THE RETURN OF THE PANDEMIC EXACERBATING COMMON CHALICE…

My preferred way for the laity to receive both the Host and Precious Blood and clearly a legitimate option in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal:

This is forbidden but allowed by renegade parishes or defiant communicants:

The most common way to receive from the common chalice enabling epidemics and pandemics:

As everyone knows, who reads my blog, from the beginning I have been prophetic about the possibility of the common chalice creating or exacerbating an epidemic or worldwide pandemic. What I predicted came true with Covid-19!

I predicted it! It came true! I am clairvoyant!

In some places the epidemic/pandemic exacerbating common chalice is making a return. This is happening in the south where we are also seeing an uptick of Covid-19, although much more mild than what was experienced during the pandemic exacerbated by the common chalice.  

In fact, I think I had covid-19 a couple of weeks ago while Hurricane Debby was shutting down my island. 

At St. Gregory the Great Church in Bluffton, SC, where I assist as a senior priest, the common chalice has returned to two of their many Sunday Masses.

People go. The laity who want the common chalice love it. I am not sure, though, about the poor souls who must do the ablutions if this is done properly, meaning, drinking the dregs, think about all the diseases they could be subject to while drinking the dregs and abultions. 

Apart from exacerbating a contagion, possibly leading to an epidemic or pandemic, the chaos created with so many ministers of Holy Communion coming to the altar at the time of distribution is visually disconcerting. It is the opposite of choreography. It’s a mess. 

Is the common chalice worth risking the exacerbation of an epidemic or pandemic. Is the common chalice worth the chaos at the altar during the giving of Holy Communion and chalices to hoards of Communion Ministers??????

And the poor drinkers of the ablutions! Is there a law suit looming? 

FOR MANY IN THE TODAY’S VATICAN, I THINK THEY WILL BE SURPRISED BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT AND THE GOD OF SURPRISES!

 As reported by Lifesite News: 

Amsterdam bishop says young Catholics are going back to ‘roots of the faith,’ want traditional liturgy

Young Catholics who embrace tradition “are appearing out of nowhere” in the Netherlands “going in the opposite direction” of the older, liberal generation Dutch, Bishop Johannesburg Hendricks said. “THE HOLY SPIRIT IS AT WORK!”

MYSTERIES SOLVED! WHY BISHOPS DON’T TURN THEIR BACKS ON PRIESTS AFTER PERSONNEL CHANGES AND WHY PAUL VI WANTED MASS FACING THE PEOPLE DURING VATICAN II CHANGES!

 I never knew this as reported by The Pillar!. Within this context, facing the nave makes sense:

The gutter of insanity’

On August 27, 1915 — 109 years ago today — Bishop Patrick Heffron of Winona was shot twice (presumably in the back) while he celebrated Mass, in his private chapel. 

Heffron wasn’t shot by some anti-Catholic Know-Nothing or member of the KKK. The shooter wasn’t some jilted paramour, or someone Heffron owed money to from a game of cards. And the shooting wasn’t done in odium fidei, by some anarchist, communist, or crazed Minnesota Lutheran.

No. Heffron was shot by one of his own priests: Father Louis Lesches, who was mad about his parish assignment.

IS THE DISCONTENT IN THE VATICAN WITH BOTH CLERGY AND LAITY A MICROCOSM OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH UNDER POPE FRANCIS?

 

Crux has an article about the season of discontent at the Vatican, mostly by its lay employees, that has developed since Pope Francis and his so-called reforms.

You can read the full article HERE.

The following is a paragraph I lift from the Crux article but substitute Church for the microcosm of the Vatican. My paraphrase rings true for the Universal Church too, no?

In its latest cri du cœur, issued in the form of an unsigned statement on its web site, (it is asserted) that while the (Church) is supposed to be a unique environment rooted in the dignity of the human person and shaped by Catholic social teaching, in fact the effect of reforms unleashed by Pope Francis has been to turn the (Church) into just another multinational company, only one that’s “limping” because of the shabby way it treats its (members). 

FACT OR FICTION, IT WOULD MAKE A GREAT NOVEL BETTER THAN THE DA VINCI CODE!

 

You can make this stuff up or you can report the facts but either way, make it into a novel and then a movie or a Netflix series!!!! This makes the anti Catholic Chick Publications tracts look tame and flattering to the Catholic Church!

Excommunicated archbishop, former U.S. envoy says he fears for his life

THE LIFE OF AN ITINERANT “RETIRED” PRIEST!

