VIDEOS: Card. Burke & Card. Kasper – compare & contrast. Wherein Fr. Z rants.

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Catholic News Service issued excepts from a video interview with His Eminence Raymond Card. Burke. (655 views as I post)

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Card. Kasper also has one.  (905 views as I post)

Compare and contrast. (Watch the imagery.)

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My first impression?

In the one case, we find an appeal to feelings and even sentimentality.  In the other case, we have an appeal to the words of the Lord and the consistent teaching of the Church.

Allow me to muse for a while, and not necessary in strict regard to the two videos, above, but rather to the whole trajectory of the present debates about Communion for the civilly remarried.

Keep in mind that when the debate engages, one side can deploy – responsibly or not – a word field including “love, mercy, compassion, tolerance, pastoral” and the other must refer to “history, law, truth, justice, responsibility”.  That latter word field… probably will not be able to carry the day.  The side with the second word field will have a hard time winning the argument (in the eyes and ears of the less than educated or the less than faithful).  Furthermore, the previous side can always then confuse the issue with accusations of “ideology” (because the case is clear and arguable) and “fundamentalism” (because there are appeals to precise verses of Scripture and documents of the Magisterium.  In this debate, the new words for “fidelity to doctrine” are “ideology” or “fundamentalism”.

Do not be distracted by that.

In no way is it fundamentalism or ideology to take the Gospel seriously, to take the Magisterium seriously.

 

Posted in One Man & One Woman, Our Catholic Identity, Wherein Fr. Z Rants | Tagged , , , , , ,
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How many Little Flowers does it take to make a bouquet?

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Here’s something both Catholic and cute for a change.

In the Diocese of Lincoln, where it is still okay to be a faithful Catholic openly, there is a school where, on the Feast of St. Therese, the girls dress as the Little Flower for the day.  Bp. Conley celebrated Mass for the school.

Photos HERE

And a sampling…

 

Posted in Just Too Cool, Our Catholic Identity, Women Religious | Tagged , ,
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SAN DIEGO: Brick by Brick with Latin Novus Ordo with Spanish speakers

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I recently posted about the good news in the Diocese of Raleigh where, in Dunn, NC, at Sacred Heart Church there are now Masses in the Extraordinary Form celebrated with Spanish re-readings and sermon.  HERE

For your Brick by Brick file, I share this email about a Novus Ordo development in San Diego.  The prose is a bit turgid, but you can take in the good news:

Father I think this falls under the Good News dept. On Monday evening last, the Brothers of the Little Oratory in San Diego [I like Oratories] sponsored an exemplary New Rite, Latin, ad Orientem, Roman-vestmented, Gregorian chanted, properly served mass for Michaelmas [that’s 29 Sept] at St. John of the Cross Catholic Church in Lemon Grove, Ca, about ten miles directly east of downtown San Diego. There were about a hundred and fifty persons in attendance, the reading was properly intoned in Latin by one of the Brothers of the Little Oratory in San Diego, Dr. Roberto Lionello, who is also a Latin-fluent member of the Familia Sancti Hieronymi. By far most of the attendees were parishioners of St. John’s, and most were Spanish speakers, all of whom followed the mass with rapt devotion, and Fr. Navarra homilized on the Archangels as “function and not nature,” after a text by St. Gregory the Great from the new office, in both Spanish and English. The occasional crying and playing of more than a few children also gave testimony of the family oriented congregation, and also that Father Peter Navarra, had promoted this mass to his his congregation, and got a sizable turnout in return.

Generally speaking, the Extraordinary Form is the preference of most of our members, however the Brothers do sponsor “traditionalized” New Rite masses from time to time, simply exercising available options which go generally unused, and apparently the results speak for themselves. We also sang the propers common to the 1972 Graduale, although in this case the feast (which we have celebrated on a number of occasions in years past) is one of several in which the new and old propers coincide completely. Further, the prayers of the faithful, rendered in English were followed by “…exaudire digneris: Te rogamus audi nos” on the litany tone. Communion was distributed kneeling, and on the tongue. The ordinary of the mass was setting XIV, and the office We have been facilitated in all of this since (I believe it was) 2004 by a generous act of our then Auxiliary Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, now Archbishop of San Francisco, who in 2004 brought us – at the expense of his labor in carrying it home from Rome – a Missale Romanum Latin altar missal for the Ordinary Form, as well as a three-volume hard-bound Lectionarium. We have endeavored to use the gift well.

