Fr. Z's Blog | Catholic commentary by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Mickens tries to pull a fast one as he attempts, again, to insult Pope Benedict

Posted on 17 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

140325TabletMickensTweet At far-left-leaning Commonweal, long-time Rome-based writer Robert Mickens has a new insinuation piece.

Context: To review Mickens a bit, he dislikes Benedict XVI so much that, in social media, he rooted for his death, which got him fired from the ultra-liberal UK weekly The Tablet. HERE. He is out of the so-called “closet”. HERE He is terrified of the new generation of priests, who have Papa Wojtyla and Ratzinger in their marrow. HERE He thinks that the laity should elect bishops. HERE

When you read Micken’s musings, you need to park your logic and door and also read for what he leaves out.

In the latest Commonweal piece he strives once more to smear Benedict XVI. Here’s how he does that. This is distasteful, but these are the problems arising in Rome and they are the coinage in which the catholic Left peddles their wares.

[…]

Then there’s the case of at least two priest-officials in the Roman Curia who were recently reported to be engaging in scandalous homosexual behavior, [scandalous … is there any other kind?] a perennial dark side of clerical life in the Eternal City.

One was denounced for “cruising” St. Peter’s Square in search of sex with young men. The culprit is said to be a member of an important religious order and an archbishop in a major Vatican office. [NB] There are only five such people that fit the description: two are Jesuits, another two are Dominicans, and one is a Legionary of Christ. [The problem here is that this is unsubstantiated rumor.]

The other cleric reportedly caught in a gay sex scandal has been identified as a monsignor who serves as personal secretary to one of Pope Francis’s most important curia allies. The incident involving this priest supposedly included the use of cocaine. Some “journalists” have embellished their accounts of this sordid tale with sensationalized and factually erroneous details, including the assertion that the said cardinal knew (or should have known) what naughty business his secretary was up to. [There are variants in the reporting but it is clear that it did happen. Vatican Gendarmes were involved. The priest in question was institutionalized. It has been substantiated.]

Vatican employees and Church commentators who are not especially keen on Papa Francesco have seized upon this series of “bad news” and have tried to throw it like mud at the pope. But, most likely, it won’t stick.

First of all, the religious-archbishop accused of cruising for gay sex and the cardinal who allegedly turned a blind eye to his priest-secretary’s drug-fuelled sexcapades were both appointed by Benedict XVI. So you can’t blame Bergoglio for showing bad judgment in personnel matters, at least not these appointments.

[…]

This is a piece of nasty, to be sure. But, horrid as it is, let’s pull it apart and get some daylight on it.

Note that Mickens is framing this in terms of people who don’t like Pope Francis, hence. Mickens is against how they “throw mud” at the Pope he favors.

He is guilty of the same unfair mud throwing.

To whom is Mickens referring? Who are these “five” Archbishops who are religious?

“two are Jesuits”… that means, Ladaria Ferrer, until recently Secretary of the CDF and now Prefect or Vasil, Secretary at the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

“two are Dominicans”… that means, DiNoia, also at the CDF, or Bruguès, the Vatican Archivist and Librarian.

“one is a Legionary of Christ”… that means Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, though he is a Bishop.

All of these men were appointed by Pope Benedict… get it? HUH?!? Get it? That’s the mud.

However, pace Mickens, there are not only five Archbishops in the Curia who are religious.

There is also the conspicuous Archbishop José Rodriguez Carballo, O.F.M., Secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, clearly one of the more important dicasteries of the Holy See.

Why would Mickens – purposely – leave him out? Someone as experienced in Rome as Mickens doesn’t usually make these mistakes.

Rodriguez Carballo was appointed to his position by Pope Francis in 2013. He wasn’t just some invisible Spanish Franciscan before his appointment. He was the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, one of the three major families of Franciscans. He was known.

Why would Mickens leave him out? Was it just a lapse? I don’t think so. Mickens is almost always wrong about everything, but he knows who is in the Roman Curia.

[UPDATE: There’s also Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, S.D.B., (Salesian) Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.]

Let’s get something clear. We shouldn’t smear people, especially highly placed pastors of the Church – to the delight of the Devil and Hell – with mere rumors especially unsubstantiated rumors of that disgusting nature. So, it is especially distasteful that Mickens should traffic in this sort of thing.

Finally, what Mickens is peddling about curial Archbishops is from an unsubstantiated blogger and no eyewitnesses to such “cruising” have been identified. No one has been detained or charged with anything. On the other hand, the “cocaine party thing” and Card. Coccopalmerio’s (a favorite of Mickens) secretary is substantiated.

What Mickens did was doubly crafty, and that had to be pointed out.

The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in Liberals, Sin That Cries To Heaven, The Drill |
5 Comments

Robert Royal on the anti-American Spadaro/Figueroa smear

Posted on 17 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The well-deserved fallout continues for the vicious anti-American attack piece penned at Inciviltà cattolica by Jesuit Fr Antonio “2+2=5” Spadaro, who is also so interested in the life and works of Pier Vittorio Tondelli that he created his own website about him (HERE).

Today I read at The Catholic Thing a great commentary by Robert Royal, called “Are Americans from Mars?”

At first I thought he was going in the direction of “Americans are from Mars, Jesuits are from Venus”. Which could be true… unless they are from Ganymede.

Prof. Royal, whose mind was surely honed on Dante (US HERE – UK HERE) rather than on Tondelli, makes a great analogy using the mysterious Red Planet and Spadaro/Figueroa’s long-distance viewing of these USA.

