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{]:¬)

MADISON – 4 Dec – 6:30PM – Solemn Requiem Mass for Bp. Robert C. Morlino

Posted on 4 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Tonight at 6:30PM at St. Mary’s in Pine Bluff, WI, (location) there will be a Solemn Requiem Mass for the late Bp. Robert C. Morlino, who was interred one year ago on this date, 4 December 2018.

Fulton Sheen’s Beatification put on hold at the request of “some bishops”.

Posted on 3 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Via LifeSite:

BREAKING: Vatican postpones beatification of Fulton Sheen after request by some US bishops

VATICAN CITY, December 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — The beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, beloved by generations of American Catholics, has been abruptly put on hold by the Vatican.

“The Holy See decided to postpone the date of Beatification, at the request of a few members of the Bishop’s Conference who have asked for further consideration,” according to a press release from the Diocese of Peoria, where Sheen’s beatification ceremony was to take place.

“In our current climate, it is important for the faithful to know that there has never been, nor is there now, any allegation against Sheen involving the abuse of a minor,” continues the statement. “At no time has his life of virtue ever been called into question.”

Peoria Bishop Danial Jenky “is firmly convinced of the great holiness of the Venerable Servant of God and remains confident that Sheen will be beatified. Bishop Jenky has every intention of continuing the Cause, but no further date for Beatification has been discussed.”

Sheen’s beatification was to take place in less than three weeks, on December 21, at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, Illinois, where Sheen was ordained to the priesthood on September 20, 1919.

[…]

Some bishops?

Yeah, some bishops!

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Fulton J. Sheen
84 Comments

ACTION ITEM! #GivingTuesday suggestions from @FatherZ

Posted on 3 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Americans are generous. Catholics are generous. We are hard-wired to help. We are especially interested in concrete ways to help, not vaporous. We are also a little concerned about how the money we contribute is used. I am.

Here are suggestions for your donation dollars.

First, year in and year out I have recommended a clinic here in Madison, Our Lady of Hope Clinic. OLHC It is run entirely on Catholic moral principles and it provides health care for the poor. I go there. I contribute. CLICK HERE The average cost of a visit to OLHC is approximately $80. A gift of $150 pays for nearly 2 doctor’s visits for a uninsured patient. Right now and through the end of the year, there is a generous donor who will match your donation. You donation will have twice the impact. A little while ago, I brought them a Daniel Mitsui print of Our Lady of Hope which I blessed and which now hangs in their waiting room. The Clinic is trying to expand. I have a strong sense of goodness when I go there.

Next, the TMSM, the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison. CLICK HERE. This also a 501(c)3 organization. I am the president for some years now. We have over the years been building a good treasury of vestments. One day a cathedral will be built here and we will have worthy vestments for pontifical ceremonies. We are going to turn our attention to new aspects of spreading and fostering Tradition in the next years. Donations have come in from readers all over the country. In turn, I firmly believe that the work of the TMSM, made known through this blog, has helped to inspire people in other places to get organized. We depend on you and I am grateful for the help. What we are doing, I believe, helps to raise the tide that helps all boats to rise.

Also, would you also consider giving support to the Archdiocese for Military Services (AMS)? CLICK HERE Chaplains play a mission critical role for our troops and their dependents. Remember that the families of those who are serving are also under the AMS, wherever they are. The Archdiocese for the Military is a complicated operation. Your support will help them provide spiritual care for people who are giving their lives to serve. Over the years the time I have spent on bases has given me explicit demonstrations of how appreciated chaplains are and how important they are. For example, during some months ago I subbed at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. At the chapel, at the hospital, around and about, many young people wanted to engage. Support the AMS and support Catholic chaplains, seminarians and candidates for chaplaincy. Also, I know of your support for chaplains. You proved help when my friend Commander Johnson lost all his vestments when they airplane we had both been on went into the river on landing in Jacksonville. You donated and had travel vestments made for him. Let’s keep our support going, and tell them Fr. Z sent you!

Posted in ACTION ITEM! | Tagged donations
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New gear from Rome: Vimpae and BUCKLES!

Posted on 2 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

New gear came from Rome, today. I had a pair of vimpae made with Bp. Hying’s coat-of-arms.

These are used during Masses with bishops by the ministers who hold the miter and the crosier.

