Glory to God...

...in the highest...

and Christmas good wishes to my readers. Off to visit extended family in this holy season.

The Holy Father has spoken magnificently in his Christmas message: read here and, interestingly and supportively, here...

...and has been the subject of vile and vicious attacks by lobbyists for same-sex marriage, who badly need our prayers and love.

Pray for peace and goodwill for 2013.

Tradition and glorious music...

...at Westminster Cathedral, with the annual Carol Service. Magnificent. As the choir sang  "Away in a manger" and  "L'Adieu des bergers" I sat letting it all soak in...and my gaze went up into the great sky-like darkness of the rounded domes, and those huge cavernous galleries, vast and bleak above us on this winter's evening, contrasting with the glowing light and comfortably packed congregation below....I remembered that the Cathedral was built on the site of a prison in what was for many years a rather grim corner of Westminster, in an impoverished loop of the Thames out beyond the old horse-ferry.  Was suddenly visited by the thought of grim times to come, and facing possible imprisonment for the Faith. Dismissed the thought, but it wouldn't go away. Suppose we are told that  pronouncing some of the Church's basic moral teachings conflicts with socially-acceptable norms and is to be criminalised? How do such things start? Perhaps with some one being dismissed from his job for opposing ame-sex marriage? Something like that?

Afterwards, a cheery gathering over mulled wine and mince-pies in the Cathedral Hall, familiar to me from many a meeting and social gathering, and of course from the annual Towards Advent Festival. Lots and lots of people, lots of talk and noise, mulled wine being ladled out into good-sized vessels.

Afterwards, chat continued in the piazza, the big Papal flag and our country's Union Jack flapping lazily and damply in the December breeze as we exchanged Christmas greetings...

GOOD NEWS...

...a formal announcement today:

Archbishop Peter Smith has entrusted the pastoral care of the Precious Blood parish, Borough, to the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Monsignor Keith Newton, in agreement with Archbishop Peter, is appointing Father Christopher Pearson as Priest in Charge with effect from 7th January 2013.

This  is cause for great rejoicing!

The South London Ordinariate has been worshipping at Precious Blood Church for the past several months, with weekly Evensong and Mass in addition to the Sunday liturgy, and is is a great, great joy that this fine church, right near London Bridge in an historic corner of London, will now be in the care of the Ordinariate and with Father Christopher as Priest in Charge. A new chapter of London's long Christian story now begins as the Ordinariate - bringing the Anglican patrimony into full communion with Rome and the worldwide Church - tackles its mission in this place with joy and dedication.

DEO GRATIAS!

A well- deserved...

...honour for Dan Cooper, dedicated teacher and leader of youth, strong supporter of the FAITH Movement, and stalwart defender of the Catholic Church. He has been awarded the Bene Merenti medal, presented to him in the chapel of the John Fisher School Purley, the school that he has served with such dedication over many years.

I met Dan this morning at Mass at Westminster Cathedral...where, incidentally, he features in the forthcoming (January) edition of OREMUS, the Cathedral magazine, pictured at the Towards Advent Festival where he ran the FAITH stall...

The Cathedral is always full for Sunday Masses, but as Christmas approached it is even fuller. A long, long queue of people for confession - all the extra chairs that had been set out were filled,and there were  people patiently standing...somehow this is a rather special and touching sign of the great reality of Christmas...

...and courage from a Bishop...

...
"This, we recognise, is our moment, our unique time to stand up for what is right and true as previous generations have done before us: to give witness to the value and dignity of every human life, to the truth of marriage as the lasting union of man and woman, the foundation of the family!" 

Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury has issued an advance statement of the sermon he is to give in his Cathedral this coming Christmas night, from which the above is an extract.

Bishop Mark:  WE ARE ALL WITH YOU and will defend marriage: the lifelong  union of a man and a woman, the foundation of the family, in the year ahead , with full commitment, asking God for the courage and tenacity we need.

Wisdom from Pope and Rabbi...

...read here...

France will rally on Jan 13th to call for sanity and truth. Cardinal Vingt-Trois is joined by Jewish, Moslem, and non-religious leaders in calling for human dignity and the common good to be defended against the French govt's grim scheme to redefine marriage. The govt's supporters held a rally the other day which the media hyped up, but it seems likely that the defenders of matrimony will draw far higher numbers. But will the French govt listen? 