 On Sunday, I celebrated the 7 AM Mass at St. Gregory the Great Church in Bluffton. That Mass has no music or singing-just a spoken Mass. Then I drove to St. Anthony Mission in Hardeeville for their 8:30 AM Mass. That Mass has a cantor who strums a guitar to lead the singing. Then I went back to HII but left again to go to Savannah for the Traditional Latin Mass at 1 PM at Sacred Heart Church. That Mass is completely sung, including the priest’s parts and there is a professional Schola which is expert in Gregorian Latin Chant. I offered the 1 PM Mass for the happy repose of the soul of my brother, Johnny, who died two weeks ago of cancer. August 20th he would have been 76 years old. BTW, as an itinerant “retired” priest, I clocked 143 miles on my car on Sunday!

Saint Gregory the Great Church in Bluffton, SC:

Saint Anthony of Padua Mission, Hardeeville, SC:

Sacred Heart Church in Savannah, Georgia:

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING, CERTAINLY NOT KEEPING THE CHURCH GREAT OR GREATER AGAIN!

Chapel of The Immaculate Conception, University Of Dayton (Catholic University)

Before:

After

After, after

After, after, after

After, after, after, after

More after????

This is what  happens when liturgists, usually terrorists’ types, know it alls, get in charge of redecorating churches and renovating them. 

By 1980, I bought into this crap lock, stock and barrel. And, yes, we had to get rid of pews and their rigid seating. Flexibility, flexibility, flexibility was the ideology of the day and not just for church building but for Catholicism itself.

A former seminary classmate of mine was able to design a new church. The plan was for ultra flexibility, so that the chairs, altar, and ambo could be moved depending on the liturgy and the particular need of that assembly at that moment. And there could be different arrangements for different season of the year.

Of course, as one ages, moving furniture constantly and have a nave and sanctuary constantly in flux wears on you and drives Catholic crazy. 

I think we are back to some sanity when it comes to our churches, although pockets of the flexible 1970’s continue to rear their renovating, chaotic heads, but they too will pass, God willing! 

THIS BELONGS TO RIPPLY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

St. Francis de Sales Oratory in Sulphur, Louisiana, was sold many years ago to the city and became a courthouse. The courthouse look could also pass as a wreckovation for the NO Liturgy. Kind of funny if not so sad.

But then the ICKSP purchased the former church turned court house and restored it in a magnificent way!

Pre-Vatican II look:

Post-Vatican II courthouse look which is amazingly a Novus Ordo look too!

The ICKSP post-Vatican II restoration:

O Happy Day!!!!

WILL MEGA PARISHES AND CHURCH BUILDINGS MAKE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH GREAT AGAIN? NO!

 The parishes that are producing mega vocations to the priesthood and religious life are those that are either conservative/traditional Modern Mass (Novus Ordo) parishes or parishes associated with the the TLM, such as the FSSP and the ICTCSP. And certainly, percentage wise, the SSPX is producing more priestly candidates than any progressive NO parish. 

Parishes with significant numbers of new movement laity, such as charismatics, are also producing more vocations. 

This new mega parish in California is interesting. If it follows the organizational genius of Protestant mega churches, it could succeed but will be less Catholic. It has to be based upon dividing the parish into small groups where community can be experienced as well as Christian education and service. Those groups will have to be lay led and hopefully by laity well trained. The training, I think, is what is lacking. 

The key is to have smaller parishes where you don’t need to divide it up too much into small groups, although small groups have always been a part of Catholic parishes pre and post Vatican II. 

CBS did a good job with this special interest story:

MAKE ALTARS RECTANGULAR AGAIN! AND GREAT AGAIN!!

 Let’s pretend this altar is detached and allows for The Liturgy of the Eucharist facing the nave. What a great altar we could have again.

For some odd reason, new altars after Vatican II, not mandated by Vatican II, btw, became square or box-like and very short and insignificant looking in style and elevation. 

Of course, this implied the Eucharist was not so great as pre-Vatican II altars made the Eucharist.

We need to make altars great again and that will make the Eucharist great again in the minds of Catholics and non-Catholics.

TRYING TO MAKE THE CHURCH’S LITURGY GREAT AGAIN WILL TAKE MORE THAN THE WRINGING OF HANDS!

The bishops of a country are wringing their hands and write a letter to correct liturgical abuses. It could be any country, some with different liturgical abuses. But it is so common today and so few are wringing their hands because so few care:

Here’s a list that wringing hands are calling out in order to make the liturgy great again! Good luck with that!

