Slight Editing

Some months ago – was it last year? – one of my friends at choir asked me, with some degree of trepidation, if I were in agreement with the perspectives expressed at the blog Rorate cæli, to which I link. As in fact I tend to find some of the views expressed on that blog to be rather too close to the SSPX, and rather to the "right" of my own, I explained as much to my worried friend (much to his relief!), and then added an editorial comment to the link to Rorate cæli that I have in my blogroll, to the effect that I find some of their views "extreme", implying therefore that I do not in fact share their views, lest my own views be taken as wholly in agreement with all of theirs.

As soon as Pope Francis was elected, that same blog featured some rather unflattering commentary about him, in contradistinction to the more positive tones of various other blogs to which I also link, with whose views I am in rather closer agreement – and the rather insulting tone of the many comments added to some of the Rorate cæli posts about him particularly scandalized me (as I mentioned in a recent post). For that reason, I added to the editorial comment to my blogroll link to Rorate cæli, inserting the phrase "and they don't like Pope Francis".

Just to-day, I received a very polite email from one of the contributors to Rorate cæli, explaining that my labelling of it as extreme, with a warning, was not exactly helpful, and could make trouble for that blog. I had not realized that that could get it into trouble, and do apologize for any inadvertent harm I may have done to that blog.

I have therefore deleted that reference, and simply retained "NB They don't like Pope Francis" as my editorial comment, in order to distinguish my views from those who express their views at Rorate cæli – since that seems to me to be a fairly matter-of-fact statement about their take on our new Supreme Pontiff (though of course, as Catholics, they acknowledge him to be the Pope, I hasten to add, and doubtless pray for him and revere his sacred office – a cat can look at a king, after all).

UPDATE: Strange to say, in further correspondence I learn that those operating Rorate cæli in fact do like Pope Francis – ! – so in a spirit of compliance I will relabel their blog "Not quite my cup of tea".  Let readers make of that what they will; my blogroll exists primarily as an easy method for me to jump to read my usual selection of blogs, whether I agree with them or not.

I hope that those who contribute to and run Rorate cæli will understand my motives in seeking to distinguish my blog from theirs, and at the least forgive me any harm I may have done them. I pray that they and all bloggers – even unworthy me – will, by their contributions online, continue to advance the cause of Christ, to the glory of God and for the salvation of souls.

Welcome Back, Terra

I am delighted (as Abp Hart would say) to see that Terra, after a long absence, is back blogging over at Australia Incognita.  Ad multos annos, soror!

Coo-ees Redivivi

Like Lazarus, Coo-ees from the Cloister has risen again, just ahead of Our Blessed Lord.  About time, too!

And to think it was said of Lazarus, and by his own sister, too – O Lord, surely after so long in the tomb, "he stinketh"!

Welcome back to the land of the living.

I hope they will try to avoid mocking Fr Withoos any more...

Coo-ees R.I.P.?

As mysteriously as they appeared, those pseudonymous persons (priests and/or seminarians, one imagines, given their clerical in-jokes) who ran Coo-ees from the Cloister have suddenly removed themselves from public view, without explanation.

Requiescant in pace.

Rumour has it that their cover has been blown, their secret identities laid bare, and now their superiors are administering condign punishment... I do hope that, if they're seminarians, they're not expelled.

(I know a priest whose ordination was postponed for months simply because of a blog he had and his inadvisable posts thereon: he committed the near-unforgiveable sin of mocking liberal religious sisters of a certain age and weight.)

Holy Mother Church does not need another generation of milksop yes-men, but priests with enough courage to point out when the Emperor has no clothes.  I cannot see that Coo-ees are guilty of anything more than telling silly stories, mocking and sniggering inanely, and poking fun at po-faced prelates.

Let us pray that Lent may not be too harsh a season for these fellows.

In honour of their late blog, I open a memorial competition, combining something of their cruel wit:

Name the Australian prelate whose actual nickname is "Bishop Slapped-Arse", and say why.

Coo-ee!

How bizarre! - when I clicked on my blogroll link to Coo-ees from the Cloister, the following message appeared:

This blog is open to invited readers only

http://coo-eesfromthecloister.blogspot.com/

It doesn't look like you have been invited to read this blog. If you think this is a mistake, you might want to contact the blog author and request an invitation.

O Coo-ees, how have I offended you?  Answer me!  (Was it because I decried your latest tasteless posting about poor Fr Withoos?  If so, get a life.)

NB — I googled Coo-ees, and by looking up the cached file was able to read the blog anyway, so something odd is going on...

An Irascible Hermit

An acquaintance of mine has asked me to link to and advertise his new blog, which I do with pleasure, especially because of its amusing name - Ruminations of an Irascible Hermit!

It appears that "Methodius" places his blogging under the patronage of the formidable St Jerome, known even as a fellow to be very carefully dealt with - Justin once told me of an hilarious reference to him in a contemporary Greek text, that basically says "Don't provoke him for God's sake!"; and I always recall how Jerome got stuck into, not merely his old friend Rufinus, but even disparaged Augustine (on the basis of a misunderstanding arising from letters to and from him having been mixed up) as "That Numidian bull-ant!"

