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{]:¬)

Silly piece at Fishwrap aimed at the new Oratory in @DetroitCatholic

Posted on 25 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is an amusing piece at Fishwrap by the strongly biased liberal Peter Feuerherd about a parish in Detroit which has been given over to the formation of new Oratory. Oratories are popping up all over, probably as an unconscious response on the part of priests to deal with the devastating effects on the priesthood of the great springtime of post-Conciliar renewal we’ve all been able to see and enjoy.

Let’s look at some of the article and try to read between the lines. My emphases and comments:

Former parishioners of Our Lady of the Rosary in Detroit miss how it used to be

Transformation into an oratory brought new focus, smaller attendance [And yet, in the article, he says that the attendance has stayed the same. Hmmm.]

A gilded statue of Mary stands atop Our Lady of the Rosary Church overlooking the Ford Freeway and Woodward Boulevard in the center of this beleaguered city.

Below, Sunday Mass for the feast day of Corpus Christi commences. It begins with a congregation of 25, swelling to 35 as the Mass continues. Fr. Marko Djonovic, the parochial vicar, is preaching on the Eucharist, with a vivid depiction of the 13th-century Czech priest who inspired the feast day after he experienced the literal blood of Christ drip from the host when he offered Mass.

There is a gospel choir, consisting of a pianist, guitarist and two singers. As Mass continues, the occasional person from the streets of this Detroit crossroads neighborhood wanders in and out of the back pews.

At the sign of peace, there are hugs and greetings spread around the small congregation. They obviously know one another. The greeting sometimes turns into a quick catch-up of news. [Because that’s what the sign of peace during Mass is all about.]

There is obvious friendship and fellowship here, but all is not well at Our Lady of the Rosary. A visitor is greeted with the handshake of peace and is quietly told, “It was better before.” [So, during Mass, the dissatisfied old-lib-guard are trashing the place to a visitor.]

The congregation at Our Lady of the Rosary has always been small, but parishioners say that attendance at Sunday Mass is now about a third of what it used to be. [To be contradicted, below.]

The issue, they say, is the designation last July of the parish as an oratory and the appointment of Fr. Daniel Jones as pastor. Jones is also a professor at the archdiocesan Sacred Heart Seminary. [I know him. He did a great thesis at the Augustinianum about Christ as Priest in Augustine. Smart guy. Faithful.]

Previously, the parishioners said, the parish was focused on the neighborhood, welcoming people from the street, as well as those in nearby homes for the developmentally disabled. Now that mission outreach has been curtailed in favor of what they [who?] describe as a pre-Vatican II theology, [whatever that means – probably something to do with belief in sin and the need for grace] an intent on developing a different kind of parish with few connections to the way the church has operated in the past. [This is hilarious and ironic. “The way it was in the past” is exalted, except when it isn’t.]

“Coming here was refreshing. People were warm and inviting,” Corinne Foley-Bojanic, a 32-year member of the church, told NCR. “There was a lot of community work at Woodward and I-94,” she said. Along with other parishioners, Foley-Bojanic came to the parish from the suburbs, in her case Grosse Pointe, just beyond the city line. The spirit of community and outreach was inviting to those seeking a faith community, she said. [Perhaps there is room for useful criticism here. If under the present leadership people are not “warm and inviting”, then maybe there is an opportunity to improvement. However, I suspect that those comments were made because they aren’t being invited to hold hand and hug each other.]

Like other Our Lady of the Rosary parishioners, Foley-Bojanic speaks in the past tense about the parish. Although she continues to be a choir member, perhaps as many as a third of the congregation has left in the past year. [Again, that claim. True?] Some have apparently left the Catholic Church entirely. [It may be that they had already “left” before they stopped going to church. It may be that the church they were previous going to had also “left” before the Oratory was formed.] Others have moved across town to St. Charles Church, a Capuchin Franciscan community that carries on the social gospel multiracial ministry that urban Detroit Catholic parishes such as Our Lady of the Rosary have been known for.

