YOUR URGENT PRAYER REQUESTS

Posted on 31 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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In your charity would you please take a moment look at the requests and to pray for the people about whom you read?

Continued from THESE.

Let’s remember all who are ill, who will die soon, who have died recently, who have lost their jobs, who are afraid.

I get many requests by email asking for prayers. Some are heart-achingly grave and urgent.

As long as my blog reaches so many readers in so many places, let’s give each other a hand. We should support each other in works of mercy.

If you have prayer requests, post them below.

You have to be registered here and approved to be able to post.

I received this request:

Hello, Fr. Z-
I wrote to you in June, asking for prayers for my unborn baby. Since then, the baby has shown many signs of improvement. Now, I am asking for your prayers that the doctors will find some healthy lung tissue so that they can take steps to preserve his or her life after birth. We have been praying through the intercession of St. Jude, St. Pio, St. Bernardine of Siena, St. John Paul, and Our Lady Undoer of Knots. We would appreciate your prayers immensely. Thank you!

 

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A Tale of Two Cardinals: unity in diversity v. unity in uniformity

Posted on 3 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

On 2 August Ad Vaticanum published the remarks of Card. Sarah about the Traditional Latin Liturgy of the Roman, Latin Church.  Read it there, but here’s a summary of the piece with my added emphases and comments (aka “zisking”).

Essentially, Card. Sarah describes the Church’s present crisis as one of doctrinal confusion, weakened preaching, liturgical disorder, and inadequate formation. [In short, everything fundamental for a sound Catholic identity.] Renewal, he argues, must begin with prayer, silence, reverence, and faithful transmission of the Gospel rather than accommodation to secular culture. [Notable absence: synodality (aka “walking together”)]

His strongest criticism concerns the conflict between Catholics attached to the older Roman rite and defenders of the reformed liturgy. He calls this division “a true and proper sin” because the liturgy should be the “source of the Church’s communion,” not an ideological weapon. Catholics must not treat one another as enemies over ritual forms.  [When someone is kicking you in the gut while you are down, it is hard to view them as your ally.]

Sarah insists that “no one has authority over the rites” as though they were personal or bureaucratic property. “The liturgy belongs to God.” Priests, bishops, and cardinals receive the Church’s worship; they do not own it. An inherited rite cannot simply be treated as nonexistent by administrative decree.

He therefore favors Benedict XVI’s “balanced, pastoral and theologically well-founded” approach, permitting the older and newer forms to coexist peacefully within the Church. Such coexistence would allow each to enrich the other and would give the faithful access to the silence, depth, and continuity they seek.  [That doesn’t sound like synodality to me.  Allow for personal choices?!?]

Sarah also acknowledges excesses among traditionalists, while noting that many reactions arise from abuses in celebrations of the newer rite. The faithful have a right to the Church’s liturgy, not to ceremonies reshaped according to a celebrant’s “caprice.”  [One which side of things does THAT usually occur?]

The broader remedy is “formation, and again formation” for bishops, priests, and laity. True unity will come through doctrinal fidelity, reverent worship, correction of abuses, and an end to coercive liturgical factionalism.  [Again we return to the concept of Catholic identity.  If you don’t know your faith, your liturgical rites by which you fulfill the virtue of Religion, you don’t have a sound Catholic identity.]

On the other hand, also at Ad Vaticanum, The Windy Cardinal, had his own divergent views on the TLM, etc.  (Really, about the people who want the TLM, I think.)

Card. Cupich argues that disputes over the Traditional Latin Mass and other ecclesial controversies weaken the Church’s credibility in addressing war, environmental problems, and global concerns. Internal forces that “tear apart unity,” [There’s the current all-important shiboleth] he says, diminish the authority of the Church’s witness. Outsiders may reasonably question why they should heed an institution marked by “discord and division” within its own household.  [Of course we were being marginalized in the public square before because our identity is so eroded, Catholics today are so unaware of the Faith that they have no way to articulate it in the public square.  It is NOT the liturgical issues.   Cupich, for example, considers Sen Durbin someone deserving an award.]

