Catholic Instincts

.
A post by Ben Trovato here gives a really important (it seems to me) pointer to why some things in the Church in England and Wales are so out of kilter.

He discusses the debacle of the Methodist ordinations at Liverpool Cathedral - how Archbishop Kelly at first allowed them and then, coincidentally after the story had become public, had decided that he didn't think that they were a good thing after all - and wondered why if he (Ben) had realised instinctively that this was a bad thing to do, the Archbishop hadn't had the same instinctive reaction.

"So the worrying question is: why do we have bishops in this country whose instincts are contrary to those of the Catholic faithful of the past, (and indeed many of the present generations too) and contrary to Rome? And what can be done about it?"


My guess would be that the story of the Church in E&W in the 70s and 80s has a lot to do with this: a mixture of not wanting to look and sound and feel different from everybody else on the one hand, and on the other, a feeling that "We are the Easter People" meant that "we" could re-create the Church to reflect the way in which "we" perceived that it would be relevant in contemporary E&W.

Both of these could only be articulated (never mind achieved) by people who could consciously turn off the instincts they had imbibed from birth.  How could you be the fruit of 1900 years of organic development and not realise that abandoning Friday abstinence so that Catholics didn't stand out from the crowd (one of the reasons cited by the Bishops' Conference, don't forget) was to break with the past?  You couldn't, but once you start ignoring your instincts in favour of the new set of beliefs you profess, you have created a new Church (a Nuchurch, as OTSOTA might say) in which change and variety and experimentation might as well be virtues as vices, and in which fidelity to received tradition becomes an odd minority option, to be tolerated and patronised.

My guess is that you can't restore suppressed instincts, but I hope I'm wrong.  Much more important, however - at least for the moment - is that those who retain that instinctive understanding of what being a Catholic means in terms of ordinary practice should inculcate the right instincts in those whom they can influence. 

Ben is on to something here.
.

Organic Pest Control

A blue tit rids the rose bush of greenfly ...

... and feeds them to her young.

Oblivious, a dunnock looks for anything that might be on offer at ground level.

Scott-King's Modern Europe

Anagnostis reminded me of something Evelyn Waugh wrote, "Scott-King's Modern Europe", which contains one of his profound insights, which condenses into a few lines the world view which dominated his thinking after the Second World War.

“You know,” [the headmaster] said, “we are starting this year with fifteen fewer classical specialists than we had last term?”

“I thought that would be about the number.”

“As you know I’m an old Greats man myself. I deplore it as much as you do. But what are we to do? Parents are not interested in producing the ‘complete man’ any more. They want to qualify their boys for jobs in the modern world. You can hardly blame them, can you?”

“Oh yes,” said Scott-King. “I can and do.”

“I always say you are a much more important man here than I am. One couldn’t conceive of Granchester without Scott-King. But has it ever occurred to you that a time may come when there will be no more classical boys at all?”

“Oh yes. Often.”

“What I was going to suggest was—I wonder if you will consider taking some other subject as well as the classics? History, for example, preferably economic history?”

“No, headmaster.”

“But, you know, there may be something of a crisis ahead.”

“Yes, headmaster.”

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“If you approve, headmaster, I will stay as I am here as long as any boy wants to read the classics. I think it would be very wicked indeed to do anything to fit a boy for the modern world.”

“It’s a short-sighted view, Scott-King.”

“There, headmaster, with all respect, I differ from you profoundly. I think it the most long-sighted view it is possible to take.”

Temporary Refugee From Terminal Three

.
I have spent too much time recently in Terminal 3 at Heathrow.  (To be fair, any time spent at Terminal 3 is too much time if Terminal 5 is on offer, but it hasn't been.)

Do you remember the Curial Bishop who was supposed to accompany the Pope here who had suddenly to fall ill and withdraw after he was quoted saying that arriving in Britain was like arriving in the Third World?  Well he was right.  British citizen, valid pasport, hand luggage only: how long should it take from stepping off the plane to stepping out of the Terminal?  I'd have said fifteen minutes plus another five for Immigration, but recently planes have been parking up in what feels to be as far away as Hertfordshire and then gradually disgorging passengers into tiny buses, and Immigration seems woefully undermanned, with long snaking queues of hundreds of people in front of you in the queue.  And the grime is inescapable.  It takes forever.

And departing!  You can play the system, or at least gamble on successfully playing the system: hand luggage only, check in before leaving home, eat and drink at a pitstop off the motorway and within 10 minutes of the terminal, arrive exactly one hour before scheduled departure, and keep moving through security and straight on to the gate which will have been announced by the time you arrive.  But that requires a journey that involves somebody with time to indulge you agreeing to drop you off.  The alternative is jostling vast crowds for somewhere to sit and paying outrageous prices even to replace the bottle of water confiscated from you on the way in.

And no time to think; no time to find anywhere quiet to stop and reflect; no fresh air ...

Normal service will hopefully resume soon.
.

Some Writing On The Wall?

.
The write-ups of the Low Week Meeting of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is no laughing matter.  "The Bishops’ Conference asks the Department for Evangelisation and Catechesis to coordinate the process of consultation on the Synod of Bishops’ 2012 Lineamenta and to supervise the production of a response on behalf of the Conference" is the sort of thing they run off, or rather, that their staffs run off.  This is an NGO like so many other NGOs in this fair land whose bureaucracy substitutes turgid officialese for clear words.  But some interesting stuff has seeped through: interesting enough to make me wonder if the supertanker might be preparing to turn.

Among the Plenary Resolutions listed here, comes this:

"The Bishops’ Conference reviewed their aims and objectives for the next three to five years. The source of these aims and objectives are the vision and priorities found in the teaching which His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI set forth during his visit to the United Kingdom in 2010. They are also rooted in the requirement of the core work of Episcopal Conferences set out by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church."

(Note the use of capital letters, by the way.)

Now, there's nothing on view as helpful as a list of the new or revised aims and objectives, but there is a contextualisation here of where the new aims and objectives come from that leave me at least hopeful that real change might be on the way.  Yes, they are insisting on Episocopalconferencism as a foundation of their "right" to set their aims and objectives: but the Pope's vision and priorities should be enough to set that "right" in perspective and keep it pointed in the right direction.

I found their document on Social Action (here) even more interesting.  It says that the Bishops' Conference has two subordinate organisations involved in social action, both of which are subordinate to Caritas Internationalis: CAFOD and CSAN: Caritas Social Action Network.  It then says that while everybody at the Conference is very pleased with what CAFOD is up to, it's about time we started to put more emphasis into what CSAN is, can, and should be doing at home, and some serious work is going to be put into identifying what that might mean over the next year.

Two thoughts spring to my mind, both positive: first, that the ludicrous identification of Catholic social action with an organisation indistinguishable from its non-Catholic peers except for its right to the first-fruits of Catholic charitable giving in England and Wales might be beginning to be weakened, and in favour of an organisation which will have to match up to Catholic social teaching in that very difficult area - right in front of its donors' eyes - and which might be about to reach some level of maturity.

Second, that this might be a straw in the wind: that if the reported Vatican crack down on Caritas Internationalis organisations which want to self identify as Catholic, without actually having to behave as Catholic, leads to CAFOD (for example) breaking away from Caritas Internationalis, then the Bishops' Conference has a manageable substitute in the wings.  This, of course,  puts the Conference into a win-win situation with regards to CAFOD's future direction.

Maybe I'm misreading this completely, but maybe I'm not: maybe this is the way Archbishop Nichols is asserting control, while not losing his left flank. 

(There is some other interesting stuff about looking at the structures of the Conference itself, but I reckon that's there just to keep the staff under control!)

Interesting times ...
.

