Hiatus

I will be away for about a month and I don't expect the blog to be updated until my return. Any news from Christchurch during this time will, I think, appear on the main blog. I wish my travel arrangements had allowed me more time to read and comment on the amazing development of Personal Ordinariates for theTAC and all former Anglicans but as it is I will have to content myself with simply expressing my joy and admiration at what has transpired.

The picture above shows the most recent development to our chapel. The trees which have been donated by one of the faithful are cedars of Lebanon, the mighty symbols of the just man. 

The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon

Feast of St Gerard Majella

One of the most famous incidents on the life of St. Gerard Majella has I believe acquired a new relevance in recent years, namely his being accused of having fathered a child by a teenage girl with whose parents he frequently stayed. Needless to say he was innocent of that charge but the strong initial reaction to it by St Alphonsus is in sharp contrast to what usually happens today in such circumstances. St Gerard was already very famous for his miracles and saintly life when the accusation was made. It was on acount of his sanctity and the conversions that followed wherever he went that he was allowed to be so often outside the monastery by himself and to stay in houses such as the one where he met his nemesis. On hearing the accusation St. Alphonsus, then the Redemptorist Superior, held an interview with Gerard and asked him if he was guilty or not of that offence. St. Gerard taking a very strict interpretation of the Redemptorist Rule that forbade subjects to defend themselves before superiors said nothing at all. St. Alphonsus was perplexed but although faced with a potentially enormous scandal did not put St Gerard's reputation, or the Church's or the Congregation's reputation above that of the protection of the young and innocent. He did not allow St Gerard to continue to frequent houses where he might have unguarded access to young girls nor did he try to browbeat the girl into admitting that she was lying or hallucinating. Until his perplexity could be removed he forbade Gerard to leave the monastery anymore while also severely restricting his reception of the blessed Sacrament. Gerard was in disgrace. This lasted until the girl suddenly finding herself at death's door admitted that she had invented the whole tale to cover her embarrassment. If a patron saint for the victims of clerical abuse is being sought I think these two saints ought to be contenders for that sad honour.

Know Your Limits

While looking for something completely different I found the above short video on the Gloria tv homepage. I don't know who or what this skit was trying to satirise but if you care to take a look at the blog Taliban Rising you will see how pertinent it is to certain sectors of Tradition. Whoever said "The use of reason is for men" and "Ideas are not for true girls" would fit in quite nicely with this dinner party. I think apologists for Tradition ought to know their limits.

Akaroa

My third visit to Akaroa yesterday saw me remember at last to take some photos for the blog. For all the non-Kiwis who visit this blog, Akaroa is the place where the first white settlers landed on the South Island. Like much of New Zealand it is very scenic but in this case there is also some Catholic history bound up with it. The first settlers were French so the Faith came with them too. The plaque in the picture below stands outside the Catholic church in what is only a small village.

And here is St. Patricks today.

Syllabus of Errors

There is now a lot of good literature readily available on the liturgical changes since Vatican II and writers openly critical of these changes now extend far beyond the confines of the SSPX and the sedevacantist world. The same cannot be said of the debate on religious liberty and Vatican II where, with the notable exception of Fr. Bryan Harrison, all the controversy on this subject seems to emanate from the SSPX milieu. Hopefully, this will change soon but in the meantime Opuscula is striving manfully to help plug that gap and with his latest posts (which can be read here) is taking us to the heart of the pre-Vatican II debate, namely the promulgation by Pope Pius IX of the Syllabus of Errors in 1864.  The controversy over religious liberty centres on whether or how this document can be harmonized with Dignitatis Humanae. 

