One for Brighton!

Inspired by Rafael, I recount a short version of the story St Pelayo, Martyr. (911-925)

This nephew of Bishop Hermogio of Tuy, in Galicia, was brought up in a still-Christian part of Spain, and went to school to learn the Psaltery and how to serve at the Mozarabic Rite of Mass. But as happened with so many children in those times, he was captured during a Moorish raid and became a prisoner of the Emir, Abderramán III. His uncle was captured in 920 at the battle of Val de Junquera and was to be ransomed, but, as no gold appeared, Pelayo himself became the ransom. He became a slave of the Emir, building the wonderful buildings of Córdoba, and suffered as he saw the sufferings of his companions.

His good behaviour meant that his captors were tolerant towards him and he was allowed to study, and to learn from priests who were also held captive. His great prayer, in the terrible circumstances in which he was held, and in the terrible moral climate of the city in which he was held, was that he might maintain his purity. One day the Emir caught sight of him and insisted that he be bathed and perfumed and brought to him. Pelayo chose the best part.

"I am a Christian and always will be. Your riches are worth nothing. I will not renege on Christ who is my Lord, and yours, even if you don't wish Him to be so." And when the Emir tried to touch his clothes he said "Get away, dog! Do you think I'm like the young men who you always have by your side? Lord: free me from the hands of my enemies."

It was too much: he was fired by a catapult across the River Guadalquivir and being found not yet to have died, was decapitated by a palace guard.

His relics are venerated to this day, but not, I imagine, by those who think that sodomy is a Catholic option. We should venerate St Pelayo as much as we venerate St Maria Goretti.

Harry Potter and Catholics

Some comments on a post Mac made about buying Harry Potter 7 saddened me: some people seem not to have stopped and thought. I hate it when Catholics repeat the comments of ignorant Evangelical fundamentalists as though these latter have developed some insight which the Church seems not to have reached. I hate it just as much when people don't understand what books are for.

Ready? Deep breath ... J K Rowling is an excellent children's author and her Harry Potter series is great!

Now - I told you to take a deep breath - her books are not about witchcraft, any more than P G Wodehouse wrote books about the semiotics of Class, or than Lady Chatterley's Lover is about the economics of rearing game on a Staffordshire estate in the 1920s. Nobody is going to be inspired to Devil-worship by reading her books, who wouldn't be by reading about Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. Her books are about humans: and are about the differences between human beings, and how those differences are transcended by things like Love and Hate, by Selfishness and by self-sacrifice.

The fact of magic in the stories is as relevant as the fact of magic in a fairy story: was Rapunzel a real girl who could grow her hair 20 feet long and strong enough to allow a suitor into her tower? Was Snow White really lucky enough to come across a colony of seven dwarves? Of course not: tales are about the imagination, and about learning how moral choices are made; they are parables.

I bought, once, from a coin dealer, a couple of leptons as a present for my parents: a lepton was the lowest denomination coin in circulation in Palestine during the time of Christ. It was the widow's mite. Could either of those leptons have been the widow's mite? No, because Jesus' story was a parable. Did holding those leptons help us understand the story more? Of course they did!

The Harry Potter books are a series of stories: they are not works of apologetics, but there is plenty there for a Catholic child or adult to grab hold of: Hell, as the final end of those who have no remorse; the Communion of the Saints, in the sense that those who have died without meriting Hell are available to help those still on earth when called upon; self-sacrifice, in that the hero is called on to accept death, if that is the end to which he is lead; love for one's enemies, even to the risk of death; the joy of fellowship; Limbo.

I repeat: these are not works of Catholic apologetics, any more than Tolkien's stories were; but they are good and wholesome, and will inspire children towards what is good, and Catholic children towards what is Good and True.

Cardinal Pell: Please Get a Grip

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The official hymn for World Youth Day has been released. You don't want to hear it (oh well, if you do it's here, but boy! do the organisers of WYD2008 have something to learn about bandwidth) as a look at the words should tell you all you need to know.

1. Every nation, every tribe,
come (sic) together to worship You.
In Your presence we delight,
we will follow (sic) to the ends of the earth.

Chorus

Alleluia! Alleluia!
Receive the Power, from the Holy Spirit!
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Receive the Power to be a light unto (sic) the world!

2. As Your Spirit calls to rise (sic)
we will answer and do Your Will.
We’ll forever testify
of Your mercy and unfailing love.

Chorus

Bridge

Lamb of God, we worship You,
Holy One, we worship You,
Bread of Life, we worship You,
Emmanuel, we worship You.
Lamb of God, we worship You,
Holy One, we worship You,
Bread of Life, we worship You,
Emmanuel, we will sing forever.

Chorus

I feel, listening to it, like I feel when my daughter has the radio on in her room. The music and the singing are vacuous. But I feel offended when I think this is meant to be a hymn: the lyric is trite, the music is banal, and the totality is unsingable. It is a pop song, and the assembled Yoof will no doubt listen and applaud, but it has nothing to do with Divine Worship. It's not written in English, but then no pop song is.

And what a monstrosity to visit upon an elderly gentleman who likes music!

Cardinal Pell: while we appreciate all that you have been doing on the world stage recently, it's time to turn your gaze inward. Something involving boiling oil is called for.

Harry Potter 7 - no spoilers here

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The best yet. I spent all day yesterday reading it. I have spent some of today rereading crucial bits. The good news is that JK Rowling has left herself plenty of wiggle room to allow for further books.

I'm happy to discuss the book offline, but I reckon we should leave a week before we start talking about the contents in public.

Purity

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As Rafael points out, responsible fatherhood, in the meditation I have translated below, does not mean contraception.

If being pure was easy, there wouldn't be
So many anonymous fathers
So many single mothers
So many betrayed husbands
So many cheated wives
So many abandoned children
So many immature engagements
So many wounding affairs
So many casual encounters
Such a cult of eroticsm
Such sexual violence
Such shame of virginity
Such credulity
And such brazenness disguised as love.

It isn't easy to be pure in the absence of Jesus and Mary.
When responsible fatherhood is absent,
When the miracle of motherhood, accepted and wanted, is absent,
Or when love for children is absent,
Somebody ends up being just something for somebody else.
Sexuality without God is a disaster.
Sexuality with God is a Blessing.

Fr P. Zezinho

(When was the last time I heard a sermon on purity? Actually, I can remember: it was 1973, and at the end of the sermon the priest said "John Smith, I want to see you in the sacristy after Mass". He needed a server for a funeral the next day, but we didn't let John Smith forget it.)

O infelix Anglia!

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Last December I made a prediction about the reaction of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales to the Motu Proprio. I said that they would say:

"Private Masses are not the 0930 Mass that the Parish Newsletter advertises for every weekday. Private Masses are not, in fact, to be advertised, because they are "private". You can have a few people round but under the same conditions as for a "House Mass" in the Novus Praxis.

No priest can be forced to say Mass in the Old Rite (as if any could, but the Bishops will make a big deal about the pressure the Old Massians will put on a few simple priests).

"Parish Masses" ( however defined by the local Ordinary) must be in the New Rite.

No priest can celebrate the Old Rite who has not passed a test, and we will establish a committee to set one: it will put in place conditions by 2012.

No unreordering of Churches may take place just to favour celebration of the Old Rite.The Novus Ordo must always have primacy over the Vetus Ordo.

And we have leant so far back to accomodate you that any cavilling against our authority is an attack against the Church."

I also wrote:

"I'm probably wrong: the Bishops will welcome the opportunity for Mass to be celebrated always and everywhere as it was always celebrated. I can recognise a flying pig when I see one!"

The public line from the Hierarchy is that the MP is an opportunity for a few old people who have gone to SSPX Masses to go to LMS Masses instead (I caricature, but not much). The private line seems to be one of panic. The MP isn't the only thing to have happened recently: the Pope's letter to China has restated the role of the Church in civil society; the MP has freed priests from the shackles of modern Catholic Episcopalianism; the letter from the Holy Office has put an end to the Ecumenism we have known and endured for the last forty years.

I understand that some of our Bishops are in denial, and are having difficulty coming up with an agreed statement that they can all sign up to and which will actually accord with the MP; the Nuncio, who is broadly sympathetic with them, has little help to offer.

