CQ CQ CQ: Ham Radio Thursday – ZedNet reminder and a throat tightener

Posted on 16 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

As you recall, ZedNet is operational.  More HERE.  We should figure out some schedules.

In a rather lackadaisical way I’ve put my toes into the waters of Morse Code.  I find it fascinating and would like to do CW, maybe QRP, but I just haven’t put in the effort.

There are also quite a few codes or abbreviations that ham radio operators use to tighten up their contacts.  An example would be QRZ, meaning, “Who is calling?” or QTH “What is your location?” or “My location is…”   QRP means that you are operating at low power, such as 5 watts.

In addition, there are some other conventions in use.   For example, from old telegraph wire signals, hams use 73 at the end for “Best regards” used at the end of contacts and, used judiciously, 88 for “love and kisses”.  Also, “es” is a way of writing & (ampersand).

I learned of a story that moved me to work a little harder.  It is an application of Morse Code and Q codes that I hadn’t considered.

Once upon a time, a member of a radio club was in his final hours in a nursing home.  He couldn’t talk anymore, but he and his wife communicated using Morse Code.

The dying man made his last “contact” with his wife who was holding his hand as he died.  His last transmission, made by squeezing his wife’s hand was…

– -… …- –   . …   – – -.. – – -..

73 es 88

UPDATE:

I just now thought of another situation in which Morse Code was useful.  Fathers, remember this.

Do you remember the story of Jeremiah Denton? He was Navy pilot and POW at the “Hanoi Hilton” during the Vietnam War. At one point his savage captors put him on TV and interviewed him as propaganda. During that presser, he blinked in Morse Code T-O-R-T-U-R-E.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

Who knows what the future holds for priests and bishops. It could be that a future regime will round us up and parade us in front of the public. We might even be – who knows? – sequestered in a garden monastery with handlers who closely restrict access to us. If that ever happens to me, watch my eyes or hands.

Posted in Ham Radio | Tagged ,
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Some stuff from my mail

Posted on 16 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

These came to my mail. A little levity in a serious matter.

And, in language the left can understand…

Twitter provides more grist.

This from Beans..

Dear Beans, this isn’t hard.

How much damage?  Ridiculous question.

As far as “what happened to the ‘ontological’ change in priests who wound up being criminal pervs… nothing happened to it.  It’s a indelible change, a change in the soul of the man who received orders.  The criminal perv priest remains forever a priest.  He will be so in this life and in the next, whether in Heaven or in Hell.  For the priests out there who are reading this: consider the addition pains of Hell for a priest.

All Christians have an ontological change to their souls at baptism and, again, at confirmation.  These sacraments impart a character to a soul that is indelible, permanent, lasting even beyond death.  They cannot be repeated.  Priesthood does the same thing to the soul of the man who receives it.  Priesthood cannot be lost.  However, the Church can forbid a man from exercising his ordained priesthood.

In any event, this guy had a good response had a good response to Bean’s interminable agitprop.

Now for some journalistic brilliance from ultra-liberal David Gibson.

First, that’s just nasty.

Second, Sarah did nothing of the sort.  Sarah cannot and did not try to “invalidate” the ordinations of married Catholic priests.   To return to the ontological, indelible point, above, once a man is ordained, he is forever a priest.  For-eh-vur.

By the way, people who are married also have an ontological bond with each other.  That bond ends with the death of one of the spouses.   The bond is not merely juridical or moral/ethical.  This is a reason why a man can’t marry a man and a man or woman cannot be married to more than one person at a time.

Meanwhile, it seems that – incredibly – Francis had another chat with inveterate Communist and anti-Catholic publisher of La Repubblica Eugenio Scalfari.

It’s mostly blah blah.   At the beginning, however, Scalfari, who famously says he doesn’t take notes or recordings, who says that Francis says rather fantastic things, gives his own version of the events surrounding BOOKGATE.  Scalfari says that Francis has just brushed this off as no big deal.  He does, however, paint Sarah in a bad light.  Yawn.

