Men's walk to Aylesford

Today saw a new event for the parish - a walk for men of about eight miles from Hollingbourne to Aylesford along the North Downs Way and part of the ancient Pilgrims' Way. Here we are, having been dropped off at Hollingbourne. Trefor, who in Austria could have claimed the title of Wanderfuhrer, is explaining that the walk is not too hilly.

After about two minutes, we came to the first of the not too hilly bits:

The view was pretty spectacular along much of the way. The Good Lord blessed us with perfect weather and some welcome breezes on the higher sections.

At one point, the path obstinately refused to go along the route that was indicated on the map. Undeterred, Dan demonstrated how to negotiate the barbed wire.

There were a few of those "Lord of the Rings" moments in the wooded sections.

and a few more of those not very hilly moments. Joking apart, Trefor did a magnificent job of researching the route and guiding us. It was a most enjoyable afternoon.

At Detling, Pip, Helen and Caroline were waiting with tea, rolls and home made cake. There was also some good beer to be had in the pub (I had Ruddles, others chose IPA or Old Speckled Hen.) Noticing the lack of ashtrays, I realised that there was probably something awry. It was indeed that most absurd of institutions that will spring up all over the land on my birthday this year - a non smoking pub. As Jeremy Clarkson might say "What's that for?"

Speaking of Mr Clarkson, you may notice that the car parked nonchalantly outside the pub is in fact a Ferrari. When the owner came out and spent some time getting into the vehicle and adjusting various things prior to lift-off, he could not but become the centre of attention. The throaty roar was delayed, however, as he got out again and said sheepishly that he had left the keys on the bar. Never have 14 men had such a missed opportunity!

At Aylesford in thanksgiving for the day, we had Benediction in the charming Cloister Chapel with prayers to Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Publicity for pro-life stand against euthanasia

Edmund put me on to a good article in yesterday's Daily Mail in advance of the Mental Capacity Act coming into force this Palm Sunday. The article is headed, We'll fight backdoor euthanasia and risk jail say doctors and it is good to see two senior doctors quoted:

Philip Howard, a London gastroenterology consultant, said that he would not withdraw or withhold artificial nutrition and hydration even when it was specified in an advance decision.

"No patient should die as a result of dehydration and no patient should be allowed to die in a state of unrelieved thirst," he insisted. "It is my practice never to allow a patient to die of unremitting thirst."

Dr Howard added that a number of his colleagues had made clear "deep concern that patients may be dehydrated at the end of their lives".

Consultant geriatric psychiatrist Adrian Treloar said: "If I am asked, will I kill a patient under the Mental Capacity Act? the answer is 'no'.

"People who make living wills or support the idea should ask themselves if they really want a doctor to stop treating them or would they rely on that doctor risking a jail sentence?"

It is very good to see such senior figures in the medical world speaking such good sense.

Catholic parish of Hythe

I was just pointed to the new website for the Catholic parish of Hythe has a new website. It's a good parish website and has a section on Vocations.

Hythe parish is run by the Society of Our Lady of the Trinity and also covers Dymchurch, Littlestone and Lydd - lovely seaside towns on the south coast of England between Folkestone and Dungeness.

That Judas book

One or two people have asked me what I think about The Gospel According to Judas. To be honest, it was on the list of things to think about when some rather more important tasks had been tackled. Back from an afternoon's walk to Aylesford, I cooked up something to eat and read the Catholic Herald. They have a good article on it which got me looking on the internet.

Courtesy of The Cafeteria is Closed, I found the article by Fr Paul Mankowski which the Herald had quoted. In his remarks on the gospel according to judas, Mankowski offers the following clarfications:

• The Pope did not "bless" the Archer-Moloney novel.
• The Pontifical Biblical Institute provided the bottled water at the speaker's rostrum for the Archer-Moloney press conference. Its scholars had nothing whatever to do with the book's content.
• The Archer-Moloney novel was not "published with Vatican approval."
• No biblical scholar, including my former colleague Fr. Frank Moloney, believes Fr. Frank Moloney to be "the world's greatest living biblical scholar."
• Fr. Moloney is not "one of the Pope's top theological advisers."
• The International Theological Commission, of which Fr. Moloney was a member, enjoys the same level of teaching authority as the Philatelic Office of the Holy See -- that's to say: zero.
• The teaching of the dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum §11 has not been abrogated.

The rest of Mankowski's article is well worth reading.

Parents' Faith Group at Aylesford

Another visit to Aylesford yesterday for the Parents' Faith Group at my parish began with us celebrating Mass in the simple but prayerful Cloister Chapel. Above the Altar there is a beautiful ancient crucifix:After Mass, I conducted a tour of the shrine, beginning with the historical exhibition showing paintings by Adam Kossowski illustrating various events in the history of the Carmelites.

Here is his depiction of the Friars being cast out into the street as a result of Henry VIII's Dissolution of the religious houses.

After visiting the other chapels and saying a prayer at the relic of St Simon Stock, we repaired to the shop for tea and the purchase of books and devotional articles, the pottery to see the work in progress and then the local pub "The Chequers" for an enjoyable lunch.

It was raining all day and this made me fearful that the men's walk today might be a rather drenched affair. It was not to be so ...

Dom Guillerand's book now at Amazon

A book that I have mentioned on this blog more than once is now available from Amazon UK. Many thanks to Fr Rafat for the link:

General Absolution - worries of a young priest

A young priest sent me the following by email. I am happy to post it with little in the way of comment except the following:

1. The priest concerned will bring this matter to the attention of the local ordinary. Do not underestimate the difficulty that faces him.

2. It is a shame that young clergy who are happy to live in obedience to their Bishop and cultivating a solid interior life have to face these problems.

One of the highest pastoral priorities for me as a Priest is helping people to receive God’s forgiveness in Confession or Reconciliation. Hearing Confessions can be demanding and tiring, but I love this sacrament – both as minister and penitent.

I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if, through laziness, I denied the people their right to encounter the mercy of God through this sacrament. It’s one of the main reasons why I became a Priest. I could even say that it’s what I live for!

A lot of my preaching and pastoral work is done with the hope of helping people to feel welcome and encouraged – so that they can meet Christ in Reconciliation and be forgiven.

I like to think that I go the extra mile in putting up with people being difficult with me, remembering that I am an ambassador for Christ, who makes the appeal through me, “Be reconciled to God!”

I always wear clerical dress so that I am available for people. I find that I have many encounters of reconciliation – in different ways – as I travel about.

My experience teaches me that in coming to Confession people feel a sense of relief. Especially if they are able to go to Confession anonymously, they are able to broach difficult areas of their lives in safety. So, even with its demands and difficulties for people, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a hugely pastoral sacrament. This sacrament, when it celebrated as the Church intends, gives Priests the best opportunity of reaching out to the lost sheep, being available for them.

I’m a Priest working in England. Recently we have been discussing the problem of the breakdown of marriage and family life among Catholics.

In the sacrament of Confession people of all ages are enabled to come and find Christ’s forgiveness and have the advice that will help them to keep their lives on the right track.

Young people who are undergoing temptations can come and receive the guidance which will help them to keep their lives on the right foundations. Very often I have been able in the sacrament of Reconciliation to encourage young people to confide in their parents or to avoid destructive and unwise patterns of behaviour. I could write pages along these lines – but I think that in no other area of my ministry have I been able to do more to help young people to prepare for happy marriages in the future.

So if we want to know how to help Marriage and Family life, the correct celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation is a good place to begin.

I’ve spent the whole of Lent – in the homilies I’ve given – trying to help people prepare to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The reason I’m writing all this is because my Parish Priest has just informed me that he plans to do ‘general absolution or something like that…’ at the Penitential Service this evening. I don’t want to speak more about the details of this situation. It's not my place to judge my Parish Priest. He is a kind man who has done his best to encourage and make me welcome in my appointment.

But I don’t think he or others have the slightest idea how upset I and other Priests feel about the ways in which the sacrament of Reconciliation is undermined.

It’s very hard for Parish Priests who find that their parishioners – whose Confessions they offer to hear – disappear to a neighbouring parish where some sort of easy, but illicit (if not invalid) form of the sacrament is taking place.

I’m not a cry-baby, but this morning I burst into tears of frustration at what is being done to me and to the people. What is really happening is that they are being sent away with something which is easy, but not satisfying. They have asked for bread…

Of course, the people can go to Confession in the normal way somewhere else, but many of them probably won’t. They trust Father. And with our fallen condition we are always tempted to do what is easy, especially when someone in authority has said it is all right.

I suppose it may seem to some people that I’m just being bolshy in declining to have anything to do with tonight’s proceedings. Perhaps it seems as if I’ve got a 'legal' approach to ministry.

And in a certain way I do. Sometimes we do have to obey. The fact that recent Popes (even recently in Sacramentum Caritatis) have repeatedly reminded us that we need to help people to make an integral Confession seems a good reason not to water down the sacrament.

But there is more to it than that. What is really happening is that I am being denied the chance to exercise a very important part of my Priestly ministry.

It’s not that there is a shortage of Priests. The offer of finding enough Priests for this evening (and on other occasions in other parishes) was declined.

It’s not the first time this has happened to me. In one parish where I worked the people were encouraged to ‘confess one sin’. Personally I think this ‘rite two and a half’ (as it is commonly referred to by the clergy) is even more damaging than general absolution. It is certainly just as frequently done here in England.

In another parish where I worked the Priests gave individual absolution without the penitent confessing anything. This, too seems to be quite frequently done.

The result is that in the Deanery where I am now working, out of the small number of people who go to Reconciliation at all this week, probably only a third or a quarter will receive the sacrament in the way the Church intends.

Last year, during the time the reconciliation service was going on, was a very demoralizing time for me. It didn’t seem right to stay in the parish. I would have seemed to be a sign of contradiction – and I try to be loyal to the Priests I work with. I was (like this year) given very little notice of what was going to happen at the Reconciliation service. My friends were all busy or unavailable, so I walked around the streets to kill the time.

All of this reminds us that it’s good for us to pray for our Priests and for the Bishops!

May the Lord grant us always shepherds who will walk in his ways and whose watchful care will bring us his blessing. (Collect for the election of a Bishop)

Retreat at Aylesford

From Tuesday afternoon until lunchtime today, I was at Aylesford Priory giving a short retreat to some parishioners. (Mulier Fortis has also posted about the retreat with some good photos.) Aylesford is one of my favourite places in the world. I think it is undervalued by Catholics locally. After all, it is the home of St Simon Stock to whom Our Blessed Lady gave the original brown scapular.

Aylesford was founded when the hermits of Mount Carmel had to leave the Holy Land. One of the English Crusaders gave the hermits a plot of land on the banks of the river Medway. This river was an obstacle to the Romans on their British campaign and still offers problems. Recently, the friars have completed a new wall to keep the river at bay.

The buildings are a mix of old and new. The Friary was dissolved by Henry VIII and the friars were cast out into the street. From then until the early 20th century, it was home to various wealthy families. When it came back into Carmelite hands, the surviving older parts were restored and new chapels built.





A recent restoration is this plaque just by the reception office. In English, it means "The flower of Carmel, having been cut down, has risen again more vigorous."

Thankfully, we had the cosy cloister chapel for all the conferences and Masses of the Retreat. I spoke first of all about the nature and purpose of a retreat and how to gain the best from it, speaking also about how to pray. The second conference was on the nature of a sacrifice in the Old Testament, the sacrifice of Christ and how we gain fruit by meditating on the passion. For the third conference, I drew from Sacramentum Caritatis and the Holy Father's teaching on how we should participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice.

For the fourth and last conference, I spoke of St Therese of Lisieux and her "Little Way." I was upfront about how I felt that this was becoming a new "craze" for me. Recently, I took up "L'Histoire d'Une Ame" again after 30 years. I think I finally get the point now! The teaching of the Little Flower is a simple and beautiful expression of some really quite daunting, even terrifying, truths about the spiritual life.

The bookshop at Aylesford has a good collection of books about Carmelite saints and their teaching so I picked up a new translation of "The Story of a Soul", a book about St Therese and prayer, and a book about her parents.

