Albertus Minimus

Hello, good evening and welcome...

...to the blogroll. I've been busily adding some more links this evening, which I hope you might find interesting. In the ever expanding list of American Catholic blogs we welcome Flos Carmeli, which my poor Latin translates as the Flowers of Carmel, On the Other Foot and Quenta Nârwenion. Making a determined bid to stop the Americans taking over the Anglosphere, the Aussies add to their numbers Purcell's Chicken Voluntary (what a wonderful name!) and Winterr's Words.

Proving that I don't bear a grudge for various unfortunate misunderstandings from the Middle Ages onwards, we now have a French Catholic blogs category, with only one entry at the moment, the French language (naturelement – and if I've spelled that wrong, blame Sister Sheila) Chemins de Lecture...

Finally, venturing towards the rising sun but stopping before crossing over into its homeland, there are two South Korean Catholic blogs added to the list: Katolik Shinja and Korean Catholic's xanga site (what is a xanga site?). Welcome one and all.

Turning tides

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

So it was in St Paul's day, and thus it is in our's. And part of that struggle – a key battleground – is played out in the dark warmth of the womb, in the obscure promptings of the heart, to the accompaniment of the silent whispers of conscience. To that struggle, my American friends, it seems you have been particularly called: for in your country abortion was imposed by judicial fiat, allowing children to be killed up to birth. But to your credit – and I sometimes think that the only thing that prevents heaven's vengeance for the millions of lives lost is the great number of people who struggle against this atrocity – you have given birth to the most active pro-life movement in the world. That is why I here in England read about your Supreme Court and the efforts so many have made to bring sanity back to the robed masters of life and death. For the one thing the abortion movement still has going for it is the perception that it represents the future, that history is running in its direction, that there is no alternative. All the other arguments it makes have proven false but this one still is true: the law throughout the world has moved only in their direction. Take this excerpt from an article in 'The Observer':

Abortion, like contraception, is part of the fabric of modern society; the means by which contemporary women take control of their fertility and their lives. Perhaps it is time, finally, to think of it in the same way that we think of contraception: as a necessary and helpful intervention, as a way of making women equal, as a positive sign that women are taking control of their lives. Abortion is the way we live now.

But all this rests on is perception. Only change this perception and the rest of the whole rotten, corrupt edifice of death will come down. So, dear friends across the water, we are watching and praying for you. For once Roe vs Wade is overturned in your country the belief in the inevitability of abortion as 'the way we live now' will be exposed for the imposture and imposition it is. During the Second World War we did not win a single battle before El Alamein. After that turning point in the Egyptian desert we never lost a battle. We are now approaching a similar point in this battle with principalites and powers. Let nothing us dismay.

Voices in the wildernet

Dennis at Ephemeris writes about his efforts to counter the misinformation and untruths on a Usenet group and that set me thinking. How often do we hear in daily conversation someone saying something about the Church and her teachings that are untrue, and yet how often do we keep silence. For myself, I remember the most excruciating dinner party I've ever been to, where I held my tongue and have always regretted it.

Mrs Minimus was an actress and then became a voice teacher, up until the birth of our children (for any 'East Enders' fans out there, she taught Jessie Wallace (Kat Slater) and Ricky Groves (Garry Hobbs) among others. The head of the drama school where she was working held a dinner party to which we were invited, as well as another two couples who worked at the school. My wife had told me about the head's antipathy towards Christianity, but I was not really prepared for one of the opening conversational gambits of the evening being his remark that he had written an article that was finally going to put a stake through the heart of the religion. I should have said something there - not got into an argument but merely stated that I am a Catholic and I would prefer the evening's conversation not to revolve around denigrating the Church. But instead I kept silent, listening in growing anger to lies and misrepresentations and slanders. For a brief moment the talk turned to Sigmund Freud and that gave the annoyance that I had been bottling up a chance to vomit forth. I proceeded to hold forth on the subject of Freud, and his charlatanism and the dishonesty of his thought, like, well, just like they had been talking about religion...

By the end of the evening I felt a fool, a fraud and a coward.

Dennis's post reminded me of that event, and I applaud his willingness to speak (or rather write) the truth. It seems to me that this is something that it is the laity's particular task in today's world. After all, we are submerged within layers of information, buried under newsprint, lit by the shimmering glow of television screens, and red eyed from staring at computers. Everywhere, voices speaking, shouting, writing, and much of it false. For if there is no belief in truth, then everything comes down to power, and those who can shout the loudest, talk the longest and write the most believe that by doing so all else may be silenced and their doctrines hold sway. And it's up to us to stop them. We are each of us called to be voices crying in the wilderness of the modern world, clarity in the murk and fog that envelops our poor, diseased culture.

To any readers of Tolkien this must strike a chord. In 'The Silmarillion' he writes of the creation of the world in a Great Music. But 'it came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own imagining that were not in accord with the theme of Iluvatar'.

And it seemed at last that there were two musics progressing at one time before the seat of Iluvatar, and they were utterly at variance. The one was deep and wide and beautiful, but slow and blended with an immeasurable sorrow, from which its beauty chiefly came. The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice...

What to do with all those old people...

...who insist on continuing to live past their economic prime. Laban Tall has the answer.

New Year, new additions to the blogroll

A quick post to point you at the few new links that I've added to the blogroll. Under 'Italian Catholic Blogs' we now have Pesce Vivo, – which I think means something like the living fish – an Italian language blog with extensive links to other Italian sites. A good portal if you're looking for further information on the Church in Italy.