Cupich links this appeal for unity with synodality. Resistance to synodal processes, he suggests, often reflects fear that engagement with contemporary questions will sever the Church from tradition. Catholics should trust that “the Spirit of Christ is at work” and that the sensus fidelium enables the faithful to address new problems without abandoning the faith. Synodality promotes “shared responsibility” through greater lay participation in evangelization, catechesis, pastoral planning, and consultation.  [The problem with that flimsy appeal to the sensus fidelium is that you have to be a member of the FIDELES to have it!   And that is NOT the current situation.  See my remarks above.  But wait… “walking together” will be the remedy for unity.]

He identifies three priorities for the coming decade: continuing the renewal begun by the Second Vatican Council, maintaining environmental advocacy, and promoting peace. [Notable absence?  How about salvation of souls?  We can consider the Church’s messaging ad intra and ad extra, for within the Church to her members and outward to the world  But both of those have to be rooted in the Great Commission, which was not for environmental advocacy or “world peace”, but salvation in Jesus Christ mediated through the one, holy and apostolic Catholic Church which He founded and which, batterd and buffeted from without and from within, perdures today.] He also warns that just-war doctrine, originally intended to restrain conflict, can be misused as “a licence to act.” [I suspect that those who say that JWT has to be revisited today could not, if pressed, articulate what it is.]

The article argues, however, that Cupich’s own governance conflicts with his condemnation of division. His implementation of Traditionis custodes prohibited the older Mass on first Sundays and major feasts and imposed conditions concerning the postconciliar liturgy. The Institute of Christ the King consequently suspended public Masses and confessions at its Chicago shrine rather than accept those conditions. The article maintains that such restrictions increased alienation and may have driven some Catholics toward the Society of St Pius X.

It also cites Cupich’s proposed award to Senator Dick Durbin, despite Durbin’s support for legal abortion and Bishop Thomas Paprocki’s prohibition against his receiving Holy Communion. Durbin declined the award after episcopal protests. The article concludes that Cupich applies his concern for unity selectively, condemning conflict over the Latin Mass while pursuing policies that themselves generate serious ecclesial division.

So, in summary:

Sarah and Cupich both think that conflict over the Traditional Latin Mass harms ecclesial unity, but they propose very different remedies.

Sarah approaches the problem through reconciliation and liturgical continuity. He regards hostility between supporters of the older and newer forms as “a true and proper sin” because the liturgy should create communion. Since “the liturgy belongs to God,” no ecclesiastical authority should treat an inherited rite as disposable property. His solution is peaceful coexistence. Unity is achieved by protecting legitimate diversity within a common faith and hierarchy.

Cupich approaches the issue principally through institutional discipline and conformity to authority dressed in the guise the reforms following the Council. He argues that internal “discord and division” weaken the Church’s public credibility and distract from wider over arching priorities such as synodality, peace, and environmental responsibility. His response is therefore regulatory: the imposition of will. The older rite is restricted in order to force a single liturgical direction and prevent it from becoming a focal point of resistance to the all-important Second Vatican Council.

Sarah calls for differences within unity. Cupich would impose uniformity as a means of securing unity.

 

Posted in Liturgy Science Theatre 3000, Our Catholic Identity, Save The Liturgy - Save The World, The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged ,
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Daily Rome Shot 1673: I have bad news, worse news and okay news.

Posted on 3 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

HELP! 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 to you, you provide help for which I am grateful.  

First,…

And… something entirely risible that will make certain Jesuits and bishops tingle all over…

The Pontifical Biblical Commission of the Vatican declared, following a “thorough biblical study” commissioned by then-Pope Francis, that it has finally concluded that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah—for which the two cities were exterminated and struck down—was not due to acts of homosexual depravity (Sodomia) by their inhabitants, but rather the “rejection of the immigrant.” To this level of aberration the Vatican has arrived!

Somewhat better….

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.

 

3:16 isn’t just in John.

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Your Sunday Sermon Notes – 10th Sunday after Pentecost (N.O.: 18th Ordinary)

Posted on 2 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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 10th Sunday after Pentecost in the Vetus Ordo (18th Ordinary Sunday in the Novus Ordo)?

Tell us about attendance especially for the Traditional Latin Mass.

Any local changes or (hopefully good) news?

A taste of what I offered at 1 Peter 5 this week.  I wrote about the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost but related it to the great feasts nearby.

