Blog issue resolved!

After many attempts at unsuccessfully trying to resolve the blog problem, our good friend Alex Begin immediately identified the problem as the background image, which was taking forever to load. I'm still not sure what changes Google made to it's Blogger program that triggered this sudden slow down; but the issue is resolved. The background is now a simple white, but the blog loads immediately and will allow continued posts. So Deo Gratias. Thanks also to Christopher Blosser for his many related tips, which helped perfect the new format.

The Russians have hacked by blog!!!

I'm not sure what's wrong, but one of my readers notified me that my blog is on the fritz. My son Christopher who knows a lot about these things is working with me to resolve the problem. In the meantime, one wag suggested that it must be the Russians. I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps it was Putin himself. In collusion with Trump. After all, that's about all the Democratic Media have been saying for the last six months, is it not? It's the Russians! It's the Russians! We can overlook the 'indiscretions' of Clinton that compromised national security, involved multiple violations of constitutional law, and got innocent people killed, but there's sure to be a Russian plot behind all this. Think I'll hire a Grand Inquisitor. Or a Special Prosecutor.

Home safe

Thanks to those of you who offered a Hail Mary (or more) for our safety during our three weeks of travel. We are home again, safe and sound; and as wonderful as other places may be that one may visit over the course of vacation travels, coming home is always wonderful.

I will post a brief resume of our travels with some personal impressions in the next few days.

Thanks again!

Pertinaciously yours,
PP

Leave of absence

Notice: I will be posting only intermittently if at all for the next three weeks.

Of your kindness, please offer a Hail Mary for us as we shall be travelling.

Pax in aeternum

Delayed publication of EF Mass times, etc.

My apologies: I'm not going to get the weekly schedule of EF Mass times and Tridentine Community News column published till later in the week. I'm simply swamped with work.

Kind regards,
PP

Blogging reprieve and slow-down

Just a heads-up about what's going on with my slowed-down blogging schedule. There are a number of things converging to make the next two months (possibly more, but at LEAST the next two months) very busy for me. I won't trouble you with the details here, but just to say that I know that I've already been on a somewhat reduced blogging schedule and you will certainly be seeing even less of me the next two months: part of it is job related; another part is church related; another part is family related; and another part is related to our recent fund-raiser (thank you again, for your great generosity). I should probably be retired, but feel like I've had two full-time jobs and have just been asked to take on another. Say a Hail Mary for me.

What you will continue to see, I hope, are my weekly posting of local Tridentine Mass schedules, Tridentine Community News columns, and Fr. Perrone's weekly columns (as long as I can afford the time to transcribe these).

A decade plus of apostolates ...

Steve Skojec has this interesting account of the demise of the Catholic blogosphere, entitled "Austin Ruse on the Catholic Toxosphere" (1P5, July 15, 2016), based on an article by Austin Ruse in Crisis Magazine.

The main thing I like, however, is this adorable photo of our friend, Mark Shea. Who could possibly NOT admire it?!

[Hat tip to JM]

Chilling effect on Catholic blogging?

Guy Noir - Private Eye is back to using carrier pigeons again; and today I received this lugubrious message folded up in a tiny paper that seemed to have been folded with a particular violence. But maybe I'm just projecting:

Do you recall asking if anyone thought this papacy has had a chilling effect on Catholic blogging?

Is there now any doubt? Pope Francis is the pope of one unanticipated surprise: demoralization.

In terms of conservative Catholic blogging, the answer is obviously a YES.

'Codgitator' has essentially ceased to publish. Whatever Bryan Cross' strange "Called to Communion" was, it is now so stale it is not worth a bother (but was also always strange). Father Dwight continues to opine from a comfortable Greenville SC safe house in a Pathos all-is-well mode. Amy Wellborn now does more travel blogging, understandably. Fr. Z plods along, but what is there to say? Etc etc.