Secondly, there's a whole new category on the left hand side of the page, called 'Catholic Resources'. Only four entries in this at the moment, but with the potential for many more. There's Karl Keating's deservedly well-known Catholic Answers, Dr Marcellino Ambrosio's Crossroads Initiative and, of course, the Holy See. All of these you no doubt knew of before, so can I also point out to you the final link in that section, to Spero News, a reasonably international source of news and comment of interest to Catholics.

Three in One

As I mentioned before, Mrs Minimus is taking instruction to be received into the Church this Easter. Her teacher is a very fine Jesuit (see, they do exist!) and here is his expression of God in His Trinitarian mystery.

God is

the unoriginate mystery (Father)

of expressive (Son)

self-bestowal (Holy Spirit).

A light in the neon

If ever you should find yourself in central London, may I recommend a visit to St Patrick's in Soho Square. Life has some curious counterpoints and this church is a case in point. I work a few minutes' walk away and started attending the daily lunchtime Mass there, or taking some time during the day to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, which is exposed throughout the day in the church. But it was only after going there for a week or two that its name began to chime in my memory (and the church bell also chimes before the start of Mass, a wonderful call ringing through the clamour of the city). This was the church were my parents were married, 44 years ago now. So now I find myself returning there.

There are generally some twenty to thirty people at the lunchtime Mass and many more on holy days of obligation. I find it particularly heartening that this vibrant church exists as witness in Soho, one of the more louche parts of London in times past and now the centre of the media and advertising worlds who probably have most need of God. There is a palpable sense of peace when one enters and sees the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance on the altar, and people, many young, kneeling in silent prayer.

Fr Alexander, the parish priest, is a fine man and has made the church something of a spiritual and religious centre. Not only is it the base for Nicole Syed's work on natural family planning, but there is also the School of Evangelisation, which attracts young people from all over the world. So, if you're in London, come in: Mass is at 12.45pm Monday to Friday.

Parents, don't call us, we'll call you. Maybe

Once again, our berobed and bewigged masters have laid down the law: doctors can perform abortions on girls under 16 without consulting the child's parents. No matter that the age of consent is still 16 in this country. We won't bother with the fact that parents are still held responsible for making sure their children attend school. No, nothing must get in the way of the supreme and sacred right to have sex and then get rid of the results with as little fuss as possible.

The view that parents know what is best for their children is old-fashioned and out of date.

That is effectively what the High Court decided yesterday when it endorsed the approach of the Family Planning Association and the Department of Health who say parents have no right to know if their daughter is pregnant. The Government believes that the rights of parents are nowhere near as important as the right to confidentiality enjoyed by under-16s which, it says, is crucial in reducing teenage pregnancies and improving sexual health.

The number of abortions in England and Wales hit a record high in 2004 of more than 185,000. The rate of terminations has risen relentlessly since the mid-1990s. The abortion rate was highest in women under 24, but there were 157 abortions among girls under 14, up from 148 in 2003.

One in three women in Britain has an abortion and some 57,241 - 32 per cent - were on women who had already undergone at least one termination.

The full story is here.

The madness of MP George

George Galloway MP was last night voted out of the 'Big Brother' house, and was greeted with jeering and the quickly dawning realisation that he has destroyed his career and his credibility. Presumably he thought that he could manipulate the manipulators, in the same way he had outfaced the Senate Committee before whom he testified. But the people who make 'Big Brother' are well versed in the dark arts of social psychology:

Politicos and hoodies alike have lengthily debated which was George’s most catastrophic moment in the house: acting out the emotion “A slight feeling of bewilderment when a puppy won’t come to you when called”, dressed in a straining red Lycra bodysuit, to Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express, perhaps. Taunting the ex-alcoholic Michael Barrymore by chanting the phrase, “Poor me, poor me, pour me another drink” over and over again during an argument.

Kneeling on all fours and drinking imaginary cream from the actress Rula Lenska’s hands, purring loudly. Promising, in the wake of some perceived slight, revenge on Preston, the 24-year-old lead singer of The Ordinary Boys. “Either in or out of the house,” he added. During the latter scene, with his cigar, Galloway looked like Big Ron Corleone.

This 'Times' article asks a question many have posed but it appears it is up to your faithful scribe to answer:

Is there a medical test in existence that could explain WHY HE DID IT?

One word: vanity.

Hold your horses

I work in an office overlooking Tottenham Court Road here in the centre of London and, as you can tell from the strange time stamps to some of my posts, usually get in to work early so that I can do a bit of blogging before properly starting the labours of the day. One of the occasional benefits of getting in to work so early is that, every so often, I hear a slowly approaching sound, coming north up the road. The first time I heard it I couldn't for the life of me make out what it was: it sounded like a myriad tin cans being clopped against the road. But it was that 'clopped' that should have given it away. It was a troop of the Household Cavalry, riding from their barracks up to Regents Park, I believe.

There is something peculiarly moving about the sight and sound of a cavalry troop: the noise, as if a squad of dwarvish drummers are banging the bones of the earth; the horses, ridden three abreast, the uniformed men, in dress down uniforms at this time rather than the scarlet finery of their full regalia but still magnificent. It makes me want to cheer and throw a hat in the air.

And another reason for my fondness for the Household Cavalry is that, a few years back, I attended the funeral of a lady who had escaped Russia at the time of the Revolution. The funeral was at the Orthodox cathedral, and we then drove, following the hearse, through Hyde Park towards the cemetery where she was to be buried. As the cortege went through the park we saw, coming in the opposite direction, a troop of the Household Cavalry in full uniform.

And as they passed the hearse, each and every cavalryman saluted. It was a most moving gesture, and a testimony to a fineness of manners that has almost entirely passed from other arenas of the modern world. So while I know, in military terms, it's the infantry that wins or loses most battles, my heart I must admit is with the cavalry.