Pope tells new cardinals they are example of unity in diversity

Pope Francis told the 21 new cardinals he created Saturday, who come from all over the world, that their diversity is a gift which must contribute to a unified “symphony” of various but united voices capable of credible evangelization.

Speaking to those gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the Sept. 30 consistory, Francis said, “Diversity is necessary; it is indispensable. However, each sound must contribute to the common design.”

“This is why mutual listening is essential: Each musician must listen to the others. If one listens only to himself, however sublime his sound may be, it will not benefit the symphony; and the same would be the case if one section of the orchestra did not listen to the others, but played as if it were alone, as if it were the whole,” he said.

Pope Francis presided over a highly-anticipated consistory Saturday during which he gave a red hat to several key allies, including them in the Church’s most exclusive club and adding them to the mix of potential future papal candidates.

Among those made cardinal Saturday, 18 of whom are under 80 and thus eligible to vote in the next conclave, are close papal friend and ghostwriter Victor Manuel Fernández, the new head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith; Robert Prevost, head of the Vatican Dicastery for Bishops, who is American; Hong Kong bishop Stephen Chow; Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa; and Christophe Pierre, the papal envoy to the United States.

Other prelates hail from Argentina, Poland, Spain, Tanzania, Malaysia, France, Venezuela, Italy and South Sudan.

In his homily, Pope Francis reflected on the day’s reading, which recounted the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, focusing on the Jewish community outside of the upper room where the apostles were gathered, and who came from all over but were able to understand one another thanks to the Holy Spirit.

Francis said there was a “surprise” hidden in the passage “in which, with joy, I seemed to recognize the humor of the Holy Spirit, so to speak.”

While the Church’s pastors typically associate themselves with the apostles in the upper room, Francis said he associated them with those who “do not belong to the group of disciples” but who gathered outside “upon hearing the noise of the rushing wind.”

“The Apostles were ‘all Galileans,’ while the people who gathered were ‘from every nation under heaven,’ just like the Bishops and Cardinals of our time,” he said.

Pope Francis said this role reversal makes one thing, and implies “applying to ourselves – I will put myself first – the experience of those Jews who by a gift of God found themselves protagonists of the event of Pentecost, that is of the ‘baptism’ by the Holy Spirit that gave birth to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

This perspective, he said, is one of rediscovering “with amazement the gift of having received the Gospel “in our own tongues.”

He urged the new cardinals to be grateful for the experience of “having been evangelized” and called from all over the world, yet forming one Church, which he called, “Mother Church, who speaks all languages, is One and is Catholic.”

Noting that faith is passed on through one’s family, Francis told the new cardinals that they will only be “evangelizers” to the extent that they allow themselves to “cherish in our hearts the wonder and gratitude of having been evangelized, even of being evangelized.”

Referring to the moment of Christian baptism, the pope said it is not a thing of the past, but is rather a creative act that is continually renewed by God, and a mystery in which faithful perpetually live.

The Church, he said, “does not live ‘off of her name,’ still less does she live off of an archeological patrimony, however precious and noble. The Church, and every baptized member, lives the today of God, through the action of the Holy Spirit.”

“You new cardinals have come from different parts of the world, and the same Spirit that made the evangelization of your peoples fruitful now renews in you your vocation and mission in and for the Church,” he said.

Comparing the College of Cardinals to an orchestra, he said it must represent “harmony and synodality of the Church.”

Francis said he chose to emphasize synodality not only because it is the theme of the Synod of Bishops set to begin next week, “but also because it seems to me that the metaphor of the orchestra can well illuminate the synodal character of the Church.”

“A symphony thrives on the skillful composition of the timbres of different instruments: each one makes its contribution, sometimes alone, sometimes united with someone else, sometimes with the whole ensemble,” he said.

In order to create this symphony, he said, it is necessary to “listen more than anyone else,” while helping each person and the orchestra itself to “develop the greatest creative fidelity: Fidelity to the work being performed, but also creative, able to give a soul to the score, to make it resonate in the here and now in a unique way.”

Pope Francis closed urging the new cardinals to “have the Holy Spirit as our master: the interior master of each one of us and the master of walking together. He creates variety and unity; He is harmony itself. We entrust ourselves to his gentle and strong guidance.”

At the beginning of the consistory, Prevost offered a greeting to the pope on behalf of the new cardinals, voicing gratitude for the appointment, which he said, “allows us to be increasingly at the service of the mission of joyfully announcing the message of the Gospel.”

