ROME 25/4– Day 15: Easter Wednesday

Posted on 23 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf


Over Rome at 06:15 the sun emerged and it will remerge (?) submerge at 20:02.

The Ave Maria Bell ought to ring for the Curia at 2-:15 (but it won’t).

It’s the feast of St. George and St. Adalbert.

It would have been Francis’ birthday.

The Roman Station is St. Lawrence outside-the-walls. I have a nice memory of being deacon when my bishop celebrated the Station Mass there and climbing the great ambo to sing the Gospel.

Welcome registrants:

ShemNehm
Sir Kronos MC
Breakspear
Tedeum

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Just a nice view from my evening stroll.

Remember the teaming hordes of pilgrims there were supposed to be during the Jubilee?

This morning walking up to the Campo de’ Fiori after Mass and a chat and a coffee…

Pretty much everyone here is saying that the Jubilee has been a flop.  Not many came for Easter…. in a Jubilee.

I bought some flowers today from Pippo.  We talked about Francis.  (He wasn’t particularly a fan… as most Romans I’ve spoken who had any thought about him at all.)

Heading home with some slices from Ruggieri (finocchiona) and taleggio (a favorite) and bread from the Forno at the Campo and flowers from Pippo and some passata di pomodoro (tomato … purée, I think is best).

Meanwhile…

Yeah… we knew that.

Cardinal Sarah is truly amazing. I think that even the progressivists know that he is a man of deep prayer and faith.

And this… yeah… we knew that too.

Between us, I’ve slowly been picking up Hungarian… which looks a bit like this. It’s hard.

Nice people! Great service!

In chessy news…

Magnus Carlsen won the 2025 Grenke Chess Freestyle Open (Fischer Random) with a perfect 9/9 score. A force of nature. It was quite the event, with some 3000 participants. Big! Freestyle is a thing. Look at this venue…

YouTube thumbnailYouTube icon

My guy Wesley So finished 6.5, with a comeback after losing in round three his only loss of the tournament.

I’m tellin’ya friends… get with it! Chess.

Interested in learning?  Try THIS.

Meanwhile, why is this knight sac amazing?   Quick!  60 seconds…. GO!

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

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PASCHALCAzT 2025 – 50: Easter Wednesday – Wherein (also) Fr. Z rants

Posted on 23 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Roman Station today is St. Lawrence outside-the-walls.  We started Septuagesima here!

Scott Hahn drives home how liturgy, our worship, our participation in the Church’s liturgy affects the course of history.

Sound familiar?  I have a few thoughts about that.

 

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“Quo nomine vis vocari?” What name will the next Pope take? – POLL

Posted on 23 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Sede Vacante period isn’t just a time of dour mourning and anxious worry about what sort of Pope we are going to get next.  There is a lighter aspect.

What regnal name with the next Pope take?

When a man has been elected, at the moment he accepts, he gains universal jurisdiction over the Church.   Then he is asked “Quo nomine vis vocari?… By which name do you want to be called?”  I’m pretty sure that every Cardinal has given that some thought whether they are realistically in the running or not.   I think just about every cleric on earth has too.  It’s just a little fun.

It’s entirely possible that a man might stick to his baptismal name, if it is also a name with a papal pedigree.   I suspect that Card. Peter Erdö might freak out a lot of people if he did that.

There is an outside chance that some brand new name will be introduced to the long list.  Hey, that happened last time, right?  Results have varied.

Still, odds are that a more usual papal regnal name will be chosen.

I would be tempted to take the name Clement XIV the Second, just to make a point.

Let’s have a poll.

In what follows I left out Sixtus because “Sixtus VI” (in Italian even worse, “Sisto Sesto”.  I also left out Hormisdas … (watch.. now it’ll be Hormisdas), Callixtus, Boniface, Alexander and a few more that have been repeats.  I can’t list them all.   I’ve left an option for some of the less well-known names and you can comment on that in the combox.

Anyone can vote.  You can comment if you are registered and approved.

What regnal name with the newly elected Pope take?

View Results

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Francis and the post-mortem smear job

Posted on 23 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Back in the day of earlier cinema, to create a special glowing effect, for example to pretty-up an actress, vaseline or some other substance was smeared on the lens or on a piece of glass in front of the lens.

