The Bishop of London--Richard Chartres--is one of the best the Church of England has to offer.
Go here to read his excellent sermon at the Royal Wedding today.
Damian Thompson--who is probably one of the world's greatest journalists--writes here about the value of the Church of England. He basically says they put on a darn good show, and laments the fact that Catholics aren't so good at pomp and circumstance.
I disagree. They did a pretty good job when the Pope visited Britain, and the Vatican always does a good job with ceremony. After all, the marriage of a future king of England, Westminster Cathedral, the ABC--it's all top of the heap stuff, and when you compare it to how we manage papal ceremonies I think Catholics do a good job too.
I agree with Damian about the details though: you just can't beat the English cathedral choral tradition, and some of the English music by Holst, Elgar, Parry and the rest, simply can't be topped for it's regal tone, national fervor and spine chilling grandeur.
I enjoyed watching snippets of the Royal Wedding, and will keep my snide comments to myself this once.
Well done England, Well done Church of England and Long Live the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!
It all brought a tear to my eye...and I shared a kiss with my wife in joyful remembrance of our own wedding over thirty years ago. Deo gratias.
ReplyDeletegood golly, why on earth is an American priest getting excited about a woman marrying into a family that commits benefit fraud on a massive scale and then has the cheek to say that God put them there so we should respect our betters?
ReplyDeleteNo King but Christ and no Queen but Mary
"...you just can't beat the English cathedral choral tradition, and some of the English music by Holst, Elgar, Parry and the rest, simply can't be topped for it's regal tone, national fervor and spine chilling grandeur..."
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree, Father, and that extends to all of the pomp and pageantry -- there are some things the British simply do better than anyone else.
I have a question: does anyone happen to know who the two nuns/sisters (so they appeared to me) in grey were? Just curious --
We used to be really good at pomp and pageantry as well as those choral traditions that he mentions, then Vatican II happened, the rest as they say is history.
ReplyDelete20th century English music is civilised indeed.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the two sisters too and wondered what role they played, half expecting one of them to read one of the lessons at the service. They were seated rather close the the couple, a privileged position. Is there some connection perhaps to the Middletons?
ReplyDeleteFather, isn't Bishop Chartres a dihard Anti-Catholic clergyman. I heard that he refused to meet Pope Benedict XVI when he traveled to Britian. And basically told Anglicans that were going the Ordinariate that they would never share Church buildings in his Diocese.
ReplyDelete1. Westminster Abbey, not Westminster Cathedral - the latter is the Catholic cathedral, admittedly only half a mile away from the Abbey; but it really will be something to rejoice over if a future monarch gets married at the Cathedral!
ReplyDelete2. The sisters are chaplains at the Abbey, apparently, so are among the Abbey 'officials', so to speak. I don't know what their job description is, though.
3. Just another mad Catholic: my impression was that 'benefit fraud' was the illegal claiming of state moneys. While I agree that the Royal Family are in receipt of state moneys, this is all perfectly legal and agreed by successive Parliaments.
And I greatly prefer Queen E II to King Barack I.
sue sims
ReplyDeleteWhat if anything do the 'royals' do to earn their stipend? I do not begrudge william and harry their salaries from the Army and RAF respectively (although they are probebly pushed to the front of the promotion list because of who they are) but what does the queen or her big-eared son don but lay around at the taxpayers expense? If thats no benifit fraud then my name is roger rabit.
Dear roger rabit, the fact that the UK has an hereditary monarchy relieves us from the tedious business of having to decide from this year's list of "celebrities" who we want to be the titular Head of State. The royals do, for the most part, a splendid job (as yesterday) of representing the nation on all State occasions and bring in, consequently, massive amounts of business, tourism and foreign currency, far more, in fact, than is paid to them through the Civil List. The nation as a whole is well in profit on the royal transaction. My knowledge of the royal timetable suggests that many members of the family have a punishing schedule of official visits/openings/presentations whose contribution to the nation's morale and general happiness should never be underestimated.
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way, I rather suspect that to accuse them of benefit fraud is sufficiently specific to be libellous. I doubt you'll find yourself condemned to the Tower, but you might have an expensive day in court.
Flyingvic (love the user name): you're right, of course; but another point about the Royal Family - something we could all imitate with profit, I think - is that they never sue for libel: Tom, Dick and Harry can abuse them roundly till kingdom come, and they simply turn the other cheek. So the Mad Catholic will miss his day in court. Alas.
