The Latin word meaning Bad ... how should it be pronounced?
A few weeks ago I gave advice on this, which was subjected to some criticism. I now make my point more precisely, that is, with more prolixity.
I too like to pronounce Latin like Italian. I have, for example, little patience for recent or less recent German fads about how to pronounce a soft C.
So ... how to pronounce the A in Malum?
The point I would like to reinforce is that it is not pronounced like the English A in Fat or Cat. Whether we are going to call it 'long' or 'short', it is pronounced much further back in the mouth or throat, so that, if 'short', it is much more like the English U in Shut or Luck. If 'long', it will be much the same but pronounced for a trifle longer, like the English A in Father. As far as I am aware ... and my bookshelves confirm this ... whether we are thinking of Latin or Italian, we avoid the sharp English 'short A' sound (Sat, Rat).
And additionally I would add that, despite what Sir Watkin wrote some time ago and with my accustomed respect for the august and alliterated baronet, the classical refinement whereby Evil and Apple are distinguishable seems to me to be useful. It hardly represents a gross or excruciating departure from the principle of pronouncing Latin like Italian. And, despite what any millions of Italians may say, you will not catch me saying 'Nobis quoque' with a long English O (as in Boat) after the qu! So there!
Dixi.
Another matter: how to pronounce the Greek letters Theta and Phi when they are reproduced in Latin? This crops up most commonly in the Creed (Catholicam) and when one is proclaiming the Epistle (Corinthios; Philippenses; Thessalonicenses).
Classicist Hellenists are likely to have been taught to pronounce these letters as an aspirated T or P; i.e. the TH or Theta is pronounced like an aspirated T in an English word like Pothole; the PH (Phi) like an aspirated P in an English compound like Crophead. Unclassically trained Anglophones are more likely instinctively to use the English TH sound as in Father and the English F sound as in Philip.
But as for Italians ... my impression is that, not having either an aspirated, Classical Greek Theta, or the English TH sound (as in Father), they simply pronounce TH like T (so, in 'Catholicam', they just say 'Catolicam'). But when it comes to PH, the dear sweet poppets do have a sound like the English F. So they cheerfully pronounce Phi like an English F ... 'Filippenses'. Is it really necessary to go to all the trouble of following them through these convoluted inconsistencies?
I have noticed that in Rome-published Latin language ORDOs, Epiphania is sometimes, significantly, typographically misspelt Epifania!
Horrifying admission: despite the Italians, I pronounce Theta and Phi as respectively aspirated T and aspirated P. So there.
Bis dixi.
28 February 2018
27 February 2018
Does your kitchen have Newman on the spice rack?
(1) Bergoglians urge upon us Amoris laetitia under the pretext that, with a culinary dash of Newman's Development stirred into the pot and with a large dollop of subjective guilt reduced from Mortal to Venial ('Here's some I did earlier'), we can cook Communion for Adulterers?NO! until it is nicely tenderised into Communion for Adulterers?YES!. And, of course, this lays the way open for homosexuals, polygamists, paedophiles, polyamorists, therogamists, batrachophiles, and all the other categories that the Graf von Schoenborn and Fr Rosica may or may not have on their lists. ... I've got a little list ... OK, Ko-ko (is there a Cardinal Ko-ko? In today's Gilbert-and-Sullivan Vatican, there jolly well should be). Splendid. And all the basic work, all the heavy lifting, has already been done by Tucho in between 'supermystic' kisses (is there a Tucho in Gilbert and Sullivan?). What more could ...
But this particular sleight of hand will not avail (as far a I can see) when these same Magisterial Minds turn their attention to the next nut that needs to be cracked: the priestly Ordination of Women. Can anybody suggest how (again with appropriate assistance from Development and with their usual claims about the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit) they will chart their journey from Womenpriests?NO! to Womenpriests?YES!? In other words, what conjuring tricks, accompanied by the Graf's sad but winning smile and Rosica's air of patient condescension, will enable the Bergoglians to argue that the Ordination of Women is merely a natural and inevitable development springing fully-formed from the head of Ordinatio sacerdotalis?
(2) When Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman was faced by the protoBergoglian campaign at Vatican I to formulate the Petrine Primacy in a superhyperueberpapalist way, he characterised his contemporary Ultras as "An aggressive and insolent Faction". Perhaps we should resurrect this beautifully expressive phrase to describe our own dear and much-loved Ultras. And, 'for short', we could refer to them simply as "the Faction".
One should never stray too far from Dr Newman.
But this particular sleight of hand will not avail (as far a I can see) when these same Magisterial Minds turn their attention to the next nut that needs to be cracked: the priestly Ordination of Women. Can anybody suggest how (again with appropriate assistance from Development and with their usual claims about the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit) they will chart their journey from Womenpriests?NO! to Womenpriests?YES!? In other words, what conjuring tricks, accompanied by the Graf's sad but winning smile and Rosica's air of patient condescension, will enable the Bergoglians to argue that the Ordination of Women is merely a natural and inevitable development springing fully-formed from the head of Ordinatio sacerdotalis?
(2) When Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman was faced by the protoBergoglian campaign at Vatican I to formulate the Petrine Primacy in a superhyperueberpapalist way, he characterised his contemporary Ultras as "An aggressive and insolent Faction". Perhaps we should resurrect this beautifully expressive phrase to describe our own dear and much-loved Ultras. And, 'for short', we could refer to them simply as "the Faction".
One should never stray too far from Dr Newman.
26 February 2018
Ordinariate Missal
Divine Worship The Missal, in its Study Edition, will, I gather, be available in April. The CTS (Catholic Truth Society) has done a run of 1,000.
Newman on the Suspense of the Functions of the Magisterium
REPRINTED FROM OCTOBER 2017
Speaking only on my own, individual, behalf, I have to say that I feel very let down by PF's apparent decision not to reply to the Correctio Filialis which I together with others sent to him at the Domus Santa Marta last August. I retain to the full my feeling of the proper respect due to the individual who currently occupies the Petrine See, but in human and affective terms, his apparent view that I and so many others are not worth bothering with introduces a sense of hurt and pain, if not alienation. I am sure that there is a providential purpose in all this, and I pray that I may be enabled ever more profoundly to embrace the humiliations permitted by the Divine Will.
