How a Conservative Should Oppose Socialism and Liberalism - The Imaginative Conservative

https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2020/10/conservative-oppose-socialism-liberalism-timeless-sir-roger-scruton.html

How a Conservative Should Oppose Socialism and Liberalism

Sir Roger Scruton

In response to liberalism, it is necessary to work for the restoration of the concrete circumstances of justice. But the concrete law that I have been advocating is very unlike anything that either a socialist or a liberal would approve. It preserves inequalities, it confers privileges, it justifies power. That, however, is also its strength.

Post-war intellectuals have inherited two major systems of political thought with which to satisfy their lust for doctrine: liberalism and socialism. It is testimony to the persistence of the dichotomizing frame of mind that, even in Eastern Europe, the "world conflict" that endured for seventy years was frequently seen in terms of the opposition between these systems. And because they are systems, it is often supposed that they are organically unified—that you cannot embrace any part of one of them without embracing the whole of it. But let it be said at the outset, that, from the standpoint of our present predicament, nothing is more obvious about these systems than the fact that they are, in their presuppositions, substantially the same. Each of them proposes a description of our condition, and an ideal solution to it, in terms which are secular, abstract, universal, and egalitarian. Each sees the world in "desacralized" terms, in terms which, in truth, correspond to no lasting common human experience, but only to the cold skeletal paradigms that haunt the brains of intellectuals. Each is abstract, even when it pretends to a view of human history. Its history, like its philosophy, is detached from the concrete circumstance of human agency, and, indeed, in the case of Marxism, goes so far as to deny the efficacy of human agency, preferring to see the world as a confluence of impersonal forces. The ideas whereby men live and find their local identity—ideas of allegiance, of country or nation, of religion and obligation—all these are, for the socialist, mere ideology, and for the liberal, matters of "private" choice, to be respected by the state only because they cannot truly matter to the state. Only in a few places in Europe and America can a person call himself a conservative and expect to be taken seriously. The first task of conservatism, therefore, is to create a language in which "conservative" is no longer a term of abuse. This task is part of another, and larger, enterprise: that of the purification of language from the insidious sloganizing which has taken hold of it. This is not a simple enterprise. Indeed, it is, in one sense, the whole of politics. As the communists realized from the beginning, to control language is to control thought—not actual thought, but the possibilities of thought. It is partly through the successful efforts of the communists—aided, of course, by a world war which they did not a little to precipitate—that our parents thought in terms of elementary dichotomies. Left-Right, Communist-fascist, socialist-capitalist, and so on. Such were the "terms of debate" that we inherited. To the extent that you are not "on the Left," they implied, then to that extent are you "on the Right"; if not a Communist, then so much nearer fascism; if not a socialist, then an advocate of "capitalism," as an economic and political system.

If there is a basic dichotomy that presently confronts us, it is between us—the inheritors of what remains of Western civilization and Western political thinking—and the purveyors of dichotomies. There is no such opposition as that between Left and Right, or that between communism and fascism. There is simply an eternal alliance—although an "alliance of the unjust" who are always ready to violate the terms that bind them—between those who think in terms of dichotomies and labels. Theirs is the new style of politics, the science which has in truth replaced "politics" as it has ever been known. Theirs is a world of "forces" and "movements"; the world perceived by these infantile minds is in a constant state of turmoil and conflict, advancing now to the Left, now to the Right, in accordance with the half-baked predictions of this or that theorist of man's social destiny. Most of all, the dichotomizing mind has need of a system. It seeks for the theoretical statement of man's social and political condition, in terms of which to derive a doctrine that will answer to every material circumstance.

Each system is also universal. An international socialism is the stated ideal of most socialists; an international liberalism is the unstated tendency of the liberal. To neither system is it thinkable that men live, not by universal aspirations but by local attachments; not by a "solidarity" that stretches across the globe from end to end, but by obligations that are understood in terms which separate men from most of their fellows—in terms such as national history, religion, language, and the customs that provide the basis of legitimacy. Finally—and the importance of this should never be underestimated—both socialism and liberalism are, in the last analysis, egalitarian. They both suppose all men to be equal in every respect relevant to their political advantage. For the socialist, men are equal in their needs, and should therefore be equal in all that is granted to them for the satisfaction of their needs. For the liberal, they are equal in their rights, and should therefore be equal in all that affects their social and political standing.

I must say at once that I have more sympathy for the liberal than for the socialist position. For it is based in a philosophy that not only respects the reality of human agency, but also attempts to reconcile our political existence with the elementary freedoms that are constantly threatened by it. But—whatever its worth as a philosophical system, liberalism remains, for me, no more than that—a constant corrective to the given reality, but not a reality in itself. It is a shadow, cast by the light of reason, whose existence depends upon the massive body which obstructs that light, the body of man's given political existence.

This given political existence defies the four axioms of liberalism and socialism. It is not secular but spiritual, not abstract but concrete, not universal but particular, and not egalitarian but fraught with diversity, inequality, privilege, and power. And so it should be. I say that it is spiritual, for I believe that the world as man understands it—the Lebenswelt—is given to him in terms which bear the indelible imprint of obligations that surpass his understanding. He is born into a world that calls on him for sacrifice, and that promises him obscure rewards. This world is concrete—it cannot be described in the abstract unhistorical language of the socialist or liberal theorist without removing the skin of significance that renders it perceivable. The world of the socialist and the world of the liberal are like dead skeletons, from which the living skin has been picked away. But this actual, living, social world, is a particular thing, a vital thing, and it must, if it is to flourish, distribute its life variously and unequally about its parts. The abstract equality of the socialist and the liberal has no place in this world, and could be realized only by the assertion of controls so massive as to destroy themselves.

In order to justify, and indeed to win, its war with reality, the intellectual mind has developed an annihilating language with which to describe it. All political realities are described a-historically, as though they could be established anywhere, at any time. Thus the peculiarly Polish phenomenon of "Solidarity" is squeezed into the abstract forms dictated by the theory of "liberal democracy." It is even seen as a kind of socialism, especially by French intellectuals for whom nothing is good which cannot be given a socialist name. The example is minatory. If we are to return to reality, we must search for a language that is scrupulous towards the human world.

One generality, however, is useful to us, precisely because, behind it, a thousand particularities lie hidden. I refer to the idea of legitimacy. To their immense credit, liberals have tried to provide an alternative idea of legitimacy—one with which to challenge the historical entitlements that were to be extinguished by the triumph of their system. The first, and final, condemnation of communism is that it has dismissed the whole idea of legitimacy with a cavernous laugh. It is not my concern to argue with the liberal, some of whose ideas must eventually be incorporated into any philosophical theory of legitimate government. I wish only to suggest a non-liberal alternative, that will be free from the contagion of theory.

Among the many dichotomies that have pulverized the modern intelligence, that—due, I suppose to Weber—between legitimacy and legality, between "traditional" and "legal-rational" modes of authority, has been the most damaging. Only if law is misunderstood, as a system of abstractions, can legality be regarded as an alternative to—rather than as a particular realization of—legitimacy. But abstract law is, for that reason, without lasting force.

Legitimacy is, quite simply, the right of political command. And this right includes the exercise of law. What confers this right over a people? Some would say their "choice." But this idea overlooks the fact that we have only the crudest instruments whereby choices are measured, and these choices concern only the most fortuitous of things. Besides, what leads people to accept the "choice" that is thrust upon them by their fellows, if not a prior sense that they are bound together in a legitimate order?

The task for the conservative is to find the grounds of political existence concretely, and to work toward the re-establishment of legitimate government in a world that has been swept bare by intellectual abstractions. Our ultimate model for a legitimate order is one that is given historically, to people united by their sense of a common destiny, a common culture, and a common source of the values that govern their lives.

