The Mass of the Five Wounds

Posted on Friday, 15 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

The Roman Rite today celebrates the Feast of the Sacred Heart, which is absent from any missal prior to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries – including Sarum. However, the medieval devotion to the Five Wounds of Jesus celebrates in a similar way the sacred humanity of our Saviour.

I reproduce two excellent little articles by Fr John Hunwicke (or Deacon John Hunwicke if you’re finicky). A little searching on his blog will bring up many more treasures of medieval Catholic England.

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The Five Wounds

Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo is the beginning of the psalmus of the Introit (Officium in Sarum terminology) of the Votive Mass of the Five Wounds of Jesus. This was one of the most popular Votives used in Medieval England (“drill into it”, as the inimitable Fr Zed would say, by looking for it in the index of Duffy’s Stripping of the Altars). Here is a translation of the introduction to it in the Sarum Missal:

“S Boniface the Pope was sick even unto death; and he urgently begged of God that his life in this world be prolonged. The Lord sent to him S Raphael the Archangel with the Office of the Mass of the Five Wounds of Christ, saying to the Pope:

‘Get up and write this Office; and say it five times; and immediately you will receive your health. And whatever priest shall celebrate this Office five times for himself or another sick person, he shall receive health and grace, and in the future he will possess eternal life, if he perseveres in good. And in whatsoever tribulation a man shall be in this life, if he procures of a priest this Office to be read five times for himself, without doubt he will be set free. And if it is read for the soul of a Departed, immediately after it shall have been completely said, that is to say, five times, his soul will be loosed from pains …

‘Then Pope S Boniface confirmed the Office by Apostolic Authority, granting to all truly confessed and contrite, the seventh part of the remission of all their sins if they should have read it devoutly five times …”

It was an enormously popular Mass among both clergy and laity (particularly when the latter were making wills). It is not surprising that Master Patrick Haliburton [he was a MA of S Andrews] had these familiar words carved on his choir stall: I will sing for ever the mercies of the Lord.

But – call me an typical Enlightenment sneering sceptic if you must – I don’t entirely believe the story about S Boniface and the Archangel. I’ll tell you why soon.

The Mass of the Five wounds

The reason why I have a niggling doubt about the account of what S Raphael said to Pope S Boniface is that the Mass found in the Sarum Missal for the Five Wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ seems to be more or less the same as the Mass de Passione Domini preserved from earlier in the Tridentine Roman Missal. Phrases have been added: in the Collect, after ‘descendisti‘ the words ‘et in ligno Crucis quinque plagas sustinuisti‘; and in the Postcommunion, after ‘deprecamur ut‘, the words ‘per tuae passionis et vulnerum tuorum merita‘. And there are areas of the Sarum Gradual and Sequence which are clearly textually corrupt. Therefore, obviously, Sarum’s is an adapted, secondary version of this Mass. Don’t you agree?

No? What? You want to know whether I have checked how far back the Passion Mass goes and whether I have considered the possibility that the version in the current EF Missal might be a pruned and secondary version of the Five Wounds Mass? Well … er … um … no, … er … I … um … er …, as my students used to say when, having listened to their miserable essays, I began savaging them. It is possible. The Counter-Reformation was a rather puritanical period. The Calendar in the original Missal of S Pius V is a tree even more savagely trimmed in some respects than Dr Bugnini’s. The lovely Raffael pictire of La Madonna di Foligno, a copy of which is part of the baroque superstructure of the High Altar at S Thomas’s, was ejected from the Church of Sancta Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hilland and a dusty old medieval ikon reinstated in its place. So somebody certainly could have taken scissors to the florid old English medieval Mass. We must not assume that earlier versions are always shorter and that time brings accretion: that is one of the most egregiously erroneous assumptions of twentieth century NT textual criticism, as my old and beloved mentor, the greatest of all textual critics, George ‘Eclectic’ Kilpatrick, formerly Dean Ireland’s Professor in this University, used to love demonstrating.

So, no rash assumptions. If anybody likes to do the necessary research, I’m very willing to eat my biretta and concede that the Archangel Raphael did indeed give all those mathematically precise instructions to Pope S Boniface … oh, and you might as well, while you’re about it, suss out which Boniface that was.

But while you’re busy with that, I’ll start drafting the next post on the history of this Mass and devotion.

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Monsignor Entwistle

Posted on Friday, 15 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

It was predictable, but I think Rome has made an excellent choice in naming Fr Entwistle as Ordinary for Australia.

See here for my source of information.

We will be hearing a lot more soon. In the meantime, I extend my humble congratulations.

Official Vatican announcement

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They’re really getting to work!

Posted on Friday, 15 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I am very encouraged. Canon Gray has just posted his June newsletter here.

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My Dear Friends,

One of the most striking features of the Queens Diamond Jubilee year has been the constant reference about her as a person and the character of her long reign described as an unprecedented period of service to this nation and to the commonwealth.

Service to her peoples and to God has been the constant theme throughout and coupled to the other most enduring aspect of her life and character that of dedication, has made her reign all the more remarkable and attractive to many.

Service to God is an essential ingredient to the lives of all Christian people, it is a part of the foundation upon which we exist in the world that is to serve God and his peoples in all of our thinking and our actions.

What unites all Christians is this very essential element of our daily lives, that is to place God first and foremost and to serve him to the very best of our ability in every situation that we face.

One other element of our Queens reign has been her steadfast believe in the word Duty, again she has demonstrated with great admiration her constancy in Service, Dedication and Duty. Duty is also a none negotiable option in the lives of all Christians, we are duty bound to serve God in whatever task he asks us to do.

The TAC has emerged from a long and dark chapter in its recent history and we all praise and thank Almighty God for that. However it remains challenged on many fronts and still needs to deal with ongoing distractions and related issues.

