Another sidelight

I learnt yesterday, from someone who was there, that when the Holy Father visited the Birmingham Oratory last week to view Newman's room, he was introduced not only to the community (or such of it as is there, to save you pointing this out in the comments box) but to the Oratory cat too. And as a gift, he was given a rosary that had belonged to Blessed John Henry Newman. With this he was genuinely touched and delighted, and said that it was quite the best gift of the visit. On departure, he carefully checked that Mgr Georg had not left it behind.

Thanks to Br Richard for the info about the pictures

That photo again

A friend has pointed out to me what the two are wearing: Rowan Williams is wearing the ring that Pope Paul VI gave to Archbishop Michael Ramsay, which he likes to produce on those papal occasion. Pope Benedict, on the other hand, is wearing a stole that belonged to Pope Leo XIII. That, too, cannot be an accident.

Leo, was, of course, the pope of Apostolicæ Curæ, but I don't really see the Holy Father being that tactless. And yet what other explanation might there be?

On another topic, I was very pleased to notice that the altar is no longer (or at least was not on this occasion) piled high with the abbey plate: on certain state occasions it used to look like a victorian sideboard, with dishes, jugs, and probably a box or two of Namaqua wine and a bowl of fruit. I also noticed that at the very beginning, the choir sang a very peculiar responsory with lots of yelping noises instead of music. The Holy Father was quite clearly trying not to giggle.

Father Philip Smith

Today has been a very special day; Philip Smith, a young man who had been an altar server in the parish where I was in charge for the first time, Sutton Park, near Guildford, Surrey, and whom I prepared for Confirmation, was ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in Southwark Cathedral.

It was quite a splendid affair: there were two archbishops, an abbot, a member of parliament, and lots of priests. Fr Philip has been appointed as assistant priest in St Thomas' Canterbury.

Please do say a prayer for him today.

It is one of the real joys of priesthood to see people develop from childhood into adults and still be strong in the faith that one has tried to impart; still more wonderful when they desire to share that same priesthood.

Ad multos annos, Fr Philip!

That's him on the right (in the unlikely event that you needed to be told), in the very smart Gammarelli cassock.

Our Charter for our Lifetimes

It is not usually my practice simply to replicate something I have seen on another's blog: the Catholic blogosphere is something of a hortus conclusus, and if you are like me, you, the reader, go around a simple circle of blogs on a regular basis and often get the same story several times. I am going to break my own rule today and include something that Fr Zuhlsdorf drew my attention to, because it is one of the most perceptive and articulate things I have read in some time. Which is to say that I also find it inspiring.

I have wondered where the Church was going in Europe: surely there must be more to life than fighting to preserve the Church's liturgy, important though that is?

Pope John Paul, having achieved the greater part of his life's work in contributing to the reuniting of Europe had begun to turn his attention to the saving of its soul; he fought hard to have Christianity acknowledged as one of the foundational elements of Europe, but failed. He had no time to try again, for his illness and then death intervened.

Pope Benedict, in his own very different way, has taken up the fight. He argues and appeals, bringing to bear all that formidable intelligence and sweetness of personality.

I had heard it predicted that the visit to Great Britain would be his 'Poland' moment, and I think that it has happened just as foretold. Now, we see his agenda clearly, and it is something we can get ourselves behind.

And it is simply to be the leaven in the lump: oh, I know it is obvious, but in his own person he has shown how it can be done. In Westminster Hall, he spoke, and the world fell silent to listen. Was that not astounding?

The question is whether we will have men of sufficient holiness, faith and eloquence to take up the task. One name springs to mind, and it is Charles Chaput, the Archbishop of Denver; he gets it.

Anyway, what about the piece that inspired all this: well, here it is; it's by Samuel Gregg of the Acton Institute.

Benedict's Creative Minority.

by Samuel Gregg

In the wake of Benedict XVI’s recent trip to Britain, we have witnessed—yet again—most journalists’ inability to read this pontificate accurately. Whether it was Queen Elizabeth’s gracious welcoming address, Prime Minister David Cameron’s sensible reflections, or the tens of thousands of happy faces of all ages and colors who came to see Benedict in Scotland and England (utterly dwarfing the rather strange collection of angry Kafkaesque protestors), all these facts quickly disproved the usual suspects’ predictions of low-turnouts and massive anti-pope demonstrations.

Indeed, off-stage voices from Britain’s increasingly not-so-cultured elites—such as the celebrity atheist Richard Dawkins and others whom the English historian Michael Burleigh recently described as “sundry chasers of limelight” and products of a “self-satisfied provincialism”—were relegated to the sidelines. As David Cameron said, Benedict “challenged the whole country to sit up and think.”

Of course the success of Benedict’s visit doesn’t mean Britain is about to return to its Christian roots. In fact, it’s tempting to say present-day Britain represents one possible—and rather depressing—European future.

In an article welcoming Benedict’s visit to Britain, the UK’s Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs observed, “Whether or not you accept the phrase ‘broken society,’ not all is well in contemporary Britain.” The facts cited by Sach were sobering. In 2008, 45 percent of British children were born outside marriage; 3.9 million children are living in poverty; 20 percent of deaths among young people aged from 15 to 24 are suicides; in 2009, 29.4 million antidepressants were dispensed, up 334 percent from 1985.

Such is the fruit of a deeply-secularized, über-utilitarian culture that tolerates Christians until they start questioning the coherence of societies which can’t speak of truth and error, good and evil, save in the feeble jargon of whatever passes for political correctness at a given moment.

