'Iggy' gets in on the act

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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?

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

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