A Mass and a milestone

By Damian Thompson

Here is a photograph taken at a Mass celebrated this month in Rome in the Archbasilica of St John Lateran. The full details can be found at the magnificent website of the New Liturgical Movement. I will point out two things:

1. The Mass was celebrated by Antonio Cardinal Cañizares Llovera, who as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship is in charge of the worldwide liturgy of the Catholic Church.

2. It was a Tridentine Mass. Forgive the antiquated phrase, but it’s not so long ago that this form of the Roman Rite was celebrated clandestinely in the hotels of railway stations.

(Oh, and the subdeacon was Fr Tim Finigan, a great servant of the Church whose gifts not been fully acknowledged in England and Wales. Yet.)

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James MacMillan: Tablet attack on Fr Tim Finigan is a 'disgrace'

From Damian Thompson :

"James MacMillan, Britain's foremost Catholic composer and a long-time contributor to The Tablet, has written to the magazine's deputy editor Elena Curti describing her article about Fr Tim Finigan and Our Lady of the Rosary, Bleckfen, as a "disgrace" that may be actionable.

"I hope the good parishioners of Our Lady of the Rosary can find it in their hearts to forgive you and pray for you," he tells her.

This week's Bitter Pill contains a hatchet job by Curti on Fr Tim - one of this country's finest priests - for offering Mass in the Extraordinary Form alongside the new rite. In one place, Curti implies that Fr Tim is less than open about parish expenditure on vestments – a disgraceful imputation that he is able to refute easily.

Over the last few days, I've sensed that The Tablet has seriously blundered by allowing its most biased writer to stir up trouble in one of the few parishes which is putting Summorum Pontificum into practice. Fr Finigan is a formidable and holy priest – and a nice bloke with friends across the Catholic world. In a properly run Church he would be a bishop.

Now Dr MacMillan - whose masterpiece, the St John Passion, has just been recorded by Sir Colin Davies and the LSO - has written to Ms Curti to express his fury at the trashing of Fr Finigan. He writes;

Dear Ms Curti,

I am a Scottish Catholic composer who has on many occasions contributed articles to your magazine, The Tablet. I have always seen the journal as an important and sensible Catholic voice in the media. Nevertheless, I have been alarmed at the drift of the paper in recent months, especially relating to matters to do with the liturgy, which is a special interest of mine. Your latest article on Fr Tim Finigan has unfortunately plumbed new depths that I thought I would never see in a Christian publication. The whole tone was disrespectful, mischief-making and opportunistic, lacking no palpable sense of Christian charity. The Tablet has a special responsibility not to allow these issues to develop into a "civil war" between Catholics. Our liturgy is in a deplorable state and, in the spirit of Vatican II, it is imperative that steps are taken to reform the reform for the good of the faithful. There is no attempt by the Pope, or Fr Finigan for that matter, to turn back the clock. The limited reappearance of the Extraordinary Rite will contribute to a renewal and blossoming in our wider liturgical education and awareness, and in the process advance the faith of Catholics starved of good practice in this regard.

The implied assaults on the character of Fr Finigan were a disgrace, and at one point, when you suggest financial impropriety, may be actionable. I hope the good parishioners of Our Lady of the Rosary can find it in their hearts to forgive you and pray for you.

Yours sincerely,

James MacMillan CBE

I agree with every word of that; and I've also suggested that Holy Smokers might want to contribute to the expenses of Our Lady of the Rosary in staging a dignified liturgy: the details are here."

• James MacMillan: Tablet attack on Fr Tim Finigan is a 'disgrace'
• Enough is Enough!
• Responding to the Tablet
• Exercises in intimidation: The Tablet attacks Fr. Finigan

Scientologists move in on traumatised Mumbai

A group linked to the Church of Scientology is mounting an emergency campaign to "flood Mumbai" with hundreds of thousands of booklets by L Ron Hubbard in order to spread its message to residents traumatised by the terror attacks.

As Counterknowledge.com reports, Scientologists have sent out an email which says: "Flood Mumbai with TWTH [Hubbard's The Way to Happiness] booklets! This will help calm down the area! ... 100,000 booklets can be printed in India. We need to raise £21,000 on an immediate basis to make up the full amount." The operation is being mounted by ABLE, the Association for Better Living and Education, which is officially described as "Scientology-related"...

