Apologetics, Again

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This began as a post, moved on to be a comment on something of Ben's and then became a post here again.

If anybody wondered what "post-Christian" meant, then the reaction to the debate on same-sex "marriage" should have shown them that apart from the militant atheism of a substantial number of people in our country, the vaguely Christian world view with which many people still identified a generation ago ("he put C of E down as his religion as that was the church he didn't go to") has been replaced by a mire of moral relativism in which if something that suits me must be good for me, then something that suits you must be good for you, and that condemnation is a uniquely fundamentalist stance, unless it's a moral relativist condemning somebody else's moral absolutism (though they'd probably say they weren't condemning so much as #justsaying - a moral relativist's way of having your cake and your ha'penny).

I noted, nearly four years ago, that post-Christian religion had begun to find its voice, and in less than four years, it seems to have mainstreamed in the Church of  England.  The issue of women "bishops" is to be resolved not within the structures of the C of E, but by ignoring them: if they don't produce a result which secular society recognises as "fair", then the structures are wrong; if Parliament legislates for gay "marriage" then the C of E will have to adapt and conform to a changing society (no doubt to remain "relevant").

We can't be complacent: at Mass toaday I heard a parish priest at Mass saying that we always have the right Pope because the Holy Spirit stops Cardinals voting for the wrong on,e and was told that supporting CAFOD was the culmination of our Catholicsm.

This country, Catholic, non-Catholic, post-Catholic - everyone - needs to be re-evangelised.  Three of us specifically - OTSOTA, Ben, me - have looked at the inter-war Catholic Evidence Guild as a model: not "let's recreate the Catholic Evidence Guild" so much as "look at how profoundly and systematically Catholic evangelists were grounded in their Faith before being sent out into the streets to proclaim their Faith".  I'm putting words into their mouths here, but I think I can confidently say that we have offered a model which, suitably adapted, could be a vehicle for the re-evangelisation of England and Wales, and have issued a challenge to anybody to find something better.

There are two problems which, as things stand, will prevent anything like this happening: the first is the lack of a committed body of people with both the faith and the teaching skills needed to identify, train, and organise the people who would carry this out.  The second is that the people who should be that committed body - the Bishops and their staffs - are unlikely to be interested: they probably think that their RCIA courses have already answered this. 

Ben put it like this:

What I would like to see, therefore, is a programme, made widely (and if possible freely) available that would help lay Catholics throughout the UK to develop as apologists. It seems to me that some of the important elements of this would be:

• Good spiritual direction and formation;
• A structured programme of study of the Faith (possibly based largely on resources already freely available), supported by both philosophy and rhetoric;
• Local support, possibly small groups meeting both to discuss and check their understanding, but also to practice putting it across convincingly and dealing with questions and objections;
• A wider community of support, where issues can be discussed, and questions raised and answered;
• A small team to make it happen.

The growth of the Catholic presence on the internet clearly supports some of these well, but others are best done on a local level (subsidiarity and all that!)

This would, of course, be a long term programme; indeed, I think it would need to be a lifelong one, so inexhaustible are the riches of the Faith. But that is no reason not to start; quite the contrary.

So I would like to ask you to pray about this, as I shall do, throughout Lent. And at Easter, I will revisit the topic and if others believe it to be a worthwhile project, explore how we can make it happen. But 40 days of prayer seems to me the best way to start.

Please join us in praying for this.  If you need a focus, imagine how the forthcoming period of Sede Vacante, Conclave, election and inauguration could be exploited by trained evangelists who set out to bring this country back to God.

Update: Marianne's comments in the combox suggest that this might not be as unaffordable as I had thought.  More food for thought as we pray.
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Some Thoughts About The Pope's ... What Word?

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Isn't the Da Vinci File view of the Pope's abdication/resignation/renunciation (can we agree on a Catholic word?) being touted by the European media (at least) wonderful?  The best they can do is pretend it's the same as a Prime Minister resigning unexpectedly (think Harold Wilson in 1976 if you want to get the bathos) and then try to interpret what is happening as though it was politics as usual.  I hope somebody is keeping a file of howlers.

But here are some observations.

• The Pope told us what he was thinking of: his visits to the tomb of Celestine V, his clear statement in the Hahn interview: he signalled clearly what was in his mind and none of us - main stream media, bloggers, specialists, amateurs - noticed.
• The Pope has not done this capriciously or selfishly: whatever the details of the state of his health - how strong he is, how quickly he expects to lose his strength, whether his mental health will hold up - this very holy man has taken a decision after a long period of prayer and discernment and we can be confident that he knows what he is doing.
• What's coming might be Don Bosco's vision ( I thought Anita Moore had that spot on here), might be a particularly Benedictine vision, or might be something the Pope (as well informed as any Head of State) has inferred: he knows he is not the man to meet the challenge.
• His decision was taken some time ago: he told his brother six months ago, but he started dropping in on Celestine V rather longer ago.  It's not unreasonabale to suppose that everything he has done in the last two or three years has been done with his leaving in mind, and with his leaving everything in as good a condition as possible for his successor.
• All of this makes his decisions about whom to elevate to Cardinal very interesting indeed.  The electors will comprise those who voted for him, a small number of those who didn't, and those whom he has elevated.
• He has looked after Archbishop Gaenswein: not just by consecrating him Archbishop.  He would have probably been made a Bishop in Germany after the Pope's death if tradition were followed, but he has been consecrated as an Archbishop and raised to Prefect of the Pope's Household.  In itself, this is a rebuke to the Curia and a public message that Vatileaks wasn't his Secretary's fault.  (And the secrecy which has been maintained in this affair is another signal that the Curia was bypassed.)
• Most importantly, perhaps, with the publication of the third volume of his work on Jesus the Pope has completed the teaching part of his ministry.

Goodness knows how many other clear signs there are that the Church is about to enter a period which we will think of as uniquely difficult, but which will simply be yet another engagement with her enemies.

My initial reaction - that he should have stayed on to death - is being replaced by an appreciation that Pope Benedict probably has a rather better idea of what he should do than me.  We have had eight years - eight game-changing years - from a Pope who couldn't have been expected to last anything like this long.  We are seeing the supernatural eddying into the natural world through his decision.

And last of all, he has given us Lent to prepare, so that we can celebrate at Easter.

The Emetic 26 January Edition

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I shall just point out the things that are worth further investigation.  Articles like Sir S Wall's, attacking the Cameron position of the EU, are not really what I think we're on about.  We might wonder why they are in The Tablet:  did the Staggers turn it down?  But anyway, not what we're here for.

Interview with Sarah Teather: all politics, and how Catholic social teaching informs her voting.  One teaser:

'“The pressure points are often the points that provoke because they make you think more deeply. I was going to Mass a bit erratically around the time I was elected and I only had one framework to engage with, with the daily challenges and the ethical challenges of being an MP – and they are multiple, such as how to vote –and that was with my faith. Over the time of being an MP I would say my faith has become more important rather than less important.”
Her commitment to church teaching and the promptings of conscience will be tested again, probably at the end of February, when she will have to decide whether to support legislation that will introduce same-sex marriage.'
I think the problem here is The Tablet's, not Sarah Teather's.  Why is she not being challenged about how she will vote?