Here are a few amuse-bouches with my usual treatment:

Percival Lowell was a member of the distinguished Boston Lowell family, graduate of Harvard, founder of the Lowell Observatory, the most prominent American astronomer – some say – until Carl Sagan. He also believed, on the basis of what he thought careful scientific observation, that there were canals on Mars, and wrote several books about what might have driven Martians to such a vast undertaking.

Unfortunately, his “observations” were an optical illusion (as several scientists already knew in Lowell’s day). Recent Mars probes have discovered no signs of the civilization Lowell thought once existed there.

Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J., editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, and Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian hand-picked by Pope Francis to be editor on the Argentinian edition of L’Osservatore Romano, have recently made quite controversial observations about America in “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism.”

They are, with good reason, destined to suffer the fate of poor Percival Lowell.

It’s not that they don’t have some data. But like many distant observers who know little of the concrete reality they are describing, they mistake the relative size and significance of almost everything.

[…]

Their main fear is that the collaboration of Catholics and Evangelicals in fighting the culture war is really a bid to create a theocracy in America. You usually hear a charge like that from Planned Parenthood or gay-rights groups or fringe academics. Not from the Vatican. [Could the alliance between Catholics and Evangelicals have resulted in the fact that WE are the ones under attack rather than we being the ones on the attack?]

Further, the authors opine, the participants in this “surprising ecumenism” indulge in a “Manichean” view of Good vs. Evil that sees America as the Promised Land and her enemies as enemies of God whom it’s only right to destroy, literally, with our armed forces.

Taking this as the heart of the Evangelical-Catholic alliance is so delusional that a Catholic must feel embarrassed that a journal supposedly reviewed and authorized by the Vatican would run such slanderous nonsense. The authors would have done better to get out and see some of America rather than, it seems, spending so much time with left-wing sociologists of religion.

[…]

Go read the rest of his piece over there. It will not disappoint, unto the end.

Posted in The Drill | Tagged Antonio Spadaro, La Civiltà Cattolica, Robert Royal
2 Comments

Fr. Z’s Kitchen: Supper For the Promotion of Clericalism and a NOTE to MS. Winters – UPDATED

Posted on 16 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

UPDATE 17 July 2017:

Some of you are writing to me to ask for CCW cards. I’m not the guy. However, I passed the word to Fr. Heilman, who responded:

They’ll be available at romancatholicgear.com within the week. They must possess a “Combat Rosary” to purchase a card.

I don’t know exactly how they’ll work that out, but – hey!

___

Originally Published on: Jul 16, 2017

Last night I invited the bishop and some priests for another Supper For The Promotion of Clericalism. The priests are in the regular TLM rotation for Sundays at St. Mary’s in Pine Bluff, where my friend Fr. Richard Heilman is pastor. You will recall that Fr. Heilman moved his parish to ad orientem worship, put in an altar rail, and integrated the Extraordinary Form into the regular schedule side by side with the Novus Ordo. Great things are happening there. Fr. Heilman is also responsible, inter alia, for the now legendary “Combat Rosary“ which is now being carried by all of the Pontifical Swiss Guards.

Anyway, during the supper, Fr. Heilman unveiled of his new fun item for future distribution with the Combat Rosaries.

I bring this up in light of the snarky attack on my person and on all you readers of this blog made by the Wile E. Coyote of the catholic Left, MS. Winters of the Fishwrap (aka National Schismatic Reporter).

MS. “Wile E.” Winters arose from his fainting couch to engage in a celebratory chicken dance in the wake of the attack on Americans by the Jesuit-run Incività cattolica. Among Wile. E.’s comments (my emphases, comments):

Finally, someone took on Church Militant by name and called it out for its “shocking rhetoric.” I am tired of those in positions of authority hiding behind the rationale that they don’t want to “elevate” a fringe group like Church Militant by even calling attention to it, when they really just do not want the flak that will now descend upon Fr. Spadaro and Rev. Figueroa. Hundreds of thousands of people [That’s “fringe”? That’s more than read MS. Winters!] watch that garbage, and it is not just them: [NB] Yesterday morning, Fr. Zuhlsdorf had an article with the headline “ASK FATHER: Can I wear a Rosary like warriors wear weapons?” [HERE] That kind of militaristic, and profane, language is not uncommon at right-wing Catholic websites, all of which feed into the mainstream through less outrageous, but decidedly conservative, media outlets like EWTN and the National Catholic Register.

[…]

I find it hilarious that he wants “authority” to do something, when for decades the entire purpose of the Fishwrap has been to defy authority.

Wile. E. Winters ignored my response to the questioner, of course. I responded that the questioner should consider carrying his weapon/Rosary concealed. Get it? Concealed carry? The very fact that someone might ask about the Rosary as a weapon was enough to freak him out. The Rosary as weapon?!? Oh deary me! That’s militaristic! That’s outrageous! That’s … that’s… shocking!

What comes to mind is what St. Padre Pio said, namely, that , “The Rosary is the ‘weapon’ for these times.” He also said, “Some people are so foolish that they think they can go through life without the help of the Blessed Mother. Love the Madonna and pray the rosary, for her Rosary is the weapon against the evils of the world today.” St. Josemaria Escriva said, “The holy Rosary is a powerful weapon. Use it with confidence and you’ll be amazed at the results.” St. Jose Maria also said, “For those who use their intelligence and their study as a weapon, the Rosary is most effective. Because that apparently monotonous way of beseeching Our Lady as children do their Mother, can destroy every seed of vainglory and pride.” [I wonder if MS Winters prays the Rosary. He uses his intelligence and study as a weapon, after all.] Pius XI wrote that, “The Rosary is a powerful weapon to put the demons to flight and to keep oneself from sin…If you desire peace in your hearts, in your homes, and in your country, assemble each evening to recite the Rosary. Let not even one day pass without saying it, no matter how burdened you may be with many cares and labors.” [You have to believe in demons, acknowledge that there are sins, and love your country to get this. Again, I wonder of MS. Winters prays the Rosary.] Bl. Columba Marmion said, “Here is an example to help you understand the efficacy of the Rosary. You remember the story of David who vanquished Goliath. [Uh oh! Didn’t David use a … a.. weapon?!?] What steps did the young Israelite take to overthrow the giant? He struck him in the middle of the forehead with a pebble from his sling. If we regard the Philistine as representing evil and all its powers: heresy, impurity, pride, we can consider the little stones from the sling capable of overthrowing the enemy as symbolizing the Aves of the Rosary.”

