JRR Tolkien on His Mother's Sacrifices for the Catholic Faith

"My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."

JRR Tolkien.
(from Carpenter, Biography, page 31.)

Portillo, Elizabeth I, Scottish Independence & Catholicism

Come on laddie: paint your face!!!

I have never really liked Michael Portillo. Not because his father was a supporter of the anti-Catholic forces in Spain. Nor because he is a homosexual. Nor even because he flipped from being a "right-winger" to being a liberal (around the time he was forced out of the closet).

I believe he is the breed of politician who is always the "system's man." Not strictly a careerist, though he clearly wanted to be the Tory leader before being 'outed,' moreover he is well-connected amidst the politicos, bankers and media-luvvies.

It is that breed of people who will never rock the boat, will always come out on the side of the ruling class, whilst pushing from the inside for the very worst kind of laws viz morality, public decency, the family and so on.

They will never be openly hostile to the Catholic Church, but they will always say that Catholics should keep their opinions inside the Church. Like Alistair Campbell, the one-time (some might say all-time) porno-fiction writer, this breed of politico "don't do God."

The very idea of God is anathema to this breed. To them, religion should not encroach on politics (whilst their politics forever encroaches on our religion). They, like Nietzsche before them, believe that "God is dead" or at least is in His retirement home (reserved for visiting hours on Sundays) with the other 'deities of your choice' so we are free to pick n choose from Buddhism to witchcraft, Baptist to Islam.

The Catholic Faith is an anachronism to these breed, one of many beliefs to pick n choose as long as you keep it to yourself. They are free to ram their constructs and beliefs down our throats via the school system, the mass media and the political system, so that we believe in "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." 


Over the years, they have used this Masonic hydra to make the majority believe that contraception was acceptable, then that abortion on demand was acceptable, then that homosexuality was acceptable. Now they are all pushing for the acceptance of euthanasia.

Of course we will be told this will be "for love." Or "to stop suffering." The modern god "choice" won't be far behind. And so eventually, through BBC docudramas, through Eastenders plot-lines and via the Chinese water torture of political and media pressure, the majority will go with the flow. Oh they will lie, tweak, fabricate and concoct "surveys" and even use very sad individual examples (in that Roe Vs Wade style). But the end result will be euthanasia on demand. Mass murder.

They'll get us coming and going! Both ends of the hospital will be death mills; with one end seeing sad women pressurised into killing babies by uncaring boyfriends, husbands, married lovers etc., whilst the other end sees sad old people who think they are a "burden" signing their lives away whilst relatives rub their hands with glee and flick through holiday brochures and paperwork from car showrooms.

The only people with "yooman rights" will be hardened criminals. The rapists, paedophiles  -- all will have their rights enshrined; whilst the innocent unborn and the pressurised elderly will be killed by the thousands.

We can see it happening a mile off. Abortion was meant to be for a small number of women. Their lives would be in danger. Two doctors would have to sign off the "procedure." All manner of checks and balances would be in place.

Now we have abortion on demand with abortion profiteers (sorry, 'providers') advertising their referral or confidential helpline services as if they do not have a vested interest (or profit motive) in promoting abortion as the pain-free option with no physical, mental or moral ramifications.


Do the people now pushing euthanasia not realise that the same thing will happen again? The Death Clinics will advertise "helplines" and suchlike, where they will present suicide as a "valid lifestyle choice" and those who bother to protest outside the clinics will see doddery old men and ladies taken in by relatives with pound-signs in their eyes.

So why pick on Michael Portillo?

Well he thinks that none of this is "extreme." He thinks we live in a wonderful land where everything that is liberal and free is accepted by the majority. I have no doubt his own twisted proclivities colour his judgement, as is the case with so many people embroiled in the political sphere.

The other evening he was involved in a discussion on the BBC's Newsnight about "Britishness" and "Englishness," which were being discussed in the shadow of the SNP's victory in Holyrood and the prospect of Scotland going independent.

Mr. Portillo painted a bizarre picture of English/British history, wherein Britishness was essentially an all-embracing liberalness that avoids extremes. This was, for him, rooted in Elizabeth I's stance against Catholics and Protestants, choosing instead the "centre ground."

