S Giles, Reading

Yes, I do tend to keep on about it. You only have to step inside and meet the people; and look at the building, adorned with love of generations of Anglican Catholics, a beacon of the Faith once delivered to the Saints ... to see why.

The parish needs a good, orthodox, priest; and the adverts are now buzzing around. Or at least they should have been ... but I gather there were technical problems on some websites. But full information can now be found on the Ebbsfleet and Oxford Diocese websites. The closing date for applications is October 29.

If you know (or yourself are) a good orthodox priest who might build on Fr Melrose's work (aided by the prayers of an earlier vicar, Blessed John Eynon, martyred under Henry Tudor) ... well, the congregation are hoping for their prayers to be answered.

S Thomas's, Raphael, and Leo X

Happening to find myself in London, I drifted into the V and A to see the Raphael tapestries which the Holy Father has lent on the occasion of his State Visit. There should, of course, have been lots more goodies from the Vatican collections; Dr Ratzinger, simple, cultured, soul, had thought that the people of England would welcome a great artistic bonanza. He didn't reckon with the determination of the Atheist Classes to prevent the Visit being an occasion of joyful exuberance for the community as a whole. But the V & A couldn't resist the opportunity to show four of the Sistine tapestries beside the original cartoons from which they were woven, housed in the V & A from the royal collection.

What tremendous fun (and what a shame the Enemies of Joy prevented so much more from coming across). And how at home members of my congregation will find themselves at the exhibition (which is free). Our High Altar has a good copy of Raphael's Madonna di Foligno - the first altarpiece he painted after his arrival in Rome, and showing as Donor the Secretary of Pope Julius II. As I beheld it, a penny dropped in my mind. One of the mysteries about the picture of which ours is a copy is a thunderbolt apparently about to hit a house in the background. This has elicited various traditional aetiologies - ex. gr. that the picture is an ex voto done after a thunderbolt failed to do significant damage to the donor's house. But the tapestry and cartoon of Christ's Charge To Peter show a burning house on the skyline in the background. Was this just the sort of tiny dramatic detail Raphael liked to include?

The twisted 'Salomonic' pillars in the Marian porch of the University Church here in Oxford are are presumably the result of the impact of the arrival of the cartoons in England in the reign of Bl Charles Stuart; they appear prominently in the Healing Of The Lame Man.

And the repetitions of the Medici arms everywhere reminded me of the familiar sight each morning, as I turn over the page from the Preface to Te igitur, of a reproduction of the corresponding page in a Medici Missal.

Among the Acknowledgements in the book accompanying the exhibition (good value, hardback, £10) is the name of Good Marini. His Office graciously lent a copy of the Diary of the Papal Master of Ceremonies covering S Stephen's Day 1516, when the tapestries were first put up in the Sistine Chapel. The book is displayed open at that day; the entry painstakingly records that thirty cardinals were at Mass with the Pope; that Cardinal de Valle "Missam cantavit, licet non satis bene"; and then goes on describe the massive impact the tapestries had upon all who saw them.

Blessed John Eynon

Sunday morning, I took a day off from S Thomas's to go and sing the Mass and to preach at S Giles' Reading. A great joy; a vibrant congregation of all types, ages and races. They probably found some details of my Mass a little unfamiliar; I have not celebrated a Sung ICEL Novus Ordo since I left Lancing in 2001, and I am a bit rusty as far as the ICEL melodies for the sung bits go. Playing for safety, at the end of the Canon I sang "Throughout all ages, world without end" (note for RCs: this is the old Anglo-Catholic version of "Per omnia saecula saeculorum" ... it provides more syllables on which to load the Tridentine notes than "For ever and ever" ... try them both out, and you will see).

It was good to find the congregation in good spirits and recovering well from the sudden and most sad death of the saintly and learned Fr Melrose. The singing was lusty and the Organ a joy to hear; the serving was perfect and unobtrusive, even when it came to discretely reminding an incompetent visiting celebrant that he ought to have turned his radio-mike off! Sorry, folks, to be such a burden! Some time I really must make an effort to move into the twentieth century. I was privileged to find the Best Green Set laid out for me: quite superb. Am I right in assuming there might well be something French about vestments on which the crosses mimic the exact shape of the cross of the Saint Esprit? I realised why we have the custom of removing the maniple to preach: a properly massive and stiff spade-ended maniple would cramp the style of exuberant preachers. And S Giles is enough to bring out the Bossuet in anyone.

Afterwards I was able to relax with the congregation (is it a sign of advanced years that I seemed to discover some connection or other with everybody I spoke to?) before being whisked off to a soft, superb, and succulent lunch. An example of the sort of mental inferences I was able to pursue: the parish must be above the water-table of the Thames because such fine wines could not but be the result of a large, varied, well-judged, and intelligently maintained cellar. I wonder how that would go in syllogistic form. What an easy subject Geography is.

