Some more from Mexico

We prayed for the children in Mexico today where our young parishioner Connell Peake is helping out at an orphanage. Just a couple more photos for our parishioners who helped to send him there to have a look at.

Christmas. Why we've got it wrong and not the world

Each year in the Archdiocese to which I belong the Archbishop "asks and encourages" priests NOT to celebrate a Vigil Mass for Christmas but to wait for the wonder and special moment that is the Midnight Mass (at midnight!) He points out that children can be brought to this Mass and the unusual activity of going out so late in association with all the Christmas excitement only makes the Feast all the more memorable and distinct. I think he is quite right in this but in many, many parishes the most popular Christmas Mass is the Vigil at 8pm, 7pm 6pm - even 5pm. In my own parish I have caved in to the established practice and while I have re-introduced Midnight Mass have (until this year) kept a 6pm Vigil Mass. But this has led to the crazy situation where there are more people attending Mass the day before Christmas than there are on Christmas Day itself. Surely that's a nonsense? Who has the wedding party the day before their marriage ceremony? Who sings "Happy Birthday" the day before the birthday?

The vigil Mass for Sundays was introduced for special circumstances, for example, those who couldn't get to Mass on Sunday because of work, perhaps in those places where one priest looks after two or even three parishes. Again, we now have the situation that many Catholics (in perfectly good standing) have not actually been to Mass on a Sunday for many years. How does this fulfil the biblical command to keep the sabbath day holy? I know of at least one bishop who, although keen on the introduction of this novelty at the time, now thinks it was a big mistake, seriously undermining the Church's position when Sunday opening of shops was extended in this country. Perhaps making something too easy can have the effect of de-valuing it.

In regards to Christmas, I have just read an excellent blog by James Preece who, as so often, looks at things with fresh eyes and states what should be obvious but where we haven't managed to see the wood for the trees. Every year we lament the secularisation of Christmas but "the fact is that the secular world is secular and has been for quite a while and frankly we ought to be used to it by now."

He points out that we can hardly expect people who are not Christians to keep Christmas in a fully Christian way. Perhaps we should be glad that they keep it at all because it is we in the Church who have secularised the Faith.

We secularised the Sacraments, we turned the Mass from the Holy Sacrifice at Calvary to a big meeting for a group hug. One of our toys was called Confession but we secularised that by deciding we can talk to God on our own thanks and the priest is just some bloke in a box and if he's just some bloke in a box then we might as well use the box as a dusty old store cupboard.

We filled those cupboards with old books of chant that we don't need anymore since we secularised our music. We secularised our buildings which are no longer designed to lift the mind to thoughts of heaven but rather to be practical, functional structures like secular leisure centres.

We secularised our Bishops by turning them in to faceless managerial committees with just enough authority to tie their own shoelaces so long as they get it risk assessed first and certainly not enough authority to actually reply to the letters you send them about the Holy Days of obligation that we secularised by, well, not having them.

We secularised our schools, we secularised our charities and we secularised our families. Prayer? Sacraments? Feasts? Seasons? We barely even know what they are. Lent is when people tell me that rather than fasting they "would rather do something useful". Baptism is for getting children in to schools, no wait... these days, there are no children to worry about.

But, as I say, perhaps we should be thankful that the world does keep some sort of Christmas - if it didn't, then we might have dumbed down Christmas as well - if not moved it to the nearest convenient Sunday. The only reason we still keep it on the actual 25th December is because that's what the world does. Otherwise it would be transferred like the Ascension, Corpus Christi and the Epiphany.

We can't say that Christmas is about more than just a secular celebration when we have reduced all the other parts of Christianity to be entirely secular!

The re-introduction of making us different, of re-sacralising our worship and regaining a sense of the holy is very much part of the Holy Father's message. We have been given the good tidings of great joy - why are we so afraid of letting them be seen?

Mexico Orphange

One of our young parishioners, Connell Peake, is out in Mexico volunteering at an orphanage. Here he is with one of the children. The parish was very generous in helping him to get him out there on 1st December. Apart from general duties, encouraging the children to learn English is among the tasks that will help them to get a better start in life. Apparently, insect bites are the biggest problem and generally just adjusting to being in a foreign country where the culture and life are so different from here. He said he's finding it quite tough. Please keep him and the children in your prayers.

Europe and the Faith

Europe may have forgotten her Christian roots and be a pale reflection of her Christian past, but there are still voices being raised to defend Christendom from further change and decay, as this recent spirited speech from Austria shows! (I cannot help but be reminded of Don John of Austria, the hero of the Battle of Lepanto, who prevented the Ottoman Turks from invading Europe in 1571.)

