Sacramentum Caritatis: England and Wales are fine!

His Eminence Cardinal Murphy O'Connor has replied to an article published last week by Piers Paul Read. From today's Spectator:

"Sir: I am sorry that Piers Paul Read ('The Pope's anti-liberal revolution', 24 March) assumes that the English and Welsh bishops have not welcomed the Papal Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis. It is not always customary for bishops to issue immediate comments on Papal documents. I was, in fact, part of the drafting committee and thus closely involved in its preparation. My own statement expressed my admiration for the document and my wish for it to be promulgated widely among the Catholics of this country. I have no doubt my fellow bishops will be doing the same."

(Paragraph about ecumenism snipped)

No problems for England and Wales then: given that the Cardinal was "part of the drafting committee and thus closely involved in its preparation"; given that he "expressed (his) admiration for the document"; given his "wish for it to be promulgated widely among the Catholics of this country"; we can have no doubt that it will become a seminal text for the Church in England and Wales. No doubt the seminary classes in Latin have begun already, and the Latin classes for priests (whether starter classes or top-up classes) are already scheduled. No doubt this weekend Masses ad orientem will be essayed in all of our parishes. No doubt the Bishops (as "Celebrants par excellence", as Sacramentum Caritatis calls them) will be off the blocks to reintroduce Gregorian Chant as the principal music of our celebration.

How lucky we are!

Helping Fr John Boyle spread the Gospel of Life

Fr John Boyle writes about a prayer vigil outside an Abortarium and says:

"By the way, the main reason for posting this is so that when people search on e.g. "marie stopes maidstone" they might be led to this sort of post."

The best way to ensure that is to have as many people as possible link to his post.

Go to it, bloggers!

Between a Rock and a hard place

The American Minister in Ireland in 1942 is famously reported (perhaps apocryphally) as having interrupted a harangue by President De Valera on the rights of small nations: "Mr President, the only right we have is to die for our faith; anything else we have to fight for."

It would be nice to think that the Catholic Hierarchy in England and Wales was musing in a similar vein this morning. The SORS regulations have imposed the values of the Enlightenment definitively on our country: over the forty years since the 1967 Abortion Act, legislation has undermined any sense that there can be two conflicting rights, if one of those rights has to do with how an individual behaves sexually, because the individual's sexual rights take absolute priority over all other rights.

The secular agenda has won: there are a few mopping up actions to be completed, such as removing the right to charitable status of the contemplative orders, on the grounds that they don't do anything for society (for what good is prayer?) and no doubt an attack on the right of Faith schools to teach a single religious point of view.

We don't know what advice the Hierarchy has received about how to fight back. The Catholic Union says that "its purpose is to promote Christian standpoint in public affairs, through the intervention of its members who belong to the two Houses of Parliament, and through the formation of expert opinions which are presented to Government as Submissions"; well, it has failed. The Bishops' intervention on adoption was disastrous: however good the intention, however subtle the line the Church was trying to tread, they have been sidelined very effectively and portrayed (however unjustifiably) as hypocritical.

The Hierarchy seems to have rejected the "hard place" of encouraging vocal opposition to the Government's plans. Wednesday's demonstrations were organised by Evangelical christians, and were not publicised or encouraged by the Catholic Church, while the Cathedral played host to Jeffrey Archer. This contrasts with 1944: the Hierarchy organised demonstrations against the Education Bill which killed off the Bill's initial opposition to Faith Schools.

The alternative to the hard place is usually portrayed as the rock: we are fortunate in that we have a Rock to which we can cling: Rome; Peter. Now is the time to stop trying to accomodate our beliefs and practices to the secular country in which we live, and, once again, to become, proudly, Roman Catholics. If we have to retreat into a ghetto for a few years, fine: what has forty years of engagement brought us?

Music

A recent post by Moretben led to a debate about Romantic Music (say, Beethoven to Richard Strauss, give or take). It was instructive that those of a traditional disposition in matters of the Liturgy see Romantic Music as a childish thing to be be put away - except at those moments when we feel a need to luxuriate in self-indulgent emotion. (I both paraphrase and cariacature.)

I used to like everything: I saw Black Sabbath and Deep Purple live in separate concerts within a couple of months of each other; I used to listen to Radio One; I used to go to folk clubs; I used to go to see the Halle Orchestra live; I used to sing Victorian parlour ballads to my Grandmother; I used to know lots of old music hall songs. I used to think that eclectism was a sign of maturity. "But when I became a man I put away the things of a child." (1 Cor 13)

Pop went first, and rock soon after. (Read the Pope's put down of both forms of music in "The Spirit of the Liturgy", by the way.) "Old songs" were enjoyable enough, but mainly entertained people born at the end of the nineteenth century: my grandparents' generation; and while it was nice to entertain them, I couldn't imagine singing "Believe me if all those endearing young charms" to somebody I loved while meaning it. They're lovely as a piece of nostalgia, but don't really say anything else to me now.

Folk music lasted longer until the realisation that even with really good folk music it only says what it has to say once, no matter with what force it says it. I can still feel an echo of that force when I listen to, say, the Chieftains, now; but it's an echo. (And I will run a mile to avoid the "come-all-ye" that I would have once run a mile to join in with.)

So, I was left with classical music - a universe in itself. I have some formal musical training and could spot the meretricious a mile off from an early age. But the developing taste gradually constricted, and even in the ocean of classical music, great swathes closed themselves off. Opera, once a passion, has retreated, leaving in its wake a litter of CDs which I will probably never listen to again: the voice is an instrument, not a protagonist. Modern classical music was fine to annoy parents with when I was seventeen, but my father's asking whether another cat had been thrown into the cellar sounds more like percipient criticsm to me today than the expression of philistinism that I liked to think it was then. The Baroque was wonderful until I realised that there were about ten tunes that mattered, each played in about four ways. And the seas continued to retreat, to the extent that there was no longer an ocean, but a few deep lakes.

I'm left with a few things, but the waters are no longer retreating. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ring truest; chant, of course, and not just Gregorian, but Ambrosian or Mozarabic; almost anything Orthodox; and some things I've rescued from the general retreat: late Beethoven; Bruckner; Sibelius; bits of Vaughan Williams; bits of lots and lots of things, really, but with little consistency, other their striking the same chord inside me that Tallis and Byrd strike all the time.

Music as a pleasant noise is fine: it surrounds me from when I wake to when I sleep; it's good to hear. But there is much less music to listen to and concentrate on nowadays, yet I find myself penetrating deeper and deeper into it.

My new toy

My new toy is an Internet radio. As long as you have Wifi access, all you need to do is plug it in, turn it on, enter the encryption key, and hey presto! more than 5,000 radio broadcasts from all over the world are available to you - or rather, in this case, to me!

I love listening to the radio, but I am hampered by only having AM, FM and DAB portables in the house. As I use a PC and not a laptop, I could until this afternoon, only access Internet radio stations from the back room, where the computer lives. Now I can listen to them from anywhere in the house.

There is a Swiss radio station which plays classical music: a man tells you in German what you are going to hear; you hear it, and then a woman tells you in French what you have just heard: there are no other interruptions. You can listen to Tango from Buenos Aires. The travel news on Classic FM South Africa tells me that the temperature this afternoon in Joburg was 28 degrees and there were queues on the M2 eastbound. (There are more than 200 classical music stations!)

I could now become more antisocial than ever, but my daughter has realised that there are more pop music stations in the world than anything else ...

The Westminster Stakes - an Interlude

Paddy Power seems to be receiving no bets at the moment on the succession to Cardinal Murphy O'Connor: the odds are as they were the last time I posted on the Westminster Stakes. I had thought of doing a post giving some of the in-depth form analysis punters aspiring to a serious investment on this particular book might like to take advantage of, but decided to put that off for a while, and instead do a snapshot of the reactions to Sacramentum Caritatis, given that its author (The Man in White) will be the judge and jury on the winner of this particular race.

Damian Thompson, Editor-in-Chief of the Catholic Herald, noted the fact that the Apostolic Exhortation was effectively ignored by the Hierarchy on its publication. Now that they have had a few days to reflect, what do they say?

The Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has noted the publication and provides links to the document itself, and to a summary (curiously contained on the "Year of the Eucharist" page).

However, if you are the sort of Catholic who expects that your Bishop's diocesan homepage will give you some information about the Pope's Exhortation, then you are in for a surprise.