Three Cheers For What The Guild Is Starting

.
When I first read what the Bones had to say about the initial meeting of what might or might not become a Guild of Catholic Bloggers, I must admit to a certain disappointment:

"So, the idea came about to see if we can form some kind of a shared blog in which we can pool our talents, knowledge and reflections on the Catholic Faith.
...
All in all, this is a project that could bring into 'one fold' several different blogging sheep, united in the common bond of the Catholic Faith, all determined to defend the Magisterium and the Supreme Pontiff. It was suggested that the blog would be simple in as much as it will simply teach the Catholic Faith - an evangelical mission using the internet to propagate the Faith.
...
The shared blog would be an independent mission seeking only to raise awareness and educate those within and without the Church in the Faith. This blog would steer clear of some of the more controversial disputes within the Church, steer clear of polemics even, and simply reflect that Deposit of Faith guarded by Pope Benedict XVI and taught by Bishops loyal to him. It's great strength is that it is a grassroots blogging movement, that membership is free, that nobody is paid, but that we are all contributing to a new and exciting blog that will reflect the array of Catholic blogging talent that exists in the Church in the United Kingdom."

When I re-read it, I started to get a lot more enthusiastic.  A focused, didactic blog about the Faith (especially if Paul Priest can be persuaded to write about philosophy and not just comment over at Damian's) is something we don't have at the moment, and for those of us who have pretty well given up hope about learning about our Faith (as opposed to learning about the Third World) from the pulpit, something devoutly to be desired.

A further musing made me start to think that there needs to be three axes to the E&W Catholic blogosphere: one didactic, a sort of Catholic Evidence Guild; one about the world of today as seen through the prism of Faith (the sort of thing the E&W priest bloggers tend to be rather good at); and one more inward looking, looking at the Church itself and its hierarchy and organisation.  (This last axis is where I often find myself and it is probably a good idea to be able to distinguish it from the other two, as things can get heated at times.)

And thinking about all of that, I, who am emphatically not a joiner, started to think that a loose confederation of bloggers who could sign up to "united in the common bond of the Catholic Faith, all determined to defend the Magisterium and the Supreme Pontiff" and "simply reflect that Deposit of Faith guarded by Pope Benedict XVI and taught by Bishops loyal to him" might be something I'd be keen to associate myself with, especially as yesterday's Instruction was so clear (while addressing itself specifically to Bishops) about their doing what was in the Pope's mind.

Who knows - a series of different people able to cover the waterfront, able to enunciate different aspects of Catholic Life exactly in conformity with the will and intentions of the Holy Father: we could even call the project "Catholic Voices".
.

Of Your Charity

.
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Paul, Rita's husband, whose death she announces here.
.

To See Ourselves As Others See Us

.
I had hoped to be able to report gleefully on the Catholic men of Blackfen and Brighton tarring and feathering those who have calumnied one of "our" priests, but they must still be working off the monster hangovers from the Royal Wedding celebrations.  Still: it will wait.

What follows is quite long but worth reading for the light it sheds on why we are in the mess were in, and what we look like to outsiders.  It comes from the judgement in the appeal by the Diocese of Leeds against the ruling by the Charity Commission that Catholic Care, the diocesan adoption agency, should allow gay couples to put themselves forward as potential adoptive parents.  The full judgement is here, but I have copied a section of it.

This isn't about the case itself: it's about Bishop Roche and his curia.  I bet it could be about almost any of our Dioceses.

"24. The Tribunal also heard oral evidence from the Right Reverend Arthur Roche, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds, who was called by the Charity. He is the ex-officio Chairman of the Charity and in his witness statement he explained that, as the Bishop of the Diocese in which the Charity is based, he is responsible for ensuring that its activities are within the tenets of the Church: “in effect I am the arbiter of faith in respect of the activities of the Charity”. The Bishop told the Tribunal that the Church’s teaching is that a full sexual union without marriage is unacceptable, so that adoption services could not be offered by the Charity to unmarried heterosexual couples or to same sex couples. He did not think it generally acceptable for a single person to adopt, although he was aware that the Charity had in the past placed a child for adoption with a single adopter. He said he could not explain why the Charity’s website apparently suggested that single adopters were able to use the Charity’s services and said that whilst he was involved in setting the Charity’s policies, he did not necessarily know what went onto its website.



25. The Charity’s proposed objects (as currently drafted) did not seek to discriminate against same sex foster carers. The Commission had been informed by the Charity during the internal review process that the Charity did not object to placing children with same sex foster carers because this did not involve the creation of a family. When asked about this, the Bishop disagreed with this statement of the Charity’s policies and said he did not know why the proposed objects had been drafted in that way. He did not think the Charity had ever placed a child for fostering with a same sex couple and did not think it should. He thought that if a same sex couple who were already fostering a child applied to the Charity for assistance to adopt it, they would be referred to another voluntary adoption agency.


26. The Bishop explained that, as he had taken the view that adoption services could not, consistently with the tenets of the Church, be offered to same sex couples then (unless permission were to be given to amend the objects to allow discrimination) the Charity would close its adoption service completely. He said there was no “Plan B” in this regard, although he told the Tribunal he was aware of various re-structuring arrangements which had been adopted by other Catholic adoption agencies. These included instances of de-merger with the Church or making a gift of their assets to another agency on a restricted basis. He did not think that the Charity could re-structure so as to be able to continue its adoption work because he said the necessary financial backing from its supporters would not be available. He said that “the people who provide us with funds have clear views on these matters”. The Bishop told the Tribunal that he did not know how many Catholics supported same sex adoptions, he just knew that the stance the Charity had adopted in this matter had attracted much support. When asked if a change of stance might not in fact attract new supporters who did not oppose same sex adoptions, he responded that this was untested water. He told the Tribunal that since the suspension of the Charity’s adoption service it had received over 100 enquiries from potential adopters. These people had been referred to Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, which both operate voluntary adoption services in the same geographic region as the Charity.


27. The Bishop explained that the Charity had provided a service of real benefit to the community and enjoyed a high reputation for its adoption work, especially its post-adoption support services. He considered that this accounted for the low number of the Charity’s placements which had subsequently broken down (5%, as against a figure of 6% for voluntary adoption agencies generally and about 20% for local authority adoption placements). When asked to describe how the ability to discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation would assist the Charity in its work, he explained that charities want their income to be applied to their own vision of what is in the best interests of the child. He thought that voluntary income had dropped off in areas such as Birmingham and Cardiff when there had been de-mergers of voluntary adoption agencies from the Church. The Bishop told the Tribunal that he agreed with the principle that a child should have the widest possible pool of potential adopters. He said he had heard that same sex couples rarely adopt hard to place children, although when directed to the evidence before the Tribunal which contradicted that view (see paragraph 51) he was prepared to accept that he might be mistaken on that point. (Mr McCall helpfully conceded on behalf of his client that the suggestion that same sex couples did not adopt hard to place children was no part of the Charity’s case).


28. The Bishop described the Charity’s approach to fund-raising, which he said was often conducted through appeals at Masses and in schools. The Bishop was asked how he knew that the Charity’s donors would end their financial support for the Charity if it offered adoption services to same sex adopters. He explained that the Charity has always been very clear about the family structure it promoted (the “Nazarene family”) and that this gives people confidence in the Charity. He said that he had written pastoral letters to the Diocese about this case and was surprised by the many letters of support he had received. He told the Tribunal he did not consider that the Charity’s adoption services would be viable without funding from members of the Catholic Church. He thought that the receipt of donations and the promotion of a Nazarene family structure went hand in hand. He commented that the law does not require the Catholic Church to bless civil partnerships and he thought that the law should allow the Church to act in accordance with its conscience in relation to same sex adoptions also.

