The Cathars: a bizarre medieval sect

Well, folks, bloggers get some strange comments on their blogs but this latest one really is a cracker.

I have a post from a gentleman called Bertran de la Farge who actually thinks that the Cathars, that most bizarre of medieval weirdos, were true Christians.

Bertran thinks that because the Cathars used an Occitan translation of the Vulgate that they must therefore have been good Christians.

They called themselves “Good Christians”, too. So they must have been good, mustn’t they? No? Come on, Bertran!

He says the Inquisition was founded in 1233. It wasn’t. The Medieval Inquisition – the first such – was founded in 1184 by the papal Bull Ad Abolendam.

He says that the Cathars had nothing to do with Mani and they were not di-theists.

Well, here is what a typical pro-Cathar website, says about them:

“Cathars believed in two principles, a good creator god and his evil adversary… Cathars maintained a Church hierarchy and practiced a range of ceremonies, but rejected any idea of priesthood or the use of church buildings. They divided into ordinary believers who led ordinary medieval lives and an inner 'elect' of parfaits (men) and parfaits (women)… Cathars believed in re-incarnation and refused to eat meat or other animal products…

Basic Cathar tenets led to some surprising logical implications. For example they largely regarded men and women as equals, and had no doctrinal objection to contraception, euthanasia or suicide. In some respects the Cathar and Catholic Churches were polar opposites. For example the Cathar Church taught that all non-procreative sex was better than any procreative sex. The Catholic Church taught - and still teaches - exactly the opposite….Following their principles, Cathars could deduce that sexual intercourse between man and wife was more culpable than homosexual sex.”

Not quite the same as what Bertran says.

St Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) to preach the true Faith to the Cathars

Here is what Reynaldus, a Cistercian monk, wrote of the Cathars of his time whom he knew well:

“First it is to be known that the heretics held that there are two Creators; viz. one of invisible things, whom they called the benevolent God, and another of visible things, whom they named the malevolent God.

The New Testament they attributed to the benevolent God; but the Old Testament to the malevolent God, and rejected it altogether, except certain authorities which are inserted in the New Testament from the Old; which, out of reverence to the New Testament, they esteemed worthy of reception.

They charged the author of the Old Testament with falsehood, because the Creator said, ‘In the day that ye eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall die’; nor (as they say) after eating did they die; when, in fact, after eating the forbidden fruit they were subjected to the misery of death. They also call this God a homicide, as well because he burned up Sodom and Gomorrah, and destroyed the world by the waters of the deluge, as because he overwhelmed Pharaoh, and the Egyptians, in the sea.

They affirmed also, that all the fathers of the Old Testament were damned; that John the Baptist was one of the greater demons.

They said also, in their secret doctrine (in secreto suo), that that Christ who was born in the visible, and terrestrial Bethlehem, and crucified in Jerusalem, was a bad man, and that Mary Magdalene was his concubine; and that she was the woman taken in adultery, of whom we read in the gospel.

For the good Christ, they said, never ate, nor drank, nor took upon him true flesh, nor ever was in this world, except spiritually in the body of Paul....

They said that almost all the Church of Rome was a den of thieves; and that it was the harlot of which we read in the Apocalypse [NB: This is where extreme Protestants got the idea from].

They so far annulled the sacraments of the Church, as publicly to teach that the water of holy Baptism was just the same as river water, and that the Host of the Most Holy Body of Christ did not differ from common bread, instilling into the ears of the simple this blasphemy, that the Body of Christ, even though it had been as great as the Alps, would have been long ago consumed, and annihilated by those who had eaten of it.

Confirmation and Confession, they considered as altogether vain and frivolous. They preached that Holy Matrimony was meretricious, and that none could be saved in it, if they should beget children.

Denying also the Resurrection of the flesh, they invented some unheard of notions, saying, that our souls are those of angelic spirits who, being cast down from heaven by the apostasy of pride, left their glorified bodies in the air; and that these souls themselves, after successively inhabiting seven terrestrial bodies, of one sort or another, having at length fulfilled their penance, return to those deserted bodies.

It is also to be known that some among the heretics were called ‘perfect’ or ‘good men’, others just ‘believers’.

