Duelling Frogs

Something is afoot in France. Something very interesting is going on, partly (I think) because of the battle that Catholics and others have waged this year against the Orwellian 'Mariage pour tous' (which has seen gay marriage pass into the Republic's legislation).

But what has happened? Simply that anything between 500,000 and a million protesters turned out on the streets of Paris this winter and spring to try to block the passage of the proposals into law. They failed entirely. Or did they? Of course, they provided some entertainment along the way. The spokeswomen for the campaign against gay marriage attracted all the media attention under the unlikely sobriquet of Frijide Barjot (yes, that's a play on Brigitte Bardot). There were some reported instances of violence used against the anti-gay marriage protesters. Knowing to some degree both sides of these clashes, I suspect there was undue force used by the police and unnecessary provocation coming from certain protesters. But then the law passed. The hopeless Hollande administration - whose leader is now officially the least popular president of the 5th Republic - has little more than this act of cultural and moral vandalism to show for twelve months in office. Bien joué, les gars!

Still, returning to my theme, I say there is now something afoot in France. The friction which this cultural clash produced seems to have set alight small fires of political activism all over France. You have heard of Femmen, right? - the hardline feminist protest group whose main form of activism is to flash their boobies - but have you heard of Hommen? They are a kind of counter-protest group, a loose assembly of conservative-minded young men who, adopting the tactics of Femmen, have adapted revolt to favour conservative values instead. Here they are trying to wind up the prefect of Police in Paris:



Note the Republican references here. They sing the Marseillaise! In another protest video, we see the figure of Marianne, the symbol of the Republic, being led gagged through the streets by a cardboard figure of President François Hollande. Hommen call for a democratic test of the gay marriage law through a referendum. They display the blue, white and red of the French flag. Their values might be conservative, and their modus operandi revolutionary, but they wish to situate themselves within a broad version of what it means to live in a Republic.

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Contrast this with other rising forms of activism which can only be described collectively as an incipient form of 'reactionary revolution', or, to use another hallowed phrase, the 'revolutionary right'. Elsewhere, this growing reaction against the Hollande administration is inspired by a tendency calling itself 'anarcho-royaliste'. The language of their official publication, Lys Noir , is strident and not a little melodramatic. But their intellectual landmarks are clearly defined In this interview with the anonymous founder of Lys Noir, he cites the Cercle Proudhon as one of the inspirations for this contemporary convergence of anarcho-royalism. In the concrete, this movement embodies the desire to see the political vacuum which a collapse of the Republic would bring about (the anarcho bit!) and the providential return of the French king (the royalist bit!).

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We will have to wait to see where all this goes. On the face of it, both Hommen and the anarcho-royalists appear to be part of a larger tendency loosely called the Printemps français - the French Spring. At least that is what they are calling it. The allusion to the recent uprising of oppressed masses in the Middle East and to the fall of corrupt governments is clear enough. Look at the symbol of this Printemps français, moreover.

The hands are clearly meant to show adults together with a child; in France gay marriage was portrayed by its opponents especially as an attack on the rights of children to know and be with their natural mother and father. The colours are those of the Republic - red, white and blue. But, the clenched fists? They come from another tradition entirely.

As I survey these phenomena, I cannot help but think about the years before WWI in France when the species of anarcho-royalism was first invented but also, if we go back even further, when conservative, republican authoritarianism tried to find a foothold with General Boulanger. The mood of the period was that of the duel. Men like Georges Clémenceau (later President of France during WWI) and the notorious anti-Semite Edouard Drumont were regular duellists and much to be feared. There was indeed a taste for fist-fights on all political wings. Bernanos writes fondly about battling with the police in the Latin Quarter and then sitting out the night in cells alongside revolutionary syndicalists with whom Bernanos and his royalist cronies sang songs! Could these contemporary attempts to revive the themes of conservative republicanism and anarcho-royalism likewise see the revival of this kind of casual violence? Might the men of the Printemps français take to sending their seconds around to the offices of Femmen to offer to settle their differences with pistols at dawn or rapiers in a back street? Frankly, I very much doubt it ...



... but then I find myself strangely warming to the idea!

Turkey's troubles

The problems in Turkey - which has seen tens of thousands of protesters on the streets of Istanbul in recent days - have put me in mind of a story Charles Péguy tells in one of his early pieces for La Revue socialiste in 1897. Turkey after all has often been the witness to serious upheaval, not least in the early twentieth century when the Ottoman government set about exterminating its Armenian minority.

The Armenians in fact had been under pressure for several decades, and certainly as far back as the events which Péguy relates in his article. Armenians had been murdered in Diyarbekir in the winter of 1895-6 as part of the notorious Hamidian massacres.

When the spring of 1896 arrived, and fleeing the country became really feasible, a group of 300 Armenian Christians came to Monsieur Meyrier, French consul in the city, and begged his help to escape the country. Meyrier was understandably wary of leaving Diyarbekir during such a difficult period. His wife, however, had other ideas.

Madame Meyrier knew the dangers. Kurdish mercenaries stood between Diyarbekir and the Turkish coast which was a fifteen day journey by horse. She also had four small children to look after, one of whom she was breast feeding. Undaunted, she set off with some 300 refugees, several hundred horses and all her children. The regional governor offered a military escort but only for her and her family. She decided, therefore, to send her three eldest children to the head of the column while she stayed in the rearguard. From time to time, she would climb aboard the bier on which the children were being carried and feed her baby. Nights in the camp were tense, and sometimes Madame Meyrier had to do the rounds late into the evening to calm down the various groups.

At Birecik at the crossing of the Euphrates, things got even uglier than they had been until then.

The local authorities had word from Constantinople (it wasn't Istanbul until 1930) to let the consul's wife pass, an order they interpreted as meaning that the rest of the party should be arrested. Madame Meyrier, however, was having none of it. She sent her children over the river first of all, and insisted on bringing up the rear, threatening the local prefect that if she and the rest of the party were delayed and her baby died of hunger, there would be hell to pay.

Through a region in chaos, through gangs of Kurds and Cherkess, and following a fortnight's journey, they finally arrived safely on the coast. And without further ado, the consul's wife ushered the whole company onto a ship and embarked last of all.

The Meyriers eventually returned to France.

Meanwhile, things turned even worse for the Armenians, such that in 1915 the Ottoman government began a process of systematic murder, forced labour and deportation - the first genocide of the twentieth century.

Today's troubles in Turkey are considerably less serious of course. Yet, on the far side of Turkey from Diyabekir, beyond the blue waters of the Bosphorus, more trouble is brewing by the day.

Fond fallacies

One of the fond fallacies of the counter-revolution is that things have never been this bad before. I say it is a fond fallacy. Like all fallacies, there is a good deal of truth in it. I can think of a whole heap of things which have never been this bad before!

One cause of the originality of a crisis is the newness of the medium in which it arises. Er, that probably sounds like Derrida or something, so let me explain what I mean. I travel regularly by train and am alarmed by the number of fellow passengers who appear to have a phone growing out of their hand. I say "growing out of their hand" because the way they constantly have it in their hand and gurn meaninglessly at it throughout their journey can only lead one to think it has taken root in their palm. Children have always plunged their heads in comics (as long as comics have existed), and people have often used newspapers and books to shut out the rest of the world in public. But was it ever as bad as this? I doubt it.

Yet, take another phenomenon: personal headphones plugged in and whispering away in the ears of some nodding oaf. You would think this has never been seen before, and in this form it probably has not. But the fact is that there have always been complaints about the impact of gramophone music - which here I take to mean the artificial reproduction of (allegedly) musical sound for the pleasuring of some solipsistic noddy whose own auricular delight comes before everyone else's peace.

Some bang on about the state of pollution in the industrialised world, but can anything match the conditions which early nineteenth-century production forced on many a city and town? Others complain about the throw away society and how we never wasted anything during the war. Maybe not! But consumerism hit western culture way before WWII and various critics can be read lamenting the gathering rubbish heaps and wastelands of discarded domestic machinery even in the 1920s.

I suppose what innovators either ignore or fail to grasp is that every innovation brings with it some deviation. I'm back onto a theme of Paul Virilio here but it worth reflecting on. The invention of the airplane is the invention of the plane crash. The invention of the tire is the invention of the puncture. What innovators miss - and here is where counter-revolutionaries are correct - is that that which can go wrong will go wrong. That is not a proposition which contests all innovation; but it is a plea for a demythologisation of progress.

For if we're taking a pop at fond fallacies, I suppose we should not forget the fallacies on the other side of the fence: newer is better, younger is improved and more recent is more relevant. If you have any doubt of the silliness of these propositions, you are probably not reading this blog (eh?) or have come to the wrong place. If, however, these propositions are self-evidently wrong to you, then you only need to reflect on the reliability of their antitheses: newer is worse, older is better and more recent is more irrelevant... Or are they?

A case of prayer wagging the God

To the horror of many, Pope Francis has made comments to leaders of religious congregations from South America concerning his aversion to the practice of counting rosaries. It is probably best to quote the words before we say anything else:


I share with you two concerns. One is the Pelagian current that there is in the Church at this moment. There are some restorationist groups. I know some, it fell upon me to receive them in Buenos Aires. And one feels as if one goes back 60 years! Before the Council... One feels in 1940... An anecdote, just to illustrate this, it is not to laugh at it, I took it with respect, but it concerns me; when I was elected, I received a letter from one of these groups, and they said: "Your Holiness, we offer you this spiritual treasure: 3,525 rosaries." Why don't they say, 'we pray for you, we ask...', but this thing of counting... And these groups return to practices and to disciplines that I lived through - not you, because you are not old - to disciplines, to things that in that moment took place, but not now, they do not exist today...

If you are a connoisseur of righteous indignation, get thee to Rorate Caeli without delay where you can get your fill among the comments. There's arguably more heat than light. But what about a little 'Mehr Licht', as Goethe said?

I have no more confidence in princes, mitred, tiara-ed or otherwise. Yet, in his habitually off-the-cuff manner - note the cheeky wink at his own age and those of his interlocutors - Pope Francis is here saying something profound about how we relate our own agency to that of God. I know people will read these lines with tribal goggles on and see in them further hanging offences for when the Inquisition starts up again. Otherwise, they will wonder why he must take a dig at traditionally-minded folk. At least they say the rosary! For all that, Francis is riffing on a theme that is not new in Catholic spirituality. In one way or another, from the time of the twelve apostles to our own sorry day, there have been people who counted their rosaries (or some other spiritual achievement) in some way that was not pleasing to God.

God's take on countable numbers seems to vary through the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, they measure punishments or blessings. They symbolise plenitude or else suggest mystery. God commands the Jews to honour each seventh day. Then again, he also punishes David for taking a census of the people of Israel (if memory serves me). Leaping forward to the New Testament, numbers are again everywhere. We are to forgive seventy times seven. The Lord feeds the five thousand and there are seven baskets of food left over. Peter betrays Jesus before the cock crows three times. I could be wrong here - I often am - but for all these numbers floating around, God definitely seems to take against counting more often than not. In the New Testament, the watch word is 'Carry your cross' - without counting the cost (or the crosses) of course. We are commanded to forgive countless times. In the Old Testament (2 Samuel 24), David repented of numbering the Israelites, and God still permitted a plague which killed seventy thousand men. So, when it comes to spiritual goods, should we count or should we not count? That I suppose is the initial question.

But there is something deeper and more profound here which Pope Francis is saying about our culture. Whether one counts spiritual goods or not surely depends on the circumstances; St Therese of Lisieux did so as a child but not later on. Still, in our cultural moment - in our age of quantifiable reality, measurable matter, where the balance sheet rules our decision making and where knowledge unsuited to a test-tube or a graph is automatically dismissed as anecdotal - in this time, our counting of spiritual goods risks sliding into an account of what we have done. What we have done. Not all counting is wrong but there is a kind of accounting which bespeaks the themacity of the 'I'. I did this: see, this many times. I achieved this. My contribution is this much. And this themacity of the 'I' comes with the neighbouring vice of assuming that my effort, my contribution, merits this much pay off.

We pray, says St Augustine, to obtain those things which God has determined we can only obtain by prayer. In which case, however, prayer is not a technology or a tool to engineer our relationship with God. I can quantify my human speech acts, I can wield them willy nilly, but nobody except God sees and measures rightly my intentions. Indeed, God wants precisely the humble and contrite heart, not the abacus and the incipient sense of achievement. Pride grows on the human heart like lard on a pig, says Solzhenitsyn. If we pray a novena, it not because it is a magical number which will bring about God's acquiescence (as we stop to tally up our invocations). Each novena is another Pentecost because God's great descent in the Paraclete - or in his particular intervention which we seek for this or that intention - followed a time of preparation (as it happens, of nine days duration). Prayer does not change God, it changes us. All our vocal prayers which draw on the great traditions of the Church need to have this kind of hinterland if we are not unwittingly to reforge them into images of our own appetites.

And THAT I think is why the pope talked about Pelagianism in the context of counting rosaries. The spirit of God groans within us, says St Paul. Seen in this sense, prayer is not something we do of our own initiative, so much as something which arises from the gifts that God moves within us. If we seek grace, is it not because God has led us by his grace first of all? If prayer is a preconceived humanly controlled system - with the numbered paraphernalia of rationalised action - then to what extent can it even be a relationship with God, a union of hearts and minds? There are no prayer machines, just as there are no love machines. It don't work that way.

No, we cannot instrumentalise God in any way, least of all by counting our prayers. Or, to paraphrase the words of C. S. Lewis, our God is not a tame God.

Clearing the throat

Cripes, there is a lot of dust in here. A cobweb or two as well, I'll be bound. The Sensible Bond sits uninhabited, visited only by a couple of old faithfuls, manic online robots and link-following explorers. How very rude of me not to have been around to greet them!

I cannot tell you how busy I have been, so I won't. Nor what priorities have taken me away from the blogging coalface. Part of the problem, I think, is contained in the following lines I wrote last year:

Now, stop reading the internet and go away and lead a real life for a little bit. Cherish your children, love your spouse or serve your neighbour, squeeze your friends, eat and drink heartily but fast when possible, read Scripture and the Saints (modern and ancient), be a bit mad at least once a week, and regularly wonder at the beauty of the world.

I have no answer to the current madness from whatever direction it comes if not in those lines.

I cannot say I have been entirely faithful to this unwitting prescription. Life is so very fast these days, don't you think? (I am incidentally slowly tunnelling my way into the writings of Paul Virilio, inventor of dromology - the science of speed - and it's proving rather rewarding. But more of that anon.) When I say it's fast - adopting a Virilian perspective for a moment - I mean it's full of unexpectedly negatives consequences beyond the ken of any calculations hitherto made. Some people love the conspiracy theory of history. I prefer the cock-up theory of history. Life is an old nag, or else a run-away horse. It is rarely fit for dressage.

What the ...? What on earth ...? Bear with me, I'm operating on less sleep than a condemned man. Still, at the very least, I can claim to have had frequent cause for regularly wondering at the beauty of the world. In fact, please skip to the next paragraph if you've no time for stopping and picking these particular flowers. Musical interlude time.




My old master Bernanos used to write in cafés, sipping one of those lifeless, lukewarm café crèmes that often end up with a dead fly floating in them. "The imbeciles are free to conclude that I sit there observing. I observe nothing!" I cannot remember the rest of the quotation by heart so let me paraphrase it: I sit there so as to be able from time to time to cast my glance upon a passerby, and thereby to rediscover the right measure of sorrow and joy.

What does he mean? What do I mean? Bernanos can explain himself. As for me, I only mean that there is some parallel between this methodology and the necessary survival mode in a world full of blogging. So much stuff out there - and crikey, isn't there a lot! - is meant to set a straightjacket on experience, to marshal the facts into serried ranks of well-made points. But a lot of it is mutton dressed as lamb. The world can be better understood according to its appetites and desires, rather than according to its pretexts and its justifications. That's the thing about blogging, and possibly about writing in general. It is not just an art; it is apt to be a performance. Where can I cast my eye upon the passerby? Where can I find my just measure? That's what I mean.

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On the other hand, blogging is not a fine art (to evoke an old theme of this blog); it is part of the chatter we have on the journey. I apologise for having been so taciturn (I'm pretending you care!). I don't know if we're travelling the same way, but if you come here, we seem to be temporarily travelling together.

Another song first though. Got to keep my mind off the blisters!

All must have prizes!

Well, here's a turn up for the books. Ben Trovato of Counter Cultural Father has named me for a Liebster Award. Thanks very much! I have no idea what this means but it sounds fun and will cost no money, so what the heck?

Actually, as I understand it, Liebster Awards are given to those never likely to win one of your Bigger Blogger Vote-For-Me Awards, so I hope those I tag below don't get offended! Anyway, let's see if I can achieve the required conditions as set down by Ben:

1. to provide eleven facts about myself so readers can learn more about me (if, that is, they manage not to fall asleep before reading all eleven)

2. to answer all of Ben's questions (not under duress, I take it) and

3. to nominate other worthy recipients.

Let me direct serious-minded readers to some other place at this point in the proceedings and invite all others to step this way:


Eleven little-known facts about Ches

1. As a boy, Ches was taken to a barber called Harry who only knew how to cut hair so it looked like a German helmet (and there are photos to prove this fact).

2. Fact 1. explains his hostility to all things German, though not his hostility to the French.

3. Ches would gladly send all French people to the moon on a one-way ticket, no questions asked.

4. Ches's early musical career was brought to an abrupt end when John Williams told him his thumb technique was crap.

5. Despite his crap thumb technique, Ches has nevertheless been able to negotiate his way through adult life with some success.

6. Ches found it hard to be a cowboy in Rochdale, like the song said.

7. But since he never tried to be a cowboy elsewhere, Ches can provide no account of the difficulty of being a cowboy throughout the rest of Great Britain.

8. Ches grew up not far from Langley where Ttony originates.

9. Nevertheless, Ches would not know Ttony if - using the traditional Langley greeting - Ttony walked up to Ches and smacked him in the gob.

10. Ches is lucky to have found a woman who, for obscure reasons, loves him, in spite of the many more obvious reasons to avoid him as keenly as one avoids a Jehovah's Witness.

11. This fact, and Ches's beautiful children, account for the spring in his step noted by those who spy him on his rare sallies into the public eye.

I hope that was mildly enlightening.

Here we go with Ben's questions ...

Ben's questions and my replies ...


What inspired the title of your blog?

A letter of Count Joseph de Maistre in which he called the sacraments 'the sensible bond' between heaven and earth. It seemed to me to sum up the incarnational approach to life that ought to be the mark of a Catholic grounded in faith and not ideology.


Why should people read your blog?

Why should people read anything? We read to know we're not alone, as someone once said.


What is your personal favourite post on your blog?

Ricomythia


What has been the most popular (most viewed) post on your blog?

The Endgame of the SSPX


Which post on your blog has attracted most comments?

The Endgame of the SSPX


What other hobbies or interests (beyond blogging) are you prepared to admit to?

Cooking. Love it.

What are your hopes for the new pontificate?

I hope for nothing from Pope Francis, but everything from God. If I hope Pope Francis avoids one thing, it is all heterodoxy, heteropraxis and all narrowing of the Catholic sensibility. Er, I know that's three things, but so what?


Where is your favourite place of pilgrimage, and why?

The Holy Name Church in Manchester - not a traditional site of pilgrimage, but its importance to me cannot be put into words.


Who is your favourite spiritual author, and why?

Georges Bernanos - because he is not a spiritual writer! He's a spiritual realist - the best kind of spiritual writer.


Which of these questions did you find it most difficult to answer?

Why people should read my blog. Blimey, how can one answer that without sounding one's own trumpet?

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?

How very dare you!

Ten worthy recipients of the Liebster Award

I nominate the following for a Liebster Award, in the hope they have not already been nominated.

1. Thoughts from Banklands

2. The Path Less taken

3. Linen on the Hedgerow

4. On the Side of the Angels

5. Bridges and Tangents

6. In Hoc Signo Vinces

7. Humblepiety

8. LMS chairman

9. Tea at Trianon

10. A Reluctant Sinner


Ches's questions (largely pinched from Ben

What inspired the title of your blog?
Why should people read your blog?
What is your personal favourite post on your blog?
What has been the most popular (most viewed) post on your blog?
Which post on your blog has attracted most comments?
What other hobbies or interests (beyond blogging) are you prepared to admit to?
Where is your favourite place of pilgrimage, and why?
Who is your favourite theological writer, and why?
What would be your one piece of music in a desert island scenario?

Franciscan conniptions: the Gothic, the Baroque and the Pope

My private life - which is and will remain unknown to most of you - is seriously busy at the moment. This is why I have not blogged much in the last few months and also why I have been chomping at the blogging bit since last Wednesday without so much of a whiff of getting near the computer keyboard. How about that for mixed metaphors?

So it was that my significant others and I gathered around a warm TV screen just over a week ago to await the announcement of the election of the Supreme Pontiff. There is something extraordinary about such a moment, even when it is participated in via TV. I was struck by Pope Francis's serene composure as he looked out on the crowds. I was deeply touched by his leading the people in St Peter's Square in prayer - the simple words of the Pater, Ave and Gloria Patri... instantly recognisable to the millions tuning in on TV. In that moment, we expected a pope but we also got a pastor.

Was I happy the cardinals had elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio? Not especially, though it was some satisfaction to know that my prediction for the 2005 election finally came through in 2013. (This time I thought he was too old.) I wasn't unhappy either. You choose your friends; you cannot choose your family. I know somebody chose this pope, but I didn't. How can you choose a father? It's enough that the cardinals elected him - not that I believe the ludicrous thesis that they were directed by the Holy Spirit in their choice. I rather hope they were, but there is no mechanism that ensures as much.