Also, in La Verità there is a message from Archbp. Viganò: Padre George ha isolato il Pontefice emerito.

Viganò says that Gänswein throttled the information given to Benedict.  Of course that’s what executive secretaries do.  He recounts that Card. Harvey, former head of the Apostolic Household, told him that Benedict once pointed at Gänswein and called him “Gestapo”.   It’s all a bit strange.

Posted in Priests and Priesthood, The Drill |
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My View For Awhile: north

Posted on 15 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I’m heading home after a maternal visit.

Alas I am reading the spittle flecked raving of a hysterical and, apparently psychic, Austen Ivereigh at Commonweal.

“None of this will bother Francis”! As if he has a clue about what bothers him or what he thinks.

He is doing his best to savage Card Sarah. To cover his own crazy leaps to conclusion before he ever read the book?

I have a long layover in ATL. Sigh. I’ll probably read more.

UPDATE:

As it turned out, in the lounge between flights I read a little more of this dreadful and undignified piece and did some selective quotes and red ink.

It’s truly nasty.

I suspect the reaction of the papalotrous is partly due to their opposition not only to celibacy for priests but their opposition to any sort of sexual control. I can’t shake the suspicion that they think that if priestly celibacy isn’t take down, then it will be much harder to force a change to the CCC on homosexuality. They have to break it the nuptial connection of priest and Church in order to weaken the ends of marriage between one man and one woman. Communion for unrepentant adulterers was a step in the right direction when it comes to the nuptial character of Christ and the Church and the Eucharist. Now they have to bust the priesthood down too.

Does that sound right?

That, as I wait to take off.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
12 Comments

More about #BOOKGATE and a Litany Against Modernists

Posted on 15 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

More on BOOKGATE below.

But first, I thought some of you would enjoy this new litany (for private use) in Italian.

LITANIE ANTIMODERNISTE

O glorioso S.Ignazio
  fa finire questo strazio
S. Giovanna d’Arco
  al modernista chiudi il varco
S. Caterina d’Alessandria
  dei modernisti caccia la mandria
San Benedetto abate
  i modernisti eliminate
Sant’Antonio eremita
  caccia il clero sodomita
Santa Caterina Labouré
  liberaci dalle sinistre suore coccodè
San Giovanni Battista
  converti il clero comunista
Santa Edwige di Polonia
  brucia gl’idoli dell’Amazzonia
O glorioso San Lorenzo
  convertite Bianchi Enzo
O glorioso San Venerio
  liberaci da chi concede l’adulterio
Sante monache anacorete ed eremite
  Liberateci da chi vuol cancellar l’Humanae vitae
San Fortunato di Camogli
  fa’ che ai preti non dian mogli
Dal cielo santi tutti ci aiutate
  i modernisti debellate

per omnia saecula saeculorum
AMEN!

Since most of the people this is directed against have Italian, … THERE!

Meanwhile, in other Italian news, Il Messaggero says that the vineyard that Benedict XVI wanted at Castel Gandolfo was ripped up.

Back in the Roman day, they used to chisel names out of inscriptions.  It was called damnatio memoriae.

Book cover… vineyard… coincidence, for sure.

Too bad.  Castel Gandolfo has some other farming elements, including a little dairy.  When we would go out to the gardens in our Latin group with Fr Foster, we used to sing songs in Latin to the cows.  And their are apiaries!  The milk and honey were sold in the Vatican commissary.

I wonder if John Paul’s pool is still there.  After all, they are trying to get rid of everything else that remind us of him, like his… you know… magisterium.

Meanwhile, Il Messaggero gives prime real estate to BOOKGATE.

“The anti-Bergoglio trap”…. NOT.

 

“Sarah, the conservative frontrunner on whom traditionalists pin their hopes to get ready for after Francis”

Posted in Liberals, Lighter fare, Priests and Priesthood, The Drill | Tagged , , , , ,
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UPDATE – HILARITY ENSUES- Lib reactions to the new book from Card. Sarah and Benedict XVI

Posted on 15 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 15 Jan 2020:

Antonio Socci (not a fan of Francis) says in Facebook (I’m not a fan of Facebook) that Francis summoned Archbp. Gänswein, read him a riot act, and demanded that Benedict’s name be removed from the book. Hence, Benedict asked for his name to be diminished in the book project so as to shield Gänswein from retribution.