Something like that is going on after the death of Francis.

It is hardly unexpected that certain left-leaning and progressivist outlets will vigorously apply the vaseline when summing up the man and his pontificate.

For example, at Jesuit-run Amerika Magazine you’ll nearly drown in it. For obvious reasons. Similarly, Fishwrap lays it on thick. At the time of this writing, in league with Amerika, front and center Fishwrap moons over Francis and all things queer.

Other views, however, are also focusing on Francis with a less interfered with lens.

For example, at Crisis Eric Sammons lists oddities from the last few years that did nothing to help the Church and, frankly, quite a bit to cause division and weakness in the public square.   Once you start piling things up, some of which have faded a bit from memory although not from cumulative effect, it’s pretty daunting.  However, this paragraph stood out:

They say “personnel is policy,” and the radical policies of Pope Francis were reflected in his close advisors. He consistently surrounded himself with questionable and even downright evil men, including Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, Fr. Marko Rupnik, and Fr. James Martin. Any pope can be prone to mistakes when appointing men to high positions, but Francis seemed to delight in having some of the worst people as his closest confidants.

At First Things there are a couple of pieces with no smear.  First, the Archbishop Emeritus of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput remarks HERE:

What the Church needs going forward is a leader who can marry personal simplicity with a passion for converting the world to Jesus Christ, a leader who has a heart of courage and a keen intellect to match it. Anything less won’t work.

“Personal simplicity”.   On the other hand, that “personal simplicity” wound up with a double-effect of diminishing the papal office and personal grandstanding.  I think I am not alone in being less than favorably impressed with the choice of a car (which is a kind of stunt) or not showing up with clothing proper to a Pope for truly important moments (like his first appearance) or not genuflecting to the Blessed Sacrament (but doing so for foreign officials) or living at Casa Santa Marta in humility (which cost the Vatican City State a huge pile cash to purchase and secure the Roman street out outside the nearby wall), etc.

Also at First Things, Protestant (Orthodox Presbyterian Church) Carl Trueman HERE opined candidly:

As a confessional Protestant, there is perhaps one decision Francis made that I should approve: restricting the Latin Mass. The need for vernacular liturgy was a standard part of Reformation Protestant policy. But even here there was a problem. The Protestant Reformers’ liturgical changes were driven by a specific theology of the word and its connection to salvation and sacraments. Catholicism’s theology of the sacraments is different and does not require liturgy in the vernacular. The pope’s move therefore lacked any obvious doctrinal motivation. One can only speculate as to his motives, but it appeared to be a liberal assault on traditional Catholicism. Francis was thus my own worst Protestant nightmare: an authoritarian Roman pope driving a liberal Protestant agenda, a leader who embodied the worst of all possible Christian worlds.

That’s was a good insight, about how the Protestant approach requires vernacular (because of sola Scriptura, each person being his own “pope” and authority to interpret, and the emphasis on preaching in worship, etc.) and that the Catholic Church’s theology does not depend on the vernacular.  We can absorb it and use it but we don’t depend on it.

One thing upon which most clear-eyed commentators will stress, is that we need now a Pope who unify and not seemingly delight in dividing, will care for the dignity of the office and proffer clarity of doctrine in teaching and even in more casual remarks.

Perhaps in your goodness you might take on some extra time in prayer, perhaps in church before the tabernacle, asking God to guide and protect the Electors of the College of Cardinals in their important task.

Posted in The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged
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ROME 25/4– Day 14: Easter Tuesday

Posted on 22 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Up came the sun at 06:17. Down goeth the sun at 20:01.

The Ave Maria is in the 20:15 cycle for the Curia, which is in the state of Sede Vacante, so business has slowed down. Or it should have. Some are being busy little bees, I see, in a hurry.

It is the feast of three saintly Popes of yore: Soter, Caius and Agapitus.

The Roman Station is at St. Paul’s outside-the-walls.

Jasmine Report (not the Jesuit!).

It’s getting there!   This growth, near where I live, is in full sunlight, so it is coming along quickly.

Beautiful morning in Rome!   It’s going to be splendid today.  After lunch and a brief (I hope) nap, I’ll take a good walk.

 

 

Richt-Click for a larger view of the altar at The Parish™ for Easter.

