The Hermeneutic of Continuity

Edited to add: If you think, as I do, that the Pill should apologise for their rotten behaviour, then please sign this petition.

An English Parish Priest decided to change one of his four Sunday Masses to the Extraordinary form. Some parishioners were aghast, some thrilled but most just jogged along without much comment one way or the other. Then a horrible hatchet job was done on said priest and parish by the Pill, a formerly Catholic publication. Fr Tim Finigan, the priest concerned, then fisked their article and also published his (footnoted 35 page-long) response to concerned parishioners.

The response is here but the fisk has disappeared, due to threats of legal action from the Tabletistas. Except that Berenike of the redoubtable Exlaodicea blog posted the whole thing, retrieved from the Google cache. Just in case you can't find it there, here it is - with the text & fisk as Fr Finigan posted it!

That was not my Mass
Elena Curti

Nearly 40 years ago, that was the comment of the keenest supporters of the Tridentine Rite as the new rite was introduced. Now the sentiment has been reversed in the suburban parish of Blackfen, where a priest’s introduction of traditionalist liturgy has split the parish

Each Sunday at around 9.45 a.m. [or earlier - youngsters get there up to an hour before Mass to help prepare] a team at Our Lady of the Rosary, Blackfen, in the south-eastern suburbs of Greater London, erects a wooden stepped platform faced in a marble-effect laminate on the altar. On this is placed a gold crucifix, six large candlesticks, vases of flowers and altar cards for the celebration of the old Latin Mass. Welcome to the parish of Fr Tim Finigan, popular blogger and leading light of the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales.

Fr Finigan is in the vanguard of priests determined to restore “tradition” to their parishes and, step by step, [gradually, with explanations, over a couple of years] he has introduced elements of the extraordinary form into the liturgy at his church. The centrepiece is the weekly Sunday Tridentine Mass at 10.30 a.m, introduced in the wake of the Pope’s motu proprio allowing wider celebration of the old rite. During his 11 years in charge he has also gradually brought in other traditionalist touches that have split the parish. [Ah yes, the "split" - thats a key point of the article - but in fact the vast majority of parishioners just come along to whichever Mass they want, and wonder what all the fuss is about. What hurts them is the bad atmosphere caused by vehement complaining and controversy. This is not helped, of course, by airing it all in the press.]

Between 30 and 40 people no longer attend the church and a similar number have taken their place. [Hmmm. In these suburban parishes, over the course of a year or so, there are at least that number coming and going for all sorts of reasons.] The row about numbers has become so heated that supporters of Fr Finigan carefully count the numbers attending the Sunday morning old-rite Mass. [We have long counted all the numbers at all the Masses. More recently, the accuracy of these counts has been made an issue. It has been important to counter the claim that the usus antiquior Mass is not well supported. 135 came last Sunday. Total at the four masses, about 550.] An auxiliary in Southwark diocese, Bishop Pat Lynch, has been called in to mediate. [Not quite. He was complained to, and generously took time to meet various people and advise on bringing peace in the situation.]

In what was once a fairly typical parish, [oh, it still is, in many ways] there are no extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist. Altar rails have been installed and the parish priest makes it clear that he prefers communicants to kneel and to receive the Host on the tongue. [I have passed on the insights of Archbishop Ranjith, Bishop Schneider and others, and mentioned the example of Pope Benedict. As with other matters, this is not about what "I prefer" but about what is best.] Communion is not usually offered under both species. At a regular Sunday evening Mass in the new rite, there are no bidding prayers and the congregation is not invited to exchange the sign of peace. [At the other new-rite Sunday Masses, these things are all available.] Fr Finigan says the Eucharistic Prayer with his back to the congregation [boo!] with the stepped platform, properly called a gradine, on the altar. Unaccompanied hymn-singing has been dropped after the priest complained it was a “torture” to continue to inflict it on the assembly. [It was.]

Old-rite Masses are also usually celebrated on major feast days including Midnight Mass, and there is a regular Mass in the extraordinary form on Saturday mornings. The ordinary form is used for the Saturday vigil Mass and the Sunday 9 a.m. children’s Mass. Weekday Masses are in the new rite.

But Fr Finigan’s critics fear that their parish is gradually becoming a flagship for the Tridentine Rite. They claim that most of those who welcome the trend are newcomers living outside the parish. [The claim is simply false.]

“Six parishioners wanted the Latin Mass here. [No idea where that number comes from.] I have no objection to them having it once a month or once a week, but it should not be the main Sunday Mass and it should not be imposed over the whole parish,” [It isn't. We have four weekend precept Masses, three of them in English, in the novus ordo.] said Les Thomas, a member of the delegation that went to see Bishop Lynch.

Mr Thomas is one of nine parishioners I met who claim that Fr Finigan’s dedication to “tradition” has hurt the parish. Most of them have served as readers and/or Eucharistic ministers. Four say they can no longer bear to attend Mass at Blackfen, the rest doing so under sufferance.

“It is a matter of principle. I won’t be driven out,” says Eddie Sweeney, a former master of ceremonies and scoutmaster who has lived in the parish for 57 years. The group describe feelings of irritation, discomfort and sadness at the changes that have been made. Those who prefer to stand for Communion and receive it in the hand say they feel selfconscious doing so at Fr Finigan’s Masses. [I never do anything to indicate disapproval of someone receiving Holy Communion correctly according to the current norms. Many people have told me of how priests have made difficulties for them receiving on the tongue. As for kneeling when everyone else is standing - well we all know how that goes down.]

Several said their adult children vowed never to go to the church again, such was their unhappiness with the liturgy. “People who have been away from church come back at Christmas and Easter and are totally put off. It is so sad,” said Jean Gray. A woman who asked not to be named said she had known Fr Finigan for many years and he had been a “rock” supporting her family through some difficult times. But she felt moved to complain after she asked him to celebrate a Mass for her daughter’s favourite aunt who had recently died. She did not realise at the time that it would be entirely in Latin. “My daughter cried through most of the Mass because she could not join in. Afterwards she said: ‘That was not my Mass.’” [I'm sorry that this happened: I would never knowingly put someone's Mass intention on at a Mass they didn't want to go to. And, I'd always be happy to celebrate the Mass again on a different occasion.]

Rules introduced include an insistence on silence in the church before and after Mass, [Rules? I periodically ask people not to hold conversations in the Church so that others are left free to pray if they want to. Some people just ignore this.] which critics said meant there was little opportunity for parishioners to mingle afterwards, losing an important point of contact especially for the elderly. [Whenever I talk about silence in Church, I always affirm the importance of social interaction outside or in the Hall.]

