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{]:¬)

How libs and their “gay” allies want you crushed into silence

Posted on 31 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Crisis has a piece which talks about how homosexualist Jesuit (tautology?) James Martin, LGBTQSJ has urged his twitter and fakebook followers to attack LifeSite and other faithful Catholic sites for something they didn’t do.

This isn’t the first time Martin has organized an attack: he did that to me, too. But I digress.

Austin Ruse writes:

[Aaron] Bianco’s cause has been picked up by dissident Jesuit Fr. James Martin who has urged his nearly one million social media followers to get Facebook and Twitter to shut down LifeSite and Church Militant. He also called on his followers to complain to their bishops. He, too, believes these groups must be silenced.

Martin calls for tolerance and dialogue. Sure! So long as nothing challenging is offered his side or so long as you agree. If you disagree, with the sickly smile of Geryon, he’ll attack you through the agency of others.

The Libs, with their massive menagerie of allies, work from a special meaning of “liberal”. “Liberal”, as you know, is from Latin, for “free”. Libs are those with whom you are free to agree. Anything else is not allowed. This is why a while back many prominent libs whined that Catholic converts shouldn’t have a voice in the square. This is why certain libs call for people to be fired or want to watch as their opponents are guillotined.

Scratch a lib and you find a Nazi.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Fr. James Martin
7 Comments

All Saints 2017 – 1 Nov- Holy Day of Obligation – Deliberately ignore? Grave sin!

Posted on 31 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In these United States, be sure to check your parish schedules for Masses.

Thursday 1 November 2017 is a Holy Day of OBLIGATION.

For our part, there will be a Missa Cantata at St. Mary’s in Pine Bluff, WI, in the Extraordinary Form. 6:30 PM

Remember that the Church can determine out obligations in this regard. It is a Commandment of the Church that we are to fulfill our obligation on Sundays and other Holy Days of obligation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains our obligation in the section about the Third Commandment of the Decalogue:

2180 The precept of the Church specifies the law of the Lord more precisely: “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation the faithful are bound to participate in the Mass.” “The precept of participating in the Mass is satisfied by assistance at a Mass which is celebrated anywhere in a Catholic rite either on the holy day or on the evening of the preceding day.”

2181 The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice. For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor. Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin.

Canon Law

So, do check your schedules.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Canon Law, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 |
13 Comments

ASK FATHER: Confessing remembered forgotten sins

Posted on 30 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I tend to get very nervous in confession and I do better if I just stick to the script so to speak so I don’t start rambling. Is there a formula for confessing mortal sins that were forgotten in a previous confession, or do I just list them off with all the new ones? Do we still confess forgotten sins in kind and number?

If sticking to the script works for you, that’s fine. It works for confessors too! Thank you for not rambling.

If later you remember something that you haven’t yet confessed, then confess it the next time you go.

Don’t worry: if your last confession was sincere and you confessed all that you could remember, ALL your sins were forgiven, including those which you had forgotten. Remembering them does not mean that you lose the state of grace, or fall back into the state of sin. The sins were forgiven.

However, we are nevertheless asked by the Church to confess all our sins in both kind and number. If you remember something that you haven’t confessed, confess it the next time even though it was forgiven.

As for a formula: No, nothing formal. You might say, “Since my last confession I remembered something that I haven’t previously confessed….”

I hope this helps.

Everyone… GO TO CONFESSION!

We are coming up on a week or so when we can gain many plenary indulgences for the Poor Souls. We have to be in the state of grace to gain plenary indulgences and we should be detached from any kind of sin.

GO TO CONFESSION!

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, GO TO CONFESSION, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged confession, kind and number, sacrament of penance
16 Comments

My View For Awhile: Purgation Edition

Posted on 30 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I’m offering up the mornings frustrations and irritation in reparation for the Synod (“walking together”).

Apart from having to leave and leave before 4 for the sake of the early flight, the weather was horrific again this morning (have you seen the news?), and at the airport there was extreme chaos. The chaos was the result of the Alitalia personnel setting up no signs indicating the sort of line you needed. Some were checked and had to drop bags, some were Priority (moi meme), some needed full check. Eventually I determined the right point to penetrate the scrum. Languid indifference to customers would aptly characterize the employees at the counters.

And, you would think that people would have their ID ready. No? Any mental anticipation? The slightest situational awareness?

At the gate, same problem as before. No signs to show what line you needed. I asked a drone about Priority. He referred me and others to the Priority line. When I asked him to show us the sign, he seemed to get my point.

Anyway, this is the sort of thing that the Left wants. They want socialism. When airlines are run by governments this is the service you get. This is an Airfrance flight but it is handled by Alitalia on the ground: enough said.

I have a decent layover in Paris, so some delay won’t be too much of a concern.

Patience and painkillers.

But hey! Rome was great! It’s the coming and going that challenge.

UPDATE

I guess my reparation might have been somewhat attenuated a little.

Compare these to Delta. Hah.

The fussing children over whom europarents are exercising no comfort of control are way in the back.

