Hoisting The Flag...

There is probably some technical term for it.

Anyway, after Benediction this lunchtime, Fr. Tim decided that it would be a good time to get the Papal flag flying in preparation for the Holy Father's visit to Britain. Did I mention that it's only five days away...?

First the flag was inspected...



A brief discussion as to the best location for the flag (until we get a proper flagpole) resulted in a large ladder being carried over to the car park lamp post...



There was quite a good wind, but the direction was rather inconvenient. No doubt the Senior MC will be able to tell me what direction it was. As a result, the flag is actually back-to-front. I did try to get a photo from the other side, but His Hermeneuticalness decreed that my car was not a fitting backdrop for the flag... admittedly, there was also a dirty great shed in the way...



However, I wanted to see what I could do about that flag... and, with the wonders of Photoshop, promptly flipped the photo...



That should confuse a few people...

Counting Down The Days...

I can hardly believe how close the Papal Visit is...

I'm getting particularly excited because, well, in my capacity as a British Catholic Blogger, I have managed to get a Papal Visit Press Pass.

Yes, you read that correctly. I actually have managed to get my paws on a press pass for the Papal Visit. I can hardly believe it. It certainly wasn't easy, and I had to hassle a lot of people, but I got there eventually.

Where "there" actually "is" is another matter...

I also tried to wangle my way into Westminster Cathedral for the Papal Mass, but no dice.

The main advantage to having the pass, as far as I can work out, is the ability to come and go with a bit more freedom than a regular pilgrim. It will also be fascinating to see what facilities are available in the Media Centre.

So, for a few days, I get to pretend to be a proper journalist - in much the same way as I previously pretended to be a proper author. This blogging lark is fun.

Working on the basis that, if you don't ask, you don't get, I started off my temporary journalistic "career" by getting myself invited along to the Catholic Herald's reception in honour of the Papal Visit.

Arriving outside the venue, I saw some very nice cars (big, shiny black ones, if you want to know - hey, I'm blonde. A car is a car) with chauffeurs waiting... and I began to wonder if I'd gatecrashed way out of my depth...

I later discovered that these cars belonged to the Hon. Sir Rocco Forte and HRH Princess Michael of Kent.

Yes, I am name-dropping.

I didn't get to speak to them, mind you, but that was my own fault. Being faced with the complexities of holding myself up on crutches, holding a drink (only orange juice, sadly, as I'd left the car at North Greenwich station) and retrieving various edibles from the passing waiters, I had opted to perch on a windowsill near the drinks' table and chat to anyone who came near - there's method in my madness... I figured I'd see quite a few people as they came to replenish their glasses... unfortunately I had failed to factor in the waiters circulating with bottles!



I did get to speak to Damian Thompson and Luke Coppen (with Fr. Tim Finigan in the photo) who somehow made me feel as if my lack of an invitation had been a complete oversight on their part. Anna Arco was present as well, having jetted back from Dubrovnik earlier in the week (according to her Facebook statuses.) Anna is always great fun to talk to, and she seemed almost as excited about my getting a press pass as I was. Joanna Bogle made an appearance, and we agreed to meet up for a chocolate cake and blogging session sometime soon.

Oona Stannard came and introduced herself, but she beat a hasty retreat when I muttered something uncomplimentary about the CES. I later heard that she'd been buttonholed by Daphne McLeod, and Daphne was rather more successful in challenging Oona about some of the CES's recent antics. I am very sorry to have missed that encounter. I am also rather sorry not to have met Daphne herself.

Mark Dowd (The Pope's British Divisions) came over to chat - I was extremely surprised that he remembered my name: I have dreadful problems with names, and have to make a real effort to learn them. He thanked me for the interview, which was even more surprising, given how short my contribution had been. I really enjoyed our conversation, which ranged from the parlous state of catechesis in this country (demonstrated by the Sixth Formers in Derby) through to the Stand Up for Vatican II mob having pretty much lost the argument (as admitted by Bernard Wynne in his interview slot) and finishing with Mark's latest (excellent) Catholic Herald article on the Holy Father. He left early, as he had to get down to Bath for more interviews in the run up to the Papal Visit.



