A Trip To Knock The National Shrine

Last Friday during a sojourn in the pleasant County of Mayo I visited the National Shrine of Ireland in the little village of Knock. It was a most interesting experience not in a spiritual sense but in a social and cultural sense. I also attended Mass at the Shrine which was a most empty experience.

The little village itself is flooded with Catholic gift shops of the most extreme kind. Plastic statues of the Saints and Our Lady, and all sorts of cheap and nasty items. I did purchase a knock medal as a memento of the visit.

The Mass was awful, it must have lasted twenty minutes at most and it was conducted by a Priest who clearly had no interest in what he was doing. Imagine if you will during a Church service that a Priest continually says "whatever" while praying. For example "We pray for the members of the Cork MS Society and whatever". It was incredibly empty. The Priest also said something that rocked the very fibres of my theological intellect. He exclaimed that if anyone had bought a Holy Picture, Rosaries, Statues, Holy water etc that they should hold them up now to be blessed. The items he said did not have to be taken out of their plastic bags for if it was your intention that they should be blessed then they would indeed be blessed. From that moment on those items would bestow graces to all who used them. How awful. Also during the Mass there was the odd impromptu singing of a Marian Hymn, it started as wail and lead me to think that someone was having a fit.

I have to say that it was not nice at all. It give me an experience of how the Roman system can be so very empty and lacking in theology. It also lead me to question the circumstances of the alleged visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The social and historical context of rural Ireland at the time of the vision are more interesting than the vision itself. It was tumultuous period in Irish History, at least twenty years after the famine and apparently there had been a bad harvest prior to the vision that brought about fears of a second famine. So it seems to me that Irish Catholics needed some sort of sign and seal of their faith to help them through their lives in an ever changing society. I do not doubt the credibility of the witnesses I  am sure that they were all very sincere people, but I can't help but think that there is more to this than meets the eye. When we compare it with Fatima and Lourdes there are striking similarities with the social and cultural backgrounds surrounding the vision. It would provide for an interesting discussion.


I have never really been in tune with the extreme Marian devotion in Ireland and I know many Roman Catholics who don't bother with it. I can't help but feel that there is something amiss when a Priest says " all our intentions we ask to Mary through Jesus Christ Our Lord". To me that simply does not make sense when you think about it. Why ask Mary through Christ? We are told  that no one comes to Father except through the Son. Anyway moving on....

The Basilica at Knock is horrid except for the Stations of the Cross inside which are quite beautiful. One noted the vomit inside that had not been cleaned up, which to me summed up the whole affair. The Old Parish Church has been changed inside ever so slightly and  I did not like it either.


It is worth a visit and you can make a judgement on what you see yourself. 

To what extent was the Reformation caused by the failings of the Catholic Church?



The Reformation was not merely about jurisdictions, or even about the best way to reform the Church: such quarrels had happened before, had caused mayhem, and then the wounds had been healed.[1] In answering this essay question it is necessary to explore the hopes and fears dominating Christendom in the 15^th century. It is not merely a simple case that the Catholic Church was a rotting edifice ready to topple. At the beginning of the 16th century everyone that mattered in the Western Church was crying out for reformation.[2]

The Reformation was a popular movement that sprang up from the desire for a revitalised Christianity- a Christianity that had a simpler form of religious practice, an educated clergy, and greater lay participation in the Church. There was a desire for a form of Christian ethics based on scripture, and that these ethics were applied to the ordering of secular life. It should be noted that the movement in the sense of a popular movement, rather than a schismatic sect, began primarily, in the imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire, (The power of state government was also on the rise in England under Henry VIII, Spain under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, their control came from the fact that they were much more powerful than their predecessors. The government though not modern was becoming a little more modern). These cities were under the direct control of the Emperor, thus they attained a style of virtual self –governance, akin to city state republics of Italy.[3] The imperial cities already had historical traditions of lay independence and collective responsibility for the welfare of citizens. Therefore this in turn encouraged the townsfolk to take charge of their own salvation. This goes a long way to explain why the theological messages expounded by Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli were so well received. The teachings of the reformation spread rapidly due to the invention of the printing press, which made it possible for the ordinary common man, to grasp the ideas of the Reformation movement. The great diatribes may have first started in Latin, for example the 95 thesis of Martin Luther, but they would have been translated into the common tongue and distributed to the people. The movement emanated from the cities but quickly spread to the countryside, where again it was well received by the common man. This was not due to a sense of theological outrage at the practices of the Catholic Church; rather it was the appeal to social justice which could be found in the theology as propagated by the reformers. [4]Certainly this would lead to revolutionary unrest, such as the German Peasants War of 1524. This was not however a reaction to the Catholic Church- this was a response to the radical ideas that flowed from the reformation. The peasants were more reactive to the Reformation, whereas the nobility were somewhat cautious; this is unsurprising given the involvement of the nobility in the higher levels of the pre-Reformation Church. Yet as the power of the prince was increasing and the power of the Pope decreasing, Church reformers looked to the government for effective power to reform.  Were the ideas new? And just how culpable is the Catholic Church towards the Reformation?

