The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Following the news that Lord Patten of Barnes is to be the new communications supremo at the Holy See, I did wonder whether he might bring some British style diplomacy to what seems frankly a bit of a mess over the whole papal interview thing. You know - millions of commuters in London seeing the Metro front page claim that the Pope says that one in 50 priests is a pervert, dwarfing the news of Hamas threatening rocket attacks on Israel, Germany winning the World Cup, the Cabinet reshuffle and the forthcoming heatwave. A story like this was never going to get pushed to page 9 with the "Killer Gran who thought Cyclist was a Badger." Here is the possible conversation that ran through my mind: "Franco, Hi! Great to see you again, carissimo Papa! Shall we get down to the interview?" "Sure, Eugenio. Have a seat. I trust you absolutely. Fire away my friend!" "You know of course, Franco, I don't go for this recording-the-words gig - it's n...

The American, Australian, British, and Irish Confraternities of Catholic Clergy will be represented at a Conference in Rome from 5-9 January 2015. The last conference was in 2010, and out of that conference came the desire to form Confraternities in Britain and Ireland. It was a stirring gathering and a great opportunity to meet priests from around the English-speaking world in the heart of Rome. Cardinal Pell, Cardinal Burke, and Archbishop di Noia are featured in the programme, and you can guarantee that the rest of the line-up of speakers will also be inspiring and well worth travelling to hear. I will be attending the Conference myself and I warmly recommend it to brother priests. For further details and registration, see the website: Confraternities of Catholic Clergy 2015 International Conference .

Thanks to the Eponymous Flower for notice of this film about the Claretian martyrs of Barbastro who were executed by the communists during the Spanish Civil War. The film, directed by Pablo Moreno was given the "Silver Fish 2014" award for the best film, at the 5th International Catholic Film Festival Mirabile Dictu in Rome last month. See the post  A "Silver Fish” For “Un Dios prohibido” -- Catholic Film Festival Swims Against the Flow which has details of some of the other award winners.

Gregorian Chant Hymns is a new website that promotes the learning of Gregorian Chant by making sheet music, recordings, translations, and instructions. There is a short guide to Gregorian Notation (those square notes) and to Latin pronunciation. Everything is available free of charge, in line with other great traditional music websites. To give you an idea of the quality of the recordings provided, have a listen to this recording of my favourite Latin devotional hymn, the Adoro te devote [ embedded mp3 ]: Your browser does not support this audio The website is focussed on popular Gregorian chant hymns and hymns and devotional chants. There are plenty of resources out there for the ordinary and the propers, so this fills a niche and provides an opening for people to make a start with Gregorian Chant. In modern education-speak, it would perhaps be called a "pathway." The initiative comes from the Schola Sanctae Scholasticae and they have used material with p...

In exalted ecclesiastical circles in Italy, there seems to be a new orthodoxy emerging with regard to the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried. So strict is it that a parish priest gets a guided missile from the heart of the curia for his dissent. Many readers follow Sandro Magister's English language blog, Chiesa , for its well-informed and incisive comment on Vatican affairs. Magister also writes an Italian language blog for L'Espresso, called Settimo Cielo which often has additional material of great interest. A few days ago, in his article  Cose da pazzi. Il cardinale Collins e il curato di campagna  ("Crazy things. Collins and the country priest") Magister told of the reaction to Fr Tarcisio Vicario, a parish priest of the diocese of Novara in Italy who recently spoke about the question of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, saying: "For the Church, which acts in the name of the Son of God, marriage between the b...

