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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-310698822014-11-26T17:37:36.704ZFr Ray Blake's BlogCui resistite fortes fideFr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-31538295225406339322014-11-24T08:30:00.000Z2014-11-24T09:47:10.402ZIntriguing

I remember a brief conversation with Cardinal Suenens soon after the election of S John Paul II. As a gauche seminarian I asked, "So what do Cardinals do after electing a Pope?" His curt answer, "Look for a successor".

Fr Henry reports Austen Ivereigh has a new book on Pope Francis out soon. Father reports Ivereigh's book as saying

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the former leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, helped to orchestrate a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign which led to the election of Pope Francis.

Disclosing that:

... there had been a discreet, but highly organised, campaign by a small group of European cardinals in support of Cardinal Bergoglio... Writer Austen Ivereigh, nicknames the group "Team Bergoglio" and says members toured private dinners and other gatherings of cardinals in the days before the conclave, quietly putting their case.
I can understand Pope Francis irritation with 'leprous courtiers', but then there was that Monsignor Pedacchio at the Congregation for Bishops who was supposed to have been faxing vast numbers of document to Cdl Bergoglio, or "Team Bergoglio", He is now the Pope's secretary.

As Ivereigh was Cormac's press officer, presumably he relies a great deal on the Cardinal's inside information. His Eminence has frequently spoken of his closeness and friendship with His Holiness.

One of the stories which may or not be true but was told widely by several English College students, the college was of course Cardinal Murphy O'Connors Roman base, he has/had a suite of room there. Apparently during the Conclave that elected Pope Benedict there was a reception for the European liberal Cardinals and their political friends, apparently Cardinal Pell wasn't invited so he positioned himself in the window of a restaurant opposite the College and rather conspicuously recorded who went in.

Some people hate the idea of intrigue, because of course it is terribly human, and yes, open to corruption and all sorts of evil, they naively assume the Cardinals enter the Conclave as blank sheets of paper and await the Holy Spirit to move them to vote for particularly Holy candidate. If only it did happen that way, if only that was how bishops were chosen, or priests were selected for some office in that way but it always seems to be about he advancing of a faction rather the God's Kingdom.
Messy thing the Church, I am sure Ivereigh's book will reveal more mess and is itself part of the intrigue!Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-28258529451670393552014-11-22T10:38:00.002Z2014-11-22T10:38:47.110ZWhat does the Pope mean by 'mean' There is a curious little video of the Pope's audience in which he starts his Christmas catechesis, I am not sure if something is lost in translation but he gets people to shout out in response to his question 'What does the name of Jesus mean?" they respond "God with us!"

"Jesus" means, Saviour or Liberator, Emmanuel means "God with us".

Matthew 1: 22 All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emman′u-el" (which means, God with us).
Obviously this is a problem with our interpretation of what the Holy Father means by 'means'. Possibly if I didn't need to rely on translators I might not see this as a problem.Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-40803026666509174172014-11-19T18:29:00.002Z2014-11-20T01:07:01.874ZMost Pastoral of Popes

Sacraments I am sure are supposed to be life changing events, rather than a simple reward for turning up. From very early on until that old modernist Pope St Pius X changed things - those people who are anxious about Francis would have been  apoplectic about Pio. He not merely changing the Apostolic order of the sacraments - Confirmation after Communion - but wanting to introduce not merely frequent but even daily Communion. Communion not just for Holy monks and hermits who had proved themselves in ascetical discipline, in long vigils and depth of prayer but on a regular basis for those who had only recently attained the age of reason and probably hadn't yet learnt to use it. It was madness!

For almost 1,800 years, ever since Paul had written to the Corinthian suggesting that the Holy Eucharist kills, and is dangerous, and indeed can both give Salvation but also Condemnation and death, Communion was something which most sane people took part in rarely, to the point where the Council of the Lateran made annual reception a precept of the Church, even then pastorally minded bishops seemed not to insist too strongly, except in the case of imminent death.

One of the nonsenses spread abroad by those 1970s liturgists is that in that mythical period 'the early Church' people were receiving not merely regularly but frequently, in all probability every Sunday, I think the evidence for that is very flimsy!

The point is of course that the sacraments are Life Giving Events including, maybe especially so, Holy Communion, Pius' reforms made them mundane and lead to the abuses we have today where just because you are whatever years old or in Miss X's class, or at Mass you receive the Communion, Confession or Comfirmation, So now the Sacraments are received frequently they have come to mean very little in the life of the Church or the spiritual development of its members, their power to impart Grace or Salvation hardly figures in contemporary catechesis, the liturgy has become not so much a mystical meeting with Heaven but 'a celebration of the community'.

So many of the ills of today's Church can be laid directly at the door of this most interfering of Popes, the most important being that Sacraments do not change lives. Of course in the teeth of all that his predecessors had upheld down the ages, he thought he was being 'pastoral' - God preserve us!
Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-56525515535782608522014-11-18T08:56:00.001Z2014-11-18T08:56:45.161ZOxford Universities Shame
It was announce last night the debate between Tim Stanley and Brendan O'Neil in Oxford University, about the effects of "abortion culture" has been cancelled. From what I understand the pretext was the venue, which is not in use tonight for any other function, was not booked properly.

The reality is that Christ Church JCR really wanted to curtail freedom of speech, the debate wasn't even about abortion but its effects on society. It is truly shameful that in one of the greatest universities of the world should be afraid of debating even, "This House believes that abortion culture harms us all".

 What a shameful reflection on what has become of a great University, once a bastion of freedom of speech and expression! How perverse, frightened and cowardly are the JCR committee!Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-5010358293613159392014-11-15T23:03:00.002Z2014-11-15T23:03:37.554ZThe Church Investing Her Talents

The Church holds it better for sun and moon to drop from Heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in the most extreme agony... than that one soul... should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth or should steal one poor farthing...
What I meant to say was if the Church starts encouraging sin then it isn't the Church, it would go against its very nature as Church, just the same as even liberal Jewish synagogues do not encourage ham sandwich eating, at least on the premises!

The Gospel for this Sunday is about using the talents God has given us. It could be that, it could also be about producing fruit. I am sure many American Protestants would see that Gospel passage as being about the glories of Capitalism, we Catholics would look deeper.
Reading it in the light of the New Evangelism Holy Church has been imbued with so many riches and one day the master will return and want the profit on his investment. He has pored out riches on us and will return one day, until he does he expects to make disciple and to Evangelise. For most of us, priests and people, Evangelism is what precisely? Most have never done it, most don't how to do it, most don't know what its purpose is and most are not even convinced it is necessary at all.

As a priest I think I am going to be like the man who dug a hole and buried the wondrous gift my master had given me, The problem is that most of us regard not merely proselytism but evangelisation as solemn nonsense. We see little difference between Evangelical Protestantism, Anglicanism, Orthodoxism and Catholicism, or for that matter Paganism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity. We are hardly convinced that attending Mass on Sunday is more important than doing a good work, some other form of prayer, a round of golf, shopping or staying in bed. Indeed many of us priests turn it into some kind of teaching experience or group hug. Most of us regard what we teach as no truer than any other truth. Most of us tend not to believe sacraments are life changing experiences.

We dig a hole and we put God in it, we bury him and walk away. It is not the nature of God to stay buried just as it is not the nature of the Church to teach sin. The first reading from Proverbs speaks of a perfect wife, well, Holy Church is the Bride of Christ, the real Perfected Wife. "Her husband has confidence in her, from her he will derive no little profit"

I do believe Jesus when he says, "By there fruit you will know them". Here is the picture of a particularly fruitless part of the Church that is fast loosing itself not just to secularism but Protestantism.

There are exceptions, one believing bishop can make all the difference, it is sad that often those who are proclaiming the faith most clearly seem to grow wheat and tares together, or bring to shore both good and bad fish, even Jesus had Judas among his proto-clergy!

Good trees bring forth good fruit. The Church has a lot to proclaim, it strikes me that doctrinal confusion is not just bad for the Church but mankind because in hinders his salvation. So if the Church's ministers confuse or appear to be encouraging sin, 'a willful untruth' or the theft of 'one poor farthing', or if she is ambiguous about things condemned by the Lord himself and His Apostles, like divorce and remarriage or sinful sexual practices, it has done a terrible thing because it must always proclaim God's intention for Man: union with Him. The Church's function is to show the face of Jesus, to repeat again in every age Jesus' teaching, to offer a vision of the truth, of the reality of transforming sacramental grace, of the holiness of the saints, of the liberation of Jesus' teaching.

Any priest any bishop, can easily become despondent, we need to search out 'Apostle' who will help us proclaim the beauty of the Christian life; of our glorious final end, certainly, but also the beauty of Christian living, of marriage and chastity, of the Holy Eucharist and of prayer, of vocation in all its forms, and most especially the glory of serving Christ in the priesthood.

