Author Archives: Fr. Anthony Chadwick

About Fr. Anthony Chadwick

Father Anthony Chadwick was born in the north of England into an Anglican family. He was educated in one of the Church of England’s most well-known schools, St. Peter’s in York, at which he was nurtured in the Anglican musical tradition. After several years studying and working in London he studied theology at university level in Switzerland, Italy and France. Still living in France, he has been a priest of the Traditional Anglican Communion (under Archbishop Hepworth) since 2005. Fr. Chadwick is charged with chaplaincy work among dispersed Anglicans in the north of France, is married and lives in Normandy. His interests outside the Church and directly religious matters include classical music, DIY and sailing. As a non-stipendiary priest, he earns his living as a technical translator.

Manliness

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don camillo et pepone 250x300 ManlinessThe subject has been brought up – we want our priests to be real men. There is just a question I would like to ask. What is a real man?

The internet abounds with caricatures of masculinity (of course within the bounds of Christian decency): the late nineteenth century handlebar moustache, city dress, belonging to the right club (having come from the right background), sports, having served in the Armed Forces, being game for a fight, all the way to the Übermensch of Nietzsche and the old Nazi ideology. Manliness is opposed to femininity or having characteristics in common with women.

The notion of masculinity is cultural and has taken different forms in history and parts of the world. Manliness is embodied in the myths of the old Greek gods and heros, Jupiter, Hercules, Alexander the Great, and survives in more recent military figures like General Montgomery and Charles de Gaulle. Other archetypes of masculinity would be described in his relationships with women, typically dominance tempered by chivalry and the spirit of the gentleman – simply respect for other persons, be they men or women. The notion of courtship was developed in the Middle Ages, and the man would be defined by his virtues, courage and generosity.

In the early twentieth century, men were associated with the image of the man working in industry, doing hard physical labour. Women are supposed to admire the virile and muscular body of a man whose body is an indication of will and self-discipline. Our behaviour as humans is not exempt from the animal instinct of dominance in the pack, as in the case of most mammals, especially the higher species like dogs, cats and primates. The real man is the alpha… Is he?

Obviously, the man most of us conservative Catholics and Anglicans would see as being suitable for the priesthood is normally constituted as a human being of the male sex. Crudely put, he has a penis and a pair of balls – and they work! Genetically, he has a Y chromosome and an X chromosome. More than one of each, and he / she will be genetically abnormal, suffering from Kleinfelter’s Syndrome, for example. A normal man has the right hormones flowing through his body, but perhaps in differing quantities.

After a man’s physical integrity come the social expectations. Boys and young men are expected to be interested in sports and develop a competitive spirit, which later extends into business and politics. To what extent do we have to be machos, alphas, images of little Hercules, or whatever? Do we all have to be good rugby players?

I do think the concept of masculinity has become exaggerated and distorted. I enjoyed boyish games as a lad – climbing trees, building dens, fishing, making things – but I hated competitiveness and fighting for the highest rank. I also loved (and still love) art, beautiful works of architecture, music, singing in choirs, making vestments, cooking and many of the finer things of life. I am aware of the danger of making a caricature of manliness to promote violence, immoral competition, physical and psychological harm to women and a despising attitude in regard to “weaker” men and women.

What about the “fine” men who are artists, musicians, men who work in trades traditionally associated with women such as sewing, cooking and interior decoration and design? Traditionally, we tend to consider such men as homosexuals and effeminate, and therefore not real men. We often read articles about how the world and the Church are becoming “feminised”, leading to the replacement of men in the clergy by homosexual men and “butch” women. We should be careful to be fine in our distinctions.

I prefer the medieval notion of manliness (other than the image of the knight who would lop your head off with less compunction than swatting a fly!), that of virtue and morality. We can be heterosexual and moral men without the body of Hercules, and may even be concerned for the aesthetic aspects of church culture and the liturgy. Perhaps men are more concerned for the liturgy than many women I have come across.

I do think we should avoid the caricatures, which in certain cultures and times led to Nazism and outright cruelty. The ideal man is not the psychopath who kills without compunction or remorse, a sort of James Bond or Bruce Willis figure. Most men have never killed under any circumstances, and would suffer remorse if they had to. I see very little Christian virtue in admiring guns, fast cars, women as sex objects and so forth. Is it virtuous to take risks? Perhaps, in some circumstances. Prudence is also a virtue, and avoiding a risk shows concern for our loved ones. We don’t have to drive dangerously or have a car bigger than what we actually need in order to be a real man! Some men think it is unmanly to consult a medical doctor too lightly – to our own peril on account of that undiagnosed heart condition or developing tumour.

I would be inclined to see manliness in our relationship with women, other men and the world. I have nothing against the “macho” type, but I will not consider the artist or the quiet contemplative man as any less a man. What often is irritating is to find men playing the caricatured role of women – especially in the form of cliques and unhealthy relationships, which might be an indication of sinful homosexuality, but not always.

We often find courage and stoicism as masculine virtues, but I see no less of those virtues in the many women who resisted the Nazis during the war and often gave their lives in atrocious suffering for King and Country. Faith is also a masculine virtue, but it is also a feminine one.

For me, the most important virtue for the priesthood is not so much “being a real man”, but being altruistic, having empathy for other people, being unambitious and lacking the thirst for sex, power and money. Men without virtue can be seen as wimps, but lack of courage and conviction is unbecoming of women too. Being a gentleman is being a person of virtue, kindness, consideration for others, but women can be that too.

