The Path Less Taken

The gutsy Sister who defied the IRA

2012-02-10T01:42:00.000-08:00

Sister Genevieve was born Mary O'Farrell to a humble farming family in the Irish Free State in 1923. She was the youngest of their five children, and each morning went with her family to Mass. But as a girl she had no inclination towards religious life. She said that the lifestyle of nuns 'revolted' her. In time, however, she became one the most dynamic nuns ever to teach in Northern Ireland, improving the lot of generations of Catholic women.

Her call came suddenly one day in secondary school. She heard a classmate talk about the Daughters of Charity. At that moment when she learned of a religious community so devoted to the poor she realised that her soul ached to be at the service of the destitute. In 1941, at the age of 18, she entered St Catherine¹s Seminary in Dublin. As a postulant she hated the idea of becoming a teacher, feeling that life in the classroom would take her away her society¹s most marginalised people. But her superior directed her to train for the classroom, and so she went to Manchester to prepare unenthusiastically. From there, she went to Scotland
where she spent six happy years as a teacher. In 1956 she was sent to teach in west Belfast. St Louise¹s School for Girls was situated in one of the most disadvantaged areas in western Europe, the top of the Falls Road in Belfast's Catholic ghetto. If anywhere, this was the place where she would live St Vincent de Paul¹s ideal of 'serving Our Lord in the person of the poor'. During her first years at St Louise's she had a very erratic teaching timetable, arranged to suit the working hours of 'the linen slaves', the children and young women who paddled around linen looms weaving linen.

In 1963 Sister Genevieve was made principal of the school, and became known for her die-hard dedication to the education of the Catholic girls. She had a school policy that no corporal punishment was ever to be used, but girls who upset classes were temporarily taught elsewhere, and every morning she held an assembly. Sister Genevieve prioritised a Catholic ethos without borders, and the celebration of feast days had prominence in the school diary, and the crowning of Our Lady at the beginning of May was a celebrated
occasion. She offered a good example of living a life of faith. Every morning she spent an hour in mental prayer, which prepared her for the challenges of the day. The school activities honoured the cultural traditions of all the British Isles. St Louise¹s girls both learned Irish poetry by heart and performed Gilbert and Sullivan musicals.

It aggrieved Sister Gen (as she was known locally) that the employment opportunities for the girls were laundry, stitching hankies or the dreaded and dangerous linen looms. To remedy this she started calling in person to banks and businesses, asking the managers and owners if they would employ her students. More and more when vacancies arose, they phoned Sister Genevieve asking which of her pupils she would recommend.

It was, however, during the Troubles that Sister Genevieve¹s full leadership skills were tested. She described herself as ³walking a tightrope between the paramilitaries and the Army². The Irish Republican Army (IRA) wanted her to shut the school on the days of its funerals and the British Army was keen to check her school for the harbouring of weapons. This steadfast refusal to ever let the school become a base for either side won her the reputation of 'the only man on the Falls'.

The school's close proximity to the Milltown Cemetery meant that she was under increasing pressure to close the school for the funerals of the hunger strikers. She was paid threatening visits by the IRA, yet she would not bend to their commands. She was clear that 'as a nun, I have the advantage of being able to be more outspoken since I have no family who may suffer as a result'. On the days of the funerals for the hunger strikers her morning assembly went ahead as normal, as did normal school activities.

Sister Genevieve had to act swiftly to save her pupils from their environment and from themselves; dissuading them from joining any political and/or violent struggle while providing them with qualifications and real opportunities. 'Here we are only concerned with you and your education' was the maxim she used to encourage the girls. Simultaneously, she instilled them with a sense of the sanctity of life. St Louise¹s School remained an invaluable sanctuary of peace for the local girls.

Increasingly during the 1970s Sister Genevieve made more and more contacts and alliances with British education ministers and worked with them for better educational policies that would benefit her pupils. British
politicians gave talks to her sixth-formers, but Sister Genevieve refused Gerry Adams¹s offer. This in itself perturbed Republicans, and unkind reports of her circulated in the local paper. The strange irony is that
Sister Genevieve won support for her school from the ruling British politicians and was wronged by the Republicans for doing so, yet it was the daughters of Republicans who benefited from the education she gave them. The Republican spirit was offended when she was awarded the OBE in 1978. After she accepted it, they viewed her as a conspirator who was siding with British rule. In response to Republican criticism of her, some of her sixth-formers got together to write a letter that was published in the local press, explaining that the school was a place of education for girls and that their Sister Gen had not 'betrayed any so-called Irish cause'.

The 1980s was a time of great development and success for the school and its pupils. One student, Mary O'Hara, went on to study at Cambridge. There was amuch better understanding in the community of west Belfast at large for the mission of the school. Sister Gen introduced cultural studies and invited ministers from Protestant faiths to give talks. Tellingly, two thirds of the pupils were children of former pupils who wanted their children to have the same opportunities that the school had given them.

During Sister Gen's last years at St Louise's her mission seemed to come full circle. In 1964 few girls took A-levels, but when Sister Genevieve retired in 1988 it was customary for St Louise¹s pupils to take A-levels.
The girls' job opportunities had improved from working on a linen loom and stitching hankies to seeking careers in teaching and journalism. Cardinal Cahal Daly, the late Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All
Ireland, held the work of Sister Genevieve in high esteem because she convinced her pupils not to join any armed struggle and saved generations of women from the war machine. The nun who abrogated the use of corporal punishment in her school and believed we should see Christ in everyone irrespective of political allegiances was the same nun who motivated tens of thousands of girls to reject violence and to make education their main concern, developing their talents and realising God's greater plan for their lives.

I wrote this article for The Catholic Herald.

Irish bishops beware, The Roman Missile is coming

2012-01-17T08:30:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time the role of Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland was reserved for aging, stooped Italian clerics with broken English. It was a ‘peach’ of a job: elderly priests who were tired of the traffic and never-ending tourism of Rome were only too happy to spend their last years among docile, obedient Catholics in Dublin. They would stroll around Dublin’s O’Connell Street dreaming of lasagne and prosecco, while grannies and teenagers alike would line up and go on bended knee for a blessing from the Vatican’s representative in Ireland. The days of incense wafting through the air and subservience to clergy are a hazy memory. Few in Ireland can conjure up a mental picture of the last few Apostolic Nuncios. For many of the faithful in Ireland, the authority of The Holy See means long time, no See.

After the commotion caused by the Irish Government’s vengeful decision to close down Ireland’s Embassy to the Holy See, the assumption was that the curtain was coming down on diplomatic relations between the Irish Republic and the Vatican. But the show will go on, and the leading role will be played by Archbishop Charles Brown, or ‘Charlie’, to all who know him. Of all the hard-working and decent priests in the world, Charles Brown was hand-picked by Pope Benedict to be the new Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland. On the 6^th of January, Pope Benedict personally consecrated Charles Brown an archbishop; a very rare move for B16, who has only consecrated three other bishops since he became pope six years ago. The newly elected Archbishop Charlie is an Irish American who hails from New York and is very proud of Irish heritage. He is handsome in a vaguely George Clooney way and fresh looking for his fifty-two years. But there is no mistaking that his eyes are those of an eagle, and he is known for his keen intelligence and that he doesn’t suffer fools.

But why does the Pope hold Archbishop Charlie in such high esteem? How is B16 so confident of his abilities? Pope Benedict and Charlie go back a long way. They worked side-by-side in the office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for eleven years. Charlie Brown has a unique insight into the Pope’s character, as well as his plans for the urgent renewal of the Catholic Church in Ireland. In 2001, when our Pope Benedict was Cardinal Ratzinger, he wrote to each and every Catholic bishop instructing them to inform the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Church about every allegation of abuse. As a direct result, no other place on earth was as aware of the abuse scandals within the Church as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His Excellency Charlie Brown became a trusted ally of Pope Benedict’s when they were trawling through the quagmire of filthy abuse descriptions.

Archbishop Charlie is a veteran of the CDF, having spent seventeen years in total there. He’s alert to the precise details of the Irish Church’s failings. But the response to Archbishop Charlie’s appointment in Dublin has been met with exclamations of joy from afar and acts of mean-spirited skulduggery. Both critics of the Church such as The Irish Times’ Geraldine Kennedy and supporters of the Church such as Rocco Palmo hailed the appointment as indicative of Pope Benedict’s heartfelt attempts to stop the rot in the Irish Church. Unfortunately, there was at least one move from the Irish Church hierarchy to prevent Archbishop Charlie’s appointment. It might be a case of begrudging this youthful Irish American his important position in Dublin as a direct envoy to the Holy See, but it definitely shows reluctance on the part of Irish Church leaders to work with Pope Benedict. Would the Church hierarchy prefer a doddery cleric with poor English? It would appear that after Archbishop Charlie’s years in the CDF, he knows too much about the Irish Church for some of its members to be comfortable to have him in their midst.

In this crucial time before Archbishop Charlie arrives, we, the Irish people must surely prepare a proper welcome to our new Apostolic Nuncio, who faces many challenges, not least from his own fellow priests. It’s not unthinkable that he could bear the brunt of the bitterness. Not only would it be unjust to tar Archbishop Charlie with the same brush reserved for such bishops like Magee who ignored their own guidelines for handling abuse and were guilty of notorious cover-ups, but it does not support this enthusiastic but also entirely blameless archbishop to help restore the Church in Ireland.

I’ve been in touch with Archbishop Brown, with the view to finding out his plans for Ireland. This week he is tying up loose ends in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but will shortly be taking up residence in the nunciature on Navan Road, Dublin where he tells me ‘lots of work’ awaits him. He has deep faith and none of the pretentiousness that besets such a highly-favoured prelate. His profile picture for his e-mail is a simple pencil drawing of the Eucharist. If rumours of a possible Papal Visit during the 2012 Eucharistic Congress are confirmed, then Archbishop Charlie will once more be at Pope Benedict’s side as he walks the island that was home to Dublin’s Frank Duff, and Cork’s Little Nellie of Holy God.

Santorum attends the Novus Ordo in Latin, and has attracted vibrant young people including Evangelical Christians to manage his campaign

2012-01-09T16:13:00.000-08:00

Blimey! Is it conceivable that a ‘Traddie’ will be the next president of America, and go with his kids to live in The White House? There can only be one person that fits the description of goes-to-a-Mass-in-Latin, home schools six of his seven kids, and is also running for president: Rick Santorum. The question is; might he home-school in The White House? Until recently, conservative Catholic Santorum has been under the radar. And in all honesty, when I heard a description of him I thought, ‘that can’t be, there must be some mistake, no one who is Catholic-of-a-traditional-mindset and totally pro-life could ever even think of becoming the president of America!’ Like a lot of ‘Traditional Catholics’, I endure my Holden-Caulfield’esque inferiority complex and I often think that the highest positions in politics are somehow off-limits to us devout Catholics. Thank you, Santorum, for proving me and your cynics wrong.

There is something mesmerising about Santorum: is it the perceived absence of spin? He’s not a Svengali, who manipulates his public reputation by deceiving a vast group of people that he believes what they believe. He’s not a spin-master who mixes his words to be accepted by one audience, but says the opposite to the next group he addresses. The scary thing about him for his opposition: he believes what he says. I’ve heard this is called integrity.

