Are things as bad as the seem? Auctores scinduntur.

Posted on 20 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

How bad are things right now?  Pretty bad.

“Walking together” is taking up to the edge of a precipice, probably over the sea where the Gadarene swine are still moiling.

Appointments to key positions defies reason.

Convents and monasteries are in shut down mode.

Things have always been bad, because the Enemy is relentless and we humans are susceptible to all manner of temptations and trickery.   It is unthinkable that the Enemy doesn’t attack the Church through her higher leaders.  After all, though angelic and numerous the Enemy still has finite resources and limited time.  They, therefore, strike high for the greatest knock on effect.

That said, I bring a few items to your attention.   They aren’t connected, but they are, if you get my drift.

First, there’s this.   This one of the strangest, way out in left field, absurd things I’ve seen in a while.

His Eminence said:

“Not everyone understood it. Integrist circles contested that day, even making it one of the reasons for a schismatic rupture; others feared syncretism or relativism, as they still do today.” “With these words, 27 October 1986 enters into the ordinary teaching of the Magisterium. It is no longer merely an event to remember: it is a criterion through which to interpret the present.”

Ummm… no.

Actions are not magisterial. Teachings are magisterial when they are formulated in propositional form (not in weasel words) and do not contradict the Deposit of Faith. “Assisi 1986” is not part of the Magisterium.

Here is a bit of … interesting news, but partially obscured under a lot of smoke and pointing at imaginary squirrels.

Peter K alerted me to something at a substack called Frater Spiritus about the attempts of the Archbishop of Detroit to ban ad orientem worship.   In effect what the Archbp did was forbid priests from following the rubrics… which he can’t do.   Now, it seems that the Holy See has stepped up on the matter.

A reminder…

For those who do not remember, when Archbishop Edward Weisenburger was appointed to the Archdiocese of Detroit, he told local reporters that he “wasn’t coming to shake things up” and “would make the absolute minimal changes for his first year”.

His Excellency either has a bad memory about what he says or he was not being entirely honest.  Shortly after he arrived in Detroit he summarily sacked without review three distinguished professors at Sacred Heart Seminary and then devastated the people who desire traditional liturgy by suppressing TLMs all over the place.   Although… to be fair… it could be that he considers both of those actions to address things so unimportant that they barely count.

You will also recall that the Archbp issued in a public decree a total ban on priests celebrating Mass in ad orientem, hence requiring them to celebrate versus populum.

It seems someone in the pews, we don’t know who, asked the Vatican if this was actually allowed.

That first public decree has – surprise! – been changed.   However, the change to the decree was not at first made public.

The original decree is HERE.   You will note that in this draconian dig at the priests and people of Detroit, the signer – because it is inevitably his document – couldn’t even get “versus populum” right, instead writing “versus populo“.

Let me do what the Holy See did when they corrected the bad translation of GIRM 299 which led to all sorts of bishops trying to ban ad orientem worship and prompting destruction of altars.  That is, the Holy See explained the Latin so that bishops wouldn’t get it wrong.   Let’s have a look at versus.

Versus used as a preposition goes with the accusative, although its origin as an adverb helps explain why it can also appear after the noun it governs.   For example, we can say “versus orientem… Romam… occidentem…. toward the east (eastward)… toward Rome… toward the west (westward)”.   Versus also often occurs after ad and its accusative, stressing the direction… ad orientem versus… for example, “turned eastward”.  That ad indicates movement toward, as in “ad Romam proficiscitur… He set out for Rome”, which “Romam versus proficiscitur” would be “He sets out in the direction of Rome”.   In liturgical parlance we speak of Mass “versus populum… facing or turned toward the people” as well as “versus orientem… facing or turned toward the east”.  There also occurs Mass “ad orientem versus” and simply “ad orientem“.   It’s not that hard.

By the way, in legal and sporting terms we see something like Weisenberger v. (versus) The People of Detroit, that versus has taken on an adversarial meaning.   That doesn’t transfer to liturgical usage as in “versus populum… against the people”… or… maybe it does in the case of the abusive antics of dopey priests who dance around like idiots or bless people with guitars.  But I digress.

The change in the decree…

The Archbp of D wrote “versus populo“.  FAIL.

Also important for this issue is that the Latin rubrics in the Novus Ordo 3rd edition 2002 Missale Romanum describe the priest as “conversus ad populum… having turned toward the people”.  Here conversus is a participle and ad populum is a prepositional phrase.  The meaning is clear: the priest was facing toward something other than the people and then he turns to face the people.  The Missal explicitly uses versus ad altare (“facing toward the altar”) and ad altare conversus (“having turned toward the altar”).   In the Novus Ordo Missal in (rubrics) nn. 132–133: we find the priest versus ad populum “Facing toward the people, the priest says Ecce Agnus Dei.” Then, immediately afterward: “Et sacerdos, versus ad altare, secreto dicit: Corpus Christi custodiat me in vitam aeternam. … And the priest, facing toward the altar, says quietly: May the Body of Christ preserve me unto eternal life.”

