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{]:¬)

Pope Francis saw a psychoanalyst every week for six months

Posted on 1 September 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

14_12_22_Francis_Curia_01 His Holiness of Our Lord has made an interesting revelation. See the story at the UK’s best Catholic weekly (for which I also write), the Catholic Herald.

Pope Francis saw a psychoanalyst every week for six months when he was 42, he has revealed.

The Pope made the disclosure during a series of interviews with French sociologist Dominique Wolton, head of research at CNRS (National Centre for Scientific Research) in Paris. [interviews with a sociologist? I guess that makes sense. After all, sociology is sort of like journalism in slow motion.]

The interviews are recorded in a new book, Pope Francis: Politics and Society.

In extracts published by Le Figaro, the Pope said: “I consulted a Jewish psychoanalyst. For six months, I went to her home once a week to clarify a few things.”

Jorge Mario Bergoglio had finished his six-year term as provincial superior of the Argentine Jesuits, and was named the rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel in San Miguel the following year, in 1980.

Pope Francis continued: “She was a doctor and psychoanalyst, and she always knew her place. Then one day, when she was about to die, she called me.”

She didn’t want to receive the sacraments, since she was Jewish, but for a spiritual dialogue. She was a very good person. For six months, she helped me a lot when I was 42.”

The revelation is likely to provoke comment. [Indeed.] Although the Vatican never officially condemned psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s work faced disapproval from Catholic thinkers at the time. Strikingly, literary critic Frederick C Crews, a professor of English at the University of California, claims in a new work, ‘Freud: The Making of an Illusion’, that Freud was deliberately anti-Christian.

Obviously none of us are privy to the private conversations of the Argentinian Jesuit and Jewish Psychoanalyst and we should be very careful about how to view this bit of news.

However, the first thing that occurred to me was how some will react.

I can it hear it now. Libs will say something like, “Isn’t it wonderful that the Pope has made this revelation? He’s sooooo humble.”

On the other hand, had someone like Card. Sarah or Card. Burke or Pope Benedict revealed that, some decades ago, they saw a psychotherapist, they would shudder with paroxysms of glee and scream, “SEE! He’s NUTS! This calls into question everything they have ever done!”

You know down to your bones that that’s exactly what they would do, were a conservative to make such a revelation.

So, dear readers, don’t run around in circles flapping your arms over this news. Prudence.

The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in Francis | Tagged Pope Francis
28 Comments

The young want the patrimony of which they have been defrauded!

Posted on 31 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

One of my perennial tropes is that generations of Catholics have been robbed. They have been cheated out of their patrimony. They have been defrauded of their inheritance. When the libs “reformed” the Church’s liturgical worship with little regard for the few true mandates of the Council Fathers, they both slammed the treasury doors shut and hide the key and then brought edifice down to hide its existence from sight.

They thought that they got away with it.

Here is something of interest from the UK’s best Catholic weekly, The Catholic Herald (for which I have for years written a weekly column… print edition only) with my emphases and comments.

The kids are old rite
by Matthew Schmitz

Young Catholics feel they have been denied their inheritance. Where do they go from here?

Last week, in a speech to Italian liturgists, Pope Francis appeared to set in stone the liturgical changes that came at the time of Vatican II. “After this magisterium, after this long journey,” he said, “we can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible.” Liberal commentators celebrated his comments as a blow to the “the re-emergence of a certain neo-clericalism with its formalism” and rejoiced that the “restorationist movement in liturgy is being reversed”.

Liberals have reason to be glad: Francis has shown that he is sympathetic to their desire for a liturgy that feels more like a communal meal than an ancient sacrifice. [Hence, the nadir we have reached in some places where Communion is reduced to “they put the white thing in my hand and then we sing a song”.] But does Francis’s declaration mean that after millennia of development liturgical evolution has arrived at a final state and now must stop? [I don’t think that is what Francis meant. What he meant isn’t entirely clear to me, but I don’t think that’s it. Sure, however, his ghostwriter (at least) was showing his animus for any sort of “mutual enrichment” of the Novus Ordo by traditional forms. That suggests who really wrote it. HINT: He can’t stand Benedict XVI.]

In a word, no. One might as well magisterially declare that spilt milk can’t be put back in the carton, or dogmatically define that Humpty Dumpty can’t be reassembled, [or forbid the tide to rise] as proclaim that liturgical reform cannot be reversed. It is like proudly stating that one cannot undo a grave mistake. The observation is incontestable, even if shame would be preferable to boasts. The question is not whether we can undo past blunders, but rather how to clean up the mess. [Before you can correct something, you have to see that there is a problem.]

Francis’ remarks are yet another sign of his anxiety over the traditional direction in which young Catholics are carrying the Church. We have seen this before, in the stories he tells about young priests who shout at strangers and play dress-up, unlike the wise, old, compassionate (and liberal) monsignori. Francis has played variations of John Lennon’s Imagine: “We are grandparents called to dream and give our dream to today’s youth: they need it.” [Okay. I’m getting the impression that the writer is not a huge fan of Pope Francis.] Maybe so, but the youth do not seem to want it.

As any young progressive or old traditionalist will tell you, age does not dictate whether one prefers dogma or liberty, ritual or casualness. Yet across much of the Catholic world, young traditionalists are competing against old progressives. [Competing? Really? I wonder if young trads know that they are competing with old libs? The libs know that this is now a race against the clock, against the Biological Solution and that they are losing. Thus, they fury.] Ironies abound, as youths who revere the venerable face off against elders who chase the up-to-date, and progressives who fear the future battle with traditionalists who loathe their immediate forebears. [Again, I wonder about that “loathe”. Loathe? That’s more the stuff of libs. I think that traddies tend to loathe what the libs have done, especially in robbing us of our patrimony. Libs, however, don’t just loathe what traditionalists want, they loathe the people who want Tradition. I think that’s the major different. Sure the combox at some more traditional site can get a little sharp. I try to tamp all that down. But any sharpness on the more conservative side is nothing compared to the sheer nastiness and anger of the combox at, say, Fishwrap.]

