This year's World Youth Day is in Brazil and not many people from England and Wales are going for understandable financial reasons. However, my good friend Zosia is working hard with Fr Luke Goymour to raise money for the Diocese of East Anglia pilgrimage to World Youth Day in Rio.

One of the ways they have come up with to raise money is selling books and icons. You can see the range of icons for sale here. I am particularly impressed by the effort Zosia and Fr Goymour have put in to their book: The Path of Life which has been specially written to raise funds for this year's World Youth Day pilgrimage.

I was expecting a rubbishy little effort at bodging together a book and I only bought it to support my friend, but actually, Zosia and Fr Goymour have put together a sizeable collection of art, prayers and reflections. It's a bit mushy for my taste in places (this is what happens when you let girls write books!) but all in all it's not bad at all.

Anyway, time is scarce because your lazy blogger has been sat on this for months like some kind of idiot. World Youth Day starts in 70 days! Please support Zosia and Fr Goymour by buying their book! It's only £4.50 (inc postage) and you will be helping send a young person to World Youth Day.

If you want to skip the book and just send that big pile of cash you just found down the back of the sofa, fire off an email to james@lovingit.co.uk and I'll hook you up with some contact details.

I should make clear that these are the words of Cardinal Bergoglio before he was elected Pope. These words do not carry any sort of Papal authority. I reproduce them here because they offer an insight in to the thoughts of the man who became Pope Francis.

Cardinal Bergoglio tells us a joke. It's not a very funny joke, in fact, I only know it's a joke because he says so...

A very intelligent Jesuit told this joke: There was a person who came running asking for help. Who was pursuing him? Was it an assassin? A thief? No ... a mediocre person with power. It is true, how sad for the people that are under a mediocre leader, who thinks too highly of himself. When a mediocre person thinks too highly of himself and gets just a little power, I am sorry for those under him.

[On Heaven and Earth - Chapter 19 - On Politics and Power (p149)]

Perhaps bit about the "very intelligent Jesuit" is supposed to be the joke? Ha ha. See what I did there...

Joking aside, these comments are very interesting in light of the sort of men we know hold a lot of the power in the Church and how Cardinal Bergoglio might look upon those men if, say, he were to become Pope.

Often when one speaks of mediocre leaders in the Church on is told to be charitable and the charity is always for the mediocre leader. Always "the poor man tries his best, it's mean to criticise him" and so on.. never "I am sorry for those under him". Cardinal Bergoglio's concern is pointed in the right direction.

So what does he think mediocre leaders should do...?

Authority comes from above; now how it is used is another thing. It gives me goose bumps when I read the Book of Kings because there are only a few just men in the eyes of the Lord, but the vast majority are not. When one reads the things that our religious kings did, he feels like pulling his hair out. They even killed: the holy king, David, is not only an adulterer but also, to cover up what he did, he commands that the spouse of the woman be killed. But he has humility, when he is rebuked by the prophet Nathan, he recognizes that he has sinned and asks for forgiveness. He moved aside and told the Lord to bring someone to replace him.

[On Heaven and Earth - Chapter 19 - On Politics and Power (p149-150)]

"He moved aside and told the Lord to bring someone to replace him."

There it is - there is Cardinal Bergoglio's answer to the mediocre leader. Have humility, be rebuked, ask forgiveness and then move aside. We know that Pope Benedict may have quietly removed two or three Bishops per month. One wonders if Cardinal Bergoglio will continue along similar lines.

there are ambitions in the men of the Church; there is, sadly, the sin of careerism. We are humans and we tempt ourselves; we have to be very alert to take care of the anointing that we received because it is a gift from God. The circles of power, those that existed and exist in the Church, are a result of our human condition. But at some point, one stops being the one chosen to serve and becomes the one that chooses to live as he wishes, and his intentions are contaminated by his own flawed character.

[On Heaven and Earth - Chapter 19 - On Politics and Power (p150)]

Circles of power? Would that be magic circles? Oh stop...

At any rate, I can't help thinking that Cardinal Bergoglio is a man who knows how things are and, because he feels compassions for those "under" a "mediocre person" might actually feel compelled to do something about it.

While the book carries precious few insights in to Pope Francis' liturgical views, there is a chapter entitled "On Prayer" which contains two brief passages that I find very interesting. The first deals with Cardinal Bergoglio's discomfort about liturgical acts turning in to social events...

When liturgical acts slide in to social events, they lose force. A good example is the celebration of marriage, which in some
cases might lead someone to ask what is religious about that ceremony, because the minister preaches values, but many people are tuned in to a different frequency. They get married because they want God's blessing, but that desire seems hidden and does not become visible. In some churches - and I do not know how to cure it, honestly - in the weddings there seems to be a ferocious competition between the bridesmaids and the bride, for example with regards to the fashion or the dress. These ladies do not perform any religious act; they go to show off. This weighs on my conscience. As pastor, I am allowing it and I am not sure how to stop it. I give the example of weddings because it is where this issue is most evident.

[On Heaven and Earth - Chapter 7 - On Prayer (p56)]

For a moment, I thought I was reading Fr Ray Blake's blog - he writes along these lines from time to time.

