Who are the Pelagians?

It must be annoying for the Holy Father to have his off-the-cuff remarks in a private audience reported, but now they are out in public they offer an interesting insight into his thinking. As well as showing a realistic and frank acknowledgement of factionalism inside the Vatican (the 'gay lobby'), he made a remark about traditionalists.

I share with you two concerns. One is the Pelagian current that there is in the Church at this moment. There are some restorationist groups. I know some, it fell upon me to receive them in Buenos Aires. And one feels as if one goes back 60 years! Before the Council... One feels in 1940... An anecdote, just to illustrate this, it is not to laugh at it, I took it with respect, but it concerns me; when I was elected, I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: "Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries." Why don't they say, 'we pray for you, we ask...', but this thing of counting... And these groups return to practices and to disciplines that I lived through - not you, because you are not old - to disciplines, to things that in that moment took place, but not now, they do not exist today...

I can't help being reminded of an old joke. A man asked a Fransiscan and a Jesuit: 'How many novenas must I say to get a Mercedes?'

The Fransiscan replied: 'What's a Mercedes?'
The Jesuit replied: 'What's a novena?'

Boom boom!

The counting of prayers for a spiritual bouquet reminded Pope Francis of a strand in pre-Conciliar spirituality which could appear to emphasise quantity, the measuring and counting of good works. The old Manual of Indulgences encouraged this because you often got your indulgence from a certain number of prayers, or said on a certain number of days, and measured the indulgences themselves in terms of days or years (not, be it noted, off purgatory, but as equivalent to days of public penance). So if this is a problem it came from the top - it wasn't just a popular distortion.

I'm not sure if it really was a problem, perhaps it was. It might look a little as though, in a Pelagain fashion, one could earn merit by piling up works without grace, though that is clearly not the official explanation of how it works. Pope Paul VI's new 'Enchiridion' of indulgences changed all that and now it is so vague what you need to do or what you get in return that it is rather difficult to use. So perhaps we've swapped one problem for another.

But I think that Pope Francis' example of this attitude is not so well chosen, because a spiritual bouquet is clearly not about earning credit with God for oneself, it is about imploring grace for another. The point of counting the rosaries is that it shows that it derives from a group of people engaged in a corporate effort. It is hard to see how that could be expressed otherwise.

The real question, nevertheless, is whether there is a Pelagian element in the more traditional spirituality found among traddy groups, and here I think we can defend ourselves. Because the direction of traditional spirituality, by contrast with certain trends in the post-Concilar Church, is demonstrably anti-Pelagian.

One way this shows itself is in the prayers of the Mass. The Collects of the ancient Roman liturgy, and to a great extent the readings and other Propers and the Ordinary, are very concerned with grace, human sin and inadequacy; they are quite Augustinian. In preparing the new Missal, Bugnini and his collaborators wanted to remove the 'negative' theme of sin, and this meant that grace had to go as well. If you look at a survey of the changes to the Collects, such as Fr Cekada's 'The Problems with the Prayers of the New Mass', you can see that the term 'grace' has been almost eliminated from the Collects. The 'old ICEL' translated took this tendency even further.

Who's the Pelagian here?

The other way of illustrating this is through a famous criticism of the Vatican II document Gaudium et spes, that it falls into ‘downright Pelagian terminology' when discussing freedom. Here is the offending passage (17):

...authentic freedom is an exceptional sign of the divine image within man. For God has willed that man remain "under the control of his own decisions," so that he can seek his Creator spontaneously, and come freely to utter and blissful perfection through loyalty to Him. Hence man's dignity demands that he act according to a knowing and free choice that is personally motivated and prompted from within, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure. Man achieves such dignity when, emancipating himself from all captivity to passion, he pursues his goal in a spontaneous choice of what is good, and procures for himself through effective and skilful action, apt helps to that end. Since man's freedom has been damaged by sin, only by the aid of God's grace can he bring such a relationship with God into full flower. Before the judgement seat of God each man must render an account of his own life, whether he has done good or evil.

