Pray for the Conclave

For the Conclave, the Collect of the Votive Mass pro eligendo:

Supplici, Domine, humilitate deposcimus: ut sacrosantæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ concedat Pontificem illum tua immensa pietas; qui et pio in nos studio semper tibi placitus, et tuo populo pro salubri regimine sit assidue ad gloriam tui nominis reverendus. Per Christum.

We entreat Thee most humbly as suppliants, O Lord, that Thy boundless mercy may give the holy Roman Church a Bishop whose loving care in our regard will always be pleasing to Thee, and may be constantly honoured by Thy people for the glory of Thy name for his beneficent rule. Through Christ our Lord.

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Fr Mawdsley, the Holocaust, and the Traditional Mass

'Catholic Unscripted' have a released a full session with me talking about these matters. If you don't know about the context this may or may not be of interest, but it is a response to an internet sensation, which needs a response, and a wider problem of people in the Traditional Movement being sucked into conspiracy theories and antisemitism.

Here it is.

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Requiem for Pope Francis

A beautiful Mass in Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, celebrated by Fr Alan Robinson and accompanied by the Southwell Consort, who sang Victoria's Requiem. (Cardinal Nichols had given a general permission for Requiems to be celebrated for Pope Francis during the Octave, and celebrated one himself the same day.)

The Jews and the Liturgical Reform: in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review

Venerating the Cross on Good Friday (St Mary Moorfields, London)

This month I have an article in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review. It takes its start from a 1961 Memorandum sent to the Holy See, Anti Jewish Elements in Catholic Liturgy by the American Jewish Committee, which was intended to influence the reform. 

Until the conclusion of the paper I keep the question of the validity of those concerns separate from my main question: did the reformers of the Consilium act on them?

The short answer is 'no'. I was myself surprised to discover this, but the evidence is quite clear. I encourage readers interested in the subject to read my paper which sets out why I come to that conclusion in full.

Briefly, there are three main indications that the Consilium was not guided by this document.

Walsingham Pilgrimage Volunteers wanted 2: drivers

Booking is now open for the LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham, which takes place from Thursday 22nd August to Sunday 25th August. But before we can welcome 200+ pilgrims, we need to be able to look after them. We need volunteers! Today I am going to talk about drivers.

To volunteer, email walsinghampilgrimage@lms.org.uk

From its first year the Pilgrimage has had 'support drivers', and these have been becoming more and more numerous in recent years. For this year, we are in particular need of a van driver, as we need to have two luggage vans, and not just one. We can't get a lorry down the country lanes, so we hire an 'extra long' Mercedes Sprinter, or the the equivalent.

Walsingham Pilgrimage Volunteers needed, 1: cooks and cleaners, and a voluteers' chaplain

Booking is now open for the LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham, which takes place from Thursday 21st August to Sunday 24th August. But before we can welcome 220+ pilgrims, we need to be able to look after them. We need volunteers who give up their chance to walk in order to do some quite unglamourous jobs, such as cooking and cleaning.

Each day of the walk there is breakfast and an evening meal. We don't just give pilgrims a paper cup of coffee or an empty milk carton of instant soup (happy though these memories of Chartres are!). While the size of the pilgrimage makes it possible, our cooking team continues to provide real food: bread and jam, porridge and hard boiled eggs for breakfast, and a hot meal made from basic ingredients in the evening. 

There is plenty of penance to be had in getting up early to walk 20 miles or so, but our pilgrims don't set off with an empty stomach, and the evenings are convivial. It is another element of Catholic culture which we are aiming to restore, and a reflection of our respect for the walking pilgrims.

Quisquis enim potum dederit vobis calicem aquæ in nomine meo, quia Christi estis : amen dico vobis, non perdet mercedem suam. Mark 9:41

Culture and Demography: for 1P5

Servers and Sacred Ministers at Mass for the Latin Mass Society's AGM
at Westminster Cathedral in 2021. Phot: John Aron.

My latest on One Peter Five is a double book review I wrote for the last Gregorius Magnus. It begins:

This is a reflection on two books published this year:

Catherine Pakaluk Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth (Regnery, 2024)

Paul Morland No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children (Forum, 2024)

Over the last decade or two, we have become used to the fact that we are facing a demographic winter. For some time this fact had to struggle to be heard, because of the entrenched idea that the problem was the opposite, a population explosion that would overwhelm the world’s capacity to produce food. Although this theory was dominant in the 1970s and 1980s, and lingers to this day in some circles, it was always very dubious and for a long time now has been clearly false. The rate of the growth of the world population peaked in the early 1960s. The growth rate has continued to decline since then, and as night follows day it will fall below zero in the decades to come, and the world population will begin to shrink.

These two books give important insights into the relationship between economics, demography, and values. Paul Morland is a demographer without a particular religious axe to grind: he frequently reminds his readers of his support for contraception. Catherine Pakaluk, married to the Catholic philosopher Michael Pakaluk, is a Catholic mother of eight, and also a social scientist with a background in economics, who led a research project to interview 55 women in America who had college degrees and at least five children.

Paul Morland sets out the facts of the demographic implosion the world is facing: how severe it is, how difficult to reverse it will be, and the frightening consequences that can be expected from it. These consequences are already unfolding in Japan, a rich country where old people are increasingly dying alone and untended in their homes. Japan is unusual in having resisted mass immigration as a solution to falling numbers of young people joining the workforce, but as Morland points out, the world as a whole cannot solve its demographic problem through immigration. When poorer countries arrive at the demographic stage that Japan is in today, the consequences for the care of the elderly will be ugly. Already, relatively poor nations such as Thailand and Jamaica have fertility rates well below replacement levels, and many other countries are heading in the same direction. The demographic winter will reach some countries before others, but it is not a problem only for the rich world.

Read it all there.

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