Reasons

In furtherance to my esteemed colleague's post, I also received an e-mail from a friend in Rome telling me of this terrible action.

The man has apparently given the reason for this sacrilege as being a protest for the Church's teachings on moral issues.

I thought I'd advertise the man's motive for two reasons, firstly, a further act of reparation, in addition to praying, might be to live and defend the Church's moral teaching in a more pure and devout way.

Secondly, to highlight the fact that there are many people who use the Blessed Sacrament as a political tool. We hear of the Rainbow Sash movement in America, and other such (forgive me) pious confraternities, which try to show their descent from Catholic truths by making political stands, protests and statement's with the Blessed Sacrament at the celebration of the Eucharist.
This sort of action is cheap, it is cheap to manipulate another's religion for one's own ends, rather than deal with the actual issues at hand.

So, as it is Thursday, perhaps we can all offer the final decade of the luminous mysteries of our daily rosary, for reparation to the Sacred Heart for offenses against Him in the Eucharist.

Sacrilege of the Blessed Sacrament

I have just received an e-mail from a Seminarian friend in Rome informing me of an evening of Reparation at the London Oratory on Wednesday 6th August at 7pm for the recent desecration of the Blessed Sacrament who received Communion on the hand in the Basilica, took it to America where he gave it to an atheistic scientist who performed the grossest acts of desecration upon the Sacred Host and the whole thing is filmed and posted on You Tube.

If you are unable to attend the evening please make a private act of reparation yourselves on Wednesday. Please pray for the conversion of those involved in this act and for the conversion of the world to Our Lord's most Sacred Heart.

Humanae Vitae 40 Years On

I failed to write a post on Friday marking the actual 40th Anniversary of Pope Paul VI's groundbreaking Encyclical.

Forty years later and there is still a lot of anger against this most basic of Church documents but there is also a lot of adherence to it and allegiance is growing, particularly among young people.

This weekend's Catholic press have been marking the occasion - I haven't as yet read The Tablet's contributions but I can guess what it has to say.

Humanae Vitae is still one of the most important documents written since the Second Vatican Council and still needs a lot of catechesis in parishes and schools.

God Bless you all

The Seminarians

Reflections

Hello readers,

having recovered sufficiently from the WYD SYD pilgrimage, I'd like to share with you all a few reflections which have occurred to me since returning.

I'd like to pick up an idea that a bishop we were travelling with suggested in a homily. The Bishop was talking about the use of young people.

All people are used in this culture, but most especially young people. They are targetted by advertising, and groups with alterior motives, hoping to push all kinds of strange products and doctrines on them.

Let's look around ourselves, look at the mind-numbing, soul destroying products / programs / and ideologies pushed on young people, from the earliest age, which sow the seeds of misery, skepticism, depriving the world's youth of hope and joy (qualities inherent in the young, which our previous Pope so admired and encouraged). The way the young people are portrayed shows the state of affairs. The media shows young people as just these things, miserable, skeptical and anti-social.

However, in my experience young people ARE full of hope and joy. Young people, (I must stress that I write as a young person) are desperate for the truth, for understanding of the world. Young people desire to love and understand the emotions and feelings connected with love. They passionately desire to comit themselves to justice and peace and the building of a better world.
This was my experience of the youth on WYD, I feel I have grown personally with my experience of young people over the course of the World Youth Day.

Dom Drostan RIP

I am due to go on my annual retreat to Pluscarden Abbey in a couple of weeks time and so was saddened to hear of the death of Br Drostan OSB, a lovely man and much loved member of the community.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

News Miscellany

Orthfully Catholic would like to say goodbye to John Paul who has returned from Lourdes and decided to close down Mad Trad. We will continue to pray for John Paul's vocation and hope he will continue to read this blog.

It seems Archbishop Kelly made the fatal mistake of presenting his plan to turn an ailing parish into a personal parish for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite to his Council of Priests who naturally turned the idea down. This is a great injustice to Holy Mother Church, the Archdiocese of Liverpool and the many members of Christ's Mystical Body who would have made great use of such a parish.

And last but not least: Orthfully Catholic would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Fr Sean Riley, an avid reader of this blog, on his recent ordination. We are sorry we couldn't make it to the Ordination but we will make up for it next time we meet (in exchange for a first blessing naturally).