But what few commentators have grasped is that Benedict has long foreseen that, for at least another generation, this may well be the reality confronting those European Catholics and other Christians who won’t bend the knee to political correctness or militant secularism. Accordingly, he’s preparing Catholicism for its future in Europe as what Benedict calls a “creative minority.”

The phrase, which Benedict has used for several years, comes from another English historian Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975). Toynbee’s thesis was that civilizations primarily collapsed because of internal decline rather than external assault. “Civilizations,” Toynbee wrote, “die from suicide, not by murder.”

The “creative minorities,” Toynbee held, are those who proactively respond to a civilizational crisis, and whose response allows that civilization to grow. One example was the Catholic Church’s reaction to the Roman Empire’s collapse in the West in the 5th century A.D. The Church responded by preserving the wisdom and law of Athens, Rome and Jerusalem, while integrating the invading German tribes into a universal religious community. Western civilization was thus saved and enriched.

This is Benedict’s vision of the Catholic Church’s role in contemporary Europe. In fact, it’s probably the only viable strategy. One alternative would be for the Church to ghettoize itself. But while the monastic life has always been a vocation for some Christians, retreat from the world has never been most Christians’ calling, not least because they are called to live in and evangelize the world.

Yet another option, of course, is “liberal Catholicism.” The problem is that liberal Catholicism (which is theologically indistinguishable from liberal Protestantism) has more-or-less collapsed (like liberal Protestantism) throughout the world. For proof, just visit the Netherlands, Belgium, or any of those increasingly-rare Catholic dioceses whose bishop regards the 1960s and 1970s as the highpoint of Western civilization.

Even the Economist (which strangely veers between perceptive insight and embarrassing ignorance when it comes to religious commentary) recently observed that “liberal Catholics” are disappearing. Long ago, the now-beatified John Henry Newman underscored liberal Christianity’s essential incoherence. Liberal Catholicism’s future is that of all forms of liberal Christianity: remorseless decline, an inability to replicate themselves, and their gradual reduction to being cuddly ancillaries of fashionable lefty causes or passive deliverers of state-funded welfare programs.

By contrast, Benedict’s creative minority strategy recognizes, first, that to be an active Catholic in Europe is now, as Cardinal André Vingt-Trois of Paris writes in his Une mission de liberté (2010), a choice rather than a matter of social conformity. This means practicing European Catholics in the future will be active believers because they have chosen and want to live the Church’s teaching. Such people aren’t likely to back off when it comes to debating controversial public questions.

Second, the creative minority approach isn’t just for Catholics. It attracts non-Catholics equally convinced Europe has modern problems that, as Rabbi Sachs comments, “cannot be solved by government spending.”

A prominent example is Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, Chairman of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow’s Department for External Church Relations. A deeply cultured man, who’s completely un-intimidated by either liberal Christians or militant secularists, Hilarion has conspicuously cultivated the Catholic Church in Europe because he believes that, especially under Benedict, it is committed to “defending the traditional values of Christianity,” restoring “a Christian soul to Europe,” and is “engaged in common defence of Christian values against secularism and relativism.” Likewise, prominent European non-believers such as the philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Marcello Pera have affirmed Europe’s essentially Christian pedigree and publically agreed with Benedict that abandoning these roots is Europe’s path to cultural suicide.

Lastly, creative minorities have the power to resonate across time. It’s no coincidence that during his English journey Benedict delivered a major address in Westminster Hall, the site of Sir Thomas More’s show-trial in 1535.

When Thomas More stood almost alone against Henry VIII’s brutal demolition of the Church’s liberty in England, many dismissed his resistance as a forlorn gesture. More, however, turned out to be a one-man creative minority. Five hundred years later, More is regarded by many Catholics and non-Catholics alike as a model for politicians. By contrast, no-one remembers those English bishops who, with the heroic exception of Bishop John Fisher, bowed down before the tyrant-king.

And perhaps that’s the ultimate significance of Benedict’s creative minority. Unlike Western Europe’s self-absorbed chattering classes, Benedict doesn’t think in terms of 24-hour news-cycles. He couldn’t care less about self-publicity or headlines. His creative minority option is about the long-view.

The long-view always wins. That’s something celebrities will never understand.

21 today

21 years ago today, the then Bishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor ordained me a priest in the church of St Anne, Banstead. How the time flies! And yet the priest who baptized me in the same church nearly half a century ago, Fr Brendan Burke, is still fit and in active ministry.

The Pope in the Press

Looking around the religious press, it is interesting to see the coverage of the Papal visit. Naturally, the Catholic Press are very cock-a-hoop about the whole thing; even The Tablet seems to have developed an enthusiasm for Pope Benedict which I have discerned growing for some time now.

The Methodist Recorder (here's their rather home-made website) is rather chilly, recording on its front page

Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Britain has been hailed a "success" by the Methodist Church in Britain.

Every positive word about the visit is put in inverted commas, as if to suggest that the writer thinks otherwise, though he does note that the General Secretary of the Methodist Conference seemed to have enjoyed herself. There is a sad comment from someone that Methodism itself could not now manage to raise the profile of Christianity in Britain, and that it was a good thing that at least someone managed to pull it off.

