Poison - on the internet

I am one of those who believes that the internet has a greater good value than bad.

Possibly a strange comment to make when one observes the tidal wave (not tsunami) of filth and depravity that is spawned by the world wide web.

But the internet has given me (at least) contact with a parish that has no boundaries, that contains people who hold the same views as myself, and those people have opened up to me the hospitality that was once shown by Our Lord to sinners.

Forgiveness, love, compassion and companionship.

Pretty good, really.

But, yesterday, I received a series of messages from a priest whom I believed was a Facebook friend.

Alas, it was a scam.

The "priest" claimed he was on a special retreat in Canada. OK, that's believable.

But, in the course of many conversations he revealed that it was ultra cold in Canada with temperatures minus 5 degrees.

A small warning bell began to ring. I have never been to Canada but, I think that - 5 degrees is probably a tad on the warm side for January.

To cut a long story short he asked for money to aid an adopted Ugandan boy who was undergoing kidney surgery.

Bingo! The penny dropped.....but not completely.

This priest, I should add, is a well known and much loved traditional 'other Christ'.

I was almost sucked into the scam. I phoned him up at his UK base......and, heavens to Betsy, I spoke to him who was, supposedly, on retreat at a Canadian monastery.

End of story.

The priest has asked that I publicise this as much as possible.

He also asked me to 'put the fear of God' into the fraud by letting him know that Interpol was on the case.

I was pleased to do this but not before I had dangled a possible contribution of £5000 before his eyes.

That prospect excited him greatly.....and then I gave him the bad news!

You only see your mother once a year?

You mean no weekly visits?

No long distance communications?

And you ignore her requests when you do speak? 

Why do you neglect your own mother like that?

Don't you know that you are hurting her with your shallow way of life and your lack of love?

A weekly visit is not too much to ask, especially as she is not so far from you; and you could speak to her everyday as any decent son or daughter would.

That would please her. You know, do you not, that she loves you more than you can ever imagine?

And that her main wish is that you would return to her family and to her Son's embrace.

So don't be a 'Christmas Catholic' come back now in preparation for Advent that begins on Sunday 1st December.

Return to the Faith and please your mother

 

Are chickens the new sheep?

Old English Game bantam cockerel - a traditional breed

If Christ walked the earth once more, would he still use sheep as a metaphor for mankind or, would he now choose chickens as being more appropriate?

I notice that many Catholic bloggers, like myself, keep poultry.

It is a good occupation, the hens provide eggs, and manure, eat grubs and give a lot of joy to the young (and the old) when they hatch out a clutch of eggs.

My particular preference is for a breed called Old English Game, a rather sparky sort of bird that will have a go at anything.
They are about the size of a pigeon; if they were as big as a labrador you would need kevlar body armour and a taser gun (not a Taize gun) every time you went out to feed them.

I was most chuffed recently when my priest told me that, when he was younger, he, also kept what we old hands call 'OEG' bantams.

They do, however, cause me some considerable problems and, if it is not too much of a leap of imagination, I often regard them in the same light as the laity in the Church today.

The flock is one but they tend to split up into factions and, quite often, little spats arise.

They are hard to guide. You cannot herd them, they all like to claim independence.
When I go to lock them up for the night, safe from foxes, badgers, stoats and other wild beasties, they shoot off in every direction but the one I wish them to go in.

Some even disregard my shepherding and the safety of a pen and roost out in the trees.

This group I call the Econe flock.

Others try to be all things to all chickens and breed indiscriminately, laying their eggs out in the hedgerow where I can't find them but the fox and the magpies can.

They eat more of their fare share of corn and fight off others who try to peck at the same trough.

These I call the CINOs (Chickens in name only).

They are inconsiderate and snarky and I have unwholesome visions that involve me wringing their necks.

And occasionally, just occasionally, I find a few who are meek and obedient and appear grateful for all that I do for them.

I treasure these ones greatly.....but I can't for the life of me think of a suitable designation for them (?)

Just what sort of a Catholic are you?

Want to know if you are a traditional Catholic, a liberal or a reactionary, misguided omadhaun?

"Umm....maybe I'm in the omadhaun category"

Take this test that will tell you precisely where you stand in the Church.

Left, right or centre.

Please check through from 1 to 12 selecting one option from each numerical unit.