For an outsider, the changes undergone in the parish might seem small, taken individually. But Our Lady of the Rosary parishioners, now seeing themselves as exiles at St. Charles, note a pattern that has produced widespread discontent. [It’s their choice to go to a different church.] They trace the problems to when the archdiocese designated the parish as an oratory, a move done, they say, without consultation.

Gone are homilies dealing with social issues affecting the city and the world, such as gun violence. [Why, one might ask, do you need constant homilies about gun violence? Who is in favor of gun violence? Are the aging hippies who frequented the place before at risk of becoming terrorists? ] In their place are pious reflections on the Eucharist. [Which is the “source and summit” of our Catholic identity.] The optimism Pope Francis has brought to the wider church, with a call for parishes to operate as a field hospital for the wounded and for ministers to smell like their sheep, has passed by Our Lady of the Rosary, they say. [Let’s look at that claim: “Pope Francis has brought ‘optimism’ to the wider church.” Recently studies show that Mass attendance isn’t up, nor are confessions and vocations. Of what use is vaporous “optimism” if it isn’t translated into deeds?]

The new oratory, which includes three diocesan priests, has eliminated Polarity, an alternative medicine program offered free to parishioners (the practitioner was told the medical approach was contrary to church teachings). [What is “Polarity Therapy”? HERE – IT is “a synthesis of the health wisdom from the West and the East. The energy flows through energy centers that are based on the Ayurvedic chakras and the Traditional Chinese Medicine principle of yin and yang.” Got it? I can’t imagine why Catholic priests would stop that in a diocesan parish.] The sanctuary used to be a hubbub of social events, [get that? THE SANCTUARY… and not in the protestant sense, but the actual sanctuary of the church] but the new parish administration wants it reserved largely for formal church worship. [LOL! “formal church worship” as if there is any other kind.] An annual Valentine’s Day dance for the developmentally disabled adult community had to be moved to another parish. [I suspect there is more behind that move.] A couple who put up Christmas ribbons to decorate the church was told to put them away last year because the colors mimicked the LGBT-rights’ banner. [In other words they were the gay-rainbow thing!] One street person who came for Communion was denied the sacrament during Mass after he was asked if he was a baptized Catholic. [What do you want to be that he said that he wasn’t Catholic?]

Former parishioner Fran O’Connell said the homilies began to take on a familiar message. “God was seen as a punisher. God was keeping track of all the evil we do,” she said. [What do you want to bet that, at the end of Mass, she also couldn’t tell you what the reading had been.]

For Jones, the issue is one of defending church teaching and practice. [NB: When priests become pastors they have to make a formal oath of fidelity. Just sayin’.]

“I’ve got to do the Mass the way the church asks for it,” he told NCR. He took out prayers that had been part of the Sunday liturgy that are not formally part of the church rubrics. [LOL! I love that. “not formally” part of the rubrics. ROFL!]

As for other issues: the Polarity process is similar to reiki, he said, which a Vatican document raised questions about. A Valentine’s dance is not an appropriate use for the sanctuary, he said. [Well… YEAH!] Students coming to Mass asked if the parish was supportive of an LGBT-rights agenda after seeing the Christmas ribbons. [In other words everyone saw they ribbons as the gay thing.]

As for the man denied Communion, Jones said that “we get a number of street people. This fellow was obviously disoriented.” Jones said the man was given a blessing and has since returned to Mass and Communion. [Okay, so he was Catholic after all. But normally the Eucharist isn’t to be given to people are not able to discern what it is that they are receiving.]

The Sunday liturgy changes do “boil down to little things. But I can’t say ‘yes’ to everything. Because I am attentive to what the church says we can do, it is upsetting to some folks.” [Folks who have lost what it means to be Catholic.]

While it wasn’t evident in the Sunday morning Corpus Christi Mass, Jones said that the parish has attracted new worshipers, particularly students from Wayne State who come for a Sunday evening liturgy preceded by an hour of confessions. The total numbers, he said, have remained about the same, even with the defections.

[…]

Okay, that’s enough.

You get the drift.

In sum, a pathetic article.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged Archd. Detroit
13 Comments

What has the Left been up to? A few examples.

Posted on 25 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

What has the Left been up to? They are becoming more radical and deranged.