Excuse me? Methinks Mr. Portillo needs a history lesson. Bloody Bess was a tyrant. She murdered many  Catholics in the most gruesome manner. This is an ample example of the re-writing of history in which Mary I is painted as "Bloody Mary" for killing circa 500 Protestants in the legal manner of the day, whereas the Protestants: Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I killed many, many times more - in the multiple of thousands. Men, women and children often killed in reprisal attacks for mass movements in defence of Catholicism such as the Pilgtrimage of Grace and the Northern Rising.

You see what Portillo and his ilk do not tell you is that England was a thoroughly Catholic country. The Protestants were small in number, but agitated to control the State. And so Elizabeth, who swore an Oath to be a Catholic queen, turned against her people. She put a rift between England and Europe for centuries. She put the country at risk from Spanish/Imperial armies. And she ruined the beliefs of the whole country, forcing people to go underground to celebrate Mass as their parents and grandparents had done, openly.

Splitting the country between the "pro-Catholic" and "pro-Protestant" factions in turn led to the disastrous Civil War, with the forces of Cromwell all but raping Ireland. Cromwell the mad Protestant who banned Christmas is, of course, a darling of the politicos because he was an extreme anti-Catholic nutter. Despite banning parliament and replacing a King with himself as Lord Protector, he remains the darling of "democrats."

It had (and has!) nothing to do with democracy. If a popular vote was taken the population of England would have remained Catholic through all the turmoil. The people loved their Church, and their devotions.

What Portillo and his ilk believe Britishness to be (and here I concur) is a worship of the State and the State's religion (Anglican hotch-potch at first, and now "tolerance" of goodness knows what).

The SNP spokesman on the programme did interject in Portillo's ramblings of Britain being against "Catholic extremism" at one stage by stating that the British Union was a construct to keep the State Protestant and for the benefit of the Hanoverians.

Of course to Portillo regicide and overthrowing the lawful King to replace him with a Dutch or German puppet is a great example of Britishness and not "extreme" in any way! Just as it is not extreme to have an Anglican Queen sign off laws that go against her Oath of Office to uphold the law of the land and the Bible, in particular laws which legalised homosexuality, abortion and which will legalise euthanasia.

Britishness and Anglicanism are State worship. That is why the head of the Anglican church is the queen (also head of the Protestant, Presbytarian Church of Scotland), and so Britishness has always been about being anti-Papist; as such one could argue that Britain was the first Masonic State (whose regicide led the way for the French revolutionaries).

Certainly John Dee, the man who is said to be the founding  father of the British Empire and Elizabeth I's right-hand man was a known occultist. Then we have Cromwell the murderer who was the nuttiest Brit to rule the country. Then there is William of Orange (the "King Billy" so beloved of Protestants), a usurper who sold England to unending debt by establishing the Bank of England.

Portillo thinks all of this and more proves that Britain is all about tolerance and fairness. Tell that to the Irish circa 1845. Tell that to the Scottish circa 1746. Tell that to the Welsh children banned from speaking their mother-tongue. Tell that to the Boers who were put in the first ever concentration camps. Tell that to the English forced from the land and into slums.

Britain is a construct designed to promote worship of the state and money (coming together in the Empire), which is why the City of London has been the centre of finance for many centuries. Anglicanism is state worship with a healthy dose of anti-Catholicism at its head. They have bent over backwards (Houses of Orange, Hanover and Saxe-Coburg/Gotha - aka Windsor) to stop Catholic rule, hence we still have anti-Catholic legislation on the statute books.

I know it's hard - and many Catholics have fought and died under the Union Jack, not least in my own family - but I believe Scottish independence will be a good thing, because it will make us all re-evaluate patriotism, who rules us, and the means of ruling us.

There is no hard and fast rule for Catholics, but when the law was recently changed to give the Welsh Assembly more law-making powers, the Catholic Bishops put out a statement broadly welcoming it, as the nearer to people power is held, the more accountable it is (very Chetsertonian of them).

I do not think "splitting up" (as the likes of Portillo so manically portray it) the UK will end the hegemony of Mammon, Freemasonry and other anti-Catholic forces, any more than it will change the day-to-day lives of all of us, whether we are Welsh, English, Scottish or Irish. There will be no barbed-wire borders. I do not even think the moral-framework of the laws (let along the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ) will come into force.

