Very Old Chant

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A while ago, Fr Tim posted some clips of Organum chant, which led me down a merry road of spending money on music I can only listen to on earphones or in an otherwise empty house.

The theory is that "Old Roman Chant" represents the very ancient mode of singing employed in Rome, and which lingered on in the Papal liturgies until the Papacy moved to Avignon, at which point Gregorian Chant supplanted it completely.

Old Roman Chant provides not just a bridge to the music of the Eastern Churches, but shows their descent from the music of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Here is a flavour of what has been conjectured as the sound of the Introit of the Dawn Mass of Christmas Day in the sixth century.  If you are like me, it will thrill you to imagine the link back, and to be able just about to imagine the baggage such singing brought with it.  If you are like everybody else chez Ttony, you will marvel at the fact that people will pay money to hear this.  "The closest this will get to my car is the front tyre", as I was told.

You decide.

 

The mystery of the Incarnation of the Word lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It is celebrated just after the longest night of the year, when (in the northern hemisphere) the days begin to lengthen until we reach the summer solstice, which is associated with the figure of John the Baptist. To celebrate this moment, the Church deploys an exceptional - virtually uninterrupted - liturgical cycle in which the usual Offices are interspersed with four Masses.

 

The First Mass begins just after the third hour, that is to say when the sun is midway between its zenith and twilight. Then, amid the final glimmers of daylight, First Vespers of the Nativity are sung. When darkness has fallen, Compline celebrates the first hour of night. After a short pause begins the great Office of Matins, whose solemn ceremonial lasts more than three hours, until the night reaches its epicentre, at this point Midnight Mass is celebrated. As the time of darkness draws to an end, an hour before the first gleams of dawn, begins the Office of Lauds, the two last chants of which - the hymn and the Gospel canticle - must correspond with the arrival of light in the sanctuary. Then the Office of Prime, which lasts only some twenty minutes, introduces Dawn Mass. A short break, and, when the sun is midway between the horizon and its zenith - that is, at the third hour - the Office of Terce introduces the fourth Mass. Between the commencement of the cycle - after the ninth hour on 24 December- and the beginning of the last Mass - after the third hour on 25 December - six hours of daylight and twelve hours of night have elapsed. This geometry of time, which leaves our contemporaries indifferent, constituted for our forefathers the foundation of the liturgical act.

 

The musical anthology presented here traverses some of the great moments of these four Masses of the Nativity. The music is that of the ancient chant of the Church of Rome, one of the oldest repertories of which traces have remained in the collective memory of mankind. Up to the thirteenth century this repertory accompanied the papal liturgy. It disappeared with the installation of the papacy in Avignon, and sank into oblivion. Rediscovered in the early twentieth century, it aroused little enthusiasm among musicians, and only began to be studied properly first from the liturgical, then from the musicological perspective, in the second half of the century. At this time, to distinguish it from Gregorian chant, it was named 'Old Roman chant'. A major debate took place in the Gregorianist milieu in an attempt to understand why, when since the ninth century, the whole of Western Europe had been using books of Gregorian chant in which the melodic forms are almost identical, the Roman chant books give a different version from the Gregorian chant, often with much more highly developed ornamentation. After a century of research, it would appear today that Old Roman chant presents the Roman tradition in a state closer to its origins. The musical notation utilised is extremely precious, for all the ornaments are written out, whereas in the notation of Gregorian chant ornaments are merely suggested.

A short historical summary

At the end of the eighth century, the Frankish kings began to become conscious of their role in protecting the papacy. Pippin the Short, followed by his son Charlemagne, realised that the importation of the Roman liturgy would be a fantastic tool for establishing their legitimacy and culturally unifying a vast and disparate empire. Moreover, in the eyes of the Carolingians, the chant of Rome seemed to be the best preserved musical monument of the Graeco-Latin culture which they wished to revive at all costs. Conscious of the disaster that the loss of the knowledge of the ancients would represent, Charlemagne surrounded himself with scholars and artists who collected what they could of the artistic and scientific remains of Antiquity and attempted to breathe new life into them. The music of Rome was one of the key implements of this Renaissance. The musical terminology elaborated in Carolingian learned circles borrowed numerous terms from Greek theory, which the Franks discovered through the intermediary of the Romans. Thus the Carolingians developed a sensation of being a living part of a certain form of culture whose expression, according to ancient tradition, was Greek. As a result they acquired a degree of legitimacy which buttressed them in their attempts to forge relations with Constantinople.

 

However, it was necessary to adapt the Roman liturgy to the new liturgical preoccupations which took shape in the course of the ninth century. Successive reforms, and a certain crossbreeding with the old Gallican traditions, resulted in a transformation of the former Roman chant. From this emerged a new dialect known today as 'Gregorian chant'. This chant spread through the Western empire and returned to Rome around the end of the eleventh century, gradually taking the place of the older repertoire from which it was derived. Old Roman chant, whose origins dated back to before the sixth century, continued to exalt the papal liturgy at St Peter's and in the great Roman basilicas until the end of the thirteenth century. The installation of the papacy in Avignon dealt it a fatal blow, and all trace of it was lost in the early fourteenth centurv, when it ended up being supplanted by the chant now called 'Gregorian'.

 

Like Milanese and Beneventan chant, the other two older Latin repertories^, Old Roman chant is situated at the turning point between the music of Graeco-Latin antiquity and that of the Middle Ages. It testifies to a time when the Eastern and Western Churches communed in cultural and spiritual unity.

This programme illustrates the different musical genres in use in the Roman Mass. The chants known as 'Propers' are specific to a particular liturgical time. These are the Introit, the Gradual, the Alleluia, the Offertory, and the Communion. To these are added the chants known as 'Ordinary', here a Kyrie. The art of reading is illustrated by a Gospel sung in the manner still in force in the Eastern churches, whose tetrachordal musical structure is characteristic of ancient Greek music.

For this recording we have used the oldest Roman chant manuscript. It is dated 1071, and is today preserved in the extraordinary collection of the Fondation Martin Bodmcr at Cologny (Geneva).

 

One must imagine this music in the context of the great Roman liturgies of the first millennium. The glimmer of the candles which makes the colours of the mosaics flicker on the walls, ceiling and the floor long of the basilicas, the movements and the static positions of the officiants the long periods of silence. This music is founded on the art of cantillation, that is to say the act of proclamation and transmission of the sacred texts. On the most solemn feast days, the words were drawn out to extreme lengths so that the faithful might better absorb the meaning they convey. Through the magic of music, sung texts become icons. Time is deployed with sovereign slowness in order to give contemplation all the space it needs and allow consciousness genuinely to settle into the encounter with the Word. The use of the drone, the note held by the lower voices - a form of polyphonic chant then called basilical organum - confers on the sound a hieratic immanence in which time and space are united in a single vibrant truth.