We were accommodated in the "New Block." I find the rooms at Aylesford very comfortable. Some people would probably consider it rather "old fashioned" now: for example, they do not follow the recent fad of installing a lavatory in everyone's room. This actually makes the rooms more spacious than many modern hotels.

The hospitality offered by the Friars is exemplary. The Prior and several of the other members of the community always take great trouble to come and talk with their guests and nothing seems too much trouble. The food is good and plentiful, and the sacristans keep the chapels in very good order.

I'm going to be at Aylesford again tomorrow with some mums from the Parents' Faith Group, and again on Saturday with the parish Men's Walk of ten miles, concluding with Benediction at the Shrine.

Tony Blair's "little skip" at first gay marriage

The UK Gay News reported recently on Tony Blair's speech at a fundraising dinner given by Stonewall. Blair’s “Real Joy” That Civil Partnerships Have Brought To Gay People. The page also includes the full text of Blair's speech at the dinner. Blair's appearance helped Stonewall's Equality Dinner to raise £230,000.

Blair makes it clear in his speech that he is wholeheartedly in support of the changes that have happened in the country's culture and he regards them as a significant part of his legacy as he prepares to step down from office. The recognition of civil partnerships, the Equality Act and the Sexual Orientation Regulations are part of this change in the culture of the UK which he was celebrating. He said,

I think the civil partnership is really the thing that, as I was saying to people earlier, it is a thing that doesn't just give me a lot of pride, but it actually brought real joy.

He goes on to say that he did "a little skip around" when he saw the pictures of the first ceremonies in Northern Ireland.

None of is really surprising given that Tony Blair is the Prime Minister and the legislation is part of the programme of his government. Perhaps the Guardian can now be reassured that Tony Blair is not becoming a Catholic (see this 2004 article worrying about his being "effectively a Roman Catholic.")

Call me a prophet of doom but it is embarrasingly obvious to everyone living in the real world that the Catholic Church in England and Wales is not going to get "concessions" from the Government on these issues by keeping quiet and taking a softly-softly approach. Wake up and smell the coffee, folks!

The Iona Institute

Sir Dan told me this evening of the Iona Institute which is an Irish non-governmental organisation dedicated to the strengthening of civil society through making the case for marriage and religious practice.

The Director of the Iona Institute is David Quinn who came to the notice of Catholics worldwide after Zenit news published his debate with Richard Dawkins which was broadcast on RTE's "The Turbridy Show" (Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2 of the debate.)

Blogiversary coming up

I suddenly realised today that it is nearly a year since I started blogging. Checking the archives, I find that the actual date of the first post was 6 April 2006. So this year, that will be, let me see, err, oh dear, Good Friday. So no champagne celebrations then.

Looking up an almanac of moveable feasts, I see that 6 April will not fall on Easter Sunday until 2053. Not likely I will live until then.

BTW I checked google for "blogiversary" (442,000 hits) and "blogniversary" (477 hits) so have unthinkingly gone along with the majority view. It's nice to be able to do that occasionally :-)

Motu-mania

Two funny posts. First of all from the Aliens in This World blog, the original Top Ten Signs You’ve Succumbed to Motu-Mania.

Then the Curt Jester's follow up with ten of his own.

My favourite from the Aliens in This World is:

10. Your browser’s homepage is now the news page at vatican.va. The one in Italian.

That gets developed with delightful silliness as you write code to refresh the page every five minutes, then realise that is not often enough and eventually your computer becomes a denial of service attack all on its own and the Vatican webmistress sends over the swiss ninja death guard to rip out your modem.

My favourite from the Curt Jester's list:

3. You have thought about punching the next person who uses the word "nostalgic" referring to your wanting the Tridentine rite available.

BBC bias article

Fiorella has reminded me that she did some extensive work analysing the BBC programme Sex in the Holy City which I mentioned in the post Can We Trust the BBC - 1.

Her article is in pdf format and is downloadable from this page at the SPUC website. It looks particularly at:

• Allegations made, particularly the use of unreferenced figures and case studies
• The use of slanted language and interview tactics
• The omission of information
• The use of negative stereotypes

It is incontrovertibly demonstrated that in this programme the BBC breached its own guidelines.

The BBC's response to an initial complaint was:

The BBC programme complaints unit concluded its response to SPUC by finding that “the programme supported its claims with properly researched and journalistically sound examples” and could “find no grounds for upholding your complaint against this programme.”

There is a good example to illustrate Robin Aitken's claim that the BBC knows it can slough off complaints because it is difficult to give evidence of bias and they know that normally no hard evidence will be forthcoming.

But what happens when there is hard evidence in the form of a 30 page dossier investigating a programme? What was the BBC's response to Fiorella's evidence?

Errr. No response.

Blogging revelations

A corespondent sent me this today:

Can we trust the BBC? - 1

From the Prologue:

"The licence fee brings with it a unique quid pro quo: it follows that because everyone pays for the BBC everyone has an absolute right to fair treatment from the BBC. That is the bedrock of the contract between the BBC and the country; and it is this contact that has been corroded by the inherent bias within the BBC’s journalism."

Robin Aitken is a former BBC reporter who spent 25 years working within the corporation. His book details his own attempt to draw attention to bias within the BBC at the highest level, concerns that were dismissed on the say-so of the Head of BBC News.

I recommend Can we Trust the BBC? to readers of this blog: you will find chapter eight especially interesting because it looks in some detail at BBC reporter David Kerr’s research into the 2003 Panorama Programme Sex and the Holy City. Aitken comments:

The great value of Kerr’s analysis is that it subjects a BBC programme to exactly the same sort of journalistic scrutiny which the BBC routinely deals out to others. Kerr shows that ‘Sex and the Holy City’ fell woefully short of basic journalistic standards, never mind the BBC’s aspiration to the highest possible level of trustworthiness.

Rather than give a lengthy review of the book in one post, I will from time to time offer some summary and highlights from the different chapters. For now, I will leave you with one of Aitken’s concluding comments which will ring true with any Catholic who has ever complained to the BBC about its bias against the Catholic Church:

Bias is such a subjective concept that it is easy for the Corporation to slough off most allegations secure in the knowledge that hard evidence will not be forthcoming. People may know, in their hearts, that the BBC is biased against them, but many will take the fatalistic view that nothing can be done about it. They merely accept that they are not going to get a fair hearing. This is a lamentable state of affairs for an organization that aspires to be ‘the most trusted in the world’.

Putting links in the combox

I don't normally do tech support but this problem has caused incovenience to some readers. Therefore...

THE PROBLEM
If someone pastes in a long URL into the combox (e.g. from a newspaper story) it may go beyond the end of the line. (There are no spaces for the line to break at.) The text is all there but you can't see it. If you try to select to the end of the line, you do not get all the URL.

THE WORKAROUND
If people do this, you can solve the problem as follows:
Select from the beginning of the URL to a line below the URL. Paste this text into Windows notepad. There you can see the whole of the URL, you can select it, copy it to the clipboard and then paste it into the link box of the browser.

HOW TO AVOID CREATING THIS PROBLEM FOR OTHERS
When you want to direct people to a web page, do not just paste the URL text into the combox. Do a link instead using the html anchor tag. Here's what you do:

1. Type in the following: <a href=
2. Type or paste the URL in double quote marks
(e.g. "http://www.vatican.va/")
3. close the angle brackets: >
4. Put in the text you want to see as the link text (e.g. Vatican website)
5. Put in the closing tag - </a>;

You end up with the following:

<a href="http://www.vatican.va/">Vatican website</a>

and it looks like the following:

Vatican website

Channel 4 sex-ed poll

Channel 4 is running a poll. Wording as follows:

Sex and relationships education in Britain has been highlighted by Davina McCall in Let’s Talk Sex. Tell us what you think.

Should sex education be compulsory in the UK for all pupils regardless of their parents' wishes?

When I looked, it was 93% in favour of sex-ed regardless of parents' wishes. Here is a link where you can cast your vote.

"She is the Immaculata..."

"She is the Immaculata, who receives God's gift unconditionally and is thus associated with his work of salvation. Mary of Nazareth, icon of the nascent Church, is the model for each of us, called to receive the gift that Jesus makes of himself in the Eucharist."
(Sacramentum Caritatis 33)

New toy

Having built up loads of upgrade brownie points with T-mobile, I decided it was time to get a new phone-pda. I've used Palm devices for quite a while so I regard it as a bit of a backward step to have to go to windows mobile. I got the MDA in its all-singing, all dancing version (though I have gone into settings/dancing and permanently disabled liturgical dance.)

The trouble is, being windows and all, setting it up is a major investment of time - something I don't have much of. Several re-installs of the utterly useless activesync later, I have downloaded a new version which has worked following a couple of hard resets of the handheld device. That being said, this is the first handheld I have had that actually does the internet in any convincing way. I'm trying out a few browsers on it and will have a look at opera's pocket version.

To be of any use, it needs an SD card - Amazon do 2Gb cards for less than a tenner so I got one of those in the post. But actually it needs a mini-SD card so if anyone (esp. poor student) wants a standard 2Gb SD card, make a claim in the combox (first come first served), then send me an email and I'll post it to you.

For a diary, an alternative to the ghastly and useless "Outlook" is Calendarscope (another possiblity would be Mozilla Sunbird but that probably needs a few months more and a few more builds.) I downloaded the Calendarscope sync softward for pocket pc only to find it would not work. Their tech guys replied to my email with a step-by-step windows mobile registry hack to sort it out. So I downloaded a windows mobile registry editor and did the hack. They were right - and I'll probably need the registry editor in the future so that's a plus. For the contacts, I've got various ideas for getting my own patent letters-and-contacts database onto the thing but will have to think that through a bit.

The MDA also works with a bluetooth satnav gadget. That came with another wrong-sized storage card but I am most of the way through working round that. It should also act as a mobile modem for my laptop - setting that up will be a google fest for another day.

Microsoft - doncha love it! When I next get a new computer, I must learn to leave Windows alone with all its own settings and defaults, a bottle of milk and a teething ring.

One real killer-app for a mobile device: the London Tube map with toggle between tube and roadmap. I see that the whole London A-Z is also available. That's going on the storage card.

Another great app that I recommend for users of these gadgets is Pocket e-sword. I have long used the desktop version. This is a free electronic bible put together by a chap called Rick Meyers. The pocket version was just recently put up, I think. Most of the versions of the bible that he lists are protestant ones but I have download the Vulgate, the Greek NT with variants and the Greek NT with Strong's numbers, Strong's dictionary and the Douay-Rheims bible. (Must remember to get the Septuagint also.) The Catechism can go on as a Word file, together with the Code of Canon Law.

Any other tips for good Catholic software for these things?

Do I recommend it? If you are happy with searching tech support boards for error messages, finding workarounds and downloading hacking software, yes, it can be made into a really cool thing eventually. But don't get one if you need to rely on it working by "plug ner play" and doing what it says on the tin.

(BTW if you do get one, you're on your own. I don't do tech support.)

An evening at Kingsland

If you have read the Roman Miscellany or Cally's Kitchen, you will have seen that I was at Our Lady and St Joseph in Kingsland (left) last night, speaking on Richard Dawkins and the Existence of God. There is a page at my parish website on Dawkins, Evolution and Atheism if you are interested.

The Mulier Fortis kindly gave me lift over to Kingsland which is "the other side of the river" (insert scary chords here.) We arrived in time for the fifth Station of the Way of the Cross led by Fr Nicholas Schofield. There were about 100 people there for the Stations; a commendable turnout for a Friday night. Here is Father at the eighth station:

There were some good questions after the talk and, as so very often, I found myself revising some opinions in the light of them. The local headmaster picked up on my comment near the beginning of the talk that I had a great respect for Dawkins. This was in reference to Dawkins' undoubted ability to explain scientific concepts in an attractive and intelligible manner. However, as I mentioned later: in his recent book The God Delusion, Dawkins opines that bringing children up in a religious faith is a form of "child abuse." I would agree that this nasty jibe rather limits the amount of respect that one can have for him.

Sacramentum Caritatis copies from CTS

The Catholic Truth Society have got out print copies of Sacramentum Caritatis. Following their email notification, I asked Jean who runs our pamphlet rack to order 10 copies - they arrived this morning.

