Ubi es, Domine?

Melancholicus is feeling rather well this Tuesday morning of the first week of Advent, notwithstanding his ugly encounter yesterday with the conciliar church openly playing with its own faeces even within sight of members of the public.

And no, he did not make it to Harrington Street today either, but this was due to reasons of charity rather than sloth, as he had arranged to give someone a lift to work this morning at the same time as Mass was beginning in St. Kevin’s.

He has since been reflecting on the frustratingly quixotic nature of the conciliar church. Sometimes it looks so much like the Catholic Church as to deceive (if it were possible) even the elect. At other times this synagogue of Satan flaunts its true colours in the faces of its few remaining faithful without the slightest shame.

Small wonder Catholics are confused, and why so many have long since ceased to have any contact with the Church or with churchmen. Apart from the occasional spirited defence of Catholic social or moral teaching which catches us all off guard, the public pronouncements of our hierarchs are mostly insubstantial and thoroughly secular ramblings about world peace, immigration, employment, welfare, equality and suchlike, and harmonize startlingly well with the views of the Labour party on the same subjects. And the state of the liturgy is absolutely atrocious.

When was the last time, gentle reader, you heard an Irish bishop (or indeed any bishop) talk about God, or the eternal destiny of the human soul? When was the last time you heard such a bishop talk about sin, and the need for repentance and conversion (in the Catholic sense, that is), never mind the need for the sacrament of penance? When was the last time you heard a bishop discourse on the joys of heaven or the pains of hell, or on the awesome beauty of the holy sacrifice of the Mass? Well, you won’t have heard a bishop discourse on this last unless he is given, unusually, to celebration of the immemorial rite for (let’s face it), the novus ordo just doesn’t have any beauty, awesome or otherwise, on which a bishop could discourse.

Can you think of any bishop who has publicly discoursed on these things? Please take as long as you need. And Archbishop Lefebvre doesn’t count.

What does it mean to be a member of the Catholic Church? Theologically, it means one is incorporated into the mystical body of the Lord. But in practical terms, how is this incorporation realized? Does my salvation depend on my being in communion with Father Jesuit, with Bishop Arthur Roche, and with Judas Priest? How about my local ordinary, “Dermot our archbishop” (as the text of the vernacular liturgy has it)? Since his installation in 2003 what, precisely, has he done to help the Church in this rapidly sinking diocese, where the continuing decline in the number of priests and the similar decline in the number of the church-going faithful are vying to outstrip one another? Does the salvation of my soul depend on my preserving communio in sacris with such a negligent, double-tongued, equivocating, politicised careerist as this? Sure, he has done good things, such as the erection (in response to Summorum Pontificum) of the so-called Latin Mass Chaplaincy, where traditional Catholics have at least some semblance of parish life, but even this grand gesture is not untainted with the self-interest of the conciliar church since it effectively corrals the Tradition onto the ecclesiastical equivalent of an Indian reservation.

It is a matter of faith that the Church is a visible and hierarchical society. Catholics must believe this. It is also a matter of faith that the Church is a perfect society, and is sinless, without spot or wrinkle, the immaculate bride of the Lamb. This last stands to reason, since the Church is the mystical body of the Lord Jesus, and how could there be any trace of imperfection—never mind sin—in the Lord Jesus? I understand full well the distinction between the sinlessness of the Church and the sins of churchmen. But the sheer scale of the negligence and turpitude among churchmen of the present time, not to mention the fanaticism wherewith they have pursued a gospel other than that which they had received, has the effect (at least to me) of clouding the visible nature of Holy Church, at least from time to time, as though I were trying desperately to glimpse the face of the Lord Jesus under ruffled water. Frighteningly, when the water calms enough for me to see through it, it is often not the face of Jesus that I glimpse, but something quite other, ugly and horrifying. Some might say this is the disfigured, bruised and bloodstained face of the Lord crowned with thorns and crucified, and that is the reason for my horror. I say no; the crucified does not leer with the malevolence I see on this face.

And so I ask: Ubi es, Domine? Where art thou, O Lord? I feel like a man stumbling along an uneven road, soaked through with the heavy rain that has reduced visibility ahead to only the few yards in front of his face. The night is dark and I am far from home. Among the stark limbs of trees denuded by winter frosts on either side of the road I glimpse sinister crozier-wielding impostures, talking out of both sides of their mouths, contradicting themselves and each other, and beckoning me to hear them and to participate in their ghastly idolatry. One does oneself more harm than good by listening to such, and I leave them well alone, and press on through the darkness and the rain.

How does one preserve one’s membership of the Catholic Church in these trying times, when, entering a church or even simply talking to a priest, one is in constant doubt about whether one is about to have an encounter with the Catholic Church or with the synagogue of Satan? Holy Mother Church now shows herself, and now hides, and it is often not easy to find her. Her state—now open, now hidden—has become uncannily similar to that of a possessed girl—the personality of the girl herself is still in there somewhere, but the baleful influence of the demon, with its malice, keeps inexorably coming through.

Do not, gentle reader, misunderstand me. I’m not thinking of going anywhere. I’m simply trying to find the Catholic Church, still buried as she must be under tons of rubble since that devastating earthquake of 1962-65 in which countless parishes, dioceses, religious orders, schools and beautiful churches were wrecked, and in which millions of souls perished. A few years ago, galled beyond endurance by the sheer unreliability of the conciliar church with its relentless perfidy and abuses (and, it must be admitted, in the grip of a rather severe depression), I considered abandoning the Roman communion entirely for that of Anglicanism, and even had a few exploratory meetings with a rector of the Church of Ireland to that effect. But I could not bring myself to doubt (never mind disbelieve) the doctrine of transubstantiation, upon which all my adherence to the Catholic Church turns. It was the Mass and the Eucharist, far more than abstract things like papal primacy and apostolic succession, which kept me within the Church; and as the Mass is so vitally important to my life as a Christian—a Catholic Christian—I cannot bear to see it abused and trampled on with the casual off-handedness I see in so many churches in this diocese and elsewhere.

One last remark before I close this already overlong and personal post. If any bright spark reading this feels driven to leave a comment exhorting me to cleave to the SSPX as though such would solve all my problems, I have just one word of advice: don’t. Save your time, and my own. I am not under any illusions regarding that sect, or regarding those who hold authority within it.

Nor am I at all interested in sedevacantism. I recognize Pope Benedict XVI, and his office. I pray for him daily. It is true that he is, like his immediate predecessors, a conciliar pope, and that he says—and sometimes does—some disappointing things. But he is such an immense improvement over John Paul II that I cannot express how thankful I am for his election.

Herein, incidentally, we find a possible reason why our holy mother the Church sometimes appears possessed by an alien spirit. The conciliar popes have tried—without much success, in my opinion—to be pope of two mutually-antagonistic churches at the same time. Paul VI most fully embodied this unstable and precarious position—it was he, in fact, who acted as midwife at the birth of the conciliar church—but John Paul II likewise tried to be pope of two churches at once, and to serve the cult of God alongside the cult of Man, picking up the cudgels where his predecessor had left them, and with similar contradictory and chaotic results. Thankfully, I believe the tendency of the Vicars of Peter to ape the double-minded attitude of Paul VI is waning. At least let us hope so; a great deal of damage might be done at the next conclave, whereafter we might see all the careful and patient restoration work of Benedict XVI undone in a trice.

But one day at a time; right now I can’t begin to imagine such a scenario. Now it is time for me to go to chapel for my midday prayers.

Missa Bizarra

I blame Paul VI. It’s all his fault.

The words echo in my head still; should’ve gone to Harrington Street... should’ve gone to Harrington Street... ah, hindsight is such a wonderful thing!

But Melancholicus was still lying abed when the holy sacrifice was offered today at 8am in Harrington Street, so if he desired to hear Mass today, it would by force of necessity have to be according to the rich and lovely rite of Pope Paul VI.

It now being a new ecclesiastical year, and inspired by Pius Parsch’s recommendation of sanctifying this season of Advent with earlier rising and daily Mass, Melancholicus decided that even if the earlier rising were not much in evidence today, he would at least hear Mass in the university chapel before taking his lunch.

The “daily Mass” extolled by Pius Parsch was of course the traditional Latin Mass, the clown-ridden, de-sacralized monkey-fest of the novus ordo being unknown in his day. Melancholicus ought to have remembered that.

But, like a battered wife who keeps returning to the relentless beatings meted out by a violent husband in the deluded expectation that he must eventually change, or that the fault lies not with the abuser but with herself, Melancholicus persists in going to the novus ordo in the naive belief that “it will surely be different next time!”, and that his judgements on contemporary liturgical craziness are too harsh and hence he must reform himself.

Am I a masochist, or am I only stupid?

A number of chaplains serve this church at the university. Most are priests of the Dublin diocese, but at least two are Jesuits. One of these Jesuits devoutly says a clean Mass, without any egregious abuses, and he refrains from polluting his celebration of the holy sacrifice with extraneous matter that doesn’t belong there in the first place. Melancholicus is quite impressed with him, even to the extent of sometimes going to this priest for confession.