Old Roman chant occupies a central position in the history of music. It is the keystone which gives meaning and coherence to what ought to be the musical consciousness of Western Europe and far beyond. For, looking back to the period before, it gives us the key to the filiation between the chant of the temple of Jerusalem and the heritage of Greek music. Looking forward in time, it enables us to follow and understand the treasures of Koranic cantillation. Outside certain extremely restricted musicological circles, this repertory is today unknown to musicians, ecclesiastics, and the general public. Yet it offers us the oldest version of Graeco-Latin music of Late Antiquity, and represents the missing link between Byzantine, Coptic, Armenian, and Syrian chant, Arab music, and Western music.

Marcel Peres

 

 



Sandpiper?



Can you have completely white sandpipers?  This was taken at North Dock Llanelli yesterday, so is unlikely to be anything too exotic.  It was about the size of a gull.

St Martin In The Fields

I took this picture of St Martin in the Fields and realised that I'd never been inside.  (It doesn't lean, by the way, but I can't be bothered to photoshop the picture.)

If truth be told, the Wren Churches do little for me.  They are beautiful baroque spaces, wonderful paradigms for harmonious design, ideal venues for concerts, but something is missing: the Blessed Sacrament.  (Whoops!  It's by Gibbs, but the argument still holds.)

Perhaps I am being fanciful, but I think I can sense the difference between a Church in which Mass has been celebrated, however long ago, and one where it hasn't.  Now matter how reordered a pre-Reformation, I can always visualise how Mass could be said today, how little would have to be changed.

I must confess though that two things caught my eye and made me think that something very good was going on here.  The first was that there was a large group of down and outs in the church, each occupying one of the box pews in the side, enjoying the warmth, dozing, most of them, and appreciating the beatiful baroque space in a much less aesthetic but a lot more practical way than me.

The second was the window behind the altar.  I am not the greatest fan of modern art, and the idea of messing up the window in a Wren church sounds preposterous, but in there, this morning, it worked.

The Benedict Bounce

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This coming Sunday will be the one where the Hierarchy pulls together of of the positive fruits which arose during the Pope's visit into a single powerful strand of prayer and action to revitalise the Church.  Together in unity, and individually as local leaders, they will issue a powerful and stirring message to their faithful to begin a new movement of evangelisation in accordance with the Pope's vision.

Watch out here:
Arundel & Brighton, Birmingham, Brentwood, Cardiff, Clifton, East Anglia, Hallam, Hexham & Newcastle, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Menevia, Middlesbrough, Northampton, Nottingham, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Salford, Shrewsbury, Southwark, Westminster and Wrexham

SUPPORT FR MILDEW!!!!!!!!!

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In the same way that a bully will always look for the weakest of his opponents, Mgr Loftus has threatened to sue Fr Mildew and as a result Fr Mildew is reduced to a state of extreme anxiety.

Here is our shibboleth.

Fr Mildew preaches God's Truth.

Mgr Loftus writes for the Catholic Times.

Let's enthusiastically treat this as an issue of Black and White and admit no grey.  Let's make this a ground upon which we can stand.

Prayers, of course, for Fr Mildew, but let's support him properly and oppose the message of his opponents!

New (To Me) Books

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As I had suspected, I had to resort to the world repository of second hand books to start to build up a collection of educational books about the Faith.  The first I managed to get hold of is a modern reprint of Fr H Thurston SJ's Lent and Holy Week, originally published in 1914.  It is amazingly good.  It starts with Septuagesima and the Lenten Fast and traces the history of Lent and the fast, discurses on the severity of the Lenten Fast in antiquity, on relaxations of the Fast, and on whether or not birds counted as meat in mediaeval and early modern times.

Chapter Two starts with Shrove Tueday: as Confession on the day before Ash Wednesday has no liturgical character, where does it come from? and then goes into  the difference between Confession, Penance, Reconciliation and Absolution (which four happened at different times during Lent), what happened to the person who, dressed in sackcloth and ashes was banished for six weeks, and how people who weren't carrying out this penance nevertheless began to get some of the ashes sprinkled on them on Ash Wednesday.  His description of Holy Week as it used to be are fascinating, though they raise the question about whether those who would return to the pre-1950 Holy Week would be prepared to impose the former strict fast on the entire Church, just so that they could anticipate offices in order to mitigate the fast's severity.  The Pian reforms are not perhaps as black and white as I had thought.

Over at Catholic Book Reviews, Andrew recently reviewed a book I'd never heard of called Mitre and Crook, by Fr Bryan Houghton.  He says: "In the best English tradition (and Fr Houghton would certainly have been aware of this) he uses letters to tell the bulk of the story, and this works exceedingly well.

The plot is fairly straightforward. An English bishop, Edmund Forester (possibly the bishop Fr Houghton believed he could have become if he had not been so suspect because of his orthodoxy...) decided to reinstate the Traditional Rite of Mass in his diocese." 

I was slightly less convinced by: "I first read it as an undergraduate; I picked it up out of idle curiosity from my mother's bookshelf one evening in the vacation. I did not go to bed until I had finished it in the small hours of the morning" but effectively the same thing happened to me - I read it through in one go!

The only other "Tridentine novel" I have read is Smoke in the Sanctuary, by Stephen Oliver, which details what happens when a new PP of traditrionalist bent takes over a very untraditionalist parish.  While not a comic novel, neither is it a serious literary attempt to write a novel about the Church post-Vatican II.  It is entertaining as well as serious, and aims some excellent blows at the "Spirit of Vatican II" beliefs which infect so many in authority in the Church in England and Wales.

Mitre and Crook is a very different proposition.  It is much more serious and tells what might have happened if just one of the Bishops in England and Wales had dared to defy the Episcopal Conference consensus which has brought about so many of the problems we face today.  Could what Fr Houghton portrays actually have happened?  Who knows.  But the manner in which the faithful had their Mass taken from them (for the second time in 400 years) and the trahison des clercs which caused it and saw it through are portrayed here in a series of letters which it is difficult to imagine could be written by any senior English or Welsh cleric today.

Lots to think about!

