Latin Mass Society

Chairman's Blog

05/11/2024 - 15:00

On a heretical pope: reply to Dr John Lamon

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The top of the newly-restored baldachino in St Peter's, Rome, on the occasion
of the traditionalist pilgrimage 'Ad Petri Sedem': to the See of Peter.
My latest on 1Peter5. It begins:

I am in debt to Dr John Lamont for his thorough discussion of the question of papal heresy. It is a problem that does not have a definitive explanation in magisterial texts, but as many important theologians and canonists of past centuries agree, it is one that has to be faced. Contrary to a naïve ultramontanism, it is not impossible for a pope to espouse heretical opinions, and indeed it has happened more than once in the past. The question is, what happens then?

This possibility is in itself not a challenge to the doctrine of papal infallibility. Papal infallibility has been very carefully defined at the First Vatican Council, and naturally it was defined very narrowly. The Pope’s public teaching on matters of faith and morals is guaranteed free from error (not, be it noted, inspired, like Scripture, only preserved from error) when he teaches the whole Church in the most solemn manner. Such teaching is not at issue here. A heretic is a heretic even if he never teaches anything solemnly. I might be a heretic even if I never express my heresy to another human being – although, in that case, no-one would know. The most likely case of papal heresy would be a pope harboring heretical opinions which are expressed in a private capacity, or at least in a less solemn mode of teaching, such as (on the usual historical reading) Pope John XXII teaching from the pulpit against the Particular Judgement in the 14th century.

Dr Lamont’s particular target is the much-followed view of Cajetan and John of St Thomas, that can be summarized rather simply as follows. They accept that a heretic cannot hold office in the Church, since the rejection of the Faith implies self-expulsion from the Church. (This is a theological notion of membership of the Church.) However, except in the most extreme emergencies, members of the Church should be able to rely on apparent office-holders wielding genuine authority, since this has implications for the salvation of souls. So bishops and others in the Church can continue to exercise their offices until such time as they are legally convicted of heresy: that is, denounced by their superiors, perhaps in the context of a canonical trial.

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31/10/2024 - 17:20

More on the 'Traditionalist Ordinariate'

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The Dominican Rite in a Dominican community:
how would this relate to an 'ordinariate'?

Readers may remember the debate between me and Fr Louis-Marie de Blignières FSVF about the concept of a 'personal ordinariate' type structure for Traditionalists, which took place in the pages of the journal of Fr de Blignieres' journal Sedes Sapientiae. I expanded on my doubts about the wisdom of this approach on OnePeterFive.

A response in turn has been made to this by Fr de Bligniere's confrere, Fr. Antoine-Marie de Araujo, in Rorate Caeli. He suggests that my criticism is based on a misunderstanding of the proposal:

First, the proposed traditional ordinariate is not intended to replace, or even encompass, the traditional institutes (FSSP, ICKSP, etc.), parishes, or communities that celebrate the ancient rite today. There is no question of establishing a structure into which all traditional Catholics should fall.

However, I am perfectly aware that the proposal is for what he calls a 'a flexible and permeable instrument, well-adapted to the diverse situation of Catholics attached to the old Latin traditions.'

As I wrote on OnePeterFive:

Traditionalists sympathetic to the idea of an ordinariate probably don’t envisage the TLM being prohibited outside it. The danger is that an Ordinariate structure could be used to justify such a prohibition. To put it another way, if Catholics attached to the TLM come to support the idea of an Ordinariate, understanding it in a non-exclusive way, it could come to be supported, and implemented, by people in positions of authority who have a more negative conception of it. Our opponents would have a range of options about how to impose their vision. They could make exclusivity the price to be paid for the benefits of an Ordinariate; they could bury the negative implications in some small print; and they could impose them only after the Ordinariate is established.

The problem is not with the details of what Fr de Blignieres is imagining. The problem is how a proposal along these lines would actually be implemented.

It appears that Fr  de Araujo and Fr de Blignieres would agree with the principle that I expressed at the end of my article. I would encourage them to make this the basis of their thinking about this issue, and not something they take for granted would appear in the small print of their favoured scheme.
Here it is again:

The Traditional Latin Mass is the patrimony of every priest and lay person of the Latin Rite, and as such it must not be limited, in law or in practice, to members of a traditionalist Ordinariate.

