A Liebster Award - are you sure you want to read this?

My thanks go to Ches at The Sensible Bond for nominating me for a Liebster Award.



I now have a number of hoops to jump through to qualify for this honour, and the first set of hoops involves me in coming clean with eleven personal facts.

Are you sure you want to read this? Are you able to sift the fact from the fiction?

Leave a comment if you think you can identify the fictional points.

Here goes (deep breath):


Part 1

1. I am a cradle Catholic

2. I am 28 years old

3. My wife and my children are my greatest joy and I really do not deserve them

4. I like a glass of malt whisky, Paddy whiskey, red wine and Rev James bitter but not at the same time. (I also have a liking for Manhattans but now I am beginning to sound like a dypsomaniac)

5. I am a fervent admirer of Ed Stourton and Clifford Longley and read The Tablet avidly

6. Liturgical dances are a wonderful accompaniment to the Ordinary Form of Mass

7. Having voted Conservative all my life I have vowed never to give this party my support again. The same applies to Labour, Liberal Democrats and UKIP. Help!

8. For nearly 20 years I worshipped each Sunday in a chapel within our home mainly without a priest present

9. My household is dogless but, every time I see a whippet or lurcher in the street I have a strong desire to break the seventh commandment

10. Japanese food is my weakness, eaten accompanied to the strains of a Chinese Orchestra

11. My ambition is to live on the Island of Ithica but only if there is an orthodox Catholic priest also residing there, plus my family, of course

Does Christ really want an imbalanced Church?

I mean, even the most liberal of liberal Catholics must see that all is not fair and equal.
On the one hand we have the Holy Father issuing a Motu Proprio (now five years ago) stating quite clearly the grounds for provision of the Latin Mass (TLM) and, indeed, distinguishing the Latin Mass as being an "Extraordinary" form of the Mass and the Novus Ordo version as being an "Ordinary" form.

Two versions of Mass, both to be made available at the request of the laity.

Could you imagine, for one instant, the howls of anger and dismay if the current situation was reversed and their Lordships issued a notice to the effect that the OF Mass would only be available at one parish in one hundred but that the EF Mass would be available at every parish?

I can imagine it. What is more, I pray daily for it to happen as it surely will but, perhaps, not in my lifetime.

There are, of course, solutions to the problem.

I shall ignore the one regarding all of the Bishops having a change of conscience overnight and then welcoming their priest onto training courses to enable them to celebrate the Latin Mass.

There is another solution. One that would instantly obliterate carping traditional Catholics such as me.

Balance - one in twenty is not rocket science!

And that is, to allow one parish in every twenty to become an EF Mass parish.
One where Holy Mass would be offered on a Sunday, not at 4pm or at 7.30pm but at 8am and 10.30am - times that suit families and those of us who just wish to attend at a normal hour.

Is that asking too much? Is it being grossly greedy and invasive?

It would mean, for example, that the Archdiocese of Westminster would have a provision of around ten Latin Masses on a Sunday as opposed to the current three to four.

My own Diocese of Menevia would move from one Sunday EF Mass to two (I cannot verify the number of parish churches as the website is not working, but believe that I am close to the correct number).

So, in an area covering something like 500 square miles, there would be two parishes offering a Latin Mass, EF version each Sunday (hopefully not adjacent parishes).

That seems to me to be very fair and equable, overly modest, even.

But, it would make a great many people wish that they were capable of turning triple somersaults and leaping for joy, in fact, they would become quite unbalanced.

I think that the liberal lobby and even Clifford Longley and Ms Pepinster might vote for that strategy.