Hexham and Newcastle thinks that the document is about globalisation and environmentalism. Northampton thinks it's about Latin. Nottingham just links to the Vatican website. Westminster gives a reasonable (if very short) summary. And that's it: none of the other dioceses mention it. Even bearing in mind that the dioceses of Wrexham and Shrewsbury do not have functioning websites, the response is - well, poor.

I have learned about the Wakefield Rhubarb Festival, and about the new Catholic Assistant Chaplain General of the Armed Forces. But don't look to the diocesan websites in England and Wales to find out what the Pope thinks about the Eucharist.

Phoenix Nights Catholicsm

Fr Ray Blake has highlighted a couple of YouTube videos. One is of the Halloween Mass in Orange County, California, notorious for, amongst other things, an extraordinary minister costumed as the Devil; the other is of a recent Mass celebrated by the egregious Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles (also California) at the end of a recent RE Congress.

Reading Fr Ray's post, it struck me that we have no simple expression (other than "sacreligious" or "heretical", of course) to describe the sort of thing that isn't just one-off wild and wacky, but is a head-on confrontation with the Universal Church. "Cafeteria Catholicsm" describes a pick-and-mix approach that offers a choice: what about the sort of Catholicsm where no choice other than a liberal-two-fingers-to-Rome is on offer?

I'd like to propose "Phoenix Nights Catholicsm". The Phoenix Club, owned by Brian Potter is a simulacrum of a normal club: it has no licence; it is a dangerous fire hazard; it is corrupt and dishonest; it is meretricious; its music is abysmally poor. The poor club-goers of TV's parallel Bolton have no real choice: the Banana Grove is equally awful, and the man in charge, Den Perry, is as criminal as Potter.

Phoenix Nights Catholicsm is not yet common in England and Wales, but we have our Brians and our Dens, and, given half the chance, they will impose their version of the practice of our religion on the rest of us.

Let's not give them their half chance. Let's do the thing they most dislike: laugh at them, laugh as much as I laught at Phoenix Nights. They are on the "Road to Nowhere": let's hasten them on their way.

"For God and King": a warning

If any of you have a link to the "For God and King" blog, then delete it immediately without clicking on the link. The site owner has let it lapse, and the sitename has been reallocated. It has been taken over by a pornographer who first redirects you to an explicit set of photos and then flashes up an invitation (seemingly coming from Microsoft) to download some software to clean the filth from your computer. It's a Trojan, of course (WinFixer). Any decent up-to-date anti-virus software will sort the subsequent problem out for you, but least downloaded, soonest mended.

Where we nearly got married ...

The Catholic Caveman's blog is headed by a picture of Mass at Covadonga. The shrine commemorates the apparition of Our Lady to the local King, Pelayo, who in 722 fought and defeated the Moors in the valley below the cave. Pelayo's victory meant that the invading Arab armies were never able to conquer the whole of Spain: Catholicsm, and the rule of the post-Visigothic Monarchy was preserved. After the Moorish defeat at Poitiers in 732 by Charles Martel, the Reconquest of Spain could begin: it was slow, but in 1492 Granada fell, and the Moors were expelled from Spain forever.

We should have been married there; we wanted to be married there. We were engaged when we lived in the same province and came to love the shrine which, as the picture shows, is in a cave. There are bears in the mountains, and eagles overhead. On a spring morning there is no more beautiful place to go to Mass.

In theological terms, Matrimony is unique in that it is the only Sacrament adminstered by those participating in it themselves. In human terms it is more complex: it is the only Sacrament in which the mother and the mother-in-law have at least as big a say as the participants. There is a social dimension around Matrimony which no other Sacrament has. This is right and proper: the other six Sacraments are essentially individual, while Matrimony unites two individuals to create a new family, a new opportunity for life. Matrimony is the Sacrament on which human society is (was? should be?) founded. Stable civil society depends on married couples bringing up families. That is why Matrimony is the only Sacrament for which parallel civil legislation exists - I once had to adminster the vows to a Spanish couple marrying in England as the Priest-Registrar did not speak Spanish and had both a ecclesiastical and a civil legal obligation to ensure that the vows had been understood and had been undertaken willingly.

When the mothers decided, therefore, that we were not to marry in Covadonga, but in the UK, we didn't really have any choice. We could have had a perfectly licit Sacrament in front of a priest and another witness, but it would have felt hole-in-corner. So we did as we were told, and had a wonderful ceremony. And even if there's a little bit of both of us that still wishes that things might have been different, Our Lady of Covadonga is as near here as She is there.

16 reasons for unhappy trads to read Sacramentum Caritatis carefully

Many trads in the Blogosphere have been disappointed in the Pope's Apostolic Exhortation, mainly because it didn't say what they wanted it to say. I'd prefer to see it as the next correction, after the Address to the Roman Curia of 22 December 2005, to the course of the Petrine Barque.

My thesis is that the Holy Father a) wants evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change; b) is boxing liberal Bishops into a corner they have made for themselves, because this document is a response to what the Synod of Bishops said it wanted him to say; and c) has a deliberate agenda of carrying out what Vatican II said, rather than accepting what has been done "in the spirit of Vatican II".

In this light, try the following extracts from Sacramentum Caritatis:

(Para 3) Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities. (From the footnote: I am referring here to the need for a hermeneutic of continuity also with regard to the correct interpretation of the liturgical development which followed the Second Vatican Council.)

(Para 21) Finally, a balanced and sound practice of gaining indulgences, whether for oneself or for the dead, can be helpful for a renewed appreciation of the relationship between the Eucharist and Reconciliation.

(Para 23) Priests should be conscious of the fact that in their ministry they must never put themselves or their personal opinions in first place, but Jesus Christ. Any attempt to make themselves the centre of the liturgical action contradicts their very identity as priests. This is seen particularly in his humility in leading the liturgical assembly, in obedience to the rite, uniting himself to it in mind and heart, and avoiding anything that might give the impression of an inordinate emphasis on his own personality.

(Para 35) Beauty, then, is not mere decoration, but rather an essential element of the liturgical action, since it is an attribute of God himself and his revelation. These considerations should make us realize the care which is needed, if the liturgical action is to reflect its innate splendour.

(Para 38) The ars celebrandi is the best way to ensure their actuosa participatio. The ars celebrandi is the fruit of faithful adherence to the liturgical norms in all their richness; indeed, for two thousand years this way of celebrating has sustained the faith life of all believers, called to take part in the celebration as the People of God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

(Para 39) It is his responsibility to ensure unity and harmony in the celebrations taking place in his territory. Consequently the Bishop must be "determined that the priests, the deacons, and the lay Christian faithful grasp ever more deeply the genuine meaning of the rites and liturgical texts, and thereby be led to an active and fruitful celebration of the Eucharist". I would ask that every effort be made to ensure that the liturgies which the Bishop celebrates in his Cathedral are carried out with complete respect for the ars celebrandi, so that they can be considered an example for the entire Diocese.

(Para 40) The ars celebrandi should foster a sense of the sacred and the use of outward signs which help to cultivate this sense, such as, for example, the harmony of the rite, the liturgical vestments, the furnishings and the sacred space. The eucharistic celebration is enhanced when priests and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical texts and norms, making available the great riches found in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the Order of Readings for Mass. Perhaps we take it for granted that our ecclesial communities already know and appreciate these resources, but this is not always the case.

(Para 41) Everything related to the Eucharist should be marked by beauty. Special respect and care must also be given to the vestments, the furnishings and the sacred vessels, so that by their harmonious and orderly arrangement they will foster awe for the mystery of God, manifest the unity of the faith and strengthen devotion

(Para 42) Certainly as far as the liturgy is concerned, we cannot say that one song is as good as another. Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided.

(Para 46) Given the importance of the word of God, the quality of homilies needs to be improved. Hence ordained ministers must "prepare the homily carefully, based on an adequate knowledge of Sacred Scripture". Generic and abstract homilies should be avoided.

(Para 53) The active participation of the laity does not benefit from the confusion arising from an inability to distinguish, within the Church's communion, the different functions proper to each one. There is a particular need for clarity with regard to the specific functions of the priest. He alone, and no other, as the tradition of the Church attests, presides over the entire eucharistic celebration, from the initial greeting to the final blessing. In virtue of his reception of Holy Orders, he represents Jesus Christ, the head of the Church, and, in a specific way, also the Church herself.

(Para 56) We hold that eucharistic communion and ecclesial communion are so linked as to make it generally impossible for non-Catholic Christians to receive the former without enjoying the latter. There would be even less sense in actually concelebrating with ministers of Churches or ecclesial communities not in full communion with the Catholic Church.

