Papal Audience with Pope John Paul II

No chance that you will see this with Pope Benedict.

Cardinal Danneels, tear down this wall.

At the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in 1987, Ronald Reagan said, Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

In comparison, it would only be a small thing for the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines to tear down the wall that they have erected to hide the High Altar of the Church of the Holy Family in Brussels.

Cardinal Danneels, go do the right thing!

Vienna General Hospital, Austria

In 1983, Neil Kinnock, the leader of the British Labour Party, gave a speech in which he said “If Margaret Thatcher wins I warn you not to be young - I warn you not togrow old.”

Cathcon warns today not to be sick in Vienna and have to suffer the pastoral care of the chaplaincy of the General Hospital. Here are a few scenes from their Holy Week of this year.

Holy Thursday

in Vienna General Hospital,

the day that the stealth priestesshood was commenced.

Holy Saturday Night.
Abstract Cross- Abstract Faith!

They styled this- The Wailing Wall- surely not, on the Day of Resurrection

Visit of Martin Mosebach to US

Visit of Martin Mosebach and Fr. Uwe Michael Lang to the United States

The Society has the great pleasure to announce the visit to New York and Connecticut of Martin Mosebach and Father Uwe Michael Lang. Martin Mosebach is an eminent German novelist and essayist. In October of this year he will receive the Georg Buechner prize-the highest German literary award. Mr. Mosebach has written and spoken extensively on Catholic issues, particularly relating to the Traditional liturgy. His Heresy of Formlessness, on the liturgy, was published in English translation last year by Ignatius Press. Father Lang is a priest of the Brompton Oratory in London and the author of an influential study on the position of the celebrant in the Roman rite: Turning towards the Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer. (Foreword by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger)

This year Fr. Lang has relocated to Rome to take up an appointment at the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Patrimony of the Church.Fr. Lang and Mr. Mosebach will be speaking at three separate locations. Fr. Lang will introduce Mr. Mosebach and situate his work for us in the context of the post-Summorum Pontificum world. Mr. Mosebach will read from his Heresy of Formlessness. There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.

The following events are scheduled in conjunction with the visit of Mr. Mosebach and Fr. Lang:

Friday, Sept. 7, New Haven, Connecticut St. Mary Church Hall, 5 Hillhouse Avenue7:30 PM: Presentation by Martin Mosebach and Fr. Lang.directions: http://www.stmarys-priory.com/directions.htm

Saturday, Sept. 8, New Canaan ConnecticutNew Canaan Public Library, 151 Main Street5:30 PM: Presentation by Martin Mosebach and Fr. Lang.Link to directions

Sunday, Sept. 9, New York, New York Church of Our Saviour, 59 Park Avenue at 38th Street5:00 PM: Solemn High Mass in the Traditional rite.6:30PM: Presentation by Mr. Mosebach and Fr. Lang in the undercroft of the church.

If you can't make it, you can always buy the book!

Feast of St Hermes

Dutch Book of Prayers from the mid-fifteenth century. Saint Hermes is the figure in the back, in armor. Other saints pictured include Saint James the Great, Saint Joseph, Saint Ghislain, and Saint Eligius.

Morning Star Zendo

Jesuit trying to serve two or more masters.:

"At Morning Star Zendo, persons of all faiths are invited to practice Zazen (sitting meditation). Robert Kennedy, S.J., Roshi, is a Jesuit priest and Zen teacher in the White Plum lineage.

He studied with Yamada Roshi in Kamakura, Japan, with Maezumi Roshi in Los Angeles, and with Glassman Roshi in New York. Glassman Roshi installed Kennedy as sensei in 1991 and conferred Inka (his final seal of approval) in 1997, making him a roshi (master).

Kennedy Roshi is the author of Zen Gifts to Christians and Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit."

Fourth Council of the Lateran

on the oil of chrism, that it be kept under lock and key.

"That no presumptuous hands be able to lay hold of it for any horrible or evil purpose".

