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About this blog…
“This blog is like a fusion of the Baroque ‘salon’ with its well-tuned harpsichord around which polite society gathered for entertainment and edification and, on the other hand, a Wild West “saloon” with its out-of-tune piano and swinging doors, where everyone has a gun and something to say. Nevertheless, we try to point our discussions back to what it is to be Catholic in this increasingly difficult age, to love God, and how to get to heaven.” – Fr. Z
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- The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds.
St. John Eudes
Recent Comments
- ProfessorCover on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Passion Sunday, 5th in/of Lent 2026 – POLL about veils: “No statutes covered but in the NO Passiontide does not exist, at least around here. Our overworked pastor in my…”
- Diane on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Passion Sunday, 5th in/of Lent 2026 – POLL about veils: “All the statues and images were covered or veiled at our church. Holy family in Woodruff, Wisconsin.”
- andia on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Passion Sunday, 5th in/of Lent 2026 – POLL about veils: “Sermon was beautiful about how Jesus’ call to Lazarus to come forth is also His call to each of us.…”
- WVC on Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Passion Sunday, 5th in/of Lent 2026 – POLL about veils: “All statues and images covered.”
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“Until the Lord be pleased to settle, through the instrumentality of the princes of the Church and the lawful ministers of His justice, the trouble aroused by the pride of a few and the ignorance of some others, let us with the help of God endeavor with calm and humble patience to render love for hatred, to avoid disputes with the silly, to keep to the truth and not fight with the weapons of falsehood, and to beg of God at all times that in all our thoughts and desires, in all our words and actions, He may hold the first place who calls Himself the origin of all things.”
- Prosper of Aquitaine (+c.455), De gratia Dei et libero arbitrio contra Collatorem 22.61
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Will you be a "Custos Traditionis" and commit to a DAILY 'Memorare' and WEEKLY penance?
- YES! (66%, 1,905 Votes)
- YES! And I will recruit others! (34%, 974 Votes)
Total Voters: 2,879
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“He [Satan] will 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. In desperate need for God, whom he nevertheless refuses to adore, modern man in his loneliness and frustration will hunger more and more for membership in a community that will give him enlargement of purpose, but at the cost of losing himself in some vague collectivity.”
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to you, the people. You have the minds, the eyes, and the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops act like bishops.”- Fulton Sheen
Therefore, ACTIVATE YOUR CONFIRMATION and get to work!
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Fr John Zuhlsdorf
Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
733 Struck St.
PO BOX 44603
Madison, WI 53744-4603
For email HERE
- “The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual.”
- C.S. Lewis
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frz AT wdtprs DOT comAs for Latin…
"But if, in any layman who is indeed imbued with literature, ignorance of the Latin language, which we can truly call the 'catholic' language, indicates a certain sluggishness in his love toward the Church, how much more fitting it is that each and every cleric should be adequately practiced and skilled in that language!" - Pius XI
"Let us realize that this remark of Cicero (Brutus 37, 140) can be in a certain way referred to [young lay people]: 'It is not so much a matter of distinction to know Latin as it is disgraceful not to know it.'" - St. John Paul II
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Recent Posts
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 34: Monday in Passiontide – Ancient v. Modern Views
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Passion Sunday, 5th in/of Lent 2026 – POLL about veils
- ASK FATHER: John 8:55
- I love this story and it makes me sad
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 33: 1st Passion Sunday (5th Lent) – “Christ entered once into the Holies…”
- WDTPRS – 5th Sunday of Lent: The Church, liturgically dying
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 32: Saturday 4th Week in Lent – Approaching Passiontide
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 31: Friday 4th Week in Lent – The 3rd Station
- Ite ad Ioseph… Go to Joseph!
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 30: Thursday 4th Week in Lent – St. Joseph
- Daily Rome Shot 1569
- In the ancient Roman Church today, Wednesday “in mediana” was a big day for catechumens.
- (no title)
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 29: Wednesday 4th Week in Lent – Purity and Mud
- SSPX in Italy sent a book all Italian Bishops about the upcoming consecrations
- Daily Rome Shot 1568
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 28: Tuesday 4th Week in Lent – Mass and Cross
- Daily Rome Shot 1567 – It was worse than we thought
- Such wealth and depth we have in the traditional Roman Rite
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 27: Monday 4th Week in Lent – The truth and you
- Your Sunday Sermon Notes – Laetare Sunday, 4th in/of Lent 2026
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 26: Laetare Sunday, 4th in Lent – The goal
- Daily Rome Shot 1566
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 25: Saturday 3rd Week in Lent – The spirit of prayer
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 24: Friday 3rd Week in Lent – Evangelize with our lives
- “Days in Rome” Project – Easter 2026 and beyond
- HEAR YE! HEAR YE! New from TAN – “The Matins Lectionary: The Complete Readings from the Traditional Roman Breviary”
- LENTCAzT 2026 – 23: Thursday of the 3rd Week in Lent – Feet on the earth, minds in Heaven
- UPDATE on Fr. Z
- Daily Rome Shot 1565
Let us pray…
Grant unto thy Church, we beseech Thee, O merciful God, that She, being gathered together by the Holy Ghost, may be in no wise troubled by attack from her foes. O God, who by sin art offended and by penance pacified, mercifully regard the prayers of Thy people making supplication unto Thee,and turn away the scourges of Thine anger which we deserve for our sins. Almighty and Everlasting God, in whose Hand are the power and the government of every realm: look down upon and help the Christian people that the heathen nations who trust in the fierceness of their own might may be crushed by the power of thine Arm. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. R. Amen.
