FOLLOW UP: Paul Ehrlich to speak at the VATICAN?

Posted on 13 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 9 Feb:

From LifeSite:

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Pro-abort population controller ‘thrilled’ with direction Francis is taking Church

February 9, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — The undisputed father of the modern, pro-abortion population control movement told LifeSiteNews in an exclusive interview that he is “thrilled” with the direction Pope Francis is taking the Catholic Church.

“I’m thrilled with the new pope moving the Church in the right direction,” Dr. Paul Ehrlich, author of the 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, told LifeSiteNews in a back-and-forth email exchange this week.

[…]

He denounced Catholicism as “dangerous” in a January 2013 article (two months prior to Francis’ election) for its opposition to contraception.

[…]

Read the rest there.  It is pretty interesting.

___ Originally Published on: Jan 13, 2017 ___

You can’t make some things up.

LifeSite reports that Paul Ehrlich has been invited to speak at an event sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.

Paul Ehrlich, perhaps the most famous advocate and promoter of abortion for the sake of population control, has been invited to speak.  Compulsory abortions… sex-selection abortions… infanticide.

PAUL EHRLICH?  Author of the Population Bomb?  THAT PAUL EHRLICH?

Asking Paul Ehrlich to speak at a Vatican event is like asking…

… Sweeny Todd to cater your luncheon.

… Jenna Jameson to preface your book on sacramental marriage.

… Nero to head up the fire department.

… Anthony Wiener to manage your social media.

… Godfried Danneels to head your commission on abuse.

It’s like….

 

 

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, You must be joking! | Tagged
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ASK FATHER: Diluting Holy Salty Water… Salty Holy Water… just plain Holy Water

Posted on 13 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

aspersoriumFrom a reader…

QUAERITUR:

Hello Fr Z! Our pastor puts a lot of salt in the holy water. So much so that a MASSIVE crust forms on our font at home. Is it OK to dilute the holy water a bit with regular tap water to bring down the concentration of salt? I don’t know if diluting would remove the priestly blessing. I think it is awesome that our priest blesses the water with blessed salt but am worried about the effects of the salt on our clothes since we use it at home a lot. Thanks!

It is great that your priest is using the exorcised and blessed salt.  That suggests to me that he is using the older, traditional form which is the ONLY way that this priest will ever use.

Everyone… USE Holy Water.  The Devil really hates it.  As St. Teresa of Avila wrote:

“I know by frequent experience that there is nothing which puts the devils to flight like Holy water.”

The simple solution (pun intended) is cheerfully to show your priest a photo of the crust that forms from the great amount of salt.

I suppose you could add a little… a very little bit of water to your Holy Water.

But this brings us to the issue of dilution of Holy Water for the sake of extending it.

Please, don’t do that.  Get more Holy Water.

It is possible, in a pinch, to add a small amount of water to Holy Water or Baptismal Water if there isn’t a sufficient quality for the task for which it is needed. However, that should not be the usual practice and only a small amount, proportionally, should be added.  And, frankly, I can’t think of many circumstances in which you would urgently need a lot more.  I can conjure some… I guess, if I try.

It is better simply to ask Father to bless more Holy Water and make sure it is in sufficient supply.

It doesn’t take much time to bless Holy Water, even with the older rite in the traditional Rituale Romanum (which is the only rite which I have ever used or which I would even consider using… in case I didn’t mention that earlier).

Your priest clearly is willing to bless Holy Water.  However, if other priests out there are too lazy to do even what the Novus Ordo indicates… well… shame on them.  Someone should kick their reverend backsides. However, it is far more likely that this problem doesn’t occur to him, because he is not asked to bless Holy Water. Thus, he doesn’t think about it.

HINT TO PRIESTS AND SACRISTANS:

A good practice is for every sacristy to have a large card with the words “BLESS” and “BLESSED” on opposing sides. Prop up that card with the “BLESS” side displayed near the water containers (I’ve done several buckets at a time, no problemo) and the page-marked book and the stole and the salt.  A good deal of salt can be blessed ahead of time, by the way.  You just start with the exorcism and blessing of the water that way.  When the priest is done, he turns the card over to “BLESSED”.  Bada bing.  Holy Water!

 

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Never underestimate the power of an invitation

Posted on 13 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I incessantly tell congregations never to underestimate the power of an invitation.   By that I mean that people should be inviting to others to go with them to Holy Mass or to church for confession and other events.  Invitations can be grace-filled, pivotal moments.

