Latin Mass Society

Chairman's Blog

08/02/2024 - 15:57

Candlemas in Oxford

IMG_9907

It's been too long since I posted images of a High Mass in Oxford. This was for Candlemas; we had polyphony, blessing of candles, procession, and the full works in SS Gregory & Augustine's Oxford. The celebrant was Fr John Saward, Priest in Charge.
The congregation for such Masses has been growing: this time it was close to 80; 50 used to be a good turnout.

IMG_9931

SS Gregory & Augustine's is not a church in which I can easily sneak closer to the sanctuary with the camera; as a result, as Mass progresses the photos are taken through a bank of incense-smoke.

IMG_9929

We are indebted to Tom Neal (right) and Dominic Bevan (left) for leading professional polyphonists and amateur chant singers on this and on many other occasions.
IMG_9939

 

Support the Latin Mass Society
06/02/2024 - 15:47

Visit to Ireland

I shall be giving talks in Dublin and Galway in the next few days; all are welcome.

On Thursday 8th February I will be speaking at Dublin's Catholic Central Library T 7PM. 

Central Catholic Library,
74 Merrion Square S,
Dublin 2, D02 HH99

The talk will be called 'Culture and the Family: Lose one, Lose them both'.

On Saturday 10th, I am taking part in a conference in Galway, with Robert Colquoun and Fr Philomeno of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. The Conference is called 'She Will Crush Your Head'.

My talk will be called 'Modernity and Postmodernity, on the
Liturgy and Marriage'

I will also be at the regular FSSP Mass in Waterford on Sunday 11th.

Support the Latin Mass Society
22/01/2024 - 18:25

Chairman's Briefing: the African Bishops and the Vatican

Another of my 'briefings' to supporters of the Latin Mass Society.

It begins:

Cardinal Abongo

In the last Briefing I introduced Fiducia supplicans and initial reactions to it. These reactions have continued to come in, and many of them are less than welcoming. Indeed, only a small number of Bishops’ Conferences have made statements expressing any pleasure about the document being published. Most official reactions have been very guarded, and some, while diplomatic, clearly regard the document as ill-judged. Many of the strongest negative reactions have come from African Bishops’ Conferences.

You can see my latest 'briefing' here.

Sign up to receive them by email here, along with our monthly newsletter.

Support the Latin Mass Society
13/01/2024 - 12:03

Book launch for 'A Defence of the Monarchy'

IMG_9894

Short podcasts from contributors' presentations forthcoming.
Coincidentally, Gavin Ashenden has published Part I of a conversation we had on the subject: find it on your podcast provider (Gavin Ashenden: 'Merely Catholic') or listen to it here.
IMG_9879

 

IMG_4103

 

Support the Latin Mass Society
11/01/2024 - 11:14

Blessings for Irregular couples: a conversation with Fr McTeigue

Fr McTeigue has a Catholic radio programme -- you can listen to episodes as podcasts, as well as live -- and I've talked to him before more than once. Last evening we discussed Fiducia supplicans.

I enjoy these conversations. Fr McTeigue is well-informed and always displays admirable common sense.

Support the Latin Mass Society

10/01/2024 - 12:17

Anniversary Requiem for Pope Benedict XVI: photos

IMG_9872

This took place on Monday 8th January in Corpus Christi Maiden Lane. Sung Mass was accompanied by the Southwell Consort who sang Palestrina's Missa pro Defunctis. The celebrant was Fr John Scott. It was well attended and the music was wonderful--as usual, the Consort fielded a huge number of singers, both amateur and professional, with a professional conductor.
May Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, rest in peace.

IMG_9832

IMG_9845

IMG_9854

IMG_9856

IMG_9872

IMG_9876

Support the Latin Mass Society

09/01/2024 - 17:45

Artistic modernists rally for the Traditional Mass: in the Catholic Herald

My latest for the Catholic Herald, on my book on the petitions to save the Traditional Mass: The Latin Mass and the Intellectuals.

