The parishes and the settlement money

The letters to the editor (click on this post's title) in today's (Thursday) L.A. Times start off with three missives about a story in the Times last Sunday http://www.latimes.com/news/local/valley/la-me-churches25-2008may25,0,72597.story about parishes having to fork over to the archdiocese to help pay Cardinal Mahony's $720 million clergy abuse settlement.

Pope Benedict did read the riot act to Catholic college presidents, but they won't admit it

The George Weigel column in this week's issue of The Tidings (click on this post's title) quotes the juicy parts of Pope Benedict XVI's address to Catholic college presidents last month.

Lots of these presidents, including some West Coast ones, are claiming they do not have to do anything to get into compliance with the Pope's address.

They are kidding themselves and deceiving us. We should forever quote them this papal counsel and tell them they can't slither away from it:

"....I wish to affirm the great value of academic freedom.... Yet ... any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission; a mission at the heart of the Church's [teaching mission] and not somehow ... independent of it."

We should always be grateful for, and support, good, faithful, pro-life, vocations-fostering Catholic colleges such as Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula -- http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/ -- and Christendom College in Virginia -- http://www.christendom.edu/ -- and others, too.

Kudos to the Tidings for publishing George Weigel's truth-telling column.

Twelve men to be ordained for L.A. this Saturday, May 31. Here are three prayers for priests.

As this week's issue of the Archdiocesan newspaper The Tidings says (click on this post's title to see their profiles and photos), 12 men are to be ordained priests for Los Angeles this Saturday. Deo gratias and alleluia!

The new priests will begin their first assignments July 1.

Let's support our new priests and pray for them as they each take up their cross and become an alter Christus, another Christ, to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to guard their flock and to preach the Good News in this sin-marred world in which wolves abound.

Let's pray that our new priests will always be orthodox, will become anti-abortion leaders in their parishes and the entire Archdiocese and will discover the Christ-centeredness and salvation-centeredness of the Tridentine Mass.

Here is a prayer for all our priests:

Keep them, I pray Thee, dearest Lord, keep them, for they are Thine, Thy priests whose lives burn out before Thy consecrated shrine.

Keep them, for they are in the world, though from the world apart; when earthly pleasures tempt, allure -- shelter them in Thy heart.

Keep them, and comfort them in hours of loneliness and pain, when all their lives of sacrifice for souls seem but in vain.

Keep them, and O remember, Lord, they have no one but Thee, yet they have only human hearts, with human frailty.

Keep them as spotless as the Host, that daily they caress; their every thought and word and deed, deign, dearest Lord, to bless.

Our Father...Hail Mary...Glory Be...

Here is another prayer for our priests:

O Jesus, I pray for Your faithful and fervent priests; for Your unfaithful and tepid priests; for Your priests laboring at home or abroad in distant mission fields; for Your tempted priests; for Your lonely and desolate priests; for Your young priests; for Your dying priests; for the souls of Your priests in Purgatory.

But above all I recommend to You the priests dearest to me; the priest who baptized me; the priests who absolved me from my sins; the priests at whose Masses I assisted and who gave me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion; the priests who taught and instructed me; all the priests to whom I am indebted in any other way.

O Jesus, keep them all close to Your heart, and bless them abundantly in time and in eternity. Amen.

And here is another prayer for our priests:

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, “This is My Body, this is My Blood,” grant them to apply to themselves, “I am no longer myself, I am Jesus -- Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself but by consecration another.”

O my God, I burn with the desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions. Let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, laden themselves with gifts, to share them abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

Pro-lifers are praying for Teddy Kennedy

The news that Teddy Kennedy has a cancerous brain tumor is prompting pro-lifers to pray for him to return to his pro-life roots.

In 1971, Teddy Kennedy wrote a constituent that "human life, even at its earliest stages, has a certain right which must be recognized -- the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old." But for many years he has backed laws in favor of aborting babies and of punishing pro-lifers for trying to save the babies.

Now would be a great time for the clergy and hierarchy to come to Teddy Kennedy's aid by helping him to repent and become pro-life again.

Cardinal Mahony, please remind everyone publicly that Matrimony is a Sacrament, institued by Jesus Himself

The liberals should stop exulting and congratulating themselves about the Calif. supreme court's 4-3 ruling on May 15 that Prop. 22 is unconstitutional.

They should pause to reflect that it is not good to defy Almighty God and His Scripture, His Catholic Church, and His holy and grace-filled Sacraments.

How come no one anywhere, our cardinals and bishops included, is saying that it is blasphemous for anyone to act as if liaisons based on the mortal sin of sodomy are the same as the divinely instituted, holy Sacrament of Matrimony?

Cardinal Mahony: Frankly, no one in the general public knows of, let alone reads, follows, and talks about, the websites of the California Catholic Conference and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and our other Calif. dioceses.

