Advent - birth, death and judgement

A few thoughts that have been flying around my wee head at this time....

It is one of the wonderful peculiarities of the Catholic liturgical calendar that at the very time when all the shops are screaming 'festive joy' at us, and innumerable Christmas parties start to take place, with everyone demanding the 'joy' of the season, we Catholics spend our time thinking about the Four Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell. Hot on the heels of the month of Holy Souls, we find ourselves plunged into texts about the Second Coming, by way of preparing ourselves for the celebration of the First.

[By the way, I can't help feeling that the transition is a little less abrupt in the Extraordinary Form, with the re-location of Christ the King to the last Sunday in the N.O. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Or just a thing?]

If you want to read Church documents on the Four Last Things, there's a good compilation here; I also highly recommend Fr. Philip Neri Powell OP's splendid homily about looking forward to Christ, not fearing, which I have found useful.

It is striking, in my mind, how the Infant Birth is really all about death. You can say that the moment of the Incarnation is one at which the sacrificial ministry of Our Lord begins, that is, it is the point at which the Christ - Who has existed before time and ever-after - is given a temporal frame of reference. From His miraculous birth there is a definite temporal, i.e. historical, movement towards the sacrifice on Calvary.

Caravaggio's Nativity, with St Francis present.

For us in this season, this reality is made present through thoughts of our own death - and in particular of the end of times. After all, Christ's sacrifice is nothing if it is not efficacious towards that end-point, if it is not a redemption of our life for all eternity. Through Him we have nothing to fear in death, and can remain steadfast on that "day of wrath, that day..."

The first Advent, then, is not merely an occasion to think about the second Advent, but rather the two are inescapably intertwined. All of which prompts me to consider that our lives too exhibit such a movement, even if we would prefer not to consider it. From the moment of its creation, the world has been in the process of moving towards that final end of time; we too, from the moment we were born, have been moving towards not only our death but also that final judgement "whether we are dead or alive when He comes" (1 Thess 5:10).

We are then, always in a state of waiting: our expectation in the Advent Season heightens what is in fact a permanent sense (whether or not we are conscious of it).

This, I think, accurately describes the human condition, and lies at the heart of the 'theme' of this blog - the suffering world. For humankind suffers, not merely in the earthly way that we can all identify with on some level, but because we are always groaning with separation from Our Maker, "For we know that the whole creation groans together and travails in pain together until now", hence "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us" (Rom 8:22, 18).

Yet the coming glory is not a cosy matter, whereupon Christians can gleefully congratulate themselves. The end involves judgement, and judgement - by definition - implies heaven and hell. Which leads me on to think about how we should think of salvation in the light of what has just been said.

The word 'salvation', or 'being saved' gets bandied around quite a lot by Christians, and I think suffers from a lack of clear definition. A bit like the associated ideas of grace and 'works' (on which see this rather helpful analogy by the excellent fr. Philip once again). Now I can hardly add anything to the thoughts of brilliant theologians down the centuries, so I won't even try, but what I will say is that I think we should think of salvation as being a term that is intricately related to the above-described human condition. It makes little sense to talk of being saved as a one-off event in our personal histories. I expect many of my readers will have had the experience of our Protestant brethren talking of salvation as a fait accompli. But rather I think it is a more realistic formula to say that we are always being saved. Salvation itself requires the endpoint, in one sense it must always be not yet.

This is not to backtrack on the traditional teachings on baptism and so on. God of His free and infinite grace gives us that which saves us; but it is wrong to speak of ourselves as already saved beings since this diminishes obligation (or free will, depending on which counter-argument is followed).

So it is with the Church, which from its inception has always been in a state of coming to know God's will. In Christ, at a definite point in history, came the most perfect revelation, but to say that there is a perfect deposit of faith is not the same as to say that there is perfect knowledge of that deposit of faith. What is called the development of doctrine is in reality a movement towards the fullness of knowing God, of knowing His will: there is an already revealed, a something already given, but we are in a state of always receiving. The Church is a body always growing towards completeness.

And so at Advent, we remind ourselves of this innate teleology. We wait for Christ's birth in the liturgy, which points to His crucifixion, and thus ultimately to His Return; and we call to mind along the way how we have received and go on receiving of His grace; and our own movement towards this great end of times.

Why I became Catholic

As readers may have gleaned from the St Clement post, lately I've been taking something of a foray into apologetics. This started with my desire to write a little book explaining what and why Catholics believe in response to discussions with a friend, and has continued as I have found the topics I started researching very interesting. One of the effects of reading up on these issues has been to make me think back over my own initial reasons for embracing Catholicism; and indeed what I like to call my 're-conversion' around a year ago.