Strange bedfellows: Unlikely figures who rallied around the Traditional Latin Mass in the 60s and 70s

When the post-Vatican II liturgical reform was getting underway in 1966, and again when the reformed Mass had been unveiled in 1971, petitions signed by intellectuals and cultural figures – poets, writers, artists, musicians – called for the preservation of the older liturgy, alongside the new. These voices were heard by Pope Paul VI, who tried to insist on the preservation of the sung Latin Office in Sacrificium laudis in 1966, and granted England and Wales permission for continuing celebrations of the older Mass in 1971. This was extended to the whole world by Pope John Paul II in 1984.

It is not surprising to find among the 1966 petitioners the reactionary convert novelist Evelyn Waugh, or the 1971 petitioner Agatha Christie, with her appreciation for the reassuring and nostalgic alongside the sinister and murderous. It is more surprising to find the non-Catholic, homosexual artistic modernists Benjamin Britten and WH Auden, both signatories in 1966. Auden, who by then had returned to the High Anglicanism of his upbringing, went on to criticise Anglican liturgical reform in the strongest terms. Before his death, TS Eliot also turned out to have archly traditional opinions on Anglican worship.

31/12/2023 - 15:02

Artistic modernism and the Traditional Mass

My latest for the European Conservative: some reflections arising out of the work I did for The Intellectuals and the Latin Mass, about the intellectual and artistic signatories of petitions to save the Traditional Latin Mass.

A key passage:

This is a reminder that the relationship between artistic modernism and traditional artistic forms is a complex one. By definition, modernism involves a rejection of artistic conventions, but there is an open question as to which conventions are being overturned. The impulse of modernism is a response to modernity—new technology, social change, and so on—but there is again an open question regarding what form this response will take.

Those brought up in a strongly-manifested Catholic culture may feel that modernity is a challenge that requires the Church to change in order to address it, or they may feel even that modernity has proved the Church wrong. Artistic modernism may be an expression of this stance: James Joyce is the outstanding artistic example of such a view.

Other artists, no less rebellious, took things in a very different direction. Those whose lives have been dominated by a secularised culture, characterised by mass-produced art, may also take the view that their own culture is inadequate to the demands of the time: demands made, in particular, by the wars, political crises, and economic convulsions of the modern age. It is equally clear, however, that this culture is itself the product of modernity: in other words, modernity has created a culture which does not equip people to deal with modernity. To rebel against it, and to seek out less inadequate cultural forms, may involve the overthrow of the modern in the interest of reviving something older.

Support the Latin Mass Society
30/12/2023 - 15:01

Non-Catholics supporting the Traditional Mass

My latest on 1Peter4. It begins:

Last month I launched a new book, The Latin Mass and the Intellectuals: Petitions to Save the Ancient Mass from 1966 to 2007. Many, if by no means all, readers will have heard of the “Agatha Christie Petition” which was presented to Pope Paul VI in 1971, stimulating him to given the first “indult” in favour of the Traditional Mass, for England and Wales. The story is much more complex and interesting than this, however.

For many years the main public source of information about the petitions was a 1999 article by Alfred Marnau, that had appeared in the Latin Mass Society’s Newsletter and was subsequently made available online. English-language references to the 1971 petition since then, up until now, have invariably used this as their sole source. It hasn’t helped that the UK Catholic press at the time of the petition and indult observed a substantial, if now quite complete, news blackout about them. The Latin Mass Society had to feed the news to The Times newspaper in order to get it into the public domain at all, and the text of the Indult was not made available to them by Cardinal Heenan for many months. Readers may remember the inability of the archivists at the Dicastery for Divine Worship to find the indult (we sent Cardinal Roche a copy).

Alfred Marnau was a hero of the early movement; after the petition he became the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, and later founded Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice to campaign on orthodox doctrine and Catholic education. However, in 1999 he was dying, and his article gives a rather incomplete picture of the petition, its organisation, and its wider context. He doesn’t claim to have written the text, for example, but does not explain that the original was in Italian, and that in addition to the

57 names

that were published in The Times on 9th July 1971 there were another 48, non-UK based petitioners, whose names later appeared in Italian and French publications. The whole list of 105 was finally published in Una Voce Italia in their newsletter, that December.

Read the whole thing there.

22/12/2023 - 11:15

Reactions to Fiducia Supplicans

I'll try to keep this up to date: not with the reaction of every bishop in the world, but groups of bishops and other significant groups.
The text of the Declaration Fiducia supplicans

Bishops of Kazakstan

'To bless couples in an irregular situation and same-sex couples is a serious abuse of the most Holy Name of God, since this name is invoked upon an objectively sinful union of adultery or of homosexual activity.'

