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!

Naturally, 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).

We 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 15^th.

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!

We 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.

This clash of two fundamental views of the Church and the Gospel have played out in many theatres. Instransigent Catholicism, based on the Counter Reformation and the hardening of positions in regard to the Englightenment, was galvanised particularly during the pontificate of Pius IX , Pope from 1846 to 1878, and even more particularly since returning to Rome from his exile at Gaëta in 1848.

After a relatively “liberal” atmosphere for scholars under Leo XIII (1878-1903), war was declared against any theologians who were not strict Roman Thomists, and not only against those whose biblical study methods lead them to abandon belief in miracles, but also those who sought to formulate a new way of defending Catholicism against erosion by liberal Protestantism — whose appeal to science and human progress caused them to be labelled Modernists. St Pius X (Pope from 1903 to 1914) allowed an Italian prelate by the name of Umberto Benigni to police the Church in the form of a kind of spiritual “gestapo.” That secret organisation was abolished quickly enough by Benedict XV. It was for Pius XI in the 1920’s to deal with Action Française, a form of French political nationalism disguising itself as intransigent Catholicism.

Essentially, we had two main camps in Catholicism, one that wanted nothing to do with the modern world, unless it had the political power to have the upper hand. The other, equally orthodox, was prepared to dialogue with the modern world and at least find a modus vivendi. In particular, the Church had to find a way of keeping going in anti-clerical countries like France, Spain, Germany, England — and just about everywhere where people had been abused by excesses of Catholic-dominated politics.

Thus, it is not surprising that in the 1920’s and 30’s, intransigent Catholics found Mussolini and Hitler to be godsends. I am not falling into the trap of accusing Pius XII here, because there is evidence he saw through the Nazi shenanigans very quickly, since he spoke German fluently and had been Apostolic Nuncio in Germany. Pius XII has been cleared and vindicated by all serious historians. However, not so with a certain number of Catholic bishops, prelates, priests and lay people. They saw Fascism and Nazism as a tool to sweep away the scourge of Communism, Freemasonry, the French Republic and every manifestation in the modern world of the Enlightenment. When World War II was over in 1945, the evil backfired on them. Europe was to be divided into those who had been collaborators and those who fought in the Resistance or at least risked their lives saving Jewish children from deportation and death along with Allied prisoners of war. This is the collusion between intransigent Catholicism and twentieth century totalitarianism. The intransigent Catholics chose the wrong allies instead of relying on the Gospel and the way of Christ.

Those are the explosive ingredients to what happened at Vatican II and the historical enmity between the young German theologian Fr Joseph Ratzinger and Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani. The division in Europe between intransigents and “liberals” drew the battle lines in the Church, and extended them into Anglicanism and Protestantism, and indeed every religious expression present in the western world. The rest is common knowledge.

The point I am making here is that “totalitarian” Catholicism has had its day, and leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth. I have always been attracted by the beauty of the traditional liturgy — which should not have been ruthlessly modified and destroyed in the 1960’s — and by Catholic spirituality. I have always been easily convinced by Catholic doctrine as expressed in the Catechism of the Council of Trent and the modern Catholic Catechism which incorporates the “new” ecclesiology of men like Louis Bouyer, Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger.

A few intégristes in the Catholic world are nostalgic of the anti-Modernist policing of the 1900’s and the ungodly relationship between intransigent Catholicism and European nationalist totalitarianism in the 1920’s, 30's and 40’s. Now we can understand the mentality of the Society of St Pius X, the scandalous sayings of Bishop Richard Williamson in his conspiracy theories and historical revisionism, the declarations of Fr Schmidberger, the sticky points in the present dialogue with the CDF — and our very own Peter Perkins. Perhaps the latter shows evidence of a little more moderation than that, but I fear that his moderation is little more than a sugar coating to have us swallow a very bitter pill.

I have no sympathy either for the people who have destroyed our liturgy, who have poisoned the Church with cultural Marxism and deconstructionism. I believe in miracles and the supernatural. I have no sympathy with the exegesis of demythologising liberals like Spong, Bultmann or Harnack. I seek beauty of truth and the spiritual life in the Church.

Vatican II was necessary, because the modern world had found the institutional Church to be so aloof and arrogant that it simply disconnected. People voted with their feet. It wasn’t the liturgical changes that emptied the churches, but only aggravated the haemorrhage. The Church has to have a dialogue, however difficult it may be at times, with the modern world, with people who say they are “spiritual but not religious”, and with people of other religions. I think many of us Anglicans find the conciliatory and diplomatic approach reasonable. This means not insulting people of other religions, tolerating and respecting them. Calling the objects of their worship “false gods” is not going to help.

I came from a family that is more or less guided by the principles of the Enlightenment. We tend to be sceptical and perhaps a little over-trusting in natural science. Faith came to me through beauty (both natural and man-made) and the kindness of the religious people I knew like my school chaplain and the parish clergy I met in York in the 1970’s. I try to rely on reason and often react emotionally from my experiences in life.

Some people who read The Anglo-Catholic are offended by what I write, because I sympathise more with a certain “liberalism”, or rather, tolerant conservatism, than with intolerant and intransigent “bully-boy” religion that will only discuss on its own terms. For the time being, the Catholic Church has Benedict XVI — the old Fr Joseph Ratzinger who dared to challenge Cardinal Ottaviani and the old Inquisition. Anglicanism waited for a very long time to have a Pope who built a bridge over the Tiber instead of having us swim over and grovel at his feet on the other side. How it will be under the next Pope, I have no idea, but we have to live for the present day and not worry about anything else (we might die before the Pope does!).

There is a Christian humanist side of Catholicism, love and empathy for other people, a genuine desire to put the Gospel into practice, which I would like to help Anglicans and former Anglicans discover in the Catholic Church. There are many wolves and sociopaths around, any number of people who would frustrate everything we are trying to do and reduce everything to nothing – and we need to learn to recognise them.

Let us simply keep our eyes open, be lucid, and go forward with confidence.

In Catholic countries, priests would wear the cassock, usually with a cope or long coat that is very slightly shorter than the cassock or the same length. The custom of wearing the cassock all the time is fairly recent in Europe, from sometime in the nineteenth century. The most formal dress of the priest is a cassock and the feraiolo, a lightweight cape covering the shoulders or falling on the back and tied by a silk or satin ribbon. Less formally, the priest would go out in cassock, cape or coat and a clerical hat. French priests in the 1950’s tended to replace the hat by a beret – more practical when they had to cycle everywhere (they couldn’t afford cars in those days).

The world has changed, and tendencies are towards priests dressing as in Protestant countries – the modern equivalent of the eighteenth century frock coat and breeches. That means a black or dark grey suit with a “piece of the cassock” visible at the front. This is possible in three ways: the full waistcoat, a bib and a collar or simply the “visiting card” collar inserted into a specially made shirt collar, the third being the most comfortable and practical in modern urban use.

In the middle ages, and even in the eighteenth century, clergy were often in lay dress at court or when about town. There was one difference. They wore a black skull cap to cover their tonsures. The tonsure was the one thing that distinguished a cleric from a layman, and a cleric would be less tempted to do something sinful with his tonsure. The cassock can be taken off, not the tonsure.

How will we clerics dress in the Ordinariates? The answer is – the way we dress now. In some circumstances, I wear a Roman or French cassock. Other Anglican clerics wear the double-breasted so-called “Sarum” cassock. In other circumstances, I am more discreetly dressed in a clerical shirt and trousers. I’m not very keen on suits, and I am rarely in a truly urban environment. I am even more rarely in a courtly environment, where I need to be very “posh”.

I was married wearing a frock coat and full clerical waistcoat with buttons on the front and Roman collar.

The Roman collar itself is a recent invention – about mid nineteenth century. Its predecessor was a white cloth collar, a little like on a modern lay shirt, still worn by Redemptorists and Oratorians. I would like to see that back in use, but that means the cassock collar being completely closed at the front with no gap as for the Roman collar.

Clerical dress has tended to be neglected since the 1960’s, and there is considerable pressure on clerics to wear lay dress, especially when married and in secular employment. It might sometimes be possible for a priest to have a little marker like a lapel cross (as the clerical tonsure is no longer in use), but that means little to most people. In many places of work, especially public services, religious symbols are no longer allowed. The priest has to adapt to circumstances with intelligence and discernment.

I do not judge clerics for exercising this discretion when living their daily lives and doing their ministries in so many different circumstances and practical constraints.

* * *

I suppose we are all familiar with being “taken over” as customers, perhaps as employees.  One day we banked with Abbey National, the next it is Santander, and of course we have no say in the matter, except to take our custom elsewhere.

This can happen in matters of religion.  At the level of the individual parish, many Anglicans will have suffered from the decision (whether made on the authority of the priest alone or with a parish council) to change the whole ethos of worship without regard for those who are not content.  Many Continuing Anglicans have suffered this, perhaps several times (and therefore have an instinctive fear that the Ordinariate means yet more change, irrespective of the theological merits).