For its Lenten lecture series for the Year of Faith, Brentford Cathedral has invited Bishop Stephen Cottrell, Anglican Bishop of Chelmsford on Wednesday 27 February 2013, to speak on "Accompanying people on the journey of faith: Catechesis and evangelism for a church in mission": leaving aside the vagaries of Brentford capitalisation, why invite somebody from another c/Church (ecclesial communuion) to preach in the Cathedral?  Why choose The Tablet to advertise it?

The only opinion given in the article about the new Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh is given to the Association of Catholic Priests, rather than, say, to Iain Paisley, whose views might be no ,ore relevant but who, I bet, knows that "dialogue" isn't a verb, and wouldn't be intransitive even if it were!  (Are heresy and solecism related?)

'A spokesman for the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Ireland, Fr P.J. Madden, suggests that political considerations were apparent in his appointment. He points out that the Vatican opted for someone from Northern Ireland rather than a bishop or auxiliary with broader experience in dealing with the pastoral needs of the Church across the island of Ireland. Another ACP spokesman, Fr Sean McDonagh, hoped that Mgr Martin would be “willing to dialogue with every group in the Church and wider society”. In his own statement last Friday, the coadjutor archbishop called for “a mature relationship between Church and society, in both parts of this island” and emphasised that people of faith have a vital role to play in Irish society’s public debates.'
Cardinal Scola's article on Dignitatis Humanae is worth serious study: a Catholic and modern interpretation of a Vatican II document that leaves me cold, but that doesn't feel spirit-of-VIIist.  What The Tablet could be?  Similarly, Fr Timothy Radcliffe's short piece on VII and collegiality is not one I agree with, but is worth engaging with. 

Clifford Longley, on Obama, isn't:

"Obama is the embodiment of the nation in his person. That is powerful magic"

He wouldn't dare say ju-ju.

It is probably my fault that I found Fr Daniel O'Leary's article, nominally about "the journey of the soul", so much drivel: inchoate drivel.

"...we had been taken to the place of the soul, to that land where our deepest spirit lives – a land we are slow to enter. The urgent, daily context of our lives mitigates against such profound awareness. Too much work, anxiety and a relentless stress are filling our days and nights.
It takes great courage to set about regaining the lost rhythm of the soul. We generally postpone the work of self-realisation, of the inner journey, of the ultimate questions. We forget that if we do not live our lives abundantly now, we never will. And as death approaches, we bitterly regret the greatest tragedy of all – our unlived lives."

Fr Jim Fleming reckons that in contemporary Britain, the first step in evangelisation must be to provide a welcome for all comers.He paints a picture of a parish where parish property is used to cater for the destitute, aslyum seekers, the down and out: good!  He has perhaps been edited somewhat severely, because he seems to contrast "doing" with "teaching" or "learning" to the former's advantage, but he is certainly pointed in the right direction.

The Notebook is direr than dire.  Imagine finding a Comment Is Free commenter and giving him her a pulpit.  Here are two of the items:

"AS A Catholic who carries a rosary in his pocket it was appropriate for Joseph Biden, Vice President of the United States, to have Mass said before he took the oath of office last Sunday. Biden invited friends and family to the Vice President’s residence, in the grounds of the United States Naval Observatory, Washington DC, for the liturgy celebrated by Fr Kevin O’Brien SJ, vice president for mission and ministry at Jesuit-run Georgetown University. Following the Mass, Biden took the oath of office, for which he used a large family Bible with a Celtic cross on the cover, that has been in his family since the late nineteenth century. The oath of office was administered by another Catholic, Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The United States Constitution requires the oath of office to take place on 20 January. If this day falls on a Sunday, the oath is taken privately by the President and Vice President and the public ceremony is celebrated the following day."

"HOW CATHOLICS reacted to the sexual revolution in the 1960s and 1970s is famously set out in David Lodge’s satiric novel, How Far Can You Go? Now it is to be the subject of a dissertation at Sussex University, supported by funding from the Arts and Humanities Council. The research is being conducted by David Geiringer, whose grandfather, Professor John Marshall, a neurologist and contributor to The Tablet, was one of the original members of the Pontifical Commission on Birth Control set up by Pope John XXIII. Geiringer wants to speak to 35 practising Catholic women about their experiences of the sexual revolution in the 1960s. He hopes to challenge the argument, put forward by scholars such as Professor Callum Brown, that the sexual revolution shattered the link between femininity and piousness. Geiringer is suggesting that Catholic faith is not “incompatible with a modern idea of sexuality”. Interviews are anonymous with questions submitted in advance. Email: xxx@yyy.zzz"

Robert Mickens isn't on form, only offering one real sneer:

'“Perhaps there are cases of illegal trade in ivory that is used in some parts of the world for Christian religious images used by Catholics,” he wrote in a long letter. “If such cases are identified they must clearly be condemned by the competent authorities – civil or religious – but there is no reason to attribute responsibility that it does not have to the ‘Vatican’,” he said. Indeed, being Catholic is not the same as representing the “Vatican”.'

Cute.

And finally, why on earth is St George's Anglican Cathedral in Perth (Australia) advertising in The Tablet for a Dean?  Is this a sort of post-modern take on Trollope?

The Emetic

I suggested on twitter that an online antidote to any bad results of The Tablet might be called The Emetic.  This isn't it, but it gives an idea of the ground The Emetic might have to cover.  In my last post I highlighted something unCatholic in an editorial.  From the same issue, here are a few more highlights.

(For the record, no Tablets were purchased to make this blog post.)

An advert for a course at an Anglican Retreat Centre leads to a link which contains the following:

"REMEMBER . . .
Your human love is God’s love incarnate. Your human forgiveness is divine forgiveness. Grace is everywhere. God loves us unconditionally – and cannot remember our sins!
But we have forgotten all about this real meaning of the Incarnation. We still keep God ‘out there’ and build huge walls between the sacred and the secular. We need to remember, that simply to live as best we can, is to be full of God, no matter what.

DANIEL O’LEARY
Daniel is a priest in the diocese of Leeds and has published widely on aspects of Spirituality and Ministry.
With many years’ experience as a Parish Priest, he was also Episcopal Vicar for Formation in the diocese for five years. Prior to that he was Head of the Religious Studies Department at St Mary’s College of Education, Strawberry Hill (University of Surrey).

MARGARET SIBERRY
A former teacher, Margaret has been involved in collaborative ministry and spirituality at parish and diocesan levels. She is a member of Leeds Justice and Peace Commission, a worker for CAFOD, dedicated to promoting local and global justice."

If God can't remember our sin, reconciliation becomes a bit automatic, doesn't it.

Sarah Maitland writes:

"One problem I find with the new translation of the liturgy is that it uses so much insider jargon. “Consubstantial”, “chalice”, “dewfall”, “we may merit to be co-heirs”: none of this language is going to play well in our daily lives, at work, in the pub, in our own homes."

Should someone with such an impoverished idea of daily life be writing about prayer?