ReplyDeleteI have always understood Richard Chartres to be that strange, but not unusual sort of Anglo Catholic who is anti-Catholic.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, he has no love for the Roman Catholic religion because he truly believes that the Church of England is the 'reformed' Catholic Church in England.
As to his Catholic views--he was (and I believe still is) quietly, but firmly opposed to women's ordination and elevation to the episcopate--so he has an appreciation of the Catholic view, and in his sermon he refers to Catherine of Siena (whose feast day it was in the Roman calendar) so, like Rowan Williams--he is what might be called an 'establishment Anglo Catholic'.
@flying vic
ReplyDeleteFirstly your remarks remind of Oscar Wilde's famous phrase “One of the requisites of sanity is to disagree with the majority of the British public"
May I take it from your fawning adulation that contrary to the rest of CofE you include verse 3 when your congregation sings all things bright and beautiful, are you against meritocracy? Presidents Nixon, Regan, Obama (not his biggest fan), Adams Sr., Bush Sr., Clinton, Monroe and many others had to EARN, note EARN their positions.
Marshalls: Soult, Lannes and many others EARNED their ranks having enlisted as Privates in the French Army.
Now I may have spent too much time (7 weeks of my life) in that Shining City on a hill that we Call America but I think it fair that in Temporal matters one earns the right to be formally addressed rather than being 'born' into it.
As for a punishing schedule of openings, presentations etc etc, gee its hard cutting a ribbon.
If you don't mind I will forgo my cell in the tower because as soon as I can I am going to move (hopefully going to Seminary- I guess from your tone that you'd be against a working class boy taking Holy Orders) to that shining city on a hill and hope to become a good Holy Priest in the Midwest; and When I become a naturalised American CITIZEN I will mean it when I say "I hereby renounce under oath all allegiance to any foreign state"
@roger rabit
ReplyDeleteWhat you call 'fawning adulation' is in fact an extremely practical appreciation of a system that works very well in and for the UK.
I hope that the right decision is made about your candidacy for the ordained ministry - as one who grew up towards the priesthood in a terraced house with an outside toilet I perhaps know a little bit more about the working class than you seem to give me credit for.
If you are ordained in due course, I dare say you will find that dealing with people every day (cutting ribbons is the easy bit) can be extremely demanding and tiring; and if you find yourself in America I hope you will indeed find it to be the land of the free, and that you won't simply have exchanged a social hierarchy based upon birth for one based upon wealth.
Do you think that any of the clergy involved mentioned that living together before marriage is sinful? Commentators seem to ignore the fact or treat it as normal.
ReplyDeleteCatholics can indeed put on a good show. Anyone who attends the annual pontifical high mass at the conclusion of the Christus Rex pilgrimage in Australia will see that we certainly do have it in us!
ReplyDeleteI don't care what anybody says - Rowan had the nicest hat!
ReplyDeleteflyingvic, I'm enjoying your comments in defense (defence?!) of the royal family very much -- well said!
ReplyDeleteSue Sims, thank you for your information on the sisters -- I figured that they must be on the staff of the Abbey. They certainly had privileged seats for the occasion.
This American Catholic loved it! But I was confused by one thing... I thought that the wedding would be inside a mass, or whatever it is called in the Church of England. But this seemed to be just a wedding. Is that normal for Anglican weddings, and/or royal weddings? I don't remember what went on at any of the other ones I watched, I was a little girl at the time.
ReplyDeleteIt was beautiful and I wish we did ceremonies as well. I agree that we used to, but opening that wedding with a rousing rendition of "Glory and Praise to Our God" or "Sing a New Church" would NOT have been the same thing.
The royal family does not attend public masses, nor do they recieve communion in public. They have their own chapel for this
ReplyDeleteCommunion us usually done at Anglican weddings, but is not necessary for the marriage cermony itself. It is advisable for the couple to attend a mass together as soon as possible after being married, if there has been no mass at their wedding.
ReplyDelete"...does anyone happen to know who the two nuns ... were?"
ReplyDeleteThe most convincing theory is that they were Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in disguise.
...though they don't have an immaculate conception between the pair of them...