I sat down with it over lunch today and read the first half through carefully. This is a wonderful exposition of the Eucharist and I will incorporate several quotations into my notes for students on sacramental theology.

It struck me also that this is perfect material for reflection for Passiontide and Eastertide. I'm starting this weekend with the relationship between the Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance. It will be helpful, I think, for people to see that when I talk about the importance of being properly disposed to receive Holy Communion, the value of a spiritual communion, and participation in the Mass as something more than external actions... it is not "your priest being traditionalist" but the teaching of the Holy Father in response to a Synod of the world's Bishops.

White greca

Some recent photos of the Holy Father over at the unsurpassable fount of papal pictures, the Papa Ratzinger Forum, show him wearing a white Greca (cassock-covering coat) at the General Audience.

Now these coats, even for Cardinals, are usually worn in black. But knowing Gammarelli's, I expect if you walked in there and said "Look, I'm Pope John the twenty-fourth and I need a white Greca", they would probably ask if you wanted it in polycotton, wool or mohair.

Update: White greca experts have posted links to pictures of several other Popes sporting this garment - see the combox.

Christophobic reply from MP's aide

A correspondent has drawn my attention to page 27 of the print edition of the Daily Telegraph today. The 'Spy' column reports on a constituent who wrote to Alan Simpson, Labour MP for Nottingham South, asking him to oppose the SOR legislation.

The reply was written by a member of Simpson's staff, one Paul May:

'You disgust me. You are so totally and utterly out of touch with the real world that it is no surprise to me that the Christian faith is fizzling out to nothing in the United Kingdom. Perhaps when we have managed to turn all our children gay the problem of religious bigotry affecting our laws will no longer be an issue.'

Apparently Mr May has now apologised and made it clear that he does not speak for Mr Simpson. I be that caused some fluttering. The mask of "equality" is not meant to slip as dramatically as that!

Talk at Kingsland

I'm off now over to Kingsland to speak to the William Lockhart Circle about Dawkins and the existence of God.

This has been advertised over at the Roman Miscellany and Cally's Kitchen. Mulier Fortis is giving me a lift over there and the four of us bloggers will be meeting up for a bite to eat afterwards (no meat, of course.)

I'll take the big camera and see if I can get some nice pictures for you.

Catholic papers on the reception of Sacramentum Caritatis

The Catholic Herald leader this week is sharply critical of the lack of the failure of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales to give due publicity to Sacramentum Caritatis. Headed "A bewildering silence", the piece invites us to imagine the Church as an orchestra with Pope Benedict XVI as conductor:

Last Tuesday, the Pope took to the podium to lead us in a hymn of priase to the Eucharist through his Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis. When he raised the baton, the Herald began to play at full volume, devoting pages to the new document and hailing it as a masterpiece. But we were bewildered when we looked up and saw that great sections of the orchestra were sitting in silence.

The Universe seems a little hazy on the difference between various types of papal document. However, a short article on page 3 manages to make the same point as the Catholic Herald leader, albeit probably without intending to. The headline reads simply "LMS welcomes encyclical."

Channel 4 sex propaganda

Tomorrow night, the programme Let's Talk Sex will be repeated on Channel 4 (first shown in March last year). It will be broadcast at 8pm (an hour before the "watershed") and pushes the tired and utterly discredited line that teenage pregnancy will be reduced by more sex education.

The programme will be presented by Davina McCall. Her authority in this area is presumably based on her being a presenter of Big Brother. Davina will take you (and your children) on a visit to a Dutch sex education class where children as young as four are taught about homosexuality and shown cartoons of various sex acts. Also featured is that tried and trusted method of preventing teenage pregnancy: unrolling a condom over a prosthetic sex aid.

The Channel 4 website has this deeply moving assessment of the presenter's lone stand against the forces of reaction:

In Let's Talk Sex, Davina McCall takes on the establishment over the crisis of teen pregnancies and spiralling rates of sexually transmitted infections in the UK. It's time for Britain to be brave, she says, and for sex and relationships education to become compulsory.

The "establishment" that she is so courageously taking on is presumably the London-metro British establishment that is so anti sex-education and pro-chastity. Aren't you just in awe at her bravery?

Sadly, propaganda of the Let's Talk Sex type not only leads to more teenage pregnancies but also further exacerbates the epidemic of sexually transmitted infections among teenagers.

The website includes the hackneyed argument about Dutch teenage pregnancy rates being low because of sex education. This article from Family and Youth Concern blew that one apart four years ago.

Below is a linked image to a publicity photo for Big Brother with colleague Dermot O'Leary. I hope it will help parents to decide whether this woman is a good person to trust to give advice to their teenage daughters:

Pray for seminarians

Fr Stephen Boyle has just been out to the Royal English College in Valladolid for a few days. He sent me a photo of himself and three students of the College: Samuel Davey and Thomas Lynch from the Archdiocese of Southwark, and Mark Homsey from the Diocese of Leeds. Please remember them in your prayers.

The lost girls

There is a good article in the daily Standard called The Lost Girls which exposes how sex-selective abortions are targeting unborn girls by the million. At the UN, the practice is not properly highlighted because of feminist orthodoxy over abortion.

A visitor to London

Catholic Rights is a blog run by John Kearney whom I met at the SOR Prayer Rally yesterday. He has a good post called A Day in London telling of his experiences on coming down to visit our capital.

Jansenists and transferring Holydays

I have just been reading through the bull Auctorem Fidei in which Pope Pius VI condemned the errors of the Jansenist pseudo-synod of Pistoia. One condemned proposition that caught my eye was the following:

The deliberation of the synod about transferring to Sunday feasts distributed through the year, and rightly so, because it is convinced that the bishop has power over ecclesiastical discipline in relation to purely spiritual matters, and therefore of abrogating the precept of hearing Mass on those days, on which according to the early law of the Church, even then that precept flourished.

Pius VI Auctorem Fidei 1794 n.74

That is very interesting. I did not know that the Jansenists were in favour of transferring Holydays to the nearest Sunday. So many liturgical changes of recent decades were enthusiastically promoted by the Jansenists.

To avoid confusion: the condemnation of this proposition is not a matter of infallibility in dogmatic matters but a disciplinary provision, particularly concerning the authority of Bishops. The Holy See has in recent decades subsequently given the necessary permission for Bishops' Conferences to transfer Holydays to Sunday.

SOR Prayer Rally

The Prayer Rally outside the Houses of Parliament tonight was a moving witness to the Christian faith. Led by a series of evangelical preachers using unerringly appropriate quotations from the Holy Scriptures, it was a stirring opportunity to proclaim the Gospel.

The Rally took place during the debate in the House of Lords over the Sexual Orientations Regulations. In the order of business for the House of Lords was the following:

Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 Baroness Andrews to move that the draft Regulations laid before the House on 13 March be approved. 12th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee and 14th Report from the Merits Committee

Baroness O'Caithain introduced the following amendment:

to move, as an amendment to the above motion, to leave out all the words after “that” and insert “this House, having regard to the widespread concerns that the draft Regulations compromise religious liberty and will result in litigation over the content of classroom teaching, and having regard to the legality of the equivalent regulations for Northern Ireland, declines to approve the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007.”

During the debate, Baroness O'Caithain said that she believed the SORs to be seriously flawed. She drew attention to the now notorious failure of the Government to allow proper parliamentary scrutiny of the regulations. The House of Commons had no opportunity to debate them except in a last-minute Committee. The approval of the regulations on Monday night was marked by a series of points of order protesting about the abuse of democratic procedure. Baroness O'Caithain said:

"This surely is not acceptable. The government is rushing headlong into the incredibly sensitive area of a clash between gay rights and religious freedom and doing so by secondary legislation that does not allow for amendments and permits only very limited debate."

Sadly but not surprisingly, the amendment was defeated by 168 votes to 122.

Tonight's rally was organised by the Lawyers Christian Fellowship and Christian Concern for our Nation. Andrea Minichiello Williams has kept us all informed by comprehensive and informative emails. It was good to see her tonight and to thank her for her work.

I am pleased to say that there were some Catholics although very much in the minority. The Latin Mass Society, the National Association of Catholic Families, the Faith Movement, (and of course, the parish of Our Lady of the Rosary Blackfen) were represented. Apart from myself, priests attending included Fr James Clark (pictured), Fr Mark Swires, Fr John Boyle and Fr Dermot Fenlon.

It was all very evangelical in tone and it was fun to shout "Amen" at various points, as well as enjoying a little fun with the trad Catholics who were there, suggesting other interjections such as "miserere nobis" and "laus tibi Domine" when the un-Lenten alleluias were being shouted. During the various "prayer points" we managed to say the five sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary and added a number of Catholic prayers at the times of spontaneous prayer. It was really ecumenism at its best. After the final hymn, we stuck up a chorus of "Christus Vincit" emphasising the importance of the social Kingship of Jesus Christ.

A few of the younger Catholics got together afterwards with some of the clergy at the Albert pub in Victoria Street. The picture below includes a rare shot of the Mulier Fortis (tapping smartphone) as several of us attempted to use various bits of technology to get any news there might be of the progress of matters in the House of Lords.

Peter Luff MP protest over SORs

On Monday, Peter Luff MP made a strong protest in the House of Commons about the "breathtaking abuse" of Parliament in the Government's handling of the Sexual Orientations Regulations. Several other MPs also complained about the rushing through of the SORs. Commenting in a press release issued today, Peter Luff said:

“There are two quite separate issues here. First, are the regulations – which are complex– right in principle and in detail? Second, have they received proper parliamentary scrutiny?

“There is room for debate about these two rival freedoms - the freedom of religious people and organisations to apply their own moral code to difficult and sensitive decisions, and the rights of gay people not to be discriminated against. Both are genuine freedoms, but I am deeply concerned that the second freedom has taken absolute priority over the first without any debate in Parliament on a matter of such profound importance.

“With more time, a solution could have been found that removed discrimination and respected religious conviction - but the government was having none of that. It sought to impose its will in a breathtaking abuse of the spirit of parliamentary democracy. Yesterday parliament was diminished and important freedoms were trampled over in a worrying way. It was a sad day for people of all faiths whose deepest convictions were contemptuously dismissed by an arrogant government.”

Mr Luff was able to refer to "concerns raised by constituents" so well done to those in Mid Worcestershire who contacted him over the weekend.

If you want to check how your own MP voted, here is the relevant page in Hansard. If you go to the top of the page and click "previous section", you can read the various points of order that were raised.

Very pleased to see that, as ever, Derek Conway, MP for Sidcup and Old Bexley, was on our side, voting "No" to approving the Regulations.

Anti -abortion petition

Some of the petitions using the e-petitions website seem to me to be poorly worded. However here is one that has no ambiguity:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Revoke the 1967 Abortion Act

The explanatory text says simply:

We the undersigned petition that the 1967 Abortion Act be revoked. The act of abortion destroys the lives of thousands of women every day, not to mention the innocent children, and is reprehensible in all circumstances.

There are 548 signatures at the time of posting. Do add your name if you are eligible (you must be a British Citizen or resident to sign the petition.

Sign the petition here

C'mon now! Everyone can sign this.

Mrs Cooper RIP

Please remember in your prayers Mrs Cooper who died yesterday, aged 96, the mother of Dan Cooper (Sir Dan of the Nesbitry.) Dan returned to Ireland for the funeral and the family would be most appreciative of your prayers for Mrs Cooper.

Queen equates cohabitation with marriage

The Independent reports today (Queen's Royal approval for 'living in sin') on the invitation cards sent to peers for this year's Garden Parties. The form includes a note "NB living with partner = married."

UK Commentators draws attention to the Coronation Oath in which her was asked:

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel ?

Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law ?

Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England ?

After promising to do so, she solemnly swore with her hand upon the gospels:

"The things which I have here promised, I will perform, and keep. So help me God."

UPDATE: As a blogger, I would always want to observe the proper form of the "new media" and correct anything that is wrong. It seems from my commenters here that a different slant on this story would be that Her Majesty wished to prevent cohabiting children of peers from attending the Garden Party as if they were single. If that is so, the "cohabiting=married" note certainly takes on a different hue. If this is the case, I readily proffer my sincere apologies to Her Majesty for my treasonable comments.

