clair010

There is a minute ... tiny ... but interesting exhibition in Ashmole about Antinous, ending in a few days' time, at the end of this very week. And it is accompanied by a stylish and intelligent little book by Professor 'Bert' Smith (Antinous boy made god ). [Those who know zilch about Antinous should either google him now or not bother any further with this blogpost.] Briefly, Dr Smith's

So why didn't Cardinal Mueller mention the Petrine Ministry in his Manifesto? I'm sure his attachment to the Decrees of Vatican I on the Primacy and Infallibilty of the Pope is as strong as my own. (1) The question has been raised: does the question of the papal Magisterium concern the Christian Faith: or is it about the circumstances under which one might be told something about the Christian

The ancient usage of the Western Church suggests you should ... now ... be reading the book of Genesis in your Divine Office. And that you should have started reading Genesis today, Septuagesima. Thus, the Roman Breviary; thus, the Anglican 1961 Lectionary for the Divine Office, authorised in the American and Australian Ordinariates (but, strangely, not in the English Ordinariate). During Lent,

I plan, in the middle of next week, a little post on heraldic intercourse between Cardinals. Meanwhile, may I briefly float this: a laicised cleric ought to have the right to display his status armorially. For Cardinals, perhaps this could be done by superimposing on the shield  and on the galero a small escutcheon of the arms of S Gallen in Switzerland. Any Bishops who, being  heterosexual,

This is an old preface tinkered with in the 1970s. It is provided, in several Sacramentaries, either for the last Sunday after Epiphany or for Sepuagesima itself. So I suppose it is ... sort of ... seasonal. Praefatio III de Dominicis per Annum. VD ... omnipotens aeterne Deus: Ad cuius immensam gloriam pertinere cognoscimus ut mortalibus tua Deitate succurreres; sed et nobis provideres de ipsa

I have now withdrawn from public view the piece I wrote about Pope Honorius, together with its thread. I had been genuinely irritated at the constant stream of "of course" comments from angry sedevacantists, and thought I would give them the opportunity of answering specific questions. It certainly did winkle them out of their shells, didn't it? Enough hot air to affect disastrously our Global

Today is the Obit of one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century, Eric Lionel Mascall. I included his name, with immense gratitude to him and to the Lord who gave him to us, in the Memento etiam of the Mass of S Valentine this morning; thinking as I did so of the that familiar figure, back in the Sixties, murmuring this same 'Western Rite'* Mass privately, day by day, at one of the

I felt quite embarrassed, last Saturday, walking round Oxford with some American friends. I felt I had to explain that the Rainbow 'diversity' flag did not normally fly from the flagpole of every college. "I'm afraid it's Pink Week", I rather wetly said. When film-makers produce WWII films, they very often show Swastika flags hanging down the fronts of buildings in occupied cities. It must have

Orate pro anima Georgii Austin viri Venerabilis Ecclesiae Eboracensis quondam Archidiaconi necnon et Canonici Fidei quoque Catholicae propugnatoris qui nuperrime obiit.  C A P D

His Excellency Bishop Richard Williamson nearly always seems to me immensely readable, except when he is in the grip of some Conspiracy Theory which leads him on to blame some predictable groups. One of his recent 'Eleison' blogposts attacked, yet again, those in the SSPX who hope for a rapport with the Vatican. He advances the theory that Rome might assign to the Society a couple of "relatively

Cardinal Mueller's magnificent Manifesto is an interesting document. Happily, it is bound to arouse amusing comments from the Usual Suspects ... the Robert Mickenses; the Austen Ivereighs; all the Silly Gang. (I wonder what that theological heavyweight Cupich will make of it?) I write 'happily' because we can do with the laughs. I pastorally counsel readers to laugh, rather than getting depressed

Today's Sunday Collect in the Old Roman Rite and in the Ordinariate Rite is a beautiful and ancient prayer asking God to guard (custodi) his Household (familia) with "continua pietate". Pietas is the word which gives us the English term piety; but there is rather more to it than that. After all, the English word piety suggests a humble human attitude of devout religious attention to God. That

"Then he said, 'Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.' He answered, 'For the sake of ten I will not destroy it'". Bishop Schneider has spoken up, unambiguously, about PF's disreputable descent into Indifferentism. Could it be that nine more bishops might now follow his lead? So as to make up the ten bishops for the sake of whom the

In Brideshead, Waugh describes his disillusionment with the Army in terms of a husband's disillusionment with a wife: "I caught the false notes in her voice and learned to listen for them apprehensively ... I learned ... her jealousy and self-seeking, and her nervous trick with the fingers when she was lying ...". I wonder if I am the only one to have followed this process with PF: "The nervous

A kind and generous benefactor has responded to my plea! A heartfelt Thank You to all who responded.

Sometimes kind people ask me if there is a book I would like. For years, I have made do with the great Christine Mohrmann's The origins of Christian Latin in a pile of photocopied sheets. It would be nice, and relaxing, to have it as a book. Could anyone find a copy and gift it to me? That woman so incisively saw through the errors of the silly little fellows who paraded themselves as being

So PF has agreed with a Moslem cleric that religious pluralism and diversity are willed by God. I am rather interested in what other Moslem scholars might have to say about this. Some of them are quite sound chaps when it comes to the errors of Relativism. Fr Zed has given a characteristically fine and intelligent interpretation of PF's words. As have some others. Having perused them, I am

Behold a great Priest who in his days was pleasing to God and in a time of wrath was found a Reconciliation. Mgr Edwin Barnes has died after a short illness. He was the first Bishop of Richborough; one of those who led a people out of the wilderness into Full Communion with the See of S Peter; into the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham and Blessed John Henry Newman. At our meetings in

I do not enable comments which claim, for whatever reason , that PF is not (or might not be) the true Bishop of Rome. I do not wish, on the Day of Judgement, to have to explain my collusion in encouraging souls for whom Christ died to separate themselves from His Body the Church. For similar reasons, I do not enable comments which say, suggest or imply that the Orders of the post-Conciliar Latin

We live in a world in which sexual disorders are actually inculcated by that Dark Hegemony which saps both the joy and the virtue from authentic human life. I can only describe my own feelings about what is needed. Above all, the current Suspense in the Magisterium needs to be brought to an end. The Roman Pontiff, if his job description is to have any reality, must do this. The Holy Spirit was

PF believes that the crisis in the Church is to do with Clericalism. He will not blame homosexuality. My belief is that the crisis relates to Lust. And to disordered  Lust. If an abusing priest is homosexually inclined, his problem is Homosexual Lust. If he is heterosexually inclined, his problem is Heterosexual Lust. I fail to see that there is very much practical difference between the two. I

Some years ago, Fr Sean (quondam Vallis Adurni notissimus Pastor nunc autem montis cultor) and I were trying to solve our mutual perplexities about this antiphon, which so many of you will have been singing with the last psalm of the first nocturn at Mattins of Candlemas. Here is the gist of what, with the help of some learned contributions on threads, we discovered. Perhaps the easy bit is ante

Continues ... The Chiron biography of Bugnini records that, during the pre-Conciliar drafting of the decree Sacrosanctum Concilium, "at no time, it seems, did any participant (member or consultor) ever propose - at least publicly - the addition of other canons to the sole Roman Canon then in use. Some, however, were proposing that changes ought to be introduced into it." Ha!, I hear you cry. So