The decision of PF not to fulfil the mandate to confirm (sterizein) his brethren, is a striking event not easily paralleled. And a refusal to respond to formal requests can hardly not itself constitute a formal act. So I turned, as surely we in the Ordinariate instinctively do, to our beloved Patron Blessed John Henry Newman, quo quis doctior, quis sapientior?
"... the body of the episcopate was unfaithful to its commission ... at one time the pope*, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other great see, at other times general councils*, said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth ... I say, that there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens. The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith. They spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after Nicaea, of firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly sixty years ..."
I am testing in my thoughts (doing what we colloquially call "sleeping on it" or "thinking aloud") the possibility that PF's decision to ignore the cries for help which are sent to him, whether by Eminent Fathers of the Sacred College or by nonentities like me, may be seen as formally constituting the beginning of a period in which the functions of the Papal Magisterium are in "temporary suspense"; in a vacatio which will be ended at the moment when the same Petrine Magisterial organ as formally returns from dogmatic silence to the audible exercise of the functions rightly attributed to it in Catholic Tradition and Magisterial Conciliar definition; that is, devoutly to guard and faithfully to set forth the Tradition received through the Apostles; i.e. the Deposit of Faith.
If readers want an expansion of my way of thinking, I refer them to the masterly address on Apostasy delivered last week at the Buckfast Fatima Conference by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. "The poisonous fruits of the failure of the Church's pastors in the matters of Worship, teaching, and moral discipline ... ". His dear Eminence always puts things so much better than I could! Incidentally, I suspect that the Conference ... and, not least, Cardinal Burke's powerful address ... may go down in history as one of the significant moments in the recovery, the 'fight-back', of orthodoxy.
As if to confirm my thoughts, in the last few days PF is reported to have contradicted another of the Church's teachings: the teaching with regard to Capital Punishment; and to have done so not obiter or in an airliner but formally, reading a written text to one of those "Pontifical Councils" which absorb so much money and effort. This suggests to me that PF has himself consciously stopped even bothering to remain within the parameters set by the Magisterium to which he is as much under an obligation to submit as is anybody else. The current careful formulation of the Church's teaching with regard to the Death Penalty, which PF said he wants changed, is precisely twenty years old. A "Magisterium" which contradicts itself every twenty years is not a Teaching Authority to which many people are likely seriously to consider themselves obliged to give assent. (I say this as a strong opponent of the use of Capital Punishment in modern states; as a barbarism.)
I can see no present grounds plausibly to speculate that PF's divagations from orthodoxy will in future tolerate any restraints. It is as if, having discovered himself at the bottom of a hole, he has decided that the only thing to do is to keep digging with redoubled energy. Or, like the Duke of Wellington in the Fifth Act of the Battle of Waterloo, perhaps he is saying to the world "In for a penny, in for a pound"! Or does he think that he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb? Will his parting gift to the Church Militant be a ringing endorsement of the homoiousios? En pote hote ouk en?
By joining with Newman in this analysis, I do not, of course, in any way suggest that PF and the silent or heterodox bishops have lost the right or capacity to use the Magisterium of his and their office. Precisely as Newman did, I am simply observing that, as a matter of fact, he is not and they are not using it. I am certainly not suggesting (and I do not believe) that this Suspense makes any difference whatsoever to the status or powers of the current occupant of the Roman See or of other bishops. Those who argue that PF has forfeited his See, or that his Election was for any reason void or voidable, are, in my judgement, talking piffle. (Quae sit huius verbi etymologia quaero. Num verbi 'pontificale' depravatio est?)
I shall not consider comments which ignore the paragraph immediately above this.
Note: Newman is referring to Pope* Liberius; and, in referring to general councils*, he does not mean Ecumenical Councils. He explained later that he follows S Robert Bellarmine in distinguishing between Ecumenical Councils and councils which, even if large, do not count as Ecumenical. So ... not applicable to Vatican II!
Speaking only on my own, individual, behalf, I have to say that I feel very let down by PF's apparent decision not to reply to the Correctio Filialis which I together with others sent to him at the Domus Santa Marta last August. I retain to the full my feeling of the proper respect due to the individual who currently occupies the Petrine See, but in human and affective terms, his apparent view that I and so many others are not worth bothering with introduces a sense of hurt and pain, if not alienation. I am sure that there is a providential purpose in all this, and I pray that I may be enabled ever more profoundly to embrace the humiliations permitted by the Divine Will.
The decision of PF not to fulfil the mandate to confirm (sterizein) his brethren, is a striking event not easily paralleled. And a refusal to respond to formal requests can hardly not itself constitute a formal act. So I turned, as surely we in the Ordinariate instinctively do, to our beloved Patron Blessed John Henry Newman, quo quis doctior, quis sapientior?
"... the body of the episcopate was unfaithful to its commission ... at one time the pope*, at other times a patriarchal, metropolitan, or other great see, at other times general councils*, said what they should not have said, or did what obscured and compromised revealed truth ... I say, that there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the Ecclesia docens. The body of bishops failed in their confession of the faith. They spoke variously, one against another; there was nothing, after Nicaea, of firm, unvarying, consistent testimony, for nearly sixty years ..."
I am testing in my thoughts (doing what we colloquially call "sleeping on it" or "thinking aloud") the possibility that PF's decision to ignore the cries for help which are sent to him, whether by Eminent Fathers of the Sacred College or by nonentities like me, may be seen as formally constituting the beginning of a period in which the functions of the Papal Magisterium are in "temporary suspense"; in a vacatio which will be ended at the moment when the same Petrine Magisterial organ as formally returns from dogmatic silence to the audible exercise of the functions rightly attributed to it in Catholic Tradition and Magisterial Conciliar definition; that is, devoutly to guard and faithfully to set forth the Tradition received through the Apostles; i.e. the Deposit of Faith.
If readers want an expansion of my way of thinking, I refer them to the masterly address on Apostasy delivered last week at the Buckfast Fatima Conference by Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. "The poisonous fruits of the failure of the Church's pastors in the matters of Worship, teaching, and moral discipline ... ". His dear Eminence always puts things so much better than I could! Incidentally, I suspect that the Conference ... and, not least, Cardinal Burke's powerful address ... may go down in history as one of the significant moments in the recovery, the 'fight-back', of orthodoxy.