I discovered the link on Rorate Caeli: //rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/
For whatever technical reasons I often get some of the video cut off on this blog, so double click on the video to take you to the You Tube site - otherwise you will not be able to read the subtitles!

Pope Benedict has made no secret of his personal opposition to Turkey's entry in the European Union. On August 13th 2004 then Cardinal Ratzinger told Sophie de Ravinel of "Le Figaro Magazine":

"Europe is a cultural continent, not a geographical one. It is its culture that gives it a common identity. The roots that have formed it, that have permitted the formation of this continent, are those of Christianity. [...] In this sense, throughout history Turkey has always represented another continent, in permanent contrast with Europe. There were the wars against the Byzantine empire, the fall of Constantinople, the Balkan wars, and the threat against Vienna and Austria. That is why I think it would be an error to equate the two continents. It would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of culture for the sake of economic benefits. Turkey, which is considered a secular country but is founded upon Islam, could instead attempt to bring to life a cultural continent together with some neighboring Arab countries, and thus become the protagonist of a culture that would possess its own identity but would also share the great humanistic values that we should all acknowledge. This idea is not incompatible with close and friendly forms of association and collaboration with Europe, and would permit the development of unified strength in opposition to any form of fundamentalism."

In a speech on September 18th 2004 to the pastoral workers of his titular diocese, Velletri, which was published in the Catholic newspaper of the Swiss town of Lugano, "Il Giornale del Popolo.":

"Historically and culturally, Turkey has little in common with Europe; for this reason, it would be a great error to incorporate it into the European Union. It would be better for Turkey to become a bridge between Europe and the Arab world, or to form together with that world its own cultural continent. Europe is not a geographical concept, but a cultural one, formed in a sometimes conflictual historical process centered upon the Christian faith, and it is a matter of fact that the Ottoman empire was always in opposition to Europe. Even though Kemal Ataturk constructed a secular Turkey during the 1920's, the country remains the nucleus of the old Ottoman empire; it has an Islamic foundation, and is thus very different from Europe, which is a collection of secular states with Christian foundations, although today these countries seem to deny this without justification. Thus the entry of Turkey into the EU would be anti-historical."

As the great Catholic historian Hillaire Belloc put it: "Europe is the Faith, and the Faith is Europe".

Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem

Someone pointed out there there were no photos of me at the gathering for the Order of St Lazarus in Orleans the other week. So here I am - to prove that I was there! (Here is a close-up of the group photo showing me also!) The Order's use of the colour green spans the past millennium. Several legends concern King Baldwin IV who ruled Jerusalem from 1174 to 1183. After founding the Lazarus Hospital and Commandery at Seedorf in Switzerland he had a vision which included finding a green cross in his hand upon waking. Another legend surrounding King Baldwin IV is that during his coronation in Jerusalem, an eagle dropped onto his head a gold ring with a green cross embedded. What is certain is that the green cross and the colour green have been intimatelly associated with the Order of Saint Lazarus throughout the second millennium A.D. The green cross of Saint Lazarus is also the origin of the international symbol for healthcare. which we see outside Chemists and Pharmacies and on First Aid boxes. The influence of the Hospitaller Orders can still be seen today. (St. John's Ambulance, for instance, draws it's existance from the Hospitaller Order of St.John).

Chaplains of the Order have worn green on their accouterments for many centuries, even though green was a more usual colour for bishops to wear.

An engraving of an Ecclesiastical Knight of the Order from 1714

The Church only began to regulate the colours for ecclesiastical dress in the 1200s, although these became formalised because of heraldry rather than as a result of Church directives. For a long time green was the usual colour for bishops and archbishops and even today, it is the heraldic colour for these prelates, as seen in their galero and fiocchi. It is only since the 1700s that the present purple for bishops has been mandated by the holy See. A remnant of it is still extant in Malta, where I recall seeing a whole bishop's cassock in green in a church museum. Someone did tell me that is is still a technical right of Maltese bishops to wear green but I'm not sure if that's really the case. Also, those who earn a Doctorate in Canon Law from a Pontifical University are also entitled to a biretta with green trim and pompom, so I presume that might be related to it as well.

Why are so many dissidents working for Catholic bishops?

A friend brought this article by John-Henry Westen to my attention. I have lay friends who are very well qualified with theology degrees and real commitment to the Faith who find it impossible to get anywhere when applying for any diocesan posts - of course, they are orthodox and enthusiastic for Pope Benedict. I recall when I was first ordained that a former priest (with some issues about the Church) was Chair of Governors at the local High School, even though (I'm given to understand) laicised priests may not hold such positions or even function as readers at Mass.

