My first podcast

On its Catholic Society Podcasts page, Canmore has the talk I gave recently on the Church. There is one of my talks on the Faith website but the Canmore one is the first that is actually available for a genuine iTunes podcast.

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Confraternity of Catholic Clergy Colloquium 2017

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I am happy to pass on the following information concerning the forthcoming Colloquium of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy. Unfortunately I will not be able to attend myself this time, but I pass on the notice with my support and recommendation.
Booking is now open for the Autumn Colloquium of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy, which this year takes place at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, from Wednesday 15th till Thursday 16th November.

Speakers include Bishop John Keenan of Paisley, Monsignor John Armitage (Rector of the Shrine at Walsingham) and Father John Saward.

Full details are available on the Confraternity's website where you can also download the booking form.

Attendance is limited to fully paid up members of the Confraternity, including new members (who can join by downloading the appropriate form from the website)

Those wishing to attend should post the completed booking form, with your payment, to the Secretary at the address given. Mgr Armitage …
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Hippolytus and Eucharistic Prayer II

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When I was a student in Rome, I remember going with a priest for Mass in one of the ancient Churches. The priest said that he was going to use Eucharistic Prayer II because it was the most ancient of all the prayers and was specifically Roman, composed by Hippolytus. This was the standard view at that time (early 1980s) but has since been called into question. A number of people have recently mentioned the matter to me and so here are a few notes for you.

In the 19th century, a number of ancient texts were discovered that were similar to the "Apostolic Constitutions", (of which the first modern edition was published in 1563). Among these texts was a document which came to be referred to as the “Egyptian Church Order”. In addition, the Canons of Hippolytus and the Testamentum Domini were discovered.

The scholarly consensus in the early 20th century on the dependence of these documents was that the “Egyptian Church Order” was in fact the "Apostolic Tradition" of Hippol…
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CD 297: Laity and the Divine Office

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I am trying to pray the Office each day. Should I only use the official breviary or can I use the Little Office of Our Lady?
The second Vatican Council encouraged lay people to pray the Divine Office; indeed the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy encouraged parish priests to see that Vespers are celebrated in Churches on Sundays, something that is quite rare nowadays. So it is an excellent practice for you as a lay person to pray at least a part of the Office. By doing so, you unite yourself to the whole Church in the prayer which Christ offers up as our High Priest. It is rightly called a sacrifice of praise when we pray the psalms to sanctify the hours of the day.

Priests and religious are bound to celebrate the Divine Office every day and must use the Office that is approved for them. Secular priests, for example, must use either the Liturgy of the Hours (the Office that was composed after Vatican II) or the older breviary that was approved before the Council. Lay people who are no…
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Plenary indulgences not impossible

Dilexit Prior in Letters from a Young Catholic asked some useful questions today about indulgences. I thought it would be best to do a post here especially to cover the controversial question of detachment from venial sin. But first the other questions:

The conditions for gaining a plenary indulgence
Pope Paul VI set down a number of norms relating to indulgences at the end of Indulgentiarum Doctrina. Norm 7 states:
To acquire a plenary indulgence it is necessary to perform the work to which the indulgence is attached and to fulfil three conditions: sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. It is further required that all attachment to sin, even to venial sin, be absent. If this disposition is in any way less than complete, or if the prescribed three conditions are not fulfilled, the indulgence will be only partial, except for the provisions contained in n.11 for those who are “impeded.”It is worth reading the other norms because …
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Abstinence and Friday of the Easter Octave

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Must we abstain from meat on the Friday of the Easter Octave? In my "Catholic Dilemmas" column in the Catholic Herald of 29 March 2013, I said that we should. This has created a larger correspondence than any other of the columns that I have written in the past six years. So I thought I should address the question further here.

First of all the law concerning abstinence. The relevant canon of the current Code of Canon Law says:
Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday... (Can. 1251) So the question is whether the Friday of the Easter Octave is a solemnity. In the 1969 document Calendarium Romanum, we read the following in the Normae Universales de Anno Liturgico et de Calendario:
Octo primi dies temporis paschalis constituunt octavam Paschae et uti sollemnitates Domini celebrantur. (n.24)
(The first eight days of paschal time constitute the octave of…
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