Archbishop off message

I thought I misheard, but the Archbishop of Birmingham actually did say,

“…What we’ve been trying to say all along is ‘What is the value that we give to human life in its first beginnings?’ Now clearly it’s not the same as we would give to another adult sitting next to me…”

I thought senility had crept in on me or it was those wicked BBC people, but no, see John Smeaton, he heard it too.

Not quite that helpful at the moment, Your Grace.

Thousands of women have four abortions

Figures uncovered by the Telegraph show that almost 4,000 women have had at least four abortions. In a "grotesquely bleak" picture of British society, scores of women have had at least eight terminations.
The figures emerged as the row over controversial changes to fertility law erupted into a bitter war of words, with a minister accusing "anti-abortion" MPs of trying to "hijack" legislation.
On the eve of a crucial Commons vote, Dawn Primarolo, the Public Health Minister, accused Tory backbenchers of an underhand attempt to remove the right to abortion by tabling amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill.

In an interview with the Telegraph, she also accused MPs who oppose the creation of hybrid embryos of putting forward "extreme and untrue arguments".
Nadine Dorries, the MP leading the campaign to reduce the abortion time limit from 24 to 20 weeks, hit back at the criticism, while revealing that she has received hate mail over her stance. Miss Primarolo made her comments as the Government braced itself for a difficult two days of debate on the Bill, which has been denounced by Christian MPs and clerics.

Read the rest in The Telegraph

HFEB: Hamster Test

a letter from Pauline Gately

During the Second Reading debate five MPs, including Alan Johnson, implied that the so-called “hamster test” was a sufficient precedent for permitting the creation of “true” hybrid embryos (using animal egg and human sperm or vice versa) under this Bill. (There has been a deafening silence in the media on the true hybrid issue with the focus of debate being on so-called “cybrids” formed by adding a human nucleus to an animal egg from which the nucleus has been removed – such entity is then claimed to be 99.9% human).

This needs to be challenged if the legalisation of true hybrids is to be prevented on Monday. David Jones, Professor of Bioethics at St Mary’s University College, has hastily written a paper on this

The hamster test was sanctioned under the first HFE Act 1990 and is used to test human sperm. Human sperm is introduced to a hamster egg and the fertilisation process is observed but not allowed to be completed (or so Parliament was assured at the time) so that an embryo is not actually created (even were that scientifically possible with two such fundamentally different species). But the Bill’s apologists are now using this spurious precedent to defend, for example, permission under the Bill for the fertilisation of human egg with chimpanzee sperm. Scientifically, this is much more likely to result in an embryo and may be kept for up to 14 days. This is the essence of David’s paper with full referencing.

It would be good to flag up this with your MP and spread the word.

Please also take a look at this superb article in The Tablet. Professor Scolding is Burden Professor of Clinical Neurosciences at Bristol University. Worth lobbing in whole or part at any MPs that are still open to reason.

Jealousy

I get jealous when I see scaffolding around other people's Churches. Over the last eight years I have paid off our debts and we actually have £30,000 in the bank. The most that there has been ever. When I go into the Church to pray I am distracted by the lino that needs tacking down to stop accidents and wonder how much longer it is going to have to last. The altar needs raising, no one sees it if there are four fat ladies in the front pew. The lighting that was put in 20 years ago, as a temporary measure, its predecessor having been condemned, needs replacing. The paint work is peeling off the walls, everything including carved stone, was painted in 1970 in grey paint, the sort of acrylic stuff you find in public lavatories. The sanctuary carpet has holes in it, the radiators are rusting, the stained glass needs restoration, the mullions of the west window need serious work.
Fr Sean posted this video, now, I am not sure if I am jealous, or if this conspicuous and vulgar overspending.
If anyone has an odd £125,000 or $250,000, or more, cheques can be made out to "St Mary Magdalen (restoration fund)".

But is it Catholic?

Philip has a piece on the Catholic Children's Society.

Does anyone know quite what the situation?

That is me!

Jeannette (many thanks) russled me up a cake for the anniversary of my ordination.

It is the first time I have been sculpted.

