Schlechtes Wetter

Posted on Wednesday, 6 June, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

On this day commemorating the seventy-fourth anniversary of Operation Overlord, commonly known as D-Day, we have just about the same weather, perhaps a little less wind. Europe is presently plagued with unstable and stormy weather due to a kind of “witch’s cauldron” effect of a north-east anticyclone and a colder front from the Atlantic.

My title today is based on the exclamation of one of the more perceptive German officers anticipating an attack on France by the Allies in the worst weather. Many of us gained basic knowledge of D-Day through watching The Longest Day, a monument of modern cinema with an assortment of great stars like John Wayne, Richard Burton and Bourville. The film is thought-provoking. A more realistic view is given in Saving Private Ryan – with its intolerable blood and gore which are the reality of modern warfare.

The Battle of Normandy was the beginning of the successful invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, launched on 6th June 1944.  The casualties were horribly heavy, not only Allied and enemy servicemen but also the civilians killed by the heavy marine artillery firing at random through the fog and the heavy rain.

Oh, yes, it was a just war, a crusade against the dark heart of Nazi Germany. It had to be fought, even at such heart-breaking losses. I live in the area, where few towns survived the bombing needed to shake the Germans out of their defensive positions. Le Havre was levelled, as was much of Rouen near the Seine and the railway marshalling yards. Rouen Cathedral was almost totally rebuilt in the 1950’s. Every time we see the réconstruction architecture of the 1950’s and 60’s, we can only imagine what was there before. Caen and Ouistreham were almost levelled, as were Falaise and Bayeux. I know the area of Omaha Beach well and have visited most of the museums and sites.

I offer my prayers for the thousands of fallen servicemen of both sides (there is a huge German military cemetery in the Bessin region) and civilians. Let us pray that such destruction, as has happened in Syria, never strikes Europe again! Very few veterans from D-Day are still alive, so it falls on us to preserve their memory, pray for the dead and treasure our freedom for which they died.

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Static Website gets an Overhaul

Posted on Tuesday, 5 June, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

My old static website As the Sun in its Orb has just had an overhaul using a html editor by Microsoft, which I am just beginning to learn to use. I used to use Adobe Dreamweaver but the modern versions that work with Windows 10 are so horribly complicated and geared towards flashy business websites, and ask for monthly payments to keep data on clouds! I have therefore gone ultra-simple.

I have notably added the page on The Blue Flower in anticipation of my first issue in pdf format being published at the end of this month. I have nearly finished my article on Modern Romantic Medievalism, and I have Mathematical Sehnsucht by Fr Jonathan Munn, and I am eagerly anticipating Dr Timothy Graham’s work on William Morris’s medievalism in his essay Art and Labour, and the role that medievalism played across the Romantic spectrum. Each issue will begin with an editorial.

I would greatly appreciate ideas for the Winter Solstice edition, which is only six months away to try to get a fairly unified general theme, perhaps as many as four articles and some book reviews.

Most of the website hasn’t changed its content, but hopefully there shouldn’t be any problems on Firefox, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, etc. If so, please let me know.

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John Bruce and Priestly Formation

Posted on Monday, 4 June, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

There have been several new postings on the same old blog:

It seems obvious that Rome is going to have to buck up and heed the infallible magisterium of our little railway enthusiast grenouille de bénitier. This imagery of the frog in the holy water stoup is poignant and indicative of late nineteenth century French Catholicism on the eve of the Separation of Church and State in 1905. The church is already neglected, the holy water is stagnant and green, and the pair of globular eyes are visible above the algae. The French use the expression for laity, usually toxic old ladies, who interfere in the running of parish churches from a point of view of bigotry and ignorance.

Unlike him, I have been a Roman Catholic cleric after making a big effort to leave Anglicanism behind in the 1980’s. Originally, I aspired to go to the SSPX seminary at Ecône, but was advised against it. After spending a year in a kooky American community housed in the Nemomucene College in Rome, I went to Fribourg University and then to the neo-baroque seminary of the Institute of Christ the King in Italy. It was a lot less “military” than Ecône, but we had a serious community life with offices, refectory, study, manual work and all the usual aspects of a serious community. Some aspects were quite over the top, then it all went blue. Is that really the best way to train ordinands for the priesthood?

Perhaps our friend might object that this wasn’t the “mainstream”, like Maynooth in Ireland or some of those big diocesan priest factories in American dioceses with plenty of money and bling. We have Allen Hall in England and Ushaw has been closed down. The reality of all that is rather harrowing, and John Bruce might see those places as not being all that “serious” if he looked a little closer. Of course, there is the curriculum of studies, then there is the community life which provides an opportunity to scrrreeeen those men who are probably low-down scallywags. Result, the real psychopaths and narcissists get through the net and honest men are penalised. Terrific! Perhaps it’s a little better in Rome at the North American College. Comments would be welcome.

