Nova et Vetera

Personstory

2008-04-01T17:08:00.003+01:00

I attended a Mass yesterday in which the celebrant lamented that the 'story of humankind' was deliberately distorted even by its name: History.

It should, he said, be called Herstory.

I have no further comment. Feel free, yourselves.

For the curious

2008-03-18T13:20:00.003Z

Some are wondering what I was burbling about in the last post: I had posted some time ago on the film; go here, and you can read more about my strange appearance in a scene with Natalie Portman.
It only goes to show the extraordinary things that come along in the life of a priest!

The Other Boleyn Priest

2008-03-17T17:48:00.002Z

Well, did anyone spot Fr Justin in The Other Boleyn Girl? Contrary to my expectations, my scene did not hit the cutting room floor, and your own Fr Justin is to be seen there. However, I gather from those who have seen the film (and I haven't: too busy at this time of year) that the scene is rather dark, and my name does not appear in the credits at the end. But I hear my voice is recognizable.

Communion in the hand

2008-03-05T08:44:00.003Z

The auxiliary bishop of Karaganda in Kazakhstan speaks about his new book Dominus Est, and his dislike of Communion in the hand. From Gloria TV (Thanks to GF for the link).

Click here.

Sorry I couldn't embed the video: for some reason the html script didn't work and I don't know enough about that sort of thing to correct it.

The Mass shown near the beginning is a curiosity; clearly a concelebration in very splendid vestments, yet all the concelebrants genuflect before the elevation.
Is this an old-rite ordination where the ordinati stand at the altar instead of using prie-dieus?
(I can't bring myself to write prie-dieux—it looks like polytheism) Or is it a rather tradded-up version of the novus ordo?

The answer will be found in the comments box: many thanks to Gregor.

More on the Archbishop

2008-02-23T14:51:00.005Z

I have rather moderated my views on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Sharia intervention after reading a couple of articles in last week's Tablet. They have some very interesting things to say, and things that one might be a little surprised to read in that publication. I was interested to note (as you can read in the second extract) that Rowan Williams gloried in precisely the thing I blogged on the other day; stating that he had a right to speak for other religions because of the Cof E's established status. Hm.

This is an extract from the article 'Quiet voice of modernity's enemy' by Theo Hobson.

Above all, [Williams] refused to combine Anglo Catholicism with a general liberal agenda. Indeed he revived the Anglo-Catholic suspicion of secular liberalism that dates back to Newman. The liberal state, in this view, offers itself as an alternative community of salvation; it tempts us into supposing that we can dispense with the Church, or at least water it down, and develop a more progressive form of Christianity. This leads to weak forms of Christianity that are unable to resist dangerous ideologies: most obviously, the liberal Protestants of Germany embraced Nazism. It is Williams' anti-liberal ecclesiology that is the root cause of the present controversy. In a sense it's not really about sharia law, or Islam: it's about the relationship between a Catholic conception of the Church and liberalism.
For Williams, authentic Christianity occurs within a clearly defined social body, an "ethical community" as he has sometimes put it. Without this, Christian culture will be dispersed by the cold winds of secularism. There is a need for strong resistance to the various negative spirits of the age: consumerism, celebrity, hedonism and so on, and this resistance can only occur within an alternative social world, walled off from mainstream culture.
Only from within a religious subculture can secular modernity be seen for what it is: dehumanising. He has referred to secularism's "unspoken violence", and to modernity as "an atmosphere in which people become increasingly formless, cut off from what could give their lives ... some kind of lasting intelligibility': He sees secular liberalism as a quietly nihilistic force that robs human life of full significance, as a demonically subtle tyranny that looks and feels like freedom.

This next bit is by Clifford Longley who these days (though perhaps not at certain times in the past) usually has something sensible to say and puts it well.

[The Archbishop] defended his intervention by de¬claring it to be the privilege of the established Church to represent the concerns of other faith communi¬ties. Clearly many of his critics inside the Church of England think his only business is to stand up for its own interests, indeed to act as a brake against the inroads of Islam rather than as a lubricant. But the real clash visible in the media this week was not Christianity versus Islam, but religion versus secularism. If Dr Williams analysed carefully much of the press comment, he would have observed that the rule of thumb was something like "the more Islamic they are, the more dangerous". To the secularist, however, this is just an ex¬ample of a more general principle - that all religions are dangerous; the more so, the more seriously their adherents take them. So the real question for Dr Williams is not how does British Islam live with British secularism, but how does the Church of England do so?
From Lambeth Palace the apparatus of the Anglican establishment may look solid and enduring. Establishment shelters Anglican¬ism from the full force of the secular prevailing wind. But the Catholic adoption agency issue last year was a significant straw in that wind. It signified that it is secular values, not those enshrined in the common law, that are be¬coming the dominant cultural determinant of British society. Those values are utilitari¬an. It is a world where ends justify means, where talk of the sacredness of life is scoffed at and human rights are the subject of mere fashion, human autonomy in the pursuit of pleasure is the only worthwhile value and no one is neighbour to another. It is indeed the job of religions - Anglican, Jewish, Catholic, Muslim and the rest - to be a threat to those values. And not to apologise for it.

Good stuff, eh?

Rehab

2008-02-18T20:43:00.001Z

Archbishop Marini being taken into liturgical rehab.

Thanks to Owl of the Remove.

Life Matters

2008-02-18T19:32:00.003Z

There is a substantial petition to the Prime Minister to allow MPs to vote according to conscience and not according to the party whip on the forthcoming Human Fertilization and Embryology bill.

UK citizens may sign it here.

Please do consider doing so.

Magari

2008-02-16T20:20:00.005Z

Magari is a good Italian word; it means 'if only it were true', or something like that. I wanted to say magari when I read on Catholic News Agency about one Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, who looks to be a young man, (that's his picture on the left; does his crown look rather like an upended fancy flowerpot to anyone else?) who courageously addressed a major ecumenical gathering in Switzerland on the subject of the drawbacks of liberal Christianity. Hoping that CNA does not mind, I'll quote the short article in full.

Russian Orthodox bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, the Moscow Patriarchate’s delegate for international relationships, said on February 15 that liberal Christianity is on its way to extinction.
"Liberal Christianity will not survive long and political correctness within the Christian environment is destined to die," said during a conference addressing the Ecumenical Council of Churches at Geneva, Switzerland.
The Orthodox bishop also criticized the words of the Anglican primate, Rowan Williams, regarding the "inevitability" of introducing the "sharia" (Muslim Law) in England.
"I would like to warn you about the perils of liberal Christianity," a trend, he said, that has sharply divided the Christian community in the last decades.
"Today we can't talk about Christian morality because the standards of 'traditional' and 'liberal' Christians are dramatically different and the abyss between these two branches of Christianity is growing," he added.
"We are hearing from some Christian leaders that marriage between a woman and a man is not the only possible option for the creation of a Christian family, that there can be other type of couples and that the Church should be 'inclusive' by recognizing such lifestyles and grant them a solemn blessing," Hilarion also said.
The Orthodox bishop also said that "we have heard that the human life is a negotiable value, to the point that it can be aborted in the mother's womb." "What has happened with Christianity? In a confused and disoriented world, “Where is the prophetic voice of Christians?" he asked.
Finally in a veiled criticism to the Anglican primate, Hilarion said that "it is not our duty to defend sharia, promote alternative lifestyles or secularized values. Our mission is to announce what Christ himself announced".

I think that it is certainly true that liberalism is sterile; I have very rarely found somebody converted to liberal Christianity; usually they have slid there from a more orthodox position. What I fear is that the liberals currently in charge would rather pull the house down around them than permit a more orthodox position to prevail.
We have a new Dean (=Vicar Forane) locally, and I have heard him speak perhaps half a dozen times during the last few months. On each occasion, whether preaching at a 'Penitential Service' or simply speaking to fellow clergy, the burden of his talk has invariably been about how universally awful everything was before Vatican II, and the only problem since is that we haven't wiped out the pre-V.II mentality nearly thoroughly enough. He's a kind man—he has even celebrated the Extraordinary Form, which he detests, for people who have requested it, and I've got to credit him for that. In fact on a personal level I quite like him (I don't think the compliment is returned, though). But I really would not want to live in a Church according to his design.
Certainly Pope Benedict has done wonderfully well to reverse the trend, but I suspect that the liberals are simply doing what I fear; they know that they are, for the most part, younger than the Holy Father, and that all that they have to do is wait……
Will Pope Benedict have safeguarded his most welcome reforms for the future? I pray and hope so. It has been so wonderful in these last couple of years finally to have hope and see things coming alive once more.

Lenten Fare

2008-02-15T18:27:00.003Z

Running out of ideas for suitably penitential lenten recipes? The Diocese of Arkansas has come up with a quantity of suggestions, which you can sample here.

Having looked at the recipes with more attention today, I can confirm that most of them are truly penitential: I wasn't aware that Americans are still quite so attached to canned food. All but a few recipes seem to involve combining one can with another. There is a recipe for chowder, which involves combining a can of potato soup with a can of salmon. Now that's penitential!

It reminds me of my aunt's (God rest her soul) story of an American visitor to her home; this would be in the 1960s, I should think. She went down the garden to pull some carrots, and her visitor accompanied her. Up came a fine carrot, which she placed in her trug. She heard an intake of breath at her side, followed by an appalled 'you're gonna eat that?'.

Meanwhile, in Algeria…

2008-02-15T11:30:00.002Z

A Catholic priest in Algeria has been sentenced to a year in prison for praying with Christians in Cameroon.
Middle East Concern reports that Father Pierre Wallez is the first victim of legislation approved in March 2006, prohibiting anyone from leading a religious ceremony anywhere without permission from the government in Algeria.
Algerian Archbishop Henri Teissier told Vatican Radio: "the most surprising thing is that the conviction was issued simply because the priest visited a group of Christians in Cameroon. He had not celebrated Mass, but was only joining them in a prayer. It was December 29, a little after Christmas."
A tribunal has now modified the sentence to parole. But Christians in Algeria are concerned that their religious freedom is under threat.
Freedom of worship is purportedly guaranteed by the constitution of Algeria, but in recent months Christians there have faced increasing harassment and a hostile campaign in the media. In the same trial that sentenced Fr Wallez, a Muslim doctor was sentenced to two years imprisonment for using medications supplied by the Catholic Church's Caritas charity.
On 12 February three believers accused of insulting Islam were due to appear in court for sentencing. The case has been postponed to a later date, but delays often happen in such cases. The group been told they will be sentenced to three years in prison and fined 5,000 Euros.
Recently the government cancelled residency permits for Latin American Catholic priests working with Portuguese speaking African Christians in Algeria as migrant workers. Further requests made by the Catholic Church for visas for priests and other staff to visit Algeria are being systematically refused.
Middle East Concern say that Algerian Christians have requested readers' prayers
H/T Independent Catholic News

Rowan Williams and Islam

2008-02-14T19:46:00.003Z

I can't help feeling that most people have rather missed the point in the recent controversy about Rowan Williams and Sharia. Damian Thompson isn't one of these; in his typically acerbic style he has compared the Archbishop with Prince Charles, especially in the light of the latter's desire to be a defender 'of faith' rather than 'of the faith'.
Now, let's establish that I am not one of those who follow the tabloid line about the ArchImam of Canterbury. That's plainly nonsense and in some cases amounts to malicious misrepresentation. But there must have been some purpose behind what he said, and, entertaining though it may be to think it, I don't think that he is trying to deflect attention from the bigger issues at the up-and-coming Lambeth Conference.

Though I would identify myself as being rather a traditional Catholic, I have always had an abiding affection for the old C of E: I have never been a member of it, so my affection can come without cost or pain: evensong in a dark cathedral, the choirs, the dignified presence on state occasions, and many other things.
As my Anglican friends will know, however, there is one thing that gets right up my nose, and that is the Anglican claim to pastoral responsibility for all people living within their territory, irrespective of whether they belong to any other faith. When I was a curate (ah me! I was a pale young curate then!), the local vicar went as far as to describe my boss and me as his 'delegates for the Romans in Xville'.
With Damian, I think that the Sharia comments of the Archbishop were aimed along these lines. Since he thinks of himself as the spiritual leader of the whole country and all people here, of whatever faith, he feels that British Moslems, too, are put by the Establishment (and therefore God?) into his tender care, and therefore he should do his best for them, as for any other members of his flock.
There are times when I think that as Catholics we continue to live in something of a ghetto, for many good historical reasons; we tend to restrict our work to our own people a bit too much. But I think that the Archbishop, and the same principle down the line into the parishes, goes too far in the other direction.
I really do not see that 'Establishment' confers, by law, on all Anglican clergy the right of entry to all peoples homes. This point of view was advanced to me by a vicaress of my acquaintance. I do not see that it confers a sort of universal pastorate on the C of E clergy, which comes across as at best patronising and at worst infuriating.

Finally, I wonder whether the Moslem clergy find this intervention on the matter of Sharia touching or irritating.

Screensaver

2008-02-12T18:32:00.000Z

How about this for a screensaver?

A touch of the surreal, to make you wonder whether you've been overdoing the fasting……

H/T to The Deacon's Bench

I'll be posting again soon, D.V.

p.s. Doglovers of the world unite!

A fortuitous discovery

2008-01-29T19:14:00.001Z

I'm rushing round like a mad thing at the moment (hence the thin posting—sorry) and trying to cope with not being terribly well. But I had to post this particular discovery—Wikipaedia in Latin! You'll find it here.

How about this?
Insidiae hamatae (Anglice phishing) informationum privatarum sicut tesserarum fraude accessionem significat, dissimulando quasi homo vel societas fida cui vero hae informationes necesse sunt, praecipue per litteras electronicas.

Pope Leo XII, the Quirinal, and other matters.