Those who were called ‘perfect’, wore a black dress, falsely pretended to chastity, abhorred the eating of flesh, eggs and cheese, and wished to appear not liars, when they were continually telling lies, chiefly respecting God. They said also that they ought not on any account to swear oaths…

Those who were called ‘believers’ were given to usury, rapine, homicide, lust, perjury and every vice; and they, in fact, sinned with more security, and less restraint, because they believed that without restitution, without confession and penance, they should be saved, if only, when on the point of death, they could say a Paternoster, and received imposition of hands from their teachers.”

Unlike Bertran, Reynaldus was a contemporary of the Cathars and knew them.

The Cathars believed in the old Eastern pagan idea of Reincarnation. They believed that humans and other mammals were hybrid creatures belonging to two realms: a good, potentially immortal, spirit, trapped inside a bad and corruptible body. This was one reason why Cathars refused to kill animals.

In some ways, the idea reflected certain Buddhist beliefs. A person who led a relatively good life might be re-incarnated with a better and easier life the next time round. One who lived a bad life would be reincarnated further down the scale, possibly as an animal. By their beliefs even animals could live good or bad lives, because it was possible for an animal to be reincarnated as a human being. A popular Cathar story tells of a man who is overcome with emotion on recognising in the grass an iron shoe he had thrown in his previous life as a horse.

Those who eventually managed to lead a good enough life would be released from the cycle of rebirth. On their death the Bad God would lose his power over the angel trapped within. Released from their imprisonment, such angels would return to heaven, the realm of light to join the other angels there. The Cathars believed that they are there in the night sky for all to see i.e. as stars.

Whilst there were differences between Manichaeism and Catharism, there were far more similarities, the greatest of which was their mutual belief in Dualism and refusal to accept that there was an omnipotent, good God. For them, the Devil was equally powerful.

Others will have noticed that Betran speaks of a “125 years” Crusade against the Occitan Cathars “exactly between 1209 and 1231”. This is 22 years not 125 years, Bertran. Your maths is somewhat awry, Bertran.

Bertran thinks that these utterly bizarre beliefs of the Cathars are Christian and follow the commandment of Christ to love one another. Yes, really!

The Cathars were at first tolerated but when missionaries and legates sent to them were murdered, steps began to be taken to require them to hand over the wrong-doers. This they resisted with more murders of Catholics and they committed persistent acts of terrorism and destruction which eventually provoked a counter-terrorist war against them.

Pope Innocent III declared a Crusade but there were not enough volunteers to fight and only a small crusading army could be raised against the massive forces of the Cathars. However, this little force, supported by the prayers of St Dominic and his new Order of Preachers (Dominicans), had a near-miraculous success at the Battle of Muret on 12 September 1213 under Count Simon de Montfort (father of the founder of the English Parliament).

Well, folks. You make up your own mind.

Were the Cathars really Christians?

Or were they a crazy sect whose bizarre ideas are making something of a come-back in our troubled and confused times?

The Holy Dominican Rosary, used by St Dominic and the Dominicans to defeat the power of the Cathars, is still one of the greatest spiritual weapons against the Enemy of human nature, Satan.


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Who decided which books form the Bible? Answer: a Council of the Roman Catholic Church. True Fact!

Many people simply do not know where the Bible came from.

They think it was “always there”.

Some even think that only the King James Version (KJV) is the real, authentic version, the ONLY one to be inspired by the Holy Ghost.

Some even seem to think that the Evangelists and Apostles actually produced the KJV (presumably in English!).

I have been sent this useful summary of the origins of the Bible by someone engaged in a correspondence with a Protestant scientist who thinks that the KJV is the ONLY inspired text of the Bible.

The KJV was authorised by King James I of England, Scotland and Ireland, who rejected the Protestant Geneva Bible but also the Catholic Bible. He ordered Anglican scholars to translate the original texts into English. This became the KJV. It is not a bad translation but it was chiefly designed to suit Anglican doctrines.

Here is a message to our Protestant Evangelical brothers:

It was the Roman Catholic Church which decided which books would make up the Bible.

Yes. True fact.

In fact, the final canon of Scripture, thereafter recognised by all Christians for over 1,000 years, was settled on 28 August 397 AD by the Council of Carthage after the example set by St Cyril of Jerusalem in 350.

