The first of two posts.
About that archdiocesan conference (emphasis) scheduled to be held in this territory last weekend, which had to be cancelled because not enough people were interested: Vatican II and the Church today - A weekend exploring the continuing impact of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council in the life and mission of both the local and global Church:
But first some quotes – taken from their considerable spoken-word archives – from two of the major speakers (pictured above) invited by His Grace The Most Rev. Malcolm McMahon, Archbishop of Liverpool, to address the conference-that-never-was.
"We must accompany them [those with same sex attraction - our terminology] as they discern what this means, letting our images be stretched open ... this means watching 'Brokeback Mountain,' reading gay novels, living with our gay friends and listening with them as they listen to the Lord."
- Fr Timothy Radcliffe, 2006
"If we want to abandon Gaudium et Spes, we must be ready to abandon every word of joy and hope that the Church has to say to this world."
- Prof. Massimo Faggioli, 2012
Even if you had no prior knowledge of Fr Radcliffe and Prof. Faggioli, you can glean a fair picture of their Church views from the above proclamations alone. You can discern what line they would surely have taken at a conference discussing the "impact" of Vatican II. Something like: it hasn't failed; instead, it's been thwarted by conservative, sometimes Traditional, forces; therefore we still await the fruits; and they're coming!; but the fact that the pews are empty and parishes have to be clustered and seminaries have had to close has been nothing to do with the post-conciliar Church, the new liturgy and the modern catechesis we have taught our children for the last 50 years; rather, all those negative effects have been part of the inherited legacy from the bad-old pre-conciliar days, it's just taking many decades to flush it all out but we're nearly there!; and, in any case, people don't realise that in 1960 the Church was basically careering towards a cliff-edge anyway, so the reality is that Vatican II and its signature "spirit" actually staved-off a worse collapse; so thank God for the Council!
Oh and something about Humanae Vitae not helping, too. Probably.
It's a well-rehearsed and revisionist litany-of-denial we've all heard before and doubtless will again.
So it really doesn't take Columbo (we'd say Sherlock but is he too pre-conciliar?) to guess the general lib-line that last weekend's mothballed conflab would have taken, not when the heavyweights on the bill were Fr Radcliffe and Prof. Faggioli, with not a sniff, even, of a neo-conservative (see our "About" page for how un-fussed we are about using such labels), never mind a scary and dusty Traditionalist.
"Wait a moment", goes the lib-cry sensing checkmate, "how many progressives like Prof. Faggioli and Fr Radcliffe would, say, a Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (PEEP) or a Latin Mass Society (LMS) conference invite? Come now, don't pretend it wouldn't be all Cardinal Burke and Dr John Rao!"
Well, that would be a fair point that our Straw Lib makes if indeed we were comparing PEEP and LMS conference guest-lists with those of, say, ACTA or We Are Church. But we're not. For the conference that Fr Radcliffe and Prof. Faggioli were invited to was an archdiocesan one. To be held at the Liverpool Archdiocesan Centre for Evangelisation, effectively the territorial curial offices. It was to be a conference representing all Catholics of the archdiocese. A conference with speakers invited by His Grace.
By headlining the likes of Fr Radcliffe and Prof. Faggioli, His Grace has sent us, we think anyway, yet another clear signal. And once again, it's a message that we're surely meant to receive very immediately about how he really views the local post-conciliar Church. Very liberally.
"Wait another moment" goes an easily-pleased Trad-cry sensing stalemate (but this time not a Straw Man because we've heard this view many, many times) "that can't be true, because why would His Grace have invited the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP) to oversee a parish at Warrington? That's hardly the mark of a liberal."