I agree with Linen On The Hedgerow that even his name, Santorum, sounds ‘Latiney’.
It is true that Santorum attends a Novus Ordo Mass in Latin, at St Catherine of Siena’s in Great Falls, Virginia. This is a Solemn High Latin Mass, very much like the one at The London Oratory on Sunday at 11am. But it is not the Tridentine Mass, according the the Missal of 1962. I am not saying that I hold it against Santorum for not attending the Tridentine Mass; I merely and humbly point out a fact that I gleaned from my research. A quick look at this directory shows that the Mass Santorum attends is a Novus Ordo Mass which happens to be in Latin. This rather flies in the faces of all the people who are writing miles online that Santorum is ‘behind the times’ because of he attends ‘the Old Mass’. If they are so intent on critiquing Santorum, they might as well get the facts about which Mass he attends correct.

I may have the opportunity to discuss the Catholic Mass with Santorum in greater detail. I am currently chasing Rick Santorum for an interview. I’ve chatted with the young campaigners who have committed to ‘get in the vote for Santorum’. These squadrons of newby college graduates are answering the phones; begging for donations; and doing all the nitty-gritty office work. And are they Catholics and singing from the same hymn sheet as Santorum? No, a lot of them are Evangelical Christians, and they sound 100 percent behind Santorum. One very polite chap that I spoke to, Charles, said to me, ‘Mizz Reagan ma’am, I’m a Protestant, but I fully support Rick Santorum, a Catholic, he’s definitely Catholic, that’s clear for everyone to see. And as a Protestant, I invite you to support us. Thank you for calling Rick Santorum for president.’ Santorum’s campaign managers who answer the phone know that I’m not a voter in the US. They know that as a simple journalist, I do not have mega-bucks to donate to the campaign. Yet, their spirit of enthusiasm and their joyful voices are infectious. You can compensate someone to sit by a phone, but you cannot pay someone to have genuine optimism and verve in their voice. There is something noteworthy in the joyful spontaneous way that the campaigners encourage you to support their candidate Santorum.

I read a ton of tomes about the 2008 US presidential election. And one key reason cited for why the Republicans lost was: ‘hired guns’. Instead of energetic, wholeheartedly-dedicated bodies manning the phones, there were ‘hired guns’ who were there to collect a pay check and who didn’t know or endorse the campaign’s manifesto. They didn’t have requisite passion for the candidates to impart to the voters. Everyone from hacks working on small newspapers to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, prize-winning authors of Race of a Lifetime, blamed the Republican defeat, on the sheer lack of idealistic, committed people. On the contrary, in 2012, Santorum, a practising Catholic, has attracted sincere, bright young people to his cause. If Santorum succeeds in becoming the Republican presidential candidate; his young, passionate staffers could yet make all the difference in the end.

"I fell in love with the Latin Mass"

2012-01-06T10:16:00.000-08:00

It’s a baffling mystery to our secular society: why would a young, good-looking, talented and highly qualified young man such as Ian Verrier give his life completely to the Lord and pursue a vocation to the priesthood? For many Catholics, perhaps, an even bigger question is why Ian is learning to offer Mass in the Extraordinary Form and has gone to Lincoln, Nebraska, to do so. Lincoln is a bleak, flat region in the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. Ian jokes that “it’s a giant chessboard”. But he has persevered in this dry, dreary climate and is delighted to be in his fourth year of seminary with the Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP). Ian chose the FSSP when he was 25.

“I really felt God wanted me to have this form of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the centre of my priesthood,” he explains. “I met priests from the Fraternity of St Peter and discovered that they centre not only their idea of the priesthood but their very lives on the traditional Latin Mass. So I entered Our Lady of Guadalupe seminary, the Fraternity’s international English-speaking seminary in Nebraska in September of 2008.” Ian was brought up an Anglican, but his family did not practise very much until Ian was 12. He says that his childhood faith took the form of little
chats with God, whom he thought of as a grandfather figure in heaven. He would pray: “God, please look after this person who is having a tough time.” Ian learned the cello and piano, later finding an outlet for his talent when his family started attending St Mark’s, a high Anglican parish in an underprivileged area of the West Midlands. At the age of 15, Ian was the organist and director of the choir. The care given to the liturgy in this particular church made a deep impression on Ian. “There may have been leaks in the building and no one was well-off, but we gave the best of what we thought we had to God, and much attention was devoted to the exterior aspect of liturgy,” he recalls. While studying at Birmingham University Ian was received into the Catholic Church on the feast of Pentecost 2003, after 10 months of instruction. Explaining when he left the Anglican Church, he says: “There wasn’t unity in belief. Everyone believed different things. The realisation dawned that it was not the True Church. I was drawn to the universality of the Catholic Church, that no matter where you go in the world the Church is the same, as God made it to be, founded on St Peter and his successors, the popes.”

As a new member of the Catholic Church, Ian was initially wary of the Latin Mass, because he thought “it was being used as a political football”. In 2006, Ian had settled in well to Catholicism and was offered a teaching job. He had felt a deep call to work for the Church in Europe after seeing the funeral of Blessed Pope John Paul II. Ian answered that call by accepting work at an “unashamedly Catholic school” in France. It was at Chavagnes International College where he found a living charity in a close-knit Catholic community in the Vendée region. While at Chavagnes, Ian met a young, inspirational priest who loved celebrating Mass in the Extraordinary Form. He began to assist at Masses more regularly. “I fell in love with the traditional Latin Mass,” he says.

At Chavagnes, Ian felt for the first time that he lived “a fully Catholic life”. He clarifies: “I experienced the best of everything that I had seen of the Church: Mass ad orientem, staff and pupils committed to their faith, and we were allowed to say grace before meals.” While working at the school Ian felt the first stirrings of a priestly vocation. He gave a definite Yes to God’s invitation after walking the 2007 Paris to Chartres pilgrimage with a group of boys and teachers from the school. At Chartres Cathedral Ian was overawed by the closing Mass. “I was reduced to tears. Everything in the Mass took on its full spiritual significance. The choir were like angels singing divine praises and the priest was in the form of Christ. At that instant, I said yes to becoming a priest.”

Now, having spent three and a half years with the Fraternity of St Peter, he is even more certain of his priestly vocation. On November 13 he received the minor orders of acolyte and exorcist.

Although only half-way through the seminary’s demanding seven-year programme, Ian loves the intellectual rigour, especially the study of philosophy and theology of St Thomas Aquinas. Ian is one of seven British seminarians in the FSSP. At Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary alone, they accepted 25 new seminarians last year and this autumn saw the arrival of 22 new seminarians. The average age of the 392 priests and seminarians working with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter
is 34. Before becoming an FSSP seminarian, Ian admits that he fell prey to generalisations about traditional Catholics and worried that he would find it difficult mixing all the time with “Traddies”. He argues that Latin Mass communities are sometimes unfairly characterised by their extremely strict members “and then people think that we are all very severe”. But Ian was
pleasantly surprised by the other seminarians and says that all the seminarians have great fun, get on very well together and support each other.

Ian believes that traditionalists have often been misunderstood and thus mistreated. “Like all of God’s children they deserve mutual respect as they bring a rich and diverse element to the Church of today. Casting aside the imperfections of some ‘traditional Catholics’, one thing is important: the Mass they love. The Extraordinary Form offers a rich treasure, both tried and tested, to men and women regardless of place and time, since in the words of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI: ‘What was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us.’ ”
Vatican II reiterated the sentiment that should be shared by all Catholics,“traditional” or not: that the source and summit of the spiritual life is indeed the Eucharist.
On December 12, Ian and his fellow seminarians celebrated the feast day of their patron, Our Lady of Guadalupe, by having a procession with Mexican Marian hymns, followed by Solemn High Mass. In the evening the seminarians had high jinks by hanging a piñata and bashing it with sticks until chocolates and sweets rained down.

The FSSP encourages all it seminarians to have a balanced lifestyle and they have periods of recreation. When they enjoy better weather, they play spirited games of football on their own pitch. The seminary has a weight room with some high-tech weightlifting equipment, which is a big hit with the seminarians. During the colder months since they have no gym of their own, the seminarians drive through ice and snow to play basketball in a nearby country gym.

Ian misses some British home comforts, such as the NHS. He doesn’t get ill much, but had chest pains after eating a lot of fried food and had to pay a high fee to find out that it was indigestion.
When I ask him what he misses most about Britain, he exclaims: “Yorkshire pudding, I absolutely love it!’ He’s not so keen on “the ketchup-smothered meatloaf” that is so beloved by Americans, but it is a useful penance for Ian. He says that, while he is British, the seminary is his “spiritual home” and that he has found deep fulfillment living in community. In 2010, Ian’s father lay dying of cancer in Birmingham and when Ian travelled back to be with him the other seminarians were fervently praying and having Masses said. Ian prayed daily for seven years that his father would become a Catholic and shortly before his death, his father swam the Tiber.

The FSSP likes to put priests back in their country of origin and Ian likes the thought of being a priest back in Britain, perhaps in the FSSP’s apostolate in Reading. He says that in the wake of Anglicanorum Coetibus he looks forward to the possibility of being surrounded by many fellow former Anglicans who are now Catholics.

Ian is 29 and I ask him if he is daunted by his decision to forfeit the opportunity of having a wife and family. His response is so lucid and sincere that it convinces me of his commitment. “The celibate life totally frees the man for the priesthood,” he says. “The priest makes a sacrifice by living out his public promise of celibacy. And instead of having his own biological children he is a father to many souls, the exact number of which we will only know when we reach heaven. If you are acting as Christ to offer Mass, hearing Confessions, that must be confidential and putting your whole life into being a spiritual shepherd for whoever your flock is – it’s not practical to be a husband and have a natural family at the same time. You can’t do both to the best of your ability.” He thinks that priestly celibacy is misunderstood. “Our vocation is the means of our salvation and celibacy is a sacrifice,” he says, “but it’s a gift to the priesthood, and if you use it to give yourself fully to Our Lord, then it becomes a joy.”

I wrote this article for this week's edition of The Catholic Herald. Alex Begin, very kindly, gave me the first photo of Ian that you see in this post.

I was going to keep quiet about St Anthony finding lipstick…

2012-01-04T14:33:00.000-08:00

Isn’t it Shakespeare’s King Lear who declares; ‘vanity thy name be woman’? Well the mad King Lear summed me up; I’m a woman and vain. I’m all for the simple Snow White look; powder-white pale skin with red lipstick and a dark sweeps of hair. But Snow White wore the same dress every day. And I found myself wanting a specific type of lipstick that would coordinate with burgundy/reddish-purple suede skirts and wool sweaters. But finding the right shade that’s not too pink and not too red is so trying that it could turn you into a loony. It involves doing the rounds of the make-up counters in lit-up by million-watt bulbs department stores and chemists. Then one must meet over-anxious sales people who always have imploring, never-blinking eyes that implore you to buy, buy, buy! Then one must inspect tray after tray of gooey neon pink and yellow lipstick, smear it one your fingers until your hand looks tie-died, but you must say something nice about the lipstick.

And usually you come to the conclusion that shade ‘priggish plum’ and ‘putrid peach’ is not for you. Then there’s shopping-for-lipstick blindness: you see so many shades that they all look the same brown-red-violet mélange. Then there’s the task of telling the saleswoman that you won’t purchase ‘cremated cherry’ because it will clash with your wardrobe of clothes. The saleslady will bite her pink-frosted lips, hold back silver tears, sigh and say that she could’ve talked to other customers who would’ve bought ‘mulberry mishap’ and that she wasted thirty minutes convincing you of the joys of ‘juicy lemon’ because ‘yellow is the new lipstick for 2012.’

