Traditional Latin Mass in Maryland

George P. Matysek Jr. reports in the January 7th on-line edition of the The Catholic Review that vocations are on the rise in Baltimore: When Father Gerard Francik recently interviewed a 19-year-old man who was thinking about becoming a priest, the archdiocesan vocations director asked him to talk about his prayer life. The former high school football player told Father Francik how he faithfully makes a holy hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament, attends Mass or Communion services, prays the rosary and observes the liturgy of the hours – every day. “I was just blown away,” said Father Francik. “He was very dedicated to his faith.” That young man is typical of the kind of people who are stepping forward to become priests these days, according to Father Francik. Many are still in their teens, and they show unbridled enthusiasm for living out their religious convictions, he said. “This generation has a different view,” said Father Francik. “They’re much more service-oriented. They’re

I have had occasion to need advice on any variety of bioethical issues given from a totally Catholic perspective that is totally faithful to the Magisterium of the Church. The National Catholic Bioethics Center is a clearinghouse of superb information. The Board of Directors is superb and includes a large number of top episcopal advisers. The e-newsletter is one I read faithfully. There are position papers on all manner of issues, and subscriptions are incredibly reasonable for the NCBC periodical, "Ethics and Medics." The End of Life guide is a must for all Catholics . The purchase price is incredibly modest and it includes a prototype Advanced Medical Directive and an appointment sheet for a Health Care Proxy. The site is a must for all priests and seminarians as well as for informed Catholics. It is worth a look-see! The site is totally faithful to the Magisterial teachings of the Church and is recommended by the Catholic Medical Association as its bioethica

Zenit carries the feel good news story of today from the Winston-Salem Journal: Washington DC, Jan 8, 2008 / 02:11 pm ( CNA ) .- A provision in a 2008 domestic spending bill will change the positioning of the national motto “In God We Trust” on new dollar coins honoring U.S. presidents, the Winston Salem-Journal reports. The motto will move from the edge of the new dollar coins to the front or the back of the currency. Critics had complained about the present placement of the motto, claiming its position on the outer edge of the coins would trivialize the words. The $555 billion domestic spending bill signed into law by President Bush in December included a provision mandating the design change “as soon as is practicable.” The U.S. Mint began producing the one-dollar coins in 2007, initially honoring the first four presidents. The 2008 coins will continue the present design, but the motto will be repositioned for the 2009 minting. Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research

The Cafeteria is closed reveals a deeply guarded secret within the Vatican. He only has little time for himself. Recently he told his "roommates" in the Papal apartment what he does when he has time to daydream - thinking about writing a book on cats. After the funeral of his friend Pope John Paul II., Joseph Ratzinger thought he'd be able to return home to Germany after 24 years in Rome. He had a plan - writing stories, stories about cats. Joseph Ratzinger had cats around himself for decades, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The CDF is on the Via Aurelia, one of the most traffic-heavy streets in Rome. Daily, cats are killed or injured. Quite a few drag themselves into the garden of the CDF, where Ratzinger resided and movingly cared for them, feeding them, bandaging their wounds, watching them lie in the sun and slowly get better. And he gave names to all of them. He wanted to write about these cats, but the election to the Papacy foiled these p

This is the annual address of the Holy Father to the Diplomatic Corps found on the Vatican Website . Please click the link to read the entire address and to see all the embedded hyperlinks. It is an excellent address on the need for the Natural Law to regulate societies. 1. I extend cordial greetings to your Dean, Ambassador Giovanni Galassi, and I thank him for the kind words that he has addressed to me in the name of the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See. To each of you I offer respectful greetings, particularly to those who are present at this meeting for the first time. Through you, I express my fervent prayers for the peoples and governments that you represent with such dignity and competence. Your community suffered a bereavement some weeks ago: the Ambassador of France, Monsieur Bernard Kessedjian, ended his earthly pilgrimage; may the Lord welcome him into his peace! My thoughts today go especially to the nations that have yet to establish diplomatic relations with

Jeffrey Tucker and Shawn Tribe of The New Liturgical Movement have been in the vanguard in promoting Chant of all types and the NLM blog is a must visit for those interested in sacred music. This weekend Jeff is stunned by the reception his post received on the Sacred Music Workshop in Auburn, Alabama : We are rather startled and very happy to see that our announcement of our February 1-2, 2008 workshop, in Auburn, Alabama, is all over the Catholic papers this weekend, and on the front page of the paper of our own archdiocese. It is striking because this was not the experience 5 years ago. We would send our releases out and the editors would look at them with suspicion. "Hmmmm, what is this 'chant' thing?" "These people might be Lefevbrites or something." That whole atmosphere is changed completely, as editors now recognize that chant and polyphony is at least part of the contemporary Catholic music experience -- they might not understand that it is the V2