(Para 62) Speaking more generally, I ask that future priests, from their time in the seminary, receive the preparation needed to understand and to celebrate Mass in Latin, and also to use Latin texts and execute Gregorian chant; nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant.

(Para 64) A mystagogical catechesis must also be concerned with presenting the meaning of the signs contained in the rites. This is particularly important in a highly technological age like our own, which risks losing the ability to appreciate signs and symbols. More than simply conveying information, a mystagogical catechesis should be capable of making the faithful more sensitive to the language of signs and gestures which, together with the word, make up the rite.

(Para 66) During the early phases of the reform, the inherent relationship between Mass and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament was not always perceived with sufficient clarity. For example, an objection that was widespread at the time argued that the eucharistic bread was given to us not to be looked at, but to be eaten. In the light of the Church's experience of prayer, however, this was seen to be a false dichotomy.

(Para 73) For the sake of these important values – while recognizing that Saturday evening, beginning with First Vespers, is already a part of Sunday and a time when the Sunday obligation can be fulfilled – we need to remember that it is Sunday itself that is meant to be kept holy, lest it end up as a day "empty of God.

Pray for Spain

Yesterday, as the photo shows, two million Spaniards took to the streets of Madrid to protest about the government's negotiations with the Basque terrorist group ETA. This might not be the worst thing happening in Spain at the moment.

A posting in La cigüeña de la torre alerts us to a case being brought in Spain by a Catholic organisation against (inter alia) a leading Spanish socialist politician for the publication of a series of extremely pornographic satires on Christian images of Our Lord and Our Lady. The cigüeña does not post a link to these photos and I have hopefully given no clues as to where they can be found - please do not seek them out: they are profoundly disturbing; there must have been a morbid as well as a blasphemous mind behind them.

Unfortunately, this is par for the course in Spain, a country which is being polarised by a government which is determined to carry through a radical anti-Catholic agenda. Spain needs our prayers. Indeed, Europe needs our prayers.

A reflexion for Lent

Hat tip to Lactente nutris ubere who quotes the LMS's site. One sentence leapt off the screen at me:

"The empty womb stripped of its child by an abortionist is analogous to the empty altar stripped of its God by the theological abortionist - the man who either denies, or, what is more frequent, ignores or plays down the Real Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Blessed sacrament of the Altar." ('Empty Womb, Empty Altar', Prof. Frederick Wilhelmsen, Latin Mass Magazine, March/April 1993).

Things could be worse

.
I have just read a post at Wanton Popery about the consecration of an Episcopalian Bishop in Florida's being transferred to the local Catholic Cathedral because of the number of people expected. I had earlier read Fr Zuhlsdorf o{]:¬) quoting an interview with the egregious Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles about the Tridentine Mass. I read in V for Victory about a scandalous gathering in California purportedly about Catholic RE.

However irritated we might get, from time to time, with the behaviour of some of our hierarchy, we should recognise that they come nowhere near the line some of their American colleagues appear to have crossed.

Sailing to Byzantium

"Sailing to Byzantium" by W B Yeats. Verse III.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

I grew up in an area where there was a large number of Ukranian families. They came to the local Catholic schools, but we never saw them at Mass, for there were several towns locally where the Ukranians had their own churches. The Salford Almanac had every year a Ukranian supplement which listed their calendar and a long section from Canon Law about what had to happen if anybody wanted to change Rite - this was mainly assumed only to happen when Ukranian married Roman.

The first flush of aggiornamento I experienced in the early seventies was an encouragement for a small group of us (I think we were in Lower 6th) to visit each others' churches on successive Sundays. They came to ours first then we went to theirs.

Thirty-five years later I can still remember the impression that an Eastern Liturgy had on me. I wasn't overwhelmed by a sense of theatricality: I had learned to serve Mass in the traditional Roman Rite, after all. What I found was a heady if suffocating mix of the numinous, the Liturgy as Eikon, music which penetrated to the heart, community and solidarity in Faith, and incense as surely God intended.

Even after all this time, I can still catch myself thinking about finding a house more than four miles away from a Catholic church but less than four miles from a Ukranian one. I realise, though, even while fantasising, that I am seeking to miss the point. The Eastern Churches, whether schismatic or not, are local Churches, however widely the diaspora of their faithful has spread their worship. Each one is an incredibly rich cul-de-sac.

I belong to Rome: not Kiyiv, or Constantinople, or Moscow. My belonging is not a matter of choice: I can't pretend that I'm not from Manchester, even if I have now lived away from Manchester longer than I ever lived there. And Rome is not limited: Rome's ambit is universal and orthodox, not local and orthodox.

We are a ragged family: cousins who shout at each other, brothers and sisters who quarrel and argue; big brothers who lay the law down. Amidst all the clamour we sometimes wish that everything could be as nice at home as it is at a favourite Aunt's house. But, for better or worse, we belong to our own family and make our home there.

"For better or worse": we have to hang on to that.

For Carthusian fans

A short piece from YouTube in Portuguese is available from the Casa de Sarto. As I post this, it's the second article down, beneath one about the plot to defame Pope Pius XII.

The short text says "The Charterhouse of Évora: expelled in 1834 by Jacobin revolutionarism, the Carthusians returned to their Portuguese home in 1960."

The King over the water

Is the return of Moretben imminent? Are the insistent rumours of his release from Midland exile correct? Can those of us who have kept burning a small candle, lit from the tremendous fire of his saeva indignatio, proudly proclaim the return of our Chief? Are heretics quaking? Are liberals desperately recanting yesterday's received opinion? Are traditionalist apologists looking to the acres once walked by Belloc to catch sight of their leader?

We wait, and we hope.

What the Pope's Lenten preacher actually said

Fr Ray Blake copies part of the CWNews report on Cardinal Biffi's Lenten Retreat. It is fascinating, not least because in publicising Biffi's meditation CWNews seems to have been a bit coy about repeating one part of what he said. According to Zenit he said:

' Quoting the work "Three Dialogues on War, Progress and the End of History," Cardinal Biffi told his listeners that "the Antichrist presents himself as pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist."

"He will convoke an ecumenical council and will seek the consensus of all the Christian confessions, granting something to each one. The masses will follow him, with the exception of small groups of Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants," he said.

The cardinal added that Solovyov says in that work: "Days will come in Christianity in which they will try to reduce the salvific event to a mere series of values." '

CWNews must be worried that people will be daft enough to believe that Cardinal Biffi thinks that Bl Pope John XXIII was the Antichrist. That would be to misunderstand both Biffi and Solovyov (and John XXIII come to that). But things have come to a pretty pass when a major Catholic news agency thinks that a Lenten meditation preached before the Pope has to be censored in case less astute Catholics get the wrong end of the stick.

What next? Church leaders telling us that the faithful aren't clever enough to cope with two different rites being available at the same time in the Western Church?

The Traditional Rite

Most of the people who post about the Traditional Rite have pictures of sumptuous celebrations of Pontifical High Masses. This picture shows the same Sacrifice in as worthy a setting. God comes to those who need Him through the actions of a priest.

Home Schooling and Control Freakery

I've always thought that people who went in for home schooling were gluttons for punishment: it's an heroic vocation but not easy one. There is a whiff of eccentricity about it, and often a note of single-issuism. But to each his own. These are harmless people who love their children.

A friend has alerted me to proposals that the Education Department wants to bring in:

• A duty for parents to register children educated at home.
• A duty for parents to meet with the local authority annually.
• Powers to require access to the child for welfare checks.
• Powers to require access to the child to assess educational development.
• Powers to require the child’s work to be inspected.
• Powers for DfES to set curriculum content which must be included in the educational provision.
• Powers for DfES to set standards and methods of teaching

Is there any aspect of our lives that the Government doesn't want to control?

A Lenten Meme

I was tagged by Mac at http://mulier-fortis.blogspot.com/

1. What is your favourite Sorrowful Mystery?

The Agony in the Garden. This is where I most feel like one of Christ's disciples: very keen as long as I don't have to stay awake past my normal bedtime. Yet He still died for us. I can really picture myself along with Peter: full of sound and fury, until I'm asked to do something simple like staying awake.

2. What is your favourite Station of the Cross?

The fifth: Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry his Cross. Imagine being able to help just that little bit! Imagine being singled out! Of course it happens every day: there is rarely a day when we can't serve Jesus in helping somebody else, even if we don't usually bother.

3. Do you fast during Lent?

Yes. No alcohol during the week; and I smoke less.

4. What is your Lenten Resolution(s)?

No alcohol during the week. Smoke less and put the money saved into the poor box. Buy fewer books and put the money saved into the red Mission box. And a lot more spiritual reading.

