish would turn on his Skype more often.

Retronaut images

Fun internet retro-ads for internet stuff

A little fun for Saturday. A correspondent kindly sent me a link to these clever Anachronistic Internet Ads.

Have a look at Once upon a time in Afghanistan which is fascinating. There is also a clip showing Star Wars in the Silent Age. The “What year is this?” posts are fascinating (look in the sidebar.)

Thanks to Fr. Finigan, we also know about this!

(This video is no longer available.)
Anachronisme
Uploaded by LesSingesHurlants. – Arts and animation videos.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged
3 Comments

QUAERITUR: decree about excommunications of SSPX bishops

Posted on 23 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I have received several emails asking about the juridical effect of the lifting of the excommunications of the SSPX bishops in January 2009.

Some are saying that the decree means that there never were excommunications in the first place, some are wondering what the decree meant with the “no longer has juridical effect”.

Let’s take a look at the decree.

But first, remember that back in 1988 the Congregation declared, imposed the excommunication.  The SSPX incurred the excommunication by the fact of what they did.   In Ecclesia Dei adflicta John Paul II said they incurred the excommunication.  But the Congregation for Bishops removed doubt about that by issuing a decree.

Years and year later…. with my emphases.

DECREE REMITTING
THE EXCOMMUNICATION “LATAE SENTENTIAE”
OF THE BISHOPS OF THE SOCIETY OF ST PIUS X

In a letter of 15 December 2008 addressed to Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, Mons. Bernard Fellay writing also in the name of the other three Bishops consecrated on 30 June 1988 requested once again the removal of the excommunication latae sententiae formally declared by a Decree of the Prefect of this Congregation for Bishops on 1 July 1988. In his letter, Mons. Fellay stated, among other things, that “we continue firmly resolute in our desire to remain Catholics and to put all our strength at the service of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is the Roman Catholic Church. We accept her teachings in a filial spirit. We firmly believe in the primacy of Peter and in his prerogatives, and for this reason the current situation causes us much suffering”.

His Holiness Benedict XVI in his paternal concern for the spiritual distress which the parties concerned have voiced as a result of the excommunication, and trusting in their commitment, expressed in the aforementioned letter, to spare no effort in exploring as yet unresolved questions through requisite discussions with the authorities of the Holy See in order to reach a prompt, full and satisfactory solution to the original problem has decided to reconsider the canonical situation of Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, resulting from their episcopal consecration.

This act signifies a desire to strengthen reciprocal relations of trust, and to deepen and stabilize the relationship of the Society of St Pius X with this Apostolic See. This gift of peace, coming at the end of the Christmas celebrations, is also meant to be a sign which promotes the Universal Church’s unity in charity, and removes the scandal of division.

It is hoped that this step will be followed by the prompt attainment of full communion with the Church on the part of the whole Society of St Pius X, which will thus bear witness to its genuine fidelity and genuine recognition of the Magisterium and authority of the Pope by the proof of visible unity.

On the basis of the powers expressly granted to me by the Holy Father Benedict XVI, by virtue of the present Decree I remit the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae incurred by Bishops Bernard Fellay, Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, Richard Williamson and Alfonso de Galarreta, and declared by this Congregation on 1 July 1988. At the same time I declare that, as of today’s date, the Decree issued at that time no longer has juridical effect.

Rome, from the Congregation for Bishops, 21 January 2009

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re
Prefect

So, the SSPX bishops were excommunicated.  Now they are not.   The decree of 2009 nullified the decree of 1988 in respect at least to the four SSPX bishops named.  The 2009 decree doesn’t mention the other bishops who, in 1988, incurred the excommunication.  I don’t know how the decree can be interpreted to mean more. Some are saying that by saying that the older decree no longer has juridical effect, that means that even Archbp. Lefevbre is not to have been considered ever excommunicated.  I think that says too much.  Two Popes and the Congregation thought they were.  I’ll go with their opinion.

In any event, the four SSPX bishops are now able to go to confession again.  The other two bishops excommunicated in 1988 no longer have that opportunity.  We entrust their souls to the mercy of God while thanking God that the four still living still have some time to work things out.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box | Tagged ,
31 Comments

QUAERITUR: Bishop requiring exclusive use of the Extraordinary Form

Posted on 22 October 2010 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I have a purely hypothetical question. I know all priests may say the
Extraordinary Form of the Mass without special permission of their
bishops (i.e. It is up to the priest if he wishes to say it), but
would it be lawful under the motu proprio for a bishop to require all the priests of his diocese to say exclusively the Extraordinary Form, either on one occasion of permanently? A priest may freely say it if he wishes to, but may he also freely choose not to if he is ordered to?

Bishops have wide powers.

I’d like to see a bishop try!

C’mon, Your Excellencies!  Show us how powerful you are!  I dare you… all of you! I double dare you.

Just try to require all the priests of the diocese to say the older form of Mass exclusively.  I bet you caaaaaan’t…  I bet you’re all too a-scared to even try.  I bet not even… well… 60% would obey, and they would be the younger men, too.  HAH!  And with every year that passes, the percentage will grow. But can you persuade them now?  Just try!

I bet you can’t get them alllllll to do it.

Chickeeeeeeeeennnnnn.   BAWK BAWK  BaBAWK!  C’mon!  Try it!

Neener Neener Neeeeener!

Seriously, I don’t think a bishop would be within his rights to require priests not to use the Ordinary Form of Mass, and to use only the older Form.   He could, however, urge and persuade and lead by example.

Keep in mind that the bishop cannot forbid a priest from using the Ordinary Form, which is in Latin and which – according to the rubrics – is celebrated ad orientem.

Posted in ASK FATHER Question Box, Lighter fare |
35 Comments