Weigel on improvising priests. Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 13 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We had an honorable mention in a piece by George Weigel today, not by name, but pretty much everyone knows what’s what.

In First Things, Weigel is rightly worked up about priests who, contrary to law and good sense, impose their own changes (preferences) on the texts of Holy Mass (and therefore on the innocent, helpless congregation).

He must have had a experience recently which set him off.

DEAR FATHER: PLEASE STOP IT [Dear Father: Shut up and pray]
In all the sixteen documents of the Second Vatican Council, is there any prescription more regularly violated than General Norm 22.3 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy? Which, in case you’ve forgotten, teaches that “no . . . person, not even a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the liturgy on his own authority.”

If you’re a daily Mass attendant, the odds are that you hear that norm violated a dozen times a week. Sunday Mass people typically hear it violated two or three times a week, at least. Auto-editing or flat-out rewriting the prescribed text of the Mass is virtually epidemic among priests who attended seminary in the late Sixties, Seventies, or early Eighties; it’s less obvious among the younger clergy. But whether indulged by old, middle-aged, or young, it’s obnoxious and it’s an obstacle to prayer.

Especially now, I might note, given the restoration of the more formal rhythms of liturgical language in the English translations we’ve used since Advent 2011. Those translations are not faultless. But they’re a massive improvement on what we used to have (as a comparison with what’s still, alas, in the breviary will attest). [Liturgy of the Hours… you can always use Latin.] And by restoring sacral language that was peremptorily discarded in the previous translation, [after preemptorily discarding Latin] the current translation reminds us that Mass is far more than a social gathering; it’s an act of worship, the majesty of which should be reflected in the language of the liturgy—which is not the language of the shopping mall or the Super Bowl party. [Or even of everyday discourse.  If only the Latin Church had a sacral language for worship which could unite us across borders and with past generations, which could elevate and provide a challenging dimension of worship which could prepare us for what is entirely lacking in the Novus Ordo: an apophatic encounter with mystery.]

In one sense, though, the new translation has made things worse. For when Father Freelance scratches his itch to show just how congregation-friendly he is [or how sophisticated] by making what he imagines are nifty changes [it’s the “nifty” that really does it there] to the Mass text, he instantly sets up sonic dissonance for anyone with a reasonably well-tuned ear. And sonic dissonance makes it hard to pray.

So with a civil new year upon us, may I suggest to our fathers in Christ that they cease and desist from making it up, juicing it up, or otherwise tinkering with the Missal? [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] As an old liturgical saw has it, referring to the difference in color that distinguishes prayers from instructions in the Missal, “Read the black and do the red.” Just that, Father. Read the black and do the red. Or, better, pray the black and do the red.

[…]

Read the rest there.

I have an antidote.  Weigel won’t like it, but it works.

The Extraordinary Form.

First, it is harder to improvise in Latin.  Harder, not impossible.  I and a few others I know could probably do it, but… why?

The older form of Holy Mass keeps priests under control, helps them to become more transparent, suppress temptations to customize, allows them more easily to decrease.

Learning the older form of Mass changes a way that the priest sees himself at the altar, what his role is.  It gives him a new (old) view of his priesthood (hint = it’s not about him).

When a priest learns how to say the older, traditional form of Mass, he doesn’t say the Novus Ordo in the same way afterwards.  His use of the Novus Ordo is informed by a continuity with our tradition and his priesthood at the altar is transformed.  This can produce a knock-on effect with the congregation.

It revives or even initiates a respect for the Latin texts and could help bring the use of Latin back into the Novus Ordo.  Does it have to be said again that the Novus Ordo should also be in Latin?

At least juridically speaking, since the Roman Rite has two forms, a Roman, Latin Church priest who doesn’t know the Extraordinary Form is not truly knowledgeable about the rites of his own Church.

With its ethos of options, the Novus Ordo, in the vernacular and especially versus populum, is inherently open to these kinds of abuses.   It needs the corrective of the traditional form.

Sapienti pauca.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Priests and Priesthood | Tagged , ,
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Jude Law to play fictional Pope in new TV series

Posted on 13 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the best Catholic weekly in the UK (and not just I write for it), The Catholic Herald, comes this.

Apparently, a new series is being filmed these days starring Jude Law as an American Pope

Jude Law appears in ‘uncomfortable’ papal robes while filming TV series in Venice

The British actor is playing a fictional pontiff in a new series expected to be screened later this year

Jude Law has appeared in papal robes [read: cassock] in Venice on the set of a new TV series.