Meanwhile, the lib reaction continues.

Two lesser luminaries in reporting on the Church, one for RNS and one for Reuters, opine (rather than, you know, report new) about the SALES of the book.  It’s an interesting window.

The book is selling well in French. I hope I have had something to do with that. HERE‘s a link!

Note Gibson’s use of Latin caveat emptor juxtaposed to a comment about high sales. There’s a movie with a phrase like, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.”

And note, “conservative groups” are out their buying up copies to inflate numbers of Card. Sarah’s books.  Oh, really?  Which conservative groups are those?   And has no lib group ever done that?   Nice try.

Note how Pullela says, “I’ts boring.”  I can see how it might be boring for you, Phil.  Moreover, you might not be the book’s target audience.  And if it is really that boring, inconsequential, then why has your end of the media spectrum gone bananas at the very thought of it?

 

UPDATE 14 Jan 2020:

This is how the enemy rolls.

  • Make a nasty insinuation or ridiculous proposal.
  • Let the poison you create bubble for a while.
  • Start walking back what you originally said.
  • Meanwhile, you’ve managed to gain a little ground for your side.
  • You’ve either caused corrosion in some good thing that your enemy did or you have bumped the needle a little bit in the direction you want it to go.

For example, the case of those who want to prosecute priests who won’t violate the Seal of Confession.  This comes up again and again and again.  Each time it is shot down.  However, each time a little more ground is gained, a few more people are convinced that a law should be passed that requires priests to violate the Seal.  Eventually, they get their way.  It’s called creeping incrementalism.

There was, if memory serves, a scene in Martin’s Windswept House wherein the arch stand-in figure for (I think) Card. Bernardin instructed the patsy stand-in figure for Bp. Lucker of New Ulm to make an outrageous statement and then, after some days, claim in the presss that he was misunderstood, or that he misspoke.   The Lucker character was to, in effect, take one for the team but in the meantime they would have changed the topic and gained ground.

That’s how they roll.

Now comes this tweet by Austen Ivereigh, one of the most obvious of the cringing papalotrous out there.

First, we roll back the clock.

A snarky comment to denigrate Benedict.

Then an accusation a few hours later.

And…

Is there a secretive group behind Card. Sarah and Benedict pulling the strings?

Turn to your allies. NB: La Croix is, in effect, Bobby Mickens, who had once lost a job with The Tablet for publicly wishing in social media that Benedict would die. He despises Ratzinger/Benedict.

Then he claims a victory lap while taking a shot at Archbp. Gaeswein as Benedict’s “handler”. See? We were right in saying that Benedict didn’t have anything to do with authoring the book because Benedict didn’t see or approve the books cover!

Then Card. Sarah released letters and the dance step mutates.

Releasing his inner Hillary…

Yes, it’s a vast, right wing conspiracy.

In short… take in the “no one doubts” bit.

 

Consider what is going on.

The discussion isn’t about anything substantive. It’s now about process.

All resulting in …

And…

The left will now claim victory.

Meanwhile, I suspect that their whining will only result in higher book sales.

May I suggest to you readers that you pre-order multiple copies to give as gifts to priests and seminarians?

UPDATE:

Okay… maybe the attacks are right that Benedict didn’t write his section. Maybe Greta Thunberg’s dad wrote the section by Benedict!

UPDATE:

Gerard O’Connell and Jesuit run Amerika attack Card. Sarah and the new book claiming that Benedict didn’t really write the section written by Benedict.

Now Card. Sarah responds via Twitter.

Translation:

Attacks seem to insinuate a lie on my part. These slanders are of exceptional gravity. This evening I give the first proofs of my close collaboration with Benedict XVI in writing this text in favor of celibacy. I will speak tomorrow if necessary. RS +

Who wants to hold their breath until the Jesuits apologize for lying about Card. Sarah and Benedict?