Also, there are silver shoe buckles.

According to a Decree of the Sacred Congregation for Rites 3268, 3 and and to Nainfa’s Costume of Prelates of the Catholic Church, According to Roman Etiquette, that clerics had to/have to have shoes with polished steel buckles. Big shots could/can have gilded buckles. The Caerimoniale Episcoporum now in force says: Calcei sint usuales, nigri coloris, sine fibulis. Paul VI with Dress, Titles, and Coat of Arms of Cardinals, Bishops and Lesser Prelates abolished buckles in 1969.

1969. Other than the Camaro, not a good year.*

In any event, because of Summorum Pontificum and Universae Ecclesiae we ignore the abolitionist Paul VI’s move in 1969 when we use the Extraordinary. That is to say, we use the manner of dress for Mass and for being in choir as it was in 1962. That means that we do use the mantelletta, the sash with tassels, the shoe buckles, the red poms on the biretta for prelates of honor, the mantellone for lesser prelates.

This is not because we want to make Mass into a kind of liturgical Colonial Williamsburg, but rather as a counter to the rank individualism which has so infected clergy in the last 50 years and to foster humility.

Dressing up bishops and priests is not about finery and frippery. It isn’t about the cleric at all. It’s about preparing the victim for the altar. It’s about giving our best to God. It’s about decorum and humility. The rules for dress, like the rubrics for Mass, kept the cleric under tight control, just as uniforms do in the military, etc. I think it is appalling that certain priests or prelates, low and high, refuse to put on this thing or that thing which their office or occasion or liturgical role requires because, by gum, they know better. That’s rank clericalism. That’s exaltation of self. When you see a patient bishop standing mute and docile as he is being dressed for a Pontifical Mass, when you see the priest laboring under hot and sometimes uncomfortable vestments and you view the action through the lenses of the particular vesting prayers, something of the genius inhering of the Roman Rite begins to shine through in a kind of liturgical transfiguration.

It is like the Pauline concept of putting on “the new man”, manifested in ritual gesture. In Galatians, Paul writes: “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me.”

In the vesting of a bishop before Mass he prayers with the words of Ephesians 6:15 and Psalm 60:5: “Shod my feet, Lord, unto the preparation of the gospel of peace, and protect me under the cover of thy wings.”

We conform to the rites and the rites shape us. We are our rites.

This is why the rites themselves ought to change ever so slowly, in an organic way, always in continuity, not with the brutal imposition of artificially created and innovation riddled forms. That is why we need to reestablish the Roman use and then have a long period of stability in which we once again become comfortable in the rites, not in the self-consciousness of learning or novelty.

I’ve written about buckles before, and I added the observation that Summorum Pontificum was , if you get my drift.

Anyway, it seems that the laws still in force in 1962 priests were directed to have buckles on their shoes for Mass even if that was honored more in the breach and in the observance. I’m looking for the text of the Decree from the Sacred Congregation for Rites about buckles on the priest’s shoes for Mass. Maybe one of you readers has already done this.

So, I considering now the use of buckles. How do they look?

* Not to be confused with the camauro, which when it was worn Benedict XVI there was some serious horsepower under the hood.

Posted in Hard-Identity Catholicism, Lighter fare, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Priests and Priesthood | Tagged choir dress, clerical attire, vimpae, We Are Our Rites
16 Comments

D. Grand Rapids – Priest denies Communion to Lesbian judge married to a woman. He’s now under attack.

Posted on 2 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 2 Dec 2019:

This story has now thudded into a hardly surprising new phase. HERE She went to a Methodist “inclusion” gathering and tool their “communion”.

I like the bit in the video where she says, “It’s not about me.”

ROFL!

You can tell a lot about what this woman understands about the Faith she said she belonged it. In fact, she belongs to another religion altogether. And note the video of her taking Methodist “communion”.

Also interesting is the choice of this news station to keep milking the story for every last drop of anti-Catholicism.

As the manual theologian Prümmer points out, Catholics must not take part in a non-Catholic ritual action (which is what she did) with the intention of worshiping God (if she was there for that and not just to get on the news – and it could be both) in the manner of non-Catholics because such an act is tantamount to denial of the Catholic Faith. You can, for example, attend the non-Catholic wedding or a funeral of a relative or friend, but you cannot receive their “communion”.