I have always objected to called the Extraordinary Form or Usus Antiquior simply “the Latin Mass”.  “Traditional Latin Mass”, yes.  “The Latin Mass”… fail.  This is because the Novus Ordo or Ordinary Form is also supposed to be in Latin.  We should work hard against segregating the use of Latin only in the Extraordinary Form.   This is why I think it was such a bad idea with the publication of the Roman Missal with the new, 2011 translation not to include the Latin appendix that was in the now obsolete Sacramentary.

You might be interested to know that a priest gave me a beautifully printed supplement for the newer English Roman Missal that could be easily affixed inside the book’s cover, thus supplying the missing Latin appendix.

Meanwhile, kudos to the group in San Diego.

Let Latin, tool of the New Evangelization, bring us all together.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Brick by Brick, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged , , ,
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OK CITY: Archbp. Coakley exorcised Civil Center after evil event

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I saw this at the Oklahoman:

Satan has left the building.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and a priest performed “prayers of exorcism” to rid the Civic Center Music Hall of evil spirits that may have lingered after a satanic “black mass” was held there, The Oklahoman has learned. [Excellent.  I hope they used the older, traditional Roman Ritual.]

Diane Clay, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, said on Wednesday that Coakley decided to perform the ancient ritual in the Oklahoma City public venue after he learned that some Civic Center patrons were troubled and anxious about the possible diabolical after-effects of the Sept. 21 black mass. An exorcism is a ritual generally performed to cast out a demon from an individual. [There is also a chapter for places.  And it should be USED!  More often!]

“From the beginning, we have taken seriously the dark and dangerous spirits being invited into our community.  [Once invited, they don’t leave.  They consider that a binding contract has been made.  They are rigidily legalistic. That hold has to be broken, layer after layer all the way to expulsion.] We anticipated this would be a concern for those visiting the Civic Center, and we’ve received many questions about the safety of the building following the satanic ritual,” Coakley said in a statement.

“To address those concerns, we visited the venue the next morning to pray prayers of exorcism over the place and to pray the prayers for cleansing.”

The Dakhma of Angra Mainyu Syndicate, a group of devil worshipers led by Adam Daniels, held the black mass in the Civic Center’s CitySpace Theatre, a small venue with fewer than 100 seats. Daniels told the 42 people who attended the black mass that it was being held as a mockery of the Catholic Mass so that people would be less afraid of the Catholic Church.

Wednesday, Daniels said he wasn’t surprised to learn about Coakley’s on-site prayers to rid the Civic Center of evil in the aftermath of the black mass.

“I find it hilarious how over- responsive he’s being to all of this,” Daniels said. “As I said before, it (black mass) is a deprogramming ritual to cast Christianity out of people. All they (the archdiocese) care about is their religious freedom and not anybody else’s.”

Visit was short

Jennifer Lindsey-McClintock, spokes woman for the Civic Center, said Coakley inquired about visiting the venue and arrived there before business hours, about 7:30 a.m., on Sept. 22, the day after the black mass. She said Jim Brown, the Civic Center’s general manager, let Coakley into the venue and the religious leader’s visit was short.

“It came about very quietly and was private,” Lindsey-McClintock said.

“He (Coakley) felt very strongly about wanting to come in and perform a cleansing of that space of whatever entities he felt might remain.”

She said others in the community expressed a similar idea through emails sent to the city of Oklahoma City on the day of the black mass and several days afterward.

[…]

Read the rest there.

It is good to read this on the Feast of the Guardian Angels.