This Council met under the supervision of the Bishop of Carthage, North Africa, and the Western Roman Emperor, Flavius Honorius, the decrees being later approved by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, who later also approved the definitive translation of St Jerome called the Vulgate.

Biblical texts in original Hebrew

The original texts in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic are the directly inspired texts of the Bible. They were written by the hands, and through the directly and Divinely-inspired understanding and language of the Holy Prophets, Priests and Patriarchs of old, and by the Apostles and Evangelists who are their successors in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, true God and true man, the Second Person of the Trinity and the son of God (ho huios tou anthropou - as the Biblical Greek has it) and the Saviour of all who believe in Him.

Jews and Christians were loath to translate these texts for the simple reason that meaning can easily be changed in translation. Thus translations required some sort of authorization from the community of believers (usually the leading Jewish/Christian emperor/king or bishop/elder) lest promiscuous translations be spread among Jews and Christians to deceive them and lead them away from the truth.

After the Babylonish captivity, when Aramaic became the common language tending to replace classical Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the people to understand the Torah when read in the Synagogues. However, the most well-known movement to translate the Bible came in the 3rd century BC when over a third of the population of the great Greek-speaking city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, were Jews.

With the approval of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a group of Hebrew scholars who spoke Koine (or spoken) Greek made what is perhaps the first universally accepted authorised translation thereafter called the Septuagint whereby the original Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament was translated into Koine Greek.



Printed version of the beginning of Genesis in the Greek Septuagint

The next major translations came after the death of our Saviour and include the most sacred of all texts, those written by the Evangelists and Apostles under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost providing the Euangelion, "Glad Tidings" or "Good News" of Jesus Christ.
 

This was rendered as Gospel (originally God-spell) in Anglo-Saxon, the language of the early English who had originated in Fryslan or North Germany (whose inhabitants in turn spoke the original of what is now Frieslandisch, the language of Ost-Friesland in North-West Germany).

Origen's Hexapla placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament, including the 2nd century Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite.

The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop St Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted on an informal basis by the Christian community previously), confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the book of Revelation), and later established by St Athanasius of Alexandria, Doctor of the Church, in 367 (with Revelation added).

The Council of Carthage, held on 28 August 397 under the tutelage of the Bishop of Carthage but with imperial and papal approval, issued a definitive canon (legal decree) of Scripture setting out all the texts that form what is now universally called "The Bible". This canon remained unchallenged for over 1,000 years until not long before the Protestant Reformation when the inclusion of the Deutero-Canonical texts was, among other things, repudiated. These texts were thereafter called "Apocryphal" by Calvinists, Lutherans, Anglicans and others but are often included in some Protestant translations.

Co-extensive with Carthage came the magisterial translation of the Vulgate of St Jerome and it was widely received and recognised as authorised by the Christian authorities, princes, governors and spiritual leaders. It has remained so ever since and has stood the test of time clearly under the guidance and indirect inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

 

St Jerome, Cardinal and Doctor of the Western Church, the fiery Illyrian penitent who translated the Bible from the original texts to give us the Vulgate

Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 420. Latin translations pre-dating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, by-passing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew, wherever he could, instead of the Septuagint (as, later, did the translators of the King James Version).

The New Testament was translated into Gothic in the 4th century by Ulfilas. In the 5th century, Mesrob translated the Bible into Armenian. Also dating from the same period are the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Georgian translations.

However, important though the Vulgate was, it nevertheless was only indirectly inspired through the scholarship of the Christian doctor, St Jerome. The original texts remained - and still remain - the only DIRECTLY INSPIRED texts written in the hand and language of those authors who were DIRECTLY INSPIRED by the Holy Ghost.

On the other hand, it was important that Scripture be available to the people in their own language since only scholars tended to know Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and the Latin of the Vulgate. This resulted in various authorised translations.

From the Middle Ages we still have some fragmentary Anglo-Saxon Bible translations, notably a lost translation of the Gospel of John into Old English (Anglo-Saxon) by the Venerable Bede, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death around the year 735.

An Old High German version of the Gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Charlemagne in ca. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic dates to the late 9th century.

Alfred the Great had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch, which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and free-standing version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Anglo-Saxon appeared, in the West Saxon dialect; these are called the Wessex Gospels.

