clair010

From time to time I get enquiries (or, worse, rude letters claiming to be from individuals with impressive names like Catholic Mission or Catholic State) about the validity of the Orders of the post-Conciliar Church. I've tended to ignore such questions, because "the post-Vatican II Church" is the One, Holy Catholic Apostolic Church of God, just as much as "the Post-Tridentine Church" was, in

I am sure that my admirable friend and brother priest Fr Zed will have some intelligent forecasts to make. I offer only the following humble and baseless guess: That the abuse crisis will move even closer to PF himself.

Ever since I became old enough to understand such things, I have been impressed by the annual Gospel of the main Mass of Christmass Day: the Prologue of S John's Gospel. The world has largely eliminated the Dogma of the Birth of God as a human being ... I gather that, for some commercial interests, the Octave of Christmass is now renamed 'Boxing Week'. But even where the Christ has not been

Salve, Thoma, virga iustitiae, mundi iubar, robur Ecclesiae, plebis amor, cleri deliciae. Salve, gregis tutor egregie, salva tuae gaudentes gloriae. I thought docti lectores would appreciate the very elegant jingles of alliteration and assonance ... not heavy and plodding like Ennius, but quite Neoteric or Virgilian. The word-play 'gregis ... egregie' seems to me to span the chronological and

Among the things I noticed when I holidayed annually in Ireland was the sight of people with Down's Syndrome. It is no more remarkable there to see such jumans in the streets than to see, say, a West Indian or someone in a wheel-chair, in Britain. When you get back to Blighty, the streets seem suddenly strange because there aren't any. Then it dawns on you why there aren't any. Rather as, just

On 16 October 2014, a Spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales announced that the Friday within the Octave of Christmas is never [in England and Wales] a day of Abstinence. (Different rules, of course, exist in different countries.) That applies to tomorrow.

Vatican II very sensibly suggested that the old Breviary collection could be enriched by rescuing other hymns from the treasury of the Western Church. Happily, a gorgeous composition by S Peter Damian (d1072) was found for the Festum of S John the Evangelist: Virginis virgo venerande custos, in the Sapphic metre (I wonder what the dear old girl would have made of it if she could have known how

... Ora pro nobis. May he pray for the great number of Catholic priests and bishops now happily in full communion with the See of S Peter whose priesthood was formed at S Stephen's House ["Staggers"]; when it was on the site of what we are now supposd to call the Weston Library alias the New Bod here in Oxford; and later in Norham Gardens; and, most recently, along the Iffley Road. If the influx

I have been moved by the number of people who have sent me cards or prezzies and indications of appreciation. It is nice to be told that quite a lot of people find something of use in some of the things I write. I wish you all every grace and joy in the coming year.

Here is a redaction of stanzas 2 and 3, which used to circulate in Anglo-Catholic circles: Yea, Lord, we greet thee, Here upon this Altar, Jesu, to thee be glory given. Word of the Father Now in flesh appearing:       O come ... Godhead and Manhood, Sacrament most holy, This is the presence whom Angels adore. Altar and manger, One eternal moment.       O come ... Sing ...

Continues from yesterday. In the Latin Bible, Circumcisio represents the Greek Peritome, Circumcision, used (as in S Paul's Epistles) as a collective term for the Jews. Praeputium represents the Greek Akrobustia, Foreskin, used as a collective term for the Gentile world (English Bible translations sometimes shyly render this as 'Uncircumcision', which seems to me a bit like referring to

Oh dear! What new devotional message about the wretched animals looming over the manger can Father deliver as the tinies and their smirking parents gather round for the Blessing of the Crib on yet another Christmas Eve? Not the same platitudes as last year, surely? No worries. Rescue is at hand in the ancient pages of the Gelasian Sacramentary, which includes material used in Sixth Century Rome.

I doubt whether the Omnia opera  of PF will be a sell-out for generations to come, but his Christmas addresses to the Curia do deserve immortality. They don't all come up quite to the classical perfection of the address in which he explained to the Curia the 19 sins of which they were collectively guilty ... but this year's masterpiece in which his critics are likened to the late Judas Iscariot

"A History of Saint Clement Parish, Ottawa, 1968-2018" This is the (sumptuous) history ... not of a parish church, but of the living group of Catholic human beings which formed in Ottawa after the liturgical deformations of the 1960s, and, despite having moved buildings more than once, is still flourishing more than ever. SAs you read it, you masy get some surprises. Often, the baddies in

According to Dr G G Willis, of the Anglican Patrimony, the December Ember Days (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday this week) replace the old pagan Roman agricultural festival upon which the olives were harvested. The oldest texts for these days, in the Verona Sacramentary, probably dating from before Christmass fully established its liturgical dominance, still retain agricultural references; but

In view of the apparent agreement between the Vatican and the Chinese government, the way would seem wide open for an arrangement whereby the SSPX would choose its own bishops, Rome retaining only a nominal veto which, out of tact and sensitivity, it would never use ... ... or, alternatively, for the SSPX to choose and consecrate its bishops sine mandato Apostolico, with the Vatican

Gerhard Cardinal Mueller has rightly raised the question of the duties of disobedience in a Church in which orthodoxy is subverted from above.* The longer the Church is run by PF and/or by Bergoglians, the more acute this problem will become. In the Church of England, the oath of Canonical Obedience sworn by clergy at their ordination included the limiting phrase " ... in all things lawful and

PF is reported to have declared a day or so ago that his abandonment of the Church's previous teaching on the death penalty "doesn't imply any contradiction with the teaching of the past." He combines this with an insouciant statement that previous popes "ignored the primacy of Mercy over Justice". Dear dear dear. Pretty nasty, that. What silly fellows they must all have been to make such an

