Daily Rome Shot 104

Posted on 17 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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“Portable Personal Air Mobility System” – UPDATE – POLL

Posted on 16 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I know that Fr. Finigan would agree that these are long over due.

[UPDATE: On Twitter Fr. F asked for a poll.  Be careful of what you ask for.]

From Military Times:

Jet packs are on their way to a battlefield near you

It’s 2021, and although I thought by now there would be flying cars, cities on the moon and the ability to teleport from my bed to my couch instead of walking, I guess I’ll settle for a jet pack, or as DARPA is calling it, a “Portable Personal Air Mobility System.”

According to a solicitation first reported by Task & Purpose, “These platforms could serve a variety of military missions, enabling cost effective mission utility and agility in areas such as personnel logistics [and] urban augmented combat.”

This isn’t the first time in recent memory that the U.S. military has considered affixing a rocket or wings to the backs of service members and shooting them into the atmosphere. In 2019, Special Operations Command sought to develop “individual lift devices” and found a partner to make it happen.

California-based JetPack Aviation is working on an ILD turbine engine system that is expected to carry special operators 200 miles an hour, for up to 10 minutes, so they can fly from base to battle, hair whipping and lips flapping in the wind. Exhilarating.

Luckily, the DARPA request also gives me some hope that a system for civilians could one day follow, particularly this line: “When deployed, the platform will be designed with simplified operations in mind, so that someone unfamiliar with the platform could be educated in its safe and effective use with relatively little training.”

Is there anything more American than a bunch of untrained hooligans attempting to commute via sky to their offices post-COVID?

UPDATE:

Fr. Finigan, His Hermeneuticalness, asked for a POLL.  I don’t know what sort of poll, but he ASKED for one.  So, here’s a poll.

The registered and approved here can post comments.  The rest of you can take a flying click to some other fascinating site.  But you can still vote.  You can, this time, pick TWO.

I’m opening this one up to multiple choices, just to make it funner.

“Portable Personal Air Mobility System”?

View Results

 

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On the St. Peter’s Mass Suppression Stunt viewed from the Left

Posted on 16 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

People are still talking about the decision to suppress priests’ individual Masses in St. Peter’s Basilica to force everyone into uniformity.

I wrote HERE and HERE.  Card. Burke HERE

At Fishwrap, Christopher White – big surprise here – mischaracterized my main point about the suppression, cherry picking one bit:

Traditionalists such as Fr. John Zuhlsdorf disagree, arguing that the Novus Ordo Masses in St. Peter’s that priests are encouraged to now join or concelebrate will have lectors and cantors that incorporate laypeople and women, reforms of the liturgy that they continue to oppose.

The fact that the forced concelebrated Masses will have – look at how he wrote this – “lectors and cantors that incorporate laypeople and women” – weird – means that everything is going to be in Italian.  So if you are a priest on pilgrimage from, say, Korea or India, you are pretty much hosed, being forced to deal with the Italian.  So much for the full, conscious and active participation of the non-Italian faithful, too.  When individuals priests would come from the sacristy to find an altar, many of the pilgrims had at least a fighting change of finding a priest who was celebrating the Novus Ordo in a language they knew or who were celebrating in Latin, which favors no one except Roman Catholics… it is the language of the Roman Church, after all.

And I don’t know that traditionalists object to lay cantors: most every schola cantorum is made up of lay people, even though there is a strong argument to be made that they ought to be clerics.   I know I don’t have a problem with a lay schola.   Lectors… that’s another matter.  Most of the Novus Ordo crew fall into the trap of thinking that the readings are didactic moments, whereas the well-formed traditionalists understand that also the readings are raised to God as an oblation.   They should be read by the priest, for sure.  But even traditionalists in some places will have a cleric or lay man, read the readings in the vernacular as Father reads them in Latin at the altar.  It is done.  Some trads don’t favor that, but it is done.

Anyway, the real point is that this horrible suppression violates the freedom of both priests and laity, seeks to impose unnecessary uniformity, denies the priests and people of a unique experience and memory.  It’s just plain bad.

I dismiss the cliché-ridden defenses offered in Fishwrap by Fr. Mark Francis and Fr. John Baldovin, with his attack on Benedict XVI, out of hand.   Pfffft.

Lastly, I like the tone of my friend Fr. de Souza’s reaction to this debacle.  He uses an interesting term which he coined, aptly.  HERE

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New catholic Red Guards, Our Catholic Identity, Save The Liturgy - Save The World, The Drill | Tagged , , , ,
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Reactions to CDF Statement forbidding blessings of same-sex unions – UPDATED

Posted on 16 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 17 March:

Originally Published on: Mar 16, 2021

Here’s irony for you.

As you know by now, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement that same-sex unions cannot receive the Church’s blessing.  They can’t be blessed because, to put it succinctly in the words used by the Congregation, “[God] does not and cannot bless sin”.