But might the Scottish, Welsh and English nations look to their Catholic roots as well as their futures in all this political change?

I doubt it somehow, but the end of the British Union may yet give Catholics hope for the future and be part of God's plan. With the Euro stumbling and even America unable to "pay its bills" the era of small nations may take us back to a more Catholic way of doing things...

Do We Need a Second Counter Reformation?

No, no, no! Where Protestant ideas end: yuch.

One of my favourite books about the Reformation, possibly after Cobbett's History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland, is Rev B. J. Kidd DD's The Counter-Reformation 1550-1600.

I would say to any decent (or half-decent) Catholic: it's a book you simply must read! Originally published by the SPCK in 1933, it tells the story of Saints called to defend the Catholic Faith across Europe, in the shadow of the Protestant Revolution against the Catholic Church.

The Protestants had already won over vast tracts of Germany, Bavaria, Hungary, Poland... much of Europe was under threat (even France and Italy!) Only Spain seemed to stand firm in the Faith, and it was that nation which gave the world the Jesuits, a Holy Order that won back so much of Europe for the Catholic Faith -- a role which Protestants and Freemasons have still not forgiven the many Saints and Martyrs of that Order for (hence all the ridiculous Jesuit conspiracies).

One aspect of the Counter Reformation was, of course, the Council of Trent. That heroic Council of the Church which codified (not invented!) the Mass of Centuries, to stop abuses (sound familiar?) and gave us the Tridentine Mass which was the Mass for another 400+ years until the experiments of the 70s, which have seen Churches half-empty out... but I digress.

The Council of Trent saw so many Holy Souls gather to defend Holy Mother Church from many abuses that had given fuel to the Protestants who (as with all false creeds) use justifiable qualms to push through their despicable aims, in their case undermining Tradition, ripping apart the Sacraments, and trying to make 'everyman a priest' (talk I heard recently from a Catholic priest) which I consider totally against what Christ established His Church for. We have a Holy Priesthood (even if some sadly fall short of what is expected) in order to enable us to receive the Sacraments.

I am a Catholic. I may be a Saint (I don't think I am, but the possibility is there for us all). But I am not a priest. I am a Catholic. I am a father and a husband. I have my vocation in life.

And this, in a kind of circuitous route (how atypical of me) brings me back to this wonderful book.

You see, at the Council of Trent, some Catholic laity and priests turned up with an agenda. Some were powerful men of the world (especially from the 'German' sphere of influence) and they wanted the Catholic Church to move partway towards the Protestant stance on certain things, as a way to 'heal the rift' and bring the two sides back together.

Would this have worked? Give them an inch and they'll want a yard? There is no doubt the Council overturned many abuses and that in and of itself should have pleased any genuine souls who were irked with the Church. Let's face it, genuine Catholics can take umbrage with some Church policies, especially if they are seen to harm the Church, turn souls away, make the Church look grasping or underhand. We only have to look at the recent paedophile scandal in the Church. If the Church had reacted correctly, nipped it in the bud, acted in the best interests of souls (priestly and laity), routed out homosexuals in the priesthood and much else besides - it would have spared the Church another scandal, and more injuries.

Yet the Council of Trent reacted to the Protestant Revolution not only by ending genuine abuses which gave genuine grievances, it acted to solidify the Traditional Latin-Rite Mass, it sent the Jesuits, Dominicans and others to fight back for the Faith in the heartlands of the "enemy" -- we know that full well with Saint Martyrs created right in here in Wales.

I remember seeing a plaque at the bottom end of Crwys Road, where Cathays and Roath meet in Cardiff, showing the spot where our beloved Saints Philip Evans and John Lloyd were martyred. To quote the Real Cardiff site about the spot:

Here, in a plot known as 'the Cut Throats', more or less where the Road has its junction with Albany, stood the town gibbet. Nearby were plots called Cae Budr (the defiled field), Plwcca Halog (the unhallowed plot), and Pwll Halog (the unhallowed pool). Today they've got side streets built across them and are happily called Strathnairn, Glenroy and Keppoch. 

So we have, today, the examples of so many Holy Saints and Martyrs from this time on which to call for help and intercession on, in these worried times.They came to Welsh soil to win souls back for Christ and His Church through the Sacraments.