But it can also happen at a higher level.  Anglicanism is of course, as regards England, the product of a series of Acts of Parliament (breaking with Rome, imposing a form of reformation, returning to Rome, imposing a subtly different form of reformation, abolishing the bishops and the liturgy, restoring them) in none of which the overwhelming majority of the faithful had any say.  This is a continuing phenomenon in the United Kingdom.  There will still be some alive who were by Act of Parliament removed from the Church of England when it was disestablished in Wales and forbidden to function there.  It is ultimately Parliament, and not General Synod, which will decide whether there are women “bishops” (state officials appointed by the Prime Minister) in the Church of England.  Nor is this confined to Anglicanism.  Methodism was substantially reunited by Act of Parliament.  The “United Reformed Church” was created by Act of Parliament.  Sometimes, limited provision was made for dissenters (so under a pretext of unity making three bodies out of two).  Those who benefit from a separation of Church and State (so that such legislation is impossible) may indeed feel themselves fortunate.

Now the period of waiting for the Ordinariates is stressful, and it is tempting to prefer the business model (or the power of the state) simply because it gets the matter out of the way quickly.  But Bishops are not company directors.  Nor do they have the power of a sovereign Parliament.  The laity are not passive consumers, or victims of decisions which they cannot influence.  Maybe we would benefit from studying Newman On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine!

A particular factor in Continuing Anglicanism generally is the sense of past betrayal already mentioned and the natural reaction to it.  “Never again” led to very defensively worded constitutions, so that any change was as difficult as possible.  Such constitutions were never wholly realistic.  In the case of the United Kingdom, seven sacraments were affirmed in accordance with the universal Church, the Affirmation of St. Louis (and so on) but none of the authorised prayer books made provision for the anointing of the sick and the simultaneous affirmation of the 39 Articles in the constitution might reasonably be held to imply that such anointing was a “corrupt following of the Apostles.”  Few if any parishes literally conformed to the constitutionally authorised prayer books in their worship.  For a time, this did not do much harm, though some of us would prefer to mean (and do) what we say.  But as soon as change becomes unavoidable, defensive constitutions are, to say the least, a complication.

Whether we like it or not, Anglicanorum coetibus has determined that the process of entry will not be by the power of a few, but by the decision of each of the many.  I am sure this is right both as a matter of moral theology and pastorally.  We could do worse than to review the Prayer Book rite for baptism of those “able to answer for themselves.”  The candidate must promise “that [he] will renounce the devil and all his work, and constantly believe God's holy Word, and obediently keep his commandments.”  The Catechism and Order of Confirmation require the same of those baptised in infancy.  Decision is essential to the faith.

Now entry into the Ordinariate is not by baptism, but it is by decision, by a clear personal choice expressed.  We are to be treated as persons “able to answer for themselves.”  This is in itself a blessing, and I have no qualms about it being given liturgical expression in chrismation, for the blessing of the Church naturally responds to the decision of the candidate.  There are of course technical issues of what meaning attaches to detached parts of the original integrated sacrament of baptism, but they are for another posting, perhaps.  Suffice it that the early Church used such gestures for the reconciliation of schismatics; I do not have the arrogance to seek exemption, and pray to have the humility to receive the blessing of unity.

But since there is a choice, it is a human probability that some of us will not make that choice, and, for once in the history of the church, the need to care for those who do not make it is being addressed.  If that care had been provided by so many of the “Lambeth” jurisdictions in the last fifty years, TAC would never have existed (and yet the duty to seek unity with undoubted jurisdictions in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church would in no way have diminished).

The Ordinariates are about enabling Anglican patrimony to flourish within the Universal Church (while, as we daily see, it self-destructs outside it).  This is not achieved on the model of “takeover” or even “merger” — it is not about a business combination but about choice.  There is no merit in moving all the details of a Continuing jurisdiction into an Ordinariate.  We never wanted (if we had any understanding of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church we acknowledge) to be a separate jurisdiction; we merely wanted to continue the faith as we had received it.  If we were wise, we did not imagine that any of the innumerable versions of Anglicanism were or had ever been God's perfect work (I reluctantly disagree with George Herbert!), and if so we should always have been ready to learn where changes were needed — but by careful explanation rather than by imposition.  TAC was a proper emergency response; it has been a blessing from which much has been learnt; but neither TAC nor any form of Anglicanism in isolation from the Universal Church were God's permanent will.

In particular, the Ordinariates will enable us to walk away from the defensive constitutions into a greater stability, that of the Universal Church.  We do not build, we barely even preserve, the faith by producing such documents.  Neither Christ nor his Apostles gave us anything like a comprehensive rule book!

The consequences of choice include, as I have already indicated, dissenters.  The very impossibility and impropriety of the business combination model means that some institutions as well as some people will not be brought into the Ordinariate.  My private expectation is that in England some of the members of The Traditional Anglican Church (TTAC) will be left behind.  Unless other provision is agreed, they will retain the name, a complex and defensive constitution, and associated legal entities which are far too big for them.  They will presumably be left with a small bank balance (there are no other property issues).  They will be far too few to justify their own locally resident Bishop, so presumably a residual TAC, if there is one, will appoint a Vicar General for them.  Or perhaps there will be some wisdom in the alphabet soup and they will be encouraged to consider… a merger with another Continuing body!  (So it comes back to business combinations.)  Those current members of TTAC who join the Ordinariate have no need of any of the old apparatus.  Why should we struggle to keep it?  It is not patrimony, merely practical arrangements which were never ideal.

I do not of course know how it will be elsewhere.  In a larger body, such as exists in the United States, the dissenters would probably be numerous enough to need their own Bishop or Bishops, and other practical arrangements.  It is a human decency for those who are joining the Ordinariates to leave their former colleagues order rather than chaos.

I do not like talk of disloyalty.  It may be very difficult to justify, if the existing constitutions are to be crawled over as authoritative documents to establish who (if anybody) can change what (if anything).  For the inherent ambiguity in the Traditional Anglican Communion was that the constitution required the Bishops to seek unity, and not least with Rome, as they have done; and yet defensively worded constitutions make any practical steps difficult unless it is possible simply to walk away from them, as it is in England.

I suppose if anybody who signed the original petition of the TAC Bishops were now to denounce his signature and actively campaign against the Ordinariates, this would be inconsistent conduct.  I am not aware this has happened.  Even then, it might be argued that one signed in honest hope of something rather different from what is now offered.  This would not excuse affirming the Catechism then and now rejecting it, since it has not changed in the mean time and it was not a new and unfamiliar document when originally affirmed.  Again, I am not aware this has happened.

A vocation to gather the fragments which will remain after the Ordinariates is not despicable — it is the original Continuing vocation and we should not lightly assume sordid motives.  I would be happier if there were no fragments; but choice means the possibility of dissent.  It is right that Anglicanorum coetibus insists on choice and Archbishop Hepworth was right to insist that provision must be made for those who dissent from that choice.  And if so, a beginning has to be made — probably even before there are Ordinariates to which to apply.

Looking at the crisis that has hit the Church, particularly from the 1960’s, it is easy to conclude that the Church was in a “normal” and “pure” condition in the 1950’s and the first years of the 1960’s, and then — as Newman said concerning the Church in Arian times – suffered a “suspension of the functions of the teaching Church.”  In short, there would seem to have been a rupture in the Church’s history.  One will instantly conclude that if this is so, to an absolute extent, then this affects the entire credibility of Catholicism.  From this comes the intellectual construction of justifying the Church by separating the Church as the ontological sacrament of Christ and mystical body from the official institution.  There is a small minority of traditionalists who believe, like the monks of Mount Athos, that any contact with the official Church institution separates the believer from the true Church.  But, let us not be distracted.

Catholics believe that the Church is indefectible (as distinct from infallible).  The Church might be reduced to very little, but would never absolutely cease to exist.  Apologetics have their limits.

The way I see things in the Catholic Church is that many of the ills we see are the result of deconstructionist and heretical movements that sought to achieve the point at which Anglicanism has arrived — in Catholicism.  If we read Spong’s Twelve Theses, and study cultural Marxism and deconstructionism, we will see the extreme caricature of less extreme forms of the apostasy.

The present Holy Father has written extensively about the crisis in Catholicism, and it is legitimate to talk of such a situation in the Catholic Church.  The big problem is knowing what the authorities of the Church should do about it.  We find in Magister’s article a new tendency among some Roman Thomist theologians to question the entire basis of Vatican II.  The question now is one of whether the authorities of the Church should reassert an infallible and coercive Magisterium.  It won’t happen under Benedict XVI, if we look at the differences between him and Cardinal Ottaviani during the Council, but could it happen under a future Pope?

Some of the prelates in the Roman Curia and various dioceses would like to envisage a purer and stricter Church, a simple return to the status quo ante of the 1950’s, as the priests and bishops of the Society of St Pius X would have it.  You just simply wipe out the Council and airbrush out all the years from 1965 to 2011, 2012 or whenever.  Would such a Church be any more than a caricature with infallible definitions served up every day for breakfast and anathemas and excommunications all round?  This is no less absurd than a group pretending to have returned to “pristine antiquity” with a sixteenth century liturgy and repeating parrot-fashion that “Rome hath erred.”

But, on the other side, the Pope keeps issuing documents and exhortations that are mostly ignored, a dead letter before they come off the printing press.  Many dioceses of the Church are being run by bishops who believe like Schori and Spong, and would act accordingly if they could get away with it.  Surely, coercion is necessary if any restoration of the Church is to be more than empty talk like the worn-out old so-called “ecumenical dialogue”.