Law, who plays the part of fictional Pope Pius XII [I suspect they meant Pius XIII.] in The Young Pope, wore a cassock and a zucchetto while filming scenes in St Mark’s Square on Tuesday.

During filming, he stood on a raised platform and spoke into a microphone, in a scene possibly depicting a papal audience.

The series, which is a joint production between HBO, Sky and Canal+, is expected to air later this year.

Directed by the Oscar-winning Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, the plot reportedly tells the story of Law’s conservative American pontiff clashing with Vatican hierarchy.  [So, the Curia is the liberal antagonist?]

Diane Keaton also appears in the series as Sister Mary, one of Pius’s closest aides. [Cringe.]

The Young Pope began filming last year with locations including Rome and South Africa. There is expected to be further filming in America and Puerto Rico.

Discussing his papal costume, Law told Hollywood Reporter: “At the moment, it’s that I can only sit on a very uncomfortable sort of stool because they don’t want my papal robes to get creased. So I have to sort of hitch them up and put them over the stool and perch.  [Yes yes… priests have been doing this for centuries.]

“So once I put the robes on, I usually spend the day, 14 hours, whatever, unable to sit. So I look great, but I’m very uncomfortable.”  [Suck it up, buttercup.]

He added: “The best part of the job is this opportunity to educate yourself and teach yourself and submerge yourself in the world, in the facts, the history, background, skills, whatever it may be, of the character you’re playing.”

Sorrentino, whose latest film Youth will be released in the UK on January 29, said The Young Pope is about “how faith can be searched for and lost”.

“[It shows] the inner struggle between the huge responsibility of the head of the Catholic Church and the miseries of the simple man that fate (or the Holy Spirit) chose as Pontiff,” he said.

We shall see.

Posted in The Campus Telephone Pole |
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Brick by Brick. TLM by TLM.

Posted on 12 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

16_01_12_propoganda_posterThere is a bit of head scratching going on in traditional circles about whether attendance at TLMs has either hit a plateau or, like Sisyphus’ rock, is rolling backwards.

Here is post from the charming and erudite Prof. Joseph Shaw of England’s Latin Mass Society.

Let’s see:

61 Traditional Christmas Masses in England and Wales

See the whole list of Christmas Masses here, and Masses for the Epiphany here.

The Latin Mass Society is advertising a record number of Masses in the Extraordinary Form being celebrated this Christmas. Counting Midnight Mass and the Mass of Christmas Day, there will be no fewer than 61 celebrations this year. This represents an increase of 11 since last year.

2012 – 44
2013 – 50
2014 – 50
2015 – 61

It is interesting that there was not increase between 2013 and 2014. In many ways I have the impression that there was something of a pause in the development of the Traditional Mass around that time. [Hmmm… what happened then?] But that is over now, and it is not difficult to see where the growth has come from. We have a whole group of new centres for the celebration of the Traditional liturgy coming on-stream this year: the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in Preston, the Fraternity of St Peter in Warrington, the Friars in Gosport, the Oratory in York, a new EF Mass venue in Bedford, and so on.

Who would have thought, ten years ago, that there would be celebrations of the Traditional Mass for Christmas in six churches in the Archdiocese of Liverpool?

That there would be a Traditional Mass for Christmas in places like the University Chaplaincy at Leeds, or Portsmouth Cathedral?

That there would be traditional High Masses – with celebrant, deacon and subdeacon – in five different places for Christmas? In Sheffield, Birmingham, Warrington, New Brighton, and Gosport.

We have a long way to go, in making the Traditional Mass genuinely available to Catholics in England and Wales. But thanks to the tremendous work of the priests who love this Mass, and to the faithful who support them – including the Latin Mass Society – we are moving in the right direction.

Support the work of the LMS by becoming an ‘Anniversary Supporter‘.

Brick by brick, my readers, brick by brick.

However, I will remind you about what I have written before.

Summorum Pontificum was a game-changer, people.  Priests don’t need permission to use the older books.  Pastors don’t have to crawl with their trembling beggar bowl and cringe before the lord bishop.

Also, don’t hitch all your hopes for a bright future only on specialist priests of the FSSP or ICK.  As good as they are, and they are great fellows and the groups are wonderful, I hold that the real reform will being when more diocesan priests learn the older, traditional Form and use it regularly in their parishes.

We must NOT be complacent with one Mass at a reasonable time at one parish.  We must NOT allow ourselves to be shoved into ghettos or concentration chapels.  No.  Take it over the borders into new territories.  Invade!  Be the maquis!

MORE MORE MORE!  That’s what we need.