It is very realistic, and flattering, everyone says so.

*{]:~)}

Extending Abortion to Northern Ireland

I was asked to publicise this:

Next Tuesday (20 May) some MPs plan to table amendments to the HFE Bill aimed at introducing abortion on demand and extending the Abortion Act to Northern Ireland.
It is vital that these amendments are defeated. The evidence suggests that the easier it is to obtain an abortion, the more abortions there are. Ann Furedi, Chief Executive of the BPAS (the largest provider of abortions in the UK) admits this, calling UK abortion law “one of the most liberal in the way it is interpreted”, adding “although the Act does not formally permit abortion ‘on request’ that is what it has allowed in practice.”
England and Wales have some of the highest abortion rates in the EU and there is widespread agreement that these figures are too high. Survey after survey shows that most British people believe that there are too many abortions and that abortions are too easy to obtain.

1. There is strong opposition to abortion in Northern Ireland. Pro-choice activists know their only hope is for MPs in Westminster to impose legal abortion in Northern Ireland against the wishes of the electorate. The people of Northern Ireland should determine their own laws on abortion. It would be undemocratic for Westminster to impose its model of permissive abortion on the Province.
2. Currently an abortion requires the approval of two doctors. This imposes at least a minimum of time for reflection before the decision to abort. Next week’s amendment will take away even that. The requirement should be for even more time for reflection not less.

Please email your MPs asking them to resist both of these amendments. If you do not know who your local MP is or how to contact him/her, feel follow the link below which will allow you to email them directly: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/
Remember to include your name, address and postcode.

You may want to include the following points:
Between 1996 and 2006 (the last year for which figures are available), there was an increase in the total number of abortions of around 20% from 167,916 to 193,737
In England and Wales the abortion rate stands at 17.5 per thousand women. In Northern Ireland where abortion is legally restricted it is 3.75 per thousand, or about one fifth that of England and Wales.
The government’s strategy to reduce abortions is focused on making contraception more readily available but this is failing. In 2006 there was 4% rise in abortions and for the first time 19 year olds became the single largest group having abortions.
The only way to reduce abortions is by making abortions harder not more easy. Please do not forget to contact your MPs, as this will be the most important act of legislation since 1990. If you don’t make your voice count now, you won’t have a second chance.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill: letter

This might be avery useful resource for sending to you MP, remember the vote next week:

fom The Times

Sir, We are convinced that stem-cell research is a highly promising area of science offering potential for new methods of treating many serious diseases. We welcome legal acceptance, public and private funding, and international co-operation for a range of stem-cell research.
But we also wish to caution against false optimism and unrealistic claims for as yet unproven avenues of research. It is irresponsible, unjustified and, especially, unfair to patients for researchers to claim without evidence that a refusal to fund, to license or to approve a particular research approach will “delay treatments for incurable illnesses”.

In particular, given the current state of more conventional embryonic stem-cell research, of adult stem-cell research, and of induced pluripotent stem-cell research, there is no demonstrable scientific or medical case for insisting on creating, without any clear scientific precedent, a wide spectrum of human-non-human hybrid entities or “human admixed embryos”.

We therefore question the scientific validity of proposals to create such embryonic combinations currently before the UK Parliament. We note with concern that, though not widely reported, the Bill does not just propose licensing so-called cybrids (99.9 per cent human, 0.1 per cent other species). It also proposes that embryos “created by using human gametes and animal gametes” (50 per cent human, 50 per cent other species) or human embryos “altered by the introduction of one or more animal cells” (ie, any percentage of human material) could be created under licence (UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill 2007-08, Section 4A(5) and Schedule 2. 3(3)).

All such proposals are highly speculative in comparison to established sources of human stem cells, and we remain unaware of any cogent evidence suggesting any might yield significant therapeutic dividend.

As scientists and clinicians actively involved in stem-cell research and regenerative medicine, we do not hold a single common view about the relative merits, ethics and potential of adult v (conventional) embryonic stem cells. But we all believe that extravagant claims regarding the purported merits of human-non-human interspecies embryos are mistaken and misleading, and that such research would damage public confidence and support, to the detriment both of the cause of stem-cell science and, ultimately, of patients.