As the train bore me back to waterlogged fluviality of Oxford, I reflected with complacent pleasure that I have had the privilege of offering the most august Sacrifice of the Mass at the altars of two Beati: Bl John Eynon of Reading; and Bl John Henry Newman of Oxford.

Forward in Faith

Our Autumn Gathering had its funny side. Two of the bishops whose names are attached to the Society of St 'Inge and Bracket had been booked to present the proceedings of the Northern Synod which, apparently, so warmly backed this initiative of Johnny Hind and Chums. But they both subsequently discovered that their diaries contained entries which, after all, precluded their attendance. Those inclined to give some support to the Society and who were physically present seemed strangely muted in their praise of it. It appeared to be a truth universally acknowledged that nobody knew what the rationale of the Society was, or what it is for. One much loved priest commended the bishops involved for being prepared - after all these years of sneering at action groups - to do something; he suggested that it might be called the Society of Awakened Episcopal Ostriches. Another felt that it was important to give the Society a fair wind, although if, as he clearly suspected, the sponsoring bishops were not prepared to act illegally, it would be worse than useless (his hilarious peroration included a stirring rallying cry to Stink). With friends like these, how can the Society need enemies?

It was suggested that the Northern Clergy are different in type from us Southerners; since we were also told that a thousand of them had signed up blindly to the Society without knowing what it would turn out to be, I felt that this was a rather ambiguous piece of praise for those sturdy, sensible, no-nonsense lemmings (Lemmus Borealis?) up beyond the Humber. All the Nigerian Widows who so regularly email us could have a field day among the clergy of the Northern Province. We were told that quite probably the legislation for women bishops would fail next time to secure its necessary Synodical majorities ... so that it would keep coming back at regular intervals to prevent us from getting slack and bored.

But the moment of supreme bathos came with the suggestion that all was actually rather well; the Calvinist Conservative Evangelicals would save every last bit of our bacon by deploying their financial clout. That the Catholic Revival, the Movement of Pusey and Newman and Keble, the spiritual descendants of the heroic Non-jurors and of the martyred Laud, should come to this ...

Don't get me wrong. There were plenty of speakers, particularly among the young, who realised that we have clutched at so many straws and for so long that there is no thatch left on the roof to keep the rain out. There was real enthusiasm for Dr Ratzinger's New Deal. I just thought you might like to hear ... yes, the funny bits.

Oh, and yes, Bishop Edwin did tell us that the game was up.

Assimilation

Both in the text of Second Vespers of Blessed John Henry, as done on the evening of the Beatification, and in the video of the Toronto Oratory's High Mass, we had the EF but with the Collect (etc.) from the newly authorised OF propers. I know it is the obvious combination to make, but is it strictly legal? Or should Fr Zed equip all the Oratories with his red and black mugs?

Tradition

At the Forward in Faith Congress in Westminster ... a lugubrious occasion ... an old tradition may have been abandoned.

Hitherto, each year, Bishop Edwin Barnes, Protoclete of Richborough, has stood up, at some point in the proceedings, looked around with his beguiling air of False Naivety, and said "But the Game is Up!"

Perhaps he's planning to do it tomorrow.

Ordinariates: an important announcement

I think a name should soon be given to the Ordinariate of Great Britain. Because the word Ordinariate is a nasty unEnglish and canonical term; and common folk like me do better with something more personal and user-friendly. My preference would be: "Society of Ss Hilda and Wilfrid" (Ladies First is an important principle). Many people, I know, assume that Bl John Henry will come into it (if he does, I suggest that the Ordinary, for ordinations and appropriate Ordinariate events, should ask to borrow one of the three English Oratories). I would not object to "Ss George and Andrew and David". Then, just as the Monarch's arms vary in England and Scotland (in England the three lions passant guardant of the King of England are in the senior quarter; in Scotland, the lion rampant of the King of Scots), so it could be the Society of S George in England ... etc.. Our Blessed Lady, whose Dowry England is, would be always popular, perhaps in combination with Blessed John Henry. S Theodore ... a Greek speaking Syrian monk appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by a Pope of Rome ... always seems to me a wonderfully significant individual, but he would mystify the media.

I entertain a lingering hope, certain not to be realised, that the old names of Ebbsfleet and Richborough, bound up with the arrival of S Augustine here in the first days of English Christianity, might survive as names of a couple of the deaneries into which it will be divided. They are already names encrusted with sacred memories.

Whatever the Ordinariate is to be, it could do with being announced promptissimo.

I may delete unbecoming suggestions on the thread ...

Eastern Catholics

Some interesting 'demands' have emerged from Eastern Catholic bishops at the Middle Eastern Synod. Two of them I find unexceptionable.

