Apostolicae Curae 2008

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"It also seems to us that the Anglican commitment to being ‘episcopally led and synodically governed’ has not always functioned in such a way as to maintain the apostolicity of the faith, and that synodical government misunderstood as a kind of parliamentary process has at times blocked the sort of episcopal leadership envisaged by Cyprian and articulated in ARCIC."

Cardinal Kasper. Lambeth. July 2008

Something Else

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I am becoming addicted to www.gloria.tv which isn't from Tuvalu, but is a sort of Catholic YouTube. This is one episode from the Catechism.

From Ecône To Rome

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Blogging is sometimes a way for great truths to be expounded. Here a Mancunian (even if his vocation is universal, you can't take Manchester out of the boy) blogger tells a great truth to the world about the SSPX and the Church.

There is no rancour: indeed, no need for rancour. This is a humbling story which disproves (without ever setting out to disprove) the canard we sometimes still face of Catholics having to give up our intelligence to belong to our Church.

There is room for a UK branch of the Good Shepherd Institute: I'd love to see a Bishop who might invite the Institute to set one up.

Catholics Come Home!

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With Portuguese Subtitles

Baker, Oregon

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That's in America. It has a Catholic Diocese, which has a Catholic Bishop. It sent its Bishop to the World Youth Day in Australia, and he catechised. His catechetical gifts impressed catechists: see here!

What impressed me most was that Bishop Vasa (Thanks for the ciorrection, Athanasius) has put in place pastoral guidelines for his Diocese calling on anybody whose role within the Church entails a presumption of orthodoxy has to make an affirmation of orthodoxy. I wonder if we could have anything similar here.

AFFIRMATION OF PERSONAL FAITH

The Church requires the making of a Profession of Faith by various persons when they undertake specific duties related to Church administration and teaching. (cf. Canon 833)

In the Diocese of Baker this has been expanded to include those who take on the ecclesial duties of Catechist, Liturgical Reader, Cantor, Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion and other Church positions which entail a presumption of orthodoxy.

“I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church teaches, believes and proclaims to be revealed by God.” In particular:

I affirm and believe the Church’s teaching about the inviolability of human life. In accord with that teaching I affirm that human life is sacred and must be protected and respected from the moment of conception until natural death. I affirm that I reject direct, intentional abortion and I do not recognize the legitimacy of anyone’s claim to a moral right to form their own conscience in this matter. I am not pro-choice. I further attest that I am not affiliated with, nor supportive of, any organization which supports, encourages, provides or otherwise endorses abortion or euthanasia. (cf. CCC 2270-2283)

I affirm and believe the Church’s teaching about the sinfulness of contraception. I affirm, in accord with the teachings of the Church that “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil. (CCC 2370)

I affirm and believe that every person is called to chastity in accord with their present state of life and that it is only in marriage between man and woman that the intimacy of spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. (CCC 2337—2365)

I accept the Church’s teaching that any extra-marital sexual relationships are gravely evil and that these include pre-marital relations, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations.

I affirm and believe the teaching of the Church about the evil of homosexual acts. I accept the formulation in the Catechism which states: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (CCC 2357)

I affirm and believe all that the Church teaches about the Reality and Presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist. Specifically I believe that Jesus is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity under each of the forms of bread and wine and that receiving either one is Communion with the whole Christ. I recognize that worship and adoration are appropriate, not only during Mass but also outside of Mass and that the Most Holy Eucharist must always be handled with the utmost care and devotion. (CCC 1373-1381)

I affirm and believe the teachings of the Church regarding Mary, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church. I accept with the Church that it is fitting and proper to honor the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. (CCC 963-975)

I affirm and believe that it is possible for a person to choose to remain separated from God for all eternity and that “This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”” (CCC 1033)

I affirm and believe that those who die in God’s grace and friendship but are still imperfectly purified undergo additional purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joys of heaven. I affirm that the Church’s name for this final purification is Purgatory. (CCC 1030-1032)

I affirm and believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and embrace the teachings about that Church as enunciated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (cf. CCC 748-962)

I affirm and believe that the Church teaches with God-given authority and that the promise of Christ to remain with His Church always, until the end of time is a reality. I further acknowledge that those teachings pronounced in a definitive manner, even though not as an infallible definition, are binding on the consciencesof the faithful and are to be adhered to with religious assent. (CCC 892)

To these and to all the teaching of the Catholic Church I give my assent. I attest that I believe these things and, while I am aware of my own sinfulness and shortcomings, I strive in my beliefs and life style to conform to this Affirmation of Personal of Faith.

New Film About St Philip Howard

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Available here, and for only £12.99 + £1.25 p&p:

"A new and inspiring film telling the fascinating story of Saint Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, martyred in the Tower of London for his Catholic faith. This short film is told in Saint Philip's own words and is a moving and interesting journey set in 16th Century England. With historical images, original footage and a beautiful original soundtrack 'Philip of Arundel' seeks to renew interest and devotion in an inspiring Catholic Englishman so important for today."

I thought it was a film, but both the site and the trailer are coy about whether there is any drama, or whether this is a DVD of spoken word with a few pictures.

The subject is promising.

Everything Wrong With Modern Catholic Music In One Video

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Well, nearly.

"How not to sing the Salve Regina", according to Chris Gillibrand here.

But also, why should the priest rearrange the altar to suit the guitarist? Is the guitar a suitable liturgical instrument? Why translate, especially when the Latin version of the Salve Regina is intelligible to most Italians? Should those leading liturgical singing be able to sing?