For traditionalists, if the abandoning of authority and coercion are the causes of the crisis in the post-conciliar Church, then it would be necessary to return to reinforced clericalism and authoritarianism.  These are perhaps the aspects of Catholicism that are the most foreign to the English and Anglican spirit, and which cause the most fear, even for those of traditionalist or “moderate” leanings.

In Sandro Magister’s article, the question comes up about what should be decreed by the great infallible authority.  Romano Amerio identified the same three points that form stumbling blocks between the Society of St Pius X and Rome:

1. the notion in Vatican II that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church instead of saying that it is the Catholic Church; [This would seem to be a concession to our old branch theory.]
2. the notion that Christians worship the same God worshiped by the Jews and Muslims;
3. the declaration on religious freedom in Dignitatis Humanae, essentially affirming that people have a right not to be constrained against their conscience and to be allowed freedom of religion [including error] within the limits of public law and order.

Pope Benedict XVI seems to have been clear that he does not share the position of those who would promote this proposed return to intransigent Catholicism.  As for subscribing to the branch theory or similar notions, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared in 2007 that the subsists in is to be understood as a continuity of meaning from the identity between the Church and the Catholic Church, and that there was a legitimate development between the two ideas.

I personally share the position expressed by the present Pope on the conciliar teaching concerning religious freedom, that there is also a legitimate development between the old position of the Magisterium and that of Vatican II. Father Brian W. Harrison, an Australian Catholic priest and theologian, has studied the question extensively:

• What Does Dignitatis Humanae Mean? A Reply to Arnold Guminski
• Contra Harrison in Re Libertate Religiosa: On the Meaning of Dignitatis Humanae
• The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, a review
• Pius IX, Vatican II and Religious Liberty

A certain number of Anglicans fear this reversion of the Catholic Church to the “intransigent” position, but I hardly see it ever happening.  The Society of St Pius X hardly represents even the position of conservative and orthodox Catholics, many of whom worship according to the old Latin liturgy, and certainly not with the majority of Rome-bound Anglicans.

Unlike the “Taliban” traditionalists, I see many positive things in the teaching of Vatican II.  I refuse the “one thing bad, everything bad” outlook on life.  Following the example of Newman, we see developments in ecclesiology and a more spiritual and less materialistic definition of the Church.  The subsists in expression of Lumen Gentium is not an expression of indifferentism or some half-baked branch theory, but an expression of modern ecclesiology and a richer understanding of the Church and Tradition.  The Church in her sacramental and metaphysical reality subsists in the outward visible signs of the institution, the clergy, communities of faithful, the family and every other manifestation of the incarnate Christ in the world.  I would venture to say that the Church also subsists in other conditions that manifest the Church’s sacramental and metaphysical reality, at least to some extent — the plenitude being in communion with the Holy See.  To go back to Bellarmine and Suarez now, back to the repressive “anti-Modernist” atmosphere of the 1900's, would be madness.

Are the Allah of the Muslims and the Yahweh of the Jews the same God as the Father of the Trinitarian Godhead we worship in spirit and truth?  Can we say with any certitude? Certainly, Jews and Muslims don’t believe in the Trinity or the incarnation of Christ’s divinity in his humanity, but does that mean they worship some deity other than the God of Abraham and Isaac, especially when their Scriptures define God in exactly the same terms as in the Old Testament of our Bible?  This polemic device of traditionalists really does exasperate me.  I am inclined to think they do worship the same God as we do –since there is objectively only one God.  There is no other, unless the other monotheists are idolaters or atheists, and there is no evidence to suppose that.  Both Jews and Muslims condemn idolatry in no uncertain terms and they are not atheists.  The real notion held by traditionalists is that Muslims and Jewish people should be exposed to persecution and discrimination by Christians, and all dialogue and all recognition of their quality of sincere religious people cut off and refused.  I see where all that went in the Hitler era — enough!  Dialogue with other religions need not compromise the identity of Christians or even our claim to adhere to the truth.  We should think for ourselves, and the world would be a more peaceful place for our posterity!

The last element, that of the question of religious freedom, is important for us Anglicans.  We should be embracing the Catholic faith, not because we fear persecution and punishment, but because we have been attracted by the beauty of liturgy and holiness, and have become intellectually convinced by objective truth.  The intégristes hold up examples of Franco's Spain and Pinochet's Chile as Catholic expressions of Christ's Kingdom.  Some priests and bishops actually supported Hitler’s regime during the war!  There is sickening evidence that some bishops and priests collaborated with evil and hoped to use it as a tool for “promoting the social kingship of Christ” and this is just as much a stinking abscess as paedophile priests.  I am glad Vatican II took away the basis for putting people in concentration camps, torturing, executing and otherwise persecuting and penalising people simply because they are not Catholics.  Thank goodness!  Perhaps, things could have been better and more clearly expressed, but that can always be a project in the future for the Pope.

Our blessed Lord himself said to Pilate – My Kingdom is not of this world.  It is a kingdom of the spirit, not a political dictatorship.

Let us Anglicans be careful about what kind of Catholic Church we want.  Let us also be wary of the ideas of a minority of Catholics who would have us in a position of submission and humiliation rather than being welcomed as dignified humans ready to contribute and bring something fresh and new to a Church that hasn’t finished learning.  Vatican II was not wrong about a pilgrim Church, as long as that expression doesn’t take away any right of the Church to be a mother or the Pope to be a father, the Holy Father in Christ’s name, as long as it doesn’t mean that churches have to be made ugly at great expense to appear poor.

I believe in Pope Benedict XVI’s way of persuading and teaching those of us who have a mind open enough to learn and enquire.  Perhaps his gentle and convincing words fall on many deaf ears.  There is the whole drama of faith and reason, the sanctification of humanity and not its abolition and destruction.  I am convinced this Pope and what he is trying to build are right.

I never cease saying it.  We Rome-bound Anglicans are called to bring our freshness and otherness into the Church to contribute to her wealth and beauty.

I read about the Anglican Church in The Anglo-Catholic posts and comments and elsewhere. I had one of the TTAC clergy and his father come and visit us a couple of weeks ago. They were good company. Yesterday evening, I saw a documentary on French television about the future of our Monarchy. Looking at our Queen, I compare our situation to that of the Church in the last years of the Pius XII pontificate in the 1950's. Après nous le déluge, said the Marquise de Pompadour to King Louis XV. I hear the usual “down with the elite” stuff uttered by the British left politically correct cronies, and remember the fact that bankers and big businessmen are a hundred times more selfish and elitist than an old-regime aristocrat ever was! Don’t get me started!

Well, the Synod has knocked away the last faltering resistance to the programme for the genetically engineered Future-Church. The writing is on the wall: that church will collapse and unchurch the great majority of our people. What is England going to be like as a republic that may turn out to edict laws against religion or at least any public expression of them? Are we facing an Orwellian dystopia? Will the nightmare come true, and will I be looking across the sea, not towards my mother land, but The Enemy? Perhaps President Sarkozy will build new Führerbunkers along the coast (the ruins of the old ones still disfigure the cliffs) – but I somehow doubt it!

But then, an idea kept hammering into my mind as I said Mass a couple of days ago – be a little like that song in The Sound of Music, My Favourite Things. There is always a way to bring ourselves out of our sadness and fears – think of good things. Before writing a negative comment or posting, and I’ve often been a culprit myself, go for a walk, enjoy nature, look at beautiful things in nature or man-made. I think there is always a positive way of seeing the most hopeless situation. Mothers sang songs to their children in the Tube stations in London during the Blitz in 1940, as their home was being blown away or reduced to rubble. I love hearing from my mother how people really pulled together in those days!

I am no prophet, but the nonsense can only go on for so long. In a few years, the Church of England will be finished as something enjoying any kind of public profile. I have mixed feelings about the future of the Monarchy, and I can only have the same wish for Her Majesty as for Pope Benedict XVI – that they live to a hundred, at least. Perhaps we are still living “golden days”, like before the war in the 1930’s or the Belle Epoque that died in the trenches of Flanders and the Somme as men armed with only a rifle were fed in their thousands to the Kaiser’s machine guns and mustard gas. We hang onto what we’ve got! Perhaps these last vestiges of stability and sanity may bridge us through the insanity to another time and our return to Christ and the Church.

We must have courage, because none of our own efforts has a future. Bigger things than ourselves can be blown away in a heartbeat. Even with all the trepidation and fear, I believe that something good lies over the horizon. Like England from a Normandy beach, not seeing it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We just can’t see it. The Holy Father has written reams on Hope, as John Paul II before him, and it is the only thing that keeps us going. Keep hoping and sublimate those bad pessimistic thoughts!

As when I said Mass, God found another way to whisper a word into my ear – as I went sailing a couple of days ago, in a thick and ominous sea mist as we often get in July on the English Channel (or La Manche from this side). At first, there were just some 500 yards visibility (otherwise the boat would have stayed on the beach), and gradually, the fog began to lift. The sun shone on the cliffs as there remained wisps of mist like cotton wool clinging to the sand and rocks where children were poking for crabs and their parents fishing for cockles. Slowly, the fog revealed more and more of my familiar and beloved so-called alabaster coastline. As the wind became more “frank” and less cloying like the mist, it all became to me an image of the events we Anglicans are living. The mask comes off the faces of the deceitful and worldly, and the same light reveals the beauty of truth.