In its article on Vatican II Fifty Years On, the Rev Dominic Mulroy OSB opines:

"The ghosts at the feast of Vatican II were Pius IX’s “Syllabus of Errors” and Pius X’s condemnation of Modernism. The legacy of these was a perception that the Church had allied itself definitively with a dogmatic tradition that was hostile not only to everything that could be dubbed “liberal” but also to the multiple facets of modernity.
The successive battles over the texts of Vatican II’s doctrinal and pastoral constitutions represented a very significant confrontation between two powerful currents of thought within the Church. The first (which was presumed by many to be the dominant one) was a way of thinking that would now be regarded as “fundamentalist”; the second was the new spirit of open and eirenic enquiry that had been quietly developed, in many fields, during the pontificate of Pius XII and that had inspired John XXIII to summon the council.
In the event, Vatican II came to represent a decisive rejection of the “fundamentalist” option. The term is appropriate in this context for several reasons. The fundamentalist cast of mind, whether in religion or in other areas of discourse, is one that prefers clarity to complexity. It likes to claim “ownership of the truth”, is distrustful of dialogue, and prefers the safety of known tradition to the risks of innovation.
When the council opened, many took it for granted that this was the way the Catholic Church did its business, and were amazed when the proposed drafts were, one after the other, thrown out. A new question was being asked: was the Church’s traditional way of formulating doctrine and making decisions a religious necessity or a cultural accident of history?"

I love the idea that somebody who disagrees with the condemnation of Modernism asks whether the Church's way of deciding things might be a cultural accident of history.  Meanwhile a Jesuit, Fr Gregory Baum proclaims:

"The council summoned forth faith, hope and love in people’s hearts, making them yearn for freedom,justice and universal solidarity"

Ah, THAT's what is was all about.

Fr Luke Bell OSB has an excellent article about "internships" at Quarr Abbey. A lady who lives in Austria writes an article about the Church in Germany's investigation of clerical abuse which seems to take for granted that the Church is trying some sort of cover up.  Lawrence Freeman (a third OSB) writes about a Hindu monastery.

Mr Paul Billington writes about spiritual mentoring in the parish and says:

"Moving on from the strict confines of behavioural science to parish life, but holding the notion of it in mind, we can learn to focus more broadly than the ritual aspects of church practice. Essentially, being Church is about being a community. It is about how we live together, how we share a fundamental and faith perspective of life that shapes everything we do and say. In other words, it is about how we incarnate our faith in the flesh of living and of life. This is based on a raw behavioural science principle that states simply that our behaviour demonstrates our priorities. In this sense, through our everyday behaviour, we tell the world, even without conscious intention, about what motivates us. The X Factor must be one of the greatest money-spinners on television. It displays the
nervous, self-conscious and sometimes remarkable talent of new blood for huge audiences. During the course of two months, the contestants are mentored fabulously into becoming stars. Mentoring is a powerful personal-development and empowerment tool which helps people progress. It is becoming increasingly popular as its potential is realised."

I'll just point out "being Church" and leave the rest to you.

The letters page contains what probably reflects the breadth of view of those who read The Tablet: they represent readers' reaction rather than editorial policy so I won't comment on them.  Neither will I comment on the Arts and Books sections, which could come from any weekly or Sunday - though it's rejection of the new Fr Brown series - "It's a stinker" - makes you realise that all is not lost!

The Church In The World seems uncontentious and covers more or less what one would expect any Catholic weekly to cover. 

Robert Mickens writes from Rome.  You need to read the whole column to get the picture, but here's one bit so you get the flavour:

"He said this was because homosexuality undervalued the importance of male female differences and because same-sex relationships were “de facto, self-referential”. Professor Pessina heads the bioethics
department at the Catholic University in Milan and is a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. His article came just days after Italy’s highest appellate court ruled that a woman currently in a same-sex relationship could retain custody of the child she had while in a previous relationship with a man.
The court rejected the father’s argument that his son would suffer “negative repercussions” for his development if the two women raised him, saying that claim was based on “mere prejudice” unsupported by scientific data. The judge obviously failed to use her reason and consult the Vatican."

Ho ho ho, Robert.

News from Britain and Ireland has a large article about Bishop Brain forbidding Catholic schools in the Salford diocese from applying for Academy status (can he) though it points out that he will be offering his resignation this year.

An advert for the "Westminster Faith Debates" should have been rejected:

"What does faith, in its diversity, have to contribute to our understanding of a good life and a good death? And what does the contemporary climate of opinion have to say to faith?

Stem cell research, abortion and the ‘soul of the embryo’? Speakers include Prof David Albert Jones and Dr Abdul Majid Katme. Wednesday 13 February.
Too much sex these days – the sexualisation of society? Speakers include Donna Freitas and Jenny Taylor. Wednesday 27 February.
Is it right for religions to treat men and women differently? Speakers include Rabbi Harvey Belovski and Mary Ann Sieghart. Thursday 14 March.
What’s a traditional family and do we need it? Speakers include Prof Rosalind Edwards and Polly Toynbee. Wednesday 27 March.
Do Christians really oppose gay marriage? Speakers include Prof John Milbank and Prof Tina Beattie. Thursday 18 April.
Should we legislate to permit assisted dying? Speakers include Lord Charles Falconer and Dr Giles Fraser. Thursday 2 May."
Oh dear!

I learned of the death of Fr Chris Dyckhoff SJ, one of the priests to whom, under God, I owe the fact that I did not lose my faith at University: however wrongheaded I may have come to think him, and he me, subsequently, there are some debts which cannot be repaid in this life, and they were all owed in one direction.  Requiescat in pace.

So there it is.  Not as uniformly bad as it could be, but imbued with a sort of right-on trendiness as though Tony Blair had just become PM and it was 1997 all over again.  But where it is bad, it is very, very, bad.  Its instinct isn't grounded where I think a Catholic weekly's instinct ought to be grounded. 

A moderate, non-AngloCatholic, non-Evangelical, Anglican would find nothing to upset him in this edition of The Tablet.  I don't mean that as a compliment.

The Tablet On The Priests' Letter

I was a bit taken aback - shocked, actually - by the editorial in The Tablet criticising the priests who wrote about the Government's proposals regarding same sex "marriage". If you want to read the whole article it is here, but the bit I'd like to highlight is this:

"Rights do sometimes conflict, and as the Catholic Bishops’ Conference sensibly said in a statement afterwards, “The Church would strongly encourage disputes of this kind to be settled without recourse to the courts. In many cases, applying common sense would enable a reasonable accommodation between competing rights to be found.” But an atmosphere of paranoia would make such accommodation more difficult, and that is the danger of the priests’ letter to the Telegraph. Nor is it right to regard human rights as somehow a secular challenge to religious freedoms. Their origins are the same – in respect due to everyone for their God-given personal dignity, regardless of race, creed, orientation or any other factor. The European Convention on Human Rights was largely drafted by English lawyers, and the origins of the common law are deeply embedded in Christian thinking, including medieval canon law. Over 60 years, the human-rights convention has made Europe a far better place. In 1963 John XXIII’s encyclical, Pacem in Terris, incorporated human rights fully into the teaching of the Magisterium, where they remain. Christians should fight in favour of human rights, not against them."

The Tabletfulness of this is terrific.  It starts from the reasonable point that where rights collide, common sense is preferable to litigation.  It then says that the priests' letter would make a common sense solution harder to reach (as though this by definition makes the priests' letter wrong).

