Serving the TLM

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Once a week, I serve Mass for a priest who has learned the EF but who is not allowed to celebrate it publically. I have to serve for him sometimes when nobody else is present, because, as the Mass is not public or announced, the only people who come to it are those whom he or I invite, and there is an understanding that invitations are not a way of making these private Masses public or regular celebrations: anybody who comes thinks it's a secret one-off.

It is hard to express just how special it is to serve a priest when there is nobody else present, especially when he says Mass at a great High Altar which was built as an expression of the triumph of the Holy Sacrifice. The server's role is always subservient to the priest's, but the Priest always emphasises his unworthiness, and as a result, the craftsman and his apprentice, Don Quixote and Sancho, approach the altar as one person who happens to be able to do something he scarcely ought to, and his assistant who worries that he can only get things wrong.

And in amidst the mistakes, the mispronunciations, the difficulties with working out the optional memoria, God appears on the altar and humbles us. After he has had Communion the priest turns and holds up the tiny white focus of light that I am about to recieve and gives me the chance to say on my behalf and on behalf of the odd visitor who happens to be there that we aren't actually worthy just before God gives us Himself anyway.

The moment the server sees which nobody else does comes just before the Consecration: as the priest prepares to bring God to earth, in the final moment before he commences to say the prayer Jesus said, he runs his fingers and thumb along the cloth on which the host is resting to ensure that any speck of anything which might have touched his fingers since the Lavabo, a few minutes before, when they were cleaned, can be removed. How much does what is about to happen matter!

Thinking Back

Sat in the back garden, watching huge cumulus slowly pass behind the hill like clippers in full sail, like in a film about the Battle of Britain, only in colour, my mind goes back to pasts I know, even though they take place before I was born.

Courtesy of Cathcon, I find my way to the site of Pathe News, and discover that the Whit Walks in Manchester from the 20s and 30s are now available for all to see here. This selection covers the years in which each of my parents made their First Holy Communion: are they here?

And in the wake of Archbishop Nichol's Enthronement, look here at those of Archbishops Griffin and Godfrey, and here at Archbishop Heenan's. Look especially at this last one and see somebody who really fits into the vestments and the role. Here is a man born to achieve this See, and to suffer for it.

Back to the clouds.

St. Thérèse's Astronaut Visits Vatican

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From Zenit. I can't think of a single thing that's wrong with this story.

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 24, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The U.S. astronaut who carried relics of St. Thérèse of Lisieux into space and put them in orbit around the earth attended Benedict XVI's general audience today.

On a Discovery shuttle mission one year ago, Colonel Ronald Garan brought the relics given to him by a Carmelite community in New Caney, Texas. The astronaut had called the women religious before his space flight to ask for prayers, and at that time he told them he could take some small item into space on behalf of the community.

The sisters reported that the words of St. Thérèse came to mind: "I have the vocation of an apostle. I would like to travel over the whole earth to preach your name and to plant your glorious cross on infidel soil. But oh, my beloved, one mission would not be enough for me, I would want to preach the Gospel on all five continents simultaneously and even to the most remote isles. I would be a missionary, not for a few years but from the beginning of creation until the consummation of the ages."

Garan stated that he will be bringing a second relic of the saint to space on his next mission, which is scheduled for March 2011.

The colonel is also the founder of the Manna Energy Foundation that, by using NASA technology and U.N. funding, is implementing a unique system to make potable water in the villages of Rwanda.

Posh Or What?

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Things my mother would never had said to my father that my wife says to me:

"Can you stop off at Waitrose on the way home and pick up some lamb."

There was no Waitrose in North Manchester. There never will be.

Sainsbury's was posh enough. We did Tesco's.

My father did not "stop off" on his way back from work. He came home.

My mother shopped when she shopped. She didn't miss things.

Because you know what you're eating ever day.

My father did not get involved with "food shopping". He worked.

"Some lamb" would have been meaningless to him. A leg is "some lamb"; so is a chop.

And if they thought that en famille we'd be eating curry on a Wednesday evening they'd be worrying. And then they'd remember that "down South" is a foreign country and that they do things differently there.

Fr Rolheiser

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Is it just me? Each week I look at the back page of the Catholic Herald, hoping that there won't be an article, and each week the enigmatic face is there, and I feel as though another little bit of oxygen has been stolen from the atmosphere.

Why is he in the Herald? Can the Tablet not afford his column?

Coincidence?

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Is it really just a coincidence that just as Peter is locked into trying to exert his authority over the Austrian Bishops, the SSPX announces that it is going to ordain 30 new priests?