Without going too much into my personal history, which I would be glad to divulge later when things are more settled, I would like to give a little description of the provisions Rome has made for the Latin rite traditionalists. This would be very much a guide for us in understanding the Apostolic Constitution and the Complementary Norms, and why this may seem disappointing for some.

I know little about the Apostolic Administration of Saint John Vianney in Brazil, at least the canonical aspects. I’m sure our Canadian friend Peter Perkins would fill us in better on that subject. However, I have followed developments since the 1980’s in Europe.

Most of the Catholic traditionalist communities take their inspiration from the work of Archbishop Lefebvre, though they diversified even before they were regularised by Rome in 1988 and the following years. They concentrated on a number of activities considered as essential for the “Catholic Continuum”: Mass centres and local communities, schools, university faculties, seminaries and religious communities. All these were entirely financed by the faithful, as there was no income from anywhere else. I will give a brief description of each of these aspects, to give you an idea of what will be possible for the Ordinariates.

The Mass centres are the first element in any traditionalist movement. As parish priests were most often removed from office for “recusancy” in the 1970’s, they were asked by groups of people to celebrate Mass in makeshift chapels, private homes, redundant churches they were able to buy, and finally in churches they built as the community grew. In about 1980, the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) rented a conference room in a London hotel just opposite Paddington Station. Some of the more cynical called it Saint Pad’s Cathedral! In 1982, they bought a redundant Welsh Anglican church, a very ordinary Victorian building in a grotty suburb. They now have some very impressive churches in England and other countries. The SSPX can now afford to build churches, but the money comes from the faithful.

Schools were set up by the SSPX very early on, and there are several in France and the US. They cater for all ages of children. Another important element of youth work is scouting and sea scouting. Those establishments are a marked contrast to the life of most children in our times. Schools in the “approved” communities are financed in exactly the same way way as the SSPX schools. The SSPX has an accredited university faculty in Paris, teaching students mainly classics, history, literature and philosophy. Very few such faculties have been established.

The seminary has always been capital in the traditionalist world, as it was seen that relying only on sanctioned parish priests and retired priests could only be limited in time. It was essential to produce new priests via a serious training and screening programme in seminaries operating as everywhere in the 1950’s and before. A seminary is an expensive endeavour. You need a large building: a purpose-built seminary, a former convent or monastery, or a stately home with a chapel or a large outbuilding that can be converted into a chapel. Such buildings, when made available to acquire, are often in poor condition and require restoration work. This was the case with the seminary of the Institute of Christ the King in Italy, a former country home of the Martelli family near Florence that had been a Benedictine monastery from the 1970’s until 1990. The Benedictine foundation had failed through a lack of vocations, and the house was made over to a group of French priests and seminarians. The buildings needed extensive work, especially the kitchen and sanitation. The library was built up for thousands of books given by priests and lay people. It is all logistics and organisation. The seminarians either pay their way or have to be financed by funds given by lay supporters. Academically qualified priests need to be found to teach on a voluntary basis, but their travelling expenses need to be found. I think the Fraternity of Saint Peter found a good welcome and support from the Bishop of Augsburg, through the influence of Cardinal Ratzinger at the time, and they have done very well in America, where they have built a brand new seminary with a most impressive church.

Monasteries and other religious communities were founded on a shoestring. The famous Abbey of Le Barroux started with a single monk who left his community in the 1970’s, because he wanted to continue with traditional monastic life. That was Dom Gérard Calvet. He found lodgings through some “recusant” lay people in an old priory in the Provence area. He was soon joined by young men with traditional monastic vocations. They worked for many years in the movement of Archbishop Lefebvre, and were regularised by Rome in 1988 when the Archbishop had illicitly consecrated four bishops and got himself excommunicated as a result. The Abbey of Le Barroux is now a thriving community and has a beautiful church in neo-Romanesque style and fine purpose-built conventual buildings. In the 1980’s, there were just three of four monasteries in the Archbishop Lefebvre movement, and now, under the Ecclesia Dei Commission, there are scores of large and small religious communities, each according to its charisma and particular vocation and spirituality. This has probably been the greatest strength of the Catholic traditionalist community.

That is just an extremely brief overview. However, these are orientations for the development of the Anglican Ordinariates under Anglicanorum Coetibus. The big difference between the Latin Mass movement and the TAC is the degree to which the laity give their support and resources. The Anglican movement rather reminds me of the stage the Catholic traditionalist movement had achieved in about 1980. However, the TAC has very little in the way of resources for seminaries, other than the faculty in Canada. One big problem is that most of our candidates from the priesthood are married men and thus not available for full-time training in a seminary. However, the seminary is largely a Counter-Reformation invention, and the Church ordained priests trained in a different way before the Reformation. The old way was simply a long apprenticeship in the ordinand’s parish and perhaps some theological studies in a university faculty or a local Dominican school. I am somewhat critical of the “counter-reformation” seminary, but that is a subject for another article, on training for the priesthood. It remains that only trained men should be admitted to the priesthood, and the training has to be done somehow.

The other thing that occurs to me is that the Ordinariates are not going to change very much of the appearance of the materials used. It can be argued that the TAC is small and marginal, especially in England, but it exists and has a number of parishes and missions with real lay people attending services. The clergy who are presently in the Church of England, if they wish to join an Ordinariate along with the TAC, will have to accept their status being reduced to about what we TAC “tent-makers” are. The difference being in communion with Rome will make is to give us credibility with more people, and those people would more readily share their financial resources to make it possible to buy or build churches, create an environment in which families with children can thrive (schools and youth activities), improve our intellectual profile, train our priests properly and promote religious life.

To what extent would we be helped by dioceses? We say up in Yorkshire – You don’t get ought for nought. Accept their money and resources (rent-free buildings for example) and we have to be prepared to be beholden to them, at least to some extent. Some idea can be gleaned from looking at the various traditional communities in communion with Rome. I have the impression the Fraternity of Saint Peter gets the most help and support from dioceses in Germany and America. The Institute of Christ the King got very little material aid from any diocese until it established itself in America. No community ever got any funds from the Vatican. For the most part, running expenses have to be found either through contributions from the faithful or some fund-raising activity.

The lesson from this is that the Ordinariates will be as rich and significant as the laity (the money-earners) make them. In some countries, Ordinariates will be makeshift and hand-to-mouth, relying on priests in secular employment and continuing to celebrate services in makeshift chapels. In some places, momentum will be gained sufficiently to attract more people and justify asking the local Catholic diocese for the use of a church, either a redundant church or a time slot in a parish. In other countries, it may become possible to develop along the lines of most of the Ecclesia Dei communities.

My big dream is the possibility of some measure of collaboration between the Ordinariates and the Ecclesia Dei communities. Last November, I was invited to contribute to the discussions of a "round table" organised by the French traditional Catholic association Reunicatho. About 200 persons turned out to this get-together at the Palais de Congrès, just next to the magnificent Château of Versailles built in the glorious years of the French Kingdom under Louis XIV. I met the Abbot of Randol, an eminent French Benedictine Abbey founded by Fongombault, priests from several dioceses, the Fraternity of Saint Peter, the Institute of Christ the King, several religious communities, from all over. No one from the Society of St. Pius X was present, not that they weren't invited. I definitely saw a will to pull down the walls of shame, and not a few comparisons were made with the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago. John Paul II brought down Communism, and Benedict XVI is bringing down the causes of disunity and conflict in the Church.

There were fascinating talks at Versailles, especially by Professor Luc Perrin, a specialist in church history from Strasbourg University, Fr. Chanut, a diocesan priest with decades of hands-on pastoral experience and devout laymen anxious for their children to have a proper Catholic education. Listening to many poignant tales from French Catholics in the dioceses and religious communities, I was struck by the parallel pilgrimage of these traditional Catholics and our years of combat as Anglicans. These are two aspects of a single and same combat for the soul of Christ's Church. This was an utterly moving experience to come to this awareness!

French traditionalists have a heck of a time understanding Anglicanism, as Dom Henri, one of our French traditionalist readers, will tell you. But, the good will is there. This is not about us individuals or saving our own vocations and little lives we have built up over the years. This is about the Church and the re-evangelisation of the apostate "post-Christian" western world. Since that day, I have an inner feeling that the Latin traditionalists in communion with the Holy Father and we Anglicans with an analogous spirit will learn to cooperate and see that we have a common cause above our own interests. Some of those French priests even told me that once the Ordinariates are up and running, they would be prepared to train some of our unmarried ordinands in their monasteries and seminaries. Can you imagine that?

In a word, the future is in our own hands. The Church can give us a “flag” and universally-recognised legitimacy as Catholic Christians, but the profile of the Ordinariates and their institutions will be our problem.

I wish all you Americans a very happy Independence Day, and I say this as an Englishman from a country from which you people wanted independence. Our King George III was apparently not a very nice man, and a bit soft in the head!

Enjoy your barbecues and the fireworks, and may God bless your families – and above all keep you free and prosperous, and holy.

