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{]:¬)

Your Sunday Sermon Notes: Quinquagesima (Novus Ordo: 8th Ordinary)

Posted on 27 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at the Masses for the Septuagesima Sunday (Novus Ordo: 6th Ordinary Sunday).

Tell about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass. I hear that it is growing. Of COURSE.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

Those of you who regularly viewed my live-streamed daily Masses – with their fervorini – for over a year, you might drop me a line.

I have some written remarks about the TLM Mass for this Sunday – HERE

AND…. did you know that these Gesima Sundays have Roman Station churches assigned to them?

CQ CQ CQ: Ham Radio – #ZedNet reminder – 27 February ’22

Posted on 27 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fellow hams, here’s a reminder about ZedNet for Sunday 27 February ’22 – evening at 2000h EST. (0100h ZULU Monday).

We now have the site running: http://zednet.xyz

Zednet exists on the…

Yaesu System Fusion (Wires-X) “room” 28598, and 83466 which is cross-linked to
Brandmeister (BM) DMR worldwide talkgroup 31429 (More HERE)
Echolink WB0YLE-R

Fellow hams who have access locally to a Yaesu System Fusion repeater, a repeater on the BM network, or a multi-mode hotspot registered with BM can get on and have a rag chew…. 24/7/365

Want to get involved? WB0YLE provided a Bill Of Materials, with links, for what you need. HERE THIS WAS UPDATED on 22 March 2021

I created a page for the List of YOUR callsigns. HERE Chime in or drop me a note if your call doesn’t appear in the list.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
1 Comment

What is at the heart of the progressivist attacks on the Traditional Latin Mass and the accusations that people who want it are “against Vatican II”? Here’s what it is.

Posted on 27 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A little over a year ago, I read something from one of the foremost of the “self-promoting through papalotry” voices of the ecclesiologically progressive gang. It was alarming in its implications.

What I had read was a claim that Vatican II was the interpretive principle through which all of Tradition had to be reinterpreted.

I have been mulling this over for a long time now.

The alarm went off again this week when I saw this tweet from Beans.

What Beans is talking about here is the important address Benedict XVI gave to the Roman Curia before Christmas in 2005, his talk about how to interpret the Second Vatican Council. Benedict identified an interpretive approach or hermeneutic of continuity against a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture.

Here’s some of that talk with my emphases:

The question arises: Why has the implementation of the Council, in large parts of the Church, thus far been so difficult?

Well, it all depends on the correct interpretation of the Council or – as we would say today – on its proper hermeneutics, the correct key to its interpretation and application. The problems in its implementation arose from the fact that two contrary hermeneutics came face to face and quarrelled with each other. One caused confusion, the other, silently but more and more visibly, bore and is bearing fruit.

On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call “a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture”; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the “hermeneutic of reform”, of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.

The hermeneutic of discontinuity risks ending in a split between the pre-conciliar Church and the post-conciliar Church. It asserts that the texts of the Council as such do not yet express the true spirit of the Council. It claims that they are the result of compromises in which, to reach unanimity, it was found necessary to keep and reconfirm many old things that are now pointless. However, the true spirit of the Council is not to be found in these compromises but instead in the impulses toward the new that are contained in the texts.

These innovations alone were supposed to represent the true spirit of the Council, and starting from and in conformity with them, it would be possible to move ahead. Precisely because the texts would only imperfectly reflect the true spirit of the Council and its newness, it would be necessary to go courageously beyond the texts and make room for the newness in which the Council’s deepest intention would be expressed, even if it were still vague.

In a word: it would be necessary not to follow the texts of the Council but its spirit. In this way, obviously, a vast margin was left open for the question on how this spirit should subsequently be defined and room was consequently made for every whim.

The nature of a Council as such is therefore basically misunderstood. In this way, it is considered as a sort of constituent that eliminates an old constitution and creates a new one.

This, friends, points in the direction of the foundational ideas of the progressivist attacks on the people who want Traditional sacred liturgical worship.

Eventually the progressivists want to sweep aside Catholic moral teaching, discipline, and worship. Those who desire traditional sacred worship stand in the way of those objectives. This is because “we are our rites”. Worship is doctrine. It is our identity. Therefore, people who want traditional worship must be shoved to the periphery and … over it.

Here is the core of the progressivist complaint against “trads” and, indeed, conservatives in general whom they claim are “against Vatican II”. That’s the constant accusation isn’t it?

