Confirmations in the Traditional Form of the Roman Rite

Last night here in the Diocese of Madison we had Solemn Mass for the Feast of St Andrew and the Sacrament of Confirmation administered in the Traditional Roman Rite by His Excellency Most Reverend Robert C. Morlino, aka the Extraordinary Ordinary.

A few photos.

Mass was, of course, ad orientem, as are all the Masses at this parish, NO and TLM.

We were happy to use the wonderful red set of vestments for which some of you good readers made donations.

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We had over 50 confirmands from several states.

Among the confirmation names I saw most frequently as I received the name cards for the bishop were Teresa or Therese and Michael.  There were a couple John Pauls.  Among the most interesting names were Venantius and Zdzislaw.

The Sacrament of Confirmation is important.  Never forget your confirmed character.  Ask God to strengthen you through the sacrament when you are challenged or beset.  Ask Him to help you bear witness to the Faith.  Ask Him for a special measure of gift of Fortitude in your struggle against the world, the flesh and the Devil.

UPDATE:

A few more snaps from another source.

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Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity | Tagged , , ,
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IMPORTANT UPDATE – Dean of Rota: Pope could strip Four Cardinals of Cardinalate because of Five Dubia

UPDATE 1 Dec:

This we now read at Religion Confidencial:

Religión Confidencial publicó el martes una noticia que ponía en boca de monseñor Pio Vito Pinto, decano de la Rota Romana, la afirmación de que los cuatro cardenales que han escrito al Papa “podrían perder el cardenalato”. La frase, tomada de una entrevista realizada por RC en la que monseñor Vito respondía en italiano, no es correcta. Revisada la grabación, se ha comprobado que lo que afirma es que el Papa Francisco no es un Papa de otros tiempos, en los que sí se tomaron ese tipo de medidas, y que no iba a retirarles la dignidad cardenalicia. La noticia está corregida, pero publicamos esta rectificación por si no fuera suficiente.

So now they are saying that Msgr. Pinto did NOT say that the Pope could remove the Four Cardinals from the College.  Instead under a different Pope perhaps that might happen.  HERE

____

Originally Published on: Nov 29, 2016 @ 11:33

Via EWTN UK, the head of one of the Church’s high tribunals, the Roman Rota, said a conference in Spain that the Four Cardinals who submitted the Five Dubia about Amoris laetitia Chapter 8 could be stripped of their Cardinalate. The Spanish story is HERE.

«Los cuatro cardenales que han escrito al Papa podrían perder su cardenalato»

(Religión Confidencial) En declaraciones a Religión Confidencial, Pio Vito ha puesto de manifiesto que estos cuatro cardenales, al igual que algunas otras personas dentro de la Iglesia que ponen en duda la reforma del Papa Francisco y su exhortación apostólica Amoris Laetitita, están cuestionando «dos sínodos de obispos sobre el matrimonio y la familia ¡no un sínodo sino dos! Un ordinario y otro extraordinario. No se puede dudar la acción del Espíritu Santo».

Los cardenales Walter Brandmüller, Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra y Joachim Meisner preguntaron al Santo Padre algunas dudas de la Amoris Laeitita. El papa Francisco no les respondió y los prelados hicieron pública la carta a través de los medios de comunicación.

«¿Qué Iglesia defienden estos cardenales? El Papa es fiel a la doctrina de Cristo. Lo que han hecho es un escándalo muy grave que incluso podría llevar al Santo Padre a retirarles el capelo cardenalicio como ya ha pasado en algún otro momento de la Iglesia», ha afirmado Pio Vito a este Confidencial.

El decano de la Rota romana matiza: «Lo cual no quiere decir que el Papa les retire su condición de cardenales, pero podría hacerlo».

Durante la conferencia, Pío Vito dejó claro a los asistentes que el Papa no les ha respondido directamente a estos cuatro cardenales, «pero indirectamente les ha dicho que ellos solo ven blanco o negro, cuando en la Iglesia hay matices de colores».

[…]

Of course the Roman Pontiff can take away a red hat… anytime he wants and for any reason he wants.  There would be repercussions, but the Pope is completely free when it comes to members of the College of Cardinals.  Were he to decide that Cardinal X was no longer useful to him as a Cardinal, he could remove him from the College.  Also, he can make any priest or deacon a cardinal on any day of the week.  He doesn’t really have to wait for a consistory.  Were he to do that, there would be repercussions.  But he could do it.

In my humble, such a move of removing hats would be a grave strategic error, not just a tactical error.  In the 20th century one cardinal resigned (and the desire was mutual) under Pius XI.   But to strip cardinals of their hats because they asked questions?  Bad precedent.

We all know what this theoretical suggestion is about.

