Infelix Ego

Water discovered to be wet, and other extraordinary news

2011-02-16T12:43:00.004-08:00

Although Melancholicus has not posted in over a year and doubted he would do so again, he is just so exercised by the smug hypocrisy of Catholic Radio that he absolutely must vent or else burst a blood vessel.

Yesterday evening, en route to the adoration chapel at Holy Cross parish in Tacoma, Melancholicus amused himself by listening to EWTN on AM 1050, which he often finds both edifying and consoling. But occasionally this station strikes a jarring note: at the end of Patrick Madrid’s apologetics programme, there was a three-minute vignette in which the announcer instructed his listeners on how the Second Vatican Council promoted the use of the Latin language in the celebration of the sacred liturgy, liberally quoting from Sacrosanctum Concilium in support of his position.

Yes, really.

The reader might think Melancholicus ought to have been pleased with this promotion of the sacred language of the Church.

He was not. On the contrary, he was absolutely infuriated.

So, Mr. neo-catholic radio announcer, the Church encourages the use of Latin in the liturgy, does she? And your beloved Second Vatican Council actually endorses this position, does it?

This is what Traditionalists have been arguing FOR DECADES, you clueless twit. And for our pains we have been castigated, condemned, harangued, berated, dismissed as ‘schismatic’, ‘disobedient’ among other unflattering epithets—and this by neo-catholics of the same ilk as our smug EWTN radio announcer. So Melancholicus is not amused when these johnny-come-latelys have suddenly discovered, to their own satisfaction, what we have been saying all along. Has it really taken our neo-catholic brethren FORTY YEARS to find out what Sacrosanctum Concilium really teaches about the liturgy? Melancholicus is not impressed. Nor have Traditionalists been given the credit for this belated realization; the breezy confidence of the announcer suggests a different source for this amazing discovery.

So, which source?

Since the 2005 elevation of Benedict XVI to the Throne of Peter, the Holy See has been gently but persistently urging the celebration of the liturgy in a decidedly more traditional direction. The neo-catholics, given their overall whatever-proceeds-from-the-Vatican-is-necessarily-good-and-we-must-do-it attitude are simply following the lead of the hierarchy; nothing more.

We might be pleased that the neo-catholics are finally (and not before time) talking sense where the liturgy is concerned. But here is the cause of Melancholicus’ vexation: they are doing so not from a conviction of truth but because of a political position. Restoration is authority’s policy of the hour. As the attitude of the neo-catholics is essentially to blow along with the prevailing wind, they have obediently fallen into step and are obligingly pushing Latin and even—mirabile dictu—the Traditional Mass. A change of leadership in the Vatican (not beyond the bounds of possibility) could see the policy of restoration abandoned, new life breathed into the culture of conciliar novelties, and we would be back to the 1970s again. The response of the neo-catholics—ever predictable—would be to fall into line with the ‘renewalists’; gone would be the calls to re-examine the sources, gone would be the promotion of Latin, sacred chant and the eastward position, and Traditionalists would be fighting their lonely battles once again as we did in the dark days of the Tabletistas’ reign supreme.

Buan

2010-02-05T10:49:00.006-08:00

The toy manufacturer Hasbro has launched a Ouija board, packaged in a cutesy pink box which serves to make the thing look innocent and harmless, and targeted at children (especially girls) ages 8 and up. There is also a glow-in-the-dark version available more likely to appeal to boys. How diabolical is that?

Ouija boards are not toys. They should not be used by children, or by anyone for that matter. One should not even have such things in one’s house. Ouija boards are nothing to fool with. The user is like a child tinkering with a telephone, dialling numbers at random, without knowing who will answer, except that in the case of the Ouija board the potential threats are much more severe, and the potential consequences that much more horrifying.

One does not expose oneself to such danger. It is possible that nothing may happen. It is equally possible that some form of demonic infestation may result. One does not want to invite a demon into one’s home, where the creature may then lodge and cause mayhem, requiring an exorcism to banish its baleful presence. One certainly does not wish to expose oneself to the danger of being taken over personally—of being possessed—by such a presence. Despite the scepticism of the moderns, evil spirits are as real as anything in the material world. Documented cases exist in which the unhappy user of the ouija board came to grief and had to be rescued—at great physical, psychological and spiritual cost—by the Catholic Church.

Here is a story related by one of the commentator’s on Fr. Z’s blog about his youthful encounter with a ouija board. It makes chilling reading. Of particular interest is the name that the spirit gave as its own:

I was cleaning out the attic in my parents’ house back in the mid eighties and came upon a box containing a Ouija board. As a child, I had absorbed all the devilish lore connected with these things though I had never actually seen one.

So it was with some trepidation that I lifted the cursed object from its cardboard coffin. It seemed to exude a sulphurous stench and a lambent glow emanated from it there in the dimly lit garret. A icy shiver of palpable terror paralyzed me for several minutes until my sense of rationality brought me back to reality. I resolved to test this oaken oracle and began by asking it simple questions.

Are you the devil? N-O, it spelled out. Well, that was a relief.

Do you know the devil? Y-E-S. The sense of terror crept back.

Do you have a name? Y-E-S. It always helps to find out a person’s name, both in the natural and supernatural realms. Just ask Moses.

Can you tell me your name? Y-E-S. Sociable little ghost, this. The pungent sulphurous reek intensified and a diaphanous vapor rose up from the board.

OK, what is it? Nothing. At least, at first. Then slowly the triangle began to move, seemingly aimlessly then with determination. One by one the letters were selected. B-U-A-N. What? That’s not a name. I asked for the name again. B-U-A-N. I could make no sense of it. I tried yet a third time. B-U-A-N. The stench suddenly became asphyxiating and I was aware of the sound of crackling flames and gnashing teeth. I knew I was in the presence of something malevolent and unholy and I fled from the attic in horror.

The next day I summoned my courage and ventured back into the devil’s aerie. I found the Ouija board completely charred and the floor partially scorched. Though it was a hot and humid day, the attic had a glacial almost unearthly chill. I buried the board in the back yard and put it out of my mind.

Several years later, after the death of my mother, I was walking in the old neighborhood and struck up a conversation with the new owner of the house. He had been mowing and raking and mentioned in passing that in one corner no grass would grow and flowers that his wife had planted immediately withered and died. Where? I asked. As he pointed to the spot I realized with horror that it was there that I had buried the hellish tablet.

I never learned the meaning of the demon’s name: BUAN. But I do believe that there is such a malignant spirit who wanders the world seeking the ruin of souls.

There is no demon that Melancholicus can find that goes by the name Buan, at least none that is known to the internet. There are numerous other occurrences of the name (it is not uncommon as a surname in certain parts of the world) in both private and commercial capacities. Preternaturally, a search for Buan returns just one hit; the moon goddess of Tagalog mythology carries this name. Melancholicus knows nothing of Philippine mythology, but to judge from the Wikipedia excursus wherein she is mentioned, this Buan has been cast in a benign role rather than anything menacing or threatening.

HOWEVER:

There is at least one instance of the name Buan being used in a demonic capacity, one not unconnected with the ‘reform’ of the Roman liturgy after Vatican II. The rumours of lodge membership which have attached themselves to the architect of the ‘reform’—Archbishop Annibale Bugnini—are well known, and can be found in print as well as on several websites. Bugnini’s name in freemasonry is supposed to have been Buan. Now while a Mason by the name of Buan was named in the dossiers found in Bugnini’s briefcase, it has not been proved conclusively that this Buan was in fact Bugnini himself, who to his dying day denied any association with freemasonry—but for which we have only his word, and nothing more. Dare we take him on trust? The devious cunning to which he resorted to bully and manipulate Paul VI during his years as liturgical commissar would seem to indicate a man neither entirely worthy of trust nor of great integrity.

For more in this regard, see this page on the website of Inside the Vatican, passim.

The above story describes an event which took place in the mid 1980s. Bugnini died in 1982. Could he possibly have been the Buan who spoke to Fr. Z’s commentator? Melancholicus does not believe that the spirits of the dead are at liberty to communicate with the living, even by such media as the ouija board, without special permission from almighty God. One should hope at least that Bugnini himself were not the Buan in question, as the phenomena of stench and burning which accompanied the communications would seem to indicate the great misfortune of a damned soul. Melancholicus is most vexed with Mgr. Bugnini over what he did to the liturgy, but he does not wish the fellow damned for it.

Or else it was a demon. Perhaps this demon is the very one whose name Mgr. Bugnini adopted in the lodge all those years ago. Co-incidence? Maybe so. But it’s a small world.

The motion for debate

2010-02-04T17:05:00.006-08:00

That this house believes Vatican II was the Catholic Church’s Haiti.

Ideas?

Conciliar renewal a tremendous success in Holland

2010-01-22T14:57:00.011-08:00

Not.

Because from where Melancholicus stands, he can see only devastation.

Perhaps the feverish apostles of aggiornamento will continue to claim that the renewal has been a great success, but that more time is needed for the good fruits to shine through.

To which Melancholicus replies that forty-five years is more than time enough, and that the fruits were incomparably better before the ‘renewal’ than after it.

Is it not a scandal, for instance, that the Mahometan holy month of Ramadan rings more bells among Dutch Catholics than does our own Christmas?

Or that the Dutch province of the Dominican Order promotes—in all seriousness—the celebration of ‘Masses’ by non-ordained persons of all genders and sexual orientations?

Adrianus Cardinal Simonis, Archbishop-Emeritus of Utrecht, has given an interview to the Italian newspaper Avvenire, which may be read here (scroll down).

The interview is titled Two generations have been lost, which itself is telling.

The whole may be summed up in the following quote: “It is a matter of starting over from the beginning, and within a culture that is indifferent to Christianity, among less than friendly media”.

The comparison drawn by C. S. Lewis between the virgin and the divorcee comes to mind.

Was this what Vatican II intended?

How could they have got it all so horrendously wrong?

It is encouraging to hear that there are now 45 students at the seminary in Haarlem. But what are they being taught, and who is teaching them? Melancholicus cannot imagine that Dutch seminaries (perhaps Haarlem is the only one left functioning in the country, as Maynooth is the only seminary still open in Ireland) are in much better shape than similar institutions in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland.

The Netherlands, which until the catastrophe was (with Ireland) one of the foremost sources of vocations and missionaries, is now itself mission territory.

Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

How the election result went down in Berlin

2010-01-21T14:48:00.004-08:00

Melancholicus is not normally given to much of an interest in American politics, but now that he lives in the U.S. he may as well bestir himself from his customary apathy and pass the occasional comment.

As most will know by now, the late Edward Kennedy’s seat in the Senate has gone to the Republican Scott Brown instead of the favourite, Democrat Martha Coakley.

Here’s how Herr Hitler took the news of the Democrats’ defeat. This is just too funny.

H/T to the St. Louis Catholic.

When the shepherd becomes a wolf...

2010-01-21T14:47:00.012-08:00

...the flock has a right to defend itself.

Actually, according to Dom Prosper Gueranger, that right is more of a duty. Gueranger was referring to the protest registered by the layman Eusebius against the heresy of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who in his Christmas Day sermon in the year 428 denied the Divine Maternity of our Blessed Lady before the entire congregation.

In the recent brouhaha in the church of Saint-Taurin, Thiberville, in the French diocese of Evreux, we see the lay faithful doing just what Eusebius did nearly sixteen centuries ago by rising up in wrath against their perfidious bishop and ejecting him from their church.

The bishop of Evreux, Mgr. Christian Nourrichard, removed the orthodox and traditionally-minded pastor, Abbé Francis Michel, and re-assigned him to a ministry among liberals. The faithful of Saint-Taurin were doubly upset since not only did they lose their priest thereby, but his traditional sacerdotal ministry was to be replaced, in true modernist fashion, by that of a ‘team’.

It might be objected that Mgr. Nourrichard’s crime was not of the same order as that of Nestorius; it cannot be claimed, for instance, that he openly denied a defined doctrine of the Church, and he violated no law, either civil or ecclesiastical.

Nonetheless, what the bishop was doing amounted to taking away the people’s bread in order to feed them with stones instead, a move in which we cannot help but discern ideological partiality in the post-conciliar religious wars within the Church.

“Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? Or if he shall ask him a fish, will he reach him a serpent?”—Mt. 7:9-10.

Mgr. Nourrichard’s contempt for the faithful of Saint-Taurin is emblazoned forth on the silly chasuble he chose for the occasion—rainbow colours more suited to a children’s birthday party than to the most holy sacrifice of the Mass. Furthermore, he cannot have been ignorant of the significance of the rainbow to the homosexualist movement, and the consequent scandal to the faithful on that account. What kind of statement was he attempting to make with such provocative gestures? The faithful of Saint-Taurin seem to have been in no doubt as to their bishop’s intentions.

Happily, the flock would not meekly submit to this wolf in sheep’s clothing. Their resistance was offered immediately and with great heat, as may be seen in the remarkable video footage below:

And this:

And this, courtesy of the French network TFI:

After a meeting with the Apostolic Nuncio, we are informed that Mgr. Nourrichard has “changed his mind”, and that Abbé Francis Michel is to remain in charge of Saint-Taurin, at least for the foreseeable future.

Concern has been expressed in certain quarters of the blogosphere regarding the reaction of the congregation to Mgr. Nourrichard’s behaviour. Some commentators were unhappy that the bishop was booed and heckled in the sanctuary, and that voices were raised in anger before the very altar of God. Likewise, concerns have been raised regarding obedience to legitimate authority. It is a difficult question, and we must not lightly toss aside the obedience and filial respect we owe to our spiritual shepherds. Melancholicus has considered the matter carefully over several days but in the end must come down on the side of the congregation of Saint-Taurin. For Mgr. Nourrichard’s actions do not constitute the exercise of lawful authority so much as the abuse of it. Recalling Dom Gueranger, when the shepherd becomes a wolf, the flock has a right to defend itself. The flock likewise has a right to bread rather than stones, and fish rather than serpents. We have scriptural precedents for dramatic, even violent, resistance to attempts to weaken or destroy the sacredness of holy religion: Mattathias slaying the apostate Jew on the altar of sacrifice (I Macc. 2:23-4), and the Lord Jesus driving forth the moneychangers from the Temple (Mt. 21:12-13), to recall but two such.

What the faithful of Saint-Taurin did was necessary. It may indeed be regrettable; but what is most regrettable is that they had to do it in the first place—for which Mgr. Nourrichard, and he alone, bears the responsibility.

The ranks are thinning

2010-01-18T16:27:00.016-08:00

Each passing year reduces the roll of notoriety still further, for which we give thanks unto almighty God.

We shall never be entirely free from the baleful influence of the partisans of error, for there shall never lack those whom the devil shall excite with evil rage against the servants of the Lord.

But lately we have been informed of the repose of three whose names were hateful to the saints:

Alfred Hrdlicka, pornographer, blasphemer, ‘artist’ and self-described Stalinist, who went to his reward on 5 December 2009. He received a Catholic funeral courtesy of his good friend Christoph Cardinal Schönborn;
Theologian and conciliar peritus Edward Schillebeeckx, the mastermind behind the confusion of Lumen Gentium and the heresies of the Dutch Catechism (among sundry other notorieties), who fell asleep on 23 December 2009; and
Mary Daly, the bitter and fanatical feminist ‘theologian’ whose anti-Christian and neo-pagan courses (at the Jesuit-run Boston college!) were off-limits to male students, and whom the Almighty mercifully took from our midst on 3 Jan 2010.

All three had an impact either upon the Church or upon contemporary culture (sometimes both), and this impact was less than beneficial to the health of the body politic.

Liberal blogs and websites are teeming with fulsome tributes to these purported ‘giants’ of theology; check out some of the obituaries here.

Fr. Schillebeeckx may have been more subtle and less stridently revolutionary than the other two, but his theology places him firmly in their camp. Furthermore, 95 years is far too long a time for such a dissident to be stuck in the craw of the Mystical Body; he certainly overstayed his welcome.

May God have mercy on their souls, but Melancholicus does not mourn their passing.

Step by step, people.

Step by step.

Papabile?

2010-01-18T15:58:00.012-08:00

Someone (preferably a figure of authority in the Congregation for Divine Worship) should inform this man that yellow is not a liturgical colour, nor is blue; and that the use of kiddie balloons is not prescribed by the rubrics of any liturgical ceremony, past or present, known to the Catholic Church.

This is the same Schönborn who only a few weeks ago granted a Catholic funeral to the perverted artist and self-described Stalinist Alfred Hrdlicka, who undertook a visit to Medjugorje without taking the trouble to inform the local ordinary, Mgr. Ratko Peric, thereby lending that nest of racketeers a boost of credibility at precisely the time that the Holy See is preparing the Church to distance herself from what is undoubtedly a manifest hoax, and who at home has presided over some decidedly gruesome liturgical atrocities, at precisely the same time as our Holy Father is attempting to restore a modicum of dignity and solemnity to the post-conciliar Mass. Each step taken by the Holy See to repair the damage wrought by the ‘Spirit of Vatican II’ is countered by a step in the opposite direction by Schönborn and that with the most remarkable if not coincidental timing. Perhaps the man is merely prone to making the most unfortunate gaffes, but it looks more as though his words and actions indicate an ideological agenda at variance with the Benedictine restoration of the Church. Astonishingly, not a few Catholics seem to think that this man is solidly on our side, God knoweth how. There is even a website devoted to him which, although not quite in the same league as the former Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club, is nonetheless a worrying testament to the esteem in which he is held. During the latter years of John Paul II, Schönborn was described as papabile by innumerable publications, and the aura of misplaced mystique surrounding this vastly overrated prelate has still not been extinguished.

Christoph Schönborn was born in 1945. As of this January 22, he is 65 years old—still young and vigorous enough, and popular enough, to be a threat at the conclave which shall choose the successor to Benedict XVI. Despite his chances having been talked up by both Catholic and secular sources in advance of the 2005 conclave, he seems never to have been in the running, and in the end the Church was blessed with Papa Ratzinger instead. But what of the future? A few years ago Milan’s Tettamanzi was touted by conservative sources as a great catch, and what wonders wouldn’t he do for the Church were he raised to the throne of Peter! He might not be a screaming liberal in the vein of his predecessor Carlo Maria Martini, but fortunately the man’s open ambition as well as his questionable views on homosexuality were sufficient to prevent the scandal of a Tettamanzi pontificate. We need the same thing to happen again in the case of Christoph Schönborn, because the election of a pope is as much about keeping the wrong man out as it is about getting the right man in.

If Schönborn were elected, we would have a John Paul III, even if this were not the name chosen by the new pope. Like his namesake he would be generally orthodox, especially on issues pertaining to life and the family. But he would be politically confused, and inclined for some ill-thought-out idealism to favour the Left. He might be given to making regrettable concessions on that account. He might be as ecumenically unfortunate as his namesake, and prone to making the most inopportune overtures to liberal protestants, to secular Jews, to Muslims and even to pagans. His liturgical sense would be non-existent, at least if his track record in the Archdiocese of Vienna is anything to go by. And since he is young (relatively speaking), we could expect his pontificate to be a long one. His rule over the Church would be lenient to the point of negligence. Time perhaps for the Benedictine reform of the Church and of the liturgy to be put on hold for a while; time for a new breath of life to be breathed into the ailing revolution. Holy God forfend.

The only difference Melancholicus can see between John Paul II and this putative ‘John Paul III’ is that in the pontificate of the former, the revolutionaries were both more vigorous and more numerous. As of this writing, death and retirement have—Deo gratias—removed a good many of them from the scene. But the Mystical Body must be built up by example, exhortation and action; while the house lies in ruins it is not sufficient to be content that the wreckers are fewer in number than hitherto.

Melancholicus does not wish to shove his oar in in electing the next pope, so he shall propose no ideal candidate. That is a matter for the Holy Ghost and for the Cardinal electors.

But we can do better than Christoph Schönborn.

A great deal better.

UPDATE: a much fuller and even more depressing summary of Cardinal Schönborn’s trespasses is provided here.

Answered prayers

2010-01-17T20:53:00.006-08:00

The Old Mass comes to Bremerton... sort of.

Recovering from his vexation at the awfulness of the ars celebrandi of this morning’s parish Mass, Melancholicus found the following nugget of good news in the St. Charles parish bulletin, dated 17 January 2010:

Traditional Latin Mass: Fr. Derek Lappe will offer a Tridentine or Traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Rite) at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, in Bremerton, on Tuesday, January 19th at 7:00 PM. The Mass will use the 1962 Roman Missal; Missals with Latin and English, and Mass Propers, will be provided for use at the Mass. Everyone is invited to experience the meaning and spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Church is located at 500 Veneta Ave in Bremerton. Street parking is available around the Church.

After January 19th, the Tridentine Latin Mass will be celebrated the 3rd Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM.

Hurrah and hurrah! This is indeed a tender green shoot thrusting gingerly up through the frozen crust of the post-conciliar earth. Melancholicus will not be able to attend, alas. Bremerton is hardly any closer to Tacoma than Seattle, and as he does not yet have a Washington driver’s licence, he is confined to the immediate locality. But it is nonetheless a cause for great rejoicing that even in the God-forsaken hell-hole that is the Seattle Archdiocese, life seems to be returning by degrees. Let us give thanks to almighty God, and pray for Fr. Lappe and for Archbishop Brunett.

Melancholicus has no idea whose initiative this is, whether that of Fr. Lappe himself, or of his parishioners. Significantly, Fr. Lappe is the pastor of Our Lady Star of the Sea, where the Mass is to be held. He was born in 1972, hence is the same age as Melancholicus. Through vigorous young priests like this, who have no investment in the ideological baggage of the 1960s, the Church will be restored in the twenty-first century to something of the shape she had before the catastrophe.

There is as yet no mention of the Mass on the website of Una Voce Western Washington (which does not seem to have been updated since 2008). Even though this is not a Sunday Mass and is to be celebrated only on the third Tuesday of each month (requiring careful time-keeping by those who wish to assist at it), it is a beginning; it is a step in the right direction. We note in passing that as a result of this celebration “Everyone is invited to experience the meaning and spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”, which is tantamount to conceding that the meaning and spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice are obscured in the modern rite! As the late Michael Davies remarked on more than one occasion, “No one who attends a Mass celebrated in one of the traditional rites of the Catholic Church could doubt that he was present at a solemn sacrifice. But no one who attends Mass as it is said in a typical parish church today could know that he was at a solemn sacrifice unless he had been informed of the fact beforehand”.

Kudos to St. Charles Borromeo parish for publicizing this Mass. There is as yet no celebration of the old rite in Tacoma. Shortly after his arrival, Melancholicus was told of a Traditional Mass in St. Mary’s on 138th st, which caused him great excitement. Upon investigating further, he was disappointed to discover this is not a licit Mass offered by priests in communion with the Catholic Church, but the local base of CMRI, a sedevacantist outfit headed by a Thuc-line bishop (whose orders may or may not be valid). Bally heck, one may as well go worship with the Anglicans.

The Bug

2010-01-17T13:32:00.004-08:00

The Bugnini died in 1982, and—happily for those of us who seek some measure of beauty and solemnity in public worship—is still dead.

Long may he remain so.

Now all we need do is wait for his disciples to join him.

How long, O Lord, how long?

An Ode

2010-01-17T13:31:00.008-08:00

One would rather—à la Keats—expound on a Grecian urn, but the subject of the present composition is Bugnini’s liturgy.

So here goes:

[clears throat]

Bugnini’s Mass
Sucks ass!

Do not be scandalized, gentle reader; this wee couplet is a fitting tribute to its subject, for it is to poetry what Bugnini’s ordo is to liturgy. And the object of our opprobrium is not of course the Holy Sacrifice itself (that would be blasphemy), but the horizontal and inferior rite whereby that Sacrifice is manifested on our altars.

Ordinary Time

2010-01-17T13:30:00.004-08:00

So, this is it.

The dreaded green season.

Ordinary Time^TM has returned to the parish of St. Charles Borromeo.

Christmastide and Epiphanytide have gone, and with them has gone the (reasonably) solemn or at least tolerable hymnody that OCP’s ‘heritage’ missal provides for those occasions.

The preening songstress seems to be delighted that such solemn festivals are now over, and that we are back into ‘ordinary’ time, which in turn calls for ‘ordinary’ music, for this morning she assaulted the ‘gathered assembly’ with a barrage of the hippest and most happenin’ dreck from the 1970s and 1980s.

Guess who held the copyright to the pieces of ‘music’ selected?

Yes, gentle reader, it was our good friends at OCP.

Not one of the selections was singable. Not one! Furthermore, all of them were about “us”.

Melancholicus declined to join in the singing, since not only does he abhor bad taste, but he does not go to church on Sunday morning to celebrate himself.

An heretical thought

2010-01-17T13:29:00.007-08:00

...passed through Melancholicus’ mind this morning, him having been dragged from his bed to attend 8am Mass on a cold and rainy morning, and as he settled himself painfully into his pew among the wretched ‘heritage’ missals and ‘gather’ hymnals and listened aghast to the execrable plinkety-plonk of the church piano hammering out some happenin’ ditty courtesy of OCP, he suddenly thought

“I wish this was Episcopalian”.

Meaning not the presidency of a half-lesbian, half-Muslim bishoppess, but the traditional piety and decorum of the Book of Common Prayer (1928), for in the latter case, the liturgy would at least be decent.

There is a Continuing Anglican church within walking distance of Melancholicus’ house. He has not yet checked it out, and so far has resisted the temptation to do so.

But there is no Traditional Latin Mass within easy reach, and the Amchurch version of the Novus Ordo is a parody of itself and often beyond endurance. Melancholicus has never seen a religious rite as degraded and horizontal.

How long, O Lord, how long?

New year, new title, new look

2010-01-11T14:45:00.016-08:00

Sunrise.

The winter is past... sort of.

The dawn is chilly, with lingering traces of night, but it is dawn nonetheless. The LORD God is still in His heaven after all, and all things are in His hand.

There is much fighting to do before we take possession of the promised land. We cannot lay down our arms yet. Our foes are still numerous, and powerful. At this critical moment we must storm heaven with our prayers, and set to the combat with every means at our disposal. This is not the time for softness, or for the taking of prisoners.

But our battle-cry shall not be a self-pitying Infelix Ego, but instead a cry of confidence in the power of almighty God, and His power to save us from our enemies, and the hand of all that hate us.

Lux Fulgebit! as the introit from the dawn Mass of Christmas day has us sing: The Light shall shine upon us today, for unto us the Lord is born! And His Name shall be called Wonderful, Mighty God, the Prince of peace, Father of the world to come, of whose kingdom there shall be no end!

Deo gratias! Let us rejoice. God is with us. We shall go forward with faith, hope and confidence in Him who is all our hope. We shall fight always, and not grow weary; we shall renew our failing strength with unceasing prayer; we shall never tire or grow faint in the face of the enemy, but harry and pursue them, giving them no rest until we have overcome them at the last. Victory belongs to us at the last, for our Lord JESUS CHRIST has already overcome the world. There remains to us only the battle, which we wage in His name against the prince of this world and his minions. We shall fight them everywhere: in the schools, in the courts of law, in government departments, in senate and parliament, in the newspapers, in the broadcast media, and in the very sanctuary of the holy Catholic Church.

We shall not let them have the easy victory they desire, for we are servants of the LORD.

Lauda, Jerusalem, Dominum; lauda Deum tuum, Sion.
Quoniam confortavit seras portarum tuarum; benedixit filiis tuis in te.
Qui posuit fines tuos pacem, et adipe frumenti satiat te — psalm 147:1-3

What the people really, really want

2010-01-10T15:42:00.007-08:00

Melancholicus was at Holy Cross parish, Tacoma, for Sunday Mass today.

The pastor, Fr. John Renggli, announced to the congregation that the questionnaires distributed to the parishioners in 2009 had been returned and the responses had been studied carefully.

The results were interesting and, from the perspective of one who seeks the authentic renewal of the Church as opposed to its continued post-conciliar deformation, a source of much-needed hope.

Those who submitted their views requested the setting up of a welcoming committee to help new members of the parish feel at home, which is a most wholesome work of charity. They also recommended the inauguration of home visits for the elderly and housebound. This is also a most worthy and wholesome work of mercy, very edifying and pleasing to almighty God. A particularly interesting request was that, since there are so many ‘women’s groups’ (of varying fidelity) in the Archdiocese, Holy Cross should establish such a group for Catholic men. In order to be successful, of course, this men’s group would have to be manly and orthodox, not liberal and limp-wristed; and there was no doubt as to which was wanted at Holy Cross parish.

Melancholicus was thrilled.

Now let us consider some demands, frequently voiced by the denizens of the conciliar church, that were conspicuous by their absence from the submissions made by the parishioners of Holy Cross:

They did not want celebrations of buggery and abortion, or the marriage of clergy, or ‘inclusive language’, or ‘inclusive liturgies’, or the ordination of wymynprysts, or the communion of the divorced and remarried, or lay ‘eucharistic presidency’, or even the tedious and predictable dissent from Humanae Vitae.

Absent also were calls for ‘relevance’, ‘meaningfulness’ and for holy Church to conform herself to the secular world.