Prof Neil Scolding, Bristol
Prof Michael Chopp, Detroit
Prof Dr Wolfgang M. Franz, Munich
Professor Alan Mackay-Sim, Queensland
Professor T. John Martin, Melbourne
Dr Rodney L. Rietze, Queensland
Prof Dennis McGonagle, Leeds
Prof Dr Bodo-Eckehard Strauer, Düsseldorf
Professor Gianni Angelini, Bristol
Dr Roger Barker, Cambridge
Dr Maureen L. Condic, Utah
Prof Dr Ursula Just, Kiel
Prof Dimitris Karussis, Jerusalem
Dr Letizia Mazzini, Piedmont
Dr Jean Peduzzi-Nelson, Detroit
Dr Carlos Lima, Lisbon

There is another letter in The Telegraph, with another long list of acaedemic names

Bonjour Monique

The blond girl in the blue shirt, in corner of the photograph is Monique du Pont, she used to pester me to join the annual Paris to Chartres Pilgrimage. I have always wanted to, well not the walk, sleeping in the field, singing in French Ging gang goolie bit but just being their. This is one of the most exuberant youth events in France. See the pictures here courtesy of Monique

Seminarians!!!

Dominicans!


Gosh, L'Animateur, even in the traddie world you can't get away from them!

50 Reasons to say the Rosary

from Cathcon

How much longer?

Every blog seems to have had a go at Mrs "B's" "contraceptive eqipment", the mind boggles. Paulinus also notes this:

When the Blairs moved into Downing Street, a feng shui expert rearranged the furniture at Number 10. Cherie wears a 'magic pendant' known as the BioElectric Shield, which is filled with 'a matrix of specially cut quartz crystals' that surround the wearer with 'a cocoon of energy' and ward off evil forces. (It was given to her by Hillary Clinton, another political spouse who combines the characteristic Third Way vices of sharp practice and bone-headedness). Then there have been inflatable Flowtron trousers, auricular therapy and acupuncture pins in the ear.

There was of course that Aztec rebirthing ritual t took part on a holiday in Mexico, "New Tony" after Tone had previously given birth to "New Labour". Let us say nothing of condom promotion at the Labour Party Conference.
In our multi-ethnic and diverse community it all makes it rather difficult when I try to discourage people from wearing talismans to keep off the evil eye when they come up for Holy Communion. There is something in the First Commandment about this, isn't there?
How much longer can we tolerate "leading" Catholics being lauded by eminent clergy, when their beliefs and practice give public scandal to the ordinary man and women in the pew? The silence itself is scandalous.

The Catholic Faith is not value free!

I will not retract. I am a Catholic.

Fritz Michael Gerlich, a German convert to Catholicism, systematically denounced the Nazi barbarism and Hitler for over 13 years. After his arrest, he was sent to the concentration camp of Dachau where he was killed.

(CNA).- In the latest edition of L’Osservatore Romano, Gaetano Vallini chronicles Gerlich’s story, explaining that in 1923 while working for the newspaper "Münchener Neueste Nachrichten", Gerlich denounced “one of the most serious betrayals in German history,” referring to Hitler’s failed attempt to take power on November 8 of that year.
Gerlich said Hitler was an “idiot,” but a dangerous one, because he knew how to manipulate others into doing what he wanted them to do. In 1927, Gerlich’s life took an unexpected turn. Used to living as an agnostic, he met Therese Neumann—who died in 1962 and whose cause for beatification is in process. She was known for bearing the stigmata and for having survived for 35 years without food or water, living only on the Eucharist. Through his encounter with her, Gerlich embraced the faith and was baptized on September 29, 1931, taking the name of Michael.
Gerlich was not allowed to express his opinions in his articles and so he decided to found a new publication entitled "Illustrierter Sonntag", in which he continued to criticize Hitler. After this publication was closed down, he founded “Der gerade Weg” in 1932, in which he warned of the coming barbarism of Hitler.
In one of his more outspoken editorials he described Hitler as full of hatred and surrounded by a group of people “who all share one common objective: the desire to destroy.”
He also warned of the Nazi’s anti-Semitic plans to proclaim “a new religion on the basis of the myth of race.” As the elections were held which put Hitler in power, Gerlich wrote: “Those who don’t vote today assume a grave responsibility before God, their children and their children. And moreover we say: it is the duty of every Catholic to vote for the parties that defend the eternal principles of the Church.”
On March 9, 1933, he was arrested, despite his plan to flee to Switzerland. “I am ready to respond with my life for what I have written. I will not retract. I am a Catholic,” he proclaimed.
Fritz Michael Gerlich was killed at the Dachau concentration camp on June 30, 1934.