From EWTN:

Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto, Dean of the Roman Rota, told a conference in Spain that Cardinal Burke and the three cardinals who submitted the dubia to Pope Francis “could lose their Cardinalate” for causing “grave scandal” by making the dubia public. The Dean of the Roman Rota went on to accuse Cardinals Raymond Burke, Carlo Caffarra, Walter Brandmüller and Joachim Meisner of questioning the Holy Spirit. Archbishop Pio Vito Pinto made his astounding accusations during a conference to religious in Spain.

Archbishop Pio Vito’s indictment against the four cardinals, and other people who question Pope Francis and Amoris Laetitia, was that they not only questioned one synod of bishops on marriage and the family, but two synods, about which, “The action of the Holy Spirit can not be doubted.”.

The Dean of the Roman Rota went on to clarify that the Pope did not have to strip the four senior cardinals of their “cardinalate”, but that he could do it. He went on to confirm what many commentators have suspected that Pope Francis’ interview with Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops, was the Holy Father’s indirect response to the cardinals’ dubia:

During the conference, Pius Vito made clear to those present that the Pope did not respond directly to these four cardinals, “but indirectly told them that they only see white or black, when there are shades of color in the Church.”

The Dean of the Roman Rota, the highest canonical court responsible for marriage in the Catholic Church, went on to support Pope Francis’ innovation of allowing divorced and “remarried” to receive Holy Communion. In response to a question asking if it was better to grant divorced and civily remarried couples nullity of marriage so they can marry in the Church before they receive Holy Communion Archbishop Pio Vinto expressed preference for Pope Francis’s “reform”:

Pope Francis’ reform of the matrimonial process wants to reach more people. The percentage of people who ask for marriage annulment is very small. The Pope has said that communion is not only for good Catholics. Francisco says: how to reach the most excluded people? Under the Pope’s reform many people may ask for nullity, but others will not.

[…]

EWTN adds a comment, which you can read there.

I don’t think it will happen.

What sort of strategic error might such a move be?

I am reminded of…

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The moderation queue is ON.

Posted in One Man & One Woman, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices, You must be joking! | Tagged , , , , ,
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Ad orientem: “his perspective on the priesthood and the Mass has changed”

From a priest…

QUAERITUR:

Fr Z,

After my entry into the Catholic Church from Anglicanism and ordination as a Catholic priest, I approached the Archbishop about offering the Mass ad orientem.  His guidance to me was to “catechize the people” regarding whatever I was going to do.  Since that time, at the 3 successive assignments I have had, I have periodically done just that.  Other priests whom I have served alongside have had varying reactions, some positive and some negative.  In my current assignment, the priest here with me also started occasionally offering the Mass this way a few years ago, and has noticed that his perspective on the priesthood and the Mass has changed.  With the arrival of the 1st Sunday of Advent, I took the opportunity for a renewal of this catechesis of the people as part of the homily.  Currently, of the 13 Masses we have in an average week, 12 of them are offered ad orientem, though the last one may be shifting now in Advent.  Nuptial and funeral Masses may remain ad populum at times here, but that will be dependent upon pastoral discussion with the family involved.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Fathers, take heart.  Ad orientem worship is possible.  Catechize!

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, Our Catholic Identity, Turn Towards The Lord | Tagged
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For St. Andrew – Exsultet caelum laudibus

I say the older form of the Office and I often listen to the Office sung by the Benedictine monks at Le Barroux. Just for nice, here is Exultet caelum laudibus, hymn for Vespers for St. Andrew the Apostle, sung by the monks at Le Barroux.

This is one of the most beautiful melodies of the entire liturgical year, sung with grace and the expertise born of years of daily chant.

Hymnus
Exsúltet cælum láudibus,
resúltet terra gáudiis:
Apostolórum glóriam
sacra canunt sollémnia.

Vos, sæcli iusti iúdices
et vera mundi lúmina,
votis precámur córdium,
audíte preces súpplicum.

Qui cælum verbo cláuditis
serásque eius sólvitis,
nos a peccátis ómnibus
sólvite iussu, quæsumus.

Quorum præcépto súbditur
salus et languor ómnium,
sanáte ægros móribus,
nos reddéntes virtútibus,

Ut, cum iudex advénerit
Christus in fine sæculi,
nos sempitérni gáudii
fáciat esse cómpotes.

Deo sint laudes glóriæ,
qui dat nos evangélicis
per vos doctrínis ínstrui
et prósequi cæléstia.

Amen.

Hymn
Let the round world with songs rejoice;
let heaven return the joyful voice;
all mindful of the Apostles’ fame,
let heaven and earth their praise proclaim.

