'White Rose' Requiem for the House of Stuart

Every year a Requiem Mass is organised for the deceased members of the Royal House of Stuarts: picutred is the monument to them in St Peter's in Rome.

This year's is taking place tomorrow.

The White Rose requiem mass will be held as follows:

Church of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street.

on Tuesday 17 June 2014, at 6.30pm

Celebrant: Rev Dom Christopher Andrews OSB

It will be accompanied by the Choir of St Bede's and Corpus Christi.

Pope Francis and the Neo-Cons: scandal and denial

I'm still catching up on things which happened either during the Chartres Pilgrimage or during the busy period of preparation before it, so readers must forgive me for reflecting on something which happened (shock!) more than five minutes ago.

It was Pope Francis' interaction with an Italian priest, Fr. (Don) Michele de Paolis. It would seem that Fr de Paolis was invited to Rome to concelebrate with the Holy Father at one of his private Masses, and that in saying goodbye Pope Francis kissed his hand.

Fr de Paolis is well known as a campaigner for a change in the Church's teaching on homosexuality, so this, as LifeSiteNews (LSN) expressed it, 'raised eyebrows'.

It is interesting to note this little incident; it was public, intended for public consumption, it was photographed and reported and Fr de Paolis wrote the whole thing up on his Facebook page.

The really interesting thing, however, is what happened next. LSN, in the person of the hugely respected Hilary White, had written the story with a completely straight bat. That is to say, she simply reported the facts, as they were in the public domain: what happened, and why it might be thought interesting that it happened, namely a little about Fr de Paolis' work and the public perception of him in Italy. There was no speculation about Pope Francis' intentions; there was, after all, no public statement about them. This report, however, caused a sort of psychological melt-down among a group of what we must call American 'Neo Conservative' Catholic writers, who started attacking LSN and Hilary White. The crucible of this melt-down was the Facebook page of the blogger Simcha Fisher, where she was joined by her husband Damien Fisher and the blogger Mark Shea, among others. See the whole thing here. A taster of this Lord-of-the-Flies type of cyber-bullying:

Mark Shea: LSN has fulfilled the classic definition of journalism: translating complex ideas into execrable prose. Eponymous Flower as a source for something? And Hilary White tasked with writing objectively about Francis? Seriously? God save the Church from the Greatest Catholics of All Time and their endless hatred for this good and holy Pope.
...

Damien Fisher: How about some basic respect for the Holy Father and the faith rather than using a biased and anti-Catholic writer to cover Pope Francis? (Tell me how Hilary White, who condemns Catholics for attending the NO Mass is the right person for the job.)

AND, JJ how dare you try to lecture me about respect. Your news organization demonstrates no respect for the truth, no respect for the faith, no respect for human beings. Have you done anything to correct your exploitation of the suicide victim? Have you cone anything about the oped blaming the UCSB mass shooting on divorce? Will you retract the latest slander against the Holy Father that YOU published?

Giving LSN a little fraternal correction.

Mark Shea decided to blog about it as well, but despite the opportunity for sober reflection which (one would hope) this would afford, he came out with this:

I’m so sick of these people. The author of the piece hates Francis with a white hot passion, a fact that must be as surely known to her editors as to anyone else with a pulse capable of reading her many literary acts of voiding her rheum in the Holy Father’s face. Likewise, her main source, the deranged Eponymous Flower, hates him even more. The piece makes so many logical leaps and ill willed assumptions, it’s hard to keep count. It’s all calculated to gin up hatred for the Holy Father. God forgive them.

To which all one can say is, with Hamlet's mother: Alas, he's mad.

The claim these delightful people are making is that the story is in some sense an attack on Pope Francis. What they are not claiming is that it is in any way false or even misleading: not one of them at any point seems to have put a finger on what is actually wrong with the story in its relationship to the facts. (If there are so many 'logical leaps and ill willed assumptions', would it have cost you so much to specify just one of them, Mr Shea?) Furthermore, they feel so strongly about it that they are willing to disregard all charity, to accuse the whole of LSN as guilty by association, and to bring up everything they've ever read on the site which they didn't like as confirmation that LSN is, really, evil. Oh and Hilary White likes the Traditional Mass, that shows she's wicked too.

How could reporting Pope Francis' actions be regarded as 'slander', something only a 'biased and anti-Catholic writer' would do? The implication would seem to be that it is Pope Francis who is attacking Pope Francis, by presenting himself in a bad light, and that anyone who repeats these attacks must hate Pope Francis.

