ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

Posted on 7 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

On this Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary the Roman Aurora is at 6:45, Sunrise 7:11, Sunset 18:45 and the Ave Maria is still set at 19:00, not that anyone pays attention to it anymore.

I am reviewing Chesterton’s Lepanto.

US HERE – UK HERE

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

Today at 12 is the Supplica alla Madonna di Pompei!

Also, it is the Feast of St. Mark, Pope, who is in the basilica bearing his name.   I shall have to visit it also today.

I put my head in for Mass at Ss. Trinità dei Pelegrini for the main Mass.  The place was jammed, people standing in aisles and in back.

Around the time of the consecration an old priest, Maltese as I learned, came in and observed.  After sometime he noticed, approached, and asked a few questions.  He was clearly surprised at the number of people.  Was it a special day?  Sunday.  Is it always like this?  Yes.  Is this the…the… Latin Mass?   Yes.  He was quiet for some time.  So many young people.  Yes, and this is a parish.   He was again quiet for some time.  Who is in charge?  I explained.  He stood still, taking it all in.  At last, he said that he was very impressed by the reverence of the people and of the liturgy.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

After Mass a long consecration to Our Lady of Fatima was recited.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

There were quite a few people who lingered outside after Mass.  Some well-known names, including Taylor Marshall and Michael Voris were there.  There were quite a few photos taken.   Voris had his crew with him and I suggested lunch.

Spaghetti alla carbonara.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

Not mine

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

These guys work work work very hard, so I suggested a post-prandial stroll with an offer to show them a couple things they mightn’t have had a chance to see.  Some of the crew were in Rome for the first time.   Among the sights were Sant’Agostino, with its Caravaggio …

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

And the tomb of Saint Monica, mother of Augustine.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

We stopped at the chapel of St. Rita and prayed for A, my godson, who has the horrible affliction of chronic migraines.  Please ask St. Rita to intercede for him?

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

Just for fun, a “Don’t Liter!” sign.  You will be fined 10 scudi and perhaps given other penalties as well.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

I once worked out what the gold scudo was worth in modern terms.  HERE.  And at that post, you can hear The Great Roman reciting in Roman dialect a poem by Er Belli about a scudo.

Then there’s this.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocyROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

We stopped into Sant’Ignazio, the great church of the once great Jesuits.  We prayed at the tomb of St. Robert Bellarmine for the Church and also for the repose of the soul of the late Bp. Robert Morlino, the Extraordinary Ordinary.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

Nearby, the tomb and altar of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, wealthy noble brat-boy who became a great saint.

Look what these Jesuit idiots did at this magnificent altar.   It makes angels weep for shame.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

At least it could be removed in a few minutes by a few men with strong backs.

St Aloysius is greatly – or was greatly venerated in the City.  In the sacristy of Ss. Trinità is this devotional painting.

ROME DAY 4: Carbonara, Caravaggio, altar idiocy

This morning as I write, it is pouring rain and it will do through early afternoon.  It is supposed to clear up and be sunny, so I hope to get out for some sightseeing – strange for me to think in those terms here.

Cleaning continues.  My cold is worse.

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ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Posted on 6 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Today the Aurora was a 6:44.  I was awake to see it.  Colors tonight at 18:46.  The Ave Maria is still at 19:00.

When you really start to dig into the history of the streets of Rome, fascination drives you on and on.  For example, walking through the Via di Monserrato, I spotted a palazzo of a family I hadn’t recalled ever looking up, the Podocatari.  It seems that the place was connected to Roderigo Borgia, Alexander VI.  It was the residence of the physician of Innocent VIII, later Cardinal Ludovico Podocatari.    This explains in part why there is a monument to Alexander VI in the nearby church S. Maria di Monserrato, named for the famous Spanish sanctuary near Barcelona.

S. M. di Monserrato had earlier origins, always Spanish, but the present church was build in 1518.   Over the main door there is a relief of Our Lady of Monserrat.  The church was designed by Antonio Sangallo il Vecchio, though the facade is by Volterra.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Inside the church on the left, you find the tombs of two Borgia Popes, the infamous Alexander VI (+1503) and Callixtus III (+1458).