[…]

The Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican exposes the same issue within prayer. Two men enter the Temple, and the expectation of the hearers is reversed. The Pharisee possesses the recognizable marks of religious seriousness. He fasts twice a week, pays tithes, and avoids extortion, injustice, and adultery. These acts are good. Christ does not condemn fasting, tithing, moral discipline, or public worship. The catastrophe lies in the direction of his prayer. Saint Luke writes that he stood and prayed ???? ??????, “toward himself” (Luke 18:11). The Vulgate says apud se, “with himself.” His words travel in a closed circle. They begin with God’s name, pass through his achievements, name the Publican as an object of contempt, and return as praise offered to the speaker.

Here Saint Paul’s warning about idolatry enters the Temple. An idol need not be carved from wood or cast in bronze. The self can become an image before which the heart burns incense. The Pharisee does not deny God verbally. He renders God functionally unnecessary. Grace has no work to perform, mercy has no abyss to cross, and the Holy Ghost has no gift to bestow. His thanksgiving is grammatically addressed to God, while its spiritual object is himself. He has changed the Temple into a hall of mirrors. His prayer is a confession of self-sufficiency, and self-sufficiency is practical idolatry.

[…]

 

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My View For Awhile: first Pete and now repeat – surreally updated and now terminated

Posted on 1 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

3 August UPDATED:

See below for the final episode.

Originally Published on: Aug 1, 2026

Theoretically I’m heading to Chicago, but there are lightning storms keeping us on the ground… in the plane … at the gate … with minimal AC.

Fúlgura coruscatiónem, et dissipábis eos: * emítte sagíttas tuas, et conturbábis eos.

This time I built almost four hours into my connection.

I better stop writing.

Grrrrr.

UPDATE

Four hours later, we get to take off.  There was bad weather, and it was genuinely bad.  However, as it passed, we were stuck on the plane for a long time because the union workers would not bring the jet bridge because of possible lightning.

There we sat, warm and uncertain.

UPDATE

They got the jet bridge to us and many deplaned.  There was total chaos.  I asked if we could then reboard and was told yes.   I zipped into the club across from the gate for a cup of soup, or something, not much there, and I heard my name.  Out I went as they were about to close the door!   I did make it with some reasoning.

And there we sat for another 30 minutes, because the weight was different.

UPDATE

Coming into Atlanta we had TWO… TWO… missed landings.   The first was a hard bounce and then acceleration and climb.  They got us into the pattern again eventually and again, with no touch down, zoom again because there was an aircraft on the runway!

I called this “first Pete and now repeat”.   Nomen omen?

UPDATE

I have no idea where my bag is.  They told us who were rebooked that we had to pick up our bags at the carrousel.  However, nothing.  I have tried to track it.  It only shows that it was checked in for the Chicago flight I missed.   So, “See you in  St. Louis!”

UPDATE:

As we sitting and twiddling, I called an agent and rebooked for tomorrow at zero dark.   As we were taxiing to take off, I found and booked a hotel by the airport.   Never stay at the Radisson Airport Hotel Atlanta.   I’ve been to good Radissons.

I’m tired.  My foot hurts.  I’m hungry.

This is the second time I’ve done this Atlanta thing in a month.

UPDATE:

One nice thing happened.  When I was waiting in vain for my bag, I helped an older couple get their stuff off the carrousel.  Later, waiting and sweltering for the Raddison shuttle, the same couple told the waiting driver of another hotel’s shuttle that I had helped them.   As the driver of that shuttle was to depart he said, “C’mon, I’ll stop at the Raddison too.   That saved me probably at least 20 minutes of waiting if not a half hour in the heat, humidity and fumes.  Generous tip followed.

UPDATE:

I remembered that I have an emergency beef jerky pouch in my back pack sent by one of you kind readers a while back.  I stuff one into my pack after the last trip like this.  A special prayer for that kind benefactor and a sincere “gratias Tibi libenter persolvo!”

 

FINAL UPDATE 3 Aug

I got to the airport after about 3 hours of sleep. Using the usual fast security line, at Clear I was told by a teenager that I had to go through the ordinary, general checkpoint. That couldn’t happen. I spotted a supervisor and make my case. She explained that because I rebooked, the boarding pass on my phone had a QR code that had “yesterday’s data” and so I wouldn’t be accepted. (Because I didn’t have my bag, because it was held by Delta, I had gone straight to security.) Anyway, I made a case and the supervisor took me over to the TSA agent, who was not at the moment engaged. I made my case there. She checked they flight manifest and let me through. WHEW.

