Yesterday I posted a response to a question about the validity of Mass if a priest says “for all” instead of “for many” in the English version of the Novus Ordo. HERE That raised a question in the combox so … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: My schedule required me to attend a lunchtime Novus Ordo near my office today. The priest (I believe intentionally) modified the Eucharistic Prayer, employing the old “for all” translation of pro multis. As far as I … Read More →
From a priest… QUAERITUR: I’m a priest who occasionally gets asked to hear confessions in a jail where the only way to speak to a person is through glass and a telephone headset. Without using the phone, one can barely hear the other … Read More →
From a priest… QUAERTUR: Are partial immersion baptisms valid? Where the baby is dipped up to the waist 3x, with valid words of baptism spoken. Here’s the deal. The “proximate matter” of baptism is ablution. This means physical contact of the … Read More →
The sacraments have both matter (the physical stuff) and form (the words pronounced). In the case of the Eucharist the matter is twofold: bread and wine. The bread must be from wheat and, in the Latin Church, unleavened. The wine … Read More →
Today at TCT my friend Fr. Murray drills into the implications of Card. Coccopalmerio’s stunning statements which undermine our understanding of sacraments. Coccopalmerio characterized the Church’s teaching on the question of Anglican orders as follows: “We have had, and we … Read More →
Ed Peters – HERE – has some observations about recent comments made by Card. Coccopalmerio – who, frankly, is becoming a bit a of a concern. The Bitter Pill (aka The Tablet, the UK’s … not best Catholic weekly) has Coccopalmerio … Read More →
I pay scant attention to Patheos, but for a couple contributors. This caught my eye after a frequent commentator here alerted me. Fr. Dwight Longenecker wrote, with my legendary emphases and comments: Headlines last week were proclaiming that a group of cardinals believe … Read More →
Because Easter is a special time for baptizing, I hereunder assemble some observations from past ASK FATHER Question Box responses about baptism and validity. INITIAL RANT: Bishops would do well to quiz priests, and seminarians before ordination as deacons, about how to … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: If approximately 50% of current “Catholic” marriages are actually invalid, how do I know if my marriage is valid? I was a cafeteria Catholic at the time of the wedding, husband was unbaptized. We got a … Read More →
From a reader… ok — so I get that according to cannon law, since sspx marriages are not “canonically approved’, they are not valid. My God- daughter, and my CLOSEST friend’s daughter is getting married in the fall by an sspx priest. She … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: My wife and I were married in my father-in-law’s hospital room. He was dying of stomach cancer and we wanted him to witness our marriage. We had planned on holding the ceremony in the chapel of … Read More →
A question pops up once in a while and I have dealt with it before. Can you be absolved over the phone or by internet? NO. That would be INVALID. I was alerted to this post at the site of … Read More →
A very smart priest friend sent me a note this morning with two pieces of good news regarding Pope Francis. I’ll simply share what he sent…. no, wait… I’ll share the first piece of good news. I may post the second … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: I was Baptized in the Presbyterian Church and converted to the Catholic faith 9 years ago at the age of 9. Becoming very interested in my own baptism I watched a video of a Presbyterian ministerconferring baptism. He … Read More →
From a reader… QUAERITUR: When making vows at a Catholic Wedding in a Catholic Church if a Groom genuinly beleives that the officiating priest at a wedding is the minister of the Sacrement of Matromony, and not the bride and … Read More →
Ed Peters, distinguished canonist, has come out of hibernation to post this helpful distinction. See his outstanding blog In The Light Of The Law, where there is no open combox. Check with him often. My emphases. Confusing validity and sacramentality … Read More →
As you know, for the consecration of the Eucharist to be VALID, we must use wine from grapes. It can be fortified wine, but it must be wine (HERE). Today I received a link from a reader which I am … Read More →
From a reader: Howdy Fr. Z [Fine, thanks!] I had a question about fulfilling my Sunday Obligation at an SSPX chapel. First let me say, I am 100% with the bishops and the pope. I prefer the Latin Mass. I am about … Read More →
From a reader: First off is the wine to be consecrated have to be red and how much wine poured into the chalice is enough to make it a valid mass? One of my priests told us if they don’t … Read More →
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“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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Everyone, work to get this into your parish bulletins and diocesan papers.
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
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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.”
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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.”
“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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As 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
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.
Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thine image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.