And you have doubtless read over at 'Catholicam' this flatliner:

"When the guy in charge has absolutely zero interest in your concerns - and indeed, when it is questionable whether he even shares the most basic theological and philosophical assumptions as historic Catholicism - there is a strong sense of "Why bother?"

What can I possibly say?

Seminary student: the Tridentine Mass "changed my life"

Sacred Heart Major Seminary theology student, Evan Pham, says of the Tridentine Mass that it "changed my life." Here he shares some of his reasons why as he offers tips for newbies. He told me over lunch recently at Ottavia Via in Detroit that he often invites people to the traditional Latin Mass, and when I asked him how he prepares them for the often disorienting first-time experience, he shared with me some of the points in this video. You can find this video at his website, along with some excellent movie reviews, an archive of holy cards he designed, a 'meme museum', as well as his intriguing novel entitled Little Miss Lucifer, which have just begun reading (interestingly, it has its own 'sound track'). He also has a blog. Enjoy.


Related:

• "And they don't even charge admission!" (Musings, January 18, 2008).
• "Advice to Catholics Attending a Tridentine Mass for the first time" (Musings, April 2, 2012).

The ascent of blogs under Benedict; their decline under Francis?

That seems to be what is suggested by "Rising and Falling" (That the bones you have crushed may thrill, July 31, 2015). What? Have some simply despaired of any meaningful discourse? Is that it?

Back again

Pertinacious Papist will be resuming posts again. Thanks.

Pertinaciously,
PB

Reduced summer schedule

For the next three weeks, I will be on a reduced summer schedule at this blog. I intend to do my best to keep abreast of things and to keep up with the regularly scheduled Latin Mass schedules and Tridentine Community News. But I will doubtless post less frequently.

Orémus pro invicem

Tridentine Community News - Are Traditional Catholics Better Informed Now Than They Were Twenty Years Ago?

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (May 10, 2015):

Are Traditional Catholics Better Informed Now Than They Were Twenty Years Ago?

Those of us who have been around the Latin Mass scene for more than twenty years might remember the bad old days: The only regular news came from the occasional Latin Liturgy Association newsletter. Hard-to-find liturgical books, such as a Latin Ordinary Form Altar Missal, had to be ordered from the Vatican, which meant writing a letter to Rome requesting a quote, waiting several weeks for a reply, only to be told once in a while that the book one was seeking was out of print and to write back again “later.”

One could argue that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s 2007 Motu Proprio Summórum Pontíficum was the key reason that the environment for traditional liturgy has improved, but in actuality the single best development over the past two decades for the growth of the Traditional Latin Mass has been the Internet.

Catholics are also now able to educate themselves about liturgy, doctrine, devotions, sacred music, and other subjects typically not taught at the parish, vicariate, or diocesan level. Web sites, books, and YouTube videos are easily discovered which can answer many questions a curious individual might have about the Faith. Practical questions, such as where to obtain vestments and supplies necessary to support a Latin Mass, are also easily answered with a simple Google search.

The Web has given a platform for special interest products to be made available to a widely scattered worldwide audience. Publishers such as Baronius Press (Hand Missals, Breviaries, and assorted religious books), Loreto Publications (Hand Missals and prayer books), PCP Books (Altar Missals and used books of all sorts), FSSP Publications and Angelus Press (Books of all sorts), Roman Catholic Books (Altar Missals and devotional books), and Birettta Books (priest training materials) can now alert a worldwide market to the availability of their merchandise without having to mail out catalogs.

Blogs have become a way to share detailed academic and practical information. The New Liturgical Movement, Fr. Z, Roráte Cæli, The Chant Cafe, and locally, Pertinacious Papist are leaders in communicating news and inviting discussion on traditional liturgical subjects. These blogs were arguably the principal means by which Catholics and existing indult Tridentine Mass sites learned about the provisions of Summórum Pontíficum; few dioceses did much to alert the faithful about the benefits this document imparted.