I find this very comforting - that Pope Francis might be looking at the Church and worrying about the way "liturgical acts slide in to social events", that he worries about "how to stop it". I wonder how this concern about people coming to Church "to show off" might apply to Papal liturgies?

A few pages later Cardinal Bergolio gives us a clue...

It is true that among the faithful there are those who have not only killed intellectually or physically, but also who have killed indirectly through the poor use of resources by paying unjust wages. In public they may form welfare societies, but they do not pay their employees a wage corresponding to their work or they hire them "under the table." That is hypocrisy, that is the schizophrenia that I was referring to. To be certain, we know their resumes, we know that they pretend to be Catholics, but they have the indecent attitudes of those who never repent. That is why, in certain situations, I do not give communion myself; I stay back and let the ministers give it because I do not want those people to come to me for the photo op. One could deny communion to a public sinner who has not repented, but it is very difficult to check such things. Receiving communion means receiving the body of the Lord, with the awareness that together we constitute a community. But if a man, rather than uniting the people to God, warps the lives of many people, he cannot receive communion; it would be a complete contradiction. Those cases of spiritual hypocrisy occur in many people who hide within the Church and do not live according to the justice that God proclaims. They do not show repentance either. This is what we commonly call living a double life.

[On Heaven and Earth - Chapter 7 - On Prayer (p64)]

"those who never repent" he says "they do not show repentance" - when was the last time you heard a liberal talking about repentance? Pope Francis is no liberal.

"we know that they pretend to be Catholics" he says, that is why "in certain situations, I do not give communion myself; I stay back". This is exactly what has been happening in Rome? Pope Francis has been staying back, not allowing the "photo op" because he suspects that many who come only "pretend to be Catholics".

This idea of a Bishop who looks upon his people and says to himself that he doesn't like the way they are living their lives. Who "judges" them. Who tries to think up ways to get them to change. Who talks about "repentence". Is this not what sheperds are supposed to do? If this is what Pope Francis is all about, then I'm loving it.

I only hope some of it rubs off on England and Wales.

Pope Francis has been Pope for almost two months now but to most of us he's still something of a mystery so this book is a very welcome opportunity to read a big chunk of his thoughts on a wide range of subjects in order to get to know him a little bit. The book takes the form of a 'conversation' between Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis before he was Pope Francis) and Rabbi Abraham Skorka. I admit, I pretty much skipped everything Rabbi Skorka had to say. I was trying to read the book in a weekend.

First and foremost, this book shows that Pope Francis is that he's no lefty liberal - he is very definitely a believer in absolute truth, in God, the devil and prayer - his theology isn't built around trying to talk himself in to being allowed to do things... but then... he's not "of the right" either, by which I suppose I mean his theology isn't built around trying to argue with liberals.

I'm reminded of those American Catholic apologetics websites which list "The Deutrocanon" high up in their list of Catholic teachings. It's because they are caught up in regular arguments with fundamentalist protestants so they think it's important but most Catholics have never heard of it. I think there's something similar going on here - the issues we consider important our arguments with liberals in the United Kingdom just don't seem to be on Pope Francis' radar screen.

One example that worried me was in the section on poverty where he speaks about the "dignity of work". He's not wrong, but he seems to stray dangerously close to saying that a man's dignity depends on his ability to work. That's a problem for those of us living in countries where some people are talking about killing those who "lack dignity" because they are no longer useful. I don't think Cardinal Bergoglio agrees with those people, but he isn't "guarded" against them. He doesn't choose his words carefully in this area.

This may be in part because Pope Francis is simply not the intellectual giant that Pope Benedict was. I mean no offence, Pope Francis is no idiot, but he's just not working at Pope Benedict's level. Everybody has been talking about how Pope Francis likes to give homilies "off the cuff", well, having read this book I would say the homilies are not so "off the cuff". Take those Church as NGO comments - they are in the book. Twice. These "off the cuff" homilies are mostly things he has said before. Many priests do this - revisiting the same themes - my guess is we should expect more of this.

A big weakness of the book is that it is a conversation between two men in Argentina which means the reader must keep reminding himself that when they talk about "the government" they are not talking about Tony Blair or David Cameron. It also means there are references to historical events that I'm less than familiar with. Better educated men and I will not be bothered by this.

That said, all in all, Heaven and Earth is a good introduction to the thought of Pope Francis and I recommend it. While you can't have it until Thursday, you can read quite a bit of it via Amazon's "look inside" feature.

Seriously?

This is what they think is needed right now?

As the then Cardinal Ratzinger put it in "The Ratzinger Report"...

Christianity is not a philosophical speculation; it is not a construction of our mind. Christianity is not 'our' work; it is a Revelation; it is a message that has been consigned to us, and we have no right to reconstruct it as we like or choose. Consequently, we are not authorized to change the Our Father into an Our Mother: the symbolism employed by Jesus is irreversible; it is based on the same Man-God relationship he came to reveal to us.

[link]

I don't expect somebody as important as Elizabeth Davies (Marriage & Family Life Project Officer at Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales) to listen to a nobody like Joseph Ratzinger.

Not so very long ago, this would have been unthinkable.

