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About this blog…
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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- The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Recent Comments
- Kenneth Wolfe on ASK FATHER: Can we eat meat on Friday in the Octave of Easter? (Hint: YES!): ““Traditionally, would the Friday abstinence from meat also apply during Fridays of the whole Easter season?” If by “traditionally” the…”
- Not on From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-04-03 – Aftermath of foot washing: “Now that the honorable Bishop is fasting he may be able to hear Confessions in the “old” confessionals. They were…”
- Irish Timothy on ASK FATHER: Can we eat meat on Friday in the Octave of Easter? (Hint: YES!): “The carnivore in me thanks you Fr Z for this clarification once again! A fully loaded hamburger…..here I come……”
- Julia_Augusta on ROME 26/3– Day 17: Itadakimasu: “The restaurant chain Nobu began in NYC, but the chef, Nobu Matsuhisa opened his first restaurant in the late 1980s…”
- GHP on ASK FATHER: Can we eat meat on Friday in the Octave of Easter? (Hint: YES!): “Speaking of Friday abstinence … I can remember in grade school* the Friday lunches were always fish sticks. I was…”
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
- Prosper of Aquitaine (+c.455), De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem 22.61
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“He [Satan] will set up a counter-Church which will be the ape of the Church because, he the devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the anti-Christ that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”- Fulton Sheen
Therefore, ACTIVATE YOUR CONFIRMATION and get to work!
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Fr John Zuhlsdorf
Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
733 Struck St.
PO BOX 44603
Madison, WI 53744-4603
For email HERE
- “The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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frz AT wdtprs DOT comAs for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
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Recent Posts
- ASK FATHER: Can we eat meat on Friday in the Octave of Easter? (Hint: YES!)
- ROME 26/3– Day 17: Itadakimasu
- ROME 26/3– Day 16: chores
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-04-03 – Aftermath of foot washing
- ROME 26/3– Day 15: foods and views and shoes
- ASK FATHER: Can the “Dies Irae” be used in the Novus Ordo Requiem Mass? Wherein Fr. Z rants.
- ASK FATHER: Grounding for the “harrowing of Hell”
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-03-28 – A bold statement for foot washing
- ROME 26/3– Day 12-13-14: whew (lots of photos)
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Easter Sunday
- PASCHALCAzT 2026 – 47: Easter Sunday – Joy
- “He descended into Hell” – Notes on “The Harrowing of Hell”
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 46: Holy Saturday – The last indignity – UPDATED
- ROME 26/3– Day 11: Good Friday
- From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-04-01 – A scare
- 3 April: Feast of St. Richard of Chichester. A comment about science.
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 45: Good Friday – Christ and our moral suffering
- ROME 26/3– Day 10: Thursday in Holy Week
- ASK FATHER: 9 1st Fridays but how do Good Friday (April 3) and St. Joseph (May 1) impact that?
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 44: Holy Thursday – Why we eat the victim
- ROME 26/3– Day 09: Wednesday in Holy Week
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 43: Spy Wednesday of Holy Week
- Following years of abuse Knights of Malta to formally split with the Holy See
- ROME 26/3– Day 08: Tuesday in Holy Week
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 42: Tuesday of Holy Week – Peter’s Passion
- ASK FATHER: Judas and the 300 denarii v. the 30 pieces of silver
- WDTPRS – Tuesday in Holy Week: Our grasp on Christ, His grasp on us
- ROME 26/3– Day 07: Monday in Holy Week
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 41: Monday of Holy Week – All tenderness
- ROME 26/3– Day 06: Palm Sunday
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
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Tag Archives: confession
ASK FATHER: Am I obliged to do the strange penance Father gave during confession?
From a reader… QUAERITUR: When I went to confession the priest asked me to watch a certain movie for my penance. I have done a search for it but what I found (trailers) seems contrary to the faith, very progressive/liberal … Read More
ASK FATHER: How to go to confession to an SSPX priest
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I now happen to live 10 minutes’ walk from the local FSSPX chapel here in London. I don’t intend to make it my customary place for Mass (tempting as that is) unless and until a regularisation … Read More
ASK FATHER: In confession, must we say which sins are mortal, which venial?
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I know, to make a good confession, we need to confess mortal sins and the number of times we committed the sins. But I am often confused about whether a sin I committed is mortal or … Read More
Fr. Z’s prayers for before and after making confessions
A while back I posted prayers in Latin and English which a priest confessor might use before and after hearing sacramental confessions. These prayers are from an old prayerbook for priests which I’ve had since before my ordination. They are … Read More
Fr. Z’s prayers for before and after hearing confessions
As I was rooting around for something I posted in the past, I found this which, by coincidence, I posted 3 years ago to the day. Here are the prayers I usually say before and after hearing confessions. They are taken … Read More
BAD REASON #873 for not going to confession
From the 24 March 2017 print edition of The Catholic Herald, the UK’s best Catholic weekly… for which I, by the way, write a a rather unheralded short weekly column. The title: Omnium Gatherum BAD REASON #873 for not going to confession when you know … Read More
ASK FATHER: Away from the Church for 17 years, but I want to return
From a reader… I am a baptized Catholic who strayed far away, dabbled in Buddhism for 17 years, and now realize all that was ridiculous nonsense. I want to come back to the Church. Where do I start? First, good … Read More
ASK FATHER: Father doesn’t make Sign of the Cross when giving absolution
From a reader… QUAERITUR: Whether an absolution is valid if the priest prays the form of the sacrament correctly, but does not make the sign of the cross. This might just be scruples, but recently, I went to confession to … Read More
GUEST POST: I typically go to confession “when needed”…
From a reader… Narratur: I know of your constant preaching about the need for confession, and so I thought to share my experience today. I typically go to confession “when needed,” meaning when I perceive I have sinned in a … Read More





