Noting that every new honor carries new weight and responsibility, Prevost stressed the importance of humility, and pointed to the upcoming Synod of Bishops on Synodality, which will take place Oct. 4-29.

“Being a synodal Church that knows how to listen to everyone is the way not only to personally live the faith, but also to grow in true Christian brotherhood,” he said, saying the Church must listen above all “to the voice of God, the voice of the poor, the voice of the sick, the voice of nature.”

Apart from seeking new pastoral programs and models, which is always “necessary and important,” Prevost voiced his belief that “we must increasingly understand that the Church is fully such only when it truly listens, when it walks as the New People of God in its wonderful diversity.”

“The beauty of the universality of the Church that will be manifested in the development of the synod will be a very important sign, which will be able to speak of the mission that all of us baptized have received, in communion with the Successor of Peter and in the profession of the same faith,” he said.

Prevost closed voicing hope that the new cardinals would contribute “to making the door of the universal Church more ready to open, quicker to welcome, more capable of listening to everyone.”

The new cardinals will join Pope Francis in celebrating a Mass the moring of Oct. 4, marking the opening of the pontiff’s highly anticipated Synod of Bishops on synodality.

Former bank branch rises again as a Catholic church in small Virginia town

Like it was yesterday, Mike Marshall recalls rolling out of bed one day in 2013, and, as if a loudspeaker had gone off, he knew God was telling him to build a Catholic church in Crozet, Virginia, an outpost of just over 9,000 souls.

Now a decade later, albeit not in your typical church building, that dream is being realized.

The Crozet Catholic community, a mission within the Diocese of Richmond, will gather for the first time in their own church building on Oct. 7, in a former Bank of America branch in the heart of downtown they recently purchased for $1.72 million.

The building still looks like a bank, and likely will for some time. It’s a beige brick square building with a flat roof and two covered drive-through lanes. But beyond its appearance, the fact of owning their own space, as Marshall put it, is like “a Saturn V liftoff” (a reference to the rocket used by NASA for nine crewed flights to the moon from 1967 to 1973) for the Catholic community.

Reflecting on the past decade, Marshall acknowledges the challenges the community has faced, particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic, but said he never worried about failure.

“I didn’t really have any fear of failure. At times I felt like I didn’t understand how [God] was working, but that’s life. I never understand how life is working, but I know it’s intended and that I have to do my job,” Marshall, the longtime editor and publisher of the Crozet Gazette newspaper, told Crux.

“In my opinion, I think God means something to come out of Crozet.”

Crozet is a small town about 20 miles west of Charlottesville, home of the University of Virginia. The town’s experienced constant growth since the turn of the century. In 2000 its population was about 2,000 people, and now the population is north of 9,000, according to the latest Census figures.

Marshall, who has lived in Crozet for 42 years, said because of the growth of the community he thought there was good reason for the town to have a Catholic church. At that time, Catholics in the town belonged to parishes in Charlottesville and other surrounding areas.

Marshall said he approached the diocese with the idea in 2006, and that they sent someone out, but nothing really came of it.

With the diocese noncommittal, Marshall said he dropped the idea until that morning in 2013, when “God told [him] to get on this.” He then went around to “all of the parishes in the surrounding area” to ask each priest if they would offer Mass in Crozet, and the answers were “uniformly no.”

There was, however, one priest who eventually agreed. It was Ugandan Father Joseph Mary Lukyamuzi, who around that time had just taken over the Church of the Holy Comforter in Charlottesville. Lukaymuzi’s only stipulation was that he needed permission from Bishop Francis DiLorenzo, who led the Diocese of Richmond at the time, which was granted.

“From the way that I look at my vocation as a priest, to reach out to people, to be with the spirit of a missionary in whatever situation,” Lukaymuzi told Crux about why he agreed.

“And at that time, the diocese advocated reaching out to people who had gone away from the church and building up small Catholic communities, so I said yes because that was an occasion for me to reach out to such people,” he said.

Lukaymuzi celebrated the first Mass for what was then known as the “Crozet Catholic Community” in a local elementary school gym on March 10, 2014. Marshall said about 250 people attended. They started out with a monthly Mass that grew into a weekly Mass.

Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond then made Crozet a formal mission in 2017, as the community had about 300 parishioners attend Mass every Sunday, and a religious education program. Attendance peaked at around 550 people in 2019, Marshall said.

