This… this…. this… but this….

Posted on 5 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

This….

And this…

And this…

But this…

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ROME 26/10– Day 05: Feeling better

Posted on 5 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At 07:09 this morning your local yellow star managed once again to haul itself above the eastern horizon of the Eternal City, illuminating domes, bell towers, roof terraces and an impressive number of people irritated in traffic in the great ring road car cloaca.

At 18:47 it will withdraw behind the Gianicolo, but not before gilding the buildings and warming the heart.

The Ave Maria Bell is in its 1900 cycle on the curial calendar, though at The Parish™ it rings at 1917, 30 minutes after sunset.  Another Roman day will have slipped into evening and Roman nightlife.

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.  

And…

And…

White to move and mate in 4.

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

It was nice to use my vestment for Mass this morning.

Since it is October, there will be many flowers at Mary’s altar at The Parish™.  They are prepared by the great Pippo at the Campo de’ Fiori.

The photo does not do justice to the new lighting system.

Sunlight does do justice to the window full of stuff.

At my usual veggie stand.

I stopped at Pippo for my usual alstroemeria.

Before that I went to get some Pane di Lariano at Roscioli.

Mozzarella from Ruggieri, tomato and basil from stand, bread from Roscioli … lunch.

 

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Personnel is policy

Posted on 5 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From infovaticana:

Cupich, McElroy, Tobin, Cobo, Hollerich, Fernández: Leo XIV chooses his own for the meeting on Amoris laetitia

The list of personal guests invited by the Pope to the meeting from October 7 to 14, published this Friday by the Press Office along with the program of proceedings, brings together the most prominent names from the progressive wing of the Church and excludes all critics of Francis’s exhortation.

In four days, cardinals and bishops from around the world will sit down with Leo XIV at the Vatican to discuss the family in light of Amoris laetitia. The official convocation speaks of “synodal discernment” and “mutual listening,” but the roster of guests the Pope has added in his own hand to the ex-officio participants says something more precise. Cupich, McElroy, Tobin, Cobo, Hollerich, Fernández, Tagle, David: all the names that set the agenda of the previous pontificate on the matrimonial question are there. None of those who questioned it have been summoned.

[…]

A variant of personnel is policy.

Posted in TEOTWAWKI, The Coming Storm, What are they REALLY saying? | Tagged
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ROME 26/10– Day 04: Less rocky now

Posted on 4 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

After the dark the dawn broke at 7:08 in Rome. The sunset at 18:49. The Ave Maria is in the 1900 cycle for the Roman Curia, though in another reckoning it is 30 minutes after sunset. It rings that way at The Parish™.

This Sunday, the 19th after Pentecost, was the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi… 800 years after his death. He is Patron of Italy, so his Feast bumped the Sunday. Today was also the Supplica to Our Lady of Pompeii.

There are 89 days left in the year.

Welcome Registrant:

Pompeii

Please remember me when shopping online at Amazon. Thanks in advance. US HERE – UK HERE

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Please remember me when shopping online and use my affiliate links.  US HERE – UK HERE  WHY?  This helps to pay for health insurance (massively hiked for this new year of surprises), utilities, groceries, etc..  I’m also carrying my late-mother’s house, etc.  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

A Big Thing happened back when.

I was out with an American priest and seminarian tonight.   A funny thing happened.  We were talking about an age in the Church when people acted instead of endlessly talk about maybe doing something.  He remarked that his seminary prof said that what we need is “less talk and more processions”.

Yes, indeed!

Euripides, fragment 610 (tr. Christopher Collard and Martin Cropp):

Get lost! You can do nothing—you can only talk.

φθείρου· τὸ γὰρ δρᾶν οὐκ ἔχων λόγους ἔχεις.

From Mass this morning.  Fathers… this is the Roman way of putting on the stole before putting on the chasuble.  For Mass, stoles lie on the shoulders, they don’t hang on the neck.

So many choices for supper.

Yum.

From 1st Communions today.

During the Supplica, people are to recite the Salve Regina.  It is one thing to hear a congregation sing the Salve Regina.  It is another thing to hear them recite it in Latin.  The whole congregation.  Not as as dramatic, but in the way more impressive.

Remember… Latin is toooooo haaaaard.

And this was a congregation that looked like the United Nations mixed with elementary schools and universities and well dressed sports teams on the road.  All praying the LATIN as if it were the most normal thing.