For example, the inimitable Maxine Waters (D-CA) is calling on those who are susceptible, incredibly, to listen to her to harass and insult and attack publicly anyone whom they see who works for the Trump administration. In effect, she is inciting mob violence.

This was carried out in a couple ways over the weekend. The White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant because of her association with Pres. Trump. HERE Also in that coverage, there is video of idiots attacking the HHS Secretary in a restaurant. Moreover, over the weekend the AG of Florida was attacked at a movie theater where she was trying to see the documentary about Mr. Rogers. HERE Apparently she was also spat upon, which – I remind the readers – is technically an assault. Nitwits at ground zero for nitwitiness, Portland, are protesting ICE, shouting obscenities and loony phrases about “f****** Nazis”.

The Left, ladies and gentlemen.

And there’s more.

Speaking of Nazis, Massimo “Beans” Faggioli has been tweeting.

Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler and the United States is not Nazi Germany. But there are similarities, including the deep intra-ecclesial polarization on political issues and the risk of complacency towards a perverted theology of Christian ethno-nationalism.

— Massimo Faggioli (@MassimoFaggioli) June 25, 2018

Surrrrrrre he doesn’t think that Trump is like Hitler. And where is he hanging out that he is so worried about “Christian ethno-nationalism”. Once again, a straw man.

Fr. Z’s Kitchen: ‘Na ciumacata! Daje!

Posted on 24 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The other day I wrote about the connection of the Feast of St. John the Baptist and SNAILS! Romans eat snails on this great feast and so should you.

And so did I.

A few of you sent some donations for my snaily repast. Thanks! I wasn’t able in time to get snails with shells, but I have use the donations to get some snail hardware for the future.

Meanwhile, I started out with a drink which I recently discovered during our pro-life pilgrimage in S. Italy. Behold

IL CICCIO!

Fantastic.

I obtained good canned snails. Don’t they look great?

I used for my Roman preparation some sauce that I had made last week and froze. First, however, I started some garlic in oil with lots of fennel.

And now for something different, especially for a certain writer of the Fishwrap. Sam Gregg and Fr. Sirico of ACTON INSTITUTE discuss burning questions during Acton University.

I added mint to the sauce. It is definitely not the wonderful mentuccia of Rome, but it reminded me thereof.

I simmered the snails for quite a long while, until the sauce and all the snaily juices were reduced.

On the side, caponata I made last week and froze. Crispy bread from the blesséd toaster oven.

Pure joy. A great way to celebrate the Feast of the glorious St. John the Baptist, called by Christ Himself the greatest man ever born. Imagine!

After, green salad with vinaigrette of garlic and macerated tomatoes.

Back to ACTON INSTITUTE, so beloved of the Fishwrap.

After the last day of Acton University, we went out for cigars and … beverages.

But, alas, not tonight.

“Perdonamose!”

Posted in Fr. Z's Kitchen | Tagged escargot, snails, St. John the Baptist
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Your John the Baptist Sunday Sermon Notes

Posted on 24 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made during the sermon you heard at the Mass to fulfill your Sunday obligation (under pain of mortal sin under most circumstances).

Let us know!

Today, I said the NOVUS ORDO at the request of the pastor, who had just done THIS.

I made the point that Christ called John the greatest man who had ever been born.

I explained that John was great because of his love of God.

Love of God allows you to do whatever your vocations call you to do.

What do you love?

And to young people, John prepared his love and actions, because he spent time in the desert. You have to have some desert in your lives now, learning to say “No” to yourself, decreasing so Christ can increase.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
6 Comments

30 years a priest, 60th birthday – a priest’s first real Solemn Mass! Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 24 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is the season of First Holy Masses. For example, on Saturday 30 June, I will be helping as Assistant Priest with the First Mass of a newly ordained priest to be celebrated in the presence of the bishop (coram episcopo), who will be present in cappa magna.

That’s the First Mass of a new priest.

What about when an older priest celebrates a Traditional Latin Mass for the first time?

That’s a First Mass too, in many ways.

Think about it. It takes about 5 minutes for a guy to learn how to say the Novus Ordo. There’s just not much there to learn, especially in the vernacular. However, the TLM takes work to learn, even if you have seen and served it for a while. And it’s not in the vernacular.