Bruce’s agenda is obviously to try to discredit the Ordinariate in the USA for supposedly taking short cuts with clerical training. It depends who you are dealing with. If the man already has a full curriculum of theological studies, a university degree, then things can be abridged. They were for me at Gricigliano for the most part. I followed some courses for “top-up” purposes, but what I got at university was so much better and more “professional”. How are you going to put an experienced parish priest through seminary with young students in their 20’s? Even stuffy England has the Beda in Rome for older ordinands and those who has been Anglican clergy.

The seminary was invented in Italy in the late sixteenth century, and in France in the seventeenth with Monsieur Olier and Saint Vincent de Paul. It was a recommendation from the Council of Trent. It can be a very good system, and it can be bad – very bad. No system is infallible enough to weed out the scoundrels and the perverse. There is no substitute for experience and common sense.

The pre-Tridentine way was something like in Eastern Orthodoxy in the Orthodox countries like Russia and Greece. They do their studies, preferably at university, and then they are apprenticed to an experienced parish priest appointed for the purpose by the diocesan Bishop. It is all made difficult by having married men in secular employment, so you have to have a good materialist bling-bling church, or find other ways. That is the challenge for human initiative. Perhaps they can “do their apprenticeship” in their own parish and have the Dean come and check that everything is going well. Each year, the ordinands would sit examinations or answer examiners orally, so it doesn’t really matter whether they went to university or got it all from reading the prescribed books.

It is hard for a Bishop to make sure he has priests of the right quality, at least men who are not going to do harm or discredit everything he is trying to do to build up the Church. At the same time, it’s not rocket science, just common sense, knowledge of humanity and perseverance. That will depend on the quality of the Bishop – and there are plenty of shoddy ones in the RC Church, just like any Church whether Anglican, reformed or Orthodox.

I didn’t enjoy seminary, but I went through with it and was ordained a deacon whilst on pastoral assignment in Marseille. I followed the rules, wore the cassock and biretta in the right way and did as I was told. I got on with the Rector (others didn’t and got sent to Santa Maria Novella – the euphemism for being expelled because it is the name of the railway station in Florence), because I obeyed and respected him. Obedience is important because we don’t always have a good judgement, and that is the rule of the game. We can think what we want, but we keep our mouths shut and take it stage by stage. Anyone can play the game – the good, the bad and the ugly…

As an experienced priest and a man of nearly 60, I look back at it all. Perhaps I should not have become a priest, but I did, and I have a Bishop who expects much from me. You don’t put your hand to the plough and look back! Such is often the state of those priests whom Bruce might despise but who are men of quality in their own way, seeking to fulfil God’s will, and being “given a break” by those responsible for clergy selection and training.

Having read the nonsense Bruce writes, we can safely tell him to piss off and change his diapers (we call them nappies in England). If the man had any courage or the manliness he expects in others, he has only to open his blog to comments. Then he will get the two dozen lashes he deserves.

* * *

It gets worse – “We Go Where We’re Sent.” . I could think of a few places to send him between rural France, Saudi Arabia or North Korea. Anyway, I had better stay civil…

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Confession and Safeguarding

Posted on Friday, 1 June, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

The Church of England has come up with some new legislation on confession to a priest. When a priest is to hear a confession, he has to recite to the penitent:

If you touch on any matter in your confession that raises a concern about the wellbeing or safeguarding of another person or yourself, I am duty bound to pass that information on to the relevant agencies, which means that I am unable to keep such information confidential.

When I first heard about this, it seemed like bureaucratic word salad, perhaps even a joke. I looked it up and here it is from the horse’s mouth Confession & safeguarding. Here I was able to find some context to this odd ruling. I imagine a scenario: the penitent is aware that his vicar is buggering choirboys, and that this fact caused him to commit a sin of anger. The confessor is bound to report the matter of paedophilia to the police.

Everything is possible, and I remember from my Roman Catholic days the stuff taught in seminaries about casuistry and everything that someone might say in the confessional. This is why we had moralists like Fr Servais Pinckaers OP (who taught me at Fribourg) who appealed to fundamental principles (finis operis / finis operantis) to guide common sense rather than edict a solution for each of the millions of possibilities that might occur. The trouble with bureaucracy is that it presumes that each priest is an imbecile and ignorant of the principles of judging a moral act.