The liberal intelligentsia in the West, like the erstwhile Communist intelligentsia in the East, has persistently refused to accept the given–ness of human existence. It has made life, and in particular political life, into a kind of intellectual experiment. Seeing the unhappiness of man it asks, what has gone wrong? And it dreams of a world in which an abstract ideal of justice will be made reality. It looks everywhere for the single solution that will resolve conflicts and restore harmony everywhere, whether on the North Pole or at the Equator. Hence, the total inability of liberalism to provide a solution to those who are afflicted by totalitarian illegitimacy. The liberal begins from the same assumption as the totalitarian, namely, that politics is a means to an end, and the end is equality—not, it is true, material equality, but moral equality, an equality of "rights." Democracy is the necessary result of this liberal ideal, since democracy is the final realization of political equality. For the liberal, the only way to oppose the totalitarian is by slow, steady democratization of the social order.

Who can doubt the appeal of that idea? But it neglects the one, inescapable fact. I cannot see my own life as the liberal wishes to see political life. I cannot see my own life as an experiment. Nor can I regard my obligations as created entirely by my free, responsible actions. I am born into a situation that I did not create, and am encumbered from birth with obligations that are not of my own devising. My basic debt to the world is not one of justice but of piety, and it is only when I recognize this fact that I can be truly myself. For only in relation to my given situation can I form those values and social perceptions that give me strength, at last, to experiment with freedom.

Any genuine account of our sentiments of legitimacy must begin from the recognition that piety precedes justice, both in our lives and in our thinking, and that, until we have attached ourselves to a place and people, and begun to think of them as "our own," the claims of justice, and the superstition of equality, are entirely without meaning for us. But this attachment to place and people is not chosen: it is not the outcome of some liberal reflection on the rights of man, nor is it conceived in the experimental spirit that is so important to the socialist program. It is given to us, in the very texture of our social existence. We are born into the obligations of the family, and into the experience of ourselves as parts of a larger whole. Not to recognize the priority of this experience is to concede the major premise of totalitarian thinking, which is that political existence is nothing but a long term experiment. There is a particular view, still popular among left-wing intellectuals in the West, that the Soviet system was "socialism gone wrong." This thought expresses precisely the major political danger of our times, which is the belief that politics involves a choice of systems, as a means to an end, so that one system may "go wrong" while another "goes right." The truth is that socialism is wrong, precisely because it believes that it can go right—precisely because it sees politics asa means to an end. Politics is a manner of social existence, whose bedrock is the given obligations from which our social identities are formed. Politics is a form of association which is not a means to an end, but an end in itself. It is founded on legitimacy, and legitimacy resides in our sense that we are made by our inheritance.

Hence, if we are to rediscover the roots of political order, we must attempt to endorse the unchosen obligations that confer on us our political identity, and which settle for a Pole that he cannot be governed from Moscow, or for a Falkland Islander that he cannot be legitimately governed from Buenos Aires.

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It is worth pausing to mention another, and rival, generality that has been of some service to the left-liberal intellectual in our time, in his endeavor to wipe out the past, and to find a basis for political obligation that looks only to the present and the future. This is the idea of the "people," as the fount of legitimate order. The idea is usually combined with the fantasy that the intellectual has some peculiar faculty of hearing, and also articulating, the "voice of the people." This self-delusion, which has persisted unaltered since the days of the French Revolution, expresses the intellectual's concern to be reunited with the social order from which his own thinking has so tragically separated him. He wishes to redeem himself from his "outsideness." Unfortunately, however, he succeeds in uniting himself not with society, but only with another intellectual abstraction—"the people"—designed according to impeccable theoretical requirements, precisely in order to veil the intolerable reality of everyday life. "The people" does not exist. Even if it did exist, it would be authority for nothing, since it would have no concrete basis on which to build its legitimacy. Nobody can speak for the people. Nobody can speak for anyone. The truth, however, strives to be uttered, and may find expression, now on these lips, now on those.

Unlike "the people," the nation is not an abstraction. It is a given historical reality. It is made particular and immediate in language, custom, religion, and culture. It contains within itself the intimation of a legitimate order. This, I believe, should always be remembered, even by those—and that includes most of us now—who hesitate to adopt the straightforward nationalism that emerged from the Congress of Vienna and which at first pacified, but subsequently destroyed, our continent.

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But surely, you will say, is there not another source of legitimacy—one that does not require the support of those pious obligations that seem to commit us to so much on the basis of so little? Is there not a legitimacy to be found in democracy, that will one day replace the appeal to piety?

That is a large question. But two things need to be said in response to it. First, "democracy" is a disputed term, and nobody knows quite what it means or quite how to secure it. Should we wait until all the paradoxes of social choice have been resolved before formulating our political commitments?

Second, what people have appreciated in democracy is not periodic collective choice—for what is so estimable in the fact that the ignorant majority every now and then chooses to be guided by a new party, toward goals that it understands no better than it understood the goals of the previous one? What is appreciated are certain political virtues, which we rightly associate with British and American democracy, but which existed before democracy, and could be established elsewhere without its aid. These virtues are the following:

(i) Limited power: no one can exercise unlimited power when his projects stand to be extinguished by an election.

(ii) Constitutional government: but what upholds the constitution?

(iii) Justification by consent.

(iv) The existence of autonomous institutions, and the free association that makes them possible.

(v) Rule of law: in other words, the possibility of adjudicating every act, even when it is the act of an official—even when it is an act in the name of the sovereign power.

(vi) Legitimate opposition: in other words, the right to form parties, and to publish opinions, which oppose the government; and the right to contend openly for power.

Political theorists are familiar, of course, with those matters, and this is not the place to discuss them in detail. But it is worth summarizing their import. Taken together, those six features of government mean, not democracy, but rather constitutional limitation. To put it more directly, they denote the separation of the state (which is the locus of legitimate authority) from those who hold power by virtue of the state. Those who wield power can be judged in terms of the very offices that they hold. This is surely an essential part of true political order. It is also an indispensable part of any fully elaborated legitimacy. Indeed, we can see legitimacy in the modern state as composed of two parts: a root, which is the pious attachment that draws people together into a single political entity; and a tree which grows from that root, which is the sovereign state, ordered by the principles that I have advocated. In this state, power is held under conditions that limit it, and in a manner that makes it answerable to those who may suffer from its exercise. This state shows the true flowering of a "civil society"—a public life that is open, dignified, and imbued with an instinctive legality. Such legality grows from and expresses the legitimacy that is stored in its root. It is this upper, visible part of the legitimate polis that is so evidently destroyed by the political doctrines of our time. But its destruction is made possible, not so much by the elimination of democracy, as by the stifling of the spontaneous source of legitimate sentiment from which it feeds.

Democracy can, of course, sustain the six political virtues that I have listed. But it can also destroy them. For all of them depend on the one thing that democracy cannot provide, and which is hinted at in the question that I have added to number (ii): authority. What prompts people to accept and be bound by the results of a democratic election, or by the existing law, or by the limitations embodied in an office? What, in short, gives rise to the "public spirit" that has so signally vanished from the institutions of government in much of modern Europe? Surely it is respect—for institutions, for procedures, for the powers and privileges that are actually enjoyed. This respect is derived from the sense that these powers, privileges, and procedures reflect something that is truly "ours," something that grows from the social bond that defines our condition. Here lies the authority of the actual: that it is seen to contain within itself the residue of the allegiance which defines my place.

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What now is true legality? I have already hinted at a distinction between abstract and concrete law, and have implied that only the latter can truly fill the vacuum of legitimacy that presently lies before us. Concrete law is exemplified at its best in the English tradition of common law—law made by judges, in response to the concrete problems that come before them, and in which principles emerge only slowly, and already subject to the harsh discipline of the actual. Any law that is the upshot of serious judicial reasoning, founded in precedents and authorities, bears the stamp of an historical order; it also remains responsive to the reality of human conflicts, and constitutes a genuine attempt to resolve them, rather than to dictate an intellectually satisfying solution which may be unacceptable to the parties. This kind of law encapsulates the true source of legal authority, which is the plaintiff's belief that justice will be done, not abstractly, but in his particular case, in light of the particular circumstances that are his, and which are perhaps even uniquely his. For concrete law to exist in any form, there must be judicial independence. And once there is judicial independence there is all that anyone has reasonably aspired to under the banner of "the rights of man." For there is the assurance that justice may be done, whatever the power that seeks to extinguish it.