5. Do you use Holy Water during Lent?

No more than usual, and that means crossing myself with Holy Water when I go in or out of a Church. Holy Water is a Sacremental which plays a very small part in my life. This is one to ponder during Lent: should I use it more? How?

6. How many times do you go to Mass during Lent?

Whenever possible, though in practice this means that when I go up to London I do without lunch to go to Mass at the Cathedral. (I suppose this counts as an extra penance: doing without lunch, that is; not going to Mass at the Cathedral.)

Too many books ... ?

I was asked in an e-mail "do you read a lot?"

My wife thinks that one can have too many books; I don't. She thinks that books that have been read, and are unlikely ever to be read again should be sent to the Oxfam shop; I don't.

I have never got rid of a book I have bought or have been given. Every book I read is like a milestone on the path of my moral or spiritual development (a few are signs pointing backwards). That's why I don't want to get rid of them. Just looking at the spine reminds me of where the book came from, as well as what I got out of it; I remember when I read it, and what it meant to me at the time. Sometimes I reread it, just because I noticed it.

I have, from time to time, kept a diary: a thousand words a day isn't that hard, when you aren't trying to be literary, and at the end of a three year period of writing diaries, you have a million words: each of which, like Proust's madeleines, takes you back to a particular point in time and place, and lets you compare then and now: remembrance of times past is not just nostalgia: it allows you to comapre then and now. But my words are just about me: real books tell me about everything else.

I realised recently that unless Mystic Meg does it for me, and I come into untold wealth to build an extension to the house, I will never be able to put all my books out. I have what I like to think of as a few hundred books in boxes in the garage, but my airy assumption about numbers is, I know, an underestimate. I have a few on the floor by my side of the bed, but I counted "the few" and found that there were fifty-three, in two great piles.

I look to my right and in a glance see "The Awe Inspiring Rites of Initiation" by Fr Yarnold next to "Hell and other Destinations" by Piers Paul Read next to "The Pendulum Years" by Bernard Levin next to "While Rome Burns" by Alexander Woollcott next to "Moab is my Washpot" by Stephen Fry next to "SOE 1940-46" by MRD Foot: five books among twenty on one shelf of a set of bookcases which go from floor to ceiling. The "New Marian Missal" (the 1962 Missal: my ninth birthday present from my parents) is next to the Liber Usualis that my Mother was given after completing the course for Catholic teachers run by the monks of Solesmes. "The Biggest Pub Quiz Book Ever" is next to the "Atlas and Index of Parish Registers"; "The Crossman Diaries" is next to "The Battle for the Falklands"; the "Family Historian's Enquire Within" is next to "The Royal Irish Constabulary".

I'd have to turn my head more than 90 degrees to start on the fiction books, and their are five cases just in this room full of them. And that's just one room in a house where seven have some or more, or a lot more, books.

My life is encompassed by the books I read: they guide and teach me when nobody else does; they are a refuge when the world presses in; they are a stimulus in a grey society; they are a large part of my world.

Another quiz

http://www.beliefnet.com/section/quiz/index.asp?sectionID=&surveyID=95 got me rather well, though I have never seen the film.

You Are a Daily Rosary (Very Traditional) Catholic You'd like the church to revive the time-honored devotions, liturgical practices, and strong institutional discipline that prevailed before the Second Vatican Council—and you're hoping that Pope Benedict XVI will lead the church in exactly that direction. Your favorite hymn is probably a traditional Latin composition such as the "Panis Angelicus," and your favorite pope is probably a pioneer of the Church's great liturgical tradition such as Gregory the Great. You loved "The Passion of the Christ."

Parliament hears (momentarily) about institutional anti-Catholic discrimination

John Selwyn Gummer is not a politician of the last Conservative period for whom I retain a great deal of nostalgia, but his speech (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2007-02-20a.154.0#g154.1) asking leave to propose a Catholics (Prevention of Discrimination) Bill was accurate, moving and notably less strident, and therefore more powerful, than it might have been.

It won't happen: legislative change would be necessary in more than a dozen countries, and the number of Constitutional Acts which would need amendment is sufficient to tie up Parliament for an entire session. No Government would want either to lose the chance to legislate or to open a Pandora's box of "if that's up for change, what else might be".

This isn't the sort of discrimination that affects us as individuals but as a Community. Even then, let's not pretend that it is an oppression under which we groan.

But tuck it away in the back of your mind, and next time the canvassers come round to solicit your vote, have a bit of fun with them: "what are the candidate's views about repealing the Act of Succession?"

Is your Operating System Catholic or Protestant?

I tip my hat to Fides et Ardor at http://durendal.wordpress.com/ for a quote from Umberto Eco, taken from an article he wrote for Espresso in 1994.

"Insufficient consideration has been given to the new underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. It’s an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people about it they immediately agree with me.

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the ‘ratio studiorum’ of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach - if not the Kingdom of Heaven - the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of Scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutic upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: a long way from the baroque community of revellers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist tolerance of the Macintosh. It’s true: Windows represents an Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in accordance with bizarre decisions; when it comes down to it, you can decide to allow women and gays to be priests if you want to…."

Lenten Reading

Over at The Universe forum, Mr Bleaney has recommended a site he has found with a "Church Fathers Lenten Reading Plan: With Texts". Right click on http://www.churchyear.net/lentfathers.html and "Save Target As" to your PC and behold! a .pdf file with readings for every day of Lent will be vouchsafed unto you.

Put more simply: you get a reading for each day of Lent, starting on Ash Wednesday with the Didache and going on to St Leo the Great. Each day's reading should take about 10-15 minutes. And as you've downloaded them to your PC you have no excuse: a quarter of an hour at the start of your browsing and offer up the opportunity to lose a quarter of an hour to secular pursuits. Log on to http://www.radioset.info/ for Gregorian and Mediaeval music to put you in a suitable frame of mind and read, learn, and pray.

And in answer to the most repeated question a Catholic can receive, as well as spiritual reading, I'm giving up alcohol during the week.

When will they ever learn?

A good rule in secular life is to know when to stop digging. I wish that the Bishops would learn it too. (Weren't they trained, once upon a time, at Hatch End in how to be media-savvy?)

One might have thought that after the "Gay Adoption" row everything to do with Catholic adoption agencies would be ruthlessy examined for anything which might weaken the Church's position. Not so. I am reliably informed that a leaflet is being given out this weekend in the Clifton Diocese to accompany a second collection in aid of the Catholic Children's Society. It includes the following paragraph:

"There are Catholic children waiting for Catholic families and sadly not enough people from our parishes are coming forward. In order to match the children with families who reflect their own heritage and background, we welcome enquiries from people of all faiths and none and are keen to discuss adoption with anyone who feels they have something to offer these children. You may be single or a couple, with or without children, a homeowner or in rented accomodation. Age is not a barrier - many adopters are in their 40's and 50's."

Does this not play exactly into the Government's hands? And is this really what we expect a Catholic adoption agency's position on the adoption of Catholic children to be?

Ritual

Fr Tribe, at http://thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com/2007/02/rites-and-wrongs-of-passage.html, and those who so far have commented, have explained beautifully why ritual matters.

The Last Days of Paul VI

Fr Schofield, at http://romanmiscellany.blogspot.com/2007/02/last-days-of-paul-vi.html has an interesting film about events in the last couple of years of the life of Pope Paul VI. My friend Moretben of http://theundercroft.blogspot.com/ (currently unavoidably silent) recently picked me up in an email for describing Paul VI as Hamlet:

"I've always though of him as Lear rather than Hamlet ... ; Cornwalls, Edmunds, Regans and Gonerils aplenty ... "

I think this is rather good.

The Catholic Prayerbook from Downside Abbey

Does anybody else use this?

The quotes on the back: Cardinal Hume; Fr Timothy Radcliffe; and Archbishop Nichols; make it look modern. The number of prayers from the Book of Common Prayer and (eg) Pastor Niermoller make it look ecumenical. But it is a wonderful compendium of Catholic prayer: Litanies (Sacred Heart, Most Holy Name of Jesus, Holy Spirit, Loreto, and the Saints); Stations; the Prayer for England; the Commendation; how to examine your conscience before Confession; the service of Benediction; prayers of Blessing. It is a wonderful aid to prayer, and a thoroughly old-fashioned compendium of prayers.

Its compiler is Dom David Foster and its ISBN is 0567086704. Have a look at it if you get the chance.

Close, but no cigar

You are a 99% traditional Catholic!