Only men can be priests – for the reasons given by Tradition and the Church’s teaching, and not for the reasons of being good rugby players, or looking down their noses at art and beauty. What I admire in a good priest is not a caricature of masculinity but the combination of faith, hope, charity and the moral virtues – someone who makes Jesus Christ present among us. I ask your prayers that I may be given the strength to practice such virtues myself and be worthy of that wonderful gift I have received in the priesthood.

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The Value of Symbolism for Modern Man

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Someone sent me a link to a most extraordinary study about the kind of symbolism needed to deter a future civilisation from being poisoned by our radioactive waste! Now, this may seem way off topic on a religious blog such as ours, but to the contrary, it is evidence to show that modern humanity has not become insensitive to symbols with profound psychological or spiritual meanings.

In particular, I would like you to think of some of our modern churches as you read this quote below. By way of negation, we are informed that symbolism is absolutely vital for the Christian liturgy, and that modern man is no different from humanity at any other time in terms of our response to images and symbols.

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An enormous effort and investment of resources on our part, the construction itself should be of materials of little value, and the workmanship should not bestow any value through the elegance of craft or artistry. Doing substantial work on materials of little value suggests that the place is not commemorative of phenomena highly valued by the culture that made it, but as marking something important yet quite unvalued .

The place should not suggest shelter, protection or nurture

In symbolic terms, we suggest that the largest portion of the Keep, its center, be left open, and few (if any) structures placed there, so that symbolically it is: uninhabited, shunned, a void, a hole, a non-place.

cathedrale d evry 300x225 The Value of Symbolism for Modern ManAvoid those forms that humans regularly tend to use to represent the "ideal," "perfection," or "aspiration." Aspiring forms are sky-reaching verticals, the obelisk, for example. Ideal and perfect ones are the perfect forms of symmetrical geometry (spheres, pyramids, hexagons) and of regular crystalline structures or polyhedrons. If such forms are used, we suggest their perfection be undermined through substantial and obviously meant "irregularity," as if its builders knew about the ideal and perfection, but asserted that this place is not about them. More appropriate types of forms to use are amorphic or jagged and horizontal, a deliberate shunning of the values of "perfection" or "aspiration."

A major site-delivered message is that this place is ominous, not to be disturbed.

monolith tabernacle 150x150 The Value of Symbolism for Modern Man"Black Hole": A masonry slab, either of black Basalt rock, or black-dyed concrete, is an image of an enormous black hole; an immense nothing; a void; land removed from use with nothing left behind; a useless place.

Shapes that hurt the body and shapes that communicate danger, irregular geometries and denial of craftsmanship.

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An Old Article by Rev. Alcuin Reid and Liturgical Diversity

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Many of us have short memories and I find what I term conservative apologists again getting a good foothold in the conversion-to-Catholicism market. One thing that concerns me is the question of liturgical uniformity and diversity. Whatever conclusions we draw, we should be aware that the Catholic solution to liturgical usage in the Ordinariates and elsewhere in the Church will not always be clear cut.

I was quite shaken by a question that was put to me about whether it is compulsory to use special vestments (ie. fiddleback chasubles) when celebrating the old Latin Mass. In the wake of commercial advertising from makers of copies d’anciens vestments, and the endemic rubricism among Anglo-Saxon conservative Catholics, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect yet again on questions of liturgical uniformity and diversity.

I refer readers to the article by Rev. Alcuin Reid that appeared in The Catholic Herald in July 2007 and which is still available on The New Liturgical Movement -  The Pope has Created a Liturgical Free Market. This article would seem to “preach to my own parish” when it says: “Benedict XVI's motu proprio may even prompt the revival of the Sarum Rite”. However, I did not quote this article for this reason.

Deacon Alcuin’s convictions are close to those of Dr Geoffrey Hull, who wrote The Banished Heart, a fascinating book published in 1995 and to be republished in October 2010. The Church today has had to pay for many of the errors of the past, consisting of imposing absolute liturgical uniformity and repressing legitimate liturgical traditions in some places. It could even be said that the suppression of the traditional Roman rite was poetic justice for the persecution of oriental rite Catholics, in some cases up to the twentieth century, and for the pressure against the old French diocesan uses at the behest of Dom Guéranger.

Summorum Pontificum of July 2007 was a watershed in the history of the older form being released from the ambiguous situation in which Paul VI had placed it. The old Roman rite again found its normal place in the Church, and not the object of a begrudging indult by diocesan bishops. For many years, the Holy Father – both as Pope and as Cardinal Prefect of the CDF – had observed that suppressing the Church's older liturgical tradition was a historical anomaly and a gross impoverishment of the liturgical life of the Church.

This is no sop to the traditionalists or step in some kind of restoration or counter-reforming programme, but a simple removal of legal barriers that should never have been enacted as they were by Paul VI. Benedict XVI clearly stated that the older liturgy was never abrogated. This was the thesis held for many years by the eminent Roman canonist Count Neri Capponi. This admission most definitely removes all credibility from those who maintain that the modern Roman rite is the only one allowed in the Church, and that the entire tradition of the Latin Church has been thrown out with the trash. The mask is off, and the deceit is a thing of the past. The Pope has said so.

In explicit terms, this motu proprio concerns the Roman liturgy in its John XXIII 1962 edition. By extension, it is an answer to the deep liturgical crisis in the Church and the fact that it was wrong to ban the old liturgy and replace it with something new and untraditional. There is no imposing here, no abolition of the new liturgy, simply the removal of all restrictions against the old. The liturgical ‘market’ is now free, and it is for priests and groups of layfolk to act and take advantage of the open loophole.

