Doubts about Alice von Hildebrand on the sacredness of women

Mantillas at St David's, Pantasaph, during the St Catherine's Trust Summer School

Regular readers will know that I am just as happy criticising allies as criticising opponents; I think people who are 'on the side of the angels', and those influenced by them, are just as much in need of having their ideas refined in the furnace of reasoned discussion as those who are completely wrong-headed. So in this spirit I wanted to say something about Alice von Hildebrand, who is having an influence, in particular, on discussions of head-coverings for women in church, as I promised when I posted a video about mantillas in which her views (though not her name) are mentioned.

Not long ago I read her short book Man and Woman: A Divine Invention, where these topics are discussed. She is in favour - as am I - of head coverings for ladies in church, and she appears to give a theoretical basis for the practice which bypasses the embarrassing (to many) stuff in St Paul about women being 'under authority', which he tells us is a central symbolic meaning of the veil (1 Cor. 11:10).

This may seem convenient, but in fact it is problematic, since she is constructing a theology of the complementarity of the sexes and St Paul's treatment is the treatment of complementarity in sacred Scripture. Furthermore, she provides her readers with no resources to deal with St Paul's difficult passages. Instead, bypassing the issue of authority, she wants to talk about superiority, and tells her readers that women are superior to men ('this superiority is mostly a moral one', p73).

Corpus Christi in Oxford

I don't think anyone could accuse Oxford's Catholics of belittling the feast of Corpus Christi. On the Thursday, there were two Traditional High Masses, and on the Sunday there was the long-standing annual Blessed Sacrament Procession through the streets of central Oxford.

I have photos here of only one event, the High Mass before the Blessed Sacrament Exposed at SS Gregory and Augustine's in North Oxford, where I had the privilege of singing. This included a procession around the grounds and Benediction. Fr John Saward, the celebrant and Priest in Charge of the parish, was assisted by the parish's permanent deacon, as subdeacon, a Benedictine student, as deacon, and also by another priest, Fr Gabriel Diaz.

Mass at the Irish Cultural Centre in Paris

Pilgrims on the chapters from England and Wales, and from Ireland, travel to Paris the afternoon before the early-morning start of the Chartres Pilgrimage. This year we got together for Mass that evening, in the Irish Cultural Centre: the old Irish Seminary in Paris.



The chapel is lovely. Sadly the original Altar has been rendered unusable; the step has been cut away to make room behind the 'forward' Altar. Nonetheless, we had a very nice Low Mass there before heading off to local eateries.



Here are the Irish pilgrims. For reasons of inscrutable French organisation, we camp with the other non-French groups but don't walk anywhere near them, so it was good to meet up.



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The Economist on the man crisis

A short time ago The Economist reported on the OECD report on the 'man crisis': a statistical report on how boys are falling behind in school, women outnumber men at University, and so on, which I blogged about here. Clearly stimulated by this, the current issue's cover story is a five-part 'essay' (an odd genre for The Economist) on men, entitled 'Manhood', with an accompanying Leading Article.

It's not as enlightening as one might hope; it is anecdotal and rather meandering. It has some amusing little titbits, like this:

Some liberal Scandinavian men find their new roles demoralising. Karl Ove Knausgaard, a Norwegian novelist married to a Swede, writes of walking “around Stockholm’s streets, modern and feminised, with a furious 19th-century man inside me”.

But the overall tone and conclusion have interest as an insight into how a deeply 'establishment' and conventional publication, with a socially and economically liberal angle, sees the problem. (The same issue contains a ferociously anti-Catholic diatribe about abortion in Latin America; this certainly isn't part of a socially conservative echo-chamber.)

Photos from Chartres

I was on the Chartres Pilgrimage this year; here are some photos taken by John Aron; used with permission. My own camera packed up before the pilgrimage started!

I was delighted to see Bishop Athanasius Schneider who followed the pilgrimage and walked with the pilgrims at certain points. He celebrated Mass on the second day.

James Bogle, President of the FIUV, is a long-term leader of the British contingent.

Prof. de Mattei to give two talks in London: July 10th and 11th

Last year's High Mass of Requiem for Michael Davies, in St Mary Moorfields, London,
celebrated by Fr Anthony Conlon

On Friday 10th July, the Michael Davies Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Prof Roberto de Mattei;

on Saturday 11th, Prof de Mattei will address the LMS Annual General Meeting.

Roberto de Mattei is a professor of history based in Rome, increasingly well known in Traditional Catholic circles, very much worth hearing on the issues of the day.

Corpus Christ Procession in London

It is good to see a public procession in London for Corpus Christi, and in the presence of the Cardinal. Traditionally these processions have often taken place on the Sunday following the feast. I hope this is a great success.

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