12 February 2016

Practical Ecumenism

Decades ago when we were still in the House Of Bondage (sic JHN), there was a Church Directory, indicating the level of churchmanship in every English Anglican church which was somewhere on the spectrum between 'Prayer Book Catholic' and 'Full Catholic Privileges'. (And in the episcopopter era, FIF did a list.)

After the hoped-for regularisation of the SSPX, we could (in this on-line age) have a Catholic version; listing all the churches where the EF was celebrated ... or where the OF was so reform-of-the-reform as to be almost undistinguishable ... or where the Ordinariate Use was done in its more 'Tridentine' version ... or where Ukrainian or Melkite liturgy could be had ... you get the idea.

Not 'pure' enough, some of you think? Well, it's how the once-admirable Good Food Guide used to function: full entries for real food but supplementary information about the best-of-the-rest in otherwise arid areas miles from a decent restaurant.

It would be a charitable ecumenical enterprise enabling Tablet readers to know which churches fail to tick their exacting boxes.


10 comments:

motuproprio said...

The churches to look for were DSCR.
D: Daily Mass, S: Sung Mass/Parish Communion every Sunday at the same time, C: Confessions heard at advertised times, R: Continuous Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament.
I seem to recall it was the late Fr Peter Blagdon-Gamlen (may he rest in peace) who was responsible for the 'Church Travellers Directory'.

mark wauck said...

Actually, if you google "latin mass finder" or some variant thereof you'll come across a plethora (!) of web sites and even an iphone app--all devoted to directing interested persons to the nearest traditional mass.

Fr John Hunwicke said...

Thank you! I do in fact know about such things. What I was trying to hint at was something a little bit broader than just an EF Directory (I really must try to be clearer!!) bringing diverse informatio into one corpus.

Doodler said...

There is a link to the PDF files of scans of Fr Peter Blagdon-Gamlen's 'Church Travellers Directory' on

https://stchrysostoms.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/the-church-travellers-directory/

Published in 1973 (well within my active memory!), it makes interesting but very sad reading in retrospect.



mark wauck said...

If you follow this link to MassTimes.org you should hopefully get a map of a portion of Chicago, with parishes in that area marked and, in the right hand column, information re Masses and other liturgies. Information regarding language and type of liturgy is included. Thus, #3 St. Mary of Perpetual Help has a traditional Latin mass @ 8:30 on Sundays, all other masses in English (presumably not the traditional Roman liturgy). OTOH, #5 St. Pius V (!) has most masses in Spanish. And so forth. Perhaps something like that is what you had in mind?

Anonymous said...

One wonders how far down the scale the directory could go:

Follows the order of Mass; uses the words of consecration; refers to God using feminine terms; refers to God in the past tense; identifiable nuns; identifiable ex-nuns; balloons; stickers; advertises couples retreat to improve marriages; advertises divorce assistance group.

Rating: always, never, encouraged, discouraged, more, less, more or less

John said...

The Latin Liturgy Association does something very like that here: http://www.latinliturgy.com/id6.htm

Alas, the list is exclusive to the U.S. and Canada but it's a start.

Best,

-John-

Victor said...

Father, you need not be clearer. We need to read your messages more attentively - it was all there!

John said...

I should add that it's woefully out of date. There are many more in this Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone. But someone did make a start. . ..

peregrinusto said...

For a start it would be good to know what hours churches were open. This is an increasingly perplexing problem for travellers who want to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament in cities as well as towns and villages.

On a recent visit to the USA we found the cathedral and all parish churches locked for most of the day in the see city of Galveston, TX with the exception of a brief period before and after Mass.