As if to confirm my thoughts, in the last few days PF is reported to have contradicted another of the Church's teachings: the teaching with regard to Capital Punishment; and to have done so not obiter or in an airliner but formally, reading a written text to one of those "Pontifical Councils" which absorb so much money and effort. This suggests to me that PF has himself consciously stopped even bothering to remain within the parameters set by the Magisterium to which he is as much under an obligation to submit as is anybody else. The current careful formulation of the Church's teaching with regard to the Death Penalty, which PF said he wants changed, is precisely twenty years old. A "Magisterium" which contradicts itself every twenty years is not a Teaching Authority to which many people are likely seriously to consider themselves obliged to give assent. (I say this as a strong opponent of the use of Capital Punishment in modern states; as a barbarism.)
I can see no present grounds plausibly to speculate that PF's divagations from orthodoxy will in future tolerate any restraints. It is as if, having discovered himself at the bottom of a hole, he has decided that the only thing to do is to keep digging with redoubled energy. Or, like the Duke of Wellington in the Fifth Act of the Battle of Waterloo, perhaps he is saying to the world "In for a penny, in for a pound"! Or does he think that he might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb? Will his parting gift to the Church Militant be a ringing endorsement of the homoiousios? En pote hote ouk en?
By joining with Newman in this analysis, I do not, of course, in any way suggest that PF and the silent or heterodox bishops have lost the right or capacity to use the Magisterium of his and their office. Precisely as Newman did, I am simply observing that, as a matter of fact, he is not and they are not using it. I am certainly not suggesting (and I do not believe) that this Suspense makes any difference whatsoever to the status or powers of the current occupant of the Roman See or of other bishops. Those who argue that PF has forfeited his See, or that his Election was for any reason void or voidable, are, in my judgement, talking piffle. (Quae sit huius verbi etymologia quaero. Num verbi 'pontificale' depravatio est?)
I shall not consider comments which ignore the paragraph immediately above this.
Note: Newman is referring to Pope* Liberius; and, in referring to general councils*, he does not mean Ecumenical Councils. He explained later that he follows S Robert Bellarmine in distinguishing between Ecumenical Councils and councils which, even if large, do not count as Ecumenical. So ... not applicable to Vatican II!
"The temporary suspense of the function of the Ecclesia Docens"
REPRINTED FROM DECEMBER 2017
A world-wide group of laymen and laywomen have just issued a defence of Catholic doctrine concerning Family and Life matters. The crucial paragraph, in my view, is this:
We pledge our full obedience to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the legitimate exercise of is authority. However, nothing will ever persuade us, or compel us, to abandon or contradict any article of the Catholic faith or any truth definitively established. If there is any conflict between the words and acts of any member of the hierarchy, even the pope, and the doctrine that the Church has always taught, we will remain faithful to the perennial teaching of the Church. If we were to depart from the Catholic faith, we would depart from Jesus Christ, to whom we wish to be united for all eternity."
This seems to me exactly right and exactly proportionate to the present situation in the Catholic Church. By a happy disposition of Providence, this Statement hit the media at the same time as Walter Kasper's gleeful conviction that Amoris laetitia has now become irreformable and that the 'controversy' is now over. Gracious me, what ultrahyperueberpapalist views of the Petrine Ministry these Liberals do have when they get a foul wind in their sails.
And the Statement reminds me of the phrase which Blessed John Henry Newman used in the context of the Arian controversy, in which the great majority of the Bishops, the Ecclesia docens, and including the Successor of S Peter, were either heretics, or were cowed into silence or compromise by the heretics. It is the phrase I have put at the head of this post, which I take in the sense in which Newman subsequently clarified his use of it, and not otherwise.
I suppose we had a good example of this phenomenon of 'suspense' in the pontificate of Blessed Paul VI, in the period between his setting up of a Commission to consider the question of Contraception, and his very courageous subsequent reaffirmation of the Church's Magisterial Teaching with the publication of Humanae vitae.
Surely, we are in another such period of suspense now. The question of the admission of adulterers to Holy Communion was magisterially dealt with as recently as 2007, only ten years ago, in Sacramentum Caritatis para 29; it had received synodical and papal clarification in each of the last two pontificates; and is embedded in the Catechism. But a 'suspense' began when it was opened up to synodal debate; and that 'suspense' grew wider when PF issued a document which has been interpreted in diametrically opposed ways. The Suspense will end when this or a subsequent Roman Pontiff or an Ecumenical Council reasserts with unmistakeable clarity the teaching of the Magisterium (or possibly when the error, having run its course, happily dies a natural death).
The learned Patron of the Ordinariate, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, made clear that he in no way implied the cessation of the Magisterial teaching or office during a 'suspense'. The Dogma of Nicea remained de jure fully in force; but was simply not treated as such by many bishops and so did not 'function'. The bishops remained ex officio guardians and teachers of the Faith; not a microgram of their God-given authority to teach the Faith was lost to them; but de facto they failed to guard and to teach that Faith. The concept of suspense is not so much theological as historical; an observation that anybody can make if they just look around.
Things now are very similar. The teaching of the Magisterium is, obviously, formally still vigore pleno; but numbers of unfaithful or negligent bishops behave as though it were not. In many cases, they appear and/or claim to do so with the connivance of the Successor of S Peter.
A QUESTION
During a 'suspense', does the episcopal ministry of those bishops who are heterodox on just one point still call for religiosum obsequium on other matters? Or is one obliged to consider their entire episcope vitiated by just one point of heterodoxy?
Looking back into the great Anglican Patrimony which Pope Benedict invited us to bring with us into Catholic Unity, I recall a phrase dear to a distinguished and erudite Bishop of Oxford, Charles Gore [1853-1932; a doughty asserter of the doctrine which was re-asserted by Casti Connubii]: "the wonderful coherence of Christian doctrine". A later, even more erudite occupant of the same See, Kenneth Kirk, [1886-1954] commented: "Gore saw Christian doctrine as a unified whole ... It was his conviction, shared of course with the great Scholastic tradition in theology, that if any single article in this totality was attacked, varied, or distorted, the attack, variation, or distortion would be seen on inspection to affect every other article to a greater or lesser degree. ... if two systems each of which can claim some real degree of logical principle are in conflict on any one point, investigation will ultimately prove that they differ on every point, though at first sight this may be anything but apparent. For each system is, by hypothesis, self-consistent, and therefore all its members are interlocked, and whatever affects one of them must affect them all."