The word on the street is that priests who distribute Holy Communion at papal liturgies have been instructed to distribute only on the tongue. Some priests are ignoring the instruction, but others are taking it seriously.

Oh dear.. I thought Pope Francis' humility was only going to affect the lives of nasty rich people.

h/t Kneeling Catholic

A few years ago one Austen Ivereigh was the victim of false allegations in the Daily Mail. A newspaper called the Catholic Herald took those allegations at face value a printed them - an easy mistake to make. However, as the allegations turned out not to be true the Catholic Herald were forced to issue an apology and to pay damages to Austen Ivereigh.

That's only fair you see because the information they published damaged Austen Ivereigh's career and also caused him considerable personal inconvenience and distress. It's only right that those who make the mistake pay for the damage. Kids who smash windows with footballs and newspapers alike.

Fast forward a few years to the present day where "traddies" have just been the victims of false allegations of "gloom mongering". Statistics were published by the National Office for Vocation and an organisation called Catholic Voices took those statistics at face value and published them - an easy mistake to make. However, as the statistics turned out not to be true the Catholic Voices were forced to issue an apology and... oh wait.

It doesn't look like Catholic Voices plan to pay any damages.

Having slandered "traddies" with allegations of "gloom mongering", having forced Joseph Shaw, Stephen Morgan and others to spend valuable time on the tedious process of looking up information from numerous old paper directories, plotting charts, writing blog posts and so. Having caused inconvenience "traddie" community" they don't think they owe anything for the damage.

Maybe they think that because it was a mistake, therefore they shouldn't have to pay for the damage? Kids who smash windows with footballs and Catholic Voices alike. Personally, I think a cheque made payable to the Latin Mass Society is in order. I'm sure Austen Ivereigh, who coordinates the Catholic Voices project, would agree?

Somebody will point out that Austen Ivereigh was the victim of serious allegations, that he suffered considerable personal distress and invonvenience over several years and that the damage here is nowhere near on the same scale.

Very well then. Send a cheque that is nowhere near on the same scale.

Somebody else will argue that Austen Ivereigh had a legal right to damages and that the "traddie" community perhaps hasn't. So what? I'm sure there's something in the Gospels about doing the right thing even when the law doesn't force you to.

If Austen Ivereigh and his Catholic Voices want to argue that mistakes are mistakes, that an apology is adequate reparation and that nobody should have to compensate anybody for the time and and effort put in to setting things right... well...

That would be very interesting to see...

Someday, I will have to explain to my children what a liberal parish used to look like. There won't be any left. Their children don't go to Mass and their priests are getting old.

If you want to see the future, look at who is actually opening Churches.

It's something like this.

The good news from the National Office for Vocation...

It also often comes as a surprise to people when they learn that the average number of ordinations in the 2000s (noughties) at 26 per annum was higher than in the 1930s and 1940s when there were only an average of 6 and 18 ordinations per year respectively.

[original link] [google cache]

Six ordinations per year in the 1930s? Are they serious?

Don't bother clicking the 'original link' as it doesn't work - they seem to have taken the page down. Perhaps they realised how ludicrous their figures were when somebody looked at old directories and discovered that the real figure was closer to 150.

So what? So the vocations people made a mistake and took the page down. Big deal.

Seems a bit mean to blog about it...

Only the story doesn't end there. You see, our friends the Catholic Voices picked up the story and ran with it. Gleefully delcaring that "If ordinations to the priesthood are a sign of religious vitality" then "the Church in England and Wales seems to be in robust good health" especially since the current numner of ordinations is "higher than the 1950s, which some look back to nostalgically as an era of vigorous Catholicism".

Austen Ivereigh, one of those mainstream charitable types who never lowers himself to name calling like nasty bloggers, tweeted that "some traddies" were "finding it hard to accept" that the figures "Explodes pessimist myths abt post-Vat2 'decline'." He went on to tweet.. "vocations usually cited by gloom-mongers as main evidence of 'decline', so destroys that myth".

How embarassing then, that this year's figure of 52 ordinations (if we include the Ordinariate) is around a third of the average for the 1950's. Oops.

So what? Catholic Voices uncritically accepted the ludicrous Vocations Office figures which later turned out to be wrong. No need to blog about it James. I'm sure they realise their mistake and are putting it right straight away.

Or not.. Catholic Voices didn't take down the erroneous post. It's still there a week later along with it's ludicrous headline "Ordinations to priesthood in England and Wales now higher than the 1950s". In other news, Pope Francis turns out to be a three hundred year old buddhist monk. Why not take the page down? Well, according to ttony "the only person who could do the correction was away" but then the page was updated with a note explaining that the figures are being investigated so obviously the person who could do the correction is back but it's still not going to happen.

There will be no correction. There might, maybe, possibly be a quiet removal of the page. Nobody will say "oops, I was wrong". Nobody will look the elephant in the eye and say "goodness, how bad things are, maybe those traddies have a point?". Nope. They will continue to sneer about traddie gloom-mongers and if any of us point it out, there will be shrieks of "uncharitable!"

Meanwhile, the independent volunteer Catholic Voices will be silent. They will say nothing. As ttony put it, the Bishops have been "using the Internet to corral activist Catholics into as controlled an environment as the pre-Internet Church".

