Especially the rectangular altar!
I wonder if the Gathering Song was “On Jordan’s Bank”?
Friday, January 17, 2025
THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE HARPER VALLEY PTA (DEMOCRAT PARTY) PREOCCUPIED/OBSESSED WITH SEX AND VOYEURISM, ASKS A FEW PURITANICAL QUESTIONS…
Secretary Nominee should have shot back with these two questions: “Sen. Hirono, have you ever supported a woman hiring a hit man to murder an unborn baby? Sen. Hirono, have you ever hired a hit man to murder your unborn baby?
The hypocrisy of these Harper Valley PTA democrats knows no bounds! And remember, Jesus called out hypocrisy as the greatest evil of His time and ours!
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
POPE FRANCIS’ 1970’S ETHOS ALSO INCLUDES HIS LOVE OF 1970’S POP PSYCHOLOGY AS THOUGH IT IS STILL POPULAR TODAY…
When I taught RCIA classes on papal infallibility, and this was when I was very ultra-montane, I would say that there are different levels of papal authority, a hierarchy of teachings depending on how it is framed.
As it concerns infallibility, no pope could create new teachings out of whole cloth. For example, if a pope declared that Jesus was an alien from a distant planet, we would not have to believe it and in fact the pope would be a heretic. There are protections built in to protect rank and file clergy and laity from abusive papal teachings that have no place in Catholic Scripture and Tradition.
The same is true of any pope dabbling with weather and declaring this, that or the other is an infallible truth when it comes to climate.
The same is true with elevating “pop psychology” to a level of magisterial importance as Pope Francis seems to like to do.
Don’t get me wrong, popes are entitled to their opinions, but the office that they hold which is of the utmost importance for Catholic unity in orthodoxy means they should be careful with hobbies they hold as amateurs in psychology and weather.
Thus, in Pope Francis’ recently released book, “Hope” the aging pope, as aging people are wont to do, repeats many of his non-magisterial memes which His Holiness has done over and over and over again.
Here are a couple of quotes from his book as Crux reports, that we can say, wow, I like that, or wow, I can’t believe he said that and then discount it altogether:
In his autobiography, he also defends his work against traditionalist Catholic priests, who has often accused of being “rigid.”
“This rigidity is often accompanied by elegant and costly tailoring, lace, fancy trimmings, rochets. Not a taste for tradition but clerical ostentation,” he writes.
“These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited,” Francis claims.
He explains the traditional look of a newly elected pope didn’t suit him.
“They were not for me. Two days later they told me I would have to change my trousers, wear white ones. They made me laugh. I don’t want to be an ice cream seller, I said. And I kept my own,” the pope says.
“The red shoes? No, I have orthopedic shoes. I’m rather flat-footed,” Francis writes.
He also speaks about his sense of humor.
“Irony is medicine, not only to elevate and enlighten others but also for oneself, because self-irony is a powerful tool to overcome the temptation of narcissism. Narcissists continually look in the mirror, they get all primped up, they observe themselves over and over again, but the best advice in front of a mirror is always to laugh at oneself. It will do us good,” the pope says.
My final astute comments: Let me put my pop psychology hat on and join the pope in analyzing his comments above. It seems to me to be very narcissistic as he is saying that he is much better than Pope Benedict in forgoing papal dress, lace and the rest of it which means he isn’t rigid and he is superior. It is another kind of way of saying “look at me” as I look in the mirror and what I see is so much better than what preceded me! I am pleased with myself!
Humility has nothing to do with this outlook, it is as narcissistic as the narcissism he condemns. What a study in pop psychology this pope is!
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
WHEN IT COMES TO SEX, ARE DEMOCRATS MORE PURITANICAL THAN REPUBLICANS? YES, DEMOCRATS ARE MORE PREOCCUPIED BY SEX BECAUSE THEY ARE JUST AS GUILTY AS ANY REPUBLICAN IS BUT THEY CAN'T ADMIT IT!
Don't get me wrong! I believe that believing Christians should following the 6th Commandment if you are Catholic and the 7th Commandment if you are Protestant!
