Fr. Z's Blog | Formerly entitled: "What Does The Prayer Really Say?" – Clear, straight commentary on Catholic issues, liturgy and life by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬)

“You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”

Posted on 21 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Canonist Ed Peters has a good reminder about excommunication at his fine blog. HERE

Bottom lines:

It isn’t as easy to get excommunicated as one might think.
Excommunication, it isn’t easy as thinking that someone ought to be excommunicated.
“You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means”
People who are excommunicated are still members of the Church!
People who are excommunicated are still obliged to fulfill their Sunday Mass obligation, but they cannot go to Communion.
People who are excommunicated must have the censure lifted before they can receive any sacrament, including Penance (NB: danger of death is game changer).
If you are excommunicated, really, do something about it.
Not all priests have faculties to lift the censure imposed for all offenses/sins.
Talk to someone!

Okay, that’s a little more than what Peters wrote. But check his post anyway!

BTW… he thinks that latae sententiae excommunication should be abolished. In This Present Crisis I am tempted to bring back vitandus!

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Canon Law | Tagged excommunication
23 Comments

VIDEO: A few good men and The Present Crisis

Posted on 20 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A few…

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Be The Maquis, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged The Present Crisis, USCCB
13 Comments

Beans v. the East – @MassimoFaggioli cheapshots Orientals

Posted on 20 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Ubiquitous and relentless self-promoter Massimo “Beans” Faggioli has eructed yet another oh-so clever tweet:

Like Orientalism, Catholic Ad Orientalism assumes a certain role of Western civilization in global Christianity

— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) November 18, 2018

Huh?

I haven’t paid much attention to Beans lately. His twitter feed is on the “second page”, as it were, of Tweetdeck, and I have to scroll to the right to see it. I haven’t missed much, since most of his tweets are an incessant stream of “Me! Me!”.

But this tweet was brought to my attention by an Eastern Catholic who is Indian. He found the tweet offensive, and rightly so.

While I admit that I am not sure what’s going on in that quip – frankly, he might just be playing with words in order to make connections where they don’t belong – it does seem to cast a shadow over things Eastern.

Who can untangle this?

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged beans, Massimo Faggioli
27 Comments

The effect of the Extraordinary Form on vocations to the priesthood

Posted on 20 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

In recent weeks I recall reading here and elsewhere some encouraging speculation and projections about the numbers of vocations produced by traditional vs. non-traditional types of communities. I’ve discovered that my parish seems to support those projections. We have both the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form. There are 3 OF Masses each weekend, and one EF.

Recently the parish published information about all the vocations we’ve had from our parish in the last roughly 60 years. Between the years of 1965 and 2007 we had a grand total of 3. However, in the last 10 years since our parish has added the EF, we’ve had 9 new vocations, of which 7 are from EF attending families – 1 priest, 2 brothers, and 4 sisters.

Of the two OF-produced vocations, one is a priest from a very conservative family, who now celebrates the EF himself and has allowed that to greatly influence his OF ars celebrandi.

Bear in mind that there are easily 5 times as many people attending OF Masses at our parish than EF, and yet the EF vocations outnumber them 7 to 2. If you were to assume equal numbers of people at each form, and then extrapolate the data, you’d end up with somewhere around a 15-1 preponderance in favor of the EF. Absolutely amazing.

As we know, the plural of anecdote is data. This is what I’ve been talking about and writing about for a long time. The knock on effect of the Extraordinary Form.

This is why libs hate and fear it.

This is why I have begun to wonder if the Extraordinary Form, after a few more years of disastrous demographics and the churning wake of The Present Crisis, won’t be the “Last Mass Standing”.

¡Hagan lío!

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Just Too Cool, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New Evangelization, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The future and our choices |
20 Comments

Dinosaur Media attack on Catholics who uphold Faith and Morals

Posted on 20 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 20 Nov:

Dreher’s take. HERE

Originally Published on: Nov 18
____

From NBC comes a piece of sheer anti-Catholic homosexualist propaganda.

A few points as a prelude.

