Did somebody say something about a pile of stones at the Endsleigh Centre?

For the record, I should add that I find Sister Catherine's efforts in the praying for peace department to be entirely laudible and while cairn building isn't exactly my cup of tea it's quite likely a more worthwhile activity than people who cut and paste cans of beer for cheap laughs in the wee hours of the morning when they should be in bed.

Really, I should have told you all about Richard Marsden's talk on the English Martyrs before the talk so that if you are in the area you would be able to go along. Unfortunately I dropped the ball on that one, so I will tell you about it afterwards instead. It was very good, Richard gave us a bit of background information on the historical period and then spoke to us about the lives of three of the Fourty English Martyrs who he chose I think partly because they are onces one might not usually hear about and partly because of their relevance to young people.

The Martyrs he chose were Edmund Gennings (who was martyred aged only 25), Nicholas Owen (who expertly constructed numerous of priest holes) and Cuthbert Mayne. Richard has said on his blog that he's going to write up his talk for people to read online, so there's not much point me saying anything more really, except to repeat that I found the talk really interesting and it's probably going to result in my spending money I don't have on books and hopefully, with a bit of luck, inspire some days out to visit places of historical significance. I'll let you know when Richard puts the write up online.

The only remaining question is this... 25th October 2010 will be the fortieth anniversary of the fourty martyrs of England and Wales.

What are we going to do about it?

Bishop Drainey recently said that our Diocese has a culture that is "not favourable" to vocations.

It you would like to see that culture in action, why not read the following that was published in a parish newsletter in our Diocese last week...

It is an issue that ought to be keeping the bishops of England and Wales awake at night, as they struggle under the burden of meeting the expectations of their people with an ever dwindling band of clergy at their disposal. There are expected to be 16 priests ordained for the dioceses of England and Wales this year. To sustain present numbers, there would need to be in the order of 70 ordinations a year. Taking 19 as a recent annual average, and assuming that they would all move into parish ministry, the number of diocesan priests could drop from around 2,700 in 2005 to something like 650 thirty-five years hence. A catholic Church with an average of 30 priests per diocese is not just conceivable – unless of course the wholesale closure of parishes leads to a catastrophic drop in total Catholic numbers. The end of celibacy would undeniably be a loss as well as a gain. A married clergy would present congregations with a far greater burden as they would be entitled to a decent stipend on which to keep a family. But experience shows that other denominations have managed it, even those without the historic invested wealth of the Church of England. In any case, what other choice is there, if closing two-thirds of the parishes in England and Wales is not an option?

[link]

Interesting how the only "loss" they can see in an end to clerical celibacy is entirely financial.

"what other choice is there, if closing two-thirds of the parishes in England and Wales is not an option?"

Here are some options:

• You could stop undermining the priesthood by publishing articles like this.
• You could stop undermining the priesthood by encouraging your congregation to join in with parts of the Mass only the priest says.
• You could stop undermining the priesthood by organising dubious "services of the word and holy communion".

I short, you could encourage a culture which is favourable to vocations.

[Cartoon from Savage Chickens]

I love the way the internet and blogging results in quirky things like this.

Back in 2005 I made a Chi-Rho graphic to use on the front of the order of service at our wedding and I put it online, here it is...

Daniel Abbott of tdaxp noticed it and liked it so much that with a slight modification to the alpha, he started using it on his blog.

Back in February 2008 Daniel asked me if he could use the graphic on the cover of a book he has written and I said I didn't mind and forgot all about it.

This morning I received another email from somebody asking if they could use the Chi-Rho graphic at their wedding and this caused me to discover that Daniel's book has been published...

You can see/buy Revolutionary Strategies in Early Christianity at Amazon.com Quite exciting, is that you can use the the 'click to look inside' feature to see my name inside.

It's like I'm Quentin Blake or something...

The full text of the talk is now available online here

Get to it!

On Saturday we went to the Polish Family Day, though it was run by the Polish community it was open to all and Michelle was the "English link". It was good fun Michelle did a 'splat the rat' which was a bit addictive there were various out door games like lawn darts, a giant parachute, garden Jenga and Leona's favourite the bouncy castle - which was HUGH. It was all I could do not to run home and get my juggling balls, I love a bit of bouncy castle juggling!

They had a bbq with Polish Kielbasa (yum yum) and Begos, but I will be honest it was not as good as the Begos my Babcia makes!

It was nice to meet up with some of the Polish families we know and Fr Radoslaw made us really welcome.