Well, here’s a little something for Wile E.’s next case of the vapors after all this shocking, outrageous, militaristic imagery.

This is what Fr. Heilman trotted out last night.

Behold the Combat Rosary Concealed Carry Card.

In your wallet, this could go next to your old “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” membership card.

I would be delighted to send to MS Winters both a Combat Rosary and one of these Rosary “Concealed Carry License” cards. All I need is a good postal address.

As far as the Clerical Supper went, it was a great success. Clericalism (properly understood) was heavily promoted.

We started with our pre-prandials (nuts, chips and refreshing Mules).

The primo was “Whore-style Priest-stranglers” (aka Strozzapreti alla Putanesca). Thanks to the reader who, quite a while back now, sent the pasta from my wishlist! I remembered you while preparing the meal.

The secondo was frenched-ribeye steaks, which I dry-rubbed with salt, white pepper and oregano. (Biretta trip to K&MA for that preparation.) They went on the grill at about 700° – just to get their attention – after which I backed the temp down to finish. After resting for a while they were just as I wanted, butter-knife tender, dressed in a red-wine and shallot reduction and accompanied by green salad with tomatoes macerated in balsamic vinegar and touch of dry vermouth. Wines included a super sturdy Chalbis and a Malbec that you could have mistaken for a Petite Sirah.

Afterwards we tried my homemade limoncello, which is strong enough that I was tempted to extinguish the candles when I brought it out.

Great clerical fun was had by all.

I am dedicated to the custom of priests having steaks together on a regular basis.

And let’s get those Rosaries carried, concealed, and then USED! And please say one for the Fishwrap, along with this prayer HERE.

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Fr. Z's Kitchen, Liberals, Lighter fare | Tagged clerical supper, Combat Rosary, Michael Sean Winters, SFTPOC, spiritual combat, Supper For The Promotion of Clericalism
28 Comments

Your Sunday Sermon Notes

Posted on 16 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Was there a good point made in the sermon you heard during the Holy Mass in fulfillment your of Sunday Obligation? Let us know.

Also, please take a look at this! It has a helpful tip. HERE

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
25 Comments

Benedict XVI’s words for Card. Meisner’s funeral

Posted on 15 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Benedict XVI sent a message for the funeral of the late Joachim Card. Meisner, emeritus of Cologne. For the German, HERE

His words include:

Was mich an den letzten Gesprächen mit dem heimgegangenen Kardinal besonders beeindruckt hat, war die gelöste Heiterkeit, die innere Freude und die Zuversicht, zu der er gefunden hatte. Wir wissen, dass es ihm, dem leidenschaftlichen Hirten und Seelsorger, schwerfiel, sein Amt zu lassen und dies gerade in einer Zeit, in der die Kirche besonders dringend überzeugender Hirten bedarf, die der Diktatur des Zeitgeistes widerstehen und ganz entschieden aus dem Glauben leben und denken. Aber um so mehr hat es mich bewegt, dass er in dieser letzten Periode seines Lebens loszulassen gelernt hat und immer mehr aus der tiefen Gewissheit lebte, dass der Herr seine Kirche nicht verlässt, auch wenn manchmal das Boot schon fast zum Kentern angefüllt ist.

What struck me particularly me in the last talks with the departed Cardinal was the relaxed cheerfulness, the inner joy, and the confidence he had found. We know that it was difficult for him, the passionate shepherd and pastor, to leave his office, and especially at a time when the Church needs dedicated pastors who resist the dictatorship of the Zeitgeist (spirit of the times), and who resolutely live and think from the Faith. But it moved me all the more that he had learned at this last period of his life to let go and he lived ever more out of the deep certainty that the Lord does not abandon His Church, even if the boat is filled to the point of capsizing.

He used that image in 2005 in his Stations of the Cross.

And…

Als an seinem letzten Morgen Kardinal Meisner nicht zur Messe erschien, wurde er in seinem Zimmer tot aufgefunden. Das Brevier war seinen Händen entglitten: Er war betend gestorben, im Blick auf den Herrn, im Gespräch mit dem Herrn. Die Art des Sterbens, die ihm geschenkt wurde, zeigt noch einmal auf, wie er gelebt hat: Im Blick auf den Herrn und im Gespräch mit ihm.

When, on his last morning, Cardinal Meisner did not appear at Mass, he was found dead in his room. The breviary had slipped out of his hands: he had died praying, looking at the Lord, talking with the Lord. The manner of dying that was given as a gift to him shows once again how he had lived: Looking at the Lord and talking with Him.

Everyone… Fathers, you especially… two things.

First, it’s all hands on deck now. The boat is taking on water to the point of capsizing. We know that the Lord is in the boat and that the boat is His. That doesn’t mean that we should not do our part when it is clearly taking on water.

Also, we don’t know the time or place or circumstances of our upcoming death and meeting with the High Priest who is Just Judge and King of Fearful Majesty. So, consider your state in life, examine your conscience and

… GO TO CONFESSION!