God Bless you all,

The Seminarians

East Anglian Orthodoxy

On Monday the Friendship Club went to a little known Orthodox Monastery in a quiet village in the East Anglian region. The community is 40 strong with 12 Monks and Priests, 24 Nuns and 4 Novices. They are technically Greek but come directly under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

I had never even heard of the monastery before Monday and so was intrigued. They were founded in 1958 when Father Founder asked many Bishops (both Catholic and Anglican) if they had somewhere in their dioceses to set up a Greek Orthodox monastery. The site they accepted was an Anglican Rectory, they built their own church and refectory and live in the house. The church is as beautiful as would be expected, the walls are covered in icons of the life of Christ that they painted themselves. They are multi-lingual so the Divine Liturgy and liturgical prayers are said in English, French, Greek and Slavonic.

It was a fascinating experience and one I would recommend to all our readers.

God Bless

Return from Oz

I'm afraid I was unable to post over the last few days in Australia.

When I last posted I had just returned from the first official audience / welcome to Pope Benedict. It was a noisy but exciting experience. The Pope, when he first saw the shouting, joyful crowd looked bemused, as if asking "is this for me", well, yes, Holy Father, we love you and we were so pleased to have had you with us! It was a time for appropriate paraliturgical clapping "Be - ne - detto - clap - clap - clap"

The next few days were spent spiritually and materially preparing for the World Youth Day vigil, on Randwick racecourse.

After a beautiful private Mass at our hotel, we set off for the racecourse on Saturday. We found our proportioned plot of land (how Israelite), and I set off looking for friends. The evening vigil, presided over by the Holy Father included Eucharistic adoration and prayers, it was a blessed time. After the vigil, at about 10pm, I went with some friends to the tent of the Missionaries of Charity for adoration, this was my favourite half hour of the whole two weeks, it was wonderful to be with Jesus, for whom this whole event was organised!

The following morning, Sunday, the 20th July, at 10am, we had the papal mass for World Youth Day. At this Mass a variety of candidates were confirmed and the Holy Spirit was called down on all those present, and the whole Church.

The Mass ended with the announcement of the host city of the next WYD, it will be in 2011, in Madrid. So, I join with all Spanish speakers, particularly madrillenas, in saying "Si, Si, Si, El Papa va Madrid" "Yes, yes, yes, the Holy Father's coming to Madrid". I will most certainly see him there!

The Hermit Down Under

Its good to hear from the Hermit after such a long time and also good to see he is going to keep us in touch with the events in Sydney. We look forward to hearing what's going on down there.

Please pray for the Hermit and all our brother Seminarians in Sydney as well as all the young people gathered at the largest youth gathering in the world.

God Bless you all,

The Seminarians

Orthfully Catholic representation at WYD!

I've come to Oz, not to see the Wizard, but to see the this sweet Christ on earth, the Holy Father.

We arrived in Oz on Thursday the 10th July, and stayed with a wonderful family who welcomed us, and made us part of their home and family. Accepting hospitality is part of pilgrimage, sometimes it is difficult, but it teaches us about the unconditional, gratuitous love of God.

On Monday we left that diocese, and our host family, travelling a short trip down to Sydney, where the main events are being held.

Being here in Sydney is a wonerful experience of the Church, both for us pilgrims and all Sydneysiders. I'd like to reflect a little on this experience.

Being here, at the largest gathering of youth in the world (also the largest gathering of people in the history of Australia) is a deeply moving experience. All these young people, who have given time and money to come here, from far far away, are not here for just a holiday, but they have come for an experience, an encounter with Christ, which the Holy Father is sharing with them. For many, if not all, this experience will be a life changing event, they may desire to spend more time in adoration, or a greater love for Our Lady, or, even find their life's calling, dedicating themselves to the service of God, for the rest of their life.

This event is showing me the true universality of the Church. We have been greeted and welcomed by the original owners of this land, the aboriginals. We have experienced their rich culture and seen how the Gospel has been incorporated, but not deminished, in their traditions.

Finally, the theme of the experience is the Holy Spirit "I will make you witnesses". This is the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit, and we pray that the Holy Spirit works in the lives and hearts of these young people!

Please join us spiritually here in Australia, through prayer and faithful love of the Holy Father!

Bishops keeping track of priestly blogs

Mulier Fortis has a world exclusive!

I wonder what this means for anonymous seminarians' blogs!?

Ancient tablet 'casts doubt on the Resurrection'

So declared yesterday's Times (p35), and this time it isn't referring to The Tablet.

Professor Israel Knohl has apparently found a three foot tablet of stone on the Eastern bank of the Dead Sea bearing the story of 'Gabriel's Vision of Revelation' written in ink four years before the birth of Christ. The story is that of Simon who received a vision of the Archangel Gabriel telling him he would be killed by the Romans and rise again three days later.

Professor Knohl has therefore come to the conclusion that Jesus and His disciples would have known about this story and used it for their own propaganda. Apparently Jesus told four of His disciples to write biographies of His life ending with His death and resurrection.

