Fr Z, One Of My Followers Has A Blog & Likes Cooking

I have noticed that Father Z (a follower of this blog, have I mentioned that) has cookery on his blog from time to time. Well I thought, always happy to learn from my followers, maybe that will bring in a few readers, so here we go.

Breakfast (a Catholic word meaning, to break the Eucharistic Fast after Mass, it was the rule until the 1950s to fast from Midnight until after Mass if you were going to Holy Communion) today.

It is important to choose the right drink to go with a meal. Open the fridge door, apple juice unopened, pineapple juice open, right pineapple juice it is then.

Toast one slice if bread, while heating a little oil in a frying pan.Remove the shells from 4 or 5 eggs, I'm just having four today. Add eggs to the pan, add salt & coarse pepper to taste. Butter toast.
Flip over the eggs to cook on both sides as this is the Catholic thing to do, symbolising Scripture & Tradition, not just cooking them on one side in a mean-spirited protestant way.

When slightly over done, flip out onto the slice of buttered toast and eat.


Four eggs on one slice of toast? Quail eggs of course!

God Bless The Legion Of Mary

When in Oxford for the Chesterton Conference last weekend, I went for a stroll along the High Street. There were two muslim information stalls, a protestant one, some music and a Catholic information stall. Yes Catholics standing in the street on a stall! It seemed to be The Legion of Mary, free Rosaries, Miraculous Medals, Alfie Lambe & Edel Quinn Prayer Cards and general Catholic leaflets. God bless them!

Jews, Muslims, Purple/Pink Hair & A Chesterton Conference

Having missed the bus to Oxford, by 30 seconds, I still arrived at 9.59am for the 10am start of The GK Chesterton Society Oxford Conference. Nothing much happened for the next 10-15 minutes as this was a mostly Catholic gathering. Dr Oddie's opening remarks did refer to the Catholic sense of time! He said some interesting things about Jews & GKC, he talked of a Jewish problem in Chesterton's day, which was summed up by Theodore Herzl, the founding father of Zionism thus, "We are aliens here, they do not let us dissolve into the population, and if they let us we would not do it. Let us go forth!"(Appendix A, of The Holiness of GK Chesterton) He felt that people may look back in the future on the worries that some have today about muslim integration and wonder why the fuss, just as many now look back on the Jewish problem. Lynette Burrows then spoke, and I think she was not so confident about muslim integration. But she gave a very interesting talk. (I'm told all the talks will appear on the website soon).

Fr Ian Ker, author of many books including his latest one of 700 pages on GK Chesterton, which Dr Oddie described as being a book that no fan of Chesterton could afford to be without. But at £30 I'm not sure it is one I can afford to be with! Father gave a great talk about GKC, Jesus and all that, it was quite amazing. It was also a very English talk as Father muddled his papers and was very embarrassed. At one bit he talked about GKC making us look at Jesus, we have become distracted since Vatican II with Justice & Peace, Just War, etc. and we think of Jesus as a kindly uncle who does not mind what we do, and forgives us. But Chesterton makes us look the Jesus of the Gospels.

After Mass, Celebrated by Fr Hean the Treasurer, now a Priest of the Ordinariate, and lunch, Dale Ahlquist spoke; "Thank you for showing up for your afternoon nap", with glass of wine in hand, "I will be joining you shortly". He did go on to say much of interest, with over one hundred quotes from GKC! "Have you noticed how, many people in the suburbs have pets but no children. Wherever you have animal worship you have human sacrifice."

All in all a very good day, and what I have said does not do it justice. Do keep an eye on The GK Chesterton Society's website to read the talks in full. And as the quotes above are from memory (and as Conor will tell you, I don't have one) handle with care! Another odd thing that day was as I walked towards the Conference, the people walking in front of me. One of the girls had purple, pink & lighter pink hair, I thought to myself, this generation, this Country, this culture, what hope for GKC? I stopped to buy myself a mocha, to help keep me awake. I sat at the back of the Conference room and the same group of youngsters sat in front of me! (see photos)
For GK Chesterton Prayer cards

4th July; As I Said Last Year!

GK's Weekly, The Thing, Sceptic As A Critic

As you will have seen I was reading The Thing by GK Chesterton. Having read the first hundred pages or so, it dawned on me that some Catholic paper or other really should just reprint the whole thing in parts each week. I then remembered that I'm the only person around here (or anywhere else for that matter) with any sense, and so here it will appear each Saturday (Started 25th June). It will be called GK's Weekly in honour of Chesterton's paper of that name. The posts will all be longer than anything that I would read on a blog, but that's The Thing.

