How do you decline Texas?

Not that anyone would wish to decline a visit to this fascinating and welcoming State. What I mean is: in terms of Latin grammar, would it be Texas, Texadem, Texadis ... or, more Hellenically, Texas, Texada, Texados ... or what? There must be an answer to this, because, as I could see in my recent trip to the land of bluebonnets and purple sage, Classical Languages are far from dead there. This became clear to me when I caught Terry Southard At It on my first evening there: doing her Latin homework. A group of them meet for lessons after the Parish Mass on Sundays in the Church of St Mary the Virgin Arlingto (see previous posts). And the next day Fr Hawkins took me visiting ...

We went first to look at the (Catholic) Cathedral of Fort Worth; rather ugly outside, but a wonderland within. It was built by a French priest in the 1890s (I must resist the solecism of calling it 'Victorian') for a congregation which, judging from the dedicants of its stained glass windows, was largely Irish. And it looks like a church built by a Frenchman for Irishmen. Its fittings are superb; late French baroque ... for example, our Lady in swirls of drapery leaning forward so that the bulgy crown upon her head looks to be in danger of toppling off. To transfer a topos, if you couldn't afford to go to France for a holiday, a visit to S Patrick's (yes!) Cathedral would be a good substitute. For contrast, we then dropped in on the old stockyards, through which cattle are still driven daily by elderly gentlemen one of whom had those exquisitely drooping moustaches which seem to descend well below the collar-bone.

But we couldn't stop longer than it took to buy postcards for my grandchildren because we were destined for lunch at the College of St Thomas More. It became clear that we had arrived as we parked our car beside a nice young man wearing an MA gown in a back street positively pulsating with Latin and Greek culture .... to be continued shortly.