The homosexualists are working together with their allies in the dinosaur media to shift all the focus away from the problem of #sodoclericalism in the Church. They are desperate to get the focus off of themselves and onto someone else. Hence, they are determined to victimize Catholics who are simply trying to hold the teachings of the Church which their lobby want to bring down. The libs and homosexualists (lots of cross-over there) depend mainly on the ever deeper mass ignorance of history, Church teaching, basic moral language and its issues. This ignorance was engineered over decades of execrable public education and limp, empty catechesis. They haven’t been taught much more than to think of their own views as supreme, but they haven’t been taught to learn or to reason. Now that people are suitably numbed by screens, ignorance and a lack of ability to reason, its time to turn up the heat.

And so, read a bit of the following and contemplate the months to come. From NBC:

How the Catholic ‘alt-right’ aims to purge LGBTQ members from the church
Websites like Church Militant, LifeSite News and the Lepanto Institute are ratcheting up the rhetoric with personal attacks on supporters of gay Catholics.

By Corky Siemaszko [Corky Siemaszko is a senior writer at NBC News Digital. Corky also writes for Truthout which “works to spark action by revealing systemic injustice and providing a platform for transformative ideas, through in-depth investigative reporting and critical analysis. With a powerful, independent voice, we will spur the revolution in consciousness and inspire the direct action that is necessary to save the planet and humanity.”]

The call for action against the “Forces of Organized Perversion” landed in the inboxes of conservative Roman Catholics across the country just before Election Day.

“Have you had enough?” activist Randy Engel wrote in a column that first appeared on the conservative website RenewAmerica.com. “Or will you wait until the Homosexual Collective’s hobnail boot is pressed on the neck of your prone body or that of your child or grandchild before reacting?” [Randy Engel wrote a book called The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church. US HERE – UK HERE.]

“Cast your vote for God, family, and nation,” she wrote.

[Watch the word choice…] Many Catholics say they are worried that activists like Engel are the vanguard of a new offensive by ultra-conservative Catholic groups that see the growing acceptance of LGBTQ Catholics by Pope Francis and other reformers as a mortal threat to their church.

Websites like Church Militant, LifeSite News and the Lepanto Institute are ratcheting up the rhetoric while replacing polite and prayerful discourse with personal attacks on supporters of gay Catholics, they say.

Meanwhile, anti-gay activists have increasingly been disrupting gatherings of LGBTQ Catholics and their supporters, a phenomenon first reported by the National Catholic Reporter. [aka… you know what.] Just this month, a group of Dominican nuns in suburban Milwaukee hired security guards to keep more than two dozen anti-gay protesters off their property where they were hosting a retreat for gay clergy.

Fordham University [Jesuit-run] theologian Jason Steidl has coined a name for them. [Steidl is a homosexualist activist, according to his page at Fordham HERE. “As a theologian and member of the ministry team for Out at St. Paul in Manhattan, he is an outspoken advocate for the LGBTQ community in the Catholic Church.” Hence, he is intimately connected with James Martin. New Ways Ministry has a page for him. HERE]

“I call them the ‘Catholic alt-right,’” Steidl told NBC News. “We haven’t seen anything like this before. I think they are part of a bigger cultural movement. These people have hitched their wagons to Trump’s presidency, to his tactics.” [This is the same bullshit that I was accused of in the BuzzFeed hit piece that Martin engineered.]

They have also tried to weaponize the Pennsylvania grand jury report released in August that named more than 300 “predator priests” to scapegoat homosexuals, never mind that many of the 1,000 victimized children were girls. [Many? How many compared to the boys and young men?]

[And, right on cue…] “They inject fear, hatred and homophobia into religious discourse,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and author of “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity.”

“They use the same tactics as the political alt-right: lies, personal vilification and demonization of minority groups,” he said.

Michael Voris, who heads Church Militant, rejected the label “Catholic alt-right,” calling it “non-applicable and stupid.” He said all they are doing is vocally defending their faith and see President Donald Trump as an ally. He once compared Trump to Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.

Voris agreed that conservative Catholics are more focused now on the LGBTQ community, but said it’s because “the news [of the Pennsylvania grand jury report] has certainly multiplied under Pope Francis.”

