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{]:¬)

VW coolness

Posted on 18 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Posted in Just Too Cool | Tagged Volkswagon
28 Comments

Benedict XVI “defrocked” 384 clerics in 2 years. Liberal praise to follow…. maybe?

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

According to AP, and this was also clarified by the papal spokesman Fr. Lombardi, Pope Benedict XVI “defrocked” almost 400 priests for the crime of sexual abuse of children – in a little more than 2 years.

We are talking here about the formal dismissal of clerics from the clerical state, sometimes quickly, through inaccurately, called “defrocking”.

Nearly 400 from 2011-2012!

John Allen (now leaving NSR) says:

Based on information provided in the published volume “Activity of the Holy See,” according to Scicluna, there were 135 priests in 2011 who voluntarily requested dismissal from the clerical state and 125 for whom laicization was imposed as a penalty.

For 2012, the numbers were 67 voluntary dismissals and 57 cases in which laicization was imposed.

In total, that comes to 384 clergy over the two year period who were removed from the priesthood in cases related to the sexual abuse of minors.

What we will now wait to see in the MSM and in the liberal catholic press is the praise of Benedict XVI for his aggressive and exemplary work to protect children.

Pres. Obama declared 16 January “Religious Freedom Day”?!?

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I saw at the blog of Syte Reitz in an entry labelled “The Deceiver” that – I am not making this up – Pres. Obama had declared Thursday 16 January to be “Religious Freedom Day”.

Religious Freedom Day?

It takes some real cynicism, tinged with mendacity, to declare Religious Freedom Day when you are doing what he is doing.

Read the declaration at the site of the White House. For real.

Also from Reitz:

If you think that labeling Barack Obama “the DECEIVER” is extreme, consider the fact that he taught Alinsky tactics in Chicago, and Alinsky’s book Rules for Radicals is dedicated to Lucifer, the “father of lies” (see Clashes between Liberals and Conservatives).
Barack Obama is no stranger to the mastery and use of lies. Alinsky tactics are founded on the use of lies.

Posted in Liberals, Religious Liberty, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice, You must be joking! | Tagged Pres. Obama, religious freedom
17 Comments

St. Anthony and the blessings of horses and pigs

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Speaking of pigs, once upon a time in Velletri, the main city of of the Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni, at the Church of St. Anthony the Abbot, I did on this day outside the homonymous church stand in cassock, surplice, stole and biretta and I blessed pigs and horses.

I found a photo page of this event in Velletri.

The photos are not of the year I did this, but they are from Velletri, depicting the same event in another year.

COLLECT:
Deus, qui beato Antonio abbati
tribuisti mira tibi in deserto conversatione servire,
eius nobis interventione concede,
ut, abnegantes nosmetipsos,
te iugiter super omnia diligamus

Anyone want to take a crack at this? Be a little careful with that second line.

“But Father! But Father!”, you may be asking, “Why pigs? Are you against Islam? You hate Vatican II, donchyu donchyou!”

The iconography of St. Anthony the Abbot, or Anthony of the Dessert often includes a pig!

Catholics are very cool.

Posted in Our Catholic Identity | Tagged Horses, pigs, St. Anthony Abbot
14 Comments

You just can’t make up this stuff!

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I saw something over at Fishwrap by Jamie Manson, whose credentials are only too-well-known.

Bear with me for a moment. In order to get my point across I have to repost something I offered in 2012. Enjoy and then see my comment, afterward:

I picked this up from a future edition of the National catholic Reporter.

Breaking down barriers, affirming freedom

Jamie O’Brien

12 August 2020

HONOLULU (NcR) The 2020 annual national assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is underway in Honolulu, under the swaying palms and by the sparkling sandy beaches. Once again the gathered sisters have met to affirm each other in their respective callings.

Beth Mackee, LCWR co-mentor, introduced this year’s national assembly speaker Dyna Moore. Moore, the latest in a series of transgendered Daughters of Charity to profess vows, told the assembly in her keynote speech how liberating it was for her now to be a woman.

However, Moore directed the majority of her remarks to the Assembly’s theme, “Age: The Final Frontier“.

Picking up on the assembly’s strong anticipation of President Obama’s fourth term, Moore reminded the group that “much still needs to be done to carry forward the liberation of women from all forms of oppression, especially sexual oppression”.