From an unlikely source I found an interesting story about a movie actor.  It came to my secondary email, sandwiched in between ammo deals and Friday Torah explanations, I think because I signed up for “rewards” for the movie theater down the street (Tuesdays: $5 all movies all day and free popcorn!).

From Movie Guide:

A Stranger Introduced Chris Pratt to Jesus. . . What Happened Next Is Beautiful
The TV star who quickly became one of Hollywood’s most wanted actors due to his breakout success in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and JURASSIC WORLD recently opened up in a Vanity Fair cover story about the moment he turned to Jesus. Pratt frequently tweets Bible verses, and last Easter posted an Instagram picture of him and some buddies building a giant steel cross and mounting it on a hill. Now, Pratt says it all began with a man in Hawaii coming up to him telling him that ‘Jesus told me to talk to you.’

[…]

I would like to invite Mr. Pratt to attend Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Just Too Cool, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged ,
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Pope Francis, Freemasonry, 2017

Posted on 13 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I had a bit of a “WHOA!” moment.

First, let me say that I really like what Nick Donnelly is doing at the UK wing of EWTN online.

Next, let me say that we must not underestimate the evil influence in the Church of true Freemasonry.  In these USA we have club-like offshoots of Freemasonry which are not like their European counterparts.  Also, Catholics are specifically forbidden to belong to any masonic sect or group or offshoot, what have you.  FORBIDDEN.  A prime objective of Freemasonry is destruction of the Catholic Church.  Holy Church explicitly imposed the penalty of excommunication on Catholics who become Freemasons (cf 1917 Code of Canon Law can. 2335).  The 1983 Code can. 1374 doesn’t explicitly mention Freemasonry or excommunication, but it clearly means that Catholics cannot join such groups: “Can. 1374 – A person who joins an association which plots against the Church is to be punished with a just penalty; however, a person who promotes or directs an association of this kind is to be punished with an interdict.”  However, on 26 November 1983, just before the promulgation of the 1983 revision of the Code, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a statement with a clear indication: “The faithful who enrol in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”  HERE

Now, back to something Donnelly published at EWTN UK.  Read this and get to the place where I had my “WHOA!” moment.  Meanwhile, my emphases:

Pope ordered Card. Burke to clean out Freemasons from the Knights of Malta

It has emerged that during a meeting between Pope Francis and Cardinal Burke in November about the scandal of the Knights of Malta distributing condoms and oral contraceptives in Africa, the Holy Father instructed Cardinal Burke to “clean out” Freemasonry from the order. [This is great, if true, but it isn’t the WHOA! yet.] The Holy Father gave this order to Cardinal Burke in his role as patron of the Knights of Malta by papal appointment.

The Vatican journalist Edward Pentin revealed details of Pope Francis’s concerns about the influence of the Freemasons on the Knights of Malta:

Hopes that the contraceptive scandal would be addressed came on Nov. 10, when Cardinal Burke was received in private audience by Pope Francis. During that meeting, the Register has learned, the Pope was “deeply disturbed” by what the cardinal told him about the contraceptive distribution. The Pope also made it clear to Cardinal Burke that he wanted Freemasonry “cleaned out” from the order, and he demanded appropriate action. The concern was followed up by a Dec. 1 letter to Cardinal Burke, in which the Register has learned that the Holy Father underlined the cardinal’s constitutional duty to promote the spiritual interests of the order and remove any affiliation with groups or practices that run contrary to the moral law.

Edward Pentin reports that Pope Francis was “deeply disturbed”[Pentin is the best working English language vaticanista these days.] by the evidence concerning Malteser International’s distribution of condoms and oral contraceptives in the Far East and Africa during the tenure of Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, a German Knight of Malta.  Boeselager was dismissed as grand chancellor following an internal investigation by the Knights of Malta. It is not clear why Pope Francis specifically identified Freemasonry as a problem in his response to the evidence presented by Cardinal Burke during the November meeting.

