Traditional Latin Mass in Maryland

The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (F.S.S.P.) now has an interactive Google map on its website which enables you to locate their Mass locations world-wide. Simply click the link here . Notice that for those of us in Maryland, the nearest locations are in Harrisburg, PA, Scranton, PA and soon, in Chesapeake, VA. For our many world-wide visitors, this is a great resource for quickly locating a TLM!

New Catholic of Rorate Caeli posts the three Papal reminders on Catholics and politics . The post is taken from the address of His Holiness to the Members of the European People's Party : As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today: [FIRST NON-NEGOTIABLE] - protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [SECOND NON-NEGOTIABLE] - recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family - as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage - and its defense from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceabl

New Catholic of Rorate Caeli reminds us today that the apparition at Lourdes will have its 150th anniversary this week . As such, the Apostolic Penitentiary has decreed : Each and every member of the Christian faithful who, truly repentant, is purified through sacramental confession, restored through the Most Holy Eucharist and offers prayers for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff, will be able to gain a Plenary Indulgence daily, which may also be applied, by way of suffrage, to the souls of the faithful in Purgatory. The conditions to attain this indulgence and other links of interest are to be found on the Rorate Caeli blogsite and the visit must occur before February 11th .

We now reach the final Sunday before Lent begins with Ash Wednesday only days away. It is Quinquagesima Sunday --50 days before Easter (in a figurative sense). Father Z. on WDTPRS has the complete story and some interesting sidelights . In these WDTPRS articles we are this year focusing on the prayer of the 1962 Missale Romanum rather than those of the Novus Ordo as we have done for the last seven years: in the wake of the monumental Summorum Pontificum, in keeping with Pope Benedict’s plan and a “hermeneutic of continuity”, we are drilling into the traditional prayers to understand what in them may be different and similar to how we pray in the Novus Ordo. Thus, if we ask the question “What Does The Prayer Really Say?” of prayers for individual Masses, we must also ask that question of the very way that the prayer is physically oriented. What does it mean to pray ad orientem or versus populum? Why is this important to every Catholic and every priest in every parish? The great

Michael E. Lawrence, writing for the New Liturgical Movement , has discovered this gem. Uwe Siemon-Netto, in residence at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis has a beautiful piece from the January, 2008 issue of the Asian Times . It is on the throng of Asians who will visit Weimar, Germany to see where Bach composed most of his organ works and was jailed. Here is a snippet from this marvelous essay: The influx of Asians to Bach sites in Germany has been perplexing musicologists and theologians alike for decades now. They come in droves not only as tourists but also as serious students of music. Of the 850 students at Germany’s oldest state conservatory, the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy in Leipzig, 148 are Asians, chiefly South Koreans and Japanese, according to Ute Fries, dean of students. Bach was musical director of Leipzig’s Thomaskirche for the last 27 years of his life and wrote most of his cantatas there. Leipzig’s late “superintendent” (regiona

Gerald Augustinus, author of the Cafeteria is Closed, writes a nice note on St. Gregory's Academy, a boarding school for boys run by the FSSP . The Academy's website has this to say about the institution : St. Gregory’s Academy is a Catholic boarding school for boys in northeastern Pennsylvania . We offer a unique, classical, liberal arts education to high school students from all over North America . In order to engage the imagination as the foundation for higher intellectual activity, St. Gregory’s students read some of the world’s best literature and history, memorize poetry and songs, and participate in a wide variety of cultural activities. The Academy boys have themselves given vocal and theatrical performances throughout the area and at the school. Reasoning skills are cultivated by means of such courses as Euclidean geometry, physics, and classical logic. Academic and cultural activities are balanced by soccer, rugby, hiking, ca

A story appearing on Catholic News Agency states that a high Vatican official believes that Holy Communion in the hand should be re-examined . Archbishop Albert Malcolm Ranjith, Secretary of the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Cult and Discipline of the Sacraments has said that the policy of giving Communion in the hand should be revised. Receiving Holy Communion in the hand "produces a growing weakening of a devout attitude toward the Most Holy Sacrament," wrote Archbishop Ranjith in the preface of a book from the Auxiliary Bishop of Kazakhstan, Bishop Athanasius Schneider. The book's title, printed by the Vatican Editing house, is “Dominus Est: Meditations of a Bishop from Central Asia on the Sacred Eucharist." Read Archbishop Ranjith's comments here .

Ignatius Insight Scoop has a link to a thought-provoking essay written by Russell Shaw in the February, 2008 edition of "The Catholic World Report ." The essay is in the form of a letter to those planning the visit of Pope Benedict XVI within the United States in April, 2008. The essay is directed mostly to the U.S. Bishops. Here are two snippets from this essay: You might, for example, tell the Holy Father something like this: There are two radically different versions of how things are now in the Catholic Church in America. Call them "We're doing okay" and "We're in desperate trouble." Professor James D. Davidson of Purdue University is a well-informed, urbane spokesman for we're-doing-okay. Davidson, a sociologist, has studied religion in America for many years, and much of his work has focused on the Catholic Church. According to news reports, he said in a recent talk that media coverage that emphasizes Catholics ignoran

Carl Olson of Ignatius Insight Scoop has a nice synopsis of the ongoing story of Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver and the controversy over a proposed bill that would attack religious identity in social services. Here is just a portion of the story: Archbishop Charles Chaput called House Bill 1080 an "attack on religious identity" in his weekly column appearing in last week's Denver Catholic Register. He subsequently answered questions about the bill in an e-mail exchange with the Rocky Mountain News: Q: The most straightforward interpretation of your column suggests that you will shut down Catholic Charities if this bill - or any bill - passes which restricts your ability to hire or fire based on Catholic religious standards. Is that a correct reading of what you will do? Chaput: No. Catholic Charities will continue its core mission to the poor with or without public funds. If the government wants to carry the burden it currently asks religious-affiliated group

Fr. John Trigilio (who often appears on EWTN) has a wonderful blog called " The Black Biretta ." He has a new post on dissent in the Church . Here is an excerpt: ...One hundred and nine years ago, on January 22, 1899, Pope Leo XIII issued his encyclical Testem benevolentiae nostrae which condemned the heresy of Americanism . This pernicious theological error proposed that there are no absolute moral principles or immutable doctrines. It held that truth was relative and that the personal conscience is the sole and supreme arbiter of ethical behavior. Americanism denied the necessity of cultivating a well formed conscience, tested and guided by the Natural Moral Law and the Divine Positive Law of God Himself. Coach Majerus should get his money back from the Jesuits at Marquette who taught him. They did not teach him the truth. Morality is not subjective but objective. Imagine if a basketball player tells the coach he disagrees with him and will follow his conscience instead.