Sounds Unfamiliar

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School holidays mean changed patterns of life for parents. This week I found myself using the bus to get to and from work most days. I noticed that Fr Z (whom God preserve!) had a podcast interview with Fr Tim Finigan so I decided to download it for the journey.

A minor point is to download Fr Z's podcasts to an mp3 player which has a fast forward facility (mine doesn't), otherwise having heard his introduction to a piece by the Seraphic Doctor and then the reading itself in English, you then have to listen in Latin as well; if you press "next track" you skip the rest of the piece completely and then have to start again from the beginning.

However, the greatest shock was that neither Fr Z nor Fr Finigan sounded like themselves. I've never heard the voice of either of them, of course, but "knew" what they sound like from having seen their pictures and having read what they've written. And they sound completely wrong.

This must have been a lot more common in the days before radio and TV - that you build a 3D image of somebody from their words, or maybe their words and a picture - and I find it's rather nice that the Internet takes us back, rather than forwards.

I suppose it would make a good meme: describe five well known bloggers (or their voices and accents) whom you've never met based purely on what you've seen in their blogs; but the possibility of offending people (however unwittingly) would never be far away.

More From The Suppository

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Fr Mildew is as close as I come to reading The Suppository. He includes a wonderful paragraph:

"'Taking a stand' is the title of a provocative article by Fr Shaun Middleton who is amongst those who object to what the Holy Father is doing in the way of his vestments, the prospect of a new and better translation of the Missal, and of course, the return of the Old Rite. You may be surprised to learn he is thinking about having a new society 'The Society of Pope Paul VI' for those who have a particular affection for the 1964 missal and the present ICEL translation. They wish to encourage rubrical flexibility which will reallow priests to leave the sanctuary for the sign of peace, that communion in the hand is reverent and altar rails are an anachonism. He says that the conscience of many Catholic priests is being tested by the subtle reform of the reform that seems to be going on at the moment."

I wish sometimes that priests like this would have the same courage of their convictions - stand up, tell the Pope he's wrong, get kicked out - that the SSPX, the Lefebvrists, had. That way we can get shut of all of them until they come to their senses and realise that their opinion and God's Holy and Revealed Magisterium don't have equal value.

Incidentally, I tried from the website to find out who owns The Tablet. The only thing for sure is that it is owned by the same people as own The Pastoral Review (another sink of 1970s Stalino-Catholic mire). We're not payingfor it from the collection, surely!

Problems With Blogger At The Weekend

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Did anybody else who uses Orange as their ISP have problems accessing Blogger at the weekend? I couldn't get on at all except via a proxy, even with disabling the software and hardware firewalls, and I wasn't going to trust my username and password to a proxy.

Orange is a wonderful ISP, right up to the very rare instance when there is a problem. At that point it gets dire: one day last year I rang up to ask for confirmation that there was a problem at the exchange and was told to reinstal my operating system! When I contacted them yesterday to ask if there was a problem, they sent me instructions on how to disable a firewall ...

Still, when I complained last year that after years with Freeserve, then Wanadoo, then Orange, that I had had two problems in a couple of weeks and had received dismal customer support, they offered me an exceptionally good package to stay with them.

A New Blogroll

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I'm trying out Blogger's new blogroll facility. The only choice is "most recently updated" or "alphabetical order". I don't like either!

I've done some addition and subtraction as well.

Why I Like Living Here

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Did anybody watch the last episode of the current series of Dr Who? If so you might have seen this picture.

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Now, you probably didn't try ringing the number, but if you had, what would you have found?

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That it is a sort of real number. Ofcom has reserved a large series of numbers for dramatic purposes and has published them on the Internet, here.

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So, if you ever see a programme which has an advert asking you to ring an 01632 number, or an 0161 496 xxxx number, you know that it's officially fake, and not pretend fake.

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I like living somewhere where people care enough to make sure about this sort of thing.

The Fight Not Yet Begun

I spent much of the last week or so amidst the arguments of the Universe's forum, and was left with little energy to blog. But the anniversary of the Motu Proprio, and some of the comments on the forum led me to reflect on where we are, and just how far we have to go.
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The Pope's concession is a lifeline to traditional Catholicsm, but, by itself, little else. There are two reasons why.

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First, it isn't 1962 in the world. The world has moved on significantly since 1962, and the kind of parish life, indeed, the kind of parishioner, who was around in 1962 has gone for ever. People are richer and are less used to doing what everybody else is doing, whether that means watching Sunday Night at the London Palladium or going to Church. The idea that the PP in most parishes could get fifty men to Church each Wednesday evening for a Men's Confraternity meeting followed by Benediction and a trip to the Catholic Club is an idea about the faraway past or the distant future.