But the other Jesuit is not cut from anything like the same cloth. This one has drained to the very dregs the chalice of liturgical anarchy poured for the Church by the spirit of Vatican II. Melancholicus has on a few occasions had the misfortune to be present when this fellow has celebrated Mass in the university chapel, and the effect is always such as to reduce him to horrified stupefaction. Melancholicus is not aware of any occasion on which the fellow has publicly taught formal heresy, but as far as his celebration of the liturgy is concerned he proves in his person the verity of the old Dominican maxim Si cum Jesuitis itis, non cum Jesu itis—which, being interpreted, means that if one goes with the Jesuits one does not go with Jesus.

As ill-luck would have it, the celebrant appointed for today’s Mass was that very priest Melancholicus most hoped he would not see. As soon as the fellow entered the church, Melancholicus ought to have departed forthwith but, in much the same fashion as one finds one’s eyes irresistibly drawn to the carnage of a train wreck or a traffic accident, he remained in his seat for the circus-freakery he knew must surely come.

Mercifully there are no musicians at Father Jesuit’s disposal, for I shudder to think of what sort of happy-clappery he would inflict on us if he were able to call upon the services of a coterie of hip-swaying, gospel-crooning, tambourine-thumping, taizé-loving youth-two-thousanders. This was the novus ordo equivalent of a Low Mass, celebrated without frills and trimmings, yet packed with abuses from beginning to end; Father Jesuit has turned gratuitous departures from both text and rubrics into such a fine art that if only something as serious as the integrity of the sacred liturgy were not at stake, one could only marvel in appreciation at his skill.

It was at least a valid Mass, insofar as the proper matter and form were used, and Melancholicus has no reason to doubt either the fellow’s intention, or his orders. There may not have been any liturgical felonies, but I lost count of the number of misdemeanours. These are in turn rehearsed below.

Today is a feria of Advent. Melancholicus surely does not have to inform his readers of the liturgical colour proper to this day. Surely even a Jesuit must know that vestments of a violet or purple hue ought to have been used? Yet, without explanation, the fellow wore white (or rather off-white; they just can’t make white chasubles like they used to, can they?). Why? At first Melancholicus thought it must have been the feast of a saint today—perhaps St. Andrew, having been eclipsed this year by Advent Sunday, was being transferred, after the manner of the Anglicans, to the nearest available feria—but after Mass was over, he consulted calendars for both the traditional and modern rites and could discover therein no rationale why white vestments ought to have been used at all. If a saint’s Mass or a votive Mass were being celebrated, one would expect to hear mention of such in the collect and perhaps the postcommunion also. But there was no mention of the apostle Andrew or of any other saint in the orisons recited at this Mass—and in any case if Andrew’s Mass were celebrated, Father Jesuit ought to have been wearing not white, but red.

The readings, incidentally, were those of the feria.

As Melancholicus knows from unhappy experience, this Jesuit has a peculiar attachment to making up his own collects. He does not even take the trouble to compose these prayers in advance, but extemporises them on the spot according, as I guess, to how he feels himself moved by “the spirit”. This abuse, having been allowed to persist unchecked for several years, has now spread itself to other parts of the Mass. Today not only the collect, but also the postcommunion and (perhaps) the prayer over the gifts were unique compositions that no-one else at Mass in any other church on earth will have heard today. I guess on that account I should feel privileged.

But I don’t.

Now while Melancholicus deplores the vacuous piffle that passes for the collect in the current edition of the ICEL missal, the state of the liturgy is not improved by the antics of such as Father Jesuit, whose extempore ramblings do not rise to anything like the elevated standard of mediocrity already achieved by ICEL.

Father Jesuit’s reading of the Gospel was unremarkable until he reached the very end, whereat he took it upon himself to censor the words of the evangelist with a clanger that was so obvious it made Melancholicus cringe. Today’s Gospel was the story (from St. Matthew, 8:5-11) of the centurion with the sick servant, whose faith so impressed the Lord Jesus that He said to His disciples, “I tell you solemnly, nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this”. Father Jesuit mutilated the Lord’s words into something along the lines of “Truly, I have found great faith here”, in which the comparison with Israel was glaringly omitted. Why? Melancholicus can think of no reason apart from a fear that the words of the Gospel might be construed as anti-semitic, or otherwise politically incorrect.

Then Melancholicus sat with a sigh, waiting to hear what words of wisdom would be preached in the fellow’s homily, for he always gives one, even on weekdays. Father Jesuit invariably descends into the midst of the congregation to preach—wonder where he picked up that habit?—and today’s behaviour was no different. Aside from being delivered among the pews in the midst of handful of people attending, the homily and the inevitable bidding prayers were tedious but otherwise unremarkable, whereafter Father Jesuit returned to the table altar for the liturgy of the eucharist.

From this point, Melancholicus could see very little owing to the winter sun, low in the sky, shining through a window directly into his eyes, but as Father Jesuit made sure throughout to speak into the sacred microphone, Melancholicus could at least hear everything loud and clear. Father recited the prayers of the offertory, which were recognizable even if their phrasing was irritatingly modified for no discernible reason. But at the lavabo, things started to take a different turn. Here he did something so subtle that I am sure it escaped the notice of most persons present, but it nonetheless carried some quite serious doctrinal implications. Father Jesuit modified the prayer recited at the lavabo such that it became “Lord, wash away our iniquities, and cleanse us from our sins”.

This was his first fudge of what little distinction is left in the novus ordo between the priest and the laity, and he persevered in this fudge throughout the remainder of the Mass, right to the very end. In his liturgical language he never once let slip the possibility that he was playing a unique and inimitable role different from that of the members of the congregation. At the orate fratres, the priest is not supposed to recite the response, but the fellow nonetheless did so in the words “may the Lord accept the sacrifice at our hands...” etc., as though the sacrifice of the priest and the people were one and the same, as though the congregation offered the sacrifice on an equal footing along with the priest.

Then came the preface dialogue, whereat a most curious incident occurred. Once the final congregational response “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God” had been delivered we expected him to begin the preface, but instead he startled the congregation by suddenly announcing “I think we need a bit more wine,” and just as suddenly hurrying back into the sacristy with the chalice. WTF?? This was most irregular, whereat he added to the contents of the chalice after the chalice had already been offered on the altar of God. This would not affect the validity of the consecration, but was nevertheless a profoundly iffy act, contrary to the spirit of the sacred liturgy. After he returned from the sacristy he recited the standard preface to—you’ve guessed it—prex II, which left us in no doubt as to which eucharistic prayer he intended to use.

Why is it always prex II? Melancholicus cannot remember the last time he heard one of the others. Come rain, hail, snow or shine, winter, summer, spring or autumn, feasts of our Lord, our Lady, the saints, or of the season—it’s always prex II. The shortest eucharistic prayer. The least identifiably Catholic eucharistic prayer. Nor was it even prex II as printed in the missal, for Father Jesuit’s recitation was replete with random slight adjustments to the text for which there was no good reason, and sometimes adjustments that were somewhat more than slight—most notably in the form of consecration of the chalice, in which he said “... it will be shed for you and for all men and women”, showing that he did not scruple to pollute with a political agenda even what is holiest in the rite of Mass, namely the words of consecration.

Then there was the wretched peace. To Melancholicus’ immense relief the fellow simply suggested we pray for peace in one another’s lives, so, contrary to expectation he didn’t descend from the sanctuary to start pumping hands all over the nave like a jack-in-the-box, leaving our Lord’s sacred body and precious blood unattended on the altar. For this much at least, Melancholicus was thankful.

It was not until holy communion that Melancholicus finally realized why the fellow had been so anxious to top up the chalice before beginning the eucharistic prayer, for the chalice was then offered to the laity so they could communicate under both species. This is a novelty in the Dublin diocese generally, but is practiced with depressing regularity by the chaplains of the university. Do they think it’s trendy, or something? Do they imagine that communion under both kinds will make the unchurched, secularized, anti-catholic, left-wing radicals among the student body pause and think “wow, man, that’s so groovy!” and so start attending church?

Communion under both kinds is (unfortunately) licit, but as Father Jesuit lacked the assistance of one of those eucharistic dinner ladies, he left the chalice—brimming with our Lord’s precious blood—perched rather precariously on the edge of the Cranmer table altar and invited those members of the congregation who so desired to help themselves—in effect self-communicating, an abuse condemned in no uncertain terms in the instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (§94) as well as in the Institutio Generalis (§118) of the Roman Missal.

After the distribution of holy communion had ended, Father Jesuit launched immediately into the concluding rites of the Mass. Melancholicus was alarmed to notice that the chalice remained perched on the edge of the Lord’s board, unpurified and ignored. An extempore postcommunion prayer was recited, and the final blessing was given in the words “May almighty God bless us...” another fudge in the distinction between priest and laity, and words any protestant could in good conscience utter. The priest, in persona Christi, is at this point supposed to impart God’s blessing to the congregation with the words “May almighty God bless you...” Then Father Jesuit left the altar with indecent haste and returned to the sacristy, with the vessels remaining on the altar table and the chalice still threatening to fall to the floor whence it was precariously balanced.

To be fair, he did return to the altar after de-vesting, at which point he purified the chalice, thank God. But why was this not done after communion, when it ought to have been?

Melancholicus was left with the distinct impression that he ought not to have attended that Mass. Let us hope the foolish boy has learned his lesson, and will not see fit to expose himself to such travesties in future. So much for Pius Parsch’s “daily Mass”, unless he makes the sacrifice of rising early enough to get to Harrington Street in time for 8am, which, it being Advent, he ought to make with good grace. Dr. Parsch also said something about “early rising”.

