STATIONS OF THE CROSS – Audio from Fr. Z

Posted on 4 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My post with recordings of different methods of the Way of the Cross HERE

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LENTCAzT 2025 – 31: Friday of the 4th Week of Lent – Preparing for a good death

Posted on 4 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today’s Roman Station is Sant’Eusebio. We have an important reflection from Fr. Troadec about what true life is (hint: it isn’t this earthly life) and how to attain it.

That’s means dying… dying well.

HERE

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3 April – “There was an old Bishop of Chichester…”

Posted on 3 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Today is the Feast of St. Richard of Chichester (+1262), who defended the rights of the Church against the state.

I am reminded of a limerick which my old, late pastor, Msgr. Richard Schuler used to cite:

There was an old Bishop of Chichester,
Who said thrice (the Latin for which is ‘ter’),
“Avaunt and defiance,
Foul spirit called Science,
And quit Mother Church, thou bewitchest her.”

Of course the Church is not anti-science, unless it is HACK-science.  At least in sane times the Church is against HACK-science.  Sane times, mind you.

On this topic of the Church and Science I recommend the book, Galileo in Rome: The Rise and Fall of a Troublesome Genius by William R. Shea and Mariano Artigas and Dava Sobel’s A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos (UK edition HERE).  In addition, there is Heilbron’s The Sun In The Church and Galileo by the same.

Also, Fulton Sheen wrote about the faith and science in his (complied book)  On The Demonic.

BTW… St. Richard called for a Crusade against the Saracens.  Bless him.

Happy feast of St. Richard!

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How are American priests doing?

Posted on 3 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

At The Catholic Thing there is a fascinating read about the “status quaestionis” of priests in these USA.

“Stronger Families; Stronger Priests”

Here’s the opening.

In 2022, The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America – where I serve as director – conducted the largest study of American Catholic priests in more than half a century. This National Study of Catholic Priests (NSCP) looked at many aspects of how American priests are faring.

I have my own perspective on this.

Here’s the conclusion.

Before all, the formation of young Christian men is the responsibility of mothers and fathers. Fathers in a particular way. Parents, consider: Your son (or mine) may be someone’s husband someday. (I mention this as the father of three daughters.) Or he may be someone’s confessor. He may even be someone’s bishop. To paraphrase John Paul II, as the family goes, so goes the Church, the nation, and the world.

Posted in Cancelled Priests, Priests and Priesthood |
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LENTCAzT 2025 – 30: Thursday of the 4th Week of Lent – God hath visited His people.

Posted on 3 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Roman Station today is Santi Silvestro e Martino ai monti.  Fr. Troadec delves into the symbolism of the raising of the son of the Widow of Naim.

Today’s Mass readings and tomorrow’s are a pair of cufflinks aimed at two groups of people.

HERE

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Daily Rome Shot 1286 – notable items

Posted on 2 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

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..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

Two notable items in this…

I would very much like a relic of Miguel Pro

In chessy news… HERE

White to move and mate in 2.  No. REALLY.  Mate in 2.  Can you get this in under a minute?  It took me two.  Then I saw that I had it wrong.  Two more.  Got it.

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20 years ago today, 2 April 2005, the death of Pope St. John Paul II

Posted on 2 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Can it be 20 years? I miss him.

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“All these teachings, then, are bound up in one body.” Check out this article by Anthony Esolen

Posted on 2 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

There is a very good piece at The Catholic Thing by Anthony Esolen. Here is how it starts.

This is my geopolitical fiction,” Jesus did not say, when He broke the bread at the Last Supper. “The group, though it has many members, is still one group,” Paul did not say, when he sought, gently, to lead the fractious democracy-leaning Corinthians back to their responsibilities toward one another and their submission to the truth. “Every man is an island,” John Donne did not say in his meditations on death, so that if you hear the church bells ringing, he did not continue, “you need not ask for whom they toll, so long as they do not toll for thee.”

It is almost impossible, in our time of social alienation, family breakdown, self-imposed detachment, radical sexual individualism, and loneliness, to ask people to consider what a society is; a prerequisite, one might think, for considering the social teachings of the Church, or the social good or harm to be expected from a proposed policy.

Esolen has had to have meditated at length over “society”. I suspect this because he translated The Divine Comedy by Dante. In Inferno, the sins and their punishments reflect how they broke the bonds of society. That’s a key to understanding what Dante was doing. The Divine Comedy is also a socio-political treatise.

Here’s how his piece ends. It’s a staggeringly profound and yet smoothly simple observation. HOWEVER, if someone gets this wrong and starts to “jenga” pull this or that from the whole, the result is disaster.

All these teachings, then, are bound up in one body. They are alive, mutually reinforcing, coherent, dynamic. To suppose that they are separable is to treat the body as a corpse. Nor is there society in the tomb.

BTW… a couple of Cardinals, some aging feminists, and a bunch Jesuits are going to hate this article. So, share it around.

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LENTCAzT 2025 – 29: Wednesday of the 4th Week of Lent – Exorcisms and mud

Posted on 2 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

The Roman Station is St. Paul’s outside-the-walls.   We hear about what happened at this midpoint in the ancient (shorter) Lent.  The catechumens underwent exorcisms and learned the Creed and Our Father.   Fr. Troadec reflects on the mud Christ used in curing the blind man.

HERE

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Daily Rome Shot 1285

Posted on 1 April 2025 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

HEY!

sm****41@nc.rr.com
a*****f900@charter.net

My thank you notes to you were kicked back as undeliverable. New email? Let me know HERE

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..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

There’s this. BTW… this is NOT the easiest dish to prepare.

And…

In chessy news…

Arjun Erigaisi has surpassed at #4 Fabiano Caruana now #5 in the FIDE ratings.  Magnus (2837) is still #1 and Hikaru (2804) #2 and Gukesh #3 (official champ).

White’s move. Mate in 2.  CRAZY!  Can you find it in 1 minute?  2?  3?

Get great beer and help traditional monks at the same time.

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..  At no extra cost, you provide help for which I am grateful.

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