This is stunning when coming from Rome and the Vatican. Catholics have for centuries been used to being told what they may do and what they may not do. When Rome in 1969 said that the old is out and the new is in, all but the most critical in their way of thinking obeyed. Well, now, the boot is on the other foot, and it is the same Rome and the same Papacy that says that people are free in their choice. This motu proprio reminds us that Rome did not always behave in the heavy-handed way of Paul VI, Cardinal Villot and others. The Church has always had a multiplicity of rites and uses, and one of the most feared Popes of history, St Pius V, when he codified the Roman Rite left an explicit loophole for rites and liturgical usages on just one condition – that they were older than 1370.

The juridical solution Benedict XVI adopted of the ordinary and extraordinary forms of a single Roman rite is of course contrived, artificial and purely pragmatic. He knows as much as any of us that there is very little continuity between the Roman rite and the Bugnini / Paul VI creation of the late 1960’s and early 70’s. But, abolishing the new rite would cause as much disturbance to the faithful as Paul VI in 1974 in regard to the old rite. Let the two coexist with this notion, and let the problems be resolved in time once the legal basis for compulsion is removed. Traditionalists have often said that more people would go to the old Mass if there were a choice, and those words are put to the test.

By extension, other uses and rites have found their way back into use, after more than thirty years of disuse (the usual criterion by which a custom is said to die). The dead Dominican and Ambrosian rites found themselves revived and used, albeit in limited and occasional circumstances. I won’t go on about Sarum here, because I have already treated the subject exhaustively. The only difference is the number of years the rite in question was obsolete and out of continuous custom.

Knowing what I do of the Holy Father’s mind, as expressed in what he has written and said publicly, liturgical diversity is too great a gift to be eroded down by abusive authority on the part of bishops, and far outweighs the risk of causing friction and confusion for the simple-minded.

We Anglicans, dogged as we are by extreme liturgical diversity, can ask ourselves whether we have done any worse than Catholic priests with the modern Roman rite and its different inculturations and interpretations, not to mention the hundreds of themes. There are celebrations inspired by different kinds of popular entertainment and TV variety shows, designed to make Catholicism relevant to modernity. Many abuses arise on account of deep ignorance by both clergy and laity of fundamental liturgical principles. Generally, the various variations I have found in England of the Prayer Book, the English Missal, the Anglican Missal, the various ‘interim’ services that came out at the time when I was an adolescent, have been celebrated with reverence and respect for the basic principles of the liturgy.

The first Ordinariates may be canonically erected in the next few months, or at least within a year from now, so we hear. Those who expect a fully codified Anglican rite to replace the present Anglican Use before this happens are likely to be disappointed. It could be that the myriad Anglican usages inspired by the influence of the old Ritualist movement could find themselves allowed into the Catholic heritage by some kind of ‘osmosis’, like the interaction and mutual influence between the old and new Roman uses. This would seem to be the way the Pope thinks – All may, no one must, and some should. Conservative and authoritarian Catholics hate this mentality, but they have to put up with it – until something else comes along.

But, this attitude of Pope Benedict XVI seems not to be laxism or relativism (the spiritual and doctrinal illness he combats with such tenacity), but simply fidelity to the teaching of Vatican II that affirms legitimate diversity within substantial unity: unity, not uniformity.

Whether or not you agree with this ‘liberal’ approach, it seems to be the same attitude as what is being extended to the traditional Anglican world, between English Missal parishes in the TAC and the few in the Church of England, and the majority of Forward in Faith groups using the modern Roman rite. In my experience of reading scores of comments in this blog and their arguments, I see that there is too much diversity to expect all Ordinariate-bound Anglicans to conform to liturgical usages one group or another has eschewed for more than forty years. It would be better to have a unified Anglican patrimony imported into the Catholic world, even at the cost of loose ends and ‘annoying’ differences between dioceses, parishes and chaplaincies.

Please discuss these questions by all means, but I hope new ideas can come to bear rather than rehashing old arguments, especially in the likelihood of the creation of Ordinariates before the promulgation and implementation of codified and explicitly approved rites. Please be as original and independently thinking as possible. I do think we could make progress this way.

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Sarum What?

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Hatchet jobs abound in the blogs, the Anglican Patrimony blog being no exception. There is an article under the title Sarum What? written by a Deacon Andrew Bartus, a member of the clergy of a distinguished TAC-ACA parish in California.

The title, almost the reaction of the average English lay person exclaiming – You what? – when encountering something as unfamiliar as the back of the moon.

If anyone has missed the train this one has! I discussed the Use of Sarum and the possibility of its being at least some kind of extraordinary form in the Ordinariates some months ago. The question was discussed to and fro in the comments, and as far as I am concerned, there is no more to discuss. The subject has run its course. I take the same attitude as most of the clergy in our various Anglican groups of one kind or another – the authority of the Church will promulgate an official Anglican Use liturgy to replace or supplement the present Anglican Use. I made my suggestions, and I know they will be adopted, not adopted or may inspire a compromise when the question is taken up by the proper authorities.

The author of the Anglican Patrimony article made a somewhat loaded description of me:

I've run into other liturgical academicians here and there who argue for the same thing.  There's one of them running amok on [T]he Anglo-Catholic blog, who ironically enough is an expat English priest running a small Anglican mission in France!  He and three other parishes in the world use the Sarum liturgy.

