As usual, a very interesting interview with Luc Perrin at Rorate Caeli. This portion, towards the end, seems especially well-said:

So we are left to face all the other thorny questions as listed by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais: religious liberty, ecumenism, Christian spirit of sacrifice, social kingship of Christ; curiously, the problems raised by inter-faith dialogue is not cited. But to be able to work with Roman theologians on these crucial issues, the SSPX would need some qualified experts and to be able to evaluate the achievements of the Church in the past decades with something more accurate than “John Paul II did nothing to rebuild the Faith” or, speaking of Ecclesia Dei communities, “These poor people (priests, religious, lay people) are liberals and pragmatics” (Bishop Tissier de Mallerais).

Perhaps I just wasn’t so well informed before, but it seems, doesn’t it, that we’ve been seeing an upswing recently in the number of women pretending to be ordained? Fr. Z has mentioned several lately, and in his most recent post asked for suggestions about what one might say in a chance encounter with a woman who believed that she had been ordained to the priesthood. I find that a difficult question to answer in the abstract. There would be a mountain of issues to tackle with such an individual, about the nature of the priesthood, authority, obedience and the differences between men and women… well, I’m not one to shy away from engaging people in debate, but I think I might have to play that one by ear a little. A woman who has actually been (pretend) ordained and subsequently excommunicated, is pretty far gone already.

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J.P. Sonnen is the man: I love the photos that he posts from Rome, with solid traditionalist commentary. On Monday this week he posted a great photo of a missioner of the Precious Blood, which you see here. Though we once met a sedevacantist at St. Michael’s in Scranton armed with a crucifix of similar proportions, I didn’t realize that such crucifix-cum-cassock combinations were still around! It’s wonderful to see. Sonnen’s photograph reminded me of some old photographs I had seen on this page of Jesuit missionaries in America from the 19th century. I first found the page about the Jesuit missionaries when looking for more information about Fr. Arnold Damen, S.J. after reading two excellent sermons by him here and here. Francis Cardinal George, OMI has a nice column about Fr. Damen’s work in the Chicago area here. Once you’ve read Cardinal George’s column, here is a page about the history of Holy Family parish in Chicago, founded by Fr. Damen. As you’ll also read in Cardinal George’s column, Fr. Damen laid the first foundations for what became Loyola University in Chicago. Ah, Fr. Damen would have his work cut out for him if he were around now! I’m afraid that many who are there today would not be happy to see him set up for a mission on campus.

Look at the crucifixes in these photographs:
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More rich nuggets of theological insight from the Anglican clergy, this time, from the Very Reverend David Richardson, Anglican Representative of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Holy See and Director of the Anglican Center in Rome:

In Rev. Richardson’s view, Catholic concerns about controversial issues within the Anglican Communion, such as women bishops or homosexuality, are part of the normal difficulties of ecumenical dialogue.

“Ecumenical processes never run smoothly, and life moves on,” he said. “While you’re writing a report, at the end of it you find that something different has taken place. It may be that women have been ordained or a Pope has died, or an Archbishop of Canterbury has resigned.”

“We’re an evolving institution,” he said.

Sometimes the Pope dies, sometimes the “Archbishop” resigns, and sometimes women are ordained. That’s all clear. Any questions?
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This was interesting. A story out of Jacksonville, FL about the convention of the Knights (and Ladies) of St. Peter Claver. From their history page:

The Order was founded November 7, 1909 at Mobile Alabama; by four priests of the St. Joseph’s Society of the Sacred Heart (The Josephite Fathers) of Baltimore, Maryland – Fathers: Conrad F. Rebesher, John H. Dorsey, Samuel J. Kelly, and Joseph P. Van Baast, S.S.J.’s and the three layment of the Diocese of Mobile – Birmingham, Alabama. Messrs.: Gilbert Faustina, Frank Collins and Frank Trenier, all now passed to their eternal rewards.