There are two separate things going on here.  First, the Bishop has gone to one of the most important meetings he will ever attend as a Bishop and is completely unprepared.  His performance is woeful.  "He did not think it generally acceptable for a single person to adopt, although he was aware that the Charity had in the past placed a child for adoption with a single adopter. He said he could not explain why the Charity’s website apparently suggested that single adopters were able to use the Charity’s services and said that whilst he was involved in setting the Charity’s policies, he did not necessarily know what went onto its website."  This from the Bishop who says that “in effect I am the arbiter of faith in respect of the activities of the Charity”.  There are three possibilities: one, that he just didn't bother to prepare; two, that he assumes that his staff will make sure that he is adequately prepared for important meetings which are outside his area of main competence and they hadn't; three, that he wasn't expecting to be questioned (in the sense that his authority as Head of the local Church would be a given to the Tribunal which would not correct him). 

One of his interventions is embarrassing: "He said he had heard that same sex couples rarely adopt hard to place children, although when directed to the evidence before the Tribunal which contradicted that view (see paragraph 51) he was prepared to accept that he might be mistaken on that point. (Mr McCall helpfully conceded on behalf of his client that the suggestion that same sex couples did not adopt hard to place children was no part of the Charity’s case)."  Bear in mind that Mr McCall is acting for the Bishop: his own barrister is telling the Tribunal to ignore what his client has just come out with.

Some while ago, I blogged about the fact that few of the Catholic Bishops had experienced the same sort of tertiary education as many of their contemporaries in public life: this is perhaps an example of the consequences of that lack of experience.

I said there were two concerns: my other is about what is going on in the Diocese behind the Bishop's back.  I complain enough about the influence of the employees of the Bishops' Conference: here's an example of the same thing in microcosm.  In spite of the Bishop being pretty clear on the Catholic view of hoew an adoption agency should work, and into what sort of family structure children should be placed, his own adoption agency was doing exactly what it wanted: happily referring gay couples to other agencies, placing at least one child with a single parent, and allowing gay couples to foster.  Whatever Bishop Roche's expectation of Catholic policies from his organisation, they were being ignored, by people who are happily taking the diocesan shilling.

Of course, the poor old Catholic faithful of the Diocese of Leeds have paid good money for all of this, and are expected to keep on paying. 
.

Brazen Cheek Rewarded - Young Catholic Adults Retreat

.

My normal attitude to spam is to delete and move on, but anybody who asks me to post something and helpfully sends the HTML ready compiled earns a brownie point.

The second brownie point comes from the subject: anybody asking me to advertise a retreat deserves a plug.

There might have been a third point for an EF Retreat at Douai, but as I'm too old to be allowed on it, they don't get that point.

They only needed two, though.

                   Photo Copyright David Aron


During the weekend of the 9-11 September 2011. Young Catholic Adults will be running a retreat at Douai Abbey, it will be led by Juventutem Ecclesiastical Assistant Fr de Malleray . The weekend will be full-board.

* YCA will have half of the retreat centre to itself
* There will be a Marian Procession, Rosaries, Sung Mass, Low Mass, Confession and socials
* Fr. de Malleray FSSP head of Juventutem will preach the retreat, Masses will be in the Extraordinary form

Prices range from £5 to £51 per person per night . There are 3 options

THE MAIN GUEST HOUSE

Friday , registration from 4pm, to Sunday 11th September (full board)* or
Arrive Saturday morning till Sunday or day only
51 pounds full-board PER PERSON PER NIGHT
25 pounds for students/low waged/unwaged (or whatever you can afford) PER PERSON PER NIGHT

THE COTTAGES

£35 PER PERSON PER NIGHT (full board). Self catering £25 per person per night (reductions for students:- or whatever you can afford) .

SELF CATERING CAMPING

£5 PER PERSON PER NIGHT (or whatever you can afford - please bring your own tent and food ).

If you would like lunch on Sunday 11th then it will be an extra £7 each.

How to book - limited places so please reserve your place early

To reserve your place FOR THE WEEKEND (no deposit needed if you are coming for the day on Saturday), please contact the Guestmaster direct and send a 20 pound deposit (NON RETURNABLE) to Brother Christopher Greener OSB, Douai Abbey, Upper Woolhampton, Reading, Berks. RG7 5TQ (please make any cheques payable to Douai Abbey). Please mention how long you wish to stay and any special diet.

For general enquiries about the weekend:- or any queries about the accommodation/location/lifts required please ring Damian Barker on 07908105787 or 01452 539503.

.

Prayers Urgently Required

.
Please pray for Rita's husband, as he is very ill.
.

Addicted To Blogging?

No, not me.

Not here, and not at my other one either.

I don't know what this means.

81%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
Created by OnePlusYou - Free Dating Site

I'm glad I'm not as addicted as that Fr Wang who found this ...

Is The Church In E&W Ready For Fr Hunwicke

Fr Hunwicke, it seems to me, is an embodiment of the Anglican Patrimony some of us would love to see the Ordinariate bring as its gift to the Church which finally can fully embrace its members.  Erudite, witty, feline; rightly aware of the gifts he has been given, but humble in their application; tolerant of men if not of their opinions; and rooted in an ecclesiology which has sought Rome for a century and a half while maintaining the fruits which have grown from the soil in which their stock was planted.

That I now own and read books by Thurston, Dix, Bishop and Gasquet is due entirely to him.  It was through reading his posts that I realised how unaware I really was of the History of Catholicsm.  (What would it take to pull his posts together into a book?)

I hope that he will just carry on just being his online self after the next few weeks have passed.  I ca't help wondering how ready the Hierarchy is for what is coming.

Holy Silence

I asked one of the priests - the youngest, actually - I serve for in the EF why he didn't allow a dialogue Mass.  Quite a few of those who attend know the responses and were keen to join in but he has stopped them.  His answer illuminates another of the problems with the OF.  He wants people to pray the Mass, to unite themselves with what he is doing at the altar, and not to be constantly doing things, or preparing to do things, or to be working out when they'll next have to do things.  "That's what the server's for."

Even to say the people's part at my own pace instead of at the slow unison pace of the loud people is enough to get flashed black glares.  Unison is somehow believed to be next to holiness, even if it ruins the sense of what's being said:

Our Father
Who Art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy Name
Thy Kingdom Come
Thy Will be done
On Earth as it is in Heaven ...

Deeper than that, though, is the problem that if I'm saying those words it's unlikely that my mind can continue whatever meditiation it was pursuing during the Canon of the Mass.  The price of spending large parts of the Mass saying things is a two dimensional "participation" that forces me to do one thing, the same thing as everybody else, and not to do anything else.

This is another of those things that has radically changed the relationship between Catholics and the Mass, and not, I fear, for the better.

An Analogy Sets Me Thinking ...

A movement which started after WWII, and which gathered pace during the fifties took off in the sixties and by the early seventies had carried all before it, leaving us a much impoverished bunch.  I refer, of course, to metrication. 

Rereading Warwick Cairns book about the origin of traditional, pre-metric measures, and where they came from, their links back to to the distant past, leads one to an inevitable and clunking analogy about the New Mass: it's fine, it does the job, but it's a dimension short of what we had before.  It's all very well that a kilometre is (well, isn't actually, but what the heck) a ten millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator, but a mile is two thousand paces, and an acre is ten furlong strips ploughed, and a brick is a hand's breadth, and shoe sizes are measured in barley corns.  (No, I won't!  Buy the book - it's brilliant.)  And just to finish off the analogy, the crying shame is that the change was introduced just as any justification for its being necessary disappeared: just as universal literacy meant that anyone could follow Mass in an English-Latin Missal, so the electronic calculator made the introduction of the metric system unnecessary.

But hey ho!  Metric does.  If you go to the supermarket, there is a suspicious number of joints of meat weighing in at 900 grams, 1.2 kilos and so on: it's all still being done in imperial: they're just not letting on.