The first is that Rome should stop discouraging the ordination of married Orientals to the presbyterate. The current position is that married presbyterates should only exist in the original geographical homelands of Eastern Catholic Churches. I can understand why Latin ecclesiastics fear the undermining of the Western discipline of clerical celibacy; and I have some sympathy with them. But they ought to be cautious in their assertions. For example, a few months ago an English RC bishop publicly claimed that the provision for the admission of married men to the presbyterates of Ordinariates applied only to the 'first wave' of those signing up. He clearly had not read the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, which allows ordinaries to seek dispensation for their ordinands from the rule of celibacy indefinitely: and does not restrict this to those who had been in the ministry of the Anglican Church. Ah ... and by the way ... symmetry would require that if Orientals within what used to be the Western Patriarchate have to obey the Western discipline concerning clerical marriage, then Occidentals within the territories of Eastern Churches should be subject to the Eastern discipline about clerical marriage.

Secondly, I sympathise with the call for greater speed in the granting of Roman consent to Eastern episcopal elections. Frankly, I cannot see why Roman consent should be necessary anyway. Its requirement is a fairly recent innovation in Oriental Canon Law.

The third request is rather interesting. I think I agree with it, on the grounds that jurisdiction should follow personalist and cultural norms rather than crudely geographical ones, but ... well, there is a But. I refer to the request that Eastern Churches should have jurisdiction, not only within their historical geographical boundaries, but - in this age of great migrations - over their communities anywhere in the world. Good idea. But ... In view of the fact that the patriarchates of the Pentarchy, sanctioned by the earliest Ecumenical Councils, are locked into the major geographical and political divisions of the late Roman Empire, should it not be the Orthodox position that such a radical change, from geographical jurisdictions to cultural ones, required the consent of an Ecumenical Council? Orthodox - and Eastern Catholics - are surely rather hoist here by their own petard, whatever a petard is. And, while we are in this area, it has to be said that, theologically and canonically, there is something distinctly iffy about the cheerful abandon with which Orthodox Churches set up hierarchies throughout the West.

The fourth suggestion is, in my view, flawed to the point of being ridiculous. It is that Eastern Patriarchs should ex officio take part in papal elections. Now; I have no complaint about individual Oriental patriarchs being made cardinals and thus papal electors. But the Pope is, essentially, simply the bishop of Rome. Because the Roman Church, where Peter's voice still authentically and infallibly speaks, is the norm of orthodoxy and the God-given centre of ecclesial communion and unity, the bishop of this see has a unique and most important position in the ecclesia catholica. But, when all is said and done, he is Bishop of Rome, and should be elected by the clergy of that city: which is what the cardinal bishops, presbyters and deacons essentially are.

And, curiously, this Eastern request has implications which should be resisted and which Easterners, of all people, should not be promoting. It implies that the Pope is a sort of superprelate, something raised far on high above all other bishops, patriarchs, and Churches. Only if he were such an almighty person could it be appropriate for him to be elected by the representatives of all the Churches of East and West. And if he were such a hyperepiskopos, paradoxically, the theological rationale of his position would give him an autocratic authority over the Church Universal even beyond the most extravagant dreams of the ultramontanes of Vatican I.

Stinge but no Bracket

How fine dear S Wilfrid looks, down at Brompton, in his cope and mitre. I expected to find his altar there - genuine Netherlandish Baroque, I think I recall - thronged with bishops of Chichester, area bishops and archdeacons of that see, and canons of its Cathedral, all beseeching their patron for his prayer and blessing upon poor Johnny Hind's dotty 'Society'. But only the usual Filippino ladies there for the EF Mass, God bless them. I bet they aren't signed up to it. I know S Wilfrid isn't.

I wonder how many women 'clergy' Johnny has licensed and instituted to "my cure and yours" since he and his lackeys sprang the latest initiative of this "leading Catholic bishop" upon a waiting world. Heaven help any poor suckers who have fallen for it.

Daft lot.

1962

Fr Zed recently gave pictures of the Vatican Edition of the Miassale Romanum. What struck me about it is how much it owes to the SSPX.

For example; the fact that it is the 1962 Missal which is printed is itself the result of a decision made quite late in SSPX history by Archbishop Lefebvre. He originally used the modifications introduced in 1965; indeed, arguably, the last lawful version of the Old Rite would be the 1962 Missal with the 1965 Ordo Missae, together with two other rites authorised a little later, bound into it. I suggest this because the Decretum of 27 January 1965 orders "ut ... in novis Missalis Romani editionibus assumeretur". And the Decretum of 7 March 1965 (rites of Concelebration and of Communion in both kinds) orders that it be "in Pontificali et Missali Romano accurate exscribendum". This is the last time that such a provision was made; the Variationes of 4 May 1967 include no similar order.