And then there’s this guy…

And Beans is giddy.

UPDATE:

How badly does the left want to kill this book?

And

____ Originally Published on: Jan 13, 2020

As you probably know by now, Robert Card. Sarah and Pope Benedict XVI have collaborated on a new book. They respond to certain aspects of The Present Crisis.™   It is their right to do so.

From the Depths of our Hearts

US Pre-Order Soon HERE for 12 March 2020 release! – FRENCH HERE

“But Father!  But Father!”, you pewling libtards are moaning, “Benedict isn’t a Cardinal!  He’s a Pope Emeritus!  He doesn’t have any rights, because… because …. YOU HATE VATICAN II!”

Yes, the libtards want Benedict to be quiet.  But consider that these same libtards didn’t want him to be Emeritus Pope, either.  They wanted him to become just another Cardinal again.  In which case, he would have a right to make his concerns known… so long as he agreed with them!

They want Benedict to be quite because, like Bobby Mickens, they hate him.

In any event, they want Benedict not even to be seen, much less heard, because with every word he publishes, their mask is pulled a little lower.

A good example of the panic incited by Benedict is Beans (aka Massimo Faggioli), the relentless self-promoter of Villanova.  Here are a couple beany tweets.   (I’m blocked by him… HA!)

In other words, “Shut up!”

And… in full panic mode…

Yes, one wonders.  One also wonders if Beans thinks that euthanasia might be a good solution for emeriti.  THAT would shut them up!   After all, old men with experiences don’t have a right to express an opinion about anything.

The best response to Beans yet. As a matter of fact, useful every day of the year. This guy to Beans:

Sapienti pauca

Homosexualist activist James Martin, LGBTSJ, is taking time out from defending sodomitical practices to sow some jesuitical doubt wherever he can.

See what he is doing? Rather than deal with what may be the substance (which he suspects doesn’t support his agenda given the sources) he is sowing doubt.

([The serpent] said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”)

“Did Benedict XVI really write the part allegedly attributed to him?”

In any event, I am now reading the new book in French.

More later.

UPDATE:

Ultra-liberal Robert Mickens, who lost a job with The Tablet for wishing on social media that Benedict would die, exchanged tweets with Daniel P Horan OFM of CTU (aka The Horan of Babylon)…

Birds of a feather.

Inter alia, since most people are saying that the book deals with celibacy, viri probati, etc., Mickens also tweeted that in 1970 Ratzinger once supported the relaxation of priestly celibacy.  To which the sane person responds: So what?   Ratzinger grew up, came to his senses, recognized that he was wrong, and changed his mind.  Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum.

As for the Horan of Babylon, you can get a sense of the astonishing quality of education offered to students at CTU from these two tweets.   I am not making this up.

That’s right.  You read it correctly.  The Latin Church’s discipline of priestly celibacy is on par with not eating corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day if it falls on a Friday of Lent.  Conclusion: a bishop can dispense his subjects from abstinence on St Patrick’s Day with the snap of his fingers.  Right?   Then the Bishop of Rome can dispense priests from celibacy with the snap of his fingers, right?  After all, they are merely matters of discipline.

What a brain trust CTU must be!

BTW… some snaps of fingers are worse than others, to use this “marvelous” example from a cartoon (for the CTU grads out there).

Click

Posted in "But Father! But Father!", Benedict XVI, Priests and Priesthood, SESSIUNCULA, Synod | Tagged , ,
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To save the world, we have to save the liturgy. Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 15 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My mantra in these electronic pages for years was and is and will be “Save The Liturgy, Save The World“.

Sounds odd at first?

Consider that of all the relationships we have, that which we have with God is and must be the most important, put before all others.  If that relationship is disordered, all others will be too.

We have to give to other persons what is their due by the virtue of justice.  But the Triune God is qualitatively a different person, so we have a different virtue that governs what is due to God: religion.

We fulfill the virtue of religion especially in our sacred liturgical worship, as individuals and as groups, small and large.  So, the sacred liturgical worship of the Church orders everything we do, gives it sense and purpose.  Hence, every gesture and word of sacred liturgical worship is significant and has effects on us and everything we do as Catholics.  And the more sacred the rite, the greater impact.

Eucharist is to be understood not only as the Eucharistic species, Body, Blood Soul and Divinity of Christ.  Eucharist is that, but it is also Its celebration: Holy Mass.  The Eucharist (Host and Mass) is the “source and summit’ of the life of the Church.  If our treatment of the Eucharist (Host and Mass) is disordered, everything else we do will be disordered.

Just as the Fall of our First Parents produced devastating “ripples” through material creation, so that we are out of order with it and it with us on many levels, so to do liturgical abuses or even poorly intentioned sacred liturgical worship produce “ripples” in the cosmos.

Celebrate the liturgy well, good results.  Celebrate poorly, bad results.

In my “Save The Liturgy, Save The World” manifesto in 2007, I wrote:

If we really believe that, then we must also hold that what we do in church, what we believe happens in a church, makes an enormous difference.

Do we believe the consecration really does something? Or, do we believe what is said and how, what the gestures are and the attitude in which they made are entirely indifferent? For example, will a choice not to kneel before Christ the King and Judge truly present in each sacred Host, produce a wider effect?

If you throw a stone, even a pebble, into a pool it produces ripples which expand to its edge. The way we celebrate Mass must create spiritual ripples in the Church and the world.

So does our good or bad reception of Holy Communion.

So must violations of rubrics and irreverence.

I stand by that.

Now a young priest has taken up the theme, or so I read at LifeSite.

Fr. Mark Goring has called for a return to Communion on the tongue while kneeling.  Why?  To avert apocalyptic disaster, due to irreverence.

“Is receiving the Eucharist on our knees going to fix all the world’s problems? I think it will,” he said.

This is timely, in light of the new book by Card. Sarah and Benedict XVI, who are both champions of a return to the better and more reverent and entirely reasonable practice of reception of Communion directly on the tongue while kneeling.

Fr. Goring says what I have been shouting for over a decade.  He says it in his own way, but it is, effectively, the same thing.

We deserve – collectively – sharp correction from God due to our collective laxity when it comes to our sacred liturgical worship.  We have not been fulfilling the virtue of religion, giving God what is His due.  Chastisement would be deserved.  We can avert some of that, or lessen it, by revitalizing our worship and by acts of reparation: in other words by getting serious.

Please allow me to rant.

I’ve been talking to people who are just plain tired of “yet another book” which effectively says what we expect the writers might say in the first place.  Yes, the books are good because the chronicle The Present Crisis for future generations, and they really do contain great spiritual material.  Yes, the books are good.

But do books constitute action?  Does reading a book constitute action?

They might help, but they are not themselves enough.

What is needed is concrete action in the lives of more Catholics.

We need priests to start priesting as if their souls depended on it.  And that pep speech has the added benefit of being exactly true: their souls do depend on it.

We need lay people to start demanding priests to priest, as if their souls depended on it.  Again, true.

I have a quote on the sidebar from Fulton Sheen:

“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”

Sound about right?

Here are some ideas.

  • Fathers, begin a process of liturgical catechesis and start your parishes on a return to Communion on the tongue while kneeling
  • Ditto, a return to ad orientem worship.  Remember, Klaus Gamber, who influenced Ratzinger deeply, said that versus populum worship was the single most damaging thing done in the name of Vatican II.  There are priests who have successfully done this in their parishes: seem them out and get their advice.
  • Fathers, learn the Traditional Roman Rite.  I know that Latin is intimidating.  But what part of priesthood did they promise you was going to be easy?  Anything that produces big benefits requires work.  It can be done.  If priests in the past did it, you can do it.
  • Lay people: start forming “base communities of Faith”.  This might take the form of Saturday morning coffee groups where you read the Sunday readings and study the Catechism… a catechism at least.   Then, if you hear something weird from the pulpit, show up, as a group, in front of the priest, with your catechisms and sources and pin him down.  “What was that, Father?”
  • Lay people: Prompt, cajole, urge, beg, persuade your priests to move to ad orientem worship and Communion on the tongue.  Tell them you will help in any way to make it happen, even paying for all the carpentry, etc.
  • Lay people:  Prompt, cajole, urge, beg, persuade your priests to learn the TLM.  Promise and execute when it comes to buying things, provided help and time at the church to set up, take down, everything.  Give 110% support.
  • Fathers and lay people: GO TO CONFESSION.