Now think about the challenge for a man who is young and has been cheated out of formation in Latin, contrary to the Church’s explicit laws (cf. can. 249). That makes a hard Mass even harder. But, hey! The young learn quickly.

Now think about a guy who has been ordained, say, 30 years and is 60 years old; who was cheated out of his Latin in explicit violation of the Church’s clear laws. Is it going to be easy to learn the TLM, right? Not so much.

But wait! There’s more!

Learning to say the TLM in its LOW Mass configuration is one thing, but learning also how the SING the Latin you were cheated out of as well as take care of all the gestures and movements… that’s not going to be so easy either.

Part of the problem is that for decades liturgical worship sung in Latin according to the proper tones and chants was effectively obliterated by the haters. We were all denied our patrimony. Men who would be priests were cheated out of the opportunity to have their Roman inheritance seep into their marrow so that the sound of the Sung Latin Mass and all those chants became part of them even before they applied themselves to learn them.

I am thankful for the many years of intense classical music training I received, which provided me with experiences of beauty which would eventually help me to recognize who God is through the transcendentals. I am intensely grateful for the way that God guided me with His mysterious finger as if by “accident” into studying Latin, which I had had zero plan to do. I thank God that, because of the Latin I studied I checked out a church where Latin was being used, and sung. I am am ineffably beholden to God and to all those at St. Agnes in St. Paul – Msgr. Schuler, Paul Levoir, Harod Hughesdon and the rest – who maintained the Gregorian chant and sacrificed to show up to sing at Saturday and Sunday Masses and at Vespers every Sunday afternoon They gave glory to God and the gave me a gift of knowing the tones and chants and ceremonies as if by osmosis. When it came time for me to learn the TLM, before my ordination, I sailed into it with nary a care.

I am, therefore, deeply sensitive to the work and the anxiety of older priests, who didn’t get any Latin and may not have had the music and the liturgical experiences I was privileged to receive.

Gentlemen, when you decide to learn the traditional forms, you are really standing up like the men the priesthood needs. It’ll be hard and, frankly, scary. But that’s what men do when they love: they make sacrifices.

Priesthood and sacrifice are inseparable. If priests love their congregations, I contend that they will also want to give them the very best. In regard to being Roman Catholic priests, that means also learning and giving them the Roman Rite in its fullness. People must have the patrimony that has been withheld. They will benefit from it. Their Catholic identity will be augmented and deepened and fortified. The traditional rites themselves will effect a change because…

…we are our rites!

Not only with people be slowly formed by participation in the rites, they will be formed inexorably by the way the priest himself is being changed by his own learning of and celebrating of the rites. The priest learns things about himself at the altar of the Lord using the older, traditional form of the Roman Mass in ways that the Novus Ordo simply doesn’t provide. As the priest changes, the congregation will change, as if through the knock-on effect that must unavoidably result.

We are our rites. But the Latin, Roman Rite has two forms. There is the new-fangled and somewhat reduced rite and there is the traditional form which nourished the lives of saints for centuries.

Who is the priest if he only knows half of his own Rite? The easy half?

We are our rites. RIGHT?

If a priest loves people, he will make the sacrifices and take the risks to learn also the traditional Roman Rite, for the sake of his own identity and for the sake of the faithful.

If people love their priests, they will ask him to learn the traditional Roman rite, for his sake and for theirs and they will make sacrifices to provide anything and everything he needs.

If priests love each other, then in fraternal care and concern they will prompt, suggest, recommend, push, prod, harass, urge, cajole their brethren into learning the older, traditional Roman Rite, for the sake of the deepening of the identity of the brotherhood and for the future, especially in the way that the older Rite will foster vocations.

If bishops love anyone, they will support everything having to do with the older, traditional rite and they will, fearlessly, lead by example. A lot of bishops will have the same anxieties about learning what they, too, were cheated out of.

We are here for you! We will provide everything you need and help as much as we can and we will be grateful.

All of this rant is a preamble to the following.