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It isn't 1962 in the Church either. The ecclesiology of the Catholic Church in 2008 will cope with the odd celebration of the 1962 Liturgy but it cannot allow large communities to live the 1962 Liturgy: that would be an open challenge to those whose world view is expressed in "the spirit of Vatican II". An ecclesiology which admits lay people to the Altar during the Mass to do things proper to the priest in 1962 is so different as to be antithetic.
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This is one way the SSPX have got things so badly wrong: they have tried to organise themselves as though it were still 1962: well, it isn't.
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The second reason is 1962: why the 1962 Liturgy? That 1962 represents the last point at which the Liturgy, however hacked about and mutilated, was still the hacked about and mutilated but recognizably the 1600 year old Gregorian Liturgy is no reason to hold that version as some sort of high point in the History of the Church in the West. When will the competent authorities look at the reforms of Pius XII and wonder whether, after 50 years of experiment, they were perhaps not such a good idea after all.
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At which point, we would be, effectively, back to the time of Pope St Pius X, and the 1911 reform of the Breviary. This reform was the first significant liturgical fruit of the active ultramontanism enshrined in Vatican I, and included the abandonment of the recitation of the Laudate psalms at Lauds, a practice believed to be inherited from the synagogue itself, because le Pape le veult.
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This is only a point of view. But it looks to me that the fight ahead is one of mindset, and we need to realise that the Pope, by reauthorising the general use of the 1962 liturgical books, is buying time rather than answering any of the very big questions that are raised if there is anything at all in my point of view.

Wuthering Heights

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Courtesy of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (one of our underpraised, underappreciated national treasures).

Prime Minister Heathcliff

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So, Gordon Brown compares himself to Heathcliff. According to the Telegraph, the owner of the Bronte Paronsage Museum in Yorkshire says:

"Heathcliff is a man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, possibly murder, and digging up his dead lover. He is moody and unkind to animals."

Two more years ...

O Felix Culpa!

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Adam lay y-bounden,
Bounden in a bond;
Four thousand winter
Thought he not too long;
And all was for an apple,
An apple that he took,
As clerkes finden written
In their book.

Ne had the apple taken been,
The apple taken been,
Ne had never Our Lady
A-been heaven's queen.
Blessed be the time
That apple taken was!
Therefor may we singen
Deo Gracias!

Bob Geldof on Liberty

H/t to Iain Dale for copying an excerpt from the speech Bob Geldof made for David Davies at Haltemprice & Howden. The full text, which is even better than this excerpt, is available here.

Let us be grand for once then, for we talk of great subjects. Let us ask ‘what is the point of England “ now that Parliament, whose primary purpose is to defend the liberties of the people have so gratuitously, so wantonly, so casually betrayed that trust and taken from us that same liberty which above all else defines this country and its constitution, and that which has been its greatest gift to the world its freedom, its tolerances, its civilisation which William Wilberforce so forcefully argued from this town so many centuries ago.Melville claimed for America “that it bears the Ark of the liberties of the world.” It could be better said of that Britain which invented and codified those freedoms.

Are Magna Carta, and Habeas Corpus not to mention the Anti-Slavery laws, to be traduced in one brief sad moment of political expediency. When a 800 years ago Britons told the state in words that still ring true and through the ages: “To no man will we deny, To no man will we delay, Justice and Right”. 42 days detention denies and delays Justice and Right. It is a clear breach of ancient right, of Magna Carta itself.

So what great existential threat does this country now face that did not face our forefathers of the past 1000 years. What is so grave the emergency now that neither civil war nor world war nor various terrorisms were considered so dangerous to our security that our oldest statutes -and few have lasted the 400 years relevance of habeas corpus - could be upended for such a ha’pnworth of momentary contemporary panic. If authority is to be respected it must be just. When it is not, then the greatest threat to that authority is its own instinct to authoritarianism.

These new security measures, these new limitations on our liberties are not the thin end of the wedge We’re way past that now. This is now, already, the bulkier mid way point of that authoritarian block. For we have in the past few years so mauled our ancient defended rights, rights for which bloody battles were fought and heroes lived and died for, as to seriously consider whether the constitution is today much more than a cartoon of its essential meaning. And what moral authority resides any longer in a lawmaking body that acts against the liberties of its own people? Is it not true that the willingness to use intolerable means to achieve impossible ends shows the political mind at its most deluded?

Meanwhile our supine press gulled by political complicity, lull the population to apathy by banging on with their trivial irrelevancies while the constitution is quietly turned aside. Shame on them. Alas they are shameless.

What terrorizes the terrorists is our civilization. What those unthinking fools of fundamentalism fear most are the very freedoms our representatives strip from us. Essentially this ‘war on terror’is a conflict waged against Islamist forces that claim to reject the Enlightenment. If that is so, then how can we ever succeed if we side with our opponents in rejecting those same ideals? Every moment we are spied on by the invisible watchers. Every time that we are recorded and monitored at every turn, on every purchase. Every time we are mandatorially logged, noted, tagged and followed on databanks and files because “it is in our best interest” They win. And every time we accept it, we lose. We must not hold this attitude of passive acceptance to these restraints on justice, rights and liberties that ultimately amounts to nothing more than complicity with intolerance.

Remember ...

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Courtesy of the Classic Canadian

A Shortage Of Seminarians?

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A couple of weeks ago, or so, Fr Dwight Longenecker in a combox mentioned casually, when asked why he had not become a Catholic Priest in England, that there were Bishops in England and Wales who were turning away perfectly good orthodox candidates for the priesthood to suit their own ecclesiological point of view. This is clearly nonsense: there is no way that a Catholic Bishop would do any such thing. I waited for the Priest bloggers to respond, or at least for the seminarians to do so. None did. It was still obviously nonsense: as if a Bishop would do that sort of thing!

Except, of course, for the (now gone to his eternal reward) Metropolitan Archbishop (whose nickname was "Slimy") who did exactly that to one of my very close friends - bearing false witness to do so: but that was a one off.