Anyone who doubts the reality of the conflict should visit a monastery or convent, where young monastics will almost invariably be more traditional than their elders. In France, in 20 years’ time a majority of priests will celebrate exclusively the traditional Latin mass. Wherever one looks, the kids are old rite. [Some years ago a friend of mine opined that he thought that, over time, the Novus Ordo would pretty much die out and that the Traditional Form would be again the dominant form. I pooh-poohed that at the time. Now I am not so sure.]

Few have spoken as eloquently about the changes the Church is undergoing as Fr René Dinklo, provincial of the Dutch Dominicans, and the only member of his order from Generation X. One of Fr Dinklo’s earliest memories is of a confessional filled with the drums used by the youth choir. By the time he joined the order in the early 1990s, the Dutch Dominicans had discarded their traditional prayers and come to believe that the order would be transformed into an assembly of laymen. He had reason to think he would be the last priest in a province that had lasted for 500 years.

Then the province began to get vocations. The young Dutch Dominicans were eager to reconstitute the forms of life and prayer their elders had dismantled. “We are on the brink of far-reaching changes,” Fr Dinklo observed in an address last year. “In this situation tensions between generations may arise.” The younger men want to wear the habit and “re-discover a number of religious practices, rituals, forms of singing and prayer from the tradition which the older generation has set aside”. In order to avoid generational conflict, these young men are being established in a new house. [Is this what has happened the Eastern Province of the Dominicans in these USA? The London Oratory? I was talking with a priest friend last night and the topic of dying communities of women religious came up. It was suggested that a group of young women should organize and then one by one join some order that is nearly extinct and take them over as inexorably as the rising tide.]

In a 2010 address, Archbishop Augustine DiNoia described the experiences of these young traditionalists. “My sense is that these twenty- and thirty-somethings have been radicalised by their experience … in a way that we were not.” After “God-knows-what kinds of personal and social experiences”, they have come to know “moral chaos, personally and socially, and they want no part of it”. A sense of narrow escape guides their vocations. “It is as if they had gone to the edge of an abyss and pulled back.”

DiNoia’s generation sought to unite the Church and the world, [Gaudium et spes, luctus et angor…] but the young priests believe the two are finally opposed. “It may be hard for us to comprehend, but these young people do not share the cultural optimism that many of us learned to take for granted in the post-conciliar period.” [This is a good point: false optimism. I could be that, back in the halcyon 60’s there was an overly optimistic view of a) mankind (which made them lean towards anthropocentrism) and b) the world. Of course the three eternal enemies of man are the world, the flesh and the Devil. Have you heard much about these over the last 50 years or so?] They lament the “Church’s own internal secularisation”, particularly “the disenchantment of the liturgy”. This explains their enthusiasm for the 1962 missal. [By “disenchantment” he probably is referring to the way that nearly every sign that points to the transcendent were systematically and brutally stripped from our liturgical worship of God by those modernist immanentists… okay, tautology, I know.]

DiNoia is anxious for the priests of his generation. Despite their talk of being open to the future, “I am not certain that we … are entirely ready for the kind of radical rejection of the ambient culture on the one hand, and, on the other, the radical commitment to the Dominican-Catholic alternative way of life that we recognise in the young men.” [And that is not just in the Dominicans. It is also found in the diocesan presbyterates, for sure. There is a generational gap. And it must be truly threatening to some of these older guys. Many of them sense in the younger generation’s desire for tradition an implicit attack on their own persons, a criticism of their whole life’s work. They were conditioned in those halcyon days of change and revolution to the point that they and their goals have forms a kind of mythic icon. The sight of a biretta, a black chasuble, ad orientem triggers a violent flashback.]

Many young Catholics feel that they have been denied an inheritance that was rightly theirs. [“Say the magic woid, win a hunnad dahlahs.”] They have had to reassemble piecemeal something that should have been handed to them intact. [RIGHT! And does that irritate me! Think about how much money has been squandered because they, worse than the VANDALS ever did, rampaged through our churches trashing what the People of God paid for with their hard-earned offering. As the head of the TMSM I am constantly reduced to begging you all for money so that we can have the vestments necessary for the celebration of Holy Mass in the Roman Rites paradigmatic form: the Pontifical Solemn Mass. Think of the cost there was to tear out those altars. Think now of the cost require to try to make wreckovated churches look like churches again. WHAT A WASTE. If that doesn’t make you angry, then you need a new… a new…. angry thing.] An English academic recently told me of his attempt to obtain a copy of the Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, a reference book that went from impeccable authority to liber prohibitus at the time of the Council. He contacted a Belgian who helped declining religious houses dispose of their libraries. This Belgian found a Franciscan community that was willing to sell its set – but at the last moment took a different course. The monks decided to burn the books, “to prevent them getting into the hands of traditionalists”. [When I was in seminary one bastard of a priest – vice-rector who left the priesthood after my second year – told us seminarians to haul all the old vestments to the dumpster… chalices, altar stones, etc. They were duly taken to the dumpster… and not dumped. But you get my drift. But imagine burning something like the classic Dictionnaire for that reason.]

[…]

That’s enough. You get the main point.

My Spidey Sense is tingling.

I sense that there is a big storm just over the horizon. We had better clear the decks, reef the topsails, batten down the hatches and prepare to run before the wind.

¡Hagan lío!

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liberals, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices |
52 Comments

Giant space rock hurtling towards your planet! Fr. Z opines and advises.

Posted on 30 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Some of my friends in our SMS exchanges will at times long for the big meteor to put us out of our misery.

Today I read at Space.com that there is a big asteroid – hopefully not meteor – coming.

A space rock is approaching Earth! And although it would be irresponsible to shout “Incoming!” in a hypothetical movie theater and create a panic, asteroid 2012 TC4 will pass quite close to Earth’s surface when it zips safely by our planet later this year.

Teams of scientists from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) that monitor the locations of near-Earth objects have been tracking asteroid 2012 TC4 with various instruments, including the ESA’s Very Large Telescope Observatory. Those observations have made it possible to better predict when the asteroid will make its flyby of Earth, and just how close it will get to the planet. Observing close flybys like this also helps prepare teams to detect a near-Earth asteroid whose course might pose a threat to Earth.

