Latin Mass Society

Chairman's Blog

02/11/2020 - 15:27

Coronavirus restrictions and Mass-going

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A be-masked Supply of Ceremonies Omitted in the Private Baptism
in Oxford last weekend.

A lot of people are very upset about the obligation to wear masks, particularly in church. Certainly, there is something a bit weird and oppressive about being obliged, nor for any religious or symbolic reason—for example as a sign of mourning—to cover one’s face, and to see everyone around one doing the same. I can’t say I’m happy about my four-month old baby not being able to see me smiling at her during Mass.

Perhaps the public health arguments in favor of masks are justified, and perhaps they are not. I’m not qualified to take a view on that, but equally I’m not one to insist on the most stringent interpretation of the rules where there is room for maneuvre.

What I determined to do, however, is to make the most of what freedom there is to maintain my own sacramental life, and to help others to do the same. The Latin Mass Society is organizing and facilitating events to the maximum amount allowed. Most parishes and dioceses are doing the same. If the Government says something is allowed, after all, then it is allowed.

So, insofar as Mass is allowed, insofar as the normal and worthy service of the altar is allowed, the normal distribution of Holy Communion, singing, confession, and public baptism, then we will have them.

It was a huge relief to be able to return to Mass, after months of watching online, even if this meant donning a mask, sanitizing one’s hands, and keeping a distance from other households. I know, however, that not everyone has embraced the chance to return to Mass—not only the sick and vulnerable—and some who did so at first have become weary, or angry, about the continuing restrictions. The more zealous Catholics, perhaps those reading this article, are not easily put off meeting Christ in the liturgy, and receiving Him in Holy Communion, but perhaps it is also the more zealous Catholics who are most sensitive to the restrictions. When we are in God’s house, there is something particularly painful about feeling one is under irksome, invasive, and possibly arbitrary and absurd regulation from the secular power. There is something offensive about it.

What I would like to say, however, is that we should not be put off. The way to respond to these restrictions is to do the most we can, within them, and not to let them stop our devotions. We can, also, complain to those responsible for them, and remember that such complaints have not entirely been in vain up to now.

Thus, after a lot of debate and upset the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales seem to have accepted that they can’t stop people receiving Holy Communion on the tongue, at least ‘outside Mass’—even if that just means immediately after Mass. Don’t expect them to admit publicly they were wrong: just pocket the concession.

Even more impressively, when the UK Government announced that public liturgies would again be banned, the President and Vice President of the Bishops’ Conference wrote a letter of protest: a sharp contrast to their attitude in the first lockdown, when they actually advised the Government to impose a ban on public services.

For the moment at least, these are battles English Catholics have won. We should be happy about that, and press for more concessions. This isn’t the moment to give up on going to church altogether.

Our priests, applying these rules—perhaps absurd, perhaps oppressive—are certainly not doing so to annoy us or to restrict our access to the Sacraments. They can be, and in some cases have been, denounced, to the police, to hostile media, and to their bishops, for real or imaginary infringements of the rules. We share the planet, unfortunately, with people who are frightened, perhaps irrationally, about the virus, and also with people who will use any weapon which comes to hand against the Church, or those they dislike within her. If priests have to do some silly things to give us the sacraments, think of the priests of penal times wearing disguises, or pretending to be the gardener.

Many of our predecessors in the Faith risked their freedom or even their lives to attend Mass. Some went into exile. Some travelled long distances on foot. Their privations should instruct us: we should not give up the Mass lightly, because we think masks unjust or annoying.

It is also something we owe to our priests. They need our support, financial, and even more, moral. If they take a different view from us, even about something as important as the reception of Holy Communion, we can go to other parishes, certainly, but we must also respect their sincerity, and equally their limitations. Yes, they may be weak: so are we all. As St Paul exhorts us, ‘bear ye one another’s burdens; and so you shall fulfil the law of Christ’ (Gal 6:2). And we must embrace the sufferings which come to us in our ordinary lives, and with St Paul, ‘rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for his body, which is the Church’ (Col 1:24).

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30/10/2020 - 13:40

UK Government consults on regulating home-education

From an email

On 6 October 2020, the Children’s Commissioner told the Committee that the Department for Education (DfE) has committed to introduce a compulsory register of home-educated children. She also insisted that the DfE should introduce termly inspections of home-educating families.