So let us do so!

The hypocrites

This adorable little boy, an innocent just 17 months old, died in north London in August 2007 after horrendous abuse amounting to torture inflicted by his mother and two men. His case has only recently hit the headlines.

Questions are being asked about why child protection services failed to prevent Baby P’s death even though he had received 60 visits from the authorities over eight months of his short little life and was known to be at risk.

The good people of modern British society are appalled and angry, and rightly so; Melancholicus shares their outrage.

Honourable Members are likewise expostulating, and stamping their feet. Melancholicus wonders why they bother. Are they blind, or merely stupid?

Because two years before August 2007, Baby P was alive, though not yet born. His mother could at that time have killed him—in a procedure amounting to torture—with the full backing of the law.

Had she chosen to do so, Baby P’s violent death would not have been a matter for the newspapers and for the good people of modern British society to wag their tongues in disapproval. Instead, he would have been a statistic unnoticed save by those who strive to defend the unborn from a brutal fate in the local abortuary.

Some of the more intemperate and less restrained members of the public have issued threats of violence against Baby P’s mother. Yet, had she killed her son two years before, it is likely that the same persons now calling for her head would have defended to the utmost her “right” to “choose”.

A sense of perspective is in order.

The German side

German soldiers of the Great War pay their last respects to a fallen comrade

German cemetary on the Somme at Fricourt

This story from today’s Irish Times is pathetic in its poignancy:

German Great War dead lack any official commemoration

DEREK SCALLY in Berlin

TOWARDS THE end of January, German newspapers reported, three weeks late, the death on January 1st of the last German veteran of the Great War.

Erich Kästner, who died aged 108, was just 18 when he joined the Imperial Army in July 1918, four months before the end of the war.

He served on the Western Front but the only way anyone knew a veteran had died was through the family's newspaper death notice.

While Britain, France and now even Ireland will today remember those who fought and died in the Great War, 90 years on, the men who fought in Kaiser Wilhelm's Imperial Army remain trapped in a memory hole.

There is no central record of veterans, no German equivalent of the Cenotaph - and no poppies.

There will be no official remembrance ceremony today, nor is there a plan to initiate one.

"The first war lies buried under the ruins left by the second," said Fritz Kirchmeier of the German War Graves Association.

The sheer scale of the destruction and suffering caused by the second World War has coloured German attitudes to the Great War. For many, it toppled a few monarchies, including in Germany, but had far fewer visible consequences than Hitler's war.

It is down to a series of vicious circles. The short, dramatic life of the Weimar Republic left little time for discussion of the consequences of the Great War before the country plunged into the Third Reich.

Today, the lack of public interest in the Great War means there is no official impulse to change the situation. Not remembering the war and its veterans has created a nervousness about how and where to start.

"And there's the far-right groups who come out and say the second World War was the result of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles," said Dr Bernhard Chiari of the Military History Research Institute. "That creates an uneasy connection between the two conflicts and leaves people unwilling to touch the Great War."

There are an estimated 400 German military graveyards from the Great War. Half of them are in France, with others as far away as Turkey and Israel. Six veterans are buried in a cemetery in Glencree, along with 128 other Germans who died in the second World War.

The German War Graves Association says it has taken a record number of orders from families for wreaths to be laid on graves today: 300 out of an estimated 1.8 million dead.

"I was amazed to have so many," said Mr Kirchmeier.

"Regardless of the official view here, for many German families there is still a connection."

© 2008 The Irish Times

Marshal Foch on the Irish soldiers of the Great War

PARIS, FRIDAY, Nov. 9th, 1928

“THE Heroic Dead of Ireland have every right to the homage of the living for they proved in some of the heaviest fighting of the world war that the unconquerable spirit of the Irish race—the spirit that has placed them among the world’s greatest soldiers—still lives and is stronger than ever it was.

I had occasions to put to the test the valour of the Irishmen serving in France, and, whether they were Irishmen from the North or the South, or from one party or another, they did not fail me.

Some of the hardest fighting in the terrible days that followed the last offensive of the Germans fell to the Irishmen, and some of their splendid regiments had to endure ordeals that might justly have taxed to breaking-point the capacity of the finest troops in the world.

ON THE SOMME

Never once did the Irish fail me in those terrible days. On the Somme, in 1916, I saw the heroism of the Irishmen of the North and South, I arrived on the scene shortly after the death of that very gallant Irish gentleman, Major William Redmond. I saw Irishmen of the North and. the South forget their age-long differences, and fight side by side, giving their lives freely for the common cause.

In war there are times when the necessity for yielding up one’s life is the most urgent duty of the moment, and there were many such moments in our long drawn-out struggle. Those Irish heroes gave their lives freely, and, in honouring then I hope we shall not allow our grief to let us forgot our pride in the glorious heroism of these men.

They have left to those who come after a glorious heritage and an inspiration to duty that will live long after their names are forgotten. France will never forget her debt to the heroic Irish dead, and in the hearts of the French people to-day their memory lives as that of the memory of the heroes of old, preserved in the tales that the old people tell to their children and their children’s children.

A GERMAN TRIBUTE

I know of no better tribute to Irish valour than that paid after the armistice by one of the German High Command, whom I had known in happier days. I asked him if he could tell me when he had first noted the declining morale of his own troops, and he replied that it was after the picked troops under his command had had repeated experience of meeting the dauntless Irish troops who opposed them in the last great push that was expected to separate the British and French armies, and give the enemy their long-sought victory.

The Irishmen had endured such constant attacks that it was thought that they must be utterly demoralised, but always they seemed to find new energy with which to attack their assailants, and in the end the flower of the German Army withered and faded away as an effective force.

“THEY NEVER FAILED”

When the moment came for taking the offensive all along our line, it was these same worn Irish troops that we placed in the van, making call after call on their devotion, but never finding them fail us. In the critical days of the German offensive, when it was necessary that lives should be sacrificed by the thousand to slow down the rush of the enemy, in order that our harassed forces should have time to reform, it was on the Irish that we relied repeatedly to make these desperate stands, and we found them responding always.

Again and again, when the bravest were necessary to delay the enemy’s advance, it was the Irish who were ready and at all times the soldiers of Ireland fought with the rare courage and determination that has always characterised the race on the battlefield.

“WE SHALL NEVER FORGET”

Some of the flower of Irish chivalry rests in the cemeteries that have been reserved in France, and the French people will always have these reminders of the debt that France owes to Irish valour. We shall always see that the graves of these heroes from across the sea are lovingly tended, and we shall try to ensure that the generations that come after us shall never forget the heroic dead of Ireland.”

Quoted from the commemoration of the Battle of the Somme (pp 23-24) at the Department of the Taoiseach.

Remembrance

The eleventh hour of this eleventh day of the eleventh month saw the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Great War pass by.






For (now somewhat irrelevant) historical reasons, it is not usual in Ireland to commemorate the Great War or to remember the fallen, even though around 140,000 Irishmen enlisted for service in the British armed forces between 1914 and 1918, at least 35,000 of whom lost their lives.

There is still no shortage of angry republicans who bitterly oppose the notion of honouring the dead of the World Wars in this country lest honour be inadvertently given to things or persons British—witness some of the savage and small-souled responses to this perfectly reasonable suggestion; alas that we must still deal with that mentality, the same irrational loathing of Britain which made Ireland a haven for fleeing axis henchmen in the aftermath of World War II and led then Taoiseach Éamonn De Valera to sign a book of condolences for the death of Adolf Hitler.

But I am not of that ilk, for every day this week I am proudly wearing a poppy in the breast pocket of my jacket.

Today I remember one young man in particular, for he was of my mother’s family, and is to my knowledge our only relation who was slain in the carnage of a World War.

My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was Roche. She came from Wexford town in the south-east of Ireland and was born in December 1910. I never knew her, for she died in 1970, before I was born. In 1995 I was clearing out the basement of my parents’ family home in Greystones and in the process discovered several interesting artefacts, one of which was a prayer book once owned by my grandmother and which, after the custom of her time, was bursting at the seams with holy cards and prayer cards commemorating deceased friends and members of the family. Among these commemorations was a card for a Private William Roche, of the 2nd battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment. He was killed in action in France on 24 May 1915. Pt. Roche was 26 years old when he fell. I succeeded in tracking him down on the website of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (certificate here), and I will not have his memory dishonoured by uncivilised, foul-mouthed, far-left, Republican Sinn Féin types. His name is on the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres; sadly, there is no cemetery information provided, hence I conclude the location of his grave must be unknown. He is probably buried under one of the many headstones inscribed with the tragic legend “A Soldier of the Great War / Known Unto God”.

May his soul, and the souls of all who fell in the carnage of two World Wars, find rest, consolation and peace at the right hand of almighty God.

So much for balance

The Irish media likes to think of itself as serenely balanced between opposing extremes, and that impartiality is its greatest virtue.

Such self-flattery is not restricted to those who work in broadcasting or for the newspapers, but it seems nonetheless to abound in that profession to an extraordinary degree.

