De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Catholic Bishops of England and Wales announced yesterday that Pope Francis had appointed Msgr James Curry, Parish Priest at Our Lady of Victories, Kensington, a salubrious parish in West London, as Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster Archdiocese and Titular Bishop of Ramsbiria (Ramsbiriensis). This news will come to no surprise to anyone paying attention to Church politics in the United Kingdom. Msgr Jim, as he is known, has been long considered a favoured member of the “Magic Circle”, a self-selecting small pool of like-minded “insiders” who come through lines of patronage that can be traced back to one man. Archbishop Derek Worlock , the progressive former Archbishop of Liverpool and mentor to the current Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols . What is perhaps more of a shock is that it has taken so long to arrange his promotion, occurring as it does, at the end of Cardinal Nichol’s tenure as Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster – Nichols was 75 in 2020. It almost seems l...

A phenomenon I find most interesting is the paradox between the "edifice" of the Catholic Church and what you might call "awake" Catholics. By the "edifice" of the Catholic Church I mean the bishops and the structures as well as the people who go to Mass on Sundays but don't engage with Catholic news. The Sunday Catholics or the cultural Catholics. Awake Catholics are the Catholics we all should really trying to be: Engaged with the process of Theosis; trying to be disciples. Catholics who pray at home with their children, Catholics who care passionately about the Blessed Sacrament as the source and summit of our faith. Catholics who read something other than The Tablet or the National Catholic Reporter .   Who engage with the faith as an antidote to the sickness we see in the secular culture. The edifice is crazy about Pope Francis in a way I've never seen with any previous Pope. If you look at their websites or Twitter feeds, they are drenched i...

Peter D. Williams is promoting an open letter to the Bishops of England and Wales from Catholic laity which sets out some very compelling points and a litany of church safeguarding failings. Recently I was removed from a speaking event because the host was "concerned" my presence would upset the bishops in some way. Why the concern? Because I don't keep quiet about abuses of office the bishops are guilty of. Nor will I. It is childish and cowardly to consider that we must curtail honesty for some false show of unity when incredibly serious issues are at stake: this is just one example of the incredibly serious nature of the duty bishops accept. And their failure to properly execute that duty. There is a really worrying tendency among some Catholics, perhaps especially those who seem the bishops as a means to accelerating their own careers, seem perfectly willing to ignore the utter failure of the collective episcopate to perform any of their basic functions with even com...

  The Conference Catholic Bishops of England & Wales (CCBEW) Website proudly proclaims  its National Synthesis Team begins its work for Synod submission to Rome. Members of the National Synthesis Team (pictured above) are: Miss Sarah Adams Director of the Department for Adult Education and Evangelisation Diocese of Clifton (Serving Wiltshire, Avon, Somerset and Gloucestershire) Clifton is broadly considered to have the worst bishop in the UK - Declan Lang (although there is some stiff competition). Lang is a died in the wool liberal who was the first to adopt full draconian measures post Traditiones custodes . Lang, who was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Derek Worlock , supports all things that aren't Catholic, like "gay masses" . According to Wikipedia , the sum total of his educational prowess is a BA in history. Such a low educational bar leads one to conclude Lang is clearly a result of Worlock's "Magic Circle" episcopal appointments scheme. W...

  Well, the bishops you might say. God help us I say! Today is the feast of John the Baptist, why then are the Catholic Bishops of England & Wales pushing out a photo of a window which depicts the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ? They rightly attribute the photo to Dominican priest Father Lawrence Lew, who has had to correct the error on the Facebook version ( still up at the time of writing !): This speaks to the utter lack of Catholicity at the Bishop's Conference and their preference for employing "cultural Catholics".  "Anyone who actually believes the faith would spot all the errors" A priest once quipped to me.  It's easier to have people working for them who don't know or care much about the Catholic faith. Time and time again we hear about the bullying, sidelining and expulsion of faithful Catholics from so-called Catholic organisations including schools where the practice of promoting pseudo-Catholics to high ranking positions has reached ...