Congratulations! You are more knowlegeable than most modern theologians! You have achieved mastery over the most important doctrines of the Catholic Faith! You should share your incredible understanding with others!

Do You Know Your Baltimore Catechism?
Make Your Own Quiz

So where did I go wrong? Do I need to be from Baltimore to get 100%

Unlock the Secrets of how Men become Pope!

How could I have missed the Vatican Boardgame available from http://www.vaticanboardgame.com/COD/index.php?id=1294? It is, according to its website:

VATICAN The Board Game
From Cardinal to Pope—how it happens . . .

VATICAN, historically accurate, is more compelling than the depictions of the Catholic Church in popular culture. Reality and truth are always more interesting than fiction.

VATICAN is a fascinating way for all to understand a central point of Catholic identity, and will appeal to a wide variety of audiences, whatever their religious preferences.

VATICAN is sophisticated, filled with nuance that makes replays as enjoyable as the first time you play it. For teachers, it’s a powerful educational tool – for a gathering of friends, it’s a stimulating experience.

VATICAN – a high quality game that makes the ideal gift. Buy now – fun and learning in an outstanding package!

The six game pieces look interesting: which one would you choose?

They are certainly more interesting than an old boot.

According to Cathleen Falsani, Religion Writer for the Chicago Sun-Times:
"It's complicated, clever and a lot more fun than it sounds ... a hybrid of Monopoly, Risk and Clue -- with a bit of theological Chutes-and-Ladders thrown in for good measure."

(I assume that Chutes-and-Ladders is an American version of Snakes and Ladders.)

All this for only $39.95 plus postage and packing outside the United States.

In favour of life, especially new life

H/t to Mr Smith's Refusal (http://mrsmithsrefusal.blogspot.com/2007/02/drunks-whores-and-murderers.html) who quotes, from Cella's Review, a wonderful piece by GKC. Read what Cella said, to get the full piece, and read what Mr Smith said to understand the context, but enjoy a paragraph which tells us why we the pro-life message is a positive one, and not just a negative one about being "anti-abortion" or "anti-contraception".

"Now a child is the very sign and sacrament of personal freedom. He is a fresh free will added to the wills of the world; he is something that his parents have freely chosen to produce and which they freely agree to protect. They can feel that any amusement he gives (which is often considerable) really comes from him and from them, and from nobody else. He has been born without the intervention of any master or lord. He is a creation and a contribution; he is their own creative contribution to creation. He is also a much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines. When men no longer feel that he is so, they have lost the appreciation of primary things, and therefore all sense of proportion about the world. People who prefer the mechanical pleasures, to such a miracle, are jaded and enslaved. They are preferring the very dregs of life to the first fountains of life. They are preferring the last, crooked, indirect, borrowed, repeated and exhausted things of our dying Capitalist civilisation, to the reality which is the only rejuvenation of all civilisation. It is they who are hugging the chains of their old slavery; it is the child who is ready for the new world."

Holy Intolerance

In Spain, during and after the Civil War, the concept of "Santa Intolerancia" - Holy Intolerance - was developed. It has been cast aside because it was applied, it has to be said, scandalously. But conceptually, it feels like an area of theology ripe for development.

What should our attitude be towards a government which tells us that gay couples can adopt children and bring them up? Intolerant, but in an intolerance imbued with Charity. What should our attitude be towards a government which tells us that non-Catholic families should not only be allowed to attend Catholic schools as of right, but that the school can't ask the parents to sign a document accepting the nature of the school to which their children will be sent? Intolerant, but in an intolerance imbued with Faith. What should our attitude be towards a government which tells us that abortion should be liberalised? Intolerant, but with an intolerance imbued with Hope.

These thoughts are inspired by Fr Dwight Longenecker's posting on "Tolerance and Tyranny", a short meditation on what the Pope means by "the Dictatorship of Relativism". It strikes me that in the West our inculturisation to the secular world has come to mean accepting tolerance as a supreme virtue. Fr Dwight quotes Chestertom: "Tolerance is a nice word for indifference and indifference is an elegant word for ignorance".

I have taken this far further than Fr Dwight probably would want to go, but I think that the time for a bit of properly theologically founded Intolerance might be a better response to what my friend Moretben (from http://theundercroft.blogspot.com/) described, in another place, as what certainly feels to me like "an attack on the Mystical Body". My first thought was that the Scottish Cardinal's statement that he would simply ignore the SORS legislation, and wait for Catholic adoption agencies in Scotland to be hauled before the courts, left us open to a government "divide and rule" policy. I'm beginning to think that I was wrong, and that he has got it right: let us be wholly intolerant (and "holy intolerant" - let's not make the Spanish mistake) of attacks on our core beliefs.

The Westminster Stakes - a good time to place a bet?

Paddy Power has posted the latest odds for Westminster. Here they are (earlier prices in brackets):

Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 7-2
Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 7-2
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 11-2
Fr Aidan Nichols 6-1 (5-1) (6-1)
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 6-1 (10-1) (6-1)
Bishop William Kenney 6-1
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 12-1 (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 12-1 (10-1) (12-1)
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 12-1 (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 12-1
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Rt Rev Michael Evans 16-1
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 16-1
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Bishop John Rawsthorne 20-1
Bishop John Patrick Crowley 33-1

Two things have happened that might make this list a less authoritative guide than hitherto. First, the Gay Adoption row: Archbishop Nichol's Newsnight performance is unlikely to have advanced his cause, and those members of the hierarchy who have, or have had, Catholic Adoption Agencies under their control might be expecting letters soon asking if it is really true that they have been placing children with single parents (whether gay or not).

The other is the Pope's donation of £2000 to the Cambridge University Chaplaincy. This is a sign that the Pope takes a direct interest in the Church in England and Wales, and puts Bishop Kenney's surprise appointment as Auxiliary in Birmingham into a new context: the Curial nominee for the See of Westminster will not simply be rubber stamped by the Pope.

The three Regulars are not losing ground: indeed, some money looks to have gone in the direction of Fr Timothy Radcliffe during January. The three front runners remain firmly in place, though the silence of Archbishop McDonald and Bishop Hopes leaves us little idea about what they stand for. The rest seem to be fading.

But, while Paddy Power is digesting the implications of events of the last couple of weeks, now might be a good time to camp outside the Nunciature to watch the comings and goings, and place a speculative bet.

A comment on the adoption row

Not from me, but by the editor of The Universe on his forum.

"Isn’t it amazing how things develop. On Monday we had the cardinal’s high profile intervention, accompanied by widespread support across the faith communities, so that by my Wednesday lunchtime deadline I had despatched this Sunday’s Universe to the printers, complete with the full text of the letter, stories detailing the support, and pretty rousing editorial comment. By Friday morning I was pulling out of numerous requests to be a Catholic spokesperson on radio and TV because I just couldn’t think of any sound explanation as to why Catholic adoption agencies were sending children out to gay singles, co-habiting couples and single parents, nor could I clarify the remarks of leading Catholic commentators to the effect that gay singles were fine as adoptees because it’s the ‘act, not the orientation that we’re against,’ and obviously ‘single gay people won’t be sexually active, whereas couples would be!!’"

He has a pretty good point.

Wider Still and Wider Shall thy Bounds be Set

I have been doing some reasearch for my next posting on the Westminster Stakes: who will follow Cardinal Murphy O'Connor. Part of my studies includes looking at the Episcopal Engagements column in the Catholic Herald. I was astonished to find that Archbishop Kelly of Liverpool is to undertake a "Pastoral Visit" to Iran at the end of this week.

I little suspected that Iran, a wonderful and welcoming country with an ancient culture which has, in spite of its fervent Islamic beliefs, never succumbed to Arabisation, housed a colony of Liverpudlian exiles. What wind of history, one wonders, drew people from the banks of the Mersey, and where did it set them down? Was it the end of slavery? Or the Corn Laws? Who knows. How do they maintain their Liverpudlianness? Is there a Scotland Road somewhere near downtown Tehran? Does a tribe of fair-skinned, slightly overweight, trainer-wearing, Everton-supporting, nasal, Iranians long for a visit from its Mullah? Is Archbishop Kelly the herald of the twelth Imam?

What on earth can a "pastoral visit to Iran" by the Arhbishop of Liverpool be about? Has he nothing better to do at home?

Visiting St Peter

We spent the morning visiting St Peter's Basilica and then went for lunch. We returned, went to the Vatican Post Office to write and send some cards and then asked the Swiss Guards to let us though to visit the Necropolis. I showed our tickets, and they presented arms for us to go through. A large number of tourists thought we were important and took photos of us.