Here in Britain, the debate will heat up savagely in the early weeks of 2013. Keep up the campaign.

News...

...that Pope Paul VI has been named as "Venerable" the first step towards beatification and canonisation.

During the course of research for a new book, about Brigettine nuns who saved the lives of Jewish people during World War II,  Auntie was surprised to discover the quietly heroic work of young Monsignor Montini. He was the go-about man for the then Pope, Pius XII, in making secret arrangements for the hiding of Jewish people in convents and monasteries in Rome. This took courage: discovery could mean grisly consequences for all involved. The Nazis might have been squeamish about killing the Pope, given  the probable reaction in Italy and the world, but eliminating an obscure monsignor would not have brought them too many worries. Mgr Montini went in person to meet nuns and monks to make arrangements for the Jewish refugees - it wasn't something that could be done by letter or announced in a public broadcast.  It is an aspect of his life about which I would like to know more, because the story so far is interesting.

As Pope Paul VI, he continued in the tradition of his mentor Pius XII looking very formal and solemn in public - there are some pictures of him smiling, but not many (even fewer than poor Pius XII, who had very little to smile about during the years of WWII and its aftermath), which is a pity because apparently he was a man of good humour and was good company. One of his colleagues described him as "a Pope of joy" even when beset by troubles - and he had plenty of those in the tumultuous years of Vatican II and onwards. He gave us Humanae Vitae and the Credo of the People of God, for which he deserves our gratitude. The former is a clarion call of truth and will be hailed as such by history.  He agonised (I think the word is not too strong) over Communism and felt betrayed when having struggled to obtain concessions from the despots ruling Eastern Europe he found that they had no intention of keeping their word.(It took a magnificent  Polish Pope with a different aproach and a clear understanding of the reality of life in the Eastern bloc to change things, and the change was superb and dramatic and thrilling - but that's another story).

I became a fan of Paul VI after reading a vile attack on him by some  "traditionalist Catholics": it got me studying more about him and I found a good, holy priest whose love of God and the Church and human beings shone brightly, a Pope whose true story deserved telling. I am glad that this is now happening.

Tradition, tradition, tradition...

...Christmas is full of it. We gathered at a local residential home for the elderly. We sang carols. It was all delightful - and the singing was good as some of the group were members of the choir at St Elphege's in Wallington (the parish in which I grew up, and where I was married...). The residents and the staff and all of us, singing together with the Christmas tree glittering, and little golden lights around the Crib...and then a tray with Baileys and mince pies, before our little group set off to go from house to house along the road...

Wrapping up parcels here at home. Organising various family gatherings.

Off to Westminster Cathedral this afternoon to go to confession...amazingly, no queue...usually in Advent there is a long line of people waiting. Later, I went to evening Mass - this was in the Hall as the Cathedral was getting ready for a big carol service later. The Hall is a fine Edwardian building, and they erected an altar and did everything properly. The only odd thing was kneeling on the floor instead of having kneelers...numbers for Mass were good, despite people having to fight torrential rain as they scurried down Ambrosden Avenue...

Tomorrow I will be going to the funeral of Fr John Edwards SJ, a fine priest whose talks and conferences over the years helped so many of us...

Interesting news feature from Rome...Archbishop Muller says wise and good things ...

A rather emotional experience...

...going back to your old school to present prizes.

I have actually been back a good many times over the years, but it's still something very special...today I found myself in the beautiful school chapel, a place of many memories, and the girls were filing in, holding lighted candles, and the prizegiving began with a short carol service.

What can we tell them, the school-leavers of 2012, facing the world of the 21st century?  In so many ways, things among the pupils are much the same as in my schooldays, and in so many ways they aren't. Like them, my generation was obsessed with silly attempts to find secret places in which to smoke, and with complaints about the school uniform ( I remember girls making desperate attempts to turn up the hems of their skirts with Sellotape to make them into crucially-neccesary micro-miniskirts)...and yet we were proud to belong to St Philomena's, and so are today's Philomenians...

What was the most important message that I picked up at school? That there is a God, that we can know him and that he came to share in our human life and has a name and a face: Jesus Christ. And that St Philomena's School was connected with this great reality of God.

