I think the Pastor in the Adur Valley writes one of the most sensitive and elegant blogs there are around, but I don't always agree with him. I'm not sure that I went along with a recent piece which seemed to suggest that the status of Voting Cardinal should be restricted to those with a pastoral care of souls.
My reason is this. Cardinals elect a Roman Pontiff by virtue of their technical status as parish priests of the City. If anything, I would prefer an argument that voting status be restricted to those who, as members of the Curia, are really and truly members of clerus Romanus.
I think a good case can be made from early writings (particularly ante-Nicene) for the essence of the Petrine Primacy as inherent in the Church of Rome and then in its Pontiff by virtue of his occupying the episcopal cathedra of that Church (which is why, according to Vatican I, his infallibility is restricted to ex cathedra pronouncements). It is widely claimed that the Roman Church did not have 'monoepiscopacy' until quite late; S Clement has been categorised as merely the presbyter whose particular duty it was to write letters. I believe that the evidence for this theory is pretty thin; but, were it to turn out to be true, I do not think that it would, even to a tiny degree, dent the truth and force of Pastor Aeternus.
Giving logical priority to the Roman Church is completely compatible with the decrees of Vatican I. And it is very far from being a 'liberal' attempt to water down papal authority. The problem with a very narrow emphasis upon papal pronouncements which are ex cathedra is that this enables liberals to treat with scant respect the decisions of the pope which are not ex cathedra, and to be positively contemptuous of the decisions of the Holy Father's curial collaborators, Cardinal Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons of the Holy Roman Church. The very words "The Curia" are sometimes turned into a cue for a massive sneer, as if these people are a repressive bureaucracy whose only purpose is to irritate the Universal Church with petty and illiberal restrictions. This liberal habit of thinking, helpful as it is to those who wish to take as little notice as possible of the Holy See, has the unfortunate logical result that the Roman Pontiff himself comes to look rather like a mysteriously empowered individual, capable of uttering magic oracles on the rarest occasions, who is nevertheless devoid of context within an actual ecclesia ... a papa vagans rather like those episcopi vagantes with 'valid orders' but no ecclesia of presbyterate, deacons, and laos surrounding them.
Of course we have to distinguish between different levels of the exercise of Magisterium. But the Curia is theologically part of the Petrine ministry of the Roman Church, not some unnecessary appendage with which History has deplorably encrusted it.
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I do, however, share Pastor's view that curial cardinals do not need to be consecrated bishops, if they are not so already (unless of course they are being appointed to one of the suburbicarian bishoprics). It was, I believe, John XXIII who made this a rule, and it seems to me theologically inapposite; like a number of his decisions, well-meaning but misguided. The apparently underlying assumption (that any important person must be a bishop and that nobody listens to unimportant people who are not bishops) is not unknown elsewhere; a former Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated his 'Chief of Staff'' 'Bishop at Lambeth'. I think I am right in saying that Rowan has wisely discontinued this unfortunate practice.
My recollection is that Saxon Archbishops of Canterbury did have episcopal assistance; there was a gentleman called the Bishop at S Martin's. But he, although lacking diocesan authority, did have an episcopium with its corona of circumambient clerics and people; as, I suspect, the Roman suburbicarian bishops once did.
BTW, it was Eamon Duffy who, helping with the TV commentary on the Papal Inauguration, commented that Papa Ratzinger knew where the bodies were buried.
28 October 2010
27 October 2010
I THINK I WAS RIGHT
In January, I posted the following, after the Superior of the SSPX had spoken, in my view most disrespectfully, about the present pope's intention to have a new 'Assisi Event' for peace:
I'm not sure that I agree - despite having some sympathy with him - with Bishop Fellay's views on the New Assisi which is planned.
Considering Papa Ratzinger's subtlety and his views on the necessarily coherent, non-self-contradictory, nature of the Tradition and of the Magisterium, I can't help feeling that his intention to have the meeting in that particular place may have, as one its purposes, a resolution of the worrying ambiguities in the original event.
Can't we wait and see what actually happens? If all is done with propriety, then presumably the Holy Father is saying 'This is what the true contextualised meaning of these occasions is; so let nobody in the future claim that the rough edges in the original format afford precedents for syncretism.'
It may be that Bishop Fellay has to keep his own constituency on board. I would respect that. But ...