So brethren we can all relax and spend Sundays doing the garden because it has now been definitively proved that the Resurrection of Our Lord is a hoax. This is not the first time Professor Knohl has expounded this theory, it first came to light in his 2002 book The Messiah Before Jesus and this is his ultimate proof that the theory is fact. The owner of the tablet is said to be excited about the theory though 'not entirely convinced'.

Bonekickers

The BBC opened this new series last night. It is about a group of archaeologists with a new story each week - basically a fictional Time Team. Their pilate episode was an attack on Christianity, a cruel cult with a devilish past with the sole intent to destroy Islam.

Last night's episode was about a band of Knights Templar who had come to England from the Holy Land with a piece of the True Cross in the 14th century. The archaeologists find the relic and a 'right wing Christian sect denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury' want to claim it because they believe they are the descendents of the Knights and it is their mission from God to kill Muslims who are invading our Christian land. All Christians in the programme were made out to be crazy nutters with strange beliefs in this Jesus bloke.

Another of the BBC's ways of upholding their anti-Catholic, pro-Islam policy we think.

World Youth Day and women bishops

Today's Mass was said for the young people in the Diocese travelling to Sydney today for World Youth Day and the three people representing this parish were in attendance this morning in order to receive a blessing in preparation for their journey.

The homily was marvellous! Father said Hosea was talking about those who had voted in favour for the 'ordination' of women to the 'episcopacy' in the Church of England last night. He spoke about how this had shown that the Anglican Communion does all it can to do the complete opposite to what Sacred Scripture tells Christians to do and that they will receive just puinishment for it.

He then went on to urge the three young people going to Sydney to sit at the feet of the Holy Father and listen to all he has to say, 'drink from the fount of his wisdom ... make note of his orthodoxy' and come back to the parish alive with Catholicism ready to tell all they meet what he said to them that orthodoxy may reign in the parish through them.

Orhtfully Catholic would like to thank Drs Williams and Sentamu and the Synod of the Church of England because as a result of last night's vote we will now have an influx of at least 500 priests and our RCIA classes will be packed to the rafters and so the unfortunate figures revealed by the Vatican recently comparing the number of Catholics in the world to the number of Muslims can be reversed.

SP: One year on

Today is the first anniversary of Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, and where has it got us? Unfortunately for those who said it would have no effect whatsoever it has got us further than even we could possibly imagine. People up and down the country are demanding Mass in the Extraordinary form from their Parish Priests who are happily providing it for them. More priests, deacons and seminarians are learning the rubrics of the so-called 'old' Mass than ever before. The Archbishop of Liverpool has just provided a personal parish for the sole celebration of the TLM. And of course there have been two instances of history-making Masses in Westminster Cathedral with Bishop John Arnold being the first to say a Pontifical Mass and Cardinal Hoyos being the first to say Mass at the Throne there since 1969.

When coming to the parish I had to bring six months back copies of Faith Magazine and Mass of Ages because I hadn't had time to read them and so after finally getting that time I noticed a change has come to the latter of these journals. A year later it is still revelling in the delights of the Holy Father's generosity but its reputation for being a catalogue for fine vestments and a rag for anti-Novus Ordo liturgists seems to have changed (in the current edition at least) to a fine spiritual journal. The first article is an incredible comparison between the Mass and the Last Supper (the first Mass) that is relevant to both forms of the Roman Rite. Another example is a piece on the reception of Holy Communion in the East and West since the Early Church. Along with a beautiful obituary by Fr Sean Finnegan of Dom Gerard Calvet this quarter made for some very Spiritually uplifting reading, let's hope the editor keeps this up.

So what does the future hold for the the usus antiquior in this country? Access to training and celebrating the Extraordinary Form in Seminaries? Maybe even the option to receive the Ministries or even be ordained in the Traditional Rites?

Keep Praying,

God Bless you all,

The Seminarians

Blessed Antonio Rosmini

Yesterday I went to Westminster Cathedral for Mass on the first Feast of Blessed Antonio Rosmini said my the Papal Nuncio. It was a glorious affair, the Cathedral was packed and as well as the Archbishop Bishop John Arnold and all the priests of the Institute of Charity were on the Sanctuary. Mass was beautiful, the setting was the Missa de Angelis and it was attended by pupils from Rosminian schools around the country and the British Ambassador to the Holy See who is from Armagh where Gentili, who brought the order to England, Wales and Ireland, is buried. The English provincial preached and the Ambassador gave a biography of Blessed Antonio at the end of Mass.

Yesterday was a very proud day for Rosminians around the world and it was a privilege to share it with them.

Pray for vocations to the order and for the Canonisation of their founder.

God Bless