Managing Decline

So Ushaw is to close.  I thought the writing was on the wall when I saw the photos of the former Junior Seminary here.  In fact the writing was on the statues which had been vandalised, and in the liturgical books which had been abandoned, and on the atlar cloths which had been left on deserted altars.

I could almost conceive that  torching places for their insurance value represents an ordinary decent criminality when contrasted with the studied manner in which the Northern Bishops (lets not blame Clifton, Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Arundel and Brighton for once) have just abandoned a holy and consecrated place.

There is an obvious and clunking allegory about stewardship; in fact there are two, when you bear in mind that the holy and consecrated place was built to train priests.

This is how decline is managed in the Catholic Church in England and Wales: by turning our backs on the past and walking away.  But don't look backwards, ever, for fear of whatever might be looking forward at us.

Bad Words

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Musing on the discussion over at Fr Ray's about the "'Catholic' Press" in this country, my mind wandered and I started to think about words which, when uttered in a context which is supposed to be Catholic, today, in 2010, immediately make my knee jerk, make me think that here is somewhere I don't want to go.

Why don't you have a play?

Spirit of Vatican II
Vibrant
Assembly
President
Presider
A / The Church (ie without an article when it should have one)
Dance
Mayhew
Macrimmon
Estelle White
Priest, Prophet, King
Tablet
South Coast
Spontaneous
CAFOD
Challenging
Easter People
Young Church
Catholics for ...
Eccleston
Cool
Press release from the Catholic Bishops' Conference
CES
Solidarity
Liberation
Worship group
Music Group
Youth Mass
Ecumeni*
Liturgy Group
Parochial Church Council
We
Yahweh
Pray, my brothers and sisters, ...
"In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" "Amen" "Good Morning everybody" "Good Morning Father" "To prepare ourselves ..."
Ghandi
Martin Luther King
Football
Lay Minister
Minister of the Eucharist
Minister of the Word
Ministry of the Apparition (OK - I made that one up)
Holy Table
"We together, as God's people"
"Lord, you know ..."
Third World
Developing World
Developing countries

I'll stop there, having managed to boost my blood pressure up to the point where I know my heart is still working properly.

Not Persecuted - Ignored

I get irritated by comments which which imply that Catholics in this country are facing a wave of persecution: it just isn't true.

Being persecuted involves people being martyred: it is distasteful in the extreme to think of the sufferings of Catholics in Pakistan, for example, and think that we are being persecuted.  And look at what happened in France in the 1790s to see what happens when a State decides to persecute the Church.

But another thought came to me from a throwaway remark in an American commentary on the Pope's visit linked from Joanna Bogle's blog.  It made the point that when the UK media talks about the Catholic Church, it doesn't mean the outfit based in Ecclestone Square: it means the Pope, Rome, the Vatican.  It suddenly struck me that the Catholic Church as an institution in UK national life is of as much moment as the Institute of Directors. 

Eamon Duffy has pointed out several times that one of the crucial points in the development of the post-conciliar Church in England and Wales came when Friday abstinence was abolished explicitly because it made Catholics different from their fellow citizens: that it marked them out.  "We" decided that we wanted to be just like everybody else.  (And let's not just blame the Bishops or pretend that it was the only disatrous choice made at that time.)

By removing the things that marked us out, by becoming part of civic society, our influence became that of any interest group.  Important, in a democracy, both because practising Catholics are about 2% of the population and are a relatively homogenous group with specific demands on society (like schools, chaplains in hospital etc), and because that 2% represents votes.

But our interests could now be weighed against those of other interest groups, and by taking part in the game, we agreed to be bound by the refree's decision.  The reductio ad absurdam of the current position comes when a senior representative of the Church can criticise SPUC for not cooperating with the Government in its aim of reducing the number of abortions.

Why should the press have been so surprised by the crowds who flocked to see the Pope?  Why did his message, or at least the manner in which it was expressed, seem so novel and shocking?  Why was it bewildering to see so many young people apparently accepting what the old man in white said which explicitly contrasts with what they are getting from every other source of information available to the general public?

Why?  Because the Catholic Church in England and Wales as an institution is irrelevant in national life.  We aren't being persecuted: we are being ignored.

E&W Diocesan Websites

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Against the day when you fancy doing a tour of the websites of the Dioceses of England and Wales to see, for example, how they report on the Pope's visit, and on the steps they are taking to capitalise on it, here is a handy cut-out-and-keep way to their home pages.

Arundel & Brighton, Birmingham, Brentwood, Cardiff, Clifton, East Anglia, Hallam, Hexham & Newcastle, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Menevia, Middlesbrough, Northampton, Nottingham, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Salford, Shrewsbury, Southwark, Westminster and Wrexham.

It's not as bad as I feared it might be ...
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Pravda Or Izvestiya?

Might it just be possible that this is a creature of the permanent staff of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales?  At one, or two removes, of course; far enough away to be deniable, particularly to their Graces and Lordships.

It's easy to see how much the staff of the CBCEW costs: what does it do?

What The Bishops Did Next

The obvious thing for the Bishops to do to start building on the Papal visit was to get out there and confirm the brethren: not literally or in their Cathedrals necessarily, but to get out among the flock and build on the foundations established by the Pope.  And it's gratifying to note that if the Bishops' Engagements column in the Catholic press is accurate, that's what a lot of them did.

Many were out in parishes which were celebrating jubilees, a couple were going away on diocesan or society pilgrimages, the Bishop of the Forces was away doing military things, Bishop Conry was at a CAFOD residential weekend, and quite a few had no engagements listed, which probably means that they said Mass in their Cathedrals.  Bishop Budd doesn't seem to send his engagements in any more, and Bishop Lang wasn't listed this week.

I was struck by Archbishop Smith, who could leave Southwark for the day to preach at the service of the annual meeting of the Christian Socialist Movement at Manchester's Anglican Cathedral.

Archbishop Nichols issued a clarion call to the faithful of Westminster.  The Archbishop of Birmingham and the Bishop of Menevia offered Masses of Thanksgiving for the visit.

Next week it will filter down to parish level.

Good Books: Help Wanted

It was quite a shock to read Fr Hunwicke recently when he said:

Dear old Fortescue's The Mass records the long debates of liturgists a century ago about where the epiclesis of the Roman Rite originally was before it ... er ... "dropped out". Their assumption, of course, was that the epiclesis was original to Christian liturgy and that the Oriental rites which preserve it were more 'primitive' than the Roman Rite. Now, happily, we know better. We see the Oriental epiclesis as a comparatively late fad in the evolving liturgical tradition. Rather than seeking traces of a lost epiclesis in the Canon Romanus, we realise that the prayer Supplices te rogamus, in which we pray that our offerings be taken to the Heavenly Altar, represents an earlier and lovelier expression of the linkage between our offering and the eternal oblation of the Eternal Son at the Heavenly Altar.