To close this part out, when in the Lewis & Short Dictionary I checked some uses of versus looking for ablative or dative, I found this… it’s pure coincidence, of course…

GOING ON AT LAST…. the original decree HERE.   The irony drips from this screenshot (with my red underscore):

Firstly, he reserves to himself something that he doesn’t have control over.  The LATIN edition of the Missale Romanum is the STANDARD, not the translation.  A bishop can’t force a priest to disobey or change the rubrics.  He himself makes this exact point in the very next paragraph!

Moving on to a last point… take a look at Rorate which recounts that an important book about the antics of the Consilium (Bugnini and Co) is back in priest.  It is based on notes and diaries of Ferdinando Card. Antonelli.   It deals with what happened many years ago, but those dealings impact the vast majority of Catholics today, because they changed how we pray.

The Development of the Liturgical Reform: As Seen by Cardinal Ferdinando Antonelli from 1948 to 1970 (Os Justi Studies in Liturgical History and Reform)

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, The Drill | Tagged
Leave a comment

ROME 26/10– Day 17-18: How very sad

Posted on 18 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Eternal receive sunlight this morning at 07:24.

Deprivation of sunlight came at 18:26.

The Ave Maria for the Curia should be at 18:45.

The Ave Maria for solar time was at 17:56.

Today, in addition to being a Sunday, is the Feast of St. Luke.

Welcome Registrant:

Jsart170

ATTENTION KNOXVILLE!

And…

How very sad…. but they brought it on themselves.

With a little help from white, black brought mate on himself in 4.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

 

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
9 Comments

WDTPRS – 21st Sunday after Pentecost: My strengths support yours.  My sins weaken us all.

Posted on 17 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Let’s have a look at the Collect for the upcoming Sunday in the TLM – 1962 Missale Romanum.

This Collect has been in use at least since the time of the Liber Sacramentorum Gellonensis, which is a variation of the ancient Gelasian sacramentaries of the Frankish tradition.  It survived the Novus Ordo Cutter-Snippers as the Collect for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time.

COLLECT (1962MR)

Familiam tuam, quaesumus,
Domine, continua pietate custodi:
ut a cunctis adversitatibus, te protegente, sit libera;
et in bonis actibus tuo nomini sit devota.

The first part was used almost like a template in other prayers, as in the Collect of the 5th Sunday after Epiphany: “Familiam tuam, quaesumus, Domine, continua pietate custodi, ut, quae in sola spe gratiae caelestis innititur, tua semper protectione muniatur.”

Note not only the similar beginning, but also a connection in the vocabulary with that form of protego.  This suggests to me that the prayers are related.

That word familia, though it seems so familiar, should have some attention.

Familia and forms of famulus occur often in our prayers.  Think of the line in the Roman Canon including “Memento, Domine, famulorum, famularumque tuarum… Be mindful, O Lord, of Your household servants and handmaids”.  These words look like “family”, as does familia, and that is often appropriate depending on the context.  However, the core meaning of the root of the word, fama, which comes from Latin’s ancient cousin Oscan must guide our minds to the whole body of people in an ancient household, including especially the servants.  The different words for “family” in Latin include all the servants and staff, with the extended family, not just the core.  The paterfamilias, “father of the family” had virtual power of life and death over most of his household and his word was law.

Custodio, common in military language, means “to watch, protect, keep, defend, guard”. Pietas is complicated, as we have seen many times.  Obvious English “piety” comes from this, but the Latin is more involved.  Your helpful Lewis & Short Dictionary says pietas is “dutiful conduct toward the gods, one’s parents, relatives, benefactors, country, etc., sense of duty.” The classic application of pietas and the adjective pius is to the figure of Aeneas in the Latin poet Virgil’s Aeneid.  As Troy was being destroyed by the Greeks after the incident with the wooden horse, Virgil (+19 BC) has Aeneas carry his elderly father Anchises, with the family tutelary god, from the wreckage of the burning city while leading his little son along by hand.  This image of the man with his father on his back and his son by the hand perfectly expresses the duties Aeneas, future founder of what will become Rome, had toward his family, his pietas.  He was also scrupulous in relation to the gods.  So he is usually called pius Aeneas, which as you now know is far more complicated than the mere “pious Aeneas”.

