A 'Catholic' school provides a prayer room for students

Excellent, well done and jolly good show you might say.

But, me, being of the curmudgeonly inclination, I think not.

The very phrase 'Prayer Room' summons up images of a room set aside for the use of Muslim students or, (horror of horrors) the ubiquitous ecumenical room where all sorts of odd denominations hold sway.

Now this particular Catholic School is in a well heeled area, Hove, on the outskirts of Brighton, and I have written about it in the past and of how they hold, or used to hold, ecumenical services.

Not good, in a Catholic school, not really much good anywhere, after all, just what is the point?

Now Cardinal Newman School, for such it is, actually has a rather beautiful and grand chapel; the original prayer room, if you like.

But, instead of using this sacred space they have created a prayer room that looks as if it caters rather more for the Primary rather than the Secondary pupil.

                        

           This is the school's Corpus Christi Chapel but heaven knows what's going on in it!

The video clip on the link below carries the usual silly sort of quotes along the lines of "pupils feel comfortable in it" (the new prayer room).

But really, Bishop Conry needs to man up and squash this whole lunatic concept and drag the school back to sound Catholic practice.

H/T to A & B News Blog (although, I suspect that they think the concept is great).
There is a link to a video on the A & B post.

"Disabled children should be put down"

There's something in the smile

That anyone could be so callous and crass in making such a statement is beyond comprehension, yet that is what, allegedly, Cornish Councillor, Colin Brewer has said.

Both The Independent and The Huffington Post carried the story, extracts below:-

The Cornish councillor who was re-elected despite saying that disabled children "should be put down because they cost too much money" has again insisted that there may be a case for killing some disabled children with high support needs.

Speaking to Disability News Service, Colin Brewer said he was not the "ogre" he had been made out to be, adding that constituents in his rural ward had shaken his hand and congratulated him, despite his controversial comments.

Looking for analogies to support his view, Brewer compared disabled children to farmers' treatment of animals, telling the agency: “If they have a misshapen lamb, they get rid of it. They get rid of it. Bang!”

He continued: "We are just animals. He [the farmer] obviously has got a point… You can’t have lambs running around with five legs and two heads.”

Brewer said: “It [the lamb] would be put down, smashed against the wall and be dealt with.”

He said the financial "burden" of the disabled wasn't just his own personal concern”, adding: “If you are talking about giving services to the community or services to the individual, the balance has got to be struck.”

He sought to justify his original comments by saying that that had suffered a series of strokes before the incident, which might explain why he “flared up”. "People have said I have changed since those strokes,” he added.

Independent councillor Brewer made the comments to Theresa Court, who works for Disability Cornwall, while she was manning a stall at the County Hall in Truro in October 2011.

We all know, do we not, that if Cllr Brewer had made similar remarks about gay couples or Muslims, he would have had his collar felt immediately.

It's the swivel eyed loons who are at the helm

Today Prime Minister Cameron takes yet another plunge into a stream that is growing ever increasingly stronger against him.

The Same Sex "Marriage" Bill enters the House of Commons for its third stage and the PM faces a revolt from his own backbenchers.

But, will that be enough to change the thinking of a group of Ministers who are, I suspect, handling this in a most cynical fashion.

The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, in an interview yesterday, stated that the party would proceed along its self destruct path because that is what the younger voters want.

He may be right but the older ones, and the Catholic ones, and the Muslims and Jews, I am certain, are largely against the Bill.

That means the end of Conservative majority in two years time; the Tories will be relegated to a minority party by the inroads of UKIP and Labour gains.

Cynicism is one thing; blind stupidity is another.

Pray that Cameron and his SELs will not get their way, pray that our Bishops take a stronger lead in opposing this move.

This picture says it all

H/T Orbis Catholicus Secundus

If you were the regional director of Walmart or BMW......

....or any other corporation that saw......

1. A 70% fall in customer enrolment

2. A 50% drop in new customer sales

3. A 56% decline in staff recruitment

What would you do?

           Fall on your sword?

                          Try to implement change?

               

                                      Analyse what was wrong about your strategy
                                       and adopt a well tested approach?

or......