There is nothing more destructive than what someone recently called 'the bell-bottomed' theology of the 1970s, which seems to have had a resuscitation of late. Let us bury that and instead find ways to use the many gifts and talents, the jewels with which Christ has bedecked his bride, Our Moter the Church.

"... it is not as if you live in the dark, my brothers, for that Day to overtake you like a thief. No, you are all sons of light and sons of the day: we do not belong to the night or to darkness, so we should not go on sleeping, as everyone else does, but stay wide awake and sober." 1Thess 5:1-6

Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-36602184459732455132014-11-14T18:07:00.001Z2014-11-14T18:23:10.623ZThe Ham Sandwich Test
Those Oxford chaps, like that glorious erudite and dazzling ornament of the Ordinariate, might indeed climb the stairs of the Ashmole in order to converse with the stony face of Benedict XIV Lambertini, who reminds him of Newman's teaching:

The Church holds it better for sun and moon to drop from Heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions on it to die of starvation in the most extreme agony... than that one soul... should commit one single venial sin, should tell one willful untruth or should steal one poor farthing...
I tend to meet Soli Zuckerman on the No 1 bus, when I visit someone in the hospital, he's a tailor who now works for Homebase or something like that. Tonight he was returning home for family Shabbat he is delightfully loquacious, I asked him about liberal Judaism "Rab", he said, "It is all about ham sandwiches and Quiche Lorraine, that's the key. Bacon, they stop at that".

He was telling me about a friend of his who is a member of the Liberal Synagogue at the end of my road, I thought it was being demolished, the last time I passed by the doors were open and everything was stripped out. One of Soli's friends married a third time, this time "he married out" and embraced "liberalism". "They might use English, they might have services in which women form a quorum along with men or even on there own, they might happily have a Lesbian Rabbi but they won't have a ham sandwich or pork pie for their shared lunches". I checked and Soli was right.

There is a bottom line for every religion, for Soli and even Liberal Jews it is pork, at least not in the synagogue. For Catholics, at one time the bottom line was Friday meat eating, now it is a bit more difficult but I suppose what the marble lips of Benedict XIV were saying is that for the hierarchy the promotion of sin is impossible, the Church cannot accept it.

As I have just seen one blog put it we end up in an Orwellian world, quite different from Christ's if we say,

SIN IS VIRTUE

JUDGEMENT IS IGNORANCE

CHANGE IS STABILITY

IMMACULATENESS IS FILTH
Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-36466132464172796592014-11-12T22:22:00.000Z2014-11-12T22:22:13.527ZJosophat: the Saint of Christian Unity
When saying Mass in St Peters for some reason I often got shown to the altar of St Josophat, today is his feast and there is an extract from Pius XI Ecclesiam Dei in the Office of Readings. Pius XI speaks of him as the Saint of Christian Unity, who gave his life for the unity of the Church.

13. He was convinced that he would be martyred, and often spoke of the possibility of such an event occurring. In one of his famous sermons he expressed a desire to be martyred; he prayed ardently to God for martyrdom as if it would be for him a singularly blessed gift. A few days before his death when he was warned of plots that were being laid against him, he said: "Lord, grant me the grace to shed my blood for the unity of the church and in behalf of obedience to the Holy See." On Sunday, November 13, 1623, his desire was realized. Surrounded by enemies who had gone in search of the Apostle of Unity, he went forth smiling and gladly to meet his fate. He asked them, following the example of his Lord and Master, not to harm the members of his household, and then gave himself into their hands. He was set upon and killed in a most barbarous fashion. Despite his wounds he did not cease till his dying breath to implore God's pardon for his murderers.
14. Great indeed were the fruits of this glorious martyrdom, especially among the Ruthenian bishops who knew how to draw from his death a living example of firmness and courage, as they themselves testified two months later in a letter sent to the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda: "We too are ready, as one of our number has already done, to offer our life's blood for the Catholic religion." As a result of and almost immediately after this martyrdom, a great number of people, among whom were the very murderers of the Saint, returned to the bosom of the unity of the Church of Christ.
15. The blood of St. Josaphat even today, as it was three hundred years ago, is a very special pledge of peace, the seal of unity. We call it a very special pledge for the present times because those unhappy Slavic provinces, torn by disturbances of all kinds and by insurrections, have been empurpled with the blood spilt in the terrible and inhuman wars of our own days. In truth, it seems to us that We hear the voice of that blood "which speaketh better than that of Abel" (Hebrews xii, 24), that We behold Our martyr turning to his Slav brothers and calling out to them in the words of Jesus: "The sheep are without a shepherd. I have compassion on the multitude." Verily, sad is their condition, terrible their distress! Alas, the great number of exiles from their native land, what an awful carnage, what great loss of souls! Looking now as We do at the calamities which have fallen upon the Slavs, certainly greater than those which Our Saint wept over in his time, it is extremely difficult for Us to keep back the tears which well up from Our fatherly heart.
I must say I have a sneaking admiration for Pius XI, not an easy man but in many ways an outstanding one, a bit more of a warrior than his successors. Though Pius XII might well have been its author, he was the guiding force behind Mit brennender Sorge. Most people will know Ad Mortalium Annos, again concerned with Christian Unity:

10. So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly."[20] The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills."[21] For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one,[22] compacted and fitly joined together,[23] it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.[24]
 Different times! Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-34379563800152551352014-11-11T09:04:00.000Z2014-11-11T09:04:13.436ZFr Hatton speaks

Fr Gerrard Hatton is one of the younger priests of our diocese, he was ordained in 2011. here he speaks at A Day with Mary in Golders Green on Our Lady and the Holy Souls.
It is priests like Fr Gerrard who give me great hope for the future.

Pray for Holy Priests and even Holier Bishops!Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-30466614054602857922014-11-10T19:09:00.002Z2014-11-10T19:09:20.777ZRed Rags and the Order of Malta
Cardinal Burke has been criticized for doing his job as a canon lawyer, which is to obey canon law. Being obedient to the Church's law is presumably the very minimum we should expect from any priest or prelate. Not being able to criticise him for holding fast to the teaching of Jesus Christ most of the criticism from the vindictive lunatic fringe seems to be about the soft furnishings of his office, which as he is doing what he is supposed to do, is plain churlish.

I am not sure that a EF cappa magna would fit in my Church, two right angle turns from the sacristy to the sanctuary and narrow gangways would present health and safety issues for both the wearer and the congregation. The old cappa is quite a few yards longer than the one in Paul VI's post-concilliar clothing regulations that are in force for Bishops and Cardinals in the Ordinary Form.

Blood red, not white, is the proper papal colour, it symbolises the martyrs, most especially Ss Peter and Paul. The fact you need an attendant or minder to hold the other end of the cappa indicates the dependency of a Cardinal on others, it symbolises the burden of office, the stream of blood behind a Prince of the Church. It is actually street dress, or at least processional dress. It is supposed to make a spectacle, a witness, of the Cardinal. Blood red silk flowing from his shoulders, is supposed to be a statement signifying 'that you are ready to act with fortitude, even to the point of spilling your blood for the increase of the Christian faith, for peace and harmony among the people of God, for freedom and the spread of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.' which is what Pope says at the imposition of the red hat.

The Church has always recognised the Cappa is worn as a sign of the external vanities of the world, I like the prayer that is said when it is removed.'Take off of me, Lord, the old man with his manners and deeds: and put on me the new man, who according to God is created in justice, and the holiness of truth.' It's removal is actually more important than ts wearing because after its removal the Cardinal or Bishop ends up being clothed in the casuala, the little house, the Chucrh of charity. I suspect the phrase, 'created in justice, and the holiness of truth' resonates with Cardinal Burke.

I received a few rather gracious emails suggesting I was unkind for describing the Order as 'moribund' a week or so ago; this morning I received a charming phone call from a member of the Order of Malta explaining quite how un-moribund they actually are. I am apologise unreservedly. My intention was simply to suggest that the Sovereign Order would be very fortunate to have Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke as its Patron but I also suggested that the Order was in a place that would give the Cardinal a very influential place in the Church. I think to make reparation it might be worth suggesting that the Cardinal might well be fortunate to be associated with the Order. In fact, if we discount any malice on the Pope's part, and let us presume that the Pope is not extra-ordinarily stupid, then he has deliberately appointed one of the most outspoken, intellectually able, hard working, guileless Cardinals, and those who know him describe him as quite saintly, to what is probably a dream job. Yes, lots of lex orandi, most of the members of the Order of Malta I know are strongly attached to the Old Rite, but actually lots of lex vivendi going on as well.