2008-01-18T20:42:00.000Z

Pope Leo XII
No doubt largely as a result of my visit to Venice, I have begun reading about Pope Pius VII and his wonderful Secretary of State, Cardinal Consalvi.
John Martin Robinson wrote a very good biography of Consalvi, which I have read, and is now lying on the pile to be read again. But at the moment, I am reading Cardinal Wiseman's Lives of the Last Four Popes (=Pius VII, Leo XII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI). They have all got rather lost behind the popes of the 'modern era' beginning with the Pope reigning when Wiseman was writing, Bd Pius IX.
The book is occasionally confusing, but always fascinating. I am learning so much that I cannot imagine why it has taken me so long to read this book, considering that it has been sitting on my shelves for at least twenty years.
For instance, I knew that the Papal elections before 1870 took place in the Quirinal Palace, and had heard that to this day in the attics there are all the partitions and paraphernalia necessary for a conclave. What I did not know was that the conclaves only began there in the nineteenth century; Pius VI and his predecessors were elected in the Sistine Chapel, as we are familiar with. Nor did I realise that each cardinal had had his apartment for himself and his entire staff, nor that a wicket gate was kept open in the conclave for each Cardinal to have his own meals prepared outside (usually from his own palace) and sent in, and for late arrivals to enter. Nor did I realize that the white smoke/black smoke is a recent thing. Even in the 19th century, any sort of smoke from the chimney outside the chapel was a sign that a particular ballot had been unsuccessful. The sign of a successful ballot was no smoke at all, followed by an opening of the bricked-up balcony window (which must have taken a while). Sometimes the Senior Cardinal Deacon announced the election to very few people indeed gathered in the Quirinal Piazza below.
Again, I did not know that until Bd Pius IX, who was buried in San Lorenzo Fuori le Mura and nearly had his body thrown into the Tiber getting there, it was customary for deceased Popes to be initally buried in a simple monument near the Choir chapel in St Peter's, with only their name marked on it. It was only when their successor died that they were moved to their permanent tomb and their successor took their place in the same temporary grave.
And how about this account of how Leo XII narrowly escaped death mere months after his election:

All Rome attributed the unexpected recovery to the prayers of a saintly bishop, who was sent for, at the Pope's request, from his distant see of Macerata. This was Monsignor Strambi, of the Congregation of the Passion. He came immediately, saw the Pope, assured him of his recovery, as he had offered up to Heaven his own valueless life in exchange for one so precious. It did indeed seem as if he had transfused his own vitality into the Pope's languid frame. He himself died the next day, the 31st December [1823], and the Pontiff rose, like one from the grave.

I'll post more if I find more worthy of posting. That, I think, is nearly certain.

Lost in translation…

2008-01-15T17:13:00.001Z

I found this plaque pinned to the front of the Patriarchate building right next to St Mark's:

Mm: how to translate la vastitá ecumenica e i fermenti innovatori?

I can only think 'the ecumenical enormity and the innovatory ferments of his glorious pontificate' just about sums it up.

Though I have to confess a sneaking yet considerable affection for old Bd Pope John XIII.

Please don't try and post any comments about him being a Freemason, a Rosicrucian, a Protestant, whatever—I've heard them all, and I won't dignify them by publishing them on my blog. Imprudent, maybe, he was, even catastrophically so.

S. Giorgio Maggiore and Pope Pius VII

2008-01-15T16:33:00.001Z

A visit across the Giudecca Canal on the no 82 Vaporetto (shortly about to become the new no 2) to the Benedictine monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, a lovely Palladian building, reminded me about one of the more interesting sidelights of Church history.
Napoleon I, you will remember, took Pope Pius VI prisoner in an attempt to finish off the Church, or at least control it. The poor man died in captivity in Valence, August 29, 1799. Rome at that time was being fought over between the Neapolitans and French, so it was inconceivable to hold a new election there. The Austrians had got hold of Venice in 1797, and many of the cardinals had taken refuge there, including the now penniless Cardinal Henry (King Henry IX) Stuart, Duke of York.
Rather generously, the Hanovers eventually provided a pension for him (kindness or bad conscience?).
Anyway, Venice seemed the obvious place to hold the new conclave, under the circumstances.
The Holy Roman Emperor (in the last throes of that ancient institution) was happy enough to agree to the conclave taking place in what was now his territory, and actually coughed up 24,000 scudi for the expenses. Naturally he assumed that this would give his candidate a certain chance of success; important, because Austria had nabbed some of the Papal States for herself and wanted to hang onto them.
Thirty five or so of the 46 extant cardinals entered the conclave. It didn't go well. Herzen, the Viennese Cardinal, and Albani, another pro-Austrian Cardinal, tried hard to get the other Cardinals to elect Mattei of Ravenna, who was known to be pro-Austrian. This scandalized the electors, and, exceptionally, the conclave was suspended for 11 or 12 days while a messenger was sent to Vienna to consult with the Emperor. It was not unknown (indeed it was a recognized right of a Catholic sovereign) to exercise a veto in a conclave. It last happened in 1903. But actually to break a conclave to consult a sovereign in mid-course was unheard of. There was deadlock.
Finally Cardinal Chiaramonti of Imola was elected as a compromise candidate, and took the name Pius VII. He was known to have been sympathetic to the French Revolution; he had had printed on his writing paper 'liberty' and 'fraternity', and under the Cisalpine Republic had described himself as Citizen-Cardinal. Despite differences, heated arguments, and an imprisonment, once Pope, he actually got on personally rather well with Napoleon.
The conclave had begun on 30 November 1799, and finally the new Pope was elected on 14 March 1800.
The Emperor, furious that his candidate had not been elected, refused permission for the coronation to take place in St Mark's Basilica, so it happened here in Palladio's church of San Giorgio, with the overflow congregation assisting in gondolas from the Giudecca canal. There was, of course, no tiara, since Napoleon had confiscated all the treasures from Rome, and so, I seem to remember, they manufactured one out of papier maché.

Palladio's façade of San Giorgio.

The view from San Giorgio across the Giudecca canal.

The interior of San Giorgio, where the Coronation Mass took place. These days it seems pretty much abandoned to the tourists. There is a notice saying that Mass and all the offices take place in another chapel, and not in the lovely choir stalls behind the high altar.

Pope Pius VII

A tiara given by Napoleon to Pius VII. I quote in full from this site, whence I got the pic.

"A gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to Pope Pius VII in 1805, the irony is that the tiara was made of treasure looted from the Vatican eight years before when French troops invaded the Papal States. Ostensibly, the gift was a gesture of atonement from Napoleon for the plunder nearly a decade earlier, but the base was so small Pius VII could not wear it--an intentional slight by Napoleon. Most of the original jewels adorning the tiara were replaced with cut glass during the 19th century, but the huge milled emerald supporting the diamond-studded cross at the top--the Emerald of Gregory XIII--remains (and had actually been mounted on several different tiaras used by Pius VII's predecessors). Also stripped from the tiara were three engraved bas-reliefs that depicted scenes of Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of France, re-legalization of public worship in France and the signing of a treaty between the Vatican and France. I think it's safe to say that even without the original jewels and engravings, this is still an overwhelmingly opulent piece. Even if nobody ever got to wear it."

San Marco and Sunday Mass

2008-01-14T11:11:00.000Z

St Mark's Basilica is, of course, one of the most wonderful of the churches in the world. Until Napoleon ended the Venetian Republic, it was, essentially, the Doge's private chapel—the cathedral was elsewhere. But now it is the Cathedral, and famous for many events in history. It has been served by many famous musicians, too, including Claudio Monteverdi and Gabrieli. So one might reasonably expect that the liturgy and music here would be something special—it still was until as recently as the 1960s. But no more, I am told. Such splendours are considered elitist. There is one 'big' Mass on a Sunday, at 10.am, and I was warned to expect guitars. I toured St Mark's a couple of days before, and although the High Altar has fairly sensitively been arranged to make a versus populum celebration highly possible, this clearly wasn't good enough. A little table had been put at the opening of the iconostasis with a high chair about two paces behind and a lectern about two paces to one side. That told me all I wanted to know about the liturgy in St Mark's. I wasn't going to risk it. Now perhaps some of you reading this might tell me that the table in front is all for show, and they carry it off on Sundays and in fact perform the most glorious music, but somehow, I don't think you will.

There has been some effort to make the sanctuary pretty. I suppose they use the High Altar when the Patriarch presides, having removed the stupendous Pala d'Oro and ferial reredos several feet back to enable versus populum celebration. The entire sanctuary, though, has been carpeted over—I presume it has one of those magnificent cosmati pavements underneath—with a pretty vile carpet. This pic is one I took with my phone showing the carpet, and the steps behind the altar.
If you'd like to see some more pics of St Mark's, there is a good selection here, though the site is a bit slow. Anyway, my friend and I decided to go elsewhere for our Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany. We found our way at 11.00am to the little church of S. Simeone Piccolo near the railway station, where the Fraternity of St Peter celebrate the traditional rites each Sunday, and had advertised it here as being 'with gregorian chant'.
Now I have 'feelings' about gregorian chant. When it is sung well, there is nothing better. When it is sung badly, there is nothing worse. In parish churches, it's usually sung badly. So I was a little apprehensive. I needn't have been. Two baritones sang the chant absolutely beautifully, and supplemented it with a Venetian Mass in two parts sung, again, beautifully, one of the singers also playing the continuo on a little chamber organ. The Mass was a solemn one, the MC being a priest I have known slightly in the past. What a treat for the Epiphany!
I took a couple of pics, but trying to be discreet (not using flash, for instance) resulted in rather a blurry outcome. Sorry.

The servers interested me a bit; the MC was a priest, as I have said, but the other two both wore cassocks with Roman collars and fascias with blue tassels. They aren't clergy—by some accident we saw them later having lunch in the same pizzeria, in lay dress. Perhaps they are members of some confraternity or other. The collar doesn't necessarily imply clerical status in Italy: I gather that even the carabinieri wear the Roman Collar when in formal attire.

It was a good pizzeria, by the way. Good and reasonably-priced eating is hard to find in Venice. This place, Ae Oche, not far from the church of San Giacomo dell'Orio*, has its decorative theme centred around American Baseball. We were much amused to see that they didn't quite know their stuff, for although they had collected quite a lot of authentic-looking paraphernalia in one corner, the pride of place was given, naturally, to the baseball bat. Only, er, it wasn't a baseball bat, but a cricket bat! I tried a photo, but it turned out even more blurred than the above.

* St James of the Black-and white American biscuit†

†cookie

I've been to Venice!

2008-01-14T10:46:00.001Z

Having spent an afternoon there when I was sixteen, I have long determined to make a return. Well, it was January, and so the weather was mostly Januaryish (we arrived in a flurry of snow as we crossed in a vaporetto from the airport), but it was lovely to avoid the crowds, and everything was open for business as usual.

Away

2008-01-03T10:56:00.001Z

I won't be posting for about ten days now.

Best wishes

J

Please Say a Prayer

2008-01-02T08:01:00.000Z

My mother spent Christmas with me, as usual now that my father has died. I took her home yesterday, and her house had been burgled. She hadn't got much of value, but it was all taken, including all the little bits of jewellery that my father had bought her through their 48 years of marriage.
I suppose I can be grateful that there was no 'unneccessary' damage in the house. Other than what the burglar took, there was no malicious destruction.

Noble Simplicity

2007-12-31T18:14:00.000Z

Robert 'Misery' Mickens, the Tablet's Rome correspondent, has been no stranger to controversy since the election of Pope Benedict. In the Tablet Christmas/New Year issue, he comments that he had received an invitation to the reception in the Westminster Throne Room for Abp Piero Marini on the publication of his new book. Misery has this to say:

Several bishops were on hand… Their presence was not only a fitting tribute to Archbishop Marini—a liturgist who has long been unfairly and mercilessly pilloried by neo-Tridentines for his attempts to apply the Second Vatican Council principle of "noble simplicity" to modern-day papal ceremonies—but it was also an endorsement of the council's liturgical reform itself.

The phrase 'noble simplicity' is often quoted by those who love the Pauline reforms (I think it is inaccurate to claim that the reforms which actually happened were entirely mandated by the council). I remember many years ago when I was a seminarian visiting Fr Ray Blake, himself then just newly ordained, in St John the Baptist's Church, Brighton, there was an Italian Salesian staying there, and he commented to me:

You Anglo-Saxons misunderstand this word 'simplicity'. In its latinate context it does not mean 'plain' or 'sober', but rather 'unified', 'harmonious'. So plain vestments in a plain church building are 'simple'. Baroque vestments in a baroque church are 'simple'.

This would have been about 1980, and I think he was amused to find a seminarian who was not quite as wholeheartedly enthusiastic about the reforms as most others at the time. But he was very kind, and once even celebrated Mass for me in Latin (new rite: I remember struggling to make sense of the responsorial psalm, which I had to read to him as he sat on a dining room chair by the altar, him gravely making the response in Latin).
But, back to the point. Archbp Marini has been complimented with achieving 'noble simplicity' in his Papal ceremonies. But honestly I can't see it.
The sacristies of the Vatican are full of beautiful vestments that have been gathering dust there for thirty years and more. Someone in Rome told me that for every major Papal Mass in the last pontificate, an entire new set of vestments for celebrant and concelebrants was commissioned, often from top-ranking couturiers, with matching mitres, collars and cuffs and probably socks. All overseen by Archbishops Noe and then Marini. These new vestments are never seen a second time. Imagine the cost of this; and yet there are drawers full of stuff that could be used. Problem? Those vestments in the sacristies are preconciliar; the wrong shape, they 'convey the wrong message'.
And again, a funny thing: it is precisely the people who would take out these Roman-shape chasubles, copes, mitres and use them that would be called 'tat-merchants'; people obsessed with fabrics and shapes of vestments. Surely it would be more 'simple' just to dig them out and use them until they wear out.
So, for all sorts of reasons, I was pleased to see Pope Benedict using Blessed Pope John's cope and Pope John Paul I's mitre. Now that's noble simplicity.

Strange things

2007-12-29T09:27:00.001Z

There are memes flying around there which involve revealing interesting things about one that people might not know. This isn't a meme, but I've been reminded of four interesting things about my mother's family that aren't widely known, unless you happen to know me well.
The first is that we have a saint in the family; an ancient Irish one. Her name is Findclu (though she is usually known now by her patronymic, which is much better known), and she lived at some indeterminate time between St Patrick and the high middle ages. But apart from the fact that she founded a convent of nuns in the West of Ireland we know nothing else about her, except that she was venerated round about for hundreds of years.
The second interesting thing is that the family have a lake (lough) named after us in the same area.
The third thing is that one of my ancestors was supposed to have fallen in love with and married a swan from the same lough. He displeased her by bringing some undesireable guests home after a day at the races, and she cooked them a meal, then took her feathers out of a chest and went back to the lough, having kissed her children farewell. The lough is still occupied by large numbers of swans.
One last interesting thing is that, my mother's family having a history of weakness of the liver, another saint gave to the eldest male in another family the power of curing the liver problems in my mother's family, but of nobody else's. A sort of private health insurance, one might say. This healing family took it very seriously; there was a kind of ritual involving lots of prayers and, er, a sledge hammer. No, I'm not having you on. I gather the sledge was waved over the body in some arcane way (the chap had to be strong!) and, hey presto, one's liver was cured for life. The last member of my family to have it done was my Aunt Agnes, who died some ten years ago (her liver was fine); all the members of the curing family have now also died, so I guess I'll have to stick with the Alka Seltzer after the excesses (there were not very many) of Christmas.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, because today, 29th December, is St Findclu's feast day. And so in our family at least, today she tends to overshadow that other great saint, Thomas of Canterbury.

More Asses

2007-12-28T11:57:00.001Z

A most interesting comment by Auricularius on the Ox and Ass post concerning the poverty of the English translation of the (N.O.) Breviary (worth a read) reminded me of something that William, another friend, pointed out to me the other day. Since I hardly ever say the breviary in the vernacular (even when I used the N.O. version) I had never noticed it.
In general, the UK version of the breviary tends to be a bit better than the US one (in the translation of the collects, for instance), but how about this howler from the UK Te Deum?

