New Blog

I was glad to see the Holy Family Guild have started a blog. The HFG is a group of families in the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle who exist to support each other in Catholic life according to the teaching of Familiaris Consortio. You can find the blog here.

While on the topic of family life it is an opportunity to recall the recent words of Pope Benedict as he spoke about his visit last weekend to Barcelona:

"I prayed intensely for families, the vital cells and the hope of society and of the Church ... My thoughts also went to the young, ... that they may discover the beauty, value and commitment of marriage in which a man and a woman form a family which generously accepts life and accompanies it from conception until natural end. Everything done to support marriage and the family, to help people in need, everything that serves to enhance man's greatness and his inviolable dignity, also helps to perfect society".

Here we go!

Five Anglican bishops resign and declare their intention to enter the ordinariate! I`m delighted by the news and only wish we had been as imaginative in the 90`s.

A modern seminary

This weekend the Northern Cross, naturally, had quite a lot to say about the proposed closure of Ushaw college. As was noted in the Tablet of October 16th there is a group of people led by LMS treasurer Paul Waddington who are willing to finance priestly formation at Ushaw if it includes training in the Extraordinary Form. Personally I thought that the logic of Summorum Pontificum would lead to all seminaries doing this nowadays: it is hard to believe that a man might spend six years at a seminary and not be able to celebrate the Roman rite in all its forms. However not everyone sees it this way.

The FSSP have a seminary in the USA, Our Lady of Guadalupe seminary at Denton, Nebraska. No-one would sell them a seminary so they had to build one from scratch, which opened on its present site in 2000, and it now has 75 seminarians with more applications for places than they have room. What is life like there? Who are the seminarians? Is the training according to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on priestly formation? Well if you would like to see there are three videos on Youtube which give an idea of life in the seminary. You will see testimonies from bishops about how happy they are with the training that young men receive there as well as from lay people too (including Hexham and Newcastle`s own Leo Darroch at the start of the second video: Leo is the President of Una Voce International, the international umbrella group for national Latin Mass societies).

The videos are well worth watching:

Santiago de Compostela

The Pope arrives in Compostela today. I was there a few weeks ago with three priests of the diocese. This year as the feast of St James fell on a Sunday it is a Holy Year. The last one was 2004. In that year I organised a pilgrimage which followed the pilgrim route, or camino, landing at Bilbao and then on to the route through Burgos and Leon. Sorry to say we didn`t walk but had a coach. This time we just landed at Compostela airport and stayed a week so probably got even less grace. Two of our group did take the bus about eight miles out and walk in to get a feel for the camino.

Going to Santiago de Compostela is like stepping back in time: to before 2007 to be precise! There was no sign of an Extraordinary Form Mass anywhere which I thought odd for such an important pilgrimage destination. Una Voce Hispania has a list of regular Masses in Spain and on the Una Voce La Coruna site there are pictures of a High Mass celebrated at Compostela by the SSPX. In fact the whole thing was not a great liturgical experince. The cathedral was full of scaffolding as preparations were being made for the papal visit. The famous botafumeiro was nowhere to be seen so we assumed it was away to be cleaned up for the papal visit. I concelebrated at the 12 noon Mass on Sunday. There was no choir but only an elderly canon acting as cantor. No altar servers either apart from another elderly canon. The Mass was just like a normal parish Mass with four hymns and a Sanctus sung in Spanish (or Eucharistic acclamation I suppose). One day a choir from Argentina came and were able to sing a couple of motets during Mass. A visit to the bookshop by the seminary showed no influence of Summorum Pontificum either.

One day we all concelebrated Mass in the tiny chapel containing the relics of St James. This was a surprise as the sacristan led us to a chapel I never thought we would be going there. It was somewhat overwhelming to be so near to these relics which have so coloured the spiritual life of Spain and the Spanish-speaking world.

There were a number of items of interest for English pilgrims. For example on going to through the Holy Door to `hug the apostle` (the statue of St James kept behind the High Altar) in one of the side chapels there is a statue of Our Lady of Walsingham.

More spectacular was this statue of Our Lady in the Lady Chapel in the monastery church of San Martín Pinario which is now a museum. The notes said it was made in England and brought to Spain by Catholics fleeing Henry VIII. The first mention of it in the monastery archives about 1610 but whenever it got to Spain it was moving to see this bit of English Catholic history in such a glorious setting.