The profoundly overrated Modern Man, writing for the profoundly overrated Irish Times—which takes itself far too seriously—cannot draft an article in which he is seen to take a side. All bases must be covered; no pro may be considered unless equal weight is likewise given to the contra. As a result his readers will never find him reaching anything like a firm conclusion on any subject whatsoever (unless of course some sacred cow of liberalism is at stake, whereat he will marshall all his powers of sophistry and wordcraft in its defence).

One finds a similar approach whenever a contentious issue is debated on the radio; the presenters of current affairs programmes will entertain two guests simultaneously, each approaching the matter from a different and often mutually antagonistic perspective in a perfectly balanced Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But if the subject under discussion entrenches near upon some issue dear to the heart of the liberal agenda, the pretence of impartiality is dropped at once, whereat every stratagem and every weapon to hand is immediately employed to the end that the evil reactionary opposition might be beaten back.

A ripe example of this occurred yesterday evening, in the aftermath of Cardinal Brady’s speech to the Céifin conference on the family. Drivetime on RTÉ Radio 1 took a break from its relentless plugging of the Obamessiah to rally the troops against a sinister attempt by the evil, backward, reactionary Church to promote a rigid opposition to the proposed Civil Partnership Bill. As usual, Mary Wilson had two guests; these were Colm O’Gorman, director of Amnesty International Ireland, and Karen Kiernan, director of One Family. Both were highly critical of the Cardinal’s speech and of the teaching of the Church on marriage, sexuality and the family. Melancholicus wonders who selected the guests, but they were obviously chosen with care so as not to upset the liberal status quo and, with that end in mind, they fulfilled their function admirably.

Was RTÉ not able to find anyone to speak on the Cardinal’s behalf, or to argue his case?

Or is it a case that they were unwilling?

Game over

Consummatum est: It is finished.

The American people have spoken. They have chosen the Man of Sin. Now it is time for them to be punished. I solemnly prophesy that they will rue the day, and that probably sooner rather than later.

This is a great victory for left-wing radicalism, for the culture of death, and for the devil. The Peter Singers of this world, the abortionists, the eugenicists, the homosex activists, the socialists and the tree-huggers have all secured the election of their man. Every demented lunatic, within and without the United States, will be celebrating. In political terms it is as revolutionary an upheaval as when Liénart, on his own authority, grabbed the microphone in St. Peter’s basilica and so set the course of the Second Vatican Council on a trajectory towards chaos—the catastrophic results of which are today a matter of the historical record.

Melancholicus has not listened to the news, for he cannot endure the boorish braying of the liberal media drunk on victory, nor the self-satisfied smugness of the likes of RTÉ and the Irish Independent. He was informed of the unhappy event by his fiancée, from whom he received a text message at 6:20 this morning.

He shall not waste words congratulating the winner, or commiserating with the loser; suffice it to remark that with this election the culture wars have entered an entirely new phase and indeed, have stepped up a gear.

There is nothing that can be done about the present, which is a given. But the future is a matter for much prayer.

Breviarium Romanum

Even after baptism, the soul of man is afflicted with three obnoxious evils, namely the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Well the concupiscence of the eyes has definitely been aroused in Melancholicus since his discovery of this marvellous resource, namely a brand spanking new two-volume edition of the Breviarium Romanum — new in the sense of newly printed and bound, not in the sense of liturgically ‘renewed’, which means it’s safe for Catholics to use. It is the Johannine (1960) edition, of course.

Melancholicus already has the two-volume set of the traditional Roman Breviary given him by the FSSP on the occasion of his tonsure in October 2003, bearing the imprimatur of James Timlin, then bishop of Scranton. He has sometimes wondered if he ought not to part with it and donate it to some needy seminarist who will make more extensive use of it than Melancholicus does himself. But those two volumes are filled with such personal significance and so many memories (some of them good!) that Melancholicus cannot see himself ever returning them to their source. He will bequeathe them to his grandchildren, or if God wills that he should sire a son who will one day receive sacred ordination, he will be honoured to pass his breviary on to him. Besides, this edition is apparently now out of print, which fact makes its retention doubly desirable.

But now a new edition of this venerable liturgical book is about to be released by the German publisher Nova et Vetera. If, gentle reader, you visit their website, be warned. There are lots of pretty pictures of the new breviary and its contents and if, like Melancholicus, you have a weakness for beautifully-appointed liturgical books, you may find yourself placing an order.

At least Melancholicus has not done so himself... he will restrain the concupiscence of the eyes on this occasion, not least because the new edition costs nearly €200 and he is supposed to be saving for his wedding. His fiancée would not rejoice over such an unnecessary outlay.

H/T to Fr. Finigan, on whose blog Melancholicus first discovered this treasure.

The Catholic vote

Today is the day. Within 24 hours it should all be over bar the shouting.

In the meantime, Melancholicus found himself wondering how US Catholics would vote in this election. He has his answer now, courtesy of this report from Catholic News Agency:

New poll shows 13 point McCain lead among Catholics

Los Angeles, Nov 3, 2008 / 05:43 pm (CNA) As the Tuesday elections approach, a new tracking poll from the Investor's Business Daily shows Sen. John McCain leading Sen. Barack Obama among Catholics by 51 percent to 38 percent.

Among all voters, Obama leads McCain 46.7 percent to 44.6 percent. Among Protestants, McCain leads 55 to 36 percent.

The October 29-November 1 poll of 844 likely voters was conducted by TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics (TIPP) and claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. TIPP was named the most accurate pollster of the 2004 election for coming within three tenths of a percentage point of George W. Bush's actual margin of victory.

Melancholicus would really like to know who these “Protestants” are whose support for Obama is so hearteningly low, and which puts their Catholic cousins to shame. Baptists and evangelical Christians most likely, since the mainstream protestant churches have long since defected to the camp of the enemy and embraced the pro-death agenda with enthusiasm. Nevertheless, Melancholicus is genuinely surprised that more Catholics oppose Obama than support him; some of the faithful have been listening to some of their bishops, at least in sufficient numbers to put McCain ahead in the polls.

Melancholicus still does not have much faith in the Catholic vote in this election, for at least as many of his co-religionists are swayed by the mesmeric propaganda of the proponents of “change” as are swayed by the guidance of the bishops. In terms of political and social views, American Catholics are by and large no different from their non-Catholic peers. American Catholics cheerfully contracept, abort, divorce, support homosex and consume pornography with the same alacrity as do the secularists. The moral tenor of American Catholicism is much enfeebled in our time. But we must not blame the faithful for this miserable state of affairs; the Catholic community is secularised precisely because forty years under the misrule of Amchurch have secularised it. Large numbers of the faithful hold to erroneous views in large measure because egregious Amchurch bishops and their lackeys in the priesthood and in chancellery bureaucracies have led them purposefully astray. Let us not make the mistake of citing ambiguities such as ‘social factors’ or ‘cultural influences’ for this precipitous decline in both faith and morals; the buck stops with those responsible in the first place for the cure of souls, namely the clergy and the episcopate.

It is just to laud Edward Egan and Charles Chaput for their public defence of life and their spirited opposition to the culture of death represented by the likes of Obama and his allegedly ‘Catholic’ running mate; but with their brothers talking out of both sides of their mouths one can hardly blame the lay faithful for being confused.

Catholics make up a considerable segment of the American population, and if they had a tradition of voting en bloc in these elections, Roe v. Wade would have been overturned years ago, the Democratic party would have been forced by sheer political necessity to abandon its cherished pro-death stance, and sundry other Catholic considerations would have been taken care of in the meantime. But alas, they do not do so. The misrule of Amchurch has bequeathed us a situation in which 38% of American Catholics are fully prepared to cast a vote for a candidate who stands for extreme forms of social radicalism. There is even a lobby group called Catholics for Obama; these maintain a dreary website here; also look at this, an oxymoron if ever there were one. Or perhaps just a moron. They must think we’re morons if they think we’re prepared to swallow such propaganda. Were he an American citizen, Melancholicus would not be able to reconcile his conscience with a vote for Obama, and perforce would vote for McCain (or, failing that, for an independent).

But at this point, with Obama leading in the polls, a vote for McCain is as much a vote against Obama as for McCain, so Catholics do not really have the luxury of voting for their favourite independent if they wish to keep the Man of Sin out of office.

We shall know this time tomorrow if we have been successful.

Plumbing the depths

A silly woman writing in last Saturday’s Irish Independent on the recent decision by University College Cork to permit embryonic stem cell research:

“The college has vowed that its research will be carried out under strict ethical guidelines. Each project must first seek the approval of the University Research Ethics Board and scientists will only be allowed to work on embryos imported from approved sources in other jurisdictions.”

Ah, only embryos from approved sources. Thank goodness! For a minute I was afraid something unethical might be afoot.

Now, gentle reader, imagine a similar newspaper article from the 1940s, which might have read

“The institute has vowed that its research will be carried out under strict ethical guidelines. Each project must first seek the approval of the Reichsministerium für die besetzten Ostgebiete and scientists will only be allowed to experiment on Jews imported from approved sources in other jurisdictions.”

The only difference is that the Nazis weren’t able to sugar-coat it like these moderns can. Embryos are very small; difficult to make much of a Schindler’s list out of them.

Give my head peace

Tomorrow the citizens of the United States of America shall vote for their favoured candidate in the presidential election, although some will doubtless vote not for a particular favourite but for the lesser of two evils.