PLEASE RESPOND. Pretty pleeeease?
The "sign of peace" during Mass in the Ordinary Form...
- I dread it as it approaches and think of ways to avoid it. (36%, 9,555 Votes)
- I tolerate it. (35%, 9,195 Votes)
- I hate it so much I won't go to Mass where it is done. (12%, 3,205 Votes)
- I like it and am happy to do it. (11%, 2,955 Votes)
- I don't care one way or another. (6%, 1,696 Votes)
Total Voters: 26,606
WDTPRS POLL
Should the Bishops of the USA have us return to obligatory meatless Fridays during the whole year and not just during Lent?
- Yes, and I think this is very important. (81%, 15,546 Votes)
- Yes, I guess so. (9%, 1,716 Votes)
- No, I hesitate about such a move. (5%, 900 Votes)
- No, this would be a really bad idea. (3%, 511 Votes)
- I don't care. (2%, 431 Votes)
- What's penance? (1%, 152 Votes)
Total Voters: 19,255






















He does not seem worried. He has a few more of those caps at home.
It’s really funny when it happens to the papal master of ceremonies at a papal Mass outside St. Peters.
“Georg, bobby pin, please.”
Our Holy Father’s zuchetto has been blown off by the wind of the Holy Spirit!
I love seeing pics of the Pope(s) on windy days.
A pic says a thousand words.
another one bites the dust… Somebody find me a pilgrim… they’ll have some more for me.
I admit this is the first thing I thought of when I saw a zuchetto as a child.
Looks like a Papal Frisbee to me.
fixed
Nice work, Vincenzo! Very nice!
I love the graciousness of our Holy Father. He just keeps on reading. None of this, “Mio zuchetto! Trovi mio zuchetto!”
It’s a fair trade; the Holy Spirit knocks of his zucchetto, and he knocks off our socks…
I always did wonder how they got those things to stay on their heads. Evidently it doesn’t always work.
Hats off to you, Holy Father!
“I’ve spent how much this month on Zuhlsdorf’s wish list and donate button?!”
Any Judaica shop has little gizmos 4 of which are affixed to the inside of a kipah (yamulke) and whose many very short plastic prongs press down into a person’s hair holding the kipah-yalmulke-zucchetto in place. The Jews have to think of everything?
Aliens do exist. I believe!
I’ve always wondered why bishops and Jews are the only ones who wear hats like that. At first I assumed that these must be of ancient design and are some sort of holdover from the 1st century, but later I read that they are a medieval fashion instead. So again: I know both groups value the past, but why do both choose to retain headgear from the 1300’s? Anybody?
Even the age of 81 our Holy Father is still blessed with a good head of hair! Something that some of us almost half his age can’t still boast:(
A) Skullcaps keep your head warm.
B) Skullcaps make a really nice foundation for hats, especially if you’re always switching in and out of birettas or miters at Mass, and you want to keep the ceremonial hats clean.
C) Because we can. :)
Howard;
I believe the kippah and the zucchetto although similar in design have different meanings and origins. If memory serves the Levitical law requires the a man’s head be covered when he prays or similarly he cover his head should he hear the name of God. The kippah developed as a permanent head covering.
The zucchetto had a more prosaic origin. Monks who kept tonsure found their heads getting cold so they developed a head covering that fit the circumference of their shaved pate.
At least these are the origin stories that I have heard.
PAX,
Matthew
I thought the Holy Father looked adorable at the audience.
“Next time, I’ll wear the beanniecopter. It’ll fly right back!”
John, wouldn’t it be the beannie boomerang?
It happens to me every time I read anything written by Pope Benedict!
…except mine is a kamilavka like this…!
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Eastern_Orthodox_man_in_Jerusalem_by_David_Shankbone.jpg/180px-Eastern_Orthodox_man_in_Jerusalem_by_David_Shankbone.jpg
God bless,
Fr. Deacon Daniel