“We didn’t have any problem getting lift off. We knew that a lot of people in town were Catholics that would support us if we got a parish going,” Marshall said. “It grew very well.”

Lukyamuzi led Mass for the community up until that year, when Knestout turned the mission over to the Church of the Incarnation in Charlottesville, and its pastor Monsignor Timothy Keeney. Then COVID-19 hit, and like parishes nationwide, the Crozet Catholic community took a hit and lost many members.

During the pandemic, the elementary school they worshiped in was locked down to outsiders and they were “homeless,” unable to hold Mass or religious education classes. Eventually, of all places, Crozet Baptist Church allowed them to rent space and to hold Mass on Sundays at 1:30 p.m., and offered another space to restart their religious education program.

By that time, the community had fallen to about 50 parishioners.

“There was a worry universally for the church, and I think all churches, because of that steep decline, but we were sort of extra worried because we were still forming,” Betty Groth, a member of the Crozet Catholic community since its inception, and its head of communications, told Crux. “There was a lot of prayer.”

As the diocese and society began to open back up, the Crozet Catholic community began to regrow. But that growth was limited by the fact that they held Mass at 1:30 p.m. All those Crux spoke with highlighted the importance of finding their own location, in order to be able to hold a morning Mass.

The search began. They initially searched for a plot of buildable land with more acreage to eventually grow into, but had little luck. With the surrounding community experiencing such growth, a lot of the available land has already been purchased by developers.

Then, the bank went up for auction. The diocese agreed to let them put in a bid and the rest, as they say, is history. They purchased the property for $1.72 million – about $800,000 from the mission funds raised through a capital campaign, and the other approximately $900,000 taken out as a loan, Keeney said.

When the deal closed, Marshall said he couldn’t believe it. He described the location as perfect, given that it’s downtown and easy walking distance for many of the parishioners – “it sort of has that European aspect to it, where the Catholic churches are always in some sort of central spot.”

“It’s a little astonishing. It’s been a lot of exasperation,” Marshall said of the purchase.

“We thought we were going to pull the short straw and not get it, and lo and behold God gave it to us,” he continued. “The thing was, after all of this discouragement, where we thought we weren’t going to get what we’re aiming to get, in the end he delivers. I mean, [God] is just so freaking generous.”

Groth called it “providential” that they finally have a home.

“It’s completely exciting. It’s the answer to so many prayers,” Groth said. “The fact that it’s in the heart of downtown is providential. It’s so exciting to finally have a home. We’ve had the church for nine years and now we have the building.”

Keeney said he envisions the community will be able to get back up to 200-300 people attending Mass once they offer it in the morning at the new location, with the first Mass being Saturday, October 7, which is the mission’s feast day.

It chose the name, with Knestout’s approval, Our Lady of the Rosary.

From now until Oct. 7, parishioners say they’ll do whatever they can to make the building look more like a church. Keeney said they have about $20,000 left over for short term renovations, but long term, the plan is to do a more complete renovation to create something more traditional.

For now, though, he said more than anything “it means so much” to the community to have the space.

Lukyamuzi, who hopes to attend the Oct. 7 Mass, said he is excited about the achievement.

“I’m so excited about such an achievement and I’ve been praying to see that, that community could grow and it’s a very promising community,” Lukyamuzi said.

For Knestout, who took over the Diocese of Richmond in 2017, the Our Lady of the Rosary mission is the first mission or parish community he’s established, something he said will be rewarding to watch grow. He said it was always his own personal prayer to have the first dedicated to Our Lady, and so the name “Our Lady of the Rosary” fulfills both that desire, and is an ode to the Crozet community’s French history.

“For me, personally, it’s very rewarding,” Knestout told Crux. “I’m very grateful to be a part of something that will look for growth in the future, and just expand the ability of the church to carry out its mission.”

Looking ahead to that first Mass, Marshall remembers when the parish community began they stored everything for Mass in a couple of closets the school loaned to them. Every week, they would come in hours before Mass was scheduled to begin to set up banners on the altar end of the wall, and hang up pictures of Mary, Joseph and the Holy Ghost.

Basically, every Sunday they transformed that elementary school gym into as much of a church as they could, took it down after Mass, and did it all over again the next week.

“Of course, now we don’t have to take any of it down,” Marshall said. “Everybody is so excited.”