You servants who once bore the light
of gospel truth o’er heathen night,
still may your work that light impart,
to glad our eyes and cheer our heart.

O God, by whom to them was given
the key that shuts and opens heaven,
our chains unbind, our loss repair,
and grant us grace to enter there.

For at thy will they preached the word
which cured disease, which health conferred:
O may that healing power once more
our souls to grace and health restore.

That when your Son again shall come
and speak the world’s unerring doom,
he may with them pronounce us blessed,
and place us in your endless rest.

To you, O Father; Son, to you;
to you, blessed Spirit, glory be!
So was it ay for ages past,
so shall through endless ages last.

Amen.

Posted in Just Too Cool, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Saints: Stories & Symbols | Tagged , , ,
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BRICK BY BRICK: more ‘ad orientem’ news

Click for this and more

I am getting notes from people about changes at parishes to ad orientem worship.

For example, from reader:

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Big River, WI began ad orientem worship on Sunday. Our pastor, Fr. Kevin Louis, has been with us for a littler over a year now…. In talking to our deacon after Mass this morning, it appears that there are about 10 parishes in the Lacrosse diocese that have turned things around. Ours is a small but very vibrant and faithful parish and we are so blessed to have Fr. Louis. Please prayer for him as we pray for you and all priests. Praise God for faithful priests!

Amen.

At his parish website, Fr. Louis archived “pastor’s pages”.  Scroll down to November 2016 for three pages on ad orientem worship (Nov. 13, 20, 27).  Fathers, these could be a good place to start for your own process of catechizing your parishes.  HERE

And from a priest:

A few days earlier I saw on the blog that you were requesting folks alert you to parishes turning toward the Lord. Well, supposing we Priests qualify as people too, I am happy to let you know that St. Joan of Arc (Oberlin, LA) has implemented ad orientem at all Masses, effective the First Sunday of Advent. If you are interested in more info about our transition, we have a parish website with more details:  HERE

God bless you, good Father! I will remember you in my prayers before the Lord.

From that parish website:

[…]

For more than three years, I have provided an abundance of catechesis about ad orientem. Why we are making this transition should not be a mystery to anyone who attends holy Mass at SJoA. Each of us has received more than enough information 1)to understand the importance of ad orientem and 2) to explain it’s meaning to others. It falls to every one of us, indeed it is our duty, to help visitors and guests (e.g., at weddings, funerals, or even at a Sunday Mass) understand the meaning of a common turning toward the Lord in our prayers. So then, are you able to explain this teaching? We can be certain that, on some occasion, someone will ask us about ad orientem. Are you able to give a correct answer? We must not be found wanting in this respect, otherwise we will actually be lacking in the virtues of charity and justice.

[…]

Well said.

Father posted a video about ad orientem worship.

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There is movement on the Eastern Front.

Be the maquis!

 

 

 

Posted in ¡Hagan lío!, "How To..." - Practical Notes, Be The Maquis, Brick by Brick, Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Mail from priests, The future and our choices, Turn Towards The Lord | Tagged
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HOT Cyber Sales! 50% Off Sale On All Indulgences

From a often amusing EOTT:

Vatican Offering Cyber Monday 50% Off Sale On All Indulgences

Even though far more Catholics shopped online than in churches on Black Friday weekend, they are apparently not done yet.
A new EOTT survey released Sunday estimates that some 67-million Roman Catholics will shop online for their remission of temporal punishment in purgatory due for sins after absolution on Cyber Monday. That’s up only slightly from last year’s 65-million shoppers.
With Walmart and Amazon recently entering the Cyber Monday indulgence “game,” the Church is now offering heavy discounts as well, not only online but, more crucially, in churches. That move, which reflects how penitents shopped for forgiveness in 2016, is also meant to lower the stress of the Vatican website, which last year buckled under the intense eSpiritual-commerce pressure that naturally comes with Cyber Monday.
The evidence of the migration of “church shopping” to eSpiritual-commerce is incontrovertible: Eternal Fortune Magazine told EOTT on Sunday that eSpiritual-commerce sales between Thanksgiving and Saturday rose 13.7% to top $6.1 billion in new indulgences.
“The brick-and-mortar churches have made a big leap with their online efforts this year,” USCCB analyst Devin Thomas told EOTT yesterday. “They’re starting to get it. The USCCB says 63% of Black Friday indulgences placed on their website came from mobile devices…something we believe shows Catholics are growing more comfortable with pushing the “forgive me” button on smartphones.

And don’t forget the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison, of which I am President, has been doing great work.  It has 501(c)(3) status.

