What happened to conversions?

Over on Rorate Caeli I've been talking about the meaning of the statistics the LMS has collected on Catholic marriages; there's also article on our research in the print edition of the Catholic Herald out today, on p3. There is just so much to say about these statistics it is impossible to cover them all in a single post: here I'll say something about adult conversions (coyly renamed 'receptions' in the statistics for 1976 and thereafter). In another post I'll have a look at baptisms.

England and Wales has a special place in the world-wide Church, I think, as constantly refreshed by converts, to an extent far greater than in other countries. For long stretches of time Catholic life here has been dominated by converts, men like Newman and Wiseman in the 19th century, or Chesterton and Knox in the 20th, or indeed St Edmund Campion in penal times. One of the remarkable things about the statistics from before the Council is the scale of conversions.

 
Between the start of the series, in 1912, and 1960, 534,117 people were received into the Church, not counting those received in 1942, for which data were never published (probably in the region of another 10,000). Well over half a million people. People were talking about the 'conversion of England', and it wasn't hot air. Those are the kinds of numbers which actually make a demographic impact. Remember, the population of England and Wales was only 32.5 million at the 1931 census, and 43.8 million in 1951 (there wasn't a census in 1941.)

If you look at the graph expressed per 1,000 Catholics, the achievement of the interwar years is even more impressive. Fr Martindale and his like, hardly remembered today, were truly the St Francis Xaviers of their day.


However you look at it, something truly horrible happened between 1960 and 1970. The number of conversions declined by about three quarters, and assumed a plateau at this new, abysmal level. It is as if the Church shifted from one gear to another, an effect far more dramatic than the disruption caused by the Second World War.

Now, there were certain changes in the Church in the 1960s and early 70s, to say the least. They shook up the existing Catholic community, who were presumably often set in their ways. They were designed, however, to make the Church more attractive to outsiders. As Pope Paul VI wrote in Evangelii nuntiandi (1975):

'... on this tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, the objectives of which are definitively summed up in this single one: to make the Church of the twentieth century ever better fitted for proclaiming the Gospel to the people of the twentieth century.'

Well, it didn't work.

One aspect of what we see, of course, is the lessening of the phenomenon of 'marriage converts'. Catholics were no longer taught that marrying a non-Catholic was seriously problematic, and that dispensations to marry a non-Catholic were not a mere formality. Some people think this is a good thing, on the basis that any kind of incentive to become a Catholic (such as wanting marry one) undermines the purity of the motive to convert.

This is a truly silly and deeply unCatholic attitude, however. All sorts of things stimulate conversions, and are designed to do so: should we deliberately put people off the Faith, so they have to struggle more to join? One does hear that sort of idea expressed, but it is not what the Saints did: they tried to attract the flies with honey. We should also remember the great social pressure not to become Catholic, up to and including the 1950s. Let's hear it from the great Fr Bryan Houghton, speaking in persona of his fictional Bishop Forrester, but certainly from his own pre-1970 pastoral experience.

'In the odd twenty years that I had cure of souls, either as curate or parish priest, I doubt if I ever received fewer that ten converts a year into the Church. I loved them. Along with the Eternal Truths I gave them all I had to offer. I never talked down to them, no matter how simple they were. The human mind can absorb infinitely more that it can rationalize and explain. How wonderful they were and how I admired them! ...
     'I suppose rather over half, say 60%, were "marriage converts". They were often among the best. Human love seems a natural introduction to divine love. In those days, the Catholic knew he had something to give and the non-Catholic something to receive. It was right and proper that the wedding ring should be set with the Pearl of Great Price. And the heroism of so many of those marriage converts! Not only were they cut off from their families (a more tragic situation in the working than in the educated classes), but they undertook willingly to obey the marriage laws. "I am only a marriage convert, Father"; my dear, you could be nothing more noble.'
(Mitre and Crook (1979) pp85-6)

Most of Fr Houghton's experience was garnered as Parish Priest of Bury St Edmunds in East Anglia (from 1955 to 1970), a part of England with an exceptionally low number of Catholics. There, one might assume, there would be more Catholics marrying non-Catholics, or converts, than in places of higher Catholic density, such as Lancashire or the Irish community in London. Supposing, then, not 60% but half of all conversions in England and Wales over this period were 'marriage converts', that would mean a bride or groom had converted in about a quarter of the weddings taking place over the period 1913-1960, a figure which is striking but not totally implausible.