However, if we stand fast firm and resolute and follow the example as set by our Queen, everything will be resolved as God commands and orders. We are united now and the bonds of love and friendship between us all both at home and abroad will begin to flourish and grow.

I am delighted that we now have a new dedicated web site for the TAC, you can find it by going to www.traditionalanglicancommunion.org. There you will find the voice of the Communion that reflects accurately our position on the current issues and the positive message for the future. Please take time to read it and digest its contents.

Regarding our own Web site, the “new” site which is currently under construction will go live at the beginning of July; the link to our existing site will be transferred to the “new” site at the same time.

May Almighty God Bless You All,

In Christ Jesus,

Fr. lan.

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Rebuilding the waste places

Posted on Friday, 15 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I had just about given up on the The Traditional Anglican Church (England) website, when I found Canon Gray’s new monthly letter informing us of work going on in England. There are some aspects that I find very positive.

This letter gives me encouragement that pieces are being picked up and that the language used is measured and temperate. Canon Gray is a man after my own heart in that he uses Occam’s Razor in his way of thinking – simplicity is the best way of explaining things. The Americans would say – Cut the bullshit! This whole crisis was brought about by the way Archbishop Hepworth sought and obtained consent from the TAC College of Bishops to go ahead with a plan to seek some kind of corporate union of the TAC with Rome without actually dictating the precise canonical solution but talking of union without absorption.

What came out of Rome’s inventive mind was something very similar to what was asked for, but done in such a way as to eliminate the use of the TAC and other Anglican groups as ‘ratlines’ for irregular Roman Catholic clergy. The solution was simple: maintain the invalidity of all Anglican orders, Anglican Communion and TAC alike, receive everyone as lay people and then ordain those considered as suitable for the priesthood. The new groups in the Roman Catholic Church are not organically the same as the old ones, but often, such a group would consist of the same people and continue to use the same buildings, as in the case of the Canadian sodalities. For those who have joined ordinariates, this solution has not disturbed them in any significant way. The drama is only for the excluded clergy, and who cares about them?

OK, this is  not an attack against Rome. Some other blogs are discussing the Ordinariates and expressing some dissatisfaction. What is more, some of those involved were unconditional about ramming the ordinariates down everyone’s throats only a few weeks or months ago. I want no part in those discussions, since the problem does not concern me. The CDF and other Roman Catholic clergy have been given a thorny problem to solve, and they have made a success of it – truly in their tradition of pragmatism and canonical coherence. The ‘ratlines’ are kept out and laicised Roman clergy stay out. As I have been saying in the two previous postings, it hasn’t all been Archbishop Hepworth’s fault, but he was at the helm the whole time. I am personally a witness to this.

I was present at the meeting in Portsmouth, and one thing I noticed is that most of the TAC bishops were spellbound. I saw very little in the way of critical reflection, but rather the phenomenon of jumping onto a bandwagon. Most of those bishops had elected Archbishop Hepworth to be Primate of the TAC in the first place, and had no objection to his having been a Roman Catholic priest and in such a matrimonial situation as Rome would never accept him as a priest. Of course, the Pope can dispense any law of ecclesiastical institution, but he would only ever do so for the good of the Church.

There are about 150,000 men in the world in similar canonical situations to that of Archbishop Hepworth – or myself having been a convert and ordained a deacon.

The only way Rome could proceed was the old-fashioned way – individual conversions, albeit with the persons remaining socially connected and being allowed to continue their old customs with very little modification. Certainly, Archbishop Hepworth knew this, but being up-front about it in October 2007 – with the cold shower of reality – would have killed the whole Rome-bound project in the bud. The myth of intercommunion or some kind of uniatism came about – give the bishops hope that the church would be received rather than individual persons. The TAC bishops just went along with it without any open criticism or insistence that the project should be submitted to consultations and lengthy paper-shuffling. Bureaucracy and committees are frustrating, but they are necessary. All that happened was that Archbishop Hepworth produced a document and offered it for discussion. What then happened was surreal – there were just some suggestions for amendments and rewording, just a correction or two but no substantial discussion. OK? Approved? Let’s get on with it!

As in any situation of dictatorship against democracy in secular politics, democracy has to be upheld on pain of it being abolished. Absolute power corrupts. After World War II, international law upheld the collective responsibility of the German people for what happened under Hitler. No one could hide behind having to obey orders and shirk moral responsibility! Of course, I am not insinuating that Archbishop Hepworth is / was corrupt or seeking power, but there is some measure of a comparison to teach us all a salutary lesson. I want to emphasise that each and every bishop, except those who have gone to the Roman Catholic Church, carries a millstone of guilt. All sins can be forgiven, but I cannot abide self-righteousness or those who adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. I appeal for this element never to be forgotten or papered over.

Privately, some bishops were against and said they wanted no part of it until they had the consent of their own people – but they all traipsed up to the altar. “That faith we aspire to hold”, rather than actually being prepared to make an immediate commitment. Oh yes, plenty of wiggling room, so that you could sign the bloody thing without it being an oath according to which you believe the Roman Catholic Church to be the true Church and unconditional surrender was to become an absolute moral obligation! So they signed the letter and the two books that were taken to Rome by Messrs Hepworth, Mercer and Wilkinson.

I see a measure of collective weakness and shirking of responsibility. If Archbishop Hepworth was manipulating and loading the dice, the other bishops were going along with it and abdicating their own responsibility. I also blame ignorance of Roman Catholic canon law and custom. Rome doesn’t “do” intercommunion, and the existence of Eastern Rite uniate Churches in history hasn’t entirely been without problems, a thorn in the side of ecumenism with the Orthodox. Another thing we took for granted was that Rome was going to stick two fingers up at Canterbury, finish with ecumenism and go the whole hog with Anglican uniatism. Pope Benedict XVI may be many things, but he is not a fool. Ecumenism is here to stay. Rome does business with official state Churches – and others are told they can stay where they are and dialogue more or less marginally, or convert.

