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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
- Padre Pio Devotee on Ite ad Ioseph… Go to Joseph!: “I too have been greatly helped & protected by St. Joseph, many, many times. I write this comment in thanksgiving…”
- JesusFreak84 on SSPX in Italy sent a book all Italian Bishops about the upcoming consecrations: “I’ve heard rumors that the SSPX priests basically found out about this whole thing when the rest of us did,…”
- Chris Garton-Zavesky on Daily Rome Shot 1568: “I wrote Pope Leo’s first encyclical (as an imaginative and hopeful effort) months ago, and called it Pax Domini. Among…”
- grateful on LENTCAzT 2026 – 30: Wednesday 4th Week in Lent – St. Joseph: “Thanks for the answer of why St Joseph died before Jesus’s public ministry.”
- Crysanthmom on In the ancient Roman Church today, Wednesday “in mediana” was a big day for catechumens.: “Our Catholic faith is beautiful!”
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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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Polls
Will you be a "Custos Traditionis" and commit to a DAILY 'Memorare' and WEEKLY penance?
- YES! (66%, 1,905 Votes)
- YES! And I will recruit others! (34%, 974 Votes)
Total Voters: 2,879
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Your support is important. Thanks in advance.
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Don’t rely on popes, bishops and priests.
“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!
Send Snail Mail to Fr. Z
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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A monthly subscription donation means I have steady income I can plan on. I put you my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I often say Holy Mass.
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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
- Ite ad Ioseph… Go to Joseph!
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 30: Wednesday 4th Week in Lent – St. Joseph
- Daily Rome Shot 1569
- In the ancient Roman Church today, Wednesday “in mediana” was a big day for catechumens.
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- LENTCAzT 2026 – 29: Wednesday 4th Week in Lent – Purity and Mud
- SSPX in Italy sent a book all Italian Bishops about the upcoming consecrations
- Daily Rome Shot 1568
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 28: Tuesday 4th Week in Lent – Mass and Cross
- Daily Rome Shot 1567 – It was worse than we thought
- Such wealth and depth we have in the traditional Roman Rite
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 27: Monday 4th Week in Lent – The truth and you
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Laetare Sunday, 4th in/of Lent 2026
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 26: Laetare Sunday, 4th in Lent – The goal
- Daily Rome Shot 1566
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 25: Saturday 3rd Week in Lent – The spirit of prayer
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 24: Friday 3rd Week in Lent – Evangelize with our lives
- “Days in Rome” Project – Easter 2026 and beyond
- HEAR YE! HEAR YE! New from TAN – “The Matins Lectionary: The Complete Readings from the Traditional Roman Breviary”
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 23: Thursday of the 3rd Week in Lent – Feet on the earth, minds in Heaven
- UPDATE on Fr. Z
- Daily Rome Shot 1565
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 22: Wednesday of the 3rd Week in Lent – Don’t let it fester
- YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 21: Tuesday 3rd Week in Lent – We are not in this alone
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 20: Monday 3rd Week in Lent – The healing bath
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 3rd Sunday in/of Lent 2026
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 19: 3rd Sunday of Lent – Fight the demon of impurity
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 18: Saturday in the 2nd Week in Lent – The Angelic Doctor
- STATIONS OF THE CROSS – Audio from Fr. Z
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.
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
The "sign of peace" during Mass in the Ordinary Form...
- I dread it as it approaches and think of ways to avoid it. (36%, 9,555 Votes)
- I tolerate it. (35%, 9,195 Votes)
- I hate it so much I won't go to Mass where it is done. (12%, 3,205 Votes)
- I like it and am happy to do it. (11%, 2,955 Votes)
- I don't care one way or another. (6%, 1,696 Votes)
Total Voters: 26,606
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Should the Bishops of the USA have us return to obligatory meatless Fridays during the whole year and not just during Lent?
- Yes, and I think this is very important. (81%, 15,546 Votes)
- Yes, I guess so. (9%, 1,716 Votes)
- No, I hesitate about such a move. (5%, 900 Votes)
- No, this would be a really bad idea. (3%, 511 Votes)
- I don't care. (2%, 431 Votes)
- What's penance? (1%, 152 Votes)
Total Voters: 19,255
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Tag Archives: priesthood
An article at First Things about how Vatican II built up bishops to the detriment of priests
I think this article frames the issue quite well. Vatican II’s document on bishops converted bishops into a sort of “super priests” whereas the document(s) on priests … didn’t do much at all. The article is at First Things. Some … Read More
WDTPRS: Mass Prayers “Pro seipso sacerdote – For the priest himself” (1962MR)
This time of year many new priests are being ordained and, consequently, many priests observe their own anniversaries. In the traditional, Vetus Ordo of the Roman Rite a priest can add orations for himself, Pro seipso sacerdote, on the anniversary … Read More
ASK THE READERS: Would-be-priest, denied, now a saint
A question for the readership. Can anyone think of a man who, having sought the priesthood, was denied that path for some reason, but was later beatified or canonized? What I’m searching for is a saint who could be the … Read More
These numbers suggest a seriously unhealthy Church. UPDATED
From this new study about vocations to the priesthood and ordinations in these USA: HERE I was told by a bishop that bishops say they do not hear that men have been inspired toward priesthood by Francis. Of course the … Read More
ASK FATHER: Priest refers to his role as “waiter” not “bouncer”.
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I heard a priest refer to his role as, “not the bouncer to the Eucharistic banquet but the server [as in waiter].”Most analogies fall flat, but this one hit a dissonant chord that I can’t quite … Read More
Wherein Fr. Z reacts to a seminarian’s “cri de coeur”
I have written quite a few times here that – in this time of erosion and reversal in the Church – young priests and seminarians will increasingly be exposed to the sort of thing we older guys had to endure … Read More
25 Comments
ANOTHER priest with an invalid baptism. Fathers! Review the videos of your baptism! ACTION ITEM!
You old-timers here known that for years… going on decades now… I have RAILED against priests who take it on themselves to change the words of the sacred liturgy, especially in significant moments such as during the FORM of sacraments. … Read More
Card. Sarah: The priesthood is in mortal danger. Wherein Fr. Z rants to priests.
Ed Pentin, still the best, working English Vaticanista hands down, posted at the NCReg an interview with Robert Card. Sarah. The Cardinal talks about the book, to be released in English in March. I’ve read it already (advance English copy … Read More
22 Comments
FIRST REMARKS about the new book by Card. Sarah and Benedict XVI
Robert Card. Sarah and Pope Benedict XVI have collaborated on a new book. They respond to certain aspects of The Present Crisis.™ From the Depths of our Hearts The dedication of the book says it all. En hommage aux prêtres … Read More
Francis on priests in private Jesuit meeting: psych problems = rigidity = fixation on sex = clericalism = demonic
The ubiquitous Jesuit Antonio Spadaro is perhaps Francis’ closest adviser and gopher. He is, among other, editor of La Civilta Cattolica and the administrator on his personal website, antoniospadaro.net, of a page dedicated to the homoerotic writer Pier Vittorio Tondelli. … Read More
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