THE SCEPTIC AS A CRITIC (II)

IT takes three to make a quarrel. There is needed a peacemaker. The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully intervenes. I feel myself to be in some such position in the recent American debate about Mr. Mencken's MERCURY and the Puritans; and I admit it at the beginning with an embarrassment not untinged with terror. I know that the umpire may be torn in pieces. I know that the self-appointed umpire ought to be torn in pieces. I know, above all, that this is especially the case in anything which in any way involves international relations. Perhaps the only sound criticism is self-criticism. Perhaps this is even more true of nations than of men. And I can quite well understand that many Americans would accept suggestions from their fellow countrymen which they would rightly refuse from a foreigner. I can only plead that I have endeavoured to carry out the excellent patriotic principle of "See England First" in the equally patriotic paraphrase of "Criticize England First." I have been engaged upon it long enough to be quite well aware that there are evils present in England that are relatively absent from America; and none more conspicuously absent, as Mr. Belloc [Pictured] has pointed out to the surprise of many, than the real, servile, superstitious, and mystical adoration of Money.

But what makes me so objectionable on the present occasion is that I feel a considerable sympathy with both sides. This offensive attitude I will endeavour to disguise, as far as possible, by tactfully distributed abuse of such things as I really think are abuses, and a gracefully simulated disgust with this or that part of each controversial case. But the plain truth is, that if I were an American, I should very frequently rejoice at the AMERICAN MERCURY's scoring off somebody or something; nor would my modest fireside be entirely without mild rejoicings when the AMERICAN MERCURY was scored off. But I do definitely think that both sides, and perhaps especially the iconoclastic side, need what the whole modern world needs-- a fixed spiritual standard even for their own intellectual purposes. I might express it by saying that I am very fond of revolutionists, but not very fond of nihilists. For nihilists, as their name implies, have nothing to revolt about.


On this side of the matter there is little to be added to the admirably sane, subtle, and penetrating article by Mr. T. S. Eliot;* especially that vital sentence in it in which he tells Professor Irving Babbitt (who admits the need of enthusiasm) that we cannot have an enthusiasm for having an enthusiasm. I think I know, incidentally, what we must have. Professor Babbitt is a very learned man; and I myself have little Latin and less Greek. But I know enough Greek to know the meaning of the second syllable of "enthusiasm," and I know it to be the key to this and every other discussion.

Let me take two examples, touching my points of agreement with the two sides. I heartily admire Mr. Mencken, not only for his vivacity and wit, but for his vehemence and sometimes for his violence. I warmly applaud him for his scorn and detestation of Service; and I think he was stating a historical fact when he said, as quoted in THE FORUM: "When a gang of real estate agents, bond salesmen, and automobile dealers gets together to sob for Service, it takes no Freudian to surmise that someone is about to be swindled." I do not see why he should not call a spade a spade and a swindler a swindler. I do not blame him for using vulgar words for vulgar things. But I do remark upon two ways in which the fact of his philosophy being negative makes his criticism almost shallow. First of all, it is obvious that such a satire is entirely meaningless unless swindling is a sin. And it is equally obvious that we are instantly swallowed up in the abysses of "moralism" and "religionism," if it is a sin. And the second point, if less obvious, is equally important-- that his healthy instinct against greasy hypocrisy does not really enlighten him about the heart of that hypocrisy.

What is the matter with the cult of Service is that, like so many modern notions, it is an idolatry of the intermediate, to the oblivion of the ultimate. It is like the jargon of the idiots who talk about Efficiency without any criticism of Effect. The sin of Service is the sin of Satan: that of trying to be first where it can only be second. A word like Service has stolen the sacred capital letter from the thing which it was once supposed to serve. There is a sense in serving God, and an even more disputed sense in serving man; but there is no sense in serving Service. To serve God is at least to serve an ideal being. Even if he were an imaginary being, he would still be an ideal being. That ideal has definite and even dogmatic attributes--truth, justice, pity, purity, and the rest. To serve it, however imperfectly, is to serve a particular concept of perfection. But the man who rushes down the street waving his arms and wanting something or somebody to serve, will probably fall into the first bucket-shop or den of thieves and usurers, and be found industriously serving THEM. There arises the horrible idea that industry, reliability, punctuality, and business activity are good things; that mere readiness to serve the powers of this world is a Christian virtue. That is the case against Service, as distinct from the curse against Service, so heartily and inspiringly hurled by Mr. Mencken. But the serious case cannot be stated without once more raising the real question of whether mankind ought to serve anything; and of whether they had not better try to define what they intend to serve. All these silly words like Service and Efficiency and Practicality and the rest fail because they worship the means and not the end. But it all comes back to whether we do propose to worship the end; and preferably the right end.