Fr Z {]:¬) (whom God preserve) has pointed out that the relationship between Bishop, Priest, and Laity has been changed significantly by the MP. It has always been ironic that liberal Bishops are those most likely to demand total obedience: it is those Bishops who are seeing their world collapse around them and who will fight hard to retain what they see as their place in the sun.

This may all turn a bit nasty.

Ugly Rumours

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This was, of course the name of the former Prime Minister's "band" when he was at Oxford. Rest assured that that is not my subject.

The ugly rumours of which I write concern a cabal, a combination, of priests who are setting out to subvert the Pope's intentions in respect of the Extraordinary Rite. There are alleged to be e-mails doing the rounds among priests who are opposed to "the return of the Latin Mass" (as one English diocesan website puts it) suggesting that they are allowed, in the terms of the Motu Proprio, to declare themselves incapable of celebrating Mass in any form other than the Ordinary Rite. If enough priests in any given locality agree, then the only way to accomodate the Extraordinary Rite will be for the local Ordinary to ask a priest from outside to say it. "The pressure of normal Sunday services" will be quoted to ensure that legitimate celebrations of the Extraordinary Rite will take place at odd times: like 4.00 pm on a Sunday afternoon; and in a different parish every week: thus making the building of a community difficult.

Were such ugly rumours true, it would suggest that the current extent of Indult Masses accorded to the LMS might be as much as would be achievable even under the Motu Proprio. Surely this can't be what the Holy Father intended!

But look to the websites of the dioceses of England and Wales and, with the honourable exception of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, look in vain for a welcome to a Church in which our common Rite has, from September, two Uses.

We shouldn't start planning for the worst; a few ugly rumours might be no more than just that: ugly, and rumours. But it might be worth spending five minutes thinking about the way me might mobilise ourselves were such a thing to come to pass where we live.

Fr Dwight scores a 180!

Fr Dwight posts as follows:

'B16 says in Jesus of Nazareth, "The Scriptures can only rightly be interpreted in the lives of the saints."

Doesn't that just kick you? Not first and foremost textual criticism. Not redaction criticism. Not the historico-critical method. Not psychological interpretations or feminist interpretations or lesbi gay trans reading. Not the Schofield reference Bible or Mrs Baker Eddy or the Watchtower or the five points of Calvinism or whatever else interpretative method you want.

Scripture is rightly interpreted in the lives of the saints. I love it. Scripture is a living book of the Holy Spirit and it is through the life of the Church and the teaching of the Church and most of all in the Truth incarnated lives of the saints that the same Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is at work in the lives of ordinary men and women, and therefore still at work in the world.'

This has been ringing in my head since I first read it at the weekend: it is so right. A hat tip to Fr Dwight for bringing it to my attention.

I am increasingly awestruck that I live in the times in which God has raised Josef Ratzinger to be the Servant of the Servants of God. I mentioned to a friend yesterday that having three weeks off to think and pray might refresh the Pope to the point at which he comes out with lots more of the stuff he has been coming out with this year.

Can we take it? You bet!

Two footnotes to the Motu Proprio

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7 July is the feast, in what we probably should now call the Extraordinary Calendar, of SS Cyril and Methodius.

They are Co-Patrons of Europe, and are venerated in the East as "like-Apostles". What better day to promulgate the start of the return of the Western Church to its liturgical roots? What better Triple-Crown-tip to the Orthodox Sister Churches? What brighter token of the Pope's faithfulness to Tradition?

A wider query. In the military:

"Information operations (IO) are described as the integrated employment of electronic warfare (EW), computer network operations (CNO), psychological operations (PSYOP), military deception (MILDEC), and operations security (OPSEC), in concert with specified supporting and related capabilities, to influence, disrupt, corrupt, or usurp adversarial human and automated decision making while protecting our own." (JP3-13)

What is the Catholic equivalent that HH the P has been employing so gainfully to outflank his opponents so comprehensively? Elements are clearly visible: the wonderful video of him concelebrating the NO with his secretaries and listening to a female Vatican employee reading the Epistle; saying the Brazilian 5th Eucharistic Prayer while at CELAM; convincing the liberal Western press that the Cardinal Ratzinger who ran the Congregation for Doctrine and Faith like a leopard had changed his spots and was now a pink and fluffy liberal.

One or two people were impatient at the two and a bit years this Motu Proprio has taken. How wonderful to have a Pope who understands the difference between a Campaign and an Operation. Let us hope that the SSPX, who play Blucher's role here, understand that Wellington is in command.

A meme about blogging

I've been sent an e-mail from a reader who asked me to start a meme, and I couldn't think of a good reaon to say no! She said she wanted to know more about bloggers than she could learn from their profiles, which, she said, we play for effect (she's right there!). So here goes.

1. How did you start blogging?

The immediate cause was Moretben beginning his blog: I read his, and followed some of his links and thought: "I'll give that a go". A more important reason was an increasing frustration with the Universe's discussion forum, on which debate and discussion seemed to me to be increasingly replaced by name-calling, and on which some startling assumptions about the Faith were revealed by people who thought of themselves as Catholics, and who thought that these were assumptions we all shared.

2. What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful?

As it says above: "Musings about Tradition in the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and an attempt to collect essays and articles which would appear in a Catholic press which exercised critical solidarity with the Hierarchy." Another point of my writing this blog was to try to provide for the two or three people who know as much and as little theology as I do, and as much and as little about ecclesiastical politics as I do with a forum, as, with the exception of most of the Catholic Herald most of the time, there is no print Catholic resource to provide Catholic news and Catholic intellectual stimulation to the more traditionally minded in England and Wales. Furthermore, Eccleston Square, the Headquarters of the Bishops' Conference seems as forthcoming as the Kremlin in the 1950s.

3. Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?

The focus has changed a bit, in that there are plenty of essays and articles out there on the Web, particularly in the Blogosphere, and it would be presumptuous of me to try to claim that I have contributed ore ever could contribute very much on that side of things at all. And I think that my musings about Tradition have possibly gone well beyond Tradition in the Church as I understood it when I embarked on this mission, not least because of the amount I have learned from reading other bloggers. I've probably grown more impatient with the Hierarchy as well. I'm quite pleased that I've been able to bring a couple of things in that readers who don't speak Spanish or Portuguese have been able to enjoy: I didn't think I'd be translating.

4. What do you know now that you wish you'd known when you started?

I wish I'd known that the blog would gain its own personality rather than be just what I wanted it to be. I wish I'd known how well it would connect me to people around the world: I might have started sooner. I wish I'd guessed that I'd end up saying more about myself than I would. I wish I'd realised that Catholics can be incredibly nasty when hiding behind anonymity: at least I had the sense to set up a disposable e-mail account! What might have started me blogging sooner is the number of really nice, friendly, supportive, sympathetic people out there.

5. Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?

No. I embarrass my teenage children enough already. Part of the deal has to be that I don't do this more than they have to endure. (I burst into song in public: when they were 6 or 7 years old, they thought this was "cool"; they don't now that they think they know what "cool" means.)

6. What advice would give to a new blogger?

Have a subject for six postings decided before you publish your first: that way you won't dry up. And enjoy writing for the few rather than for the many: there are very few bloggers who reach hundreds of people, mainly because most people have more sense than to waste their time reading other people's blogs; if there are a few people who seem interested in what you have to say, say it to them, and you might entertain and stimulate them. Encourage others to blog. Put up with some of the rubbish you see from time to time, and enjoy the pearls which your new friends will cast before you. And try to remember to say Fr Z's prayer before logging onto the Internet.

Orátio ante colligatiónem in interrete:

Omnípotens aetérne Deus,qui secúndum imáginem Tuam nos plasmástiet ómnia bona, vera, et pulchra, praesértim in divína persóna Unigéniti Fílii Tui Dómini nostri Iesu Christi, quáerere iussísti, praesta, quaésumus, ut, per intercessiónem Sancti Isidóri, Epíscopi et Doctóris, in peregrinatiónibus per interrete, et manus oculósque ad quae Tibi sunt plácita intendámuset omnes quos convenímus cum caritáte ac patiéntia accipiámus. Per Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen.

