Dystopia and the destruction of language

I watched the film of Ray Bradbury's 1953 "Fahrenheit 451" a classic from 1966, in it firemen rather than putting out fires, start them, they burn books, in an attempt to introduce equality within "modern" society. Thought and ideas are considered dangerous, the state does everything it can to remove it. It is part of the genre of dystopia books and films, most written in the light of the rise and fall of twentieth century dictators.

At their heart is the redefinition or subjugation of language, actually making language meaningless, it is a "Babel effect", in most of those novels it tends to reduce communication to the superficial and leads to a dis-ease within society that is "cured" by drugs, sex, violence and superficial entertainment. The message of most of these novels that the centre cannot hold, mainly because communication breaks down, words no longer serve a purpose in expressing thought.

It is the manipulation of language, the control of thought that these novelists find most worrying.

Mr Cameron's redefinition of marriage seems to fit into this mould. I asked when he first announced his cunning plan what term we are going to use to define the loving, lifelong, exclusive relationship between members of the opposite sex, in which they hope to procreate and raise children. We need a new term, now "marriage" is to be redefined as a "loving commitment between two people" irrespective of gender, irrespective of place of children. We need a new term because "marriage" now will longer define what the majority of human beings aspire to.

Mr Cameron is robbing our lexicon of a word that expresses something so fundamental to society and human nature that we will have to find a new word that expresses what "marriage" had previously meant.

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Diversity in Unity and the Extraordinary

Diversity, or at least diversity in unity, seems to be a problem for Catholics of a certain generation, I don't think it is just writers of the Tablet who want paint everything in the dullest of beige hues, it extends to most Catholics, we want to make the Church in our own image and likeness. Traddies want the Church of the 1950s and Liberals the Church of 1970s.

Both are golden calves, and both rather dishonest, both are betrayal of the present. The Church has always been diverse, the East has always had a different expression of the One faith of from that of the West. Even in the West we have always had different schools of theology, Thomism and Scotism are obvious examples, we have had different schools of sprituality, marked by different devotions and formed by different "Rites" of different religious orders and localities, before Trent these were even more marked and often quite spectacular and the local Gallican rites that lasted until the French revolution contained various odd peculiarities. Such differences formed a strong local Church that was obviously part of the Catholic Church.
The danger today is that the theology of the local Church can so easily develop its own momentum, as we see in Ireland and Austria.

Christianity, Catholicism, depends on legitimate tensions, unity in diversity; in the past these tensions depended for a large part on religious orders; yet their own numbers and distinct charisms have diminished greatly since the Vatican Council. The parish was always supposed to provide the bread and butter of religious life, religious communities added something extra, specialising in particular works  and ministries, as diverse as caring for lepers or teaching in universities, giving retreats or missions or evangelising nations.

 Today the "new movements" offer what the religious orders previously offered. Under Bishops like Dominique Rey in Frejus Toulon were such groups have been welcomed the Church has flourished the Church grows. Indeed where there is legitimate diversity the Church seems healthy. In England we seem quite suspicious of such "new movements", and to those who are members of the them there seems to be an impression that those in authority seem to want to suppress or drag them into ordinary diocesan life. Rome, or at least the Pope, wants to encourage them, the whole point of establishing the Roman Rite under two forms is part of this, so too the founding of the Ordinariate.

These are not for everyone but they exist for a particular function within the Church, not just serving the needs "of those that like or want that sort of thing".  They have a prophetic role,  to challenge the blandness of ordinary parish life, to force us to be open to the extraodinary, to expand our sense of what is truly Catholic. The absence of this diversity, invariably means an absence of self-evaluation and criticism and a self-perpetuation of magic-circalism.

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Fr Aidan Nichols OP: Future of the Church in England

This Thursday at 7.30pm we have the pleasure to welcome Fr Aidan Nichols the speak on "The Future of the Church in England".
He had first lectureship of Catholic theology at Oxford University since the Reformation, He has written on the theology and thought of Aquinas, Balthasar, Benedict XVI, Chesterton, and increasingly on Catholic culture. In books like The Realm and Christendom Awake he has turned his thoughts to impact of Christianity today, and its future in this country.