Suppose, then, we halve the number of conversions recorded in 1959, and compare this reduced figure with the total for 1973 (after the gap in the series of Directories): what then? Well, then we get a decline of 27%. In other words, even if we took the insane view that, because of marriage converts not being sincere, the pre-1960 figures are inflated by 100%, we are still looking at a huge decline in conversions.

Has the new policy of granting dispensations to marry non-Catholics without quibble, and of not encouraging young people to seek partners from the household of the Faith, been a roaring success? I don't have numbers for divorces and annulments, but I think it is pretty obvious that this policy has been a disaster. The 'pastoral' policy, as so often, has created a pastoral nightmare.

Sodality and Confraternity

St Augustine of Hippo

Some time ago I advertised the Latin Mass Society's new Sodality of St Augustine, which prays for lapsed and non-Catholic family and friends of Sodality members. The response has been very pleasing, and it has 134 members. We will shortly be advertising a public Mass for the Sodality's intention. See here for more information and to join.

I also wrote a series of posts about the lay apostolate: why we need a new type of organisation for the new needs of Catholics: the Confraternity of St Gregory.

The point of this is that it maintains the tradition of the old parish groups, of having face-to-face meetings of members, especially for prayer together. But it does so in a form which is not too demanding for the people who might otherwise be able to join: so not weekly or monthly, but quarterly, and in a format which can be combined with attendance at existing LMS events, such as pilgrimages. This enables it to work at a regional and national level, not one the parish or '30-minutes drive' level. At the more local level, there just aren't enough people for it to work.

Since the point of the Confraternity is to meet others and pray together, we need a critical mass of expressions of interest before we can launch it. We haven't got there quite yet, so I am repeating my appeal in the latest Mass of Ages and on this blog.

If you want to do a bit more than the bare minimum, if you feel that getting to Mass each Sunday is not giving you the sense of community and common purpose which you would like, then you have the same sort of feelings that our predecessors had going back to the earliest times. They added to their round of religious obligations membership of all sorts of Guilds, Sodalities, and Confraternities; these groups made considerable achievements in supporting parish life, schools, in care for the poor, and in enabling Catholic culture to flourish; some ended up owning property, others had an important political dimension. We need something like that today: of course we do, it is needed in every age and every region of the world.

Pope St Gregory the Great

There are groups which do good work in England and Wales today which fulfil some of the functions of the old associations, but they tend not to do so from the basis of a shared spirituality. This means that, however pious their members, their organisation works essentially like a secular group. This misses out a central component of Catholic activism. What Catholics attached to the Traditional Mass need is a group based around that Mass.

So please enquire about the Confraternity of St Gregory; the LMS Office will send you more information and register your interest if you email

info@lms.org.uk

Sung Sunday EF Mass in Oxford for Pentecost

In the Church of SS Gregory and Augustine's, Woodstock Road, Oxford, at 12 noon.

The Golden Thread of Faith: EWTN series sponsored by the LMS

The Latin Mass Society is the sponsor and co-producer of a new three-part series on the Catholic Faith in Wales. The series includes footage of the LMS Pilgrimage to Holwell last year, which was led by Bishop Rifan of Campos, Brazil.

It will be broadcast from 10th June; in due course the LMS will be able to sell DVDs of the series. Here's the EWNT schedule for that day.

I've seen an early draft of it, it is both fun and informative. 

Queen Boudicea: makes an appearance

The Golden Thread of Faith
Part 1 From Roman times to the Age of Saints 
A new docudrama series about the Catholic Church in Wales. In part one, the Roman conquest of Britain and how Christianity spread among the Romans and Britons. After the Romans left, Christians travelled around the western seas evangelising as they went.

Monday 10, 2:00, 9:00, 21:00 (30 mins) 

Part 2 From the Age of Saints to the Reformation 

St Richard Gwyn, Welsh martyr & LMS patron

For a thousand years the Catholic Church in Wales was vibrant, the village church and the great abbeys were the centres of Welsh life, an age when Wales placed Christianity at the heart of its existence.

