Oxford Pilgrimage 2026

The annual LMS Oxford Pilgrimage in honour of the Catholic martyrs who died in the city will take place on 

Saturday 17th October, with Mass in Blackfriars at 11am

This will be followed by a procession from Carfax to site of the Castle gallows at 2pm, returning to Blackfriars for Benediction.

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Review of Michael Davies biography, and other recent work

For the Catholic Herald, I have written a review of Leo Darroch's biography: Michael Davies: Defender of Catholic Tradition,

which are launching in the London Oratory on Thursday 23rd April (come along, its free!),

and also a review of a very different book: Inversion, a collection of essays written by homosexuals disaffected by the direction their movement has taken. In the review I argue that this movement arose out of the Protestant society of the industrial age, and compare the role of marginalised groups
in pre-industrial Catholic societies. As I write, 'Perhaps a society creates the dissidents that it deserves.'

My review of the Michael Davies biography begins:

Michael Davies (1936-2004) was from the 1970s until his death the foremost lay advocate of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). His books, particularly the trilogy Cranmer’s Godly Order, Pope John’s Council, and Pope Paul’s New Mass, were an enormous influence on a generation of Catholics attached to the TLM, and set the terms of the debate. He rejected the extreme claims made by some, that the reformed Mass was invalid or that recent popes were not real popes, and when he died he was praised by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Nevertheless his support for the Traditional Mass and the traditional teachings of the Church were uncompromising.

Leo Darroch’s biography starts with Davies’ early life. He was born into a Protestant family with Welsh roots, and attended a Grammar school. Instead of doing National Service he joined the regular Army, and served in Malaya. Back in civilian life he became a Catholic, married Maria Milosh, a Yugoslavian teacher who had been studying in England, and became a teacher himself. The young Davies had a growing family and was devout, conscientious, and intelligent, but those who met him in the 1960s would have had little reason to imagine that he would devote the second half of his life to writing, speaking, and campaigning about the Church’s teaching and liturgy, with unrelenting industry and very little earthly reward. It is interesting to ask what radicalised him.

Read it all there.

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LMS Walsingham Pilgrimage: booking open!

Booking is open for this year's LMS Walking Pilgrimage to Walsingham! There is an 'early bird' discount until Pentecost!

Book here.

We will gather in Ely on Thursday 27th August, walk on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (30th) of the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Please consider volunteering! Volunteers get a discount or come for free. We need cooks, drivers, marshals, singers, first aiders, photographers and someone to do social media. Email walsinghampilgrimage@lms.org.uk

Annunciation at SS Gregory & Augustine

Fr John Saward celebrated a lovely High Mass in SS Gregory & Augustine's, Oxford, the the feast of the Annunciation.

Mass was accompanied by the Ensemble Res Sacra, who regularly accompany these feast-day Masses. They had a particular treat for us this time, singing pieces by Paolo Papini (d.1603), who was maestro di cappella at Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome, recently discovered by Dr. Naomi Barker, Senior Lecturer in Music with the Open University. 

In addition, they sang rarely-heard Mass by Giovanni Animuccia, who was Palestrina's successor and predecessor at the Cappella Giulia. 

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On Cardinal Parolin's letter to the French Bishops

Me in the Catholic Herald.

A key paragraph.

The importance of this kind of solution, and its appropriateness, is further clarified. It is important because the current situation represents a ‘painful wound’. Blame for this wound is not assigned to anyone; perhaps it is best to see it simply as the unfortunate outcome of history, including some very recent history. On a casual reading, the ‘wound’ metaphor might seem to refer to the division implied by the mere fact that there are two rival liturgical rites, but if Pope Leo is concerned about a practical solution to help those attached to the older form, this can’t be what he means. The wound that concerns the Holy Father is one that can be healed by ‘generous’ inclusion of those attached to the Vetus Ordo, suggesting that what he had in mind is their current deep unhappiness, in feeling excluded from the Church’s pastoral care. Pope Leo is calling for the bishops to understand the sensitivities of those attached to the Vetus Ordo, and having come to that understanding, respond to this sensitivity by making provision for the celebration of this liturgy.

Read it all there.

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The Traditional Mass at Magdalen College Oxford

The Resonantia Consort accompanied a Missa Cantata in the chapel of Magdelen College celebrated by Fr Daniel Lloyd of the Ordinariate, who is parish priest of the nearby parish South Hinksey.

Francis Thompson, angels, and science

The angel of Gethsemane

My article for the Catholic Herald begins:

The Catholic mystic and poet Francis Thompson died of tuberculosis in 1907, and one of his best-known poems, ‘In No Strange Land’, was not published until the following year. It evokes the glory of God’s creation, which most of us cannot perceive, a theme we find in many Christian poets.

A key passage:

The older worldview is sometimes described as ‘enchanted’, and it is said that the spell was broken by the Scientific Revolution, which explained things that could not previously be explained except by reference to supernatural causes. The suggestion, essentially, is that, in the medieval worldview, natural events were ascribed to miraculous or magical causation through ignorance. This is a distortion of the facts, however. Medieval, and indeed ancient, astronomers described the movement of the stars and planets in great detail, and were able to predict conjunctions and eclipses; they were similarly well versed in other laws of nature. They distinguished the effects of these things from miracles, which are brought about directly by God and which go beyond the workings of these laws.

The medievals nevertheless saw the workings of nature in the context of God’s creation. This was reinforced by a number of features of medieval science (to use an anachronism), notably the way it looked for explanations in terms of agents (living or not), rather than, as modern scientists do, seeing the natural world as a succession of events, each causing the next. The agents which cause things, on the medieval view, are perfectly natural; but at the same time we can more easily take a personal view of them, and even invoke them, or their guardian angels, in prayer.

Read the whole thing.

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