Jesuit agency head in UK blasts call to scrap UN refugee convention as ‘appalling’

A proposal by the UK Home Secretary to tighten refugee admissions in Western countries is “appalling,” according to the head of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK, one of Great Britain’s leading agencies serving refugees and other forcible displaced persons.

UK official Suella Braverman suggested scrapping a UN agreement of refugees adopted in the wake of the Second World War in a keynote address at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in the United States on Tuesday.

“Just as it is a basic rule of history that nations which cannot defend their borders will not long survive, it is a basic rule of politics that political systems which cannot control their borders will not maintain the consent of the people, and thus not long endure,” Braverman said in Washington, DC, calling immigration pressures “an existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West.”

Braverman said the threshold for asylum has been steadily lowered since the UN Refugee Convention was ratified more than 70 years ago, in 1951, and questioned whether it was “fit for our modern age.”

Sarah Teather, the director of the Jesuit Refugee Service UK, said the convention “is a vital and core mechanism to protect people fleeing persecution, and it is badly needed, now as much and more than ever.”

“To suggest that many of those to whom it has extended protection for decades should be shut out and cast back into danger is appalling,” Teather said Tuesday.

“The government should work to extend protection to those who need it, not to find new ways to deny sanctuary. These comments from the Home Secretary are the latest in a cruel, vaunting attack on refugees,” she continued.

Teather also questioned why a British politician chose to give her speech to a U.S. policy group.

“One is left to wonder who the Home Secretary is trying to court with this international speech? Is her focus political and aimed at her own party? If so, she is recklessly giving comfort to dictators and tyrannical regimes on the world stage for vain purposes,” Teather said.

In her speech in Washington, Braverman claimed the current global asylum framework “is a promissory note that the West cannot fulfil.”

“We have created a system of almost infinite supply, incentivizing millions of people to try their luck, knowing full well that we have no capacity to meet more than a fraction of demand,” the government minister said.

Teather responded by mentioning Pope Francis’s recent message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

“Pope Francis renewed his call for the practice of ‘good politics – one that is transparent, honest, farsighted and at the service of all, especially those most vulnerable’; these actions from the Home Secretary today are anything but,” the JRS UK head said.

“Where people are forcibly displaced from their homes, we have a human duty to work together to seek solutions. Trying to draw others into a coordinated attack on those in need is a new low,” she concluded.

In her speech, Braverman said she supported immigration – being the daughter of immigrants – but added “uncontrolled migration” threatens national security and the country’s culture. Braverman’s parents are of Indian origin, who immigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Africa.

“If cultural change is too rapid and too big, then what was already there is diluted — eventually it will disappear,” she said.

“We are living with the consequence of that failure today. You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe. From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester,” she added.

Leicester is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in England, and the government official was referring to a recent flareup between Muslims and Hindus in the city. 

Historically, the city has been a model for immigrants in the UK, and the rare violence troubled the community.

The UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, responded to Braverman’s speech by saying the decades-old convention “remains as relevant today as when it was adopted in providing an indispensable framework for addressing those challenges, based on international co-operation.”

The UN agency said the present need “is not for reform, or more restrictive interpretation, but for stronger and more consistent application of the convention and its underlying principle of responsibility-sharing.”

Quebec bishop with two dioceses says merger is on the horizon

A recent Vatican decision to merge the Canadian Dioceses of Amos and Rouyn-Noranda in persona episcopi (“in the person of the bishop”) is the first step towards an eventual complete merger of the dioceses, according to the bishop who now leads both.

On Sept. 16 Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Bishop Gilles Lemay of Amos, and simultaneously appointed Bishop Guy Boulanger of Rouyn-Noranda to also lead the Diocese of Amos. 

The Vatican’s decision stems from a consultation process the two dioceses began around the time Lemay turned 75 and submitted his resignation earlier this year, to assess the future of both dioceses as they face declining Catholic populations, closing parishes, and other challenges.

According to Boulanger, out of the consultation – which included opportunities for parishioners to voice their opinions on a potential merger and a committee to look into all of the logistics – a report was sent to Rome in March that recommended a merger with the expectation it would happen immediately, but Rome instead decided to merge the dioceses in bishop only, for now.

“This nomination is a step to prepare for the fusion of the two dioceses,” Boulanger told Crux of his appointment. “It will be my job to know the two dioceses better and to begin collaboration between them to prepare them to become one diocese.”