There wasn't any one reason why I became Catholic. I was brought up in a vaguely Protestant household, went to a vaguely C of E school, and sung in C of E choirs; but my mother converted while I was in my early teens, so I guess that must have had a big effect on me at a formative age. At any rate, by my mid-to-late teens I was defining myself as 'Catholic', although this had the loosest possible meaning to me then. I also dabbled with a version of 'deism' (which seemed like an excuse not to have to do anything) and held to a notion, probably from my dad, that institutional religion was a bad thing. But I did come to realise that if there had to be any official Christian church, then it ought to be the Roman Catholic Church.

I think Apostolic Succession was what swung it most at first. I didn't know much about it, what a deposit of faith was, or what infallibility really meant, but I did know that a direct line of succession back to Christ had to count for something. I remember we had a female vicar come to speak to us at school, shortly after the ordination of women first started happening, and being the obstreperous teenager that I was I gave her a hard time in the questions session. She had said that the church had to move with the times, and I demanded to know why she didn't want the times to change to fit the church instead. I then insisted that if women could be ordained, then so could homosexuals (still a big no-no, at least publicly in the C of E at the time). I must have tested her charity!! (she didn't answer my questions as I recall....). So I think that was about the time I realised that the C of E Church, which was all I knew, could not be the 'real' faith; meanwhile, there was the Catholic Church my mum had joined, which I knew was all about tradition, and claimed to be semper eadem. I was sold!

Even so, it took me a number of years to become properly Catholic. It is not an interesting journey, so I won't bore you with it, but the basics are that in my first year at uni I got made the pro-life rep for my college, which was an horrendous experience - so much vitriol against pro-lifers! - but I guess the contra mundum approach I developed at that time encouraged me to seek solace in the Church. A loss of faith, two broken hearts and a couple of years later, I was finally received.

More interesting (I think) than this dull tale was what I call my 're-conversion'. I understood little about the faith at first, and after a few years of half-hearted Catholicism I had almost entirely lapsed. But I didn't lose faith. Maybe some readers will identify with what I used to feel: every time I walked past a Catholic church, I felt as though there was a rope around me, tugging me towards the church. That's the only way I can describe it. I knew I had to make a confession, but I didn't want to: I was attached to my sins, I was complacent, I was afraid to change (be changed, that is). I did go to Mass sometimes, but started to hate it: not because I didn't believe but because I felt sick with guilt, a longing as one feels homesick but a fear of taking the step.

Then my whole world changed when my mother died, just over a year ago now. I'm sure you will appreciate it was an emotional moment, and I still find it hard to talk about it; although in a weird way I also like to remember it, as there was also something very special about it. I'll spare the most personal details, but to cut a long story short, a priest-friend came to deliver the last rites, for which (miraculously it seems to me) mum awoke after being unconscious for a long time. Suddenly at that moment I was overcome by an extraordinary sensation of the power and efficacy of the sacrament. Up to that moment, I don't think I had ever really felt anything about the sacraments, and though I assented to Catholic teaching in the mind, I don't think the truth about the Eucharist, confession etc was really in my heart. Now it was different: in a way I just can't explain I simply knew what was happening at that moment.

I might have dismissed this afterwards were it not for some concomitant circumstances, one of which being that I really felt I was aware of Our Lord's presence, comforting me as I cried, giving me a closeness that I had never felt before. I have no doubt that sceptics can explain all this without recourse to God, but a believer does not have to prove anything to anyone except him or herself - and I knew. And that tugging feeling I'd felt got stronger and stronger, while in church the old anxiety was replaced by an unusual peace that was very comforting.

Of course, the trouble with emotional experiences is that the emotion wears off: sometimes the Eucharist feels powerful, but most often it doesn't, because frankly what we feel has little to do with it. I remember a priest once comparing our faith and religious experience to a child growing up: he commented that when the child is learning to walk, the parent at first helps him a few steps until he gets the hang of it; then the parent lets go, and the child can walk alone for the first time - which is fine until the child realises that he is alone, when he promptly falls over and the parent needs to pick him up again. God is like that with us: the emotional experiences 'get us going', but then sooner or later this is replaced with dryness.