Conferences can now be publicized far more easily: Sacra Liturgia, the Church Music Association of America’s Sacred Music Colloquium, C.I.E.L., and numerous smaller gatherings now attract audiences that formerly only traveled to the biennial Latin Liturgy Association National Convention.

Facebook, and to a lesser extent Twitter, have become forums where Latin Mass communities, parishes, and groups such as Juventútem can conveniently announce and promote forthcoming events. Two minutes of typing can notify hundreds or thousands.

All of the above aspects of the Internet create an environment of mutual support and education. They are of direct practical benefit to the faithful interested in attending local, regional, national, and global events of interest. Equally important, they serve as inspirational examples of success to people endeavoring to start Tridentine Masses in currently underserved areas.

This writer recalls being afraid to bring up the subject of the Tridentine Mass with priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit as recently as 1997. Now we have two quasi-parishes in our region: The St. Benedict Tridentine Community in Windsor and the St. John XXIII Community in Lansing, plus the similar Oakland County Latin Mass Association. There are also established Extraordinary Form communities at St. Josaphat, Assumption Grotto, St. Edward on the Lake, and Ss. Cyril & Methodius, plus periodic Masses held at St. Albertus, Our Lady of the Scapular, St. Hyacinth, and elsewhere. As recently as 2003, such a thriving scene would have been unimaginable to the 10-odd faithful gathered at the late-but-not-lamented Villa Maria Nursing Home Chapel in Windsor, the only site in the region hosting an approved Traditional Latin Mass. We owe this progress as much to Summórum and the Internet as to our local clergy and volunteers.

Perhaps the ultimate irony of the Internet era is that the once sole source for many liturgical books, the Vatican publishing house, last year shut down its web site, paxbook.com. In recent years it had been just as easy to order books from the Vatican as from any other vendor, but now we’re back to the future: Unless you’re lucky enough to find one on Amazon.com, you’ll once again have to write Rome (albeit via e-mail) if you want to inquire about the availability of that Vatican Altar Missal.

No St. Albertus Mass on May 17

Unfortunately, the Tridentine Mass originally scheduled at St. Albertus for Sunday, May 17 has been cancelled, due to the inability to secure a celebrant. It is getting increasingly difficult to find priests available on Sundays, despite the ever-growing number of priests interested in the Extraordinary Form. Rest assured that Masses at St. Albertus will continue; rather than pick dates, then find priests, henceforth we will secure celebrants first, then pick dates.

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 05/11 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Ss. Philip & James, Apostles)
• Tue. 05/12 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary (Ss. Nereus, Achilleus, Domitilla, Virgin & Pancras, Martyrs)

** Ascension Thursday is a Holy Day of Obligation in the U.S. **

• Thu. 05/14 7:30 AM: Mass at Assumption Grotto (Ascension Thursday) [Unknown if High or Low]
• Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: High Mass at Old St. Patrick, Ann Arbor (Ascension Thursday)
• Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Josaphat (Ascension Thursday)
• Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: Mass at Assumption Grotto (Ascension Thursday) [Unknown if High or Low]
• Thu. 05/14 7:00 PM: High Mass at St. Anthony, Temperance (Ascension of the Lord - 1st class)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for May 10, 2015. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

Fr. Rosica brings lawsuit against a private Canadian blogger over

Michael Hichborn, "Fr. Rosica's Ironic Lawsuit" (Lepanto Institute, February 19, 2015). This is simply amazing. Apparently Fr. Rosica is offended by the blogger's public criticism of his (Rosica's) promotion of the October Synod's "liberal" agenda embodied by the mid-term Relatio. But there's much more to it than this, as you'll see in the article.

But wait, there's more:


See also "Conflicts of Interest" 02-19

Leave of absence, again

Please pray for me as I will be taking a brief leave-of-absence from my blog over the next week or longer. I will make every effort to keep up my regular features, such as Extraordinary Community News and such, but otherwise my posting will be intermittent.

Kind regards in our Lord and Lady,
-- Pertinacious Papist

Leave of absence

I will be taking a leave of absence for about a week with a reduced schedule on this site. Thank you for your prayers. Kind regards in our Lord and Lady, PB.