A prayer before logging onto the internet:

Almighty and eternal God, who created us in Thine image and bade us to seek after all that is good, true and beautiful, especially in the divine person of Thine Only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, that, through the intercession of Saint Isidore, Bishop and Doctor, during our journeys through the internet we will direct our hands and eyes only to that which is pleasing to Thee and treat with charity and patience all those souls whom we encounter. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

So there we are. I tag Moretben, Strongwoman Mac, and Rafael Castela Santos to tell us a bit more about themselves.

The first New Zealand VC since WWII

Read this slowly and carefully and allow the pictures to paint themselves in your mind.

The official citation for Corporal Bill Henry Apiata NZSAS.

"Lance Corporal (now Corporal) Apiata was, in 2004, part of a New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) Troop on patrol in Afghanistan, which laid up in defensive formation for the night.
At approximately 0315 hours, the Troop was attacked by a group of about twenty enemy fighters, who had approached by stealth using the cover of undulating ground in pitch darkness. Rocket-propelled grenades struck two of the Troop's vehicles, destroying one and immobilising the other.

The opening strike was followed by dense and persistent machine gun and automatic rifle fire from close range.

The attack then continued using further rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun and rifle fire. The initial attack was directed at the vehicle where Lance Corporal Apiata was stationed.
He was blown off the bonnet by the impact of rocket propelled grenades striking the vehicle. He was dazed, but was not physically injured.

The two other vehicle crew members had been wounded by shrapnel; one of them, Corporal D, was in a serious condition.

Illuminated by the burning vehicle, and under sustained and accurate enemy fire directed at and around their position, the three soldiers immediately took what little cover was available. Corporal D was discovered to have sustained lifethreatening wounds. The other two soldiers immediately began applying basic first aid.

Lance Corporal Apiata assumed command of the situation, as he could see that his superior's condition was deteriorating rapidly.

By this time, however, Lance Corporal Apiata's exposed position, some seventy metres in front of the rest of the Troop, was coming under increasingly intense enemy fire. Corporal D was now suffering serious arterial bleeding and was lapsing in and out of consciousness.

Lance Corporal Apiata concluded that his comrade urgently required medical attention,or he would likely die. Pinned down by the enemy, in the direct line of fire between friend and foe, he also judged that there was almost no chance of such help reaching their position.

As the enemy pressed its attack towards Lance Corporal Apiata's position, and without thought of abandoning his colleague to save himself, he took a decision in the highest order of personal courage under fire. Knowing the risks involved in moving to open ground, Lance Corporal Apiata decided to carry Corporal D singlehandedly to the relative safety of the main Troop position, which afforded better cover and where medical treatment could be given.

He ordered his other colleague, Trooper E, to make his own way back to the rear.

In total disregard of his own safety, Lance Corporal Apiata stood up and lifted his comrade bodily. He then carried him across the seventy metres of broken, rocky and fire swept ground, fully exposed in the glare of battle to heavy enemy fire and into the face of returning fire from the main Troop position. That neither he nor his colleague were hit is scarcely possible. Having delivered his wounded companion to relative shelter with the remainder of the patrol, Lance Corporal Apiata re-armed himself and rejoined the fight in counter-attack.

By his actions, he removed the tactical complications of Corporal D's predicament from considerations of rescue.

The Troop could now concentrate entirely on prevailing in the battle itself. After an engagement lasting approximately twenty minutes, the assault was broken up and the numerically superior attackers were routed with significant casualties, with the Troop in pursuit.

Lance Corporal Apiata had thereby contributed materially to the operational success of the engagement. A subsequent medical assessment confirmed that Corporal D would probably have died of blood loss and shock, had it not been for Lance Corporal Apiata's selflessly courageous act in carrying him back to the main Troop lines, to receive the immediate treatment that he needed."

A Catholic Story

Everything in the story that follows is true, even if I have taken the trouble to disguise names and locations so that the very real people depicted will not be hailed, congratulated or abused by strangers who should not be able to connect the facts with the people involved. It is a parable, but one based on a real occurence. If you object to human pleasures such as smoking and gambling, look away now.

Fr Callaghan has been Parish Priest of the parish of the Miraculous Medal for many years. The parish serves an overspill estate in a northern city. Overspill estates were planned for the people who lived in the nineteenth century slums which disfigured our industrial cities until the 50s, 60s and 70s, when they were destroyed for the soulless new slums which replaced them. Always poor, the collapse of industry left the parishioners much poorer. Many of the men have been out of work since the 1980s, their wives on part-time jobs, and whole families live on benefits - these are the people who would not or could not get on their bikes, but their Church did not desert them.

Fr Callaghan heard his vocation in the fields of an Irish farmhouse in the early 1960s and was trained at Maynooth for the English Mission. Never really aware of how he ended up in the particular diocese, he has given his life to the people he serves. Not an intellectual, not a liturgist or a rubricist, not one for polemic, not one for ecumenism: one for visiting his flock, especially the housebound, the sick, and, in particular, the old people who are frightened to leave their houses after dark because of the violence they feel (quite rightly) is likely to be visited upon them.

Midnight Mass at Christmas is at 7.00 pm on Christmas Eve, and every pensioner will be picked up and escorted home by a bunch of men who have not got work that night as bouncers, and who will be rewarded by free beer at the local Parish Club afterwards. But Father Callaghan makes sure that the bouncers are coming to Church too, and will usually persuade them, when "interviewing" them, to confess their sins so that on that night at least, they can approach their Saviour in a state of grace.

Insofar as he has a mission, it is to the poor, and insofar as he supports organisations, he supports the SVP. Local Corporal Works of Mercy for local people: he wouldn't get the joke, and would be irritated by it, because it makes fun of subsidiarity, a word he has to have explained to him every time I mention it (and I only see him about once a year and don't always mention it) but a thing that he practices. "Nobody understands our people like we understand ourselves." Christmas hampers are personalised, and if Mr Smith likes a drink, then there will be a bottle of whiskey for him, and if Mrs Jones smokes, there will be 50 Rothmans for her. "I'm nor going to judge somebody's pleasures, especially when they can't afford to indulge them."

The SVP conference meets on Tuesdays, and one Tuesday one of the members is able to say that they have won a decent prize on the lottery syndicate they run. Nine of them, including Fr Callaghan put in 50p each week and they buy three tickets, putting the othe £1.50 into the SVP fund. They have won over £400. This is real money: nearly £50 each. The ticket holder promises to get the money in time for the next meeting.

And somebody remembers: Fr Callaghan loves horse racing and has always wanted to put on a big bet. He goes home every summer and loves hearing the stories of the hundreds of euros his brothers and cousins put on the big races, and what they've won, and, usually, what they've lost.

And as a thank you to their priest for being their priest, the Conference members decide unanimously to give all the winnings to Fr Callaghan as long as he has a single bet with it, and buys himself a cigar to smoke at the bookmaker's. He argues, they insist, he gives in and accepts the present.

Anybody who has read this far will want to know: "did he back a winner?" That's not the point of this story. This is a story about a simple priest who gave up a lot of things to serve others. One of the things he gave up was the chance to swagger into a bookie's with a large wad of cash and a Cuban cigar. And, as a thank-you, some of the people who loved him gave him the chance to do just that.

1 July 1916

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Tonight, 91 years ago, 19,240 British Empire soldiers saw their last sunset, for the next day, 1 July, was the first day of the First Battle of the Somme. A further 38,230 would be wounded, many severely before the day was finished. Ulstermen, Newfoundlanders, Accrington Pals ... this was the blooding and the bloodying of Kitchener's New Army, and men and women on the Home Front, who saw newsreel footage of battle for the first time, saw a vision of Armaggedon. In the great scheme of things, the German Empire could not recover from 1st Somme, and the lessons learned by the New Army were such that it would prevail.

Hindsight and the big picture. The present and the little picture were all alive as I grew up: the large number of elderly spinsters in towns like Accrington where there were not enough men after the war for them all to marry. And every family seemed to have a photo on the mantelpiece of a proud young soldier, a young man who would be 19 for ever.

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
Lawrence Binyon For the Fallen

For All Christian Liberals Everywhere

H/t to the Clam Rampant. (UU means Unitarian Universalist, by the way)

I am the very model of a modern Unitarian,
Far broader than a Catholic, Hindu, Jew or Presbyterian.
I know the world’s religions and can trace their roots historical
From Moses up to Channing, all in order categorical.
I’m very well acquainted, too, with theories theological,
On existential questions I am always wholly logical,
About most any problem I am teeming with a lot of views,
I’m full of fine ideas that should fill our church’s empty pews.

