The Hermeneutic of Continuity

I suppose some people will disagree with him but I have to say I found that Morgan Freeman made some sense in this short clip.

Fr Paul Keane, an alumnus of the Venerable English College at Rome, has written an excellent book about the pictures which decorate the Tribune of the Church of St Thomas of Canterbury at the College. There is a good introduction and then a narrative description, together with colour plate reproductions, of each of the 34 newly restored paintings. In the course of describing the paintings, the book offers a helpful and sensible summary of the myths and legends relating to the early Catholic history of England, as well as giving a good introduction to the lives of the martyrs. Available from Family Publications . Price £17.50 (232pp)

On Thursday 15 October, there will be a Catholic History Walk in London, starting at 6.30pm at the Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More in Cheyne Row, London SW3. The Walk will start with a tour of the church, and continue with visits to sites linked to St Thomas More, finishing with a visit to Allen Hall seminary, where we will have lamplit prayers around the mulberry tree where he used to gather with his family. All are welcome - no need to book, just turn up! The Walk will last approximately one and a half to two hours. Many thanks to Auntie Joanna for news of this event which I am sure will be well worth taking part in. I'm sorry I won't be able to go myself.

The Times has a fine obituary of Edward Schofield , the father of Fr Nicholas Schofield archvist of the Archdiocese of Westminster and author of Roman Miscellany . It is a great accolade to have an obituary in the Times or the Telegraph; these articles are among the best pieces of journalism in the mainstream press. Edward Schofield was a medievalist, an expert on conciliar history, a member of the Royal Historical Society and a lover of the traditional Liturgy of the Church. Please pray for the repose of his soul.

Rorate Caeli has been posting updates of the rumour made public on the Spanish blog La Cigüeña de la Torre , namely that the excommunication of the SSPX bishops will be lifted within the next few days. The rumour has been hotting up with Andrea Tornielli reporting that Bishop Fellay has recently been to meet Cardinal Antonio Cañizares at the Congregation for Divine Worship. We can probably bet safely that this was not to arrange training for the SSPX priests to say the new Mass. Not surprisingly, the rumour has been accompanied by widespread attention to the public statements of Bishop Williamson in which he has repeatedly denied the holocaust. Ruth Gledhill of the Times has an article on this with a video clip of an interview given by Bishop Williamson to Swedish TV. (See: Traditionalist bishop: 'There were no gas chambers' and the article Church of England clergy host Holocaust denial Bishop ) Gledhill also has another post Church of England clergy host Holocaust denial Bis...

H/T to Fr Dwight Longenecker for this video of the Botafumeiro shown swinging in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela on the feast day. This must be every thurifer's dream thurible. It weighs about 12½ stone and is nearly 6ft high. It is filled with about 6 stone of incense. there have been several accidents with the botafumeiro over the years. Notably, it flew out of the window during a visit of Princess Catherine of Aragon who was on her way to marry Arthur, Prince of Wales, brother of the future Henry VIII. It should have been obvious that this omen indicated that her intended would die, his brother would marry her, then insist he get an annulment, rebel against the negative decision, repudiate her, marry a younger woman and start the Church of England. According to a footnote in the wikipedia article , there is a thurible in Lohne, Oldenburg, Germany that is considerably larger.

Looking around this evening to see whether the CDF Doctrinal Note on Evangelisaiton was available in a more helpful form than a page image pdf, I followed Rorate Caeli's link to the text on Papal Encyclicals Online . this is a good looking site with a well-organised directory of magisterial documents (with much more than just papal encyclicals). This was a site I have not seen before, at least in its present form. the " About this site " section was an interesting read. Most of the documents were originally on the Catholic Resources Network (CRNET) which became EWTN online. I remember the great pioneering work of CRNET and I think I gave them some small financial support in the early days. It reminds me of the time that I announced with some excitement in my "Faith Online" column that the Vatican now had a website...

When I was a student in Rome, I remember going with a priest for Mass in one of the ancient Churches. The priest said that he was going to use Eucharistic Prayer II because it was the most ancient of all the prayers and was specifically Roman, composed by Hippolytus. This was the standard view at that time (early 1980s) but has since been called into question. A number of people have recently mentioned the matter to me and so here are a few notes for you. In the 19th century, a number of ancient texts were discovered that were similar to the "Apostolic Constitutions", (of which the first modern edition was published in 1563). Among these texts was a document which came to be referred to as the “Egyptian Church Order”. In addition, the Canons of Hippolytus and the Testamentum Domini were discovered. The scholarly consensus in the early 20th century on the dependence of these documents was that the “Egyptian Church Order” was in fact the "Apostolic Tradition" of Hipp...