The Church Times (aka Jezebel's Trumpet) is quite surprisingly (and refreshingly) positive. Last week it had been quite sniffy (to my eyes) about the whole thing, even running a poll among Anglicans as to whether the Catholic Church should continue to maintain a celibate clergy. As if it's any of th………… but I forbear. This week, several pages are devoted to the visit and in a very positive way, which is very nice to see; the front page features the Holy Father and the Archbishop of C striding down a path (presumably in Lambeth Palace), the ABC gesticulating oddly. It's a nice pic, but not as nice as the one of the two of them embracing, which the Holy Father spoilt by clutching his service menu. I've seen it several times in print, but can't find a copy on line to post here. (Now at the top of the page: thanks to Fr William & KMcN).

I haven't seen a paper copy of the Jewish Chronicle, but the online edition (closed now for Succot) doesn't seem very interested in the visit (and why should it be?). There is another of those nice pictures, though, of the Holy Father with the fascinating Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, a man who seems constitutionally incapable of saying anything dull. O si sic omnes!

Compensation

The French Revolution nationalized and sold French Church property—this is commonly known. But it did the same to English property in France, most notably the various emigré institutions that had been founded on the continent to serve the English Catholics who could not live religious life at home because of the penal laws. All the properties in Douai, for instance, were confiscated, and though the Benedictines returned for a while, the seminary did not, but established itself in England, eventually at Ushaw and Old Hall Green, near Ware.

After the Battle of Waterloo and the Treaty of Vienna, the new restored Bourbon French government paid handsome compensation to Britain for the properties which were not restored.

And here comes the greatest scandal. The British government refused to pass on the money to the Catholic Church, giving as the excuse that to do so would be to further superstition! It was only an unexpected legacy that enabled the London District to build adequate accommodation at Ware for the seminarians to live alongside the schoolboys. In other words, the government profited substantially from the French Revolution at the expense, not of the revolutionaries, but of the Church.

Maybe unease about this theft accounts for the readiness of the government later on to build the great seminary at Maynooth at the public charge, 'Rome on the rates' as it was dubbed.

And, as another footnote, in 1863 the domestic plate of the college at Douai was uncovered from the place it had been hidden from the revolutionaries—forks, spoons, cruets, that sort of thing—and divided between Ware and Ushaw.

Happiness in the Church of Rome

Now that the incense and euphoria of our Holy Father's visit are beginning to dissipate, our minds inevitably turn to the next thing on the agenda which is, I think, the prospect of the establishment of Anglican-Patrimonial bodies in communion with the Holy See as proposed in the Holy Father's letter Anglicanorum Cœtibus.

When, many years ago, I was an undergraduate, a friend (Anglican) then told me with great authority of Blessed John Henry Newman's misery once in the Catholic Church. He told me with great pathos of the aged Newman leaning over the gate at Littlemore and weeping for what had once been. 'People become Romans', said my friend, 'but they all come back'.

Some do, in fact, return to the Church of England, having failed to find what they sought in Catholic communion; I have indeed known some, including one who (to the surprise of all who knew him) went on to receive not just a mitre but also a wife.

After 1992, practices differed in different dioceses as to the various hoops that clergy being received into full communion were required to jump through. At the time, Cardinal Hume's arrangements in Westminster were considered particularly generous: clergy continued to wear their collars, and would attend what were facetiously variously called 'Confirmation classes' or 'Irish dancing classes'. Ordination would speedily follow. Some dioceses refused to make any concessions to convert clergy whatever and were consequently avoided. Others took a middle path. In the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, then headed by the man who was to become Hume's successor, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, clergy were required to sit in the pew for a minimum of two years, usually being associated with a particular parish and pursuing some studies in the seminary where I am sitting right now, with the view of topping up whatever had lacked to their studies for Anglican priesthood. This was perceived as being somewhat hard (indeed, I thought so at the time), but yet we must acknowledge that several of those whom Basil Hume ordained returned to the Church of England (with all the consequent scandal), and none of those (as far as I am aware) that Cormac Murphy-O'Connor ordained have done so. In the end, the tougher path was the better.

The reason, no doubt, is that greater knowledge of the church which one is joining is valuable, and in some cases essential, to make a good assessment of just what one is doing. Men building towers, and kings going to war, that sort of thing.

Potential Ordinariates, of course, are an unknown quantity. Life may be similar enough to what has been left behind to obviate any sense of profound loss or disorientation in an unfamiliar setting that unsettled those who waded over the Tiber in 1992. But there will be differences and (at least in this country) there will be need for some education in matters like canon law and moral theology. Perhaps this can satisfactorily be arranged within the Ordinariate itself. But it must not be assumed that a cleric, his feet still wet with Tiber mud, can easily settle into the new situation, 'because it is just the same, really, only with the Pope added'.

As to happiness, and the Blessed JHN, I am engaged, at the moment, in writing a book in which the late Francis Cardinal Bourne of Westminster (d.1935) features largely. I came across a letter written by Newman to Bourne's father, who had been received into the Church a few months before the Beatus. Bourne senior had been distressed to hear the rumours that Newman was profoundly unhappy in the Catholic Church, and the rumours were sufficiently strong to inspire Bourne to write to Newman and ask if they were true. Newman replied:

Dear Sir,

I return an immediate, though necessarily hasty, answer to your inquiry, which made me more than smile.