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Their bones were mixed and they were interred together in a single tomb in the Vatican, and then forgotten.   Just because you are the Pope doesn’t mean that people have to like you.  Ehem.

Nevertheless, Sixtus V (who will be the last of that name) and Urban VIII (Barbarini) described Alexander VI as one of the best Popes since Peter.

Anyway, in 1881 they were translated to this church.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Some Popes were pretty good Popes but were not exactly great men.  Others were quite saintly but not exactly good Popes.  That’s how it goes.   The Holy Spirit doesn’t force Popes on the electors.  He prevents that the man they choose is a total disaster.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Miss me yet?

I recall the church from years ago as being pretty neglected.  It has been cleaned and people were praying.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia PopesROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Our Lady of Monserrato.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia PopesROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia PopesROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

Just up from here, by the way, where the Via del Pellegrino intersects, there is the Palazzo di Pietro Paolo della Zecca which was known in its day to be the most elegant of all elegant places in Rome, incredibly wealthy and tastefully appointed.  So magnificent were its apartments that the story is told of the ambassador of Spain – this whole area is like Spanish-town – while waiting for an audience with the legendary courtesan Imperia, thought it would be a good idea to clear his throat and have a little spit before entering her presence.  As he looked about for a place to launch his contribution, he could see only magnificence.  Hence, he spat into the face of his footman, as being the least worthy object in the room.

On my home from Mass, I enjoyed something of the wonderful color that shades the City in the evening.  It is unmatchable and hard to capture.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia PopesROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

The dome of Sant’Andrea.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

One of my favored butchers.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

The terrific bakery.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

A bit grainy, but evocative.

ROME DAY 3: The Bones of Borgia Popes

I have a head cold.  Pray for me. Click that wavy flag to provide me with some additional chicken soup… or something.

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Freemasonic, Gnostic, Satanic influences, tactics

Posted on 6 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Freemasonic, Gnostic, Satanic influences, tacticsA thought…

One can recognize that Freemasonry is the Anti-Church in the following astonishingly frank witness of Giuliano Di Bernardo, Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge Gran Loggia Regolare d’Italia, which he gave during his television appearance on April 11, 2001, on the Italian TV Channel, Rai 2. He said: “You become a Mason through an initiation. Initiation is a constitutive act that gives man a dimension he did not have before. An analogy we find in baptism. You are not born a Christian, you become a Christian through baptism. And so, you become a Mason with the initiation. This means that you remain a Mason for life. Even if one then rejects Freemasonry, he remains a Mason. Even if you are asleep, even if you become an enemy of Freemasonry, you are always a Mason because you have received initiation, and initiation is a sacred act.”

We also have to bear in mind the following shocking words, written by the excommunicated Catholic priest Antonio Fogazzaro, a leading Italian Modernist, in a book published in 1905: “We want to organize our whole action purposefully. A Catholic Freemasonry? Yes, a Freemasonry of the catacombs. […] One must work towards reforming Roman Catholicism in a progressive, theosophical sense through a pope who is convinced by these ideas.”

To put this into the perspective of salvation history, when Jesus Christ came into the world and the Apostles preached the Gospel, the world was governed by an evil, pagan society, and so it is again today. After some seventeen hundred years, Christian society in Europe, which began with Constantine, has collapsed. We are again in a neo-pagan society, but to some extent it is worse because the Gnostic and Satanic invention of gender ideology is now destroying the human being in his or her natural sexual reality and destroying the family as well.

[…]

And…

[…]

People sometimes wonder why it is so important to place God at the center of society. Why is it that when we divorce ourselves from God or the natural law, civilization itself collapses?

“Civilization” comes from the Latin, civis, citizen—it means citizens creating a civitas, a city. In a city, there has to be order, law, beauty, hierarchy. Without these, there is no city—only anarchy and chaos. When you eliminate the laws of God, either in the natural law, which is written by God, or in the supernatural law, in the divine revelation of Holy Scripture, you begin to dismantle this beautiful city, and then chaos ensues in the private and public sphere. This brings us to another principle of the Freemasons, which is the principle of chaos. They say, “We must create chaos in society occasionally and then, from chaos, we will create our order.” Significantly, one of the ideological and strategic mottos of Freemasonry is: “ordo ab chao.”