This will inevitably result in state interference in what and how parents teach their children at home, in the same way that the RSE and LGBT agendas have been imposed on schools.

The Christian Institute have produced a very good short briefing on the matter setting out the key issues at stake and suggestions of best way to respond in the consultation:
https://www.christian.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Home_Education_briefing_Oct20.pdf

The consultation itself is here (I understand the proposals only apply to England though anyone can respond):
https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/255/home-education/

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20/10/2020 - 15:49

Big Tech turns Big Censor

My latest on LifeSite.

Some weird things have been happening online recently. If you search for certain words or phrases on Google, you are directed not to the website or news story about the thing you are searching for, but a series of sources attacking or debunking it. When you try to post about certain things on Twitter or Facebook, your followers see your words accompanied by a link to an article attacking what, according to some algorithm, you may be promoting, or else you can find yourself suspended or banned from the platform.

I’m not talking about searching for racist political parties, pornography, or how to make a bomb. This happened to the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’, a statement by a group of scientists about government policy on the coronavirus. Even with the weight of the New York Post behind it, a major story about Hunter Biden, the son of the Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, disappeared from social media and Google results. Even tweets by President Donald Trump have been vanishing. Rather than expressing concern over this, or countering its effects, mainstream media outlets have in many cases been following the tech companies’ lead in burying particular stories.

02/10/2020 - 09:27

The intolerance of the tolerant towards Judge Barret

My latest on LifeSite.

A member of presidential candidate Joe Biden’s staff made a revealing statement on Twitter the other day. Arguing that Amy Coney Barrett reportedly believes that the husband should be the head of the household, someone pointed out that this is also part of the traditional faith of Jews and Muslims.

Nikitha Rai (@RaiNotWheat), deputy director of data for the Biden campaign, replied:

True, I’d heavily prefer views like that not to be elevated to SCOTUS, but unfortunately our current culture is still relatively intolerant. It will be a while before these types of beliefs are so taboo that they’re disqualifiers.

She’s deleted her account, but the internet remembers.

Read the whole thing.
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30/09/2020 - 16:57

Sir James MacMillan becomes Patron of London-based choir Cantus Magnus

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Cantus Magnus is a small polyphonic choir which sings exclusively for the Traditional Latin Mass, and is directed by the Latin Mass Society's London Director of Music, Matthew Schellhorn.
Matthew reports on the Cantus Magnus Facebook page:
'We are utterly thrilled that Sir James MacMillan CBE has agreed to become Patron of Cantus Magnus. Speaking of the appointment, Sir James wrote: "I was delighted when Matthew Schellhorn invited me to become Patron of Cantus Magnus. His endeavours seek to bring souls to God with the highest possible quality in performance of the best Catholic music. Matthew is a consummate musician in both the secular and sacred spheres and I have known and admired his work for many years. His hard work has never been more needed, and helps the Church and its music go from strength to strength."'
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23/09/2020 - 09:32

Support Sacred Music in London and Offer Masses for Your Loved Ones

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Cantus Magnus, a professional sacred music choir under Matthew Schellhorn, is announcing a scheme whereby anyone can ask for a Sung Requiem Mass to be celebrated for their loved ones, to be fitted in to or added to the regular EF Masses which are celebrated in London.

London is unique in the world for the number of Sung Traditional Masses which are celebrated regularly. As well as a Sung Mass on Sundays in St Bede's, Clapham Park, the normal, non-lockdown pattern, to which we are at last returning, is a Sung Mass every Monday in Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, every Wednesday in Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street, and one Friday a month in St Mary Moorfields for the Juventutem group. A good number of these Masses are High Masses with deacon and subdeacon.
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A major constraint on having more such Masses is the groups of singers who serve them. The two amatueur groups who sing for many of these Masses are limited by their time. Other Masses are covered by a professional choir, Cantus Magnus, singing chant and polyphony, which is limited above all by the financial sponsorship available.
We are looking for further financial sponsorship for these to allow more people to play a direct role in their support, to allow people to request Sung Masses for particular intentions, particularly for the dead, and to increase the number of Sung Masses which we can arrange. These can be Masses of Requiem when the day permits it: i.e. there isn't a feast day.
(Requiem Masses can be celebrated on 4th Class feasts, and on third and even second class feasts on certain occasions, such as the anniversary of the day of death or burial.)
You can have a Mass celebrated for a particular intention for a small sum or as a favour very easily: the point of this idea is that people can sponsor a choir to sing at Mass. The cost of this is greater for polyphony, with three or four or more professional singers; Chant can be sung by two cantors.