Tuesday 11, 2:00, 9:00, 21:00. (30 mins) 

Part 3 From the Reformation to the Present Day Pilgrims 
King Henry VIII’s unwelcomed “Reformation”, the dissolution of the monasteries, Welsh recusants, Civil wars, the Titus Oats plot and the Welsh martyrs. Today Welsh Catholics can once again practice their faith and go on pilgrimages.

Wednesday 12, 2:00, 14:00, 21:00. (30 mins)

Universae Ecclesiae and the Office: a reply to Mgr Wadsworth

Can priests mix and match the old and new Breviaries?

Mgr Andrew Wadsworth, very much a friend of the Traditional Mass (and the Latin Mass Society) and recently most famous as Executive Director of ICEL, and a key person in the preparation of the new translation of the 1970 Missal, raised an interesting question about wording of Universae Ecclesiae on the 1962 Office, in the comments on my post about our new translation of Universae Ecclesiae.

Mgr Wadsworth was Assistant Priest to Bishop Arnold at the LMS' AGM Mass in 2009; he's on the left.

He wrote:

This project is an excellent idea and a real opportunity to consider how some of the provisions of this important document can be applied.

I'm not sure that your literal translation of para 32 supports the idea that those bound to the recitation of the office may use either one form or the other at whim. While we understand that it is always possible to fulfil this obligation by assisting at isolated celebrations such as Vespers, Compline, Matins or one of the little hours in either form, I think this clarifiction is actually to ensure that combinations of the two forms are not habitually used on a daily basis.

For instance, I would imagine that the injuction "quidem integre et Latino sermone" suggests that it is not licit for a priest to pray Office of Readings everyday from the Liturgia horarum and then to say the days hours from the Breviarium Romanum. In this way, the integrity of the day's office would be continually compromised and the basic principle of praying of the whole psalter rendered continually impossible (in either form). A person who is not obliged to the entire office obviously has greater liberty. 

The Latinists who prepared the translation have replied as follows.

Latinist number 1: My view is that each of the two interpretations is technically 'probable'; and that, accordingly, one can invoke the principle that a lex dubia does not constrain.

The idea that one might lawfully mix up the two uses is supported by Laudis Canticum of Paul VI, 1970, giving bishops the power to allow priests with age-related or other problems "Breviarium Romanum, quod antea in usu erat, sive ex toto siveex parte retinere". So, even if Mgr Wadsworth is right, all a priest who wishes to oscillate between the uses needs to do is to get a faculty from his bishop under the Pauline legislation!

Latinist number 2:

Universae ecclesiae, s. 32:

Omnibus clericis conceditur facultas recitandi Breviarium Romanum ....., et quidem integre et Latino sermone.

Vat trans: ...gives clerics the faculty to use the Breviarium Romanum in effect in 1962, which is to be prayed entirely and in the Latin language.


'Slavish' trans: To all clerics is granted the faculty of reciting the Roman Breviary of the year 1962 ....., and, what is more, entirely and in the Latin language.

The meaning of s. 32 depends on quidem. The force, to me, seems to be: “and indeed they may use it entirely and do so in Latin.” “May use”, because we are talking of a faculty, not a requirement. Quidem can mean “certainly” (L & S, II), and seems to be intended to remove any doubt that might exist whether clerics can use it all and nothing but, and are not required to say the occasional hour in the OF or in the vernacular. But it does not seem to stop clerics doing the latter if they wish.

Yet I concede that quidem (L & S, B.2) can accompany a qualificative or opposing thought: “but, yet, however”. In this case the clause could be interpreted in a restrictive sense- “it’s all, and in Latin, or nothing”.“Quidem” is untranslated in the Vatican version, except perhaps by implication. “What is more” is intended to bring out the generosity of the concession, not to make it more restrictive – and this in a document whose entire purpose is surely to be generous. 

Latinist number 2: 
I am tempted to write “obviously” for “quidem”: - you don’t need some kind of extra permission to recite the whole thing in the EF rather than just part of it, or to use Latin rather than the vernacular, though (if you wanted) you could do part of it only, and in the vernacular. For this nuance, how about the Preface for Easter? - Te quidem Dne omni tempore sed in hoc... “Given that it is you, Lord, that we are talking about, it is “obviously” right that we preach you all the time, but all the more so now...”