As was the example of a young man who had been told that believing that he had such a clear vocation to the priesthood at the age of 16 was a sign of hysteria, a sign that would only be shown to have cleared up when he married.

Or the University student who told the Diocesan Vocations Director that he said the Rosary every day and was answered "Get real!"

And then I reassured myself that these examples were from the 80s and early 90s and that I hadn't heard anything like that since. (Mind you, I don't mix with people of an age and condition who are likely to be opting to respond to a vocation to the priesthood at the moment.)

And I start wondering again about what Fr L wrote.

The Westminster Stakes: Confusing Signals

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I am sure that Paddy Power is as convinced today as he was a week and a half ago that Archbishop Nichols has this in the bag but this afternoon, the Archbishop's odds have lengthened to 13-8, and nearly every other runner's odds have lengthened as well, most to the point where reality about their prospects is finally reflected in their price. However Fr Ignatius Harrison of the London Oratory has entered the running at 10-1: this is somebody taking the mickey, paying Paddy a few bob to get their friend's name on to the list.

Who is advising Paddy on this one? Is changing the odds simply about raising interest and attracting money? Or is he on to something?

And if the latter, why do Fr Timothy Radcliffe's odds remain so frighteningly and stubbornly short?

Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 13-8 (5-4) (2-1) (7-4) (2-1) (7-2)
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 6-1 (10-1) (6-1)
Dom Hugh Gilbert 8-1 (6-1) (4-1)
Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 8-1 (6-1) (5-1) (7-2)
Bishop William Kenney 10-1 (9-1) (8-1) (15-2) (6-1)
Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon 10-1 (8-1)
Very Rev. Fr. Ignatius Harrison 10-1
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 12-1 (10-1) (8-1) (6-1) (11-2)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 12-1 (10-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Fr T Finegan 16-1 (10-1)
Cardinal Pell 16-1 (12-1) (10-1)
Rt Rev Peter Smith 16-1 (12-1)
Fr Aidan Nichols 20-1 (14-1) (12-1) (11-1) (5-1) (6-1)
Bishop George Stack 20-1 (16-1)
Rt Rev Michael Evans 22-1 (20-1) (16-1)
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 25-1 (16-1) (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Fr Christopher Jamison 25-1 (20-1)
Bishop John Rawsthorne 25-1 (20-1)
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 25-1 (16-1) (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 33-1 (20-1) (16-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 33-1 (20-1) (16-1) (14-1) (12-1)
Bishop John Patrick Crowley Non-runner (33-1)

A Tirade Of Abuse After A Hard Week

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It was a hard week, honest, but it was punctuated one day by a farewell lunch at Champagne Charlie's underneath Charing Cross station which I left at half past seven after nearly eight hours!

Anyway ...

Four teenage boys who were confirmed asked the curate if they could become altar servers, and he asked them to serve one particular Mass, and while keen, reverent, and obviously trying hard, they were absolutely useless because while they had observed servers serving, they had never been trained. So, the curate asked me to take them in hand.

They have responded very well. We set as our aim that the best served Mass was one at which the congregation was unaware of how many servers there were, and during which the priest was never distracted or made to wait by something he needed's not being at exactly the right place at exactly the right time.

I also introduced, where possible, some of the things altar boys used to do: things like passing the cruet to the priest from the right hand and receiving it back in the left hand; or the triple ring of the bell at the elevation. The curate and the PP like it; the boys are happy (and keen to do more); and the congregation, insofar as it notices the servers any more, approves.

Until the weekend when the person with whom I had a disagreement a couple of weeks ago caught me outside the porch on the way out of Mass and, in a tirade of abuse, told me I was indoctrinating these boys to become Tridentinists, and to be like the priest's servants; for once the modern came to my rescue and I was able to ask why she thought they were called altar servers. "They are there to serve God, not the priest." But it was the three rings of the bell which most riled her: "it's mediaeval" she shouted.

I behaved properly, and didn't enter the discussion. This isn't a madwoman: she is highly educated and has a senior and responsible position. She is a Tabletista and a member of the Bishop's lay advisory group. And I think she is seeing her image of the Church slowly being toppled and knows that there is nothing she can do about it.

The Westminster Stakes: Archbishop Nichols, Says Paddy Power

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Archbishop Nicols is now as close to evens as we are likely to be going to see. Nobody else has moved. My guess is that this means one very big bet, or a reasonable number of medium-sized bets on the Archbishop of Birmingham.

REMINDER: the odds quoted below don't tell you what the Pope is thinking, as he looks at the possibles for Westminster: they tell you what "insiders" think is going to happen.

If I had ever put anything on Archbishop Nichols, I think I would be trying to lay it off: I can't think of anything that has happened recently that might advance his cause, other than a bunch of pious supporters punting at Paddy Power's.

The "Cardinal Pell for Westminster" movement seems to have gone very quiet: why?

I hope for his sake that Paddy isn't going to be as rash as he was in Ireland, paying out on a "Yes" referendum result before the count had even started.

Good fun, this, isn't it!

Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 5-4 (2-1) (7-4) (2-1) (7-2)
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 6-1 (10-1) (6-1)
Dom Hugh Gilbert 8-1 (6-1) (4-1)
Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon 8-1
Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 8-1 (6-1) (5-1) (7-2)
Bishop William Kenney 9-1 (8-1) (15-2) (6-1)
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 10-1 (8-1) (6-1) (11-2)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 10-1 (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Fr T Finegan 10-1
Cardinal Pell 12-1 (10-1)
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Fr Aidan Nichols 14-1 (12-1) (11-1) (5-1) (6-1)
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 16-1 (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 16-1 (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 20-1 (16-1) (14-1) (12-1)
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 20-1 (16-1)
Bishop George Stack 20-1 (16-1)
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Rt Rev Michael Evans 22-1 (20-1) (16-1)
Bishop John Rawsthorne 25-1 (20-1)
Bishop John Patrick Crowley Non-runner (33-1)

Pope Rage

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Fr Ray posted about Pope Rage and while I knew I had never met it, I recognised the sort of character who might be infected by it.

Then, this evening, I met one: somebody whose Parish now hosts Extraordinary Rite Mass; where, once a month - "every damn month" - the priest celebrates ad orientem: "the ******* turns his back on all of us and expects us just to watch his back"; and "says the Consecration bit in Latin whenever he wants to".

Her family has abandoned the parish, her husband has complained (though to whom is not quite clear), and anybody who disagrees with her is one of those "bad Benedictines" who want "to go back and pretend that Vatican II never happened".

She had thought that all present were Suppository readers.

She learned differently.

Books For Father's Day

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The sort of thing you wake up to on Father's Day in this house looks like this, though the books are all more or less the same size.

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"Amazing Tales for making Men out of Boys" is compendium of stories that we all used to know: Captain Scott; Sir John Moore; the Birkinhead; Rorke's Drift; but adds some new stories: the Penlee Lifeboat, for example; and some worth adding to the canon: Dien Bien Phu. These are the stories which evoke manliness and heroism.

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"Madresfield" is the story of a house and family, best known nowadays as the inspiration for Brideshead Revisited, but of genuine interest in its own right.

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"Terror and Consent" is the hard one. "He sets out with clarity and courage the first really comprehensive analysis of the struggle against terror" according to Tony Blair, and, for one, I agree with the ex-PM: as far as I've got in the book so far, he does.

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Inspiring, interesting, important: it's hard to better than that in three books.

Aliens Need Christ's Redemption Too

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In an article in this week's Catholic Herald, "American science fiction writer John C Wright, a recent convert to Catholicism, considers how the Church should react to the discovery of alien life forms".

I used to read science fiction almost to the exclusion of all other fiction, other than that which was set for me at school or university. I had thought I had grown out of it - until I read this article.

I'm not going into the arguments about what sort of alien could be christened: there are cleverer people than me to do that. Read Wright's article.

What thrilled me in this essay was this image:

"Here we can see, once again, what seems to be a theological question is really a question of the poverty of imagination. It is hard to imagine in a cosmos so wide that God would incarnate in one small world. But this is really no harder than to imagine that in a world so wide, that God would incarnate in some humble dung-ridden stable in the poorest and remotest province of the Roman Empire, and that the herald angels would seek out, not the wise and great, not the senators of almighty Rome nor the philosophers of Athens nor even the learned Levites in Jerusalem, but a band of unwashed and unlettered shepherds from the hills, to announce the heavenly tidings. Why a little world like Earth on the ragged outskirts of the galaxy? Well, why a poor province like Judea, on the ragged outskirts of the empire?

It is no cause for pride if Earth should turn out to be the only world where the Incarnation took place. God often selects the younger son, the poor fisherman, the tax-collector, the harlot and the sinner, the weakest and humblest things in the world to do his almighty work. Earth may have been selected because she is the lowest world in the galaxy, the cosmic equivalent of a stinking stable.

In any case, imagining that God selected a lowly stable for His cradle is no harder and no different than imagining God selected a lowly world for His cradle; the difference is only in the magnitude of what one's imagination can grasp. "

Adieu, SSPX!

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"Good liturgy is good. But at this point in time, I frankly don't want the SSPX back. They may be nice people, but they don't act like it. They may be Catholic, but they don't act like it. Not that it matters--they won't ever want to come back, anyway. And it's better for both of us that way."

This is from a comment on Rorate Caeli about Bishop Fellay's latest comments about the Pope and his trip to America. And freemasonry. And liberalism. The Yawn! quotient is high.

The SSPX has become irrelevant in a way that it wasn't a relatively short while ago.

From The Welsh

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O pilgrim wearied from the storm,
Lift up thy gaze, behold the scene;
The Lamb, he is our Mediator,
In vestments flowing low and free;
With faithfulness as golden girdle
Bells thereon proclaim the sound
Of full forgiveness for the sinner
By infinite Atonement found.

Remember in thy state of weakness
But ankle deep the waters rise -
Yet without number are the cubits
Measured to you from the skies;
Though children of the resurrection,
Swimming in these waters wide;
No depth nor width can ever span
The substance of Bethesda's tide.

O wondrous depths of our salvation!
The holy secret here we find,
The God of gods he has appeared
In flesh and nature of mankind;
Here's the Person, he who suffered,
For us beneath the law he groaned,
Until Justice cried 'Sufficient,
Let him free, he has atoned.'

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.

Ann Griffiths Bererin llesg gan rym y stormydd trans Fr John Ryan OMI MA PhD

Idle Speculation

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Not too long ago, the Telegraph speculated that the terna being presented to Rome for the Westminster succession consisted of Archbishop Vincent Nichols, Archbishop Peter Smith and Bishop Arthur Roche.