Two other characteristic passages from Mr. Mencken will serve to show more sharply this curious sense in which he misses his own point. On the one hand, he appears to state most positively the purely personal and subjective nature of criticism; he makes it individual and almost irresponsible. "The critic is first and last simply trying to express himself; he is trying to achieve thereby for his own inner ego the grateful feeling of a function performed, a tension relieved, a katharsis attained, which Wagner achieved when he wrote DIE WALKURIE, and a hen achieves every time she lays an egg." That is all consistent enough as far as it goes; but unfortunately Mr. Mencken appears to go on to something quite inconsistent with it. According to the quotation, he afterwards bursts into a song of triumph because there is now in America not only criticism, but controversy. "To-day for the first time in years there is strife in American criticism... ears are bitten off, noses are bloodied. There are wallops both above and below the belt."

Now, there may be something in his case for controversy; but it is quite inconsistent with his case for creative self-expression. If the critic produces the criticism ONLY to please himself; it is entirely irrelevant that it does not please somebody else. The somebody else has a perfect right to say the exact opposite to please himself, and be perfectly satisfied with himself. But they cannot controvert because they cannot compare. They cannot compare because there is no common standard of comparison. Neither I nor anybody else can have a controversy about literature with Mr. Mencken, because there is no way of criticizing the criticism, except by asking whether the critic is satisfied. And there the debate ends, at the beginning: for nobody can doubt that Mr. Mencken is satisfied.

But not to make Mr. Mencken a mere victim of the ARGUMENTUM AD HOMINEM, I will make the experiment in a viler body and offer myself for dissection. I daresay a great deal of the criticism I write really is moved by a mood of self-expression; and certainly it is true enough that there is a satisfaction in self-expression. I can take something or other about which I have definite feelings--as, for instance, the philosophy of Mr. Dreiser, which has been mentioned more than once in this debate. I can achieve for my own inner ego the grateful feeling of writing as follows:

"He describes a world which appears to be a dull and discolouring illusion of indigestion, not bright enough to be called a nightmare; smelly, but not even stinking with any strength; smelling of the stale gas of ignorant chemical experiments by dirty, secretive schoolboys--the sort of boys who torture cats in corners; spineless and spiritless like a broken-backed worm; loathsomely slow and laborious like an endless slug; despairing, but not with dignity; blaspheming, but not with courage; without wit without will, without laughter or uplifting of the heart; too old to die, too deaf to leave off talking, too blind to stop, too stupid to start afresh, too dead to be killed, and incapable even of being damned, since in all its weary centuries it has not reached the age of reason."

That is what I feel about it; and it certainly gives me pleasure to relieve my feelings. I have got it off my chest. I have attained a katharsis. I have laid an egg. I have produced a criticism, satisfying all Mr. Mencken's definitions of the critic. I have performed a function. I feel better, thank you.

But what influence my feelings can be expected to have on Mr. Dreiser, or anybody who does not admit my standards of truth and falsehood, I do not quite see. Mr. Dreiser can hardly be expected to say that his chemistry is quackery, as I think it--quackery without the liveliness we might reasonably expect from quacks. He does not think fatalism base and servile, as I do; he does not think free will the highest truth about humanity, as I do. He does not believe that despair is itself a sin, and perhaps the worst of sins, as Catholics do. He does not think blasphemy the smallest and silliest sort of pride, as even pagans do. He naturally does not think his own picture of life a false picture, resembling real life about as much as a wilderness of linoleum would resemble the land of all the living flowers, as I do. But he would not think it falser for being like a wilderness. He would probably admit that it was dreary, but think it correct to be dreary. He would probably own that he was hopeless, but not see any harm in being hopeless. What I advance as accusations, he would very probably accept as compliments.


Under these circumstances, I do not quite see how I, or anyone with my views, could have a CONTROVERSY with Mr. Dreiser. There does not seem to be any way in which I could prove him wrong, because he does not accept my view of what is wrong. There does not seem to be any way in which he could prove himself right, because I do not share his notions of what is right. We might, indeed, meet in the street and fall on each other; and while I believe we are both heavy men, I doubt not that he is the more formidable. The very possibility of our being reduced to this inarticulate explanation may possibly throw some light on Mr. Mencken's remarkable description of the new literary life in America. "Ears are bitten off," he says; and this curious
form of cultural intercourse might really be the only solution, when ears are no longer organs of hearing and there are no organs except organs of self-expression. He that hath ears to hear and will not hear may just as well have them bitten off. Such deafness seems inevitable in the creative critic, who is as indifferent as a hen to all noises except her own cackling over her own egg. Anyhow, hens do not criticize each other's eggs, or even pelt each other with eggs, in the manner of political controversy. We can only say that the novelist in question has undoubtedly laid a magnificently large and solid egg--something in the nature of an ostrich's egg; and after that, there is really nothing to prevent the ostrich from hiding its head in the sand, achieving thereby for its own inner ego the grateful feeling of a function performed. But we cannot argue with it about whether the egg is a bad egg, or whether parts of it are excellent.