Christians adapted ancient terms like this to a new context, to express new meanings. In Jerome’s Vulgate in both Old and New Testament pietas is “conscientiousness, scrupulousness regarding love and duty toward God.”  You see that the core of pietas remains “duty.”  Pietas is also one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (cf. CCC 1831; Isaiah 11:2), by which we are duly affectionate and grateful toward our parents, relatives and country, as well as to all men living insofar as they belong to God or are godly, and especially to the saints.  In loose or common parlance, “piety” indicates fulfilling the duties of religion.  Sometimes “pious” is even used in a negative way, as when people take aim at external displays of religious dutifulness as opposed to what they is “genuine” practice (cf. Luke 18:9-14).

All this is involved when we use pietas to describe ourselves, what human beings have regarding, God, family, country, etc.   But in our prayer today, we are asking God to guard us with His pietas.

When we speak of the pietas of God, we are generally referring to His mercy toward us.  While it is not strictly right to imply that God has a duty toward us, He has made promises and God is true to His promises.  We can depend on Him not because He is obliged by pietas, as we are, but because He is loving and merciful.  So, God’s pietas towards us has a different tone altogether.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains how the gift of piety perfects the disposition by which we render reverence and service to God as Father (STh II-II, q. 121, a. 1, ).   God owes nothing to creatures considered in themselves. Nevertheless, because He has freely made promises, He is faithful to His own word. The divine pietas of this prayer expresses both His merciful care and His unwavering fidelity.

I note as well that in that line from the Canon I quoted above in respect to familia, down the line a bit, we come to the Latin word devotio.  We have a form of that word in today’s Collect.  There must be a connection between the concepts of familia, pietas and devota, an adjective connected with familia.

Your L&S reveals that devoto “to dedicate, devote” as well as “to bewitch, enchant” and, in a related sense, “to invoke with vows”, and by logical extension it comes to mean “to curse”, though clearly today’s use doesn’t bear that connotation.  In the French source for liturgical Latin we call Blaise/Dumas, we find that the adjective devotus, a, um has a special connection to devotion to service of the Lord.   We can also draw insight into what is really being said here by bringing in the force of devotio, an obvious derivative.  In classical usage devotio is “fealty, allegiance, devotedness; piety, devotion, zeal.” Devotio also means, as devoto implied, “a cursing, curse, imprecation, execration, a magical formula, incantation, spell.” Again, that is not our direction today.  Briefly, I hear devotio as “a devotion to duty”.  In that sense it picks up the meaning of pietas.  Our “devotion” leads us to keep God’s commandments and attend with focus to the duties of our state before all else.  If we are truly devout, pious, in respect to God, devoted to fulfilling the duties of our state in life truly is here and now, then God will give us every actual grace we need to fulfill our vocations. We are, in effect, fulfilling our proper role in His great plan and thus He is sure to help us.

God fulfills what He promises to us as we do our part in His plan in which He gave us a role from before the creation of the universe.

LITERAL TRANSLATION:

Guard your family, we beseech you,
O Lord, with continual mercy,
so that it may be free from all adversities
as You are protecting it,
and, in its good acts, may be devoted in Your Name.

This prayer speaks first of all to how interconnected we are as Catholic Christians.

By baptism, we are the adopted children of the Father.  We look to Him with the reverence of children, not merely as cowering slaves.  We belong to a family.  In the arc of our lives we have roles and states to fulfill.  Within the Church we have our manner of participation.  We are all in this together.  My strengths support yours.  My sins weaken us all.  My defeats become your concern. All our triumphs are shared as we raise them up to God.

In remembering our common bonds with each other in the Father, we must also remember a profound inequality in our bonds – children are no less members of the family than parents, but they are dependent they are not the equals of their parents.  God is not our peer.  We are not His equal.  We are all children before His gaze.

I am amused and horrified when I hear modernists, progressivist types suggest that modern man is all grown up now and that we no longer have to kneel as if cowering before a stern master God.

Our prayer gives us an image that runs very much contrary to the prevailing values of the last few decades, a period in which the family as a coherent recognizable unit has been systematically broken down.

Our Latin prayers often reflect the Church’s profound awareness of our lack of equality with God.

The prayers are radically hierarchical, just as God’s design reveals hierarchy and order.

The prayers are imbued with reverence.

Compare this attitude with prevailing societal norms.

Compare this with our ongoing trial by “synodality” (“walking togetherity”).