On the other hand, as you may recall, someone in the Curia thought it would be a good idea to spend your money, through your donations, on a film that glorified same-sex … sex.

From Breitbart:

As Breitbart News reported in December, 2019, the Vatican sunk $1.1 million into the steamy Elton John film as one of a series of controversial investments including partnership in an eyewear firm, financing of a company making parts for nuclear power plants, and hundreds of millions in London property development.

The Rocketman film features a liaison between actor Taron Egerton, who plays Elton John, and Richard Madden, who appears as John Reid, his former manager, deemed by The Times “the most explicit gay love scene since Brokeback Mountain in 2005.”

This is irony in its most poignant form, a fact pointed out by the subject of the film, Elton John, who has called out the Vatican for hypocrisy.

In the same Breitbart piece:

“How can the Vatican refuse to bless gay marriages because they ‘are sin’, yet happily make a profit from investing millions in ‘Rocketman’ – a film which celebrates my finding happiness from my marriage to David?? #hypocrisy” John wrote on Twitter Monday.

[…]

In his Monday tweet, Elton John included side-by-side news stories: one of the CDF ban on blessings and the other proclaiming “How the Vatican Spent Millions on Elton John’s Biopic.”

I’m afraid Elton has a point.   Which is not to say that the fault lies with the CDF component.  I think we have to ask, “Who thought spending Peter’s Pence to back a film to glorify ‘gay’ was a good idea?”

It is interesting to note how a few other people reacted to the CDF statement.

Two German bishops, neighbors in Bavaria of Regensburg and Passau, applauded the CDF statement.  Two.  I don’t know of any others, which isn’t much of a surprise.  HERE

The Archbishop of Chicago made a beige statement which surely is a kind of wink and a nod.  HERE

The Jesuit homosexualist activist, James Martin is unhappy.  Never mind that the statement had to have been approved by fellow Jesuit Francis and that Jesuits are supposed to accept the will of their superiors perinde ac cadaver.  HERE  His tweets are melancholy.

Fishwrap is pretty worked up about this.  HERE  Get this headline to see what sort of attitude they have over there. “Vatican says priests can’t bless gay couples. Why did Pope Francis approve this decree?”  “Why oh why!  This is so unfaaaaaaaair!”  NB:  “still”!   Because, you know, wink wink, it’s going to happen some day.

I refer the readership to the CDF’s nutshell statement: “[God] does not and cannot bless sin”.

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2000 year old biblical texts, coins, 10000 year old basket, found in cave in the Judean desert

Posted on 16 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

One of you long-time readers sent me a link to this fascinating story in the Jerusalem Post. Great photos in the piece.

2,000-year-old biblical texts found in Israel, 1st since Dead Sea Scrolls
6,000-year-old child skeleton found together with world’s oldest woven basket in Judean Desert cave • First discovery of this kind since Dead Sea Scrolls.

A 2,000-year-old biblical scroll has been unearthed in the Judean desert, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced Tuesday. The groundbreaking discovery marks the first time that such an artifact has been uncovered in decades, since the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The two dozen fragments were found in a cave in the Judean Desert, as a result of a several-year-long breathtaking rescue operation with the purpose of surveying all the caves of the area, carried out by the IAA in cooperation with the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration.

The scroll was written in Greek, but God’s name appears in paleo-Hebrew. It contains passages from the Minor Prophets, including Nahum.

Besides the manuscript, the cave harbored several other unique findings, including a trove of coins from the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt, the skeleton of a child dating back to some 6,000 years, and a 10,000-year-old exceptionally well-preserved basket which experts say might be the earliest item of this kind ever uncovered.

“These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do not love perjury, because all those are things that I hate – declares the Lord,” one of the fragments reads, featuring an excerpt of the biblical book of Zechariah.

[…]

The cave, known as “the Cave of Horror” in the Judean Desert reserve’s Nahal Hever, stands some 80 meters below the clifftop and can be accessed only by clinging to ropes.

[…]

The conditions of the region remain challenging to this day. Some 80 kilometers of caves have been surveyed within the operation, including very remote and inaccessible hollows. Drones and mountain equipment have been employed; about half of the area is still to be explored.

[…]

Definitely go there and read the whole thing.

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Daily Rome Shot 103

Posted on 16 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Photo by Bree Dail.

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CDF responds about blessing same-sex unions: “[God] does not and cannot bless sin”

Posted on 15 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In a clear and long-overdue slap-down of the German bishops and their dreadful “synod” process, today the CDF released the text of a response to a dubium (that doesn’t happen as often as we would like, does it…) about “blessing unions of persons of the same sex”. HERE  And article about the response HERE

TO THE QUESTION PROPOSED:
Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?

RESPONSE:
Negative.

Then there is an explanation. What does it come down to?

“[God] does not and cannot bless sin”.

There are the usual explanations about pastoral care, this isn’t discrimination, etc. It also stresses that because of the relationship of blessings with sacraments, there is no way that a blessing can be conferred on same-sex couples.

Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing[7] invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”[8].

None of this means that priests can’t bless people with homosexual inclinations. The Church cannot bless the relationships of couples with these inclinations. That would be tantamount to participation in the sin of another.

You can be guilty of the sin committed by another

  1. By counsel (to give advice, one’s opinion or instructions.)
  2. By command (to demand, to order, such as in the military.)
  3. By consent (to give permission, to approve, to agree to.)
  4. By provocation (to dare.)
  5. By praise or flattery (to cheer, to applaud, to commend.)
  6. By concealment (to hide the action, to cover-up.)
  7. By partaking (to take part, to participate.)
  8. By silence (by playing dumb, by remaining quiet.)
  9. By defense of the ill done (to justify, to argue in favour.)

The blessing of same-sex unions would fall under a couple of these categories, consent and probably praise and maybe partaking.

Posted in One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged ,
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BELGIUM: The last Trappist leaves his abbey and one more beer dies off

Posted on 14 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The other day I posted about the wine being produced, now available in these USA, by the great monks of Le Barroux. HERE

Sad news from the Brussels Times, covered also by the SSPX.

All the more reason to preserve TRADITION.   Where Tradition is allowed, vocations will come.

The world is one Trappist beer poorer as abbey loses last monk

In a week that saw Belgium’s most reclusive Trappist brewer turn to home deliveries, the news emerged that one of the six Belgian Trappist breweries will no longer carry the authentic Trappist label.

At the start of this week, the world had 14 authentic Trappist beers, six of them in Belgium: Westvleteren, Westmalle, Orval, Chimay, Rochefort and Achel. The others are spread among the Netherlands with two, and one each in Austria, Italy, the UK, France, Spain and the United States.

Now, at the end of the week, Achel has removed itself from the list. The reason: the abbey no longer has any monks.

[…]

Achel, produced in the monastery known as the Achelse Kluis in Hamont-Achel right on Limburg’s border with the Netherlands, is perhaps the least well-known of the six Belgian Trappists, compared to the ostentatiously minimalist marketing of Westvleteren, or the slick commercial approach of the likes of Chimay or Westmalle.

Since this week, however, it is also the one with no monks. And that is in breach of the condition that a Trappist beer may only be produced in a living, working religious community.

[…]

The SSPX observes that there are only 5 authentic Trappist beers left in Belgium.

[…]

The Trappists, officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, follow the rule of St. Benedict of Nursia (born around AD 480). The Cistercian order is a reformed branch of the Benedictines whose origin dates back to the founding of the Cîteaux Abbey by Robert de Molesme in 1098.

After the Council of Trent, a deep spiritual renewal manifested itself throughout the Church. In the Cistercian Order, it was reflected in the 17th century by the Strict Observance movement, which reform Abbot Armand-Jean Le Bouthillier de Rancé applied to the Abbey of La Trappe, in the forest of Mortagne, Orne, which gave its name to the Trappists.

During the French Revolution, the state confiscated La Trappe monastery and closed religious houses. The monks then took refuge in Switzerland, Russia, and also in Belgium where they settled in Westmalle, in the province of Antwerp in Flanders.

Since 1836, a reform has allowed the Trappists to consume the drinks of their regions. For instance, the French monks produced wine. But in Belgium, the local drink of choice was beer, and so the monks began to brew and the first Trappist beers were born.

In Belgium, five breweries now produce “Authentic Trappist Product” beers: Chimay (Notre-Dame de Scourmont Abbey), Orval (Notre-Dame d’Orval Abbey), Rochefort (Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy Abbey), Westmalle ( Notre-Dame de la Trappe du Sacré-Cœur Abbey), and Westvleteren (Notre-Dame de Saint-Sixte Abbey).

In other parts of the world, six other beers also benefit from this label: La Trappe (Abbey of Our Lady of Koningshoeven) and Zundert (Abbey of Our Lady of the Refuge) in the Netherlands; Spencer (Saint Joseph Abbey, United States); Engelszell (Stiff Engelszell, Austria); Tres Fontanes (Monastery of Saint Vincent and Saint Anastasius at Tres Fontanes, Italy); and Tynt Meadow which has been brewed since 2018 at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in England.

More traditional foundings, more monks, more beer. Everyone wins.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, ACTION ITEM!, Cri de Coeur, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged ,
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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 4th – Laetare Sunday of Lent 2021 and POLL: Rose Vestments

Posted on 14 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at the Mass for your Sunday (obligation or none), either live or on the internet? Let us know what it was.

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

Also, are your churches opening up? What was attendance like?

I am on the road.

Let’s have a poll for Laetare Sunday.

Choose your best answer.   If you are registered here and approved (the Secretariat of State would say “authorized”) you can and should comment.

On Laetare Sunday 2021 for Mass the the celebrant wore vestments in the color...

View Results

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, POLLS | Tagged ,
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Daily Rome Shot 102

Posted on 14 March 2021 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Photo by Bree Dail.

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