One of the aspects of the Council of Trent, as I said earlier, was the attempt of some to get Protestant "demands" from the Church. One of these was Communion in both kinds for the laity. As usual with these demands, there was the Protestant propaganda that hitherto the priests had been keeping something to themselves, and (especially with the idea that "we are all priests") then why should we all not partake in Communion under both kinds?

This always stuck in my mind on reading the book, because in more and more Catholic parishes today, we are seeing Communion in both kinds to the laity, and it is something, I have to say, I feel deeply uncomfortable about.

Now I am not a theologian, not even a lukewarm one, so I do not know all the theological reasons for this, but common sense tells me that Communion in both kinds is open to so much abuse. We all know of accidents with Communion in the form of the wafer: dropped and spilled hosts etc. How much more worrying would it be to witness drops and spills of the Chalice?

The other aspect of Communion in both kinds is that it gives the impression - especially to the young, immature, gullible and foolish - that the Communion host is not the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in its entirety. That is, it gives/promotes the false idea that we have to receive the Body ("wafer") and Blood ("wine") together in order to have 'full communion' - i.e. that the Host in and of itself is somehow "not enough," and I think this comes back to the Protestant idea of "we are all priests" and therefore we all have the 'right' to Communion in both kinds, otherwise we are somehow 'cheated.'

My last bug-bear about Communion in both kinds is that it has given rise to what I personally consider one of the worst abuses of the post-Vatican 2 age (whether V2 instigated it is another matter). That is the appearance of the 'Eucharistic Minister.' Some non-priest given the green light to administer Communion to the laity. In many circles these have earned themselves the nomenclature Eucharistic Monsters for various reasons (and abuses).

For me personally the idea of someone who is not a priest administering Communion is an absolute sacrilege. And I mean that literally.

I do not like the idea - as I've outlined above - of the laity receiving Communion in both kinds, even at the hands of priests, but the idea that non-consecrated hands should administer Communion is just a non-starter. It seems such an abuse of the Holy Sacrament that I still find it difficult to believe that it is allowed and the idea of witnessing it fills me with dread and despair.

If Mother Teresa considered Communion in the hand the worst thing in the world, because it offends God for the Sacrament to be in unconsecrated hands, how much more might we say Eucharistic Ministers might do the same?

The Council of Trent did much to shore up the Catholic Faith, to reinvigorate a Faith which had been under attack for decades, with all the scandals (real and invented) used to attack the Church, with its enemies seeming to have the upper hand, with calls from within and without the Church for liberalisation in the Mass and the distribution of Communion... for some years we must have looked (from a worldly view) to be on the way out.

Does anyone else see the similarities with today?

Tomorrow is St Richard Gwyn Day!

Saint Richard Gwyn (aka Richard White) is a real hero of mine.

• Firstly he is Welsh (Hurrah!).
• Secondly he had a tremendous sense of humour (even in those diabolical times under Elizabeth I - boo) even writing a humorous piece against a married priesthood.
• Thirdly he was a teacher and family man, so was very much a man with his feet firmly on the ground.
• Fourthly he stumbled on his personal 'via dolorosa' briefly conforming and becoming Anglican.
• Lastly he would not betray the Catholic Faith despite all the bribes, tortures and pressures put upon him.

Here's one story about him that shows his good humour:

...placed in the stocks for this incident, and was taunted by a local [vicar] who claimed that the keys of the church were given no less to him than to St. Peter. “There is this difference,” Gwyn replied, “namely, that whereas Peter received the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, the keys you received were obviously those of the beer cellar.”

On trial with two fellow Welsh Catholics they made sure to address the court in Welsh, English and Latin.

In great sadness looking upon the churches of his beloved Wales he said:

"Yn lle allol; trestyl trist" (In place of an altar, there is a miserable table.) 

What would he say of so many Catholic churches today, with so many containing little more than 'miserable tables?'

His last words, in Welsh, were

“Iesu, trugarha wrthyf” (Jesus, have mercy on me).

The Relics of St Richard Gwyn are to be found in the St Mary of the Seven Dolours Cathedral, Wrexham, seat of the Bishop of Wrexham.

Link:
Latin Mass Society on St Richard Gwyn, their co-patron saint.