Original: Tu rex gloriæ, Christe. Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
UK: You, Christ, are the King of glory, Son of the eternal Father.
US: You, Christ, are the King of glory, the eternal Son of the Father.

For the sake of non-Latinists, the US version is correct. According to the original, the Son is eternal; the Father's eternity is not mentioned.

There is a legend that many of the translations of the UK English Breviary were done by students of the English College, Rome, often in an post-prandial somnolent and alcoholic haze. I have heard this positively asserted with reference to the intercessions at Lauds and Vespers. These are at times cringe-making ("Help us to be generous and kind — let us bring joy, not pain to the people we meet today") and often inaccurate.
I am no great shakes as a latinist, but to find such an elementary schoolboy error in the public prayer of the Church just goes to show what little care they took over it in the first place. Or, perhaps worse, to them it just didn't matter. The Father is eternal, after all, isn't He?

P.S. Please don't point out to me that the picture is of a donkey, not an ass. I know that very well. When I looked for a picture of an ass on Google image search, I can't tell you what I found! I'm still blushing! Another example of the difference between US and UK English usage, I suppose. This particular donkey, by the way, is called Donkey Oatie. Geddit?

Liturgy reform: No going back

2007-12-27T08:30:00.000Z

I discovered this this morning. It's the editorial to the on-line edition of the (American) National Catholic Reporter. It makes the Tablet look like the Osservatore Romano. I'm going to stick in some Fr Z-style comments.

When the definitive history of the Second Vatican Council is finally written, beyond all squabbles over the council’s actual intent, one undisputed fact will stand -- that taking up the draft for the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy as the first focus of debate had a decisive impact on the tone and direction the council took in all its subsequent deliberations. Though the discussion was liturgy, the real subject was ecclesiology -- the church’s understanding of itself.

Hm: I think this might have surprised the Church Fathers, but let it stand.

By invoking the church in biblical terms as the pilgrim people of God and as the body of Christ, nb I think Pius XII did this more than adequately in Mystici Corporis Vatican II set the stage for a crucial shift away from the juridical “perfect society” embodied in the unabashedly monarchical church of Trent. This is just Aunt Sallying. You set up a target, making it look as ridiculous as possible, and then throw mud at it for being ridiculous. Nowhere would this be reflected more clearly than in the way the church prayed. The throne room protocols of the Tridentine Mass, the elevations, barriers, brocade, structures and language separating clergy from laity Excuse me: the elevations separate clergy from laity? gave way to a worshiping community in which all the baptized were called to full, conscious, active participation. In other words, things designed to draw the attention of all, clergy and laity together, to God were replaced by things that drew the attention of clergy and laity to each other. A new way of worshiping (worshipping what?) marked the beginning of the end of the vertical ecclesiology that for 500 years had shaped every aspect of the church’s life and ministry around hierarchical and clerical preeminence. Thus making another Aunt Sally: the only thing the entire work of the Church was about for five hundred years was hierarchical and clerical preeminence, eh? The council carried the same biblical imagery and expansive approach into the major constitutions on the church and the church in the modern world.

For those who still ask if any of this matters and who might care, the recent book by Archbishop Piero Marini (see story) looking back over his 20 years as the personal liturgical planner for Pope John Paul II and, until recently, Benedict XVI, gives a glimpse into the tensions within the inmost circle of church leadership over liturgy as an expression of church identity on the world stage. Marini, most eloquent in his support of Vatican II reforms, managed to survive (this makes it sound as if he had a job doing so: encouraging) as the chief choreographer of events at which John Paul II presided. Those events were often richly inculturated, inclusive and ecumenical liturgies marked by full participation by the laity. Funny to find JPII now the darling of the liberals, isn't it? John Paul II, known for his love of theater, evidently acceded to Marini and was in the end blessed by a remarkable funeral under Marini’s direction. So, though the Extraordinary Form is often criticized for being theatrical, here it isn't theatrical enough. I had always thought that something 'theatrical' is something designed for the entertainment of a group of people. That certainly suits the new liturgy better than the old, which (according to Marini and others) generally ignores them. Though I have to say that the new liturgy doesn't really entertain me.

If liturgy has characteristically been below the radar for most Catholics, opponents of Vatican II knew from the outset that the one way to preserve Trent was to halt liturgical reform. What does he mean, 'preserve Trent'? It's a General Council of the Church. It needs preserving. If he means clerical ascendency, he should say so. To look back over the 42 years since the close of the council is to see that progress in the reform has been real but slow, Yup; our pews are a good deal emptier than they were 42 years ago; if that's progress, then we've progressed and to admit that any awakening of Catholic laity to their full baptismal identity is still in the future. Hm: what does that mean? I've a nasty feeling we're going to find out……At the same time, those devoted at many levels to a pre-Vatican II model of the church have worked hard to bring down many aspects of liturgical reform. Frustrating the process of vernacular translations, erm; actually I think most of us have been fighting for a better vernacular translation (if we've got to have one) crimping the rubrics for Mass to accentuate the ordained again, what does that mean? and, most recently, restoring the Tridentine rite, are among the more visible signs of successful retrenchment.

But there really is no turning back. “Vatican II helped us to rediscover the idea of the priesthood as something universal,” Marini said in an interview. “The faithful don’t receive permission from priests to participate in the Mass. Did they ever? They are members of a priestly people, which means they have the right to participate in offering the sacrifice of the Mass. I'm sure Marini knows his theology better than this; he is deliberately confusing the Baptismal and Ministerial priesthood here. This does his cause no favours. The Church has always taught that the faithful offer the Mass with the priest, but in different mode. This was a great discovery, a great emphasis, of the council. B****CKS The Church has always taught this and believed this and practised this. We have to keep this in mind, because otherwise we run the risk of confusion about the nature of the liturgy, and for that matter, the church itself.” Confused? Who's confused? You, I think.

What they have always known in Rome is important for all of us to know: Liturgy is the visible expression of the arrangement of power. Ah; here we are, now. It's the old feminist thing again. Why does it all come down to this? Because it's human nature, I guess. And yet the Lord came among us as one who serves. The 2,500 bishops of Vatican II, perhaps surprising themselves, began the process of opening up the church to (some of) its own members and to the world. Not to people who thought the 'reform' could have been better conceived. We all have a say in the kind of church we are. Then why the 42 year silencing of those who don't like the reform? The reform of the church was a struggle worth undertaking more than 40 years ago, and it is a challenge each of us, in our own way and in our own faith communities, should prize and not lose sight of today.

Do read the Marini interview: it's very illuminating.

The Ox and the Ass and the Manger Stall

2007-12-25T08:20:00.001Z

I wonder when the change came? I rather suspect (without running to my books) that it may well have been at the first crib of all, that of St Francis of Assisi, that (Western) Christianity began to focus on the actual circumstances of the birth of our Lord. I mean the manger, and the ox and the ass and all that stuff.
Ever since 7.7.7, I have been using the Extraordinary form of the breviary, and utterly loving it. I say it all, and rarely have I had the sense of weariness ('oh, let's get it over with') that I used to get when having to say the other form. The seven hours each day ('seven times will I praise thee, O Lord') of Matins+Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline mark out the day beautifully, and saying the whole 150 psalms in a week is wonderful; much better than saying 148 of them over 4 weeks.
But I'm straying off the point. The breviary takes a different line on Christmas—I suspect, older. The accent is on Christ the heroic bridegroom leaving his chamber to go to that of his wife. The analogy is that of heaven being wedded to earth; man reconciled with God; God's almighty Word leaping down from heaven as the world's Redeemer.
Against this cosmic and dramatic background, the ox and the ass hardly get a look in: they are taken for granted. There is one solitary antiphon that occurs to me, but it's a good one;

O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum jacentem in præsepio. O beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Jesum Christum. Alleluia!

O great mystery and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the Lord born and lying in a manger. O Blessed Virgin, whose womb is worthy to carry the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
A happy and blessed Christmas, everybody.

The picture is from an early Christian sarcophagus, unidentified.
Which goes to show that even the early Christians
thought at least a little bit about the ox and the ass.

A good argument

2007-12-24T11:18:00.000Z

"Some people are worried because they can't understand the words. But I tell them, the key to this mass is not about the words. Do we need a brochure to enjoy the music of Beethoven? Or the beauty of the Sistine Chapel? This is not about the words. It's about God."

Fr Anthony Brankin of St. Odilo Roman Catholic Church in Berwyn, Chicago

Vibiana.

2007-12-22T12:21:00.000Z

Cathedrals in LA

2007-12-22T11:07:00.001Z

Here we have the original St Vibiana's Cathedral in an old postcard view. Pretty, but sort of small, I suppose, for a great city.
This is St Vibiana's today, having had a great deal of money spent on it. It was nearly lost altogether, but the US National Trust ran a great campaign to save it, and now it is a very secular arts centre; they are about to build corporate hospitality bits and a hotel as well.

And here is the new cathedral, familiar from a million incredulous pictures. Well, it's bigger than the old one. Strangely, it says to this UK dweller, 'Festival Hall' or 'Fairfield Hall'. So the LA dweller goes to a concert in a church and to church in a concert hall.

This is St Sophia's, LA's other Cathedral (in this case, Greek Orthodox). There's an Antiochene cathedral too, but I didn't show it as Blogger only lets you post five pictures, and I wanted to include the last one.

I'm sure you'll agree it's worth posting. This is the throne of the Greek Orthodox bishop of LA. No messing around here, then.

Live Simply

2007-12-22T10:46:00.000Z

Our Diocesan newspaper proclaims that our diocese is now to celebrate the first anniversary of the Live Simply campaign.
No, that's campaign, my Lord, not champagne!

Christmas is coming…

2007-12-22T09:33:00.000Z

Fr Ray has some images of the Holy Father receiving (rather early) Christmas greetings from the assembled cardinals.
Cardinal 1: 'Just coming up to your busy time, Holy Father!'
Cardinal 2: 'Er, what time's Midnight Mass, Holy Father?'

And now for something completely different.

2007-12-21T18:25:00.000Z

Do you like broccoli? My friend sent me this remarkable alternative purpose for the vegetable. I see on YouTube that the, er, artist has managed to do things with carrots, too.

Another Papal Restoration?

2007-12-20T08:26:00.000Z

Now, I may well be mistaken about this one, not having been to Papal Masses for some time, but if my memory serves me rightly, from the time of Paul VI until recently, the procession has emerged from one of the doors in the façade of the basilica and sort of sidled to the altar. Here's a bit of a home video from YouTube which clearly shows Pope Benedict following the old Papal processional entrance from the Bronze doors, through the square, and thus approaching the altar from the front. Much better. Now all we need to do is to persuade him back into the sedia gestatoria.
Being a home video, please excuse the cries of 'is that hiyum?' and 'Oh my Gaaaaaaad!'

Latinitas

2007-12-14T17:28:00.000Z

Thanks to a comment by one Brother Pius on Fr Zs blog, I negotiated my way (eventually), here, to the complete text of the 2002 Missale Romanum, electronically rendered. Handy, especially since the paper version weighs in at several tons. Here you can find the Eucharistic Prayers for Children in Latin (very useful), the emergency rite for blessing an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion in Latin (must happen all the time!) and various other little gems.
I noted also that it reproduces the 2002 text exactly, even to the misprint in Eucharistic Prayer 4 which once caught me out when celebrating at the London Oratory. I found this unfamiliar word, but when you're sight reading (come on; how often do you celebrate EP4 in Latin?) you don't have time to think, and so it only sunk in a moment or two later that I had said something completely nonsensical.
An Alma Redemptoris for the first person to spot the error.

Fun-sized Cardinal goes to his (big) reward

2007-12-14T07:29:00.000Z

I was so very sorry to read of the death of Alfons Cardinal Stickler at the great age of 97. Having spent a long life surrounded by books and dust, he suddenly shot to fame in his eighties as a Cardinal who was not afraid to be connected to more traditional liturgy. Many will miss this little man with a big heart—the only bishop whose mitres were bigger than he was. May he rest in peace.

The Golden Flop

2007-12-12T15:01:00.000Z

Others have noted abundantly (so I didn't bother) that
1) The Golden Compass is coming out, and isn't nice to Catholics.
2) The US Bishops, however, think it's a jolly good thing.
3) The film has flopped.

Now, I notice, the US bishops have withdrawn their approval.
I do hope that it's in response to 1) above (albeit late), and not 3).

Read more about it here.

Christmas Meme

2007-12-10T19:52:00.000Z

Mac has tagged me with a meme; one I haven’t much enjoyed doing really, but I like Mac and want to make her happy for Christmas.

I think that priests probably have a different take on Christmas than human beings do; perhaps its partly to do with being blokes, and partly with not having children. But also there is the fact that a priest gets to Christmas utterly exhausted—we all get sick of people saying, right up to Christmas Eve ‘Just coming up to your busy time, Father’. In fact, the period of Christmas itself is bliss; very little indeed happens. It all happens in the weeks leading up.
I am very repelled also, by the commercialization of Christmas—a friend of mine calls it the Saturnalia, because to most people the fuss has very little to do with the birth of our Lord.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Both mean misery.

2. Real tree or artificial? Real is so much nicer, but the needles and the disposal afterwards are not.

3. When do you put up the tree? Christmas Eve, ideally while listening to 9 Lessons and Carols.

4. When do you take the tree down? The day after the (real) Epiphany.

5. Do you like eggnog? Isn’t that some sort of American vice? I shouldn’t think I’d like it, though I like lots of other American things.

6. Favourite gift received as a child? It may be a false memory thing, but I can’t remember getting much other than clothes. I do remember a paint box and pad of paper, which I was scolded for using up within a couple of days. In my early twenties, I got an Amstrad Computer, which revolutionized my life. I think that has the award of the best Christmas present ever.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? Oh yes; it’s much more important than a tree.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My mother. I’m now used to the fact that she will say that she loves whatever I get her, and then take it back to the shop at the first opportunity. The plus side of this is that it doesn’t matter very much what I get her, I suppose.

9. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? It’s a bit mean to think about actually disliking a gift.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Christmas cards are just misery. Worry about finding time to write them, worry about not having time to write them, guilt about therefore not sending many or any.

11. Favourite Christmas Movie? Anything that doesn’t have Robin Williams in it.

12. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Too late.

13. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? If you mean have I given it as a new gift to someone else, then no.

14. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas? Good sausage rolls. Good Christ Stollen.

15. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear and non-winking.

16. Favourite Christmas song? No contest; Adeste Fideles, in Latin.

17. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Since my father died, my mother comes to me for Christmas.

18. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? No, and if I could, I wouldn’t.

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Angel.

—Phew; is this thing never going to end?—

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Late Christmas afternoon, after the Queen’s speech.

21. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Exhaustion; Many fewer Confessions than Communions; Secular Christmas beginning somwhere in October and ending Christmas Day; St Stephen’s Day being called ‘Boxing Day’ (why?); Santa Claus and his bloody reindeer; BBC or Channel 4 taking the opportunity to futher debunk our faith.