2012 TC4 will fly by Earth on Oct. 12 at a distance of about 27,000 miles (43,500 kilometers), or about one-eighth the distance to the moon. Previous observations suggested the space rock might come to within 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers), according to a statement from NASA.

Scientists are interested in this asteroid not only because of its close approach, but also because of its size: The asteroid is between 30 and 100 feet (10 and 30 meters) across, or the same general size as the rock that exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013.

[…]

Two things.

Firstly, one of these days, something will come at the planet on a collision course. One of these days, it’ll be a big asteroid. One of these days, it will be a hyuuuuge Coronal Mass Ejection (cf. Carrington Event).

On a smaller scale, one of these days, a car might not stop when you are in the way. A tree, one of these days, could come through your roof. It may happen that you will get caught in some civil disturbance or violence, one of these days.

We do not know the day or the hour. Examine your consciences and…

GO TO CONFESSION!

Next, Spaceweather.com says, speaking of CME, that:

AURORAS LIKELY THIS WEEK: For reasons researchers do not fully understand, the weeks around equinoxes have more geomagnetic disturbances than any other time of year. Data prove it: Auroras love equinoxes. We are now just weeks away from the northern autumnal equinox and, right on cue, the auroras have appeared. […] More auroras are in the offing this week. A canyon-shaped hole in the sun’s atmosphere is spewing solar wind toward Earth. Estimated time of arrival: Aug. 31st. NOAA forecasters estimate a 30% chance of polar geomagnetic storms (G1-class) when the gaseous material arrives.

Posted in Look! Up in the sky! | Tagged asteriod, me, meteors
9 Comments

The crisis of priestly vocations: good advice from a smart priest

Posted on 30 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

More on the issue of vocations to the priesthood. Allow me, first, to say that the “crisis” of vocations was created and it’s perpetuation is also not only tolerated but, in some places, fostered. That said, it is probable that in most places the presuppositions and vocational views of those in charge are so bent in one particular direction, that they are nearly incapable of turning their heads to look for solutions in another direction.

Consider the following diagram:

If you travel along the ray that extends from A through points D and E, are you getting closer or farther away from the ray that points to “More good priestly vocations”?

If you want to arrive at, say, St. Ipsidipsy parish in Tall Tree Circle in the Diocese of Black Duck for supper with Msgr. Zuhlsdorf (NB: I’ve discerned myself to be an Internal Forum Monsignor and now you are obliged to “accompany” me), but instead you discover that you have taken the road toward Engendering Togetherness Community of Welcome over in Libville where Bp. Fatty McButterpants gloomily reigns, do you continue down the road to Libville or to you turn around and go back to correct your course?

Here is something I picked up from Liturgy Guy, written by a priest of Bridgeport. He nails some important points. My emphases and comments:

One Priest’s View on the Vocations Crisis

The following guest post was written by Fr. Donald L. Kloster, a priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut who has served (for over 6 years) as the pastor of 36,000 faithful in the poorer parish of Maria Inmaculada Eucarisitica in the Archdiocese of Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Father Kloster graduated from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary Philadelphia, PA in 1995, having completed his Master’s Thesis in Moral Theology. He is a native of Texas and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. In addition, Fr. Kloster spent two years as a student (and then novice) at the 7th century est. Benedictine Abbey of Disentis, Switzerland.

As someone who has lived on 3 continents and in 11 U.S. dioceses during my adult life, I have seen a lot where vocations are concerned. The Liturgy Guy said it well recently when he noted that the answer to increased vocations isn’t beyond our capability. Unfortunately, our chanceries have often spent too much time and money searching for vocations in all the wrong places. [My old pastor Msgr. Schuler, speaking of the horrid situation of the seminary and vocations back in the 80’s and 90’s used to say that the Powers That Were couldn’t answer three fundamental questions: 1) Who is Christ? 2) Who is the Church? 3) Who is the priest? Get those wrong, or waffle, and you are done for.]

Increasing vocations is not a matter of more conferences, retreats, publications, advertising, and slide shows. These things have minimal effects. It is as if hand wringing will do the Church any good at all. It is as if the powers that be really aren’t interested in true solutions. [Another thing that Msgr. Schuler used to say: “It’s as if they sit around and talk about how to starve to death together instead of getting up and planting more potatoes.”]

From my observation deck, there seems to be a lot of a priori suppositions that inhibit a true rise in vocations. There is a communal reluctance to admit wherein the vocations successes are gaining traction. Traditional dioceses and Traditional Orders are producing the lion’s share of vocations. [Do I hear an “AMEN!”?]

Coca Cola famously introduced New Coke in 1985. It lasted just 77 days. Only 13% of Coke drinkers even liked it. Did that company double down on the New Coke promotional ads? They had, after all, spent millions of dollars to introduce the product. No, they did an about face and reintroduced Coca-Cola Classic! [BINGO!] By comparison, our Bishops have done the exact opposite when it comes to vocations. They are continuing in methods that are proven failures.

I humbly submit that there is a spiritual connection between the height of vocations in 1965 and our vocations dearth that has continued for 52 years now.

[QUAERITUR:] Just exactly what have we been doing wrong? I’m afraid that a great many of our modern Prelates do not want to hear the real answer because it does not fit in with their narrative; they stubbornly clung to ideology. [Again, some of them are sheer ideologues. Others simply are bewildered and don’t have a clue. Alas, some of the latter are surrounded by ideologues.]

First, we need an exclusively masculine sanctuary. [Remember my POLLS?] Vatican II never envisioned an army of Extraordinary Ministers. It never envisioned altar girls. It never envisioned the (almost) exclusive reading of the Old Testament and Epistles at Mass by women. [All these things were rammed down our throats, mostly against law and common sense.]

There is only one diocese in all of the United States that is obedient to even the most recent 2011 General Instruction of the Roman Missal. The GIRM calls for instituted acolytes and lectors. It is a gross abuse that in the more Solemn Masses at almost any Cathedral in the nation, there are instituted seminarian lectors that are many times prohibited from fulfilling their installed liturgical privilege. [In some places I’ll wager that bishops and their coteries do not want to “install” lectors and acolytes because, frankly, they are afraid of women.]