Each point is a question based on an action, preference or belief:-

 1a) Prefer to receive Holy Communion standing and in the hand
 1b. Receive Holy Communion kneeling by mouth
 1c) Sitting in a circle and passing the Body of Christ around

2a) Dislike electric candles

2b) Have an affection for felt banners in church

2c) New age incense and Buddha sticks are your thing

 3a) Mass with clown priests and fancy tricks turns you on
 3b) You inhale deeply when the thurible passes by

 3c) Dancing on the sanctuary holds a certain fascination for you

4a) Latin is the universal language of the Church
4b) Inclusive language in all things man sorry! person

4c) Any language is OK (as long as it’s not Latin)

5a) Reserve hair and nail clippings just in case you become a saint

5b) Believe that we all go to heaven (apart from Adolf Hitler and a few others)

5c) Want to come back to earth as a butterfly

6a) Like Mass in churches that are rectangular with stained glass

6b) Prefer Masses in round churches round like a distorted spaceship

6c) Adopt a ‘let’s do it here’ approach as to where you attend Mass

7a) ‘‘Shine, Jesus Shine"

7b) "Faith of Our Fathers"

7c) "I wish I was a Wriggly Worm"

8a) Pray quietly with joined hands

8b) Hold the ‘invisible beachball’

8c) Wiggle your hands in the air whilst ululating

9a) Read the missal version of the kiss of peace
9b) Go for the full on lips approach

9c) Give your neighbour in the pew a bear hug

10a) Debate on the concept of hypostatic union in the pub

10b) Have difficulty in naming the seven sacraments

10c) Don’t know what a sacrament is

11a) Read The Catholic Herald
11b) The Catholic Times
11c) Remove old copies of The Tablet for re-cycling

12a) Drink vanilla and peach tea
12b) Red wine or real ale

12c) Alcohol free lager shandy

Now, here is the analysis of your scores:

If you answered as follows (1b/2a/3b/4a/5a/6a/7b/8a/9a/10a/11c/12b)

Then, congratulations, you are a true blue, traditional a Catholic - an asset to any parish.

We recommend:

Keeping on the path you have selected, the following steps will help you:-

a) Break into Salve Regina at the top of your voice when in the bank or supermarket
b) Ask your priest if he will drop the Lakota Mass and replace it with a Latin one.
c) Knee in the groin any professional parish 'greeter' who meets you outside church

However, if you scored read as: (1a/2b/3c/4c/5b/6b/7a/8b/9c/10b/11a/12c)

You are definitely in the liberal category (hard luck). You probably also favour women priests, married clergy and believe that mortal sin died the death some few minutes before Vatican II sat for the first time.

We recommend:

a) Buy a copy of the Catechism and memorise it
b) Say the following line before you climb into bed each night: "Dogma is unchangeable, the Catholic Church is our authority" - repeat this several thousand times.
c) Take more exercise - try touching the floor with your knees regularly.

And, finally, if you scored as follows:- (1c/2c/3a/4b/5c/6c/7c/8c/9b/10c/11b/12c)

You are a misguided omadhaun and need to purify your system, start by drinking five gallons of holy water a day and then:

We recommend:

a) Attend regular colonic irrigation sessions, North Korean style
b) Burn all unCatholic possessions such as buddha place mats and photographs of your bishop.
c) Cancel your liturgical dance classes and take up plainchant

And, should you fall outside of all of those categories, then, sorry, but you are on the wrong bus.

We recommend:

a) A do it yourself lobotomy kit comprising one club hammer and a cold chisel

And, if you conduct point a) successfully, you will be relieved to know that there is no point b) or c).

What did you do in the Great Apostasy Daddy?

Well my child, I, um....I err.......prevaricated. That's it, I prevaricated!

In fact, I even got a medal for prevarication. You see when the changes began I decided that I should go along with all that was proposed, I was even one of the few who ripped out some beautiful old wooden communion rails in an undercover operation.

And then, after the first year or two I really got stuck in and stormed my parish church in an attempt to remove this bulky old marble altar. 

Along with a few other brave lads we managed to establish a foothold on the sanctuary where we placed this very plain wooden table affair in place of the old altar. 

Cor lummy, did we take some flak over that!

I think it's fair to say that when I was made up to lay reader, I felt that it was no more than my due and that really signalled our assault on the liturgy itself when we attacked Gregorian Chant and replaced it with some really crappy secular stuff........that showed 'em who was who.