I had a note from a young parish priest in my native place of Minnesota about his recently implemented TLM.  He wrote:

OVER 200 attended our EF Mass tonight. More than double our highest attendance and not to mention, my awesome young school principal (largest elementary in the TC) was in attendance with her 4 or 5 kids and husband.

And to you who haven’t yet been to Holy Mass in the traditional, Extraordinary Form… what are you waiting for?

As I have written in the past, you have been given what you need to get what you long for.   Stop moping about.

WE CAN DO IT!

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, Be The Maquis, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The future and our choices | Tagged , ,
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“Unarmed women had faced down the world-conquering Nazis”

Posted on 12 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I am presently working through Mark Riebling’s Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler.

I found an interesting anecdote about what happened in Bavaria when the Nazis took Crucifixes out of schools.

In rural Bavaria, there were already flickers of revolt. When party bosses removed crucifixes from rural schools, pious women launched a wave of civil disobedience. Often they marched together to replace a crucifix after a Mass for a fallen soldier. In the village of Velburg, five hundred women pushed into the mayor’s house, pinned him down as he reached for his pistol, and forced his wife to hand over the classroom keys. Women rallied their husbands in other villages, where the public squares filled with peasants brandishing pitchforks. Perceiving “a front of psychological resistance” and “almost a revolutionary mood,” the Bavarian government restored the crosses. Unarmed women had faced down the world-conquering Nazis.

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged , ,
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Fishwrap’s Zagano: The Catholic Church is like an Islamic mob that beats women to death

Posted on 12 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

fishwrapOver at Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter) our old pal, and promoter of women’s ordination, Phyllis Zagano has another knee-slapper.

She has a penchant for over-the-top moral equivalencies.  Let’s see her latest cringe-worthy claim: Because the Catholic Church doesn’t ordain women, the Catholic Church is like a superstitious Islamic mob that beats a woman to death.

Obvious, no?  Let’s see how Zagano paints the scene:

Things were pretty much unchanged for women in 2015. In Afghanistan, a 27-year-old female theology student was lynched by a superstitious mob. Elsewhere, a few Catholics continued to argue that women cannot image Christ.

Sticks and stones can break your bones, and words can really hurt you.

One day last February, on the Shah-Do-Shamshira shrine’s Wednesday “women’s day,” Farkhunda Malikzada challenged a fortune teller. She said his lucrative practice of selling tawiz — small pieces of paper with writings — to women hoping for husbands or male children, was superstitious and not Islamic. It turned out the fortune teller was trafficking in more than bits of paper. Months later, investigators found his trade included condoms, Viagra, and quite probably prostitutes.

Elsewhere during the year, a few writers encouraged the notion that a woman cannot image Christ. First proposed in 1975, as an opinion of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding women’s priestly ordination, the so-called “iconic argument” fell from John Paul II’s 1994 edict Ordinatio sacerdotalis. But in 2000, Cardinal Gerhard Müller wove the concept into his book Priesthood and Diaconate, parts of which crept (without attribution) into the 2002 International Theological Commission’s study document on the diaconate.

What they did to Farkhunda is metaphor for what the Church does to women.

She goes on to describe Farkhunda’s horrific death at the hands of members of the Religion of Peace.  More…

That is how it is for Afghan women, derided, despised, abused and sometimes killed for speaking truth to even the most insignificant of power — a fortune teller with a shady business.

How similar is the place of women in Catholicism. To say a woman can image Christ is to risk derision by angry defenders of some imaginary “faith” and genteel avoidance by pampered princes of the Church. Or worse.

[Eye-roll.]

Swap a few things out and see what happens.

If you, a female theology student, say that women can be ordained, you are the brave Farkhunda, defender of true Islam, pointing out the unpopular truth to ignorant, untheological men (= bad) peddling superstition (= “Christianity without ordained women”).  But, when brave, innocent female Farkhunda – Zagkhunda – just tries to be helpful and points out the truth to those men (= bad), she is treated with unspeakable brutality by the blinkered superstitious male (= bad) mob.

No, no.  Not at all self-important.

Posted in Liberals, Lighter fare, You must be joking! | Tagged , ,
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The “Long War” we are completely unready to fight

Posted on 12 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I bring to the readership’s attention a fascinating speech at Breitbart by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in December 2015 at National Defense University about the “Long War” we are facing and our spectacular lack of preparation for such a conflict.