Since then, Archbishop Nichols has commited his unfortunate faux pas on Radio 4, but Archbishop Smith has contributed materially to the cancellation of the LMS Mass in Cardiff.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned here, Bishop MacMahon, the Dominican Bishop whose priests like him as much as if he had been chosen from the secular clergy, has suddenly torn into Paddy Power's lists.

Now, I'm not a believer in post hoc ergo propter hoc, but it is possible to speculate that the terna was received in Rome and a relatively junior curial official got straight back to the Nunciature in London: "you can't seriously expect us to put up a terna without a single religious"; only for a new terna to be sent to Rome, excluding one of the three on the list, but adding Bishop MacMahon. (Rabbit hole: I wonder if the curial official was French; he might appreciate a MacMahon.)

Idle speculation: that's all this is.

Evening

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(A bit of Imagism to help us on our way tonight.)

Evening

The chimneys, rank on rank,
Cut the clear sky;
The moon,
With a rag of gauze about her loins
Poses among them, an awkward Venus -

And here am I looking wantonly at her
Over the kitchen sink.

Richard Aldington

Belief In The Real Presence

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Jeffrey found this video and put it on the wrong blog!

The Blessed Sacrament enters Todedo Cathedral on the feast of Corpus Christi.

Is this a people which believes in the real presence? Yes - and how!

What Does The Red Light On The Freezer Mean?

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It means we'll be on a full fry tomorrow morning, and steak (steaks!) tomorrow evening. Luckily, it's bin day tomorrow, because the bin is now full to overflowing.

So I spoke to the home insurance claims line. The freezer (a Class A) is five years old, so we've no claim that it should be working as new, and we could claim for the contents, but we'd have to pay £100 excess, and then lose 5 years no-claims bonus on the whole of the contents insurance. In other words, we'll be out of pocket if we claim.

Basically, the motor carried on working, but the pump didn't. By the time we discovered it, the soft stuff was defrosted, and the meat was on the turn.

So, ring the council to come and collect the freezer (£35) and then off to buy a new one.

Ho hum.

The Westminster Stakes: A Late Entry

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Movement, and yet another Dominican enters the fray. Bishop McMahon enters at 8-1, and with the exception of Fr Radcliffe (in whose candidacy I steadfastly refuse to believe), everybody's odds, including Archbishop Nichols', begin to lengthen. Bishop Malcolm: the golfing Dominican; and even if he is a tad too keen on winning, he is the sort of religious Bishop whom the secular clergy warm to, as he feels like one of them. Not the manifesto I would have chosen, but a few punters have obviously gone for it already. (To be honest, it feels like floating a speculative tenner in the direction of David Milliband in a different context, and I wouldn't do that.)

How many Dominicans are there in England and Wales? How come three of them are on our list?

Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 2-1 (7-4) (2-1) (7-2)
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 6-1 (10-1) (6-1)
Dom Hugh Gilbert 8-1 (6-1) (4-1)
Rt Rev Malcolm McMahon 8-1
Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 8-1 (6-1) (5-1) (7-2)
Bishop William Kenney 9-1 (8-1) (15-2) (6-1)
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 10-1 (8-1) (6-1) (11-2)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 10-1 (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Fr T Finegan 10-1
Cardinal Pell 12-1 (10-1)
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Fr Aidan Nichols 14-1 (12-1) (11-1) (5-1) (6-1)
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 16-1 (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 16-1 (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 20-1 (16-1) (14-1) (12-1)
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 20-1 (16-1)
Bishop George Stack 20-1 (16-1)
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Rt Rev Michael Evans 22-1 (20-1) (16-1)
Bishop John Rawsthorne 25-1 (20-1)
Bishop John Patrick Crowley Non-runner (33-1)

The Catholic Herald's Report On Exorcism

This week's paper has a phenomenally uncompromising article reporting on the publication by the Catholic Truth Society of a new book about exorcism and possession by the Westminster diocesan exorcist. When was the last time such a concentrated list of Catholic teachings was given or could be inferred?

"Among the causes of homosexuality is a contagious demonic factor. Even heterosexual promiscuity is a perversion; and intercourse, which belongs in the sanctuary of married love, can become a pathway not only for disease but also for evil spirits."

"He said that the 'spirits inspiring atheism' were those who 'hate God'."

"He denounced the founders of Islam, the Mormons and the Moonies as 'false and heretical prophets' who led their followers into a 'demonic bond of conscience'."

"Beware of any claim to mediate beneficial energies (eg reiki), any courses that promise the peace that Christ promises (eg enneagrams), any alternative therapy with its roots in eastern religions (eg acupuncture)."

"What is called the New Age Movement is paganism reduced to absurdity but unfortunately it has not lost its poison in the process."

This is a book which is certainly on the "to buy" list, but it comes with a dilemma. Should I buy this from the CTS direct (so that they make all of the money), or from Amazon, so that even if CVTS don't make as much, the chances are that it starts appearing on "readers who bought this also bought" lists?

Either way, here is a Catholic priest who has managed to get into the (Catholic, at least) mainstream a book which states eternal truths uncompromisingly. He probably deserves a prayer or two, in thanks.

Champions, Again!

I might try sleeping tonight.

The Britishness Debate

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Courtesy of Dizzy.

Being British is about driving a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then when travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab. Then when you get home sitting in a Swedish chair to watch American T.V shows on a Japanese television.Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house quicker than an ambulance.

Only in Britain do Supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions, whilst healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front of the store. Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and a cheap lawn mower in the garage.