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UK Catholic Bishop: “I have been thrilled by Barack Obama’s victory and I thank God for it.”

By Hilary White

PORTSMOUTH, England, November 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A British Catholic bishop has issued a statement enthusiastically welcoming the man who has been labelled the “most pro-abortion US president in history” – president-elect Barack Obama. Bishop Crispian Hollis of the Portsmouth diocese in southern England has said he is “thrilled” at the election of Obama.

The bishop’s message, posted on the website of the Portsmouth diocese, says, “With millions of others, I have been thrilled by Barack Obama’s victory and I thank God for it. For me, it represents a rare moment of hope and optimism which shows American democracy at its best and it is of seismic significance and potential for the whole global community. And so, more than ever now, he deserves and needs us to keep him in our prayers.”

This ardent welcome from Hollis, known in Britain to be on the extreme left of the Catholic Church, is in sharp contrast to a letter issued yesterday by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, in which they warned Obama that “aggressive pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.”

John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) responded to the message of Bishop Hollis, saying, “I am increasingly concerned by the numbers of people who have endorsed Mr Obama. I suspect many of them are caught up in an unthinking Obamania.”

Smeaton asks if Bishop Hollis has forgotten that “the unborn are part of the whole global community?”

Barack Obama, even before being sworn into office, has already begun to “review” many of the pro-life and pro-family policies put in place by the Bush administration, including the prohibition on federal funding for embryonic research. More significantly, Obama has vowed to pass the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that in one stroke would undo thirty years of incremental gains by the pro-life movement by removing all legal restrictions on abortion in America.

“The only ‘potential’ for the unborn under an Obama presidency,” Smeaton said, “will be that more of them will be killed. What ‘hope and optimism’ can Catholic medics have following Obama's election, who will abolish conscientious objection to abortion, thereby threatening to destroy Catholic healthcare in the US?”

Smeaton said he will be writing to Bishop Hollis, asking him to answer these questions.

Hollis is well known in Britain as the representative of the extreme left of the Church hierarchy. Last year, when Hollis issued a statement in support of a call for legal brothels, he was denounced by prominent anti-trafficking campaigners who said he was encouraging an industry that legitimizes prostitution and “completely victimizes” women.

Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson, writing on his blog at the Daily Telegraph website, said that Hollis’ statement of support for Obama is the most “biased statement by any Catholic bishop on the subject” and that it has damaged the reputation of the Church.

“It reinforces the growing impression that Portsmouth, along with other ‘radical’ south coast dioceses, is now independent of Rome, pursuing policies at odds with the Magisterium and the rulings of the Pope,” Thompson wrote.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Catholic Anti-Trafficking Campaigner calls for Pro-Brothels Bishop to Step Down
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/nov/07111504.html

To contact the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops:

Palazzo della Congregazioni,
Piazza Pio XII, 10
00193 Roma,
Phone: 06.69.88.42.17
Fax: 06.69.88.53.03

To contact Bishop Crispian Hollis,
Bishop's House,
Edinburgh Road,
Portsmouth,
Hampshire.
PO1 3HG

Phone: (0)23 9282 0894
Fax: (0)23 9286 3086

To send an online message:
http://www.portsmouthdiocese.org.uk/directory/person/mail/18...

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The fight against Futurechurch: seminarians

From WDTPRS:

"I found a very engaging post at Damian Thompson’s place Holy Smoke:

Let’s have a glance with my emphases and comments.

The fight against Futurechurch: seminarians

Posted By: Damian Thompson at Oct 10, 2008 at 14:38:45

Do you know what makes liberal Catholic clergy wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night? It’s not the return of the Tridentine Mass. It’s not the fact that Ratzinger is Pope. It’s not their rapidly dwindling congregations.


Seminarians are taking over the world

What terrifies the old trendies is a new generation of conservative seminarians, who are gradually turning into a new generation of conservative priests - just as the supply of liberals is drying up. [This is certainly the case in the USA as well. The seminary I was in the US was a hell-hole of heresy and sheer dopiness. But then the student body began to shift. The faculty simply couldn’t throw that many guys out, and word was getting back to bishops about how bad things were there. Slowly but surely the student body changed the seminary, and eventually the bishop made some changes as well, good ones. Now that seminary is for the most part sound. The aging hippies now openly lament the loss of their 60’s dreams and mutter gloomy warnings about how "conserrrrrvativvvve" the seminarians now are.]