....carry on with the same old weak and listless methods?

Please view the Latin Mass Society statistics for England and Wales HERE

and ponder on why and how our Bishops, given such clear evidence (over the past 50 years but, especially, now), have continued to offer no return to orthodox Catholicism that teaches moral clarity and doctrinal certainty.

Are you taking partres - in Chartes?

                           Picture: Chartres UK


The annual pilgrimage is under way and all who take part deserve our prayers.

Walking c. 75 miles in 3 days is one thing, having to kip down under canvas every night is another.

By comparison, Fatima was a dawdle, even though I had to push a priest in a wheelchair every day, up hill and down cova, and, even undertake the Stations of the Cross.
Very good for the soul - and the blood pressure.

The organisers have this to say about the event:-

The pilgrims walk in "chapters" (groups of 20 to 50 people), under the patronage of a saint (Our Lady of Walsingham and St. Alban for the British Chapters), and are led by laymen who, with the help of chaplains (Frs. Martin Edwards, Mark Withoos, Bede Rowe, Alex Redman, Bruno Witchalls and Gerard Byrne), organise the chapter hymns, meditations, rosary and prayers. The pilgrims live in a spirit of Christ's presence: friendship and prayer sustaining each pilgrim on his spiritual journey

Well, as an Englishman, that is all jolly good stuff but, I feel for my Welsh friends.

Why should they have to march under the Walsingham banner when they have their own National Shrine to Our Lady, that of Our Lady of Cardigan?

Please, would all who have influence on blogs, in magazines or other sections of the media, give equal honour to Our Lady of Cardigan – Our Lady of the Taper - Our Lady of Wales.

Our Lady of Cardigan, the equal of Walsingham,
but never recognised as such

Here is the Chartres 2013 programme:-


Friday, 17 May 2013

07:00 Mass at Westminster Cathedral Crypt, London SW1
07:30 Coaches pick up Outside Cathedral (Ambrosden Avenue)
11:10 Coach boards ferry at Dover
18:00 Coach arrives at Hotel outside Paris

Saturday, 18 May 2013 (Vigil of Pentecost)

05:00 Breakfast
05:30 Coach to Notre Dame Cathedral
07:00 Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral (to be confirmed)
08:30(est.) Leave Notre Dame towards Chartres
13:00 Lunch at Bievrés (Les Damoiseaux)?
20:00 Arrive at Ferté-Choisel for dinner and bed

Sunday, 19 May 2013 (Pentecost Sunday)

06:15 Prayers of Departure
07:00 First Chapters leave campsite
13:00 Solemn Mass of Pentecost & Lunch at Sonchamps (les Courlis)
21:00 Dinner and Bed at Gas (Benediction and All Night Exposition)
Monday, 20 May 2013 (Pentecost Monday)
06:30 Prayers of Departure
10:30 Lunch at Gasville Oiseme
15:30 Solemn Mass in Chartres Cathedral
20:00 Dinner in Chartres
???? Bed!

Tuesday, 21 May 2013 (Pentecost Tuesday)

08:30ish Breakfast
10:00 Mass in Cathedral Crypt (to be confirmed)
12:00 Depart Chartres by coach for London
18:20 Board Eurotunnel
20:00 Arrive London

Phew! It's tiring just reading all of that.

Of course, the SSPX also do a Chartres Pilgrimage although, to avoid confusion, they walk from Chartes to Paris whereas the 'others' do it vice versa.

Each year, the SSPX hold a Mass outside Sacre Coeur in Paris at the end of the march.

And it has become the custom for some of them to infiltrate into the church itself and position themselves on the tower ao that, at the moment of Consecration, they may let loose the flags of The Sacred Heart.

This, of course, is frowned upon by the church authorities and all sorts of searches and frisking takes place to ensure that such high spirited piety takes place.

I am pleased to say that, most years, the authorities are foiled (or follied) by the sheer ingenuity of the pilgrims.

A few years ago three or four of the group who happened to be Japanese, wrapped the flags around their bodies and then, laden with cameras, they approached the tower.

