Mass of Ages Spring 2020

Mass of Ages The quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society

Issue 203 – Spring 2020 – FREE

St John Henry Newman and the Oratorian legacy Success for the Priory Campaign Plus: news, views, Mass listings and nationwide reports

CLASSIFIED

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SPRING 2020

Contents

CONTENTS

5 Chairman’s Message We should not align ourselves with a process just because it appears to be vigorous and likely to prevail, says Joseph Shaw 6 LMS Year Planner – Notable events 7 Liturgical calendar 8 Thanksgiving for St John Henry Newman’s canonisation

Louis Maciel reports from the Pontifical High Mass

at Birmingham Oratory 10 Flawed theory

Joseph Shaw finds no evidence to support the idea that traditionally

minded Catholics are rigid in their thinking 12 Almost there!

Fr Armand de Malleray reports on the success of the Priory Campaign 14 Roman report

Alberto Carosa looks at the life of Saint John Henry Newman 16 Reports from around the country

What’s happening where you are 24 Wine

In the first in a new series, Sebastian Morello looks at ‘Cape wine’,

much-loved by Napoleon - and by the Latin Mass Society!

25 Obituary: Colin Mawby 26

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Idol gossip Mary O’Regan on the risks of dealing with those who would lead us away from the Faith Driven by profit Lone Veiler laments the folly of food fads and looks forward to Glorious Lent Architecture Paul Waddington looks at one of Edward Pugin’s lesser known churches

Ecclesia et Imperium Charles A. Coulombe on how the British Empire helped spread the Faith Extraordinary Youth and the Extraordinary Form Henry Walker is inspired by the number of young people attending the Traditional Mass Mass listings The Epiphany of our Lord Report and pictures by Clare Bowskill “I want to LIVE at Regina Caeli!”

Barbara Kay reports on a visit to a new hybrid education venture in Bedfordshire A visitor comes to the Oratory Jeremy Boot introduces a Muslim colleague to the beauties of the Traditional Mass

46 Classified advertisements 47 Books

Joseph Shaw reviews The Gentle Traditionalist Returns:

A Catholic Knight’s Tale from Ireland.

The Latin Mass Society 11-13 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NH Tel: 020 7404 7284 editor@lms.org.uk Mass of Ages No. 203

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PATRONS: Sir Adrian Fitzgerald Bt, Lord (Brian) Gill, Sir James MacMillan CBE, Colin Mawby KSG, Charles Moore COMMITTEE: Dr Joseph Shaw – Chairman; Kevin Jones – Secretary; David Forster – Treasurer; Paul Beardsmore – Vice President; Paul Waddington – Vice President; Alisa Kunitz-Dick; Antonia Robinson; Nicholas Ross; Alastair Tocher; Roger Wemyss Brooks.

Registered UK Charity No. 248388

Crossword

Cover: St John Henry Newman

by Sir John Everett Millais.

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Due to the considerable volume of emails and letters received at Mass of Ages it is regrettably not always possible to reply to all correspondents.

MASS OF AGES: Editor: Tom Quinn Design: GADS Ltd Printers: Cambrian DISCLAIMER: Please note that the views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the Latin Mass Society or the Editorial Board. Great care is taken to credit photographs and seek permission before publishing, though this is not always possible. If you have a query regarding copyright, please contact the Editor. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission.

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CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

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CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE

Spaces of power We should not align ourselves with a process just because it appears to be vigorous and likely to prevail, says Joseph Shaw

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lsewhere in this edition of Mass of Ages I discuss the language of ‘rigidity’, as used by Pope Francis and also by others. I attempt to show that it has a meaningful pedigree: it refers to a personality type developed by identifiable psychiatrists working between the 1930s and the 1950s. This kind of knowledge should enable us to face the accusation, when it is made, with greater confidence: knowing what it actually means will help us to address the real concerns of our critics.

I am equally intrigued by another aspect of Pope Francis’ idiolect: ‘time is greater than space’. At first glance it seems incomprehensible, but in Evangelii Gaudium (2013) §223 Pope Francis actually explains it quite clearly: One of the faults which we occasionally observe in sociopolitical activity is that spaces and power are preferred to time and processes. Giving priority to space means madly attempting to keep everything together in the present, trying to possess all the spaces of power and of self-assertion; it is to crystallize processes and presume to hold them back.

Fans of The Doors might prefer Jim Morrison’s expression of a closely related idea, about the inevitability of generational change: ‘They’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers.’

Spaces of power in the Church are not what they were. Every year our bishops preside over fewer churchgoers, fewer priests, and less revenue, than the year before. There was a moment under Pope Benedict that some of these numbers began to improve, but the long-term trend has since reasserted itself. Numbers of ordinations may be above their nadir, but numbers of priests continue to fall, as do baptisms and marriages.

Being the king of an ever-diminishing castle is clearly less important than being able to influence or take part in a living, dynamic process. Ultimately,

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‘No charges so far.

Brother is just helping with enquiries.’

From Cracks in the Curia, 1972

it is not important who has power, if this power doesn’t have the ability to ‘hold back’ or ‘crystallise’ processes, processes which don’t necessarily align with the preferences of the powerful.

Over time, the process will triumph; a power-structure which tries to ignore or stifle it will be left as an empty shell.

One can see that Pope Francis has a point here, without it always being easy to identify what is the ultimately empty power structure, and what the dynamic process. Sixty-five years ago, it appeared to many that classical Catholic theology and liturgy was becoming an empty shell, which was doomed by ineluctable historical trends despite being defended by those in positions of power. The situation wasn’t quite so simple, however. Pope Paul VI presents, you might think, a paradigm example of someone in a position of power trying, hopelessly, to hold back the tide, when he appealed to religious superiors to keep the sung Latin office. However, he expressed himself in 1966 rather differently (Sacrificium Laudis): One can also wonder whether men would come in such numbers to your churches in quest of the sacred prayer, if its ancient and native tongue, joined to a chant full of grave beauty, resounded no more within your walls.

We therefore ask all those to whom it pertains, to ponder what they wish to

give up, and not to let that spring run dry from which, until the present, they have themselves drunk deep.

Not for the last time in his troubled pontificate, Pope Paul was prophetic.

Certainly, there was a powerful historical trend in 1966 against Gregorian chant, but it was a trend towards cutting off access to a true source of spiritual sustenance and growth.

We should not align ourselves with a process just because it appears to be vigorous and likely to prevail. Processes, like spirits, have to be discerned. We are fortunate in enjoying today a process of growth and development along lines which are not novel, but put into practice in our own circumstances principles which have been tried and tested over many centuries and in many contrasting cultural conditions, principles which are, indeed, the Church’s own. These are the principles of the Church’s liturgical patrimony, and the music and spirituality which accompany it. This is not a process which will cut us off from the authentic sources of spiritual growth, but reconnects us to them.

The possessors of ‘spaces and power’ can oppose this process, ignore it, or work with it, but as Pope Francis suggests, the process has time on its side. Let us, the foot soldiers of the liturgical restoration, play our part with patience, charity, and perseverance.

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EVENTS

LMS Year Planner – Notable Events Iota Unum Talk in London, Friday, 14 February

Iota Unum Talk in London, Friday, 24 April

The next in our series of talks for this year in the basement of Our Lady of the Assumption & St Gregory, Warwick Street, London 7pm (doors open 6.30pm, please use Golden Square entrance). The speaker will be Charles Coulombe on ‘Personal Liturgical Survival’. As usual, there will be a charge of £5 on the door to cover refreshments and other expenses.

The next in our series of talks, the speaker will be Joseph Shaw on ‘Headship and Hierarchy in the Household’. See above for further details.

Requiem Mass for Colin Mawby, Saturday, 15 February Colin Mawby (1936-2019) was a Catholic composer and a Patron of the Latin Mass Society. We have organised a Requiem for the repose of his soul, which will be a High Mass in St Mary Moorfields Church, on Saturday, 15 February 2020 at 11am.

Society of St Tarcisius Server Training Day, Saturday, 14 March This is another opportunity for men and boys to learn to serve the Traditional Mass. The venue has changed and it will now be held in St James’s, Spanish Place, London W1U 3QY starting at 10.30am. Booking is required, so the organisers have an accurate idea of numbers attending and what they wish to learn; there is no fee. To book, email tarcisius@lms.org.uk The Guild of St Clare will also be meeting in the basement hall for a vestment mending day.

LMS Pilgrimage to Caversham, Saturday, 21 March The LMS Pilgrimage in honour of Our Lady of Caversham takes place on Saturday, 21 March. There will be a High Mass at 11.30am. The Shrine of Our Lady of Caversham is housed in the church of Our Lady and St Anne, South View Avenue, Reading RG4 5AB.

Iota Unum Talk in London, Friday, 27 March The next in our series of talks, the speaker this time will be Maria Madise (International Director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, and Manager of Voice of the Family) on ‘Attacks on the Family from Within the Church’. See above for further details.

Holy Week 2020 The LMS will celebrate the Sacred Triduum in St Mary Moorfields, London. Details can be found elsewhere in this edition of Mass of Ages and on our website.

Residential Training Conference for Priests and Servers, 20 – 23 April Our Training Conference will be held at Theodore House, Stonyhurst, Lancashire BB7 9PT from Monday, 20 to Thursday, 23 April 2020 (Low Week). It will begin at lunch time on the Monday and end at lunch time on the Thursday. Further information can be found in the insert in the centre of this magazine or on our website, where you can register to attend the Conference.

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Pilgrimage in honour of the English Martyrs, Saturday, 2 May Our annual Pilgrimage in honour of the English Martyrs takes place in Preston, by kind invitation of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. See the advertisement elsewhere in this magazine.

Requiem for John Arnell, Saturday, 23 May High Mass of Requiem will be offered for the repose of the soul of LMS benefactor, John Arnell, in St Bede’s, Clapham Park at 11am.

Looking ahead Iota Unum Talk, Friday, 29 May: Matthew Ward on ‘Latin Chant as Prayer’.

Forty Hours’ Devotion, 17 to 19 June in St Mary Moorfields.

Iota Unum Talk, Friday, 19 June: Mgr Keith Newton on ‘The Ordinariate and the Traditional Movement: A Truly Catholic Alliance’.

LMS Pilgrimage to Chideock, Saturday, 27 June LMS Pilgrimage to Holywell, Sunday, 5 July AGM and High Mass in Westminster Cathedral, Saturday, 18 July St Catherine’s Trust Summer School, Sunday, 2 to Saturday 8 August at St Cassian’s Centre, Kintbury, Berkshire LMS Latin Course, Monday, 17 to Friday, 21 August in Savio House, Macclesfield.

LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham, 27 to 30 August

NEWS Write for us!

If you enjoy reading Mass of Ages and feel there is an article you would like to write for us do let us know.

In the first instance contact the Editor with an outline of your proposed article letting us know why you are the person to write it and with details of any photographs or illustrations you are able to supply.

Contact our Editor Tom Quinn at editor@lms.org.uk

FACTFILE Details of all our events can be found on our

website, together with booking and payment facilities where applicable. Go to lms.org.uk

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LITURGICAL CALENDAR

Liturgical calendar FEBRUARY Sun 9 Feb Mon 10 Feb Tue 11 Feb Wed 12 Feb

Thu 13 Feb Fri 14 Feb Sat 15 Feb Sun 16 Feb Mon 17 Feb Tue 18 Feb Wed 19 Feb Thu 20 Feb Fri 21 Feb Sat 22 Feb Sun 23 Feb Mon 24 Feb Tue 25 Feb Wed 26 Feb Thu 27 Feb Fri 28 Feb Sat 29 Feb

SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY II Cl V S SCHOLASTICA V III Cl W APPARITION of the BVM IMMACULATE Ill Cl W SEVEN HOLY FOUNDERS of the ORDER of the SERVANTS of the BVM CC III Cl W FERIA IV Cl V FERIA IV Cl V OUR LADY’S SATURDAY IV Cl W SEXAGESIMA SUNDAY II Cl V FERIA IV Cl V FERIA IV Cl V FERIA IV Cl V FERIA IV Cl V FERIA IV Cl V CHAIR OF S PETER Ap II Cl W QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY II Cl V FERIA IV Cl V S MATTHIAS Ap II Cl R ASH WEDNESDAY I Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V

MARCH Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue

1 Mar 2 Mar 3 Mar 4 Mar 5 Mar 6 Mar 7 Mar 8 Mar 9 Mar 10 Mar 11 Mar 12 Mar 13 Mar 14 Mar 15 Mar 16 Mar 17 Mar 18 Mar 19 Mar 20 Mar 21 Mar 22 Mar 23 Mar 24 Mar 25 Mar 26 Mar 27 Mar 28 Mar 29 Mar 30 Mar 31 Mar

I SUNDAY in LENT I Cl V FERIA Ill Cl V FERIA Ill Cl V EMBER DAY II Cl V FERIA Ill Cl V EMBER DAY II Cl V EMBER DAY II Cl V II SUNDAY in LENT I Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V III SUNDAY in LENT I Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA lll Cl V S JOSEPH SPOUSE of the BVM C I Cl W FERIA lll Cl V FERIA lll Cl V IV SUNDAY in LENT (Laetare Sunday) I Cl V/ROSE FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V ANNUNCIATION of the BVM I Cl W FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V FERIA III Cl V PASSION SUNDAY (I SUNDAY of PASSIONTIDE) I Cl V FERIA in PASSION WEEK III Cl V FERIA in PASSION WEEK III Cl V

APRIL Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 Apr 2 Apr 3 Apr 4 Apr 5 Apr 6 Apr 7 Apr 8 Apr 9 Apr 10 Apr 11 Apr 12 Apr 13 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr 16 Apr 17 Apr 18 Apr

FERIA in PASSION WEEK III Cl V FERIA in PASSION WEEK III Cl V FERIA in PASSION WEEK III Cl V FERIA in PASSION WEEK III Cl V PALM SUNDAY (II SUNDAY of PASSIONTIDE) I Cl R & V MONDAY in HOLY WEEK I Cl V TUESDAY in HOLY WEEK I Cl V WEDNESDAY in HOLY WEEK I Cl V HOLY THURSDAY I Cl W GOOD FRIDAY I Cl B & V HOLY SATURDAY I Cl V & W EASTER SUNDAY I Cl W EASTER MONDAY I Cl W EASTER TUESDAY I Cl W EASTER WEDNESDAY I Cl W EASTER THURSDAY I Cl W EASTER FRIDAY I Cl W EASTER SATURDAY (Sabbato in Albis) I Cl W

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Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu

19 Apr 20 Apr 21 Apr 22 Apr 23 Apr 24 Apr 25 Apr 26 Apr 27 Apr 28 Apr 29 Apr 30 Apr

LOW SUNDAY I Cl W FERIA IV Cl W S ANSELM B C D III CI W SS SOTER & CAIUS PP MM III Cl R S GEORGE M I CI R S FIDELIS of SIGMARINGEN M III CI R S MARK Evangelist II Cl R II SUNDAY after EASTER II Cl W S PETER CANISIUS C D III Cl W S PAUL of the CROSS C III Cl W S PETER M III Cl R S CATHERINE of SIENA V III Cl W

MAY Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 May 2 May 3 May 4 May 5 May 6 May 7 May 8 May 9 May

S JOSEPH the WORKER, SPOUSE of the BVM C I Cl W S ATHANASIUS B C D III Cl W III SUNDAY after EASTER II Cl W S MONICA W III CI W S PIUS V P C III CI W FERIA IV Cl W S STANISLAUS B M III Cl R FERIA IV Cl W S GREGORY NAZIANZEN B C D III Cl W

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IN PICTURES

Thanksgiving for St John He

Louis Maciel reports from the Pontifical High Mass at Birmingham Oratory

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n 18 October 2019, Archbishop Bernard Longley celebrated Pontifical High Mass in thanksgiving for the canonisation of the founder of the English Oratories, St John Henry Newman at the church built as his memorial in Edgbaston, Birmingham.

It was the third Pontifical High Mass His Grace had offered at the Oratory, the first being on the occasion of the parish visitation in 2016, which was then followed by a celebration on the Patronal Feast Day of both the parish and the Archdiocese later that year, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The groundwork had been laid on the very same Patronal Feast Day a year before when Bishop Robert Byrne, Cong. Orat, newly elevated to the episcopate, celebrated Pontifical High Mass for the congregation in which he had been ordained. There have been several celebrated by him since, both in Birmingham and in Oxford.