Is there a sense in which wishing a plague on both their houses might be licit?

More About The Past

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One of the problems of researching Modern History is coming across the relentlessness of anno domini.

A friend found a reference in a 1945 document to Squadron Leader Newton-John, and established that, yes, it was Olivia's father.

He then found out that she's 60.

Learning About The Moral Compass From The Past

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From the Telegraph, about Bletchley Park:

"Mr Greenish is the one who now paces the potholed paths and contemplates the task of rescuing what he believes is the single most important British site of the Second World War. He is up against Government indifference, but his vision is compelling: to use Bletchley's legacies of rigour and selfless service to lead a renaissance in the teaching of mathematics and the idea of public service.

At a time when incomprehensible financial instruments have brought down the banks, and MPs have lost their moral compass in a mire of expense abuses, does not the work of the devoted mathematicians who worked in secret for the national good not offer a refreshing model of service for modern Britain?

Mr Greenish certainly thinks so. "If we look at what was done at Bletchley, proper maths, proper analysis, everything recorded and accounted for, and if we look at the morality of those who worked here, who never spoke a word about what they did and when asked to keep the secret for the rest of their lives, have done, it is an example for the nation," he argues."

Mac's Meme

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Mac tagged me for a meme: "How Many Statues Do You Have?"

The rules are simple. Count the number of statues in your house (NB. priests are not allowed to count the statues in their church as well as the ones in their house... unfair advantage!!) Describe the statues, and/or put up some photos. Then tag three people. I'm keeping the tag number low so that everyone has a chance to tag someone...

I went round the house counting and am ashamed to say that I reached a total of ... one! (And that one's really a holy water bottle from Lourdes.)

There's a crucifix in every room except the bathrooms.

Likewise, there's at least one holy picture.

There are icons (Russian and Greek).

There are devotional books, Missals, Breviaries.

But there are no statues, and I'm at a loss to work out what's happened to them. Where are St Anthony of Padua and St Martin de Porres? Where is the one of the BVM crushing the serpent's head? This is a deep mystery and one I shall set out to solve.

In the meantime, I tag: Phil and Kirk, even though they use Wordpress, and Brother James.

Eye Candy

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For well dressed Bishops. From Spain.

Here's An Idea!

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This comes from Fr Hunwicke's combox and might be the best possible way of stopping some of the terrible celebrations of Mass that many of us seem to have to endure regularly. Film the priest, then:

"They should be obliged to watch a recording of their mass to get something of what the people experience."

Yes, they should.

Archbishop Nichols' Opportunity

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It suddenly became clear to me, as I was reflecting on a blogospheric contretemps in which I had become involved, that Archbishop Nichols has a tabula rasa in front of him.

When Cormac Murphy O'Connor was enthroned, he had little choice other than to try to maintain the position Cardinal Hume had established of "nice Christian Archbishop", at a time when the Anglican Church seemed keen on tearing itself apart. Apart from the annoyingly false accent, MO'C seemed to fit the bill to perfection, but the bill, and his relatively liberal Catholicsm, locked him into a place in the Establishment which I'm sure he didn't want, and in which he didn't fit.

Archbishop Nichols has a wonderful opportunity in front of him, because there are no such expectations weighing on him. As Nulabour expires painfully before us, so does soft political Christianity: it's not really a surprise that ++Cormac has turned down Blairs "'Faith' Foundation" because it showed itself up as the reductio ad absurdam it was always bound to be the moment Tone opened his mouth about it. But the silencing of the Cardinal is the Archbishop's opportunity: ++Vincent doesn't have to go anywhere ++Cormac went or might have been going.

And that's just the public square: what about his own constituency, the Church in England and Wales? It's his for the taking if he will lead. There are all sorts of single issue Catholics who want to impose their own monoculture on the way we live our Faith: (I was going to post a list but you can build your own: start with CAFODistas and with Lefebvrites); but ++Vincent doesn't need to bother with them. Nobody has any hold at all over him at the moment.

His interview about leaving Liverpool at the time when the Archdiocese seized on the Stalinist certainties of late 70s trade unionism, and opened itself for the Worlockian era rings another bell: he left. He knows how to make a break.

On behalf of the Catholic Association of Catholic Catholics for Catholic Catholicsm, I adopt the "sitting back carefully glass in hand and looking relaxed while watching closely for the signs which are likely to become apparent soon" position. The glass may need the odd refill, but I am confident we'll see our man in action soon.
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D-Day

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At the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in Bayeux an inscription reads:

NOS A GUILLEMO VICTI VICTORIS PATRIAM LIBERAVIMUS

Borrowed from Iain Dale

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Knock Knock

Who's there?

