De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

I love it! According to Rorate Caeli , Pope Francis said Mass ad orientem yesterday. Lots of people are reporting this because it is the way Mass was always said before the changes in the seventies. The Mass was at the tomb of Pope John Paul II, so some are saying that because the tomb is pushed against a wall and it's impossible to stand behind it, Francis had no choice. However, if it had mattered that much to him a makeshift versus populum table could have been easily arranged. So what does this mean? Tim Stanley in the Telegraph seems to have it right I think: "The likeliest interpretation of this isn't that Francis is a liturgical conservative but rather that he  just doesn't care  about the protocol sensitivities of either trads or liberals. We have a Pope who, for better and worse, isn't that bothered about liturgy and is far more focused on evangelism and charity. That's bad in the sense that it means traditionalists have lost a champion in t...

I was asked to draft a letter on behalf of the governors of our school to our local MP regarding the proposed re-definition of marriage. I took my inspiration from the letter Bishop Philip Egan wrote to David Cameron and the letter our priests wrote to the Telegraph , as well as the educational consequences spelt out by, among others Fr. Tim Finigan . Here is the text: David Amess MP House of Commons London SW1A 0AA Dear Mr. Amess We have decided that it is necessary and essential that we contact you as a governing body in order to express our deep concern and disquiet regarding the proposed re-definition of marriage by your party. It is our opinion that the proposals constitute a further erosion of the value and sanctity of the institution of marriage which will necessarily have repercussions for society. These repercussions do not seem to have been taken into consideration by the coalition government, neither do the legal ramifications. Whilst we understand t...