In a nutshell, if Hepworth is a manipulator, the other bishops shared his guilt by shirking responsibility. Some have done the logical thing – they have become Roman Catholic laymen and will probably be ordained Roman Catholic priests within a fairly sort time. Some are already ordained. A few in the “new” TAC were not involved as bishops in the Portsmouth College of Bishops meeting of October 2007, so can thus avoid this sharing of responsibility and guilt.

I have been racked by doubts of the “new” TAC’s legitimacy. Is it the TAC? I am unsure, but there is another element. Instead of concentrating on organic continuity and legitimacy, we could instead see a more humble approach – we have all done the wrong thing, and we are called to put things right. I am not in the place of Archbishop Prakash or Bishop Gill, or Bishop Botterill or Canon Gray. But, I do believe they are right in picking up the pieces and rebuilding the waste place. The Ordinariates are not the solution for everybody, and there needs to be a Church for them (or us). Some stick with the old visceral anti-Catholic prejudices, overhanging from the Reformation polemics, but I think they are in the minority. I believe that most of us who are left should rebuild with material that is so imperfect and sinful, but that is our human condition.

I also take stock of personal experience of marginal churches and ‘independent’ ecclesial existence. We really do seem to have to make a choice between doctrinal integrity or institutional integrity. Some people change churches to seek perfection or a break to the sheer mediocrity he was experiencing. Wisdom seems to dictate that we do better to stay with the Church we were brought up in and take stock of the fact that life is bigger than churches and superficial religion. Indeed, we would have been better to stay Anglicans where we originated, stay Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelicals or whatever. In that logic, some of our numbers have returned to the Anglican Communion and thereafter have to come to terms with a new reality. I will not judge them.

Whilst I am critical of the ordination of women on theological grounds (cf. the constant teaching of Rome and the Orthodox Churches), I am also increasingly critical of conservative religion and exaggerated certitude. Whilst I love traditional forms of liturgy and artistic culture, I have to make the most obvious observation that the greatest genius comes from a liberal and tolerant mind, open to higher realities than sectarian certitudes. That is the way I was brought up – to tolerate difference and see good in the other. I will go further, many of us have been fighting the wrong war for years, where a little self criticism and questioning of certitudes would have gone a long way. Perhaps it is too late for some of us, but we are here to teach posterity and construct the future – despite man’s inability to learn and capitalise on experience.

The splits occurred, and clergy and laity alike find themselves in marginal communities trying to make the square pegs fit into round holes. They want to live a Christian life, and believe the Church subsists in their community as it also does in other local Churches and where two or three are gathered in his name. Would it be better to blow everything to hell, or make do with imperfection and do good where others have done evil or acquiesced in weakness?

If the “new” TAC is operating in this perspective, then I think it should continue and pray for God’s blessing.

As for England, I am glad to hear that the TTAC is not moribund or already dead. Rebuilding has begun with the nomination of Bishop Craig Botterill as Episcopal Visitor like Bishop Moyer before him, as the continuing of Canon Ian Gray in office as Vicar General. The TTAC is too small to justify its having its own Bishop. The three vacant deaneries have been refilled and there are sixteen priests. Canon Gray intends to issue a list, and this is only a great encouragement to those who had written the TTAC’s obituary. The website is to be taken in hand, and I look forward to it being updated and turned to the future.

We are called to humility, a confession of our collective faults and weaknesses, and then an effort to rebuild would meet with God’s blessing.

I will say no more, but rather let Canon Gray speak for himself:

* * *

My Dear Friends,

We have at long last reached a moment in our history where stability and order have now been formally re-established within our communion.

The College of Bishops meeting that took place in Johannesburg was correctly convened and ordered strictly within the disciplines and structures as specified within the Concordat. I have read many varying accounts of the issues that led up to the calling of the College of Bishops meeting and find it most disturbing that so much was written that was simply unable to be substantiated as fact.

The reality is that we had reached a crisis within our Communion and despite reasoned and valid efforts to try and resolve the situation within a spirit of Christian love and cooperation in the end the choices were limited to the events that have taken place.

Our former Archbishop John Hepworth did in fact resign and had no mandate within the Concordat to organise the election of his successor, furthermore every effort was made to work with him to bring about an ordered close to his term of office. But let us look at the issue that in the final analysis to brought us to the point of crisis.

The offer from Rome of personal conversion to the Roman Catholic Church was never formally debated within the context of a College of Bishops meeting, in fact no meeting was held. Despite repeated requests by Bishops within our communion for such a meeting to be called it was resisted.

I know from my own conversations over many months with Bishops from all parts of the communion that every effort was made to engage with our former Archbishop to try and resolve the situation but sadly without success. The College of Bishops meeting was therefore called with the full knowledge of Archbishops, Bishops and Vicars General and had the consent and agreement of the vast majority to take place. All were served notice of the meeting and invited to attend.

In the event the meeting took place and was chaired by Archbishop Samuel Prakash of India at that time the second most senior Bishop within the communion. Legal advice was given by Chancellor Paul du Plessis of South Africa, an expert on the concordat and a Judge within the South African Judiciary.

The meeting was held within a spirit of Love, Humility and Unity as the members present began the process of restoring peace and order to our Communion. The resignation of Archbishop Hepworth was accepted with immediate effect and Archbishop Prakesh appointed as acting primate. Bishop Michael Gill was appointed as Secretary to the College replacing Lay Canon Woodman.

The College formally rejected the offer from Rome of personal conversion and declared its intention to Continue as the Traditional Anglican Communion. The lawful decisions taken by the College of Bishops within Synod are binding on every Church within the Communion and that very much includes The Traditional Anglican Church.