You will have heard the story of the Emperor's New Clothes. How the Emperor was actually naked but all the courtiers and nobles and palace staff and even the Emperor himself were afraid to say so lest they be thought a fool.

Welcome to the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Decline? Only gloom-mongering traddies see decline!

Update: Wow, well, who would have thought it. All it takes is two weeks of relentless nagging from a multitude of bloggers and Catholic Voices have issued an apology. I note with interest that when ordinations were up, that was a sign of health, but when ordinations turn out to be down, that, er, well... it's difficult to draw any conclusions..

Seriously. What is he thinking?

Pope Francis understands this in practical terms. He has already identified two kinds of behaviour that destroy love in the Church. They are complaining and gossiping. He is a practical man. He knows that we live in a society in which complaining and gossip is a standard fare. They sell newspapers and attract us to blogs because we love hear complaints and to read gossip.

But Pope Francis is clear: they should have no place in the Church.

...

How wonderful it would be if our Church was known to be a place that was free of the sound of complaining and the whisper of gossip!

[link]

I'm not going to name names, but an alarming number of otherwise intelligent people have interpreted the above as "bloggers should have no place in the Church". That's not what he said. The "they" in this sentence has been clearly identified as "complaining and gossiping". It is complaining and gossiping that the Archbishop says should have no place in the Church.

He's wrong - Complaining has a place in the Church.

But James! But James! Pope Francis said... Yes, I know what Pope Francis said and it most certainly wasn't "complaining has no place in the Church"!

Pope Francis definitely did not say "never complain". Rather, he warned against "a life of complaints". He warned against "the risk of closing ourselves off in complaints" because "it dashes hope. Don’t get into this game of a life of complaints". Note that this is not a total ban on complaints. This is a warning against "a life of complaints". A perfectly sensible warning.

Archbishop Nichols turns it in to an outright ban. He says complaining has "no place" in the Church. That the Church should be "free of the sound of complaining".

This is clearly nonsense.

Redemptionis Sacramentum is clear:

It is the right of the Christian people themselves that their diocesan Bishop should take care to prevent the occurrence of abuses in ecclesiastical discipline, especially as regards the ministry of the word, the celebration of the sacraments and sacramentals, the worship of God and devotion to the Saints.

[...]

Any Catholic, whether Priest or Deacon or lay member of Christ’s faithful, has the right to lodge a complaint

[link]

And St Thomas Aquinas in his 13th century defence of blogging...

It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly. Hence Paul, who was Peter's subject, rebuked him in public, on account of the imminent danger of scandal concerning faith, and, as the gloss of Augustine says on Galatians 2:11, "Peter gave an example to superiors, that if at any time they should happen to stray from the straight path, they should not disdain to be reproved by their subjects."

[...]

We must also remember that when a man reproves his prelate charitably, it does not follow that he thinks himself any better, but merely that he offers his help

[link]

Complaining has it's place. It would of course be harmful to build our lives around complaining, just as it would be harmful to build our lives around eating. Yet neither are forbidden.

What is forbidden, explicitly, is for a Bishop to hear complaints and then do nothing about it. But then, that would never happen... right...?

As I have said before, my experience of these events has been entirely positive with absolutely zero sneering or nasty looks when my kids make a noise and I strongly recommend anybody who can go, does.

You don't have to know anything about Latin Masses to experience one and I promise it can and will enrich your experience of the ordinary Sunday Mass in your parish which is exactly what Pope Benedict said would happen.

Go!

When successive Bishops of Middlesbrough do absolutely nothing about it because defending Marriage is obviously not a very high priority right now...

Eventually somebody has to clean up the mess.

Extra-0rdinary Ministers of Holy Communion   If anyone feels they would like to help in this Ministry, please read the details on the poster in the church porch, then fill in all requested details on the list on the long table in the porch.  Your name will then be given to [Fr New Guy].  New Commissioning will be on Saturday, May 4^th at The Spa, Scarborough beginning at 9. 30 am and ending after Mass at approximately 2.45 pm. The closing  time for putting your name forward will be Sunday, April 14^th at the 10 am Mass.

That's from a local parish newsletter. I won't say which one - I'm sure anybody local can guess. The emphasis on "all requested" is original, I didn't add it. It's code for "please tell us if you are divorced and remarried".

A local priest who should never have been put in this position is now in the unfortunate situation of having to explain to people who have considered themselves (ahem) "Ministers of Holy Communion" for fifteen years that actually, the Church may have a teensy weensy problem with their state of life.

Thanks to the Bishop's policy of never publicy saying that any priest was ever wrong about anything ever - the local congregation are left with the impression that the question of divorce and remarriage is really just a matter of personal opinion.

Fr Fun was a progressive nice guy. Fr New Guy is an old fashioned meanie. That's what the Bishop is allowing everybody to think.

The Bishop has failured to do his job, he has allowed evil succeed by doing nothing and he has left all the horse manure to land on the head of somebody who did nothing to deserve it.