This is still one of my own working hermeneutical tools. Accordingly, I feel a tentative hesitation, during this lamentable suspense, about taking seriously any teaching statement of an apparently less that orthodox member of the hierarchy.
I throw open the above position to discussion, totally aware of my own fallibility, and anxious to be in all things a docile subject of the authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
And I applaud the statement of Fidelity to Catholic Teaching issued by these eminent and admirable laypeople.
A world-wide group of laymen and laywomen have just issued a defence of Catholic doctrine concerning Family and Life matters. The crucial paragraph, in my view, is this:
We pledge our full obedience to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the legitimate exercise of is authority. However, nothing will ever persuade us, or compel us, to abandon or contradict any article of the Catholic faith or any truth definitively established. If there is any conflict between the words and acts of any member of the hierarchy, even the pope, and the doctrine that the Church has always taught, we will remain faithful to the perennial teaching of the Church. If we were to depart from the Catholic faith, we would depart from Jesus Christ, to whom we wish to be united for all eternity."
This seems to me exactly right and exactly proportionate to the present situation in the Catholic Church. By a happy disposition of Providence, this Statement hit the media at the same time as Walter Kasper's gleeful conviction that Amoris laetitia has now become irreformable and that the 'controversy' is now over. Gracious me, what ultrahyperueberpapalist views of the Petrine Ministry these Liberals do have when they get a foul wind in their sails.
And the Statement reminds me of the phrase which Blessed John Henry Newman used in the context of the Arian controversy, in which the great majority of the Bishops, the Ecclesia docens, and including the Successor of S Peter, were either heretics, or were cowed into silence or compromise by the heretics. It is the phrase I have put at the head of this post, which I take in the sense in which Newman subsequently clarified his use of it, and not otherwise.
I suppose we had a good example of this phenomenon of 'suspense' in the pontificate of Blessed Paul VI, in the period between his setting up of a Commission to consider the question of Contraception, and his very courageous subsequent reaffirmation of the Church's Magisterial Teaching with the publication of Humanae vitae.
Surely, we are in another such period of suspense now. The question of the admission of adulterers to Holy Communion was magisterially dealt with as recently as 2007, only ten years ago, in Sacramentum Caritatis para 29; it had received synodical and papal clarification in each of the last two pontificates; and is embedded in the Catechism. But a 'suspense' began when it was opened up to synodal debate; and that 'suspense' grew wider when PF issued a document which has been interpreted in diametrically opposed ways. The Suspense will end when this or a subsequent Roman Pontiff or an Ecumenical Council reasserts with unmistakeable clarity the teaching of the Magisterium (or possibly when the error, having run its course, happily dies a natural death).
The learned Patron of the Ordinariate, Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, made clear that he in no way implied the cessation of the Magisterial teaching or office during a 'suspense'. The Dogma of Nicea remained de jure fully in force; but was simply not treated as such by many bishops and so did not 'function'. The bishops remained ex officio guardians and teachers of the Faith; not a microgram of their God-given authority to teach the Faith was lost to them; but de facto they failed to guard and to teach that Faith. The concept of suspense is not so much theological as historical; an observation that anybody can make if they just look around.
Things now are very similar. The teaching of the Magisterium is, obviously, formally still vigore pleno; but numbers of unfaithful or negligent bishops behave as though it were not. In many cases, they appear and/or claim to do so with the connivance of the Successor of S Peter.
A QUESTION
During a 'suspense', does the episcopal ministry of those bishops who are heterodox on just one point still call for religiosum obsequium on other matters? Or is one obliged to consider their entire episcope vitiated by just one point of heterodoxy?
Looking back into the great Anglican Patrimony which Pope Benedict invited us to bring with us into Catholic Unity, I recall a phrase dear to a distinguished and erudite Bishop of Oxford, Charles Gore [1853-1932; a doughty asserter of the doctrine which was re-asserted by Casti Connubii]: "the wonderful coherence of Christian doctrine". A later, even more erudite occupant of the same See, Kenneth Kirk, [1886-1954] commented: "Gore saw Christian doctrine as a unified whole ... It was his conviction, shared of course with the great Scholastic tradition in theology, that if any single article in this totality was attacked, varied, or distorted, the attack, variation, or distortion would be seen on inspection to affect every other article to a greater or lesser degree. ... if two systems each of which can claim some real degree of logical principle are in conflict on any one point, investigation will ultimately prove that they differ on every point, though at first sight this may be anything but apparent. For each system is, by hypothesis, self-consistent, and therefore all its members are interlocked, and whatever affects one of them must affect them all."
This is still one of my own working hermeneutical tools. Accordingly, I feel a tentative hesitation, during this lamentable suspense, about taking seriously any teaching statement of an apparently less that orthodox member of the hierarchy.
I throw open the above position to discussion, totally aware of my own fallibility, and anxious to be in all things a docile subject of the authentic Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
And I applaud the statement of Fidelity to Catholic Teaching issued by these eminent and admirable laypeople.
Weinandy and B John Henry Newman and Sedevacantism
The Capuchin Fr Thomas Weinandy, last Warden of Greyfriars in this University, who, last year, issued a fine critique of the current pontificate, has returned to the fray (lecture, Sidney, February 24, Settimo Cielo 22 February). The emphases in the short extract which follows are my own.
After discussing the ecclesiology clearly expressed in the Epistles of S Ignatius, Fr Tom writes:
"Ignatius may have been in the envious position of never having encountered a heretical bishop, but if he ever did chance upon one, he would have had a ready response at hand. He would clearly have argued ... [that were] a bishop to espouse heretical teaching, whether concerning doctrine, morals or pastoral and sacramental practice which bears upon doctrine and morals ... such a bishop no longer was in union with the catholic ecclesial community for he no longer professed the one apostolic faith of the Church and thus rendered himself incapable of exercising fully his office as bishop. He could no longer teach and govern as an authentic successor of the Apostles, nor could he preside over the eucharistic liturgy in a manner that bore witness to and enriched the oneness of the holy catholic Church. Simply put, such a heretical bishop would no longer bear within himself as a bishop the four defining marks of the Church and, therefore, he could no longer justifiably act as an ecclesial member within the Church. He may continue to act outside the Church, or even within the Church, but his actions would lack a genuine ecclesial character, for the essential and indispensable four marks of the Church would be absent within his specious ministry. Such, I believe, would be Ignatius' rejoinder to a heretical bishop. And an argument I similarly employ in the face of our contemporary ecclesial crisis."