I use my iPad to follow the readings at Mass, for prayers after Communion and sometimes to follow the chant. Last week someone behind me tutted loudly. Is it wrong to use an iPad in Church? Some readers might say “Yes, you should be using an Android tablet” but I prescind from that argument. There is no intrinsic reason why you should not use an electronic device to read the scriptures or the text of prayers and devotions. The iPieta app is a wonderful collection of spiritual writings, scripture, theology and magisterial teaching, and I know several Choir Directors who find the Liber Pro app an amazing resource for Gregorian chant. One potential problem with using any backlit device in Church is that the bright screen could distract others. A small phone can be hidden but a tablet is likely to catch peoples’ eyes from quite some distance, especially if the lighting in the Church is subdued. In the current state of technology, the use of an e-book reader is less problematic in that i...

Kevin Knight founded New Advent nearly 20 years ago, and keeps it going today. The site itself is a one-stop shop (where everything is free) for the Catholic Encyclopaedia, a Greek-English-Latin parallel-column bible, the texts of the Fathers of the Church, and the Summa. I was in South Thamesmead when the project to transcribe the 1913 Catholic Encyclopaedia was mooted back in 1994. It was one of the earliest examples of crowd-sourcing, using the enthusiasm of volunteers, backed by solid organising ability, to accomplish this seemingly impossible task in what was an amazingly short time for those days. The ability to see the potential of crowd-sourcing, and the importance of making information available free, was at the heart of the success of New Advent, and Kevin Knight deserves the highest acclaim for seeing that so clearly when the internet was still only beginning to become popular. Kathy Schiffer has interviewed  The Man Behind America's Largest Catholic Super-Site ...

Evenings of Faith are organised by the Faith Movement to address important themes in theology for lay people. People of all ages are welcome to the two talks below: Wednesday 2nd July, 7.30pm The Human Person: Made for the Grace of God Gregory Farrelly Wednesday 16th July, 7.30pm St John Paul II: Developing our Vision of the Human Person Joanna Bogle The meetings are held in the parish rooms below the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, W1 by kind permission of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Access is via the basement steps outside 24 Golden Square (a short walk from Piccadilly Circus.)

Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is founded on orthodox Christology hammered out in the first centuries of the Church. Our Lord's human nature and His divine nature are united in one person - this is called in theology the hypostatic union. Following on from this doctrine, anything we predicate of Christ, either according to his human nature or his divine nature, is predicated of the one person Jesus Christ the Word made flesh. (What theologians call the "communication of idioms") So we can say that God the second person of the Blessed Trinity, was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered, and was sometimes hungry; we can also say that the man Jesus was omnipotent, all-knowing, and infinitely loving. In the devotion to the Sacred Heart, we think especially of the human love of God made man. We can also speak of His emotions of joy and of sorrow that flow from that love. Our Lord was joyful when people responded to Him in faith, and He was sorrowful when people sinned. ...

I am happy to pass on this information from  Retrouvaille , a service to the church through a programme designed to help couples whose marriages are experiencing difficulties. Stress in Your Marriage? – Retrouvaille is a program for married couples that feel bored, disillusioned, frustrated, or angry in their marriage. Some experience coldness. Others experience conflict in their relationship. Most don’t know how to change the situation or even communicate with their spouse about it. This programme has helped 6,000 couples who were experiencing difficulties in their marriage in the past year. For confidential information about or to register for the programme commencing with a residential weekend on 19th -21st Sept 2014, the email info@retrouvaille.org.uk ; call or text 0797 338 0443 or visit www.retrouvaille.org.uk

I promised to abstain from meat on Wednesdays as well as Fridays. Is it a sin if I fail in this? In the normal course of our spiritual life, we must keep the obligations that the Church imposes on us: these are summed up in the precepts of the Church which you will find in the Catechism. (2041-2043) There several things to beware of in any self-imposed obligation. If we choose to bind ourselves to further obligations, they should be considered carefully with the advice of a good confessor or spiritual director. We can choose to make private vows but it is wise not to take such a step lightly. We are weak and fall into sin often enough without creating further sins for ourselves by creating an obligation in which we are likely to fail. Private vows are more appropriately reserved for a major change in our lives in which we undertake to serve God in a particular way. With a resolution to do a particular penance it is usually best to include it more generally within the context of the...