The news got out, over the weekend, that Bishop Peter Ball, formerly Bishop of Lewes (a suffragan see of the diocese of Chichester) and then of Gloucester, has died. I knew him fairly well; I remember him as one of the most sinister people I have ever had dealings with. Eventually he did time for his career of sadistic sexual abuse of young men (one of whom he drove to suicide). He was the protected darling of the British Establishment; Prince Charles, an Archbishop of Canterbury, Judges, Public School heads ... they were all taken in by his 'charismatic' manner and his skilfully crafted persona of ascetic sanctity.
I have, of course, said Mass for the repose of his soul. I pray that, before his death, he was able to attain the clarity and humility of contrition for the evil he did. Please God, may I, and every reader of these words, die penitent and absolved.
Only a little while ago, the Independent Inquiry into the Sexual Abuse of Children published its report into the Anglican diocese of Chichester; just last week, the RC Archdiocese of Birmingham had its turn. Neither 'case study' makes pleasant reading, but it seems to me that things were by far the worse in the diocese of Chichester and in the Church of England.
Sometimes, foolish people suggest that the Catholic Church would not have had its Paedophile Priest scandal, were it not for the law of clerical celibacy.
The Church of England has never, since 1559, had a law of clerical celibacy. This lack did not preserve the diocese of Chichester from the vileness of Bishop Ball and its other clerical paedophiles, some whom ... I know you are wondering this ... were married.
26 June 2019
25 June 2019
Adding Water to the Chalice
Is it essential for a priest to add a drop of water to the Chalice at the Offertory?
Well, it all depends on what one means by 'essential'. It is not essential to validity. If a priest fails to do this, bread and wine are still transsubstantiated into the Lord's Body and Blood; the Holy Sacrifice is still validly offered. In general terms, it is very difficult for a priest to render a sacrament invalid.
Sometimes anxious Catholics wonder whether a Mass is invalid if the celebrant (for example) does not actually believe in the Mass. "How can he intend to offer Mass if he does not believe in the Mass?". It sounds like plain common sense, but in fact it is contrary to the teaching of the Church. This is why an atheist or a Moslem can, in emergency, baptise a weak newly born baby, even though he/she does not believe in Christianity, still less, in Baptism. The basic intention to 'do the thing that Christians do', is sufficient. (And, of course, the use of water and the basic words.)
The Holy Office once had to decide on the validity of Baptisms performed by a nut-case priest who believed that by baptising a baby he was consigning it to the Devil!! The answer was that his Baptisms were valid. However misguided his views, as long as he was intending to do the thing called Baptism, it was valid. On another occasion, it came to light that Methodist missionaries in Oceania were actually saying in the course of the Baptism Service that it was merely a symbol and did not confer Regeneration. The Holy Office declared that even this public declaration of blasphemous heresy did not invalidate the baptisms.
The basic reason for this is that the Sacraments are the Sacraments of the Lord, and He is faithful to His promises.
The only way a priest could invalidate the Mass would be to use substances other than wheaten bread and wine of the grape; or to omit the crucial words of Consecration; or to form an intention deliberately not to consecrate ... out of hatred, perhaps, for the congregation or for the Lord ....
The apprehension among some Traddies that Novus Ordo Masses may often be invalid, because of a defect in the priest's 'Intention', is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. S Robert Bellarmine explained carefully that if a validly ordained priest became a Calvinist, and, believing that the Church of Geneva was Christ's True Church, intended to celebrate the Lord's Supper as the Calvinists had received it, his (dreadful and sacrilegious) service would still be a valid Mass.
Heresy, or even complete unbelief, on the part of a Minister does NOT invalidate his sacraments. Not ever.
I shall not enable comments which contradict this explanation. The matter needs to be understood. It is not up for discussion. It is what the Church teaches, and has taught for centuries, and has embedded in her praxis.
So omitting the drop of water in the Chalice would not invalidate a Mass. But it would be highly unbecoming and unpriestly. The ancients generally mixed water with wine; our Lord will undoubtedly have done this; and Bishops and Priests have faithfully continued to do this ever since. For nearly two millennia!! But it is not required for validity.
A priest who fails to do this is probably just being absent-minded. This is something that can happen to any of us! Especially as we plumb the ever-more-profound depths of senility!
It might be kind, very respectfully and deferentially, after giving him a whiskey or three, to tell such a priest that his omission is something that some members of his congregation find distracting.
Well, it all depends on what one means by 'essential'. It is not essential to validity. If a priest fails to do this, bread and wine are still transsubstantiated into the Lord's Body and Blood; the Holy Sacrifice is still validly offered. In general terms, it is very difficult for a priest to render a sacrament invalid.
Sometimes anxious Catholics wonder whether a Mass is invalid if the celebrant (for example) does not actually believe in the Mass. "How can he intend to offer Mass if he does not believe in the Mass?". It sounds like plain common sense, but in fact it is contrary to the teaching of the Church. This is why an atheist or a Moslem can, in emergency, baptise a weak newly born baby, even though he/she does not believe in Christianity, still less, in Baptism. The basic intention to 'do the thing that Christians do', is sufficient. (And, of course, the use of water and the basic words.)
The Holy Office once had to decide on the validity of Baptisms performed by a nut-case priest who believed that by baptising a baby he was consigning it to the Devil!! The answer was that his Baptisms were valid. However misguided his views, as long as he was intending to do the thing called Baptism, it was valid. On another occasion, it came to light that Methodist missionaries in Oceania were actually saying in the course of the Baptism Service that it was merely a symbol and did not confer Regeneration. The Holy Office declared that even this public declaration of blasphemous heresy did not invalidate the baptisms.
The basic reason for this is that the Sacraments are the Sacraments of the Lord, and He is faithful to His promises.