If the Whatever High Atop The Thing wants “unity”, this is where it is found in Rome.

Posted in Our Catholic Identity, SESSIUNCULA |
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4 October 2019: demon idol venerated in the Vatican Gardens

Posted on 4 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Seven years ago today, a demon idol was venerated by Francis and others in the Vatican Gardens.  It was the beginning of the amazonian walking together meeting.

At the close of the walking together… stopping together?… Francis directed that a bowl associated with the demon cult be placed on the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica over the bones of the Apostle.

Let that sink in.

A Vatican official recently “fed” the demon idol in a ritual in S. America.

How have things been going for the last 7 years?

Also, I wonder about that damned bowl… WHERE IS IT NOW?   Who has it?  Was it kept in Rome at St. Peter’s?  Did it go back to some place in South America?

Objects that are cursed, that are used in demonic rites, etc., maintain their influence long after the fact.

These objects, to be overthrown, should be broken, burned and the ashes or fragments put into running water, such as a river.  This is the advice of exorcists.

This is real stuff, friends.   This isn’t a game.

I call on readers to perform some act of penance in reparation for these blasphemies.  Please also recite an Act of Faith.

O my God, I firmly believe that Thou art one God in three divine persons, Father, Son and Holy Ghost; I believe that Thy divine Son became man and died for our sins, and that He shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe these and all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because Thou hast revealed them, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived. Amen.

 

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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 19th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 27th Ordinary)

Posted on 4 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My Sunday Mass intention today is for my benefactors, those of you who donate regularly, ad hoc, or send things.

Too many people today are without good, strong preaching, to the detriment of all. Share the good stuff.

Was there a GOOD point made in the sermon you heard at your Mass of obligation for this 19th Sunday after Pentecost in the Vetus Ordo (27th Ordinary Sunday in the Novus Ordo)?

In Italy today, we celebrate Italy’s Patron, St. Francis of Assisi.

Tell us about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.   Where I was, at The Parish™, it was completely jammed.  There were 1st Communions and also the Supplica to Our Lady of Pompeii.  Lots of church today.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

A taste of what I offered at 1 Peter 5 this week.

[…]

One might at this point spill several thousand words about the magnificent prayers to be recited by bishops, priests, deacons and subdeacons while putting on their liturgical vestments, and, even before that, washing one’s hands and, even before that, donning the cassock.  They are a fathomless resource for priestly identity.  I am often driven to ponder, with sorrow and anger and yearning what the knock on effect would have been in the Church over these last decades were all or at least most priests and bishops saying their vesting prayers.  Would there be so much disfunction in the Church were a bishop reminded every time he put on his ring praying: “Adorn with virtue, Lord, the fingers of my body and of my heart, and place upon them the sanctification of the sevenfold Spirit.” Praying every time he put on a miter, “Place upon my head, Lord, the mitre and helmet of salvation; that I may go forth unhindered against the snares of the ancient foe, and of all my enemies.”

[…]

 

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From “The Private Diary of Bishop F. Atticus McButterpants” – 26-09-29 – Chester pontificates

Posted on 3 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

September 29th, 2026

Dear Diary,

Cathedral Mass today. Disaster… named Chester.  Fr. Gilbert brought him to the SnT rectory because Mrs. K was away. He said Chester has separation anxiety. HAH! After all this time he doesn’t get it. Chester doesn’t get anxious. Chester makes anxious.

Mass was going okay. The choir wasn’t awful and Deacon Awful Carl was safely in a pew where he couldn’t touch anything. During the offertory procession something brushed against my leg. Chester. In the sanctuary. Gilbert saw him and started fake whispering, “Treat!”.   I ignored him.  Chester not Gilbert. Chester just lied down on the marble floor and rolled around for a while so we thought it might be ok.  Maybe people would think it was some St Francis thing and would like the bit with the dog. When E2 Prayer started Chester spotted my zucchetto on the table. I’ve never seen the damn mut move so fast.  He grabbed it, ran with his bizzare limp around the altar dodging servers and headed straight down the center aisle. People laughed. Some clapped and cheered. Letter writers probably. Msgr. Tommy had his hand over his face and his shoulders were shaking. Little traitor claims he was coughing. Razzo yelled from the front pew, “Hey Bishop! He wants ya job!” More clapping.  After the VG said the coms gal wouldn’t cut the live feed and actually said … to the VG… “HELL NO! The views are going up!”