(However, the aide who phrased the note in that way should surely be reprimanded for his/her failure to spot the obvious misinterpretation that could be made of the sovereign's will.)

Sneering at Wilberforce

Many thanks to Edmund for the link to this excellent post Biting the hand which analyses the BBC's treatment of Wilberforce last Friday.

Indeed that looks like a good blog: Biased BBC. One item that caught my eye was a Freedom of Information request put in to the BBC by a commenter:

Fed up as I was with the constant bleating about man-made global warming we get on the BBC, I thought I would find out just what they are doing to help the planet. So I put in a FOI request asking about the air miles the BBC fly, the carbon that this produces, and how the BBC offsets this. Get ready for some amazing numbers (all relate to the last reporting year):

Total UK domestic flights: 17 million miles

Total European flights: 14 million miles

Other flights: 94 million miles

Total air miles: 125 million

Total cost: £15,147,000

TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS: 25,676,000 Kgs

TOTAL CO2 OFFSET: 0 kgs. Yes, 0 Kg.

What a hoot!

The BBC, slavery and papal teaching

Cally's Kitchen has an excellent post headed The Pro Life Cause: Inevitable Victory? The BBC is running a series commemorating the abolition of the slave trade. The Dúnadan speculates on a future series in which "The BBC commemorates the banning of abortion, euthanasia and eugenics with a season of programmes on TV and radio." (H/T to Mulier Fortis)

Another link between the two themes is explained by Fr Linus Clovis in an article in Faith Magazine, Slavery, the Gospel of Life and the Magisterium. He explains that although the Popes consistently and repeatedly condemned modern slavery from its very beginning in the 15th century. Slavery was also very clearly condemned by the Holy Office of the Inquisition in 1686 and the captors, buyers and possessors of slaves were ordered to make compensation to them. This teaching did not have the effect that it should have had because of the lack of co-operation among some Bishops and priests. He says:

Hence the durability of the scandalous impression of official Church collaboration, support and participation in that most heinous institution of rapine, murder, exploitation and greed. The Papal Magisterium’s clear and unequivocal condemnation of slavery was not echoed, supported, preached on or translated into action by the generality of local hierarchies, clergy and laity. It is similar today with abortion and especially with that other aspect of the Gospel of Life, condemnation of contraception, which teaching is, in at least partial consequence, ignored by many Catholics today.

Another article which gives some more details of the various papal documents is The Popes and Slavery.

Of course, people whose information comes from today's BBC get a very different picture. The BBC website has a page on Christianity and slavery which is entirely devoted to the justification of slavery by Christians. Papal condemnation of slavery? Not a word. Instead, we get:

The emergence of colonies in the Americas and the need to find labourers saw Europeans turn their attention to Africa with some arguing that the Transatlantic Slave Trade would enable Africans, especially the 'Mohammedans', to come into contact with Christianity and 'civilisation' in the Americas, albeit as slaves. It was even argued that the favourable trade winds from Africa to the Americas were evidence of this providential design.

Religion was also a driving force during slavery in the Americas. Once they arrived at their new locales the enslaved Africans were subjected to various processes to make them more compliant, and Christianity formed part of this. Ironically, although the assertion of evangelisation was one of the justifications for enslaving Africans, very little missionary work actually took place during the early years. In short, religion got in the way of a moneymaking venture by taking Africans away from their work. It also taught them potentially subversive ideas and made it hard to justify the cruel mistreatment of fellow Christians.

However, some clergy tried to push the idea that it was possible to be a 'good slave and Christian' and pointed to St Paul's epistles, which called for slaves to 'obey their masters', and St Peter's letters (1 Peter 2: 18-25), which appeared to suggest that it was wholly commendable for Christian slaves to suffer at the hands of cruel masters.

So there you have it - Christianity wholly reprehensible: no other side to the story at all. The next article, discussing the role of Christians in the abolition of slavery does, of course, go for "balance" putting both sides to the story -

"... some have argued that they never showed the same commitment to ending slavery as they did to ending the slave trade. Their attitude towards Africans appear condescending by today's standards..."

The article does not, of course, mention the teaching of the Catholic Church's magisterium.

Sacramentum Caritatis on Catholic legislators

A correspondent drew my attention this evening to an important passage in Sacramentum Caritatis:

83. Here it is important to consider what the Synod Fathers described as eucharistic consistency, a quality which our lives are objectively called to embody. Worship pleasing to God can never be a purely private matter, without consequences for our relationships with others: it demands a public witness to our faith. Evidently, this is true for all the baptized, yet it is especially incumbent upon those who, by virtue of their social or political position, must make decisions regarding fundamental values, such as respect for human life, its defence from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one's children and the promotion of the common good in all its forms. These values are not negotiable. Consequently, Catholic politicians and legislators, conscious of their grave responsibility before society, must feel particularly bound, on the basis of a properly formed conscience, to introduce and support laws inspired by values grounded in human nature. There is an objective connection here with the Eucharist (cf. 1 Cor 11:27-29).

My correspondent pointed out the painfully obvious application of this paragraph to Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary who laid before Parliament the Sexual Orientation Regulations and said that she was proud to bring them forward.

No Room for Contraception

I recently came across a blog called No Room for Contraception.

The blog is linked from their main website which has useful articles and news. NRFC celebrated its first anniversary on 27 February.

Association of Catholic Women

Another good organisation is the Association of Catholic Women which also has a quarterly publication, the ACW Review. A quote from the website:

As Catholic women we are aware of the need for positive and practical action in the service of the Church.

We give our glad assent to the teachings of the Church and rejoice in the heritage which we have been given.

Family and Youth Concern

For many years, I have regularly received the Family Bulletin from Family and Youth Concern. The organisation campaigns on a range of issues related to the family and produces good quality materials with references.

Preparing this post, I find that the quarterly bulletin is available on the web, or by email as well as by post.

SOR Prayer Vigil Wednesday

This coming Wednesday, there will be a prayer vigil outside Parliament at Old Palace Yard (the square opposite the St Stephen’s entrance to the House of Lords) on Wednesday 21st March from 7 to 9pm when the final vote on the Sexual Orientation Regulations will be taken. The Vigil is organised by Christian Concern for Our Nation. They say:

We pray for a miracle next Wednesday. However, whatever the outcome it is vital that history records Christians standing for truth to the very end of the parliamentary process.

This is my type of ecumenism! I will be there and it would be great to see any readers of this blog.

Further information at Christian Concern for Our Nation.

Faith Magazine March-April free online

Sorry to be late with this but the full content of the Faith Magazine for March April is available free of charge online. The editorial is on "Pro-Life Strategy and Arguments for the Soul" and there are other pro-life articles as well as further debate on science and creation.

Until I looked at the website just now, I quite forgot that this issue includes a piece I wrote about Preaching on Abortion. This makes me feel really middle-aged. It is one thing to forget what you said but quite another to forget an article you have written :-)

Comic Relief: One World Action

In the combox, Paulinus reported on a little "digging" he has done at the Comic Relief Cash in Action page. This lists the grants given last year to charities both in the UK and overseas.

One charity that benefited last year was One World Action (Zambia). One World Action is a non-governmental organisation based in London that supports projects in Africa, Asia and Central America.

One of the documents that is made available and supported by One World Action is "Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Central America." Although some of the content is specific to Central America, the document is a good summary of policy in various areas. For example (2.1.9)

One of the themes of the document is the negative influence of the Church It should be emphasised that the church’s opposition to abortion is not only due to its much trumpeted position that life begins with conception but also derives from its vision of motherhood as the destiny of all women.

The document explicitly opposes the Vatican's influence on the Millennium Development Goals, it opposes the emphasis in Catholic countries on abstinence ("not a realistic option") and regards the prohibition of abortion in the Honduras and El Salvador as "a great step backwards."

One World Action strongly promotes the "secular state" but regrets that the Church still has some influence and attacks in particular the work of Opus Dei.

In the "Notes for an Agenda for Action", the defence of the secular state is again seen as a "key political issue." There is advice on tactics for arguing the pro-abortion position:

When arguing for the decriminalisation of abortion –whether total or partial – it is important to go beyond arguments against the position of the Catholic Church, analysing the issue with all its implications. Rather than becoming trapped in a debate about abstract moral principles, the reality of the women who die every day because abortion has been forced underground should be emphasised. For this reason, the advocates of decriminalisation should demand that governments develop serious statistics on abortion-related mortality so as to make visible the problem.

In other words, rather than debate whether abortion is about killing babies, find some "back street abortion" propaganda. The document conveniently forgets the physical and psychological damage done to women by "legal" abortion throughout the world, not to mention the epidemic rise in sexually transmitted infections caused directly by "reproductive rights" programmes.

The whole document is a brief for pro-contraception, pro-abortion, and specifically anti-Catholic action.

In 2006, One World Action received a grant of £637,054 from Comic Relief scheduled over four years.

(I would be happy to post other information on "charities" supported by Comic Relief.)

Fresh air and exercise

Today was a glorious spring day in the South of England. I had a funeral and one or two other things in the morning, then a bit of space before Stations and other duties in the evening. So before grinding into the paperwork on my desk, I took a couple of hours out to get some fresh air and exercise with a walk round Lullingstone Park. Here are some photos I took showing some scenery of the North Downs. Benedicite omnia opera Domini Domino!

A taste of Pluscarden Abbey

Fr Augustine of Pluscarden Abbey writes:

I am organising a retreat for single Catholic men aged 18-40 at the Abbey from 4th - 8th June 2007, to give them a chance of sampling the monastic life within the cloister. Those who come will follow our daily timetable, join us in choir for the Divine Office and private prayer, eat with us in the refectory and work with us; there will also be talks and discussions on various aspects of the monastic life and instruction on how to practice lectio divina. We are not charging for the retreat and there are cheap flights from England to Aberdeen and Inverness whence buses can be got to Elgin - we are six miles out of the town in a secluded valley.

To book on the retreat, contact the Abbey by email

SOR leaflet

I am happy to pass on this email received today from a friend. It can be copied for parish newsletters and/or passed on to friends.

---

URGENT - contact Parliament IMMEDIATELY and ask Parliamentarians to VOTE AGAINST the SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS (SORs) to be voted on in the House of Lords THIS WEDNESDAY 21st March.

• The government’s Sexual Orientation Regulations (SORs), in a misguided attempt to protect people against unjust discrimination, forces schools, adoption agencies, providers of goods & services and others to act as if homosexuality is as valid a lifestyle as heterosexuality. The Government has said about the SORs: “This is not just about legislation, it is about ultimately changing the culture of our society”.


• It is against Catholic teaching and against the natural moral law to regard homosexuality as normal, morally acceptable or as valid a lifestyle as heterosexuality.


• The SORs violate people’s freedom of conscience not to be complicit in the endorsement of homosexuality. For example, the SORs may even leave teachers open to legal action if they say homosexuality is wrong.


• Baroness O’Cathain has tabled a motion to stop the SORs becoming law. Please contact as many Peers (members of the House of Lords) as possible, urging them to support Baroness O’Cathain’s motion against the SORs. You can email Peers via www.writetothem.com/lords You can also get lists of parliamentarians’ email addresses from websites such as www.spuc.org.uk/lobbying/email You can also write to Peers at the House of Lords, London SW1A 0PW.


• Please also contact your MP. Please ask your MP to be present and formally object to the SORs on the floor of the House of Commons on Monday (19th March) at the close of business. Also, please ask your MP to be present and vote against the SORs during the ‘deferred division’ on Wednesday (21st March) between 12:30 and 2:30pm. The MP for this parish is [MP’s name], though you may live in a constituency with a different MP. You can find out who your MP is by visiting www.locata.co.uk/commons You can also email (or fax) your MP via www.locata.co.uk/commons or via www.writetothem.com or by using www.spuc.org.uk/lobbying/email You can also write to your MP at the House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. All parliamentarians can be telephoned via the Parliamentary switchboard 0207 219 3000.

Be calm, measured and polite in your tone but clear and firm.