“I don’t whip up crowds to stone them,” he said. “We’re not a bunch of Muslims in Saudi Arabia chopping peoples’ heads off.”

But the gay lifestyle is a sin, Voris said, and he’s speaking from personal experience.

“I lived a gay lifestyle for a number of years,” said Voris, who said he is now celibate.

Mike Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute also bristled at the Catholic alt-right label.

“The Lepanto Institute does not stand for anything beyond the absolute and immutable teachings of the Catholic Church,” Hichborn wrote in an email. “That does not make us ‘alt-right’ but fully [… the piece cuts off… really. Then it just starts up again.]

[… There follows some whimpering about how badly treated Martin, etc. are…. ]

Who are the Catholic alt-right?

[…]

Guess who?

Catholics who really know and believe their Catholic Faith just want to be Catholic without having heterodox and immoral rubbish shoved down their throats. It’s not that complicated. They aren’t extremists. They aren’t crazy. They are just tired being BULLIED. It is getting to the point that they are starting to fight back. The left and homosexualists don’t like that one little bit.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Corky Siemaszko, NBC
28 Comments

Truly pathetic musings at the Fishwrap about priesthood and those halcyon days of Vatican II

Posted on 20 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Fishwrap sure lived up to its name this time. Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter) has gushy piece about a reunion of old men who were seminarians of class 1966 at the Pontifical North American College in Rome. The arrived in Rome in 1962 and were ordained in 1966. Hence, they were in Rome during the Second Vatican Council.

That’s the point of the Fishwrap piece, of course: those halcyon days. And, with Francis, they’re back… or should be.

The whole piece is rather pathetic. Fishwrap’s breathy account of the reunion, with the cute little jokes and quips the ol’ gang bandied about, belies the underlying subtext. Here’s a passage:

Fifty-five were eventually ordained. Sixteen are still active priests. Thirty-one left the active priesthood.

They came home aflame — and ran headlong into the mid-1960s. The turbulence of change was fierce, but so was their zeal. Something had to give. For many, it was the priesthood. Most thought, in the wake of Vatican II, that mandatory celibacy would soon become optional. They were wrong. They thought the ban on contraception would be overturned. They were wrong. As some joined the first great wave of resignation, laicization or whatever term you choose, they feared their fellow Council Class members would ostracize and reject them.

They were wrong.

Many forged new paths, establishing careers — frequently pastoral in nature — getting married, raising kids. Keeping tabs on one another wasn’t as easy then as it is today. There was no internet yet, no email.

But they had Bill Freburger, who left the priesthood in 1976 and worked for NCR.

That about sums it up. They were wrong. 56% of the class quit. But you could work for Fishwrap!

And, by way of explanation of the rot that infested theology and whole swaths of the priesthood in those wondrous, halcyon days that produced streams of men and women out of religious orders, the destruction of catechetics, wholesale obliteration of our Catholic identity in a new springtime of post-Conciliar transformation….

An article shared by Joe Reid about the old theological notion that an “ontological change” occurs through ordination became a running gag throughout the four days here. The class never bought that, had great fun with it, and gave it a serious thrashing.

Get it? In this reunion group – the one that Fishwrap is all agog over – the ontological effect of the Sacrament of Orders is, for them, a joke. They don’t believe in priesthood as the Church believes in priesthood. One hero of the group, a priest from Detroit (whom I bet was involved in Call To Action back in the day) cited “lay empowerment” as the “blueprint for the future”. These guys have been wrong about just about everything their whole lives, it seems, but they’ve got stunning insights for us now. Here’s some more, straight from the Fishwrap‘s fevered imaginings:

I do think that will be the major challenge of the next several years, to break this clericalism and think of ways of transforming the sacrament of orders into a living kind of leadership sacrament that anybody in the church would be eligible to be appointed to, obviously with preparation and some kind of spiritual grounding.

Perhaps the sort of preparation that these jokers had?

