21 Comments
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Chris Meier's avatar

If there is baseball in heaven, then finally we will have the abomination that is the designated hitter expunged from the game.

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Ed. Condon's avatar

Along with pitch clocks.

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Jeff Drozda's avatar

Sorry, but if you are looking for the MOST Catholic city in the nation, you have to come to Lafayette, Louisiana. Cajun Country. We can hook you up with gumbo, cigars, and a beautiful Latin Mass. Come on down, y'all!

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Ed. Condon's avatar

I’m game…

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Jeff Drozda's avatar

Let's do it!

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Jim's avatar

My wife, son, and I absolutely love Lafayette, and for that matter all of southern Louisiana. Our new favorite restaurant in Lafayette is Uncle T's (actually Scott, La).

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Sue Korlan's avatar

I think you are mistaken. South Bend, Indiana, is clearly the most Catholic city in the country. If you don't believe me, stop by any Notre Dame home football weekend and see for yourself. We have an FSSP parish. We have Notre Dame. What could be more Catholic than that?

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Jeff Drozda's avatar

As a Domer, I can attest to the great football weekends. However, ND lost its Catholic identity years ago and I continue to pray for its return to Catholic glory very soon.

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Sue Korlan's avatar

Check out the Institute for Church Life here. And what used to be called the Edith Stein weekend. And The Rover. We're still Catholic.

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Jessica Carney's avatar

The McGrath Institute for Church Life is awesome. Definitely a blessing for the Church and a credit to ND.

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Jim's avatar

If there is baseball in heaven I personally want to see the matchup of Satchell Paige versus Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson versus Josh Gibson. I'll be happy to buy you some peanuts and Cracker Jacks!

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Ed. Condon's avatar

I like Satchell in that match up. But I’ve always been a pitchers’ fan.

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Mike Gannon's avatar

"If bishops aren’t willing to go to the margins to comfort those members of their flock who are clearly wounded, it’s probably inevitable that they will conclude that words like “pastoral” and “unity” are just words, and that driving them out was the real point all along."

Indeed!

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Nicholas Coulson's avatar

I write with a genuine question. Why does virtually no one say the missa normativa? It’s in Latin, it’s dignified (there’s probably an element of self-selection involved amongst those priests comfortable in Latin) and it’s legal. The Extraordinary Rite is a wholly different matter and seems to attract many for all the wrong reasons. (And I’m old enough to have been brought up in it, unlike many of its adherents.) I’d love to see more Latin in the church - the office could be celebrated much more widely and doesn’t really need clerical supervision (or should that be enforcement?). Fides quaerens intellectum.

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Clare K's avatar

I've never heard the term missa normativa - is that the Ordinary Form in Latin? I googled a bit, but had trouble finding a firm answer.

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Nicholas Coulson's avatar

I’m showing my age. The missa normativa seems to have been criticised by the Council fathers and replaced by Paul VI’s Novus Ordo (see https://www.suscipedomine.com/forum/index.php?topic=23778.0). But I think my question holds good for the latter as well - there is nothing stopping priests celebrating Latin mass in the Novus Ordo. They simply, by and large, don’t, in my experience at least.

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Josh D's avatar

Personally, I'd be happy to see masses like that become more widespread, but I think that in some places, celebrating the novus ordo in Latin (or ad orientem—see recent restrictions in the Archdiocese of Washington, for instance) may be enough to draw suspicion or hostile attention toward a priest. I think some people have a general aversion toward anything that seems traditional, even if it's not actually the TLM. Consider that the Cathedral of St. Matthew in Washington, DC, had a weekly Sunday novus ordo in Latin for decades before it was discontinued during Archbishop Gregory's tenure.

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Father Adam McMillan's avatar

Because they would be suspended. Some bishops can be slow to suspend a priest for using homosexual apps to abuse teenagers, but just watch what would happen if at any parish in Chicago a pastor started celebrating Mass in Latin, and especially Ad Orientem. I think he would be suspended before lunch on Monday. I know a priest who told his bishop that he would start celebrating Mass ad orientem and he was suspended and the bishop threatened to call the police if he didn't vacate the rectory within 24 hours.

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KP's avatar

I like the idea of the Novus Ordo in Latin. I’ve been to one in the Vatican where the official language is Latin. I just wonder how Marty Haugen hymns would go translated into Latin… might help ease the transition?

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Bear's avatar

I read read through the letter to the World Council of Churches (WCC). Most of the signatories are Catholics, and some appear to be religiously unaffiliated. Since the Catholic Church is not part of the WCC, it is essentially a group of outsiders telling an organisation how to run themselves and with whom they can accept as members. This strikes be a being somewhat inappropriate: it would rankle us if outsiders decided to lecture the Catholic church about our associations. For example, they may object to the Church being associated with labour unions and demand that the Church no longer support them.

That the WCC is still a going concern does surprise me. It was thoroughly infiltrated by the KGB, which ensured that it was shockingly silent during the 1968 crushing of the Prague Spring. One of its presidents, Metropolitan Nikidim, was a KGB officer. And there are numerous other examples.

If the non-Catholics on the letter want to change, they should demand that their own church/ecclesial communion withdraw from the WCC unless they expel the Russian Orthodox Church. But for Catholics, this is not our concern, and we should show some respect.

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