Congratulating the LCWR for its defeat a decade earlier of the CDF’s attempted 5-year takeover, Moore recalled the women religious who in the meantime “heroically fought the male hierarchy’s strong support of legislation banning polygamous lesbian marriages”.

Yet Moore challenged the assembled sisters to intensify their efforts in support of a national law aimed at lowering the age of sexual consent to 11.

In her talk, Moore, a professor of linguistics at Notre Dame, surveyed the negative history surrounding language concerning women’s rights.

Moore claimed that “terms such as abortion and prostitution and polygamy, and now pedophilia, have been used by men to stigmatize women in their search for sexual liberty”.

After fighting for the right of women of all ages to have abortions without parental knowledge or consent, Moore suggested that women religious should “lead the battle for the relational freedom of females of every age”.

The assembly rose in a standing ovation when Moore declared that “the human right of girls to choose sexual partners regardless of age represents the final frontier of women’s sexual and reproductive freedom”.

While Moore was speaking, members of the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Nuns, SNAN (formerly known as SNAP) protested outside Honolulu’s most expensive hotel, where the Assembly was held.

“They are compromising the future repressed memories of countless children,” said a SNAN spokesperson.

___

Now that you have perused that…

In reading Manson’s piece today, I was struck once again with the realization that no matter what satire I might offer you, it couldn’t possibly be weirder than reality.

Posted in Lighter fare, Linking Back | Tagged Jamie Manson, LCWR, SNAP
30 Comments

March for Life 2014?

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Are any of you going to Washington DC for the March for Life?

Posted in Emanations from Penumbras, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged March for Life
47 Comments

The Feeder Feed: Of cardinals and pigs and … grilling….

Posted on 17 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A reader asked about “Ray”. “Ray” is every Cardinal (the member of the finch family) who has occasionally appeared on these electronic pages.

Since I moved from the Sabine Farm to the Steam Pipe Trunk Distribution Venue, I have not had an avian Ritz-Carlton outside my office window. I have now only an avian … Wendy’s (or perhaps better… Culver’s).

That said, here are a few shots of Ray and his trusty sidekick Rayette.

Rayette likes to look in my window. She isn’t as twitchy as Ray. Or should I say that she isn’t as bright as Ray?

She isn’t the only one who looks in my window. A few nights ago I found Rocket J. Squirrel on the ledge, the little voyeur.

This is the only sort of squirrel able to make it to the feeder.

Meanwhile, and apropos nothing, here is a pig on a bridge, who was part of the Christmas tree decorations – the accompanying presepio – at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Every Christmas display needs a pig on a bridge.

And, watch this segue, here is The Marriage of the Virgin by Michelino da Besozzo from about 1430.

Above it all, there is a bird, a dove, looking on from its little perch. The seems to have a… halo… no? Yes? Holy Spirit? Sitting on a perch? I don’t recall that in other renderings of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

Finally, apropos of even less, someone sent a photo of some Z-Swag “in the wild”! I enjoy these photos from out there in the world.

Swanky!

Get your Z-Swag HERE.

UPDATE:

I was asked for more about The Bridge Pig.

Here is a closer view.

But if you think the Nativity Swine is spiffy, try this!

Did your Christmas scene at home or in your parish have this?

A monkey with cymbals.

Posted in Lighter fare, The Feeder Feed | Tagged bird feeder, birds, cardinals, feeder, Rocket J. Squirrel, Z-Swag
18 Comments

DEVELOPING: U.N. panel with Holy See officials on clerical abuse cases

Posted on 16 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This is a developing story. In Geneva, there was a U.N. panel with representatives of the Holy See concerning clerical sexual abuse of children.

From what I can tell, this seems to have been a bit of a kangaroo court, though it is a court without legal authority. It seems to have been a “court” to court the court of public opinion.

Hell’s Bible has a piece HERE.
BBC HERE.
Independent HERE.

I am listening at the moment to a BBC Radio discussion about this event/topic. They are pretty much beating up on “the Vatican” for not doing enough, much as certain people perpetually beat up Pius XII for “not doing enough”. In other words, there is no chance that “the Vatican” can ever do “enough” to satisfy people who are determine to tear at the Church.

