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Thursday, November 30, 2023
Requiem for the Catholic Military Association

Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Bishop Schneider in Milton Keynes

Last Sunday Bishop Schneider celebrated Mass in Milton Keynes. This was part of a trip organised by Catholic Voice, a newspaper based in Ireland. As news of the Mass spread, it became clear that the local churches would be too small, so it took place--with the approval of the bishop and the parish priest--in a school hall, with a remarkable portable altar.

It was a Pontifical Low Mass, and the Latin Mass Society sponsored polyphonic motets to accompany it. Following Mass Bishop Schneider gave a talk in the same venue.
Saturday, November 18, 2023
Who is to blame for lapsations? Me in Crisis magazine
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Closer than most young Catholics will ever get to the Traditional Mass. LMS Annual Mass in Bedford in honour of Our Lady of Guadalupe. |
Every now and then we read on social media about a Catholic lapsing from the practice of the Faith, or apostatizing—transferring allegiance to some grouping not in communion with the Holy See. This is always a tragedy. As St. Peter said to Christ when some disciples left Him because of His teaching on the Eucharist, “Thou hast the message of eternal life” (John 6:68).
There are many reasons why people leave, and it is something which has happened on a truly apocalyptic scale in recent decades, starting in the 1970s, in Europe and North America. It is depressingly predictable that many Catholic commentators display very little curiosity about why it has been happening, until they think they have found a way to use it as a stick to beat an opponent. This is what happened to Eric Sammons on Twitter/X when he shared the content of an email he had received by someone who had left for the Orthodox Church.
Not only do many of Sammons’s respondents show no compassion for the man in question, or understanding of the factors which influenced his decision, but they contrive to blame Sammons, and the Traditional movement in general, for what happened. Their argument seems to go like this: the guy complains about poor liturgy; therefore, the people who recognize that liturgy is indeed often poor and want to improve it must have influenced him into thinking that liturgy is important enough to leave the Church over. The same goes for his other complaints: effeminacy, the lack of “challenge,” the impression that even some priests don’t believe in the Real Presence, and so on. If we address these concerns by trying to improve things, we are part of the problem because we are admitting that some aspects of Church life could be improved.
Saturday, November 11, 2023
Annual Mass of Reparation for Abortion in Bedford: photos

The Latin Mass Society began this Mass following the tragic abortion referendum in Ireland. The Church of the Holy Child & St Joseph, Bedford houses the national shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the pro-life movement.

Wednesday, November 08, 2023
Sewing Retreat: photos
Tuesday, November 07, 2023
Talk on the Latin Mass and the Intellectuals
Monday, November 06, 2023
Book launch: The Latin Mass and the Intellectuals, 9th Nov
(Reposted) I delighted to announce the launch of
The Latin Mass and the Intellectuals:
Petitions to Save the ancient Mass from 1966 to 2007
Preface
by Martin Mosebach
With contributions from Leo Darroch, Fr Gabriel Díaz-Patri, Philip Maxence, Sebastian Morello, Matthew Schellhorn, and Erik Tonning
In due course it will be available from Arouca Press (in the USA) and the Latin Mass Society shop (in the UK), and Amazon: see my author page.
I introduced it in Rome, at the Pax Liturgia Conference, Friday 27th October.
The London launch will take place at the St Wilfrid Hall, London Oratory SW7 2RP
As you know, I have many friends in the world who are artists, poets, authors, editors, etc. Now they are well able to appreciate our chant and even our Latin. But they are all, without exception, scandalized and grieved when I tell them that probably this Office, this Mass will no longer be here in ten years. And that is the worst. The monks cannot understand this treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when seculars, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this incomparable art.
Monday, October 23, 2023
Oxford Pilgrimage 2023: photos