Posted in Benedict XVI, Four Last Things, GO TO CONFESSION, Mail from priests |
26 Comments

Jesuit Fr. Spadaro’s ‘Apologia pro nugis suis’

Posted on 15 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Jesuit Fr Antonio Spadaro must be feeling the heat resulting from his poorly conceived anti-American hit piece in Civiltà Cattolica (now aka Inciviltà cattolica) HERE.

He gave an interview to Jesuit-run Amerika Magazine (no, this isn’t at all incestuous) in which he tries – unconvincingly – to back away a bit from the anti-Americanism of his article, which he co-authored with an Argentinian Presbyterian.

So you are focusing on the phenomenon rather than the country?

Exactly! But, I should add that it is the tradition of La Civiltà Cattolica to reflect on ecclesial phenomena that can concern various countries in the world. … In this edition, we wanted to underline a phenomenon and tried to understand it, not to focus on a nation. […]

I’m not buying it.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA | Tagged Antonio Spadaro, La Civiltà Cattolica
16 Comments

Some Good News: His Hermeneuticalness is back in the saddle again

Posted on 15 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sometimes I post “good news” posts. We all need good news for a change, right?

One piece of good news gets special notice today.

My good friend Fr. Tim Finigan, PP of Margate, is posting more often again at his exceptional blog: The Hermeneutic of Continuity.

Thus, His Hermeneuticalness is back in the saddle again after a bit of a hiatus.

His posts lately have been great. Today he posted one on how to get something out of even a less than good Sunday Mass sermon.

Each week I post asking you to comment on a good point from the sermon you heard at your Sunday Mass of Obligation. Fr. Finigan gives helpful pointers on listening to sermons. A taste… HERE

[…]

You may well be right: priests are not always great communicators, [Only Christ is the Perfect Communicator. Cf. Communio et progressio 11] but did you know that a sermon is a sacramental? That is to say that a sermon signifies spiritual effects which may be obtained through the intercession of the Church. By sacramentals, we are disposed to receive the grace of the sacraments.

[…]

It might be one sentence or phrase, it could be a commonplace truth of doctrine, morals or devotional teaching that we really need to hear again and act upon. It might even be a passing thought that seems a distraction from what the priest is saying. One way or another, if we are ready to receive the grace of God, He will give it, often in ways that might surprise us.

[…]

A sermon is a sacramental.

So, Fr. Finigan will help you listen to the sermon better. But he has also just helped a lot of priests out there better to prepare their sermons.

FATHERS! Sermons are sacramentals. Do you want to treat them the same way now?

Thanks, Fr. Finigan.

BTW… if there were EVER a time when we need a hermeneutic of continuity… it’s NOW.

Posted in Fr. Z KUDOS, Just Too Cool, Mail from priests | Tagged Fr. Tim Finigan, hermeneutic of continuity, homily, sacramental, sermon
4 Comments

Wherein Fr. Z endorses Fr. Cipolla’s call to ACTION!

Posted on 14 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Though some of the Rorate folks have waged a bit of a war on me, I have tried occasionally to acknowledge their good contributions. I was sent a link to one contribution which I would like to endorse.

Fr. Richard Cipolla, pastor of St. Mary’s in Norwalk, CT (a beautiful church and wonderful parish), delivered a “¡Hagan lío!” sermon for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost. The whole text is HERE. I’ll peel back the outer layers and…:

[…]

Last week we celebrated, with little fanfare, the 10^th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, the magna carta of the Catholic liturgy. [I like “Emancipation Proclamation”.] The document itself is flawed, with its artificial creation of two forms of the Roman Rite, [distinction: juridical creation. SP doesn’t solve the theological and historical debate of whether or not the newer and the tradition rites are really the same rite. I don’t think they are, btw.] with its talk of a coetus, a group of the faithful who go to the bishop or pastor and ask for the Traditional Roman rite.  And the pastor, including the bishop, it presumes will respond to this request with alacrity and charity.  This has not happened. [Alas, no. But did we expect them to?] But even though the document is flawed,  what it did cannot be underestimated. It freed the Church from the terrible bonds of a deliberately modern liturgy imposed in a most un-Catholic way a liturgical form based on personal rationalizations  that claimed to be based on scholarship. [One might point at the deliberate violation of the handful of mandates of the Council Fathers in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the cutting up and pasting together of prayers resulting a huge changes in their content, creations such as the 2nd Eucharistic Prayer, etc.] Let us be clear about this once and for all.  Because I find out that the offertory prayers are Gallican and did not come into the Mass until after the first millennium has absolutely nothing to do with the reality and validity of the liturgical life of the Church and those particular prayers.   Let us be clear about this.  Scholarship is relative to time. [ANALOGY ALERT] And who would prefer a runty tomato plant about which we have a full DNA printout  to a plant that is held up by stakes on which is hanging ripe tomatoes to be savored with basil and olive oil?

Dare we say that the Traditional Roman Mass that developed from the early Church through Gregory the Great, through what historians call the Dark Ages, through the flowering of what we call the Middle Ages, even to the eve of the discovery of the New World, is one of the bedrocks of Western civilization? [YES! We so dare.] The greatest composers, including the anonymous composers of the chant and the composers of polyphony like Byrd, Victoria and Palestrina, Bach, Mozart and even Stravinsky:   all this music inspired by the Traditional Roman Rite and written to make the Rite sing for the praise of almighty God.  The Traditional Roman Rite is certainly the bedrock of the Catholic Church,  and its suppression in the 1960s will be written about in Church history in the same way as the Babylonian exile.