This isn't false, but one can see what the critics mean. It is unbalanced, and the bit at the end about our freedom being damaged by sin looks a little like an afterthought. The Augustinian and Thomist view - the classical view - places much greater emphasis on the damage done by Original Sin, and subsequently by vicious habits, which give us a tendency to sin. Again, with Original Sin makes it impossible for us to be pleasing to God: only grace can remove that. Again, all our good intentions are gifts of God's grace. And so on.

There is a danger here, of this Gaudium et spes passage allowing something unbalanced to develop, an attitude of human self-confidence which could be described, speaking loosely, as Pelagian. That is something which is very carefully guarded against in traditional Catholic spirituality - for all the rosary-counting which may be going on.

Surprise!

Who was the theologian who made that criticism of Gaudium et spes? Step forward Joseph Ratzinger, later elected Pope Benedict XVI.

First Holy Communions

Tis the season for First Holy Communions. Here's one in Oxford.
A celebratory cake with the little girl's patron saint, and a quotation from the popular chant responsary 'Home quidam', referring to the Blessed Sacrament.
A few Sundays ago I saw a group of First Communicants in St William of York, Reading, with the FSSP. May they always continue in the fervent practice of the Faith that they have so admirably begun.
More photos of the Oxford Mass.

LMS AGM

This took place on Saturday. Mass, celebrated by our National Chaplain, Mgr Gordon Read, was beautiful, in the Pugin splendour of St George's Cathedral, Southwark.

After Mass we had a buffet lunch, which was a good opportunity to meet LMS members and chat. Lunch for everyone (on payment of a nominal fiver) is an innovation made possible by our use of St George's, which has excellent meeting rooms next to the Cathedral, the 'Amigo Hall', names after Archbishop Amigo.

Mgr Read gave a very interesting address to the AGM after lunch, on the importance of the liturgy in the development of devotions and the articulation of doctrines. Among other things he traced the development of the Feast of the Sacred Heart from the earlier devotion, and local feasts in honour of, the Five Holy Wounds.
 
It is nice to think that what we were doing would have been familiar to the great Archbishop Amigo, and the builders of this wonderful cathedral. Among the monuments I am particularly fond of this little fellow, on a neighbouring tomb:
 
 More photos here.

Was the true Council betrayed? Reply to 'Savoranola'

The real Savoranola

The real Savoranola would have given pretty short shrift to the individual who has taken on his name for the purpose of making anonymous swipes at orthodox Catholics in blog comms boxes (not to be confused with @frasavonarola), but I think it is worth making a response to the more substantive part of what he's put under yesterday's post, since (as he says), he speaks for many, though perhaps not quite as many as he imagines (and pretty few under 70):

'I think you should know that there are probably many many Catholics who have for a long time been dismayed by the way in which the great and inspiring vision of Vatican II for the renewal of the Church has been betrayed and undermined by members of the hierarchy (who is really being disloyal to the authority of the Church?) and are very grateful that there are people like Basil Loftus who still uphold that vision and are given a platform by the Catholic Times.' 

The great liberal myth of the Betrayal of the Council is that, when the Holy Ghost descended upon the Council Fathers, the 'Curia' (boo! hiss!) and the 'hierarchy' (boo! hiss!) clamped down and did not allow the wonderful things, which the Council demanded, to happen. The result being that the Council has never been fully implemented, and the fruits have not developed as they should. This is the kind of story you'll find on the little-visited websites of groups such as 'Catholics for a Changing Church'.

One difficulty they always have is quoting Council texts to support their case. When they try to do this, either it is a rather vague and general aspiration, or it is something they have taken out of context. For the fact is, looking at the texts, it is abundantly clear that the reforms which followed the Council went much further than had been intended by the Council Fathers: so, far from the process of Reform demanded by the Council being stifled by the wicked hierarchs after the Council had closed, it would be more accurate to say that it was hijacked by zealots who took the changes to extraordinary lengths. And then, of course, there was a lot of disobedience to the new rules, also in a liberal direction.

