Friday 20 January 2012

One a day...the best of the week's blogs




1. How many times has someone said to me: "I love God but I just can't agree with the Pope" to which I normally lose my cool and offer a string of expletives, so silly is this statement.
David Gray gives a more adult and reasoned account why this is a silly thing to say and believe and he backs it up with intelligible, comprehensible facts. Read it HERE

2. I really would like to Riverdance my way to a Catholic Heaven.....thanks Stuart of eChurch, for managing to combine the ethereal (post on the Sixteen singing the Misere) to the more earthly. Marge Simpson finally finding out about the one true faith, all within the space of three posts - brilliant! Read it HERE

3. May a child with Down's Syndrome receive Holy Communion? A thorny issue that Caroline Farrow has tackled with sensitivity. I am minded of that wonderful priest of English origin and who lived in France (bad memory for names). He had a young man who suffered from DS as his sacristan and server. I am sure he would have received the sacraments also.
 Read Caroline's post HERE.
For what it's worth, I believe that the church should err on the side of permitting the child to receive (forget about instruction if he cannot comprehend it). Any person suffering from a mental disability and, presumably, not having a balance of reason, must be innocent of any sin. What say you?

4.  I am from time to time, a mite critical of the LMS. I want them to succeed in what they do, it's just so frustrating when they don't get things right (on the odd occasion). The Diocesan blogs of the LMS are not overly inspiring with the exception of the Arundel and Brighton one. It's run by Annie whom I  met at the inaugral Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma meeting and Annie is not afraid to broach and tackle some sensitive subjects that, all too often, tend to be shied away from. So HERE is a sample post from her.

5. Apparently, if you want one word that will fill your com box up you have to look no further than 'Mantilla'. It is a subject that will not go away. Some love it, others hate it and those in between like the idea of it but are too wimpish to wear one at an OF Mass. Shame! But what right have I, a mere male, in posting on this subject? Read about it in a post from the Community of Catholic Bloggers blog - HERE

6. And from Rorate Caeli a little piece on traditionalism...we are all traditionalists really, it's just that some got a bit lost en route. Read HERE
And thanks to Ioannes Patricius for bringing this post to my attention.

                                               THE END

But why only six? Is it the old adding up problem again?

No. It's just that this week I spent two days in a rather different world, far from reality and the harshness of life.

No-oo, not on a retreat, I just crept out of retirement for a bit to do a touch of consultancy in the city of dreaming spires, brown sherry and hog whimperingly drunk undergraduates - Oxford, no less!

So that's why there are only five top posts from top blogs this week.
 I told you my maths is bad!

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for your very kind comments :) Unfortunately, I've not had the pleasure of meeting you yet, I think you might have mixed me up with another Annie?

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  2. Sorry Annie (sorry both Annies) - crossed wires again.
    Hope our paths do cross sometime and thank you for your blog.

    Richard

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  3. I have never thought before of what would happen in a situation where a child has Down's Syndrome. I would just assume that they could receive the sacrament because, as you said, if they are not capable of reason then they are certainly free from mortal sin.

    Can people who lose their faculty of reason as they age still receive the Eucharist? If someone develops a mental disability can they still continue to receive? Or do we just cut them off?

    What of those who receive Communion as babies? Don't they do this in the Ukranian Catholic Churches? Or is it another I am thinking of?

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