Trust me, buying the right shade of lipstick is such an ordeal; that it could be the new test for psychic powers; if someone who reports to be clairvoyant can automatically pick the correct shade of lipstick for a person, then they must have supernatural strengths. But I don’t believe in psychics or employ them, even if it means that picking the right colour lipstick would be made easier. And I didn’t want to waste hours traipsing round shops to find the exact shade of wine-pink lipstick. So a few weeks ago, in deepest, darkest December, I threw my hands up in the air, said that I wouldn’t waste time and money and sanity in looking for a very specific shade of lipstick that I had in mind. And I said to St Anthony, ‘you must be sick of me by now, but if there’s any way that I can find that lipstick, or if the lipstick would just appear?’ The last part seemed a bit fantastical, even to me.

Again, I never said a word about my desire for a type of dark puce lipstick; really I can’t bore my friends with make-up monotony. But I was given a present of a little jacket with pockets and the first day that I wore it, I found that one pocket had a strange ‘lump’ in it. I pulled out a blue lipstick case.

I opened it to find that it was the exact hue that I had asked St Anthony to find. Thinking that I was kidding myself, I held the lipstick up to the light, tried it on and pronounced that it was the one that I had asked St Anthony to find. I thought that I would keep the matter to myself; it's of too much a fashion-fanatic theme to share with the readers. But it does demonstrate that we might be surprised if we ask for little things.

First tea, second soap, now lipstick!

It's still Christmas....

2012-01-04T02:50:00.000-08:00

I'm persevering with the Christmas spirit, and will listen to carols until the 6th.

For the love of dogs... Part 2

2012-01-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

There has been renewed interest in how the St Benedict's medal cured my sheepdog Pollly of a huge, sprawling wound on her back. While I expressed the opinion that dogs don't go to heaven, I have modified my views; A Jesuit was asked if there would be dogs in heaven, and he replied, "if dogs are necessary for your happiness, then there will be dogs in heaven."

Between this life and when we go to God, we can use the St Benedict's medal to relieve the pains of the dumb animals that walk through this life with us. Polly not only survived the ordeal of the skin on her back splitting open and suffering a temporary doggy bald spot, but went on to have fifteen pups. My favourite of all Polly's yapping black and white sheepdogs was Juliet, pictured here for the world to admire her silky sleek black fur, badger-esque face and spotted nose. I used clasp my hands around her chest because I would feel the pulse of her heart through my hands. Juliet went to a farm where her duty is looking after and being a companion for an much older dog.

May all my readers from Guam, to New Jersey, to Denver and to Brazil - have a happy and better-than-ever new year!

2012-01-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

The last week has seen a surge in the number of my blog readers; from a few hundred every day, to nearly 11,000 in the past week. I've been the recipient of some very kind e-mails from readers from all over the world. I regret that time has not allowed me to reply to all your e-mails. After celebrating the new year with a glass of champagne in one hand and a fist full of fruit cake and after seeing the London fireworks explode from Big Ben and the London Eye, I returned to my room and moderated comments until the early hours and even at that late hour it was a joy to read all the many promises-of-prayer that were flooding in for Paul Birch, a young father battling with cancer. Paul's wife, Tracy left a comment on the post concerning Padre Pio's favourite painting of Our Lady.

I'm still drafting the 'perfect e-mail' to reply to the relative of Padre Pio's who got in touch with me, and who remembers the process for Padre's beatification and canonisation. In the meantime, I would like to wish all my readers from Japan, to Turkey, to France and back again to Liverpool and London a very happy and grace-filled new year that is packed with opportunities for you to develop your talents and for meeting the best of people.

Happy New Year? Are we finished with the old one...

2012-01-02T14:49:00.000-08:00

It's a Wonderful Life...

2012-01-01T16:35:00.001-08:00

I’ve had the loveliest Christmas…

2011-12-31T09:21:00.000-08:00

I felt called to stay in London for Christmas and I’ve been enjoying the festivities with my housemates who are Indian and Latin American and very far from home.

London is transformed at Christmas – the usually colourful city fades and is replaced by a Victorian ghost town. The streets are no longer teeming with seas of people; the frazzled business men and tourists have vanished. The streets are so empty that you can see the pavement stretch out before you and there’s that strange sound of silence.

Kensington becomes like an abandoned film set that was once used for some period drama like Howard’s End or Upstairs Downstairs. The shadowy houses have a look of broken light bulbs and there is not one wreath or Christmas tree in sight. During the week from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day, you can hear birdsong and the wind blowing old newspapers down streets in this international city. It verily is like time has stood still and stopped. Time will begin again in early January. I think. But in the meantime, it’s calming to be in the midst of such stillness.

London may be the city that Christmas forgot, but the season is always what you make of it. Where I live, we have a round, plump Christmas tree that is draped with red tinsel and red fairy lights.

On Christmas Eve we gathered for a dinner of salmon. I was delighted when my friend Taru Sugandha, asked me if she could accompany me to Christmas Day Mass.

Some of us had the bright idea of staying up all night on Christmas Eve, albeit one of my intentions was that if I stayed up all night, then I wouldn’t be late for Mass the next day! I dozed off at 5 am, after exhausting all the Christmas songs.

Taru joined me for 9am Tridentine Mass at the Oratory, which was bedecked in velvet-petal red roses. Taru is a Hindu and this was her first time at a Latin Mass, after which she said, ‘it was so grand…this Mass is something that every human being should experience…I felt invigorated after the Mass’

After the main Mass, we wandered into the side chapel to see the crib. To the right of the crib, we stumbled upon Fr Rupert who was offering a private Mass, bowing low offering the prayers at the foot the altar of St Thomas More.

We had a delicious Christmas lunch of roast turkey and Jack Daniels spliced Christmas pudding. We turned off the lights, and I had the job of making the pudding ‘light up’, of putting the match to the surface of the cake and watching the blue flame dance around the pudding. Afterwards, we visited a few sick people who were unable to leave their flats because of sudden winter illnesses.

I was the recipient of some very thoughtful gifts from my generous family and friends, which were a delightful mix of the religious and secular, as well as a red hat that is both religious and secular; religious because red is the colour of martyrs and secular because it may be worn for warmth.

A friend gave me a blessed Rosary from the Vatican. The colour of the Rosary also coordinates with many outfits; it's an absolute priority that these rosary beads hanging from my hands match my purple skirt :-)

A box of goodies had arrived earlier in the week from my mum. I shook it and heard a jingle. I saved opening my presents for St Stephen’s Day, as a way of making the excitement of Christmas last. Some other very thoughtful gifts included a key-ring-of-a-dog to remind me of my beloved sheepdog, Polly; the dog who I believe got a cure from St Benedict.

But the highlight of all my presents was this coat; it fits perfectly and snugly, and was designed by my fashion-designer mum and then tailored for me. It reminds me of the coats that late 1940’s and 1950’s journalists used to wear. It has a shawl collar, small waist and full flair in the style of Dior’s post World War II ‘New Look’, when clothes were made to rejoice in the new abundance of fabric after the restrictions and ersatz cloth of the war years. It's made from Italian wool and the lining is raw silk. Forgive my vanity in posting a picture of myself in my mum’s coat; but I think you’ll agree that the coat is spectacular. You can see a tiny bit of snow dusting me in the photo below, we might have a white January yet.

For Unto Us a Child is Born - Handel Messiah - Mormon Tabernacle Choir

2011-12-31T02:26:00.000-08:00

Vatican's 10 top stories of 2011 - in under 4 minutes

2011-12-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

#8 The Pope's Visit to Africa, where he is greeted by hordes of young people singing and dancing to welcome him. Interesting that the secularist groups that wage a hate-campaign against the Pope and who wrongly blame him for the spread of Aids in Africa - do not recognise or acknowledge how the African people honoured him.
#2 It's quite touching to hear Pope Benedict speak German in his soft Bavarian accent to the politicians of his home country.

Let's take the road before us and sing a chorus or two...

2011-12-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

Padre Pio’s favourite painting of Our Lady: its Christmas significance

2011-12-30T02:55:00.000-08:00

This depiction of Our Lady of Grace is painted on the wall and ceiling behind the altar in the church of San Giovanni Rotondo, where Padre Pio had his ministry. In the painting, Baby Jesus is reaching for his mother’s milk, which represents grace. We are also the children of Mary, and may partake of this grace.
At Christmas, the very centre of our celebration is that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ who is God and therefore the creator of all graces. The Blessed Mother is the Mediatrix of all graces, since Baby Jesus grew in her womb, and was nurtured from her milk and loved by her embraces: all of this is portrayed in Padre Pio’s favourite painting.
In the majority of crib scenes we do not see Our Lady or Baby Jesus wearing crowns. At the time, such honours of regal coronets had not been bestowed on the child in the manger and his humble mother. But in Padre Pio’s favourite painting, Our Lady wears the golden crown signifying that she is queen and Baby Jesus wears a smaller fit-for-a-baby crown. It is our tradition in Europe that the wife of the king is the queen, but in Jewish law the queen was the king’s mother. So, in effect, Our Lady was made a queen when she became Jesus’ mother.

The poisoned friendship of St Thomas Becket and Henry II, as portrayed in the film Becket

2011-12-29T12:52:00.000-08:00

The film Becket has its flaws; not least the fact that the title leaves out the word 'saint', meaning that someone could think that the film was about the Irish playwright Beckett. The film places a lot of emphasis on King Henry and Becket's reputations as being wild lads who seduced simple barely-able-to-speak peasant girls.
But the triumph of the film is its colourful portrayal of Henry II's persecution of his dear friend St Thomas Becket. Peter O'Toole in his role as Henry II is the eyes-darting, much-younger-than-Becket king who resents that Becket's vocation to the priesthood has distracted him from being his close pal, and that Becket's allegiance to the Church comes first. At times it's as though Henry II wanted the Church to serve him, rather than he serve the Church. Henry II has other reasons to be jealous - he shakes with anxious envy when he hears accounts of Becket's charisma and his ability to effortlessly draw adoring crowds and command respect without being a tyrant. The film captures a fine sense of Henry II, who preferred Becket to his wife and children, and who was mad with grief for the loss of his friendship with Becket, not least the fact that Henry felt betrayed and embarrassed that Becket refused to obey him and rebelled against the injustices of his reign. Some would say that Peter O'Toole overdoes the role of the immature monarch who fiendishly chastises Becket because the saint had outgrown their boyish, high-jinks friendship. Many consider the scene in the clip below - when Henry II attempts to excommunicate Becket - to be the best in the film.

Read a very good and well-written account of St Thomas Becket's life here.

Although it's been said many times, many ways...

2011-12-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

Of all the soaps in all of London… St Anthony found this one for me…

2011-12-28T16:35:00.000-08:00

St Anthony found soap for me? You must think that I’ve lost it. You might think that I’m a Sense and Sensibility short of a whole set of Jane Austen novels. First St Anthony finds me tea during the holiday season and now soap? But bear with me, while I explain this astounding chain of events.

Looking for Christmas presents and shopping for treats for my godchild - is my excuse and pretext for going into TK Maxx on Kensington High Street. And TK Maxx is always full of manic shoppers who bruise each other as five of them frantically root in bargain bins, rifle through shelves and scour rail after rail of designer polyester. Then there’s the toiletry department where you can buy Armani perfume, and smell the same as though you had paid a fortune in Knightsbridge Armani central. The heavy-lidded sales assisstants stagger under the piles of clothes that they dump onto plastic shelves. They may get good peace-keeping training when they beg the customers not to gouge each other’s eyes out when several pairs of manicured claws grip a red hand bag at once. I’m sure you could get a job as a peace-keeper in any war zone on earth by merely saying; I managed to keep the ladies who were fighting over the purple shoes apart… There is a shop-in-Manhattan atmosphere in TK Maxx: everyone is searching every corner, and crawling on their hands and knees trying to find the right gear so they may look like the rich, sophisticated, label-designer dressed chic lady or gent for a fraction of the cost.