So let me be very clear on the point, we are a viable and continuing Anglican Church within the Traditional Anglican Communion.

So now we have arrived at the point where we can leave our recent troubled past behind us and move forward with renewed vigour and confidence for the future. It is a matter of personal regret that there has been unpleasantness and resentment within the Church and the sad and in several cases regrettable departure of some of our Brethren. For those who have achieved their desire to enter the Ordinariate I wish them every blessing. For those who are uncertain about their futures or have left the communion I extend to them an open invitation to meet directly with me or the respective Area Deans to examine all options especially to continue as members of TTAC.

So where are we now? We have a new Episcopal Visitor Bishop Craig Botterill of Canada, again may I extend a hand of warm welcome to Bishop Craig on behalf of us all. I would also like to place on record my heartfelt thanks for the care, love and support for our former Episcopal Visitor Bishop David Moyer.

We now have three new Area Deans, Father David Price (South) Father Michael Massey (West) and Father Tony Fry (North). We have at present sixteen priests committed to continue and two enquires. A full list will be issued later this month and I will be asking Father Aird if he will kindly prepare a intercessions booklet.

Sadly our registrar Father Michael Gray is no longer with us which matter of personal regret on my part. Father Michael has served the Church well over very many years and will be sadly missed by us all. Father Michael has also maintained our Web site and in cooperation with him we are constructing a new Web Site which will be launched in June. Paul Jones at St Katherine’s Priory has been appointed to maintain the site going forward.

I will be meeting the Area Deans to appoint a new Advisory Council in July; work will also commence to prepare the agenda for our annual Assembly which will be held in Lincoln in October. Our finances and tithing are considerably depleted albeit our strategic reserves are still intact. I will be trying to resolve the issue of appointing a new treasurer with the Deans in July.

There is no need for us to reinvent ourselves, we simply need to reaffirm ourselves to the mission of the Church and commit ourselves to Evangelism and Growth. Many have written the obituary notices for the TTAC in the mistaken belief that the events of recent times spelt our demise, far from it. We can look forward to the future with confidence and in the certain knowledge that we now have a completely unified and dedicated College of Bishops who are working and praying tirelessly on behalf of each and every one of us.

May Almighty God Bless and Keep you All.

Yours in Christ Jesus,

Father Ian Gray +

Vicar General.

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Inclusive?

Posted on Sunday, 10 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

I recommend the new article by Jonathan Munn – Catholicism: Not a church for anyone. The issue of inclusiveness is actually linked in the minds of many on the bandwagon with homosexuality. No one who is reasonable doubts that it is wrong to discriminate against people of races other than our own and those whose exclusion is caused by factors beyond their control. The Church has always been full of Saints who devoted their lives to educating the children of poor families, and to looking after the sick and homeless.

Homosexuality is no longer a matter of private lives and persons faced with God and their consciences. It is no longer even a matter of making a moral judgement of intimate acts between two consenting adults. It may be wrong for most of us, or unnatural, but it only affects the persons concerned. We have all to answer to God for our acts and what we do with our lives.

The big problem is that, like feminism, it has become an ideology. I personally tend to view the notion of ideology as a set of ideas or a discourse that disables the use of critical reasoning and personal thought, bringing its adepts into a conformity pattern or making them jump onto a bandwagon. This is obscurantism at its worst, going far beyond pseudo-religious superstition in the middle ages or in any other historical period including our own.

If inclusiveness means giving in to ideology and the abolition of critical thought and rationality, giving in to domination so that the whole goes to the other extreme, then it is not possible. Homosexuality might be tolerated when it is a matter of people’s private lives, and I certainly would not see them treated like Oscar Wilde in Victorian England. There needs to be a pastoral approach at a level of persons. One might go as far as saying that if two persons of the same sex want a formalised relationship sealed by a legal contract that gives them similar civil rights to those of married heterosexual couples, there seems to be no problem. There are serious ethical issues like children and families, but we are dealing with a world which for the most part does not recognise any influence of Christianity or the Church over it.

Obviously, trying to involve anything other than a male / female couple in a sacramental marriage would be like using banana juice for the Eucharist or diesel fuel oil instead of water for baptism. There will be a problem when priests are arrested, taken to court and imprisoned for refusing a “sacramental” marriage to a homosexual couple. The priest’s right to his conscience is violated – one extreme to the other!

One great difficulty in our times is that words no longer have their plain and traditional meaning. They have become euphemisms and hidden meanings are attached. Before we use words in reflections about important and divisive issues, we need to look at our use of language and words. It would not be the first time that differences in the understanding of words has caused schisms and divisions in the Church.

I continue to advocate a via media between this kind of “liberalism” that is not liberal or concerned for other people’s freedom and the kind of conservatism that is intolerant or concerned for truths and certitudes before persons. We live in a dangerous world, and Christianity is destroying itself in these dialectics and dualisms. There is very little left in the middle!

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An article on the question of conservatism

Posted on Thursday, 7 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Jonathan Munn, Lay Reader in the UK diocese of the Anglican Catholic Church has written a fine article – The Skeleton of Conservatism, Fleshly Liberality and Procrustean Polemics. I detect that he has been reading my writings and other things, and reflecting on the label conservative.

As a translator, I sell words (I give them away free here), but words and combinations of words grammatically organised in a language are expressions of concepts. Translation from one language into another is not word-for-word, but a fluid expression of the concepts expressed in the source language in the target language. To be a good translator, you have to have an intimate understanding of the language and translate into your own – in my case, French into English.

