Elsewhere, Passionists dreamed of bringing Our Lady’s Dowry back into the fold, and were spat upon in English cities when Catholicism became legal again in 1823. Benedictines labored to rebuild their abbey schools – once the glory of England – and now teach the children of wealthy Catholics at co-ed ‘posh’ schools such as Ampleforth and Downside Abbeys. The Oratorians at London, Oxford and Birmingham – and very recently, York – fill their urban churches with several Masses a day where the faithful come for frequent Confession, reverent liturgies, Latin Chant and demanding homilies.
There are two major Catholic publications in England – The Tablet, a venerable-but-fusty old maid much concerned with ‘social relevance’ and the Catholic Herald, a livelier mix of news and opinion whose webmasters are kept busy policing a red-hot readers’ commentary column. Overall, however, Catholics rejoice that Archbishop Antonio Mennini’s appointment as nuncio to Great Britain has been having an effect on a most critical area – the appointment of orthodox bishops. Ancient pilgrimage sites are also being revived, drawing Catholics and other Christians to walk in the steps of their forefathers, before such popular expressions of faith were banned by the Crown -- and later suppressed by modernizing elements in the Church.
Whatever they are, the English are never boring. A case in point was the much-ballyhooed visit of Benedict XVI in 2010, where the British press feverishly prophesied massive anti-Pope rallies – apparently unconscious of the historic irony they were courting. The freedom-loving British, they confidently predicted, would not tolerate Ratzinger the Rottweiler, the Pope who dared to uphold the Church’s hated teachings.
In the event, the massive anti-Pope crowds never materialized. A few London crazies with multi-colored hair and complicated sex lives waved banners for the cameras. But the TV crews soon packed up and headed off to the real story – the crowds that lined the streets ten-deep to wave excitedly, greeting the papal motorcade joyfully in London, and in every city and small village it passed.
Somewhat more controversially, the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was set up by Pope Benedict XVI to allow Anglicans to enter into full communion of the Catholic Church while retaining much of their spiritual, liturgical and pastoral tradition.
The Ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, Monsignor Keith Newton, recently told thousands of Mass-goers in the Catholic Westminster Cathedral that many Catholics are unaware of - or misunderstand - the Ordinariate. He said it could be quite distressing for Anglicans who had made a difficult journey in order to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church to be asked, for example, why they did not become “proper Catholics”.
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