Happy Birthday

The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Sunday 8^th September, was celebrated with a Missa Cantata at Our Lady of Glastonbury. It is the patronal feast of the church, and so it was a fitting place to celebrate this important date in the Church’s calendar. The celebrant was Fr Philip Thomas, parish priest of SS Joseph and Teresa in Wells. The choir sang Missa Ave Maris Stella by Thomas Luis de Victoria, Ave Maria by Robert Parsons and O Sacrum Convivium by Thomas Tallis.

The Abbot of Downside, Dom Aidan Bellenger, preached. He spoke movingly about the central place that Our Lady occupied in the minds and hearts of the people of this country when it was the Dowry of Mary. The Lady Chapel of Glastonbury Abbey, although now in ruins, is still an important reminder of Our Lady’s presence here. Mass was followed by Benediction. Afterwards, choir and members of the congregation enjoyed a picnic lunch in the beautiful presbytery garden in the early autumn sunshine.

The Right Reverend Dom Aidan Bellenger, Abbot of Downside.

Fr Philip Thomas

Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

There were six servers on the altar, including two young men who are about to leave the diocese to test their vocations, one with the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP) and the other with the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP). We wish them both very well and our prayers go with them. 

Virgo Dei Genitrix, quem totus non capit orbis, in tua se clausit viscera, 

factus homo. Alleluia.

O Virgin Mother of God, He whom the whole world is unable to contain, being made man, enclosed Himself in thy womb. Alleluia

Wiltshire's loss is Somerset's gain

Fr Coulon preaching on the Feast of
the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus last year

Important news: Fr Jean-Patrice Coulon, parish priest of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Devizes, is moving to a new parish with immediate effect. His new church is the Holy Ghost in Yeovil. This is a sad loss for Wiltshire, but good news for Somerset.

The Holy Ghost, Yeovil

This means that the Latin Mass celebrated every Friday at 6pm and every Second Sunday at 12.15pm in Devizes will no longer take place. We hope that provision will be made for those parishioners who are attached to the Latin Mass in Devizes, and we will of course keep you informed. Similarly, once Fr Coulon has settled into his new parish, we will let you know about Latin Masses being celebrated in Yeovil.

Fr Coulon is a member of the Missionaries of St Francis de Sales, or Fransalians.
May St Francis de Sales guide and protect him as he starts work in his new parish.

First Fridays on the Island

In the last post we saw images of St Mary’s, Ryde on the Isle of Wight. The daughter-church to St Mary’s is St Michael the Archangel (below), located in the pretty seaside town of Bembridge. The church was built in 1965, and the first Mass celebrated there was on 20^th June of that year. Just six months later, the solemn conclusion of the Second Vatican Council took place in Rome, and the newly-built church had to be adapted to the new form of the Mass.

St Michael the Archangel, Bembridge

Today, both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Form of the Mass are celebrated in the church. Despite its modern appearance, the sanctuary has been made a fitting and beautiful setting for the Latin Mass, as can be seen from the photographs below.

Fr Glaysher celebrates Low Mass at St Michael's on the First Friday in July.
LMS rep Peter Clark is serving.

The sanctuary is beautifully adorned.

A set of Rococo light fittings adds splendour to the church.

Fr Glaysher celebrates an Extraordinary Form Mass in this church every first Friday at 9.30am. There is also a Holy Hour on First Fridays in St Mary’s, Ryde. We reproduce below a text that appears on the parish website about First Fridays, a devotion which is observed with great care in this part of the world.

The First Friday of each month was designated by our Saviour Himself as a day to be consecrated to honouring His Sacred Heart. The object of this devotion is to make our Saviour Jesus Christ ardently and perfectly loved, and to make reparation for the outrages offered to Him in the past, as well as for those which he daily receives in the Blessed Eucharist. Jesus Christ merits our love at all times, but alas! So many in the world today simply do not recognise His redeeming love for mankind. We should remember that He is truly present in every Catholic church. We should then adore Jesus Christ in this Sacrament, make a fervent act of love to Jesus in the tabernacle, thank Him for having instituted this Mystery of love, express our sorrow at seeing Him so abandoned, and resolve to visit Him as soon as possible and love Him unceasingly. Attendance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is assuredly the best means of honouring and loving the adorable Heart of Jesus.