We have largely evicted men from the sanctuary (as sextons and ushers too) at the peril of vocations. Men will almost always take a back seat if they perceive it is a duty reserved to women.

Second, we need a more visibly identifiable clergy. The most proper dress of a priest is the cassock. Next comes the clerical suit. A priest should normally always wear his jacket or at least have it with him. In former days, there was also a regulation to carry one’s biretta or hat. I cannot tell you how many times I have been stopped for a question, blessing, or confession. If I am not visibly identified, I am invisible as an available priest. If I were to walk around in street clothes regularly, I communicate to others with my dress a certain lack of importance invested in my vocation. The police wear their uniforms for a reason. We are their spiritual equivalent, except that we are never “off duty.” [On a side note, it seems most frequently the duty of the cop to say “No.”, just as it is of the father of children and, of course, the priest.]

Third and most importantly, we need a communal obligatory penance to help promote vocations. [YES!] Perhaps it means a return to abstinence on Fridays. Perhaps every Catholic under pain of venial sin should visit a monstrance or a tabernacle for 10 minutes weekly. Perhaps a monthly day of fasting under the usual conditions like Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Lincoln, Nebraska and Guadalajara, Mexico are perhaps the best two Dioceses in the Americas at promoting vocations. [HEY! MADISON!] Why aren’t all of the other dioceses copying them? My frustration is that it seems collectively as a Church we are content to have a continually declining priest to faithful ratio. [I was recently told that a large Archdiocese I visited had 17 major seminarians, but half of them were foreign born. In relatively tiny Madison there are 16 major seminarians and 2 of them were born elsewhere.]

As in most situations in life, if something isn’t working you abandon it. It’s only logical. Tradition is not a bad word. [That depends, of course, on your audience.] Mother Teresa of Calcutta once famously refused to send her nuns to Albania without priests. “Without priests we do not have the Mass.” [And without strong bishops who really want more vocations, and who treat their priests well, and who stay close with all the seminarians… no vocations.]

Vocations are not just a pious part of a “wish list.” They are the basic need of our survival as a Church. The sooner vocations begin to (significantly) increase again, the sooner we will witness a spiritually healthier Catholic Church again.

Fr. Z kudos.

Of course you have anticipated what I am about to write.

No initiative which we undertake in the Church will succeed without an renewal and revitalization of our sacred liturgical worship. That includes vocations to the priesthood.

We are our rites.

There is a direct bond of nerve ganglia and blood vessels in the Body of Christ which tie together Holy Mass and vocations to the priesthood. If you wound those nerves and arteries, you inflict profound damage extending beyond the local laceration. That is what happened in the post-Conciliar reforms. A huge wound was inflicted in the nerves and vessels of the Body of Christ, such that we are now dangerous enervated and bloodless.

We need many more celebrations of Holy Mass in the traditional Roman Rite side by side with the Novus Ordo. Happily, younger priests and seminarians really want to use the traditional Roman Rite. This will create a tremendous knock on effect through their revitalized ars celebrandi. The spreading use of the traditional forms – along with the strong priestly identity advocated by the writer above – will be like the introduction of clotting agents, transfusions of blood, mending of nerves, application of antibiotics, better diet and supplements, and supportive therapy. The effect will surely be beneficial.

Also, I will urge pastors of parish to get their congregation down on their knees explicitly to pray for vocations. I warmly urge the use of the Vocations Prayer I’ve written about many times on this blog. Get it. Print it. Implement it as is… without tinkering with it. It is effective.

And read these…

The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, Priests and Priesthood, Seminarians and Seminaries, Semper Paratus, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, Turn Towards The Lord | Tagged Fr. Donald L. Kloster, lack of vocations, prayer for vocations
29 Comments

18-22 Sept 2017: Conference on liturgical formation!

Posted on 30 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is to be an interesting liturgical conference in W. Peabody, Mass, in September. Priests and seminarians should pay particular attention.

Culmen Et Fons 2017: On Liturgical Formation

“Fons et culmen” concerns the famous phrase about the Eucharist being the “source and summit” in Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Description excerpts:

The scope and the topics of the conference correspond precisely to the needs set out with characteristic clarity by Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in his 2016 London Address and in his remarks made in June 2017 at the Sacra Liturgia conference in Milan, Italy.

[…]

The conference, moreover, will help participants who are in holy orders the better “to interiorize the mystery of faith that is being celebrated” in both uses of the Roman-rite Mass and to enhance their own ars celebrandi of the Mass according to both usages “by emphasizing the best features that characterize them.”

This looks like a good one.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, The Campus Telephone Pole | Tagged fons et culmen
4 Comments

29 August 1997 – Happy Birthday SKYNET!

Posted on 29 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I hope you realize that this is a subtle message never to attempt to delete my blog from your daily reading list.

Posted in Lighter fare | Tagged Skynet
2 Comments

Omnium Gatherum – Of deaconettes, shoes and consecrations

Posted on 29 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE:

I just saw reports that the lib Left had a meltdown over 1st Lady Melania Trump’s shoes when she was on her way to Houston. I can’t help but wonder about a connection between the Left’s obsessions and their amazing ability to hate.

___

There are several things I want to address, but separate posts would be too much. So here is an omnium gatherum, just for fun.

1) The best Catholic weekly in the UK, the Catholic Herald has, astonishingly, a piece about our ol’pal and perennial crusader (crusadrix?) for the ordination of women, Phyllis Zagano. She was appointed last year to a panel that meets in Rome a couple times a year to look into the historical and theological questions about deaconesses (aka female deacons, deaconettes). The panel doesn’t have the task or competence to make recommendations to the Pope on the topic, but rather to drill into some of the thorny issues. And they are both thorny and fraught with obscurity. In any event, Zagano, who generally says that her main interest to promote only the ordination of deaconettes, let her deeper agenda show through in a talk at Yale as reported by the Catholic Herald: the ordination of women as priests. Here is what she said, with my emphases:

During the question-and-answer session after her talk, Zagano was asked [warning: that’s links a video]: “Why do you not promote the ordination of women as both deacons and priests?”