I have to be honest and say that, at first, we had things easy, nothing could withstand our forces but then the civvy population began to catch on and then we had snipers and rockets coming at us from all directions. 

But we gave as good as we got and before long I was made up to special forces....yes, I became a Special Eucharistic Minister.

Of course, I couldn't tell you kids what was going on - all top secret stuff you understand? Me and your mother managed to keep all of that nasty hermeneutic of continuity stuff well away from you.

You've got a lot to thank my generation for; keeping schtum about the richness of the Latin Mass, making sure you never laid eyes on a catechism, keeping all the essential truths from you.

Blinding you to the fact that, without the true teachings of the Faith you could well end up in H**** (we don't use that word compris?).

I pride myself on being the main one in our household to forbid the 'sin' word. 

After the Great Apostasy I felt that we should be more tolerant so anything remotely resembling sin was banned and we began to put our lives back in order and living comfortably alongside Abortion, Contraception, IVF, Euthanasia, Homosexuality and all our other new allies.

It was me who told you that it was OK to miss Mass on Sundays and that, in no way was it a mortal sin to do so, or that, in all probability it would condemn you to hell that place. 

And you can also thank me for telling you that it was OK for you to shack up with your boyfriend and live as man and wife. After all, it's love really and that is what being a Catholic is all about. Love.

As long as you love things nothing else matters; there, that's my word on the matter, pass me my old magazine will you?......that's it, The Tablet, the best bit of propaganda we had in those dark days in the benches.

Teaching the great unwashed

It's difficult to know how to approach this subject; how to even refer to those Catholics who have either never known the doctrinal teachings of Holy Mother Church or those who have genuinely forgotten them.
My good friend Jason at Ascending Mount Carmel has a few interesting points to make on the subject.

This yawning gap of knowledge does need bridging and the Holy Father has instructed the troops to set about creating re-evangelisation programmes but, if this process is in the hands of the you know whos, don't expect anything too riveting, or immediate, or effective, or in line with Church teaching.

I have called them the great unwashed. I don't mean to be unkind; I could call them casual Catholics or CINOs or Modernists but "unwashed" says it all to me.

They are in need of help to get them back on the path to salvation, to retrieve them from the wilderness of the past 50 years, to clean them up so that their Faith sparkles as it should.

I have touched on this subject before and received many kind, positive comments, mainly by email.

I cannot help but believe that those Catholics who blog have a role to play in the re-evangelisation process - the trouble is, we are addressing a section of the community who know nothing of blogging and its global network.

How do we reach out?

One way is to produce a newsletter at regular intervals either carrying basic and brief items of current Catholic affairs or, indeed, carrying snippets from the Catholic blogging world.
This newsletter would then be made available online and those who have an interest in doing so would print it off and leave it at the back of their parish church (after first checking with their PP).

One commentator, whom I shall refer to as 'MC' as I do not know if he wishes his name to be revealed sent me the following message:

1. The way I see it is that 'the message' needs to go beyond those that read Catholic blogs. It seems to me that those who need to hear the message very rarely hear it.

2. There is a need for an antidote to The Tablet. We already have one it is called the Catholic Herald but once again the people who need to read it do not seem to be the ones that ever read it.

3. Who is the target audience?

• Those who are generally un-catechised.
• Those who love Catholicism but are embarrassed (due to the present climate) to go that step further i.e. the lady whom I mentioned who said that she was too embarrassed to ask for Holy water because she felt the priest would look at her as if she had gone mad. We need these people to be more confident and start talking openly about all aspects of Catholicism. We can encourage these people to be open about Catholicism once again. No more closet Catholics.
  
• Those 'fringe liberals' who can still be 'saved' if they had it properly explained to them why the rules of the Church are actually present.

4. A free monthly/bi-monthly one sided news letter would at least have some impact because:

• Catholics always pick up anything that is free (sad but true).
• If it is short then the chances are at least one article will be read - Long diatribes must be avoided.
• Copies could be distributed in the editors own Church (and further a field if they could afford to print more).

5. What is imperative?

• The headlines and the article must be pithy and get over the points of view within 2 sentences.

6. We need a network of enthusiastic Catholics who want to get the word out there.

• It seems to me that we already have a network of enthusiastic people, they are called bloggers and many have the same goals. Of course, not all will be interested but that does not mean that bloggers can not be approached. I am quite happy to contact bloggers up and down the country to drum up support. Even if we only get 10 to start with then this is still a start.