LOL, I know I react like that all too often (as for example, when perforce at the Novus Ordo to fulfil my Sunday obligation, I read a really pestilently biassed smarmy article by some Jesuit using the feast of Christ the King as a pretext to attack the Church...)

Now Aquinas rightly tells that the irascible appetite is given to man, that by this faculty we be worked up against things harmful to us, so as we then will act to overcome them. "Be angry and sin not", but rather labour energetically to right wrongs, even fighting the good fight in the cause of all that is good and true.

The Psalmist goes on to say, "Repent ye in your chambers..." I always think of the many images of St Jerome in a cave (with or without the lion he tended to), beating his bare breast with a rock, doing penance and asking mercy for all the sins of his tongue, which the Apostle James terms a fire, a world of iniquity, setting on fire our lives, set on fire by hell! (iii, 6), with the which we curse men made in God's image (iii,9): for man's anger worketh not the justice of God (i, 20), and whoso thinketh himself religious, restraining not his tongue, his religion is vain (i, 26). Mea maxima culpa!

Joint Invitation to Melbourne Blognic

My friend David Schütz and I are in process of arranging a blognic in Melbourne on the 25th of January (3rd Sunday after Epiphany - Feast of the Conversion of St Paul), at a location to be announced!  Our plan is to meet somewhere nice for dinner at 6pm, and then saunter over to Dr Adam Cooper's booklaunch at A.C.U. (115 Victoria Parade, Fitzroy) for his new work Life in the Flesh: An Anti-Gnostic Spiritual Philosophy, which will also feature an address by His Lordship Christopher Prowse.

All comers most welcome to this, the 2nd annual Melbourne Catholic Bloggers' Gathering!

(RSVP here or over at David's blog.)

Spotted

Half-asleep after Midnight Mass, I was given friendly greeting - Are you Joshua? said Paul, I read your blog!

Pleased to meet you, Paul, and merry Christmas.

Stop the Presses!

Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum:

Coo-ees from the Cloister has re-opened, alleluia; and their offshoot Novice Wing has been upgraded to a Priory, Deo gratias -

...just in time to combat all idiotic draggers-down of the Church in Australia, their mediocrity and empty promises...

(Both sets of anonymous persons - one of whom I have finally found out the identity of, BTW - are decent enough to link to this humble blog, so I particularly congratulate them.)

Some WYD Blogs to Follow

I have been looking for some blogs about pilgrims to WYD (seeing I'm about to become one myself), and these are what I've turned up and found congenial so far:

* The UK Catholic Herald's WYD08 Blog - I'm delighted (as Abp Hart would say) to read that the good pilgrims have spent their Days in the Dioceses in the great archdiocese of Melbourne, at the far-famed church of St Patrick and the Holy Angels, Mentone, with its fine parish priest, Fr John Walshe.

* The official WYD blog of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis - I loved the ingenue comments about how much they like our accent, and how Quarantine wouldn't allow their beef jerky into the Commonwealth of Australia!

* The WYD blog of the Archdiocese of San Antonio is also very interesting and positive in tone - again, I was delighted to read that their hosts in Melbourne have been two very good priests, Frs Charles Portelli and John O'Connor; also, it amuses me to read the constant comments about how cold Melbourne is (they should try Tasmania in July): remember, check the weather forecast when packing...

* The Southwark Vocations blog details their pilgrimage to Sydney - the comments about Newcastle are very perceptive, and repay careful reading.

* Vandy+Catholic, blog of the chaplain to Vanderbilt U. Catholics (not much said as yet).

* And, of course, the usual suspects: Sentire cum Ecclesia (covering the Melbourne Days in the Diocese), Australia Incognita (looking forward to meeting you, Terra!) and Juventutem - which last rather amazingly bills itself as "the online home of the English-speaking Juventutem pilgrims", when this English-speaking Juventutem pilgrim has his own online home here at Psallite Sapienter, thank you very much, not that he was asked about it!

Blogger Meeting, Dr Tracey's New Book, Moonlight Pre-dawn

Yesterday, my last day in fair Melbourne, I met with the inestimable David Schutz, and various Catholic bloggers - Athanasius, Jeff Tan, et al. - plus Fraser Pearce, a Lutheran friend of David's who blogs at Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum...

After farewelling my old friend Monica (Miss Monification), who's off to London to do fundraising for the restoration of St Patrick's, Soho, I went to my former mentor and lecturer and employer's booklaunch - for His Lordship Bp Elliott, in presence of His Grace Abp Hart, many of the reverend clergy incl. Frs Tattersall and McDaniel, and many many of the faithful in Christ, very wittily and kindly launched her volume: Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI. Stuart, her husband, was so proud he got tonguetied: although he did later remind me (coming back to his senses) that I owe him a boozy lunch! Dr Rowland was struggling through a cold, but spoke beautifully and very kindly signed the copy I'd just bought of her book.

And so to this pre-morning... arising at 3.30am, like a monk, I am by now at the airport, with 10 minutes before boarding, and Office of Readings said and done, Deo gratias; the Itinerarium et al. comes next. It was lovely to see the almost full moon shining yellowish in the black black sky, riding not so high up as to glimmer white.