First Friday devotions in honour of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

Act of Consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Act of Reparation

The Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Sacrament of Penance (Confession)

The Sacred Heart of Jesus Surrounded by Angels, c. 1775 by Jose de Paez.

The Promises of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

"I will give them all the graces necessary in their state of life."

"I will establish peace in their homes."

"I will comfort them in their afflictions."

"I will be their secure refuge during life, and above all in death."

"I will bestow a large blessing upon all their undertakings."

"Sinners shall find in My Heart the source and the infinite ocean of mercy."

"Tepid souls shall grow fervent."

"Fervent souls shall quickly mount to high perfection."

"I will bless every place where a picture of My Heart shall be set up and honoured."

"I will give to priests the gift of touching the most hardened hearts."

"Those who shall promote this devotion shall have their names written in My Heart, never to be blotted out."

"I promise thee in the excessive mercy of My Heart that My all-powerful love will grant to all those who communicate on the First Friday in nine consecutive months, the grace of final penitence; they shall not die in My disgrace nor without receiving the Sacraments; My Divine heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment."

Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament

The Church also teaches us that the most efficacious prayer is prayer in the Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Prayer in the Divine Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament releases the power, blessings and graces of God upon mankind. 

 Each time you go to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, you touch His Heart with your faith. Each Holy Hour you make in the Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament releases His power and graces upon you, your family, your parish, your diocese and the world. 

Our Lord appears to St Margaret Mary Alacoque

Here in St. Mary's in Ryde we are pleased to have a Holy Hour on every First Friday, at the start of which, we meditate on Christ's Passion while publicly reciting the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary followed by the Litany of the Sacred Heart. Our own Sacred Heart Chapel contains stained glass windows of saints famous for their love and adoration of Our Blessed Lord, including St. Margaret Mary Alocoque, the French nun, who had a vision of Our Lord exposing his Sacred Heart on 15th June, 1675. Our Lord said to her: "Behold this Heart, which loves men so much. Yet in return I receive ingratitude, irreverence, sacrilege and a coldness and contempt which they exhibit for me in this Sacrament of love." 

The Garden of Gethsemane by Andrea Mantegna, c. 1470.

It was through St. Margaret Mary that Christ instituted the "Holy Hour" of devotion and prayer to the Sacred Heart in reparation for the three apostles who fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. Our Lord told her to, "encourage people to make reparation for the ingratitude of men. Spend an hour in prayer to appease divine justice, to implore mercy for sinners, to honour Me, to console Me for my bitter sufferings when abandoned by my apostles when they could not watch and pray for one hour with me". 

It was Pope Pius IX who added the feast of the Sacred Heart to the Roman Calendar in 1856 in order to "stimulate the faithful to honour with greater devotion and zeal the love of Jesus Christ under the symbol of the Sacred Heart". Consequently the practice of honouring the Sacred Heart with pictures, shrines and statues in homes was encouraged by the Church. From Victorian times priests would visit family homes to solemnly enthrone a representation of the Sacred Heart and urge each family to pray together and seek mercy and forgiveness for sins, as Christ himself requested in his appearance to St. Margaret Mary. 

In the 1930s Pope Pius XI affirmed devotion to the Sacred Heart to be, "the epitome of religion and the norm of the more perfect life which more readily leads souls to acknowledge Christ the Lord, and which more effectively, inclines hearts to love Him more ardently and imitate Him more closely." In the 1950s Pope Pius XII describes the Sacred Heart of Jesus as, "the divine remedy which will save men from the devil and all forces of evil."

Reproduced with kind permission of Fr Glaysher and Peter Clarke.