I don't expect those who are warriors and leaders of nations to be puritans when it comes to the 6th Commandment, if you are Catholic, and the 7th Commandment if you are Protestant.
The most virile men and women who are willing to put their life on the line for our country or for anyone else, normally are very virile men and women and their sex lives are the envy of most people who suffer from concupiscence which is all of us.
Thus, we have Democrats, more than likely like members of the "Harper Valley's PTA" calling the kettle black. As one astute Republican said, the Democrats fixated on Pete Hegseth's sex life, more than likely either want to have sex with him or wish they were him. They are envious.
Feigning being sexual puritans in order to place the big "A" on someone else when they are just as guilty of concupiscence is disgusting! Let the first one who has no sin cast the first stone as the most non-Puritanical Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity once said.
Democrats are preoccupied with the sex lives of Republicans as though Republicans are the only ones to have illicit and sinful sex.
Europe is laughing at Democrats! They are a joke, a funny joke if it wasn't so sad and hypocritical!
Monday, January 13, 2025
GREEN TIME AFTER EPIPHANIES…
The pastor of Holy Family Church on Hilton Head Island, has been trying to update the parish’s vestments. Those in the closet are decades old and quite frankly not very clean and tattered. I fear catching Typhoid Fever from some of them, but I make the sacrifice to do so as a penance for my many sins.
I hope the pastor got a good green new deal on this vestment which i like very much and is of my taste:
Saturday, January 11, 2025
TRUE OR FALSE?
Lifesite News reports that outspoken Dutch Bishop Robert Mutsaerts has criticized the Catholic hierarchy for focusing on “climate change” and social justice issues instead of the salvation of souls. He said that young people are attracted by traditional liturgy and not by Pope Francis’ “synodality.”
Thus, I take certain quotes from Bishop Mutsaerts highlighted by Lifesite News and ask "true or false?"
“How did it get to the point where we see what we see today in church circles? Rainbow flags, LGBT activists dancing around the altar, second-rate bands playing pop music, sermons that are an expression of political correctness rather than anything else?” he pointedly asked. (TRUE OR FALSE?)
“How is it that beauty and truth have given way to ugliness and opinions? Ugly buildings, whitewashed walls, iconoclasm, and poorly acted performances that pass for liturgy. Kneelers and communion rails have been removed. The mystery, the sacred, the supernatural had to give way to horizontal flatness.” (TRUE OF FALSE?)
The bishop said that he sees a hunger for tradition and transcendence in young Catholics.“But this has not yet caught on in Rome,” he mused. “There, they are preoccupied with the new buzzword synodality.” (TRUE OR FALSE?)
“’Yes,’ says the church, ‘we are committed to the environment, to climate change, to diversity, to the poor and issues like that.’ More emphasis is placed on this than on a dignified liturgy, on sacrality, on the call to conversion, and on prioritizing the salvation of souls. People forget that this is precisely what gives people the nourishment they need to truly perform works of mercy.”
“Since the 1960s, the Church has portrayed the faith as ridiculous, no longer naming its core,” the bishop said. “Look at the liturgical abuse that is the order of the day. I am regularly terrorized at Confirmation Masses by choirs singing only Top 2000 songs. I once experienced the choir, accompanied by a deafening band, singing exclusively songs by Bruce Springsteen. ‘Because the Night’ was the offertory hymn. At the end of the Mass, it was clear to me: we will never see these confirmands in church again.” (TRUE OR FALSE?)