We are born for greatness. Life isn't about sex and shopping. We are here to know and love and serve God, who loved us first. And this love involves caring for other people , not putting ourselves first, and not being content with plastic slogans about "being all I can be" or "reaching for the stars" or other cliches of the current educational sloganisers.

Through a Catholic group, I was able to give  these school leavers copies  of the excellent YOUCAT, the Youth Catechism that Papa Benedict has produced for this generation. We didn't have anything like that, we didn't have World Youth Days or the grand example of John Paul, or the new style that he gave to the Church's message and ministry to youth.

I hope some of them read YOUCAT...oh, and I do hope that they listened when their head teacher told them that they will always be in the prayers of the school community, and that they were always welcome to come back if they wanted friendship or advice.  I hope that they find, as I have done, that it is a beautiful thing to have spent years in a happy school where the Faith really means something and where you learn values that are lasting...

WATCH...

...this video...

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor...

...has a superb message in today's press:

"In the run-up to the last election, David Cameron led us to believe that the strengthening of marriage as an institution was one of his important objectives; and the Conservative Party's manifesto, which made no mention of "gay marriage", included a proposed tax break for married couples. Nothing has been heard of the latter proposal, and instead of action to strengthen marriage we have the proposal to abandon the traditional understanding of marriage on the basis of a "consultation" which explicitly excluded the possibility of a negative result. Protestations that this is all fundamentally "conservative" ring a bit hollow. 

It is difficult not to wonder how far the Prime Minister is someone whose steadiness of purpose can be relied on" 

Just so.

"Dear Mr Cameron...

....I appreciate how politically difficult it can be to undertake a U-turn and to sustain the attendant criticism such would bring. But when it is a matter of the truth, and the reasons are cast-iron clear, a U-turn would be hailed by history only as brave and courageous. This is why, like a Thomas a Becket appealing to Henry II, I do not hesitate to ask you to consider doing what is the right and just thing to do"

Thus  Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth, writing to the Prime Minister, on the Government's grim and ghastly plans to redfine marriage, to cause social misery and to threaten religious freedom. You can read the whole letter here.

The feast of St Thomas a Becket comes up soon, in this Christmas season.

Think again, Cameron.

This will be...

...a rather solemn Christmas. Britain is at a tragic and ghastly stage in history. We are dying: fewer children are being born than is neccessary to keep us alive as a nation.  A large number are killed every week as babies in the womb. The government is planning a scheme to redefine marrriage, forcing all public officials to pretend that two men or two women can marry, with penalties for anyone who points out that this is nonsense. The planned law will also threaten religious freedom, with huge implications.

The Catholic Church in Britain is surprisingly strong, given the social climate in which it lives, and Mass attendance figures this Christmas will reflect that. But in general Christianity in our country is not thriving and people increasingly have a sense that they are not allowed to express their Christian faith openly at work  or even in any public place.

Large numbers of children will not spend Christmas with their natural parents. Large numbers of grandparents will not see their grandchildren this Christmas or at any other time during the coming year. Divorce, cohabitation, and the normalising of casual sexual encounters have combined to cause a range of social dislocations which have produced much human misery.

This will be a solemn Christmas.

Carol singing...

...brings enchanting moments. We - a  little troop of cheery Catholic ladies -  met at a tube station, and went from house to house in Chelsea. At one house, the whole family came to the door to listen, and the young mother told us with pride that the little boy had sung the solo "Once in Royal David's city" at his school carol service a  few days earlier. We asked if he might sing it for us. And, after a bit of shyness, he agreed, and  there, on the doorstep, he sang, his clear voice ringing out in perfect tune on to the night air...it was beautiful, enchanting...and as he finished that first verse, we took it up, and all of us together sang the next...

Oh, dear. Auntie finds that moments like that get her all gulpy.

It was a wonderful evening. We sang at house after house, and when we finally had to call a halt from sheer exhaustion, we found ourselves in the Kings Road, and headed for Sloane Square, where Peter Jones was having late-night shopping, with the coffee-shop on the top floor still open. Ideal for a troop of aunties...soon we were settled with coffee and wine and cakes, and once settled we opened up the collecting-jars and counted up the funds we'd raised...over £160, and it will go to St Patrick's Open House to feed the homeless and lonely...

On Cameron's idiotic scheme..

..to redfine marriage, and in doing so to foster a ghastly mess....read this useful comment

A London Sunday...