Fr Fortescue's work is one I refer to a lot, partly because it is so well written, partly because it is obviously the fruit of great scholarship, but mainly because if there is a newer or better history of the Liturgy, I haven't come across it.

There are specialised publications: Usus Antiquior, now two issues old, will become, I am sure, a focal point for serious students.

But what I am after would be broader, rather than deeper: we need both, but I can only find the deep.

It isn't just liturgical history either: in the same way as I'd like to see a successor to Fr Fortescue, I'd like to see somebody contemporary who could write as well and as meaningfully as Mgr Knox - it's over fifty years since he died.

In the back of my copy of The Mass is an advertisement for Longman's Westminster Library: A series of Manuals for Catholic Priests and Students.  The Mass comes before The Christian Calendar, The Study of the Fathers, The Origin of the Gospels and The Breviary.  Is there any modern equivalent?  Or do I have to throw myself (and my purse) onto Abebooks?

The Birmingham Three: Catholic Laity In 2010



(The picture is just to show Fr Ray that Methodist Central Hall (sort of) decked itself out for the Pope, as well as The Albert on Victoria St.)

This posting is about England and Wales, even though it might ring true in some other jurisdictions as well. 

We've had priest-blogger equivalents for many years: they write in parish newsletters or the local press; some have columns in the Catholic press, or appear on Thought for the Day.  A reasonable proportion prepare homilies which they deliver each Sunday; a lot of others extemporise.  But we are used to hearing views from the clergy about major issues of the day, the third world, international debt, how wonderful CAFOD is, and sometimes God.  The blogosphere has allowed the more readable clergy and religious to put their offerings before a much wider and international audience, and they are flourishing, offering a distinctive voice in the Church.

But for many years, the only lay bloggers (using the same analogy) were those writing in the Catholic press.  It would be fair to say that the quality of the Catholic press is mixed, in the same way that the gourmet value of most High Street eateries is mixed.  Much of it is dire, but there is the odd jewel (I think, for example, of Stuart Reid) at times, and for some people, it is the only source of intellectual nourishment about the faith (as well as an opportunity to see wha the Press Officers of now-independent Catholic Grammar Schools can boast about).

(The letters page wasn't really an analogue, because somebody else: the editor: has total control of it.  The blogosphere obeys the market: if your blog is valueless, nobody will come.  The Catholic letter page is a command economy: how else would Tom from Somerset ever find any readers?)

So now that there is an alternative, who are the lay Catholic Bloggers, and where are they?  While you read what follows, bear two quotes in mind:

The Pope quoted Newman:

“I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it.”

and Fr Ray, when I asked for leadership from the Hierarchy said:

“Yes, yes, yes but it will only happen only with the help of a well educated laity who make these demands of all the clergy.”

Now, before I continue I want to make one thing very clear: I am not an Oratorian, and, in particular, I am not a member of the Birmingham Oratory.  That means that I don't know what has gone on inside the Oratory.  Something has, because the Oratory received a Visitation, and the Visitor has made some judgements about what happened.

That's all I know.

And that, I suggest tentatively, is all that anybody outside the Oratorian Congregation can possibly know.  But this post is about the Catholic laity who use their voices.

The squaring up of various Catholics in respect of the "Birmingham Three" is actually about something else (which must be a bit of a downer, if you are a Birmingham Oratorian, but hey ho).  It's about lay people deciding that it is up to them themselves where the voice of the Catholic laity can be heard and where it should be heard, and it's about who identifies both the Catholic laity who have voices, and the voices which belong to the Catholic laity.

This is an extraordinary and ironic fruit of the "Spirit of Vatican II": the lay people it "empowered" to throw off clericalism and speak as equal members of God's Church have done so, but many are so off-message that they are threatening to upset the equilibrium that the S of V II appeared to have imposed on the Catholic Church here.

There are five different strands of commentary which are fairly easy to identify (please don't get hung up on the labels - that's all they are):

The Tabletistas: those in favour of the anti-Benedictine pro-"Spirit of Vatican II" status quo; the people who in the main hold the levers of power; people who sneer at the Pope and those who accept his theology and ecclesiology; its loony fringe is liberal Anglicanism;

The NeoCons: JPII Catholics; often articulate spokesmen often from the new movements; sometimes converts from Anglicanism; vigorous; orthodox insofar as they have ever come across the orthodox teachings of the Church, but sometimes a bit over-confident in the way in which they articulate what they believe that Catholic believe;

The Neither of the Above: JPII  Catholics, articulate spokesmen who are neither of the above.  At a major disadvantage because they don't belong to a group which nourishes and supports them.

The Trads: sometimes articulate, sometimes "differently choate" spokesmen for a pre-JP II view of Catholicsm.  At an even greater disadvantage because they don't belong to a group and the first two groups are firing missiles at the place where they would try to form a group if they could.  People gather around the leading trad bloggers but these people can be ignored online as lay Catholics are ignored in the real world by the powerful.  Its loony fringe comes from the traddier-than-thou tendency (we'll have an SSSG soon which will recreate the Liturgy of the 6th Century and it will immediately force the formation of a counter-group which despises St Gregory for his actions in rewriting the Roman Mass);

and, on his own:

Damian Thompson:  unwilling to lead the faction which would follow him (and who could blame him, knowing what he'd have following him, as well as what he'd have opposing him).  The Boris Johnson of English and Welsh Catholicsm (mutatis mutandis of course).

Catholic Voices could have been an interesting way of bringing together the non-Tabletista tendencies and to have created a powerful force in the Church, one which might have been able to achieve what the Pope and Fr Ray asked for.  We might have had a sort of Catholic Evidence Guild which preached the Truth inside the Church as well as outside it.  The way the idea was emasculated, the way in which the Birmingham Oratory became a battlefield for something else, will be familiar to anybody with experience of student politics.  But might it also be a case that "they" are beginning to run scared?

What next?