Lastly, it seems to me that there is a possible connection between the Collect and the Epistle of this very Sunday. In Ephesians 6:10–17, St. Paul urges Christians to put on the whole armor of God so that they may be protected from the attacks of the devil. The Collect asks God to protect His household from every adversity. Custodi, protegentе, and libera fit with the military language of the Epistle: armaturam Dei, insidias diaboli, scutum fidei, and galeam salutis.

The Church is God’s household, certainly, but also His army in the midst of spiritual combat. Her members are protected by God precisely so that they can do their duty.

Posted in WDTPRS |
1 Comment

A matter of grave concern: People who pray together before or after Mass.

Posted on 17 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Bishop of Knoxville is on the job, addressing serious problems in the local church entrusted to his pastoral care.  If for nothing else he would be notable for the pogrom he conducted last October – he must have a thing for October – against people who desire the Traditional Latin Mass.   HERE

What’s his problem now? People who pray prayers together before or after Mass.  HERE

It came to the attention of Most Rev. Mark Beckman that in some churches people were praying well-known prayers together before or after Mass. For example, after Mass some people had the custom of reciting the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. Others pray the St. Francis’s Prayer or a Prayer to the Holy Spirit.

Can you imagine such a thing? Such a gross offence to… to… liturgical… thing?  Because… experts!  The bishop “reflected” about this grave situation and wrote the article I linked, above. Those prayers…

and others have been added regularly to the liturgy—recited together, sometimes before the entrance hymn, or immediately after the dismissal….

[…]

Having reflected on the importance of celebrating the liturgy in accordance with the mind of the Church, I do not think it appropriate to add additional prayers associated with the celebration of the Mass itself.

I hate to break the news here, but “before the entrance hymn” or “after the dismissal” are both outside of Mass.

“But Father!  Be fair!  He said ‘associated with the celebration of Mass'”!

Sorry.  I don’t believe people are stupid.  You would have to think they were pretty thick to imagine they don’t know when Mass starts and when Mass ends.

So, the only reasonable thing to do is to stop pious people from different walks of life who find themselves together in a church from praying together.

Once again we see an attempt to force people into a lock-step conformity which simulates a chimeric “unity”. After all, we can’t let people just, sit or stand when then want, or – quod Deus avertat – kneel for Communion.  We can’t have people praying together in a church before or after Mass, can we? That would be double-plus-ungood.

In a spirit of fairness, there could be a legitimate issue about collective prayer before Mass (Novus Ordo), since GIRM 45 says:

Even before the celebration itself, it is commendable that silence to be observed in the church, in the sacristy, in the vesting room, and in adjacent areas, so that all may dispose themselves to carry out the sacred action in a devout and fitting manner.

That said, perhaps the bishop would better spend his authority on what goes on in sacristies before Mass.  Is there silence and order?   My experience over the years is that sacristies are not bastions of silence and order before Mass.  Maybe that’s something His Excellency should attend to in his diocese.  That is certainly according to “the mind of the Church”.

Again in a spirit of fairness, if I had the opportunity, I would ask a question.

In consideration of the explicitly invoked “the mind of the Church”, which specific provision of the Roman Missal, the GIRM, the Code of Canon Law, or the Holy See’s 2001 Directory on Popular Piety forbids the faithful from voluntarily praying the St. Michael Prayer after the liturgical dismissal?  Until such a provision is identified, the claim that suppressing a longstanding devotional practice is required by “the mind of the Church” remains empty.

Posted in "But Father! But Father!", Liberals, Pò sì jiù, You must be joking! | Tagged
32 Comments

ROME 26/10– Day 16: Baronius… and traitors

Posted on 16 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Not dirty.  Just etched from use.

I hope.

Welcome registrant:

Elizabeth T.

In the Chiesa Nuova.

White.  4.

NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
1 Comment

ROME 26/10– Day 15: munch

Posted on 15 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Pizza bianca and mortadella with black truffle.  DAMN.

Over at Pippo’s flower stand for a sit down and munch and chat.

I stopped to buy flowers for the apartment.  Say HI to Pippo and Anastasia!

From the top, I’ll remind you the REVIVED “Birettas For Seminarians Project” HERE Also, I can take some Mass intentions  HERE

And some medieval fun for Thursday…

And this about the increasingly deep synodaling dreck…

St Teresa would want you to figure it out.

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
12 Comments

ASK FATHER: “Are the faithful who go to the SSPX being sacramentally forgiven in confession, or not?”