Nevertheless, if I am wrong, and Mgr Wadsworth is right to suggest that the legislator wished to be restrictive, it seems to me that the legislator has not managed so to express himself (and then lex dubia non obligat). For he could very easily have been clearer: dummodo officium totius diei recitent integrum et solo Latino sermone, or the like.Mgr Wadsworth’s point that a carte blanche to mix the EF and OF offices would compromise the integrity of the day’s office is reasonable enough. On the other hand a priest who daily says the EF mass and recites the OF office (or, for that matter, vice versa) would also be doing this – and this is certainly allowed by the legislator.

Video on the Family Retreat

Creating videos like this is a new venture for the Latin Mass Society. It makes a good advertisement for our work.
One Weekend in April: The St. Catherine's Trust Family Retreat, April 2013 from LMS on Vimeo.

The Ancient Lectionary

Today I'm publishing a Position Paper for the Una Voce Federation on the Lectionary. Go over to Rorate Caeli to read it. And don't forget to visit the magazine Laudamus Te, which is very kindly printing a shortened version of the paper on celebration 'ad orientem', and needs our support.

As I remark there, the claim is often made that the lectionary of the 1970 Missal is an obvious improvement on the old one, on the simple basis that more is better, and the 1970 Missal has more scripture in it. Clearly, however, there are other considerations. First and foremost, the lectionary must make sense liturgically: if we understand that, we will understand the value of the old lectionary,  in the context of the old Mass, and why it should be preserved. To replace it with the new lectionary, as if the lectionaries can just be swapped in and out of rites, would be a disaster for the Traditional Mass.

One of the five extra readings on an Ember Saturday, celebrated in Caversham

In the Traditional Mass, the readings of each Mass are connected with the other proper prayers and chants of that Mass. There is a series of Sundays (some of the ones After Pentecost) in which, for historical reasons, the gospels have got out of sync with the other propers by one week; because of the nature of the progression of texts this doesn't matter very much. What we never have, however, in the Traditional Mass is a set of readings with absolutely no connection with the chants or prayers, and that is something which is inevitable with a multi-year cycle of readings, unless it were accompanied by the multi-year cycle of prayers and chants. But, obviously, there aren't enough appropriate ancient prayers and chants to go round. (This, of course, is part of the story of why, in the Ordinary Form, the chants are a sort of optional extra, which don't seem very closely connected with the other liturgical texts.) Imposing a multi-year cycle of Sunday readings on the EF would destroy the coherence of its propers.

Another suggestion often made is that we should have a cycle of readings for the ferias outside Lent. There were, once, such cycles (though only for three days each week), so it might even seem a 'traditional' thing to do. Before trying to restore things from the distant past (in the Roman Rite, this cycle disappeared in about 13th Century), we should ask why things developed as they did. The answer is, probably (there is no record of a debate, this is one of those things which just happened), that with the rich sanctoral cycle, and the increasing use of Votive Masses, the ferial cycle didn't get much use outside Lent, so it was pretty pointless. If we want to reverse this development, we have to reverse the whole of it: we have to impoverish the sanctoral cycle, and get rid of Votive Masses. Or else render them liturgically incoherent by insisting on readings with no connection with the theme of those Masses. Is that something we really want to do?

Why not say, with Pope Pius XII, that what happened was an organic development which made the liturgy answer the developing needs of the Faithful? And that our needs are pretty well the same: we need the sactoral cycle, because we have lots of saints to celebrate, and we need Votive Masses, because we have lots of devotions to maintain. These two things, the saints and devotions, are major parts of Catholic life and spirituality, and have been since roughly the period in which the ferial cycle dropped out of use. It's not a coincidence.

Here's Pius XII, again:
Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation. 

This is all not to say that we can't increase our liturgical exposure to the scriptures. There are a couple of suggestions in the paper which deal with this, notably that, in line with the Second Vatican Council, the recitation of the Divine Office be encouraged. The readings of Sunday Matins are, in fact, closely connected with the readings of the Sunday, and serve as a liturgically coherent expansion and commentary on them. This would be a better outlet for our liturgical zeal than reducing the ancient liturgy to a shambles in the attempt to shoehorn more Gospel passages into it.

Where have I been?

I have been busy. I'm not quite ready to publish my findings, but I will be soon.