In today’s Church, at least in Western Europe, the mainstream view says “it should be about social justice, about soup kitchens, about action,” he continued.“Yes, mainly action. We stand up against discrimination and racism and take part in the social debate on climate change. We are naturally inclusive and diverse and fly the rainbow flag. Of course, we don’t talk about abortion, euthanasia, and mutilation of [so-called] transgender people. The distinction between the sacred and the profane has completely disappeared.”“Young people, in particular, have sensed this very well and have voted with their feet,” the bishop said. “If the liturgy is an incoherent mess, if you are not asked to reorganize your life, if forgiveness and sin are forbidden words, then what are you doing there?”“Good liturgy, clarity, and warmth make all the difference. Young people are looking for answers to questions.”“No wonder young people hungry for meaning, forgiveness, and truth are not at all interested in Laudato Si’, Fiducia Supplicans, and synodality,” the bishop added. “Parishes and dioceses that think they are focusing on this do not attract young people. Where do you find them: in parishes where things are simply traditional, where the Holy Mass is still Holy Mass, where the sacred is in the forefront, where the liturgy is clearly separated from the secular. You discover things there that you didn’t know before. It is a movement towards beauty, truth, holiness, towards devotion, towards places where the sacrament of Confession is offered and the Rosary is prayed. That’s where I see families, that’s where I see young people, that’s where I see the future of the Church.” (TRUE OR FALSE?)
My astute comments:
The good bishop from Holland is speaking about what is happening in Europe and how Pope Francis has brought them back to the 1960's and 70's controversies and silliness after a period of purification (not completely) by Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict and their way of going forward instead of Pope Francis' backwards going.
In my Diocese of Savannah, there are no radically liberal parishes as it concerns progressive issues and practices highlight in the article. I would say that liturgically, most of our parishes are mediocre, especially as it concerns music and casualness in the Mass and a folksy, talkative, secular way of imposing the priest's personality and gift of gab onto the congregation.
The various post-Vatican II ministries of the liturgy are sloppily carried out without attention to detail and good taste when it comes to secular dress for liturgical ministries and a continued askewing of liturgical dress for the laity functioning as readers and Communion Ministers at Mass.
The south is conservative and Catholicism in the south is still conservative as are our politics, for the most part.
In other parts of the USA, since I don't travel as I once did, but certainly see videos of outrages at Mass, I don't have a good grasp of what is happening in the majority of parishes.
I do believe that Pope Francis' and His Holiness' henchmen opposed to traditional approaches to the Post Vatican II Mass and a liberal allowance of the TLM are completely out of touch with today's young people who have remained in the Church, don't one to be "nones" and value tradition, be it in the modern Mass and when exposed to the TLM desire it too.
God willing there are more bishops and those who are cardinals who see what this Dutch Bishop sees and calls it out and that this will impact the soon-to-be papal conclave!
As an aside, I am not opposed to social justice, soup kitchens and upholding the dignity and sacredness of life, even though tainted by sin and evil. It isn't either/or but both/and. But when doing both/and, orthodoxy and promoting holiness of life as the Church teaches is what must be proclaimed and lived and when not lived, called sin that needs the person to repent and be forgiven, especially through the Sacrament of Penance.
Friday, January 10, 2025
WHEN WILL THE CHURCH LIVE TRUE SYNODALITY, MEANING, WALKING TOGETHER NOT TO CHANGE DOCTRINE AND BEGIN PROCESSES THAT LEAD TO THAT, BUT LISTENING TO CATHOLICS ABOUT WHO SHOULD BE CHOSEN TO LEAD THE CHURCH IN WALKING TOGETHER IN ORTHODOXY AND ORTHO-PRAXIS, NOT FORCED HETERODOXY AND HETEROPRAXIS?
Recently Pope Francis, perhaps the most authoritarian pope since Vatican II, gushed over his idea of synodality turning things upside-down, meaning that leadership in in the Church is from the bottom up rather than the top down. One has to wonder if the pope is expressing Holiness' complete hubris given his micro management of local bishops and their parishes’ bulletins or the effects of extreme old age is compromising Holiness' expressions!
I am no fan of synodality that turns the Church into political factions manipulating the system to get their way through political means and backroom deals. Or worse yet, gaslighting Catholics into heterodoxy and heteropraxis by beginning processes that will change the faith, doctrines and morals of the Church over the course of time in a horribly discontinuity way.
Where I think synodality has great potential, is in the selection of candidates for the priesthood and as diocesan bishops.
When I was Vocation Director for the Diocese of Savannah, I had a group of laity who would interview potential candidates for the seminary, but in a casual, home-setting way. Then they would write an evaluation of the candidate in terms of the pros and cons of accepting the candidate. I valued their evaluations and helped me to make good recommendations to my bishop in terms of his final yes or no concerning potential candidates for the priesthood.