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The Spirit of Holines

If we want to know about the Holy Spirit St Luke gives us a clue . he tells us the Apostles gather for prayer with Mary.
So scripture directs us to her, "the Spirit's Spouse", she who conceived the God-Man in her womb by being overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. All she did, all she was, was under the shadow of the Holy Spirit, from her Immaculate Conception to her Glorious Assumption, and all in between, her suckling, her mothering of Jesus, her showing him forth to the shepherd and Magi, her hiding him in Egypt, her finding him in the Temple, her following him in his mission, her faithfulness at the Cross, where her own heart is pierced by a sword. She is as Pope John Paul reminds us is the first and foremost, the most faithful of her sons disciples. She indeed is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, a vine, a tree, bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit in all fullness.
In Luke's first volume, the Gospel, she has a key role; in John's Gospel at her urging the water of the Old Testament is turned into the glorious new wine of the New and Eternal Covenant. Therefore in Luke's second volume the Acts of Apostles, her presence at Pentecost is no accident. The first volume deals with Jesus being "sent" the second volume with the Apostles being "sent".

In Mary we see exactly what the Holy Spirit is about, it is about Holiness.

Besides Mary we see in the Saints the work of the Holy Spirit, no wonder the most ancient and until recently the most widely used of the Eucharistic Prayers, indeed in most places the only one, the Roman Canon lists twenty four saints by name. In their lives and deaths we see the action of the Holy Spirit, his presence in the Church. In their lives we see the the sevenfold fruit of the Holy Spirit which is simple "Holiness" closeness
to God and their lives we see the multi-various gifts of the same Spirit in their wondrous ability to reveal him in so many ways; in fidelity in facing horrific deaths, in the love of the poor and the outcast, in missionary zeal, in desiring simplicity, in service of the Church, in acts of mercy.
Like the divided tongues of divine fire the Saints are sent into world, so that the whole world might hear in the own language, in their own age, in their own culture the Glorious words of the Gospel of Christ but more than that, so in that in the lives of the Holy Ones they might actually see the face of Christ.
We have received the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Sanctity to enable us the fulfil our own mission: to be Saints!

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Mgr Keith Newton on the Future of Ecumenism

Here is the video of Mgr Keith Newton of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham's talk here last Thursday.

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St Philip's Day

I took most of today off and went to town.
The Brighton train arrives at Victoria so I nipped along to Westminster to grin and say a prayer for the Reverend John Hunwicke as he made his way into the Cathedral to be ordained deacon, that filled me joy. It is very bad form but having seen him in, I then went on to the Oratory, for some business with St Philip on his feast day. I have a couple of intentions that are peculiarly Philippine, really to entrust a couple of his sons to his care.
There was the added bonus of the feast day Mass being celebrated by Cardinal Burke; lovely music, though the acoustic on the sanctuary isn't the best.
I was rather pleased that Mass was in the Ordinary Form which was interesting to see it celebrated by "the" interpreter of legislative texts in the Church, second only to the Pontiff himself. It was the usual Oratory Mass but with an assistant priest and deacons at the throne, except we went down to welcome the Cardinal liturgically at the door. The Cardinal and the very pleasnt secretary from the Nunciature, prepresenting Archbishop Mennini, seemed delighted by everything - it was very good not to have bidding prayers, so problem with Aves there.
I know this is a bit of an irreverent thought but I couldn't help thinking if it was the EF we could have had an extra yard or two on the cappa., but it was a splendid occasion. A long but brilliant sermon, two thirds of which was about Pentecost, yet it moved very naturally to St Philip who with his burning heart is a natural preface to Pentecost.
The way in which St Philip heralded the Counter-Reformation was like a new Pentecost; old corrupt Rome of the Borgias and Rovero, Papa Terribili, melts with Neri's thundering enlarged heart.

My best wishes to gracious welcoming Fathers of the London Oratory, as well Birmingham and Oxford and all St Philip's sons.

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Vati-Leaks

Leaking systems seem to be part of Church life, reporting what Father said, even if it is totally distorted and out of context, or even in context but not weighed against a hundred other things he has also said, well, it is unpleasant, but it is life.
With any small group of people there is jockeying for position and intigue, it even happened amongst the disciples. Unfortunately it is the type of thing that puts off of Church life. I know priests who are the object of this and just opt out, or worst opt into something, in the past it used to be drink or golf, I am not quite sure what it is now, something to do with the net, maybe, or else the nice young priest becomes an obdurate dictators.

Some interesting stories have been coming from Rome about Vatican leaks, mainly to discredit the Secretary of State, shorthand presumably for weakening the Pope. What I found "intriguing" is that even Gregorian chant is bound up in the intrigue; the Secretariate of State versus the CDF, the Pope's man versus the Pope's principles.
The sad thing is that everyone involved in Church politicking most probably has very good reasons and might even be saintly but it is immensely damaging both to the Mission of the Church and to individuals. It is bad enough battling the forces of darkness outside the Church but it is the one's inside that takr up most energy.

Having said that, which taps has the super-dry Cardinal Sodano control of?

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