We “liturgical academicians” are being likened to dreamers, people like Bugnini and some Eastern Orthodox priests trying to resurrect something completely dead. I even find the insinuation that I could be compared with the Affirming Catholic tendency in the Church of England quite impertinent. An apology would be appreciated. The fact I do not comment on blogs other than this one does not mean that I do not read Anglican Patrimony.

It is true that the Use of Sarum as printed as recently as 1868 in Latin and 1911 in English has not been the official liturgy in England since 1549. However, it is not as foreign as all that. It is strikingly similar to the Dominican Rite. The latter was replaced by the modern Roman rite in the Dominican Order and it was totally discontinued, other than possibly a few furtive private Masses in such places as the Albertinum in Fribourg or the Angelicum in Rome. Now, a few years later, it has been revived in several religious orders of recent foundation and also in the Dominican Order itself. Here is a link to the Dominican Liturgy blog. The timescale is different, but I see no reason why a particular liturgy should not be available – unless the authority of the Church has a very good reason to forbid it, giving the exact reasons.

In all the heated controversies that followed my series of articles, the subject has run its course as far as I am concerned. In the early days of the Ordinariates, we are likely to see just about the same degree of liturgical diversity between the English Missal (used in less than ten or so parishes in the Church of England), the two forms of the Roman rite, the present Anglican Use, the Prayer Book more or less fleshed out with bits and pieces from the Roman rite and Sarum. After a time, Rome will surely promulgate a printed book and expect all Ordinariate clergy to use it unless they use the Roman rite. That is the way it’s going to be unless the canonical erection of the first Ordinariate is more than ten years away…

I am alone for most of the Masses I say, so I use the Use of Sarum as it was edited in 1868 in Latin by Dickinson. In these circumstances, it does not matter what I use. I often call myself into question, but I am personally loath to use a semi-Prayer Book hybrid rite – but I have no objections to others using what is most appropriate in their particular ministries. We in the TAC have no more liturgical uniformity than in the Church of England.

I am not in a position to recommend what should be the universal norm for all, because that is the responsibility for the Holy See and the future Ordinaries.

Deacon Bartus, your argument of continuity can also be used against the English Missal. The extraordinary use of the Roman Rite (John XXIII, 1962) is not the English Missal. The English Missal is as marginal in the Church of England as the Dearmerites using this or that inspiration from medieval liturgical culture. However, I concede that it is in more current use in the Traditional Anglican Communion. In your hermeneutic of continuity, perhaps the English Missal might hold its places in groups originating in the Anglican continuing Churches. In groups coming from the Church of England, it’s going to be the modern Roman rite. That is what they are using now, and they show no sign of intending to change. The Apostolic Constitution confirms their right to use the Roman rite (implicitly but not spelled out, ordinary or extraordinary).

I have given considerable thought to these questions, and here in France, were I to have any public ministry, I would almost certainly adopt the 1962 Roman liturgy in Latin and use the English Missal for the occasional English-speaking people coming along and expecting an English-language liturgy. There is also the Novus Ordo in French, if that is required. I would have to admit that unless the authority of the Church decides to use Sarum as a primary source for a future Anglican Use, using Sarum would obviously be an eccentricity without any future or pastoral utility.

Personally, I want no further controversy about this subject, and I reiterate my intention to be subordinate to the authority of the Church in these liturgical matters and others.

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The Origin of Mass Facing the People

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I have come across an article in Fr Zuhlsdorf’s blog with its comments giving a wealth of information and links about the origin of Mass facing the people. I have a photograph of such a Mass celebrated at Maria Laach Abbey in Germany in the 1930’s. The rite was of course the Roman rite, but celebrated on a free-standing altar.

Has anyone here any other information on the history of this innovation?

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Clerics and Lay People, Bridging the Gulf

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Earlier this afternoon, I had a long conversation over the phone with an English priest (who will go un-named). It soon became apparent that he and I have much in common – and helped each other see the events we are living through with greater clarity and lucidity.

One thing many fear is the clerical character of the movement of Anglican groups towards Rome. I wonder what proportion of ‘ordinary’ lay people feel concerned. After all, lay people can simply uproot and go to whatever Church or local community they want. Conversion from one Church to another, for example Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy, is a simple matter. It suffices to go to the required catechism sessions and receive the Sacraments of Initiation. The difficulty arises when it is a question of a cleric who wishes to be a cleric in the Church he is freely joining. On the other hand, clerics are just about the only Christians who are motivated to take strong enough positions to warrant leaving one’s Church of origin to embrace another judged to be more faithful to Tradition or the Gospel. It is a paradox.

If a lay person wants to go through all the hoops required by canon law, it can take anything from six months to a couple of years to make the transition. Unless one wants to be married in church or to become a cleric, a lay person could simply go to the parish where he wants to go and where the priest has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ attitude. I don’t condone such a thing, but I know it is possible.

If we clerics want to convince the laity, we can’t lord it over them. Clericalism has been a scourge in the Church for a long time, whether the clerics are bishops, priests, deacons, seminarians in cassocks – or ‘empowered’ laity. Another long conversation, this time transatlantic and by Skpe, showed me the need to accept the sense of dignity in all our people as children of God and working hard to promote our cause.

As I have already told you, it is disheartening to see a beautiful church that no longer serves as a church, or only seldom. This is because most French parish priests have to look after twenty to thirty villages having no priest of their own. The modern curé is now a distant administrator leaving everything in the hands of ‘empowered’ laity chosen for their conformity to the ideology. Clericalism has killed parish Catholicism in nearly the whole of France and increasingly so in other European countries.