It would have been easy for thinkers in the year 1500 to explain in practical and definitive terms as to what they meant when they expounded the need for reform in the Church. The theoretical authority of the Pope might need to be diminished, but in fact that authority was already limited by the rights of various government states. For example the traditions as already mentioned, of the Imperial Cities. The sale of benefices, agreed by everyone to be deplorable, might be justifiable to the running of a legal system. It is fair to say that what one honest man believed to be an abuse, another honest man defended. Everyone wanted reform of some description, or at least professed to want reform. The question of how to reform and what to reform was not so clear. There had been an Ecumenical Council that sat in the Lateran Church in Rome from 1512 to 1517, which had agreed amongst other things that schism and heresy should be suppressed; that the Turks were a danger to the Christian nation- even though the idea of a united Christendom was collapsing with the rise of the states; that bishops should have more power over monks, and that no one could preach except by lawful authority. It is clear then that there was some sort of reforming spirit within the Church hierarchy, but it was certainly not recognised by some as a full reformation of the head and the body of the Church. Throughout Europe there was a diversified view as to how the Church might be reformed. For the Italians it meant diminishing the power of the College of Cardinals; for Friars it meant the reform of their congregation’s lives, more along the lines of the ideals of Christian sanctity; for secular lawyers it meant the reform of ecclesiastical courts and ecclesiastical exemptions for a more effective administration. Chadwick quite clearly sums it up as follows: “When people of the Church spoke about reformation, they were almost always thinking of administrative, legal, or moral reformation; hardly ever doctrinal reformation.”[5] The Pope’s doctrine was not seen to be erroneous, as the development of Martin Luther’s theological thinking can testify to, but it was in the thoughts of churchmen that the legal system and the bureaucracy hindered efficiency, bred injustice, immorality, and worldliness.

 Humanists of the Renaissance,(who were as varied as possible, who had little in common except their love of classical antiquity, southern European humanism was philosophical, artistic, and literary whereas northern humanism was religious, even theological), those great thinkers and proponents of academic reform also wanted intellectual improvement within the Church. They wanted bishops to be less secularized, monks to practice their rule, (Erasmus, In Praise of folly)[6], and parish clergy to be more instructed. Erasmus, “The Prince of the Humanists”, lambasted the papacy for ostentatious living, pursuit of power and failure to imitate Christ. Even though his orthodoxy would become suspect, he was always loyal to the church. Some such as Chadwick[7] have suggested that they had no desire to implement such change, however if we look at the example of Erasmus, the purposes of his writings was to make the church aware of the need for reform and to encourage the kind of reform that would make the faith more meaningful to the laity. Erasmus attacked all forms of hypocrisy wherever he found it. He emphasized a biblical faith based on the gospel and inner piety rather than outward ceremonies. Therefore can humanism be seen as a contributing factor to the reformation, more so than the failings of the Catholic Church? Although it has long been argued that humanism, especially the humanism of Erasmus helped prepare the way for the reformation, Girolamo Aleander, the papal envoy at the imperial court, once stated that Erasmus had done more damage to the church than Luther- Erasmus laid the egg that Luther hatched is attributed to him. Some historians have questioned this[8]. There is no doubt that the tools of the reformers were attributes of the humanists but there are fundamental differences between them, the most important being theology. After the reformation some humanists sided with the reformers, others did not. Humanism seems to have appealed in a less universal way than the Catholic faith. Humanism appealed largely to the educated minority rather than the masses. Although humanists stressed reform through education it was not likely to bring widespread reform, and as humanism was varied, as I said previously, I do not agree with the idea that Humanism was a prelude to the reformation.