The only way a priest could invalidate the Mass would be to use substances other than wheaten bread and wine of the grape; or to omit the crucial words of Consecration; or to form an intention deliberately not to consecrate ... out of hatred, perhaps, for the congregation or for the Lord ....
The apprehension among some Traddies that Novus Ordo Masses may often be invalid, because of a defect in the priest's 'Intention', is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. S Robert Bellarmine explained carefully that if a validly ordained priest became a Calvinist, and, believing that the Church of Geneva was Christ's True Church, intended to celebrate the Lord's Supper as the Calvinists had received it, his (dreadful and sacrilegious) service would still be a valid Mass.
Heresy, or even complete unbelief, on the part of a Minister does NOT invalidate his sacraments. Not ever.
I shall not enable comments which contradict this explanation. The matter needs to be understood. It is not up for discussion. It is what the Church teaches, and has taught for centuries, and has embedded in her praxis.
So omitting the drop of water in the Chalice would not invalidate a Mass. But it would be highly unbecoming and unpriestly. The ancients generally mixed water with wine; our Lord will undoubtedly have done this; and Bishops and Priests have faithfully continued to do this ever since. For nearly two millennia!! But it is not required for validity.
A priest who fails to do this is probably just being absent-minded. This is something that can happen to any of us! Especially as we plumb the ever-more-profound depths of senility!
It might be kind, very respectfully and deferentially, after giving him a whiskey or three, to tell such a priest that his omission is something that some members of his congregation find distracting.
24 June 2019
Liturgical law: S Joseph and the Roman Canon
Here is an old post from November 13 2009. Dear me, what a long time I have been writing a blog! I reprint it because the attached thread established, in my view conclusively, that S Joseph is not part of the Canon in the "1962 Missal" ... assuming that canonically there is such a thing as the 1962 Missal!!!!!
Accordingly, his insertion in Masses said by virtue of Summorum Pontificum would appear to be of very doubtful legality.
I think this is quite interesting! That insertion was the beginning of the tampering with the Roman Canon which led us to the Novus Ordo alterations in that venerable Prayer. Its discontinuation seems to me laudable.
It would also give us a snappy answer to clerics who do not use the Canon "because it's too long".
Readers also discussed the important fact that, pretty universally, the rather unsatisfactory rite of "1962" is not celebrated as printed but with a lot of the manners, mannerisms, of the previous dispensation. These variations presumably now (compare Canon 26) have the prescription of consuetudo; and remember O'Connell's discussion of consuetudines contra vel praeter legem.
This is what I had written in 2009: "A very strange youtube video has appeared, from the Ecclesia Dei Commission, showing How To Say Mass. I mention here only the oddity that S Joseph is absent from the Canon. (And, in case you were wondering, there is no Third Confiteor)".
I expect that youtube has long-since disappeared.
Accordingly, his insertion in Masses said by virtue of Summorum Pontificum would appear to be of very doubtful legality.
I think this is quite interesting! That insertion was the beginning of the tampering with the Roman Canon which led us to the Novus Ordo alterations in that venerable Prayer. Its discontinuation seems to me laudable.
It would also give us a snappy answer to clerics who do not use the Canon "because it's too long".
Readers also discussed the important fact that, pretty universally, the rather unsatisfactory rite of "1962" is not celebrated as printed but with a lot of the manners, mannerisms, of the previous dispensation. These variations presumably now (compare Canon 26) have the prescription of consuetudo; and remember O'Connell's discussion of consuetudines contra vel praeter legem.
This is what I had written in 2009: "A very strange youtube video has appeared, from the Ecclesia Dei Commission, showing How To Say Mass. I mention here only the oddity that S Joseph is absent from the Canon. (And, in case you were wondering, there is no Third Confiteor)".
I expect that youtube has long-since disappeared.
23 June 2019
Liturgical law: The Ordinariate Rite
With the practical use of the Ordinariate Rite in mind, and entirely for my own guidance, I have jotted down some notes about rubrics ... how rigid they really are ... drawn from the older (pre-Conciliar) Manualists. A 1940s O'Connell is my main source. I begin with Law, its obligations, in general; then move on to Liturgical Law; and end up with a frivolously bold speculation.
LAW. We are not in conscience obliged to obey a law the authority of which is uncertain. Lex dubia non obligat; non potest lex incerta certam obligationem inducere; nemo ad aliquam legem servandam tenetur, nisi illa ut certa ei manifestetur. How are we to know whether in a particular matter a law is certain? Of the systems proposed in the old manuals, Probabilism seems to many of us the most persuasive. If in doubt between two or more moral possibilities each of which can be characterised as Probable, we may follow even that possibility which is the less or least probable, provided that it is genuinely still probable.
LITURGICAL LAW. Rubrics are either substantial, because they prescribe the form or matter of a Sacrament; or accidental when they do not prescribe form or matter. They also fall into these categories: Preceptive and directive. [There are also facultative rubrics which explicitly permit a choice; I shall not trouble with them further.] Substantial rubrics are preceptive and bind in conscience. The question to interest us is whether accidental rubrics are all, necessarily, preceptive; or whether some among them are only directive. If some are merely directive, this means that they do not in themselves bind in conscience, but simply provide the approved way of carrying out a liturgical action.
Most moral theologians, and many of the old rubrical experts, hold, with varying degrees of emphasis, that at least some rubrics are only directive. They feel that the Church does not intend that small details should oblige sub gravi. They tend not to be very generous in suggesting actual examples: it is, perhaps, easy to guess why! Even among those who incline to believe that all rubrics are preceptive, there is sometimes an inclination to feel that some wiggle-room is necessary. A distinguished example of this is Benedict XIV writing as a private theologian; having reported his own agreement with the idea that they are preceptive, he adds that one can be immune from mortal sin when breaking a rubric "propter parvitatem materiae".