(Chorus members:
We’re full of fine ideas that should fill our church’s empty pews.
We’re full of fine ideas that should fill our church’s empty pews.
We’re full of fine ideas that should fill our church’s empty empty pews.)

I quote from Freud and Jung and all the experts psychological.
I’m anti nuke, I don’t pollute, I’m chastely ecological.
In short, in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
I am the very model of a modern Unitarian.

(Chorus members:
In short, in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
We are the very model of a modern Unitarian.)

I use the latest language; God is never Father or the Lord,
But Ground of Being, Source of Life or almost any other word.
I never pray, I meditate, I’m leery about worshipping.
I serve on 10 committees none of which accomplish anything.
I give to worthy causes and I drive a gas conserving car,
I have good UU principles (although I’m not sure what they are).
I’m open to opinions of profound or broad variety,
Unless they’re too conservative or smack of righteous piety.

(Chorus members:
Unless they’re too conservative or smack of righteous piety.
Unless they’re too conservative or smack of righteous piety.
Unless they’re too conservative or smack of righteous pie-piety.)

I formulate agendas and discuss them with the best of ‘em,
But don’t ask me to implement, we leave that to the rest of ‘em.
In short in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
I am the very model of today’s religious liberal.

(Chorus members:
In short, in matters spiritual, ethical, material,
We are the very model of today’s religious liberal.)

Moretben-inspired Musings

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The animadversion of Fr Z (whom God preserve) of my friend Moretben's article about the Trad Archipelago has given Moretben plenty to reply to. Those of us who toil in the fifth circle will be pleased that the watchman waked.

However much Moretben is at home in the Undercroft - however much I am at home in the Muniment Room - we have to recognise that cataclysmic events occur, and that they cannot be undone. Our homes gradually become fortresses against the ruin which infests the world outside. We cannot recreate the past. The past will never happen again.

The world of the 1950s, or, more exactly, that bit of the pre-World War II world which survived the horror of 1939-1945, is a memory of something good and wholesome, and, like all memories, something which belongs to the past. The Whit Walks (a Mancunian writes) were wonderful, and will never happen again.

But we can shape the future, and this is the kernel of what I have gained from Moretben's post. Put simply: pray the Mass; let good priests say the Mass and pray while they say it; pray for good priests to say the Mass properly. Pray.

I sense the distinction between the ordinary and the extraordinary Rites of Mass not as normal versus unusual, but as mundane versus celestial. HH the P has rightly concentrated on the absolute core of our faith - the Mass and the associated Ars Celebrandi - and has rightly realised that the peripheral will sort itself out.

Should women cover their heads at Mass? I don't know, but I know that women should go to Masses rightly celebrated, and they will work out for themselves what their head covering should be. When I and a group of my staff met the Queen, there was no dicussion about what we would wear: we knew, instinctively.

If our priests begin to bring our King to us in a seemly fashion, we will behave in a seemly way. The seemliness will not be that of our parents', or grandparents', generation. But it will still be seemly.

The past has passed, and what follows will not be better; but the past can't be recreated, so let's try to aspire to something as good.

A Papal Joke is No Laughing Matter

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The new Motu Proprio wasn't the one everybody was expecting: so much the better, as the Pope is well within his rights to make us wait.

I wonder if this one might, in the great scheme of things, be rather more important.

The succession has been skewed, and probably traditionwards.

Floods and rumination

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We live high up so last night's rains and this morning floods did little more than cause a twenty minute drive to turn into a ninety minute obstacle course to get child to school and us to work.

It gave me time to ponder on Fr Dwight's posting on why anybody would want to go to Mass celebrated in the traditional rite.

His are good questions, and well put: why would people want to go to a Mass where they couldn't see what the priest was doing or hear what he was saying? How, to cap it all, is Mass better when it is in a language that nobody understands that Jesus and his disciples never spoke? There has been a good preliminary answer from the NLM, but time spent waiting in traffic, once my helpful advice to my wife had been treated with the scorn it no doubt deserved, made me think about the radical change in Catholic praxis since the Novus Ordo was made normative.

Why should the priest's actions be visible?
Why should the priest's words be heard?
Why should the participation of the laity be audible?
Why should the laity have to do physical things in unison to be thought to be participating?
Why would anyone think that Latin was not the appropriate language for the Roman Rite?

These are not questions which occurred to anybody - well, to anybody except for heretics - until the second half of the twentieth century. Sacrifice and Immolation demanded behaviour and language from the Priest, and from those privileged to witness what he was doing, appropriate to the actions he was to perform.

I don't want to criticise Fr Dwight for asking the questions: they are the questions my children ask me when I insist on the superiority of the Classical Rite. They are the questions that anybody who has been brought up in the Church since Vatican II feels are right to be asked.

I wonder what happened that anybody feels that it is normal that such questions can be asked.

The PM at the Vatican

According to the Vatican Press Office, the 10 years of the Prime Minister's period of office were considered. There was a frank exchange about the current international situation, and a discussion about certain laws passed recently in the United Kingdom, before the Pope's good wishes were passed to the Prime Minister for his clear intent to work for peace in the Middle East and interreligious dialogue.

According to Ttony, this means that the PM hasn't had the seal of approval. Tony Blair is not the Vatican's representative for either peace in the Middle East or interreligious dialogue.

A bottle is being opened.

What are friends for?

Most of my friends are people who can chide me, however obliquely, and make me stop and think.

Most of the time, I have the mind and intellect of a butterfly, and flit from flower to flower, drinking a bit of nectar here and there, enjoying the sun and spreading my wings, and I go with the currents of the wind, true to my type.

Most of my friends tolerate this: I can bring all sorts of new things to their attention; I can be their "Carian Guest"; my nightingales entertain.

Most of the time, I feel (to change the metaphor) a bit like Mole: I am let loose in the world and discover all manner of things and want to enjoy them and exult in them.

Most of my friends are like Badger.

Every now and then, one of my friends brings me back down to earth (sorry about the multiplication of metaphors) with a severe bump. Today was Moretben's turn.

What will the Motu Proprio achieve in England and Wales? It will (we assume) allow a more tolerant attitude to the celebration of Mass in the style in which it was always celebrated. And ...

... there's the rub. What else will change? The Catholic Church in England and Wales as is plus a few more celebrations of the Tridentine Mass, is not going to amount to anything more than the CCin E&W as is plus a thing less to moan about.

I write in a week where Catholic priests have led a protest at Westminster Cathedral about a shameful sacrilegeous desecration of a Holy place. (The last time priests did things analogous to that in Westminster was 450 years ago.) What difference will a mere Motu Proprio make? Will the Hierarchy in whose name the Cardinal is alleged to have written to the Holy Father protesting about the forthcoming document suddenly change its spots? Are the rumours about the Hierarchy "dining the Prime Minister out" at the English College just that: rumours?

In fact, just imagine the sort of place we have become when priests lead protests outside our Mother Church. What a scandalously awful place we have been led to!

From a GCSE Syllabus

The WhiteStone Name Seeker blogged about RE A Level. Here is a bit of better news from GCSE-land, specifically AQA Specification A Catholic Christianity. These are a few bullets from the revision book, which I hope to be allowed to copy without permission:

The Mass is important to Catholics because

• it is a way of making their lives good again after sins;
• it is the way of gaining the power to fulfil God's will in their daily lives;
• it is an obligation to attend Mass on Sunday to fulfil the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy;
• it is a means of uniting them with Christ and other Catholics;
• it is the Catholic way of nourishing Christians through the Body and Blood of Jesus;
• it is a sacrament of love from God to Christians through the sacrifice of Jesus.

Not quite as many capital letters as I would have liked, and a bit on the thin side, but Catholic none the less.

The revision practices are great; for example: Give reasons why the Church is One, is Holy, is Catholic, is Apostolic. The author was a bit un-PC when he contrasts regularly Catholic, Orthodox and Christian, but we know what he means: when he says Christian he means Protestant.

Within the sort of framework which will creep past a diocesan education committee, here is an opportunity to teach the Catechism.

Of course things could be better: a lot, lot, better; but things could be a lot worse too.