The upper classes, the rulers, and the merchants were beginning to be better educated. The presses were working, the printers were multiplying, and libraries were increasing. The printing press made it possible to study manuscripts as was never possible before. Textual analysis and textual comparison were leading to new forms of study. Knowledge was increasing as more people were reading books. Great powers were being established in Europe and around these more effective governments was the idea of the nation,  this was quite different to the idea of a united Christian Europe, the half-conscious and yet patriotic loyalty of their people. The relation between this and the success of the reformation is without doubt, but it is difficult to define. A more efficient government could only be an effective administration with restraints on papal intervention, on ecclesiastical privilege and exemptions, but this did happen before 1500. Hopes and fears abounded between 1490 and 1517 and these also contributed to the reformation cause. The biggest fear was that Christendom might disappear altogether and there was constant worry of Islamic aggression from the east. It is impossible to understand the mood of sixteenth century Europe without bearing in mind the deep anxiety inspired by the Ottoman Empire. This was also coupled with the idea that the end of days was at hand. Preachers such as Girolamo Savonarola 1452-1498, could call for radical political and moral reform, in the name of God. Apocalyptic literature was also in circulation. For example, “Apocalypsia Nova”, (New Account of the Last Days), is claimed to have been written by a Portuguese Franciscan Friar, Amadeus Menezes da Silva. This book predicted the coming of an Angelic Pastor or Pope, who would be heralded by spiritual men. The crucial task was to identify these characters, and that was difficult. Already we can deduce that there was around the time directly before the reformation, and in my view one of the key causes of the reformation, a neo-messianic hope. It may have been propagated by a minority, but it explains as to why the European laity were so receptive to the idea of reformation, rather than the idea that they were fed up with the failings of the Church.

So, to what extent can the failings of the Catholic Church be the cause of the reformation? The Catholic Church is not the only reason that the reformation occurred. Indeed it was not just the failings of the Church, for as I have said, the whole of Europe wanted some sort of reformation, yet it was so vague an idea that they did not know how to go about it. Humanism and, “New Learning”, the advancement of the printing press, the decline of the constantinian model of government, as embodied in the idea of Christendom, and the rise of a more administrative secular government, all prefaced the reformation. To what extent did the failings of the Catholic Church lead to the Reformation? Well it depends on the word failings. We have seen in this essay that yes there were numerous abuses that reformers outside of the theological spectrum wished to address, but these abuses cannot be called fallings. However the Catholic Church was not particularly failing in its role in the society of the sixteenth century. We should not underestimate European laypeople. They were perfectly able to think for themselves about religion. Ordinary people simply drew their own conclusions about the Church and yet despite all the abuses the church was seen as the great unifier, up until the reformation.

Coypright: Numenorian Exile 2012

[1] Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 (London: Penguin,  2004)p52

[2] Owen Chadwick, The Reformation (London: Pelican, 1964)p1

[3] Bob Scribner, “Religion, Society and Culture: Reorientating the Reformation”, History Workshop 14 (1982)p4

[4] Mark Tranvick, trans., Martin Luther’s On the Freedom of a Christian (Fortress Press, 2008)

[5] Owen Chadwick, The Reformation (London: Pelican, 1964)p13

[6] Denis R. Janz, A Reformation Reader (Augsburg: Fortress, 2008)p61“Almost as happy as the theologians are those men who are commonly called “religious” and “monks” though both names are quite incorrect, since a good part of them are very far removed from religion”

[7] Owen Chadwick, The Reformation (London: Pelican, 1964)p14

[8] Rudolph W. Heinz, Reform and Conflict (London: Monarch, 2006)p63

---



Traditions and Decline.

Reading the Spring Edition of "Northern Lights" (News from the Scottish Episcopal Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney) I saw an intriguing picture of the Bishop of the Diocese with a monk on the island of Orkney. It appears that there is a religious order on Orkney known as the Transalpine Redemptorists. In Northern Lights, they were described as adhering to "extreme theology", ha ha ha, indeed they do, because as I have discovered they are affiliated to the Society of St Pius X. 

Everyone knows that the SSPX are very lax when it comes to liturgy. 

Originally based at the Monastery of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, they moved to the Mother of Perpetual Succour Monastery in Joinville, France in 1994 until they bought the island of Papa Stronsay on 31 May 1999.[in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, they moved to the Mother of Perpetual Succour Monastery in Joinville, France in 1994 until they bought the island of Papa Stronsay on 31 May 1999.