So during December, the height of shopping-fever, I found myself being jostled along by the elbows of my fellow shoppers in TK Maxx. Of all the cheap, glitzy evening dresses and of all the killer, spiky black heels – the one thing that really caught my attention was a box of rose soaps. I lifted the box to my face and inhaled the delicate but overpowering smell; like being in a rose garden in the middle of spring. I turned away from the tray of soaps; I’ve got to buy other presents and it doesn’t feel ‘right’ to buy a present pour moi when I have a ‘proper’ list of needed items. I turned back and smelled the box of soaps once more; there was something about the crazy flowery, butterfly-obsessed packaging that I loved too.

Another day, I carried the box of soaps to the till, but lost my nerve and returned them to their shelf. It’s ridiculous to buy fancy soaps as a selfish treat; this is 2011, not the Victorian era when soaps were all the rage.

But the smell of roses lingered, and I asked St Anthony; I’m not going to buy them for myself, but is there any way that I could get the rose-soaps?

The advertisers love telling us to buy gifts for ourselves, but it still feels lonely to buy oneself gifts at Christmas. And I made myself forget the soaps and never thought to mention this love-for-a-box-of-rose-soaps to anyone, not least the girls that I live with or my dearest friends.

Then a friend of mine, M L, gave me a gift-bag laden with wrapped gifts and goodies to be opened over Christmas. On St Stephen’s day I started merrily opening the packages; and to my utter amazement found the Exact same soaps that I had longed for.

I had to close my eyes and open them again to look at the box of soaps; were they really the soaps that I asked St Anthony for? Yes, they were. A hidden feature is that when you take out the soaps; you have a desk caddy, a gorgeously smelling tray that holds post-its and staples. Now, there must be hundreds of thousands of different soaps in London; why of all the soaps in all of London, England did my friend pick out this very set?

Some New Atheist friends of mine might say that it is a very intriguing coincidence and that because my friend knows me so well that she would have picked out rose soap for girly, over-feminine me. But look at the packaging; it doesn’t look like rose soap and I never told my friend that I like rose soaps or that I’d prayed to St Anthony for this one.

I used to think that it was perhaps coincidental that I’d prayed to St Anthony for HP printer full-of-ink: St Anthony, there must be someone out there who has a HP printer that they don’t need. Then I became friends with E R when she moved into my neighbourhood, and when she was moving away, she asked me ‘I’ve a HP printer with good ink supplies, want it?’

As for my lapsed Catholic friends who think this is just another one of my eccentric experiences, why not give St Anthony a try? ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ is a Bible truism, and it aptly applies to St Anthony as well, he won’t mind if you ‘taste’ him and invite him too find tea, soap, a printer or whatever your necessity. You might be pleasantly surprised by St Anthony’s efficiency. And here’s a promise; I won’t smile triumphantly if you tell me that I was right about St Anthony…

Pavarotti - Adeste Fideles

2011-12-28T03:24:00.000-08:00

I think that I prefer the Pavarotti version to the Andrea Bocelli one. Which do you prefer?

Andrea Bocelli - Adeste Fideles

2011-12-28T03:19:00.000-08:00

Have you met 10 Amazing Catholics of 2011?

2011-12-26T14:10:00.000-08:00

1. Shahbaz Bhatti

On March 2 masked men sprayed Shahbaz Bhatti’s car with bullets as he left his mother’s home. Shahbaz, a brilliant lawyer and the only Christian Minister in the country’s government, was murdered for opposing Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. David Cameron called his assassination “absolutely brutal and unacceptable”.

In his role as Federal Minister for Minorities, Shahbaz frequently criticised the abuse of the blasphemy laws, saying they were used as a pretext to persecute innocent Christians. He knew that he was endangering his own life by speaking out. Pakistani law can impose execution or life imprisonment for offences against Islam. Shahbaz had received death threats since 2009. He predicted his death in a video, in which he said bravely: “I believe in Jesus Christ who has given his own life for us… I’m living for my community… and I will die to defend their rights.”

In August 2009, after reports of a Koran being desecrated in the Punjab province, anti-Christian mobs killed eight people. Shahbaz called for better civil and legal protection for the Christian community. He was also the most vociferous speaker in defence of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was on death row because she was found guilty of insulting Mohammed.

In 1985, as a university student, Shahbaz put his head above the parapet when he co-founded and led Pakistan’s Christian Liberation Front. His early work of sticking up for Christians proved good preparation for becoming the chairman of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance in 2002.

Shahbaz only served 28 months in government, but from the beginning he took several courageous approaches in support of religious minorities. He launched the national campaign for interfaith harmony and proposed to make hate speech illegal, as well as proposing the introduction of quotas for religious minorities in government posts.

Shahbaz also pioneered the establishment of a National Interfaith Consultation in July 2010, which was the impetus for bringing together senior religious leaders from all religions and from all over Pakistan and resulted in their signing a joint declaration against terrorism.

Shahbaz was the recipient of many prestigious awards, from the Human Rights Award in 2004 to the International Freedom of Religion Award in 2009. He was also awarded a PhD by South Korea University in recognition for his interfaith work.

The fact that Shahbaz paid the ultimate price for standing up for his fellow Christians is inspiring others to continue his work.

On July 2 Aid to the Church in Need and the British Pakistani Christian Association delivered petitions with over 6,000 names to 10 Downing Street. The petitions called for action to protect Christians and other minorities in Pakistan.

2. Dylan Parry

The “reluctant sinner”, as Dylan Parry is known to those who read his blog, masterminded the creation of a pioneering guild for Catholic bloggers in Britain. Aiming to unite bloggers in the “real world”, the guild arranges events and meetings for Catholic bloggers to meet face to face and share about the joys and woes of evangelising views online.

Dylan took inspiration from St Paul who exhorts us “therefore encourage each other, and build each other up”. Last May, Dylan was invited to the Vatican meeting for bloggers where he met Mgr Paul Tighe of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications who supported Dylan’s idea of setting up a guild that would benefit both the Church and bloggers. The guild adopted Blessed Titus Brandsma, killed by the SS after he criticised anti-Jewish marriage laws as a patron.

The guild held its first official meeting on the freakishly hot October 1, when 15 Catholic bloggers came from all over Britain to guild chaplain Fr Tim Finigan’s parish of Blackfen. The guild is open to a diverse mixture of Catholics and has done nothing that challenges the independence of bloggers.

From the growing success of the guild, to its great contribution to Catholic life in Britain, so much gratitude is due to Dylan. His blog imparts a palpable sense of love for the Lord and His ways. While Dylan’s blogposts offer a strong defence of Catholic teaching, they are never hard-hearted or condescending.

3. Mgr Keith Newton

Pope Benedict personally appointed Mgr Keith Newton as Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, after he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood in January, having resigned as a Church of England bishop last year.

On April 1 Pope Benedict received Mgr Newton in a private audience. This was taken as a sign of the Holy Father’s continued support for the ordinariate. Mgr Newton, accompanied by Cardinal Levada and Bishop Hopes, presented the Holy Father with gifts on behalf of the ordinariate.

A tireless champion of the ordinariate, Mgr Newton cares for each Anglican group swimming the Tiber. He values catechetics highly and knows precisely how each group is benefiting from catechetical programmes like Evangelium. He spent much of 2011 travelling around the country and meeting ordinariate groups, from the Black Country to the community of St Luke’s in Kennington, south London.

Last July Mgr Newton led members of the ordinariate to their spiritual home during the Pilgrimage of Reparation and Consecration to Walsingham. He was the main speaker at the Towards Advent Festival at Westminster Cathedral where he gave a talk on “Joy and Hope in the Church” and described his spiritual fulfilment at being in full communion with the Pope. A large crowd heard Mgr Newton’s talk. After he spoke he was greeted with resounding applause.

Mgr Newton has never lost his optimism and good humour, even when he has faced limited resources, including inadequate funds and a lack of accommodation for clergy and their families.

4. Bishop Mark Davies

Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury was only installed as bishop in October 2010 but has already established himself as one of the most articulate, astute and prayerful bishops of our times, living by his maxim: “My task is to announce the Gospel.”

In October Bishop Davies responded to a report from the Care Quality Commission that underscored the failure in many hospitals to care for elderly people by saying that “the neglect of the elderly… may be a symptom of the ‘culture of death’ that has grown out of the loss of respect for human life following decades of abortion”.

The following month he addressed an audience at a synagogue in Manchester on how the Holocaust teaches us to be vigilant in defence of life. Bishop Davies stressed that we must fight “the return of eugenic thinking directed against the unborn and the most vulnerable deemed unfit to live or threatened with mercy killing”.

Bishop Davies warmed the hearts of traditional Catholics when he agreed to the establishment of the first house for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in England and Wales in the Wirral. This church is becoming a centre for the Extraordinary Form Mass.

A firm advocate of the rosary, he often prays this prayer for the priests of his diocese and the rest of England and makes them aware that he does so. Renewal and support for the priesthood is a motif of Bishop Davies’s preaching and actions.

He is fond of the St John Vianney quote: “The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.” Bishop Davies has arranged for a relic of the patron saint of parish priests to tour his diocese in July.

5. Thomas Peters

Thomas Peters is like a modern-day St Paul of the Catholic blogosphere. The 26-year-old founded his blog, American Papist, in 2005 with the intention of documenting his journey of following the Pope and hoping to attract fellow “papists.” Six years on, and now combined with CatholicVote.org, his blog is read by tens of thousands every day. As it continues to gain popularity, Peters gathers what he terms “web elves”: Catholics who give him information and details that furnish his blog posts.

Peters was voted the best Catholic to follow on Twitter in 2011 and was the most active participant in the Vatican Meeting for Bloggers, during which he asked if the Vatican would make Catholic bloggers privy to sensitive documents in the same way they do the mainstream media outlets.

Peters was homeschooled, got his university education at Ave Maria, Florida, and did extensive postgraduate study in theology at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. He has often said that it is his study of theology that underpins much of his success in communicating the eternal truths of Christ on the web.

Peters works in Washington DC as communications director for the American Principles Project, an organisation founded by Dr Robert George with the aim of upholding the values of human life, traditional marriage and safeguarding the innocence of young children in the US Constitution.

He has been quoted by such major media outlets as BBC News, CNN and the Daily Telegraph among many others.

6. The Mizens

In May 2008 Jimmy Mizen was celebrating his 16th birthday with a visit to buy a lottery ticket when he and his brother were attacked by a local troublemaker, Jake Fahri. Coming to the aide of his sibling, Jimmy was stabbed in the neck and bled to death in his brother’s arms.

Jimmy’s devout Catholic parents, Barry (pictured) and Margaret, have since devoted much of their lives to fostering peace. In May 2009 they took part in an ecumenical service called “Building a Legacy of Peace” at Westminster Cathedral, conducted by Archbishop Vincent Nichols and with close to 1,000 people in attendance, including the Prince of Wales, Schools Minister Vernon Coaker and Jimmy’s school friends. Barry and Margaret spoke at the Hyde Park vigil during the papal visit, sharing how their Catholic faith has helped them overcome losing Jimmy at such a young age, a talk that brought hushed silence to a crowd of 90,000 people.