"But as for you and your companions, you certainly sin, if, having heard the decrees of the Apostolic see, nay, of the universal Church, confirmed, as they are, by Holy Scripture, you scorn to follow them; for, though your fathers were holy, do you think that those few men, in a corner of the remotest island, are to be preferred before the universal Church of Christ throughout the world?"

[link]

We sat on the grass outsite and had fish and chips in sunshine so warm we had to take our coats off -  then we entered the abbey and it began to snow.

With that in mind, this image from New Liturgical Movement was particularly striking this morning...

I hope you all had a suitably holy Easter weekend and are stocking up on chocolate eggs to see you through the whole of Eastertide.

We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

[link]

Pope Francis...

But there is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism”, which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples. And that brings me to a second reason for my name. Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth.

[link]

I know this is difficult and subtle, because Pope Francis is using words to say what he means - not like the simple world of wardrobe semaphore - but it seems to me that Pope Francis is trying to tell us something...

Perhaps he is saying (Why not just wear blue shoes or something? That would have been simpler..) that "there can be no true peace without truth".

Was he wearing a hat when he said it or not? I'm sure that matters.

h/t Laurence England

But Jehovah's Witnesses are banned.

Among the more liberal stripes of these denominations I have encountered people whose Christian "faith" is all but indistinguishable from modern secularism. They recite the creed of course and profess, on paper at least, to believe in God... yet in practice it turns out they use words like  "believe" "God" "spirit" etc in a very different way to the rest of us.

"I believe in God" turns out to mean "I have noticed that when a community works together they become more than the sum of their parts and I call this extra bit God" and "Jesus is God" ends up meaning "the historical memory of Jesus can be an important part of such a community".

Yet we call these people "seperated brethren". We acknowledge them as "Christians" and we invite them around for tea and biscuits. Most of them think it's perfectly acceptable, in some cases admirable, to kill babies.

But Jehovah's Witnesses are banned.

I get it. Jehova's Witnesses deny the doctrine of the trinity, they deny that Jesus is God, their eschatology is all over the place. Their beliefs are very far from mainstream Christianity. We don't do ecumenism with Muslims and Hindus...  at some point we have to draw a line and say "that's a different religion". Jehovah's Witnesses are outside of that line. Fair enough.

When it comes to ecumenism - Jehovah's Witnesses should be banned.

But I have to ask why we don't draw the same line for the people who view God as the product of a group effort and Christ as the great inventor of having group efforts. At least the Jehovah's Witnesses are actually opposed to abortion.

Anyways...

For some time we've been getting visits from our local Jehovah's Witnesses and having interesting chats about various biblical prophecies which they think point to the imminent end of the world and we think largley point to the Church... fun times. The people who visit us are not 'experts' or 'leaders' but ordinary members of the congregation. Jehovah's Witnesses are very keen that every member of their congregation should understand how to explain and defend their beliefs.

We could learn something.

We haven't seen them for a few months though because for the last few months they have been busy building a new "Kingdom Hall" down the road... by which I mean they have spent the last few months actually building it.

The Jehovah's Witnesses have, nationally, a team of professional architects, builders etc who teach members of the local congregation (including teenagers) how to lay bricks etc and the local congregation then build their own hall - under supervision by the professionals of course who then check everything and sign it off for insurance purposes. They wouldn't call it the principle of subsidiarity but that's what it is.

We could learn something.

On Saturday they held an open day so I popped around for a tour (and some free biscuits) to watch a video about the building of the hall and to watch an incredible timelapse video of the work in progress while my eldest daughter who had come along for the ride gobbled biscuits and tried to spot the lady with the pink hard hat.

As we drove home, I asked eldest daughter what she thought of the hall. "It's nice" she said "but they don't have Joseph" (she means the statue of Joseph that we have in our Church). "They don't have Joseph and they don't have Mary and they don't have Jesus - they don't have anything!" she said and indeed she was correct.

They are an entirely intellectual religion. Everything is read from a book, studied, learned, memorised and understood in the head. To a child walking in the door there is nothing. No statues, no stations, no soaring arches or candles. Just a suspended office style ceiling and sensible chairs - it's like a conference centre.

There is nothing there to speak to the heart.

I'm not sure there is much of a point to this blog post, beyond telling you about my weekend.. but I do worry that the 'bland conference centre' approach seems to be something we are intent on copying. We seem to want to build our own churches so that little girls will walk inside and say "they don't have anything!"

..and I think that's a big mistake.

And I also appeal to all men - to every man (and with what veneration the apostle of Christ must utter this word: "man"!)
- pray for me!
- help me to be able to serve you! Amen.

Oh wait... that was Pope John Paul II at his inauguration

Let me try again...

My dear friends – at this moment I can only say: pray for me, that I may learn to love the Lord more and more. Pray for me, that I may learn to love his flock more and more – in other words, you, the holy Church, each one of you and all of you together. Pray for me, that I may not flee for fear of the wolves. Let us pray for one another, that the Lord will carry us and that we will learn to carry one another.

Oh wait... that was Pope Benedict XVI at his inauguration.

It's almost as though Pope Francis is doing pretty much what Popes do so far as asking for prayers is concerned. Only, so far as I know he is yet to address us as his "dear friends".

Is he stuffy, regal and exclusive or something?

But Fr Simon Henry has beat me to it.