In other words, these neo-Conservatives are so deeply scandalised by what Pope Francis did, that they want to hush it up, and will engage in a sort of Hate Week against anyone who won't play along.

Why are they so scandalised? Why is it so intolerable for them to hear about Pope Francis making this gesture?

First off, here's my own thought about this action of Pope Francis. Pope Francis has a consistent policy of being friendly to people at the level of personal meetings. He's been friendly to Bishop Fellay of the SSPX. Obviously he thinks that it is good to be nice to people, it makes everything easier if one has a personal rapport. All the same, he went the extra mile with this priest and the danger of scandal is increased; it begins to look like the sort of policy I have criticised before, where the enemies of the Church are given a warmer welcome than her most loyal sons. If I were Pope, I wouldn't do this.

On the one hand, I don't expect Popes to be perfect in the formulation and application of prudential policies about how to deal with dissidents. If someone says to me: 'here's a Pope, today or in history, who made a prudential mistake', I don't immediately have a heart-attack.

On the other hand, while Catholics can criticise such policies, I don't expect my own judgement always to be superior to that of the Pope, who has more information at his disposal and the grace of his Office to aid him. The Pope is fallible on such things, and obviously I am as well.

Why can't the Neo-Cons look at the situation calmly, like this? Why are they getting so worked up? For two reasons. As I have written before, they are are very keen on the medicine of punishment. They think that the problems of the Church arise from a lack of discipline, and can be solved by an application of discipline. They want, as patriotic Americans, to kick ass. By the same token they want to stop people talking about the subtle but pervasive effects of bad liturgy: see me on Mark Shea, and on Simcha Fisher. So when the Pope tries to deal with a problem priest by kissing his hand, and not by having him publicly flogged, this is peculiarly painful for them.

More, Fisher, Houghton: Martyrs for the Papacy, but not Ultramontanists.

The other reason is that they have adopted a positivistic Ultramontanism, which says that for practical purposes the Pope cannot err. In theory they accept the standard distinctions between fallible and infallible teaching, and between dogmatic and prudential issues, but in practice they have a very strong tendency to roll all the issues together and say that we must not just accept but regard as above criticism everything the Pope says and does. They do this without abandoning all their own positions, however, so they have to engage in absurd interpretations of what the Popes do and say to make them fit in with what they, personally, want them to do and say. The most gloriously loopy of these so far must be Jimmy Akin's suggestion that, if the Pope suggested, over the phone, to a woman married to a divorcee, that she could receive Communion, he might have annulled the first marriage and validated the second right there and then, on the phone. (Akin later took this lunacy off his blog.) I suppose we can look forward to more such intellectual contortions as time goes on. But when they get the chance to deny that something ever happened, or hush it up, that is, naturally, even better.

There is a terrible danger with this kind of Ultramontanism. Not only is it false, but it is the flip side of Sede Vacantism. The Sede Vacantists think that the Popes must be pretty-well perfect, and they realise that the men elected as Pope and regarded by everyone as Pope are not perfect, so they conclude they can't be Pope after all. The Ultramontanist has only his own self-delusion to rely on to fend off the same conclusion. Heaven help anyone who punctures that self-delusion! These Neo-Cons will defend it to the death.

The greatest danger to it, however, is not Hilary White or LifeSiteNews, but Pope Francis himself, who is delightfully free of the Neo-Con ideology. The other day he made a revealing remark, in the course of defending the war record of Pope Pius XII:

I do not mean to say that Pius XII did not make mistakes - I myself make many...

St Peter doubted, but Our Lord gave him the Keys anyway. Let's not forget either.
Mosaic in the Crypt of Westminster Cathedral.

The Chartres Tradition

Our Lady sous terre.

One of the great things about the pilgrimage is the sense of walking in the footsteps of our predecessors. We should remind ourselves that even the act of restoration is something which our predecessors have often had to do. The restoration of tradition is itself a part of tradition.

The shrine of Our Lady sous terre is, according to legend, a continuation of a pre-Christian shrine to the Matri Futurae Dei Nascituri: to the Mother of the God to be born. Upstairs in the main church is image of Our Lady of the Pillar.

The original shrine images were destroyed at the French Revolution, as the English ones were in the Protestant Revolt, but the Faith survived, and the shrines were restored. Also preserved from the flames was a remarkable relic of Our Lady: her veil, the Sancta Camisa.