For me though, I keep thinking back to that calling-back, and on the whole I find it sustains me during the dryness. I know that is what my faith is based on at heart. Recently I had a mini crisis of faith which occasioned me to write the little book I mentioned at the top: one of the key topics for me was, are the sacraments really sacraments? And whatever intellectual doubts I was having, the certainty that sacraments cause a very real change, a certainty based on experience, was very helpful. "Change you can believe in!" A priest-friend recently told me a story about how he attended a friend's ordination, and saw a visible transformation take place in his friend after the Bishop laid on hands; occasionally, Our Lord's Real Presence in the Eucharist is made more visibly obvious by a material transformation as well as substantial (e.g. at Lanciano etc.). I firmly believe that from time to time God picks us up and helps us to walk again through such means: but only on His terms, not ours!

And so, if assent to Apostolic Succession was initially the most important 'idea' that helped me to become a Catholic, it was this conviction in the sacraments that has kept me on the path and given me new energy. I do not write this, I hope, out of pride and a desire to be spotted as a good Christian - indeed, again and again I find myself deeply shamed by my own ingratitude to what Our Lord has done for me - but because I hope that in some small way, parts of this may resonate with someone who may in turn be inclined to think about their own experiences of the Divine. I do wonder if in fact many people experience such 'callings' without ever realising it.

Papa Clemens

I was too busy yesterday to do a post about St Clement. But I did want to say something, as I have a great fascination for the ante-Nicene Church. Perhaps this is because the period overlaps with much of what I have studied in Classics; but just recently I have also been doing quite a bit of reading in my spare time on the early Church and in particular the development of the papacy.

I'm sure many readers will have seen some of Diarmaid Macculloch's History of Christianity on the beeb; I haven't watched any of it, but I have read bits of his book, so I've got a reasonable idea what he argues. His revisionist view - that is to say, revising what the Catholic Church has usually said of her history, as e.g. in the Catholic Encyclopedia, has been rather fashionable in recent scholarship, whether Protestant like Macculloch or even Catholic (e.g. Eammon Duffy, Saints and Sinners). His book does seem to be well researched and will certainly be a most valuable source-book for many years, but I question the conclusions he draws. One popular view is that the Catholic Church's concept of the papacy is a third-century innovation (some Protestants would like to put it even later); indeed, the idea of a Roman primacy, or even a Roman episcopate in the first couple of centuries after Christ, has been widely denied. Sadly poor old St Clement gets the 'chop': it is said that the so-called 'letter of St Clement', which has been claimed to be the first extant papal encyclical, is merely an anonymous letter on behalf of the Roman community; many modern scholars now suggest that in fact there was no single Bishop of Rome in this period.

I get a little nervous in the face of such claims. Nonetheless, it should be noted that in and of itself this would not disprove Catholic claims, as Jesuit historian Klaus Schatz SJ argues in his book on papal primacy (which accepts the above theory): cf. also Roger Collins' The Keepers of the Keys of Heaven. The development of faith accounts for the fact that the Church did not have to understand the papacy when it was first revealed to the apostles.

In terms of papal primacy I think this is spot on. There is no reason to assume that the earliest bishops had a sense of themselves as anything other than 'chief priests' within a community, and there was no particular reason why a community could only have one such bishop. What role the bishop played within and beyond the community would take time to develop - and it would only develop for the same reasons that other aspects of the deposit of faith would develop, i.e. because they were called into question. The apparent disunity of the early churches and lack of centrality of 'power'/organisation, which Macculloch makes a big deal out of, did not need to be an issue until problems arose; and when problems did arise, the shape of the resolution would inevitably emerge over time. Our Lord's foreknowledge stretches across eternity, and as Schatz drily observes, it is remarkable that time and time again in doctrinal disputes, it was Rome that had the 'right answer', even though the community there often had the least power or the fewest intellectual heavyweights.

Yet what to make of what tradition tells us about the early bishopric of Rome? And the role of St Clement? Is it mere historical tradition, or does it belong somewhere in Tradition? Most of the details, being historical issues, are not requirements of faith, but one thing that we must believe is that there is a validly ordained succession of bishops stretching back to St Peter himself. I think very few scholars now deny that St Peter ever came to Rome, and with St Paul, can be said to have founded the Church there with his martyr's blood. But after that it gets rather fuzzy for a hundred-odd years or more. The consensus seems to be that there was no 'Pope Clement', or any Pope at all... the oddities of the various 'lists' of the Bishop of Rome, starting with Hegesippus (c. 160 AD) are deemed to be part of the proof for the unreliablity of the tradition. Duffy refers to the stories of the earliest successors of Peter as 'pious romances'.