Friday, October 20, 2023
Oxford Pilgrimage Saturday 21
High Mass in the Dominican Rite in the Priory Church of the Holy Spirit, Blackfriars
St Giles, OX1 3LY, at 11am. Accompanied by polyphony from the Newman Consort.
This is followed, after a break for lunch, by a procession to one of the sites of Martyrdom in the city at 2pm. This is followed by Benediction at Blackfriars.
Do join us! We even have a gallows at the site of the martyrdoms.
Wednesday, October 04, 2023
Westminster Cathedral: in Crisis magazine
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The Kiss of Peace at a Pontifical Mass following the LMS AGM in 2019 |
"The Cathedral was packed with people, many standing all down the aisles, in the galleries, and at the back of the Church. It was a most impressive celebration and astonished the foreign visitors by the beauty of the church, the music, and the intense devotion of the congregation. We could not have hoped for a more triumphant assembly.… There were representatives from Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and other places."
This is a description by Geoffrey Houghton-Brown, my predecessor as Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, of the first Traditional Mass to be celebrated in Westminster Cathedral after the liturgical reform, on Saturday, June 17, 1972.
...
One of the many puzzles of Traditionis Custodes and subsequent documents is whether it is seeking to marginalize traditional Catholics or to integrate them. The radicalization of traditional Catholics that it condemns, fairly or not, is the predictable result of marginalization. The “parallel Church,” which it decries, develops when one group suffers marginalization. But the solution being put forward is also marginalization.
...
The policy of Traditionis Custodes is not a policy founded on hope, like Pope Benedict’s hope for the enrichment of the Church by the ancient liturgy. It is, instead, fearful of the future, fearful of young Catholics and the changes they may bring. It is a policy that “stands athwart history yelling Stop.”
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Preparing to process out of the sacristy, Annual Requiem 2016. Photo by John Aron. |
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Westminster Cathedral and the Traditional Mass: in the Catholic Herald
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The Annual Requiem in 2016. I'd forgotten I'd been on the serving team on that occasion. Photo by John Aron. |
The Latin Mass Society has been informed that the Traditional Latin Mass may no longer be celebrated at the High Altar of Westminster Cathedral, as is has been twice a year since 1972. With a break for Covid, there have therefore been about 100 such Masses over fifty years. The next one would have been a Requiem Mass on 4 November.
A monthly Low Mass will continue, on First Saturdays in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, but these two annual Masses are regarded as being for the Latin Mass Society, and therefore not part of the Cathedral’s pastoral provision. Many Catholic associations have Masses in the Cathedral, and over many years these ones have, indeed, served as the Society’s Annual Requiem and the Mass for our Annual General Meeting. Nevertheless, they had the same origin as the monthly Masses, as part of Cardinal Heenan’s response to the “English Indult” for the Traditional Mass, which he personally sought and gained from Pope Paul VI.
Friday, September 29, 2023
Pilgrimage, suffering, and sacred geography: for 1Peter5
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LMS Procession through the streets of Little Walsingham, in the rain. |
I recently walked the 76 miles from Cambridge to Walsingham in Norfolk, via Ely, over four days, a walk organised by the Latin Mass Society. I met most of my fellow pilgrims—for that was what they were—after the first leg, and walked with them for the remaining 57 mile: 200 people slogging along paths and roads, or looking after the walkers as drivers or cooks. Some of the young men never seemed to lose their bounce, but I think for everyone at certain points, and for a lot of us for a lot of the time, the element of suffering, of penance, dominated our feelings. After a certain point you can keep walking in a mechanical way, despite the discomfort of your feet or legs, but the discomfort remains.
Thursday, September 28, 2023
LMS Annual Requiem in Westminster Cathedral Cancelled
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LMS Annual Requiem 2018, celebrated by the retired Bishop Patrick Campbell, in Westminster Cathedral. |
28th September 2023
The Latin Mass Society has been informed that the Annual Requiem (sung, 1962 Missal) scheduled to take place at Westminster Cathedral on Saturday 4th November at 2:30pm will not take place.
The 1962 Missal will continue to be used in the Cathedral on First Saturdays at 4pm (Low Mass), including Saturday 4th November. A Sung Requiem Mass for deceased members and benefactors of the society will take place at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane on the following Monday, 6th November, at 6:30pm, accompanied by the Southwell Consort.
The Annual Requiem has taken place in consultation with the Latin Mass Society since Cardinal Heenan gained the 1971 ‘English Indult’. The series of monthly Low Masses were established at the same time. The Latin Mass Society lays a wreath on the tomb of Cardinal Heenan annually, in thanksgiving for his intervention, and this tradition will continue.
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Annual Mass in Snave: photos

Thursday, September 21, 2023
On Lying, for Catholic Answers
The Catholic tradition takes the Eighth Commandment—“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor”—extremely seriously. Strict condemnations of all kinds of lying can be found from the Fathers of the Church, notably St. Augustine (who wrote two short works on the subject), to the Doctors and the modern Magisterium. The act of lying is per se malum: it cannot rightly be done even for a good end.
One reason for this is that lying is contrary to the nature of God, who is Truth. It is of the utmost importance that we can believe what God tells us—both what he reveals about himself and what he promises to those who love and obey him—since this is the basis of the Christian life. God could permit the children of Israel to take others’ property, as when the Israelites conquered Canaan, because he is the primary owner of the whole universe. God could permit Abraham to kill Isaac, because all humans born in original sin owe God a life. But he cannot permit anyone to tell a lie.
Thursday, September 14, 2023
A short film on St Elisabeth Hesselblad: Sweden's 20th century saint
Cross-posted from Rorate Caeli.
This beautiful 30-minute was produced by EWTN's Norwegian branch, EWTN Norge, and is narrated by Dr Clemens Cavellin, a traditional Catholic academic.
Saturday, September 09, 2023
Byrd Festival in London