ReplyDelete@flyingvic
ReplyDeletefew of 'the latest celebrities' on either side of the quickly chilling pond have law degrees from Harcard and are actually trying to address real problems with real solutions.
this is a great precdnt for Britains political leaders to emulate.
as for the British Monarchy;
JACOBITES RULE THE UK OK
@just another mad catholic
ReplyDeleteas you may have gathered or not I am originally from Colorado- more the West than Mid-West but you will find no better folks than those in Indiana or wherever you hopefully may be going.
i might and should add I am one of many mad Jacobites- you know our volatile Scots tempers perhaps- so:
mea culpa
on the 'sassanach' front
good on yah mate! good luck
I thought it was a beautiful wedding, and a message to the world that the sacrament of marriage is still sacred and valued.
ReplyDeleteGod bless you, Fr. Dwight!
Flyingvic,
ReplyDeleteI know that at times I have disagreed with you, so it is really nice to heartily endorse your reply to Just another mad Catholic.
I get so frustrated with trying to explain to republicans (i.e. people who are against monarchies NOT the American political party) the point of a monarchy. At the risk of getting too philosophical, a monarchy is sort of like a thousand historic buildings. It is part of the ingrained fabric and history of the country. Just as it would be criminal to demolish the historic houses of Britain so it would be criminal to get rid of an institutional family that has been part of Britain’s history for over one thousand years.
But the monarchy is so much more than this. It is the embodiment of ideals and perfections to which all humans beings should be aiming.
God did NOT create an egalitarian, uniform universe. God’s creation is hierarchical. The Bible is abounding in hierarchical imagery. A monarchy is an earthly symbol of Heavenly realities.
But it is even more than this. Have you noticed how before all of the major despotic, murderous regimes came into power they first eliminated the monarchy of the country? The Nazis got rid of the power of the Kaiser. The Soviets murdered the Tsar and his family. The Chinese got rid of the Emperor before the murderous regime of Mao came to power. The Prince of Cambodia had to be removed before the foul regime of Pol Pot could possibly come to power. And so it goes on. For all the faults of monarchs, the worst of the regimes of the last couple of centuries have not been monarchies. Millions and millions of people have died under regimes that first eliminated the monarch of the country.
I might just add that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is one of the hardest working, most professional people you will ever see - long may she reign.
@Veritas
ReplyDeleteI don't get your point about monarchies being part of history, being a republic is part of the history of the United States, for the Americans Capitol Hill, the White House etc etc. now America happens to have slightly less History compared to say England because America as unified nation is only about 230 years old. Give her another thousand years and future Britons will marvel at St Patricks Cathedral in New York.
As for your point about egalitarianism, do you deny that all men by virtue of being created in the image of God are equal in dignity?
Your comments remind me of a scene in a British Drama "Lark Rise to Candleford" set in the late 19th century where a girl says that the Rev Ellison(Anglican) says it’s a sin to try and better your lot. (I can even reference the season, episode and timestamp if you want me to).
You would obviously be very happy with verse 3 of all things bright and beautiful which for some reason endorses the unbiblical idea that it is a sin to try and better your lot. Hate to say it but that attitude is SOOOOOOO 15th-19th Century, that attitude is why so many people (including myself) love the fact that in America the son of immigrants (Bobby Jindal) can get elected governor and may one day have a shot at the Presidency, where one of the’ common people’ (Richard Milhous Nixon) who grew up in little more of a shack was Elected presidency;.
As for the point about republics murdering deposed monarchs, I can’t see the necessary correlation, When a brave band of Irishman lead by Michael Collins (may he rest in peace) won their independence they didn’t immediately set about murdering the British Monarchy, upon winning their independence did George Washington and John Adams create a crack squad to murder George the third of that name?
As for crap rulers, in a Republic you can actually get rid of them at pre-determined intervals in time, oh and generally a ruler in a republic actually has to get their on their own merit and govern only with the consent of the governed.
I also am opposed to monarchies on the principal that Monarchs have historically viewed (and in the case of king of Swaziland still do) their subjects as little more than cattle and have no qualms about throwing thousands of them into the mill of war in order to settle their own petty squabbles (think Wars of the Roses, Hundred years War, any war of succession that you care to name).
As I have said before I have no King but Christ and no Queen but Mary, I kneel before the Holy Father, the Princes of the Church and the Bishops because of the Divinely appointed offices they hold (even if I sometimes gripe about the current occupant not abrogating the OF and making the EF the norm) and because they are Altar Christus.