Melancholicus will be heartily glad once the wretched election is over, the result has been announced and the inevitable squawking and flapping in its wake has finally died down. For at this stage he is heartily sick of hearing about it, every imaginable news medium being saturated with detailed coverage of every move and counter-move, every speech, every act, every prank, every embarrassment or potential embarrassment, the colours of their ties, Sarah Palin’s shoes... good Lord, is there no end to this wretched circus?

But that which irks Melancholicus more than anything else is the totally unapologetic, blatant, in-your-face bias of the Irish media, a bias which has completely polarised the understanding of the Irish public with respect to the merits and demerits of the candidates; across the water, an identical bias is unmistakable among those who broadcast for the BBC and similar outlets.

This is surely illustrative of how completely dominated are media in the comtemporary west by left-wing fanaticism.

For if Barack Obama were standing in Ireland, he would be elected in a landslide. Melancholicus is at a loss to know why the Irish generally are so keen on Obama; he surmises that Obama must represent to them the fullest embodiment of the thoroughly secularised post-enlightenment Weltanschauung, in contrast to what is perceived as the reactionary, hide-bound, backward, even religious world-view of those who vote Republican. For if there is anything universally loathed by the great and the good in modern Irish society, it is religion—or at least a religion that is taken seriously enough to affect one’s approach to political office.

Of course socialism is a religion in itself, and a dangerous one at that, but in the current climate that it hardly likely to do Obama anything like the harm that Sarah Palin has suffered from her adherence to Christianity.

The relentless gushing on the airwaves about Obama’s countless virtues does have the effect of making him seem attractive to the untutored listener, who cannot be expected to distinguish fact from hagiographic propaganda, or to recognise the consequences that must inevitably issue from this or that particular policy. Similarly, though Melancholicus does not have much time for the Republican ticket either, he must conclude that continuous and concerted media hostility directed at the vice-presidential candidate has made her look infinitely more ridiculous than she must surely be in reality.

But as far as Obama is concerned, Melancholicus is amazed that no Irish news medium has seen fit even to notice the fifty-ton elephant in the room, namely Obama’s voting record on life issues, and his unequivocal support for abortion—which is a good deal more than merely support for abortion.

For Barack Obama is the single most anti-life politician that Melancholicus has ever encountered. He is not one of these lily-livered tortured souls trying to steer a fine line between the Catholic bishops and the liberal left; his anti-life stance is firm and unequivocal. Abortion on demand, for any reason whatever, at any time of gestation; partial-birth abortion; even infanticide. Obama even goes so far as to oppose allowing babies who survive the abortion procedure to live. The man’s view of human life at its beginnings is so thoroughly twisted that Melancholicus cannot doubt its serious implications for the continuance of Roe v. Wade, the heavy toll in innocent blood that will be spilled, or the further erosion of the right to life extended to the elderly, the infirm, the sick, the mentally incapacitated... the list goes on.

Are they really at peace with this, those smug, cocksure Irish journalists that beam out their support for Obama every day of the week in the newspapers and on the airwaves? Can it be that they are ignorant of it? Or do they simply not care?

The right to life must surely be the most fundamental of all human rights, for it seems to me that if one has no right at least to life, one has no business claiming any other rights either.

Melancholicus does not believe Obama to be literally the “Man of Sin”, heralding the imminent collapse of what little is left of civilisation; but he is no Messiah either. At best Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and his presidency will see to it that our inverted society not merely remains inverted, but becomes more so.

As Melancholicus must relocate to the left coast of the United States after his marriage next year, he will be in the somewhat unenviable position of being able to report on an Obama presidency at first hand... but let us hope it will not come to that.

In any case, as God wills, so be it done.

A liturgical curiosity

In those years in which November 2 falls on a Sunday, the Mass and office of the Sunday are celebrated, and the commemoration of All Souls is transferred to November 3.

This is because Sunday is a festival day, a day for mirth and rejoicing, not fit for mourning; whence even in Lent, fasting and penance are not appropriate to the Sundays thereof.

For the same reason, requiem Masses may not be said on Sunday, nor may funerals be conducted except in cases of grave necessity.

But in our time the conciliar church has introduced a novelty into the Roman calendar, namely observance of the commemoration of All Souls on 2 November come what may, regardless of the day of the week whereon it falls.

This year 2 November was a Sunday. Melancholicus went down to his local parish church for Mass, expecting the Mass of the 31st Sunday of that most improbably named season, ‘Ordinary Time’, but finding instead the first Mass of All Souls celebrated by a priest vested in violet.

Assuming that Father had simply made an error, or had decided on his own authority to commemorate the faithful departed even on a Sunday, Melancholicus consulted the printed ordo and discovered to his surprise that this commemoration is indeed made on a Sunday in the Novus Ordo, at least when 2 November coincides with the Lord’s day.

Such a change is anti-liturgical, since it negates the festive character of Sunday, but the conciliar church has seldom shown itself sensitive to the doctrines enshrined in the symbolism underlying the organisation of the calendar.

Furthermore, given that institution’s proclivity for moving all prominent celebrations—such as the Epiphany, Ascension Thursday, Corpus Christi, &c.—from their proper days to the nearest Sunday, how long shall it be before All Souls are commemorated not on 2 November but on the Sunday nearest that date (unless such Sunday shall have been occupied already by All Saints)?

Hellowe'en

Melancholicus is not sure which day he despises most—St. Patrick’s day (March 17, and a holy day of obligation in the dioceses of Ireland), or today, Hallowe’en.

Both days are—at least in their origins—religious festivals of unimpeachable character. But their celebration today has been robbed of all recognisably Christian content, whereat they are perverted to the level of bacchanalia in a spectacle of which words such as ‘orgiastic’, ‘frenzy’ and ‘excess’ would not be an unfitting description.

The feast of St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland c. 500 A.D., is today an occasion for inebriation of a kind to which even the drunken Irish are unaccustomed. The so-called “St. Patrick’s Day Parade” held in Dublin (and mimicked elsewhere throughout the country) has nothing to do with St. Patrick, or with the coming to Ireland of the light of the Christian faith, but is an unedifying spectacle reminiscent of Mardi Gras and (public nudity excepted) with a similar degree of wild abandon. The only remaining religious aspect of the day is the Mass, but even this has been infiltrated by the same kind of trivialising frivolity that has given us enormities such as green beer in the pubs and green milkshakes at McDonalds. Melancholicus has even seen the liturgical abuse of green vestments being worn during the celebration of the saint’s Mass.

But enough of poor St. Patrick, and the degradation to which celebration of his feast has sunk, for today is your blogger’s other most hated day.

The name Halloween (more properly Hallowe’en) is a contraction of All Hallows’ Even, namely the vigil of the feast of All Saints (1 November). Melancholicus traditionally celebrates Hallowe’en by reciting First Vespers of All Saints, after which he pours himself a double gin and tonic, then enjoys his dinner and—external factors permitting—relaxes by the fire. He has no time for the neo-pagan mummery now associated with Hallowe’en, or for the glut of horror films typically shown on the television, nor for the pagan apologetics and sympathetic publicizing in the media of hazards like wicca, and he has absolutely no time whatever for the frenzied youths that run wild, shoving matchboxes filled with excrement through people’s letterboxes, or inserting fireworks up the exhaust pipes of parked cars (or even in the fuel pipe in an attempt to ignite the contents of the tank), or hurling explosives at those unlucky enough to be compelled by their employment to be out in public on this night.

The association of Hallowe’en with the preternatural world is in its origin Celtic, since 1 November is Samain, which begins the dark half of the year and functions as a kind of Celtic new year’s day. What makes Samain particularly auspicious (or inauspicious, as the case may be) is that it is a junture of particular importance. In the Celtic reckoning of time, it was not days and nights that were regarded as particularly important with respect to the preternatural, but the divisions between them. Boundaries between different places were invested with a similar significance for the same reason. According to this belief, one is most likely to encounter a ghost not at night, but at dusk, since dusk is the boundary between night and day. Similarly, one may meet with greatest misfortune at the boundary between this world and the síd (otherworld), rather than in either one or the other.

So the eve of Samain is a juncture of particular danger, because many different boundaries co-incide at once. Once the sun has set but before darkness has fallen completely, it is neither day nor night; we are neither in the light half nor in the dark; we are neither in the old year nor in the new. At such times the boundaries between this world and the other are blurred, the tides of chaos are loosed and preternatural forces have free play with the world of men. Hence the origin of the association of Hallowe’en with ghosts and spectres and hauntings and that sort of thing.

This night is indeed a night of horror, but not owing to Celtic superstitions; Melancholicus is far more concerned about a potential confrontation with those who walk on two legs in a living body than with the spirits of the dead. It is prudent to keep an eye on one’s car until the chaotics have gone home to bed and the nocturnal fracas has died away. If one has a household pet such as a dog or a cat, one MUST keep the animal indoors on this night; dogs, particularly, with their amplified sense of hearing, suffer great distress on being exposed to the noise of fireworks (which, incidentally, are illegal in this country, but the law is in no wise enforced). The chaotics have been known to throw smaller animals onto bonfires, deriving a sick amusement from such cruelty. Other animals have had fireworks strapped to their bodies, or inserted into their orifices. This is the busiest night of the year for the emergency services; the police, the fire brigade, the ambulance service (and doubtless the ISPCA) will be kept going all night.