Here is the connection with Benedict XVI’s 2005 talk, which Beans mentioned above. Beans gave us the compass for their map.

NB: Benedict XVI’s Christmas Curia talk was a critique of German Jesuit Karl Rahner’s thoughts about the Council, which are the essential fuel driving what progressivists are doing today to bring about their goals, the approval of all manner of innovation from the transformation of the Church into a global NGO to the approval of sodomy.

Beans’ tweet, above, accuses Benedict of not knowing what he was talking about in his own talk. But Benedict’s talk was a criticism of Rahner’s view of the Council. Ergo….!

… we must turn our attention to that monumentally important figure for theology in the second half of the last century, Fr. Karl Rahner, SJ (what else).

To keep this short, here is Rahner’s understanding of Vatican II.

In 1979 Rahner published an article in Theological Studies called “Towards a Fundamental Theological Interpretation of Vatican II”. For Rahner, Vatican II constituted a unique event, tantamount to the foundational “Apostolic” Council of Jerusalem recounted in Acts 15 which, among other concrete issues, dealt with the nascent Church being comprised of both Jews and Gentiles. For Rahner, Vatican II was unique in the sense that the Council of Jerusalem was unique, beginning a new era in the Church. No other Council was like it. The Council of Jerusalem brought in the Gentiles in a way that made the Church essentially Judeo-Hellenic in the Roman world, thus leading to centuries of Eurocentric or Western cultural domination of the Church. Vatican II, for Rahner, shattered that framework, transforming the Eurocentric Church into a “world Church”.

Moreover, Vatican II was such a titanic and dynamic event that it is ongoing. Hence the “impulses”, which Benedict mentioned, are still at work in the ongoing “spirit” of Vatican II. Rahner reiterated his notions about Vatican II in a 1979 talk at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, where he argued that Vatican II was the self-actualization of a “world Church”, no longer predominantly Eurocentric, but now influenced and even steered by the Southern Hemisphere, etc.

At the Council of Jerusalem, they had to cope with a shift from a monocultural Church to one that embraced many cultures. Vatican II was another tectonic shift, opening to the whole world and, indeed, letting in the whole world. That has implications, of course. How does such a Church embrace such diversity and still remain the same Church, handed down in continuity? What is inculturation? What if there are conflicts with the world’s ways in culture X or Y?

The progressives, imbued with Rahner’s notion of the Council as a unique and ongoing event, a reimagining of the Church as it were, claim themselves to be justified not just to interpret but to reinterpret all of the Church’s history, liturgy, doctrine and discipline.

Because they stand not on the texts of the Council but the “impulses” they derive from the texts and the “spirit” of those impulses, and because Vatican II is “ongoing”, everything that the Church does in Cult (worship), Code (disciple) and Creed (doctrine) is subject to abolition, transformation, etc. according to the needs of the world.

It makes no difference that John XXIII at the opening of the Council said in his “Gaudet Mater Ecclesia” speech, that this Council, Vatican II, required the same accuracy and precision as Trent and Vatican I, or that certain and immutable doctrines, though expressed in new terms, must remain with their meaning preserved intact.

It is no wonder that Beans and others look condescendingly at Ratzinger, who stands in opposition to Rahner’s false notion of the Council as constituting a tectonic shift in the Church unlike every other Council all the back to the primoradial, pre-ecumenical Council of Jerusalem.

The framework that the progressivists are working from is Rahner’s notion that Vatican II was the self-actualization of a “world Church”, no longer bound by Eurocentric thought or modes of expression. Hence, if celibacy isn’t really a thing in, say, Africa, then celibacy probably has to go. If this is a world Church open to the cultures of non-Westerners, then why can’t you have Pachamama on the altar of St. Peter’s? Why not have all manner of cultural expressions in the Mass? The one thing that is truly questionable is, of course, anything that is done the way things were always done.

You can, from this point of view, see why the Rahnerian framework justifies promotion of … anything… as acceptable, nay rather, obligatory in the Church.

You can see why they fear the Traditional Latin Mass, and all that it stands for.

Posted in Benedict XVI, Classic Posts, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Jesuits, Liberals, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Save The Liturgy - Save The World, The Drill, Vatican II, What are they REALLY saying?, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged beans, Benedict XVI, hermeneutic of continuity, Karl Rahner
21 Comments

Daily Rome Shot 429, etc.