I have great respect for Duffy and the other scholars, but I think this is a little snobbish and too dismissive. If the point is (as to be fair I think Duffy means) that the accounts are too imprecise or embellished, and uncheckable to count as reliable historical documents, then I suppose it is fair enough. But I'd like to share some of my own experience from my doctorate. My research focuses on fragments of poetry, the evidence for most of which depends on sources dating to five or six-hundred years later. I began with a highly revisionist attitude, wanting to 'correct' assumptions that had been made. I frequently liked to point out that the sources for my material were too late to 'count', and I would hypothesise ways that false traditions would build up. And yet as time has gone on, I've realised that in most cases it is possible to identify a 'core' truth that allows us to treat the source as basically reliable. Where we cannot find any such core truth, we do not entirely dismiss what is said but simply admit our ignorance. It is rare that anything is ever complete invention, even if details often go a bit awry. I have started to see that the 'real' question is ' do we have any strong reason to suppose x has made a mistake or invented something?', and if the answer is yes, then we also have to ask why and how this happened.

Now while I'm not an expert on Church history, from this period or any other, I have looked at whatever sources the scholars I've read direct us towards, and in my view, they're all pretty scanty. Not exactly surprising! But in as much as we cannot confirm historically that St Clement did write the epistle named after him, nor can we confirm that he did not; and although we cannot confirm that Clement was ordained by St Peter, nor indeed can we confirm that he was not. Meanwhile, it is my humble opinion that unless presented with striking reasons to suppose otherwise, we are wiser to assume that the reports of people writing within a century (e.g. St Irenaeus) contain at least some vestiges of truth. I think it highly unlikely that there were no episkopoi in Rome at the time of St Clement; I think it highly unlikely that a letter penned in the name of the Roman community did not have the blessing of the episkopos; I think it highly unlikely that tradition later turned the name of a scribe (as suggested for Clement) into a bishop in the line of St Peter.

That is not to say that the tradition is spot-on. I doubt that very much too - it is far too neat, and too programmatic, too self-contradictory. All that can be said with certainty is that we don't know! But in my view - which counts for precisely nothing of course - Clement is Pope until proven otherwise. However, as I've said, we should not fall into the mistake made by many - both Catholic apologists and opponents of the Church - of assuming that the papacy, or any aspect of the Church, would have looked as it does now. I see no reason why Clement could not have been one of a number of overseeing-priests appointed by both SS. Peter and Paul who looked after the spiritual community in Rome but exercised very little that looks much like the episcopacy of later periods.

Yet ultimately by the third century Christians were applying the Peter and the keys passage in Matthew's Gospel to the Bishops of Rome, and even though there is no appeal to this passage earlier, I believe they must have got it from somewhere. That somewhere is of course Tradition. I doubt very much that it was plucked from thin-air, and when we read earlier documents with that Matthean hermeneutic (something the historians are retiscent to do) it become perfectly possible to see this view understood. Probably the See of Rome was not understood in terms of a position of power over all communities of the global Church (and Vatican I confirmed that it still isn't to be seen that way) but rather as a foundation stone, the immovable base of Revelation on which the whole Church depends. Later it became necessary for this See to exercise a more juridical role.

Sancte Clemens, ora pro nobis.

"Happy Birthday"

Eucharistic Adoration - a waste of time

Photo: James Bradley

I was priveleged to be able to attend a Forty Hours devotion this weekend at the Oxford Oratory. Unfortunately a rather nasty flu-type thing that has been doing the rounds in Oxford laid me low, so I didn't feel well enough to last for more than a few hours at a time, but it was still a truly wonderful and blessed experience.

At the Solemn Mass of Exposition which kicked it off on Friday evening, Fr Daniel preached one of the best sermons I think I've heard on the subject of Eucharistic Adoration. Taking as his cue the Gospel reading from the Passion, where Our Lord points out that Pilate's power is only what the Father has given him, Father focused on the way Our Lord does not act with power and might as we would normally conceive it and generally desire for ourselves, but reduces Himself to something very small; He allows Himself to be beaten, mocked, tortured, crucified. His passion is characterised by His silence. Then in the Eucharist He makes Himself impossibly small and fragile, silent, unheard, easily ignored. Father then linked this up with the Greatest Precept, that we should not merely love our neighbour as ourselves, but even to love one another as Christ has loved us. This presence of His in the Eucharist, this smallness and silence, this ultimate sacrifice, this is how He has loved us: a remarkably hard thing to measure up to!

I found these observations very powerful and helpful for the ensuing periods of Adoration, in which - as Father pointed out - we meet Christ in silence. He is there, loving us, but does not shout out, does not even stop us from doing a bad job of worshipping Him. He is 'just' loving us.