Posted on 15 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

Dear Father
We spent many years with the sspx in South Africa.  Cardinal Brislin has now sent a letter specifically saying they no longer have jurisdiction for confession in the country. The sspx says his announcement is not legitimate because of the crisis in the church,  and they will continue to offer confessions.  Are the faithful who go there being sacramentally forgiven in confession,  or not?  There is only one approved TLM in the entire country,  in a smaller town, with maybe 20 people going. The sspx serves significantly more people in South Africa, in every major city.
Sign me as Scrupulous in the South

I am so sorry about the anxiety you have been made to feel because of the erroneous claims of some prelates based on the erroneous claim in the DDF explanatory note which has NO juridical force.  It is my opinion that they (in the DDF) knew they didn’t have juridical standing to remove the faculty to hear confession on their own, so instead they scared people and misled diocesan bishops whom they knew who fall into step.

And they did.

One bishop after another rushed before consulting to issue letters saying that SSPX absolutions were invalid.  The marriages in their chapels are another kettle of chowder.

Here is the quick explanation.   Leave the SSPX’s “it’s a crisis … and an emergency… and reasons” stuff aside as unneeded.

IF one believes that Francis was really the Pope (most do), and IF you believe that he gave the faculty to absolve sins to the priests of the SSPX (which he did though in a odd way), THEN those priests had the ability validly to absolve sins.  Period.   No discussion.

IF all that is the case, THEN no lesser authority than a Pope can remove that faculty.

You would think that a bishop would get that.  Right?  This isn’t rocket science.  It’s like, Bp. Fatty McButterpants issues particular law – something clearly legitimate in his prevue and not against universal law – for the Diocese of Libville, but Msgr. McSwiney at the Cathedral doesn’t like it so he tells his congregation that they don’t have to obey it.  Does that sound right?  No.

A lesser authority doesn’t overturn the juridical decisions of the Lawgiver.

The bishops of the SSPX were declared to be excommunicated.  You cannot go to them for confession.

The priests of the SSPX are not excommunicated.  They continue – somebody PROVE me wrong! – to have those faculties.

In fact, it came to my attention that there is a document circulating in France about this issue.  I don’t have it.  I can’t verify it.  Someone is writing to me about it.  If it exists, it must be shared in charity.  There is some affirmation of this in an article at Renaissance Catholique (in French).    A distinguished canonist deals with this at Ad Vaticanum.

Hence, in my opinion, backed by experts and common sense, the SSPX priests (not bishops) still have faculties to receive sacramental confessions and validly absolve.

Why?

The only statement about this from the Holy See is in the DDF explanatory note which has ZERO indication that Leo even saw it from across the room  – much less read it – much less approved it.  Such an approval must be explicit in writing, not in the dreamy wishes of those who would prefer it to be so.

What a horrible thing to do to people: scare them like this about SSPX absolutions.  How cruel.

That said, GO TO CONFESSION!

And you have, after reading this, a hesitation about going to an SSPX priest, then go to a regular but dependable diocesan priest.

The LAST thing I would ever want for people is to have a doubt about whether or not their sins are forgiven.

Posted in 1983 CIC can. 915, GO TO CONFESSION, SSPX | Tagged
14 Comments

15 October (4 Oct 1582) St. Teresa of Avila, Calendars, Chess, and You

Posted on 15 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the Feast of St. Teresa of Avila (+4 Oct 1582).

In 2024 I posted – HERE – that the tomb of St. Teresa was opened for examination and her body was found to be incorrupt.  They also found that her spine was badly curved, so she must have had a lot of pain.

In 1582, the ancient Julian calendar (organized by, yes, Julius Caesar and still observed by many Orthodox Christians) officially was terminated on Thursday 4 October by the command of Gregory XIII (1572–1585, Ugo Boncompagni) via the papal bull Inter gravissimas.

At midnight of 4-5 October the calendar skipped automatically to a day named Friday 15 October.

The famed Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius (+1612) worked out the calculations for this change.  He chose October for the moment of the jump because it had the fewest feast days.

He also did his calculations without the use of the decimal point!

St. Teresa of Avila died on the very night on which His Holiness had commanded that the calendar shift from 4 October to 15 October, which is why her feast is celebrated on the 15th rather than the 4th or 5th.

Moreover, St Teresa bumped St. Hedwig from the 15th to the 16th.  I’m sure St. Hedwig didn’t mind, given the circumstances.

St. Teresa is know, of course, for being a reformer of the Carmelites.   Perhaps it is even more important that she is the Patroness of Chess Players… oh yeah… and she’s a Doctor of the Church, which is why she is often depicted with the doctoral biretta.

This is from The Way of Perfection 16 by St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church and Patroness of Chess Players.

1.But you may be sure that anyone who cannot set out the pieces in a game of chess will never be able to play well, and, if he does not know how to give check, he will not be able to bring about a checkmate. Now you will reprove me for talking about games…[but] if we play it frequently, how quickly we shall give checkmate to this Divine King! He will not be able to move out of our check nor will He desire to do so.