The Alien is my Brother

A Superior of a certain London community, who is also a "trekkie",will be delighted.

Associated Press.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, was quoted as saying the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said. "Just as we consider earthly creatures as 'a brother,' and 'sister,' why should we not talk about an 'extraterrestrial brother'? It would still be part of creation."

In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like "putting limits" on God's creative freedom, he said.

The interview, headlined "The extraterrestrial is my brother," covered a variety of topics including the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and science, and the theological implications of the existence of alien life.

Funes said science, especially astronomy, does not contradict religion, touching on a theme of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made exploring the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.

The Bible "is not a science book," Funes said, adding that he believes the Big Bang theory is the most "reasonable" explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

But he said he continues to believe that "God is the creator of the universe and that we are not the result of chance."

Green the Time of the Holy Spirit

Everyone knows the story of Pope Paul VI going into the sacristy on the Monday after Pentecost and seeing green vestments laid out for him, "Where is the red for the Octave of Pentecost? he asked. "But Holy Father you abolished it." Apparently the burst into tears.

I personally would like the restoration of the Octave.

In the Orthodox world green is the colour of Pentecost, though they are less regularity about liurgical colours, churches are filled with foliage, and occassionally green hangings.

Green signifies fecundity. Thus green time, now known as Ordinary Time, used to be known as the Time after Pentecost. It was the time when the Holy Spirit was gently at work sanctifying, healing,slowly building up the Church. This is really the season of Pentecost, we look for the fantastic or miraculous but actually the Holy Spirit in most people's lives is the silent power of sanctification, causing the branches of the Holy Vine to grow, flower and fruit.

Dr Mary Berry RIP

Mary Berry, Sr Thomas More, the musicologist brought a schola along to sing at a Requiem here a couple of years ago here own Requiem took place at Dorchester Abbey yesterday, NLM has a brief account.

The photographs are from here, by Brother Laurence Lew OP, where there are more. It looks like a funeral to die for, one can only imagine the music!