There are two major threats to concrete law. One is the abolition of judicial independence. This was accomplished by the Communist Party, in the interests of an "abstract" justice—an "equality" of reward—which must inevitably conflict with the concrete circumstances of human existence. The second threat is the proliferation of statute law—of law by decree, law repeatedly made and re-made in response to the half-baked ideas of politicians and their advisors. All such law is fatally flawed: the Communist Party rested its entire claim to legality in the generation of such laws, while removing the only instrument—judicial independence—that could make them into genuine laws, rather than military injunctions.

Liberalism has always appreciated the importance of legality. But liberal legality is an abstract legality, concerned with the promotion of a purely philosophical idea of "human rights." What value are human rights, without the judicial process that will uphold them? And besides, in resting one's faith in this beguiling abstraction, does one not also give to one's enemy another bastion against the recognition of his illegitimacy? Is it not possible for him to say that he upholds human rights—only different rights? (The right to work, for instance, or a right to a stake in the means of production.) If one looks back to the French Revolution, one sees just how easy it is for the doctrine of "human rights" to become an instrument of the most appalling tyranny. It suffices to do as the Jacobins did—to abolish the judiciary, and replace it by "people's courts." Then anything can be done to anyone, in the name of the Rights of Man.

In response to liberalism, therefore, it is necessary to work for the restoration of the concrete circumstances of justice. But the concrete law that I have been advocating is very unlike anything that either a socialist or a liberal would approve. It preserves inequalities, it confers privileges, it justifies power. That, however, is also its strength. For there always will be inequalities: there always will be privilege and power. Those are nothing but the lineaments of every actual political order. Since inequalities, privileges, and powers exist, it is right that they should coexist with the law that might justify them. Otherwise they exist unjustified, and also uncontrolled.

Republished with gracious permission from the Intercollegiate Review (Spring 1993).

This essay appeared originally appeared here in February 2012 and appears here again in memory of the great Sir Roger Scruton (born February 27, 1944), who died on January 12, 2020.

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SAINT JOHN OF JERUSALEM - GRAND PRIORY OF ENGLAND SMOM: AN HISTORIC MOMENT

http://saintjohnofjerusalem.blogspot.com/2010/10/historic-moment.html?m=0

AN HISTORIC MOMENT

A regular worshipper in the Conventual Church has sent us this photograph, which, despite its outward similarity to a tourist snap, is in fact the record of an historic moment in the life our our Country, Our Church and our Order.

The photograph was taken from Lambeth Bridge shortly after the Holy Father had passed across, cheered by our photographer, on Friday 17th September 2010, on his way from visiting the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth Palace to the Palace of Westminster, to address Parliament and the Nation.

At the very time this picture was taken, the Holy Father was speaking in Westminster Hall. He was standing on the spot on which St Thomas More was condemned to martyrdom in 1535, the first time since the Reformation that the Members of both houses of Parliament have been addressed as a formal act of State by a Bishop of the Catholic Church. The first time ever by the Roman Pontiff. 

Present near the front of the Hall sat The Grand Prior of England, Fra' Fredrik-Crichton Stuart, the first time that the Grand Prior has been present in Parliament since Sir Thomas Thresham in 1559, before which time the Priors sat ex officio among the barons.  See the drawing at the bottom of this article.

We post here below the text of the Address delivered by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI on this glorious occasion in the life of the Realm.  His Holiness is boldly aware of the significance of this history both for British Catholics and for all peoples of these Isles.

The latter part of the Holy Father's address has much of relevance to the daily work today of the Order of Malta. These words are addressed to us too, let us have the courage to heed them.

Mr Speaker,

Thank you for your words of welcome on behalf of this distinguished gathering. As I address you, I am conscious of the privilege afforded me to speak to the British people and their representatives in Westminster Hall, a building of unique significance in the civil and political history of the people of these islands. Allow me also to express my esteem for the Parliament which has existed on this site for centuries and which has had such a profound influence on the development of participative government among the nations, especially in the Commonwealth and the English-speaking world at large. Your common law tradition serves as the basis of legal systems in many parts of the world, and your particular vision of the respective rights and duties of the state and the individual, and of the separation of powers, remains an inspiration to many across the globe.

As I speak to you in this historic setting, I think of the countless men and women down the centuries who have played their part in the momentous events that have taken place within these walls and have shaped the lives of many generations of Britons, and others besides. In particular, I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose "good servant" he was, because he chose to serve God first. The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process.

This country's Parliamentary tradition owes much to the national instinct for moderation, to the desire to achieve a genuine balance between the legitimate claims of government and the rights of those subject to it. While decisive steps have been taken at several points in your history to place limits on the exercise of power, the nation's political institutions have been able to evolve with a remarkable degree of stability. In the process, Britain has emerged as a pluralist democracy which places great value on freedom of speech, freedom of political affiliation and respect for the rule of law, with a strong sense of the individual's rights and duties, and of the equality of all citizens before the law. While couched in different language, Catholic social teaching has much in common with this approach, in its overriding concern to safeguard the unique dignity of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, and in its emphasis on the duty of civil authority to foster the common good.

And yet the fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More's trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge. Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident - herein lies the real challenge for democracy.

The inadequacy of pragmatic, short-term solutions to complex social and ethical problems has been illustrated all too clearly by the recent global financial crisis. There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world. Just as "every economic decision has a moral consequence" (Caritas in Veritate, 37), so too in the political field, the ethical dimension of policy has far-reaching consequences that no government can afford to ignore. A positive illustration of this is found in one of the British Parliament's particularly notable achievements – the abolition of the slave trade. The campaign that led to this landmark legislation was built upon firm ethical principles, rooted in the natural law, and it has made a contribution to civilization of which this nation may be justly proud.

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This "corrective" role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation. In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square. I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.

Your readiness to do so is already implied in the unprecedented invitation extended to me today. And it finds expression in the fields of concern in which your Government has been engaged with the Holy See. In the area of peace, there have been exchanges regarding the elaboration of an international arms trade treaty; regarding human rights, the Holy See and the United Kingdom have welcomed the spread of democracy, especially in the last sixty-five years; in the field of development, there has been collaboration on debt relief, fair trade and financing for development, particularly through the International Finance Facility, the International Immunization Bond, and the Advanced Market Commitment. The Holy See also looks forward to exploring with the United Kingdom new ways to promote environmental responsibility, to the benefit of all.

I also note that the present Government has committed the United Kingdom to devoting 0.7% of national income to development aid by 2013. In recent years it has been encouraging to witness the positive signs of a worldwide growth in solidarity towards the poor. But to turn this solidarity into effective action calls for fresh thinking that will improve life conditions in many important areas, such as food production, clean water, job creation, education, support to families, especially migrants, and basic healthcare.

Where human lives are concerned, time is always short: yet the world has witnessed the vast resources that governments can draw upon to rescue financial institutions deemed "too big to fail". Surely the integral human development of the world's peoples is no less important: here is an enterprise, worthy of the world's attention, that is truly "too big to fail".

This overview of recent cooperation between the United Kingdom and the Holy See illustrates well how much progress has been made, in the years that have passed since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations, in promoting throughout the world the many core values that we share. I hope and pray that this relationship will continue to bear fruit, and that it will be mirrored in a growing acceptance of the need for dialogue and respect at every level of society between the world of reason and the world of faith. I am convinced that, within this country too, there are many areas in which the Church and the public authorities can work together for the good of citizens, in harmony with Britain's long-standing tradition. For such cooperation to be possible, religious bodies – including institutions linked to the Catholic Church – need to be free to act in accordance with their own principles and specific convictions based upon the faith and the official teaching of the Church. In this way, such basic rights as religious freedom, freedom of conscience and freedom of association are guaranteed. The angels looking down on us from the magnificent ceiling of this ancient Hall remind us of the long tradition from which British Parliamentary democracy has evolved. They remind us that God is constantly watching over us to guide and protect us. And they summon us to acknowledge the vital contribution that religious belief has made and can continue to make to the life of the nation.