UPDATE:

The Diocese of Grand Rapids is backing up the priest, Fr. Nolan!

This is good news.

Statement regarding St. Stephen parish

I am pleased that the Diocese is backing the priest in this matter. It’s an important signal to priests and laity alike. We must pray for our priests and our bishops as The Present Crisis™ ramps up.

How long will it be before Jesuits complain?

Three… Two… One…

___Originally Published on: Nov 26, 2019 at 22:49

From WOOD TV in Grand Rapids, MI. Note how spectacularly biased and poorly written.

EGR priest denies Communion to gay judge
GRAND RAPIDS
by: Barton Deiters

EAST GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Judge Sara Smolenski, chief judge of the Kent County District Court, has been denied Communion at the church where she has been a parishioner for more than six decades because she is married to a woman. [Length of registration or, probably, imagining that you are a parishioner, is irrelevant.]

It is a move that for many was the final straw in a pattern of behavior that has them calling for the removal of a priest — a priest who came to St. Stephen Catholic Church about three years ago. [The antecedent suggests that the married lesbians are the “them”.]

In 1966, under the leadership of Rev. Msgr. Edward N. Alt, St. Stephen Catholic School became the first integrated Catholic school in Metro Grand Rapids and had a student body that was nearly 40 percent non-Catholic. [More irrelevant padding. So what?]

This tradition of inclusion and acceptance would be the essence of the school and the church for 50 years. [Except that what is not being included is tradition. And 50 years means nothing.]

But now, some here say that is changing. [Some.]

“I’ve been a member of St. Stephen’s Catholic Parish for 62 years, basically,” Smolenski said. [Some.. and we are back to the lesbian.]

Smolenski who has been on the bench for nearly 30 years, [30 years on the bench… so she ought to know better about law. How does such an antinomian sleep?]comes from a family of prominent community members, including her father who was also a district court judge, and her brother, a state appeals court judge. [So what? All these family relations are irrelevant.]

“I was baptized there, my parents were married there, every one of my nine siblings went to school (from) first through eighth grade. We buried my parents out of that school,” Smolenski said. “This is a church that is a part of who I am. This is a church who helped form my faith.” [Quidquid recipitur…]

News 8 featured Smolenski in March of 2016, when she became the first Kent County elected official to marry someone of the same sex.

But it was just last Saturday that Smolenski got a call from the parish priest, Father Scott Nolan. [So… the parish priest reached out. I wonder if she reached out to the priest before civilly marrying a woman (a public act).]

“The way he said it was ‘because you’re married to Linda in the state of Michigan, you cannot accept communion,’ that’s how he said it,” Smolenski explained. [What was he supposed to say? Beat around the bush with a woman who supposedly has said a lot blunter things in her courtroom?] “I try to be a good and faithful servant to our Lord Jesus Christ. My faith is a huge part of who I am, but it is the church that made that faith, the very church where he is taking a stance and saying ho-ho, not you.” [Something is missing here. She seems to think that she is only a member of that parish and not the larger Church.]

It was a devastating revelation for the lifelong Catholic who months earlier gave $7,000 to the parish building fund. [She gave $7000!!! Well, she should get Communion for that!]

“Oh my gosh, I’m not going to get Jesus at the church I have devoted my life to,” Smolenski said, fighting back tears. “I thought of my mom and dad who devoted their whole life to raising us Catholic, spending all that money at the Catholic education.” [It is entirely possible that her mom and dad would get why an open lesbian shouldn’t be receiving Communion.]

Smolenski was not the first person to be denied, according to a dozen people News 8 talked to Tuesday, including one same-sex couple who was denied the Eucharist during their child’s communion service. [So, she wasn’t being singled out. The priest isn’t knuckling under just because she’s a judge or she gave $7000.]

“The public shunning — everything about it was offensive,” Smolenski said of the denial months before her own.

[…]

There’s more of this rubbish.

This is the bottom line: Force the Church to conform to you. If the priest doesn’t comply with your demands, don’t for a moment consider that he also has a job to do with laws and doctrines, attack and intimidate.

The article goes on to cite Francis.

The UK’s Catholic Herald has a recent issue with the cover: Communion Wars.

If there are Communion Wars, I suggest that they are rising partly because a certain person is forcing priests more and more to examine their vocations and make hard choices.