There were also complaints about their priest’s refusal to support Cafod, his expenditure on traditional vestments and other clerical garb, the absence of a parish council and failure to account to parishioners how money from the collection plate was being spent. [This is a really cheap shot and I'll address it below.]

Matters came to a head last October when one parishioner, Bernard Wynne, a retired management consultant, set out his grievances in an email to Fr Finigan and asked for a parish consultation. He copied his message to a number of parishioners [and the Archbishop, and the Area Bishop] and invited them to make their views known. The ensuing correspondence resulted in about a dozen people objecting to Fr Finigan’s approach and about the same number supporting him.

In her email Susan Reynolds, a parishioner for 35 years wrote: “I grew up with the Latin Mass and remember sitting watching men and women saying the Rosary, slyly reading the newspaper or making responses they didn’t really understand. The English Mass made us participants and co-celebrants in the sacrifice of the Mass. The instruction to ‘open the windows and doors’ is one of the most liberating things to happen in the Catholic Church. If you listen carefully you can hear them being shut in Blackfen.”

Fr Finigan’s response [to the above and many other emails totalling about 20,000 words] was a 35-page essay, in which he set out the thinking behind his use of the “traditional liturgy”. [See: "Sacred and Great"] But it is in a lecture to the Latin Mass Society’s training conference at Oxford last year for priests learning how to celebrate the extraordinary form that he set out his strategy. He told the priests they were the “infantry” who need to overcome “real problems and difficulties” in bringing the extraordinary form to their parishes. He said the priest had a responsibility to persevere even in parishes where there were not a large number of people requesting the old rite. [Well, what I said was that priests could not adequately prepare for the older form by catechesis alone but needed to persevere even though it might be a shock to begin with. But see the article. The reference to "infantry" was an allusion to the phrase "poor bloody infantry" who are at times attacked by both officers and civilians. This sometimes ring true for parish clergy.]

Parish reaction to the introduction of the old rite would find a few “very favourable”, a few “strongly against”, and “the substantial majority who simply wonder what Father is doing now”. It was, Fr Finigan said, “important not to neglect this majority of our parishioners in deference to a vocal minority”.

When I spoke to Fr Finigan he admitted there had not been a stable group at Blackfen who had requested Mass in the extraordinary form as set out in the motu proprio, but over a period of time he said most parishioners had accepted the liturgy and some, particularly young people, had become very enthusiastic about the old Latin Mass. [Oh there had been a stable group, all right. What I admit is that (despite temptation to the contrary) I did not get them get them to draw up a petition etc. to introduce the Mass on those grounds. I read SP as allowing the pastor to introduce the usus antiquior for pastoral reasons and felt it was more honest to do just that. (See my post 'If ... but not "only if"'). I think that Cardinal Hoyos supports this position.] He pointed out the three Masses in the ordinary form that people could attend on Sundays, adding: “I am not going to be able to please everybody. I would like people to gradually be able to settle down and accept the way things are now.”

The parish priest rejected the idea of a consultation or the setting up of a parish council on the grounds that it would be a “bear pit” and “people would be at each others’ throats”. [Having a big meeting for everyone to argue about the Liturgy would, I think, not be helpful. I'm not against the idea of a Parish Council if it will help the pastoral work of the parish but not as a quarterly debate on how we should celebrate the Liturgy.] With regard to the parish’s finances, he said he was arranging to get help so that a summary of income and expenditure could be published for parishioners.

Fr Finigan put me in touch with five parishioners who support the changes at Blackfen. One was a mother of seven-year-old twins, Wendy Kane, who lives just outside the parish boundary [In fact, in suburban parishes, lots of people cross parish boundaries.] and has been attending Our Lady’s for seven years. She felt delighted with the liturgy and said it had strengthened her faith and that of her family, adding: “The extraordinary form is not what I grew up with and I never experienced it before. I personally find it a beautiful form of worship.” [And her boys are very eager to start serving as soon as they have made their first Communion, and her husband is being received into the Church this Easter.]

Another supporter, Julia Jones, a 38- year-old teacher who moved to the parish last summer, said: “I have been very moved by the silence and palpable feeling of devotion, especially during the Eucharistic Prayer. I have gained greatly from the experience in only a few months. I really do believe that I have found ‘the pearl of great price’.”

Bishop Lynch said this week that the whole parish needs to build communion through prayer and social activities. “You need a situation where people respect diversity but can also come together,” he said. [I heartily concur - and many thanks to Bishop Lynch for his tactful interventions at every stage.]

Fr Finigan trained for the priesthood at the English College in Rome and has worked in parishes in south-east London for 23 years. Through his blog, The Hermeneutic of Continuity, which recently had its millionth hit, he has become well known. He is also a visiting tutor in Sacred Theology at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh; and there can be no doubt that he considers bringing the old rite to his parishioners central to his ministry.

Some welcome what Fr Finigan is doing. It is equally clear that some do not. If Fr Finigan is right, and the priest’s responsibility for the liturgy in his parish is absolute, [It is not absolute, it is subject to the law of the Church. Pope Benedict more than once pointed out that even the Pope is subject to the tradition of the Church.] there is nothing parishioners can do about it. And there could be many more Blackfens in the future. [I must get a parish anthem going (ouside the Liturgy, of course) - something along the lines of "There's only one Blackfen!"]

Just a note on finances. The bit about vestments and clerical garb (Boo! Hiss!) is, as I said, a cheap shot. It is a part of my responsibility to ensure that there are dignified vestments for the Liturgy. Gradually, over 11 years, I have spent judiciously in accordance with our budget to secure worthy vestments. I have also recovered a substantial quantity of vestments and other liturgical artefacts free of charge from people who did not have any use for them (i.e. might have thrown them out.) “Clerical garb” probably refers to things like my cassock and Ferraiuolo etc. These come out of my own pocket - thankfully, the parishioners as a whole are very generous at Christmas and Easter (significantly more generous this Christmas than usual).

Over the past few years, helped by many parishioners, I have also, among other works, replaced the roof, floor, heating and lighting in the Hall, put in disabled toilets and levelled the entrance, repainted the interior of the Church, replaced the roof on two areas, replaced the guttering, replaced the public address system, put in an industrial spec kitchen in the Club (for the lunch club to provide lunch every week for 40 elderly people without falling foul of health and safety law).

We also raise money regularly for the Bexley Deanery Third World Project, Aid to the Church in Need, the Manna Centre for the Homeless, the Bexley Centre for the Unemployed, the Good Counsel Network, and Cardiac Research in the Young to name but a few. In place of CAFOD, I send our Family Fast Day money to the Pontifical Council Cor Unum (which CAFOD is a partner of, I think.) That way, we support the Church’s development work without contributing to glossy advertising or a questionable policy on HIV prevention.