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A Tentative Return

Ironically, I spent the period of the Pope's visit in London, but was working.  I got out early in the morning, and managed this spectacularly empty picture of the Mall soon after 7.00 am on saturday morning, but spent most of my time indoors and with very limited access to television except for the News at the end of the day.  The only service I saw all the way through was the Evensong at Westminster Abbey, and it caused me to reflect,  first that Mgr Marini and the Pope both seemed alive to the sheer quality of the service on offer: a modern composition to welcome the Pope which didn't quite come off but scored an A+ for showing willing; Stanford, whose music the Holy Father may never have heard but which is the embodiment of a particular sort of observant Anglicanism; properly vested clergy; clergy who knew all the verses to their hymns; a sense that this was their new Sunday best, that they would do absolutely everything that they could to welcome their very distinguished and very welcome guest; and second, that it just didn't cut it; that what was happening was an end, not a beginning; that this was probably the last time that a Pope would engage with the Church of England as it has been since the Restoration of our Hierarchy; and third, that our Hierarchy just isn't up to it.  Hearing the addresses of the Pope and of the Archbishop of Canterbury, I wondered which Bishop in England and Wales would be able to write something so intellectually commanding.  Most could emulate the theological wrongness of the A of C, but not the intellect.  We don't have Bishops of the calibre to take on the secular world: that's why it's taken the Pope's visit to alert the media that there is a radical alternative to the world, the flesh and the devil.  The Bishop of Arundel and Brighton preened himself that the Pope would come and see a Rolls Royce model of how to manage terminal decline: instead the Pope preached a path to a new springtime.

In fact, when I think about the Hierarchy, the word that springs to mind is "mediocre".  We are desperate for leaders: they don't all have to be intellectuals, though it would be nice if two or three were; they don't all have to be profound theologians, though it would be nice if two or three were; they don't all have to be gifted administrators, though it would be nice if two or three were; they don't all have be be good communicators, though it would be nice if two or three were; but they have to be able to lead us.

When Cardinal Murphy O'Connor's resignation approached, Cardinal Pell's suddenly appearing as a candidate wasn't an accident.  This was not a game of Fantasy Archiepiscopal Nominations: what was wanted was a debate about the sort of person the Church in England and Wales needed, and the Vincent Nichols who was Archbishop of Birmingham when Cardinal M O'C was 74 needed to show himself as something other if he were to become the Archbishop of Westminster we need.  We needed somebody who could approach the cathedra in awe and aim to grow into it, rather than try to shrink the cathedra to his stature.  I still think the jury is out, but what happens during the next few months, after we have reflected on the messages the Pope has left us, will tell us which course he is trying to steer.

More soon on what it was like to watch the way that Catholic bloggers told the story of the Birmingham Oratory.

Æstivation

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I was moved to start this blog by a comment made by the Editor of The Universe about something I'd written:

“I was about to bash out yet another indignant reply pointing out that The Universe is a loyal organ that is constantly questioning and analysing general policies through its feature writers, then I came to the second part of your comment, and actually you’ve right, and you’ve hit on something really important here – how does one write a loyal but at the same time questioning article that doesn’t end up like a soggy pastry? I must admit we’ve tended to steer our writers (and they’ve steered themselves) towards a formula just such as Ttony has described – the message tends to end up the same whatever the subject – “doing great but could do better”. I must admit this has become so commonplace that I’ve all but banned headlines that include statements of the blindingly obvious like “Church could do more to ….” And “Our duty to ….” The real difficulty here is that natural journalistic instinct says that contributors and commentators should just be allowed to sound off (within reason) on any topic they feel very strongly about. The danger is a) that your Catholic paper ends up being a shooting gallery, and that b) we must never forget that Catholic papers have a dual role – to inform the faithful, but also as tools of positive evangelisation for non-Catholics that might pick them up. Critical comment can be indicative of a vibrant, open and developing Church, but right now ours isn’t and – most importantly – I don’t think everyone has the confidence or maturity to engage some of these contentious debates, though that’s changing through the unavoidable reality of decline, and the consequences that brings. When I was formulating the loyalty policy of The Universe, my own bishop, Edwin Regan, summed up what was needed from the Catholic press perfectly – the phrase he used was ‘critical solidarity’, which sounds to me exactly what Ttony is asking for.”

The problem is that I find myself in exactly the same position as the people I had been criticising: I want to write what I really think about some of the people exercising authority both in the Church in England and Wales, and in broader Catholic life (the Tablet Trust, the Catholic Union, Catholic Voices etc), but find myself unable to publish some things that I know, and some that I think, because they would give scandal.

The scandalous private life of a very senior Catholic person is crying out for exposure, but it will not be done by me; my Bishop is in a position vis-à-vis the magisterium that would be easily characterised as schismatic, but it won't be by me; you can fairly easily obtain tickets for Papal ceremonies in September that were allocated in the expectation that they would be issued to parishioners, but it won't be me saying how.  Three examples of something I know about: lots of you know about others.  And none of us feel able to say anything.

Æstivation: I shall retreat from the blog for the summer and watch and wonder and brood about just how far the leadership of the Catholic Church in England and Wales can take the ... let's say the mickey, before people like me turn on them with the wrath that (I increasingly feel) they are going to be visited with. 

A New Blog

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Here's a rather good idea.

Somebody who is receiving CTS pamphlets for review, when the paper which commissioned him to review them no longer wants to review them, is casting his reviews on to the tides of the Catholic blogosphere.

The CTS is one of the quiet success stories of the last few years: I expect that during the Very Bad Times it was expected that they would wither and die and so were left alone, but with a foundation, a back catalogue, and an understanding of what the market for pamphets really wants.

The column of pamphlets at the back of Church seems much more up to date than it used to, and these reviews will help point me to the ones I need to read, so that I can have a bit of foundation myself.
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Something I Hadn't Noticed

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Edited to take account of Madame Evangelista's comment.

I've been trying to work out what it is about the Bishops' Conference that makes them so, well, different.  They seem to march to a different drum from many of us; they don't seem to like to make decisions on their own; they're just not what one expects of Bishops.  I might have hit on something.  If, like me, you remember the time when you went to University as a defining moment in growing up, you might find it strange that so few of our Bishops had that experience in that way.  Being 18 and suddenly being on your own, having to manage finances, make new friends, learn how to hold your drink, make outrageous mistakes and get away with it: in short, having to grow up.  Of course, you don't have to go to University to do this - you just have to leave home and set up shop somewhere.  But the University analogy is apt for people who are going away to study for a qualification; and the leaving home analogy isn't apt for people who leave their parents' home for a sort of religious boarding school where board and lodging is provided at somebody else's expense.  Of course all of the Bishops eventually were left to their own devices and had to sort of make do by themselves, but at a much later age, and when they were different people.

