Chairman's Blog

My latest in the Catholic Herald: a book review.

In the 1920s, some influential academics were dismayed to find that many graduates of elite American universities were, not to put too fine a point on it, culturally illiterate. They lacked the knowledge that could be taken for granted among cultivated Europeans at the beginnings of their tertiary education, let alone at the end.

The academics’ natural response was to attempt to address this lack, and so the “Western Civilisation Course” or “Great Books Programme” was born, and made compulsory (or strongly recommended) in many institutions. These courses frog-marched students through a carefully selected canon of Western literature, from the Greeks and Romans onwards, with excursions into philosophy and history.

Our series of Iota Unum talks in London continues with Prof Stepen Bullivant, author of Mass Exodus, talking about his study of Catholic lapsation since the second world war.

Did Vatican II have anything to do with it? Stephen Bullivant, a sociologist of religion, will tell you...

6:30 for 7pm in the basement of Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street: please use the Golden Square entrance. £5 on the door. Drinks and a good company.

Click for a map.

See my discussion of the book on LifeSiteNews.

Last Saturday was the LMS Pilgrimage to Oxford. We had a lovely Dominican Rite High Mass in Blackfriars, with the Schola Abelis singing Dominican chant, and the Newman Consort singing Byrd's Four Part Mass, with a motet by Baudldeweyn, Ave caro Christi cara: all of which was lovely.

We sang the Te Deum at the site of the martyrdom of Bl George Napier in 1610.

My latest on LifeSiteNews.

Earlier this month, journalist Eugenio Scalfari claimed that Pope Francis believes, "once incarnated, Jesus ceases to be a God and becomes a man until his death on the cross."

Scalfari’s claims about the beliefs of Pope Francis have been puzzling Catholics for six years, and from time to time elicit some form of denial from Vatican spokesmen. On this occasion, they pointed out that Scalfari’s apparently direct quotations of the Holy Father are a mere "personal and free interpretation" of his words, and, furthermore, Scalfari has not met Pope Francis for two years.

Neither statement is exactly decisive, especially as Scalfari claims to have telephone conversations with Pope Francis, a claim that has never been denied. Nevertheless, I was inclined to sympathize with the spokesman, Matteo Bruni, who expressed some exasperation. This claim is so ridiculous, he suggested, that it just goes to show how little we should trust Scalfari’s claims.