Here they are:

• Canticum Novum
• Introduction to Reading Music (US terminology)
• Music Theory on You Tube

The last link is a little “goofy” for my taste and American (the Americans use different music terminology from us Brits – I don’t know about the Canadians). But, it is audio-visual and might help to make learning less agonising and boring. You will find it a lot easier if you have played a musical instrument and had a bit of do-re-mi tuition at school when you were little. It will come back as you work, and your progress will be that much faster.

Just a few general elements: musical notation, whether Gregorian or “modern”, is a language with its own grammar and rules of harmony. If you have never had any musical training, and you really want to make a start, it is hard and there are no short-cuts. There are various methods for learning, and each suits a particular temperament and age of the pupil.

To learn Gregorian chant, the Ward Method takes a lot of beating. It is especially suitable for children, but can be adapted for adults. The first thing is to sing a major scale and identify the two points where there are semitones. You have to identify the notes of this scale with the notes in the lines and spaces of the stave – the C and F in Gregorian notation or the G and F in modern notation are marked by clefs. This association is helped by having a piano or an electronic keyboard instrument. Begin in C major, because there are no sharps and flats. The sharps and flats come in when you sing the scale in other keys.

The next element is identifying and singing intervals, the numerical difference between two notes in the scale. You thus have the second, third, fourth, fifth (quint), sixth, seventh and the octave. The fourth, quint and octave are “pure”. The third and sixth are consonant and the second and seventh are dissonant. You won’t make much sense of what I’m writing here, so you will need to see the graphics and explanations in the sites above.

You must identify the clef in the stave. In Gregorian chant, it is usually a C or a F. In psalmody, your reciting note is generally the A, so you transpose the psalm chant and the antiphon to go with the psalm. If you don’t identify the clef, then you can’t determine where the two semitones are in the major scale.

After you have mastered the basic scale, you need to know about the eight psalm tones and their various endings. You will find all that in the link above or the introduction to the Solesmes Liber Usualis, which is in print (reproduction of the 1962 edition). All Gregorian music is in one of the eight tones. “Modern” music only has major and minor modes.

You next need to know the neumes, which are the symbols that represent groups of notes. Each neume has a Latin name, and I remember some lay brothers looking after a monastery farm who named their livestock after the Latin neume names, Podatus, Clivis, Scandicus, Porrectus, etc.

That’s just for the notes. Rhythm in Gregorian chant is very different from modern music notion with its measured time signatures and bars. The notes come in groups of two and three (triplets). The rhythm makes the chant flow.

All that is a tall order for people who are on their own. The best is to join a choir and go to the practices. There are also Gregorian chant sessions organised in different places, and that is the best way to learn. The music is the same whether the texts are in English or Latin. I strongly recommend learning to sing in Latin, and this will make it easier to sing in English when you are putting something on for your own parish.

If you have questions, I’ll try to answer them as best as possible. But, one thing is for sure – it is hard work and I can’t do the learning in your place.

* * *

An Article by Father Michael Shier

So where were you in 1977, when Bishop Peter Wilkinson, our Father in God, effectively founded the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada, and people laughed at him? No money, no pension, no property, no prospects. Where were you when Father Edward Gale got us going here in the Lower Mainland, when our founders were bearing the burden and heat of the day? I know where I was. I was a “Johnny come lately” in a comfortable church where we hoped no one would do a wrecking job and make our position untenable. More fool me! I have taken a long time to fully appreciate the courage and foresight of those who made the first moves way back in 1977. If I am now back in a comfortable church after only a brief period in the wilderness, it is because of those who laid the foundations whilst being jeered at as freaks :- people of the stature of Fr. Gale alone on Maine Island, of Fr. Switzer alone up island on Vancouver Island, of Raymond and Jeannette Mynette alone in mid Saskatchewan, of Canon Zacharias alone in Switzerland, of Fr. Chadwick alone in France, of Stan and Ruth Horrall who can’t get to the Ottawa church in winter.

For all of us the risks of the Apostolic Constitution are minimal and the benefits are enormous. Bishop Mercer writes: “Pope Benedict has written that Catholics cannot demand that other churches be disbanded and their members be individually incorporated into the Catholic Church. They must remain in existence as Churches with only those modifications which unity necessarily requires. The Catholic Church has no right to absorb other Churches.” Rather it is preparing for other Churches a place of their own.

Bishop Elliot helps to explain the situation by referring first to the Eastern Catholic Churches. These autonomous churches are in communion with Rome, but their members are not Roman Catholics. “Many Anglicans do not understand that the Catholic Church is not a monolithic structure. She is a communion of Churches, led by Bishops who are in communion with Rome and with one another, members of one apostolic college.” “…many other particular churches are grouped within a series of ancient Eastern Rites, also in communion with Rome, but use liturgies appropriate to their origins: Syrian, Greek, Egyptian, Armenian etc. Their members are Ukrainian Catholics, Maronite Catholics, Coptic Catholics etc. They are not Roman Catholics. That is why it is wrong to lump us all together and call everyone in communion with Rome a “Roman Catholic”.”

This is all very refreshing. It is clearly not the “same old same old”. What’s more, as Bishop Mercer writes: “Why be so anxious? The Italian line is that rules are made to be broken. He who has immediate and universal jurisdiction may yet grant all sorts of dispensations about all sorts of matters.”

We all make infallible statements. Modifying them is called penitence. Here is one very obvious modification. Those ordained under the Ordinariate would date their ordination as priests, as they always have done, from their original day of ordination. And another: without detriment to the principle of celibacy, there would be some Anglican Catholic parishes, in communion with Rome, with a married priest at the centre. Thus, as there are in the East, there would be some Catholic parishes in the West for whom either celibacy or marriage would be possible in the ministry. Both positions would be tenable.

What accounts for these modifications? We know that the Apostolic Constitution was created with Pope Benedict’s appraisal of Anglicanism in mind. He clearly saw that there was something to be nurtured and shared. Dare we say that he has seen in the principle of comprehensiveness a genuine element of the Christian tradition? Surprisingly, it was the Royal Supremacy which, holding the ring between contesting parties, gave us this principle – that no one party should make the position of any other party untenable. Now, while Anglicanism has imploded, nevertheless the principal remains an integral part of our Anglican heritage and patrimony. The Apostolic Constitution rescues this principal of Comprehensiveness from the wreckage of Anglicanism and reapplies it. The celibate and the married priest are both affirmed as gifts to the church with no detriment to either system, and this is combined with a cautious acknowledgement of some Anglican orders. With all the modern Anglican chaos, who would have thought it! There is no reversal of practice. Rather an enlargement, giving due weight to the need not to make any one person‟s legitimate position untenable. Bishop Mercer asks, “Who said this? – “Leading men and women to God, to the God who speaks in the Bible, is the supreme and fundamental priority of the Church. “– Billy Graham, John Wesley, Martin Luther, of an evangelical Anglican like John Stott of All Souls, Langham Place, London? No! Pope Benedict XVI.

“It is no wonder that the Pope appeals more and more to evangelical Christians, to Anglicans and to the Orthodox. Some of us have been deceived by the liberal media or even by liberal Roman Catholics into writing him off as “the rottweiler cardinal” or “the panzer cardinal”. But like another elderly pope who came to office late in life, John XXIII, this man is full of astonishing surprises…he wants us all to know and love the bible as he does.”

Of course we have anxieties. But like most anxieties they don’t respond to either reason or factual information. Bishop Mercer tells us…“You will not have to write an exam on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, RC laity don’t. Why should you? Your parish council will not have to send donations to Rome. RC parishes don’t. Why should yours? You will not have to submit to a bully. Cardinal Ratzinger and two of his staff gave me over an hour of their time in Rome, in 1985 when we talked of unity. He is the gentlest, most courteous of men, a skilled listener. Conversely, you can still treasure our Prayer Book catechism which serves a different purpose from the Roman one. Ours is a preparation for those hoping to be confirmed. The Roman one is a fat compendium of theology to be referred to, stuffed full of Bible, ancient authors and quotations from saintly people.

“As to “concessions”, so to speak, it is Rome which has made the most. We retain our identity and our Anglican heritage or patrimony; our Prayer Book tradition of worship, our hymns and music; our married clergy; our esteemed place for the laity…. Our only disappointment is no married bishops. After all, St. Peter, the first Pope had a wife (Matthew 8:14. 1Corinthians 9:5). However, Rome’s reason is impeccable. The rapprochement of Eastern Christianity and Western, the two lungs of the one Church, is what matters most, and as yet it is the Orthodox who cannot stomach the thought of married bishops. And by the way, the word “Ordinary” is a Prayer Book one found in the ordination service, and there meaning “bishop”. “Will you reverently obey your Ordinary unto whom is given the charge and government over you?”

Note: Quotations from Bishop Mercer’s article originally written for the magazine of the Congregation of St. Athanasius and S Theodore, Powys, UK, called The Traditional Anglican.

The Enlightenment was not entirely wrong.  Religious people had caused a considerable amount of trouble by the eighteenth century, and obscurantism took the place of thought or simple consideration for other people.  But, it’s not religion or God or the Church that is to blame, but simply man’s unredeemed tendency to commit evil and lack consideration for others.  Atheists have been just as bad as religious people, and great evils have been committed, not because of the religion of the sinner, but because of his bestial humanity.