I'm sure you are probably familiar by now with the All That I Am sex education resource which was been developed by the Birmingham Diocese Department of Religious Education in partnership with the governments Teenage Pregancy Unit. "All That I Am" provides "sex and relationship education that is authentic to the Church's teaching and acknowledges pupils' stage of physical and sexual development"

Yeah... Right.

Anyway, I thought you might be interested to know that the makers of "All That I Am" have begun work on a sequel... "All That I Am: Eucharist". This is a new programme designed for use in primary schools and parishes during children's preparation for the First Holy Communion. The programme includes of student worksheets, teachers handbook and DVD resources.

A spokesperson from the Archdiocese of Birmingham explains...

"All That I Am: Eucharist" builds on the experience and expertise we gained from the original "All That I Am" series. That series was primarily about sex education and as any Catholic knows, sex finds it ultimate meaning in Marriage. We thought - if this works for one Sacrament, why not do it with another? The Eucharist was the obvious choice..."

The main lesson we learned when making the "All That I Am" series is that you can't underestimate the importance of the biological when studying the sacraments, if you want to talk to kids today about truth and meaning in human sexuality then you can't do it unless they understand the inner workings of the body parts involved. For instance, the concept of chastity must be rooted in an understanding of the way the urethra links the bladder to the penis or else it makes no sense. We are grateful to the governments teenage pregnancy unit for their sound advice in this regard.

"All That I Am: Eucharist" simply takes the principles that worked so well with Marriage and applies them to the Eucharist.

Somebody sent me this copy of a worksheet she somehow got hold of from the new programme...

The diagram contains a technical error, with the liver marked as the rectum and the rectum marked as the liver but the Diocese of Birmingham assure me that this error will only be on worksheets published prior to 2004 and that books published after 2004 are not affected (except for those that are).

But while parents are up in arms over young children being exposed to terms like "anus" and "rectum", a spokesperson from the Archdiocese of Birmingham defended the worksheets saying...

Do you honestly think we could care less what Catholic parents think?

Throughout the writing of the script and teacher-support meterials the Department consulted with primary and secondary aged pupils. We found that when very young children are exposed to a diagram of the inner workings of the digestive system their appreciation of the Eucharist is improved. It makes sense... how can anybody be expected to kneel in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament if they don't have a full understanding of where Jesus goes when we eat him?

Besides which, if we don't expose young people to an anus before their tenth birthday, anything could happen! It is vital that we act now! It must be okay anyway, because we gave Archbishop Vincent Nichols a packet of chocolate digestives and he said they were great. You wouldn't disagree with an archbishop would you?

The programme has been funded by the Government Task Force on Binge Drinking and Jamie Oliver. The DVD resources include video clips which will teach children the dangers of alcohol consumption and the importance of eating the right things. "It fits in very well" another spokesperson said "Jamie comes on screen and explains that bread is good for you, which if you think about it, is authentic Catholic teaching". There are also sections on the dangers of STD's (Sustenance Transmitted Diseases).

Oona Stannard, director of CES (Catholic Education Services) welcomed the new programme saying it would fit in well with recent changes that the government is forcing on schools, saying "We support the principle of stuff being a requirement for every pupil".

The Archdiocese of Birmingham were tight lipped about the future of the "All That I Am", but off the record I spoke to an employee of the diocese who prefers to remain anonymous. She told me a little about where the project is likely to go next... "The government are very keen to teach young children about the new hate-speech laws. Pupils will learn about talking and will need to colour in a diagram of the vocal cords and the tongue, which if you think about it is central to an authentic Catholic understanding of the Sacrament of Confession".

One day when the kids are older I want to do this...

They built a model of Rome, in a day, in chronological order... Volunteers construct the buildings out of cardboard and wood.

We're going 1.238 years per minute, which means...it's approximate. I have a timeline that has all of the buildings in order and all of the times that they're meant to be dedicated. I try to get someone started on a given building that's coming up, so that it will be completed roughly in order and on time. It doesn't work completely, but it works pretty well—to give you a sense of it. But there are times, like during the Republican Period, when the Punic Wars are happening, and such, there are a lot of foreign conquests going on, so not a lot of building is happening. And we talk about that in the space. We kind of mention it and say, sorry, we don't have a lot to build right now because this is where the energy's going.