Mr Speaker, I thank you once again for this opportunity briefly to address this distinguished audience. Let me assure you and the Lord Speaker of my continued good wishes and prayers for you and for the fruitful work of both Houses of this ancient Parliament. Thank you and God bless you all!

The Parliament of King Edward I, ca. 1300. The King sits on the throne attended by both Houses of Parliament. He is flanked by the King of Scots, the Prince of Wales, and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. The single figure in black sitting to the right of the barons on the cross-benches in the second row from the bottom of this drawing is the Grand Prior of England of the Knights Hospitaller.  He is William de Tottenham, who was the first Grand Prior to be summoned to the House of Lords.

RIP Fra' Matthew Festing (1949-2021) - Catholic Herald

https://catholicherald.co.uk/rip-fra-matthew-festing-1949-2021/

RIP Fra' Matthew Festing (1949-2021)

On Friday, the Grand Magistry of the Order of Malta announced the death of Fra' Matthew Festing, the 79th Grand Master of the Sovereign Order of Malta, who died in Malta, aged 71.

Elected in March 2008, the charismatic Amplefordian served as Grand Master until January 2017 after being forced to resign by the Vatican in controversial circumstances after a well-publicised power struggle with the German Chancellor of the Order of Malta. The dispute led to reforms within the ancient hospitaller order – dating back to the 11th century – that, until recently, enjoyed sovereignty independent of the Vatican. 

Fra' Matthew Festing died in Malta, the Order's sovereign home from 1530 to 1798, where on 4th November he attended the solemn profession of religious vows of Fra' Francis Vassallo in St John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta. According to a report published by the Grand Magistry, a few hours later he felt ill and was taken to hospital where his condition quickly appeared severe.

Robert Matthew Festing was born in Northumberland, England, in 1949. He read history at Cambridge and served in the Grenadier Guards and held the rank of colonel in the Territorial Army. He became a Knight of the Order in 1977. He said that he was 'profoundly moved ' by his experience of helping the sick with the Order in Lourdes, where he first went on pilgrimage in 1974.

He became a novice Knight of Justice – a novitiate to become a 'religious' (or 'professed knight') of the Order – in 1986. He duly became a professed Knight of Justice in 1991 in which he took the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. As a Knight of Justice, he was a member of the tightly knit traditional community that Pope Benedict XVI described as lying at 'the heart of the Order.' His resignation caused further debate over the role of these vowed religious knights, with reforms proposed that would limit their authority and change the Order in ways that concern traditionalist members. This debate over reforms continues today.

Festing was an art expert. For most of his professional life he worked at an international art auction house. He was appointed OBE (Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II and served as one of her Deputy Lieutenants in the county of Northumberland.

Between 1993 and 2008, he became the Grand Prior of England, the first holder of that role for 450 years. In this capacity, he led humanitarian aid missions to Kosovo, Serbia and Croatia. He was a descendant of Sir Adrian Fortescue, a knight of Malta, who was martyred in 1539. He had a brave service record as a soldier, having served in the Grenadier Guards in Northern Ireland and Belize in the early 1970s.

But it was in the Kosovo War in the late 1990s where he showed his charismatic leadership qualities. As the Balkans descended into violence and civil war, with historic tensions opening up old wounds, Festing went into action.

The Balkans showed Festing at his best. Whilst the UN stood on watching, Fra' Matthew decided to act independently in his capacity as Grand Prior of England. With typical sangfroid, he borrowed a battered old truck from Shore Porters in Aberdeen, piled it with food and medical supplies, picked up a few volunteers and they simply drove to the Balkans from Northumberland. He made multiple aid missions. 

According to Jack Straker, Festing's former aide-de-camp, Matthew and his friends would drive through Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia in their old lorry, impervious to the war zone danger and 'giving out aid and dodging shrapnel as they went along'. In 1998, Fra' Andrew Bertie recognised Festing's bravery by awarding him the Grand Cross of Justice, one of the highest ranks in the Order. The rank was created within the Order to honour Fra' Matthew. 

Festing was elected Prince and 79th Grand Master on 11 March 2008. He resigned the position of Grand Master on 28 January 2017. The controversial circumstances around his resignation after 11 years of service are complex and continue to have ramifications today within the Order regarding the role of 'professed knights' and proposed reforms that some traditionalists believe could undermine the Order's historic identity as a 'religious order'.

Festing became at odds with the more progressive German faction with many feeling he had been treated unjustly by the Vatican for political reasons. At the bottom of the dispute was a clash (traditionalist v progressive) over the role of the ancient order in the modern world. Should it remain an ancient chivalrous hospitaller order, devoted to helping the infirm, the poor and the sick, or should it become a more NGO-style professionalised international humanitarian organisation?

The Catholic world struggled to understand exactly what lay at the core of the clash between Baron Albrecht von Boeselager, the German Grand Chancellor of the Order and the British head of the church's oldest surviving chivalric military order. One thing is certain, Festing was an 'old-school' traditionalist – a romantic English Catholic – who had devoted himself to a life of service and helping others.

According to Straker, Festing was deeply saddened by the unwarranted personal attacks on him at the time. This led to Cardinal Burke, the then Cardinal Patron of the Order of Malta, ordering the dismissal of von Boeselager, following the revelation that certain foreign aid programmes overseen bythe German knight had been distributing contraceptives in violation of Catholic teaching.

Then Pope Francis intervened, and Festing – after decades of selfless and honourable Catholic service – was forced out to much media fanfare. Yet, as was noted by Festing's many friends, it was precisely Fra Matthew's 'integrity' and 'personal devotion to helping others' that got him elected as Grand Master, being elected almost unanimously in 2008 by members of the Order from around the world.

During his decade at the helm of the Order – he succeeded Fra Andrew Bertie, another British Grand Master – Festing travelled to the five continents to 'strengthen diplomatic relations with countries and to see the Order's works around the world at first hand'. He led dozens of pilgrimages to Lourdes and other Marian shrines, taking personal care of disabled pilgrims.

He was made an honorary citizen of Rapallo, Italy (2008); Pompeii, Italy (2014) and Birgu, Malta (2015). He has received honorary degrees in Humane Letters, Catholic University of America (2009); Doctorate of Divinity, Northumbria University (2010); Doctor of Public Service, John Cabot University (2014); Religious and Human Science, Santa Maria la Antigua Catholic University (2016).

The date of Fra Matthew's funeral is yet to be announced

New Liturgical Movement: A Primer for a Tradition-Minded Celebration of the OF Mass

https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2017/09/a-primer-for-tradition-minded.html?m=1#.YZuI8-Q8aEc

A Primer for a Tradition-Minded Celebration of the OF Mass

Our thanks to Fr Richard Cipolla of St Mary's Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, for sharing this article with our readers. If you are a priest of the Roman Rite, as of ten years ago today, you are officially "bi-formal"; you have almost completely free access to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, as we now call it, in addition to the Ordinary Form.

Despite his shy and retiring character, Pope Benedict XVI braved a great deal of criticism, much of it very nasty, all of it completely unnecessary, to give you this gift, after devoting so much of his work to consideration of the Catholic Church's liturgy problem. This was not only done so that you could respond more generously to the pastoral needs of the faithful, and especially the younger faithful, who are so eager to rediscover beauty and the sense of the sacred in public worship, although that it is certainly very important. It is no small matter, this liberty to fulfill what St John Paul II defined as the "rightful aspirations" of the faithful who love the traditional liturgy. However, it was also done to provide an important, indeed, a necessary point of reference for the future correction of the post-Conciliar liturgical form, since the need for such a correction is evident to all those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

From last year's All Saints and All Souls photopost, the OF Mass as it should be, at the Church of St Agnes in St Paul, Minnesota.