Hazel

Hazel who?

That's politics

Yorkshire Airlines

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So close to Lancashire, it's almost unfair.

What Happens When A Church Loses Its Faith?

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You see words like "postchristian", and you find people who "are Church", and you meet people who attend religious services on Sundays that are as unlike the religion we are used to as it is possible to be.

I can cope with fundamentalist Protestants; in fact, I sometimes like them: they have gone out looking for God's Will, and even if their discernment is shot to pieces, they have started from the right place and are aiming for the right place.

But what happens when the Church you belong to stops believing that its function is to bring people to a knowledge and love of God, and to his service?

This happens.

I came across this while trying to find out something about ekkklesia, a think tank Damian Thompson regularly (and, I now find, quite rightly) lambasts. I saw that one of its employees was a member of the Moot Community (although they seem to eschew the capital letter themselves as on a point of principle) and went out to find more about it.

"moot is a developing community of spiritual travellers who are seeking to find a means of living a life that is honest to god and honest to now. moot seeks to make connections and find inspirations in the meeting of faith, life and culture.

moot looks to the christian call for justice, equity and balance as a means of living politically and ethically. we recognise the inspiration of saints, mystics, philosophers and artists throughout the centuries.

moot seeks to live a christian spiritual rhythm of life through practicising presence, acceptance, creativity, balance, accountability and hospitality."

The politest thing that I can say is that this is the manifesto of the hermeneutic of rupture. If anybody cares enough to wade through the website to find out what these people do, be warned that you are in for a fairly boring experience: deep down, these people worship themselves.

I found this a couple of days ago and have been bothered ever since. (Mithered, to be absolutely accurate, but there's a few of you wouldn't get it.)

I think, somewhat tentatively, but with increasing assurance, that I'd rather somebody took up Free Presbyterianism than this. And this is far from being the rudest thing I could say.

Trying To Understand God's Will

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"What if" history is not a thing for Catholics: we have to learn to accept that God knows what's what better than we do. This is a really hard lesson to learn.

I wrote about Professor Duffy's latest book a couple of days ago. Having finished it, the thing that haunts me about the (wonderful, phenomenally well-researched, beautifully written) book is one specific point: that if only Cranmer had been left to live as a snivelling, apologetic, self-confessed heretic who had returned to God's Church, then the chances are that the Marian Reform, the Herald of the Counter-Reformation, would have taken root in the country in which it was developed. Well, (and as City fans have enjoyed saying over the last couple of days) "Deal with it!": he wasn't; it didn't. History happened. It didn't work then. And it didn't work in the next reign. And then it was too late.

But what if ...
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Durufle's Tantum Ergo

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Yes, I know this is a concert, and the film work and sound quality aren't very good, but this is a piece I really love:



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All Eyes On Rome

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North Korea is letting off atom boms and missiles; Parliament heads towards meltdown, but for the rest of today, the world can disappear off in a handbasket as long as the TV works from quarter to eight until the end.

And not penalties again.

Our Lady of Victories, pray for us;
Our Lady of Defeats, pray for them.

He's Back!

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Professor Duffy's latest work rewriting the false history of the English Reformation is published at Pentecost. Order your copy now!

"The reign of Mary Tudor has been remembered as an era of sterile repression, when a reactionary monarch launched a doomed attempt to reimpose Catholicism on an unwilling nation. Above all, the burning alive of more than 280 men and women for their religious beliefs seared the rule of 'Bloody Mary' into the protestant imagination, as an alien aberration in the onward and upward march of the English-speaking peoples.In this controversial reassessment, a leading reformation historian argues that Mary's regime was neither inept nor backward-looking. Led by the Queen's cousin, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Mary's church dramatically reversed the religious revolution imposed under the child king Edward VI. Inspired by the values of the European Counter-Reformation, the cardinal and the queen reinstated the papacy and launched an effective propaganda campaign through pulpit and press.Even the most notorious aspect of the regime, the burnings, proved devastatingly effective. Only the death of the childless queen and her cardinal on the same day in November 1558 brought the protestant Elizabeth to the throne, and thereby changed the course of English history."

Abbeys And Convents

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Pray for them so they can pray for us.