Comic relief's policy

Red Nose Day each year is an occasion for local or regional newspapers to have a go at Catholic schools. It is an easy story to write; here's how it goes: Pupils want to raise money for Comic Relief because it has been on the telly. A good head teacher refuses, insisting that they promote other charities. Shock Horror! Catholic school meanly denies children the right to wear a red nose - for CHARIDDY! And you know why? Because they don't agree with condoms!

Here is an example from this year's round (published yesterday in the Sussex local, the "Argus"): No Red Nose Day at school

The argument about Red Nose Day has been running in the UK for several years now. This Catholic News Agency Report sums up the debate that reached an impasse a couple of years ago.

Comic Relief insists that it does not give money to "fund abortions." But time and again it turns out that it supports agencies that promote such things as "reproductive health care" which is code for ...

Here is part of the statement from "a spokeswoman" for comic relief as quoted in the Argus:

"Our funding in Africa goes to all kinds of projects - providing education, rehabilitating child soldiers, peace-building, fair trade, supporting street children and disabled people and a range of other work helping people in Africa to turn their lives around. A small percentage goes to projects with a family planning component.

We support this work because of the important contribution it can make to the health of children and families and to the empowerment of women in Africa, especially in the light of the terrible effects of HIV and AIDS across much of the continent. None of the money we have allocated as grants has been used to support abortions."

Carefully worded there: "none of the money"is used to support abortion, not "none of the organisations or projects" support abortion. It would be surprising if "projects with a family planning component" did not support this aspect of "reproductive health care."

The "small percentage" has been given in the past as 3%. Last year, Comic Relief raised £65 million so we are talking about £1.95 million going to "projects with a family planning component."

"Red Box Day"

Mrs Jackie Parkes (Catholic Mom of 10) has posted a wonderful piece from the newsletter of the Birmingham Oratory:

Red Nose Day? No Thanks!
Instead of supporting some morally very dubious causes by giving your money to Red Nose Day on Friday, why not celebrate a RED BOX DAY instead? The Red Box is the recognised means of raising money for The APF, the Association or the Propagation of the Faith. It is the Pope's own missionary organisation which supports those who have the task of spreading knowledge of the Faith in so many difficult circumstances throughout the world. If you haven't got a red box, you can put some extra money in the APF box by the Sacristy Door, and sign up for a box on the list at the back of Church.'

If you are from the US, the Red Nose Day website will give you an idea of what people who have televisions must put up with ad nauseam tomorrow.

I wish I had known about the "Red Box Day" alternative earlier - I would have promoted the same in my parish. However, it is not quite too late. Tomorrow, instead of observing Red Nose Day, put a little extra into your APF Red Box. Just so we don't lose out on the funny pictures, here's my effort:

Magister on Sacramentum Caritatis

Along with the other recommended commentaries on Sacramentum Caritatis that I mentioned yesterday, I would like to add Sandro Magister's intelligent summary posted today: “Sacramentum Caritatis”: Everyone to Mass on Sunday. Many readers will be interested in this snippet related to the hermeneutic of continuity:

THE MISSAL OF SAINT PIUS V

Benedict XVI cites this in paragraph 3, recalling with admiration and gratitude "the orderly development of the ritual forms" in which the Mass was celebrated (and still is) until the liturgical reform of Vatican Council II, "whose riches are yet to be fully explored". And he observes: "Concretely, the changes which the Council called for need to be understood within the overall unity of the historical development of the rite itself, without the introduction of artificial discontinuities."

The rejection of these “artificial discontinuities” – according to what the pope said to the Roman curia on December 22, 2005, in the address he gave on the correct interpretation of the Council, which is cited in the footnotes of this apostolic exhortation – is one of the reasons that, for Joseph Ratzinger, justify the continued use of the Tridentine Rite.

Afternoon of Prayer this Saturday

Ken sends me details of a Lenten afternoon of prayer with consecration to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary at Westminster Cathedral, this Saturday 17 March, 2-4.30pm; led by Mgr Keith Barltrop and Fr Anthony Doe.

If you have a chance to attend, I can promise you that these two excellent priests will provide you with some worthwhile and spiritually enriching input.

Damien Thompson on Sacramentum Caritatis

Damien Thompson has drawn my attention in the combox to his Daily Telegraph blog in which he has commented on Sacramentum Caritatis (Pope calls for Latin revival). He is entertainingly disparaging about the "bloody press office – or "communications network", as they have the nerve to call it."

He speaks of the document in a very positive tone:

The Pope's document, by the way, is a dazzling summary of Catholic teaching on the Eucharist - and a warning to clapped-out liberals that they need to improve the standards of worship. Oh, and Benedict wants more Latin in services.

Then comes something of a sting in the tail:

Not what the Left-wing apparatchiks at the Bishop's Conference wanted to hear. Hence, presumably, no press release – something that Catholics might want to bear in mind next time the plate is passed round for "Communications Sunday".

To be honest, there is nothing in the post with which I (and many other priests I know) could not heartily concur.

Sacramentum Caritatis

The picture shows the Holy Father signing the post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Sacramentum Caritatis which was presented at a Press Conference earlier today.

For instant comment, I recommend:

• Amy Wellborn's Open Book
• Gerald Augustinus The Cafeteria is Closed
• What Does the Prayer Really Say by Fr John Zuhlsdorf who was present at the press conference.

I'm away from home at the moment so I'll have to read it and digest it later.

Charities Act and the secularist agenda

As part of the exercise of implementing the new "public benefit" test for charities, the Charities Commission commissioned Opinion Leader to conduct research reported in Public Perceptions of Public Benefit. Under the heading "Approach", we are told,

The chosen method was a one-day Citizens’ Forum involving 51 people. A Citizens’ Forum is a unique approach which combines qualitative techniques with deliberation to enable citizens to give informed opinions and recommendations on complex issues.

While this is not a quantitative exercise, and the findings are indicative rather than conclusive, there were a number of common themes coming from different table discussions and a high level of consensus and consistency which lends weight to the findings and provide a firm foundation for the conclusions reached in this report.

That sounds a whole lot like the "discussion group" approach that is so tried and tested as a means of "modernising" institutions of various types in order to fit a pre-determined agenda. Once you have people in groups, peer pressure ensures that the overall result will be a statement of what is generally perceived to be accepted opinion.

The weighty, firm, high level, consistent consensus (only indicative, mind you) was that:

Some people perceive that receiving spiritual guidance is a benefit itself to followers of a religion. However, the inherent benefits of promoting religion are questioned by those who do not have religious beliefs. There is a general concern about the amount of public benefit provided by charities that only engage with a particular religious community especially given current concerns about community cohesion.

Actually, no. The still substantial proportion of the UK population that attend Christian Churches would not perceive religious charities simply in terms of "spiritual guidance." Christians in the UK give nine time more to charity than the average and they generally understand that religion contributes to the public benefit not only in terms of material and observable results but also in the improvement of the individual and therefore of society.

Nor do most people without religious beliefs necessarily question the amount of public benefit provided by religious charities. Many atheists and agnostics accept that religion is basically a good thing and helps the community. The TV-induced delusion that religion has "caused all the wars" evaporates in the face of the benefits that Churches bring to their local communities.

Then consider this rider to the above quotation:

Participants felt that there was a need for charities for the promotion of religion to reach out to the wider community, without proselytizing to them.

Where on earth did that word "proselytizing" come from? Would it not be more honest simply to say that religious charities should not be involved in preaching the gospel? In the modern UK with its increasing "dictatorship of relativism", you may preach about healthy eating, non smoking, global warming, and recycling. But the teaching of Christ - that's proselytizing.

Christians in the UK should be aware that the new legal requirement for religious charities to prove that they offer a material "public benefit" betrays a dogmatic secularism that denies the value of religious faith in itself. The London-based anti-religious clique that is directing public policy would like to see religious charities judged solely in terms of material results because they hate our Christian moral teaching. This is essentially what the new Charities Act is about: it is just one more step in the implacable secularist agenda of modern Britain.

Prayer no longer charitable in the UK

Last weekend's Catholic Herald has an interesting article about the changes that have recently been made to Charities Law in the UK and a recent Consultation on Draft Public Benefit Guidance that has been criticised by Neville Kyrke Smith of Aid to the Church in Need.

The principal change to the law (given Royal Assent last November, and coming into force in early 2008) was described succinctly by the Chair of the Charities Commission, Suzi Leather, in an article for the Guardian, "Running with the hares" viz.

"For the first time in 400 years of charity legislation, the law will explicitly require those charities that advance education, religion or relieve poverty to demonstrate that they deliver public benefit."

The Herald article referred to her recent remarks on Radio 4's Sunday programme:

"For completely closed religious communities which have no contact with the outside world, it will be very difficult for them to retain charitable status"

There is also an airy comment that "Prayer by itself" would not be enough to secure charitable status. This rules out contemplative religious houses. They are set to lose their tax-exempt status and the possibility of Gift Aid tax refunds on donations made to them.

In the case of chrities that relieve poverty, they will presumably be of benefit to the public if they can show that they relieve poverty. In the case of religious charities, clearly it is not going to be enough to show that they do in fact advance religion (by, for example, praying.) They will have to prove that some other public benefit is achieved.

Leather is keen to stress her impartiality towards religious organisations. In the Guardian article, she drops in a hint of distance from "secularists, who want to remove charitable status from religious organisations."

Catholics may wonder about her impartiality in their regard, however. She was until recently the Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). In the New Year's Honours list for last year, she was made a Dame of the British Empire for "services to the regulation of infertility treatment and embryo research."

Antonia Bance, labour councillor for Rose Hill and Iffley ward in Oxford reported on the honours list, applauding various awards. She was particularly pleased because

"Suzy Leather has a reliable way of winding up the anti-choice and anti-gay brigade at the HFEA"

In 2004, Leather said that it was "anachronistic for the law to include the statement about the child's need for a father" because this discriminated against single and lesbian women. Whilst at the HFEA, she was also a member of the UK Stem Cell Bank Steering Committee and a member of the International Advisory Board of the 6th EU Framework Programme for Research and Technology - Participatory, Governance and Institutional Innovation Project (PAGANINI)

She is also a member of the Christian Socialist Movement which runs an annual Tawney Memorial Lecture. Professor R H Tawney's best known work is the brilliant collection of essays "Religion and the Rise of Capitalism" written in 1926. Tawney showed that the Reformation, and particularly the dissolution of the monasteries, destroyed the fabric of social care in society which had been a part of Catholic society and replaced it with a naturalistic approach to what had previously been considered religious obligations. As a result, the care of the poor was left in the hands of the state and voluntary organisations.

It is ironic that Dame Leather mentions the "400 years" during which religion has been presumed to be of public benefit. The dropping of that presumption is a distant echo of the project of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Obnoxiously Pious

I did laugh out loud when I saw the link to this blog in my sitemeter stats:

Obnoxiously Pious

It's a new trad English blog - worth a heads-up for the title alone but also looking like a good addition to the Catholic UK blogosphere.

More on global warming "hysteria"

LifeSite News reports today on a speech given by the Czech President. The article begins:

The general appreciation for taking care of the earth's resources, of being stewards of creation is being exploited to drive a political and even mythological system of environmentalism. The President of the Czech Republic spoke at the Cato Institute Friday calling "environmentalism" a "religion", and warning against the hysteria being generated by 'global warming' enthusiasts.

"All of us are very much in favour of maximum environmental protection and protection of nature," said President Vaclav Klaus during a follow-up interview for a Cato podcast. "But it has nothing in common with environmentalism, which is ideological and practically attacking our freedom."

Read the full article

There was also an article in yesterday's Sunday Telegraph, Scientists threatened for 'climate denial', reporting on death threats issued to global warming deniers.

Addai and Mari - more

A couple of people have asked for more information about the article by Fr Lang on the Anaphora of Addai and Mari. The article was entitled "Eucharist without institution narrative? The anaphora of Addai and Mari revisited" and was written in the 2004 edition of the journal Divinitas published at the Vatican. (Source and online ordering information.)

There was a notice about the article in the German kreuz.net:
Das Rätsel der Liturgie von Addai und Mari.

I understand that Fr Lang may be intending to publish this material more widely in due course.