Obviously, it’s about the institution covering its own backside from the risk of legal action from those seeking to make a packet of compensation money. Only yesterday, I found out that a vicar of a church where I was once organist had been cleared of a serious sex-abuse accusation by a jury. I had believed that he was a molester and deserved to be tarred, feathered and boiled alive! Two men made false accusations, certainly for money. The risk of legal action (especially if it is a wrongful accusation) is a nightmare, and all institutions have to take precautions.

I recently bought an electronic device and the instruction leaflet was most revealing. The device is extremely simple to use, being a Bluetooth adapter to enable music from a smartphone to be played on a hi-fi system. The safety precautions were written to cover everything, including the device being eaten! If you buy a tin of paint, you will find “Do not drink the paint“. The probability of someone drinking paint is likely to be very low, but the warning had to be made to protect against litigation. This is the world in which we live, and its tentacles extend to the priestly ministry.

I last heard a confession about ten years ago. Most people have only minor matters like sexual temptation, masturbation, anger, telling lies, perhaps some minor dishonesty with money, and suchlike. They affect the person’s conscience. The priest needs to ascertain whether the person is making a mockery of the priest and the sacrament for some perverse end, or is genuinely making efforts to become a more honest and better person. I have not encountered the case of someone using the seal of confession as a kind of “gag” in some Machiavellian plot to his own ends. It was something we discussed at seminary, and all priests fear such abuse of this Sacrament. If it is clear that there is abuse, does the seal of confession apply? If the penitent put some poison in my soup and I am not allowed to act on what I learned in confession, am I obliged to drink the poisoned soup as if I didn’t know about it? I have heard the question discussed.

There is a way out of this quagmire: do nothing for children. Abolish schools, playgrounds, scout groups, churches, everything. Keep them in glass boxes, safe from everything including social interaction! Do not accept the slightest risk of a bad person or an accident. How far would all this go? Priests could simply decide not to catechise children or hear confessions. Then there is no problem. Why not go further: close down all churches and outlaw religion – then there would be no more paedophile priests! This zero-risk policy is of course selective and hypocritical and to someone’s advantage.

There is no answer for every possibility. You need fundamental principles and the use of discernment and common sense. It has always been painful to me to hear confessions, because I suffer from hyper-empathy and become too emotionally involved with the person. And so the Church invented the confessional with little trapdoors that you open and close between one penitent and the next. A factory… Increased productivity… As a priest, what can I say to help a person whose life is unknown to me? Spiritual direction is all too often based on deceit or poor understanding of psychology. Perhaps we can just count on the penitent being sincere, and presume the best intentions as we give Absolution.

The Sacrament of Penance is something instituted by Christ and practiced in the Church since the beginning. It requires self-knowledge as well as openness to the quest for self-knowledge (or absence thereof) of the penitent. Not all priests have that quality, and it is something bishops need to be very vigilant about. It is not for nothing that not all priests receive faculties for confession in their canonical licences. We don’t need to be saints (though that helps), but we have to be able to relate to persons and discern sincerity or bullshit as the case may be.

A Church should issue guidelines. We in the ACC have our own in our canon law and various dispositions issued by our synods. We too have to protect ourselves from the trouble with the law that perverse and deceitful people can bring us. By building up the barriers, we become cold and aloof. Where God builds his parish, the Devil sets up his chapel just nearby – an old French expression. Where any good is done, there will always be something less pleasant just around the corner.

It is easy to make fun of the bureaucracy. It is easy for me to point fingers because I have next to no pastoral ministry as a priest. I can see the nightmare. Perhaps the Church of England, having issued these guidelines to satisfy the need to stay out of trouble, could offer a real spiritual and psychological formation for priests who will be called to hear confessions in England’s cathedrals and parish churches. It is something that cannot be taken lightly in seminaries and parishes where new priests “do their apprenticeship”.

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Another Couple of Hissy Fits

Posted on Thursday, 31 May, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

Perhaps he thought I had been beaten into submission – but I’m back! He has recently written Latin Mass Again and More From Guelzo On Anglo-Catholicism. Our friend has got steam up again and is ready to pummel us anti-technology romantics into the Dark Ages!

