The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Thanks to @Londiniensis on Twitter for this wonderful link to the Curious Expeditions blog: Librophiliac Love Letter: A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries . The photo above shows the Biblioteca Geral at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. They have included the old reading room of the British Library and the Duke Humfrey’s Library, at the Bodleian (Oxford University) though they missed the Radcliffe Camera which is another world-class venue for falling asleep after a good lunch - and reading scholarly books, of course. I only have a photo of the outside. (This reminds me to add some more Oxford photos to Flickr...)

Grandma Snark ( pictured - well it's her profile picture anyway ) has started a blog called Extra-Ordinary Monkey Business (Devoted to liturgical abuse). Grandma says I'm a Catholic ninja. Well, not really. But I'd like to be. You can go over for your daily dose of liturgical dance, hand-waving and kool-aid pitchers as well as good, no-nonsense grandmaternal comment.

Marcel at Aggie Catholics has posted a list of US Bishops who blog . They range from Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York all the way to Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles. (I mean that they range geographically of course.) Go over to Marcel's post to check whether your own blogging bishop is there. It would be good if someone built up a list of Bishop bloggers worldwide. I don't think we have any in England yet, but do correct me if I am wrong.

Patriarch Kirill has urged his clergy to use blogs for missionary work. There are already some good Orthodox resources on the web such as the Orthodox Christian Information Centre and blogs like Ora et Labora . Floreant ! H/T Splintered Sunrise

Protect the Pope.com is a new website which counters attacks on Pope Benedict’s reputation and integrity, and provides information and resources for Catholics to respond to incidents that constitute incitement to religious hatred. At the launch of Protect the Pope.com Rev Nick Donnelly, a permanent deacon of Lancaster Diocese who set up the site, said: ‘Its been said that anti-Catholicism is the last acceptable prejudice, and in a way we Catholics have colluded in this by ignoring it, hoping it will go away. But the personal attacks on Pope Benedict in the run up to the Papal visit show us its not going away. Since 2006 we’ve had the legal right to protect ourselves from religious hatred. Of course people in this country have freedom of expression, but this does not mean they have the right to create a climate of hostility and fear. It’s a question of protecting our human rights to freedom of belief and freedom of worship.’ The website gives information on the law regarding hat...

Catholicism pure & simple is a new Catholic team-blog. Already there are articles from half a dozen contributors who hail from around the globe. They include one priest. The blog describes itself as follows: Catholicism Pure is for Catholics who love their Faith untainted by the heresy of Modernism or the implacable nature and mediocrity of the “New Church” that has emerged following Vatican II. We aim to defend and propagate authentic Catholic teaching, educate our readers about the Catholic Faith in all its “Splendour of Truth”, spread knowledge and love of traditional Catholic culture and be a lash to the backs of those clergy and laity whose quasi or actual heresy is destroying our and our children’s Catholic Faith. So far, the blog isn't as polemical as that introduction sounds; the postings cover a range of range of subjects. This morning, Frere Rabbit has a personal story from Parkminster, God will know the name .

Rich Mastrogiacomo is a third year seminarian studying for the sacred Priesthood in Rome. He has a great love for music and now writes popular style melodies and songs for Our Lord. For more details, see his "About" page at the blog " That Most Holy Heart ". One project that Rich has been engaged on recently is setting background music to some of the words of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. The one in which Archbishop Sheen speaks of The Hour of Testing is quite inspiring.

Stuart McCullough of the Good Counsel Network deals on a daily basis with mothers in crisis pregnancies and is acutely aware of the damage done by the promotion of contraception, sex education, and the cruel deception of the illusion of a risk free lifestyle. Naturally he is also opposed to abortion. After a long of pulling funny faces when I mentioned that the internet and especially blogs could help his apostolate, Stuart has recently thrown in the towel and started a blog himself: Ecumenical Diablog . It's worth having that one in your blogroll. Following on recent articles ( covered by James Preece and others) justifying abortion in certain circumstances, the Ecumenical Diablog today urges: Catholics Don't Take the Pill or The Tablet . I told him it was too nuanced and ambiguous for my liking :-)

Catholic musicians have "gathered to blog about liturgy and life" at The Chant Café , a new initiative from the Church Music Association of America . Readers may recognise contributor Jeffrey Tucker of NLM , Scott Turkington, and our own Nick Gale of Gregorian Chant in the UK . One of the concerns of the musicians in the Café is to liberate sacred music "from the prisons of obscurity and copyright." See the post Music Liberated by Colloquium XX for a packet of music including several items not freely available before.

Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. (Matt 7.1-2) How often do we see this verse quoted in response to Catholic blog posts? Criticise the public actions of a politician or a high-ranking ecclesiastic and you can be sure that someone will say that you should not be "judgmental". Should bloggers cringe in shame at failing to observe the teaching of Our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount? I think we can reasonably take a deeper look at this. We cannot "judge" someone in the way that God judges us. (He will judge us, by the way.) We do not have the right to make such a judgement, or in fact the information on which to base it. Only God knows the subjective state of an individual's soul. So even if we consider the infernal columns' brutal repression of the rising in the Vendée, the Mexican campaign against priests such as St Christopher Mage...