A seminarian from the American College greeted us. He told us the how the Constantine Basilica had been built, how a Roman cemetery had been covered with earth, in order to place his Basilica above St Peter's tomb; how the exact site of the tomb of St Peter had been lost over the ages; how the Basilica we know today had been built, leaving the floor of Constantine's Basilica as the crypt of the modern Basilica.

Then we went down into the Necropolis. He told us the story of the discovery of the Necropolis in 1940, and Pius XII's encouragement of the archaeologists who hoped to find St Peter's grave. He told us of the very early shrine to St Peter - the first Church and burial ground of the first Popes? - which stood on the site. He told us of the archaeologists who got closer and closer to what, a very few years after St Peter's death, was already a site of pilgimage; and he told us about the incredible mix up of archaeological finds caused by diagreements between the priests involved. He told us how St Peter's bones had been found.

Then he took us into the Necropolis. We were in a Roman cemetery. As we moved along the street he showed us the increasing signs - one piece of incredibly fine mosaic, one crude piece of graffiti - which showed that Christians had venerated this spot as St Peter's grave since the earliest times.

His story - the mix of detective story and archaeological dig - began to change as we got closer and closer to the grave itself. He told us the story of how Peter came to Rome to die the death Our Lord had prophesied for him. He told us what we had seen and asked for silence as we went to the chamber where we would see what remained of Peter's body.

In a niche in a wall covered in graffiti from the earliest pilgims to St Peter's grave the transparent plastic boxes in which St Peter's bones are now contained, and which were replaced there in 1968 in the presence of Pope Paul VI are clearly visible. The young man's injunction not to speak was unnecessary. We prayed: in my case as fervently as I can ever remember praying.

We went upstairs into the crypt. None of us spoke for a good while. In fact, apart from the odd "shall we cross here?" none of us spoke at all for a couple of hours.

We don't need shrines; we don't need tombs; we don't need relics: we only need God. But God knows how weak we are and gives us aids to help us towards Him. Any crutch that helps me walk towards God is very welcome indeed: this one has never gone away.

"On this Rock I will build my Church." I have seen the remains of the Rock, and I have seen the Church built on it.

A Welsh Mystic

“Ann Griffiths (née Thomas, 1776 - August 1805) was a Welsh poet and writer of Methodist hymns. A tenant farmer's daughter from village of Llanfihangel-yng-Ngwynfa, near Llanfyllin in Powys, mid-Wales, she was brought up in the Anglican Church, but joined the Methodist movement after hearing the preaching of Rev. Benjamin Jones of Pwllheli, in 1796. Following the deaths of both her parents, she married Thomas Griffiths, a farmer from the parish of Meifod and an elder of the Methodist church. She died following childbirth aged 29, and was buried on 12 August 1805 at Llanfihangel-yng-Ngwynfa. She left behind a handful of stanzas in the Welsh language. These were preserved and published by her mentor, the Calvinistic Methodist minister, John Hughes of Pontrobert, and his wife, Ruth, who had been maid at Ann Griffith's farm and was a close confidante. Ann's poems are an expression of her fervent evangelical Christian faith, and reflect her incisive intellect and thorough scriptural knowledge. She is the most prominent female hymn-writer in Welsh. Her work is regarded as a highlight of Welsh literature, and her longest poem was described by the dramatist and literary critic, Saunders Lewis, as 'one of the majestic songs in the religious poetry of Europe'. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Griffiths

In fact she left behind her some seventy stanzas of verse and eight letters. It is important to remember that she did not write hymns, however well she is known nowadays as a hymnologist; nor were her verses written for publication, or even for retention: she tried to hide them, and said about them that she did not wish anyone to have them after her as they were written for her own comfort. She had considered writing a religious journal, but these poems of praise seem to have taken its place, the verses being written after periods of deep contemplation, periods when she would ‘completely fail to perform my duty with regard to temporal things’ as she said in a letter. There is a clue, here, to Ann Griffiths’ having been granted a great Grace by God.

A brief digression into the theology of the Calvinistic Methodism she learned is necessary here: its emphasis lies on the efficacy of the Atonement as accomplished by the mediatorship and sacrifice of the God-Man Christ. The efficacy of Christ’s Blood is such that man is reconciled to God while God’s majesty and dignity are upheld. The separation between fallen man and God had to be remedied by a covenant or contract which would bring the two together. This was effected in a unique manner through the Incarnation.

Ann Griffiths longed for a faith which would enable her to look into, not merely at, the plan of Salvation. She asks for supernatural appreciative love which will lead her to the worship of God for His own sake:

O to have the faith to look
With angel hosts above
Into salvation’s scheme
Great mystery of love.

Oh for a life of sanctifying
The pure and holy name of God.

Her realisation of the sanctity of God imbues her with respect and a sense of her own unworthiness:

To come to the King’s table
Who bids me to sit higher
When in the dust to love him
Was this weakling’s sole desire.

The Incarnation is a source of wonder:

Two natures in one person
Inseparable henceforth
Yet one ‘spite their distinction
I marvel ever more.

Yet even this sense of wonder is subordinated to an ardent desire for longing for union with the Godhead:

There to share with him the secret
Revealed to us within these wounds
To kiss the Son eternally
And turn my back on Him no more.

According to Dom Augustine Baker:

“The most sublime exercises of contemplation may as purely and perfectly be performed by persons the most ignorant and unlearned (so they be sufficiently instructed in the Catholic faith) as by the learnedest doctors, inasmuch as not any abilities in the brain are requisite thereto, but only a courageous affection of the heart.”

Many people who set out to lead a spiritual life will reach the initial stages of contemplation; the conditions and opportunities which are the ordinary means of reaching the higher states of contemplation are simply not available to most people. But even to those who reach them, “mystical experience”, the experimental direct perception of God’s being and presence is not necessarily available, because it is a free gift of God which cannot be obtained through one’s own efforts.

There are several instances where Ann Griffiths seems to have been granted such a mystical experience. Here is just one:

“When returning from a Communion service at Bala … her mind was so absorbed in meditation on the mystery of the Trinity and the mystery of Christ’s Person and the happiness of seeing Him as He is and of being like Him and being with Him for ever that she had travelled about five miles over the Berwyn Mountains on a usually obstreperous beast in a state of complete unconsciousness … it was on that occasion that she composed the hymn:

O happy hour of rest eternal
From all the labours that I bore
Steeped in a sea of glorious wonders
Endless without bound or shore;
Entrance free to dwell for aye
In the courts of Three-in-One
A shoreless sea to swim for ever
Man a God and God a Man.

There is one conclusion I have never seen drawn from any study of Ann Griffiths. In the Allocution Singulari Quadam, given the day after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Pius IX, after affirming that nobody can be saved outside the Church, allows that those invincibly ignorant are not subject to any guilt in this matter. Pius XII also spoke of “those who are ordained to the Mystical Body of the Redeemer by some kind of unconscious desire or longing”, and their not being excluded from eternal salvation. The life of Ann Griffiths (whom we can assume to have been completely ignorant of the Church) gives us the opportunity to see that these are not mere words. Those who do not have the Church and who are open to God’s Love can be blessed as we who are members of the Church can be blessed.

I have drawn heavily on "The Hymns of Ann Griffiths" by Fr John Ryan OMI, with translations by Robert O F Wynne and John Ryan (Tŷ ar y Graig 1980). A website devoted to Ann Griffiths is maintained by Cardiff University at http://www.anngriffiths.cardiff.ac.uk.

A splendid post

Click on the title. Fr Tim Finigan hits rather more than 12 nails on the head.

The Westminster Stakes - an update

I posted about the possibilities for the next Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster at the start of the month. Here's an update.

Were people actually campaigning for Westminster, we would say that Archbishop Nichols continued to show well. He had the Christmas Sermon slot in the Telegraph, and coverage of the Pilgimage to Bethlehem focused on the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than of Westminster. The Telegraph's Religious Correspondent has suggested that MO'C might be asked to stay for a further two years.

Paddy Power has obviously had money passing through his fingers and into his coffers. The latest odds are (previous prices in brackets):

Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 7-2
Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 7-2
Fr Aidan Nichols 5-1 (6-1)
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 11-2
Bishop William Kenney 6-1
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 10-1 (12-1)
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 10-1 (6-1)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 10-1 (12-1)
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 10-1 (12-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 12-1
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Rt Rev Michael Evans 16-1
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 16-1
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Bishop John Rawsthorne 20-1
Bishop John Patrick Crowley 33-1

Fr Aidan Nichols has firmed up (surprisingly, I think, at this early stage) to 5-1: this is a popular candidate, but is he peaking too soon? As I predicted, Fr Radcliffe is moving in the opposite direction. I was also right about sentimental Liverpudlians betting on their own. Bishop Roche will be around for the length of this campaign: the celebrations following the reordering of his Cathedral attracted a lot of positive comment. My guess is that a few people have put a few quid on Archbishop Fitzgerald simply because he is a curialist: I find the suggestion that his appointment would be a sop to Muslims by the Vatican a bit too wild to take seriously.