Pope Francis has previously criticized the destructive influence of the Freemasons and their hostility towards the Church. During his address to young people during his apostolic visit to Turin the Holy Father [Francis… not B16 or JP2…] spoke about “Masonic, hardcore anticlericals and Satanists“:

At the end of the 19th century there were the worst conditions for young people’s development: freemasonry was in full swing, not even the Church could do anything, there were priest haters, there were also Satanists…. It was one of the worst moments and one of the worst places in the history of Italy. However, if you would like to do a nice homework assignment, go and find out how many men and women saints were born during that time. Why? Because they realized that they had to go against the tide with respect to the culture, to that lifestyle. [I wonder if  that will result for the children born into our times and through what hellish crucible they will have to pass.]

It was during his in-flight press interview in July 2013 that Pope Francis first expressed his concerns about the influence of Freemasons on the Church:

“The problem is not having this [homosexual] orientation. No, we must be brothers and sisters. The problem is lobbying for this orientation, or lobbies of greed, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the most serious problem for me.”

Comment

2017 marks the 300th anniversary of the foundation of Freemasonry with the establishment of the first Grand Lodge in London. [WHOA!]

[…]

How many portent-laden anniversaries is that for 2017?

In retrospect, I knew that date for the foundation of modern Freemasonry in England, but it hadn’t bubbled up to the surface until now.

The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in Hard-Identity Catholicism, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged , ,
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The knock on effect of small acts performed with love

Posted on 13 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At both the blog of my friend Fr. Jeffrey Keyes (Beauty Evangelizes … so true) and repeated at NLM there are photos of how the sister who sets up Father’s Mass vestments in the sacristy arranges the ties of the amice.  She is wonderfully creative.  Her attention to detail reveals true love.  I’m a little envious.

By the way, the Sister … or perhaps Sisters?… who did this are of the wonderful Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa.  They are a relatively new foundation and faithful, beautiful sacred liturgical worship is one of their core means of service.

NLM mentions “It’s the little things”.  This is indubitably true.

I have long maintained that our sacred liturgical worship creates ripple effects in the cosmos (as do our own actions).  Even the smallest acts of preparation for Holy Mass, performed with piety in accord with the virtue of Religion also create their own knock on effects.

More HERE.

 

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UPDATED Send snail-mail Christmas Cards to Fr. Z – 2016

Posted on 13 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 13 Jan 2017:

I’ll now let this scroll off, but before it goes into history, a few cards are still trickling in:

  • Sri Lanka
  • Poland
  • Lawrenceburg, TN (clearly a 2nd Amendment family’s photo of 8 kids, 3-20 in age, all holding firearms and prayers for that priestly vocation!)

Just because the Christmas card season is over, that doesn’t mean that you can’t send cards.

UPDATE 7 Jan 2017:

  • Monheim/Rhein, Germany (thanks again for the TMSM donation!)
  • St Paul, MN (Latin and St John of the Cross)
  • Columbia, IL (not sure about the piece of cardboard… but, thanks!)
  • Singapore (With 5 yr old Joseph’s art – Singapore – I’d like to visit there some day)
  • NY, NY (a lot of activity packed on that card!)
  • Lincoln, NE (novena of Masses – long letter – 11 kids?)
  • Stockton, CA (book)
  • Dawson Creek, BC (Mile 0 of Alaska Highway? The internet is very cool.)
  • Spokane, WA (thanks!)
  • San Jose, CA (moral patch! Nice Batman stamp.)
  • Kenai, AK (Alaska stepped up!)

UPDATE 3 Jan 2017:

  • Oakland, CA
  • Tuscaloosa, AL (thank you and cute kids!)
  • Fairfax, VA (NRA!)
  • Vero Beach, FL
  • Coon Rapids, MN
  • FPO AP (card made by Carmelites in Tokyo… very cool)

UPDATE 31 Dec:

  • Fredricksburg, VA (lots of kids!)
  • Port Washington, OH (unlike some people, I appreciate spiritual bouquets!)
  • East Berne, NY (prayers for the not-yet born)
  • Vienna, Austria (prayers)
  • Battesford, England (yes, perhaps a hat)
  • Valencia, CA (time machine!)
  • Madison, WI (book)
  • Yankeetown, FL
  • Broken Arrow, OK (I’m speechless)
  • Hutchinson, MN (Ham! – 73)
  • Easton, PA (vocation? prayers)
  • Åbo, Finland (lovely image on the card)
  • Markt Schwaben, Germany (prayers and cool card)
  • Košice, Slovakia (nifty stamp!)
  • Surrey, BC (hope to see you soon!)
  • East Elmhurst, NY (bookmarks)

UPDATE 29 Dec

  • Orleans, MA! (revert!)
  • Grafton, WI (you are welcome for the PODCAzTs)
  • Prince George, BC (confession.. good)
  • Kingston, ON (you are welcome)
  • Bethesda, MD (nice kids)
  • Pamplona, Spain (great penmanship)
  • Forest Hills, NY (thank for ongoing help with that nut bar)

UPDATE 28 Dec

  • Huntsville, AL
  • Vienna, Austria (You are welcome!)
  • Morrisville, PA, (Masses)
  • GP Farms, MI (card within a card)
  • Westminster, MD
  • New Paltz, NY (great stamps and polaroid!)
  • Faribault, MN (cute kids)
  • Mt. Clemens, MI

UPDATE 27 Dec

  • Madison, WI
  • Summit, NJ (Thanks, Sisters)
  • Janesville, WI (lots of great kids)
  • Alexandria, VA (stamps!)
  • Dundee, MI (Masses)
  • Wylie, TX
  • Santa Rosa, CA
  • La Mesa, CA (nice wall)
  • Providence, RI (Thanks, Father)
  • Castor Valley, CA (great note)
  • Icarai, Brazil (cool cut out thing popped up)
  • Carlsbad, NM! (prayers!)
  • Falmouth, NS
  • Alexandria, VA (JAG)
  • Broad Run, VA (cute kids)
  • Maysville, KY (SAHM)
  • Rochester, MN! (1st Communion photo w/ Card. Burke!)
  • Indian Trail, NC (seminarian card -thanks)
  • Hopewell, NJ! (Masses)
  • Tempe, AZ (you are welcome)
  • NYC, NY (NYPD!! – For the Thin Blue Line? Anything.)

UPDATE 24 Dec

More cards today.

  • Cudahy, WI ($2 bills!  Cool stamps!)
  • Seaford, NY (prayers)
  • Clifton Park, NY (Northeast Catholic College)
  • Austin, TX (gift card)
  • St. Paul, MN!
  • Chesterfield, MO
  • Travelers Rst, SC (Thanks, Sister!)
  • Iowa City, IA
  • St. Thomas, VI (Tridentine Mass Assoc. Virgin Islands? We need an exchange with the Tridentine Mass Society of Madison!  Perhaps in… January or February.)
  • Austin?, TX  (nice family photo)
  • KC. MO (Semper Fi!)
  • Bothwell, WA
  • Mesa, AZ

UPDATE 23 Dec

I’m back and I found the PO Box jammed!

  • River Ridge, LA (book!)
  • Raleigh, NC
  • Mt. Clemens, MI
  • Vancouver, WA
  • Louisville, KY (name of a famous pitcher)
  • S. Jordan, UT! (gift card, check, novena of Masses and advice about being old)
  • Menoken, ND (cute kids)
  • NY, NY (GLITTER? REALLY?… if I knew who you were, anonymous sender, I’d excommunicate you and … it did NOT fall out.  HA!  Thwarted, you fiend!)
  • N. Fort Myers, FL! (novena of Masses)
  • Covina, CA (reminding us to GO TO CONFESSION!)
  • Santa Paula, CA (novena of Masses)
  • Carrigaline, Cork – Ireland (novena of Masses
  • Newton, MA (quote of Benedict XVI)
  • St Petersburg, FL – (ham!)
  • Atlantis, FL! (novena of Masses)
  • Harrisburgh, PA (mote cute kids)
  • Dayton, OH and.. Switzerland (novena of Mass and, no, not a Bugatti)
  • Dallas, TX
  • Aurora, CO (Chesterton quote)
  • ___, MI (thanks, Father)
  • Holyoak, MA! (interesting quotes)
  • Berkey, OH! (nice family shot)
  • Brooklyn, WI! (thanks for everything… truly)
  • Portsmouth?, England (great bishop!)
  • St. Paul, MN
  • Wilmington, NY
  • Dennison, MN (even more cute kids)
  • Peosta, IA (cute kids abound – must be some of those rigid trads)
  • Kailua, HI (cool family notes – kudos)
  • Chicago, IL (beautiful card from St. John Cantius)
  • San Antonio, TX (all sorts of stuff)
  • Thousand Oaks, CA
  • Oak Park, IL
  • Schenectady, NY (all sorts of stamps)
  • Howard Beach, NY
  • Atherton, CA
  • Loganville, GA
  • Scarsdale, NY
  • Orlando, FL  (on zone defense)
  • Indianapolis, IN
  • Mankato, MN (Latin)
  • Kansas City, MO (I haven’t forgotten the wine)
  • Voorhees, NJ
  • Minneapolis, MN (prayers)
  • Alexandria, VA
  • Farmington Hills, MI (cool stamps)