But then during the era of Augustus, there's a lot that gets built—and a lot of the buildings get renovated as well. So we usually manage to get a little bit off track around then, which at that point in the project is about 9:00 in the morning, and everyone's on the ground building different things. Some of the things you're putting up become a little sloppier because you're trying to get all the buildings up in some form. And, of course, a number of them are renovated or they're destroyed by fire. But then we'll renovate them and add paint or...we switched—we used cardboard as an analog to brick and wood as an analog to marble. The saying is, Augustus found a city of brick and left it a city of marble, and so we try to switch to wood at that point. That's when the empire really comes into being.

[link]

I just noticed they used 120 volunteers... We're going to need a few more kids!

You would need to have been living under a rock these last few weeks not to have seen the news about the Ryan Commission Report which has recently come out about about child abuse in Catholic Ireland. If like me, you prefer to skip the newspaper headlines and find out what the report actually says you can read it online here. Be warned though, it makes for grim reading. To quote Ruth Gledhill, "prepare to be very, very angry"

The catalogue of crimes is horrific, with the rape of young boys and girls described as "endemic" and levels of violence usually associated with concentration camps such as children dragged out of bed in the night, stripped naked and beaten by sadistic nuns and brothers. It would be bad enough if these were isolated incidents but this is just the latest after years of revelations of priests abusing children and vulnerable adults. The Catholic Church has a serious problem that demands an explanation.

For a while now the standard Catholic response has been this: That the Church is infallible but her members are not and in any organisation this large there are bound to be a few bad eggs. Usually this is backed up with a few examples of abuse by school teachers, step fathers and police officers to demonstrate that it is not only the Catholic Church that has problems. Finally, for good measure, it is pointed out that the Church in the UK has implemented thorough child protection measures to make sure that this sort of thing never happens again.

That response might have worked, it were really true that the abusers worked alone in secret and were immediately dealt with as soon as their actions came to light.

If only that were true...

As everybody surely knows by now, perpetrators of abuse were not dealt with as soon as their actions came to light, not even close. In many places they were shuffled from one parish to another by Bishops who moved priests away from parishes where they faced accusation to parishes where they were entirely unknown and free to abuse again. When I say "Bishops" I don't mean one or two isolated incidents in one country, I mean a significant number of Bishops across the world. Bishops didn't work alone in this either, secretaries wrote letters, episcopal vicars oversaw appointments. Quite a few people on the inside knew what was going on. Most of those people did nothing.

The Ryan Commission Report reveals once again that in Catholic Institutions abuse has been known about and concealed at all levels...

Awareness of the abuse of children in schools and institutions was believed to exist within society at both official and unofficial levels. Professionals, including Government Inspectors, medical practitioners, and teachers had a role in relation to various aspects of children’s welfare while they were in schools and institutions. Local people were employed in most of the residential facilities as professional, care and ancillary staff. In addition, members of the public had contact with children in out-of-home care in the course of providing services to the institutions both at a formal and informal level.

[Ryan Commission Report - Vol 3, Chapter 19]

Why would people at all levels conspire to cover up the actions of abusers in Catholic institutions? There is only one answer: We are not dealing with a small minority, with a few bad eggs. We are dealing with a cultural phenomenon.

I don't think it would be fair to talk about a "culture of abuse", because I'm quite sure the majority of Catholics are not in favour of abuse and do not encourage or perpetrate abuse. What we are talking about is a culture which is favourable to abuse. It's like storing raw meat in a warm place. Warmth itself is not food poisoning, but it is better to keep food in the fridge.

On the 29th May (the week the Ryan Report was released) the Catholic Herald carried the following leading article...

We are all tainted: every good Catholic, every good priest, every good bishop, every good pope is sullied by what was done or tolerated by the Catholic Church.

[...]

We are not talking about an aberration by a handful of wicked people acting in defiance of the Church. Sadly, we are talking about a deep cleft in the ranks of the Church itself.

The report exposes a culture which hides behind a clericalism which is prepared to protect vicious behaviour at the expense of defenceless innocents, many of whom carry their scars throughout life.

[link]

Remember those words: "a culture which hides behind a clericalism which is prepared to protect vicious behaviour at the expense of defenceless innocents, many of whom carry their scars throughout life". That's not the ramblings of a "fundamentalist blogger", that's the view of a mainstream Catholic newspaper.

There is a tendency when talking about abuse by Catholic priests to use the past tense. Abuse happened and it was bad and Bishops used to shuffle priests around. The implied claim is that abuse has been relegated to the past and the Church was very different then and besides which we now have "Safeguarding" in place to make sure that in future those committing abuse are prevented from re-offending.

