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Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Bishop of Linz resigns
The Bishop of Linz has resigned. He claims that it was voluntary but the Diocese has a terrible reputation as a centre of liturgical experimentation and is being investigated by the Roman authorities. More on local reaction shortly.
This was the Diocese that brought the Catholic world, the "shrine" to "St" Judas. The Bishop did nothing about this outrage.
This was the Diocese that brought the Catholic world, the "shrine" to "St" Judas. The Bishop did nothing about this outrage.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Closure of All Saints Catholic Chapel, Berlin
"The chapel has symbolized civil and religious liberty for many years in the middle of a surrounding hostile and atheistic sea, which engulfed this isle of freedom in the then West Berlin".
Extensive documentation can be found here. See also earlier posts on Cathcon
Extensive documentation can be found here. See also earlier posts on Cathcon
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Bishop Paul Bootkoski
takes the right decision and saves Corpus Christi School. A good news story in an era of terrible news.
Catholic Ministry Internship Program
teaches you how to break the news to children that their parish is closing!!
"Organizing activities to help children cope with the closing of their parish"
"Organizing activities to help children cope with the closing of their parish"
St Joseph visits the English Benedictines of Brussels
On the Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians to whom the prayer Sub tuum praesidium is addressed I was reading "Historic English Convents" by Dom Basil Whelan which is an account of the convents of the Catholic exiles in Flanders. Amazingly, the book fell open at this page:
"Not all of the English convents in Flanders were as fortunate as the Benedictines of Brussels, in whose records we find the following facts related :
One night, it appears, when the community was reduced to penury and there seemed no prospect of getting means to feed the hungry mouths, the portress heard a ring at the great gate during Matins. She hurried down to the wicket with no small trepidation, for a visitor at midnight was a most uncommon event. She peeped through the grating to see who the untimely guest might be, and saw an old man, whose venerable and comely appearance at once reassured her, and caused her to throw open the gate. There the old man stood, with silvery locks and flowing beard, and smilingly he handed her a bag, saying : ' Take this bag to the Lady Abbess, and tell her to use freely what it contains, and to ask her community to recite the prayer Sub tuum praesidium every day till I come back.' So saying, he suddenly disappeared, leaving the good portress perplexed and astonished at what had happened. After Matins she delivered the bag and the message to the Abbess, assuring her Superior that she was convinced that she had seen a heavenly visitor and benefactor.
On opening the bag the Abbess found that it contained £1000. The religious never doubted but that their venerable helper was the great St. Joseph, whom they had invoked in their difficulty and distress. Though St. Joseph has many and many a time helped the nuns since, he has never returned to claim his bag ; and whilst awaiting his reappearance the religious have, for some two hundred years, joyfully and faithfully recited every night, after Matins have ended, the anthem which he ordered to be said: Sub tuum praesidium. So does God take care of His children and this incident could be paralleled by somewhat similar events in other convents. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you."
This took place in about 1690. The nuns were evicted by the French revolutionaries and their property torn down four years later. They came to East Bergholt whose sad history is related below. I live not two hundred metres from the site of the Brussels Convent and intend to take up daily recitation of the Sub tuum praesidium. May others join me in the honour of the English Benedictines of Brussels.
And if only more of the Bishops in our own time had remembered:
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you."
"Not all of the English convents in Flanders were as fortunate as the Benedictines of Brussels, in whose records we find the following facts related :
One night, it appears, when the community was reduced to penury and there seemed no prospect of getting means to feed the hungry mouths, the portress heard a ring at the great gate during Matins. She hurried down to the wicket with no small trepidation, for a visitor at midnight was a most uncommon event. She peeped through the grating to see who the untimely guest might be, and saw an old man, whose venerable and comely appearance at once reassured her, and caused her to throw open the gate. There the old man stood, with silvery locks and flowing beard, and smilingly he handed her a bag, saying : ' Take this bag to the Lady Abbess, and tell her to use freely what it contains, and to ask her community to recite the prayer Sub tuum praesidium every day till I come back.' So saying, he suddenly disappeared, leaving the good portress perplexed and astonished at what had happened. After Matins she delivered the bag and the message to the Abbess, assuring her Superior that she was convinced that she had seen a heavenly visitor and benefactor.
On opening the bag the Abbess found that it contained £1000. The religious never doubted but that their venerable helper was the great St. Joseph, whom they had invoked in their difficulty and distress. Though St. Joseph has many and many a time helped the nuns since, he has never returned to claim his bag ; and whilst awaiting his reappearance the religious have, for some two hundred years, joyfully and faithfully recited every night, after Matins have ended, the anthem which he ordered to be said: Sub tuum praesidium. So does God take care of His children and this incident could be paralleled by somewhat similar events in other convents. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you."
This took place in about 1690. The nuns were evicted by the French revolutionaries and their property torn down four years later. They came to East Bergholt whose sad history is related below. I live not two hundred metres from the site of the Brussels Convent and intend to take up daily recitation of the Sub tuum praesidium. May others join me in the honour of the English Benedictines of Brussels.
And if only more of the Bishops in our own time had remembered:
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you."
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Benedictine Convent, East Bergholt
Originally, the Benedictine Nuns of Brussels, Belgium. Such a sad end for so great an inheritance.
And some history
of Our Lady Help of Christians, Boston. And somewhere both sides forgot the supreme duty of the Church to save souls.
Today is the Feast of Our Lady Help Christians
Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genetrix. Nostras deprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus1, sed a periculis cunctis libera nos semper, Virgo gloriosa et benedicta. Amen.
We fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, was also the dedication which Don Bosco gave to the mother Church of the Salesian Order.
