What are your plans for the big feast day on Friday?
Friday 22 October is the feast of Sts. Nunilo and Alodia were a pair of 9th c. virgin martyrs in Huesca, Spain. They were born to a Muslim father and Christian mother. However, they chose their mother’s Christianity. During the Emirate of Abd ar-Rahman II they were first put in a brothel and then were executed as apostates according to Sharia law.
Perhaps we should make… I don’t know… paella?
From a seminarian:
A brother seminarian and I recently attended one night of a parish mission of sorts led by a renowned Catholic musician. In one tangent mentioning the newly corrected translation of the Missal, he stated how the Mass in Latin came to be through a translation of the Greek text to the language of the day – the vernacular “street Latin.” He went on to say that those who love the Latin texts and prefer them to the vernacular translations miss the point, since the Latin only came about as it was the vernacular of that time. My fellow seminarian, knowing my affinity for the old rites and for Latin in general, asked me if I knew of that history. I was only able to respond by saying that though there was some truth to what he said, the musician’s notion was a bit too simplistic and even dismissive, but I didn’t have the knowledge to articulate my position better. Can you please shed some light on this?
P.S. I have to give credit to the musician for saying that he thinks the Latin Mass (whether he meant EF or OF, not sure) should be used more. He also did not bash the new translation, but did say there was a need for good musical settings. He was fair, but maybe just wrong.
The musician is sticking to the old line about vernacular which all good scholars long since grew out of.
Ut brevis, the Latin that was adopted for the Roman liturgy was not at all like the Latin that was spoken in the streets. The Latin used for liturgy was elevated and stylized, redolent of the Latin used in ancient Roman religion, law and philosophy. The man in the street, hearing the Latin of the basilica, would have perhaps heard most of the words before, but their meanings would have been a real stretch. An analogy would be the perhaps the internal reaction of your average person who has never been to live theatre suddenly hearing the opening act of King Lear. He would recognize most of the words, but the sound of it would be strange, the meaning of even familiar words obscure. It would take a while for his ear to adjust.
Another point that must be considered is that the Latin of ancient worship has a different impact on the mind than the Greek of ancient worship. The Roman Latin of worship tends to be spare and sober while Greek is involved and effusive. Languages are not all equal in their impact on the listener and speaker. Something about Latin was preferable to Greek in the minds of those who had command of both languages.
Fr. Lang of the Oratory has done some work on this lately. Also, an older study you might be able to find in your seminary library is by the late, great scholar Christine Mohrmann.
WDTPRS kudos to the new Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church.
I was especially pleased that Archbishop Ranjith was on the list. And though it was no surprise, what a pleasure to see Archbishop Burke’s name there as well.
I am also happy that Archbishop Mauro Piacenza is to be Cardinal right away. He just received his new assignment as Prefect of Clergy, a role that is important enough that the red hat cannot be delayed.
It was nice to see that early reports were correct about three of the 8o-year-olds: Sgreccia, who did fine work for the Pontifical Academy for Life, the fine old-gentleman Brandmueller who has all the right ideas about liturgy and the arts, and of course Domenico Bartolucci. Bartolucci had been pretty thoroughly hosed some years ago when he was ousted by liturgical liberals and the chapter of St. Peter’s from his post as maestro in perpetuo of the Sistina. I was not overly impressed with the music he directed back in the day, but he was head and shoulders above the insipid mediocrity that followed along the track laid down by Archbp. Piero Marini (who will never be a Cardinal). Naming Bartolucci Cardinal both goes some distance to heal the wound to justice inflicted years ago and it sends a quite signal about sacred music for our liturgical worship.
Juxtapose that with the elevation of Malcolm Ranjith.
Nothing for Archbishops Dolan and Nichols, probably because their cardinalatial predecessors are still able to vote in a conclave.
The Italians sure have a big voting block now.
UPDATE: I see that tonight Archbp. Donald Wuerl is slated to give a speech at the University of St. Thomas in Texas. He is supposed to talk about the “Building a Good and Just Society”.
Will this be a contretemps to Archbp. Chaput?
The talk will be streamed over Ustream at 7:30 CDT
(This video is no longer available.)
This is a little premature, but the St. Louis newpaper had this on their site.
NB: The names of the new cardinals won’t be announced for a few hours yet.
Archbishop Dolan of New York City (will he be named Cardinal tomorrow?) has observations about Hell’s Bible’s hatred for the Catholic Church.
My emphases.
More from the Times
I know, I should drop it. “You just have to get used to it,” so many of you have counseled me. “It’s been that way forever, and it’s so ingrained they don’t even know they’re doing it. So, let it go.”
I’m talking about the common, casual way The New York Times offends Catholic sensitivity, something they would never think of doing — rightly so — to the Jewish, Black, Islamic, or gay communities.