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A High Mass in the Birmingham Oratory

 

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28/10/2024 - 17:54

A dream pilgrimage: in the Catholic Herald

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Walking on the banks of the Great Ouse on the way to Walsingham.
I was asked by the Catholic Herald to answer a series of questions about what would be a 'dream' pilgrimage for me. It begins:

For the “On Pilgrimage With” section of the September 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald magazine, we spoke to Joseph Shaw, chairman of the Latin Mass Society and president of Una Voce International, about his dream pilgrimage:

Where would you go?

I’ve walked from Ely to Walsingham with the Latin Mass Society since 2009, and more recently extended the route back to Cambridge, with a smaller group of pilgrims. I’ve also done the traditional Paris to Chartres pilgrimage a few times. The ultimate walking pilgrimage, though, has to be from the Pyrenees on the French border to Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

Whom would you take?

As many people as possible!

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26/10/2024 - 10:00

Hold On To Your Kids: a book review

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Blessing at the end of Mass by Fr Andrew Southwell, at the 
St Catherine's Trust Summer School
This appeared in Voice of the Family at moment of peak summer busyness for me, so I am posting it here.
It begins:

I don’t like referring to children as “kids”, but this is the title of a book some readers may find interesting or useful: Hold on to your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter more than Peers, by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Maté. It was first published in 2004 but has been republished this year, with an extra chapter, by Penguin, nothing if not a mainstream publisher.

The idea expressed by the subtitle is not a new one. In 1997, the folktale enthusiast Robert Bly wrote a book called The Sibling Society: An Impassioned Call for the Rediscovery of Adulthood, which had a particular focus on how men find it difficult to come to maturity without good father figures. This might seem like a statement of the obvious, but Bly felt that he had to work very hard to get it across to his audience, and he wasn’t wrong.
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22/10/2024 - 18:17

Home Education: in the Catholic Herald

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The quiz at the SCT Summer School

My latest in the Catholic Herald.

The only people involved in a child’s education who have an overview of the whole process, from babyhood to adulthood, and who truly know the child, and his or her needs and ambitions, are parents.

They are their children’s primary educators, in a sense that encompasses the moral relationship between parent and child, and the practical and biological relationship.

To a teacher, your child is one among many pupils, as they try to get the class through the syllabus with as many children as possible keeping up, and not too many getting bored. They know little about what else their pupils are learning, or have learnt up to now.

It is simply impossible for teachers to pay that much attention to any one child. No teacher, however conscientious, can take the ultimate responsibility for a child’s education. That burden can never be lifted from parents. It follows that parents must know what is going on in their children’s school, and intervene when necessary.

Read it all there.

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21/10/2024 - 13:02

LMS Oxford Pilgrimage 2024: photos

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Last Saturday was the Latin Mass Society Oxford Pilgrimage, in honour of the city's Catholic martyrs. As usual we had a High Mass in the Dominican Rite, followed by a procession and Benediction. 

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The celebrant was Fr Lawrence Lew; you can read his sermon here.
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A hundred people attended Mass and 75 came on the procession.
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One of the distinctive things about the Dominican Rite is that they anticipate the Offertory: at odd moments the sacred ministers are preparing the chalice and so on. 
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Mass was accompanied by seventeen singers singing the chant and polyphony, thanks to the Schola Abelis of Oxford and the Southwell Consort based in London. 
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This year the procession went to the site of the martyrdom of Blessed George Napier in 1610 -- Oxford is blessed by two sites of martyrdom, both marked with plaques, and we alternate between them.

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The procession was an impressive sight going through the shoppers with the LMS banner and the processional statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. 