But has anything really changed? I'm not so sure.

Looking at the definition of "abuse" we find that the word essentially means "misuse". That's why there are so many kinds of abuse such as verbal abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, substance abuse and so on. We call it abuse when somebody misuses a person sexually but we also use the word in other ways, like "I let my daughter have access to the biscuit jar but she abused the privilege".

Clearly, the crimes are different. I am most definitely not suggesting that a little girl who steals biscuits commits the same crime as a grown man who rapes little girls. That would be ludicrous. I am simply observing that we use the same word for both instances because fundamentally we recognise that the same phenomena is at work: All abuse is essentially a misuse of power.

In the case of the Church, what we are dealing with a misuse of the power of those in a position of authority.

From bitter personal experience I can tell you with certainty that this abuse of clerical power does not belong in the past tense. It belongs firmly in the present tense because it happens today with alarming regularity. It happens whenever a bishop or a priest takes it upon himself to use his clerical status as a magic ring that grants him the power to act with impunity.

So yes, that includes priests who rape children but it also includes priests that misuse their power in other ways. Priests who decide at their own whim to mislead people about the teaching of the Church or to commit acts of "liturgical abuse" such as modifying prayers to suit their own political agenda.

Once again, I am most definitely not suggesting that the priest who rapes a child commits the same crime as the priest who "merely" lies to one. What I am saying is this: Both men are abusing clerical power. Both men are protected by the same culture that protects and encourages priests who abuse their position of authority.

As far as I can see, the position of the Bishops Conference of England and Wales including our own Bishop Terrence Drainey is currently "let us have a culture that tolerates and even encourages clerical abuse, in which priests and bishops are free to abuse their power and authority and laypeople are expected to be co-conspirators or else face accusations of disrespect and disloyalty but let us make an exception for the sort of abuse that the civil authorities take seriously, that is, the sort of abuse that costs money and looks bad in the papers".

This is like saying "stealing is okay, as long as you don't steal anything somebody will notice" or "lying is okay, as long as nobody finds out". Essentially, the Bishops are saying "it's okay with us if priests abuse their power, as long as they don't do anything illegal".

What concerns me most of all is this: As long as the culture remains in place, the potential for harm continues. As long as the culture remains in place, the potential for "[hiding] behind a clericalism which is prepared to protect vicious behaviour at the expense of defenceless innocents" remains in place.

This is simply unacceptable.

Having children is fun but I have been stuck in the house for four weeks with my healing pelvis - grrr so when the weekend came naturally we decided to do a trip out, but where to go?

We turned to our stomachs and liking cake the obvious place to go was Bakewell! That is right we took a trip to Bakewell to buy a tart.

On the way there we discovered a village called Calver where apparently the tale of the ginger bread man came from...

Apparently an old lady was baking a pudding which jumped out of the pan and jumped over the floor. A traveller came by and she gave him the pudding and it bounced and bounced until it broke his sack and out popped a fairy.

So we hoped to buy a gingerbread man there but Calver was one of those villages with just a post office, that is it not even a pub! So no ginger bread men there and we carried on to Bakewell!

Bakewell is a charming village with a little river and ducks and nice places to picnic. Hunting down a Bakewell tart shop was not hard and I love the tale...

A rich lady asked the baker to bake her a cake from her homeland. He did not know how to make one so she told him and he cracked on with it, but it went wrong. The people loved it so much that they said "ahh just make them like that" and there we have it Bakewell tarts are yummy gone wrong cakes!

Once we bought our cake we ate our fish and chips by the river where Leona enjoyed watching the ducks and we browsed our "Know your sheep" book which we had recently purchased and then we decided to head on home, not a big adventure but a good one none the less.

Jackie Parkes has been getting a bit frustrated recently with people defining themselves as "traditional Catholics", not because she objects to traditional Catholicism, but because she objects to the idea that traditional Catholicism is some kind of specialisation and the implication that because she goes to an ordinary Mass, therefore she is not traditional (see here and here).

As she says...

As far as we were aware it was always traditional to go to Sunday Mass.

Are these kinds of different Masses? Is it better to go to one? Does it make you a 'Traditional' Catholic?

Is there anywhere in the Cathechism or some other document that describes how & if you are a traditionalist?

I've been Catholic for 46 years of course I'm Traditional.

Attending these Trad events doesn't make you anymore Traditional!