These things have drawn pilgrims down the ages. The tradition was first created by students of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages; but what with the Revolution and the wider attack on popular devotions, led by the crypto-Calvinist French Jansenists, it had to be restored. It is interesting to see a 'Youth Pilgrimage' at Pentecost being made in 1938 as a response to the Nazi takeover of Austria (see the Catholic Herald archive); this report from 1948, under the headline proclaiming that 7,000 had made the pilgrimage that year, explains more:

The student pilgrimage to Chartres was initiated by the celebrated author, Charles Péguy, who was killed during World War I. He went to Chartres from Paris on foot to thank the Blessed Virgin for recovery of his daughter who had been seriously ill.

The pilgrimage has gained wide popularity since the end of World War II. In 1937, only 150 students took part in it; last year there were 6,000.

This year the pilgrims traveled the first 40 miles in a special train, and walked the remaining 25. Each carried a knapsack with a two-day supply of food and sleeping equipment.

This Catholic Herald report from May 1954, tells us of its continuing expansion:

Nearly 13,000 university students from Paris and other parts of France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, took part last week in the annual pilgrims' walk to Chartres. Meditating and singing hymns as they marched with their chaplains. In the little town of Gallardon one of the students was baptised on Saturday evening by Mgr. Menard, Auxiliary Bishop of Chartres, surrounded by some 3,000 radiant, if tired, young men and women holding lighted candles.

After Vatican II the pilgrimage went into a decline: I'd be interested to know the details, but exactly the same thing happened in England to the great Guild of Our Lady of Ransom nine-day pilgrimage from London to Walsingham, and the Tyburn Walk. It was Traditional Catholics who once again revived and preserved the Chartres Pilgrimage, as they have so many other traditions, and the revived pilgrimage has reached similar numbers to the 1950s level, despite French trads representing only a tiny fraction of the French Catholic population, itself a small fraction of the French Catholic population in the 1950s. After 1988, in fact, the pilgrimage split, with the supporters of the SSPX walking the route from Chartres back to Paris, with a smaller but still very large number. Even without them, the Chartres Pilgrimage has over the years varied between 8,000 and 15,000; numbers are inexact in part because some people join the pilgrimage on the second and third days.

Furthermore, both groups are doing it the hard way: no special trains for them, we walk every weary mile.

It would seem that what French traditional Catholics lack in numbers, they make up for in zeal.

Do join us in Chartres next year - and to get you in the mood, come to Walsingham, on the August Bank Holiday weekend. That is only 55 miles - a good preparation for the 75 of the Chartres Pilgrimage.

 

Chartres Pilgrimage 2014

Low Mass in Westminster Cathedral crypt, celebrated by Fr Martin Edwards.

I'm simultaneously publishing a post about the pilgrimage on Rorate Caeli here; so in this post I can focus a bit more on the British Chapter, and our experiences.

Chavagnes chapter.

Numbers were good this year, with many young people, many of them doing the pilgrimage for the first time. Not all were put off for life! On the contrary: see this blog post from one of them, and another from a chapter leader.

Serious mud on the forest paths after rain.

The weather was a trial. The weather forecasts kept postponing the thunderstorms which would eventually dispel the humidity; in the meantime, a few showers only added to it, and we enjoyed spectacular displays of 'dry lightning'. There was enough rain to turn the forest paths into mud slides, but not enough to stop the broiling heat. This was my third pilgrimage, and I was mortified to suffer exactly the same problems (happily less severely) as on my first, another hot year, notably sun stroke. As then, I dropped out after Mass and lunch on day two feeling pretty rough, but was sufficiently recovered to walk the final half-day.

When the real downpour finally came, as we were on the final approach through central Chartres, the temperature dropped and like magic we all felt better. Even my blisters and aching muscles were eased. Our Lady had finally relented...

The two chapters from the UK - under the names of Our Lady of Walsingham and St Alban - were joined by the three-strong Danish chapter (links are to photos), and followed by the chapter of schoolboys from Chavagnes College (see above), with their chaplain Fr Bede Rowe. These were followed by the Scottish Chapter, under their banner of 'Bonnie Prince Jesus'. Not far away was the American chapter; we camped next to the Irish chapter; I also spotted the chapter from Canada. The non-French chapters aren't a big portion of the whole pilgrimage, but it is very good to see them supporting this event. I noticed chapters from Germany (complete with two guitars), Switzerland, and Poland; I met the Una Voce Delft leader from the Netherlands, whose family was walking with the Belgian chapter, and a delightful young lady who had founded the Traditional Latin Mass Society of Malaysia. English-speakers wanting to join the pilgrimage are very welcome to sign up with the UK chapter, see their blog here.