Posted on 27 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today’s Fervorino. HERE

WORDLE

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10% off with code:
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Posted in Sermons | Tagged Rome Shot, sermon, Wordle
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ASK FATHER: Priest berated me for confessing venial sins and then used the wrong form of absolution. What should I do?

Posted on 26 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I recently attempted to make a good confession. Aside from the fact that the priest literally berated me for confessing “venial sins” which he said “have no place in the confessional”, after my act of contrition he said “your sins are forgiven”. He did not say “I absolve you of your sins in the name for the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”. Does this failure to obey the proper form make my confession invalid and should I repeat my confession? Thank you in advance for your help.

Okay, I have now calmed down. No longer do I see before my eyes a field of burning hot red.

Bad confessional experiences are truly horrible. I’ve had them myself. Sometimes they happen because the priest is having a bad day, or something is wrong with him. However, most of them would be avoided were the priest to decide not to be a total jackass and remember how vulnerable people can be. As a matter of fact, such treatment in the confessional suggests to me that perhaps the priest hasn’t made his own confession very recerntly.

For consolation for you and for any young priests reading this, I’ll offer a personal note. As a confessor, when a penitent gets into the confessional, the first thing I do is bless the person whether they say “Bless me, Father” or not and I also ask our angels to keep away any interference of demons, fallen angels, who might attempt to distract or hinder the person from making a good confession and me from giving any advice which my 30+ years of experience and guidance of the Holy Spirit might prompt. Also, during confession, I try to keep track at least in a general way what penances I gave so that I, myself, can do them for the people I absolved, in case they forget or neglect to do them. I keep my penances rather consistent anyway, so it is fairly easy to remember based on the number of penitents, that way the special ones stick in my head even though – and priests will tell you this – it is amazing how fast you forget the sins you just heard. It’s a grace. And I scrupulously, punctiliously, say the words of absolution in Latin exactly according to the form, without any deviation.

So, you young priests out there. Bless and bind demons. Be willing to do penance for your penitents. Say The Black and Do The Red.

That was my advice to confessors, especially younger guys.

Here’s advice for penitents.

First, review

Fr. Z’s 20 Tips For Making A Good Confession

Also, dear dear dear readers, for the love of all that is holy, do not ramble. Keep it short and just spit it out. Examine your conscience before getting into the box. Be clear, be brief, be gone.

Enough of the digression.

If, friend, what you have related here is accurate, not embellished, and if you did not go on and on with venial sins for 20 minutes or so, then here is what I, calmly now, have to say.

So, venial sins “have no place in the confessional”, you say? Is that so!

Let’s look at the 1983 Code of Canon Law:

Can. 988 §1. A member of the Christian faithful is obliged to confess in kind and number all grave sins committed after baptism and not yet remitted directly through the keys of the Church nor acknowledged in individual confession, of which the person has knowledge after diligent examination of conscience.

§2. It is recommended to the Christian faithful that they also confess venial sins.

Venial sins merit temporal punishment and, if repeated and not dealt with, dispose a person to sin mortally (CCC 1863). That sounds like confessional material to me.

If there is adequate time, it is entirely proper to confess venial sins, at least those which are most concerning. You might say, “Father, I have two bothersome venial sins, which are [say them], and several others if there is time.”

Nevertheless, the Code of Canon Law makes it clear that a person has the right (not an absolute right, of course) to confess also venial sins, when circumstances allow. You are not obliged to confession venial sins, but it is a good thing to do when you can.

As far as what you say the priest said for the words of absolution: NO. “Your sins are forgiven”, is NOT a valid form of absolution.

I recommend that you go to another confessor, make your good confession of mortal sins in kind and number, and major venial sins, while checking with the priest about time, as I mention above.

A couple other things.

If what you have related here is accurate, if the priest is the pastor of the parish, I would communicate this experience to the local diocesan bishop. Write to him what you wrote to me. Don’t editorialize… unless, perhaps, you can honestly say that you were, indeed, rambling.

If the priest really didn’t use the proper form of absolution, you can and should let the bishop know. If he “berated you”, you should let him know.

The Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum says that we all have a responsibility to make sure that the liturgical rites of the Church are celebrated properly and without abuses. What happened in that confessional was an abuse of the rite and of you as a penitent. RS says with my emphasis:

[184.] Any Catholic, whether Priest or Deacon or lay member of Christ’s faithful, has the right to lodge a complaint regarding a liturgical abuse to the diocesan Bishop or the competent Ordinary equivalent to him in law, or to the Apostolic See on account of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. It is fitting, however, insofar as possible, that the report or complaint be submitted first to the diocesan Bishop. This is naturally to be done in truth and charity.

In fact, this goes to the very heart of what that parish priest’s role is in the Church and to the promises me made at his ordination, which he renews at the Chrism Mass. Again, Redemptionis Sacramentum:

[31.] In keeping with the solemn promises that they have made in the rite of Sacred Ordination and renewed each year in the Mass of the Chrism, let Priests celebrate “devoutly and faithfully the mysteries of Christ for the praise of God and the sanctification of the Christian people, according to the tradition of the Church, especially in the Eucharistic Sacrifice and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation”. They ought not to detract from the profound meaning of their own ministry by corrupting the liturgical celebration either through alteration or omission, or through arbitrary additions. For as St. Ambrose said, “It is not in herself . . . but in us that the Church is injured. Let us take care so that our own failure may not cause injury to the Church”. Let the Church of God not be injured, then, by Priests who have so solemnly dedicated themselves to the ministry. Indeed, under the Bishop’s authority let them faithfully seek to prevent others as well from committing this type of distortion.

Mind you, you could also go to the priest himself, and maybe that could be warranted. But you should remember that the priest will be at a disadvantage, because he is bound by the Seal of Confession. He cannot, must not, say anything about what happened in the confessional. Even if you give him explicit permission to talk about that particular moment in the internal forum of sacramental confession, he should be reticent and circumspect about what he says.

You could, however, simply give him your observations about

what can. 988 §2 says
what CCC 1863 says
what RS 31 says
what RS 184 says

Perhaps with those texts on a sheet of paper.

It seems fair also, if you write to the local bishop, to show him what you wrote or, if it was a phone call, a summary of the call.

It also seems appropriate to give him a copy of the proper form of absolution.

God, the Father of mercies, through the death and resurrection of his Son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, + and of the Holy Spirit.

Deus, Pater misericordiárum, qui per mortem et resurrectiónem Fílii sui mundum sibi reconciliávit et Spíritum Sanctum effúdit in remissiónem peccatórum, per ministérium Ecclésiæ indulgéntiam tibi tríbuat et pacem. Et ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii,+ et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Printable HERE: Form of Absolution English Latin TEXT BOX

Finally, may I suggest that you pray for that priest and take on some mortification for him? It may be that he needs special prayers. Take a look at the Daily Prayer for Priests, which is also always on the sidebar of this blog: HERE

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, 1983 CIC can. 915, ASK FATHER Question Box | Tagged can. 988, confession, sacrament of penance, venial sins
16 Comments

Daily Rome Shot 428, etc.

Posted on 26 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

No fervorino today.

WORDLE

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Rome Shot, Wordle
1 Comment

Egge Satterday

Posted on 26 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Each year for a while, the inimitable Fr. Hunwicke has been explaining the details about Saturday before Ash Wednesday as Egge Saturday, the Festum Ovorum at Oxford. The discussion of musk and grapes, etc., is … engaging. Yolks not for yokels.

This is not to be confused with the Curate’s Egg.

Moreover, while reading in Card. Pell’s prison diary [US HERE – UK HERE], I was reinforced in the urgency of praying for my personal enemies but also for enemies of the Church, who are inside the gates.

Luke 6:27-28 “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Dear enemies, I am still praying for you.

BONUS: All yolks aside, QUAERITUR: Why do the French eat only one egg at a time?

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged Egge Satterday, eggs
6 Comments

Roche Clips 01: “It’s not uncommon for newly-ordained priests coming out of seminaries in the Western world to almost immediately start celebrating the Tridentine Mass.”

Posted on 25 February 2022 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

RU-486 (aka The Bitter Pill aka The Tablet) has an piece by – what could go wrong with this? – a papalatrous ensign of the New catholic Red Guards (aka Lambchop – biretta tip Eccles o{]:¬) ) sort of with and about Archbp. Roche, former and not-so-successful head of ICEL, now head of the CDW.

It is not an interview. Lamb quotes Roach on and off.

Some lowlights.

