Chairman's Blog
Fr Anthony Conlon, Requiescat in pace
Fr Anthony Conlon died last night after a long illness. He had been the National Chaplain of the Latin Mass Society for many years until 2009 and continued to celebrate Masses for us in many different places.
He was a priest of Westminster Archdiocese but became Chaplain to the Oratory School, and when he retired from that he became Parish Priest of nearby Goring. This was in my own area of local activity so I often asked him to celebrate the 'occasional' Masses I organise around Oxford in odd places.
He was also for many years a Chaplain of the British Association of the Order of Malta, and in this context could be addressed as 'Monsignor'.
These photographs show him celebrating the Traditional Mass in the chapel of Milton Manor; in Our Lady of Light, Long Crendon; Our Lady and St Anne, Caversham (at the LMS annual Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Caversham); in St Mary Moorfields (for the 10 Year annivesary Requiem Mass of Micahel Davies); and in St James', Spanish Place (for the Requiem of Prince Rupert Loewenstein).
Another image of him in Milton Manor adorns the front cover our our Ordinary Prayers booklet.
We will organise a splendid Requiem for him of course: as soon as we can. In the meantime he richly deserves our remembrance and prayers.
The Bishops and Sex Education
My latest on LifeSite.
A key quotation:
A stray item of good news, like an isolated beam of sunlight during a storm, emerges today on sex education in the U.K. Warwickshire County Council has withdrawn a particularly bad sex education program which it was imposing on its schools. Christian Today reports.
"Church leaders from across Warwickshire welcomed the move. They said, er, they said... sorry, actually they said nothing, at least not anything that has reached any public media outlet. Just as they apparently had nothing to say when the problems with the programme were first exposed."
Read the whole thing.
Bach's Passion: from isolation
The Oxford Bach Soloists have surpassed themselves with this performance of Bach's Passion. They are raising money for Help Musicians UK: donate here.
There is more about this on their website here.
Episode 1
Episode 3
Support the Latin Mass Society
Thoughts on the dating scene
My latest on LifeSite.
On Criticising fellow Catholics
Cross posted from Rorate Caeli.
I spend more time on Twitter than perhaps I should, but even so I tend to miss some of the nuances of the increasingly rancorous internecine Twitter arguments taking place between people who, one might think, should be on the same side, and if follower numbers are a guide to moral seriousness (which they are not), should know better. I doubt I have anything very edifying to learn by scrolling back through all the accusations and replies, but one thing which is characteristic of the latest, as of many other, Twitter spats, is that it has come down to catty generalizations about the character of Catholics attending Mass in different liturgical forms, or offered by different categories of priests.
Some sanity breaks through on 'single sex spaces'
My latest on LifeSite
The other news item was that a women’s shelter in Canada, Vancouver Rape Relief, has been deprived of public funding for not letting in, well, all comers. Furthermore, it has been described in an article on Medium as a “neo-nazi style”, “cryptofacist” “hate group” for this stance. Even more intriguingly, when I clicked on the link to read the article making these claims, I was instead presented with an error message: “This post is under investigation or was found in violation of the Medium Rules.” So here’s a screenshot from Twitter.
Reflections on Maundy Thursday
My latest on LifeSite
Music from the LMS recorded by locked-down musicians
The Latin Mass Society was due, as for many years past, to employ professional musicians to accompany not only the 'major' services of Holy Week but also Tenebrae in St Mary Moorfields, London. Since these celebrations cannot now take place, the musicians have recorded some pieces from their own homes and edited them together.
The group is Cantus Magnus, under the direction of Matthew Schellhorn.
These are being released primarily from the LMS Facebook page. Here is a Vimeo version of the first one, a piece from the Tenebrae of Maundy Thursday set by Anerio.
Coronavirus and the Family
My latest on LifeSite.
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The public health advice—and in some countries, command—to stay at home during the Coronavirus epidemic is forcing many people to spend the kind of continuous time with spouses and children which normally only happens on family holidays, though without the trips out. This is shining a light, and putting unaccustomed strain, on our household arrangements.
The number of people filing for divorce spikes after Christmas and after the summer holidays, and it wouldn’t be surprising if we see a similar spike when the lockdown is lifted. In the meantime, people who might have been planning to leave their spouses (or throw them out into the street) have had to put their plans on hold. There is nowhere for newly separated spouses to go.
The reaction of commentators hostile to the traditional family has been interesting to see. In this Guardian article the writer notes that the lockdown has forced people into a closer approximation of traditional family values, not least because opportunities for extra-marital affairs have dried up, apparently to her chagrin. Over at Soros-funded Open Democracy, a writer with an alarmingly tenuous connection with reality thinks that this is the moment to “abolish the family”, whatever that means, though she acknowledges that the actual effect of the lockdown has been to give it greater importance than ever.
Cardinal Pell and Australia's anti-clericals
Captain Alfred Drefus |
My latest on LifeSite, on Cardinal Pell, Dreyfus, and the liberal narrative on clerical sex abuse.
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After 405 days in prison, Cardinal George Pell has finally been freed after the High Court of Australia overturned his convictions for sexual abuse of a minor.
The seven judges sitting on the High Court were, remarkably, unanimous, and delivered a single, two-page explanation of their decision. They pointed out that the jury and the Appeal Court had failed to acknowledge the force of the ‘opportunity witnesses’, who had testified that the abuse could not have taken place at the times and places alleged because, among other things, Pell would either have been elsewhere or surrounded by people. However convincing the testimony of the accuser, this other testimony introduced ‘reasonable doubt’, making conviction impossible.
There was, after all, no other evidence against Pell.