I lived through some of the more “creative” years of the RC traditionalist movement, beginning with Fr Black’s little empire in England and then in France. Though I stayed with it for fifteen years, I saw the cracks almost from the beginning. One particularly nasty experience was the Catholic Evidence Guild who had training sessions each week at Westminster Cathedral. Upon learning that I was going to SSPX Masses a grubby old man told me that “obedience is part of Tradition“. This meant that whatever came from his magisterium was Tradition, and that there was no other source of tradition. Authority has the power to change truth itself – look no further for the archetype of Orwell’s Big Brother! This dystopian church was beginning to depress me – and I thought I would find better in France… The reforms and the altars facing the people extended to the uttermost ends of the earth, to the least country church. What was I looking for, the clerical Big Brother of John Paul II’s curia? The traditional Catholic liturgy? What?

I once tried to follow the Michael Davies line and compare the post Vatican II iconoclasm with that of the English Reformation. Superficially, there are parallels, but the fond (as opposed to la forme) is so different. Few know about the attempts at rationalist liturgical reform in the eighteenth century, especially the pseudo-Synod of Pistoia (1786) and the Jansenist influence. By far, the most scathing criticism of this movement came from Dom Guéranger.

I remember, during my seminary days, discussing the idea of diversity with priests like Fr François Crausaz (1958 – 1994). It seemed to be the quest for peace from men like Cardinal Ratzinger who advocated the coexistence of the old and modern Roman rites. Why not? After all no two churches celebrated the modern rite in the same way. John Bruce’s visitor evokes the hypocritical stance of traditionalists asking for freedom whilst aspiring to a future theocracy where they would bring back the fires of the Inquisition and the thumbscrews. I noticed this when we got the Indult of 1984 and the concessions offered after the consecration of four bishops by Archbishop Lefebvre (I was up at Fribourg at the time and attended the ceremony). I went along with wanting to have the best of both worlds: being in the mainstream Church and doing so as if we were in some past time. At Gricigliano, we were in the eighteenth century except with electricity, hot water and modern medicine and transport! It was fun, but I couldn’t make that the purpose of my life.

The traditionalist world, as for all of us is full of dilemmas and paradoxes. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. The rub is that atheism and materialism are too. We won’t find truth or the object of our yearning in this world, not even in the Anglican Catholic Church! Going over to the magisterium conservative camp won’t solve anything either, unless religion is simply a civic duty like Anglicanism in Georgian times.

There have been some parallels drawn between the Ecclesia Dei traditionalists and the Ordinariates. The comparison has been most energetically refused by the various prelates of the American and English Ordinariates. There our friend does have a point, except that most of the Anglican Patrimony evoked is nineteenth-century Anglo-Papalism, not the Sarum / Dearmer / English style, let alone pre-Tractarian norms (three-decker pulpits, box pews and organists going fishing during the sermon). The lesson that needs to be learned here is that, certainly, we need a sense of cultural identity – but first of all we need to revise and overhaul our reasons for being Christians. Well, I certainly couldn’t go along with the particular fundamentalism of the grubby old man in Westminster. My attachment to the Church of England was gone. There were no continuing Churches, just a few odd independent bishops who represented nothing. Unfortunately, France is also a part of this world and not the Platonic World of Ideas.

In his second article, he returns to old Guelzo, surprised that he was an Evangelical. Guelzo seems to be afraid of the opposition to the railways in Anglo-Catholicism in favour of his rationalism.

Anglo-Catholicism sought to escape secularism by eluding, rather than affirming, the trammels of reason.

What an interesting idea, at the very heart of the clash between Idealism and Realism, between materialist rationalism and the Romantic reaction to the blood flowing from the guillotine! Reason is important, but can only inform the knower to an extent. The imagination is also a rational faculty but which goes beyond empirical evidence.

What is this stuff about Anglo-Catholicism being Imperial? Are we blowing Sepoys from cannon like back in 1857 in India? British officers of those days were unlikely to be Anglo-Catholics. If those philistines were religious at all, they would be plain Church of England. I see no connection between Anglo-Catholicism and the grandiose imperial expansion of the Victorian era, any more than fearing the expansion of technology – and railways.

Anglo-Catholic language is recognized for what it was, an active and conscious repudiation of the theological rationalism so beloved of the Evangelicals, in favor of a dialect based on religious sentiment.

From where did the cat drag this one in? John Bruce goes on to admit there there are holes in Guelzo, and that Roman Catholic apologists (yes, the grubby man in Westminster) were more rationalist, basing their arguments on St Thomas Aquinas and later neo-scholasticism. I have been through it all, and neo-Platonism and Ressourcement were like a breath of fresh air after all the “our way or the highway” of the apologists. I came across plenty of grubby old trolls when I was running my old English Catholic blog in 2011-12.

And — well — every time I visit Fr Hunwicke’s blog, I seem to hear faint strains of “Rule Britannia”.