...starting with Mass in Soho, followed by coffee and pastries in the crypt. A good mix of people there, smart-young-London mixing with just-passing-through, and lonely-and-needing-company, plus, on this occasion, Auntie-from-the-suburbs.  Auntie then indeed took the Tube to the  suburbs, and from there to a delightful lunch given by a wonderful lady who, among other things, offers hope and a home to recovering drug addicts, makes pottery, and supports Mother Teresa's nuns...

Later, and in a power-cut, to visit an elderly relative in a warm welcoming  care-home run by wonderful nuns and a team of  wonderful staff. The road was in darkness as I approached, and it felt strange: we are so used to street-lights and to the glow of electric light from every house.  Inside, the Home was full of good cheer: I sat and chatted with the  elderly relative over sherry by candlelight, while Sister made telephone calls to the Electricity Board or whatever it's called, staff led a group of residents singing, and everyone rather enjoyed themselves. "A bit like the Blitz, isn't it?" said another visitor chattily, and indeed the spirit of unity and coping together was strong and delightful - I think we were all a little sorry when the lights came on again.

Home by bus. Reading this book, which I have wanted to read ever since coming across an attempt to pour scorn on it. It is a good read: honest, refreshing, informative. Recommended.

Do you enjoy Auntie's blog?

...If so, you might enjoy some of her other writings. Try this one, just published...

Rain-washed...

...in Whitstable. This enchanting little town on the Channel coast is famous for its oysters, and even in driving December rain its bright  little shops and pleasant streets made it a joy to visit. I hadn't been expecting this: making plans to visit Fr Stephen Langridge at the new Vocations Centre for the diocese of Southwark I kept muttering about the inconvenience and the hassle of going all the way out of London. I was wrong. It was no hassle - train from Victoria, settled with some coffee and some correspondence, and a straight run through to Kent. And the new Vocations Centre is a welcoming place, all bright and attractive thanks to team efforts by young volunteers and generous gifts from various Southwark parishioners, and Fr Stephen showed me around with enthusiasm and quiet pride. It's also a busy place: see programme for the next months/year on the link given.

Southwark diocese is doing quite well for vocations to the priesthood at present - part of a general upward trend - but of course the Church needs more and more priests, and also dedicated religious Brothers and Sisters... and the key is not "recruitment" but evangelisation and helping young people to hear God's call and follow his call in life's great adventure.

I very much enjoyed my day: the Channel was grey and rainswept, the town cheery. Some of the buildings have a faintly French style, as happens along that stretch of the coast. There's a row going on at the moment as rents in the High Street may be raised, thus squeezing out local tradesmen, and that would be a ghastly blight as there are lots of real  shops and it would be so dreary to have them replaces with the usual battery of starbuckstescocaffenero.

Fr Stephen is busy,  but took time to catch up on news and views over lunch. A happy day. Train back to Victoria, quick cup of tea at the station, and then I joined a grand team from St Joseph's Roehampton, who were gathering on the main concourse to sing carols. It was magnificent!  We do it every year - three hearty cheers to Yvonne who organises it all - and this year it was somehow even better than ever before.  We have some lovely Sisters with musical instruments to lead us, and we sing and sing - the sound fills the whole station, right across the whole concourse, and the choir is a cheery sight as some don bright Santa Claus hats (Yvonne again) and we have proper carol sheets, and we are formed up properly as a choir  (not a bleak little embarrased circle, or a spread-out straggly group, which minimises the sound).  People stop and thank us, donate money, join in the singing, take photographs. We started at 5pm, and at 6 o'clock during a split-second break between one carol and the next, Father said "It's six o'clock - how about the Angelus?" and we said it all aloud, then and there...possibly the first time that this great prayer has been prayed aloud on one of Britain's main railway stations. Then we started singing again, and finished on the dot of 7pm when our allotted time was up (you have a licence, and wear badges etc). Then I asked Father if he's give us all a blessing, which he did, precided by a beautiful prayer, and finishing with a hearty "Praised be Jesus Christ!" and then Yvonne offered coffee and bikkies and there was chat and Christmas greetings and we'll all definitely be back again next year. "It's a highlight of my Christmas!" said one lady, and I agree.

I somehow sensed, this year, that there was an extra strength and meaning to our singing - people seemed especially grateful, there was noticeable enthusiasm when we sang the carols that have a "Gloria in excelsis" chorus, or when we sang other old favourites such as "O come all ye faithful" and "Away in a manger"...

