How Long Before It Happens Here...?

To say this is disturbing is a massive understatement.

I thought Germany, in view of its history, would be one place where the rights of parents to educate their own children would be sacrosanct. Hitler was, after all, very keen on youth camps and indoctrination of the young.

The Obama administration stopped one German family, the Romeikes, from seeking asylum in the US so that they could homeschool. The US administration argued in court that parents essentially have no right to determine how and what their children are taught, leaving the authority with the government.

And now we see the heavy-handed methods used by the German authorities to enforce the homeschooling ban on another family, the Wunderlichs. 20 social workers, special agents and police with a battering ram stormed into the family home in a quiet village at 8am. The children were frogmarched out and their mother was not even allowed to kiss them and reassure them as they were taken away. The youngest child is 7 years old.

So, if the rights of parents to educate their children are not being acknowledged in the US or Germany, how long before the government in the UK decides that it wants the same sort of control?

Happy Feast Day!

Today is the Feast of St. Anne Line. I know, it's also that of St. Margaret Ward and St. Margaret Clitherow, but I have a particular devotion to St. Anne (she was the patron I chose when I made my vows) and I feel that the other two are better known. I also tend to think of her more in February (she was arrested on the Feast of Candlemas, and martyred on 27 February 1601) but I quite like the idea of celebrating three significant feast days... besides which, the date of her death is usually in Lent.

I wrote a chapter about St. Anne for a book, English Catholic Heroines and I also went on a mini-pilgrimage with Joanna Bogle to find out more about "my" saint.

On that cheerful note, I am off for a celebratory lunch...

Housekeeping...

I'm going through one of my mad housekeeping phases - everything has to be tidy and sorted before the start of the new school year.

The room I originally designated as my study ceased to be a study when I got broadband - the connection was in the sitting room, and so the computer moved there too. Much of my work involved the computer, and thus the study gradually became that useful thing known to most single people - a large, scary cupboard where items which don't have any immediate use (but which might prove useful at some indeterminate point in the future) are dumped placed.

As the computer was in the sitting room, that is where I worked. Then the computer died, and, after much anguished consideration, I opted for a laptop. At about the same time, my ISP provided me with a nice new modem and I found that I had a WiFi connection. I was therefore no longer tied to the sitting room, and the acquisition of a tray table meant that I was able to work in my bedroom. The sitting room was in serious danger of suffering the same fate as the study...

However, today I have been tidying up and rearranging things. The computer monitor has been delivered to the Council's Re-use & Recycling Centre (a very nice chap came and helped me lift it from my car when he heard that it was fully functional.) The printer has been moved to the place where the computer monitor used to be. The shredder has taken the place of the printer. My scanner, laminator and guillotine have all found new homes within easy reach.

One day I shall reclaim the study, but it is much too scary right now.

A Holiday Of Sorts...

I usually visit Eastbourne in the Summer Holidays in order to look after my parents' two dogs while my parents go away on holiday. The dogs are quite sweet, but also more than a little irritating. Yorkshire terriers are not what I consider to be "real" dogs... they are small, yappy, and very needy. I do feel a little sorry for them - they are missing my parents dreadfully, and are moping around the house in a very forlorn manner. I thought a biscuit might cheer them up.

I am, of course, missing my own two hooligans dreadfully.

One consolation has been the opportunity to attend the TLM each morning. Fr. Charles Briggs and Fr. Tim Finigan are both in the area for a short break, and have been celebrating Mass at Our Lady of Ransom each morning - one priest at the High Altar and one at the Lady Altar (an agreeable form of concelebration, perhaps!)

After Mass today I met up with Annie who blogs for the Arundel & Brighton branch of the LMS and we had a lovely afternoon chatting over tea and scones at the Dickens Tea Cottage. Her husband, who had served one of the Masses, joined us for a while, but left after the first pot of tea. We ladies were made of sterner stuff and demonstrated real staying-power. I can heartily recommend the scones, by the way... and the tea... and the bacon sandwiches were rather good too...

Not sure what I'll do tomorrow... if it is sunny I shall try and get a few scenic photos for my collection...

A Wedding To Rejoice At...

On Saturday I was privileged to attend the wedding of friends of mine - two wonderful young people, and I wish them every possible happiness as they start their life together. I took a few photos which you can see on my Flickr page.

