L'aborto in Italia...

Abortion is corporate and it's big, even in Catholic countries. Since 1978, the year of three popes, abortion has been legal in Italy. Support Human Life International so they can continue to fight abortion in Italy: www.hli.org .

Spanish warriors for Christ...

These dudes are cool. I don't even know who they are, but they show up in Rome every Pasqua, Corpus Domini, etc.

Scotland the Brave...

Scottish seminarians are the best dressed in Rome and they help to give Scotland a great name.

Il Porto di Roma: La Voce del Papa...

Meet the new Bishop of the port of Rome, Civitavecchia. He was just consecrated bishop last February in Rome. His name is Mons. Carlo Chenis, S.B.D. He's a Salesian Father and was consecrated by His Eminence T. Card. Bertone.

From the Port of Rome...

I met him and he's a good and holy man. He's an old friend of T. Card. Bertone (thus the appointment). I sure love the cappa nigra and the biretta!

From the Port of Rome...

Civitavecchia was originally an Etruscan settlement. Then along came the Romans who named it Centumcellae. The Emperor Trajan founded the port there in 107 A.D. If you visit there be sure to go in the morning and see the il mercato (market).

From the Port of Rome...

Civitavecchia is a great town and only one hour on the train from Rome (80 km). I love to glide out of the train station and see the sunny sea and to breath the lovely Tyrrhenian air.

Read the lives of the saints...

In Catholic countries one sees such great street names! Actually, one can see the incorrupt body of this saint in the Vatican Basilica.

A great hobby of mine has been to read the lives of the saints. Buy Butler's Lives of the Saints and read it to your kids at bedtime and both you and they will love it.

The collegio in Rome...

Being a seminarian in Rome is to live in a collegio. This is the collegio for seminarians from Hungary. Don't you just love the "in urbe" tacked on?

Palm Sunday in Rome...

Such elements of Catholic culture are great: a braided palm with a holy medal to be blessed by the Pope!

Palm Sunday in Rome...

The Via della Conciliazione is the place to be just before the Papal Mass!

Palm Sunday in Rome...

Palm Sunday in Rome...

The morning of Palm Sunday the busy Roman vendors were still making palms for the crowds. It was about 5 euro dollars to buy one all braided.

Palm Sunday in Rome...

This was our processional cross as it looked for Palm Sunday. Visit our parish when you're in Rome: www.fssp-roma.org .

Palm Sunday in Rome...

World's oldest Cardinal: 70 years a priest...

Rome, Mar. 27, 2007 (CWNews.com) - Cardinal Alfons Stickler, the oldest living member of the College of Cardinals, received a letter of congratulations from Pope Benedict XVI on March 27, as he celebrated the 70th anniversary of his priestly ordination.

Cardinal Stickler, who is approaching his 97th birthday, was ordained as a Salesian priest in St. Peter's basilica on March 27, 1937. In 1983 he became the Vatican archivist and librarian, serving in that capacity until his retirement in 1988. He was raised to the College of Cardinals by Pope John Paul II in 1985.

In his letter to the Austrian prelate, who is now living in retirement in Rome, Pope Benedict praised him for his "charm and affability" as well as the "charity and piety" he displayed during his years of service to the Church. The Pope's letter was written in Latin.

Our entreaty to God: financial assistance...

While enjoying some nice Laziale bianco (goes great with antipasti, primi piatti e pesce) and some Spanish black olives, I was thinking of how good God has been to me in the light of 1 Chronicles 17:16 "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me thus far?"

I began this blog in answer to our culture of voyeurs - people who watch rather than participate. Not that blog viewers seek vicarious rather than real experiences, but that as long as I'm here, I might as well be the one who takes the photos so as to share with the others who are not, for whatever reason, here.

Being a spectator is safe (and free). To be here and there has a cost. It is said that God provides food for every bird, but that He doesn't place it in the nest. I want to take this moment to thank those marvelous persons who have contributed to my education through their giving to me via this blog (they bequeath much). God reward you!