Why are so many dissidents working for Catholic bishops?

Writing in the pages of the Catholic Register this week, Fr. Raymond J. de Souza makes a very interesting observation and commentary on one of the reflections of the Pope in the new book "Light of the World."

Speaking of the governing institutions in the Church, Pope Benedict said "The bureaucracy is spent and tired ... It is sad that there are what you might call professional Catholics who make a living on their Catholicism, but in whom the spring of faith flows only faintly, in a few scattered drops."

Commenting on the Pope's remark, Fr. de Souza observes:

It is easy enough to point to the managerial bishop or the administrative pastor and lament the lack of fervour for the faith and the absence of evangelical criteria in decision-making. But could not the same be said of any diocesan office in Canada, the staff room of any Catholic school, the executive officers of any Catholic social welfare agency or the bureaucrats that administer the vast panoply of Catholic organizations?

Is it not the case that so many regard their position as membership in a club or as an officer of an enterprise, but not primarily as disciples or missionaries? The great sadness of which the Holy Father speaks is that over several generations now so many lay Catholics - "professional Catholics" - are marked by a deep adopted clericalism themselves, comporting themselves as members of a privileged caste.

Wow. It reminds me of a quote a friend on the inside once told me while reflecting on the fact that many vibrant, young, and faithful Catholics who would love to offer their all to the Church are left to find work in the secular world. "Why are all the professional jobs in the Church held by dissidents?"
To be sure there are signs of hope. Many dioceses in North America have begun to employ fervent and authentic Catholics. However the old guard remains firmly entrenched in many many places.

Fr. de Souza concludes: "The challenge of moving from a bureaucratic, managerial Church to an evangelical, missionary one is at the heart of Benedict's message in Light of the World.

www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=158&id=44062&t=Why+are+so+many+dissidents+working+for+Catholic+bishops%3F

Whatever happened to Roma locuta - causa finita est

A thought provoking article written by Dominic Scarborough appears in the December issue of "Catholic World Report". It seems to me that I often hear that "what Rome does" and "what the Pope wants" doesn't apply here in the UK. I was once told, when referring to Rome and the Holy Father that it was important to be in communion with my local Pastoral Area (as Deaneries are now styled in the Archdiocese) but where there is a divergence, I know which one I would choose. The link is here but the whole article is below.

catholicworldreport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=223:outside-the-magic-circle&catid=53:cwr2010&Itemid=70

Dominic Scarborough contributes to The Catholic Herald in Great Britain. This article appears in the December 2010 issue of CWR.

The Holy Father’s September visit to the United Kingdom was widely regarded as a great success, both as a tonic to British lay Catholics and as a wake-up call to the country’s secular society. But the visit also highlighted the tension that exists between his pontificate and what dismayed English Catholics call the liberal “Magic Circle” of bishops who make up the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (BCEW).

Several of its number are known to be deeply opposed both to this papacy and to that of John Paul II. The first reason for this opposition is that the members of the BCEW have been largely self-selecting from a small pool of like-minded “insiders” who come through lines of patronage that can be traced back to one man, the late Archbishop Derek Worlock of Liverpool. At the Second Vatican Council, Worlock had been one of the first of the English bishops to promote a new liberal vision for the Church.

The vision appropriated the structures, cultural loyalties, and financial contributions of the old, inward-looking, triumphalist “ghetto” Church to build a new, outward-facing Catholicism that focused on social climbing and liberal politics. Ultimately, Worlock’s vision aimed for the broader acceptance of Catholicism by the secular elite.

This post-conciliar vision of a more visible Catholic presence is, however, at odds with Pope Benedict’s conceptions of what visibility and presence require. The BCEW’s vision ever since the days of Archbishop Worlock has aimed at “liberating” Catholics from their past and helping them to embrace the values of secular society. But Pope Benedict’s vision aims at fostering orthodox Catholics who can act as a “creative minority” in the wider culture. The differences between these two visions are ultimately irreconcilable and go to the heart of the debate over the meaning of Vatican II.

The second reason for the tensions with the Pope is the structure of the BCEW, which appears to undercut the individual bishop’s teaching role in favor of presenting a common front on every issue. The BCEW has mimicked the power structures of the traditional British trade unions that look anachronistic today. The BCEW is a rigid bureaucratic structure centered on the idea of the central committee and employs a plethora of professional lay and clerical sub-committees, all paid for by the ordinary Catholics it claims to represent. The irony is that the pursuit of this agenda has been to the detriment of halting the decline of the very working-class, “grass-roots” Catholicism that once gave the bishops a legitimate voice on issues of real social concern.

