No Internet!

Thanks to a fault at the local exchange used by my internet service provider - as one of those interminable phone calls to their help line eventually established - I've had no internet at home since Thursday, horribile dictu.

On the positive side, I've got ever so much reading done... having finally finished a great thick book about the Franco regime, and even found an interesting work about the Trinitarian theology of liturgy that I didn't know I had.

My father is still in hospital, and will remain there for some time, until he is well enough to go into full-time nursing care.  Pray for him, and for my family.

I'm presently in Hobart, having come down for the monthly Missa cantata that His Grace so generously permits, in the spirit of Summorum pontificum - not!  I do wish +Adrian would actually read the thing and follow it: the opening words, Summorum pontificum cura - "the care of the supreme pontiffs" [for the liturgy] - ought remind him that, as a pontiff or bishop himself, he should exercise a like care for those who prefer the Extraordinary Form, rather than obstinately act against the decree of the Pope with whom he claims to hold communion.  No one likes a party pooper.

Our repeated petitions to him, and then to the relevant commission in Rome, have so far gone unheard.  Yet he has in the past twice refused advances from the Fraternity of St Peter to have their men in our archdiocese!  The claim of no priests to supply this need is very specious.  And I would have thought that those who dislike the Traditional Mass and all it stands for would be glad to have their unloved-because-conservative parishioners gone from their parishes and gathered elsewhere, anywhere.

At least the man who is our very Ordinary here will soon retire, Deo gratias: it's unfortunate that he considers himself a liberal progressive still fighting the fight (as he told his clergy on their retreat this year - a retreat conducted by the notorious Bp Pat Power, who took every opportunity to belittle observance of the Sixth Commandment), since he must realize that that project has failed, indeed, has hurt the Church, and that its small and bitter fruits are evident; while a glance over the fence to our unhappy Anglican brethren reveals what happens when liberalism triumphs.

We could do with eradicating the Catholic schizophrenia that consists in a grudging communion with a Pope whose theology and disciplinary stances the local clergy oppose: it only confuses and breeds disaffection.  It would be nice for the teaching Church to be in agreement about what it teaches!  As it is, the mixed messages contribute to the falling away of the masses.

There is something most hypocritical and deceitful about being a minister of the Church and yet spending one's time dissenting from her teachings.  There is also a most offensive hyperclericalism in such persons, worse than that of their predecessors in that they require kowtows, not to the official magisterium, but to a parallel or shadow magisterium.  In the worst cases, there is a veritable cult of personality built up around them - you'd think that in these days, when terrible scandals have besmirched the good name of our Faith, people would be more prudent.

I feel for the Nigerian priests sent by their Archbishop to help out in this archdiocese: by their preaching and devotion it is evident that they are Catholic and committed to the mission of the Church in a way that too many of the local Catholics, from top to bottom, are not.