It is natural to react against evil with evil, pull the trigger and talk later.  Man rarely reacts against the people who do evil, but against others who have a superficial resemblance such as their religious affiliation or the colour of their skin.  We tend to look for a scapegoat as a convenient target, rather than take the trouble to understand the badness to be rooted out and corrected with proportionate force — the role of law and social order.  That was how it worked in the twentieth century with the Nazis in Europe and the KKK in America.  We cannot make a virtue out of intolerance and bigotry, but this does not stop us being convinced by objective and revealed truth.

In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas gave primacy to the intellect over the will.  Man’s being is ruled by reason, which sets us apart from other animals, at least those species that show us no sign of rationality.  We have much to learn from the Enlightenment, not the rejection of God and the Church, but bigotry and prejudice being enlightened by reason and intellect according to rules of metaphysics, epistemology and logic.

For our own, it would be indeed immoral to apply pressure on people to accept the Ordinariate scheme.  Only the Bishops and Vicars General signed the letter and the Catholic Catechism during the Portsmouth meeting of October 2007.  I was there, but didn’t sign it, any more than the other ordinary priests and laity who were present.  I am not bound to accept what my Archbishop has decided, but if I don’t, there will be consequences to assume.  This is what every adult person must decide.  Think before saying "no."  Deserts are dry and arid places, and you can get awfully thirsty.

I think we all need lessons in tolerance and enlightenment, so that we may be better and more virtuous Christians.  For a start, even if very few of us ever resort to physical violence, we can be very hurtful with our words.  And, it is so easy to do so on the Internet, anonymously, as a “perfect crime."  You kill or maim, and suffer no consequences.

Another principle we should observe is to resist our natural tendency to think falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus, or the use of generalisations and "guilt by association," considering something to be wrong or to be shunned because an individual of that category has done something wrong.  One black person commits a crime, and you react by sending millions of them to the gas chambers.  That is of course the extreme, but we often commit the same thing to a lesser degree.

We tend to hate difference and diversity.  See how we Anglicans have so much difficulty being understood by Catholics, and how we fail to respect legitimate (non-dogmatic) differences between ourselves.  If people do wrong, the law is designed to give them a fair trial and punish them -– but the one who judges is a Judge, qualified by that role and following a legal procedure to take the most precautions possible against error or partiality.  The system is often wrong, but no one has come up with a better alternative.  The law administers justice, not revenge.  We constantly live in fear, and this causes the darkest obscurantism, prejudice and intolerance in our minds and souls.

We have got to learn tolerance and compassion, and we must begin to make an effort to look for everything positive in others.  I am just as tempted as anyone else to be negative.  What is really important is intellectual curiosity, a thirst for knowledge and understanding.  The more we seek to understand and know the truth about things, the less we are likely to act out of prejudice, anger and fear.

Anti-Catholicism is very deep-seated, and is the last “legitimate” discrimination.  You can get away with saying things about Catholics that it would be impossible to say about Jewish people, Muslims, blacks or other categories of people.  I think we are going to have to research and analyse the roots of anti-Catholic prejudice, and work on investigating whether the ideas we have are reasonable and modifiable through becoming informed.

I have often wondered whether modern “political correctness” is not the right way, but I see its fatal flaw.  It relies on “training” people through reward and punishment rather than teaching people to use their intelligence and reasoning faculties, assuming we are unthinking animals.  It is urgent that schools should teach such notions to children, to instil an adult sense of responsibility and respect for others at the earliest age possible –rather than rely on slogans and punishment.  I know of few schools that teach logic and correct reasoning to young children or even to adolescents. That is a shame!

I am brought to think of a lovely couple of verses from Psalm 32: I will inform thee, and teach thee in the way wherein thou shalt go : and I will guide thee with mine eye.  Be ye not like to horse and mule, which have no understanding : whose mouths must be held with bit and bridle, lest they fall upon thee.

The tragedy about many Anglicans is that they are not refusing the Catholic Church, but their distorted idea of the Catholic Church.  It is for us to educate ourselves, learn about the Church how she is today, and read church history from different view points to gain an objective, overall and synthetic view for ourselves.  I recommend the series of books by Daniel Rops, because his writing is accessible, easy to read and even entertaining — and thoroughly free from ideology and prejudice.  Look up this author on Amazon.

Perhaps, some of my fellow contributors could propose areas of knowledge for us all to learn something new and stimulate our intellectual curiosity and logical thinking.  Anyone?

The liturgy, as in all ages of human history, became influenced by the ambient culture. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this culture was based on the worldliness of the aristocracy and royal families of Europe. The baroque liturgy reflects court life, triumph, joy, aesthetic delight and much more. It appeals to the senses. Bouyer traced the origin of the nineteenth century Romantic medieval revival to a reaction against the Baroque. When I look at the stories of Dom Guéranger and the Curé d’Ars, I somewhat disagree with Bouyer, seeing their ministries as a reconstruction from the utter devastation left behind by the French Revolution. He saw a connection between cultural Catholicism and the Baroque, in that belonging to the culture of the Church was the characteristic of people with little Christian commitment or who did not take religion very seriously. The nineteenth century was an era of reform, revival and getting people to take prayer and morality seriously.

Between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, fashions changed and became simpler. The powdered wig and extravagance of the aristocracy were gone, as simpler things and values came in. These cycles between mentalities based on Epicureanism and Stoicism seem to occur about every two centuries. The writing on the wall seems to indicate our moving into a new “nineteenth century” and some hard surprises for militant feminists and homosexuals. In terms of religion, our fare is likely to be austere as would be our conditions of life without welfare states or medical care available for all.

The Baroque culture is a product of Renaissance neo-paganism, the sensuous seeking of pleasure, and above all, the spirit of the Counter Reformation on which I have already written. It was a cultural basis of conservatism and a siege mentality, attested to by the instinct of many Catholics to consider Anglicanism almost as a disease. Accept any part of the heresy and the whole becomes contaminated.

What strikes me most about baroque liturgical culture is the assimilation of the church to secular culture, in the same way as modern liturgy is assimilated to popular entertainment on TV. Another characteristic of baroque liturgy is reversion to medieval tendencies like the development of exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction. You have seen nothing until you have been to the Corpus Christi procession in southern Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland! The Canton of Fribourg was once known as The State of Heaven. Many of our rites originate in ancient Rome, the archetype of Baroque culture. The Corpus Christi procession is incredibly powerful in the collective memory, originating in the cult of the Emperor, exploited in the 1930’s by the Nazis as they carried a giant monstrance in the Nuremberg rallies bearing a swastika. "Blasphemy!", we cry. But they knew how to use popular emotions. There is the argument that liturgical vestments were simply ordinary clothes in ancient Rome, and consequently, a priest should say Mass in a pair of jeans and a tee shirt. Perhaps full evening dress with white tie would be more in keeping, since the early Roman vestments were ceremonial garments, not for everyday use. There is also the argument of conservation of form in the tradition of the Church. Vestments are not formal suits. However, I am preaching to the choir and will not labour the point.

The post Vatican II reforms tried to do away with the baroque culture in the liturgy as has survived up to our own times in spite of Romanticism and the events of the twentieth century. But, its spirit simply became transposed onto the assimilation of modern cultural expressions like television as the new Opera and popular music.

Is baroque liturgy a bad thing? Must liturgy be entirely divorced from culture? The Benedictine revival of the liturgy has done a tremendous amount of good in promoting gothic vestments, a more fluid and melismatic method of singing Gregorian chant and greater simplicity in churches, less reliance on titillating the senses to provoke contemplation. My own reflection is that parish communities and people should be free in these matters, as religious communities have their differences in spirituality and other preferences that are free.

The tendency of the present Pope to accept a return to the Baroque culture for matters like vestments is notable. The liberals hate it! We find the use of ermine-trimmed red capes, buckled shoes, lace albs, gold, silver, jewels, feasts of colours. Many of those objects have been in the possession of churches for centuries or decades, and it costs no more to use them than to keep them in storage. Often, the banal monstrosities of modern liturgy are obscenely expensive, so I would ask critics not to get me started on that one!

The English Oratory has remained loyal to Italian baroque aesthetics throughout the time of the conciliar reforms. They carried on using the old vestments and altars. Nothing was thrown away or put in storage. They conformed to the liturgical reforms in a minimising interpretation. Baroque has remained in constant use in Italy, Austria and the Bavarian part of Germany. Oddly, the culturally French and Jansenist-inspired traditionalist movement was much more nineteenth century in its inspiration than communities of clerics who in the 1970’s settled in Italian dioceses like Genoa and assimilated the Italian baroque spirit. The Institute of Christ the King, founded in 1990 in Italy, is exactly situated in this baroque revival movement.

Benedict XVI, we should not forget, is a Bavarian. Steeped through and through in the Baroque of central Europe. We have noticed the use of Renaissance and baroque style vestments, though often quite sober. A baroque revival in our own day would seem to be not so much a reversion to Renaissance neo-paganism, Counter Reformation triumphalism or sensualism – but simply a quest for beauty with expressions and symbols that are still familiar to us. We are tired of being “baroque” in our assimilation of modern secular culture, as the Mozart Mass in C minor used just about the same musical styles as the Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni, or services using big screens and praise bands, and simply seek sanity and piety.