I don't quite know how to describe the Order of Malta, it is actually a religious order, with a celibate core. It is also the other independent sovereign state in Rome, though its territory is even smaller, it parallels the Vatican, it has its own Sovereign and clergy, even ambassadors. It is also a social support community, for the great and the good. On the ground it is an aid agency, it runs hospital, nursing homes, refugee camps, it is even in Lampedusa.

It is this that Pope Francis has made Cardinal Burke the Patron, as I have said elsewhere I expect fission to take place. At least twice before the Order has saved Europe and consequently the Church, will there be a third time?

It is worth reading this from the Order of Malta's Grand Chancello, Baron Albrecht von Boeselager:

"We are active now in 120 countries with bigger and smaller operations. We have between 80,000 and 100,000 volunteers, and 30,000 or so employees. It has become a big operation whereby the huge proportion of activities is not emergency relief. It involves activities such as our Homes Trust here in England, hospitals in Germany, volunteer organisations, social aid, first aid and care for the elderly, the homeless, the handicapped, but the limelight is always on conflicts and disasters."

That said, one should not underestimate the order's achievements in conflict and disaster zones. Take Iran: "The last time we were there was after the severe earthquake. We were surprised how well they were organised and how unideological. In the aftermath of the earthquake when the first phase of aid was over we were asked by the local government to coordinate all the NGOs and to train new local NGOs. We were astonished."
There are many other examples. "In one African country our ambassador discovered in the central prison there was no separation between men and women. You can imagine what happened. And on one side, the government did not care and, on the other side, they were ashamed so they did not let anybody in to see it. But they trusted our ambassador and allowed him to build a wall just across the middle of the prison to separate men and women and, in addition, to build a small clinic. And this was only possible because he had direct contact to the prime minister and they saw he was not a dependent of anybody and did not have to report to any other national or international body."
One last example. "In the last Lebanon war our ambassador negotiated the release of more than 1,000 hostages. The European papers were full of the stories of the western hostages but not of the Lebanese hostages. And he went with his diplomatic car into the battlefield in the Beqaa Valley to take the injured out and he was not attacked by either side." All these examples are small pieces, says the order's Grand Chancellor in his understated way, "but they underline how we work".
 Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-37485828944835884662014-11-09T12:41:00.000Z2014-11-09T13:13:23.060ZWar?

I've changed my header picture from that grey view of one of the piers in my parish. It is really the inspiration of the Book of Maccabees in the OF Office of Readings we have been having this week, as much as anything else.

But then there has been plenty of war talk going on in the Church at the moment, I don't know if it has been going on outside of England. Perhaps it is the centenary of the First World War and Remembrance Sunday coming up. There has also been talk of schism too, its all a bit daft, for Catholics or should we say, as I think we must nowadays 'orthodox Catholics', there is no place to go, not even Malta!

The new spirit of Relativism is as Pope Benedict says 'lethal' for the Church and for faith, just look at this little extract from Eponymous Flower:

In France, there are only 14,000 diocesan priests. About half of them are older than 75. This means that the situation is dramatic. To conduct but one parish is already a big job. In France it has become "normal" that a pastor has to take care of a dozen parishes. A regular celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is impossible. In most parishes it is celebrated only occasionally. In the diocese of Langres, each priest must take care for an average of 50 parishes. In short, it is almost resigned to a spiritual catastrophe. The numbers of priestly ordinations is also discouraging. In 2009, only 89 diocesan priests were ordained in France. Far too little to compensate for the decrease due to death. These numbers seem like reports coming from the front with the losses to an army. You could cry.

Fortunately, there is good and encouraging news coming from the seminaries of tradition. The traditional communities and dioceses have offspring. More, their seminars are full. It is therefore to be hoped that more old rite seminaries will be opened. There is no danger that they remain empty, since there is a strong interest in tradition by young believers.
France embraced the whole relativistic 'Spirit of ...' agenda as much as anywhere, except maybe Germany. The French Church however didn't have the money to turn the community of faith into an efficient business where bishops have become highly paid Chief Executives. There are some bright spots in France like the rather traditional diocese of Frejus-Toulon which has as many vocations as every other French diocese outside Paris put together. The other hope for France is its monasteries, these too are often great bastions of orthodoxy, those which aren't have died out. The highly non-Relativist 'La manif pour tous' movement has shaken the French establishment and given new hope, it is itself heavily influenced by traditional Christianity.

What is happening in France will happen elsewhere, perhaps not quite so quickly or with such a violence but in ten years time if we follow the Relativist line, Europe and the Americas will follow. New York, for example, this week announced the closure/merger of over 100 parishes. This is going to happen all over the place, simply because Relativism is lethal, it is unattractive and hopeless, it is attractive to people of a certain generation but repells the young.

For any General involved in a Church war, my advice is to wait, maybe pray 'santo subito', because the 'biological solution' will sort most of our problems out, and much quicker than natural law will sort natural breakers out. In the interim, lest the troops become complacent let us all redouble our efforts and use all the means we have at our disposal to 'convince, rebuke and exhort', for as the Apostle says to Timothy:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.
Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-34431710401088658472014-11-07T18:02:00.001Z2014-11-07T18:02:37.207ZFaith Departed?
It is easy to cast stones at dear old Mother Damnable but we tend to think we Catholics are a bit different. There was an article last month that claimed 2% of Anglican clergy didn't believe in God and 16% are agnostic, it went on to say

Clergy were significantly more likely to hold unorthodox beliefs the older they were and the longer they had been in the ministry. Nearly 90 per cent of those ordained since 2011 believe in God compared with only 72 per cent of those who became priests in the 1960s, the research discovered.
I think actually more older clergy tend not to believe or have lost their faith.

Perhaps the fiasco at the Synod has challenged such a one sided view, it is worth remembering the substantial agreement that ARCIC has reached (until the CDF got hold of the documents) to realise that between the CofE and many Catholics there is hardly the difference of a cigarette paper's depth.

A friend of mine has taken over a parish which was run for a decade or so by a priest who had lost his faith and last year those splendid young Irish Domicans expelled an ancient biblical scholar who had for years gone around saying he didn't believe in God and trying to undermine the faith of others. Many younger clergy had speculated that a recently retired bishop was really an atheist or at best agnostic. During the abuse crisis it struck many as odd that abusing priests could ascend to the altar or pulpit and offer the most Holy Sacrifice or preach as if nothing had happened, not believing could be the only excuse.
I loathe clergy meetings, after a bit of praying at the beginning God tends not to get a look in when we make plans for his Church and his people. I had somehow hoped that meetings of Bishops might be different, and Synods in the Holy See would be even more different but as it turns out ..., well look at the mid-term document of the Synod: God was decidedly absent, deliberately excluded.

There are some pretty obvious signs of non-belief; being content to remain in mortal sin is pretty obvious, never speaking of God might be another, perhaps having cob-webs in the episcopal chapel or not having one another might be another, never praying unless there are others there to be led is another, finding people with faith tedious or not being able engage with them presumably is another sign. The surest sign of a priest or a bishop without faith is the fruitless of his parish or diocese, no vocations, emptying churches, a lack of love or concern for the liturgy and most of all for the reverent celebration of Mass, a lack of concern for souls and morality, and above all a lack of growth, a lack of holiness. 'By there fruits you shall know them'.

I am told if you want to be a priest nowadays psychologists have devised some pretty tough tests, just to make sure you are telling the truth, and not a pederast or mad, surely it would not be too difficult to devise some test for faith. I would love to make it a rule that only priests with faith could become Pastors of a parish and certainly only priests with burning faith, that catches others alight could become bishops. I don't know how you ensure that, any ideas?

Lord, give us holy priests and even holier bishops!Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-32223777880772445052014-11-07T13:36:00.001Z2014-11-07T13:42:38.948ZFaithful Departed?
I am preparing my Remembrance Sunday sermon. It is always a bit trickey, there is no option to offer a Requiem Mass for any else but the 'Faithful Departed' in the Missal. So I am manifestly not praying for all those Jews, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics and atheists who died in the great conflicts of the twentieth century.

The rather frightening truth is that we Christians though trusting in the abundant mercy and love of God actually know little about the fate of the unbaptised or those who were not faithful, and it isn't our tradition to pray aimlessly. There is no prayer for all the dead as a lumpen mass in our Tradition, some priests might do a bit of tweaking or intellectual/spiritual gymnastics. We can speculate that after death those of goodwill might embrace faith in Jesus Christ, or we can speculate that a commitment to or belief in 'goodness' might be the equivalent to being one of the faithful departed, or even come out with an an 'anonymous Christian' theory a la Rahner but this isn't what the prayers say, and though it is comforting, it is a bit like Limbo, it is speculation or a clever idea.