CONCLUSIONS. The question whether each and every rubric binds in conscience or not, is an open question. Since the question is open, one is in conscience free to choose and follow even a less probable judgement, provided always that one has a good reason and that it still does have a degree of probability.
FOOTNOTE:
CUSTOM. The old writers also devote some energy to the question of custom acquiring the force of Law even when the custom is contrary to the letter of the law (contra legem). They are able to show that the SRC operated itself upon this principle. I omit a detailed discussion of this point because the necessary time has not yet have elapsed since the promulgation of the Ordinariate Ordo Missae for this to be relevant, i.e. for immemorial and unreprobated custom to have become established.
But it would be amusing to propose an argument that approved immemorial customs which accompanied these liturgical formulae when they were used, by ourselves, in the century or so before we entered into Full Communion. Ecclesiologically, this would posit a continuity within our community before and after the act of reunion, a Hermeneutic of Continuity of our very own. Similar logic would enable us to continue to apply the provision in the Canon Law of Canterbury and York that "the minister who is to conduct the service may in his discretion make and use variations which are not of substantial importance": a principle which de facto has been observed anyway within the Catholic Church by most users of the Novus Ordo for nearly half a century.
LAW. We are not in conscience obliged to obey a law the authority of which is uncertain. Lex dubia non obligat; non potest lex incerta certam obligationem inducere; nemo ad aliquam legem servandam tenetur, nisi illa ut certa ei manifestetur. How are we to know whether in a particular matter a law is certain? Of the systems proposed in the old manuals, Probabilism seems to many of us the most persuasive. If in doubt between two or more moral possibilities each of which can be characterised as Probable, we may follow even that possibility which is the less or least probable, provided that it is genuinely still probable.
LITURGICAL LAW. Rubrics are either substantial, because they prescribe the form or matter of a Sacrament; or accidental when they do not prescribe form or matter. They also fall into these categories: Preceptive and directive. [There are also facultative rubrics which explicitly permit a choice; I shall not trouble with them further.] Substantial rubrics are preceptive and bind in conscience. The question to interest us is whether accidental rubrics are all, necessarily, preceptive; or whether some among them are only directive. If some are merely directive, this means that they do not in themselves bind in conscience, but simply provide the approved way of carrying out a liturgical action.
Most moral theologians, and many of the old rubrical experts, hold, with varying degrees of emphasis, that at least some rubrics are only directive. They feel that the Church does not intend that small details should oblige sub gravi. They tend not to be very generous in suggesting actual examples: it is, perhaps, easy to guess why! Even among those who incline to believe that all rubrics are preceptive, there is sometimes an inclination to feel that some wiggle-room is necessary. A distinguished example of this is Benedict XIV writing as a private theologian; having reported his own agreement with the idea that they are preceptive, he adds that one can be immune from mortal sin when breaking a rubric "propter parvitatem materiae".
CONCLUSIONS. The question whether each and every rubric binds in conscience or not, is an open question. Since the question is open, one is in conscience free to choose and follow even a less probable judgement, provided always that one has a good reason and that it still does have a degree of probability.
FOOTNOTE:
CUSTOM. The old writers also devote some energy to the question of custom acquiring the force of Law even when the custom is contrary to the letter of the law (contra legem). They are able to show that the SRC operated itself upon this principle. I omit a detailed discussion of this point because the necessary time has not yet have elapsed since the promulgation of the Ordinariate Ordo Missae for this to be relevant, i.e. for immemorial and unreprobated custom to have become established.
But it would be amusing to propose an argument that approved immemorial customs which accompanied these liturgical formulae when they were used, by ourselves, in the century or so before we entered into Full Communion. Ecclesiologically, this would posit a continuity within our community before and after the act of reunion, a Hermeneutic of Continuity of our very own. Similar logic would enable us to continue to apply the provision in the Canon Law of Canterbury and York that "the minister who is to conduct the service may in his discretion make and use variations which are not of substantial importance": a principle which de facto has been observed anyway within the Catholic Church by most users of the Novus Ordo for nearly half a century.
22 June 2019
S Alban
So what is the correct day to celebrate the Protomartyr of this Island?
The Book of Common Prayer made a curious mistake. When its Calendar was revised in 1662, S Alban, previously omitted, was included, but on June 17. This is an error probably due (sic Procter and Frere) to a misreading of xxii as xvii. The error was corrected in 1928.
So the original and correct date for S Alban is June 22, today. Thus it remains in the Church of England, in Common Worship. And, happily, the Traditional Calendars for the RC dioceses of England continue to give the correct date. So this morning I said the Mass of S Alban.
So far, so good. Admirably ecumenical.
However, complications were ultimately to arise from the canonisation of S Thomas More and S John Fisher. More was martyred on July 6; but this was the Octave Day of SS Peter and Paul. So the combined commemoration of these two great Saints was settled onto July 9.
So far, still so good!
But the Novus Ordo Universal Calendar, crudely ignoring our Protomartyr, stuck SS John and Thomas onto June 22, the anniversary of the martyrdom of S John Fisher.
And English Catholics were arrogantly forced to adhere to the Universal Calendar. So they had to find a different date for S Alban. Thus, in the Novus Ordo Calendar for England, S Alban got manhandled back to June 20. (Unhappily, the Ordinariate Calendar does the same.)
I know what conclusions I draw from all this ...
The Book of Common Prayer made a curious mistake. When its Calendar was revised in 1662, S Alban, previously omitted, was included, but on June 17. This is an error probably due (sic Procter and Frere) to a misreading of xxii as xvii. The error was corrected in 1928.
