Update on Mgr Loftus

Eat your heart out, Basil. That's Archishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool with the FSSP
in Warrington, about to ordain two of their men priests.

I've not been blogging about Mgr Loftus recently; he is terribly repetitive and I've said pretty well everything which can usefully be said, while other issues have arisen. However, since the big push I made about him in March 2015 a few observations may be of interest to my readers.

Long-term readers may recall that at that time I prepared a dossier of his jems, and I didn't keep this document to myself. Reviewing my ever-growing paper archive of his columns since then, it is clear that this had some effect. Mgr Loftus must have been given some kind of warning by person or persons of authority, whether it be bishops or the Editor of the Catholic Times in which his screeds are published. So my project was not a waste of time.

Loftus and the Missal translation

I've put my readers through some tedious drivel in talking about Mgr Basil Loftus, so this post will keep to short quotations which, if they were not so scandalous, would be rather amusing. For in talking about the 2011 translation of the Ordinary Form Missal, Loftus leaves behind all restraint.

5 Sep 2010: ‘If you control the language, you control the people. That seems to the hidden agenda. The door is closing on people’s freedom to express themselves to God in prayer.’

31 July 2011: ‘…The need for mankind to express itself in the vernacular, recognised by Vatican II, will not be met if a stilted, outdated, pompous and artificial vocabulary inhibits and frustrates our more natural and spontaneous expression of the excitement with which we discover both nature and the supernatural.’

26 May 2013: ‘an unwanted and unwelcome, artificial and stilted, unprofessional and occasionally theologically inaccurate translation of the Mass'

Loftus and the authority of the Holy See

The Editor of the Catholic Times, Kevin Flaherty, tells us that Mgr Basil Loftus provides his readers with 'a loyal summary of 'counsel' coming from the Holy See, and in particular from the Holy Father.' 20 March 2015.

So it will be interesting to have a look at what Loftus has to say about one of the most closely-guarded prerogatives of the Holy See: the authority to regulatge the liturgy, part of the munus of the Holy Father himself, as we are reminded by the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae 8.

Do we read Loftus accepting with docility the rulings of the Holy See, through the offices of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei? Does he seek to understand the reasoning behind their decrees, urge everyone to obey them, and perhaps humbly petition for sensible changes in the future? Well, no.

Loftus and the teaching of the Church

Although vulgar abuse of named or otherwise clearly identifiable individuals takes up a lot of Mgr Basil Loftus' column space, and his endless screeds against the 2011 translation of the Ordinary Form Missal a lot more, never let it be said that he does not address serious theological topics, for he takes the time also to deny fundamental principles of Catholic teaching too. The Editor of the Catholic Times, Kevin Flaherty, made it clear last weekend that his post-bag has been filling up with complaints about Loftus' advocacy of Communion for Catholics in irregular unions, but this is a mere detail in Loftus' deviation from the teaching of the Church. He is just as happy to advocate giving Communion to those living in sin, or in homosexual unions, as I have several times noted on this blog: see here, and here.

Loftus' denial of the teaching of the Church on homosexuality has caused particular concern. Loftus even went so far as to attack his fellow Catholic Times columnist, Fr Marsden, in the paper's correspondence column, for his temerity for reiterating the teaching of the Church. In his letter, Loftus artlessly revealed that he does not believe that the Church's teaching on morals is ever infallible: at least, that seems to be the implication of this contorted passage.

‘When Fr Marsden (Credo, The Catholic Times, March 6) lumps together as instances of “dissent” from “the faith which is believed”, the denial of Christ’s divinity, the ordination of women, and the “extolling” of what he terms “sodomistic relationships” as an alternative to matrimony, he mixes apples with pears.

‘The divinity of Christ has been revealed by God, and calls for the assent of faith.

‘The other two instances are taught by the magisterium of the Church to be wrong.

Loftus and the bishops

In my last post, I wondered whether Mgr Basil Loftus deserves to be defened by Kevin Flaherty, the Editor of The Catholic Times, who wrote last weekend:

'Vatican Counsel' [the name of the column] aims to be just that - a loyal summary of 'counsel' coming from the Holy See, and in particular from the Holy Father.' 20 March 2015

I demonstrated that Loftus has nothing but hatred and contempt for the institutions of the Holy See, notably for the Congregation for Divine Worship, and for the curial Cardinals, including not only theological conservatives like Cardinal Burke ('judgemental zealot'), Cardinal Muller ('not fit for purpose') and Cardinal Ranjith ('Sri Lankan cappa magna fetishist and Tridentine-rite devotee'), but Cardinals of a quite different stripe, like Cardinal Bertone (the 'previous Cardinal Secretary of State is constructing his own “Trump Towers” right next door to the hostel where the Pope lives'). Although ideology is certainly important to Loftus, he is ready to spew his bile at anyone who comes to his attention, like some kind of loathsome toad.

And he does the same with our own bishops in the UK, with and under whom we are united with the Holy See. Here are some highlights.

Loftus and the Gestapo

Last weekend the Editor of the Catholic Times felt the need to include in the Letters page a little defence of Mgr Basil Loftus, at some length.

Some letters sent to The Catholic Times in recent times imply that the notion of exploring the possibility of divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion emanates from Mgr Basil Loftus. It does not, 'Vatican Counsel' [the name of the column] aims to be just that - a loyal summary of 'counsel' coming from the Holy See, and in particular from the Holy Father.' 20 March 2015

So just how 'loyally' does Loftus 'summarise' what comes from the Holy See? The Editor, Kevin Flaherty, doesn't seem to have noticed the content of Loftus' column in the very same edition, where the Congregation for Divine Worship's role in promulgating the 2011 translation of the Ordinary Form Missal is compared to the work of the Gestapo.