It is the queen which gives the king most trouble in this game and all the other pieces support her. There is no queen who can beat this King as well as humility can; for humility brought Him down from Heaven into the Virgin’s womb and with humility we can draw Him into our souls by a single hair. Be sure that He will give most humility to him who has most already and least to him who has least. I cannot understand how humility exists, or can exist, without love, or love without humility, and it is impossible for these two virtues to exist save where there is great detachment from all created things…

This is an error which we all make: if a person gets so far as to spend a short time each day in thinking about his sins, as he is bound to do if he is a Christian in anything more than name, people at once call him a great contemplative; and then they expect him to have the rare virtues which a great contemplative is bound to possess; he may even think he has them himself, but he will be quite wrong. In his early stages he did not even know how to set out the chess-board, and thought that, in order to give checkmate, it would be enough to be able to recognize the pieces. But that is impossible, for this King does not allow Himself to be taken except by one who surrenders wholly to Him.”

1. Y no os parezca mucho todo esto, que voy entablando el juego, como dicen. Pedísteisme os dijese el principio de oración; yo, hijas, aunque no me llevó Dios por este principio, porque aún no le debo tener de estas virtudes, no sé otro. Pues creed que quien no sabe concertar las piezas en el juego de ajedrez, que sabrá mal jugar, y si no sabe dar jaque, no sabrá dar mate. Así me habéis de reprender porque hablo en cosa de juego, no le habiendo en esta casa ni habiéndole de haber. Aquí veréis la madre que os dio Dios, que hasta esta vanidad sabía; mas dicen que es lícito algunas veces. Y cuán lícito será para nosotras esta manera de jugar, y cuán presto, si mucho lo usamos, daremos mate a este Rey divino, que no se nos podrá ir de las manos ni querrá.

2. La dama es la que más guerra le puede hacer en este juego, y todas las otras piezas ayudan. No hay dama que así le haga rendir como la humildad. Esta le trajo del cielo en las entrañas de la Virgen, y con ella le traeremos nosotras de un cabello a nuestras almas. Y creed que quien más tuviere, más le tendrá, y quien menos, menos. Porque no puedo yo entender cómo haya ni pueda haber humildad sin amor, ni amor sin humildad, ni es posible estar estas dos virtudes sin gran desasimiento de todo lo criado….

4. Mas contemplación es otra cosa, hijas, que éste es el engaño que todos traemos, que en llegándose uno un rato cada día a pensar sus pecados (que) está obligado a ello si es cristiano de más que nombre), luego dicen es muy contemplativo, y luego le quieren con tan grandes virtudes como está obligado a tener el muy contemplativo, y aun él se quiere, mas yerra. En los principios no supo entablar el juego: pensó bastaba conocer las piezas para dar mate, y es imposible, que no se da este Rey sino a quien se le da del todo.

It is interesting that St. Teresa talks about the queen.  That is a piece with a truly fascinating history.

A chessy history book:

Birth of the Chess Queen: A History

US HERE – UK HERE

The author is a feminist, but the book is pretty good history.  It was really interesting.

Posted in Classic Posts, Linking Back, Saints: Stories & Symbols |
Leave a comment

ASK FATHER: “Is it possible for the structure of the Church to be the ‘wrong’ church, while the ‘true’ Church is elsewhere?”

Posted on 15 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

One of the most used terms regarding problems in the Church is that it is indefectable, implying that there is no need to worry about this or that issue, soon God will resolve it. But there seems to be a drive to change doctrine more and more to such an extent some (perhaps me) find it difficult to recognize whether the Church is the same Church as it was a thousand years ago. Is it possible for the administrative structure of the Church to be the “wrong” church, while the true Church is elsewhere? I suppose it is not according to Catholic theology, but if the Church is rejecting traditional Catholic theology, can it really be the Church? Or is it possible the Apostolic See could largely be a part of the tares at the end of time?

I suspect that quite a few Catholics are asking themselves something similar these days. I also suspect that some are afraid even to ASK question, lest they be accused of schism, disobedience, or some other ecclesiastical Thoughtcrime and wind up Unpersoned.

A couple things come to mind.

First, a while back – I wrote about it HERE – Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap., with whom I am still annoyed, wrote something that got him in hot water.  He suggested that suggested that Francis was in schism with himself, since he was out of step with what popes do.

