Chairman's Blog
LMS AGM Mass: photos
Radio discussion with Fr Robert McTeigue SJ
You can hear my latest chat with Fr McTeigue SJ on his Catholic Current radio show here.
New video on the LMS Walsingham Pilgrimage
Part-time Job opportunity at the Latin Mass Society
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| The current LMS Office, when it opened in 2009. |
- Office administration - The Office Assistant acts as the principal secretary for the LMS office.
- This includes general correspondence, answering telephone calls, post and emails.
- Membership administration - The Office Assistant is responsible for the membership database (CiviCRM), membership renewals, data entry, data analysis, data export (print or email mail-merges).
- Mail-order - The Office Assistant is responsible for the administration of the LMS online shop (Drupal Commerce). This includes stock replenishment, stock management, product updates/additions and order fulfilment (picking, packing & mailing).
- Information administration - The Office Assistant is responsible for compiling information which pertains to the Charity, including research and document publication and distribution.
- Volunteer administration – The Office Assistant is responsible for overseeing office work undertaken by volunteers.
- Other tasks as determined by the General Manager.
New podcasts: interview with Timothy Stanley
In this podcast with Tim Stanley I discuss his recent book Whatever Happened to Tradition?
Tim writes in the Telegraph and is on Twitter as @timothy_stanley
Learn Latin this Summer! Residential and Online options
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| Mass at Park Place during the Guild of St Clare Sewing Retreat in the spring. |
Residential Latin Course, 8th - 13th August
Online Courses, July–October
What does Pope Francis mean in Desiderio desideravi?
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| The laying-on of hands at the recent priestly ordination in Bavaria for the Fraternity of St Peter. |
My latest on 1Peter5.
Desiderio desideravi: “with desire have I desired,” Our Lord said to His Disciples before the Last Supper, “to eat this Pasch with you.” The quaint Latin phrase is a literal translation of the Greek of the Gospels (Luke 22:15; Matthew 13:14), but it is no less quaint in Greek. It is in fact an expression at home in Hebrew, which does this kind of thing to express a superlative. No doubt this was an expression in use in Our Lord’s native Aramaic as well. The fidelity of a succession of translators has brought it to us today as something at once mysterious, poetic, intriguing, and rather beautiful. The effort necessary to understand it, its very elusiveness, has the effect of fixing it in our minds, and making it echo in our souls. To put it another way, the slight barrier to propositional understanding increases its transformative potential for us.
Every poet, every novelist, knows this. It is a mystery hidden, however, from modern Biblical translators, who come up with phrases like the one used in the English version of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter of this name: ‘I have earnestly desired.’ It is flat, utilitarian, and drab; defensible as a translation, to be sure, on modern principles, but about as memorable as a corporate mission statement.
Which is to be master, one may ask? The Church’s Tradition, which draws us in through mystery, or the flattened-out, dreary rationalism of liturgical Modernism? It is a problem with which Pope Francis struggles in this Letter. He sees the struggle in terms of avoiding two bad options, which present themselves as opposites.
I want the beauty of the Christian celebration and its necessary consequences for the life of the Church not to be spoiled by a superficial and foreshortened understanding of its value or, worse yet, by its being exploited in service of some ideological vision, no matter what the hue (16).
The Myth of Liberal Neutrality
My first article for The Critic magazine is online now. It begins:
Beleaguered liberal academics often appeal to the idea that universities should be neutral on substantive issues: they should teach the scientific or philosophical method, or the method of literary criticism, or whatever, but not enforce a single view of the correct answers. This kind of argument is also used in relation to schools, and in general to all the activities of the state. It is not just a bad argument, but a strategically disastrous one.
Classical liberals claim that what they want is simply a framework within which free enquiry can take place. The only limit to the debate which a classical liberal can accept is the defence of free enquiry itself. The only voices which are excluded are those which would silence other voices. But — they say — this is not a real limitation, a limit on what substantive results are allowable, because it is merely the limit imposed by rationality itself. Those who would silence other voices are rejecting rationality, in rejecting the value of the free debate which those voices would stimulate.
Iota Unum Podcasts: Prof Thomas Pink
Traditional Catholics in the Synod on Synodality
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| A newly ordained priest, of the Fraternity of St Peter, concluding his first, Traditional, Mass in Munich. Fr Gwilym Evans comes from Wales. |
(viii) Traditionalists 72. Although very few in number, a sense of grievance and marginalization is strongly expressed by those who worship using the Missal of 1962. Traditionalists complain of “sadness and anger” at the restrictions they believe were imposed by Pope Francis’s Traditionis Custodes, which restored to bishops the regulation of the provision of pre Second Vatican Council liturgies. 89 Adherents of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) complain of the “watering down” of liturgical devotion in eucharistic celebrations following the Council, and fear that the Church has capitulated to “modernistic” ideas. 90 In response to questions about marginalisation and exclusion, both TLM adherents and those committed to “maintaining traditional Catholic teaching against what they interpret as harmful modifications” feel “badly treated by the bishops and by Pope Francis“ and “saddened by a sense that their views are habitually denigrated and their voices left unheard and unanswered.”91
A sense of marginalisation and pain included those who value the traditional Latin Mass: ‘Seeing how fundamentally these Masses have affected our own journey in faith, and how profoundly they are drawing souls to the church, including many young families, we are concerned that a baseline policy going forward will be to make provision of the Latin Mass a serious and real priority in our Archdiocese and beyond; something which appears to be under threat at present, and a cause for alarm even in the secular world, making headline news. [Individual submission]. Birmingham Archdiocese
There were, from several reports, an appeal for a return to and encouragement of traditional Catholic pious practices. Some referred to traditional Corpus Christi processions as a means of witness. A few reports highlighted the desire to be inclusive of those who prefer the ‘Extraordinary Form’ (elsewhere: ‘Tridentine Rite’), though one report indicated that where the Extraordinary Form had been experienced as ‘imposed,’ ‘division and hurt’ had occurred. Many reports indicate a hunger among the people for wider prayer and spiritual formation opportunities, as the world, and Church, emerge from the pandemic. Cardiff Archdiocese
Another said that “Modern liturgy is tedious, dull, impoverished, casual and uninspiring.”. The loss of the opportunity to participate in the Tridentine Rite was expressed both by those who want it and those who feel sympathy for a group they believe has now been excluded. Clifton Diocese
An appreciation of the variety of styles of liturgy was expressed. Some responses called for more ‘lively and engaging’ liturgies, whilst others expressed the need for ‘reverence’ and ‘silence’. Liturgies expressing the diversity of the cultures making up our parish communities was seen as desirable by around 20%. Portsmouth Diocese
There are binary views about how we celebrate Mass and the Sacraments which present challenges to synodality. A minority perceive a decrease in “devotion characterised by reverence and awe” and would like greater access to the Latin Mass; they are deeply hurt and angered by Traditionis Custodes. Others feel the Mass is too traditional and ‘stuffy’ and lacks joy. Plymouth Diocese
There were several calls for the wider use of the 1962 Missal and availability of the Latin Mass, one request being typical of others: “I would be grateful if there was a Latin Mass near me. At present I have to drive a long way to attend one” (240). Another wrote: “It’s strange to hear all this talk about inclusivity. The Latin Mass is being reigned in, the liberals aren’t” Shrewsbury Diocese
Those who describe themselves as traditionalists who desire to worship in the Extraordinary Form feel marginalised by the Church hierarchy (as if not tolerated by Rome) and even some of the clergy in the diocese. Some feel that the Holy Father is moving to eliminate the traditional rite of Mass and this leaves them feeling profoundly alienated. Lancaster Diocese