Fr. Z over at the  inestimable blog 'What Does the Prayer Really Say?' has initiated a

Spiritual Bouquet for Pope Benedict for St. Joseph’s Day (19 March)

and you can participate there.  In particular we are requested to pray that the Holy Father not weaken the provisions of Summorum Pontificum.

IRISH CHURCH HAS TEN YEARS BEFORE THE EDGE

According to the Catholic Herald, as repeated by RealCatholicTV and Gloria.TV News, Cardinal O'Malley will convey to the Holy Father the message that the Irish Church has ten years before it "falls over the edge".  Where does this assessment come from but the ACP, the Association of Catholic Priests.  I am in the middle of drafting my own assessment of this association based on its published objectives.  To me they are dissidents.  I know some of its members and some of them I like and admire for their compassion and care even as I deeply oppose their beliefs and objectives.  They do not represent me.  I hope the Cardinal, whether he is sympathetic to them or not, is savvy enough to recognize their agenda and weighs his report accordingly.  I hope to the bishops have, as the Spanish Americans say, 'cojones' (please forgive the crudity), and tell this bunch to 'shove it'.  If they want women clergy and gay unions let them become Anglicans.

AFGHAN CHRISTIAN FACES MARTYRDOM

Said Musa, a father of six young children, is in prison in Afghanistan simply because he has become a Chritian. He is being tortured and abused for his faith. He faces the death penalty. We need to pray for him and then do something.

“To the international church of world and to the President Brother Barak Obama President of the United States and to the head of ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] in Afghanistan!

“My name is Said Musa 45 years old. I have been working since 15 years as a Physiotherapist in I-C-R-C [International Committee of the Red Cross] orthopaedic centre in Kabul, Afghanistan. About four and a half months before by security force of Afghanistan I [was] captured, due to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world.

...Since that time I am in jail. The authority and prisoners in jail did many bad behaviour with me about my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For example, they did sexual things with me, beat me by wood, by hands, by legs, put some things on my head, mocked me ‘He’s Jesus Christ’, spat on me, nobody let me for sleep night and day. Every person spat on me and beat me. Also the prosecutor wrote something wrong against me. He told from himself something wrong against me on my file.

“He is stimulating every day the prisoners against me, ‘He is also in jail due to spy for Iran country’, to reveal the church in Kabul. I’m in a very and very bad condition in the jail.

“I agree with long imprisonment about my faith even for long life. Because I’m the sinnest person in the world. Because sometimes they treated for died I refuse my faith due to died. Sometimes I tolerate the persecution but immediately I acknowledge my sin before Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Don’t refuse me before your holy angels and before your Father.’ Because I am very very weak and sinful man…

I am alone between 400 handlers of terrible values in the jail like a sheep. Please, please, for the sake of Lord Jesus Christ help me. Please send a person who should supervise my document and my file, what I said in it. My prosecutor has told something wrong to the judge because he asked [for] money but I refused his request. Please, please you should transfer me from this jail to a jail that supervises the believers. I also agree with died on cross of my pride. I also agree with the sacrifice [of] my life in public, I will tell the faith in Lord Jesus Christ son of God and other believers will take courage and be strong in their faith. Hundred percent I am stable to my word. I have family of seven - one wife, three daughters and three sons. My big son [is] about eight years old. One of my daughters can’t speak, she has some mental problems.

“This is a request from me to all over the world, people please help me. I could not have any person to help. For [the] sake [of] Lord Jesus Christ please pray and immediately help me and rescue me from this jail. Otherwise, they will kill me, because I know they’re very very very cruel and hard hearted!

“Your destitute brother in the world.

“Please my English writing is not enough good. If I did some mistake please forgive me! From Kabul Provincial jail.”

Thanks to the Creative Minority Report and National Catholic Register for this.

See also here

.

IRELAND BLOCKS MENTION OF CHRISTIANITY

That Ireland blocked reference to Christianity in the proposed European condemnation of religious persecution comes as no surprise. Our government representatives (it seems formerly Dick Roche T.D. and now the Taoiseach Michael Martin) have been consistently voting in a manner at odds with the values and ethos of our nation for some time most notably on the matter of embryo exerimentation. This of course will be widely reported in the press.

Fourth Fota International Liturgy Conference

I know this has been well flagged by others but no harm in putting it out there again. I missed the last one and still hope to make this year's. Glad to see too that the lectures from the Conference on Art and Architecture is due out this year from Four Courts Press.

St. Colman’s Society for Catholic Liturgy
________
Fourth Fota International Liturgy Conference
Benedict XVI and the Roman Missal
To be held in Cork, Ireland,
9 - 11 July 2011

Provisional Programme

The first session of the Fota IV international Liturgy Conference will be held in Cork, Ireland, on 9 - 11 July 2011. The Conference will be opened by His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, who will also give the key-note address.
The Conference will be chaired by Prof. D. Vincent Twomey, SVD, Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology, St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Co. Kildare.
The speakers will include:

1. Prof. Dr. Dieter Bohler, SJ, St. Georgen, Frankfurt
The Eucharist of the Church, the Lord’s Supper and Israel’s Sacrifice: Reflections on Pope Benedict’s axiom “The Christian liturgy cannot be understood in isolation from the Old Testament Inheritance”.
http://www.sankt-georgen.de/lehrende/boehler.html
2. Fr. Sven Leo Conrad FSSP, Augsburg
Liturgy as “a transcending movement” (J. Ratzinger) – Reflections on the Form and Theology of the Opening Rites in the Roman Missal.
3. Dom Cassian Folsom, OSB, Sant’Anselmo, Rome
The Roman Missal in "Summorum Pontificum”
4. Dom Paul Gunter, OSB, Sant’Anselmo, Rome
The History and Development of the Roman Missal
5. Prof. Dr. Helmut Hoping, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg
The Ordo Missae of 1965 and the Latin-German Altar Missal
http://www.theol.uni-freiburg.de/institute/ist/doe/hoping/hoping
6. Prof. Dr. Manfred Hauke, Lugano, Switzerland
The "basic structure" (Grundgestalt) of the Eucharistic celebration according to Joseph Ratzinger
http://www.manfred-hauke.de/cv_lingua_eng.htm
7. Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, CO
The Church’s Voice of Prayer: Benedict XVI and the language of the liturgy
8. Prof. William Mahrt, Stanford University, U.S.A.
9. Prof. Lauren Pristas, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Caldwell College, Caldwell, New Jersey, U.S.A.
The Post-Vatican II Revision of the Collects of the Roman Missal.
10. Dr. Janet Rutherford, Maynooth Patristic Symposium
The Anglican Patrimony: What is it, and what to do with it?