Also, Blessed Archbishop Fulton Sheen prophesied – I think that is the right word – during a radio broadcast on 26 January 1947 something at the time no one thought possible.  He said that the Devil was too smart to show up in red skin, horns and a tail.  The Enemy would, basically, hide so that people would cease to believe that he existed.  Consequently, they would cease to believe in Hell and, thereafter, Heaven, good and evil and so forth.  Sheen said the anti-Christ would 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.”

So, yes, I think this can happen to the Church in her earthly particulars.  I think that a parish or diocese or larger structure have the outward signs of being something, but deep down they aren’t.  Similarly, I think that certain phenomena, such as a claimed apparition, can produce some good, but really be a head fake of the Enemy.

Let’s boil this down to the bone.

Can the visible structures of the Church become a false Church while the true Church survives elsewhere?

Ven. Pius XII observes in Mystici Corporis 66 that human weakness can be found even among the most exalted members of the Mystical Body. This addresses issue without conceding that the visible Catholic Church can entirely cease to be Christ’s Church.

First, we must be clear about what indefectibility means.

Indefectibility is Christ’s promise that His Church will endure until the end of time, preserving her essential constitution, her apostolic faith, her sacraments, and her mission of salvation.

However, indefectibility is not a guarantee that every Pope will be prudent, every bishop orthodox, every ecclesiastical policy wise, or every document emanating from Rome a masterpiece of theological precision. Still less does it mean that whenever a crisis arises we should fold our hands, smile complacently, and wait for God to tidy things up.  The divine promise to the Church doesn’t cancel out human irresponsibility.

Christ promised His Church indefectibility. He also commanded His Apostles to teach, to correct, to guard the flock, and to beware of wolves (rather than run from them… see what happens when a shepherd runs from the wolves…?). Those commands would be pointless if the divine guarantee made vigilance unnecessary.

Leaving aside more recent history, consider what happened during the Arian crisis. Great numbers of bishops were compromised by heresy or confusion, St. Athanasius suffered exile, St. Hilary of Poitiers endured persecution, etc.   The faithful sometimes found themselves defending the orthodox faith against men who occupied positions of ecclesiastical authority. St. Jerome wrote of that time in his Dialogue against the Luciferians “The whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian.”

Yet the Church did not cease to be the Church.

Here is the distinction we must hold firmly: the indefectibility of the Church does not entail the indefectibility of individual churchmen.  Think about the great Churches of Asia Minor and North Africa.  Gone.  There is no guarantee that the Church will endure in some place.

Your question, however, goes further. Could the institutional Church itself become a false Church while the true Church continued somewhere else, perhaps among a relatively small number of faithful Catholics?

The Church founded by Christ is a visible, hierarchical society as well as His Mystical Body. We cannot simply detach the mystical Church from her visible constitution and relocate the true Church wherever we judge that orthodoxy has survived. The Church’s apostolic succession, sacraments, and communion with the Successor of Peter belong to her divinely established constitution.

Vatican II taught this in Lumen gentium 8:

Christ, the one Mediator, established and continually sustains here on earth His holy Church, the community of faith, hope and charity, as an entity with visible delineation through which He communicated truth and grace to all. But, the society structured with hierarchical organs and the Mystical Body of Christ, are not to be considered as two realities, nor are the visible assembly and the spiritual community, nor the earthly Church and the Church enriched with heavenly things; rather they form one complex reality which coalesces from a divine and a human element. For this reason, by no weak analogy, it is compared to the mystery of the incarnate Word. As the assumed nature inseparably united to Him, serves the divine Word as a living organ of salvation, so, in a similar way, does the visible social structure of the Church serve the Spirit of Christ, who vivifies it, in the building up of the body.

At this point I will add that Christ’s human body had its limits.  He was hungry after He fasted, He suffered greatly during His Passion.  He fell more than once under His Cross and needed human help to complete the way.

The human dimension of the Church is supported by the divine will in the essentials of her constitution, but not in all the details.  Moreover, the Enemy is very good at being an enemy.

That said, it seems to me that the proposition that if the entire visible Catholic Church could defect and be replaced in secret by an invisible association of the doctrinally sound, then Christ’s promise concerning Peter and the Church would lose its intelligible meaning.

However, there is another distinction.

The visible Church is not identical with the totality of the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. The Roman Curia, episcopal conferences, diocesan chanceries, commissions, committees, and the seemingly inexhaustible production of documents are instruments of governance, some necessary, others merely useful, and others perhaps useful chiefly to those who draw salaries from them.  Their policies can be imprudent, judgments can be mistaken, even downright stupid. Their occupants can behave scandalously. They can even be promoters of confusion and error.

The failure of an ecclesiastical entity or personage does not equate with the failure of the Church.