Also, every one of these episodes is an opportunity to bear witness to the truth about the Eucharist and our Catholic identity, especially in our liturgical rites.

We are our rites.

Posted in 1983 CIC can. 915, Canon Law | Tagged can. 915, D. Grand Rapids, denial of Holy Communion, homosexualist agenda, We Are Our Rites
46 Comments

VIDEO: Transit of Mercury

Posted on 2 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Just for fun. From APOD.

I especially like the “We’re all going to die!” music.

Posted in Look! Up in the sky! | Tagged transit of mercury
2 Comments

VIDEO: Bp. Hying of @MadisonDiocese – “Let Advent Be Advent”

Posted on 2 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Bp. Donald Hying of Madison posts brief videos each day on a range of topics.

Today, he speak about Advent.

Posted in The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged ADVENT, Bp. Donald Hying
2 Comments

Two good commentaries today on the works of @JamesMartinSJ

Posted on 2 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There are two good recent commentaries available about the dark works of the relentless Jesuit homosexualist activist James Martin.

At Crisis there is a piece by Kevin Wells which compares Martin’s works to those of Fred Rogers. My emphases.

Mr. Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, seemed remarkably untethered to anyone or anything outside of his Christ-appointed mission to help children see their own unique dignity and value. He knew of life’s monsters; his mission was to ennoble children before the monsters could strike.

For several years now, Fr. James Martin, appearing like-minded, has been tender-hearted in his care for those experiencing same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria. Unlike Mr. Rogers, Fr. Martin seems to be enabling rather than ennobling. And it is for this reason that he has become one of the monsters.

[…]

It’s a shame, because it doesn’t have to be this way. Fr. Martin could die a saint and be remembered as one of the great forces for good in this world if he decides to be a Catholic priest rooted in the fullness of Truth.

Recently, Fr. Martin tweeted, “Interesting: ‘Where the Bible mentions [homosexual] behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether the biblical judgment is correct.’ ” This tweet marked the moment when Fr. Martin could have been converted by a hailstorm of fraternal correction from fellow priests and clergy. But nothing happened. Bishops and priests—save a very few—remained mute in the aftermath of the offending tweet.

Because of Fr. Martin’s Mr. Rogers-like warmth, friendly smile [“La faccia sua era faccia d’uom giusto…”] and accompanying words, many millions—gay and straight alike—have rooted themselves to him. He is regarded as the long-muted prophetic voice of God. And because so many thousands of bishops and priests have muted their own prophetic voice on the complementarity of the sexes, Fr. Martin’s subterranean fight to normalize homosexual relations and same-sex marriage has been emboldened and advanced. His words, tweets, and thoughts will continue to spread throughout the world like an invisible poisonous gas.

Mr. Rogers was rooted to God in accompanying children. He unearthed and remedied the wounds caused by fathers; Fr. Martin affirms those wounds.

[…]

Invisible poisonous gas.

Next, Fr. Dwight Longenecker comments on Martin’s inevitable whine about the denial of Communion to an openly Lesbian judge in Michigan who civilly “married” a women in Michigan. Fr. Scott Nolan of the Diocese of Grand Rapids denied her Communion. She went to the press. There was a hideously biased hit piece published, to which I reacted HERE. The local bishop wound up backing the priest, thanks be to God.

Of course it was only a matter of micro-seconds before inveterate tweeter Martin stuck his nose in.

Fr. Longenecker dissects some of Martin’s tweets about the affair. Here is one, just as a sample. My emphases and comments:

James Martin: As with all these sad cases, the question is: Why are only married LGBT people being singled out? Is Communion denied to all parishioners who are not following church teachings? That is, married couples using birth control or IVF? Or young people engaging in pre-marital sex?

DL: LGBT people are not being “singled out” for not following church teachings. Ms Smolenski was not denied communion because she is a lesbian. She is not even being denied communion for being in a lesbian relationship. She is being denied communion because she “married” another woman. [She committed scandal. In can. 915 the Church focuses on public acts that cause scandal.] This is not simply a matter of “not following church teachings.” By attempting a marriage with a woman Ms Smolenski publicly, formally and irremediably denied the Catholic teaching about marriage. [The judge could remedy the situation by publicly announcing a civil divorce and then publicly denouncing what she did,with an expression if adherence to the Church’s teachings.That would help to repair the scandal she caused.]