In the article had this to say:

Members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary wore white clothes, while knights wore dark suits. Officers were marked by fezzes, caps or plumed hats and robes. Outside the ballroom, vendors offered suits, T-shirts (”God bless my grandma, ’cause she’s a blessing to me”), books, jewelry and Barack Obama hats and shirts.
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The essence of protestantism:

Bishop Sergio Carranza, Assistant Bishop in the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, responded skeptically to the proposal, saying “If it’s something that will punish or discipline then I don’t think it will work.

“We don’t want to have a tribunal and we don’t want to have a group that defines doctrine,” he said, according to the Telegraph.

It’s good when they’re frank about it.

Is it wrong to say that I love Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? (Even if I love the cat here more?) It is, because Iran is responsible for the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq (and Afghanistan); he and his country are killing Americans, and he has said publicly that there’s not a thing America (i.e., Booosh) can do about it. But that’s not why I’m tempted to love him; for his dressed down look: suit with no tie, open shirt, his rakish beard and five o’clock shadow? - no, that’s nothing in my affection in comparison with the way he sticks it to Western liberals. If I were an Islamist, this guy would be my superhero: he is on the cutting edge of showing up all that is stupid, hollow, waffling, effeminate, and plain weak in our dying Western culture. Islam is on the offensive (“Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges”), as Hilaire Belloc not so long ago predicted. That’s part of the reason why I have always supported the war in Iraq: taking the fight to militant Muslims, somewhere, anywhere, is better than sitting on our duff at home.
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Apologies for being MIA the last week and a half. I was down South visiting family… and since returning my brain has been in that mode where I feel like starting lots of things, but can’t seem to finish any of them. Anyway, I was thumbing through my alumni magazine yesterday evening and was annoyed to see that they’d marked the anniversary of Humanae Vitae by publishing this story by E.J. Dionne, a visiting professor in the journalism department last year. I had the idea that his name looked vaguely familiar, and when I glanced at the bio I figured out why; he’s the author of one of those sleazy political books that you see on the front tables as you’re walking into Barnes and Noble — the kind with blunt, hit-you-upside-the-head titles and the obvious intention to snag those lefties in a panic about the evil conservatives and all the havoc they’re wreaking in America. His particular title? Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. Cute.

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In reading Book XII of the Aeneid the other night, I came across these lines (427-8):

Non haec humanis opibus, non arte magistra
Proveniunt, neque te, Aenea, mea dextera servat

and I thought: wouldn’t those be great words (through to proveniunt) for a formula to be used by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in their declarations of miracles of physical healing? Better yet, all of the words could be used in a formula to which the doctor, who was supervising the terminally ill patient who then miraculously recovered, must assent, substituting the name of his patient in place of Aeneas’. Unusual scansions of names would of course be allowed, metri causa!

(The context of the lines is Aeneas’ miraculously recovery from wounds under the ministration of Iapyx, a doctor with the Trojan army, whose medicines, however, were supercharged by some additions made by Venus, Aeneas’ mother.)

I came across the conversion story of Fr. Owen Francis Dudley the other day and I thought that some of you might like to see it. It is posted at various places, so I imagine that many of you have seen it before; still, in light of the recent hopes for the conversion of some Anglicans inspired by the decision to ordain female “bishops”, there might be someone you know who would benefit from reading it for the first time.

As I read through it, it struck me how similar these conversion stories are many times, especially among the ex-Anglicans. The inroads into Anglicanism of that synthesis of all heresies, Modernism, was the last straw for many Anglicans, including Dudley (received into the Church 1915) and Ronald Knox (received 1917). But long since Modernism did its worst to the Anglican Communion, many are still waiting for that last straw; for some, it was the “ordination” of women, and now for others, it is the “ordination” of female bishops. Just think, though, what Newman and Dudley and Knox would have thought if they could see where Anglicanism was in 1998 or 2008 - would not the decision have been blindingly obvious?! In their day, they all agonized, but could they have agonized today?

Here are some excerpts from Fr. Dudley’s conversion story that I liked.
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