In April I reposted the piece, with the following addition:
Having looked at the latest VIS communique, I see references only to addresses and to 'silent prayer'. I feel strongly inclined, as I did in January, to trust the Holy Father's disposition of this event. I suspect that he may intend to bring 'Assisi' under the umbrella of the Hermeneutic of Continuity.
Early in September, I again posted the same piece. I now give it a fourth airing, without feeling any need to comment!
I'm not sure that I agree - despite having some sympathy with him - with Bishop Fellay's views on the New Assisi which is planned.
Considering Papa Ratzinger's subtlety and his views on the necessarily coherent, non-self-contradictory, nature of the Tradition and of the Magisterium, I can't help feeling that his intention to have the meeting in that particular place may have, as one its purposes, a resolution of the worrying ambiguities in the original event.
Can't we wait and see what actually happens? If all is done with propriety, then presumably the Holy Father is saying 'This is what the true contextualised meaning of these occasions is; so let nobody in the future claim that the rough edges in the original format afford precedents for syncretism.'
It may be that Bishop Fellay has to keep his own constituency on board. I would respect that. But ...
In April I reposted the piece, with the following addition:
Having looked at the latest VIS communique, I see references only to addresses and to 'silent prayer'. I feel strongly inclined, as I did in January, to trust the Holy Father's disposition of this event. I suspect that he may intend to bring 'Assisi' under the umbrella of the Hermeneutic of Continuity.
Early in September, I again posted the same piece. I now give it a fourth airing, without feeling any need to comment!
25 October 2010
Archbishop Longley
As we processed from Carfax to the Castle on Saturday (no Fr James Bradley to provide a photographic record ... eheu eheu ... ) singing the Litanies, I found myself wondering who the proficient and melodious Cantor was. Goodness gracious: it was the Archbishop of Birmingham himself. And he is not even - so he told me a few years ago in the National Liberal Club during his as-yet impalliate days - an ex-Anglican. When we got there, he blessed the new plaque (honouring Bl George Napier) with equal grace.
An irritating thing at Oxford is that the phrase "The Oxford Martyrs" always seems to refer to certain Protestants. There are honourable exceptions; the University Church has a tablet recording all those executed in the Reformation era. But ... take the ridiculous and unscholarly mishmash of whiggery that you will find in the revamped Ashmolean ... "Oxford Martyrs" is generally used strictly in accordance with the canons of historiography established by Fox.
The very competent booklet provided for Saturday's occasion by the Latin Mass Society has a picture of Bl George saying mass on the morning of his martyrdom (I think the accepted practice was to bribe the warders). It comes from Dr Challoner's work on the English Martyrs. But it shows a cleric disposed as no cleric could be in the celebration of Mass ... and not wearing a maniple (on either arm: I say that to preempt cleverclogs among you who are already wondering if the engraving has got accidentally reversed).
There is, apparently, nothing new about journalists getting liturgical details wrong.
An irritating thing at Oxford is that the phrase "The Oxford Martyrs" always seems to refer to certain Protestants. There are honourable exceptions; the University Church has a tablet recording all those executed in the Reformation era. But ... take the ridiculous and unscholarly mishmash of whiggery that you will find in the revamped Ashmolean ... "Oxford Martyrs" is generally used strictly in accordance with the canons of historiography established by Fox.
The very competent booklet provided for Saturday's occasion by the Latin Mass Society has a picture of Bl George saying mass on the morning of his martyrdom (I think the accepted practice was to bribe the warders). It comes from Dr Challoner's work on the English Martyrs. But it shows a cleric disposed as no cleric could be in the celebration of Mass ... and not wearing a maniple (on either arm: I say that to preempt cleverclogs among you who are already wondering if the engraving has got accidentally reversed).
There is, apparently, nothing new about journalists getting liturgical details wrong.
24 October 2010
Blackfriars
Old Rite High Mass (but Westward-facing) at Blackfriars this morning, in honour of the Oxford Martyrs; and, in particular, of Bl George Napier, martyred 400 years ago next month.