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It was standing room only in the church, with the struggle to get a car parking space foreshadowing the difficulty of getting a seat for the service. In attendance were many local and national dignitaries, including his Excellency, the Most Reverend Edward Joseph Adams, the Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, Her Majesty’s LordLieutenant to the West Midlands, John Crabtree OBE, the High Sheriff of the West Midlands Michael Kuo, and the Lord Mayor of Birmingham and Mayor of Sandwell.

These processed into the Mass at the beginning with the Archbishop, accompanied by Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, St Gregory and Malta.

A brass fanfare played while the sacred ministers recited the Gloria, bringing to mind the bells used at the first Mass of Easter after the silence of Passiontide. The Oratory choir, ably directed by Myriam Toumi, sang

Monteverdi’s Missa in Illo Tempore with Cornetts and Sackbuts, which also accompanied the offertory motet Jubilate Deo by Gabrieli. During Communion, two pieces by Mozart, Ave Verum followed

by Laudate Dominum, sung by soloist Elizabeth Adams, provided a suitably prayerful auditory atmosphere.

The Provost of the Birmingham Oratory, Fr Ignatius Harrison, preached the sermon as he had done the day before when Cardinal Nichols, the former Archbishop of Birmingham and current Archbishop of Westminster, celebrated Pontifical High Mass at the Brompton Oratory. He began with a Hail Mary in preparation for the granting of the indulgence which was given after the sermon, preceded by a Sung confiteor as the entire church knelt.

The Mass concluded with the Pontifical Blessing. On Sunday, Vespers and Benediction with Te Deum took place to complete a very special weekend.

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IN PICTURES

nry Newman’s canonisation Despite not being an exclusively an Extraordinary Form parish, the Birmingham Oratory has been highly influential in the spread of the traditional form of the Mass in the West Midlands; it would not be hard to make the argument that the other five regular Masses in the region are all indirectly a result of their efforts, including one at Maryvale, Newman’s first home in Birmingham, which was started by a former Oratorian.

Until recently it had the only weekly Sunday High Mass in the country, and with the Easter Triduum and Midnight Mass for Christmas being celebrated for the first time in the Usus Antiquior last year, the principle Mass for each Feastday is now in the Extraordinary Form. Masses for the dead have spread to other churches, bringing back the use of black vestments not seen since the reforms of the 1970s, and Rorate Masses celebrated during Advent have also spread throughout the region, sometimes in the Novus Ordo, satisfying Pope Benedict’s hope that the two forms of the Mass would enrich each other.

Pontifical High Masses are becoming more commonplace, too. On the 21st February, at 5.30pm, Bishop Robert Byrne, now the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, will celebrate Mass in thanksgiving for the canonical erection of the Manchester Oratory, itself perhaps

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a miracle due to the intercession of England’s newest saint given that it has been in formation for over twenty years, the announcement coinciding with the canonical erection of the rather more recently formed York Oratory, bringing the number of Oratories in this country to a total of five, with two more in formation in Cardiff and Bournemouth. It has been one of the few orders in this country that has seen significant growth since the Second Vatican Council.

The intercession of the founder may also transcend the liturgy: at the end of last year an abortion clinic in the parish boundaries, once the busiest in the country and the first opened outside London, closed after fifty years, a story worthy of an article in itself.

Sadly, alongside these exciting developments, it was announced that Fr Jerome Bertram, one of the early members of the community at the Oxford Oratory, had passed away. We pray that God will deem him worthy of the words sung as the Archbishop entered: Ecce sarcedos magnus, qui in diebus suis placuit Deo, et inventus est iustus.

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FEATURE

Flawed theory Joseph Shaw finds no evidence to support the idea that traditionally minded Catholics are rigid in their thinking

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ope Francis appealed to the concept of ‘rigidity’ when asked

by Fr Antonio Spadaro, why some people like the Traditional Mass: And I ask myself: Why so much rigidity? Dig, dig, this rigidity always hides something, insecurity or even something else. Rigidity is defensive. True love is not rigid.

The accusation of ‘rigidity’ against conservative and traditionallyminded Catholics, and particularly seminarians, is a familiar one, and it is important to try to understand where it comes from and what it really means, in order to determine whether it is justified, and how to respond to it.

The story begins with Sigmund Freud, who liked to explain negative psychological phenomena by reference to sexual repression. It seemed natural to a later psychologist, Wilhelm Reich, to use it to explain Fascism (The Mass Psychology of Fascism, 1933). Reich wrote: Suppression of the natural sexuality in the child, particularly of its genital sexuality, makes the child apprehensive, shy, obedient, afraid of authority, good and adjusted in the authoritarian sense; it paralyzes the rebellious forces because any rebellion is laden with anxiety…

Reich applied his theory not only to Nazism, but to Communism, labelling it ‘Red Fascism’, and was ejected from the Communist Party for his pains.

Reich’s challenge to Nazism was answered by another psychologist, Erich Jaensch, in 1935. Jaensch gave Reich’s characterisation of Nazis a positive spin, saying that they were clean-living, tough-minded, and antiSemitic, and opposed to decadent artistic, ideological, and sexual trends.

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After the war Theodor Adorno and his co-authors picked up the threads of this debate in The Authoritarian Personality (1950). Adorno and his collaborators adopted Jaensch’s two personality types; like Reich, however, they appealed to sexual repression as the origin of the type Jaensch liked, but which they criticised: the ‘Authoritarian’ type.

Adorno’s theory was very influential.

Twenty years after Adorno’s book, the British psychologist Peter Kelvin described the authoritarian personality as follows: These tendencies reflect on a type of individual who needs to feel that his environment is highly predictable ... he needs to know where he stands; and so he fastens on to norms: he does not ‘let himself go’, for fear of where this might lead; he looks to authority as a guide ... [He also] relies very heavily on stereotypes in [his] perception of the social environment.1 These ideas were not limited to textbooks. The 1979 Pink Floyd album, The Wall, opposes the ‘bleeding hearts and artists’, and the repressed, fearful, dull-witted, and aggressive types who hate Jews, black people, and homosexuals. This is popular culture straight out of Adorno.

It is reasonably clear therefore what Pope Francis and others in the Church have in mind when they talk about ‘rigidity’. It is a reference to the authoritarian personality, linked in textbook fashion to insecurity.

It would appear from this that on Pope Francis’ analysis Traditionalism is a harmless outlet for a group of people with deep-seated anxiety issues.

Importantly, this analysis does not suggest that Traditionalism is any kind of threat, since its pool of potential supporters is very limited. On the other hand, members of this unfortunate

minority are clearly unsuited to pastoral ministry, and it is no surprise to find Pope Francis less relaxed about traditionalist seminarians, and the bishops who wish to ordain them, than he is about celebrations of the Traditional Mass.

The important question is: is this true?

Are those attached to the Traditional Mass frightened, immature, and unimaginative? More fundamentally, do the characteristics attributed by Adorno to the ‘authoritarian personality’ really go together?

Adorno’s research methodology has been much criticised; leaving that aside, I would pick out two large-scale problems with his theory.

The first is the assertion by the Nazi psychologist Jaensch, which has passed without challenge into the thinking of Adorno and his popularisers, that the Nazis were products of the traditional, hierarchical family, and represented traditional, middle-class morality, especially in the area of sexuality.

Jaensch’s motive was to make the Nazis reassuringly respectable; Adorno’s project seems to be to denigrate this kind of respectability through its association with the Nazis.

The reality, however, as many people noticed at the time and since, was that the Nazi party was filled with saddos and misfits, of all kinds of family backgrounds, often of dubious sexuality and even racial origin, who condemned bourgeois moral principles, herded priests into death camps, and dabbled in the occult. They undermined the authority of the traditional family in favour of the state, by for example conscripting children into the Hitler Youth, and had little time for conventional sexual morality.

The second issue is to do with the Freudian explanation of the Nazi phenomenon. This is that sexual repression leads to anxiety, narrowmindedness, and a strong aversion to taking risks. The difficulty is that the

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FEATURE

adoption of fascism in Germany was experienced not as an act of conformity to conventional rules, but as the violent overthrow of the political establishment, in favour of a programme of suicidally risky expansionism. Nor was the warmachine which emerged from the Nazi experiment characterised by sclerotic risk-aversion and a failure of imagination. Indeed, it was not the Germans, but their opponents, who were incapable of adjusting their military principles to new information and circumstances, particularly in the opening stages of the war.

In short, the different components of the stereotypical ‘authoritarian personality’– traditional sexual morality, risk aversion, rigidity of thinking, etcetera – don’t hang together, even in the favourite example of those who developed this theory.

There is, of course, such a thing as risk aversion. Leaving aside the rest of Adorno’s theory, can we connect this with traditional morality?

Two lines of empirical enquiry shed some light on this question. The first is the investigation of healthy risk-taking, seen for example in entrepreneurism.

One of the things which has emerged from this is that children with secure two-parent families have greater appetite for such risk in later life, than others less fortunate.2 Traditional two-parent families are strongly correlated with positive life outcomes for children in many ways, so this finding is hardly surprising.

But it is these families, if any, which must include that bogey-man of Freudianism, the supposedly cloying and unimaginative traditional family, and its moral formation of children.

The reality is that children brought up without this structure, with supposedly liberated parents moving between multiple partners, are more prone to have problems with their school work and to display chronic anxiety.

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The second line of suggestive research relates to pornography. On the basis that sexual repression is the key to all sorts of problems, generations of Freud-influenced penal reformers have demanded that imprisoned sex offenders be provided with a supply of porn.

What does the evidence say? One survey of the literature, whose author set out to test the effectiveness of rehabilitation plans for offenders which included the provision of pornography, admitted: My dilemma is that I find there is no research support for utilizing pornography in any type of treatment for violent and/or sexually violent offenders. The literature is rich, however, with information about the negative impact of pornography for the violent and sexually violent offender.3 As with the Freudian claim about sexual morality and pathological riskaversion, the claim that porn can facilitate a sexual outlet like a safety-valve for people of disturbed sexualities, is not just off the mark, but the reverse of the truth.

To put it charitably, Pope Francis’ form of expression is linked to a psychological theory which, while mainstream forty years ago, is today outdated.

The next question is: how can we best respond to the accusation of ‘rigidity’?

When it is impractical to raise the more fundamental criticisms of Adorno which I have set out above, one can use the supposed connections between different character traits to undermine the idea that a person or group of people are really ‘rigid’. Remember, the theory says that ‘rigid’ people are not only sexually repressed but risk-averse, wishing above all to impress their superiors and keep the rules, lacking in artistic imagination, are anti-Semites and racists, and so on.

If one points out, therefore, that the Traditional Mass has always been strongly

supported by poets and musicians, the Adorno-influenced critic will find this very surprising. He will be further confused if he notices that the Traditional Mass is supported by people of all races, including Jewish converts to the Faith. Above all, it should be impressed on Adorno’s modern Catholic disciples that the vast majority of supporters of the Traditional Mass have come to it in defiance of those in authority over them, and certainly not as a way of currying favour with anyone. Indeed, for young people today, the Traditional Mass can be the ultimate rebellion.

A longer version of this paper was delivered as part of the Iota Unum series in April 2019.

‘Me – square?’

From Cracks in the Curia, 1972

1 Peter Kelvin, The Bases of Social Behaviour, 1970.

Quoted by Norman Dixon The Psychology of Military Incompetence (1976). Ellipses are Dixon’s.

2 “Smart and Illicit: Who Becomes an Entrepreneur and Do They Earn More?” by Ross Levine and Yona Rubinstein (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2016) 3 “Use of Pornography with Sex Offenders in Treatment: A Controversial Conundrum” Scott Allen Johnson (International Journal of Emergency Mental Health and Human Resilience, 2015)

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FEATURE

Almost there!

Fr Armand de Malleray reports on the success of the Priory Campaign and asks readers to help complete the purchase of a centre that will help secure the future of the Church in England

B

y God’s grace, through the generosity and prayers of many, and against serious odds, the large building of Priory Court, near St Mary’s Church in Warrington, has been purchased by the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter last autumn. As Mass of Ages readers may recall, the Priory Campaign was launched in the summer 2018 to convert two office buildings to pastoral use.

Formerly owned by Ampleforth Abbey, like St Mary’s Church and Presbytery, these two further buildings of sympathetic Georgian style are part of the same architectural compound.

While in the end we could not afford buying both of them, we happily secured the larger of the two.

A gate through our garden wall and a paved walkway were added, connecting the new building and its adjacent car park to our existing property. It is with great joy that our growing traditional community can now expand towards that new site, which already provides us with a much-needed parish hall and conference room.

Our Wednesday educational activities take place there, as well as our weekly twenty-strong men’s group.

Last Christmas, an audience of sixty comfortably sat in the larger room to attend a Nativity play performed by our talented children. Everyone at St Mary’s gives thanks for the opportunities offered by the new building to our pastoral activities.

Our Priory Campaign total currently sits at around £600,000 plus some Gift Aid to be claimed. But the new building cost £240,000 per unit - that is £720,000 in total. We are now

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legal owners of two thirds (Units 2 & 3), but we still need money to buy the last third (Unit 1). Thankfully, we have already raised £105,000 out of £240,000, leaving only £135,000 to find

by October 2020, when our free lease on Unit 1 will end. While there is no risk whatsoever that we may lose the two units already owned by us, it would be a great pity not to be able to buy the last unit. Completing the purchase of Priory Court makes every sense now that two thirds of the same building is ours, while we already use the last third for free.

Dr Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the Latin Mass Society wrote: “The priests of the Fraternity of St Peter successfully reintroduced the Church’s ancient Latin liturgy to St Mary’s, Warrington, when they were entrusted with this church by the Archdiocese of Liverpool in 2015. The existing congregation has received this liturgy with great interest and devotion, and it has attracted others from far and wide.

The FSSP are able to hear confessions, to offer all the sacraments, to give spiritual direction to all who desire it, to instruct and receive converts, to foster vocations, and to publish a magazine devoted to their apostolate.

This great and growing work now requires larger premises, and it seems providential that former parish buildings have become available for purchase. I support their Priory Campaign of fundraising to provide their apostolic zeal with the ambitious setting needed for many more English Catholics, lapsed and converts, to discover the riches of tradition.”

Some further prominent Catholics lent their official support to our 2018 Priory Campaign, including Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Maria Haynes of the National Association of Catholic Families, Robin Haig of SPUC, Robert Colquhoun of 40 Days for Life, Clare McCullough of the Good Counsel Network, and Viscountess Ashbrook of Arley Hall.

They understood that there is more to this undertaking than stones.

Priory Court is an investment in the future of the Church in England. If one realises that, before our arrival, the wealthy Abbey of Ampleforth had sold these buildings for want of monks to man this parish (later relinquishing St Mary’s Church itself ), one will appreciate the manifesto of hope our purchase expresses.

The comparatively small Catholic traditional movement in this country is growing. It is able to bring back for the good of souls former parish buildings sadly turned into offices.

More and more families, grandparents and single people realise that the Roman traditions of the Church answer all needs, even in modern times. The Priory Court achievement at Warrington is about building up a strong fully-fledged traditional community. But as for any Catholic community in this country, our purpose cannot simply be to cater for the happy few. All of us bemoan the collapse of the faith across the land. Completing the purchase of Priory Court will allow us to be more pro-active, and to reach out to souls either lapsed or ignorant of Christ and his Church.

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FEATURE

This has already started, with a surprising number of adults knocking at our door ‘out of nowhere’ to seek instruction, the sacraments and guidance. Meanwhile, for want of bedrooms, we are unrolling mattresses for the nine young men coming to attend our Vocation Discernment weekend this month; and we must keep some people on waiting lists for our various retreats and recollections in several pastoral centres. There is every reason for the traditional movement to become endowed with larger facilities such as Priory Court. This should become a place where good doctrinal conferences, liturgical training sessions, pro-life events and family gathering are held. As to priestly ordinations, thank God and our Archbishop, we have had them twice here already; but you will surely agree that we cannot rely further on the nearby Salvation Army Hall for the following reception - they will not allow wine!

So please help us complete the purchase and secure a strong traditional hub and community in the North West. May the many martyrs of England who died in this region obtain this from God’s mercy and from our benefactors’ charity. All our priests and seminarians assure you of our prayer this New Year.