Following on from yesterday , I thought I would try something new and record a video message. Me being me I totally busked it, but hopefully I get some important points across. Naturally I forgot to say lots of things I really wanted to include. Perhaps one thing I would add would be that these comments are very much in the context of a Catholic Church which is silent about the beauty and importance of human sexuality as taught by Jesus in Scripture and consistently held and taught by the Church. But also in the context of a Church which seems to applaud clergy who constantly push the boundaries of Catholic teaching in terms of the acceptance of behaviour long condemned by Christians everywhere. Today it appears to be de rigeur for priests to promote homosexuality, to be lax (read: merciful) towards adultery or fornication. We are in the world but not of the world and we must be careful that we do not lose our salt and our light by constantly echoing the message of the world.  Th...

How incredibly tragic that increasingly we watch the apostasy of the Bishops and England and Wales.  Throughout history, the Church has proposed a way of living given to us directly by Jesus Christ. He challenges us not to be slaves to our desires, to take a higher path and seek to be better humans who respect each other and creation. This path has always constituted a challenge to the dark forces of evil that control the secular polity but we have always had brave men and women who have been granted the wisdom, intelligence and insight to stand for that truth against the mainstream of the contemporary culture. Today it seems the men appointed to teach it don't have the courage or the integrity to do so. They prefer compromise in order to curry favour with those dark forces. If the Church has something powerful and life changing to impart, it should stand up and proclaim it proudly, fully aware that, as has always been the case, this proclamation of truth may cost us everything. To...

Some incredible things going on this week - Steve summarises it better than I can in this short video, especially the ridiculous new proposal from the useless Catholic Bishops of England & Wales! Tagle is interesting. He is largely reported as being a problematic liberal but I think it is important that we avoid guilt by association. Cardinal Tagle is a seriously respected theologian (unlike Pope Francis's chosen personal theological adviser and scribe  Archbishop Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández ). Tagle was appointed to the International Theological Commission under Cardinal Ratzinger's Presidency, consecrated bishop by Pope St John Paul II, archbishop by Pope Benedict XVI who then created him Cardinal. He did not not abuse their trust in him. Some commentators are suggesting he has been an advocate for and on behalf of the position that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics should be admitted to Holy Communion. The fact is that he offered a cautious opinion ...

Lifesite have this really sad article  about the number of Catholic Dioceses with so-called "LGBT Masses". Salford, Clifton, Nottingham, Northampton, Middlesborough & Westminster dioceses are all mentioned along with sacrilegious religious artefacts daubed in the all pervading, garish LGBT rainbow and evidence of the explicit support of the bishops of all these dioceses. Of course, there is the same activity in my own diocese of Brentwood as well, where at least one priest is actively pushing the direct opposite of Church teaching and we have had a "gay Mass" in the Cathedral , although the Lifesite article doesn't mention this. To be honest I am not surprised at the news, especially as the leader of the Catholic Church in England & Wales, Vincent Cardinal Nichols, has so openly advocated for homosexuality over many years . He even openly supported a gay group banned by Cardinal Hume for opposing Catholic teaching. Of course, the justificat...

Over the weekend I read this article on the rise of secularism. It looks at the way that society in Britain is developing towards a secular majority which promotes a kind of equality & tolerance which accepts no dissenters -- I have to say that fear of this continues to grip my heart in a growing way. I find daily that even switching on breakfast TV or listening to Radio 4 projects a diet of pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, pro-transgender ideology directly into my home in a way that really is most disturbing. It is disturbing because it is radical, becoming normalised and is constantly promoted despite the fact that no one understands what potential consequence such radical changes in family norms will have on society. This new "tolerance" comes with a disturbing sub-text. Dr Sharon James, a social policy analyst at the Christian Institute (CI) says that “intolerant secularism” among a small but “hard core” group is gaining traction in the UK, with one of the main batt...

Following the Bishops of England and Wales plenary meeting and as widely rumoured was going to happen, they issued a statement about gender. It is quite wet, but not as bad as it could have been (I have come to expect so little, I almost feel joy when they say something that isn't directly problematic). Here is the statement, what do you think? Today there is intense public debate about gender. It highlights not only the suffering and discomfort of some, but also raises profound questions about human nature, how we understand ourselves, relate to one another and our capacity for self-determination. We recognise that there are people who do not accept their biological sex. We are concerned about and committed to their pastoral care. Through listening to them we seek to understand their experience more deeply and want to accompany them with compassion, emphasising that they are loved by God and valued in their inherent God-given dignity. There is a place of welcome for everyon...

