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
Coat of Arms by D Burkart
This REALLY helps! And it’s great coffee (and tea)
Polls
Loading ...Donate using VENMO
CLICK and say your daily offerings!
A Daily Prayer for Priests
Do you have a faithful Catholic website that needs competent and reliable tech support?
Fr. Z’s VOICEMAIL
Nota bene: I do not answer these numbers or this Skype address. You won't get me "live". I check for messages regularly.
WDTPRS
020 8133 4535
651-447-6265YOUR RECENT COMMENTS
monstrance on ASK FATHER: The priest only said, “I absolve you from your sins”. Is that sufficient for a valid absolution?: “My experience with these problems often is attributed to the priest not being comfortable with the reality of “in persona…”
on Traditionis custodes and “reception theory” – or – When a law is no law at all.: “Yes, Gratian said it 800 years ago: a law must first be promulgated, but then it has to be accepted…”
on “Why, then, would Francis punish those who worship according to the Latin rite?”: “The Federalist article: “Catholics who attend Latin Mass are by all accounts the least likely to encourage disagreements, widen gaps,…”
on ASK FATHER: The priest only said, “I absolve you from your sins”. Is that sufficient for a valid absolution?: “The pastor of our mostly-NO parish often hears Confessions before & throughout Latin Mass. He usually has scores of penitents…”
on Traditionis custodes and “reception theory” – or – When a law is no law at all.: “I just noticed Summorum Pontificum, in speaking of the Novus Ordo, states, “…these were willingly received by the bishops as…”
on ASK FATHER: The priest only said, “I absolve you from your sins”. Is that sufficient for a valid absolution?: “I used to go to a priest that used the NO formula, but added the words in italics and it…”
on Traditionis custodes and “reception theory” – or – When a law is no law at all.: “Finally, Martin Mosebach weighs in. https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/07/mass-and-memory”
on Traditionis custodes and “reception theory” – or – When a law is no law at all.: “Fr Thompson, many thanks for your comment. Great to hear from experts in the field. For anyone who’s interested in…”
on ASK FATHER: The priest only said, “I absolve you from your sins”. Is that sufficient for a valid absolution?: “My regular confessor usually gives the absolution in the traditional Latin form. I wouldn’t know if he’d stuck to the…”
I use this when I travel both in these USA and abroad. Very useful. Fast enough for Zoom. I connect my DMR (ham radio) through it. If you use my link, they give me more data. A GREAT back up.
This blog has to earn its keep!
PLEASE subscribe via PayPal if it is useful.
That way I have steady income I can plan on, and you wind up regularly on my list of benefactors for whom I pray and for whom I periodically say Holy Mass.
In view of the rapidly changing challenges I now face, I would like to add more $10/month subscribers. Will you please help?
For a one time donation...
Yes, Fr. Z is taking ads…
Be a “Zed-Head”!
CHALLENGE COINS!
My "challenge coin" for my 25th anniversary of ordination in 2016.
Want one? I do exchanges with military and LEOs, etc.
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
Loading ...This is really useful when travelling… and also when you aren’t and you need backup internet NOW! I use this for my DMR “Zednet” hotspot when I’m mobile. It’s a ham radio thing.
If you travel internationally, this is a super useful gizmo for your mobile internet data. I use one. If you get one through my link, I get data rewards.
WDTPRS POLL
Loading ...Fr. Z’s stuff is everywhere
Help support Fr. Z’s Gospel of Life work at no cost to you. Do you need a Real Estate Agent? Calling these people is the FIRST thing you should do!
They find you a pro-life agent in your area who commits to giving a portion of the fee to a pro-life group!
GREAT causes to support
Help Monks in Wyoming (coffee – UPDATED LINK) and Norcia (beer) and the wonderful "Soap Sisters" of Summit, NJ!
Please follow me on Twitter!
Tag Archives: Vatican II
Spiffing NEW OLD Book! A Limerickal Commentary on the Second Vatican Council
I received from the fascinating little Arouca Press, founded on the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun, a truly amazing little tome. It’s greatly appreciated, though I have a serious complaint about it. More on that, below. A Limerickal … Read More
Comments Off on Spiffing NEW OLD Book! A Limerickal Commentary on the Second Vatican Council
Some thoughts about Vatican II
Since I was responded elsewhere to a question about Bp. Barron’s recent videos and his view of traditional Catholics, and since every answer he gives seems to circles around Vatican II, it occurred to me that some of you might … Read More
A Black Mass in the Vatican at the time of Vatican II?