To be numbered amongst the 'faithful departed', would seem to suggest not merely being 'departed' but actually having had faith, and having lived or at least having died in it.Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-31153930031256769182014-11-04T20:32:00.000Z2014-11-06T15:10:56.121ZSt Charles Borromeo's Century
My sense of history is based on wigs, it moves from codpieces to doublets to full bottomed wigs, shorter wigs to no wigs. I fit people into the timeline by what they wear in their portraits, it helps to associate one group of people with another. It is a bit more difficult with the Church where there is a marked absence of codpieces, doublets or wigs.

To help others who are similarly historically illiterate, I have put a wiki timeline of the Church in the 16th century, it is far from complete but it is helpful to see people like St Charles Borromeo, whose feast day it is today, not as a lone Saint but in his time 1538–1584, as part of an historical movement.

The sixteenth began and the Church was in turmoil, it reflected the state of Europe at the time. Wicked Alexander VI is followed after the brief reign of the poisoned (?) Pius III by Papa Terribilis, the bellicous Julius II, the Papacy was more concerned with secular power politics than religion.

In Germany Luther was preaching against Papal vices and much of Northern Europe would be lost to the Church. In Florence Savonorola 1452–1498 had condemned the vices and licentiousness of the Renaissance; with Greek learning came the Greek vices. Sodomy was one of the main vices he had in his cross-hairs. The gay lobby were not entirely guiltless of his burning.

Savonorola's reform movement was something that was carried to Rome, despite his own Greek vices, Michaelangelo had a great devotion to him, as did Philip Neri 1515 – 1595, often called the Second Apostle to Rome. Savonorola the preacher failed, whereas Philip retreated to the catacombs to pray, emerging to gather around him a youth movement, of young aristocrats, seeking holiness. At the same time Camillus de Lellis 1452–1498 was founding his hospital and order of praying nursing brothers.

There was a new spirit in decadent Rome, St Ignatius and Francis Xavier and the early Jesuits had arrived and were given churches, Young Catholic intellectuals were coming from all over Europe. Like St Edmund Campion 1540 -1581, they were praying and studying in Rome. Campion was amongst that great procession of young men who trudged from Rome through Milan to meet St Charles Borromeo, then often going through Geneva to be encouraged by Francis de Sales 1567 – 1622, they were going to their death in England and Northern Europe.

At no time had there been such a flowering of holy men in the city that was until recently known for its sin and corruption. In the young the Communion of Saints was made visible on the very streets and in the Churches of the Eternal City and through them in the rest of Italy and Europe.

What I am trying to say is that from the traincrash of all that led up to the Reformation of the 16th century, of the misery that faithful Catholics endured at the hands of sinful and wicked Popes and Prelates God brought about the sublime holiness of the Glorious Counter-Reformation.

1492: Christopher Columbus reaches the Americas.

1493: With the Inter caetera, Pope Alexander VI awards sole colonial rights over most of the New World to Spain.

January 22, 1506: Kaspar von Silenen and first contingent of Swiss mercenaries enter the Vatican during the reign of Pope Julius II. Traditional date of founding of the Swiss Guards.

April 18, 1506: Pope Julius II lays cornerstone of New Basilica of St. Peter.

1508: Michelangelo starts painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

October 31, 1517: Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses, protesting the sale of indulgences.

1516: Saint Sir Thomas More publishes Utopia in Latin.

1519: Spanish conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés.

January 3, 1521: Martin Luther finally excommunicated by Pope Leo X in the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem.

1521: Baptism of the first Catholics in the Philippines, the first Christian nation in Southeast Asia. This event is commemorated with the feast of the Sto. Niño.

October 17, 1521: Pope Leo X confers the title Fidei Defensor to Tudor King Henry VIII of England for his defense of the seven sacraments and the supremacy of the pope in Assertio Septem Sacramentorum against Protestantism.

May 6, 1527: Sack of Rome.

1531: Our Lady of Guadalupe appears to Juan Diego in Mexico.

November 16, 1532: Francisco Pizarro captures Atahualpa. Conquest of Incan Empire.

August 15, 1534: Saint Ignatius of Loyola and six others, including Francis Xavier met in Montmartre, then just outside Paris, to found the missionary Jesuit Order.

October 30, 1534: English Parliament passes Act of Supremacy making the King of England Supreme Head of the Church of England. Anglican schism with Rome.

1535: Michelangelo starts painting the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

1536 To 1540: Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, Wales and Ireland.

December 17, 1538: Pope Paul III excommunicates King Henry VIII of England.

1540: Pope Paul III confirmed the order of the Society of Jesus.

July 21, 1542: Pope Paul III, with the Constitution Licet ab initio, established the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition.

1543: A full account of the heliocentric Copernican theory titled, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium) is published. Considered as the start of the Scientific Revolution.

December 13, 1545: Ecumenical Council of Trent convened during the pontificate of Paul III, to prepare the Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation. Its rulings set the tone of Catholic society for at least three centuries.

December 4, 1563: Ecumenical Council of Trent closed. The decrees were confirmed on January 26, 1564, by Pius IV in the Bull "Benedictus Deus".

1568: St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzus, St. Athanasius and St. Thomas Aquinas are made Doctors of the Church.

July 14, 1570: Pope St. Pius V issues the Apostolic Constitution on the Tridentine Mass, Quo Primum.

October 7, 1571: Christian fleet of the Holy League defeats the Ottoman Turks in the Battle of Lepanto.

1577: Teresa of Ávila writes The Interior Castle, one of the classic works of Catholic mysticism.

February 24, 1582: Pope Gregory XIII issues the Bull Inter gravissimas reforming the Julian calendar.

October 4, 1582: The Gregorian calendar is first adopted by Italy, Spain, and Portugal. October 4 is followed by October 15 – ten days are removed.

September 28, 1586: Domenico Fontana successfully finished re-erecting the Vatican Obelisk at its present site in St. Peter's Square. Hailed as a great technical achievement of its time.

1593: Robert Bellarmine finishes his Disputationes de controversiis christianae fidei.

1598: Papal role in Peace of Vervins.

Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-16488882790663751922014-11-03T17:19:00.002Z2014-11-03T17:43:22.957ZThe 'S' word

Fr Zed has this little quote from Marco Tosatti,

"Two observations to close. Newspapers are saying that this Synod has broken the Catholic Church. False: it brought into the light an old split, perhaps as old as the Church herself. Without going too far back, decades ago now the Catholic philosopher Pietro Prini had written about a submerged schism, invisible, on the part of many (bishops, priests and theologians included) in respect to the official Magisterium. In this split, it is instinctive to find oneself in sympathy with the progressives, but, and I have to add this out of love for sincerity, not without some discomfort. Between some of the current "progressives" and the immovable "conservatives", my esteem goes to the latter, faithful to their own line of thought even when it is inconvenient to sustain it. In just a few months the change of wind has seen many bishops and pastors, who for decades accused the "reformers" of heresy, now showing themselves to be "open" and "sensitive". This kind of thing disgusts me. These careerist conformists are too skilled in jumping onto the banged wagon of the powers-that-be-of-the-moment to merit our trust as fellow travelers."
 Not all of us have had bishops who have been forced to resign and whose activities will eventually be investigated by the Holy See. One of my brother priests said he felt that for thirteen years our local Church was lead by a lapsed Catholic, I don't know if I agree but I am glad that I was never forced to attend many diocesan functions during that time. There seemed to be a great deal of whittling away at the Gospel with a pen knife. It was not a good time, and a few like me kept our heads down, it at least made us more dependent on faith and helped us realise prayer, and when that became difficult, penance and fasting have great value.

The real problem in the Church, as ever, is leadership, who if they are not serving themselves are serving their faction, flip flopping from one position to another. GOD give us bishops who believe in YOU, if not all, then some or at least one or two.

It is interesting that a few American and Italian journalist are openly talking about the 'S' word: schism. Real schism is impossible in today's Catholic Church, there are some apocalyptic nuts on the internet claiming this or that Pope are imposters, but they are nuts. The real problem is a internal schism, or as said above submerged schism, a Church where few take any notice of the leadership, where the leadership instead of smelling of the sheep smell of the marble halls of Santa Martha. The problem is the Church becomes even less fruitful, with less vocations, with tired clergy. The old men ordained like me in the early years of JPII and before, for the most part are quite comfortable, it is the younger clergy who are often in agony. I really do think many will suffer a great deal and some will have a serious loss of faith.

What does one do when the centre does not hold? Past Popes have endeavoured to pass on a slightly less damaged Church than they inherited, perhaps Francis, Cardinal Pell's 'more unusual' Pope, will pass on a Church where the wounds are fully exposed so his successors over the next century or two might heal them.Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-14027034105303044492014-11-02T16:45:00.001Z2014-11-02T22:34:17.948ZCans of WormsI am confused about the whole Synod business, the reactions to it, the Pope's intentions, the role of the Bishops. I am intrigued by Benedict's reaction too.