This tends to be rather offputting - at best! I love Eucharistic Adoration, and try to make a holy hour at least once a week if possible (I am lucky since in Oxford there are two occasions of Exposition I can attend each week). Yet I also find it remarkably difficult. What I came to realise through the Forty Hours is that what makes it difficult is the noise inside my head. I've read about this in books, but it took a longer period of silent and wordless prayer to really understand it. What I have found is that it takes me most of the (first) hour to settle down, to remove the clutter that I didn't even know was there to begin with. Only then do I start to find myself properly aware of being with Christ.

Part of the clutter, I suspect, is borne out of a strange manifestation of pride: the sense that one should be achieving something. This is what Fr. Daniel talked about, that we are tuned to think that all time must be useful. In fact, time spent with Our Lord is in most cases a 'waste of time' in the sense we normally attach to that phrase: there are seldom measurable results. But it is an act of giving yourself in love; and what is more, to do this, words at some point need to be left behind, so that we can love as Christ has loved, silently. Talking to God is all well and good, and should be done regularly, but best of all is when we can just present ourselves to Him: the temptation for me, and what typically 'destroys' my holy hours, is the desire to fill the time with my own little speeches, which serve only to drown out the real offering that needs to be made.

Symbols: contrasting stories of a secular tyranny

We have a strangely ambivalent understanding of the power of symbols in this society. Two recent news stories have slightly got my back up, which albeit in apparently different ways, illustrate the way symbols can be appropriated in a secular tyranny.

The first concerns the wearing of poppies on Remembrance Day. We are, by now, well used to criticism being levelled at TV presenters or the like who fail to wear a poppy, so much so that now there is uniform adherence to poppy-wearing by public figures. You can see the point: people with a public profile have a duty to set an example, etc. etc. But this attitude seems to me to have been taken far too far now. I was reading this morning a piece in the Mirror by sports journalist Oliver Holt, which lambasted the players of Manchester United Football Club for now having poppies embroidered to their club shirts at the weekend. Their opponents, Chelsea, did have such an embroidery. Turning to a football forum I occasionally frequent, I noticed some fans expressing similar opinions.

Now please understand me: I think that wearing poppies is a decent mark of respect and remembrance for the fallen of the wars - 'Lest we forget'. What astonishes me is that anyone should think it is obligatory for a football club to have them sewn into their team shirts for a match. I have watched football ever since I can remember (late eighties) and never once before have I seen this practice, even though there is always a match on Remembrance Sunday itself. That latter fact might be regarded as more disrespectful, some would say! Why on earth is it of the slightest significance if a bunch of over-paid, inarticulate sportsment wear a poppy? Is it really a mark of respect to those who have fallen in war if the footballer, sporting this logo on his breast, rolls around as if he has been shot in order to win a penalty? Or kisses his badge next to the poppy in celebration of a goal? Pllllleeeeassse!

But this is a symptom of the way symbols are treated in society now. What matters is not showing respect itself but being seen to show respect. And if you don't show it, expect some abuse from those who are far holier than thou. [ask yourself, would it matter if each of the footballers not wearing poppies in the match had nonetheless donated money to the Poppy Appeal? Would Oliver Holt et al. care?!] How meaningful is it as a symbol anyway if those ministers wearing poppies are simultaneously promulgating further war in Afghanistan or Iraq? If those conforming to the wearing of the poppy are more concerned with being seen to be wearing the symbol than they are engaged in active remembrance?

In this way, a tyranny is born, a tyranny of conformism and superficiality. I am reminded of the howls of protests when a national flag was burned... but when certain actions or policies really stripped away the freedoms that the flag apparently stands for, there was only silence. The symbol trumped reality.

Yet while one symbol is being forced on everyone, another is being stripped away. I am referring of course to the case concerning crucifixes in Italian schools, of which surely everyone is now aware. While it is possible to be offended at the lack of a symbol in one case, its mere presence seemingly causes offence too.

We can surely expect this ruling to filter into this country sooner or later. I wonder how before even churches are banned from displaying religious symbols. We've already heard plenty about nurses barred from wearing a cross, of course. This symbol really frightens people.

Perhaps it's only to be expected: for this is a symbol that professes a truth, which will always be shocking to the non-religious, always liable to shake them out of their comfort zone. For in fact it is a very different sort of symbol from the poppy. Whereas like the poppy it certainly does function on the level of remembrance, the crucifix also draws something out of ourselves. It invites us to see ourselves in relation to this figure on the cross, Our Saviour; it brings about reflection on our sinfulness and above all - as Bl. Teresa of Calcutta pointed out - of the fact we are loved by God, a love that penetrates our entire being.*

Such an all-consuming symbol inevitably inspires opposition, and always has throughout history. And always will, although 'the gates of hell will not prevail'.