A good place for a holiday

St Mary's Ryde

When planning a holiday destination, one point Catholics must consider is ‘can we get to Mass while we are there?’ For those attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, this question is not always very easy to answer in the affirmative. However, if you were to book a holiday in the Isle of Wight, within reach of the seaside town of Ryde, you would be in luck. Fr Anthony Glaysher, parish priest of St Mary’s in Ryde, offers Latin Masses every Tuesday at 12.30pm, every Thursday at 7pm, preceded by a Holy Hour with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and devotions, and a Missa Cantata at 6pm on the first Sunday of each month.

St Mary’s, Ryde is the first church in England to be dedicated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was founded in 1844 by Elizabeth FitzGibbon, Countess of Clare, who converted to Catholicism in St Peter’s, Rome after a ‘Grand Tour’, and returned to the Island to build a church in honour of Our Lady. She engaged the well-known architect Joseph Hansom, an admirer of AWN Pugin, to build a fine Gothic church on the High Street. At that time, anti-Catholic sentiment on the Island was such that the Countess had to ask a Protestant to bid for the site on her behalf, and there was an outcry in certain quarters when the tall, elegant Catholic church was completed, occupying a prominent position on one of the most important streets in the town (see above).

Stained glass windows in the north-west end of the church,
depicting three of the seven sacraments.

Inside, the church has many interesting features, including a rare set of stained-glass windows depicting the seven sacraments (above). One of the highlights of a visit to the church is the beautiful Lady Chapel, which was built in response to a request by His Holiness Pope Leo XIII that the English Hierarchy re-dedicate England to the Patronage of Mary in 1893. The Hierarchy carried out this request on the feast of SS Peter and Paul 1893, in a solemn ceremony at the London Oratory. Thereafter, every parish was encouraged to construct chapels, shrines or grottoes in honour of Our Lady.

Lady Chapel, St Mary's Ryde

The shrine and altar in St Mary’s was built from designs by Pugin. The altar (below) which dates from the 1850s, depicts Our Lady of Walsingham. It is one of the earliest representations of this image following the Restoration of the Hierarchy, and pre-dates the re-opening of the Slipper Chapel.

Lady Altar designed by AWN Pugin

Our Lady of Walsingham, designed by AWN Pugin.

The walls and ceiling of the Lady Chapel were decorated in 1894 by the Victorian artist Nathaniel Westlake, F.S.A. Westlake covered the chapel with images from the Litany of Our Lady and scenes from the Joyful and Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary in rich jewelled colours (below). On the feast of the Visitation, 2^nd July this year, a Latin Mass was celebrated at the chapel, followed by recitation of the Litany of Our Lady.

The Assumption

The Coronation of Our Lady in Heaven

Low Mass for the Feast of the Visitation in
the Lady Chapel, St Mary's Ryde.

Another gem in the church is the Countess of Clare’s private oratory, which occupies the north-east corner above the sacristy (below). It is dedicated to St Elizabeth of Hungary, the Countess’ patron, and it was her favourite place of prayer. She would attend Mass here with her family and household servants, out of sight of the congregation but with a good view of the High Altar and the sanctuary.

St Elizabeth's Chapel

Altar of St Elizabeth's Chapel

When Bl. John Henry Newman visited the Island in 1865 he celebrated Mass in St Mary’s, and used the Countess’ chapel for his private devotions. Towards the end of her life the Countess spent many hours praying there. A small fireplace can still be seen in the north wall, and one can imagine a maidservant arriving early in the chapel to light a fire on cold mornings. In the 1970s the chapel was stripped of its altar and all its adornements, and it quickly fell into disuse, and for several decades it was used as a store-room. In 2008 Fr Glaysher and a small group of parishioners set about restoring the chapel, and today it is once again a beautiful and peaceful place of prayer, filled with statues, lamps, candlesticks and a wonderful collection of reliquaries, including relics of St Dominic Savio and St Edmund of Abingdon. Every Thursday evening from 6pm the Blessed Sacrament is exposed in the chapel with devotions, followed by a Latin Mass at 7pm. It is a truly uplifting experience, highly recommended to any visitor to the Island.