But there is more. The Orthodox believe that the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom and the Liturgy of St. Basil are God-given.  And I would dare to say that the same is true for the Traditional Roman Mass.  It is God-given. [SIMILE ALERT] It developed in the womb of the Church like a pearl in an oyster.  It has nothing to do with committees or consilia appointed to invent a new form of Mass that has relevance only to those who wrote the texts, whether on a napkin in Trastevere or in an office in the Vatican. [Do I hear an “Amen!”?] The irrelevancy of the Catholic Church is this post-modern age is in great part due to the irrelevancy of a liturgy invented in the modern age and now already obsolete in the post-modern age of freedom defined by the naked self. [I’ve been writing this for years. How we worship God, in our sacred liturgical worship, is an essential element of our identity as Catholics. We are our rites. They form us and tell us who we are. Without properly ordered worship, we don’t know who we are. Couple that with ignorance of or the defiance of the content of the Faith, and we wind up with flocks who have no idea who they are as Catholics, who can’t explain themselves, what they believe. If that is what we have become, then why should anyone listen to us? We will be easily driven from the public square, and rightly so. This is yet another reason why Summorum Pontificum is so imporant.]

And yet.  And yet. We cannot retreat from the sad situation in the liturgical life of the Church and therefore in the very life of the Church. [“Never give up! Never surrender!”] We must not hunker down and do our own traditional thing and consign everyone one else to some terrible boring and bland version of the Eucharistic liturgy and thank God that we celebrate the real thing.  We must evangelize, my friends.[Do I hear an “Amen!”?] We start with ourselves and make sure we are in spiritual shape to do battle, spiritual shape, not personal shape or aesthetic shape.  Spiritual shape  And to get into spiritual shape requires hard work, work that demands painful spiritual pushups every day that causes some pain. [Spend time in review of the content of your Faith (quae and qua). Review your state in life. Examine your conscience. GO TO CONFESSION!]

You young men who serve at the altar, you young men who come to this Mass, dare you[do you dare?] come to the aid of not merely the Catholic Church, [the Catholic only] and I say “merely” in a purely grammatical and stylistic sense, but to civilization itself, a civilization that has been lobotomizied  with no memory of its roots and its past?  Will you buy into this self-centered culture that keeps everything at arm’s length except the truth about oneself and one’s relationship to the truth, a truth that is a person, Jesus Christ, and his Church founded to make all things new? [NB]Will you allow priests and bishops who have failed to take their faith seriously and so have scandalize you make you fall into a cynicism that will make your life devoid of real faith and prevent you from even considering a vocation to the priesthood or the monastic life?

And you young women here:  dare you embrace the challenge of a religious life that was and should be the heart of the Church, dare you to be Mother Courage in the face of the spineless posturing of your generation? [That probably is not a reference to Brecht.] Dare you to have the zeal and faith of St. Birgitta, St. Catherine of Siena, both of whom who told off Popes when he was wrong.  Dare you in whatever vocation you decide upon to be a source of faith and joy in this unbelieving world?

And you members of the Hispanic community:  dare you give of your real gifts that include a love of celebration of our precious Catholic faith to the whole parish and to the whole Church?  Dare you encourage our Hispanic community to come to this Mass and see where the basis of the traditions you love are founded, to come to understand the freedom that the Traditional Roman Rite gives to each of us, that frees us from the burden of language?  Dare you become leaders of the recovery of Catholic Tradition?

And to all of you here, married with children, do you dare to take the next step, the step after coming to this Mass at St Mary’s in Norwalk because you see its power and reality, and take the next step in making this parish a powerhouse for the Lord that will overwhelm jaded Catholics and prideful secularists with the joy of knowing that God loves us so much that he died for us so that we may be saved from eternal death?

The answer to these questions for each of us here is the key to the future, not only the future of this parish but also the very future of the Church.  Together we look forward to the time when the Traditional Roman Mass will once again be the Ordinary Form of the Mass.  May this be the will of God.

Fr. Z kudos to Fr. Cipolla.

Could the Extraordinary Form become the Ordinary Form again?

I won’t see the answer to that question in my lifetime… probably.

Wellll….who knows, given the times are are in and the fact that in finem citius.

I have friends who argue that, as the identity-squishy mainstream Church collapses, the only thing left will be the traditional leaning Church. For example, I recently read that a large percentage of ordinations in France this year were for traditional groups, which puts the traditional form of our sacred worship and all that goes with it back firmly on the playing field there.

Way back when I had many an opportunity to converse with then-Cardinal Ratzinger. He thought there should be a restoration of the traditional Roman Rite to help kickstart the organic development of liturgy that had been interrupted with the artificial imposition of the Novus Ordo. At the time, I gleaned that he thought that a tertium quid would emerge from the dialogue of the rites, with the newer dominating, taking elements of the older and being thereby corrected. As time passed, however, I got the idea that he switched his position. The older, traditional form would be revitalized by elements of the newer.

One way or another, we need a wide-spread restoration of the older, traditional Roman Rite. Let it be side by side with the newer, Novus Ordo. What will happen? First, that organic development will start with the “mutual enrichment”. It is already happening. I think that many priests who celebrate the older form of Mass have brought some good insights to tradition and to their own ars celebrandi from our collective experience of the newer form for the last decades. I know any number of priests who, having learned how to say the older form, never after say the Novus Ordo in the same way as they did before.

Also, let “market forces” prevail. If people have a choice, let them choose. Why would that be bad? I suspect that a lot of people would, over time, choose the traditional Rite. That same suspicion terrifies liberals. Thus, libs can’t allow people to have a real choice. They will repress tradition whenever they can because they are afraid.