The celebration of Hallowe’en was not always so lawless and fraught with peril; it used to be, as recently as Melancholicus’ childhood, a gentle evening of fun and entertainment (with mild scariness) for the benefit of children. Today it has been taken over by the yob element, whom one cannot safely ask to move on elsewhere, never mind remonstrate, for fear—literally—of being killed. I do not exaggerate.

Excess is tolerated in our society, and from some avenues even positively encouraged.

This is the fruit of social inversion.

Just married

Heartiest congratulations and felcitations to Éamonn and Leah, two fellow bloggers, who were married (to each other, no less) on this day.

Melancholicus has been advised by the groom that the time between an engagement and the ensuing wedding passes very quickly; this is encouraging, since he is impatient with waiting for his own wedding next July.

But enough of that! Melancholicus thought that to celebrate this day he would present the happy couple with a brief resumé of events the anniversaries of which co-incide with that of their wedding:

• 637 - Antioch surrenders to Muslim forces under Rashidun Caliphate after the Battle of Iron bridge.


• 1137 - Battle of Rignano between Ranulf of Apulia and Roger II of Sicily.


• 1270 - The Eighth Crusade and siege of Tunis end by an agreement between Charles I of Sicily (brother to King Louis IX of France, who had died months earlier) and the sultan of Tunis.


• 1340 - Battle of Rio Salado.


• 1470 - Henry VI of England returns to the English throne after Earl of Warwick defeats the Yorkists in battle.


• 1485 - Henry VII of England is crowned.


• 1501 - Ballet of Chestnuts - a banquet held by Cesare Borgia in the Papal Palace where fifty prostitutes or courtesans were in attendance for the entertainment of the guests.


• 1502 - Vasco da Gama returns to Calicut for the second time.


• 1831 - In Southampton County, Virginia, escaped slave Nat Turner is captured and arrested for leading the bloodiest slave rebellion in United States history.


• 1863 - Danish Prince Wilhelm arrives in Athens to assume his throne as George I, King of the Hellenes.


• 1864 - Second war of Schleswig ends. Denmark renounces all claim to Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, which come under Prussian and Austrian administration.


• 1864 - Helena, Montana is founded after four prospectors discover gold at “Last Chance Gulch”.


• 1894 - Domenico Melegatti obtains a patent for a procedure to be applied in producing pandoro industrially.


• 1905 - Czar Nicholas II of Russia grants Russia’s first constitution, creating a legislative assembly.


• 1918 - The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice with the Allies, ending the First World War in the Middle East.


• 1920 - The Communist Party of Australia is founded in Sydney.


• 1922 - Benito Mussolini is made Prime Minister of Italy.


• 1925 - John Logie Baird creates Britain’s first television transmitter.


• 1929 - The Stuttgart Cable Car is constructed in Stuttgart, Germany.


• 1938 - Orson Welles broadcasts his radio play of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, causing anxiety in some of the audience in the United States.


• 1941 - World War II: Franklin Delano Roosevelt approves U.S. $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to the Allied nations.


• 1941 - 1,500 Jews from Pidhaytsi (in western Ukraine) are sent by Nazis to Belzec extermination camp.


• 1944 - Anne Frank and sister Margot Frank are deported from Auschwitz to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.


• 1945 - Jackie Robinson of the Kansas City Monarchs signs a contract for the Brooklyn Dodgers to break the baseball color barrier.


• 1947 - The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is founded.


• 1950 - Pope Pius XII witnesses “The Miracle of the Sun” while at the Vatican.


• 1953 - Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves the top secret document National Security Council Paper No. 162/2, which states that the United States’ arsenal of nuclear weapons must be maintained and expanded to counter the communist threat.


• 1960 - Michael Woodruff performs the first successful kidney transplant in the United Kingdom at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.


• 1961 - Nuclear testing: The Soviet Union detonates the hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba over Novaya Zemlya; at 58 megatons of yield, it is still the largest explosive device ever detonated, nuclear or otherwise. Nikita Kruschev announces that the scientists had planned to make it 100 megatons, but had reduced the yield to reduce fallout over the Soviet Union.


• 1961 - Because of “violations of Lenin’s precepts”, it is decreed that Joseph Stalin’s body be removed from its place of honour inside Lenin’s tomb and buried near the Kremlin wall with a plain granite marker instead.


• 1965 - Vietnam War: Just miles from Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by wave after wave of Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions was found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.


• 1970 - In Vietnam, the worst monsoon to hit the area in six years causes large floods, kills 293, leaves 200,000 homeless and virtually halts the Vietnam War.


• 1972 - A collision between two commuter trains in Chicago, Illinois kills 45 and injures 332.


• 1973 - The Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey is completed, connecting the continents of Europe and Asia over the Bosporus for the first time.


• 1974 - The Rumble in the Jungle boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman takes place in Kinshasa, Zaire.


• 1975 - Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over from the country’s ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.


• 1980 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969’s “Football War” before the International Court of Justice.


• 1983 - The first democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule are held.


• 1985 - Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off for mission STS-61-A, its final successful mission.


• 1987 - In Japan, NEC releases the first 16-bit home entertainment system, the TurboGrafx-16, known as PC Engine.


• 1988 - Philip Morris buys Kraft Foods for U.S. $13.1 billion.


• 1991 - The Madrid Conference for Middle East peace talks opens.


• 1995 - Quebec sovereignists narrowly lose a referendum for a mandate to negotiate independence from Canada (vote was 50.6% to 49.4%).


• 2000 – The last Multics machine is shut down.


• 2002 - British Digital terrestrial television (DTT) Service Freeview begins transmitting in parts of the United Kingdom.


• 2005 - The rebuilt Dresden Frauenkirche (destroyed in the firebombing of Dresden during World War II) is reconsecrated after a thirteen-year rebuilding project.

Thanks to the wonderful convenience that is Wikipedia.

With not even a trace of irony

Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 this morning featured an interview with a 105 year old spinster, who not only never married, but remained a virgin her whole life.

Like a true modern, the interviewess was amazed that anyone could go for so long without sexual congress, and that her subject had no regrets whatever. How horizons have shrunk in this brave new age!

The maenads then introduced a single mother who after a string of broken relationships embraced celibacy, and who discoursed on how empowering her experience of celibacy has been. Whereat all and sundry sang the praises of celibacy and lauded it as a magnificent virtue that gave rise to all sorts of wholesome benefits. It was even remarked that celibates lived longer and were healthier and happier than those who were not.

Melancholicus does not ever remember hearing the state of celibacy being treated with such awe and admiration on BBC radio.

Those who have been called by God either to the service of the altar or to the cloister voluntarily renounce the possibility of marriage and of sexual intimacy with another person. They remain in the celibate state, that they might more effectively order their lives and give themselves to prayer and works of mercy.

Yet their celibacy is regarded by the likes of the BBC not with awe and admiration, but with ridicule, derision and relentless critical hostility. It is even claimed that their celibacy has warped their psychology, even to the extent of turning ordinary decent men into compulsive child molesters.

Celibacy in the service of God, it seems, is an evil thing; whereas celibacy in the service of oneself is a virtue.

At least that is the opinion of the BBC.

A new low

Is Britain determined to destroy itself?

Perhaps not, but the currently ensconced Labour government seems to be hell-bent on doing so.

From Yahoo! news:

'Give young children sex education'

Primary school children should get basic sex education, a Government review is expected to find.

The study is likely to recommend a shake-up of lessons to combat concerns that current teaching of the subject in England is too patchy.

Schools minister Jim Knight is due to present the findings later, as well as the Government's responses.

The review is expected to say that sex education should be compulsory in all schools.

This could include teaching young children basic classes on the human body and relationships, with more detailed information being given as a child moves up through school.

Last week Mr Knight told MPs he had received "strong recommendations" for making sex education compulsory in all schools but said it had to be done without "sexualising young people too early".

International evidence suggests that teaching certain aspects of sex and relationship education before puberty has a "positive effect" on issues like teenage pregnancy, Mr Knight said.

Britain has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in Europe and figures suggest rising numbers of young people are catching sexually transmitted diseases.

Current rules say pupils must be taught the biological facts of reproduction, usually in science classes, and every school must have a sex education policy.

But there is no statutory requirement for teaching about relationships and the social and emotional side of sexual behaviour.

Although Melancholicus is a teacher, at least part-time, his charges are not children but young adults (with a sprinkling of mature students older than himself). Since he is not yet married, he has no children of his own. Consequently he has no experience of dealing with primary school age children other than his memories of having been one himself about thirty years ago.

He would like to know more about the state of innocence (or lack thereof) that Catholic primary school teachers find in their charges, and the degree to which they may have been corrupted by the moral and cultural degradation of our society, a degradation more advanced today than when Melancholicus was in primary school circa 1980.

One thing at least is certain: it is unnecessary to disturb young children with lessons detailing sexual acts which will only confuse and frighten them. Melancholicus’ own innocence was preserved until puberty, as was right; and, having had the mechanics of sexual intercourse explained to him experienced a certain sense of significant discovery, almost a rite of passage, and felt privileged to be growing up. But his brother and sister (both younger) discovered the facts of life about the age of nine or ten, before they were ready, one through the accident of watching daytime TV (!), the other through the ministrations of some ‘expert’ invited for that purpose to visit her (Catholic) school.