In all these instances, therefore, because of the absence of a standard of ultimate values, the most ordinary functions really cannot be performed. They not only cannot be performed with "a grateful feeling," or a katharsis, but in the long run they cannot be performed at all. We cannot really denounce the Service-mongering bond salesman as a swindler, because we have no certain agreement that it is shameful to be a swindler. A little manipulation of some of Mr. Mencken's own individualistic theories about mentality as superior to moralism might present the swindler as a superman. We cannot really argue for or against the mere ideal of Service, because neither side has really considered what is to be served or how we are to arrive at the right rules for serving it. Consequently, in practice, it may turn out that the State of Service is merely the Servile State. And finally, we cannot really argue about that or anything else, because there are no rules of the game of argument. There is nothing to prove who has scored a point and who has not. There cannot be "strife in American criticism"; the professors cannot be "forced to make some defence." That would require plaintiffs and defendants to appear before some tribunal and give evidence according to some tests of truth. There can be a disturbance, but there can not be a discussion.

In plain words, the normal functions of man--effort, protest, judgment, persuasion, and proof--are found in fact to be hampered and hamstrung by these negations of the sceptic even when the sceptic seems at first to be only denying some distant vision or some miraculous tale. Each function is found in fact to refer to some end, to some test, to some way of distinguishing between use and misuse, which the mere sceptic destroys as completely as he could destroy any myth or superstition. If the function is only performed for the satisfaction of the performer, as in the parable of the critic and the egg, it becomes futile to discuss whether it is an addled egg. It becomes futile to consider whether eggs will produce chickens or provide breakfasts. But even to be certain of our own sanity in applying the tests, we do really have to go back to some aboriginal problem, like that of the old riddle of the priority of egg or chicken; we do really, like the great religions, have to begin AB OVO. If those primordial sanities can be disturbed, the whole of practical life can be disturbed with them. Men can be frozen by fatalism, or crazed by anarchism, or driven to death by pessimism; for men will not go on indefinitely acting on what they feel to be a fable. And it is in this organic and almost muscular sense that religion is really the help of man--in the sense that without it he is ultimately helpless, almost motionless.

Mr. Mencken and Mr. Sinclair Lewis and the other critics in the MERCURY movement are so spirited and sincere, they attack so vigorously so many things that ought to be attacked, they expose so brilliantly many things that really are impostures, that in discussing matters with them a man will have every impulse to put his cards on the table. It would be affectation and almost hypocrisy in me to ignore, in this place, the fact that I do myself believe in a special spiritual solution of this problem, a special spiritual authority above this chaos. Nor, indeed, is the idea altogether absent, as an idea, from many other minds besides my own. The Catholic
philosophy is mentioned in terms of respect, and even a sort of hope, both by Professor Babbitt** and Mr. T. S. Eliot. I do not misunderstand their courtesies, or seek to lure them a step further than they desire to go. But, as a matter of fact, by a series of faultlessly logical steps, Mr. Eliot led Professor Babbitt so near to the very gates of the Catholic Church that in the end I felt quite nervous, so to speak, for fear they should both take another unintentional step and fall into it by accident.

I have a particular reason for mentioning this matter in conclusion-- a reason that is directly related to this curious effect of scepticism in weakening the normal functions of the human being. In one of the most brilliant and amusing of Mr. Sinclair Lewis's recent books there is a passage which I quote from memory, but I think more or less correctly. He said that the Catholic Faith differs from current Puritanism in that it does not ask a man to give up his sense of beauty, or his sense of humour, or his pleasant vices (by which he probably meant smoking and drinking, which are not vices at all), but that it does ask a man to give up his life and soul, his mind, body, reason, and all the rest. I ask the reader to consider, as quietly and impartially as possible, the statement thus made; and put it side by side with all those other facts about the gradual fossilizing of human function by the fundamental doubts of our day.

It would be far truer to say that the Faith gives a man back his body and his soul and his reason and his will and his very life. It would be far truer to say that the man who has received it receives all the old human functions which all the other philosophies are already taking away. It would be nearer to reality to say that he alone will have freedom, that he alone will have will, because he alone will believe in free will; that he alone will have reason, since ultimate doubt denies reason as well as authority; that he alone will truly act, because action is performed to an end. It is at least a less unlikely vision that all this hardening and hopeless despair of the intellect will leave him at last the only walking and talking citizen in a city of paralytics.
------
* "The Humanism of Irving Babbitt," The Forum for July 1928.