[…]

Source:

Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age

by Bp. Athanasius Schneider

US HERE – UK HERE

Compare and contrast with HERE, which explores the sort of Liberation Theology at work in the mind of Francis.  Note especially his four governing principles, originally extracted from an Argentinian dictator and now enshrined in his first encyclical Evangelii gaudium.

You will remember them:

  • time is greater than space
  • unity prevails over conflict
  • realities are more important than ideas
  • the whole is greater than the part

Juan Carlos Scannone’s ‘El papa Francisco y la teologia del pueblo’ (in Razón y Fe. 86) and Tracey Rowland (Catholic Theology US HERE – UK HERE) and others have uncovered the source of these principles: a 1834 letter of the 19th c. Argentinian dictator, Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793– 1877) sent to another Argentinian caudillo [a type of personalist leader wielding political power], Facundo Quiroga (1788– 1835).

How might one in a swift and reductive way apply these to what is going on?

First, “wait them out”.

Second, “let there be chaos – eventually things will sort out, in a Hegelian way”.

Third, “lived experience trumps expressions of doctrine – eventually doctrine must adapt, in a Hegelian way, to lived experience.”

Fourth, “if there is a group that is not conforming to the larger group’s needs, reject them – in a Rawlsian way the whole remains the whole even if you lop off a few limbs.”

Review Evangelii gaudium for explanations of these four postulates.

What does Francis sign off on with EG?

“Conflict cannot be ignored or concealed. It has to be faced. But if we remain trapped in conflict, we lose our perspective, our horizons shrink and reality itself begins to fall apart. In the midst of conflict, we lose our sense of the profound unity of reality.” (no. 226)

“When conflict arises, some people simply look at it and go their way as if nothing happened; they wash their hands of it and get on with their lives. Others embrace it in such a way that they become its prisoners; they lose their bearings, project onto institutions their own confusion and dissatisfaction and thus make unity impossible. But there is also a third way, and it is the best way to deal with conflict. It is the willingness to face conflict head on, to resolve it and to make it a link in the chain of a new process.” (no. 227)

Face the conflict head on!

But create the conflict first.

 

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ASK FATHER: How to “activate” or “invoke” the Sacrament of Confirmation?

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ASK FATHER: How to "activate" or "invoke" the Sacrament of Confirmation?From a reader under another post:

How exactly does one “activate” or “invoke” the Sacrament of Confirmation?

Firstly, make a really good examination of conscience.  Then, GO TO CONFESSION!  Follow up with a devout Holy Communion.

Then, if you have been confirmed, try this prayer.  I wrote it, HERE, and it isn’t intended for public use, but rather private recitation.

“Almighty God my heavenly Father, You knew me before the creation of the cosmos and You wanted me to come into existence to bring You glory.  Of all the possible universes You could have created, You created this one and You called me into it at exactly the time and place You chose for me so that I could fulfill my part in Your unfathomable plan.  You willed that I have the honor to be baptized into the Church You designed and You maintain for our well-being.  You willed that I receive the Body and Blood of Your Son and the indwelling of Your Spirit.   You willed that I should also be confirmed so that our relationship be even deeper and that I might be an even better instrument of Your will.  I now call upon that mighty Sacrament of Confirmation.  Through it make me strong to bear whatever burdens I must endure in Your service.  Make me wise to recognize accurately and then strong to resist, resolute, whatever is out of harmony with Your will as manifested especially in the beautiful Tradition You have guided in the authoritative, infallible and indefectible Church. Even if that disharmony should come from those whom you have endowed with the grace of Orders and seated even in the highest places of teaching, governing and sanctifying, make me steadfast.  With confidence in Your plan for me I ask this for myself and for the brethren through the Holy Spirit’s Gifts and in the Name of Jesus Christ Your Son, who lives and reigns with You, ever one God, world without end.  Amen.”