Statues and Reliquaries in St Elizabeth's Chapel

Reliquaries in St Elizabeth's Chapel

Reliquary containing a relic of St Edmund of Abingdon
in St Elizabeth's Chapel.

The LMS Rep for the Isle of Wight is Peter Clarke. He and his wife Gill are parishioners of St Mary’s Ryde, and give guided tours of the church on Wednesdays at 12 noon. They would also be happy to give a tour at any other time. Contact them on: 01983 566740.

Peter Clarke is also the founder of the Isle of Wight Catholic History Society, whose patron is our own Bishop, Rt. Rev. Mgr. Declan Lang. See the website here.

Peter’s book, ‘Ryde to Rome’ is a fascinating history of the Countess of Clare and the building and adornement of St Mary’s Ryde. It paints a most interesting and illuminating picture of Catholic life on the Island in the days of Queen Victoria. The book can be purchased for £3 plus p&p from: the Isle of Wight Catholic History Society, Whitehaven, 72 Mayfield Road, Ryde, Isle of Wight, PO33 3PR.

Eyre Mass update

There will be no Mass at the Eyre chantry chapel in Bath in either July or August. The next Mass to be celebrated there will be on Tuesday 3rd September at 12.30pm.

This summer

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Palma Vecchio

Here are the details of Latin Masses being celebrated in the diocese this summer. Regular Masses will continue as normal unless otherwise stated below - please see the sidebar for details.

Firstly, a reminder of the Masses for next Saturday, 29th June, which is the Feast of SS Peter and Paul:

8am - St Dominic's, Dursley

8am - SS Joseph and Teresa, Wells

8.15am - Prinknash Abbey, Cranham, Glos
9.30am - Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare

10am - Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

12pm - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

- On Tuesday 2nd July at 6pm there will be a Missa Cantata at St Mary's Church, Cricklade, Wilts, SN6 6AP for the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (please see previous post for more details).

- The first Saturday Masses at All Saints Chapel, Wardour will be celebrated on Saturday, 6th July, and on Saturday 3rd August at 11am. There will be an opportunity for confession before Mass.

- Please note that here will be NO Mass at the Eyre Chapel, Perrymead, Bath in July or August. The next Mass to be celebrated there will be on 3rd September at 12.30pm.

- Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 3rd July and Wednesday 7th August at 6pm at St Gregory's, Cheltenham.

- Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 3rd July and Wednesday 7th August at 6.30pm at Holy Cross, Bedminster.

- There will be NO fourth Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare on Sunday 28th July, nor on Thursday 1st August.

- On Sunday 4th August there will be a Solemn High Mass for the feast of St Dominic, at 5.30pm at St Dominic's Dursley, Glos.

- On Thursday 15th August, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Masses will be celebrated as follows:

8 am - St Dominic's Dursley

9.30am - Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare

12 noon - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

12.45pm - Holy Cross, Bedminster

6pm - The Immaculate Conception, Devizes.

- Looking ahead to September, there will be a Missa Cantata on Sunday 8th September at Our Lady of Glastonbury at 12.30pm, followed by Benediction and the opportunity to have a picnic lunch in the presbytery garden (if it's dry) or the church hall (if not). The Abbot of Downside will preach at this Mass.

- On Saturday 21st September there will be a Mass at the Holy Redeemer, Bishopdown, Salisbury, at 11.30am.

Do please come along and support these Masses. 

Fakes and forgeries

We have received an answer to the mystery of St Lelius. We are extremely grateful to Dr Giles Mercer, who was headmaster at Prior Park from 1996-2009, for finding this passage in J.S. Roche’s ‘A History of Prior Park College’ (1931), pp. 256-7:

The high altar, which was made in Rome of Italian marbles, was the gift of the Countess English. Its sepulchre for relics is seen through a beautiful pierced cross of statuary marble, and on the back of the altar is an inscription asking for prayers for the donor. There are no relics in the sepulchre, but as an explanation of this fact, two traditions exist: one that the marble chest, supposed to contain the relics, on its arrival at Prior Park from Rome, was found to be empty: the other that they were destroyed by a general order from Rome, as many spurious relics were about that time sent from the Eternal City by unauthorised individuals. The relics that were to have been inserted in the sepulchre were said to be those of St Laelius, the Boy Martyr, whose name appears on the back of the altar.

