Catholic Portugal and Catholic gilt

This is a panorama of just some of the sights of Catholic Portugal (plus a few secular-ish ones).

Here and there I have dedicated a shot to other bloggers whom I admire and whom fit the bill as far as the picture is concerned.

On my left is a slightly fuzzy confessional, it must be used by the more liberal of the brethren.

I have not dedicated this to anyone lest I cause offence and, as you know, I just hate doing that.

It must take a brave soul to confess at this box as there is the capacity for a sinner each side, no more than three feet apart.

Speak softly lest.....

This most beautiful of depictions of Our Lady and the Infant Jesus hangs in the Museum attached to the Church of St Roch (Sao Rocque)
In the centre of Lisbon.

Because of its Eastern influence (or origins) I dedicate it to Fr Athanasius McVay.




And, below, a real nun, a Franciscan Sister of the Immaculate from the Philipines but residing in Italy. God bless her.
                                                               

And, for Mulier Fortis, a cat. What else?

And the grand entrance to the Monastery of
 Sao Geronimo, Belem. A must for anyone visiting Lisbon.

For my good friend, Charlie J, a rather
bling type of chasuble (he likes those)

                                    

                                           And more real nuns! This time at Fatima

How about Schindler's Lift? Silly really.
Dedicated to Catholic and Welsh who
has a similar sense of humour to mine
(I think)

Oh my! No, it's not Eccles and Bosco but a couple
of happy (gay?) bearded turbanned people.
Is that pc enough? From an ex monastery in Sintra

And here are Father Sid and Father Reg.
They are from the Order of Polyesters Rampant

And that's it. I am sorry if I have not included your blog, no offence intended, it's just that I ran out of suitable pics.

                                                             

A truly 'horrible' church

With 2 hours spare in Lisbon before we caught the coach to Fatima we thought we would make a quick dash into the city centre to see the church of Sao Rocque (aka St Rock or St Roch).

St Roch - a "horrible" church

Our son and his family had visited this church a few weeks previously and had claimed that it was one of the best of Lisbon's many beautiful churches.

We took a taxi from our hotel but our driver was a little taken aback at our request of destination:
"Sao Rocque" he said: "That's a horrible church, nothing to see there, no one ever goes and, anyway, it's closed".

Hmm.....a bit of a shock to say the least. We did not have much time to spare and now our plans were thrown into chaos.
Our driver then went on to explain that there was a most beautiful church close to that of Sao Rocque and that he would take us there.

Some 15 minutes later we were proceeding past a rather grand looking church with crowds of people outside. the doors were wide open.

"What is the name of that church?" we enquired.

 



"Oh, that" said the driver, "That is Sao Rocque".

Without further ado Mrs Linen had tapped him on the shoulder with her parasol and commanded him, Lady Thatcher style, to stop the cab and to allow us to alight.

He grudgingly obliged and, as we paid him off Mrs L came up with the punch line:

"Well, who are we going to believe, our intellectual son or this (word deleted)" Actually, there was no 'beep', Mrs L does not use bad language (usually). But she was, of course, dead right.

Walking back towards this rather grand church ("horrible") we saw crowds of people outside ("no one goes there") and the doors wide open ("it's closed").

And, of course, on entry we were completely taken aback by the outstanding beauty of this church.

Gilt baroque at its finest, wherever you looked. It made even the most beautiful of Welsh or English churches look plain and puritanical.

The sight of so much art and beauty dedicated to the glory of God made the heart soar but, even with a wonderful sanctuary and an ad orientum marble altar, there was still the now mandatory protestant table at the forefront for the celebration of the new Mass.

Back in Pembrokeshire we have a village named after this saint, although, presumably,  in Reformation fashion the "St" prefix has been dropped. I now would like to visit the small church there to see what the connection is. In England's Cornwall there is yet another village dedicated to the saint. 'Rock' is now a very popular tourist destination for the "Rupert and Fiona" classes.