What are you if you don't go to a Trad Mass? Liberal? Non-Traditional? Non-Catholic? Not so good Catholic? Crap Catholic? New Rite Catholic? English/Irish Catholic? Basic Catholic? Uneducated Catholic? Roman Catholic? Follower of the Pope Catholic? Boring catholic? Sorry I think that was the Trad one!

I think we need to make a distinction between "traditional" and "traditionalist".

The traditional Catholic holds on to what is good until it gets old. The traditionalist Catholic holds on to what is old, whether it turns out to be good or not. All Catholics ought to do the former, while the latter seems a bit risky to me.

I'm not a huge fan of sort of Catholic whose arguments consist of shreiking incredulously "but its the twenty-first century!" either (you know who you are).

Traditionalists and Modernists both make the same error, they say "everything old is good" or "everything new is good".

Update:

Apologies to anybody who is just very traditional but feels accused of being a traditionalist. That wasn't my intention.

I just wanted to add that I like Ben Trovato's explanation below..

I refer to myself as a traditional Catholic as a shorthand way of saying:

1) that I believe all that the Church teaches even the difficult bits, as opposed to 'cafeteria' or 'liberal' Catholics; and

2) that I prefer the traditional forms of worship, and displaying reverence, as opposed to the modern, informal, 'happy clappy' or 'charismatic' approaches.

I would like it if saying 'I am a Roman Catholic' conveyed all that; but alas it no longer does.

That pretty much sums up what I mean by it as well.

Update:

I think I got this blog entry wrong. I have posted a correction here.

I've heard of Home is a Holy Place but this is rediculous...

The Seven Most Holiest Places

I think my favourite is number six, no actually number three, um, maybe number four. It's so hard! They are all so holy...

Today marks the first day of the Year for Priests which Pope Benedict has proclaimed "to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive witness to the Gospel in today’s world" As a blogger who does a lot of complaining, it is often suggested that I do not have a lot of respect for priests. After all, I often complain about priests and accuse some of them of doing things they shouldn't. If I had respect for the priesthood, surely I would never criticise a priest? No matter how they behaved I would be silent and respectful.

I think it is a big mistake to think that hushed silence is a sign of respect. Quietly pretending that somebody did something right when they did it wrong is the sort of behaviour due to tyrannical kings, not priests. It is degrading to the priesthood itself that people feel the need to behave in this way, as if a priest is the Wizard of Oz and nothing more than a fraud hiding behind a facade. In other words, we do not disrespect priests when we say that a particular priest did something wrong, but we do disrespect priests when we say that the priesthood depends on every individual priest never making a mistake and on our covering their mistakes and pretending they don't exist.

To say otherwise is as ludicrous as saying that respect for the divine Kingship of Christ depends on pretending that Henry VIII was a nice guy because otherwise, you obviously don't respect kings. The priest is not of great importance because he never makes mistakes, the priest is of great importance because he is a priest! He is of great importance by virtue of his ordination, not by virtue of his virtue.

It seems to me that when we knowingly hide the negative aspects of a priests behaviour we essentially deny his priesthood because what we are doing is saying that his priesthood is merely a product of his actions. We are saying that we do not respect a priest because he is a priest but because he is a good man. Worse than that though, is that we base even this falsehood on a lie. We do not respect him because he is a good man, we pretend he is a good man so that we can respect him. What sort of respect is that? Think how that looks to the world at large: We value priests because they are good only they aren't always good so we pretend they are...

We value priests because they are priests!

The only possible way to do that, is to freely and openly acknowledge that some priests are very good, some priests are very bad and most priests are somewhere in between. In his letter proclaiming the Year for Priests, Pope Benedict writes...

There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers. Then it is the world which finds grounds for scandal and rejection. What is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and complete acknowledgment of the weaknesses of her ministers, but also a joyful and renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors, religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful, patient spiritual guides.

[link]

Did you get that? Pope Benedict says that what is "most helpful to the Church" is "a frank and complete acknowledgment of the weaknesses of her ministers" and the "renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors". In other words, when Fr Fun gets up to his usual tricks, what is "most helpful to the Church" is a frank and complete acknowledgement of what he is doing wrong and the renewed realization of how wonderful things are when Fr Faithful does them right.

So should Catholics criticise priests? It looks like the answer is that we should frankly and completely acknowledge their weaknesses with renewed realization of the greatness of God's gift embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors.

I think that might be Latin for "Yes".