Being a fool for Christ's sake

Fr Michael Seed is not like most priests in England and Wales today. This is mainly because he appears in the broadsheets a lot: he is caricatured as priest to the great and good: he says Mass for the Prime Minister's family in Downing St; he has instructed several high profile converts. He also does a lot of work with down-and-outs, but that gets little publicity. To describe his childhood as "abused" is to airbrush a traumatic story: just enter "Nobody's Child" into the search field at amazon.co.uk and read the synopsis.

Fr Seed is reported in today's Telegraph as having seriously angered the Cardinal. Fr Seed has apparently used his contacts to raise the £2M needed to fund each of four Academies (each prospective Academy has to raise £2M if the Government is to provide the rest of the funding). According to the paper:

'The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Fr Seed's connection to the academies project has caused concern at the most senior levels of the Roman Catholic Church, with Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor privately expressing "deep unease".

The Cardinal is unhappy that Fr Seed should have been seen to be involved in helping a project so closely associated with the Prime Minister. The Cardinal has told senior bishops that he feared the introduction could be seen as blurring the boundaries between the Church and party politics. Neither the Cardinal nor Fr Seed would comment last night.'

If anybody manages to question the Cardinal on this subject, it would be interesting to know how he thinks Catholic, and joint Catholic-Anglican, Academies have raised, or are raising, their £2M, and whether he thinks that establishing these new schools is wrong because they blur the boundary between the Church and party politics, especially when Blair, Brown, and Cameron are all massively in favour of them.

Somebody who risks (and often gains) obloquy to bring people to the Church, and tries to persuade the rich to part with their money to benefit the poor - in particular the children of the poor - might not be doing much to further CAFOD's agenda, but seems to me to be doing quite a lot to further Our Lord's.

The In-trays of the Vatican

Rafael Castela Santos recommended a new site (in Spanish) maintained by some priests of the Barcelona Diocese. A posting called "PROMOVEATUR UT REMOVEATUR" (Promote Them to Remove Them) discusses various questions of Catalonian episcopal politics and contains a delightful paragraph which I hope they don't mind me translating (fairly freely) here.

"There are three in-trays on the desks of each of the Roman Congregations into which the different subjects to be decided are placed in order of priority. One is for questions which need to be resolved rapidly because of the urgency of the matter under discussion. The next is for questions which need to studied carefully and in collaboration with other Dicasteries, and whose resolution, therefore, will take a prudential amount of time to settle. The third is the one into which are put those problems which Time alone will solve."

They declare that the Archdiocese of Barcelona couldn't possibly belong to the third in-tray. I wonder which the question of the Church in England and Wales, and the Westminster succession might belong in.

Sonnet for the Madonna of the Cherries

Somebody recently - as far as I can tell not Jeffrey nor Idle Speculations, who would be my usual suspects for this sort of thing - posted a picture of Our Lady with the wrong fruit. It had been nagging away at me for some days when I realised where I had come across it before: in a poem.

In "Other Mens' Flowers", the great anthology of poetry published by Field Marshal Lord Wavell in 1944, there is a single poem by the author. He recounts the story of how Flemish Masters who visited Italy in the early 16th Century were shown a copy of a cartoon by Leonardo and were asked to paint it, no doubt so the Milanese artists could see whether thay had anything to learn from their Northern brethren. Twelve were painted. One was eventually owned by Captain Spencer-Churchill MC, a friend of Lord Wavell's, who visited it in April 1943 at Northwick Park. (Anybody who has access to JSTOR might be able to see a photo: I can't.)

Dear Lady of the Cherries, cool, serene,
Untroubled by our follies, strife and fears,
Clad in soft reds and blues and mantle green,
Your memory has been with me all these years.

Long years of battle, bitterness and waste,
Dry years of sun and dust and Eastern skies,
Hard years of ceaseless struggle, endless haste,
Fighting 'gainst greed for power and hate and lies.

Your red-gold hair, your slowly smiling face
For pride in your dear son, your King of Kings,
Fruits of the kindly earth, and truth and grace,
Colour and light, and all warm lovely things -

For all that loveliness, that warmth, that light,
Blessed madonna, I go back to fight.

Firld Marshal the Earl Wavell PC GCB GCSI GCIE CMG MC

Not, perhaps, great poetry, but a wonderful spontaneous response to a picture. As it happens, he didn't go back to fight: on his return to London he was ordered to India as Viceroy, the penultimate Viceroy as it turned out.

And here's a thing: a Chief of the Defence Staff (we don't have Field Marshals any more) once saw a copy of "Other Mens' Flowers" on my desk at work and told me he had a copy which always accompanied him on his travels.

I like to think of soldiers who read poetry.

Which Theologian Are You?

Courtesy of Fr Tim, I found an interesting quiz: which theologian are you? I'm a bit worried that the Karl Barth and Scleiermacher scores are on the high side.

You scored as Anselm, Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man's primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read 'Cur Deus Homo?' Anselm 100% Augustine 80% Karl Barth 73% Friedrich Schleiermacher 67% John Calvin 40% Martin Luther 33% Paul Tillich 33% Jürgen Moltmann 27% Charles Finney 7% Jonathan Edwards 0% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Irony

Am I the only person to think it somehat ironic that the CofE should be complaining that a violent video game "desecrates" Manchester Cathedral? Wasn't there a little unpleasantness 450 years ago?

The Westminster Stakes

Betting is in abeyance. A few shrewd people persuaded Paddy Power to open a book on the succession to Cardinal Murphy O'Connor last autumn and managed to get their money on. However, nothing has changed at all in 2007, as those who want to place a bet wait for the official announcement that the Cardinal's resignation has (or has not) been accepted, and that announcement won't come before HE's 75th birthday in August.

In principle, the Apostolic Nuncio is the person charged with taking soundings, and advising Rome on who should be nominated for Westminster once the See is declared vacant. Realising that I knew little about Archbishop Sainz Muñoz (other than that he is "always welcome" at Eccleston Square) I asked a leading Spanish journalist, who specialises in ecclesiastical affairs, for an indication of which way the Nuncio's advice might go, and how it might be received. The answer was interesting (I have cut out a sentence which reflects on the leadership of the Church in England and Wales):

"Yo creo que el arzobispo de Westminster no lo decide el nuncio. Esos cargos tan importantes se deciden en Roma. Y supongo que el Papa ya tiene claro quien va a ser el sucesor de Murphy O'Connor que efectivamente en agosto cumple los setenta y cinco años. (...)

Efectivamente es un hombre de Casaroli. Pero como le digo no creo vaya a ser la persona decisiva para nombrar al nuevo arzobispo de Westminster."

"The Archbishop of Westminster is not chosen by the Nuncio. Posts as important as this are settled in Rome. And I imagine that the Pope is already clear about who Murphy O'Connor's successor will be once, in August, he has his 75th birthday. (...)

He (Sainz Muñoz) is basically one of Casaroli's men. But, as I say, I don't think he will have a decisive say in naming the new Archbishop of Westminster."

This puts the appointment of Bishop Kenney as Auxiliary in Birmingham into a new perspective: Rome is choosing the Bishops of England and Wales. Perhaps the succession in Middlesbrough will give us a further clue about what might be going to happen.

Learning about English Catholic History

The story of the 1908 Eucharistic Congress in London from Idle Speculations.

When Television Is Good

BBC1 has just begun a series on "How We Built Britain". Episode One stayed in East Anglia and covered the mediaeval period, starting at Ely Cathedral and ending at Kings College, Cambridge, by way of wool churches and some surviving castles. It was what public service broadcasting is for, and David Dimbleby excelled as a presenter: he guided the viewer to look, and didn't interpose his personality between the viewer and the subject of his programme. Two scenes: where he showed how mediaeval roof timbers were labelled, and where those labels can still be seen; and when he went into the space between the Kings College vaulting and its roof, and showed the spy holes the masons had drilled through; were absolutely wonderful.

I recorded the programme. I thought that, converted to an MPEG it would be just what Jeffrey, the Roving Mediaevalist, needed, and after the trying week he has suffered I think I would have been spot on.

Until I found that the programme had been overwritten, and by trash (I plead the existence of two teenagers in the house.)

I can only appeal to his magnanimity and hope that BBC programmes like this may some day be aired on PBS or be available on NTSC Region One DVDs.