I’ve had no interesting food.  I will try to do better.

You can have excellent wine made by the monks of Le Barroux.

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Yesterday was Rome’s Birthday. Here is something I did NOT know!

Very Cool.

BTW… the done of the Pantheon is not only vastly older than St. Peter’s dome, it is about one foot larger in diameter.

Less edifying….

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The Whatever High Atop The Thing has rushed to the General Congregations BEFORE Cardinals can arrive. What’s the hurry?

Posted on 22 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

What’s the massive hurry? This rush feels to me like an attempt to organize a voting block before the far flung cardinals arrive. We can ask: To whose advantage/disadvantage is it to hurry the process and thereby deny some of the farther cardinals from early participation?

Cui bono?

Oh… by the way…

Compare and contrast…

Posted in The Coming Storm, The Drill, The future and our choices | Tagged
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PASCHALCAzT 2025 – 49: Easter Tuesday – Worshiping with our whole being

Posted on 22 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Roman Station: St. Paul’s outside-the-walls

Scott Hahn reflects on the Heavenly liturgy as related in the Book of Revelation and how it teaches us to worship.

We also hear what my home parish sounded like on Easter Sunday and why I am, in many respects, who and what I am today.

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ROME 25/4– Day 13: Easter Monday called “of the angel”, Pasquetta, and Happy 2778th Birthday of ROME!

Posted on 21 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Sunrise today was at 06:18 and it set a few minutes ago at 20:00.

The Ave Maria Bells is slated to chime at 20:15.

The Roman Station is St Peter’s Basilica.

Today, in the reckoning of St. Anselm of Canterbury, Doctor of the Church (+1109).

Today, this very day, is the death day of Francis.  R.I.P.

Today, Easter Monday “of the angel”, is called Pasquetta here in Italy and a holiday.

Today is the 2778th Birthday of Rome!

Alme Sol, curru nitido diem qui
promis et celas aliusque et idem
nasceris, possis nihil urbe Roma
visere maius.

Q. Horatius Flaccus
Carmen Saeculare

Ovid’s long entry in the Fasti begins...

Nox abiit, oritur Aurora.  Parilia poscor:
non poscor frustra, si favet alma Pares.
alma Pales, faveas pastoria sacra canenti,
prosequor officio si tua festa meo.

Sounds like the beginning of one of these Rome posts!   And the calendar indicates that today’s aurora was at 5:49!  I like how Ovid just rolls it out so effortlessly.

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Casa Santa Marta with flag at half staff.

The confrers of the Archconfraternity of Ss. Trinità said the Office for the Dead at San Pietro.

I ask…

How many of the libs and bureaucrats of the Curia said the OFFICE FOR THE DEAD.

In charity, I must stop.

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ASK FATHER: Priest and the Roman Canon… what do we say now?

Posted on 21 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Priests have written, one with some precise notes and cites, and I’ve seen one piece in my email by Louis Tofari, who knows his way around an Ordo.

QUAERITUR:

With the death of Francis, what do priests say in the Roman Canon where they were to say his name?

John Paul died on 2 April 2005.  Benedict was elected on 18 April 2005.  We had the sede vacante for about two weeks.   Benedict abdicated on 28 February 2013 and Francis emerged on the loggia on the 2nd day of the conclave 13 March 2013, sede vacante just about two week (yes, I know some say the See has been empty since 2013 or 1958 or whatever).

Assuming that priests are in their right minds and that a) they pay attention and b) are not cretins (not lightly to be passed over) and c) say the Roman Canon (as they ought in the Roman Catholic Church) what shall we say?

Sticking to the Vetus Ordo, because it is the unquestionable Roman Rite and must be the point of reference for the Novus Ordo because that’s the only thing which makes any sense at all of the Novus Ordo, pace those who risibly think the NO is the “unique expression”, etc., the rubrics of the Vetus Ordo, the TLM, say that that the entire clause “una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro N.” is omitted:

“Ubi dicit: una cum famulo tuo Papa nostro N., exprimit nomen Papæ. Sede autem vacante verba prædicta omittuntur.”

For those of us IN ROME, there is another instruction: Since the Pope is the local bishop, we leave out the business about “et Antístite nostro N” and skip to “et ómnibus orthodóxis, atque cathólicæ et apostólicæ fídei cultóribus.”