As well, seminarians on pastoral assignments in diocesan parishes were evaluated by lay staff and certain parishioners. That helped too and in big measure!
When it comes to the selection of bishops for dioceses, I think it is wise to consult with a wide variety of other bishops in the area about who would make a good candidate for a particular diocese. As well, priests, deacons, and religious in the diocese in question, should be consulted as well.
Local laity should be consulted too, especially those in employment positions in dioceses but also rank and file parishioners.
With an Archdiocese of such National and International importance as Washington, DC, I wonder who would have been identified as the best candidate for the Archdiocese if a broader consultation process had taken place.
As far as I can tell, right now there are two groups of cardinals who made different recommendations to Pope Francis. Ultra-progressive Cardinals Cupich and Tobin proposed ultra-progressive Cardinal McElroy to the pope as the new archbishop. The Cardinal Nuncio and Cardinal Gregory proposed someone else.
Pope Francis obviously listened to Cardinals Tobin and Cupich and then made his top down decision on ultra progressive/liberal Cardinal McElroy!
Were only those four the ones consulted?????
So much for synodality!
Thursday, January 9, 2025
ONLY IN AMERICA! A FORETASTE OF THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN!
President Carter’s funeral with all the living presidents and Vice Presidents, winners and losers! Trump and Obama rather talkative and friendly in the Washington Episcopal Cathedral…
JUST WONDERING??????
Will Cardinal McElroy be as successful at influencing President Donald Trump, a non Catholic, on the evils of illegal alien mass deportations as Cardinal Gregory was at influencing President Biden, a practicing Catholic, on the evils of abortion? Just wondering!
Monday, January 6, 2025
THE PILLAR BREAKS THE NEWS TO WASHINGTON, WILL THE BROKEN NEWS BREAK WASHINGTON?
Not since the so-called “insurrection” of four years ago, on January 6, has Washington experienced something like this kind of breaking news:
Washington, D.C., will now be home to 5 cardinals and one ex- cardinal, Cardinals Donald Wuerl, Wilton Gregory, ex-Theodore McCarrick, the three emeriti, Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio, and now McElroy. Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the retired archbishop of Boston, has indicated he intends to spend about half his time at the Capuchin College in D.C.,
Press:
Confirmed: Cardinal McElroy to be appointed Washington archbishop
Saturday, January 4, 2025
BOMBSHELL: RITA FERRONE OF PRAYTELL AGREES WITH ME ABOUT NOTRE DAME’S LITURGICAL ACCESSORIES…
From Praytell:
Notre-Dame’s renovation
A great deal can be said in praise of the renovation of Notre-Dame in Paris after the devastating fire that took place five years ago. The light is wonderful. The renewal of the devotional spaces is admirable, and the overall design has been strengthened.
The liturgical furniture itself, however, was disappointing. These elements (font, altar, ambo, chair) are the ones that ought to be most deeply rooted, as celebration of the liturgy is the primary reason for the church’s existence. Instead, they appear as “strange visitors” unrelated to the rest of the building.
There are ways in which modern art can harmonize with a medieval building, but these were not pursued. A severely abstract program seems to have been chosen instead. The artist-designer also seems to have had little real appreciation of the liturgical function of these items, as questions of accessibility and Christian symbolism also arise.
My analysis appears in the January issue of Commonweal magazine. You can read the whole thing here.
Thursday, January 2, 2025
UGH! THE OLD ULTRA MODERN AND ULTRA UGLY ALTAR RETURNS TO THE CHAPEL BEHIND SAINT PETER’S HIGH ALTAR
St. Peter’s trying to compete with Notre Dame…🥲
THE LATE PRESIDENT JIMMY E. CARTER, A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY, TODAY’S PARTY OF DEATH!
First Things has a very good article on the late President Jimmy Carter. He was pro-life! Unfortunately the Democrat Party today is the Party of infanticide and death and encourages other outrages and tragedies associated with contempt for the innocent unborn. If a political party encourages its members to have abortions up to the 9th month and sells it as a good thing, “health care”, it doesn’t take much of a leap of logic for other political ideologues to see death as a convenient way to get rid of their human problems too, such as acts of terrorism against innocent people!