Vox populi.

If the people had indeed made such demands, the result of the survey would have been blazed forth in every paper, in every bulletin and on every website available to the conciliar mafia ensconced in the chancery of this Archdiocese.

But because the survey yielded no ‘prophetic’ voices clamouring for ‘change’, the response of officialdom thereto shall be a discreet (if not actually sullen) silence.

One can hear a pin drop!

Striking suicide bombers

2009-12-08T15:38:00.006-08:00

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda management have so far failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% next January from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bombers’ union, the British Organisation of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action. General secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, “Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of jihad. We don’t ask for much in return but to be treated like this by management is a kick in the teeth.”

Mr Amir accepted the limited availability of virgins but pointed out that the cutbacks were expected to be borne entirely by the workforce and not by management. “Last Christmas Abu Hamza alone was awarded an annual bonus of 250,000 virgins,” complains Amir. “And you can be sure they’ll all be pretty ones too. How can Al Qaeda afford that for members of the management but not 72 for the people who do the real work?”

Speaking from the shed in the West Midlands where he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained,

“We sympathise with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day jihad, in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It’s a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don’t like cutting wages but I’d hate to have to tell 3,000 of my staff that they won’t be able to blow themselves up.”

He defended management bonuses by claiming these were necessary to attract good fanatical clerics. “How am I supposed to attract the best people if I can’t compete with the private sector?” asked Mr. Bin-Laden.

Prayers for a departed soul

2009-12-07T16:16:00.003-08:00

In your charity, gentle reader, please offer a prayer for the soul of my grandmother, Mrs. Kathleen (Mai) Brady, 19.v.1911—7.xii.1999.

She died ten years ago today.

Reflections on the feast of St. Ambrose

2009-12-07T16:15:00.001-08:00

Today is the feast of this courageous and holy saint who withstood a bloodstained Roman Emperor (Theodosius) by barring the latter from his church until he had done penance for his sin; he had slaughtered 7,000 of the inhabitants of Thessalonica in retaliation for the assassination in that city of his governing appointee. To resist a fourth-century Roman Emperor was a different matter to resisting a pro-gay, pro-abortion politician in our own time, but with only a few honourable exceptions, our bishops show themselves more timorous in dealing with such pygmies than did Ambrose with the mighty Theodosius.

A bishop truly worthy of the name.

We have lately begun a new liturgical year, and stand almost on the cusp of a new civil year. Melancholicus does not know how many episcopal Sees will become vacant in 2010, but as the world is divided into two-thousand-odd dioceses, apostolic vicariates, prefectures and administrations containing three-thousand-odd bishops (including auxiliaries, titulars and retirees), there are bound to be more than a few vacancies in the coming year. Will many of those chosen to fill vacant Sees pattern themselves on St. Ambrose, or solicit his intercession for their episcopate? Melancholicus is not confident that they will; poor-to-middling prelates seem to be a perennial fact of ecclesiastical life. But if even one of the new appointees would take Ambrose as a model, what a difference it would make to the whole world!

Links!

2009-12-03T10:38:00.004-08:00

As Melancholicus has recommenced blogging, he kindly requests his brethren (and sustren) who have removed their links to Infelix Ego owing to inactivity, to reinstate them without delay!

Pretty please, with sugar on top?

Gratias vobis,

Melancholicus, peccator.

Expect further growth in the Church of Ireland

2009-12-02T15:08:00.010-08:00

Melancholicus is sure that their Graces Harper and Neill (Church of Ireland archbishops of Armagh and Dublin respectively) are not given to schadenfreude, nor are they—however privately—enjoying the current discomfiture of their Roman Catholic opposite numbers in the wake of the horrors revealed by the Murphy Report. Both worthy prelates are undoubtedly saddened and ashamed that so many persons in sacred orders, consecrated to the service of the Lord, have stooped to such incomprehensible wickedness and that their overseers in the faith have conspired to keep such wickedness hidden from the light, with the result that its perpetrators remained at large to prey upon the innocent again and again and again.

The evil of sexual abuse is as old as humanity itself. As reprehensible as such evil is, what exercises the dismayed, disgusted and betrayed faithful most of all is not the abuse itself, but the conspiracy of silence wherein our fathers in God sought to conceal and enable it.

Melancholicus guesses that defections to the Church of Ireland—already at a level high enough to have attracted the attention of the secular press—will increase still further in this season, the Catholic hierarchy having nothing to offer their demoralized flock but politically-calculated apologies and a never-ending stream of horrendous revelations.

One might almost conclude the bishops think themselves the victims in the midst of this horror!

One wonders how Anita Henderson, wife of the Anglican bishop of Tuam, Killala and Achonry, whose 2007 conversion to the Roman faith was treated as a cause célèbre by the media, is taking these ongoing storms. She must feel that she has been shat upon by our shepherds, and in that she would not be wrong.

This disillusioned report comes from Ireland online. Melancholicus has added a few half-hearted comments in red.

Mass-goers in the heart of the Dublin Archdiocese today claimed that the devastating clerical abuse scandals were wiping out trust in the Catholic Church [unsurprising. The hierarchy seems to have learned nothing since the first spate of scandals in the early 1990s].

As the daily afternoon service began at St Mary’s Pro-Cathedral – the capital’s main parish – many people said the shocking revelations were turning away a once deeply devout nation.

Vincent McGuinness, 60, from Whitehall, said the hierarchy had been deliberately covering up the truth [this, sadly, is nothing less than the truth].

“Money won’t compensate them (the victims). What do you give someone who has been raped?” he asked.

“They’re hiding an awful lot.

“Where did they send the priests? Off to America, get them off-side.

“They’re not all bad. But... they’ve left a stain now that will never be lifted.” [Another incontrovertible truth. There are so many good priests, and a great many more mediocre ones, who are not guilty of these crimes. But the stain caused by the inaction of the bishops will not easily be erased]

Mr McGuinness said his own grown-up children refused to go to Mass because they did not trust priests [it is easy not to trust priests; Melancholicus does not trust too many of them himself. But there are probably a good many other reasons why Mr. McGuinness’ children do not practice the Catholic religion in which they were reared. At the same time as our fathers in God were enabling the deviants in their parishes, they themselves were busy destroying the faith of their flocks by implementing the conciliar revolution and then refusing to take action when it inevitably ran out of control].

“Half of this is not going to come out. What they’re doing is they’re actually censoring the damn thing before we see it,” he said [one wonders how much more there is to come... and how much more will never see the light].

A website – countmeout.ie – has been set up for disaffected Catholics who have left the church.

To date 3,365 people have completed a Declaration of Defection [As of this writing, the number has risen to 4,204].

The 19th century cathedral [actually it’s a church, not a cathedral, but we won’t get too pedantic just now], in the heart of the city, was around half full for the service, mostly with elderly women [ah, the conciliar church at prayer! This picture is hardly different from Melancholicus’ memories of youth in the early 1980s. Mind you, half-full is quite impressive, bearing in mind that if this were on a weekday, the 12:45 Mass is unlikely to be full of younger persons since these would likely be engaged in employment].

Many declined to comment, waving off questions before shuffling [?] into the large chapel [we’ve gone from a cathedral to a chapel now].

But some of those at St Mary’s claimed not to be surprised by the scale of the abuse.

Margaret Gavin, from the north inner city, said she knew many people who attended Church-run schools and saw the effect that years of physical abuse had on them.

“Yeah, it was shocking. I don’t really trust them (priests) as much now,” she said.

“In other years we were pushed to go to church, but if my children want to go to church now it’s up to them really.”

The shocking report is the third devastating scandal to rock the Catholic Church in the last four years.

Mark O’Brien, 38, now living in London but born in Dublin, was waiting on the front steps of the church to speak with a priest about a recent death in the family.

He said people were being turned away from the Church because they were not supporting their communities [they’re also overworked, and have to waste a good deal of time on bullshit busywork dreamed up by the conciliar revolutionaries—workshops and that sort of nonsense—in the frenetic and ceaseless quest for ‘renewal’. Also, a lot of priests don’t go visiting any more owing to the hostility and intimidation they often encounter when they knock on people’s doors].

“You looked up to priests for most of your life,” Mr O’Brien said.

“It’s disgusting. It’s just a disaster when you think about it.”

Annette O’Brien, from north Dublin, said only the elderly in her neighbourhood went to Mass regularly [this is true everywhere, but once again the reasons for this are deeper and more far-reaching than the disgust over clerical turpitude].

“They’ve walked away scot-free from this, the majority of them,” she said.

“I only know two priests that have done time for it, and one of them died in prison. They should be treated like everyone else if they’ve done the crime.” [it should be added that a good deal more than two priests were jailed for this crime, but it is also true that many did indeed get away scot-free; their names may be mentioned in the Ryan/Murphy Report, etc., but as they are now deceased, no action can be taken]

Countmeout.ie may be visited here. It makes illuminating if depressing reading. There are of course reasons other than sexual abuse why persons should wish to leave the Church; some of these will be apparent to anyone who takes the trouble to peruse their FAQs page. But the bishops have only themselves to blame that such a website exists.

Merely lapsing from the faith makes the return easy; a good confession and a firm purpose of amendment is all it takes to get back on an even keel again. But formal defection from the Church is quite another matter. Of course returning to the Church after formal defection is not difficult, but as defection is covered by canon law, the repentant defector may encounter certain difficulties as a result of having defected; he may not be permitted to receive sacred orders without a dispensation, for instance. As defection is a formal act, the defector must formally return to the Church before he may again receive the sacraments. While in the state of defection, such a one may be denied ecclesiastical burial, or encounter problems if he wishes to marry in church. At the same time, it is hard to imagine that any such defector would be interested in marrying in church or receiving a Catholic funeral anyway.

Expect the number of defections to rise in the coming weeks. Also expect at least some of the outgoing traffic to find its way into the Church of Ireland.

Litany for the Church

2009-12-02T15:06:00.004-08:00

Melancholicus was browsing recently through Vercillo’s Catholic book and gift shop in Tacoma, and came away with a bunch of holy cards, one of which contains this most excellent litany for the Church. Catholic readers, please publicize this widely! If many were to recite this litany once daily, with the intention that the usurping pirate that is the conciliar church be overthrown and Catholicism restored to its rightful place once again, it would give the righteous the edge in the ongoing struggle against the darkness.

Litany for the Church

Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, Divine Founder of the Church, hear us.
Christ, Who warned of false prophets, graciously hear us.
God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the World, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.
Holy Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
St. Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.
St. Michael, defender in the day of battle, pray for us.
St. Peter, the rock upon which Christ built His Church, pray for us.
St. Francis of Assisi, re-builder of the Church, pray for us.
St. Anthony, pray for us.
St. Pius V, pray for us.
St. Pius X, foe of Modernism, pray for us.
All you holy Angels and Archangels, pray that we may resist the snares of the devil.
St. Catherine of Siena, pray that Christ’s Vicar may oppose the spirit of the world.
St. John Fisher, pray that bishops may have the courage to combat heresy and irreverence.
St. Francis Xavier, pray that zeal for souls may be rekindled in the clergy.
St. Charles Borromeo, pray that seminaries may be protected from false teachings.
St. Vincent de Paul, pray that seminarians may return to a life of prayer and meditation.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus, pray that religious may rediscover their vocation of love and sacrifice.
St. Thomas More, pray that the laity may not succumb to the great apostasy.
St. Francis de Sales, pray that the Catholic press may again become a vehicle of Truth.
St. John Bosco, pray that our children may be protected from immoral and heretical instruction.
St. Pascal, pray that profound reverence for the most Blessed Sacrament may be restored.
St. Dominic, pray that we may ever treasure the holy Rosary.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Christ, hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.
V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray:

Jesus our God, in these dark hours when Thy Mystical Body is undergoing its own crucifixion, and when it would seem almost to be abandoned by God the Father, have mercy, we beseech Thee, on Thy suffering Church. Send down upon us the Divine Consoler, to enlighten our minds and strengthen our wills. Thou, O Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, Who canst neither deceive nor be deceived, hast promised to remain with Thy Church until the end of time. Give us a mighty faith that we may not falter; help us to do Thy holy will always, especially during these hours of grief and uncertainty. May Thy Most Sacred Heart, and the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Thy holy Mother, be our sure refuge in time and in eternity. Amen.

The world's newest sovereign state

2009-12-02T14:56:00.003-08:00

Melancholicus fled his Irish homeland just in time, for as from yesterday, 1 December 2009, the Republic of Ireland no longer exists—at least de jure if not quite de facto.

Other sovereign states which similiter no longer exist include the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Cyprus, and Malta. Current candidates for non-existence include Croatia, Macedonia (the Former Yugoslav Republic Of) and Turkey.

Hysterical exaggeration?

I wish that were so, but it is not. The Lisbon Treaty has been ratified by all 27 member states of the European Union, and it came into effect on Tuesday, 1 December. By means of the ratification of this treaty, the EU has been elevated to statehood; it now has its own Constitution, its own President, and its own Foreign Minister. Its already considerable powers to overrule the laws of its constituent nations have been amplified still further, and now that those constituent nations have been relegated to the status of constituent provinces, expect the emergence of a centralized European government which shall impose a uniform social and economic policy throughout its domain. The President and the Foreign Minister are only the beginning; other pan-European cabinet posts will not be long in coming. Let us recall that the Lisbon Treaty is self-emending which obviates the need for any future referenda in the process of ever-tighter integration.

What palpable difference is there in Ireland, or indeed in any of the other ~~nations~~ provinces? Did the world come to an end on 1 December? No indeed. The elevation to statehood of the EU will have silently passed many Irishmen by, as it will have done the ~~citizens~~ local inhabitants of the other provinces. Life goes on as normal. There is still an Uachtarán na hEireann, the houses of the Oireachtas are still functioning, there is still a government and there is still a Taoiseach (however unpopular he may be at present). But these have ceased to be instruments of national sovereignty, and have instead become organs of local government, for they are subject to the new Constitution of the European State. We may still choose our elected representatives on this local level; the central government, however, is composed of unelected and unaccountable officials chosen by the ensconced elites. This is the death of European democracy, as surely as it is the death of the sovereign states.

Melancholicus is not given to sentimentality, but he is grieved by the fate that has overtaken the nation which gave him birth.

The Feast of St. Andrew

2009-12-01T09:08:00.003-08:00

A day late perhaps, but better late than never.

With grateful thanks to St. Andrew for favours received. Melancholicus is certainly in much better fettle now than when he published this gloomy post two years ago.

This year Melancholicus wishes to present his readers with the collect from the 1928 American Prayer Book—we are in America now, so the American book shall be our source. Let there be no tut-tutting from pious papists; let us recall that for the most part the Prayer Book collects are of unimpeachable origin (Sarum) and that much of the traditional content of the Anglican Prayer Book has since received the approbation of the Holy See. Moreover, Melancholicus’ Roman Missal and breviary are still in transit and have not yet arrived at his new home; the only liturgical texts currently available to him are traditional Anglican or Novus Ordo—and we definitely don’t want to have to do with the latter now, do we?

THE COLLECT

ALMIGHTY GOD, who didst give such grace unto thy holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the calling of thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed Him without delay; Grant unto us all, that we, being called by thy holy Word, may forthwith give up ourselves obediently to fulfil thy holy commandments; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

My thanks to you, holy Andrew, your intercession has been powerful with God!

The Novus Ordo at 40

2009-12-01T08:25:00.008-08:00

In ancient days, the Greeks considered the age of forty to be the pinnacle of a man’s prowess and achievement. During the Golden Age of Athenian civilization in the fifth century BC, the philosophers reckoned their predecessor Thales to have been born in 625 BC* — simply by counting back forty years from the date of his greatest achievement, namely the prediction of a total solar eclipse visible from his home city of Miletus (Asia Minor) in the year 585 BC. There is no evidence that Thales was in fact forty years old in 585 BC; but to the Greeks, this did not really matter. If he were not forty at that time, then at least he ought to have been.

As of this November 30th, Pope Paul VI’s Novus Ordo Missae is now forty years old. Is it, like Thales, at the pinnacle of its accomplishments?

If those accomplishments include the liturgical presentation Catholic eucharistic theology in an ambiguous fashion, the alienation of the majority of the Catholic faithful, the triumph of a spirit of experimental mediocrity, the apotheosis of the spirit of Modern Man^TM, the replacement of stability with flux and chaos and the triumph of bad taste, then yes, the modern rite is indeed at its zenith. Or should that be nadir?

But if it was intended to deepen the faith of the Church, to promote greater comprehension of the liturgical action among the faithful, to increase devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to woo our separated brethren as well as the lapsed back into our churches... oh dear.

I know what you’re thinking. Typical tree-hugging hippie liturgy complete with goof-ballery and stealth priestesses. But take another look. It is not in fact a Novus Ordo Mass; it is a wiccan wedding, or “hand-fasting” as I believe the heathens call it. The reason I have chosen such an image to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the imposition of Bugnini’s liturgy is that there is not much to separate them, at least in terms of appearances; the mode of celebration of the now not-so-New Mass is not infrequently so casual, informal and horizontal in its ethos as to be superficially indistinguishable from protestant and even pagan ceremonies. Moreover, the spirit of liturgical experimentation which accompanied the imposition of the New Mass back in 1969 invited many flaky Aquarian celebrants readily to admit into the rite New Age elements and other ungodly words and ceremonies. Forty years on and Christ’s faithful are still waiting even for an adequate translation of the rite!

Can the Novus Ordo be fixed? Melancholicus rather doubts it. Well-meaning efforts are currently underway to patch the wretched thing up, but it was broken in its very inception, so there is in fact no optimal condition to which the rite may be restored. Melancholicus here prophesies that as time passes, those trying to repair what it beyond repair will recognize the futility of the task, and the New Mass instead will come, little by little, to resemble its Tridentine/Gregorian predecessor until the two become indistinguishable, and there is once again a single form of the Roman rite.

*For obvious reasons the ancient Greeks did not use the AD/BC dating system, much less the newfangled CE/BCE dates beloved of modern cultural revolutionaries. Melancholicus has simply taken the liberty of expressing the ancient chronology in a system familiar to his readers.

The Heritage Missal

2009-11-29T12:53:00.005-08:00

Melancholicus satisfied his first Sunday obligation of the new liturgical year at the parish of St. Charles Borromeo in Tacoma, Washington. The church itself is nothing to write home about (it is an unbeautiful modern edifice dating from the late 1950s), but the resident clergy are orthodox, the liturgy is generally tasteful, and the preaching is good. One particular difference Melancholicus has noticed between churches over here and in Ireland is that there are generally no hymnals or liturgy-books in the pews of Irish churches, whereas in the United States these things abound. Whether such is a good thing is quite another matter; studying the printed materials provided in each pew (the “Gather” hymnal and suchlike), Melancholicus is less than impressed, and has often wished that American Catholics cared more for the modern equivalent of Low Mass (Irish style). This because the fare to be found in these books seldom rises above the level of tawdry mediocrity, and the pathetic little ditties often employed in American churches in lieu of sacred music serve only to make one cringe.

Since last week the pews have been filled with brand-spanking-new copies of a paperback volume called “Heritage Missal”. This is published afresh for each liturgical year, and contains the Mass ordinary and the propers, including readings, for each day. This in itself is a useful function, as it obviates the need for those wretched missalettes which litter the floors and porches of churches in Ireland. But because the propers are set out day by day according to the civil calendar, the missal is good for one year only, is out of date the following year, and must be replaced by the next current edition. Accordingly, there is an annual turnover of these cheap paperback missals, which no doubt generates tremendous revenue for the publisher. Hence the reason it is re-issued every year. One can only conclude that the American Church has too much money if it can afford to fritter it away on such disposable resources.

The “Heritage Missal”—which Melancholicus can only declare is a misnomer, since there’s precious little heritage in it—is published by an organisation named OCP, or Oregon Catholic Press. This organisation makes a tidy profit churning out these throwaway missals year after year; every church Melancholicus has visited in Tacoma has sported them. A visit to the OCP website reveals that this organisation is a vehicle of the liturgical revolution. OCP publishes the musical compositions of people such as Michael Joncas, Dan Schutte, David Haas, Paul Inwood, Marty Haugen et al—a veritable Who’s Who of songsters that Traditional Catholics love to hate (not without reason). Wikipedia gives us the sobering information that the products of OCP are used in two-thirds of all Catholic churches in the U.S. The result of this near monopoly is a tyranny of the mediocre, since the “Heritage Missal” contains not only the Mass propers, but all the music composed for those propers by third-rate artistes. Thus we get jolly little ditties pitched at grade school level; weak paraphrases of the psalms; jarring modern ‘hymns’ with a pop beat; anthropocentric ‘feel-good’ clap-trap, and other obscenities. There is the occasional kernel of wheat among the chaff; last Sunday’s Mass featured the traditional Advent hymn Creator Alme Siderum in a decent English translation, and to the same melody familiar to users of the Liber Usualis, but overall, the musical contents of the “Heritage Missal” must be judged inadequate for the holy sacrifice of the Mass.

This is tremendously frustrating for those faithful who abhor the triumph of bad taste, not only because of the poor quality of these compositions in themselves, but because of their perpetuity; by printing an annual missal in which such musical settings are included, OCP maintains a stranglehold on Catholic liturgy in the U.S. At present, there is small hope that the depressed state of the liturgy will be relieved; the domination of musical arrangements by the mafia of the mediocre is too firmly entrenched. The forthcoming revised translation of the Roman Missal may have some impact, but owing to the looseness of contemporary liturgical law, in which musical compositions need not follow the authorized text of the Mass verbatim, there is no reason why the same old ’seventies folk-songs (together with ’seventies ICEL) will not continue to irritate Mass-goers yearning for a little solemnity for a generation or more to come.

We might ask: who owns OCP? Is it a private concern? Is it answerable to the bishops? In either case, there must be some way of compelling it to forget about the spirit of Vatican II and conform instead to the principles of the Benedictine reform. If OCP is a private concern, perhaps the dioceses of the United States could cease purchasing its products, and turn instead to a more orthodox, Catholic-minded publisher who would be only too delighted to assist in the reform of the reform, and make a good living in the process. But if it is an organ of the conciliar church, it will doubtless continue to exercise its baleful influence long after Joncas, Haugen, Haas, Inwood et al are all dead.

Small wonder hardly anybody joins in the singing at Mass; most are probably as embarrassed by it as Melancholicus.

The spirit of Vatican II rages against the dying of the light. We might have landed the troops in Normandy (liturgically speaking), but there is a long and bitter fight ahead of us before we stand finally at the gates of Berlin. In the meantime, OCP will continue to churn out volume after volume of the so-called “Heritage Missal” until either legitimate authority or market forces compel them to stop. At present there is no indication that either source of relief will be forthcoming.

The prospects are gloomy.

Cranmerian obtusity

2009-11-29T12:52:00.011-08:00

There’s nothing so driven and so single-minded than a blogger with an agenda.

In this instance the blogger is Adrian Hilton, a Tory across the water who blogs under the pseudonym of Archbishop Cranmer.

Despite Irish history, Melancholicus is a bit of an anglophile, and he must admit to rather enjoying Mr. Hilton’s blog; its self-description as an “august blog of intelligent and erudite comment upon matters religio-political” is no idle boast. Mr. Hilton is indeed intelligent and erudite, and is possessed of a formidable and persuasive eloquence.

But at times Mr. Hilton can be remarkably, vindictively—almost pathologically—anti-Catholic. Melancholicus does not object to such anti-Catholicism in itself (since Mr. Hilton is a convinced Protestant and clearly believes in the truth of that religion) but his conspiratorial superstition is irritating coming from a man of such intellectual prowess. One might have hoped Mr. Hilton would be above the hysteria of sixteenth-century polemics, as its effect, sadly, is to undermine his considerable authority as a political commentator.

Occasionally, this anti-Catholicism descends to the level of farce. While Melancholicus shares Mr. Hilton’s attitude towards the European Union’s increasingly oppressive centralization—at least in general—the latter’s urgent warnings against a secretive and sinister cosy relationship between the EU and the Roman Catholic Church are so divorced from reality as to be laughable. Such nonsense lands him squarely in Dan Brown territory and cannot be taken seriously.

More recently (27 November), Mr. Hilton posted on the difficult subject of the recently-released Report of the Commission of Investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. His scathing criticism of the culture that allowed depravity to flourish unchecked is well merited. But Mr. Hilton cannot content himself with denouncing clerical turpitude or episcopal negligence; he must attack Catholic theology (witness the sarcastic reference to the sacrament of penance) in general, and the Church’s discipline of celibacy in particular.

Here he allows his anti-Romanism to run wild, taking his reason with it. For in order to denounce the Roman Church in the matter of clerical sexual abuse, he must perforce denounce the discipline of celibacy; and in order to denounce celibacy, he must portray it as a source of innumerable evils, even to the extent of perverting the sexual identity of one who embraces that state.

The last two sentences in particular are such crazy nonsense one might say they constitute calumny in their sweeping generality:

While the novice, priest, bishop, and cardinal have vowed and aspire to be asexual, in reality they cannot deny their human nature, and so adopt the masculinity of the hermaphrodite. And as their public face is that of purity and holiness in deeply-fulfilling celibacy, the private paradox is confused, constrained and yearning deeply to express itself. And if it cannot be with a woman, as St Paul observed, it will be predatory upon the malakoi - the ‘soft’ or ‘effeminate’ prepubescent ‘pet’.

What sort of a mind can produce such verbal ordure? If Melancholicus may here quote the venerable Fr. Hunwicke, “Ee, for an apparently intelligent man, that’s a bloody silly thing to say”.

Since when are the clergy required to “aspire to be asexual”? Mr. Hilton had better consult his Oxford dictionary, since he clearly (deliberately?) minsunderstands the term. We shall pass over the peculiar intrusion of the hermaphrodite and proceed to the last sentence, in which Mr. Hilton goes so far as to put words into the mouth of St Paul. Was the apostle really the sort of determinist that Mr. Hilton implies? Here Mr. Hilton has shorn sin of its voluntary character, which in effect means it is no sin at all, for if a man MUST act in a certain manner without the freedom of will to choose otherwise, how is he guilty of sin? Perhaps this is just the fatalism of Mr. Hilton’s Protestantism asserting itself against his reason and common sense. Mr. Hilton also has some special insight into the interior lives of Roman Catholic clergy denied to the rest of us; Melancholicus wonders how the man can blithely assert “the private paradox is confused, constrained and yearning deeply to express itself” as though he were privy to the inner psychology of countless individuals he has never met. Of course every person must express himself; but here Mr. Hilton means a specifically genital sexual expression, without which, apparently, a man is warped to the extent of becoming a danger to all around him—especially the children.

Mr. Hilton’s post has attracted considerable attention (74 comments at the time of writing) but not one commentator—not even the Roman Catholics among them—has seen fit to rebut the harmful notion that lacking an outlet for genital expression must necessarily result in the corruption of one’s moral and sexual identity, at least among the generality of men; that celibacy is of itself a source of homosexuality or pederasty.

Mr. Hilton expresses horror and outrage that the number of criminal clerics should be as high as FORTY-SIX (capitalization as in the original). He is right to express such outrage. But if his views on the harmful effects of celibacy were true, one would expect to find a much higher number involved in such acts; well over a thousand secular and religious priests have ministered in the archdiocese of Dublin since 1975.

So what is Melancholicus’ interest here? It is not to play down the horrible reality behind the disclosures of the Murphy Report; these things must be published and faced by the Irish Church, especially by those who enabled and facilitated the abuse. Nor is it to defend the discipline of the Church. Celibacy is not a doctrine, and is not de fide. It is a discipline, which might be emended or revoked at any time without prejudice to the deposit of faith.

Rather, Mr. Hilton must be confronted where he makes erroneous and unwarranted claims about human nature, particularly where he implies that the sexual appetite is so imperious that it simply must be exercised lest it twist an abstinent soul into a child-molesting monster. What an incredible insult, not only to the majority of Roman clergy who are innocent of such crimes, but to any person living in the world who has not yet found a suitable partner for marriage. Mr. Hilton must also surely be aware that marriage is no panacea for sexual corruption. A sexual deviant will be no less a deviant in wedlock than in the single state. This is so obvious as to need no demonstration; a brief perusal of the newspapers on any day of the week will bear it out.

The clergy of the Church of England have been permitted to take wives since 1549. Other Protestant denominations likewise boast a married clergy. Rabbis are married. So are Imams. On the basis of Mr. Hilton’s logic, one should expect to find no incidence of sex crimes among Protestants, Jews and Muslims. Melancholicus thinks Mr. Hilton would shrink from such a claim, yet it is the logical conclusion to his thesis.

Or are the Romish clergy necessarily wicked because they are Romish? Whores of Babylon, and all that?

I wonder.

More clerical turpitude

2009-11-29T12:51:00.004-08:00

This time it’s the Dublin diocese. There’s no end to it, is there?

Go here for the ugly details.

Farewell to a shitten shepherd

2009-11-17T04:49:00.011-08:00

Meet Willie Walsh, the smiling, welcoming, thoughtful, paternal and ever-so-inclusive bishop of Killaloe.