The three sacred ministers were apparently all Preachers, but the Mass was not in the old Dominican rite, which I recall going to as an undergraduate in the early 1960s. What a pity; through its relationship with the rite of Paris, it had similarities with the Sarum rite. Seeing it, one realised what a revolution it must have been when the Seminary priests first brought the Mass of S Pius V across. Don't bother to remind me that, textually, the Sarum rite was merely a dialect of the Roman rite; the point is that it must, at first, have looked very strange ... all those genuflexions, for example. A real dash of discontinuity.
Another discontinuity is the style of some of these post-Summorum pontificum masses. Those with memories of the pre-Conciliar culture will recall the brisk naturalness with which liturgy was done in the fifties and sixties. Nowadays, the revived pre-Conciliar rite is often done in a very different manner. The Consecrations are sometimes terribly long; and not only the Consecrations. I do hope that, in getting rid of the ethos of "Look what a jolly compere I am as I leer at you across the Altar", we shan't be lumbered too permanently with an ethos of "Look how immensely slow and recollected I am as I take three minutes to get through the Qui pridie".
I certainly recall, from the 'fifties, clergy who said Mass with an almost sacrilegious rapidity; as if they felt that this would increase their popularity among the Sons of Erin gathered around their Patron Saint at the back of the church, all itching to hurry to the bookie's runner as soon as the last Gospel started. But that was an abusus qui non debet tollere usum; one of the characteristics of the Roman rite in all ages has been its unshowy matter-of-factness, and it would be a shame to lose this.
Do they use E Bishop in seminary teaching of Liturgy nowadays? Dix, no mean mystagogue himself, thought of Bishop as the Prince of all liturgists.
The three sacred ministers were apparently all Preachers, but the Mass was not in the old Dominican rite, which I recall going to as an undergraduate in the early 1960s. What a pity; through its relationship with the rite of Paris, it had similarities with the Sarum rite. Seeing it, one realised what a revolution it must have been when the Seminary priests first brought the Mass of S Pius V across. Don't bother to remind me that, textually, the Sarum rite was merely a dialect of the Roman rite; the point is that it must, at first, have looked very strange ... all those genuflexions, for example. A real dash of discontinuity.
Another discontinuity is the style of some of these post-Summorum pontificum masses. Those with memories of the pre-Conciliar culture will recall the brisk naturalness with which liturgy was done in the fifties and sixties. Nowadays, the revived pre-Conciliar rite is often done in a very different manner. The Consecrations are sometimes terribly long; and not only the Consecrations. I do hope that, in getting rid of the ethos of "Look what a jolly compere I am as I leer at you across the Altar", we shan't be lumbered too permanently with an ethos of "Look how immensely slow and recollected I am as I take three minutes to get through the Qui pridie".
I certainly recall, from the 'fifties, clergy who said Mass with an almost sacrilegious rapidity; as if they felt that this would increase their popularity among the Sons of Erin gathered around their Patron Saint at the back of the church, all itching to hurry to the bookie's runner as soon as the last Gospel started. But that was an abusus qui non debet tollere usum; one of the characteristics of the Roman rite in all ages has been its unshowy matter-of-factness, and it would be a shame to lose this.
Do they use E Bishop in seminary teaching of Liturgy nowadays? Dix, no mean mystagogue himself, thought of Bishop as the Prince of all liturgists.
23 October 2010
The Voice of Evangelicalism
I find in the journal of the Prayer Book Society an article on the liturgical year by a well known (and much loved) Conservative Evangelical, Roger Beckwith. A critic might pick holes in the details; Roger is apparently unaware of the currently favoured theories about why March 25 is Lady Day; and he seems to think that some commemorations have acquired their dates as a result of careful calculation rather than by (what we would call) Chance (if John Paul II had not instructed us that there is no such thing as Chance). But going through a lot of stuff like that would be unfriendly pedantry. I think many of my readers will be interested that an evangelical cares about the liturgical year; and rather intrigued by some of his points. Ex. gr.:
The Common Worship calendar introduces many changes derived from the modern form of the Roman calendar. Thus it changes the titles of Sundays, so that the First Sunday after Easter becomes, confusingly, the Second Sunday of Easter, and the Sunday next before Advent (Stir up Sunday) becomes Christ the King, a recent Roman duplication of Advent [JWH interrupts: surely, of the Ascension?]. It moves the dates of festivals, so that St Thomas's Day is no longer on 21st December, nor St Matthias' Day on 24th February ... If one compares the Prayer Book calendar with its new rival, one cannot fail to see that the Prayer Book calendar is a reform and simplification of the old Roman calendar, which reflects a true understanding of the structure of the Christian calendar and brings it out with considerable clarity. It draws on the resources of the Bible to strengthen true teaching and to correct error, which are things a good calendar can do. By contrast, the new calendar shows a lack of understanding of the structure of the historic [JWH adds: Western] Christian calendar and a lack of appreciation of the Prayer Book form of it. It knows only the modern form of the Roman calendar, and makes rather pointless concessions to it. A church with two conflicting calendars is on the way to becoming two churches, and one of the aims which the Prayer Book Society could direct its present day efforts towards is to persuade the C of E to treat the Prayer Book calendar as normative for its life once more, and not the misguided modern substitute.