Until very recently, seminaries managed to screen out the more orthodox candidates. "Psychologically immature" was the code for "obedient to the Magisterium", and so effective was the process that dozens of vocations were successfully squashed. In the 1980s and 90s, English seminaries were run by a grey-shirted Magic Circle politburo, assisted (not to say bullied) by frightful middle-aged women whose liturgical preferences were only just the right side of Wicca. [LOL! Well put. But I must say that they weren’t to the right of Wicca where I was. At our place there were invocations of the "earth mother goddess", "Sophia", and the "Bringer of Light" – all blended with tacky silliness.]

One or two conservatives slipped through the net, by hiding copies of Fortescue under their beds and slipping each other photographs of fiddleback chasubles that they could admire in private. In public, however, they were careful to wear the seminary uniform of jeans and CND T-shirt, and even to swallow the Bitter Pill without gagging. [The "Bitter Pill" is the lefty UK weekly "The Tablet".]

But times are changing. Dreary Leftist seminary rectors have retired or became Magic Circle bishops, the Wiccan "pastoral advisers" have fallen out of favour, and conservative candidates for the seminary have started presenting themselves faster than they can be turned down. "It’s a bit like the Somme - no sooner have you wiped out one wave of infantry than another appears," says my source. [LOL!]

Futurechurch is losing this battle. Some Magic Circle rectors are ready to run up the white flag. I could mention a couple of English seminaries where orthodox doctrine is taught pretty rigorously. That’s in sharp contrast to the situation 20 years ago. (As one London priest told me this week, "I came away from seminary knowing only two things - that St Augustine of Hippo and St Augustine of Canterbury were different people, and that Julian of Norwich was a woman.")

The other day, I saw a photograph of seminarians and staff at Allen Hall, Westminster. I reckon you could tell just by looking at them that the students were more conservative than their teachers. [YES] The same is true of the Venerable English College in Rome, where – perhaps because it is a breeding ground for bishops – the Magic Circle is clinging on to power. "Students still have to don a false beard if they slip out to attend a Tridentine Mass," I’m told. [I think rubber nose and glasses might work better.]

Some of the really Left-wing dioceses have adopted a disgraceful tactic: rather than put forward conservative candidates for ordination, they’ve stopped looking for future priests completely. Hence all this guff about "lay empowerment": the lay people being empowered are all "made men" (if I can use such a sexist term) in the mafia of the mediocre.

But don’t despair. Conservative seminarians are getting ordained, and in a few years’ time the dioceses will run out of goody-goody Tabletistas on whom to bestow plum parishes. And then, who knows? A conservative bishop? Stranger things have happened.

Just what are the odds these days on His Hermenuticalness being named the next Archbishop of Westminster? Are odds still being offered?"

• UK seminaries: the seminarians are making the difference

An Archbishop of Canterbury in retreat

Thursday, July 10, 2008, 06:39 PM GMT [General]

The immense damage done to the Archbishop of Canterbury during Monday night's debate on women priests is still sinking in. Dr Rowan Williams had not intended to speak, but he was so alarmed by the lack of provision for traditionalists in the code of practice that he appealed to Synod members to reject it. They ignored him.

It was as if a Prime Minister, having quietly supported a piece of legislation in the Commons, suddenly lost his nerve, appealed to the House to change its mind, and was then rebuffed. Even Gordon Brown has yet to chalk up that sort of disaster.

Rowan being Rowan, the meaning of his intervention was not immediately clear. But, as Ruth Gledhill noted, a cold chill swept across the chamber as it dawned on people that the Archbishop "now wants the whole thing blown out of the water". Which was not, of course, what happened.