"In mediaeval traditions, abbeys and convents were always considered to be inexpugnable centres of revolt against infernal domination on earth. They became, accordingly, especial targets. Satan, issuing orders at nightfall to his foul precurrers, was rumoured to dispatch to capital cities only one junior fiend. This solitary demon, the legend continues, sleeps at his post. There is no work for him; the battle was long ago won. But monasteries, those scattered danger points, become the chief objectives of nocturnal flight; the sky fills with the beat of sable wings as phalanx after phalanx streams to the attack, and the darkness crepitates with the splintering of a myriad lances against the masonry of asceticsm. piety has always been singled out for the hardest onslaught of hellish agression."

Patrick Leigh Fermor. A Time To Keep Silence. 1957

A Tentative Thought About A Translation

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What does actuosa participatio mean? If it is the battleground on which part of the fight about what Vatican II and what followed it actually means, wouldn't it be a good idea to agree on what the words mean?

Musing on something written by Pope St Pius X on "How to hear Mass", I thought I caught a glimpse of what liturgical reform was trying to lead to, and the way in which we are caught in a trap, constructed by people who aren't translators, who are trying to translate.

What the Pope was saying, and what the liturgical reforms from the middle of the 19th Century onwards seem to be aiming at until they were hijacked by people with a different agenda, was that Mass wasn't a point in time at which the faithful were obliged to be present in Church, but the greatest of prayers, which they were enjoined to follow as near as possible word by word, praying the same prayers as the priest was saying to be as close as possible to Christ the Priest and Victim as he became Man on the altar.

Even as late as the 1950s "communion" could often mean going to an altar after Mass and receiving Communion in a separate ceremony, from hosts consecrated at a different Mass: only the priest communicated during Mass itself. The liturgical reform meant everybody focusing on the Mass as a unity.

The problem with the Latin expression "actuosa participatio" comes because people try to translate it in English words, one of which begins with "act" and the other which becomes "participation". It is a poor way to go about translating anything.

What the expression really seems to mean in this context is something like "conscious engagement": "I am uniting myself with the action of the priest at the altar"; not a prescription about what anybody, other than the priest and the server, each of whom has things to do, should be doing. I am here because I am at Mass, not because I have to be at Church.

Just a thought.
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CAFOD And Ministerial Sleaze

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According to today's Daily Telegraph, Paul Goggins, the Northern Ireland Minister, shares his London flat, for which he claims £600 per month, with Chris Bain, a friend of his, who happens to be the Director of CAFOD.

According to CAFOD's latest accounts for the year up to 31 March 2008:

"In the year, the Director of CAFOD received remuneration of £71,258 plus an employer's contribution towards a money purchase pension scheme of £7,125." So he might be able to stretch to something a bit better than a bedsit in Catford out of his own pocket.

The story points out that Mr Bain used to pay rent from 1998 to 2003 - until Mr Goggins started to claim for the flat. In other words, once the taxpayer could take care of the rent, the Director of CAFOD lived rent free. Now that this has been discovered, they have decided that it is "inappropriate", and that they will repay a large amount.

If you can be bothered to read it, the story gets even messier but ends with a wonderful statement from the Minister:

“I do not have an extravagant lifestyle but I do have reasonable standards”, he said.

If anybody sees how the Tablet reports this, can they let us all know.

Thoughts About The Installation

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Archbishop Nichols is in charge, isn't he! His authority was stamped all over the liturgical action. Agressively Ordinary Form, aggressively rubrically accurate. Not much cheer for Hans Kung, and precious little for the SSPX either; does anyone know if Cardinal Mahony enjoyed it? Whose idea was the odd arrangement of candles: big six plus a pontifical seventh, but all behind the altar? And wasn't the music good!

This wasn't farewell and thank-you to Cormac; nor was it the inauguration of some great ecumenical initiative; Archbishop Nichols became Archbishop of Westmister and, whatever Canon Law might say, head Catholic honcho in England and Wales.

I was only seriously irritated by one thing: why were the Orthodox guests seated among the rest of the congregation while the Anglicans and what I assume was a Salvation Army woman got to sit in choro?

***UPDATE***

Excellent comment from Fr Greg. Perhaps the Orthodox guests had been invited but didn't want to join in. Thanks, Father.

May Feelings

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You may remember "50 reasons for saying the Rosary" which I put up here last year and do so again.



Well, hat tip to HJMW, here's this year's offering.

Prayers Please

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The mother of a friend died yesterday. Born in New Zealand in 1919, she had come to the UK to study, and, when war broke out, joined the RAF. She stayed in this country and has lived to a great age.