MC makes other points but these are the ones I would like to address first.

MC believes that this might be a series of individual efforts whereas, I think a corporate approach might be best. Say, 6 bloggers who produce a monthly item that is then incorporated into the overall newsletter and then carried as a post by X number of bloggers who then proceed to print it off and distribute.

MC has done some good groundwork here and produced a facsimile draft newsletter - I will post this shortly, meanwhile, please donate thoughts and comments and please remember, this is just one step.....others could follow - always eat the elephant slice by slice (old Pembrokeshire saying).

10 steps towards re-evangelisation

Later this year, on October 11th to be precise, Pope Benedict's planned 'New Evangelisation' programme begins and it is scheduled to finish on November 24th 2013. Here is how Catholic Online describes it:

"Many Catholics do not know what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Others practice a "cafeteria Catholicism"- choosing what parts of the faith they will follow.
Some profess the Creed but confine its influence only to participation in the Liturgy on Sunday. This has led to what the fathers of the Second Vatican Council warned of - the "greatest error of our age, the separation between faith and life."

The rejection of the existence of objective truth has unleashed what has been referred to by Pope Benedict XVI as a "Dictatorship of Relativism".  The contemporary culture has embraced a "new" paganism; which is just the old paganism dressed up in the sophistry of an age that purports to be "enlightened" when it is bound in the ignorance and darkness which accompanies the rejection of God.

So this missionary Pope has announced a "Year of Faith". It will run from October 11, 2012, until November 24, 2013, when the universal church celebrates the Solemnity of Christ the King.

He told the faithful, "It will be a moment of grace and commitment to a more complete conversion to God, to strengthen our faith in Him and proclaim Him with joy to the people of our time"

Whether we deem it a New Evangelisation or a Re-evangelisation is immaterial, the fact is, it is aimed at those Catholics who, like Mae West, started out snow white - "but drifted".

They drifted in precisely the same manner as the man who neglected to look at his face in the mirror; after a year or two he forgets just what sort of a person he is.
His hair is longer and unkempt, his face a little unshaven and not washed too thoroughly; his tie is awry and his shirt could do with a decent laundering.



Over a period of one year his face had
changed somehow

 In short, he is now a CINO (Catholic in name only).

He believes that his conscience is the arbiter of any questions regarding moral codes, he has never attended a Latin Mass and thinks it backward and the congregation odd (he may have a point there).

He is vaguely aware of liturgies that used to be celebrated back in the Dark Ages of the 1950s; Benediction, 40 Hours Exposition, Stations of the Cross.
But he shudders when anyone mentions them believing that too much reverence and incense leads to a peasant mentality and, very likely, a desire to genuflect when entering the pew or, Heaven forfend, kneeling to receive Holy Communion.

This poor wretch likes nothing more than to entertain his parish priest whom he calls, Reg.
He belongs to a masonic lodge, eats meat on Fridays, last went to Confession oops! Sacrament of Reconciliation in 1998 and has made provision in his will to be cremated and his ashes scattered over Wentworth Golf Club.

It is this man that the Holy Father has his eye on.

And here, for what it is worth, is my ten step guide to getting Crispin (sorry, I didn't mention his name earlier) back on track:

1. All secular priests to be instructed to conform to the clerical dress code (black and white only) and to re-establish the social protocols so that Crispin's PP (Reg) becomes, at the very least, Father Reg.

2. All parish catechists and council members to attend briefing sessions that set out the parameters of the programme (return to reverence etc)

3. All electric candles to be banned from churches and churches to be open from 8am to 8pm

4. The Latin Mass to be established (over a two year period) so that at least one Mass on a Sunday or Holiday of Obligation is an EF Mass

5. Communion rails to be reintroduced

6. Altars and sanctuaries to be re-designed to accommodate the EF Mass facing East

7. All parishes to be issued with a facts sheet telling them the basics of Catholic beliefs eg abortion, IVF, Euthanasia, Homosexuality, Intimate relationships outside of Marriage etc are absolutely wrong. Also to carry  a ready guide to Catholic behaviour (no speaking in church, no hugging and kissing in church, no hand clapping when it's Father Reg's birthday and so on.

8. All guitars, tambourines and Andean epiglottal wind instruments to be banned and plainchant made more readily available.