I am the conductor - much vigour and waving of arms - and at one stage, I urged everyone on with "Let's dedicate this next carol as a prayer to defend marriage, and pray for David Cameron!" and this got 100% support and much enthusiasm.

Best yet...

I am grateful to a couple of correspondents for pointing me to this feature which is the best thing I have yet read on the subject of the Govt's plans to redefine marriage.

Spent part of this week in wintry rural England...

...visiting an elderly relative in Somerset, trundling by bus through enchanting villages, staying overnight in Taunton...at Minehead I dropped in to the local Catholic church to check times for Christmas Masses. A good number of people there for a  weekday Mass, which was just finishing. The kind priest approached me after Mass, having seen that I had arrived late and missed it, and arranged for me to recieve Communion...it was extraordinarily moving to kneel there at the altar rail in the quiet church as he went to the Tabernacle and then led the prayers ending with the "Lord, I am not worthy...." Suddenly, overwhelmingly, I had a memory of my 1st Communion, years and years and years ago...

A day of family talk, some Christmas shopping and wrapping and labelling of gifts. Exmoor villages in December twilight, with glowing windows. A late, long journey back to London on a bus whizzing along the motorway in darkness. Sad thoughts about Britain...the tenacious nation now threatened with the tearing apart of its family and social bonds: latest statistics published this week show that half of households are not based on marriage, vast numbers of teenagers do not live with their parents, cohabitation increasingly regarded as the norm, cohabiting couples rarely stay together for life or even for half a lifetime. Christianity is still (just) the religion with which a (slim) majority of people identify, but there has been a steep and massive increase in people who affirm that they have no religious belief at all, and numbers of adherents to Islam growing swiftly and substantially.

Prayed, using the lovely prayers in Magnificat...

A traditional...

...and beautiful funeral Mass at Westminster Cathedral for Mrs Brigid Utley. Celebrated by Bishop John Sherrington with  a number of concelebrants including Canon Stuart Wilson of St Mary's, Cadogan Street, who preached. He recalled her at Fr Michael Hollings' parish in Baywater, helping with costumes for the Notting Hill Carnival, and later as a dedicated parishioner of the Cathedral where she was always seen at daily Mass. The Utleys are a family of writers and journalists...oh, and much more, read here, and here...  and the Cathedral was filled with friends.  Afterwards, over drinks and delicious food much talk....conversations ranging over the ghastliness of  Cameron's loopy same-sex marriage scheme with its all-too-easy-to-unpick "quadruple lock", and on to the general hopelessness of the Cameron project generally...

A presentation...

... of the retreats run by Grief to Grace, a new and neccessary psychological and spiritual programme for victims of sexual abuse.  This is very important. Pope Benedict has said that in tackling the whole question of sexual abuse, the Church's first concern must be for the victims. But we have ignored that: the first concern has been to apportion blame, or to debate how it could all have happened, or to talk about the implications for the Church, or....or...

Grief to Grace offers a real and practical response. I was impressed by Dr Theresa Burke, who gave a full presentation of the whole programme at the invitation of Fr Dominic Allain, who is organising the project in Britain.

There has  often been a somewhat panicky approach on the part of officials in the Church towards victims, with a rush to use expensive therapists who shun anything spiritual and whose approach is strongly verbal and emphasises a sense of continuation year on year.  There is a real need to look at the huge developments in psychology of recent decades...we should not remain in the 1950s/60s. Grief to Grace marks a turning-point in psychological approaches and is based on methods which have emerged over the past half-century.

We have great responsibilities here. Any reader who is aware of some one who needs help: go to the link given.

London...

..and a procession through the streets of theatreland and Soho, to mark the feast of the Immaculate Conception. This is an annual event, and starts with an International Mass at St Patrick's, Soho Square: this year it was concelebrated by young clergy led by an Ordinariate priest. I arrived a little bit late, and it was a joy to be drawn in to the glorious Latin chant and to find a place in the well-filled pews.  Young people read the Bidding Prayers in various languages, there was a sermon in English repeated in Spanish. At the end, four men lifted the statue of Our Lady aloft and we gradually formed up in front and behind and went out into the streets, singing. We scooped up handfuls of medals as we left the church, to distribute to passers-by: there were also small gifts-bags for the same purpose, each containing a Scripture verse, a medal, a small leaflet, and a sweet.

