Speaking of videos… today is the anniversary of Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon, 20 July 1969.
That experienced is indelibly burned into my memory.
Here’s video mentioning the event to celebrate the 1969 Moon walk anniversary and to celebrate being a citizen is the greatest nation on Earth.
I ran into a couple videos online, one entirely unfair but mildly amusing and infuriating, the other more edifying and instructive.
They both make a “comparison”, though shallow, of Orthodox and Catholic liturgical worship.
First, infuriating and amusing and unfair.
I’m sure many of you have seen the horrific video of the liturgical horror show horribly perpetrated in Brazil. That is NOT representative of what Catholics do in true sacred liturgical worship. To juxtapose it with the best of what Russians do on a great feast is entirely unfair. STILL, it is useful in several respects, which you will surely be able to enunciate on your own.
Next, edifying and instructive.
This makes a much fairer comparison of the Orthodox and the Roman Rites. For a truer comparison, we have to place the Pontifical Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox side by side with the Pontifical Solemn Mass of the Romans, especially in an environment that is commensurate with the Orthodox cathedral.
It would be a great project for someone out there – perhaps for a student project? – to compare, alternating, snips from Bp Slattery’s tremendous Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception…
… and the Russian Orthodox celebration of Christmas in the Cathedral of Moscow.
In once-Catholic Austria, now female altarettes outnumber male servers. HERE
Nearly a quarter century after the practice of female altar servers became licit, 55% of Austria’s 45,000 altar servers are girls, according to statistics published by the Archdiocese of Vienna.
In addition, 2,800 of the 5,000 persons who supervise altar servers in Austria are women.
In other news…
At religion.orf.at we read:
Number of Catholic new priests [in Austria] reaches new low
18 new Roman Catholic priests will be consecrated this year in Austria around the St. Peter and Paul Apostles on June 29th. The number of priest ordinations is likely to reach a new low.
[…]
This year’s priest “vintage” is between 29 and 57 years old. Ten come from religious orders, eight are diocesan priests. Among the candidates for [ordination], there are also several “retired people”, such as a former physicist, a former aircraft mechanic and a trained gardener, and as in previous years, only a part comes from Austria. Eleven of the candidates are born here, the others are from Germany, Poland, India and Vietnam.
Beautiful Catholic Austria… no longer.
Growing number of women in the sanctuary. Shrinking number of ordinations to the priesthood.
Is there a correlation?
Sure there is.
It is not just the presence of the women, it’s the womanish attitude of the clergy which repulses young men who would otherwise consider priesthood.
Remember the polls?
Some of you have mentioned in email and comments here that the famous Combat Rosaries, carried by the Pontifical Swiss Guard, are just expensive enough that it is hard to buy them for groups, etc.
I worked out something with Fr. Heilman, who developed them.
For purchases of 10 or more rosaries, a 25% discount will be applied when at check out you use promo code:
FatherZ
Click HERE
Jesuit Fr. Antonio “2+2=5” Spadaro, in his attack on Americans, especially American conservatives, in Inciviltà cattolica, along with his coauthor from Argentina, left a curious omission.
Spadaro tars two American presidents with the brush of “Manichaenism”.
At times this mingling of politics, morals and religion has taken on a Manichaean language that divides reality between absolute Good and absolute Evil. In fact, after President George W. Bush spoke in his day about challenging the “axis of evil” and stated it was the USA’s duty to “free the world from evil” following the events of September 11, 2001. Today President Trump steers the fight against a wider, generic collective entity of the “bad” or even the “very bad.” Sometimes the tones used by his supporters in some campaigns take on meanings that we could define as “epic.”
Who is missing? How about the modern American president, an iconic president, who provided us with the quintessential “evil” label: Ronald Reagan famously, unforgettably, dubbed the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”.
Pres. Reagan is mentioned a couple times in the rest of the attack article, but not in such a way that he receives the “Manichean” slur.
Why would “2+2” purposely exclude Reagan from that important early paragraph, in which he sets up the rest of his, for lack of a better word, “argument”?