He is your friend—unless, of course, you happen to be an orthodox Catholic (or, for that matter, one of his priests). But if you’re a just an ordinary “I’m ok, you’re ok” kind of Joe, with no fixed opinions about anything and a relaxed laissez faire attitude to Church doctrine, he’ll like you. If you’re an ethnic or sexual minority, he’ll positively gush over you. Just as long as you’re not one of those rigid, hidebound types that like services in Latin and think that good clean gay love is an evil thing, you should get along with him just fine.

It is less than a month since Melancholicus announced an end to blogging on Infelix Ego, but whenever a member of the Irish hierarchy opens his mouth in order to spew forth drivel, nonsense and general heretical ordure, the occasion just cries out for comment.

Mercifully, this barley-water prelate turns 75 in January and will tender his resignation to the Holy See. Doubtless his resignation will be accepted at once, since bishop Walsh has so far shown himself to be rather less than indispensable as a pastor of souls. By his retirement, bishop Walsh will have been steward of the diocese of Killaloe for fifteen years. Fifteen very long years. Let us take stock of his tenure and examine how he has arrested the decline in the fortunes of his diocese, how he has encouraged vocations, how he has revitalized catechetics in the schools, how he has restored the sacred liturgy, how he has injected a renewed vigour to the Catholic religion by expelling the secular ideological cockle that had been sown therein by enemies of the faith, and how he has reversed the stagnation and apathy brought on by three decades of gross mismanagement at the hands of the conciliar church.

Oh, wait.

He did none of those things, did he?

Bishop Walsh is the very type of the conciliar prelate. His words reveal him as that lamentable sort who yearns to turn the holy Catholic Church—of which he is a bishop—into a carbon copy of the Episcopal Church, replete with clerical divorce, lesbian priestesses, theological lassitude, blessing of same-sex unions, and a focus on the temporal which excludes any consideration of the hereafter—in other words, a sort of pseudo-religious social club in which the spirit of contemporary political correctness can flourish, where preaching the Truth is replaced by a convivial consensus-finding chat over tea and biscuits and in which nothing really matters at all so long as no-one ever says anything that might be construed as offensive.

Will the good bishop leave the diocese of Killaloe in better shape than he found it? That may be doubted. There were no “priestless parishes” in Killaloe when he took office in 1995. By 2004, there were five such parishes. God knows how many there are today, but Melancholicus would be surprised indeed if there were fewer than that. There are actually sufficient priests, between secular and religious, to staff the Killaloe diocese adequately, but bishop Walsh does not want the trouble of them. Priests, you see, get in the way of “lay ministry”, which is the current fad of the hour; apparently, the laity are unable to realize their “true vocation” or their “potential” with all those priests about. Sunday Mass: who needs it? Much better to have Sister Julia from the local Mercy convent or Mrs. Moriarty from down the road kit themselves out in quasi-sacerdotal attire and concelebrate a priestless communion service in lieu of the Holy Sacrifice—at least this sort of thing is what the empurpled princes of the conciliar church are anxious to promote.

What of vocations? Here Melancholicus cannot speak with authority since despite extensive trawling he has been unable to locate any statistical source on the number or quality of students for the Killaloe diocese in 1995 vis-à-vis 2009, but given that episcopal orthodoxy equals plentiful vocations whereas episcopal heterodoxy equals few or no vocations (which state has been observed so often as to require neither proof nor demonstration), he would be surprised in the extreme to discover that Killaloe is not one of the most consistently under-performing dioceses in the whole of Ireland. If any of his Irish readers is able to furnish him with the relevant facts and figures, by all means please comment!

What of the liturgy? Melancholicus is perhaps fortunate at never having attended a Mass celebrated within the borders of bishop Walsh’s diocese, save for a single offering of the Traditional Latin rite at Kilbaha in 2001. But the fact that, in a recent interview with the Irish Independent, the good bishop dismissed the entire liturgical heritage of the Church before 1969 with the remark that he had ever received “only one request” for the liturgy in Latin (whether traditional or novel was not specified) surely suggests he is unconcerned with theological precision, with beauty in worship, and with the shockingly irreverent manner in which the vernacular liturgy is so often handled; and that, Summorum Pontificum notwithstanding, he just can’t bother his arse.

Finally, has he brought an end to the apathy, the stagnation and the decline that has bedevilled Catholic dioceses generally since the revolution of the ’sixties? Has he taken pains to shake off the aura of the high-powered company director which has unaccountably attached itself to the modern episcopate, and begun to adopt the attitude of a genuine pastor of souls? Alas, not a bit of it. This scandalous newsletter, in which the new executive style is talked up in management-speak replete with countless buzzwords, says all that needs to be said on this score. All the clichéd bromides are there; all the tired formulae of yesterday, rehearsed as though this were something new and exciting. Melancholicus is already bored, so he shall not attempt to make a list. Souls eager for spiritual torment can follow the link if they have a mind to.

But don’t take my word for it, gentle reader; let Google assemble a litany of the fellow’s crimes and posturings and show us—via the Indo alone!—how far astray this successor of the Apostles has actually gone. True, there is wheat mixed in with the chaff. But the discerning reader will surely agree that there is an awful lot of chaff.

It is hardly necessary to add that, so far, none of his brother bishops have taken the trouble—publicly, at least—to encourage the faithful by explaining how their colleague’s secular liberal wish-list is at odds not only with the Tradition of the Church, but with the integrity of the faith itself. There is not a peep of a correction to be found on the website of the Irish Bishops’ Conference. Suppose that bishop Walsh had uttered something egregious from the liberal point of view; suppose that—mirabile dictu—he were to denounce homosexuals as “notorious sinners” and to describe their bedroom antics as “grotesque”. Need we rehearse what would happen then? His brother bishops would be falling over themselves in their haste to distance themselves from his remarks and to smother them with the face of welcoming, inclusive tolerance that the conciliar church considers the supreme virtue. Not hard to be politically correct, is it? Much harder to be a Christian. There is still time for one or more of the Irish bishops to practice a little discreet fraternal correction. But Melancholicus won’t be holding his breath.

The patron of the Killaloe diocese is St. Flannán, who (I am confident) would not see eye-to-eye with his Wishy-Washy successor on multiple matters. That being so, it behooves us (and especially the unfortunate Catholics of that wretched diocese) to pray fervently that when Wishy Washy’s vacant seat is filled again, the new incumbent will be an appointment worthy of such high office, that he will, and that he will not sow confusion and indifference among the flock or court the admiration of the media like his predecessor. The first task of the new bishop will be to begin repairing the damage wrought by this shitten shepherd.

Leavetaking

2009-10-23T03:58:00.003-07:00

This is the 485th post on Infelix Ego.

It is also—at least for the time being—the last.

Those who still bother to drop by in the hope of finding fresh material will have noticed that posting has been light in 2009, and since July has dried up almost entirely.

Personal circumstances have changed. Melancholicus is no longer employed at the university, does not have the same unfettered access to the internet he once enjoyed, and in any case is now preparing to uproot himself from Ireland and move—permanently—to the United States, where it will no doubt take him some time to establish himself and have at his disposal both the leisure and facilities requisite for blogging.

Melancholicus is now also married to a wonderful young woman. Grateful thanks are extended—from both of us—to those readers who have offered their prayers on our behalf, and to those especially who attended our wedding.

Now Melancholicus is preparing to join his wife in the state of Washington. He has received his K-3 visa, and will depart these shores finally in late November.

He hopes to resurrect Infelix Ego some time in the future, circumstances permitting, but that time is probably far distant. Until then there shall be no fresh posting. However, as he has a large number of posts in draft from past months, he may be able to publish one of these from time to time. That will be the only updating of this blog until further notice, and not all of these drafts are suitable for publication anyway since they concern analysis of news stories and suchlike that are now out of date and no longer relevant.

But Infelix Ego will remain live, to edify, amuse, bore, annoy, embitter or infuriate those whom Google shall send this way.

There is now nothing left to do but to thank you all for reading, and for offering your comments—even if I responded to less than half of these. Particular gratitude is extended to those fellow bloggers who were so generous as to provide me with links. I shall not embarrass you; suffice it to say you know who you are, and I am most grateful.

Oremus pro invicem!

Yours,

Ego non iam infelix, Melancholicus, peccator

Yet another reason to vote No

2009-10-02T05:35:00.004-07:00

Should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified, we, the proud citizens of the glorious new European State, can look forward to having this man as the first Priest-King of the new Empire, or “President”, as he shall be officially known.

Yes, Tony “Faith Foundation” Blair.

One step closer to the End of Days.

Lisbon in a nutshell

2009-10-02T05:32:00.002-07:00

If Ireland should reject the Lisbon Treaty again, the Commissars will punish us by withholding all the cash they weren’t going to give us anyway if we had voted Yes.

Two minutes and fifty-eight seconds

2009-08-20T02:38:00.005-07:00

Last Christmas, one of Melancholicus’ close relatives, familiar with his interest in matters religious (but unfamiliar with matters religious herself), gave to him a CD-recording of Desmond Tutu (!) reading Jeffrey Archer’s improbable piece of alternative history masquerading as fiction, namely The Gospel of Judas.

Melancholicus had to feign delight in order not to give offence by rejecting this gift in horror (as it was obviously chosen with some thought), but regular readers of Infelix Ego will know what passed inwardly in his soul when he realized what he had been given.

The gift was well meant, the giver desiring to please but without knowing what it was she was giving.

The CDs were later thrust into a seldom-used drawer containing various oddments, and there they reposed until Melancholicus, preparing for his imminent emigration to the Land of the Free by emptying his rooms and boxing up all his possessions, discovered them afresh as the oddments drawer was being cleared out. With a moue of distaste he almost consigned them to the trash, but as it was a personal gift from someone close he decided at least to give Archer’s Gospel of Judas a chance and not to pass judgement until he had subjected himself to the contents thereof. After all, as the text was read by a Christian archbishop considered by many to be a veritable pattern of holiness (yes, I know...), The Gospel of Judas really couldn’t be that bad.

Could it?

In went the first CD (there were three of them). First there was a short preface, which was innocent enough. The reading of this lasted for about a minute. Then we were into the story, narrated from the viewpoint of one “Benjamin Iscariot”, putatively Judas’ son.

Almost immediately Melancholicus was confronted with a string of obnoxious Christological heresies and nauseating attacks on the early Church and on the testimony of the canonical gospels.

Whereat the CD was removed, replaced in its case and the whole dumped unceremoniously in the wheelie bin outside the front door.

It had taken only two minutes and fifty-eight seconds of listening for the nature of the beast to out. Is that a record?

Even Dan Brown takes longer than that to really get going.

Saracen or sacristan?

2009-06-09T03:26:00.006-07:00

The story is told of Pio Nono entertaining a visiting grandee at the Vatican.

While on their knees in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in the pope’s private chapel, they could not help but notice a person who, emerging from the shadows and strolling casually from one side of the chapel to the other, gave only the briefest and most perfunctory nod in the direction of the exposed Sacrament. Whereat the holy pope said to his guest, “That’s either a saracen, or a sacristan!”

This story was related orally to Melancholicus several years ago, so he has no idea of its source, but it was brought rather forcefully to mind after Mass on Trinity Sunday. Immediately after the celebrant had left the sanctuary, and as the singing of Salve Regina was still in progress, the sacristan suddenly appeared and began dashing about the sanctuary like a thing possessed, whipping the missal and altar cards off the altar, snatching the cruets with graceless haste, and with heavy footfalls stomping back into the sacristy without even a nod to the tabernacle. This behaviour was unseemly, unedifying and—especially for the members of the schola—most distracting.

The sacristan in this particular parish is a woman somewhere, Melancholicus guesses, between sixty and seventy years of age. Once she had started her squawking and flapping, she made no effort to be quiet so as not to disturb the still-singing schola or the members of the congregation praying privately in their pews. It is no secret that she strongly disapproves of the Traditional Latin Mass being offered on what she evidently regards as her territory, and her outrageous behaviour was no less than a wilful display of hostility for the benefit of those of us attached to the ancient liturgy. Her irritation was palpable. Melancholicus and his companion in the choir loft looked at one another in disbelief.

After the recessional had ended Melancholicus knelt to make his thanksgiving for the Mass, but prayer was impossible, for now the termagant was darting about the nave like a blue-arsed fly, collecting all the red Mass books in a frenzied rush. When she had finally finished driving forth the few remaining faithful, she vanished back into the sacristy and within a few moments the church was full of piped music. She had put a CD on the sacristy stereo—some cleansing new age tune to wash away the taint of all that Tridentine gobbledygook.

Melancholicus does not know the name of the piece that was played, but under the circumstances we can title it A Sacristan’s Revenge.

Or should that instead be A Saracen’s Revenge, perhaps?

The bishops on the European elections

2009-06-05T08:28:00.004-07:00

Ah, the bishops! Where would we be without their magisterial guidance?

Last Sunday the Irish bishops’ conference put out a press release on voting in the European elections. The local elections get only a passing mention, but the bishops are keen that we all get us out today to elect the next batch of MEPs. Melancholicus shall not reproduce the text in full, since much of it is written in the lorem ipsum of management-style boilerplate—although, unlike last year’s pastoral on the Lisbon Referendum, the bishops don’t actually go as far as instructing us how we must vote. Helpfully, however, the bishops have summarized the whole in two basic points:

To vote is a concrete way of fulfilling the Gospel challenge to serve our neighbour

MEPs should promote respect for freedom of religion and religious expression as a fundamental right and a defining value of the Union

With all due respect to our fathers in God, both of these are problematic. First of all, the notion that we “fulfil the Gospel challenge to serve our neighbour” (what lovely newchurch newspeak!) by casting a ballot. Does such necessarily follow? In 1932, 37% of the German electorate cast a ballot for the NSDAP. Look how that turned out. I humbly suggest we can “fulfil the Gospel challenge” perfectly legitimately by, when the occasion merits it, abstaining from casting a vote. Abstention is certainly preferable in cases where the only choice is between two equally impious alternatives. In such instances, a non-vote is itself a sort of vote. Not voting should not be seen as a ‘failure’ to vote, and certainly not as a “failure to serve ourselves, our neighbour and our children”, as the bishops have the temerity to describe it.

To be fair, the bishops are probably influenced in their attitude by the existence of non-democratic forms of government in certain countries where the struggle for the establishment of democracy is literally a matter of life and death. In such places courageous souls risk life and limb in order to win for their people the privilege of voting. If one chooses not to exercise the privilege one enjoys, the fact that the same privilege may be denied to others does not make one’s choice worthy of blame. No-one should be forced to vote; the beauty of democracy is that one can vote for any particular candidate—or indeed for none of them, if one prefers. The choice is up to the enfranchised individual, and it will not do for the bishops to imply that there is always a moral obligation to vote in every election or plebiscite or whatever.

Then the bishops address the subject of freedom of religion. This is what they say:

The newly elected MEPs will need the political competence and skills necessary to deal with the above mentioned challenges. They will need the qualities of mind and heart to work in the multi-cultural, multi-lingual and politically diversified environment of the EU and its institutions.

This includes giving full recognition to the contribution of Christianity to the construction and values of the European Union and to the importance of religious faith in the lives of its citizens.

MEPs should promote respect for freedom of religion and freedom of religious expression as a fundamental right and a defining value of the Union. They should hold strong convictions on promoting respect for human dignity, upholding the right to life and the rights of the family. They should be committed to shaping a political order that provides justice to everyone, especially the poorest.

There is nothing worthy of condemnation here, but the loose language employed robs the text of any power it might otherwise have had. What, precisely, does it mean to give “full recognition to the contribution of Christianity to the construction and values of the European Union”? We might be talking about history here, and nothing more. There is not even the slightest suggestion that the EU bind itself in its workings to the moral principles of Christianity. Furthermore, what of “the importance of religious faith”? What “religious faith” would that be, then? The Catholic faith? If so, why not say so clearly? Or perhaps their Lordships mean the whole babel of religions taken as a totality? It is hard to see how in practice such could be even remotely workable, unless their Lordships have in mind not particular religions with particular beliefs and a particular praxis, but a vague, secular religiosity of the kind practiced by His Eminence Tony Blair.

And as for freedom of religion—a noble idea in itself—let us see, by the addition of just a few words, how the current trend of the EU will implement the bishops’ call in practice:

MEPs should promote respect for freedom of [the Islamic] religion and freedom of [Islamic] religious expression as a fundamental right [for Muslims] and a defining value of the Union. They should hold strong convictions on promoting respect for human dignity [of Muslims], upholding the right to life and the rights of the [Islamic] family. They should be committed to shaping an [Islamic] political order that provides [sharia] justice to everyone, especially the poorest [Muslim immigrants].

Can it be denied that they’re doing this already?

H/T to Seen and Unseen.

Election day!

2009-06-05T01:25:00.017-07:00

Today, June 5, elections shall be held in the Republic of Ireland, giving the electorate an opportunity to chastise the ensconced oligarchy for its negligence, its corruption and its misrule.

Last Saturday’s episode of The Emergency on Newstalk 106 featured a sketch about door-to-door canvassing for elections in Germany in 1949, shortly after World War II. Two canvassers introduce themselves as members of the Nazi party and ask the incredulous householder if he would consider giving his vote to the Nazis. The householder is aghast and tells them “No! ... Impossible! ... you destroyed the country!” The comparison in our own time and place with Fianna Fáil (which is what the sketch writers were aiming at) was immediate, obvious, and not a little amusing in a bitter-sweet kind of way.

Today’s elections come in three varieties:

There shall be a by-election to fill Dáil seats left vacant by the repose of two TDs, namely
- Seamus Brennan (†9 July 2008)
- Tony Gregory (†2 January 2009)
These elections concern the Dublin South and Dublin Central constituencies respectively, and as such Melancholicus (who lives in Dublin North-West) has no vote in either of them. Here are the contenders in each:
- Dublin South:
  
  Shay Brennan (son of the late Seamus Brennan)
  George Lee (former RTÉ economic analyst turned FG candidate)
  Alex White
  Shaun Tracey
  Elizabeth Davidson
  Noel O’Gara
  Frank O’Gorman
  Ross O’Mullane
  
  George Lee is the hot favourite to win here.
- Dublin Central:
  
  Maurice Ahern (Bertie’s other brother)
  Paschal Donohue
  Ivana Bacik (good grief!)
  Christy Burke
  David Geary
  Maureen O’Sullivan (the Gregory candidate)
  Paul O’Loughlin
  Malachy Steenson
  Pat Talbot
  
  The late Tony Gregory’s seat will probably go to Independent Maureen O’Sullivan, billed as “the Gregory candidate”, or else to Christy Burke of Sinn Féin. Paul O’Loughlin (Christian Solidarity), who has stood for Dáil elections in this constituency on previous occasions, can be confident of his usual 200 or so votes. Even the Nazis, in their first serious electoral outing in 1928, while winning a derisive 2% of the overall vote, did better than Christian Solidarity ever did or will. Malachy Steenson (Workers’ Party) and Pat Talbot (Immigration Control Platform) have no chance.
  
  It is safe to say that neither of the government parties (FF and Green) will win a seat in either constituency, although the young and untried Shay Brennan may well benefit from the dynastic nature of Irish politics.

Then there are the elections for the European parliament. For this purpose Ireland is divided into four constituencies: Dublin, East, North West and South. Three seats are up for grabs in each. Melancholicus shall here confine his attention only to Dublin, since this is where he shall be voting. The candidates are as follows:

Eoin Ryan (outgoing MEP)
Eibhlin Byrne
Gay Mitchell (outgoing MEP)
Proinsias de Rossa (outgoing MEP)
Mary Lou McDonald (outgoing MEP)
Deirdre de Burca
Patricia McKenna
Caroline Simons
Joe Higgins
Emmanuel Sweeney

This is a tough one to call. The fact that only three seats are available means at least one of the sitting MEPs will lose his/her seat. Melancholicus was briefly tempted to cast his vote for Mary Lou, if only to force Eoin Ryan out, but also toyed with the idea of sending Joe Higgins off to Brussels out of sheer bloody-mindedness. Regular readers of Infelix Ego know this writer’s opinion of Socialism, but politics aside, Mr. Higgins is in many respects an admirable man. In the end, however, Melancholicus shall be responsible and vote instead for Caroline Simons as the candidate most fully representing his attitude to the EU.

Finally there are the local elections to city and county councils throughout the country. Attention here will be confined to your blogger’s home ward of Artane-Whitehall. Here be the list:

Sean Paul Mahon (outgoing councillor)
Julia Carmichael (outgoing councillor)
Declan Flanagan (outgoing councillor)
Noel Rock
Paddy Bourke (outgoing councillor)
Andrew Montague (outgoing councillor)
Sinead Seery
Larry O’Toole (outgoing councillor)
Denise Mitchell
Martin O’Sullivan
Anna Harvey

A motley crew, and no mistake. There are only 5 seats available in this ward, which means at least one of the sitting councillors will lose a seat. Melancholicus is not even going to attempt to guess who will win here, for he is trying to decide how he shall vote on this one. Fianna Fáil do not deserve to retain their seats. However, he is loath to vote Fine Gael despite coming from a long line of blueshirts, and voting Labour is absolutely out of the question. Perhaps one or other of the two independents — but Melancholicus knows neither of them, and he never casts a vote for someone he knows nothing about. The only alternative is to cast a spoiled vote. He has never spoiled a vote before, but there is a first time for everything. A spoiled vote at least registers a protest, and hence is better than boycotting the polling station altogether.

The main problem with such elections is that there are almost no credible alternatives to the grasping, venal party currently in government. This is not a general election, but a catastrophic defeat for Fianna Fáil in the local elections may precipitate a general election, in which the main government party has no assurance of success. Fianna Fáil do not deserve a majority in the Dáil, or even a share in coalition government, but what other alternative have we? Any coalition not involving Fianna Fáil must of necessity involve the Labour party. Labour has always been on the left, but since its absorption of Democratic Left in 1999 it has swung even further leftwards. Any coalition in which Labour has a share will forge ahead with ‘multicultural’ fascism, political correctness and social engineering. Expect such a government to produce a raft of ‘progressive’ legislation. The consequences for the defence of human life, marriage, the family, education and even religious freedom could be severe.

There is no conservative party, socially speaking, in Ireland—not even Fianna Fáil, although the track record of the latter is generally better than that of other parties. But we can’t keep voting Fianna Fáil forever. No party should be kept in power longer than three terms; Fianna Fáil have already proved themselves incapable of keeping their hands clean.

But what alternative? It is maddening.

Geert Wilders and the BBC

2009-06-05T01:24:00.003-07:00

Don’t you just love the partiality of the BBC! Don’t you just love the way al-Beeb views very social, political, historical or cultural matter through such a red-tinted lens that anyone even slightly on the wrong side of the centre line is blasted as “far right”, as though the Dutch Freedom Party were the quintessence of fascism, akin to the Nazis?

Well, the Freedom Party appear to be showing strongly in the European elections, strongly enough to claim at least four seats in the European parliament.

This has sent al-Beeb into conniptions. Count the number of times the expressions “right wing” and “far right” appear in the following story.

When does the BBC ever use the terms “left wing” or “far left”? Answer: it doesn’t. This because that organisation is slanted so far to the left that to be “left wing” is to be positively centre, which is where al-Beeb fondly imagines itself to be.

Dutch far right in poll triumph

The party of the right-wing Dutch MP, Geert Wilders, has come second in the country's elections for the European Parliament, partial results indicate.

Mr Wilders, who is facing prosecution over anti-Islamic statements [interesting that no-one ever faces prosecution over anti-Christian statements], said his Freedom Party (PVV) would get four of the 25 Dutch seats in the parliament.

With more than 92% of votes counted, the ruling Christian Democrats are top.

Voters are now going to the polls in the Czech Republic and the Republic of Ireland. The UK voted on Thursday.

Dutch and British voters were the first to go to the polls to elect the EU's most powerful legislative body.

Some 375 million people in 27 member states are eligible to vote. Most will cast their ballots over the weekend.

Partial results released on Friday showed Mr Wilders' PVV was on course to win 16.9% of the votes in the Netherlands. The PVV currently has no seats in the European Parliament [looks like this is about to change—unless the EU decides to refuse acknowledgement of democratic results it doesn’t like, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility].

Mr Wilders was refused entry to the UK in February on the grounds that he had sought to incite hatred with a film he made last year that equated Islam with violence and likened the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf [one cannot even debate this subject without drawing down on oneself the hysterical fury of the multiculturalists, never mind the far more dangerous psychopathic fury of the islams, but one can trash the Bible with as much vilification as one likes without the slightest consequence].

EU officials concerned

Voters are deciding who gets the 736 seats up for grabs under various forms of proportional representation.

The European Commission has asked for an explanation from Dutch officials, who broke EU rules by releasing partial results early. Results are not supposed to be announced until polls close across Europe on Sunday night [perhaps the real explanation they’re looking for is why the Dutch electorate have dared to deliver such an unpalatable result. Re-education, anyone?].

In the UK, elections were also held in some areas for local councils.

The results of both UK polls are keenly awaited to see how they might affect the national political scene, following weeks of turmoil over MPs' expenses claims.

Latvia, Cyprus, Malta and Slovakia vote on Saturday, while the Czech Republic and Italy vote over Friday and Saturday, and Saturday and Sunday respectively. People in the remaining 18 member states will vote on Sunday.

In Ireland, the vote is seen as a key test ahead of a second referendum on the EU's controversial Lisbon Treaty, expected in October.

The Irish government, stung by the voters' rejection of Lisbon last year, is opposed by Declan Ganley's Libertas. The millionaire entrepreneur, who helped fuel anti-Lisbon sentiment in Ireland, hopes to win one of the 12 Irish seats.

Coalition ally hit

The anti-immigration Dutch Freedom Party MEPs will be headed by Barry Madlener and Mr Wilders will remain an MP in The Hague, Radio Netherlands reports.

The partial results in the Netherlands also showed gains for two staunchly pro-EU parties - the social-liberal D66 and Green Left. Each is on course to send three MEPs to Brussels.

The Christian Democrats' governing coalition partner, the Labour Party (PvdA), was the biggest loser - its share of the Dutch vote fell nearly 10% percentage points to about 14%.

"We dare to talk about sensitive subjects like Islamisation and we use plain and simple words that the voter can understand," Mr Wilders has said in the past.

The controversial politician is facing prosecution in the Netherlands for making anti-Islamic statements, following a court ruling in January [once again, would Mr. Wilders be facing prosecution if he had made anti-Christian statements? Rhetorical question...].

Polls show that Euroscepticism among Dutch voters has increased since the last European elections, with EU enlargement and integration the most unpopular issues.

Across Europe, far-right [there we go again!] parties are hoping to win at least 15 seats. However, the centre-right European People's Party bloc is expected to remain the main force, followed by the European Socialists.

Geert Wilders is now unmasked as a known agent of Goldstein, and he must be stopped before he spreads thoughtcrime throughout the European Union!

What is heartening, however, is that the Dutch at long last seem to be waking up and recognizing the reality around them. This is a country Melancholicus had long given up for lost, but the Islamic infiltration of Europe has now reached such a pitch that even the liberal, left-leaning Dutch have started to notice. Why are so many Dutch people casting their vote for the “right-wing” Geert Wilders and his “far right” Freedom Party? Because they are afraid. They see their liberal, tolerant, easy-going society and culture being filched from them little by little, and supplanted with a replacement which is anything but liberal, tolerant and easy-going, abetted by the Dutch government and by the EU.

Just ask the good people of Rotterdam.

Ordination day

2009-06-03T03:28:00.005-07:00

Iam non dicam vos servos sed amicos meos, quia servus nescit quid faciat dominus ejus. Alleluia. Vos autem dixi amicos, quia omnia quaecumque audivi a patre meo nota feci vobis. Alleluia.

Last Saturday, the vigil of the feast of Pentecost, Melancholicus’ former classmates were ordained to the sacred priesthood of Jesus Christ by Bishop Fabian W. Bruskewitz in the Cathedral of the Risen Christ, Lincoln, Nebraska.

Owing to personal circumstances, Melancholicus was unable either to be there or to assist at the First Masses of his friends. He has not yet received any photographs of the happy event but hopes to remedy this defect before long.

In the meantime he earnestly solicits the prayers of his readers for the new priests as they begin their priestly ministry:

Fr. Brian Austin FSSP
Fr. Matthew Goddard FSSP
Fr. Michael Stinson FSSP

While we wait for the ordination pictures, here are a couple of shots from Father Austin’s First Mass, celebrated on Pentecost Sunday at the Carmel of Jesus, Mary and Joseph in Valparaiso, Nebraska (see the rest of them here):

Ad multos annos.

Fr. Goddard will celebrate his first solemn Mass in his English homeland at 11am on 6 June (Saturday) in St. James’ church, Spanish Place, London. British readers of Infelix Ego in London and the south-east are encouraged to attend. Tell Fr. Goddard afterwards that Melancholicus sent you. He’ll be amused.