With these contrasting stories of symbols, then, we see how the tyranny of secular orthodoxy operates, stripping the all-powerful and replacing with the empty 'badge of honour'. Who wants to bet that crucifixes in Catholic schools will be replaced by climate change logos?!

Within the Catholic Church, there is a different and I think healthier attitude to symbols. One can hardly fail to be aware that they are everywhere, whether in forms of art, or external acts of piety, and so on. And of course it is right to point out that it is not the objects themselves, or the external acts themselves, that matter most. Just as the words we pronounce at Mass matter less than the interior movement of our hearts in prayer. Quite right - and no doubt one can find plenty of Christians who also wear the cross as a 'badge of honour', or who make the sign of the cross out of cultural identity rather than remembrance of their baptism. And yet we see in such symbols an opening to something deeper. I have experienced myself, for example, that certain external displays of piety can actually drive the inner conversion of the heart that is required. And of course, religious art does not adorn the walls of our churches for mere decoration: but the initial reaction of 'gosh, isn't that beautiful' drives on contemplation of the divine.

We have rather lost sight of that transcendental quality of the symbol of late, I think. To my mind it is no accident that in an age when certain symbols are foisted upon us without proper consideration of the meaning and purpose of them, we are also experiencing another wave of iconoclasm within our church buildings. Hence half the Catholic churhces in this country look more like community halls. This is partly under Protestant influence, no doubt, but I'm sure it is also due to an overwhelming lack of attentiveness to the power and importance of the symbol, truly conceived. I suspect the Church has a big role to play in the correction of such attitudes by transforming our churches back to their former glory, wherever funds allow it. Our experience of God can only be helped.

More thoughts on the Anglican provision

Yes, yes, I know everyone and his omnipresent dog has been blogging about this, especially since the actual text of Anglicanorum Coetibus was published... still, I've been having more thoughts and I don't see why I shouldn't use my blog to share them!

One of the things that has struck me is the negative - or perhaps I should rather say, puzzled - response of some Catholics, who have questioned why such a consistution is necessary. If they really feel they are Catholic, why can't they just convert individually, goes the argument. Why does it need to be sugar-coated with offers about 'Anglican patrimony'? Such things, some have suggested, are even perhaps a threat to 'Catholic' identity.

As much as I understand this view, I think it fails to comprehend just how difficult it is for clergy especially, but also to an extent for laity, to make the transition. I recently got back from a retreat which was attended by a couple of ex-Anglican priests who have been received into the Catholic Church and are now seeking re-ordination. One thing that came through very clearly was the sacrifice that this has involved, a sacrifice which does not just affect the individuals but also their families, who will certainly not be so well provided for in the Catholic Church. On top of that, I am struck by how difficult it must be to come to terms with the necessity of one's re-ordination (or, at best, conditional ordination). I can only imagine how it must feel to be told, or given the sense, that one's orders are 'null and void', since this surely not only affects one's status as a priest in good standing, but even the sacraments one has celebrated throughout life. How strange it must be, for someone who has always believed in the consubsubstantiation, suddenly to have to question the validity of such a sacrament (and let's face it, this is what the Apostolicae Curae addresses). I can well see why such a person would be hesitant to cross the Tiber, as it becomes not simply a statement of faith but also a repudiation of one's life. He is forced to recognise that he was never really Catholic at all, which fits uneasily with the general self-understanding of the sort of person who is likely to convert in the first place.

The same may apply to the laity to an extent. We should never underestimate the level of attachment one may have to the 'way things are', and I honestly think this is an issue that affects Catholics as well, although perhaps it is even stronger within the Church of England which is so frequently tied up with a national identity. One may be Catholic, but never Roman!! By allowing corporate conversion, such a laity may well be able to feel that this shift of identity is not so extravagant.

What the Pope's offer has done is to make it easier for those who already desire to be Roman Catholic to actually do so; they may embrace Catholicism without losing altogether those elements of their religious practice that are hard to abandon but which do not in and of themselves threaten their Catholicity. It will be still be a tough sacrifice for many of course, but perhaps somewhat softened.