They founded the Jimmy Mizen Foundation, which aims to organise practical initiatives that bring out the best in young people. So far they’ve arranged apprenticeship placements, and the foundation helps young people find employment with local businesses. This year, they raised enough funds to buy “Jimmy buses” for local scout groups in Lewisham.

Barry and Margaret, who have eight other children, travel around England giving talks to parents, young people and teachers. In schools, prisons and youth clubs they speak about the grave necessity of anger management and preventing violence.

7. Robert Colquhoun

The British pro-life movement has been waiting for a dynamic young leader like Robert Colquhoun for some time. Robert led two 40 Days for Life prayer events in 2011, with 1,000 pro-lifers (including countless newcomers) taking part. Members of pro-life groups such as the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants and SPUC stood side-by-side to pray and offer pro-life literature to pregnant mothers. During the last event at least eight women decided against abortion.

Robert has diligently articulated pro-life apologetics to the secular media. He was interviewed by Liz Ashfield, who wrote in the Times that pro-lifers are often much better in reality than the distorted image projected of them.

Some of his lesser-known achievements in 2011 include being involved in public awareness days around London, inviting Dr Janet Smith to come to the Carmelite Priory, Oxford, and lead a Theology of the Body weekend retreat, which was attended by 25 young people, and organising a Theology of the Body symposium co-organised with St Mary’s University in Twickenham, which was attended by 260 people.

Robert is a committed Catholic but wants to engage with people of all religions in the struggle to end abortion.

8. Mother Assumpta Long

Mother Assumpta Long is the Michigan-based superior and co-founder of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. This is a relatively new religious order and is brimming with young vocations. The average age of vocation is 21 and the average age in the whole community is 28.

It all started in 1996 when Mother Assumpta was inspired by John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata, which invited members of religious orders to revitalise their vocation. Mother Assumpta and three other nuns founded the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. After their canonical establishment, Mother Assumpta accepted an invitation from Bishop Mengeling to teach in the Diocese of Lansing. Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan gave them start-up funding and asked them to teach in the Spiritus Sanctus Academies. Mother Assumpta’s sisters are trained to be teachers and the Spiritus Sanctus Academies will grow as the order produces more vocations.

They now have many convents in several US cities and the Sisters were twice profiled by Oprah during 2010, after which more vocations came. Mother Assumpta holds retreats for young women to help them discover if they have a vocation, and the order’s website is perhaps the best of its kind.

9. Sister Valsa John

On the night of November 15 in Jharkhand, eastern India, Sister Valsa John was dragged from her bed by 30 to 40 people and hacked to death with sickles and axes. The nun from Kerala was only 53, but was a sworn enemy of the “mining mafia” of Jharkhand’s coal-rich region. For 20 years she had been a whistleblower on the displacement of tribal people, the expropriation of their land by the coal miners and pollution from the coal mines, and she even caused one major coal company to shut down.

The Sister had for years received death threats and was continually intimidated by people connected with the coal miners. Her family have revealed that she received a death threat a few hours before her murder.

She was arrested in May 2007 on the grounds that she had protested against the forced acquisitions of lands for Panem Coal Mines, but was not charged, and after being released she made a compromise where Panem could acquire the land in exchange for alternative land, employment, a health centre and free education for the children of the exiled tribal families. Sister Valsa then ran a school that offered free education to 140 children and provided a dispensary with free medical aid.

Thousands of people attended her funeral which was concelebrated by 50 priests.

10. Mary Kraychy

Mary Kraychy is the Chicago-based founder and director of Coalition Ecclesia Dei, a Catholic lay movement that seeks to widen the use of the Extraordinary Form Mass and Gregorian chant. She is the creator and publisher of the ubiquitous A5 Red Missals. She has industriously worked to make the missals for following the Latin Mass readily available all over the world.

After Blessed Pope John Paul II issued his apostolic letter Ecclesia Dei, Mary started sending out a monthly newsletter and directory of Extraordinary Form Masses in north America since 1988. In 2007, Mary changed the Ecclesia Dei website to promote the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum, as well as taking advantage of the eased restrictions on the Extraordinary Form Mass to form links with seminaries teaching the Tridentine Mass and Catholic publishers.

She is as devoted to Catholic social action as she is to liturgy. In 1978 she co-founded Aid for Women, an organisation providing practical help to teenagers and other women in crisis pregnancy so that their circumstances wouldn’t force them into abortions.

For six years Mary has been the Vice President of Una Voce America. Perhaps the folk song writer Laurence England will be inspired to write a ballad about her contribution to the life of the Church.

I wrote this ten-profile spread for the Christmas edition of The Catholic Herald.

The Clancy Bros at Christmas

2011-12-25T14:19:00.000-08:00

Mulier Fortis could swing her cats to this. And Rocco Palmo could practise his Irish language skills; Rocco is quite the fan of the Irish language.

Happy Christmas - Nollaig Shona daoibhse

2011-12-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

'Nollaig Shona daoibhse' - Happy Christmas to you all!

May the Divine Son and the Blessed Virgin Mary pour upon you the richest Christmas blessings and joy. May you have fun, fine wine and good cheer.

I pulled a Christmas cracker at lunch and got the joke; 'what do you call a train full of professors? A tube of smarties.'

When you rejoice in the birth of the Christ Child, please pray for this fighting-for-his-life six inch baby

2011-12-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

I promised an update on the Catholic lady – a good friend of a journalism colleague – who had been planning to have an abortion after learning of her surprise pregnancy. Let’s call the lady ‘S’. ‘S’’s situation is so ambiguous that I was never sure that I could write ‘she has not had an abortion’ – for fear that she would have 'the procudure' while I was typing. ‘S’ is still pregnant, but has not decided against abortion. ‘S’ was in blind panic and had been going to have an abortion as soon as she could lift the phone to arrange an appointment, spring to the clinic with her NHS number handy and later go to confession ‘to make it all alright’. But between her hysteria at learning of her unexpected pregnancy and today Christmas Eve – it’s almost as if she has ‘forgotten’ that she’s pregnant. Her housemates do not know that she is pregnant and her employer is oblivious to the fact that if she keeps the baby, that she may not show up for work on the day of delivery, sometime in May. ‘S’ has decided to overlook the pregnancy for the time-being, a sort of, ‘it things get better then I’ll have the baby’ and ‘an abortion might feel better tomorrow’.

‘S’ is now a little less than 18 weeks, so the little babe now weighs a little under 190 grams, about the same weight as the very heavy piece of Christmas pudding that I’ve been promising myself, or the weight of 28 Euro coins. ‘S’ boyfriend is indifferent; he has stuck with her but has said, ‘anything that she decides is alright with me.’ To be clear; ‘S’ may have an abortion if life becomes tougher, but if life becomes easier then this will be her ‘sign’ that she may continue the pregnancy.

It is certain that ‘S’ will not go for an abortion tomorrow. She will be at Mass and will celebrate a turkey dinner with her friends, who do not know that there will be a secret guest present as they pull crackers and drink red wine.

I feel an urgent call to ask you for prayers for ‘S’ tomorrow – that the image of Baby Jesus in the crib will kindle in her heart thoughts of making a definite decision to keep the baby. If ‘S’ continues to plan that she may have an abortion when times turn harder, then it’s as if the sword of Damocles hangs over the little mite.

Life has such highs and lows. There will be challenges ahead for ‘S’, who is very vulnerable to any instability. ‘S’ may get a big bill, receive a cross word from her employer and have a falling-out with a friend, all these could cause her to rush into an abortion.

One fact about abortion in British society that I have learnt from bitter experience is that – it does not prize reflection on the major decision: ‘S’ might run into a clinic as soon as she says that she wants an abortion – they will ask her for her address and date of birth and then take her to a room for a scan that won’t be shown to her and then to another room…

There are lots of festivities going on in my house for Christmas Eve, we had a delicious salmon supper with sauvignon blanc and someone dug out a Cliff Richards’ record and we were serenaded by Mistletoe and Wine. We’ve been having a jolly, grand old time of it. But, truly, I feel an urgent need to ask for your prayers tomorrow; that we may join in prayer and that we will be like a chorus, with each new voice making our petition more distinct.

The forbidden word...

2011-12-23T14:56:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of The Daily Telegraph, I learned that Members of the US House of Representatives have been banned from using ‘Merry Christmas’ when they address their constituents. They may only use the ‘have a safe holiday’ type of bland, trite greetings that could possibly have the word ‘merry’ as in ‘Merry Holidays’, but certainly not…dare I type it…’Christmas’. The ruling does not prevent congressmen from using greetings per se – just greetings that mention Christ.

What would the punishment be for a member of the US House of Representatives if they did use the forbidden word? Would it be too unlike the cartoon above depicting children getting into trouble for cursing obscenities? The irony is that while the word ‘Christmas’ may not be used by the members of the House of Representatives in their official mail, for fear they insult a party who do not believe in Christmas, it actually offends the silent majority of Christians who may be affronted that the name for the-time-when-we-celebrate-Christ’s-birth has become a forbidden word, as though it were an obscenity.

Santa's Identity Crisis

2011-12-23T14:08:00.000-08:00

Have yourself a merry little Christmas...

2011-12-23T05:11:00.000-08:00

A 21 year-old Judy Garland stars in Meet me in St Louis. Margaret O'Brien who plays Tootie won an Oscar for her portrayal of the child who is heartbroken that they are leaving St Louis, and who declares; "I'm taking all my dolls, the dead ones too!"

From Padre Pio's handwritten diary - Jesus's newborn cries were "the first ransom for our redemption"

2011-12-22T15:35:00.001-08:00

"Far into the night, at the coldest time of the year, in a chilly grotto, more suitable for a flock of beasts than for humans, the promised Messiah – Jesus – the savior of mankind, comes into the world in the fullness of time.

There are none who clamor around him: only an ox and an ass lending their warmth to the newborn infant; with a humble woman, and a poor and tired man, in adoration beside him.

Nothing can be heard except the sobs and whimpers of the infant God. And by means of his crying and weeping he offers to the Divine justice the first ransom for our redemption.

He had been expected for forty centuries; with longing sighs the ancient Fathers had implored his arrival. The sacred scriptures clearly prophesy the time and the place of his birth, and yet the world is silent and no one seems aware of the great event. Only some shepherds, who had been busy watching over their sheep in the meadows, come to visit him. Heavenly visitors had alerted them to the wondrous event, inviting them to approach his cave.

So plentiful, O Christians, are the lessons that shine forth from the grotto of Bethlehem! Oh how our hearts should be on fire with love for the one who with such tenderness was made flesh for our sakes! Oh how we should burn with desire to lead the whole world to this lowly cave, refuge of the King of kings, greater than any worldly palace, because it is the throne and dwelling place of God! Let us ask this Divine child to clothe us with humility, because only by means of this virtue can we taste the fullness of this mystery of Divine tenderness.
Glittering were the palaces of the proud Hebrews. Yet, the light of the world did not appear in one of them. Ostentatious with worldly grandeur, swimming in gold and in delights, were the great ones of the Hebrew nation; filled with vain knowledge and pride were the priests of the sanctuary. In opposition to the true meaning of Divine revelation, they awaited an officious savoir, who would come into the world with human renown and power.
But God, always ready to confound the wisdom of the world, shatters their plans. Contrary to the expectations of those lacking in Divine wisdom, he appears among us in the greatest abjection, renouncing even birth in St. Joseph’s humble home, denying himself a modest abode among relatives and friends in a city of Palestine. Refused lodging among men, he seeks refuge and comfort among mere animals, choosing their habitation as the place of his birth, allowing their breath to give warmth to his tender body. He permits simple and rustic shepherds to be the first to pay their respects to him, after he himself informed them, by means of his angels, of the wonderful mystery.
Oh wisdom and power of God, we are constrained to exclaim – enraptured along with your Apostle – how incomprehensible are your judgments and unsearchable your ways! Poverty, humility, abjection, contempt, all surround the Word made flesh. But we, out of the darkness that envelops the incarnate Word, understand one thing, hear one voice, perceive one sublime truth: you have done everything out of love, you invite us to nothing else but love, speak of nothing except love, give us naught except proofs of love.