Since it seems likely that it will be a while before the "reform of the reform" can begin, what now needs to be done is to celebrate the Novus Ordo in a way that includes as much of the traditional Roman Rite as possible without disobeying its rubrics. The object of this Primer is to inject Tradition into the veins of the Novus Ordo as a preparation for its future reform in the next generation. We hope that these suggestions will fruitfully contribute to the "mutual enrichment" which Pope Benedict spoke of in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.

1. Say the vesting prayers every day. Always wear the maniple, the sign of the work of the priest. When using Roman vestments, cross the stole. Wear the biretta.

2. Always use the veil and burse for the chalice; a bare chalice is embarrassing and irreverent. Either have the veiled chalice on the altar before Mass or carry it in in the traditional way. On the way to the altar, recite Psalm 42 quietly.

3. The Mass must be celebrated ad orientem. This is the most important injection of the Tradition into the OF. To change the orientation is to eliminate the terrible novelty of saying Mass facing the people and the misunderstanding of the Mass that ensues from such a posture. Those who are pastors must, after proper catechesis in the parish, re-introduce the ancient and constant tradition of orientation of the celebrant facing liturgical East. Remember that the rubrics of the OF still assume that the priest is facing East, as, for example, to turn to the people at the Orate fratres. (For more details, see "The Normativity of Ad Orientem Worship According to the Ordinary Form's Rubrics".

4. When incense is used, the customary prayers of blessing should be said silently, thereby not breaking the rubric to say "nothing" at the blessing.

5. The Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) should be in their traditional languages and preferably sung to a simple chant. This injection of Greek and Latin into the Mass, even daily Mass, helps the people become comfortable with the uniform objectivity and universality that the use of Latin affords. The final blessing is another good place to introduce the use of Latin in the Mass.

6. Make the customary bows in the Gloria at adoramus te, gratias agimus, Jesu Christe, suscipe deprecationem, and make the sign of the Cross at the end.

7. The position of the hands at the Collect, at the Prayer over the Gifts and Post-Communion prayer, should be in the traditional form, never the outstretched arms that came into vogue in the 60s and 70s. Beware of making the traditional form too rigid.

8. The Responsorial Psalm is one of the least happy novelties of the reformed rite. Wherever possible, sing the psalm, or better yet, have a cantor sing the Gradual, which is an option listed in the General Instruction.

9. Memorize both prayers before the Gospel from the traditional rite and say those quietly.

10. At the Creed, make the customary bow at Jesum Christum, a deep bow at et incarnatus est, a bow at simul adoratur, and the Sign of the Cross at end.

11. At the Preparation of the Gifts, the berakah prayers that thank God for bread and wine must be said according to the rubrics. They should be said quietly before saying the traditional Offertory prayers silently, Suscipe sancte Pater for the bread and Offerimus tibi for the wine. It would seem that the water is not blessed according to the OF rubrics. Bow deeply at In spiritu humilitatis.

12. When censing the gifts, use the traditional three crosses and three circles. Memorize the prayers Dirigatur and Ascendat at the censing of the altar.

13. Memorize the Lavabo prayer at the washing of hands.

14. At the Orate Fratres use the "half-circle" movement. Turn to the right to face the people and then continue turning to face the book.

15. Make a profound bow at the Sanctus and bless yourself at the Benedictus.

16. THE CANON should be said audibly but quietly. God does not have to be shouted at, especially during this most sacred prayer of the Mass. At the beginning of the Roman Canon, use the traditional circular motion with your hands and bow profoundly at "Jesus Christ" so that this is as close to the traditional kissing of the altar as possible. Ignore the brackets after Andrew in the list of Apostles and always include all of the saints in the list beginning with John the Baptist. Before the consecration, wipe your thumbs and forefingers three times on the corporal. Genuflect both before and after you elevate the Sacred Host and the Precious Blood. Keep "digits" (thumb and forefinger joined) from after the consecration until the ablutions.

17. At the Our Father use same hand position as for the Collects.

18. Turn to the people for the Peace, and then turn back to the altar and begin the Agnus Dei.

19. When receiving the Host and Chalice, make the sign of the Cross with each before receiving. Memorize the prayers Panem caelestem and Quid retribuam and use them before consuming the Sacred Species.

20. Have the altar server ring the bell immediately after you have consumed the Sacred Species. This is important to let the people know that the Sacrifice is complete. The reformers deliberately moved the Ecce Agnus Dei to before the priest's Communion to make it seem that the priest is just receiving Communion first before the people. The priest is not "receiving Communion"; he is completing the Sacrifice.

21. Always do the double ablutions, first only wine, holding the paten under your chin, and then wine and water, holding your joined thumb and forefinger over the chalice as the server pours the wine and water over them. When consuming the second ablution hold the purificator under your chin. Dry your fingers with the purificator, cleanse the chalice thoroughly, cover the chalice with the veil and place the corporal in the burse.

22. After the post-Communion prayer go to the foot of the altar and say the prayer to St Michael, followed by Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us, three times. Or, consider using the full suite of Leonine prayers: three Hail Marys; Hail, Holy Queen; the prayer for the Church; the St. Michael Prayer; and the threefold Sacred Heart invocation.

23. If possible say the Prologue to John en route to or in the sacristy after Mass.

For further reading, see also "Imbuing the Ordinary Form with Extraordinary Form Spirituality."

RORATE CÆLI

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/?m=1

To be Consumed by the Fire of God: Sermon for Pentecost XXI

 From the Epistle:  For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the Principalities and the Powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness on high. (Ephesians 6:12)

The Church is only as good as her saints, for they make real the truth of the holiness of the Church.  And at the heart of every one of those men and women we call saints is Hans Urs von Balthasar's statement:  "Love alone is credible." Love alone is credible.  And yet, is this what Catholics associate with saints, do they believe that the saint is the saint because they make love credible?  The post-Vatican II time of the Church has seen a marked de-emphasis on the saints, at least at the level of the hierarchy or at least those in charge of liturgical matters.  In the years following the imposition of the 1970 Roman Missal  by Pope St. Paul VI the liturgical gurus of that time declared that to have too many statues of saints in a parish church confuses the people, and to have a statue of a saint, even the Blessed Virgin Mary, within the sanctuary, would generate the ultimate confusion, for then the people are distracted from what should be their focus:  the priest-presider as the celebrant of the liturgy.  We will demur from speaking about whether the priest should be the focus of the liturgy or whether the people should be the focus of the liturgy or none of the above.  These liturgical experts obviously were not familiar with the Divine Liturgy in an Orthodox church, where the presence of the saints is so vividly encountered in the presence of the icons. But the provincialism of liturgical experts is beyond this particular sermon.  

The saints are proofs, obvious proofs, of the reality of sanctifying grace, of transformative grace.  Without St Lucy's eyes on a plate, we would all be Protestants, singing like at the Mad Hatter's Tea Party: "Grace  yesterday, grace tomorrow, but never grace today."  

I was thinking of all of this yesterday when pondering the meaning of the feast of St. Margaret Mary Alocoque.  Her name fascinates me. The sound of Alocoque is amazing.  When one reads the hagiographical account of her life, one encounters those key phrases: born of a noble family, pious as a child, from an early age was drawn to pious exercises of penance, entered the religious life, died, was raised to the honors of the altar by such and such a Pope.  Now these accounts of the lives of saints, especially after the Council of Trent, are not to be discredited.  But we must ask whether, in their good desire to speak of the holiness of the Saint, they neuter the relevance of their sanctity for us today.  

St Mary Margaret Alacoque lived at a particular time in the history of the world, the world impregnated by the God who became flesh in history two thousand years ago.  And so the meaning of her sanctity is not confined to some sort of Platonic eternal sphere of saintliness.  It must be understood in the context of when she lived and who she was.  St. Margaret Mary Alocoque cannot be made into a generic saint, whose statue embodies that pietistical mediocrity that denies the radical Christocentricity that is the essence of the Saint.  