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A saint for the young, rigid and compassionate

St Aloysius Gonzaga 01Run click, don’t walk click, to Crisis today to read Thomas J. Craughwell’s outstanding piece about St. Aloysius Gonzaga, a Jesuit saint (yes, there are some and they were amazing – shall we ever see their like again?) of high nobility who died at 23 years of age of plague in 1591.

The writer recounts his surprise at learning how this patron of students and young people, so often depicted with saccharine pastel mushiness, was a jaw-set, hard-nosed rigorist who learned to soften – but not to lose his good rigidity – with the help of his spiritual director St. Robert Bellarmine (whom many people today would say was as rigid as they come).

A sample or two:

[…]

The Gonzagas were one of the great families of Renaissance Italy—rich, proud, influential, and often caught up in bloody feuds with one or another of the other famous Renaissance clans. During Aloysius’ lifetime his uncle and two of his brothers would be murdered in these vendettas, and his own mother, Marta, was wounded almost to death by a knife-wielding assassin. True to the Gonzaga type, Aloysius grew up headstrong, inflexible, and combative. But unlike his father, Ferrante, who looked to foreign wars as an outlet for his aggression, Aloysius resolved to conquer himself. He promised Our Lady to do all he could to keep himself free from vice, and as tends to happen among intense adolescents, he took his resolution to an extreme.

Culling bits and pieces from stories he had heard about ascetic saints, Aloysius cobbled together for himself a harsh program of religious exercises. He beat himself with a leather dog leash. He rose at midnight to pray on the bare, cold stone floor of his room. Poor St. Robert would contend with this relentless streak years later when Aloysius entered the Jesuit novitiate.

By 1583 Aloysius was convinced he had a religious vocation; he asked his mother to break the news to Ferrante. When Marta told her husband that his heir wanted to become a Jesuit, the old soldier exploded in rage.

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In January 1591 an epidemic struck Rome and the surrounding countryside. Overnight the city’s hospitals were flooded with the sick and the dying. In the crisis Aloysius found that where once the sick had disgusted him, now he felt only compassion. He went into the streets of Rome and carried the ill and the dying to the hospital on his back. He undressed them, washed them, put fresh clothes on them, found them a bed or at least a pallet, and fed them. One Jesuit novice, a young man named Tiberio Bondi, testified later that after working with Aloysius he felt ashamed for holding back from the sick when his friend was giving his all. The years of low-key direction from St. Robert Bellarmine, the desire at last to cooperate with God’s grace, had wrought a great change in Aloysius: he no longer acted out of stubborn pride, now his actions were motivated by love.

[…]

Hard-Identity Catholicism.

May I just add that the Mass which formed him was the so-called Tridentine Mass, what we now often call the Extraordinary Form, the Usus Antiquior?

St. Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us.

Tiepolo-San-Luigi Gonzaga

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, Hard-Identity Catholicism, Saints: Stories & Symbols, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices | Tagged
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Please follow Fr. Z on Twitter

TwitterIf you use Twitter, will you consider following

@fatherz

?

Thanks in advance!

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#GivingTuesday and You

Some are calling today #GivingTuesday

May I suggest two good options?

First, the Tridentine Mass Society of the Diocese of Madison, of which I am President, has been doing great work.  It has 501(c)(3) status.

Also, I have posted quite a few times about a wonderful clinic which conforms completely to Catholic principles, Our Lady of Hope Clinic.  Ditto on the 501(c)(3) status.

We all need options for our charitable giving.  You won’t go wrong with these two.

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Online Shopping, and You

Everyone… since it is “Cyber Monday” and your email is being flooded with offers, may I remind you that you can help some great religions (and a priest)?

When you Christmas shop online, pretty please use my Amazon search box?  I’ll get a small percentage, the price remains the same for you, and you get stuff delivered to your doorstep.  Easy peasy.  It’s on the side bar.  Enter your item and that’s it.

Click for samplers

Also, remember to frequent the wonderful Wyoming Carmelites and their coffee, tea and religious products.  HERE  Their SAMPLERS PAGE is a great starting place, especially for small gifts for stockings, office coworkers, your suitcase for when you travel (hotel coffee?  BLECH), etc.  And don’t forget their MONK SHOTS for Keurig.  I’ve tried some.  They are good.

The Summit Dominicans make soaps and the foofy things.  HERE  Women seem to like this stuff, and I believe they appreciate it when men use soap.

There is Z-Swag.  HERE  Irritate libs.

Another great option would be to get beautiful art work from Daniel Mitsui and have it framed.   That’s what I have done.  It is edifying and much appreciated.  The latest I did was a housewarming gift to a priest friend when he moved. Mitsui has a great variety of works.  Also, I am pretty sure that, right now especially, you’ll do him a great service by frequenting his site in a timely manner and getting his art.  HERE

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