And so Cantuar's leadership is further diminished, just before the start of the Lambeth Conference. Andrew Carey, son of Archbishop Carey, has produced a pretty devastating analysis of Monday night's "train wreck" on the American Anglican website Stand Firm:

"While Dr Williams has often given traditionalists hope that he would back a structural solution to their problems of conscience, he seems to have completely ruled out strong leadership on theological and ecclesial issues. Wearing permanently now, it seems, the persona of the mediator, Dr Williams was seen by Synod trying to have it both ways. 'I am deeply unhappy with any scheme... which ends up structurally humiliating women.' But he was equally unhappy about marginalising traditionalists. He therefore came 'not very comfortably to the conclusion', we needed a 'more rather than less robust form of structural provision'.

"The Archbishop by his thoughtfulness, gravity and seriousness carries great weight and affection in General Synod but he failed to use this credit on Monday night. And as for the House of Bishops in general, the one word you will never hear them using these days is 'collegiality'. The Bishops are pulling in all directions at once. It is no surprise then to see that the Church of England is now synodically led and governed."

If I was a member of the C of E, I'd be sick to death now of the Archbishop's haunted hand-wringing. The word that comes to mind is Amletico - "Hamlet-like", as Pope John XXIII described his tortured successor, Paul VI.

I don't think Rowan Williams wants to be Archbishop of Canterbury any more; indeed, I'm not even sure he wants to be in the Church of England.

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Church of England bishop will lead Anglicans to Rome

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Bishops plan conversion to Rome

Sunday, July 6, 2008, 10:11 AM GMT [General]

The Sunday Telegraph carries the news that senior Church of England bishops have met the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to discuss the apocalyptic crisis in Anglicanism and the prospect of converting to Roman Catholicism.

I'm glad that Jonathan Wynne-Jones has respected the anonymity of the bishops in question. We at the Catholic Herald have known for some time about these historic negotiations. I pray that they succeed.

What one of the bishops has made clear to us is that they are worried that the liberal English Catholic hierarchy will throw a spanner in the works. Yet I infer from Jonathan's report that the most liberal of all the bishops, Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, is apparently prepared to countenance Anglican converts retaining some elements of their tradition. Has he had his arm twisted?

The attitude of Pope Benedict is crucial. He is very well aware that, in the years 1992 to 1994, the Bishops of England and Wales put pressure on Cardinal Hume to resist any concessions to Anglicans wishing to convert en masse.

The Pope's closest advisers are not in a mood to allow the bishops the same freedom this time. They are already cross at the poor English response to the Motu Proprio liberating the Latin liturgy - and have conveyed their displeasure to the relevant bishops in no uncertain terms.

It's no surprise that the Anglican bishops are talking to the CDF, where the former Cardinal Ratzinger always lent a sympathetic ear to potential converts - and also expressed his appreciation of the Anglo-Catholic tradition. His warm personality, his intellect and his programme of liturgical renewal are tremendous incentives for traditionalists to take the plunge.

If there is a deal between Rome and the departing Anglican bishops, what might it look like? I'm working on an article for the Herald on that subject: I think one key to understanding the situation is a grasp of the possibilities opened up by the Motu Proprio, which the English bishops have ignored at their peril. But, however extensive the Vatican's concessions, we are still talking about Anglicans becoming Roman Catholics. There is no half-way house between Canterbury and Rome, as more and more Anglo-Catholics are now aware.

• Bishops Plan Conversion to Rome
• Anglican bishops in secret Vatican summit

Benedict ‘annoyed’ at bishops’ boycott

From Damian Thompson via WDTPRS:

Benedict ‘annoyed’ at bishops’ boycott

Posted by Damian Thompson on 19 Jun 2008 at 15:22

I don’t like passing on rumours, [And in fairness that is what this is, and he has clearly acknowledged it from the start.] as you know, but there are reports that Pope Benedict XVI is annoyed by the absence of a single bishop at the big Mass celebrated by Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday...

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Latin Mass “power of silence” raises UK Catholic decibels

Posted by: Sebastian Tong

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos was at Westminster Cathedral in London over the weekend to lead one of the highest profile celebrations of the Roman Catholic Church’s old Latin Mass here since the 1960s. The Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales has been lukewarm about the prospect of the old rite being celebrated alongside Mass in English, so the cardinal’s presence was a clear reminder of what the Vatican wants.