Catching up

Last Thursday, Bishop Pat Lynch visited the parish to administer the sacrament of Confirmation to 37 candidates from the parish. After Holy Communion, we sang the hymn "Guardian Angel from heaven so bright" as Mulier Fortis mentioned the other day. I was pleasantly surprised at the number of enthusiastic comments that I received afterwards about this hymn from young parents who had never heard it before.

The Confirmation preparation is a major enterprise for us. Although we have excellent catechists who do the main teaching work, I always begin the sessions with some prayers and a little talk. With groups held on two evenings, that does clog the diary up a bit and it is a relief to have some more time. There are a great many things on my desk that I need to catch up on...

At Wonersh today, my class is almost through the theology of the sacrament of Holy Orders. The essay deadline is near and we are beginning some revision for the exam. A visit to the computer room in the late afternoon finds several students looking for information on the Apostolic Exhortation to be published tomorrow. They are setting up bookmarks to refresh the relevant Vatican page periodically until the text is available online.

Fr Sean Coyle

Fr Sean Coyle recently posted a comment on the importance of our respect for the integrity of creation. This was in response to my rather flippant post about the Tablet's characterisation of global warming denial as morally wrong. George has also posted a good comment - he makes the case that although global warming is a fact, it is not caused by CO2 emissions.

Fr Sean tells the sad story of how 5000 people died in Ormoc City, Philippines in flash floods probably caused by people filling the dried up streams with rubbish during the dry season. He also points to God's blessing of the work of Louis Pasteur and of those who eradicated the London smogs.

You can find more about Fr Sean and his work over at Misyon online.

Latin used as a sacred language

Fr Nicholas Schofield had an interesting post the other day (Sacred Language) reporting on a talk given by Fr Michael Lang (left) to the Giffard Club.

From the post:

Fr Lang spoke of the importance of sacral languages, which are, by their nature, ‘conservative’ and different from everyday spoken languages. The important point was made that, when the liturgical language of the Roman Rite changed from Greek to Latin in the early centuries, this was not an example of vernacularisation (as the likes of Bishop Trautman have claimed) – the aim was not to make the liturgy more understandable. After all, those speaking Gothic or Punic would not have found a Latin liturgy more ‘accessible,’ and the Latin that was used was highly stylised (see the structure of the collects, for example).

I understand that the material for the lecture may be published as a book in due course. This would be another major contribution from Fr Lang to the current liturgical debate. He has written on the question of facing eastward for the celebration of the Mass ("Turning Towards the Lord" - Ignatius). He has also written questioning the received view of the Anaphora of Addai and Mari which presents it as an ancient example of a "Eucharistic Prayer" which does not include the words of consecration.

Global warning denial: the eternal consequences

Do you "gamble with the survivability of the planet" on the basis of your doubts about global warming? Then you're in danger of being warmed up globally - in hellfire! According to the Tablet, such gambling is "gravely sinful" and global warming denial is "morally wrong". (As we all know, if you die in a state of grave sin, you go straight down the 'ot place. - cf. CCC 1035)

Tablet: Editorial, 10 March 2007 "Ethics of Global Warming" for those who get the print edition (I don't.) Article 9460 for online subscribers (I'm not.)

I was alerted to this fearful consequence of political incorrectness by an email I received with the text of a letter sent to the editor of Junkscience.com.

Dear JunkScience.com,

You may be interested to know that the Tablet, an "international Catholic weekly" of liberal bent, has declared that presuming against man-made global warming in favour of development is "gravely sinful", and that denial of global warming is "morally wrong"! And this is from a journal which regularly resists papal infallibility and attacks the Church for its condemnations of moral evils!

Yours,

Anthony Ozimic
London

More on global warming from JunkScience.com - "all the junk that's fit to debunk."

Now I must compose an article setting out the arguments in favour of gradualism and proportionalism for global warming deniers. In a given life situation, global warming denial may be the only realistic option for a person trapped in the cycle of hypothesis, evidence, testing, peer review and re-evaluation. In their circumstances, surely, global warming denial can be seen as a step on the way to a fuller understanding of the environment?

Requests to edit comments

Occasionally, people ask me to edit a comment they have made (usually to cut something out). Sometimes, it is possible to copy a whole comment and then re-post it without losing the sequence of comments - but I can't log in to someone else's ID if they have used a blogger ID.

So please - if you just want to send me a "not for publication" message, please put it in a separate comment that can simply be deleted in its entirety.

The other day, I saw a hack which enables you to edit blogger comments. I might well get round to implementing this. Sometimes, a comment is worth posting but has to be rejected because of one sentence or phrase that is unacceptable.

(BTW if you want a quick way to email me, you can always use the email icon at the bottom of a post. You will end up sending me a copy of my own post as well as your message but I don't mind that. I get quite enough spam already so I don't put the email address as text on the blog.)

Catholic London - what to visit?

A commenter has asked for advice on what to visit in Catholic London. My own top five (off the top of my head) would be:

• The London Oratory
• Tyburn Convent
• Westminster Cathedral
• The Tower of London and Tower Hill
• The National Gallery

(The last because of the superb collection of Christian art.)

Feel free to add your own suggestions in the combox...

You've seen "Neighbourhood Watch" - now try "Liturgy Watch"!

There is a funny post over at Alive and Young: From the Pontifical Office of the Liturgical Police: Liturgy Watch. "Fr Ronson" is quoted as questioning the need for "extraordinary dancing" in the liturgy. The initiative comes complete with car park signs, bulletin inserts and educational materials.

Portugese Carthusian video

Hat tip to The Muniment Room for this video of the Portugese Carthusians at Évora. Ttony gives the link to the Portugese blog A Casa de Sarto which posted the video and translates their text for us:

"The Charterhouse of Évora: expelled in 1834 by Jacobin revolutionarism, the Carthusians returned to their Portuguese home in 1960."

The voiceover on the video clip is Portugese but the scenes from Carthusian life are worth watching.

Magister on Archbishop Bagnasco

Many thanks to Luke Gormally who pointed me in the direction of Sandro Magister's column today. Magister offers a thoughtful and well-informed analysis of the appointment of Archbishop Bagnasco as the head of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI) which we reported on Wednesday.

He says that Bagnasco is loyal to his predecessor, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, and is fully committed to the mission of Pope Benedict to "restore full citizenship to the Christian faith." The article contains plenty of information about Bagnasco himself, his humble background, his experience of teaching philosophy and his good work as military archbishop for Italy. In that post, he gave the gospels and the Catechism to Italian soldiers throughout the world. Magister is also a magisterial "Vaticanista" and he offers insights into the process of appointment. As with many such Italian journalists, we are left wondering how on earth he got his information but fairly sure, given his track record, that it is likely to be accurate.

Magister points particularly to the dialogue between the Pope, Cardinal Ruini and the atheist philosopher Jürgen Habermas whom Magister describes as

a proponent of an alliance between secular reason and religion, against the “defeatism” that modern scientism harbors within itself.

In this weekend's Catholic Herald, Clifford Longley has a letter concerning the article written by John Allen about British religious journalism. (See John Allen on the British Press) He says that Allen is "guilty of misreporting too" because his attack is based mainly on one piece of journalism. He goes on to give his own view of the Gledhill article: the fair and sober character of his critique makes it all the more telling.

Reading Magister today, it struck me that his article could be taken as a model of good religious journalism. He writes with detachment, conveys good deal of of accurate, publicly available information, includes some nuggets from his own carefully nurtured sources, and offers an intelligent, theologically aware analysis.

Magister's article: The Bishops of Italy Have a New Leader: Angelo Bagnasco

Don't let's upset the persecuting Chinese commie persons

(The Catholic Caveman might be able to suggest an alternative for the word "persons" in the above title.)

Edmund has given me a fascinating link comparison in the combox. The exercise involves searching Google images using the word "Tiananmen".

First of all, try the UK Google:
(www.google.co.uk/images?q=tiananmen)

Click image to enlarge

Then try the China Google:
(www.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen)

Click image to enlarge

Well fancy that!

Church eradication manual (Chinese commies)

The Cardinal Kung Foundation also has a most fascinating document from the Donglai Township Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, entitled "The Procedures Legally to Implement the Eradication of Illegal Activities/Operations of the Underground Catholic Church." One of the basic principles is:

Use the strategy of "Conversion Through Re-Education, Disintegration, Unification of the Majority and Attacking the Individuals"

The whole three phase process (preparation, implementation, consolidation) was structured as an action plan with timed targets from November 1996 to June 1997. In the implementation phase, one of the targets was to break up the underground religious influence by the following measures:

B.II.4.c.i) Uniting the majority through education,
B.II.4.c.ii) Isolating and attacking the extremist,
B.II.4.c.iii) Developing overall education,
B.II.4.c.iv) Organizing specialists, and
B.II.4.c.v) Using any other conceivable means.

With the exception of the few stubborn and core members (of the underground Catholic Church) who must be prosecuted according to law, the remainder will be indoctrinated by education. Persistent effort should be applied to convince the believers to obey the government and no longer to join illegal religious activities. Settle those who join legal religious activities and provide them with a suitable assembly place.

The document shows a good understanding of the use of propaganda and the manipulation of public opinion:

Political matters should be treated as non-political ones while the problems of religious character should be so solved as non-religious ones. Do not agitate the already conflicting situation; thereby irritating the restless factors and causing very serious social disturbances as the result of erroneous problem management.

Part of the fascination with this document is seeing some faint echoes in some developments in public policy in our own country.

Let me be clear: I do not want for a moment to belittle the suffering of the Chinese Catholics of the underground Church. If we were to meet some of these heroic faithful and talk about persecution, it would be embarrassing if they said to us enthusiastically "Yeah, the beatings were pretty awful - I thought I was going to give in when I started vomiting blood. How did you block it out? We used to try to think of the Passion of Christ..." No - we might talk about "persecution" but we need to do so with great humility and respect for the suffering Catholics over there.

But I'm sure they would be screaming at us to see how important it is for us to use our freedom to resist:

• The attempt to treat religious matters as non-religious
• The drive to isolate "extremists"
• The use of education as a tool for Government propaganda
• The acceptance of state aid for compromise solutions

And, of course, we must pray earnestly for our Chinese Catholic brothers and sisters. Here is a picture of the mosaic illustrating the Union of Prayers for the Persecuted Church in China:

Almighty and eternal God, Comforter of the afflicted, and Strength of the suffering, grant that our brothers of China who share our faith, may obtain, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of our holy Martyrs, peace in Thy service, strength in time of trial, and the grace to glorify Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

And here is the picture of Our Lady of China approved by Pope Pius XI in 1928:

Our Lady of China, pray for us

Light bulb joke (Chinese commies)

The picture below and its caption bring to mind a joke told to me by a former member of the Socialist Worker Party here in England. We can adapt it to the current topic.

How many vanguard fighters of the Chinese working class with communist consciousness does it take to change a light bulb?

Change? You capitalistic roader and enemy of the four modernisations! You must SMASH the light bulb and BUILD a new one.

"We'll destroy old world and build new."
(Commie smashes crucifix, buddha and classical chinese texts)

China block update

This blog can be accessed from China now - it must have been a temporary glitch. So before the "vanguard fighters of the Chinese working class with communist consciousness" do block us, here are some key words to look up if you want to fulfil the second basic demand for the building of the party, "adhere to the principle of emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts":

Great leap forward
38 million dead in famine
One child policy
Tiananmen ...

To emancipate the mind further, you could "seek the truth from facts" courtesy of the Cardinal Kung Foundation by asking yourself "What has happened to the following?"

Bishop SU Zhimin
Bishop AN Shuxin
Bishop HAN Dingxiang
Bishop SHI Enxiang
Father Liu SHAO-Zhang
Father WANG Jinling
Mr. WANG Chengun
Mr. MA Yongjiang
Pingtan parish, Fuzhou diocese, Fujian

Information about the above and many more.

Blocked by China

Yeeeessss! I've been blocked by China. What an honour! Find out if you've been blocked at the Great Firewall of China.

Maybe it was that post Your home will be destroyed and your cows taken away if you don't abort.

(It could be a false alarm, however. I'll have to double check in a couple of days in case it is simply a network problem somewhere.)