How to use the web

Courtesy of Damian Thompson's blog, I found a site in which a Chapel in which the Blessed Sacrament is perpetually adored has had a webcam added.

"Enjoy a variety of prayer aids intended to enrich your time with our Lord in adoration. With the exception of a few brief periods each day, Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament is presented live via webcam from the Chapel of Divine Love in Philadelphia, PA - a source of perpetual Eucharistic adoration by the Holy Spirit Adoration Sisters since 1916."

(I thought "PA" means the US State of "Philadelphia". Jeffrey has corrected this misunderstanding: it means the US State of Pennsylvania.)

I thought: "I really don't like the monstrance" and almost immediately wondered how I dared even think like that.

God Bless these holy nuns! Clicking on the link isn't participating in Eucharistic Adoration, any more than watching a YouTube video of Mass is the same as going to Mass. But as a way of uniting ourselves in prayer with what they are doing in person, this is really great!

GCSEs

Pray for all children who are going through GCSEs. Pray especially for those who have gone through a modern educational system which has created fine young people who care deeply for their fellow human beings but don't seem to realise that public examinations are important. Yes: I have one all of my own, and I am more nervous than I was when I was taking my own O Levels. Coming away from school full of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost is fine: coming away with six or seven A* to Cs would be nice too.

5 June 1940

J B Priestley read his first "Postcript" after the 9 o'clock news.

"I wonder how many of you feel as I do about this great Battle and evacuation of Dunkirk. The news of it came as a series of surprises and shocks, followed by equally astonishing new waves of hope. It was all, from beginning to end, unexpected. And yet now that it's over, and we can look back on it, doesn't it seem to you to have an inevitable air about it - as if we had turned a page in the history of Britain and seen a chapter headed "Dunkirk" - and perhaps seen too a picture of the troops on the beach waiting to embark?

.

...

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What strikes me about it is how typically English it is. Nothing, I feel, could be more English both in its beginning and its end, its folly and its grandeur. We have gone sadly wrong like this before, and here and now we must resolve never, never to do it again. What began as a miserable blunder, a catalogue of misfortunes ended as an epic of gallantry.

.

...

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We have a queer habit - and you can see it running through our history - of conjuring up such transformations. And to my mind what was most characteristically English about it was the part played not by the warships but by the little pleasure-steamers. We've known them and laughed at them, these fussy little steamers, all our lives. These 'Brighton Belles' and 'Brighton Queens' left that innocent foolish world of theirs to sail into the inferno, to defy bombs, shells, magnetic mines, torpedoes, machine-gun fire - to rescue our soldiers.

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...
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But now - look - this little steamer, like all her brave and battered sisters, is immortal. She'll go sailing proudly down the years in the epic of Dunkirk. And our great grand-children, when they learn how we began this War by snatching glory out of defeat, and then swept on to victory, may also learn how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glorious."

Well, JB's children were alive then, so his grandchildren would probably have been born in the 50s or 60s, which means that his great grandchildren would be in school now. I can't see their children learning about Dunkirk somehow.

I tried a thesis out on Moretben once: that my generation, those of us born between about 1945 and 1960, is as affected by the Second World War as was our parents', mainly because of the effect on our parents. We were taught: to eat everything up; not to complain about not having things; to think that things could be much worse; to face up to adversity; to thank God for and enjoy small mercies; not to waste things. All amid an expectation that we would be called up to fight in a new World War, we imbibed the values that had carried our parents through the Second.

Perhaps it's one reason for our drifting: we weren't called on, as our parents were, to make the sacrifices that they made, and therefore find it difficult to insist on imposing on our children the values and customs that our parents felt justified in imposing on us. The mess that happened in the 70s and 80s is therefore our fault: we didn't stand up to the awful changes we knew were wrong, instead bending like grass in the wind, and allowing the Enemy to secure a foothold. We lost our nerve.

J B Priestley knew, on 5 June 1940, that the war would be won, and girded himself to play his part; he knew what war was: he had been in the trenches twenty five years earlier. Sixty-seven years later, what should we do?

The Theology of the Body

David Palmer is in the middle of a spellbindingly good series of posts on Sex and the Catholic Church.

The really good thing is that this former Anglican vicar will begin his formation as a priest at Oscott in September. Assuming that everything goes well, he will fulfill in the Catholic Church his former vocation, and will bring us a richness of theological understanding that derives from his reconciliation.

As he says:

"As a convert I am often amazed at how "cradle" Catholics can fail to recognise the beauty of their faith... so I will do all I can to proclaim it here!"

Losing a friend

Would I join my (very) high Anglican friend at a local Christians Together meeting at the local URC Chapel? I said that I wouldn't: I don't like lowest common denominator religion, and the agenda was about supporting Oxfam and Cafod, and I don't support them.

After a while, he asked if I'd come to Benediction at his church. I said that I wouldn't.

"Is that because the Roman Mission in England believes that we are worshipping a piece of bread?"

"I wouldn't have put it that way ..." I started, and waffled, and gradually felt the threads of friendship beginning to untangle. "Don't let's fall out."

"We already have."

I'm of an age where new friendships are rare, and can't easily replace old ones; and old friendships become more valuable just because of their endurance and durability: old is good, a lot of the time, just because it's old.

But not all the time.

Oh well. Back to the poems.

More R S Thomas

I stumbled across his biography on a shelf of a forgotten bookcase a couple of days ago. He's up there with Larkin and Betjeman.

The Bright Field

I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the pearl
of great price, the one field that had
the treasure in it. I realize now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
.
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

As lyrical a love poem as any ...

... in the English language. R S Thomas about his wife.

We met
under a shower
of bird-notes.
Fifty years passed,
Love's moment
in a world in
servitude to time.
She was young;
I kissed with my eyes
closed and opened
them on her wrinkles.
'Come' said death,
choosing her as his
partner for
the last dance. And she,
who in life
had done everything
with a bird's grace,
opened her bill now
for the shedding
of one sigh no
heavier than a feather.

Good News from Australia

In a comment on a posting in the New Liturgical Movement, "Tom" says:

"On a matter perhaps of interest, the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, today celebrated Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Throne for the Vigil of Pentecost with the Nuptial Rite (according to the books of 1962) at the Minor Basilica of our Lady of Victories in Camberwell, a Melbourne suburb. It is believed to be the first time a bishop has celebrated nuptial rites within a Solemn Ponitifical Mass in Australia ever. The whole Mass was filmed ..."

O felix Australia! Not only is Archbishop Hart going to celebrate Confirmations in the Traditional Rite, but Bishop Howse celebrates traditionally too! Hat tip to Juventutem.

Annoyance

I had my annual performace review today. I was told that I was too intellectual. I said that, given that we didn't have problems any more, only opportunities, then my intellect might be an insurmountable opportunity. I was told that that was exactly the sort of thing that they were talking about.

Ho hum.

Developing a point

I said below:

"For most of us in English speaking countries, the Reformation was the great catastrophe: Catholics were martyred by people who claimed to be doing God's work. The analogous catstrophe in Latin countries was the French Revolution: Catholics were martyred in the name of politics, not religion. Perhaps this is why Belloc is different from Chesterton."

I have been asked to elaborate.

By the time of the French Revolution, Catholics in countries like Britain which had undergone the Reformation had managed to come to a form of greater or lesser tolerance by the States in which they lived. English Catholics had places of worship throughout the 18th Century, and priests could minister to them. If you were rich, there will still limitations: you couldn't go to the Universities, or join the Army - at least in England; but you could study, and serve the King, by going to University or by joining the Army in Hannover. If you were poor, you would be at worst tolerated, and the odd Gordon Riot apart, your place of worship would not be destroyed. (Incidentally, in Barnaby Rudge, Dickens mentions the execution of Catholics executed for joining in the Gordon Riots, pointing out that they were attended by their priests.) It meant that by the time of the French Revolution, Catholics in Britain were part of the polity of the State: not fully part constitutionally, but desirous of showing their loyalty.

The effect of the French Revolution on the countries which had not undergone the Reformation was different: the reconciliation of the Catholic population to the forms of the State has never fully taken place, and the ideology of the Left has always included anti-Catholicsm.

This, I suggest, is one reason why the SSPX has been viewed with more suspicion on this side of the Channel than the other. The integrisme of politics and belief which is common on the Right in Latin countries is founded in the Revolution and as such does not echo here. It is hard to believe that Bishop Williamson actually represents in any shape or form a point of view that resounds in Catholic hearts in Britain today.