Both, incidentally, were shocked and disgusted by their discoveries, as one can only expect from children of that age.

The story quoted above finishes with an observation which, though particularly telling regarding the thoughtlessness of this Labour government, nonetheless fails to mention that there is also a moral dimension to the exercise of human sexuality in addition to “the social and emotional side”.

There is only one potentially positive aspect to this story. It is impossible to live in western society and not be aware of the omnipresence of sexuality and eroticism in books, in magazines, in advertising, on the radio, on the television, on the internet, everywhere in fact, not excluding shop windows on the high street. Ostensibly family programmes on both radio and television broadcast well before the watershed may contain some quite advanced sexual content (BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live has trespassed more than once in this area—and it is aired on Saturday mornings between 9 and 10am). Consequently, it is not a source for wonderment that children growing up today are by and large much more knowledgeable about sexual matters than Melancholicus’ generation was in the 1970s. An increasing proportion of today’s children have been sexualised early anyway, and may often be more knowledgeable about adult matters than their years would warrant. If there is to be early discussion of sex in schools at all, it ought best to focus not on explicit depictions of popular sexual acts (many of which are little more than perversions anyway) but on attempting to inculcate a sound moral sense in these young souls, and a reverential respect for persons of the opposite sex and for what is one of God’s greatest gifts to fallen man.

But of course Melancholicus is dreaming. This Labour government will certainly not attempt to impart a responsible and moral approach towards human sexuality in those children already sexualised early by exposure to inappropriate media, much less ever mention God or recommend abstinence until marriage. No, it will prefer instead to go to great lengths (and expense) to instruct young innocents of both sexes how best to utilise this or that contraceptive device, or to perform this or that sexual act, even to the extent of the “homosexual technique” mentioned in this famous episode of Yes, Prime Minister:

Whither the Daily Service?

Confound and blast the wretched BBC!

Melancholicus has never thought much of the level of religious programming aired by the BBC, but he has always derived a certain spiritual comfort from listening to the Daily Service broadcast on BBC Radio 4 (LW) between 9:45 and 10am on weekdays.

This service—typically but not exclusively Anglican—consists of a series of prayers, reflections, Scripture reading and some lovely traditional hymns. The Lord’s Prayer is usually recited. While listening, one can close one’s eyes and imagine the interior of one of those countless beautiful English churches, with their medieval architecture, Victorian stained glass and their rows of BCPs and English Hymnals. Unusually for a religious programme broadcast by the BBC, the service is regularly edifying (although often sandwiched by the schedule between the impious, arrogant, pompous and opinionated Melvyn Bragg on the one hand and the equally egregious Woman’s Hour on the other).

But of late the content of the Daily Service has taken a noticeable turn for the worse. Recently we had the vicarette who explained away all of Our Lord’s exorcisms recorded in the gospels as simply the curing of people afflicted with “mental illness”, thus denying the reality of demonic possession, and in effect denying the very existence of wicked spirits. It is all very well to draw attention to mental health issues, but one must not falsify the testimony of Scripture in order to do so. Besides, is there nowhere else in the Radio 4 schedule in which the issue of mental health could be raised, than the Daily Service?

The devil has no better allies than Christian ministers who go out of their way to deny he exists. A day later there was the foolish Canon who interpreted the spirit that had afflicted the bent woman in Luke 13 as “a crippling psychological burden”. Psychological burden! While it is true that grave mental anxiety can have such an effect on the body, this kind of rationalisation is ridiculous and succeeds only in calling attention to itself and to the minister’s discomfort with the plain words of the Biblical text. This silly man also made a reference to “the spirit blowing where she wills”, whereafter Melancholicus heard no more, since his thumb flew post haste to the off switch. While he has heard a few fairly iffy Daily Services over the years, this is the first time on which he resolutely tuned out before the programme had finished.

And this morning there was a Welsh minister, whether Anglican or non-comformist Melancholicus cannot recall, but the service led by this man would have gone down a treat at a socialist meet. He claimed his faith didn’t make any sense until he began linking it with the emancipation of the poor and the working class. His service, naturally, featured ‘inculturated’ Zulu singing, socio-political reflections that were thoroughly this-worldly, Pelagian and all about works (is such not passing strange for a minister from a Reformed background?). Almighty God was very much in the background. Insofar as He made an appearance at all, Our Lord’s mission was all about merely improving the material condition of the poor, something any socialist could rave about; one could be forgiven for thinking as a result that the Incarnation was nothing to do with redemption from sin and attaining to everlasting life. With a sigh, Melancholicus switched off the radio. He had expected an edifying service of prayers and hymns, not fifteen minutes of marxist agitprop.

One wonders if the BBC is attempting to bring the hitherto unmistakably Christian Daily Service into line with what we might call ‘BBC religion’, even to the extent that it shall contain nothing that could be considered ‘exclusivist’, or offensive to persons of non-Christian religions; or, on the other hand, whether the degradation of the content of the service merely reflects the continuing decomposition of the Church of England, since the established church provides most of the ministers who conduct the service. Melancholicus wonders who picks these ministers, and whether they are vetted beforehand, so that the BBC may rest safe in the knowledge that they will not use their fifteen minutes of air time to utter some similitude hostile to the dogma of political correctness, or to infer that Christianity might actually be the true religion after all.

The BBC even has a page on the history of the Daily Service here, and a gallery of images therefrom here. Both are worth a look.

But this article by Paul Donovan in the Sunday Times on the occasion of the Daily Service’s 80th anniversary in December of last year is much more illuminating as regards the current trajectory of this much-loved programme:

Faithful service

Radio Waves
Paul Donovan

Hidden away on Radio 4 long wave (though still important enough to interrupt the cricket, as listeners to Test Match Special in Sri Lanka will have noticed) is a 15-minute programme called Daily Service. It consists of hymns, prayers, a Bible reading and a homily. On Wednesday, it is 80 years old. This extraordinary span is exceeded only by Choral Evensong and Radio 4’s Sunday-morning charity appeal, both of which began in 1926. In addition, Daily Service marked the first point in history when daily corporate worship was extended to people, unseen and unknown, who had not physically gathered together for that purpose.

There is one tiny sentence about the anniversary in the vast, 272-page Radio Times, the same in the official listings, and nothing in the press information bulletin. Twenty years ago, when Daily Service celebrated 60 years of “bringing peace and consolation to the sick, the lonely and the sad”, in the words of its founder, the BBC produced an excellent souvenir booklet with much enthusiastic input from its then head of religious broadcasting; this time, so far as I can tell, his successor has said not a word, at least not publicly. How much has changed in 20 years.

Is the BBC suffering from “Nativity-play syndrome”, the misplaced belief that non-Christian religions will object to too much emphasis on Christianity, a view that has been so effectively demolished by Trevor Phillips?

Possibly. But I detect something more: a slight but increasing nervousness in the BBC about the legality and morality of spending public money on one religion at the expense of others. Let there be no doubt that this is what the BBC does: in addition to Daily Service, every weekday, we also have Prayer for the Day (not to be confused with Thought for the Day) and Sunday Worship on Radio 4, Sunday Half Hour on Radio 2, Choral Evensong on Radio 3 and, on BBC1, Songs of Praise. All of these are ecumenical, but specifically Christian. No other faith is accorded this airtime.

Some of us have no problem with that: Britain is a Christian country, whose head of state is also head of a church established by law, and whose legislature still has 26 Christian priests sitting in it as of right; and the BBC, as the state broadcaster, should reflect that. But I fear that is becoming a minority view, and that more people now think of Britain as a “multifaith” country, in which case it is difficult to defend a publicly funded body supporting only one religion in terms of the hours devoted to worship. Indeed, many BBC bosses — and its own corporate literature — frequently refer to “multifaith” Britain. Sooner or later, I suspect, they will be asked to justify giving this platform to Christianity in preference to other faiths.

Until then, and perhaps afterwards, we can take heart from a corner of the schedules that would not exist had it not been for an indefatigable Hertfordshire spinster, Kathleen Cordeux, whom I quote above. She pestered the BBC for two years to start the programme, arguing her case, getting a petition up and having an appeal printed. She was the most persistent letter-writer the fledgling BBC had ever encountered. An early example of listener power! How much we owe her, and her determination.

Indeed. But even if the BBC does not go so far as to axe the service altogether, Melancholicus fears that the hip’n’trendy C of E ministers currently chosen to lead the service may still end up killing it with relevance.

Term (reprise)

Here at the university, we are now—Deo gratias—half way through the first semester. Term is always a trial; it calls for much patience and the exercise of heroic virtue.

It shouldn’t be like that, but it is; and right now, Melancholicus could not be less motivated.

Melancholicus was tardy in his rising this morning, and consequently arrived on campus after nine o’clock. A good deal after nine o’clock, if the truth be told. He then spent a most unhappy hour wasting precious petrol and clocking up unnecessary miles on his car circumnavigating the campus in a vain search for somewhere—anywhere!—to park. In the end he found somewhere well off campus, involving a twenty-minute walk back to campus and the same twenty-minute walk to his car again when he shall have finished his day’s labour this evening. Let us hope that it won’t be raining.