There are some touching encounters as we give out the medals, wishing people a Merry Christmas and saying "God bless you". Some people fumble as if for money and one has to say "No, no - this is just a gift!" Most say "thank you!" and are glad, some cross themselves. A few refuse, none rudely.One girl asked for prayers...

We complete the procession at the Church of Notre Dame de France, where we pray a decade of the Rosary and sing the Salve Regina...

Baptism..

...of the latest addition to the family. We all gathered at the church - it was a big gathering because there were not only grandparents and godparents and  uncles and aunts and so on but also a number of parishioners because the family are longstanding members of the local church... Enchanting new baby (number 4) , lovely lively brothers and sister all jumping about, a beautiful baptism  by a priest-great uncle and with a young uncle and aunt doing the Scripture readings. Mulled wine and mince pies and celebration in the adjoining hall, with hugs and news and gifts and a happy atmosphere.

Auntie suddenly found herself thinking: for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, down all the generations, on both sides of the family, every new child has been baptised, every baby's head recieving water and the words pof baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit". This child, and her siblings, are the first who are recieving this sacrament in a Britain where the majority of people are no longer baptised, and growing up in a Britain where the Christian faith which has written our history and through which our years are numbered, is no longer the central dominant reality in our culture.

Our family's faith and culture remains vibrant and was renewed again by this happy day, the young voices ringing out in affirmation of it in union with the older generation. The new baby and her siblings have been given the Faith one by one as they joined the family that had crossed the threshold of a new millenium. They will need lots of love and prayers in the bleak Britain in which they will be living it...

Bishop Egan...We are with you!

...in this excellent message to David Cameron.

Bishop Philip Egan says:

"If the prime minister proceeds with his intentions, he will pervert authentic family values, with catastrophic consequences for the well-being and behaviour of future generations. He will smother the traditional Christian ethos of our society and strangle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church in Britain to conduct its mission.

Of course, we will need to wait for the results of the current consultation-exercise. But in the meantime, I would like to ask Mr. Cameron:  What about my rights as a Christian? Will you exempt the Church,  its resources and property, from having to support your  harmful ideology?  Will Catholic schools, societies and institutions be free (and legally safeguarded) to teach the full truth of Christ and the real meaning of life and love?

The institution of marriage has its ups and downs, but will we ever forget that it was the leader of the Conservative Party who finally destroyed marriage as a lasting, loving and life-giving union between a man and a woman?"

Chatting to...

...young Catholics in their 20s/30s.  Enthusiastic, committed to their Faith. Active with pro-life groups, have been to World Youth Days, Youth 2000 etc. Talked about campaigning in the 1970s and 80s...they cannot really imagine a time when it was normal to have Parliament voting to ban the promotion of homosexual propaganda in schools (Section 28 of the Education Act 1988). They did not know the name Mary Whitehouse. They could not grasp the idea that a campaigner for morality on TV could possibly be awarded  a public honour like the CBE.

 As I look back 30 years, it is such a very different Britain:  it was still possible to speak openly of male/female marriage as the foundation for any society, and it would have been impossible for anyone in public life to be taken seriously in proposing that two people of the same sex could marry. Supporters of  abortion  still felt obliged to preface their speeches with some statement to the effect that abortion was in general regrettable before continuing with "but...choices...cases of neccesity...".   And it was still normal to expect that anyone who wanted to be active in public life should not cohabit but should marry, or live as a single person.  It's very difficult now to convey all of this:  today's young Catholics simply cannot really know what it was like to live in a culture where some  moral norms, while under steady attack, were still  praised in public. And in our praying and campaigning, we had public support: in the 1970s it was still possible to muster 80,000-100,000 people in London to cheer pro-life speeches and to march to Downing Street, and the 1980s saw huge pro-life prayer-vigils, candle-lit processions, packed cathedrals...