Lamb on Easter Sunday...

A Catholic tradition is to feast on lamb on Easter Sunday. Every year, on Holy Saturday, we buy a lamb in Rome and bring it to our parish in Rome ( www.fsspinurbe.blogspot.com ). Our chaplain then blesses the lamb and our other food stuffs from the Roman Ritual with the Easter Blessings of Food.

The Easter blessings of food owe their origin to the fact that these particular foods, namely, fleshmeat and milk products, including eggs, were forbidden in the Middle Ages during the Lenten fast and abstinence. When the feast of Easter brought the rigorous fast to an end, and these foods were again allowed at table, the people showed their joy and gratitude by first taking the food to church for a blessing. Moreover, they hoped that the Church's blessing on such edibles would prove a remedy for whatever harmful effects the body might have suffered from the long period of self-denial. Today the Easter blessings of food are still held in many churches in the U. S., especially in those of the Slavic peoples.

A. Blessing of Lamb

P: Our help is in the name of the Lord.All: Who made heaven and earth.P: The Lord be with you.All: May He also be with you.

Let us pray.
God, who by your servant Moses commanded your people in their deliverance from Egypt to kill a lamb as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ, and prescribed that its blood be used to sign the two door-posts of their homes; may it please you to bless + and sanctify + this creature-flesh which we, your servants, desire to eat in praise of you. We ask this in virtue of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you forever and ever.
All: Amen.

It is sprinkled with holy water.

Circle the wagons and to the Alamo...

Meet this saint. He's Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, known in Italy now as il nuovo Presidente of the CEI (the new president of the Italian Bishops Conference).

As a student in Rome while in the library one sometimes pages through the Italian newspapers. The photos are nice, but the goofy journalism is the usual dog-and-pony show.

Anyways, the Italian media has declared war on the new Pope, the new Cardinal Secretary of Sate as well as on this man, the new President of the Italian Bishops Conf. I guess it had to happen, but the lies and anti-Catholic bigotry that I read in the papers here now everyday makes me want to say: "If a battle has to be fought at the OK Corral, then let's rumble because the voice of the Church has a right to be heard."

From the Catholic Hofburg Palace...

From a country club at Tuxedo Park, N.Y.? No, actually a Catholic ball in Vienna in the palace of Franz Joseph!

Actually, this is how we renew culture. Wiener Walzer is (an) answer. Viennese Waltzes are easy, pure and fun.

Wow, whose the lovely lady (is she from la scuola di portamento di Roma?). No, actually, la top-model is Judit. She looked great but I was definitely not l'uomo meglio vestito without the swallow-tailed coat!

Ball season in Vienna leads up to Ash Wednesday. If you want to attend, check online for a Wiener Ballkalender. There are many, but the best is the Rudolfiner Redoute which is the ball for Catholics (www.rudolfina.at). Theire motto is Latin: Nec Aspera Terrent.

John Henry Cardinal Newman in Rome...

I invite more to read Cardinal Newman. He cried to God to be led into the fulness of truth and so the Lord granted his entreaty and the young Newman found his way into the Catholic Faith. May His Eminence pray for us.

From the storehouses of history: the toys...

I just love the toys, but the moderns always wanted change. They have haughtily raised their voices against our mocked and reviled "traditions." Like an Italian, I might reply with a wicked: ma la passione e l'arte!

In other words, keep the nice traditions and enjoy the beauty as traditions are fun and nice and will not be felled by the liberal mantra of change all or be square.

The Catholic pilgrim in Rome...

I just love our siegeworks in the Church: the dress of clergy and laymen alike! We have clergy who proudly wear their habit and at the same time laymen who proudly dress well in and out of church and then there's always the youthful pilgrims at the McDonalds in Rome!

The Roman seminarian from India...