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Photos: The Traditional Mass celebrated in Corpus Christi Maiden Lane, Our Lady of the Assumption Warwick Street, and St Mary Moorfields, all in London.
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22/09/2020 - 10:00

In Defence of Primary Educators: a protest against Sex Ed in Catholic schools

Below is a piece I've written for LifeSite on the campaign against Sex Education in Catholic schools. Our Coalition in Defence of Primary Educators now has a website, and with LifeSite we have created the following video.

Last week, on the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, I knelt with two others in front of Westminster Cathedral, the magnificent Byzantine-style mother-church of the premier diocese of England and Wales, and the seat of Britain’s only Cardinal, Vincent Nichols. We prayed the Rosary together for our bishops. We had already written to them: we, and supporters or our three organisations, which have come together for this cause—the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, Catholic Man UK, and the Latin Mass Society, of which I am the Chairman—and we received formulaic responses from most of them, telling us that everything will be fine.

But it is already not fine, and we can all read for ourselves the legislation and official guidance which will before long be enforced on schools under our bishops’ authority, which will make things even less fine. For this legislation is imposing a program of “Personal, Health, and Sex Education” (PHSE) which demands that choosing not to kill the child in the womb is just one acceptable option among others, and that Christian marriage is just one life-style choice alongside same-sex unions, and every other possibility. We know from the lesson-plans, produced not only by the Government but by the Bishops’ own agency, the Catholic Education Service, that children in schools claiming to be Catholic and funded in part by Catholic offertory collections are already bullying, browbeating, and shaming children who dare to give voice to their instinctive regard for natural marriage. This approach will be rolled out and enforced with greater and greater rigor when the new legislation comes into force next year, after a delay caused by the Coronavirus.

Read the whole thing.
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21/09/2020 - 09:26

Schellhorm Prize for sacred music composition

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See my posts about the previous winner, Marco Galvani, here. That was in 2015; the prize is being revived in light of the abject state of music performance after three months of Covid lockdown.
Contributions to the prize are welcomed: see here.
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The Trustees of the Schellhorn Trust are pleased to announce the 2020 Schellhorn Prize for Sacred Music Composition competition.

Classical pianist Matthew Schellhorn founded the prize in 2014 in memory of his parents to foster artistic endeavour and encourage excellence in the Sacred Liturgy. The inaugural Prize was awarded in 2015 and was won by Marco Galvani.

The Schellhorn Prize for Sacred Music Composition competition is announced for 2020 and will be held in December with the winning entry performed on Christmas Eve.

The panel of judges for the 2020 Prize will include:

Mr Matthew Schellhorn (Chairman)
Diana Burrell (composer)
Marco Galvani (composer; Yehudi Menuhiin School)
Dr Peter Kwasniewski (composer)
Professor Nicola Lefanu (composer)
Mr Andrew Morris (Pastmaster, Worshipful Company of Musicians)
Mr Tim Watts (composer; Affiliated Lecturer, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge & Sub-Director of Studies in Music and Teaching Associate, St John’s College, Cambridge)

Founder and Chairman Matthew Schellhorn writes: “The Covid-19 situation has seen a hugely detrimental effect on the arts sector, and musicians have been amongst the most adversely impacted. I hope this prize will provide an incentive to be creative and to build up a working relationship with other professional musicians as we support each other.”

The Schellhorn Prize for Sacred Music Composition is supported by The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.

Guidance for entry
What does the Prize offer?

One £400 prize will be awarded in 2020.
The winner will also have his or her composition performed by a professional choir in the context of the Sacred Liturgy of the Catholic Church according to the Missal promulgated by Pope Saint John XXIII in 1962.
In 2020, the composition will be performed during Mass on Christmas Eve at St Mary Moorfields Catholic Church in the City of London. (Should the Covid-19 situation preclude this performance, another performance opportunity will be arranged.)
Who is it open to?