To disregard the context of the time and place in which the saint lived is to deny the reality of the holiness of that saint and any relevance to us today.  What would it have been like to live in 17th century France, when Margaret Alocoque lived? It would have been not a good time for a pious and believing Catholic.  For that century in France was a time of irreligion in the political and cultural sphere and a time of real challenges to the Catholic faith within the Church herself.  It was a time when the religious wars and their aftermath infected all levels of society, when the Catholic faith and regal and local politics were so intertwined that the Catholic faith was threatened by an absorption into political strife.  But it was also a time when within the Church, as a part of the Church's response to the Protestant Reformation, there arose a movement called Jansenism that threatened the very basis of the Catholic teaching about grace and man's freedom.  Jansenism, as a reaction to the scandals besetting the Church from within, as a reaction to the apparent denial of the holiness of the Church by the behavior of clergy, embraced a terrible and un-Catholic view of grace that denied the freedom of the man or woman to accept or reject grace.  The Jansenists were the Catholic counterparts of the Puritans in Protestantism.  And they caused many problems in the Church not because of their rightful criticism of the laxity of the moral standards of Catholics but because of their deep misunderstanding of freedom and grace. 

Not a good time to be a Catholic. But is any time a good time to be a Catholic?  No, there is not. That is the point.  So Margaret Mary Alocoque enters the Visitation Convent in Paray-Monial in 1671.  She is deemed by her sisters as awkward and not obviously cut out for the religious life.  She doesn't fit the image of the 17th century Visitation nun.  And she begins to have visions of our Lord, beginning in 1674, and these vision center on our Lord's heart, and on this Heart as our Lord's infinite love for each man and woman in the world. She kept a notebook that contains the words of our Lord in these visions.  Listen to one of them:

"After this, He asked me for my heart, which I begged Him to take. He did so and placed it in His own Adorable Heart, where He showed it to me like a tiny atom which was being consumed in this great furnace, and withdrawing it thence as a burning flame in the form of a heart, He restored it to the place whence He had taken it…"

"Like a tiny atom"…. That is how we know this is real, for St. Margaret Mary completely understands her role not as a great saint whose statues would grace countless churches, but rather as a mere atom, a speck, to point to the love of God in the person of Jesus Christ, a speck that would be consumed by this fire of love.  Of course, she encountered great opposition and misunderstanding from her Order, especially from her Superior.  And that is the Catholic way:  such special revelations by anyone who has any Catholic sense should be resisted and countered, because they are not part of the deposit of Faith.   Credulity is an enemy of the Catholic faith.  But because her revelations were genuine, the doubt and genuine skepticism of those in charge of such things in the Church were overcome, and it is Margaret Mary Alacoque who becomes the impetus for devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Church.

But once again, this saint cannot and should not be taken out of her historical context and turned into a generic pious saint.  God raised her up at that particular time as an antidote to the two enemies of the Church at that time:  irreligion and Jansenism.  The 17th century in France was a time when the Catholic faith was at the mercy and the manipulation of those in power:  kings, emperors, heads of state. It was the time of the beginning of secularism, when what one believed was linked to who was in charge at that time and when we see the real first beginnings of the doctrine of relativism.  But it was also the time of corruption in the Church. One of the reactions to this corruption within the Church was the appearance of a form of Puritanism that in effect denied the freedom of man to reject grace and thereby to deny the freedom that is from God and which distorted the Catholic faith in such a way that the unity of the triad of truth, beauty and goodness was severed, with disastrous consequences that resonate down to our own time.  

But this is the point:  that God raised St Margaret Mary in her particular time to say something that had to be said and to be that someone who could say what had to be said:  that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting live." In the midst of irreligion, of behaving as if God does not exist, and in the midst of a scourge that combines a liturgical puritanism and a romantic accommodation to a faithless generation within the Catholic Church: this woman proclaims the love of God that burns so strongly that that love is not beyond the grasp of even the most grievous sinner. And in this way the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is truly radical and cannot be put into a pious box or evacuated merely by a Litany.  For the offense to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not only the blasphemy and irreverence of a non-believing world.  The offense to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is also committed by those, who in the name of religion and piety, restrict where the love and grace of God can operate, can heal, can transform.

But how different is 17th century France from 21st century United States, nay rather, from the whole Western world at this time?  Not very.  For we live in a time when the political powers both in this country and in Europe either deny the Christian foundations of modern Western culture or relegate Christian faith to private opinion and thereby make it not a part of the real world of our time. We face both irreligion and dissension within the Church.  That dissension takes the form both of disobedience to the Tradition of the Church and also of retreating into a romantic pietism that cannot meet the challenges of the reality of the world in which we live. Today we need saints who will do what the saints of the past have done: make real the presence of the love of God in Jesus Christ to the whole world.  We need not only someone like St Margaret Mary Alocoque, deeply and humbly within the religious life. We also need saints like St Ignatius of Loyola who took on the irreligion and unbelief and corruption of his world and allowed it to be transformed by the graceful love of Jesus Christ, who understood the central role of education in evangelization, who involved himself in the world as it was and in a heroic way helped lay the foundation of the post-medieval Christian world.

There is a need for silence today, silence that will enable us to listen to the small, whispering voice of God:  a silence that will blanket the chatter of the Church that seems to have forgotten her mission, a silence that will muffle the noise of political debate and the scream of the all-demanding naked self. There is silence in the holiness of sainthood. But there is that silence also in what we do together at this Mass, that silence that is preceded by the great affirmation of praise of the Sanctus, that silence that allows eternity to enter and kiss time, that allows the infinite Love of God to be present here and now on this altar.  May we all be caught up in the flame of that Love and allow that Love to transform us into living flames of that Love.  

The words of St. Margaret Mary Alocoque:

"He asked me for me for my heart, which I prayed him to take; which he did, and placed it in his own adorable heart wherein he showed it to me like a tiny atom being consumed in that blazing furnace; and he drew it forth again like a burning flame in the form of a heart, and set it once more in the place whence he had taken it."

Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla 

New Liturgical Movement: In Uncertain Times, House Chapels Proliferate

https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2021/09/in-uncertain-times-house-chapels.html?m=1#more

In Uncertain Times, House Chapels Proliferate

In Western history, house chapels are a phenomenon associated mostly with aristocrats who lived on large estates and could afford to employ a resident chaplain. In times of persecution, these chapels often became important places of refuge, since their remoteness, together with the status of the family owners, introduced a kind of safety buffer between the outside world and the services that took place within. This safety was not always enough, alas, to prevent priests from being surprised and captured by hostile state forces.

While some house chapels of the aforementioned sort are still in existence and functional, it is becoming more common to see modest chapels being built in the homes of ordinary Catholic laity. A basement renovation, a small spare room, an attic, all offer possibilities for building an altar and setting up a space that is appropriate for the Mass and other devotions in a time of necessity. Some families simply wish to create a prayerful space where they can gather for individual or group prayer, in an environment that reminds them of and connects them with the parish or chapel where they usually go for Mass. Others, keenly aware of the grave and deteriorating situation in which the Church finds itself in the West, have decided to "plan ahead" by making a suitable space for eventual underground or "canceled" priests. One diocese has already outlawed private traditional Masses altogether, and there may be more that follow suit. Priests in such dioceses will benefit from having places of refuge where they can bypass the unjust restrictions and offer Mass to God, in the presence of grateful laity.

In January, I published an article at NLM called "Building a Home Altar," which offered practical advice about specs that could be used for an altar, as well as some other desiderata. Afterwards I received some interesting photographs, a selection of which I wish to share for the edification and inspiration of readers who may be thinking along similar lines.

The first set of photos is of a lovely chapel in a basement. The family has plans for further decoration.

The second set of photos shows another basement chapel. The owner is friends with a woodworker who built for her, out of spare parts, a shrine to the Sacred Heart, located in the same room. One notes the Stations of the Cross as well: it seems that this space is well appointed for personal and family prayer. We all know of families who have to drive long distances to get to a traditional Mass. For such families, having the Stations at home, set up along the perimeter of a sufficiently large room, would be a boon, especially during the season of Lent.
 