Well, Fr Roger, here at S Thomas's we are now in the Sundays after Trinity ...
The Common Worship calendar introduces many changes derived from the modern form of the Roman calendar. Thus it changes the titles of Sundays, so that the First Sunday after Easter becomes, confusingly, the Second Sunday of Easter, and the Sunday next before Advent (Stir up Sunday) becomes Christ the King, a recent Roman duplication of Advent [JWH interrupts: surely, of the Ascension?]. It moves the dates of festivals, so that St Thomas's Day is no longer on 21st December, nor St Matthias' Day on 24th February ... If one compares the Prayer Book calendar with its new rival, one cannot fail to see that the Prayer Book calendar is a reform and simplification of the old Roman calendar, which reflects a true understanding of the structure of the Christian calendar and brings it out with considerable clarity. It draws on the resources of the Bible to strengthen true teaching and to correct error, which are things a good calendar can do. By contrast, the new calendar shows a lack of understanding of the structure of the historic [JWH adds: Western] Christian calendar and a lack of appreciation of the Prayer Book form of it. It knows only the modern form of the Roman calendar, and makes rather pointless concessions to it. A church with two conflicting calendars is on the way to becoming two churches, and one of the aims which the Prayer Book Society could direct its present day efforts towards is to persuade the C of E to treat the Prayer Book calendar as normative for its life once more, and not the misguided modern substitute.
Well, Fr Roger, here at S Thomas's we are now in the Sundays after Trinity ...
22 October 2010
Sancta Maria Magdalena, ora pro nobis
Standing innocently at a 'bus stop by the Railway Station in West Oxford the other day, I was approached by someone whom I suspected, from the way he bore himself, to be a North American. In the confident and laudably audible tones with which some visiting members of the Imperial Race tend to address us, the gentleman enquired where "M'gdall'n" street was. I probably looked nonplussed for a moment or two, because he repeated, and with even more admirable clarity, "M'gdall'n". Then the penny dropped: I expect most readers know that in Oxford and, I wouldn't be in the least surprised, Cambridge, "Magdalen" (as in S Mary Magdalen) is pronounced "Maudlin". (Even among those English not given to such arcane eccentricities, I suspect Magdalen is commonly pronounced Magd'l'n.) "Ah", I said, deferential as ever towards the Fellow Americans of the Obama, "I think you may mean Maudlin Street. Now; if you go straight down there ...".
He was having none of such nonsense. With the patient tolerance of one accustomed to handling untermenschen, he interrupted me. "No; it's definitely M'gdall'n Street. Look, guy [I loath being addressed as Guy], if you don't know, I can ask someone else". And with the consummate courtesy of a Rumsfeldt, he turned round and shimmied off.
In retrospect, I wished I'd had the ready wit simply to direct him to hurry down the Botley Road and keep going.
I'll be ready for it next time.
He was having none of such nonsense. With the patient tolerance of one accustomed to handling untermenschen, he interrupted me. "No; it's definitely M'gdall'n Street. Look, guy [I loath being addressed as Guy], if you don't know, I can ask someone else". And with the consummate courtesy of a Rumsfeldt, he turned round and shimmied off.
In retrospect, I wished I'd had the ready wit simply to direct him to hurry down the Botley Road and keep going.
I'll be ready for it next time.
20 October 2010
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.
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.
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.
19 October 2010
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.
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.
18 October 2010
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.
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.
16 October 2010
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?
15 October 2010
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.
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.
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