Iota Unum talks for 2025

All in the basement of Our Lady of the Assumption, Warwick Street.

Please enter from the Golden Square side: steps lead down directly to the hall:

24 Golden Square, W1F 9JR near Piccadilly Tube Station (click for a map).

Doors open at 6:30; talk at 7pm. £5 on the door for expenses.

Refreshments provided.

Feb 28, Nina Power: 'Overcoming Modernity's Process of Deracination'

March 21, Joseph Shaw: 'Why liberation enslaves us'

April 25, Niall Gooch

May 30, Daniel Dolley

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Holy Communion: kneeling or standing?

My latest for the Catholic Herald.

Holy Communion at the LMS' High Mass in Bedford

It begins:

The recent letter of Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago on the manner of receiving Holy Communion has reignited the long-standing debate over kneeling and standing.

Contrary to the impression one might receive from the at times acrimonious online debate, Cardinal Cupich’s instructions are par for the course and certainly not outlandish. The problem derives from the complex relationship between the norms agreed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and a deeper layer of liturgical law and magisterial teaching, which I summarised for Una Voce International here.

Like nearly every Bishops’ Conference around the world (that of Kazakhstan is one exception), the US Bishops long ago asked for, and received, permission from the Holy See to permit the Faithful to receive Holy Communion in the hand, instead of on the tongue. At the same time, communion rails were being torn out in churches all over the world, and instead of priests moving up and down a row of communicants kneeling at the rail, they got the Faithful to queue up while they stayed in the same place.

The two practices – kneeling vs. standing, and receiving on the tongue vs. in the hand – have become fused into a single issue: a traditional practice which emphasises reverence, and a post-Vatican II practice that is promoted in the name of an “adult” attitude, and, when conflict arises, in terms of uniformity and obedience to official directives.

Read the whole thing there.

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Fight the Anti-Advent

Some rather nice violet vestments belonging to the Latin Mass Society,
used at the Guild of St Clare Sewing Retreat last Lent.

My latest for Catholic Answers.

It begins:

On the first Sunday of Advent, in place of green, priests celebrating the Mass don vestments of violet, the color of penance, and the Gloria is not said. In this respect, Advent resembles Lent: just as we do penance as we await the liturgical celebration of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, so we do as we await his birth.

Nevertheless, Advent is a carefully calibrated penitential season. Whereas there is no gloria, there is an Alleluia.

Advent has not, historically, usually been regarded as requiring the same degree of penance as Lent. A penitential season leading up to Christmas enters the Church’s historical record in France in the year 480, with fasting three days a week from St. Martin’s Day (November 11), but as it spread to other countries, it became shorter and less severe.

Read the whole thing there.

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Moving Holy Days of Obligation: for Catholic Answers

Mass for SS Peter & Paul in the Birmingham, also the occasion of the 
LMS AGM. Because the feast fell on a Saturday its celebration in the Novus Ordo
was moved to the Sunday. The same thing will happen in 2025 with All Saints.

My latest for Catholic Answers. It begins:

The Church’s Code of Canon Law lists ten holy days of obligation in addition to Sunday (1246.1): Christmas, Epiphany, the Ascension, Corpus Christi, January 1 (see below), the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, St. Joseph, Ss. Peter and Paul, and All Saints.

Readers may be surprised that there are so many, and some may be surprised that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, the Church’s only Fast days, are not among them. However, bishops’ conferences can ask the Holy See to “abrogate” (remove) the obligation to attend Mass on some of these, and most countries have only five or six in practice: Christmas, plus a handful of others with special importance in the country in question.

A matter of recent controversy has been the question of what happens to the obligation, when not formally abrogated, when the feast falls on a Saturday or a Monday, perhaps because it has been transferred from Sunday to the following Monday. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has long taken the view that in these cases, the obligation is or can be lifted, but the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Interpretation of Legislative texts recently clarified that this is not so: the obligation cannot so easily be evaded, and the faithful must attend Mass on both the second Sunday in Advent and the Monday to which the Immaculate Conception has been transferred. 

Read the whole thing there.

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Armistice Day Requiem for the Catholic Military Association

On Monday the third annual Requiem for the Catholic Military Association, organised by the Latin Mass Society in Corpus Christi, Maiden Lane, took place. It was well attended, included by current members of the armed services, and accompanied by the Southwell Consort, with a polyphonic requiem by the Portugese composer Manuel Cardoso (1566-1650).

For more on the Catholic Military Association of Our Lady of Victories, see their website.

The celebrant was the parish priest, Fr Alan Robinson. Photos by me: click through for more.

A particular treat was the Last Post, played by a military bugler in dress uniform, at the end of the Absolutions at the Catafalque. 

Annual Mass of Reparation for Abortion in Bedford: photos

The celebrant was Fr Gerard Byrne, assisted by Fr Michael Cullinane (deacon) and Fr Thomas Crean OP (subdeacon). It took place in The Holy Child and St Joseph, Bedford. Organised by the Latin Mass Society's Local Representative, Barbara Kay, Mass was a Votive of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in reparation for abortion. It was accompanied by the Southwell Consort.

All Souls: Annual Mass of Requiem for the Latin Mass Society

Last Saturday was the Commemoration of All Souls: a day when Masses are said for the dead. The Latin Mass Society has an annual Requiem Mass, and it was fitting that since All Souls fell on a Saturday, this was the day of our Requiem. The Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory very kindly celebrated their All Souls High Mass for the our intentions: that is, for the deceased members, staff, and benefactors of the Society.