• Deviations from prescribed prayers and rubrics of the Mass, including the Eucharistic Prayer.

  
  

• Irreverent handling of the Eucharist.

  
  

• Priests walking down the aisle while carrying the monstrance during exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and blessing people, “using gestures akin to sprinkling of holy water.”

  
  

• “Inappropriate music,” including secular songs.

  
  

• “Indecorous dance,” including during Eucharistic exposition.

  
  

• Commercializing the liturgy by “taking up too many collections and fundraising right in the middle of liturgical celebrations.” 

  
  

• Using the pulpit “to pursue personal interests.”

  
  

• Incorporating local customs inconsistent with the Catholic faith under the pretext of inculturation. 

  
  

• Failure to wear proper vestments. 

  
  

• Lack of adequate preparation for liturgical celebrations.

  
  

• The “invention of rites,” including the ceremony of child dedication where a youngster is sometimes placed on the altar.

  
  

• The blessing of items not approved by the Church as sacramentals.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE.

TO HECK WITH MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, LET'S MAKE THE CHURCH GREAT AGAIN!

 PLEASE NOTE THAT BLOGGER HAS UPDATED HOW TO POST COMMENTS. YOU CAN NOW COMMENT DIRECTLY UNDER A COMMENT RESPONDING TO THAT COMMENT. I JUST DISCOVERED THAT! HOW COOL IS THAT!

 

Someone has said that the Church's role is not to make America great again, but for the Church to be counter-cultural and thus great again.

I happen agree with that because Jesus was counter cultural, only confirming that which was good and holy in culture but calling out that which was sinful and corrupt. 

For the Church to be great again, her Magisterium will need to reform its dance with politics and using political ideologies to appease the world, thinking this will draw people to the Church as a form of evangelization.

Thus the current pope's current way of promoting care for the earth and stopping climate change falls very short of Jesus' counter cultural message. The demise of human beings and all that is created due to original sin, is in the DNA of each of us and the created world. To forget that the Church's mission is to save the world and its human inhabitants from its final destruction by thinking the Church can help politicians stop climate change is pure nonsense, especially as there is no real consensus in science as to why climate is changing other than to say it always has changed since the Fall of Man!

Another area of worldliness with the current papal magisterium is buying into the sexual immorality that has emerged as an ideology since the 1960's. It is on steroids now fueled by easy to get pornography, and what the LGBTQ+++ movement is shoving down the throats of America through the most authoritarian way possible. It is also fueled by the big-bucks media sources.  We hear nothing from the current magisterium about chastity depending on one's state in life and leading those in aberrant sexual immorality to Christ and His counter-cultural message which hinges on chastity and fidelity to God. It hinges on repentance and choosing a new way of life by God's grace.

The Church must also, in the most honest way possible, critique Vatican II and what its implementation has done to the Church, her clear teachings, her liturgy, spirituality and devotional life. This honest assessment must look at what has happened to religious life in the last 50 years that has led to its decline and the many, many apostolates that religious once led, especially Catholic hospitals and educational apostolates. 

Recently, the last Catholic hospital in Alabama was sold to a secular institution. The decline of religious who once staffed these hospitals and gave them a Catholic identity has led to the disappearance of so many of the institutions they spearheaded. 

The Catholic liturgy is in far more disarray and poorly celebrated than it ever was prior to Vatican II. What has the complete dismantling of the old system of how the Liturgy was celebrated to something that is now a free-for-all led to the loss of the counter-cultural mission of the Church and her unique Catholic identity found in the liturgy.

The post-Vatican II Church is not inspiring young men in large numbers to consider priesthood as a manly lifetime vocations demanding a rigorous spirituality and morality to pursue. 

Just some thoughts on how to make the Church great again!

WHERE PETER IS BLOG BURNOUT

 

Michael Lewis of the “Were Peter is” blog, seems to be experiencing blog-burn out. He calls it writer’s cramp, but blogs can be very fun for the author if for the author the blog is a fun hobby that he can live or live without. He wants someone else to take it over. 

My most humble blog, in my mind, has always been just that, in my mind. Otherwise it boggles my mind that some weeks I have thousands of hits on certain posts. I think it is all make-believe and a return to my make-believe childhood. 

My advise to Michael Lewis is not to take blogs and hits too seriously. Just have fun. Be happy, not sad. 

Catholicism is not lived on blogs and comments made on blogs.

It is just a distraction, a diversion and it can be fun.

Catholicism is lived at home, in parishes and in the public square. 