22. Best thing about this time of year? That people make an effort to be kind. The three Masses. When I was a University Chaplain, I once was entirely alone for Christmas, and celebrated all three Masses, at their proper times, on my own, in what is now the Extraordinary form; I sang everything from the Liber, and even used incense. Maybe you think that is rather sad, but in fact it was somehow very special.

Westminster again

2007-12-10T08:35:00.000Z

I have to say that I am a dissenter from the clamour for a religious as the next Archbishop of Westminster. Dom Hugh of Pluscarden has had his name much mentioned — except by those who know him well, which is significant. For a job of such varied responsibilities and national (if not international) importance, mere orthodoxy and holiness are not enough. There are other gifts such as eloquence, prudence, the ability to govern and inspire others. A knowledge of how a diocese works is very important—Cardinal Hume, for all his virtues, largely left the running of the diocese to the area bishops, and was not popular with his priests.
Whoever is appointed is going to have to be a very hard worker who can really get among his priests to revivify parish life. He will need to tackle the seminaries both at Rome and in London, and he will need to do battle with the schools to make them Catholic again.
For instance, on the last topic, I would estimate that I have in my parish about six or seven admirable practising Catholics who teach in non-Catholic secondary schools. They have tried and failed to get jobs in Catholic schools, and so have given up. Meanwhile, our local Catholic secondary schools are packed with lapsed and non-Catholic teachers. I have been told bluntly by a school, when I asked, that selection is simply made on the teacher's teaching ability; their faith is, to all intents and purposes, irrelevant. I do not believe that my parish is the only one in this position. It will take a bishop, and preferably the next Archbishop of Westminster, to take a lead on this. Thank God that the Bishop of Lancaster has made a start!
Some seminaries are almost a joke. In Rome, the student body is almost to a man orthodox to traditional. And the staff are still running the place like a seventies base community, despairing to each other and to whoever will listen about how impossible the modern student is. Allen Hall, I am told, is somewhat better. At Wonersh, the staff are largely doctrinally orthodox, but the practice and life at both places still remains firmly in the seventies, which is to say, Theological College style rather than Seminary.
And then there is the morale of the clergy; hit from every side. The Bishops have shrugged off onto their priests the entire blame and responsibility for the appalling child abuse debacle, and salved their own consciences and reputations by making the priests jump through hoops that make pastoral ministry very difficult (just try talking to a child now without its mother being present). They refuse to bring priests in from Poland to ease our workload, in case they also bring Catholicism with their luggage. In my diocese, two young and active priests are employed full-time doing, it seems, very little, while I and others have to run around like headless chickens trying to administer multiple parishes. The only thing to get the bishops really worked up is preventing priests celebrating according to the Extraordinary form.

I'd better stop here, or I'm going to go on for hours………

Anyway, that's why I think that what Westminster needs is somebody entirely new, and promoted from the diocesan clergy, not a religious who has no experience of these matters. I have some good ideas about one or two who might be just ideal for the job, but I'll spare their blushes.

Westminster — more speculation

2007-12-08T10:00:00.000Z

According to a source in one of the Roman congregations, someone who has worked with His Holiness in the past, the only two names among our present hierarchy that the Pope is both familiar with and approves of, are those of the Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, and the Bishop of East Anglia, Michael Evans.
The latter is supposedly very ill indeed, and therefore not a likely candidate. Peter Smith might well be a candidate—his name already has been mentioned as being in the running.
A Londoner, ordained for the Archdiocese of Southwark in the early 1970s, having studied for the priesthood at St John's Seminary, Wonersh, he served as assistant priest at Larkhall Lane, Stockwell, for a very short period, and then went to Rome to study Canon Law. At the English College, he was highly critical of the lax and liberal atmosphere fostered by the then Rector, one, er, Monsignor Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, and, I think, left to live at the Beda College instead.
Back in England, he returned to St John's Seminary, Wonersh, and taught Canon Law and associated subjects (this was before the promulgation of the 1983 Code, when it was rather difficult to teach this subject, since everyone knew things were about to change, but not how). In due course, he was made Vice-Rector, and was much admired by the more conservative students, since he made no secret of his difference of views with the then Rector, one, er, Monsignor Christopher Budd, who was then systematically changing the seminary into something more like an Anglican Theological College.
For a year, Peter Smith was placed in charge of a parish—St Andrew's, Thornton Heath—which, with his 6 months or so at Larkhall Lane, was to prove his only parish experience, but on which he would continue to draw endless stories to illustrate this or that point of moral theology or canon law. Christopher Budd left Wonersh for his only pastoral experience (6 weeks as administrator of Brentwood Cathedral), and the seminary was run by one, er, Father Michael Evans, for a few months.
Peter Smith returned to Wonersh triumphantly as Rector, and then Monsignor, where he spent the next few years happily espousing all the causes he had spent the previous ten years despising. If Budd had been into psychobabble as a remedy for every problem, well, then Smith would make every student see a shrink. In fact he'd have a shrink on the permanent staff. If Budd made Compline sometimes optional, well then Smith made it always optional. Those like myself who had looked forward to a Smith rectorate as something of a restoration were to be sadly disappointed.
In due course, Smith was made Bishop of East Anglia, with a reputation for fairness, on the whole, and London good humour. He had his fingers burned over the publication of a school textbook by the wife of a former Jesuit which appeared to question the Resurrection, but, Teflon-like, the dirt slid off and stuck to someone else (who, I happen to know, wasn't really responsible: the real culprit was neither of these two, but the author and one other whose name was never mentioned in connection with the affair).
Since his translation to Cardiff, I've rather lost touch, but what I hear is unremarkable but good. He has spoken well on moral issues for the BBC, and the Archdiocese seem content.
So there we go; make your own mind up. Which is the real Smith? The conservative Catholic? The liberal reformer? Or something else?

Indulgences

2007-12-06T07:27:00.000Z

I'm delighted to see that Pope Benedict has decreed a Plenary Indulgence for those who make the pilgrimage to Lourdes in this 150th anniversary of the apparations.
Granting an indulgence is such a Catholic thing to do that I can already hear the screeches of horror from the Tablet; something about 'mediæval invention', 'insult to the memory of Martin Luther', 'ecumenically disastrous'……

In fact the practice of granting indulgences is very ancient indeed. They first caused a problem not in the time of Martin Luther, but in the time of the Decian Persecution (about 250ad), when the practice was already hallowed by age and custom. We know most about the Church in Carthage during this period, under the leadership of Saint Cyprian.
The Decian persecution caught the Church on the hop, and many Christians did not behave very well. There are records of frightened Christians rushing to the temples to sacrifice. At Carthage, the majority of Christians apostatized. Others pretended to have sacrificed, obtaining (by persuasion, bribery or other means) certificates, called libelli, saying that they had in fact done so. Having sometimes been under considerable pressure (torture was frequently used, and there would be the natural instinct to protect one's family, which might encourage a father to sacrifice or obtain a libellus to remove his wife and children from suspicion) many of these sacrificati and libellatici simply expected to be able to receive Communion as usual and were shocked to discover that this was now forbidden them, and they must expect to do many years' penance before being readmitted, if they were to be readmitted at all.
So they resorted to the expedient of visiting the Confessors, those Christians who had refused to sacrifice to the gods or the emperor, and were now in prison awaiting transportation to the mines or the arena for execution. And this brings us to the nub.

These confessors would issue notifications declaring that the bearer of this notice had had his penance done by the confessor, and so could go to Communion. And sometimes confessors when going to martyrdom left behind them with someone else permission to administer these pardons in their name, presumably without restriction.

This made St Cyprian very cross, as it seems to subvert the authority of the bishops to absolve, and, indeed, the martyrs seem to have been making themselves into an alternative hierarchy. He wrote to the Roman clergy about it (here).
The whole matter eventually settled down; nobody denied that the merits of the confessors and martyrs could be applied to another person, but the whole must be administered by the bishops of the Church to whom the power of binding and loosing is given.
And though the use of indulgences waxed and waned from time to time, and unquestionably grew in sophistication during the Mediæval period and the Counter-Reformation, it really doesn't make sense to deny that the practice is genuinely an ancient one!

The Irish Lover — a true story

2007-12-05T15:14:00.000Z

And now I have got something to post about, inspired by a post on The English Lover on Fr Ray's blog. This is a true story, and it takes place in the little Irish midlands town where my father came from.

Kitty and Joe (let us call them) had been going out together every Wednesday evening since they had been teenagers at school. They never missed; they would go to a tea shop, and then to see a film or have a walk together, just the two of them.
When they turned sixty, Kitty, sitting in the car, finally took her courage in her hands and said:
"Joe; isn't it time we were getting wed?"
Joe looked at her with astonishment.
"But Kitty, who'd have us now?"

They are both now dead some fifteen years. Both died single.

For the sake of Josephus' Digestion

2007-12-05T15:08:00.000Z

That always-interesting commentator, Josephus Muris Saliensis, has requested a new post to greet him, rather than those kaftaned ladies. I quite understand. They were beginning to make me queasy, too. I couldn't think of anything to blog about, so I just looked for a nice picture.

And while we're about it……

2007-12-04T13:08:00.001Z

One of the better arguments against women's ordination:

I suppose this is a sort of 'hedging your bets' stole; just in case the Moslems or Bahai's are right after all, we'd better include them in.

A co-ordinated chasuble, shoes, earrings set which will equally well do for the attempted Eucharist and for the posh do afterwards.

And one to make the fuller figure look positively mountainous.

His Daft Materials

2007-12-04T12:44:00.001Z

Versus populum:

Arsus populum:

Our Lord is, apparently, the 'goodest person in the world'.
Cute.
Not.
No Ofstead awards there, then.
I need a bucket.

Welcome back, Paulinus

2007-12-04T10:16:00.000Z

And he's straight in with a wonderful liturgical tour-de-force, here. Be sitting down when you read it.

Candlesticks

2007-12-04T08:05:00.001Z

Here you can see the splendid cross and candlesticks all in their proper place. Phew! Many thanks to a comment in the last post from Josephus for the link.

Vespers: a little more

2007-12-03T21:02:00.001Z

Like most of you, I was very encouraged to see the pictures of last Sunday's Vespers. But on looking at the Felici website, I saw one or two other very interesting things. First, look at the server holding Pope Paul VI's wonky crucifix.Is that or is that not a corona?

And here's the proof. No doubt this young man is a cleric of the Clerics Regular of the Mother of God. How interesting that the Holy Father is now introducing members of the traditional orders to the public worship in St Peter's.

And I must say that it is encouraging to see a much more appropriate throne being used than the chair in front of the altar. Much, much better. Next year, perhaps back to the apse.

One or two improvements I'd like to see: I do hope that the Holy Father is going to ditch the wonky crucifix. It was never the tradition for the Pope to use a crozier of any sort. Second, I couldn't see the high Altar properly, but it looked as if there was (a) no frontal and (b) no candles. Perhaps one of you has got a better view that shows them, but I can't see them. Third, am I mistaken? I always thought that the celebrant at Vespers wore cope but no stole, and is assisted by other clergy in copes, not dalmatics. Now, perhaps pontifical vespers is different, and no doubt you'll tell me all about it in the comments box.

Fr Tim has a little more information on the tonsured cleric here.

Book bound in Jesuit's skin

2007-11-29T12:31:00.001Z

BOOK BOUND IN JESUIT SKIN
When I first saw this headline (New Oxford Review), my first irreverent thought was 'Where can I buy one?'
But it's actually a seventeenth-century book, from the days when Jesuits were wholly admirable, which book you can read about here. It is a diatribe inveighing against the possible participation of Fr Henry Garnet in the Gunpowder Plot. You can read about Fr Garnet here: though executed, he was never canonized because of the suspicion of his possible involvement in a political assassination attempt. It states in the article that there are not many relics of him; it doesn't, however, mention two that I know of. The first is this book, of course (though I suppose it has no authentication other than tradition), but the other is better established. It is, if my memory serves me rightly, a vertebra or two, on permanent display in the church of St Edward, Sutton Park, Sutton Green, near Guildford in Surrey. St Edward's is worth a visit in its own right, having also several other notable relics, including a shoulder blade of St William of York (presumably slipped into someone's pocket when the shrine was destroyed at the Reformation) and an altar cloth embroidered, it is said, by Queen Catherine of Aragon and her ladies—it is covered with her symbol, the pomegranate.

Concelebration

2007-11-28T07:57:00.000Z

Fr John Boyle, in response to the last post, made the following comment:

A question: at concelebrations, is each concelebrant actually consecrating, or is there just one consecrator and the others acting as co-consecrators? If the celebrant for some reason failed to consecrate some of the elements, could the intention of one (or more) of one of the concelebrants bring about the consecration of those elements?
I'm not sure we are that clear about our role as concelebrants.

I think Fr John is putting an important question. Actually, I think the whole question of concelebration is something that needs revisiting, because it was not particularly well thought out in the 1960s.

The best work on the subject—in fact, I suspect the only work—is by the famous rubrical gazeteer (whose day job, incredibly, was being porter at Archbishop's House, Westminster,) Archdale King who was requested to write a book justifying the practice in the late 1960s/early 1970s. It's called, predictably, Concelebration. At the end of the book, I wasn't actually convinced; he hadn't persuaded me that the revival of concelebration was a wholly good idea, and I rather suspect that he hadn't convinced himself. The work, I think, was one of obedience.

There are two sorts of concelebration: sacramental and ceremonial. In a sacramental concelebration, the concelebrants recite the words of consecration, and truly celebrate Mass with the chief celebrant, and as a token of this can claim a stipend for an intention which differs from that of the chief. At a ceremonial concelebration, the concelebrants assist in the vestments of their order, and may even stand at the altar, but they do not pronounce the words of consecration. This form of concelebration is far more common historically; most, if not all, Eastern rites have some form of it, and in the West, the ancient Carthusian rite has it, and the Papal Mass of Coronation would seem to have had it. Clearly a ceremonial concelebrant could not claim a stipend.

If I remember rightly, Archdale King seems to be able to advance only one example of sacramental concelebration from antiquity, but this is enough, he says, to justify the practice. Again a comment on the last post, from ADV, gives it:

The rite of Concelebration was modified at Rome (perhaps in the time of Pope Zephyrinus, 202-218) so that each priest should consecrate a separate host (the deacons holding these in patens or corporals); but they all consecrated the same chalice ("Ordo Rom. I", 48; see also Duchesne, "Liber Pont.", I, 139 and 246).
In the sixth century this rite was observed on all station days; by the eighth century it remained only for the greatest feasts, Easter, Christmas, Whitsunday, and St. Peter ("Ordo Rom. I", 48; Duchesne, "Origines", 167). On other days the priests assisted but did not concelebrate.

I seem to remember from Archdale King that the hosts were held on glass patens before each concelebrant by kneeling acolytes.