There was a very good letter by Richard Rex in the Sunday Times yesterday in response to an article by Simon Jenkins. A quotation: Of course, the English came, in time, to be profoundly Protestant, and the emotional and political bedrock of their Protestantism was, until the 19th century, a profound hatred of Catholicism, nurtured on endless invocations of Mary Tudor’s cruelty. Curiously enough, Elizabeth I once had more Englishmen hanged in a month than Mary had burnt in her entire reign – but perhaps she had better PR consultants.

Today was the occasion for the Requiem Mass on the bicentenary of the death of the Cardinal Duke of York - otherwise Henry Benedict Stuart Prince and Duke of York Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia and Velletri Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church Head of the Royal House of Stuart also grandson of James II and brother of 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'. A Solemn Requiem was celebrated this afternoon by Bishop Bernard Longley at the Conventual Church of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, at the hospital of St John and St Elizabeth. Details of the Mass are at Roman Christendom: Bicentenary Pontifical Requiem for the Cardinal Duke of York . The Mass was organised on behalf of the Royal Stuart Society . Fr Nicholas Schofield is the honorary chaplain of this society and was subdeacon for the Mass. He has a report and photos at his blog. ( Roman Miscellany: Requiem for the Cardinal Duke of York )

A commenter passes on this interesting snippet from the Latin Mass Society of Ireland. Bishop O'Reilly of Ardagh & Clonmacnois will the Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form) on Sunday, 23 September 2007 at St Mary's Church, Edgeworthstown, Co. Longford as part of a commemoration of the Bicentenary of the death of Monsignor Henry Essex Edgeworth de Firmont. Bishop O'Reilly of Ardagh & Clonmacnois to offer Latin Mass at Monsignor Edgeworth commemoration Although born in Co. Longford, Mgr Edgeworth was the confessor of Louis XVI and Vicar General of Paris at the height of the French Revolution. There is an article summarising his extraordinarily eventful life in the Catholic Encyclopaedia: Henry Essex Edgeworth .

Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, stands at the mouth of the Moray Firth, on the banks of the River Ness. The first recorded sighting of the famous monster is attributed to St Columba, although he saw it in the river, not in the Loch further south. Above is a picture of the castle. The present structure is early 19th century but there has been a castle in this spot since the 11th century. Just beneath the building, the museum and art gallery houses a good interpretative exhibition or the history of the Highlands. Parts of the City are picturesque. Below is a view along the river Ness: And here you see the pedestrian suspension bridge. This is fun to cross since the bridge wobbles and shakes not only in the wind but also with the movement of people walking on it. The area is redolent of the history of the Jacobite rebellions. Outside the castle is a statue of Flora MacDonald who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape "over the sea to Skye": Sadly, the centre of Invernes...

Rorate Caeli reports today on the Passion of Spain and the forthcoming beatification of 498 martyrs from the time of the Spanish Civil War. Their beatification will take place in Rome, an exception that has been allowed because of the significance of the number of these martyrs. The ceremony will take place on 28 October.

As I had my camera with me when I visited St Mary's, Chislehurst on Sunday, Fr Briggs made sure that I got photographs of some of the more significant monuments at his Church. First, there was the grave of Charles West, the Founder of the Great Ormond Street Hospital for children: Nearby is the grave of Claude Sophie O'Shea who was born on 15 February 1882 and died on 21 April 1882. The inscription says "In memory of our lost darling [...] erected by her Mother and Father" Her father was Charles Stewart Parnell, described by Gladstone as the most remarkable person he had ever met. Parnell was an Irish MP for the Home Rule League. He organised the Irish Parliamentary Party, making it highly efficient. In the process, he invented the party whip system, enabling the party to work as a bloc in Parliament and hold the balance of power. His Parliamentary career began to fall apart when he was cited as co-respondent in the divorce proceedings that Captain William O'Shea ...