UPDATE 16 Dec

  • Ave Maria, FL (an envelope with blank Christmas cards – odd, but nice)
  • Spokane Valley, WA (thanks for the Masses)
  • Chula Vista, CA (thanks for the Masses)
  • Thaxton, VA (with a poem)
  • South Woodchester, Gloucestershire  (great note)
  • W. Lafayette, IN (wax seal!)
  • Albany, NY
  • Sabattus, ME (a ham!)

If I am able to begin some travel tomorrow, I won’t be able to check mail for a few days.

UPDATE 15 Dec

  • Pasadena, MD
  • Bridgewater, MA
  • Gilbert, AZ (interesting card  – donkey carries a tabernacle with a ciborium!)
  • Arlington Heights, IL
  • Tampa, FL? (thanks for the gift card)
  • Tisdale, SK (Vatican II, ha ha, very funny)
  • Arlington Heights, IL (again!)
  • Menomonee Falls, WI
  • FPO, AE 09834 (great inculturated image of Mary and Child)
  • Palm Beach Garden, FL

UPDATE 13 Dec

  • Kingston, ON – 73! and thanks for Masses
  • NY, NY
  • Shawnee, OK
  • Natrona Heights, PA
  • Summit, NJ

Lots of custom made cards with photos this year.

UPDATE 12 Dec

  • Greer, SC! – thanks!
  • Grawn, MI – thanks for the remembrance in the Rosary
  • Delmar, NY! – with a donation for vestments HERE
  • San Francisco, CA – even had some Latin
  • Fresno, CA
  • Elysburg, PA – music CD

UPDATE: 7 Dec:

Pine Grove, PA – nice old fella

One came in without a locality, but it was spiffy.  It was a large card printed on glossy stock and the stamp featured a photo of the undersigned!

IMG_9323

Very nice.  Thanks!

UPDATE: 6 Dec – Cards have started to arrive. So far…

Arlington, VA
Santa Fe, NM
Columbia, PA!

Nice notes, too.
______

With the whizzing of your planet around your yellow star, we’ve come again to Christmas card season.

If you would like to send me Christmas greetings, please send a card by snail mail, if possible with really cool stamps.

As I did last year, I’ll try to post all the places whence they arrived from around the world.  Also, I find the notes and letters which describe the year people have had to be interesting and, often, moving.

I have a US PO BOX address.

Fr John Zuhlsdorf
Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
733 Struck St.
PO BOX 44603
Madison, WI 53744-4603

PAST ADDRESSES ARE VOID

If you need to send anything that requires a signature, such as gold bars, a Bugatti Chiron, bearer bonds, cases of Pappy Van Winkle, complete Pontifical Mass vestment sets … you know, the usual stuff, get in touch with me for an alternate address.

Please! DON’T send perishable food items. I am sure they would be wonderful, and mostly neither poisonous nor hallucinogenic, but, please, just don’t.

If you put glitter in the card, I may recite the Maledictory Psalms against you.  Thanks in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter of great importance.

Have a wonderful Advent!

PS: I have also located and dusted off my Tactical Christmas Stocking.

The moral patch, by the way, is from my unit in the SciFi books in which I am a character.  I will put it out again soon in the hope that people who pass by will load it up repeatedly with mag and ammo… and stuff.

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A serious Catholic way to “accompany” the sinner?

Posted on 12 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I had an interesting email in my box today.  What do you think?

Hi Father,

I’ve been reading through Ratzinger’s book “Behold the Pierced One“. [UK – HERE] In it, he addresses the issue of the prohibition of communion to the divorced and remarried (pp.94-98).

A couple of quotes:

“We can understand how, paradoxically, the impossibility of sacramental communion, experienced in a sense of remoteness from God, in the pain of yearning which fosters the growth of love, can lead to spiritual progress…”

“When Augustine sensed his death approaching, he ‘excommunicated’ himself and undertook public penance. In his last days he manifested his solidarity with the public sinners who seek for pardon and grace through the renunciation of communion … this is a profoundly arresting gesture.”