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To donate 1. Please make the cheque or bank transfer payable to ‘FSSP ENGLAND’ 2. Please mention ‘Priory Campaign’ on the bank transfer or cheque if applicable 3. Are you a tax payer? Help us maximise your donation through Gift Aid (ask us for a form: warrington@fssp.org).

FSSP ENGLAND is a registered charity: number 1129964.

Bank Name: Lloyds Bank Sort Code: 30-93-04 Account number: 02027225 Account name: FSSP England For international transfers, you may also need: Bank Branch: Palmerston Rd Southsea Bank Address: Ariel House, 2138 Coventry Road, Sheldon, B26 3JW IBAN: GB09LOYD30930402027225 SWIFT code: LOYDGB21361 Please send your cheque and any correspondence to Priory Campaign, FSSP, St Mary’s Priory, Smith Street, Warrington WA1 2NS, Cheshire, England

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ROMAN REPORT

A Champion of Tradition Alberto Carosa looks at the life of Saint John Henry Newman

S

t John Henry Newman’s conversion was the end result of a centuries old process dating at least as far back as 1694, the year when Saint Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), founder of the Passionists, was born in Ovada, a town in the province of Alessandria in Piedmont.

In 1845 Newman was received into the Catholic Church by a Passionist Father, Blessed Domenico Barberi (17921849), also known as Domenico della Madre di Dio (Dominic of the Mother of God). He was a spiritual son of St Paul, who mandated him to establish a Passionist mission in England.

So, one may well wonder, how is it possible for Newman to be at times described as a sort of liberal Catholic, in a way a forerunner of all that led to Vatican II, if he is spiritually so closely associated with these two Italian giants of the faith? Well, the answer is simple and Professor Peter Kwasniewski has set the record straight in one of his recent articles in the New Liturgical Movement blog (14 October, 2019) significantly entitled “St John Henry Newman, the Traditionalist”.

A few quotes will be enough to prove the point and finally we may breathe a sigh of relief.

“It is ironic, to say the least,” says the Professor, “that Cardinal Newman is so often hailed as ‘the theologian of the Second Vatican Council’ or the great proponent of reforming trends within the contemporary Church, when — at least on matters concerning fundamental theology, Christian morality, and sacred liturgy — he argued strenuously and consistently throughout his career against rationalism, emotionalism, liberalism, and tinkeritis.”

The Professor continues: “In the realm of liturgy in particular, he was staunchly opposed to ritual modifications and modernizations designed to ‘meet people where they’re at’ or to (as Paul VI put it in his 3 April, 1969 Apostolic Constitution promulgating the Novus Ordo) ‘accommodate the mentality of today’.”

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St John Henry Newman: “The number of converts who owe their conversion, under grace, to Newman, at least in part, are too numerous to mention” Newman did not just proclaim himself just anti-liberal, the Professor goes on. “He was what is now called a traditionalist in matters dogmatic and liturgical, one who would have lambasted the entire conciliar project, and certainly the liturgical reform carried out in its name, as misguided and doomed to failure.”

In other words, as the Professor explains, Newman was “a Catholic traditionalist avant la lettre. One can

see this in so many writings from every period of his life, and of every genre, that it takes little more than opening pages at random to be able to start a fine personal collection of polished gems of perennial, hence anti-modernist, wisdom.”

In the Professor’s opinion, Newman has been selectively misquoted and misrepresented as a friend of the postconciliar progressive and modernist cause, thus “falling under a cloud

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ROMAN REPORT of suspicion in the minds of more conservative or traditional Catholics who do not know his work well”.

Let us remember that Newman has always been a favourite author for traditionalist writers such as Michael Davies, Neil McCaffrey and two former Anglicans, Fr John Hunwicke and Fr Richard Cipolla.

And last but not least, the Professor explains that, “Newman played a crucial role in my own intellectual and spiritual ‘conversion’ to traditional Catholicism.”

This explains the Professor’s decision to edit Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts

by John Henry Newman, edited by Peter A. Kwasniewski and published in paperback last year. This book is available from, among other places, the LMS online shop.

But there is also another way to prove the point that Newman can be surely regarded as a traditionalist ante litteram – the sheer number of people who were converted by his pastoral actions and writings. And who has ever heard or read of people converted by modernists or progressives? As reported in some media, Newman converts were in attendance at his recent canonization in Rome (“Newman converts come home to Rome for canonization”, Catholic News Agency, 13 October, 2019).

“He worked tirelessly as a Parish Priest and had a fatherly care for his Oratorian community”, the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, the Rt Rev. Robert Byrne CO, said during a Mass of Thanksgiving for Newman’s canonization, celebrated at the Basilica of St John Lateran on 14 October, 2019, in Rome.

“He guided countless people with letters of spiritual direction and counsel. He gave light to those who were searching for the truth and continues to do so through his published works of theology, philosophy, sermons and prayers” (see also the Catholic Herald of 15 October, 2019).

On the occasion of Newman’s beatification in 2010, in an interview in ZENIT (23 September 2010) Joseph Pearce, a British scholar and Catholic convert who has published numerous books on the great Christian intellectuals, including Newman, was quoted as saying that: “the number of converts who owe their conversion, under grace, to Newman, at least in

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part, are too numerous to mention”.

Moreover, he points out, among these were senior personalities such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, Oscar Wilde, Hilaire Belloc, J.R.R. Tolkien, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark.

This wave of conversions perfectly fits in the mission St Paul of the Cross had envisioned for England.

But why a mission in England? Many people may not be aware that for mysterious reasons, England’s return to the Catholic fold became one of St Paul’s main apostolic concerns, up to the point that he made this a specific purpose of his apostolate.

As recounted in his biography by Passionist father Luigi-Teresa di Gesù Agonizzante (S. Paolo della Croce, Rome, 1952), during his first trip to Rome in 1721 he prayed in front of the miraculous image of Our Lady Salus Populi Romani in the basilica of Saint Mary Major, vowing to propagate the devotion to the passion of Our Lord around the world (page 69). The central position of England in this mission, as revealed in the biography (pages 248249), he himself was not able to explain in human terms. Since it was not his will at all to do this, it was certainly the will of God and thus St Paul prayed for the conversion of England for fifty

years, leaving this commitment as a spiritual legacy to his congregation.

The Saint’s dream for the establishment of a Passionist foundation started to come true when the Passionist Father, Blessed Domenico Barberi, landed in England in 1841.

As a devotee of St Paul of the Cross, the author of this article was particularly enthused with the canonisation of Newman, such an illustrious saintly cardinal so closely associated to the founder of the Passionists. This author’s devotion is also related to the singular privilege his family’s ancestors received from St Paul who, during one of his countless apostolic missions throughout Italy, was given hospitality in his centuries old ancestral house in Abruzzo. A bust of the saint and a plaque on the entrance façade of the building are a reminder of this event.

This is the very house where this author was born in Oricola, a little town on a hilltop overlooking the Piana del Cavaliere, an area which is the gateway to the Abruzzo district of La Marsica, immediately after the border separating the Province of L’Aquila from that of Rome, on the route that connects the Tyrrhenian coast to the Adriatic sea, along the ancient Tiburtina-Valeria Roman road.

The writer's family house where St Paul of the Cross stayed

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

DIOCESAN DIGEST Mass of Ages quarterly round-up Arundel & Brighton Anne-Marie Mackie-Savage 01323 411370 aandb@lms.org.uk We have been blessed with wonderfully regular Masses in Eastbourne thanks to Fr Tristan Cranfield of Our Lady of Ransom, and Fr Thomas Mason of the Ordinariate. Of course, as Latin Masses are very much dependent on where priests are assigned, we are very aware that these Masses can be ended at rather short notice, so we are extremely grateful while we have them. Fr Gerard Hatton has returned to health and is once again saying Masses in his parish at Knaphill and we still have the regular Masses in Lewes thanks to Fr Jonathan Martin, and to Fr Sean Finnegan in Caterham. There are quarterly Masses at Our Lady of Consolation, West Grinstead. If any Masses have been omitted, please let me know so I can remedy that!

Thanks to all our supporters and the priests who make these Masses possible. If I can be of any help in any way, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Birmingham & Black Country Louis Maciel 0739 223 2225 birmingham@lms.org.uk birmingham-lms-rep.blogspot.co.uk/ For the first time since the reforms, the Christmas Midnight Mass at the Oratory was celebrated in the Extraordinary Form, following on from the successful Easter Triduum earlier in the year. There were also Christmas Day Masses at St Maryon-the-Hill, Wednesbury and Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Wolverhampton, as well as a fine Missa Cantata at the latter on the Friday after the Epiphany.

I am sad to report that, after twenty-two years of faithful service as Parish Priest at Our Lady and St Kenelm in Halesowen, Fr Bruce Dutson retired at the end of January, with the oldest continuous EF Mass in the region ending at the same time. We wish Fr Bruce all the best in his well-deserved retirement.

St Dunstan’s church reopened in December and the EF Masses have resumed at Our Lady’s Altar while the main Altar awaits renovation, having been celebrated temporarily in the Conference Centre.

The parishioners of St Mary-on-the-Hill in Wednesbury were delighted to welcome back Fr Ian Verrier FSSP to celebrate Mass in early December, at the church where he was originally received into the Catholic Faith and where he was organist for a few years.

Birmingham (Little Malvern) Alastair J Tocher 01684 893332 extraordinarymalvern.uk@btinternet.com extraordinarymalvern.uk Facebook: Extraordinary Malvern Missae Cantatae at St Wulstan’s are now established every Sunday. This has entailed additional preparation of music, much of which is now accessible on the Schola website (schola.uk). The Schola’s repertoire also, at last, includes a first

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polyphonic Gloria – from Hassler’s Missa super Dixit Maria – with more planned to follow in the coming year.

On the last Sunday on October – Christ the King – what is thought to be the first High Mass at St Wulstan’s for 50 years was celebrated by Fr George Grynowski assisted by Canon Smith ICKSP and Fr Gribbin from Shrewsbury. This was followed two weeks later by our annual Requiem Mass on Remembrance Sunday, though this was less well attended than in the previous year.

Fr Stephen Schumacher, a priest of the Archdiocese of St Louis currently studying in Rome, was visiting the area, learned of our presence online, and kindly offered to celebrate Low Mass in the Lady Chapel on 1 January, which I believe was another first for many years.

Thanks as ever to Dom Jonathan Rollinson OSB (Belmont), Canon Scott Smith ICKSP, and Fr Anselm Gribbin for regularly giving up their Sunday afternoons to celebrate Mass for us; also to Fr George Grynowski as noted above and to Dom Paul Gunter OSB (Douai) – Parish Priest of nearby Alcester – for celebrating Mass for us on the Feast of the Holy Family; and last but not least to our singers, servers, tea ladies, and offertory collectors, and to our Parish Priest, Dom Edward Crouzet OSB (Downside) for allowing us use of the church and hall.

Birmingham (North Staffordshire) Alan Frost Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Swynnerton near Stone continues to be the focus for Latin Mass devotees in North Staffs, and there is encouraging news. Two priests in the area are interested in celebrating the Tridentine Mass and hopefully we will witness this occurring in this new year and new decade. Further happy news is that a young lady and regular attender at N. Staffs Masses and LMS Summer Schools for a number of years is discerning a vocation and has recently entered a Convent as a novice.

Fr Chavasse, P.P. of Our Lady’s, who has suffered for some time from throat illness, experienced, briefly, a ‘little miracle’ by being able to join in with the carol singing at Midnight Mass. Earlier in the day the local choir gave a carol concert at Our Lady’s Church. It was well attended and Fr Chavasse gave the homily and read the Lesson.

Birmingham (Oxford) Joseph Shaw oxford@lms.org.uk Our annual Oxford Pilgrimage was well supported this year; we had a splendid High Mass in the Dominican Rite in Oxford Blackfriars (the Priory of the Holy Spirit), followed by a procession through the streets to the site of the martyrdom of Bl. George Napier in 1610, which is marked with a steel plaque in the Castle quarter, followed by Benediction. I should like to record my thanks to Fr Bruno Clifton OP, the celebrant, and the other members of the community who assisted, and to Alex Lloyd of the Newman Consort who provided some lovely polyphony to set off the Dominican chant sung by Oxford’s Schola Abelis.

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

© Joseph Shaw

Quarterly Sung Masses on Sundays in Holy Trinity, Hethe, have worked well in 2019 and will continue in 2020. The dates (tbc) this year will be 22nd March (Laetare Sunday), 7th June (Trinity Sunday), 4th October (Our Lady of the Rosary), and 13th December (Gaudete Sunday). These will be at 11am, not 12 noon as previously; I hope this will prove convenient for people. This beautiful historic church is well worth a visit.

Over the diocesan boundary in south Oxford, Sunday Masses at 5pm in Holy Rood continue, thanks to the generosity of Fr Daniel Lloyd. Sung Masses have proved harder to arrange than expected and so these Masses have usually been Low. The occasional series of Sung Masses in the English Martyrs, Didcot, continues. The next one will be for the Ember Friday of Lent, at 7:30pm.

Regular Masses at the Oratory and SS Gregory & Augustine’s also continue, covering Sundays and feast days.

The big event for the quarter is the annual LMS Pilgrimage to Caversham. This year it will take place on Saturday 21st March, at 11:30am as usual; it will be a Votive Mass of Our Lady, and lunch is provided for pilgrims in the very comfortable parish room. Mass will be celebrated by one of the priests of the Fraternity of St Peter based in Reading, and will be accompanied by polyphony from the Newman Consort, as well as chant.

Fr Richard Conrad OP celebrating Gaudete Sunday 2019 in the Dominican Rite in Holy Trinity, Hethe

Brentwood (East) Alan Gardner alanmdgardner@gmail.com We are currently being blessed in our extensive ‘country’ part of the diocese. Our well-established Masses at Chelmsford, Kelvedon and Leigh continue to thrive, while more recentlyestablished Masses at Epping, Rochford, and Saffron Walden are gaining ground. One new venture involves Stansted Mountfitchet; Fr Lee Bennet is offering Low Mass every Tuesday at 8pm, starting Tuesday, 7 January – how wonderful all this is! We are so lucky in our priests – I do hope we ensure they know how much we appreciate them (and if we haven’t thanked them recently, perhaps we should do so the next time we see them!).

The comments in many issues of Mass of Ages about regular Sunday Masses seem well-justified – how marvellous, then, to report on a new venture in this regard. Fr Gerry Drummond (PP at St Theresa’s Rochford) and Fr Michael Halsall (both formerly Anglicans) are trialling a third-Sunday Low Mass at Rochford. This very neatly – Laus Deo! – completes a full Sunday EF Mass provision in the south-east of our diocese. I hope those of us within travelling distance will do all we can

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to support this venture and show our appreciation. Fr Gerry and Fr Michael are considering developing this later into a Missa Cantata if resources permit – it is important, please, that servers and singers (either experienced or willing to learn) get in touch with me so that we are well-prepared for this.

God works in wonderful ways. On 24 October (feast of St Raphael), Fr Stephen Morrison offered a Requiem Mass for the soul of Joan Lyons, aged 85. The music, by Tomas Vittoria, was beautifully sung by Cantores Missae, director Charles Finch.

The Mass was particularly poignant in that Joan had been received into the Faith by Fr Stephen in her hospital bed.

A number of our friends in the diocese are suffering serious illness; if you are able to remember them in your prayers, we would be most grateful.

Cardiff Andrew Butcher 07905 609770 cardiff@lms.org.uk www.lmscardiff.org.uk A very happy and holy New Year to you all. Christmas Masses were offered on Christmas Morning at Belmont Abbey (Low) and The Cardiff Oratory in Formation (High). Thank you to the clergy and those involved in preparing these Masses.

Masses are continuing at Belmont Abbey, Saint Francis Xavier (Hereford), Most Holy Trinity (Ledbury), Our Lady and Saint Michael (Abergavenny) and The Cardiff Oratory in Formation, at the times stated in this Mass of Ages.

May I take this opportunity to thank the clergy who have worked so hard in the Archdiocese over the last twelve months and who continue to give so much support, given that most priests have several parishes or responsibilities. I would also like to thank you, the members of the LMS and all those who support the work of the traditional movement for your prayers and support over the last twelve months. A special thank you to Canon Jason Jones and Tom and Elaine Sharpling (Menevia Reps) for their all their hard work as we combine our serving and musical resources and work together for the good of the Society and the Traditional Latin Mass in our dioceses.