She replied that these were “two separate ministries”, before adding: “That’s part of it. The other part of it is, I don’t know. I just don’t see it at this point. I think that the priest, when we look at the priest, it’s not the ‘icon of Christ’ problem, it’s the icon of what we’ve made of the priest. So I just don’t think that if I walked down the centre aisle of St Patrick’s Cathedral, waving my – this is my Yale ID card, but waving my “I’m a priest” card … I think I’d be stoned. I just don’t think our Church is ready for that.”

In the talk, which took place in 2013 at Yale’s Thomas E. Golden Jr. Center, Zagano said: “I cannot find evidence that women have been ordained as priests. And the historical argument seems to carry the day right now.”

“At this point… ready… right now….”

Phyllis has a deft pen and uses words well. She has answered these questions, no doubt, quite a few times. She said what she thinks.

One of the problems with the ordination of women as deacons is that the Church says that the ordination to the diaconate is the conferral of the Sacrament of Holy Orders. Only men can receive that sacrament.

Another problem, going way back into ancient times, is that – while we do know that there were women called deacons – we don’t know who ordained them or why or what they were supposed to do. It wasn’t a universal practice. Also, the fact that they disappeared early on suggests that they weren’t main-stream at all. So, which heretical sects might have had them? Moreover, over the centuries it has always been possible to find some bishop who would try just about anything. Saying that a bishop “ordained” women isn’t much of a case. And there are problems with terminology, too. What did “ordain” mean to them? So, anyway, I don’t see anything coming out of this deaconette panel, except, perhaps, some scholarly papers when it is finally disbanded. That’s not nothing.

2) Over at Fishwrap (aka National Sodomitic Reporter), the Wile E. Coyote of the liberal catholic Left took a laughably cheap shot at me and at the Extraordinary Ordinary, Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison. Wile E., (aka Michael Sean Winters) often posts a daily round up of links to internet stuff that he wants people to see, and he often posts comments about the link. That is the format in which Wile E. attacked converts and kindly said that (when he doesn’t agree with them) they should not be allowed an opinion.

In any event, this time Wile E. linked to the fundraising campaign I posted for the 501(c)(3) organization of which I am the prez, the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison (TMSM), and made reference to the fact that, in photos I posted, the Bishop, as celebrant of the Mass, is wearing white shoes.

White shoes! Well, that’s newsworthy! Clearly he wanted to stir his readers up to their usual spittle-fleck nutty of uncharitable comments in the fever-swamp that is their combox. And the commentators, true to form, posted their customary fare of inuendos and falsehoods.

However, if you do go to look – which is sort of like examining roadkill rotting in the sun – bring with you the irony that Winters pays soooo much attention to the bishop’s shoes.

His readers might not sense the humor in that right away.

BTW… take note of what the Fishwrap posts above its combox: “National Catholic Reporter uses Civil Comments. Please keep your comments on-topic, focus on the issue and avoid personal insults, harassment and abuse.” But personal insults is about all they have.

In any event, this gives me the opportunity to explain something about those shoes.

When a bishop vests for a Solemn Mass in the older, traditional form of the Roman Rite, to be celebrated at the throne/cathedra or at the faldstool, he wears some additional vestments. All the vestments, the pontificalia, have symbolic meanings.

The first thing the bishop puts on, or rather endures to have put on him as he patiently sits, are the buskins. These are sort of half boots of cloth which are laced or tied on. They have their origin in ancient Greek and Roman footwear. The churchy buskin usually consists of a kind of sandal encased inside a stocking-like affair that gets laced or tied up the lower leg. They can entirely enclose the shoe portion of the gizmo. However, I have to admit that these are a bit of a pain. Bishops I have put these things on will bear that out. So, Bp. Morlino has buskins which are open on the bottom so that he can wear regular shoes. Since buskins are supposed to be the color of the vestments (except black… no black buskins). If the Mass is in white vestments, the buskins should be white. Hence, when the bishop vested for Mass, he had white buskins over white shoes. This really isn’t that hard. The TMSM had made white, green, red and violet buskins for the pontificalia.

We haven’t had yet a Pontifical Mass in Red when we also had the red buskins. However, the next one is on 14 September for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.

Perhaps we should get some red shoes for the bishop. Red shoes will without question bring MSW swiftly to his fainting couch and get his readers all a-titter.

So, here is the prayer which the bishop says at the buskins are put on him.

Calcea, Domine, pedes meos in praeparationem evangelii pacis, et protege me in velamento alarum tuarum.

Shod my feet, Lord, unto the preparation of the gospel of peace, and protect me under the cover of thy wings.

This prayer echoes Ephesians 6:15 and Psalm 60:5.

Compare the sentiment of that prayer with the nastiness of Bp. Morlino’s detractors. It makes me think of the prayer that all priests say when putting on the amice: “Impose, O Lord, the helmet of salvation upon my head, to overthrow all diabolic deceits, overcoming the savagery of all my enemies.”

These vesting prayers are of great service for a priest and his identity. They remind him of who he is and what he is up against. They put his life and role into perspective. They keep him mindful of his complete dependence on the true Priest. They ground him in the knowledge that he is both priest and, simultaneously, the victim offered up.

So, here I’ll make a pitch for the fundraiser which the seriously nasty libs at Fishwrap are mocking and insulting. You can make a TAX DEDUCTIBLE donation to help us with our many projects…

>>HERE<<

Also you can send generous checks to:

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

This is another one of those instances when they insult us over at Fishwrap, I gain a chance to raise more money! Please! Insult us some more!

UPDATE:

Thanks to SV and JL for their new donations! Sticking it to the libs one donation at a time.

3) Next, a friend of mine in KC has sent, back to back, a couple of fascinating links.

First, there was an ordination for a tiny splinter group called the The North American Old Roman Catholic Church. Yep.

An ordination in Downtown St. Joseph Friday has helped launch a local mission of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, a valid, [?] autonomous and canonically independent Roman Catholic denomination.

“It’s been a real historical factor for over 1,000 years. [Such a factor that I’ll bet many of you haven’t heard of it.] Informed Catholics are aware of a number of independent Catholic groups — the Society of St. Pius X and other churches that fall under the Roman Catholic purview,” said the Rev. David L. Jones. “But it’s probably not well known here in Northwest Missouri, and that’s sort of why I’m trying to help people understand who we are and why we exist.”