So THAT is a lesson. If you get rebooked to the next day, GO TO THE COUNTER even if you do NOT have a bag and get a new printed boarding pass. Once beyond security, that’s what I did so I wouldn’t have a problem getting on the plane.

That said, my app wasn’t updating with any bag information. From my seat on the plane I called the concierge line and the nice agent searched and found an update: my bag was on MY PLANE and I would pick it up when we landed. So that well.

Thus, we concluded the anabasis.

All in all, it was dreadful, but there were a few bright human moments along the way.

Posted in On the road, SESSIUNCULA |
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WDTPRS – 10th Sunday after Pentecost (Vetus Ordo): Mercy and Justice are not opposed

Posted on 1 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
Symbols of Mercy and Justice on the emblem of the Spanish Inquisition

Symbols of Mercy and Justice on the emblem of the Spanish Inquisition

The Collect for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost in the Extraordinary Form survived, sort of survived, to live in the post-Conciliar, reformed Missale Romanum!  You can find it, somewhat wounded, for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Ordinary Form Missale Romanum.  I’ll show you the variation, below.

For now, let’s see the Collect as it appears in the 1962 edition.

COLLECT (1962MR)

Deus, qui omnipotentiam tuam parcendo maxime et miserando manifestas: multiplica super nos misericordiam tuam; ut, ad tua promissa currentes, caelestium bonorum facias esse consortes.

In the Novus Ordo version the line “…multiplica super nos misericordiam tuam…” was replaced with “…gratiam tuam super nos indesinenter infunde”.  We will return to see what impact that has on the prayer.

I also looked this prayer up in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary and found that the version is as it appears in the 1962MR, in not the Novus Ordo.  Sometimes the cutter-snippers of the Consilium restored older readings of ancient prayers that had survived with some changes in the pre-Conciliar Missal.  Not this time.

Let’s now look at some nuts and bolts: vocabulary.

Parco means, “to spare, have mercy, forbear to injure” and by extension, “forgive.”   This verb is used quite frequently in liturgical prayer as, for example, in the responses during the beautiful litanies we sing as Catholics, especially in time of need: “Parce nobis, Domine… Spare us, O Lord!”  During Lent the hauntingly poignant Latin chant informs our penitential spirit: “Parce, Domine… O Lord, spare your people: do not be wrathful with us forever.”

The noun consors comes from the fusion of the preposition for “with” and sors (“lot”), in the sense of a chance or ticket when “casting lots”, destiny, fate).   A consors is someone with whom you share a common destiny.  The densely arranged Lewis & Short Dictionary reveals that consors is “sharing property with one (as brother, sister, relative), living in community of goods, partaking of in common.”  The English word “lot” can be both “fate” and a “parcel of land.”  Having been made in God’s image and likeness, we are to act as God acts: to know, will and love.  Since God spares us and is merciful, then we must be similarly merciful and sparing if we want to be sharers and coheirs in the lot He has prepared for us.

Multiplico, as you might readily guess, means “to multiply, increase, augment”.

Just for kicks, let’s see the obsolete ICEL version we were forced to use for so many dry and uninspiring years.  Remember that a line was changed in the Latin of the Novus Ordo version, as I explained above.

OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

Father, you show your almighty power, in your mercy and forgiveness. Continue to fill us with your gifts of love. Help us to hurry toward the eternal life you promise and come to share in the joys of your kingdom.

LITERAL TRANSLATION (1962MR)

O God, who manifest Your omnipotence especially by sparing and being merciful, increase Your mercy upon us, [pour Your grace upon us unceasingly, – 2002MR] so that You may make those who are rushing to the things You have promised to be partakers of heavenly benefits.

That “ut, ad tua promissa currentes, caelestium bonorum facias esse consortes” means “so that You may make us, (who are) rushing to the things You have promised, to be partakers of heavenly benefits.”  There is a nos in the first part, if not the second.

One of the ways God manifests His almighty nature is by being forgiving and sparing.

God is the creator and ruler, guide and governor of all that is seen and unseen, who keeps everything in existence by an act of His will, and reveals His omnipotence especially (maxime in our Collect) by means of mercy.

By violating God’s will our first parents (the entire human race – which consisted of only two people at the time) opened up an infinite gulf between us and God.  Since the gulf was immeasurable, only an omnipotent God could bridge that gap and repair it.  God did not repair the breach because of justice.  He did so because He loves us and is merciful.