King Alfred the Great who translated parts of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon

In 1199, Pope Innocent III banned unauthorized versions of the Bible as a reaction to the Cathar/Waldensian heresies.

The Cathars manipulated Scripture in accordance with their real beliefs which were not Christian but rather those of the Chinese philosopher and theologian, Mani, who believed in Dualism (the existence of two equal forces one good, God, and one evil, the Devil, but each of equal strength and standing, a view entirely opposed to orthodox Christianity). They believed that flesh was evil, thus child-birth was evil, and marriage was evil but sodomy, which produced no children, and euthanasia, which eliminated flesh, were good.

They believed in a "sacrament" called the consolamentum which included euthanasia by suffocation or starvation.

They also included many terrorists who regularly murdered orthodox Christians so that the Church was therefore obliged to launch a defensive counter-terrorist war against them, eventually won, at Muret in 1213, by Count Simon de Montfort (whose son founded the English Parliament) when his 700 Knights miraculously defeated a vast Cathar army of 50,000 under King Peter of Aragon.

Count Simon de Monfort led 700 Christian knights against a huge army of 50,000 or more Albigensian Cathars under King Pedro II of Aragon in the Battle of Muret 1213. St Dominic was praying the Rosary for victory in the Church of Muret. The tiny army of Christian knights defeated the brutal and bloody Cathars who fled away, defeated.

The synods of Toulouse and Tarragona (1234) outlawed possession of Cathar renderings of the Bible. There is evidence of some vernacular translations permitted while others were being scrutinized for Catharist influences.

The most notable Middle English Bible translation, Wyclif's Bible (1383), based on the Vulgate, was banned by the Oxford Synod in 1408 because of its alterations to the text. A Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in the mid 15th century, and in 1478, a Catalan translation in the dialect of Valencia.

In 1521, Martin Luther was placed under the Ban of the Empire, and he retired to Wartburg Castle. During his time there, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. This was printed in September 1522.

Tyndale's Bible (1526) was met with heavy sanctions given the widespread belief that Tyndale had changed the Bible as he attempted to translate it. William Tyndale was first jailed in 1535 for translating the Old Testament without permission, and, a year later, after refusing to recant or retract, was executed by order of the English King Henry VIII and Parliament.

There was also the 1530 translation of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. The Froschauer Bible of 1531 and the Luther Bible of 1534 (both appearing in portions throughout the 1520s) were an important part of the Protestant Reformation.

The vast international missionary activity of the Jesuit order led to a large number of 17th century translations into the languages of the New World, to enable the indigenous Indian natives to understand the Bible.

Each translation of the Bible tends to put its own "spin" on the text and this can give rise to controversy. Thus the translators of the KJV were authorised by King James I of England to undertake their translation work because of the very clear "spin" put upon the texts by the Geneva Bible which both King James and the Fathers of the KJV translation famously rejected.

For example, the Geneva Bible translated episkopoi as "elders" rather than as "bishops". This the KJV translators rejected and returned to the more traditional rendering of "bishop". King James famously said "No bishop, no king" and so would not tolerate the Presbyterian rendering of "elder" which he knew spelt the end of the bishops and thus of himself as king.

So it proved under his son, King Charles I when the even more extreme and revolutionary Congregationalists or Independents, under Oliver Cromwell, banned all bishops and executed the King setting up a military dictatorship of Army generals under Cromwell as the Dictator.

To the extent that any translation of the Bible is faithful to the original texts, it is an INDIRECTLY INSPIRED text and therefore, to a greater or lesser degree (depending upon the faithfulness of the translation), suitable to nourish the faith of Christians and suitable for them to rely upon.

However, the texts of the Bible DIRECTLY inspired by the Holy Ghost are the Old Testament (called the Tanakh by the Jews) in the classical Hebrew of the masoretic texts mostly, but with some (e.g. the Talmud and the Book of Daniel) in Aramaic, and the New Testament in the original Koine Greek with smatterings of Aramaic (the language spoken by Jesus) and various semitisms typical of Greek-speaking Jews.

However, the decision as to which inspired books would make up the Bible was decided by a Council of the Roman Catholic Church in 397.

The Bible is, thus, a Catholic book, not a Protestant one...