As I listen to the BBC radio broadcast I hear language like “the Vatican is finally being forced to answer questions….”

The basic issue here is that some people want to hurt the entire Catholic Church because of the sinful crimes of individual priests or mishandling of cases in individual dioceses. The idea: a priest committed a crime, therefore, try to sue “the Vatican”.

To a certain extent, the populism of Pope Francis had turned the page on this controversial topic. However, I suspect that there will not be a strong attempt to revive this in the MSM, Francis’ popularity notwithstanding.

UPDATE:

At this moment I am listening LIVE GMT 18:38 EST 13:38 – angry liberal dissident Irishman and SNAP involved. Let’s beat up the Church!

I should mention that a producer of the BBC Radio program… programme… reached out to me to be on, but I couldn’t do it. Probably for the best.

– loony Irish guy dragging it off topic
– SNAP lady is attacking Bp. Finn
– a smart woman (don’t know her name) is doing a good job defending reality
– a priest, Irish-born, from South Africa is on: trahison des clercs comes to mind
– picking on prelates in England for not being available to talk (at the drop of a hat)
– SNAP still sharpening claws on the Church (I don’t believe that SNAP is really interested in protecting children: they’ve moved on to revenge)

Here is a some of the audio. I didn’t get in at the beginning of the broadcast, so you enter abruptly in medias res. I got over a half hour of the program… programme.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Posted in Clerical Sexual Abuse, Liberals, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices, The Last Acceptable Prejudice | Tagged clerical sexual abuse, United Nations
16 Comments

I don’t think… I don’t know… I don’t care… I am too busy…

Posted on 16 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

I received a link from one of you readers to a page at Glen Beck’s place. He posted a couple lists.

Here are the “7 National Crimes” by William John Henry Boetcker published, as far as I can tell, in the early 20th c.:

I don’t think.
I don’t know.
I don’t care.
I am too busy.
I leave well enough alone.
I have no time to read and find out.
I am not interested.

These might be easily translated into “7 Ecclesiastical Crimes”.

I don’t mean that just for clerics, by the way. I mean that also for lay people.

Connect them to two-fold command of Christ, or the precepts of the Church, or the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.

There is another list over there that is interesting as well: “The 10 Cannots”

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged 7 National Crimes, The 10 Cannots, William John Henry Boetcker
7 Comments

ACTION ITEM! (Have some fun.)

Posted on 16 January 2014 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At Fishwrap Michael Sean Winters launched a smarmy attack on Samuel Gregg of Acton Institute. It seems that MSW read at least a few pages of Gregg’s book this time and came up with some negative conclusions.

To say that Samuel Gregg’s new book “Tea Party Catholic” is a bad book is a bit like saying Liberace was flamboyant. The adjectives are apt, to be sure, but somehow inadequate. Regular readers will recall that I reviewed Gregg’s previous book, Becoming Europe,” which you can find by clicking here. That book, too, was more agitprop than scholarship, and the Acton Institute, where Gregg serves as Research Director, seems determined to be to capitalism what Pravda was to Marxism.

Everyone, please do me and Sam a favor or two?

First, read this.

Buy me!

Then, would you please consider buying a copy or two of Gregg’s books?

Even just to annoy the Fishwrappers. It’s worth it.

Samuel Gregg’s Tea Party Catholic: The Catholic Case for Limited Government, a Free Economy, and Human Flourishing which, remarkably, has very little to do with the Tea Party as such.

Click me.

Also, take a look at the other book MSW mentioned: Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future.

Those of you in the UK can cut and paste the titles into the Amazon UK search box at the bottom of the page.

I’d like to be able to post an update tomorrow that we sold a few dozen books.

And don’t forget to refresh your Mystic Monk Coffee supply while ordering the new CD of music for Lent from the Benedictines in the Diocese of Kansas City who are such a great spiritual support to Bp. Finn, so hated by the Fishwrap.

BTW… MSW wrote:

N.B. I am in Kansas City today meeting with the rest of the NCR editorial family. So, the timing of posts is late, and I apologize. Also, unsure how many links I will get to put up today.

The Fishwrappers are circling the wagons. They have lost their solitary boast John Allen. They also lost their columnist now-ex-Jesuit John Dear. They closed their comment boxes.

In the meantime, I doubt we will be upset if he doesn’t post very much.