The e-mail I received asked for prayers for her and for all the Holy Souls, and included this:

"Departed this life this day 16th May 2009 fortified by the Sacraments of Holy Mother Church. At home, surrounded by family, and amidst prayers, psalms, hymns, fully compos mentis throughout after decline in hospital following her latest stroke on 18th April."

O si sic omnes.

Is It Just Me?

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Courtesy largely of Rorate Caeli, I follow the Pope and read the speeches he makes, and am becoming increasing spellbound by the wondrous three dimensional exposition of Catholicsm he makes.

This is my religion, and, for the first time in many years, this man is expounding it to me.

The Archbishop's New Vestments

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Damian has blogged here about the new vestments commissioned for Archbishop Nichols' installation at Westminster.

They look really good. They also look really Byzantine.

That's good, as Westminster Cathedral is Byzantine in inspiration, so the new vestments will "go", in a way that new vestments have probably not "gone" in any Catholic Cathedral in England and Wales these many years.

There is also, however, a gentle hint from the Archbishop that he is aligning himself with the Pope's version of ecumenism: that our closeness to the Orthodox, whatever the snipings and shoutings of the last thousand years or so, is so much more real than any possible description of any sort of relationship with any of the Protestant churches.

It is very unlikely that anybody will like everything that Archbishop Nichols does, but this is a good sign. On behalf of "The Catholic Association of Catholic Catholics for Catholic Catholicsm", I renew my request for plentiful prayers for His Grace as he takes on this charge, and offer as the toast the motto of The Catholic Association of Catholic Catholics for Catholic Catholicsm: "more power to his elbow".

(Dull rumour of chairs scraping along the floor as men stand. Just about pick out: "The Queen"; "The Duke of Lancaster"; "More Power to his Elbow"; "Gentlemen, you may now smoke"; dull rumour of chairs scraping along the floor as men sit.)

Retreat For Young Catholic Adults

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I don't know how young "young Catholic adults" are, but I guess they are much younger than me.

In spite of the fact that I don't like the fact that everything, from the Daily Telegraph to Radio 2 is aimed at the young these days, I have been asked to advertise a retreat for them..

The retreat will take place at Douai Abbey during the weekend of the 18-20 September 2009. Young Catholic Adults was founded in February 2004 at Oxford in the UK. It is a national lay movement that actively engages in rebuilding the Church and restoring all things in Christ. YCA are loyal to the Magisterium and faithful to John Paul II's teaching with regard to Ecclesia Dei (1988). In 2007 YCA joined the international Juventutem Federation http://www.juventutem.org/pages/en/home.php

I could make a point about learning how to link using a tag, or of putting two spaces after a full stop, but what do I know?

The Bishops' Conference: How It Spends Our Money

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I have had a go at the accounts of the Bishops' Conference and it makes interesting reading.

Six dioceses pay more than £100K towards its work: Hexham and Newcastle £107K; Salford £123K; Liverpool £125K; Birmingham £142K; Southwark £152K; and Westminster £265K. Special thanks to our friends in Greater London for bearing this burden. And congratulations to the chief accountant of the Diocese of Menevia who has contrived things so that he pays a total of £350. Not £350K; £350.

Some of the grants are fascinating: £22K to the National Board of Catholic Women; "£11K to the National Council of Priests; and under £3K to the Union of Catholic Mothers. Ho ho ho.

At least ecumenism is alive and well: £159K to fund ecumenical organisations, and £96K to support the Bishops' own ecumenical activity.

International Catholic activity: £7.5K to the Council of European Bishops' Conferences, and £6.7K to the Commission od the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union.

And £212K on the Catholic Communications Network. That's why the Church's message is ringing so clearly through the highways and byways of this great country of ours.

They spent nearly £4M, and this is on top of anything our Dioceses spent: none of this has gone on Churches or Cathedrals or Schools.

Dioceses, Emoluments, Prudence

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Damian Thompson set a hare running about the sort of expense claims that are signed off for Magic Circlists and wondered what diocesan accounts might show. So I had a look at the latest diocesan accounts as posted by the Charities Commission on its website. It is quite interesting. Most dioceses seem to be trying to store up surpluses, presumably against difficult times ahead. Trying to separate out what individual dioceses allow or don't allow as an expense was beyond me, though there is a clear statement for each diocese saying whether trustees are or aren't paid an allowance.