This “grass-roots” Catholicism has been decimated by a collapse in religious practice among the indigenous Catholic population, which, if it were not being buoyed up by massive levels of immigration from Eastern Europe and the developing world, would have already signaled the end for many parishes and even dioceses.

The BCEW may have succeeded in opening up the doors of the Church to the world, but instead of the world walking in, Catholics have walked out, especially those who have grown up in the post-conciliar era never knowing the safety of the “ghetto” Church and who prefer to take their worldliness from the world itself rather than from a self-consciously worldly Catholicism. For many Catholics the Church now exists only to “hatch, match, and dispatch” and retains the nominal membership that it does largely because it runs the best free schools in the country.

Where an English bishop has dared to step out of line and question the BCEW’s liberalism, the result has been criticism and ostracism by colleagues. In 2008, the outgoing bishop of Lancaster, Patrick O’Donoghue, presented reports (titled “Fit for Mission, Church?”, “Fit for Mission, Schools?”, and “Fit for Mission, Marriage?”) which lambasted the BCEW policies that had accelerated the decline of the faith in England. The reports also proposed a series of radical recommendations for recovery. Those documents were warmly welcomed in Rome. O’Donoghue was received in personal audience by the Pope and received commendations from three curial congregations and two pontifical councils. But the reaction to these reports in England was the complete opposite. Instead of forming the blueprint for diocesan policies throughout England and Wales, they were ignored, and some bishops even actively spoke against them.

SOHO MASSES

One of the most controversial issues affecting the BCEW is its continued support for the so-called “Soho Masses” in the Westminster Archdiocese, Masses that minister to “homosexual Catholics.” The current archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has made several public interventions in interviews recently where he speculated as to whether the Church might in time approve gay marriage. He also confirmed that when the Labour Government introduced civil partnerships legislation, the BCEW made a deliberate and conscious decision not to oppose it. He continues to support the “Soho Masses” and told a radio program that those who do oppose them should be silent. He also declined to disagree with a fellow panelist’s assertion in a television debate after the papal visit that the policy of the BCEW on homosexual rights follows a markedly different line from that of the Vatican’s policy.

Those lay Catholics in England who have spoken up against these “nuanced” positions have found themselves attacked in return. Before the papal visit, highly respected pro-life campaigner John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, publicly stated that the BCEW, rather than supporting the pro-life cause or attacking euthanasia, had been vague on those issues. As soon as Pope Benedict departed, Smeaton was attacked by voices close to the BCEW who accused him of belonging to a “Catholic Taliban” that sets up its own private Magisterium and permits of no dissent.

Another prominent pro-family, pro-life activist, Archbishop Nichols’ own director of pastoral affairs Edmund Adamus, gave an interview on the eve of the visit in which he said that England (and in particular London) is the geo-political epicenter of the culture of death. The archbishop moved swiftly to rebuke Mr. Adamus, saying that this was not his own view.

The “Catholic Taliban” tag is a slur on many devout and courageous lay Catholics who have stood up for the vulnerable for many years in preference to seeking perks and patronage from liberal bishops. Curiously, what the slur also seems to ignore is that if men such as Smeaton and Adamus constitute a “Catholic Taliban” there is no doubt that its “Mullah” is Pope Benedict XVI.

Another threat to the hegemony of the BCEW is liturgical and cultural diversity. With Soviet-like brutishness, the BCEW has sought over many years to curb the activities of those Catholic groups that exist outside of its direct control. In one English diocese, a bishop sought to limit the celebrations of the Syro-Malabar Rite and ordered Indian Catholics to attend the Roman Rite on Sundays. The BCEW sought under Cardinal Murphy O’Connor to liberalize Polish Catholic immigrants by insisting that Polish Catholic mission parishes show greater uniformity and fusion with parishes under BCEW control.

The BCEW also organized three-week-long “training” classes for Polish priests and other foreign priests who intended to work in England. These classes were delivered by the then-president of Ushaw Seminary (which is shortly to close), Msgr. Terry Drainey, who has said, “Some foreign priests working in Britain tend to be too dogmatic about the Church’s moral rightness on just about everything.” He added, “That’s not how we do things here. This course shows how we deal with a whole range of issues affecting Catholics, including the role of women, divorce, the lay ministry, and homosexuality.” Shortly after delivering the courses, Msgr. Drainey was selected to be the bishop of Middlesbrough.