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, GO TO CONFESSION, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Semper Paratus, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged
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Mere days after meeting with Jesuit homosexualist, Francis witnesses pagan ceremony in garden

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Mere days after meeting with Jesuit homosexualist, Francis witnesses pagan ceremony in gardenMere days after Francis granted an audience to Jesuit Homosexualist Activist James Martin for a photo op, the same Francis sat in the Vatican gardens in front of a S. American totem of what very much appears to be a man … ready for sex.  HERE

On the other hand, some say that, from a different angle, what is protruding is an arm.  HERE

You decide.  I might add, does anyone think of the optics of these moments?  Is there no one who walks around it and says, “No… that’s not gonna fly!”?

Whether Francis knew that his schedule was going to include the premier homosexualist in the Church on that day, or whether he knew what sort of pagan idols and other B as in B, S as in S, he was going to witness venerated or not… it’s beside the point.

Someone close to Francis wants this sort of thing to happen.

The context is at CNS.   It is horrible reading.  HERE

It was a pagan ceremony in the Vatican gardens.  There’s no way around it.

Nearby, a while back, Francis stood by at the planting of a “peace tree” during which an imam prayed a prayer associated with claiming territory for Islam.  Yes, really.  HERE

It may be that Francis was shocked at what he saw.  He put aside his prepared remarks and merely said an Our Father.

I would have said a hell of lot more than that.

On the eve of the Synod (“walking together”).   What was it we read about in Windswept House before Vatican II.  US HERE – UK HERE

My mind is free associating of course.  Jet lag, you know.  But wasn’t there some sort of ceremony?  Memory escapes me.

Ceremony… important meeting heralding upheaval…

Can’t shake it.

UPDATE:

I guess you can shake it.  Watch this.   HERE

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ACTION ITEM! Fr. Z calls for prayer, fasting in defense of the Church

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ACTION ITEM! Fr. Z calls for prayer, fasting in defense of the ChurchI lived in Rome for a long time.  I have a good feel for this place, since over many years I left a lot of blood, sweat and tears here.

Since I’ve been back on this trip – the last was in May – I have an even more powerful sense of foreboding.

As I make contacts with people I know, and hear their impressions of what is going in the the City and “across the river”, invariably there is anxiety and sadness.  Words like “demolition”, “Stasi”, “purge”, “la Terreur”, “sickness”, are coming up.

Mind you, I am having some good consolations here and I am, on both an earthly and a spiritual level, recharging.

When you are close to the core, expect there to be powerful forces at work for good and for ill.   There is much that refreshes me here, even as I sense that there is something seriously amiss.

It stands to reason that the Enemy would be on the attack here and now in a way unlike other times.  The Enemy is really good at being the Enemy.

We have to be really good, now especially, at being the well-armed Church Militant, eyes open, alert, determined.

There is an oppression settled over Rome like I have never felt before.  I get that in some places, as if there is seriously creepy music playing on a certain frequency, but it’s right at the noise level.

I am moved, at this hour in particular – I write as the consistory is taking place across the river – to beg you to pray pray pray for the Church.

Do something today, some act of reparation.  Stop and, please, do something to stem the rising storm.  

It’s time to activate all our sleeper cell strength, incite in ourselves as never before that pilgrim soldier, clothed as the new man in baptism, endowed with sonship, offered the full armor of God.

Call now upon the Sacrament of Confirmation and feel it fill you will effective force.   If you know you must, then examine your conscience and GO TO CONFESSION!  Your Confirmation might and the help of the sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders are largely dormant in you until you return to the state of grace.

Ask Mary, Queen of the Clergy, Mother of the Church, to place her mantle over us and with her own hands to root out those who seek from within to undermine.

Call upon the Holy Proto-Martyrs of Rome, whose blood nourished the Church, to intercede for us.

Pray to the Guardian Angels of those figures who might come to your mind, asking them to hold them to true courses, to restrain their hands when they are set on the unworthy, and to thwart them with corrections proportionate to their schemes.

Call friends and make an agreement to meet in church to pray before the Blessed Sacrament.  If you can’t meet up, make a pact to pray at the same hour, for example, a Rosary.

Offer some act of mortification to provide punch to your prayers.   The driving of some demons requires both prayer and fasting.