It then suddenly raises Human Rights to be suprema lex: and because the European Convention was largely drafted by English lawyers (chapter? verse?) and incorporates (presumably English) Common Law and mediaeval Canon Law it is a wonderful thing and has made Europe a better place (though it doesn't explain either how that would work or how it has worked).

But then, it plays what it thinks is its ace: "(1) John XXIII's encyclical (2) Pacem in Terris (3) incorporated human rights fully into the teaching of the Magisterium, where they remain".  1-2-3: the Catholic liberals' idea of the bit of the Magisterium that matters!  So self evident is it to the Tabletista that a reference to Pacem in Terris is the end of the argument, that it is clear that the author has never read it.  If s/he had, s/he might have noticed the following:

"51. Governmental authority, therefore, is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees passed in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience, since "it is right to obey God rather than men "(34).

Indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse. As St. Thomas teaches, "In regard to the second proposition, we maintain that human law has the rationale of law in so far as it is in accordance with right reason, and as such it obviously derives from eternal law. A law which is at variance with reason is to that extent unjust and has no longer the rationale of law. It is rather an act of violence."(35)

(34) Acts 5:29.

(35) Summa Theol. Ia-IIae, q. 93., a.3 ad 2um; cf. Pius XII's broadcast message, Christmas 1945, AAS 37 (1945) 5-23."

 

Who is defending The Tablet?  Why?  This example shows poor journalism and appalling theology, but, dressed as Catholic, and licensed by the Hierarchy, it is showing two fingers to the thousand priest and the Pope in particular, and to the whole Magisterium in general.  If the Faith is being reduced to what a few journalists and their pals in the Hierarchy want it to be on a weekly basis, are we not entitled to know cui bono?

 

 

Ecclesia Ad Portam

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Outside the gate of every Abbey was the Ecclesia ad Portam - the Church at the Gate - where Mass was provided for local people.  After the Reformation, many of these disappeared, or were converted into parish churches.  This one remains in fairly isolated countryside.  It isn't in a centre of population.  Evensong is celebrated there on the fifth Sunday of the month except in summer.

 

 

 

 

The first thing you see is that this is a Church on which nothing but the minimum has ever been spent.

 

 

 

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But when you look closer you realise that the church was once exuberantly decorated:



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and that a tiny bit of the glass in the original Abbey had been saved, and was incorporated into a window at the same time that the murals were uncovered.

You could say Mass here tomorrow.  You could keep the sacred oils in the aumbry and use the piscina on the south wall.  But it won't happen.

 

There wasn't really very much persecution of the Church in very much of the country.  From the 1520s on, the State gradually took over and as long as people minded their own business and didn't cause trouble, for example by professing their Catholicsm openly or by becoming or harbouring priests, they were left alone, either to be a very Catholic sort of Anglican or, in the north of the country, to be Catholic, but discreet.  (Catholics were opening their own cemetery in Little Crosby as early as 1611.)  This lack of hard persecution was itself a successful form of soft persecution: untutored in the Faith, unnourished by the Sacraments, most of the faithful fell away, except for those who heroically persevered.

 

In the nineteenth century, people began to uncover what had been lost.  In the twentieth (and the events of the twentieth century no doubt enlightened the minds of historians) the great con trick played on the English people became clear.  The State had taken their Faith from them, and most of their leaders hadn't actually fought back.  The lay people who had tried to fight back had been crushed, and the few who remained retreated into the discreet non-conformism which at least kept a spark of faith alive.

 

Move along please! Nothing to be seen here!

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Is Damian A Saved Pusson? Are The Rest Of Us?

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A couple of days ago Damian wrote about Archbishop Nichols' comments about same sex "marriage", reacting to an intemperate attack on the Archbishop by a different Daily Telegraph blogger. It was classic Damian: witty, full of insider knowledge, strong on opinion, despairing of the Hierarchy's ability to affect the national mood, and not traditionally respectful in the way that (say) The Universe still is. Damian is unpopular with the liberals in the Catholic establishment precisely because he writes about what they would prefer to do without any sort of negative publicity. In a world where the Catholic press is either docile and never says anything to embarrass the Hierarchy, or is pushing a secularised agenda in which Catholicsm is a sort of Roman reflection of how the bien pensant want society to look - Polly Toynbee with modern hymns - Damian is unique. There has never been a Catholic journalist who has exposed failures within the Hierarchy as Damian has, and there hasn't been one who has attacked the Hierarchy's politics from the right with such swagger. And to crown it all, he has done it from the vantage point of the Daily Telegraph, where he is out of the Hierarchy's reach (though exactly what ++Cormac said to the Barclay brothers on his visits to the Channel Islands would be interesting to know).

The main thrust of the anti-Damian argument (which only lasted for a brief period before the announcement of the suppression of the "Gay Masses" at Warwick St moved commenters on) was that the need for a unified stand by Catholics behind Archbishop Nichols as he was being howled down by the liberal media for upholding Catholic teaching outweighed any value that criticsm of him from his right flank (as it were) might bring; that he had a duty to be more measured in his words and not give aid and succour to his opponents in the non-Catholic world.

Given Damian's influence, this is an argument worth addressing, but I'd say from the outset that what goes for Damian goes for any of us who comment on the activities of the leaders of the Church: we might not be as popular, as well-connected, as good with words, as full of insight, though some of us might think we are and many might wish they were, but we are in the same boat.

In this regard, three separate trains of thought have struck me: one is about the collective responsibility of Catholics in England and Wales; the second about the completely changed relationship between the Hierarchy and the Faithful; and a third about Rome.

From the time when the relative stability of the eighteenth century led to a grudging tolerance of Catholics to when the Church left its self-sought ghetto in the 70s and 80s, Catholics accepted they they should keep a fairly low profile as a community. Even if persecution had disappeared, low level discrimination hadn't, and the easiest way to avoid trouble was discretion. This is a very broad subject, but one aspect of it was the collective responsibility of all Catholics not to rock the boat of their own accord but instead to obey the Captain's orders. In a society where hierarchy and deference were part of the norm, it became second nature. The Catholic head only appeared above the parapet when the Hierarchy said that it was appropriate to do so: the demonstrations ahead of the 1944 Education Act are an obvious example. The fractures within the community caused by those opposed to Humanae Vitae, a first and shocking example of individual Catholics not only attacking the Hierarchy and the Magisterium, but doing so in public and in the secular media, didn't destroy the instinct towards discretion when speaking about Catholic matters in a secular environment, but while the instinct remains, well, instinctive, the fact that it could be challenged has also been noted. We tend to seek discretion and pulling together around policies we agree with, but are no longer concerned about being vociferous about those with which we don't. Yesterday's spat was an example of the clash between the two.

The new relationship between Hierarchy and Faithful which I have traced (ad nauseam?) to the Liverpool Pastoral Congress of 1980 did not affect the broad relationship between the senior Bishops and the senior Laity as it was a contract which entrenched the position of each in relation to their fellows. The Bishops who counted counted a little bit more than before, and the laity who mattered mattered quite a lot more. But the biological factor has intervened and those who led from 1980 into the new millennium have now moved on to their reward, and the fruit of their stewardship is first, a very new sort of laity: a much smaller constituency which still has a large majority of people who no interest in opining about the Church whatsoever, a declining number of 1980 Liverpool liberals, and an increasing number of people attached to some of the new JP2- and B16-inspired movements within the Church which are best characterised by being definitely not 1980 Liverpool liberal; and second an episcopal conference in which a significant proportion of Bishops are close to retirement and the first new appointments suggest a radical U-turn in episcopal selection.