Thanks to Anne in the combox for notice of two devotional blogs which deserve to be known about: Eucharistic Adoration for Priests (as requested by Pope Benedict) and Grateful for Purgatory "but aiming for heaven!" - both by "One Grateful Heart", a wife, mother and grandmother.

A priest friend just emailed me news of a new blog Motus Septentrionalis ("Northern Movement") to promote the traditional liturgy in the North of England. Here is the introductory text: This blog is offered as a forum within which events to promote and celebrate the Traditional Catholic Latin Liturgy can be organised in the North of England. The idea emerged during informal conversations at the 2010 Low Week Latin Mass Society training course at Ushaw College. Catholics who wish to attend the traditional liturgy are much better off if they are in easy reach of London, though it is good to see at Motus Septentrionalis a growing list of regular Masses in the North. Meanwhile even further North, problems continue .

My polling cards arrived the other day with instructions to go down to the local primary school between the hours of 7am and 10pm on 6 May. I usually go early, hoping that it might be an indication of a Christian sense of co-responsibility for the common good. (Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church 2240 ) Apparently there is a debate on the television tonight featuring the leaders of the three main parties. Will Heaven at the Telegraph blogs is doing a live blog of the debate if you are interested. I'm off to the Church for Rosary and Benediction...

The blog MercatorNet has recently started an offshoot called Just B16 . The first paragraph of the About page gives the flavour: Just B16 is MercatorNet’s contribution to clearing the air about the sex abuse scandal enveloping Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church. Last year, in our “Our public intellectual A-list” we described Benedict as “the world's leading voice for human dignity founded upon the divine creation of man” – which he undoubtedly is. We feel that ill-informed, unjust and vicious attacks on Benedict’s credibility will ultimately undermine the credibility of human dignity itself.

1. Love the Tradition - Loathe the Traddies (can we call it "Tradwatch" for short?) is written by "The Raven" who is a Catholic priest. The strapline is: A blog where we are fairly sure that good taste is not always nearest to godliness and that the cut of your maniple has little bearing on your orthodoxy. A good post " Throwing Blame " looks at Gerald Warner's recent article It's the Pope's turn to retaliate in Catholic civil war . I agree with The Raven that the problem of child abuse does not relate only to the last 40 years but goes longer and deeper into our history. The best book I have read on this is After Asceticism which I reviewed for Faith Magazine a couple of years ago. 2. Laodicea "a filthy puddle of popery" is a Scottish Catholic blog. Yesterday's post was an important one: Peter Tatchell and Child Abuse , giving the link to Peter Tatchell's call for lowering the age of consent to 14. Berenike comments...

Here is the site meter record for the two millionth visitor to the Hermeneutic of Continuity who called in at 2.14pm today from London Ontario, referred from Coren's Comment . I started the blog on 6 April 2006. We reached one million on 15 January 2009. Many thanks to all of you for reading. Sincere apologies to anybody I have offended. Thanks to the Pope for encouraging us all. Praise the Lord for giving us a spiritual soul and making us the kind of being that can invent something like this. Several people have asked about having a "Two Million Party." I think that it is proper to defer this as we are about to begin Passiontide. We have a Missa Cantata at Blackfen on the Saturday within the Easter Octave at 10.30am with Vespers and Benediction at 2.30pm. In between there will be "Brunch" in the Church Hall and the bar will be open. Blog readers are all very welcome. Here is the post with information on " Getting to Blackfen ".

James Preece has a roundup of posts on the Government-CES-PSHE affair: see Ed Balls: Catholic Schools "must explain how to access an abortion" . This morning two other good posts were published that are worthy to be added to the list: Cranmer in his post Teaching abortion in an ‘enlightened’ and ‘non-judgmental’ way gives a good analysis of the way in which terms like "non-judgemental" are being used to erode the freedoms for Catholics and others that developed over three centuries. As he rightly says: One cannot be ‘neutral’ about sex, sexuality or the sanctity of life without being indifferent. Joanna Bogle gets to the key point that many clergy and laity now have no confidence in the CES and that a fresh start is needed.

This post is scheduled for publication on Monday morning when I will be lecturing on sacramental theology at Wonersh. Do take a moment to vote in the poll on the sidebar about whether the LinkWithin widget should stay. I am heartened by the healthy showing of votes for "I don't care - but I like clicking polls." I think this must be an option for any future polls on the blog.

Many thanks to the Catholic Herald which has spoken very kindly about me in the leader article of this week's paper. May I take this opportunity to draw your attention to the list of blogs by priests and religious in the sidebar. They represent a wide variety of styles and interests within orthodox Catholicism. As soon as this post is published, I will add to that list a new blog: Let the Welkin Ring , which is written by Fr Wilfrid Elkin of the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.

It has been a normally busy Saturday in the parish: Mass (EF) Exposition, Confessions, Benediction, arranging Baptism, and Convalidation, newsletter, Confessions, Mass (OF), house blessing with tea and cakes and chat about the Church and education. So I finally got home, finished the Office, checked my email, and remembered that today is the day for the release of the Holy Father's message for World Communications Day . The Holy Father could not be more explicit in encouraging of priests to use the new media in their apostolate: [...] priests can rightly be expected to be present in the world of digital communications as faithful witnesses to the Gospel, exercising their proper role as leaders of communities which increasingly express themselves with the different "voices" provided by the digital marketplace. Priests are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites...