District Magazine

On All Saints Day in 1625 (four hundred years ago this year), Oliver Plunkett, was born at Loughcrew near Oldcastle in Co. Meath. Educated by his uncle, Abbot Patrick Plunkett, Oliver conceived the desire to devote his life to Jesus Christ as a priest. This was easier said than done as there were no seminaries left in Ireland and all ecclesiastical students had to run the gauntlet of prowling privateers while sailing to the continent to join one of the Irish colleges there.  After an eventful voyage in which the threat of capture was averted by near shipwreck, the group reached Rome and Oliver began studying at the newly founded Irish College. Like the other students, he took a vow that, once ordained, he would return to Ireland to labour in one of the Lord’s most dangerous vineyards. 

On Easter Monday, Pope Francis went the way of all flesh and departed this world. He then appeared, as we all must do, before the judgement seat of God. During his pontificate, we were too often obliged to judge his actions as not being in conformity with the Catholic Faith and Tradition. However, it belongs to God alone to judge the soul of a man. As we prayed for him to make a happy death, that is, a death in the state of grace, so we must now pray for the repose of his soul. Requiescat in pace.

According to Saint Luke, all the nations of the Earth were present in Jerusalem on the day of the first Pentecost. On Pentecost — and on all other days — you can find all the nations of the Earth at the Nag’s Head in Holloway, near the church of Saints Joseph and Padarn. Here I bumped into a sedevacantist. Having identified me as a ‘Lefebvrist’, it was not long until he exposed his certainty that Francis is not the Pope. ‘Bergoglio is a heretic,’ he said ‘and no heretic is a member of the Church. Therefore, Bergoglio cannot be pope.’ Moreover, as charitably as he could, he accused me and the Society of being formally disobedient and closet-sedevacantists: ‘because,’ he said ‘while you purport to believe that Francis is the Pope, you disobey him by not following his every command while knowing that obedience to the Pope is necessary for salvation.’ (He himself, by the way, is formally obedient to the Pope because he will obey him once he decides that he is the Pope).

As the winter of 1958 drew in, Pope John XXIII was thinking aloud to Cardinal Tardini: how to give an example of peace and unity in the modern world? He mused for a moment. ‘A Council!’ said the Pope. ‘Si, si! Un Concilio!’ replied His Eminence. And so the conciliar project began, but it was misconceived from the start. The Catholic Church is the Body of Christ; her purpose is not to be an example of unity; She is the unity to which all men of all times and places must belong. She exists to bring all men into the one mystical body of the Divine Lord Jesus Christ. He alone who is Saviour of the world reconciles them with God.