It is wonderful that people can satisfy themselves with rumours which the slightest examination, or even attention, would disprove; but I have had experience of it long before I was a Catholic. At present the very persons, who saw through and reprobated the Evangelical misrepresentations concerning me, when I was in the Church of England, believe of me things quite as extravagant and as unfounded. their experience of past years has taught them nothing.

I can only say, if it is necessary to say it, that from the moment I became a Catholic, I never have had, through God's grace, a single doubt or misgiving on my mind that I did wrong in becoming one. I have not had any feeling whatever but one of joy and gratitude that God called me out of an insecure state into one which is sure and safe, out of the war of tongues into a realm of peace and assurance. I shrink to contemplate the guilt I should have incurred, and the account which at the last day would have laid against me, had I not become a Catholic, and it grieves me to the heart to think that so many excellent persons should still be kept in bondage in the Church of England, and should, among the many good points they have, want the great grace of faith, to trust God and follow his leadings.

This is my state of mind, and I would it could be brought home to all and every one, who, in default of real arguments for remaining Anglicans, amuse themselves with dreams and fancies.

I am, Dear Sir,

Truly Yours,

John H. Newman Maryvale, Perry Bar, June 13, 1848.

As for the person who told me of Newman's unhappiness in the Catholic Church, well, he is a Catholic priest now, too.

Perspective

During these recent days, I've taken to trawling around the newspapers on line to read about the reactions to the Papal Visit. Almost universally, they began tough, and then gently melted under the charming influence of Pope Benedict. Naturally, here and there one will read something disagreeable, but it feels very different being a Catholic in Great Britain today than it did last week.

One newspaper I had avoided reading was The Independent, which, others had warned me, was the most strident in its anti-catholic tone. Today I took courage and was very glad I did so. I was very deeply touched by this article by Joanna Moorhead which pays the warmest tribute to the Catholic Church.

Read it here. You won't agree with everything, but it is moving nonetheless.

Thank you, Ms Moorhead.

And how does Richard Dawkins look now?

His site is remarkably silent, as is Stephen Fry's.

Not surprising, on the whole, given reaction elsewhere:

The New York Daily News says how the critics 'really made fools of themselves'.

Richard Ingrams of The Independent thinks that Atheism really needs to replace Dr Dawkins with a new leader that isn't Stephen Fry, either.

The Telegraph was, I suppose, the most likely to turn out to be our friend; there, Jenny McCartney suggests that Dawkins is turning into the new Ian Paisley.

Andrew Brown in the Guardian (a paper which is rarely on our side) has a very good piece about not distorting what the Pope actually had to say, and in particular not twisting his words into a suggestion that atheists are all potential nazis (one scare story that ran a few days ago).

And yet, if you look at the comments on many of these posts, you will see yet again the vile, shrill and hysterical nastiness that has cowed so many of us in recent months. Given the opinion polls taken shortly before the visit, combined with the actual experience of these last few days, I think that we may conclude that these comments are made by a very few sad, mad or (even, but let us hope not) bad individuals who post under several different names and spend a long time hunting out articles favourable to Catholicism just to unleash their venom.

Now, I think, they just look ridiculous, and I shall do my best to ignore them. And pray for them.

From someone who was there……

I gather that at Twickenham on Friday there were two groups of protestors ; the ultra-gay lobby and the ultra-Protestants. The police were out in force to keep them from really spoiling the occasion and managed to herd them together into one corner where they could keep an eye on them.

What they didn't reckon on was that the two groups spied each other and realized that here was an enemy even more hateful than the Pope; so they then set about having a regular ding-dong at each other and quite missed what they had come to spoil.

As dying and yet we live

I have just participated in the Holy Father's Mass in Bellahouston Park (via television in my case) and find myself deeply moved. I remember the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1982 and the celebrations then, and I was struck with how very much I preferred this occasion. This time there was none of that rather hysterical atmosphere that prevailed on the former visit, but now there was a great air of recollection and prayer, something that I would have thought nigh impossible among a crowd of some seventy five thousand people.

Yes, it seems that perhaps we have learnt some lessons from the last forty years, and there really is a new spirit abroad.

Perhaps this is partly because in the wake of all the recent opposition to our faith we have a greater sense of who we are and what is important to us. How forcibly those words of St Paul struck me today:

As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities,5beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; 6by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; 7by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; 8through honour and dishonour, through slander and praise. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; 9as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed;10as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything. (2Cor 6)

The Holy Father's homily, too, was both moving and inspiring, and will irritate many a secularist, no doubt.

The evangelization of culture is all the more important in our times, when a “dictatorship of relativism” threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about man’s nature, his destiny and his ultimate good. There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatize it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty. Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or sister.

Let nobody now doubt that the Catholic Church on this island is still alive and can be given a very much better prognosis than I might have given it a few years ago.

And now, I must offer heartfelt congratulations to Cardinal O'Brien and the Scottish hierarchy for an impeccably organized day. I can only pray that the English and Welsh hierarchy will prove to have done as well.

And, incidentally, does His Eminence have shares in a certain tartan weaving firm, by any chance?

Away

Again, I'm sorry for the slow posting, but there is a nice reason. My bishop has kindly agreed to me having a year's sabbatical break from the parish in order to write (well, finish, really) the history of St John's Seminary, Wonersh. I started work on it some ten or more years ago, but with all the work in the Valle Adurni, it still stands in the same place. So, as of yesterday, having worked very hard to prepare the parish for my absence, I've moved into the Seminary for a few months and am working now at a very different pace. Bliss!