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THE EASTER TRIDUUM will be solemnly celebrated by the Knights of Malta at their Conventual Church in St John's Wood

The Grand Priory of England and British Association of
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta

THE SACRED TRIDUUM

The Conventual Church of Saint John of Jerusalem, at the Hospital of Saint John and Saint Elizabeth, Grove End Road, St John’s Wood, London NW8, is the Oratory of the Order of Malta in Britain.

The Sovereign Military Order of St John of Jersualem, Rhodes and Malta ("the Knights of Malta") will be celebrating the full, traditional Latin liturgy of the Sacred Triduum, according to the 1962 Missal. Although these services are primarily intended for members of the Order, anyone who wishes to attend will be most welcome.

MAUNDY THURSDAY (20TH MARCH 2008)

Matins and Lauds (‘Tenebrae’) 10.00am
Sext 12.45pm
None 2.30pm
(Vespers are omitted by those assisting in choir at the Evening Mass)

Spiritual Conference on the Liturgy 7.15pm

Solemn Mass ‘in Cena Domini’ 8.00pm
followed by Procession to Altar of Repose and Stripping of the Altars

Compline (at the Altar of Repose) After the Stripping of the Altars

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of Repose will continue until Midnight.

GOOD FRIDAY (21ST MARCH, 2008)

Matins and Lauds (‘Tenebrae’) 10.00am
Sext 12.45pm
None 2.00pm
(Vespers are omitted by those assisting in choir at the Liturgy of the Passion)

Spiritual Conference on the Liturgy 2.15pm

Solemn Liturgy of the Passion (Mass of the Pre-Sanctified) 3.00pm

Compline, with Veneration of the relic of the True Cross 6.00pm

HOLY SATURDAY (22ND MARCH, 2008)

Matins and Lauds (‘Tenebrae’) 10.00am
Sext 12.45pm
None 2.30pm
Vespers 5.00pm
(Compline and Matins are omitted by those assisting in choir at the Solemn Easter Vigil)

Spiritual Conference on the Liturgy 9.15pm

Solemn Easter Vigil 10.00pm

EASTER SUNDAY (23RD MARCH, 2008)

Solemn Mass 11.00am

Sung Vespers and Benediction 2.30pm approx

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Flora MacDonald: "Who shall find a valiant woman? Her price is of the uttermost."

Flora Macdonald (1722-90) (Fionnghal NicDhòmhnaill) was born in Milton, South Uist.

Flora (or Fiona) MacDonald was the daughter of Ronald Macdonald, a tacksman (gentleman freeholder of a grant of clan land) but he left her an orphan when only a year old.

Flora MacDonald's mother married a Macdonald of Annadale, in Skye, who, at the time of the Jacobite uprising, commanded one of the militia companies raised on the island by Sir Alexander Macdonald for the services of the government.

While visiting her brother at Milton in June 1746, to drive his cattle to their summer pasture, she was awoken one night to be told that she must leave the cattle-tending and assist a prince in distress.

Her encounter in Ormaclett, South Uist, on 20 June 1746 with Prince Charles Edward Stuart, then fleeing from the consequences of his defeat at the battle of Culloden, was to make her immortal in Scottish history.

Flora decided to take the prince to safety - disguised as her maid "Betty Burke'"- on Skye. On 28 June the party set out from Rossinish in Benbecula and journeyed for 15 hours under threat of capture by government troops to Mugstot House, from where she guided the prince to Kingsburgh House, the home, as it turned out, of her future husband; he said goodbye to his saviour on 1 July at Portree. As a gift Charles gave Flora a gold locket with his portrait.

The Bonnie Prince takes leave of the loyal and courageous Flora MacDonald

After further adventures the prince escaped to France, but Flora was arrested for her part in the escape plan and was held on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Furnace. Afterwards, Flora was a prisoner in Dunstaffnage Castle. After being conveyed from place to place, she was eventually transferred to London, where she remained in confinement for eight months (she was discharged at the special request of Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of King George III, without a single question having been put to her).

The Bonnie Prince with Cameron of Lochiel and MacDonald of Clanranald

In 1750 Flora married Alan Macdonald of Kingsburgh and produced a family of seven children. At the age of 51 she emigrated with her family to the then British territory of North Carolina and was active in recruiting Highlanders to fight for the British in the American War of Independence, in which her husband was taken prisoner. Flora returned to Britain via Nova Scotia in 1778. Two years after her husband's release, they returned together to settle once more at Kingsburgh.