"[After the Reformation,] the Papal Communion was reknit, much more closely and self-consciously than the late medieval Church, by the Protestant challenges; but the very vastness and richness of the organic life still possible in it, admitted of the existence of strong theological tensions within a single ecclesiastical body, with the spontaneity and vitality which such contained tensions always

Not that I mean that. The principal reviser of the Anglican Prayer Book in 1662 was much nearer being an orthodox Catholic than was poor Dr Cranmer. But I know whose liturgical craftsmanship I prefer. In the old Latin Missals, the Third Sunday in Advent had an exquisite Collect: Aurem tuam, quaesumus, Domine, precibus nostris accomoda: et mentis nostrae tenebras gratia tuae visitationis illustra

So ... one of the Roman auxiliary bishops, a Jesuit, has been appointed  Commissar of the Priestly Brotherhood of the Family of Christ (FSFC) in Ferrara. Is he, one can't help wondering, a Bergoglian? The mere fact that he himself comes from Ferrara is hardly a guarantree of austere impartiality. One wonders whose idea it was ... assuming that the FSFC really did need to be handed over to a

When the End comes, we may finally hear the full tally of the graces received in the Universal Church through the Ministry of S Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, including the prayers of his Sons. Not least shall we know what, in our own dark days, the Community on Papa Stronsay have done for us all by their prayers, sufferings, and good works. The Sons have published the first part of The Glories of

Blessed ... probably soon to be Saint ... John Henry Newman, Patron of our English Ordinariate, made an observation which seems to me germane to the purpose of our Ordinariate. He was praising B Pius IX for the restoration of the Hierarchy in 1850; but I think it has an application particularly to ourselves: "... by giving us a church of our own, he has prepared the way for our own habits of mind

Since there are still some ferias left this week, on which last Sunday's Mass will be repeated, it is not, perhaps, too late to add a few words about that Mass. Back in the days when the main purpose of a Roman Pontiff was the solemn celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, on the Second Sunday in Advent he processed to his 'Stational Church', the Church of the Holy Cross, in order to offer the Holy

The water in the cruet, which I blessed at Mass before I put a drop of it into the wine in the Chalice at the Offertory ... is it Holy Water?

I don't always enjoy reading the same lection day after day. I hope it doesn't make me a Novus Ordo freak if I admit that (a truncated version of ) the Parable of the Talents, as Confessor Bishop follows Confessor Bishop in our ... dare I use this word ... rather clericalist Calendar, sometimes seems a bit of a trial. However, the Mulier fortis from Proverbs 31 is always a joy to me. I just

I find Methodist chapels disappointing. This is because so many of them have endured 'Reordering'. The traditional English pattern for Methodist ... and other Protestant Non-Conforming ... chapels was that they were dominated, at the"ritual East end" by a broad pulpit, stretching most of the width of the chapel except for a stair up to it at left and right. A reading Desk marked the middle.

Fr Thomas Rosica is a part of the Vatican Machine. He used to sit at the table during Vatican Press Conferences, defending the interests of the English Language and of his fellow Anglophones (he is a subject of The Queen's Majesty of Canada). He gave an impression of intelligence, competence, and imperturbability. He appeared to have a sense of language and of words. On July 31, 2018, he

Henry Chadwick, the towering Anglican intellectual of the second half of the twentieth century, believed that Blessed John Henry Newman was the most superb writer of Satire and of Irony in the English language. True! I wonder if you have read Newman's semi-autobiographical novel Loss and Gain. He exposes to our laughter the absurdities of popular Evangelicalism; of sonorous, pompous, and

In his 2017 lecture to which I referred a little while ago, Dr Nichols, according to the Catholic Herald, said that the First Vatican Council had restricted the doctrine of papal Infalibility, so that it is not the position of the Roman Catholic Church that a pope is incapable of leading people astray by false teaching as a public doctor. He went on: "He may be the supreme appeal judge of

Some people have been wondering about the existence of Excommunication as a remedy available under Canon Law. I can see why these anxieties have arisen. During a period of ecclesial tyranny like the present, such a penalty has the potential to be very dangerous. Perhaps it is less likely that PF would impose such a penalty ... after all, it might damage his carefully crafted PR image ... than

 ... to pontificate upon the internal affairs of other communions; so I will probably not be forgiven for expressing a view that, in the current spat between Constantinople and Moskow, Moskow has distinctly very much the better of it. The assertion that Bartholomew has "fallen into the heresy of Papism" is, from a certain viewpoint, understandable ... indeed, persuasive. Dom Gregory Dix loved to

An Australian prelate of this name (a relative?) is reported to have expressed the view, with regard to homosexuality, that "'Love the sinner, hate the sin' ... no longer communicates with ... the real world" in which sexuality is "part of [your] being". I beg regular readers to forgive me for making yet again a point I have often made before when similar speakers have advanced similar ethical

It looks as if our kindly and most erudite Patron may have a second miracle recognised enabling him to be canonised in October, during this present ecclesiastical year of 2019. Great news!! It is reassuring to see the divine Hand powerfully at work in His Church. But at the same time, we should remember the enormous skill with which the Enemy uses what is good and skilfully perverts it to his

During the Middle Ages, there were undoubtedly atrocities committed against Jewish people ... just as there were rather greater ones during the Century of the Triumph of the Enlightenment, between 1939 and 1945. But medieval intellectuals were usually aware of a healthier narrative than that of the anti-semitic bullies. This was because of their instinctive confidence in Holy Scripture. I reprint