If you don't count being at a Seminary like Ushaw or Valladolid where you attend University classes (much less Rome), how many of our Bishops have had that experience?

• Bishop Arnold – yes: a barrister
• Bishop Brain - no
• Bishop Budd - no
• Bishop Burns - no
• Bishop Campbell - no
• Bishop Conry – no
• Bishop Cunningham – no
• Bishop Davies - no
• Bishop Doyle – no
• Bishop Drainey - no
• Bishop Evans - no
• Bishop Paul Hendricks - yes: a physicist who worked for two years for GEC
• Bishop Hine (I can't find out about his education)
• Bishop Hollis - yes read Modern History at Balliol
• Bishop Hopes – trained as an Anglican priest
• Archbishop Kelly – no
• Bishop Kenney - no (though his experience in Sweden mark him out as differently formed)
• Bishop Lang - no
• Bishop Longley - yes: studied music at the  RNCM in Manchester and New College, Oxford
• Bishop Lynch - no
• Bishop McGough - no
• Bishop Malcolm McMahon - yes Mechanical Engineering and worked for Daimler and London Transport
• Bishop Thomas McMahon - no (though he trained in France, which is different)
• Bishop Moth - no
• Archbishop Nichols - no
• Bishop Noble (I can't find out about his education)
• Bishop Rawsthorne - no
• Bishop Regan - no
• Bishop Roche - no
• Archbishop Smith - yes: Law degree from Exeter
• Bishop Stack - no
• Bishop Williams - no (in fact entered Junior Seminary aged 13 years old in 1961)

Now, there's nothing wrong with the formation any of them has had, nor is there any reason to expect that a Bishop should have gone to University.  But their background sets them apart from many of the people they have to deal with.

Is this why they have come to depend on the Tabletistas?

Incidentally the page here where they have published their CVs is illuminating in many respects.
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Hiatus

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This isn't just me not posting.  It's me run off my feet at work and at home and having little time, as well as having more and more questions stacking up as the Papal Visit "planning" is revealed.  More soon, honest!

Odd Behaviour By A Great Tit

I was watching a coal tit - we've not had one in the garden before - when I was told to look at the shed.

Was the great tit on the roof dead?  Had a cat gone for it?

No.   It was sunbathing.  It stayed for about three minutes then flew off.

Odd.  I've seen blackbirds doing this, and, suicidally, doing it on the grass.  but never a tit, andf never on a roof.

Cardinal Pell Staying Put?

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According to la cigüeña de la torre here, Cardinal Pell has asked the Pope not to name him Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops, for reasons of age and health.  Don Francisco José Fernández de la Cigoña  is of the opinion that the Pope may still be trying to persuade Cardinal Pell, but that Cardinal Sandri's name is already being mentioned as an alternative.
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My Hierarchy And Yours

Quite a few years ago, exasperated at the failure of an RAF Squadron Leader to get to grips with a project he was responsible for, a bunch of us conspired to make him responsible for a social evening, which, we suggested, ought to take place in the restaurant run by the local beer manufacturer.  Our intention was to allow him to demonstrate whether or not he was capable of organising a piss-up in a brewery: he wasn't.

I look at the way the Hierarchy is organisaing the Papal visit, and I start to think similar thoughts.  Just two examples:

The "Catholic" Education Service: it tried to set up a deal with Ed Balls which would allow abortion propoganda in Catholic schools when it was clear his party was about to be voted out; it then found a pro-life-some-of-the-time discredited MP to become its Deputy Head; now it has bravely set itself up against the idea that Catholic parents might take control of Catholic schools.  Why?

The Hierarchy was given a mandate by the Pope during the ad limina visit at the start of the year:

"Your visit to Rome strengthens the bonds of communion between the Catholic community in your country and the Apostolic See, a communion that sustained your people’s faith for centuries, and today provides fresh energies for renewal and evangelization. Even amid the pressures of a secular age, there are many signs of living faith and devotion among the Catholics of England and Wales. I am thinking, for example, of the enthusiasm generated by the visit of the relics of Saint Thérèse, the interest aroused by the prospect of Cardinal Newman’s beatification, and the eagerness of young people to take part in pilgrimages and World Youth Days. On the occasion of my forthcoming Apostolic Visit to Great Britain, I shall be able to witness that faith for myself and, as Successor of Peter, to strengthen and confirm it. During the months of preparation that lie ahead, be sure to encourage the Catholics of England and Wales in their devotion, and assure them that the Pope constantly remembers them in his prayers and holds them in his heart."

How many of you, like me, have heard nothing whatsoever of any sort of preparation for this visit?  How many of you, like me, have yet to find yourself in a church prepared to take up a second collection for the visit?  I'm beginning to get a bit annoyed by all of this. 

So here's a question: in the light of the forthcoming visit, who do the Bishops think they are? 

Are they Princes of the Church, prepared to welcome their temporal superior?  Are they Heads of a local Church prepared to welcome their Patriarch?  Are they the servants of God, prepared to welcome the Servant of the Servants of God? 

Or are they the equal (or even the better) of the Pope?

And where do they think that we fit in (other than putting notes into the collection)?

Irony Abroad In Israel

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It's no so long since a poor suffering people found themselves on the high seas, desperately trying to reach Palestine, and being stopped, perfectly legitimately, on those high seas, by the naval forces of a legitimate state which wanted to ensure that they would commit no mischief if allowed to proceed, and which, on finding that mischief was intended, boarded their ships and sent them back.

One such episode ended up giving its title to a film: Exodus; though the story of the ship is as interesting.

Irony: always there somewhere if people who know their rights try to stand on them, especially if their rights might impinge on someone else's as well.
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A Recommended Podcast From Father Z

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Over here, Fr Z has had the really good idea to use a podcast to say the new translation of the Roman Canon as we are likely to hear it.  He prefaces it by saying the current translation of Eucharistic Prayer 1 as we are wont to hear it.

Hearing the Canon in a new translation is a much bigger deal than I had expected; it is completely different from reading a translation (or the Latin) while the priest is talking.

I hope the catechesis picks up on the richness of the fare on offer and doesn't try to explain it away.

Most of all, I hope that the Bishops encourage priests to use this opportunity to evangelise: the whole of God's religion is contained in this six or seven minutes.  Think what a holy priest might do with it; think what a country full of holy priests might do with it!
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How To Respond To The Abortarium Advert On Monday

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Boycott all of the products advertised during the same commercial break, and write to the companies concerned telling them why.
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On Not Joining The New Altar Servers' Organisation

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I understand that a new Altar servers' Sodality was set up last weekend and that details are available here.