I wonder, though, whether this early example is really a true concelebration, or rather of what has been called 'parallel Masses'. This was a practice beloved of certain 'liturgical movement' monasteries in the 1950s. Dom Lambert Beaudouin's abbey at Chevetogne in Belgium is one such example. There would be a 'lead' celebrant at the High Altar, and all the other priests on separate altars with their own chalices, patens and missals, would do their best to say Mass in perfect synchrony with the 'lead' celebrant. Thus, not one Mass, but many (though, of course, there is only ever 'One' Mass).

So, is there, in the entire history of the Church, one single pre-1960s example of priests concelebrating sacramentally; wearing the vestments of their order and consecrating one host and chalice together, saying the words of consecration, and being permitted to take a stipend for a separate intention?

The answer is yes. But it isn't particularly ancient, I suspect. The ordination rite in the Extraordinary Use has a full sacramental concelebration in this form, where the newly-ordained priests fully concelebrate while kneeling at prie-dieux, and can claim a stipend. Though strangely for one saying Mass, they do not receive the Precious Blood, but only wine. One can understand why full sacramental concelebration might be thought appropriate at such an occasion.

So where does that leave us, Fr John? To answer your question, I think that it is the intention of the Church at the moment that all priests truly say Mass in the fullest sacramental sense when they concelebrate. Therefore the intent of one concelebrant can supply the defect of another.

Personally, I am uncomfortable concelebrating, and I never take a stipend or intention for a concelebration, but simply join my intention with that of the chief celebrant. To my mind, the symbolism of one priest celebrating Mass in persona Christi for the Church is very important, and this is diluted when there is more than one Christ (as it were). I think that it has contributed to the whole business of lay people joining in with priestly prayers and even manual gestures. It has led to priests in large communities being able to stand at the altar and offer Mass 'properly' only once or twice a year, perhaps not being even able to see the altar, as at some diocesan funerals, (see previous post) while claiming daily stipends for sticking out a hand and mumbling the words of consecration.

Which is to say, the practice is certainly legitimate (though not particularly well historically grounded), but whether it is prudent or good for the Church in the longer term is something I doubt.

Something to cheer us up, perhaps.

2007-11-27T19:17:00.000Z

I haven't seen these ones before, so I thought that perhaps you mightn't have either.

Consecration

2007-11-27T18:44:00.000Z

There have been quite a few interesting comments on the last post concerning the possible invalidity of consecrations when the consecrator cannot see the elements to be consecrated.
I haven't looked this up (not having much leisure at the moment) but there are a couple of further observations.
Some have remarked that the presence of the elements on the corporal is important. I think that the answer here is both yes and no. Priests are encouraged to make a general intention when saying Mass to consecrate whatever is on the corporal, but it is the intention that matters, not the corporal. That general intention is made in order to guard against an absent-minded moment during the words of consecration. However, the question of intention leads to the second point:
There has to be an intention to consecrate. Once (before the Council) Archbishop (then Bishop) Cyril Cowderoy, celebrating High Mass at the seminary, was alerted to the fact that, at Communion, the ciborium containing hosts for that Mass was still sitting on the credence, having been forgotten at the offertory. He said clearly 'I intended to consecrate enough hosts fot the Mass, therefore they are consecrated', and proceeded to distribute these hosts as Holy Communion.
That this event has been remembered means that even at the time his judgment was considered questionable but possibly correct.
If the Holy Father intends to consecrate all those hosts held in ciboria, then perhaps they are consecrated. But it seems to me that this is open to all sorts of abuse; to reduce it ad absurdum, a sick person could reserve 'blank' hosts at home, the priest making an intention to consecrate one with the morning Mass and, hey presto, it's done; the sick person's daughter, an extraordinary minister, simply gives Communion. Now, that's a very extreme version, but is it really different in kind from the Holy Father consecrating a host at an altar on the steps of St Peter's when the deacon carrying it is still inside the basilica on his way out?

All change at St Peter's

2007-11-26T19:14:00.000Z

Fr Ray clued me in to the fact that it isn't only lace which has reappeared in St Peter's. As you can clearly see, (click the pics to enlarge) over a beautiful frontal embroidered with Pope Leo's arms, a 'big six' is now fully back in its proper position, with a crucifix in the centre, instead of being huddled to one end in a rather embarrassed way. The only thing that is rather strange is that there isn't a seventh candle as there should be when the bishop of the diocese celebrates solemnly. Even Paul VI used to use three stumpy candles in one corner and four in another, if my memory does not play me false. But let's give him time……
And while he's looking for wherever Noe or Marini (1st edn) has hidden that seventh candle, perhaps he might give some thought to two other points. The first is this awful deposition of the chair—though a splendid piece of carpentry, one can scarcely call it a throne—which you can see the Sanpietrini carrying away like a stage prop. The seat of a bishop is such a potent sign, and the seat of Peter all the more so, that simply to treat it like a bit of furniture that can be moved aside for the dancing is symbolically very impoverished. Can't he sit in, or at least towards the apse, as of old, even if he won't go right to Bernini's Chair at the back (yet)?
And there there is that awful business of priests (& deacons?) holding ciboria which the Holy Father has to consecrate as it were from a distance. Is the consecration really valid if the celebrant can't even see the ciborium? There has to be a better answer. Does everyone really have to go to Communion, and does every Host have to be consecrated by the Pope? Couldn't Communion be distributed at the side altars from the reserved Sacrament? Sure, I know it's desireable to receive from Hosts consecrated at that Mass, but surely common sense would suggest that it isn't always practical or fitting.
But these are (relatively) minor points which I'm sure the Holy Father will sort out all in good time. I just thank God that there is a pretty good chance he will turn his attention to them when he can. I used to think 'change and decay in all around I see', but now I tend to hum 'changed from glory into glory' and 'God bless our Pope, the great, the good'!

Hatz

2007-11-21T11:19:00.000Z

I have a friend in the Oratory who has an impressive collection of ecclesiastical headgear. However, even he would be pushed to match this cornucopia of religious hats. That's Cardinal Slipyj, by the way, in his galero.
Thanks to Eoghain for sending me the link.

Ex pertinacia scientia

2007-11-19T07:41:00.001Z

I see from the Catholic directory that one or two of our bishops have eschewed the Latin language in selecting their mottoes. If it was through inability to manage Latin, they could well have gone here for help.

Velocipædophilia

2007-11-16T16:07:00.000Z

Please suspend for a minute your various faculties of outrage and consider this: A man, in the privacy of his own room (in a hostel in Scotland), being (one supposes) driven by various mysterious inner urges and, no doubt, for lack of a more suitable companion, proceeds to attempt sexual acts with, er, a bicycle. Yes, a bicycle. I have not discovered (nor do I care) whether this alluring temptrix was a mountain bike or a sit-up-and-beg. We have a crude analogy in the UK that likens a lady somewhat generous with her favours, shall we say, to a bicycle, but this is not a case of this kind. This is a bicycle-type bicycle.

Said gentleman—and for the lack of other evidence, we must assume him to be a gentleman—was discovered in flagrante delicto with the said machine by two cleaners who promptly reported their discovery to Somebody In Authority. As a result, the frustrated Don Juan was had up in court and duly found guilty of a sexual breach of the peace.

Now, you may have found this ridiculous enough, but the crowning absurdity is that this poor man, in addition to the very public humiliation of having his name linked with such a silly act, has had his name added to the list of sex offenders in the UK, along with rapists, paedophiles and other sad criminals.

And there I was, thinking that all along that sex protection policies were all about safeguarding children and vulnerable people. In fact, it would appear that it is all about criminalizing any sexual act that a judge finds distasteful, even when performed in what the perpetrator would have considered privacy.

Please don't get me wrong—I'm not suggesting for a minute that the gentleman concerned was a paragon of virtue or under the moral law entitled to do whatever he did, but there has to be a sense of proportion here. Surely the embarrassment and consequent humiliation was sufficient for coitus velocipædus.

Which is to say that you can be an upstanding member of society though you kill your unborn child. But you can have your life blighted forever, officially, for having the weakness to outrage the virtue of a bicycle.

I didn't really want to link to this item, for reason of betraying the chap's name and still further embarrassing him. But I suspect that right now he is beyond futher humiliation, and I've been asked to provide what is in the public forum anyway. So, if you must, you can read a little about it here.

One bride for seven brothers

2007-11-09T13:55:00.000Z

This Sunday's Gospel will tell of the conundrum of the woman who, on the death of her husband, married all his brothers, one after another, for such was the command of Moses. (Luke 20:27-38). I wonder if this text ever occurred to the various parties in the sixteenth century debating the validity or nullity of Henry VIIIs marriage to Catherine of Aragon, who had been formerly married to his older brother, Prince Arthur. He cast off Catherine on the pretext that God had forbidden such a marriage. In today's Gospel, we read that, on the contrary, God had commanded it.
Good Queen Catherine is one of my heroines, and I am certain as I can be in my own heart that she is a saint and, God willing, one day will be raised to the altars. Perhaps I'll blog about her soon.

Barchester Burblings

2007-11-08T09:09:00.001Z

At present, I'm listening to Barchester Towers, by Trollope, on my iPod. Yesterday, in the car when on the long journey home from my mother to the parish, I heard this passage, occasioned by Mr Slope's first sermon in the cathedral. It struck me as being apposite for today, too.

There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilised and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling audiences to sit silent, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. Let a professor of law or physic find his place in a lecture–room, and there pour forth jejune words and useless empty phrases, and he will pour them forth to empty benches. Let a barrister attempt to talk without talking well, and he will talk but seldom. A judge’s charge need be listened to per force by none but the jury, prisoner, and gaoler. A member of parliament can be coughed down or counted out. Town–councillors can be tabooed. But no one can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sindbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sunday’s rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes God’s service distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God without that anxious longing for escape, which is the common consequence of common sermons.

With what complacency will a young parson deduce false conclusions from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given us! Yes, my too self–confident juvenile friend, I do believe in those mysteries, which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you must pardon me if, in some things, I doubt your interpretation. The bible is good, the prayer–book is good, nay, you yourself would be acceptable, if you would read to me some portion of those time–honoured discourses which our great divines have elaborated in the full maturity of their powers. But you must excuse me, my insufficient young lecturer, if I yawn over your imperfect sentences, your repeated phrases, your false pathos, your drawlings and denouncings, your humming and hawing, your oh–ing and ah–ing, your black gloves and your white handkerchief. To me, it all means nothing; and hours are too precious to be so wasted—if one could only avoid it.

And here I must make a protest against the pretence, so often put forward by the working clergy, that they are overburdened by the multitude of sermons to be preached. We are all too fond of our own voices, and a preacher is encouraged in the vanity of making his heard by the privilege of a compelled audience. His sermon is the pleasant morsel of his life, his delicious moment of self–exaltation. ‘I have preached nine sermons this week, four the week before. I have preached twenty–three sermons this month. It is really too much.’ ‘Too much for the strength of any one.’ ‘Yes,’ he answered meekly, ‘indeed it is; I am beginning to feel it painfully.’ ‘Would,’ said I, ‘you could feel it—would that you could be made to feel it.’ But he never guessed that my heart was wrung for the poor listeners.

Before the liturgical reforms, I think it was customary that only the parish priest preached at Mass; the curates seldom, if ever. It is my earnest belief that bad preaching is one of the chief causes of lapsation; unprepared texts, mindless drivel about love…… It really is highly unfair to our people to make them, a captive audience, listen to what we have to say if we have hardly given it any consideration ourselves. An MP (member of parliament) once spoke to us when I was in the seminary, and he commented that if he had the chance of speaking to several hundred people once a week for ten minutes, he would be able to do all sorts of things. But so many priests simply throw the opportunity away.
Now I know I'm laying myself open to being accused of being the worst of these, but I think I can honestly say that in my two decades or so of preaching, I could count on the fingers of one hand the occasions when I have not prepared my words—and those because I was taken unawares.
I suspect that if we were to actually abolish the requirement for homilies at most Sunday Masses, we actually might do more good than harm. But if we could be assured of good homilies, then of course preaching is a most useful tool.

"It's actually very, very deeply not anti-Catholic,"

2007-11-07T20:13:00.000Z

So said Shekhar Kapur about his fillum Elizabeth—the Golden Age.
Oh, well, that's all right, then. Say what you like about us.
H/T New Oxford Review.

The TAC

2007-11-05T07:48:00.001Z

I, as no doubt you, too, have been reading about the application made by the Traditional Anglican Communion for corporate union with the Catholic Church. It is a pleasing prospect, and this morning I've been doing a bit of research.

The TAC is not a part of the Anglican Communion. It considered itself as being so until February 22nd 1994, which is presumably when the issue of womens' orders became irrevocable.

It has a strong attachment to the Book of Common Prayer and, at least in the US, permits no deviation from the 1928 form. In the UK, it permits the use of the English Missal—an English translation of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

In its St Louis Declaration (which is really the closest it comes to a formulation of doctrine) it professes belief in the seven sacraments, and the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist.

On the minus side, it lists the 39 articles as being amongst its authoritative documents. How it reconciles one or two of these articles with the last observation is beyond me. I was never convinced by Newman's Tract 90.

The TAC isn't a large operation in the UK: only twelve parishes in England, as far as I can tell, and I've not a clue as to how large these are. Some of them have websites: here, and here. I see that in the latter case, Letchworth, they have already canonized Henry VI themselves.

The Letchworth parish worships in a Liberal Catholic building, and has posted photographs of a High Mass there. I should have thought that the Liberal Catholics (who cheerfully ordain women) were very strange bedfellows for the TAC.

The Liberal Catholic Church has as one of its basic tenets freedom of thought. It "permits to lay members entire freedom in the interpretation of Creeds, Scriptures and Tradition, and of the Liturgy. The Church holds strongly that belief should be the result of individual study or intuition, not its antecedent. A truth is not a truth for a man, nor a revelation a Revelation, until he sees it to be true for himself." ("Statement of Principles")

And I recognize the celebrant: he has attended various services that I have been involved with in the past.

In the end, all Christians who seek reconciliation with the Holy See have to be made welcome if they recognize its truth and desire communion. The 'Uniate Anglican' system in the States has worked very well, on the whole, and there seems little reasons why it should not do so in the UK. In the States, they willingly accepted a modification of the Book of Common Prayer, though it was a little weird—the Novus Ordo offertory was incorporated, with 'you' language instead of the 'thou' used elsewhere, and the Roman Canon in Miles Coverdale's 16th century translation—and as far as I know continue to use it, though some churches now celebrate the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite and others the Ordinary Form.