Oh well, Stiff upper lip, Jeeves! If John Bruce really wants to get me going, here are a couple to choose from:

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Abortion and Hypocrisy

Posted on Tuesday, 29 May, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

A friend wrote to me this morning asking for my opinion about the new law in Ireland allowing abortion. This is a difficult one to approach, being a priest in a conservative Church. Objectively, abortion involves the destruction of human life, in the same way as euthanasia or executing a condemned criminal, or yet “ethnically cleansing” a part of the world by genocide. Man is rarely as hypocritical as when considering death.

Over the past forty or so years, there have been cases of right-wing conservative people, motivated by some aspiration to theocracy, who will demonstrate outside abortion clinics and occasionally cause destruction. We have come a long way since a woman was guillotined in France in the 1940’s for aborting foetuses of women in the tragic situations that drove them to such desperate measures. It has become a political issue like many others, and involves fanatical and single-issue thinking.

I once saw the film The Cardinal, in which the young Fr Fermoyle is brought to make a decision for his young sister who had to face an abortion or die in childbirth. The weight of this decision brought the young priest to take a rest from his vocation to work out his guilt for causing his sister’s death (because he refused to allow the abortion). We are often told by anti-abortionists that women choose abortion lightly and from their looseness of morals. Does any woman go through something like this for mere convenience or expedience? There are many situations in moral theology where hard choices have to be made by analysis of the finis operis of the act. Sometimes, no amount of reasoning will relieve human tragedy.

I have read a little about the Loi Veil of 17th January 1975 in France removing the illegality from abortion and creating the possibility for it to be done according to hygienic surgical procedures. I do believe that Simone Veil (1927 – 2017) had a very fine moral assessment of the issue. Making something legal doesn’t necessarily mean that it ceases to be wrong morally. Sometimes, something that is morally wrong can be justified in extreme circumstances.

“Abortion is a drama and will always remain a drama”. The law of 1975 removed the hardship and risks from illegal abortion, and the expense of having it done in England. According to Mme Veil, I quote:

I say it with all my conviction: abortion must remain the exception, the ultimate recourse for situations without a way-out. But how to tolerate it without it losing this character of exceptionalism, without society appearing to encourage it? I would like first of all to make you share a conviction of a woman – I’m sorry to do it in front of this Assembly that is almost exclusively made up of men: no woman resorts to abortion light-heartedly. You only have to listen to the women. It is always a drama and will always remain a drama. This is why, if the project which is presented to you takes into account the existing de facto situation, if it admits the possibility of a termination of pregnancy, it is to control it and, as much as possible, to dissuade the woman from it.

Abortion needs to be seen not as a political issues involving fanatical reactions, but a calm reflection on humanity and moral conscience. It involves an unborn baby and a women in a tragic situation in her life. The woman may seem to be claiming a right to freedom from the pregnancy that has been imposed on her (sex outside marriage, rape, etc.), but is confronted with the reality of having her child killed. Where do the woman’s rights end and where do the child’s rights begin?

In a civil society where theocracy does not prevail, laws cannot always follow moral principles of right and wrong. They sometimes have to be adjusted for pragmatic considerations. The abortionist woman in France who was guillotined was another life that was snuffed out – but I am not writing about capital punishment (which I oppose).

The right answer is not always a simple matter. Anyone who has been involved in the care of women in this kind of situation will be aware of the tragedies suffered by the women themselves and their families. Many women who have abortions bitterly regret their decisions. Mme Veil did not see abortion as a right to be used lightly or callously, but something that should be very exceptional. In most cases, there are certainly ways of helping the mothers concerned by an “unwanted” pregnancy. There is the accouchement sous X (anonymous birth), allowing a woman to abandon a newly born baby legally to the services of the State, which will then offer the baby for adoption. There may be other ways to help the single mother keep the baby through social security benefits.

If it does not prohibit any more, it does not create any rights to abortion – Mme Veil

Many conservatives saw the Veil law as the thin end of the wedge, leading to abortion on demand and a banalisation of evil, which has certainly happened in many cases. For Mme Veil, the notion of “distress” was a prerequisite for abortion – and now, some women get aborted because having a baby isn’t a part of her lifestyle!

Where is the line drawn. We find the same dilemma with euthanasia, seeing a depressed woman being given a glass containing a liquid by a doctor, and lying down and dying. We are always revolted by death, our own like that of other people. Should life be cheap, so that something like Nazism becomes acceptable? Should we return to guillotining the old lady with a coat hanger in Paris who was caught? Somehow, the hypocrisy has to be taken out of the equation.