Render unto Caesar... and only unto Caesar

2009-06-03T03:18:00.005-07:00

Melancholicus received the following by e-mail, and thinks it worth sharing with his readers:

This is a statement that was read over the PA system at the football game at Roane County High School, Kingston, Tennessee, by school Principal, Jody McLeod:

"It has always been the custom at Roane County High School football games to say a prayer and play the National Anthem, to honor God and Country. Due to a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, I am told that saying a prayer is a violation of Federal Case Law. As I understand the law at this time, I can use this public facility to approve of sexual perversion and call it "an alternate lifestyle", and if someone is offended, that's OK.

I can use it to condone sexual promiscuity, by dispensing condoms and calling it, "safe sex". If someone is offended, that's OK.

I can even use this public facility to present the merits of killing an unborn baby as a "viable means of birth control". If someone is offended, no problem...

I can designate a school day as "Earth Day" and involve students in activities to worship religiously and praise the goddess "Mother Earth" and call it "ecology..."

I can use literature, videos and presentations in the classroom that depicts people with strong, traditional Christian convictions as "simple minded" and "ignorant" and call it "enlightenment...."

However, if anyone uses this facility to honor GOD and to ask HIM to Bless this event with safety and good sportsmanship, then Federal Case Law is violated.

This appears to be inconsistent at best, and at worst, diabolical. Apparently, we are to be tolerant of everything and anyone, except GOD and HIS Commandments.

Nevertheless, as a school principal, I frequently ask staff and students to abide by rules with which they do not necessarily agree. For me to do otherwise would be inconsistent at best, and at worst, hypocritical... I suffer from that affliction enough unintentionally. I certainly do not need to add an intentional transgression.

For this reason, I shall "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", and refrain from praying at this time.

"However, if you feel inspired to honor, praise and thank GOD and ask HIM, in the name of JESUS, to Bless this event, please feel free to do so. As far as I know, that's not against the law — yet."

One by one, the people in the stands bowed their heads, held hands with one another and began to pray.

They prayed in the stands. They prayed in the team huddles. They prayed at the concession stand and they prayed in the Announcer's Box!

The only place they didn't pray was in the Supreme Court of the United States of America — the Seat of "Justice" in the "one nation, under GOD."

Somehow Kingston, Tennessee, remembered what so many have forgotten. We are given the Freedom OF Religion, not the Freedom FROM Religion. Praise GOD that HIS remnant remains!

JESUS said, "If you are ashamed of me before men, then I will be ashamed of you before My Father."

No comment necessary, except to say Ms. McLeod is a brave woman. Someone could have denounced her to the Gestapo.

Or worse, to the ACLU.

The witness of a true hero of charity

2009-06-03T01:28:00.006-07:00

Let us not fool ourselves with the notion that the horrendous abuse inflicted on innocents in industrial schools and suchlike institutions is a post-conciliar phenomenon. Grave sin is a feature of fallen human nature generally, not of post-conciliar theology alone.

There is a tendency among some Traditional Catholics to imagine that, because we have access to the old Latin Mass, we are somehow immune from such turpitude. The Ryan Report, as well as more recent experience, should be sufficient to disabuse us of that precious notion.

Alarm bells were sounded as long ago as the 1940s — long before the Novus Ordo was imposed on these shores — by no less a figure than Father Edward Flanagan, of “Boys’ Town” fame, who in 1946 condemned Ireland’s reform schools as “a disgrace to the nation”. It is much to be regretted that his judgement went unheeded. If a thoroughgoing reform of these institutions had been undertaken and pursued by ecclesiastical authorities at the time, how much suffering and abuse might have been averted, how much scandal need never have been given! But, alas, Fr. Flanagan’s timely warnings were not only ignored; he was attacked and ridiculed for daring to upset the status quo.

This story courtesy of Irish Central. Melancholicus has added his own remarks in red.

H/T to Dennis K. for the link.

Boys Town founder Fr. Flanagan warned Irish Church about abuse

By JOHN FAY, IrishCentral.Com Staff Writer

Father Edward Flanagan, founder of "Boys Town" made famous by the Spencer Tracy movie, was a lone voice in condemning Ireland's industrial schools back in the 1940s –and he was viciously castigated by church and government for doing so.

Fr. Flanagan, from Co. Roscommon, left Ireland in 1904 and was ordained a priest eight years later. In 1917 he was living and working in Omaha, Nebraska, when he hit upon the idea of a "boys town," which offered education and a home for the poor and wayward boys of Omaha.

However, demand for the service was so great that he soon had to find bigger premises. Boys Town, built on a farm 10 miles from Omaha, was the result.

The center was open to all. There were no fences to stop the boys from leaving. Fr. Flanagan said he was "not building a prison". "This is a home," he said. "You do not wall in members of your own family." [this saintly man's attitude was in striking contrast to that of the Irish reformatories]

Boys Town eventually became so well-known - and so well-respected - that Hollywood and the U.S. President came calling. Spencer Tracey and Mickey Rooney starred in the 1938 movie "Boys Town," and it made a national hero out of Fr. Flanagan [Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven - Mt. 5:16]. He was internationally renowned as “the world's most foremost expert on boys' training and youth care."

When World War II ended in 1945, President Harry S. Truman asked Fr. Flanagan to tour Asia and Europe, to see what could be done for the homeless and neglected children in those regions.

Fr. Flanagan decided to return to the land of his birth in 1946 to visit his family, and also to visit the "so-called training schools" run by the Christian Brothers to see if they were "a success or failure" [Fr. Flanagan thus approached these institutions with an open mind].

The success of the film "Boys Town," meant Fr. Flanagan was treated like a celebrity on his arrival. His visit was noted by the The Irish Independent, which said that Fr. Flanagan had succeeded "against overwhelming odds", spurred on by the "simple slogan that 'There is no such thing as a bad boy'." [whereas the approach of the Irish institutions seems to have been the opposite, given the casual brutality whereto the inmates of these institutions were subjected. The institutions have since been compared to the camps in occupied Europe during the last war, and the behaviour of the religious who ran them has been likened to that of the SS. Sadly, there is not too much exaggeration in that comparison]

But Fr. Flanagan was unhappy with what he found in Ireland. He was dismayed at the state of Ireland's reform schools and blasted them as "a scandal, un-Christlike, and wrong." [that's very strong language for 1946. Fr. Flanagan was clearly disturbed by what he found] And he said the Christian Brothers, founded by Edmund Rice, had lost its way [a telling remark, the truth of which has since been borne out times without number].

Speaking to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork's Savoy Cinema he said, "You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment [with this description he has forthrightly identified the true ethos of these reform schools]. You can do something about it." He called Ireland's penal institutions "a disgrace to the nation," and later said "I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child's character." [a man who knew what he was talking about speaking straight from the heart]

However, his words fell on stony ground. He wasn't simply ignored. He was taken to pieces by the Irish establishment. The then-Minister for Justice Gerald Boland said in the Dáil that he was "not disposed to take any notice of what Monsignor Flanagan said while he was in this country, because his statements were so exaggerated that I did not think people would attach any importance to them." [the same incredulous obtusity that was to characterize the response of our superiors, both civil and ecclesiastical, from that day to this. There was not so much as the proposal of an official inquiry, never mind the promise of one. Did they not think that Fr. Flanagan, a man of international renown with a proven track record in childcare, might not have something important to say on the matter? It truly beggars belief]

Fr. Flanagan was a devout Catholic, a man who Catholics and non-Catholics world-wide had deemed a hero. He was the Mother Theresa of his day.

Despite that, the Irish Church and the Irish authorities felt comfortable ignoring Fr. Flanagan, ignoring the fact that he was considered to be an expert in the matter of providing for the education and upbringing of boys who were otherwise considered to be "lost causes."

When he arrived back in America Fr. Flanagan said: "What you need over there is to have someone shake you loose from your smugness and satisfaction and set an example by punishing those who are guilty of cruelty, ignorance and neglect of their duties in high places . . . I wonder what God's judgment will be with reference to those who hold the deposit of faith and who fail in their God-given stewardship of little children." [But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea - Mt. 18:6]

Again, his efforts fell on stony ground.

What was it about the Irish Church and the Irish authorities that made them so insular that they felt comfortable dismissing someone of Fr. Flanagan's stature? Despite the fact that Fr. Flanagan was a popular hero to many Irish people, his words had no sway with those in authority, whether in the government or the Church [they may now rue that they did not listen. But it is now too late for such regrets - the damage has been done, and what unspeakable damage it is!].

And, once those who endorsed the industrial school model survived Fr. Flanagan's broadsides, they must have known that no one would challenge them again. They were right, for 50 years anyway [they could get away with it for a time, only for a time; the truth will always come out in the end].

Not since the penal times has the Catholic Church been so threatened in Ireland. Only this time the damage is all self-inflicted and not imposed by an outside force. Unless strong Catholic characters arise from the wreckage we have now, the Church in Ireland is doomed [unless we are as blind and obtuse as the late Minister Boland, we must concur with the writer's assessment].

Indeed. Is the Church in Ireland built upon rock or upon sand? In the light of the number of millstones—far too many millstones!—we might perforce conclude the latter. But such an institution surely deserves to wither. Without heroic penitence and true charity there is no hope for it, not now, not ever.

Mass for the Feast of the Lord's Ascension

2009-05-19T07:54:00.003-07:00

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Roman Missal of 1962) shall be offered at 11am this coming Thursday (21 May) for the feast of the Ascension of the Lord in St. Joseph’s church, Newtownmountkennedy, County Wicklow.

The propers of the Mass shall be sung in plainchant.

Low Mass (Roman Missal of 1962) is also offered in the same church every Saturday morning at 11am. Visitors welcome

'Blasphemous libel' to be a criminal offence

2009-05-06T01:14:00.004-07:00

Just two questions. Why? And why now?

Melancholicus was surprised to learn that, despite the reputation of Ireland’s Catholic past, blasphemy has never been a criminal offence in this country.

One would have thought that in this secular age, and in the midst of the most serious economic downturn the State has seen since its inception, the last thing required to occupy the attention of government ministers would be legislation introducing a new offence of ‘blasphemous libel’.

Melancholicus is not impressed.

For the past two hundred years it has ever been the fashion for the rulers of the States, as embodying the temporal power, to pretend incompetence in matters spiritual in order to excuse themselves from the obligations attendant upon adherence to the Christian religion: this, that they might be unfettered in their rule by the doctrines of any Church, whether Catholic or Protestant, and that they might appeal to both by appealing to neither.

The notion of the agnostic or atheistic State was condemned by the Popes down to the middle of the twentieth century.

Then in the 1960s there occurred an Event^TM which saw the holy Church turn turkey and completely reverse her position, in which religious liberty for all and sundry was ebulliently proclaimed from the basilica of St. Peter’s, and enshrined for Modern Man^TM in Dignitatis Humanae.

So if even the Catholic Church herself now prescinds from the notion of the confessional State, what business does an elected politician—here today, gone tomorrow—have in prescribing penalties for controversies touching upon religious matters?

How ironic, that the same State which confessed itself agnostic in matters religious these many years past suddenly claims to know what blasphemy is, how to sniff it out, and how best to punish it when detected.

When Melancholicus first heard of this proposed law, and once he had retrieved his jaw from its recumbent position on the floor, he wondered if it might not actually be a good thing. The Irish media, and not least RTÉ, have for unnumbered years made a sport out of baiting doctrines, practices and persons associated with Catholicism, not least the Holy Father himself. It would not be at all unpleasant if a stop were to be put to such odious practices.

Melancholicus has read grossly offensive articles in daily newspapers in which the writer’s treatment even of our Divine Saviour and His Blessed Mother has appalled him. But instead of going out rioting and setting cars on fire and taking up a scimitar to start beheading people, Melancholicus’ response has been simply to stop reading, or to say a prayer for the smug, self-satisfied writer—or at the most, to submit a letter of complaint to the paper concerned.

Then he realised he was deluding himself by believing that this might redress the current state of open season against the religion he himself professes. The proposed law will be of no benefit whatsoever to Christians. It is now many decades since the government of this country pretended concern for the welfare of Christians and for the integrity of the religion they profess. The relentless spiteful, sarcastic and mocking attacks in the nation’s media on the religion of the majority of the nation’s citizens—attacks including ridicule and defamation which could certainly be regarded as blasphemous—has in recent years never been a cause of concern to the nation’s government.

So why start now? Has Dermot Ahern suddenly found God?

Blasphemy is defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§2148) as “uttering against God—inwardly or outwardly—words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one’s speech; in misusing God’s name. St. James condemns those “who blaspheme that honorable name [of Jesus] by which you are called” (2:7). The prohibition of blasphemy extends to language against Christ’s Church, the saints, and sacred things. It is also blasphemous to make use of God’s name to cover up criminal practices, to reduce peoples to servitude, to torture persons or put them to death”. (This last sentence is as clear a condemnation of the religion of Mahomet as ever was written).

As Ireland is now what they call a ‘diverse’ and ‘multi-faith’ society, the Church’s definition of blasphemy is most certainly not that which will inform the proposed law. Instead, we find blasphemy now defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion”.

This law will not take a single step towards banishing anti-Christian prejudice from the airwaves and the printsheets. No, this law is being introduced in order to protect the Mahometan—or rather, to appease the Mahometan and thus protect the peace by forbidding any criticism of Mahomet, or the religion he founded, or the Qur’an, or the behaviour of those who practice that religion, lest there be disturbances against public order. For if anything which might offend Mahometans be prohibited by the new law against blasphemous libel, perhaps they shall not riot if they see the offender punished by the full rigors of the law.

Melancholicus rather doubts that. The Mahometan will riot anyway because it is in his nature to do so. Perhaps by saying so Melancholicus has himself uttered blasphemy—at least according to how Dermot Ahern might define it.

From The Irish Times:

Crime of blasphemous libel proposed for Defamation Bill

CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor

A NEW crime of blasphemous libel is to be proposed by the Minister for Justice in an amendment to the Defamation Bill, which will be discussed by the Oireachtas committee on justice today.

At the moment there is no crime of blasphemy on the statute books, though it is prohibited by the Constitution.

Article 40 of the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech, qualifies it by stating: “The State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.

“The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent material is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.”

Last year the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, under the chairmanship of Fianna Fáil TD Seán Ardagh, recommended amending this Article to remove all references to sedition and blasphemy, and redrafting the Article along the lines of article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which deals with freedom of expression.

The prohibition on blasphemy dates back to English law aimed at protecting the established church, the Church of England, from attack. It has been used relatively recently to prosecute satirical publications in the UK [Although Melancholicus has no knowledge of such matters, he guesses Private Eye as a likely victim of that law. The ironic thing is that the Church of England now, more than at any other period of her history, most fully deserves a thoroughgoing lampooning].

In the only Irish case taken under this article, Corway -v- Independent Newspapers, in 1999, the Supreme Court concluded that it was impossible to say “of what the offence of blasphemy consists” [and the Supreme Court is impeccably correct since its judgement is not informed by adherence to one religion or another].

It also stated that a special protection for Christianity was incompatible with the religious equality provisions of Article 44 [indeed. Denial of special protection for Christianity ipso facto confers that special protection to other religions, of which Mahometanism will no doubt be the chief beneficiary].

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000.” [That’s rather steep. To deter those who persist in warning the western world about the grave threat posed by Islam, perhaps?]

“Blasphemous matter” is defined [by whom, precisely?] as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, [pay attention... here’s the meat] thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; [of what religion, gentle reader, do “a substantial number of adherents” become outraged when confronted with ‘blasphemous’ matter? It ain’t Catholicism. When was the last time Catholics rioted because an off-colour journalist made some off-colour remark about the Pope or about the doctrines of the faith? When was the last time a film-maker was murdered by outraged Catholics after a piece of his work which reflected badly on the Church was screened by RTÉ?] and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.” [One thinks at once of the Motoons, and perhaps indeed those who drafted this definition even had the Motoons in mind when they did so]

Where a person is convicted of an offence under this section, the court may issue a warrant authorising the Garda Síochána to enter, if necessary using reasonable force, a premises where the member of the force has reasonable grounds for believing there are copies of the blasphemous statements in order to seize them [in order that books, pamphlets, other writings, images, video footage, computer disks or any other media containing criticism of Islam may be seized and destroyed. Melancholicus wonders if it will even be an offence to download Pat Condell’s videos for personal use].

Labour spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte is proposing an amendment to this section which would reduce the maximum fine to €1,000 and exclude from the definition of blasphemy any matter that had any literary, artistic, social or academic merit.

The Legal Affairs Editor of The Irish Times clearly disapproves of the proposed law. Melancholicus cannot blame her.

Vocations Sunday

2009-05-03T04:12:00.004-07:00

This Fourth Sunday of Easter is the annual “Day of Prayer for Vocations”.

To be fair, we were invited to pray in a special way for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, but true to the inanity of the conciliar church, this morning’s priest couldn’t help but witter on about us all finding our vocation in life.

This to a sparse congregation the average age of which is seventy, and to which one might respond that if such persons haven’t discerned their vocation by now, they never will.

Of course deflecting attention from a specific vocation to vows or sacred orders in favour of a general vocation to married life, single life, or maybe afterwards the Church, simply defeats the purpose, because every human being, Catholic or not, will either end up getting married or staying single anyway.

The trick is to get them to stay single in order to serve God and His holy Church in a specific manner. That is the whole point of praying for vocations. We pray on this Sunday not that young Jimmy will make up his mind whether to get married some day or to remain single (perhaps in order to indulge in serial concubinage), but that the Lord will inspire the hearts of young people with a spirit of generosity, self-sacrifice and a desire to serve Him and His Church in vows or in holy orders.

Laying out the priesthood and the religious life alongside all the other options really just focuses attention on those other options in the minds of those few young people who even hear the message in the first place. Framing the question in terms of “marriage or religious life?” just confuses people, and makes of religious life no more than an afterthought. If you go down to your local Opel dealer to view the new Insignia, he will be most welcoming and helpful to you, but he will not tell you about equivalent models manufactured by Renault or Toyota. He will talk to you of Opel, and only Opel. First decide whether or not you wish to buy Opel; afterwards, if you have not committed yourself, you can start thinking about Toyota.

Anyhow, the ‘Year of Vocation’ announced on 13 April 2008 came to an end this Sunday.

Without meaning to mock, or to throw stones at well-intentioned albeit clueless people who really haven’t a notion what they’re doing, Melancholicus does seriously wonder if the ‘Year of Vocation’ just ended has borne any fruit at all.

There is no word on the website as to whether the year has been a success or a failure. To be fair, it is probably too early to judge such. The wretched blog still has the mere three entries it sported—one of which is to do with marriage, if you please!—when it was derided some time ago by the sorely missed and much lamented Smasher.

So let us offer our prayers on this day for vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, not for some vague grandiosity that we will all somehow “find our vocation”. Many of us have already found our vocation, thank you very much. The Church needs priests, monks and nuns. She does not need Opel dealers recommending that their customers test drive the Toyota Avensis.

Now a touch of humour. Here is the text of the prayer for vocations provided on the liturgical calendar of Catholic Ireland, reproduced exactly as Melancholicus found it:

“Lord Jesus, you said to your disciples: ‘The harvest indeed is great but the lobourers [sic] are few.’
Ie [sic] ask that we may know and follow the vocation to which you hove [sic] called us. We pray for those coiled [sic] to serve: those whom you have called, those you ore [sic] calling now, ond [sic] those you will coli [sic] in the future.
May they be open ond [sic] responsive to the coli [sic] of serving your people. Amen.”

“Coiled to serve” is a rather arresting image, is it not? Are we looking for serpents or shepherds for the Kingdom of God? And how about being “responsive to the coli”? What coli would that be, then? Hopefully not this variety. Get that in your bowels and they’ll certainly be responsive and no mistake.

Sometimes it is wise not to trust the scanner too much.

Swine flu: what not to do

2009-05-01T04:26:00.004-07:00

Do not, gentle reader, neglect to enjoy this parody of Sky News’ coverage of the swine flu pandemic on The Emergency at Newstalk 106.

Welcome to the free market my friends

2009-04-30T07:14:00.006-07:00

Melancholicus rather likes the nickname, namely The Suppository, coined by Mulier Fortis for that formerly Catholic journal The Tablet. Hence he shall start using it himself.

A few weeks back The Suppository featured an editorial which blazed indignantly against Catholic bloggers who, for some clearly malicious reason, seem to take a position diametrically opposed to that peddled by The Suppository itself. That piece was dealt with so ably and in so witty a fashion by so many Catholic bloggers that there is no need for Melancholicus to add his own ingredients to the stew. Instead he shall content himself with an observation.

What the staff of The Suppository are really upset about is not that ‘right wing’ bloggers have been having a go at them. No, for even liberals have a thicker skin than that. What upsets them runs much deeper and in its effects is much more profound than a mere fisking here and there.

The root of their distress is that with the spread of the internet and the proliferation of blogs representing what thousands of ordinary Catholics, both clerical and lay, really think about what’s going on in the Church, they have lost their control over the channels of Catholic communications. They are no longer able to set the agenda. Their own is no longer the only voice being heard. They are no longer able to confine public discussion to the fashionable left-wing causes of interest to themselves and their fellow travellers. Now they have to compete and, if they are to survive, they will have to do their work properly. It will no longer suffice to say what they like and have their diktat taken as the final word. Google has on a number of occasions already seen to it that they have been caught out in their spin-doctoring, their half-truths, and their outright lies.

Now they are immersed in the free market of ideas, and the buffets and billows of those waters are not to their liking. In order to win sympathy for themselves, they used to whinge and complain about the oppression under which free-thinkers like themselves were subject by the grey old men in the Vatican who were opposed to liberty, to freedom and to change. However, the recent growth of a samizdat press, thanks in large part to the internet, has turned this picture on its head. They are unmasked, finally, not as the brave champions of liberty struggling against authoritarianism, but as part of the propaganda ministry of a cabal of liberal bishops and revolutionaries long ensconced in power, the mouthpiece of a regime as arbitrary and authoritarian as they sought to portray the Magisterium of the Church, and far from being courageous freedom fighters, they are revealed as a tool of establishment power and control.

Small wonder they should feel uncomfortable and turn their anger against the light now shining on their darkest deeds.

The only channels of information on Church news once available to the average Catholic in England and Wales was the established Catholic press, and periodicals such as The Suppository, as well as occasional coverage in relentlessly hostile secular sources. With a singular exception, all of these portrayed events, persons and even defined Church teaching from a slanted and dissenting perspective. The Catholic faithful, appalled at the heresy being published weekly in these so-called ‘Catholic’ sources, likewise appalled at the audacity of those who published such heresy, were often denied so much as a right of reply. True, one could write a letter of complaint to such and such a newspaper or periodical. But would they publish it? The editors of these publications could exercise supreme control over what was selected for publication, with the result that their journals became vehicles for dissent. The Suppository is to this day still such a vehicle, as are many similar rags in Ireland—The Furrow, for instance, to name but one—but they no longer exercise a monopoly over the channels of communication. Their readership is falling, a new generation of Catholics has arisen who no longer unquestioningly toe the revolutionary line, and alternative platforms are now cheaply and easily available for the dissemination of alternative views.

And the old guard, hysterically reciting their satanic verses in shriller and shriller tones, are afraid.

It is natural they should be afraid, for defeat looms on the horizon.

The BBC on the first hundred days

2009-04-30T06:09:00.010-07:00

Yesterday marked the 100th day in office of US President Barack Hussein Obama.

The celebration of this sacred festival was reported in a variety of media and without exception all coverage of Obama’s first hundred days was overwhelmingly positive. It was astounding to listen to the effusive, jaw-dropping panegyrics.

RTÉ Radio 1 featured an American commentator—Democrat, naturally—whose smooth, slick and syrupy tribute to the wonders of the presidency thus far was lapped up eagerly and uncritically by the presenters. The only negative notes allowed to ruffle the waters were found in passing references to the inevitable ‘far right’ and that favourite bugbear of leftist journalism, the ‘religious (i.e. Christian) right’.

But BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme, presented by Robin Lustig, went further than RTÉ in attributing a voice and a human face to those perfidious opponents of the Chosen One. The effect, of course, was to make them look ridiculous—which was surely the purpose of such coverage to begin with. In search of fruitful propaganda, the reporter, one Kevin Connolly, betook himself to the American mid-west, specifically to the state of Oklahoma, where he hoped to obtain a collection of suitably dotty soundbites from a collection of suitably dotty individuals, which would then be passed off by the BBC as representative of conservative American opinion at large. The premise: that opponents of Obama are unbalanced, uneducated, prejudiced, fundamentalist evangelical rapture-type rednecks who stubbornly refuse to render the great man his due adulation for a variety of specious reasons that no sane rational person could possibly take seriously. They are also, naturally, racist and ‘homophobic’. The BBC doesn’t have to say this, of course. The beauty of this propaganda coup is that the selected interviewees make such an arse of themselves denouncing the President that one feels positively embarrassed listening to them. One may safely assume that anyone expressing a more moderate view, or opposition to Obama on more specific and tangible grounds, would have been carefully edited out so as not to spoil the picture.

We do not exaggerate. For those who may have missed it, or who are so nauseated by the shameless bias of the contemporary BBC that they cannot bring themselves ever to listen to anything broadcast by that organ, here is the source. The anti-anti-Obama propaganda starts at approximately 39 minutes in.

Listen particularly to the group of “Bible-believing Oklahoman ladies who lunch” after 40:50 to get the kind of score the BBC was really after. The reporter’s caveat that one “wouldn’t wish to meet more hospitable, warmer people anywhere” is merely a disarming remark and nothing more.

It’s all really rather insulting to the good people of Oklahoma, as well as to the millions who voted either for John McCain or for another candidate, to suggest that opposition to Barack Hussein is based only on this kind of stuff.

Bravo comrades at the BBC, you’re doing your work well!

The 'Mass presenter', part the second

2009-04-30T05:39:00.003-07:00

A fortnight ago Melancholicus dreamed a ‘liturgical’ dream—a nightmare actually—the particulars of which are described in the post immediately preceding this one.

After recounting the gory details, he remarked that the good news is that it was only a dream.

The bad news, however, is that it has doubtless happened for real in some God-forsaken hell-hole of a parish in the wasteland of the conciliar church.

Confirmation of that grim remark was not long in coming. For now Melancholicus has stumbled upon this atrocity, related for us by Fr. Ray Blake.

A whole coterie of Mass presenters, engaged in an invalid and sacrilegious simulation of the holy sacrifice.

So outrageous is this incident that not a few of those who posted comments on Fr. Blake’s post are convinced it is a hoax.

Melancholicus would like to think that this is indeed a hoax, but such is the wretched state of the Church in our time and the profound ignorance of the holiest things one finds even among those few who still practice, that one cannot be sure.

We await further news regarding this sordid affair.

The 'Mass presenter'

2009-04-16T03:17:00.005-07:00

Driving back to Dublin one recent Sunday evening, I chanced to pass through the place where I grew up, a coastal town in north county Wicklow.

Not yet having satisfied my Sunday obligation, I intended to hear Mass in the parish church before continuing my journey. This would be something of a homecoming for me, since this was the church with which my earliest memories of the Catholic religion are associated, the stained glass windows of which have always captivated me, in which I had made my first confession, received my first holy communion and had been confirmed. It is also the church in which, in 1997, I resumed the practice of my religion after my youthful dalliance with secularism.

When I reached the church I was startled to find it shut. On the main door was posted a notice informing the public that the eucharist would instead be celebrated in such and such a place, at such and such a time.

Somewhat out of sorts, I made my way to the appointed place, namely a room in a nearby municipal building, which looked nothing like a suitable setting for a religious service, never mind the holy sacrifice of the Mass. The place was nothing more than a glorified schoolroom, with rows of chairs of the kind normally associated with modern education. There was a plain tiled floor, a tiled ceiling with hissing fluorescent lights, a beige curtain hanging along the length of one wall, and bare brick everywhere else. Think of the interior of any modern public edifice and in your mind’s eye you will see this scene exactly as I encountered it. Naturally there was no sanctuary—and no tabernacle—but in a corner of the room there was a dais on which was set one of those odious little Cranmer tables that are so much in vogue nowadays. Although the table was spread with a white cloth and flanked by the inevitable potted plants, neither candles nor crucifix were anywhere to be seen, nor was there any sign of shrines, statuary, stations of the cross or any other of the usual appointments one expects to see when one goes to attend a Catholic service. Not even the ubiquitous felt banners—so beloved of the Novus Ordinarians and correspondingly detested by Trads—put in any appearance here. The only indication in this room that Mass was about to be celebrated were two bowls on the table, piled high with what were clearly hosts. I say bowls, but they were really only plates, commonplace utensils of the sort from which one would eat one’s toast for breakfast at one’s kitchen table. There was also a carafe, or rather a large glass jug, filled with a pale reddish liquid, presumably some sort of wine.