This desire for liturgical uniformity comprising the Roman Missal of 1970 in its old ICEL English translation (nothing has yet been done to prepare for the new translation next year) has been threatened recently by several factors that have whittled away at the BCEW’s power. First are the large numbers of recent immigrants who attend non-English language Masses celebrated by their own priests. There have also been the spiritual “free market” policies of the “New Movements” (Focolare, Opus Dei, Youth 2000, etc.) promoted by Pope John Paul II, which have encouraged many Catholics to develop their spiritual lives outside of diocesan structures. And most recently there has been the “liturgical free market” of Pope Benedict XVI, with both the rehabilitation of the older form of the Roman Rite (Summorum Pontificum) and the invitation to Anglo-Catholics to form liturgical communities within the Catholic Church (Anglicanorum Coetibus).

All these factors are underpinned by the increasingly vociferous Catholic blogosphere, largely orthodox in character, which the BCEW simultaneously fears and despises in a way reminiscent of the Soviet regime’s attitude to the Eastern European underground free press. All these forces are at odds with the “Cultural Revolution” mentality of the BCEW.

The BCEW finds that it can neither advance in line with secular “progressive” thought nor face retreat, so it simply stagnates. Meanwhile, authentically Catholic radicalism and counter-culturalism is led by traditionalists. The specter of large numbers of Anglo-Catholic clergy becoming a semi-autonomous part of the Catholic Church in England has horrified the BCEW, which has greeted every development in the progress toward the first English ordinariate with sighs and fear.

In situations traditionally calling for the very warmest of language in dealing with “Separated Brethren,” spokesmen for the BCEW have been at pains to stress that the ordinariate is not going to be allowed to be a “church within a church.” This is because the BCEW fears further loss of its own power and resents everything about the conservative intellectual tradition that forms the Anglo-Catholic wing of Anglicanism. It is no wonder that the negotiations which led to the motu proprio were between Anglican bishops and the CDF in Rome and not the BCEW.

THE BCEW AND SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM

Nowhere has this near-pathological determination to oppose any hopeful new developments while presiding over inexorable decline been more exposed than in the maneuverings of the BCEW to ignore, block, and ultimately frustrate Summorum Pontificum. The BCEW has spent a great deal of effort behind the scenes gathering data to support the idea that there is no demand in England and Wales for the extraordinary form of the Mass, while at the same time willfully refusing to foster or promote it in parishes.

Its only significant contribution has been to insist that the transferred holy days of obligation that it imposed on England and Wales also be applied to the extraordinary form. Within days Rome pointed out that the feasts could legitimately continue to be kept on their original dates in the extraordinary form since it was only the obligation to attend Mass on the feast day that was affected by the BCEW decree.

The Pope’s decision to liberate the extraordinary form might be compared to Coca-Cola’s decision in the 1980s to bring back its original drink, “Coke Classic,” after the experimental “New Coke” produced a slump in sales. In this analogy the attitude of the BCEW toward Summorum Pontificum would be like the English regional division of Coca-Cola ignoring the directive from headquarters in Atlanta, keeping all the new supplies of Coke Classic locked in its warehouse, burning all the advertising literature sent over from Atlanta and then reporting back that there was no discernible demand for Coke Classic in its region.

Indeed, so distrustful is Rome of the BCEW’s stance that it is relying on data supplied to it by lay Catholics in England and Wales in order to obtain an accurate picture. No observer of Catholic affairs in England is in any doubt that the BCEW in its current form has pursued policies that distance itself from the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI and criticize and marginalize those lay Catholics who openly support papal teaching.

The reasons for this are clear differences of view on the direction and character of post-conciliar Catholicism. How long this can continue to be sustained without some public fracture in relations depends in large measure on the desire within the Vatican to intervene in the English Church more directly. Pope John Paul II for the most part left the English Church to manage itself and Pope Benedict has preferred to teach rather than to impose, as his recent ad limina remarks to the BCEW on dissent showed.

Rome may also feel that time is not on the BCEW’s side, as its search for up-and-coming priests who share its vision to join its ranks becomes ever more frustrated. The English clergy is increasingly populated with foreign priests, young traditionalists and middle-aged ex-Anglicans, none of whom are exactly yearning to embrace the BCEW vision. Archbishop Nichols of Westminster was overlooked at the November consistory because, say observers, it will be another two years before his predecessor loses his conclave vote. If he wants to be sure of the red hat next time around, there are some difficult issues for him to confront in the meantime.