The heavenly babe suffers and cries in the crib so that for us suffering would be sweet, meritorious and accepted. He deprives himself of everything, in order that we may learn from him the renunciation of worldly goods and comforts. He is satisfied with humble and poor adorers, to encourage us to love poverty, and to prefer the company of the little and simple rather than the great ones of the world.
This celestial child, all meekness and sweetness, wishes to impress in our hearts by his example these sublime virtues, so that from a world that is torn and devastated an era of peace and love may spring forth. Even from the moment of his birth he reveals to us our mission, which is to scorn that which the world loves and seeks.
Oh let us prostrate ourselves before the manger, and along with the great St. Jerome, who was enflamed with the love of the infant Jesus, let us offer him all our hearts without reserve. Let us promise to follow the precepts which come to us from the grotto of Bethlehem, which teach us that everything here below is vanity of vanities, nothing but vanity."

Twitch of the mantilla to Frank Rega.
There is a Facebook page with St Pio's meditation.

Christmas blog make-over. Envy of Mr Frost's web design.

2011-12-22T15:13:00.000-08:00

May I ask what you think of the new Christmas template that I've just added? The majority of the templates that I've seen are like children's wrapping paper from 1980. I picked this one because it had holly and a good dusting of gold (one of the gifts brought to the Christ Child by The Three Kings). Not to mention its green colour scheme that symbolises Irishness; quite important for a mick-chick like me.

In the coming days The Kitsch Police may have grounds to arrest me - I'm taking a shine to those winking Merry Christmas blog signs, I'm an inch away from posting Wham's Last Christmas and Judy Garland's Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Ah, I admit it: Jack Frost's website will always be the best.

The holly and the ivy...

2011-12-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

For the love of dogs…

2011-12-22T03:02:00.000-08:00

‘Cherie, let everyone on the tube see how beautiful you are!’ cooed the man before getting down on his knees and rubbing the shiny brown mongrel; ‘Cherie’ was a type of half-terrier, half hound with ears that curled into furry balls. We were on the crowded Piccadilly Line and when the dog-owner knelt down to pet his dog; his head collided with the other passengers’ legs. Cherie was an adored canine; she had a pink flowery dog collar with her name on it. The man fed Cherie some dog biscuits, and soothed, ‘now love, the journey won’t be much longer.’

‘She’s doing fine…’ the dog-owner’s exasperated girlfriend said.

The 20-something girlfriend tried to put her hand in her boyfriend’s. But he turned from her and praised Cherie, ‘you’re being such a good dog.’ The girlfriend left a tiny sigh escape. This was ignored by the boyfriend whose eyes never left Cherie. Maybe he was trying to give his human girlfriend a message. Poor Cherie then passed some wind, and her owner became very concerned; he turned to his girlfriend and started discussing the food that Cherie had eaten that may have caused this un-lady like behaviour. Had I been the girlfriend, then I’d have left the train at the next stop and never looked back.

Walking from South Kensington tube station, I saw a woman approach wearing a tiny purple sling; a black hairy head could be seen from the top of the sling and a body with a strange, sack-shape inhabited the custom-made-to-size sling. When she walked past me, the face of a pug with eyes like rolling marbles veered out from the sling. The proud dog-owner bent her head down to kiss her pug in his sling.

Over the past number of years; I have noted a difference in the way babies and dogs are treated in London Churches. Once at the 9 am at the Oratory, I saw a young mum trying to soothe a cranky baby, only for another woman to turn around and repeatedly hiss, ‘sssh! Go outside!’ But in the past week, there have been a few dogs brought into the Oratory, some have been tied up and have whined a little; other people praying in the church soothed and smiled at the dog as they passed by.

Babies don’t bite, but I’ve yet to see a baby being treated with such tender affection as reserved for four-legged friends in London society.

Pope Benedict in Roman prison...

2011-12-21T09:04:00.000-08:00

Our Pope recieved a rapturous welcome from the inmates of a Roman prison. Some of the most touching scenes include a man presenting the Pope with a picture of his wife and baby, and another inmate showing the Pope his artwork of a white dove flying from black prison bars, as well as one presenting the Pope with freshly cooked bread. There may be rumours that B16 is in ill-health, but he looked well and relaxed among his fans in the prison, if not a little bowled over by their resounding applause.

The wonder of life...

2011-12-21T08:32:00.000-08:00

St Anthony finds tea again…

2011-12-20T14:05:00.000-08:00

I gazed at the boxes of redbush or rooibus tea in the supermarket, but didn’t pick up a box and moved on. It’s that time of year when expenses are high and three pounds for a box of nice-tasting, aromatic tea is too much, especially when my shopping bill would have been money enough to feed villages in Africa. I looked at the ‘black tea’ – and had the choice of buying own-brand tea for 30p, but didn’t, because the ‘economical’ tea bags can taste more like caffeinated tar, as opposed to smooth, refreshing tea. And the boxes of ‘quality’ black tea were a little expensive. Mentally I prayed to St Anthony to ‘find’ me tea, so that Scrooge that I am, wouldn’t have to buy it. Well, I was flabbergasted. A few days ago, a girl who lived near me but whom I hardly knew, was packing up and moving away, and she left a box of redbush/rooibus tea for me, and I had never mentioned that I wanted this type of tea. Then when out for Christmas dinner with some close friends, I had the pleasure of receiving some lovely gifts, one of which was a box of Barry’s Tea. My friend explained; ‘I was in Ireland and thought of you when I saw this tea, it just seemed right to get you Barry’s tea…’
I took a photo of the two pround boxes of tea. Moral of the story; ask St Anthony for things; you might just be pleasantly surprised...

When a child is born...

2011-12-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

While it's not the most pious of Christmas songs - it's very uplifting and has a uniquely Christmassy atmosphere. It was number one for three weeks in the far and distant decade of the 1970s. For very serious Johnny Mathis fans here's a treat. Warning; I will publish any comments/e-mails telling me that instead of listening to Johnny Mathis I ought to be listening to Gregorian Chant.

Padre Pio on Pope Pius XII: “I have seen him in Paradise”

2011-12-20T12:49:00.000-08:00

After Pope Pius XII died on October 9^th, 1958, a nun, Sr Pascalina Lehnert wrote to San Giovanni Rotondo and asked what were Padre Pio’s thoughts on Pope Pius XII. When Padre Pio was asked about the recently departed Pope Pius XII, Padre Pio wore a face that looked transfigured, answered; ‘he is in Paradise.’ When Padre Pio was pressed to give more detail he said; ‘yes, I have seen him in Paradise.’ It is a short, but significant example of Padre Pio’s supernatural knowledge. If only little accounts like this were better known – they would impress nobler and higher thoughts of heavenly realms and what we must strive for.

About Padre Pio’s statement that Pope Pius XII was in heaven, Father Agostino wrote in his Diary on November 18 th 1958: "Padre Pio was very sad for the death of Pope Pio XII. But Our Lord let him see the Pope in the glory of Paradise."

Padre Pio strict with women who wore trousers? Padre Pio was equally severe with men about their sartorial selections including some men who wore trousers…

2011-12-20T09:10:00.000-08:00

Padre Pio refused a Canadian lady absolution and told her to return home. The lady had been selling women’s trousers in her clothes shop in Vancouver, but she had travelled all the way to Italy to meet Padre Pio. But when she went into the confessional, Padre Pio asked her to go home, dispose of all the trousers in her shop and not even to donate any of the items to women who might wear them.

When I first read this account – I thought it was exaggerated. I did further research because it did seem as though some anti-women-wearing-trousers webpages were using an incident where Padre Pio told a woman (who made her living from selling women’s clothes) as an exemplar to prove the erroneousness of women wearing trousers. But the account of the women-who-sold-trousers-and-was-refused-absolution is genuine and was published in the book Arrivederci, Padre Pio. But to recount this story without bearing in mind how Padre Pio suffered when he had to refuse someone absolution is not only an injustice to Padre Pio’s character, but it also makes it sound as though Padre Pio was gratuitously punishing the lady. When asked why he, on occasion, closed the small confessional in the faces of some, Padre Pio said, "Don't you know?" he asked, "what pain it costs me to shut the door on anyone? The Lord has forced me to do so…I am His useless tool."

Much is also made of Padre Pio’s disdain for mini-skirts; the sign that was displayed in the San Giovanni Church read; ‘by Padre Pio’s explicit wish women must enter the confessional wearing skirts at least 8 inches below the knee. It is forbidden to borrow longer dresses in church and to wear them for the Confessional’. Again, I’ve often heard it cited by both Catholics and non-Catholics that if Padre Pio was against mini-skirts, then us women folk should not wear them.

Padre Pio is often painted as a stern figure who had behind-the-times ‘issues’ with women’s clothes. But Padre Pio was no misogynist. It is often forgotten that Padre Pio was as strict with men about clothing – men were not permitted to enter the church with short or three-quarter length sleeves or short trousers or shorts. Both boys and men had to wear long trousers, or else they were shown out of the church. In the 1960’s, Padre Pio’s fort was one of the few churches where the fashions of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s were favoured over those of the 1960s. But I would love to hear Padre Pio’s opinion on some men that I have known who like to show off their 'designer' underwear while wearing low jeans, but then criticise women in trousers.

Padre Pio also admonished priests for their sartorial ‘disguise’. One day a gentleman dressed smartly in a jacket, tie and pants was in the sacristy waiting for Padre Pio. When Padre Pio clapped eyes on this sophisticated man he said, ‘Father, you came in disguise, but you don’t have to be ashamed, next time come dressed as a priest.’

Once Padre Pio met a young man who was in trousers and a sweater – Padre Pio told him to come back wearing the cowl of St Dominic. The man was flabbergasted, but confessed to being a Dominican priest. In this instance, Padre Pio showed-up a man who was wearing ordinary trousers because it hid the fact that the man was a priest.
(Not to got off the topic, but there is an ancient Golden Girls episode where Dorothy, the swotty, opinionated, tall-as-a-tree school teacher falls for a fellow who dresses in jeans and a shirt – until she finds out that he’s a priest - he comes to her house for dinner dressed in a clerical garb to show her that he’s unavailable. He revealed that he was a priest a bit late – Dorothy is distraught. Sophia (Sicilian widow who once when trying to woo another Italian dressed all in thick black head-to-toe, ‘so he’ll know I’m available!’) struts down to the Church to give the priest a piece of her mind.)

When other great and highly esteemed Catholics like GK Chesterton and Cardinal Siri argue about what women should and shouldn’t wear, there is a sense that they think only women have a responsibility for dressing well and for modesty. Not to affront GK Chesterton fans, but his remarks on women wearing trousers are crass: ‘as a little while ago it was common for an "advanced" woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as grotesque as the right to wear a false nose...’ Chesterton may have been writing in a time when the dictatorship of politically correctness did not reign, but by only stating, in his opinion, that women in trousers may be ‘grotesque’, without remarking on men's ‘grotesque’ choices of clothes, he presents an unbalanced argument.