No… there are too many for one post.

It is a sad fact that when people say outrageous things, it takes ten times the number of words to refute them. That is the case here. Hence, I will limit myself in this post to just one of many. It was hard to pick the first one, since so many deserve the drill.

Mind you, the piece is a stewy mix of Lamb and Roach. It is hard to tell where the editorializing of one leaves off and the notions of the other begin. Let’s assume that they are in a kind of Vulcan mind meld. No… better… let’s assume that they are both tuned to that special call sign on a radio frequency, 1968MHz, which only they and their circle can hear, let’s call it GNØSTC. My emphases and comments:

[…]

It’s not uncommon for newly-ordained priests coming out of seminaries in the Western world to almost immediately start celebrating the Tridentine Mass. [Of course. That’s because they want to give thanks to God in a more perfect way and also to complete their priestly formation.] Roche’s congregation is calling on seminaries to teach the “richness of the liturgical reform called for by the Second Vatican Council”, [Oh boy. See below.] and any newly-ordained priest wishing to celebrate the Mass using the pre-Vatican II liturgical books will need permission to do so from the Holy See. [Good luck with THAT!] “The Holy Father is concerned about formation,” Roche says, and two years ago he asked the members of his congregation, [See the list HERE – talk about the Lost Boys of Neverland] who include bishops and cardinals from across the world, to discuss the issue. “All of them [Uh huh!] thought that formation was pretty inadequate within seminaries in general as well as within the life of the Church,” and as a result a document is being prepared that Roche says will address the issue.

[…]

There is little question that formation is “inadequate” in seminaries “in general”. By definition it is limited and priesthood is huge, and a lifetime follows.

However, who thinks that the formation in seminaries in general ignores or runs down Vatican II?

On the other hand, who thinks that formation in seminaries in general goes on and on about Vatican II?

I suspect that seminarians hear “Vatican II” so often that they are a little too saturated with it. They have been formed by it and… they are choosing to say the Vetus Ordo “almost immediately”.

Do you see the disconnect?

The libs have had their way with seminaries for decades. There was a bit of an overhaul of seminaries back in the direction of the Catholic Church, but even then the formation of seminarians had a great emphases on Vatican II, it’s just that when the adults were in charge again, they gave seminarians the good stuff about Vatican II, they had them read documents. And now, the seminarians choose almost immediately to say the TLM. It’s not that they don’t know about Vatican II: they know it all too well. I dare say they may have a better perspective on it than Roche, since he is locked into a certain generation.

Let me put it this way.

The seminarians learned all about Vatican II. If they celebrate the Vetus Ordo and the Novus Ordo, they must think that the Vetus Ordo is not out of harmony with Vatican II. Perhaps it even expresses certain aspects of Vatican II better than the Novus Ordo. That said, perhaps they have merely put Vatican II into perspective: just one more Council and, perhaps, not as important as the previous two generations thought.

That said, you can imagine the outrage that will erupt from the Keepers of the Spirit huddled jibbering to their official Synod-approved authentic replica Pachamama figurines.

“NoooooOOOO! You have it all WRONG! **wrongwrongwrongwrongwrongwrong** WEEEE get to say what Vatican II means…..ggggrrrrr…..HEEEEEE HEE HEEEEE!“

For example… get a load of this from Beans from his profound simmering Villanovan crockpot. Beans is referring to the famous, important address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Roman Curia in Dec. 2005, in which he spoke of interpretations of the Council. It was, in fact, a long speech also against Rahner.

So… no one but Beans and few others know what that speech really said. As a matter of fact, not even Cardinal Ratzinger/Benedict XVI knows what it means! Bean & Co. will no doubt be telling us that rupture with the past instead of being rupture with the past, is really continuity with the past.

Mind you, that B as in B, S as in S from Beans reflects another notion of his, namely, that the Council is an interpretive lens (hermeneutic) through which all of previous Cult, Code and Creed, must not just be interpreted, but reinterpreted. Hence, for Beans et al., the Council becomes the measure of continuity over and above everything that comes to us via Tradition. This is one reason why the egg-heads are attacking the TLM… no… the people who want the TLM so viciously.

If you can unmoor Cult, Code and Creed from the past and Tradition, you can reduce the supernatural to the nature without oppositions, make the Church into an globalist NGO, and secure statements of approval for all manner of activity, including sodomy.