"Glam, Glitterati, and Crazy-Eyed V2 Visions"

A newly-discovered blog by a take-no-prisoner layman from Canada who's astute insights are surpassed only by his insane sense of humor, which promises to offend many:

"THE HERESY HUNDER, Scourge to enemies of the Roman Catholic Church" (or "... where it's ZERO HOUR for heretics and other enemies of society"):


"Glam and Glitterati at SPU over V2" (The Heresy Hunter, February 27, 2013):

Fr. Ray Blake:

...there is an "anti-Church" within the Church arguing against Orthodoxy and undermining all that might be done. Before anything else there must be a purification, a clear proclamation of Catholic Truth. Heresy is an attack on Truth... Heresy and heretics are the enemies of Christ and we really must pray for the Grace to recognise them for what they are and to learn to hate them for the terrible damage they do to the Church's ability to make Christ knowable. They are our enemy and the enemies of the Church... heresy tends to make truth obscure to the point where good becomes evil and evil becomes good.

Fr. Simon Henry:

There is an "anti-Church" within the Church labouring in parishes, deaneries and curial offices in complete opposition to Pope Benedict's teaching that the Second Vatican Council should be interpreted in a hermeneutic of continuity... This anti-Church seems to have existed in hidden form underground for many decades but grasped the Second Vatican Council to come out into the open and now openly preaches in opposition to the public teaching of the Magisterium of the Church.

PART 1
I. Those comments are apropos lead-ins for the subject matter treated herein, a kind of addendum to Ominous Signs. Another post late after the fact - which will come in three parts, yet the "Vatican II: For the Next Generation" conference held last year at St. Paul University is worthy of a post hoc assessment of involved participants and elaboration on critical points, for three reasons. Firstly, because of a cosmic teleconnection. The 2012 CCCB Plenary took place from September 24 to 28 and the SPU conference from September 27 to 29. There was date and location overlap, a convergence in the apostatic/heretical space-time continuum, so to speak. Where the personages and productions of the CCCB are embodiments of the Modernist hijacking of Vatican II Council, attendees at the SPU conference are its marketers and salesmen. SPU is in Ottawa, located just 131.1 kilometres west-southwest of Hotel Mont-Gabriel in Sainte-Adèle, Québec, according to Google Earth. So, for those conference participants at the CCCB plenary - like salesman/jetsetter Fr. Gilles "I love Armani suits" Routhier, it was just a matter of a short limousine drive up to the airport at fashionable Mont-Tremblant. Check-in, luggage drop-off, redeem those Air Miles, slug down a chocolate martini in the lounge, then board a Porter Airlines' Bombardier Q400, business class, wink to the sexy stewardess, honey roasted almonds snack-pack, fasten your seat belts, METARs read clear and sunny skies on the horizon, activate transponder, go for ignition, runway clear for take-off - and we're rockin' and rollin'. Short flight over the St. Lawrence to Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport. Touchdown on Runway 25. "On time". Yeah, baby, yeah!

II. Secondly, the conference provided a perfectly composed snapshot of the careerist/intelligentsia from assorted sectors inside the establishment church, of how they are working to undermine the Church in Canada from within, and recreating it in their own perverted image. Accordingly, an assessment of their views with a just few volley's will allow for a sizeable flock of Dodo birds to be exposed for the damage they do. These are the people that interact with, and are approved by, the Canadian bishops, consulting, advising, confidants. These are the people the bishops read and to whom they lend their ears. These are the ladder climbers, the celebrity seekers, the aggrandizers, the Professional Catholics, the people who always seem to almost magically obtain key positions in the religious bureaucracy, who get the write-ups in diocesan newspapers, who get the interviews on Salt+Light TV, who win the "awards" and get to hobnob with the right people. These are the enemies of the Church to whom Fr. Blake and Fr. Henry make reference. The SPU conference was a Canadian example of this "anti-Church" in action, actualized, asserting itself for everyone to behold so as to admire and to wonder a great wonder.