The answer is clear.
Spadaro doesn’t want to link Pope Francis to insults aimed at the universally, highly admired Ronald Reagan.
Presidents Bush and Trump are unpopular, especially by Europeans, who ape liberal Dimocrats. It’s okay to insult those American presidents. In fact, it is obligatory to insult them.
But Reagan? No way.
In the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dishonest Arguments, find Fr. Spadaro’s picture next to the entry for “Double Standard”.
Here is the video of the famous “Evil Empire” Speech. When Reagan is introduced, he is even praised for his “love of the Bible”. This was an Address to the National Association of – wait for it – Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida. He opens, saying that a friend of his would rather see his young daughters die believing in God than see them grow up under Communism, no longer believing in God.
Watch this video and tell me if this doesn’t – by orders of magnitude – far outstrip the alleged “Manichaen” rhetoric and hate-speech that Spadaro, Figueroa and their ilk are reviling in President Trump and American conservatives.
But touching Reagan is like stepping on the third rail. They can’t risk linking Pope Francis to that.
A bit of the speech here…
The entire speech here…
Another point.
The “Evil Empire” is Russia (the Soviet Union, fine… Russia). Today, Russia is Putin. Dimocrats and their Euromimics hate Putin. Hence, Spadaro, et al., can’t call out the Evil Empire as “Manichaen”.
Instead, Spadaro, etc., call out only those conservatives who are not Ronald Reagan as “Manichaens”.
Let me spell this out. The La Civiltà Cattolica attack article was artfully written. It’s not just a rant with arguments. There is a strategy behind it.
Shifty.
I am thinking ahead to the total solar eclipse that will be visible across these USA in the next month.
I found a spiffy video at Astromony Pic of the Day. This is very cool.
Explanation: What are those lights and shadows crossing the Earth? As the featured five-second time-lapse video progresses, a full day on planet Earth is depicted as seen from Japan’s Himawari-8 satellite in geostationary orbit high above the Pacific Ocean. The Sun rises to the right and sets to the left, illuminating the half of Earth that is most directly below. A reflected image of the Sun — a Sun glint — is visible as a bright spot that moves from right to left. More unusual, though, is the dark spot that moves from the lower left to upper right That is the shadow of the Moon, and it can only appear when the Moon goes directly between the Earth and the Sun. Last year, on the day these images were taken, the most deeply shadowed region experienced a total eclipse of the Sun. Next month a similarly dark shadow will sweep right across the USA.
You have probably seen commentaries on the recent book of homosexualist activist Jesuit Fr. James Martin concerned with “building bridges” between the Church and homosexuals.
It might help to put some of the major players into a single post.
Martin’s basic notion is that, for her entire history, the Church has misunderstood God’s intentions and plans for human sexuality and that they should be corrected. He rejects the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that the “inclination” to “homosexual tendencies” is “objectively disordered” (2358). He claims that, since they were made that way, so to speak, their sexual expressions are the equivalent of those between members of the opposite sex.
Writers such as Fr. Gerald Murray have demonstrated that Martin’s notions undermine the Church’s teaching. HERE Fr. Paul Mankowski, SJ, also showed the flaws in Martin’s bad ideas. HERE
Others have criticized Martin’s book as well, for example, Archbp. Charles Chaput of Philadelphia. HERE
Martin has tried to defend his notions, for example at Jesuit-run America Magazine. He was unconvincing.
Another priest jumped into the fray over Martin’s book. Basilian, Canadian Fr. Thomas Rosica, a sometime aid to the Holy See Press Office in times of high activity such as during Synods of Bishops, wrote at his media outlet Salt & Light a full-throated defense of Martin. Fr. Rosica, being so visible, has not avoided controversies. For example, despite his clear gift for languages, he wound up at the center of a translation issue during a press conference during a meeting of the Synod. HERE He is also known for his admiration for Gregory Baum, an ex-priest who married a divorced ex-nun, whom he too divorced. Baum lead dissent against Humanae vitae and was involved in the infamous Winnipeg Statement. HERE Baum admitted in 2017 in an autobiography to a long-time secret, active homosexual life. HERE
The plot thickens with a response to Rosica’s defense in Catholic World Report by Deacon Jim Russell who serves in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
In the initial blurb above Russell’s piece we read:
Fr. Thomas Rosica’s recent commentary on Fr. James Martin’s book seems to imply that the Church’s doctrine that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered” actually misses the mark and doesn’t reflect reality.