Fr. Cipolla is right to call people to action. I would add what I have written in rants on other occasions.

It’s ‘grind it out’ time.

I am getting some defeatist email.

Those of you who want the older form of the liturgy, and all that comes with it, should…

1) Work with sweat and money to make it happen. If you thought you worked hard before? Been at this a long time? HAH! Get to work! “Oooo! It’s tooo haaard!” BOO HOO!

2) Get involved with all the works of charity that your parishes or groups sponsor. Make a strong showing. Make your presence known. If Pope Francis wants a Church for the poor, then we respond, “OORAH!!” The “traditionalist” will be second-to-none in getting involved. “Dear Father… you can count on the ‘Stable Group of TLM Petitioners-For-By-Now-Several-Months” to help with the collection of clothing for the poor! Tell us what you need!”

3) Pray and fast and give alms. Think you have been doing that? HAH! Think again. If you love, you can do more.

4) Form up and get organized. You can do this. Find like minded people and get that request for the implementation of Summorum Pontificum together, how you will raise the money to help buy the stuff the parish will need and DO IT. Make a plan. Find people. Execute!

5) Get your ego and your own petty little personal interpretations and preferences of how Father ought to wiggle his pinky at the third word out of the way. It is team-work time. If we don’t sacrifice individually, we will stay divided and we won’t achieve our objectives.

Do you want this? Do you? Or, when you don’t get what you want handed to you, are you going to whine about it and then blame others?

The legislation is in place. The young priests and seminarians are dying to get into this stuff. Give them something to do.

And to those of you will you blurt out “But Father! But Father!… I don’t like your militaristic imagery”… [LOL! Like this loopy attack HERE] in order to derail the entry, here’s a new image from your own back yard.

Pope Benedict gave you, boys and girls, over the course of his 8 years, a beautiful new bicycle! He gave you a direction, some encouragement, a snow cone, and a running push. Now, take off the training wheels and RIDE THE DAMN BIKE!

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, Be The Maquis, Brick by Brick, Olive Branches, Our Catholic Identity, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged Fr. Cipolla, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
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WDTPRS – 15th Ordinary Sunday: To be good lenses and reflectors of Christ’s light we must be clean

Posted on 14 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This week we have a good example of a dramatic difference Obsolete ICEL version and the Latin with the Current ICEL.

The Collect or Opening Prayer for this 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite is also used in the Extraordinary Form on the 3rd Sunday after Easter. In the Ordinary Form it is also the Collect for Monday of the 3rd week of Easter season.

Today’s prayer goes back at least to the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary. My trusty edition of St. Pius V’s 1570 Missale Romanum, and the subsequent 1962MR, shows the insertion of a word – “in viam possint redire iustitiae” – not present in the more ancient Collect in the Gelasian (though it was present in some other ancient sacramentaries).

The Ordinary Form editions of the Missal drop iustitiae.

Stylistically, this is a snappy prayer, with nice alliteration and a powerful rhythm in the last line.

COLLECT – (2002MR):

Deus, qui errantibus, ut in viam possint redire,
veritatis tuae lumen ostendis,
da cunctis qui christiana professione censentur,
et illa respuere, quae huic inimica sunt nomini,
et ea quae sunt apta sectari.

It is hard to know what the sources influencing this prayer might be. Certainly we can find John 14, which we shall see below. Can we find in the Collect a trace of the Roman statesman Cassiodorus (+c. 585 – consul in 514 and then Boethius’ successor as magister officiorum under the Ostrogothic King Theodoric)? Cassiodorus wrote, “Sed potest aliquis et in via peccatorum esse et ad viam iterum redire iustitiae? But can someone be both in the way of sins and also return again to the way of justice?” (cf. Exp. Ps. 13). Otherwise we might infer a touch of Milan’s mighty Bishop Ambrose (+397) or even more probably Augustine of Hippo (+430) who use similar patterns of words. Note especially the presence of “iustitiae” in Cassiodorus’ phrase.

The thorough Lewis & Short Dictionary informs you that the verb censeo, though quite complicated, is primarily “to estimate, weigh, value, appreciate”. It is used for, “to be of an opinion” and “to think, consider” something. There is a special construction with censeo, censeri aliqua re meaning “to be appreciated, distinguished, celebrated for some quality”, “to be known by something.” This explains the passive form in our Collect with the ablative christiana professione. Getting this into English requires some fancy footwork. Censeo here retains a meaning of “be counted among” (think of English “census”). We can get the right concept in “distinguished” since it can mean both “be counted as” as well as “be celebrated for some quality.”

Christianus, a, um is an adjective with the noun professio. When moving from Latin to English sometimes we need to pull adjectives apart and rephrase them. We could say “Christian profession”, but what this adjectival construction means here is “profession of Christ.” We find the same problem in phrases such as oratio dominica, which is literally “the Lordly Prayer” in English comes out more smoothly as “the Lord’s Prayer”.

Respuo literally means “to spit out” and thus “reject, repel, refuse”. The fundamental meaning gives a strong enough image for me to say “strongly reject”. The deponent verb sector indicates “to follow continually or eagerly” in either a good or bad sense. Sector is used, for example, to describe a group of followers who accompanied ancient philosophers, which is where we get the word “sect”. The word via needs our attention. It means, “a way, method, mode, manner, fashion, etc., of doing any thing, course”. There is a moral content to via as well, “the right way, the true method, mode, or manner”.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

O God, who does show the light of Your truth to the erring
so that they might be able to return unto the way,
grant to all who are distinguished by their profession of Christ
that they may both strongly reject those things which are inimical to this name of Christian
and follow eagerly the things which are suited to it.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

God our Father,
your light of truth
guides us to the way of Christ.
May all who follow him
reject what is contrary to the gospel.