Monday, September 04, 2023
Walsingham Pilgrimage 2023: photos
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Photo by John Aron |
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Photo by John Aron |
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Photo by John Aron |
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Photo by John Aron |
Saturday, September 02, 2023
Iota Unum talks in London this autumn
They take place in the basement of Our Lady of the Assumption; please enter by the back entrance into the basement: 24 Golden Square, W1F 9JR near Piccadilly Tube Station (click for a map)
Doors open at 6:30pm; the talk will start at 7pm.
There will be a charge of £5 on the door to cover refreshments and other expenses.
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Henry Sire |
Support the Latin Mass Society
Tuesday, August 08, 2023
On liturgical abuses: for Catholic Answers
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Fr Alan Robinson of Corpus Christi Maiden Lane. Note what he's doing with his fingers: he has to hold forfinger and thumb together from the Consecration to the washing of his fingers after Communion. |
Sunday, August 06, 2023
St Catherine's Trust Summer School 2023

Monday, July 24, 2023
St Walburge's, Preston, with the ICKSP

Sunday, July 16, 2023
LMS AGM 2023: photos

Monday, July 10, 2023
'Sacred and Great': booklet introducing the TLM by Joseph Shaw
11-15 copies - 15% off
16-20 copies - 20% off
21-25 copies - 25% off
26+ copies - 30% off
Also available from Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk and so on, but without bulk discount option.
Saturday, July 08, 2023
Pilgrimage to Holywell: photos
Tuesday, July 04, 2023
Interview in The European Conservative
Having a large family tends to push one into a more old-fashioned approach to raising children, and away from either of the two extremes modern families fall into. One of those extremes is what we might call the ‘hippy’ model, in which you let your children do whatever they like. This is manifested in the attitude that parents should allow their children to choose for themselves what religion to have, or even how to spell. The other extreme is the ‘tiger mum’ or ‘helicopter’ model: it’s as if the parents are hovering over their children checking everything they do, and intervening if things don’t go as they want them to, and intervening in minor conflicts the child might have even when they are young adults—at university or in employment.
With a large family you can’t allow every child complete freedom, because there would quickly be conflict between the children. You also can’t try to control everything they do, since that is simply impossible. You find yourself governing a community, setting a framework for young people who have a lot of freedom but need to exercise that freedom in ways that do not impinge negatively on each other. But this is not like the liberal ideal of neutrality, since no family can be value-neutral. From the pictures on the walls to the shared activities, parents have to feed their children’s emotional and spiritual lives.
Monday, July 03, 2023
Stuart Chessman review The Liturgy, the Family, and the Crisis of Modernity
Mr. Joseph Shaw, the chairman of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales and president of the International Una Voce Federation, offers us a book of reflections on the Church and society of today and especially on the position of the Traditional Catholic Movement. Even though the author taught philosophy at Oxford University for many years, The Liturgy, the Family and the Crisis of Modernity is no abstract treatise. Our author, by virtue of his office, is squarely in the midst of the liturgical wars of today. Shaw returns again and again to the refutation of attacks launched against Traditionalists by their enemies within the Church. The Liturgy, the Family and the Crisis of Modernity serves, first of all, as a valuable arsenal of information and arguments for the Traditionalist. And this is an honorable role! Wasn’t the City of God also inspired by the need to respond to contemporary calumnies against Christians after the fall of Rome?
Shaw, however, goes far beyond the role of a controversialist. He works to understand what is happening in the Church today. In contrast to most commentators on liturgical issues, Shaw knows that the Church is embedded in history and in society. As the title of this collection of essays indicates, liturgical questions cannot be severed from other theological issues and from the daily life and experience of the faithful. This book develops these interactions and influences. Shaw sets the controversies and deviations of the moment in a broader historical, philosophical and sociological context. This deeper understanding will be necessary to the Traditionalist in the continued conflict between the Church establishment and Catholic Tradition – a struggle that may last years, decades or even generations.
Read it all there.
See more about the book here.
Tuesday, June 27, 2023
Confirmations in Warrington