Here is a nice article on the Latin Mass and what is happening at the University of Maryland, College Park published in the on-line version of the Diamondback . A hat tip to Fr. Z. and his blog, "What Does the Prayer Really Say" for this article from the archives of early December. Students at the Catholic Student Center are trying to infuse the present-day Mass with some customs from the past. For the past two months, students at the CSC have gathered each Wednesday before the evening Mass, or the Catholic worship service, to learn prayers and portions of the service in Latin, the formal language of the Catholic Church. During the same time period, four students learned the traditional songs and chants of the church as part of the Schola Cantorum, an all-male choir with a name that means "school of song" in Latin. The semester's work culminated in an extra Mass celebrated Nov. 30 in Latin with music provided by the schola. Approximately 25 students

The Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, has a post on the TLM : The Forma extraordinaria of the Mass will be celebrated at Sacred Heart Cathedral on the Solemnity of the Epiphany, Sunday, January 6, at 4:30 PM. Father Paul Parkerson, pastor of Sacred Heart in Dunn, will be the celebrant for this Mass in the presence of the Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge. Beginning with this Mass, the Forma extraordinaria will be celebrated at the Cathedral on the first Sunday of every month at 4:30 PM. At present, three other churches in the Diocese of Raleigh have scheduled regular celebrations of the Forma extraordinaria : Saint Therese Church in Wrightsville Beach is celebrating the Forma extraordinaria on the last Sunday of each month at 3:30 PM. Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Rocky Mount is celebrating the Forma extraordinaria on the second Sunday of each month at 4:00 PM. The Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Dunn, which had been celebrated each week at 4:00 p.m., is now celebrated

The Curt Jester blog has an "exclusive preview" of the document coming down from the Ecclesia Dei Commission. This is a "must see." The National Review has a nice article on the "resurrection of the aesthetics of the Mass by Pope Benedict XVI" by Michael Knox Beran . The Hawaii Catholic Herald reports that Bishop Silva, his Vicar General and several priests are learning to read the TLM . Good reading!

There is an interesting post on the blog, McCarthyism UK , on the decline of Latin in the 60's and the effect it may have had on the Novus Ordo Missae. Here is just a small take: Where Jennings draws fire from Mr McIntyre, however, is in his (altogether too charitable, IMHO) interpretation of the history of the translation of the Novus Ordo Missae into English: he says the current Pope and others are said to believe that the 'initial translations from Latin were hastily done and consequently inadequate in so far as they fail to convey the sacred character of the Mass.' With thousands of liturgical texts to translate, ICEL appeared to show a predilection for chopping the rhetorical flow of the original Latin into shorter chunks of concise English. The 1973 ICEL Roman Missal was criticised for minimising the transcendence of God, and exalting the religious striving of man. To be honest, many of the modern Mass translations are so eye-wateringly wide of the mark that any av

Sandro Magister has a fascinating article in www.chiesa today . The commentary is on the upcoming meeting between the Vatican and over 130 prominent Muslim authors. The article is highly enlightening. Please check the URL above to read it in full. Here is a snippet underlining an apparent difference in emphasis between the two Faiths which has been evident in the responses on what should be discussed: Returning to Benedict XVI, the dialogue he wants with Islam is still as he explained it in a passage of his pre-Christmas address to the Roman curia on December 22, 2006: "In a dialogue to be intensified with Islam, we must bear in mind the fact that the Muslim world today is finding itself faced with an urgent task. This task is very similar to the one that has been imposed upon Christians since the Enlightenment, and to which the Second Vatican Council, as the fruit of long and difficult research, found real solutions for the Catholic Church. "It is a question of the

Catholic World News is reporting a more detailed report on the story of December 30th by Rorate Caeli on the clarifications which will be handed down by the Ecclesia Dei Commission: Vatican, Dec. 31, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican will soon issue a new document clarifying the terms of Summum Pontificum, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio - news) has revealed. Confirming reports that have circulated around Rome in recent weeks, the Vatican Secretary of State told the Italian weekly Famiglia Cristiana that the Ecclesia Dei commission will issue instructions to "clarify the criteria for the application of the motu proprio" in which Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news) broadened access to the traditional Latin Mass. Cardinal Bertone said that the new document was needed because there have been some "confused reactions" to the motu proprio. In fact some Vatican officials-- most notably Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship-- have energe