There is a different measure of preudence I decided to chase up: the number of employees who are paid more than £60,000 a year. It is a condition of a charity's having its accounts accepted that it lists the number of people to whom it pays more than £60K, more than £70K, more than £80K, and no doubt, decades beyond that. The good news is that no diocese pays anyone more than £80K. The odd news is that there is such a variation between dioceses which employ nobody at this sort of rate, and those which do.

Diocese £60-70K £70-80K
Arundel & Brighton 5 0
Birmingham 0 0
Brentwood 1 0
Cardiff 0 0
Clifton 0 0
East Anglia 0 0
Hallam 0 0
Hexham and Newcastle 0 0
Lancaster 0 0
Liverpool 1 0
Menevia 0 0
Middlesborough 0 0
Northampton 0 0
Nottingham 1 0
Plymouth 1 1
Portsmouth 0 1
Salford 1 2
Shrewsbury 2 0
Southwark 0 1
Westminster 1 0
Wrexham 0 0

I have to say that for a large diocese, especially in the south-east of England, to employ a senior administrator at a rate of £60-£70K a year does not seem excessive to me. To manage without doing so seems to be very well done indeed. One or two dioceses catch the eye, however.

But let's finish off with some good news: Eccleston Square - I assume the Catholic Trust for England and Wales is Eccleston Square - has gone from having one employee earning £80K-£90K, and one earning beteen £60K-£70K, to having just one earning £70K-£80K. It only employs 38 FTEs, who only cost us £1.3M per year. These accounts might get a closer look!

Greedy Politicians And New Vestments

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According to his installation blog, Archbishop Nichols will be wearing new vestments which will become the normal ones for his use at Westminster on high days and holy days.

That's good news. It's odd, though, that none of the big guns in the Catholic blogosphere seems to have noticed it or thought it worthy of comment.

Even odder, though, is that nobody seems to think that the mire of filth in which the Palace of Westminster is engulfed seems worthy of comment. Perhaps the mire is beginning to drown out any other thought.

I have thought for a long time - since May 1997 as it happens - that the great "gift" of NuLabour to the United Kingdom would be the promotion of meretriciousness: the showily flashy: to the greatest of virtues, and I think I'm right.

The particular story being unveiled by the Telegraph comes from the fact that Whips seem to have told MPs since 1997 that salaries could not be seen to rise, but that "legitimate expenses" (nudge, nude, wink, wink) could be exploited to compensate. And, our MPs, who are our representatives, and who share the moral compass of the immense majority of those whom they represent, have engaged in claiming expenses purely because the money is available "within the rules".

I said "meretricious" above, because I get the feeling that those who have been set in authority over us couldn't give a toss. How come Mandelson got yet another chance, except for the fact that Brown guessed rightly that the number of people capable of being morally outraged in the UK these days has diminished sufficiently to let him do what he wants, and then claim the moral high ground for doing it.

Another metaphor: perhaps we ought to stay beneath our stones, and hope that nobody lifts them, and leave the vile, monstrous, slimy, inhabitants of the depths to wander through the world for the ruin of souls, leaving St Michael to deal with them.

I cannot remember ever feeling such a foreigner in my own country.

Reformation And Iconoclasm In An English Village

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The village church sits outside the village, in the place where a church has sat for over a thousand years.

It has witnessed the destruction of the castle, which was built next to it, in 1322.

And, of course, it witnessed the Reformation, and the terrible iconoclasm of the Commonwealth.

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During the Commonwealth, the altar of this church was ripped out, and was replaced by a table. The other fittings of the church which had survived the Tudor Reformation here, as in so many other places, were ripped out. But for the altar there was nothing but scorn. The mensa was dragged out and was used as part of a stile, so that anybody who wanted to use a particular path had to trample on the altar.

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The mensa was identified for what it was less that forty years ago, and was replaced in the church. The then vicar constructed what he called a "chantry chapel" in the crossing (just at the left in the picture above), with a squint from which the high altar (high table?) can be seen.

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If you look carefully, you can see two of the crosses carved into the altar at its consecration.

Never underestimate just how much some people hate us, and the lengths they will go to to humiliate us and destroy the things we care about.

Thin Pickings Here

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One of the things about being a non-specialist civil servant is that we change jobs every two or three years. This is a good idea, because it makes sure that you, the public who pay my wages, have people with an ever greater breadth of experience making decisions that might affect your life.

I'm at the start of a new job at the moment, and am too tired most evenings, just from having had to spend time learning vast chunks of new things, to blog much.

And the world doesn't help: imagine having to go to Mass on a Saturday evening, and then coming out to put 5 Live on and hear that United were two down to Spurs! At least normal service was resumed subsequently.