I was schooled in the 1960’s in reading and writing, in the north of England with a schoolmaster who admitted – “I know I’m an old square schoolmaster, but…“. He smoked his pipe, using an old World War II shell cartridge as an ashtray, explained everything rationally and would stand for no nonsense. He used corporal punishment – six on the bottom with a leather slipper, nothing excessive. One thing Mr Hales hated was the abuse of words, like nice instead of pleasant. Nice means accurate or precise. “I hit the target nicely on the bull’s eye”, for example. Sophisticated is another. Modern usage applies this word to a complex and cutting-edge machine or piece of equipment. It actually means worldly wise or engaging in sophistry, the bad logic of the Sophists in ancient Greece. The word contains the Greek word Σοφíα meaning wisdom. An i-Pad is not wise, but a complex and modern electronic gadget. Another thing he could not tolerate was the emotional use of words, which distorts their etymological and conventional meanings. There are many examples like inclusive and gay, from the top of my head. They have political overtones and are emotionally-loaded.

Many bottoms nowadays could do with six of the best with that old leather-soled slipper! Alas, it was probably thrown away when the old crusty Cambridge graduate died in the 1990’s at a ripe old age.

The emotional use of words is done to a fine art, and its main application in the modern world is advertising. Business is based on the supply of goods and services to a paying customer’s needs. It is difficult to make the right turnover by depending on customers expressing their needs, so you have to stimulate the need. In days gone by, advertising consisted simply of informing the world that the product or service existed, and that customers had the choice of buying one competing brand or another. Then came the idea of creating the need. The businessman is no longer in the perspective of service, but the customer exists for his profit. The need is created by psychological means.

Propaganda is an old science, involving techniques (another site) developed to some extent by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and refined by American advertising experts before and after the war. There are seven known techniques: name calling, glittering generalities, transfer, testimonial, plain folks, card stacking and band wagon. I invite you to consult these two websites to discover the meanings of these terms. Another tool of the propagandist is a set of alternative word-tools like dictionaries and thesauri – see Connotative.

Thus I am careful in my use of words like conservative and liberal. For me, a conservative is one who conserves the good things from the past, his tradition, patrimony, heritage, etc. to pass them on to future generations. A liberal is one who loves his own freedom and that of other people. Conservatism has suffered a change of meaning through its use in centre-right wing politics, such as the Toryism of Margaret Thatcher or the Republicanism of Ronald Reagan and its use in present-day American and British politics. A different form of conservatism conserves capital and the wealth of a minority of selfish and greedy people, and the gap between rich and poor grows. Left unchecked, it would develop into a contemporary form of medieval feudalism.

Liberalism expressed itself in the early nineteenth century as a reaction both against the ancien régime and the revolution. Fundamentally, in the writings of Félicté de Lamennais (1782 – 1854), the aspiration of the time was to free the Church from the encroachments of an anti-religious state (France and some other European countries)  through disestablishment or separation of Church and State. The slogan at the time was a free Church in a free State. That seems most reasonable to us these days, but it was madness in the words of Pope Gregory XVI! Without the State, the Church can no longer maintain its spiritual monopoly through constraint exercised by the civil authorities, and separation enables the State to enact immoral and anti-religious laws. There are the issues in a nutshell.

Liberalism developed in the theological world, and old dogmas were called into question with the development of the sciences. Modernism was an attempt at “saving” the tradition and the faith by conciliating them with modernity and science. The process never stopped and the end result, if unchecked, is secularism, atheism and the abolition of the transcendent. Catholic apologists have confused liberalism with modernism, when a distinction was to be made. Modernists like Tyrrell and Von Hügel actually tried to fight against excessive rationalism, like the early liberals like Chateaubriand and Lamennais, to bring back the mystical and transcendent dimension of religion!

Many us like stability and the continuation of what is good: art that produced recognisable two-dimensional and three-dimensional images, harmony in music based on the eight modes of ancient music or the three modes of modern music (major and melodic / harmonic minor), decency, dignity and reserve in social convention, the sense of duty and virtue, the art of being a gentleman or a lady, so many things from about a hundred years ago and more. My grandparents passed these things to my parents, who passed them to me. But, these values seem to be disappearing. What do we do, beat it into them – or show that there is intrinsic beauty in order and harmony?

We are aware that if these things go, they will be replaced by people who promote their own freedom but despise that of others. Law gives way to the arbitrary and what Pope Benedict XVI calls the tyranny of relativism. Don’t forget that he was made to serve in the Hitler Youth until he found an opportunity to get out without winding up in a concentration camp! That was the “New Germany” whose thousand years were over in a relatively merciful twelve years. So compared to the relativists and those who don’t care about other people, left-wing or right-wing – it’s all the same – we do well to look to the old Judeo-Christian values that built our society since the middle ages and the Renaissance.

Jonathan is a mathematician. I am not. I can accurately calculate numbers when they have some practical application: design a building, a boat, a machine, whatever. Figures are also used for navigation, perceiving space and time, using a known dimension and an angle to calculate an unknown dimension. We also use figures to manage money, something I find intensely boring but necessary. Fine with me. But, ask me to do abstract things like simultaneous equations and differential calculus – you might as well ask me about the back side of the moon! I deal with words, he with numbers, but he also writes well.

A certain amount of conservatism is necessary like the framework of a building or the skeletons of our own bodies. Society needs law, and a religion needs dogmas. That is another badly misused emotional word, often used to describe moral interdictions. Dogma simply means doctrine or teaching. Languages are also precisely governed by rules of spelling and grammar. Music is written according to rules of harmony and counterpoint, keys, time signatures, avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, keeping a firm hand on chromaticism and key modulation. Christianity has creeds, the Bible, the teachings of the Fathers and Ecumenical Councils. The bishops of the Church still have teaching authority, especially when they are together and come to a consensus. That is the Magisterium. Our worship is performed according to a set liturgical rite, so that the Eucharist and Office at least bear some similarities from church to church, diocese to diocese. Let that go, and someone going into a church wonders if everyone has been smoking LSD or crack cocaine!