The same of course can be said for hand communion.

Pope John Paul II said that to touch the Sacred Host is the sole priviledge of the ordained.

Where Peter is there is the Church

The Theology Faculty in 1871 of the once Catholic University of Louvain.
Mass presided over by Cardinal Danneels in the French speaking breakaway from the original University.

Feast of St Augustine of Hippo

Theological patron saint of the Pope, as he was of the great Flemish Cardinal, Gustaaf Cardinal Joos, as evidenced by the bookshelves surrounding the latter's study.

Cardinal Joos told me once that the late Pope had made him a Cardinal to show how important was the work of a parish priest. Despite being head of the Diocesan tribunal, the then Fr Joos had refused to give up being a parish priest. He said, "I am an only a small Cardinal". A Cardinal Deacon, I said. Exactly, exactly was the reply.

Cardinal Ratzinger writes....

In the preface to the French edition of the Reform of the Roman Liturgy by Msgr Klaus Gamber.

One cannot manufacture a liturgical movement...

but one can help contribute to its development by striving to reassimilate the spirit of the liturgy and by defending publicly what one has thus received. This new beginning needs "fathers" who would serve as models....Those who seek such "fathers" today will undoubtedly encounter Msgr. Klaus Gamber, who, unhappily, was taken from us too soon, but who perhaps, precisely in leaving us, has become more truly present among us, with all the power of the perspectives he opened for us. And precisely because in dying he escaped the quarrels between the parties, he could in this time of distress become the "father" of a new beginning. Gamber supported with all his heart the hopes of the old liturgical movement. Without question, since he came from a foreign school, he remained an outsider on the German scene, which was reluctant to admit him; just recently a thesis encountered great difficulties because the young researcher had dared cite Gamber too frequently and favorably. But perhaps the fact that Gamber was ostracized was providential for him, for it forced him to pursue his own way and avoid the path of conformism.

It is difficult to say briefly what is important in this quarrel of liturgists and what is not. But perhaps the following will be useful. J. A. Jungmann, one of the truly great liturgists of our century, defined the liturgy of his time, such as it could be understood in the light of historical research, as a "liturgy which is the fruit of development".... (Cathcon notes Jungmann was an very great scholar but some of his misunderstandings had a baleful effect on the liturgy).

What happened after the Council was something else entirely: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it—as in a manufacturing process—

with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.

(Cathcon if you seek evidence- look around this blog!)

Gamber, with the vigilance of a true prophet and the courage of a true witness, opposed this falsification, and, thanks to his incredibly rich knowledge, indefatigably taught us about the living fullness of a true liturgy. As a man who knew and loved history, he showed us the multiple forms and paths of liturgical development; as a man who looked at history from the inside, he saw in this development and its fruit the intangible reflection of the eternal liturgy, that which is not the object of our action but which can continue marvelously to mature and blossom if we unite ourselves intimately with its mystery. The death of this eminent man and priest should spur us on; his work should give us a new impetus.

An evil man

Cathcon readers are now face to face with the man who did the most damage to the Catholic Church apart from Luther. Maurice Blondel proposed his fatal definition of truth- after that, as they say, the rest was history.

See also "The New Theology, where is it leading us?" by Father Garrigou-Lagrange.

Church of Saint Boniface, Missouri

I receive an e-mail.

One of the Saint Louis, Missouri churches that closed in 2005 was Saint Boniface. Sadly, this church is now a theater, which is featuring the play Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, which it describes thusly:

"New Line Theatre opens its seventeenth season of daring, muscular theatre with the world premiere of the new revue, SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK & ROLL a fearless celebration and exploration of these three ubiquitous forces on Americans and our culture, running Sept. 27-Oct. 20, 2007".

While this is problematic in itself, this most certainly violates the Archdiocese's conditions of sale of the church, which includes a prohibition on "live performances directed to an adult audience rather than the general public are operated or conducted."