I'm not joining.  I joined the Archconfraternity of St Stephen forty-five years ago and I use its 1962 Handbook to this day when I serve.  There is no reason to set up a new organisation, other than in an attempt to gain some form of "ownership" of the Extraordinary Form in the Church in England and Wales.

I'm not a member of the LMS either, for similar reasons.

And I normally attend OF Mass, even when I know by whom and how it's going to be celebrated.

Anything which tends towards the fostering of disunity ought to be shunned.

UPDATE:

What's all this about?  This was in response to what I think was an intemperate message telling me (as it seemed to me) that I had to join this Sodality if I were to be considered a "real" 1962 EF Mass server.  I responded "assertively" and was then made aware that those attending OF Mass when EF Mass was easily available were not considered necessarily suitable for serving at EF Mass.  Lots of paraphrase here!
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Preparing For An Anniversary

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For various reasons, I am involved in preparations for one celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain (as are so many other people and organisations!) and I have had a curious insight.  I reckon that most of us who were born between 1945 and 1960 are as affected by the Second World War as though we'd lived through it. 

We eat everything that's put in front of it; we don't make a fuss; we accept that not everything will work as scheduled; our upper lip is stiff; we don't expect that things will ever be perfect.

We were brought up by people who were formed by military service and by rationing.  Military service was reflected in a profusion of clubs, socieites, sodalities and guilds in which there was a hierarchy of posts up which one could ascend; in an expectation that the Man in Whitehall could behave as though he knew best; in politeness, deference and civility; in queueing.  Rationing was reflected in awful food: you cooked what you were given, out of what was available.  Meat was always overcooked because that way any iffiness (whether of source or freshness) might be overcome; food served at restaurants was "fancy", because the link between how you ate at home and how we had always eaten was lost; egg and chips became an option for a meal.

When we were little, our parents expected that we would end up being called up, and we'd end up fighting the Soviets; so discipline mattered, because it would make the transition to Basic Training a tinier bit easier.  "March nicely, boys" to a playground full of infants.

And that meant that our end was nigher, and that we ought to prepare for the Last things first.  A class of seven year olds singing "Dear St Joseph Spouse of Mary" would bellow out the chorus "Teach, O teach, us how to die" and our parents would be glad we were learning how to prepare ourselves for what was coming.

Then the 1960s happened.

Every time the Nazi says "Good Luck" to Gordon Jackson, and he replies "Thank You" during "The Great Escape", I know what side I'm on, and have been on since ever I can remember, and why. 

And I feel the most curious nostalgia for a time I cannot possibly remember.
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A Service For Europe

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I hope to goodness that Rocky Horror Paraliturgies aren't a part of the Anglican Patrimony that the Ordinariates will keep.

Look at this write-up here and if you want the full horror, look here.

I wish this were a Private Eye joke.
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Keep Your Hand On Your Ha'penny

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Not advice about economics.

When I was about 13 or 14, there was nothing more embarrassing than hearing my Grandmother and her friends singing this song.

Nowadays I can only marvel at them.



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We Want Our Trophy Back

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What is true about football is true about so much else.

We had something; somebody has taken it away; we want it back.
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Cardinal Pell to Rome

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According to the stork on the tower, Cardinal Re will be replaced by Cardinal Pell as Head of the Congregation for Bishops, the announcement possibly being made this month, but if not certainly in June.

Oremus.
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Homer Nods?

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Indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus - one of the scraps of the classics I still remember without having to look it up.  (Add Loeb editions, with the Latin on the left hand page and the English on the right to a good memory and you're half way to a JMB GCE O Level.)

It's the concept that counts, though.  Most of us get all sort of things wrong, and all of us get at least the odd thing wrong.

And you'd have to be the most extremely ultramontane supporter of Pope Pius XII, and the date about 1950 if you wanted to try to suggest that the Pope never gets things wrong.  But he does.

One thing was the appointment of Cardinal Murphy O'Connor to the Congregation for Bishops.  It might have felt like a nice consolation prize to soften the blow of leaving Westminster, and to Archbishop Nichols at that, but it's more important than a sinecure.  Every time the Nuncio comes up with a suggestion for a new Bishop for England and Wales (or, I assume, for Scotland too), there's CMO'C able to explain in great detail exactly why the Nuncio has got it right, just how sound a man the candidate is, and just why he's exactly the right Bishop for that See at this time.  And nobody else in the Congregation can answer the arguments, because the premisses have been stated by CMO'C as axioms and nobody else knows the Church on the ground in England and Wales well enough to argue.

It would be great for us if Damian is right, and Cardinal Pell is to take over as Head of the Congregation for Bishops, because his influence will trump that of CMO'C.  But how many other superannuated Cardinals are being given posts like this, where they exercise significant influence whilst carrying no formal responsibility?  And in which Congregations?

Once their resignation is accepted, off they should go.  There is plenty of pastoral work to do if they want to remain active as simple priests, or they can write their memoirs, or they can retreat quietly to make their souls.  But away, please!

Louis MacNeice

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A tiny and unrepresentative extract from the end of 1953 which nonetheless speaks to me of something nearer:

... To discern
The future is not easy since those fires
That warm us are the selfsame fires that burn

Our guts, and since the wood of our desires
Consists of single yet entangled trees
Which maybe form a wood the world requires

But yet a wood which none distinctly sees
Or fully finds his way in.  This being true,
I wait unmoving by degrees

Towards home where waits one person which is you
Who takes the ancient view that life is holy.

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Happiness is ...

Happiness is a new 1.5 TB external hard drive for under £100 and a way of backing everything up.

There are twice as many computers as people in this house.

What Probably Happened In FCO

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Deep in the bowels of the Southern Europe Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a junior member of staff has been asked to start thinking about themes and possible visits for the visit of the Pope.  remember: this visit is a State Visit and not (just) a pastoral visit by the Pope to British Catholics.

Once upon a time, this would have produced a series of considered options which would have found their way to the Department Head; he would have selected the most promising, and a submission would flow up the system until it reached the Secretary of State in a final form for him to approve.

What has happened here is that some junior members of staff have been daring (challenging, ironic, post-modern) and after a brainstorming session one has put up the sort of puerile tripe you might get from a sixth-form revue in a progressive Comprehensive, and this has been leaked.

This isn't about the Pope's visit at all, and the Ambassador to the Holy See's apology will put an end to the diplomatic difficulties.