They were waved in as being typical Japanese tourists only for the banners to be revealed at the Consecration. Bravo!

A Pilgrim's Prayer

 Virgin Mary, Help of Christians, we dedicate ourselves to your service. We concentrate our minds, hearts, and bodies and promise to work always for the glory of God and the salvation of man. Protect the young and help the aged, save sinners and console the dying. You are our hope, Mary, Mother of Mercy and Gate of Heaven. Pray to your Son for us so that we may be filled with selfless charity and deep faith. Ask Jesus for those things which we cannot obtain through our own actions and help us in this our present necessity. May we always see the Will of the Father of our lives. We ask you this, sweet Spouse of the Spirit, so that we may come to your Son in grace.

Amen

The atheist on the plane

I have to thank one of my nieces (JJWI) for this piece...I rather like it.



An atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned 
to her and said, "Do you want to talk? 

Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger."

The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total
stranger, "What would you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know," said the atheist. "How about why there is no God,
or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?" as he smiled smugly.

"Okay," she said. "Those could be interesting topics but let me ask
you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same
stuff - grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns
out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?"

The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl's intelligence,
thinks about it and says, "Hmmm, I have no idea." To which
the little girl replies, "Do you really feel qualified to discuss
God, Heaven and Hell, or life after death, when you don't know s**t?"

And then she went back to reading her book.

Breaking news: A statistical analysis of the decline of the Catholic Faith in England and Wales

The Latin Mass Society has drawn together a priceless series of statistics that show the full extent of the post Vatican II 'nosedive'.

They have issued a press release today and I also have added a number of links with full approval of the LMS.

I have not had a chance to absorb all the information so comment will not be forthcoming other than to say, this was a much needed piece of research:-

17 May 2013

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE LATIN MASS SOCIETY

For immediate release

Newly released statistics show the decline of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in 1960s and 1970s.

Research by Latin Mass Society has demonstrated the striking decline of a range of statistical indications of the health of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s.

To our knowledge this data has never been made available in collated form before: the number of ordinations year by year since 1860, the number of priests since 1890, and baptisms, marriages, and receptions, and estimates of the Catholic population, since 1913.

Among the findings are:

Marriages: The number of marriages collapsed by a third between 1968 and 1978 (from 47,417 to 31,534), and has continued a rapid decline since then, now standing at less than 10,000 a year, a quarter of the 1968 level in absolute terms, and even less in relation to the estimated Catholic population (from 12 per thousand in 1968) to 2½ per thousand in 2010).

Conversions fell off a cliff in the 1960s. From a peak of 15,794 in 1959, it fell to 5,117 in 1972; in relation the Catholic population, it fell by more than 70% between those two years. It has not recovered.

Baptisms halved between 1964 and 1977 (137,673 in 1964 to 68,351 in 1977), and are even lower today (oscillating around the 60,000 mark). This is not just the effect of the end of the ‘baby boom’: considered in relation to total live births for England and Wales (using data from the Office for National Statistics), the first half of the 20^th century saw steady growth, with Catholic baptisms peaking at nearly 16% of all live births in 1963. This was followed by a decline of a third between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. A more gentle decline has continued to the present: today fewer than 10% of babies born alive in England and Wales are being baptised in the Catholic Church. 

Ordinations fell by more than 56% between 1965 and 1977 (from 233 to 101), and the decline has continued. Even on the more optimistic figures supplied by the National Office of Vocations (compared to the Catholic Directory) for the current year, showing an increase on recent years, numbers are at scarcely 30% of their 1964 level. (Counting only ordinations to the diocesan clergy, there were 134 in 1964; the NOV predicts 41 this year.) 

http://www.lms.org.uk/ 

Downloadable spreadsheet HERE

JPEGS of graphs HERE

Please ackowledge LMS 

A strange custom

Should you be providentially fortunate enough to find yourself at the Shrine of Our Lady in Fatima, what would you do?

Pray certainly.

And next? Light a candle perhaps?

Well they don't so much light candles at Fatima as incinerate them. Special shelters are arrayed where flames burn from below and the Faithful, having duly purchased their candles, then, throw them onto the fire.