Composers aged between 18 and under 30 or under on the closing date, regardless of nationality, who are studying, or have studied, at any conservatoire or university in England or Wales.
What are the entrance requirements?

A piece for a cappella SATB choir (four parts, non-dividing) using any Latin Eucharistic or Christmas-themed text (excluding the text of the Mass) must be submitted with the completed application form.
The piece should be no longer than 5 minutes long and should not have received its premiere.
The piece should be accompanied by a copy of the text and a summary in no more than 200 words of the work's artistic rationale.
Proof of age and of educational status from your place of study are also required.
How do I apply?

Download an entry form below.
Applications must be made on the official form and emailed to the address given.
As a contribution to the administrative costs of the award, an entrance fee of £5 per piece is payable.
Members of the Latin Mass Society and those in full time education at the closing date are not required to pay the entrance fee.
When is the next closing date?

Entries should be submitted by Monday 7th December 2020 at 5pm.
When will the winner be announced?

The Winner (and Honourable Mentions if applicable) will be announced on Monday 14th December 2020.

For the application details, see here.

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16/09/2020 - 15:00

Westminster Cathedral Choir is in peril

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Westminster Cathedral: the LMS Annual Requiem


The saga of Westminster Cathedral Choir School claimed a fresh victim last week with the resignation of another senior employee, the Music Administrator Madeleine Smith. Like the Director of Music, Martin Baker, she was unhappy about the sidelining of the choir at Englands premier Catholic Cathedral. Baker resigned late last year, and was absent from Christmas services. There was no official explanation, and he has not been replaced. What is going on?

Westminster Cathedral Choir is served by men and boys, in the ancient Catholic tradition. The boys attend a school set up specially for them by Cardinal Vaughan, the founder of the Cathedral, in 1902. He wanted to have something in his new Cathedral equivalent to the great choirs of the Anglican Cathedrals, which commonly have their own schools—boarding schools—so the boys can be recruited from a wide area and are available to sing on Sundays. Vaughans vision was realized, and Westminster Cathedral Choir is famous. It is, or was until recently, at least as good as the best Anglican Cathedral choirs, such as those of Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s, and in the context of the global melt-down of Catholic sacred music since the 1960s, it was regarded as the best Catholic Cathedral choir in the world. Westminster Cathedral was the only Catholic Cathedral in the world to have a Sung Mass every single day: again, until recently.

Just as Cardinal Vaughan and other Catholic leaders over millennia wanted to build the most beautiful churches possible, and have in them the most moving devotional art, so too they wanted the best sacred music. The greatest achievements of the human spirit should be offered to God, and our acts of worship should be clothed in the best we can offer Him. Art and above all music has the power to touch the heart, to get through to us when words fail, to express our awe, our joy, and our sorrow, and as Pope John Paul II expressed it, can be ‘an echo of the Spirit of God’ (Ecclesia in Europa (2003) 60).

I know this kind of argument confuses some people. If the best we can do is not all that great, it will be acceptable to God: because, yes, He looks at the heart. If the best we can do is reserved for mindless secular entertainment or commercial ends, God will be less impressed. What does it say about us as a society that the best efforts of artists are devoted to making violent and immodest films? What does it say about us as individuals if our home entertainment systems are more expensive than the altar furnishings in our churches?

So what has happened in Westminster Cathedral? As reported in The Times, the key change has been a new Head Teacher of the Choir School, of which the choristers now only represent 10%, who has abolished full-time boarding for choir members. Allowing them to go home on Saturdays may seem uncontroversial, but in fact they are obliged to go home, so the school is no longer able to accept pupils from outside London, and Saturday rehearsals for Sunday services are impossible. As has been pointed out by many distinguished Catholic and non-Catholic musicians, the quality of the singing cannot be maintained under this regime.

Why would the authorities, bequeathed Vaughan’s astonishing legacy, not wish to make the most of it to raise worshippers’ hearts to God in prayer, and to draw non-believers into the Church? Knowing the debate as it has played out on these issues over decades, it is clear that there are two factors in play.

One is the desire of the schools new leadership to make it a commercially and academically successful school. The emphasis is on getting the pupils, who leave at the age of 13, into elite Public” (i.e. independent) schools such as Eton, where many of the UKs Prime Minsters have been educated, including the present one.