Our Lady of Walsingham chapter, with James Bogle at the front.

St Alban chapter.

The Latin Mass Society supports the British chapters by sponsoring ten places for young people - we pay half the cost. It is extremely good value in any case. Cost shouldn't be an issue for anyone who can make the dates.

The UK Chapters are very well supplied with priests: we had two priests for each of our two chapters, plus Fr Bede looking after the Chavagnes chapter behind us. Most chapters don't have a priest with them, but priests (and lots of seminarians) are assigned to make themselves available to blocks of chapters; among these I met Fr Rupert Allen OPraem (wearing a saturno, which he'd found somewhere), of the Chelmsford Norbertines but currently on loan to the international Norbertine house in Brussels, and the indefatigable Fr Armand de Malleray FSSP. Among the many FSSP and ICKSP seminarians I met was the Rev James Mawdsley FSSP, who is at the Wigratsbad seminary and a regular at the Walsingham pilgrimage.



In addition to the two and half days of walking, the UK chapters have Low Mass before we leave England, in the Crypt of Westminster Cathedral, at 7am. This is celebrated by Fr Martin Edwards, the National Chaplain of the English chapters, but Fr Alexander Redman and Fr Gerard Byrne also take the opportunity to say private Masses on other altars in the crypt (I ended up serving the latter). At the end of the official pilgrimage we stay the night in Chartres and have a Mass in the crypt of Chartres Cathedral, in the shrine of Our Lady 'sous terre', 'underground'. This is a High Mass, celebrated by Fr Edwards with Fr Mark Withoos, who had walked with us,  as deacon, and Fr Bede Rowe as subdeacon; Fr Redman and Fr Byrne were in choir.



The British Isles can be pretty proud of providing five chapters, if we include the ex patriots of Chavagnes, the Irish and the Scots. As I've discussed at more length on Rorate Caeli, this is an event of incomparable importance for the Church. Tomorrow I'm posting more on the history of the shrine and the pilgrimage. In the meantime, readers, consider this: if you've enjoyed Chartres, come to Walsingham. If you can't make Chartres, come to Walsingham. If you think you're not up to Chartres, come to Walsingham. It's not an alternative to Chartres, it's an introduction to it and a continuation of it.

Reform of the Reform: what is the key issue? Part 2

The Traditional Mass is about the Peace of Christ.

In my last post I wrote about the bewildering variety of issues which those involved in the Reform of the Reform movement are concerned about - or should be. These issues are urgent: whether through liturgical abuses, some of them reluctantly authorised after years of conflict, or through ill-conceived aspects of the Reform which Cardinal Ratzinger criticised, sometimes with considerable force, these aspects of the Novus Ordo (as it is usually encountered) are doing damage, year by year, to the Faith of Catholics in every country in the world. It is not surprising that the Church is having problems proclaiming the Gospel.

The obstacles to dealing with these issues are, however, huge. While keeping a grip on the seriousness of the problem, we also need to understand the impossible situation conscientious parish priests are in. At its simplest, going too far can simply end the priest's tenure in the parish, with nothing achieved. e.e. cummings expressed it nicely:

Don't go too far, said she.
What's too far? said he.
Where you are, said she.

It's not so different for the Monsignori in the Curia. There are good, as well as lazy, stupid, and bad people in Rome - like everywhere else. They tried, especially from the mid 1990s to the end of St John Paul's pontificate, to put a brake on abuses with a series of official documents. These weren't pointless, because they drew attention to the problems and stooped the abuses from being seen as de facto permitted, but they made no discernable progress in stopping the abuses. Since then, we've had the new English translation of the Missal, Summorum Pontificum, and the Anglican Ordinariate: top-down reforms which made an important difference. But they also demonstrated the problem of opposition from bishops around the world. We aren't going to have more things like that because Pope Francis does not want a civil war in the Church over the liturgy. That, I should say, is a perfectly understandable position.