But the 1990s brought Blair and a whole new raft of legislation. People "wanted a change", a phrase one heard a lot at that time. . (And I remember naivety about the Blairs being "a Catholic family in Downing Street" Oh dear! ).  The 1980s were denounced as an evil era, and "Section 28" became a byword for oppression and horror. The public funding of contraception for teenagers, controversial in the 80s, was now standard. Marriage was presented as a "lifestyle choice". And as a new century opened,  new areas of biotechnology  rolled in, seeming  almost to overwhelm us: IVF, embryo experimentation, endless and repeated pressure to accept euthanasia, ghastly evidence of its active practice in hospitals...the pro-life movement kept abreast and kept going, but the political and financial waves beat against it relentlessly...

Young Catholics today tend to assume that the future will include some active persecution of the Church.They feel alienated from most officialdom, having grown up in a world where Government is associated with   "gay rights" and promotion of abortion and so on. They tend to see the Church as confident: this is the John Paul II/Benedict generation, which rather relishes a counter-cultural Church and doesn't expect any favours from the State. They have inherited a tradition of campaigning on pro-life and pro-family issues and tend to think that they will do better than us oldies. They don't expect political victories, but look to a transformation of culture.They have plenty of vigour and look ahead with zest. They are listening when BXVI speaks about the New Evangelisation.Their world-view is formed from their perspective and not from Auntie's. Some day they too will look back and ponder.

Letter dated...

...April 19th 2012, from 10 Downing Street London SW1, to Mrs Joanna Bogle:

"We are proposing no changes to how religious organisations define and solemnise religious marriages and we are very clear that a marriage through a religious ceremony and on religious premises will continue to be only legally possible between a man and a woman." (emphasis original)

Now read the latest  statement from David Cameron, of 10 Downing Street London SW1.

That April letter went on "We recognise  the vital role that religious organisations have in our society, and we are clear on the importance of religious freedom.  That is why the Government are listening and working with all religious organisations tht have concerns about this. I hope you will find that reassurring."

No, I did not find it reassurring. And I was right.

Nothing that Cameron could now say - ever - would reassure me.

Ghastly news...

...the Govt's plans to force through the scheme to redefine marriage. Read here. And, very importantly, here...

Cameron is attempting to hurry this through because he knows how unpopular it is, and is trying to get it forced on us well before the next election.

Make no mistake: this is the big issue of our days. Don't get deflected: this needs letters to Cameron and to your MP and it also needs a lot of prayer.

St Nicholas' Day...

...so I left a parcel with bags of (chocolate) gold coins on the doorstep of friends, knocked on the door and heard the children scuffling to answer it, and hurried off up the street in the December darkness.. Satisfying.

Depressing news as the Govt seems intent on its insane plan to redefine marriage.

Evensong and Mass with Ordinariate group, and a lively get-together in the pub afterwards. Everyone cheerful, lots to discuss (liturgy: they want the Mass they are used to, ie the  Ordinary Form of the Roman rite in English, with good music). Things got gloomy when conversation turned to current political/state of the nation scene...Govt's ghastly schemes (see above), increasing intolerance of public expressions of Christianity, etc. One member of the group had just been at her grandson's school concert - a "Winter Concert" with no mention of the Nativity whatever. Not  carol, not a crib scene, nothing. It was a big community event bringing together several schools including some Catholic ones.

Depressing.

Working...

...on next book (due out in 2013, text to be w. publishers before the end of this year) has involved revisiting the topic of Fatima at some length. Golly, there's a lot of nonsense out there on the Internet about it. Best book on the subject is this one  which carries a Foreword by the excellent Cardinal Raymond Burke of the Apostolic Signatura.

My book isn't on Fatima, but includes some material on  the subject, so I needed to check it all out...

The future...

...for Catholics in Britain. Read here...

A delightful group...

...of young people from various schools across Britain, all gathering with their parents and teachers at the Houses of Parliament to recieve their Bible Prizes in the 2012 SCHOOLS BIBLE PROJECT.  It was a joy to meet them all, to show them around Parliament and tell them something of the history (Westminster Great Hall, St Thomas More, Winston Churchill, the lot...) and then take them across to Millbank House for tea and a splendid Prizegiving, with Lord Alton giving out the Bible prizes. A happy day.

David Alton's talk to the young people was excellent. He emphasised the glory and the importance of the Scriptures - for this life and the next. He told us that Parliament still starts every morning with a Scripture reading (Deo gratias!) and also talked about the fact that the Bible is still banned in some places - including North Korea which he visited recently. Christians there risk terrible punishments in order to read a Bible...how much we should value our freedom to read the Scriptures here...