Boulanger added that there isn’t a set timetable for when the full merger will take place. Both the Diocese of Amos and the Diocese of Rouyn-Noranda are in Canada’s Quebec province.

The Diocese of Amos is much larger in land area. It covers an estimated 130,000 square miles of the western and northern portion of the province. Although, a lot of that land isn’t populated so despite its land size the diocese has a Catholic population of about 89,000. 

The diocese has 58 parishes and missions, and is served by 14 diocesan priests, nine women members of institutes of consecrated life, four permanent deacons, and two lay pastoral agents.

By contrast, the Diocese of Rouyn-Noranda – right below the Diocese of Amos – has a Catholic population of about 55,000 across about 9,000 square miles. The diocese has 34 parishes and missions, and is served by 14 diocesan priests, 44 women who are members of institutes of consecrated life, three permanent deacons, and seven lay pastoral agents.

Boulanger said the biggest challenge in his new role, and in the future if/when a full merger takes place, could be the ability to consistently be with everyone and bring people together given that many of the faithful live in smaller villages spread across large areas, but he’s confident it can succeed.

“We already need to go into different parts of the diocese when we want to meet [parishioners],” Boulanger noted. “Now it will still be the same but even larger.”

Boulanger also noted that there are people who “are afraid to have less presence of the bishop” if a merger takes place. However, he said they intend to keep certain aspects of the diocesan operation in both dioceses, and he expects consistent collaboration will help people make the adjustment.

“When we started this project there were advantages to combining the teams in the dioceses to make the whole team stronger, and the collaboration should help us add projects because we only have a few people working for both dioceses so putting them together should be good,” Boulanger explained.

“I don’t say that it will be easy. We will have to make some difficult choices, but [the dioceses] are in the same area so the people are used to working together,” he continued. “It’s a large area so people will find that it’s normal to be together in the church, too.”

Before his retirement, Lemay had led the diocese of Amos since 2011, and before that he was an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Quebec from 2005-2011.

Boulanger, 60, was appointed to the Diocese of Rouyn-Noranda on Jan. 31, 2020. Due to the annual Canadian Bishops Conference that is underway Boulanger said he hasn’t yet had the chance to visit the faithful in the Diocese of Amos. His message to them, he said, is one of hope for the future.

“What I want to tell them is that I want first to know them, to know about the diocese, and to collaborate,” Boulanger said. “Everyone will have to be open to some changes, but I think that in the end this will help for the mission for the better working of the church in our area.”

Viagra Overdose Ends Gay Priest Orgy With Rent Boy

A Polish bishop is urging his priests to offer acts of reparation after an orgy of homosexual priests ended with a male escort suffering a heart attack from a Viagra overdose. 

Police and ambulance services forced entry into the sex party organized by Fr. Tomasz Zmarzły, editor of the Catholic weekly Niedziela Sosnowiecka, after the priest reportedly refused to let them in. 

Father Zmarzły, who also serves as a priest at the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in the town of Dąbrowa Górnicza, had invited two other priests and a sex worker to the "bunga bunga" party at his apartment on the night of Aug. 30.

The orgy went awry when the rent boy keeled over from an overdose of erectile dysfunction pills. 

One of the priests called an ambulance, but when paramedics arrived, Fr. Zmarzły and another priest refused to open the door of the apartment, which is owned by the Catholic weekly. 

As the situation became increasingly tense, paramedics called for the police to intervene. 

The emergency services found the male escort lying on the floor unconscious. 

He was taken to a hospital, where he later recovered and discharged himself.

Police Probe

Waldemar Łubniewski, the spokesman for the Sosnowiec district prosecutor, said that police have begun an investigation into the failure to assist a person in a situation that poses an immediate threat of loss of life or serious damage to health. 

"The local prosecutor's office is conducting proceedings regarding failure to provide assistance to a person whose life is at risk," Deputy District Prosecutor Czesław Kurpiś confirmed. The crime is punishable by up to three years in prison. 

The most hatred on the part of my priest colleagues when I got married was from homosexual priests.

In a statement published on the diocesan website, Bp. Grzegorz Kaszak asked his priests "to do penance and celebrate an expiatory Mass to make reparation to the Lord God and to sustain the souls of the faithful who are suffering greatly because of what happened."

