Reply to Mgr Pope: Lazy Traditional Catholics?

Evangelising in difficult conditions (the rain): the LMS Walsingham Pilgrimage

Mgr Charles Pope has written a blog post about how those who love the Traditional Mass should make greater efforts to evangelise for it. He says this because he thinks, on the basis of anecdotal evidence, that attendance at the EF has stopped growing. He links this with the very lethargic attitude he once noticed, of Novus Ordo Catholics faced with the prospect of losing their parochial school. I confess I don't understand the parallel.

These Novus Ordo Catholics of a couple of decades ago, mostly older people (people, he says, with grown-up children and grandchildren), whom the young Fr Pope talked to about their school, were members of the first, or the beginnings of the second, generation of Catholics who failed to reproduce and failed to pass on the faith. They had typically been brought up in significantly larger families, been given systematic catechesis in the old style, and had been introduced to Catholic traditions of all kinds: grace before meals, daily prayers, dressing up for Sunday Mass, an expectation that Catholic boys and girls should marry other Catholics, and the Traditional Mass. Nearly all of them chucked it in, everything except going to Mass on Sundays. 'What I have received, I have not passed on': that was the motto of that generation. Sometimes with regret, sometimes with relief, sometimes with the fierce joy of the vandal. But by the end of their lives, there was very little left. Their children had mostly lapsed. About half of them had lapsed themselves. The young ones still turning up at church were sometimes clueless about the Faith. Catholics today don't even necessarily know that the Church teaches the Real Presence.

Mgr Pope thinks that the Traditional Catholics of today are like them?

Epiphany in Oxford

I thought I'd post some photos of the Sung Mass I attended for the feast of the Epiphany, one of the Holy Days it is the privilege of those attached to the Traditional Mass to attend on the proper dates.



In terms of encouraging people to try the EF, and in generating controversty, the Bishops' 2009 decision to move the Epiphany, Ascension, and Corpus Christi to the nearest Sunday is truly the gift that keeps on giving. I read that the Bishops are reconsidering the matter. But then I heard that two years ago as well. We shall see.

A New Year's Resolution: Pray for the lapsed

St Monica and St Augustine

For the Year of Mercy, why not join the LMS 'Sodality of St Augustine' to pray for lapsed loved ones?

Joining is free; the only obligation (not binding on pain of sin) is to say a short prayer each day, though you can do more (arrange Masses etc.). Members pray for each other's lapsed loved ones. I repost the details below, from its launch 18 months ago. Each year the LMS arranges a public Sung Mass for Sodality's intentions.
The Sodality of St Augustine of Hippo

Publicist post in Latin Mass Society advertised

The Archangel Gabriel, messenger.

A year ago the Latin Mass Society appointed, just for our 50th anniversary year, our first Publicist / Press Officer. We are extending the experiment with more hours, more money, and a somewhat tweaked job description.


It will now be 10 hours a week, to manage the Society's flow of news through the dead-wood media, but above all on social media.

The deadline for applications is 29th January 2016. It is envisaged that the job will be done mainly from home.

See more details on our website here.

How then shall they call upon him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without one who preaches? and how shall they preach unless they have been sent? according as it is written, How beautiful the feet of them that announce glad tidings of peace, of them that announce glad tidings of good things! (Romans 10:14f)
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New book: The Gentle Traditionalist by Roger Buck

I'm delighted to recommend this new book, partly a novel and partly a dialogue about the Church, the world, and Ireland. A whole heap of excellent books by traditionalists have appeared recently, addressing the crisis in the Church in the context of the crisis in the liturgy. The Gentle Traditionalist is different in addressing itself to non-believers.

Thus, it does not primarily attempt to convince well-informed Catholic readers with detailed (or broad-sweeping) historical and theological argument; rather, it presents, in a charming but unflinching way, the Catholic traditionalist perspective on how things are, where we have come from, and what we can do about it.

The detailed arguments of the other works are very necessary in winning arguments within the Church which need to be won, but this book may be more accessible, intellectually and emotionally, for many Catholics as well as for non-Catholics. It is witty and articulate, and will be balm for the soul for committed trads as well as food for thought for the unconvinced.

I was allowed to read this book prior to publication, and some words of mine are on the back cover.

Comments by me and many others can be read here;
a sample chapter can be read here.
The author blogs here. 

Buy it on Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com

Francis Phillips reviews it for the Catholic Herald here.

Support the work of the LMS by becoming an 'Anniversary Supporter'.

Doubting one's marriage

With apologies for the long break from blogging, here is something I saw via Mary's Advocates (who promote a proper understanding of Catholic marriage). This married permanent deacon, on being trained in the matter of marriage anullments, made the unpleasant discovery that his happy, successful, 17-year marriage could easily be annulled - that is, it would clearly be possible to gain a declaration of nullity, given the circumstances of their getting married. (See the video at 3 1/2 minutes in.)

I suspect that this will be the case for a good number of Catholics with happy marriages. It doesn't necessarily mean that these marriages are actually invalid. Some might be, and the best response might be to make them valid, which should not be difficult to do. But the idea that the current legal procedures of the Church, coupled with the current practices in relation to marriage preparation, combine to mean that vast numbers of couples could walk away from their marriage vows, is vertiginous.

If this isn't something that Bishops and priests should do something about, urgently, I don't know what is.

Puer natus est nobis

We have an addition to our family. Hector arrived on the evening of the last day of the year.

If you are in Oxford, the Christening will take place in SS Gregory & Augustine's, in the Woodstock Road, at 3pm on Saturday 9th January.

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