Ivereigh: what makes you think Christ wasn't gay?

My latest on LifeSiteNews.

Having only just written for LifeSiteNews about the tweets of Austen Ivereigh, I would not wish to return to the subject but for the extraordinary nature of the latest. Bear in mind that this man has been the Director of Public Affairs for the late Cardinal Murphy O’Connor, was a founder of the Catholic media organization “Catholic Voices,” and has written a biography of Pope Francis: he is what you might call a “professional Catholic.”

Discussing the latest claims about priests working in the Vatican who are homosexual, Ivereigh suggests:

The issue, as the priests make clear, isn’t celibacy and chastity, but having to hide who they are. The denial makes it impossible to live the vow in freedom. That’s what they’re saying.

This is a convenient argument for someone who wants to say that the Church has made homosexuality into a problem by her negative teachings about it. Get rid of the teachings, and you’d get rid of the problem!

A Twitter user replied, in Spanish (this is the Google translation):

They must serve God and his people without the entanglement of manifesting or hiding a hidden tendency. The priests, I believe, must be heterosexual. They act in persona Christi. And I do not think our Lord had homosexual tendencies.

To this Ivereigh replied, in Spanish (again, this is the Google translation any Twitter user can access at the click of a button: it is perfectly accurate):

Why do you say that our Lord did not have homosexual tendencies? From what signs or sayings or gestures do you deduce this?

It is typical of Ivereigh to make a point with a question. It allows him some plausible deniability over whether he believes in the implications of his question.

So I am not going to claim that Ivereigh thinks that Christ had homosexual tendencies. The implication of his rhetorical question is rather that the conforming to Christ required of priests does not involve, even ideally, a sexual identity which is not disordered: or, rather, the claim that homosexuality is not a disordered sexuality.

Carry on reading.

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Is Muller an anti-pope?

Silly question, of course, but that's what Austen Ivereigh suggested on Twitter.

My latest on LifeSiteNews:

Gerhard, Cardinal Müller, until recently the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)—the third most senior Prelate in the Church—recently published what he called a Manifesto of Faith. It consists of quotations and paraphrases of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and avoids the hot-button issues of the moment. There is nothing in it about divorce, about receiving Communion in a state of mortal sin, about homosexuality, or about Capital Punishment. Müller is well-known as a friend and collaborator with the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez: he is not exactly a theological conservative from Central Casting. 

Reading this document I wondered why, if he didn’t want to say anything directly related to the current doctrinal crisis in the Church, he had bothered to pick up his pen. The reaction to his Manifesto, however, made me think again. 

Austen Ivereigh, Pope Francis’ biographer and a key member of “Team Francis”, the self-appointed interpreters and defenders of the Pope, was enraged. He condemned Müller's Manifesto in a tweet:

A naked power play. Declare a state of confusion, then promote yourself as the one to “resolve” it. In implying that a former Vatican bureaucrat needs to step in to fill a supposed vacuum, you delegitimise the papal magisterium. And confuse the faithful. 

Carry on reading.

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Sung Dominican Rite Mass in St Dominic's, Haverstock Hill

I was privileged to sing at a beautiful Dominican Rite Mass in London last Saturday, which opened a 'Retreat' organised by the New Evangelisation Committee of the Catholic Medical Association: Joseph Nunan indefatigable team. The Mass was sponsored by the Latin Mass Society.

Voice of the Family Conference in Cardiff in September

I'm very happy to publicise this event.

Proposed Regina Caeli Academy in Bedford: Open Day

I'm happy to pass on the news of this event to anyone who might be interested. You can sign up at their Eventbrite page.

Please join us for an Open Day for the forthcoming Regina Caeli Academy, launching in September 2019.

This is a chance to experience RCA UK first hand - you can meet the RCA UK Tutors and Board, hear from two Directors from RCA in the US and a priest from our chaplaincy, the Fraternity of St. Peter, and see the layout, books and uniform.

There will also be a Q&A session and the chance to sign up for RCA in September 2019!

1:15 Welcome and Introductions.

1:30 Meet the tutors and directors, and see how RCA UK will operate.

2:30 pm Mrs. Kari Beckman and Mrs. Collette Balmer: Regina Caeli in the U.S. - Classical Education in a Hybrid Academy.

3:15pm Fr. Patrick O'Donohue, FSSP: RCA and the mission of Catholic Education in the U.K.

3:30pm Questions and Answers.

4:15pm Close, Next Steps and Enrollment Options

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What are Side-Chapels for?

Our Lady of Sorrows, appearing to gesticulate in horror at the sculpture deposited in her chapel.

The famous Jesuit Church, the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, in London, is richly decorated, and boasts many exquisite side-chapels. One can imagine Lady Julia Flyte popping in to one of them to pray before her chat with her Jesuit spiritual director in Brideshead Revisited, as many Catholics must have done over the Church’s 150 years of use. In one of these, dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, I found, on a recent visit, a life-size park bench rendered in bronze, and on it, an equally brazen blanket covering a sleeping figure. This “Homeless Jesus” sculpture, of which there are copies in cities around the world, has found its way there because Westminster Council refused permission for it to be installed near London’s Houses of Parliament.

Whatever one thinks about this object as a sculpture, a striking fact about its current London home, where it has now been blessed by the Nuncio, is that it makes it impossible for Mass to be celebrated in this chapel. It suggests that the Jesuits of Farm Street have no idea what to do with their side chapels. They are not alone. If they are not simply neglected, one finds them in many churches cluttered with information displays or used for storage. Almost nowhere are they used for Mass.

Why, one might ask, were they built in the first place? To make possible the celebration of private Masses simultaneously by different priests. This would naturally happen in a church served by several priests, when two or more of them did not have a public Mass to say on a given day. They will, obviously, wish to celebrate Mass, and may well wish to do so at the same time, say before breakfast. That would be natural, wouldn’t it?

Server Training: this Saturday in London

A reminder that there will be a training day for servers at St Mary Moorfields in London this Saturday, 16th, with enrollments into our Servers' sodality, the Society of St Tarcisius.

The day starts at 10:30am and should conclude by 4:30pm. All the details are here, including about the next two training days later in the spring: 9th March and 11th May.

The church is here.

Email tarcisius@lms.org.uk if you want to attend.

I'm delighted to say that the medals we commissioned for the Society of St Tarcisius have arrived, which makes enrollments possible. And they look great. We will be using different coloured cords to indicate ranks in the Society.

Naturally we had in mind the precedent set by the venerable Confraternity of St Stephen with their distinctive servers' medal: although ours is quite different in design, it is a comparable size.

I was shocked to discover, recently, examples of the Confraternity medal made of plastic in a local sacristy. Is this a new thing? The example I have (left behind at last year's Summer School and not reclaimed), is at least made of metal.

In any case, the Society of St Tarcisius, while inspired by the original ideals of the Confraternity, is exclusively committed to the Traditional Latin Mass, and the service of the Altar by boys and men. On Saturday, and at future training events, a priest (in this case Fr Gabriel Diaz) will bless medals and officiate at the service of enrollment.

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