I understand clericalism as a reaction to lay indifference or hostility to orthodox Christianity. The two reactions of clericalism and anti-clericalism feed each other and become ever more iniquitous until the spirit of forgiveness and charity enters the picture. Nothing brings a priest more respect than humility and gentleness.

On the other side, priests are increasingly frustrated by lay people who find the Church useful for their family celebrations and events, but have no interest in a sustained recognisably spiritual life. Indeed, some people think they can find 'spirituality' and live as if God does not exist in ‘modern secularism’.

One thing many Anglican laity – and many of us clergy too – fear about the Church is the same spirit of system and mechanism as in modern secular life and public administrations. That system can tend to perceive the Church as the clergy to be served and paid for by the laity. Lay people become the ‘clients’ of a professional elite. One great intuition of Vatican II, and one of the least upheld and applied, is the notion that being a lay Catholic, married or single, is also a vocation and call to sanctity. It was not for nothing that Christ lambasted the Pharisees for imposing impossible burdens on the laity and not lifting a finger themselves. In nineteenth century France, the Lenten fast was as rigorous as in the Middle Ages and today in the Eastern Orthodox Church – no meat, cheese or even milk. Farming folk doing hard manual work dropped ill like flies from the lack of protein in their diet. I read in Thomas Merton that even the strictest Trappist monasteries gave generous dispensations for brothers doing hard manual work. You can’t burn the candle at both ends! Those French parish priests would have people denounce each other for eating forbidden food, and would then impose a fine, on people who were already impoverished. That is how far it went – and now, not a stone remains on a stone. The parishes are desolate, the presbyteries sold off and the churches open only for concerts and cultural patrimony days held by the local civil authorities.

Indeed, the system is in need of reform and healing. We Anglicans also need to be sensitive to our laity if the Ordinariate scheme is not to become another exercise of clericalism. I am intuitively aware of how complex this situation is, and I am sure that Rome will be as realistic as we are about how small the first Ordinariates will be. Theoretically, they will be simplified non-territorial dioceses, but the reality is that they will be more like extended parishes and priests exercising a ministry of ‘availability’ to the few people who are motivated enough to return to some recognisable Christian practice.

One thing caused me to think as I was sailing my boat on Lake Annecy – the idea about the alienation of men from the Church, and the fact that women are mostly the least interested in any collaboration with clerics. I generalise to make a point, recognising there are many noble exceptions among our womenfolk. Men are not in need of a ‘macho’ image or a Church that is like the Army or a sports club. Men tend to be more receptive to liturgical symbolism and the more profound aspects of spirituality. To impose feminine sentimentalism on such men is fatal. Speaking for myself, if I had to be a lay Catholic in most of the parishes and pastoral sectors of my area, I would die spiritually, and I could not persevere in such a situation. One is better alone than badly accompanied!

It is my sincere hope that priests of the Ordinariates will either be self-supporting or supported by small communities of laity on the basis of their esteem for their pastor and trust in him. I think that would be the best recipe for reform and example for the future. The priesthood isn’t about institutional status and the system, but making Christ real and present for us all.

As Mrs. Gyapong has criticised the notion of the ‘magical ordinariate’, we need also to be critical of the notion of the priest as an all-knowing and sinless tin-god. We also have to refuse the laity being dependent, incompetent, intellectually lazy and childish. The Church will find salvation when priests and lay people learn to work together and take responsibility together.

I fear that the only solution for Catholicism in Europe and other parts of the world is a fresh start. The secular approach has been tried, having priests remove their clerical garb and behaving as trade union leaders and politicians – and it has failed. Why? This is because it is another form of clericalism, like the Pharisee washing his hands without recognising the sin in his soul. Wash the inside before making the outside look respectable!

Priests and lay people are called to enter into a relationship. No priests, no Church and no Sacraments. No laity, and the clergy look silly as Newman once allegedly said to Archbishop Ullathorne. Are lay people ready to take up the challenge of reading, learning, taking responsibility, making the effort to understand what liturgical symbolism is about, and so much more? The laity has as much of an effort to make as priests to enter into this new relationship of trust and symbiosis as priests aware of their lack of credibility in the modern world.

We are our own worst enemies. If the Church dies (apart from that family in Siberia representing the remnant and the minimum fulfilment of Christ’s promise of the Church’s indefectibility), we will only have ourselves to blame for having poisoned the well. I won’t allow myself to become discouraged, and I encourage all our collaborators and readers to chase away those demons by invoking the Name of Jesus!

Who has ears to hear?

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Catholic Patrimony: Baroque in the Savoy

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baroque04 225x300 Catholic Patrimony: Baroque in the Savoy

A typical Savoy church, very sober outside

I promised you an article of some discoveries I made during my recent holidays in the Savoy, an area which has been a part of France since 1860. As a keen amateur of all things Sarum, gothic churches, riddle posts and all that kind of thing, I should remind myself and you that our real aim is the preservation of Catholic patrimony. This article is about Les Chemins du Baroque, the Baroque Ways, of the Savoy.

The valleys of the Savoy offer an extremely rich artistic and spiritual patrimony from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One is struck by the sobriety of the church buildings and the most breathtaking polychrome and gold leaf altars. A whole series of these churches is to be found in the valleys of Maurienne, Tarentaise, Beaufort (famous for its cheese) and the Val d’Arly. They map out a way of light, faith and joy of a people which lived a hard and rustic life in the long winters of the European Alps. Most of these works of art have been lovingly restored by various public authorities and private associations. The Chemins du Baroque was established as a major attraction of the area at the winter Olympic Games of Albertville in 1992. Since then, thousands of people have discovered these priceless treasures.

baroque01 Catholic Patrimony: Baroque in the Savoybaroque02 Catholic Patrimony: Baroque in the Savoy

Baroque church art is a fruit of the Council of Trent in its work of reform and resistance to Protestantism in the sixteenth century. This Council affirmed the place of images in prayer and the need the human person has of being evangelised through the senses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch. The spiritual renewal was reflected in the Italian artistic rebirth, a whole catechism in images and joyful colour.