Russell writes:
Rosica offers his thoughts on the relationship between the Catholic Church and the “LGBT community”. In the process, he appears to unintentionally reveal the core problem in the Church today regarding homosexuality, same-sex “marriage”, and related issues, such as the transgender phenomenon. As I read it, Rosica’s commentary manifests an “overly benign interpretation” of the homosexual condition itself.
Russell has quite a bit more on Fr. Rosica’s defense of Fr. Martin.
So, if you have been following this back-and-forth controversy closely, there’s even more reading to do.
The moderation queue is ON.
Spotted on Twitter:
Soooo… Fr. Z is an RC integralist who prays like an evangelical fundamentalist.
Ivereigh used to be the editor of a magazine. He has clearly allowed his reading skills to get rusty.
Oh, right. He was editor of The Bitter Pill (aka The Tablet, aka RU-486). Never mind.
What Austen missed is the fact that we pray for … wait for it… CONVERSION or Downfall of the Fishwrap.
You can always find the prayer linked on the top menu. And it is HERE.
This is what I posted, and I still mean it.
May I ask you all to pray to St. Joseph, patron of the diocese where the offices of the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter) are located? Pray that all the writers and staff of that heterodox and destructive publication either covert to orthodox Catholicism or else that they are driven to closure. Pray also that the bishops of these United States of America develop the courage to strip that publication of the word “Catholic” in their title.
St. Joseph, pray for us.
Dear St. Joseph, Terror of Demons and Protector of Holy Church, Chaste Guardian of Our Lord and His Mother, hear our urgent prayer and swiftly intercede with our Savior, whom as a loving father you defended so diligently, that He will pour abundant graces upon the staff of that organ of dissent the National catholic Reporter so that they will either embrace orthodox doctrine concerning faith and morals or that all their efforts will promptly fail and come to their just end. Amen.
So, Austen, I recommend that you sloooow doooown when trying to read. Even though tweets are pretty short, you are missing some important words.
200 hundred years ago today, one of the great writers of the 19th c. died. Jane Austen.
I read today that the UK unveiled a new £10 note, printed on polymer, at Winchester Cathedral where the novelist is buried. A few years ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Cathedral and seeing her memorial stone in the floor of the aisle of the nave. There is also going to be a £2 coin in her honor. Sorry… honour. The bill will be issued on 14 September, which is also the 10th anniversary of the implementation of Summorum Pontificum. The bill will boast a quote from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Caroline Bingley says to Mr Darcy: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” The dreadful Caroline was, of course, not in the least interested in reading. Also, I read that bill will contain traces of tallow, an animal fat. If there are any Brits who don’t want to handle the bills because of this, please save them up and give them to me. I’d like to visit England this fall.
Also slated for release in 2020 is a new £20 featuring the painter J.M.W. Turner. You might recall that his The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838, in the National Gallery, was judged by some to be the greatest English painting. It is hard to argue against that.
Winston Churchill is on a new version of the £5 note. He is arguably the most important person of the 20th century. Yes, there are other great candidates, but Churchill has to be close to or at the top of that short list.
Have you never read Jane Austen?
From 2008… already!
UPDATE:
I thought I might watch a Jane Austen based movie tonight in honor.. honour of the author. I’m having a hard time finding one. Sense and Sensibility is a good one. I suppose Hunger Games is about the same, right? A woman author tells the tale of the difficult relationships of a young woman and other young people, all playing games according to social expectations….
Each year I try to watch a lot of the Tour de France and some of Wimbledon.
At the risk of making some Jesuits jealous, I have to post this.
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
A Daily Prayer for Priests
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