It is true that the Churches teaching on matters sexual is confused and in tatters, it is so obvious that for all the rich teaching of Popes from the last century, very few Bishops or priests take a blind bit of notice. Some bishops and priests have good reason not to raise their personal heads above the parapet. Some priests, in some parts of the world, are living concubinage with either a female or male partner without censure from people or bishops.

Even good honest bishops belong to families, like the Pope himself, which are broken by marital break up or where family members have 'come out'. The sexual abuse crisis which has touched all bishops through out the world has made them aware that it is impossible to merely brush human sexuality under the carpet. In a world where human sexuality seems to have evolved and the old constraints have gone there is a need to face it full on, if that is possible.

The problem is the way it which it is faced. Perhaps a Pope who boasts to have 'the humility and the ambition' can make a difference, whereas it was something which his lesser predecessors from the time of Pius XI have shied away from.

I have to admit that I am a bit bewildered as to what the Synod was really about. In the final document there is plenty of good stuff, but was it about that or something else. There was certainly an interest in greater collegiality expressed by the Bishops but from the luxurious floor of rooms in the marble halls of the poshest 'guest house' in Rome there seems to have been the kind of renaissance princely interference that only the most Ultramontane of Popes would dare to inflict on the gathered Bishops of the Synod. It wasn't a listen exercise but a gagging one, where a few brave souls spoke out against the various lobbies that many had hoped this Papacy would control rather than fuel have been disappointed. Collegiality seems to be off the agenda.

Those who were empowered to spin the Synod focused on homosexuality and the divorced and remarried. In the popular mind, as well as the Bishops of the world this is what the Synod was about. The focus on 'where people are at' dominated whereas those who might want to focus on the vision of St John Paul for example were deliberately excluded.

The truth is whatever happened at this Synod or any further Synod will do little to change the behaviour of the priest or bishop living with his boyfriend or mistress or the sacramental welcome given by a 'merciful' cleric to those living in a second marriage, or any other strange or irregular situation. Let's face it, this already happens, any movement on the part of the Synod will merely mean it happens more often.

I have a fear, and I suppose this is the fear of many, that really what has happened was a trial, a real opening of the can of worms, which again lesser Popes have not dared to touch. What was being tried was the authenticity of the Word of God itself. Atheists and Secularists accuse us following 'bronze age goatherds' rather living in the real world, it seems to be this that was being tried. To put it simply the question seems to be can we still live according to teaching laid down some two millennia ago or should it be updated: does the word of scripture still bind Catholics or not?

It is an hermeneutic problem: how to interpret scripture. Most Protestants today enshrine the Word of God and read it reverently but actually it is dead thing, belonging to another age with teaching for a people of another world, a reference point in time which must be distilled in order to apply to our own age. They will suggest nothing has changed, the Word of God is still the Word of God but in reality it has been emptied of any meaning or traction in the real world.

The talk of changing pastoral practice but keeping doctrine is nonsensical, the Word is Alive precisely because of the pastoral practice that gives it traction. There is rather intelligent illustration here of how we have changed the Doctrine of Suppression of the Old Covenant by the New Covenant, of the difference between doctrine, sort of, remaining the same whilst practice and words change until no-one actually believes what the doctrine actually defined.

Yes, we still believe in what Jesus says but we simply don't talk about it or use it as a way of life. Perhaps other examples could be the place of Marialogy in the lives of Catholics today compared to how it had developed from the age of the Apostles up until the 1960s, or the place of those eschatological themes like Judgement, Purgatory and Hell (has any generation ever seriously proposed that either Hell did not exist, or though Hell might exist, probably no-one goes there who were not condemned as heretical?).

It is perhaps dangerous to continue this examination too closely, but it seems that doctrines do change, not by hacking the Gospels with an axe but by changing pastoral practice. Bishop are after all Pastors not theologians, they lead people by pastoral practice. If they treat the Holy Eucharist with awe and reverence, that is how their clergy and people respond. If is treated as mere bread, surrounded by a few special beliefs, then that is how it will be responded to. Ordinary people and even the majority of clergy have never embraced the sublime theology of the Summa on the Eucharist except in the Rites and customs that the Church invites them to participate in.

The argument that all this follows Newman's theory of 'development of doctrine' - acorns to oaks - is somewhat tenuous. Remember, the Orthodox continually state 'doctrine does not change', that it is simply built up by the action of the SpiritFr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-58874699756496141332014-10-31T16:43:00.002Z2014-10-31T18:16:10.539ZQUARITUR: Should I allow my child to celebrate Halloween?

Should I allow my child to celebrate Halloween?

Yes, though maybe by next year I might change my mind.
When I was a child Halloween in England might have had a few cut out witches and string spiderwebs, and that was it oh, plus a ghost story or two and for some reason 'apple bobbing'.
I am sure Halloween was connected to the bonfires and effigy burning of November 5th.

Halloween is a strange festival, an anti festival really, All Hallows we celebrate the absolute certainty of the Saints enjoying the blessed of Heaven and on All Souls we remember and pray for the dead, who suffer, having to wait for Heaven, being purified by the burning love of God, and by their yearning for that which they might have lost.

Halloween is about being lost, cut off from God. Once in a year we play at what it must be like; the terror of the darkness and being lost in it. It seems very healthy to play at devils and spooks, axe murderers and the living dead and then to wash of the make-up, put away the costume and celebrate All Saints. It seems very healthy to wander in darkness like some lost thing for a few hours, then to return to warmth of the Father's house.

If I were a parent, my possible children would thank God I am not, it strikes me that Halloween is a good time to teach children about Hell, about the real possibility of losing Heaven, about the disorder of sin and its consequences.

Benedict, Dominic John-Vianney Blake along with their sisters Immaculata-Maria and Maria-Mediatrix-Gratia would celebrate the most gruesome and horrific of Halloweens, of course after singing 1st Vespers of All Saints with their loving Papa. With their friends they would be cast out into the darkness, the door closed behind them and sent to beg from the unresponsive neighbours some of whom might be persuaded to cry from their Christian homes, 'Begone foul Hell-fiend, return to the place from whence thou came', some might even throw buckets of (play) Holy Water at them. How eager would be their return home after a night of play, how instructive the conversations of the world where Grace is unknown, how acute the attendance at Compline, how their little faces would be turned to the crucifix at the words of Compline, "Fratres: Sóbrii estóte, et vigiláte: quia adversárius vester diábolus, tamquam leo rúgiens círcuit, quaerens quem dévoret: cui resístite fortes in fide." How intense and heartfelt their Te Lucis ante terminum. How lovingly they would clasp their cuddly toy miraculous medals in their warm Christian beds and how reverently would they recite their pre-somnial Paters and Aves. I suspect they might even say, "Papa rather than our normal reading of Aquinas as our bed time story would it possible to hear Blessed Augustine Civitatis Dei".Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-54827696111290941552014-10-31T13:23:00.000Z2014-10-31T14:12:02.412ZMissa Cantata for All Saints and some Old/New Rite thoughts
Tomorrow, All Saints day, there is an EF Missa Cantata at 12 noon, and if you want you can join the choir for a shared lunch (bring something to share), they are quite nice people, they will be singing Victoria's Mass: O Quam  gloriosum est regnum.

On Monday, All Souls Day there is Mass in the morning (OF) at 10 am and a said EF Mass at 6.30pm, my third (the 2nd Mass of the day will be private) Mass on that day.

I was having a conversation with a blog reader who I hadn't met previously, he happened to drop by yesterday. He was complaining about his parish priest, saying he wasn't sure what or even whether he believed. I think here lies the key difference between the two forms of the Mass.

The 'Old Rite' is an ancient clunky machine for prayer, it is simple, it is workmanlike, it has stood the test of time. It has been said down the ages by saints or the most wicked of sinners. Providing the instructions are followed, it actually doesn't matter whether the priest is a saint or a sinner, a great orthodox theologian or a raving heretic. Who the priest is doesn't matter.

The 'New Rite' in comparison is a finely tuned instrument that depends so much on the skill of the celebrant, if he doesn't believe, his disbelief becomes immediately apparent, every facial expression or action, every ad lib depends on the ability or wit of the celebrant. Who the priest is matters a great deal.