In Vatican I’s Pastor aeternus 4 there is something enormously important:

The Holy Spirit was not promised to Peter’s successors so that they might disclose new doctrine through His revelation, but so that, with His assistance, they might sacredly guard and faithfully expound the revelation handed down by the Apostles, namely, the deposit of faith.

The Pope is the guardian of the deposit of faith, not its proprietor. He has no authority to reverse divine revelation. Neither does an ecumenical council. Neither does an episcopal conference or a local bishop.  Authentic doctrinal development preserves identity with what has been handed down.

A contradiction cannot be made into a authentic development simply by sticking the word “pastoral” into it.

When an apparently novel teaching seems to conflict with what the Church has always taught, Catholics have every reason and right to seek clarification. One must examine precisely what is being taught, with what authority, and whether the supposed contradiction is real or just seems to be contradictory.  Not every papal remark, prudential judgment, disciplinary measure enjoys the charism of infallibility.

Even less so do entities established with a vague framework and goal.

At the same time, we must avoid setting ourselves up as private judges over the entire Magisterium, accepting only those teachings that pass our individual inspection. That road has its own perils.

You also ask whether the Apostolic See could be largely populated by the tares of the Gospel. Could there be many unfaithful men in positions of ecclesiastical authority, even very high authority?

Certainly!

Our Lord Himself chose twelve Apostles, one of whom literally betrayed Him to His death. Judas did not invalidate the apostolic college.

Could the Church undergo a terrible trial involving widespread apostasy, religious deception, and the apparent triumph of evil?

Certainly!

Grounded in Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church 675–677 explicitly teaches that the Church must undergo a final trial before Christ returns.

Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers.  The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh.

The parable of the wheat and the tares, employed by St. Augustine against the Donatists, should make us alert. The two grow together until the harvest. The Church’s visible communion contains sinners as well as saints. Some of those sinners may wear miters. Some may wear red hats.

Again, the Enemy is good at being an enemy.  He makes use of crises of faith.  When faithful Catholics see confusion promoted by those charged with dispelling it, they can be tempted toward despair. The Enemy can strike and strike hard to promote dissension and division, schism and apostasy.  Those afflicted might imagine that fidelity to Catholic Tradition requires abandoning the visible communion of the Catholic Church.

The very Tradition they wish to preserve teaches the necessity of the Church’s visible unity.The Church belongs to Christ. Churchmen are stewards. Some are faithful, some are negligent, some are even wicked infiltrators with a destructive mission. They will answer to the Master.

Indefectibility does not guarantee that we, here and now, shall be spared a terrible storm.  It guarantees that the Barque of Peter will not ultimately sink.   There may come a day when we have to throw cargo overboard, man the pumps, bend every sail – even our handkerchiefs – and run like smoke n’ oakum before the wind.

But not today.

So, what to do?

  • Hold fast to what the Church has always taught. Learn your catechism.
  • Read the older magisterial documents.
  • Distinguish levels of magisterial authority.
  • Receive the sacraments in the state of grace.
  • Pray for the Pope, bishops and priests, especially those whose words or actions trouble you.
  • Support good priests.
  • Resist error with charity, clarity, and courage.
  • Remember that the obligation to obey legitimate ecclesiastical authority does not include an obligation to embrace falsehood.
  • Do not surrender your Catholic identity to those who seem determined to make Catholicism unrecognizable.

 

Posted in "How To..." - Practical Notes, ASK FATHER Question Box, Hard-Identity Catholicism | Tagged
7 Comments

ROME 26/10– Day 14: Great scissors

Posted on 14 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today our yellow star appeared to rise over Rome at 07:19.

It set a while ago at 18:33.

For the Roman Curia the Ave Maria Bell had to ring at 18:45.

Welcome Registrant:

alvesfc

I’d buy a VW just because of this. Wait… I already have one.

San Carlo ai Catinari has been closed up for years, since earthquake that nailed Norcia.  It is a grand counter-reformation church held by the Barnbites.

I saw the door … OPEN?!?!?!?  (Look at that sky.)

On my way to Gammarelli, by a different route, I spotted something I don’t remember seeing.  It commemorates an apparition of Mass at S. M. in Portico.

At Barbiconi (a clerical shop) an ironic juxtaposition.

Serious scissors at Gammarelli.

I went to complain about something.  They were super accommodating !  Then we got into a discussion of details.  This is the kind of lining, cotton, I will have with the remake of a set I was not pleased with.  There were things I specified in the remake that are “archaic”.

It is really important to know, going in, what you want and how to express it.  And … TO express it.

White mates in 4.

Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance, utilities, groceries, and now also my late mother’s place.  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.  

Posted in SESSIUNCULA |
6 Comments