But a kind soul showed me James Preece's rather good article in the Catholic Herald against Children's Liturgies, and a sentence he chucked in about the precipitous decline in Catholicism in England and Wales being due to execrable catachesis (my words) made me realise that the analogy might hold a deeper message.  I can cope with metric because I keep translating.  A 1.2 kilo joint of pork is three pounds, so it does for 3 x 30 minutes plus 30, whereas if it were beef it would do for 3 x 20 plus 20.  No matter how the meat is packaged, I cook it in imperial.

My children however, have no concept of measurement as something instinctive.  They did calculations in metric at school, and hear imperial at home but have no concept of what the terms mean in any meaningful sense.  The radical disconnect with the old system has bothered me, but not too much as I can translate.  They don't know how to because they haven't absorbed either system except as an intellectual exercise and at a shallow level.  Their children will only ever understand one new system (and will be more deracionated and therefore poorer for it) and it will be the new one, but taught to them not by their family in the context of their environment but as an arbitrary external absolute.  It will measure things for them, but it will separate them from their past.

I'd love someone to explain to me why this analogy is wrong if applied to the New Mass: that the heritage of the ages, the hermenwhatsit of thingummybob, is just as rich in the new as in the old, and that what I (taught by people, it has just struck me, who possibly never uttered the word "liturgy" in their lives) learned by the time I was eleven, will be understood at all by those teaching my grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

From The Mother Of That Lot

There is a great deal to gain and absolutely nothing to lose!

Hi Everyone,

Imagine what might happen if every Catholic in the world would pray a Rosary on the same day! We have an example in October of 1573, when Europe was saved from the invasion of the mighty Turkish fleet, by the praying of the Rosary by all Christians!

So, on Good Friday, let us all pray a Rosary for peace in the world and the return of moral values into our communities. If possible, please pray your Rosary between Noon and 3:00pm.

Also, please e-mail this message to every Catholic on your address list, and ask them to pass it along to every Catholic on their lists. Let's unite in praying one of the most powerful prayers in existence, for these intentions, on one of the holiest days in our Church year.

God bless us all!

Bishop Alert!

There is to be a gathering at Southwark Cathedral on Monday of all of the Anglican Bishops and all of the Catholic Bishops.  You might be like me and wonder why 24 Catholic Bishops think that spending time en masse with their Anglican confrères matters, but hey ho.


Bishop Cunningham  is otherwise engaged, as apparently are Bishops Burns, Malone, and Williams, on diocesan duties.  Poor old Bishop Doyle is having a hip replacement, and Bishop Evans, for whom we should all be praying, is preparing to meet his Maker.


But Archbishop Nichols won't be there either: he's had a better offer.  He is to appear on Radio 4's Start the Week!


What has the Catholic Hierarchy come to!

Campaign For Life 2011

.
H/t to Fr Tim for finding the Spanish Bishops' Conference video for the Campaign for Life 2011.



I might be less intolerant of the CBCEW if they ever came up with things like this: I might even think that having a Bishops' Conference brought benefits.

Busy, Not Uninspired

.
My world has gone frantic over the last couple of weeks and I have spent very little time here - and when I have been on line in these parts I have done little but comment a couple of times.

I've missed the big moon, too.

Like General MacArthur, "I shall return", and soon, I hope, and in the interim, if you have any interesting ideas about where "influential" Catholics are to be found, can you drop me an e-mail?  Ta.

Welcome Back!

Every time I see a blogger suddenly discover that the Church used to do things differently, and that Her refusal  to resume the ways of old is a sure proof of Her current wickedness, especially if the ways of old involve dressing up, I think of a fellow blogger who blogged all the way through his conversion to Orthodoxy in a way that left most of us behind but acutely aware of how much the struggle took from him.  I cannot remember a single time that he mentioned aesthetic reasons for leaving Rome, and he swam the Bosphorous against every current imaginable: unlike others, I do not think he flounced once.  Very tentatively, he seems to have reopened The Undercroft.

There was a group of us in the period just after the election of Pope Benedict XVI who congregated around the forum on The Universe's website.  It was an exciting time, and what some of us realised was a time in which the seismic shift of the second half of the twentieth century would begin to be reversed.  One poster stood out in an indefatigable mission to fight cant: cant from the Vatican II groupies, cant from the trads, cant from the SSPXistas, even if the SSPX was where his journey had temporarily left him beached.  Coincident with the final demise of the trade in which he had served his apprentiship and which had also left him beached, he scorched the forum every time he spotted the vacuity of the pious platitudes which some of its denizens were wont to spout; so much so that after highlighting one more time something crass posted by the Universe's editor, he eventually became the first forum member to be banned!

But he had already discovered blogger.com and had begun to express himself and to encourage one or two of us to follow him from afar.  He also wrote the most affecting piece I have ever read on a blog,  here.

Only the Orthodox have the right to challenge the Roman Church from the standpoint of Tradition, and while I believe that their challenge has at its core a flaw, it is a challenge which all Catholics should acknowledge and engage with.

I hope Anagnostis' return to the blogosphere will be to do a bit more than simply comment on the weak points in some of the arguments we have been posting, and to challenge us with what he has learned.  But just one post like the one above, or its companion piece here, and I at least will be very, very happy that he is back.

The Magic Circle: Some Names

Every time I visit a country (Belgium, usually) which obliges its hoteliers to ask rude and impertinent questions of their guests, I answer the question about my employment status as "Bureaucrat".  This is mainly to annoy, but it has the virtue also of being true: I work in a bureaucracy, and I understand bureaucracy.  Bureaucracies other than mine are always worth studying as so often the shape and structure of the bureaucracy are a clue to the way in which deeper currents are moving.

The bureaucracy of the Church in England and Wales is not totally opaque, but it isn't very transparent either.  The diocesan websites tell a story, as does the website of the Bishops' Conference, but they are a narrative for a particular purpose, a noble purpose: how the Church is organised to bring Christ's offer of salvation to the people of this country.  (OK, there's a lot about the Third World and Fairtrade as well, but bear with me.)

Of more interest to me are the bureaucratic structures which allow the Church to support itself, and to live out its vocation by doing God's work.  This being England and Wales, the bureaucracy of the Church is organised in a series of charities, charitable status being an excellent way of keeping money donated for good works away from the clutches of the State.

The main charity is the Catholic Trust for England and Wales (CaTEW): this is the Charity which receives the diocesan assessments from England and Wales and spends them on behalf of the Conference.  The Trust defines the role of the Bishops' Conference as follows:

"The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is a permanent body within the organisation of the Catholic Church that brings together the Bishops of England and Wales. As a Conference the Bishops "jointly exercise certain pastoral functions for the Christian faithful... in order to promote the greater good which the Church offers to humanity, especially through forms and programs of the apostolate fittingly adapted to the circumstances of time and place" (cf. Code of Canon Law can 447).

The departments of CaTEW identify the present broad areas of activity for the Bishops in supporting the Dioceses of England and Wales and witnessing to the Gospel in the contemporary world: Catholic Education and Formation, Christian Life and Worship, Christian Responsibility and Citizenship, Dialogue and Unity, Evangelisation and Catechesis and International Affairs."

In other words there are six departments, and these are adminstered through other charities which spend the money the dioceses provide each year:

"As the administrative arm of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, the Trust has close links with the Diocesan charities. through which the annual assessments are made. The Trust relates to the charities of religious congregations within the Conference of Religious, particularly through its provision of the administrative, legal, human resource and financial management for the Catholic Safeguarding Advisory Service (CSAS). The Trust also relates closely to those agencies of the Bishops' Conference that exist as independent charities. The main ones being the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), the Catholic Education Service, Caritas-Social Action Network, the Pontifical Mission Societies, the Catholic Agency for Racial Justice and the Apostleship of the Sea. The Trust provides office accommodation for the National Justice and Peace Network, CTBI and CMA."