CURRENT ICEL (2011):

O God, who show the light of your truth
to those who go astray,
so that they may return to the right path,
give all who for the faith they profess
are accounted Christians
the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ
and to strive after all that does it honor.

Some initial associations to my mind.

Ancient philosophers (the word comes from Greek for “lover of wisdom”) would walk about in public in their sandals and draped toga-like robes. Thinker theologian/philosophers such as Aristotle were called “Peripatetics” from their practice of walking about (Greek peripatein) under covered walkways of the Lyceum in Athens (Greek peripatos) while teaching. Their disciples would swarm around them, hanging on their words, debating with them, learning how to think and to reason. They would discuss the deeper questions the human mind and heart inevitably faces and in this they were theologians. We must be careful not to impose the modern divorce of philosophy and theology on the ancients. In ancient Christian mosaics Christ is sometimes depicted wearing philosopher’s robes, his hand raised in the ancient teaching gesture. He is Wisdom incarnate and the perfect Teacher. He is the one from whom we should learn about God and about ourselves. After Christ Himself, we also have His Church, who is Mater et Magistra – Mother and Teacher. Sometimes a small Christ is seated upon His Mother as if she were His teaching chair, or cathedral. When so depicted, Mary is called Seat of Wisdom.

I am also reminded of the very first lines of the Divine Comedy by the exiled Florentine poet Dante Alighieri (+1321) who was heavily shaped and influenced by Aristotle’s Ethics and the Christianized Platonic philosophy mediated through Boethius (+525) and St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274).

The Inferno begins:

Midway in the journey of our life
I came to myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost.
Ah, how hard it is to tell
the nature of that wood, savage, dense, and harsh –
the very thought of it renews my fear!
It is so bitter death is hardly more so.

Dante, the protagonist of his own poem, is describing a fictional self. His poetic persona, in the middle of his life (35 years old), is mired in sin and irrational behavior. He has strayed from the straight path of the life of reason and is in the “dark wood”. The life of persistent sin is a life without true reason, for human reason when left to itself without the light of grace is crippled. Dante likens his confused state to death. He must journey through hell and back. He then experiences the purification of purgatory in order to come back to the life of virtue and reason. In the course of the three-part Comedy he finds the proper road back to light and Truth and reason through the intercession of Christ-like figures such as Beatrice and Lucy and then through Christ Himself.

In the Comedy, Dante recovers the use of reason. His whole person is reintegrated through the light of Truth.

Don’t we often describe people who are ignorant, confused or obtuse as “wandering around in the dark”? This applies also to persistent sinners.

By their choices and resistance to God’s grace they have lost the light of Truth. God’s grace makes it possible for us to find our way back into the right path, no matter how far off of it we have strayed in the past.

When we sin, we break our relationship with Christ. If in laziness we should refuse to know Him better (every day), we lose sight of ourselves and our neighbor.

The Second Vatican Council teaches that Christ came into the world to reveal man more fully to himself (GS 22).

Christ, the incarnate Word, tells us in the person of the Apostle St. Thomas:

“‘Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way (via) where I am going.’ Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way (via)?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way (via), and the truth (veritas), and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him…. He who has seen me has seen the Father’” (cf. John 14:1-6 RSV).

We have not only the words and deeds of Christ in Scripture, but God has given us in the Catholic Church herself a secure marked path to follow towards happiness.

We can stray off this sure path either to the right or to the left. Either way, too far right or too far left, we wind up in the ditch in the dark.

When we have gone off the proper path and have left Christ, the Way, we can return to our senses again and be reconciled with God and neighbor through the sacraments entrusted to the Catholic Church, especially in the Sacrament of Penance and then good reception of Christ in Holy Communion.

We Catholics, who dare publicly to take Christ’s name to ourselves, need to stand up and be counted (censentur) in public and on public issues and even sharply refuse (respuere) whatever is contrary to Christ’s Name.

In what we say and do other people ought to be able to see Christ’s light reflected and focused in the details of our individual vocations.

To be good lenses and reflectors of Christ’s light, we must be clean. When we know ourselves not to be so, we are obliged as soon as possible to seek cleansing so that we can be saved and be of benefit for the salvation of others.

GO TO CONFESSION!

We must also practice spiritual works of mercy, bringing the light of truth to the ignorant or those who persist in darkness either through their own fault or no fault of their own.

QUAERITUR: When people look at us and listen to us, do they see a black, light-extinguishing hole where a beautiful image of God should be?

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, WDTPRS | Tagged lens, Sedes Sapientiae
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Jesuit @AntonioSpadaro, Jesuit-run Civiltà Cattolica attacks Americans

Posted on 14 July 2017 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

By now you may have seen the attack on Americans – conservative Americans and traditional Catholic Americans – in what some people consider a semi-official publication of the Holy See Civiltà Cattolica (now aka Inciviltà cattolica). The title in English: “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A surprising ecumenism”

“Integralism” is perhaps not used as much in these USA as it is in Europe. This term is a dog whistle. In somewhat broad terms, it can be used generically for the position that one’s religious beliefs should dictate their politics and social involvement. However, “integralism” developed in a specific context of conflict between Catholicism and modernity in Europe. In France and Italy, the haters of Catholic tradition often refer to anyone who wants traditional worship as being “intégriste”. It is flung like an insult. For a quick and fascinating lesson on “integralism”, and what Spadaro is calling conservative Americans, head over to the Wikipedia article. HERE Wiki is perfect as a source, but it gives you a rapid entry point.

