THE P RTAL
April 2012 Page 14
A New Book by Fr Aidan Nichols reviewed by John Hunwicke
A book about a Catholic liturgist who died in 1923 might not seem the most likely place to find a laugh on nearly every page ; or even a lesson in a wide variety of topical or recondite subjects . Why does Russia go so soft on President Assiz of Syria ? Why do Constantinople and the Russian Church get on so badly ? Why do we tortuously refer to a minor Balkan state as The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia ? What was the Armenian Genocide ?
Fr Aidan Nichols , the Ordinariate ’ s Best Friend , takes us travelling through the Middle East no less than round Edwardian England as we follow his subject and his subject ’ s pen in and out of danger . How many liturgists do you know who in a casual aside might mention that they once had to shoot a man dead ? Do you want to learn painlessly about the Donatists or the Great Schism ? Was Pius X “ an Italian lunatic ”? Let Fr Aidan introduce you , in a book of sparkling wit and erudition , to the figure of Fr Adrian Fortescue . This is a must-read .
humorous hyperbole
What would Fortescue , liturgist and Parish Priest , have thought of the Ordinariate ? I think he would have approved warmly ... although he might have spluttered a bit about the number of Monsignori it contains . He wrote to a friend who had just received a canonry “ So far you have not had to add a filthy Italian prefix to a decent English name ... it must be an awful thing to be classed among the sweepings of the Italian gutters who lurk around the backyards and latrines of the Vatican , their greasy palms out-stretched for tips , their oily lips bubbling with servile lies in bad French ” ( perhaps I should make clear that Fortescue revelled in humorous hyperbole ). Fortescue would have liked the liturgical style of the Ordinariate and discerned in it the manly and dignified austerity characteristic of the ancient Roman Liturgy . Fr Aidan suggests that those who ‘ reformed ’ the Liturgy after Vatican II might find “ rather too close for comfort ” Fortescue ’ s comments on a high church Congregationalist : “ He understands nothing about the historic development of the inherent build of the rite he plunders ”.
a Bavarian theologian
Fortescue was often ahead of his time . He wrote “ The pope is not an irresponsible tyrant who can do anything with the Church that he likes . He is bound on every side by the constitution of the Church . Some day a Catholic
theologian ought to write a treatise on the limitations of the Papacy ”. This is uncannily like the words of a Bavarian theologian in 2000 : “ After the second Vatican Council , the impression arose that a pope could do anything in liturgical matters ... the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch ... The pope ’ s authority is bound to the Tradition of faith and ... is not unlimited ...”. That Bavarian was in 2005 elected to the Throne of Peter .
Waspish he isn ’ t
Fr Aidan is one of the gentlest people I have ever met . I remember how , as Catholic representative on the Forward in Faith Theological Working Party , he treated every inanity I uttered with unfailing courtesy . Waspish he isn ’ t ... but – well – I have come to expect that in each book he writes there just might be one piece of waspishness . In Fortescue it comes when he has described Fortescue ’ s church and reveals that its baldacchino “ recently , ... has , regrettably , been dismantled . Perhaps it was surprising that it lasted so long in a Philistine phase of the life of the Western Catholic Church .” And , among the many memorable phrases , there is in each book one at least that keeps reverberating in my mind ; in Fortescue it is this : “ Magisterial teaching is often more a matter of trajectory than a declaration at one point ”. If only Fortescue , as he agonised about subscribing to the contemporary edicts of the Pontifical Biblical Commission , had been told that .
The Latin Clerk The Life , Work , and Travels of Adrian Fortescue by Aidan Nichols - The Lutterworth Press ISBN-13 : 978 07188 9274 6 - £ 25.25