There is another issue, and perhaps my friend William might like to comment if he is reading this. The TAC, I'm sure, consists of worthy and saintly clergy and people. But as far as I can see, it is, well, fringe, to put it at its most charitable. All things considered, at least in the UK, it isn't a major player. However, there is a much larger group which is more mainstream, if I can put it like that, and this is the SSC; the Societas Sanctæ Crucis, or Society of the Holy Cross.
I have known a number of SSC members over the years, and have found them to be, largely, an admirable body of chaps. They are in communion (if uneasily) with the C of E, but are unquestionably at the 'Catholic' end, and nearly unanimous in their opposition to womens' orders. What is particularly impressive is that they have a real spirituality; there is a rule of life which they are expected to follow, there are retreats and days of recollection. It consists of both celibate and married clergy. They are organized into regional chapters which, for many of them, take the place of the 'official' liberal diocesan organization. Probably most of them account themselves under the authority and sacramental ministry of the 'Flying Bishops'. The majority use the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite in their Eucharists.
If Rome is to accept the TAC into full Communion, then it should keep an eye also on the SSC. It would be a great shame if the TAC were to call all the shots and, effectively, queer the pitch for a much larger and more coherent (in both senses of the word) group who are increasingly interested (it seems to me) in making the same sort of move.
Perhaps more in later posts.

The Extraordinary Form — the argument rumbles on

2007-11-05T07:26:00.000Z

The famous Fr Richard McBrien has waded into the argument now, to oppose the EF, something which reassures me that indeed the Holy Father was wise. Read about it in the California Catholic here.

The Music Meme

2007-11-02T06:52:00.000Z

Mac has tagged me memishly all about music.

What song is in your head?

Byrd's four-part Mass. We had it last night for our All Saints celebration; the first time 'proper' music has been sung here in years. And in our present church, almost certainly the first decent music ever. Only one person complained. Lots were enthusiastic, including some whom I thought would hate it. As a consequence, I'm walking on air.

What is the newest album in your collection?

3 in fact: Duruflé Sacred Choral and Organ works Vol 1: It has a setting of the Our Father in French which I have never heard—and Duruflé has only about 20 published works; a volume of Gombert, mixed stuff, including an eight-part Credo; and a collection of bits by John Dunstable. I bought them about a month ago, and have not yet had time to listen to them. Tant pis!

What is the top album on your wish list?

Peter Hurford's complete Bach organ works; only it hasn't been put on to CD yet, as far as I know. I've even gone to the trouble of buying a turntable with a USB connection to my computer so that when I've got time (ha ha) I can turn my LPs of Hurford into MP3s.

Which reminds me: I'm a school governor (because I haven't got enough to do, apparently), and the meetings are conducted in a sort of jargon of acronyms and abbreviations which leave the novice (me, even after three years) bewildered. After one long meeting, I said 'You'll have to excuse me, but the PP has got a BSA and is off for a G&T'.

What is the most recent live music event you have attended?

The Byrd Mass last night, I suppose. But I don't go to concerts much—at all, really. Very occasionally.

What is the top live music event on your wish list?

Probably a Mass celebrated by the Holy Father in the Extraordinary Rite with something splendid and Viennese, like the Nelson Mass.

What are the top three albums currently in rotation at your house?

I have my Ipod on the go all the time, but mostly I listen to audiobooks on it. I'm going through the Barchester Chronicles at the moment, with Pope Benedict's book on Jesus of Nazareth in chunks in between.

The sheep of his flock

2007-10-30T13:16:00.000Z

It used to be the custom in Ireland that a bishop, before confirming children, would personally examine them in their catechism. My father resented to the end of his life that his confirmation was deferred a year because the boy next to him answered a question wrong, and my father got the blame.

A parishioner here told me this about his own confirmation interview.

Bishop: Now if our Lord likens you laypeople to his sheep, what does that make me?
Nervous farmer's son: Er, the ram, me lord.

Dolly Mixture Rage in Sussex

2007-10-30T13:10:00.000Z

This arrived by post today:

The Sussex Sweet Shop opened Christmas last year, and we were completely overwhelmed by our friends from the churches desperately in need of

- Dolly Mixtures -

… So we have arranged this

- Pre-order Form -

It then goes on to enable me to order 3kg sacks of Dolly Mixture (each sack containing 1800 sweets)

Somebody, please tell me this is all a wind-up! The secretary and I have been rolling around laughing all morning at the image of venerable archdeacons having a punch up over the last dolly mixture sweet.

Endorsement

2007-10-29T07:52:00.000Z

This, from Zenit:

ROME, OCT. 28, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI's vicar for the Diocese of Rome expressed his hopes that religious men and women increase their use of information technology, and thus take advantage of what he called a new form of apostolate.

Cardianl Camillo Ruini spoke to the religious at the Pontifical Urbanian University during the diocesan gathering of the Union of Major Superiors of Italy, which represents 1,287 communities and 22,000 religious in Rome.

According to the Roman diocesan weekly RomaSette, Cardinal Ruini said: "A priest from Novara told me that the theme of 'Jesus' is very much discussed by youth in blogs. The focus, though, comes from destructive books that are widespread today, and not from Benedict XVI’s book ‘Jesus of Nazareth.'

"What will the idea of Christ be in 10 years if these ideas triumph?"

The true Jesus

The 76-year-old prelate admitted, "I don’t understand the Internet, but especially young religious ought to enter blogs and correct the opinions of the youth, showing them the true Jesus.”

“The teaching emergency is central in Benedict XVI's concerns," the cardinal said. "For him, education in the faith coincides with service to society, because to form someone in the faith means to form the human person.

"Simply giving motivations for living defeats nihilism and gives value to the human person, a value that is based on Christ himself, the fact that God became a man."

The cardinal asserted that an educator’s testimony and content can matter more than pedagogical techniques.

He called for catechists to be creative in finding occasions for promoting Benedict XVI’s book, saying it shows the solidity of faith in the historical Jesus of the Gospels, and bases the identity of the Christian in a personal encounter with Jesus Christ.

Cardinal Ruini said that in Catholic schools, "the religious can witness to Christ in all their lessons, in the sciences, in history and even in Italian literature, in an inseparable union of faith and culture. Your creativity ought to find new techniques for the vocational challenge, which ought to develop in step with society."

Well, I'm neither young, nor in religious vows, but I'll try and do the rest.

To a Fish Finger

2007-10-27T21:37:00.000+01:00

I found this on a Facebook page, by Andrew Cusack, and so loved it that I must make it my re-entry into the blogosphere:

'To a Fishfinger'

Thou shape impacted of Old Ocean's heart,
With frost imbu'd and golden crumbs bedight,
Casual thy vending and thy worth too light:
How soon thy form symmetric must depart!
In rangéd boxes at the supermart
Thou bidest with thy fellows day and night,
Nor dream'st thou'll't scale some culinary height--
Who fries and serve thee needs no subtile art!
And yet for thee the stalwart seaman rov'd
'Mid tempests' rage; and Iceland's anger keen
Endur'd; nor glimpsed 'mid perils dire the end
Sublime: that thou, scorned digit, should'st be so lov'd
Dearer than pizza or th' entinnéd bean,
For solitary men both food and friend!

(From The Oxford Book of Esperanto Verse, edited and translated by Julian Birdbath)

This is wonderful, and quite restores my belief in all sorts of things important. And particularly my appreciation of my alma mater, St Andrews University, for nourishing such a gloriously whimsical flourish.

Thanks

2007-10-17T17:42:00.001+01:00

for the prayers &c. I'm sorry to have been so mysterious recently, but my mother has had a horrid cancer scare, and as she has nobody else in the world, really, I have had a lot on my mind and hands. But the consultant told her today that things are probably going to be okay.
So thank you to those who have said a prayer, and, above all, thank God.

Out of Office

2007-09-30T07:30:00.001+01:00

I'll be away for a few days, and may well not even have access to internet, so there won't be any postings, and I may not be able even to post your comments, which will have to await my return. Sorry.

Tagged again…

2007-09-29T19:42:00.000+01:00

Mac, the strongwoman, has tagged me. This time it's about blogging. Hm.

1. Do you attend the Traditional Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo?

Both. I celebrate the TLM once a week, and would do so more often if I could get away with it.

2. If you attend the TLM, how far do you drive to get there?

I walk around the corner to the church.

3. If you had to apply a Catholic label to yourself, what would it be?

A priest and a sinner.

4. Are you a comment junkie?

No, not really. Now and then.

5. Do you go back to read the comments on the blogs you’ve commented on?

If I want to see whether there has been any responses.

6. Have you ever left an anonymous comment on another blog?

Very, very rarely, and only for some special reason.

7. Which blogroll would you most like to be on?

Don't like to say, really. If I were on a biggie like Fr Zs, then I might feel more under pressure to blog more regularly.

8. Which blog is the first one you check?

Damian Thompson's Holy Smoke, Fr Ray, Fr Z at the moment, but I am fickle.

9. Have you met any other bloggers in person?

Fr Tim, Fr Ray, Fr Michael Brown, Fr John Boyle, Fr Nicholas Schofield, Fr Seán Finnegan, Fr Zuhlsdorf, Fr Michael Clifton, One of the Sisters of the Gospel of Life, the Orthfully Catholic seminarians, Mac the Mulier Fortis, Joanna Bogle

10. What are you reading?

Breviarium Romanum (extraordinary use), St Francis de Sales Treatise on the Love of God, Brown's Life of St Augustine, Asimov's Foundation (vol 1) (again). Just finished (again) Arthur Ransome's Pigeon Post.

Bonus Question! Has your site been banned by Spirit of Vatican II?

I'd love to be worthy of that honour. I love that site; others don't seem to have heard of it. Here's a link, and here's another similar site, the Gorebertines ( a new blog).

Zimbelsterns and Linden Trees

2007-09-29T18:39:00.000+01:00

Today I assisted at a wedding in our local Anglican church (no, that isn't it in the picture—you'll have to read on); the groom, a practising Catholic, had obtained a dispensation to wed his Anglican inamorata there, and I was keeping our end up. The hymns were not outstanding, I'm afraid. The first was 'Lord of the Dance'—we had a version of it in the seminary which went:
I danced on the altar when the Mass was begun
I took my guitar out and had a damn good strum
I giggled and I gurgled and I waved both my arms
With modern liturgy you need have no qualms.
Dance, dance, it's modern liturgy!
And we'll all dance around on the sanctuary
And sing silly songs fit for kids of three.
So give three cheers for modern liturgy!
But that isn't the point I'm getting at today. When the chorus of the wretched hymn began (me pretending to enjoy it), I nearly jumped out of my skin: this extraordinary tinkling of little bells emerged from the organ. It was a zimbelstern!
Now, the organ I learnt on had a celesta stop—no, not a voix celeste, but chime bells—the instrument that one plays the dance of the sugar plum fairy on. That was pretty unusual, but I have never heard a zimbelstern in England before. It takes the form of a star shape on the front of the organ case which, when switched on, rotates and rings a set of little tinkling bells. Very charming. Sometimes the bells are tuned in D or G. I was taken right back to my first encounter with a zimbelstern.
It was my first (and so far, only) trip to Poland. Usually, people head straight to Cracow, but I had to be different; I went to Warmia, because I have a good friend in Olszytyn. That neck of the woods used to be East Prussia until the various ethnic cleansings which followed WW2. Now the population is nearly all Polish, though I got by now and then with my sketchy German. It was the area where the Teutonic knights held sway: they governed from the extraordinary castle of Marienburg, modern Malbork—an intact mediaeval huge fortress curiously built in brick. By coincidence, I have a parishioner from Malbork. Anyway, there is also a Marian shrine in that corner of Poland called Święta Lipka, or Holy Linden (or lime tree) (German name, Heiligelinde). Web site here.(though the photo link doesn't work; use this one instead). It is, as you might see, a lovely church, and a beautiful Madonna in that rather severe northern European way. But what did it for me was the organ.

It was made by Jan Jozue Mosengel around 1720, and it incorporates two zimbelsterns, which you can see on the photo if you enlarge it (just click on it), positioned on the towers at either side of the organ. They spin round gently, tinkling away whenever the organist pulls a lever. But that's only the start. All those figures that you can't see very well in this picture also move. The angels blow their trumpets, turning from side to side; the putti play. And, best of all, on the very top of the instrument is a very large pair of figures (more than 6') representing the annunciation. The archangel Gabriel bows low before our Lady, asking her to bear God's son, and Mary graciously nods yes back to him. The whole thing is very moving in more ways than one. The unexpected sound of a Zimbelstern today transported me right back there. I must suggest to our vicar that he invest in some moving statues for his organ. I wonder if Ballinspittle has some to spare?
I have a tape of the organ, including with the zimbelstern. I wish I knew how to post a track for you.
Another link to Święta Lipka here.

Something a ltltie dnerfieft

2007-09-29T17:48:00.000+01:00

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too
Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it.

i fnoud tihs on a fcaeobok pgae.

Dowry of Mary

2007-09-27T13:09:00.001+01:00

English Catholics will be familiar with the concept of England being entitled the 'Dowry of Mary'. You can read an interesting article about it by my friend Fr Peter Bristow here. English people have always been rather proud of this idea, and Mary has, rather gallantly, been held in reverence in this land.
One piece of evidence for this was the permission, gained by the English and Welsh bishops in the 1960s, to include the Hail Mary at the end of the Prayers of the Faithful ('Bidding Prayers'). I have always loved this custom, and so am most disappointed that now our bishops (why am I not surprised?) want us to discourage it. Our parish had a generally-useful day for readers a couple of weeks ago, led by a diocesan apparatchik, and the said chick waxed lyrical on the wickedness of putting our Lady into the bidding prayers. So, the following Sunday, the writers of the prayers left her out. Only once. It took a kindly but firm word from yours truly, and our Lady is back in the prayers. I would so love to be in communion of mind and heart with our bishops, but why must I choose between them and our holy faith? Now, a Hail Mary here or there is scarcely something to go to the stake for, I know, but couldn't they actually do something to build up, for once, rather than pull down?
And actually, any orthodox liturgical practice that has had an uninterrupted use for 40 years becomes, officially, a custom, and is protected in liturgical and canon law. So we have every right to use the Hail Mary as we are accustomed to.
As a postscript, a visiting friend the other day told me that the practice of saying the Hail Mary in the Prayer of the Faithful is increasingly being imitated abroad. I'd be very interested to hear some evidence of this, if any of you know some: please use the comments box. Thanx.

All things weird and wonderful

2007-09-27T12:29:00.000+01:00

I have to say that I always found the notion of Our Lady of Surbiton a little comical. It brought to mind Penelope Keith and The Good Life. Upper-middle-class values, and everything in the most frightfully good taste.
But for the last twenty or so years, one Mrs Menezes claims to have had apparitions and, no doubt is perfectly sincere. But, first the Archbishop of Southwark (both the present one, Kevin McDondald and his predecessor, Michael Bowen) and now the Vatican have very great reservations about, well, not the sincerity of this group, nor their piety, but about whether this really does come from God. And now the Vatican have come down firmly against its authenticity. Fr Ray has posted a substantial piece about it.
I gather that one of their principal aims is to get aborted babies declared to be martyrs and set alongside the Holy Innocents. Clearly, the title of martyr would not be appropriate, because in no sense have these unfortunate babies died as a result of hatred of Christ nor of his Church, but for a number of other reasons, some understandable (though never sufficient), some not. And yet, Pope John Paul II himself widened the concept of martyrdom somewhat in declaring St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) a martyr. She died not because she was religiously a Christian (though of course she was), but because racially she was a Jew. She should have been canonized as a Virgin, and arguably a Doctor of the Church. But in any case, one sometimes gets the impression that Pope John Paul canonized as martyrs anybody who was killed by the Nazis—including vast swathes of Poles. A glance at any page of the new Martyrology will show that. Anyway, back to the movement known as Divine Innocence. Their symbol is not very nice, really—a crucified baby. Abortion is a shocking and brutal business, certainly, but I'm really not sure that this symbol is appropriate.