This cheered me up this morning

Des hommes à part
Uploaded by deshommesapart. - More video blogs and vloggers.

Thanks to Giorgio for the link.

Former bishop of Durham speaks about the Ordinariate

I saw this, this morning, in an interview with Tom Wright, former Anglican bishop of Durham and now a research professor at St Andrews University, and thought it interesting:

`Asked to comment on the Vatican's 'Ordinariate' scheme to enable Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church, and the desire in a parish at Folkestone to change allegiance, Bishop Wright said that people had thought that there were "dozens of parishes ready to jump", adding: "Many of the Roman Catholic bishops that I know in England were not terribly happy at the thought that they might have to administer this kind of whole extra wrinkle on top of the complicated structure they've already got, and I did hear one Roman Catholic priest - how representative I don't know - saying we've got quite enough traditionalists in our own Church without having all yours as well." `

I wasn`t aware that Catholic dioceses were a `complicated structure`. However there is no need for hard-pressed diocesan bishops having to worry about adminstering another structure as the ordinariates will not be under their authority but answerable to Rome.

Recollection and Douai Martyrs

This Saturday is the feast of the Douai Martyrs. There will be a High Mass at St Joseph`s, Gateshead at 12 noon. This feast has an added poignancy this year given the uncertainty over the future of Ushaw college, the northern successor of Douai. The celebrant will be Fr Simon Leworthy FSSP. The Mass has been organised by The Group Of Priests Of Hexham And Newcastle Who Meet For Lunch Once A Month Who Like The Extraordinary Form (aka TGOPOHANWMFLOAMWLTEF) and the local LMS.

Preceding the Mass there will be a morning of recollection for lay people given by Fr Leworthy. This will start at 10am and will include time for confessions. It is open to anyone who would like to come. Other parts of the country have days of recollection organised by the LMS but this is the first time we have attempted this in the North East. If you are coming you may like to bring a packed lunch for after the Mass. Many thanks to Fr Adrian Dixon, the parish priest of St Joseph`s for letting us use his church for this event.

St Joseph`s, Gateshead is very easy to reach by public transport: it is immediately opposite Gateshead Metro station.

Facebook page on Ushaw

Readers may like to know that there is a Facebook page asking for Ushaw to remain open. You can find it here.

Good News

What with the judicial vicars` trip to Rome from September 27th-October 1st , a period of seven days when I had five funerals as well as a lot of other things and then my long-planned trip to Compostela for the Holy Year ( together with three priests of the diocese) it has been hard to keep up. However there have been good things happening which you will have read of elsewhere. I would just like to mention a few.

Firstly I was delighted to hear about bishop Mark Davies and his declaration of a Year of Mary in the diocese of Shrewsbury. From what I`ve heard people are being asked to say five decades of the Rosary each day but I can`t find any verification of this. Another good thing was the Pope`s letter to seminarians. Such a simple idea yet not one I can recall happening when I was a seminarian. As a canon lawyer and having spent yesterday at the northern canon lawyers` meeting where we were addressed by the ever-entertaining and illuminating Fr David Jaeger of the Antonianum on the subject of recent legislation, I enjoyed this part of the letter:

But you should also learn to understand and – dare I say it – to love canon law, appreciating how necessary it is and valuing its practical applications: a society without law would be a society without rights. Law is the condition of love.

It reminded me of being told in the canon law aula at the Greg that `the law will set you free`! Some of our present difficulties have arisen through failure to follow the law.

Another thing which made me happy was the announcement that archbishops Burke and Ranjith would be made cardinals at the next consistory. When in Rome a few weeks ago one of our ports of call was, of course, the Apostolic Signatura where archbishop Burke spoke to us at length and made us welcome. (Another place we went was the Rota and it was the day before the dean, archbishop Stankewicz ( who had taught us Roman law at the Greg) was due to retire the next day as he was turning 75. He spoke to us with great warmth and at length and so the judicial vicars and their assistants sang `Happy birthday` stumbling a bit when we were unsure whether we should sing `dear archbishop Stankewicz` or `dear dean of the Roman Rota`!) Both archbishops Burke and Ranjith are great friends of the Extraordinary Form.

