LMS Oxford Pilgrimage: full report

I have now got round to writing a fuller report on this and have got the most important pictures together - though more are on their way to me. There was an article about it in last weekend's Tablet, and there will be a report in this weekend's Catholic Herald, and there are more pictures and commentary on the background of the pilgrimage on this blog here, and on the pilgrimage itself on the New Liturgical Movement (1, 2, and 3), on the Gregorian Chant Society blog, and on Br Lawrence Lew's Godsdogz blog.
On Saturday 25th October Bishop William Kenney CP, an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, blessed a plaque in honour of four Catholics martyred in the city of Oxford. The four, who were beatified in 1987, included two secular priests, ordained in Douai, George Nichols and Richard Yaxley, and two laymen: Thomas Belson, a young member of a local land-owning family, and a Welshman, Humphrey Pritchard, who worked in the Catherine Wheel Inn in Oxford where they were captured. They were executed in 1589.
Bishop Kenney, on behalf of Archbishop Nichols, led a procession of 180 people in the footsteps of the martyrs, from the site of the Bocardo prison where the priests were held (in Cornmarket Street) to the site of the town gallows where they died (in Holywell Street). Bishop Kenney preached on the meaning of martyrdom for Catholics today at the traditional Solemn High Mass which preceded the procession.
The pilgrimage, the fourth annual pilgrimage in honour of Oxford’s Catholic martyrs, was organised by the Latin Mass Society. Mass took place in the Priory church of the Dominican community in Oxford, Blackfriars, which was packed to the doors for the occasion. The Cantores Missae under Mr Charles Finch sang Victoria’s Missa Traha me post te. The Te Deum and other chants were sung on the procession by the Schola Beati Thomae Abelis of the Oxford University Gregorian Chant Society.
The congregation included a coach-party from St Bede’s Clapham Park, and others from as far as Wales, Sussex, and Staffordshire. Many local clergy attended, as did Bishop Jarrett of Lismore, Australia, who was visiting the area.
Bl. Thomas Belson has living descendants in the Oxford area, and a number of these, led by Dorrien Belson, attended the proceedings. Other historic local Catholic families represented at the blessing included the Mockler-Barret family of Milton Manor and the Stoner family of Stoner House. The colleges of Brasenose, the alma mater of Bl George Nichols, and Oriel, which absorbed St Mary Hall, where Bl Thomas Belson studied, were also represented.
The celebrant was Fr Dominic Jacob of the Oxford Oratory; the deacon Br David Rock OP, and the subdeacon Br Lawrence Lew OP. The serving team was provided entirely by the Dominican community. The day’s events were concluded with Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament led by Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP.

Food for thought

From an interview with Dr John Rao on the Cornell Society for a Good Time blog:

Quite frankly, I have become more depressed over Traditionalist (or Conservative) Catholics deciding to escape into their little enclaves than over practically every other development in our movement. Many have fallen prey to all manner of non-Catholic thinking and behavior in consequence, none of which is investigated because, once again, the power of the name - Traditionalist Catholic - seems to stand surety for their ideas and actions. I have met all too many well-meaning Traditionalist Catholics who have retired to their “little houses on the prairie” and who, in everything from their dress to their intellectual life, have become nothing other than atomist modernists in Amish clothing. I have met some Traditionalist Catholic home schoolers whose loathing for serious thought and culture is more naturalist and revolutionary than that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. I have met stern Traditionalists who out-Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham. And, as noted in one way or another throughout this interview, I have met all too many Traditionalist and Conservative Catholics whose Church Fathers are really the Founding Fathers; good-willed people who, in practice, show that they really think the main event in Sacred History came not with the birth, death and Resurrection of Christ, but with 1776. One can see this even on the purely natural level. Many of the home schooling history texts produced by “our side” begin with America rather than Mesopotamia. I have even read statements by orthodox home schoolers which proclaim openly the need to reject as heresy any work that mentions a criticism of an American political tradition firmly rooted in one of the most dangerous of Enlightenment thinkers, John Locke. We accept too much long-standing Anglo-American “custom” as though it were the real Tradition of the Church and the duty of Traditionalist Catholics to protect. This is exactly the same problem St. Gregory VII complained of in trying to strike at the Caesaro-Papism of the Eleventh Century. Christ, as he noted, came to teach Truth, not custom. Many Catholics did not know the difference between the two.

Catholic Martyrs' Plaque on Radio 4

Hear me talking about it with Ed Stourton here: 21 minutes 28 seconds in. (I got four minutes!) It will be available for seven days.

The Oxford Pilgrimage was a great success, with numbers greatly exceeding expectations: Blackfriars was packed, the procession was enormous, numbering at least 170 people. Here is a picture of Bishop Kenney blessing the plaque. I've put more information and photos on the New Liturgical Movement here.

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Fr Armand de Malleray: retreats

For your information, I will give the following retreats in England:

1. Advent retreat: 8-11 December 2008

2. Lenten retreat: 2-6 March 2009

3. Vocation retreat: January or February 2009.

Ø Also, I will give a day of recollection:

1. On Wednesday 24th November in the Isle of Wight

2. On Tuesday 16th December in Kent.

Ø Lastly, you are welcome to visit me at the FSSP booth at the Towards Advent Festival of Catholic Culture at Westminster Cathedral Hall, Ambrosden Avenue SW1, London, on Saturday 8th November 2008 from 10am to 5pm.

Please be assured of my prayer for you and for all those dear to you.

Cordially in Our Lord,

Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP



Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP

Priestly Fraternity of St Peter in England

179 Elgar Rd, RG2 0DH, Reading, Berkshire, UK

Tel: +44 (0)118 987 5819 - E-mail: malleray@fssp.org

Website: www.fssp.org.uk

Pro-Life Witness for October and November

Dates for the upcoming Pro-Life Witness outside the John Radcliffe Hospital (the entrance is by the Catholic church of St Anthony of Padua, Headly Way:  see Streetmap.co.uk here.):

25th October

29th November

3pm to 4pm

This is a peaceful prayer witness, in which Fr John Saward of SS Gregory and Augustine leads the Rosary outside the church, while inside others pray before the Blessed Sacrament exposed in a monstrance. Do join us!

The one on 25th is the same day as the Oxford Pilgrimage in honour of the Catholic martyrs of 1589: Solemn High Mass is at 11, and the procession is at 2pm. Yes, you can do both!

Rosary Crusade 2008: Pictures

Not very good ones, perhaps, but they give some impression of the scale. We filled the Brompton Oratory - there must have been getting on for 3,000 people.

The line of the procession disapeers into the distance in both directions. We've just passed Victoria Station. Below, the statue and its bearers pause outside the Oratory to let the rest of us file intot the church, before processing in.