Meanwhile, in Canada, a group called the Army of Mary have also been condemned, and in this case, six nuns associated with them have also been excommunicated. In this case, their foundress believes herself to be the reincarnation of our Lady. You can read all about it here, courtesy of the Arkansas Catholic.

Now, I don't know what you think of all this, but these are only two manifestations of some seriously weird goings-on here, there and everywhere. In Ireland, statues are held to move in Ballinspittle, and to change appearance in Mellaray. On Achill Island, our Lord and our Lady are in regular touch with Christine Gallagher. Almost every country has these strange manifestations. Some take them to be a sign of the end times.
I, however, have a more prosaic explanation. Our religion has become so puritan in its outward appearence, that people who no longer are allowed the dramas of processions, novenas, 40 hours &c have to get it where they can. So they flock to these strange manifestations of the ?Divine? in order to pour out the devotion that once they would have given the Blessed Sacrament or the statue of our Lady in their own parish church. Secondly, the public expression of orthodox Catholicism has been so downplayed, that people have to get convinced teaching, real talk about God, where they can. And so the natural Catholic instinct comes out in strange lumps, because all the normal channels have been denied for so many for so long. This is just the normal human reaction to repression.
My guess is that these strange things will mostly vanish away if Pope Benedict gets his way in his grand scheme for the Church. Which is why we must pray for a long life and health for him.

Some good news from Qatar

2007-09-26T21:32:00.000+01:00

The first ever Catholic Church in Qatar is to be built, dedicated to our Lady of the Rosary. More details here, courtesy of Asia News. Apparently the Emir Amir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani contributed the land, having been concerned in talks with the Holy See over many years. May God and our Lady reward him for this courageous gesture which could well leave him open to attacks from others.

Inclusiveness—Clifton-style.

2007-09-26T07:32:00.000+01:00

According to a footnote on Damian Thompson's Holy Smoke blog, I read that Bishop Declan 'Crispian-made-me' Lang has decreed that no music whatever written before 1963 is to be used in his hearing. Ah, how good it is to live in this brave new liberal open inclusive Church, where everyone is made welcome!

'No friends—only strangers we haven't snubbed yet.'

The triumph of the West Country Catholicism-Free Zone moves another step closer. God help whichever poor man is appointed successor to Hollis, Lang or Budd. How is one ever going to begin to rebuild after all that these three are doing?
A young man I knew from the Bristol area began a few years ago to explore his vocation with the Clifton (Crispy-fried Lang's) diocese. He was sent to the vocations team, where one priest on the team, in the pub with all the potential seminarians (and, I believe, some then current seminarians), boasted of his homosexual conquests and deplored the Church's teaching in this area. Now, I think that this was an unhappy man, for he left the Catholic priesthood not long after (and the Catholic Church too). As for the young man I was acquainted with, fortunately he is made of sterner stuff than some others, and persevered with his vocation—though firmly in another diocese.

In the interests of fairness, I should add that I read on Fr Tim Finigan's blog that Bishop Budd has taken a measured approach to Summorum Pontificum, and not knee-jerked. This is very much to be welcomed from the man who once said to me 'for 500 years the Church was celebrating Mass in the wrong way; now it is celebrating the right way', and in the presence of the friends and family of a priest known for his love of the Traditional Mass, as he threw earth on his coffin: 'and that's the end of the old Mass in my diocese!' Well, we live in interesting times, don't we? It goes to prove the truth of the saying autre temps, autre moeurs. I'm very happy that Bishop Budd has decided to be moderately friendly. Despite what you have read in this paragraph, I think that at root he's a nice man, and when I knew him in the past, I personally liked him while deploring his opinions. I'd just like to see more effort to rebuild the faith in his diocese.

Colonel Blimp

2007-09-13T12:36:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been called blimpish before, but this week I've been in a particularly blimpish frame of mind. I'm an avid Radio 4 listener (for you poor chaps and chapesses a long way from the the UK, that's BBC radio's generally intersting all-talk station—magazine programmes, quizzes, news, plays &c), but for the last few days, every time I switch on my radio, all I seem to get is discussions about vaginas, penises, erections, orgasms and other messy businesses. Perhaps this sort of stuff has its place (though in a married bedroom only), but I certainly don't want it in my car at 9.00am (no innuendos, please!)

9.00 am Old Age to Fortysomething
Kaye Wellings explores British sexual attitudes and preoccupations through anecdote and frank talking. What do we get up to in the bedroom and beyond, and how do we feel about it?

Yes, that's 9 in the morning, nor did I enjoy being promised that there'd be more at 11.30am:

Gay Times 13 September 2007
Tom Robinson explores the portrayal of homosexuality in the media.
He looks back from the late 1950s to the early 70s. Contributors include actor Murray Melvin, broadcaster Paul Gambaccini and author Maureen Duffy.

More at 9.30pm. At least some of the children will have gone to bed, I suppose. And all again next Monday and Thursday.
It's all about a series called 'The Sex Lives of Us' What a strange title; why not 'Our Sex Lives'. But why have it at all? Why right in the middle of the day?
But it isn't just these slots; it also gets into the other programmes too. Yesterday afternoon, at school chuck-out time (think cars full of kids with the radio on), I too was driving home, and as the subject of the usual discussion on health topics there was a horribly detailed programme all about erectile dysfunction, the relative usefulness of Viagra and Cialis, frigidness, menopausal 'loss of drive', testosterone patches &c.

'Mum: what's Viagra?'

Here's the blurb from the BBC website:

This programme looks at sexual dysfunction. Most people encounter sexual difficulties at some point in their life. Common disorders include loss of desire in both women and men, erectile dysfunction and inability to attain orgasm in women. Treatments depend on the cause of the problem and range from medication or surgery to behavioural psychotherapies.

Look, I'm not going to blimp on about this. It's just so, well, over the top, and out of place, that I'm rather disorientated, like the old surrealist joke:

Q. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. Fish.

Mean Gits

2007-09-11T07:39:00.000+01:00

There are still some out there!

The Archdiocese of Milan has determined that Pope Benedict's motu proprio on the use of the pre-conciliar Latin liturgy does not apply to the use of the Ambrosian rite there.

In an unofficial August 24 note, the archpriest of the city’s cathedral, Msgr. Luigi Manganini, informed all archdiocesan deaneries that the motu proprio pertains only to Latin-rite parishes in the archdiocese, not to the majority Ambrosian rite. According to Msgr. Manganini, there have been no new requests for the use of the traditional Ambrosian rite.

At the moment, there is only one archdiocesan Sunday Mass celebrated according to the traditional Ambrosian rite. Around 60 faithful from across the archdiocese attend this traditional Mass, which was suspended for the summer.

H/T to CWN

Peter and the Lord

2007-09-08T20:18:00.000+01:00

I wanted to include this picture simply because I like it: I think it might be in the Hofburgkapelle, Vienna. Shame about the altar, though.

The Holy Father at Mariazell

2007-09-08T20:02:00.000+01:00

His Holiness celebrated Mass this morning at the great shrine of Mariazell, much beloved, by the way, of the wonderful Cardinal Mindszenty.
The couture—I'm not sure one can really speak of vestments—were by a prominent female clothes designer. The deacons look cute:
The priests look miserable in their seethru plastic chasu-gouls. I hate these Masses where priests, not even concelebrants, hold ciboria while the Holy Father says the words of consecration without him even being able to see these ciboria. I wonder whether the consecration is even valid.
And, the pièce de resistance: do not adjust your eyes; yes that is the Holy Father dressed up as a Ghanaian chieftain. He does look a little self-conscious, doesn't he?
And here's a wierdo from we-are-church concelebrating.

What might have happened…

2007-09-01T13:58:00.000+01:00

Fr Zuhlsdorf (whom God protect) has posted an account of an interview given by an American bishop, Victor Galeone, in which he seems to suggest that indeed there is a problem with priests saying Mass irreverently, but he seems to suggest that perhaps what ought to be done is to stop priests celebrating Mass irreverently, rather than bringing back the Old Mass.

The bishop said that he sees that it’s irreverence exhibited by priests that needs to be corrected, and that the solution is not found in bringing back the Latin Mass.

Bishop Galeone is far from being the only one to suggest this, most saying something along the lines of 'oh well, we all know we've lost a sense of mystery, but surely the Old Mass was all about gabble and non-participation'.
One cynically wonders, however, whether their Lordships would ever have thought it desireable to bring back a sense of mystery if there had not been a movement to bring back the Traditional Mass……

Abortion; some good news for a change

2007-08-31T09:45:00.000+01:00

This, from Zenit:

According to new statistics, the number of Irish women seeking abortions in Britain has fallen by almost 25% in the last six years.

The U.K. Department of Health released figures revealing the number of women allegedly giving Irish addresses in British abortion clinics had decreased by 540 between 2005 and 2006, the Irish Catholic reported.

The abortion rate, that is the number of abortions per 1,000 women between the ages of 15-44 in the population, is also down from 7.5% per 1,000 women in 2001 to 5.2% in 2006.

Ruth Cullen of the Pro-Life Campaign (PLC) said that the numbers indicate that "the tide is moving in the right direction and that a trend toward abortion is not inevitable."

She explained that "while any reduction in the abortion rate is go! od news, nonetheless the figures remain extremely high and leave no room for complacency."

Regarding claims that women are traveling elsewhere, John Smyth of the PLC said that "figures from the Netherlands clearly show that the number of foreign women seeking abortions there is in sharp decline," thus undermining "any claim that the fall in British figures means that women are traveling to the Netherlands or other European jurisdictions."

O si sic omnes

2007-08-30T13:48:00.001+01:00

The Extraordinary use of the Roman Liturgy is certainly gathering momentum in the US. The Cafeteria is Closed draws attention to the fact that even Notre Dame University—scarcely a bastion of traditional Catholicism—has resolved to introduce a weekly Old Rite Mass on Sundays, which will be sung twice a semester.
The whole issue is more open in the US, of course. For a start, they have got some bishops who are more than half way Catholic—in the sense that they understand the importance of tradition, being in communion with the Church through the ages, and do not see "Catholic" as referring simply to communion with those alive today.
There is also, I suspect, a rather more independent spirit on the other side of the Atlantic, that is willing to give things a try, rather than simply yawning and saying 'well, that won't work, so the answer's 'no''.
There has always been a good groundswell of support for religion generally; religious people are not on the back foot all the time, and it is still possible to bring up a large, loving, pious
family without ones' neighbours thinking one is weird. This has led to a lot of people simply finding in the usus antiquior a better expression of what they have always believed.
There's probably a lot more.

Ecumenism — getting it right!

2007-08-30T12:58:00.000+01:00

This, from Zenit:

Benedict XVI's move to allow for wider celebration of the Roman Missal of 1962 has received a positive reaction from the Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow.

"The recovery and valuing of the ancient liturgical tradition is a fact that we greet positively," Alexy II told the Italian daily Il Giornale.

Benedict XVI's apostolic letter "Summorum Pontificum," published in July, explains new norms allowing for the use of the 1962 missal as an extraordinary form of the liturgical celebration.

"We hold very strongly to tradition," he continued. "Without the faithful guardianship of liturgical tradition, the Russian Orthodox Church would not have been able to resist the period of persecution."

When asked about the relationship between Rome and Moscow, the patriarch said: "It seems to me that Benedict XVI has repeated many times that he desires to work in favor of dialogue and collaboration with the Orthodox Churches. And this is positive."

Regarding a possible meeting between Alexy II and Benedict XVI, the patriarch said it must be well-prepared, and "be an encounter that truly helps to consolidate relations between our two Churches."

Unusual Saturday with Natalie Portman and Agatha Christie

2007-08-28T08:43:00.000+01:00

Scarlett Johanson as Mary Boleyn and Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn

Strange things sometimes come the way of a priest. One of my sideline interests is in the liturgy of the pre-Reformation English church. Through the good offices of Fr Nicholas, the Roman Miscellanist, I was approached by a film company who wanted to know how one would conduct a marriage in the 1520s. You may have seen what I dug up for them, a few posts ago. for a film, now in post-production, called The Other Boleyn Girl, a historical novel of the same name by Philippa Gregory. Well, I was contacted again, and actually asked to go 'on camera'. Well, what a laugh!

So on Saturday, I duly turned up at 7.30am at Pinewood Studios, and by 9, I was in costume, with a ridiculous chestnut wig on my head and a 'Canterbury cap'. There was a cassock, a sort of surplice (it looked like one, anyway, but fastened weirdly) and a gown. All fine. But very hot, and it was the hottest day of the year.

And then I waited.
And waited.
And roasted.
And waited.

But I didn't mind, really. It was actually rather nice to be free from thinking I ought to be doing something and worrying about it. Other people were doing all the worrying instead. So I listened to an Agatha Christie story on my iPod (mediaeval clerical gowns are conveniently provided with an iPod pocket) as I walked up and down the car-park in the sun.

There was also a group of 'extras' who had to do some dancing in heavy costumes. I really felt for them. The women looked amazing, with their gabled coifs and brocaded, hooped dresses. They sat and waited, and roasted, too, in a modern office room, where they phoned and texted their friends, contrasting strangely with the fabulous costumes. The men, too, were in heavy furs and brocades. They took off the enormous coats when the heat got too much, and you can see just what a really obscene garment the codpiece is, especially when worn without a coat.

One of the female dancers came out with what I can only describe as the shallow quotation of the millennium.
She: You know, I really hate this Iraq war. It's really terrible!
Me: Mm. Yes.
She: Yes, television is completely ruined; there's nothing else to watch any more!

There was a brief flurry of activity as I was called on to coach the bridegroom (Henry Percy, played by the charming Oliver Coleman) in his brief bit of Latin (In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti—it didn't take long) and then it was back to pacing the car park with Agatha Christie until 4.30, when I was called to the set. And there I met Natalie Portman, who is charming and unassuming. Those of you who aren't film buffs might know her as Queen/Senator Amidala from the Star Wars movies. And there we did the wedding. Or at least, just the exchange of rings. The 'bride' and 'groom' expressed a certain anxiety when they learnt that I was a real priest, that their marriage might also be a 'real' one.