My dismay in the face of this unpromising prospect was both heartfelt and immediate. At first I was thrown by the sight of the hosts, not knowing in this highly unusual setting whether they were already consecrated or whether they were to be so consecrated in the Mass that was about to begin. But I hesistated to make any sign of reverence, feeling distinctly that there was something very fishy, and indeed unholy, in what was going on here. A few yards down the road there was a perfectly good and indeed beautiful church, where Mass ought to have been celebrated with due solemnity, but this church was closed for no discernibly good reason, and the liturgy transferred instead to a decidedly secular and profane setting. It seems that the majority of the parishioners had already decided that, since they could not attend Mass in the parish church, they would not attend it at all, for as I glanced around the room I saw that there were only a half dozen other persons in attendance, seated in the front row of schoolroom chairs, with what looked like a programme or missalette in their hands. Aside from one elderly man, I was the only male present. The women in attendance were all in their fifties and sixties. The old man never once looked in my direction, but the women all smiled beamingly at me with a syrupy sickliness, reminding me of the facade of false friendliness I have encountered among store clerks, waiting staff and other service personnel in my travels in the United States. Although my senses were now screaming at me to shun this place and leave as quickly as I could, I took a seat a couple of rows back from the others, uneasy, yet curious to see what sort of liturgical atrocity would be played out in front of me.

Mass was about to begin!

Suddenly, from behind the beige curtain, a woman appeared. She was in her forties, short-haired, with hands clasped in an attitude of religiosity. What was most immediately shocking about her appearance was her dress. Although she was clad in one of those full-length, off-white, alb-like smocks tied at the waist with a cincture, it was not that which shocked me. Around her neck, over the alb and passing down beneath the cincture was a long strip of white cloth, camouflaged somewhat by its colour against the background of the alb but clearly visible nonetheless. I did a double take.

It was a stole.

A stole!

It is common in these days of increasing liturgical laicism for the conciliar church to kit out its extraordinary womenesses in those alb-like smocks and even cinctures during the celebration of holy Mass. This may be regarded pushing the envelope, but as it does not trespass egregiously against what pertains to the priesthood, it can be let slide.

But a stole is an entirely different matter. The stole is a uniquely priestly vestment. Not even a deacon may wear his stole in the inverted U-shape with both ends hanging down the front as this woman was doing right before my eyes. Needless to say, no-one who is not in sacred orders (with the singular exception of a mitred abbess) may wear a stole at any time for any reason whatsoever.

I was so shocked I neither moved nor spoke. The woman then proceeded to the dais, stood behind the Cranmer table and addressed the ‘congregation’. She informed us that “Father H. cannot be here this evening, so he has asked me to lead you all in prayer. My name is Barbara, and I am your Mass presenter.”

I remained rooted, immobile. Barbara, our ‘Mass presenter’, began to speak, an overflowing torrent of words, beaming smiles and waving hand gestures, but such was my stupefaction I heard nothing of what she said. When my intelligence began, slowly, to return to me, I noticed there was no book on the table in front of her. Whatever ‘service’ was being performed in front of me, it was wholly extemporised and bore hardly a tittle of resemblance even to the loosest interpretation of the Novus Ordo, at least as I knew it. At a certain point, I think the ‘Mass presenter’ may have read from the Gospel; I am sure I heard her say “The Lord be with you” and my fellow congregants responding enthusiastically. She also preached—naturally—and it seemed that more emphasis was laid on her homily than on anything else thus far, though I cannot quite recall what she preached about. When she finished her histrionics she returned to the Cranmer table—the Creed was not recited—and began elevating the plates of hosts and the jug of wine in what I can only describe as some sort of counterfeit offertory. At this point my senses returned to me completely and I realised with clarity that this was NOT a Mass, it was (at least if the elements on the table had been consecrated beforehand) a mere communion service, that I had no obligation to attend such a thing, and that if the elements on the table were not yet consecrated and the ‘Mass presenter’ were to attempt to ‘consecrate’ them herself, her ‘eucharist’ would actually be an invalid and sacrilegious simulation of a sacrament, and that I should leave immediately.

That is what I did. Rising purposefully from my seat I made a beeline for the exit, so I have no idea what sacrilegious antics the ‘Mass presenter’ got up to in my absence. As I left the building I realised I had forgotten to switch off my cellphone for at that moment I received a noisy text message from my fiancée, which woke me with a start.

The good news is that all of the above was only a dream, a dream which I had just last night.

The bad news is that all of the above has doubtless happened for real in some God-forsaken hell-hole of a parish in the wasteland of the conciliar church.

Incidentally, the ‘Father H.’ referred to by the ‘Mass presenter’ above is a real person. He no longer serves at the parish in question (Deo gratias) but he was a source of much annoyance to the orthodox during his ministry there, and prescinding from the celebration of Mass so a lay woman could have her turn playing priest at the altar is just the sort of thing he would do if he thought he could get away with it. A few years ago I dreamed of him celebrating Mass—in alb and stole, sans chasuble—elevating the host and chalice at the Per ipsum, flanked by women in albs, six on each side, with their hands extended, as though concelebrating. A nightmare, actually.

It was a night of strange dreams. I also dreamed that the university at which I work incarcerated me in my office for three days and nights, not allowing me to leave. This at the behest of an unidentified religious superior of somewhat conciliar inclinations who, having stumbled upon Infelix Ego, did not like what he found there. Whereat I woke up.

Then there was another dream in which I was walking along a street in an unidentified town in rural Ireland. There was a column of monastics from a decidedly ‘progressive’ community processing down the street in the opposite direction. Some of them were in the habit of their order, others in shirts and ragged denims. One particularly obnoxious soul, a mufti-clad middle-aged man with curly black hair was speaking into a tanoy, such that his voice could be heard throughout the village. With brazen arrogance he denied one Catholic doctrine after another—the Virginity of Our Lady, the Divinity of Christ, the Redemption, the Resurrection, Transubstantiation and Holy Orders. His language was the language of a marxist; when not denouncing the faith of our holy mother the Church he spoke of building the earthly utopia of which every socialist dreams. None of his brethren batted an eyelid. I swore at him, denouncing his monologue as “heretical shite”. He ignored me completely, but his voice grew louder as he continued his diatribe. Whereat I woke up.

There were other dreams, but I shall not tax the patience of my readers by recounting them all... what a wondrous thing is the unconscious imagination, which can generate pictures of not only such oddity but clarity and vividness—much more vivid sometimes than that of which one’s waking imagination is capable.

I know there are books and websites which specialise in the interpretation of dreams, and can inform one what it means if one dreams of flying, falling, death, etc.

But is there any such source which can interpret dreams of heretical monks, stealth priestesses and liturgical abuse?

Hope

2009-04-09T09:31:00.004-07:00

Melancholicus has spent much of Holy Thursday reading (or rather re-reading) the late Archbishop’s book Open Letter to Confused Catholics.

The Archbishop wrote this work in the 1980s, at a time when the conciliar revolution with all its excesses was going full tilt and there seemed to be no end in sight. It was still a tremendously topical work when Melancholicus first encountered it about the year 2000, and he found it most alarming reading.

Melancholicus first read the Open Letter online, but shortly afterwards obtained his own copy, rushed by special post hot off the presses of St. Mary’s, Kansas City. It was a defining moment, for it was one of those seminal sources which prompted him to try his vocation in the United States with the FSSP rather than risking his soul with his home archdiocese of Dublin.

Today Melancholicus re-read almost the complete text in a single sitting and, as topical as it had seemed when he first read it ten years ago, it left him this time round with the distinct impression he was reading a chronicle of a lost world.

With all due respect to the Archbishop, to whom in fairness Traditionalists everywhere owe so much, there is a great deal in the Open Letter that is now obsolete and dated, almost as dated even as the insane ravings of the modernists the Open Letter condemned over twenty years ago.

Reading through the grim chapters describing post-conciliar madness and seemingly inarrestable decline, Melancholicus was struck by the realization of how many of the front-rank revolutionaries, soi disant theologians and egregious bishops named by the Archbishop are now dead, or at least in senectitude and quiescent retirement. Each passing year thins their ranks still further, and since they have not inspired the generations that came after them to step into their shoes and take up the cudgels in defence of neo-modernism, their precious revolution will die with them.

What a difference has been made by the passage of a mere ten years!

The day after the bomb fell, the city of Hiroshima was unrecognizable, a scorched and flattened wasteland of charred debris. Observers on the scene were astounded at how quickly nature recovered from the shock; within a fortnight, the wasteland was abloom with flowers and green shoots and all manner of growing things.

Life finds a way. It will return even to the sterile wastes of the conciliar church, whereafter the latter will look less and less like the conciliar church and more like the Catholic one.

The conciliar revolutionaries having done their work, we, the orthodox, shall be left with the wreckage. But not only with the wreckage; we still have our faith, and the help of Divine grace, which no revolutionary can ever tear from us. It will be our task to painstakingly rebuild what has been destroyed by the malice and negligence of the last forty years. It will be an immense task. But we shall bear that burden gladly.

When the Lord in His agony on the cross cried out His consummatum est, bowed His head, and gave up the ghost, it seemed to His disciples as though the malice of hell had triumphed, and that evil had won.

But just as the Lord rose again on the third day in His glorified body, so shall He rise again in His mystical body, which is our holy Church. The Church can never be destroyed, and she will never fail, regardless of how many Neros or Diocletians or Muhammads or Luthers or Robespierres or Hitlers or Stalins or Weaklands or Küngs the angel of light may hurl against her.

We have the promise of Our Lord Himself, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

That so much of what the Archbishop said in his Open Letter now belongs to a vanishing past is surely a cause for great hope.

Melancholicus thinks that the Archbishop’s heart would thrill for joy, were he only here to see it for himself.

Where we're at

2009-04-02T05:12:00.005-07:00

The past month’s inactivity on Infelix Ego may have given the impression that Melancholicus has given up blogging for Lent.

He hasn’t.

He has been tremendously busy with work, with wedding preparations, with planning his move to the United States and, most recently, with a family crisis for which he earnestly solicits the prayers of his benevolent readers. March has not been an easy month, and April looks to be no kinder.

Please, gentle reader, pray for someone close to me who is being harrassed by her employer. She is really suffering, has lost a lot of weight, has lost her appetite, is unable to sleep properly and is developing health problems as a result. In your charity pray for the persecutor too. It is easy to pray for one’s enemies when one doesn’t really have any, but when such are obnoxiously in one’s face, shoving their inimicitas down one’s very throat, it is difficult indeed to maintain a spirit of Christian charity.

As for the blog... dear blog, I shall update thee before long! But not before next week, for this evening I drive down to county Waterford for a two-day Lenten retreat in a Cistercian monastery, which I was nearly going to cancel on account of what’s going on in my life, but my friend—who is a good deal more than merely my friend—has insisted that I go and use that precious recollected time to pray to God for her. Please join with me in prayer for her intentions.

Yours with grateful thanks,

Infelix ego, Melancholicus, peccator.

Shrove Tuesday

2009-02-25T03:17:00.004-08:00

This is the traditional name given to the day preceding Ash Wednesday.

The Americans call it Fat Tuesday, owing, I guess, to the practice of clearing out the larder by eating everything therein forbidden during Lent. In many (principally Latin) countries it is known as Mardi Gras and celebrated with some abandon, but Melancholicus much prefers the traditional English name and sober manner of its celebration.

Shrove Tuesday is named from the verb shrive, which has past tense shrove and past participle shriven. This is an ancient word, going back to the earliest English and with cognates also in other Germanic languages. ‘To shrive’ is to hear confessions, and ‘to be shriven’ refers to the reception of sacramental absolution. Linguistically this is of course an archaic usage, but it is not dead even yet, for today one still encounters souls who use the traditional English terms for receiving the sacrament rather than the more common and pedestrian expression ‘going to confession’.

It is not mandatory to confess one’s sins in Shrovetide, but it is a praiseworthy practice nonetheless and makes for an excellent beginning to the Lenten fast. One should at least use Shrovetide as a time for planning—in consultation with one’s director if one has such—how one shall spend the forty days of Lent.

Melancholicus wished to be shriven on this day, but such was rather difficult as he didn’t venture out of the house except to visit the local shop, whereafter the prospect of driving into town, finding somewhere to park and locating a confessor was somewhat unappealing.

Instead he spent the day playing Rome: Total War, yes, the entire day—for this was his version of Fat Tuesday, and he shall be giving it up for Lent. Five of his cities are under siege, but the inhabitants thereof must wait until Easter to be relieved. His spiritual and intellectual life will benefit more from a renunciation of that game than it ever could abstaining from chocolate or alcoholic beverages.

In the UK and Ireland it is customary to eat pancakes on the evening of Shrove Tuesday, whence the oft-used name (particularly among children) of “pancake Tuesday”. Melancholicus continues to observe this custom in his adulthood although he now sources his pancakes ready-made in the local shop, which relieves him of the burden of frying them up himself.

Very tasty they were too.

Smasher R.I.P.

2009-02-25T02:42:00.002-08:00

Alas, the Irish blogosphere is a sadder, colder, more joyless place than it was until lately.

For the incomparable Smasher has fared forth, perhaps to pastures greener, where one need never be anxious about dodgy homilies, mediocre bishops, or liturgical abuse.

The late savant’s obituary notice, posted by his widow Bellatrix, is so poignant it brings a tear to the eye.

With Smasher gone, who shall bait Donal McKeown for us? Who?

But since we are Christians and believe in the resurrection, we might express the hope that perhaps Smasher shall resurface at some point in the future, maybe under a different identity, and continue to edify and amuse...

Of course Smasher isn’t really dead. But he has quit blogging. Explanation here.

Thank you Therese!

2009-02-25T02:12:00.005-08:00

Melancholicus couldn’t believe his eyes.

His sitemeter has gone haywire with activity.

He is not normally given to boasting about stats since his regular readership is so tiny, and if Infelix Ego were online for a hundred years he still wouldn’t receive as many visitors as the heavy hitters get in a week.

Investigating this sudden upsurge in activity, he traced its source to a comment by one Therese B on this post on Fr. Z’s site, in which a link back to Infelix Ego is provided. Not a few wdtprs readers have followed the link, and it has more than tripled his stats - look!

Thank you, Therese! Your blogger is most grateful.

It's forbidden, you know

2009-02-23T07:10:00.003-08:00

This is apposite, as Lent is all but upon us.

It is customary in not a few Amchurch parishes to replace the normal contents of holy water fonts with sand, soil, pebbles, woodland detritus and sundry other unmentionables.

Melancholicus does not recall encountering this unlawful nonsense in any Irish church. But if any of his Irish readers have come across such in this country, he would be interested in hearing from them.

Here is the response from the CDW:

Prot. N. 569/00/L
March 14, 2000

Dear Father:

This Congregation for Divine Worship has received your letter sent by fax in which you ask whether it is in accord with liturgical law to remove the Holy Water from the fonts for the duration of the season of Lent.

This Dicastery is able to respond that the removing of Holy Water from the fonts during the season of Lent is not permitted, in particular, for two reasons:

1. The liturgical legislation in force does not foresee this innovation, which in addition to being praeter legem is contrary to a balanced understanding of the season of Lent, which though truly being a season of penance, is also a season rich in the symbolism of water and baptism, constantly evoked in liturgical texts.

2. The encouragement of the Church that the faithful avail themselves frequently of the [sic] of her sacraments and sacramentals is to be understood to apply also to the season of Lent. The "fast" and "abstinence" which the faithful embrace in this season does not extend to abstaining from the sacraments or sacramentals of the Church. The practice of the Church has been to empty the Holy Water fonts on the days of the Sacred Triduum in preparation of the blessing of the water at the Easter Vigil, and it corresponds to those days on which the Eucharist is not celebrated (i.e., Good Friday and Holy Saturday).

Hoping that this resolves the question and with every good wish and kind regard, I am,

Sincerely yours in Christ,

[signed] Mons. Mario Marini
Undersecretary

Thanks to the Orthometer, by way of The Crescat.

The liturgical colour of Lent: not violet, but green!

2009-02-23T05:07:00.010-08:00

The C of E, that formerly venerable institution of English culture and religion which has given us such delights as choral evensong and the Oxford Movement, but which lately has resorted to frivolous gimmicks to keep up its media profile, is now preparing for the holy season of Lent.

And what are Christians being urged to do for Lent this year?

Mortifying the body through the practice of fast and abstinence? Not a bit of it.

How about rising earlier from sleep in order to give oneself to an hour of prayer before undertaking the duties of the day? Not that either.

Or, perhaps, spiritual reading and daily meditation? No.

More frequent attendance at church services, or almsgiving, or works of charity? Not these.

No, the Church of England in general and two of its bishops in particular, have recommended that Christians give up carbon for Lent. In practical terms, this involves such practices as eschewing the use of plastic bags, washing dishes in the sink instead of in the dishwasher, insulating the house and the hot water tank, switching off electrical appliances when not in use, &c. In this wise, Lent is to be a time for reducing the size of one’s “carbon footprint” rather than a time of penance and spiritual renewal.

How thoroughly, heart-warmingly secular! How totally at one with the zeitgeist! How completely and fashionably trendy! They must have forgotten what Lent is all about. There is nothing in their lordships’ prescription, apart perhaps from the occurrence of the word Lent to which any atheist could take exception.

A secular programme for what is in essence a secular goal, and with it the Christian significance of Lent is jettisoned entirely.

Lest Melancholicus be thought of as mocking the Anglicans, he assures his readers he has no such malicious intention. On the contrary, he is pleased to offer, as an antidote to the above nonsense, some edification he found on the blog of a C of E clergyman here.

That was not my Mass

2009-02-23T01:35:00.006-08:00

So says Elena Curti, deputy editrix of The Tablet, a journal which (like so many other things in the recent life of the Church) was once a bastion of Catholicism but is now a suppurating carbuncle of error, division and dissent.

As is by now well known across the blogosphere, the target of Ms. Curti’s invective was the traditional rite of Mass in general, and Fr. Tim Finigan in particular.

Happily for all good servants of the Lord, Ms. Curti’s hatchet job seems to have done more damage to herself and to the organ for which she writes than to Fr. Tim. Nevertheless that good priest has been maligned in a grossly offensive manner that at least one observer has considered actionable.

It is no secret that the editorial staff of The Tablet has a special animus against the old Mass. That they have such stems from ecclesiology—they have a different view of the Church and of religion, and probably a different view of God as well, to that which Catholics have always held. The old Mass is non grata in the wonderful, ‘renewed’ Church we currently inhabit because it so clearly expresses the old religion. The preference of the revolutionaries for the new Mass stems from the ambiguity of its ritual, since, given the plethora of options available to the celebrant or liturgy planner and the often sloppy manner of its celebration, the old religion is not as immediately and unambiguously expressed as in the older rite.

Melancholicus would never assert that a mere preference for the new rite constitutes an attachment to heresy, or renders one less Catholic than one’s neighbour. This rite has been normative in the western Church for nearly forty years, and it is no exaggeration to say that the majority of those who still attend Mass today do prefer it. They are accustomed to it, and where religious rites are concerned, long familiarity creates a deep attachment. Many ordinary Catholics have also unconsciously imbibed the propaganda of the liturgical revolution through no fault of their own.

So there is nothing in itself wrong with preferring the new Mass to the old, and Melancholicus would never oppose granting access to the Novus Ordo to those who desire it. Even if ideological radicals such as the likes of Elena Curti wish to attend the new rite every Sunday, so be it, it is not his place to interfere.

But what of those who desire access to the old rite? Should they not also be treated with equanimity?

While a mere preference for the new rite as the Mass to which one is accustomed is blameless, Melancholicus has always thought there is something peculiar about those whose attachment to the new rite is in part a reaction against the old.

They are suspect who wish to suppress the old Mass, or to see it suppressed. Such an attitude manifestly savours of heresy.

They are likewise suspect who, though aware of the old Mass, care nothing in particular for it and would cry no tears if it did in fact vanish, as though it were not a great treasure of the Church that ought to be cultivated and fostered with great care to be handed on to future generations. Such an attitude, while it does not necessarily indicate espousal of heretical opinions, is at the very least a ripe example of cultural and artistic philistinism.

Yesterday Melancholicus so wanted to attend the Mass of Quinquagesima Sunday instead of that for the seventh Sunday of “Ordinary Time”, but it just wasn’t available in his locality.

But he did not exclaim, with the arrogance of Elena Curti, that “that was not my Mass”. While improvements could certainly be made to the state of the liturgy as it is celebrated in these parts, the sacrifice of Calvary is still in there somewhere.

The Mass is the Mass; it is not the plaything of any priest, or layperson, or group of laypersons. It is an Actio Christi, an action of Christ, for He is both the Priest who offers, and the Victim who is offered, that the sins of many might be remitted. This is as true of even the wackiest Novus Ordo as it is of the most solemn and reverent celebration of the Latin Church’s ancient liturgy. The Mass is not a party, nor is it a simple meal, it is an august and solemn sacrifice, even the sacrifice of Calvary itself.

Each one of us knows how liturgical terrorists have obscured the sacrifice by changing the words of the rite and with the signs and gestures and other externals whereof it is composed, in an attempt to make it appear more a celebration of the community, or whatever, rather than an action of Christ. This is nothing less than a blasphemy, since it attempts to obscure a great truth that God himself has revealed to us, and attempts to refuse the greatest gift of all that He has given us. As St. Vincent de Paul said (quoted in the video below), “ceremonies may be shadows, but they are shadows of great truths, and it is essential that they should be carried out with the greatest possible attention”. And that, of course, is why the old liturgy and those who celebrate it are pursued with such bitter and fanatical zeal by our friends over at The Tablet, and elsewhere. The old Mass is unmistakably a solemn sacrifice, Calvary made present on our very altars in an unbloody manner — and that is why they hate it.

The Bloggers' Choice Awards

2009-02-18T03:03:00.005-08:00

It’s that time of year again.

Although Melancholicus was sufficiently vain as to solicit nomination from another blogger, he was at least not so vain as to nominate himself!

Unhappily, though, some weeks ago he discovered through carelessly fiddling with the website, and much to his surprise, that it is indeed possible to vote for oneself—and hence through that ill-conceived experiment, his vote for 2009 is already used up.

That was not his intention. He would much prefer to have given his vote to someone more deserving. Ah well, he shall remember this lesson next year.

But, gentle reader, if Infelix Ego has in any way moved you, whether to rapture, laughter, fury, boredom or tears, do consider visiting the Bloggers’ Choice Awards and voting...

... for Mulier Fortis.

Sodality of Our Lady retreat

2009-02-18T02:09:00.005-08:00

As he remarked in this post last December, Melancholicus feels the need for a retreat in order to clear away the cobwebs and let some sunlight into his benighted soul.

As to the contents of such a retreat, he expressed a preference for, naturally, daily Mass (usus antiquior), silence, wholesome spiritual conferences, examen and of course confession.

Members of the Sodality of Our Lady have now organised such a retreat scheduled to take place in Mount Melleray Cistercian monastery in April, and Melancholicus will be going. He can forward details to any of his Irish readers who are likewise interested in participating; just get in touch. The traditional Mass will be offered each day and, circumstances permitting, perhaps one or more of the traditional breviary offices will also be sung.

Melancholicus much misses the chanting of the office, particularly that of vespers, and more so the grandeur of first and second vespers of Sunday and of major feasts. The beauty of the Roman office chanted in choir is sublime; every now and then in maudlin mood he opens his Liber Usualis and fondly reminisces over one of the best parts of what it was like to be a seminarian in a traditionalist community. Sometimes he even goes so far as to chant the office alone. But it’s not the same.

The closest that one can come to a celebration of the traditional Roman office in Dublin is, paradoxically, solemn evensong at St. Bartholomew’s church on Clyde Road. This is an Anglo-Catholic church, which means that the liturgy is Anglican use—essentially Cranmer’s prayer book but with an admixture of Romanising elements, such as the office hymn, the plainsong antiphon at the Magnificat, the thurible, the incensing of the altar, the choir and the congregation, and the gregorian tones employed for the psalms. Driving back to Dublin on Sunday evenings for the start of his working week, Melancholicus occasionally calls in to St. Bart’s, marvelling at the beauty not only of the church itself but of the liturgy, and how strikingly it reminds him of the traditional Roman office as he knew it in seminary. It is sad that such beauty is too often alien to the liturgy as it is celebrated in Roman Catholic churches in this archdiocese.

Anyhow, I shall leave it at that, otherwise this post will descend into yet another sarcastic and bitter screed against the bugninists and the liturgical ‘reform’.

Birthday greetings

2009-02-18T01:49:00.003-08:00

Melancholicus received this notice by e-mail, and wishes to extend his congratulations to Fr. Ó Fionnagáin (not that he reads Infelix Ego, but nonetheless). Fr. Ó Fionnagáin is one of the ‘good Jesuits’, as the following makes clear:

Congratulations to Rev Father Proinnsias Ó Fionnagáin SJ who is on the eve of his 100th Birthday. Father Ó Fionnagáin was of considerable help to the traditional movement in Ireland for many years as well as being an historian doing valuable work on the causes of the Irish martyrs. As he joined the Society of Jesus at the age of 18, he is 82 years a Jesuit; 80 years professed and 67 years a priest.

82 years a Jesuit! What a life spent in service to the Lord!

Melancholicus’ correspondent also said “I am tempted to say Ad multos annos but I am not sure of the propriety of this on such a birthday.” Melancholicus was likewise tempted, but shall prescind for like reasons.

Readers may wish privately to honour Fr. Ó Fionnagáin on his centennial birthday with a spiritual bouquet.

Iggy's rant - the riposte

2009-02-18T01:22:00.005-08:00

Alas for Iggy! It does not look as though the masses are mobilizing behind him; his brother priests certainly aren’t. This letter from a Galway cleric appeared in yesterday’s Irish Times:

Madam, – Rev Iggy O’Donovan’s interpretation of the lifting of the excommunication of four illegally ordained bishops is unnecessarily malign and vindictive (The Irish Times, February 13th).

In 1988 Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who rejected the reforms of Vatican II, effectively turned his back on the Catholic Church and set up a schismatic “church” in his own image by illegally ordaining as bishops four men who shared his views.

This very act strikes such a blow to the unity of the Church that, in canon law, Lefebvre and the four new bishops literally excommunicated themselves from the Church.

Since then Pope Benedict, first as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and subsequently as Pope, has worked tirelessly to nudge this expanding community back into unity of heart and mind with the Church. This work of building up and defending the unity of the Church has been the central task of the papacy since the time of St Peter.

This Pope has therefore spent decades painstakingly shepherding this community back to a point where it is now very close to recognising and accepting the teachings of the Second Vatican Council. This, of course, is the Pope’s central goal.

For anyone to claim that the Pope’s intention is exactly the opposite, to undermine the Vatican Council, is both shameful and ridiculous.

The lifting of these excommunications is a gesture of clemency directed towards restoring church unity. It does not mean these individuals have already been granted full communion. They are still not permitted to celebrate the sacraments, they have no recognised pastoral charge, and their teachings are in no way underwritten by the Church’s magisterium. It is merely a confidence-building step in the journey towards unity.

Every peace process has its pitfalls. From a communications point of view it is clear that the distraction of Bishop Williamson’s dangerously wacky world-view should have been decommissioned much earlier, but the fact that the ramblings of this minor professor in Argentina did not crop up in negotiations is hardly the fault of the Holy Father himself.

Rev O’Donovan reveals ugly underlying sentiments towards the Pope when he repeats, without any context, the old calumny of Pope Benedict once being a member of Hitler Youth. The facts on this have been put on record so often that he cannot claim to be innocently ignorant. Under Hitler’s regime young children simply had no choice but to be conscripted, and the Pope has often written of how he and his family suffered because of their opposition to Hitler.

It is ironic to note that Father O’Donovan is the very last person one would have expected to argue that the ultimate penalty of excommunication should apply for sounding off in public with irrational and disturbing opinions. – Yours, etc,

Rev CONOR CUNNINGHAM,

Church Lane,

Castlegar,

Galway.

Melancholicus doesn’t know who Rev. Conor Cunningham is, but he likes his style. While one might take issue with his sweeping generality that Archbishop Lefebvre “rejected the reforms of Vatican II” as well as his impression that the council represents some kind of superdogma the SSPX must accept if they are to be considered proper Catholics, such is really beside the point. Rev. Cunningham makes a number of valuable points that might otherwise have escaped the notice of the average Irish Times reader, who cannot be expected to know very much about religion. He rebuts Iggy’s calumny that Pope Benedict is somehow working to “undermine” Vatican II, and draws attention to the important fact that the SSPX bishops have no pastoral charge, may not licitly celebrate the sacraments, and have not yet been granted full communion.

And as for the Nazi slur... those (Iggy?) who wish to believe that the pope was/is a Nazi already have their minds made up, their hearts closed, and will believe this calumny no matter how clearly or how often it is refuted. But Iggy may have done greater damage to himself than to the Holy Father by resorting to such an hysterical insult.

Which is no bad thing, really.

'Iggy' gets in on the act

2009-02-17T06:39:00.004-08:00

A ‘concelebrated Mass’ on Easter Sunday 2006. Photo courtesy of the Church of Ireland Gazette.

Remember this?

Three years ago an Augustinian priest residing in the Armagh archdiocese caused a sensation when he attempted a concelebrated Mass with a clergyman of the Church of Ireland.