Franciscan demands
to make poverty history! He is trying to outdo Archbishop O'Malley's attempts to make numerous Churches history.
Jesus said, "The poor you will have always with you".
Jesus said, "The poor you will have always with you".
Thursday, May 19, 2005
The Catholic Cafeteria is being closed by the new Pope
- but Loyola College does not realise it yet.
The message I sent to Loyola tonight. Others should do the same.
You can keep your phd's and all your honours. The Gillibrand family has five Jesuit members from 1588 onwards who would have died rather than give honours to advocates of abortion rights.
You don't even have to ask what Our Lord or even St Peter thinks. What is St Ignatius Loyola, from whom you take your name, thinking?
God help you! I trust he will but do not presume on it.
The message I sent to Loyola tonight. Others should do the same.
You can keep your phd's and all your honours. The Gillibrand family has five Jesuit members from 1588 onwards who would have died rather than give honours to advocates of abortion rights.
You don't even have to ask what Our Lord or even St Peter thinks. What is St Ignatius Loyola, from whom you take your name, thinking?
God help you! I trust he will but do not presume on it.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
175-home project planned for former church site
Bishop prefers the land value to a Catholic congregation, who were given three weeks notice to quit and are now forced to worshop in a former Pizza Hut. Since when is it the job of a Catholic bishop to scatter the flock.
Relics of St Dympna, patroness of those suffering from mental disorders, and also their carers are now confined to a Church converted into a museum (for which one pays) in Geel, Belgium. Geel had a reputation not unlike Bedlam Hospital in the UK because the mentally ill moved to Geel because of the relics. A psychiatric hospital remains in the town but this is how St Dympna's relics are now treated.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
St Catherine's Church, Brussels
-"the church was almost converted into the stock market." : "The Church today is in a pretty sorry state, but perhaps the organ concerts held the first Saturday of every month (11:00-11:45 a.m.) give it some life."
If the Mass is restored, the Church is restored.
If the Mass is restored, the Church is restored.
Monday, May 16, 2005
ARCIC bureaucrats
attempt to produce common position on Our Lady
Just to remind all concerned:
Dogma of the Assumption
Dogma of the Immaculate Conception
ARCIC is not representative of those few anglicans to be found in the pews on Sunday morning, who would never sign-up.
Just to remind all concerned:
Dogma of the Assumption
Dogma of the Immaculate Conception
ARCIC is not representative of those few anglicans to be found in the pews on Sunday morning, who would never sign-up.
Former Jesuit Church in Morelia, Mexico
a public library since 1930
But this Church was desecrated in a .time of great persecution
Viva Cristo Rey! - Long live Christ the King!
But this Church was desecrated in a .time of great persecution
Viva Cristo Rey! - Long live Christ the King!
Marche-en-Famenne, France
Former Jesuit Church becomes a hotel, restaurant and brasserie. Some "cafeteria catholics" won't notice the difference.
Berlin, Germany
Closure of Church used by English speaking community
" But it also represents an opportunity, the chance for those who favoured that church to become more fully integrated into Berlin's Catholic life...."
Remember when they close your Church, it is realy an opportunity. Closure= opportunity; not even George Orwell could have dreamed this one up.
And the insulting implication that the existing congregation are not fully integrated into Catholic life.
" But it also represents an opportunity, the chance for those who favoured that church to become more fully integrated into Berlin's Catholic life...."
Remember when they close your Church, it is realy an opportunity. Closure= opportunity; not even George Orwell could have dreamed this one up.
And the insulting implication that the existing congregation are not fully integrated into Catholic life.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Saturday, May 14, 2005
All Saint's Church, Berlin, Germany
"Random, authoritarian act" closes Church of English-speaking Catholics in Berlin.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
The ruins of the Catholic Church in Belgium.
Illustrated by a series of pictures taken at several antique dealers. Fortunate indeed that Cardinal Danneels did not become Pope. St Peters Church would have become a ruin like the Roman forum!
The entrance to one of the dealers
The top of a spire and two pillars, with a sorrowing angel
During the "Reformation", there are accounts of the Churches being plundered for their stone.
The arcade from a Church
Church tower reduced to status of ornamental elephant.
Another tower
And another
A rose window
Going inside- under the image of God the Father supported by two pagan statues
Several pagan statues together with an incense burner once used for the Catholic Mass.
A tabernacle where once was reserved the Blessed Sacrament.
And the orchestra plays on surrounded by chalices, ciboria and saints.
Once born by acolytes, one now converted for domestic use.
Bells that no longer call the Faithful to prayer.
Stained glass which could have been replaced by some modern abstract design (which signifies nothing), or the glass has been taken from demolished Churches.
Altar where once was made the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass destined to become a sideboard in someone's dining room.
Our Lady of Montaigu and St Joseph pray for us! That the Church be rescued from destruction!
The entrance to one of the dealers
The top of a spire and two pillars, with a sorrowing angel
During the "Reformation", there are accounts of the Churches being plundered for their stone.
The arcade from a Church
Church tower reduced to status of ornamental elephant.
Another tower
And another
A rose window
Going inside- under the image of God the Father supported by two pagan statues
Several pagan statues together with an incense burner once used for the Catholic Mass.
A tabernacle where once was reserved the Blessed Sacrament.
And the orchestra plays on surrounded by chalices, ciboria and saints.
Once born by acolytes, one now converted for domestic use.
Bells that no longer call the Faithful to prayer.
Stained glass which could have been replaced by some modern abstract design (which signifies nothing), or the glass has been taken from demolished Churches.
Altar where once was made the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass destined to become a sideboard in someone's dining room.
Our Lady of Montaigu and St Joseph pray for us! That the Church be rescued from destruction!
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