If you know how to read this, the story becomes clear.  The Bishops' Conference is the Catholic Church in England and Wales, and the dioceses exist as geographical sub-units whose purpose is to adminster at local level such services as are delegated to them and to raise money for the Conference to allocate amongst its priorities.  (You may think that this gives quite a clue as to why and how so many things have gone quite so wrong in the last few lustres, but that isn't the point of this piece.)

Now, English law being English law, the charitable trusts administering all of this activity have to satisfy English law, and one of the things they have to satisfy is transparency in their accounting.  The good thing for the bureaucracy-watcher is that the accounts are on line (once submitted) and contain all manner of interesting detail about what the priorities of the Bishops' Conference really are - but again, that's not the point of this piece.

Arma virumque cano:  the aims of the trusts and the money which keeps them going are the arms, but who are the men?  English law being English law, each charitable trust needs trustees, people who will take responsibility for the charity's proper discharge of its functions and the honesty of its accounts, and the Catholic Church being the Catholic Church, the money will only be placed in the trust of people whom the Conference trusts.

And thus we start to uncover the Magic Circle: whom does the Conference of Bishops trust sufficiently to oversee the administration of the money it receives for the ends it wills?  This is only part of the story: as any Spaniard will tell you: no son todos los que están, ni están todos los que son; not everybody on the list is influential, nor is everybody who is influential on the list.  But here are people chosen by the Hierarchy to look after the Hierarchy's interests and ambitions: that is a definition of the magic circle.  This isn't some Hollwood vision of Opus Dei: the list is of good Catholics who want to help advance the cause of their religion in England and Wales and who therefore have a standing different to the important people in, for example, the Tablet Trust: they might be influential in other spheres, but they don't have access to the levers of control.  The list of influential Catholics might be another study.

Of note is that almost none of the lay people or priests and religious served on more than one Board of Trustees.

An important caveat: this list is as accurate as the website of the Charities Commission and the uptodateness of the accounts submitted to it.  It includes names around at present and the last time accounts were submitted.  It doesn't pretend to be accurate as to the detail of who's doing what now: it simply names people who have gladly lent a hand with their knowledge and special skills.  I have tried where possible to identify clergy and religious, but I'm not necessarily completely accurate.  I've added members of management teams where the Trusts have chosen to identify them as significant members of staff.

Bear in mind that I work for a living: I'm not an investigative journalist.  This is a start, not an end.

I'll list the Bishops separately because the list says everything that needs to be said about which Bishops' hands are on which tillers.

Bishops:

Nichols, Arnold, Brain, Budd, Burns, Conry, Drainey, Hollis, Lang, Lynch, McMahon OP, Rawsthorne, Regan, Roche.

Bishops,Clergy, Religious and Lay People by Charitable Trust:

Apostleship of the Sea

Mgr Ronnie Brown, Bishop Thomas Burns, Mrs Louise Carter, Capt Simon Culshaw, Mr Eamonn Delaney, Capt Kevin Doyle, Mr Charles Goldie, Bishop Peter Moran, Rev Stephen Morgan, Capt Paul Quinn OBE, Capt David Savage, Mr Juvenal Shiundu, Mr Walter Voelke, Professor Mark Watson-Gandy

CAFOD

Mr Robert Archer, Bishop John Arnold, Mr Chris Bain, Bishop Kieran Conry, Miss Jenny Cosgrave, Miss Clare Gardner, Mr Dominic Jermey OBE, Noreen Lockhart, Mr Mark MacGreevy, Mrs Margaret Mwaniki, Ms Catherine Newman QC, Ms Mary Ney, Mr Tom O'Connor, Mr Geoff O'Donohue, Fr James O'Keefe, Fr Timothy Radcliffe OP, Bishop Rawsthorne, Mr Charles Reeve-Tucker, Miss Victoria Santer, Mr James Steel, Mr Neil Thomas, Fr Frank Turner SJ, Mr Nicholas Warren, Barbara Wilson

Catholic Association for Racial Justice

Ms Rosie Bairwal, Mr Haynes Baptiste, Mr Antony Benchilas, Ms Doreen Clouden, Bishop Kieran Conry, Ms Maureen Corsi, Mr Eugene Culas, Miss Nikki Fashola, Mrs Margaret-Ann Fisken, Mr Don Flynn, Mrs Rita Forster, Mr Malcolm Forster, Ms Charlene Fraser, Fr Howard James, Mr Tony Lobo KSG, Bishop Patrick Lynch, Mrs Sue Smailes, Mrs Yogi Sutton, Mrs Cecilia Taylor-Cameron, Professor Protasia Torkington, Mr Richard Zipfel

Catholic Trust for England and Wales

Mr Ben Andradi, Ms Alison Cowdall, Mr Alexander DesForges, Mgr Andrew Faley, Mr Laurence Fenton, Mr John Gibbs, Michaela Kelly, Mr Peter Lomas, Mgr Michael McKenna, Bishop Malcolm McMahon OP, Sarah Pearson, Canon Nicholas Rothon, Mr David Ryall, Mr Robin Smith, Dr Marcus Stock, Mgr Andrew Summersgill, Lorraine Welch, Dr James Whiston, Mr Charles Wookey

Catholic Education Service

Bishop Malcolm McMahon, Bishop Edwin Regan, Ms Oona Stannard

Catholic Marriage Care

Ms Sue Burridge, Mr Tony Cabourn-Smith, Canon Michael Cooley, Mrs Freda Lambert, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Mr Hugh Parry, Mr Charles Perryman, Mrs Judith Schmidt, Mr Andrew von Speyr, Fr Philip White, Mrs Sheila Wright
 
Catholic Missionary Union

Fr Denis Carter, Fr Brian Creak, Mr Paul Crowe, Mr Seamus Crowe, Fr John Dale, Ms Alice Davidson, Fr Derek Laverty, Sr Maura Lyden, Fr Robert Morland, Fr Patrick McGuire, Sr Daphne Norden, Bro Daniel Walsh

Caritas - Social Action

Bishop Terence Brain, Bishop Christopher Budd, Mr Terence Connor, Ms Cathy Corcoran OBE, Mr James Cullen, Margaret Dight OBE, Philippa Gitlin, Mr Andrew Haines, Bishop Crispian Hollis, Bishop Kenney, Fr Bernard Wilson, Polly Neate

National Justice and Peace Network

Mr Kevin Burr, Mr Michael Clarke, Mrs Alison Gelder, Fr Peter Hughes, Mrs Maria Malson, Ms Diana Mills, Mrs Anne Peacey, Mr Michael Prentice, Ms Enright Read, Mrs Elizabeth Rendall, Bro Edward Slawinski

Missio

Fr John Dale, Canon William Davern, Canon John Devane, Mr Edward Kirwin, Bishop Declan Lang, Canon Brendan MacCarthy, Mrs Fran Thomas, Mr Nicholas van der Borgh

Valladolid

Fr Gary Brassington, Bishop Terence Drainey, Fr Anthony Joyce, Fr Michael Kujacz, Mr Peter Lomas, Mr Steve McCoy, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Bishop Arthur Roche, Mgr Nicholas Rothon

Catholicity - Pange Lingua

That Petition And How The Roman Bureaucracy Works

.
Ches has made the eminently sensible point that petitioning the Holy Father is something that Catholics do, and, traditionally, always have done in one way or another.  In every hierarchical society there has to be a means whereby those at the bottom have a means of making known to the senior hierarch what they think.  There are tactical problems surrounding on-line petitions: verification of the "signatures", for example, and how you measure success.  But nobody can deny us the opportunity to present our case to the Pope and hope that he takes into account that a number of people feel sufficiently exercised to make him aware.

What people (though Ches was on the money once again here) seem to have missed is that the petition will be an input to a process in the same way that the leaked draft "clarification" was, and that the nature of the input varies in accordance with whether it is made in public or in private.