Lighting a candle in Fatima can be a risky business!

At  first glance this appeared somewhat paganistic to me. I am used to lighting a candle, placing it carefully on a rack and then offering up a few prayers.

Having discussed this with several people the view was aired that the candle burning was done as a means of replicating the vision of Hell seen by Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco.

That certainly adds some rationality to the custom but I am still left with a feeling that this is a somewhat bizarre practice.

Admittedly, there are racks where, in a quiet period, you may light a candle and display it in the normal fashion. But the heat from below soon contorts the wax into grotesque shapes.

Perhaps, in time, the Shrine authorities will extend the area more along the lines of Lourdes so that a lit candle may remain for a period, giving witness to the prayers and requests of the one who lit it.
 

Fatima and the Act of Consecration

On the anniversary of Fatima last Monday, 13th May, the consecration of the papacy of Pope Francis to the Immaculate Heart of Mary took place in the Sanctuary, in front of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.

Here are the words of consecration:-

Most Holy Virgin

1.    We, the Bishops of Portugal and this multitude of pilgrims, are at Your feet in this Cova da Iria, on this 96^th anniversary of Your first apparition to the Little Shepherds, in order to fulfill the desire of Pope Francis, clearly expressed, to consecrate to You, Virgin of Fatima, his Ministry of Bishop of Roma and Universal Pastor. Thus, we consecrate to You, Our Lady, You Who are the Mother of the Church, the Ministry of the new Pope; please fill his heart with the tenderness of God, which like no one else You Yourself experienced, so that he may embrace all men and women of our time with the love of Your Son Jesus Christ. Today’s mankind needs to feel loved by God and by the Church. Only feeling loved she will overcome the temptation of violence, of materialism, of forgetting God, of losing the direction towards a new world, where love will reign Please grant Pope Francis the gift of discernment in order to be able to identify the ways to renew the Church; give him courage to follow, without hesitation, the ways suggested by the Holy Spirit; support him during the difficult hours of suffering; help him overcome, in charity, the trials he’ll encounter while renewing the Church.
Please always be at his side, whispering to his ear those words well known to You: “I am the Handmaid of the Lord; be it done onto Me according to Thy Word!”

2.    The ways of renewing the Church lead us to rediscovery of the timeliness of the Message You left with the Little Shepherds: the demand that we convert to God, Who has been so much offended, because we have forgotten Him.
 Conversion is always a return to the Love of God. God forgives because He loves us.
That is why His love is called mercy.
The Church, protected by Your maternal solicitude and guided by this Pastor, ought to stand up evermore as a place of conversion and pardon, because in her the truth is always expressed in charity.
You have pointed out prayer as the decisive way towards conversion.
Please teach the Church, of which You are a member and the model, to be, more and more, a people praying in union with the Holy Father -  the first of this people to pray – and also in union with the former Pope, His Holiness Benedict XVI, who chose the way of silent prayer, challenging the Church to embrace the ways of prayer.

3.    In Your Message to the Little Shepherds here at Cova da Iria, You highlighted the Ministry of the Pope, the “Bishop dressed in white”.

Three of the last Popes came as pilgrims to Your Shrine. Only You, Our Lady, in Your maternal love for the entire Church, can put into the heart of Pope Francis the desire to come to this Shrine as a pilgrim.

This is not something one can ask for other reasons; only the silent complicity between You and him will make him feel attracted to this pilgrimage, being certain that he will be in the company of millions of believers willing to hear once again Your Message.

Here, on this Altar of the world, he will be able to bless all mankind and make today’s world feel that God loves all the men and women of out time, that the Church also loves them and that You, Mother of the Redeemer, lead them with tenderness through the ways of Salvation.

 

+JOSÉ, Cardinal-Patriarch

President of the Bishops Conference of Portugal   



In the presence of a living saint

We have spent the last four days with a group of pilgrims at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.

It has been a profound and uplifting experience, not least because our group of 16 people was led by a venerable priest, Father Peter Lessiter.