Quite apart from the solemnity of the occasion a couple of moments really made the day memorable for me personally.

The first was my (only partially successful) attempt to prevent the mother of the groom garotting the bride as they processed out at the end... to be fair, the bride had turned the corner of the aisle; unfortunately, her veil had not...

Next was my attempt to be helpful, taking His Hermeneuticalness' bag and Missal to the car while he had a brief word with Fr. Briggs. Halfway to the M25, I asked if he wanted the Missal brought back to Blackfen in time for the evening Mass...

"What Missal?" came a confused reply.

Alas, the Altar Missal that I had picked up was the one belonging to Chislehurst. I was soundly berated by my Parish Priest for making such a basic error...

Apparently next time I should accidentally pick up something worth keeping... like vestments, relics or candlesticks. Novus Ordo Missals are of no interest, it seems.

A Treat For Our Lady's Feast Day...

We are so very blessed at Blackfen. Not only do we have Mass in two forms of the Roman Rite (the vetus ordo and the novus ordo) but we also have a Mass most weeks said according to the Anglican Use of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. At the two sung Sunday Masses (one English, one Latin), we don't get the four-hymn-sandwich, but have the antiphons and the parts of the Mass sung.


Our Parish Priest delivers excellent sermons, and he has written down what he wants to say, so he doesn't waffle. There is even a summary of it in the parish newsletter. He doesn't treat the congregation as if they are a bunch of nine-year-olds, but covers Church history, doctrine, moral and social teaching, and usually bits from the lives and writings of the saints and the writings or speeches of the Pope (whichever one it happens to be.) The documents of Vatican II are frequently quoted (and we get Vatican I and Trent as well, just to demonstrate the hermeneutic of continuity in action.)

We have some really skilled and dedicated servers, a talented parish choir which has an amazing repertoire (lots of people sing different settings for the Kyrie, but how many times do you hear a small parish choir also knock out the Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei of Mass IV, for example?) and a marvelous team of people who clean the church and do all sorts of extra stuff in the sacristy (laundry of altar linens, mending vestments, making altar cloths) - the sort of thing that is only noticed when it isn't there.

And, as an extra-special blessing, we have Sisters who visit the parish. None of this "Nuns on the Bus" rubbish... these ones have full habits.

This is such an important witness for young women and girls - the priest is an obvious sign of a vocation in the Church, but most religious sisters in parishes are no longer "visible" at first glance. Even the teaching orders have pretty much disappeared from English schools.

The Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate often pop over to Blackfen for Mass, and on big feasts of Our Lady's they will often come along and sing the Mass propers and a motet or two. I videoed the incensing at the Offertory, and the Sisters were singing something really beautiful - I'm not sure what it is, but hopefully one of them will let me know. It's only my little mobile phone, but it still sounds awesome, so I thought I would share...

I only took a couple of photos, but you can see them here.

Happy Feast Day...

The Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into heaven...

Two More For The Kitty Kill Count...

Holidays are when teachers like me get to do housework properly... or at least a little more thoroughly than during term time. Hoovering the sitting room, I discovered two dead mice under different cupboards... Mind you, it could have been worse. My friend Fitzrufus tried to give me nightmares by tweeting a link to a report of a couple who found a dead (and dessicated) cat under the floorboards.

The most upsetting thing for me was that the cat looked so skinny. I rushed off to fill up the food bowls for my two hooligans...

I Wasn't Planning Another Cat Post, But...

... I videoed Furretti responding to her name (or perhaps, to be more accurate, the sound of my voice). She must have been just by the catflap when I called (the other side of a fence at the side of the building) and she either scooted under or over the fence to come running.

She then decided to go and explore somewhere else in the sunshine, and despite all my blandishments, she hasn't come home yet. Miaowrini, on the other hand, came in demanding to be fed something nicer than dry biscuits... but I didn't get that on camera...

But I'm feeling loved and appreciated...

Faith Summer Session 2013...

I didn't manage to get to the whole of the Summer Session this year, but I did go along to Woldingham for the Wednesday - there is usually a Guest Speaker on the Wednesday afternoon slot.

My journey in was a little fraught - someone at London Bridge managed to drop a signalling paddle down the side of a train onto the track, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle in trying to retrieve it - and, as a result, I was a little late for Mass. I was delighted to discover that Fr. Guillaume was giving out First Blessings after the Mass... this has become a regular feature at the Summer Session, as there have been many young men ordained to the Priesthood after being formed through contact with the Faith Movement. As you can see, plenty of people wanted to get a blessing...