III. Thirdly, it was the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, so glitz, glitter and glamour at a gala were necessitous, to formally justify the Modernist-actuated catastrophe we see all around us today, which cries out for criticism. The Canadian stars of the Nu-Church came out, gathered at a Pontifical University now undeniably gone heretical, its loyalty to the Pontificate spent long ago, to celebrate five decades since the Council, to proclaim and hail it as the ultimate triumph of the Church since when the Lord of History was impaled at the intersection of two wooden beams. Not as if these Magic Circle luvvies actually ever contemplate the utter brutality of the Crucifixion, as will be evidenced later. Really, if you mine into the psychological subsurface, if you go way down deep... deep, you will discover the SPU confab to be Swan Song disguised as a Victory Cheer. Conference subtitle: "Reflecting on the importance of the council's teaching for the Church of the 21st century". How majestic, how spectacular, how far-reaching and life-altering. Again, there's that false, anticipatory sense of being on the verge of a new era in global affairs, a "new order of human relations", as the CCCB president voiced a few days earlier at the plenary. The worldwide ennui is about to cease and humanity will imminently be reinvigorated. The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades...

"CRAZY-EYED V2 VISIONS (Part 2a)" (The Heresy Hunter, May 22, 2013):

We start with a clear vision:

There were those who sought a decentralization of the Church, power for the bishops and then, through the Word for the "people of God", the power of the people, the laity. There was this triple issue: the power of the Pope, then transferred to the power of the bishops and then the power of all... popular sovereignty.

I. Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI spoke those candid words in the Vatican's Paul VI Hall a few days after his abdication announcement. He was addressing clergy and parish priests in the Diocese of Rome, holding them "captive" during a rather long talk, 46 minutes, without prepared text. His usage of the phrase "popular sovereignty", and all it entails in the context of the Second Vatican Council, ties directly in to Part 1 of this analysis, wherein near the end reference was made to the "human legislator" concept of Marsilius of Padua. That is, a democratized, egalitarianized, immanentized church, stretched and flattened out across a horizontal plane, where an amorphous, collectivist, totalitarian-like vox populi control all the levers. That is the unswerving tendency, the push, the danger, the crisis, in this post-Conciliar period. That gorgeous and tantalizing siren, her beautiful voice, the sound of a thousand coloraturas, mesmerizing, beckoning, irresistible, that phases out the spirit, confuses the intellect, weakens the will. It cannot be otherwise. It is her nature.

"BEING AN EXERCISE IN THE UTILIZATION OF SEQUENTIAL SYMBOLOGY TO VISUALLY CHARACTERIZE AND SYNOPSIZE "CONSERVATIVE" NEO-CATHOLICISM" (The Heresy Hunter, October 6, 2013):

[Hat tip to L.S.]

The growth of pseudonymous Catholic blogging

Interesting. New Catholic, "Alternative Catholic Media: Into the Catacombs" (Rorate Caeli, May 2, 2014), who also cites Father Ryan Erlenbush's post, "In defense of pseudonymous blogging" (New Theological Movement, April 27, 2011).

Into the long quiet recollections of Lent

Our posts at Musings will be on a reduced schedule during the forty days of Lent. We will continue to post regular features, such as Mass listings and Extraordinary Community News, but intend to absent ourselves from ongoing debates and controversies. Lent has always been one of our favorite liturgical seasons, and we intend to make the most of it. Let us hold one another in prayer. Prayer is not a sling shot or a BB gun. Prayer is our nuclear arsenal. We can only avail ourselves of it, however, as we are only too painfully aware, through quiet, humble recollection, penance, and prayer.

Kind regards in our Lord and Lady, -- PP

Computer problems

Notice: Pertinacious Papist has been inactive online for some time because of software incompatibility problems with a Linux operating system. Hopefully that problem will be resolved this weekend. Kind regards, PP.