His Hermeneuticalness was able to circulate, so got to meet rather more people... I did consider trying to get upstairs just to have a good look round, but the stairs appeared rather terrifying. I didn't fancy leaving the party by ambulance.

It was a really wonderful party, and a superb way to kick things off for the Holy Father's visit... Congratulations (and many thanks) to the Catholic Herald for putting on such a great event.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee ! Only five more days to go!!!

The Lure Of Cheap Flights...

They say that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and, by the same token, those cheap flights are usually too good to be true... This was sent to me by a friend, and I laughed out loud... and, since I'm generous that way, I thought I'd spread the laughter round a wee bit...

Scotland Takes The Honours Yet Again...

I previously compared the efforts of Scotland and England & Wales on the Papal Mass Furniture front, and concluded that Scotland had very definitely scooped first prize.

Now, via BBC Scotland (and the Scottish Catholic Media Office, which appears to have its act together) I discover that a new tartan has been designed in honour of the Papal Visit. There is a deep symbolism in the whole thing from the different colours used through to the number of threads in the design (one for each Scottish parish, it seems!).

And it is simply gorgeous.

I want one.

I don't need a full skirt - that would require rather a large amount of material. I want the shawl that piper Louise Marshall Millington is wearing in the photo.

The Isle of Man produced commemorative stamps. And the information on them is wrong (which apparently increases the value, but is rather an indication of how disorganised things were this side of the border...).

England & Wales have produced, ummmm...?

Scotland unveils a glorious new tartan.

Game, set and match, I think...

The Voice Of Reason...?

This has got to be one of the most rational of newspaper reports from the secular press, that I've read in a long time. I certainly appreciated the understatement in the first two paragraphs:

"When Pope Benedict XVI touches down in Edinburgh next Thursday at the start of a four-day state visit to Britain, he may be forgiven for thinking he is not particularly welcome.

"The Devil himself could hardly have got a worse press."

Stephen Glover describes himself as an Anglican who retains a few traces of irrational anti-Catholicism. At least he recognises his own bias, but his article is one of the most evenly balanced I've encountered since the announcement of the Holy Father's State Visit to Britain.

Do go and read the rest of it.

The Pope's British Divisions...

An interesting play on words, that...

"The Pope!? How many divisions has he got?" was apparently Stalin's dismissive response to Pierre Lavin on the proposal to include the Pope in the Allies' War Conferences. And, according to the programme, there is plenty of support for Pope Benedict XVI here in Britain, most heart-warmingly from the seminarians interviewed at Oscott.

The programme decided to highlight a few other divisions.

On the whole, it was far from the hatchet-job I feared. I was annoyed by the fact that, given the number of young people interviewed by Mark Dowd when he came to Blackfen, (none of whom have any difficulty accepting Church teaching on morality) the only teenagers to be portrayed on the programme were ones who were so poorly catechised in the tenets of the Faith that they thought their support for abortion was compatible with their professed Catholicism.

I was also irritated by the fact that Bernard Wynne was described as being involved in Stand Up for Vatican II, but his Chairmanship of the dissident group Catholics for a Changing Church was not mentioned. He and his group actively oppose Church teaching. That fact is not being made clear.

I was amused to hear that one ex-parishioner complained that she left because the choir were suddenly being required to sing more Latin. According to the documents of Vatican II, the choir should never have stopped being required to sing Latin!!

And two quotes from me made it onto the programme... I don't recall them being quite so close together in the original interview, but I was very pleased that my quoting of Pope Benedict's "Truth is not subject to a majority vote" didn't end up on the editing-room floor.

The programme is available (only for the next week) on the BBC's Listen Again feature. Several of us will hope to hear it tonight (I didn't expect to be able to listen this morning) but the evening edition is 15 minutes shorter than the morning one, and I don't know which bits will be edited out.

So far, a few other bloggers have given their verdicts. Check out Fr. Ray Blake, Fr. Michael Brown and The Sensible Bond.

UPDATE: This has attracted further comment. You can read more from John Smeaton, James Preece, Dominic Mary and His Hermeneuticalness himself...

His Hermeneuticalness On The BBC...

A couple of weeks ago (the Feast of the Assumption, to be exact) a couple of people from BBC Radio 4 came to Blackfen, making a programme for the run-up to the Holy Father's visit.