The weather was glorious, and I enjoyed the scenery while catching up with many dear friends. While waiting for the afternoon session to begin, I spotted two new inhabitants of the school grounds...

His Hermeneuticalness cut me to the quick when he asked why I had taken a photo of a door. I must be losing my touch with the camera angles.

My heart sank when I heard that the Guest Speaker was a Parliamentary Officer (*yawn*) and it positively plummeted when I heard the phrase "Catholic Bishops' Conference" though I think Scotland is in a slightly better position than England & Wales (remember the Papal Visit?). However, I was very pleasantly surprised: John Deighan gave a rousing talk about his journey into politics, the reasons behind the success of the campaign for same-sex "marriage" and his ideas for fighting back against secularism.

I started to live-tweet the talk, but my battery was almost completely dead by this point. (Reminder to self - get a couple of spare batteries!) However, if his talk was anything to go by, I'd say that John Deighan is well worth following on Twitter. The Scottish Catholic Parliamentary Office also appears very well organised, especially with regard to their internet presence. Eccleston Square could learn a few tricks.

There are a few more photos on my Flickr page.

Shall I Change My Name To Cassandra...?

As the Greek myths tell it, Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but, after she refused his advances, he cursed her so that she would never be able to convince people her prophecies were true.

I pointed out, back in December, that Cameron's quadruple-lock "assurances" about churches not being forced to carry out same-sex "marriage ceremonies" were not worth much, because the European Court of Human Rights had already stated clearly that, if same-sex couples were allowed to "marry" then any church that offers weddings would be guilty of discrimination if it declined to marry same-sex couples.

One didn't really need to be Cassandra to foresee that, once same-sex "marriage" became legal, there was bound to be someone just itching to push for a full church wedding, with all the trimmings... Sure enough, less than a month after the legislation hit the statute books, one couple plans to sue the Church of England. I felt a grudging admiration for the blatant honesty in the comment: "I am still not getting what I want."

I very much doubt that it will stop there...

Orthodox Cat-holics Condemn The Bitter Pill...

Since most people read this blog for the cat posts (judging from the number of people who asked me about the kitties at the Faith Summer Session earlier this week) I thought it was worth posting...

I have no idea how, when or even if I made this gif image of the kitties showing their poor opinion of The Bitter Pill while leaving The Catholic Herald unscathed, but discovered it when I was checking through some old images.

Twitter Spats & Blog Comments...

Somehow or other, I got myself enmeshed in a spat on Twitter, all about blogs and comment threads. 140 characters just wasn't enough for this one, so I have decided to blog about it...

I usually take the stance that it's best to ignore the stupid stuff, and in general this attitude has paid off. I very rarely get abusive comments on the blog, for example, because I just delete them, and do not refer to them. Most people who want to be offensive want to provoke a reaction, so when the comment disappears without trace, it gets boring for them, and they go elsewhere.

I take much the same approach to Twitter: offensive tweets are best ignored - and much better never acknowledged, even to condemn them... Twitter feeds are pretty fast-moving, and if objectionable stuff is ignored, it will usually disappear without trace.

I moderate my blog comments. I do not necessarily agree with the comments I do publish, but if I don't like the tone of a comment, I am quite ruthless in deleting it. There is no discussion, and no appeal. It's my blog, and if someone objects, they are free to start their own blog. I suspect this is why I don't get many comments, but I don't blog in order to get comments...

I read blogs via Feedly. It shows me the blog posts as they are published, and saves me having to check whether or not someone has updated their blog. If I find a post amusing or thought-provoking, I might tweet a link to it, or I might actually put up a link from this blog. It does not mean that I agree with everything that has ever appeared on that blog.

Feedly does not show comments threads on blogs. Occasionally, I might want to comment on the blog, in which case I will visit the particular post and add a comment. This is rare - even more so now that I use my mobile phone for blog-reading when I have some spare time.

I do not consider myself responsible for the content of other blogs, still less for their comments.