So just posting a statement on those websites does not tell the general public, including most of our fellow Catholics, how Holy Mother Church stands on this blasphemous court ruling or even that She cares about it.

Nor will a statement in The Tidings, next issue, inform the general public or, indeed, most of our fellow Catholics.

You can and must do more.

Your Eminence, you need to hold a press conference to give your flock and the general public the divinely ordained Catholic teaching on marriage and family, to publicly oppose this heinous and tyrannical court ruling, and to announce that you firmly back this year's pro-marriage ballot initiative.

You should also lead marches and rallies in defense of marriage and family and against the powerful and well-funded homosexual movement and its agenda for taking over our country and oppressing our Faith and our faithful.

You hold press conferences, lead marches and even testify befor government bodies about other issues. You certainly can, and should, do the same now for marriage and family, for Catholic teaching, and for God and His rights.

Please pray about this and do these things! Thank you in advance...

(An aside: 4,618,673 Californians, 61% of the toal, voted for Prop. 22. That was in 2000.)

Let's pray for those wounded today in attack at parish festival

The L.A. Times says (click on this post's title) that an attack today has wounded two people at a festival at St. John Baptist de la Salle Church in Granada Hills.

Let's pray for the victims and for all the parish, and let's also pray for the attacker, that he repent and reform and make reparation.

Calif. supreme court trashes voters' will, okaying imitation-marriage

The California supreme court, by a 4-3 vote, today overturned California voters' affirmations that marriage can take place only between a man and a woman.

For an AP report on the literally tyrannical ruling, albeit one containing some pro-homosexual-agenda propaganda, click on this post's title.

The four judges who voted anti-Christian morality and pro-homosexual-agenda are chief justice Ronald George, who wrote the opinion, and Carlos Moreno, Kathryn Werdegar and Joyce Kennard.

The three judges who voted for California voters' affirmation of true marriage are Marvin Baxter, who wrote the dissent, and Carol Corrigan and Ming Chin.

We should hope that Joyce Kennard's pro-homosexual-agenda vote will cool the ardor of some conservatives who want her on the U.S. supreme court.

Major pro-family, pro-Christian morality groups have already issued press releases, and held press conferences, against this raw judicial usurpation of the voters' will and rights.

The California Catholic Conference this afternoon has posted a statement ripping the ruling, at http://www.cacatholic.org/

Every pro-family activist, though, will immediately notice that a fuzzy term in it, "the family of domestic partners," is open to the interpretation that two homosexuals can constitute a family, which of course is an impossibility.

Cardinal Mahony should now personally and loudly blast the California supreme court's evil ukase, and so should every California bishop, individually.

These bishops, individually and through their conference, should also now strongly support the new pro-marriage ballot initiative for this November.

Government school abuse accusations, transfers and alleged inaction

Have you been reading the news stories in the L.A. Times http://www.latimes.com/ over the past week about cases of L.A. government school officials allegedly not doing anything, or much of anything, about student accusations against teachers?

Just about every week, the Times carries news stories about arrests of staffers in government schools on charges of molesting students.

Studies have shown that the government schools have a bigger molestation problem than the Church has had. Now, by mentioning that, I am of course NOT excusing any clergy-hierarchy crimes and cover-ups. I am of course saying ONLY that people who sincerely want to protect children and teens need to go after the government schools, not just the Church.

Another point is that such government school cases prove that people are wrong to blame clergy-hierarchy sex abuse on clerical celibacy. Government school staffers take no vow of celibacy, yet they still commit abuse against students.

Coming soon, and FREE to priests: Latin Mass instructional DVD

Click on this post's title to find out about a new DVD that EWTN and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter will release this June to teach priests and seminarians how to say the Latin Mass.

TheNewLiturgicalMovement.blogspot.com post for May 8 carries a translation of an interview with Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. Check out this quote from the Cardinal:

"[A.] ...However, since it is the intention, the 'mens' [mind], of the Pope to grant this treasure for the good of the Church, where there are no priests the best thing would be to offer a celebration according to the extraordinary rite in one of the parish Sunday Masses. It would be a Mass for everyone, and everyone, including the younger generations would benefit from the richness of the extraordinary rite, for example, from those moments of contemplation that in the novus ordo have disappeared." [emphasis added]

"[Q.] So you maintain that, even if there is no consistent and stable group, in the future it is intended to offer one of the Sunday Masses in the extraordinary rite? [A.] I think so. On the other hand, this possibility had already been approved unanimously in 1986 by a commission of cardinals in which was also present Cardinal Ratzinger, but then it did not become operative. Now I would be sure that it could be done." [emphasis added]

And listen to this quote from the Cardinal:

"[Q.] Another point to clarify is the definition of a 'stable and consistent group'. What does it mean exactly? [A.] It is a matter of common sense: why make an issue if the people who ask for the rite come from different parishes? If they come together and request a Mass, they become a stable group, although they did not know each other before. Also the number is a question of goodwill. In some parishes, especially in the country, on weekdays the persons who come to the ordinary Mass are three or four, and the same happens in not a few religious houses. Why, if those same three people request the old Mass would it be pastorally necessary to reject it?"