Bishops of Ukraine
'We see the danger in ambiguous wording that causes divergent interpretations among the faithful. What we missed in the document is that the Gospel calls sinners to conversion, and without a call to leave the sinful life of homosexual couples, the blessing may look like an approval. '
Bishops of Zambia
'In order to avoid any pastoral confusion and ambiguity as well as not to break the law of our country which forbids same sex unions and activities, and while listenig to our cultural heritage which does not accept same sex relationships, the Conference guides that the Declaration from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith of December 18th 2023 concerning the blessing of same-sex couples be taken as for further reflection and not for implementation in Zambia.'
Bishops of Malawi
'...to avoid creatuig confusion among the faithful we direct that for pastoral reasons, blessings of any kind for same-sex unions of any kind, are not permitted in Malawi.'
Bishops of Nigeria

' In conclusion, the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria assures the entire People of God that the teaching of the Catholic Church on marriage remains the same. There is, therefore, no possibility in the Church of blessing same-sex unions and activities. That would go against God’s law, the teachings of the Church, the laws of our nation and the cultural sensibilities of our people. The CBCN thanks all the Priests for their accompaniment of married couples, asking them to continue in all they do to sustain the sacrament of holy matrimony and never to do anything that would detract from the sacredness of this sacrament.'

Cardinal Ambongo of Congo, President of Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa & Madagascar (SECAM)

'The ambiguity of this declaration—which lends itself to many interpretations & manipulations—is causing much perplexity among the faithful & I believe that...we need to speak out clearly on this issue in order to give clear guidance to our Christians.'

'I very much welcome this document and am grateful for the pastoral perspective it adopts. In Fiducia supplicans it is explained that, in principle, it is possible and permissible for the ordained pastor to respond to the wishes of couples who ask for a blessing for their partnership, even if they do not live in all respects according to the norms of the Church. This means that couples who do not have the opportunity to have a church wedding due to a divorce, for example, and same-sex couples can be given a blessing.' (machine translation)


'It turns out that theological honesty and a sense of faith are important milestones on the way to changing the Church. A mere bondage to prohibition is not Catholic.'

'To be Catholic in these times means to expect change.' (machine translation)
Bishop Robert Baron, Auxiliary Bishop of Winona-Rochester, USA
'I believe that the declaration is very much congruent with the pastoral instincts of Pope Francis,
who always wants to remind those who are living the Christian life in a less than perfect way that
they are, nevertheless, loved and cherished by God. To all of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, the
Church should never fail to be a source of welcome, compassion, and blessing.'
Archbishop O'Toole of Cardiff, Wales

'I invite all in the Archdiocese of Cardiff and the Diocese of Menevia to read and reflect on Fiducia supplicans carefully, so that they are aware of the parameters in which clergy may impart a blessing to others who seek it from them.'


'It’s surprising that (they did not) proceed in a synodal manner, in line with the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. We would have been spared the dissenting reactions of episcopal conferences that we are witnessing, for example.'
Implementation will be 'chaotic'.

'We note the noble pastoral desire to assist people to move forward by renewal of life and the call to conversion, building on all aspects of natural good will and virtue. Nevertheless, we see no situation in which such a blessing of a couple could be properly and adequately distinguished from some level of approval. Thus, it would inevitably lead to scandal – to the individuals concerned – to those involved directly or indirectly in the blessing – or to the minister himself. Furthermore, we fear that the practice of these blessings would confuse the faithful over the actual theology of marriage and human sexuality. Indeed, from the comments in the media over the past few days, and from concerns passed on to us by the faithful, we can already see such misunderstandings. We believe that genuine charity always follows true doctrine and that such blessings would work against the legitimate care a priest owes is flock. With honest parresia and from our own experience as pastors we conclude that such blessings are pastorally and practically inadmissable.'

Support the Latin Mass Society

Charity web design by Turtlereality

© LMS 2016 | Registered Charity Number: 248388 | Terms & Conditions

Latin Mass Society, 9 Mallow Street, London EC1Y 8RQ | 020 7404 7284 | [email protected]