The question that bugged Melancholicus at the time was not how on earth could a Catholic priest concelebrate holy Mass with an Anglican (nothing surprises him in these heady, post-conciliar days), but how a clergyman of the Church of Ireland could stoop to such popery in the first place.

The answer of course is that Rev. Michael Graham is an Anglo-Catholic, which in practical terms means he’s more Catholic than Iggy.

Yes, the priest’s name is Iggy, which one presumes is a contraction of Ignatius. Melancholicus does not know whether this is his baptismal name or his name in religion, but the fact that he has chosen so to bastardize it shows clearly the side of the cultural and theological fence whereon he sits. This is the face of ‘religion lite’, and ‘religion cool’, an attempt by this particular henchperson of newchurch to have his version of Catholicism considered relevant^TM and meaningful^TM by a public so unchurched by the experience of the last forty years that they haven’t the faintest grasp of the immense differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism.

Well, Iggy has been pretty much out of the news since then, and now a golden opportunity has at last presented itself for Iggy to score a few points and let off some steam from the stinging criticism he received for being so ecumenical in 2006; and in so doing, once again to get his name in the papers and his face on the telly (or so he wishes).

There’s nothing quite like self-promotion, is there?

This time his target is the Holy Father himself, rather than those anonymous souls whom three years ago he castigated for being corrupted with piety. And the occasion? Bishop Williamson’s ‘re-incommunication’, naturally.

Taking a break from the woes of a failing economy, this from Patsy McGarry, religious affairs correspondent of The Irish Times:

(H/T to Smasher)

Holocaust-denying bishop's rehabilitation is 'crowning disgrace' of Benedict's career

THE ATTEMPTED rehabilitation by the Vatican of Holocaust-denying bishop Richard Williamson has been described as “the crowning disgrace of Pope Benedict’s career” by controversial Augustinian priest Fr Iggy O’Donovan [McGarry is supposed to be the 'religious affairs correspondent' of this newspaper, which means that Madam invariably turns to his services whenever something of ecclesiastical interest materializes. But in the phrasing of his opening sentence, McGarry shows the same unthinking obtusity characteristic of nearly all secular journalists that covered this story. What in God's name does 'attempted rehabilitation' mean?].

He has also said that change initiated by Vatican II in the Catholic Church [ah, here we get to the real point!] has become “a debacle” [Melancholicus would agree with Iggy there; it is a debacle. But methinks that Iggy probably meant something else].

Announced 50 years ago, Vatican II, “this noble venture” [well, Pope John XXIII's intentions were good, even if the council were thwarted by revolutionaries on its very first day, revolutionaries with whom Iggy is clearly in sympathy], was now “on life support” [life support? Really? There's hope yet for all us 'corrupted with piety' types! Te Deum laudamus...]. “Almost from day one insidious attempts were made to undermine conciliar reform,” he wrote in an Augustinian newsletter [he is speaking primarily of the liturgical 'reform', but Melancholicus surmises that Iggy's opposition to Pope Benedict's restorationism goes much deeper than that]. “If anything illustrates this latter point it is the recent announcement, on the 50th anniversary of the convocation of the council, of the lifting of the excommunication of the bishops illicitly ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre.” [that was a piece of wry humour on the part of the Holy See intended for the benefit of the SSPX. But we see it has enraged the likes of Fr. Iggy, for whom traditionalist Catholics are the ultimate untouchables].

In 2006 Fr O’Donovan was bound to silence and removed from a teaching post in Rome by the Vatican [proper order] after he concelebrated an Easter Sunday Mass in Drogheda with local Church of Ireland rector Rev Michael Graham.

“We are now at a juncture where Rome demands total conformity with papal ideas and ideals in all things and not merely in those which are essential to the unity of Christian and Catholic faith,” he said [this is mere petulant lashing out in order to stir up the emotions of the mob. Rome demands no such thing].

“That is all very well but when the Holy Father is ‘accident prone’ (as the present incumbent is) the potential for damage to the church is incalculable. “The recent case of the rehabilitation of ... Richard Williamson is a prime example of this.” [Like McGarry, Iggy also likes the word 'rehabilitation' even though it has absolutely no meaning in the context in which he uses it].

President Barack Obama had “been quick to come out and admit he ‘screwed up’” in proposing Tom Daschle as health secretary.

“In the case of Williamson Pope Benedict certainly ‘screwed up’ and must be as forthcoming as Obama in admitting it,” he said [this comparison is not apt. Daschle was proposed as a cabinet appointment. Williamson has merely had his excommunication lifted, not because of his views but in spite of them. He has been appointed to nothing, and Iggy knows it].

He continued: “how a German-born Pope (and a former member of the Hitler Youth to boot) could not foresee the furore that would follow the rehabilitation of a man who denies the Holocaust leaves me baffled. It is the crowning disgrace of Pope Benedict’s career.” [this as good as calls the Holy Father a Nazi. The Hitler Youth reference is a cheap slur; it is widely known, even among secular journalists, that the young Joseph Ratzinger's membership of the Hitler Youth was not voluntary, nor did he or his family support the regime].

Reuters adds: Pope Benedict said yesterday that “any denial or minimisation of this terrible crime is intolerable, especially if it came from a clergyman [McGarry has at least included this clarification, which goes a long way to placing Iggy's self-seeking hysteria in context].

The pope also confirmed that he was planning to visit Israel. Vatican sources say the trip is expected to take place in May.

Benedict the Ordinary

2009-02-17T05:52:00.002-08:00

From the blog of Fr. Ray Blake:

“The change from the age of John Paul “the Great” to that of Benedict, described by one French journalist as, “the Ordinary” in a way epitomises the transition of the 20th to the 21st century, it is movement to solid ground.”

Amen to that.

It is fashionable in neo-catholic circles to refer to the late pontiff as “John Paul the Great”. Melancholicus is not too troubled by this, since the cult of personality surrounding the aforesaid will diminish steadily the further the passage of time removes us from his pontificate. Whereat a sense of historical perspective will become operative.

But Melancholicus was totally unaware that there is a French scribbler who describes the current Holy Father as “the Ordinary”.

Melancholicus is not outraged. On the contrary, he regards this epithet as rather fitting. For after the freak-show circus of the last forty years, it is high time that we had some decent ordinariness in God’s holy Church. For ordinary is next to order, and order indicates everything most surely opposed to the Revolution and to its violence, its anarchy and its excesses.

Long live Pope Benedict the Ordinary! Ad multos annos.

John Paul II and Maciel

2009-02-17T04:40:00.005-08:00

This post is not a diatribe against the late pontiff, but an attempt to understand the consistently peculiar response to allegations of clerical homosexuality and pederasty he displayed in his appointment of bishops, as well as his defence of and support for Marcial Maciel, the disgraced founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

John Paul II was not a man who approved of sodomy, or of the abuse and corruption of seminarians, or indeed of sexual predation of any kind. But his lack of decisive action not only in regard to Maciel but also in regard to the clerical sex abuse crisis generally, gave the impression to many observers, Catholics included, that the late pope was unconcerned about these things, or that he was unwilling to take action, or was incompetent, or all of the above.

John Paul II grew up in Poland, witnessing first the Nazi terror from 1939 to 1945, and then the deadening repression of Soviet-style communism. As a young priest, he ministered in a state which was officially atheist and materialistic. He experienced at first hand the same fraught tensions that exist between the Church and the state in every such country.

Naturally the communist regime had an interest in filling Polish sees with men known to be sympathetic, or at least not openly hostile to marxism; men who would, as it were, collaborate with the Revolution. In this way the regime exercised an influence over the Church.

Candidates for the episcopate who adhered too firmly to the social teachings of the Church as expressed in the encyclicals of the Roman pontiffs were, naturally, troublesome for the regime. The regime could prevent the appointment of such a man merely by whispering abroad that he was an active homosexual, whereat the Church would then prescind from the appointment. Candidates thus excluded were often the most Catholic, most devout and most hostile to the marxist status quo. These were often the most suitable candidates for episcopal office, and the slur of homosexuality was merely a tool employed to ensure they never achieved it.

Melancholicus remembers hearing that when John Paul II had become pope, his view of the universal Church was influenced by his experience of the travails of the Church in communist Poland. With the collapse of morals and discipline in the aftermath of Vatican II, a culture often openly favourable to homosexual behaviour bloomed in seminaries and in houses of formation. The spread of homosexuality among all ranks of the clergy in that time is well documented.

Hence, when a particular see became vacant, and the sovereign pontiff was given the terna of names from which to choose the new bishop, it sometimes happened that he would be advised not to choose one particular name on the terna, since that man was known to be given to unnatural vice.

Whereat the experience of communist Poland would kick in; the sovereign pontiff, convinced that this was only a slur by enemies within the Church to damage a saintly man’s reputation, would conclude that the accused man must be the best candidate, and so he would be appointed. In this manner, the late Holy Father appointed Daniel Ryan and Anthony O’Connell, and others too numerous to mention.

His lethargy in responding to the scandals of 2002 may in part be explained by the likelihood that he simply did not believe these allegations—at least not until the evidence had mounted up and had been placed before his eyes.

Allegations concerning the immorality of the late Marcial Maciel began circulating while the latter was still alive; in fact, there were reports that all was not well in the conduct of that priest as long ago as the 1950s. It is clear, though, that John Paul II thoroughly disregarded these allegations (he certainly knew of them) since he interpreted such allegations as the malicious work of enemies of the Church seeking to ruin a virtuous man and wreck a thriving apostolate.

Corroborating evidence for this thesis? Melancholicus has none to hand, but if anyone reading this is able to point him in the right direction, he would be most grateful.

Anti-semitism and the BBC

2009-02-15T05:09:00.007-08:00

Roger Bolton, of BBC Radio 4’s Sunday fame, is somewhat nonplussed by the claims of the UK parliamentary committee for anti-semitism that incidents inspired by this prejudice are at their highest level since recording began 25 years ago.

The interviewee, the Rt. Hon. John Mann, is the chairman of the aforesaid committee, and he was most adamant about the rise in the level of anti-semitic incidents, which he rightly described as “disturbing in a country which prides itself on its tolerance”.

Bolton doesn’t believe it, though. Listen to his language: “reported increase ... said to be ... danger of overstating the level of anti-semitism ... incidents are pretty low level ... we’re talking about hate-mail, anti-semitic graffiti ... I don’t want to downplay this [tongue firmly in cheek] but there’s still a relatively small amount of physical assaults and things like that...”

Melancholicus is not in the least surprised by this attitude. He knoweth the BBC far too well.

But who to blame for this “reported increase” of anti-semitic prejudice? Sure, why not the Jews themselves! Mr. Bolton asked his guest if there was a danger that opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza might be confused with racial prejudice. Melancholicus thinks that Mr. Bolton would prefer the answer to be yes, which would comfortingly imply that there isn’t any genuine anti-semitism out there, at least not really. But that would necessarily involve the corollary of the BBC admitting—at least tacitly—its own responsibility for fanning the flames with its consistently partial and one-sided coverage of the interminable Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So either way Mr. Bolton can’t win, can he?

So he seeks a scapegoat: “In the past anti-semitism has been driven by religion, Christianity in particular”. Yes, he really did say those words. Listen. It’s at 9:20.

Melancholicus shall let pass this swipe at Christianity, soft target that it is (how brave of you, Mr. Bolton), for he is more interested in the words in the past.

Thus the elephant in the room goes completely unnoticed. Anti-semitism is indeed on the rise as the elephant grows bolder, more militant, and more sure of itself. But Mr. Bolton cannot admit this, since to do so would violate one of the BBC’s most cherished nostrums of political correctness. Witness the obsession with Israel; the other “I-word” doesn’t even get a mention. Melancholicus was disappointed that Mr. Mann likewise failed to cite the Islamic impetus behind contemporary anti-semitism—but then Mr. Mann is a Member of Parliament, so he can’t be expected to have a brain.

But guess who did get a mention? Yes, good old Dickie Williamson again! Melancholicus believes there has not been a single edition of Sunday which failed to mention the holocaust-denying bishop, even in passing, since the story first broke three weeks ago. Some things never change.

The day that's in it

2009-02-13T08:27:00.003-08:00

Today is Friday 13th.

As to why this day should be considered unlucky, Melancholicus heard an explanation from a friend of his some years ago—namely Alaisdir Ua Seaghdha—a gentleman of wide reading and intellectual acumen. This explanation does not occur on the Wikipedia page for Friday 13th, so it bears some repeating here.

If any of these orally recounted details should be faultily remembered, perhaps Alaisdir could post a correction.

The association of Friday 13th with ill-luck began after the Reformation. Prior to this great religious upheaval, Friday 13th was not considered unlucky at all—in fact quite the opposite. This was a particularly lucky day, indeed an auspicious day, since it combined two elements associated with good fortune: the sixth day of the week, and the number thirteen.

In the Middle Ages, thirteen was a lucky number since this represented the number of people present in the upper room at the Last Supper—Christ and His Apostles.

The sixth day of the week—Friday—was considered a lucky day, since this is the day on which the Redemption occurred.

So a day on which these two fell together was regarded as an exceptionally lucky day.

But after the Reformation, with the rejection of all things popish and the rejection likewise of what were considered “popish superstitions”, the association of Friday 13th with good luck came to an end. So eager were the Reformers to retreat from such superstitions that they created an alternative superstition of their own—that Friday 13th instead of being an auspicious day was rather a day of calamity and misfortune.

Owing to the dominance of Protestantism, at least in the English-speaking world, so it has remained ever since.

The idolisation of murderers

2009-02-13T05:15:00.007-08:00

It’s happening again. Lamp-posts in Dublin city are once again festooned with images of the blood-stained terrorist Ernesto Guevara, posted up by our friends in Socialist Youth.

Once again this cold-blooded killer is held up as a great humanitarian, a folk hero, an example of courage and action, a role-model to be emulated.

Once again the citizenry, without batting an eyelid, walks past these objectionable flyers as though there were nothing remarkable about them, as though there were no offence offered to the public by this open glorification of a murderer and a terrorist.

And once again Melancholicus shall make the comparison with Heydrich:

The image on the left is of an actual socialist youth poster displayed to the public in Dublin city in recent times. Sadly Melancholicus was unable to obtain a copy of the poster currently on view, so this older image will have to suffice.

The image on the right is a photoshop mock-up created by Melancholicus. Lest readers be alarmed, he hastens to reassure them that there is no “Irish Nazi Youth”, neither is there any such body as the “Irish SS”, nor is there scheduled a public meeting in Dublin celebrating the legacy of the man who did more than anyone else to turn the final solution from an anti-semitic fantasy into a reality of blood-chilling efficiency. This poster was, of course, never publicly displayed, nor could it ever be without immediate legal consequences. The citizenry of Dublin would never tolerate such a flyer on their streets, hanging from their very lamp-posts. Yet they tolerate Guevara. Why?

Why is it acceptable to murder in the cause of the Left, and not in the cause of the Right?

Put it another way, what is it that makes murders committed by National Socialists so odious, whereas murders committed by International Socialists are of no account?

It might be objected, particularly by his unaccountably many fans, that Guevara was different from Heydrich.

Different, how?

Let's examine the differences. Aside from Heydrich being better dressed and better groomed than Guevara, there is not much to separate them. The similarities are more striking than the differences. Guevara was passionate about International Socialism; Heydrich was passionate about National Socialism. Guevara was a literary man and composed poetry; Heydrich was an accomplished musician. Guevara loved to ride about, cutting a handsome dashing figure on his motorcycle, firing from his pistol; Heydrich loved to take to the skies in his Messerschmitt, doubtless cutting a similarly handsome and dashing figure, swooping and diving and shooting down Soviet fighter planes. After the revolution in Cuba, Guevara zealously began terrorizing the natives; Heydrich did much the same thing to the Czechs during his stint in Prague. Guevara set himself to a larger task, spreading marxist ideology and fomenting revolution throughout South America; Heydrich also set himself to a larger task: without his genius for administrative organisation, the final solution might not have been possible—at least it would not have claimed nearly as many victims. And both were “martyred” for their respective ideologies.

There is at least one difference: Guevara had much the more “hands on” attitude to slaughter, as he liked to get up close and personally involved in the deaths of his victims. Heydrich preferred to murder from behind a desk, further removed from the scene of the bloodshed.

But the real difference is that the Nazis lost the war, and history is always written by the victors. National Socialism is dead, and has been fashionably loathed ever since. While it is true that there are groups of “neo-nazis” here and there, politically these will never be more than basket-cases on the very fringe, nor will they ever be able to resurrect the ideology in anything like the form it enjoyed between 1933 and 1945. National Socialism was a creature of a particular time and place. It was peculiarly German, and peculiar also to social and political conditions prevailing in the aftermath of World War I. That being so, it does not translate well to other times or venues. Should there ever be another holocaust, it will be carried out not by Nazis, but by someone else.

Yet International Socialism is not bounded by such constraints of time or place. Despite the fact that since 1917 it has spilled more blood than the Third Reich (and continues to do so), it is tolerated and even regarded as chic; some naive souls even consider it benevolent and a great blessing on mankind. The politically-correct elites that dominate social, political, cultural and intellectual life everywhere in the West lean so far to the left that even a middle-of-the-road position is viewed as unacceptably right-wing, and anything further right than that approaches—at least in their eyes—dangerously close to Heydrich.

It might be objected that the crucial difference between these two men is in the number of their victims, the manner in which their victims died as well as the motivation behind their actions. I do not accept this.

First as to the number of their victims: is it immoral to kill by the million, but not equally immoral to kill by the hundred? Furthermore, Heydrich had the resources of an advanced military-industrial state at his disposal. Guevara lacked these resources, but can we seriously doubt that had the Bolivian army and the CIA not intervened, and had he been able to impose his will throughout South America the number of his victims would have been correspondingly increased?

As to the manner in which their victims died, there may be something much more horrifying in corralling naked human beings into a gas chamber under the pretence of receiving a shower than simply shooting them in the head with a pistol à la Che, but murder is still murder.

As to the third, Guevara’s animating ideology does not exculpate him of murder. It is no use to plead that Guevara’s intentions were good, and Heydrich’s evil. Neither is it any use to cite Guevara’s concern for the poor or the working class. No small number of the poor and the working class fell victim to his pistol, or to orders given to his henchmen. That Guevara was passionately devoted to marxism is no excuse. Marxism is an evil and toxic ideology which requires bloodletting to usher in the rule of the working class; Heydrich was no less devoted to his own ideology, which also required bloodletting in order to usher in the rule of the Aryan race. Same difference, really. Murder in order to promote a select group.

Now one final poke in the eye for the socialists. It is not uncommon for Melancholicus to encounter on campus—sometimes in his own lectures—terrorist chic, namely those thoughtless youths sporting those t-shirts emblazoned with Guevara’s iconic image. The same students who wear these t-shirts probably have no idea what sort of man their hero really was. They would probably be more reluctant to don the kind of t-shirt we see in the image below:

But the penny still hasn't dropped

2009-02-09T02:00:00.001-08:00

The newsletter from the parish on the north side of Dublin city where Melancholicus spends his working week has again popped through his letter-box.

This newsletter has in the past inspired the whole range of human emotion in Melancholicus; it has moved him by turns to surprise, anger, sadness, relief, indifference, sometimes to derision, and sometimes also to happiness whenever he found therein a nugget whereon he could blog. On one or two very rare occasions it has even edified him.

There is no edification in the current edition, but there is a line in Fr. Tully’s editorial address on which Melancholicus was able to seize with fell glee. Hence this post.

Fr. Tully is the parish priest. Actually, his name is not Fr. Tully, for Melancholicus has changed the names to protect the guilty. Fr. Tully is merely a convenient pseudonym for this man, inspired by Mark Tully, the rather pompous-sounding and extremely woolly presenter of the wishy-washy pseudo-religious programme Something Understood broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4.

Fr. Tully is the same age (or thereabouts) as the figure after whom he is nicknamed. They both share the ecumenical and irenic world-view widespread among those who grew up in the aftermath of the Second World War. Listening to Something Understood on the BBC, Melancholicus does not remember ever having heard its presenter discourse effusively on the Second Vatican Council (he is an Anglican), but surmises that his views thereon would be no different from those of Fr. Tully, the parish priest, who never misses an opportunity to gush about the renewal that has flowed from the council like springs of clear, cool water, vivifying the parched earth and causing the grass to sprout lush and green... well, at least that’s the theory.

The repeated trumpeting of Vatican II reminds Melancholicus of the plight of an orthodox marxist who, fixated in his view that marxism is an exact science devoid of error, cannot understand why the socialist order has failed to bring about the promised utopia, and why only division, bitterness, misery, destruction and death have followed in its train.

Sometimes, however, Fr. Tully’s commentary lets slip an observation that all is not well, even in this green and sunlit vale of renewal:

“The parish community here in [censored], while it lacks the vigour of previous times, is still in a healthy condition”

There is a moment of despondency, in which a shade of reality might be breaking through—but then he checks himself, and hurriedly goes on to deny the evidence of his own eyes and ears, insisting, comrades, that the Revolution has been a tremendous success, that the people glory in it, that it has been what the Church has always needed, not noticing that the Church throve quite well without it for 1,960 years, and probably convincing himself more than convincing his readers.

He certainly hasn’t convinced this reader.

The examples of “a healthy condition” he cites are all ecclesiastical bunions, mushroom outgrowths which are not (strictly speaking) necessary to parochial life, but create the illusion of vitality so beloved of the renewalists. These include the “pastoral committee” (Melancholicus once had the misfortune of serving on such an animal, so he speaks from experience here), as well as committees for this, that and the other; the ubiquitous folk groups, naturally, whose renditions of Marty Haugen, David Haas and Paul Inwood jingles never fail to turn Melancholicus’ stomach; the various “teams” that serve in the parish (in fact this part of the newsletter is overflowing with buzzwords and management-speak), and not least, the “community” itself. “Community” is an exciting word the renewalists love to throw around. The fact that 90% of the local Catholic “community” do not participate in the life of the parish in any capacity whatever, not even by hearing the occasional Mass—a disaster candidly admitted in a previous edition of the newsletter—does not merit a mention, as it would rather spoil the picture of growth and renewal which we are supposed to believe is the legacy of Vatican II.

Melancholicus is one of those 90%. He has lived during the working week in this parish for three years, and has heard only three Masses in the parish church during that time. On each of those three occasions, he departed the church interiorly conflicted, wondering it he ought to have been present at such a mockery of the liturgy. Hence he is not minded to return thither in a hurry.

As for Fr. Tully... the evidence of the catastrophe stares him daily in the face, but still the penny hasn’t dropped.

Melancholicus doubts it ever will.

Oremus pro pontifice nostro Benedicto

2009-02-04T07:11:00.007-08:00

As Our Blessed Lady said to the three children to whom she appeared at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, “Pray, pray very much for the Holy Father, for he will have much to suffer”.

V. Oremus pro pontifice nostro Benedicto.

R. Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius.

Deus, omnium fidelium pastor et rector, famulum tuum Benedictum, quem pastorem Ecclesiae tuae praeesse voluisti, propitius respice: da ei, quaesumus, verbo et exemplo, quibus praeest, proficere: ut ad vitam, una cum grege sibi credito, perveniat sempiternam. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

V. Let us pray for Benedict our pope.

R. The Lord preserve him, and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth, and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Benedict, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Melancholicus has so far resisted the temptation to weigh in with his (admittedly worthless) opinion on the current situation involving the Holy See, bishop Richard Williamson FSSPX, the remitting of canonical penalties, and the holocaust controversy, although he has made brief reference to the matter in two or three posts from January.

He has resisted the temptation not because he is possessed of heroic self-control, but because every several attempt to post on this subject has had to be deleted as unsatisfactory. In any case, he lacks the full facts of the matter, does not have the time to inform himself by reading everything of importance pertaining to it, and there is nothing he can say that has not already been better said by others more erudite, more eloquent, and more widely read than he.

Melancholicus also wishes to retract a certain comment he made in this post below, in which, in his indignation, he accused bishop Williamson of deliberately denying the holocaust in order to forestall the lifting of the excommunications. This he now knows to be incorrect, and he regrets his audacity in publishing this rash supposition. Bishop Williamson may indeed be a man of odious views, but let us not accuse him of the kind of malice we were so rash as to impute to him. It is a dangerous thing to impute motives to other persons or to think that one knows another’s mind.

In any case, bishop Williamson has since apologized for the embarrassment he has caused to the Holy Father and to the Holy Catholic Church. But thanks to this affair, the Vicar of Christ is now exposed to a level of public opprobrium not experienced by any sovereign pontiff within living memory.

The media storm is only to be expected. Wolves will be wolves; the nature of the beast will always out.

In a fit of self-righteous indignation, Honourable Members in Westminster were last week falling over one another in their haste to affirm the historicity of the holocaust and to denounce the Holy Father with the kind of pig ignorance of which only Honourable Members are capable (this is NOT a racist comment—I listen to the brain-numbing stupidity of these mindless automatons daily on BBC radio 4’s Today in Parliament, so I know what I’m talking about), This denunciation is gloatingly upheld by the usually sensible Cranmer who, alas, sometimes cannot conceal his rabid anti-Romanism, and on this occasion—perhaps enticed by the scent of papal blood—Cranmer has chosen to side with the wolves.

But all is not relentless hostility. Consider this from the Anglican Fr. Hunwicke, whose learning, wisdom and sound common sense Melancholicus cannot praise highly enough. His blog Liturgical Notes is a must-read for anyone interested in liturgy, Church history and much more besides:

“They’re closing in on Pope Benedict XVI. In the newspapers, on the television, in the blogosphere, in debates in legislatures, in trendy magazines. They think they’ve got him.

It’s prejudice, prejudice, prejudice. In many cases it’s their atavistic gut hatred of Rome, which they were prepared to put slightly on hold if a Pope (like John XXIII) seemed to be behaving sufficiently unpopishly. In some cases it’s fear of somebody who is cleverer than they are; they don’t mind Christians as long we appear not very bright, because then they can feel unthreatened. For others, it’s because they can see Benedict as a contradiction of their own corrupt and promiscuous lifestyles. In many cases it’s the simple deep-down hatred many have of Holiness, because they are children of the Father of all lies.

This is a moment of pure contest of Evil against Good; something that we very rarely see in this world of Gray Areas. The Dark is rising. This is not a time to sit on the fence or hedge bets; to say “on the one hand ... and on the other”. This is the time to show where one stands. In years to come, the question will still be: “What did you do, when the animals were baying for Benedict XVI?”

This holy priest has said all that needs to be said. In the spirit of his closing question, let us now act. Pray, pray very much for the Holy Father, that our Blessed Lord will sustain him in this bitter hour. Let us also take the opportunity where we can to rebut the lies of half-informed and prejudiced illiterates who peddle such headlines as Pope Rehabilitates Holocaust Denier and the like. Do not let them get away with blackening our Holy Father’s good name. There is nothing we can do about their prejudice, but we must hold them accountable to the facts of the matter and not allow them to indulge in wild anti-catholic fantasies. This is all the more important when they are employed by some organ of the news media to which we can complain.

If you have not done so already, gentle reader, please consider signing the online petition of support for the Holy Father here. Melancholicus signed it yesterday, and it has received about 5,000 more signatures since then!

Here in Ireland, the matter does not appear to have been raised in the Dáil. A search for ‘holocaust’ on the webpage of the Houses of the Oireachtas returns just four hits, none of them more recent than 2007. A search for ‘bishop Williamson’ returns no hits at all, so it appears as if our TDs have not engaged in the kind of pope-baiting practiced by Honourable Members across the water. Now Melancholicus is not at all given to reading newspapers, and he has listened but sparingly over the past week to current affairs programmes such as Morning Ireland, Drivetime and The Right Hook, so it is hardly surprising that he has not heard about bishop Williamson’s controversy thereon even once. He is sure that it has been mentioned—it returns about a dozen hits on the website of RTÉ, for instance—but the Irish media are at least not running with it, nor do the public in this country appear to be in a flap about anything other than the economy. This is not because the media in Ireland are any kinder to the Church than they are elsewhere in the west, but because of the prospect that Ireland—at least according to the good people at Sky News—is now facing “a recession of nightmare proportions”. Any time Melancholicus has switched on the radio he has been confronted with some story or other of economic interest—all about banks, markets, rising unemployment, financial hardship, the loss of thousands of jobs with each passing week, and the continuing failure of the government to come up with any sort of plan for keeping the country afloat. The media are simply too fixated with the death-throes of the Irish economy and the seeming inability of Taoiseach Brian Cowen to get his act together to bother with another opportunity to spin salacious yarns to the detriment of the Church.

There is one more thing that we can do. We should all undertake to get a priest to celebrate Mass for the Holy Father. One Mass is worth more than a hundred articles rebutting the charges of the wolves.

Now it is time to head for the chapel.

The feast of St. Brigid

2009-02-01T07:49:00.008-08:00

Today, February 1st, is the feast of St. Brigid, one of the three patron saints of Ireland — the other two being Patrick (March 17th) and Columcille (June 9th).