Today, a priest who had been denied all the Latin and all the music and the whole of the Roman Rite growing up and in seminary and in the first decades of his priesthood, stood tall and sang his first Solemn Mass this morning, on his 60th birthday. Fr. Richard Heilman, whom you remember took his parish ad orientem and who put in a Communion rail – now everyone receives on the tongue, kneeling – and who provides rosaries that even the Swiss Guards carry, was he admitted pretty nervous. But he did it. There were some rough spots, but we do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. He did his very best and that is pleasing to God and to his flock.

Here are some photos of Fr. Heilman’s first Solemn Mass, 30 years into his priesthood on his 60th birthday.

See the diocesan coat of arms on the vestments? This is what the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison is accomplishing. And it is all for … everyone!

That, gentlemen, is how it’s done.

¡Hagan lío!

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, Be The Maquis, Brick by Brick, Fr. Z KUDOS, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Just Too Cool, Latin, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, Si vis pacem para bellum!, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices, Turn Towards The Lord, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged 1st Mass, Fr. Richard Heilman, priesthood
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Reuters and @PhilipPullella create fake news, pit Francis against Trump

Posted on 24 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is one of the worst examples I’ve seen of selective reporting, in order to change the narrative (aka “fake news”), since the head of Vatican communications chopped up Benedict XVI’s letter about the series of booklets he received.

Long-time Reuters guy in Rome Phil Pullella and his editors have it out for Pres. Trump. Pullella tried his best to get a negative declaration out of the Pope about Trump, but the Pope didn’t bite.

Here’s Breitbart on what happened. It’s amazing, but not surprising if you stop to think about the MSM.

Reuters ‘Fake News’ Spins Pope Against Trump

In one of the most egregious cases of journalistic deception in recent memory, Reuters has spun Pope Francis to literally say the opposite of what he said regarding President Trump and immigration.

Veteran pope-spinner Phil Pullella, who famously lured Francis into calling Trump a non-Christian in 2016, was back to his old tricks, trying futilely to get the pope to criticize the U.S. president. Having failed to do so, Reuters simply went with the story anyway, carefully selecting which papal quotations to insert in the story and which to omit to back up their pre-conceived narrative.

Pullella was granted an exclusive, two-hour interview with the pontiff at the Santa Marta residence in the Vatican, during which he asked the pope a variety of questions regarding China, Vatican reforms, sex abuse, women in the Church, immigration, populism, and President Trump.

In the central story from the interview, the Reuters piece bore the title “Exclusive: Pope criticizes Trump administration policy on migrant family separation.” Apparently, Reuters had already prepared its script ahead of the interview, because that is not what the pope did or said. In fact, Francis carefully avoided criticizing the president, despite his interviewer’s efforts to lead him into doing so.

Pullella asked the pope how he evaluates the work of President Trump, particularly regarding his decisions to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord and to move “backward” in relations with Cuba.

While expressing his disappointment, Francis gave the president the benefit of the doubt, noting that he must have reasons for doing what he did.

“Regarding Cuba I was saddened because it was a good step forward,” the pope responded, “but I don’t want to judge because to make such a decision he must have had his reasons.”

“Yes, President Trump’s decision on Paris pained me somewhat because humanity’s future is at stake,” he said. “But he has at times made it known that he will reconsider it, and I hope he will rethink the Paris accords well.”

The pope then added an important line that he would repeat several times:

“Concerning my opinion on other things, I stand with the bishops and follow their lead. Not to wash my hands but because I do not know the issues there very well. The bishops know and I stand behind their declarations.”

Pullella then moved into the central issue, asking the pope what he thinks of “the current situation where in recent months some 2000 minors have been separated from their families, from their parents, at the Mexican border.”

The pope carefully sidestepped the question, refusing to be baited into criticizing Trump.

The pope’s textual answer was: “I stand by the bishops. Let it be clear that in these things I respect the bishops.” In this answer, the pope repeated what he has said in numerous similar circumstances where he believes the local church is better suited to evaluate local problems than Rome is.

Not content with this answer, Pullella pressed harder, reminding the pope that he has “always been concerned with immigration and separation from families.”