The politicisation (perhaps better, the non-liturgical baggage the average non-Latin Catholic sees the SSPX bringing in its train) of the Tridentine Mass has been a gift to those Liberals who wish to see the past forgotten, especially those in English-speaking countries where the dichotomy of political Left versus religious Right might not otherwise hold. The Motu Proprio might allow this dichotomy to be shown up for the false alternative that it is.

Can the US be so sunk in sin?

According to the Daily Eudemon (a daily "must", by the way), the Catholic Mens' Quarterly is offering a book with every new subscription. He says:

"I can’t vouch for the book, but I’ve ordered a copy. Go here to subscribe to CMQ. It’s only $20 a year. I know guys who spend more than that every year on underwear (I don’t hang out with those kind of guys, but they exist)."

Really? That's £10 sterling! Who are these people?

A Translation

This is the translation of a piece by Rafael Castela Santos called "Letter to My Daughter: from Europe to Anti-Europe". For most of us in English speaking countries, the Reformation was the great catastrophe: Catholics were martyred by people who claimed to be doing God's work. The analogous catstrophe in Latin countries was the French Revolution: Catholics were martyred in the name of politics, not religion. Perhaps this is why Belloc is different from Chesterton.

Dear daughter

I write because you really are European; because you were conceived in Portugal, in Fatima; because Spanish, French and German blood runs through your veins; because you grew up in the United Kingdom; because you speak several languages, including a bit of Latin; and because your father, who loves you profoundly, sees a certain Carolingian idea reflected in you which fills him with longing. And above all, because you are Catholic, which is the True Faith: the One True, as I often have you repeat, petite chouanne. Because the only real way of being European is to be Catholic. Those who aren’t, and those who fight our True Religion are the destroyers of Europe, whether they know it or not.

About two thousand years ago, a noble people, the Romans, conquered Europe. They were excellent civil engineers and excellent soldiers. Remember the bridges and aqueducts we have seen in Spain, and the Roman roads and ruins we have seen in Cirencester, in Metz, in Salamanca, in Merida, and in Evora. Apart from all of this, they left us their laws, Roman Law, an impressive monument, which continues to inspire us. I’ll explain one day, but this is all about what your Dad says to you about being fair, about being fair to our neighbours, or about your being fair to the other girls at school.

You know how I go on about how in Spain and Portugal the Roman influence penetrated deeper than in the rest of the Empire. It’s as though we are more Roman than the rest of the Romans. You know that reverential love that I have for your grandparents, my parents? You know how the first thing that I do when I take you to Spain is to go to the cemetery? Well, sweetheart, that is something that comes from our religion, but also from the Romans. When I’m old, I want you to respect me in the same way that I respect your grandparents, and when I die, I want you to pray for me in the same way as I pray for all our dead. I’m not asking this for me particularly, nor for you, but that you remember your roots; and because by honouring your parents and your ancestors, you honour your country as well.

I always tell you that you should think about things, that you should use your reason; because of all the powers your soul possesses, reason is the most important. The Greeks taught us this, and the Romans, as they developed and invaded other lands, were not stupid, and realised that the Greeks were very clever and precise. The Romans were amazed by the Greeks. Do you remember Socrates whose death was so serene? Aristotle, of whom I have spoken to you, who had the greatest intellect of Antiquity? Well – they were Greeks. One day, God Willing, we will read them together and discuss them. But the Greeks lacked life. There was too much death and cruelty. There was slavery. Above all, there was darkness. All this because our first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned. This human race need to be restored, but only God could seal off the offence which we humans had committed against God. And from among a people chosen by God, the Jewish people, whose blood also runs through your veins, the Messiah, the Redeemer was born: Our Lord Jesus Christ. But Israel, called to be the light of the world, turned its back on the most sublime Son of the chosen people and his message came to Rome, to the Gentiles.

And on that assumed obligation of loving God before all other obligations, they built, over centuries, the greatest civilisation that had ever been: Christian Civilisation. Think of the Cathedrals and castles we have seen together, all of which had Jesus Christ, True God and True Man at their centre. Think of the beauty of the things they made. The saint to whom we always pray, St Thomas Aquinas, wrote, a guiding work. A genius, the poet Dante, wrote the Divine Comedy. I remember as one of the greatest moments of my life sitting beside your crib and rereading the Divine Comedy. The Blessed Virgin spread her blue protective veil across that civilisation.

But men fell away, and Europe – Christianity – stopped being Christianity. Anti-Europe, Anti-Christianity began. In the same way as when Moses descended from Sinai and found the people worshipping the golden calf, the idea that money and trade were the most important thing began to gain ground. The knights who protected maidens in castles, as in the stories I have read to you, were no more; and kings and the powerful exploited the poor and the weak instead of defending them as is their duty.

People began to think strange things. They emptied words of their meanings and began to do ugly things. Up to then, God, Jesus Christ, had been the centre of all things. But they began to put Man at the centre of things and stopped thinking of God as so important. There were some awful men, like Luther, who split Europe in two. And as you will have noticed in Alsace, there are Lutheran villages which at first look cleaner on the outside, but end up looking uglier than Catholic villages.

Then horrible things happened, as in France, your other mother country, where some miserable revolutionaries built a world out of hatred of God and the Holy Catholic Church. Anti-Europe, Anti-Christianity began to show its true face. Now do you understand why, whenever we travel through France, I get angry and start shouting whenever we see statues of people like Eckermann, Kleber or Napoleon, murderers of the worst kind?

But there was resistance in every country. We resisted in the Vendee, in France, in the way that I hope that you, petite chouanne, will resist. We resisted in Spain, with the Carlist heroes, right up to the Last Crusade in 1936. In the other Spains, which are also European, we also suffered greatly, for example in Argentina, or later the Cristeros, martyrs in the lands of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We also stood up in Portugal to republicans, masons and liberals. In Italy we did what we could against Garibaldi and the Carbonarios, orcs who issued forth from Hell.

Meanwhile in Russia, Sauron was in incubation. Even if in Europe he has lost his power, little by little he has taken over in Asia, China and Russia. Communism, the penultimate heresy, but the worst so far, has triumphed in these countries. One day, if we follow the message of Fatima, Russia will return to the Faith and the Church. That is the day when Europe will arise.

What they call Europe today – the European Union – is no more than a few steps towards the Antichrist, the man of perdition. Do not believe in it.

I am not well and perhaps will not live to see Europe arisen. But I have given to you the best of what I know and am able to give. Europe is Christianity: nothing else. Whatever is not Christianity isn’t Europe; it is de facto Anti-Europe. Be virtuous; fight for virtue, even if it costs you your life. Pass this on to your children, my grandchildren and if you become a nun – and how pleased I would be if you did! – pass it on to your spiritual children, the ones who call you Mother.

Fight phariseeism, a cancer which corrodes the spirit. Be hopeful. We are living through bad times, but victory will be Christ’s and nobody else’s. Europe will be Christian again and there will be a shout of joy, great as the centuries have never known, and there will be peace in Christ. I’ve already taught you the Latin: Pax Christi.

Oh! One more thing: don’t eat so much chocolate.

From your father, who loves you with all his soul and all his being, and who blesses you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost

Rafael Castela Santos

Tagged for a Meme - Five Catholic Places in England

Fr Ray Blake tagged me for this one.

First, Lancashire, the County Palatine, the Duchy ("The Queen, the Duke of Lancaster!" as we toast her, loyally) and the place where the faith was never extinguished. As early as 1611, a new public Catholic cemetery was consecrated in Little Crosby.

We had six houses at school, and each was named for a Lancashire Martyr: Almond, Barlow, Cottam, Hurst, Rigby, Southworth. Lancashire was where Shakespeare came as a young actor to work for the Stanleys and be able to practice his Faith while he learned his art. Lancashire welcomed the Irish immigrants who came to fuel the Industrial revolution.

Second, the Church of the Holy Name on Oxford Road in Manchester. When I was at the University of Manchester, this was a Jesuit Church, and the Jesuits ran the Chaplaincy next door. The "spirit of Vatican II" was abroad and the Chaplaincy was in the van, but one of the priests, Fr Orr, took an interest in my spritual, moral and intellectual development, and allowed me to serve at his private Mass. The Jesuits gave the church over to the Oratorian Fathers, and I pray that Manchester's Oratory will become as London's and Birmingham's.