Two simple yet telling examples from one edition, last Friday, October 15.
First there’s the insulting photograph of the nun on page C20, this for yet another tiresome production making fun of Catholic consecrated women. This “gleeful” tale is described as “fresh and funny” in the caption beneath the quarter-page photo (not an advertisement). Granted, prurient curiosity about the lives of Catholic sisters has been part of the nativist, “know-nothing” agenda since mobs burned the Ursuline convent in Boston in the 1840’s, and since the huckster Rebecca Reed’s Awful Disclosures made the rounds in the 19th century. But still now cheap laughs at the expense of a bigoted view of the most noble women around?
Maybe I’m especially sensitive since I just came from the excellent exhibit on the contributions of Catholic nuns now out on Ellis Island. These are the women who tended to the homeless immigrants and refugees, who died nursing the abandoned in the cholera epidemic, who ran hospitals and universities decades before women did so in the non-Catholic sphere, who marched in Selma and today teach our poorest in our inner-city schools. These are the nuns mocked and held-up for snickering in our city’s newspaper.
Now turn to C29. This glowingly reviewed not-to-be missed “art” exhibit comes to us from Harvard, and is a display of posters from ACT UP. Remember them? They invaded of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to disrupt prayer, trampled on the Holy Eucharist, insulted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger when he was here for a conference, and yelled four letter words while exposing themselves to families and children leaving Mass at the Cathedral. The man they most detested was Cardinal John O’Connor, who, by the way, spent many evenings caring quietly for AIDS patients, and, when everyone else ran from them, opened units for them at the Terence Cardinal Cooke Health Care Center and St. Clare’s Hospital. Too bad for him. One of the posters in this “must see” exhibit is of Cardinal O’Connor, in the form of a condom, referred to as a “scumbag,” the “art” there in full view in the photograph above the gushing review in our city’s daily.
Thanks for your patience with me. I guess I’m still new enough here in New York City that the insults of The New York Times against the Church still bother me. I know I should get over it. As we say in Missouri, it’s like “spitting into a tornado.”
From His Hermeneuticalness:
Fr Michael Clifton, long time pastor of the faithful, former archivist of Southwark, learned historian, kindly teacher of schoolboys (including me, nearly 40 years ago) cricket coach, model railway enthusiast, and warm friend and mentor of younger clergy now feels that he must close his blog because he has been threatened with legal action by Monsignor Basil Loftus who writes a weekly column for the Catholic Times.
Fr. Clifton, whom I have met, is a gentleman.
If Msgr. Loftus threatened Fr. Clifton in that way, then Loftus is a scrub.
UPDATE: 20 Oct 0048 GMT
At issue, apparently is Msgr. Loftus’ understanding of the physical resurrection of the Lord.
Were someone Christian to deny that Christ had His physical Body after the resurrection, he would be a heretic.
Fr. Finigan ably teased out some of the details of what Msgr. Loftus’ position is.
In a recent article for the Catholic Times, Mgr Loftus speculated on the nature of Christ’s risen body. He quoted St Paul’s talk of a “spiritual body” after the resurrection and then quite wrongly drew the conclusion that Christ “was not physically present when he appeared to the disciples after the resurrection.“
Fr. Finigan makes some observations about what Christians believe:
The idea that Christ’s risen body was not physical was refuted as long ago as the second century by St Irenaeus. (Adversus Haereses 5.7.1)
The 4th Lateran Council (1215) states succinctly in its profession of faith:
He descended in the soul, rose in the flesh, and ascended in both.
Were someone to suggest that Christ did not have a physical body after the resurrection, well… he would be a heretic.
If he refused to be corrected, he would be an obstinate heretic. He would perhaps even incur the ecclesiastical penalty of excommunication.
Were such a person to make statements in public, he must in justice correct his error in public.
A priest broadcasting such errors in public would cause serious scandal. He would need to make amends.
Am I wrong? Did I get this wrong?
Some other links
St Mary Magdalen’s Brighton: Fr Michael Clifton’s last post?
That the Bones you have crushed may thrill: Litigious Priests
Bara Brith: Very Sorry
The Muniment Room: Support Fr Mildew
Mulier Fortis: Sad …
Porta Caeli: From Lofty heights
Stella Maris: Fr Clifton’s blog closes
Australia Incognita: The word we are not allowed to use: heresy
From a reader:
I have a question that I cannot find a direct answer: Our pastor made the decision to allow non-Catholics in RCIA to receive Holy Communion.
He stated that “Anyone who believed the Church’s teachings on the Mass and the sacraments” were allowed. [NO!]
On a less serious note, he is also allowing non-Catholics to serve at the altar at Mass (both children and adults). Is this permissible?
No, this is not permissible in most cases on the pastor’s own authority.