Cardinal Ottaviani: legendary
opponent of Conciliar liberalism

Let me give a few examples. The Council gave permission for a 'greater use of the vernacular' in the Mass (Sacrosanctum Concilium 63). The context makes it clear that it was the 'people's parts' which were under consideration, and this is reflected by the very earliest reforms, which allowed the use of the vernacular in the parts of the Mass where there is a dialogue between priest and people, and the readings. When the Dominican Cardinal Browne said, in the Council, that if the vernacular were allowed in part, it would take over, the other Council Fathers laughed at him. Yes, they laughed at the idea that the Canon of the Mass should be translated. They didn't make it explicit that it must not be, but it clearly wasn't what they intended to happen. If we want to know what the Council documents say, we look at them and read, in the same section (63) quoted above: 'Latin is to be retained'.

So what happened was that the people implementing the reform persuaded Pope Paul VI to permit a reform far, far more radical than that considered by the Council Fathers. Is this what 'Savoranola' means by the 'vision' of the Council being 'betrayed and undermined by members of the hierarchy'?

A very similar process took place with Communion under Both Kinds. The Council (SC55) said that it could be allowed in certain highly restricted cases:

The dogmatic principles which were laid down by the Council of Trent remaining intact, communion under both kinds may be granted when the bishops think fit, not only to clerics and religious, but also to the laity, in cases to be determined by the Apostolic See, as, for instance, to the newly ordained in the Mass of their sacred ordination, to the newly professed in the Mass of their religious profession, and to the newly baptized in the Mass which follows their baptism.

And so it is no surprise to see in 1970 a document (Sacramentale Communione) implementing this pointing out

'This faculty should not be granted on occasions when there are large numbers of communicants'.

It was persistent disobedience to this, particularly by the then bishops of the United States, which eventually forced the Vatican to give up trying to enforce this restriction. What happened in practice is a far more radical step that anything imagined by the Council Fathers.

An even more radical category of changes includes Altar Girls, Communion in the Hand, Extraordinary Ministers, and Mass 'facing the people': none of these were so much as mentioned in the Council texts. The liberal hotheads might imagine that these innovations were in the 'spirit of the Council'; it all gets rather vague at that point. But what they can't claim is that what the Council demanded was, wickedly, suppressed by dreadful conservatives like Cardinal Ottaviani. What the Council actually demanded, in black and white, in the texts, is something rather limited and mild, compared to what actually happened.

The internet is the great boon for us on the subject. Everyone can see the documents for themselves, they can link to them, they can put dubious quotes into context, they can dig out the more obscure things which the Vatican website prefers not to publish from other sources (such as EWTN). The difficulty of getting hold of the real documents made possible the wholescale misrepresentation of the Council by the liberals which dominated public consciousness for decades. I'm sorry, 'Savoranola': you can't do that any more.

The Mass of the Council: at the LMS AGM on Sunday, St George's Cathedral, Southwark

For more on many of these issues see the FIUV's short and well-documented Position Papers:

Latin as a Liturgical Language

Liturgical Orientation

The Manner of Receiving Communion

The Service of the Altar by Men and Boys

An open letter to Mgr Basil Loftus

St Peter Canisius, hammer of 

heretics: ora pro nobis

Mgr Basil Loftus has picked up his pen to write to me. This is what he wrote.

4th June 2013
Dear Dr Shaw,
May I once again ask you to refrain from garnishing your 'blog' with offensive illustrations when you refer to me. My attention has been drawn to yet another instance of this jejune, hurtful and totally unacceptable practice in you 'blog' of 29 May.
     It is particularly worrying that within the same computer-reference parameters (www.lmschairman) on 1 December 2012 you spell our your connection with St Benet's Hall, "my own academic home". You are already damaging the once conciliatory and respected Latin Mass Society with your personally vitriolic writings. Please do not also try to tarnish yet another well-loved institution.
     Your purported 'cartoons' have succeeded in their clear intent to cause hurt and harassment. Now, I ask you again to desist.
     Yours sincerely,
          Basil Loftus.


This is an interesting letter on a number of levels, and I think it is worthy of a reply. I am today sending him this open letter.

Dear Mgr Loftus,

Thank you for your letter of 4th June.

I am sorry you feel hurt and harassed by my blog posts about you. You may like to consider, however, the hurt and harassment you cause each week in your columns in that once respected Catholic newspaper, The Catholic Times.