And maybe my posting might get back up to speed.

Baptistery

I've just been to a Baptist service; it was very long and there was an awful lot of talking. But it's funny what preconceptions one has about real Protestants (such as the Baptists); quite a number were demolished this afternoon. I should say straight away that there was a lot that was good: there was a real atmosphere of keenness, and nobody could doubt that their faith was genuine and deep.

Surprise 1: The scriptures played almost no part in the service. There were two very brief (and very familiar) quotations from Hebrews, but these were simply there to act as the springboard for the preacher (who read the passages himself in the context of his sermon).

Surprise 2: I thought that Protestants believed in irresistible grace and despised 'works-righteousness'. But a hymn (sorry, worship song) that constantly repeated 'I choose to follow you' (or something like that) sounded almost Pelagian.

Surprise 3: There was quite a lot of prayer, of the extempore making-up-prayers type that I am no good at. But the Lord's own prayer was clearly found to be deficient, because it didn't feature at all.

I'm not criticizing, merely recording my own surprise. Perhaps there are perfectly good explanations for all this.

Mass and Metre

Today the booklets for the Papal visit arrived; hundreds of them, so it is just as well that we are not going to be asked to pay for them, because I cannot imagine shifting them all if we had to ask money; it is going to be hard enough persuading people that they want them for nothing.

That being said, it is true that the booklets are really rather well put together. I would buy one. They have everything one might require for assisting at the Papal Liturgies, and a good deal more.

What I immediately went to have a look at was the setting for the Mass throughout, by James MacMillan. It's only a melody line, so one has to imagine the harmonies, but for the most part this isn't difficult.

(Later note: You can see a link in the comments box, from Mac [thanks!], to a synthesized sound version)

I wrote a post about a week or so ago which I never put up on the blog for various reasons. Damian Thompson had been having a go at some music written by a friend of mine, which actually I thought was quite good. In the course of his piece, Damian extolled again the music of James MacMillan, and compared it (in general) to this other piece. It got my mind working. The bit that I wrote was to make the point that actually it is rather hard to write a Mass setting for unison congregational singing that doesn't resemble, by and large, all the others: MacMillan has a setting already in the general repertoire called, if my memory serves me right, the St Anne Mass, and it's a nice piece in a rather Scottish manner, but not head and shoulders above, say, the Dom Gregory Murray Mass or any number of others. His new Mass for the Papal Visit even uses what is for me the kiss of death, cantors singing lines for the congregations to sing back to them. (Again, see Mac's comments)

I think that the problem lies with a too-close approximation of these Masses to hymn tunes; I mean the feeling that one has to set the sacred texts to a four-square melody, more or less one syllable to one note, with the occasional melisma or modulation for interest. However, because most of the Mass texts are not metrical, but plain prose, the longer pieces, such as the Gloria do not sit easily with this style of music. To put it plainly, I don't think you can set the Gloria in 4/4 (or any other beat) at all without it sounding dull, and the same goes to a lesser extent for the other movements of the Mass. The Gloria especially is too long for a memorable melody; tunes simply wander around going nowhere in particular. You can spice it up in other ways (different movements, different forces, different keys) but if you're not careful it can end up sounding either like a Broadway musical or simply dull.

There are good congregational Eucharistic settings in English, but the best two I can think of are Merbecke's setting of the Communion Service and Shaw's Folk Mass (not at all what that title conjures up these days), both Anglican pieces. These two eschew time signatures, employing free rhythm and modal tonality—in short they have more in common with plainchant than with a hymn tune. Neither uses melismas, though, these being forbidden by Cranmer; this is a pity as they might have given further interest. Both settings work very well congregationally, and manage never to be dull.

In a Catholic context, I think of the astounding Missa Cum Jubilo of Maurice Duruflé. This is a unison setting for seminarians, and draws very heavily on Mass 9. It also requires a strong lead from an able choir, and an above-averagely skilled organist. But it is probably doable in a larger church, and has the advantage of being an important work in the classical repertoire in its own right.

The same (in a completely different way) can be said of Schubert's Deutsche Messe. However, in practice, as things stand, only the Sanctus of this Mass can realistically be used, because all the movements have been versified and paraphrased within an inch of their lives, and this practice, thankfully, is to be discouraged in future, I understand.

Paul Inwood has produced a Mass based loosely on the opening phrase of the Kyrie from Mass 11. I am familiar with the Sanctus from this Mass, and can say that it stands head and shoulders above anything of his that I have heard before. I am not so keen on one or two of the other movements, which would seem to return to a former style, but if this signals a greater interest in the 'feel' of plainchant, then it is good news. His Sanctus does have a time signature, but has enough atmosphere and, actually, brevity, to make it work; the music does not dominate the text but gracefully illustrates it. This setting has been commissioned by the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton for its forthcoming jubilee in 2015 (the diocese having failed to interest James MacMillan in the project). If Paul Inwood can be encouraged in the direction he has started out in for his Sanctus through the remaining movements, this Mass could be a serious contribution to a newer and better register for congregational settings, and this is something we need seriously to develop very soon, before we bed down again into the old tired style of which, I fear, our Papal Visit Mass may be simply one more example.

Nunciatures and Noise

I gather that the Knights of St Columba (overseas readers please note that this is not a misprint for Columbus or Columbanus) are organizing a nocturnal candlelight vigil opposite the Nunciature in Wimbledon during the Papal Visit.