There is a whole host of people trying to express a view on Summorum Pontificum: people in the several Congregations which have some locus, those in Congregations that don't but which think they should, interested and disinterested (are there any uninterested?) senior Cardinals, curial officials who have access to any of the above, Nuncios reporting on what their local Episcopal Conference thinks, the Heads of National Colleges in Rome, the Rectors of Pontifical Universities: in short we are in Rome and this is how things work.

Whatever some people might want, the Pope is not omnipotent.  His actions are restricted not just by the Magisterium but by both the realities of where power lies between the different dicasteries and senior clerics and by where SP fits into his overall plan.  If he is to bring the largest possible number of people with him across the programme as a whole, he will have to compromise, more or less, here and there.  He already knows already , for example, that the mere fact of issuing SP did not mean that his motu proprio - his own word - was immediately acted on by the Bishops of the Church.

The internal politicking - the clamour to have one's point of view heard - takes place in various different media and fora, and the leak of the draft obeys the strategy of whoever leaked it.  Was it to galvanise supporters of SP?  Was it to try to salvage some crumbs for the about-to-lose opponents of SP?  Was it leaked by a supporter or an opponent?  There is no simple answer to the question Cui Bono?

It's worth signing the petition just to be part of the process and to add slightly the the influence being exercised in one particular direction, but the petition won't radically change anything the Pope eventually signs, just as the leaked document will just have been somebody's input to the process.

Whatever document ends up appearing: whether a new motu proprio, an instruction, a clarification, it will not be checkmate for the Pope against "them", whoever "they" are: it will simply be the next move.  I'm praying for the game, and for the player, rather than for the move.

Paul Inwood And The Extraordinary Form

.
The LMS Chairman's blog alerts us here to a fatuous comment by Paul Inwood which claims that Summorum Pontificum was a reward to traditionalists for their disobedience.  Well, the LMS Chairman has seen that ludicrous charge off, but Inwood went further: he said

"I can think of a number of parishes in this country where this is precisely the situation, and some where there are no more OF masses at all — all because of SP."

He was challenged very respectfully to give an example, but has not answered.

A number of parishes must be plural: in fact I would guess that "a number of" in the vernacular means three or four, or more.

Does anybody know of these parishes (NB: parishes, not churches) where "because of SP" (you might not be able to prove propter hoc but post hoc should be easy enough) all OF Masses have been stopped?

There Is Always An Alternative

.
No Catholic Priest needs conduct any marriage ceremony other than the Sacrament of Marriage.  There is no requirement for a priest to be a Registrar.

In England at least, any Catholic parent can set up a Catholic school for Catholic children.  It would be nice if the Bishops were on board but if they persist in CESness, then the only thing the parents have to avoid is the word "Catholic" in the school's name.  "One Holy Roman and Apostolic", on the other hand, appears not to be at issue.  (You get the same state contribution to the school as the diocesan school does.)  Where is our Church's Toby Young?

Nobody has to attend Mass in their own Parish if the celebration of the Liturgy is enough to be (for them) an occasion of sin.  Your obligation is to support your priest.  Five decades is good support.  £10 might encourage him in contumacy.

Just Imagine ...

A friend has sent me a cutting from his parish bulletin alerting me to the fact that St Michael's Church in Bishops Cleeve in Gloucestershire is now "legally" a joint Catholic-CofE Church.

He has also pointed out that the current Catholic PP is somewhere in the Basil Loftus wing of the contemporary Church in England and Wales.

But things change, and Clifton is a Diocese with a rather large number of Extraordinary Form-celebrating priests.

You are probably beginning to get my drift ...

An Ordinariate-rite Mass might be considered to be an ecumenical "step too far": so might "conjectured Sarum".  But the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite is freely available to all priests and should be considered uncontroversial.  I wonder what happens when the PP is away and the Diocese provides a supply priest?  I wonder what will happen when "fr Peter" moves?

The Journal Usus Antiquior

Am I the only person in the Catholic blogosphere who takes Usus Antiquior?

Issue Number 3 droppoed through the letterbox at the weekend and, as has become usual, it is full of good stuff.

Click on the image to get an idea of the contents.  You can have both Frs Fin(n)i(e)gan in one place; a series of reviews which are as informative as standalone essays as the books they are reviewing, and an editorial which answers with charity and respect a study of critics of Vatican II by a learned Jesuit.

Many of us are resigned to having to educate ourselves in the Faith: there is no other opportunity.  Catholic blogs, and the reprinting of books from an earlier age are a great help, but solid, considered, educated, deep, and above all Catholic commentaries on issues facing today's Church are at a premium, and Usus Antiquior is a uniquely valuable resource.

How To Sing A National Anthem Differently

Actuosa participatio, Taught By Fr Z

.
Over at his blog, Fr Z recounts his attendance at a concert of music written for the Sarum Use "so beautiful it hurt". He includes a video of the performance which you ought to warch because it is sublime, but I want to draw your attention to something else.

If you watch the screen at 56:19 or 58:30 you will see Fr Z demonstrating what actuosa participatio really is. It doesn't mean that he has to sing, or conduct, or in fact do anything physical at all. By paying attention to the action of those whose job it is to do things, he is able to join himself completely to what they produce.

The reward is probably the widest grin in New York that evening!

Free Cardiac MoT

We had an appointment at the fracture clinic, and, knowing that fracture clinics are under tremendous strain because of the number of fractures that happened in the week before Christmas, I decided to take something to read that I could concentrate on if there were to be delays.

I've read Clifford Longley's exploration of the papers left by Archbishop Worlock before, but I thought I'd reread them to see what sort of pointer they might give to how we have ended up where we have.

We arrived optimistically early and found that the clinic was already running an hour behind schedule, and that the delay was more likely to increase than decrease, so I settled down to read.

And there it all was: not just Archbishop Worlock himself as a super-trimmer - the Peter Mandelson of the Catholic Church, making the ecclesiatical equivalent of the journey from Kinnock to Blair a good mile ahead of everybody else - but the way the nascent Episcopal Conference was manipulated in the same way that the Council had been manipulated by its experts.  Indeed, the parallel has never struck me so forcibly before: the iconoclasts in England and Wales were led by those who had learned their trade hands-on in Rome.

One of the mistakes people make about the Index (of prohibited books) is to believe that Catholics were forbidden from reading them: it's not true.  Catholics had to seek permission to read them, and the person who gave permission had to assure himself that the person seeking permission was sufficiently intelligent and mature not to be taken in by the pernicious nonesense he would be reading, and that he had a good reason for doing so.  (If I remember correctly, there were four printing presses in Barcelona in 1527 which only printed books on the Index.)  That is the spirit in which I recommend this book.

I have recently taken to imitating Fr Hunwicke's comment of "small, white, bony, fish" when moved to say something rather worse than the word "pollacks" which the comment defines.  As my blood pressure rose, I went rather further, and, judging by the nudges in the ribs from a heavy cast, and the black looks flashed my way by my beloved, rather louder than I intended.

But no heart attack: a rough and ready confirmation that the old ticker is still doing its job.

Moment Of Respite

.

Life at the moment is as it was when the children were small: lots to do and little spare time for anything much apart from work and chores.  Such time as there is for reading isn't to be wasted, and so I have stopped buying the Catholic Herald.  I'll miss Fr Tim's agony father column and Mary Kenny's pearls; and I will really miss Stuart Reid.  If the editor sacks Fr Rollheiser and promises never ever to publish another letter from Mr McIntyre, and decides to hire journalists to write stories instead of relying on the publicity managers of the same private Catholic secondary schools week after week after week, I might reconsider.  Until then, I'll stick to Catholic once a quarter from Papa Stronsay.  (And I've stopped wasting time reading the clever trolls' McIntyre-like blogs too.)