The question is what this says about the judgement of those being recruited as the next generation of British diplomats and what it says about FCO's recruitment priorities.

Have a look here at the list of Foreign Secretaries since the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was established in 1968, and see if you can work out when the rot might have set in.

Prayer To St Monica?

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Does anybody know of any good prayers to St Monica?  Not the novena you find when you google, which is an admirable prayer for wives and mothers, but a way in which we can invoke the prayers which St Augustine credited with bringing him back to God.

There is a large number, and there will be a much larger number, of children leaving Catholic schools who really could do with her prayers.
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A Much Needed Discussion

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I ordered a copy of Mgr Brunero Gherardini's book about Vatican II because Fr Hunwicke's recommendation of it was so effusive.

It arrived today: free, but with a suggestion that €18.70 might be an appropriate donation to the Suore Franciscane dell'Immacolata.

I like the business model.

A quick skim suggests that I'll end up very irritated by the translation, and fairly depressed by the arguments.  Depressed, not because Mgr Gherardini isn't right on the money, but rather depressed because he isn't off the money.

There's an obvious answer to this question but I'll ask it anyway: can somebody recommend a (a) truthful (b) Catholic book about the Council and its aftermath which is (c) positive about them?

Football! Goal!

Gimnasia La Plata versus Boca Juniors in the Argentine League.

Who scored?

Gimnasia Vs. Boca @ Yahoo! Video

Küng's Pathetic Call

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Translated from Francisco José Fernández de la Cigoña's article here.

Theologian Hans Küng is a theological protester who refuses to be nothing in the Church. Aged 82, and forbidden to be a Catholic teacher, he lives in a past to which he clings, as it is the only thing he has left. Cheered on by the enemies of Catholicism and by the few contemporaries left within the Church who do not want to admit that nobody shares their youthful dreams any more, he keeps hold of the banner he once raised which has turned into tatters, faded by the passage of time.


At the end of his active life, and longing for days when he was considered to be a theological authority, he has called on the bishops to rebel against Benedict XVI. I do not know if it is because of an age-related condition or his overweening pride that he thinks that his voice is that of the Church. It is pathetic.

Not one bishop has answered his pitiful call.  Not one will, even though some of them are awful. The recent attacks on the Pope, in which Küng is a mere foot soldier, are only succeeding in making the Church close ranks in affection for the Holy Father. He is the rock upon which it is founded, without which it would not exist.
The positions taken by Küng and his followers only feed the anti-Church. The proof of this is that they are only taken up in anti-Catholic media, in which one can find some who still call themselves Catholics in spite of having sold out on the Church's Faith and Morals.

Hans Küng is one of them. He sold his birthright for a mess of pottage and is now choking, both because of his age and because even he has become bored with lentils, however hard it is for him to acknowledge the fact. Each day they taste more watery and have less substance.
He has only two choices. Either he overcomes the envy he has for his former fellow teacher, disappearing into history as in a few years he will not be remembered by anyone as he returns to the Father's house, or he ekes out the remainder of his days in a futile and pathetic protest.

Something Strange

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I can't remember a time when, in the UK, I haven't been aware daily of aircraft flying overhead.

There is a strange silence, or rather an absence, because apart from light aircraft and military aviation, most aircraft overfly us at about 25,000 feet as they either begin their descent from or get near to completion of their ascent to cruising altitude.  The lack of vapour trails in the air is disconcerting.

The sky looks different.

The Next Pope?

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Ad Multissimos Annos to the Holy Father of course, but he is not immortal.

I was intrigued to find out that Paddy Power is offering 25/1 against Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, becoming the next Pope.

Has there ever been a Pope James?

Notes To Support A Counter-Narrative

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It shouldn't be me doing this. It should be somebody more competent, who could make a better job of it.  This is no more than a start.  If you can do better, please do, and encourage the Hierarchy to come out and fight.

1     This is not about the Catholic Church.  This is about some bad men who committed acts of sex abuse against children for whom they had a responsibility of pastoral care.  Secondarily, it is about other men, some more, some less bad, who found out what was happening and reacted inappropriately

1.1     The Catholic Church is not a unitary body apable of imposing and maintaining discipline.  It is a confederation of dioceses.

1.1.1     The legal system used by the Church - Canon Law - was first codified less than a hundred years ago and uses the principle of subsidiarity to attempt to resolve problems at the lowest level.

1.1.2     Cases can gradually move up the system to Rome but, as in civil and criminal cases in UK courts, this takes time.

1.2     The Catholic Church's responsibility for the actions of its members is limited, to say the least.

2     The crime these men have committed is sexual abuse of minors, not paedophilia.

2.1     Paedophilia is a condition, not a crime.

2.2     Sexual abuse has taken place when adults commit sexual acts with under-16s.

2.2.1     The sexual abuse is aggravated because of the position of responsibility in which these men found themselves and their use of the position to procure the children they abused.

3     Those within the Church who discovered what had happened and did not deliver the abusers to the civil authorities did a great wrong.

3.1     In some cases this was done purely to protect abusers: in these cases the protector is as culpable as the abuser, because he created an objective circumstance in which the abuse could continue.

3.2     In some cases, this was done to protect the reputation of the Church.  While laudable as an aim, the damage done to children and the need to remove the abuser from a position in which he could continue to abuse were so much greater that the judgement of these men must be called into question.

3.3     In some cases, this was done because the discoverer could simply not believe that such abuse could be committed by a priest.  With hindsight, it is clear that these people should not have been put into a position where they were responsible for such decisions.

4     Anybody who uses a position of power to entice or procure an under-16 for sexual gratification is guilty of the same crime of abuse as has been committed by some Catholic priests.

4.0.1     They may be members of a national or local government organisation with formal responsibility for children, such as a local authority's child protection scheme.

4.0.2     They may work in a sector through which vulnerable children pass, for example the legal sector in a devolved administration.

4.0.3     They may work in the voluntary sector in schemes in which vulnerable children may become available to them, such as local housing schemes for asylum seekers.

Cooperative Finchdom

While the greenfinch waits patiently for its turn at the feeder, the goldfinch eats greedily and scatters seeds down onto the grass below where the chaffinch is waiting. 

Yes, I know: I should be encouraging or chiding Bishops and priests into defending the Pope, and encouraging the Catholic Union to lead the charge against Hitchens and Dawkins, but, on the whole, I feel that contemplation of the finch family offers a better prospect of ending the day without feeling that I've been banging my head against a brick wall.