I have a memory that when Pope John Paul visited in 1982, the group Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (does it still exist?) decided to show its attachment to the Holy See by serenading the Holy Father the whole night outside the then Apostolic Delegation with traditional Catholic hymns. Eventually, at some ungodly hour, the Pope had to appear at a window and beg the people to go to bed and let the poor Pope get some sleep.

The Knights' vigil is prudently set to end at 8.30pm, by which time the Holy Father should have caught up on the latest episode of Eastenders, and be settling down for a mug of Horlicks and a game of Scrabble with Mgr Georg.

Some twenty years ago, I heard a story in Rome, from an official then high up in the Secretariat of State, which is presumably true. General Noriega, the dictator of Panama, having recently fallen from power, famously holed up in the Apostolic Nunciature, claiming sanctuary, or something of the sort. The Nunciature was promptly surrounded by hordes of gum-chewing GIs with guns trained on every window. Their war of attrition was prosecuted by loud American rock music (BAWN in the USA and the like) being directed at the Nunciature round the clock from powerful loudhailer systems.

In insomniacal desperation, the Nuncio contacted the Vatican Secretariat of State, and some high-up there telephoned the US embassy to the Vatican, threatening to send the Sistine Choir to sing under his windows unless the rock music was silenced.

There was tranquillity in Panama within the hour.

The Pope may not have many divisions; but he has got the Sistine Choir!

Gossip

Gossip is not infrequently sinful, especially when it does damage.

Gossip can make a delicate situation intractable.

The situation of the so-called 'Birmingham Three' was never a positive one.

But the gossip has already made a bad situation fifty times worse.

It might well all have blown over by now, but for the gossip.

And good people are fanning the flames, though no doubt with the best intentions.

The only justification for this gossip is old tabloid one

(foot in door, microphone in face)

'the public has a right to know'.

No it doesn't!

'we're just giving you the opportunity to give your side of things,

otherwise we'll write what we think'.

This whole business has the devil's hoofmarks all over it.

Far too many good people have been maligned, on all sides.

Enough, already!

I am going to vet comments on this post very strictly.

No Gazebos!

Among the list of banned objects which 'pilgrims' to papal visit locations are forbidden to bring are, bizarrely, gazebos. It's a delightful image, really; thousands of little wooden shelters all around Hyde Park, with people taking tiffin (with their regulation-size coolboxes and approved plastic cutlery) or possibly a strictly non-alcoholic chota peg or two……

Sadly, I imagine they meant those little canvas tents without walls.

I was pleased to see, when walking back to Shoreham along Brighton and Hove sea front the other day a young woman wearing a 'Team Benedict' sweatshirt.

Few things more beautiful

Pope St Pius X

Why did I bother will all that stuff about traffic in the Veneto? Well simply because it caused an interesting detour. From our hotel in Vicenza, city of Palladio, we visited the lovely Bassano del Grappa on our first morning.

Bassano is not a particularly famous tourist destination, but it is worth a visit.
This lovely wooden bridge over the River Brenta has been periodically destroyed by one thing or another, and rebuilt exactly the same each time. It was supposedly designed by Palladio.

And here is one horror I hadn't seen before: not electric candles, but little oil ones, presumably refillable.
We determined to press on to Treviso, but the heat, and the traffic, and the headlights at noon got to us, and so we made a little trip of pietas to Riese, birthplace of Pope St Pius X, whose feastday falls today in the new calendar.

Here is his birthplace, now turned into a museum.

The riposo, or lunchtime break and siesta, had just begun, so the house was closed. But they obligingly left the shutters and windows open, so I was able to take these pictures of inside.

This is the main street, with the church at the end (having the detached campanile so typical of the region) where he was baptised. Being the riposo, there was very little traffic, and soon we returned to Vicenza for our own lunch and riposo.

Treviso will have to await another occasion. I am sure that it is worth waiting for.

Today, Saturday, we celebrate our weekly Extraordinary Form Mass and, since we observe the new calendar (so as to avoid celebrating the Mass of some saints twice and others not at all), I prepared sheets for the people with the propers in English. The Latin texts seemed unfamiliar to me:

Extuli electum de populo, oleo sancto meo unxi eum; ut manus mea sit semper cum eo, et brachium meum confirmet eum. (Introit)

It's from Psalm 88, of course, but then the penny dropped. They had used Pope Pius XIIs new psalter instead of the Vulgate. Regrettable, I suppose, but not inappropriate for the feast day of the Pope who had started the process of liturgical tinkering.

Traffic in the Veneto

The Veneto is horrendously overcrowded. There are 4.8 million people crammed into this little corner, plus about 60 million tourists each year (both statistics from Wikipedia). Even the resident population is greater than the entire Republic of Ireland's (at 4.4 million). You can feel it, too, as you drive the overcrowded single-carriage roads past houses every few yards even in the countryside.

Driving, then is not a positive experience. On the whole, I find Italian drivers do not deserve their reputation. They drive at speed and with little regard for officialdom, but (at least in the north) I found them courteous and good humoured, and very, very alert and skilful. I never felt intimidated or at risk. There are some oddities, however, such as this symbol for a speed camera:

—an old fashioned bobby's helmet, in fact. Funny that that should be such a potent symbol of policing in Italy.