Irena Sendler:Righteous Amongst the Nations

NY Times

Irena Sendler, a Roman Catholic who created a network of rescuers in Poland who smuggled about 2,500 Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto in World War II, some of them in coffins, died Monday in Warsaw. She was 98.
The death was confirmed by Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, an organization that supports rescuers of Holocaust victims.
Mrs. Sendler was head of the children’s bureau of Zegota, an underground organization set up to save Jews after the Nazis invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Soon after the invasion, approximately 450,000 Jews, about 30 percent of Warsaw’s population, were crammed into a tiny section of the city and barricaded behind seven-foot-high walls.
On April 19, 1943, the Nazis began what they expected would be a rapid liquidation of the ghetto. It took them more than a month to quell the Warsaw ghetto uprising. By then, only about 55,000 Jews were still alive; most of them were sent to death camps.
Also by then, however, Mrs. Sendler’s group of about 30 volunteers, mostly women, had managed to slip hundreds of infants, young children and teenagers to safety.
“She was the inspiration and the prime mover for the whole network that saved those 2,500 Jewish children,” Debórah Dwork, the Rose professor of Holocaust history at Clark University in Massachusetts, said Monday. Professor Dwork, the author of “Children With a Star” (Yale University Press, 1991), said about 400 children had been directly smuggled out by Mrs. Sendler.
Elzbieta Ficowska, a baby in 1942, was one of them. “Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come,” Ms. Ficowska told The Associated Press last year.
There were several ruses by which the children were saved. Mrs. Sendler was a social worker for the city, with a pass that allowed her to enter the ghetto. “The Jews were all disease carriers, as far as the Nazis were concerned,” Professor Dwork said. “They put up quarantine signs throughout the ghetto.” Forgeries of the government pass allowed other members of Zegota to enter the ghetto as well. They went in day after day to persuade Jewish parents to let them rescue children.
The most common escape route, Professor Dwork said, was through the Warsaw Municipal Law Courts, which abutted the ghetto.
“There were underground corridors that had entrances on the ghetto side,” she said. “The Polish police were bribed to allow the traffic. Parents were told to dress the children as well as possible, certainly without wearing a star.”
For a time, the ghetto’s boundaries extended to the Jewish cemetery. “Some children were placed in coffins, their mouths taped, or they were sedated so they wouldn’t cry,” said Ms. Stahl, of the Jewish foundation. “Other children were smuggled out in potato sacks.”
Sometimes an ambulance wagon, with a driver accompanied by a dog, took children through the gates. “Children were under the floorboard,” Ms. Stahl said. “The barking dog would drown out a child’s cries.”
A church straddled the ghetto border. “Children would be taken into the church, go into the confessional, and come out with papers as a little Catholic,” Ms. Stahl said. They would be taken to a Christian home, a convent or an orphanage.
In a letter last year to the Polish Senate after her country finally honored her efforts, Mrs. Sendler wrote, “Every child saved with my help and the help of all the wonderful secret messengers, who today are no longer living, is the justification of my existence on this earth, and not a title to glory.”
In 1965, Mrs. Sendler became one of the first of the so-called righteous gentiles honored by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Poland’s Communist leaders did not allow her to travel to Israel; she was presented the award in 1983.
Irena Krzyzanowska was born in Otwock, in what is now Poland, on Feb. 15, 1910. Her father was a physician. Her marriage to Mieczyslaw Sendler ended in divorce after World War II. Her second husband, Stefan Zgrzembski, died before her. She is survived by her daughter, Janka, and a granddaughter.
Mrs. Sendler once told Ms. Stahl that she wanted to write a book about the bravery of Jewish mothers.
“She said,” Ms. Stahl recalled, “ ‘Here I am, a stranger, asking them to place their child in my care. They ask if I can guarantee their safety. I have to answer no. Sometimes they would give me their child. Other times they would say come back. I would come back a few days later and the family had already been deported.’ ”

Wear a Maniple, save the Priesthood

Fr Z, twice and Fr Tim both talk about maniples. Sets of vestments I have bought recently, even startling modern ones all have maniples. Nowadays they are not in the list vestments for the ordinary form, neither have they been abrogated. In the last few months if they are there I occasionally tend to wear them. They are irritating, dangling on your left arm, flapping away throughout mass.
When I wore one on Holy Thursday a server asked me what it was, I told him, he misheard and said, "Oh a manacle". In a way Joe was right.

The origin of the vestment seems to be related to the ancient magistrates nappa, a sign of office, but still a towel or napkin, stylised yes. It seems to be more ancient than the stole. Sub-deacons were vested with it at their ordination, the prayer that accompanies vesting with it speaks of labour, drudgery even:

Grant, O Lord, that I may bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, so that I may receive the reward for my labours with rejoicing

Its connection with the subdiaconate (abolished by the Council) would suggest it was a vestment denoting servitude. The modern secular equivalent would be the waiters cloth. In France, at one time in the best restaurants every junior waiter wore a white one over his left arm. It should be seen as the foot washing slave's towel. In terms of John's Gospel therefore it is, as I have said before on this blog, it is the sign of "the one who came to serve, not to be served".

It is an interest comment on the priesthood that the irritating stylised towel suggestive of servility is only worn by eccentrics, whereas the sign of priestly power, the stole, is often the only vestment worn by many.

Let's rediscover the servant and wear a maniple! I am being a little frivolous but we priests do need to identify with being servant, slaves even of Christ and his Church, wearing his "manacle".