It is a sad truth that if one has any business at this institution one must arrive on campus well before nine if one wishes to park one’s car, since (owing to the economic prosperity of recent times) every undergraduate and his or her flatmate now has a car. Not a few otherwise penniless students seem to drive cars much bigger and faster than what Melancholicus can afford to drive himself. On Tuesday Melancholicus beheld a bleach-blond and track-suited student parking a 2007 VW Golf. Those cars don’t come cheap—they can be up to or over €30,000 depending on engine size and trimmings. How could the fellow have afforded such, unless he is the son of Daddy Rich? Melancholicus drives a 2006 KIA Picanto, a much smaller, less powerful and less ostentatious vehicle; it is his first car, for he could never have afforded to drive when he was himself a student and had to depend instead on the likes of this. Melancholicus’ idea of a student car used to be a twelve-year old, third-hand, three-door Fiat with missing hubcaps, faded paintwork and a myriad dents and scratches, yet not a few turn up to their lectures driving gleaming new or nearly new Alfa Romeos, Audis, Toyota Corollas and Volkswagens.

Such is the struggle for parking spaces on campus, and the refusal of the authorities to implement a workable parking permit system (for fear of the reaction from the Students’ Union?), that yesterday Melancholicus travelled to work by bus—and in the process was rudely reminded of all the reasons why he stopped using the bus in the first place. Speaking of buses, he recently discovered that Dublin Bus refuses to serve the campus after 8pm, owing to the danger presented to the transit company’s staff by the hordes of drunk and disorderly students that roam the campus each evening, a danger which recently resulted in at least one assault.

Even at the university we are witnessing the results of the breakdown of society and the disintegration of social mores owing to the reluctance of modern parents to put much effort into the raising of their offspring.

The recent downturn in the economy has prompted the Irish government to consider the re-introduction of fees for third-level education. Needless to say, the students are not happy about this proposal. Third-level education has been technically free in this country since 1995. Melancholicus did not benefit from this abolition of fees, since he graduated in 1993, but his sister did, and so has nearly everyone who entered a third-level institution since then. The then minister for educaction Noel Demspey attempted to re-introduce fees in 2002, whereat students marched in protest, and in 2003 Mr. Dempsey was compelled to admit defeat. In the same year, a report revealed that—interestingly—only 20% of school-leavers from the lowest income bracket went on to university, compared with 97% of school-leavers from more privileged backgrounds.

So we can see who it is really that has benefited most from the abolition of fees, and that Noel Dempsey had the right idea.

The abolition of fees has had two principal effects: it has greatly increased the amount of ready cash at students’ disposal (not always a good thing—students, like the clergy, should be poor), and it has inculcated an attitude of relaxed carelessness among many. For if education is free, there is not much incentive to study hard and win top marks; there is, in fact, very little incentive to pass at all—the dropout can do his thing with a clear conscience, knowing that he will not be accountable to parents or benefactors displeased at the wasting of their money, and knowing he can always go back to study at any time. College becomes one long party, in which the student can save his money for recreational activities and devote himself to bedding as many similarly empty-headed young women as he can manage to seduce. And at the end of it all he will graduate with a degree hardly worth the parchment whereon it is printed, for the abolition of fees has led necessarily to extensive cutbacks and educational dumbing-down. Once upon a time, a degree was the distinction conferred upon a student who showed the required academic aptitude throughout a rigorous course of so many years’ study. Today, graduating with a degree is taken almost entirely for granted; only the spectacularly useless, the terribly unlucky, those with serious problems of one sort or another, or those who choose to withdraw will leave the university without one.

Yesterday, a student protest against the re-introduction of fees took place outside Leinster House, necessitating the presence of the Gardaí, since if students are prepared to act boorishly when out enjoying themselves, they will surely act boorishly when angrily protesting in large numbers.

Melancholicus did not attend the protest, even as an observer; he was teaching at the time, and was quite impressed to notice that the protest seemed not to impact on the levels of attendance at his lecture. But he would not have attended the protest anyway, for Melancholicus welcomes the re-introduction of fees, and hopes that the Irish government will have sufficient gumption to stick to its guns and not be intimidated by the prospect of ensuing unpopularity or the aggressive bawling of students and other leftists.

It is alleged that the re-introduction of fees will discriminate against students from lower economic backgrounds. It need not do so; fees might be imposed only on the fat cats—those who can afford to provide their sons and daughters with brand-new VW Golfs and suchlike. Working-class students could be exempted. We have already seen that the clear majority of students, even in these days of free education, are of middle-class extraction anyway; they are protesting, not (as they might pretend) on behalf of their less-well-off cousins but on behalf of themselves—and their cars. Consider: little Jimmy, from a comfortably well-off middle-class family, gets a good Leaving Cert and decides to go off to college. Good for him. Since his parents are relieved of the obligation to fork out €3,000 per annum in fees, amounting to €9,000 to €12,000 across the three or four years needed for little Jimmy to take his degree, they can afford to buy their son a car. So little Jimmy gets a new (or nearly new) Nissan Almera or, if he’s the son of Mammy and Daddy Rich, an Audi. Of course the parents of little Jimmy’s friends are likewise equipping their college-bound sons and daughters with fast and flashy autos, with the result that university employees with a job to do have to compete with the most non-commital undergraduates for parking facilities, and it is impossible to drive anywhere in Dublin within a reasonable time period because the streets are clogged as everyone has a car.

Roll on the recession!

Now imagine that little Jimmy’s parents have to shell out a considerable sum in annual tuition fees; little Jimmy probably wouldn’t get his new Almera—and, given the money being pumped into his education, he would be under considerable pressure to deliver academically—or explain to a furious Daddy why all his money was wasted.

Hardly surprising that the students oppose the bringing back of fees, for it would impact every aspect of their lives—they would have to depend on public transport to get to and from college; they would have to scrimp and save for their beer money; they might actually have to spend time in the library instead of the bar; they might have to support themselves instead of relying on allowances from munificent relatives.

It might be good for them.

They might grow up a little.

A personal message

... to the love of my life, in celebration of this day, the anniversary of our first finding one another.

Goodness Gracious, Great Firewall of China

Melancholicus has just noticed (via his Neocounter) that his blog has had a visit from someone in China.

Which obviously means that Infelix Ego is not banned in China.

Disappointed sigh...

Milestone: one year old

Melancholicus wishes to extend his thanks to all those who have visited Infelix Ego over the past twelve months, especially to his regular readers and those who have left comments on various posts along the way. For today, 3 October 2008, marks the anniversary of the first post on this blog.

Target practice

Although this is hardly news (Smasher and Fr. Finigan, among others, have drawn attention to it already), Melancholicus is interested to note that the Irish Catholic bishops’ conference has launched its own website.

For reasons it would be tedious to enter into here, Melancholicus disapproves on principle of such things as national bishops’ conferences, regarding them as cancerous outgrowths inspired by the revolution of Vatican II and engineered so as to impose the policies thereof. If he is to be consistent, he must also disapprove of websites representing such bodies. Nevertheless, he will be visiting the bishops’ conference website often, not because he has much faith in the leadership of these our fathers in God or hopes to find therein nourishment for his soul, but because in placing themselves thus so openly on the web, the bishops have exposed themselves to be shot at. And the temptation to engage in a little episcopal skeet is just too much to resist.

[loads shotgun]

As today is the first day of a new month, a time for fresh beginnings and new inspirations, Melancholicus feels a little idea coming on:



Announcement for all interested parties!!!

The 2008 bishop-hunting season begins today and will close with the Benedicamus Domino of None on the Saturday before the First Sunday of Advent (that’s 29 November this year).

Targets permitted in this season’s shoot:

All bishops as well as archbishops within the jurisdiction of the Irish bishops’ conference are fair game, including those retired on or before the commencement of the season. Deceased bishops are off limits, as is the apostolic legate. Promotion to the sacred college either before or during the course of the season does not confer any special protected status, hence cardinals may be hunted as keenly as the lowliest auxiliary. Monsignori and parish priests, although not bishops, may also be hunted throughout the season, although these are less prestigious prizes whose scoring value is much lower. Also considered fair game are lesser clergy and members of religious orders and institutes of either sex. Laypersons in the employ of dioceses, parishes or religious orders may also be hunted, though the point-scoring value of these last is so low as to be hardly worth the effort.

[disengages safety]

Scoring is as follows:

• The Primate of All Ireland: 10,000 pts


• Other archbishops: 8,000 pts each


• Diocesan bishops: 5,000 pts each


• Auxiliary bishops in Metropolitan Sees: 3,000 pts each


• Auxiliary bishops in other Sees: 2,000 pts each


• Titular bishops: 1,500 pts


• Retired cardinals: 1,500 pts each


• Retired archbishops: 1,200 pts each


• Retired diocesan bishops: 1,000 pts each


• Other retired bishops: 800 pts each


• Monsignori not in episcopal orders: 500 pts each


• Parish priests: 300 pts each


• All other active clergy: 150 pts each


• Male and female religious: 100 pts to 500 pts each (variable according to status and celebrity)


• Lay employees of the conciliar bureaucracy: 5 pts each

Scoring is cumulative. Individual targets may be bagged as often as you like, according as they make more or fewer gaffes over the next two months.

[takes aim through telescopic sight; sees purple biretta—or should that be, sees grey tab shirt?]

The season is open to all. Happy hunting!