Cleansing Fire

Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church

Friday Link Roundup

March 4th, 2013, Promulgated by b a

Yes, yes, I know it’s Monday evening as I post this. But in speaking with this particular Monday, he informed me that he doesn’t appreciate the maker of the calendar defining his role in such strict terms by confining him to the 2nd day of the week. He has chosen to decide for himself which day best precedes him and which best follows him. This liberates him from the chains of the calendar maker. After some discernment, he has decided to self-identify as a Friday… and who am I to judge?

So after that ridiculous intro, here’s a ridiculous list of random links:

D&C: Fisher alumnus to help with papal transition

A St. John Fisher College alumnus has been appointed by the Vatican to help with the papal transition.

The Rev. Thomas Rosica, a 1980 graduate and member of the College’s Board of Trustees, will handle media relations, press briefings and press conferences in the Vatican Press Center.

Fr. Rosica… I knew I had heard that name before and after some googling, some interesting stories showed up:


Fr. Clifford responded in this week’s bulletin to his previous statements:

I have received eight responses to date from my article of last week. The trend follows what both Gallup and Pew reported this week to be the feeling of a majority of Catholics in the US, that the new Pope hold to the traditions of our faith. I suspect we can all agree on that. [and this matters because?]  The challenge of any given day, whether in the 21st century or the 12th, is the way and means by which we teach, preach and live our faith in Jesus. [I suspect that means he thinks Benedict XVI didn’t do a good job of it.]


Hopefull posted this site in the comments – http://adoptacardinal.org/.  What a great idea.  I suppose you could do this without the website but you’d to divide a circle into 115 sections and you’d need a big spinner.  What a great way to “participate” in this time of great need in our Church, to pray that a specific Cardinal choose the man who would be the best choice.


JimmyAkin – The Next Pope Will Be God’s Choice . . . Right?


I’m not someone who’s going to post any speculations on who it might be.  Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with speculating – I just personally can’t handle it.  It was early August of last year when I was convinced the Pittsburgh Pirates had a pretty good chance to stay atop the NL Central standings.  If I start speculating on who’s going to be the next Pope the next thing you know I’ll be doing is naming my children Raymond Leo – it’s just not good.


Back to the random (or rather, still there)…
Over at Over the Rhine and Into the Tiber, Rich Leonardi did a post about John Zmiraks’ book and someone posted this quote from the book in the comments – “Catholicism is a wondrous religion – but a really pathetic hobby.”. That’s pretty good, I thought, and where had I heard that Zmirak name before? Oh yeah – right here:
All Your Church Are Belong to Us
I read this article a couple of years ago and it made some sense then. I read it again today and it made a LOT more sense. John Zmirak really nailed it with this one – it’s definitely worth the read (or re-read). Here’s some snippets:

Here’s what we Trads have realized, that the merely orthodox haven’t: Inessential things have power, which is why we bother with them in the first place. In every revolution, the first thing you change is the flag.


And by changing back the flag, by taking back our Mass, we are saying: Go back to Hell. Our Church belongs to Christ.


UPDATE 2013-03-05 06:11 EST
A black Pope?
James Lawrence, serving for the past 18 years as Editorial Page editor at the D&C, responsible for producing more than 5,100 daily Editorial and Speaking Out pages, says he hopes he don’t get a black pope because, of course, Americans are racist.

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8 Responses to “Friday Link Roundup”

  1. y2kscotty says:

    Fr. Clifford says, “The challenge of any given day, whether in the 21st century or the 12th, is the way and means by which we teach, preach and live our faith in Jesus.” And the response is: “[I suspect that means he thinks Benedict XVI didn’t do a good job of it.]” Unless you know more than you’re telling us, on what basis could you reach such a conclusion? I interpret Clifford’s statement as a concern regarding our own responsibility, not the Pope’s (although he could be included in that).
    Regarding the apparent criticisms towards Tom Rosica, let me say that his Salt+Light network is a good effort at evangelization. And he seems to be doing a good job in the Vatican’s press office (invited by Fr. Lombardi, SJ)