Another story in the news, as reported by Christopher Lamb in the Tablet last week , was the announcement that a traditionalist group led by LMS treasurer, Paul Waddington, are interested in buying Ushaw. What an incredible thought! It raises the question of who will staff it and who the students will be? The FSSP are the most obvious candidates but as they only have one very recently established house in England it would be a huge leap to go from there to running Ushaw but I suppose they had no houses when they opened the seminary at Wigratzbad in 1988. Clearly Mr Waddington has serious plans as he speaks of Ushaw being run as a `mixed commercial and religious development`. It`s all very exciting anyway. I was thrilled enough to be able to have the LMS training weeks at Ushaw and see St Cuthbert`s chapel used for the liturgy for which it was built but for that to be a permanent feature would be fabulous. It`s certainly a bold idea and one I will include in my prayers.

I hope to write about Compostela soon.

Falling behind

I have been away to Santiago de Compostela and hope to write about that soon. In the meantime before I forget here are a couple of announcements of forthcoming events courtesy of the diocese of Westminster and the LMS.

Saturday 6 November at 2.00 pm
WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL
Victoria St, London SW1
Pontifical High Mass of Requiem
followed by Absolutions at the Catafalque
Celebrant and Preacher: Rt Rev. John Arnold
Auxiliary Bishop in Westminster

----

Saturday 20 November at 11.30 am
ST JAMES’ CHURCH
Spanish Place, George St,
London W1
Confirmations in the Traditional Latin Rite
followed by Pontifical Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament
With Rt Rev. George Stack
Auxiliary Bishop in Westminster

What to do when your seminary closes?

Open it again!
(...but with a somewhat different ethos).

I had meant to give mention to the story of bishop Marc Aillet and his seminary when it appeared at the beginning of September but in the light of recent news up here it still seems worth mentioning it. The Eponymous Flower has provided a translation of the original story which was on the French Perepiscopus blog although the link given by the MessainLatino blog doesn`t seem to work any longer. (A German version is still available.)

The seminary in Bayonne closed ten years ago. At the time this was said to be, according to the out-going rector, a chance for the Church to break new ground. ( The usual stuff we can expect to hear again regarding Ushaw.) Last month the bishop opened his new seminary with eleven seminarians, another two in the pre-seminary year (see picture above) and an emphasis on the `hermeneutic of continuity` in the life of the seminary. Bishop Aillet is a great friend of the Extraordinary Form and has performed ordinations for the Institute of the Good Shepherd. The diocesan website has an account of the Mass for the opening of the seminary here.

Ushaw College to close in June 2011

I`ve just had an email with a press release announcing the closure of Ushaw college in 2011. I`m very sad to hear the news as it is a place of great importance in the history of the Catholic Church in England and especially the North East. It drove me mad at times when I was there but I find it hard to think that it will no longer exist. I wonder what will happen to the site?

A quotation from the press release:

In recent years, Ushaw College has developed to blend heritage with advancement while maintaining its core function of the formation of priests to help renew and continue the work of the Roman Catholic Church in the region. Currently, there are 26 seminarians in formation at St Cuthbert’s Seminary and once they have completed this year’s studies, it is proposed that they will transfer to another seminary.

Archbishop Patrick Kelly, Chair of Trustees said: “This is one of the most difficult proposals that we as Trustees have had to make, not least because of the excellence of the formation our students are receiving.”

Monsignor John Marsland, President of the College, expressed his sorrow at the proposal: “Ushaw has a long history within the Roman Catholic Church and words cannot express how sad we are that we are considering such a drastic step.

“We have long tried to find a development partner and it would be nice to believe that a partner will still come forward with a viable business plan but unfortunately time is running out and we have to face the reality of the situation we are in.”

North East Catholic History Society

I must write about last week`s trip (for canon law purposes) to Rome but I just wanted to make amention of the new programme of lectures organised by the NECHS which start this Wednesday with George Thornton speaking about `St Robert of Newminster and the early Cistercians` We begin at 2.15pm and meet at St Andrew`s, Worswick St, Newcastle. More details here.

