Fr Dylan James defensor

Say a prayer today for Fr Dylan James, a priest of the Diocese of Plymouth. He is defending his doctoral thesis in the viva voce examination today. I don't know the exact title of his thesis but he has been working on the concept of personhood, especially as it relates to the personhood of the embryo.

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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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Enjoying the Feast of the Holy Trinity

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The weather in London today finally broke into just above 20 degrees centigrade, or just tipping 70 if you are using old money. It was a beautiful day to celebrate the feast of the Most Holy Trinity. This weekend and last, I have been helping at St Bede’s, Clapham Park. In a most pastorally sensitive swap, the late Archbishop Smith allowed Fr Basden to move from Clapham Park to Ramsgate, and Fr Holden to move from there to Clapham Park. Thus, continuity was secured for both parishes. The parish choir at St Bede’s has been going from strength to strength. On several recent visits I have heard them sing polyphonic masses with aplomb. Today we had Victoria’s Missa O Quam Gloriosum .  As is the way with many traditional Masses in parishes, the older servers have had children who are now competently taking over. More than one young teenager that has served me as MC has asked his parents for a vintage copy of Fortescue for his birthd
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On the Attempted Cancellation of Father Zuhlsdorf

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Since the US election, Fr Zuhlsdorf has been subjected to a concerted attack from some liberal catholic publications. This would not be noteworthy except for the fact that as a result, he has been asked to move from the diocese where he currently works and has now to find accommodation. It is therefore reasonable to speak of an attempt to “cancel” him as the saying is nowadays. The Character of Fr Z’s Blog As an outspoken blogger, Fr Z is accustomed to opposition from Catholics who object to his promotion of the traditional Latin Mass, gays who object to his unequivocal defence of Catholic moral teaching, and modernist priests and theologians whose theology he criticises for being contrary to the magisterial teaching of the Church. In the online “wild west” of the blogosphere, he is happy to give as good as he gets. This makes his blog enjoyable for his followers and probably annoying for his opponents. At the same time, of
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Abstinence and Friday of the Easter Octave

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Must we abstain from meat on the Friday of the Easter Octave? In my "Catholic Dilemmas" column in the Catholic Herald of 29 March 2013, I said that we should. This has created a larger correspondence than any other of the columns that I have written in the past six years. So I thought I should address the question further here. First of all the law concerning abstinence. The relevant canon of the current Code of Canon Law says: Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday... (Can. 1251) So the question is whether the Friday of the Easter Octave is a solemnity. In the 1969 document Calendarium Romanum , we read the following in the Normae Universales de Anno Liturgico et de Calendario : Octo primi dies temporis paschalis constituunt octavam Paschae et uti sollemnitates Domini celebrantur. (n.24) (The first eight days of paschal time constitute t
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Confessions on Good Friday and Holy Saturday

There is a rubric in the 1970 Missal at the beginning of the texts for Good Friday which reads: "According to the Church's ancient tradition, the sacraments are not celebrated today or tomorrow." (The next rubric gives an exception for Viaticum.) This has led some priests to think that confessions should not be heard on Good Friday or Holy Saturday. In fact, as everybody knows, Pope John Paul regularly did a stint in the confessional in St Peter's on Good Friday. The 2000 Editio Typica Tertia of the missal has unambiguously clarified the matter. The rubric now reads: Hac et sequenti die, Ecclesia, ex antiquissima traditione, sacramenta, praeter Paenitentiae et Infirmorum Unctionis penitus non celebrat. " According to the Church's ancient tradition, the sacraments are not celebrated at all today or tomorrow - except for Penance and Anointing the Sick. " So there is no reason at all why we should not have confessions on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. In
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