Actually, it is a fair point. Really, though, it's just one more confusing indicator. Which is precisely why we've been running our series "Searching for the Archbishop..." throughout this year, listing the positive and negative points from our Trad-view and trying to be as fair and balanced as we possibly can in our observations, but without kidding ourselves either. Basically, we're trying to find the true Archbishop. We've no choice really, for the conflicting signals he sends are indeed aplenty. However, we do think we've almost assembled all the jigsaw pieces (we know, there we go again with our naiveté!). Basically: the more conflicting the signals, the clearer that things – slowly and counter-intuitively – start to seem, episodically (and, as said in previous posts, we believe that in the coming months we'll reach a definitive post-conciliar moment for those attached to Tradition in this archdiocese, let's just call that a hunch; it could be a development which, viewed from the front of the coin, might seem very positive indeed, whereas its reverse might suggest there's quite a price to pay).
For now, let's call it the "Two Churches (capital C) United Under One Shepherd" solution. Mutually Acceptable Division (MAD) being the new unity! But who divided from whom?
Anyway, all that's for another day.
But for now, whilst we're mentioning the official arrival of the FSSP in the archdiocese, here's a thought. What a great introduction to the archdiocese for the Fraternity it would have been had His Grace invited Fr Armand de Malleray, Superior of the English FSSP Apostolate, as one of the guest-speakers, alongside Prof. Faggioli at least, at last weekend's intended conference! That would have been quite balanced wouldn't it (it would certainly have ensured more ticket sales!)?
Indeed, we'd venture to suggest that Fr de Malleray would also have been an entirely acceptable speaker as far as Prof Faggioli's high academic standards were concerned. By that we refer to the very recent post-Synodal spat across the Atlantic. As you may know, a group of super-lib-lecturers, with Prof. Faggioli in the vanguard, took considerable exception to the freedom-of-expression practiced by New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, last month in the immediate wake of the Synod, and to his less than impressed take on the machinations of His Holiness Pope Francis, Cardinal Kasper et al.. It's beyond the scope of both of these posts, and this very locally-focused blog, to delve into that part-amusing, part-depressing, part-sinister episode - but, as always, the team at Torch of the Faith have done a superb job training their laser on all things Faggioli-v-Douthat, especially concerning the former's planned appearance (and that of the others on the cast list) in this archdiocese last weekend. Incidentally, it's one of the great mysteries of the Traditional blogosphere as to why the Torch team's blog doesn't receive more worldwide air-play than it does (too much "Everton Valley" and not enough "Thames Valley"?). Anyway, the Torchers are quite correct about Prof. Faggioli, for he is indeed a post-conciliar "progressive rupturist" of the most totally-torn-type, as is quite easy to read from that singularly depressing and truly desperate line in false dichotomy given at the top of this post. The Church started in 1965 for the good Prof., and for him it's Gaudium et Spes (GES) or bust. No joy, no hope - all is zero without GES. Heavens!
Anyway, back to the aforementioned Faggioli-v-Douthat tiff. It was made plain by the former that, in order for one to be allowed to write (and presumably speak, and perhaps even think) about the subject, i.e. "Catholicism" (yes, that), he or she must first be possessed of the correct "professional qualifications" (do behave at the back!).
On that basis, then, Prof. Faggioli (b. 1970) wouldn't have had a problem lining-up alongside Fr de Malleray (b. 1971) who may have gained an academic stripe or two from his years at the Sorbonne studying philosophy and literature.
Indeed, if you want an insight into the intellectual prowess of Fr de Malleray, we offer you this piece "Sustainable Sexuality" which addresses the proper Church response to the matter of those souls who experience same-sex attraction and stands in stark contrast, and then some, to that detestable spiel issued in 2006 by Fr Timothy Radcliffe which we feature at the top of this piece, and which, barely believably, he surpassed, in terms of truly nauseating scandal, by quite some distance seven years later. But more of that added filth in the second of these posts. Sadly.
We can think of several reasons why Fr de Malleray would have been an ideal speaker at an archdiocesan conference investigating the impact of Vatican II. For, let's face it, his entire priestly ministry and the whole story of the FSSP, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, the wider emergence of the Ecclesia Dei movement since 1988, and the whole question of the Society of St Pius X, has been an integral and landmark episode in the whole unfolding history of the post-conciliar era (yes, we know, our naiveté strikes again!).