You should read the whole think, slowly.  It is delivered in Gringrich’s usual crisp, punchy prose. Here is a sample in medias res:

6. Lawfare [the use of the law by a country against its enemies, esp by challengingthe legality of military or foreign policy] combined with ubiquitous regular media and social media coverage is creating new ground rules for the effective use of force in defense of American safety.  For two generations we have allowed lawyers, media members, and non governmental organizations to define an ever more complex and more unwieldy set of ground rules. The efforts to turn war into criminal justice and to find “humane” methods of waging war have largely come at the expense of American national security. Confronted by enemies like Islamic Supremacists who don’t care about either the rule or law or the public opinion pressures created by visible violence, the United States will find itself at increasingly one sided disadvantages.  The notion of “bringing to justice” those who attacked us on 9/11 or Paris this November is absurd. Not only do we need to move the lawyers, NGOs and media to the side, but our new leaders must communicate directly and bluntly the nature of the threats we face, and make it plain that we all must sacrifice something if we want this nation to endure. We have to cease treating our enemies with the kind of disdain (the “J.V. team” comment, for example) that allows our leaders to demand little of themselves and nothing of us.

7. As I noted at the beginning, we are engaged in a Long War. Hollywood began recognizing that war with movies like Black Sunday 38 years ago (1977) in which a Palestinian group sought to kill thousands at a Super Bowl. Today, 36 years after the Iranian illegal seizure of the American Embassy and year long hostage crisis, 22 years after the first bombing of the World Trade Center, 17 years after the bombing of the  United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, 15 years after the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, 14 years after the attack of 9/11killed 2,996 people, we need to have the courage to face the facts. We are losing the Long War. Our elites in America and Europe have an enormous resistance to dealing honestly and effectively with the Islamic Supremacists who seek to kill us and destroy our civilization. Until we can find accurate words to describe the realities of the Long War we have no hope of even beginning to win it.  We have to recognize that this Long War may require totally new approaches completely outside the American historic experience. Furthermore the enemy’s ability to adapt may force us to dramatically shift away from the traditional “American Way of War”.

8. The Long War will last at least 50 to 100 years unless there is a disaster so large the West is compelled to mobilize with ruthless efficiency and destroy the capacity for Islamic Supremacists to function. We have no language or doctrine for sustaining a century long struggle in a free society. We have no serious efforts underway in our national security community to even begin thinking about such a long war. We certainly have no plans or systems  which enable America to cope with technological breakouts, Chinese scale and complexity, Russian opportunism and a Long War simultaneously. We also have no plans to communicate with the American people and organize understanding among Americans to sustain a century long effort which will inherently be both foreign and domestic. Since we can’t talk with ourselves it is no wonder we can’t build support among our allies.

There’s a lot more.  Read all of it.

Posted in Semper Paratus, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Religion of Peace | Tagged
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Empty chair

Posted on 11 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The other day I heard that for the State of the Union Address in POTUS’s area of the gallery there was to be an empty seat to honor victims of gun violence (which I assume also means gang-bangers who shot each other in POTUS’s town Chicago).

From Live Action News:

In response to the Obama administration’s announcement that it would be leaving an empty seat in the guest box at this month’s State of the Union Address “to honor the victims of gun violence,” pro-life Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, declared that as president he would give similar recognition to victims of abortion.

How many die of “gun violence” in these USA? How many die of abortion?  Of those who dies of “gun violence”, how many are “innocent”?  Of those who die of abortion, how many are innocent?

There were 13,348 deaths due to firearms in 2015, which comes to approximately 37 per day. By contrast, 1.1 million people were killed by abortion in 2010 (the most recent year with available data), or approximately 3,014 deaths per day. Further, the actual abortion numbers are likely higher due to several states, including Maryland and California, not reporting abortion data at all.

Planned Parenthood alone performed 323,999 abortions in 2015, which is 24 times the number of gun deaths emphasized by President Obama, who last week vetoed legislation to defund the abortion giant and in 2013 declared, “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.”

Obama.  Pro-death.

Didn’t Pres. Obama advocate post-birth killing of infants?

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras | Tagged , , , ,
24 Comments

Special weapons training offered to pastors, security teams

Posted on 10 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Following up on the issue of security in our churches in this age of growing uncertainty, a reader sent the following from KNOE 8 NEWS:

OPSO offers gun training to churches

WEST MONROE, La. (KNOE 8 News) – The Ouachita [I wonder how that is pronounced.] Parish Sheriff’s Office training division offered local pastors and church security teams a class on how to properly shoot a gun.

53 people were present to learn and train for dangerous situations, but each pastor or security team had to have their congregations permission.

“We get request throughout the year from different churches, to come and do security assessment or give their usher team or safety team training. In active shooter response and what they need to do” Captain Ricky Bacle said.