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A big 'thank you' to all who came along; please mark 18th October in your diaries for next year!
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09/10/2024 - 17:26

LMS Oxford Martyrs Pilgrimage, 19th October

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Please support the annual Latin Mass Society Pilgrimage, which will be taking place on 
Saturday 19th October, the feast of St Frideswide.
11am High Mass in the Dominican Rite, in Blackfriars (St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LY) 
With Dominican chant and sacred polyphony from the Schola Abelis and the Southwell Consort.
William Byrd Mass for Five Voices
Thomas Tallis In Manus Tuas
William Cornysh Ave Maria
2:15pm Procession from Carfax to the site of the martyrdom of Blessed George Napier in Oxford Castle, and back to Blackfriars
3pm Benediction at Blackfriars.
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Blessed George Napier, after whom a local Catholic school is named, died in 1610 after serving the Catholics of the area for many years. His friends' hopes of securing a pardon for him were dashed when a highwayman being hanged revealed that he had been received into the Catholic Church while imprisoned with Fr Napier in Oxford Castle. He was hanged on the Castle gallows, where a steel plaque commemorates him. The plaque was blessed by Archbishop Longley during the LMS Oxford Pilgrimage in 2008.
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06/09/2024 - 15:40

LMS Residential Latin Course: photos

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The Latin Mass Society's Residential Latin Course is an under appreciated event. It has benefitted teenagers and octagenarians, priests, seminarians, and novices, and the discount for clergy is extended to those who are planning to attend seminary the following year.
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This year the week-long course (Monday to Saturday) took place in Park Place Pastoral Centre in Wickham, Hampshire, with 18 students -- equaling our largest ever group in 2019 -- and three tutors, who were able to offer different levels of Latin to the mixed-ability attendees. 

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Park Place's modern chapel accommodates the Traditional Mass quite well, and attendees were able to participate in daily Mass. We even had two Sung Masses: one for the Assumption, and another for the final day.

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The Latin Mass Society's commitment to Latin learning is ongoing, with our exclusive Latin coursebook, Simplicissimus, which uses the Latin of the Missal for all its examples and exercises, and support for clergy and seminarians doing online Latin courses. If you'd like to emailed when the next Residential course is announced, email info@lms.org.uk .

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03/09/2024 - 12:03

SCT Summer School 2024: photos

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Latin questions in the end of school quiz.
I've not had time to blog about the August events I've been involved, but here are a few photos of the first of these: the St Catherine's Trust Summer School, which took place Sunday to Saturday, 4-10 August, in St Cassian's Retreat Centre, Kintbury, for children aged 11-17. I founded the St Catherine's Trust as a vehicle for these events back in 2005, and we've done them ever since -- though we had to cancel two during Covid.
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Classroom teaching
We had 64 children and nine staff this year. Numbers have been gradually increasing in recent years, and we're at the limit of what the venue can house. This year we didn't have room for all the children who wanted to come.
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We had an outing to Oxford, and Mass in Oratory.

The Summer Schools are generously supported by the Latin Mass Society, and by the parents: they make donations, but we don't charge a fee. If you'd like to make a donation to support the Trust, you can send money by PayPal to info@stcatherinestrust.org. or use the donate button the website. It is a registered charity, no. 1110417.

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Art projects: illuminated letters.

The SCT Summer School is unlike other summer 'camps' because we make a serious effort to teach the children a range of subjects. Obviously it is more like an introduction to subjects, since we only have a week, but they do get hear a bit about history, art, philosophy, Latin, and Greek; they sing, many of them take part in a play, some choose to do art or embroidery or some sport. It all seems to be appreciated -- at any rate, they make friends and they want to come back!

Oh and not to be forgotten, we have a Sung Mass every day, sung Compline, and the Rosary.
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Mass in the temporary chapel we create at St Cassian's.
 
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An opportunity for a young team of servers.

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02/09/2024 - 10:47

Iota Unum talks this autumn

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The next season of Iota Unum talks is confirmed:
Friday Sept 27, Joseph Shaw: The family and Catholic culture
Friday Oct 25, Calum Miller: title tbc
Friday Nov 29: Prof Tom Pink 'Conscience and the Law'

Talks take place in the basement of Our Lady of the Assumption; please enter by the back entrance into the basement: 24 Golden Square, W1F 9JR near Piccadilly Tube Station (click for a map).

Doors open at 6:30pm; the talk will start at 7pm.

There is a charge of £5 on the door to cover refreshments and other expenses.

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