So to parody Fr Zuhlsdorf "Wear a Maniple, save the Priesthood".

Burma

I have been thinking what Pope Benedict said about the UN's duty to intervene to protect human rights. James Mawdsley on his thought provoking blog Ecce Mater Tua explores this a little, James knows Burma well, in fact he was imprisoned and sentenced to 17 years in jail there for distributing pro-democracy leaflets in 1999.

Scroll down there are quite a few good thing on his blog.

Fr John Loughlin And Fr Bill Miller IC

Congratulations to both these priest who were ordained 24 years today. Fr John in Middlesbrough and Fr Bill, in the US of A, in Peoria I think. They both studied with me at Wonersh, Ialways regret I wasn't at their ordination, but I was doing something slightly better, getting ordained myself.

3,000 Assyrians Received into the Catholic Church

The Chaldean Catholic Diocese of St. Peter and Paul has formally received into its fold, those members of the Assyrian Catholic Apostolic Diocese who, under the leadership of Mar Bawai Soro (pictured above), had asked to be reconciled with the Catholic Church last January 17, 2008.

see Rorate Caeli

Old Bailey records

Diogenies has been lookng at the trials surrounding the Titus Oates plot on the The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, here is an extract:

Daniel Macarty an Irish man being Indicted upon the Statute of 27 Eliz. for having taken Order from the See of Rome, and coming over into England being Impeached by one Alice Turner who had formerly been his proselyte. And upon Information one Mr. Stiff a Constable in St. Giles's taking with him some other Neighbours, went to Apprehend him, and having entred the House where he was said to lodg, They found him Confessing a Sick Woman, who no sooner seeing them begin roughly to handle her Priest but cryed out, O what will you rob me of my Salvation.
That unnamed woman deserves admiration, even four centuries after the fact.

Pope's Pentecost

I have been waiting for the Holy Father's homily, it doesn't seem to be up anywhere yet.

Asia News has a report, part of which says:

In the "federalist" view of the Church, Catholics are called "Roman" in order to limit the universality of this Church. Benedict XVI explains that the Rome cited in the Acts of the Apostles "was the symbol of the pagan world in general", and that in the vision of Luke "the power of the Holy Spirit would guide the steps of the witnesses 'to the ends of the earth' (Acts 1:8), all the way to Rome". The "Roman" character of the Church is therefore another sign of catholicity and universality: "the journey of the word of God, begun in Jerusalem, reaches its destination, because Rome represents the entire world and thus embodies the Lucan idea of catholicity. The universal Church is realised, the Catholic Church".
Interesting!

The Baroque style vestments are by what is becoming everyones favourite supplier Tridentinum

Veni Creator Spiritus

This is by Niccolo Jommelli, obviously with a neo-Gothic Church we won't have something quite so baroque, but it would be good occassionally.

However nothing quite evokes this feast like this.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit: the liberation of the Cosmos

This is the traditional Byzantine representation of Pentecost.

To western Catholics it is strange not to see a representation of the Blessed Virgin, but her absence is of great significance, for she is already full of grace, she has already been filled with the Holy Spirit, she is Theotokos, the God Bearer. Here the Apostles too are transformed into God Bearers, bearers of the Word which they hold now in their hands.

Interestly, St Paul is represented here, as are the four Evangelists, thus the icon is not just about the day of Pentecost but rather the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostolic Church.

Coming, looming, out of the dark is the mysterious crowned figure of the Cosmos holding a sheet in which he bears but does not touch twelve scrolls. This figure seems to be referring to the "Word" being present in the world, though the world "knew him not", it speaks of the eternal plan for the Church and its inseperability from the Kosmos, for with the the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Church, the Cosmos emerges from its darkness, because the Church is called to liberate the Cosmos from darkness. Though the Cosmos has been in, and is surrounded in darkness, crown symbolises the annointing the created order received when the spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos.

East with the young

Fr Dwight has a nice little piece on a discussion with some boys after celebrating ad orientem.

I've had similar conversations with slightly older young men and women.