Bishop's Rebuke

The bishop's letter, which was read out at all parishes in the diocese, urged the faithful "to pray and support, as much as you can, the hurting and ashamed priests" as well as nuns and catechists "who have done nothing wrong but suffer a lot and find it very difficult." 

"I wish to emphasize that moral evil will not be tolerated," Bp. Kaszak announced. "Anyone found guilty will be punished according to canon law, regardless of the verdict of a civil court." 

"The world may not understand this, but the Lord Jesus does not want the death of the sinner. So let us pray for the conversion of our brother who has committed a scandalous act," the bishop added.

In each of these cases, the only reaction of the Church authorities is to recommend prayer and to set up another commission.

Father Zmarzły, who was also assisting in the pastoral care of the diocese's Catholic Youth Association, has been stripped of all clerical duties and has been fired from his post as editor of Niedziela Sosnowiecka, as the scandal continues to rock the Catholic bastion of Poland.

Gay Priests' Scandals

While the names of the other priests participating in the orgy have not been released, prominent Catholic priest and journalist Fr. Kazimierz Sowa told Polish media that "this is not the first specifically homosexual scandal in this diocese."

"In each of these cases, the only reaction of the Church authorities is to recommend prayer (never enough) and to set up another commission. As you can see, the effectiveness of such actions is quite limited," Sowa lamented.  

In comments to Polish media, former Catholic priest Wojciech Grzesiak said that the rule of mandatory celibacy "provided a good shelter for priests of a lavender orientation." 

Grzesiak said that he had never violated his promise of celibacy, but he added that "the most hatred on the part of my priest colleagues when I got married was from homosexual priests." 

"And they are shouting the loudest for retaining the discipline of clerical celibacy," he added. 

Arson at Basilica

Events took a dramatic turn on Thursday night when a parishioner set fire to the doors of the basilica in Dąbrowa Górnicza. 

Firefighters extinguished the blaze, and police detained a man suspected of starting the fire in protest against the priests' gay orgy. 

Father Andrzej Stasiak, presiding at the basilica's Sunday Eucharist, said he "condemned the act committed by Fr. Tomasz Zmarzły." However, he also appealed to people to not "act to intensify the spiral of hatred" and to "overcome evil with good."

Polish media and the diocese of Sosnowiec have refrained from revealing the full name of the priest at the center of the scandal. 

Father Zmarzły's photographs have been blurred in newspaper and television reports.

Established in 1901, the parish of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Angels in Dąbrowa Górnicza was the first church in Poland to receive the title of basilica, which was given by Pope Leo XIII.

Diocese of Killaloe launch year-long initiative encouraging men to join the priesthood

A NEW DRIVE to encourage men to consider joining the priesthood has been launched by the Diocese of Killaloe.

This weekend, visits to parishes across the Diocese in Clare, Laois, Offaly, Tipperary and Limerick commence in Ennis followed by visits to Nenagh, Birr and Castleconnell during October.

With just over half of the 58 parishes in the Diocese currently served by a resident priest, Vocations Director Fr. Iggy McCormack says there is hope the three vocations recorded in the Diocese of Killaloe during the past 12 months can be built on during the ‘Year for Vocations to the Diocesan Priesthood’.

He explained, “Geographically, we are the third largest Diocese in the country and is it has become increasingly difficult to maintain full cover across the five counties due to retirements and a lower number of vocations. The idea of young men taking up a vocation has arguably become more countercultural in recent years, but we are very hopeful that we can build on recent progress whereby three men from the Diocese will enter the seminary at Maynooth over the next twelve months”.

Fr. McCormack, who also is Principal of St. Flannan’s College in Ennis, said the vocations initiative will encourage people to discover more about vocations on the Diocesan website while the parish church visits are aimed at kickstarting conversations within family groups, with local priests and in communities across the Diocese on the vocation of priesthood.

He continued, “I am encouraging any man who has been considering a vocation and is exploring their calling to make contact today with the Vocations Office or to speak with their local priest. Most newly ordained priests will comment on how the encouragement and counsel they received from their local priest greatly assisted in commencing their journey to priestly ministry.”

Ennis native Mark Nestor, a former secondary school teacher and a Fianna Fáil councillor from 2019 to 2022 entered the National Seminary at Saint Patrick’s College Maynooth last week having spent the past year at the Royal English College of St Alban in Valladolid, Spain.