The problem with law is that it is equal for all, but we are not all equal or in the same situations of life. Perhaps, abortion and euthanasia should remain illegal, but judges and juries should be given more powers and help in discerning things from a moral and human point of view.

Human life is sacred, but I don’t have all the answers. Death, especially our own, is not the end of all – if we are believers or simply recognise that life and consciousness precede matter. We can discuss these issues, but I hope from a point of view of moral humanism and a real aspiration for the good and the beautiful.

* * *

Addendum: I found this article by Peter Hitchens: Its Hour Come Round At Last? Reflections on the Abortion Referendum in Ireland.

His thought and mine largely concur. Abortion is objectively wrong, because it is the wilful killing of a human being. The problem is that the “discussion” is not about the foundation (human life, morality) but about words being hurled around with anger. Like all the other “hot button” issues, like homosexuality and gender dysphoria, abortion and shrill feminism become fashionable, aspects of groupthink. Nietzsche would certainly have had something to say. I see the parallels with Robespierre and the Terror of 1793, a new form of Jacobinism, something murderous and very ugly. The reaction of the Romantic is the same, leave the noise and violence behind and seek transcendent truth and beauty from the point of view of the individual person and consciousness.

What this is all about is not really women going to see a specialised surgeon to have her pregnancy ended, but about the hot-button words being hurled against each other. 1966 in England was like France in 1975, the easing of the law for a few desperate girls who got raped or deceived by a man who wanted sex but no responsibility. Now, it is about abortion on demand for flippant pretexts like “lifestyle”. “Pro-choice is a “sacrament” of the cultural revolution ideology, the new Robespierre. It creates a feeling of solidarity. “Pro-life” is the same thing from the conservative religious camp a way to make the faith relevant in this world of noise and slogans.

The reflection on utopianism is interesting, and I am not entirely with Hitchens. I think people can aspire to live an alternative life and still bring up children and honour life. We can’t generalise too much. He seems to draw something of a dualistic choice between moral dissolution in “hippie” camps and suburban commuter life that depends on authority and obedience.

We need to get to the content of things, and not merely slogans and words. I do think that if we are going to promote life, we need to support a notion of meaning of life, of spiritual consciousness, of a departure from materialism. You can’t ask people to obey a God they don’t believe in. There needs to be a whole foundation before people can be asked to form their lives around the family and children.

The way to easy and convenient consumer abortion is a major evil of our time, and a symptom of the dissolution of the spiritual world view.

I’m interested in what kind of ideal society requires the easy disposal of unborn babies, regards making that action easier as a subject for public rejoicing, and loves it so much that it seeks to spread the idea to its neighbours.

In the first part of this article, I showed my disappointment in the “pro-life” movement and how it is associated with theocratic conservative politics. The abortion party is just the opposite, and just as blinded by its own ideologies and groupthink.

My own marriage is childless, but not for lack of good will or the desire to accept new life into the life of the marriage. Doubtless, had we had children, we would have had to live in a more “suitable” house, have the job needed for a much higher income and fit into a world in which I feel totally alien. In the early years, my wife became pregnant, but it ended with a miscarriage – a “natural abortion”. The foetus was probably deformed to such an extent that it could not survive the womb, let alone birth and life. It died and was expelled by the miscarriage. It was bitter to see the hope of a son or daughter go this way. On another side, it spared me a great deal of suburban and urban conformity in a world where I am a stranger. This bitter-sweet event formed a whole new way of thinking about everything. It was even an element of my self-knowledge and awareness of my own wounds and differences. To this day, our lost foetus has a name engraved on a pendant worn on a necklace. I have no descendance and my only heirs will be those who benefit from whatever I can create and the few possessions I have.

How someone can set out and induce what happened to us accidentally is beyond belief. A person who deliberately deprives herself of the gift of life and descendance is incomprehensible outside the extreme cases mentioned elsewhere in this posting. There are these tragic cases of the past, evoked by Mme Veil, meriting merciful treatment by the law, but this is something totally different.

All the distinctions made, this is a serious and grave moment in European history, and perhaps another reason why Islam and its iconoclasm are the future that will seal our tomb as a civilisation.

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Roman Catholic Churchmanship

Posted on Sunday, 20 May, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

It is not my intention to rant against Rome, because it is an Apostolic Church in direct continuity from the Undivided and Universal Church to which we as Anglicans profess our faith in the Affirmation of Saint Louis.

We repudiate all deviation of departure from the Faith, in whole or in part, and bear witness to these essential principles of evangelical Truth and apostolic Order:

<…>

The received Tradition of the Church and its teachings as set forth by “the ancient catholic bishops and doctors,” and especially as defined by the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church, to the exclusion of all errors, ancient and modern.