But, alas, Prof. Faggioli's liberal outlook and Fr Radcliffe's barely concealed homo-promo it just simply had to be, because, well, just because that's how things are ... and we haven't even bothered to mention the presence of the names of His Eminence Cardinal Cormac – probably still struggling to envisage how to envisage Summorum Pontificum – Murphy O'Connor, and Dr Ann Marie – Ecofeminism – Mealey on the called-off card.
Are we meant to conclude that it was just a coincidence that names like Faggioli, Radcliffe, Murphy O'Connor and Mealey featured on His Grace's invitation list? Or is it really the case that an archdiocesan conference discussing the "impact of Vatican II" can only be allowed to follow one line of thought? (and basically we've nutshelled the tone of the whole conference above - except for the parts which Dr Mealey would have surely spoken about: e.g. plenty of Laudato Si', the ruination of the planet and the ongoing oppression of women).
Of course, it's sheer fantasy to even suggest that someone like Fr de Malleray would have been invited to an archdiocesan conference. There's acceptability and there's acceptability. If you follow the logic as to why that could surely never be the case, then you don't have to work too hard to conclude that, de facto, we have long since become two Churches (but now sharing the same "parish newsletter" in Warrington! well, there's unity!). It's just that recent years have finally seen the welcome emergence of more pragmatic bishops, of which His Grace is most certainly one (on that we do at least have clarity), in terms of how they view and accept Traditionalists.
We'll take a little time in these posts to look a little deeper into the views of His Grace's guests, Fr Radcliffe and Prof. Faggioli, just to underscore what we've been saying above. Although we'll do so in reverse order. For it's just easier to deal with the reputation of the admittedly very engaging Italian first. Especially given that the rancid views of Fr Radcliffe make Prof. Faggioli seem like a 1962-liturgy man in comparison. Okay, we exaggerate, more like 1967.
Before we get on to Prof. Faggioli, though, we must make an important point. We do wish to stress that we're acutely aware that it would seem churlish to some, especially in this week-of-all-Trad-weeks in these parts, to be sounding-off negatively. Yes, we agree, it is a truly wonderful development at Warrington and it will be a joyous occasion tomorrow as His Grace will be present at the Polyphonic Solemn High Mass of inauguration – on the Feast of the Presentation of The Blessed Virgin Mary – of the FSSP-England ministry (which is also a registered charity) who are now the legal owners of the St Mary church in the Cheshire town, which sits on the very eastern boundary of this archdiocese. Te Deum time indeed!
If we're accused of being ingrates for speaking like this at this precise juncture, then so be it. Our shoulders are broad enough. In any case, we didn't organise the archdiocesan calendar which scheduled a Vatican II rah-rah, regardless of whether it was ultimately cancelled, just one week before the FSSP inauguration at Warrington. You can only comment when you can comment.
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| Screengrab of FSSP-England's Facebook page heralding their arrival this month in the Archdiocese of Liverpool, at St Mary, Warrington |
It's at such times, though, when it's all-too-easy to be deflected. It's important (well, we believe so, anyway) at moments like this not to lose sight of certain other things and retain perspective. For there are the conflicting archiepiscopal extremes of the last week to point to, and also the bizarre pastoral contradictions of tomorrow, which amply serve to highlight both our confusion and the need to keep the bigger picture firmly in focus.
For example, take the Saturday bookends of the last week and a day as an initial study. Contrast the originally-planned events of last Saturday, November 14th, with those to come tomorrow, Deo volente, on Saturday, November 21st. Last weekend, His Grace intended to oversee a liberally-supercharged, and likely at times openly dissenting, conference (certainly if Fr Radcliffe's previous form is anything to go by; he was actually due to give a talk on the subject "Scripture: Dei verbum" ... heaven, or hell, only knows where he would have gone on that one!). Just seven days later, His Grace will flick the switch to Trad-mode by assisting at the throne tomorrow for the High Mass of inauguration for the FSSP in Warrington.