“The ancient Church had a highly expressive practice of this kind. Since apostolic times, no doubt, the fast from the Eucharist on Good Friday was a part of the Church’s spirituality of communion. …A fasting of this kind … could also be an act of solidarity with all those who yearn for the sacrament but cannot recieve it. It seems to me that the problem of the divorced and remarried, as well as that of intercommunion (e.g. in mixed marriages), would be far less acute against the background of voluntary spiritual fasting, which would visibly express the fact that we all need that ‘healing of love’ which the Lord performed in the ultimate loneliness of the Cross.”

Does this strike you as a more serious way to “accompany” sinners who are in “complicated situations” than simply telling them that they can receive Communion?  This doesn’t give the impression that their sins are being overlooked or, worse, condoned.  Also, it engages the powerful means of intercession which the Lord Himself praised.

Today vast swathes of the “Catholic” people probably have a vague notion of what the Eucharist and Communion are.  For many people today Communion is, I fear, the moment when the lady puts the white thing in your hand just before you sing the song.  Getting the white thing means that you’re okay just as you are; you are affirmed in your you-yourself-ness.

Hence, any suggestion to vast swaths, and to the priests who are not really guiding them, that it is perhaps better not to receive is met with disbelief and shock.  What a challenge!  “How dare you suggest that I’m not okay or that you don’t accept me just the way I am!”  Getting the white thing before singing the song has taken on a dimension of belonging to a mutual self-affirmation club.

The controversy over Communion for the divorced and remarried has far reaching implications.

If those living in patently adulterous unions (or any other sinful state) can in fact receive Communion, then was Christ’s teaching about indissolubility … wrong?   If it was wrong, if Christ could get that wrong, then is Christ really God?

If Christ isn’t God, then the Eucharist isn’t Christ.  If the Eucharist isn’t Christ, then what is Communion?  Are we idolators?

If the Eucharist isn’t what the Church has always said it is, then what is the Church?  Who are we and what are we doing?

The moderation is queue is, of course, ON.

 

 

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Damian Thompson on Pope Francis

Posted on 12 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Damian Thompson at The Spectator has penned a piece about Pope Francis.

I don’t think I should reproduce any of it here or comment about it. I will merely point out the fact that it exists and then quietly back out of the room.

The combox is closed.

UPDATE:

I saw this tweet from the editor of The Spectator:

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Background support for the Five Dubia

Posted on 12 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Edward Pentin, probably the best English language journalist working around the Vatican these days, posted at the National Catholic Register a piece about support for the Four Cardinals and the Five Dubia.

Yes, he writes about Card. Müller’s TV interview which has caused so much discussion.

However, the most interesting he said was:

A significant number of episcopal conferences around the world have expressed their concerns to the Pope, the Register has learned, and like the four cardinals, have received no response. Also before the document was published, 30 cardinals, having seen an advance draft of the apostolic exhortation, wrote to the Pope expressing their reservations, especially on the issue of communion for remarried divorcees, warning that the document would weaken the three essential sacraments of the Church: the Eucharist, marriage, and confession. The Pope never responded to that letter either, a Vatican source told the Register.

I’ve heard the same.

Start making voluntary mortifications.

Ask your Guardian Angel to work with the Holy Father’s Guardian Angels.

Pray a lot.

GO TO CONFESSION.

Make sure your house is in order.

As I wrote in the subject… background support for the Five Dubia.

YOUR background support.

Rather than gripe, whine or complain.

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ASK FATHER: “I was filling out a family liturgical calendar and got to thinking…”

Posted on 11 January 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

This doesn’t really apply to next year, but I was filling out a family liturgical calendar and got to thinking. My wife and I have recently started abstaining meat on Fridays. We were married on the Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica. Next year this will fall on a Friday, and knowing that is a not solemnity would my wife and I have dispensation as it is a family feast that we share?

No, I’m afraid not. If it were your parish patronal feast, perhaps (and you would be in Rome).  Keep in mind that other penances can be substituted and that your pastor can commute your penance to another work or dispense you.

However, the interesting thing for me in this email is that you were filling out a family liturgical calendar.

Kudos.

Our family homes should be “domestic churches”, filled with prayer.  Holy Church in her wisdom gives us the liturgical year and presents us with the mysteries of our salvation.  We should tie our lives into these beautiful, mystery laden cycles.

 

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