From Crisis, ever more valuable. Fetid Fruits of the Black Mass THOM NICKELS The writer refers to various diabolical phenomena, including that which requires exorcism and the so-called Black Mass. I wrote on this HERE. As if he were reading … Read More
9 Comments
A good article that explores what REAL clericalism is. UPDATED
UPDATE 10 May 2019: Fr. Longenecker has a post about different layers of clericalism. It is well written and has a good insight that builds on what I wrote, below. Go over there to get the full line of his … Read More
12 Comments
25 January 1959 – 60th anniversary of the calling of Vatican II
On 25 January 1959, just under 3 months after his election to the See of Peter, John XXIII, at St. Paul’s outside-the-walls, stunned his listeners and the rest of the world. 60 years ago he announced the summoning of an Ecumenical … Read More
VIDEO: Bishops saying private Masses during Vatican II
This is terrific. Here is old video of some bishops at the Second Vatican Council saying their private Masses! The best form of concelebration! Council Fathers offering their Private Masses after the Second Vatican Council was solemnly opened by Pope … Read More
“The Council that might have been…” but wasn’t.
One of you readers recently sent me an interesting link to a page of the blog of Fr. Joseph Komonchak. Fr. Komonchak has provided the original – but rejected – schemata for the Second Vatican Council. At some time you … Read More
8 Comments
What Did Council Fathers REALLY Say About LATIN?
Dr. Peter Kwasniewski wrote to me the other day to alert me to his post at NLM about the Second Vatican Council and the Latin language. It is MUST READ reading. HERE A taste to get you in… The documents … Read More
7 Comments
“Not all is well, nor should we pretend that it is — even if this means abandoning the ‘new Pentecost’ narrative of Vatican II”
At NLM, Peter Kwasniewski has a good piece. Here’s how it begins (with my emphases and comments): Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI frequently acknowledged that the Church is in a state of serious crisis. [Is there any … Read More
It is as if the Church simply caved in before the world and its Prince.
Around the time of the Second Vatican Council some of our sound practices were simply dropped, as if they were no longer needed. For example, the Leonine Prayers after Low Mass which included the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. … Read More
Memories of Vatican II’s halcyon days. Who could have predicted that things would fall apart?
Over at Crisis there is a great piece recounting memories of Vatican II times… those spirit-filled, halcyon days! I particularly enjoyed this paragraph about the writer’s days in a Catholic girls school: We attended Mass in Latin, sang hymns in … Read More
Pope Francis’ letter to “the best hermeneutical interpreter of the Second Vatican Council.”
Here is something interesting. His Holiness Pope Francis has written a letter to Archbp. Agostino Marchetto… again. Marchetto has helped to break the monopoly of the “hermeneutic of discontinuity” types when it comes to the interpretation of Vatican II. the … Read More
UPDATE: English translation of Memoirs of Louis Bouyer
The English translation of The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer: From Youth and Conversion to Vatican II, the Liturgical Reform, and After has finally been produced. UK click HERE Soon after it was put on sale, it because unavailable. Apparently the supply chain … Read More
Renaissance triumphalist crowing both in bad taste and divisive
I saw a mordantly amusing comment from Fr. Hunwicke over at his blog HERE. He mused about the recent 50th anniversary of Paul VI going to a Roman parish to say Mass in Italian. Perpend. My emphases and added … Read More
“There was the Council of the Fathers – the real Council – but there was also the Council of the media.”
I was recently sent a link to a video of one of the last appearances of Benedict XVI during his pontificate. This is the famous audience during which he spoke about the “Council of the media”. [wp_youtube]CfTWC5lPshM[/wp_youtube] I think it … Read More
15 Comments
Harvesting Conciliar “fruits”: half of adults polled think Harry Potter and Hunger Games could be Biblical
It often seems that, these days, the odds are never in our favor. I take time out from my furious conference preparation (on art coming up in Detroit) to present something that only confirms the great fruits of Vatican II and the … Read More
61 Comments
João Card. Braz de Aviz: “in these 50 years, consecrated life has followed a fruitful path of renewal”
Over at the best weekly in the UK, The Catholic Herald, I saw an article about religious life and the upcoming year for religious. There is a comment about João Card. Braz de Aviz, Prefect of the Congregation for Religious: … Read More
450 years ago today: Council of Trent closed!
Today is the 450th anniversary of the closing of the Council of Trent. Let’s think about this for a moment. First, the day the Second Vatican Council opened Pope John XXIII gave an address to the world and to the … Read More