Marriage is a Catholic sacrament. It is one of the means of grace. For it to be a valid sacrament it requires proper form, minister and matter. The proper matter is the conjugal act. The proper ministers are the man and woman marrying one another. Therefore to attempt a same sex marriage is not simply “not following church teachings” it is rejecting church teachings and doing so formally and publicly. When a Catholic attempts a same sex marriage they are rejecting the Catholic teaching about the sacraments.

That Fr Martin does not admit this or teach this indicates either that he is very poorly educated (but he is a Jesuit so that can’t be the case) or he is deliberately misleading God’s people.

Attempting to marry a person of the same sex is not at the same level of commitment as a couple using birth control or IVF or someone committing fornication. All these sins are private sins and can be repented of. [They are “occult”, private, not publicly known. That can be taken care of in the confessional. Civil marriage is a public act.] In a same sex marriage the person is not just “not following church teaching.” They are rejecting church teaching. They are saying by their words and actions, “Gay sex is not a sin. It is something to be celebrated. It is something God blesses. The Catholic Church is wrong and I am publicly, formally declaring that I reject the Catholic Church’s teaching.”

In other words it is not breaking the rules it is rejecting the rules and in rejecting the rules rejecting the authority that sets those rules.

This distinction is something any eighth grade confirmation student could understand. [Hence, Martin understands it. He just rejects it.]

It is important to know what the homosexualists are doing. They are patiently, though less and less so, engaging in a kind of permineralization process, like to how over time minerals replace organic matter to create fossiles. The homosexualists are trying to replace the Church’s clear teaching with ambiguities that cause doubt and then self-justification. Note how, some time ago, Martin admitted that Scriptures clearly state that homosexual acts are sins. Then, incredibly, he called into question the veracity of Scripture, suggesting that Scripture is wrong.

Interesting: “Where the Bible mentions [same-sex sexual] behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether the biblical judgment is correct. The Bible sanctioned slavery as well and nowhere attacked it as unjust.. https://t.co/52jL6NDgRu

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) October 23, 2019

Kevin Wells is reminded of a darker version of Fred Rogers.

I, rather, am reminded of Geryon from the Divine Comedy.

Ecco la fiera con la coda aguzza,
che passa i monti e rompe i muri e l’armi!
Ecco colei che tutto il mondo appuzza!

Lately, I’ve been thinking much about Augustine and his conversion. What an enormous leap he made, with grace-emboldened courage. What a magnificent contribution he subsequently made, worthy of multiplying honors for all time. Wells made a really good point. Martin could be so much more, do such good.

Posted in Sin That Cries To Heaven | Tagged Dante Alighieri, Fr. James Martin SJ, Geryon, homosexualist agenda
11 Comments

ADVENTCAzT 2019 02: When a friend harms you, it hurts all the more.

Posted on 2 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here is ADVENTCAzT 02, for Monday in the 1st Week of Advent.

Today Bp. Schneider talks about how Christ’s friends make Him suffer, Fulton Sheen reflects on how God would work in us and the Lord describes something of the End Times.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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These 5 minute offerings are a token of gratitude especially for my benefactors. Thank you! Chime in if you listened.

Have an idea for a reading in these podcasts? HERE Make some Mystic Monk Coffee and have a listen!
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Posted in ADVENTCAzT, PODCAzT | Tagged ADVENT, ADVENTCAzT, Athanasius Schneider, Fulton J. Sheen, podcast, PODCAzT
6 Comments

PRAYER REQUEST: Bp. Paul Sirba, R.I.P.

Posted on 1 December 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Please pray for the repose of the soul of my old friend Bp. Paul Sirba of Duluth. I’ve known him since the early 80’s and we were fellow parishioners at St. Agnes in St. Paul. Paul was the Assistant Priest at my 1st Solemn Mass.

Bp. Sirba died this morning of a heart attack. At the hospital he received Last Rites.

He was 59 years old.

Paul was prayerful and gracious and a real gentlemen, a priests’ priest. I have it on good authority that he was an exceptional confessor and spiritual director as a priest. And he played a heck of a good game of ping pong.

Among the siblings he leaves behind is Fr. Joseph Sirba, also of the Diocese of Duluth. There are many nieces and nephews and his mother is still alive. Prayers for them.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.