Please continue to support the Masses that are being offered, where it is possible, because without your support they will stop.

Pray for the repose of the soul of Mr Leslie Jones, the father of Fr Sebastian Jones’s Cong. Orat. who died on Christmas Day. Please remember Father, his mother and the family in your prayers.

If you know of anyone who is not a member of the LMS but may like to receive the Mass of Ages in their parish, please ask them to get in touch with me or Stephen Moseling at head office.

If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact either Shaun Bennett (Hereford) or myself. The latest Mass listings have been included in this edition of Mass of Ages.

Clifton James Belt & Monika Paplaczyk clifton@lms.org.uk lmsclifton.blogspot.co.uk We begin this quarter’s report with the welcome news that the Traditional Mass is returning to Bath. At the request of Fr Christopher Whitehead, Parish Priest of St John the Evangelist, Bath, Fr Rupert Allen will celebrate Low Mass at St John’s.

Initially this will be on Saturdays 8 February, 14 March and 25 April, at 12:30pm. There will be opportunity for Confessions from 12 noon.

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Please make every effort to come and support these Masses.

If they prove popular it is hoped there will be a regular Mass at St John’s.

On Saturday 7 December, the new Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury celebrated a Mass in honour of the Benedictine Abbots Richard Whiting, Hugh Faringdon, and John Beche, together with the four other Benedictine Martyrs, including two from the monastery at Glastonbury, Richard James, and John Thorne. The Mass was celebrated in the presence of the former Abbot of Buckfast, Abbot David Charlesworth, and Br Hugh, representing the Abbot and Community of Prinknash.

The complete listing of twice-monthly Masses at Prinknash Abbey has now been published. This can be downloaded from the Clifton Latin Mass blog, address above.

Other regular Masses continue around the Diocese. We are particularly fortunate to have a Low Mass in the centre of Bristol, at the University Chaplaincy, every day of the week except Mondays and Saturdays, again celebrated by Fr Allen, the Chaplain.

East Anglia (West) Gregor Dick Sunday Masses continue at Blackfriars in Cambridge as usual. We would like to thank the friars for their hospitality, and also the servers and singers for their continuing generosity with their time.

Thanks are also due to Canon Eugène Harkness, the Parish Priest of Our Lady and the English Martyrs in Cambridge, for agreeing to the celebration in the parish church of a very wellattended Mass in the Traditional Rite on the Feast of All Saints, and also to the celebrant of that Mass, Fr Simon Leworthy.

Hexham & Newcastle Keith McAllister 01325 308968 07966 235329 k_mcallister@ymail.com The 2019 final quarter has been very successful in that the Barnard Castle monthly Masses have been reinstated, thanks to Fr Shaun Swales travelling in from 35 miles away.

In addition, we were so pleased to welcome back recently ordained Fr Philomino, now a Priest of the Gosport Franciscan community.

He celebrated two Low Masses, firstly at his home parish of Our Lady of the Rosary, Peterlee and next day, the Sunday Mass at Thornley.

On 8 December, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a large congregation gathered at St Joseph’s church, Gateshead for a Pontifical Low Mass celebrated by our new Bishop, the Rt Rev. Robert Byrne CO. This was an historic occasion, it being the first time that a Bishop of this diocese has offered an Ancient Rite Mass since the Novus Ordo introduction 50 years ago! In all a truly rewarding experience for all attendees.

The Bishop was assisted at the altar by Fr Michael Brown (PP) and MC Andrew Armstrong. The music was provided by the Westland Singers directed by Paul Dewhirst, who also played the organ. Choir items included Sacerdos et Pontifex (Peter Smedley), Ave Maria (Vittoria), Alma Redemptoris Mater (Palestrina), Panis Angelicus (Casciolini) and Ecce Sacerdos (Elgar).

After the Mass, His Lordship met and chatted with those attending; concluding a memorable day which we hope to see repeated in our diocese.

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Bishop Byrne with Westland Singers

Lancaster Bob & Jane Latin 01524 412987 lancaster@lms.org.uk latinmasslancaster.blogspot.com John Rogan 01524 858832 lancasterassistant@lms.org.uk After some time, the EF Mass has returned to Our Lady and St Michael's, Workington: in November a Mass for the dead was celebrated by Canon John Watson. Around twelve parishioners attended and it was mooted that a regular Mass be organised. It is therefore planned to have a Mass at the Lady Altar every First Friday, but this will always be subject to Canon John Watson’s availability so please always check with him on 01900 602114 before travelling.

As reported in the last issue of Mass of Ages, Fr Docherty will be moving from Carlisle at Easter which will likely mean that the April Second Friday Mass will not take place; please check our website nearer the time.

Although three Masses have been booked at Hornby for the early summer, these too may be subject to change on Canon Ruscillo's return from Jerusalem, so please check before travelling. The first of these is scheduled for Sunday 17 May at 3pm.

We attended the Remembrance Sunday Mass at St Walburge, Preston in November and were most impressed. As you may have seen from the 2020 LMS calendar, there was an enormous catafalque situated on the sanctuary, covered with a Union Jack and surrounded by candles. The Requiem Mass itself took place at the war memorial side altar. It was a Solemn High Mass, celebrated by Canon Ryan Post, assisted by Canons Cristofoli and Tanner, and nine altar servers, all in an area of perhaps 12ft x 6ft! This was followed by the reading out of the names of the parish Fallen from both World Wars.

Holy Week will commence with the blessing of palms and procession only at St Walburge's at 10.30 am. Celebration of Tenebrae and Easter Sunday will be divided between St Walburge's and English Martyrs; please refer to their website for full details nearer the time.

The annual English Martyrs pilgrimage will take place on Saturday, 2 May leaving St Walburge's at 12 noon and processing to English Martyrs for High Mass and veneration of relics, followed by a social.

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Liverpool (Warrington) Alan Frost 01270 768144 There is splendid news on the vocations front at this time, as recently a young man of St Mary’s started at the FSSP Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Nebraska, and a young lady who attends regularly and helps out with events has also joined a convent as a novice.

The men’s group that meets weekly is proving very successful, with twenty on average engaging in chat and doctrinal talk. Concerning social issues, a pro-life group meets each month and there is a meeting each month for anyone suffering addiction to drugs or alcohol (a confidential phone contact is available). Also, attenders at services in the Shrine Church are encouraged to dress modestly. At the end of April Fr de Malleray will be leading a retreat for clergy at Stonyhurst (bookings@christianheritagecentre.com) There is a change of clergy to report at St Mary’s Shrine. Fr Loewenstein is, until after Easter for health reasons, staying at a FSSP house in France. We thank him for his generous dedication at St Mary’s over the past two years and we assure him of our prayers for his recovery.

Fr Henry Whisenant, a priest from the Diocese of East Anglia, who spent time here in the summer, is now priestin-residence for a while. After spending time at a traditional Benedictine community in Tasmania, he was allowed by his bishop to stay with us for a few months and help with pastoral ministry. Deacon Roger Gilbride, FSSP has also joined the clergy community until Easter. He is a New Zealander of English and Irish descent, in his last year of formation until priestly ordination next year. We are happy to report that Fr Alex Stewart is also back with the community until Easter.

Mass and Confession continue to be offered every day, with the Mass televised live (12.10pm) on the Internet (www. livemass.org). The first Mass of the New Year concluded with the singing of the ‘Te Deum’. There is also Compline each week on Wednesdays from 7 pm to 9.30. To contact the Shrine, please email www.fssp.co.uk/warrington or telephone 01925 635664.

The Shrine and its mission are explained in this issue of Mass of Ages by the Rector, Fr Armand de Malleray.

Middlesbrough Paul Waddington 01757 638027 middlesbrough@lms.org.uk A Missa Cantata continues to be celebrated at the York Oratory every Sunday at noon. It generally attracts a congregation of about 80, many of whom are visitors to York.

The York Oratory also offers Vespers and Benediction in the traditional form at 4pm on Sundays. Also, at the York Oratory, there is an Extraordinary Form Mass (usually a Solemn Mass) at 6pm on major feast days and Holydays of Obligation. Usually, there is a polyphonic setting of the Mass sung by the Choral Scholars, with the Propers sung by St Wilfrid’s Schola.

I am very pleased to be able to announce two new developments. Firstly, we now have a regular 7.30pm Thursday Low Mass at the Catholic Chaplaincy of Hull University. This is offered by Fr William Massie who has recently learned to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form. This Mass attracts a congregation of about a dozen, which may include some students.

The second development is that there is now a regular 10am Low Mass on Saturdays at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Middlesbrough. This is offered by Fr Stephen Maughan.

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Northampton North (Northamptonshire) Paul Beardsmore northampton@lms.org.uk The regular Saturday Masses continue at St Brendan's church in Corby. Fr Byrne offered additional Low Masses on the feast of All Saints, All Souls' Day, the Octave Day of Christmas and the feast of the Epiphany. On Christmas Eve there was a sung Midnight Mass.

Fr Byrne also officiated at St Patrick's church, Duston, for the funeral of Peter Harrison on December 20th. Peter died in November at the age of 87; he was a long-standing member of the LMS and a former organist of Northampton Cathedral.

Northampton (South) Barbara Kay 01234 340759 mbky3@outlook.com It might have been the clocks going back on 27 October so that people got an extra hour’s sleep, but on that Sunday 165 people came to the 8.30 am Mass at Christ the King, Bedford – by far the greatest number we have seen in the four years that the Latin Mass has been said there. So far this has not been repeated, but we run with a steady 100 or so each week and with newcomers all the time.

On the first weekend in November, we had a ‘first’ at Bedford in the form of trinated Masses for All Souls, said by our regular priest, Fr Patrick O’Donohue FSSP. We had the unusual experience and privilege of being able to receive Holy Communion twice in the space of an hour or so.

Three weeks later, one of the highlights of 2019 was the Mass of Reparation on 23 November at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at the Church of the Holy Child and St Joseph, Bedford. 110 people attended, significantly up on the 86 we had at the same event in 2018. Fr Patrick O’Donohue returned for a second year to celebrate the Mass, assisted by Fr Gabriel Diaz and Br Albert Robertson OP as Deacon and Subdeacon respectively.

Unfortunately, our Director of Music, Matthew Schellhorn, was unable to be with us this time, but we had two male singers in good voice.

Our usual Christmas Day Low Mass was well attended and being at 8.30 am, there was time to enjoy a quick cup of tea or coffee in the hall before going home to put our turkeys in the oven. The Low Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany was attended by about 20 people, perhaps because it was not a Holyday of Obligation in England and Wales this year.

For various reasons, our Sung Masses in the last few months of 2019 were not as frequent as we would have liked, but we hope to remedy this in 2020. On the positive side, we have recruited some new male members lately and have also started a Children’s Choir, which practises each Sunday after Mass and is much enjoyed by our 7-year olds upwards – they are very quick to pick up the Latin. Many thanks to Katherine Smith for running this.

Our Family Catechism Days continue on the last Sunday of each month and our Patricians group, run by the Legion of Mary, continues on the second Saturday of the month and has seen some lively discussion about various ‘hot topics’ such as the Just War and Obedience to the State.

Regina Caeli, a hybrid homeschooling organisation based in the USA, of which the Bedfordshire Academy is the first in the UK, moved into its second term in January with three new children joining. I was fortunate enough to spend an afternoon there - please see report on page 42 of this issue.

Looking forward to the coming months, there will be a Low Mass for Ash Wednesday on 26 February at 7.30 pm at Bedford and at 11 am at Chesham Bois. Easter Sunday Mass will be at the usual time of 8.30 am at Bedford and 8 am at Chesham.

As always, you will find full details of our activities at https://www.facebook.com/bedfordlatinmass/

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Nottingham South (Leicestershire and Rutland) Paul Beardsmore Our grateful thanks go to the Prior and Community at Holy Cross, Leicester, for sustaining the Sunday and weekday Masses. Our first Sunday Sung Masses have included, over the last quarter, The Holy Rosary and the Holy Name, and in December Mass was sung for the Immaculate Conception on the second Sunday.

A special day of liturgical studies for members of the Dominican province was held in Leicester on 15 November, and this was followed by a High Mass celebrated by the Prior for the feast of St Albert. Supper was provided for all after the Mass, and the day concluded with a talk on Dominican chant

by Fr Innocent Smith, OP, of the Province of St Joseph, USA. At dawn on 21 December a votive Mass of Our Lady (Rorate Mass) was sung at Holy Cross, episcopal permission having been obtained for this to take place on the feast of St Thomas.

The celebrant was the Prior, and three Dominican student brothers were in attendance to serve the Mass.

Meanwhile in the neighbouring parish of St Peter's in Leicester, Canon Cahill continues to offer Mass on Saturday mornings and in the evening on first Fridays. On the first Friday and Saturday of November the Masses were sung for the feast of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Souls.

An additional Sung Mass was celebrated for the feast of the Epiphany.

At St Mary of the Annunciation, Loughborough, Fr Gillham offers Mass frequently on Wednesday evenings, and Fr Dye at Oakham continues to say Mass on Friday evenings. On Friday, 31 January this Mass will be a Sung Requiem for the repose of the soul of Mackenzie Urquhart.

Plymouth (Devon) Maurice Quinn 07555 536579 devon@lms.org.uk Whereas 2019 gave us some challenges to overcome – clergy movements and the loss of Buckfast Abbey as a venue for the celebration of the Old Rite – we start this year with the good news of another priest learning to celebrate the Latin

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Mass coupled with the provision of a new venue in uncharted territory. Fr Ralph Candy, parish priest of Sacred Heart & St Theresa of the Child Jesus in Paignton, is learning to celebrate the usus antiquior, and is keen for us to have this recently remodelled church as a venue. Not only is this good news for the local Catholic population, but also for the many summer visitors to this part of the English Riviera.

We also have to thank Fr Ralph for allowing an impromptu Latin Low Mass – the first usus antiquior to be celebrated in Paignton since the post Vatican II conciliar changes. This Mass was requested and celebrated – within a few hours on the same day - by Dom Gregory Carey OSB (Farnborough Abbey) while on a visit to family in the area, and took place on the afternoon of Friday, 27 December 2019 with myself as server and a dozen people in the congregation including, Fr Ralph.

Clergy movements are always of great concern to Latin Mass congregations as it often means the loss of a regular usus antiquior and a celebrant. Fortunately, this was not the case for us when we discovered that Fr Tony Pillari, who, since January 2017, looked after the spiritual needs of the nuns at Lanherne Convent, Cornwall, and of the Traditional Rite Mass congregation at St Edward the Confessor in Plymouth, had to leave us in January for further studies in Rome at the request of Bishop Mark. We were pleased to learn that Fr Pillari has been replaced by a French priest, Fr Xavier Champagne of the Institute of the Good Shepherd, who was officially introduced to us on Sunday, 5 January after Holy Mass during Fr Anthony’s leaving party (photo shows Fr Pillari and altar servers after the Epiphany Mass). At the moment, the Mass at St Edward the Confessor in Plymouth is the only regular Sunday morning usus antiquior celebrated for us in Devon, although we hope that this will change in the near future. We cannot thank Fr Tony enough for his dedication and exemplary pastoral care over these last few years, and we wish him every success in the future, while at the same time welcoming Fr Xavier among us.

Due to the lack of a celebrant for November’s second Sunday of the month Mass at Blessed Sacrament in Exeter, a cancellation at short notice was unavoidable. From a pastoral point of view a cancellation is never a good thing, especially at short notice as was the case, so I have to apologise to anyone that could not be contacted in time. However, for the December Mass we have to thank Fr Paul Rae CRL for standing in for Fr Peter Coxe, who I am happy to report, has confirmed his availability for most months this year. Fr Peter also celebrates the fourth Sunday of the month usus antiquior for us in the beautiful and unique St Cyprian’s Chapel at Ugbrooke House, Chudleigh, and has been a great help to us over the past months.

Do take note of the Mass Listings, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding our Latin Mass celebrations anywhere in the Plymouth Diocese.

© Maurice Quinn

Nottingham Jeremy Boot 07462 018386 nottingham@lms.org.uk Our Masses in the Nottingham area continue uninterrupted.