I am all for those rules being conserved and kept. What is important is to keep a sense of flexibility. We can’t bring up children like in the nineteenth century. Knowledge of child psychology has progressed, and good parenting and schooling involves motivating them in good things rather than only punishing them for bad things. The British Navy had to come to the conclusion that flogging made a bad man even worse and broke a good man’s heart, and so they abolished it along with keelhauling – and replaced punishment by appointing only the finest men to command a ship, so that each officer and seaman would do his duty out of a sense of respect and motivation. A good officer never tells a man to do something he would not himself. There are also rules of humanity, of decency and respect of the person. This is also part of tradition.

Jonathan has largely escaped the trolls and fanatics I had to contend with on my old English Catholic blog. On this blog, I get about a third of the numbers who came to look for the latest sensational news about Archbishop Hepworth and the TAC. I am glad to be without the crows perching atop the gallows waiting for a tasty scrap of hanged man’s eye or tongue, or the ghouls who watched decapitations in Paris as late as the 1930’s. They have moved onto other pastures. The internet could do so much more, but the worst of man is always the same. He discovers steel and wastes no time in making swords, uranium and the first idea is a doomsday bomb before generating electricity!

Let us keep rules and principles, but be flexible and human in their application. If we don’t, we will continue to fragment and shoot ourselves in the foot. It also happens to Roman Catholics, even when they are in communion with the Pope. That is no guarantee of peace and stability. Anglicanism used to be characterised by the genius of staying together in spite of differences of opinion and teaching. Nowadays, that tolerance seems to have gone, replaced by much of what Queen Elizabeth I fought against in the Reformation times. The hatred and polemics discredit. Like flogging, they make a bad man worse and break a good man’s heart!

It all essentially boils down to tolerance and inclusiveness. Now, take a moment to strip those words of their emotional / political meaning, and look at their conceptual meaning. Tolerance is accommodating a person or an idea that we don’t like, but we put up with him or it for the sake of a common good such as peace. Tolerance is a minimum. Inclusiveness is granting to others the same freedom as we ourselves want. We want them to respect us, so we have to respect them. Then comes the idea of Christian love (caritas – I’ll say it in Latin and not English). The English word charity makes us think of popping a coin into a tin for the local homeless people’s soup kitchen!

Can tolerance be acquired? Perhaps to an extent, as long as it isn’t the euphemism of yet another intolerant ideology. There are teaching techniques in schools aimed at reducing hate crimes, discrimination, bigotry and racism – which are largely due to ignorance. We do need to learn to relate to people from different backgrounds and cultures. I am myself living in a country other than the one of my birth. I mentioned propaganda earlier and its use of bandwagons and stereotypes. We need to learn to think for ourselves and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

We have a long way to go…

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Your search terms

Posted on Wednesday, 6 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Here are some more interesting search terms since the end of May 2012. I have deleted the title of this blog or searches for its URL.

old catholics – Of course, Old Catholicism means different things to different people.

bishop jerome lloyd – He has recently been consecrated an Old Roman Catholic bishop in Canada for his community in England, and I consider him a friend.

radical orthodoxy + high + anglicanism – It is good to see interest in this subject, even though Radical Orthodoxy has its limitations as a theological system.

sarum low mass -I have written on it in Sarum Low Mass, how to celebrate it.

pncc scranton papok fizetése – There may be some news after the final vote in England on women bishops, then there may be a group of Anglicans heading for the Union of Scranton or the Nordic Catholic Church. Until then, I have no information.

castrati – Castrati

the celts – Celtic Christianity

archbishop hepworth – He will probably make his peace with Rome, but in what form, I have no idea.

the new goliards – New Goliards

2012 absolute ordinations – Absolute ordinations

estonian high mass + lutheran – I suggest trying Google.

nordic catholic church – As per my comments concerning the Union of Scranton. I wait.

problem with western rite orthodoxy – I was interested in the late 1980’s when I met Dr Ray Winch in Oxford. It all seems stale to me, but perhaps some find their joy in the USA. If I wanted the Byzantine Liturgy, I could have gone over decades ago – I didn’t.

john milbank homosexuality –  I suggest trying Google.

german lutheran vestments – I wonder what they used in the time of Bach. I imagine what they now use when they are high Church would be sober and modern.

australian bishops of tac – Wait until the creation of the Ordinariate. There is already speculation about Bishop Entwistle. Bishop Robarts is staying with the TAC.

congregatie faultgomboult – The Abbaye Notre-Dame de Fontgombault is a community of Benedictine monks in the Congregation of Solesmes. Their Gregorian chant and liturgy are wonderful. Their old guest master, Fr Henri, has just passed away after a long illness – Requiescat in pace.

sarum use northern catholic – Just search on my blog. You’re welcome.

goldanposui – This one is mysterious! It has the Latin word posui – “I have put / placed”. Golden or goldan?

sample testimony to a priest through his positive insights reflections, inspiration, hopes & vision – Nice one if it applies to me.

church choir scarves – Sarum Choir Dress

in the name of the father and the amen oldoes – What have you been smoking?

blessing for racing yachts – Baptism of Sophia

titanic tower of babel – Try looking up simply “Titanic” on Google. I am opposed to moralising. We have technology and we have human fallibility. That’s all.

alexis van bunnen – This was a Belgian theologian who wrote about Western Orthodoxy quite a long time ago. There is a bibliographical reference in Western Rite Orthodoxy.

freemasonry rubricarius – Rubricarius is a good friend, and it would be most uncharacteristic of him to be a Freemason. He would probably say “I couldn’t stand the nonsense”! Freemasonry doesn’t seem to be among his interests.