Francis refused to be taken in, and reiterated for the third time that he defers to the bishops “who have worked hard on the question.”

The pope then spontaneously added a key line that Reuters chose to omit completely in its recounting of the interview.

“But during the Obama years I celebrated Mass at Ciudad Juárez while on the other side of the border 50 bishops concelebrated and in the stadium there were many people. The problem already existed there, it is not just Trump’s but goes back to previous administrations,” the pope said.

Summing up: the pope said that regarding the current administration’s position on immigration he prefers to defer to the judgment of local bishops but he is aware that the problem was not caused by Trump but predates him.

This is not the story Reuters published.

Reuters made the mistake of sending a group of journalists a large section of the original Italian transcript of the interview ahead of publication, which allowed Breitbart News to break the story of the incongruency between what Reuters published and what the pope actually said.

Oddly, despite having access to the original Italian, most mainstream media outlets echoed the Reuters version of the story, not mentioning the pope’s efforts to contextualize Trump’s responsibility in the U.S. immigration crisis.

To date, Reuters has published at least three different articles on the interview with the pope, but the agency has failed to include the pope’s words on the immigration crisis predating Trump and has elected not to publish the full transcript to allow people to read for themselves what the pope actually said.

If anyone still had doubts as to why people universally distrust the mainstream media, including once prestigious news agencies, this umpteenth example of fake news should serve to allay them.

Interesting, no?

What think you of Reuters’ coverage of Vatican issues now?

Posted in Green Inkers, Liberals, What are they REALLY saying? | Tagged fake news, Phil Pullella, Reuters
4 Comments

Fr. Phillips of @SJCantius will NOT be allowed to return to public ministry after he was exonerated

Posted on 23 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Yesterday I posted that Fr. Frank Phillips who founded the Canons of St. John Cantius in Chicago, who had been accused of immoral behavior and suspended pended an investigation by a board, had been exonerated of all charges.

The board issued a letter.

I wrote, in an update to that post, that people in the Chicago would not make a mistake to attend Sunday Masses this weekend.

That’s because after I heard about the exoneration by the board that had been appointed, I learned that the Cardinal Archbishop decided not to go with the board’s decision and that he required the following to be printed and inserted in the parish bulletin for Masses this weekend. Until it was released publicly, I didn’t want to post anything.

The letter is now out.

The letter is from the Congregation of the Resurrection (“Resurrectionists”), to which Fr. Phillips belongs.

Nutshell: The review board came to a decision: “Fr. Phillips has not violated any secular criminal, civil or canon law.”

However, in the letter below Fr. Phillip’s superior wrote:

“We accept the Archdiocese’s decision that Fr. Phillips’ faculties for public ministry will remain withdrawn and that he not return as pastor of St John Cantius and as Superior of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius.”

Hence, although they determined that he didn’t violate any laws, his faculties will not be returned and he has been removed from his offices anyway.

If you choose to attend Mass at St. John Cantius on Sunday, be mindful that there will probably be media there, given this controversy, and the newsies may want reactions from people as they leave Mass. Not everyone wants to get involved with that.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Archd. Chicago, Canons of St. John Cantius, Fr. Frank Phillips
55 Comments

Concerning Card. McCarrick

Posted on 22 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Card. McCarrick. What to say?

I remember that it was Card. McCarrick who suppressed information in a memorandum to US bishops from the Prefect of the Cong. for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Card. Ratzinger, about guidelines for voting in these USA.

I remember that it was Card. McCarrick who, after Card. Arinze – while presenting Redemptionis Sacramentum to the press corps – responded to my question about Communion for pro-abortion Catholic politicians, made a bee line to the cameras and microphones after the presser and said, “What Card. Arinze meant to say, was…” and then turned Arinze’s point on its ear.

My friend Fr. Martin Fox has an offering at his blog. HERE

Phil Lawler has a very interesting point:

Why were so many journalists willing to let the rumors go unexplored? Or, if they did explore the rumors, why were they willing to drop the story, at a time when so many other allegations were splashed across the headlines? Could it be because, for anyone seeking to influence a cardinal, the threat of disclosure is more effective than disclosure itself?