And then there is another curiosity. I should introduce this with a passage from Bill Bryson's Neither Here nor There:

But the most preposterous law of all, a law so pointless as to scamper among the outer margins of the surreal, is the Swedish one that requires motorists to drive with their headlights on during the daytime, even on the sunniest summer afternoon. I would love to meet the guy who thought up that one. He must be head of the Department of Dreariness. It wouldn't surprise me at all if on my next visit to Sweden all the pedestrians are wearing miners' lamps.

I'm afraid, Bill, that there is a law that is even more surreal. The same thing is now law in Italy. The land of sunshine! There we were, pounding up the miles at a steady two miles a fortnight (about as fast as you can go in much of the Veneto, on account of the traffic) in the blazing midday sun with our headlights on!

Slow Posting

Please forgive the slow posting: I have had a small eye operation (successful, Deo gratias), which has temporarily made using the computer slightly difficult. All is gradually resolving itself, so hpeoflly I shuodl be able ot tpye wthuot makking dpelling mistaks beforr too lnog.

Child abuse—some emerging statistics

William Oddie has commented on the gathering evidence that (in the US, at any rate) the Catholic Church is (and has been) in fact a far safer environment for children than most other institutions that have contact with them.

Chioggia

It's a well known thing that few real Venetians live in Venice these days, but have migrated to the mainland and the general hinterland. I have often asked myself how they could bear to do so, but I suppose I can understand that the day-to-day inconveniences (heat, smells, tourists, high prices, having to walk everywhere or take vaporetti or expensive water taxis &c) might overcome any other considerations.

So it was a delight to discover Chioggia. It lies just south of Venice, and is remarkably similar, only unspoilt, untouristy, and on a much smaller scale. They are real locals, too; I arrived on market day and, walking up the crowded main drag, I could barely understand a word: everything was being spoken in the local dialect which sounded a million miles from Italian (which I can get by in).

Here is the little (former) cathedral with its eastward-facing but also people-facing altar that I pictured a few posts back.
And the rather orphaned entrance gate to the main drag, with the market just about to begin on the other side.
It really could be Venice…
couldn't it?
However, unlike Venice, you can drive right into it.

Renaissance men and women

I'm not really a philosopher, but I have studied some history. Over on his St Barnabas Blog, Fr Edward Tomlinson has lamented the late-mediæval divorce of spirituality and theology; he rightly notes that St Thomas does not seem to make this division, but says that this happened after his time.

It seems to me that, perhaps, this derives from the introduction of Aristotelian categories into the West. It wasn't all done overnight, but have we not seen, ever since, an ever greater breaking down of disciplines into narrower fields?

When I was a University chaplain, at the all-Science University of Surrey, I used to lament the sheer narrowness of the students' world-view. Without the arts, (or, rather, with arts being done in a rather self-conscious extra-curricular way) the students stood great risk of being, simply quite boring. Few of them enjoyed the subjects they studied for their own sake, and they had no chance to rub shoulders with arts students that might have made life more interesting.

In England and Wales, from the age of 16 or so, our young people are considered broadly-enough educated, and they specialize from then on. First, a lifetime choice between arts or sciences, and then only one subject for a degree from the age of 18. Scotland is much more sensible, as are some Universities in the USA, with broader curricula for longer. What has become here of the notion of the 'renaissance man'?

The Platonic system that preceded the Aristotelian, instead of breaking knowledge down into relatively unrelated parts instead sought to see all of knowledge as essentially one, tending in one direction, drawing its meaning from God Himself. Theology, spirituality, yes and science all increase our knowledge of God, for we study the Wisdom that lies behind it all. And thus it is that theology can also aid science, and music, and everything else.

This is very inchoate, I know, and possibly rubbish. But it seems true this afternoon.

Ferrara

The delightful city of Ferrara was dominated for several hundred years by the D'Este family; they were clearly of a nervous disposition, for all their houses were alarmingly fortified. This is their little bijoux pied-á-terre in the middle of Ferrara. The only exception to this rule that I can think of was Cardinal D'Este's wonderful villa outside Rome at Tivoli, with all its spectacular water features.

I was very taken with the Cathedral in Ferrara. Here is the sanctuary; the Bishop's throne is in the traditional place, the altar rails are still there (and, being uninteresting in themselves, and made of wood, they could easily have been removed). The forward altar is of dark wood, and kept unvested when not in use; the high altar, on the other hand, could be used straight away, being fully equipped with cloths, candles and bust reliquaries.
The Blessed Sacrament chapel is beautifully appointed, and is very prayerful, being railed off from the tourists.
And all the side altars are vested and candled, unlike most of the other churches we visited.
In addition, there was a priest in the confessional doing a brisk trade, our Lady's altar was beautifully cared for and much visited……

In short, the Archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio since 2004, Paolo Rabitti, and the administrator of the Cathedral deserve hearty congratulations for a beautiful, prayerful and Catholic building.

Ten o'clock

When I was a priest in the Oratory at Oxford, I was introduced to the custom of saying the De Profundis, at 10pm every evening, for the repose of the souls of deceased Oratorians. It is a custom I have tried to maintain since. Now I say the De Profundis when the church of St Mary in Shoreham strikes ten, both for the deceased of the Oratory, but now also for the deceased of my parish. A devotion I commend to you.

Beyond parody

A retired Methodist minister is to conduct communion services by way of Twitter: he will tweet the prayers, and the 'congregation' will tweet back Amen.
If they have bread and wine (or grape juice, presumably, or Ribena for those who pride themselves on following the Bible literally), they can set them in front of their computer to be 'consecrated' by tweet.

