ragon
THE
P RTAL
October 2017
Page 5
Snapdragon has been
dreaming – again!
O
h dear! Getting ready for my Consecration (the Canon Lawyers call it “Episcopal
Ordination”) as Bishop of Hogglestock is tougher than I realised. To begin with, I
thought it would be easy peasy.
The letter from the Pope said
I could be consecrated by any
Catholic bishop I chose. But when
I chose our Ordinary, Mgr Newton,
somebody dug up an old forgotten
document called Apostolicae curae
which, they claimed, proved that the Monsignor is
not really a bishop!!
I intended to make Dr Kirk my Vicar General, but …
problems there too (I shall fall back on Fr Sherbrooke,
who was my fag at Eton). So I shall make Geoffrey
Episcopal Vicar for Gastronomy. That, actually, was
Mgr Broadhurst’s idea.
Hearing of my imminent elevation to the Episcopate,
he wreathed his whisky in cigar smoke and murmured
“Must be money in that game”. Dr Kirk will run an
enterprise called La Table de l’Eveque. Top cuisine
in Hogglestock Palace for those who can afford to
pay through the nose. We’ve already got eighteen
American billionaires signed up for it and no fewer
than two Emirs. Cyril says he knows how to open a
Swiss bank account and launder the money, and will
only take 15% for his trouble.
as it has Sunday Masses in the Extraordinary Form”.
Cardinal Mueller signed a document (dated to the day
before he got the push) permitting all presbyters of the
Diocese of Hogglestock to celebrate the Ordinariate
Use Mass. What more could any Catholic parish want
than a simple choice between the Extraordinary Form
and the Ordinariate Use?
News of this has already leaked out, and I have 387
seminarians applying to transfer to Hogglestock, and
625 clergy asking to be incardinated. We shall reopen
the enormous old derelict Jesuit College in Silverbridge
as a seminary to be called St Ewold’s House. Dr James
Bradley has agreed to be Rector, and I am looking for
clergy with names like Finigan or Blake to staff it.
Trouble, too, about the Order of Service for my
Consecration. I had naturally assumed that it would
be in the Sarum Rite, but here again some people are
being very Rigid. Mgr Burnham thinks we should use
a form he has composed himself, but Cardinal Vin is
insisting on something post-Conciliar based on what
the Copts and the Maronites use. In any case, the event
will not take place until St Ewold’s Day (Diocesan
Patron), June 31 next year, to give plenty of time for the
reordering of the Cathedral. Some careful diplomacy
The other transaction Cyril will mastermind is the will be needed here. During the 1970s, pretty well
transference of £2,000,000 from the Contingency Fund everything of any merit – including, of course, all the
of the Diocese of Hogglestock to the Ordinariate. Fr old Pugin fittings – was given away to Anglo-Catholic
Redvers Harris says he knows how to square that with churches. It will be the very Devil to get everything
the Charity Commissioners, and will only want 20% back, and the building work necessary to reinstate it
all will cost the Earth.
for his own incidental expenses.
A special job, too, for Fr Hunwicke: Episcopal Vicar
for the Extirpation of the Novus Ordo. We have written
a diocesan policy called Extraordinary Opportunities.
Its basic provision is “Each parish wi ll be allowed as
many Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion
But one piece of good news: a kindly Swiss bishop
I met while skiing, Bernard Fellay, is giving us a
very large relic of St Ewold in a magnificent baroque
reliquary. I’ve asked him to preach the sermon at my
Consecration.
Auntie Joanna writes... continued from page 4
underlying seriousness about LOGS and all that we
are trying to do. Evangelisation is a costly business,
and beneath the heartiness and the laughter, the
togetherness and the sense of shared beliefs and values,
there is a recognition of the need for sacrifice and the
urgent sense that our poor country really does need
the message of Jesus Christ and that each of us is called
to play a small part in sharing it.