This is warmed over Rahner and Schillebeeckx. Choose someone from the community to preside. When that person no longer embodies the needs of the community, choose another. In seminary, in the 1980’s, this is crap we got, from faculty trained around the same time as this tragic reunion group. We were even forbidden to use the word “priest” but rather to say “ordained minister”. Everyone, you see, is a “minister”, either ordained or unordained. If you don’t believe that there is an ontological change in the man who is ordained, and that change imparts something to what the priest does, then priesthood is simply a job, a role that any person could fulfill. So, why not choose this person or that person who has – for now – what we want? The selection effectively has nothing to do with God.

Of course, of the guys who were ordained for my native place, were I to be counted among that class of ’91, I’m the only one left.

Look. No one begrudges a bunch of guys a reunion, but this is really sad.

Another quote also reveals something of the Fishwrap view.

“The Vatican Council gave a whole new vision of possibility for the Catholic church,” said Bob Livingston of Detroit, who left the active priesthood, married and, had a long career with General Motors. “That was personally transformative. It was the most exhilarating intellectual and faithful thing I have ever experienced. When Francis came in, it was like going back to 1966. It was like coming out of a long, dark tunnel. Francis was like stepping back into John XXIII, a breath of fresh air.

Ah…. those halcyon days of springtime and transformation!

What a springtime it has been!

A final piteous example, making reference to John XXIII’s “Moon Speech” on the evening of the Council’s opening day…

Most of all, they are, as Jim Murphy put it, by way of Thomas Merton, a finger pointing at the moon — in all its phases, including its exhilarating fullness, even when obscured. These classmates would say, “Don’t pay attention to us. Pay attention to what we’re pointing at,” and the moon they’re pointing at is the Second Vatican Council, reflecting the light of that major eruption of the Holy Spirit, a moon capable, in its fullness, of lighting our way forward into the future.

Posted in Liberals, Our Catholic Identity, Pò sì jiù, Priests and Priesthood, Vatican II, You must be joking! | Tagged Fishwrap, priesthood, Second Vatican Council
21 Comments

19 Nov 1863: The Gettysburg Address

Posted on 19 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. It wasn’t much attended at the moment, but over time it has been recognized one of the greatest public speeches ever.

Four and a half months after the Battle of Gettysburg, on the afternoon of Thursday 19 November 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a “few appropriate remarks” at the dedication of the cemetery for fallen soldiers.

After a 13,607 word speech by Edward Everett, the President’s address consisted of 10 sentences in 272 words.

This address took me only about 2 minutes to read aloud.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Posted in Just Too Cool |
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Christmas, Priests, Arms, and You

Posted on 19 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Right on cue, some folks have written messages asking for advice about Christmas gifts for priests.

I could give the same advice I gave in years past. However, here’s a new thought based on a project I have wanted to get going for a while. Consider this. If your priests happen to have ecclesiastical coats of arms already prepared, you might have them either embroidered on vestments, or embroidered on appliqué patches which could be sewn on vestments.

To this end, if the priests do not have coats of arms already prepared, they might contact someone who can help them, someone knowledgeable in the field. Some priests will have family crests. I for example was able to find mine.

I found the services of David Burkart very helpful. He did a good rendering of my coat of arms, sent me a digital file, and also our large printed version for framing. The digital version can be used to create embroidered appliqués.

Right now, I am raising money to have a very beautiful set of investments made for pontifical masses. My hope is that I can make coat of arms appliqués of all the priests who are usually involved in these masses and then temporarily affix them to the appropriate vestments for mass. I am not yet sure how to do that. Perhaps with clear Velcro or pins. I’m thinking about that.

You readers are remarkably well informed and helpful. You are a great resource. Hence, I open the floor to your ideas.

Here is a patch, embroidered onto mesh, which I then applied to the chasuble for my 1st Mass, lo those many years ago. It doesn’t have the motto ribbon, but it works well.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes | Tagged arms, coat-of-arms, stemma
12 Comments

Reliable Catholic and Pro-Life Causes

Posted on 19 November 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here are some efforts worth your attention. We are getting down to the end of the year. Some of you are starting to think about your end of year TAX DEDUCTIBLE giving.

Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison

First, in the sphere of liturgy and the promotion of our Catholic identity, may I recommend the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison? The TMSM is a a 501(c)(3) organization.