We have many weapons and great armor for our spiritual warfare as a Church.  I think we should use them all.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Our Catholic Identity, Si vis pacem para bellum! | Tagged , , ,
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More from ISIS and the Religion of Peace

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From the Daily Mail:

Raped, tortured, forced to watch beheadings, then beaten when they tried to kill themselves: Yazidi girls reveal the hell they endured during ISIS captivity

  • Two teenage Yazidi girls have described the horror of being capture by Isis
  • Aged just 15 and 19, they saw men from their community mercilessly killed
  • Both were taken away to be sold on to men in the Iraqi city of Mosul
  • Hundreds of other Yazidi females suffered a similarly traumatic fate
  • The girls said some considered suicide rather than enduring their ordeal

By Ted Thornhill for MailOnline

Published: 05:59 EST, 1 October 2014 | Updated: 13:06 EST, 1 October 2014

Two Yazidi teenagers who escaped the clutches of Isis have revealed the full horror of their capture and captivity.

They have described being tortured and forced to watch videos of men from their community being beheaded.

Some, they said, were so traumatised by their experiences that they tried to commit suicide. However, those that tried to kill themselves were severely beaten by Isis fighters.

The women were separated from the men – who were simply mown down by machine gun fire in one of the rooms.

Sara was bundled onto a pick-up truck and taken to Mosul, where she was held with hundreds of others prior to being sold off.

She told Globalpost.com: ‘We would try to make ourselves look ugly. Some women would cry or scream or fight, but it made no difference. They were always taken anyway. One girl hung herself. Another tried, but the IS guards stopped her and beat her very badly. No one else tried after that.’

Sara, who described Isis fighters as ‘dirty, with hairy faces and smelling bad’ was eventually sold to ‘an old man and a fat man’.

She said that they would show her videos of Isis militants beheading her neighbors.

She added: ‘In some [videos] they put the heads into cooking pots. Sometimes they would stand on them. There were so many heads. And they would ask us, ‘Do you know this one?’ and laugh.’

Sara, whose real name has been changed, recalled that she would sometimes have huge amounts of blood drawn from her arm by one of the men using a syringe, leaving her feeling sick and faint.

[…]

Read the rest there.

Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.

St. Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.

Posted in The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Religion of Peace | Tagged , , , ,
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From whom demons withdraw in terror and pain

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The world’s quicksand is shifting under our feet.

More than ever we need the help that God sends us through the loving help of our Guardian Angels.

Yes, there are angels.  Open your Bible and, within a few pages, you’ll find angels.

From the Martyrologium Romanum (which you readers can put into perfect yet smooth and elegant English):

Memoria sanctorum Angelorum Custodum, qui, primum ad contemplandam in splendore faciem Dei vocati, a Domino etiam apud homines commissi sunt, ut iis invisibili sua, sed sollicita, praesentia adessent ac consulerent.

There are three types of persons, divine, angelic and human.  Of the three types, divine persons, the Holy Trinity One God, are uncreated.  Angelic and human are created persons.  Angels have no material component, but humans do.

Because angels are not limited by matter, or individuated in matter, and since they are purely spiritual persons, each angel is his own species. They are like in that they are angels, and unlike in that each one is particular to himself. There is, therefore, a hierarchy among the angels. But all of them always contemplate God, as angels can. They don’t have to be limited to any place, since they have no bodies. They simply are where they are in action.

So aligned are they with the will of God that when they appear in Scripture and speak, sometimes it is hard to tell when God is speaking and when they speak.

Our angel guardians can be from the anywhere in the myriads and myriads of ranks of the angels. They could be from the highest of the high or even from the lowliest little angel at the bottom of the hierarchy. But even the lowliest of the angels is beyond any human conception of mightiness. The least of the angels, were God to will or permit, could mash the cosmos into a little pea and flash the Big Bang again.

Provided that it falls within God’s will, from which it is impossible for them to stray, the material universe presents no obstacles to them. They know the essences of things directly, without having to figure them out.

Do you pray to your Guardian Angel? I sure do. I am constantly asking for help with problems and, especially, with other people. I will sometimes also ask the angelic guardians of other people to help me work something out when there is great need. And I, a weak sinner, have need all the time.

Though I loath the pastels and the foofy portrayal of these fearfully beautiful beings, I love idea behind the old pious images made for children’s bedrooms.  You see a bright yet obviously invisible angel preventing a distracted little kid from plunging off cliff as she tries to pick a pretty flower that is just out of reach.

They guide us dopey children back to a safer path.

We all all get into trouble and we all need this help.