Jones was ordained as a priest in the North American Old Roman Catholic Church on Friday evening at Christ Episcopal Church in Downtown St. Joseph. He plans to establish the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Mission, a mission of the North American Old Roman Catholic Church, in St. Joseph. A similar mission is located in Atchison, Kansas.

“Many folks that I’ve talked to are very interested,” Jones said. “I think it’s fresh air now that’s coming into St. Joseph. Once they see it as an alternative, I think they will be attracted to it.”

NAORCC

The North American Old Roman Catholic Church is a valid, autonomous and canonical American expression of the worldwide Old Roman Catholic Church, which grew out of the Church of Utrecht, established around 1100 AD. [Ummmm…. ?!?] It follows the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church.

“We were granted our freedom, our independence from the Holy Father, from the Pope himself,” Jones said. “We don’t fall directly under the Pope, but we pray for the Holy Father at Mass. Our sacraments, our apostolic succession, our lineage, our ministries, actually come from Roman Catholic history.”

They are “very conservative theologically and liberal sacramental-ly,” said the Rev. Joseph Vellone, [contradicting himself within the same utterance] presiding archbishop of the Archdiocese of California. Priests can be married, and there are fewer requirements for the sacraments, he said.

“We don’t have a vow of celibacy,” he said. “We are not quite so strict as sometimes the Catholic church is. We follow the Pope and reverence him, and acknowledge his position, but we really feel called by the Lord to do stuff that they can’t do or won’t do.”

[…]

Stuff, indeed.

But wait! There’s more.

My friend at the same time sent another link, to the Progressive Catholic Church, which had a consecration! The PCC seems to be an offshoot of the Old Catholics (above). They made one guy into a bishop and another into a deacon and then (scroll down) they went to a favorite spot The Hungry Drover:

ON THE MENU:
PORK BBQ, MAC N CHEESE, COLLARDS, BEANS, SLAW, TEA, CHICKEN, TOMATO PIE, WINE AND CAKE.

Sounds pretty good, though I’m puzzled at the placement of the “tea”. Any thoughts?

I like some of the titles of their clergy. For example, they have a “Metropolitan of the Deep South”. Their clergy page is really interesting.

Either one of these groups would be thrilled to welcome Wile E. and Phyllis into their burgeoning ranks.

The more I read about them the more it seems that their goals and ambitions coincide.

4) Lastly, be sure to go back to the UK’s best catholic weekly and read this delightful piece about an amazing woman. HERE It’s about Anna Margaret Haycraft and it’s entitled:

The Catholic bohemian who mocked feminists

It includes the great line:

“I believe that if forced to choose with whom I would prefer to spend a few hours, I would opt for football hooligans rather than face the malignant ferocity of a roomful of would-be lady priests and discontented nuns”.

And also…

For Anna, the new Mass and the “renewal” (a word she loathed) of the Church demeaned all Catholics, but especially the priest who, as he fussed around the altar preparing the Eucharist in both kinds for the congregation, looked “more like a napkin-flapping maître d’ than someone communicating with God”.

The first translation of the Mass into English, with its obsequious gestures to Protestantism, rendered the Latin description of transubstantiated wine, potus spiritális, to “spiritual drink”. For Anna, the “housewife”, the word “drink” was deeply suspicious, a “word that manufacturers use when they want to put one over on you … it is not the real thing”. But the purveyors of this new spiritual cuisine weren’t listening. For decades Anna took her fight to the closed doors of the liberal hierarchy, demanding: “Is it the Blood of Christ or not?”

You won’t stop once you start.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, SESSIUNCULA | Tagged buskins, Michael Sean Winters, Old Catholics, Wile E. Coyote, zagano
18 Comments

Speaking Truth To Power

Posted on 29 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

We celebrate liturgically the births of Our Lord (25 December), His Blessed Mother (8 September) and the prophet who was more than a prophet, the greatest man ever born of a woman (Matthew 11:9-11; Luke 7:28), St John the Baptist (+24 June 28-29). On 29 August we celebrate the Beheading of St John, murdered by a feckless politician, the pusillanimous Tetrarch Herod. John was imprisoned because he denounced Herod’s illicit, sinful “marriage”. Herod then had John killed because, blinded by lust for his niece, he was too craven to back down from a rash offer he blurted in his lechery.

St Augustine of Hippo (+430) in s. 380 reflects on how John was martyred for Christ because he was murdered for the Truth. England’s own Venerable Bede (+735) preached, “St John gave his life for [Christ]. He was not ordered to deny Jesus Christ, but was ordered to keep silent about the Truth”.

Speaking the truth to power, and to wider society, about sexual mores, about illicit and immoral unions, can earn you a close haircut. In the Church, asking too many questions about objectively confusing problems can earn you a … shave.

And yet, the “greatest man ever born of a woman” bore witness to the Truth. It is the right thing to do. The lives of martyrs are no less examples for imitation today than they were when they were fresh models to our ancient forebears in the Faith.

In 2012, Benedict XVI taught about the martyrdom of the Baptist in a General Audience. He said,

“Celebrating the martyrdom of St John the Baptist reminds us too, Christians of this time, that with love for Christ, for his words and for the Truth, we cannot stoop to compromises. The Truth is Truth; there are no compromises. Christian life demands, so to speak, the ‘martyrdom’ of daily fidelity to the Gospel, the courage, that is, to let Christ grow within us and let him be the One who guides our thought and our actions. However, this can happen in our life only if we have a solid relationship with God.”

Speaking of speaking truth to power, to paraphrase Edmund Burke (+1797), in Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. United in prayer and our Faith, we must together bear witness to the Truth in our troubling times, as martyrs and confessors did in theirs.

You might momentarily be deceived into thinking that this is a portrait of a certain writer at the Fishwrap, prone to swoons. Instead, however, it is

Herodias with the Head of Saint John the Baptist

The ecstatic adulteress is in the very act of mutilating with a pin the tongue that named her sin.