The other is that, in the context of this temptation, Church authorities have no strong interest in maintaining the choirs ability to sing to a world-class standard. Normally they would find the idea of competing with posh private schools a bit embarrassing, but they evidently find the idea of an elite choir even more so. The choirs unique ability to sing the most complex and sublime pieces of the Catholic patrimony of Sacred Music in the way they were intended to be sung—by boys and men, rather than using adult professional female singers—pushes the Cathedral down a particular liturgical pathway which is not particularly congenial to them. They pay lip-service to the value of the choir but in some ways would be happier with a third-rate choir singing the kind of third-rate modern music which makes many Catholic worshippers flee for the hills. (I’ve written about the love of the mediocre here.)

We can only hope that some sanity returns before the damage to Westminster Cathedral Choir becomes irreversible.

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14/09/2020 - 18:47

Support this Angelico Press project: the Vulnerary of Christ

Angelico Press.org
Kickstarter Project page
The Vulnerary of Christ 
Kickstarter campaign to translate and publish a book
about the five wounds of Christ and their mysteries
Kickstarter Page
Back this Project

WHAT IS THE VULNERARY OF CHRIST?

A book about the history of emblematic depictions of the Five Wounds that Jesus Christ suffered at the Crucifixion: their symbolism and representation in religious art, liturgical objects, heraldry, even household items. Evidence is provided of extensive devotion to the Heart of Christ centuries prior to official recognition of devotion to the Sacred Heart by the Catholic Church in 1765. Fascinating evidence also connects these themes to the legend of the Holy Grail.

Jesus-Christ symbolized by a lamb, bleeding from his side into a cup on an altar

THE MYSTERY SURROUNDING THIS BOOK

The manuscript upon which this book is based was completed in 1946 by the French scholar Louis Charbonneau-Lassay (1871-1946) shortly before his death. After his death, the manuscript was stolen by someone claiming to be a publisher, and has never surfaced again. Some have speculated that, since certain chapters in the book deal with carefully guarded materials known only from a 15th-century manuscript associated with a mysterious Christian society called the Estoile Internelle (Inner Star), a contemporary member of this organization may have carried it off to maintain secrecy.

Louis Charbonneau-Lassay in his workshop engraving an illustration for his book

HOW THE VULNERARY OF CHRIST WAS RECONSTITUTED?

Fortunately, in 2016, through a remarkable series of circumstances, a French researcher in symbolism acquired the original and very extensive archives of Louis Charbonneau-Lassay, and was able to reconstitute the content of the Vulnerary of Christ by reference to thousands of files, sketches, and woodcuts preserved in the archives. In 2018 the book was finally published in French (75 years after its intended publication).

The original author's archives, almost a hundred years old, were used to reconstitute this book

TRANSLATING AND PUBLISHING THE VULNERARY OF CHRIST

Angelico Press has engaged a gifted translator experienced in this domain, with a special interest in Charbonneau-Lassay, but the project is vast, as the final text will number approximately 600 pages, and include over 350 illustrations, many of them drawn, carved, or printed by the author himself. Considerable copyediting and bibliographic/indexing work is also involved. In order to ensure that this remarkable text may become a resource for Anglophones, we are asking for support from the wider community of those who share our conviction of the enormous importance of this book.

Excerpt from the Vulnerary of Christ, translated in English from French

WHAT YOU GET IN RETURN FOR FUNDING THIS PROJECT

Get an early copy of the Vulnerary of Christ, either a paperback version or if you are a collector and like beautiful books, a personalized hardcopy edition, as well as many extras depending on your level of funding. Help us complete this book's resurrection by making it accessible to all English speaking readers!

Some of the rewards include a fine print of the Rosa Mystica artwork

WHAT WE ARE PLANNING TO DO WITH THE MONEY

  • Finish the translation: $2000. This will cover the translator's time (and coffee) needed to achieve this very difficult task.
  • Editing costs: $1000. Because of the complexity of the typesetting for this book, the editing costs are much higher than for a regular work.
  • Publishing costs: $1000 to print books and rewards.
  • Kickstarter fees and taxes: $450
  • Any additional funds will be used to start a full translation of the extraordinary Bestiary of Christ by Louis Charbonneau-Lassay, never done before in its entirety.
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