So the original and correct date for S Alban is June 22, today. Thus it remains in the Church of England, in Common Worship. And, happily, the Traditional Calendars for the RC dioceses of England continue to give the correct date. So this morning I said the Mass of S Alban.
So far, so good. Admirably ecumenical.
However, complications were ultimately to arise from the canonisation of S Thomas More and S John Fisher. More was martyred on July 6; but this was the Octave Day of SS Peter and Paul. So the combined commemoration of these two great Saints was settled onto July 9.
So far, still so good!
But the Novus Ordo Universal Calendar, crudely ignoring our Protomartyr, stuck SS John and Thomas onto June 22, the anniversary of the martyrdom of S John Fisher.
And English Catholics were arrogantly forced to adhere to the Universal Calendar. So they had to find a different date for S Alban. Thus, in the Novus Ordo Calendar for England, S Alban got manhandled back to June 20. (Unhappily, the Ordinariate Calendar does the same.)
I know what conclusions I draw from all this ...
21 June 2019
Is Bishop Gore Patrimony?
It is easy and natural for us in the Ordinariates to set before other Catholics the great Papalist teachers within Anglicanism: perhaps most obviously Dom Gregory Dix. Such men were indeed in our luggage as we entered into Full Communion. But what of others who fell short of such exacting standards? What, for example, about Bishop Charles Gore?
Gore was founding Principal of Pusey House in this University, where I worshipped as an undergraduate and had the honour of a Senior Research Fellowship when I returned to Oxford; later he was Vicar of Radley, a few hundred yards from where I now live; then Bishop of Oxford; also Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, of which our much-loved Mgr Robert Mercer of the Ordinariate is a member. You can find ... I admit it ... in his writings attacks upon what he saw as the failings of the Catholic Church, and teaching upon Biblical Inspiration which might have been unpopular in the pontificate of S Pius X.
But it is my strong conviction that blessed Benedict XVI intended us to bring into the unity of the Catholic Church all that was good in our inheritance; setting it when necessary within a Catholic context so that it may be corrected and completed.
The Lambeth Conference, a gathering with no canonical status but considerable 'moral' authority, used to gather together, every ten years, all the bishops in peace and communion with the See of Canterbury. Its meeting in 1920 spoke very sternly about the immorality of Contraception. By 1930, on the other hand, this teaching had radically changed. Gore spoke about this change, with no holds barred! I urge you to read his arguments at anglicanhistory.org/gore/contra1930.html. He was, like Pius XI (Casti connubii) and B Paul VI (the Pope of Humanae vitae) a prophet who foresaw the complete overthrow of Christian sexual morality in the final third of the twentieth century. The 1930 Lambeth Conference was indeed the thin end of Satan's wedge; the dirty work was to be finished off by the 1968 Lambeth. Gore admired the Catholic Church for bearing a witness to Truth and Purity which his own Communion had, to his distress, abandoned. He also wrote well about the High Priests who served before the 1930s Altar of Modernity, the HG Wellses, the Bertrand Russells, the Margaret Sangers, the Eugenicists, Racial Hygienists and Euthanasiacs, worthy Precursors of Adolf Hitler's Gestapo and of the Thought Police of our own time. He has a lovely tone of righteous and faintly surprised indignation.
At this when the wolves are knocking at the door of the Catholic Church, Gore is a Christian Teacher with a message directly for us. A 'Patrimony' gift to the whole Church Catholic? Why not read him?
Perhaps there is another piece of advice which the Anglican Patrimony can share with those who want to change the sexual teaching of the Catholic Church. You are merely trying to follow the Anglicans in the journey upon which they embarked in 1930. Why? If you want to be the way they are now, you can have that, now, simply by joining them, without having to wait some 90 years. Remember the old tombstone memento mori: Memento viator, quia quod tu es, ego eram; et quod ego sum, tu eris.
Gore was founding Principal of Pusey House in this University, where I worshipped as an undergraduate and had the honour of a Senior Research Fellowship when I returned to Oxford; later he was Vicar of Radley, a few hundred yards from where I now live; then Bishop of Oxford; also Founder of the Community of the Resurrection, of which our much-loved Mgr Robert Mercer of the Ordinariate is a member. You can find ... I admit it ... in his writings attacks upon what he saw as the failings of the Catholic Church, and teaching upon Biblical Inspiration which might have been unpopular in the pontificate of S Pius X.
But it is my strong conviction that blessed Benedict XVI intended us to bring into the unity of the Catholic Church all that was good in our inheritance; setting it when necessary within a Catholic context so that it may be corrected and completed.
The Lambeth Conference, a gathering with no canonical status but considerable 'moral' authority, used to gather together, every ten years, all the bishops in peace and communion with the See of Canterbury. Its meeting in 1920 spoke very sternly about the immorality of Contraception. By 1930, on the other hand, this teaching had radically changed. Gore spoke about this change, with no holds barred! I urge you to read his arguments at anglicanhistory.org/gore/contra1930.html. He was, like Pius XI (Casti connubii) and B Paul VI (the Pope of Humanae vitae) a prophet who foresaw the complete overthrow of Christian sexual morality in the final third of the twentieth century. The 1930 Lambeth Conference was indeed the thin end of Satan's wedge; the dirty work was to be finished off by the 1968 Lambeth. Gore admired the Catholic Church for bearing a witness to Truth and Purity which his own Communion had, to his distress, abandoned. He also wrote well about the High Priests who served before the 1930s Altar of Modernity, the HG Wellses, the Bertrand Russells, the Margaret Sangers, the Eugenicists, Racial Hygienists and Euthanasiacs, worthy Precursors of Adolf Hitler's Gestapo and of the Thought Police of our own time. He has a lovely tone of righteous and faintly surprised indignation.