In comparison with the expected events of tomorrow, though, you could legitimately call the last week something of a macro-microcosm – the distance between one weekend and the following one being a relatively long time in this studied context. For tomorrow's archiepiscopal schedule is a neon-lit micro-microcosm to even more starkly underline our bewilderment (btw - as we said in our very first post on this blog, we're well aware that we don't speak for all local Trads; and we, too, can actually laugh [no honestly!] at the old-gag: "How do Traditionalists defend themselves? Gather their weapons, form a circle and shout 'Fire!'").
Tomorrow, His Grace, in the space of just four hours, will go from Old Rite Polyphonic High Mass at noon at St Mary, Warrington (at which he will only assist), to celebrating Mass in the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King for the just-too-desperately-progressive
Embrace 15 event (it's how we get the yooth back to church apparently – and it will be from such ranks that the Council's "fruits" will fiiiiii-nally emerge, we're told; set your Apple Watch timer!).
In other words, in just one afternoon, His Grace will go straight from solemn participation at an event like this...
... to applauding an event like this (and yes, that is the cathedral sanctuary, and yes that is the Blessed Sacrament Chapel in the yellow-hued background):
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| The Embrace 14 youth event at the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in November 2014; the 2015 event is to be held in the same location this weekend |
Precisely.
Anyway, more of all that decadence in the second post of this mini-series.
There, though, is actually one of the great post-Summorum Pontificum "Trad dilemmas". To what extent are we happy to be in our own liturgical ghetto, "just leave us alone with our Masses", whilst ignoring the chaos unfolding around us in that "other Church"? Through the workings of God's abundant graces, the liturgy (the Traditional one, that is) will surely solve everything in time, even the appalling catechesis – we subscribe to this. And in the meantime are we just meant to keep shctum about the spiritual and liturgical chaos unfolding all around us in that "other Church" (or is it the same one? we lose track) simply because we've been properly afforded our rights and rites under the motu proprio?
Hence the blogosphere, at least.
Anyway, talking of liturgical chaos, we did say we'd focus a little more on Prof. Faggioli.
So without further ado, we quote some more from the good Prof.:
"When you do damage to the liturgy, the healing process takes much longer... it's like nuclear waste because it has a very long half-life because of the ancient principle lex orandi lex credendi, so that's why I'm so concerned [at the new translation of the Novus Ordo missal introduced in 2012] and that's why we should be aware and make our voices heard because that does lasting damage, especially on the young who think to pray in Latin is more Catholic. But I tell them that Jesus Christ was killed by Latin-speaking people - [but] that is the syndrome of the 'golden age' [i.e. that there was no golden age] ... and other things (about the Novus Ordo liturgical changes in 2012) are very disturbing."
- Massimo Faggioli, 2012; address to Georgetown University conference, Q & A session
You couldn't make it up. Indeed, but for a few obvious word changes, that could be us talking. What was that about the difference between certain opposing views often being only as far apart as 11.59 and 12.01 on the clock face?
Welcome to our world Massimo! Let's just ignore his barely believable indignation about the new New Mass translations of recent times. Instead just focus in on that nice line in fallacy that the philosophy Prof. peddles about "Latin-speaking people" having killed Christ, therefore Latin can't be Catholic. Bravo signor! Oh, okay, stupid us, he was only joking (we post the video link a bit further down, anyway, and you can judge for yourselves)! Hmm. Many an intended word spoken in jest?
Fair enough, there's no doubting that Prof. Faggioli is a very engaging speaker and a very easy listen to boot (even if his views leave you utterly agog). So, to that extent, we can see why His Grace invited the man who has become the default authority on all things Vatican II to a conference about Vatican II - well certainly if you subscribe to his interpretation of Vatican II that is. Which, clearly, His Grace must do.
Which brings us back full circle.