As a priest, I suppose, that is why I find the 'Old Rite' so much more restful to say. I was going to use 'less demanding' which is partly true, except the demands are different, they are more about an interior conforming of one's being to the mind of the Church, communicating with God rather than in the 'New Rite' trying to interpret the mind of the Church or communicating God to his people. Even celebrating the 'New Rite' facing East, demands more skill than celebrating the 'Old Rite'.
In the 'Old Rite' there was no talk of the Ars Celebrandi, just rubrics or doing things correctly but with the 'New Rite' Ars Celebrandi it is absolutely necessary.

An anecdote

A priest described a celebration of the Mass by a bishop, 'at the elevation he raised the consecrated host with one hand to just below his shoulder and seemed to look at it with utter contempt'. I knew then that we had absolutely nothing in common.

Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-85644208597468398452014-10-27T15:06:00.000Z2014-10-27T18:45:51.442ZFellay given permission for Mass in Lourdes Basilica

I keep hearing, and reporting about fractures within the Church, one little bit of good news about healing, is that the SSPX were given permission to celebrate Mass in the underground Basilica of St Pius X, yesterday during their Lourdes Pilgrimage, Bishop Fellay was the celebrant.
The obvious suggestion is that the Bishop of Tarbes-et-Lourdes was advised this was acceptable to His Holiness Pope Francis. Perhaps there is a pastoral solution in the wind.

source: Eponymous Flower

And just now (after the first few comments were added here) Fr Z has published this about an Italian bishop, Secretary to the Council of Nine, threatening those who receive sacraments from the Lefebvrists with excommunication.
We live at the end of a pendulum, or is it a sign of 'Rome Wars'?Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-32950016607830080132014-10-27T14:06:00.000Z2014-10-27T14:06:19.512ZBe Good

Be good: that was really the theme of my sermon yesterday.
Jesus sums up the Law as first, loving God with one's whole being, the second part is almost a way of checking that out because if we truly love God we will love neighbour as ourselves. If the there is something flawed or 'idolatrous' in our love of God then it is going to be impossible to love our neighbour.

What is deeply rooted in Christian Tradition and in the bible is that our love is expected to bring forth fruit: abundant fruit. The scattered seed brings forth a harvest 30, 40, a hundredfold, the net cast into sea brings about an abundant catch, the sound tree brings forth not bad fruit but good fruit, the pruned vine is fruitful, the tiny seed grows into a place where the birds of the air find a home.

Christians too are expected to produce, 'good fruit', if we don't then there is something wrong. The Gospel expects goodness. The fruit of a correct love of God is what we might describe as saintliness or holiness..

The summary of the Law and the Prophets in Jesus' two commandments can be checked out by the 10 Commandments. If we are covetous, adulterous, lying, murderous which are easy things to judge then there is something seriously wrong.

Always, well, until recently, we Catholics have expected contact with God to produce holiness, first of all holiness in us as individuals and consequently holiness that acts like leaven or light in our society. We believe that the goodness of God changes us and through that change in us we change society. We are not supposed to be busy-bodies imposing an social justice ethic on others without ourselves being just and holy.

we belong with the angels and saints

As Christians we have a right to expect to find holiness and goodness in the leaders of the Church, it is one of the reasons I find the 'Kasper affair' so shocking, and we should all be shocked if a bishop is shown to be a liar, to bear false witness, or simply not to be good, or as in my own former bishop, to be unfaithful. God's grace is always fruitful, we should never lose the expectation of its plentiful fruit either in ourselves or in others or in His Body the Church. We should demand goodness in the Church and in its members. 'By their fruits you shall know them', we shouldn't allow the Church to be starved we should demand that fruit which Christ promises! Demand nothing less than saintliness from your Pastors.

God's grace is sufficient for us, St Paul tells us. God's grace enables us to be holy, to produce the necessary fruit, to live good and holy lives, to tell the truth even if we have been or said stupid things, to live as faithful bishops or priests, to be faithful husbands and wives, to be good parents, to be faithful members of the Church, to live well and to die well, and if necessary, as we see so often today in Africa and the Middle East to die for him.

The great triumph of Satan is to give us us the sense that our sinfulness is stronger than God's grace, to make us think we are trapped in the hopeless downward spiral of sin but faith is always linked to hope, to Resurrection and the expectation of the victory of Christ. The message of the Gospel is always that the Grace perfects nature, that the Risen Lord Triumphs. The shenanigans of the Synod has shocked me and many others, it seemed to demonstrate the Church is a very worldly corporation rather than something which sought neither God or the sanctification of his people.

We must indeed welcome sinners but it is un-Christian to expect them to remain in their sin, certainly we must 'meet them where they are at' but we are called to lead them through the gate of the sheepfold, to carry their Cross, along the narrow road, to put on the wedding garment and to be ready to meet the King on His return in the wedding hall, with lamps brightly lit, at the Marriage feast of the Lamb.

Our faith is indeed a journey, a journey into holiness. Again and again scripture tells us to judge: to judge a tree by its fruit, to judge a disciple by his works, to judge the times by the signs, to judge whether a place will receive the Gospel or not. We are called to make judgements about our lives and about actions and about those who we trust and those who lead us. The criteria for our judgement is simple, it is: what will get me to Heaven.

If our actions, our lifestyle, our friends or anything else is likely to lead to the loss of Heaven, get rid of them. Do the things that bring you close to God, live good lives according to God's Commandments, be moral, pray, go to the Sacraments frequently in a worthy state.
Be Holy even as your Heavenly Father is Holy!

Our End!

Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-33550856698105689422014-10-25T13:48:00.000+01:002014-10-25T13:48:06.286+01:00The Bad Breath of Corruption
So tightly did things appear to be controlled, so lacking in clarity during the Synod, I had a dream that chained and dressed in their blue-grey habits emaciated and pale from their months in prison would be brought into the Synod Hall singing Nebucco a coffle of Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Immaculate. They were an example of justice in the Church to anyone who might have the temerity to go against the predetermined plan. Their crime after all these months has not been disclosed, either to the the Church at large or to them themselves. Their suffering appear to be that they have simply 'displeased'. The refusal to disclose the 'how' and 'who' of the Friars offense is one of the looming injustices of the Church today.

Justice and Truth cannot be separated, they are objective realities and there is a connection between Justice and Truth, and Transparency. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done, and it must be done honestly and by men who are themselves Just. The Holy Father recently in an address to representatives of the International Association of Criminal Law said 'The corrupt person is a person who takes the "short-cuts of opportunism" that lead him to think of himself as a "winner" who insults and persecutes whoever contradicts him. "Corruption is a greater evil than sin", and more than "be forgiven, must be cured". For myself I had always thought corruption was the result of sinful men who like the 'unjust judge had neither fear of God, nor regard for men' Lk 18:2.

Canonists like Suarez liked to define the Church as a 'just society', I presume he presumed that its leaders believed in the Just God who they would eventually face on the Last Day, and that they prized honesty and forthrightness before everything. If that was so then, it is far from the impression given nowadays. The world simply sees the Church and Churchmen as dishonest and therefore untruthful, we are mistrusted in small things, like finances or telling the truth about ourselves, and consequently untrustworthy in the big things, like speaking of God and Salvation, of Sin and Virtue. Cardinal Kasper's denial of the Pentin interview, seems to have been ignored by the Holy See, there has been no suggestion that any action will be taken against him, or even any excuse, that he has for example, 'gone senile' and is receiving medical or psychological help. It's just ignored, shrugged off, as if such an exalted Cardinal's very public fault, lying, is just part of the cut and thrust of Church life. And yet we follow a Master who said, "Let your 'yes' mean yes and your 'no' mean no!" Yet, he lied and threatened a journalists career and good name: he bore false witness and broke a commandment.

Throughout the world the Church is seen as lacking integrity, covering up sins, denying and adding to the sufferings of victims of its institution from Dublin to Sydney, from Los Angeles to Poltz. Millions of pounds are spent on protecting the very fragile and as far as the world is concerned already tarnished reputations of some not very nice but very powerful men.

The removal of Cardinal Burke, 'the Incorruptible', as one Italian journalist has described him, does little for the Church which in so many ways is being seen as really very corrupt. The Pope described corruption as 'bad breath', well the smell of bad breath is very much to the fore. The Synod highlighted the power of the wealthy German bishops, guarding their share of Church tax and using it to bully or buy the support of other bishops, whilst their Churches though economically wealthy are spiritually amongst the poorest in the world. At the same time as their attempted manipulation of the Synod it was revealed that the German car manufacture Porsche was able to buy its way into the Vatican to use the Sistine Chapel for corporate entertainment. Then of course this isn't just a German problem, during the canonisation of the two Popes there was that party arranged by the powerful Immacolata Chaouqui, the woman who tweeted against Pope Benedict, for certain wealthy invited guests on the Vatican roof with Mgr Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda distributing Holy Communion from a whiskey tumbler. Maybe it is not corruption but it sure has the foul breath of it. Then again its interesting to see so many of the favourites of those who once favoured Marcel Maciel are now in strategic positions, even one or two of his personal favourites are now back in favour and influence.