At least two Masses are sung: the anticipated Saturday for Sunday Mass at the Good Shepherd, Thackerays Lane, Nottingham at 4.45pm on the Saturday before the 2nd Sunday of the month, and the Mass at Our Lady and St Patrick’s at 2pm on the 3rd Sunday of the month.

Other Masses at the Cathedral, 3rd Wednesday at 6.15 and the Mass at Our Lady and St Patrick at 2pm on 4th Sunday of the month are usually Low Masses. Details as advertised in the Mass summary in this magazine are correct. There will not be a Mass at the Good Shepherd however on Saturday 11th April (Holy Saturday), nor on Easter Sunday.

Masses are also frequently celebrated at St Mary’s church, 97 Ashby Rd, Loughborough LE11 3AB on Wednesday evenings at 7pm. Those interested in receiving updates should contact Fr Gillham, the Parish Priest, directly for confirmation.

It is good to see families with children attending our Masses as well as students and visitors from further afield. All are very welcome.

Our thanks to our hard-working celebrants, servers and musicians, as ever.

Fr Pillari's last Mass at St. Edward's on Epiphany Sunday

SPRING 2020

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY Plymouth (Dorset) Maurice Quinn 07555 536579 devon@lms.org.uk I am very happy to report that although 2019 was a cracking year on the Dorset Latin Mass scene, with our very first Latin Mass Pilgrimage to Chideock in honour of the Chideock Martyrs (see previous issue of Mass of Ages), 2020 has all the hallmarks of being even better. I can now inform you that the 2020 Latin Mass Pilgrimage to Chideock will take place at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs & St Ignatius on Saturday, 27 June, and that Bishop Mark O’Toole will be in attendance. The Rupert Bevan Singers have been engaged to enhance the reverence and dignity of the liturgical celebration by singing William Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, making this an event not to be missed. Do put this date/event in your diary, although more information will be available nearer the time and it will be widely advertised.

The good news continues with Mgr Francis Jamieson - PP at Our Lady of Lourdes & St Cecilia, Blandford Forum – who, in addition to his usual two-monthly Latin Mass, has started a weekly Saturday morning 8am Traditional Low Mass of Our Lady on Saturday. It is quite possible that this new Saturday morning Mass will be moved to a later time depending on the needs of the congregation, so do be mindful of this if you intend travelling any distance to attend. This is the first weekly usus antiquior to take place in this part of Dorset for many years, in a church that has risen from being a mid-20th Century iconoclastic disaster, to the beautiful place that it is today - a worthy setting in which to experience the Traditional Roman Rite. In order to cope with the extra demand for the Old Rite in Blandford, two boys have taken up the offer of learning to serve on the sanctuary, so it will be a pleasure to see them in action soon.

At the Church of Our Lady, Marnhull, where Fr Martin Budge offers Confession before Mass, it was pleasing to see a young married couple experiencing the beauty of the usus antiquior for the first time, and to be assured that they will attend again. It was also pleasing to see the two ladies – Clair Gathouse and Emmy Drayton - who made the journey from Honiton (in appalling weather conditions) - specially to attend this particular venue for Mass. Both Clair and Emmy are regulars at our Traditional Mass in Exeter where I usually see them. Dominic Prendergast served Holy Mass, and, along with members of the congregation joined us in the church rooms afterwards for the popular free social lunch. This has become something of a tradition both here and at Blandford Forum, where at both venues, congregation members catch up with old friends and meet new ones over a shared meal.

At the moment we are working towards setting up other Dorset venues for a regular usus antiquior to cater for this growing pastoral need, so please pray for this intention and be both hopeful and patient. As always, do check the Mass Listings, and contact me if you require more information.

Portsmouth (Bournemouth) Tim Fawkes 01202 730200 Our first Friday Masses at 6 pm have continued at the Bournemouth Oratory and have continued to attract a steady congregation of around 25 people. Additionally, a Missa Cantata was offered on 31 October at 7 pm and Low Mass for All Souls day at 8 am. A High Mass was offered on the feast of the Epiphany at 6 pm when the celebrant was Fr Tim Finigan, assisted by Fr Andrew Wagstaff as Deacon and Br Francisco Hintikka as Subdeacon.

SPRING 2020

A new venue for the TLM will be the church of St Thomas More, 42 Exton Rd, Iford, Bournemouth, BH6 5QG when, with the kind permission of the Parish Priest Fr Darryl Jordan, Mass will be offered each Sunday at 5.30pm and each Holiday of Obligation at 5pm by a visiting priest from the Marian Friars of Gosport. The Masses will start on Sunday, 9 February and Mass on 23 February will be a Missa Cantata. This is clearly a welcome development for those in the Bournemouth area wishing to attend Mass on Sundays and Holydays and we are grateful to the Marian Friars, Fr Daryll and Mr Nicholas Steven who have caused it to happen.

Portsmouth (Isle of Wight) Peter Clarke EF Masses continue on the Isle of Wight. With Fr Jonathan Redvers Harris moving from East Cowes to Cowes, most of the E.F. Mass will be offered at St Thomas of Canterbury Church, Cowes; with occasional Masses at St Mary’s, Ryde.

This year marks 32 years of EF Masses being offered on the Island. We remember with gratitude all the visiting priests who came here in the past to keep the Old Mass alive. We would be pleased to hear from any priest who would like to spend a few days with us on our beautiful Island and to offer Mass for us.

Please ring for confirmation of these Masses if you are coming from the mainland: 01983 566740 or 07790 892592.

Shrewsbury (Chester) Andrew Nielson chester@lms.org.uk Third Sunday Traditional Masses are continuing to be celebrated at St Clare's in Chester by priests of the Institute of Christ the King, with the support of a loyal core of congregants and choir.

One regular attendee was my father, Peter Nielsen, who passed away this December. He had always loved the Latin Mass since converting to Catholicism about 60 years ago and used to serve Latin Masses in the 1990s in the Liverpool / Wirral area and at St Winifride's Holywell. Please remember him in your prayers.

Shrewsbury (The Wirral) Stefano Mazzeo 0151 638 6822 (For the Dome) We had a wonderful Christmas at the Dome of Home, the shrine Church of SS Peter, Paul and Philomena, New Brighton, with a big thank you to Fr Sean Riley of Liverpool Archdiocese for coming over to celebrate Christmas Midnight Mass, and for the warm words in his sermon. Having had such a blessed Christmas season, we look forward to the spring. The activities and groups on offer at the Dome increase with the size our congregation. It is particularly heartening that tradition is popular among young people. Every Saturday morning there is also our weekly liturgy in honour of one of our patrons, St Philomena, said at her altar in the main church.

Canon Montjean, Canon Poucin and their team have enthusiastically put in place many actives such Catechisms Classes, Faith Talks, Fatima Family Days, church tours and Canon Poucin is teaching the traditional Gregorian chant method every Monday from 7 to 7:30 and Sundays before Mass in the presbytery for the Propers, contact chn.v.pouchindewouilt@ icrsp.org. We also have a well-stocked Traditional Piety shop run

by Ronnie and Maureen, with everything from Bibles, Missals to spiritual classics and from statues, rosaries, devotional cards to mantillas.

The running of such a big church as the Dome is not always easy, especially one that was once closed for a few years and saved by the vision of our inspirational Bishop, Mark Davies,

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REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY who invited the Institute of Christ the King to take over and restore the church. However, we recently needed to have an extensive restoration to our heating system which cost a lot of money, this and our ongoing restoration means we are in ever need of donations, if you would like to help please contact the Rector, Canon Montjean, chn.montjean@icrsp.org.

The Sisters at Birkenhead Carmel are making progress with their renovation project but there is still a long way to go. Daily and weekly Masses continue at both the Dome and Birkenhead Carmel, please see the Mass Listings for times.

Southwark (St Bede’s Clapham Park) Thomas Windsor This quarter has seen plenty of visitors, Henri de Villiers and the Schola Sainte Cecile visited at the end of August and we were treated to the Missa Exsultate Deo (François Cosset), including polyphonic settings of the Credo and Prayer for the Queen.

In September Cardinal Burke visited, his private weekday Low Mass was very well attended with at least 6 of our families. The Cardinal graciously came out to speak with us all after the Mass.

Our next visitor was Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett, who celebrated Sung Masses for us, on the Feast of All Saints, All Souls, and the Sunday. On the Sunday the Church was filled with families attending our annual All Saints party, with many of the children dressed as their favourite saint. After Mass each child was given the opportunity to tell us all about their Saint, with prizes for the children with the best costumes and story, the bishop then kindly gave an inspiring talk to our future Saints. After a shared lunch we repaired to the church for Procession, Litany of the Saints and Benediction to end the day.

Our next event of note, was the Confirmation of nine of our young people at St James’s, Spanish Place, with our Parish Priest, Fr Holden assisting on the sanctuary. The following day saw six of our children make their First Communion at our Sung Mass with the Propers sung to polyphonic settings by Isaac and Palestrina.

Our next visitor was Fr Tim Finigan for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The choir sang the Missa Dixit Maria (Hasler), including the Motet and Credo, the beautiful setting of the Ave Maria by Parsons, and finally the Alma by Guerrero. After the Mass, St Nicholas made his customary visit to hand out fruit and chocolate coins to the children.

On Gaudete Sunday Fr Basden returned for Solemn Vespers to celebrate his 40th anniversary of priestly ordination.

Once again we must thank Fr Southwell for spending his Christmas break with us. This year we have had a Sung Mass everyday between Christmas and Epiphany.

The Feast of the Holy Name being the Vigil saw our annual Blessing of Epiphany water and chalk, with sung Litany of the Saints, psalms, Antiphon, Magnificat and Solemn Te Deum. With the Gallons of water and pounds of salt that were blessed, we should be safe from the “accursed dragon and every diabolical legion” as one part of the many prayers accompanying this blessing tell us.

The following day the choir returned to sing for the Feast of the Epiphany, with over 70 in attendance, 6 servers, and 5 in the choir.

We now have an extra Mass on Friday at 6.15pm, this Mass will normally be sung and is followed by Bible study and light meal.

Southwark (Kent) Marygold Turner 01580 291372 Our main excitement is the addition of a Missa Cantata at St Simon’s, Ashford, on the 2nd Sunday of the month at 12.30pm.

It’s an “ill wind”, and due to Ben Bevan, (who over many years had given so much to a certain parish) and his choir being driven

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out, he offered to come to us once a month. They are very kind with their time, and all sing beautifully, and our regular server, Dr Andrew Czaykowski, is most generously mainly financing their singing.

On 12 January Ben brought a marvellous choir and organist and they sang Palestrina and a Bruckner motet – I have never heard better! Alderman David Hurley (former Mayor of Gravesham) was a very efficient MC and ably assisted by Andrew.

Ben Bevan has arranged music for us on 3 or 4 other occasions, including an excellent amateur choir from Faversham with Ken Garbett in charge.

On a few occasions we have been lucky enough to have Hugo and Wolfgang Robinson as MC and server, which they do perfectly.

We had a beautiful Mass on the Feast of the Epiphany at Headcorn, with a very distinguished priest from London.

We are very blessed with our priest friends who come to minister to us in rural Kent. It was a great joy that Fr Richard Whinder was well enough to celebrate Holy Mass on the Feast of All Saints.

Westminster (Hertfordshire) Tom Short Masses continue on first Sundays at Baldock and on third Sundays at Old Hall Green. I am grateful to Canon Noonan for Baldock, especially as he is now taking care of an extra parish in addition to Shefford. Jamie MacDonald one of the former servers from St Albans, has taken on serving at Baldock on alternate months, and I am very grateful to him, and to Jim Whittamore who drives me there to serve the other months. It is good that the congregation has stayed stable, and in fact grown a bit. I would encourage members to support the two remaining Society Sunday Masses in Hertfordshire. Also, thanks to Mike Mason, who continues to organise Old Hall Green, to the priests, Mgr Read and Fr Cullinan, among others, who celebrate the Mass, and to Alan Robinson's son who serves.

While it would be good to have more Masses in Hertfordshire, getting priests would be a problem. The fact is that, apart from Baldock and Old Hall Green, members in all corners of Hertfordshire have Old Rite Mass opportunities on Sundays at Cambridge, Bedford, Chesham Bois, Our Lady of Willesden, Spanish Place, and Haverstock Hill. The lack I perceive is in Holy Day of Obligation Masses. Many of the venues above have Holy Day Masses in the morning, but people who work have few evening opportunities. Accordingly, I am looking into the possibility of getting some Holy Day evening Masses in Hertfordshire churches. If any member feels like approaching their Parish Priest to see if he would be willing to have a Mass on a Holy Day evening, or a vigil Mass to fulfil obligation the evening before, in his church, please do so and let me know if you get a positive result. Realistically, church and a priest may be easier to access for a vigil Mass.

Westminster (Spanish Place) Roger Wemyss Brooks spanishplace@lms.org.uk A busy season with well-attended Advent Sunday Masses, a glorious New Year's Day High Mass beautifully sung by Fr Rosario Joseph Mary; the Feast of the Epiphany on its proper day with Low Mass at Spanish Place and a wonderful High Mass for Epiphany in the beautifully restored shrine of the Blessed Sacrament at Maiden Lane.

SPRING 2020

REPORTS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

Westminster (Willesden) Anna Grayson-Morley 07710 472295 willesden@lms.org.uk Not a lot to report this quarter, other than in the last couple of months, we have seen a worrying trend of attendance to our Low Mass dropping. We rarely see more than 13 to 19 people maximum, whereas just a few weeks prior we were achieving 30 plus. I am hoping that festive travel, the cold and dark winter days are responsible for the drop and that we will see a pick-up in the spring.

In addition, our regular altar server, Patrick, is no longer able to serve for us due to other commitments, but we are fortunate that Brandon, a media student working to achieve his PhD, is able to take on the role.

Wrexham Kevin Jones 01244 674011 wrexham@lms.org.uk lmswrexham.weebly.com It was with deep regret that I learned of the passing of Elizabeth Lloyd, wife of David Lloyd, a former Secretary and Chairman of the Society. Elizabeth (Betty) was a great support to our Holywell pilgrimage and prepared beautiful flowers to adorn the altar each year. Pray for the repose of Elizabeth’s soul and also for David and the Lloyd family.

Another regretful item of news concerns a long-time clergy supporter of the Society. Canon Bernard Lordan has celebrated the Old Rite at a number of assignments he has held in the Diocese of Wrexham over the years and most recently at Llay near Wrexham. Canon is under the weather and is undergoing medical treatment. Again, I ask for your prayers for his speedy recovery. Given this, I ask prospective attendees that you keep an eye on www.lmswrexham.weebly.com/mass-times.html for confirmation of Masses until further notice.

All the usual Masses for the previous quarter took place, with a Requiem at Llay in November for the War dead.

On Saturday, 12 October, the Latin Mass Society held its annual pilgrimage to Wrexham Cathedral, or to give the correct title, the Cathedral Church of Our Lady of Sorrows.

The Mass was a Votive Mass of St Richard Gwyn, local Martyr for the faith and also a patron of the LMS. Canon Ryan Post of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest was celebrant. Canon Scott Smith (also of the Institute) was deacon and Deacon Andrew Morrow (of Shrewsbury Cathedral) was Subdeacon. Canon Vianney Poucin de Wouilt sang in the choir with Mr Bernard Beattie and Mr Peter Bamford; Mr Christian Spence was organist; Mr Phillip Russell was the Master of Ceremonies.

SPRING 2020

The usual thanks go to the clergy, servers, cantors and of course the Bishop of Wrexham, the Rt Rev. Peter Brignall and the Cathedral Dean, Canon Simon Treloar for the their kind permission to use the Cathedral.

Following Mass, the Relic of St Richard was venerated and following that, Canon Post gave first blessings of a newly ordained priest.

Report from the Society of St Tarcisius Joseph Shaw, National Coordinator tarcisius@lms.org.uk The Society of St Tarcisius, the server training guild affiliated to the Latin Mass Society, was re-launched with new statutes and a beautiful medal for members to wear when serving, in December 2018. After a full year’s operation, it has seventy enrolled members, with twice that many on an email list, having had five training days in London, and five training and/or enrolment events outside London. I am hugely grateful for the many instructors who devoted many hours to this training, and to the various parish priests who welcomed us into their churches.