It is disappointing to discover that the chapel does not, after all, contain relics of a child martyr. It seems that Countess English – or at least her agents – may have fallen prey to merchants peddling fake relics in Rome. A lively trade in forgeries such as this has been in operation since the Middle Ages, as is well known. We do not know whether St Lelius even existed. Possibly his identity was part of the deception on the part of the sellers.

One thing is certain, however. There must be a relic present in the High Altar, or it could not have been consecrated.

‘We honour the martyrs' relics, so that thereby we give honour to Him Whose [witness] they are: we honour the servants, that the honour shown to them may reflect on their Master’.

St Jerome.

A boy martyr in Bath

In a previous blog post we saw an image of the High Altar of the chapel of Our Lady of the Snows at Prior Park College in Bath. Here it is again (above). This beautiful marble altar contains the complete relics of a child martyr named Lelius. Here is the inscription on the back of the altar. It reads ‘corpus S. Lelii pueri martyris’.

Unfortunately St Lelius is not mentioned in the Roman martyrology. A plausible explanation for this is that he was one of a group of martyrs and therefore not mentioned individually.

How fitting for a school – and one that was for many years educating boys only – to have the relics of a boy martyr in its chapel. We can hope with confidence that St Lelius interceded for the teachers and pupils at Prior Park, and that he will continue to do so today.

The Christian Martyrs' last prayer by Jean-Leon Gerome

We will try and find out more about St Lelius and report any findings in a future post. In the meantime, if anyone has any information about St Lelius and the connection with Prior Park, do please let us know in the comments box below.

The Most Sacred Heart in Bath

Today we celebrate the great feast of the Most Sacred Heart. An extra Latin Mass was celebrated in the diocese, at the chapel of the Sacred Heart in Prior Park College chapel, Bath. It was celebrated by Fr Malcolm Smeaton, the chaplain of Prior Park, who kindly added an Extraordinary Form Mass to his schedule. This was arranged at short notice and so could not unfortunately be advertised.

Fr Smeaton learned to celebrate the Extraordinary Form last year at the LMS Priests’ and Servers’ training conference, and now celebrates a Latin Mass once a week.

Prior Park chapel was built in 1844 by the architect JJ Scoles. It is dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows, a dedication it shares with the great Roman basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. 

The sanctuary of the chapel. The wooden forward altar is conveniently easy to remove.

Pevsner described Prior Park chapel as ‘without any doubt the most impressive church interior of its date in the country.' The magnificent nave with its giant Corinthian columns and the beautiful sanctuary are indeed remarkable.

The impressive polychrome marble High Altar (above) was a bequest of Isabella Countess English. It contains the relics of a martyr: the inscription on the back states ‘corpus s. Lelii pueri martyris’.

Below is the marble side altar of St Edward the Confessor:

In the chapel of St Joseph there are stautes of Pope St Pius X and St Philomena.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

Mass listings for June and early July

The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pompeo Batoni

Below are details of Latin Masses in June in 

the Diocese of Clifton

• The first Saturday Mass at All Saints Chapel, Wardour will be celebrated this coming Saturday, 1st June, at 11am. There will be an opportunity for confession before Mass and (Deo Volente) Exposition and Benediction afterwards.

• There will be a Requiem Mass for the Holy Souls at the Eyre Chapel, Perrymead, Bath, on Tuesday 4th June at 12.30pm.

• Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday 5th June at St Gregory's, Cheltenham at 6pm.

• There will also be Mass at 6.30pm at Holy Cross, Bedminster on Wednesday 5th June.

• On Friday 7th June, the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Mass will be celebrated at 8am at St Dominic's, Dursley and at 6pm at the Immaculate Conception, Devizes.