I will say Mass at 6PM Rome time, or close to.  11AM EDT.  Perhaps you might join your intentions to my own?

 

 

Posted in Be The Maquis, Cri de Coeur, Hard-Identity Catholicism, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged
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UPDATE – BOOK LENGTH INTERVIEW with Bp. Athanasius Schneider

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 5 Oct 19:

I am well into this book.   The first section is biographical.   This is an important foundation for understanding how this auxiliary bishop from the former Soviet Union, raised his head up over the crowd during a Synod of Bishops to speak about Communion in the hand.   From that point on, he has been on the radar screen.

An anecdote illustrates.  Schneider relates that, when he was a young man, he and a friend went with their parish priest specifically to meet Pope John Paul II during his visit to Germany in 1980.  To be brief, he wound up running at him down a corridor and calling to him in Russian, to which John Paul reacted.  Read it yourself.  It gives an insight into his character.  Indeed, it is an incident in what looks like a move of the digitus Dei.  I get that.

A couple points stand out for me, personally.  First, Schneider joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross.  Early on, in considering my vocation, I also was interested in them to the point that I traveled to Braga, Portugal, to see what they were all about.   Also, he studied Patristics at the Augustinianum in Rome at the same time I was there.  And of course there is the dedication to several critical points of renewal of the Church, including Communion while kneeling and ad orientem worship.

Our paths have crisscrossed.

Schneider’s childhood was spent in serious religious oppression in the former Soviet Union.  His early priesthood found him serving tiny churches in Brazil.  Hence, if he expresses an opinion about the Amazon Synod, he isn’t just talking out of his hat, like some experts from Germany.   He gets what the ideology of atheistic materialism does and what the ideology behind the Instrumentum Laboris could do.  They are both forms of totalitarianism and profoundly anti-Catholic, antithetical to the Christian.

The interview style of the volume is quite humble.  There is nothing aloof in this fellow, which has been my experience of him when meeting.  There is nothing aloof, but neither is there any lack of conviction.  He is wholly dedicated to his mandate and to what he thinks is right for the Church in our times.

Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age

US HERE – UK HERE

Originally Published on: Oct 3, 2019

This is going to be amazing.   And it has been released!

Bp. Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary of Astana and hero, has a book length interview out via Angelico Press.

There’s a hardback and a paperback.

Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age

US HERE – UK HERE

UPDATE - BOOK LENGTH INTERVIEW with Bp. Athanasius Schneider

It carries endorsements from Card. Sarah, Card. Burke, Fr. Murray, Prof. Hahn.

UPDATE:

I now have the book!

The table of contents:

UPDATE - BOOK LENGTH INTERVIEW with Bp. Athanasius Schneider

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ASK FATHER: How should good Catholics deal with homosexuals?

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

Dear Fr. Thank you for the sterling work you do with your blog.
Within my circle of friends at my accommodation we have a number of practicing homosexuals. In the pass I have avoided such people like the plague, the lifestyle is part of the culture of death. However over meals I’ve gotten to know some and while not attracted to the persons sexually I’m fond of them as individual people.  How is a good catholic meant to go about dealing with such people.

A good Catholic is to treat with charity, sacrificial love, all whom we meet.  This means giving them what is due to them by justice, treating them fairly, offering works of mercy, both corporal and spiritual.   Spiritual works of mercy include instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinner.  These two works of mercy one always applies also according to principles of fraternal correction.  Much depends on your relationship and the character of individuals.

So, we should treat people with homosexual tendencies justly and charitably, as we would any other person.

Every person has principle faults or inclinations to some sort of sin.  Every person suffers temptations by the Enemy.    Let’s never look down on those who have these tendencies, as if we were pharisees in the temple looking down on the publican.

I firmly believe that if people with same-sex attraction will, if they live chastely and persevere, have a very high place in heaven.  The burden and suffering must be heavy indeed.  Therefore, the graces God offers will be that much greater.

There is no reason why, within the bounds of decorum, we have to accept any of the homosexualist ideology.

In short, deal with homosexuals with charity, which may mean admonishment if your relationship permits.  However, avoid all temptation of rash judgment and examine your conscience.