At this when the wolves are knocking at the door of the Catholic Church, Gore is a Christian Teacher with a message directly for us. A 'Patrimony' gift to the whole Church Catholic? Why not read him?
Perhaps there is another piece of advice which the Anglican Patrimony can share with those who want to change the sexual teaching of the Catholic Church. You are merely trying to follow the Anglicans in the journey upon which they embarked in 1930. Why? If you want to be the way they are now, you can have that, now, simply by joining them, without having to wait some 90 years. Remember the old tombstone memento mori: Memento viator, quia quod tu es, ego eram; et quod ego sum, tu eris.
20 June 2019
C S Lewis and the errors of German Christianity
Because it is so topical to the debates going on at the moment in the Catholic Church, we have been considering the Truth that the Universal Catholic Church is ontologically prior (see earlier posts for that weirdo expression) to the local Church; and understanding how wrong the Kasperites are in putting the local Church first and concluding that it's OK for Northern European local Churches to abandon the received Tradition of the Universal Church on matters like Communion for Remarried Divorcees; and those in genital homosexual relationships.
C S 'Anglican Patrimony' Lewis's Devil Screwtape wrote like this about the Church:
"One of our [Devils'] great allies at the present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans."
Lewis here brilliantly reminds us of the synchronic as well as diachronic aspects of the Church; i.e. that it is not only spread throughout the world at this present time but throughout all of time. It is more than just what you see around you.
C S 'Anglican Patrimony' Lewis's Devil Screwtape wrote like this about the Church:
"One of our [Devils'] great allies at the present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans."
Lewis here brilliantly reminds us of the synchronic as well as diachronic aspects of the Church; i.e. that it is not only spread throughout the world at this present time but throughout all of time. It is more than just what you see around you.
19 June 2019
'Existential'?
Not long ago, we had a Swedish schoolgirl explaining to us, in very stylish English, about Climate Change.
Stylish ... but one word grabbed my attention. She said the dangers were "existential".
That word has been around quite a time now; at first, it frightened me. When a new term becomes all the rage, and one doesn't know what it means, one somehow ... at least I do ... feels excluded from a national discourse in which everybody else is apparently comfortable. I was young when Existentialism was a philosophical fad of a French gentleman called Sartre. His theories seemed not to take the doctrine of Original Sin very seriously. But I don't think that's relevant to this new use of the word 'existential'.
Suddenly the penny dropped as to what the term means. I think (e contextu) that it means "It really is real". "It really does exist". "If you don't take this seriously I shall spit on you from my loftier moral higher ground."
So now I no longer feel excluded. I've got it sussed. It is just another example of the modern dodge of choosing a fancy, upmarket-sounding, word to say something that was previously said rather more simply and prosaically, so that the speaker sounds either more like an Intellectual or more like a member of Society's elite. It's like 'locate'. The other morning I heard on the Home Service a pompous rambling old bore called John Humphries asking somebody whom he "had on the line" what his location was. Not "Where are you?" That would not have been consequential enough for the PROB. A year or two ago, I heard an announcement on a train to the effect that the safety information was "located adjacent to the door". Gosh, what an important person the announcer must have been. Only inferior individuals like that seedy old clergyman snuffling inexplicably in the corner of the carriage would say something as downmarket as "by the door". One has to maintain standards. Or do I mean status?
"Issue" is another case which, I think, illustrates several things. We used to have 'problems'. But if I admit that I have a problem, that puts me in the moral low ground. Aggessive people say things like "I'm a practising werewolf. Do you have a problem with that?" To which the only permitted reply is "Er ... um ... no; of course not".
So, instead, we have 'issues'. 'Issues' enable me to be lofty and disdainful, without admitting that something really has got to me .
Stylish ... but one word grabbed my attention. She said the dangers were "existential".
That word has been around quite a time now; at first, it frightened me. When a new term becomes all the rage, and one doesn't know what it means, one somehow ... at least I do ... feels excluded from a national discourse in which everybody else is apparently comfortable. I was young when Existentialism was a philosophical fad of a French gentleman called Sartre. His theories seemed not to take the doctrine of Original Sin very seriously. But I don't think that's relevant to this new use of the word 'existential'.
Suddenly the penny dropped as to what the term means. I think (e contextu) that it means "It really is real". "It really does exist". "If you don't take this seriously I shall spit on you from my loftier moral higher ground."
So now I no longer feel excluded. I've got it sussed. It is just another example of the modern dodge of choosing a fancy, upmarket-sounding, word to say something that was previously said rather more simply and prosaically, so that the speaker sounds either more like an Intellectual or more like a member of Society's elite. It's like 'locate'. The other morning I heard on the Home Service a pompous rambling old bore called John Humphries asking somebody whom he "had on the line" what his location was. Not "Where are you?" That would not have been consequential enough for the PROB. A year or two ago, I heard an announcement on a train to the effect that the safety information was "located adjacent to the door". Gosh, what an important person the announcer must have been. Only inferior individuals like that seedy old clergyman snuffling inexplicably in the corner of the carriage would say something as downmarket as "by the door". One has to maintain standards. Or do I mean status?
"Issue" is another case which, I think, illustrates several things. We used to have 'problems'. But if I admit that I have a problem, that puts me in the moral low ground. Aggessive people say things like "I'm a practising werewolf. Do you have a problem with that?" To which the only permitted reply is "Er ... um ... no; of course not".
So, instead, we have 'issues'. 'Issues' enable me to be lofty and disdainful, without admitting that something really has got to me .