** "The Critic and American life," The Forum for February 1928

GK Chesterton Video On YouTube

This very short video of GK Chesterton himself, says so much in just 58 seconds! If I can work it out I will add it to my own YouTube Channel, five films and one Subscriber so far, look out Hollywood and BBC Noise 24!

Archbishop Stack & The Holy Father

Click here to see Archbishop Stack of Cardiff receive the Pallium from Pope Benedict XVI. Now His Grace just needs a Cardiff City FC scarf and a few prayers.

A LITANY ON BEHALF OF BISHOPS
Lord have mercy on us.
Christ have mercy on us.
Lord have mercy on us.
Christ hear us.
Christ, graciously hear us.

God, the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God, the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God, the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Queen of Heaven and earth, pray for us.
St. Joseph, Protector of Holy Mother Church, pray for us.
St Michael, all Archangels, special servants of Bishops, pray for us.
St John the Baptist, Herald of the Lord, pray for us.
St Peter, pray for us.
St Paul, pray for us.
St Andrew, pray for us.
St John, pray for us.
St Thomas, pray for us.
St James, pray for us.
St Philip, pray for us.
St Bartholomew, pray for us.
St Matthew, pray for us.
St James, pray for us.
St Simon, pray for us.
St Thaddeus, pray for us.
St Barnabas, pray for us.
St Matthias, pray for us.
O Holy Apostles, our first Bishops, we beg your intercession on behalf of your successors;

St Thomas Becket, pray for us.
St Blaise, pray for us.
St Boniface, pray for us.
St Cyprian, pray for us.
St. Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.
St. Irenaeus, pray for us.
St John Fisher, pray for us.
St. Polycarp, pray for us.
All martyred Bishops; pray for us.

St Athanasius, pray for us.
St Alphosus Liguori, pray for us.
St Ambrose, pray for us.
St Anslem, pray for us.
St Augustine, pray for us.
St Basil and Gregory Nazianzen pray for us
St Bonaventure, pray for us.
St Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us.
St Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.
St Francis De Sales, pray for us.
St Hilary, pray for us.
St Isadore of Seville, pray for us.
St Peter Chrsologus, pray for us.
St Peter Damian, pray for us.
St Robert Bellarmine, pray for us.
All Bishops-Doctors of the Church, pray for us.

St Albert the Great, pray for us.
St Ansgar, pray for us.
St Charles Borromeo, pray for us.
St Ildephonsus, pray for us.
St Methodius, pray for us.
St Nicolas, pray for us.
St Norbert, pray for us.
St Patrick, pray for us.
St Richard, pray for us.
Sts. Timothy and Titus, pray for us.
St William, pray for us.
St Wulfran, pray for us.
All Bishops who have spread the light of Christ; pray for us.

St Leo the Great, pray for us.
St Pius V, pray for us.
St Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
St Pius X, pray for us.
All Saints who have helped further the Faith through teaching, pray for us.

That all bishops will maintain complete obedience to the Holy Father, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will remain faithful to the Magisterium of the Church, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will defend the Faith and moral teachings of the Church, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will uphold the true teachings of the Ecumenical Councils, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will allow and defend all duly authorised Rites of the Mass, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will staunchly defend the unborn, the elderly, the sick and all defenceless people, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will provide for true and complete education of the Faith for all souls in their care, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will exercise the powers of their office to defend the faithful against heretics, apostates, and false prophets and teachers, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will use their authority and powers to correct errors and falsehoods, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will stand up for the rights of the Church when infringed upon by the State, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will develop a great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will be living examples of the virtues, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will look to their saintly predecessors as examples of how they should carry out their vocations, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will encourage true vocations to the priesthood and religious life, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will boldly proclaim the message of Our Lady of Fatima, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will concentrate their energies more on the spiritual than on the material needs of the faithful, we beseech Thee, hear us.
That all bishops will teach and preach the truth of Humanae Vitae and Familiaris Consortio.

O God, look with favour on Thy servants, Thy bishops, whom Thou hast appointed as teachers and defenders of Thy faithful here on earth. Grant that by word and example they may assist those over whom they have been placed, so that shepherds and flocks may together attain everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

Upon Father Finigan's Orders

Upon the orders of Fr Timothy Finigan, I am now reading the Autobiography of GK Chesterton, having finished The Thing. Well 'orders' is just a lie to see if this title will get a few extra readers! But While talking to Father about Chesterton (soon to be made a Saint), he mentioned quoting the start of the Autobiography, on his blog I think. And then he did quote it to us by heart;

Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington; and baptised according to the formularies of the Church of England in the little church of St. George opposite the large Waterworks Tower that dominated that ridge. I do not allege any significance in the relation of the two buildings; and I indignantly deny that the church was chosen because it needed the whole water-power of West London to turn me into a Christian.