We read this in Lumen Gentium of Vatican II:

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as “the pillar and mainstay of the truth”. This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.

Ideally, there would never have been any schisms, because the bishops of all the local Churches would have lived up to their callings. The evidence of the early Church recognising the primacy of the See of Rome is very strong in the Fathers, and the Popes always enjoyed a singular authority in their ministry. But, things went very wrong and clerics betrayed the nature of the Church. The onus is on Rome to draw us – who belong to Churches that have been cut off from that communion for reasons of resisting tyranny – to take many steps back and accommodate us full heartedly.

Roman Catholicism after the Council of Trent evolved into something quite different, amalgamating the tyrannical clericalism of popes, bishops and priests with a kind of hyper-rationalism that went hand-in-hand with a kind of religion that emphasised morality and social conformity. Vatican II was a ray of hope from the point of view of ecumenism and putting emphasis back on the mystical and sacramental dimension of the Church. Lumen Gentium and Sacrosanctum Concilium were monuments of these aspirations – which in practice went nowhere.

Nearly three years ago, Fr. Dwight Longenecker wrote the article Is Catholicism about to break into three? There is something about that priest I don’t like, but that is neither here nor there. I am no fan of his, unlike my little friend from Los Angeles, but he does come out with some sense. I am not entirely with him in his analysis of various “churchmanships” as we would call them in the Anglican world. I remember in the 1980’s talking with a priest in Paris, suggesting that the RC Church reflected the Church of England in matters of “high church”, “low church” and “middle of the road”. He was quite offended and denied that such distinctions existed. For him, you heeded and obeyed the magisterium – even if it flew in the face of common sense. It was the beginning of the end of my time as a Roman Catholic convert. Evidently, what counts is the Führerprinzip from which the twentieth-century dictators got their ideas.

Whether the RC Church is splitting up along Anglican or Jewish lines, I could hardly care less. What is interesting is some of the descriptions I find of some tendencies. The bit on the traditionalists is quite sensationalist with the descriptions of sedevacantists and groups with their own “popes”. Priests in the “official Church” will often heap contempt on those poor unfortunates without asking themselves any questions about how such a mess occurred in the first place. From the lines of fracture being compared with orthodox, conservative and reformed Judaism, Fr Longenecker brings out the categories of “traditionalist”, “magisterial” and “progressive”. What interests me here is what he is calling “magisterial” Catholics.

“Magisterial” Catholics put loyalty to the authority of the pope and magisterial teaching first and foremost. They are happy with the principles of the Second Vatican Council, but want to “Reform the Reform.” They want to celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass with solemnity, reverence, and fine music. “Magisterial” Catholics are likely to be enthusiastic about apologetics, evangelization, and a range of pro-life ministries. They think the Church needs to relate to the modern world, use new media, and connect with the younger generation, but they look to the pope and Church teachings to help them do that faithfully. They uphold traditional Catholic teaching in faith and morals, but wish to communicate and live these truths in an up-to-date and relevant way. George Weigel dubbed them “Evangelical Catholics.”

I have been most intrigued over the past few days with the fascination John Bruce has with Rev’d Allen Guelzo. It is odd that a Roman Catholic would cite a Protestant Episcopalian as an authority. The major of this reasoning would appear to be that if you want to claim to be a Catholic, you have to be Roman Catholic, a convert. Otherwise you have to be a Protestant. Being a “non-Roman” Catholic is in some way insincere and an expression of something false or counterfeit. I have come across this reasoning before, above all at the time when the Ordinariates were forming in 2011-12.

Guelzo was not originally Episcopalian, but was Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), and therefore low church. He was born in Japan of American Evangelical parents. His theological position is a sort of moderate Calvinism. Finding that the REC was giving in to Anglo-Catholicism too much, he became a low-church Episcopalian in 1997 and was ordained a priest. I have other details but I am not at liberty to go into them all here.

What seems to have attracted John Bruce was this “evangelical” Catholic tendency. I am not sure he ever understood the issues with Anglo-Catholicism or RC traditionalism in its spectrum of “positions”. He wants to give the highest priority to the authority and magisterium of the Pope, to clericalism. He would prefer a reverent Novus Ordo, but would accept any other by default. He will be hot on apologetics – get as many people into the “true church” – and put the blame on them if the conversion was not “successful”. He will certainly favour the John Paul II or Francis style papacy with its use of the cult of personality and being “media savvy”. Bruce barely conceals his contempt for Benedict XVI. For him, the RC Church is the ideal “mega church”.