I personally think that like the KKK and other racist organizations that Catholics are forbidden to join without the threat of excommunication, so too being affiliated with the Democrat Party should be added to the list. Just my most humble and logical opinion!
Here’s a sound byte from the First Things article on Jimmy Carter, read the full article HERE:
James Earl Carter Jr., the 40th president of the United States, who died at age 100 on December 29, has been called an enigma. Many say he was a failure as president but a good man who lived an exemplary life. One distinction, however, should be receiving more attention. It is a fact that may astonish anyone who does not remember Carter’s term in office: Carter was a Democrat and pro-life. He never ceased to be either, even as radical pro-choice—arguably pro-abortion—activists took over the Democratic party in the forty-four years after the peanut farmer from Georgia left the White House.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
BEAUTIFUL CHURCHES, VESTMENTS AND LITURGY: WHY DO SO MANY 1970’S TYPES SAY VATICAN II BANNED ALL OF THAT IN FAVOR OF UGLY SIMPLICITY, PURITANICAL ICONOCLASM?
The parish where I grew up in and eventually left to go to seminary in Baltimore, Maryland was a 1950’s a-frame building. It’s pre-Vatican II look had a unity to it, a lovely altar with six tall candles sticks and smaller ones, all of which mimicked the exposed a-frame beams. Everything was simple but lovely and in good taste.
Vestments were the gothic style, even prior to the Council. These were made of silk or some other precious fabric and had the traditional ophries.
Then I went to St Mary’s Progressive Seminary in Baltimore for major theology in 1976. For the first time I saw blah vestments with no designs on them and the stole placed over the chasuble. Some priests only wore the stole with no chasuble. In small group Masses, no vestments what so ever were used.
The so-called “chalices” that were used were called “cups” and looked like terracotta planters!
I asked a seminary professor why these were used rather than beautiful accoutrements for Mass. He said Vatican II called for noble simplicity. The chasuble itself is the symbol not added symbols or artwork placed upon them. Thus these should be solid in color with cheap materials, like polyester and burlap to mimic the stark simplicity of the manger in which God was born!!!
Today, there are still those who long for the 1970’s ideology about ugly simplicity that Vatican II taught and mandated. Just like Vatican II banned Latin, ad orientem, chanting the propers, kneeling for Holy Communion and altar railings and promoted girls doing everything that boys do in a transsexual way.
One such person longing for the 1970’s and pushing it successfully in 2024 is the Archbishop of Paris who wanted the ugliest and most simple altar, ambo, cathedra and tabernacle for the restore Cathedral of Norte Dame.
This is what the National Catholic Register reports about the iconoclastic altar, ambo, and cathedra:
The resulting furnishings, including the altar, baptismal font, Tabernacle, ambo and cathedra (chair of the bishop), have been controversial. Despite this, the artist, Guillaume Bardet, has maintained that the furnishings are humble and “centered on the eternal,” following the Archbishop of Paris’s directive that these furnishings were to have “noble simplicity” and respect “the spirit of the Catholic liturgy, according to the meanings and norms established following the Second Vatican Council.”
Here are photos of the TLM I celebrated in Savannah’s Sacred Heat Church on Sunday, December 29th. Please note the beautiful chasuable I am wearing (not mine but the parish’s).
These are in random order:
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Friday, December 27, 2024
Thursday, December 26, 2024
PERHAPS WE SHOULD NOT CALL IT THE REFORM OF THE REFORM OUT OF CONCERN FOR SENSITIVE PROGRESSIVES, BUT RATHER A RETURN TO REVERENCE, SANITY, SANCTITY AND BEAUTY…
These are photos from my former parish of St. Anne Church in Richmond Hill, Georgia (Diocese of Savannah). It is their Midnight Mass celebrated at Midnight, a novel idea these days.
It is a thoroughly Modern Mass in the vernacular, yet reverence, traditional piety and sanctity exude in ritual expression. Kudos to Saint Anne Church and their pastor Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski.
Photos not in order:
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