But again we make the point that Fr de Malleray is quite genned-up on all things Vatican II and he might well have been worth a listen, mightn't he?
There are scores of Prof. Faggioli's lectures posted online and they're all general variations on the same theme – but he does seem to major somewhat on all things GES. The quotes we have highlighted in this post are taken from the following 2012 Georgetown University open lecture "Vatican II After 50 Years":
It's well worth watching, actually, in order to know the type of received head-spinning wisdom that gets generally peddled, without challenge, at conferences like that at Georgetown in 2012 and surely at Liverpool, as was intended, last weekend. What is more revealing than Prof. Faggioli's take on the Council and GES, which only lasts 42 mins (you can make a good chilli-con-carne listening to it, we can vouch for that), is the depressing and somewhat sinister tone of the 25 minute Q&A session that starts immediately afterwards; it was during this period that the Prof. issued his cute line about Latin-speakers having killed Christ – which had his card-carrying lib-audience rolling in the aisles (oh, he knows what buttons to press alright!). Just listen to the open dissent that pours from the open-mic discussion – especially as one commenter expresses amazement that His Holiness (Pope Benedict XVI - for context it should be noted that there was still three months left of his papacy when this lecture was given) had mentioned Original Sin! Another woman declares her open rebellion against saying "and with your spirit" in the revised Novus Ordo translations, and there's a very acidic exchange about the pro multis issue). Listen also to the discussion, and Prof. Faggioli's take, on the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious controversy that was unfolding at that time.
There's just no getting away from it, Prof. Faggioli is as liberal and rupturist as they come (he tells his audience in the above video that he'd recently been addressing another conference for "Women Theologians Who Read Vatican II" – where blokes genuinely fear to
No, let's be straight about this. The events at Warrington tomorrow will be like a breath of fresh air – full of oxygen in fact and hopefully a fog of incense rising with a storm of prayers to heaven – and we have His Grace to thank for that. But at the same time, the invitation that he extended to Prof. Faggioli at least (leaving aside the Fr Radcliffe question for the moment) speaks volumes about how the Archbishop surely sees things.
The mainstream and the margin.
Actually, one of the maddening things about the above lecture is that you'll hear, on a couple of occasions, Prof. Faggioli, who talks quite a bit about the anthropocentric outlook of GES, also referring to that document's shortcomings, indeed he even refers to its "weaknesses". Breakthrough, you might think. But then he just glosses over them (for balance, we don't know if he does address such weaknesses in other video-lectures of his that are online; he certainly doesn't in the above one because it's clear that his audience just wouldn't be able to cope, certainly not the bloke who can't deal with Original Sin!).
But we wonder just what weaknesses Massimo might have been referring to?
Perhaps this, for just one example?
"...man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself..." (GES; Pt I; Ch II - The Community of Mankind; § 24)
If so, then that's more than a "weakness", that's a gaping theological fault-line of true eruption-provoking proportions as Mgr Brunero Gherardini expertly exposed.
Anyway, it's clear how people like Prof. Faggioli see the post-conciliar era and by extension it must also be clear that His Grace shares the same outlook. Our only surprise is that some people are surprised by this, on the basis that His Grace sends other apparently Traditional signals such as his enabling of the glorious events that we hope will unfold tomorrow in Warrington (regardless of whether they are rooted in his signature pragmatism; as we've said before, he still didn't have to invite the FSSP to town and we dare say he's ruffled quite a few feathers amongst the arch-progressives in this territory [virtually the whole archdiocese, then!] and he's certainly proved to be a more formidable shepherd facing the local wolves than his predecessor did – for whom we have great sympathy, actually, in this regard [yes, there's just us remaining on that score!] – as we recall one of this archdiocese's ugliest recent episodes).
Right, that's the Faggioli aspect of last week's thwarted conference dealt with.
Next up, it's the rather more disturbing subject of the invitation His Grace extended to Fr Radcliffe.
And what it surely indicates.