Get clean for this battle.

A special note to SEMINARIANS:

Men, be careful.  You are young and zealous and these are hard times.  Many of us older guys went through the bad times before.  There were some years of relative calm.  Now tough times are returning in many places… not everywhere, but in many places.   You might be disoriented having grown up in the time of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and relative sanity.

Keep your heads down.

I recall our old Rules for Seminary Survival in the 1980s. Where you are they may pertain once again:

Rarely affirm.
Never deny.
Seldom make distinctions.
Smile a lot.
Say very little.
Never wear black.

In my day, you could be called in for wearing black socks!   These days that last one might be something else… like… back out of the room?

In the 80’s, it was as if we were officers-in-training, but in the military academy of the enemy.

I don’t want you to look for problems where there aren’t any.  Also, there are so many more good bishops now who really care about their seminarians.  That wasn’t the case back in the day, believe me.  So, if this are good and calm and peaceful and solid and faithful and clean, then… FORWARD!   But still be careful.

This is what you must do if your profs and the staff are modernists: don’t fight them.  It isn’t your job in the seminary to teach or to correct or to defend.  Smile. Learn what these modernist oppressors have to teach, parrot it back to them, and read good books on your own, with a flashlight and shades drawn if necessary.

And if you have to give up the internet, then for the love of God and His Holy Church give it up.

Get ordained.

Your day will come.

Concretely:

  • Keep your mouths shut.
  • Assume that your use of the internet is being monitored.  Avoid using the seminary’s internet to look at anything other than neutral or liberal sites.
  • Cough up the dough to get a separate plan for data for your laptops and phones.  Use VPNs.
  • If several of you must pool resources to do that, do that, and then – discreetly – do the samizdat thing.
  • Use your personal handhelds or phones for surfing good Catholic sites but avoid seminary WiFi.
  • If you can’t find a way around their logging, or you can’t afford the data in your country, then either give up traditional sites when surfing or give up the internet completely!

Go silent and go deep.

And if you get a biretta through the BIRETTAS FOR SEMINARIANS Project, and you are in an iffy situation, keep the biretta at home.  Don’t have it at the seminary.  Your day will come.

Posted in GO TO CONFESSION, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged , ,
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Summary of FACTS about the controversial new book by BOTH Card. Sarah and Benedict XVI

Posted on 15 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Edward Pentin has posted at the National Catholic Register a summary of the FACTS surrounding the controversial new book from Card. Sarah and Pope Benedict XVI.

HERE

As you know, as soon as the book was announced the attacks began to pour in from the liberal left.  Insinuations were made that Benedict was being used, that Sarah lied, that Benedict is too weak to write anything, that they were attacking Francis, etc. etc.

As it turns out none of those things were true.  Of course.  Nevertheless, damage was done.  That’s how the left, especially the more papalotrous of “Team Francis”, roll.  Unhindered by the speed bumps called FACTS they careened forward in a mad race to smash this book – and the authors – before it could get traction due to its substance.  They astutely engineered a process story to undercut what they suspected would be the actual substance of the text between the book’s covers.

Do read Pentin’s piece and ponder the ramifications.   It’s pretty clear that the claims made by the attackers were false.  More than one person has been thrown under the bus.  Who did the throwing and why?

Meanwhile, if you haven’t already, order a few copies.   First, huge sales a great way to irritate the loony left.  Second, irritate them even more by making sure I get credit for the sales.  Third,  – and this is the overarching reason – there is gold for priests in the pages.

I’ve now read it.