God, who knows us better than we know ourselves, sends us mighty help before whom the fallen angels of Hell withdraw in terror and pain.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged , ,
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What Fr. Z is watching and reading

Posted on 2 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is a movie to avoid Amen, which is – on the surface – about the Nazi Reich’s extermination of the Jews and of “unproductive” people.  A military scientist (based on a real person) who realizes what is going on – the Final Solution -and then, having a conscience, tries to stop it with the help of a young (fictional) Jesuit.

Under the surface, the movie is anti-Catholic disinformation. Actually, a lot of the anti-Catholic stuff is on the surface.

It is really creepy in some of its “good” elements.  There have to be good and truthful elements in order to lack the lies slither into your brain and start replacing facts and common sense:

  • A girl is doing math word problems.  She is asked to figure out how many middle class homes could be built for the cost of on insane asylum.   This comes right after a scene in which patients in a hospital are euthanized.
  • Archbp. von Galen, the “Lion of Münster”, marches into a government building and threatens the officials that he will expose what they are doing.  Later, he is denouncing from the pulpit what is being done to “unproductive” people.
  • There is an elaborate scene in which the principal tries to find a way to listen to Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas radio address (but it gets the text wrong).

These are intended to distract you.

Be warned: There is strong undercurrent of propaganda in it against Pius XII and the Catholic Church.  This film is based on the vile 1963 play by Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy, a Christian Tragedy, which was a project of the KGB to attack Pius XII and the Catholic Church through “disinformation”.

The production values are fairly high, for there was clearly a lot of money behind it.  Happily, the film at a certain point becomes incoherent, ridiculously preachy in all the wrong ways.

After watching this slithery dreck I cleansed by mind and heart by watching a John Wayne movie.  Refreshing.

There are other antidotes to the disinformation dreck.

Be sure to check out Gary Krupp’s Pope Pius XII and World War II: The Documented Truth: A Compilation of International Evidence Revealing the Wartime Acts of the Vatican   There is, I believe, an early and a more recent edition of this book, which I wrote once about HERE.   The great thing about this book is it provides photographic images of primary evidence.

An important book, not only for what was purposely done to Pius XII (such as The Deputy), but also what is happening today in many circles in these USA, is by Prof. Ron Rychlak, called Disinformation: Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism co-authored with, principally, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa.  Pacepa was the head of intelligence in Romania who fled to the West when he was asked to start killing people. He is an expert on the Soviet technique of framing, disinformation, creating false narratives and history. The book exposes the Communist background of seemingly-benign organizations and explains the treatment received by Cardinals Stepinak, Mindszenty and Wysznski and, of course, as I mentioned above, Pius XII.  More HERE.

You also want to read, for sure, Rychlak’s Hitler, The War, And The Pope.   Rychlak is a professor at Ol’ Miss who teaches in the Law School about evidence.

I also just finished reading the new book by Dick Morris called Power Grab.  This is about the efforts of the Obama Administration to create a one party nation (guess which one).  The descriptions of the way Obamacare was implemented, how the EPA works, what is being done by executive order.  It is well documented.

Finally, I am well into The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building ofthe Brooklyn Bridge by David McCullough. This is a ripping good yarn about an amazing feat during an interesting transitional period of American history.  David McCullough is superb.  If you haven’t read his biography of John Adams, you have a treat in store.

I have a whole bunch of ancient Roman historical fiction novels in the queue and some more nautical, Royal Navy items as well.  I am grateful to readers who have sent Kindle books.

In any event, get Kindle, keep reading, keep learning, keep expanding yourselves.

Do you need a Kindle?  I read more now than ever.  Click HERE  UK click HERE

Posted in Sin That Cries To Heaven, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, What Fr. Z is up to | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
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I still want that Veyron, but this was pretty spiffy.

Posted on 1 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is just too cool not to share.  Let’s take a couple minutes away from how the world and the Church are both flying apart at the seams and simply enjoy this.  Even if you are not really into cars (and I’m not), this is a pleasure to watch.

It is a gasoline commercial, but… not.  Real classic Ferrari models on real streets of great cities, doing their Ferrari thing.

Listen to the different sounds of the engines from different periods.

I’d turn the volume waaaaay up.

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I still want that Veyron, but this was pretty spiffy.

