Review of Michael Davies biography, and other recent work

For the Catholic Herald, I have written a review of Leo Darroch's biography: Michael Davies: Defender of Catholic Tradition,

and a review of a very different book: Inversion, a collection of essays written by homosexuals disaffected by the direction their movement has taken. In the review I argue that this movement arose out of the Protestant society of the industrial age, and compare the role of marginalised groups
in pre-industrial Catholic societies. As I write, 'Perhaps a society creates the dissidents that it deserves.'

My review of the Michael Davies biography begins:

Michael Davies (1936-2004) was from the 1970s until his death the foremost lay advocate of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). His books, particularly the trilogy Cranmer’s Godly Order, Pope John’s Council, and Pope Paul’s New Mass, were an enormous influence on a generation of Catholics attached to the TLM, and set the terms of the debate. He rejected the extreme claims made by some, that the reformed Mass was invalid or that recent popes were not real popes, and when he died he was praised by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Nevertheless his support for the Traditional Mass and the traditional teachings of the Church were uncompromising.

Leo Darroch’s biography starts with Davies’ early life. He was born into a Protestant family with Welsh roots, and attended a Grammar school. Instead of doing National Service he joined the regular Army, and served in Malaya. Back in civilian life he became a Catholic, married Maria Milosh, a Yugoslavian teacher who had been studying in England, and became a teacher himself. The young Davies had a growing family and was devout, conscientious, and intelligent, but those who met him in the 1960s would have had little reason to imagine that he would devote the second half of his life to writing, speaking, and campaigning about the Church’s teaching and liturgy, with unrelenting industry and very little earthly reward. It is interesting to ask what radicalised him.

Read it all there.

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