Fr Z today quotes a famous remark of Pope Benedict when he read a negative article about him in an Italian daily:

“If I don’t read an article like that every week or so, I have to examine my conscience.”

Admirable - but daunting. A man to admire and emulate not only in liturgical matters.

That’s all for now - I have to go and inflict Rosary and Benediction on my oppressed parishioners.

The Puzzle of "Ordinary Time"

Every now and again I glance at a new blog or at least a blog that's new to me, rather than just checking out ones I already know and like. In that vein I started looking at My Heart was Restless, a blog kept by a convert lady from Yorkshire. She describes her experience of the pre-Lent season (from Septuagesima onward) in the Old Rite as richer than the continuing "Ordinary Time" of the new liturgy.

I had an analagous experience some time ago. A friend who stayed over after coming to dinner accompanied us to Mass. He made a reference to "the [whatever] Sunday of Ordinary Time" and assumed that we were on the same calendar. However, my wife and I are members of the diocesan TLM chaplaincy, and thus we keep to an annual cycle rather than a 2 or 3 (or A/B/C) system. (A bit like nature itself, in fact.) So we had to point out that everything in the traditional form is dated to or from a feast, or a fast. Theologically it makes more sense too; after the Resurrection at Easter, and the start of the Apostle's ministry at Pentecost, how could time ever be "ordinary" again? There is in reality no "Ordinary Time". All of time before Christ was a preparation for the Incarnation and the Nativity; since the Passion and the Resurrection, all of time waits for the Parousia, the Coming in Glory of Christ at the end of time. We come from a definite point and we are progressing toward a definite consummation of time (albeit on a timetable known only to our Heavenly Father).

Of course, that leads to my other favourite hobby-horse. We are emaphatically NOT an "Easter People". I wasn't there on Easter Sunday, I don't know (as Doubting Thomas does) that Christ rose bodily from the dead. I do firmly believe it, however and profess it as all orthodox Christians do. So unlike the Apostles themselves but exactly like the people they preached to on that first Pentecost, I believe in Christ Crucified and Risen. And I believe in a very literal sort of way; not a Resurrection "experience" but a real Man who ate fish, cooked breakfast and when necessary showed off his physical scars. So I am (like most of the Church's year in the real Roman calendar) a Pentecost Person. I believe and I hope while gratefully receiving and practicing Charity. I will know when I see God face to face, if it pleases Him to save me. But this side of Heaven, we have no utter abject sorrow because we always have Hope; thus Laetare in Lent. We also have no unalloyed joy, because we have not been finally saved yet. Thus we always have Christ and Him Crucified, even on Easter Sunday.

Support the Holy Father!

We're seeing the familiar bandwagon rolling. The Holy Father remits the excommunication of the Econe Four for the specific offence of being consecrated Bishop without Papal mandate. + Dicky Williamson spouts some lunatic nonsense about the Holocaust never having happened and the secular media (in cahoots with spectacularly ignorant anti-life politicians) jump on Pope Benedict as if he were an antisemite! OK, so we know that much but if you want to do something about it join this excellent effort. The petition in support of the Holy Father will go to the Vatican; more importantly, whatever prayers you offer for him, go direct to God and He can work miracles.

Oremus pro Pontifice nostro Benedicto

Dominus conservet eum, et vivificet eum, et beatum faciat eum in terra, et non tradat eum in animam inimicorum eius. [Ps 40:3]

Pater Noster ... Ave Maria ...

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

Traditionalism and all that jazz

As most of my five regular readers know, I'm a self described trad. That's "trad" as an abbreviation for Traditional Catholic or more precisely Liturgically and Doctrinally Traditional Catholic. Every now and again one finds a confession (in the popular rather than sacramental sense) on the web that details how the author used to be a trad but has since recovered. Some of these are fairly nasty pieces but most of them are honest expositions of how someone found their way to the Faith via a traditional parish/apostolate and then found that the atmosphere there was a bit uncharitable or even downright nasty.

The really odd thing is that the experience related in these "recovering trad" stories has so little in common with mine. I first attended the TLM (Traditional Latin Mass aka 1962 Missal aka Usus Antiquior aka Extraordinary Form or whatever you're having yourself) in the Spring of 1987. I moved with the diocesan Indult to St Michael and St John (subsequently sold off by the diocese) and then to St Paul (where Dom Marmion was baptised), then St Audoen and finally to St Kevin, Harrington St. So I've been a Trad for more than half of my life.

What I fail to recognise from this article is (a) the indifference to Pope John Paul II (b) hatred of the Bishops and (c) active hostility to the Second Vatican Council that author imputes to his fellow trads. Lest I be misunderstood, I am not presuming to criticise Mr Ruse's decision to leave a contentious and uncharitable circle for one that he perceives as more closely attuned to the mind of the Church. His conscience is in his own keeping, and he has to follow where he believes it leads. Still less would I claim that he is anything but 100% Catholic - a glance at his incredibly valuable work with C-FAM would show that. (If in these straitened times you have any spare shillings please consider C-FAM, one of the only bulwarks against Billary Clinton & Obama's worldwide anti-life crusade.)

As a traditionalist I was always focused on the teaching of John Paul II. Now I recognise that his reign was not without problems but if his task was to perpetuate Christ's threefold ministry as Priest, Prophet and King then we can say two out of three is pretty good going. His instantiation of the priestly office as daily celebrant of the Holy Sacrifice, as confessor (most notably in Holy Week), as ordainer of priests and consecrator of Bishops was unparalleled in modern times. He lived the priestly life to an extraordinary degree. JPII's fulfilling of the Prophetic office was likewise extraordinary. I can still remember the joy I had upon reading Veritatis Splendor; at last, an escape from vague woolly uplift after 14 years of it in Catholic schools. Here was the solid teaching I craved but never got from the schools, parish or diocese or any other part of the Church in Ireland come to that. You can imagine, I'm sure, that since I liked VS, Fides et Ratio was music to my ears. I still return to it for guidance and inspiration; I still marvel at how catholic [sic] John Paul's philosophical vision was and how everyone from Aquinas (naturaliter) to St Theresia Benedicta to Rosmini got a look in. Add to that, JPII's very, very long list of Pontifical writings and his championing of the Catechism and there can be no doubt that he gave a gift of sound teaching to the Church that we will benefit from for decades and even centuries.

However, not even his most generous supporters could reasonably claim that his governance of the Church was a success. His episcopal appointments were uneven at best. The lack of urgency with which he dealt with the abuse scandals in Europe and North America was deeply disappointing. It may be that as he was such a good and holy man, he couldn't comprehend the depravity of those who would violate the innocence of children. Be that as it may, when viewed objectively, it can only appear as a grave pastoral failure on his part. His half-hearted efforts to "reform the reform" were inevitable failures; even his own grave misgivings didn't prevent his participation in the syncretistic prayer service at Assisi not once but twice! (By contrast Benedict XVI sorted out the faulty structures at Assisi that allowed this to happen, in about 10 minutes!) Likewise for his attempts to free the traditional form of the Roman Rite; they were well meaning but inept. This trad, then, in common with many others had a mixed but on balance positive view of Pope John Paul.

Hatred of the bishops: Hmmm ... that's a tougher proposition. Mr Ruse lives in the United States, where faithful Catholics had to suffer under Hunthausen, Weakland and their cohorts. Many good Catholics still do suffer. I for one am delighted not to have Roger, Cardinal Mahoney as my Ordinary. (The Pro-Cathedral may not be an absolute architectural gem but Deo gratias we don't have the Rog Mahal. Or is it the Taj Mahoney?) European trads, in my experience, and Irish trads particularly don't hate their bishops. Exasperated? Yes. Impatient? Often. Trusting that the canonical retirement age (or Azrael) will remove the most egregious offenders still doesn't amount to wishing them ill - which is what hatred is. Wishing well to an offender against Church teaching or worse still, a man who diminishes the dignity of the Episcopal office he holds, may mean wishing him dismissed but more importantly it does mean wishing him repentant. It can even mean public criticism, though that needs a critic with an extraordinary degree of prudence. In my 22 years of living in Traddieland I've but rarely found the kind of Episcopophobia that Ruse decribes; it has certainly never been the norm.

Regarding the Second Vatican Council I may be something of an anomaly. My late parish priest, the Very Rev. George O'Sullivan, embodied the "Hermeneutic of Continuity" before such a phrase was abroad in the Catholic world. He kept a sense of the old liturgy in the new, and maintained some Latin and as many traditional practices as he could in a suburban parish setting. Thus the rupture between Pre and Post Vatican II was never a prominent feature of my experience of being Catholic. Moreover, my parents having lived through the Council as young Catholic parents in California had bought and kept a copy of Walter Abbott's translation of the Documents. So I had access to what the Council actually said and didn't need to be deprogrammed from any nebulous "Spirit of the Council". On one occasion a well-nigh distracted Religion teacher got the shock of her life when I refused to take part in our School Graduation Mass; as it wasn't in Latin, I maintained that it was disobedient to the Second Vatican Council and thus it was against my religion! In short I may have been impertinent but I was never ignorant of what the Council actually taught and while I had (and have) some reservations about it, I also believe that these are matters best settled by reflection, study and scholarly dialogue, pending definitive resolution by the Magisterium. (A case in point is the famous "Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church" formulation. As research continues, this problem grows less and less intractable. For those who have access to The Thomist, Christopher J. Malloy's article in Vol. 72 (2008): 1-44, Subsistit in: Nonexclusive identity or full identity is worth reading in relation to this issue.) The truth is that many trads, and this trad in particular, don't feel the need to fall down in adoration every time VII is mentioned but neither do we need to rage and fulminate about it. None of its teachings are binding under anathaema and so we have no urgent need to worry out every little detail. Being traditional minded means among other things being aware of the history of the Church. So for every Trent or Chalcedon, we have a Fifth Lateran Council. Thus Vatican II may go down in history as an epoch-making event or as a forgettable blip. Frankly, after a few hundred years, this will all settle down.

I guess what I'm really getting at is that I never was a Rad-Trad, a Mad-Trad, a more-Catholic-than-the-Pope Trad or suchlike, and so I can go on agreeing doctrinally with every faithful Catholic while pointing out for Latin Catholics a better way liturgically. Never having been as extreme as Mr Ruse was, I don't feel the need to renounce my former (and current) ways. Doctrinally orthodox, canonically in communion with my Ordinary and liturgically traditional seems like a good mix to me.

It's a bit scary ...

I remember 1988. Specifically, I remember packing for a Cadet Camp in the grounds of Glenstal Abbey, and seeing the 9 o'clock news on BBC 1. There were the pictures of Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer and the four newly consecrated (and excommunicated) Bishops. I can still recall the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I realised that the high (if naive) hopes that I and many others had, had been dashed. We thought that the SSPX were about to continue the fight fully on our side but instead they let us all down. The sort of pain that comes from a division like that is what one wise friend described as "a living death", something like a divorce. The source of the pain is constantly present and it's a "gift" that keeps on giving.

On Saturday last the first steps were taken in repairing that breach. I'm not that skinny 15 year old any more. The Indult Mass I attended then is long gone, moved on to bigger and better things. Two of the three celebrants are, to my certain knowledge, gone to their eternal reward. The convent chapel we used is gone, the convent is now a nursing home and the landscaped grounds are filled with apartment blocks. Poor Sister Wenceslaus (our sacristan) is long gone, carried off by Alzheimers. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of that particular rift, in which case Deo Gratias. There have been almost 21 needlessly wasted years but God can bring great good from bad things. From Archbishop Lefebvre's act of disobedience we got the FSSP, and the recognition of the ICR, and the reconciliation of the Benedictines of Le Barroux, foundation of CRMD, and so on, all within the Church, spreading Tradition far and wide.

Above all, Tradition is no longer (if it ever was) the exclusive property of the SSPX. It has started the long journey back to the parishes and dioceses throughout the Catholic world. Msgr Lefebvre and his collaborators started that journey and lead us when no-one else would. We thank them and pray for them. However, we no longer depend on them for our survival. If they are willing to join the Holy Father as part of the team, I like any other faithful Catholic, will welcome them with open arms; if they expect to come in to run the show, they will almost certainly experience a rude awakening.

Of your charity, pray for the Four that they will receive the grace to find their way back to full communion, and for the Holy Father (and the Curial Officials who will have to do the detailed work) so that this will have a happier outcome than the high hopes and bitter disappointment of July, 1988. Oremus pro invicem.

For the Laodiceans ...

Not the biblical ones strictly speaking but the more Scots/Polish/German and sundry other nationalities. I stand properly rebuked by Berenike who with her fellow Laodiceans very kindly linked to me and are now justly linked in return.

It's so lovely to have a link ...

Every so often I have a look at Sitemeter to see who's visiting and from where - mostly Ireland, a few from the UK or US and most surprisingly Australia! When I looked today, I found that someone had been referred from a blog called Muse in Melbourne. The Muse, who appears to have relocated from Craggy Island where she was parochial housekeeper, was kind enough to include a link to this blog on hers. I'm happy to reciprocate but was just wondering is there anyone else out there who has linked to Peregrinus Hibernensis but to whom I've not returned the courtesy? Please let me know! Sorbonnetoga - at - yahoo.co.uk will find me.