Only in Britain do we have disabled parking spaces in the car park of a Skating Rink.

The Westminster Stakes: Endgame?

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There are a lot of people out there who believe that Archbishop Nichols has this one in the bag and are putting their money on him. Abbot Hugh Gilbert's meteor is waning; Fr Radcliffe's star inexplicably continues to burn; and the rest are either clinging on to their odds or are waning seriously.

Remember: this has NOTHING at all to do with whom the Pope will select, but everything to do with how the people who bet on this sort of thing (mainly Catholic insiders from the UK and Ireland) read the tea leaves. Are they forgetting that coffee grounds are used in Rome? Are they banking on a strong consistent message from the Episcopal Conference of England and Wales, allied to curial agreement, breaking down any resistance from a Holy Father? Is this a sign that the money is being piled on in anticipation of a decision to be announced imminently? It's good fun, this is.

Rt Rev Vincent Nichols 7-4 (2-1) (7-2)
Dom Hugh Gilbert 6-1 (4-1)
Fr Timothy Radcliffe 6-1 (10-1) (6-1)
Rt Rev Kevin McDonald 8-1 (6-1) (5-1) (7-2)
Rt Rev Alan Hopes 8-1 (6-1) (11-2)
Bishop William Kenney 8-1 (15-2) (6-1)
Rt Rev Arthur Roche 10-1 (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Fr T Finegan 10-1
Cardinal Pell 12-1 (10-1)
Fr Aidan Nichols 12-1 (11-1) (5-1) (6-1)
Rt Rev Peter Smith 12-1
Archbishop Michael Louis Fitzgerald 116-1 (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Patrick Kelly 16-1 (14-1) (12-1) (10-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Bernard Longley 16-1 (14-1) (12-1)
Rt Rev Michael Evans 20-1 (16-1)
Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue 20-1 (16-1)
Bishop George Stack 20-1 (16-1)
Fr Christopher Jamison 20-1
Bishop John Rawsthorne 25-1 (20-1)
Bishop John Patrick Crowley Non-runner (33-1)

Sixty Five Years On: The Dambusters

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Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar!

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"Vulga, vulgar, vulgar!" was the comment of a courtier on the Duchess of York (Sarah Ferguson that is, not Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon).



If she is three times vulgar, how on earth are we ever going to find language to cope with Cherie Blair?

There's A Hole In My Budget

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May Is Mary's Month

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Fifty good reasons to say the Rosary and some young people's music.

My sort of YouTube video, and my hat tipped to Cathcon.

Warning! Mexican Alert!

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If anybody else receives an e-mail from "Espiritu Santo" from a Mexican yahoo address, just delete it, unss you want to read 70 pages of "The Holy Spirit's Revelation for these times". I think the author - Rafael - is possibly a bit on the bewildered side, and might be worth a prayer.

Cherie Blair

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What are the chances that her Confessor will rebuke her, not just for her use of contraceptives, but for her making a public statement that she only abstained from using them at Balmoral because servants would place them around the bathroom?

Now, leaving aside the fact that servants who behaved like that would be sacked by any family that employed servants; leaving aside Cherie's comments about "contraceptive equipment"; are we allowed to ask what "being Catholic" means to Mrs B, and are we allowed to ask if her husband believes in her religion or in the Church's?

Jimmy Mizen RIP

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At the weekend, my children were discussing my impending couple of days in London and, while worried about the number of people being murdered in London, concluded that I was safe because only teenagers get murdered. So much for any attempts I may have made to have them think for themselves and not believe everything they see on TV or in the paper.

One thing that they have understood is that Jimmy Mizen's parents operate on a different plane to most adults they know, their own parents included. I can't imagine being able humanly to face such evil with such good: what a tremendous witness to Catholicsm; what a tremendous lesson for us all.

Champions!

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Bring on Moscow!

Facebook: Very Bad language Alert!

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Various of you wont like this so don't click on the YouTube link if bad language puts you off.

If you think that Facebook is wonderful, have a look at this allegory.

If one person thinks twice before adding personal information to their facebook page, this will not have been in vain.

Just This Once - Politics!

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A new tax code, inspired by the abolition of the 10% rate means that I (plutocrat high rate tax payer than I am) have seen my take home pay rise by just under 1%, which is somewhat lower than the rate of inflation. My wife, whose wage is a lot lower than mine was able to celebrate a 1% cut; this is a lot lower than the rate of inflation. Believe it or not, this is not my point.

We received our pay advice last Monday, three days before pay day, four days before the date of the local elections. Who on earth would vote for anybody whose idea of slipping bad news through was to do so just before an election? How can a party which receives such ridiculously bad advice consider itself fit for government?

And, yes! I am feeling ratty, having been told that next Tuesday's meeting in London has to start at 0800, which means I have to stay over on Monday.

The Battle Of The Atlantic And More Musings

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Here's a different take on what has become part of our national story, a different take which ought to be accreted to ours. Too much time studying the Battle of the Atlantic in 1941-42, during the last few weeks, led me by happy mistake to this, from Das Boot.



A German friend told me that during the World Cup in 2006 one of the pieces of cultural information that had to be passed to the German police who were protecting the stadiums in which the English team was to play was what, when they tried to verify the identity of ticket holders, the cry of "Don't tell them your name, Pike!" meant. The nice thing was that after it had been explained, everyone laughed and understood.