A dear friend...

...died this week and you can read her splendid obituary here...

Enthusiastic...

...young people at St Patrick's, Soho Square, including a couple of seminarians from Australia working in the parish, all take part in a Catholic History Walk. We explore Holborn, St Giles, Lincolns Inn Fields, Ely Place. The Aussies are delighted to encounter the Ship Inn, where Bishop Richard Challoner used to meet and teach Catholics in penal times: they had been taught about this and now were actually visiting the pub itself! We walk down High  Holborn, pray in St Etheldreda's  and I show them the plaque we placed there commemorating the long link of the church to the Catholic Writers' Guild. It still seems odd to realise that Fleet Street simply doesn't have any link with newspapers any more, and that when we use the term "Fleet Street" meaning the press, it is for historical reasons. Golly, I'm old...

Uncomfortably...

...a good many conversations among Catholics in these days converge on the subject of  a coming loss of religious freedom, of our rights as Catholics in Britain to speak clearly and openly about Christ, and about the truth and beauty of his message. In ways that I could never have imagined when younger, we talk about religious persecution, not as something belonging to far away or long ago but as something that relates to Britain, to a possible and imaginable future...

The Holy Father spoke. movingly and beautifully,  today to students at the English College in Rome, where our young men study for the priesthood.  This is a College which has a noble tradition of martyrs, a tradition which each succeeding generation of students holds in high honour. The Holy Father spoke of this throughout his speech, and ended thus:

"When I visited the United Kingdom, I saw for myself that there is a great spiritual hunger among the people. Bring them the true nourishment that comes from knowing, loving and serving Christ. Speak the truth of the Gospel to them with love. Offer them the living water of the Christian faith and point them towards the bread of life, so that their hunger and thirst may be satisfied. Above all, however, let the light of Christ shine through you by living lives of holiness, following in the footsteps of the many great saints of England and Wales, the holy men and women who bore witness to God’s love, even at the cost of their lives. The College to which you belong, the neighbourhood in which you live and study, the tradition of faith and Christian witness that has formed you: all these are hallowed by the presence of many saints. Make it your aspiration to be counted among their number.

Please be assured of an affectionate remembrance in my prayers for yourselves and for all the alumni of the Venerable English College. I make my own the greeting so often heard on the lips of a great friend and neighbour of the College, Saint Philip Neri, Salvete, flores martyrum...

Ealing Abbey...

...is a magnificent church, and I went there this morning for the Conventual Mass.  Last visit was for  a wedding on a seriously hot day a few summers back - today the gardens of Ealing were all frosted and the leaves crunching icily beneath my feet as I made by way from the Tube station. The Abbey church is high-arched and with wide clean lines with a great spacious feel:  it's not actually very old (19th century, damaged by bombing in WWII, etc)  but somehow you feel linked to the early centuries of the church. I was wondering if such a large building could actually be filled for Mass, but it is, and indeed there are six Masses there each Sunday,  and judging by the crowds still milling from the earlier one, it is a very popular parish.

There is a fine choir, all robed and walking in procession ahead of the monks who fill the sanctuary. There is a sense of timelessness about the Mass and it was a perfect place to mark the First Sunday of Advent.

I met some friends after Mass and they invited me back for coffee: two of their sons have sung with the Vaughan Schola at the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival and I was touched to discover that they remembered this with pleasure and still have the little prayer-books that we give to choir members each year as a commemorative gift. This year's Towards Advent choir was in fact from St Benedict's School, Ealing, and I noticed the choirmaster in the robed procession at Mass...

Main reason for being in Ealing this Sunday was to visit a friend, Prof Dennis O'Keeffe,  to talk about Poland. With Roger Scruton and others, he was a visiting lecturer in Poland in the 1980s, in the v. difficult days of martial law, giving lectures to the "flying university" in various private homes...fascinating to hear about all of this, and also to discuss issues of today's Europe and its future...

The number of young men...

..applying to become priests is steadily rising...and we need more...read this Vocations Blog for more info...and pray that the numbers entering our seminaries continues to rise and rise over the next five years.

Read...

...the latest issue of The Portal, in which Auntie has a feature...and in which there is a splendid account of the TOWARDS ADVENT Festival, with pic.  It's noted that the Westminster Cathedral Hall seems  rather too small for the large crowds that attend, which is true...