It has been put forward that there has been clamp-down on corruption, some notable dismissals like the 'Bishop of Bling', Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst. Yes, but the expenditure of Cdl Reinhard Marx has gone unnoted, there has been no investigation but he is spending 51 million euros for the beautification of the Archdiocesan Campus and not an eyebrow is raised in the Holy See. In Italy the reputation of the Bishop Albenga-Imperia, Bishop Mario Oliveri is being trashed. In part it appears he has welcomed some FFIs and also because some of his priests have been 'moon-lighting as barmen, stealing parish funds and getting tattooed'. I don't know if his response might be, 'Who am I to judge' but their behaviour seems no worst than members of the Papal circle, lifts and Swiss army officers come to mind or some of the clergy of the diocese of Rome who reputed spend time in cities gay enclaves. Indeed, who will investigate Rome where so much seems to be swept under the carpet. Remember the 'Vatileaks', what has happened to that? What about the diocese of Linz or the Archdiocese of Vienna where according to reports from We are the Church type groups, a considerable number of the clergy are living in either homosexual or heterosexual relationships.

The impression that is given is that Justice in the Church is itself corrupted, indeed, that it is actually about settling scores and has nothing to do with truthfulness which was once considered a Christian virtue. Rather than being consoled by accounts of these investigations I become increasingly alarmed, it seems as if some religious orders or diocese that seem to produce fruit and are orthodox are subject to investigation whilst others which are barren and often highly unorthodox carry on in their own sweet way, especially if the have powerful or wealthy friends at court. The problem is that Justice appears to used as a robber baron or some New World dictator might use it, as a means of intimidation and threat, not to bring the Salvific Light of Christ to bear on dark and hidden corners. It is as if some are above the Law and others crushed by it.

Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-26324965209459367022014-10-24T14:22:00.002+01:002014-10-24T14:30:28.197+01:00Graduality and the Terror of the Field Hospital
"Graduality" was one of the controversial ideas introduced in the Synod. I must admit I am a 'gradualist', I believe conversion is a gradual process, getting to Heaven is a gradual process. My thinking is based on such VII ideas as 'the pilgrim people of God', I believe we are a 'becoming' people. I even think we are 'becoming' Catholic.
It is interesting that the name of God can be understood both as 'I am who I am' but also 'I am becoming who I am becoming'. I like Newman's "To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often." Being a Catholic is about growth, like the Holy Vine, it grows and it is pruned and grows and bears fruit. The problem is avoiding the sense that progress is always about positive, sometimes growth can be in the wrong direction, sometimes it can be fruitless.
With 'Graduality' the problem is that we set the bar too low, similarly when we rule out 'Graduality' we can end up in process where there is no growth.

A layman told me story about a friend of his who was daily communicant, who was addicted to using prostitutes, having spent the night in his vice, he used go around London churches for Confession, having confessed and done his penance, he would receive Holy Communion and that evening return to his habitual vice. This continued for years. Confessors took his stated sorrow as a 'firm purpose of amendment', which it might well have been but he lacked the will to change. Even if he willed it, he didn't do it. Indeed he might well have desired it, he might well have detested his sin, been cover in guilt and anxiety, been torn in two for his genuine love for and desire for Christ, often with sexual sins there is loathing both of self and of the sin, but for all of that this man was making no progress but returning like a dog to his vomit. In fact those priests who handed out absolution, often because it is easier to do so than to confront someone with their sin, did this man more harm than good, and compounded his sacrilege and re-enforced his weakness. Yes, in strictly canonical terms he fulfilled what is required for absolution, he expressed sorrow for his sin but there was no growth, instead a hardening of irresolution.

Though personally I fear it because I am such a poor confessor, what I hope the pro-Graduality Synod Fathers were calling for wasn't about simply saying, 'It is alright come to Holy Communion' but what Pope Francis himself has used in the metaphor of a field hospital, indicating that a priest has to be like a doctor in a field hospital. It is easy to be sentimental about such a place, I think one of the good things about the Holy Father he is not sentimental but quite realistic. Sometimes a doctor in a field hospital must amputate a diseased limb, must operate without anesthetic or cause pain in order to reset fractured bones, have to sometimes apply a burning ointment to a festering wound or to give a bitter medicine, and sometimes force those who would prefer to lay in bed to get up and walk on tender stumps. A field hospital is a terrible place for both patients and doctors, it is full of smells and screams and often disorder. Sometimes one has decide a patient is too sick to be treated, or simply there is isn't space or time or medicine for a particular patient, or even that they are so diseased, so contagious they will infect other patients and even the staff that their very presence is a danger.

I think that today we have lost a sense of 'Graduality', I admit I am part of the 'Church of Nice', I like to say 'yes', I bend-over backwards to look for the good, like most modern priests, in fact all the priests I know. Yet this is something new. Constantine was baptised only on his death bed, not at the first sign of faith. In the days when the Church had to make it a rule that people received Holy Communion once a year (at Easter or thereabouts) it was only after a strict period of penance; -prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and meditation on the Passion, and of course Confession, and indeed a penitent rather than skipping from Confessor to Confessor was expected to go to their parish priest, who knew them and there own situation and was expected to 'examine' them, like a doctor in a field hospital and to prescribe, as the Council of Trent demanded, 'suitable medicine'.

'Gradualism' is about 'process', one of the great faults of the Church before VII was a loss of a sense of process, and of progress in the spiritual life, sacraments were given almost on demand, without any sense of the Church interacting with the recipient or expectation of growth. We do indeed need to welcome everyone, whatever their condition but we can't leave them in the same condition they entered the field hospital. The Pope used that metaphor, not that of a hospice, where we simply care for the dying, making them as comfortable as possible with increased doses of morphine until they eventually die!

Pray for Pastors to be courageous, especially in the Confessional.

Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-44052862018057601612014-10-24T12:34:00.002+01:002014-10-24T12:34:51.262+01:00In Praise of Pedantry
After Pope S John Paul and Pope Benedict I was hoping for a pope who really resembled Captain Mainwaring, Dad's Army's bean-counting bank manager of Walmington-on-Sea, someone with absolutely no imagination, its what I think a pope should be: as dull as possible.

It is this that is being described by that wise old, he would love the adjective, pedant of the Ordinariate Fr Hunwicke, he quotes Professor Roberto de Mattei, "perhaps the greatest Church historian of our time". De Mattei points out that no Bishop of Rome was a innovator, "[I]t is one of the reproaches urged against the Church of Rome, that it has originated nothing, and has only served as a sort of remora or break in the development of doctrine. And it is an objection which I embrace as a truth; for such I conceive to be the main purpose of its extraordinary gift. ".

Fr Hunwicke goes on to point out: This is the selfsame Papacy, acting in precisely the same way, which gave Marcion the brush-off when he turned up in Rome in the 140s with his proto-Nazi claptrap. The condemnation of Marcionism is not weakened by the fact that it rested on no "Conciliar Mandate", or by the complete absence of any brilliant teaching document issued by some wonderfully clever Roman Pontiff.

He ends up saying, "Very occasionally, a Pope is, in addition to being Pope, also an important Teacher. One thinks of Innocent III, Benedict XIV, Benedict XVI. Thank God for such rare and glorious exceptions, such uncovenanted coincidences. But they are not what the Papacy is about. At base, the Pope is just the man who goes around sticking into the ground the notices which say BEWARE OF MINES."

Enjoy! but the apposite section starts at 25:00

Fr Ray Blakehttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-16191706561794927812014-10-23T23:43:00.002+01:002014-10-23T23:51:07.989+01:00Pope Benedict speaks: on that which is "lethal to faith"

In the light of the movement of the Church to a position of dialogue, or maybe chatter, in the last 18 months these words of the Pope Emeritus have particularly poignant relevance.

They were made on Tuesday to faculty members and students at Rome's Pontifical Urbanian University, which belongs to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to retired Pope Benedict, read the 1,800-word message aloud at a ceremony dedicating the university's renovated main lecture hall to the retired pope.

The risen Lord instructed his apostles, and through them his disciples in all ages, to take his word to the ends of the earth and to make disciples of all people," retired Pope Benedict wrote. " 'But does that still apply?' many inside and outside the church ask themselves today. 'Is mission still something for today? Would it not be more appropriate to meet in dialogue among religions and serve together the cause of world peace?' The counter-question is: 'Can dialogue substitute for mission?'