Movement, outside of a handful of parishes, on the issues I discussed in the last post, is not going to happen unless there is a change of mood among the Faithful themselves, and ideally the Bishops as well. This is not going to happen as a result of the Reform of the Reform, because it is a precondition of the Reform of the Reform happening in the first place. It's not going to happen as a result of ordinary Catholics reading scholarly books, or even blogs, either, because only a tiny percentage do either.

Is it offputting to children?

Many in the Reform of the Reform movement have argued that the Traditional Mass is a step too far, something ordinary Catholics will never accept, which is why they (priests and scholars) have to focus on tweaking the Ordinary Form. They sometimes say that this would be a way, not only of addressing the serious problems I have mentioned, but of preparing the ground for the Vetus Ordo. However, the opposite is the case.

The Reform of the Reform agenda strikes directly at the spiritual lives of Catholics completely unprepared to go down the path of tradification. That is why its supporters see it as such an opportunity, because - they say - these Catholics need better liturgy more than anyone, but it is also why it is not going to work. Catholics - and there are many - who see their attendance at Mass largely in terms of human contact with the priest and their fellow worshippers, are driven up the wall by each and every one of the items on the Reform of the Reform wish list. Not only that, but these Catholics often sense their power as representatives of a dominant ideology, and are willing to use that power to make their priests' lives impossible. If the Reform of the Reform is going to work, this group needs either to be converted or somehow made less significant within the parish.

The thing which can be done, in a parish, to bring this about is the introduction of the Traditional Mass. Yes, obviously, the liberal die-hards will hate it. They may even complain to the bishop. But he is much less likely to listen, for two reasons. First, the rights of the priest and any traddies in the parish to have the Vetus Ordo are settled by Summorom Pontificum, and secondly, the complaints are much less reasonable.

Let's consider things from the Bishop's perspective. Bishops are not solely motivated by ideology. They respond to complaints because, ultimately, they are concerned about people's spiritual welfare. If a priest drives his flock away by praying in Latin with his back to them, this - it is natural for the Bishop to think - is a problem. But if busybodies are complaining because other people in the parish are doing something which those other people find spiritually beneficial, which is permitted by the Church, that is not a real problem. The liberals should perhaps learn to live and let live.

Once established in a parish, the Traditional Mass can start to have an effect. Some people will attend it. Their numbers will gradually grow. If it is at a reasonable time, and above all if it is on a Sunday, it can easily become as big as one of the other Sunday Masses over a few years - this has happened in many places. People will discover it by accident, when it is convenient for them one week. It will make them think; it may stimulate them to read up on it. It has the power to change them. It has more power, because it is not just an improvement on the unreformed Reform in one respect, but in a whole lot of ways, looking at it from the Reform of the Reformer's perspective.

If it changes enough people, the balance of political forces in the parish will itself begin to shift. The possibilities start to open up. This is not the work of a moment; this is something which takes years, but difficulties are bearable if one can make progress.

Ultimately, the knowledge, even a slight one, of the Traditional Mass, and the understanding that it is legitimate, valuable, and represents many centuries of Tradition, on the part of the Novus Ordo congregation, will make them far more amenable to the Reform of the Reform type changes than they were before. It is important to remember that many Catholics have been educated not just in ignorance of the Tradition, but to vilify it.

The Reform of the Reform is not an easier, more practical, more politically astute alternative to introducing the Traditional Mass in a parish. It is more difficult, less practical, and less politically astute. The Reform of the Reform is not the only way the Traditional Mass can be made acceptable to the average Catholic in the pew. The Traditional Mass, as part of the liturgical life of the parish, is the only way the Reform of the Reform is ever going to become acceptable to the average Catholic in the pew.

The Rosary Walk at West Grinstead

Reform of the Reform: what is the key issue? Part 1

While Bishop Schneider was in England we were reminded of the issue of Communion in the Hand: he has written two short books on the subject. The problem with Communion in the hand can be summed up as the failure to preserve the Blessed Sacrament from either accidental or deliberate profanation. (Does any need to be reminded that you can, or at least could, watch a YouTube video of someone profaning a consecrated Host stolen at Communion time from a certain well-know London church?)

There is, incidentally, no real precedent for the casual form of reception of Communion in the history of the Church; St Cyprian, who describes the way they received Communion in the hand, in Jerusalem, in the 4th century, which bears only a slight resemblance to the modern practice, describes fragments of the Host as 'more precious than gold dust'. See the FIUV Position Paper here.

The modern practice of Communion in the Hand strikes at the heart of the faith in the Blessed Sacrament of the ordinary Faithful, who are not exactly being bombarded with high-quality catechetism in other forms. So, yes, this is extremely important.