Many of these altars were built by modest artists and the people in the villages. The style in the Savoy is naïve and fresh. The reredos behind the altar is high and typically includes two or four pillars, having their origin in the Roman baldachino and the English riddle posts. The origin is the same. The columns are usually in the torsado form, like at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The general style is clearly Italian, but more ‘rustic’ and naïve.

Here is one of my favourites, a little side altar:

baroque03 Catholic Patrimony: Baroque in the Savoy

If any of you consider visiting this wonderful part of France, I would recommend the following sites:

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Two Weeks of August

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I have just got back from my holiday in the Savoy area of France, and discover a wealth of new material on The Anglo-Catholic. I went to the Mairie of Talloires, the village near our camp-site besides the Lake of Annecy, where it was possible now and again to have a quick half-hour glance at the Internet and my e-mail for 5 Euros. As always, I am impressed with the depth of reflections from our contributors and the new “ecumenical” orientation of the blog to encompass all Anglican groups and approaches to Anglicanorum Coetibus. I plan shortly to write a short article with a few photos on the Chemin du Baroque in the Savoy mountains.

Having returned home yesterday, with so many practical and mundane things to do, I saw the sheer volume of writings and comments on The Anglo-Catholic. Should I go through everything back to the beginning of August and add comments? No, it seems best to offer a few reflections in the form of a new article.

Many things caught my attention, but I found two articles particularly thought-provoking: I'll Just Say My Prayers at Home… by Fr. Giles Pinnock and The Magical Ordinariates by Mrs. Deborah Gyapong. Fr. Pinnock’s article and some of the comments struck me by the realisation that once the Ordinariates get going (or are so delayed that they exceed the sell-by date) things are never going to be as they were before, either in the Church of England, in the TAC or in the other continuing groups. Some will find a way to hold onto their certitudes, and others will have to seek an entirely new meaning to Christianity as they lose the ecclesial context and social support they had always known.

I think many of us here on The Anglo-Catholic also are blissfully unaware of the pain and emptiness suffered by those who are lost, that grouping of people mentioned by Fr. Pinnock, those who are spiritually orphaned and face the prospect of the light within them spluttering out and dying. It is not only individuals, those to whom those still convinced of their certitudes would point accusing fingers telling them to do this or do that without the slightest thought for their pain and their personal suffering. Some of us indeed are brought to wonder if we should just let go and forget — and live life as it comes. As we try to hold our heads above water, we try to keep hope and love alive, and above all not to let bitterness close our minds and hearts. We are painfully aware that the “others,” who would have all kinds of advice, just don’t care.

Many of the comments I have been reading, published whilst I was away, bring only bitterness and a feeling of emptiness. Sometimes, it is like finding your home burgled and ransacked, raped. Indeed, politics and media sensationalism excite some people and strike a mortal blow at the spiritual life of others. Indeed, the Pharisees of our time have succeeded in closing the gate to the knowledge of God! I speak not only of “trolls” with evil intentions, but also of seemingly pious Christians who do harm through their bitter zeal and intolerance.

The tragedy for many people is that the churches are still there. Over the past couple of weeks, my wife and I have been visiting beautiful mountain village churches with gorgeous baroque altars, lovingly restored by the local civil authorities. Like elsewhere in France, there are so few priests and so few Masses. I really do have the impression that these churches can only be “put in mothballs” for the future, because the Church — in those places — is dead and extinguished.

Mrs. Gyapong has written an article, very much after my own heart, on The Magical Ordinariates — that idea according to which the Ordinariates, especially in England, might be formed from something other than what already exists in the way of groups of Anglicans. Frankly, I am sick and tired of speculation and turning around in circles, because there is nothing to go on. Word is about that Rome might set up the first Ordinariate in something like Advent 2010, where the situation is relatively simple, like in Canada and Australia, and over the course of 2011 in various other countries where there are TAC communities and groups of clergy and faithful leaving the Anglican Communion. It helps to have something to look forward to, as human psychology cannot relate to the infinite or indeterminate. So far, not one single Ordinariate exists, and this whole thing is completely theoretical. For all we know, Rome could simply scrub the whole thing and say that Anglicans are not their problem. Any excuse would be good enough! Some have said that it would be a Christian virtue to have infinite patience for something that could theoretically never happen, another — a priest — offered the opinion that if Rome drags this thing out over the usual kind of time-scale of men who have not a care for other people, the Ordinariate project would die. I suspect many of us have a time limit in our minds.

We need limits to the indeterminism and a certain amount of understanding and rationality. Mrs. Gyapong’s understanding is simple and cogent. Everything consists of matter and form, like the Sacraments. Rome would be giving canonical and legal existence to what already exists: TAC chapels and communities, Anglican Use parishes (needing only a modification of their canonical status), Forward in Faith bishops with their priests and people, but without their buildings and jobs. What Rome will not do is provide church buildings and money, or priests and lay people. But, all that remains to be seen, as the incertitude of the practical aspects will make it impossible for many to do otherwise than stay in their Church of England jobs or call it a day with Christianity.