 

Finally, an unusual item to share from a priest, who is in a pastoral situation where saying the old Mass is risky. He has fitted out a closet as a "side altar," which can then be closed and hidden at any other time.

Some readers may be inclined to scoff or raise eyebrows at Masses held in homes, as if it is a thing that should not be done. They would be right in this sense: in ideal circumstances, every parish church, every cathedral, every basilica, should be breathing the sacred silence of the Low Mass and should be ringing with the sounds of Gregorian chant and the pipe organ at the Missa cantata and the Missa solemnis. But that is not where we are—not even remotely. And in a time of growing hostility to the tradition of the Church, our patrimony must be preserved and handed on. In the 1970s, there were plenty of Masses in hotels and living rooms: that is a large part of the reason we have the traditional Mass today in churches and cathedrals. Fr. James Jackson writes in the Acknowledgments of his book Nothing Superfluous: "I thank Mr. Alan Hicks, who invited me to Dr. Senior's home for a Low Mass, celebrated with great love by the late Fr. Harry Marchowski. It was the first time I was the ancient rite of the Mass. Though a living room is no basilica, there was a perfect devotion there" (p. xvi).

Robert Hugh Benson's historical novel set in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, By What Authority?, furnishes the best fictional treatment of a secret Mass in a home of which I am aware. One of the principal characters, a Puritan lady named Isabel, who has become intimate friends with a Catholic recusant family and is drawn to their faith, experiences her first Mass, said by a priest who has been racked multiple times and who has nonetheless escaped with his life. Given the extremely dangerous circumstances, it has to take place in the middle of the night, in the living room of the manor. Here is the excerpt: it is one of the finest descriptions of the Holy Mass in all of English literature.

*       *       *

Cover of the Os Justi Press edition

The chapel at Maxwell Hall was in the cloister wing; but a stranger visiting the house would never have suspected it. Opening out of Lady Maxwell's new sitting-room was a little lobby or landing, about four yards square, lighted from above; at the further end of it was the door into her bedroom. This lobby was scarcely more than a broad passage; and would attract no attention from any passing through it. The only piece of furniture in it was a great tall old chest as high as a table, that stood against the inner wall beyond which was the long gallery that looked down upon the cloister garden. The lobby appeared to be practically as broad as the two rooms on either side of it; but this was effected by the outer wall being made to bulge a little; and the inner wall being thinner than inside the two living-rooms. The deception was further increased by the two living-rooms being first wainscoted and then hung with thick tapestry; while the lobby was bare. A curious person who should look in the chest would find there only an old dress and a few pieces of stuff. This lobby, however, was the chapel; and through the chest was the entrance to one of the priest's hiding holes, where also the altar-stone and the ornaments and the vestments were kept. The bottom of the chest was in reality hinged in such a way that it would fall, on the proper pressure being applied in two places at once, sufficiently to allow the side of the chest against the wall to be pushed aside, which in turn gave entrance to a little space some two yards long by a yard wide; and here were kept all the necessaries for divine worship; with room besides for a couple of men at least to be hidden away. There was also a way from this hole on to the roof, but it was a difficult and dangerous way; and was only to be used in case of extreme necessity.

It was in this lobby that Isabel found herself the next morning kneeling and waiting for mass. She had been awakened by Mistress Margaret shortly before four o'clock and told in a whisper to dress herself in the dark; for it was impossible under the circumstances to tell whether the house was not watched; and a light seen from outside might conceivably cause trouble and disturbance. So she had dressed herself and come down from her room along the passages, so familiar during the day, so sombre and suggestive now in the black morning with but one shaded light placed at the angles. Other figures were stealing along too; but she could not tell who they were in the gloom. Then she had come through the little sitting-room where the scene of last night had taken place and into the lobby beyond.

But the whole place was transformed.

Over the old chest now hung a picture, that usually was in Lady Maxwell's room, of the Blessed Mother and her holy Child, in a great carved frame of some black wood. The chest had become an altar: Isabel could see the slight elevation in the middle of the long white linen cloth where the altar-stone lay, and upon that again, at the left corner, a pile of linen and silk. Upon the altar at the back stood two slender silver candlesticks with burning tapers in them; and a silver crucifix between them. The carved wooden panels, representing the sacrifice of Isaac on the one half and the offering of Melchisedech on the other, served instead of an embroidered altar-frontal. Against the side wall stood a little white-covered folding table with the cruets and other necessaries upon it. There were two or three benches across the rest of the lobby; and at these were kneeling a dozen or more persons, motionless, their faces downcast. There was a little wind such as blows before the dawn moaning gently outside; and within was a slight draught that made the taper flames lean over now and then.

Isabel took her place beside Mistress Margaret at the front bench; and as she knelt forward she noticed a space left beyond her for Lady Maxwell. A moment later there came slow and painful steps through the sitting-room, and Lady Maxwell came in very slowly with her son leaning on her arm and on a stick. There was a silence so profound that it seemed to Isabel as if all had stopped breathing. She could only hear the slow plunging pulse of her own heart.

James took his mother across the altar to her place, and left her there, bowing to her; and then went up to the altar to vest. As he reached it and paused, a servant slipped out and received the stick from him. The priest made the sign of the cross, and took up the amice from the vestments that lay folded on the altar. He was already in his cassock.

Isabel watched each movement with a deep agonising interest; he was so frail and broken, so bent in his figure, so slow and feeble in his movements. He made an attempt to raise the amice but could not, and turned slightly; and the man from behind stepped up again and lifted it for him. Then he helped him with each of the vestments, lifted the alb over his head and tenderly drew the bandaged hands through the sleeves; knit the girdle round him; gave him the stole to kiss and then placed it over his neck and crossed the ends beneath the girdle and adjusted the amice; then he placed the maniple on his left arm, but so tenderly! and lastly, lifted the great red chasuble and dropped it over his head and straightened it—and there stood the priest as he had stood last Sunday, in crimson vestments again; but bowed and thin-faced now.

Then he began the preparation with the servant who knelt beside him in his ordinary livery, as server; and Isabel heard the murmur of the Latin words for the first time. Then he stepped up to the altar, bent slowly and kissed it and the mass began.

Isabel had a missal, lent to her by Mistress Margaret; but she hardly looked at it; so intent was she on that crimson figure and his strange movements and his low broken voice. It was unlike anything that she had ever imagined worship to be. Public worship to her had meant hitherto one of two things—either sitting under a minister and having the word applied to her soul in the sacrament of the pulpit; or else the saying of prayers by the minister aloud and distinctly and with expression, so that the intellect could follow the words, and assent with a hearty Amen. The minister was a minister to man of the Word of God, an interpreter of His gospel to man.

But here was a worship unlike all this in almost every detail. The priest was addressing God, not man; therefore he did so in a low voice, and in a tongue as Campion had said on the scaffold "that they both understood." It was comparatively unimportant whether man followed it word for word, for (and here the second radical difference lay) the point of the worship for the people lay, not in an intellectual apprehension of the words, but in a voluntary assent to and participation in the supreme act to which the words were indeed necessary but subordinate. It was the thing that was done, not the words that were said, that was mighty with God. Here, as these Catholics round Isabel at any rate understood it, and as she too began to perceive it too, though dimly and obscurely, was the sublime mystery of the Cross presented to God. As He looked down well pleased into the silence and darkness of Calvary, and saw there the act accomplished by which the world was redeemed, so here (this handful of disciples believed), He looked down into the silence and twilight of this little lobby, and saw that same mystery accomplished at the hands of one who in virtue of his participation in the priesthood of the Son of God was empowered to pronounce these heart-shaking words by which the Body that hung on Calvary, and the Blood that dripped from it there, were again spread before His eyes, under the forms of bread and wine.  Much of this faith of course was still dark to Isabel; but yet she understood enough; and when the murmur of the priest died to a throbbing silence, and the worshippers sank in yet more profound adoration, and then with terrible effort and a quick gasp or two of pain, those wrenched bandaged hands rose trembling in the air with Something that glimmered white between them; the Puritan girl too drooped her head, and lifted up her heart, and entreated the Most High and most Merciful to look down on the Mystery of Redemption accomplished on earth; and for the sake of the Well-Beloved to send down His Grace on the Catholic Church; to strengthen and save the living; to give rest and peace to the dead; and especially to remember her dear brother Anthony, and Hubert whom she loved; and Mistress Margaret and Lady Maxwell, and this faithful household: and the poor battered man before her, who, not only as a priest was made like to the Eternal Priest, but as a victim too had hung upon a prostrate cross, fastened by hands and feet; thus bearing on his body for all to see the marks of the Lord Jesus.     