People often slip into the trap of associating justice with manifestations of power.  In this Collect, however, we affirm the other side of power’s coin.  The miracles worked by Jesus in the Gospels, loving gestures to suffering individuals, were acts of mercy often connected to forgiveness of sins.

The affirmation of divine mercy, however, does not diminish God’s justice.  Mercy does not mean turning a blind eye to justice, for that would be tantamount to betraying truth and charity.  Nevertheless, if justice must be upheld because God is Truth, so too must mercy be exercised because God is Love.

For God, balancing justice and mercy is simplicity itself, since He is perfectly simple.  Knowing all things which ever were, are or will be as well as the complexities of each act’s impact and every other throughout history God has no conflicts in the application of merciful justice or just mercy.  He knows who we are, what we need and deserve far better than we do.  Furthermore, in our regard, God acts with perfect love.

For man, especially in times of trial, the simultaneous exercise of mercy and justice is very difficult indeed.  Because of the wounds to our will and intellect, our struggle with passions, it is hard for us at times to see what is good and right and true or rein in our emotions even when we do discern things properly.  We often oscillate between being first just and then merciful. Bringing the two streams of mercy and justice together is a tremendous challenge.  We tend to favor our self-interest, and often balk at what is truly the good for others.

When we encounter a person who can balance justice and mercy together, we are usually impressed by him.  We hold him up as an example of wisdom because he acts more perfectly, more habitually, according to God’s image and likeness.  We are moved by his example because deep inside we know how we ought to be conforming to God’s image in us.  Their example teaches us that it is possible to live according to God’s plan.  The lives of the saints are examples of this.

One way in which we act in harmony with God’s image in us, behaving as the “coheirs” Christ made us to be, authentic Christian consortes, is when we act with compassion.

In biblical terms compassion (Hebrew racham) is often interchangeable with mercy.  The Latin word compassio (from cum,“with” + patior, “to suffer/endure”) means to “suffer with” someone.  Our souls are stirred when we witness suffering and then compassion.  They reveal in a mysterious way who we are as human beings and how we ought to act.  In a now famous passage from the Council’s Gaudium et spes, we are taught that Christ came into the world to reveal man more fully to himself (GS 22).  Christ did this in His every word and deed during His earthly life.  His supreme moment of revelation about who we are was His Passion and death on the Cross.

When we imitate His Passion, in sacrificial love, in genuine “with suffering”, we act as we were made by God to act.   In concrete acts of compassion we, in our own turn, also reveal man more fully to himself!  In our own way we show God’s image to our neighbor and he is moved.  We cannot not be moved unless we are stony and cold and dead.

Pope John Paul II wrote that

“Man cannot live without love […] his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own.” (Redemptor hominis 10).

We must experience love, both in giving and receiving. 

When the Enemy planted in the minds of Adam and Eve the doubt that God really loved them, when the certitude of love given and received died, we all died.

The Second Adam offers to bring us back into the certitude of God’s love, through mercy and suffering not only with us, but for us.

Love, given and received, brings us back to life.

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WDTPRS – 18th Ordinary (Novus Ordo) Sunday: cold reality

Posted on 1 August 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

When the priest, alter Christus, says our prayers during Holy Mass, Christ, Head of the Body, speaks.

His words have power to form us.

Formed according to the mind of the Church, we Catholics then go out from Mass to shape our world around us.

It is the work of Christ’s Body to bring the content of these prayers (Christ Himself!) to every corner and nook we influence.

Holy Church shapes us and we shape the world around us. We then bring gifts – the very best we can conceive – back to Holy Church who makes them her own.  This is dynamic exchange is called inculturation.  However, in this simultaneous two-way exchange, what God offers to the world through Holy Church must always have logical priority over what the world offers back.  This is authentic inculturation!

The Collect for the Novus Ordo’s 18th Ordinary Sunday was not in any previous edition of the Missale Romanum.  The ancient Veronese Sacramentary has a close cousin used by our ancestors.  Our modern version simplified the grammar.  I found similar vocabulary in the works of Cicero (+ BC 43 – Ep. ad fam. 2.6.4), in the writings of St Ambrose of Milan (+397 – Hexameron, Day 1.2.7), and in the sermons of St Augustine (+430 – s. 293d, 5).   The Church and culture have been deeply interwoven through the centuries.