Bagnasco appointed President of CEI

Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco has been appointed to succeed Cardinal Camillo Ruini as president of the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI). The announcement was made today but was predicted exactly (with the day of hte announcement) by Il Foglio and by Marco Tosatti in La Stampa (H/T Rorate Caeli.)

Bagnasco was appointed as Archbishop of Genoa in August last year to succeed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone who became Secretary of State at the Vatican. He is 64, was ordained in 1966, made Bishop of Pesaro in 1998, Archbishop in 2000, and was military ordinary for Italy from 2003-2006.

The process of this appointment has been the focus of controversy in Italy. Watch for further news of how this appointment will affect things.

Quoted on LifeSite

LifeSite, based in Toronto, is an excellent source of information for pro-life news and stories related to the Church's moral teaching. I was pleased (and honoured) to be quoted extensively in a story by Hilary White on Monday: UK: Religious Schools May Not Teach Christian Sexual Morals "As if They Were Objectively True".

I try to make sure that writing this blog does not take up too much of my time. However, seeing material publicised internationally for the good of the Church and in support of her teaching makes it a very worthwhile thing to do. This kind of informal publishing is a real opportunity to fight back against the negative portrayal of the Church and her teaching in the mainstream media.

Saint blogs (and Islam)

John Vondra from Needles, California has a whole collection of blogs of saints (see the list at his profile), including English speaking saints and martyrs and Chinese saints and martyrs. He also has a blog The Rise of Islam with historically informative posts (and more saints from the period.) His main blog (I think!) is Catholics and Cons.

Seminary gives witness

The University of Minnesota is currently staging the communist Dario Fo's play The Pope and the Witch. For background information, there is a good report at Catholic Online News: ‘Pope and Witch’ draws Catholic protests. The play is a mouthpiece for the usual evil anti-Catholic spleen (delusional Pope, Vatican involved in drugs trade, starving orphans protest against the Church's moral teaching, blah blah blah, you get the picture.)

Adoro te Devote from Minneapolis, who often comments on this blog, has a moving account of a Holy Protest against the play last weekend. She describes that feeling many of us have known when involved in a public protest: we wonder how people will react, worry about our small numbers, grit our teeth and chase away those thoughts that tell us to be sensible and go home. On this occasion, the cavalry arrived: 100 seminarians from St John Vianney Seminary, Minnesota, some dressed in white choir (cassock and surplice) to sing hymns and pray the Rosary.

Fr Zuhlsdorf, is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota. He wrote to them suggesting that they report themselves to their own Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. This Office states:

"PLEASE LET US KNOW if you, someone you know, or a group within our university community, has experienced bias, discrimination or hostility. We are concerned about incidents based on race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, gender identification, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status and/or sexual orientation. The University of Minnesota is ready and willing to provide support, and address disrespectful bias and discrimination within our community. We need to know what happens and how often, so that we can respond and help those who are targeted. By reporting incidents, you become part of the solution."

I wait with bated breath to see the mental gymnastics and squirming that enables the University to say that Dario Fo's play is not an example of "disrespectful bias" against Catholics. Perhaps these equal opportunities statements that are now so common in the UK and US are going to have to include "except Catholics" somewhere in the text.

Adoro Te remarked on the power of the group of men singing together. Their seminary Rector, Fr William Baer, had some fine words about singing:

At the Seminary, I teach the men that singing in the Scriptures is often associated with victory in battle. In particular, the "new song" of the Psalms and, especially, of the Exodus, is no willowy, but a triumphal song following the LORD's victory over the Egyptians and other opponents. Mary's Magnificat is a victory song, acclaiming God's triumph in raising the lowly, including His lowly handmaid, to glory, while casting down the proud and powerful of this world. In heaven the martyrs and saints will sing a new song, "the Song of Moses and the Song of the Lamb."

The seminary website is interesting reading and has some good articles on priestly formation.

Hit spike

I noticed a hit spike today on sitemeter and took a little look under the bonnet to see what was happening. Two recommendations in one day - and from causes that nobody could mistake for politically correct.

The Catholic Caveman, a retired sergeant from the US Marine Corps heralds this blog as "From the land of St. Thomas More, Shakespeare and jellied eels." The Lair of the Catholic Caveman has the amusing subtitle: "The Car Crash of Blogs. You Don't Want To, But You Just Can't Help But Look."

There was also a tiny little entry in the news links sidebar of The Remnant referring to the Close the schools as well? post. That has generated 465 page views from 267 visitors today. Michael Davies, a great friend of my father, was a longstanding contributor to the Remnant. I had the privilege to assist as subdeacon at his Requiem Mass at St Mary's Chislehurst. Michael Matt, the editor of the Remnant, has a fine tribute to him: Michael Davies. In memoriam, with some additional articles.

Redemptoris Mater chapel

One liturgical "rule" that is sometimes urged against traditionalists is that we should celebrate Mass as the Pope does. As a "rule" it can be turned as a useful pointer to what is definitely not prohibited.

Liturgists who said that you should not say the Rosary during the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, or that you had to say the Divine Praises before the Benediction was given, had to go quiet when both of these things started happening routinely in St Peter's. A little known but delightful example was told to me by a priest friend from the latter days of Pope John Paul II. Unable to celebrate the academic Mass, the Pope was seen to attend and say the Rosary during Mass.

The New Liturgical Movement has a most interesting post that offers a similar "Who says we can't?" opportunity. The Redemptoris Mater chapel was consecrated in 2005. It is used by the Holy Father for the annual retreats and for spiritual conferences in Advent and Lent. Have a careful look at this recent photo which shows the chapel as arranged under Pope Benedict:

That is indeed a tabernacle on the altar. If it is not obvious from that detail, other pictures at the NLM's post asking if it is a barometer of the liturgical shift show that the altar is clearly set up for celebration of Mass ad orientem.

Post-synodal document 13 March

From the Vatican Information Service today:

PRESENTATION OF POST-SYNODAL DOCUMENT ON THE EUCHARIST

VATICAN CITY, MAR 6, 2007 (VIS) - In the Holy See Press Office at 11.30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 13, the presentation will take place of the post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation "Sacramentum Caritatis" on the Eucharist, source and summit of the life and mission of the Church. Participating in the press conference will be Cardinal Angelo Scola, patriarch of Venice, Italy, relator general of the 11th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which was held in October 2005, and Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops.

The Italian language announcement confirms that the document will be available to accredited journalists from 9am on 13 March, under embargo until midday the same day.

Hat tip to David, the Man with the Black Hat.

The dictatorship of relativism

On Friday, I posted about the sixth report of the JCHR on the legislative scrutiny of the Sexual Orientation Regulations. (Close the schools as well?) I commented particularly on the proposal that faith schools should not be allowed to use "a curriculum which teaches a particular religion’s doctrinal beliefs as if they were objectively true."

I am glad to say that the post has attracted quite a lot of follow-up across the internet and a larger than usual number of comments. It is important that we realise that this is a direct attack on the right of Catholics to educate their children in the Catholic faith. Naturally, some of the follow-up comments have focussed on the issue of homosexuality itself. CPKS has posted an excellent comment on the central issue of the attack on doctrinal truth. It is too good to leave in the combox:

The sexual aspect may seem important, but we really do need to look where this is going.

The essential issue, which Fr Tim highlighted to begin with and several other commentators have not missed, is that there are people in power who want to prevent educators teaching any religious faith (let alone the finer points of christian sexual ethics) as if it were true.

The more we oppose these people on specific issues, the more we will be seen as fighting our particular corner - as one small interest group pursuing our own agenda.

Instead, we should identify, from their own writings, what is the true goal of these people who seek to control us and the way we educate our children. We should expose this agenda for what it is.

When people object to things being taught as if they were true, they are proposing that children should be brought up with the idea that there are a number of competing world-views out there on the supermarket shelves, like rival brands of baked beans, and that it is OK to view them as competitors in some kind of market for "mind share"; maybe it's OK (they seem to say) to prefer one brand or another. Maybe baked beans are bad for you. It's for the consumer to choose. It's a free market.

This not pseudo-relativism. This is not nineteen-sixties hey-anything-goes. This is hard, didactic relativism.

What if you don't happen to like relativism? Hitherto, we have had faith schools in which we have been able to put forward an alternative view. It seems that this is about to end. After all, these people are not academics or thinkers or journalists or broadcasters. These are members of a parliamentary committee. These people are legislators, and their blood is up.

We should not be in the smallest degree surprised. We were warned about this a couple of years ago by a prominent Christian thinker who at the time coined a memorable phrase: the "dictatorship of relativism".

But it was not just an inspired phrase, an arresting idea. No, this prophecy has become true even as we hear it. This is real, literal relativism, and if there are legislators behind it - and there are - it is going to be a real, literal dictatorship.

Levada interview

Cardinal Levada has given an interview for the Belgian MO* (Mondiaal Nieuws). there is a summary of the interview on their website but the full text is available only to subscribers (presumably in Flemish.) The blog "Ego Adsum" gives a lengthy report with comment.

Asked about the Church recognising the mistakes of the past, he said,

"I am not anymore responsible for the crusades than atheists are responsible for what Hitler or Stalin did."

and added

"And, as a matter of fact, Pope John Paul II did recognize those mistakes in the past. But it becomes a bit strange when the Church, time and again is denied credibility to speak up against violence by refering to the crusades."

One passage in his remarks has been the focus of delight for the Tablet:

"We believe that the apostles and their successors received the mission to interpret revelation in new circumstances and in the light of new challenges. That creates a living tradition that is much larger than the simple and strict passing of existing answers, insights and convictions from one generation to another."

It should be noted that he goes on to say,

"But at the end of the day there has to be an instance that can decide whether a specific lifestyle is coherent with the principles and values of our faith, that can judge whether our actions are in accordance with the commandment to love your neighbor. The mission of the Church is not to prohibit people from thinking, investigate different hypotheses, or collect knowledge. Its mission is to give those processes orientation."

However, I think that the Tablet are not by any means going beyond the bounds of legitimate interpretation when they read more into the interview. Vatican Cardinals know very well that the slightest hint will be taken up in the press and there do seem to be some fairly obvious hints here.

Sandro Magister, in his post Tarcisio Bertone, the Cardinal Who Was Supposed to Help the Pope has referred to a "war of succession" for the presidency of the Italian bishops’ conference. At Rome it does often seem as though "The Church is Italy and Italy is the Church." However, there may indeed be an ideological "war" going on in Rome where there is more at stake than the presidency of the Italian Bishops' Conference. Cardinal Levada seems to be nailing his own colours to the mast. The Holy Father is obviously in a difficult position: we must pray for him to be given guidance by the Holy Spirit.

This is not intended as a pious generality. In the case of a bad Pope, Cajetan pointed out that prayer is not a general remedy but a specific remedy: an appeal to his immediate superior. In the case of a good and holy Pope such as our own, when we pray for him to receive divine assistance, it is the proper and specific means of supporting him.

Template rebuilt

Well it didn't quite take all night. But I'm happy to have changed the template over and managed to keep in all the essential things that were in the old version. The key to this is backing up the old template and then using bits of it in the new one. (Some non-essentials have been pruned.) I haven't yet worked out all the expressions in the new style template but have got my head round the idea of the variable definitions at the top of the template. Not sure I like them all that much - I am happier just putting in the CSS as and when - the variables seem to be used all over the place for non-obvious purposes - like when the date title gets put in the border colour. Anyway, I think that the look and feel is OK to start with.

When I get another chance to tinker, I might try some of the ideas on sites like the Blogger Hacks Wiki, the Hackosphere and Freshblog.

I'd like to sort out the blogroll a bit - put in some categories and headings - which can be done easily enough with Blogroll itself by sorting the entries into different blogrolls and then posting them with appropriate headings.

Changing template

For the first time in ages, I have a relatively quiet day tomorrow so I will leave the piles of stuff on my desk with a clear conscience and get down to a job that is way overdue. Although I am on the new version of blogger, I have not yet changed over my template. I really want some of the bells and whistles that go with the new one so I'm turning to it now. Here was Pope Benedict's reaction:

Hehe. He'll be up all night trying to fix it :-)

L-Mart. Your Lent Superstore

Having been a bit busy over the last week, I haven't kept up too well with my favourite blogs but I have had a little time this evening after returning from Parkminster. I have missed this brilliant post: Curt Jester's L-Mart.

