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Composers of excellent sacred music have seldom enjoyed the musical recognition their works deserve. Don Lorenzo Perosi, whom critics once lauded as belonging to "the front rank of contemporary musicians," is today scarcely known outside Europe. As an advisor to popes from Leo XIII to Pius XII, Perosi remained an influential director and prolific composer at the Sistine Chapel for more than half a century. The present essay aims to re-introduce this remarkable priest and artist to persons interested in Catholic musical culture. Lorenzo Perosi was a youthful musical prodigy whose remarkable talents and personal piety brought rapid advancement at...

The question one hears among Iranians these days is this: “If a group of second generation immigrants that had retuned to Iran staged an uprising and set cars and schools ablaze, how would they be dealt with?” The answer is that each and every one of the participants would be immediately detained and crushed with full force. And if the “sacred” regime would not oblige with this suppression, the vigilantes would not stand by to allow some “rogues” put the cars that are more-precious-than-the-life-of-their-owners on fire in hundreds but would step in and respond. So while the above question has...

Canadian Evaluates Synod VATICAN CITY, OCT. 21, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Despite increased popularity in Eucharistic adoration, the West still has a ways to go in rediscovering the sacredness of the liturgy, says the archbishop of Quebec. Cardinal Marc Ouellet, president of the Synod of Bishops' commission for writing the final message, made these and other comments in an interview with Inside the Vatican, in which he assessed the synod on the Eucharist. "My feeling at this point, and we are close to the end, is that the synod has been successful," he said. The cardinal said a key to its success...

A Novena of Fasting and Prayers This may be appropriate when keeping a fasting novena before the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary, Mother of God Prayer of Consecration In union with all mankind, in communion with the entire Church, and with our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, we address to you O Father, this supplication especially for our country, through the heart and the hands of the Virgin Mary. Father, send your Holy Spirit, so that each one of us might become an instrument of your peace, From hunger and war, deliver us! From nuclear war, from incalculable...

BRING BACK THE BELLS: MASS SEEN AS IN REAL NEED OF RETURN TO SENSE OF SACREDWe all remember that during the election of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican initiated a new backup system in announcing the decision. Instead of just using smoke, the Church instituted the ringing of bells as a confirmation.We suggest that the Church take it another step and institute (or should we say, "re-institute") the bells during Mass. Bring those bells back into the liturgy!Many of us remember how, before the reforms of Vatican II, bells were jingled during Consecration. There were three long rings as the...

Yesterday that recently vanquished cliché, the Arab street, returned to remind us that there are some things that even the most enlightened Westerners don't get about Muslims -- their fanaticism about the Koran. Newsweek, which had only a few months ago been jubilantly celebrating the new People Power rising up in the Middle East, apparently ran an article in which it was alleged that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, in order to annoy the Muslim inmates, had deposited copies of the Koran on or in the toilet bowls of the prison facility. There was even a rumor that a copy of...

This is an excerpt from an email ebay is now sending out: "We understand that the listing of the Eucharist was highly upsetting to Catholic members of the eBay community and Catholics globally. Once this completed sale was brought to our attention, we consulted with a number of our users, including members of the Catholic Church, concerning what course we should take in the future should a similar listing appear on our site. We also consulted with members of other religions about items that might also be highly sacred and inappropriate for sale. As a result of this dialogue, we...

Chad Wanted MoreEditor's note: Chad McCoy and James McCoy are not related. Chad McCoy was born an uncle. His mother and father had 13 sons and daughters, but they wanted more. Brother Chad — now 24 yet the baby of the family still — can't number his nieces and nephews for the reporter on the phone. He was born an uncle. But it would take him more than twenty years to find what God had in mind for him since before he was born. Like his siblings, he could have married and had a passel of kids. But he wanted...

We exhort young people, born into this society of audio-visually conditioned robots, to rise up against the reign of untruth. Leave television to its willing slaves; read the masters of your religious and national culture, read your mystics, your thinkers, your poets. Seek after truth, obey it as you would a sovereign, don’t let yourself be closed in by worldly or ecclesiastical conformity. To bind oneself unconditionally to an ideology or a religion, beyond what is just and unjust, is a properly satanic aberration. Totalitarian states that alternate between lies and violence (lies to cover up the violence, and violence...

Dear pilgrims of Notre-Dame, [snip] The Christian life is a pilgrimage, often painful, which passes through Golgotha, but is illumined by the splendours of the Spirit. And which leads to glory. Oh! We may well be persecuted, but I forbid that we be pitied. For we belong to a race of exiles and voyagers, gifted with a prodigious power of invention, but refusing—that is its religion—to be distracted from the things of Heaven. [snip] If we seek to pacify the earth, to beautify the earth, it is not in order to replace Heaven, but so that the earth be Heaven’s...

The bishops have apparently now voted Bishop Trautman as head of the Bishops Committee on the Liturgy. This is horrible, horrible news for those of us who are more traditional on matters liturgical. In this America article, Bishop Trautman expresses his views about the wretched oppression Rome is visiting upon the Church with its attempts to reform the liturgy.

Why do priests use incense at Mass? — A reader in AlexandriaIncense is an aromatic substance which is the resin from certain trees. When burned over charcoal, the incense produces a sweet smelling aroma. To make the smoke thicker and to enhance the fragrance, sometimes other perfumes are blended with the incense.The use of incense in the ancient world was common, especially in religious rites where it was used to keep demons away. Herodotus, the Greek historian, recorded that it was popular among the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians. In Judaism, incense was included in the thanksgiving offerings of oil, grain,...

The month of July brings the good tidings of more priestly ordinations from our seminaries. Indeed, Providence has given our Society 15 new priests. On June 19, at St Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Winona, H. L. Bishop Williamson ordained 4 priests and 3 deacons. The ceremony was very well attended and Our Lord provided perfect weather. A week later, on June 26, H. L. Bishop Tissier de Mallerais ordained 3 priests at Sacred Heart Seminary in Zaitzkofen, Germany. Finally Bishop de Galarreta ordained 10 priests: 8 for the SSPX and 2 for the Capuchin order of Morgon, France. Three deacons...

Et verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis: et vidimus gloriaim ejus, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre, plenum gratiae et veritatis. And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us. And we saw his glory--glory as of the only-begotten of the Father--full of grace and of truth. The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us when He was conceived as a helpless embryo in Our Lady's virginal and immaculate womb. The Co-Eternal Word, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, took upon Himself that which He did not have from all eternity with the Father: a human...

The Sacred Muslim Practice of BeheadingBy Andrew G. BostomFrontPageMagazine.com | May 13, 2004 Reactions to the grotesque jihadist decapitation of yet another "infidel Jew," Mr. Berg, make clear that our intelligentsia are either dangerously uninformed, or simply unwilling to come to terms with this ugly reality: such murders are consistent with sacred jihad practices, as well as Islamic attitudes towards all non-Muslim infidels, in particular, Jews, which date back to the 7th century, and the Prophet Muhammad's own example. According to Muhammad?s sacralized biography by Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad himself sanctioned the massacre of the Qurayza, a vanquished Jewish tribe. He appointed...

The following is a copy of an e-mail sent to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on Dec. 16, 2003: ------------------------------- This is the title I gave to this e-mail: UNHOLY ALLIANCE - CARDINAL RENATO MARTINO AND SADDAM HUSSEIN. Contents: International News - December 16, 2003 Cardinal Backs Trial for Saddam Hussein December 16, 2003 02:51 PM EST VATICAN CITY - A top Vatican cardinal said Tuesday Saddam Hussein should face trial for his crimes, but stressed the Vatican's opposition to the death penalty and criticized the U.S. military for portraying him "like a cow" having his teeth checked....

Sacred Precincts: A Tartessian Sanctuary in Ancient Spain Sebastián Celestino and Carolina López-Ruiz When the Phoenicians arrived on the Iberian peninsula, probably at the end of the ninth century B.C., they came into contact with an indigenous people called the Tartessians. The two cultures soon fused. The hybrid culture produced by this fusion of peoples is evident in a mysterious structure at Cancho Roano, deep in the heart of south-central Spain. The structure at Cancho Roano is sometimes called a “palace-sanctuary” because of its monumentality. But it was not a palace at all; it was simply a Tartessian sanctuary, which...

The Ten Commandment exterminators are out in full force. All around America, public displays of the Ten Commandments are the object of lawsuits, ACLU threats, city council battles, and civil disobedience. As Slate magazine writes, “It’s starting to be the Summer of Decalogues....(snip .....the people who are offended by the Ten Commandments are the ones who are eager to make it easier to violate them. They may not be murderers, rapists, and robbers, but they probably want greater leeway in the sentencing of thugs. They probably don’t cheat on taxes, but they didn’t mind when a president lied in court....

Senator Santorum and the CSPAN Miracle by Kathryn Jean Lopez [Pro-Life Infonet Note: Kathryn Jean Lopez is the executive editor of National Review Online.] On Friday night, Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (R.) and his wife, Karen Garver Santorum, received an award from the Sisters of Life, the order of religious sisters founded by the late John Cardinal O'Connor in 1991. The Sisters were established, according to the late cardinal archbishop of New York, to "restore to all society a sense of the sacredness of human life." The John Cardinal O'Connor Award was given to the Santorums in recognition of "the...

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Just before the trial was to begin over a teenager who was suspended from high school for wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of the Confederate flag, lawyers told the court they were about to settle the case.An order filed Sept. 10 in U.S. District Court in Lexington revealed the settlement. Lawyers would not discuss details, but said it should be made final within 30 days."I don't want to upset any apple carts," explained attorney Kirk David Lyons of the Southern Legal Resource Center in North Carolina, a nonprofit group devoted to protecting the civil rights of...