Well it was a bit touch and go but we managed to get to Beverley Folk Festival. Needless to say it was blue skies when we left home and pouring by the time we got there. But out we headed and let's just say that though I am sure there is a timetable of where and when the different sides dance, it was only women sides left - I would not like to speculate that in the fine weather the men opted for an early move to the pubs for some raucous singing!

We managed to see Nat do a couple of dances and had a nice catch up. We also saw another garland side, some cloggers (oh how I would love to be a clog dancer)and a sword side which was made up of youths! They used the flexible swords (or rapper swords, which were originally used by sides from Northumberland and Durham and were used to scrape the sweat off pit horses if I recall. The Yorkshire men more commonly use the rigid longsword any way...) It was great to see a bit of sword dancing, oh how I am sorely tempted all that weaving and twisting, so cool.

Unfortunately we are a family now with babies too small to take to the pub for some raucous singing so home we trundled and let Nat go back to the camp site... yet another pastime it has been too long since we carried out.

Dad was not there this year as he was at another Morris Reunion! And people say folk heritage is dead!

This isn't a major blog, I don't get billions of visits every day, but it's pleasing to note that the number has been gradually rising. Recently, it's been rising quite a lot.

As of today, we have now had more unique visitors so far this year than we did in the whole of 2008.

Now seems like as good a time as any to point out that if you use Facebook, you can now become a fan of Catholic and Loving it!

Today is the feast of Saint John Fisher and Saint Thomas More. Two very English saints, both of them very, very relevant for out times.

Three Bishops: Stokesley, Gardiner and Tunstal, were sent to the Tower by Thomas Cromwell to persuade St John Fisher to submit to the King. This was his reply...

Methinks it had been rather our parts to stick together in repressing these violent and unlawful intrusions and injuries dayly offered to our common mother, the holy Church of Christ, than by any manner of persuasions to help or set forward the same.

And we ought rather to seek by all means the temporal destruction of the so ravenous wolves, that daily go about worrying and devouring everlastingly, the flock that Christ committed to our charge, and the flock that Himself died for, than to suffer them thus to range abroad.

But (alas) seeing we do it not, you see in what peril the Christian state now standeth: We are besieged on all sides, and can hardly escape the danger of our enemy. And seeing that judgment is begone at the house of God, what hope is there left (if we fall) that the rest shall stand!

The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it. And therefore seeing the matter is thus begun, and so faintly resisted on our parts, I fear that we be not the men that shall see the end of the misery.

Wherefore, seeing I am an old man and look not long to live, I mind not by the help of God to trouble my conscience in pleasing the king this way whatsoever become of me, but rather here to spend out the remnant of my old days in praying to God for him.

[link]

"On the Sadness of Christ" was the last book St Thomas More wrote before his execution...

“[If a leader allows weariness to so grip] the mind that its strength is sapped and reason gives up the reins, if a [leader] is so overcome by heavy-hearted sleep that he neglects to do what the duty of his office requires…--like the cowardly ship’s captain who is so disheartened by the furious din of the storm that he deserts the helm, hides away cowering in some cranny, and abandons the ship to the waves—if a [leader] does this, I would certainly not hesitate to juxtapose and compare his sadness with the sadness that leads as [Paul] says, to hell….”

I blogged a few days ago I blogged on the subject of "What is a traditional Catholic? It caused rather a bit more discussion that I had expected (my blog entries do not usually attract 37 comments).

As part of that blog entry I wrote...

I think we need to make a distinction between "traditional" and "traditionalist".

The traditional Catholic holds on to what is good until it gets old. The traditionalist Catholic holds on to what is old, whether it turns out to be good or not. All Catholics ought to do the former, while the latter seems a bit risky to me.

I'm not a huge fan of sort of Catholic whose arguments consist of shreiking incredulously "but its the twenty-first century!" either (you know who you are).

Traditionalists and Modernists both make the same error, they say "everything old is good" or "everything new is good".

Having read the comments and thought on it a bit, I think I may have got my words mixed up. I was talking about "traditionalists" but I think I meant to say "traditionalism".

My current understanding is that ist words like "Chemist", "Violinist" and "Archaeologist" simply mean that a person has expertise in a particular area. A violinist knows all about the violin, a traditionalist knows all about tradition.

The word I mean't to use was an ism word. These words like "Communism", "Socialism", "Marxism" etc have a more ideological feel. They say "this is my system for understanding the truth about the world" and of course there is only one system for understanding the truth in about the world and that is Catholicism.