According to Pope Pius IX the Syllabus of Errors was "raw meat, needing to be cooked" and from the begininng there have been heated discussions between those who like it rare and those who like it well done and some who quite frankly like it raw. One of the most curious things about the Syllabus was that the concept of "tolerance" (i.e. tolerance of error to achieve a greater good or avoid a greater evil) was not once mentioned and this had to be "corrected" later by Pope Leo XIII. Certainly today to speak of the Catholic state without even mentioning tolerance is a bit like talking of the ark without the flood but even back then the omission caused misunderstandings and controversy. Immediately Msgr Dupanloup, Archbishop of Paris, wrote an explanation of the Syllabus in which he propounded his famous "thesis/anthithesis" rule of interpetation which introduced, though under different terminology, the theory of "tolerance" later to be taken up  by Pope Leo XIII. Six hundred bishops wrote to thank him, a sign of the percieved need for some such explanation. However, at the time and ever since there have been other Catholics who have condemned Dupanloup's intervention as seeking to evade the plain wording of the Syllabus and hence evidence of liberal inclinations. It was particularly in France that this debate ignited and the SSPX have been inspired by this strict, anti-Dupanloup school. There were many great and distinguished names amongst this group such as Cardinal Billot but it is important to know that they did not represent the entire body of pre-Vatican II thinking on the subject. The Jesuit Vermeersch for example, represented the opposite school and wrote an entire book titled Tolerance.  Likewise for the famous theologian Pohle whose article on religious tolerance for the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia can be read here. Over time the pre-Vatican II Popes seem to have recognised more explicitly the need and advisability for the tolerance of false religions, even in a Catholic state, culminating perhaps in Pope Pius XII's talk to Italian jurists in 1953. Speaking of the public, and not just private, practice of other religions he said:

Could it be that in certain circumstances He would not give men any mandate, would not impose any duty, and would not even communicate the right to impede or to repress what is erroneous and false? A look at things as they are gives an affirmative answer...Hence the affirmation: religious and moral error must always be impeded, when it is possible, because toleration of them is in itself immoral, is not valid ‘absolutely and unconditionally.…The duty of repressing moral and religious error cannot therefore be an ultimate norm of action. It must be subordinate to ‘higher and more general’ norms, which ‘in some circumstances’ permit, and even perhaps seem to indicate as the better policy, toleration of error in order to promote a ‘greater good.’

This "affirmation" that the Pope criticises is one I think that is to be found, at least implicitly, in the old debates on the subject from the anti-Dupanloup school as is also the reluctance to embrace the meaning of the first sentence. Anyway, this is one area where some historical background is important in understanding the to and fro of the arguments and the history is still not well known in the English speaking world.

Work Day

 

On Saturday, feast of the Holy Name of Mary eighteen people came along to help with work on our property. The main task for the day, as seen above, was to sand and paint the new sacristy. Contrary to our expectations we managed to complete that task in one day.. But we also got a lot of work done on our garden. Below the  team is tackling the vegetable garden.

We have been given a lot of help from faithful over the last two years with our buildings and garden but the chapel has always been the hardest or at least most time consuming part of the work. It was used by the exclusive Brethren before we bought it so has needed a fair bit of adaptation and enlargement. After Saturday the chapel now looks like this.

Tolkien At (Dialogue Mass)

The following reminisence from Simon Tolkien, grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, has appeared on at least two other blogs already but as the Lord of the Rings has had such an impact on my life and conversion to Catholicism I have to include it here also. I knew that Tolkien was not very happy with the Novus Ordo (at least in its English format) but I would never have thought his disapproval would have been taken to such lengths, even if so far as we know that was the only occasion.

I vividly remember going to church with him [J.R.R.] in Bournemouth. He was a devout Roman Catholic and it was soon after the Church had changed the liturgy from Latin to English. My grandfather obviously didn't agree with this and made all the responses very loudly in Latin while the rest of the congregation answered in English. I found the whole experience quite excruciating, but my grandfather was oblivious. He simply had to do what he believed to be right. He inherited his religion from his mother, who was ostracised by her family following her conversion and then died in poverty when my grandfather was just 12. I know that he played a big part in the decision to send me to Downside, a Roman Catholic school in Somerset.