In the first half of 2020 I have arranged server training days in St James’s, Spanish Place, for 25 January, 14 March, and 9 May. These all have pages on the LMS website with full details and online booking forms. Demand for training does not seem to be slackening, and I would like to hear from those who can help with training, and also from those who can help to organise training events outside London.

© Joseph Shaw

First Holy Communions on the feast of the Immaculate Conception for three children of the Emezie family - Stephen, Rita and Michael.

The regular Low Mass at the Cathedral is now on the First Saturday of the month, in obedience to Our Lady's promises at Fatima. This Mass, prominently in the Lady Chapel, is beautifully said by Fr John Scott of the Cathedral staff.

Fr Michael Cullinan celebrates his Silver Jubilee of ordination with Solemn Mass at Spanish Place on 21 February. Please say a prayer in thanksgiving for his faithful ministry to the Old Rite community here.

After prolonged uncertainties we need to pray to Our Lady of Walsingham for her Dowry, our country, and to Our Lady of Willesden, Patroness of London, for our metropolis.

Charles Reddin teaching Low Mass in St Mary Moorfields at the Society of St Tarcisius training day in November 2019

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WINE

Stellenbosch

In the first in a new series, Sebastian Morello looks at ‘Cape wine’, much-loved by Napoleon - and by the Latin Mass Society!

Vineyards at Stellenbosch: ‘The daily allowance for Napoleon included thirty-one bottles of Cape wine…’

A

s the threats of unjust landsnatching continue to loom over South Africa, a place I called my home for some years as a teenager, those who have a particular liking for the wines of that country are beginning to worry about the future of its grapes.

The Stellenbosch region, near Cape Town, has for centuries been known for producing especially tasty wines (at least since the mid-seventeenth century), with apricotty whites that perfectly accompany the lobsters you can eat on the cheap at the Cape, or full-bodied reds, deliberate claret imitations of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend to satisfy the descendants of the English who live in the area.

It is a strange fact, therefore, that Napoleon Bonaparte, that great enemy of the English, had such a liking for the wines of South Africa, so suited to the Anglo palate. Old documents sold at auction in Salisbury in 2015 reveal the daily booze allowance for the emperor and what remained of his court during imprisonment on St Helena: a bottle of Champagne, ten bottles of claret, half a

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bottle of Madeira, three bottles of white Bordeaux, a bottle of ‘Tenerife’, and thirty-one bottles of ‘Cape Wine’. Sounds like my kind of imprisonment! That ‘Cape Wine’ was very likely the sort of stuff from Stellenbosch we have come to so enjoy at the Latin Mass Society’s Iota Unum evening talks in London.

Each month, throughout 2019, a talk has been delivered under the Warwick Street church in central London as part of the many initiatives of the LMS; these are the Iota Unum talks. They have been wonderful occasions for the capital’s traditional Catholics to meet, chat, encourage one another, pray together, further their own formation by listening to a thought-provoking talk, and… drink wine together. The house-wine of the Iota Unum series has become, due to popular demand, an especially full-bodied Stellenbosch, heavy on the Merlot, with a sufficiently serious finish to carry you through the forty-five minute talk (at the end of which one is invited to leap up and recharge one’s glass).

We have had superb speakers at the Iota Unum series, among whom have been Prof. Thomas Pink, Prof.

Stephen Bullivant, Peter D. Williams, and Fr Edward van den Bergh; 2020 will see historian Charles Coulombe, Maria Madise, and Mgr Keith Newton, among others. One of the ideas that has repeatedly emerged throughout this lecture series concerns the Church’s ill-fated internalising of Enlightenment rationalism, a corruption of the intellect that has been repeatedly condemned by the Church and Her defenders since the eighteenth century, but nonetheless has become a dominant underlying feature of Catholic culture and liturgical practice, in particular in the last century.

There is something both ironic and charming, therefore, about the fact that one of the favoured tipples of the imprisoned Napoleon, that violent enforcer of rationalist utopianism, has become the drink of choice for a group of traddies who meet each month in a church basement. It is a bit like when the Poles and Austrians baked bread in the shape of Islamic crescents – the genesis of the buttery croissant – for breakfast after the Battle of Vienna in 1683, but a little less dramatic.

SPRING 2020

OBITUARY

Colin Mawby: musician, composer and friend of the Latin Mass Society

T

he Latin Mass Society were greatly saddened by the death of Colin Mawby last year on 24 November 2019. Mawby, one of a generation of post-war Catholic musicians, was not only an acclaimed composer and choral director but maintained a lifelong devotion to the Latin Mass and was a great supporter of the Latin Mass Society.

Born in Portsmouth, Colin John Beverley Mawby entered the world of Catholic music as a chorister at Westminster Cathedral in 1946 under the great George Malcolm. He then studied composition at the Royal College of Music and whilst there was the young choirmaster at Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory’s, Warwick Street, in Westminster, where the Latin Mass is still celebrated regularly.

After a brief spell at Portsmouth Cathedral and St Ann’s, Vauxhall, he returned to Westminster Cathedral to assist the then choirmaster, Francis Cameron, in 1959. Two years later, he succeeded Cameron as Master of the Music, where he would remain until 1976.

One of our Society members recalls the days at Westminster Cathedral when Colin Mawby was the Director of Music. High Mass and Sung Vespers were celebrated daily, something which did not even happen at St Peter’s in Rome at the time. He remembers how dismayed Mawby was at how easily the clergy accepted the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council and the sadness he felt at how little people fought to save the Latin Mass.

After leaving the cathedral, Mawby taught at Trinity College of Music and then went on to establish the RTÉ Philharmonic

Choir in Ireland, also leading ensembles such as the London Mozart Players and Pro Cantione Antiqua. In 2006, he was awarded a Knighthood of the Papal Order of St Gregory by Pope Benedict XVI for services to church music.

Colin Mawby composed a huge amount of both sacred and secular music, including many Mass settings, although he always claimed he did not start composing seriously until he reached his fifties. In an interview in 2006, when asked, what were the key things he learnt as a composer? he replied "Plainchant - it’s the most wonderful thing.”

Colin very generously agreed to become a Patron of the Latin Mass Society in 2012, and attended the founding meeting of the Gregorian Chant Network, following his passion for Plainchant.

The aim of this network launched by the LMS was to give chant scholas opportunities to meet and take part in training events. He lent his enormous experience and skill to several of the Network's subsequent Chant Training Weekends as a tutor and organist.

Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the LMS recalls an example of his generosity of spirit, which led to a charming contribution to the work of the Society. “I asked him if he knew a hymn tune which would fit a song I had found. This was a soldiers' song used by Papal Zouaves from the British Isles, which was recorded by an English Zouave, Maurice Powell, who served Pope Pius IX in the final resistance to the Piedmontese takeover of the Papal States and Rome. (It is reproduced in Charles Coulombe's excellent account of the Zouaves, The Pope's Legion.) Colin did not: but in a short time composed one himself! We sing this every year on the Walsingham Pilgrimage.”

Twine your swords with the palm branch, brave comrades, For as pilgrims we march forth today.

Love God, oh my soul, love Him only, And then with light heart go thy way.

Colin Mawby KSG (9 May 1936 – 24 November 2019) Clare Bowskill

Please pray for the souls of all members who have died recently Requiescant in Pace Jerome Bertram (Priest) Kathleen Foster Maureen Fraser Bernard Griffin Peter Harrison Elizabeth Lloyd Malcolm Murphy Rodney Olley Every effort is made to ensure that this list is accurate and up-to-date. However, if you know of a recently deceased member whose name has not, so far, appeared on our prayer memorial, then please contact the LMS, see page 3 for contact details.

The LMS relies heavily on legacies to support its income. Please consider leaving us a legacy when you make your Will.

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COMMENT

Idol gossip Mary O’Regan on the risks of dealing with those who would lead us away from the Faith

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ith a heavy heart I watched the sad saga of an Amazonian statue, the Pachamama idol, venerated in the Vatican Gardens and saw a coterie of people bowing to honour a wooden carving which is defined as a pagan deity by the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

There was, of course, the main reason to be sorrowful: the devotion given an effigy, which should be given to Our Lord. But for me personally this incident stirred painful memories.

When I was a child in Ireland, I knew a woman who showed signs of what can only be described as demonic possession. At first, I thought she could teach me a great deal. She was considered a genius and I was seduced by her pretence of being one, but in the end, I learned nothing of value from her. While she had been raised a Catholic and maintained a carefully cultivated appearance of still practising, I discovered that in reality she had thrown away her Catholicism.

Yet she needed to keep up the façade of being a Catholic because when she “practised” she harassed good priests and nuns. Yet when she described her practice of what appeared to me to be a kind of idol worshipping paganism, she was praised by an admiring audience of fallen Irish Catholics and broken priests and nuns who lauded her free spirit and even encouraged her. But they were also afraid of her.

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I saw first-hand that souls who give up fear of God will become terrified of people in their midst who can seem demonic, and they will be subservient to them, because they have abandoned the protections that the Faith gives, which makes them vulnerable, and rather than admit in humility that they need to re-embrace the Faith, they will often instead cooperate with someone who seeks to destroy their Faith.

I must admit that I too was, for a time, seduced – I fawned over the woman because my sinful ambition was such that I wanted to get what I could from her. But to my chagrin, I found she disliked me intensely. At first I put my troubles with her down to a personality clash, and that she despised me for the many flaws in my character and how narcissistic I was, but it became clear to me she had a particular hate for my name, Mary, because when she had to say it, she lost all semblance of her Irish brogue and her voice became metallic and hissing.

In her many character assassinations of me she relied on much hidden knowledge. At first, when she’d rant about my faults and

‘There followed an escalation in her knowledge of my venial sins, which was very traumatic’

my sins, I thought she was perceptive.

There came a time, however, when in a painfully legalistic way she detailed venial sins I had committed when I was alone.

In my deep pride I felt I could not tell anyone, because to do so would also be to tell my sins, and whenever I tried to talk to someone about her, they reminded me of her great intellect.

There was an episode with showed me that I could no longer put her “insight” down to genius-level intelligence. One rainy Irish morning I put some pro-life literature in my bag. A few hours later I met with this strange woman and she sneered at me for carrying pro-life material and made wicked comments against the precise pro-life apologetics espoused in the literature I had in my handbag, complete with a devastating critique of the pictures accompanying the text. Again, it bears repeating that I had shown no one the literature and the whole time she jeered at the literature, it was buried in my bag!

I began to see that her status as a “genius” did not rely so much on her meagre native intelligence as it did on some sort of demonic intelligence she had imbibed when venerating her little wooden friends. There followed an escalation in her knowledge of my venial sins, which was very traumatic. At the time, however, I was not so convinced of the offence given Our Lord by venial sins, and I did not know that a person with her kind of knowledge may be said to be possessed.

This brutal experience taught me that we should not for one moment sanction the open tolerance of idol worship and occult ritual by the heads of the Church. We must speak out against it with every breath in our bodies. As asinine as they look, wooden idols work against the true Faith. We must oppose all idols for they are by no means harmless.

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LONE VEILER

Driven by profit Lone Veiler laments the folly of food fads and looks forward to Glorious Lent

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he New Year – or Circumcision of the Lord as we prefer to call it – came and went without much ado until I was perusing the news and realised I was supposed to have become an alcohol eschewing vegan. Looking out of the window, dark still at 8am because of the very heavy rain, I thought how depressing it must be to believe that just giving up booze and bacon is going to get you through arguably the most depressing time of the year. If it’s not bad enough that Christmas is hijacked by a consumer orgy, fuelled by advertising and greed, everyone is supposed to now atone by jumping on the next food manufacturing and advertising scam, that veganism is somehow now ‘the way’.

Before I really tell you how I feel, I must assure you that I believe animal welfare has to be at the top of the carnivore agenda. I don’t believe anyone has to eat meat all day, every day.

There’s always fish Friday.

What really, really, confuses me are the chemically constructed meat and fish alternatives being sold as somehow better for the planet, oh, and secondarily for you as a human being. If you are a vegan, why would you want your fake meat pasty to taste like an animal you don’t believe should be used for food?

Why would you want vegan cheese on your pizza? Are most vegans exomnivores who just can’t do without their hit of sour-dough-bacon-flavoured-soyaprotein-strips-and-ketchup sandwiches on a Sunday morning? It’s perfectly understandable that everyone wants to reassess their lifestyle periodically, eating more healthily, starting a fitness routine, but in January? It’s the worst time of year to start anything. Even the Tax Year waits until Spring. How many resolutions are still around when the daffodils are up?

Yet much like the media-driven gender crisis, this latest fad is driven by food manufacturers’ profit margins, supermarkets needing to appear relevant and socially responsible, and people’s desire for the next new thing. Not to mention panic over their health. Not that eating a shed load of over-processed vegan meat alternatives will make you healthy. One meat alternative that’s

it’s spelled like pestle! The suggestion that any of these companies have the slightest concern for the state of the planet unless it concerns their global survival is risible, but they are very good at raising guilt levels and virtue signalling.

PETA, the animal rights pressure group, has some form when it comes to shock tactics, and absolutely yes, the track record for animal abuse in some parts of the world is just unbelievably evil, but very often so is the human rights record. In our country we have a particular sensibility towards animals that many other parts of the world do not share. We also have a disregard for human life that other parts of the world do not share. To show abortion in the kind of graphic detail PETA uses to highlight animal cruelty is unthinkable in the UK. We do live in interesting times.

Where was I? Oh yes, the dark days of the New Year. Well, they morphed through a pleasingly pieand-cake and yes, winefilled Epiphany Octave into Candlemas, and then it was farewell Cribs (we have two), see you in December.

As spring is springing, it’s particularly nice to walk the dog without everyone and everything getting covered in mud, and to walk in the daylight. Now of course, we anticipate Lent, my favourite time of the entire year. Glorious Lent, when we alter our eating and drinking habits to conform to the season, rather than to a supermarket advertising campaign. Liturgical seasons make so much sense. And of course, the great thing to be looking forward to is the rededication of England as the Dowry of Mary. It’s going to be wonderful. Lots of people will think we’re mad, but that’s fine, it’s right and proper that we appear a bit, well, odd. We are.

'Now of course, we anticipate Lent, my favourite time of the entire year'

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mushroom derived can cause stomach upsets, it says so on the packet. The vegan trend has even pervaded school meals. No longer can you get a nut roast, or a cheese or egg salad if you are a lacto vegetarian, because everyone’s now a vegan with nut allergies.

New has to be best, because it’s new, so food manufacturers keep cranking out re-invented products. I say food manufacturers because that’s what they do, they manufacture. They aren’t the growers, the producers, the farmers; they are the giant corporations that have dubious ethics and morals. One has been banned in our house for years – I won’t give you the name, but

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ARCHITECTURE

The Abbey Church of St Michael and All Angels, Belmont

Paul Waddington looks at one of Edward Pugin’s lesser known churches

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elmont Abbey owes its existence to one Francis Wegg-Prosser, who was a mathematician and astronomer, as well as being a member of the English establishment. He was born Francis Richard Haggitt, the only son of the Rev. Prebendary Francis Haggitt, Rector of Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire. Educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford, he graduated in 1845 with a degree in

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mathematics. From 1847 to 1852 he served as the Member of Parliament for Herefordshire, during which time he inherited the extensive estates of his great-uncle, the Rev. Dr Richard Prosser, Archdeacon of Durham. In recognition of this inheritance, he changed his name to Wegg-Prosser.

In 1852 he became a Catholic, being received into the Church by Bishop Grant of Southwark. Soon after his

conversion, he resolved to use his newly acquired wealth to promote the Catholic faith in the neighbourhood of Belmont House, his home three miles south west of Hereford.

Hereford already had a Catholic Church, that of St Francis Xavier, which was served by Jesuits. So, there would have been little demand for another church in the small settlement of Belmont. Instead of a church, no doubt

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at the suggestion of the local bishop, Wegg-Prosser built a small school and chapel in the grounds of his estate.

Not surprisingly, in view of its rural location, the school was not a great success.

Undaunted, Wegg-Prosser pressed ahead with his real ambition, which was to build a church of some distinction at Belmont. He engaged Edward Pugin, eldest son of Augustus Welby Pugin and the most distinguished Catholic architect of the time, to produce drawings. Pugin designed a small but relatively lofty church with clerestory windows. In common with most of his early period works, it was in the Decorated English Gothic style, with a relatively shallow sanctuary under the same roof line as the nave. The foundation stone was laid in 1854, and the church was opened in 1856 under the patronage of St Michael and All Angels.