Since the Orthodox, Polish National Catholics, and Old Catholics are closer to us in doctrine, etc., there is a bit more leeway, if they ask for Communion and if they are properly disposed (cf. CIC 1983 c. 844).
However, in the case of most non-Catholic Christians the diocesan bishop makes the determination on a case by case basis. (Cf. c. 844 .4)
The diocese bishop alone can make a determination about non-Catholics and Communion.
I note that these are potential converts. What part of the process of entering into the Catholic Church’s COMMUNION does the priest not understand?
I suspect that the diocesan bishop would not be pleased to learn of this development. If the pastor printed this somewhere, perhaps a copy should be sent to the chancery.
Serving at the altar is a different issue. There is nothing precisely against this, but if there are people who are Catholic available, they, Catholics, should be serving.
I suggest that the potential converts to the Church not be demeaned by being treated as if they were something that they aren’t.
I haven’t been able to post about the feeder for a while now.
Here are a few shots from today.
There are quite a few Robins around. They hang out around the trees with drying fruit, bushes with berries.
Decisions.
Whatever their faults may be, these birds do catch your eye.
Perhaps this is a Junco version of Bad?
Chickadee Exultant.
Yes, the Woodpecker left plenty for you.
Just nice.
During the winter, as during the other seasons of the year, they will eat only from your donations.
(This video is no longer available.)
His Hermeneuticalness posted about an amusing little something picked up by the gentlemanly Sandro Magister.
Apparently during the Synod on the Middle East, a Chaldean bishop from Iran cited a work by the late Annibale Bugnini, who name shall live in infamy among those who love the Church’s traditional worship. But in reporting the bishop’s intervention, the Bolletino got Bugnini’s name wrong:
With tongue in cheek Magister and Fr. Finigan opine about this being a kind of damnatio memoriae.
BTW… an amusing story about Archbp. Bugnini told me some years back.
When the Ayatollah Khomeini took control in Iran, he summoned the diplomatic corps into his presence and made them kneel down to him. Bugnini, then the papal nuncio to Iran, did it. He knelt.
When news of this reached Rome, some wag in the Curia quipped that Bugnini was doing in Iran all the genuflections he had removed from the Mass.
This came via Patrick Madrid.
A young Somali man had a little dance on the main altar of the Duomo in Florence, to the musical accompaniment of Michael Jackson’s Bad.
Apparently the young fellow has a bit of a screw loose and is now in a a psychiatric clinic at Santa Maria Novella. He is in Italy as a political refugee.
This wasn’t an anti-Christian thing purposely done by a Muslim, it seems. Just the choice of Michael Jackson is proof enough of that. I understand that Michael Jackson is not especially favored by your run of the mill anti-Christian jihadist.
Bottom line: he is just nuts.
So is liturgical dance, by the way. Nuts, that is.
I don’t want any dancer on my altar or even near my altar. Do you?
In the meantime ….
[CUE MUSIC]
After a long day of pulling kicking bad dancers out of your sanctuaries, why not relax with a WDTPRS mug filled to the brim with piping hot Mystic Monk Coffee.
The fragrant coffee goodness will have those liturgical dancers absolutely fleeing your churches as soon as they catch a whiff or even a glimpse of that Say the Black Do the Red mug.
Liberals – and all liturgical dancers simply have to be liberals, don’t they? well… sometimes they are actually assassins… but I digress – liberals hate Mystic Monk Coffee a lot. That is reason enough to buy a whole bunch!
Show your contempt for liturgical dance now while refreshing your supply at the same time!
Mystic Monk Coffee … Mystic Monk.
It’s swell!
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
Kathleen10 on Daily Rome Shot 1117 – A *POLL* about 2026-27: “Fr Z thanks so much for 2 reminders. 1. Using your Amazon link! For heaven’s sake it costs us nothing…”
on 10 November – St Andrew Avellino (Vetus Ordo). Wherein Fr. Z rants.: “So interesting that you bring this up, a couple weeks ago a priest at a neighboring parish died unexpectedly. They…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1117 – A *POLL* about 2026-27: “All moves are forced for black. R-h8+, KxR Q-h2+, K-g8 Q-h7+, K-f8, Q-h8+, K-e7 QxP+, K-e6 Q-f7++ Ok, so 6…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1117 – A *POLL* about 2026-27: “I couldn’t post on the ad orientem article. Here’s what I wanted to post: “Let the bishops restore ad orientem…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1116: “It just gets worse and worse. The Pope needs to publicly and very clearly put a halt to these shenanigans.…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1116: “The origin of difference and division, the pharmakos represents evil both introjected and projected. Beneficial insofar as he cures—and for…”
on Daily Rome Shot 1116: “White to move and mate in 4 Unless I’m missing something, this would seem to fall into the too easy…”
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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