It is easy to see how difficult it is for priests to address this issue. So how else can the liturgical crisis be addressed?

Well, there is the issue of Liturgical Orientation. This cartoon has been doing the rounds, and yes it is a no brainer really. Fr Michael Lang of the London Oratory has written a book on this subject which has become quite well known; it is worth reading if you need to be convinced, or want to see the arguments close-up. The nub of it is that, as Cardinal Ratzinger (remember him?) argued with startling force, the modern practice creates the impression that the community is worshipping itself; it is a 'closed circle', not opening out towards God.

There is, again, no real precedent for the modern practice in the history of the Church; the ancient churches oriented so that the priest could face east while looking into the nave, which are by no means the majority, would not have witnessed eye-contact and a standing-round-in-a-circle atmosphere; for heaven's sake they had curtains round the sanctuary in many cases. See the FIUV Position Paper on the subject here.

The modern practice of celebration 'facing the people', which is not even mentioned in the documents of Vatican II, is undermining the very concept of worship for generations of Catholics, who are not exactly being bombarded with catechesis, liturgy, or religious art, emphasising the transcendant nature of God, to counter-balance it. So yes, this is very important.

However, this is also very difficult for priests at the sharp end to handle this issue. They can expect some very negative reactions if they try. So what else is there?

Well, there are Altar Girls. Like the practice of Communion in the Hand, the modern practice grew out of defiance of the Church's law, and is permitted only with heavy restrictions. In both cases, of course, the restrictions are ignored. But the official documents - I'm not talking about loonies on the internet, but the Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, writing at the behest of St John Paul II - makes it abundantly clear that the problems created by the practice make it, well, problematic. See the FIUV Position Paper here.

The nub of it is that, given the close connection between Acolytes and the priesthood, the service of the Altar is giving out the message that, if women cannot be ordained, it is an arbitrary and unjust restriction. By allowing it we are undermining the notion of a male priesthood and destroying vocations. It is not as if the Faithful are being bombarded by messages supporting the Church's teaching about the complimentarity of the sexes from the wider culture.

This is politically very sensitive for parish priests. I don't blame any priest finding himself surrounded by Altar females not wanting to kick this hornet's next. We all know what kind of support priests are likely to get from most bishops if they take a stand on this. A one-way ticket to Outer Mongolia would be at the mild end of the spectrum of possible reactions.

There are plenty of other issues. A case can be made for their importance, and the difficulty of doing anything about them is even easier to describe. The use of Latin in the liturgy was actually demanded by Vatican II - yes, it is important. Most parishes would assume that their priest has gone stark staring mad if they heard him saying the Canon in Latin, however. (FIUV Position Paper here.) Then there are things which only changes to liturgical law can make possible, like the use of silence (FIUV Position Paper here), which St John Paul II said we needed to 'rediscover' in the liturgy. And there are the problems raised by the Novus Ordo Calendar (such as the loss of Septuagesima), the Lectionary (such as the loss of St Paul's admonition on unworthy Communions from Corpus Christi: see the FUV Position Paper), and the Proper Prayers (see Lauren Pristas' new book on this).

Priests and scholars pushing the Reform of the Reform tend to focus on just one or two issues; one problem is that they are not they same one or two issues. But it doesn't make any difference. The political and ideological obstacles to rolling out a reform of the reform on any one of these issues are overwhelming. In the FIUV papers we've modestly suggested lengthening the Eucharistic Fast and restoring Holy Days to their proper dates; these might happen, just; that would be progress, of a limited kind. We have now had the improved translation of the Novus Ordo Missal; that is big progress, but the kind of effort which was required for this is not going to be repeated for the other issues any time soon, and it only affects the English-speaking world.

It is good that we've had this debate over the last couple of decades, but neither the parish-by-parish model of the Reform or the Reform nor the top-down model are going anywhere right now. Tomorrow I'll make a positive proposal.

Jesus falls for the third time; He is stripped. From Ramsgate.

To Chartres!

I'm off on the Pilgrimage to Chartres, after travelling to France on Friday we walk on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I'll try to do a little live blogging, but I don't make any promises; the pilgrimage takes place, for the most part, far from decent phone signals or power sockets.

I may have more success with tweeting, so if you are interested you can follow

@LMSChairman

Please pray for the success of the pilgrimage. We will be praying for you!