As ever, when time is short, my reading draws into an absolute core of books which will entertain, edify, teach, and transport me completely out of this world and into theirs: as it's winter, it's Dickens; if it had been summer, it would have probably have been Jane Austen.  In the picture, Esther Summerson is discovering Lady Dedlock, and this is where I got to last night, Bleak House having followed the Pickwick Papers and both preceding Hard Times which I imagine I'll start this week.

And the snowdrops are out, and there is a green sheen on the bark which wasn't there ten days ago.  Not spring, and not the beginning of spring; but a token to remind us that winter will have an end.
.

Ordinate FAQs

.
I haven't seen these anywhere else, so here they are, from Zenit.

Introduction


On or before 15 January 2011, it is expected that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will publish a Decree which will formally establish a 'Personal Ordinariate' in England and Wales (from here on referred to as 'the Ordinariate') for groups of Anglican faithful and their clergy who wish to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.

The establishment of this Ordinariate will be the first fruit of the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, issued by Pope Benedict XVI on 4 November 2009. The Constitution and the Complementary Norms published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith provide the essential norms which will enable members of the Ordinariate to preserve within the Catholic Church those elements of Anglican ecclesial prayer, liturgy and pastoral practice (patrimony) that are concordant with Catholic teaching and which have nurtured and nourished their Christian faith and life.

In time, it is expected that further Ordinariates will be established in other parts of the world to meet the desire of those Anglican communities who in a similar way seek to be united in communion with the Successor of St Peter.

As a new structure within the Catholic Church, there will be many 'frequently asked questions' about the Ordinariate. Some of these are:

Why did Pope Benedict XVI publish Anglicanorum coetibus?

As the Holy Father stated when he published Anglicanorum coetibus, he was responding to petitions received "repeatedly and insistently" by him from groups of Anglicans wishing "to be received into full communion individually as well as corporately" with the Catholic Church.

During his address to the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales at Oscott last September, Pope Benedict was therefore keen to stress that the Apostolic Constitution "should be seen as a prophetic gesture that can contribute positively to the developing relations between Anglicans and Catholics. It helps us to set our sights on the ultimate goal of all ecumenical activity: the restoration of full ecclesial communion in the context of which the mutual exchange of gifts from our respective spiritual patrimonies serves as an enrichment to us all."

In this way, the establishment of the Ordinariate is clearly intended to serve the wider and unchanging aim of the full visible unity between the Catholic Church and the members of the Anglican Communion.

Will members of the Ordinariate still be Anglicans?

No. Members of the Ordinariate will be Catholics. Their decision is to leave the Anglican Communion and come into the Catholic Church, in full communion with the Pope.

The central purpose of Anglicanorum coetibus is "to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared". Members of the Ordinariate will bring with them, into full communion with the Catholic Church in all its diversity and richness of liturgical rites and traditions, some aspects their own Anglican patrimony and culture.

It is recognised that the term Anglican patrimony is difficult to define but it would include many of the spiritual writings, prayers, hymnody, and pastoral practices distinctive to the Anglican tradition which have sustained the faith and longing of many Anglican faithful for that very unity for which Christ prayed.

The Ordinariate will then bring a mutual enrichment and exchange of gifts, in an authentic and visible form of full communion, between those baptised and nurtured in Anglicanism and the Catholic Church.

Do all Anglicans who wish to become Catholics now have to be members of the Ordinariate?

No. Any individual former Anglican who wishes to be received into full communion with the Catholic Church, may do so without becoming a registered member of the Ordinariate.

As stated above, the Ordinariate is being established essentially for groups of former Anglican faithful and their clergy who wish to maintain as members of the Catholic Church, within the canonically approved and structured ecclesial life of the Ordinariate, those aspects of their Anglican spiritual, liturgical and pastoral tradition which are recognised as authentic by the Catholic Church.

What is the 'Ordinariate' then?

The Ordinariate will be a specific ecclesiastical jurisdiction which is similar to a diocese and will be led by its own 'Ordinary' (see below) who will be a bishop or priest. However, unlike a diocese its membership will be on a 'personal' rather than a 'territorial' basis; that is, no matter where a member of the Ordinariate lives within England and Wales they will, in the first instance, be under the ordinary ecclesial jurisdiction of the Ordinariate and not the diocese where they are resident.

The Ordinariate will be made up of laity, clergy and religious who were formerly members of the Anglican Communion. Following reception into full communion with the Catholic Church, the laity and religious will become members of the Ordinariate by enrolment in a register; with ordination as priests and deacons, the clergy will be directly incardinated into (placed under the jurisdiction of) the Ordinariate.

Will the Ordinary of the Ordinariate be like a diocesan bishop?

Each diocesan bishop is the Ordinary for his diocese (this does not mean 'ordinary' in the sense of common or normal but is an ecclesiastical term which means someone who exercises power and has jurisdiction by virtue of the office they hold). The power which the diocesan bishop exercises is ordinary (related to his office as a diocesan bishop), proper (exercised in his own name, not vicariously) and immediate (directed toward all in the territory of his diocese).

The power exercised by the Ordinary of the Ordinariate will be ordinary (related to the specific office entrusted to him), vicarious (exercised in the name of the Roman Pontiff) and personal authority (directed to all who belong to the Ordinariate).

As the Ordinary of the Ordinariate (from here on referred to simply as 'the Ordinary') has similar authority and responsibilities in Canon Law to a diocesan bishop he will therefore be an ex officio member of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. As a member of the Conference, the Ordinary will, like a diocesan bishop, take a full part in its discussions and decisions. The Ordinary will exercise collegiate responsibility for implementing the resolutions taken by the Conference within the life of the Ordinariate in the same way that a diocesan bishop does so within his diocese.

Like diocesan bishops, the Ordinary will be also be required to make a visit to Rome every five years (traditionally called the ad limina Apostolorum - to the threshold of the Apostles) and present a report on the status of the Ordinariate to the Pope through the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and in consultation with the Congregation for Bishops.

Who will be the Ordinary of the Ordinariate?

The Ordinary of the Ordinariate must be a bishop or a priest and he will be appointed directly by Pope Benedict XVI. All subsequent Ordinaries will be appointed by the Roman Pontiff from a terna (list of three names) presented by the Governing Council of the Ordinariate (See below).

A married former Anglican bishop or priest who has been subsequently ordained as a Catholic priest cannot however be ordained as a Catholic bishop whilst their spouse is still living.

How will the Ordinariate be governed?

The Ordinariate will have a Governing Council of at least six priests, presided over by the Ordinary. Half of the membership is elected by the priests of the Ordinariate. The Ordinariate must also have a Pastoral Council for consultation with the laity and a Finance Council.

The Governing Council will have the same rights and responsibilities in Canon Law that the College of Consultors and the Council of Priests have in the governance of a Diocese. Unlike a diocesan bishop though, and out of respect for the synodal tradition of Anglicanism, the Ordinary will need the consent of the Ordinariate's Governing Council to: admit a candidate to Holy Orders; erect or suppress a personal parish; erect or suppress a house of formation; approve a program of formation.

The Ordinary must also consult the Governing Council concerning the pastoral activities of the Ordinariate and the principles governing the formation of clergy.

The Governing Council will also have a deliberative vote when: choosing a terna of names to submit to the Holy See for the appointment of the Ordinary; proposing changes to the Complementary Norms of the Ordinariate to present to the Holy See; when formulating the Statutes of the Governing Council, the Statutes of the Pastoral Council, and the Rule for houses of formation.

Will the Ordinariate have parishes and deaneries?

The Ordinariate will have parishes within the dioceses where it has groups of members but they will be 'personal' parishes and not 'territorial' like a diocesan parish. Membership of a diocesan parish comes from living within the defined territorial boundaries of that parish; to be a member of a 'personal' parish in the Ordinariate a person must be a member of the group for which that parish was established, i.e. a former Anglican who is a member of, or has joined, a specific group within the Ordinariate.