As you read it you can sense that it truly is…

From The Depths Of Our Hearts

US Pre-Order Soon HERE for 12 March 2020 release! – FRENCH HERE

Here is another taste, taken from the section by Card. Sarah.

Context: Card. Sarah includes in his own offering some personal anecdotes, what it was like to be a young priest in Africa, visiting villages where priests hadn’t been able to visit for year, how the people received him.  He relates the conversion of his father and grandmother and what the impact on the people was the presence of the celibate priest.  He remarks about the entirely different impact the priest would have made had he been married and then laments even the desire to take away the profound experience of the people in meeting “another Christ” who is entirely handed over.   It is poignant text.  Then, in my fast translation from French…

The priesthood is a gift that one receives as the Incarnation of the Word is received. It is neither a right nor an obligation. A community that would be formed in the ideal of a “right to the Eucharist” would no longer be a disciple of Christ. As its name indicates, the Eucharist is an act of thanksgiving [Fr action de grâce], a gratuitous gift, a merciful present. One receives the Eucharistic presence with wonder and joy as an unmerited gift. The believer who claims it as due to him demonstrates that he is not capable of understanding it.

I am convinced that the Christian communities of the Amazon do not themselves go along with the reasoning of demanding the Eucharist. Instead, I believe that these topics are the obsessions whose source is found in the milieus of university theology departments. We are dealing with ideologies developed by a few theologians who, like the sorcerer’s apprentice, wish to utilize the distress of poor peoples as an experimental laboratory for their clever plans. I cannot allow myself to let them act freely in silence. I want to take up defense of the poor, the lowly, of these people who are “without a voice”. Let us not deprive them of the fullness of the priesthood. Let us not deprive them of the true meaning of the Eucharist. We cannot “trifle/tamper with [Fr trafiquer] the Catholic doctrine of the priesthood and celibacy the light of perceived or supposed needs of certain extreme pastoral situations”, as Marc Cardinal Ouellet recently remarked.

I don’t have an English copy of what Card Ouellet said, so I did my best with that difficult word “trafiquer”.

However, I think you can see that Card. Sarah is not holding back.

Posted in Cri de Coeur, Priests and Priesthood, Synod, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged , ,
7 Comments

14 January – Festum Asinorum #FeastoftheAss Day! (No, it’s not a special Jesuit holiday.)

Posted on 14 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It may be that you have been distracted by book news.

However, in other news, today is the Feast of the Ass.

Today, 14 January, is the Feast of the Ass, Asses… the Festum Asinorum (in Latin, plural… inclusive!).

No, I am not talking about whom you think I’m talking about.  And, no, it’s not a special Jesuit feast.

The feast which became popular in France, could have stemmed from the so-called “feast of fools”.  It may tendrils into biblical donkeys, or the integration of the ass into the nativity narrative.  It could have been in part inspired by a sermon of pseudo-Augustine.

The day included the tradition of a parading a couple of kids (not goats) on an ass (not a Jesuit) right into the church, next to the pulpit during the sermon.  The congregation would respond with loud “hee haws”.

Who said that the Middle Ages were dreary?

In any event, it was celebrated for a long time and then faded out.

Here are possible greeting cards.

One for your parish priests….

Dear Fr. ___

There is a rather long entry about this at Wikipedia.  It includes a liturgical note:

At Beauvais the Ass may have continued his minor role of enlivening the long procession of Prophets. On the January 14, however, he discharged an important function in that city’s festivities. On the feast of the Flight into Egypt the most beautiful girl in the town, with a pretty child in her arms, was placed on a richly draped ass, and conducted with religious gravity to St. Stephen’s Church. The Ass (possibly a wooden figure) was stationed at the right of the altar, and the Mass was begun. After the Introit a Latin prose was sung.

The first stanza and its French refrain may serve as a specimen of the nine that follow:

Orientis partibus
Adventavit Asinus
Pulcher et fortissimus
Sarcinis aptissimus.
Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez,
Belle bouche rechignez,
Vous aurez du foin assez
Et de l’avoine a plantez.