We just heard an announcement that the flight staff will be with us all the way to Chicago, which strikes me as a good idea, since this is a non -stop to Chicago.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
13 Comments

Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Posted on 30 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard during your Mass to fulfill your Sunday Obligation?

Let us know.

You were paying attention, weren’t you?

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
4 Comments

Rome – Day 7: Mass for Benefactors and Cena di Congedo

Posted on 29 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

It has been a pretty nasty day in the Eternal City. The weather was as dreadful today as it has been beautiful over the week. I did get out for some last needful errands and got drenched.

As promised, I said Holy Mass – Votive of the Most Holy Trinity – for my benefactors: those of you who have sent donations, either ad hoc or by monthly subscription, and who have sent items from my lists and so forth. A shot from the Mass.

It is a pleasure and a duty to be willingly and frequently fulfilled. You help me and I help you in the best ways I can.

After Mass, for too few minutes, I saw The Great Roman™ who was there for a meeting of the Archconfraternity which St. Philip Neri himself founded – yes, still going.

I also was able to meet again with the new tailor for discussion of cassocks, which is good. He showed me some samples of fabric and we discussed various features. When I know I’ll be back next time, I’ll let him know and indicate any changes about two weeks in advance and that will be that! It’ll be good having a tailor in Urbe again. I truly miss old Giuseppe: R.I.P.

Finally, I invited one of the guys over to clean out my refrigerator. We did this by having a supper of odds and ends of various wonderful cheeses and sausages I’ve collected over the week, supplemented with good salads from the restaurant down below (nice people), who offered us freshly made focaccia. Then I sent him home with all the leftovers and edibles in packet, jar and bag.

Everything is ready for a super early departure for the airport… except me. I would like to have had a few more days. That’s life.

I’ll be back soon.

Posted in On the road, What Fr. Z is up to |
6 Comments

More on #Synod2018 (“walking together”) document #146

Posted on 29 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today the pithily perspicacious Fr H looks at the Synod’s (“walking together”) notion about developing ways to certify Catholic blogs to avoid “fake news”.

He wrote along the lines of what I wrote HERE. He also wrote:

We seem to have come a long way from those broad sunlit uplands when Benedict XVI (remember him? The ‘Rat’, the ‘Inquisitor’, the ‘Panzer Cardinal’? Yes, that one) encouraged blogging, and especially clerical bloggers. Now, the era of the boors and the bullies. [It’s the age of the Hoopers. Indeed, it’s the age of the Hooper/Blanche Hybrid, but with none of the charm or insight and all of the perversion.]

Shall we, in a few years’ time, discover that we have Diocesan, National, and Worldwide systems for closing down free discussion in the Church? After all, the Synod will have “called for it”, won’t it?

“Synodality” sounds so democratic, modern, open and free. What’s not to like? And this Synod has concluded with the usual flurry of synthetic Bergoglian rhetoric about the Holy Spirit. In such liberated and happy times, don’t you need to be paranoid to be suspicious?

Don’t you believe it. Bullies are bullies are bullies.

Perhaps it is too early and, as yet, unfair, to bring in the image of Perón.

In my above-mentioned post I said:

If they want to know the meaning of total, unrestricted and asymetrical warfare just try that. They won’t know what hit them.

Can you imagine what the reaction would be in the blogosphere and through other media were there to develop such an initiative in the Church? To certify (censor) Catholic sites?

I didn’t pull that image of “unrestricted and asymetrical warfare” out of the blue. Years ago I read a book by a couple of Chinese colonels about how they could take down the USA. The book has become an important resource. It describes a way of fighting with limited resources a much greater power. US HERE – UK HERE

I bring this up because such an effort would be a waste of time and energy, highly divisive, and a complete failure.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, Be The Maquis, Si vis pacem para bellum! | Tagged censorship, Synod
5 Comments

Saving a heritage church in Fall River

Posted on 29 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

In the near future, we will face more church closures. Some won’t be that much of a loss. Some, however, are part of our patrimony, lovingly built by our forebears, irreplaceable.

I bring to the readerships attention the plight of parishioners at one such church.

From The Herald News:

Peaceful protesters want transparency from church officials and a chance to save St. Anne’s

FALL RIVER – The people built St. Anne’s Church 112 years ago, and it’s the people intent on saving it today.

A crowd gathered Sunday afternoon in front of St. Anne’s to pray and peacefully protest the Fall River Diocese’s decision to close the beloved landmark Catholic church and shrine on Nov. 25.

“It’s the building, the history and the heritage,” said Bryan Boyle, whose family was one of many that built St. Anne’s. “You can’t remove the spirit of what it represents.”

Boyle said his French-Canadian great-grandfather purchased bricks that helped to erect the Romanesque marble structure in the early 1900s.

“This is a structure to last centuries,” he said.

[…]

Brian Boyle is a long-time reader and commentator here. I’ve had a lot of contact with him off the pages of this blog and he is a solid guy, not given to exaggerations.