metaphors for the roman rite – What can I say? Keep searching

moving on from the rut – Moving out of the rut

“prayer book catholic”, caroline – Old high churchmanship and moving on, perhaps.

narrow minded clergy – Try Google. It isn’t my speciality

arts and crafts movement philosophy christianity – Arts and Crafts: an influence in Anglican aesthetics

weare sarums – The river that flows through Durham, but rather far from Salisbury? Perhaps you meant Wareham Guild?

archbishop prakash recent comments – TAC Ad Clerum from Fr Stephen Smuts’ blog.

anthony chadwichorgan pipes – Computer keys a bit sticky? I haven’t written about organs for a long time.

tabur 320 sailboat – Little Sophia is still going. I took her out yesterday, but I got some nasty 21-knot gusts I wasn’t expecting. Of course the wind was coming from the land and as unstable as hell, but the sea was flat, which was nice. I managed to get back in without breaking the rigging or tearing the sails. Here’s mine with the old rig. and with the new rig. It has a very light plastic hull, very tough, but it does not do well in choppy water because of the rounded bow.

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The Ninth Wave

Posted on Monday, 4 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

This morning, I looked for some music by Delius and found his Sea Drift composed right in the midst of the Impressionist era. I am very fond of Walt Whitman’s poetry, especially the text he wrote that was set to music by Vaughan Williams in his Sea Symphony.

I was intrigued by the painting of a raft from a wrecked ship on a very rough sea. I share it with you here:

It is the Ninth Wave by the Russian artist Ivan Aivazovsky, who painted it in 1850. It shows the sea in the aftermath of a storm. A few survivors of a shipwreck cling for dear life to what appears to be a piece of a mast. The yellow-orange light gives warmth and hope of survival. I love this painting.

The sea is an amazing creature, both obeying and defying the laws of physics. Waves often come in a sequence, their number depending on where you are. On our Normandy coast, our waves usually come in threes followed by a big fourth wave, so you launch your boat at just the right time. Beaching is less easy and is a sure test of seamanship – I can say so with two broken masts (one mast but broken twice) to my credit!

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More ideas about jury-rigged Catholicism

Posted on Sunday, 3 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Over the last few months, as I have been writing, I have been asking many questions and seeking the answer not in false certitude, but in a much deeper quest. I find the same malaise among many people in our times, among people who are believers and seek to serve other people, among people who are not materialists. These are the people, or I could say we are the people the Churches have not reached. Nowadays, in many places, trying to interface with the Church is like trying to communicate with a computer without a keyboard or a mouse. One interfaces with the Church through the parish and the local diocese. If those infrastructures have rotted away, then there is no Church in that place. You have then to move house or live your faith according to another conception of the Church.

From time to time, I look at “liberal” sites, and the issues seem to be pretty single – LGBT and women clergy. The more “they” want to ram these matters down our throats, the more we revolt on this new incursion on our freedom. “Liberals” are actually anything but liberal, and they do not seem to be interested in other people’s freedom. Truly liberal Christianity is to be found elsewhere than in the corridors of those screaming “injustice” when their Church decides to ordain women bishops but leaves a loophole open to those opposed to the ordination of women for theological reasons. For the radicals, there is to be no freedom for dissenters. It is human nature, like when the French revolutionaries proclaimed liberty, equality and fraternity and promised to shorten the necks of those who were against their way of bringing about these noble goals of modern democracy. Thus, the guillotine worked overtime, and the knitting ladies in la Place de la Concorde never missed a stitch as the heads fell into the basket! Charming…

Christianity is about freedom and the transformation of the person, about doing what Christ set out for us to do. Churches wander away from the Gospel in various ways, either by distorting the original Catholic tradition to such an extent as it is no longer recognisable or by gravitating towards the autocracy and spiritual totalitarianism of Roman Catholicism. That is normal, because it is human nature which is not very dissimilar to the behaviour of wolves and dogs. We hunt and wage war in packs and gangs, we fight to dominate and exercise power over the underdogs. The alphas get the best bits of meat and the underdogs only get something to eat if the alphas have stuffed themselves and can eat no more. They establish their territories and guard them with ferocity. Anyone who has kept a dog will know that this is the way they behave when a pack goes beyond about ten individuals. And so it is with humans. We are more rational, and have more than snarling faces and flesh-tearing teeth – we have guns and bombs and technology that can blow the whole planet to hell. That is humanity without God, at least the alphas and the psychopaths. The key is empathy and concern for others – just the two things that make us different from snarling wolves. Those are the things that make us underlings, the Untermensch or “sub-humans” as the Nazis used to say. The SS judged and punished men for compassion towards the people they were ordered to kill and work to death. They were wrong, because true nobility is in empathy and compassion, what separates us from brutes and ferocious beasts.

I see things in very simple terms. There is a religion of the Alphas, the mean exclusive world view that seeks to “own” God and every means of happiness. They would ration and channel the sun and make it available only for those who followed their way if they got half a chance! Of course this is the reductio ad absurdam of many who would never consciously go so far in their thinking and attitude. Thus we have fundamentalists in both Protestant and Catholic traditions. Perhaps a church run by anyone other than Alphas would not last very long. We non-Alphas are less well organised and have moral issues over trashing other people and quietly eliminating them when they are inconvenient for our agenda.

We desperately need an alternative to the religion of the Alphas and the kind of “liberalism” that is the same thing in a conjunctio oppositorum, a serpent eating its own tail. Voltaire in the eighteenth century hit the nail on the head when he identified the need for tolerance. If some of us have been ordained in the passage of our lives and we find ourselves eaten out of house and home by the Alphas, then we will be inclined to use the gifts we have received in a different way, to serve humanity and the planet according to that gift. Priesthood enables us to administer Sacraments to believers and to offer the Eucharist. The official Church says we are not allowed to do so and that we have “stolen” our ordination rather than hand it all back on the altar of laicisation. When I ask myself whether they are right, others say I should remain faithful and serve differently. That is a kind of call and mission, just as legitimate as one coming from the Pope or an official bishop in his state-recognised diocese.