@just another mad catholic
ReplyDeleteyou may also find it an historical fact that:
The founding Fathers down Virginia way were most annoyed with the vandalism of the 'Boston Tea Party' sent enquirie to the Gov of Mass as to whether the Captain of the ship so vandalized had been reimbursed and an apology made to his company. When no reply came back they sent a more than appropriate amount of money to the company to cover what they saw as theft.
google Anthony New, Virginia Militia
one of my forebears who 'ponyed up' the cash and DID NOT approve of lawbreaking most assuredly not 'breeching the King's peace'
Sic Semper Tyrannis
motto of the great Commonwealth of Virginia
Just another mad Catholic,
ReplyDeleteYou appear, from your comments about the Extraordinary Form and kneeling before Altar Christus, to be an orthodox, traditionally minded Catholic. That is why your reply puzzles me somewhat. Many of the traditionally minded Catholics in my country are opposed to us becoming a Republic and are pro-monarchy. They feel this way precisely because they see monarchy as a reflection of the Heavenly realities. God is not egalitarian, neither is His universe. He created all sorts of different orders of creation – there are even 9 hierarchies of angels. Our ability to “bend the knee” to an earthly king is but an indication of our wanting to bend the knee to our God.
I find that in my country (Australia) the more left wing a politician is the more he wants to get rid of the monarchy and make us a republic. The same left wing politician is also highly likely to be an agnostic or atheist – there is a definite statistical relationship. It is also interesting that these same left wing politicians want to eliminate our two Houses of Parliament and have just one. They want to eliminate our State Governments and have just one, central, Federal Government - the old Socialist love of concentrated, earthly power, of absolute control.
The difference between this and a monarchy is that a monarch is brought up from birth to believe and to live as the embodiment of his people. Sure, human beings being what they are, there have been, and are still, bad monarchs. But I still say that if you look at the raw facts of history far more people have suffered, and suffered in their millions, under anti monarchical regimes – Nazism and Communism are the two paramount examples.
Further, a Christian monarch is taught that he rules under God. He is anointed by God’s Church and he is expected to rule according to God’s Ten Commandments and under the Christian rule of love.
Your love of American egalitarian democracy should not blind you to the fact that the rule of the majority can be more dangerous, more brutal than the rule of the one. For example, if the majority of Americans decide that babies can be murdered (abortion) then they will be, but that doesn’t make it right. If the majority of Americans decide that old people should be helped to leave this world (euthanasia) then they will be, but that doesn’t make it right. Democracy is not decreed by Divine Will to be THE ideal government.
For over one thousand years Christian Europe was ruled by monarchs who ruled under the anointing of God’s Church and who were subject to its rules. Sure there were plenty of abuses, but the ideals of the Christian monarchy were far in advance of the ideals of the modern, secular humanist state.
You argue that in your system anyone can achieve the highest office. Really!? I don’t think there is a person living outside the United States who doesn’t know that only the really wealthy have a hope of achieving high office in America.
@veritas
ReplyDeletea)You haven’t answered any of the points I made in the Previous post
b)As for your comments about majority rule, the same can be said of Henry the eighth of that name who tore England away from the Catholic Church
c)If only the wealthy can make it in America then explain how Govenor Jindal is being touted as a possible presidential candidate somewhere down the line, explain how the current speaker of the house who grew up in a blue collar household made it to where he is, explain how a man who had to spend a good proportion of his childhood with his grandparents because his father was an itinerate salesmen (President Clinton) ascended to the Presidency or how Nixon who was born in shack got elected.
d)Show me ONE passage from Holy Scripture where God says that a temporal monarchy is how he wants to do things, If I remember my judges and Samuel correctly God did not want to give the Israelites Kings, he governed through the judges until the people badgered him for a King.
e)I wish for you to answer the questions (a) is it a sin to try and improve one’s lot in life and (b) are you for or against meritocracy.