And the Internet has opened up a new relationship between Catholics and their HQ in Rome. If the establishment of Episcopal Conferences weakened the authority of Bishops, Heads of their Local Churches, the Internet has removed the ability of the Bishops' Conference to mediatise what is coming out the Roman Dicasteries. We know what the Pope wants because we can hear him telling us ourselves. It must seem to some of the older Bishops that the Vatican has selected a new laity in England and Wales, faithful to Rome instead of Eccleston Square.

This is the context in which our reactions to Archbishop Nichols have caused so much internal friction. We have followed the Hierarchy's engagement with Life issues in their broadest sense, and with those who are not totally on message with the Bishops' Conference, and we have found our tongues. When our leaders haven't led, or when they have led badly or in a wrong direction, we have felt empowered to say so.  Where the lay groups they sponsor have said or done things we have felt was unauthentically Catholic, we have said so.

I said before that the main thrust of the anti-Damian argument yesterday was that he, and, I argue, by extension we "had a duty to be more measured in his words and not give aid and succour to (the Archbishop's) opponents in the non-Catholic world". I might have signed up to that ten, maybe five, years ago. I don't think I do any more.

What interesting times!
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Bring On 2013

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There's a bit of a something in the air at the moment: some of the Bishops have chosen their Christmas pastoral letters to attack the Government on the subject of same sex "marriage" and, while some of their brother Bishops carry on sending "What I did on my holidays" or "Home is where you learn table manners" letters, it's interesting that some, at least, have stirred.  Richard, at Linen on the Hedgerow, thinks that the Bishops' Conference should have spoken as one, but on balance I'm glad to see this lack of a single statement as evidence of a growing split between those leaders of the local churches who can read MENE MENE TELE UPHARSIN and react, and those who can't or won't.  And anyway, you can imagine what the Eccleston Square staffers would have produced: a sort of Tablet-lite attempt to explain the Church's teaching in a way that won't offend their friends in Millbank and Palace Street, written by somebody with a post-graduate certificate in sociological waffle, and which certainly wouldn't rouse the lumpencatholics to anything like action.

By a happy coincidence, a new Archbishop of Canterbury is about to take office and we will finally have a chance for some real ecumenism: there is no earthly prospect of structural Christian unity any more, and this ABC, an evangelical, is unlikely to rate coming up with agreed statements as particularly important on his to-do list.  This means that we should stop trying to find lowest common denominator ways of working with other Christians - in effect apologising for being Catholics - and working with them only where we can and it makes sense to do so, rather than trying to do so everywhere.

And this means that Catholic opposition to same sex "marriage" can be based on a Catholic sacramental understanding of marriage, instead of trying to argue backwards from a hypothetical "harm to the family unit" future; similarly, our discussion of proposals about Sundays can be based on a Catholic understanding of how the Sabbath can be kept holy, rather than on some sort of heretical Sabbatarian wish to keep it glum and enjoyment-free.  Lowest common denominator ecumenism has led us to soft pedal our opposition: let's put our foot down!

It means that the effective monopoly of the Bishops' Conference Conference over Catholic life can be broken, and that Bishops can regain control of their dioceses.  Can we expect five or six dioceses to announce that they are restoring the obligation to observe Holy Days on their proper date from Advent 2013 on, for example?  Might dioceses run their own education policies?  Might we try to push more and more Catholics into the medical profession to make anti-life policies unworkable?

The one thing we haven't got in place and ready is a coordinated communications policy: Catholic Voices seemed like a good idea at the time but seems to have disappeared.  It is possibly too identified with Eccleston Square anyway.  But we need something, both at diocesan and national level, which will form and put forward Catholics able to argue Catholicsm as an integral whole, as a challenge to the secular world, and as our opposition to the policies being pushed by the government. The model has to be the Catholic Evidence Guild of the 1920s, but where is our Frank Sheed?

Something is in the air, and I suspect the Nuncio has a lot to do with it, and I'm really glad.  2013 could be an exciting year.
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Sartre, Of All People

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This amazed me: an extract from a letter sent home by Jean Paul Sartre from a POW camp at Christmas in 1940. 

But today is Christmas, you have the right to demand to see the crib. Here it is. Here is the Virgin and here is Joseph and here is the Christ Child. The artist has put all his love into this ensemble but you might find it a bit naive. See, the figures are dressed up but they are stiff: they look like puppets. They certainly were not like that. If you were like me whose eyes are closed ... But listen: you only have to close your eyes to hear me and I'll tell you how I see them within me. The Virgin is pale and she looks at the child. What should be painted on her face is an anxious wonder that has only appeared once on a human face. Because Christ is her child, flesh of her flesh and the fruit of her womb. She carried him for nine months and gave him her breast and her milk became the blood of God. And at times, the temptation is so strong that she forgets that he is God. She hugs him and says “my boy!”  But at other times she is still and she thinks God is here - and she feels a religious awe for this silent God, for this terrifying child. Because all mothers are from time to time brought short before this rebellious fragment of flesh which is their child and they feel exiled from, even though close to, this new life which has been made from their lives and are occupied by alien thoughts. But no child was ever so cruelly and quickly snatched from his mother, because he is God and he exceeds all that can be imagined. And it is a hard trial for a mother to be ashamed of herself and her humanity before her son. But I think there are also other fast and fleeting moments when she feels both that Christ is her son, and that her little son is God. She looks at him and thinks: "This God is my child. This divine flesh is my flesh. It is made of me, he has my eyes and the shape of his mouth is the shape of mine. He looks like me. He is God and he looks like me." And no other woman has had her God to herself. A little God she can hug and cover in kisses, a little warm God, all smiles and breaths, a God who lives and can be touched. And it is in these moments that I would paint Mary, if I was a painter, and I would try to capture the tender air of boldness and timidity with which she moves her finger to touch the sweet skin of this God child whose warm weight she feels on her knees and who smiles at her. That’s Jesus and the Virgin Mary.

And Joseph? I wouldn’t paint Joseph. I would just show a shadow at the bottom of the stable and two bright eyes. Because I do not know what to say about Joseph and Joseph does not know what to say about himself. He adores and is happy to adore, and feels a little like an exile. I think he suffers without admitting it. He suffers because he sees how the woman he loves looks like God, how much she is already at God’s side. Because God has burst like a bomb into the intimacy of this family. Joseph and Mary are separated forever by the exlosion of clarity. And Joseph’s life, I imagine, will be about learning to accept.

Mr Inwood's Survey

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On behalf of the Portsmouth Diocese, Paul Inwood has interpreted the results of a survey about the new translation of the Mass.