Very little is known of Brigid’s life, and much of what is related about her in typical biographical sketches is quite frankly unhistorical. This is due partly to the chronological distance that separates her from even her earliest biographers, and partly to the peculiar nature of Irish hagiography, which more often reflects the political conditions prevailing within the early Irish Church, with monastic paruchiae contending with one another for ecclesiastical one-upmanship, and in which the motive for writing the life of a saint was often geared towards enhancement of the social and political standing of the church founded by that saint than any concern for historical integrity or spiritual edification.

Now some readers might be tempted to cry out “modernism!”, since the modernists are well known for their cavalier approach to the lives of the saints, dismissing on the basis of higher criticism whole episodes or even entire lives as fabricated legend. But where medieval Irish hagiography is concerned, may God help us and the reputation of Holy Mother Church should even half the contents of these ‘Lives’ be true! But let us first distinguish the approach of the modernists from that of Melancholicus.

Melancholicus is a Christian, and consequently believes that miracles can happen, that they do happen, and that they have happened in the lives of the saints.

But a belief in the reality of the miraculous does not require us to give credence to every fantastic tale or to the pious fibs that abound throughout the lives of all early Irish saints. Indeed, one bemused seventeenth-century Bollandist described the contents of many such ‘Lives’ as so ridiculous that they might move the minds of those who heard them more easily to laughter and derision than to piety and devotion. This Melancholicus would not dispute, especially not after having read Whitley Stokes’ edition of the Félire Oengusso (Martyrology of Oengus) as well as Plummer’s Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae. It is a matter of sober fact that there is less edification than disedification in these outrageous narratives.

The example par excellence of the victim of such tendentious hagiography is St. Patrick, the Apostle of Ireland and the most illustrious name in the Irish calendar of the blessed. Patrick did not of course convert Ireland single-handed. He was assisted by others, and there was at least one mission, led by Palladius (who is otherwise unknown), which was commissioned directly by Celestine I, the pope of Rome. The names of such fifth-century missionary bishops as Secundinus, Isserninus and Auxilius (at least two of whom left their mark on place-names in the province of Leinster) are represented in the hagiography as having been Patrick’s suffragans. No mention of them, however, is recorded in Patrick’s own surviving writings, and O’Rahilly has argued (credibly to my mind) that they were associated with the official Roman mission rather than with St. Patrick. Their names point to an origin in Roman Gaul rather than post-Roman Britain, and it was from the latter that Patrick set out on his mission to bring the Christian faith to the heathen Irish.

We are fortunate today in having first-hand documentary evidence of St. Patrick’s life and career in the form of two documents written by the saint himself. These are his Confessio—a kind of apologia justifying his mission against criticism by his superiors in Britain—and his Epistola, a letter written in anguish to a British king named Coroticus after soldiers in the service of the latter had made a slave-raid against Ireland and had borne off into captivity many of Patrick’s recent converts. Sadly, although St. Patrick’s writings are the very earliest surviving documentary sources of Irish provenance, they contain very little information about the society and politics of the time, nor do they contain much in the way of Patrick’s own history. They do, however, touchingly reveal their author’s personality—a man of profound humility and charity, a man animated with love for almighty God and for souls, a self-effacing man, not proud, or boastful, or vaunting of his achievements, but one who was content to recognize himself as a sinner, as the least of the world’s cast-offs, even as a failure. It is Patrick’s humility and love which makes him truly great, and which has proved so attractive even to his most recent biographers. There is no doubt that the man truly was a saint.

Patrick died some time around the year 500. The precise year is unknown. The ‘official’ dates (for there are two) of his obituary are A.D. 461 and 493. In the course of the turbulent sixth century—a time of wars, epidemics, climatic upheaval and rapid social change—Patrick’s mission was largely forgotten, and his legacy was in danger of being eclipsed by the reputation of more recent rising stars, particularly Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (†549), Columcille (†597), Comgall of Bangor († c. 600) and the latter’s famous alumnus Columbanus (†615). In the course of the seventh century, the church of Armagh—originally established by Patrick as a diocese and now re-modelled along monastic lines—made its first bid for primacy over the other Irish churches, and began producing hagiography to that effect. The first victim of this propaganda was Patrick himself, and in effect the memory of the historical St. Patrick who so edifies us from the pages of his Confessio was effaced in favour of a literary construct modelled on the heroes of contemporary secular saga, and just as violent, vindictive, and ultimately disedifying. Readers who are interested may care to read Patrick’s own works and compare their author with the baleful figure who emerges from the seventh-century biographies by Muirchú and Tírechán.

So now, back to St. Brigid.

Quid Patricius cum Brigita? In a word, everything! The same cautionary remarks made about Patrician hagiography can also be applied to Brigid, save that while we have Patrick’s own writings to warn us against the excesses of his seventh-century biographers, we have no such check in the case of Brigid. If she wrote anything, it has not survived, and what has been written about her in the centuries immediately following her death has more to do with enhancing the political standing of the church of Kildare than with concern for the historical record.

Brigid died (at least according to the annals) in 524. The same annals also record the year of her birth—variously 452 or 456—showing that the Brigidine material was entered retrospectively at a much later date, probably as late as the ninth century. There is no contemporary witness to her life or her career, and much of what is related about her in the medieval biographies composed long after her death is freely invented—frei erfunden, as our German friends might say.

Melancholicus remembers reading Donncha Ó hAodha’s edition of Bethu Brigte in the original for his B.A. in Early Irish many years ago. This vita, which is the earliest surviving saint’s Life written mostly in Irish, may be dated to the ninth century, and hence to the Old Irish period. The pious reader who cares to read through the translation of this work will notice many unedifying features of the conduct and presentation of Brigid’s character which are hardly compatible with charity and great sanctity. There are also episodes which quite simply cannot have happened, since they contain violations of either faith or morals on the part of our saint, or reveal their spurious nature by their blatantly political overtones.

The actions attributed to our saint by the hagiographer are often too crude to be even remotely credible. In Bethu Brigte, §15, we see Brigid’s brothers displeased at her for her refusal to wed, thus depriving them of the bride-price they would get from her prospective husband. One of the brothers, Bacéne, taunts his sister, telling her that “the beautiful eye that is in your head will be betrothed to a man though you like it not”. The reaction of the genuine St. Brigid to such familial pressure would be to bear patiently her brother’s displeasure and to pray to God for him and for them all. But the response of the Brigid created by the hagiographer is utterly revolting: she gouges out her own eye and hands it to Bacéne, with the words “here is that beautiful eye for you. I deem it unlikely that anyone will ask for a blind girl”, a telling episode which reveals something of the undercurrents of Manichaeism which could be found in certain corners of the early Irish Church. As if this horrifying self-mutilation were not enough, Brigid then curses Bacéne (and his descendants!), saying without a trace of love or pity, “soon your two eyes will burst in your head”. And the childish hagiographer rounds off this ignoble paragraph with vindicated relish: et sic factum est.

Sometimes, even today, the ridiculous content of these ‘Lives’ can come back to haunt us in unexpected ways. For instance, an episode in the earliest Latin life—that by Cogitosus, which may be as early as the seventh century—sees a young woman vowed to chastity falling prey to a seducer and conceiving a child in the process. Brigid, we are told, placed her hands on the swollen belly, causing the foetus to “disappear”, after which everyone is happy again. This matter is no less fictitious than it is distasteful. In the run-up to that disastrous referendum on the protection of human life in pregnancy in March 2002, a silly woman writing in The Irish Times—without any regard to the facts of history or any understanding of the nature of early Irish hagiography—used this same fictitious nonsense to argue that in this instance, St. Brigid had “performed an abortion”. This was in order to co-opt the figure of St. Brigid for the pro-abort cadre and at the same time to undercut the authority of the Irish bishops’ conference, which was calling for a yes vote in the referendum.

Another potentially embarrassing episode occurs in Bethu Brigte, a text to which we have already referred. In §19, St. Mel of Ardagh († c. 488), being “intoxicated with the Holy Spirit”, consecrates Brigid to the episcopate, and we are told that during her “consecration” that a “fiery column ascended from her head”. This can only be recognized for what it is, namely a breathtakingly cynical attempt by the church of Kildare to make up for its embarrassment at having a woman for its founder, or at least one not in sacred orders. Though this episode is without the slightest doubt fictitious, I am surprised it has not been used by our liberal enemies as a stick wherewith to beat the Church for denying that there were “women bishops” in the early centuries of Christianity. Perhaps Melancholicus should not speak so loudly; he doesn’t want to give them any juicy ideas.

***

February 1st is also the Celtic feast of Imbolc, associated with veneration of the goddess Brigantia, tutelary deity of the Brigantes, a people who in the Iron Age occupied what is now northern England, a branch of whom also existed in county Wexford in Ireland, at least according to the map of prehistoric Ireland drawn up in the second century by the geographer and astronomer Ptolemy of Alexandria.

The discerning reader will notice a startling similarity between the names of the pagan goddess Brigantia and the Christian saint Brigid. In these days of weak faith it is fashionable for the figure of the latter to be subsumed into the former; in effect, ‘St. Brigid’ is merely a euhemerized version of Brigantia, not a real person who enjoyed independent historical existence. One can only conclude that the feminazis feel more empowered fantasizing about goddesses than about nuns. Scandalously, an elderly Benedictine monk from that slightly barmy community in Glenstal, county Limerick, appeared on RTÉ television some years ago and waxed lyrical about Brigantia, not at all rebutting the sexy notion that the St. Brigid venerated in Catholic tradition is ‘based’ on the pagan goddess.

If Brigid really were ‘based’ on Brigantia, how come that in the early Christian period we find her cultus in Kildare, and not in Wexford? Just a thought.

Say again brother, how many vocations do you guys get in Glenstal these days?

Imbolc is one of four feasts at three monthly intervals throughout the year, the others being Beltaine (1st May), Lugnasad (1st August) and Samain (1st November).

The neo-pagans love these festivals, even though precious little is known of their actual significance in pre-Christian Ireland. Melancholicus might add that as the Catholic religion in this country continues to wither, the vacuum left in its place is gradually being filled by ‘alternative’ spiritualities. There is even an association of some sort devoted to ancient ‘pagan’ and ‘druidic’ practices. Melancholicus remembers seeing these idiots on an RTÉ news report at Imbolc in 2002, running around a wet field with twigs and foliage tied to their bodies. There was a fire lit in the centre of the field, giving off a great cloud of grey smoke and the be-twigged gobshites were taking turns leaping through it. Heaven knows what they thought they were doing, or what they could thereby accomplish.

St. Brigid, pray for us!

And now for some music

2009-01-29T05:33:00.003-08:00

“French might be the language of love, but German is the language of anger”—Oliver Riedel

Time for a music video.

Today Melancholicus is angry, hence the music will be in German.

Introducing Rammstein:

Fifty years on

2009-01-28T05:09:00.003-08:00

L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See, has reported that the lifting of the excommunication of the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X was timed to co-incide with the fiftieth anniversary of the convocation of the Second Vatican Council. Thus I have read on the blog of Damian Thompson.

The French newspaper La Croix, which claims to be a Catholic publication, still contemptuously dismisses Traditional Catholics as intégristes, and includes in its translation of OR’s original Italian—apparently in all seriousness—the amusing line:

Les bons fruits du concile sont innombrables

What fruits would those be, then?

Take as long as you need.

George Weigel on the SSPX

2009-01-28T03:39:00.009-08:00

This from Newsweek. H/T to Fr. Zuhlsdorf, who fisked Weigel’s article (somewhat too kindly, in Melancholicus’ opinion). Some further matters bear pointing out in this piece, which is why it is further reproduced here:

Rome’s Reconciliation

Did the Pope heal, or deepen, the Lefebvrist schism?

By George Weigel | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Jan 26, 2009

What do the Cardinal Richelieu and King Louis XVI, the Bastille and the Reign of Terror, the Bourbons and Robespierre, the revolutionary depredations in the Vendée, the Dreyfus Affair, the anti-clericalism of the French Third Republic, and the World War II Vichy regime have to do with the schismatic movement that the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre led out of the Roman Catholic Church in 1988—a movement that Pope Benedict XVI is now trying to move toward reconciliation by lifting the excommunications of its four illegally ordained bishops on Jan. 21?

In a word: everything.

There are, of course, many different kinds of people in the Lefebvrist movement; the great majority of them are men and women who find the older forms of Catholic piety—especially the Latin Mass celebrated in the Tridentine form—more spiritually beneficial than the reformed liturgy that followed the Vatican Council II (1962-1965). And it is also true that Archbishop Lefebvre, one of the leaders of the anti-reformist faction at Vatican Council II, was very unhappy with what was done to the Church's liturgy after the council.

But Lefebvre was also a man formed by the bitter hatreds that defined the battle lines in French society and culture from the French Revolution to the Vichy regime. Thus his deepest animosities at the council were reserved for another of Vatican Council II's reforms: the council's declaration that "the human person has a right to religious freedom," which implied that coercive state power ought not be put behind the truth-claims of the Catholic Church or any other religious body. This, to Lefebvre, bordered on heresy [to be fair to the Archbishop, the Weltanschauung of the council documents is to say the least difficult to reconcile with that of the Church prior to the council. For Vatican II has since been viewed—by all factions within the Church as well as those without her—as an astonishing volte-face with respect to the Church’s approach to the secular world. Did not our present Holy Father once describe Gaudium et Spes as a “counter-syllabus”, in that its orientation ran totally contrary to Pius IX’s syllabus errorum of 1864? Surely the Archbishop is to be commended, not condemned, for questioning the wisdom of embracing the world at precisely the time that the world was energetically casting out what little remained of Christendom in its foundations?]. For it cast into serious question (indeed, for all practical purposes it rejected) the altar-and-throne arrangements Lefebvre believed ought to prevail—as they had in France before being overthrown in 1789, with what Lefebvre regarded as disastrous consequences for both church and society [in other words the Church, through Dignitatis Humanae and Gaudium et Spes had accommodated herself to modernity. This would not have been a problem were ‘modernity’ founded upon the Christian religion, but it is not, for it bases itself philosophically upon secularism, which latter can provide no faith productive unto eternal life, nor any code of morals for human behaviour which is not subject to alteration upon a whim. The social normalisation of aberrations such as homosexual partnerships and abortion are the logical consequences of modernity. In the political sphere, both Nazism and Communism are modernity’s children. She may since have disowned them, but she bore them nonetheless, and who knows what future horrors she will spring upon us?].

Marcel Lefebvre's war, in other words, was not simply, or even primarily, against modern liturgy. It was against modernity, period [this is a perceptive comment, probably Weigel’s most valuable insight in the whole of his article]. For modernity, in Lefebvre's mind, necessarily involved aggressive secularism, anti-clericalism, and the persecution of the church by godless men [not just in Lefebvre’s mind, Mr. Weigel. It is a matter of the historical record]. That was the modernity he knew, or thought he knew (Lefebvre seems not to have read a fellow Frenchman's reflections on a very different kind of modernity, Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America"); [and how’s that going, eh? Look at what democracy in America has given us—Barack Obama, a holocaust of forty million unborn souls slaughtered since 1973, gay “marriage” and a host of other abominations too numerous to mention] it was certainly the modernity he loathed. And to treat with this modernity—by, for example, affirming the right of religious freedom and the institutional separation of church and state—was to treat with the devil.

The conviction that the Catholic Church had in fact entered into such a devil's bargain by preemptively surrendering to the modern world at Vatican Council II became the ideological keystone of Lefebvre's movement. And the result was dramatic: Lefebvrists came to understand themselves as the beleaguered repository of authentic Catholicism—or, as the movement is wont to put it, the Tradition (always with a capital "T"). For 10 years, Pope John Paul II tried to convince the recalcitrant Archbishop Lefebvre otherwise; he got nowhere [one is not surprised he got nowhere. How did he expect to convince Archbishop Lefebvre while engaging in highly questionable acts like the prayer meeting of religions at Assisi, and kissing the profoundly anti-Christian Qur’an? Actions speak louder than words]. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger then tried to mediate. But at the end of the day, Marcel Lefebvre hated modernity more than he loved Rome [pithy]. So in 1988, rejecting the personal pleas of John Paul II and Ratzinger (men who could hardly be accused, reasonably, of preemptive concessions to modernity) [hmm, this is a matter for debate], an aging Lefebvre ordained four bishops to carry on his work, without the requisite authorization from Rome. Those four bishops (whose orders, while illegally conferred under church law, are nonetheless valid sacraments in the church's eyes) [yes] automatically incurred excommunication by participating in a schismatic act—an act in conscious defiance of church authority that cuts one off from the full communion of the church. It is those excommunications that have now been lifted by Benedict XVI, in an effort to move the Lefebvrist movement toward reconciliation with Rome and toward the restoration of full communion [yes, because we’re not there yet].

That one of the Lefebvrist bishops, Richard Williamson, is a Holocaust denier and a promoter of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" has drawn considerable attention and commentary, particularly from Jewish scholars and religious leaders who have made large investments in Jewish-Catholic dialogue since Vatican Council II. Their concern is entirely understandable, although it has to be said that the lifting of Williamson's excommunication in no way constitutes a papal endorsement of Williamson's lunatic view of history [a very important point], or a retraction of John Paul II's 1998 statement deploring the Holocaust, or a revocation of Vatican Council II's teaching on the sin of anti-Semitism. At the same time, it ought to be recognized that Williamson's Holocaust denial and his embrace of a crude anti-Semitic canard like the "Protocols" is not all that surprising, given that Lefebvrist political ideology grew out of the same French fever swamps that produced the anti-Dreyfusards. (Even as it ought to be recognized that the hypersecularists of the Third French Republic hated Catholics as much as some anti-Dreyfusards hated Jews.) [I’m sure Williamson has some grasp of these matters, but he is not himself French, was not born in France, did not grow up there, and is hardly likely to share the keen penetration of these politico-religious questions the late Archbishop shows in They Have Uncrowned Him. Williamson has long engaged in fruit-and-nuttery, but his holocaust denial—at least at this present time—is more likely to proceed from a desire to forestall the reconciliation of the SSPX than from adherence to the Archbishop’s politics.]

Williamson's inanities, while deplorable and disgusting, are something of a sideshow, however [correct]. For the highest stakes in this drama hove into view when Bishop Bernard Fellay, the current head of the Lefebvrist movement, issued a Jan. 24 letter on the lifting of the excommunications to the movement's faithful. It is an astonishing document, declaring as it does that "Catholic Tradition is no longer excommunicated" and that the Lefebvrists constitute those "Catholics attached to Tradition throughout the world." [if Weigel has reported Fellay accurately here, the latter has made a sweeping statement of breathtaking arrogance, as though there were no Catholic Tradition at all outside the ranks of the SSPX]. The letter goes on to affirm "all the councils up to the Second Vatican Council about which we express some reservations." And it implies that the talks that will now commence between the Vatican and the Lefebvrists, now that the excommunications have been lifted, will focus on those "reservations." [it is perfectly legitimate for the SSPX to seek dialogue with the Holy See about their reservations. How many times must I say that it is fruitless to require of them a blanket submission to the teachings of Vatican II, when no-one seems to be able to define authoritatively what those teachings are? Who shall interpret the council for us? George Weigel?]

Responsible canon lawyers have raised questions about whether this arrogance on the part of Bishop Fellay does not cast into question his fulfillment of the canonical requirements for a lawful lifting of his excommunication. In any event, non-canonists will read his letter as Fellay's unilateral declaration of victory: the Lefebrvists have been right all along; the Holy See has finally recognized the error of its ways; the only things left to discuss are the terms of surrender. Ironically, but hardly coincidentally, the Catholic left (which has been clever enough to avoid formal schism while living in intellectual and psychological schism since Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical on family planning, Humanae Vitae) has welcomed Benedict XVI's canonical rescue of the Lefebvrist bishops, with numerous left-leaning Catholic dissidents now saying, in effect, "Where's my bailout?" [pithy. But to whom is Mr. Weigel here referring? How many of his “left-leaning Catholic dissidents” have, like the bishops of the SSPX, been excommunicated, or suffered any real punishment at all? The only such that Melancholicus can think of is the crack-potted handful of womynprysts who from time to time simulate the reception of sacred orders in synagogues or on riverboats. These can never be reconciled unless they retract their error and abjure their pretended “orders”. They are not in a situation even remotely comparable to that of the Lefebvrist bishops.]

Benedict XVI undoubtedly intended this lifting of excommunications as a step toward healing a wound in the church. Bishop Fellay's letter, in response to the pope's gesture, suggests that the healing has not taken place. Moreover, Fellay's letter raises the stakes for everyone, and to the highest level. For what is at issue, now, is the integrity of the Church's self-understanding, which must include the authenticity of the teaching of Vatican Council II [the teaching of the council and its continuity with sacred tradition MUST be clarified as a matter of urgency, not merely to satisfy the Lefebvrists but for the good of the whole Church. It is not sufficient to declare the teaching of Vatican II “authentic” and to leave it at that, when no two individuals can agree on what precisely that teaching is.]

Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, the pope's spokesman, emphasized to reporters on Jan. 24 that the lifting of the excommunications did not mean that "full communion" had been restored with the Lefebvrists [this is true. The four bishops, as well as all the clergy in communion with them, are still suspended a divinis, and lack the faculties required to absolve penitents and solemnize marriages]. The terms of such reconciliation are, presumably, the subject of the "talks" to which Bishop Fellay referred in his letter. Those talks should be interesting indeed. For it is not easy to see how the unity of the Catholic Church will be advanced if the Lefebvrist faction does not publicly and unambiguously affirm Vatican Council II's teaching on the nature of the church, on religious freedom, and on the sin of anti-Semitism [what, precisely, is “Vatican Council II’s teaching on the nature of the church” [sic] or, indeed, on any other matter? Mr. Weigel cannot say. Nor can Melancholicus, and nor can anyone else, save the Holy Father speaking ex cathedra. Let us not expect theological miracles from the leaders of the SSPX when the holy Catholic Church herself has not authoritatively defined what that teaching is]. Absent such an affirmation, pick-and-choose cafeteria Catholicism will be reborn on the far fringes of the Catholic right, just when it was fading into insignificance on the dwindling Catholic left, its longtime home [this closing remark is neo-catholicism at its very ripest, all the more so since it has absolutely no correspondence with the facts on the ground. It also betrays the cocksure smugness of the neo-catholic position, confident that he alone holds the key to the Catholic faith against the heretics and schismatics on either side of him, and blind to his own mediocrity. Since when does the political position of the Lefebvrists—however much one may disagree with it—contradict defined dogma? It is not sufficient for Mr. Weigel to argue that their political stance contradicts what Vatican II seems to say, for a case can be made that Vatican II itself seems to contradict the socio-political teachings of the Roman pontiffs from the age of the Enlightenment down to 1960. Let the teachings of Vatican II be clarified and defined with the precision of earlier Magisterial decrees before we begin accusing those who are not neo-catholics of “pick-and-choose cafeteria Catholicism”. Furthermore, since when is this pick-and-choose attitude “fading into insignificance” on the left? In Melancholicus’ personal experience, both in Ireland and the United States, this attitude is as robust as ever. The ranks of the left may gradually be thinning, but those who remain still cling to their cherished ideology as resolutely as when they were forty years younger, and they are plenty capable of doing severe damage to what remains of Catholicism in many countries before departing into that good night. They have not gone away simply because the last conclave elected Benedict XVI.]

Not a bad article overall, and quite perceptive in many respects, but Mr. Weigel exhibits two of the most frustrating traits commonly found in the neo-catholic mind. The first is this notion of the “authenticity of the teachings of Vatican II”, the acceptance of which all neo-catholics demand as a sine qua non—but none of them ever takes the trouble to explain to us what that means. Perhaps to them it is self-evident, but they cannot expect us to agree. We can affirm with them that Vatican II was an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church, validly convoked by lawful authority, whose documents were lawfully promulgated and which taught no formal heresy. But what, precisely, did Vatican II teach? The council defined no new doctrine binding upon the faithful. It proposed a plethora of policy changes and new orientations, to be sure, but these things are not de fide after the manner of doctrines of faith or morals. What does Vatican II require us—under pain of sin—to believe that we were not required to believe before 1965? Nothing! What does Vatican II require us—again under pain of sin—to do that we were not required to do before 1965? Again, nothing!

The second is Mr. Weigel’s notion that Archbishop Lefebvre’s hatred of modernity was somehow misplaced and that, with the importuning of John Paul II, he and his followers ought to have ‘gotten with the programme’, so to speak. On the contrary, there needs to be a debate at the highest levels of the hierarchy up to and including the Holy See about the opening of the Church towards the world set in motion by Vatican II. This will—and should—involve revisiting the council documents and at the level of the Magisterium clarifying the copious ambiguity therein. The post-1789 world is NOT something intrinsically good, from which the Church has nothing to fear. In his book They Have Uncrowned Him, the Archbishop traced the pedigree of this modernity: conceived at the Renaissance, brought to birth at the reformation, through adolescence in the age of Enlightenment to a ghastly maturity in the blood-soaked twentieth century and then seemingly embraced uncritically and with open arms by the Catholic Church at Vatican II, on her knees and seeking the world’s approval—on the world’s own terms!

Maybe it’s just me, but how any synod of bishops can get together less than twenty years after the most horrifying human carnage the world had ever seen and draft a document proclaiming in fulsome and ebullient terms the wondrous virtues of modern man truly beggars belief. And how could the Holy Father of the day really believe, after everything he had seen in his own lifetime and with his own eyes, that error would correct itself as though automatically, with no intervention from the Church or other external coercion?

Well, Nazism corrected itself, didn’t it? So... it wasn’t necessary for the Allies to resist Hitler, then?

And in the religious sphere, it has been nearly five hundred years now and we all know how Protestantism corrected itself in the meantime...

Olivia O'Leary, and other animals

2009-01-28T02:54:00.003-08:00

Is there any wonder Melancholicus has ceased listening to the news and to current affairs programmes on the radio while driving home from work, when all that can be heard thereon are gloomy prophecies of impending economic catastrophe and similar woes?

However, out of curiosity he switched on Drivetime on RTÉ 1 yesterday evening, whereat he was confronted with Olivia O’Leary’s weekly radio diary.

This is not normally a trial; Melancholicus has no animus against Olivia O’Leary (at least he used not to have such), and not a little of what she says is sound common sense.

But that all changed yesterday evening, for Ms. O’Leary opened her broadcast with an entirely gratuitous attack on the Catholic religion—that’s right: not the institution of the Church, nor even the clergy—the Catholic religion itself was her target.

Those who wish to be scandalised may listen to her pomposity on the Drivetime podcast page here (at least when RTÉ get around to fixing the link, for if one clicks on the Olivia O’Leary 27 January podcast, one will, to one’s great annoyance, find Joe Duffy instead).

What does the reader think of her breathtaking statement that “other religions had, I think, a sense of justice, something to be worked out openly and rationally; we had dark confessionals and agonies of guilt”? This remark is so risible it hardly bears comment.

Her arrogant and profoundly ignorant denigration of our holy religion is all the more galling insofar as there was absolutely no need for her even to mention it, for the subject of her broadcast was not religion at all, but the economy, real estate, property tax and suchlike things.

Catholicism only made an appearance because Ms. O’Leary wanted to set the stage for all her later blather about “guilt” with regard to financial misfeasance by government, financial institutions and property speculators. Does she think it right and good to throw ugly slurs against the religion of the majority of this country’s population in order to make a point about the economy? Pleading that she is herself a Catholic is no excuse. If she is herself a Catholic, she ought to know better than to trot out such tired and shopworn stereotypes.

Of course RTÉ did not deign to edit Ms. O’Leary’s comments before they were aired yesterday evening; the editors of Drivetime either concur with her dismissive attitude or else reckon that alone among all religions, Catholicism is fair game for slander and abuse.

Now imagine she had chosen to attack not Catholicism, but the Islamic religion. What would have been the reaction? Of course RTÉ—a paragon of great cultural sensitivity—would never have permitted it to be broadcast in the first place, but let us just indulge in a little fantasy and imagine how that would have gone down.

There would have been a whirlwind of protest—but not from crazed fanatics seeking to cut off her head, for the ummah in Ireland is as yet too small to be so openly belligerent. The furious response would have come instead from the good people of Dublin Four, and from those who read The Irish Times as though it were scripture. Today Joe Duffy would be inundated with calls to Liveline by people horrified at Ms. O’Leary’s insensitive remarks; The Irish Times likewise would receive a flood of letters by decent citizens protesting against such outrageous cultural racism. The news would be reported abroad in Britain, and perhaps further afield, and Muslim groups there (the good old MCB, no doubt) would not be slow to voice their displeasure and to score political points. In the end, RTÉ (and not forgetting Ms. O’Leary herself) would be forced to make a humiliating and abject apology in order to abate the tempest.

But because Catholicism is the object of her venom, no-one shall so much as bat an eyelid.

UPDATE: RTÉ have now fixed the link. Listen to Ms. O’Leary’s ramblings here.

Le Figaro: poll shows most opposed to SSPX reconciliation

2009-01-27T07:31:00.004-08:00

Approuvez-vous la décision de Benoît XVI de lever l’excommunication des évêques intégristes?