On the topic of Sitemeter, someone from the US also visited from sbcglobal.net; I emailed an old friend who originally hails from Carrick-on-Shannon on his SBC Global email address a while back. So if that was you (and you're PAB from Carrick) please let me know, old chap, if you got either of my two emails in October.

Not pedantic but precise ,,,

My darling wife once referred to me as being "pedantic". I got a bit offended because being in the line of work that I am, precision in argument and citation of evidence is highly prized. So I prefer to think that I'm precise rather than pedantic, and nowadays so does my wife! (For some reason Proverbs 31:10-31 keeps springing to mind.)

Anyway à propos of precision, I alway get a little put out when I hear a mention of the Douay-Rheims bible (DRB) as the last word in Catholic versions of Sacred Scripture. Now I love the Douay-Rheims as much as the next man (or probably more) but let's be honest it's more or less unreadable! To the average, reasonably educated English-speaking Catholic it's well-nigh gibberish. At this point, many a well-intentioned Traditional-minded Catholic will be ready to hurl anathemas at me and probably to set up a stake to deal with me in properly Traditional way! However, the chances are that said Trad has never actually read the Douay-Rheims in the whole course of his life. Rather he has read the Douay-Rheims-Challoner (DRC) and thought it to be the same as the 1582 and 1609 editions of the New and Old Testaments respectively, published at Douai and Reims. A quick glance, though, at the bottom of the title page of just about any edition claiming to be a DRB will usually have a disclaimer to the effect that "The whole revised and diligently compared with the Latin Vulgate by Bishop Challoner in 1749-1752 A.D."

Just how different the DRB is from the DRC was shown by the Venerable John Henry Newman in his essay on the history of the DRB.

Anyway, this is my personal hobby-horse; when I hear someone lauding the DRChalloner as if it were the DRB, it gets my back up. I'd much prefer that they took the trouble to be accurate, that's all. Of course, this won't prevent me from pointing out that Baronius Press has a DRC and Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (SCV) in parallel text available for pre-order at approx €65. It's leather-bound, hardback and has a substantial "family Bible" look to it. Perfect for the budding Latin scholar!

I'm tempted to carry on ranting about how the Roman Missal (1962) doesn't use the Vulgate text half as much as you think it does (Introit for the Requiem Mass, anyone?) but perhaps I'll leave it there for now. I'm serious about the Baronius edition, though. It's built to last, and would make a perfect Christmas present for the TLM fan or wanna-be Latin scholar in your life.

(On a strictly private note: don't even think about it, my love. I already have 2 SCVs and a DRB, and no room for any more!)

1968 and all that ...

This post originally appeared in the Brandsma Review , along with lots of other excellent stuff! Information on how to subscribe is available at their website.


Peter de Rosa opined in the Herald (July 23) on Humanae Vitae. His piece was a catalogue of misconceptions (if you'll excuse the pun!) and is one of the strongest indications yet of how the opponents of HV are stuck in the past. Mr de Rosa seems to be fighting the battles of forty years ago with the knowledge and insight of forty years ago. Put bluntly, Paul VI was right in his predictions and thus his moral teaching has an ever-increasing credibility for those who examine it with an open mind.

However let's return to De Rosa and his reminiscences for a moment.

... After lecturing in ethics at the Westminster Seminary, I moved on to teach theology at Corpus Christi, an international college. It was there I did the unforgivable: I contradicted the Pope on a matter of ethics.

The main contention here is simply not true. Contradicting the Pope is not unforgiveable; as with many things in the Church, forgiveness is offered upon repentance. The way back is always simple. Say sorry!

When Paul VI banned all forms of contraception, I openly disagreed, beginning with personal letters to the London Times and Time Magazine ... I organised a letter to The Times of polite disagreement from the UK clergy ... Over 100 priests signed up ... Meanwhile, they persuaded many of the signatories to withdraw this "terrible insult to the Holy Father". Fifty-five priests stayed with me.

This is where we see a more telling picture begins to emerge. This isn't a heartfelt, agonising decision for a loyal priest who genuinely believes the Church has taken the wrong path. This is a man who is planning and executing a political campaign. He is in the business of rounding up signatures and making common cause with the news media against the Church. Moreover, De Rosa seems on his own account to have turned it into a sort of popularity contest. Thus 55 priests "stayed with me" as if loyalty to the person of De Rosa were some sort of virtue!

What is particularly disturbing about this paragraph is that it opens with a statement that is seriously misleading. Mind you, I'm not suggesting that De Rosa is being deliberately dishonest. He could be so historically ill-informed that he genuinely believes that out of the blue and as a new departure "Paul VI banned all forms of contraception". It is possible that he has persuaded himself that Pope Paul VI made a radical departure rather than simply reaffirming almost 2000 years of constant Christian witness. Or it's possible that he is being a little careless in what is after all a newpaper op-ed, not a scholarly treatise. The fact remains that Pope Paul VI continued what had been the constant practice of the Christian Churches East and West, which was established from immemorial custom at the time De Rosa was ordained. He claims to have "loved his vocation" but from the outset his vocation was to the priesthood of a Church that had an absolute ban on contraceptive marital intercourse (scroll down to no's 53-56). He knew well that for nigh on two millennia the Church had set her face against contraception of whatever kind; after the Anglicans sold the pass Pope Pius XI deliberately reiterated the Church's teaching on contraception so that no-one could be left in any doubt. Is De Rosa aware of the obvious implication that after so many years of study (presumably involving theological study) he wasn't aware of that teaching? Or did he volunteer for the priesthood on a purely provisional basis, i.e. not the Church as he actually found her but as he wanted her to be?

I had no problem with what the bishops did. They run a totalitarian regime in which the Pope has absolute power.

Obiviously he had no problem with it, that's why FORTY YEARS LATER he's still complaining about it in a newspaper. (Although it must be a bit of a comedown from the [London] Times and Time Magazine to the Herald!) The business about totalitarianism is risible, however. The Pope has immense spiritual authority which comes from Christ. He has at last count no secret police, a very few armed men who would be over-run in minutes by any determined military force, no prison, no torture apparatus, no Gulag or Laogai and in fact none of the structures of a modern totalitarian state. If De Rosa or anyone else wants out of the Catholic Church, all he has to do is say so. And no-one can stop him! As for absolute power, that's even more ridiculous. The Pope has no power to change the content of the Faith. He has no power to change the Natural Law. He can no more add a Person to the Holy Trinity than he can make murder moral; he is bound by teaching of Christ and the Church. He couldn't alter that even to accommodate Peter De Rosa.

I was the one out of line. I warned the remaining signatories we would never have clerical preferment. We'd be lucky to survive.

