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I think that, on balance, I have a pretty good supply of saeva indignatio: as a rule, when something turns up to bother me, I react, and, in the cant of management consultants, I react assertively. It is very rare that I am left winded, floundering, and ready to throw in the towel.
But in the same week that my Parish Priest has said that he will not have the new translation in his parish before he has to: i.e. not next week; I read the far more dispiriting news from Fr Brown that seminarians are being hounded to discover if any of them are secret biformalists: if you are attached to the EF, there is at best a question mark about you.
Imagine the resource that is being applied to achieve this: imagine the web of control which seeps out from Eccleston Square to ensure that the Eccleston Square vision of Church is not (in its view) sullied. Worse still, imagine that this is not a panic reaction from a clique which is losing influence, but a refocusing of effort by a bureaucracy which decides for itself what "on message" means, and has decided that Benedict XVI is not on message for the Church in England and Wales, and that we are better off without priests who wish to conform to his vision of Catholic priesthood.
And I just feel that the game is up: they will win, they are winning: perhaps they have won, here and now. They won't prevail, because we have been promised that they won't prevail, but the enemy is within and it feels that the battle is probably lost. The difficult mind game of remaining faithful to Peter at the same time as remaining faithful to the Head of our local Church is being strained to breaking point.
Even if the gates of Hell are already gaping wide to receive the agents - and count the weight of every child lost to the Faith because of the actions of the agencies of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales to guess what the balance might look like - we have to face the fact that, temporally, we may have lost already: if they stand four square against the Pope, how can they, or anybody who pays for them, describe themselves as Catholic.
There are about ten people who will read this and understands what 8-2 means in this context. It means being able constantly to renew by being faithful to the past, and by understanding that we are all individuals and not just types.
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5 comments:
I think I understand your feelings because rage is my oxygen.
We must pray hard, blog hard, write letters to hierarchs, and trust in God.
If we can believe Chaucer, the upper ranks of the Church were very corrupt in his day, too, but She survived, thank God, by His Will and through the Faith of ordinary people.
Granted England is no longer a Catholic country, but we Catholics must be forthright, even loud, about the substance and practice of our Faith.
Like me, these old men will be dead in the next twenty years or so, and, please God, will be replaced by better.
I can only agree with all LF has stated except to say: They will not win - good (and God) will prevail.
Don't despair, dear cyber-chum. You are one of the good 'uns, and I'm sure you have a great deal of support and sympathy from your readers. Serenity's the thing, for as long as it takes. "If it is of God, it will prosper", but we don't know how long it will take to do so.
Meanwhile, I'd be sorely tempted to answer your priest's 1970 version with responses in the new translation; he's sure to notice if he hears, repeatedly, "And with your spirit". It may not have any effect in the short term, but it may, let us say, encourage him.
God bless!
Dorothy B
In many ways Wenger is far more of an honorable manager than Ferguson...and I'm talking beyond football here.
Chin up, it could be worse, you could be second in the table.
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The Church must reconnect with its intellectual heritage as well as its Liturgical heritage to be strong. I'm afraid the CBCEW is rife with pelagianism. The militancy needed to fight that will come from the grass roots.
The militancy is there in the grass roots as witnessed by the people queuing down Oxford Street to hear Michael Voris last week, at a talk organised by a young man about to join others on a walking pilgrimage to Walsingham.
All is not lost by any means, but there's certainly plenty to get discouraged about.
Sorry your PP is not using the new translation. Does he have the authority to do that anyway?
Boo. Come to the bloggers thing in Blackfen for a cheer up. Bound to be a good day and the food is always fab.
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