Meanwhile other's have noticed that at the radical new Pope's first public Mass everybody received communion kneeling..

Pope Francis has gone from some people kneeling and some standing during Holy Communion [[i.e. right after Pope Benedict would begin distributing to kneeling communicants, then his ministers of Holy Communion would often give out Communion any old way]],  to (with Francis) everyone kneeling with no exceptions.

[link]

I'm also not the only one to have noticed that Pope Francis has retained the "Benedictine Altar Arrangement" as suggested by Cardinal Ratzinger in his book "Spirit of the Liturgy"..

Where a direct common turning toward the East is not possible, the cross can serve as the interior "East" of faith. It should stand in the middle of the altar and be the common point of focus for both priest and praying community.

...

Moving the altar cross to the side to give an uninterrupted view of the priest is something I regard as one of the truly absurd phenomena of recent decades. Is the cross disruptive during Mass? Is the priest more important than Our Lord?

[link]

It's a good job the Sky TV and the BBC have all these Catholic "experts" on to point this sort of thing out. Otherwise they might miss these very public signs and symbols... they would probably just talk about his shoes or something!

But James! But James! I hear you cry... It is early days! It would be crazy to infer any great meaning from things the Pope does at this early stage!

Oh right, yes, okay... So when Pope Francis uses the same open top Jeep that Pope Benedict used that is highly significant, but when Pope Francis uses same altar arrangement that Pope Benedict used that is not highly significant.

It get it now. I have seen the light.

Pope Francis has very obviously spent the last few days thinking very hard about what shoes to wear and which car to drive (these are the things truly humble men are concerned about) but he hasn't had time to think about how to celebrate Mass.

Obviously.

Yes, I know - it's quite possible that Pope Francis has radical liturgical changes in mind that he plans to implement slowly. Who knows? Time will tell. Yet if we can't know much about the Pope from the way he says Mass...

What on earth makes anybody think they can know him by the colour of his shoes?

I know all about being poor. I put in a poor effort at school, my homework was poor, I had poor concentration and I got poor exam results...

...I'm not sure that's the kind of poor Pope Francis has in mind.

Another interpretation is that the Church should sell everything and become materially poor. If you look around the blogs today you will see that quite a few people have interpreted Pope Francis' words this way and some people are even discussing whether a Pope is allowed to sell the Sistine chapel and how he might setabout doing it.

...I'm not sure that's the kind of poor Pope Francis has in mind either.

Not least because, as others have pointed out, when "Mary took a pound of costly ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus" Judas Iscariot said "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?" (John 12)

So what do I think he means?

I suspect it has something to do with Jesus' words to the disciples...

"And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

[Luke 6:20]

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[Matthew 5:3]

Why are the poor blessed? Being poor is not generally understood to be a good thing!

As a child I always understood this in terms of fairness. It's not fair that some people are poor so God balances things out by making poor people rich in the afterlife, but as a grown up I know notice something: Most of the other beatitudes are in the future tense ("the meek shall inherit...") but this one is in the present tense - the poor are blessed. Yours is the kingdom of God.

What does that mean? Are the poor lounging around on clouds playing the harp?

Obviously not.

Here's what I think it means - The poor are dependent on God. They depend on God for everything. A rich man can say "next year I will buy bread" but a poor man can only say "I hope there will be bread, I will pray for bread". The atheists among you are sniggering because the bread does not always come but that's a discussion for another day. The point here is that the rich man is king of his life and the poor man, well, he must look to God. God is his king. He is in God's Kingdom.

That's my understanding anyway... The poor man accepts what God sends, the rich man rejects it and buys something else instead.  

Some people, like St Francis (the same name - what an amazing coincidence) do this on purpose. They make themselves poor so that they can release control of their lives and become dependent on God. Is that what Pope Francis wants of the Church?

Perhaps...

... because Jesus also says "poor in spirit" which could be something of a get out clause for those of us who are not actually materially poor. Perhaps what Pope Francis wants is a Church which depends on God. A Church that depends on what God sends, rather than rejecting it and buying something else instead.

So I don't think a "poor Church" necessarily has to sell the gold candle sticks or avoid nice vestments - see Judas above. It is right and proper to spend money to glorify God. What is not right and proper is using money to reject the gifts God sends and buying something else instead.

Consider the irony - that the people who are most gleefully rubbing their hands together at the thought of a Pope who shuns limousines, are themselves bought and paid for staff. They are the "something else" that has been bought the Catholic Church in England and Wales which rejects the volunteers God sends so they can buy in ideologically acceptable mercenaries.

The problem isn't giving glory to God with silk and gold candles, the problem is spending huge piles of cash every year on beurocracy and "lay pastoral workers" etc so the people with the money can make sure that things happen the way they want, rather than accepting what God sends. Is this the problem in the Roman curia? It's definitely the problem in England and Wales.

I think in a poor Church, those who have gifts to offer would see them accepted even when those gifts are like mouldy bread all covered in Latin or Kneeling or icky Pro-Life views... Ugh!

Is this what Pope Francis thinks?

I have no idea... but if he is truly intent on a poor Church... I think it might be what he gets.

Remember that one?