Frankly, this is the closest a mainstream writer, commenting on the legacy of Amoris laetitia, has, to my knowledge, come to expressing an attitude which could appear to a hasty or incautious reader to be tending towards Sedevacantism. (The words I have highlighted apply, of course, to the occupant of the Roman See just as much as they do to the Bishop of any other Particular Church. Just because the Roman Church is the Mother and Mistress of all the Churches, she does not cease herself to be a Particular Church, equipped with a bishop.)
But Weinandy's argument is most certainly not Sedevacantist. Far from it.
Fr Weinandy is in fact arguing in a way very close to that of Blessed John Henry Newman when he discussed the Arian Crisis. Newman used phrases like suspense of the Magisterium, that is, of the teaching Office within the Church. He did not claim that the Pope or the other errant bishops had by heresy ceased to be occupants of their sees; and neither does Fr Weinandy. Newman held that their status was unchanged and that their Magisterium remained intact, de jure in full force; but that de facto ... as a matter of real-world fact ... they had ceased to employ it and to discharge its functions. In such a situation, as Weinandy mercilessly but (I very much fear) accurately puts it, the actions of their 'specious' ministry 'lack a genuine ecclesial character'.
It may seem to some readers difficult to imagine how this conclusion can lack practical consequences, but I am completely unqualified to spell such details out.
In the unprecedented crisis currently facing the Church Militant, I believe we need appropriate terminology to describe a complex situation. Otherwise, there is the risk that good people, souls for whom Christ died, who have already suffered enough under this cruel pontificate, may be driven into the snares laid by Sedevacantism.
And I believe that Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman has supplied that terminology, and given it the authority of his own reputation.
And we are indebted to Fr Weinandy for again advancing theological dialogue about the current crisis.
NOTES: Additionally, of course, the name of Newman (combined with the mantra 'Development') springs to the lips of the Bergoglians whenever they reach for some specious and gauzy drapes wherewith to conceal their libido nuda innovandi.
Later today, a little more on Newman's teaching.
After discussing the ecclesiology clearly expressed in the Epistles of S Ignatius, Fr Tom writes:
"Ignatius may have been in the envious position of never having encountered a heretical bishop, but if he ever did chance upon one, he would have had a ready response at hand. He would clearly have argued ... [that were] a bishop to espouse heretical teaching, whether concerning doctrine, morals or pastoral and sacramental practice which bears upon doctrine and morals ... such a bishop no longer was in union with the catholic ecclesial community for he no longer professed the one apostolic faith of the Church and thus rendered himself incapable of exercising fully his office as bishop. He could no longer teach and govern as an authentic successor of the Apostles, nor could he preside over the eucharistic liturgy in a manner that bore witness to and enriched the oneness of the holy catholic Church. Simply put, such a heretical bishop would no longer bear within himself as a bishop the four defining marks of the Church and, therefore, he could no longer justifiably act as an ecclesial member within the Church. He may continue to act outside the Church, or even within the Church, but his actions would lack a genuine ecclesial character, for the essential and indispensable four marks of the Church would be absent within his specious ministry. Such, I believe, would be Ignatius' rejoinder to a heretical bishop. And an argument I similarly employ in the face of our contemporary ecclesial crisis."
Frankly, this is the closest a mainstream writer, commenting on the legacy of Amoris laetitia, has, to my knowledge, come to expressing an attitude which could appear to a hasty or incautious reader to be tending towards Sedevacantism. (The words I have highlighted apply, of course, to the occupant of the Roman See just as much as they do to the Bishop of any other Particular Church. Just because the Roman Church is the Mother and Mistress of all the Churches, she does not cease herself to be a Particular Church, equipped with a bishop.)
But Weinandy's argument is most certainly not Sedevacantist. Far from it.
Fr Weinandy is in fact arguing in a way very close to that of Blessed John Henry Newman when he discussed the Arian Crisis. Newman used phrases like suspense of the Magisterium, that is, of the teaching Office within the Church. He did not claim that the Pope or the other errant bishops had by heresy ceased to be occupants of their sees; and neither does Fr Weinandy. Newman held that their status was unchanged and that their Magisterium remained intact, de jure in full force; but that de facto ... as a matter of real-world fact ... they had ceased to employ it and to discharge its functions. In such a situation, as Weinandy mercilessly but (I very much fear) accurately puts it, the actions of their 'specious' ministry 'lack a genuine ecclesial character'.
It may seem to some readers difficult to imagine how this conclusion can lack practical consequences, but I am completely unqualified to spell such details out.
In the unprecedented crisis currently facing the Church Militant, I believe we need appropriate terminology to describe a complex situation. Otherwise, there is the risk that good people, souls for whom Christ died, who have already suffered enough under this cruel pontificate, may be driven into the snares laid by Sedevacantism.
And I believe that Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman has supplied that terminology, and given it the authority of his own reputation.
And we are indebted to Fr Weinandy for again advancing theological dialogue about the current crisis.
NOTES: Additionally, of course, the name of Newman (combined with the mantra 'Development') springs to the lips of the Bergoglians whenever they reach for some specious and gauzy drapes wherewith to conceal their libido nuda innovandi.
Later today, a little more on Newman's teaching.
The Revd Prebendary MICHAEL MORETON
A book finished by Fr Moreton around 1995 but hitherto unpublished is now available online
https://henrybradshawsociety.org/publications/online/From Jerusalem to Rome
https://henrybradshawsociety.org/publications/online/From Jerusalem to Rome
25 February 2018
Shared Sacramental Communion with the Byzantine Churches
I REPRINT A PIECE FROM 15 OCTOBER 2015, in view of its relevance to the questions of the relationship, at the deepest theological levels, between the Catholic Church and the Particular 'Orthodox' (or 'Separated Byzantine') Churches.