Traditionalism puts tradition ahead of all things and essentially says "everything old is good" while Modernism does the opposite and essentially says "everything new is good". It is traditionalism and modernism to which I object.

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to any traditionalists who may have been offended by my original blog entry. I won't bother apologising to the modernists because they don't seem to have noticed (perhaps they don't have the internet yet).

...but I know what I like.

Thou shalt knot kill, thou shalt knot commit adultery, thou shalt knot steal, thou shalt knot bear false witness, thou shalt knot covet thy neighbours wife...

Oh wait..

[Link: The Art of Manliness]

Midsummer's day is a time of merrimaking, history portrays it as a night of magic as you see in many a tale like Shakespear's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

June 24th is also St John the Baptist's Birthday, which makes sense in the liturgical calendar as the Annunciation was on March 25th when Elizabeth was in her eighth month.

Midsummer's Day was also known as the "Summer Christmas" and you can see the Christmas symbolism peeping through, for example in midsummers plays (like Shakespears) you always find an ass, linking with the donkey Mary rode into Bethlehem which though not scriptural is symbolic of with the donkey Jesus rode into Jerusalem.

There is also the link when John the Baptist says "He must increase and I must decrease" (John 3:30. After Midsummer the nights grow longer before Jesus is born, then after Christmas they grow lighter, symbolic of the light of Christ.

Naturally this is a feast day to celebrate it and what better way than with a picnic. Leona helped me bake some scones and had I been on the ball I would have made a Carob cake (as Locusts, as eaten by John the Baptist, were commonly attracted to the carob plant) but I was fresh out of Carobs! All in all I do not think it was missed (though I love my symbolism)

Prayers please! I'm going to be on the telly again...

This Sunday at 10am on BBC1 I will be taking part in the discussion on The Big Questions...

Nicky Campbell presents live from the Manor Church of England School in York.

The Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens; the former Talban hostage who converted to Islam, Yvonne Ridley; school and hospital chaplain, Father Stephen Maughan; and the writer and critic Bidisha contribute to the topical debates.

This week's big questions are:

Should Britain ban the burka?
Are the armed forces a cause for celebration?
Should Catholic priests be allowed to marry?

Obviously I will be mainly involved in discussion number three.

One of the lessons I learned last time I was on the television is how difficult it is to get a reasoned argument across in a televised debate. These debates are not about making good arguments that stand up to rigorous inspection but rather about trying not to come across like some sort of nutter. Anyhow, given that I probably won't have time to say half the things I would like on TV, I figure I might as well write most of them here so that people can find them if they google me while watching (quite a lot of people did last time).

It all depends what you mean by Love?

The first thing most people think of when it comes to love is the strength of feeling. When you like someone, you like them. When you love someone, you really, really, really like them. That's what "love" has come to mean these days. In fact, if we look at what we expect from love we will see that this definition is rather lacking.

What if I told you that I had fallen in love with a stunningly beautiful girl, but that recently she was involved in an accident which left her disfigured and ugly. After the accident I just didn't love he anymore. I think you would be justified in saying that maybe I didn't really love the girl, I just loved her body. Or what if I told you I had fallen in love with a really rich girl but that now her money has ran out I just don't love her anymore. I think you would be justified in saying that maybe I didn't love the girl, I just loved her money.

It seems like a paradox. Any practical reason you can give for falling in love - be it beautiful eyes, kind personality, sense of humour or whatever. Any practical reason you can give for falling in love seems to undermine the love itself. We say that we love the person but really we just love something about the person, some attribute or characteristic. For love to have a reason at all seems utilitarian and wrong, as if we love the other person only for what they can do for us.

Real love means wanting the best for the other person no matter what. As Chesterton puts it: "Love means loving the unlovable" and as our Lord put it: "If you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"

The Purpose of Marriage

We know then that eartly human love is in some way fundamentally flawed. We fall in love with a person for a reason, because we like their jokes or their personality or (let's be honest) their breasts. Yet at the same time we know that real love ought not to require a reason and at the very least, it ought to continue long after the reason has ceased to exist.

Marriage is an attempt to take our flawed human attempt at love, the one that thrives on good times, health, wealth, happiness and beauty. To take our flawed attempt at love and turn it in to that perfect, divine love that continues to love long after the reasons for loving have passed. In the well known marriage vows we promise to love "for better for worse" and "for richer for poorer" and "in sickness or in health". We make a promise to love that perfect love that loves no matter what.