However, one thing that I have really noticed is how many people are talking about this that the Constitution was not actually aimed at in the first place. We know that this was a response to those who had been petitioning the Holy See, so it has been fascinating to see all manner of Anglicans now appearing to deliberate over it. Indeed, I have kept hearing references to lay individuals 'thinking about the offer from Rome', even though - as laity and acting on their own - it scarcely applies to them unless their whole congregation is 'going with them'. What the Apostolic Constitution has done, therefore, is to set off a trail of thought in a great number of people about the nature of their faith, what their Anglicanism means, exactly how 'Catholic' they are, and what they want to do about it. I should not be in the least surprised if in the wake of all this there is a surge in non-corporate conversions - while on the other hand, there will inevitably also be a backlash in the form of renewed Protestantism.

Another thing that has intrigued me is the insistence by many that conversion should be for the right reasons. On the face of it, this seems obvious: why do we want Catholics who don't really accept the Pope's authority, Humanae Vitae and all the rest of it? And so conversion 'just because of women priests, homosexuality' etc. is deemed to be insufficient.

Again, I'd like to say that this is a little narrow-minded. Of course it is necessary, without a doubt, that someone entering the Catholic Church should do so truthfully professing belief in 'all that the Catholic Church proposes to be believed, because Christ hath revealed them, Who can neither deceive nor be deceived'. But it is important to note two things: firstly, the act of being received into the Catholic Church is not an end in itself, or at least, it is not the end of conversion. On the retreat I mentioned earlier, the director rather cheesily reminded us that we are all converts, every single day. Cheesy at it is, it is true: day to day we face a call to convert to Christ's will, and this is an ongoing process. I am not the same as I was the day I was received into the Church, and I am sure I will not be the same this time next year. Our journey to salvation is a continual process.

Secondly, and following on from that, we should acknowledge that God speaks to us in many different ways. For many, I'm sure, a dissatisfaction with the way things work in the Church of England is part of the primordial call of God; the dissatisfaction that expresses itself in the context of women priests, or whatever, may be a sign of a much greater inner pull towards the One True Church. It is possible, even probable, that there are many other, greater dissatisfactions that have not even been noticed: so often, one does not actually know what it is that one is missing. It frequently takes a catalyst to force the mind to confront such things, and the ordination of an openly gay bishop might be one such thing that sets the journey of faith on a new path.

And so it is my view that we must, in so far as any of us are affected, be as welcoming as possible to all who might consider coming to the Roman Church, whatever it is that prompts them. A due process of discernment is surely recommended for all, and no doubt those who are utterly insincere will fall by the wayside - t'was ever thus - but many others will find their home. As I have said, one encouraging sign seems to be that a number are considering conversion who would never have considered it before, and even if all it does is make them - and each of us too!- think more deeply about faith, then it is truly a blessing.

Deo Gratias!

Swiss murder clinic - time for prayers!

Some encouraging news today that the Swiss government is planning to introduce restrictions on the truly evil 'Dignitas'. BBC report here. Sadly it looks like they are not ready to ban the practice outright yet, but it is an important step to ensure that people with non-terminal illnesses cannot use the clinic.

This would seem to be a good time to bombard heaven with prayers, both that the Swiss government make a decision in keeping with the true dignity of life and on behalf of those who feel pressurised into using such a 'service'.

Intelligence Squared? I don't think so...

A number of Catholic newspapers and blogs have picked up on the (relatively) recent 'Intelligence Squared' debate, in which Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens utterly trounced their Catholic opponents, Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop Onaiyekan; the motion, that the Catholic Church is a force for good in the world, was defeated by a humiliating 1876 to 268. Before the debate, most of the audience voted against the motion as well, but the proportion increased significantly. You can read about it here.

One response has been to question why we don't have any better apologists engaging in these debates. Of course in the US there are rather more well-known Catholic apologists who do these public debates, but it is less a feature of Catholicism in the UK today. I don't disagree with the notion that it would be nice for people to stand up for the Church more prominently, although I have to say that the Church's priority must always be to get on with winning souls rather than scoring points in debates - and let's face it, to win a debate you nearly always need to compromise and reduce things to a more basic level. On the other side of the coin, I guess it is a helpful way to win souls for Christ if authentic teachings are being presented in public spheres, even if in secular eyes the Church is losing the debates.

I am useless at debating, and hate it, but if I'd been involved I'd like to think I would have challenged the premise of the motion, which to my mind is frankly stupid. It seems that the way the debate played out was for the Catholic side to try and list all the jolly good things the Church does in the world, while Hitchens and Fry could happily then list all the bad things they think the Church does. And of course, public opinion being what it is - and the numbers showed that there was a lack of good sentiment towards the Church even before the debate - it was always inevitable that mentioning the usual suspects (the inquisition, child abuse, blah blah) would have the desired effect. In the general perception, the negative things done by or at least in the Church throughout history will always seem more concrete, therefore more meaningful, than the good the Church has done - much of which cannot and should not be quantified, or which unless you are a Catholic you won't see as good to begin with.