Here’s the Collect:

Adesto, Domine, famulis tuis, et perpetuam benignitatem largire poscentibus, ut his, qui te auctorem et gubernatorem gloriantur habere, et grata restaures, et restaurata conserves.

Adesto is the “future” imperative of the verb adsum, “to be present”, in both the physical and the moral sense.  By logical extension, adsum means, “to be present with one’s aid.”  It can also mean, “to be present in mind, with attention” and “to be fearless.”  “Adsum!” is the famous word in the rite of ordination to Holy Orders.  Men are officially “called” by name to Holy Orders (vocatio).  One by one they respond, “Adsum! …  I am present!”

Men may have inklings or personal convictions that they are called by God to the priesthood, but this “calling” during ordination is the Church’s affirmation of the vocation.

At this time of year some of our Collects use similar vocabulary, including slightly unusual words which spark our attention.  Last week we saw dux (“leader, guide, commander”) and rector (“ruler, leader, governor; helmsman”).  This week we have the similar term gubernator, “a steersman, pilot” or “a ruler, governor”.   During Ordinary Time there are groupings of Collects linked by vocabulary, theme, or images, (e.g., military, agricultural, judicial).

The Collects in the Novus Ordo are usually either derived from prayers in ancient sacramentaries or directly from orations in previous editions of the Missale Romanum.   Though they were taken from different times of the year in those sources, they are now grouped together.  This must have been a conscious choice.

LITERAL VERSION:

Be present to Your servants, O Lord, and grant Your unending kindness to those seeking it, so that You may restore favors to those who glory in having You as author and guide, and You may preserve them once restored.

CURRENT ICEL (2011):

Draw near to your servants, O Lord, and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness, that, for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide, you may restore what you have created and keep safe what you have restored.

Take note of the unequal statuses of those to whom the Latin prayer refers.

On the one hand, God is our creator.  He directs our paths.  He is eternal and kind.  He gives gifts.  He can be present to us.

On the other hand, we are servants and needy seekers.  We need God’s favors. We must be grateful, for they are unattainable apart from His kindness.  We do not deserve anything apart from Him. Some of us, moreover, have lost God’s favors.  We are incomplete until He restores them to us. He will not restore them unless we beg Him in His kindness to do so.

Because we are weak, God must preserve His gifts in us once He has given them back.

Our status as lowly servants is the key to everything we receive or regain.

Beware of presumption and ingratitude.  Ingratitude is often considered one of the gravest sins. St. Ignatius described it as “the cause, beginning, and origin of all evils and sins,” highlighting its foundational role in moral failings. Ingratitude manifests when individuals fail to acknowledge or appreciate the blessings they receive, which can lead to a broader disregard for divine grace and human kindness.

Here’s 2 Timothy 3

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who make their way into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and swayed by various impulses, 7 who will listen to anybody and can never arrive at a knowledge of the truth. 8 As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith; 9 but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

The clear, cold reality of our neediness is today masterfully juxtaposed with the warming, reassuring confidence we find in God’s presence.

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures for ever.

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Daily Rome Shot 1672

Posted on 31 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

A few more photos added at the Mom’s Stuff Page.

HELP! 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.  

This…

And

Here’s a good one.  White to move.  Figure it out.

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

Hey Fathers!  How about a clerical Guayabera shirt?  They have all sort of things for laypeople, too.  Check them out.

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Diane Montagna has all of her scalpels out, dear readers. The object of the autopsy is….

Posted on 31 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Diane Montagna hit one out of the park on her Substack about Card. Roche’s reason and respect defying statements made to The Bitter Pill (aka The Tablet).

More Extraordinary Gaslighting: Cardinal Roche on the Traditional Latin Mass Yet Again
An analysis of the Cardinal’s spurious claims made in the new London Tablet interview

She has all of her scalpels out, dear readers.

I am reminded of Hamlet’s warning to Polonius.

I would post some excerpts, but I am pressed for time. Still, here is how she ends her autopsy.

So yes, there is indeed “plenty of work still to do,” but Arthur Cardinal Roche is not the man to do it. According even to his own words, “I’ve never felt equal to any task I’ve been given.”

Click and go!

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Daily Rome Shot 1671

Posted on 30 July 2026 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Welcome registrant:

DavisCountyIowaCatholic

Black 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.

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.  

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