18 June 2019
Dr Eric Mascall and the errors of Walter Kasper
One of our greatest Anglican Catholic theologians was the late Fr Mascall. When I was an undergraduate, he said his private (Tridentine) Mass daily at the Altar next to the Altar in S Mary Mags where I was hearing the public (Tridentine) Mass. He was as kind a man as he was a fine Thomist and a scholar of immense erudition. I cite below some passages in which he repeatedly emphasises that we err if we use the phrase "the Church" to mean "Christians now on earth". It really incorporates all those who have ever been incorporated by Baptism into Christ's Body and have not been lost. We must conclude from this that questions such as those about Marriage and sexuality are therefore not matters for individual local Churches to make decisions upon, nor even just for the whole state of Christ's Church now militant here in earth. 'Tradition' is the expression of this understanding. A shame Kasper and his like have never read Mascall. They would have understood, poor things, how obvious it is that the Church Universal, the Body of Christ throughout Space and Time, is ontologically [in the order of Being] prior to individual Particular Churches.
The Church is not merely "a society formed by the voluntary association of those individual Christians who are now on earth"; it is "rooted in the concrete historical events of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ ... we who are now on earth are only the last of sixty or so generations of Christians who have each in its turn made up the earthly Church ... There is a fine phrase in which tradition has been described as 'the democracy of the dead' ... But, since Christ has overcome death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life, the Church which was once militant here upon earth in the past is the Church which is now triumphant and expectant beyond the grave. This is therefore not just the democracy of the dead but of the living, as God himself is not of the dead but of the living. "
" ... the Church ... is not just the empirically manifested Church now militant on earth, but the archetypal Church which is nothing less than Christ's own manhood into which generations of Christians have been incorporated ..."
" ... at any particular epoch the Church militant is only a minute fraction of the Church Catholic... in the great living and growing organism which is the Body of Christ, we who are now on earth are not the successors of those who are now at rest and sleep in the sleep of peace or of the saints who now enjoy the beatific vision; we are their contemporaries, united with them by incorporation into the ascended Lord who is the Body's Head ..."
"If we identify the Church of God simply with the Church Militant, we shall look upon it as a society with membership that is constantly changing as new members enter it by baptism and old ones leave it by death, after the pattern of any other earthly society. If, however, we remember that the Church militant is only the lower fringe of the whole Church, we shall see the Church as an organism, a body which is constantly growing, which is being built up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ".
VIVAT the Anglican Patrimony!
The Church is not merely "a society formed by the voluntary association of those individual Christians who are now on earth"; it is "rooted in the concrete historical events of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ ... we who are now on earth are only the last of sixty or so generations of Christians who have each in its turn made up the earthly Church ... There is a fine phrase in which tradition has been described as 'the democracy of the dead' ... But, since Christ has overcome death and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life, the Church which was once militant here upon earth in the past is the Church which is now triumphant and expectant beyond the grave. This is therefore not just the democracy of the dead but of the living, as God himself is not of the dead but of the living. "
" ... the Church ... is not just the empirically manifested Church now militant on earth, but the archetypal Church which is nothing less than Christ's own manhood into which generations of Christians have been incorporated ..."
" ... at any particular epoch the Church militant is only a minute fraction of the Church Catholic... in the great living and growing organism which is the Body of Christ, we who are now on earth are not the successors of those who are now at rest and sleep in the sleep of peace or of the saints who now enjoy the beatific vision; we are their contemporaries, united with them by incorporation into the ascended Lord who is the Body's Head ..."
"If we identify the Church of God simply with the Church Militant, we shall look upon it as a society with membership that is constantly changing as new members enter it by baptism and old ones leave it by death, after the pattern of any other earthly society. If, however, we remember that the Church militant is only the lower fringe of the whole Church, we shall see the Church as an organism, a body which is constantly growing, which is being built up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ".
VIVAT the Anglican Patrimony!
17 June 2019
The Antidote to Pride
No; this is not a tirade against 'Pride' parades ....
At the Daughter University, there is a Classics don called Mary Beard. I dislike her. Apart from the fact that she is not My Sort of Woman, one reason for this is that, when lecturing, she likes to sound demotic. Not for her the elegantly crafted sentence. She wants to sound Immediate and Spontaneous. So her diction is larded with fillers, not least "y'know".
And now she has had the temerity to attack PF! Loyal Catholics will be horrified. Why should anybody, even a Cambridge don, do such a wicked thing? Answer: she is very angry because he is trying to change the ending of the Oratio Dominica. He is attempting to eliminate the suggestion that the Father might if undissuaded "lead us into temptation". And he is encouraging the more spineless and illiterate Episcopal Conferences to adopt a "superior translation". The Italians, disgraceful apostates from Renaissance Scholarship, have bent the knee to Ba'al.
The Beard points out that the PF-preferred version is not in fact a 'translation'. And this isn't just a question of traduttore traditore. She explains the Greek line word by word, very much as one might explain it to a bright little boy in the top class of his prep school, who is doing a year of Greek in an attempt to make him a more attractive scholarship candidate at the Public School of his choice.
What makes this particularly irritating is that she is dead right. The PF-sponsored 'correction' has nothing whatsoever to do with the original Greek. It has everything to do with the unbelievable over-confidence of a pope who is convinced that his own silly little whimsies take authoritative precedence over the express words of the Incarnate Word himself, and the abiding liturgical tradition of the Church, in all her rites, over nearly two millennia. There can be no doubt that Fr Rosica was giving his Master's authentic views when he described PF as being free from the burdensome chains of Scripture and Tradition.
Of course, PF has every right to be pleased with his own crack-pot twaddle. He is an old man; I m a decade younger and I already claim this same privilege for myself. Readers of my blog will have noticed this.
But does he have the right to make the rest of us into a laughing stock in the eyes of literate people everywhere?
Perhaps he does. Perhaps this humiliation is bestowed upon us by a wise Providence to give us an opportunity to fight our besetting sin of Pride?