Imagine another evening and a mixed bunch of British and German civilians and military, all in a theatre of conflict far from home, though this time on the same side, a couple of slabs of German lager, and a British set of videos of "Blackadder Goes Forth". They were all watched, from start to finish; more than 10 years on, those who watched are still the truest of friends.

The Heresy Of Formlessness

I glanced through a copy of Martin Mosebach's "Heresy of Formlessness" before I had really started to think about what "traditionalism", for want of a better word, was really about. I thought that the book was an apologia for the SSPX and didn't really take all that much notice of it.

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Moretben, and Daniel Mitsui, kept mentioning it, but I took it to be a something that appealed to "extreme trads": it is always amazing how well I can rationalise my ignorance.

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Then Fr Ray quoted Mosebach:

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"Perhaps the greatest damage done by Pope Paul VI's reform of the Mass (and by the ongoing process that has outstripped it), the greatest spiritual deficit, is this: we are now positively obliged to talk about the liturgy. Even those who want to preserve the liturgy or pray in the spirit of the liturgy, and even those who make great sacrifices to remain faithful to it - all have lost something priceless, namely, the innocence that accepts it as something God-given, something that comes down to man as gift from heaven.

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Those of us who are defenders of the great and sacred liturgy, the classical Roman liturgy, have all become - whether in a small way or in a big way - liturgical experts. In order to counter the arguments of the reform, which was padded with technical, archæological, and historical scholarship, we had to delve into questions of worship and liturgy - something that is utterly foreign to the religious man. We have let ourselves be led into a kind of scholastic and juridical way of considering the liturgy. What is absolutely indispensable for genuine liturgy? When are the celebrant's whims tolerable, and when do they become unacceptable? We have got used to accepting liturgy on the basis of the minimum requirements, whereas the criteria ought to be maximal. And finally, we have started to evaluate liturgy - a monstrous act! We sit in the pews and ask ourselves, was that Holy Mass, or wasn't it? I go to church to see God and come away like a theatre critic. "

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and I decided to reread the book. In a way, I wish I hadn't, because I have no answers to any of the points Mosebach makes so eloquently, and I am left wondering if I ever will.
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"Now it was quiet. Everyone was kneeling, and Professor Gessner was whispering, turning pages in the Missal, and Hermann in his soutane was kneeling beside him, the bell in one hand while, with the other, he held the chasuble up a little. Professor Gessner bent forward and whispered a little more distinctly, then genuflected; the little bell was rung, and he lifted a little, white, round wafer high in the air while the bell rang three times, and Ludwig forgot that Hermann had taken the wafer from the wooden box and put it on the little golden plate on top of the chalice. This white disc in a cloud of incense - he did not see it as something material at all, or rather, he saw it, for one moment, as something very fine and delicate, like solidified light. Then the hands came down and Professor Gessner started reading in a whisper again."
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Will we ever see the day when this is so much the norm that it will be unremarkable?
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"It belongs to the Catholic faith to endeavour to express the truth in irreducible paradoxes; and it is one of these paradoxes that, while Catholicism is not a book religion, it cannot find a better and more meaningful way of expressing this fact than in a book - the Missal. Holy Scripture is present in this Missal - in the selection of pericopes, translated into Latin, and in virtue of the context in which they are set (for instance, the way in which Old and New Testaments reciprocally explain one another); but tradition is also present, it too understood as revelation; and finally there is the revelation of the sacraments - Christ's healing and blessing presence, mediated through the Church."
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Which edition of the Missal could that possibly be?

Holydays: I'm Thoroughly Confused

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Tres jueves hay en al año
Que relucen más que el sol:
Jueves Santo, Corpus Christi
Y el día de la Ascensión.

(There are three Thursdays in the year which shine brighter than the sun: Holy Thursday, Corpus Christi and Ascension Thursday.)

Let's see if I've got this right. The feast of the Ascension was last Thursday. The obligation to attend Mass for the Ascension is observed on Sunday. So the celebration of Thursday's feast of the Ascension is on Sunday. You can't celebrate Thursday's feast on Thursday; you can only celebrate Thursday's feast on Sunday. There is no Seventh Sunday, so we will not hear the reading from the Acts which tells us "what happened next" after the Ascension.

It sounds like one of those tea towels with an explanation of the Laws of Cricket.

The Moral Compass And Subsequent Musing

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There are some things that happen that are beyond any sort of glib reaction. The Holocaust or 9/11; what has just been discovered in Austria. You can't blame people for not having imagined the previously incredible depths of depravity to which the Devil will tempt people: in fact not being able to imagine these sorts of thing is an indication that the moral compass is pointing in the right direction.

If I'm right, then the Pope's reaction (both as Cardinal Ratzinger and subsequently) to the clerical abuse scandal is indicative of a moral compass which points unswervingly north: he had literally not imagined that this could happen.

Now: Josef Ratzinger is a holy man and as such will be a special target of the Devil. He will have known all sorts of temptation. I wonder if part of the support that God gives to the truly holy is a Guardian Angel whose job is to keep them truly innocent. Of course he (this is the truly holy man or woman now, not JR personally) is tempted: of course at times he will succumb to temptation; but the temptations that he undergoes are appropriate to his holiness, and aren't all tabloid and vulgar like mine are.

When, in early 1945, the Nazi CO of his batallion asked the new recruits what they wanted to be when they grew up, most of them answered "Fighter Pilot" or "General"; JR answered "Parish Priest". I wish GKC were alive to write about him.