Francesco del Cairo (1598–1674)

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Saints: Stories & Symbols | Tagged beheading of John the Baptist, St. John the Baptist
3 Comments

Eyewitness account of struggle over post-Conciliar liturgical reform, which “reversed” centuries

Posted on 29 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I think that some day many more people will know about the life and work of the late French Archbp. Marcel Lefebvre. He, a Holy Ghost Father, was a great missionary in Africa whose influence is still strongly felt there. He was also a bishop at the Second Vatican Council, about which he writes in his memoirs.

Oh yes, he also founded the SSPX.

At One Peter Five there is a post about Lefebvre’s view of a powerful influence on Popes John XXIII and Paul VI.

Here is a bit of the post about the liturgical reform with my emphases and comments:

[…]

I had the occasion to see for myself what influence Fr. Bugnini had. [Annibale at the gate] One wonders how such a thing as this could have happened at Rome. At that time immediately after the Council, I was Superior General of the Congregation of the Fathers of the Holy Ghost and we had a meeting of the Superiors General at Rome. We had asked Fr. Bugnini [to] explain to us what his New Mass was, for this was not at all a small event. [litotes] Immediately after the Council was heard of the Normative Mass, the New Mass, the Novus Ordo. What did all this mean?

It had not been spoken of at the Council. [The Council Fathers had mandated a few points, but the Consilium (a committee entrusted with the reform) went waaaaay beyond the mandates.] What had happened? And so we asked Fr. Bugnini to come and explain himself to the 84 Superiors General who were united together, amongst whom I consequently was.

Fr. Bugnini, with much confidence, explained what the Normative Mass would be; this will be changed, that will be changed and we will put in place another Offertory. We will be able to reduce the communion prayers. We will be able to have several different formats for the beginning of Mass. We will be able to say the Mass in the vernacular tongue. We looked at one another saying to ourselves: “But it’s not possible!”

He spoke absolutely, as if there had never been a Mass in the Church before him. He spoke of his Normative Mass as of a new invention. [Keep in mind that Bugnini had been given the heave-ho by the Sacred Congregation for Rites from his position at the Lateran University. From that point onward, he had it out for just about everyone and everything. And the 1955 changes to Holy Week was just the warm-up. Who he was and what he was about was clear.]

Personally I was myself so stunned that I remained mute, although I generally speak freely when it is a question of opposing those with whom I am not in agreement. I could not utter a word. How could it be possible for this man before me to be entrusted with the entire reform of the Catholic Liturgy, the entire reform of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of the sacraments, of the Breviary, and of all our prayers? Where are we going? Where is the Church going?

Two Superiors General had the courage to speak out. One of them asked Fr. Bugnini: “Is this an active participation, that is a bodily participation, that is to say with vocal prayers, or is it a spiritual participation? In any case you have so much spoken of the participation of the faithful that it seems you can no longer justify Mass celebrated without the faithful. Your entire Mass has been fabricated around the participation of the faithful. We Benedictines celebrate our Masses without the assistance of the faithful. Does this mean that we must discontinue our private Masses, since we do not have faithful to participate in them?”

I repeat to you exactly that which Fr. Bugnini said. I have it still in my ears, so much did it strike me: “To speak truthfully we didn’t think of that,” he said! [I wonder.]

Afterwards another arose and said: “Reverend Father, you have said that we will suppress this and we will suppress that, that we will replace this thing by that and always by shorter prayers. I have the impression that your new Mass could be said in ten or twelve minutes or at the most a quarter of an hour. This is not reasonable. This is not respectful towards such an act of the Church.” Well, this is what he replied: “We can always add something.” Is this for real? I heard it myself. If somebody had told me the story I would perhaps have doubted it, now I heard it myself. [Remember what Joseph Ratzinger said: an artificial creation. No wonder such a shock slammed the Church and wounded her for these many decades.]

Afterwards, at the time at which this Normative Mass began to be put into practice, I was so disgusted that we met with some priests and theologians in a small meeting. From it came the “Brief Critical Study,” which was taken to Cardinal Ottaviani. I presided [at] that small meeting. We said to ourselves: “We must go and find the Cardinals. We cannot allow this to happen without reacting.”

So I myself went to find the Secretary of State, Cardinal Cicognani, and I said to him: “Your Eminence, you are not going to allow this to get through, are you? It’s not possible. What is this New Mass? It is a revolution in the Church, a revolution in the Liturgy.”

Cardinal Cicognani, who was the Secretary of State of Pope Paul VI, placed his head between his hands and said to me: “Oh Monseigneur, I know well. I am in full agreement with you; but what can I do? Fr. Bugnini goes in to the office of the Holy Father and makes him sign what he wants.” It was the Cardinal Secretary of State who told me this! Therefore the Secretary of State, the number two person in the Church after the Pope himself, was placed in a position of inferiority with respect to Fr. Bugnini. He could enter into the Pope’s office when he wanted and make him sign what he wanted.

Does not such a professed sense of powerlessness (and paralysis) – as described here with reference to Cardinal Cicognani – remind us of our own current situation, where we are told my high-ranking prelates and even prefects of congregations that they cannot do anything about the revolutionary things that are happening in the Vatican? Here it might be worthwhile to add another example given by Archbishop Lefebvre:

A third fact, of which I was myself the witness, with respect to Fr. Bugnini is also astonishing. When permission was about to be given for Communion in the hand (what a horrible thing!), I said to myself that I could not sit by without saying anything. I must go and see Cardinal [Benno Walter] Gut – a Swiss – who was Prefect of the Congregation for Worship. I therefore went to Rome, where Cardinal Gut received me in a very friendly way and immediately said to me: “I’m going to make my second-in- charge, Archbishop Antonini, come that he also might hear what you have to say.”

As we spoke I said: “Listen, you who are responsible for the Congregation for Worship, are you going to approve this decree which authorizes Communion in the hand? Just think of all the sacrileges, which it is going to cause. Just think of the lack of respect for the Holy Eucharist, which is going to spread throughout the entire Church. You cannot possibly allow such a thing to happen. Already priests are beginning to give Communion in this manner. It must be stopped immediately. And with this New Mass they always take the shortest canon, that is the second one, which is very brief”

At this, Cardinal Gut said to Archbishop Antonini, “See, I told you this would happen and that priests would take the shortest canon so as to go more quickly and finish the Mass more quickly.”