All that said, Archbishop McDonald maintains his place as favourite despite the almost total lack of national publicity for him. Now might be a good time to have a look at his (excellent) diocesan website http://www.rcsouthwark.co.uk/ to take stock of His Grace.

Something that made me think

Over at http://lacrimarum-valle.blogspot.com/, Matthew Doyle has posted something that stopped me in my tracks. Is Natural Family Planning part (however unintentionally) of the contraception culture? Can sex-excluding-children ever be legitimate? Try:

http://lacrimarum-valle.blogspot.com/2006/12/cmf-contracepting-christians.html

and see what you think.

Who needs sermons?

One couple arrived for Mass on Christmas Day just as Mass started, and left the church straight from going to Holy Communion. They didn't want to speak to anybody. It was heartbreaking. This is the first Christmas that they will not have one of their sons at home: he received a life sentence for murder earlier this year.

I know that there is another family who will also have had an absence at the table this year: an absence that will never ever be filled on this earth. I know that there is a young man who will lose his twenties and thirties in prison out of which he will probably emerge in his forties, as an institutionalised drug addict. I prayed for them. But I mainly reflected on the hidden victims of this particular crime: an innocent couple whose world has been torn apart so badly that they felt that they needed to shun any sign of human warmth on the day we celebrated Christ's Incarnation.

I have never enjoyed the Sign of Peace: it is a distraction just before Communion and interrupts the flow of the Mass. (If we have to have it, would it not be better after the Confiteor or the Kyrie and before the Gloria?) But yesterday I saw the Sign of Peace living up to its name: two people physically joined to the love being shared in a parish community. People who knew the story and people who didn't unselfconsciously offered a hand to this couple and asked God's peace for them, and they accepted and for perhaps the first time, perhaps the only time, on Christmas Day, returned the prayer and the contact and managed to smile, before embracing each other.

Rereading this, it seems a bit like a mawkish parody of one of Dickens' Christmas stories: blame that on my writing. But this happened here in England yesterday, on Christmas Day 2006. I saw two blighted lives transformed, for however short a time by love, before the Christ just made present on the altar on the feast of his Incarnation, whom they then received.

A Developing Christmas

I had intended to post something about Hilaire Belloc's wonderful essay about Christmas in a Catholic house at the turn of the century. But something happened. My daughter, who turned thirteen a couple of weeks ago, decided that she was going to pack, not just her present to her mother, but all of mine too. "Daddy: you just don't know how to wrap".

I tried to rap: "Yo! Today is Christmas Eve. Better that you all believe!"

"No, Daddy. 'Wrap' with a 'W'". (Try that contemptuously, if you don't have a thirteen year old daughter of your own. If you have one, you'll understand.)

So we went into the back room and she packed while I kept the conversation going.

"And can we have all the presents under the tree tonight? It's not as though anybody thinks that Father Christmas is bringing them." So for the first time since my children were born, the presents aren't going to "appear" under the tree on Christmas morning.

The End! My little girl isn't a little girl any more!

42 years ago tonight, I went to Midnight Mass for the first time. Sr Anthony, who was in charge of the altar boys, had decided that it would be "lovely" to have all the altar boys in procession. It was the first time I heard the expression "bloody nun!" and the first time I remember my mother swearing. I was sent to bed at seven, and woken up at eleven with the first cup of tea I remember. I can barely remember the Mass: I was seven, and there were only about four of the altar boys had anything to do. The rest of us dozed. When I woke up in the morning I found a garage for my Matchbox cars which, I discovered years later, my father had made. I also discovered that my parents' tradition - of exchanging Christmas presents after Midnight Mass - had gone by the water forever (well, at least until we were old enough to stay up after Midnight Mass).

Christmas isn't a time of unchanging traditionalism: it's a time of changing traditionalism. We will have turkey and sausages and bacon and roast potatoes and roast parsnips and carrots and peas and cauliflower and broccoli after the smoked salmon on potato cakes because we always do. We won't open presents until we have come home from Mass. But the presents are different: they aren't toys any more. And we are different, and our children are growing and, in my case, my parents are both dead. And my wife had major surgery earlier this year and took a long time to recover from it; we found yesterday that we haven't spent much on each other at all: it had dawned on us separately that just having each other is the best present of all.

But my children are growing in Faith, and my parents are present because at Grace before our Christmas dinner we will pray for them, and for other members of the family who have died.

And we will enjoy Christmas with our children, knowing that they will end up doing their own Christmas, without us, in the same way as we broke away from our parents' Christmas, as they had from theirs.

It will be the same traditional Christmas and it will be completely different. The one unifying factor is the Baby who will be born to die and save us all: that's why we know that none of the rest really matters.

Post of the month

I really liked this. Go to this link: http://shoutsinthepiazza.blogspot.com/2006/12/christmas-update.html

A great joy

Dwight Longenecker is now Fr Dwight Longenecker. I have never met him but I rejoice, greatly.

One Sunday afternoon about four years ago, at Prinknash Abbey, I was having a look at the books and found "The Path to Rome": a new book charting the journey various Anglican converts had made in the 1990s to come to Rome. Dwight's (I'm sure he'll forgive the presumption) journey was particularly impressive: from Bible Belt fundamentalism, through Anglophilia to the Anglican Church in the UK, and forwards to Rome. I don't know why this book made such an impression on me, but it did: the testimonies of Anglicans who had converted, who had, in Graham Leonard's words, sought fulfimment of their earlier ministry in the Catholic priesthood, spoke to me very loudly and confirmed me in my faith.

He went on to work for the St Barnabas Society - the successor to the Converts Aid Society - until he recently returned to the US where he was ordained priest last week. Ad multos annos!

In the midst of great joy, there is but one small sour note: a comment on his blog (see link on the left) from England expressed sadness that for whatever reason, it wasn't possible for him to exercise his priesthood here. He answered:

"It wasn't for want of trying to be ordained in England. I waited twelve years for Catholic bishops to act! Never mind, the Lord had other things in mind, and he always knows best."

He does: of course He does. And there are probably times when he finds the earthly vessels through which He has to work a bit of a trial.

My sort of Ecumenism

Through the post today, along with Christmas cards, music, an annual report on the persecution of the Church, and a Missal, came Aid to the Church in Need's "I Believe: A Little Catholic Catechism". My wife, who is not a Catholic, had added it to the order. It is based on the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" but is aimed at Catholics in areas of the world in which the Church is in great need. It is much shorter than the Catechism.

I have been particularly taken by a definition of Ecumenism that I have not seen before: bear in mind that the Imprimatur is by Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos.

"In obedience to the commandment of the Lord 'May they all be one' (Jn 17:21), the Church makes every effort to re-establish full communion with all these separated Christian brethren. In order to achieve this goal we have to learn to approach one another in mutual esteem and respect, while the theologians of the different churches and communities engage in dialogue with one another, in the hope that one day we may all be able to profess the same faith, that of the one Church. This movement is called 'ecumenism.'"

I really, really, like this. I grew up in a Church which would not sing "Away in a Manger" because it was thought to have been composed by Martin Luther. I live in a Church in which signing of Council of Churches statements on the Third World is taken as a shibboleth of orthodoxy. Yet here is a via media: I can go to choral evensong at the local Anglican Catedral and esteem and respect the tradition which underpins it, without subscribing to it; I can write my monthly article for the local Anglican parish magazine and never pull Anglican legs; I can call "heretic" the friend who tells me that I am but a lackey of the Roman Mission in England and Wales; meanwhile I can leave it to Rome to persuade the Archbishop of Canterbury that true union means that we all profess the one true Faith (I'll forgive ACN the lower case "f" in Faith.)

It also means that "fish and chips" ecumenism is a dead letter: lowest common denominator Christianity is not something we subscribe to. We can do something more Christian than pretend that "we all believe in the same thing fundamentally". We can esteem and respect, and even encourage, our separated brethren for the things they hold which belong to the Deposit of the Faith. But we can also, and at the same time, esteem and respect ourselves for those elements of the Faith which we hold and they don't.