FIRST ... the GREEK CHURCHES:
Parts of an article in the December 1959 number of the old Anglo-Papalist journal Reunion:
" ... the conclusions of a Greek book of 697 pages entitled Relations between Catholics and Orthodox by a Greek Catholic priest P. Grigoriou, editor of the Athenian weekly Katholiki. The author takes us back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
"Archbishop Anthony C. Vuccino, A.A., former Latin Bishop of Corfu, reviewed this book in La Croix. Its pages show the good relations existing in those centuries, under the Venetian and Turkish rulers, between Catholics and Orthodox in the Near and Middle East, and particularly in Greece. With the approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the permissuion of their own hierarchies, Catholic missionaries preached and administered frequently in Orthodox Churches. The Archbishop draws attention to such incidents as the authorisation by the Patriarch Neophyte (1611) of the absolution of his faithful by Jesuits or Capuchins and that Orthodox deacons assisted at Mass sung by P. Goar, O.P., and received communion from him. Often the Latin bishop and his clergy preached or said Mass in the Orthodox churches of Chios.
" These events are established by contemporary documents culled by the author from all the islands and mainland. Missions were preached to mixed comgregations; there were 'mixed churches' serving both rites with Latin and Oriental altars ...
"P. Grigoriou further narrates that as the procession of Corpus Christi passed by, one Orthodox bishop would offer incense from the window of his house; in Zante the platform bearing the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday was carried by a Latin and an Orthodox bishop ... in the seventeenth century, schools were built by local Orthodox congregations where Latin priests could teach the children of the Orthodox.
"Concelebrations are also reported by the author. In 1653 Joannice, the Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote to his Metropolitans of Trebizond and New Caesarea, authorising Fr Robert, O.C., to offer Mass in their churches. Whenever Orthodox priests concelebrated with Latin clergy, the former made the Memento of the Pope. Again, concelebration by the Orthodox Archpriest and Latin priests at the same altar in the Catholic Cathedral occurred in Corfu on the 19th January, the patronal feast of St Spyridion. ... Fr Gill, S.J., comments on this indiscriminate intermingling: 'The story is almost monotonous because it was the same everywehere; nevertheless, it is astonishing'. This intercommunion was practised on a large scale, even to the inclusion of the reception of Sacred Orders.
"We might ask why this cooperation ended. Assuredly, P.Grigoriou tells us that Pius IX made efforts to re-establish these contacts ... Archbishop Vuccino affirms: 'The centre of Catholicism exercised general tolerance in regard to such practices, doubtless with the aim of making up for the deficiencies of the Orthodox clergy, and of creating a more brotherly atmosphere among Christians who breathed the same air and who were already united by so much.'"
Sometimes, some 'Traditionalists' speak as if all 'Ecumenism' is an aberration to be blamed on Vatican II and roundly condemned. I think is is right to keep reminding ourselves that the sort of approach embodied in the Church's current legislation is broadly in line with immemorial praxis in the Catholic Church.
THE FOLLOWING SECTION relates to the Russian Church: Readers of this blog will not need to be reminded of the toleration accorded by S Pius X with his own hand to the request of Metropolitan Andrew Szeptycki that "he be granted a faculty, communicable also to confessors, for dispensing the secular faithful from the law by which communicatio in sacris with Orthodox is prohibited, as often as they shall judge it in conscience to be opportune" (Rome, 17:2:1908).
It is also well to remember the neat point made by Benedict XIV, that all sacramental communicatio cannot be totally excluded on principle because every 'mixed marriage' is a Sacrament of which one Catholic and one non-Catholic are the ministers.
Reunion offers these references: Catholic Herald, 13 February 1959; Unitas, Summer 1959; Eastern Churches Quarterly, Winter 1958-59; Irenikon, XXXII, 3, 1959.
FIRST ... the GREEK CHURCHES:
Parts of an article in the December 1959 number of the old Anglo-Papalist journal Reunion:
" ... the conclusions of a Greek book of 697 pages entitled Relations between Catholics and Orthodox by a Greek Catholic priest P. Grigoriou, editor of the Athenian weekly Katholiki. The author takes us back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
"Archbishop Anthony C. Vuccino, A.A., former Latin Bishop of Corfu, reviewed this book in La Croix. Its pages show the good relations existing in those centuries, under the Venetian and Turkish rulers, between Catholics and Orthodox in the Near and Middle East, and particularly in Greece. With the approval of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the permissuion of their own hierarchies, Catholic missionaries preached and administered frequently in Orthodox Churches. The Archbishop draws attention to such incidents as the authorisation by the Patriarch Neophyte (1611) of the absolution of his faithful by Jesuits or Capuchins and that Orthodox deacons assisted at Mass sung by P. Goar, O.P., and received communion from him. Often the Latin bishop and his clergy preached or said Mass in the Orthodox churches of Chios.
" These events are established by contemporary documents culled by the author from all the islands and mainland. Missions were preached to mixed comgregations; there were 'mixed churches' serving both rites with Latin and Oriental altars ...
"P. Grigoriou further narrates that as the procession of Corpus Christi passed by, one Orthodox bishop would offer incense from the window of his house; in Zante the platform bearing the Blessed Sacrament on Good Friday was carried by a Latin and an Orthodox bishop ... in the seventeenth century, schools were built by local Orthodox congregations where Latin priests could teach the children of the Orthodox.
"Concelebrations are also reported by the author. In 1653 Joannice, the Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote to his Metropolitans of Trebizond and New Caesarea, authorising Fr Robert, O.C., to offer Mass in their churches. Whenever Orthodox priests concelebrated with Latin clergy, the former made the Memento of the Pope. Again, concelebration by the Orthodox Archpriest and Latin priests at the same altar in the Catholic Cathedral occurred in Corfu on the 19th January, the patronal feast of St Spyridion. ... Fr Gill, S.J., comments on this indiscriminate intermingling: 'The story is almost monotonous because it was the same everywehere; nevertheless, it is astonishing'. This intercommunion was practised on a large scale, even to the inclusion of the reception of Sacred Orders.
"We might ask why this cooperation ended. Assuredly, P.Grigoriou tells us that Pius IX made efforts to re-establish these contacts ... Archbishop Vuccino affirms: 'The centre of Catholicism exercised general tolerance in regard to such practices, doubtless with the aim of making up for the deficiencies of the Orthodox clergy, and of creating a more brotherly atmosphere among Christians who breathed the same air and who were already united by so much.'"
Sometimes, some 'Traditionalists' speak as if all 'Ecumenism' is an aberration to be blamed on Vatican II and roundly condemned. I think is is right to keep reminding ourselves that the sort of approach embodied in the Church's current legislation is broadly in line with immemorial praxis in the Catholic Church.