Read about it here, and you can sign up if you like.

The Holy Saint of Padua

We all know about the holy man of Padua, don't we?

The trouble is knowing which one; there isn't only one major saint in Padua, but at least four, possibly five, plus some minor contenders. I think some of you will be as surprised at what follows as I was when I stumbled across these great bones.

This is not the great basilica in Padua, but the Benedictine church of St Giustina, just off the Prato, as you can see. St Giustina is buried here under the high altar, a fine woman and martyr, but she isn't one of the big names.

Her church is a pleasing, if severe, neo-classical building inside.

The interest lies in the two transepts to right and left ahead.

Below you will see the tomb of nobody less than St Luke!

And, in the opposite transept, the comparatively neglected

tomb of St Matthias (I expect they drew lots).

And, buried away down a little passage behind St Matthias, and down some stairs, you will find St Prosdocimus, much venerated in the East, but rather unknown in the West:

In the basilica of St Anthony, opposite the great man's tomb, another magnificent shrine, but completely unlabelled. There is a statue of a saint with a pilgrim's staff, resembling St James (but without cockle shell) that might be a clue, but otherwise, I'm stumped.

And here is the rather over-the-top tomb of the man everyone knows is in Padua, St Anthony, for whom I was named (my middle name, I mean).
But be honest, did you know all these other folk were in Padua? St Anthony is a great saint, no doubt, but I am not quite comfortable that he appears to overshadow an Apostle and an Evangelist!

Verona III: facciamo le cornu (or corna)

The baptistery in Verona alone is worth a visit. Mind you, I don't imagine that it is used as shown; the priest would need to nimbly leap over the outer barrier in order to baptize a child in that inner tin bowl.

The outer barrier is the most interesting thing. It shows scenes from the infancy narratives of our Lord's life.

Above we can see the annunciation. This is the only picture I didn't take; this came from the web. My companion alerted me afterwards to what I had missed. That figure on the right would appear to be making 'the horns', the ancient sign mocking a cuckold. I had heard (to my distaste) that to some in the middle ages, St Joseph was a fun figure, cuckolded (as it were) by the Holy Spirit. Is that what this image shows?

Verona II

An anonymous commentator on the last post made some remarks about the new sanctuary at Verona, situated in front of the screen; I share his opinions. Not my taste, but could be a lot worse. There are a series of chairs executed in pink Verona marble in a semicircle around the back. As he writes, at least one ascends to the altar.

Orientation

During my wanderings in Northern Italy during the last couple of weeks, I discovered two examples of old cathedrals being organized originally so that the celebrant faces down the church, across the altar in the style we have come to know and……well….

We know St Peter's (and other churches) in Rome was of this type, but here are two others outside Rome.

In Verona, the Cathedral is oriented NE/SW. The old high altar faces SW, towards the nave and congregation, and is clearly originally intended to do just that, even though a screen (you can see the pillars) intervenes. The bishop's throne is at the centre of the apse behind.

Verona Cathedral, looking SW, down the church towards the nave.

At some later stage, wooden steps have been added on the congregational side, so that Mass may be celebrated NE, into the apse. You may note, by way of interest, the 'confession' hole at the front of the altar in imitation of the high altar at St Peter's in Rome.

Verona Cathedral, looking into the apse from the rood screen.

Here is another example in the (former) Cathedral at Chioggia, just outside Venice. In this case there has been no attempt to add steps in front, but this altar is clearly old and intended to be used just as it is used today, though in this case the celebrant does indeed face East.

Chioggia Cathedral. looking west into the apse.

Amish

A couple of years ago, I had as a guest in my house a very splendid young man called John R. He was the grandson of Amish grandparents; his own father had been released from the Amish community for what they call rumspringa; this is a period some (not all) Amish families think important, when their teenage children can experience the world they are rejecting and so choose baptism freely for themselves. Not all return, but those who do find their commitment to the Amish way reinforced.

John's father had found the freedom while on rumspringa intoxicating, and had eventually rejected Christianity, eventually finding his way into some Hindu sect. He had met a lukewarm Catholic lass who had shared his various experiments with some enthusiasm, and they had several children together. Now they have separated, and the Catholic woman has returned wholeheartedly to her Catholic roots, the younger children following her enthusiastically. John and his fellow older siblings are left confused as to the value of any religion. He spent some time living with his Amish grandparents, and loved and appreciated them. He spent some time at a Catholic University in the Southern United States, and loved and appreciated that. He is a loving and appreciative young man. But now he is rootless, unable to commit to anything.

I watched a programme on Channel 4 last night (watch it here) about five young Amish people ('The World's Squarest Teenagers') on rumspringa. They have been brought to England to be thrown among the people most likely (in Channel 4s opinion) to shake their deep faith. It is The Monastery all over again. But it is so wonderful to see such beautiful people, especially the two young women. Virtuous, good women, even beautiful when expressing views that I wouldn't go along with; it is very true, as one of the young Amish men said, that true beauty does not not lie on the outside, but inside.

I know that these people (Channel 4) are going to do their best to corrupt the beautiful. But in the first programme, it must have been clear to the meanest mind the superiority of the Amish both in terms of goodness, but also happiness. It seemed apparent even to the charming families that they were put among.

Mennonite Protestantism does not appeal to me in the least. But these young people are a very persuasive argument for the virtuous life.