Afterwards Cardinal Gut said to me: “Monseigneur, if one were to ask my opinion (when he said “one” he was speaking of the Pope, since nobody was over him except the Pope), but I’m not certain it is asked of me (don’t forget that he was Prefect for the Congregation for Worship and was responsible for everything which was related to Worship and to the Liturgy!), but if the Pope were to ask for it, I would place myself on my knees, Monseigneur, before the Pope and I would say to him: ‘Holy Father, do not do this; do not sign this decree.’ I would cast myself on my knees, Monseigneur. But I do not know that I will be asked. For it is not I who command here.”

This I heard with my own ears. He was making allusion to Bugnini, who was the third in the Congregation for Worship. There was first of all Cardinal Gut, then Archbishop Antonini and then Fr. Bugnini, President of the Liturgical Commission. You ought to have heard that! Alas, you can now understand my attitude when I am told: you are a dissident and [a] disobedient rebel.

Scripta manent.

The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000 | Tagged Annibale Bugnini, Archbp. Lefebvre, BUGNINICARE, liturgical reform
32 Comments

ASK FATHER: Civil divorce but stay together as married couple?

Posted on 29 August 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader:

I (think) I have a tough question (“hagan lío”?):

Can a man and a woman, who validly embraced the Sacrament of Marriage 10 years ago and who STILL WANT to carry on living as husband and wife their indissoluble Catholic Marriage (which has already been blessed with three children) – can this couple get a civil divorce (excuse the pleonasm)?

“Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s.”

Is not the Sacrament of Marriage a (indissoluble) “thing of God”. And is not civil marriage a (dissoluble) thing of Caesar?

If husband and wife have become unhappy, uncomfortable with their country’s civil law consequences for their civil marriage (namely the laws of succession ‘mortis causa’), can the couple get a civil divorce (while still remaining commited to a happy and indissoluble Catholic Marriage)? Would obtaining a civil divorce be – in any case – a grave sin?

GUEST PRIEST RESPONSE: by Fr. Tim Ferguson

Interesting question. The Church expects us to be good, law-abiding citizens. Matthew 22:21 (“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”) is often cited as Our Lord’s command to be obedient to the legitimate civil authority in those areas where civil authority exercises legitimate authority. Even in the early Church, operating within the Roman Empire, which was hardly operating under Christian principles, the Fathers of the Church urged the faithful to be obedient to civil laws, as long as those laws did not violate the moral law or the demands of the Gospel.

Ideally, the Church and the State work together for the good of citizens, and there are clear lines between the Church’s realm and the State’s realm. Our history shows that, in reality, those lines often get blurred, often to the detriment of the Church (see, for example, Henry VIII of England, Joseph II of Austria, Otto von Bismarck of Germany)

The Church, which has been given authority over marriage, recognizes that the civil authorities have legitimate interest in marriage. Marriage is good for society. Stable commitments between one man and one woman provide many benefits to the civil order, not the least of which is the procreation and upbringing of adorable future taxpayers. Without surrendering her authority over marriage, the Church prefers to cooperate with the civil authority, and leaves to the civil government the regulation of certain aspects of marriage. Thus, in most countries around the world, a marriage in Church requires the possession of a civil marriage license. Some countries (for example France and Mexico) do not recognize the Church’s role in marriage. In these places, lamentably, couples are forced to go through two ceremonies – a civil one, and then an ecclesiastical one. This is not ideal, and we should never rest comfortably with situations like this – the Church should strive as much as possible to keep a good relationship with the State for many reasons.

When it comes to divorce, the Church does not recognize the right of the State to “end” marriage. Only the death of one of the spouses or, in certain extreme circumstances, the intervention of the Holy Father (exercising his authority as Vicar of Christ) can end marriage. That said, the Church is not naive, and recognizes divorce as a reality. While it does not end marriage, it does have certain effects on the lives of the faithful, and the Church leaves to the civil courts such matters as the division of assets, the custody of children, and so forth. Divorce is a bad thing. Choosing divorce when there are other options is a sinful thing – gravely sinful, considering the gravity of marriage. There are circumstances, such as spousal abuse (which no one should be forced to endure), that make choosing divorce a legitimate, and non-sinful option. Ideally, this is done after consultation with one’s pastor. The Church has a canonical process for seeking the bishop’s permission to separate and pursue a civil divorce. While some try to claim that this canonical process is mandatory, and filing for divorce without the bishop’s permission is wrong and sinful, this is not the teaching of the Church.

In recognizing the State’s legitimate interests in marriage, the Church also knows that sometimes, the State errs. In times past, some civil authorities had laws that restricted the real freedom that people have in choosing marital partners. In some places, persons of different “races” were not allowed to marry each other. In some places, slaves and free men were not allowed to marry. In some places, nobility were not allowed to marry common folk, or were required to obtain permission to marry. The Church has rejected those prohibitions and has authorized secret marriages not recognized by the civil authority because of the illegitimacy of these civil restrictions.

Yet, the Church recognizes that some restrictions the State puts on marriage are legitimate, and is reluctant to intervene. Only the bishop can permit secret marriages, and usually, the bishop is reluctant to do so if the restrictions put on by the State are legitimate. For example, an older couple, both widowed, wants to get married, but does not want to do so civilly because doing so would lessen or eliminate their respective pensions. The Church would be reluctant to grant permission for a secret marriage because pension law is something that the State has legitimate authority over. If the civil law is unduly harsh, the solution is to work to change the law, not to try and get the Church involved in circumventing the law. Laws regarding pensions, property, taxes, inheritance – these are all things over which the State has legitimate authority, and the Church respects that authority. If the laws are unjust, the Church urges the faithful (especially the lay faithful, since this is their proper sphere of activity) to work to change the laws and be good, law-abiding citizens, only engaging in civil disobedience in extreme cases.

So, getting to the point – can a Catholic married couple seek a civil divorce while remaining in their hearts and minds (and bed and board) still married because the inheritance laws of the State seem onerous? No.

[The moderation queue is ON.]