So, IN ROME … and this is the third time I’ve had to do this… I would early this morning have said (had I known):

…in primis, quæ tibi offérimus pro Ecclésia tua sancta cathólica: quam pacificáre, custodíre, adunáre et régere dignéris toto orbe terrárum et [pro being understood here] ómnibus orthodóxis, atque cathólicæ et apostólicæ fídei cultóribus.

I think that priests would not go to liturgical jail in this life or liturgical purgatory in the next were they to say IN ROME:

in primis, quæ tibi offérimus pro Ecclésia tua sancta cathólica: quam pacificáre, custodíre, adunáre et régere dignéris toto orbe terrárum: una cum … ómnibus orthodóxis, atque cathólicæ et apostólicæ fídei cultóribus.

Outside of Rome, it seems that priests ought to say:

in primis, quæ tibi offérimus pro Ecclésia tua sancta cathólica: quam pacificáre, custodíre, adunáre et régere dignéris toto orbe terrárum et [pro is understood] Antístite nostro N. et ómnibus orthodóxis, atque cathólicæ et apostólicæ fídei cultóribus.

Again, no severe punishment would be due were Father to slide an extra “pro” in there or even – gasp – say “una cum” before the name of the local bishop.

If there is a local bishop!  That’s another thing.  I guess you would just do it like in Rome were there no bishop to cite.

We want to do this right.  Right?  However, anyone who would fret about this a lot or who would suffer from scruples, fearing that by saying an extraneously “una cum” or “pro” which would make the whole text smoother and more intelligible ought to sit down, have a beer from Norcia or wine from Le Barroux (not immediately before Mass) and breathe deeply and calmly for a while. If he is still worked up, he should seek help.

This is help.

Relax.  Figure it out.

How about the English of the Novus Ordo?  I don’t care.  Just look at it and figure it out.  As a matter of fact, if memory serves, is there even a rubric about this in the Novus Ordo Missale Romanum?

Hmmm… perhaps that is a subtle additional puzzle piece as to how detached the Novus Ordo from Romanitas.

A good question for the readers: is there a rubric in the Novus Ordo for this?

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ASK FATHER: Octave of Easter, what about Requiem Masses, Votives for the Election of a Pope… Novena to St. Catherine?

Posted on 21 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

From reader(s)… synthesized…

QUAERUNTUR:

Is it possible to have a Requiem Mass for Francis during the Octave of Easter?

It seems that it is not possible, either in the Novus Ordo or in the Vetus Ordo. The Octave outweighs just about anything except an actually funeral Mass itself. The Vetus Requiem for the day or death or reception of death does not outweigh the Octave. The earliest possible Requiem would be next Monday, after Low Sunday, on 28 April.

When will it possible, because it is now the Octave, to have Votive Masses for the Election of a Pope?

The next opportunity for a Vetus Votive Mass for the Election of a Pope would be (1st) Saturday 3 May and then Tuesday 6 May and Thursday 8 May.

I think you should be able add orations before that.

NOTA BENE:

It has been pointed out that we are 9 days out – a Novena – to the Feast of St. Catherine of Siena on Wednesday 30 April. St. Catherine was one of the Holy Spirit’s mighty instruments in the restoration of the Papacy to Rome.

The Papacy returned to Rome from Avignon on 17 January 1377, when Pope Gregory XI, influenced (nagged?) by St. Catherine of Siena, moved the Papal court back to Rome, ending the Avignon Papacy (since 1309). She was the second woman to be declared a Doctor of the Church, on 4 October 1970 by Pope Paul VI, days after Teresa of Ávila. In 1999 Pope John Paul II proclaimed her a Patron Saint of Europe.

In this time of hopeful uncertainty for the Roman Church, she would be a good saint to beg to intercede for the best possible outcome of the upcoming conclave.

Remember: As Joseph Ratzinger explained, it is not the role of the Holy Spirit to pick a pope. The Holy Spirit prevents the fallible and sinful Cardinals from choosing a man who would be total disaster. That doesn’t mean that a pope can’t be a disaster. History teaches us about that. We will not have total disaster, no matter what.

Let us pray for much better.

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