“Answering yes to my vocation to the priesthood has resulted in a great sense of contentment in my life,” Mark admitted. “The support I have received from family, friends and the Diocese over the last two years has been phenomenal. I would encourage anyone who feels they have a vocation to priesthood to reach out and talk about their vocation”.

“Distressing”: no more Traditional Masses at High Altar of Westminster Cathedral

The Latin Mass Society has been informed that the Traditional Latin Mass may no longer be celebrated at the High Altar of Westminster Cathedral, as is has been twice a year since 1972. 

With a break for Covid, there have therefore been about 100 such Masses over fifty years. 

The next one would have been a Requiem Mass on 4 November.

A monthly Low Mass will continue, on First Saturdays in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, but these two annual Masses are regarded as being for the Latin Mass Society, and therefore not part of the Cathedral’s pastoral provision. 

Many Catholic associations have Masses in the Cathedral, and over many years these ones have, indeed, served as the Society’s Annual Requiem and the Mass for our Annual General Meeting. 

Nevertheless, they had the same origin as the monthly Masses, as part of Cardinal Heenan’s response to the “English Indult” for the Traditional Mass, which he personally sought and gained from Pope Paul VI.

From 1971 until 1984, when the Indult was made universal, the bishops of England and Wales had the unique privilege of being able to permit celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass, as existed before the Second Vatican Council. 

At least, it was generally regarded as a unique situation: confusingly, in 2007 Pope Benedict XVI declared that in principle permission had never been needed. 

In 2021 the wind changed direction again, and the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in parish churches – of which Westminster Cathedral is one – now needs permission not just from the local bishop, but from the Dicastery of Divine Worship in Rome, headed up by Cardinal Arthur Roche.

What does it mean for the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated at the High Altar of Westminster Cathedral, and what does it mean for this half-century arrangement to end? 

Cardinal Heenan’s gesture conveyed his pastoral concern for the spiritual welfare of Catholics attached to the older Missal, but there was more to it than that. 

As a matter of fact, according to the Latin Mass Society’s archives, at the time of the first of these Masses in July 1972, “the old rite has been used in Low Masses all this time without interruption both in the Cathedral, the Brompton Oratory, and numerous other churches.” 

What was significant about this Mass was not that it was a rare opportunity to attend the ancient Mass. Rather, it was the fact that it took place at the Cathedral’s very splendid High Altar, and was sung. 

In later years, it was celebrated as a High Mass with deacon and subdeacon, and even a Pontifical Mass celebrated by an auxiliary bishop.

This gave Catholics attached to this Mass the opportunity to demonstrate their willingness to seek it at the Cardinal’s hand, and at the hands of his successors. It is no exaggeration to say that the Latin Mass Society has been fundamentally shaped, in its attitude and way of operating, by collaboration with successive Archbishops of Westminster over these Masses. 

The Society is not simply a group of Catholics who facilitate Masses here or there: it has, or had until now, an intimate connection with the most senior bishop in England and Wales, a relationship that has survived all manner of friction, and endured through all kinds of difficulties, symbolised by these splendid biannual celebrations.

Cardinal Heenan was also publicly acknowledging the dignity and importance of the ancient liturgy, and its place in the life of the Church. 

This was the liturgy, after all, for which Westminster Cathedral had been built, and for which the English martyrs, forty of whom had been canonised in 1971, had given their lives. 

One might compare it with the survival of the Mozarabic Rite for centuries in just two chapels in Spain: it is just too venerable and too important to let go entirely.

It should be noted that when, in the early 1970s, the Holy See was asked for a clear and authoritative statement that the older Missal was completely forbidden, the official attitude, recorded by no less a person than the architect of the liturgical reform, Annibale Buggnini, recoiled against “casting odium on the liturgical tradition”. 

Similarly, Pope Benedict XVI (when still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) later observed: “A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent. 

Can it be trusted any more about anything else? Won’t it proscribe again tomorrow what it prescribes today?”

If to say the ancient Mass could be celebrated on the High Altar of Westminster Cathedral, as Cardinal Heenan did, created a bond between the Archbishops of Westminster and the Latin Mass Society, and made a statement of the continuing value of the Mass the Society was founded to preserve, the reversal of this policy inevitably suggests the opposite message. 

This is distressing for those Catholics attached to the Traditional Latin Mass, but it also has a significance for the whole Catholic community. 

Certainly, this venerable Mass will continue to be celebrated in London, but in ending this custom at the mother church of England & Wales something has been lost which will not easily be replaced.