(From the Eastern lands the Ass is come, beautiful and very brave, well fitted to bear burdens. Up! Sir Ass, and sing. Open your pretty mouth. Hay will be yours in plenty, and oats in abundance.)

Mass was continued, and at its end, apparently without awakening the least consciousness of its impropriety, the following direction (in Latin) was observed:

In fine Missae sacerdos, versus ad populum, vice ‘Ite, Missa est’, ter hinhannabit: populus vero, vice ‘Deo Gratias’, ter respondebit, ‘Hinham, hinham, hinham.’

(At the end of Mass, the priest, having turned to the people, in lieu of saying the ‘Ite missa est’, will bray thrice; the people instead of replying ‘Deo Gratias’ say, ‘Hinham, hinham, hinham.’)

Here’s a treat for the Feast of the Ass.

Judging from the lyrics, this seems to be the festive installation of the “bishop” …who’s seems, appropriately, to be an ass.

Cliche today, perhaps, but still fun.

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

Have you sent a greeting card to someone?

BTW… there is a musical setting. HERE

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Letter from Card. Sarah in which he forgives his persecutors

Posted on 14 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE:

From Ignatius Press

UPDATE:

Originally Published on: Jan 14, 2020 at 06:25

From Card. Sarah about the attacks on him and his integrity.

He forgives his persecutors.

Translation from Bree Dail.

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“With all the priests, we pray: Save us, Lord, we perish!” A snippet from the new Benedict/Sarah book

Posted on 14 January 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A snip of the co-authored introduction from the new book, by Sarah and Benedict.   The book is offered “en hommage” to all the priests of the world.

We thought in particular of priests. Our priestly heart wanted to comfort them, to encourage them. With all the priests, we pray: Save us, Lord, we perish! The Lord sleeps while the storm is unleashed. He seems to abandon us to the waves of doubt and error. We are tempted to lose confidence. On all sides, the waves of relativism submerge the boat of the Church. The apostles were afraid. Their faith has died down. The Church also sometimes seems to falter. At the heart of the storm, the apostles’ confidence in the power of Jesus was shaken. We are living this same mystery. However, we are deeply at peace because we know that it is Jesus who leads the boat. We know it will never sink. We believe that it alone can lead us to the port of eternal salvation. We know that Jesus is there, with us, in the boat. We want to reiterate our confidence and our absolute, full, undivided loyalty. We want to repeat to him the big “yes” that we said to him on the day of our ordination.

The image of the Barque of Peter tossed on the waves, taking on water, was used before by Benedict, just before he was elected Pope in 2005.  It was an image during the Stations of the Cross he penned for Good Friday at the Colosseum that year.  Who can forget John Paul II watching from his room in the Apostolic Palace, days before he died.

You can understand why the libs hate this book so much that they are smearing even its authorship.  They’ll do anything to stop this book from being widely diffused and taken to heart… especially by priests and bishops.

They’ll do anything.

Pray for Card. Sarah.

Pray for Benedict XVI.

Yes, the book treats celibacy in a particularly profound way for priesthood. However, that’s only the surface of it.   There’s more going on.

From the first part of Card. Sarah’s offering:

We have seen in recent months, around the synod on the Amazon, so much haste, so much excitement. My bishop’s heart is troubled. I have received many disoriented, anxious and bruised priests in the depths of their spiritual lives by the violent questioning of the doctrine of the Church. I want to tell them again today: don’t be afraid!

[…]

Dear brother priests, I want to speak to you plainly. You seem lost, discouraged, overwhelmed by suffering. A terrifying feeling of abandonment and loneliness embraces your heart. In a world plagued by unbelief and indifference, it is inevitable that the apostle will suffer: the priest burning with faith and apostolic love quickly realizes that the world in which he lives is as if upside down. However, the mystery within you can give you the strength to live in the midst of the world. And whenever the servant of “the one thing necessary” strives to put God at the heart of his life, he brings a little light into the darkness.

US Pre-Order Soon HERE for 12 March 2020 release! – FRENCH HERE

 

 

 

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