Catholic Blogging

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I suppose that The Tablet's downer on Catholic bloggers stems from two sources: first, that most Catholic blogs aren't on the same message as The Tablet; and second, that the multiplicity of sources of information challenges The Tablet's ability to set the agenda. (They must get quite cheesed off at Damian Thompson's relentless teasing as well!)

I have twice written about the trust which owns The Tablet (here and here) and suggested that it was hard to see that it supported the trust's stated aims, which are:

a) to advance the Christian religion
b) to promote, present, and disseminate the teachings of the Christian religion and to promote understanding of the Roman Catholic faith, value and principles
c) to advance the education of the public
d) to pursue such other charitable objectives as shall not be inconsistent with the objects hereunto before set out.

This is my response to Fr Tim's request for "a polite explanation of why the Tablet should not be sold in our Cathedrals or parish Churches (with examples and quotations)": I can see no evidence in it for aim b), and little for aims a) and c) (though there is strong evidence for aim d), even if the objective might not be one that I particularly favour myself).

Welcome to Saudi Arabia

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When a 47 year old man marries an 8 year old girl, and the country's legal system says everything is fine, does that not feel like the sort of country before whose Head of State you'd want your Head of State to bow low?

The Tablet ...

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Fr Michael Brown posted an interesting comment from The Tablet's Rome correspondent:

... it is extraordinary that ordained ministers can find so much free time and energy to "feed a blog". Is it possible that they have no housebound, hospitalised or imprisoned parishioners in need of their presence and ministry? It is also extraordinary that their bishops allow this. But then again we are living in extraordinary times.

I realised that some attempts of mine at humour were a waste of time when I found a YouTube video of a man whose hobby was jumping on eggs without breaking them: nature was wierder than art.

But this is beyond parody. This is The Tablet disappearing into a very odd place indeed.

Standing In For The Far Sight

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As Leo from The Far Sight is on an extended Easter break, it falls to me to tip people off to a forum in which anybody insterested in the canonical vestments of the Dioceses of Spain can be examined at leisure.

If, like me, you are the sort of person who likes to know what robes the Cathedral Canons of Almería wear, and rejoice that they have both summer and winter versions, then this forum might well suit you too.

The two Canons in the picture are taking part in the annual procession which celebrates the liberation of Almería from Moorish rule by the Catholic Monarchs in 1489, just three years before the Conquest of Granada saw the end of Moorish rule in any part of Spain.

Supporting Archbishop Nichols

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I proposed this elsewhere but it received little support.

In order to provide Archbishop Nichols with the best possible support, I have set up an organisation caled "The Catholic Association of Catholic Catholics for Catholic Catholicsm". There are no officers, no membership fees, no meetings. The only condition for membership is to feel able to support Archbishop Nichols in as many of these three ways as possible:

1. Prayer: pray for him every day, or when you can, or at least when you remember. But pray for him.

2. Support him: when he asks Catholic Catholics to get involved in Catholic things, then get involved in them. Write to your MP complaining about the prospect of arbortion factories being allowed to advertise; write to your local newspaper; to the BBC: if you are reading this on-line, then dashing off a quick e-mail isn't too difficult.

3. Get out there for him: if you hear that Archbishop Nichols is going to appear somewhere, then be outside cheering him on, and all the louder if he is wearing decent vestments to process the relics of St Chad, or concelebrating Mass with young priests learning the EF of the Mass, for example.

We shall be Vinsmen and Vinswomen; we will decide that from the start, and ad multos annos, we will thank our Pope for the Archbishop he has sent to us by supporting him in every way we know how, surrounding him in love and prayer so that, properly supported, he can lead us.

New Toy

The old Internet radio died, so I had to buy a new one. This one is nice: apart from being an Internet radio, it's also a DAB radio and an FM radio. It streams music from the PC as well. And it streams from the mp3 player too. Those are the tricks I've worked out so far. It's really satisfying that it comes with no manual - there's presumably one on-line somewhere. But who cares!

A Grudging Spring

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I took these earlier this afternoon.

Spring isn't working hard to come. It is reluctant.

But it will come, and these trees will be green.

Until the autumn ...

Spain Is Different

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The Legion, salutes Christ of the Good Death. The ceremony begins as the assembled soldiers salute one of their Kings with the national anthem. At the end, the legionaries march off at their normal pace.

This really is very different, and not what I would ever expect to see at Aldershot or Catterick.