Chester wasn’t finished. Gotta be possessed.  Gotta check on that maybe with… Jude?  Not Dozer.  Chester came back into the sanctuary, jumped into MY chair and sat on my zucchetto. When I went over to get him, the deformed little shit growled at me. In MY cathedral, little bastard. I am getting ready for a special trip to the vet. Gilbert finally lured Chester down with three unconsecrated wafers like Communion.  Tommy was watching so … well… no.  He was perfectly docile at that point.  He scratched himself and did that loud licking thing he does. My beenie was full of dog spit and had holes in it so I didn’t put it on again.  At the end of Mass I tried to lighten things up with a dog joke “Scripture says, like the dog returns to his vomit, Chester returned my chair rich is symbalism …”.  Silence.  People just stared.  I wanted to die.

Worse. Today the comms girl showed me the pictures circulating online: Chester on MY CHAIR looking serious – NEW BISHOP OF LIBVILLE. Another one said: AT LAST.  Someone offered to buy Chester a pectoral cross. A joker ha ha asked about his first pastoral letter.

But the diocesan donation page received 14 thousand dollars.  A win!  M Tommy said, dammit,  “They haven’t responded this well to … you… well….”  Little ingrate. Mrs. Kennedy came in and ran out laughing.  Sr Randi… ugh. I am surrounded by traitors.

Chesters asleep under my dining room table.  All I have is frozen pizza in the thing and I don’t want to go out in public.  I’ll have Fr G order something with Doorstop.   I have to look into vet appointments.

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ROME 26/10– Day 03: Still rocky

Posted on 3 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Since today is the Transitus of St. Francis and tomorrow is his feast day (he is co-patron here, so Sunday Mass will be in white), here is an image from an altar painting at The Parish™, which features St. Augustine and St. Francis, because two brothers, Agostino and Francesco, paid to decorate it. Makes sense. There’s a lot more to be said, and I will probably make a couple of videos about the side chapels… with NEW ILLUMINATION!!!… for Roman Donors.

Welcome Registrants:

40MartyrsSebaste
sparticus

And…

Heading home from Mass with a stop at the grocer.  The blue light is a little spooky.

What’s for supper?  A cheeseburger.  I’m in Rome, but I wanted a cheeseburger.  So there.

Great beef.  As my late-mother liked, strong mustard and a slice of raw onion, bun buttered and grilled.  Alas, these pickles can’t hold a candle to the robust stuff of the new world.  Arrogant, effete cornichons.

I’m still not great.  Today, with DO’R, we worked on getting special characters, especially Greek and Latin with accents, etc., to post.

I’ll be getting out and around soon, I hope.

Meanwhile… YOU GO GIRLS!

We need a lot more of this.

I had an image of a couple dozen priests in a diocese on a given Sunday celebrating either the TLM or NO ad orientem with kneelers out if there is no rail.

White… 4.

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

Posted in Be The Maquis, SESSIUNCULA, Si vis pacem para bellum!, The future and our choices, Women Religious |
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INDULGENCE 1st Sunday of October – Supplication to O.L. of Pompeii

Posted on 3 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

For more about this powerful devotion, go HERE.

You might pray this Supplication today especially asking Our Lady to prevent as much as possible the potential damage to our Catholic identity that surely could result from “synodality” (aka “walking together”).  No joke.

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Blog Update – Technical Stuff

Posted on 3 October 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Recently there has been some work on the technical aspect of the blog.

Among the fixes is one that has been a plague for years concerning special characters.  Once placed in a “draft” they look fine until posted and then they all turn to ?????.  I think this is rectified, Deo gratias.

Also, my tech wizard said:

Father, an update on the website.

Old pictures restored: when the blog moved servers earlier this year, the pictures from the old pre-WordPress folders …didn’t come across. That’s why so many older posts showed broken images. I recovered about 5,000 of those pictures and documents from the Internet Archive and put them back on the site.

What’s fixed:

About 10,000 broken images in roughly 5,800 posts now display again, mostly posts from 2006 to 2015, with some later ones.
Old PDFs and documents from those folders work again.
Old image addresses that other sites or Google still link to now lead to the right picture.

Wow!

Also lots of work on DB indices which should speed things up.

He is working on the podcast issue as well.

Many thanks to DO’R and DY!   Super indispensable help!

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