Actually, the title is something of a misnomer, I’m afraid, because I’m going to say less about good confessors and more about difficult ones. You’ll have to forgive my negativity (no pun intended); actually, I’ve been blessed to receive many excellent insights and pieces of spiritual advice in the confessional at various times. But it’s really quite a curious thing, is it not, going to confession? Here you are, giving extremely personal information to a person who you might not even know, and accepting advice and correction from him. Now, in an ideal situation, the confessor will be someone who knows you, and you will respect him and trust his advice. However, that sometimes is not possible. If you want to confess regularly (as Pope Benedict, among others, has advised us to do), you may have to settle for whatever opportunities present themselves. That may sometimes mean confessing to complete strangers, or (which is often worse) to priests you do know but don’t especially like. Where else in life do we do anything like this?
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If it is, it’s very exciting! In the email sent out this afternoon by Angelus Press, the US publishing house of the SSPX, there were these remarks:

Since the release of Pope Benedict XVI’s motu proprio “Summorum Pontificum”, we have been deluged with orders for missals and books on the Mass & liturgy and the crisis in the Church. You may want to “brush-up” on some of these topics yourself in preparation for the inevitable discussions to come with friends, relatives and neighbors.

Interest in the “old” Mass among conciliar priests is astounding. TWO inside sources tell us that an East coast diocese has over 20 priests learning the 1962 Missal and their bishop is planning a group of Tridentine parishes. Additionally, the district office of the SSPX received 25 requests yesterday from priests wanting to learn to say the old Mass. We must pray for these priests and be sure that we are educated ourselves.

Call me foolish if you will, but over the past few days I’ve been reading, with a somewhat bemused fascination, some of the pieces that have come out in the mainstream media regarding the old mass. Of course it’s to be expected that all kinds of foolish things have been said. The Holy Father’s action, so long-overdue in our eyes, can hardly help but be quite incomprehensible in the eyes of 99% of the western world; watching the American media try to tackle it is a bit like watching one of those episodes of Star Trek in which a primitive race tries to figure out what to make of the amazing starship Enterprise. Thinking about it that way, I find in spite of myself that many of the absurd attempts to make sense of what’s happened strike me as more cute than anything else.

Take, for example, this excerpt from a little op-ed piece found in a local Austin paper, The Daily Texan:

“The restrictions Benedict XVI reversed came about in 1965, when the Second Vatican Council, commonly known as Vatican II, updated the church for the first time in nearly 100 years.”
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With the release of the Motu Proprio I’ve been feeling more and more the difficulty of finding appropriate terms for referring to, um, the Mass according to the 1962 missal of Blessed Pope John XXIII. All the options seem unsatisfactory in one way or another.

The phrase I just used is, of course, the most precise way to designate it, but it’s too long to be practical for use in regular conversation. The “Tridentine Mass” is more usable, but it’s unfortunate in a different way since it perpetuates the mistaken idea that this form of the Mass began with the Council of Trent just as the Novus Ordo began with Vatican II. And “Tridentine” is also a bit long and clinical-sounding to my ears, though certainly better than “the Mass according to the 1962 missal of Blessed Pope John XXIII.”
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While paging through an odd little South African newspaper on a plane, I found this random tidbit of rather amusing news. It seems that Mircea Pavel, a Romanian man serving a 20-year prison sentence for murder, attempted to sue God for failing to answer his prayers. “The defendent, God, who lives in the heavens and is represented in Romania by the Orthodox Church,” was charged with fraud and “betrayal of trust”. Move over, Job.

In an interview with the Romanian newspaper Evenimentul Zilei, Pavel elaborated on the complaint. “At my christening,” he explained, “I made a deal with the defendant aimed at freeing me from evil. But the latter has not respected that agreement until now, although He received from me various assets and numerous prayers.”
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A most curious paragraph:

This past June 6th I was in the Sheraton New York Hotel on the dais for a dinner sponsored by the Building and Construction sector of the Cardinal’s Committee for Charity to raise funds for Archdiocesan schools that educate children who are physically or emotionally disabled. One of the more than 600 guests approached the dais toward the end of the dinner and began in jest to recite the responses of the altar server to the opening prayers of the traditional Latin Mass. Continue reading

For those of you who go in for this kind of thing, I just came across an interesting chapter in the life of one Father Emmanuel by Dom Bernard Marechaux. Apropos of yesterday’s post about the new posters in the Archdiocese of Manila, it may be edifying to consider the example of Fr. Emmanuel who founded The Society of Jesus Crowned with Thorns whose charism, if I may use that word without abuse, was the preservation of modesty in dress. Unusually, perhaps, he was not only concerned that feminine attire not reveal the feminine form, but also that luxury of dress, such as may be indulged by the rich, be checked. He evinced a particular zeal against innovations in women’s headgear.

I found this chapter tucked away on the website of the National Coalition of Clergy & Laity, the group that leads the annual Pilgrimage for Restoration to Auriesville. I repost here a number of the passages which piqued my interest:

. . . . A vain woman belies the promises of her Baptism; a woman who seeks to draw men’s looks to herself shows by that that she has no care to please Jesus Christ. This truth was borne in upon Father Emmanuel’s spirit, as will be seen in what follows.

Living in the midst of a population which he had made profoundly Christian – God knows at the cost of what labor! – a population which was generally poor, and which, as a consequence, preserved as completely natural the old-fashioned and very simple manner of dress, he had not had occasion to express an opinion on the question of modesty. But during the period 1867-1868, there occurred an incident which could have had the most unfortunate of consequences.

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A nice collection of images of Catholic life in New France (Canada). I saw this link at Cath Con.

Not too shabby, I’d say, for one of the world’s largest archdioceses. Granted, it’s not up to the standards of Our Lady of Fatima’s dress code, but it’s a good step in the right direction. Today, I think, any open discussion by diocesan officials of modesty in dress is a step in the right direction. I again give credit to Bishop Yanta for his words some while back.

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I did not know that Leo XIII was a movie star, but it turns out, he was. Via the Vatican’s new Vatican State website, you can find several moving picture features, of which the first is Leo XIII waving to the camera in a few different settings. That’s all it is, just posed scenes in which he comes in, sits down, and waves to the camera. The date is 1896. It’s pretty cool. He waves to the camera like he’s directing an orchestra or trying to get the camera’s attention, as though it might not see him otherwise.

I sure hope that they’re not holding any Leo films back from us. You know, footage of him signing Libertas praestantissimum or the like that would make traditionalists riot with delight.