Monday, June 12, 2023
How to obey the Church in the liturgy
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Maybe... like this. |
When theologians want to discern the “teaching of the Church” they may be able to pick out some “extraordinary” act of the magisterium, such as an ex cathedra definition by the Pope, but very often there isn’t one available. This being so, they go to Scripture and Tradition, as containing the Deposit of Faith: they will tell us what the Church teaches. The Fathers and Doctors are witnesses to the Tradition and also draw out its implications. This is the “ordinary” magisterium of the Church, and the ordinary way in which the Church passes on the teaching which has been entrusted to her by our Lord.
This is how, ordinarily, God has chosen to reveal Himself to us; this is how, ordinarily, the Holy Spirit speaks to the Church: through what has been passed down. When people are moved to overturn established Tradition in favor of a radical new reading of Scripture, perhaps inspired by a private revelation, we can expect to hear some heresy.
This I hope is not controversial, but when it comes to the liturgy a very different attitude often takes hold. Liturgical progressives tell us that the Spirit has called them, or is calling the entire Church, to adopt some liturgical innovation: to take just one example, consider the service of the altar by females (altar girls). This overturns a tradition of only men and boys serving at Mass going back as far as the records go, which is the late 4th century (see canon 44 of the Collection of Laodicea).
Saturday, June 10, 2023
Communion in the Hand for Catholic Answers

A perennial source of debate, and occasionally of conflict, is the way we receive Holy Communion. In this article I would like to examine one of the sources often cited in this debate and place the issue into some historical context.
Saturday, June 03, 2023
Letter in the Catholic Herald from Sir Edward Leigh MP
Sir Edward Leigh, the distinguished Catholic Member of Parliament, recently agreed to be one of the Latin Mass Society's Patrons. I was delighted to see this letter from him in the current Catholic Herald.
Catholic Herald, Letters, June 2023
Keep the old Mass alive
Sir — I was appalled to read in the Catholic Herald of the way in which bishops are restricting the Traditional Latin Mass (April 2023). In a world beset by rampant indifference to religion, what possible harm is caused by a few faithful attending a form of Mass which has been used for centuries? I do not write on my own behalf; I am very content to attend the new-rite Latin Mass at 10.30am in Westminster Cathedral every day. It is a good compromise and the sung version on Saturday morning is wonderful. But for many, particularly for young people, the old rite is a beautiful and calm spiritual experience, so unlike the rest of our busy, crowded lives. Some people do not find the stream of everyday English in the Mass a joyful experience. Many of our ancestors — including, in my family, Blessed Richard Leigh, who went to Tyburn in 1588 — suffered greatly, even to the point of martyrdom, to say and attend the old Mass in England and thus keep the Faith alive. Surely we should allow its use in their memory, if nothing else.
(Sir) Edward Leigh MP
London, UK
Friday, May 26, 2023
Ad orientem at the Last Supper; Hebrew from the Cross
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Mass at Corpus Christi Maiden Lane |
This time The Tablet has published my letter in full. (I always keep them short.)
Sir,
Peter Simmons informs us that at the Last Supper and at Calvary Jesus ‘faced those who were present and spoke to them in their own language.’ It would seem Mr Simmons’s imagination is more powerful than the facts.
The awkwardness of seeing and conversing with Christ as he was reclining at the head of the table at the Last Supper, with the Apostles arranged in a row on the same side as depicted in ancient mosaics, is reflected in the need for St Peter to pass a message to Him via the Beloved Disciple (John 13:22ff). Moreover He would certainly have addressed them at a Passover meal in the liturgical language, Hebrew, and not the day-to-day language, Aramaic, just as Jews do to this day.
On the cross Jesus’ use of Hebrew actually caused confusion and misunderstanding: hearing the Hebrew ‘Eli’, ‘Lord’, bystanders thought He meant ‘Elijah’ (Matt 27:46ff). He didn’t care, because He was addressing not them, but His Heavenly Father. As Mr Simmons says, this is a lesson for us.
Yours faithfully,
Joseph Shaw
Chairman of the Latin Mass Society
Thursday, May 18, 2023
Take children to Mass

The presence and management of children at Mass is an issue that can generate more heat than light. I would like to tackle it here on the basis of a slightly deeper set of principles than is usual.
Full disclosure: I am a father of nine; my youngest has recently turned three. We have had to manage a child under five at Mass since our first was born in 2003; for most of the time, we’ve had two under five. That may sound extreme, but a couple who have three children at three-year intervals will have a child under five, and sometimes two of them, for fourteen years. This is a big chunk of your life.
The first question is whether bringing small children to Mass is good in principle. Children under the “age of reason” (usually about seven) are not bound by canon law to attend Mass. Often parents have no choice but to bring them in order to attend themselves. But supposing they had the choice—if they could attend different Masses, or leave the children with friends—is the ideal to bring them or leave them behind?
Tuesday, May 16, 2023
Letter to the Tablet, from 1965
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The tenth station: Jesus is stripped. Fr the Church of SS Gregory & Augustine's, Oxford |