The great saints witness to us the genius of a great Catholic identity, a life lived in faith, hope and charity. 

Catholicism is not completely based on doctrines, morals or liturgy, but on the Divine Person of Jesus Christ, which doctrines, morals and liturgies put Flesh upon. 

In Christ do we find our true identity and our eternal salvation. It cannot be found any other legitimate way. 

So to Mike Lewis and “Where Peter Is” blog, it’s not the pope or doctrine or morals we worship, but the Triune God. Yes, our identity is not a fierce individualism or just a God and me ideology, but Jesus the Head of the Church with His Body which is the fully initiated People of God. 

But Catholicism isn’t magic. It demands our participation by God’s grace to accomplish all that God makes possible for us. 

DOES GOD WANT HIS MALE LEADERS TO BE MEN OR WOMEN, MASCULINE OR FEMINIE?

 I have written this before, but Pope Francis wants to feminize the Church. By that I don’t mean what most Catholics think when we think about the Church. We refer to her as she and Holy Mother. The reason for this is that the Church receives from God the living grace necessary to generate and maintain eternal life, especially for those conceived and born again through Holy Baptism. 

But it appears for Pope Francis, that he wants leadership in the Church, meaning males in Holy Orders, to be more feminine in their pastoral approach. Thus, like a mother, bishops and priests should nurure, cajole and cuddle Holy Mother Church’s errant children.

This is stereotypical of course, because not all mothers are enablers of their children’s bad behavior and some, like fathers do, kick their ridiculously errant children out of the home and tell them to sink or swim.

And certainly Pope Francis knows that Italian mothers can be notoriously harsh with their children, yelling at them, throwing things at them and slamming doors, kitchen cabinets and cooking pans and pots. 

Thus, we see Pope Francis’ ethos as it concerns those who are really miscreants. He coddles them, does not call them out and encourages ministries that enables their immoral, miscreant behavior. Pope Francis even writes hand-written love notes to various ideological ministries of a certain left-leaning Jesuit preist and his enabling ministry. 

John Allen has an interesting piece in Crux this morning about Francis come lately’s semi-condemnation of the sacrilege and blasphemy surrounding the Last Supper in the opening ceremony of the Olympics. 

Until last night, as I write this, Pope Francis has said nothing personally about it. I am surprised he didn’t write a hand-written note to the actors thanking them for sharing their talents on a world stage. 

But on Saturday night, August 3, the Vatican released its own statement. Why? Because Turkey’s leader, I presume a Muslim, asked Pope Francis to do so. You got that right. Turkey’s muslim president, was put out that Pope Francis has been silent in order to appease the LGBTQ++++ ideology of the world and a Muslim secular leader called the Holy Father out on it. He was justly outraged as so many other religious figures, Christian or not, had spoken out! The Turkish President wanted the pope to do his job!

I guess the Turkish president told Pope Francis to man-up and stop acting like a woman. But that too would be stereotypical too, no?

But yes, let’s have some masculinity in the Catholic hierarchy and lets begin at the top. 

READ JOHN ALLEN’S ARTICLE HERE.

THIS IS THE ACHILLES TENDEN OF THE HORIZONTAL, SYNODAL CHURCH—GOD AND SALVATION IS LACKING…

There is a lot of pearl clutching about the blasphemous portrayal of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper at the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics. 

Two questions that I have, revolve around why France and the Olympic Committee thought it was a good idea to promote LGBTQFP+++ people and inclusivity by mocking, denigrating and marginalizing Christians throughout the world by blaspheming the Last Supper and by way of that the Lord and The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. 

There should be an independent investigation in France by secular and religious figures to get to the bottom of it and then issue the appropriate apologies. Was this an international “hate crime?”

But that is the secular side to this horrendous debacle.

The point of this post is the horizontal, synodal Church’s weakness to address in a missionary and evangelistic way the horror the Church experiences when people turn away from God and the Kingdom of Heaven and turn toward the devil and his eternal damnation. 

I have not heard a word of sympathy for the loss of salivation for those “actors” who were willing fools for France’s government and the Olympic Committee’s evil ideology about inclusivity by hating and mocking religion. 

Should we not have pity on those who choose the devil and eternal damnation. In love, should we not call them to repentance after reminding them what their mortal sins of blasphemy of the Last Supper will so to them and their immortal souls?

Have you heard a word of sympathy and concern about these people’s loss of salvation and the Church being a hospital for them to be cured of their mortal sins and thus loss of heaven?

Crickets?