No, the fact was simple: here was the next Successor of Peter. On that night - on that night - I really don't know what else we were supposed to reflect on. God sends us shepherds as an act of his Providence; indeed, not only as an act of his Providence but also as a condition of his continuing incarnation among us in the Church. There would be plenty of time to fuss about Papa Bergoglio later on. On the night of the election what mattered was that he was our Papa.

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And then the Punch and Judy Show began. I'm too tired to recount the way the story developed, and most of my readers know it anyhow. On the night in question I merely reflected on how Rorate Caeli, that most high-minded of blogs, which had pompously refused to stoop to participate in disseminating those leaked SSPX letters last year, lost no time after the conclave in publishing a piece of invective 90% of which was wildly gratuitous affirmation. Naturally they stood on the soapbox of high-mindedness and blustering courage. Look at the pictures: Bergoglio on his knees being 'blessed' by TV evangelists. I don't dispute that of course, and hold such an act in the highest contempt. But anyone looking more closely at the Rorate article could clearly detect in this diatribe the evidence of local church politics, the backstabbing, and even the snobbery. Bergoglio after all uses "demotic language" ...

In the normal Punch and Judy logic of the internet, these observations make me a slavish worshipper of the new pope. Er, no, my friends, no. Not so. I've warned you about tribal thinking before. I have my anxieties of course. Reliable sources - and that does not mean the BBC during Tuesday's Inaugural Mass, but well-connected friends in Rome last week - have reported that when offered the mozzetta before going out to greet the crowd, Pope Francis said, 'You wear it monsignor. The carnival is over.' But a mozzetta is not carnival attire. It denotes juridical authority; in his case, supreme pastoral authority. Did he not like the colour? I suggest it is the inconvenient colour of the blood of the martyrs. If he thought the mozzetta is no longer such a symbol, he only needed to step out on the balcony with it on and parse its significance for a waiting world. "Dear friends, I wear this robe which symbolises the yolk of my new responsibilities and the blood I ought to be ready to shed for you." Instead of which ... Well, he spoke simply and well, but what is this chippy attitude to the Benedictine polyphony of aesthetics? Some now claim this incident is an urban legend because Andrea Tornielli says it did not happen. I'm afraid I don't buy that. Why is it so unthinkable that the pope might have said something nervously sarcastic before speaking to millions across the world for the first time? Oh, yes, because he's the pope and cannot make an error ... And why is it taken as given that if Tornielli says a thing is or is not so, then, we must all receive his word like some sacred script, setting aside our urban legends? Credo in Tornielli?

Don't get me wrong, I couldn't give a rat's wotnot about lace or ermine myself. And I know it was a tense moment for him, and that some people resort to sarcasm under pressure. Maybe Pope Francis does. But I agree with others. If we lampoon the sensibilities of any wing of Catholicism - if we lampoon the baroque as pure carnival or turn our nose up at the unwashed Franciscan - we risk creating a narrower Church, not a broader and more welcoming one. The waiting world assumes blithely that Francis's coming from the other side of the world means that he does not suffer from European parochialism. Yes, but what if he brings his own parochialism with him? Catholicism is big enough for the Gothic and for the Baroque, for the ermine and for the shabby cassock. It is not, however, disposed to allow one side of Catholic sensibility to turn its own measure of things from counsel into precept. Always beware those who want to turn counsel into precept and impose it willy-nilly. I warn you solemnly.

As for the rest, well, I have to say I have appreciated Pope Francis's sermons and addresses in the last week and, on rereading them, have tried to understand what he has to say to the Church. I applaud his frequent mentioning of the Father of Lies. It shows a ready supernatural realism which refuses to be airbrushed from the public pronouncements of the pope. I cheered when the first secular author he quoted was Frenchman Leon Bloy - no soft Catholic liberal by any stretch of the imagination. And, there is no doubting the piety of the man - Marian and Eucharistic - though his past record suggests an openness to liturgical illiteracy and irreverence that should shame even a Jesuit.

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I'm not hopeful. I have tried to move beyond placing my hope in any of our shepherds. God knows what he is doing with the Church, and sometimes God only knows. I only know that whatever happens is 'for my better grace'. I pray for the Holy Father. So should you all.