Le Pape a levé samedi l’excommunication de quatre evêques, frappés par cette sentence depuis 1988. Parmi eux, Mgr Richard Williamson, qui s’est notamment illustré par des propos négationnistes: il avait mis en doute l’existence des chambres à gaz dans les camps de concentration nazi. Le vote est clos. Vous êtes 13780 à y avoir participé.

13,780 votes were cast in this poll asking whether readers approved of the decision of the pope to lift the excommunications of what the French newspaper calls “the integrist bishops”. Perhaps intégriste is routinely used as a neutral term in French to denote Traditionalists in general and lacks the pejorative connotations it has in English, but Melancholicus somehow doubts it. In any case, the newspaper asks a leading question since Williamson’s denial of the historicity of the holocaust and the gas chambers is right in there.

43.3% of those who voted were in favour of the excommunications being lifted, but 56.6% were opposed, which, all things considered, is hardly a surprise.

A Magna Carta of the Holy Spirit?

2009-01-27T06:10:00.008-08:00

Melancholicus was going to turn over a new leaf in 2009 and cease tilting at the council, even if only because his readers are probably weary with his incessant polemic. But this article expresses a view one should have hoped would have gone the way of the dodo by now. One is disheartened to find it still alive and kicking even fifty years after the council was called.

Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue is one of the more orthodox and impressive prelates in a hierarchy of wolves and hirelings. Last year he drew praise for his publications Fit For Mission? Schools and Fit For Mission? Church in which genuine Catholic doctrine is upheld in clear and unambiguous terms.

But nonsense is still nonsense, regardless of the pen whence it proceeds, and the following article written by bishop O’Donoghue for the Catholic Herald just cries out for fisking. Let the reader count the number of ebullient bursts of sunshine in his rhapsodical eulogy of the council. We might be reading Gaudium et Spes.

A Magna Carta of the Holy Spirit

Bishop Patrick O’Donoghue on why Vatican II still matters
23 January 2009

On January 25 we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Blessed Pope John XXIII’s convocation of the Second Vatican Council.

There is a story I’d like to recount that conveys something of the frame of mind that existed before the Council among some English bishops. Canon Oliver Kelly, my predecessor as Administrator of Westminster Cathedral, was in a meeting with Cardinal William Godfrey, Archbishop of Westminster (1956-1963).

Cardinal Godfrey, waxing eloquently about the purpose of the future Council, walked over to his bookcase and picked out one of the 12 bound volumes containing the draft schemas prepared for debate by the Council Fathers. Fondling the book in his hands, Cardinal Godfrey declared the schemas marvellous and suggested that nothing could possibly be added to them. “It will all be over in three months!” he said [indeed it would have been, and the Church would have benefitted from it, and Cardinal Godfrey was right: the schemas were marvellous. Precise, concise and to the point. Unmistakable Catholic doctrine. But that was before the council was hijacked by the liberal faction ON ITS VERY FIRST DAY and thus deflected from the course originally charted for it by Pope John and the commissions he appointed. The good bishop clearly hasn’t read Fr. Wiltgen, or Romano Amerio, or Michael Davies, much less Archbishop Lefebvre. So instead of theologically precise, accurate and clear documents, we had a council that passed verbose and turgid ambiguities, under cover of which toxic novelties were introduced into the life of the Church the fruit of which is all too apparent today. Bishop O’Donoghue may rejoice in this anniversary, but given the ecclesiastical history of the past half-century, to my mind it is no matter for rejoicing].

However, the reality of the Council was very different [and the rest, sadly, is history].

In November 1962, after heated debate about the sources of Revelation, the pre-prepared schema De Fontibus Revelationis was rejected by the Council Fathers, later to be replaced by the wonderful Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation, Dei Verbum [why is Dei Verbum wonderful, whereas De Fontibus Revelationis was not? Is it because Dei Verbum became one of the official documents of the council, and that is why it is so wonderful? Or is it not rather because the former schema was precise and to the point, whereas Dei Verbum is manifestly lacking in both concision and precision, instead replete with ambiguous phrasing sufficiently open-ended it can be interpreted in accordance with the prejudices of the reader?].

This willingness not to be constrained by the pre-prepared schema [willingness NOT TO BE CONSTRAINED?? What sort of a re-writing of history is this?] set the precedent for a far-reaching and creative [hah!] debate among the Council Fathers, lasting three years and producing a body of documents that are a Magna Carta of the Holy Spirit for the modern Church [that is merely your opinion, my lord bishop, and as such neither I nor any other Catholic is bound to share it]. If we truly lived by the decisions of Vatican II we would know how to balance continuity and change, ressourcement and aggiornamento [of course we would, since we would follow a council that was neither hot nor cold, neither up nor down, neither left nor right, neither truly traditional nor truly novel, neither crystal clear nor totally obscure, neither all for the Church nor all for the world, in a word, the very epitome of mediocrity].

Looking back across the years we are prone to forget, or dismiss as naïve, the sheer energy and hope of the Sixties, a decade that saw the rise of the modern world from the wreckage of the Second World War. It was the age of President John F Kennedy, the first manned space flights, the Third World’s green revolution in agriculture, the civil rights movement, and women’s rights [the ’sixties were also the age of Tsar Bomba, the Cuban missile crisis, the proliferation of mind-altering drugs, the legalization of abortion in the UK, the revolt of the youth against both morality and restraint, and a general revolt even among clergy and religious, against the authority of the Church. Surely bishop O’Donoghue does not look back on the anarchy and dissent which greeted Humanae Vitae with nostalgia? And what gives with the eulogising of John F Kennedy? Surely the bishop cannot be aware of how bad an example that profoundly disappointing family has been for Catholics, especially those involved in political life, ever since?].

The Council Fathers judged rightly that it was time for the Church to find a new language to speak the eternal truths of Faith to modern men and women. I remember the excitement when people heard the Church speaking in a way that was straightforward, biblical, personal, and pastoral [indeed so straightforward was the Church’s new way of speaking that today nearly everybody under the age of 65 has an heretical understanding of the Catholic faith. One might say that when the Church begins proclaiming Christianity in a secular idiom, she will end by proclaiming secularism in a Christian idiom. Can the good bishop deny that such has been the result of this ill-conceived experiment?].

As I wrote in Fit for Mission? Church: “It was as if we were in Galilee again during those heady days when the apostles walked with the Lord, hearing the liberating truth of His words and seeing His love, bringing miracles to all wounded by sin, sickness and doubt [the ’sixties reminded you of this, did it, my lord bishop? What on earth were you smoking?]. And the world flocked to Him, knowing that He spoke with power and authority. And the world flocked to Rome – through the media – during the Council knowing that something wonderful was happening, Christ was speaking His words of hope and healing with authority to the peoples of our times.” [No, no, no and no! Pre-programmed by the media, who exerted an undue and baleful influence on the public perception of the council, the world waited for the Church to announce she was going to change. This influence was not confined to the lay readers of newspapers and magazines in western countries; it was exerted even upon clergy and upon the very council fathers themselves. The world was not waiting for Christ to speak “words of hope and healing with authority to the peoples of our times” but for a definitive sign that after so many centuries of resisting the Weltanschauung of the Enlightenment, the Catholic Church was finally going to embrace the world on the world’s own terms—and not before time too.]

I really hope that in 2009 we all return to the documents of the Council, especially the four Constitutions, because they are our direct link to a time in the life of the Church dramatically blessed by the Holy Spirit [once again, my lord bishop, this is your personal opinion, and I do not share it. It is difficult for me, in the light of everything that took place then and in subsequent years, to regard the early ’sixties as in any way “a time in the life of the Church dramatically blessed by the Holy Spirit”. Nevertheless, you have a point, for it is important that the Church as a matter of urgency clarify the ambiguities and contradictions that abound in the text of the decrees. Until this is done definitively, the council—even in its officially-promulgated documents—will continue ever more to be a source of confusion and dissidence for clergy and laity alike.]

I have little sympathy with those who argue that we should somehow get past the documents of the Council – which they say are fatally flawed by compromise and politics – and try to re-construct the “event” of the Council in order to know the “true” intentions of the Council Fathers and periti [theological advisers]. [Hmm. Who is he attacking here? Much like the documents he so highly praises, his Grace of Lancaster’s words are ambiguous on this point and could be interpreted either way.]

Just as many scripture scholars involved in the historical search for Jesus created a “Jesus” that merely reflected themselves, there is the danger that those involved in the historical search for the Council will create a picture of the “Council” that reflects their own likes and dislikes. If Catholics really knew the documents of the Council there would not be so much confusion about what they actually say: [Yes, but how can Catholics “really know the documents of the Council”, when the documents are sufficiently open-ended as to be susceptible to widely varying and even mutually-exclusive interpretations? Does it not strike the good bishop that there must be something seriously wrong with this council if there is a danger that even the study of its official documents will create for Catholics “a picture of the Council” that reflects merely “their own likes and dislikes”? Does this not rather highlight the dangerous ambiguity present in the conciliar texts? His Grace then goes on to cite examples of policies called for by the council documents which run contrary to the popular perception—a useful illustration of how the council has been mishandled by those responsible for its implementation, but does this not illustrate the failure of the council to convey its own message when so many different (and mutually-exclusive) interpretations exist?]

1) Catholics could not continue to live lives focused on their own prosperity if they truly knew that Gaudium et Spes 69 teaches, among other things, that we must “feed the man dying of hunger, because if you have not fed him, you have killed him” [Did we need the convocation of an ecumenical council at great labour and expense just to tell us this? Has this not rather been perennial Catholic social teaching for centuries?].

2) Catholics could not say that Paul VI’s prophetic encyclical, Humanae Vitae, went against Vatican II if they knew that Gaudium et Spes 51 teaches that couples “may not undertake methods of birth control which are found blameworthy by the teaching authority of the Church in its unfolding of the divine law” [Here we have an example of one norm contradicting another within the same document, since Guadium et Spes also says (§52) “Those too who are skilled in other sciences, notably the medical, biological, social and psychological, can considerably advance the welfare of marriage and the family along with peace of conscience if by pooling their efforts they labor to explain more thoroughly the various conditions favoring a proper regulation of births” which, on the face of it, is hardly a disavowal of contraception. In fact it takes some reading and re-reading to figure out what it means, and even then we’re not sure].

3) Catholics would not mock the Mass of Paul VI if they accepted that Sacrosanctum Concilium 36 teaches that “the use of the vernacular... may frequently be of great advantage to the people” [O come on. As though the only thing amiss with the Mass of Paul VI is that it is celebrated in the vernacular. Such is the very least of its problems].

4) Catholics would not say that Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum went against Vatican II if they knew that Sacrosanctum Concilium 36 teaches that “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rite”. [His Grace fails to notice the disorientating confusion inherent in Sacrosanctum Concilium, which in one and the same paragraph mandates the retention of Latin but at the same time permits the vernacular! Furthermore, those bishops, clergy and laity who object to the Church’s traditional liturgy do so not for the language wherein it is celebrated, but for reasons of ecclesiology. Surely his Grace is aware of the enormous ecclesiological cleavage between Tradition and the Revolution, yet he chooses to reduce it to a simple matter of linguistic preference. I am not impressed.]

Looking back at the ages of the saints, such as St Francis, St Clare and St Dominic, it’s tempting to think: “Wouldn’t it have been wonderful to have lived during that golden age, when the Church was young and creative?” [And where are the saints of the ’sixties? Ah, silly me, here they come:]

It is time for us to wake up to the fact that during and after the Council, giants have walked among us: Blessed John XXIII, Blessed Mother Teresa, Servant of God Pope John Paul II, Servant of God Pope Paul VI, Cardinal Henri de Lubac, Fr Karl Rahner SJ, Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Brother Roger of Taizé, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Chiara Lubich, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, Pope Benedict XVI, and many more [this is a motley crew, and no mistake. I can understand the inclusion of John XXIII, Benedict XVI, Dietrich Von Hildebrand, (to an extent) John Paul II, and even Paul VI, Mother Teresa and Cardinal de Lubac, but Rahner?? Von Balthasar?? Chiara Lubich??? Brother Roger of Taizé???? In the immortal words of Alcuin, Quid Ingeld cum Christo? It reminds me of the evil spirit in Acts 19:15 saying to the sons of Sceva “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?”].

I suspect that future generations will look back and say: “Oh, to have lived in times so blessed by the Holy Spirit!” [Did the Israelites look back on their forty years’ wandering in the desert with wistful yearning? I think not. Nor will Catholics of a future age look back with nostalgia upon the wretched time that bishop O’Donoghue seems to think was so wonderful. Blessed by the Holy Ghost, you say? Let us not blaspheme Him by attributing the greatest cataclysm to strike the Church since the Reformation to His holy inspiration now please]

So is the council, as the good bishop avers, a “Magna Carta of the Holy Spirit”? Let the reader decide.

Anno Domini MMIX

2009-01-01T07:13:00.004-08:00

It is likely that blogging will be light in January, for on Saturday Melancholicus will remove himself to the left coast of the USA, there to visit his sweetheart whom he has not seen in the flesh for many months.

He shall do his best to get near a computer some time over the next three weeks so as to keep his regular readers—all eight of you!—informed of developments in the God-forsaken half-catholic wasteland that is the archdiocese of Seattle, or indeed anywhere else on earth that might claim his passing interest.

Melancholicus was once a seminarist, and 2009 was to be the year of his ordination. Almighty God hath disposed otherwise, however, and so the state of life to be embraced this year will not be holy orders at all but holy matrimony.

We would both be grateful, gentle reader, for your prayers.

Infelix ego, Melancholicus, peccator

O Emmanuel

2008-12-23T11:45:00.003-08:00

The last of the O Antiphons is sung at vespers this evening, for tomorrow’s vespers will be the first of the Nativity:

O EMMANUEL, Rex et Legifer noster, exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos, Domine Deus noster.

O EMMANUEL, our King and Law-giver, the desire of the nations and the Saviour thereof, come to save us, O Lord our God.

Tagged

2008-12-22T11:19:00.007-08:00

Another milestone in the annals of Infelix Ego, for today Melancholicus has been tagged, and that for the very first time.

The rules of this particular tag are as follows:

Link to the person who tagged you: The Bovina Bloviator.

Post the rules on your blog.

Write six random things about yourself.

Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.

Let each person know they've been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.

Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Melancholicus shall refrain from tagging six others, for he moves in narrow and esoteric circles, and despite the length of his blogroll (see right) is not confident of finding six suitable fellow bloggers to tag. Many of his regular reads no doubt will have already been tagged in this wise by someone else. Instead he shall modify the rules on his own authority. Anyone reading this with a blog of their own may consider themselves tagged if they wish to play.

And now for six random pieces of trivia about Melancholicus:

He was born and raised in Ireland, but has lived for extended periods in Utrecht (the Netherlands), Oslo (Norway) and Nebraska (USA).

After lapsing from the Catholic faith in his teenage years, he was converted at the age of 24 by reading a book on Christianity—written by an Anglican!

He has at least some knowledge of the Irish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Russian and Arabic languages, but speaks none of them with any degree of fluency (and can not yet read Arabic script), so (with the possible exception of Germany and the Netherlands) he would be quite unable to function in any country in which these are spoken without having to resort finally to English. He also has a reading knowledge through his academic training of Early Irish, Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Gothic and Latin.

As a boy, his ambition was to be a bus driver for CIÉ. This ambition was thwarted when the buses which inspired it were withdrawn from service at the end of their working lives while Melancholicus was still too young to hold a D-class driving licence, after which he lost all interest. He has no desire to be associated with these bland, characterless modern yokes.

He is fascinated with the subject of nuclear weapons, loves looking at photographs and archive footage of nuclear tests and would love to have the opportunity to witness a real live atmospheric high-yield test at sufficiently close range to feel the heat on his face and the onrush of the shock front, but no so close as to risk serious injury or death, naturally.

He really likes the interface presented by Safari browser, though for blogging purposes, Firefox is his clear favourite. Microsoft Internet Explorer he regards as the novus ordo of web browsers and hence not worth bothering with.

And that’s that.

O Rex Gentium

2008-12-22T05:22:00.002-08:00

This evening’s vespers sees the chanting of the penultimate O Antiphon:

O REX GENTIUM, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.

O KING OF THE NATIONS and the desire thereof, Thou cornerstone that makest both one, come and deliver mankind, whom Thou didst form out of clay.

O Oriens

2008-12-21T02:52:00.005-08:00

The fifth of the Great O Antiphons will be sung at vespers this evening. The fourth Sunday of Advent has no proper Magnificat antiphon at either first or second vespers, since the occurring O Antiphons take liturgical precedence:

O ORIENS, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O DAY-SPRING, Brightness of light eternal, and Sun of Justice, come and enlighten them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

O Clavis David

2008-12-20T07:03:00.002-08:00

The fourth of the Great O Antiphons will be sung at vespers this evening:

O CLAVIS David, et sceptrum domus Israel: qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et in umbra mortis.

O Key of David, and Scepter of the house of Israel, that openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and no man openeth: come and bring the prisoner forth from the prison-house, and him that sitteth in darkness and in the shadow of death.

O Radix Jesse

2008-12-19T08:21:00.001-08:00

The third of the Great O Antiphons will be sung at vespers this evening:

O RADIX JESSE, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, iam noli tardare.

O ROOT OF JESSE, Which standest for an ensign of the people, before Whom kings shall keep silence, Whom the Gentiles shall beseech: come and deliver us, and tarry not.

O Adonai

2008-12-18T01:18:00.002-08:00

The second of the Great O Antiphons will be sung at vespers this evening:

O ADONAI, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

O ADONAI, and Leader of the house of Israel, Who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush, and didst give him the law on Sinai: come and with an outstretched arm redeem us.

O Sapientia

2008-12-17T05:28:00.003-08:00

On 17 December, which is today, the Church enters upon the second and more solemn half of her Advent observance. The countdown to the appearance of the Divine Infant at Christmas has begun in earnest, and the first of the seven Great Antiphons chanted at the Magnificat in the office of vespers will be sung this evening.

O SAPIENTIA, quae ex ore Altissimi prodidisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiae.

O WISDOM, Which camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from end to end and ordering all things mightily and sweetly: come and teach us the way of prudence.

H/T to Rev. Giles Pinnock, on whose blog Melancholicus found the video.

What the devil...?

2008-12-16T02:04:00.008-08:00

In September last Melancholicus installed on Infelix Ego a device called NeoCounter.

This device is one of many handy tools that measure and log internet traffic such that one has some idea where one’s visitors are from.

Noticing today that one of his most recent visitors pushed the number of countries from which his blog has been browsed since September up to the grand total of 60, Melancholicus waited eagerly to see the identity of the new country.

To say that it surprised him when he found it would be an understatement.

Which country would that be, then?

One that isn’t a country.

Look at the image to the left, paying particular attention to the spotlit area.

Just what is that, between Cameroon and the United Arab Emirates?

Since when, gentle reader, is Europe a country, any more than Africa or Asia or, for that matter, Antarctica are countries?

This is most sinister.

But wait, there’s more! The flag accompanying this ‘country’ is a circlet of twelve gold stars on a blue field. This is the flag of a political, economic and increasingly judicial entity known as the European Union.

So is this just an error on the part of NeoCounter? For the European Union is not itself a country. It is not a state, although the officials presiding over its institutions are tirelessly striving to elevate it to statehood. It is a legal construct composed of twenty-seven separate and independent member states. These twenty-seven states are the countries, and all except Luxembourg, Lithuania and Slovenia have registered hits on Melancholicus’ counter.

So what is this ‘Europe’? The EU has no right to statehood alongside its twenty-seven members, much less to statehood at their expense.

Melancholicus has not so far tracked down the origin of that (so far) isolated visit, but would not be surprised if it proceeded from an IP address in some bureaucratic office in Strasbourg or Brussels.

But if this is indeed an indication that the commissars are trawling the blogs and indentifying troublesome commentators advocating unwelcome right-wing views—as has been threatened—would they not do better to keep their surveillance secret?

They’ll catch more baddies that way.

The things one sees on the highway

2008-12-16T00:54:00.007-08:00

Yesterday evening, after checking on his students in the exam hall at the RDS, Melancholicus was driving through Ballsbridge on his way back to the north side.

He stopped at traffic lights at the junction of Anglesey Road, and noticed that the vehicle in front of him—a silver 2008 Nissan Note with a Dublin registration—bore an Obama ’08 bumper sticker, obnoxiously displayed to the public view.

This is unusual in Ireland. It is uncommon to see vehicles on Irish roads registered in the state with bumper stickers of any sort, political or otherwise, never mind those to do with American presidential elections.

So it is typical that the very first one Melancholicus ever set eyes upon in this country should belong to a supporter of the Man of Sin, and he grunted to himself in sour disapproval behind the wheel.

When the lights turned green, the Obamobile moved into the lane to turn right onto Shelbourne Road, stopping at the junction thereto since the filter light had not yet appeared. Melancholicus remained in the northbound lane, since he was heading towards Morehampton Road, and as he passed the queue of traffic waiting for the Shelbourne filter light he turned his head to get a look at the driver.

The Obamobile was driven by a fat, dumpy-looking, middle-aged woman with an angry mien and a scowl that could crack a plate. Although Melancholicus cannot pretend to know this woman, or be privy to the secrets of her conscience, if appearance is anything to go by she looked every inch the radical feminist, and, if the truth be told, she looked more than a little like one of those ladies that prefers the bed-company of her own rather than the opposite sex. Melancholicus surmised that at the beginning of this year this woman must have been eagerly rooting for Hillary Clinton but, when the latter failed to win the Democratic nomination, decided to make the best of a bad job and root for the candidate otherwise most likely to deliver with respect to the feminist/abortionist/homosexualist agenda.

But why are liberals so angry? Why are they so eaten up with fury and hate? Are they not aware that all their cherished designs are, one by one, gradually being realised? Have they not copped themselves on to the fact that their side, at least at the present time, is winning? Have they not, after all, secured the election of the Chosen One, at least where the US presidency is concerned?

Can they not be gracious in victory?

Can they not even manage a smile?

No, because just like the islamists, each fresh victory does not abate their hatred, but increases it.

Everyone who knows an ideological liberal can testify to the horrifying depths of bitterness, rage and even malice that lie seething beneath the surface, ready to spill over at the slightest provocation. A feature common to all totalitarian ideologies is an absolute intolerance of the existence of persons whose views differ from the ideological orthodoxy. Liberalism is no exception. Make no mistake about it, Liberalism is every bit as totalitarian as Nazism and Communism; it differs from these only in that its proponents have not yet secured sufficient raw power to impose their will violently upon their opponents and upon society at large.

Let us suppose that the liberals achieved all their objectives: not some, not most—but all. This is impossible since the indefectibility of the Church is divinely guaranteed until the end of time, but let us imagine for argument’s sake that it were so. Having completely revolutionised the social order and imposed all their cherished inversions and perversions (it is surely unnecessary to list these); having attained such total control over education and the dissemination of information that every last member of society could not help but be thoroughly indoctrinated in their ideology, without any possibility of opting out (so no homeschooling or anything similar); having disposed of persons who somehow managed to evade this indoctrination or showed themselves capable of independent thought by the expedient of having them confined to psychiatric wards, lobotomised or ‘euthanised’, would they then, finally, be happy?

If traditional morality and the Christian religion were eradicated completely, would they then rest content, delighted with their achievements and with the heaven on earth they believe they can decree into being?

Or would they not rather find themselves bereft of all purpose and desire, since there would be no-one left to hate?

Christmas stamps 2008

2008-12-15T05:39:00.005-08:00

Last year Melancholicus was struck with wonderment at the fact that, even in this brave new age of cultural ‘sensitivity’, An Post was so coarse and majoritarian as to use the word Christmas openly and shamelessly on their website. As if such were not sufficiently offensive to the devotees of lesser gods, to ethnic ‘minorities’, to Irish Times readers and to the liberal intelligentsia generally, An Post did not even scruple to issue, even to the very public, a special set of seasonal stamps with an unmistakably Christian theme.

Well, those good fellows are at it again this year! For Melancholicus has today sent off his first batch of Christmas cards (with more to go out tomorrow), and in doing so discovered that last year’s themed stamps were not an isolated incident quickly corrected by the self-appointed watchdogs of p.c. orthodoxy, but an annual event which brings a timely reminder amidst the commercially-driven excess of materialistic spending sprees of what Christmas is really all about.

This year’s offerings lack the aesthetic quality of those from 2007 (at least in Melancholicus’ opinion), but for all that they are just as unmistakably Christian. They feature (right to left) the Annunciation, the journey of the Blessed Mother and St. Joseph to Bethlehem, and the Divine Infant lying in the manger.

Once again, kudos to An Post for doing their bit to keep the religious tradition of this country alive in the face of the assaults it receives daily from ideologues who think they know better than the Holy Ghost.

And Christmas is still Christmas in Ireland; we do not (yet) address each other with banalities such as “happy holidays”, and the Angelus bell is still rung daily even on the mordantly anti-catholic media organ known as RTÉ.

But, the way things are going, for how much longer?

Lisbon take two

2008-12-11T01:24:00.007-08:00

Isn’t democracy beautiful?

Isn’t it wonderful when the people at large have the chance to determine their own future instead of having a cadre of politicians, businessmen and vested interests deciding it for them?

On 12 June last, the Irish electorate voted against the ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon. One would think that an institution such as the European Union, committed as it is to promoting the spread of western-style democracy throughout the globe, ought to respect that result. Was it not delivered by the democratic means so dear to the hearts of our European rulers, heirs as they are to the Revolutionaries of 1789, with their ideals of Liberté, Fraternité and Egalité?

Now it has been revealed that Taoiseach Brian Cowen is to offer the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty to the Irish electorate a second time, in exactly the same fashion as was done in 2002 with the Treaty of Nice.

What part of “No” do they not understand?

Melancholicus predicted as much last May, and he does not rejoice in the discovery that his prediction has been fulfilled.

What is the response of our European “brothers” to this travesty of the democratic process? Are concerned voices being raised in Brussels, opposing the Irish government’s decision to hold a second referendum since the voice of the Irish people has already been heard?

On the contrary, the EU commissars will offer the Irish government every assistance, every inducement, every warning and every threat in order to assure the correct result is obtained in the second Lisbon referendum, and that because the only thing that really matters is ratification, and the furtherance of the objectives of the Grand European Project. Democracy is allowed to be democracy only when the electorate deliver the desired outcome. That’s not really enfranchisement, is it?

So why not drop the pretence and just admit that the EU has designs on fashioning itself, by whatever means necessary, into a totalitarian state, whose executive, legislative and judicial powers shall in every conceivable instance trump those of its constituent ~~nations~~ provinces?

This scandalous repeat of the Lisbon referendum shall be held in October 2009, on a date yet to be appointed. Due to his forthcoming marriage, Melancholicus will by then be living in the People’s Republic of Obamaland, but he will make every arrangement necessary for being able to cast his vote in the re-run. He shall vote the same way he voted last June, for his mind has not changed in the interim. The result is a foregone conclusion in any case. Referenda shall continue to be put to the people until the people finally say what their betters want them to say. The final outcome is merely postponed, not averted. The game is rigged against us; we have to win every throw. The other side has to win but once.

This story courtesy of RTÉ:

Second Lisbon poll likely before October

Thursday, 11 December 2008 09:09

The Taoiseach is in Brussels today at an EU summit where he is set to agree to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty by next October.

A draft agreement, to be presented to the summit this evening, sets out a series of steps that the French presidency hopes will be enough to secure ratification of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland.

'The Irish government is committed to seeking ratification of the Lisbon Treaty by the end of the term of the current commission,' the text said.

The Taoiseach will discuss the Irish view with EU colleagues today and tomorrow,' a spokesman for the Government said, declining to comment further.

All states would firstly agree that if the Lisbon Treaty comes into force, they will use its provision to ensure every country keeps a permanent commissioner [dream on; there is no way of holding them to this promise. It can be revoked without a backward glance once the Irish electorate have accepted the Treaty].

The second step would see a series of legally binding guarantees being drafted over the next six months by the Czech presidency on issues of concern to Ireland [Melancholicus would tend to mistrust the Czechs less than he mistrusts the French, but there is no reason why 'legally binding guarantees' must always remain so. Laws often are, by force of events and circumstance, subject to constant revision].

If those guarantees are acceptable, then the Government promises to hold a referendum by the end of the term of this Commission, which would normally [be] the end of next October [the Irish government is going to do the bidding of its EU paymasters anyway, regardless of whether any 'guarantees' offered are acceptable or not].

The draft also sets out the areas of concern to Ireland, including military neutrality, tax sovereignty and the primacy of the Irish constitution on social issues, such as abortion and marriage laws [while it is heartening to see that social issues are addressed, at the very least by being mentioned, once the Lisbon Treaty is ratified it is very doubtful whether any of the 27 constituent nations will have the powers to retain their own laws on issues like marriage and abortion against the uniform social engineering desired by the European Commission].

It includes new language on the protection of workers rights, and the provision of public services like health and education by government and local authorities.

We knew this development must surely come, but for all that it is no less bitter to the taste, and no less hard to swallow.

We shall see if these promised ‘guarantees’ will actually come to anything. But Melancholicus shall not be holding his breath.