I am the president of the TMSM. For the last few years, especially with the help of the Extraordinary Ordinary, we have been expanding our arsenal of good vestments, so important for dignified liturgical worship, and celebrating Solemn and Pontifical Masses regularly. Right now I have a couple projects going, for a new solemn Pontifical set in black, and one in a spectacular multicolored damask fabric and red moire lining.

The funds are there for the black (which I’m working on), but they are not for the damask.

I want to raise $15000 to cover the new Pontifical set in damask.

It would include things like the gremial, antependium, additional dalmatics and so forth. Items lacking for a simpler Solemn Mass set. It is amazing how much of a difference in the atmosphere of a sanctuary the antependium makes! They cost quite a bit but they are worth every centimeter.

This is what we are after with the damask. For larger, right click and open in a new tab.

These are the personal vestments of a new priest, his property. That’s well and good. But they are not enough for a Pontifical Mass at the throne and I am a firm believer that we should own our own vestments independently of any other (potentially fickle) organization.

To donate you can use PayPal, which is really easy and fast (they take a taste).

You can send a check by snail mail (and every cent comes to us).

Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison
733 Struck St.
PO BOX 44603
Madison, WI 53744-4603

You can wire transfer from these USA or from abroad:

Contact me.

We are doing good things here. As a matter of fact, I believe that our Society has prompted the creation of some other groups. Also, I suspect that our example with the bishop has perhaps inspired other bishops to be generous with their availability for solemn traditional worship.

We are all in this together. When we raise the tide, all boats rise. That’s what we are doing, Mass by Mass and maniple by maniple.

Sacred Heart Academy

My friend Fr. Robert Sirico has done amazing things at the parish entrusted to him in Grand Rapids, MI. He has revitalized worship and resurrected and transformed their school into a first rate Catholic classical academy. During one of my last visits there, I had a good tour of the school during hours and visited class rooms. The students and teachers were amazing.

Right now, at Sacred Heart Academy, they have provided an opportunity to help the students by funding scholarships. At the close of the 2013-14 school year the Academy had 69 students, now enrollment stands at 317 – an increase of 359% in 4 years! And, believe me, this place is really Catholic.

Watch their video HERE. They are at about 50% of their campaign right now. Let’s see what you readers can do. They need 114 donors for matching grants to fund the scholarships. They have 58.

Heartbeat International

More for your information than anything else. You can help to save lives by spreading this information.

Over the last few years I have gotten involved with a pro-life group called Heartbeat International. This is an amazing group which quietly provides support for many local initiatives, like pro-life pregnancy centers. For example, during a pilgrimage to Italy with them we visited centers in tiny towns where people are doing great things with almost nothing. Heartbeat can give them funding. You might recall that a few months ago, I posted about how they now administer a network of doctors across the continent who can prescribe the medication that REVERSES the “morning after pill” abortifacient without any negative effects to mother or child. This is a Big Deal. HERE Women can get these abortifacient drugs easily. They take them in a panic and many women change their minds. Most people don’t even know that the process CAN BE REVERSED without ill effects. But the reversal treatment must be administered quickly and by prescription. That’s why Heartbeat runs a network of pro-life doctors and can get women in touch with a local doctor fast, to get that reversal prescribed.

Now, Heartbeat has a new website called PregnancyCenterTruth.com. The fact is that Big Business Abortion constantly attacks small centers, calling them “fake clinics” etc. This site combats the attacks and provides accurate information. In one presentation I heard while attending a Heartbeat event, we were given statistics about how important that first contact is with some clinic or center. If women contact Big Business Abortion, they tend to go one way. If their first contact for help is with a pro-life group, it goes that way. Over the years, slowly and steadily the lines on the graph they showed have converged, and those first contacts with pro-life groups have caught up to and have started to pass Big Business Abortion. Hence, getting good information out there in a timely and user friendly way is critically important.

Heartbeat is a great organization to support on its own. However, this site – PregnancyCenterTruth.com – is something that you should make known to those around you. Get the word out on the internet, in parish bulletins, through diocesan pro-life offices, etc.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, ACTION ITEM! |
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