I admire Mrs. Gyapong’s realism. Little will change — only the label and the official standing, what would make it possible to attract people for whom the Church is the Roman Catholic Church. It will be no different from the Catholic traditionalists like the Fraternity of St Peter and the Benedictine Abbey of Le Barroux. If the waiting is going to take longer than a few months, I could envisage a situation of creating pro-ordinariates functioning as if the official canonical erection from Rome had occurred, of course without being deceitful. The present TAC is, for all intents and purposes, exactly that. I would suggest that Forward in Faith needs to create a coherent group with a more formalised structure and pull out of the Church of England right now — form a “continuing church,” but for the purpose of going into communion with Rome. If they did that, things would be a lot clearer, the jobs, pensions and buildings already sacrificed, and perhaps other buildings bought, rented or constructed.

What is important is not names, titles and letters in the alphabet soup, but real groups of Christian clergy and laity living out “where two or three are gathered in my name…”

The real problem for many was that before Anglicanorum Coetibus was announced, we were in the comfortable situation of being independent, yet with the respectability of being churches in dialogue with Rome, the one criterion that sets us above vagante bishops and pseudo-churches. Things just won’t be the same ever again. I don’t know how the classical Anglican continuing churches will fare once the Ordinariates are set up by Rome or as we still wait and rot in pious expectation in ten years hence. I can say that I am no more optimistic for them than many others who set out with fine ideals and illusions, only to find that nobody had the slightest interest in becoming their clients.

Some may have been tempted to seek union with Rome to find credibility as a real Christian Church as opposed to a phoney imitation. I came across this article that appeared in the Rorate Caeli blog. We read: “Catholicism is hollowing out in its traditional European strongholds. But signs of intriguing new life are springing up at its periphery." The parallels I see between the groups of Anglicans and the Catholic traditionalist groups are glaring, yet our histories and “patrimonies” are very different. Many of us Anglicans are not attracted to Tridentine Catholicism with its scholastic theology and authoritarianism sometimes bordering onto totalitarianism. Most of those traditionalist communities do not understand Anglicans, and we would not find acceptance in their ranks. At the same time, we are brought to think of the Holy Father’s reflections about the future of the Church being in small fervent groups, but it would not be a monopoly of the Tridentine traditionalists.

Cultural and middle-of-the-road religion, at least in Europe, is over. Most village churches, and even city churches, have no reason for their existence other than as relics to be kept for the future. In the meantime, they can be used as concert halls and museums. Most churches of lesser cultural merit will be converted for secular use, turned over to other religious communities or razed. It is only the consequence of history, for those before us sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind.

The upheaval is happening to us all, as Catholicism itself is reduced to “continuing” groups keeping the Faith, the Sacraments and communion with the Pope (especially when he is Benedict XVI). Some will have the privilege of being upheld and loved in the communion of a local community. Many others will be in the desert, praying at home –since praying at home is better than not praying at all.

We have responsibility for each other. While some seek power and control, sensationalism and politics — others will die spiritually and disappear into the unknown and anonymous mass of humanity where no-one cares. Churches with beautiful gothic and baroque altars will mean nothing to anybody. Wayside crucifixes will be no more than an embarrassment and a mild prick to the conscience. The appeal for humanity and generosity goes unheard and ignored, but the appeal has to be repeated again and again.

But, all in all, I am impressed by what has been written over the past couple of weeks. Will we help to rekindle the Christian faith in Europe and other western countries, or are we here to preside over its funeral and cremation in our selfish zeal? Reading many comments on this blog, I shake my head…

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Fr. Chadwick’s Summer Vacation

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lac2 300x224 Fr. Chadwick’s Summer VacationAt last, the day has arrived, and my wife Sophie and I are going on our summer holiday to the Lake of Annecy, in the east of France near Switzerland and the Italian border.

This is the Savoy area most famed for Saint Francis de Sales who was Bishop of Geneva, and whose diocese covered this area in the sixteenth century. This wonderful and holy bishop lived from 1567 until 1622. He was born at Château de Thorens into a Savoyard noble family in what is today Thorens-Glières, Haute-Savoie, France. I won’t go into his life, because you can find that information in books and on the Internet. However, I bring out a couple of points. Especially, his spirituality was centred on God’s love, which very much reminds me of the best of Cistercian and medieval English spirituality.

The most striking thing about this Saint is how he dealt with Protestants, with kindness and patience, never with harshness and recrimination. In this, there are many similarities with Saint Philip Neri, the founder of the Oratorians. Now, this is an aspect of Counter-Reformation spirituality I like!

lac1 300x224 Fr. Chadwick’s Summer VacationNaturally, I will go and visit Thorens-Glières and the many churches that were built or restored as a result of Saint Francis de Sales having re-evangelised this part of the country. There is a chapel in the campsite where we will be pitching my tent, and I hope they will allow me to say Mass there. Otherwise I have my travelling Mass kit. On the sultry wind-less days, we will certainly go up into the mountains and visit all those lovely villages.

Also, I am taking my little sailing dinghy, and will certainly get some beautiful views of the mountains from the lake. The weather forecast indicates anything from 6-8 knots of wind, which is just ideal for me (unless I find someone is organising a regatta).

annecy 300x225 Fr. Chadwick’s Summer VacationWe will have our little digital camera with us, so will feast your eyes on pictures of lots of lovely baroque altars and pilgrimage places, as Hilaire Belloc said – where the Catholic sun doth shine, there is laughter and good red wine, at least I've always found it so, Benedicamus Domino. I’ll also be far away from computers until the Assumption on the 15th.