Divine love is very hard to do, impossible in fact, which is why many marriages end in divorce. It is impossible to be perfect without the grace of God which is why in Christian marriage we like to get God involved from the beginning.

Real Love Means Sacrifice

When Christians talk about love and sacrifice, many people think it's a nice platitude but it's actually a very practical fact. Real love means wanting what is best for the other person, wanting what is best for the other person means always putting that person first above ourselves. That means denying ourselves for that person. If we love a person fully, that means denying ourselves fully which means giving up our life for that person.

This is the final goal of marriage: To give our life to the other person. This is why St Paul writes: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" St Paul does not use Christ merely as example of great love.. e.g Christ loves the Church a lot so Husbands should love their wives a lot. No, St Paul uses he example of the way Christ loves, by giving himself up.

Once a man has given himself to his wife, once he has vowed to love her and to put her first in all things, once he has denied his very life and given it to her. What has he left? It's really very simple: He has absolutely nothing left. His life is not his own, he has promised it to another.

So Should Catholic Priests be Allowed to Marry?

Bear in mind that actually, there are married priests. The rules about married clergy are just that, rules - they are not unquestionable infallible teachings of the Church. In fact, Priests from other rites are allowed to marry. The Church here in the latin rite could change her rules and allow priests to marry but I don't think she should.

My reasons is very simple: The priesthood is an entirely different kind of giving up of the self for God. How can a man give himself up to two different persons at the same time?

But it isn't in the Bible!

No, it isn't. Nowhere does it say "priests cannot be married". But also nowhere does it say "a man cannot marry two women at the same time".

Polygamy is not expressly forbidden in the scriptures, the Christian view that a man should only have one wife is a development based upon our understanding of marriage as the gift of oneself to another person, a gift that by it's very nature excludes the possibility of giving that gift to another.

In my view, priestly celibacy falls in the same area. As our understanding of what it means to enter in to marriage has developed, as our understanding of what it means to be a priest has developed, it has become more and more apparent that the two are not easily combined.

But what about the shortage of priests?

What about it? Men are not willing to dedicate their lives to God, so if we let them become priests without fully dedicating their lives to God then maybe they will?

Fixing a shortage of priests by allowing marriage has been tried by the Anglican Communion - it hasn't worked spectacularly well. Perhaps because whether priests can marry is not at the heart of the problem at all.

The crisis, if there is one, is one of spiritual deafness

But what about sex abuse?

There is simply no evidence whatsoever that priestly celibacy in any way "causes" sex abuse. There is however plenty of evidence that people from all kinds can end up sexual abusers - school teachers, police officers, step fathers etc. See here and here.

Incidentally, I take the problem of priestly abuse very seriously and have written more about it here.

If you watched The Big Questions either live or on iPlayer you probably saw a bit of my shoulder and possibly a bit more of me on wide angle crowd panning shots...

I'm glad I went, it was a good experience and I enjoyed it. It was good to meet with Fr John Flynn (who I am sure I have seen somewhere before, did he do a Faith talk once?) and Fr Stephen Maughan who we haven't really seen since he left Hull. I also have a feeling I've met Tom Cahill somewhere before as well. The Catholic world is very small...

It was a bit frustrating to drive all the way to York and get all nervous and worked up just to sit looking at Nicky Campbell's back for twenty minutes but that's just the way it goes. Last time I was on TV it was two Catholics vs everybody and I got loads of screen time, this time it was four Catholics vs one guy so to be honest I wasn't "needed" at all. They had it covered.

Thanks to everybody who prayed that I wouldn't say something stupid - it worked!

Well done to Tom Cahill and the two priests who were on the show.

You did a great jeeoorrrbb.

When I blogged recently about The Seven Most Holiest Places I didn't realise that there are also holy places that burn with holy fire...

The hole is the outcome not of nature but of an industrial accident. In 1971 a Soviet drilling rig accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern, causing the ground to collapse and the entire drilling rig to fall in. Having punctured a pocket of gas, poisonous fumes began leaking from the hole at an alarming rate. To head off a potential environmental catastrophe, the Soviets set the hole alight. The crater hasn't stopped burning since.

See Boing Boing for more...

Remember my project to get 1000 people to sign a promise to LiveChastely during the 40th anniversary year of Humanae Vitae?

Well it's finished, because the people at Progressio have decided to pull the promises system without notice and replace it with something new... Community Challenges.

So would we have got 750 people to sign up in the next month? Probably not.

But now we'll never know...