Rather than question the statistical validity of the survey, let's take take the figures he provides as absolutely representative of Catholic opinion in Portsmouth and what do they tell us?  I think they are saying three things:

First, that after only four months of a new translation and new Mass settings, fewer than half of those surveyed had negative attituides towards the new translation.  I wonder what the equivalent figures would have looked like in April 1971.  (By the way, why has it taken so long to publish this survey, which seems only to have been uploaded on 12 December?)

Second, that there was a major failure by the previous Bishop, his Vicars General when he was ill, and by the diocesan clergy, to ensure that the faithful were prepared to welcome the new translation enthusiastically.  Given the reasons for adapting the translation, and the years of work that have gone into it, isn't it insulting both to question the need for it, and to suggest that the faithful of Portsmouth could have knocked something better up themselves.  (Should there be signs saying "Welcome to Portsmouth, the Home of Good Translation" in the same way as there are signs saying "Welcome to Oldham, the Home of the Tubular Bandage".)

And third, what tolerance of a sort of congregationalist pervision of Catholicsm has led all of these people surveyed to think that, in this case, their views count as though they are votes, and that because they have opined, the Church should "listen" (ie do what they want)? What sort of leadership has characterised this diocese for so many years if this is a fruit?
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The Bishops, Again

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In a discussion about the farewell address by Bishop McMahon on Brentwood reported here I said that part of the problem with the Church in England and Wales was that the Bishops were trying hard, not to be part of the Establishment, but to be part of the mainstream and I promised to try to illustrate what I meant.

Well, think about this. 

This is how modern Catholic Cathedral building was thought of in England and Wales the 1930s.



 By the 1960s, it had become modern.

 

In the 1970s, it even flirted with a sort of muscular feminist style.

 

But in 1990 it has become Anglican.

 

 

 

Brentwood is less a Catholic Cathedral than a homage to the Anglican churches built by Wren.  How has the English baroque become an appropriate point of reference for Catholics?

The answer is that after Vatican II the Church in England and Wales ditched the alliance between prelatial clericalism and working-class Irishness which marked the first hundred years after the Restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850, but replaced it by an alliance of two middle-class Bishops, Hume and Worlock, and an activist middle-class laity empowered by the 1980 National Pastoral Congress, with ecumenism as the highest pursuit.  As Clifford Longley put it just before Cardinal Hume’s death:

 “As a Benedictine monk, Hume represented a way of being Catholic that set off deep resonances in the English psyche entirely different from those associated with working-class Irish Catholicism.

This home-grownness was precisely what English Catholicism needed at that point in its history. Many of its lay members had themselves joined the ranks of the English middle classes in previous 50 years, not least as a result of the success of Catholic secondary education since the 1944 Education Act. (Two individuals who symbolize this success are Cherie Booth QC, wife of the Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Bishop Vincent Nichols, Bishop in North London and undoubtedly Cardinal Hume’s favourite Bishop of that younger generation. John Birt, Director General of the BBC, went the same school as Nichols. All three are products of the post-1944 Education act Catholic grammar school system in South Lancashire.)

 ...

 The 'signs of the times' of that transitional period included the appointment of Basil Hume to Westminster and Derek Worlock to Liverpool (both in 1976 and 1975), the consolidation of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, the programme of Consultation and renewal that led up to the National Pastoral Congress in 1980, the visit of John Paul II to Great Britain in 1982, and the impact of the early years of that papacy on the Church generally.  It would also include the remarkable convergence of doctrine under the auspices of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International commission, and the unprecedented change in ecumenical relations in Great Britain that followed.

...

Give or take the sort of minor rebuffs already mentioned, the Hume-Worlock approach to Church leadership has tacitly been endorsed by Rome in a whole series of episcopal appointments to the English Catholic hierarchy which gradually replaced the contemporaries of Heenan with those of Hume and Worlock; men of the temperament of Heenan with men of the temperament of the latter two.”

It is reflected in the quasi-Synod, the imitation House of Bishops that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference has come to be: not just the uncanonical pooling of Episcopal authority, but the more insidious search for compromise, as though it is a virtue as important as truth; not just the growth of an ecclesiastical civil service in Eccleston Square, but the parallelism of the diocesan structures which have been built in its imitation.  Worst of all is the striving for what they seem to perceive as an analogous place in society to the CofE’s: getting “one of ours” on Thought for the Day, for example; or the pursuit of regular meetings with junior ministers in DFID: what I described in an earlier post as the desire to be part of Society instead of being a Society apart.

The worst part of this has been the cost: for if, as seemed to be the regularly proclaimed thesis in the 1980s, there is no fundamental difference between Catholic and Anglican, then there is no longer any need to do the things which previously marked us out as different.  Out went Friday abstinence, not because it was a bad thing in itself, but because it made us stand out.  So did going to Mass every Sunday.  Catholic schools stopped being schools in which Catholicism was taught and became schools for Catholics and anybody else who wanted a place: sacramental preparation became the preserve of lay volunteers in parishes.  (But weren’t we all pleased when HM the Queen talked about “My Cardinal”, and attended Vespers at the Cathedral and appointed Cardinal Hume to the Order of Merit.)

The only good thing I can think of to say about the compulsory presentation of a Bishop’s resignation letter when he reaches 75 is that it hastens what Fr Z calls the biological solution; that it brings closer the time when the generation of Bishops nominated by Hume and Worlock gives way to a newer generation.  But a new generation of Bishops is not the solution to the problems caused by their predecessors: it is only the point at which what looks like a sisiphean task of reclaiming the Church might begin. 

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Patronised By The BBC Again

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Encouraged by the argument in Caroline Farrow's blog here, I complained to the BBC about their commission of a comedy series about three men who set up an assisted suicide business.  My point was that there is something depraved (I didn't put it as baldly to people who wouldn't understand) about wanting to choose the most shocking subject possible in which you can claim to find humour: that the search for the "laugh at any cost" is fundamentally not a search for humour but solely for subjects not previously laughed at, and usually for a good reason.  Veterans of BBC Complaints will appreciate that I didn't do this expecting to change minds (ho ho ho!) or even to make the BBC think there might be a problem: I knew that what would come back would be a patronising spew of liberal establishment value-inspired drivel which would patiently explain to me why I was wrong, and allow the author to snigger behind my back about the sort of fossilised Daily Express reader he no doubt takes me for.  (That "he" should maybe be "s/he" but in my experience women aren't are seldom anywhere near as good at plonking patronising as men.)

So the reply came and didn't disappoint any more than I knew it would anyway, but as part of its clever-clever attempt to put me down, it claimed that the comedy about assisted suicide would treat its subject seriously in the same way that Arsenic and Old Lace dealt with the subject of old lady poisoners, or Kind Hearts and Coronets dealt with aristocratic murders.

It's hard to plumb the depths of the contempt that the person who wrote that feels for the person he imagines to be complaining about an assisted suicide comedy.  It's also hard to number all of the ways in which he is completely and utterly wrong (starting from the fact that both films can be comedies because everybody, absolutely everybody, from writers to actors to production team to directors to film distributors to projectionists to usherettes to filmgoers knows that murder is uniquely evil).  Worst of all, is the moral relativism that produces the clinching (in his mind) argument, put as a mild suggestion, that "we do appreciate that the programme may not be to everyone’s taste but hope that if you do decide to watch it, you’ll reserve judgement until then".