  2. Ben Anderson says:

    y2kscotty,
    You’ll want to see here for the reasoning behind my conclusion:
    http://cleansingfire.org/2013/02/wherein-fr-clifford-does-not-know/

    re: Fr. Rosica’s comments about ewtn, lifesite, and blogs in general, I must it’s the usual pompous, sanctimonious attitude we’ve seen too much of around here. Apart from those opinions, he may very well be doing a good job of evangelization and at the Vatican’s press office. I wouldn’t know because I hardly watch TV. My point wasn’t to say he’s a rotten apple or anything or the sort.

  3. Ben Anderson says:

    as far as a means of preaching and teaching our faith in the 21st century – this group looks quite interesting (sent to me by a friend on facebook)
    http://streetevangelization.com/

    perhaps we could find a group who might be interested in heading out to the Temple of the Commercial Gods (aka – Eastview Mall).

  4. y2kscotty says:

    I have just funished watching Fr Rosica’s interview with the schismatic Bishop Fellay of SSPX in 2009, http://saltandlighttv.org/blog/general/witness-with-bishop-bernard-fellay-sspx-now-online. I thought that Fr Rosica threw a lot of “softball” questions at him and certainly allowed Fellay to express his opinion. Fellay was rather mild regarding Vatican II. He did not condemn the Novus Ordo, which I think is the stance of the SSPX. Rosica gave him the opening, but Fellay didn’t go that far. Fellay really didn’t explain SSPX’s position regarding religious liberty as promulgated by Vatican II. But I couldn’t help but think what we would have thought if Fr Rosica had interviewed Fr. Jim Callan!
    Of course, a lot has happened since 2009 and it now appears that the talks between the Holy See and SSPX is pretty much ended. And, also the anti-semitic “Bishop” Williamson is no longer with SSPX.

  5. y2kscotty says:

    Regarding the SSPX position on the Novus Ordo: ” the New Mass still remains a sacrilege, and it is still in itself sinful.” Als, they say: “it is not permissible for a traditional Catholic, who understands that the New Mass is insulting to Our Divine Savior, to assist at the New Mass, and this even if there is no danger of scandal to others or of the perversion of one’s own Faith (as in an older person, for example), and even if it is the only Mass available.” None of this was discussed in Fr Rosica’s interview with “Bishop” Fellay. Fellay is a charming individual, but he and SSPX are in schism.

  6. Ben Anderson says:

    y2kscotty,
    just curious since you’ve brought up the sspx a few times… are you under the impression that people here are involved with them?

  7. Thinkling says:

    John Zmirak is a good egg. A little cantankerous sometimes, but so was Damian of Molokai and he has a Feast Day on the liturgical calendar. Most of the folks here may not get much out of his essay collection Disorientation, but I highly recommend it as a gift to friends needing a little quality know-thine-enemy apologetics.

    Um, Bishop Fellay is still a bishop, so we can do better than using scare quotes. A finer point, they are not technically in schism, rather they have done schismatic things. “Schism”, like “heresy” has a technical meaning that is much narrower than colloquial usage, so on matters this grave it behooves us to get our words right. (OTOH, let them try to consecrate another bishop…). And no I have no involvement with SSPX, although I find their case a fascinating case study to learn some armchair canon law.

  8. y2kscotty says:

    Ben, I would hope that no one here is involved with SSPX. I brought up SSPX since one of the sites that criticized Tom Rosica mentican ioned that his interview with Fellay was “respectful”. And that tied in with criticisms of Rosica that I have read here.
    But if you check with http://www.vatican.va/video, you can sometimes catch the Vatican’s press briefing, featuring Lombardi (SJ) and Rosica (CSB) and a Spanish-speaking fellow whose name I don’t know. Rosoca handles the English part, and sometimes the French. After the new Pope is elected and Rosica comes back home to Toronto, I hope it’ll be possible for someone or some group will be able to have him speak here about his experiences and what he has learned.

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