It really is very good altogether, and I don't care that the c of E did not like it. They thought that it was too much about Chesterton! Autobiography! But more on this another day.

See you all on Saturday

60 Years A Priest!

God bless you Papa! Nice Vestments too!

Today Is A Holy Day Of Obligation

Today is the Feast Day of Ss Peter & Paul and is still a Holy Day of Obligation in England & Wales. I say this because some such Days have been moved to Sundays, so some people are not sure which are which, and some Parish newsletters have not mentioned it. But in short, Go to Mass!

Sign Petition To Protect Pakistan's Christians

Aid to the Church in Need asks you to add your voice to the British Pakistani Christian Association's call for peace, justice and human rights for all people of Pakistan.

Please show your solidarity with Pakistan's suffering faithful by adding your name to the petition.

I have posted on Pakistan before. Photo is of murdered Catholic Pakistani minister, Shahbaz Bhatti. There is a March on Saturday.

Immaculate Heart of Mary Pro-Life Prayer vigil - London 2nd July

If you are unable to attend the Chesterton Conference in Oxford on the 2nd, the following should be of interest to you;

A Little Miracle?
There was a Marian pro-life prayer vigil on 28th May. It was a powerful and prayerful experience. There was also at least 1 confirmed turnaround. However, it didn't end there. From that day onwards there was a total of 13 turnarounds in two weeks. That hasn't happened before. If you receive emails from Good Counsel or read their blog you'll see what I mean. It was felt that such results were a special blessing from Our Lady. With this in mind, there will be another vigil. There will also be an announcement about some serious news which will require our prayers and pro-life efforts.

What:
Prayers of consecration and reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary for the unborn, their parents, and the abortion employees. We will of course have trained and experienced counsellors throughout.

When:
Saturday 2nd July 2011 (Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary)

Where:
Bedford Square London WC1B. Same location as last time and 40 Days for Life. Nearest tube stations are Goodge Street and Tottenham Court Road. You can take any bus going to Tottenham Court Road or Gower Street.

Time:
8.30am-1pm. You can come for all or part of the vigil.

Contact:
daniel-40days[AT]hotmail.co.uk (the AT should be @ when actually sending an email. This is done to prevent spam.

And you may even make it along to the end of the Pakistan Protest March defending Christians in that country. But if not do sign the Petition.

GK's Weekly, The Thing, Introduction

As you will have seen I am reading The Thing by GK Chesterton. Having read the first hundred pages or so, it dawned on me that some Catholic paper or other really should just reprint the whole thing in parts each week. I then remembered that I'm the only person around here (or anywhere else for that matter) with any sense, and so here it will appear each Saturday. It will be called GK's Weekly in honour of Chesterton's paper of that name. The posts will all be longer than anything that I would read on a blog, but that's The Thing.

INTRODUCTION (I)

IT will be naturally objected to the publication of these papers that they are ephemeral and that they are controversial. In other words, the normal critic will at once dismiss them as too frivolous and dislike them as too serious. The rather one-sided truce of good taste, touching all religious matters, which prevailed until a short time ago, has now given place to a rather one-sided war. But the truce can still be invoked, as such terrorism of taste generally is invoked, against the minority. We all know the dear old Conservative colonel who swears himself red in the face that he is not going to talk politics, but that damning to hell all those bloody blasted Socialists is not politics. We all have a kindly feeling for the dear old lady, living at Bath or Cheltenham, who would not dream of talking uncharitably about anybody, but who does certainly think the Dissenters are too dreadful or that Irish servants are really impossible. It is in the spirit of these two very admirable persons that the controversy is now conducted in the Press on behalf of a Progressive Faith and a Broad and Brotherly Religion. So long as the writer employs vast and universal gestures of fellowship and hospitality to all those who are ready to abandon their religious beliefs, he is allowed to be as rude as he likes to all those who venture to retain them. The Dean of St. Paul's permits himself genially to call the Catholic Church a treacherous and bloody corporation; Mr. H. G. Wells is allowed to compare the Blessed Trinity to an undignified dance; the Bishop of Birmingham to compare the Blessed Sacrament to a barbarous blood-feast. It is felt that phrases like these cannot ruffle that human peace and harmony which all such humanitarians desire; there is nothing in THESE expressions that could possibly interfere with brotherhood and the sympathy that is the bond of society. We may be sure of this, for we have the word of the writers themselves that their whole aim is to generate an atmosphere of liberality and love. If, therefore, any unlucky interruption mars the harmony of the occasion, if it is really impossible for these fraternal festivities to pass off without some silly disturbance, or somebody making a scene, it is obvious that the blame must lie with a few irritable and irritating individuals, who cannot accept these descriptions of the Trinity and the Sacrament and the Church as soothing their feelings or satisfying their ideas.