THE FOLLOWING SECTION relates to the Russian Church: Readers of this blog will not need to be reminded of the toleration accorded by S Pius X with his own hand to the request of Metropolitan Andrew Szeptycki that "he be granted a faculty, communicable also to confessors, for dispensing the secular faithful from the law by which communicatio in sacris with Orthodox is prohibited, as often as they shall judge it in conscience to be opportune" (Rome, 17:2:1908).
It is also well to remember the neat point made by Benedict XIV, that all sacramental communicatio cannot be totally excluded on principle because every 'mixed marriage' is a Sacrament of which one Catholic and one non-Catholic are the ministers.
Reunion offers these references: Catholic Herald, 13 February 1959; Unitas, Summer 1959; Eastern Churches Quarterly, Winter 1958-59; Irenikon, XXXII, 3, 1959.
S Gregory Palamas
A kind friend has sent me a copy of the weekly newsletter of an American Melkite parish which observes the Gregorian Calendar and, today, the Second Sunday in Lent, is commemorating both S Gregory Palamas and the Holy Relics.
I regard S Gregory as one of the Church's greatest Doctors of Theosis, the vocation of every Christian to live out his share by adoptive filiation in the Divinity of the God-Man Himself. He was also one of the most forthright preachers I know of the Doctrine that the Most Holy Mother of God is the Mediatrix of all Graces. How can she not be?
He was not in canonical communion with the See of Rome!
His Commemoration was put onto this Sunday by a Patriarch of Constantinople a few years after his death and canonisation. Neither that Patriarch, nor the Synod which had canonised S Gregory, was canonically in communion with the See of Rome.
The lawful line of the Patriarchs of Antioch, successors of S Peter and of S Ignatius, happily came back into full communion with the other Petrine See in the 1700s; it is a jolly coincidence that, only a few days ago, we celebrated the old Roman festival of the Pontifical Chair of S Peter at Antioch. But, in the years that followed, S Gregory was an embarrassment. Latin theologians often deemed it their duty to call him a heretic. So, in the 1800s, Patriarch Maximos Mazloum, a great pontiff who had secured from the Ottomans legal recognition of his Melkite people, placed the Commemoration of the Relics on this Sunday, displacing the remembrance of S Gregory Palamas.
I find it a matter of great joy that the Melkite Patriarchate of Antioch (etc.) now keeps both of these observances. Thus the commemoration of S Gregory has re-acquired full Petrine authority. Envious Latins may also observe that Byzantine liturgical instincts do not share the superstition that gripped the Vatican's monomaniac 'liturgical reformers' of the 1960s, the idea that any day may have only one strong liturgical theme.
Some silly games are currently being played by PF and others with increasingly liberal strands of Lutheranism. In reaction, some traditionalists have, perhaps naturally, taken refuge in rigorist attitudes towards shared Sacramental Communion with any Christians not in full and canonical communion with the See of Rome. But these attitudes cannot, without considerable violence to history, be made to apply to Sister Churches (that is to say, dioceses) with valid ministries and Sacraments, which are true (though wounded) Particular Churches. This fact, consistently asserted in the Magisterium of S John Paul II and of Benedict XVI (Communionis notio, Dominus Iesus), simply reflects what had been the realities of ecclesial life under the Magisterium of successive Roman Pontiffs throughout the previous five centuries, down to and including Blessed Pius IX and S Pius X.
I shall return to this later today.
I regard S Gregory as one of the Church's greatest Doctors of Theosis, the vocation of every Christian to live out his share by adoptive filiation in the Divinity of the God-Man Himself. He was also one of the most forthright preachers I know of the Doctrine that the Most Holy Mother of God is the Mediatrix of all Graces. How can she not be?
He was not in canonical communion with the See of Rome!
His Commemoration was put onto this Sunday by a Patriarch of Constantinople a few years after his death and canonisation. Neither that Patriarch, nor the Synod which had canonised S Gregory, was canonically in communion with the See of Rome.
The lawful line of the Patriarchs of Antioch, successors of S Peter and of S Ignatius, happily came back into full communion with the other Petrine See in the 1700s; it is a jolly coincidence that, only a few days ago, we celebrated the old Roman festival of the Pontifical Chair of S Peter at Antioch. But, in the years that followed, S Gregory was an embarrassment. Latin theologians often deemed it their duty to call him a heretic. So, in the 1800s, Patriarch Maximos Mazloum, a great pontiff who had secured from the Ottomans legal recognition of his Melkite people, placed the Commemoration of the Relics on this Sunday, displacing the remembrance of S Gregory Palamas.
I find it a matter of great joy that the Melkite Patriarchate of Antioch (etc.) now keeps both of these observances. Thus the commemoration of S Gregory has re-acquired full Petrine authority. Envious Latins may also observe that Byzantine liturgical instincts do not share the superstition that gripped the Vatican's monomaniac 'liturgical reformers' of the 1960s, the idea that any day may have only one strong liturgical theme.
Some silly games are currently being played by PF and others with increasingly liberal strands of Lutheranism. In reaction, some traditionalists have, perhaps naturally, taken refuge in rigorist attitudes towards shared Sacramental Communion with any Christians not in full and canonical communion with the See of Rome. But these attitudes cannot, without considerable violence to history, be made to apply to Sister Churches (that is to say, dioceses) with valid ministries and Sacraments, which are true (though wounded) Particular Churches. This fact, consistently asserted in the Magisterium of S John Paul II and of Benedict XVI (Communionis notio, Dominus Iesus), simply reflects what had been the realities of ecclesial life under the Magisterium of successive Roman Pontiffs throughout the previous five centuries, down to and including Blessed Pius IX and S Pius X.
I shall return to this later today.
24 February 2018
Pontifical logic
"By their fruits you shall know them".
A difficult 'principle' to operate in practice. Or is it?
It is well known that Blessed Paul VI discerned the smoke of Satan in the post-Conciliar Church. Does this give us carte blanche to condemn the Council?
The Bergoglian Church is riven with strife and hate-filled enmity; depending on your viewpoint, there are evil women and men obstructing the Spirit-filled initiatives of the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of S Peter; or alternatively, the corruptions of the World, the Flesh, and of Satan have infiltrated and perverted the very highest level of the Church Militant.
By their fruits ...
Whichever of those two options fits your personal view, a sombre jugement would seem to hang over this pontificate.
Perhaps this dominical maxim should not be brought into the arena of 'Church Politics' ... by either side.