After consulting with the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales and obtaining the consent of the Governing Council, the Ordinary may erect territorial deaneries for a number of personal parishes which will be supervised by a delegate of the Ordinary.

Who will look after the Ordinariate parishes?

The Ordinariate parishes will be served by priests of the Ordinariate, appointed by the Ordinary. They may be assisted by a parochial vicar (assistant priest) and/or a deacon. Pastoral and finance councils will also be established in the parishes. Diocesan clergy and religious, with the consent of their diocesan bishop or religious superior, may also assist in the pastoral care of the Ordinariate under the supervision of the Ordinary when and where it is deemed suitable. Similarly, clergy incardinated into the Ordinariate should also be available to assist in the pastoral care of the faithful in the local diocese.

What liturgy will the members of the Ordinariate celebrate?

The Ordinariate will not be a Ritual Church; that is, the Ordinariate will not be principally defined by the liturgical rites it uses. In addition to the Roman Rite, some of the liturgical rites of the Anglican tradition which have been adapted and approved by the Holy See may be used by the members of the Ordinariate.

It is expected that in due course, suitable rituals (Sacramentary, Divine Office, etc.) will be promulgated for Ordinariates across the world. However, as it will be fully a part of the Latin Catholic Church (as distinct from the Byzantine, Maronite, Chaldean Catholic Church, etc.) the Ordinariate will always be able to use the Roman Rite.

What churches will the Ordinariate use?

Because the previous places of worship used by the clergy and groups who will form the Ordinariate were in the ownership of the Church of England, it is unlikely that it will be possible for them to continue to be used by the Ordinariate members. In most cases therefore, Ordinariate congregations will probably use their local diocesan Catholic church for the celebration of Mass and other liturgies. In some places there may be a diocesan church which is no longer needed to serve the needs of the local parish community; these could prove suitable for use by the Ordinariate. Essentially, the needs of each Ordinariate group will be carefully assessed by the Ordinary and the most suitable pastoral arrangements will be made by him in collaboration with the local diocesan bishop.

Will any Catholic be able to attend a Mass celebrated within an Ordinariate parish or by an Ordinariate priest?

Yes. Any Catholic, whether a member of the Ordinariate or a member of a diocese, will be able to attend Mass, receive Holy Communion and participate in the liturgies of an Ordinariate parish or celebrated by an Ordinariate priest. However, they would not be registered members of the Ordinariate and would remain under the ordinary jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop where they are resident.

Similarly, registered members of the Ordinariate are free to attend Mass, receive Holy Communion and participate in the liturgies of any diocesan parish but they would remain under the ordinary jurisdiction of the Ordinariate.

How will the Ordinariate be funded?

The Ordinariate, like every diocese, is expected to support financially its own clergy both when they are in ministry and when they have stepped down from public ministry. It will, like a diocese, need to make plans to ensure that it is financially secure and that its pastoral needs can be met. Just as every diocese in England and Wales depends upon the contributions that each parish receives from Sunday collections to finance not only the running and maintenance of the parishes but also its central services, so too the Ordinariate will need similar support. Just as some diocese have good financial reserves, investments and endowments, so too a fund has already been established to enable the Ordinariate to begin its work from the day it is erected. The Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have already contributed a quarter of a million pounds to the fund and other charities are being asked to assist.

In those areas where groups are likely to be established, local Catholic dioceses are helping to find housing for the clergy who will serve in the Ordinariate and are providing whatever other practical support they can, e.g. provision or use of churches, use of diocesan curial services, assisting with the identification of salaried chaplaincy roles, etc.

When will all this take place?

The formal erection of the Ordinariate will take place with the publication of a Decree by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and the announcement of the name of the first Ordinary appointed by the Holy Father.

Already, three former Anglican Bishops have been received, together with some members of their families and three former Anglican women religious, into full communion with the Catholic Church on 1 January 2011. With the permission of the Holy See, they will also be ordained as Catholic Priests on 15 January 2011. A further two retired former Anglican Bishops will be received into full communion with the Catholic Church and proceed to Ordination as Catholic Priests in due course.

At the beginning of this Lent (Ash Wednesday falls on 9 March in 2011), a number of groups of former Anglican faithful together with their clergy will be enrolled as candidates for the Ordinariate. Then, at a date to be agreed between the Ordinary and the local diocesan Bishop, they will be received into the Catholic Church and confirmed. This will probably take place either during Holy Week, at the Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday or during the Easter Vigil. The period of formation for the faithful and their pastors will continue to Pentecost.

Around Pentecost, those former Anglican clergy whose petitions for ordination have been accepted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome will be ordained to the Catholic Priesthood. Ordination to the Diaconate will precede this at some point during Eastertide. The formation of these clergy in Catholic theology and pastoral practice will continue for an appropriate amount of time after their ordination.

Why are priests for the Ordinariate being ordained so quickly and without the normal length of preparation being observed?

A key aspect of the establishment of the Ordinariate by Pope Benedict is that it enables groups of former Anglicans and their clergy to stay together. This is quite new as previously former Anglican clergy seeking ordination in the Catholic Church were separated from their communities, even if some members of those communities also became Catholics. A different timetable is required if this new aspect is to be achieved. For this reason, the ordinations of the first priests for the Ordinariate will take place while their formation is still in process so as to enable them to minister to their communities within the full communion of the Catholic Church. The ordinations of the former Anglican bishops are taking place at this time with the expressed permission of the Holy Father so that they can play a role in the very first stages of the development of the Ordinariate.

Conclusion

The decisions taken by those Anglican clergy and faithful to leave the Church of England and seek full communion with the Catholic Church have been the fruit of much prayer and a long reflection on their personal and communal spiritual pilgrimage. Pain will be felt by those leaving the Anglican Communion and by those with whom they have shared an ecclesial life. Our resolve to continue to work and pray for the unity of Christians therefore must not diminish.

The establishment of the Ordinariate is something new, not just in the life of the Catholic Church in England and Wales but in the universal Church as well. As such there will doubtless be more questions that will arise and challenges to be met as Ordinariates are established and grow. It is important therefore, particularly for those who will form the first groups within the Ordinariate in England and Wales, that our welcome is warm and our support is strong.

Please pray for all those who are trying to discern what path the Lord is calling them to follow, for those who are preparing to be received in to the Catholic Church and for those who are preparing to begin their ministry of service to the Lord as Catholic priests, deacons and religious.

11 January 2011

Fr Marcus Stock

General Secretary, Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales

Tabula Non Adhuc Delenda, Sed ...

.
(Sorry if the Latin isn't right, but need brooks for no delay.)

Good news for everyone who wishes to see the Tablet resemble John Cleese's parrot: it is haemorrhaging money - thousands of pounds each week according to the latest accounts it has eventually posted.

The bad news is that it still sells (or rather has a circulation of) more than 22,000 copies each week, which seems to mean that it is read by 60,000 people each week.  And they have given grants of £60,000 to people to attend courses on "pastoral work".

There were two separate losses: the rag itself was responsible for most of the loss, but "The Tablet Trust"'s investments weren't very productive either.  But don't start breaking open the laid up port just yet: the support of Catholics throughout the 20th Century have left the Trust with comfortable reserves. 

In related news: only one employee earns between £90K and £100K, and only one earns betweens £80K and £90K.

The accounts are available from the Charity Commission, here.

Prayers Please

.
SWMBO has broken her arm, and your humble servant has therefore to add to his daily repertoire (no doubt at the expense of blogging), wishing that she were well, not to avoid such additions, but to spare her the pain, discomfort, and frustration which will last much longer than the initial sympathy she is receiving.
.

New Bird At Feeder

.
Any suggestions?