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Bishop Juan de Palafox

Just casting a quick look over the net on this New Year's Day.  Damian Thompson in his blog reports that some Anglican bishops who are coming over may be received at Mass in Westminster Cathedral at noon today - A Reluctant Sinner blog confirms with photographs: three former bishops, two wives of bishops, and the three nuns from Walsingham.  Andrew Burnham was among them, the other two being John Broadhurst and Keith Newton.  According to Caritas in Veritate blog the three former bishops will be ordained deacons on the 13th January and then priests two days later.  We accompany them with our prayers, and indeed all our brothers and sisters who will be entering full communion with the Church in the coming months to form the new Ordinariates.  We look forward to that and to the blessings the Ordinariates will bring.

UPDATE: The Anglo-Catholic blog has a lovely account of the former Anglicans' reception, as does Austen Ivereigh.    A larger group including three bishops, about fifty clergy and laity from about twenty Anglican parishes will be recieved at Easter.  Phew!  This is wonderful. 

John Allen, reflecting on the news stories of 2010, details five Vatican news stories which did not get the media attention they deserved: one of them is the continuing persecution of Christians in the modern world.  BBC news are reporting another Muslim atrocity against us this time a car bomb in Egypt which went off outside a Coptic Church as Mass was being celebrated.  Christians in Iraq are being decimated by Muslims as a religious war seems to be in full swing.   Of course the media ignore most of it - the martyrdom of Christians, and of Catholics in particular is not newsworthy, it seems.

I also see Planned Parenthood is top of the agenda for many of our Hollywood friends.  According to some of them the organisation is on the verge of penury and needs financial assistance (a billion dollar turnover is penury, God help us, the rest of us must be destitute!).   Sad to see anyone supporting that organisation which, on its own, is responsible for more human deaths, than most of the tyrannies and wars in history.  Communism and socialism holds the record with over 100 million murdered, Planned Parenthood must have beaten that record by now, or at least, must be very close to it.  Reading an article on LifeSiteNews, I realise how much prayer our actors and actresses need.  Social causes is one thing, and they all love causes, but cooperation in the greatest evil the world has know, that is another.  We need to pray.  And if you agree with me and are not a member of our Fraternity, please join us, pray with us!

The Holy Father has a busy year ahead, including World Youth Day in Madrid in August.  And two books coming out - volumes two and three of Jesus of Nazareth in March and November.  I think I'll start camping out outside Veritas in Dublin to get my copy (no, better still hop on a plane to CTS in London, Veritas takes ages to get his books).  Why not just pre-book on Amazon?  True, but that takes all the fun out of it.

Personally, my final profession as a Secular Discalced Carmelite takes place later this month - ceremony had to be cancelled last month due to snow.  Our Order also gets a new Blessed this year, Bishop Juan de Palafox (1600-1659).  He was not a professed Carmelite at all, but a great friend of the Order and very much influenced by St Teresa and St John. Born in Spain, he became a bishop in the New World and was renowned for his defence of the native peoples.  His work for them gained him many enemies.  He placed a group of Jesuits who were involved in cruel practices under interdict, and they tried to excommunicate him.  They managed to have him removed from his diocese and sent back to Spain.  His cause was opened soon after his death, and a miracle obtained to lead to his beatification, but the Jesuits hijacked the process and persuaded the pope to suspend it, which he did.  Pope John Paul II restarted it in 2003 and the Discalced Carmelite Postulator has been doing Trojan work.  The Venerable Juan will be beatified in May, unless some bolshie Jesuits get to Benedict first.   But we will be ready for them this time!