IT HAS BEEN HARD to keep up with things in the last 48 hours; that is, to keep up with the reaction and uncertainty surrounding the motu proprio, Traditionis custodes (TC). In my previous post I set out how the Law of Unintended Consequences […]
Author: Hugh Somerville Knapman
The Motu Proprio & the Law of Unintended Consequences
FOR THOSE STRUGGLING to remember it, the Law of Unintended Consequences is a sociological maxim, with origins in the thought of John Locke, which holds that a positive, deliberate act of one kind or another may result in unintended or unforeseen outcomes. These outcomes […]
Traditionis custodes and authority
This is being typed on my phone, so the spelling may prove interesting. Some of the comments both on the last couple of posts and on their link pages on Facebook have sparked a train of thought in my rather over-taxed brain this evening. […]
Traditionis custodes: A Few Questions et al
MY PREVIOUS POST was somewhat along the lines of automatic writing, expressing immediate reaction more than cool analysis. So, now I find myself noting a few other things, and a raising a few questions, Maybe someone wiser than I might address them.
Traditionis Custodes: a New World of Hurt
THIS MORNING, being distracted by other things, I was not paying attention to social media. When finally I checked my messages I realised I had been oblivious to an ecclesiastical tempest that had erupted late morning, UK time. The publication of the motu proprio […]
The Real Cost of the UK’s Monarchy
ORIGINALLY I WAS GOING TO FOCUS on the actual topic of a BBC online article which exposed to further view the tangled web the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have woven for themselves, in this case with regard to the alleged cutting off of […]
Obsessive or Prudent? Our Life Online.
PERHAPS WE ALL HAVE at least one obsession. Maybe it is a guilty obsession we keep to ourselves, or maybe it is one to which we feel an apostolic commitment. Some of us have more than one. This post is not directly about religion, […]
Marx and the Masses
LET’S BEGIN WITH the Masses. I mean not the proletariat of course, but the sacred liturgy. It seems that Mass is yet again le sujet chaud. Only because there is a rumour, the heat of which has been increased by the appointment of Archbishop […]
Vocations before the Council—A Snapshot
NOT ALL WAS UTOPIAN in the Church before Vatican II, even if since the Council she has grown increasingly dystopian. The danger we face today is to fall into the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. Not everything that came after the Council can […]
Holy Smoke! The Crisis we Face
BEFORE READING WHAT follows you would do well to listen first to that to which I am responding, namely Damian Thompson’s Spectator podcast, Holy Smoke. You can find it through your podcast apps or go to the online version here. It is about 38 […]
In Thanks for a Classic
“THE LORD GAVE, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21) The experience of the previous few days has felt more in the line of the taking away, but today has been one of the giving. Today […]
Shameless Self-Advertising
TODAY IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION date of A Limerickal Commentary on the Second Vatican Council, a recent little labour of love of mine. It publishes for the first time a typescript set of limericks written by anglophone bishops during the Council. Apart from being […]
The Downside Decision—A Hasty Reflection
ON WEDNESDAY THE COMMUNITY at Downside Abbey, the oldest community in the English Benedictine Congregation (the EBC itself the second-oldest congregation in the Benedictine order), elected Dom Nicholas Wetz as the next Abbot of Downside. Dom Nicholas is a monk of Belmont Abbey and […]
“That would be an ecumenical matter”—Dom Gregory Murray and Plainsong: an Exchange
DOM GREGORY MURRAY (1905-1992) of Downside Abbey was one of the great monastic musicians of the twentieth century. His organ works are held in especial regard, though he was no slouch on the chant. On the other hand, he prepared so comprehensively for the […]
