18 March 2011

Advice to a new Protonotary Apostolic

As soon as you've unravelled all the complicated mystery
About what the Holy Office does, the Rota, the Consistory;
When you've studied more theology, and don't get quite so drowsy on
Attending learned lectures which discuss the Homoousion;
When you've somehow put behind you (with your poor command of French) a list
Of authors whose philosophy is known as Existentialist -
When your learning on a multitude of themes is less bucolic -
There's ne'er a Protonotary will be so Apostolic.

Acknowledgements not so much to Gilbert's and Sullivan's Modern Major General as to an earlier ex-Anglican Apostolic Protonotary who would have rejoiced to see the day of the Ordinariate.

7 comments:

  1. First verse
    I'm the sort of man they make an Apostolic Protonotary -
    I've written reams and reams of prose, and quite a lot of potery [sic];
    To walk on garden-rollers is among my minor glories,
    And I used to be prevailed upon to write detective stories;
    I can also punt canoes (or as they say in Greenland) Kayaks,
    And had quite a flair at one time for composing elegiacs;
    I can look up trains in Bradshaw, on occasions locomotary,
    As undoubtedly becomes an Apostolic Protonotary.

    (I believe the response of Mgr Ronald Knox PA to a letter of congratulation from the Very Rev'd Cyril Alington, sometime Dean of Durham.)

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  2. In short in matters prelatical, canonical and clerical,
    He is the very model of a protonotary curial.

    baah...

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  3. Bravo, Father!

    William Schwenck Gilbert lives!

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  4. G&S. So pleased you've finally discovered some 'patrimony' to bring with you, Father.

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  5. I remember many years ago, a Roman Catholic priest of my aquaintance referred to the office of Protonotary Apostolic as 'mule bishops'!!

    Rdr. James Morgan
    olympia, WA
    Probably my first post here

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  6. Presumably you mean Mgr Knox. What's the evidence for your claim?

    Fr Ashley Beck

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