Not Just Austria: The Sad State Of The Portuguese Episcopate

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H/t to J Sarto at A Casa de Sarto.

The Portuguese episcopate is in a state of heresy and practical schism.

If anybody was still in doubt, their doubts were dispelled by the recent statements of several Portuguese Bishops, which began to be made with an almost ordered regularity after the Pope's trip to Africa: most of the national episcopate is in state of heresy, of effective schism and has broken with the traditional teaching of the Church. I have not invented this: to get details and see the facts compiled objectively by Miguel Alfonso, go to A Tribuna. Some examples:

- D. Ilídio Pinto do Amaral, Bishop of Viseu, defended the use of condoms to prevent the transmission of Aids and stated that, at least in cases of family violence, marriage can be dissolved by divorce;

- D. Januário Torgal Ferreira, Bishop of the Armed Forces, has been an advocate for the use of condoms to prevent Aids, as well as for the ordination of women;

- D. Carlos Azeredo, Auxiliary Bishop of Lisbon, pointed out that Catholics vote for parties which support the legalization of homosexual "marriage", maintained that the teaching of the Church about the use of contraception has to evolve, and expressed his "concern" about the content of the letter that he received from the Pope about the lifting of the excommunications of the SSPX bishops;

- D. Manuel Clement, Bishop of Oporto, said that the use of condoms to prevent the spread of Aids is permissible in exceptional cases.

What can one say? The first three of these bishops deliberately showed that they wished to differ from and contradict the Pope and the teaching of the Church in matters of faith and morals. D. Ilídio even joked about this aspect, saying that he doesn't believe that the Vatican will fine him for the positions he has taken publicly.

For my part, I believe the Vatican has no other alternative than that of "fining" these bishops, reproving them for their erroneous teachings, and demanding the withdrawal of their statements because of the public scandal they have caused. And if they won't, then the time will have arrived to conclude that they are no longer able to carry out their episcopal duties publicly and remove them from office. This would at least be coherent with Rome's reaction to the case of Bishop Williamson ...

MP3s Of Michael Davies Talks

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I was asked elsewhere if I could provide a link for people to download mp3 versions of the "cassette tapes" of Michael Davies' talks.

It's here.

These talks are great for a bus journey. They are wonderful catechetical aids. They give you all the ammunition you need to take on sandalistas. They are of their time, and while we owe an immense debt to those who kept organisations like Pro Fide and the LMS going through the 70s, 80s, and 90s, we have to remember that the world has moved on.

But what a good speaker!
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Amy Winehouse

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Amy Winehouse has brought out a new range of shampoo.

It's called "Go and Wash".

Archbishop Nichols Needs Our Prayers

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Courtesy of Brother James, we discover that the new Archbishop's vocation is to accompany those who seem to be beyond hope as they travel through life.

Apparently the Archbishop spoke on 5 Live and:

Inevitably ended by tying in his allegiance to Liverpool F.C. and how he would be at their Champions League game against Chelsea on Weds.

He needs our prayers: he is with those who have only known affliction and whose reaction to it is not pretty; who will not recognise the rightful order of things; who live in an unnatural state. He is with them even though he is no longer of them. He is with them even though he has been raised to higher things.

Some say that he has only known London and Birmingham in this country, apart from Liverpool: but to his intense credit he chose Manchester to study his MA and in an act of the profoundest resignation refused to allow the allure of either of the cornerstones of Mancunian glory (Utd and Utd Reserves) to deflect him from his mission to the fallen.

We salute our new leader and applaud his refusal to be deflected from his role as Minister and Pastor, not to those who have everything to lose, but to those who have lost everything.

"Adult" Films

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They aren't adult films. If you have to categorise them by human development, they're adolescent films.

But really, they're porn. The Home Secretary's husband pays money for porn.

Clout Casting Imminent

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The mayflower will be out this week.

Eyes Front!

A pleasant enough baroque church?

Yes. This is the Cathedral of the Spanish Archbishop of the Armed Forces.

It was elevated as such in 1985.

There is a side chapel in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved for worship.

I wonder what the Cathedral Church of the Bishop to the Armed Forces in England and Wales looks like: not quite like this, I imagine.

Another Spring Day

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Yesterday, cherry trees framed very old cedars and everybody was in shirtsleeves.

Today, it has turned really, really, cold*, and tomorrow I'm up at the crack of dawn to go away for a couple of days.

This is what I'll remember, though.

* "Really, really, cold" if you're living in 21st Century England: just 2 or 3 degrees centigrade.