"[Q.] So the future document should be more welcoming of requests from few? [A.] Yes, but it has to be understood not as something that should be at the expense of others, of the majority, but for their enrichment and always avoiding any even minimal form of antagonism."

The DVD will be free to priests. For everyone else, there is a pre-order price of $19.99, and the DVD will cost $29.95 after that.

Oboy! Vatican inaugurates Latin website

Yes, it's true: The Vatican has launched Documenta Latina, a website all in Latin (click on this post's title).

There we can read the Biblia Sacra (the Nova Vulgata edition), the Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae, the Codex Iuris Canonicae, documents of the Concilium Vaticanum II and documents issued by offices of the Romana Curia.

We can pick up a lot of Latin by going to this website. For example, just get your Bible, go to the Biblia Sacra and compare your favorite verses, and the most familiar verses, in English and Latin, or Spanish and Latin, etc.

Anyway, this new Latin website is a rich resource for our Church. It is also enough to drive some liberals crazy.

Another magnificent 19th-century church will bite the dust

Sad news from New Orleans: The Archdiocese said in April that it is "reconfiguring" and is going to close 25 churches by this December 31.

One of them is beautiful Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, built in 1887, shown above. Parishioners say this parish has gained 150 families since Katrina and the neighborhood is rebounding, too. But to no avail; it gets the axe.

The parishioners are supposed to start attending Mass in another parish. They are fighting the closing (click on this post's title), but probably they have about as much chance as the Latin Mass has in L.A.'s cathedral.

As a general principle, when parishes are to be combined, the church to remain open should be the historic, beautiful one, not the Modernistic monstrosity.

What will happen to this magnificent Catholic Church and all its Catholic art, sculpture and architecture? And those of the other churches to be shut down?

In a case like this, an archdiocese has a sacred responsibility to preserve these churches and their treasures. Hang on to them for future re-opening in better times!

An alternative: Send the treasures to mission-territory poor churches here in the USA (through Catholic Extension?) and in poor foreign countries, to save them from dispersal, destruction and desecration!

Ole Q does not know the situation in New Orleans -- but it is a special case, naturally, because of Hurricane Katrina, which wrecked quite a few churches in 2005. So we must cut them some slack.

But as a general principle around the USA, of course, a strong Church should be opening new churches, not closing old ones.

At http://www.arch-no.org/News.php?mode=archive you can find news releases from the Archdiocese about the closings.

What Pope Benedict XVI has endorsed for Mass at "international gatherings"

In his Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (2007) -- click on this post's title -- Pope Benedict XVI endorsed Latin for Masses at "international gatherings." The Vicar of Christ wrote:

"I am thinking here particularly of celebrations at international gatherings, which nowadays are held with greater frequency. The most should be made of these occasions. In order to express more clearly the unity and universality of the Church, I wish to endorse the proposal made by the Synod of Bishops, in harmony with the directives of the Second Vatican Council, that, with the exception of the readings, the homily and the prayer of the faithful, it is fitting that such liturgies be celebrated in Latin. Similarly, the better-known prayers of the Church's tradition should be recited in Latin and, if possible, selections of Gregorian chant should be sung." (No. 62)

So, won't it be nice to have Mass in Latin at all international gatherings in Los Angeles from now on?

And isn't the Archdiocese of Los Angeles's annual Religious Education Congress an international gathering? The organizers must be rushing right now to arrange for all REC Masses to be in Latin, yes?

What's that? You don't think so? Well, neither do I.

How about teaching Latin in L.A.?

In his Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis (February 22, 2007) -- click on this post's title -- Pope Benedict XVI wrote the following:

"I ask that future priests, from their time in the seminary, receive the preparation needed to understand and to celebrate Mass in Latin, and also to use Latin texts and execute Gregorian chant; nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant." (No. 62)

So, how is the Archdiocese of Los Angeles responding to this request from the Vicar of Christ? Promptly, generously and humbly?

Pray the Rosary today for preborn babies

Let's you and I remember to pray the Rosary today, May 3, for an end to the surgical and chemical abortions of preborn babies.

The Saint Michael the Archangel Organization is the promoter of this day of prayer (click on this post's title), as I mentioned here a while ago.

They wanted our Rosaries all said at the same hour, but it's too late for that now; and surely the Saint Michael folks, not to mention Heaven, will smile upon Rosaries said anytime today, and on any and every day, too, for saving little babies from the abortionists.

Amen!

Check back a few days here for two new posts

Hi, and just a reminder: Today I've finished two posts I began on April 26 and April 27, and they appear here under those dates.

I suppose there's a way to re-date such posts, but I haven't checked it out yet.

By the way, just a reminder: A free range of opinions is great here, but we need to make our points without using name-calling. Thanks in advance!