It is explained very clearly in all such statements that they are accepted by all intelligent people except those who do not accept them. But as I myself, in my political experience, have ventured to doubt the right of the Tory colonel to curse his political opponents and say it is not politics, or of the lady to love everybody and loathe Irishmen, I have the same difficulty in admitting the right of the most liberal and large-minded Christian to see good in all religions and nothing but evil in mine. But I know that to publish replies to this effect, particularly direct replies given in real controversy, will be regarded by many as a provocation and an impertinence.

Well, I must in this matter confess to being so old-fashioned as to feel something like a point of honour. I think I may say that I am normally of the sort to be sociable and get on easily with my fellows; I am not so much disposed to quarrel as to argue; and I value more than I can easily say the generally genial relations I have kept with those who differ from me merely in argument. I am very fond of England even as it is, quite apart from what it was or might be; I have a number of popular tastes, from detective stories to the defence of public-houses; I have been on many occasions on the side of the majority, as for instance in the propaganda of English patriotism during the Great War. I could even find in these sympathies a sufficient material for popular appeals; and, in a more practical sense, I should enjoy nothing more than always writing detective stories, except always reading them. But if in this much too lucky and even
lazy existence I find that my co-religionists are being pelted with insults for saying that their religion is right, it would ill become me not to put myself in the way of being insulted. Many of them have had far too hard a life, and I have had far too easy a life, for me not to count it a privilege to be the object of the same curious controversial methods. If the Dean of St. Paul's
really does believe, as he most undoubtedly does say, that the most devout and devoted rulers of the Catholic Church, when they accepted (realistically and even reluctantly) the fact of a modern miracle, were engaged in a "lucrative imposture," I should very much prefer to believe that he accuses me, along with better men than myself, of becoming an impostor merely for filthy lucre. If the word "Jesuit" is still to be used as synonymous with the word "liar," I should prefer that the same simple translation should apply to the word "Journalist," of which it is much more often true. If the Dean accuses Catholics as Catholics of desiring innocent men to die in prison (as he does), I should much prefer that he should cast me for some part in that terrific and murderous melodrama; it might in any case be material for a detective story. In short, it is precisely because I do sympathise and agree with my Protestant and agnostic fellow countrymen, on about ninety-nine subjects out of a hundred, that I do feel it a point of honour not to avoid their accusations on these points, if they really have such accusations to bring. I am very sorry if this little book of mine seems to be controversial on subjects about which everybody is allowed to be controversial except ourselves. But I am afraid there is no help for it; and if I assure the reader that I have tried to start putting it together in an unimpaired spirit of charity, it is always possible that the charity may be as one-sided as the controversy. Anyhow, it represents my attitude towards this controversy; and it is quite possible that everything is wrong about it, except that it is right.

Mass For Good Counsel At St Patrick's Friday 24th June

For the last six months or so a group of youngsters have been coming to the Good Counsel Mass on the 2nd Friday of each month at Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, at 6.30pm. After Mass they would go out for dinner. They are now starting to have Mass at St Patrick's details below. As well as this the Mass at Corpus Christi will still continue.

Juventutem London have moved to St Patrick's, Soho. This will be our first Mass in the new location. The Mass at 6.30pm will be offered for the Good Counsel Network. (But the collection will be for Juventutem)

Celebrant: Fr Patrick Hayward
Deacon: Fr Seán Finnegan
Subdeacon: Fr Timothy Finigan
Preacher: Fr Aidan Nichols OP (Author of; GK Chesterton, Theologian)

In choir: Fr Ray Blake

Music provided by Schola Abelis, University of Oxford Gregorian Chant society.

After the Mass we shall move to the square for a picnic if conditions are favourable. Otherwise, we shall go to a restaurant as usual.

For more details about the Masses organised by Juventutem London click here. We're especially keen for people to realise that the Mass is not only for people between the ages of 18-35, but that the social afterwards is!

Photo

Saint Etheldreda: Abbess Of Ely On Tv & A Walking Pilgrimage

At 7am on Thursday 23rd June a 60 minute programme about this Saint will be on EWTN (sky 589). Despite her vow of purity and desire to serve the Lord as a nun, St Etheldreda is forced into marriage by her Father. She miraculously escapes and becomes the Abbess of Ely (No, not the place in Cardiff, but a place in Norfolk, no doubt named after that part of Cardiff!)

