Clergy Retreat in Bavaria

Fr Armand de Mallery FSSP emailed me to ask to publicise the forthcoming Retreat for any clergy - bishops, priests or deacons, he asked me if I was going but I really can't get away.

Looking for a break after Easter the FSSP are running a CLERGY RETREAT with MARY 5th-9th May 2014 in Bavaria at a cost of just £270. 

"The Retreat will be on the theme: ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary and the priest’. In reference to Pope Francis’ decision to consecrate the World to Mary’s Immaculate Heart, we will strive as priests to deepen our relationship to God through Mary. We will meditate on the mission of the Blessed Virgin Mary to help us be configured to her Son the Sovereign High Priest. This will include: the role of Mary in the Incarnation and Redemption; her purity and humility at the Annunciation; her charity at the Visitation and at Cana; her hope and faith on Calvary; her spiritual motherhood in relation to the beloved disciple St John. Our Lady will help us deepen the love of our priestly celibacy and our sponsal relationship to the flock entrusted to our pastoral care and to the Church in general. The retreat will be held at the Marian Shrine of Wigratzbad in Bavaria, from Monday 5 May to Friday 9 May 2014 (third week after Easter)."

Go here for more information 
or
contact Fr de Mallery

Some thoughts on Francis and the Synod on the Family

For me Pope Francis is still a "puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma", is he a conservative or a liberal, incredibly subtle or just crass, is he going to lead the Church into deep waters or onto the rocks? A year on from his election and there are still no clear answers.

He is certainly a new style of Pope, the machinery of the Ultramontane Papacy we have known and taken for granted for over a century has been dismantled by his predecessor, leaving it impossible for Francis to be merely a Conservative following the models set by his immediate predecessors. Liberalism too, as it is commonly understood in the the Church, as an imposed, top down series of innovations, obsessed by structures, again doesn't seem to be a possible route for Francis, though one might presume that would be his personal inclination, it is not his inclination as Pope. The only real route for him seems to be to delve into the depths of the riches of the Church's Tradition.

The reports of the last Consistory are fascinating, if 75% of Cardinals really were against the 'Kasper theorem' for resolving the issue of divorced and remarried Catholics. A friend suggested this was a way of showing to the German bishops they were way out on a very thin limb, they were after all a pain for his predecessors, and have, because of their wealth, punched well over their weight to the annoyance of many other Episcopal Conferences. Having only one speaker, a German Cardinal, who was then rounded on by his fellows, is humiliating for the German faction. And even if reports on the numbers were over blown, they show the difficulty Francis would have if this truly is his intended reform, of carrying a consensus of the world's bishops. Synods are after all about consensus.


However, every sign from Francis, given by Mueller, is that reform of the anullment process is more likely than a simple admission of those in a state of sin -defined not by the Church but by the Lord- is probably the course of action he favours. The solution will be Canonical not theological, which might account for Cardinal Burke still being in place and for Cardinal Piacenza, now recovering from his illness, being sent as Prefect to the Apostolic Penitentiary. Interestingly, the writers of the Chutch's law are convinced Ratzingerians.

Again, the public face of Francis, would seem to suggest that his major concern for the Synod might focus on the economic structures that oppress the family; in the West making children unwelcome and being seen as an economic burden, in the South leading to emigration and poor health, that disrupt and destroy the family but we have had not a word of this. Nor has he touched on the interference of the State in the family, the redefinition of fundamental relationships that constitute the family, the promotion of 'gay rights' in some parts of the world whilst heavy strictures are placed on them in Africa and the Orthodox and Islamic spheres of influence.

The family and the ecology that supports it: population growth, emigration, unemployment, education, sexual relationships, the ethics of reproduction and trafficking should be the big question of the next century, if Francis and the Synod play their cards right the Church could structure the debate rather merely reacting to it.

Our problem, and Francis' skill has been that we still only have a two dimensional superficial understanding of him, rather like his  two dimensional superficial presentation of God 'the Merciful'  which ignores everything else we know about God through his Son.