At the Daughter University, there is a Classics don called Mary Beard. I dislike her. Apart from the fact that she is not My Sort of Woman, one reason for this is that, when lecturing, she likes to sound demotic. Not for her the elegantly crafted sentence. She wants to sound Immediate and Spontaneous. So her diction is larded with fillers, not least "y'know".
And now she has had the temerity to attack PF! Loyal Catholics will be horrified. Why should anybody, even a Cambridge don, do such a wicked thing? Answer: she is very angry because he is trying to change the ending of the Oratio Dominica. He is attempting to eliminate the suggestion that the Father might if undissuaded "lead us into temptation". And he is encouraging the more spineless and illiterate Episcopal Conferences to adopt a "superior translation". The Italians, disgraceful apostates from Renaissance Scholarship, have bent the knee to Ba'al.
The Beard points out that the PF-preferred version is not in fact a 'translation'. And this isn't just a question of traduttore traditore. She explains the Greek line word by word, very much as one might explain it to a bright little boy in the top class of his prep school, who is doing a year of Greek in an attempt to make him a more attractive scholarship candidate at the Public School of his choice.
What makes this particularly irritating is that she is dead right. The PF-sponsored 'correction' has nothing whatsoever to do with the original Greek. It has everything to do with the unbelievable over-confidence of a pope who is convinced that his own silly little whimsies take authoritative precedence over the express words of the Incarnate Word himself, and the abiding liturgical tradition of the Church, in all her rites, over nearly two millennia. There can be no doubt that Fr Rosica was giving his Master's authentic views when he described PF as being free from the burdensome chains of Scripture and Tradition.
Of course, PF has every right to be pleased with his own crack-pot twaddle. He is an old man; I m a decade younger and I already claim this same privilege for myself. Readers of my blog will have noticed this.
But does he have the right to make the rest of us into a laughing stock in the eyes of literate people everywhere?
Perhaps he does. Perhaps this humiliation is bestowed upon us by a wise Providence to give us an opportunity to fight our besetting sin of Pride?
16 June 2019
Sundays after Trinity
In a decree (1759), Clement XIII ordered the Trinity Preface to used on Green Sundays. This supports a strong case for the naming of these Sundays per annum in the old English (and North European) way as Sundays after Trinity.
I draw attention to several points.
The use of the Trinity Preface, or some form of it, is found in the little collection of Masses put together by Alcuin for clergy who could not possess a full Missal; and it is found in the earliesr (preGregorian) version of the Roman Rite, that in the Stowe Missal
The modern emphasis on Sunday as a weekly minipascha is not so much untrue as too narrow. As Clement XIII's document points out, Sunday is also the day of the Creation of Light; indeed, of the beginning of Creation. And also of the Resurrection; and also of the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit. And thus of all three persons of the Holy Trinity.
The same Magisterial document refers to the traditional use on these Sundays of the Quicunque vult. I believe, and have written before on this blog, that the disuse of this Canticle (since the corruption of the Roman Rite really got under way under Pius XII) is one reason why even some clergy don't really seem to have any sense of the Trinity, as defined by Mother Church, any longer - they are, it sometimes appears from their homilies, modalists.
It also reminds us of the antiphon which usually came towards the end of Sunday Mattins: "Two Seraphim cried one to the other *Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts, *All the earth is full of his glory. V Three there are who bear witness in heaven, Father, Word, and Holy Spirit: And these three are one. Holy ... Glory be ... All ...". This lovely text, of course, draws upon the verse in the Vulgate and the Authorised Version (Patrimony Patrimony) in I John; commonly omitted in modern Bibles including the Neovulgate because of its extremely weak attestation in Greek mss..
We need to become very much more robust in embracing the Scriptures as the Church has handed them down to us rather than making an idol of the methodology (with its underlying conceptual assumptions) of Westcott and Hort. (Even in WH terms, I think one could make a case for this verse having been omitted so widely because of parablepsis due to homoeoteleuton.)
We need a reacceptance of a more holistic sense of Tradition ... and a recommitment to the noble crusade of rolling back the 'Enlightenment'.
And finally: Clement XIII, in the actual words of the Decree itself, refers to the use of the Trinity preface on Green Sundays and says "inde a [not 'in'] vetustissimis temporibus in usu fuisse dignoscitur".
In other words, the Holy Father does not say: I've had a perfectly spiffing idea; let's do so-and-so. He bases what he decrees on Ancient Tradition and Precedent. That is very significant. It is the immemorial Roman instinct for preservation and continuity. We need more of it. Especially in Rome. Not least in the Casa Santa Marta. I wonder if the Quicumque vult has ever been chanted in the chapel there.
I draw attention to several points.
The use of the Trinity Preface, or some form of it, is found in the little collection of Masses put together by Alcuin for clergy who could not possess a full Missal; and it is found in the earliesr (preGregorian) version of the Roman Rite, that in the Stowe Missal
The modern emphasis on Sunday as a weekly minipascha is not so much untrue as too narrow. As Clement XIII's document points out, Sunday is also the day of the Creation of Light; indeed, of the beginning of Creation. And also of the Resurrection; and also of the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit. And thus of all three persons of the Holy Trinity.
The same Magisterial document refers to the traditional use on these Sundays of the Quicunque vult. I believe, and have written before on this blog, that the disuse of this Canticle (since the corruption of the Roman Rite really got under way under Pius XII) is one reason why even some clergy don't really seem to have any sense of the Trinity, as defined by Mother Church, any longer - they are, it sometimes appears from their homilies, modalists.
It also reminds us of the antiphon which usually came towards the end of Sunday Mattins: "Two Seraphim cried one to the other *Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Hosts, *All the earth is full of his glory. V Three there are who bear witness in heaven, Father, Word, and Holy Spirit: And these three are one. Holy ... Glory be ... All ...". This lovely text, of course, draws upon the verse in the Vulgate and the Authorised Version (Patrimony Patrimony) in I John; commonly omitted in modern Bibles including the Neovulgate because of its extremely weak attestation in Greek mss..