Google Translate

Google Translate now offers Latin as one of its languages. However it is far from perfect as yet. Try for example `Quid pro quo` a common Latin phrase that it might be expected to deal with and you get `What happens in Vegas`! `Veni, vidi, vici` is a bit better but not all there in that it gives `I came, I saw the street of`. Strangely however entering Te igitur clementissime Pater per Iesum Christum Filium tuum Dominum nostrum, supplices rogamus ac petimus uti accepta habeas et benedicas haec dona, haec munera, haec sancta sacrificia illibata in primis quae tibi offerimus pro Ecclesia tua sancta catholica` results in a good translation. I`ll have to try the rest and see how it compares to the new translation.

It seems more successful in translating English into Latin although I`ve not tried very much.

Papal Visit etc

Apologies to all those who have been asking me to add a new post for my absence. There was the papal visit and then the Forty Hours. It took a couple of days to recover from the Forty Hours as I had to close the church at 1am and then open up again at 6am. I`m glad to say that all went well although I wish I could motivate more parishioners to take a turn. One thing I hadn`t made clear was what the Holy Hour on Monday night would be. I had prepared an hour of material on Newman and went into church at 8pm to find only one person watching so I thought it best to leave it to another time.

I missed quite a lot of the papal visit with leaving Newcastle for London on the Thursday after waving off our parishioners on the bus to Bellahouston. However I tried to keep up with the news via the internet and once I heard there were 125,000 people lining the route in Edinburgh and less than 150 protesters it seemed things were going to go OK. I had been saying to people that I was sure that once Pope Benedict got here and they saw him and heard him then things would be fine. I said this keeping my fingers crossed. However things just seemed to get better and better as the visit went on.

I planned to leave at 6am to get to Westminster cathedral for 7am on the Saturday. What I wasn`t planning was waking up at 4.30 and not being able to get back to sleep! It was exciting to drive down a deserted Mall and see it lined with Papal flags and Union Jacks. Security at the cathedral wasn`t as time-consuming as I thought it would be and I was son in the cathedral hall where tea, coffee and biscuits were available. It was strange to think I had been there earlier in the year to talk at the LMS AGM. Slowly the hall filled with priests and it was fascinating to meet priests I`d not seen since leaving Ushaw in 1988. It was good to meet other old friends too.

The Mass was a tremendous event. I liked the MacMillan Tu es Petrus. It was fabulous to hear the Byrd five-part Mass being sung at a papal Mass in Westminster cathedral with the archbishop of Canterbury in the sanctuary, kneeling for the consecration. It made me wonder what those who first heard that Mass sung in recusant days would have thought. It was interesting to see the archbishop of Canterbury exhibiting signs of knowledge of the EF as he crossed himself at the end of both the Gloria and the Creed!

I was back in Newcastle by 9 at night. After Mass on Sunday I spent most of the day watching the news and trying to catch up with what I`d missed. I particularly wanted to see coverage of the Big Assembly as our head from St Stephen`s, Longbenton had gone down with two children from the school and he had texted me to say they were in the front row. They had a fabulous time.

It was interesting to hear the Holy Father remind the bishops abot the new translation of the Ordinary Form and Anglicanorum Coetibus. No mention of Summorum Pontificum however! Oh well.

I personally did find it all a time for faith (and hope) to be strengthened. What else is there left for this Pope to do? My hope now is that he manages to visit Moscow and build a path to unity with the Orthodox.

The Forty Hours at Forest Hall

I am very glad to say that we will be holding the Forty Hours at St Mary`s again next week. I introduced this last year and it went very well. Unfortunately some of the people who volunteered for the night watching last year have moved away from Tyneside and this year no-one stepped into their shoes so, for the first time I`ve been involved with the Forty Hours, it won`t be possible to watch all through the nights. We will stop at 1am and resume at 6am. The Forty Hours is always a favourite time of mine and I`m sure it is a time of grace for a parish. If you are in the area from 6pm on Sunday to 10am on Tuesday do call in. Above is a picture from last year.

Third Anniversary of Summorum Pontificum

Today marks the third anniversary of the coming into effect of the provisions of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. It is a day to celebrate.