I've thought of the license fee as iniquitous for many years because it forces me to subsidise programmes like this, and forces other people to pay for things like Radio 3 which I listen to.  A compulsory tax on televisions would be one thing: a compulsory tax which then funds a series of TV and radio stations which push a specific point of view is another. 

What I've never thought of before today is how much I resent the fact that apart from paying for the programmes I don't watch, I'm paying for moral illiterates to snigger at my beliefs and to patronise me for it. 

In Which Somebody Gets Under My Skin

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Ben Trovato tipped us off to an effusion from Grima Wormtongue Paul Inwood which got me really annoyed yesterday and has remained as a sort of mind worm all day (a bit of a problem as I have had to work today and have been out and about all over the place).  Inwood has concluded that His Holiness the Pope has been a fool rather than a knave in expressing his (HH the P's) belief that the EF of the Mass was not abrogated by Pope Paul.

The whole question of the precise status of the Traditional Mass: whether it could have been abrogated; how that could have happened; whether those conditions were met; whether an Indult could restore something abrogated; all these questions were the stuff of argument and discussion for most of the period between the introduction of the OF and the publication of Summorum Pontificum.  There were different views, and canon lawyers managed to come to conclusions that (coincidentally) exactly matched their view of whether or not the EF should or shouldn't be celebrated.

But then along came the Supreme Legislator and settled the question with Summorum Pontificum.  The earlier status - between the promulgation of the 1st edition of the OF and the publication of the Motu Proprio - has been decided retrospectively and definitively: the EF wasn't abrogated, and its use is now regulated by two new instructions.

I'm not aware of any issue of Canon Law in this country in which non-trained Catholics seem to feel that they are completely free to make their own minds up and tell trained Canon lawyers that they are wrong, but that is what Inwood has felt free to do in this context.  Canon Law must have been ambiguous, or perhaps there was just no precedent to decide a question of such magnitude as how a valid and licit form of Mass is made invalid and illicit, but that's one of the reasons we have a Pope: to settle this sort of question.  And settled it is.

So why does Inwood engage in this particular battle long after the argument has been settled?  How does he feel qualified to judge the Pope's decision?  On what basis does he feel able to state patronisingly that the Pope must at best have been badly advised?

I have said several times, that a great battle has been joined between those who would conform the Church to the spirit of the age and those who would see it proclaim a timeless message in spite of the spirit of the age.  In England and Wales, the battle is acute because the leadership in the Church - both its Hierarchy and the senior lay people identified as Catholics - seem to be taking a different line from Rome's.  It is perhaps inevitable that the ground for much of the battle is about sex: that's why Man fell after all, the Devil's greatest triumph.

Inwood's foray isn't really about the EF at all, though it suits proponents of the status quo in England and Wales to portray the EF as a Roman imposition on E&W and its proponents as a cross between crazed albino monks and nostalgic 1950s-lovers.  This is part of an existential struggle to define where the Church is.  (Imagine, if you need to know what I'm getting at, that people self-identifying as Catholic can have problems with priests wearing cassocks!)

Antipapalism and anticlericalism have no place in the Church: it should be axiomatic that they are manifestations of views opposed to the Church and intent on bringing it down.  Why those of us who worry about this sort of thing should be concerned, however, is that Inwood isn't some rogue commenter: he is someone whom the Church in England and Wales has placed on a pedestal.  He is paid (and how!) by a Catholic diocese; he is one of the main arbiters of liturgical music for England and Wales; his is a respected voice to which the majority of Catholic national publications listen with respect.

But he is utterly wrong, and I think we should be asking the diocese which pays his wages to invite him to consider his position.

Sing As We Go - To Communion?

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I was taking part in a discussion on the aptness or otherwise of hymns being sung and mentioned that I had always thought that this was a very "spirit of Vatican 2" thing to do, and that along with the need to process (to receive Communion standing) and the notion of our "sharing" Communion, here were three things wrong with the way the distribution of the Eucharist at Mass was messing up things which had worked perfectly well unupmessed.

Looking at the GIRM, however, I find that the problem isn't due to a few unruly priests: this is the way Communion is supposed to happen!

"86. While the priest is receiving the Sacrament, the Communion chant is begun.  Its purpose is to express the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices,  to show joy of heart, and to highlight more clearly the ‘communitarian’ nature of the procession to receive Communion.  The singing is continued for as long as the Sacrament is being administered to the faithful.  If, however, there is to be a hymn after Communion, the Communion chant should be ended in a timely manner. 

Care should be taken that singers, too, can receive Communion with ease.

87. In the dioceses of the (sic) England and Wales the options for the Communion chant are as follows: (1) the antiphon from the Graduale Romanum either with or without the psalm; (2) the antiphon with the psalm from the Graduale Simplex; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.  It is sung either by the choir alone or by the choir or cantor with the people.

If there is no singing, however, the Communion antiphon found in the Misdsal may be recited either by the faithful, or by some of them, or by a lector.  Otherwise the priest himself says it after he has received Communion and before he distributes Communion to the faithful.

88. When the distribution of Communion is finished, as circumstances suggest, the priest and the faithful spend some time praying quietly.  If desired, a psalm or other canticle of praise or a hymn may also be sung by the entire congregation."

This really feels wrong to me: there shouldn't be a procession to receive Communion, precisely because the reception of Communion shouldn't be communitarian.  That, to me at least, gives off a strong whiff of the necessity of congregational participation in the action of the priest.  Our attitude, going to Communion, shouldn't be (or, at least, shouldn't solely be) one of "joy of heart": why Our Lord allowed himself to be the ultimate sacrifice, and what our individual responsibility for this, and our unworthy gratitude are surely as relevant as we approach the altar.  And silence, rather than some banal arrangement of the relevant proper (though "proper" scarcely seems the right word for something casually  disposable) feels to me a more adequate approach by a fallen human to the Transcendent.

But this is what the GIRM says, and, just in case you hoped it was some E&W spirit of Vatican II thing, its foornote refers to an Instruction of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of 1980.  This is the way we should be doing things.

I'm not very happy about this, but I can't see any easy way round it.  Help!
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Women "Bishops": Catholic Dissenters

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It seems likely that the C of E will vote to allow women to be made ("ordained"? "consecrated"?) "bishops" shortly (and why not, since they have been ordainable as "deacons" and "priests" for some time).  I use quotation marks simply to mark the fact that they aren't deacons, priests and won't be bishops: Ben Trovato has been explaining why here.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that in the same way that the Ordinariate is the end of a process in which sincere Anglicans finally realised that unity between Canterbury and Rome had been made impossible by the ordination of women, that Catholic dissenters (here, the people who won't accept the Magisterium, particularly with regard to issues of gender and sexuality, and who seem to have a problem with Authority (the new translation, for example), especially when it derives from Rome) would be moving en bloc, or even en masse to join the C of E.  But they aren't.  I have come across a priest who moved to the C of E and am aware of the cases of a couple of laypeople, as well as a couple more who were baptised as Catholics, had no religion in their childhood, but who came to Christianity in the C of E, but i still have fingers left over to count.  There is no movement.