At the Faith Winter Conference, I promised to post here a list of books that might be helpful for students wishing to become acquainted with the early Fathers of the Church and to learn something about the early Councils. It should first of all be said that there is an immense amount of information available and there is an increasing amount of good material on the internet. These are only given as a few examples to get you started. The Catholic Answers website has a good introductory article by Marcellino D'Ambrosio called Getting Started with the Fathers of the Church . The same author, at the Crossroads Initiative, has an Early Church Fathers Overview and a brief summary of the first seven Ecumenical Councils . The New Advent website has the text of the Catholic Encyclopaedia online, and some works of some of the Church Fathers - including many of the most important works. In some cases, scholarship has superseded the encyclopaedia, and the translations (made by non-Catholics)...

Aaron asked about the antipope Benedict XIII. Well, it is quite a long story so I shall just give a few pointers. Between 1378 and 1417, there were rival claimants to the papacy, located at Rome and Avignon. An attempted resolution at Pisa added a third claimant. The Wikipedia article "Western Schism" and the Catholic Encyclopaedia article "Western Schism" give the basic information about what happened. It was an utter mess. As the Catholic Encyclopaedia comments of the time of Urban VI (Rome) and Clement VII (Avignon): The saints themselves were divided: St Catherine of Siena, St. Catherine of Sweden, Bl. Peter of Aragon, Bl. Ursulina of Parma, Philippe d'Alencon, and Gerard de Groote were in the camp of Urban; St. Vincent Ferrer, Bl. Peter of Luxemburg, and St. Colette belonged to the party of Clement. The schism was brought to an end by the Council of Constance which deposed Benedict XIII (Avignon) and John XXIII (Pisa), and accepted the resignation of Greg...

The University of St Andrews was given recognition in 1413 by the Antipope, Benedict XIII. Hence it is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in Britain. Here is a picture of one of the student residences, St Salvator’s: I have noticed in recent years that "International Relations" seems to be very popular. Students tell you that they have to rush off after coffee to go and write and essay on middle-eastern politics or attend a tutorial on terrorism. Apparently there are spooks regularly visiting the university to check up whether there is any undue militancy among the students.

In 1527, Patrick Hamilton was burnt at the stake for heresy, having publicly preached against pilgrimages, purgatory, prayers to saints, and prayers for the dead. In 1533, Henry Forrest was executed for expressing sympathy with his views. Foxe says that he was suffocated in his cell while other sources say that he was burnt on the north side of hte Cathedral so that the people of Forfarshire could see the flames as a warning. The executions were arranged by Archbishop James Beaton. Archbishop James Beaton arranged that his nephew, David Beaton, should be appointed his coadjutor with right of succession. David Beaton became the last Scots Cardinal before the Reformation. He was not a good example, living in open concubinage and using ecclesiastical revenues to enrich his children. In 1546, he arranged the trial and execution for heresy of George Wishart. This provoked popular outrage and the Cardinal was hanged from the window of his own palace. This was pointed out to me by Jamie McMor...

The Church of St Regulus (or St Rule) was a much smaller building than the Cathedral whose ruins are pictured above. Until modern times the Cathedral was the largest edifice ever built in Scotland and probably contained the largest collection of medieval art ever gathered together in Scotland. Building started in about 1160 and it began to be used as a Cathedral and priory some 70 years later. After 110 years, it was nearly complete but the West gable was blown down in a storm. The Cathedral was not finally consecrated until 1318, in the presence of Robert the Bruce. The great Cathedral was a centre of pilgrimage in Scotland during the High Middle Ages, principally because of the presence of the relics of St Andrew.

To accompany my photos from St Andrews, I thought it would be of interest to give some background information on this historic university town. The tower on the left in this photo is all that remains of the ancient Churchof St Regulus: Here is the summary from the Wikipedia about Saint Regulus : Saint Regulus or Saint Rule of Andrew was a monk of Patras who, in the fourth century, according to a Scottish legend that became current during the twelfth century (National Archives of Scotland), fled to Scotland with the bones of Saint Andrew, and deposited them at St Andrews. His feast day in the Aberdeen Breviary is October 17. Saint Regulus was galvanized into action by a visionary dream that Emperor Constantine had decided to remove Saint Andrew's relics from from Patras to Constantinople. Warned by an angel, he was to move as many bones as far away as he could to the 'ends of the earth' for safekeeping. He was shipwrecked at Muckross on the shore of Fifeshire at the spot cal...