Fr. Z and the St. Patrick's Day "heresy"

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Blessings
I don’t think fish on Friday is a Lenten sacrifice. We go to RED LOBSTER or some other fish restaurant.
In Christ’s Love
Tweedlealice

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

– St. Teresa of Avila
 
The Church allows in some small way, for us to make a small Lenten observance on Friday’s. It’s a small step, small “t” tradition to the big “T” Tradition, on our part. To observe this time of year. And what it is for. I know people don’t feel the depth of it necessarily. But, at least in a small way, it’s a start. Kind of like w small memo the Church give us every year. And most people enthusiastically go for Ashes on Ash Wednesday. Those Ashes can be like yeast. Though in small amounts, can make the dough rise. And like wise, can we rise to Eternal glory, or at least getting their in/through the Sacraments.

It’s just a good reminder and practice.

Honestly, people who have been in the Church for years, but have been busy to truly understand why. They will often do something out of routine, in the Church’s calendar without really thinking about it. Then suddenly it hits them. They wonder “why”, like a child. And suddenly somethings happen. Like, when they are at Mass, and something hits them through the Homily, or in Sacred Scripture, or Divine Liturgy, or the Word. Or through the Hymns and songs sung at Mass. Or they read a Church bulletin on Bible Study. The Church, through the works of the Holy Spirit, has vasts amount of avenues and resources reaching people, and hearts, being made out of stone. It takes time.
 
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Mattapoisett64 said:
I am not Fr. Z’s greatest fan, but I noticed that in his blog today, he characterized the practice of dispensing from Lenten abstinence on St. Patrick’s Day when it falls on a Friday as “Neopelagian,” Pelagianism of course being a heresy condemned by the Church. In years past, when March 17 has been a Friday, our bishop has in fact issued such a dispensation. So my question is: do I report our bishop for being a heretic, or do I report Fr. Z for calling him one? And I’m curious: I see where Fr. Z is incardinated in an obscure diocese outside Rome, despite living and working in Madison Wisconsin. Is there a reason for this? Does he have any ecclesiastical superiors in the U.S., or is he just some kind of free-lance Internet presence?
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Quoting from the article - “[NB: This does NOT dispense Catholics from the Lenten discipline on St. Patrick’s Day, a Promethean Neopelagian practice these days.]”

I’m not from the US and don’t know this Priest but wiki googling it says he was a former Lutheran so perhaps he still retains the Protestant antipathy towards the culturally Celtic Catholics and their tribal nature? His posts seem very hostile.
 
Are you implying that Father Z is 'sour-faced?" Not very charitable. You can disagree with people without cherry picking Scripture and without taking quotes from saints to use to imply others are ‘lacking’.
 
I suggest you read a lot more of his posts (he is far from hostile). Also, it really isn’t very nice to paint “Evangelical Lutherans” and extending to “Protestants” to have a 'cultural bias against Celtic Catholics".

It actually might seem to some that there exists a bias among "cradle Catholics’ to feel that ‘converts’, especially those from a perceived real ‘anti-Catholic’ group, come with baggage ‘against’ Catholics.

If you once ate meat, studied, pondered, and chose to become vegetarian, do you suppose that those were vegetarian from birth would constantly look at you saying, “Of course, those former meat eaters obviously still retain that carnivorous desire and look down upon cradle vegetarians who never experienced that desire”???

Yep, that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it?
 
Lev said:
His posts seem very hostile.
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That’s just the way he writes. If you aren’t into hellfire and damnation preachers then just look elsewhere. The worse thing that can happen to someone like that is they don’t get attention.
 
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stpurl said:
You can disagree with people without cherry picking Scripture and without taking quotes from saints to use to imply others are ‘lacking’.
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Fair enough…Father Z is off base on this topic. There, no scripture, no saints, just pure opinion which is the purpose of this social media website…so if you don’t agree, that’s fine, but please don’t preach to me that if I do not agree with you I am uncharitable.
 
Everywhere in the Church there are dispensations from fasting for great celebrations. There are a lot of bishops some of them deceased now and from them some of them are saints who have been wrong.
 
Father Zuhlsdorf simply used a term the pope has thrown around as well.

There’s no question a bishop can dispense from fasting for pretty much whatever he wants…and also no question a bishop can be criticized for such dispensations.
 
I wasn’t saying that ‘if you don’t agree with me you’re uncharitable’. So right there, you obviously mistook my posts somehow. You, my friend, were the one who was implying that Father Z was a ‘sour faced saint" by bringing up the quote often attributed to St. Teresa of Avila, and saying that he ‘needs to focus once and awhile on Philippians 4:4 "there is far more to rejoice about, even in this world, than to grumble about’. . .which again is saying that obviously you believe he DOESN’T focus on Philippians 4:4 or ‘not much’, doesn’t find things to rejoice about, and instead "grumbles about’ things.

It isn’t a question about whether I agree with you, or you agree with me, it’s a question about taking responsibility for one’s own words (and implications).

I like communicating on forums. I like playing games. Unless the thread topic though is about Jeopardy! or Scrabble or something, I don’t like playing games ON the forums. IOW, once people (in the generic, no specifics here) start playing 'the victim game", ‘the blame game’, ‘the putting words in mouths games’, I play ‘say bye bye’, hit ‘mute’ and wish everybody a pleasant day.
 
stpurl said:
You, my friend, were the one who was implying that Father Z was a ‘sour faced saint" by bringing up the quote often attributed to St. Teresa of Avila,
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You, yourself are guilty of misinterpreting…that was the second post I made…it was not in reference to Father Z, it was in reference to whoever made the post about “cherry picking” scripture.

At any rate, I’m out of this one, and you and I can go on with our day, because I get the distinct impression this has become like picking a scab.

Peace out!
 
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stpurl said:
I suggest you read a lot more of his posts (he is far from hostile). Also, it really isn’t very nice to paint “Evangelical Lutherans” and extending to “Protestants” to have a 'cultural bias against Celtic Catholics".
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It isn’t a secret or conspiracy theory that Protestants are groomed with anti Catholic bias. It’s also no secret that a lot of converts to Catholicism retain certain bias’ against Catholic cultures they deem as too pagan to be real Catholics.
 
Lev said:
It isn’t a secret or conspiracy theory that Protestants are groomed with anti Catholic bias. It’s also no secret that a lot of converts to Catholicism retain certain bias’ against Catholic cultures they deem as too pagan to be real Catholics.
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This post seems rather biased to me. Beam and speck?
 
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Lev said:
You don’t get away with attacking the Irish scot free.
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I might have given you credit for the funniest post today if you would have capitalized “scot”. Intentional pun?

I might have been unaware of some of the give and take. I saw no attack on the Irish. I can say in my own culture there is none of this prejudice that you ascribe to either Irish Catholics or converts. My own priest is 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Lithuanian, third generation in America. He has no problem denouncing superstitious and pagan practices. I do not let my status as a convert prevent me from seeing the same. The difference is in the practice, the objective nature of it, not our background.

His only flaw as an Irish American Catholic is his loyalty to the Patriots and the Red Sox.
 
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pnewton said:
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Lev:
You don’t get away with attacking the Irish scot free.
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I might have given you credit for the funniest post today if you would have capitalized “scot”. Intentional pun?

I might have been unaware of some of the give and take. I saw no attack on the Irish. I can say in my own culture there is none of this prejudice that you ascribe to either Irish Catholics or converts. My own priest is 3/4 Irish and 1/4 Lithuanian, third generation in America. He has no problem denouncing superstitious and pagan practices. I do not let my status as a convert prevent me from seeing the same. The difference is in the practice, the objective nature of it, not our background.

His only flaw as an Irish American Catholic is his loyalty to the Patriots and the Red Sox.
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Lol. I had missed that pun to be honest.

I’ve been reading Fr Z’s blogs since the one referred to by the OP and am more convinced of his antipathy towards what he deems to be pagan. In todays case,communion in the hand.

St Patricks Day was made a feast and holy day of obligation in Ireland as a response to Cromwells Protestant hatred of the Catholics who he considered pagan savages. St Patricks Day represents the true Christian dignity of the natural Christian person and like the Jewish holocaust descendents, the Irish celebrate the triumph of survival against forces determined to obliterate them.

Seems to me that Fr Z like the holocaust deniers would be happy to see it dispensed with when he suggests it is “a Promethean Neopelagian practice these days.”
 
Pelagian? In what way? Pelagians believe that salvation is attainable by humans in our merely natural capacity. If anything, Pelagians would object to the relaxation of discipline.
 
This Irish-American could not care less what some guy named “Zuhlsdorf” has to say about St. Patrick’s Day, even if he is a big internet celebrity priest.

I like some of Fr. Z’s columns, but I think quite a bit of what he writes is just designed to get people fired up and bring the clicks, which is why I prefer Internet priests like Fr. Heilman who use their online celebrity to promote prayer, not just hand out opinions.
 
Lev said:
…the Irish celebrate the triumph of survival against forces determined to obliterate them.
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Put that way, it is a noble cause…but one with beer. I do not know if you saw the History channel special, The Irish in America, but it is an amazing story. Like I said, my own priest is only three generations away, and my wife several more (Downs), her ancestors hailing from northwest Ireland. So I personally owe the Irish a huge debt.
 
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