And so, lacking buildings, money and stable congregations (people call on us priests when they have a particular need), our ministry is more of a presence. We are lights burning in the darkness, perhaps with little more than a dim glimmer like our sanctuary lamps, but giving light all the same. It is a matter of principle that I spend about 10 Euros a month on olive oil for my sanctuary lamp, which I carefully keep alight at all times. No one else sees it, except that a dim flicker can be perceived through the little false gothic windows at night. I find it difficult to believe that no one has noticed the glimmer even if they are cynical, unbelieving or committed to “staying with the true church or none at all”. The priesthood, even of the most déchu, is a permanent testimony and sacramental presence.

We have hashed out the questions of ecclesiology, whether the Church is a single organic – and above all human – entity, under a pyramid structure (as we still seem to be in the late nineteenth century for many). Is it rather something that works like a hologram? A hologram is one of those things schoolboys with enquiring minds find fascinating: it can be broken and the whole picture can be seen in each divided part, however tiny. I am convinced that people are fully “in the Church” even if their community consists of a priest and his cat and a couple of people with canonical irregularities that alienated them from Rome. I have often written in defence of the Old Catholic idea, which is lived nowadays outside that other “Alpha church” called the Union of Utrecht.

I go further in my thinking. The more a Church becomes numerous, institutionalised and “official”, the more it becomes an expression of human domination and the spirit of the Gospel is inevitably lost. If we “steal” Orders and the Sacraments, it is in the same spirit as a starving person steals food from a shop or a farm. The guilt of the theft is mitigated by necessity. We need to be able to offer the sacramental life and spiritual support above all to sinners, whether they be addicts, alcoholics, divorced people or simply those who have failed in their life and vocation. The institution would treat them as dead men, but they are not dead. Christ came to forgive the sinner and raise the dead, but the “official” Church screens and trashes. We need to stay small and humble, create relationships and friendships – but without empire-building, manipulating and abusing the weak, grabbing money and rushing for the highest places like the Pharisees.

The future seems bleak. We can’t live from our priesthood, but have to work for our living according to our skills, qualifications and professional experience. If we want to celebrate Mass in a nice chapel, we can work for it and do the concrete-laying, tiling, plastering, electrical work, carpentry and vestment making. We can do the rounds of the flea markets and buy what we cannot make ourselves. If we can’t do those things, then we have to make the living Temple of Christ out of a room in our house and common furniture. For each man to do what he can, as this is part of our ministry. We are often criticised for worshipping in garages and rented shops, but this is no more or less than what missionaries in Africa do. They build and think positively – and what a refreshing change from those who say that you have to be a stipendiary priest in a diocese with a parish and a nice church – or get stuffed! When you’re on a boat and the mast breaks, you either get home somehow or perish – that is jury-rigging. We do the same thing with our life in the wider Church and our priesthood.

But it is bleak and humbling, and seems so pointless to us at times. The temptations of pretending to be the official Church need to be nipped in the bud. We are “ordinary guys” but with a gift from God, as much “of the people” as anyone else, just as susceptible to getting ill or sick or facing adversity as anyone else. If we remember that, perhaps we might help to make of Christianity something other than a black stain on the history of humanity.

* * *

Just to be clear about my use of the word Alpha. I use it to describe dominant dogs and humans, and do not intend to cast aspersions on the Alpha Course some churches use to introduce un-churched or ex-churched people to basic Christianity. The word Alpha in its original meaning is simply the first letter of the Greek alphabet. The word alphabet is derived from alpha – beta, the first two letters like A and B of our Latin alphabet. So, the target of my criticism is the instinct of dominance, which when unchecked becomes evil and criminal behaviour.

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Sarum Ordo for June

Posted on Friday, 1 June, 2012 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

June 2012

Date
1 Fri Ember Friday
2 Sat Ember Saturday
3 Sun Trinity Sunday.
4 Mon Augustine, Apostle of the English. Inferior Double. transferred
5 Tues Boniface & Companions, MM., Double Invit.
6 Wed Norbert, Bp & Conf.
7 Thur Corpus Christi.
8 Fri Medardus & Gildardus, Conff. Bps.
9 Sat Translation of S. Edmund, Conf. Trip. Invit. ix Less. Mem. of SS. Primus and Felician.
10 Sun 1st Sunday after Trinity.
11 Mon  Barnabas, Ap. Trip. Invit. ix Lessons.
12 Tues Basilides, Cyrinus & Nabor, MM.
13 Wed
14 Thur  Basil, Conf. Bp.
15 Fri Vitius, Modestius & Crescentia, MM.
16 Sat Translation of S. Richard, Conf. Bp. ix Lessons. Mem. of SS. Cyricus and Julita.
17 Sun 2nd Sunday after Trinity.
18 Mon Mark & Marcellian, MM. Double Invit.
19 Tues Gervasius and Prothasius, MM. Double Invit.
20 Wed Translation of S. Edward, Mart. King, ix Lessons, unless it has been kept in Lent, then iii.
21 Thur Summer Solstice.
22 Fri Alban, Protomartyr of England, ix Lessons.
23 Sat Vigil of St. John the Baptist
24 Sun Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Lesser Double. Mem. 3rd Sunday after Trinity.
25 Mon
26 Tues John and Paul, MM. Double Invit.
27 Wed
28 Thur Leo, Conf. Pope. With Nocturn. Vigil. Irenæus of Lyons.
29 Fri Sts. Peter and Paul, App. Lesser Double.
30 Sat Commemoration of S. Paul. Trip. Invit. ix Lessons.
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