Some ask: how could she support the British government in America?

Simply this: she recognised that the rebellious American War of Tax Evasion (for such it was) had no legitimacy whatever.

She was not a believer in revolution or rebellion; she was not a revolutionary, nor a nationalist nor a Socialist nor a Marxist but was a believer in lawful and legitimate government.

She supported Bonnie Prince Charlie because he and his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, were the rightful king and heir and James was the rightful head of the British government, excluded by rebellious Whigs simply because he was a Roman Catholic.

Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, King James III and VIII, excluded from his rightful throne because he was a Catholic and for no other reason

She did not believe that the restoration of the Stuarts was a rebellion at all. Like the Catholic Church, like St Thomas Aquinas, she utterly rejected rebellion - and the English Whigs were rebels against the lawful Crown and authority and had placed an usurper upon the throne.

The American rebels were also Whigs but they were worse Whigs and were now rebelling against the English Whigs. Flora MacDonald could see that this was going out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Flora MacDonald, like all good Jacobites, was a Crown Unionist (i.e. she believed in separate kingdoms but under one Stuart Crown) and was not a separatist or nationalist, still less did she believe that any part of the Union or Empire had the right to rebel, least of all the secularising American Whig rebels who wanted to evade their due taxes and seize power from the British government to satisfy their own power-hungry ambitions.

Her position was entirely consistent and was in no way a capitulation to the British Whigs (as some Whig historians falsely and mendaciously pretend).

The American rebels were akin to the Jacobins of the French Revolution and entirely opposite to the Jacobites who were no rebels but rather the loyal supporters of the legitimate Stuart dynasty. The Jacobites were, in fact, opposed to the Whig rebellion and the Whig usurper dynasty and government - a very different thing.

Flora MacDonald and her family returned to Skye, where she died, March 4th, 1790, leaving a son, Lieutenant Colonel Macdonald of the Royal Clan Alpin Regiment, an able writer on military tactics and telegraphy; and a daughter, married to Macleod of Skye. She retained her Jacobite beliefs to the last hour of her existence, contrary to the Whig claptrap put about in some historical journals.

The first meeting: Flora MacDonald is introduced to the Prince

Gaelic-speaking and educated at home, she met Dr Samuel Johnson while on his tour of the Western Islands with James Boswell in 1773 and sang to him of her Highland heritage. Of her, Dr Johnson wrote: “Her name will be mentioned in history, and if courage and fidelity be virtues, mentioned with honour”.

In 1773, despite the ban on the wearing of the kilt (the short kilt, the philibeg, or the great kilt, the philimore) in 1747, which was not to be repealed until 1782, it was worn by MacDonald of Kingsburgh, Flora’s husband, when Dr Johnson and Boswell visited in 1773.

Boswell, himself Boswell of Auchinleck, younger, and the son of the Laird of Auchinleck, wrote:

"I was highly pleased to see Dr Johnson safely arrived at Kingsburgh, and received by the hospitable Mr Macdonald. He had his tartan plaid thrown about him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade, a brown short coat of a kind of duffil. A Tartan waistcoat with gold buttons and gold button holes, a bluish philibeg, and tartan hose"
(from Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, James Boswell, page 184)

Tartan: MacDonald of Kingsburgh

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Liturgy: is reverence and dignity enough?

No. That's the short answer.

Look at these Greek rite clergy. There is much more to their Liturgy than reverence and dignity alone. Much, much more. Now compare it with the asinine silliness of the clown-style liturgy, presided over by a Western bishop, pictured in my previous post.

Can there be any doubt which is better? There is no comparison! And yet in the West even bishops allow themselves so to traduce Christ the Lord and to mock Him in the Sacred Liturgy. What a fearful disgrace! And how our Greek and Russian brethren in the Faith are scandalised by such mockery of the Lord! And they are right. For it is, indeed, a scandal. And, moreover, tasteless, clueless, stupid, ignorant and puerile.

Catholics simply MUST stop defending this sort of utter nonsense. It is a direct insult to God.