At the time, Hereford was in the Diocese of Newport and Menevia, whose bishop, Thomas Joseph Brown, had been the Vicar Apostolic for the Western District until the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850.

Bishop Brown, who, before becoming a bishop, was a monk of Downside Abbey, was to have a big influence on developments at Belmont. It was his idea that the underused church at Belmont should become the nucleus of a common noviciate and house of studies for the whole of the English Benedictine Congregation. This was accepted by the Congregation, which at the time consisted of Downside Abbey, Ampleforth Abbey and St Edmund’s Abbey, still located at Douai in France.

Edward Pugin was commissioned to design buildings for the noviciate, which opened 1859. The noviciate, together with Wegg-Prosser’s church, became known as Belmont Priory.

Bishop Brown had ideas for the school as well. In 1860, it was transformed into the Junior Seminary for the diocese. Perhaps this was a little ambitious, because it closed 14

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years later, never having attracted more than about a dozen pupils. In 1917, the Benedictines reopened it as a Public School, this time with more success. It prospered for many years, but ultimately suffered from declining enrolments and finally closed in 1994.

Pro Cathedral of the Diocese The Diocese of Newport and Menevia lacked a cathedral, and Bishop Brown decided that Belmont Priory should become the pro-cathedral of the diocese, as well as serving as the noviciate for the English Benedictines.

It was consecrated as a cathedral priory in 1860, reviving the uniquely English pre-Reformation practice of the monastic Cathedral Chapter. This status was retained until 1916 when the Archdiocese of Cardiff was created, and the cathedral of the new diocese was located in that city.

Belmont became an independent abbey in 1920 and continued to prosper.

In 1981, a daughter house was set up at Tambogrande in Peru, which was later transferred to Lurin, nearer the capital city of Lima. Today, the community numbers about 40, including those in Peru, although the majority of the monks are dispersed in parishes.

The Abbey Church of St Michael and All Angels has been enlarged several times since it first opened in 1856. By 1859, when the noviciate opened, the nave had been doubled in length, and the tower added. In the following year, a new sanctuary and side aisles were added. This sanctuary was later extended by two bays in time for the consecration of the High Altar in December 1865. The chapel of St Benedict, provided specifically for the use of the novices, was added to the south side around the same time, and enlarged in 1869.

All this was the work of Edward Pugin. By the time of Edward’s death in 1875, all the major works had been completed, although Edward’s halfbrother, Peter Paul Pugin continued to

work on decorative schemes. Peter Paul was also responsible for further work on the adjacent monastic buildings, which continued to expand until 1904.

Viewed from the outside, the church and its associated monastic buildings present a very pleasing composition.

Built of a uniform stone, it is hard to believe that the various extensions and additions were built in many stages and over a period of twenty years.

The elegant fenestration, the steeply pitched roofs and the prominent central tower all contribute to the picturesque scene.

Internally, the various extensions are more apparent, as is the post Vatican II reordering that has moved the High Altar once again to a position under the central crossing. Nevertheless, the work has been carried out with sensitivity to the original design. The church has a spacious nave with side aisles. Above the elegant arcading, the clerestory windows provide plenty of light. The current sanctuary with its rather modern altar is on a raised platform behind a tall chancel arch.

Further to the East, and behind a second chancel arch are the nicely carved choir stalls. Still further to the East is the site of the former High Altar, now reduced to a tabernacle. The Lady Chapel is to one side. There is an ambulatory, so that the choir stalls and the Lady Chapel can be reached without the need to pass through the sanctuary.

Belmont Abbey is pleasantly located in a semi-rural setting, with good views of the Black Mountains across the border in Wales. Regrettably, there is a proposal that a new road, designed to relieve traffic in Hereford, will pass very close to the Abbey. It is to be hoped that, if it does come about, the new road will not disturb the tranquillity of the site.

Low Mass is offered in the Extraordinary Form at 4pm every Sunday at Belmont Abbey. There is also a Low Mass at 7pm every Wednesday.

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FEATURE

Ecclesia et Imperium Charles A. Coulombe on how the British Empire helped spread the Faith

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ne of the innumerable superstitions infecting the modern mind is the idea that European expansion across the globe and the resulting colonial empires were unmitigated evils. Given that our global civilisation is based securely upon those colonial foundations, every beneficiary of modern technology alone owes those colonialists a debt of gratitude.

Sans the racial reference, the United Nations Organisation have certainly attempted to take up the White Man’s burden, as outlined by Kipling: “…the savage wars of peace; fill full the mouth of famine, and bid the sickness cease.”

Nowhere is this fact truer than in terms of religion. Without a doubt, the Spanish, Portuguese, and French colonial empires were the building blocks of the Catholic Church across the globe. The French White Fathers did Yeoman work in Africa, and from the 1830s to 1914 the Emperor of Austria and the King of Bavaria poured millions of dollars into the Church in the United States through their foundations (to say nothing of artwork and missionaries). What is less well realised, however, was the role play in propagating the Faith by the British Empire.

At first glance, this seems an odd assertion. Even setting aside the Irish situation, from the time of Elizabeth I successive English and then British freebooters delighted in destroying Catholic foundations throughout the Spanish colonies – even as the Dutch did to the Portuguese in the East Indies. While this is certainly true, things were not quite so cut and dried in the 17th century. As is well known, the pro-Catholic Charles I gave Maryland to Lord Baltimore, who turned it into an abortive Catholic refuge (the last battle of the Ears of the Three Kingdoms would be fought there in 1652).

Although London became resolutely antiCatholic after 1688, two decades after the so-called “Glorious Revolution” Queen Anne intervened directly in Maryland’s affairs, vetoing the final anti-measure the

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provincial assembly had passed to end the Church in that Province. To this day a uniquely English-American Catholicism prevails in Southern Maryland and in its daughter region, the “Holy Land” of Kentucky.

But it was George III under whom the ice really broke. In 1763, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the French of Canada came under his sway, and by that treaty he became obligated to take them under his protection. The concrete result of this was the Quebec Act, whereby, among other things, the British Crown undertook the sponsorship of the Catholic Church there formerly exercised by the French King (it probably did not hurt that Clement XIII recognized George as de jure King of Great Britain on James III’s death in 1766). Catholic Emancipation’s high-water mark under George was undoubtedly the first Catholic Relief Bill in 1778; unhappily, the entrance of France that year and Spain the year following into the American rebellion and George’s feeling of betrayal at the hands of his Catholic fellow monarchs soured him on the idea. Nevertheless, as Britain acquired territories from Catholic powers over the remainder of his reign, the Quebec Act served as a template for establishing relations between the Crown and the Catholic Church in places such as Malta, Trinidad, Mauritius, Ceylon, and elsewhere.

Before and after the Napoleonic Wars, Scots Catholic emigration to the new settler colonies brought the Church to new areas. To this day there are more Catholics of Scots descent (and nativespeakers of Scots Gaelic) in Canada than in Scotland, while Australia’s St Mary McKillop was born among Scots Catholic settlers in that country. The Faith first came permanently to South Africa with the arrival of Franco-Mauritian sugar planters in Natal. Not surprisingly, before waves of Irish emigrants fled conditions in their unhappy native Isle to swell the population of those colonies, various Irish regiments from India to Barbados

were responsible for building Catholic churches. Speaking of India, there and in Ceylon and Malaya, friction occurred during the 19th century between parishes and dioceses founded by the Portuguese, and those created by missionaries responsible to the Propaganda Fide – breaking out in some place into open schism. Not surprisingly, in return for loyalty to the Crown, the British backed the Propaganda financially and in other ways. One byproduct of this development was the birth of uniquely Catholic Ethnic Groups – Malaysia and Singapore’s Eurasians, Ceylon’s Burghers, and – in addition to the pre-existing Goans – Mangaloreans, East Indians, and other groups in India. Most Anglo-Indians became Catholic, and the groups in turn helped spread the faith in East Africa.

The settler colonies each came with wide frontiers and native peoples to be evangelised: the American Indians of Canada’s great northwest, the Aborigines of the Australian Outback, the African peoples of the South African veldt, and the Maoris of New Zealand and other Pacific Islands. British colonial protection and patronage made it possible respectively for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Benedictines of New Norcia, the Marianhill Missionaries, and the Marist Fathers to work among them. Such orders as the Mill Hill Fathers and Patrician Brothers were enabled through the peace brought by Imperial arms to evangelise vast stretches of British Africa and Asia.

The Mill Hill Fathers – the Missionary Society of St Joseph at London’s Mill Hill deserve special mention. At once inspired and challenged by the missionary efforts of other Catholic nationalities, Herbert Cardinal Vaughan (brother of Mgr Bernard Vaughan, who visited the dying Edward VII) founded them in 1866, asking Bl. Pope Pius IX for a missionary field; the Pontiff gave him English-speaking black people in Africa and America. The Order in the latter country became independent as the Josephites in 1893, and continue their work in American cities – they

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FEATURE have two parishes here in Los Angeles.

The British branch of the Order spread throughout British Africa, India, Borneo, the Philippines, and elsewhere.

It should also be pointed out that individual Catholics – often against great social and other odds – made good careers in the colonial service: among these were George Robinson, 1st Marquess of Ripon, Viceroy of India; Sir John Pope-Hennessy, successively Governor of Labuan, Sierra Leone, the Windward Islands, Hong Kong, and Mauritius; Antony Patrick Baron MacDonell, successively chief officer in Burma, the Central Provinces of India, Bengal, and Agra and Oudh; and Sir Édouard Percy Girouard, FrenchCanadian and High Commissioner in Nigeria and then Kenya (progenitor of the Girouard literary family). During campaigns up the Nile, Wolseley used French-Canadian boatmen in his Nile campaign, considering them the most skilled he ever encountered.

In light of the Ordinariates, one should also mention the Anglo-Catholic missionary effort across the Empire, probably strongest in Southern Africa and the West Indies – hence the veneration of King Charles there. It too featured religious orders – several of women and most notably the Cowley and Mirfield Fathers, heroic missionaries like Frank Weston, and colonial administrators such as Lord Halifax. Perhaps the bestknown survivor of this tradition is Mgr Robert Mercer, onetime Anglican Bishop of Matabeleland and Mirfield Father.

As the Anglican Communion is a religious reminder of the one-time spread of the British Empire, so too is the Catholic Church in those countries served across the planet by ICEL. Today, the seed sown thanks to British colonial protection has paid off – especially with the collapse in numbers of Irish, British, American, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealander vocations – with a bumper crop of African and South Asian priests and religious – and such prelates as Cardinals Arinze and Ranjith. Nor has this gift been restricted to the Englishspeaking world: these folks have been the salvation of many dying religious orders throughout Europe. Let us pray that the Western European nations and the settler countries – whose falling vocations have reflected not only a loss of Faith but an accompanying plummeting birth rate – may regain their sanity and become the beacons to the rest of the world that once they were.

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Cardinal Vaughan, founder of the Mill Hill Fathers

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FEATURE

Extraordinary Youth and the Extraordinary Form Henry Walker is inspired by the number of young people attending the Traditional Mass

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© John Aron

I

looked around the Church, a place which had happily become a second home of sorts. Over the years many of the once unfamiliar faces had become regular features in my life and I was grateful for them all. But this time, as I gazed around the crowd, something struck me; something that has been a pleasant revelation since I had wandered into a Mass in the Extraordinary Form...

The Church seemed to be crammed full of young people like myself, it appeared vibrant, growing, new faces in the pews, young and old; each at different stages of their spiritual life, irrespective of age. The youngsters weren’t there to pay any empty lip service, or out of a custom, and they weren’t young enough – or so inclined – to have been dragged along by their parents or spouses!

They were present to worship God, in a form which they had taken on as their own, unique to only them; devotees of a tradition far too old and rare to have been embraced without a firm desire for it. They stand as a contradiction, an unpleasant disruption from the normal decline; ones who bear witness that the Mass of Ages can be both universal and unique: simultaneously ancient and timeless!

These youthful souls are the result of a silent and under-reported evangelization, largely a fruit of Summorum Pontificum, and the relatively - widespread availability of the Traditional Latin Mass which resulted from it. As well as penning the apostolic letter just mentioned, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of a “silent apostasy…” a gradual falling away of monumental proportions. I now see evidence of a “silent evangelization” emerging, admittedly small, but budding, with a long-overdue summer in sight!

These young people are passionate, dedicated, and inflamed with a new love for the Old Mass, a Mass which many of their forefathers had both lived and died for, a phenomenon in this age that often seems unique to "traditional" parishes.

‘Finding the Extraordinary Form changed my life…’

It cannot be argued – as it often is – that the Usus Antiquior is a relic of the past, only made available for elderly folk who can’t shake off the remembrance of the past. The Mass of Ages is a gem that has been seized upon by a multitude of previously lost Catholics, who perhaps may even be converts, coming from families not at all inclined to religious practices.

"I brought my parents along once, they didn’t understand..." Similar sentiments as these were expressed to me by a bright-eyed young man at a gathering for young Catholics, where the Latin Mass was the point of common focus. He told me of how his own conversion was encouraged by the Latin Mass, and how his heart had been swept away with it; he even unveiled that his parents did not at all consent to this change. He was a normal man, in his early twenties. There was nothing different or "extraordinary" about him, yet this version of the Mass had awakened in him a lively Faith, and a total conversion of life.

His story sounded familiar, it reminded me of my own, and many others which I have heard along the way…

"Your parents weren’t religious?" My confused friends often ask.

"No. They are now, but I was the first of the family to begin practising." Their expression upon hearing this exudes confusion, as such a reality falls so far outside their frame of reference.

In the modern era, religion is viewed as an unfortunate custom that you carry forward like a burden, if you are unlucky enough to be brought into the world by parents not yet free from its shackles.

This could not be further from the truth in the young hearts which make up the small yet growing movement dedicated to the "Old Rite", the Mass of Ages, and we are convinced it is the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.

My own experience leads me to write this article... Finding the "Extraordinary Form" quickly changed my life and deepened the comparatively little Faith which I had already been graced with. I only hope that this movement will continue to grow, and will mutually foster support and understanding within all sections of the Universal Church, which gave us this treasure, and especially in this troublesome time; to this Church we owe our deepest gratitude and singular allegiance!

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MASS LISTINGS

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SUMMER SPRING 2020 2019

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IN PICTURES

The Epiphany of our Lord

Report and pictures by Clare Bowskill It was good to see a packed church for the Latin Mass Society’s celebration of the Epiphany of the Lord.

The setting was Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane - the Westminster Diocesan Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament. The Celebrant was Fr Gabriel Diaz, with Fr Peter Littleton as Deacon and Fr Stuart Foster, Subdeacon; the music was provided by Cantus Magnus.

The LMS organises a Sung Mass in Corpus Christi each Monday at 6.30pm and it was very kind of Fr Robinson to allow us to have High Mass on this occasion.

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Painting at the Angel Club

“I want to LIVE at Regina Caeli!”

Barbara Kay reports on a visit to a new hybrid education venture in Bedfordshire

T

he children chuckled with laughter as they pretended to walk in Christmas pudding, in outer space and then in feathers. The laughter then stopped as they pretended to walk through a quiet church. It started again as they pretended to walk in high heels, roller skates and cowboy boots.

This was the last lesson of the day, an all-age drama lesson at the Regina Caeli UK Academy, a centre for home educators operating in the Catholic tradition. It is an affiliate of Regina Caeli Academy, which was founded in the USA in 2003 and now has 15 locations across the States.

Regina Caeli’s first concern is to help parents – the primary educators of their family – to lead their children to grow in holiness and the knowledge and love of God. In practical terms,

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it supports home educators with a structured two-day programme in the classical, Catholic tradition and is committed to faithful adherence to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. It receives pastoral support from the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP), one of whose priests acts as chaplain and says Mass at the Academy once a month.

In April 2018, a small group of people had the vision to set up Regina Caeli’s first academy in the UK. After much planning, visits from representatives of Regina Caeli from the USA and a great deal of prayer, Regina Caeli UK opened its doors just 17 months later, in September 2019. It is based at a hall in Barton Le Clay, a village between Bedford and Luton, and is open on Mondays and Thursdays each week.