In addition to recording the Mass, they wanted to speak to parishioners. Unfortunately, I got roped in... heaven only knows what they'll make of my interview. I liked Mark Dowd, but I was struck by the extremely negative body language of the sound engineer/producer, Helen somebody-or-other.

I figured that it wasn't going to be exactly positive when I got asked about the problems we'd had in Blackfen when Fr. Tim introduced the Extraordinary Form of Mass into the Sunday schedule, and I got asked about why we didn't have collections for CAFOD (I made a booboo of colossal proportions when I confused Haiti and Thailand: they promised not to use that bit) and whether people calling for women priests could still be called Catholic...

*ahem*

Several other people were interviewed, and I'm sure that they acquitted themselves better than I managed. Fr. Tim was interviewed separately, possibly because of escalating noise levels in the club, or possibly because of time constraints on the Sunday. I became even more convinced this would be a hatchet job of the first order when I heard that the whinger-in-chief (Bernard Wynne - he of Catholics for a Changing Church, Stand Up for Vatican II and Catholic Voices for Reform) and Elena Curti of The Suppository had also been interviewed.

The blurb doesn't give me much hope either...

Anyway, the programme is going out tomorrow. The Pope's British Divisions is on Radio 4 at 9am - unfortunately, I'll be busy at that point. It's being repeated at 9:30pm, however, so several of us are going to attend the usual Thursday evening Rosary & Benediction and then go into the Parish Club and ask for the Sky channel to be switched to Radio 4.

Watch this space...

Changes To The Blogroll...

The blogrolls have been getting longer and longer, as I keep discovering great blogs to add to them. At the moment, I have three - one for priests, one for British blogs (located in Britain, that is, not nationality) and one for Overseas Blogs.

I am loathe to divide blogs into Premier League and Lower Divisions because some blogs would never get a look in - you can figure out your own favourites. I might have to create some other categories, though, as the rolls are so long that it's difficult to keep track of everything.

With that in mind, I have been checking the blogroll links. Any blogs which haven't been updated in the past two months have been removed from my rolls. There is one exception so far - Ttony of The Muniment Room has just stopped blogging temporarily (I hope) until after the Holy Father's visit... He gets a homework extension until October.

Today I managed to review the Clerical and the British blogrolls. Later this week, I intend to get round to checking the Overseas blogs...

If you think that I have removed you from the roll unfairly, then leave me a message in the combox. I will review my decision. Please note, I do not put every blog I read in the blogroll. It is, after all, my blogroll, and this is a Catholic, family-friendly blog (I hope.)

I Need Cheering Up...

I had a bad night, and seriously overslept this morning. I've been feeling grouchy all day as a result, and even the arrival of my papal flags didn't cheer me up (They were rather a disappointment - I hadn't realised they were made out of paper, I thought they'd be polyester.)

So I've decided to emulate the great Fr. Z, and ask for people to put any good news they've had, or anything which has cheered them up, in the combox.

I'll start off with this lolcats photo, which made me smile, and reminded me of the photo below...

And Yet Another Swimmer...

Giles Pinnock, the Anglican priest who has just resigned from his parish because he has decided to convert to Catholicism, put up a post asking prayers for another priest has done the same thing, on the same day.

The other priest's wife, Blondepidge, is already Catholic, and she has her own blog. Unfortunately, the decision to leave home and lose income has happened at the worst possible moment - she's waiting to start a full-time degree with a view to going into teaching, and, as well as having a six year-old and a young baby, she's just discovered that she's pregnant again. Possibly with twins...

Blondepidge bravely explains why, despite the encouragement of her doctor to have an abortion, she and her husband have chosen to continue with the pregnancy. Unfortunately, there have been some really horrible comments made, so do pop on over and redress the balance.

Another Swimmer Prepares...

Fr. Giles Pinnock needs our prayers. He has become convinced that he needs to come home to Rome, and, as such, has resigned from his Anglican parish of St. Mary the Virgin, Kenton.

Giving up one's job, one's home and one's whole way of life is a daunting prospect for anyone, and probably even more so if it affects one's family. Pray for him as he prepares to swim the Tiber.

Twitch of the mantilla to Jeffrey Steel.