I am mixed in my feelings about the stripped and bare austerity of the monastic tradition and the sumptuousness of the liturgy assimilating the Italian Renaissance, Austrian Baroque or English Perpendicular cultures. The hecatomb in modern liturgical expression brings us to a more overall and synthetic way of thinking. Renaissance, Baroque and Modern are facets of our cultural Catholicism. I tend myself to be influenced to some extent by the monastic ideal and the aesthetic movements of the early twentieth century. Too much Baroque gives me indigestion, but there are some very fine monuments of it. Perhaps some of the little village churches in the Savoy area, in the mountains, give us something fresh and joyful without being overcharged.

Some are tempted to assimilate Catholicism to a surviving pagan culture. One would expect to find this reflection in the mind of a fundamentalist Protestant – Away with idolatry and back to the pure Gospel, or rather the rabbinic law! Here is the constant tension between popular religion and the austerity of Christian monotheism.

One thing of which I have been aware for a long time is the human need to belong, whether it is to the Church, our country, town, sports club, family or whatever. This is what we love about Catholicism or Anglicanism, and we love the ideal more than the reality. For Catholics, that ideal may be the romanticised Church of Sarum as portrayed by the mid-nineteenth century middle-pointed neo-gothic church in a sleepy suburb of an industrial town, or it might be the late sixteenth century Counter-Reformation in full steam with a Saint on each street corner of Rome! For the Anglican, it might be the misty swirls of idealised Antiquity and Saint Augustine celebrating a rite of Mass similar to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (!). We all love our ideals as we see the reality swamped by secularism and the noise and rancour of people with their different fashionable agendas.

The study of history gives us precious little information about what really happened in the past. The history books are partial, and prevailing views of historians change as new documents and primary sources come to light. Was patristic Christianity something akin to Calvin’s dour and dark vision? I very much doubt such a religion in fourth century Rome would have survived for any longer than Tertullian’s Montanism. I am given to believe, from reading various sources, even in Scripture, that early Christianity was extremely divided. Cults of heroic saints and pure virgins had to emerge as the demi-gods of ancient Greece. To this day, schoolboys are inspired by Jason and the Argonauts or the titanic strength of Hercules. Only such imagination could fill the void monotheism tends to create.

For how many centuries have there been lamentations about the superficial belonging of people to the Church, and that the Church militant is not militant enough? I have often wondered why things go down and down with no sign of reversal or recovery. I have brought up the subject of Hegel and his dialectics, but is there really progress. Men of our time have advanced technology, but we have certainly regressed in terms of art and spirituality. Some, not only the New Agers, talk of a process of unravelling and a transition to something entirely different, as if there were something beyond Christianity and the Church, as there was beyond Judaism when the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. I have often wondered …, even if such a question wanders towards the very edge of Christian orthodoxy!

Ideal religion isn’t as bad as “I wish things were different than how they are”, but for me reflects Plato’s world of Ideas and forms. To abandon the Church as an ideal would be to become resigned to her becoming no more than an earthly institution. Newman wrote a considerable amount about the idea and its progress in his book of the development of doctrine.

Baroque Catholicism, no differently from other modern inculturation attempts, sought to make the liturgy relevant for an era in time and European aristocratic culture. However, I would appeal to the notion of objective beauty and laws according to which things are right or wrong. Musical harmony depends on scales, modes, harmonies and dissonances. Ignore those rules and you get cacophony and a horrible noise, even when the sounds are produced by musical instruments!

I come to that most cogent argument of the Council of Trent that gave the impetus to the Catholic Baroque:

“It is only with difficulty that man’s unrefined nature (which does not apprehend anything without previous sense perception) can be held to its duty, instructed in religion and roused to piety and devotion without perceptible ceremonies and other external helps. For this reason God did not wish the Christian religion to be devoid of this exceedingly great aid. Therefore, the Holy Synod declares that the Eucharistic ceremonies are not wanting in scriptural witnesses nor regard for the mysteries. It affirms that, though not every individual rite and ceremony employed in the celebration of Mass is expressly found in the Scriptures, not one has been introduced in the Church or observed so continually and religiously for so many centuries without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Just how necessary these ceremonies are for holding the people to their duty, the enemies of the Church themselves proclaim; for after they have set aside the ancient and approved ceremonies, they find it necessary to devise and introduce new ones. Thus, there must be no complete abrogation or change of such rites…”

“But everyone knows how much vestments, lights and the other external things which are used in the Mass rite (…) habitually excite people to turn their minds from commonplace thoughts and to reflect reverently upon the sacred and godly reality which is taking place. For in all these things there is present an extremely useful and holy symbolism. Those who understand this symbolism are forcibly moved to adore the Father in true spirit and to imitate (as far as it is possible) that purity and soaring of mind which our Redeemer possesses in the Mass of his Last Supper. This Mass was altogether simple and devoid of these external symbols and decorations, for the reason that he did not need to be spurred on by any external aids and that the time or place did not require their use. Therefore, the same Spirit which incited Christ to sacrifice in that manner has instructed the Church to append becoming and religious ceremonies in due consideration of the times."

One Father of the Council said,

“Such rites [those commended by the authority of the Church and its tradition] must not be abolished altogether or changed; there is no reason for it. The changes can ever be dangerous and cannot be put into effect without great commotion and the serious disturbance of many. Those especially are affected who, through ignorance or perversity, immediately suspect that the Church had laboured under a certain error and had had thrown off the faith of the ancients."

In ending, there is much in common between the idea of reviving local rites of Pre-Reformation England and returning to the aesthetics and ideals of Baroque Catholicism, as many Anglicans did following the inspiration of the Society of Saints Peter and Paul in the early twentieth century.

As a post scriptum to this posting, I would like to pay homage to a French priest who has had an immense influence in my life, and from whom I learned most of what I know about the Roman liturgy, Fr Frank Quoëx (1967-2007). I do this by including a link to an extraordinary article in The New Liturgical Movement, The Life, Work and Ambitions of Abbé Franck Quoëx, 1967-2007. There was never a man in our own times who better understood the Counter Reformation, the Baroque, the Roman Curia, and – in a word – Rome, Roma Aeterna.

The Catholic Church has an elected Pope, but whose election is restricted to the College of Cardinals, and the Cardinals are named by the previous Pope. Though the Conclave has had its rules changed a little over the centuries, this system goes back centuries and seems to work very well. The election of the Pope is attributed to the Holy Spirit working through the agency of the assembled Cardinals. Very often, the result is a surprise, as when Cardinal Giuseppe Sarto was elected in 1903 and took the name Pius X – whereas the more liberal-minded Cardinal Rompolla was expected to be elected, but was vetoed by the Austrian emperor (who had the right to do such things in those days).

Things were never so simple in the Catholic Church, which was never simply a Monarchy with a pyramid-like structure. Since the second half of the nineteenth century, the tendency has been to consider all power as coming from the Pope, and the role of diocesan bishops and parish priests would simply be to apply the Pope’s power in their designated jurisdiction. I have been considerably influenced by reading Orthodox works and the famous book of Ignaz von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council. The Pope’s authority to sanctify, teach and govern the Church is ontologically no more than that of any bishop – he has this power because he is a bishop. We Anglicans on our way to the Ordinariates accept the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and this teaching upholds the balanced position of Vatican I concerning the infallibility of the Pope under precisely defined conditions and his primacy of jurisdiction. We must be careful to avoid confusion between law and ontology: primacy of jurisdiction is a canonical concept, not metaphysical.

Is democracy in the Church possible? Is it desirable? Democracy, in its Greek etymological meaning is rule by the people. In reality, the theory is that the people approve of their rulers through a majority vote, but afterwards have to wait until the next general election to have a new ruling government. In the Church, it is more like a Monarchy, but which consults the lever levels – in theory. Any human organisation that depends on consulting at all levels gets bogged down by the committee spirit and institutional inertia. Subsidiarity has its downside. Everything depends on what and who we are consulting. Winston Churchill once said, "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter". The Church of England is a victim of having put its doctrinal teaching authority in the hands of those who think such things are subject to a vote and institutional expediency. Who has not have the frustrating experience of long and drawn out discussions at a parochial church council about changing the vestry light bulb or repairing the gutters? I have often had the thought that man is collectively a stupid and bestial species, and brilliance and creativity can only come from individuals. I tend to think along those lines, but creativity and social organisation are two different things. The man who has gone through the process of individuation in the Jungian meaning of that word will tend to have as little to do with corporate structures and accept them merely as a necessary constraint!

I have a handy little volume in my library, Newman’s On consulting the faithful in matters of doctrine, from The Rambler, vol. I, new series, Part II, July 1859, pp. 198-230 – published by Collins (London) in 1986. More than half this volume of only 118 pages is dedicated to John Coulson’s introduction, and Newman’s writing begins only from page 53. Here I shall summarise a few ideas from Coulson’s introduction and go off at a tangent into some reflections.

