Dear Lady, pray for your faithful people!
Posted on 12/22/2007 9:02:45 PM PST by Pyro7480
In the past few months, Holy Smoke has occasionally hinted that the Bishops of England and Wales have been less that totally enthusiastic in their response to recent papal initiatives. But perhaps I’ve been too harsh.
Judge for yourselves. Here is a little review of the year that I’ve drawn up.
March: The Pope releases Sacramentum Caritatis, a historic, 60-page statement on the Eucharist. The English and Welsh bishops ignore it for two days, before finally posting three paragraphs on their website.
June: It is revealed that Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor has written to the Vatican arguing against moves to allow Catholics greater freedom to celebrate the traditional Latin Mass.
On June 19, the 99 Names of Allah are sung in Westminster Cathedral.
July: Pope Benedict publishes Summorum Pontificum, his Motu Proprio removing the power of bishops to block celebrations of the Tridentine Mass. From now on it will be known as the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, or the traditional Latin Mass. In his accompanying letter, the Pope emphasies that he has liberated the ancient liturgy for the benefit of young people who have grown to love it.
The Bishops of England and Wales publish a muted response to the document. Unlike other bishops’ conferences, they do not issue a statement explaining its implications.
August: An agency of the Bishops’ Conference publishes Catholic Social Justice, a volume of essays that contains a withering attack on Pope Benedict and refers to the atrocities of 9/11 as “the 'terrorist attacks' ” in inverted commas.
September: The “director of liturgy” of Portsmouth Diocese, a layman called Paul Inwood, announces that most Catholics in the diocese are not even allowed to ask for the old Mass, as only traditionalist communities existing before the Motu Proprio was published are entitled to it. (The Pope’s document says no such thing.)
October: The Bishop of Leeds, Arthur Roche, writes to his priests saying that the underlying purpose of the Motu Proprio is to cater for Catholics who have not accepted “the liturgical reforms and perhaps the teaching of the Second Vatican Council”. Decisions about the Old Mass are still up to him, and that he is “not aware” of extra demand for it. Bishop Roche’s letter arouses outrage among traditionalists, who accuse him of misrepresenting the Motu Proprio.
November: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor issues a “commentary” on the Motu Proprio that is very similar to Bishop Roche’s. He also says that the local bishop must be consulted about celebrations of the Traditional Mass – a stipulation not contained in the Motu Proprio.
It is revealed that the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Kieran Conry, has dismissed Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio as an “opinion” that is contrary to that of previous popes.
Sir Stephen Wall, former senior policy advisor to Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, writes an article accusing the Church of turning away from the message of Christ and heading towards “aggressive fundamentalism”.
December: The liberal Archbishop Piero Marini, dismissed as director of Vatican ceremonies by Pope Benedict, publishes a history of liturgical reform that contains coded attacks on current papal policies. The book launch is hosted by Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor in the throne room of Archbishop’s House, Westminster.
The Pope brings out his historic second encyclical, Spe Salvi, a stunning exploration of the theology of hope that reformulates the doctrine of Purgatory. There is a great excitement in Rome, but no press release from the Bishops of England and Wales.
Our Lady of Walsingham, by your intercession, reclaim your Dowry!
St. John Fisher, pray for England!
St. Thomas More, pray for England!
St. John Roberts, pray for Wales!
Martyrs of England and Wales, pray for us!
Catholic ping!
Dear Lady, pray for your faithful people!
PS - remember what he told Tony Blair? "Miracles are hard to come by in Britain"
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It is truly a stunning work. Anybody who hasn't read it should download it from the Vatican website and read it for Christmas.
Well, that's only a day away, so maybe you can give yourself a little longer...It's not difficult, for the most part, just really profound, and you'll find that you have to stop and think about every other sentence or so. "Hope" is the Pope's theme this year, and in fact I think the word is in the title of his trip to the US this year.
Getting back to Britain, however, it's really a shame that the UK bishops are so resistant to Rome. The Church is doing better than the Anglicans there, but that's at least in part because there are many Catholic immigrants to Britain from places like Poland and Africa. The British bishops have, like all the Europeans, cheerfully presided over the emptying of their churches.
Amongst the current episcopate, there is probably one St. John Fisher somewhere, quietly pastoring his flock in some out of the way place, while the rest of these ropey renegades run headlong into apostasy and betrayal.
As in the 16th century, there is a persecution awaiting which will blow this chaff away and renew the Church. Only this time it won't be a headstrong monarch who will do the winnowing. It will be Islam.
While I share entirely the general angst about the Catholic bishops of England and Wales, upon a few moments’ reflection, it does not seem so surprising.
It is perhaps a dirty little secret of the Church in (not “of”) England that over the centuries as a persecuted or discriminated against minority, they seem to have developed a certain modus vivendi with the Anglicans and Protestants that involved a rather stand-offish approach to Rome (thus the moniker “cisalpine Catholicism” applied to the English Catholics in the 19th Century, in contrast of course to “ultramontane Catholicism” as applied to the ardently pro-Roman Catholics of France, and England too, but in perhaps lesser numbers in Blighty). I think a book has been written about this, and I will try to find it in the stacks at home tonight, but as I recall, this is one of the themes. A coordinated theme is the link between this “cisalpine” attitude and the survival underground of modernist tendencies after St Pius X tried to eradicate them.
One (in)famous episode of this type was the defection of certain upper class Catholics to Anglicanism occasioned by the reestablishment of the hierarchy in England in the mid 19th Century.
Another morbidly interesting feature of this is the predominace of Irish-sounding names amongst the liberal bishops in England. One would have thought that coming from Ireland, with its own history in this area and kind of tribal loyalty mentality, they would have been more “ultra-” than “cis-”. I can only assume that chaps like Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor have lived in England so long that they have gone native.
This is not to impune all the many fine Catholics in England and Wales, just to note the rather interesting historical twist that seems to have occurred with regard to some.
V. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Our Lady of Walsingham, pray for us,
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
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