Just another mad Catholic,
ReplyDeleteMy reply to your points:
a) I believe in my comments about God’s creation, the medieval Church / State system etc that I had answered your points. You may, and obviously do, disagree with what I said, but I do believe I have answered the points.
b) I said that there have been bad monarchs. I can think of none worse than Henry VIII and I believe that what he did to the Church in England was a tragedy of monumental proportions. I make no excuse for him at all.
c) Your giving a few examples of formerly poor people who made it to high office does not alter the fact, repeatedly stated by your own media, that American election campaigns now require hundreds of millions of dollars per candidate and that unless a person can muster that sort of money they don’t stand a chance.
d) God allowed the people of Israel to have a king because they had failed to see the ideal – i.e. that God was their true king. However, as Scripture goes on God attaches His blessings and promises to the Royal House of David, even to the point that Our Lord is repeatedly spoken of as being of David’s line. God used the earthly monarchy as a sort of sacramental sign of the Heavenly Kingdom.
And no, I can’t find any verses espousing the virtues of democratic or populist rule.
e) Your first point in section e), i.e. part a), makes no sense at all. There is nothing in what I said that in any way says that a person can’t better their lot. Apparently you are assuming that the only way of really bettering your lot is to become ruler of the country. I suggest Our Lord would disagree with you.
As for part b) of your section e) (a bit confusing) I have repeatedly answered that point in my previous replies when I spoke about God’s creation of a hierarchical universe. I refuse to be drawn into a Socialist paradigm of a world in which we are supposedly all exactly the same. I would have thought 70 years of Communist rule in Eastern Europe would have cured you of those dreams.
@VERITAS
ReplyDeleteYou don’t seem to get my point when I mentioned Nixon, Reagan etc, my point is that Americans don’t give a dam about a man’s pedigree, now if I was a successful businessman in the UK I would still be looked down upon by the ‘aristocracy’ because I had made my own money (In fact one conservative MP Douglas Haig I believe looked down upon a fellow MP because he was a self –made man commenting that “he brought all his own furniture”.
I do not suggest that the only way of bettering one’s lot is to become ruler of the country, but remember that ‘Class distinction Ordained by God’ was preached by the established CofE for centuries in England.
I am NO socialist, I was born the year before the Berlin Wall came crashing down and regard the U.S.S.R and its satellite ‘People’s democratic republics of’ as an expression of evil because they were democracies at all they were communist dictatorships, and whilst accept that there will always be economic and inequalities “the poor will always be with you”, I do think that the duty of society is to take care of those who are either unable to help themselves or are ‘down on their luck’ as I currently am, and give them a hand up.
I agree with the American founding fathers that in secular and temporal matters e.g. taxes, health and safety matters, public services that those who govern do so only with the consent of the governed, historically monarchs tend to view the ‘common people’ as arrow fodder with which to settle their own petty squabbles (think wars of succession).
You have also given me no specific scriptural passage that establishes monarchy as the Will of God and as for there being no passage praising democracy I say this, there Is no passage condemning it either, the Church has said that Republics are a perfectly legitimate form of government (Vatican II) and that is enough for me. I guess I’ve too much of Charles Dickens, Bernard Cornwell and Victor Hugo to be concerned about the social vanities of the ‘nobility’
I leave you by paraphrasing quote from “A Man from All Seasons” “The English nobility my Lord would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount yet they labour like scholars over a bulldog’s (analogy for the nobility) pedigree because they worry that when they meet their maker ill-conditioned he’ll tell them that somewhere along the line a Bitch (commoner) got over the wall”. Personally Jack Andrew Henry Hughes would rather be ruled by a man who had shown by holding various other elected offices that he was competent enough to run the country than by an elegant fool who was ‘born to rule’ and when I leave for the United States I will rejoice at no longer having to ‘my lord’ or sir flatulent farthingdale.
I can't help but feel, JamC, that your scorn is misplaced. The people who actually run the legislature in the UK are all individually elected by their constituents having convinced various selection committees that they were suitably equipped to do the job of an MP. The people who run the judiciary have climbed the ladder of competence through the Law. I'm not sure which bits of this governmental equation you object to. 'Old money' (typified perhaps by Alan Clark, who made the sniffy remark about Michael Heseltine having to buy his own furniture) has very little power per se, nor does the monarchy.
ReplyDeleteThe Times on Holy Saturday reported experts from fashion, tourism, charities and the media estimating a two billion pound windfall to the British economy because of Kate getting married - not a bad return really from this year's Civil List payments to royalty.
Dare I mention that the Napoleonic Marshals you mentioned were defeated at Waterloo by soldiers led by those 'born to rule' and educated on the playing-fields of Eton? Or that those sent to die in Vietnam would have been glad it wasn't a monarch that sent them there just to settle a petty squabble?