I do. Though I remember it slightly differently. I remember that Pope Benedict said that "in the intention" (e.g. not in the condom) there was "a first step in the direction of" (e.g. not an arrival at) "toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed". Note that the awareness is moved towards something.

This is a million miles from saying that the act itself is made good by the presence of a condom, or that adding a condom to the act is a good thing. In fact, to make himself extra clear, Pope Benedict added that condom use "is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection" and that condoms were not to be regarded as "a real or moral solution".

Properly understood I thought that was quite reasonable, though it was a bit naive of Benedict to think he could say something so subtle without his words being abused.

Within hours, the BBC headline read "Pope condones condom use" and our friend Austen Ivereigh went on to say that "urging a promiscuous infected person to at least use a condom" was now "Catholic pastoral practice."

Note the contradiction - Pope Benedict said condom use was not "a real or moral solution". Austen Ivereigh heard those words and thought "ah, I get it - condom use must be Catholic pastoral practice". This is a man who, if you believe the rumours, can even tie his own shoelaces.

That didn't suprise me. What suprised me was that people believed him. All over the blogs I saw normally sensible Catholics wailing and saying "Benedict has said condoms ar okay, he must have done, because The Tablet and the BBC say so". Nobody seemed to be looking at what Benedict actually said in the first place.

Please guys, don't fall for it again.

I mention this because Ivereigh and the gang are once again in full spin mode with their stories of limousines "shunned" and thrones "ignored". Give me a break. I don't deny that Pope Francis rode on the bus with the other cardinals and chose to greet them standing.. but shunning? ignoring?

Those meanings were added by the man who took "not a real or moral solution" and turned it in to "Catholic pastoral practice".

Then they tell us Pope Francis "spontaneously" stroked a dog. Stroking a dog? Ooooh how down to earth, how radical. Because, as the fathers of the Birmingham Oratory will tell you - Pope Benedict never ever made spontaneous gestures toward animals. Or was tickling a cat behind the ears while saying "aren’t you pretty, aren’t you pretty?" not spontaneous enough?

If we are not careful, there is a real danger that everything Pope Francis does will be reported through a lens, so that what we experience through the media in England will not be the papacy of Pope Francis, but the papacy of Ivereigh, Pepinster and Mickens.

You have the internet - read Pope Francis's words directly. See what he is saying and please: Don't believe the lie that Pope Benedict was a stuffy, distant, regal Pope who always stuck to protocol. He wasn't and he didn't - but these people will re-write history if you let them.

Don't let them get away with it.

The first Pope Francis - which makes me happy because Francis is my middle name. Did you know St Francis of Assisi never said "Preach the Gospel Always. If Necessary, Use Words." Not even once. He did however say "No brother should preach contrary to the form and regulation of the holy Church" so take that hippies.

The first Jesuit Pope - apparently the joke doing the rounds is that "the Cardinals finally found a way to make a Jesuit be loyal to the Pope". Haw Haw. It's funny because it's true...

A Scientist Pope - a few people are saying the 'first' scientist Pope but I'm not so sure. What I do know is he has a masters degree in chemistry. As I've said before on this blog - some of the most religious people I've known are scientists.

The first Pope from outside of Europe for, oh, er, quite a bit - which is great because everybody knows the stuffy conservative europeans are holding everybody back from a world of fun. I don't know enough about Pope Francis to comment about him as an individual, but my experience of clergy from outside of Europe is that they are far from liberal on matters of marriage and family life. Mr Tablet man is going to be dissapointed.

One more thing... I mentioned last week my suprise when Pope Benedict failed to go around sacking everybody and simply told us about Jesus. I mean - a Pope talking about Jesus, who would have thought? I'm sure that says more about me and the culture in the Church than it does about Pope Benedict.

Pope Francis has suprised me in a similar way - by getting people to pray. I'm sure Pope Benedict lead plenty of prayers just like I'm sure Pope John Paul II talked a lot about Jesus but somehow I don't recall having particularly noticed. Perhaps I wan't listening properly.

Pope Francis. Day one. Bam.

He's got us praying.

I used to get lectured about how one should never say anything negative about anybody ever even if it's true because people 'have the right to a good name' (do they? even if they are serial liars?) and so on.

These days Catholic bloggers don't need to go around heaping scorn on Catholic schools publicly on the internet. The Diocese is doing it for us...

Inspectors undertaking this inspection in accordance with the Bishop of Middlesbrough Diocese are of the opinion that St Vincent’s school is currently failing in its provision for Catholic education.

...

Leadership and management are inadequate
...

The head teacher does not give sufficient leadership or direction to the school’s Catholic life.

...

Governors have too little impact on the direction and work of the school because they are poorly informed. Governors do not take account of the views of parents, pupils and staff because these views are not sought by the head teacher and senior leadership team.

...

The head teacher has recently, and belatedly, joined the Hull Family of Catholic schools.

...

RE is not part of the School Development Plan. The head teacher and Governors fail to work co-operatively in sharing key information for school improvement.

...

Currently, the school’s capacity for sustained improvement is inadequate.