Quite frankly, unmoderated comboxes are a magnet for idiots, and there is no shortage of people who wish to write very unpleasant stuff on the internet. If one comments on a thread on an unmoderated blog, then one shouldn't be surprised when the idiots pile in. That doesn't mean that it is right for abusive and vile comments to be published - and generally, when this happens, one can ask for the offensive comments to be removed... but one will have to ask, because "unmoderated" means that the comments aren't being checked beforehand, and not everyone has the time to check and re-check comments on old posts (or even on new ones), especially if the comments go up in the early hours of the morning!

Countercultural Father beat me to it, as usual, and he managed to summarise the whole thing much more effectively than me, so do read his excellent post!

In Case You Were Wondering..

One of the reasons why I haven't been blogging lately...

Cardinal Furretti rather likes sleeping on my laptop case, and sometimes I haven't got the heart to turf her off so I can retrieve the laptop...

Dressing Decently As An Act Of Charity...

The warm weather means that people are often rather scantily dressed. It interested me to note that, in an email sent round at work, people were asked to dress "decently" so that their choice of clothing did not cause embarrassment, distract or give rise to misunderstandings... in other words, to dress modestly as an act of charity to those around us.

Decent dress, according to the email, meant not showing bare midriffs, not wearing sleeveless tops, avoiding overly-translucent materials, and no low-cut trousers or shorts (of any length).

In other words, one does not merely dress to please oneself, but considers one's colleagues.

It is a shame that this attitude of charity towards one's neighbour appears to be ignored by so many when they are choosing what to wear for the worship of Almighty God...

UPDATE: As Caroline pointed out, it might be worth considering the spectacle presented by many ladies when they kneel at the altar rail for Communion if their tops are of the low-cut variety. Is it really fair on the priest? I have to confess that I used to wear low-cut tops myself when I first returned to the Faith. That stopped pretty quickly after one occasion when the Host accidentally dropped down my (not inconsiderable) cleavage...

Free The Word...!

Brandon Vogt recently got into hot water when, after making the texts of the Holy Father's encyclical available in electronic format, he was taken to task by the USCCB and the Holy See.

Brandon isn't arguing about the right of the Holy See to keep the copyright on Church documents, but what he wants is to petition for the documents to be made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs license. This means that people would be able to copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of the work. It's an extremely popular way of safely distributing texts, especially digital content. Proper credit has to be given for the source, and the copyright is retained by the Holy See.

If you want to read more about how Brandon inadvertently fell foul of the copyright laws, and the reasons behind his proposals, check out his excellent post. You can also sign the petition by leaving a comment in his com-box.

Two Down...

Is it really four years since I started watching cricket?

I am having to watch the cricket without the benefit of expert tuition as both Jonathan and Zephy are away from the parish. Nevertheless, I was quite pleased with myself when I was able to say something vaguely intelligible after Mass when watching the Test Match in the Parish club. Unfortunately I can't remember what it was...

Although I haven't actually posted on it (for fear of saying something really stupid which will incur the wrath of cricket enthusiasts everywhere, and particularly in Blackfen) I have been keeping more than one eye on the Ashes Test Series. I have a very handy phone app which is rather useful - it tells me the score, whether the game is still on, who is in, who is out and how many runs are needed for one side to beat the other.

This year, the weather has not intervened to help out the Australian team, and, after their really disastrous first innings in the second Test, the Australians were well and truly thrashed by England.

So we only need to win one more Test out of the three in order to win the series...

I hope my support isn't going to prove the death-knell for England's chances of retaining the Ashes!

A Blessing For The Diocese

It was a very great pleasure to attend the Ordination to the Priesthood of five young men at St. George's Cathedral earlier today. 

Unfortunately, I'd had to set up for the Saturday morning Mass and Exposition at Blackfen, so I arrived late, and spent most of the occasion stuck behind a pillar. I got up to take this photo from the back...

Many congratulations to Fr. Samuel Davey, Fr. Valentine Erhahon, Fr. Stephen Haines, Fr. Thomas Lynch and Fr. Leonard Tatt. God bless them for their generous response to his call! And please do keep them in your prayers as they begin their priestly ministry.

UPDATE: There are a few photos up on the Catholic Church (England & Wales) Flickr pages.

If A Cat Doesn't Want To Know...

...lady, you can clap your hands all you like. That might get a response from a dog, but kitty cats have standards... no way is a cat going to play second fiddle to you as some sort of prop for your story...

It's Official...

Cardinal Furretti has decided that the weather is a bit warm, and so she's started to sleep in the sink...

Part of me is tempted to give her a trim...