This feels like good and bad news.  Good news, because whatever their problems with the Magisterium (either as an objective corpus of truth or with some of the details it contains) they still believe that the Catholic Church is where God is, with valid sacraments, and through which we can approach God  who died to save us.  However much they might believe that salvation may be attainable by other people through other paths, however much they believe that the Church should "move with the times" - trim before the spirit of the age - it is their Church and while they want it to change, they want to stay part of it.  That, I suggest, is a cause for hope.

The bad news is that their fight will continue until they either win or they lose.  Those of us who are quite happy with the Reform of the Reform, with the idea of Continuity, cannot relax.  Deacon Nick's chronicle of dissent shows just how entrenched they are.  But as long as we keep on challenging them, as long as we continue to pray for holy bishops and priests to preach God's Truth, the Truth shall prevail.

Magna est veritas et prevalebit!
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Professor Beattie: Keep Digging!

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Professor Beattie has returned to the fray, here.  I'll leave others better qualified to discuss her views on academic freedom and what she deems the "official magisterium" (as though it is but one among many) and talk instead about the worldview she hints at in this paragraph:

"It is clear from the fine investigative journalism journalism which supports her undertaken by Joshua J. McElwee of the National Catholic Reporter that there is a very murky world of Catholic politics and power underlying the decision to cancel my visit. It seems that the President of the University of San Diego may have been pressurised or supported (I'm not sure which) by influential conservative Catholic benefactors and watchdog groups with links to the local Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican imagine that Catholic groups have links to their Bishop and their Pope! Professor Beattie should be pleased that any excess or over-exuberance in their conservatism will be tempered by an appeal from their Bishop or Pope to Catholic social teaching, thanks to those links. Some students and faculty at the University are making connections between this and a wider attempt by conservative American media barons to virtually take control of civic life in San Diego not only have they bought the San Diego Union Tribune, but they are allowing it to pass comment on what is happening in San Diego, the city whose paper it is. Douglas Manchester and John Lynch, who recently bought the San Diego Union Tribune, have allied themselves to a highly conservative and militaristic agenda they are conservative and support the US military. Being supportive of the military - wearing a poppy, for example - and even supporting the government's deployment of military forces does not make me militaristic. In an interview with Associated Press, Lynch is reported to have said that they 'bought the newspaper in part to promote their views in editorials. He called those views pro-family, pro-military and pro-America, and said "anybody who isn't shouldn't be living here"'. Once again then, conservative Catholicism presumably means not the liberal Catholicsm Prof Beattie professes (Human Flourishing, as they call it in Roehampton) but her argument is with some Catholics who are conservative: I can't see that they are trying to force the City of San Diego to institute Corpus Christi processions, for example risks forming an unholy alliance (cliche) with a far-right (as in "not left") American (they're in America - would she prefer Paraguayan?) political agenda which flies in the face of so much that is enshrined in Catholic social teaching and the Christian ethos (she can't mean abortion or accelerated death as they are opposed to both of those). Barack Obama's victory might temporarily take the sting out of this situation and the lethal politics it engenders, but these are not people who give up easily." The greatest sin of all: they don't merely disagree with Pres Obama - they actively oppose him!

Elsewhere, she recounts events of the last fortnight as follows:

"For a lay theologian employed by a British university, it is unheard of to find oneself bullied and silenced by dark magisterial forces working invisibly through various masked intermediaries."

Really, Professor Beattie?  "Dark magisterial forces" (is magisterial here a reference to the Magisterium, or to some preeminently intellectual opponents?) and "masked intermediaries"?  Has she been reading Dan Brown?  Pray God there are no albino monks wandering around the Borough of Wandsworth!

There is no plot.  The tide has turned, and the haughty intellectualism which places the liberal academic's view on a level with the Magisterium is being challenged by Catholics - not by the Hierarchy, unfortunately - who, while not as intellectually gifted as the haughty intellectuals, at least know the difference between black and white and who can tell a wrong 'un even if they can't tell why.

They are fighting back because for the first time in more than thirty years they are under challenge: the two new Bishops (for whom please pray) are under unremitting attack and ordinary Catholics with a view are being denigrated for having the wrong view.  To steal a phrase from somebody who would hate our hijacking it and which will be widely understood in San Diego: ¡hasta la victoria siempre! - ever onwards to victory!

Clifford Longley, Again

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There's an odd thing happens when you're travelling: things that belong in one time of day happen in another.  So you might find yourself in an airport lounge one evening and have the radio playing through your laptop playing Thought For The Day. That might make it hard to believe your ears.

If that ever happens, come back to the Radio 4 website and download the piece, and you might find that your ears didn't deceive you, and that Clifford Longley appears to be saying that Jimmy Saville has gone to Hell http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/thought/thought_20121030-1310a.mp3.

Now, I have strong opinions on lots of things, but accusing others of having committed mortal sin feels to me like a step too far, not least because I have no Godlike insight into anybody else's mind.  Clifford, though, knows that JS committed mortal sin, and thinks nothing of telling the world what the sinner's penance will have consisted off (including, in this case, psychiatric counselling) and then telling us that JS wasn't penitent and that his Catholicsm was a charade.

Two things strike me: are the Tabletistas finally (if over-exuberantly) rediscovering Sin, and can we expect a similarly robust attitude to some of the Life issues some of us feel they are a bit, well, soft on?

And does "Judge not, that you may not be judged" (Mat 7:1) not count when a sinner has committed what seems to be the gravest sin of all, that of embarrassing the BBC? 

Professor Beattie

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I have to feel a certain feeling of guilt that I am not one of the Catholic bloggers Professor Beattie is railing against after the withdrawal of her invitation to San Diego*.  I salute those bloggers, clerical and lay, whom she blames.

She has constructed a wonderful structure in which she is a theologian who is catholic rather than a Catholic theologian, at a College with a catholic foundation in which she teaches theology, rather than a theology prof at a Catholic institution, and then points out (repeatedly? obsessively?) that as a teacher in an English University, nobody can get rid of her just because she is teaching tosh they disagree with her. 

Part of me feels desperately sorry for her: she has been feted and lauded, and has gradually begun to think of her magisterium as being the equivalent of anybody else's, and the intellectual-formationally challenged Hierarchy has encouraged her because she is challenging, and they have come to believe in a Guardianista view of the world in which "challenging" is an absolute virtue.  She makes me think of Tracey Emin, who has lost the power to shock, and whose efforts to shock induce pity rather than anger, and whose genuine talent was lost behind her status as enfant terrible. 

But then I wake up and remember that, irrespective of the adolescent enthusiasm for her of people who are responsible for knowing better, she is bright enough, ferociously clever enough indeed, to know exactly what she is doing and to understand exactly what the value is of her construction.  Read Deacon Nick to find out just what this "theologian who is a catholic" has been preaching.

I'm glad that she blames the bloggers, and complains that the Vatican is paying attention to them, though.  It shows that the Church in E&W as an Establishment is under threat from within through the power of the Internet, in the same way that it was taken over from within by the spirit-of-Vatican2istas - I note that she appeals directly to the "spirit of Vatican II" as though it is a positive - and that against the Truth they have no alternative but to whinge.  They are losing; they will lose.


* (O/T SD is where to go to experience nice CA if you want to miss PC SF, or (UGH!) LA, BTW.)