Get your Stations of the Cross viewmaster (for parishes with abstract stations), your Yuck Spice (if you enjoy seafood, or are a vegetarian, and want to do penance) and much more.

Motu proprio rumours hot up again

Ecce Agnus Dei has a post with news of a visit from the Committee for Liturgical Peace of Rheims diocese. They went to see Mgr Perl at the Ecclesia Dei commission to talk about how the diocese has no approved Classical Rite Masses.

They also say that the Motu Proprio will be out before Easter and give some indication of its contents, viz.

1. Any priest wishing to say the Tridentine Mass will be able to do so privately.

2. Any group of faithful attached to the Rite of Saint Pie V will be able to go to see the pastor of his parish or a priest of his town to request this Rite of him. The priest will be able to accept [the request to celebrate] without referring to his bishop about it.

3. If the priest and other diocesan priests, do not want to celebrate in "the old rite", they will be able to accomodate any priest from a [traditional] community [of religious, e.g., FSSP]wishing to do so.

4. If a group of faithful requests the Rite of rite known as of saint Pie V, but cannot find any priest, nor a place, nor a [member of a religious] community, being able to respond to their wishes; this group will be able to write to the Commission Ecclesia Dei which will work to find a solution, a priest, or a community [member].[The article ends by commenting that if their local bishop is ignoring them, at least the Holy Father is doing something about it].

I know, I know - in fact, the Catholic Caveman has put it quite well in the combox:

"And we can all pray to God that this is the real thing, and we won't get snake bit again."

H/T to Fr Z.

Gregorian chant, silence and ... the altar bell

There is an article by Fr Nicola Bux and Fr Salvatore Vitello on Agenzia Fides called Gregorian Chant, silence and … the Altar Bell. The text has suffered a little in translation but they make some very good points in a brief article. Sample:

The Liturgical Celebration must have a homogenous phonic balance and therefore in chant and prayer a soft voice is best, it is consonant to the attitude of humility and discretion which we should have before God. Hence the need to avoid tones which are "shouted" and to use instead quieter tones proper to prayer in ‘secret’ (cfr. Mt 6,5).

I met Frs Bux and Vitello last April in Rome, when they were staying at the Domus Romana Sacerdotalis. Quite by chance, I happened to be there for the launch the Italian translation of Fr Michael Lang's book "Turning Towards the Lord" which they were organising.

Post on the launch
Picture
Address of Archbishop Ranjith

Southwark parishes

I used to be responsible for the website of the Archdiocese of Southwark. I was quite pleased with the design and the fact that the html was tightly written. However I was quite hopeless at keeping it updated and the one thing that everyone really wanted as a directory of parishes - obviously.

Looking at the website the other day, I found that a Parish Directory this has now been provided on the website by the new team - and very good looking it is too.

A new picture for the sidebar?

This was drawn during the 10.30am Mass this morning. I think it is a cubist interpretation of the biretta. It gave me the idea of starting a competition for a suitable picture for the sidebar :-)

SPUC Students' Conference

A trip to Oxford is always a delight for me. There are so many happy memories that come flooding back as soon as the bus reaches St Clements. Today saw the SPUC University Students' Conference which was held at the Catholic Chaplaincy. I was asked to speak on "Bioethics and the Philosophy of the Pro-Life Movement." I chose to focus particularly on the British philosophical tradition and trace the influences, especially of utilitarianism and the mistaken concept of liberty which have led to our present moral and legal mess in which the sanctity of human life is trampled upon. I looked briefly at some of the more pressing bioethical questions such as the personhood of the embryo and the morality of artificial reproduction. I spoke a little on the focus of Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict on the question of rationality in moral debate; the Church being now the leading promoter of human reason in such matters as opposed to basing morality on sentiment or popular consensus.

Anthony McCarthy of the Linacre Centre gave a fine summary of the state of the law on euthanasia, drawing lessons especially from Holland and exploring questions such as acts and omissions and the misuse of the principle of double effect.

Alison Davies spoke in the afternoon, giving a cogent and persuasive description of the way in which disabled people are treated in our legislation as though they are less worthy of life than others who are assumed to be "perfect." Although I have heard the statistics before, it was striking to be reminded that 95% of people with spina bifida and 90% of people with Downs Syndrome are killed before birth in our country.

Richard Marsden (Bashing Secularism) shared his experience of practical pro-life work at university and the discussion that followed was very helpful in sharing ideas for action. The "Freshers Fair" was identified as a key opportunity for students to publicise pro-life work and build the pro-life presence at university. There was some sensible discussion of how best to deal with the sometimes violent opposition that pro-life students face. Ideas were shared about how to engage in the intellectual debate on pro-life issues and how to encourage Muslim students to become involved in pro-life work.

Off the top of my head, I can remember meeting students from Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Glasgow, Dundee, Dover and Hull. I was very glad to have been able to join them and to spend the day at this most encouraging conference.

A day off

This week has been quite busy in the parish. The Funeral of Mrs Sheehan on Tuesday was edifying with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren gathered from across the globe. She had a particular devotion to St Oliver Plunkett so I was glad to bring in some reflection on his life in the homily. On Thursday we had the funeral of a five month old baby, Ellie whose short life was a great gift to all those who cared for her. Ellie had been baptised in hospital so it was lovely to celebrate Mass with white vestments and affirm our certainty that she is in heaven with all the saints.

The parish is also in top gear now preparing for our Confirmations next week. We have 39 young people aged 12-13 preparing to receive the sacrament and it will be the first visit of Bishop Pat Lynch to the parish for Confirmation.

People are taking up my suggestion from a sermon a few weeks back that I would always be happy to go to bless houses in the parish. I find that this is a good way to do some purposeful visiting of families. Wednesday saw the meeting of Bexley Council at which this year as "Mayor's Chaplain" I lead the prayers. There were civic awards presented to various local people who have been nominated for recognition of their voluntary service to the community.

After Rosary and Benediction on Thursday, I led the RCIA meeting on the subject of the virtues and vices as presented in the excellent programme Evangelium and on Friday, before the Confirmation rehearsal, we had our weekly lenten Stations of the Cross. This is a devotion that I really love. It is simple, direct and moving, especially with the two schemes of meditation provided in the old Manual of Prayers. The first is St Alphonsus but I am not sure whether the second is also. It certainly bears the same character.

All of this has left me too little time to finish off properly my lecture at the SPUC University Students' Conference but God is good and the lecture went down well. Today was something of a "Day off" in that I made an exception and went away from the parish on a Saturday. Fr Charles Briggs said my morning Latin Mass, heard confessions and gave Benediction while I took an early bus to Oxford.

Close the schools as well?

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has published its sixth report: Legislative Scrutiny: Sexual Orientation Regulations. (pdf) If the recommendations of the Committee are accepted, it is difficult to see how Catholic schools could continue in Britain. Here are two key extracts from the report. The first makes it clear that Catholic schools will not be exempted in any way from the regulations:

65. We welcome the Government’s acceptance that the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation should apply to all schools in both the maintained and the independent sectors, without any exemption for particular types of school such as faith schools. In our view, it follows from the fact that protection against sexual orientation discrimination is rooted in recognition of the equal dignity of every individual that there should be no exemptions for faith schools.

The second extract makes it clear what will be required:

67. We do not consider that the right to freedom of conscience and religion requires the school curriculum to be exempted from the scope of the sexual orientation regulations. In our view the Regulations prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination should clearly apply to the curriculum, so that homosexual pupils are not subjected to teaching, as part of the religious education or other curriculum, that their sexual orientation is sinful or morally wrong. Applying the Regulations to the curriculum would not prevent pupils from being taught as part of their religious education the fact that certain religions view homosexuality as sinful. In our view there is an important difference between this factual information being imparted in a descriptive way as part of a wide-ranging syllabus about different religions, and a curriculum which teaches a particular religion’s doctrinal beliefs as if they were objectively true. The latter is likely to lead to unjustifiable discrimination against homosexual pupils. We recommend that the Regulations for Great Britain make clear that the prohibition on discrimination applies to the curriculum and thereby avoid the considerable uncertainty to which the Northern Ireland Regulations have given rise on this question. We further recommend that the Government clarifies its understanding of the Northern Ireland Regulations on this matter.

The wording has been deliberately muddied in order to present Catholic teaching in a crude manner. Our faith does not teach that "homosexuality" itself is necessarily sinful, it teaches that it is disordered. It is homosexual acts that are sinful.

However, I hope that nobody is foolish enough to try to make a compromise based on that point. The people who framed this guidance will not accept our teaching that homosexuality is a disorder nor that homosexual acts are sinful. They have the bit between their teeth. Although the direction in which public policy has been moving is obvious enough, I am a little surprised at the pace it has now picked up.

Make no mistake - this proposal will make it illegal for Catholic schools to teach that the Catholic faith is true.

Sex-ed programme slammed by Daily Mail

The Daily Mail has published an article highlighting the appalling Channel 4 sex-education programme "Living and Growing." Here is the article: Outcry over explicit sex education video shown to five-year-olds.

I posted before on this assault on the innocence of children (Sex-ed: pouring petrol on the fire). I apologise for the following quotations but one of the problems with this sort of material is that nobody wants to say what is actually contained in it. The secrecy protects those who deliver the programme and puts children at risk. So in case you think I am exaggerating, here are a couple of example quotes:

From Unit 1, Programme 1 (for 5-7 year olds)

What is the difference between a boy and a girl – very little except … “there is one big difference … all girls, or females, have two special parts. They have a clitoris which feels like a small bump, it doesn’t stick out much. It can sometimes get hard and feels nice when you touch it …”.

From Unit 2 Programme 2 (for 7-9 year olds)

[Boy]: “I heard some boys talking about wanking, what’s that about?”
[Teenager]: You might get told off for using that word: ‘wanking’, it’s slang, masturbation is the proper term for it. Don’t worry about it, most people do it”
[TV Doctor]: “When your penis gets hard it tingles, it makes you want to touch it and rub it. When you get older and you rub it you’ll have an orgasm. That’s masturbation, that white semen you lose in wet dreams spurts out the end of your penis. It’s a nice feeling, it does you no harm and is perfectly normal”

The Daily Mail article refers to several Community Schools (i.e. non-religious) where parents have complained about these materials being shown to their children.

Incredibly, these materials have also been used in Catholic schools. The Pro-Life Times, produced by SPUC in September 2006 drew attention to the plight of Stan and Patricia Wocial who complained unsuccessfully against the use of the Channel 4 programme at the Catholic school their children attended, St William of York, Forest Hill.

Positive Guardian article on NFP

The Guardian on Tuesday carried an article by Sarah Ebner called Perfect Timing. Promoters of Natural Family Planning have known for a long time that if a couple wish to avoid pregnancy, NFP is more effective than artificial contraception. This article in a secular newspaper not known for its sympathy to Catholic teaching, is significant in recognising the same in the public square.

The article is marred by treating NFP as a "method of contraception" but even so, it is a very positive statement of the advantages of using NFP. It does not, unfortunately, draw attention to the fact that fertility awareness is a more effective route to achieving pregnancy than IVF for those who are finding it difficult to conceive.

Catherine Evans of The Brook, buts in with the outdated line:

"it doesn't protect you against sexually transmitted infections, so it's not a method we would promote."

Many people will take from this the message that condoms do protect from STIs. This is not true. They offer some protection from some STIs. There are STIs for which condoms offer no protection at all. And the promotion of condoms has coincided with a massive increase in STIs because of the subliminal message that using condoms means that you can have sex safely with whoever you want. The only effective protection from STIs is abstinence outside of marriage and faithfulness within marriage.

The article picks up on the health problems of hormonal contraception and other advantages of using NFP. "Rebecca" is quoted as saying

"I feel that we're learning more all the time. Taking these steps has led me to become more curious in other ways. It's made me more aware of what's going on in my body and I feel it's really changed our sexual life in a positive way"

This reminds me of a talk by Janet Smith in which she spoke about couples who use artificial contraception complaining about their "sex lives." The couples who used NFP looked at each other in puzzlement wondering what they were talking about.