I first became interested in the Extraordinary Form in 1982. It happened through reading books. I was a Carmelite novice at the time and just felt something was wrong. I found old copies of Christian Order in the cellar at the Boars Hill priory and thought I wanted to find out more so I got in touch with Miss Pond who ran the Oxford SSPX Mass centre. However shortly after that I decided to leave the Carmelites as I became more convinvced it was not for me and returned to Newcastle where I went to the SSPX Mass centre at the Station Hotel for a while until I was accepted for seminary. On seeing the Latin Mass I felt immediately at home. I didn`t make too much of a secret of my preference at seminary at Ushaw but somehow survived and said my first public Mass in the EF on a visit to Wigratzbad in 1989 and first public Mass in the diocese at St Dominic`s in Newcastle in 1992 on my return from further studies in Rome.

What difference did 2007 make? Well I now say an EF Mass every day but Sunday (!) and say the 1960 breviary. The EF is slowly getting ito the mainstream although still in the face of opposition and apathy. One of the best bits of news recently was the decision by the Dominicans of Province of St Joseph in the east of the USA to ensure that all students for the priesthood learn the traditional Dominican rite. I`m sure others will follow and seminaries will start teaching the EF as a normal part of formation.

I used to joke that instead of being born in 1959 I wished that I was leaving the world then. However recently I`ve been thinking about that and have my doubts. After all there was an expectation of liturgical change through most of the 20th century up to the introduction of the Novus Ordo. My seminary rector told me that people who spoke about a vernacular liturgy in the 1950s were regarded as cranks but I`m sure anyone who at that time kept up to date with the latest thinking would have known what to expect at Vatican II. Rubricarius is good at reminding us of this. However in recent years new scholarship has called into question many of the assumptions of the reformers. The work of Mgr Gamber, CIEL and others has led the way. We probably now know more about the EF or `Gregorian Rite` than ever before and understand more deeply why things were as they were. I`m enjoying reading at the moment Margaret Barker`s The Great High Priest: the Temple Roots of the Christian Liturgy whose title speaks for itself and gives a view of Christian liturgical origins wholly different from what I was taught at seminary.

The present time is probably one of the most exciting times to be around as the tradition is explored and new findings applied. Progress can be very slow but it is happening.

In all this Joseph Ratzinger has given the lead. That is why I am very excited about his visit to this country and looking forward to Mass at Westminster cathedral on Saturday.

Brinkburn 2010

Yesterday the annual Brinkburn Mass took place. Many thanks to the Rudgates who travelled all the way from Yorkshire and sang Tallis` Mass in four parts as well as two Monteverdi pieces. Thanks also to the Jarrow schola and to organist Peter Locke. The weather was lovely and the congregation was larger than in recent years. I estimated the congregation to be about 80-90 strong. The increase may have been thanks to David and Theresa O`Neill our diocesan LMS reps who sent out posters to parishes in the area. The celebrant was Fr Swales, the deacon, Fr Phillips and I was subdeacon. Thanks to our servers and those who prepared the food for afterwards and anyone else who helped in any way.

Here are a few pictures by Frank and Mike.

Missa Brevis

When people say they want modern music at Mass, not all that Gregorian chant, Palestrina and Mozart, what would they think if they got this? It`s from 1968 and so is post-conciliar.

I first came across this at the Aldeburgh festival a few years ago when Brian Ferneyhough was the featured composer. I wonder if it has ever been performed at a Mass? Don`t give up after a few seconds: it gets more exciting at the 3.10 mark.

The Kyrie and Gloria:

The Sanctus and Agnus Dei:

Pantokrator installed!

I have been meaning to get back to the blog for quite a while but never seemed to manage it. I was going to write about my trip to Scotland. No sooner had Fr Briggs returned from his trip to France with Fr Finigan as recorded on the Hermeneutic than after a busy weekend in his parish he set off north to join me at the Edinburgh Festival and a couple of days in St Andrews. I had meant to write about finally fulfilling a long held ambition to get to Dunfermline and what I learnt about the bones of St Andrew and St Wilfrid but it was the arrival of Davey and Brian, the joiners, to set up the Pantokrator icon (which I have discovered is known as Christ the Teacher if the book is open) which eventually got me to the computer keyboard. It was on Tuesday this week that they came and did a very good job in setting up the icon. You can see the results below. I think it completely transforms the feel of the church. I look forward to hearing what the parishioners think at the weekend. I do agree with comments made on the previous posting that we could do with an altar frontal and hope to do something about that. Well done Sr Petra Clare and thank you.