Man born blind: sermon

Last week the airwaves buzzed with the first moments a woman born deaf heard for the first time in her life, her story helps us understand something of the extraordinary excitement, delight and confusion of the man in today's Gospel who was born blind and brought by Jesus into a new world of sight. Imagine being able to see the shape and colour and form of objects one had only touched and felt.
In the icon he comes out of some dark place, Plato's cave perhaps, the world of shadows and illusions, the world in which phantasms are mistaken for realities and realities for phantasms. He comes out of the dark place, he turns his back on his past, he must do that because he faces Christ the light, he turns a way from death to the Way, the Truth and the Life. He turns to the Lord, he is reorientated, his life is given a new orientation, he becomes with Christ a creature of Light, no longer overcome by darkness, because darkness cannot overcome Christ nor those united to Christ, nor his Church.

We Christians are called to be salt that gives savour, leaven in the lump above all light in darkness. Down the centuries we have been persecuted for that. The more clearly the Church teaches, the more she shines in the darkness the stronger the persecution against her and her members.

The Graeco-Roman world was not dissimilar to our world, the attitudes to life and death, to sex and pleasure, to pleasure, to wealth and poverty, yes even to religion were not unlike ours. When I read S Paul's letters to the Corinthians and few decades later Pope Clement's letter I imagine he is writing to another seaside: Brighton. Corinth was like our city, a seaside town 'much given to pleasure'. Neither the ancient world where the Gospel was first preached, nor its inhabitants were much different from our world.

Where abortion and infanticide where regularly practiced Catholic Christians upheld the sanctity of life from the moment of conception, even going to search for exposed children on city rubbish dumps to bring them up as their own. Where there was sexual license, in the Graeco-Roman world pederasty, homosexuality and prostitution seem to have been rife, Christians proclaimed restraint and marital fidelity.

Christians understood they were called to offer an alternative way of seeing the world, that they were light in darkness, as our world slips into encroaching darkness, more and more it needs clear Christian light.

Who is Chris Grady?

I recently received a letter from one of the local leading lights of the dissident group ACTA questioning my judgement for asking whether Deacon Donelly or Bishop Campbell was the first to make public the bishops request for the deacon to have a period of prayer and reflection, and in effect to close his blog down. My correspondent sent me a copy of the statement from Deacon Nick's bog where it clearly stated, that the original statement was actually released by Bishop Campbell's diocesan press office, so really it was a 'no-brainer', his Lordship did it. Letters from such people who try to create a sense of fear in the Church fill me with a certain dread because they normally have a certain malicious intent, you have ask, what are they up to?

Well, I am afraid I am going to do be a little injudicious now, by asking another question, as has been asked elsewhere, who was the interlocutor of Robert Mickens, the now suspended Rome correspondent of the perfidious Tablet, the 'International Catholic Weekly' is. Apparently on Twitter he is a certain 'Chris Grady'.  Who is Chris Grady?

Now, I and other clergy who blog have received comments in the past from somebody who identifies themselves as 'Chris Grady'. The ones which I have received I have not published, they are normally malicious and revolve around sexual themes or were simply abusive about Pope Benedict, sometimes both, their content would seem to suggest that the writer was a member of a certain 'lobby' group. On one occasion I had cleric here, he was and is in good standing with the Church and his diocese and because he was also involved in education had been through the whole plethora of safeguarding procedures, Mr Grady apparently wrote making a series of unsubstantiated allegations to my diocese, which caused more than a little distress to me and the other cleric, and set up an uncomfortable situation in my diocese; none of us want to be the cause problems with the 'Safeguarding Office' or even be thought of as being lax in any sense in our parish procedures.

Now it is probably true there are a number of Chris Gradies and the one who hopes for Pope Benedict's death is not the same who leaves hate messages on blogs about him, and this is merely a coincidence but then maybe not. Mischief, innuendo, creating an air of suspicion; all those sins which St Paul speaks of tend to abound where there is an absence of charity, sin is a contagious leprosy that consumes everyone around it, even, maybe especially the innocent, it is worth remembering the Fathers identified charity with orthodoxy and malice with heterodoxy. As Chrysostom says: when one touches a serpent, even with a stick, it rises and tries to strike you, or as we might say today: you can tell a lot about a man (or even a magazine?) by the friends he keeps.

I have no objection to censorship, IF ...

I was rather struck by this:

I have no objection to censorship, if it is done within a settled legal framework; that is, by a qualified Censor librorum who, if he withholds a Nihil obstat, gives and is required to give precise reasons for doing so. I would have no criticism if the system were not only restored, but extended to the blogosphere, and, of course, to clerics and laics who write columns and editorials in 'catholic' journals! But it has fallen into disuse. My apprehension is that a public and canonical process might have been replaced by something furtive; that a bishop (or whatever) might act resentfully but covertly because of views which are doctrinally orthodox but which don't suit his personal agenda. Or that censorship might function as an informal, unminuted, understanding within an Inner Circle that X is 'off-message'; with subsequent disadvantages for X. In other words, I fear that what, at first sight, looks like a libertarian advance (the disappearance of formal Censorship), might in reality be simply a Bullies' Charter. As I have written before, I regard Dogma and Law as the safeguard of ordinary Catholics, both lay and clerical, against Arbitrary Power.

It is from the wise old mutually enriching Fr Hunwicke. 
You see Holy Church is the Glorious Bride of Christ but because she is made of sinners like you and me - isn't Lent a wonderful time to discover you are a real intractable sinner? - she can behave and act like a harlot. In fact she can become pretty corrupt, especially in her leadership, fish rot from the head. We clergy, how rightly our beloved Holy Father castigates us for our poor leadership, can easily turn Christ's domain into our fiefdom, when we are king Christ is in exile.

Rightly the good Fr H says, 'I regard Dogma and Law as the safeguard of ordinary Catholics': the alternative is that we up ruled by shadows and fears, the Church becomes a place of factions, ruled by secret committees and lobbies, it becomes the abode of whispers, innuendo and rumour. In it nepotism runs riot and injustice becomes a way of life. In short we become a robber barony, the type of system the Holy Father grew up in, that has been so much part of South American government in recent history, and seems to be still the case in his native Argentina.

For the Church it becomes lethal because it destroys the transparency of Truth, replacing it with the opaquism of opinion and that is not what Jesus Christ is!

Is it Springtime yet?

Is there a trend in our newly appointed Bishops.  The last two are both members of religious orders and Bishop O'Toole was a seminary Rector, as more and more secular priests live alone I can't help wondering if new Bishops are expected to be 'community people', rather like the Pope to enjoy the chatter of others around them. I suppose most priests like that, but the particular feature of these three latest appointments seem to indicate they actually like priests in particular, absolutely necessary but not always easy for a Bishop to do. The last two appointments had chosen to live their in a community with priests. Archbishop Mennini seems to have a preference for Religious, which as a secular priest I thing is probably a good thing.

The other thing that seems important is that Bishop McMahon and Fr Byrne both have good records of encouraging vocations, as does, in a different way, the former Rector of Allen Hall Bishop O'Toole of course.

Others have commented on both Bishop McMahon and Fr Byrne have been friendly towards the Traditional Mass, and personally it gives me joy, but it is deeper than that, it is about being at ease with the history and Tradition of the Church. The fourth Commandment tells us that if we honour our father and mother we will live long in the land. It is about rootedness. I don't know too much about Bishop O'Toole but friends in the Ordinariate speak incredibly highly of him embracing this initiative of Pope Benedict, and them.

Though Bishop O'Toole might well be described as following the traditional career path to the Episcopate: Cardinals Secretary, Seminary Rector, everyone seems to agree he is exceptionally capable, both Bishop McMahon and Fr Byrne are relative outsiders.

The other encouraging thing is that we seem to have put behind us the promotion of men with little education over an STL collected on passing through Venerable English College.

Do three swallows, make a Spring? I hope so, I am hopeful.

St Mary Magdalen's New Website

We have a new parish website up and going, check it out!
Many thanks to those good parish priests like Fr Tim who allowed us loot, plunder and pillage their own sites.
I just love the pictures, like most priests and servers their back is their best feature.
Oh, and there is a facebook page too.