Now, what struck me was that this fillum company went to all the trouble and (some) expense of importing me as consultant on the liturgy. And yet this actual marriage is itself utterly unhistorical. Anne Boleyn never married Henry Percy. Anne Boleyn was not a very nice woman, granted, but she was no bigamist (unlike Henry VIII). She and Percy certainly fancied each other, and possibly even attempted engagement, but Cardinal Wolsey scotched that, thus earning Boleyn's undying hatred. There is no suggestion, as far as I know, that they had a secret marriage. I did mention this on the phone to the company, but by then it was all in train, and, you know the way things are……

And then, in the filming, they simply pushed artefacts and people around to 'look good' without any worry about authenticity. Why bother having a consultant, I wondered.
But I was enjoying the whole thing so much, I didn't want to argue.
Perhaps in the end they'll decide to go for accuracy, and I'll hit the cutting room floor.

But no regrets: it was a fascinating day.

The Other Boleyn Girl should hit British Cinemas in February. And so, if you sit through all the credits, and are sharp-eyed, you might even discover who Fr Justin really is! And you'll know that this Tudor-looking priest is actually carrying an iPod in his pocket.

Cardinal Gagnon and Wigratzbad

2007-08-28T08:11:00.000+01:00

Cardinal Gagnon has died: God rest his soul. During those long years when a desire for the traditional rite of Mass was considered almost a mortal sin, he was one of the just who was prepared to stick his neck out for reconciliation. He visited Ecône and Archbishop Lefebvre more than once, and was viewed by them as a friend. Once the Episcopal consecrations had taken place and the Fraternity of St Peter been formed, he was naturally one of the first to be involved there. I remember my first visit to Wigratzbad, for the first (or possibly second) set of priestly ordinations, at which Cardinal Gagnon presided. As a guest, I was seated at the top table, I remember, with His Eminence and with Dom Gérard from Le Barroux and some other dignitaries whose names I have forgotten and who never knew mine, of course. Cardinal Gagnon was nervous at breakfast (breakfast before an ordination!—not very traditional!) and replied in grunts and monosyllables. Later on, after the ceremony, he was effusively friendly. Clearly he had learnt the rite carefully: I remember that he remembered that the Canon should be silent at the old Mass, and was determined to do it, without remembering that an ordination is the one occasion when the canon needed to be said out loud enough for the concelebrating ordinati to participate from their prie-dieux.
Another memory from that ordination was the nervous appearance of birettas and lace albs and cottas. All were rigorously eschewed at Ecône (I suppose to avoid the charge of poofiness) and, presumably, at the SPX seminary at Zaitzkofen too. But one or two bits and pieces were worn then — Bavarian priests have various traditional frilly bits they add to choir dress — you may remember those pics of Pope Benedict and his brother after his ordination. A year or two later I was back again for another set of ordinations, this time of a University contemporary of mine, and there was no embarrassment at all about birettas and lace.
Sorry, I can't stop the reminiscences flowing now. On my first visit, there was still something, well, furtive, about the new seminary. A whiff of the ghetto, perhaps. A stiffness, an unease, an over-anxiety to please, almost. I was only a newly-ordained diocesan priest and my welcome was very warm and kind indeed. The new FSSP were very, very anxious to find their place in the Church, fearing abrupt rejection, I suppose, from embittered modernists, and were touched by any gestures of support. On my second visit, all this had gone, too. There was a real feeling of normality about the place. Everyone was more relaxed: seminarians felt more able to moan about the food, the rigorism, without feeling that they were giving a hostage to fortune. The staff were less guarded and greeted one simply as a colleague, which was nice.
That's a long way from Cardinal Gagnon, but it's nice to also record the other stuff. In any event, may he rest in peace.

Italian love for children — up to a point

2007-08-28T07:41:00.000+01:00

We all know how extravagantly Italians love their children. You need only go into a restaurant to see the kids passed around, cuddled, indulged, adored. You'd think they would want lots of them, then. But any priest will tell you how hard it is to persuade young Italian adults to consider having more than one child. I was once passionately told that it would be cruel to have more than one child, because the parents (in this case about to wed—any children were still in the future) would have to divide their love, and any child would only get a portion instead of it all. It was vain for me to assure the couple that in fact single children usually get a pretty rough deal (that's something I know rather a lot about), and that whatever the childhood battles, children with siblings usually (I know, not always) grow up into happier, better-adjusted adults than their 'only' cousins.
And there is a darker side, too. The willingness, even eagerness, that some Italian parents show for the abortionist's knife. Here are three horror stories; one where parents decided to abort a twin with Downs Syndrome, the abortionists got the wrong one, for which they are now being investigated by the police, so the parents had another go and killed the other twin. The second story tells of a child wrongly diagnosed with a faulty oesophagus. The diagnosis was corrected (=perfectly healthy baby) as the poor child gasped for life on the abortionist's table, and finally expired. In the third story, a 13 year old girl was ordered to the abortionist by a judge and her parents, while she wept and begged for the life of her child.
Consolatrix afflictorum, ora pro nobis.

Dog and Cat Diaries

2007-08-27T17:14:00.000+01:00

H/T to Cate who found it in an email

DOG DIARY

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Lunch! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with my people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

CAT DIARY

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape.

Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates what I am capable of. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Drats!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.

Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow -- but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird has got to be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now...

Ma Beck's Quiz

2007-08-27T17:03:00.000+01:00

H/T to Fr Ray and, in the first place, Ma Beck

A.) What was the profession of the man science calls the "father of Egyptology?"
B.) What did the "father of geology" do for a living?
C.) What about the "father of modern atomic theory?"
D.) What about the first person to measure the rate of a freely-falling body?
E.) Who gave rise to the science of seismology, the study of earthquakes?
F.) What occupation did the "father of international law" have?
G.) What was the first modern legal system in Europe?
H.) Where does the idea of "human rights" come from?

The answers:

A.) Roman Catholic Priest. B.) Roman Catholic Priest. C.) Roman Catholic Priest. D.) Roman Catholic Priest. E.) A group of Roman Catholic priests (the Jesuits). F.) Roman Catholic Priest.
G.) Canon Law. H.) Canon Law.

To which should be added,
I) What occupation did the "father of the study of genetics" have?
J) What occupation did the "father of the modern historical method" have?
K) What occupation did the "father of astronomy" have?

All Catholic priests, of course. The first was Gregor Mendel, the second Caesar Baronius, the third Nicolaus Copernicus.

Pregnancy is an illness.

2007-08-21T17:26:00.000+01:00

Having signed a petition, I received this back from 10 Downing Street:

We received a petition asking:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Revoke the 1967 Abortion Act."
Details of Petition:
"We the undersigned petition that the 1967 Abortion Act be revoked. The act of abortion destroys the lives of thousands of women every day, not to mention the innocent children, and is reprehensible in all circumstances."

Read the Government's response
Abortion is a subject on which many people hold very strong and widely differing views. It is accepted Parliamentary practice that proposals for changes in the law on abortion have come from backbench members and that decisions are made on the basis of free votes. The Government has no plans to change the law on abortion.

As Parliament has decided that abortions may lawfully be carried out in the circumstances specified in the Abortion Act 1967 (as amended by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990), we believe that facilities for abortion treatment should be available. We also have a responsibility to monitor the provisions of the Act as they are, unless Parliament chooses to amend the law further.
Women seeking a termination for whatever reason must have grounds under the Abortion Act. A pregnancy may be terminated only if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion that an abortion is justified within the terms of the Act, in the light of their clinical judgement of all the particular circumstances of the individual case.

Abortion 'treatment'!!!!

Pregnancy is now an illness. Officially.

Ye of little faith

2007-08-21T16:03:00.000+01:00

For those of you who doubted my August primroses, here's the photographic evidence showing primroses, grapes and garden (though I have to admit that the slugs have been enjoying the primroses as much as, or more than, I have).

ITV on Isa

2007-08-21T15:43:00.000+01:00

You may care to look at the comments box on the post concerning ITV's programme on our Lord from a Moslem perspective. 'Auricularius' has some very interesting observations.

Saint Nicole Kidman

2007-08-20T10:46:00.000+01:00

Good Catholic girl Nicole Kidman (formerly good Scientologist girl Nicole Cruise, formerly good Catholic girl Nicole Kidman) is to star in a film of Philip Pullman's book Northern Lights. In the story, a group called the 'Magisterium' kidnaps children to remove their souls. Subtle, eh? Ms Kidman comments:

"I was raised Catholic, the Catholic Church is part of my essence."

and

"I wouldn't be able to do this film if I thought it were at all anti-Catholic."

Bless! You can see how pious she is from the picture.

Amnesty and abortion

2007-08-20T10:34:00.000+01:00

I was taught by Bishop Michael Evans, many years ago. I am rather proud of his stand over Amnesty Internation and abortion—after many years of passionate support for the organization, he has resigned from Amnesty over their recent decision to give support to abortion under certain circumstances.
This is all a great shame. Amnesty International have done some very fine work over the years, highlighting human rights abuses throughout the world, and it has been good that the Catholic Church has provided both its foundation and a large base of supporters.
One parishioner commented how sad she found it;

I think it sad that Amnesty should get involved with something that simply isn't in its remit; it will inevitably compromise the good work it does.

Another parishioner has decided to continue his membership, thinking that the good Amnesty does still outweighs the negative implications of this recent vote. I have asked him to consider whether this simply sends a signal to the organization that their decision doesn't matter; will other charitable organizations get the message that they can with impunity impose a pro-choice agenda and continue to collect subscription money from Catholics?
I have asked the Amnesty members in my parish to look into possibly affiliating to Irish Amnesty, who have distanced themselves from this decision.

Isa on ITV

2007-08-20T10:26:00.000+01:00

ITV is about to make a television programme about our Lord; but from the Moslem point of view.

There was no manger, Christ is not the Messiah, and the crucifixion never happened. A forthcoming ITV documentary will portray Jesus as Muslims see him.
With the Koran as a main source and drawing on interviews with scholars and historians, the Muslim Jesus explores how Islam honours Christ as a prophet but not as the son of God. According to the Koran the crucifixion was a divine illusion. Instead of dying on the cross, Jesus was rescued by angels and raised to heaven.
The one-hour special, commissioned and narrated by Melvyn Bragg, is thought to be the first time the subject has been dealt with on British television. Lord Bragg said: "I was fascinated by the idea ... Jesus was such a prominent figure in Islam but most people don't know that."
He denies the programme will divide communities. Raised as an Anglican, he describes the documentary as thoughtful and well researched. "I hope it will provoke among Muslims the feeling they are included in television."

Read the whole article here.

On washing one's pet…

2007-08-19T19:36:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Mac for this glorious post:

Dear Pet Owner,

Cats and Dogs need different handling techniques...

Dog Washing Instructions

1. Wait for a hot Summer day. (Do not wash in Winter.)
2. Outside, turn on grass sprinkler.
3. When dog finishes playing with sprinkler, give dog big juicy bone to chew on until dog is done drying.

The 12 Step Cat Washing Program

1. First, thoroughly clean the toilet, remove the topmost lid covering the tank of water, and turn off the cold-water hose to the toilet.

2. Next, warm up 4 gallons of water to bath temperature. Flush, and add half the water to the tank.

3. Then, raise both lids, add the rest of the water directly to the toilet bowl, and add an ample amount of shampoo to the water.

4. Find a ball of string and entice the cat into the bathroom.

5. Close the bathroom door, and continue petting the cat.

6. In one swift move, pick up the cat, and drop the cat into the toilet bowl, closing both lids.

7. Jump on top of the toilet lid to prevent the cat from escaping.

8. CAUTION: Avoid placing any of your body parts near the edge of the toilet to avoid flailing claws reaching between the toilet and lid.

9. The cat will self-agitate and generate ample sudsing action. (Ignore ruckus from inside toilet, cat is enjoying this.)

10. Flush the toilet twice for a quick rinse or 4 times for an effective power rinse cycle, depending on the cat's fur cleaning needs.

11. Clear a path of open doors from the toilet to outside, and then jump off of the lid. CAUTION: Jump away from the bathroom door.

12. The now-clean cat will rocket out of the toilet to the outside. Air dry time: about 20 minutes.

Yours sincerely,
The Dog

Garden update

2007-08-19T07:31:00.000+01:00

Despite the uncertain summer, my garden continues to flourish. And I still have primroses! Yes, in the middle/late August, as the abundant grapes are filling out nicely, and the olive blossoms are forming into tiny fruit, the primroses continue to flower in the shade of the shed. I'll try and supply a photo some time.

Holy Smoke

2007-08-18T12:14:00.000+01:00

I chanced yesterday to preside at a cremation, following a Requiem Mass. And, yes, on the door of the crematorium…
NO SMOKING!

Chuckle

2007-08-17T12:48:00.000+01:00

h/t to Mulier Fortis

Successors of the Apostles

2007-08-17T12:32:00.000+01:00

Makes you proud to be Catholic, doesn't it?
Here we see the three hand-in-episcopal-glove bishops from the West Country Catholic-Free Zone in England.
Left to right:
Crispian Hollis of Portsmouth,
Christopher 'I hate Pope Benedict' Budd of Plymouth
Declan Lang of Clifton.

Catechism question:
Q. Who made you, Declan?
A. Hollis made me.
Q. In whose image and likeness did Hollis make you?
A. Hollis made me in his own image and likeness.
Q. Why did Hollis make you?
A. Hollis made me to know him, love him and serve him in this world, and to be happy with him for ever in the next.

h/t to the Northern Cleric.

The White Stone at Mecca

2007-08-17T12:17:00.001+01:00

The White Stone Name Seeker (does she remember where she last left it?) has got a very interesting post about her studies into Islam. I recommend you take a look here.
The white stone in the picture, however, is called Dave.

Motu Mania

2007-08-17T10:49:00.001+01:00

The latest in a series of publications aimed at helping priests learn to celebrate the Extraordinary Use of the Roman Rite is called A Guide to the Celebration of Low Mass, by Lee Bradshaw. You can order it here, for $19.95.
It uses those remarkable drawings of the celebration of low Mass by the late Martin Travers, himself, I think, an atheist, but somebody who, with Ninian Comper, was the guiding spirit of the aesthetics of the Anglo Catholic movement in the first half of the twentieth century. The book functions as both a missal and guide while learning; I suppose along the lines of a book I produced myself (but never published), with the text of the ordinary of the Missal, laid out just as in the missal itself, and with guidelines, explanations and hints in English in the margins. Thanks to Alcuin Reid for alerting me to this. I imagine he had more than a little to do with it, and seems to have written the introduction.

There really seems to be more interest in the traditional rite now that it is permitted. I laid a celebration on in my parish for the Assumption, and the church was nearly full, including a couple of families. One 14-year-old lad, whose grandfather served the Mass described it as 'cool'. Whether everyone else was equally impressed, I don't know. By the time I'd taken off my vestments, most people had departed, as they usually do. Normally I'd go straight to the door to say goodbye, but that's harder to do if you're still holding a chalice.

The Silly Season 2

2007-08-17T07:43:00.000+01:00

Dear old Dan Brown has been given a new lease of life by yet another 'discovery' about Leonardo da Vinci. Read all about it here. H/T to Zenit.