Today each person was certified for concealed carry, but the certification only lasts a year.
They will have to return next year for a refresher.

One year? How curious. Still, repeated training is good idea. No, it’s a great idea. Nay rather, it’s the only idea.

Interesting idea.

Discuss.

Posted in Going Ballistic, Semper Paratus, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged ,
40 Comments

Anglicans, come home!

Posted on 10 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

For all wavering Anglicans I have one thing to say… and I know that it is one your minds….

Anglicanorum coetibus.

From the Post-Gazette:

Summit could determine fate of Anglican Church

It could be a meeting of hearts, or it could be the collision of tectonic plates, shaking along the same ecclesiastical fault lines that saw the rupture of the historic Episcopal community in southwestern Pennsylvania in the past decade.

National leaders in the Anglican Communion, the world’s third-largest Christian tradition, are scheduled to gather Monday in Britain for their first big gathering after years of frosty stalemate. And it could be their last time together if the most ominous forecasts bear out. [Rome… Rome sweet Rome… is calling.]

Local bishops are echoing their colleagues’ call for prayer for what has so far defied human efforts — to repair the rupture in the communion over liberalizing trends on homosexuality and theology in Western churches such as the Episcopal Church in the United States. [Not only.  The homosexual lobby in the Catholic Church is small but well placed.  They have been emboldened in the last few years, inspired by a certain antinomianism.  We must fight it.] Anglican churches across the Southern Hemisphere, many of them fast-growing churches in Africa, have deeply opposed such changes. [Is that so?  Africa, at least.]

Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury — the figurehead of 85 million-member communion of churches with roots in the Church of England and its blend of Protestant theology and Catholic liturgical traditions — called the meeting and made a major concession to the so-called Global South primates.

Not only did he invite Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, he also invited Archbishop Foley Beach, head of the Anglican Church in North America, whose break with the Episcopal Church was especially significant in the Pittsburgh area. Normally a meeting of primates would only include the top official in each of the communion’s 38 national churches.

In the confusingly overlapping names involved, the Anglican Communion recognizes the Episcopal Church as its U.S. church, rather than the Anglican Church in North America. But the latter has received recognition from Global South Anglicans, made up of primarily non-Western nations.

The primates can’t tell a national church such as the Episcopal Church what to do. But the meeting could see the communion split or redefined as a looser federation.  [Like and old-fashioned woman’s silk stocking.  Once it gets a snag and runs, there’s no stopping it.]

 

[…]

Anglicanorum coetibus.  Benedict XVI – The Pope of Christian Unity.

End the doubt.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Pope of Christian Unity | Tagged
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Football Player: “Maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever been a part of was a Latin Mass in London.”

Posted on 9 January 2016 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Since I am a displaced Minnesotan, a reader thought that this bit of news might be of interest.

NCReg has an interview a player on Minnesota Vikings, Kevin McDermott, both a mackeral-snapper and a long-snapper.

Here is the bit that caught my eye:

Q: How does the Catholic Church help you the most?

McDermott: What gives me the most strength and security is being a part of the routines and rituals of the Church. I realized in high school, partially due to a retreat in my junior year, how dependent I was on a regular schedule that included Sunday Mass. Then, as pro football became more and more of a real-life possibility, I was determined to keep up a schedule based on traditional spirituality.
I wanted to do well in football, for sure, but football was not going to get in the way of being a good Catholic. Every week for me in the NFL — whether that was preseason, regular season or postseason — has also included a Sunday Mass, which, most of the time, has been done the evening before games.
Maybe the coolest thing I’ve ever been a part of was a Latin Mass in London. The 49ers were over there in 2013 for a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, and the priest made available to the team only did Latin Masses. Usually, people associate traditional Masses like that with beautiful cathedrals — something I’ve experienced as an altar boy in Nashville — but this time, it was in a conference room of a hotel.
Despite the plain surroundings, or maybe even because of them, I was so enthralled and moved by what was happening. It was an ordinary situation made quite extraordinary through the beautiful gift of the Latin Mass. Being a part of that with my teammates was unexpected and much appreciated.

Do I hear an “Amen!”?

Read the whole interview over there.

This part was good, too:

I pray Hail Marys while we’re on offense, so it can be said that all of our passes are Hail Mary passes. The Hail Mary is a prayer for any place or time, but two of the benefits of praying it during games are being reminded of how blessed I am that my job is playing a game and keeping my mind engaged in a routine. …

Being a good Catholic is more important than being a good football player, but you can be both.

I think the Vikings play the Seahawks tomorrow, Sunday.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Our Catholic Identity, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM | Tagged
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