The Holy See’s newspaper, the increasingly irrelevant L’Osservatore Romano, reprinted the anti-American attack with the title: “Ecumenism of Hate”

Again, this term “integralism” is a dog whistle: the troops are being called up to launch their own campaign of intolerant repression of anyone who might stand in the way of their agenda.

The vicious attack piece is penned by Fr Antonio Spadaro, the Jesuit editor of Inciviltà cattolica. Fr. Spadaro is so interested in the life and works of Pier Vittorio Tondelli that he created his own website about him (HERE).

The co-author of the article, with the Jesuit who is dedicated to the study of Tondelli, is Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian pastor, who is the editor of the Argentinian edition of L’Osservatore Romano. He once had a TV show in Argentina with the future-Pope Francis and a rabbi.

There are going to be good responses to this attack on Americans and our nation by the Argentinian Presbyterian and the Jesuit expert on Tondelli. We should watch for them.

One response has come from the clear-eyed Phil Lawler, writing at Catholic Culture. HERE

A taste… but read the whole thing there (my emphases, comments):

With a harsh denunciation of American conservatism, published in the semi-official Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica, the Vatican has plunged headlong into a partisan debate in a society that it clearly does not understand, potentially alienating (or should I say, further alienating) the Americans most inclined to favor the influence of the Church.

Why? Why this bitter attack on the natural allies of traditional Catholic teachings? Is it because the most influential figures at the Vatican today actually want to move away from those traditional teachings, and form a new alliance with modernity? [To ask such a question suggests that the answer is already discerned.]

The authors of the essay claim to embrace ecumenism, but they have nothing but disdain for the coalition formed by Catholics and Evangelical Protestants in the United States. They scold American conservatives for seeing world events as a struggle of good against evil, yet they clearly convey the impression that they see American conservativism as an evil influence that must be defeated. [From their moral superiority they chastise these USA and a huge majority of its population who do, in fact, see some conflicts in terms of Good and Evil, and they smugly call it “Manichean”. I might respond to the Italian Jesuit that, were it not for the “Manichean” view we Americans are supposed to have, he would perhaps have been raised speaking German or Russian. I might respond to him and to his Argentinian Presbyterian co-author, that Italy and Argentina never met a dictator that they didn’t like. Given their track national track records and that of the fundamentalist Americans….]

While they are quick to pronounce judgment on American politicians, the two authors betray an appalling ignorance of the American scene. The authors toss Presidents Nixon (a Quaker), Reagan, Bush, and Trump into the same religious classification, suggesting that they were all motivated by “fundamentalist” principles. An ordinary American, reading this account, would be surprised to see the authors’ preoccupation with the late Rev. Rousas Rushdoony [you may be saying “Who?” He was a Calvinst who was an important figure in the evolution of the “homeschool” movement. Bringing him up is probably a way of attacking also homeschoolers, who terrify libs because they are not being formed by state-run schools and the “values” they inculcate.] and the Church Militant web site: hardly major figures in the formation of American public opinion. [Church Militant could have been brought in as an example of Catholic traditionalism.] The essay is written from the perspective of people who draw their information about America from left-wing journals rather than from practical experience. [Do you hear the dog whistles? This is a signal to attack homeschoolers and traditionalists, groups which often overlap.]

The central thesis of the Civilta Cattolica essay is that American conservatives have developed an ideology, based on fundamentalist Protestant beliefs, that sees the US as morally righteous, with other people as enemies and thus justifies conflict and exploitation. Again and again the authors describe this attitude as “Manichean;” they insist on the need to “fight against” it. They insist on tolerance, but they have no tolerance for this attitude. Nowhere in the essay does one find a suggestion of the attitude, made popular by Pope Francis, that the Church should “accompany” sinners. No; the sins of American conservatism are unforgivable. [Scratch a liberal and, beneath, you find a fascist.]

“Triumphalist, arrogant and vindictive ethnicism is actually the opposite of Christianity,” the authors tell us. So this is a heresy, then—the “Manichean” references were purposeful—and it must be condemned? The Vatican today lauds Martin Luther for his desire to reform the faith, but denounces Evangelical Protestants for—for what, exactly? The Civilta Cattolica essay speaks—in typically incendiary terms—of an “ecumenism of hate.” But it is not obvious, frankly, who hates whom. [Yes, Phil, it is clear.]

[…]

Guess who the Presbyterian and Jesuit think has come to the rescue from this hate-filled fundamentalism? Yep, you got it in one.

My friend Sam Gregg of Acton Institute texted me today that he has written a response which will appear soon. I’ll be watching for it. [It’s HERE]

The moderation queue is ON.

UPDATE:

Thomas Peters tweets:

Funny how “Who am I to judge?” is something progressive Catholics never hold themselves to when it comes to things they really despise. https://t.co/VyrwQP5vuN

— Thomas Peters (@AmericanPapist) July 14, 2017

And:

UPDATE

Sam Gregg responded in Catholic World Report. A salient passage:

[…]

If the Civiltà Cattolica article simply reflected the views of a random Western European Catholic priest and an Argentine Presbyterian minister, few would be concerned about its content. But Civiltà Cattolicaarticles are subject to scrutiny from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State. Hence, it’s curious that whoever signed off on this article (assuming it was properly vetted) at the Secretariat of State didn’t pick up on the authors’ conflation of tangentially-related matters, or raise questions about the article’s emotivist tone, or alert Father Spadaro and Rev. Figueroa to their distinctly amateur grasp of American religious history and the finer points of American politics. If it is the case that red flags were not raised—or were ignored—then all Catholics, American or otherwise, have reason for concern. It is simply not in the universal Church’s interests to develop or encourage substantially false understandings of the United States or the Anglosphere more generally.

[…]