This is a very odd comment to make. He's just taken a long-standing solemn teaching of a very old institution indeed and trashed it publicly. He's done so after having taken a salary from the self-same institution for many years. He even (at Ordination) promised obedience to his Ordinary (and that Bishop's successors) and was now reneging on that promise. With all that, his principal concern seems to be for his prospects of promotion! Any reasonable person, who lived in the real world as opposed to some sort of clericalist cocoon would realise that this kind of behaviour gets you fired, and rightly so. What's even odder is the "lucky to survive" comment. Survive as priests? Why would they even want to? If they disagree that profoundly with a seriously held and institutionally reinforced position of that kind, isn't resignation the honourable course of action? Alternatively, we might be in Dan Brown territory where De Rosa and his cohort feared not for their livelihood but for their lives. Did he get wind of an albino assassin haunting the precincts of the Westminster diocese?

... scarier things were to come ... Bishops told us individually to recant. Unless we did, we would lose our present posts. If we continued to disobey, we would have to leave the priesthood ... My discussions with Cardinal Heenan were friendly. But he still threatened me. If I openly contradicted the Pope once more I would never have another teaching post in the Church.

There's that pesky promise of obedience again, freely entered into and given voluntarily. What's even more amazing is that De Rosa seems to see himself as some sort of martyr. When he promised to obey, he was offering an open-ended gift of himself and his whole life. He was called on it. The demand to pay was not with his blood, like a genuine martyr but only with his job. Of course he could have taken the alternative course of humility. Supposing he had said to himself "The Church is a lot older and wiser than I am ... She also has certain guarantees from Christ regarding not falling into error ... OK I'll give way to her judgment and see if I can find a way to live with this". Or he could simply have said "The Church is wrong but I was wrong to sign up for the priesthood under these conditions. She's keeping to her view but mine has changed, so I quit!" Either of these positions would have been both honest and honourable. Instead of which ...

I met with him on a regular basis after that, trying to find an accommodation. None was possible, of course.

Now there's a surprise! A priest who dissents from the formal, solemn teaching of the Church cannot be accommodated!

Then we get to the really fun part, where 1968 comes alive again, as if science and demographics have been preserved in amber for the last 40 years. (And as if 40 years of experience haven't shown that NFP is as effective as ANY form of artificial contraception at avoiding pregnancy but without the side effects!)

I believed then, as now, that the ban on contraception was a disaster. Pastoral experience taught me that it led to marital misery. Most Catholic couples rejected official policy; they respected the Pope but honoured God and their families more.

Marital Misery? Strong words. How exactly, I wonder? Too many children, perhaps. In which case one could simply ask the question, which one would you give back? Perhaps, he is referring to the genuinely hard cases of a wife with a violent spouse who simply cannot face another pregnancy. Of course the Church is pretty clear about what she should do - GET OUT fast, and use the protection of civil law against her sinful husband. Perhaps he means rampant marital breakdown, which we all know was stopped dead in its tracks by the widespread rejection of HV. Or maybe he's referring to the spread of venereal diseases which of course thrive in an environment where a man sees his wife as his "respected and beloved companion" (HV 17) to whom he is faithful.

Two years later when I was finally forced out ... I said the world population had reached three billion. By 2000, it would be six billion. To think we could stop the nuclear explosion of people by sexual abstinence and the safe period was like suggesting we try emptying the English Channel with a teaspoon ...

Two years? Why on earth did it take that long? Would a police officer who refused to enforce laws he didn't like be given that much leeway? Would a politician who refused to follow the party line have two years grace? Of course this is where De Rosa's problem with outdated demographics come into play. He honestly seems to believe that entomologist Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb has actually been vindicated. It most assuredly has not. The problem in the West, at least, is not too many people but too few. Fertility is not increasing but decreasing. We are in fact facing into a demographic winter.

However, Mr De Rosa seems to be determined not to allow the facts to get in the way of a good story, even if they are facts with which he could reasonably be expected to acquaint himself, particularly if he bases his justification of such a major decision on them.

... I realised later I could have remained a priest had I merely sexually abused children ... I felt, however, that I had escaped after 21 years solitary confinement. I was a free man at last.

His peroration is a nauseating combination of a gratuitous cheap shot on the one hand and a piece of self-aggrandising nonsense on the other. The fact that child abusing priests were tolerated for so long has precisely nothing to do with De Rosa's rejection of Humanae Vitae. It's simply a gratuitous piece of nastiness on his part. The reference to "21 years of solitary confinement" is both contradictory and offensive. To say that he experienced six years of seminary life and fifteen years of priesthood as "solitary confinement" hardly matches his reference to "the vocation I loved" and "dreamed of ... since I was five". To suggest that his experience, even if he found it tough, was comparable to that of Fr Walter Ciszek (who REALLY spent five years in solitary)or Fr Alfred Delp or Ignatius Pin-Mei Cardinal Kung is simply crass. I'm sorry he didn't remain faithful to his ordination promise and indeed to his vocation but God can bring great good even out of betrayal and disloyalty. As a response to men like De Rosa (and many others) the great good of The Theology of the Body, NFP and the whole counter-cultural witness of the Church in the contemporary period has arisen. It's just a pity that men like De Rosa are so trapped in the past that they can't be a part of it.

Really, really impressive crew!

I was wandering around the web earlier and by following a link from a favourite site to another site to another and so on, I found these great guys (and gals). They answer in plain and simple English common but occasionally difficult questions about the Faith, mostly from teenagers. This site is brilliant and deserves a big prize! What they want however is not a prize but a heavenly patron, so go over here and help them pick one. (SUBTLE HINT: St Augustine is not only very cool but also spent some time answering random questions from members of his community.)

Rules for writing ...

I found this a while back but finally I'm managing to post it ...

1. The passive voice is to be avoided.
2. Avoid alliteration. Always.
3. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
4. Avoid clichés like the plague (they're old hat.)
5. Comparisons are as bad as clichés too.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Contractions aren't necessary either.
8. Never generalise.
9. Be more or less specific.
10. Don't be redundant - don't use more words than
necessary because it's highly superfluous.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
13. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
14. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
15. Who needs rhetorical questions anyway?
16. Always sue a spell hcecker.

Of course this is a parody of E. A. Blair's short but memorable list of rules for (political) writing, which is in turn part of an essay:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech
which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word,
or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Unfortunately, poor Mr Blair fell into the old trap of imagining that politics was the most important human pursuit that could or even should command ultimate human allegiance. He was a shrewd commentator on human affairs, all the same.

Will Shakespeare knew his stuff!

I came across a very American email bulletin recently. It's called "The Art of Manliness" and is 50% common sense, 25% motivational talk and 25% nonsense. (Actually the biggest mistake it makes is imagining that one can learn how to be a man from attempting manly things one read in an email! Either one learns from one's father or a father-figure or sadly, one simply doesn't learn at all.) However it's a laudable effort in its own, rather eccentric way.