[PDF link]

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you! How can any Catholic speak about another Catholic in this way? It's nasty! It's undignified! It's uncharitable! The fiends! It's blogs, er I mean Twitter, er I mean reports... that's what does it. Reports have a way of making turn people nasty. Better to only say nice things.

Honestly, if I had written all that on my blog I would have got an angry letter from Dr Jim Whiston by now. If you are wondering who he is - he's the guy the Bishop of Middlesbrough has to ask for permission before he is allowed to blow his nose. Then they say we have no lay involvement...

Still, I'm glad to see that somebody somewhere is finally acknowledging a bit of reality. Unfortunately a part of their solution is to "Enable staff to increase their subject knowledge by attending Diocesan courses". Would those the same Diocesan courses I'm banned from because *gasp* I might call them 'inadequate' on the internet?

Here's an idea. Perhaps we could acknowledge that negative criticism can actually be useful. Pretending everything is okay when it isn't - not so good. It might even be a good thing to have Catholics out there who care enough about improving things to write about it? Even when it loses them friends..

No? Oh I suppose not. Far better to pretend. La la la. I can't hear you. You only wrote that nasty report because you hate everybody.

Yes - Pope Benedict was a liability, of course he was.

If you've put all your eggs in the secularist basket. If you've bet against God. If you're counting on the Catholic Church choosing to accomodate the world more and more until it slowly disolves to a mushy nothingness all but indistinguishable from the culture around it... If you were hoping that the Truth you killed in the sixties would stay dead and buried.

Then yes, Pope Benedict was a liability to you.

If you have looked around you and seen a civilisation whose philosophical ideas have no stronger basis in reality than "who am I to say?" and whose economic and demographic woes are routinely masked by insane borrowing against a future that does not exist.

If you have wondered if perhaps there might be more to life than killing the  young before they are born and killing the old before they are expensive all in the name of short term illusionary wealth and freedom from the natural consequences of sexual activity.

If you have studied science and explored the limits of technology and been fascinated and excited by the wonders of the natural world and yet in your heart have known that it was all dust being moved around by other dust in to arbitary forms that have no meaning without a soul to look upon them.

If you have wondered who you are, why you are here, what this is all for?

Then Pope Benedict was far from a liability.

He didn't bring us his own ideas, theories and pet projects. He didn't force the Church to conform to his liturgical preferences (though I wish he had). It's not just that he didn't go all trendy on us and try to rap the psalms, it's that he didn't even do the things I would have approved of either.

No. He did something so obvious, so brilliant, so wonderful I could never have anticipated it.

He gave us Jesus.

In all his addresses, encyclicals, homilies and world youth day's he never sat us down and lectured us on theology. He simply told us about Jesus. If we only learn one thing from the papacy of Benedict XVI, let it be that - We need to talk to people about Jesus.

Anyways, I've been asked to support a facebook group/event/campaign thingy in opposition to The Tablet and I am very happy to do so. Check it out...

Close the Tablet! - Tabula Delenta Est!

I would now like to add yet a third point: there was the Council of the Fathers - the true Council - but there was also the Council of the media. It was almost a Council in and of itself, and the world perceived the Council through them, through the media. So the immediately efficiently Council that got thorough to the people, was that of the media, not that of the Fathers.

And while the Council of the Fathers evolved within the faith, it was a Council of the faith that sought the intellectus, that sought to understand and try to understand the signs of God at that moment, that tried to meet the challenge of God in this time to find the words for today and tomorrow.

So while the whole council - as I said - moved within the faith, as fides quaerens intellectum, the Council of journalists did not, naturally, take place within the world of faith but within the categories of the media of today, that is outside of the faith, with different hermeneutics. It was a hermeneutic of politics.

The media saw the Council as a political struggle, a struggle for power between different currents within the Church. It was obvious that the media would take the side of whatever faction best suited their world...   There was no interest in the liturgy as an act of faith, but as a something to be made understandable, similar to a community activity, something profane. And we know that there was a trend, which was also historically based, that said: "Sacredness is a pagan thing, possibly even from the Old Testament. In the New Testament the only important thing is that Christ died outside: that is, outside the gates, that is, in the secular world".

Sacredness ended up as profanity even in worship: worship is not worship but an act that brings people together, communal participation and thus participation as activity. And these translations, trivializing the idea of ​​the Council, were virulent in the practice of implementing the liturgical reform, born in a vision of the Council outside of its own key vision of faith. And it was so, also in the matter of Scripture: Scripture is a book, historical, to treat historically and nothing else, and so on.

And we know that this Council of the media was accessible to all. So, dominant, more efficient, this Council created many calamities, so many problems, so much misery, in reality: seminaries closed, convents closed liturgy trivialized ... and the true Council has struggled to materialize, to be realized: the virtual Council was stronger than the real Council.

But the real strength of the Council was present and slowly it has emerged and is becoming the real power which is also true reform, true renewal of the Church.

It seems to me that 50 years after the Council, we see how this Virtual Council is breaking down, getting lost and the true Council is emerging with all its spiritual strength. And it is our task, in this Year of Faith, starting from this Year of Faith, to work so that the true Council with the power of the Holy Spirit is realized and Church is really renewed. We hope that the Lord will help us.

[link]

h/t Offerimus Tibi Domine