So long as Catholics ignore the truth about liturgy things will not improve. We must use our God-given intelligence, reason and understanding on the issue. The "touchy, feely" approach to liturgy and religion has done immense harm. That, of course, is not to say that we should be insensitive - we should not - but I think we do have to take care, when faced with the sheer tawdry dishonesty of much modern liturgy not simply to "feel" that any challenge to the dishonesty is somehow unjust or uncharitable.

We perhaps ought occasionally to remember Christ chasing the money-changers out of the Temple with whip-cords - they who made sacred things sordid. This is not sinful anger or injustice or uncharity. On the contrary it is the righteous wrath of the Lord. Doubtless the money-changers thought him unfair, hard and unreasonable. But He was not. He was right and just. It was the money-changers who were unreasonable.

Now we have something just as bad with the perversion of the liturgy. Yes, the Novus Ordo can be celebrated with reverence, dignity and love but this is next to impossible in most parish masses because of:

(a) The ICEL mistranslation - a far cry from the original Latin; and

(b) The poor quality of the rest of the liturgy as it is ACTUALLY done in most Western parishes.

Moreover, there is more to liturgy than dignity and reverence.

I daresay that a Buddhist ceremony can be celebrated with dignity and reverence. But it is nowhere near enough for a Catholic, of course.

What we need is a Catholic liturgy celebrated, firstly, the way God wants it and secondly, with beauty, truth and tradition at the forefront. We need to celebrate the way God wants us to, not the way WE would like to, no matter how reverent and dignified our own way might be.

No - reverence and dignity, although essential, are NOT enough. We must also love truth, tradition, faithfulness and integrity.

A monk of the Benedictine Abbey of St Marie Madaleine, Le Barroux

There can be no excuse for the ICEL mistranslation. It has over 300 errors in it. It is a deliberate falsification of the Latin of the Novus Ordo Missae. Yet this is what most English-speaking Catholics get, week after week, at Sunday Mass. In truth, I think it can be said that it is NOT really the Novus Ordo at all - at least not as the Council Fathers envisaged it.

When one adds the later innovations of forward altars, lay readers, disregard of proper vestments, communion in the hand, replacement of chant with modern (and often vapid) hymns, girl altar servers, facile bidding prayers, removing the Tabernacle and replacing it with the priest's chair (whom are we worshipping?) - let alone bizarre and ridiculous mockeries like clown masses, liturgical dancing, "happy clappy" masses and children's masses - then we can see that the situation is seriously worsened.

But too many Catholics have simply become blinded - in some cases culpably - to the differences between true and false liturgy. Many think it is all about aesthetics i.e. beauty and dignity. They also think that all that is needed is "reverence" and "dignity". As I say, that is not enough. A pagan ceremony can be reverent and dignified.

Much of our modern liturgy is simply dishonest. And one cannot celebrate a dishonest liturgy and pretend that one is doing so with love.

The problem is that Catholics have got used to the inferior diet of poor liturgy that has engulfed the Western Church. We have become blinded by our own self-indulgence and now, like the Emperor's new clothes, we cannot see that the liturgical Emperor is really naked and wears no clothes at all.

But non-Catholics can see it. They alight upon a modern Catholic liturgy and are repelled by it.

Indeed, I have spoken to many lapsed Catholics who felt the same way.

It is my belief that millions of Catholics have lapsed as a direct result of the auto-destruction of the Roman liturgy.

We should not under-estimate the immense harm that has been done by such devastating auto-destruction. We have preferred the tawdry and worldly to the beauty of the Divine and Holy.

Adam and Eve culpably exiled themselves from Eden by preferring the worldly above Paradise

I recently attended a Requiem mass, for a prominent Catholic figure, in a beautiful church in Malta with a colleague who is a Buddhist nun. She was brought up a Catholic and remembered the beautiful masses of her childhood. This Maltese mass was a typical product of the post-conciliar liturgical establishment.

In place of a High Mass there was a dreary concelebration. The mass, as the modern mass so often is, was mostly talking, talking, talking. It was not liturgy. It was mere recitation. And there is a big difference.

There was a choir but, instead of singing some of the extraordinarily beautiful music from the Church's immense and rich patrimony, they sung 3 vernacular hymns in Maltese to the tunes of "I'll Sing a Song to Mary", Crimond and "Welcome, welcome, welcome Jesus".