They attempted a commentary on Henry V's Agincourt speech from Shakespeare's eponymous play. The author of the piece suggests that if you "Read this fictional, and yet powerful speech when you’re feeling unmotivated and depressed" then "it will stir you to focus on the legacy you are building and will pass on to your sons and to history." I'm not so sure that reading a speech would do that for me but each to his own, I guess.

Also, don't be too sure about the fictional bit. The language may be Shakespeare's own but parts of the speech itself are historically verifiable. The lines "be he ne’er so vile / This day shall gentle his condition" meant that a "vile" man i.e. a villein or landless labourer would get land and social status of his own (he'd become gentle, i.e. a gentleman). In the reign of Henry VII it was specified that no-one could bear a coat of arms or heraldic devices without a proper grant from one of the highest-ranking heraldic officials, a King of Arms, except those who could show descent from a veteran of Agincourt. Shakespeare may have made great poetry but there was also a lot of perfectly good history in it too! In typical fashion, it gives not just high sentiment (we few, we happy few, we band of brothers etc.) but also practicalities (financial independence and social status when you get home, boys!) It seemed to work too.

Moral of the story? Don't fly Ryanair!

Herself and myself needed to book flights for our little getaway after the wedding. She volunteered to take care of it. She tried Aerlingus and found very reasonable flights. She then found that having asked for prices for 2 (as in TWO the number between 1 and 3) people, she was being quoted for only 1 person! So having established that Aerlingus are every bit as stupid as they look, she turned to O'Leary's Cobbled-Together Rubbish Airline^TM.

Her further tale of woe is here. Perhaps somebody could set me straight. Has Ryanair ever won a case where a passenger sued them? I only ever remember them losing ... but then with Michael O'Leary giving evidence, they probably didn't create the best impression.

Happy Days....

Right now I'm sitting in front of the computer, desperately trying to sit still! I spent most of the day finishing paperwork for the half-time day job which feels very satisfying but isn't really what I went into philosophy to do. The "trying to sit still" bit was waiting for Herself to arrive - she just got here and is next door drinking tea with the Mammy. (She has a job interview in Dublin, hence a midweek visit but she can, between times, "work from home" i.e. my home, via broadband! Ain't technology grand?)

On the day-job end of things, I had a paper accepted for a book to be put out by this fine (but not notably cheap) publisher. The book promises to be a veritable feast of Scholastic Thought with everything from Eriugena to Gille of Limerick (Medieval Canonist, don't ya know) to the Irish Colleges in Europe in the 17th century! My own (very modest) contribution is just a survey of the once-thriving field of Scholastic Philosophy in Ireland from 1900 to 1975-ish. (Having just re-read the paper as I submitted it, I find that the content is ok, i.e. not egregiously wrong but the proof reading is non-existent. Oh well ...)

Lastly, I have finally mustered up the courage to begin the process of re-writing and generally finishing off a survey paper (I seem to be doing a lot of those ...) on the man whose loss so many of us are still mourning. It's incomplete but then his philosophical project was, in the best sense, incomplete, in that it was in full flow and nowhere close to exhausted when he was taken from us so suddenly. However, what I want to do with this, in a small way, is to give some flavour of what he did and was, philosophically; my hope is, of course, that anyone who reads it would go on to read this or this or any of his other works. To that end I'll include an updated Thomas A. F. Kelly Bibliography in it. I only wish he were here, so that I could tell him all about it. Of course, he'd be flattered and embarassed that anyone would take an interest in his work. Long may they continue to do so.

A snapshot ...

How's this for a snapshot of my humble little blog? This nifty site will take your blog and scan it for frequently used words. It then takes those and allows you to choose fonts and colours, and creates a word-cloud. It's pretty isn't it? Discovered courtesy of the frummest Jewish blog on the Net, which is also the best film/cinema history blog on the Net. (It also contains what is without exception the Single Most Romantic Story on the World-Wide-Web, which has the added advantage of being true.)

Happy 40th Birthday, Humanae Vitae!

I have let this particular anniversary pass without comment thus far because the blog post I prepared on it has been spruced up, sent to The Brandsma Review and will appear in their next print issue. I'll post it here at some stage after the print copies are out.

On July 25th of this year, one of the landmark Encyclicals of the modern papacy marked its 40th Anniversary. I'm referring, of course, to Humanae Vitae. After all the gushing optimism of the 1960s both in the world and in the Church, this was the moment when the successor of Peter stood athwart history and yelled Stop!

Of course, the world at large to the extent that it even bothered to listen to what Paul VI had to say, dismissed it out of hand. There is little doubt that Paul was right, however, and the evidence for this comes on two grounds. One is the natural moral law. If we take it (as Christians by and large do) that God created us with a definite nature and made that nature good, then anything which damages or frustrates an integral part of that nature is, ipso facto bad. Thus when Pope Paul said that the physical act of love between spouses should always be open to life, no Christian who trusts in the goodness of God's creation can ultimately have a problem with that. As soon as we make a simulacrum of the most intimate act of total commitment between spouses, we falsify human love. When that sort of act between husband and wife is meant by its very nature to entail total openness, complete vulnerability of the spouses to each other and an absolute, unconditional trust, contraception makes of it a lie. "Safe sex" as someone said is a bit like "safe love", a contradiction in terms. Of course, I am here perpetuating (albeit unavoidably) the myth that contraception has any intrinsic connection with marriage. For the most part, it doesn't; rather, it exists to allow men to exploit women sexually.

And this leads neatly to the second sort of evidence that Humanae Vitae was right. In the Encyclical, specifically no. 17, Pope Paul points out what he believed then would be the harmful consequences of widespread use of contraception. The earlier objections could be made on the basis of philosophical assumptions or arguments; these latter claims are actually verifiable or rather falsifiable. We can, forty years on, test them against the world as we experience it and see if they hold true.

He said

... consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards.

Can anyone claim, in good faith, that marital fidelity has not taken a hammering in the last forty years? Have moral standards, especially in matters of sexual conduct become more strict or less so?

He goes on

Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings — and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation — need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law.

That speaks for itself!

But he's not done yet! He points out that

Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

The whole point about contraception is that it makes a woman sexually available to a man at any time. There is no period that is off limits for sexual intercourse if there are no "consequences" to that act.

(For "consequences" read "children"; if anyone reading this is naive or silly enough to believe that the most intimate physical contact of which adult human beings are capable won't leave a deep emotional and psychological impression, then he or she needs to stay in more. Yes, you read that right, not "get out more" but stay in more. Do some quiet reading and careful thinking. Try starting with Humanae Vitae or if that's a bit steep for starters, try this or this and then perhaps move on this.)