We need to become very much more robust in embracing the Scriptures as the Church has handed them down to us rather than making an idol of the methodology (with its underlying conceptual assumptions) of Westcott and Hort. (Even in WH terms, I think one could make a case for this verse having been omitted so widely because of parablepsis due to homoeoteleuton.)
We need a reacceptance of a more holistic sense of Tradition ... and a recommitment to the noble crusade of rolling back the 'Enlightenment'.
And finally: Clement XIII, in the actual words of the Decree itself, refers to the use of the Trinity preface on Green Sundays and says "inde a [not 'in'] vetustissimis temporibus in usu fuisse dignoscitur".
In other words, the Holy Father does not say: I've had a perfectly spiffing idea; let's do so-and-so. He bases what he decrees on Ancient Tradition and Precedent. That is very significant. It is the immemorial Roman instinct for preservation and continuity. We need more of it. Especially in Rome. Not least in the Casa Santa Marta. I wonder if the Quicumque vult has ever been chanted in the chapel there.
15 June 2019
GENDERGENDER GENDER ad n......
A Fr James Martin, an Ultrapontine as I believe, has made a comment on the recent Vatican document about gender.
He welcomes the Vatican's expressed willingness to 'dialogue'. But the whole bent of his piece is that, before the dialogue, it should be accepted that traditional teaching is wrong. So an appearance of tolerance is paraded, but his call is the same old 'liberal' call for submission. We in the Ordinariates know all about these dodges because, while we still in the House of Bondage, this was the method employed by those advocating the ordination of women to sacerdotal ministries. 'Hear our experience' was the call. 'Meet us and dialogue'. (Their actual unwillingness to dialogue became clear: with much labour, a committee, chaired by Bishop Ali and containing adherents of every tendency, put together a lucid exposition of the different arguments. Archbishop Williams made it clear that he expected this 'Rochester Report' to be the basis of deep theologial discussion within the Church Of England. But the feminazis made it brutally clear that time for discussion was now over: their demands needed to be granted instantissime.)
But I want to concentrate this morning on another aspect of Father's comments.
He refers to "the now commonly held understanding that sexuality is not chosen by a person but is rather part of the way they are created".
I don't think it is unfair to suggest that in some minds there is attached to this an implication that, because a sexuality is not chosen but is part of how one is created, it is in some way validated.
I now offer a question which I have offered on a number of occasions before.
Does this apply to paedophiles? And if not, why not?
I am aware that this is a dangerous question to ask, because there are people out there whose grasp on logic is so frail and their passions so intense that they start shouting
(1) "So you're saying that all homosexuals are paedophiles"; or
(2) "So you're saying that homosexuals are as bad as paedophiles". Of course, my question implies neither of these propositions. (In fact, I personally repudiate them both.) It simply enquires whether paedophilia might be "not chosen by a person but [be] rather part of the way they are created", and, if so, what conclusions ought to be drawn from this dogmatic proposition.
And I go on to wonder why it is that in a society where Fr Martin's assertion is "the now commonly held understanding", paedophilia is still surrounded by popular hysteria.
If Fr Martin were to concede that there are sexualities which are indeed not chosen but are indeed part of the way a particular human is created, but which, for whatever reasons, still have to be classified as immoral or even illegal, we could start dialoguing about the criteria to be employed in distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable sexualities ... without getting cross with each other.
He welcomes the Vatican's expressed willingness to 'dialogue'. But the whole bent of his piece is that, before the dialogue, it should be accepted that traditional teaching is wrong. So an appearance of tolerance is paraded, but his call is the same old 'liberal' call for submission. We in the Ordinariates know all about these dodges because, while we still in the House of Bondage, this was the method employed by those advocating the ordination of women to sacerdotal ministries. 'Hear our experience' was the call. 'Meet us and dialogue'. (Their actual unwillingness to dialogue became clear: with much labour, a committee, chaired by Bishop Ali and containing adherents of every tendency, put together a lucid exposition of the different arguments. Archbishop Williams made it clear that he expected this 'Rochester Report' to be the basis of deep theologial discussion within the Church Of England. But the feminazis made it brutally clear that time for discussion was now over: their demands needed to be granted instantissime.)
But I want to concentrate this morning on another aspect of Father's comments.
He refers to "the now commonly held understanding that sexuality is not chosen by a person but is rather part of the way they are created".
I don't think it is unfair to suggest that in some minds there is attached to this an implication that, because a sexuality is not chosen but is part of how one is created, it is in some way validated.
I now offer a question which I have offered on a number of occasions before.
Does this apply to paedophiles? And if not, why not?
I am aware that this is a dangerous question to ask, because there are people out there whose grasp on logic is so frail and their passions so intense that they start shouting
(1) "So you're saying that all homosexuals are paedophiles"; or
(2) "So you're saying that homosexuals are as bad as paedophiles". Of course, my question implies neither of these propositions. (In fact, I personally repudiate them both.) It simply enquires whether paedophilia might be "not chosen by a person but [be] rather part of the way they are created", and, if so, what conclusions ought to be drawn from this dogmatic proposition.
And I go on to wonder why it is that in a society where Fr Martin's assertion is "the now commonly held understanding", paedophilia is still surrounded by popular hysteria.
If Fr Martin were to concede that there are sexualities which are indeed not chosen but are indeed part of the way a particular human is created, but which, for whatever reasons, still have to be classified as immoral or even illegal, we could start dialoguing about the criteria to be employed in distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable sexualities ... without getting cross with each other.
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