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged
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Of Latin oddities

Posted on 1 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I can’t resist this one from Dr. Peters:

Lighter fare: [thanks for the homage] can bad Latin save a papacy?
by Dr. Edward Peters

I got an odd one a few days ago (okay, I get lots of odd ones, but this one kinda struck me), namely: that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was invalid because of mistakes he (allegedly) made in the Latin of his resignation letter. [Yes, that’s odd.] My correspondent claims two medieval Church laws in support of the claim, one of which I could track down: Lucius III (reg. 1181-1185), dec. Ad audientiam, c. 11, X, de rescriptis, I, 3 (or Friedberg 20 fbo those for whom QLD citations are impenetrable).

Now, granting that Ad audientiam does attach negative canonical consequences to bad Latin, the context of that question was documents whose Latin was so bad it that raised questions of authenticity (this, of course, being a practical concern in an age of ecclesiastical forgeries). Looking lightly at some commentary on Lucius’ decretal (always fun to have an excuse to do that!), [Who doesn’t turn to Lucius for light reading?] it seems that debates arose over how bad ‘bad’ needed to be before it was too bad, over what kind of bad could be ignored or rehabilitated, and so on. Interesting stuff, granted, but it’s all moot.  [In a related issue, how bad do a cardinal’s arguments have to be before they can’t be rehabilitated?]

When the great Gasparri [Cardinal Pietro] prepared canon law for its first codification at the beginning of the twentieth century, he had before him, among other things, the whole of Gregory IX’s decretal law (which contained Lucius’ letter on bad Latin along with nearly 2,000 other provisions on nearly 200 other canonical topics). And guess what?Ad audientiam did not make it into the 1917 Code, although almost every other norm de rescriptis did, in some form or another, get carried into codified law. Nor was Ad audientiam resurrected for the 1983 Code.

What the 1983 Code does say, as did the 1917 Code, is this: “Only those laws must be considered invalidating … which expressly state that an act is null …” (c. 11). Because no canon of the 1983 Code, under which Benedict XVI submitted his resignation (c. 332 § 2), addresses the quality of the Latin used in papal documents, let alone does any canon make the Latinity of papal documents go to their validity, I say, odd question answered: bad Latin does mean that one must remain pope. [Whew!  Otherwise we might be in serious trouble in a few more years.]

PS: Now that we’re thinking about it, winking at bad Latin (assuming btw that Benedict’s was bad Latin, I wish I could write it as well!) probably makes sense these days. Consider: when the 1983 Code came out, it was marred by more than 100 typographical errors. I would hate to think we’ve all been spinning our canonical wheels since then!

PPS: Don’t even ask about mistakes on the Vatican website.  [Pretty awful.  I recently had to do some proofreading for some Latin Church documents for a book and… sheesh.   They sometimes scan, you see, with OCR and the people posting the texts don’t know Latin and/or don’t proof read.]

There are all sorts of funny stories out there about clerics and their lack of Latin.  My favorite is about the simple country priest who walked out to meet the bishop who was riding out on the appointed day for a parish visitation.  As the parish priest drew close to the bishop and the rest of his retinue, to the astonishment of all, Father, after greeting the bishop bowed low to the bishop’s horse.   “Why, Father,” quoth the bishop, are you bowing to my horse?”  The priest, momentarily flummoxed, responded “Your Grace, do we not say every day during Holy Mass, ‘equum et salutare‘?”

brrrrDMP

Yes, folks, be sure to tip your waitresses.  I’m at HaHa’s in Cleveland next week.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged , ,
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I am not making up this coffee flavor!

Posted on 1 October 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Okay… I just had to post this.

I saw at Mystic Monk that there is now a flavored coffee (if you are into that sort of thing) called… and I am not making this up…

Snickering Monk Candy Bar.

Click HERE

And don’t forget the seasonal Pumpkin Spice and their now widely sough Monk Shots! They may be billed as “single serve” but some of you readers have written that they get more from each one, since they seem to have more coffee in them than other K-Cups.

Refresh your coffee supply now with Mystic Monk Coffee and help the Wyoming Carmelites build their new monastic complex!

Besides, it’s swell!

 

Posted in The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged ,
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