One can say that Padre Pio had unfair advantage in commenting on modesty and clothes – he could read minds and souls. He prevented a gangster from killing his wife, a girl from knifing her ex-boyfriend and even when a priest ‘in civvies’ approached him, he knew he was a priest because Padre Pio could see the indelible mark of ordination of the priest’s soul. But for the advantage of us ordinary people who cannot read souls, Padre Pio gave this advice; ‘nothing represents an object more faithfully or clearly than a mirror. In the same way, nothing more widely represents the good or bad qualities of a soul than the greater or lesser regulation of the exterior, as when one appears more or less modest…the internal virtue of modesty, which regulates the external workings of the body.’

When Padre Pio was explaining how the exterior of a person reflects their interior – he did not say that this applies more to women than to men. And this is the problem with modern commentary and debate on fashion and clothes – it is often about contesting what women should and should not wear – while forgetting that men too bear a responsibility to be modest.

How Padre Pio had supernatural knowledge of languages, including Greek which has a separate alphabet

2011-12-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

Padre Pio never studied French at school or by learning it from a book, yet he could speak it. It was Padre Agostino who asked Padre Pio where his ability to speak French came from; and the reply was that his Guardian Angel gave him knowledge of the French language.

This same Guardian Angel used to translate Greek for Padre Pio. In Padre Pio’s home town of Pietrelcina there was a priest who sent a letter written in Greek to Padre Pio with a request that Padre Pio’s Guardian Angel would translate the letter. Padre Pio explained every nuance in the letter, and the priest in Pietrelcina make an official written statement; ‘Pietrelcina; 25 August 1919; I state and undersign that after receiving the letter, Padre Pio explain all the content; I asked Padre Pio how was this possible for him to read the letter since he had never studied the Greek alphabet and he said; ‘my Guardian Angel explained it to me.’

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

2011-12-18T10:25:00.000-08:00

While we’re on the subject of folk music, this is my favourite song and here’s the best video for it on YouTube.

Gaudete...

2011-12-18T09:51:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Wikipedia, I learned that in 1972 Steeleye Span’s rendition of Gaudete reached number 14 in the charts and was performed on Top of the Pops. Goes to show that new productions of Latin Christmas carols can be successes.

Blogger back from hibernating… Return to my natural habitat…

2011-12-18T09:34:00.000-08:00

Like a hedgehog that hibernates during the coldest months of the year, I’ve been hibernating from blogging. I, a Hibernian blogger, forsook my natural habitat of the blogosphere in order to concentrate on longer writing projects.
The problem with continuous blogging is that posting a blog is often only the beginning of the work – comments need to be moderated and if a subject touches a nerve – then there will be lots of follow-up personal e-mails from readers. Last July, I remember staying up until 4 am when moderating the comments left on the contrasts between John Corapi and Padre Pio post. I deleted nearly as many comments as I published; obscenities, who needs them? Some people got in touch to say that since John Corapi’s ‘fall from grace’ that they had doubted their own faith and had thought of leaving the Church.
In this type of situation, it can be very difficult to choose between my immediate duties; meeting journalism deadlines and getting interviews Or trying to point out that disappointment with John Corapi was not reason enough to abandon the Church.
There is also the matter that I have the concentration span of a-mosquito-on-speed, and anything to do with by beloved blog can distract me from bigger writing assignments.
The advice given by the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook is that ‘a blog is a living thing, if you don’t feed it, it will die…’ So now after a few months absence, this is my return from hibernation.
But it is still a cold time of year, the pickings are slim and the choice is often between trying to make a crust as a journalist or blogging. Hedgehogs do not hibernate endlessly and they wake from slumber to go in search of food to keep going during the winter freeze.
In the same way that Hedgehog protection groups advise that house-holders who wish to help hedgehogs survive the winter leave out food like cat biscuits and peanuts, readers of my blog can prevent me going back into hibernation. Unlike a hedgehog, I need not wait until spring to become fully active again…

The Pope's Christmas Card...

2011-12-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

Oooh, I wish that I were a recipient of a Christmas card from the Pope! I'd frame it and hang it on the wall for decades to come. I'd use it for my social-climbing purposes; if visitors came round then I'd find some reason to dust the framed card and remark in a stage whisper, 'oh my card from the Pope is speckled in dust! We can't have that!' I'd take my framed card and march up Notting Hill to the Carmelites and ask them to give the card a Carmelite blessing and then down the hill again, and walk across crispy-with-frozen-grass Princess Gardens toward Brompton and ask the Oratory Fathers to give the card an Oratorian blessing. Then by the time I would have bored and irritated everyone by showing off the card, I'd be lucky to receive one card next year!

But I've done nothing to merit getting one of Pope Benedict's cards. And at the end of the day, it's a greeting card, albeit a card from the most distinguished Catholic priest in the world and the leader that us 1.14 billion Catholics are blessed with. I'll stop coveting B16’s card and treasure all the Christmas cards from my friends, past pupils and former love interests.

The most famous picture of Padre Pio...

2011-12-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

was taken by Elia Stelluto in the 1940's.

One reason that the photo is of such high-quality is that Elia used a flash camera, which irked Padre Pio. Elia described his experience of getting the photo -
"One day the photographer Federico Abresh, asked me if i would take a picture of Padre Pio with the flash, at the moment when He turned to the assembly to give the final blessing. He said that he would give me 5000 lire (the equivalent of what I could make in a year). Padre Pio was known to dislike the light of the flash, and it was prohibited to use it.

I prepared myself during the Mass, and took the picture from about five feet. Padre Pio didn't like the flash. After the Mass I went to him in the sacristy to apologize.

And he was very sweet and made me promise to "take as many pictures as you want, but never use anymore that mousetrap" (the bulky flash of the old days). I will never forget the moment that I took that picture of Padre Pio with the white carnations in the background. By the way, I refused the 5000 lire, because I had made Padre Pio mad."

O Come, O Come Emmanuel...

2011-12-12T08:58:00.001-08:00

The few but worthy comparisons between Padre Pio and Fr Frank Pavone

2011-10-10T01:28:00.000-07:00

Other than the fact that they were both christened Francis. And that the indelible mark of the Holy Spirit was inscribed on their souls on their ordination to the priesthood.

Padre Pio lived in a time of great change and confusion; a generation of Catholics in the 60s were asking if abortion was becoming more acceptable. There was a creeping idea that ‘it’s a matter of conscience’.

Right throughout his priestly ministry, Padre Pio never shirked revealing the vileness of abortion. When Padre Pio was enlightening Padre Pellegrino why he had not given absolution to a woman whose sin was abortion he said; “The day, in which people, frightened by the economic boom, from physical damages or from economic sacrifices, will lose the horror of the abortion, it will be the most terrible day for humanity. Abortion is not only homicide but also suicide.”

Padre Pio was thought to be very harsh with post-abortive women; but I took an eye-witness account from Dónal Enright who knew a woman who was initially declined absolution from Padre Pio; after which the lady reformed her life and when she returned to Padre Pio, he granted her absolution. Afterwards, Dónal (LEFT) said that ‘she smiled; looking like the happiest person alive’ and that she was certain that her life was changed for the better.

While Padre Pio was not a pro-life activist like Fr Frank; he did write an incredibly influential letter of support to Paul VI in the aftermath of Humanae Vitae. That a saint commended and endorsed the most contested encyclical of modern times was remarkable then, but for all times Padre Pio will stand out as the mystic, reader of souls, who was published in L’Osservatore Romano as having written: ‘I thank Your Holiness for the clear and decisive words You have spoken in the recent encyclical, "Humanae Vitae".’

The humble friar, who bore the wounds of Christ, said that Humanae Vitae was a ‘defense of those eternal truths which can never change with the times.’ One little know fact is that Padre Pio hung a picture of Paul VI in his cell, alongside the cherished photos of his parents.

I was not privileged to live during the time when Padre Pio walked this earth. But for my generation of twenty-something Catholics, no other priest is as synonymous with the pro-life cause for us as Fr Frank Pavone. He hails from New York and was ordained in 1988 by Cardinal John O’Connor. For eighteen years, since 1993, Fr Frank has led Priests For Life.

Like the absolute majority of the world’s population, Fr Frank does not have the vast array of spiritual gifts that Padre Pio had (including the ability to read the souls of penitents), but Fr Frank has nonetheless upheld the teachings of Humanae Vitae in his two books, Ending Abortion, Not Just Fighting It, and Pro-life Reflections for Every Day. If Padre Pio said the truths of Humanae Vitae are for all time; then Fr Frank has inherited the mission of defending them in this age. Abby Johnson credits Fr Frank in having had a vital role in her conversion; in her ‘pro-choice’ days she was an avid viewer of his TV show and he came to pray outside the clinic where she was a director.

In his time Padre Pio insisted on giving post-abortive women the best spiritual, in our age Fr Frank has been at the forefront of pioneering developments for women hurt by abortion. He has held the role of pastoral director for the US of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign and of Rachel’s Vineyard, the world’s largest ministry facilitating healing after an abortion.

And now we come to the key parallels between Padre Pio and Fr Frank: how they reacted (and coped) with their priestly ministries being curtailed.

On June 11 1931, Padre Raffaele called Pio to the friary parlour and read this decree; "Padre Pio is to be stripped of all faculties of his priestly ministry except the faculty to celebrate the Holy Mass, which he may continue to do provided it is done in private, within the walls of the friary, in the inner chapel, and not publicly in church".

Padre Pio answered; “God's will be done." Then he covered his eyes with his hands, bowed his head, and was emphatic that; "The will of the authorities is the will of God."

During the time of this ‘imprisonment’, Padre Pio was devoted his time to praying, studying and joking with his fellow friars. But the two year period when Padre Pio was ‘stripped of all faculties of his priestly ministry’ except a daily private Mass, caused Padre Pio great suffering. Padre Pio did not wear a frown and grumble; but in confidence he unburdened his heart to Padre Agostino.

In March 1933, When Pope Pius XI ordered representatives to see Padre Pio, they (Mgr Pasetto and Mgr Bevilaqua) found Padre Pio to be a good tempered, humorous and an entirely devout friar.

Like Padre Pio, Fr Frank has obeyed the Church hierarchy in every single regard.

As of last month, Fr Frank was recalled to his home diocese of Amarillo and has been staying in a modest, cramped convent room. When he was called to Amarillo, Fr Frank requested to return to New York for 24 hours to attend an appointment with his doctor, collect some personal items and speak with his parents. This request has been postponed and Fr Frank was told to stay in Amarillo. Bishop Zurek has since stated that he called Fr Pavone to Amarillo partly out of concern for his health and wellbeing. It is the opinion of some people closest to Fr Frank that he may need this time of rest and retreat; as he has been ‘burning the candle at both ends’ and working tirelessly in pro-life for almost two decades.

Currently, Fr Frank is situated in a convent several miles down a long dirt road, in the desolate Texan wilderness. His room, like every room in the convent has a shovel; so that he may use it to instantly kill the many snakes that slither in. Fr Frank is handed his meals on a tray and mostly eats alone, except occasionally when he is allowed to join the nuns. This sounds like a lonely existence, but Mark Crutcher who visited Fr Frank said that ‘his spirits are very high…he shows no rancour’. Fr Frank is thankful for the many e-mails he is getting from his supporters. This brings to mind Padre Pio who kept his spirits up during his ‘imprisonment’ and even played small pranks on his fellow friars.