Third, the Hidden Gem, St Mary's, Mulberry St, Manchester. I can't find a non-copyright photo, but here's a map. This is Manchester's church, the home of the shrine of Our Lady of Manchester. The nun who knew me from when I was born until her death last Autumn (and who discovered Paul Scholes) was sufficiently Irish to be annoyed by Manchester's having its own Marian shrine, though not annoyed enough to refuse to go inside . According to the editor of the Universe, the parish Priest refuses to stock his newspaper.

Fourth, Westminster Cathedral, the Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, and our national church. Bentley's design is both inspired and inspiring. When I go to Whitehall, I always get off the tube at Victoria so that I can walk up Victoria St and pop into the Cathedral. If I'm lucky and the times are right, I get to Mass. I always pay a quick visit to the Chapel of St Patrick where the Irish Regiments which fought in World War One are commemorated to say a prayer for all the loyal Irishmen who died for their country and those who survived but were never allowed to vote on whether or not their country should become independent of the United Kingdom. I have never yet met anybody who was not stirred by the cavernous interior of the Cathedral, and can never forget my wonder as a thirteen year old, visiting for the first time, on being told that one day all of the ceilings and walls would be covered in mosaic.

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Fifth, and no picture, every Catholic Church in the country which is open and which allows people to wander in and pray before the Blessed Sacrament. I grew up in an area where men and women unselfconsciously crossed themselves every time they passed a church, on foor, on a bus or in a car. I long for a return to those days.

Is the Pope a Catholic?

He believes that Mary is the Mediatrix of all Graces.

He believes that anybody who corrupts children by selling them drugs runs the risk of going to Hell.

He believes that it is the job of Bishops to maintain the Catholic Faith in their local Churches.

During his trip to Brazil, the Holy Father is expounding the manifesto for his Pontificate, which is to restate the Faith of the Church.

He'll do me.

A Serious Seminary

Recent graduates of the Archdiocese of Chicago's Seminary tell it like it is. hat tip to Credo.

In which I learn a lesson

Several lessons ...

I posted a comment on the blog of a Catholic journalist on a national newspaper about the poor young Irish woman who is coming to the UK for an abortion.

1. Newspaper blogs are not quite like blogspot blogs: they are read by people from a wide spectrum of opinion rather than by people who have chosen to read blogs with which they feel in tune.

2. If you have an e-mail address on your profile, a lot of people will feel the need to send you an e-mail. There is an e-mail equivalent of green ink. E-mails can be as vile and poisonous as letters.

3. Journalists are much, much, better at witty put downs (however poor their arguments) than I am; that's probably why they are journalists and I just run a modest blog.

4. If you thought that some of the Catholics who posted on The Universe's forum when it existed were "robust" in their opinions, then try those who read blogs from national press.

5. Remember all four lessons above before posting on a journalist's blog.

6. But also remember that the Truth is Great and It will prevail; and that being a fool for Christ's sake has, at least, apostolic approbation.

Bloodied, and a bit bowed, I am

Dear Readers

Yours affec. in Xto

Requiem for a Blog

Valle Adurni was one of the first Catholic blogs I read after I had been introduced to blogging by Moretben. It is no more. A cavalcade of video images, sound thought and the great scoop - the Grey Book of the New Translation of the Mass - are brought to nought by the actions of a querelous priest who sought to defame Fr Sean Finnegan, the blog's author, in the eyes of the parishioners in the Adur Valley.

Fr Ray Blake reckons he knows who might have done it. Valle Adurni's author, Fr Sean Finnegan has simply asked for prayers for his flock and for the priest concerned.

I think it is the scoop that did it: there is an atmosphere abroad of "you can be a trad but don't make waves". Publication of the Grey Book's texts made many, many, waves. It may be a pure coincidence that so soon after publication Fr Sean has undergone this trial: but I doubt it.

He has asked for prayers for his defamer: I'm asking for prayers for him. I'm also asking for prayers for Fr Tim Finigan of the Hermeneutic of Continuity: I bet he's next on the list.

An Iberian Eye Looks at England

In a post commemorating the twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Falklands War, from a rather different point of view than we will see in the UK, Rafael Castela Santos speaks about England.

"How I wish that this England, to which I owe so many thanks and which I love so much, could once again be the England of Tolkien, of Chesterton, of Belloc; of St Edward and of Alfred the Great; the England with which I can identify myself! God grant that the vision the holy Curé d'Ars had, of an England whose culture, wisdom and holiness were made magnificent by her return to Catholicsm, might come to pass! How I wish that England could once again be the most monastic nation in Christianity, as once it was! How I wish that the bitterness towards his country of that greatest of writers, Evelyn Waugh, might be changed into a happy smile in the hereafter! If only that idea, so united, so balanced and so perfect, that Cardinal Newman had about so many things could take root in his own country! How I wish that England could stop being Phoenician and could become Roman once again, in every sense of the word!

Pray for the Church in America

The Catholic Cavemen link to a site which tell how Catholic Bishops have approved some Catholic hospitals in the US giving the "morning after" pill to women who have been sexually assaulted. This is justified as follows:

"The bishops of these dioceses believe they are allowing the use of emergency contraception only in cases where "appropriate testing" has determined that the woman is not pregnant and thus the pill, in halting ovulation may prevent a pregnancy occurring as a result of the rape. The science however does not definitively back up their hopes."

Pray for a Church whose leaders can be (let us be charitable) so ignorant. Pray that they may see the gates of Hell, which gape open for such as collude in the murder of innocent children.

(I also thought about posting about motes and beams. Geddit?)

Tagged for a Meme

Mac, over here, tagged me for a meme: what books are you reading at the moment?

You and the other reader will have realised that this is a house of books. There are more books than I can count. I have never got rid of a book because each book is a bookmark in my memory. I am dyspraxic, and have an extra-developed sense of memory to compensate for an inability to organise and plan.

I always have at least four books on the go: one for the bus, one for picking up and putting down, and two for when I read before I go to sleep according to the mood in which I go to bed. At the moment there are two for the bus.

I live in a parish where the dismemberment of anything which might remind anybody of what the Mass should look and feel like, in a way that might be familiar to anybody who lived from the third century up to about 1970, is underway. I retain a bewildered loyalty to the idea that my Bishop is in communion with Rome and that sooner or later he will right the wrongs that are occuring. I escape from what is going on by reading a 21st Century edition of Fortescue's "Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described", updated with all that is necessary. I try to remember a time when every action, every word, of the priest was so circumscribed by the rubrics that he could not say or do anything which would not make the Mass a blessed and holy ceremony, replete in every gesture with meaning.

"Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North" by Stuart Maconie was a present. Everybody sniggers when I tell them that I have (had) never heard of somebody I understand to be a well known radio presenter. All I can say is that I have never heard him on Radio 3. A chap from Wigan, living in London, who realises one day when he is looking for sun-dried tomatoes for brunch, that he has become detached from his roots goes back to find out what the north is like. I left Manchester for ever many years ago, and apart from visits to family, never go back. But Manchester has not left me, and this book is convincing me that it never will.

Volume 5 of the History of British Intelligence in World War II is by Michael Howard and is all about Strategic Deception. One of the great stories of WWII is the way that the intelligence services managed to convinve the Nazis that their agents in the UK were working for Germany, when in fact every single one was working for the UK. Prof Howard's history is a masterpiece: scholarly and erudite, yet still a page turner. I have a theory that my generation - the generation of children whose parents fought in WWII - is as affected by the war as its parents' generation. If anyone is still reading and is interested, I am happy to expatiate further.

Finally, "Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics". This is an entriguingly interesting Encyclopaedia of everybody who has gone to the bad in an entertaining sort of way in the UK in the last three hundred years or so. If you are the sort of person in whom George Orwell's essay on "The Decline of the English Murder" resonates, then this is the book for you. The Murder might have declined, as have no end of other sorts of crimes, but our tradition is proud, and even in our days, men and women are doing the sort of bizarre things that their forefathers did. This is the "dip into" book: there is nothing as satisfying as a brief entry on a mass murderer when you are trying to do the cooking.