Joe at Catholic Commentary has kindly posted a considered response to my paper on New Movements and New Media. Joe has a comprehensive and sympathetic knowledge of new movements and his comments are well worth reading.
My half-hearted assertion that the Catholic blogosphere was a special case of new movement is certainly open to criticism. However I'm not sure that the Catholic blogosphere could be described as a "party" in Newman's sense either. While it is true that many Catholic blogs do assume that the Extraordinary Form is "the only show in town" there are plenty which do not. The rich variety of Catholic blogging defies either my attempt to shoehorn it into the category of new movement or the description of it as a party.
I have now uploaded some photos of Durham to flickr. Here are some I was pleased with:
Durham Castle entrance
Tomb of St Bede
The Cathedral from Prebends' Bridge
7 comments:
I started reading Catholic blogs years and years before I ever went to an old rite mass -- I started reading them several years before Summorum Pontificum actually! It was only through reading blogs that I had any idea of what the old rite mass was, and that anyone who was respectable (so to speak) liked it.
The message I took away from reading the blogs was that the old mass was something I ought to know about and be comfortable with, at the least, if I called myself a Catholic. Sort of like, if you want to study 19c English literature, you have to know about Dickens; you don't have to like him but you really have to have experience of him.
Funnily enough in the last six months I've made two excellent groups of Catholic friends (in two different cities), the first were trads and the second group were very charismatic/JPII/new movement types. What the two groups have in common is that they take very seriously each person's call to holiness. In both groups, someone would not seem like an oddball to suggest saying a rosary while waiting for a train, for example. Both groups would find it perfectly normal to pray over a decision, and both would see a person who has many devotions as someone to be admired and emulated. It's not, "ooh, she's so religious, normal people aren't like that." Trads and charismatics have very different cultures but in my experience both have a holistic view of the spiritual life, and for myself at least, being around both groups is uplifting and inspiring.
How right you are that too many Catholic bloggers seem to feel the Extraordinary Form is the ONLY form of Mass. But largely this is forced upon some by 'enemies' of the EF (& I use that term carefully) who try to assert that the Ordinary Form in the only form. Why cannot we follow the lead of our Holy Father who has clearly stated that BOTH forms are equally valid.
Of course many of us prefer the EF but the problem seems to be that it is being denied to us on many occasions, largely because the 'man in the pew' has not had it explained that both forms have equal validity. I am certain that some laity feel that it is wrong to attend EF Masses.
Am I right to think that St Bede's tomb doesn't actually contain anything of the good man himself, the remains having been dug up and chucked in the river during Reformation? Obviously the current tenants of the cathedral don't publicise this very much because they like to cash in. (They're that kind of tenant - enlightened I think it's called.)
Lovely photos: but the finest views of Durham are from the train.
Gillineau - The archaeologist who showed people round Bede's world was confident that at least some of St Bede's remains were in tomb.
The author of The Rites of Durham, a monk, was present when Henry VIII's visitors despoiled St Cuthbert's shrine. He describes how they found his body intact clothed in fresh Mass vestments. It was removed to the vestry, to await Henry's instructions. He then says it was buried by the Prior and monks under the shrine. He also says the bones of the Venerable Bede were interred under its shrine after the defacement by the same visitors.
I was told that two members of the English Benedictines know the secret burial place of the Venerable Bede. When I was told this I thought it a pious legend, but later on I read that this has some basis in fact, although I can't remember where I read it
Post a Comment