• The regular Sunday Masses will continue as normal in June, but please note that there will be NO Latin Mass on Sunday 9th June at the Immaculate Conception in Devizes.

SS Peter and Paul by El Greco

• For the feast of SS Peter and Paul, on Saturday 29th June, Masses will be celebrated as follows:

8am - St Dominic's, Dursely

8am - SS Joseph and Teresa, Wells

8.15am - Prinknash Abbey, Cranham, Glos

10am - Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

12pm - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

• On Tuesday 2nd July there will be a Missa Cantata at St Mary's Church, Cricklade, Wilts, SN6 6AP for the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

• Looking ahead a little, please note that there will be NO fourth Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston-super-Mare on Sunday 28th July, nor on Thursday 1st August.

Corpus Christi

The great feast of Corpus Christi is celebrated this Thursday. Here are the times and locations of Masses in the diocese:

8am - St Dominic's, Dursley

10am - Our Lady and St Kenelm, Stow-on-the-Wold

11am - Prinknash Abbey, Cranham

12 noon - Our Lady and St Alphege, Bath

7.30pm - Our Lady of Lourdes, Weston Super-Mare. This will be a Solemn High Mass.

One Weekend in April - part two

The LMS has issued a second short video, this time focussing on the Gregorian Chant weekend, which runs alongside the St Catherine's Trust family retreat. This takes place each year in Low Week.

The link is here: http://vimeo.com/66675498

The video gives a good idea of the course, which is open to beginners as well as to more advanced singers. Those participating in the course provided the music for the Masses celebrated during the retreat weekend.

The course is interesting and rewarding, and it is hoped that by training more singers in plainchant, the number of local scholas and parish choirs able to sing at Latin Masses around the country will increase.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Gregorian Chant course, please contact Mike Lord at the Latin Mass Society