Time and time again, I’ve heard about dioceses which want to close churches and sell off the land (guess what for!). They do so in such a way that parishoners and others hardly have any say or way to raise the money needed for structural repairs, etc. Some bishops take a more enlightened and creative path, and think inside the box: TRADITION. In many places where TRADITION is tried, it succeeds.

We must not squander our patrimony if it is possible to retain it. We don’t have to GIVE UP.

This church is in Fall River. Tomorrow, it could be your church. That’s why we all need to pay attention and even add our voices. You may live in, say, Idaho, but that church is also part of who you are.

Speaking of a place where TRADITION is being tried, HERE is a related story in Cincinnati:

CROWDS PACK RARE LATIN MASSES SPONSORED BY ORATORY

We just watched at the 2018 Synod (“walking together”) on Youth stumbled to its predictably embarrassing and cliche-ridden surcease. They mouthed over tired ideas about liturgy, as if we haven’t watched the last 50 years of implosions and erosions.

Maybe we should start thinking inside the box again.

The inside of the box is the new outside of the box.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, Hard-Identity Catholicism | Tagged D. Fall River
12 Comments

The Wanderer: A Synod (“walking together”) of clichés

Posted on 29 October 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At my old stomping ground, The Wanderer, there is a good summary and analysis piece by Peggy Moen (a terrific editor!) who attended much of the Synod (“walking together”).

Clichés Of The Francis Era Dominate A Press Briefing

ROME — Following the Thursday, October 25 Youth Synod press briefing, I spoke with Robert Royal, editor in chief of The Catholic Thing, and said that I could as well have skipped this one. It was void of any substance.
They didn’t get what they wanted, he said, a pro-gay document, and that also it just wasn’t going to happen.
He agreed with me that the African bishops were likely responsible for this turn in synod events.
The October 25 briefing presentations were all process and no content, I said.
But, said Royal: “They would like the process to become content.”
Here are some examples of what was said in this press briefing. It took place two days before the vote on the synod’s final document:
A youth delegate, Lucas Borboza Galhardo from Brazil, said: “We walk together…a very strong participation — they’ve been listening to us.”
I thought of Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Mamfe, Cameroon, who, at the previous day’s press briefing said: “We should also get the youth to listen to the elders,” as it is not a matter of “one-way traffic.”
Hector Miguel Cabrejos Vidarte, OFM, archbishop of Trujillo, Peru, pointed to “a very important word . . . synodality” which is “for the young and with the young.”
“The Church should . . . take on this synodality,” he added.
“We need to accompany all the discernment processes.” [What does that even mean?!?]
In the subsequent question period, Suzy Pinto of EWTN News Nightly asked the archbishop what “synodality,” a word that “is not known,” means. He replied, in part, that Pope Francis “highlights that notion of walking together” with everyone in the Church, but also with those who are more distant. [Who has noticed that when I write about the Synod I always add “walking together”?]
In his presentation, Arlindo Cardinal Gomes Furtado of Santiago de Cabo Verde called the synod “an experience of the Church . . . a communion amongst everyone . . . altogether forming a real ecclesial family.” He called it “a model for me.”
He added that we need to strengthen this process of working together, walking together.
Gualtiero Cardinal Bassetti of Perugia-Città della Pieve praised the synod’s “so many different colors, so many different languages” and called the discussions in the small groups “unforgettable.” He said we must all “truly walk together.”
Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register tweeted on October 25: “#Synod18 sources: ‘Synodality’ as a new model of the Church (i.e. permanent revolution) is now being imposed on the assembly, despite it not figuring highly in working document nor synod discussions. It dominates 3rd part of final doc. draft, has no connection with synod theme.” [“permanent revolution” is a phrase made famous by Leon Trotsky.]
But along with a curious new word, “synodality,” Francis-era clichés ran through these press briefing comments: “accompany,” “walking together,” “listening,” “discernment process,” and more.
And the problem with a cliché is that its words have become empty of meaning.
In the question period, Vaticanista Sandro Magister told Paolo Ruffini, head of the Vatican’s Department of Communication, that in the past few days, L’Osservatore Romano has given information that was not provided in the synod press conferences.
As one example, Magister cited L’Osservatore Romano’s reporting that the Pope has taken part in the drafting of the final document. That is important news, said Magister, because the final document should be offered to the Pope, not written by him.
Magister asked: Do we also today have to wait for L’Osservatore Romano to get the information that was not given in the press conferences?
Ruffini — on the stage with the above four speakers and Greg Burke, director of the Holy See Press Office — replied to the effect that he would answer questions, and anyone could otherwise read L’Osservatore Romano. [??!??]
This, with all the above, speaks for itself.

You might consider subscribing to The Wanderer for several reasons.

First, they are on side. For many years before the development of alternative news through the internet, The Wanderer stayed on course as an invaluable resource for faithful Catholics against the ravages of the libs.

Second, they have good content. We get our news swiftly through the internet, but we also need good commentary.

Third, sound legacy media needs support. Subscriptions will help them to develop toward the future. Their perspective is needed.

The Wanderer has been walking the walk for a long time.