When you add to that the harmful effects of the pill itself (it being the most widespread form of contraception) in terms of increased menstrual bleeding, increased incidence of depression, weight gain, and possible permanent or long-lasting damage to fertility, it begins to show its true colours as a very bad deal for women.

OK, so we can see that Pope Paul is two for two, so far. What about his third prediction?

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law ... Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone.

I cite China and India, and rest my case! (Although as one commentator pointed out, in western democracies the people are the government, and the social pressure on parents of large families not to have any more children is extreme.)

Finally, if you want to read a much better researched and worked out analysis of the Humanae Vitae phenomenon then read Mary Eberstadt at FirstThings.com. It's the free article from this month's issue and is top class stuff. (So is the rest of FT and their blog isn't bad either.)

The most affecting and moving evocation of the value of Humanae Vitae I've heard though, on this 40th Anniversary, has been from this priest at this parish. You can download his 35 minute homily on HV from that site (about 5 minutes on broadband but maybe 30 minutes on dialup!). It's well thought out, personal without being idiosyncratic and straight from the pastoral heart of a priest who knows what he's supposed to be! Deo gratias!

Of your Charity ...

I received this message by way of the comments box, from the Fitzgibbons. Please continue to remember him and them in your prayers, and don't forget too that handling grief is often more difficult after the initial shock has worn off.

Dear Eamonn,
Thanks for posting a prayer request for our beloved Diarmuid.

We built a website in memory of him where any charitable soul may pledge prayer. The link is http://inmemoriam.debtsecrets.co.uk/

God Bless,
Fitzgibbon Family

Original Post from June.This sad news comes from the Latin Mass community in Limerick. Yours prayers would be greatly appreciated by the Fitzgibbon family.

Dear Friends,

Please pray for the soul of Diarmuid Fitzgibbon who died tragically on Friday. His mother Antoinette attends our Latin Mass in Limerick and sings in our small choir. Some of you might also remember her from Chartres 2 years ago. The family has requested that people say the Divine Mercy for Diarmuid and if possible to try and gain a plenary indulgence for him. As you can imagine the family is devastated and implore your prayers.

Anima ejus et animae omnium fidelium defunctorum, per misericordia Dei, requiescant in pace.

Natural Family Planning

There was recently an explosion of NFP related blogging. Some of it was very interesting and informative, especially for those of us contemplating the rapidly approaching prospect of Marriage. Some of it was pretty unedifying and even rather bitter and spiteful. (I won't link to those posts, simply because they strike me as gratuitous and unhelpful.)

However most of it was interesting and well-intentioned. The one gaping hole, though, was in terms of an appreciation of the purpose of NFP. Specifically, most commentators (admittedly from a rather rigorist perspective) seem to think that NFP is principally concerned with avoiding pregnancy. Thus one blogger opined

I would say that these [serious reasons to use NFP] have to exist before one even begins to prepare or attempt to employ NFP. One has a positive duty to have children if married. In order to do this one need only ‘do what comes naturally’. There is no need to consider the number unless one already faces serious reasons dispensing one from this duty.

This is touchingly naive. As one person explained to us, there is no guarantee that a couple can have a baby any time they like, just by "doing what comes naturally". She related her own experience of assuming that she would have a honeymoon baby; she and her husband had to wait four years for said baby to arrive. I'm also reminded of a friend from the UK who is rather bloodyminded about wanting lots of children, when she marries. (She thinks seven would be a good number. She's not even a Catholic!) She's used to explaining this attitude rather defensively but on one occasion she was reminded rather sharply by the mother of an only child that she should accept gratefully what she was given! This woman had one daughter, and would have liked more children but it wasn't to be.

There are a number of versions of NFP out there, from Billings to Sympto-thermal to NaPRO but what all of them have in common (as far as I can tell) is that they are about planning FOR a family by understanding the process of human fertility. This is emphatically NOT about avoiding pregnancy, as the be-all and end-all but is instead about knowing when you can or cannot conceive. Many couples can conceive simply by doing "what comes naturally" but to suggest that this is an unproblematic automatic process is simply nonsense. Male fertility is to some extent a delicate process which is relatively easily upset. (Useful hint from one NFP source - wear roomy underwear! They told us the same thing in school. Also - which I didn't know - avoid plastic seating. It overheats delicate parts that need to be 2 degrees colder than the body core.)

Female fertility on the other hand is an unbelievably complex process, which ensures that MOST of the time a woman's body is intensely hostile to achieving a pregnancy. NFP thus is not about avoiding pregnancy by some sort of devious, "guilt-free" contraception. It is concerned with being able to conceive when we're ready to do so but above all, in terms of conjugal relations, the fundamental principle is one of consistent openness to life, without exception. It also means that if a couple have difficulty conceiving, they have natural and morally unobjectionable means to increase the likelihood of their doing so.

One wonderfully commonsensical NFP stalwart pointed out that her preferred method was one which helped her to conceive, to avoid conception for a time and to recognise & manage menopause when she reached that stage in her life. The whole mindset was one of awareness of, and co-operation with, a natural process. Thus the blogger who suggested that one ought to have "serious reasons" before "one even begins to prepare or attempt to employ NFP" is a bit like someone saying that one ought to have angina pectoris before one attempts to eat a heart-healthy diet or take exercise! In any area of life, a conscientious Catholic should seek to ensure that his body is healthy and working as God intended it to work. Employing super-rigorous categories on the one hand or succumbing to a quasi-contraceptive mentality on the other are not the way to go about this, I'd suggest. Rather a couple who form their consciences rightly, by close and respectful attention to what the Church teaches especially here and here and indeed here can make responsible decisions about the right use of their fertility in order to grow in love and holiness. Not to mention growing in joyful chaos which is, in my limited experience, the hallmark of the Christian family!

A very worthy cause ...

A very dear friend of my very dear fiancée is going to do volunteer work with a Catholic group in Thailand. The problem is that she has to raise her own finance to get there. So L. decided to put a plug on her blog and now I'm following suit. If you feel like supporting P in her heroic trek to Asia, visit Lowdenclear and hit the paypal donation button. Anything left there will be passed directly on to P. Of course, prayers would help even more!

Matters matrimonial!

Not mine and L's for a change but other peoples! Firstly, of your charity, could you pray for this man (who apparently never updates his blog) and his lovely wife, Pauline. They married yesterday in Newtownards and herself & myself were privileged to be among those present.

I also discovered that an old friend has gotten engaged ... the hard way! I thought the temporary Dublin-Belfast wanderings concomitant on our engagement were tough but he has been favoured with the hand of a lady from Tacoma, Washington!! Well, if he's able to manage this sort of really impressive wedding announcement, I'm sure the transition to life stateside will be a cinch!

Ad multos annos utroque!