A difficult 'principle' to operate in practice. Or is it?
It is well known that Blessed Paul VI discerned the smoke of Satan in the post-Conciliar Church. Does this give us carte blanche to condemn the Council?
The Bergoglian Church is riven with strife and hate-filled enmity; depending on your viewpoint, there are evil women and men obstructing the Spirit-filled initiatives of the Vicar of Christ, the Successor of S Peter; or alternatively, the corruptions of the World, the Flesh, and of Satan have infiltrated and perverted the very highest level of the Church Militant.
By their fruits ...
Whichever of those two options fits your personal view, a sombre jugement would seem to hang over this pontificate.
Perhaps this dominical maxim should not be brought into the arena of 'Church Politics' ... by either side.
23 February 2018
Can Black really be white?
Are you up to date on Bulverism ... google it if you don't know about it. I suppose we could coin a cognate verb and say that PF was Bulverising when he waxed eloquent last year on the deep and dark psychological maladies of all those ghastly young people who have Incorrect and Unbergoglian Tastes in liturgical matters.
It seems to me a term with possibilities. One could say "Don't you Bulverise me, you ..." in a very hostile tone of voice.
A thing I do not quite understand is PF's purpose in quoting before Christmas from the Commonitorium of S Vincent of Lerins.
The passage he alluded to also includes, though PF did not quote it, the phrase eodem sensu eademque sententia. Derived by S Vincent of Lerins from the text of S Paul, it was used by B Pius IX, incorporated in the decree on the papal ministry at Vatican I, and contained in the anti-modernist oath. Very significantly, it was used by S John XXIII in the programmatic speech he gave at the start of the Council ... What the Council taught, so he laid down, was to be in the same sense, the same meaning, as the teaching of the preceding Magisterium. S John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor made clear that it applied to questions of morality as much as to those of dogma. Benedict XVI used this same sanctified phrase in his 2005 Christmas address to the Roman Curia about the Hermeneutic of Continuity. I have recently repeated a series of mine on this phrase which you could find via the search engine on this blog.
Eodem sensu eademque sententia: because the teaching of the Church cannot and does not change.
If this phrase means anything at all, it must mean that the teaching of Familiaris consortio (1981; paragraph 84) and of Caritatis sacramentum (2007; paragraph 29), that divorced people who, having gone through a civil form of marriage, are in an unrepented sexual relationship with a new "spouse", should not approach the Sacraments, cannot already ... in less than a decade! ... have metamorphosed or "developed" into its exact and polar opposite.
Even Jesuits, even the Austrian aristocracy, whether or not adorned with umlauts, cannot really expect to get away with black being white, with non-X and X being identical. Come off it, chaps ... Magnum Principium stat non contradicendi!
It seems to me a term with possibilities. One could say "Don't you Bulverise me, you ..." in a very hostile tone of voice.
A thing I do not quite understand is PF's purpose in quoting before Christmas from the Commonitorium of S Vincent of Lerins.
The passage he alluded to also includes, though PF did not quote it, the phrase eodem sensu eademque sententia. Derived by S Vincent of Lerins from the text of S Paul, it was used by B Pius IX, incorporated in the decree on the papal ministry at Vatican I, and contained in the anti-modernist oath. Very significantly, it was used by S John XXIII in the programmatic speech he gave at the start of the Council ... What the Council taught, so he laid down, was to be in the same sense, the same meaning, as the teaching of the preceding Magisterium. S John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor made clear that it applied to questions of morality as much as to those of dogma. Benedict XVI used this same sanctified phrase in his 2005 Christmas address to the Roman Curia about the Hermeneutic of Continuity. I have recently repeated a series of mine on this phrase which you could find via the search engine on this blog.
Eodem sensu eademque sententia: because the teaching of the Church cannot and does not change.
If this phrase means anything at all, it must mean that the teaching of Familiaris consortio (1981; paragraph 84) and of Caritatis sacramentum (2007; paragraph 29), that divorced people who, having gone through a civil form of marriage, are in an unrepented sexual relationship with a new "spouse", should not approach the Sacraments, cannot already ... in less than a decade! ... have metamorphosed or "developed" into its exact and polar opposite.
Even Jesuits, even the Austrian aristocracy, whether or not adorned with umlauts, cannot really expect to get away with black being white, with non-X and X being identical. Come off it, chaps ... Magnum Principium stat non contradicendi!
22 February 2018
Anti-Jesuit jokes
Unaccountably, jokes which are less than friendly towards the Society of Jesus seem currently to be in vogue. Back in the 1840s, we were widely and popularly regarded as Jesuits in disguise. So naturally, I've been wondering what more recent contributions to this genre our Anglican Patrimony can offer for the common good of all Catholics.
The Reverend Professor Canon Dr Eric Mascall recorded this anecdote about Dom Gregory Dix. I gave it a run once before, in 2014, and I retain the original thread for your yet greater enjoyment.
Dix was invited, by Cardinal Gerlier of Lyons, to lecture his clergy on Spirituality. In the ensuing discussion he was asked by an unidentified priest whether the Anglican clergy were taught Ignatian spirituality. Dix replied that it was the only kind that most of them were taught, and that this was most unfortunate, as it was a type that was very unsuitable to English people, so that most of them, having tried it without success, abandoned prayer altogether.
There was a great burst of laughter and the questioner, somewhat disconcerted, sat down with the remark, "Father, that was a very Benedictine sentiment".
The Eminent chairman leaned across and whispered to Dom Gregory, "That was the Father Provincial of the Society of Jesus".
The Reverend Professor Canon Dr Eric Mascall recorded this anecdote about Dom Gregory Dix. I gave it a run once before, in 2014, and I retain the original thread for your yet greater enjoyment.
Dix was invited, by Cardinal Gerlier of Lyons, to lecture his clergy on Spirituality. In the ensuing discussion he was asked by an unidentified priest whether the Anglican clergy were taught Ignatian spirituality. Dix replied that it was the only kind that most of them were taught, and that this was most unfortunate, as it was a type that was very unsuitable to English people, so that most of them, having tried it without success, abandoned prayer altogether.
There was a great burst of laughter and the questioner, somewhat disconcerted, sat down with the remark, "Father, that was a very Benedictine sentiment".
The Eminent chairman leaned across and whispered to Dom Gregory, "That was the Father Provincial of the Society of Jesus".
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