And firmly reject demonic gender-bending theory and the homosexualist agenda, that either doesn’t uphold the need for continence or blurs the fact of the intrinsic evil of same-sex acts.

I’ve written more about homosexuality, HERE.

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ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

Today the Roman Aurora is at 6:43, Sunset at 20:48 and the Ave Maria at 19:00.

Some of you have asked about my green grocer.   She’s still at it, in the stall in the Campo de’ Fiori, every day.

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

One of you asked about artichokes.   Frankly, the spring is the best time for artichokes, but here are some in the process of preparation for sale.

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

I met a friend for lunch.  We split a portion of fettucine with tuna and little tomatoes.

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

Speaking of green, I was back to Gammarelli to discuss further the reproduction of some gold silk.   They’ve been cutting fabric for dalmatics and copes.  Lots of dalmatics and copes!

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

Always watch for the wavy flag!ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

Gammarelli has been producing their own fabrics.

At the request of one of the French seminarians or priests at the nearby Pontifical French College, they made a fabric with the design from the ceiling of the French church, San Luigi dei Francesi, where the famous series about Matthew by Caravaggio is to be viewed.

You can see the fleur-de-lys.

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

They have the main liturgical colors, but black and rose are still coming.

I stopped at Barbiconi to have a look at a suit or two.  It’s been a while.

A view during my stroll home after Mass.

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

This enoteca has potential!

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

I have a good friend who will instantly recognize these names.   But, don’t we all?

ROME DAY 2: Greens and greens

Tonight there is a “Conference to Promote Communion Kneeling and on the Tongue” at Santo Spirito in Sassia. Malcolm Card. Ranjith will contribute as will the great Msgr. Bux. There will be video messages from Card. Burke and Bp. Schneider. I have to figure out how to do this, since my regular Mass time is 6PM.

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ASK FATHER: Do Popes need permission to consecrate bishops?

Posted on 5 October 2019 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

ASK FATHER: Do Popes need permission to consecrate bishops?From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

When the pope personally ordains a new bishop, does the ordination liturgy still contain the question about a mandate from the Apostolic See? This would seem redundant if the pope is present and/or the celebrant and principal consecrator.

You are right that a Pope would not need the mandate from anyone to consecrate a bishop.  He gives the mandate for bishops to be consecrated.  Any bishop who consecrates a man is automatically excommunicated if he lacks the papal mandate.

There is a different situation, however, in which the Pope does need a mandate!

In the case that the Pope is going to ordain priests for dioceses other than his own Diocese of Rome, he “needs” a mandate from the ordinand’s bishop or superior.   For example, when I was ordained by John Paul II my bishop had to send a “dimissorial letter”, indicating that the ordaining bishop (the Pope) could go ahead.  In my case, my bishop sent the letter to the Pope’s Vicar for Rome, since all the Pope’s ordinations were handled through the Diocese of Rome.

Of course, in the case of a dimissorial letter to the Pope’s vicar, it’s more of a case of “This guy’s in good order, don’t worry!”, rather than, “I give you, Vicar of Christ, my permission.”  It amounts to the same thing in the end, but there are proprieties to be followed.

Similarly, if, in Rome, a bishop from the outside is to ordain to the diaconate or priesthood, he will need the mandate to ordain from the Pope’s Vicar and also from the bishops of the men who will be ordained.  For example, the other day, the Bishop of Portland ordained deacons in St. Peter’s Basilica.  He had to have permission to ordain within the Diocese of Rome and in the Basilica, and each bishop of the men to be ordained had to send dimissorial letters.

However, a bishop in good standing in his own diocese doesn’t need permission from anyone to ordain, unless, of course, some guy from outside the diocese needs ordaining.  For example, in the Diocese of Black Duck, Bp. Noble is going to ordain priests.  However, over in the Diocese of Libville, Bp. Faty McButterpants was scheduled to ordain, but, unfortunately (or not), the bishop’s somewhat deformed dog Chester had an accident in the kitchen, Fatty slipped and threw out his back.   So as to not disappoint everyone, from his hospital bed Fatty asked Bp. Noble to lend a hand (to the unending delight of the ordinand and family).

I think you get how it works now.

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