Rod Dreher has more information on what this is about. HERE

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Card. McCarrick
44 Comments

URGENT UPDATE – Fr. Phillips EXONERATED! UPDATED!

Posted on 22 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE:

HUGE UPDATE HERE

UPDATE:

Everyone in the Chicago area…

You would not make a mistake were you to choose to go to Mass at St. John Cantius on Sunday.

——-

You remember the controversy that surrounded Fr. Frank Phillips of the Canons of St. John Cantius in Chicago? HERE

The Review Board concluded that Fr. Phillips did not violate any secular criminal, civil or canon law.

From the site Protect Our Priests:

Fr. Phillips Exonerated

We have confirmation that after several weeks the Congregation of the Resurrection has indeed concluded its hearings and investigation of the accusations directed against Father Phillips.

An independent Review Board of three public-spirited leaders from the Chicago area, who are not members of St. John Cantius Church, was constituted. Thereafter, the Review Board interviewed the detractors and several witnesses, persons who personally know the accusers, and other individuals who came forward to testify in defense of Father Phillips’ integrity. In accordance with directives given by Card. Cupich the members of the Canons Regular were not interviewed..

[…]

This is very good news. I didn’t believe the charges from the onset.

Therefore, today is a good day to sing Non Nobis and Te Deum.

Posted in Mail from priests, Non Nobis and Te Deum | Tagged Archd. Chicago, Canons of St. John Cantius, Fr. Frank Phillips
14 Comments

Dubious dubia about the Dubia

Posted on 22 June 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Once upon a time there was a Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation that caused a lot of head scratching. And so some Cardinals got together, four in all, and asked the writer of the Exhortation – or rather the Pope whose signature was on it – a few questions, five in all. They were, you see, scratching their heads.

The Pope didn’t answer their questions, and that made a lot of other people scratch their heads. There was a lot of head scratching.

Then two of the Cardinals died. It would be wrong to read into that “then” that they died because the Pope didn’t answer the questions. That would be a post hoc ergo propter hoc mistake. They died, because, well, they were old and their time was up.

Two Live Dubia Cardinals™ remain.

Today I read that during His Holiness told Reuters:

In 2016, [Card.] Burke and three other cardinals issued a rare public challenge to Francis over some of his teachings in a major document on the family, accusing him of sowing disorientation and confusion on important moral issues.

Francis said he had heard about the cardinals’ letter criticizing him “from the newspapers … a way of doing things that is, let’s say, not ecclesial, but we all make mistakes”.

He borrowed the analogy of a late Italian cardinal who likened the Church to a flowing river, with room for different views. “We have to be respectful and tolerant, and if someone is in the river, let’s move forward,” he said.

“If someone is in the river”…. I think this is something like, “The Church is a big tent. You might be under that end of the tent or under this end, but either way you are still in the tent.”

On the other hand, at LifeSite we find a piece which checked in with one of the Four Cardinals of the Five Dubia, Live Dubia Cardinal™ Burke.

Cardinal Burke, however, told LifeSiteNews that “The late Cardinal Carlo Caffarra personally delivered the letter containing the dubia to the Papal Residence, and at the same time to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on September 19, 2016, as he also delivered subsequent correspondence of the four Cardinals regarding the dubia.”

Burke added that, “During the entire time since the presentation of the dubia, there has never been a question about the fact that they were presented to the Holy Father, according to the practice of the Church and with full respect for his office.”

Cardinal Burke suggested that perhaps the Pope misunderstood the reporter’s question. “If the question of the journalist is referring to the formal presentation of the dubia or questions regarding Amoris Laetitia by Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, the late Cardinals Carlo Caffarra and Joachim Meisner, and myself, then Pope Francis must not have understood him,” he said.

Hence, there is room within the comments of the Holy Father that allows for a simply misunderstanding, rather than a darker possibility.

The other Live Dubia Cardinal™ Brandmuller: “It is very clear that we wrote directly to the Pope and at the same time to the Congregation for the Faith. What should be left that is unclear here?”

What is unclear is whether there will ever be a response to the Five Dubia of the Four Cardinals. It has been some 640 days since they were submitted… and received.