Looking at their blog it does not look like a rather nice place for a retreat, I would not use the term "extreme" theology, I was use the term "harsh", the whole discipline is reminiscent of something from the middle ages, and one wonders how they maintain this way of life. I don't think that I shall criticise them, yet, I wonder, how is possible to maintain that way of life and yet still allow oneself access to the inter web, as they appear to have a blog and a dreaded Facebook account, this does not strike me as adhering to the strict rule of the order?

I note that within the whole of the SSPX there appears to be a conflict regarding the internet and it's usage. I recall a sermon in which Bishop Richard Williamson expounds the dangers and great evils of the internet and how it is part of the modern corruption of our times. Within ten mins the Lord Bishop changed his mind and said that the internet was good in bringing like minded people together. It must be rather difficult to stand one way or the other on this issue. However, you would think that being an anti-modernist  the internet would not even get a look in. Well you would be wrong.

Bishop Richard Williamson, positively medieval except when it comes to the internet.

I must admit that I do have a soft spot for the SSPX, their Bishops, Priests, and Religious. When one want's to examine what the pre Reformation, Pre Vatican II Church, one simply looks to them and I must confess that they do a very good Mass, albeit in a dead language that no one understands, not even that but the Latin itself is of very poor quality. Now the Pope has brought them back to the fold, well very good. I say "the" Pope, because he is not my Pope, thankfully I am an Anglican, mind you in saying that we have some odd balls in our Church, and in fact if I were a Roman Catholic I would be inclined towards the SSPX, at least they preserve the traditional liturgy. In that Provence of the Anglican Communion that holds my heart, Ireland, I am concerned at the lack of respect for the liturgy.

There are clergy who do not wear proper attire, do not use the prayer book, do not even bow at the name of Christ, and woe betides the day when they should administer the body of our Lord as a wafer. Such people have no respect for tradition, or indeed heritage. They think that church is a gimmick factory for their mad cap ideas. There is at least one Temple of the Lord in East Belfast that I am familiar with. It calls itself "Anglican", yet what I saw there was very far from Anglican, it was positively Presbyterian/Baptist/Pentecostal, with a complete lack of Catholicity, reason, and tradition. No Prayer Book. 

St Brendan's Church, Sydenham, East Belfast, Diocese of Down and Dromore. What's wrong with this picture?  The answer is that this is an Anglican building, although you may be forgiven for thinking that it was a "Gospel Hall", with the graffiti on the front. This is part of the problem for the Church in Northern Ireland, it is loosing it's identity and succumbing to trends rather than adhering to tradition. Tradition which has been handed down to us from the Apostles, and from the Celtic Church. That was ever so slightly tainted in the middle ages but was recovered in the Reformation and was thus preserved throughout the centuries. Some clergy would do well to remember that the reason why tradition is important is because it is a Spirit that has been tested, and has not been found wanting. I am dubious of gimmicks that have not been tested.

On the other side of the river Lagan is a church that claims or rather declares itself "Anglo-Catholic", this is rather funny because it is not Anglo-Catholic, it is let's pretend to be Anglo-Catholic in our liturgy. Yes of course the clergy dress up, but the celebration of the Eucharist is not presented in the Anglo-Catholic tradition, and of course they use the Book of Common Prayer, not the English Missal. How funny, look's Catholic, doesn't smell Catholic (no incense, forbidden by Canon Law), sounds Anglican. That is what we in liturgical circles call "A joke". The one thing they have mastered in that particular church is the snobbishness, arrogance, and inflated ego of say Westminster Abbey or St George's Chapel Windsor. A window cleaner would not be welcome, which is rather amusing given that in the good old days Anglo-Catholics were the slum missionaries.... how times have changed.

So you see we Anglicans could do with a Bishop Richard Williamson and an organisation in the style of SSPX, an organisation to meet the trendy "Vicars", with good old fashioned Catholic tradition.

Saruman the White ?

A Disturbing Development

Numenoraian Exile is concerned that the once noble head of the White Council has now taken up office in the Vatican. After the Battle of Bywater we were all of us led to believe that Saruman the White, (indeed I have protested that title as he surely ahd become Saruman the Black) was killed by his servant Grima Wormtoungue.

However, legend became myth and some things that have past were indeed forgotten. It strikes me the Saruman has returned to this present age disguised as another, for he must be the current occupant of the Vatican Palace.

Saruman the White

HH Pope Benedict XVI

I will consider investigating more, although I am concerned about the Pope's ring of power.