No, listing the various good things done by the Church seems like a disastrous tactic. Surely the point is that if the Church is what she say says she is; and if the God of Abraham and Jacob exists, the Son of Whom founded the Church, then she can only be a force for good in the world. It is quite literally impossible that she could be anything else.

That doesn't mean she couldn't be better. She is of course semper reformanda. But all the good things done in the name of Catholicism would be completely without merit if she were not the Church founded by Christ on the apostles. On the other hand, whatever bad things have happened must without doubt pale into insignificance next to the considerably more important matter of saving souls; in fact, of simply being.

Indeed, since the Catholic must further argue that the very notion of good exists only by her own definition of it, since without God there is no good. Attempting to posit a non-God good is utterly futile. If she is not good, nobody is good.

Suffering in devotional art - the Sacred Made Real exhibition

Christ the Man of Sorrows (Pedro de Mena)

This weekend I was fortunate to be able to get to the Sacred Made Real exhibition at the National Gallery in London. It is a quite wonderful collection of 17th-century Spanish art, displaying the vogue there for hyper-realistic devotional statues and paintings.

The emphasis on the suffering of Christ and His Mother rightly take most of the attention. Many of the statues depict Christ's wounds in an almost gory way, with remarkable detail and new techniques being used to bring out the blood, facial expressions etc. in a dramatic and realistic way.

What I found interesting is how in a museum context many of these pieces do not work so well. It must be amazing to see them in situ - to be fair, there is a video presentation that does exactly that. Yet one really needs to remember that these are not works of art pour l'art but devotional objects, and the extraordinary emphasis on suffering and the hyper-realism employed must be seen through this hermeneutic.

Thought of this way, and one's uncomfortableness with what is undoubtedly an unfamiliar style starts to evaporate, to be replaced with an incredible sense of awe. At one point I was almost moved to drop on my knees in front of a huge crucifix - which is, of course, exactly what one is meant to do. The agony of Christ and Our Lady becomes, then, a powerful lens through which to contemplate our sinfulness, and give meaning to our own life experiences. The title 'sacred made real' is rather apt in this sense: whereas especially Byzantine art tends to elevate us through idealism and strict iconographic principles, and thus appeals to our transcendent natures, this style of art strikes at the core of our humanity. It is good that our Church can embrace the full spectrum of these devotional styles.

Some of the works I admired most in the exhibition seemed to me to play rather self-consciously with this notion. Perhaps my favourite is the statue of a penitent Mary Magdalen, who is bent over a crucifix which she carries in her hand.

There is much to wonder at in this piece, but I was rather drawn to the way St Mary Magdalen's face is focused entirely on the crucifix, full of sorrow but undistractedly gazing at Our Lord. This device, of carrying a crucifix in the hand, is not unusual by any means, but to me it offers the viewer an opportunity to reflect on his/her own penitential approach: Our Lord becomes a devotional object before the penitent, the sole focus of our loving gaze, brought immediately into our presence. At the same time, we perceive here the way in which we are required to 'look through' the object (in this case a crucifix, but equally a statue or painting) towards the greater truth it represents.

In a similar way, I love this Velazquez painting of a Christian soul contemplating Christ after the flagellation.

The audio commentary picked up on the relationship with the Ecce Homo statue - placed nearby - where one could see the bloody back of the flagellated Christ. Although here we cannot see the full extent of Christ's pain within the picture, the Christian soul - who kneels in adoration - does appear to be looking at His back, so we can imagine the sorrowful sight he sees. There is a look almost of curiosity about the soul, despite the prayerful posture: once again, I wonder how much this reflects on us visiting the sort of devotional works seen in this exhibition. Are we first attracted by the brutal realism, before this draws us into subsequent truths? This soul is naturally an allegory for our own devotional practices, and so we should be sure that we likewise are guided by a protecting angel.

Yet perhaps the works I appreciated most, and which perhaps teach us the most about our Christian devotions, are those of Mary, in whom we see the full range of emotions - all of which can point to the various levels at which we respond to her Son. Here is the exquisite statue by Montanes of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception: Finally, here is St Francis in adoration by Zurbaran: notice how the light draws attention away from the man and onto his humble clothing, strongly and symbolically suggesting the saint's personal transformation and journey into light through the embracing of darkness:


I full encourage any readers to visit this exhibition if they get the chance, it is a special experience. The audio commentary is very decent, with - I think - perfectly fair observations and some reasonable Catholic viewpoints.