Fr Frank is currently not appearing on ETWN, nor will any previously recorded (already ‘in the can’) programmes featuring Fr Frank be broadcasted. This is causing some to question if Fr Frank is in good standing; anyone may ring the Diocese of Amarillo, and they will confirm that Fr Frank is a priest in good standing. But Fr Frank is for most practical purposes suspended, this was explained in a September 30^th letter from Bishop Zurek who wrote ‘Father Frank A Pavone remains suspended’. Msgr. Harold Waldow, vicar of clergy and moderator of the curia for the Diocese of Amarillo has confirmed that Father Pavone “is suspended. He has some limited ministry in the diocese.” Fr Frank is allowed to say Mass, on occasion, for the nuns in the convent.

Fr Frank is much loved, and some pro-lifers have organised public protests against his suspension/recall to the Amarillo to live in an isolated convent. Fr Frank has discouraged public demonstrations against his suspension, and has made it clear that he is not organising or lending support to public protests.

There is a parallel here to the life of Padre Pio, in that Padre Pio deterred his followers from trying to ‘help’. During his ‘imprisonment’, Padre Pio knew that some supporters were recording scandalous information about high-profile figures in the Church hierarchy with the view to compiling a book. The supporters were hoping this would help Padre Pio to be liberated from the sanctions imposed on him – a sort of you-can’t-throw-stones-at-good-Padre-Pio. But Padre Pio was angered by news of the book-that-would-expose-the-misdemeanours-of-certain-figures-in-the-hierarchy. Talking to one of the book’s chief authors, Morcaldi, Padre Pio exclaimed; "Go, throw yourself at the foot of the Church instead of writing this garbage! Don't you set yourself up against your Mother!"

In a similar way, Fr Frank has made it clear that it is never the policy of Priests For Life to set themselves in opposition to the Church; rather they resolve ‘disagreements or miscommunications that involve the Church leadership…respectfully and behind the scenes’.

We pray for Fr Frank and for his upcoming (and no doubt pivotal) meeting with Bishop.

And also pray that – in the meantime - Fr Frank is quick with the shovel and can oust any snakes from his room.

Urgent life or death prayer request…

2011-10-09T05:21:00.000-07:00

A fellow journalist dropped in to visit me last night – in a very anguished state – and told me that a good friend of hers has just found out that she’s pregnant.

The pregnant mother is in her twenties, and as always is planning to go to Mass today. On Monday she wants to arrange an abortion. This does sound as though she is very flippant about Catholic teaching, but she is in a blind panic and wants to ‘forget’ about the pregnancy as soon as possible. Scores of Catholic girls have abortions in the UK each day, and let's pray she won't be one of them - tomorrow.

I will be speaking with the pregnant mother, perhaps tonight and would be very grateful for prayers for this endeavour.

We are asking people to pray for this young mother, and with lots of abundant grace, hopefully, I will post that she is keeping the baby and then that the baby has been born.

I really enjoyed reading…

2011-10-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

One of the birthday presents for my Godchild: the fifth Girl Annual, published in 1956 by Hulton Press, but peculiarly lacking a date. I ferreted it out in an old London bookshop some years ago, and kept it till my godchild could read most of it.
One comic strip concern St Perpetua; the 22 year old nursing mother who together with her slave girl St Felicity were executed.

New Atheists may consider much of the comic strips and features to be the stuff of religious indoctrination. Not that the this decades old annual was written as some sort of light-hearted girls’ comic to assist Catholic apologetics, but the bravery of the Roman Martyrs was thought good material for a gripping story.

There is also quite an enthralling feature on the Royal Family, with illustrations of the Queen and Prince Philip; the only obvious fault of the piece is that the author overuses obsequious flattery and it becomes a sycophantic hymn to the Royal Family.

Other delights of the annual included a story about a group of friends grooming and training their dogs for a show. There were even tips on grooming the ‘feathers’ on a cocker spaniel's legs. The vocabulary and descriptions are rich; there’s no ‘dumbing-down’ for fear of condescending the child readers, or confusing them with high-brow words.

One excellent feature on the Bronte sisters chronicles where they found their inspiration to write their novels and how they persevered to finish their books. I was tempted to photocopy this and send it round to all my friends who are in love with Mr Rochester.

The 2011 Girl Annual is a very tame, trite, politically correct work, that relies-on-mythology-for-substance: there’s a story on Aphrodite’s Apple, and other bland articles entitled ‘Could it be magic?’ and ‘Dicing with Dares’ and ‘Which Greek Goddess are you?’ There’s also some features on cooking and sewing, thrown in to ensure that some tetchy feminists buy it to use as a dart board.
The one thematic comparison between the old one and the new; is that the 2011 version has a riddle about a poodle parlour. Dogs and dog-grooming still have a place in our culture as it did in 1956. St Francis would be pleased.

Interview with Julia Holcomb

2011-10-04T02:55:00.001-07:00

A life saved...by the words of someone who speaks like they are one chromosome from a squawking bird…

2011-10-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

I’m dumbfounded and goosebumps are multiplying on my shivering skin.

Minutes ago, a nun got in touch with me to tell me that she was contacted by a young girl. The girl asked the nun to tell me that she had decided against an abortion and had recently had her baby. She even asked the nun to pass on some words of thanks to yours truly.

But I never even knew that the girl had been pregnant and was contemplating an abortion.

But I met her last year. Picture it - one cold wintry evening when I was with friends, and they introduced me to their friends. This was just a random group of some good friends and new acquaintances. My friends (some of whom believe that abortions should be done for exceptions/if the mother is too young/if the mother wants to put her career first) asked me some questions about pro-life matters, and specifically why I am pro-life.

I don’t remember my exact sentiments and honestly thought that my meagre words were without effect.

Little did I know that among the group were a very young Catholic girl and her boyfriend who were planning to abort their unborn baby.

I didn’t keep in touch with the girl, either through friends or via social networking, as she was a passing acquaintance. Or so I thought.

This week, the girl contacted the nun because she knew that the nun knew me and trusted the nun to pass on the info that she has had the baby and has no regrets. She was certain that whatever I said had convinced her not to have an abortion. This is quite incredible not only because I speak nervously as though I’m one chromosome from a squawking bird – but it shows that we might never ‘know’ the influence of one tiny conversation.

But until such time as women have glass wombs – we’ll never know ‘who’ we might be speaking to – mother and baby.

PS – I’ve been officially on strike from blogging (‘real’ work; deadlines and research for journalism interfere) but I think this post had to take priority.

Pinkie the “damned”?

2011-09-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Many years ago I was writing an interminable novel so mind-numbing that it deserved a health warning. Word got out that this unpublished saga had a Catholic character who was a “baddie”. A devout Irish Catholic took me aside one day after Mass and warned me: “If you’re not careful, you’ll be like that Graham Greene!”

On another occasion I was working in a Catholic school when a Graham Greene novel was chosen for the GCSE syllabus. World War III broke out. Some concerned parents argued that students should never read Greene. They worried, in particular, that pupils would be led astray by the novel’s fallen characters.

But why hasn’t the debate on Greene and his Catholic characters been rekindled since the re-make of Brighton Rock was released on February 4^th? And especially now as DVD copies of Brighton Rock glower at us from every shelf on Sainbury’s?

Brighton Rock was the first of Greene’s “Catholic novels” and established his reputation as a Catholic novelist. Wrestling with that description in the introduction to the collected edition of Brighton Rock, Greene quoted from Blessed John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University: “If literature is to be made a study of human nature, you cannot have a Christian literature. It is a contradiction in terms to attempt a sinless literature of a sinful man.”
The most outstanding sinner in all Greene’s work is surely Pinkie Brown, the sadistic teenage gangster at the heart of Brighton Rock. From the very beginning of the novel Pinkie is desperate to prove his leadership skills with acts of shocking violence. He kills the gormless Hale so that he may avenge the previous leader of the protection racket mob. But Pinkie is a juvenile hoodlum with a difference: he is a Catholic fixated on the punishment of hellfire that he is convinced awaits him. Pinkie’s calm certainty about the reality of hell as his final destination is deeply unsettling for the Catholic reader. He plunges ever deeper into depravity, slashing people with razors, murdering to cover up murders and almost pushing his young wife to suicide. He is not exactly the type of boy that Catholic girls dream of bringing home.

Pinkie is, in fact, an extreme example of an improperly catechised Catholic. According to John Paul II, the most important foundation for practising the Catholic faith is that “in catechesis it is Christ, the Incarnate Word and Son of God, who is taught - everything else is taught with reference to Him”. The loving Christ must be the premise of all catechesis. Pinkie seems completely ignorant of his Saviour’s love for him.
Pinkie is not the only badly catechised Catholic in Brighton Rock. His wife, Rose, is another. Greene portrays her in her waitress uniform, with her rosary close at hand. If Pinkie had never crossed her path she would have stayed serving tea in Snow's Café. But she is intoxicated by the glamour of Pinkie’s evil and is fooled into marrying him.
The novel does not describe Pinkie and Rose’s catechism classes, but they were clearly lacking because of both of them are too preoccupied by the demonic and apparently unaware of God’s all-powerful love and protection.
When he is not abusing her, Pinkie offers Rose his own twisted catechesis. When they start courting he enlightens her as to why hell is real, when she is late for their wedding he snarls: “God damn her” and on their wedding night Pinkie informs her that they are committing a mortal sin by consummating their marriage because they have not married in the Church. OK – he’s not a fitting character for a Mills and Boon romance.

The novel reaches its most sinister point when Pinkie manoeuvres Rose into taking her own life. So sure is Rose of Pinkie’s love for her that she is willing to commit the ultimate sin. She will be a martyr for Pinkie’s sham love – because she does not know the love of Christ.
Ida Arnold, the true heroine of Brighton Rock, has little influence over the quietly headstrong Rose. When she accuses Rose of not knowing right from wrong we are given an insight into Rose’s formation as a Catholic. Greene says Rose’s taste for right and wrong was extinguished by the “stronger foods” of good and evil. Greene’s use of the metaphor “stronger foods” has its theological basis in St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians where the Apostle writes of the need to give milk to “infants in Christ” and not “solid food”. Rose has obviously surfeited on “stronger foods” when she needed spiritual milk.
It can be irritating for Catholics that the superstitious, bawdy and irreligious Ida saves the day, arriving with the police before Rose can destroy herself. Ida believes in “ghosts, Ouija boards and tables that rapped” yet thinks it’s futile for Rose to go to Confession at the end of the novel. But then Ida and Pinkie have something in common: the concept of a compassionate God in heaven is essentially foreign to them.

It is the old priest at the end who knows this truth and is ready to comfort Rose with “the appalling strangeness of God’s mercy”. When Rose laments that she wishes she had killed herself for love of the “damned” Pinkie, the priest demonstrates God’s love in his gentleness towards Rose and confirms the truth that “the Church does not demand that we believe any soul is cut off from mercy”.

The old priest is like Padre Pio in that he tells Rose tenderly to “hope and pray”. It is the old priest who finally speaks the catechetical truths that have been gravely absent in the minds of the main characters.

I originally published most of the above in the January 29 edition of The Catholic Herald.

PS – The remake was directed by Rowan Joffe and set in the 1960s (the original novel is set in the 1930s). The new film, which stars Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, John Hurt and Helen Mirren, has different cultural resonances than the novel and plays off the radical atmosphere of that time.

The computer demands a blog...

2011-09-26T12:39:00.000-07:00