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Informal Monasticism

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One occasionally finds unconventional monastic communities, some in mainstream Catholicism and others in a completely “independent” situation. I have even come across people living in some kind of religious life inspired by that of hermits, even though in some cases they are married or live in an ordinary suburban home or a farm out in the countryside.

In the Rule of St Benedict, we find:

It is well known that there are four kinds of Monks. The first are Cenobites, that is Monastic, living under a Rule or Abbot. The second are Anchorets or Hermits, who, not in the first fervour of conversion, but after long probation in the monastic life, have learnt to fight against the devil, and taught by the encouragement of others, are now able by God’s assistance to strive hand to hand against the flesh and evil thoughts, and so go forth well prepared, from the army of the Brotherhood, to the single combat of the wilderness. The third and worst kind of Monks are the Sarabites, who have never been tried under any Rule, nor by the experience of a master, as gold is tried in the furnace, but being soft as lead, and by their works still cleaving to the world, are known by their tonsure to lie to God.

These in twos or threes, or perhaps singly, and without a shepherd, are shut up, not in our Lord’s sheepfolds, but in their own: the pleasure of their desires is to them a law; and whatever they like or make choice of, they will have to be holy, but what they like not, that they consider unlawful.

The fourth kind of Monks are called “Gyrovagi,” or wanderers, who travel about all their lives through divers provinces, and stay for two or three days as guests, first in one monastery, then in another; they are always roving, and never settled, giving themselves up altogether to their own pleasures and to the enticements of gluttony, and are in all things worse that the Sarabites. Of their miserable way of life it is better to be silent than to speak. Therefore leaving these, let us, by God’s assistance, set down a Rule for Cenobites, or Conventuals, who are the most steadfast class of Monks.

Despite this piece of wisdom from the sixth century, there have always been new and innovative forms of contemplative life, as attested by the multiplicity of orders and congregations in the Church, between Benedictines, Cistercians, Franciscans, Jesuits and many others. One of our regular commenters informed us about other forms of eremitical and “informal” monastic life. We should certainly heed the words of St Benedict as he warns against unattached monks or those who live in a community with very little in the way of monastic formation or a coherent rule of life. The soundest form of monastic life is in a proper community under the authority of a Father Abbot and the Rule. But, it is not always possible to join a monastery or find the right kind of official framework for every single person who desires to explore a more interior and ordered spiritual life, especially those who are married.

A very few are called to solitary life, and others yet find themselves as isolated Christians in a world that has rejected Christianity. I can conceive of the idea of lay people and isolated priests living what amounts to a monastic life even though they are not formally monks – simply those who want a simple way of life, under the discipline of a rule of life and of a certain temperament. Many people live this state of life in ordinary homes, without any external sign, and even better still, without anyone else knowing.

I came across some kind of fraternity which is not in communion with Rome or part of the Anglican Continuum, but something about them rings true. Regardless of what some “vagante” bishop and his wife are doing in some far-flung and remote part of America, they came up with an idea that can inspire us all in some way. Anyone with this kind of vocation can adjust his or her way of life and construct a disciplined contemplative life. The website of the fraternity explains – Our community has no formal vows, but is based on the simple monastic form of the early desert fathers/mothers, and is primarily friendship based. Do I not detect a note of St Philip Neri and the Oratorians, though the Oratorians like Benedictine monks live in stable communities in a coenobitic life? The link between Christians is not a vow, whereby a person freely relinquishes his or her freedom (!), but friendship and loyalty between persons who practice Christian charity and platonic friendship with each other.

The spirituality of the desert isn’t given to everyone, but I think it can be lived in differing degrees. Few of us can get to a place that is really deserted, except perhaps the few churches in cities that remain open. My desert is the sea. Go out about a league from the coast and the silence (other than the gurgling of water around the hull of the boat and the wind) is amazing. But the real desert is our own inner selves, our souls and secret gardens. No one can violate that!

charles de foucauld Informal MonasticismWe may know the story of Fr. Charles de Foucauld, the French convert soldier who took to the most austere possible monastic life in the Sahara Desert. In those days (1907), he had to have permission from the Holy See to say Mass alone. Before obtaining this permission, he had gone for years without Mass and the Sacraments! His life was incredibly harsh, even for a former soldier, but his message was clear – his vocation was one of intercession and obtaining for others the grace of conversion by means of prayer and self-sacrifice. In 1916, he was assassinated by fanatical Muslims at the door of his hermitage! In the whole of his time in the desert as a priest and a monk, he made not one single convert, and not one single person came to join him in the monastic life.

The apostolate of Blessed Charles was unique and prophetic. He refused to preach the Gospel to a population who would have only a superficial interest in the Holy Scriptures. His way was a silent and hidden presence in infidel lands. "My life is not that of a missionary, but that of a hermit". Further on, he said: "I am a monk, not a missionary, made for silence and not for words". One might be tempted to think he was selfish and unconcerned for the people around him. Not at all. He gave everything for his dear nomads, without asking for anything in return, not even conversion to Christianity. He knew the limits of proselytism. He lived in a country of Islamic people, learned their language, made himself loved.

I would certainly recommend thinking about this idea, and how a spiritual leaven can help to renew Christianity and Catholicism at a time when parishes and dioceses agonise and face their inevitable demise. All are called to holiness, but differently. But, the constraints and conditions are remarkably similar. People can be really good and welcoming even if they belong to other religions or no religion at all. It is not for us to sell our Faith, but to wait for others to discover what effect it has in us. That is the lesson of Father de Foucauld.

Seeds need time to grow, but first of all, they need to be planted.

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