It is a little known fact (yes; this one of my even-more-than-usually pompous pieces) that in the 1940s and 1950s, there was a vigorous episcopal attempt to kill off the Tridentine Rite, and especially the Canon Romanus, in the (many) Anglo-Catholic churches of the Diocese of London. Here is an account (1956) of that period from a priest (Hugh Ross Williamson) who witnessed it.
"The Vicar of All Saints, Margaret Streety, was the Rev. Cyril Tomkinson, whom I had known very well since 1926 when he was a curate of Little St. Mary's at Cambridge. Cyril ranked with the present Bishop of London and Gregory Dix as one of the three wits of the Church of England; but he was a 'Protestant -in-chasuble' par excellence and refused to allow me to say even a private Mass at All Saints--'because, my dear, you'll use that horrid Roman book and the rule here is music by Mozart, choreography by Fortescue, decor by Comper, but'--his long forefinger wagged roguishly and his voice became solemnly emphatic--'libretto by Cranmer.'"
9 comments:
I was just thinking about that line of Tomkinson's yesterday when washing up the breakfast things - good evidence of Jung's synchronicity, if ever there was.
I was thinking that really it has come to pass with the most recent translation of the Missale Romanum (in which I feel that Vox Clara was unhelpful - pace Pell), where the pastor tries to do things in an 'old fashioned way' (sorry I mean, with the 'hermeneutic of continuity').
Where things are carried out like that it seems to have been a great success, from what I can tell. It throws bishops quite a bit when they find Mozart, Fortescue and Comper (of whom they have probably never heard) with the "vulgar tongue, as understood of the people."
Great anecdote! Was the "Fortescue" which he mentions actually the amazing Adrian Fortescue? The 100th anniversary of Fortescue's cruel death is approaching. He was a prodigy of scholarship (triple doctorate), pastoral energy and charity. Surely he is a worthy candidate for canonisation?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Fortescue
Rev Tomkinson and his 'horrid Roman Book' sounds a bit like a more cultured, Anglican and polite version of our dear Holy Father.
"The Vicar of All Saints, Margaret Streety".
Crazy name, crazy gal!?!
(It's only a matter of time, I fear.)
I have just come across Cardinal Pell's posthumous parting shot: we have gone from 'Roma locuta est, causa finita est' to 'Roma loquitur, confusio augetur'.
W. Oddie's The Roman Option, about which we recently spoke in these pages, has an appendix at the back containing the translation of the Canon, attributed to Miles Coverdale, from Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Book V. If Coverdale's Psalter in the BCP can be counted as "libretto by Cranmer", then I think his translation of the Canon should too.
Fr Adrian Fortescue would be most familiar to Catholics in Ireland and England (or would've been in the past) for words of introduction 'the Holy Sacrifice, the Mass and the Missal' for various hand missals. including Mam's one, a Browne & Nolan Ltd, of 1957, or one by Burn & Oates and others besides. It was perhaps an extract from 'Ceremonies of the Roman Rite' or was written for a hand missal intro, and it gives a readable rendering of how a Catholic should understand the Mass as Sacrifice. That understanding became foggy and mistaken later on. Rome of the New Pentecost certainly didn't help.
Prayerful: yes, my mother's daily missal dating from 1930 has that, over 5 pages of fairly small print. Published by Burns, Oates and Washbourne, London, imprimatur 1921. She started attending secondary school in about 1931/32, a convent school, and was always quite informed on liturgical matters. While not saying too much in front of us as kids, one was never in any doubt as to her (and my father's) views on the various, erm, "devolopments" of the 60s and onwards.
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