Immediate closure

in Manhattan:

"Police were called in Monday night after a group of about 20 parishioners refused to leave more than 24 hours into a round-the-clock vigil inside the church. Six people were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing.

'We are going to continue to fight,” said parishioner Carmen Villegas, who was among those arrested. “I am here to say that my heart is broken.'

Queen of Angels was supposed to officially close March 1st, but a sign on the door said the church was closed as of Monday.

In statement, the Archdiocese said: 'As a result of this regrettable event and the possibility of future events of this kind, it has been decided that the parish is to be closed immediately.' "

Bishop, don't close my church

"Bishop Edward U. Kmiec warned in the summer of 2005 that the Diocese of Buffalo had too many parishes and needed a radical reshaping. "

It is Mission that Matters

Last year saw the 500th Anniversary of the Birth of St Francis Xavier.

And today, I discover is Chinese New Year!

"This, however, being arranged, Xavier turned his thoughts to China, and began to plan an expedition there. During his stay in Japan he had heard much of the Celestial Empire, and though he probably had not formed a proper estimate of his extent and greatness, he nevertheless understood how wide a field it afforded for the spread of the light of the Gospel. With the help of friends he arranged a commission or embassy the Sovereign of China, obtained from the Viceroy of India the appointment of ambassador, and in April, 1552, he left Goa. At Malacca the party encountered difficulties because the influential Portuguese disapproved of the expedition, but Xavier knew how to overcome this opposition, and in the autumn he arrived in a Portuguese vessel at the small island of Sancian near the coast of China. While planning the best means for reaching the mainland, he was taken ill, and as the movement of the vessel seemed to aggravate his condition, he was removed to the land, where a rude hut had been built to shelter him. In these wretched surroundings he breathed his last."

Matteo Ricci SJ and Adam Schall SJ display the map of China, with the heavenly Patrons of the Jesuits above.

But by about and even as early as 1950, judging by the fires and ruined houses from the Chinese Civil War the Association of the Holy Childhood was promoting the Mission to China like this. Decadence and sentimentality had set in to Catholicism even then.

Exeter College, Oxford

After Christchurch, between 1833 and 1899, my old college provided the most converts among Anglican clergy to Catholicism, forty-five in number.

Source: Glorious Battle. The cultural politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism. Tufton Books, 1998.

Te Deum!

St John Nepomuc, Glory of the Priesthood

Who suffered for the sake of Christ
and the secrets of the confessional

St Anthony and the Mass

A merchant challenged St. Anthony to prove the "fable" of the Holy Eucharist and devised a contest. The merchant would starve a donkey for three days, denying it any kind of food. Meanwhile, St. Anthony retreated to the forest where he would fast and pray for three days. At the end of the three days, St. Anthony returned to town, and went to the Church where he obtained the Blessed Sacrament. He then went to the town square where the donkey was. The merchant placed a bale of hay twenty feet from the hungry donkey. The donkey was untied and walked toward the hay. St. Anthony then exposed the Blessed Sacrament and called to the donkey, "Mule, in the name of the Lord our God, I command you to come here and adore your Creator!" The donkey stopped as though someone had pulled him by a bridle, turned, and walked to St. Anthony. The donkey bent his forelegs, bowing to the Blessed Sacrament with his head toward the ground. The merchant was astonished, asked St. Anthony for forgiveness, and converted. These and other miracles during and after St. Anthony’s death merited him the name, "Miracle Worker."

Even a donkey dropped to its knees in the Presence of the Blessed Sacrament, so why do so few people genuflect when they should in the modern Church?

Man, can he become God?

A conference with Cardinal Danneels, to launch the new Institute Sophia in Brussels.

One has to be always very careful with ideas of divinization or theosis. Fr Garrigou-Lagrange OP, I think I am right to say, rejected the use of the term.

Preaching not the Cross but the Carnival

In a parish in the Diocese of ........ Fill in the missing word. No prizes.



Not too surprising as this the Father "celebrating" Mass.


Flower powered, self-centred liturgy left over from the 1960s.

Take off your mask! plus more mini-stealth-priestesses, right under the nose of the Bishop.

First, in Vienna, now in London

The blessings that the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna extends to homosexual couples, have now been offered in a special Mass every two weeks in Soho (! in Soho, they are definitely trying to prove something) with the permission of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

This is surely not the same Cardinal who a few weeks was fighting tooth and nail against Catholic adoption agencies being forced to place children with homosexual couples.

One is reminded of

The Grand Old Duke of York

The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men.
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again.
And when they were up, they were up.
And when they were down, they were down.
And when they were only halfway up,
They were neither up nor down.

For the record, official teaching on homosexuality.

"3. Explicit treatment of the problem was given in this Congregation's "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics" of December 29, 1975. That document stressed the duty of trying to understand the homosexual condition and noted that culpability for homosexual acts should only be judged with prudence. At the same time the Congregation took note of the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions. These were described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being "intrinsically disordered", and able in no case to be approved of (cf. n. 8, $4).

In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration, however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."

It was the Cardinal's predecessor, Cardinal Hume, of course, who said that the translation "intrinsic moral evil" was stronger than the original text. Simply untrue as he probably knew himself. Why did he then say it?

Here also is Catholic teaching on concupiscence, to give some context on inclination.

More commentary from Rorate Caeli.

Carribean Folies

Carnival fairground shows complete lack of respect for the Basilica of St Gertrude of Nivelles.