I don’t mind what he prefers. It’s a free world, but we can get a clearer idea of what he wants Anglo-Catholics to adopt after having sacrificed everything that brought them to faith in the first place. Perhaps he gets his jollies out of seeing others suffer in their consciences and spiritual lives. Such people exist – it is a simple matter of evil. Perhaps we can all reflect on what it means to be Evangelical, which etymologically means “of the Gospel”. Unfortunately, in reality, it does not simply mean fidelity to Jesus’ teachings and works in the Gospel, but distinctively Protestant and Reformed doctrines presented in a dampened-down way as to be nominally compatible with RC doctrines. The spirit of it is felt acutely, especially in an American context. It is not for me to judge what is Christian or not Christian, but I know that it would not attract me to Christianity.

As an Anglican (ACC), I believe that we should dialogue with Rome as much as possible without giving in to the whims of sinful human nature. We recognise the historical primacy of the See of Rome, and that unity with the successor of St Peter is the ideal. Centuries have passed by and the issues are not those of mariology, sacramental theology, other things discussed at the Council of Trent – but issues of authority and the authority’s respect for legitimate diversity. Much of the dialogue from all sides has been little more than hypocritical clap-trap and hot air. I don’t think we will get anywhere, but we must always keep hope and goodwill.

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News from the G4

Posted on Saturday, 19 May, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

There has been a meeting of the G4 bishops in Connecticut. A couple of scraps have appeared on Facebook. Fr David Marriott reported in the latest Trinitarian that “all is well with progress made towards more formal unity: next Joint Synod in January 2020, in Atlanta – same hotel as the last one“.

Archbishop Mark Haverland replied “Fr Marriott is correct. It was a GREAT meeting, in New Hampshire, at S. Luke’s, Amherst. The ACA were wonderful hosts“.

It isn’t much to go on, but someone might have a little flesh to put on the bones.

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Saint John Hepworth?

Posted on Friday, 18 May, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

This has just been sent to me privately. I have the impression that it is an altarpiece at St Agatha’s, Portsmouth.

Look at the first candlestick to the right of the altar cross. It looks like Archbishop Hepworth next to Pope Benedict XVI, with King Charles I and Archbishop William Laud on the cloud over them.

Am I missing something?

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The Guns of Navarone are retargeted

Posted on Thursday, 17 May, 2018 by Fr Anthony Chadwick

First it was the continuing Churches, then the Ordinariates, then Anglicanorum coetibus, and now Anglo-Catholicism in general. The old fellow seems to be trying a more philosophical approach, almost on cue.

He would have done better to discuss the situation in England before bringing America into it for comparison. I know a sedevacantist site that calls all Anglo-Catholics Gnostics, which is an absurd accusation. See Anglicans, Rose+Croix, patriarcat et église Conciliaire that affirms that Benedict XVI was in on a diabolical conspiracy (in place since Cardinal Rompolla who nearly became Pope in 1903 instead of Sarto) to extinguish the Catholic priesthood! Perhaps John Bruce laps up all this weird stuff and enjoys it.

I had never heard of Allen C. Guelzo, so I looked him up. He seems to have an impressive academic record as a historian of the Civil War period and Abraham Lincoln. In the passage Bruce quotes, am I supposed to be made to believe that Anglo-Catholics used Darwin’s theories as a weapon against Evangelicals? Is Darwin considered as a Romantic? This is weird.

Anglo-Catholicism is portrayed as supporting nineteenth-century capitalism and high-finance. Perhaps in America (perhaps Dr Tighe would like to comment), but certainly not in England, at least among the slum priests, some of the most selfless men of God who lived in modern times. I am sure that many of my American readers could give a more accurate description of Anglo-Catholicism in America of which I have no experience, being English.

Anglo-Catholicism as “an essentially inauthentic development within Protestant Christianity“? And sure as day follows night, the conclusion is merciless: “This is yet another reason to shut the ordinariates down and redirect the resources, however minimal they may be, elsewhere“. I suppose he might come to an arrangement with Pope Francis, who, until now, has not touched the Ordinariates. I don’t know what the poor fellow has been smoking today.

Perhaps a study of Romanticism might be more apposite, and there is no lack of examiners here who are ready to take a critical look at anything that may be published on his blog. Until now, Bruce’s writings resemble the rants of adepts of SSPX chapels and home-alone sedevacantists, those Безпоповцы (priestless Old Believers) of the western church, for whom no priest is canonically regular.

He’ll have to do better than that.

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