"In fact, many today think religions should respect each other and, in their dialogue, become a common force for peace. According to this way of thinking, it is usually taken for granted that different religions are variants of one and the same reality," the retired pope wrote. "The question of truth, that which originally motivated Christians more than any other, is here put inside parentheses. It is assumed that the authentic truth about God is in the last analysis unreachable and that at best one can represent the ineffable with a variety of symbols. This renunciation of truth seems realistic and useful for peace among religions in the world.

"It is nevertheless lethal to faith. In fact, faith loses its binding character and its seriousness, everything is reduced to interchangeable symbols, capable of referring only distantly to the inaccessible mystery of the divine," he wrote.

Pope Benedict wrote that some religions, particularly "tribal religions," are "waiting for the encounter with Jesus Christ," but that this "encounter is always reciprocal. Christ is waiting for their history, their wisdom, their vision of the things." This encounter can also give new life to Christianity, which has grown tired in its historical heartlands, he wrote.

"We proclaim Jesus Christ not to procure as many members as possible for our community, and still less in order to gain power," the retired pope wrote. "We speak of him because we feel the duty to transmit that joy which has been given to us."

Unfortunatelt the whole speech has not yet appeared anywhere on-line.
Oh, for the days of clear thought and clear words! Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-7186797491715589982014-10-21T19:44:00.002+01:002014-10-21T21:09:17.151+01:00Kasper makes more threats
There are wicked journalists who for a few pence will lie there heads off and distort the truth, who like the unscrupulous Bill Gardner, who after his time in Brighton got a job working for the Daily Telegraph - though I did hear he might be sacked. Fortunately there are also brave courageous journalists like Edward Pentin who hearing a Cardinal make statements which are horrendous publishes them. If journalism is not to be left to the plain wicked, journalist like theologians, and bishops and priests have to be on the side of truth. Sometimes reporting the truth they have to embrace the Cross.

In the Kasper affair it is a Cardinal lies his head off and distorts the truth, then goes on to utter threats and menaces, There is that bit in the Gospels about rotten trees producing rotten fruit, grace after all works on nature, or doesn't. Catholics have a right to good and holy Bishops, who tell the truth.

Pentin heard something incredibly important from Kasper's own lips that revealed how the Synod was being manipulated. He did his duty, he reported it. Kaspar revealed himself as unscrupulous scoundrel and denied it accusing, Pentin of having made it up, in fact of having lied and invented the story. Pentin then released the recording. Kasper was forced to admit they were his words and apologized, not to Pentin but in one one of those meaningless apologies. not for the offense, but only IF people took offense at his words about African Bishops. His meaning that obviously it was their fault if they were offended.

Now he talks about a "deliberate dirty trick", presumably on Pentin's part. He goes on, "The fact that Catholic media (and unfortunately a cardinal in person) should participate in it, in order to tear down another position morally, is shameful," Kasper opined. When Kath.net asked as a follow-up question who that cardinal was, Kasper unfortunately gave no answer. The retired Curial Cardinal announced, however, that "other journalists" are going to take action against such "undignified machinations".

It is the "other journalists" who are going to take action that sounds truly worrying. Are these the same two journalists who were happy to listen to Kasper's "the only good African is silent African" soliloquy but did not themselves think it worth publicising, or are they other house-trained journalists of his party, remember the German Bishops don't just publish pornography, the are major holders in other publishing ventures. Whoever these journalists are Kasper's tone is meant to be menacing.

There is a very dark side to the present Papal Court, which was so evident in the Synod, some are calling it the 'Robber Synod', one of my parishioners referred to it as the 'Dark Synod' because of the way in the Bishops and the outcome were manipulated. We were promised transparency and we got opaiquism, light but received darkness: bread but instead stones.

The previous Papacy treated journalists with great reserve, in this one there is a great reliance on them; all those odd interviews with elderly atheists, allowing private phone calls to trickle out, the giving of Synod documents to journalist before the Bishops. Many people even journalists themselves can be forgiven for assuming that this is a Papacy, like the Blair or Obama administrations, that is primarily aimed at the media and like Blair and Obama will come crashing down leaving many disillusioned, and as my old gran used to say, "you can tell a man by the company he keeps.

Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-31069882.post-22746713753764033132014-10-20T17:06:00.003+01:002014-10-20T19:18:08.734+01:00Was that why he was elected?

I must admit I still don't understand Francis. Is he the greatest thing since unsliced bread, a cunning old Jesuit, a conservative, a trad, a prophet, a fool or even the anti-Christ; a breath of fresh-air or the stench from the tomb of those rather detestable men who surrounded the Blessed Paul VI and added to his suffering?

I have never done the Benedict through Francis thing at least, but neither am I convinced of the Francis against Benedict thing entirely. I am still perplexed and confused by him. Perhaps it is in Francis who rather than being an Emperor who is wearing no clothes we actually have clothes with no Emperor. I mean those morning homilies that come out of the marble halls of Sta Martha that are full of barbs but actually teach nothing. Perhaps we should expect nothing!

It is worth remembering that what many of the Cardinals were calling for before the Conclave was a de-centralised Church and greater Collegiality. The BBC, foolish people, have been talking about progressive Francis against the conservative Synod and how he failed to move the Church forward, as if the Synod was solely about the divorced and remarried, or practicing homosexuals. What seems to go under the radar is that for the first time in modern times Cardinals and Bishops have stood up to the Pope and very publicly defied him, some like the Raymond Lion of the Synod Burke have even dared to demand he do his job and defend the faith, like Paul rebuking Peter.

What has happened is that in Synod those of us who would hope that the successor of the Apostle Peter should defend the faith from other Bishops, have turned our gaze from the successor of Peter to the successors of other the Apostles. This I think was the defining action of the Synod, for the first time most Catholics looked to Bishops not the Pope to defend the Faith.

A priest friend of mine said, 'I have no problem with collegiality only with those who might exercise it'. For many Catholics the really problem in the Church has not been Rome but their local bishops, in England we complain about the 'magic circle' nut actually compared to France or Germany or Ireland or the US until the the last decade or so our bishops on the whole have been paradigms of Apostolic zeal and faithful bearers of the Tradition. French bishops until recently have done their best to empty their Churches and seem to have more in common with deconstructionalists and existentialist than Christ, German's are really concerned with nothing but holding on to their Church tax (anything goes providing you pay), the Irish exemplify total failure and America has brought forth such luminaries as Bernardin, Weakland and Mahoney, and one coulde come up with at least a score of other names who ruled the Church like some Wild West bandit chieftain.

The failure of the Church has been a failure of leadership at least on a local level. It is worth remembering that we are in Communion with Rome because we are in Communion first of all with our local Bishop who is Communion with Rome and the entire Church. In England and elsewhere we have looked to Rome to protect us from our Bishops. The problem is most Catholics simply do not trust their own Bishop, and look at him as being of little importance, as if between them and the Pope there is no intermediary, especially if one doesn't like one's Parish Priest or simply doesn't want to be involved with him and his community. In a way the internet has exacerbated this to the point where the 'e-church' is more real than the actual Church, everyone looks to the Pope but no-one to their Bishop.

The great concern of Francis has been that so many Bishops are actually of poor quality, if there is one thing that is clear in Francis' confusing teaching, it is that many Bishops are simply not up to their role defined in the documents of VII. At the Synod it was the Bishops who shone not the Pope. Does the Pope intend this? I don't know, but was that why he was elected?
Maybe I'm clinging at straws.

Britain's best source of Catholic commentary has a good summary of some the most exciting things some of the Bishops came up with.

Fr Ray Blakehttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


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text: Senior Chemistry Major to Discuss Acrylamide in Foods St. Thomas Newsroom February 4, 2011 Sarah Fink, a senior majoring in chemistry, will present this week's Chemistry Seminar. She will give her talk, "Prevention of Acrylamide Formation in Heated Foods: An Application of Hydrocolloids to Food Chemistry," at 3 p.m. today, Friday, Feb. 4, in Room 251, Owens Science Hall. All are welcome. Chemistry Seminars are held on Fridays throughout the academic year. RelatedDrug Delivery to be Discussed at Today's Chemistry SeminarChemistry Seminar to present panel discussion on career optionsEnvironmental Chemistry of Endocrine-disrupting Pollutants Discussion Topic at Chemistry SeminarSenior chemistry majors present this week's Chemistry Seminar


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2013 Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America
Wu Man concert on 28 September, 2pm
Wu Man concert on 28 September, 2pm
Tour scholarship now open
is based on a partnership with Fudan University, in collaboration with the Office of The Chinese Language Council International in China (Hanban). It is managed by the the Office of Global Engagement. The first to be established in New South Wales, the Institute has attracted thousands of people to its popular Chinese language and culture programs.
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On 28 September the Institute and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music will present Wu Man in Concert. Wu Man is a Grammy Award-nominated musician and the 2013 Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America. Book here
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