A seminarian in Rome lives in a collegio. Before the broken 1960s most every national college in Rome had a uniform (some form of the cassock). Seminarians were always seen at least a group of two or more and always in their national version of the cassock. The Germans wore all red, the Americans blue buttons, red piping and white collar, etc.

The good news is that sometimes you still see these on the streets of Rome such as this guy who I think is from the Ethiopian College. It's fun for the guys themselves (a little team spirit), for the Romans and others, too. Pray for this return.

Il mondo non basta: tonsure lives...

I always thought that a good line to recruit vocations to the monastic life might be: Il mondo non basta (the world is not enough).

These guys were just great! As I thanked them for their witness of tonsure they smiled and then began to explain to me in detail the theology behind it.

The roar is heard from Judah and may the Lord of History be praised for this evangelical and charismatic witness to the city and the world!

The bishop in the hallowed Capello Romano...

Schooled in Rome, you can always tell! As today we have all lived to see the discontinuance of Catholic Europe, it sure is a joy to see such beauty even on the bus in Rome!

Oratorians on the cobbles of Rome...

"Saint Philip! I have never known

A saint as I know thee;

For none have made their wills and ways

So plain for men to see!"

F. Faber: St. Philip's Picture (19th cent.).

Dominicans on the cobbles of Rome...

The American seminarian in Rome...

You know he's from the Pont. North American College when you see a cleric in a cassock leading a jam session of praise and worship on the streets of Rome.

ROMA = AMOR

"There are many other things which rightly keep me in the bosom of the Catholic Church. The consent of peoples and nations keeps me, her authority keeps me, inaugurated by miracles, nourished in hope, enlarged by love, and established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, from the very chair of the apostle Peter (to whom the Lord after His resurrection gave charge to feed His sheep) down to the present episcopate."

St. Augustine: Contra Epistolam Manichaei (4th cent).

Cardinal Ottaviani: breadth and depth of a saint...

Charisma of leadership is always essential. He had it and others envied him for it. He saw that Europe was a Christian category. But he also saw and knew others who planned the demise of this category and the danger of freelance attempts at reform.

The European commonwealth today is pagan. Cardinal Ottaviani died in 1979. Lacking the necessary leadership mediation from hierarchial government, in these recent years the Catholic voice has been vulnerable to distortion and chaotic misinterpretation.

The recourse of the centuries has always been to the theology of the Church. We have a hereditary task as Catholics to PROTECT and PRESERVE the framework of our theology as the Chruch has given it to us.

The tomb of Cardinal Ottaviani...

Al Card. Ottaviani was a born leader. It is said that his gift was to get those around him to perform at the top of their talent. He was resilient and energizing and even inspires us from the grave.

The cultural revolution overwhelmed many Catholics of that epoch. Having been schooled in the history of the Church, His Eminence saw this unsurpassable tidal wave coming and so he did what all good helmsmen do, he shouted: "To the Alamo and let the games begin!"

The killjoy enemies of the Church are many. Everything good in Europe shoots from the Christian root. Why replace this root? The ever-greater Catholic voice was Card. Ottaviani and may he continue to teach each us not to be a tool of despairing optimism while at the same time to have a sense of humor in the face of the freak attacks on the Church.

The tomb of Cardinal Ottaviani...

Al Car. Ottaviani was from Rome. He had been born in Trastevere in 1890. He, like other Romans, had never completely forgotten the lessons of the persecutions.

The Herculean strength of the enemies of God and His Holy Church is nothing new. Card. Ottaviani warned of this and so was jeered at in his day. While I tarried at his tomb in the Vatican, I thought of the circuitous march through the Catholic world that modernism has made.

He, in his wisdom, taught us to safeguard the sacred deposit of faith as we are the trustees of this inheritance that was destined for us and now entrusted to us as God willed it to us as a gift addressed to us.

Lettera Enciclica di S.S. Pio X Sul Modernismo...