When it opened, the Academy had 17 children aged 4-10 on its books. In January 2020 it added three more, with the prospect of younger siblings coming along in September. The children are divided into three classes according to their age. The two younger classes work in the main hall divided by a screen and the oldest class, currently consisting of three girls, works in a side room. All the children wear a navy uniform to give them a sense of community and unity; they come to the centre looking smart and ready to work! Some children have been homeschooled in the past, for others it marks a new chapter in their education. Such is the need for this sort of institution that some families have even moved into the area so that their children can be part of Regina Caeli.

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FEATURE Regina Caeli has its own classical curriculum, using some of the Mother of Divine Grace syllabi, which has been successfully used by educators for the past 16 years. Maria Jones, Centre Coordinator for Education, explained that as this is an American syllabus, it has needed to be adapted for use in the UK, for example focusing on British rather than American history. Phonics, which is usually only taught until Year 2 in the UK, is continued thoroughly in the American syllabus. Every word counts – one of the conversations I overheard was discussing why American English uses the word ‘fall’ for autumn and why it is so appropriate.

Whiteboards in each area bear the timetable for each day, and it is a packed one (“we worked our socks off today” commented one of the teachers).

Literacy, Maths and Religion are taught in the mornings when minds are fresh.

The oldest class is learning Latin. Lunch is early at Regina Caeli – 11.30 – because at 12.00, everyone stops and says the Angelus together. Then it’s outside for some fresh air and a short session of PE. In the summer, the Academy has the use of an adjacent field.

For the afternoon session, there was some hands-on science going on with the 5 to 8 year olds; they had been learning about plants and were making bottle-gardens with brightly-coloured pansies in plastic bottles cut in half, which were then sealed together and said to form their own ecosystem not requiring watering.

In another room, the oldest class was doing Art, based on Fra Angelico pictures in a beautifully illustrated book about the Creed. One girl painted a beaming resurrected Jesus and a very miserablelooking devil under his feet. This same age group, of 10 and 11 years old, is also looking at ‘Julius Caesar’ in their Drama lessons, at a far earlier age than their contemporaries in state schools “so as not to be frightened of Shakespeare” said their teacher, and also to enjoy a greater range of his works.

What struck me was the fact that faith permeated everything – even mathematics; at the front of one of the Maths textbooks it states “God Who created the world using mathematics”.

There is a rack of carefully chosen reading books, many overtly spiritual, but all of them wholesome and beautifully illustrated. As I sat looking at them, one little boy came over and pulled out a story told by a baby while in its mother’s womb and shortly after its birth. He said this was his favourite book and that he read it again and again.

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There is a distinct atmosphere of one big happy family at Regina Caeli. The children are polite, enthusiastic and eloquent. Of course, as in any family, there are moments which require challenge and reflection. Discipline is based on the St John Bosco method, which aims to be preventive by loving and encouraging (“punishment should be your last resort”). In each class there is an ‘Angel Club’ chart, consisting of four discs, working upwards one red, one amber, one green, and one at the top with a picture of an angel on it. At the beginning of the day, each child has a clothes peg with their name on clipped beside the green disc. Good work that day is rewarded by promotion to the ‘Angel Club’. If the child has to be given a ‘reminder’ to behave, their peg is moved down to the amber disc, and a second reminder results in a further downward move to the red disc. Fortunately, these placings are frequently reviewed. If a child has achieved Angel Club status on 8 days, he or she is given a reward in the form of a prayer card and small stationery gift. These are presented with applause in an end-of-day assembly with parents present.

There are three qualified teachers and a learning support assistant at the Academy. Their commitment and dedication are impressive. One of the teachers lives in Stourbridge in the West Midlands, a four-hour round trip each Monday and Thursday with three children, leaving home before six in the morning and only getting home twelve hours later. Because the Academy hires the hall, everything needs to be set up in the morning and packed up at the end of the day. The hall has to be left clean and tidy by 3.30 pm and all teachers work hard to make this happen. The dream is that one day, the Academy will have a permanent base of its own.

Although the Regina Caeli Academy is unique in the UK at the moment, plans are afoot to open a second hybrid Academy in Yorkshire before too long, so families in that part of the world will benefit from what it has to offer.

“I want to LIVE at Regina Caeli!” said one of the children. It is not hard to understand why.

If you are interested to find out more, please visit the Regina Caeli website: www.rcahybrid.org.uk/ or Facebook page www.facebook.com/ reginacaeliuk

Learning together

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FEATURE

A visitor comes to the Oratory Jeremy Boot introduces a Muslim colleague to the beauties of the Traditional Mass

I

felt quite privileged to be able to take a colleague to High Mass at the Birmingham Oratory a few months ago. It was at his request. He had heard me speak in our conversations about the beauty of the Masses I attended there. Could he perhaps attend one? Of course. I said ‘privileged’ a moment ago because my colleague is a practising Muslim. Seeing the familiar through a stranger’s eyes as a visitor or guest, is always informative.

He knew Birmingham from years before but had never been inside the big church on Hagley Road.

Fortuitously the feast day, quite by chance, after juggling to find a suitable date for the visit, was that of St Michael the Archangel, known and venerated in both religions and for similar reasons.

This was a good common link to start from.

One could not find a better place than the Oratory, with its high standards of liturgy and music. For many who can travel there, often from some distance, it is an oasis of what things should be in a Catholic Church, without the irritations or odd practices that beset some liturgies elsewhere. I thought at least the cultural aspects, such as architecture or beautiful music would appeal to my friend. It was fair to assume he had never seen or heard of a High Mass. We had discussed religion before on many subjects, finding rather more in common than some would suppose, but with no illusions on either side that there were differences.

Truth to tell, I would not have been too surprised if he had called the whole thing off, as too bold a step, but he didn’t.

There is no point being too set upon explanations of the theology of the Mass. This would be the wrong place to start. A High Mass is very visual, full of ritual and symbolism, and I was sure

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that the liturgy would speak for itself and tell its own story, even to someone who had never seen it before. It didn’t disappoint.

I suggested we shared a Missal, to follow the prayers if he wished, and if not, I was keen to see what his observation would be. He was quite happy to stand and sit with everyone else too, rather than observe from afar. I promised him no-one would be trying to interact or disturb him.

No professional hand-shakers here.

Having entered the church, he seemed pleasantly surprised at the interior: colour, layout and so on. I showed him some of the detail: altars, mosaics, the layout of the place; statues, chapels etc. People queuing for Confession too, which always fascinates a nonCatholic. People would enter the church, genuflect, nod or acknowledge each other, but without the chatter and noise which seems to have become the norm elsewhere. That in itself communicates the impression of a special and sacred place, not just a theatre audience waiting for the first act to begin.

Mass started with the usual procession of ministers in fine vestments, their courtesy evident to each other (bows etc); holy water at the Asperges made its impression that we were all to be included. Preparation at the foot of the altar, bowing at the Confiteor shows penance and preparation. Incense, sweet-smelling, clouds rising to the heights is a very visual thing. Eventually as the choir finished the Introit, the ministers were starting their duties at the altar itself. Kyrie and Gloria led to Collect and Epistle and Gospel. The Gospel procession, the receiving of the book by the deacon, kissing of hands, the incense (again), blessing and people standing attentively to hear what was

to be read to them – and in a special language with solemnity - was so clearly an announcement of something that mattered.

The sermon, in English, touched on many common themes relating to St Michael the Archangel. The prayer indeed to St Michael, excluding the brief doxology, could easily have been used by either religion (“...defend us in the day of battle, be our safeguard again the wickedness and snares of the devil…”). The Credo done, the Offertory, with its ‘busy-ness’, presentation of elements, incensation of ministers and people, the washing of hands and the intonation of the Preface give clear signals of progress. The whole church then kneels as a body at the Sanctus with eyes attentive to what is about to happen. That is dramatic in its way (not perhaps that we always see it as such). Not for nothing was western theatre inspired by the liturgy. Then the precious silence at the Canon - far from inactive visually, for those who would observe, with its many gestures, blessings, genuflections and signs of the cross. Then the Consecration and Elevations make sense of the silence and bring the action to a climax.

The sight of so many receiving Communion, not in a worldly way, but kneeling at altar rails and receiving from a priest on the tongue makes its impression too. I had made no attempt to explain transubstantiation, but really everything about Mass seen by an outsider for the first time, makes the understanding of at least the Holy and holy things clear in its own way.

Impressed by more music, and a prayer for the Queen too (Domine salvam fac) and then a great thump of organ for the recessional, and the job was done.

On the way out I introduced him to the parish priest, who welcomed

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FEATURE

him and then, unbidden, my colleague replied enthusiastically to him about the experience and said what a ‘wonderful drama’ it had been and how ordered and beautiful.

Really that says it all. I confess I would not have chosen just any local parish for this introduction, but this High Mass was all I had hoped for. Many believe that our forefathers were better instructed in the basics of the Faith and understanding of Mass through

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the power alone of a visual and familiar liturgy than many of their 21st century descendants. Latin was not an obstacle (and never had been until in the 1960s someone persuaded them it was); it was the Church’s sacred language. They were certainly better at interpreting the rite in all its symbolism. What a joy attending Mass at the parish church and cathedral must have been for preReformation Catholics as a break from their hard lives.

We followed the visit to Holy Mass by a good lunch on the way home, in the best tradition. I am grateful for the opportunity to have experienced this day. No-one expected my colleague to abandon his own faith, and no-one out of respect would ever have suggested it, but the grace of such an experience will, I suspect, not fail to have had its effect on us both. It is humbling to look again at the familiar through another’s eyes and see again its beauty and power upon the soul.

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CROSSWORD Clues Across 1 Early martyr and Patron saint of musicians (7) 5 Language in which St Paul wrote his Letters (5) 8 ‘--- Eimi’ (‘It Is I’), title of Fr de Malleray’s recent book on the Eucharist (3) 9 One withdrawn from the world for religious reasons such as Julian of Norwich (9) 10 See 5 Down 11 Changes figural references (concerning OT Book?) (9) 14 ‘-- ------ audi nos’, response in the Litany of the Saints (2,7) 18 River flowing by cathedral and global icon devastated by fire last April (5) 21 Former PM sharing name with Patron of the LMS (9) 22 Early Irish Saint and nun, taught St Brendan, Patroness of Munster (3) 23 More than one work for the stage (5) 24 Circular building perhaps having a dome as with Rome’s Pantheon or Pisa’s Baptistery (7)

Alan Frost: January 2020

ANSWERS TO WINTER 2019 CROSSWORD

Across: 1 Vita Sua 5 Amice 8 Lot 9 Lutherans 10 Roads 11 Illogical 14 Nominated 18 Spohr 21 Intention 22 Tun 23 Dante 24 Missale Down: 1 Valerian 2 Titian 3 Salesian 4 Astral 5 Amen 6 Italic 7 Ease 12 Godsends 13 Lawrence (or Laurence) 15 Martin 16 Theism 17 Hostia 19 Hind 20 Anne

Closing Date & Winner

Entries for the spring 2020 competition should be sent to the Latin Mass Society, 11-13 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NH or by email to info@lms.org.uk, to arrive before Friday 27th March 2020. The winner of the winter 2019 competition is Mrs Ross of Cornwall, who wins a copy of The LMS Traditional Catholic Calendar 2020 and the booklet Devotion to the Holy Spirit.

Clues Down 1 Old joke or sweet tree (8) 2 Archibald Joseph, Catholic writer who created the character ‘Dr Finlay’ (6) 3 Order creature to do the obvious for children’s game? (8) 4 St ------ of York, served at court of Charlemagne and as Abbot in Tours (6) 5 & 10 Acr: The name by which Dysmas is generally referred to in the Passion of Christ (4,5) 6 Person who has left his native country and settled elsewhere (6) 7 European capital whose cathedral is dedicated to St Sophia (4) 12 Jules, French Romantic composer of operas and sacred cantatas linked to the Vincentians (8) 13 Organisational patterns or conceptual frameworks (8) 15 Thirty-first Archbishop of Canterbury since last Catholic holder of the Office (6) 16 Composer whose second symphony is known as the Resurrection Symphony (6) 17 Apparition that’s perfect this year! (6) 19 Pulpit, perhaps movable, inside the sanctuary (4) 20 Italian Saint, Patron of domestic servants and her native Lucca (4)

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Guild of St Clare, Autumn Sewing Retreat 20th to 22nd November, at Douai Abbey, Upper Woolhampton, Reading RG7 5TQ, with Fr Tim Finigan. Book through the LMS website.

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Wallingtons Road, Kintbury, Berkshire, RG17 9SR. There is no fee. Book through www.stcatherinestrust.org N.B. Family Retreats have been discontinued.

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SPRING 2020

BOOKS

The Gentle Traditionalist Returns: A Catholic Knight’s Tale from Ireland.

By Roger Buck.

Angelico Press, 2019. 242pp. Reviewed by Joseph Shaw

R

eaders may remember my reviews of Buck’s previous books, The Gentle Traditionalist (2015) and Cor Jesu Sacratissimum (2016). Roger Buck is a convert to Catholicism from the ‘New Age’: the amorphous movement combining Eastern meditation, reincarnation, and monism, Western occultism and Jungianism, and various other things.

The New Age makes of these dubious elements a surprisingly robust system of belief. It is the reason why a quarter of American adults tell opinion-pollsters that they believe in reincarnation, why ‘mindfulness’ workshops are scheduled by mainstream companies which would never consider marking Christian holidays, and why concerns about the environment increasingly resemble theological, rather than scientific, doctrines.

In his latest book, Buck examines the claims and influence of the New Age in the particular context of Ireland.

New Age mysticism, which offers to put you in touch with powerful and transformative forces through spiritual techniques such as meditation, seems most attractive to people whose idea of Christianity is rationalistic and mancentred. In this respect, the New Age is a reaction against the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Ireland, however, as it increasingly follows trends set by Britain and America, could become a prey to it also. It can be a temptation to Catholics and former Catholics, either as a supplement to or a replacement for a Catholicism which seems to have lost its spiritual power.

As Buck explores in this book, the New Age offers the excitement of a spiritual adventure, and the warm feeling that one is rather special in one’s commitment to a spiritual path, without any of the inconveniences of traditional morality. It poses no fundamental threat to secular culture: people can continue

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their exploitative commercial and personal lives while professing to be ‘spiritual but not religious’, and looking forward to a single world religion.

Roger Buck explains that the ultimate defence against the New Age temptation is to provide what people are truly craving: what Stratford Caldicott called ‘a transforming contact with mystery’.

This is exactly what we are offered in the sacraments, and the traditional ceremonies and prayers which accompany them, and the traditional liturgy and spirituality of the Church more generally, makes that particularly clear.

One of the central motivations of the liturgical reform was to make concessions to Rationalism. The reformed Mass is, supposedly, more logically set out; references to miracles (such as St Francis’ Stigmata, which

once had its own feast day) have been minimised; silence and the use of archaic languages has been trimmed back or eliminated, the mysterious and archaic melodies of Gregorian chant have given way to simple modern tunes, and so on. This is part of a movement of thought which goes back to the Enlightenment-inspired Synod of Pistoia (1786), and beyond: to survive in a rationalistic age, it was said, the Church must be freed of obscurantism. It is a supreme irony that this project should finally come to fruition just after the 1968 ‘Summer of love’. No sooner had the mysteries of the liturgy been expunged, but many parishes felt the need to adapt themselves to the concerns and aesthetics of anti-rational hippies.

As Louis Bouyer noted in his Memoirs, ‘the main business of the liturgy is not to teach us this or that lesson easily converted into pat formulas; it is to place the faithful, without them quite knowing how, into a certain state of mind which it would be perfectly fruitless to try to recreate by explaining it’. The liturgy works at a level beyond words to change us, to transform us, to soften the hardened heart, to purify the imagination, and to strengthen the will.

In this book Buck has adopted a mixture of forms, with a novel, dialogue, and a long ‘Afterword’ in which he addresses the reader directly.

I recommend it to those who want to know where some powerful modern trends are heading: trends embraced, or tolerated, by many of the cultural and even political elite, but with disturbing undertones of a hatred of the Church and of Catholic culture, the embrace of libertinism and abortion, and the shadow of the occult.

Editor: The Gentle Traditionalist Returns (and the other books mentioned in this review) is available from the LMS online shop, £15.50 + postage.

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