Catholic Youth Ministry's No. 1 Myth: Because Teens hate their parents, Catholic Youth Ministry must offer an environment free from the presence of parents. In reality, study after study has conclusively shown that parents, hands down, have a far greater impact on the spiritual life and faith practice of their own children than any youth minister could ever hope to have. This is the case even for teens who get involved in Youth Ministry efforts, mission, trips, and short-term service experiences. In the long run, teens will mimic their parents' faith practice. This is why stuff like this initiative from the CBEW is just straight up nonsense. We don't need to ask kids what they think, we need to teach them the faith - something that has been neglected for over forty years in this country. Catholic Youth Ministry needs to wake up and smell the coffee. It is complicit in a series of fundamental myths about teens, and because of this the teen retention rate is a co...

My Twitter feed is not a very cheery place to be this morning. Between the ongoing migrant misery , the fact that VW could be about to pull Europe into a new financial crisis due to their record inventories coupled with the emissions scandal, and the deaths of hundreds of innocent Muslims killed on pilgrimage in Mecca , it's all pretty black out there. To make matters worse, respected Anglican blogger Archbishop Cranmer reports that we’re seeing a mass shift in identity from residual cultural Christianity to ill-informed agnosticism, with 40% of people now believing Jesus is a myth , he is forced to ask, has religious education completely failed? However, by far the most depressing thing in the news this morning is the shockingly inept release, by the Bishops Conference of England and Wales, of the survey results . The Tablet editorial this week plumbs a new low in distortion of orthodox Catholic teaching and praxis. "The laity has spoken & the Church must learn...

If, like me, you found yourself roused by the Creed last Sunday following the soporific platitudes of the Pastoral Letter from Archbishops Smith & Nichols, and wondered at the lack of any Sacramental dimension to their predictable and agenda ridden diatribe, you might be interested in watching this video from Bishop Mark O'Toole in Plymouth: Bishop's message for Home Mission Sunday 2015 from Catholic Church (England/Wales) on Vimeo . Reassuringly Catholic, isn't it? As for the other thing, it was so blatantly sycophantic it was frightening! One of the most disappointing things about the CBEW, apart from their lack of evangelising and catechesis, is the way they seem to swim with political trends. Anyone who watches knows this and ++Vincent, especially, is so into this "mercy" without consequences narrative now, I'd love to see how he back-peddles out of any contrary message post synod. It's all terribly predictable if you know where he wa...

Yesterday I posted an article by Deacon Nick Donnelly bemoaning the current state of British politics. As we approach a General Election which many commentators consider will constitute a key change in the political landscape of our country, faithful Catholics feel marginalised and disenfranchised with the political system. In this, we are not alone, but the reasons we feel this way are probably minority issues which contradict directly the direction of social change adopted by the main parties. The apathy and disaffection felt by the rest of society is, interestingly, having the same effect as it is on Catholics—pushing us out to the fringes as we feel increasingly abandoned by mainstream parties. On Twitter today, the fallout from Nick's article yesterday is a discussion about the merits or otherwise, of supporting UKIP. Lucas Cambrensis has provided his own response to the feelings of disenfranchisement resulting from the political process in which he draws attention t...

This morning, The Bones broke the news that the Bishops of England and Wales have released a document entitled Preparing for the 2015 Synod: A Time of 'Reflection' which is available for download from their website here . Although it poses some appropriate and valuable pastoral questions, it also utterly misappropriates Church history in order to sell a heretical idea that contradicts established doctrine. It not so subtly attempts to shove the clergy in a particular direction: the questions direct the answers: The followers of Donatus wanted no contact whatever with Catholics whom they believed were contaminated and could not represent the Church of Christ. They considered themselves the sole representatives of the true Church because of their steadfastness during the persecution. Taking his cue from the parable of the wheat and tares Augustine argued strongly and insistently for patience and tolerance, and that to uproot the tares would mean damaging the good seed as ...