9. Every parish, within the two year period of grace, must acquire appropriate sets of proper vestments and ensure that all ciboria and chalices are as required by Canon Law ie no pottery or glass to be used.

10. Seminary admissions policies to be reviewed and re-structured so that a panel interviews prospective candidates. Four panel members with three being priests who celebrate the Latin Mass or religious from a traditional order.

Good job!

What to do about the masses?

No, not the Masses, the masses. The millions of Catholics who never watch EWTN, read a Catholic publication, belong to a religious group and who mistakenly believe that blogging is something rather distasteful and dirty.

They know nothing of Summorum Pontificum, of Catholics being murdered in Pakistan and massacred in Iraq, to them Rick Santorum sounds like an instruction in Latin, in red, of course!

To them, IVF is a great and wonderful scientific advance and abortion is not nice but, when push comes to sweeping things under the carpet, it's OK.

They probably could not name more than two bishops of their country and, there are great lumps of Catholic knowledge that they have forgotten.
Like........

A destination for many Catholics

....they have forgotten that there is a dress code for Mass, that chattering loudly before and after is totally wrong, that there is a need to abstain on Fridays, go to Confession and Holy Communion during Lent, to be in a state of grace before going to Holy Communion, to kneel to receive the Body of Christ.....and they are not to blame for all of this.

No matter who is to blame, that is not what this post is about, it's about re-evangelisation......about informing, educating and guiding those who are lost and do not know it.

I do not mean, in any way, that these souls are inferior, necessarily than any other group of Catholics but two things of major importance struck me at the Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma meeting last Saturday.

The first was that we  some Catholic bloggers are erudite in the extreme; that was more than obvious at the meeting. Their posts reflect their knowledge and their gift of communication but, much of what they write would go way above the heads of the group that I am focusing on, the average Catholic man or woman on the London bus or Manchester tram.

There is a need to find a means of communicating, without condescension and without patronising them, that gets the message of change, renewal and reform a la Benedict, across to them so that they begin to appreciate that it is forty plus years since they looked in a mirror.

The sector that I speak of are not the straightforward working class Catholics so much as the liberal Middle Class; they are the ones who have moved to Anglican mode and pick and choose their moral code according to their whim of the day.

Gregg, at A Brief Encounter has a good and informative post about Lent.

It is brief and simplistic but it flags up the main points that are not widely known, certainly by non Catholics and, uncertainly, by Catholics en masse.

With a marketing hat on I would say that posts and articles aimed at this section of the faithful need to be written in a language style that they comprehend, and it must still hold the attention. That does sound patronising does it not? But it's basic communication savvy.

Our Lord did not mention the Hypostatic Union when he was on earth but he did speak in the parable format that his audience knew and understood.
He, of course, was the ultimate communicator.

Now, not many editors will be tripping over themselves to "dumb down" the intellectual style of their magazine or newspaper but Catholic bloggers could do so very easily.
Not in every post, perhaps just once a week or fortnight there could be an inspirational post that would have both mass appeal and Mass appeal.

Providentially, I have never suffered with overtly intellectual overtones!

There's a frog in my bucket!

La grenouille est morte!

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen used to tell this tale and, whilst it is very well known in the world of Catholic bloggers, I felt it was worth a re-run.

The Archbishop used this little  parable to illustrate, very graphically, how those in the modern Church have drifted off into oblivion, forgetting the vital facts about the Church's teachings on faith and morals because they have absorbed the deadly warmth of a secular, material society.

It is a simple story and, from memory, I will relate it as the great man once did:

"...you take a frog from its wild environment and you place it in a bucket of water where it swims around happily.


Then you slowly, very gradually, begin to heat the water.


Not by much, a degree or half a degree a day until quite some time later the day comes when you look in the bucket and the frog is dead.


It was not aware of any increase in temperature, so gradual was the increase.
And then, it died!"

So it is with our Faith. If we remove ourselves, for whatever reason, from the mainstream of the Church, and become distracted by earthly things, we don't notice the increase in temperature that occurs until, one day, it is too late for us and we are dead!"

This is the case with so many Catholics inasmuch that they attend Mass on a Sunday but totally disregard most teachings of the Church and all guidance of the Holy Father.

The temperature has risen and, to all intents and purposes, they are spiritually dead.

This might be a good starting point for the Bishops when they come to put into place Pope Benedict's call for an evangelisation programme in October this year.

Re-evangelisation should be Phase One!