As I have begun to chronicle more regularly, almost every column of yours attacks, in the most sneering and disrespectful tones, those Catholics in good standing with whom you happen to disagree. Allow me to illustrate the point briefly.

St John the Baptist: didn't mince his words

In your column of 26th May, to which my blog post of 29th was a response, you seek to ridicule priests who distribute communion at Mass from the Tabernacle: 'imitating the television cook who explains: "Here's one I prepared earlier"'. As you by implication acknowledge, this practice is widespread, permitted by liturgical law, and in accordance with immemorial tradition. It is not to your taste, but rather than offering a reasoned argument against it you use a degrading comparison which is disrespectful both to your fellow priests and to Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.

In the same column, you described the new English translation of the 1970 Missal as  'unwanted and unwelcome, artificial and stilted, unprofessional and occasionally theologically inaccurate', in relation to which 'priest and people lose the will to live', and which constitutes 'oppression'. This is vitriolic language, directed at something promulgated officially by the Church, and by implication at those who prepared and authorised it, such as Mgr Andrew Wadsworth of ICEL, Bishop Roche of your own old diocese, and Pope Benedict XVI. Do you really think that this is an appropriate way in which to treat such a complex and delicate matter? Do you believe that that this way of addressing the Church's officials, including the Pontiff Emeritus, reflects the respect due to them, and the heavy burdens it is their duty to bear?

The Prophet Jeremiah: didn't opt for the
quiet life when faced with evil

In the same column you wrote 'And every week people in many parishes are deprived of fuller participation because, in total contravention of an explicit General Instruction in the Roman Missal, their view is impeded by a crucifix and six candlesticks.' This is an even more direct attack on Pope Benedict XVI who, I venture to say, had more authority to speak and act both on the meaning of liturgical legislation and on the best ways to foster liturgical participation than you do yourself. Granted that this is a subject open to free discussion, do you really think that your manner of addressing it is compatible with a proper respect for the Office of the Papacy?

It is not enough, however, for you to attack your fellow priests and your hierarchical superiors in this disedifying way, for you extend your campaign of degradation to the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. In your subsequent column of 2nd June, you attempt to cast doubt on three of her titles: 'the idea of Mary as 'co-redemptrix' is simply a non-starter', 'Some mediation on the part of Mary is part of her role - but clearly not for "all" graces', and 'Pope Paul VI cheated, and referred to Mary as "Mother of the Church" during one of his private documents during the Council' The suggestion in each case is that the titles are theologically inappropriate and not upheld officially by the Church. Since I doubt that you are entirely ignorant of the truth of the matter, it is hard to excuse you of mendacity in this case, something all the more extraordinary in the context of the honour due to Our Lady, intimately related as it is to the most heartfelt aspects of the piety of the simple Faithful.

Our Blessed Lord: not exactly flattering
toward the Lakeside Towns

Is is really possible that you do not know that the title co-redemptrix was, at least implicitly, upheld by Pope St Pius X in his Encyclical Ad diem illum (1904) 14? 

On the title 'Mother of the Church', can you really be so deluded as to have convinced yourself that Paul VI's Address to the Second Vatican Council on September 21, 1964 was a 'private document'? Can you possibly describe his Encyclical Solemni hac liturgia of 1968, in which the title is repeated, as a 'private document'? And what of the addition of this title to the Litany of Our Lady by Blessed Pope John Paul II: does this not count as an official public act?

On the title 'Mediatrix of All Graces', what you regard as 'clearly not' true was affirmed as not only true but suitable for a public liturgical celebration by Pope Benedict XV in 1920. Do you perhaps imagine yourself to be superior, not only in wisdom but in magisterial authority and legislative power, to a succession of Supreme Pontiffs?

In your columns you have deployed your invective against good Catholics at every level of the Church. You have made The Catholic Times notorious for your rudeness, insensitivity, and divisiveness. You have trampled on the piety and traditions of the simplest of the Faithful and of the Holy Father alike. And now you complain that my blog posts about you cause 'hurt', that they aren't as 'conciliatory' as the Latin Mass Society was wont to be, and that they are 'personally vitriolic'. I think readers of my blog and your column will find the mote-and-beam comparison here easy to make.