If you ever find yourself in Venice, be sure to take the short ride on the train to Padova and then a bus to Riese. Who was born in Riese? Well, Pivs X was!

Anyways, this year marks the hundreth anniversary of the papal declaraion of war against the modernists by Pius X.

For our Italian audience: Quest'anno è il centesimo anniversario della promulgazione della Lettera Enciclica di S. S. Pio X circa le dottrine moderniste "Pascendi Dominici Grecis" 8 settembre 1907 - 8 settembre 2007.

Rome Holy Week 2007 in Tridentine Rite...

The Triduum rites in the Classical Roman Rite will be held this year at the Church of Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte on the Via Giulia, near to Piazza/Palazzo Farnese.

Maundy Thursday: 6:30 pm

Good Friday: 6:30 pm

Holy Saturday: 10:30 pm

Easter Sunday: yet to be announced

N.B. The rites will be held in this larger church so as to accomodate the crowds. Tenebrae will be held at 9:00 am at the Church of San Gregorio dei Muratori.

The Catholic pilgrim in Lazio...

As a kid growing up in Protestant America I knew what a "pilgrim" was. It was, as we were instructed, one of the 102 separatists from the Church of England who landed from the Mayflower in 1620.

Then, as that little lion pup got older, he learned what a true "peregrinus" was. The pilgrim is not just a wanderer of the besieged modern world who is on a weary journey here and there and only in Europe.

Welcome to the quest. To search the trail of the pilgrim the world over is of no medieval romance, but a real spiritual experience in journeying as a devotee from one shrine to another.

Bring your kids on a pilgrimage to your local cathedral to see the throne of the bishop, take them to the altar of your parish church to pray before the relics of the entombed saints there, visit the local monastery, visit the Shrine of the North American Martyrs, etc.

Rome marathon...

Here the police band gets ready to play just as the winners of the marathon approach the Vatican.

Rome marathon...

Every March they have the Rome marathon. Here we see the soon-to-be winners who are in the lead as they approach the Vatican. The victors are usually from Africa.

Acton Institute Lecture in Rome...

This is the Chinese Ambassador to the Holy See. It was a joy to chat with him. He just converted to Catholicism (through Opus Dei friends).

Acton Institute in Rome...

Know and be involved with the Acton Institute. They do a lot of good in educating average persons about important issues and they even have an office in Rome: www.acton.org .

When they die in Catholic Italy...

Isn't this great? When an Italian dies they put up these nice posters all over town. This lady, named Marinella, just died this month. She was ninety-one. Pray for this soul.

Habit watching...

The Norbertine habit is just great. Of course I only say this because I just love the little hood which is about large enough to keep a can of soda in!

On the streets of Rome...

I stranieri che commandano...

On the top on the right lives Bill Cardinal Baum and on the top on the left lives Bill Cardinal Levada. These two American prelates, while each on their respective terrace, can wave to the other over the great divide of the Via della Conciliazione.

The Pope's tailor in Rome...

When you're in Rome be sure to visit Signor Gammarelli on the Via Santa Chiara to see where the Pope gets his clothes from. The Pope is only measured and fitted in the Vatican and only by the senior member of the Gammarelli family. If you're a seminarian order your casscok from here for some qualita.

Imposing Pontifical Univ. of St. Thomas in Rome...

Eucharistic Adoration in Rome...

When you study in Rome at the Dominican Univeristy (a.k.a. the Angelicum) you can pray in this chapel every day from 8 am until 6 pm M-F as our Blessed Lord is exposed for the veneration of the faithful in the sacred monstrance.

A "No Smoking" sign in Latin...

You'd have to be in Rome at a Pontifical Univeristy to see a sign as nice as this in the library!

Study Thomism in Rome: l'Angelicum...

Did you know that you can study philosophy in Rome, in English, for only two years and then graduate with a B.A. degree? Welcome to the Angelicum! Tuition is only 1,100 euro dollars per year. See: www.pust.it .

Politics in Italy: in Latin...