Not only this, but later this year, 26th-28th August, there will be a walking Pilgrimage from Ely (No, still the one in Norfolk) to Walsingham. There will be lots of fun, singing, praying, nice Old Rite Masses and even some walking, but no running we hope. (Remember the very wise bears in Prince Caspian).

GK Chesterton On Voting For Nick Clegg

When thinking about Terry Pratchett and Chesterton last week, I went to look at Orthodoxy by GKC. It was very nice to find the following message written in 1908 by Chesterton for the students et al who voted for Nick Clegg in the last election;

THE ETHICS OF ELFLAND

When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals.

Croeso I Gymru, Archesgob Stack!

Maybe that should be the other way around. Your Grace, don't worry about learning Welsh, although it would be a good thing. Worry about The Church in Wales, things are not good. There maybe signs of hope, but I don't see them when I'm there!

Sign up to say the Rosary for Archbishop Stack or any other Bishop you want to pray for. Photo here.

Todays Conference Cancelled

I just spoke to a lady at our local Parish, who was on her way to the Pro Ecclesia Et Pontifice Conference in Westminster Central methodist Hall. It has been cancelled I told her, for final details see here.

Large Turn Out For Annual GK Chesterton Pilgrimage

Well I'm quite large! So we loaded up the coach in London and 45 minutes latter we were there, at the Grave of the great man himself. We all said the Prayer for the Beatification of GK Chesterton and then went for lunch. I pushed the crowds away from the grave ("move back you two") first to take a photo of my son.

What Chesterton and his friend Belloc would have thought of lunch is beyond me. 75% of us are Pioneers so we don't drink alcohol and the other 25% of the people on the Pilgrimage had only just turned four, and so were lucky to be in the pub at all! Down with teetotalism up the Pioneers!

We then moved onto St Teresa's Catholic Church, GKC's Parish, only to find the front doors locked, which should have been open and the side door which should have been locked, open! So we pushed a few things that blocked the door out of the way and we were in! Very nice, do see the website for photos and details. We said the prayer again, in front of the Statue of Mary given to the Church by GKC himself. We let Fr Higgins, the PP know about the doors before we left. I sure Chesterton wrote about a Higgins, must look that up sometime.

Next years Pilgrimage will take place on Thursday 14th June, the 76th Anniversary the the death of Gilbert Kieth Chesterton. Anyone interested in walking there from Campden Hill, Kensington, London, should let me know. We will hopefully have Mass (High?).

Marconi scandal, Chesterton & All That

Allegations and rumours centred on insider trading in Marconi's shares and involved a number of government ministers, including Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer; Sir Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General; Herbert Samuel, Postmaster General; and the Treasurer of the Liberal Party, the Master of Elibank, Lord Murray.

The allegations included the fact that Isaacs' brother, Godfrey Isaacs, was managing director of the Marconi company. While some have seen anti-Semitism in the charges, the majority of those accused were not Jewish, and the allegations, whether true or not, were well-founded and serious enough to be brought to public attention. Particularly active was the New Witness, edited by Cecil Chesterton. This was a distributist publication founded in 1911 by Hilaire Belloc as Eye-Witness, with Cecil's brother G. K. Chesterton on the editorial staff.

Cecil Chesterton, expected to be sued by the government ministers under the nation's libel laws, which put the burden of proof on the defendant. Instead, Godfrey Isaacs, Marconi's director, brought a criminal libel action against him. The New Age (June 12, 1913) described the trial this way:

If circumstantial evidence were ever sufficient to justify a charge, we do not doubt that in the case of Mr. Godfrey Isaacs v. Mr. Cecil Chesterton, the latter and not the former would have won. The case of Mr. Chesterton was admittedly based on circumstances and on such reasonable deductions from them as on the face of the facts any average mind would have felt impelled to draw. Unfortunately, however, for him the circumstances themselves proved insusceptible of any further evidence than their own existence.

The court ruled against Cecil Chesterton and fined him a token £100 plus costs, which was paid by his supporters. Some supporters claimed the decision would have gone differently had Cecil's lawyer aggressively gone after the accused ministers who were at the heart of the scandal. In the next issue of the New Witness, Cecil Chesterton repeated his allegations against the ministers, who still did not sue. (I got this from Wikipedia) For more details see the biography of G. K. Chesterton by Maisie Ward.

Marconi has since gone bust! And on 14th June 2011, the 75th Anniversary of the death of GK Chesterton, Marconi House in London caught fire!