Before the Mass on Saturday, Castrillon Hoyos met four journalists (myself included) to explain why Pope Benedict decided last year to promote wider use of the old Latin Mass. He praised the traditional Tridentine rite for its “power of silence,” an element of contemplation he said had disappeared from worship since the liturgical reforms of the 1960s. If his pre-Mass briefing is anything to go by, however, the Latin Mass also has a power to raise the decibel level among Catholics in Britain.

The Colombian-born cardinal, who is head of the pontifical commission Ecclesia Dei for relations with traditionalists, said the new form of the Mass had led to “abuses” that had prompted many to abandon the Church. So, he said, the pope wanted the older form to be offered again in all parishes (not only where a group of parishioners requested it, as originally said).

“The experience of these 40 years has not always been so good. Many people abandoned the sense of adoration (of God)…There is (now) an atmosphere that makes it possible for these abuses and that atmosphere must be changed,” he said in English. “It is not a matter of confrontation but of dialogue — fraternal dialogue — making efforts to understand the precious things contained in the new and the old rites.”

The cardinal added that Pope Benedict would soon clarify his motu proprio — the decree allowing wider use of the old Mass — to clear up confusion over issues ranging from the differences between liturgical calendars of the old and new rites, the use of vestments, ordinations to the sub-diaconate and the Eucharistic fast.

How polarising this issue can be within the Church was apparent even in that small group during the 45-minute interview.

Elena Curti, deputy editor of the Catholic magazine The Tablet, said many Catholics like herself were confused at the new emphasis on the old rite. It seemed to diminish the role of the laity, she said, and she asked the cardinal if this was a regression from the reforms of the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965. The cardinal said no: “The Holy Father is not returning to the past but taking from the past a treasure to make it present today along side the richness of the new rite.”

Curti’s comments sparked a declaration from Damian Thompson, Daily Telegraph religion reporter and editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald, that he “deplored” her comments.

“I’d like to very strongly distance myself from what Elena has said and to say that there is tremendous enthusiasm among younger Catholics for the motu proprio, that many Catholics are deeply grateful to the Holy Father for making the change and many younger Catholics regard this as an extremely exciting development,” Thompson said to the cardinal.

John Medlin, General Manager of the Latin Mass Society that organised the Mass and the briefing, felt obliged to intervene and ask for “charity around the table.” Thompson (pictured at left) kept up the same tone in his two reports on the meeting — “Latin Mass to return to England and Wales” and “Victory against the sandalistas” — and on his blog Holy Smoke (with partial transcript of the briefing). Since The Tablet is a weekly, we’ll have to wait until Friday to see what Curti writes.

The revival of the Old Latin Mass has been compared to a cultural revolution within the Catholic Church. It looks like it’s off to a rousing start.

• Latin Mass “power of silence” raises UK Catholic decibels
• The Westminster TLM: sign of a “cultural revolution” - WDTPRS
  

Women "Priests" Become Catholics

by Damian Thompson

At least two Anglican women priests have become Roman Catholics because they are “fed up with being treated like dirt in their own Church,” according to Fr Michael Seed, the Franciscan friar who is ecumenical adviser to Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor.

Christina Rees (centre) argues in favour of women bishops

Fr Seed – a deeply inspiring priest who has received many Anglicans into communion with Rome – reveals this extraordinary detail in an interview with the Independent, which has buried it away in a feature. He received two women himself – and has now told the Catholic Herald that other female priests have come over to Rome as a result of “persecution”.

In the forthcoming issue of the Herald, Fr Seed tells my colleague Simon Caldwell: “There are other Catholic priests who have dealt with cases like this. Anglican women priests are generally upset at the way they are being treated … This is hardly the Third Secret of Fatima. The persecution of women priests is well known among Anglican clergy, bishops and laity.”

Interestingly, many women clergy in the Church of England would agree with Fr Seed, even if they are not tempted to take the radical step of becoming Catholic laywomen.

Christina Rees of Women and the Church says: “Every woman who is ordained as a priest in the Church of England knows in one sense there is still a question mark hanging over her orders in a way which does not hang over the order of her male colleagues.”

Catholics, incidentally, would disagree with this last claim. There is no question mark hanging over the orders of any Anglican priest – at least, not according to Pope Leo XIII.

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