This may mean that when things like "Christian Unity Week" come round, we decide that it would be untrue to our Faith to pretend that unity will come about just because we all gather together, and that therefore unity is on its way: we may decide to be a bit more honest about our ability "to profess the same faith, that of the one Church".

What's in a Motu Proprio - a Mass by any other Rite ...

In an excited and premature message about the Holy Father's Motu Proprio about the celebration of the Tridentine Rite of Mass, Father Zuhlsdorf wrote:

"1) The document will definitely be a Motu Proprio. (That means it will be from the Pope and not a document of a Congregation or joint document issued by different dicasteries.)

2) At the beginning of November it was in its final draft, after four revisions.

3) During the third week of November it was suggested that the document might come out in about three weeks. This would put it around… well… now.

4) It will authorize private celebration of Mass with the 1962 Missal by any priest as he chooses. Public Masses will be regulated by the bishop.

5) What a "private" Mass is will be defined in the document. A number will be established for what constitutes a "private" Mass. Provided the group is that size, no permission of the bishop will be necessary.

6) If I understand it right, and I admit I might be confused, there might be something in the document about greater numbers of people (than what would constitute a "private" Mass) being allowed to attend without the bishop’s permission so long as a Mass in the Novus Ordo is first provided for those who want it. I am not sure about this element, but it might be a prudent solution. If I am right about this element of the document, the idea would be to ensure that a priest doesn’t simply stop offering people the chance to attend the Novus Ordo and thus force everyone to go to the older form. See what I mean?

7) The document will stress the obligation of bishops to be "generous" in allowing the older form of Mass to be offered publicly with language much strong than that in the Motu Proprio "Ecclesia Dei adflicta" of John Paul II. "

Let's imagine he's spot on.

Imagine the excitement! We've got it! The Old Rite is back!

But let's imagine what the Hierarchy will say. (Obviously this is guesswork: I have no inside track on what the Catholic Bishops' Conference in England and Wales is planning. And it would be wrong to imagine that the Episcopal Conference plans against gossip about a putative Motu Proprio.) But how likely does the following sound.

"Private Masses are not the 0930 Mass that the Parish Newsletter advertises for every weekday.

Private Masses are not, in fact, to be advertised, because they are "private".

You can have a few people round but under the same conditions as for a "House Mass" in the Novus Praxis.

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

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

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

No unreordering of Churches may take place just to favour celebration of the Old Rite.

The Novus Ordo must always have primacy over the Vetus Ordo.

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

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

Pastoral Letters: what are Bishops for?

That useful web page: http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/dioc/dioceses.htm: gives us a link to all of the diocesan websites in England and Wales. Shrewsbury's is under reconstruction, and Wrexham's needs some sort of special permission which I don't have. But the other 20 are all there (though the Bishop of the Armed Forces is not listed).

I thought it might be useful to compare and contrast the Advent pastoral letters from our Bishops. But I was surprised to find that only 8 of the 20 sites listed one. It might have been a case of late posting, I thought, but two or three offered a letter on the feast of Christ the King, and the remainder made clear that pastoral letters are not something that the Bishops think of as a priority nowadays.

Now, my memory leads me to think that when I was young Bishop Holland of Salford used to send us 4 or 5 letters a year. It's clear, from looking at each Bishop's index of pastoral letters, that this doesn't happen any more. I wonder why not.

"Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task 'to preach the Gospel of God to all men,' in keeping with the Lord's Command." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 888)

The Bishop of Clifton is, by the way, the only one to offer us a podcast of him reading his own letter: "Let Us Pod" is the greeting on the diocesan home page. He quotes seven different people on his website who say how well done it was.

The content is, well, variable. But well done Cardiff, Clifton, E Anglia, Leeds, Middlesborough, Nottingham, Salford and Southwark for taking the trouble to mark the start of the Church's year by assuming that we might want some guidance from the Head of our local Church.

Who will be the new Cardinal Archbishop?

Betting on the next Archbishop of Westminster takes us a long way from Barchester, but the fundamental question – who will be the next Bishop? – is as important for the Church in England and Wales as it was for Barchester.

Let us take as read that all of the potential candidates are holy and prayerful men, that there are no skeletons in their closets, that what we see is what we get, and every other cliché in the book.

I will try not to introduce personal preference into the equation (with one major exception) but invite you to look at the cardinabile.

Let us start with the betting.

The latest odds from Paddy Power (the titles come from the website) are as follows:
Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 7-2
Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 7-2
Fr Aidan Nichols 5-1
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 11-2
Bishop William Kenney 6-1
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 10-1
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 10-1
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 10-1
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 10-1
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 12-1
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Rt Rev Michael Evans 16-1
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 16-1
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Bishop John Rawsthorne 20-1
Bishop John Patrick Crowley 33-1

Paddy Power opened a book because people wanted to bet. He (let’s think of Paddy as the man in the ring, a faded tweed suit, a nose for something going on) took a bit of advice from inside the track, came up with a list, and has started to adjust the odds according to the way people are putting their money. I doubt that the Apostolic Nuncio, whose recommendation will carry the significant weight, was consulted, or that he will be having a flutter. So the list represents a combination of the views of the different sorts of Catholic Insider whom our friend Paddy trusts.

Two strong currents of thought suggest themselves immediately: the secular insider and the regular outsider. The latter first: two Dominicans and a Benedictine. Abbot Christopher Jamison is known for his programme on BBC2 in which he welcomed a series of social misfits to a Monastery and taught them about the Rule of St Benedict. Fr Timothy Radcliffe has a Catholic agenda which differs from the Pope’s. Fr Aidan Nichols has a Catholic agenda is far closer to the Pope’s than his Dominican brother, but has never managed anything like an Abbey or a Province, or, well, anything.

So why are the orders such a strong undercurrent? The Church in England and Wales received a message from Rome recently when William Kenney CP was named as the new Auxiliary in Birmingham. He was Auxiliary Bishop in Stockholm and was named ahead of all of the aspirant Vicars General in England and Wales. I don’t think we’ll see a regular at Westminster – at least, not any of the ones in the list – but there is a strong message that they are getting right something which the secular clergy aren’t.

The seculars: the question must by why Archbishop Nichols isn’t the only horse in the race. He was favourite to succeed Cardinal Hume but was moved to Birmingham to allow Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor to sort out the sexual scandals in the Church and give him a clear run at leading the Church without the distraction of a press concentrating on paedophilia. And MO’C, it was thought, was sufficiently middle class to maintain the social position of the Church which Cardinal Hume had won for it. Archbishop Nichols has spent much of the time since the death of Pope John Paul II acting as the senior Catholic churchman in England and Wales. And yet he is still only equal favourite with Archbishop McDonald, whose translation to Southwark was itself a surprise – even a shock – to the hierarchy.

Bishop Hopes is on the list because he knows the diocese; Bishop Kenney has only just arrived from Scandinavia, and once we get to 10-1, I think we have any Bishop anybody might put a few pounds on (though Bishops Roche and Smith are dark horses and might well end up a lot closer to the top of the list which goes to the Vatican than their position in Paddy Power’s list suggests.

Archbishop Kelly’s inclusion is, I trust, an invitation to Liverpudlians to throw some money away on what look like good odds. It is hard to think of a Bishop more imbued with the “spirit of Vatican II” and as he is now doing on a large scale to Liverpool what he did on a smaller scale in Salford, the fruits of that particular spirit are being made manifest. (Here is the man who wanted to experiment with starting the Mass with the Gloria rather than with a penitential rite, and who decided that in the Salford diocese, Confirmation should precede Communion and should be given as a matter of course by the Parish Priest.)

It’s still early to call the result: indeed, MO’C might well be asked to stay on for a year or two more. But as Archbishop’s Nichols campaign looks increasingly strained, the prospects look more and more interesting.

Something to think about

"Patriarch Bartholomew, in his own homily, did not directly address the practical questions of ecumenism, although he referred to the Pontiff as "our brother and bishop of the elder Rome." Instead the Orthodox prelate centered his remarks on the Divine Liturgy, and the lessons to be learned from the ceremony. "The Liturgy," he said, "teaches us to broaden our horizon and vision, to speak the language of love and communion, but also to learn that we must be with one another in spite of our differences and even divisions." The Divine Liturgy, the Patriarch observed, points the Christian community in three directions: "toward the kingdom of heaven where the angels celebrate; toward the celebration of the liturgy through the centuries; and toward the heavenly kingdom to come." In this "overwhelming continuity with heaven as well as with history," he said, the Church finds the principle on which Christian unity must be based."

Top Patriarch!