I say "would be", because, of course, juridically, the words of Summorum pontificum tacitly suppress the alterations made in 1965. But for this, however, I suggest that the revelation made by Pope Benedict, that the old rite had never been lawfully abrogated, would have automatically brought back to life the rite of 1965 (or even conceivably 1967). And, of course, Lefebvre finally settled upon 1962 rather than 1965 for his society: in which Summorum pontificum follows him.

The Vatican reprint also includes S Joseph in the Canon. As was established last year in a thread on this blog by a couple of learned canonists and liturgists, S Joseph was added to the Missal some months after the promulgation of the 1962 Editio typica. But SSPX usage includes S Joseph; indeed, I have heard it suggested that they see this as an important mark of distinction between themselves and the sedevacantists.

Perhaps most interesting of all - erudite readers might like to comment on this - the Vatican reprint has, on the title page, the arms of Bl John XXIII: arms which also cheerfully appear on the cover of the SSPX ORDO. Why should the Missal not bear the arms of the Pontiff by whose authority it is now promoted?

Personally, I hope that prePius XII missals continue to be browsed through in sacristies and used on altars. Thereby priests of a new generation will become familiar with some of the riches lost in the 1950s ... even if they don't use them.

Some of the lost glories are things they might in fact be able to use: as commemorations ad lib, for example. It would be fun if someone created an ORDO technically totally 1962-compliant but which enabled the 1962 rite to be used, by selection of the appropriate options where options exist, in a form as close as possible to the pre-Pius XII rite.

IRELAND

A characteristically perceptive and intelligent piece on Ireland by Pastor in Valle Adurni, about the plot to subvert the natural communities which still survive in many parts of Ireland. The secularising elite behind this need, above all, to destroy the Irish Church.

I find it difficult not to admire the Irish Church, despite all. Reasons are partly personal; the kindness I have always received from the Irish clergy; the willingness of Irish bishops to permit me formally and in writing to receive the Sacraments in their dioceses; gestures of friendship from, for example, the late bishop of Limerick, Jeremiah Newman (who wrote a book on the Recovery of the Sacred which I regard as one of the harbingers of the Benedictine Renaissance); and from Cardinal Desmond Connell, who sent me a hand-written letter of great warmth after reading something that I had written.

The disaster that has overtaken the Irish Church is, at least partly, the result of senior clergy refusing to be coldly legalistic when dealing with errant clergy. Failing to realise - as we all did - the true nature of paedophilia, they commonly tried a pastoral approach rather than subject a priest to the rigours of canonical process, deposition, disgrace, and despair. We now know that their assumption - give a man a bollocking, add some psychiatric treatment, move him on to a parish where an experienced priest would keep a draconian eye on him, and trust to Grace - was inadequate to deal with the perversion concerned. But were there any establishment cuties going around explaining all this in the 1970s?

How were the bishops of that generation to guess that, a generation later, a 'liberal' ascendancy would have suddenly discovered the overriding duty for those in authority of being coldly legalistic and inexorably unforgiving? The entire culture of the 1960s/1970s was personalist, anti-legalistic, and inclined to mercy.

Communicatio in sacris

Sharing in the Sacraments of the Eucharist, Penance, and Unction is of course permitted in particular circumstances in Canon Law; and and this is repeated in the Ecumenical Directory (with necessary distinctions between those communities which have valid sacraments and those which don't).

I recently did a post on the dangers of an ultratraditionalism which manufactures its own (often fierce) shibboleths upon a slight or even non-existent basis in the actual Tradition. An example of this problem (in addition to those I gave there) is the antipathy of some ultratraddies to the least whiff of anything savouring of Ecumenism ... especially communicatio in sacris between those in full communion with the See of Peter, and those not. They see this as another piece of post conciliar liberalism, and to be reprobated by Traditionalist Catholics.

This is why I welcome so warmly the admirable blog of the Transalpine Redemptorists which has recently published papal permissions from over the last seven centuries. I was not surprised to read the teaching of Pope Benedict XIV; that most erudite of Pontiffs knew his history too well to believe that the Auctoritas of the Tradition completely excludes such sharing. But I was particularly interested in the Toleration which Pius X signed for the Ukrainians in 1904; I was unaware of that. I could back up the evidence provided by the Redemptorists with accounts about how the authorities on both the Catholic and Orthodox sides positively encouraged all manner of sharing in the eighteenth century Aegean.

As soon as the Ordinariates have settled down, I hope consideration will be given to the question of how those provisions about this matter which are contained in the current Code of Canon Law should be used in the Ordinariates, so to enable them best to fulfil their role as effective ecumenical bridges which promote the restoration of full communion between separated Christians and the See of Peter.