These tunes might be appropriate for a procession of our Lady or some tableau of popular piety but they are out of place at a Solemn Requiem. The mass was in the vernacular and, although the Maltese translation is a lot better than the appalling ICEL translation into English, it is still far accurately reflects the original Latin.

After I expressed my disappointment, my Buddhist colleague said that she felt able to say that she, too, was disappointed. She had expected so much more at a Solemn Requiem of the Catholic Church. She began to tell me more about her experiences in the Church and it was clear that she had been a devout Catholic once upon a time but, following the liturgical changes, she had, like so many millions of other Catholics, become disillusioned with modern liturgy and, thereafter, with the Church itself.

In former times, the Roman liturgy made many, many converts. It need not surprise us that the reverse can take place if the liturgy goes sour: millions leave. And they have left. Indeed, the Church has suffered a monumental haemorrhage over the last 40 years - the worst ever in its history.

Is this renewal of the Church? No - assuredly not.

There is simply thus no room whatever for complacency or sloppy thinking regarding the liturgy.

It is, in fact, a very, very serious matter. It is not just a matter of reverence and dignity. It is not just a matter of aesthetics and beauty. It is not even simply a matter of Latin. It is much more. It is about faithfulness and integrity, tradition and truth.

If we are to find our way back we cannot settle for the mockery of liturgy that now takes place with the ICEL mistranslation in most parishes of the Western Church.

If we do then we are selling short ourselves, our neighbour and, above all, God.

Behold the Blessed Babe! Adore Him as He should be adored!


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Why do so many modern Catholics tolerate rotten liturgy?

Well, why?

Are they stupid?

Ignorant?

Tasteless?

Clueless?

Puerile?

Well, what is it?

I am a convert. The first time I was taken to a Catholic liturgy it was the new mass in ICEL's appalling mistranslation.

However, I had never even heard of ICEL (the International Committee for English in the Liturgy) at the time.

My first thought was "Why is the English so abysmally poor compared with, say, the Anglican Prayer Book?"

My next thought was "Surely this liturgy cannot be that of the 2,000 year old Roman Catholic Church?"

Not only was the English abysmally poor but the liturgy itself was banal, dull, flat and uninspiring.

I again wondered "Is this the mass that inspired great men like St Thomas More? If so, why has it been so badly translated? Who could be so crass as to do such a thing? And why have the Church's authorities permitted this to happen?"

Later I was taken by the priest receiving me into the Church to a "Rock mass". I plainly said to him I was not likely to be very interested in it. Nevertheless, said he, you should go to it. So I went.

He, by the way, has since left the priesthood.

I was amazed by the whole concept. There being some music it was at least better than the banal, flat spoken mass I had previously attended. But the whole atmosphere was absurd: it was neither fish nor fowl. It was neither a religious liturgy nor, on the other hand, was it a rock music discotheque or nightclub. It missed both marks and so failed completely.

I found it silly, childish and facile.

This almost put me off the Catholic faith altogether.

Fortunately, I was being instructed "on the side" by a layman (now a priest) who was able to explain the phenomenon to me, wryly observing the fatuities and re-assuring me that this was the so-called "new liturgy" which was being famously traduced all over the world and that I should not take it as any more than the absurd posturing that it was. Better times would come, he said, when proper liturgy would be restored.

This intrigued me and naturally I wanted to know more.

So began a voyage of discovery which has, Deo volente, confirmed me completely in my initial reactions to the "new" liturgy as "performed" in most churches today.

It is, was, and always will be little more than puerile nonsense and childish trash, at least so long as the ICEL mistranslation and silly, modern "rubrics" (if they can be called such!) are used.

This might not matter were it not for one, huge, inescapable and unavoidable fact.

This is now what most Western Catholics get, most of the time, in most Catholic churches in the Western world.

What happened to the leaders, scholars, bishops, clergy and learned men and women of the Catholic Church that they ever let it get into their heads to accept this cheap, tawdry substitute for the beauty and solemnity of real liturgy?

What collective madness stole over an entire Church to allow this to happen?

I still do not have a proper answer to this question.

And most bishops in most parts of the Western Church are not about to give me an honest answer, either.

The new parish liturgist is a well-known scholar in his field...


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