This question of the role of the laity in the Church's profession of faith and development of her theological reflection, for Newman, goes together with the theory on doctrinal development, the hermeneutic of continuity as the present Pope calls it. He attached importance to the role of the laity, something – as we have seen – can cut two ways. We live in a time when we are dogged by excesses and abuses of democracy in the Church, unlike Newman’s time, when the Church was perceived like an absolute Monarchy with an absolute Pope who “felt infallible” and said to a dumbfounded Dominican Cardinal La Tradizione son’io (I am Tradition). To appreciate the spirit that reigned in the second half of the nineteenth century, do a Google search for “sedevacantists” and other tendencies of traditionalist Catholics, peppered with a good dose of conspiracy theories and the kind of stuff I read only a couple of days ago in a comment right here on this blog. I for one am not prepared to go into those butt-head questions.

In those days, Newman’s ideas colluded to an extent with those liberals who were influenced by Auguste Compte, Darwin, other offspring from the Enlightenment and liberalism. To the intransigents, Newman must have appeared as a fledgling Modernist! Döllinger also had his grain of salt to add through his friendship with Lord Acton. What seems to be the issue for Newman is not having meetings with numbers of lay people to see how they would like to modify the Church’s teachings at whim, but rather a notion of encouraging intellectually talented lay people to study theology and have a role in influencing the clergy.

There is an event that was of great significance to Newman, his meeting with Archbishop Ullathorne in 1859. Newman was forthright with his view that he found the Irish folk too docile. Ullathorne asked “Who are the laity?”, to which Newman answered to the effect of saying that the Church would look foolish without them. The real issue for Newman was the sense of frustration of being a convert, above all an intellectual in a Church ruled by despotic clergy lording it over a mass of indifferent or superstitious laity. Without some intellectual formation, it takes little to sway people to Protestantism or, in our own times, atheism.

Churches have become “democratic” over time since the beginning of the twentieth century, and we see the same results: secularised liturgies, female clergy, the LGBT agenda, divorce and remarriage, contraception and abortion, and many more things. Did all these things come from the deepest concerns of the laity, or were they clerical in origin and disguised to look like lay agendas? This is what we see in the Anglican Communion, the Union of Utrecht and the more liberal quarters of western Catholicism. Yet, in our experience, lay people are often doggedly and intransigently conservative. Does the infallibility of the body of the Church extend beyond the Pope and the College of Bishops, to ordinary priests and the people?

How is the common accord of the laity ascertained without its being “tainted” by clerical manipulation? In history, it was often the laity who brought the Church out of heresies like Arianism, and Newman gives other examples from the Church’s history. Newman came out with the disturbing statement that there was a temporary suspense of the functions of the teaching Church, since the body of the Bishops in speaking variously, one against another, failed in their confession of the faith. There are times in the history when the Church is “eclipsed”. I have read this sort of thing from certain kinds of traditionalist Catholics who believe (or deduce from false reasoning) there has been no real Pope since 1958, but the discussion is obviously not at the same level. What Newman was saying that when things went badly wrong with the functions of the Pope and the bishops, it was for the faithful to express their faith and loyalty to Tradition. The faithful together are a deposit of faith through the consensus of faith at an intuitive and instinctive level.

I have always been impressed by Newman’s saying that the Church is better off with enthusiastic support from the laity, and not the laity in a state of subjection, “implicit faith” and blind obedience,  “which in the educated classes will terminate in indifference and in the poorer in superstition”. I do think that this alienation of the laity, not only the popular classes, but also the university-educated bourgeoisie, led to the massive reaction of after World War II of the laity, the parochial clergy and religious against the high clergy. People do appreciate being treated as adults. Here in Europe, I see that the alienation of the faithful from the Church is almost total, about 95% and almost that proportion in other countries too. There are evidently lay people and lay people, ordinary folk and “clericalised” people who are for all intents and purposes clerics, but simply not ordained!

Newman is often perceived as a Romantic dreamer with little practical or pastoral sense. The evidence points to this view as being mistaken. He saw his ministry other than that of the Sacraments as essentially one of raising the intellectual level of the laity, at least the bourgeoisie. This would bring about a sense of collaboration and co-responsibility between clergy and laity.

All that sounds wonderful in theory. Here in France, country parishes are run by groups of laity, mostly of a certain age and formed in the various lay movements of the 1950’s. I have seen them form cliques of a clericalism that far exceeds the tyranny of the most self-important priests and bishops. This can only bring me to the conclusion that the lay faithful are naturally liberal and progressive, they have been manipulated into an ideology that does not represent the laity or Newman’s whole idea is wrong and the Church essentially consists of the clergy. I am certainly at odds trying to discern the essential character of the laity other than the fact that it is nearly totally alienated from religious practice in a classical parochial setting.

One phenomenon has grown in our midst since Newman’s time, that of dialectical thinking: either / or, one extreme against the other to produce progress. To an extent, the thesis antithesis synthesis of Hegel is not wrong when seen to operate in history. It perfectly describes the oscillation between political parties at general elections between typically conservative / establishment and socialist ideologies. Pressure from socialism forces conservatism to moderate its inertia and introduce reforms to ease pressure on the poorer popular classes, and conservatism acts as a brake to stop socialism going too fast or recklessly in the deconstruction of the established order. It is the same thing in the Church. In Newman’s day, the dialectic separated and united the clergy and the laity. Today, we witness the clash between progressivism and conservatism, and like Pope Benedict XVI, I try to discern the synthesis as the warring extremes alienate me.

The class struggle of Marx is largely based on Hegelian dialectics, as the Nazi “struggle” (Mein Kampf) was based on Nietzsche’s nihilism but also to some extent also on Hegel. We cannot eliminate such dialectics, as they are present in nature. There is conflict between fair weather and rain, summer and winter, the predator and the prey, global warming and cooling conditioned by the activity of the sun and other cosmic events, and so forth. We can, however, transcend them and seek the synthesis in Christ, in a high and elevated vision. This is the challenge for us Christians in our transfiguration and rising above the brute mechanistic forces of fallen nature. We cannot deny the existence of these dialectics, but we can try to live above them through creation and the aristocracy of the spirit – the same freedom as Oscar Wilde found as he languished in a cell at Reading Prison before catching a boat to France at the earliest opportunity.

Newman witnessed an excess in the power of the clergy, between the height of Ultramontanism and Irish priests playing little tin gods. We in our time see the clergy manipulated by ideologically-driven groups of lay people and political correctness. When will the madness end? The answer is that it will not. It is for each one of us as persons to exercise our creativity and to beat the mechanism, that humanity may triumph over Leviathan, even if only for a short time. Will we see a return to the nineteenth century and its clericalism against which the anti-clericals fought? I doubt it, in our lifetimes, and am reasonably optimistic that what is left of Christendom will find a new via media in the foreseeable future.

Pope Benedict XVI may only be with us another year, perhaps another five or ten. I would like to see him live to 100 years, but this seems unlikely. I feel that his pontificate may prove to be merely a brief respite like the restoration of Catholicism in England under Queen Mary in the mid sixteenth century before Queen Bess kicked out Sarum and English Catholicism once again. Perhaps, the next Pope will tell us that the party’s over and we will go back to the 1970’s and combine reinforced clerical celibacy with Orwellian dystopia and joyless liturgies with the beaming smile of a new Bugnini! That Pope would then have to set up in Argentina or Brazil, since Europe would have even less interest in that than our joyful Benedictine respite! I have no more idea of the future than anyone else, and the future is not ours. However, dystopia can be with us or as far away as utopia.

Ordinariate Anglicans and cradle Catholics will weather the same storm as our forefathers and our great grandchildren. Rose vestments precede Good Friday, and the bareness and desolation of the seemingly perpetual Holy Saturday are followed by Easter and Pentecost.

The more I think about all these things, the more I realise that there is no human solution to create something good that will last for more than a few short decades, about the time of an average person’s life span. I have more faith in the creative abilities of individual persons in composing music, writing philosophy and literature, painting, sculpting, designing machines and works of civil engineering, science, technology, looking after a parish and its people, getting on with our ordinary lives. Collectivities have to be tolerated, as personhood is defined by relationship and love for others. As John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”.

This is the Mystery of the Church, participating in the Redeemer’s acts and in God’s divinity, but yet living with man’s sins and shortcomings that can go as far as eclipsing the Mystery behind stupidity and iniquity. Such is the way it has always been and always will be this side of Eternity.

We might as well make of it what we can, but let’s be down to earth about it!

* * *

Update: I would like to draw your attention to a highly appropriate article on the Young Fogey's blog – Liberal Clericalism. Contemporary with Newman, we find the shining example of the Curé d'Ars:

In a world of rusty and broken clericalisms, he [the Curé d’Ars] restored a shining sacerdotalism; if a clericalist is a man who uses the priesthood, a sacerdotalist is a man who is used by the priesthood. And thus the hierarchical constitution of the Church is a bureaucratic artifact to the clericalist, while it is charismatic to the priest. The clericalist pursues a career of which mediocrity is the safeguard, while the sacerdotalist pursues a mission of which ardent love is the token. Consequently, the priestly soul is in the world but not of it, as the clericalist caste is of the world but not in it.

Lay domination is as clerical as domination by clerics. What makes the difference is a Christ-like understanding of the priesthood and a real understanding of what it is to be a lay Christian. I savour that last sentence of the quote above, which can also apply to the devout lay man or woman:

The priestly soul is in the world but not of it, as the clericalist caste is of the world but not in it.