Lady Maxwell and Mistress Margaret both rose and stepped forward after the Priest's Communion, and received from those wounded hands the Broken Body of the Lord.

And then the mass was presently over; and the server stepped forward again to assist the priest to unvest, himself lifting each vestment off, for Father Maxwell was terribly exhausted by now, and laying it on the altar. Then he helped him to a little footstool in front of him, for him to kneel and make his thanksgiving. Isabel looked with an odd wonder at the server; he was the man that she knew so well, who opened the door for her, and waited at table; but now a strange dignity rested on him as he moved confidently and reverently about the awful altar, and touched the vestments that even to her Puritan eyes shone with new sanctity. It startled her to think of the hidden Catholic life of this house—of these servants who loved and were familiar with mysteries that she had been taught to dread and distrust, but before which she too now was to bow her being in faith and adoration.

After a minute or two, Mistress Margaret touched Isabel on the arm and beckoned to her to come up to the altar, which she began immediately to strip of its ornaments and cloth, having first lit another candle on one of the benches. Isabel helped her in this with a trembling dread, as all the others except Lady Maxwell and her son were now gone out silently; and presently the picture was down, and leaning against the wall; the ornaments and sacred vessels packed away in their box, with the vestments and linen in another. Then together they lifted off the heavy altar stone. Mistress Margaret next laid back the lid of the chest; and put her hands within, and presently Isabel saw the back of the chest fall back, apparently into the wall. Mistress Margaret then beckoned to Isabel to climb into the chest and go through; she did so without much difficulty, and found herself in the little room behind. There was a stool or two and some shelves against the wall, with a plate or two upon them and one or two tools. She received the boxes handed through, and followed Mistress Margaret's instructions as to where to place them; and when all was done, she slipped back again through the chest into the lobby.

The priest and his mother were still in their places, motionless. Mistress Margaret closed the chest inside and out, beckoned Isabel into the sitting-room and closed the door behind them. Then she threw her arms round the girl and kissed her again and again.

"My own darling," said the nun, with tears in her eyes. "God bless you—your first mass. Oh! I have prayed for this. And you know all our secrets now. Now go to your room, and to bed again. It is only a little after five. You shall see him—James—before he goes. God bless you, my dear!"

She watched Isabel down the passage; and then turned back again to where the other two were still kneeling, to make her own thanksgiving.

Isabel went to her room as one in a dream. She was soon in bed again, but could not sleep; the vision of that strange worship she had assisted at; the pictorial details of it, the glow of the two candles on the shoulders of the crimson chasuble as the priest bent to kiss the altar or to adore; the bowed head of the server at his side; the picture overhead with the Mother and her downcast eyes, and the radiant Child stepping from her knees to bless the world—all this burned on the darkness. With the least effort of imagination too she could recall the steady murmur of the unfamiliar words; hear the rustle of the silken vestment; the stirrings and breathings of the worshippers in the little room.

Then in endless course the intellectual side of it all began to present itself. She had assisted at what the Government called a crime; it was for that—that collection of strange but surely at least innocent things—actions, words, material objects—that men and women of the same flesh and blood as herself were ready to die; and for which others equally of one nature with herself were ready to put them to death. It was the mass—the mass—she had seen—she repeated the word to herself, so sinister, so suggestive, so mighty. Then she began to think again—if indeed it is possible to say that she had ever ceased to think of him—of Anthony, who would be so much horrified if he knew; of Hubert, who had renounced this wonderful worship, and all, she feared, for love of her—and above all of her father, who had regarded it with such repugnance:—yes, thought Isabel, but he knows all now. Then she thought of Mistress Margaret again. After all, the nun had a spiritual life which in intensity and purity surpassed any she had ever experienced or even imagined; and yet the heart of it all was the mass. She thought of the old wrinkled quiet face when she came back to breakfast at the Dower House: she had soon learnt to read from that face whether mass had been said that morning or not at the Hall. And Mistress Margaret was only one of thousands to whom this little set of actions half seen and words half heard, wrought and said by a man in a curious dress, were more precious than all meditation and prayer put together. Could the vast superstructure of prayer and effort and aspiration rest upon a piece of empty folly such as children or savages might invent?

Then very naturally, as she began now to get quieter and less excited, she passed on to the spiritual side of it. Had that indeed happened that Mistress Margaret believed—that the very Body and Blood of her own dear Saviour, Jesus Christ, had in virtue of His own clear promise—His own clear promise!—become present there under the hands of His priest? Was it, indeed,—this half-hour action,—the most august mystery of time, the Lamb eternally slain, presenting Himself and His Death before the Throne in a tremendous and bloodless Sacrifice—so august that the very angels can only worship it afar off and cannot perform it?

A prayer for a miracle: the sudden, complete and lasting obliteration of COVID-19. | Fr. Z's Blog

https://wdtprs.com/2020/04/a-prayer-for-a-miracle-the-sudden-complete-and-lasting-obliteration-of-covid-19/

A prayer for a miracle: the sudden, complete and lasting obliteration of COVID-19.

Posted on 6 April 2020 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Almighty and eternal God, who shaped us from the mud of the earth and breathed into us beautiful life and eternal souls made to give You glory, look graciously now upon Your poor creatures who have fallen into sin.  We now cry out for mercy, though we have deserved Your wrath and the rod of Your correction and trials.  Be appeased.  Lift from us this present affliction of disease and its fear as once You withdrew Your destroying Angel from scourging Jerusalem after smiting Israel with the sword of plague.  Look kindly on us, kneeling as if upon the threshing floor.  Look into our ashen and sackcloth laden hearts which we desire never again to be hardened against the promptings of Your Spirit, and forgive.  Forgive the offences so many of Your ungrateful images have committed against the Hearts of our Lord and His Mother.   Forgive the countless sacrilegious Communions of the last decades.  Forgive Your priests and bishops who in great numbers have abandoned their proper place between Your people and Your altars.  Some have committed unspeakable offences, not excluding even manifest idolatry.  Forgive all of us every neglect and unworthy deed and thought as well as any lingering attachment to sins.  Forgive all the sins that have cried to heaven.  Forgive and then give us graces for our fuller sorrow out of love for You, more than our dread of punishment, and also for our firm purpose of amendment.  Bold with confidence that the prayers of the converted sinner are precious to You, we now dare to ask You for a miracle.  By Your might, annihilate the COVID-19 virus and all its mutations and variations.  Restrain this disease, this consequence of sin, and make it to be harmless.  We ask that You do this, almighty and merciful God, suddenly, completely, and in a lasting way so that the peoples of the whole world will recognize Your almighty hand and fall upon their faces in wonder, faith and gratitude.  By this miracle, reveal Your love and kindness even though we do not merit the least of Your favors.  Even while we submit ourselves to Your will, we ask this, Eternal Father, through Our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, who died for us on Calvary and rose again in glorious impassibility.  We ask this through the Holy Spirit the Consoler.   We implore this through the intercession of Saint Raphael, Your healing Archangel, as well as through ____.   In particular we, now humbled, entrust this audacious petition to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Health of the Sick.  Let her intercede for us as the Queen of Heaven whom Your Son will not refuse. "Not to us, O Lord, not to us; but to Thy name give glory."  O God, loving and kind, we beg You to grant us this miracle.  Amen.

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For private recitation.