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In Rome: the Red Gowns of St Andrews University

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The Catholic students of St Andrews University recently made a pilgrimage to Rome, led by their chaplain, Fr Michael John Galbraith, a hard-working and devout young priest whom I have the privilege to know personally. Over the years I have made many visits to Canmore, the home of the Catholic Chaplaincy, to give talks to the Catholic Society which has remained impressively strong, providing a formative environment for many vocations to priesthood, the religious life, and to Catholic marriages. While in Rome, the students were given a tour of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by one of the priest officials there, who is himself an alumnus of St Andrews. He too is a fine young priest (remember that I am getting older!) and works hard at what is sometimes a thankless task in the Curia (not a job I would want for all the tea in China) for the love of God " et pro felici statu sanctae Romanae ecclesiae ." The students were given a private audience with Cardi
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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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SPUC Clergy information day

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SPUC today held a Clergy Information Day. Unfortunately, because of an urgent meeting I had to be late for this so I missed the first half of the morning lecture by Fr John Fleming. I could catch up with most of it from his notes and look forward to the published version when it is available from SPUC. Fr Fleming was speaking about the rights of the unborn under international law, the pro-life battle at the UN and the nature of the early human embryo. As a lecture, it was certainly not "dumbed down". He presented some of the latest research on the biochemistry of the human embryo in relationship with the mother and then tied this in to the philosophical question of the status of the embryo, dealing with such hoary chestnuts as twinning and the differentiation of cells in the embryo. It was a most helpful and informative presentation: intellectually challenging but well put together. I think that the sheer quality of these presentations has been the important factor in the gr
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When people walk away with Holy Communion

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It happens from time to time that someone will come up for Holy Communion which they receive into their hands, and then walk away with the sacred host. A priest friend asked me to write something about what we can do. Let’s think first of all of the actual situation and then about some possible preventative measures. In terms of canon law, the desecration of the sacred species is a crime, punishable by automatic excommunication. In most cases, the person does not know what they are doing or how wrong it is, so I’ll assume that is the case (rather than deliberate desecration, perhaps for satanic purposes or as an atheistic stunt.) But even if the person does not know the seriousness of what they are doing, it is still objectively a very grave matter. So we can’t just let it happen. A pastoral complication is that people don’t like to be “shown up” or embarrassed in front of the congregation so they can easily become annoyed or aggressive in their confusion. Therefore we need to ke
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Saint Gabriel

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The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai
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Abstinence and Friday of the Easter Octave

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Must we abstain from meat on the Friday of the Easter Octave? In my "Catholic Dilemmas" column in the Catholic Herald of 29 March 2013, I said that we should. This has created a larger correspondence than any other of the columns that I have written in the past six years. So I thought I should address the question further here. First of all the law concerning abstinence. The relevant canon of the current Code of Canon Law says: Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday... (Can. 1251) So the question is whether the Friday of the Easter Octave is a solemnity. In the 1969 document Calendarium Romanum , we read the following in the Normae Universales de Anno Liturgico et de Calendario : Octo primi dies temporis paschalis constituunt octavam Paschae et uti sollemnitates Domini celebrantur. (n.24) (The first eight days of paschal time constitute t
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