Saturday 24 October 2009
Out Of The Ordinary?
These clergy, of whom I know many well, are not bringing anyone with them: their parishes are largely in areas with long, or even not so long, folk memories of the tensions caused by Irish immigration. I have known people become Methodists because the local Anglo-Catholic church closed and they didn't want to go to the next pit village, where the Anglican church was no Lower. Their buildings are often no older than ours, being in places that only sprang up in the nineteenth century. The provision for the Personal Ordinary to be an ex-Anglican makes this a one-generation arrangement by definition. And what, exactly, are the distinguishing marks that they will be permitted to retain? What? And why?
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Slightly disturbing to see an interview with one of these Anglicans who betrayed his real antipathy towards the Anglican Church by saying it was now "The Church of Political Correctness". Thus we can add him to the unsavoury list (Widdicombe and Selwyn Gummer) who see ENGLISH Catholicism as the last refuge of the......well politically incorrect.
ReplyDeleteA pity.
Mostly for the English Catholic Church.
Getting to the stage where I will have to refuse to engage in the "shake hands" part of the Mass when I go to London. Manchester still seems ok.
Glasgow in the Scottish Church is still safe ground for a mainstream Catholic.
And of course Ireland is ok.
But Westminster Cathedral and Corpus Christ (Maiden Lane off the Strand) has unsavoury characters in the pews.
Although we have never met, I cannot imagine you in Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane. Was this some sort of anthropological expedition?
ReplyDeleteWell actually the first time I was ever in London (a training course in 1974), it was the first Catholic Church I ever found....so I always regarded it as "my" London Church. As you know it you will be familiar with its St Patrick statue, somehow appropriate and incidently it is the Church for the Catholic Actors Guild.
ReplyDeleteIf it helps I cant imagine you in Corpus Christi in Ballymurphy...a broad church as they say.
And it is quit fascinating. Only later did I learn of its "history" and wearing my other hat I have been a regular visitor to Londons Catholic heritage. For example the Bavarian Church near Piccadilly Circus is a regular haunt for Londons Jacobite Community (they havent gone away you know) although some of the more Talibanesque recusants are not amused that it is the outreach point for Catholic gays in London.
Not actually been in Maiden lane since 20th May 2008 (now taking my daily custom elsewhere) since I had a stand up row with the Parish Priest after Mass. I did not receive that afternoon.....possibly the first time in 20 odd years...but did receive later in a Southwark parish.
Tackled him on his comparison of Mother Teresa with Margaret Thatcher.....which probably alienated every Irishman, Yorkshire miner and Argentinian in the congregation.
But as there was less than 40 of us, he probably only offended me.
Like I say I am no longer a regular at Maiden Lane. Perhaps I should go back and receive wearing my Che Guevara Tshirt. Actually Ive donr that in London before and did not really "get" why I was getting the evil eye. I have received here wearing a wide range of Tshirts/football tops...Jesus invitation is informal.
But in my capacity as Reader/Minister of the Eucharist I do of course dress properly.
Anthropology? Well yes. I suppose it is. Different type of Catholic. Especially in Westminster. Good for celebrity spotting. David Alton (hooray), John Biggs Davison (who unfortunately I actually met in a professional capacity) and incredibly (although I cant confirm it) Bruce Anderson (who I have also spotted in a betting shop in Horseferry Road) when I was on assignment.
Oh, my local Catholic church is entirely mainstream, and I am very involved in its life. I hope that no one is thinking of crossing the Tiber in order to escape the round of coffee mornings, or rule by committees...
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify my first visit was May 1976 not 1974.
ReplyDeleteYes "mainstream" can be a deceptive term. My mainstream and your mainstream are obviously different.
But London intrigues me in "Church" terms ....the French church off Leicester Square, the various emabassy churches...Warwick Street (previously Portugues and latterly Bavarian). All tastes catered for. I quite like the diversity.
Oh, I think you'd like my church.
ReplyDeleteI was of course born Catholic. And of course my ancestors were going back to 1733 and presumably futher......to borrow from an (English) hymn in spite of dungeon fire and sword.
ReplyDeleteI think that often means I am a Catholic due to a family loyoalty as much as the Grace of God as much as an intellectual decision.
I often wonder if I had been born non-Catholic would I actually have chosen it. Quite a difficult thing because of course many of the touchstones of Catholicism itself are European rather than specifically Irish.
So I admire people who make that choice. Youve obviously settled (understandably enough) with an English accent on your Catholicism.
Not sure that the whole recusant/Jacobite/monarchial/conservative values of English Catholicism would appeal if I had been brought up in say Sheffield.
On the other hand I am not sure that a visit to Corpus Christi in Belfast during one of several funerals (flag on coffin, beret and gloves etc) would have led you to the path you (and to some extent "we") are on.
"in spite of dungeon fire and sword"
ReplyDeleteThe only ancestors of Fr Faber's who were ever in that position were Protestants; he was of mostly Huguenot stock. (His father held the fabulously wealthy living of Stanhope, "the richest in the North", here in County Durham.) But then, almost everyone in these islands has some Huguenot in them.
"I think that often means I am a Catholic due to a family loyoalty as much as the Grace of God as much as an intellectual decision"
How do you distinguish them?
"Not sure that the whole recusant/Jacobite/monarchial/conservative values of English Catholicism would appeal if I had been brought up in say Sheffield"
Well, I was brought up in County Durham. And don't forget that those are also the justice and peace values. Paleocons, High Tories, &c (including Old Labour ones) are anything but capitalists or warmongers. They are either heavily influenced by, or very much open to the influence of, Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism.
I mean that in forsaking Catholicism I would be breaking faith with several generations of my ancestors who suffered for their Faith...MY faith.
ReplyDeleteAll of us come to a Faith...in the case of you and me......thru the Garace of the Holy Spirit. I was lucky to be born into that Faith and had it shelter and support me.
Even those of us born into the Faaith must at some point question its value. As I did as a young man and made the intellectual choice to be a Catholic. Briefly flirting with the idea of being a Priest.
Thru History, thru Family, thru Choice, thru Grace....I am a Catholic.
I just noticed that ......the word verification for this post is "santo". GOD certainly has a sense of humour.