Edmund Burke (attrib) 'All that is necessary for
the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.'

I wish to end, however, on a conciliatory note nevertheless. I will undertake to cease writing these posts about you, with or without the illustrations you find so offensive, on one simple condition: that you similarly cease to write your columns, and also the letters to the Catholic press in which you carry on the same themes. You have had a good many years and a good large space to set out your ideas. The debate within the Church has moved away from your views in so many ways. Isn't this a good moment to give it up? Or, as you put it, 'I ask you again to desist.'

Failing this, I will on the contrary undertake to make reasoned criticisms of as much of your output as I can, as I have been doing in recent weeks, lest lack of contradiction give your views specious credibility. 

Yours sincerely,

Joseph Shaw

LMS Pilgrimages in the North and Wales

The Padley Martyrs with Our Lady

I'd like to draw attention to three more Latin Mass Society events this summer: two in the North of England, and one in North Wales. (The Summer School and Latin Course are also near Holywell in North Wales.)

Holywell I have been to myself a number of times, and have lots of photographs of it, notably last year when Bishop Rifan celebrated Mass for us. It is a shrine of ancient Christian Wales, which is unique in surviving the Reformation intact.

Padley is a shrine to the Padley Martyrs, two priests, Nicholas Garlick and Robert Ludlam, who were captured there in 1588, and executed in Derby. Both were Oxford men, and both beatified.

The shrine is a small chapel in the glorious Derbyshire countryside. Cardinal Griffin was complaining about the lukewarm devotion these great martyrs have generated back in 1949, we should make up for lost time.

Brinkburn Priory is the northernmost LMS pilgrimage, a house of Augustinian canons founded in the 12th century and dissolved in 1536 by Henry VIII. The Priory Church was re-roofed in Victorian times so it is possible to have Mass there; it is in the hands of English Heritage.

Below is the blurb from the LMS Events Diary.

Sunday, 23 June 2013: Pilgrimage to Padley Chapel, Derbyshire:

The annual pilgrimage in honour of the Padley Martyrs. Padley Chapel, Grindleford, Derbyshire S32 2JA. Sung Mass at 1.00pm. Phone 0114 233 2801 or email failte.sheff@googlemail.com for more details. (Click for map.)

The Well of St Winefride

Sunday, 7 July 2013: Pilgrimage to Holywell, North Wales:

Our annual pilgrimage to the only extant pre-Reformation shrine in Britain takes place as usual on the first Sunday in July. High Mass in St Winefride's Church at 2.30pm, followed by a procession to the Holy Well of St Winefride and veneration of her relic. (Click for map.)

Saturday, 14 September 2013: Pilgrimage to Brinkburn Priory, Northumberland

Mass at 12 noon. The address is Brinkburn Priory, Longframlington, nr Morpeth NE65 8AR. The priory was once the home of Augustinian canons who chose this idyllic riverside site in the midst of the beautiful countryside of Northumberland. The priory is situated between the towns of Morpeth & Rothbury. It is hoped that the Mass will be a Solemn High Mass and it will be celebrated on Saturday 14 September 2013 at 12 noon. Please make a note in your diary as this is a wonderful setting for the EF of the Mass and we are (usually) blessed with lovely sunshine. It is hoped that a polyphonic Mass will be performed.

(Click for map.)

Latin Mass Society: Solemn Mass and AGM

This Saturday, at St George's Cathedral, Southwark: Mass at 11am


Mass will be celebrated, and the Society will be addressed, by our National Chaplain Mgr Gordon Read.

The Cathedral is rather amazing Pugin, though damaged in the war.

The Mass is open to all of course.


There's a buffet lunch for members who want to stay for the AGM, please let us know in advance, ( ingor@lms.org.uk ) you can pay your nominal fiver for the lunch on the door. The AGM takes place in the hall adjacent to the Cathedral and starts at 2.00pm.

(Photos are from last year's AGM Mass with Bishop Rifan.)