11-13 Macklin Street

London

WC2B 5NH

~~~~~~~~~~

020 7404 7284

michael@lms.org.uk

www.lms.org.uk

Proof - if proof were needed

For the first time ever, thanks to the Latin Mass Society, we now have an accurate statistical picture of Catholic faith and life in this country both prior to, and following the Second Vatican Council.

Dr Joseph Shaw, Chairman of the LMS, working with the Rev Stephen Morgan and a team from the diocese of Portsmouth, has amassed the figures for Catholic Ordinations, Baptisms, Conversions and Marriages in England and Wales dating from the 1860s onwards.

The results (see below) point to a collapse in Catholic faith and life in this country during the late 1960s and the 1970s; a collapse which has not been reversed in the decades since. This is will not surprise anyone reading this blog. The importance of having statistics such as these is, in large part, to highlight the tragic decline in the Catholic Church in this country following Vatican II, a fact that cannot be denied or covered up with false optimism or propaganda.

This important research is covered on Rorate Caeli, the LMS Chairman's Blog, and in this week's Catholic Herald.

Newly released statistics show the decline of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in 1960s and 1970s.

Research by the Latin Mass Society has demonstrated the striking decline of a range of statistical indications of the health of the Catholic Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s.

To our knowledge this data has never been made available in collated form before: the number of ordinations year by year since 1860, the number of priests since 1890, and baptisms, marriages, and receptions, and estimates of the Catholic population, since 1913.

Among the findings are:

Marriages: The number of marriages collapsed by a third between 1968 and 1978 (from 47,417 to 31,534), and has continued a rapid decline since then, now standing at less than 10,000 a year, a quarter of the 1968 level in absolute terms, and even less in relation to the estimated Catholic population (from 12 per thousand in 1968) to 2½ per thousand in 2010).

Conversions fell off a cliff in the 1960s. From a peak of 15,794 in 1959, it fell to 5,117 in 1972; in relation the Catholic population, it fell by more than 70% between those two years. It has not recovered.

Baptisms halved between 1964 and 1977 (137,673 in 1964 to 68,351 in 1977), and are even lower today (oscillating around the 60,000 mark). This is not just the effect of the end of the ‘baby boom’: considered in relation to total live births for England and Wales (using data from the Office for National Statistics), the first half of the 20^th century saw steady growth, with Catholic baptisms peaking at nearly 16% of all live births in 1963. This was followed by a decline of a third between the mid 1960s and the mid 1970s. A more gentle decline has continued to the present: today fewer than 10% of babies born alive in England and Wales are being baptised in the Catholic Church. 

Ordinations fell by more than 56% between 1965 and 1977 (from 233 to 101), and the decline has continued. Even on the more optimistic figures supplied by the National Office of Vocations (compared to the Catholic Directory) for the current year, showing an increase on recent years, numbers are at scarcely 30% of their 1964 level. (Counting only ordinations to the diocesan clergy, there were 134 in 1964; the NOV predicts 41 this year.)

Dr Joseph Shaw, the Chairman of the Latin Mass Society, who led the research, comments:

‘Anyone with an interest in the future of the Catholic Church in England and Wales will find these figures illuminating. They show unambiguously that something went seriously wrong in the Church in England and Wales in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Catholics ceased quite suddenly to see the value of getting married, having large families, and having their children baptised. Non-Catholics no longer perceived the Church as the ark of salvation, and ceased to seek admission. Young men no longer offered themselves for the priesthood in the same numbers as before.

‘It is not fanciful to connect this catastrophe to the wrenching changes which were taking place in the Church at that time, when the Second Vatican Council was being prepared, discussed, and, often erronesouly, applied. As Pope Benedict wrote in the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007):

in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy which were hard to bear. I am speaking from experience, since I too lived through that period with all its hopes and its confusion. And I have seen how arbitrary deformations of the liturgy caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church.

‘The theological and liturgical fashions of that era were invariably justified by the hope of positive pastoral results, and these results manifestly failed to materialise.

‘The effect of dissent from the Church’s teaching is particularly manifest in relation to contraception, which has had a direct consequence on the Catholic birth rate, as reflected in the number of baptisms, compared to the national birth rate.

‘The Church in England and Wales today has fewer than half the ordinations each year than it had in the 1860s, but more than double the number of priests. A large proportion of those priests, however, will die or have to stop work over the next decade. In this respect we are still living on our capital, and this capital is about to run out.

‘The Extraordinary Form has not lost its power to attract young men to the priesthood, and the communities which have grown up around it today provide disproportionate numbers of vocations, marriages, and baptisms. Thirteen young men from England and Wales are currently studying for the priesthood in the different religious orders committed to the Extraordinary Form; three more should join them in September; these are numbers which many dioceses would envy.

‘We believe that the Extraordinary Form (the Traditional Mass) has an important role to play in resolving the crisis in the Church.’

Notes on the statistics.

Unless otherwise indicated, the statistics are taken from the Catholic Directory. Statistics for ordinations can be recovered only by manually counting the lists of men ordained each year; some of this work was done by the Rev. Stephen Morgan and a team at the Diocese of Portsmouth. The Latin Mass Society has filled in the gaps in Rev. Morgan’s figures and extended the range of dates covered in both directions. In addition, the LMS has added the total number of clergy, and the numbers given in the Directory’s ‘Recapitulation of Statistics’ since 1913, which include Baptisms, Marriages, Adult Conversions (renamed ‘Receptions’ in 1976), and estimates of the Catholic population.

We are very grateful to the Rev. Stephen Morgan for letting us use the fruits of his research, to the Fathers of the London Oratory for giving us access to their library, and to a number of Latin Mass Society volunteers for their time.

The full press release on the LMS website:

http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/statistics-from-the-catholic-directory

A downloadable spreadsheet showing all the figures with 13 graphs:

http://www.lms.org.uk/resources/catholic-directory-statistics

JPEGs of all the graphs on a Flickr set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55776120@N08/sets/72157633478538615/

Free use of all the above, with attribution to the LMS.

For further information contact either: Mike Lord, General Manager, on 020 7404 7284 or michael@lms.org.uk