Unable to move, Fr Lessiter celebrates the Mass with great humility and devotion

The pilgrimage itself was very demanding in terms of having a strict programme of devotions at various times and venues throughout the Shrine but, if I tell you that Father Lessiter, wheelchair bound,  was at the helm during those four days, despite being seventy nine years of age and in his forty ninth year as a priest, you will have some small concept of the very great demands that were made on this, the most humble of men.

And then, if I tell you that Fr Lessiter is basically paralysed due to various illnesses you will appreciate the tremendous effort he made in order to provide the rigour and integrity to the group and to give honour to Our Lady of Fatima and her Divine Son.

Retirement is a word not recognised by Fr Lessiter; God called him to the priesthood and there he will remain until such time that God will call him again.

Not for him the two bedroomed bungalow in the suburbs and the leisurely life style of the average retired parish priest.

Father L maintains a spiritual and mental programme of activity that would put a 25 year old to shame.

 

A much loved and respected priest

And when people thank him for his witness and guidance his stock reply is:

"Don't thank me, thank Almighty God, He's the one who is deserving of praise; I am just His servant"

It is hard to imagine the daily struggle of an aged man who has lost 80% of body movement.

But Father Lessiter bears it all without complaint or any reduction of his immense good humour.

Watching him celebrate the Latin Mass, virtually immobile but for slight movements of the hands, is a humbling experience.

Every slight action takes an enormous effort of will; just standing at the altar must sap his energy considerably.

Yet he continues, unremittingly in his drive to save souls.

During his lifetime he has brought the Sacraments to many thousands of Catholics living a 'recusant' like existence prior to 2007.

He has also been on constant call, night and day to take the Sacrament of Extreme Unction to those in danger of death - anywhere in England and Wales.

And, most especially, he has been on call to minister the Last Rites to brother priests, many of whom, have turned to the traditional Faith on their deathbed.

It may take more than a hundred years for Fr Lessiter to receive the recognition he deserves but, I am confident that the day will come when he is canonised by Holy Mother Church.

Please remember him in your prayers, he has a gruelling and mentally draining period ahead of him and a difficult return journey to make.

Coincidentally, you may like to read Fr Ray Blake's post that touches on the subjects of retirement and evangelisation, you may read it HERE

Fatima, May 13th - all Catholic life is here!

Just less than two hours ago, the 96th Anniversary Mass of the appearance of Our Lady to three young peasant children, drew to a close.

The peace of Fatima

I do not know how many thousand or hundreds of thousands filled The Sanctuary at the site where the original holm oak grew that formed the platform for Our Lady to alight upon, but it was many.

The came by road, sea and air and many walked from their villages in the North of Portugal.

The world of the Faith was present; the devout and the brash, the clinically obese and the anorexically thin, the tattooed and the unblemished, those who showed reverence and those on their mobile phones, the rich and the poor; clowns and academics, they all gathered in Fatima today to bear witness to the apparitions of Our Lady that began in 1917 (just as Portugal was on the brink of falling into Communist ideology).

There were even one or two orthodox Catholics present.

It began with the Rosary at 10am moving on to a sung new order Missa de Angelis (but still pretty reverent apart from the periodic hand clapping).

At some stage, the act of consecration of the Papacy of Pope Francis to the Immaculate Heart of Mary took place, but we were on the fringe of the crowd some 800 plus metres away and it was difficult to follow proceedings.
 And little could be seen of the Mass, or understood as it was all in Portuguese.

The various Portuguese brands of police and gendarmes strutted their stuff and there was a plentiful force of paramedics on hand to offer succour to those who succumbed to heatstroke, or worse.

At 11.30am. just before the Sanctus, the sky above the Basilica was filled with glinting stars, much to the excitement of the crowd (and me).

For five minutes these 'angel's wings' hovered over the Sanctuary until it became clear that they were silver paper shapes, dropped at some invisible height by a helicopter.

My bloggers scoop of the year vanished as fast as the paper shapes.

Not a dancing sun but a 13th May 2013 Fatima sun

And now, after a swift lunch, we return to the Shrine shortly to lay flowers at the feet of Our Mother.

To be followed, in the mid afternoon heat, by a spot of Egyptian PT, Deo volente.