Consistory, February 22, 2014, Feast of the Chair of Peter

Today, there are 109 Cardinal Electors. By February 22, 2014, Feast of the Chair of Peter, and on the occasion of Pope Francis’s first consistory for the creation of new cardinals, there will be, barring the intervention of the Grim Reaper, 106. Joachim Cardinal Meisner, still Archbishop of Cologne, will be 80 on Christmas Day. Raúl Eduardo Cardinal Vela Chiriboga, Archbishop Emeritus of Quito, will follow suit on New Year’s Day. Giovanni Battista Cardinal Re, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Bishops, loses his rights as a Cardinal Elector on January 30. It will be remembered that Cardinal Re as Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina-Poggio Mirteto and senior Cardinal Bishop present at the recent conclave, acted as Pro-Dean and so had the responsibility of asking His Eminence Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio SJ if he accepted his canonically valid election.

Thus under the rules currently in force, Pope Francis will have 14 red birettas to confer on new Cardinal Electors.

Unless Pope Francis decides otherwise, there are 21 positions within the Roman Curia and related institutions which are reserved to cardinals or to archbishops who will be created cardinal at the first opportunity (although Pope Benedict himself ignored this at his mini-consistory of last November when he did not create cardinal Archbishops Müller and Bruguès). These are:

The Secretary of the Secretariat of State;

The Prefects of the nine Congregations;

The heads of two of the three Tribunals, the Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary and the Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura;

The Presidents of the: Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See; Prefecture of the Economic Affairs of the Holy See; the Governatorate of Vatican City State, who is also President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State;

The Librarian of the Vatican Library and Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives (now a combined post);

The Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and;

The Archpriests of the Four Patriarchal Basilicas: St John Lateran (which Archpriest is also the Pope’s Cardinal Vicar General for the Diocese of Rome); St Mary Major; St Paul’s Outside the Walls, and; St Peter’s.

Before speculating on who will be on the list we must also remember that Pope Benedict adopted the attitude that in general a prelate appointed to a position which traditionally merited the award of a Red Hat would have to wait until the person he succeeded ceased by reason of age or demise to enjoy the rights of a Cardinal Elector. But it must also be borne in mind that this was his policy, it is nowhere enshrined in canon law. Benedict himself applied it inconsistently in the metropolitan archdioceses and he did not apply it where the major departments of the Roman Curia were concerned (see the appointments of Archbishops: Fernando Filoni, Oriental Churches, 2007; Angelo Amato, Causes of Saints, 2008;  Joã Bráz de Aviz, Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, 2011; Fernando Filoni, Evangelization of Peoples, 2011). Only time, and it may be a short time, will tell how Pope Francis intends to proceed.

Since the first consistory of the new millennium, that of February 21, 2001, it has been the practice that when a list of cardinals-designate is issued, at the top of the list are named those prelates destined for service in the Roman Curia. To be named Number 1 on the list is a signal honour. To that prelate falls the privilege of addressing the Holy Father in behalf of all the new cardinals at the public consistory, nowadays invariably in St Peter's. On this occasion, Number 1 on the list will be Archbishop Pietro Parolin, Pro-Secretary of State (although they seem not to have officially adopted this correct designation in the Vatican) since October 15. This is a rare occurrence. I am aware of it having happened only twice before (if we ignore Domenico Tardini whose nomination was announced on the eve of Good Pope John's first consistory in 1958; also Cardinal Tardini was not named as Number 1, that honour went to Cardinal Montini, a personal friend of Good Pope John as well as being a former sostituto, which outranks a former equivalent to the present day Secretary for Relations with States).

In July of 1903, as Pope Leo XIII lay dying, Mgr Volpini, Secretary of the Sacred College of Cardinals and who should therefore have acted as Secretary at the upcoming conclave, suddenly died. The Anglo-Spanish Archbishop Rafael Merry del Val, President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, was elected by the cardinals to act as Secretary to the Conclave. Such was the favourable impression that Pope Pius X formed of him that he asked him to act in an interim capacity, in effect as Pro-Secretary of State without seemingly appointing him formally as such. He headed the list of two at Pope Pius's first consistory, on November 9, 1903 (the other was Giuseppe Callegari, Bishop of Padua).

Archbishop Angelo Sodano, Secretary for Relations with States, was named Pro-Secretary of State on December 1, 1990. He was created cardinal on June 28, 1991, and was confirmed as Cardinal Secretary of State on the following day.

Obviously, there is no way of knowing how the work of the Papal G8 will affect the way in which Red Hats are distributed within the Roman Curia in the future,  but it is doubtful if it will impinge on this first Franciscan consistory. What may affect the numbers, if not the names, of those honoured at this is the fact that 36 of the 106 Cardinal Electors who will gather round His Holiness in February are cardinals in curia, 9 of them Emeriti heads of dicasteries, 6 of whom will cease to be Cardinal Electors before the end of 2014.

So who will definitely be joining Archbishop Parolin? Three current prelates of the Roman Curia, under the current rules and custom and practice, are certainties. They are:

Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller (65, birthday on Hogmanay; German) appointed on July 2, 2012, by Papa Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, President of the Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”, of the International Theological Commission, and of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. Pope Francis has already confirmed him in place and demonstrated his great confidence in him by having him write an 8,000 plus word article for L’Osservatore Romano explaining the Catholic Church’s position on the divorced and remarried, with especial reference to the teaching in relation to admission to the Eucharist.

Archbishop Beniamino Stella (72), Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. Appointed by Pope Francis, he was formerly an Apostolic Nuncio and most recently served as President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, the Academia.

Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès OP (70 on November 22 ), Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and Librarian of the Vatican Library. He was appointed on June 26, 2012, by Papa Ratzinger. (Going back to 1700, only 4 prelates appointed to head the Secret Archives were not yet Cardinals. All were created Cardinal at the next consistory.)

In addition, they will be joined by Archbishop Lorenzzo Baldisseri (73), Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops. By placing his own now discarded red zucchetto (skullcap) upon Mgr Baldisseri’s head as he knelt to pay homage towards the end of the conclave, to which the good Monsignor had acted as Secretary, Pope Francis indicated his intention to create him cardinal at his first consistory. That His Holiness had not had second thoughts — there was some talk afterwards that he hadn’t fully appreciated what he had done — was reinforced not so much when he appointed him as Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, but more when he appointed him in such a way as to emphasise that the Synod was to become core to the way he intended to govern the Universal Church.

One other prelate must be rated almost definitely certain to join them. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia (68) has been President of the Pontifical Council for the Family since June 26, 2012. That Pope Francis has chosen “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization” as the theme for the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops next year would strongly suggest that Mgr Paglia will be on the list.

(Two other heads of second tier dicasteries would in theory have a chance of being elevated but at the moment must be rated doubtful. These are, firstly, Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski (64, Polish), President of the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers since April 18, 2009, and, secondly, Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella (62), President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization since June 30, 2010. The latter is the more problematic. It would seem to me logical that especially bearing in mind what is said above in relation to Archbishop Paglia, the Papal G8 must be considering merging the Council for New Evangelization with that for the Family and erecting the joint body as a new Congregation.)

But who will join them from the particular Churches? Absolute certainty would seem to be possible in only two cases, both Latin American.

Archbishop Mario Aurelio Poli (66 on November 29) was appointed as his own successor in Buenos Aires by Pope Francis.

Mgr Orani João Tempesta (63), the Cistercian Archbishop of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro was appointed by Papa Ratzinger on February 27, 2009, and three consistories have come and gone without his having been elevated because his predecessor, Eusébio Oscar Cardinal Scheid, was still a Cardinal Elector. (Although why he was not elevated at the mini-consistory in November last is a puzzle as Cardinal Scheid was to celebrate his 80^th birthday a mere fortnight after it was held.)

After this it can only be guesswork. Of what degree or quality of inspiration is anyone's guess. There can be little doubt that Pope Francis intends to tackle the imbalance in the Sacred College. But how and when?

In Italy, two of the nine Red Hat Sees are currently headed by an Archbishop. Mgr Cesare Nosiglia (69) was appointed Archbishop of Turin on October 11, 2010, and has also been excluded from three consistories under Papa Ratzinger’s policy on succession. However, his predecessor, Severino Cardinal Poletto, turned 80 on March 18 last.

Archbishop Francesco Moraglia was appointed Patriarch of Venice on January 31, 2012, after Angelo Cardinal Scola was translated to Milan (June 28, 2011).

I personally cannot see Pope Francis omitting these two prelates, especially the latter (apart from anything else, three 20th Century Popes were elected from Venice: Pius X, John XXIII and John Paul I). His Holiness may be Argentinian but he is also an ethnic Italian. And Italy, and not just Rome, is still of immense importance to the church: culturally, spiritually and symbolically. Any Italian emigrant will tell you so!

I will return to this after suitable further cogitation. And maybe a pie and pint for lunch.

Archbishop Leo Cushley's Installation

(A slightly edited version of this was published in The Scottish Catholic Observer on September 27, 2013.)

Who could deny that the episcopal ordination and installation of the second most important out of the two metropolitan archbishops in a wee Protestant, European country with a statistically almost insignificant Catholic population — Saint Andrews and Edinburgh circa 116,000 Catholics, Glasgow circa 225,000 Catholics; total population of Scotland in excess of 5,000,000 — is wholly insignificant in the greater scheme of Catholic things?

Well, me actually.

Two days before Mgr Leo Cushley formally took up his responsibilities, an interview given by his former most important boss gave rise to an excess of joy among those who hate the Catholic Church — from the New York Times to the Pink News via CNN and the National Catholic Reporter; I can’t tell you about The Tablet, I never read it now that it has ceased to be a Catholic magazine, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Our new Holiness, Pope Francis, they have proclaimed, has declared that homosexuality, abortion, artificial insemination, embryonic stem cell research, divorce and remarriage, marriage of priests — they haven’t, at least not yet, included marriage of priests to each other — ordination of women and anything and everything else you care to add, no matter how apparently absurd never mind outrageous, is now OK. That which had been taught by Pope Benedict XVI and his 264 predecessors and the man to whom they owe their lineage’s and teachings’ very existence, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Mary, the Christ, are oot the windae.

Halelujah. Or not, as the case may be.

For those of us now upset, confused, fearful and full of doubt  in face of this apparent massive, papal U-turn it would seem prudent that we yet again follow Para Handy’s sage advice: Let us pause and consider.

Is it at all likely that this could be true?

Fortunately, all we need do is turn to Archbishop Leo’s words as the Mass of Episcopal Consecration drew to its close on Saturday. Because he worked so closely with Pope Francis, Mgr Leo had been granted the unusual privilege for a newly appointed bishop or archbishop to be called in for a chat with His Holiness. He recalled: “One of the things he communicated then and in the coming days — Mgr Leo routinely saw him in the course of his normal duties (HMcL) — was the idea that I should be merciful in my ministry here.

“Merciful.  This has already become a key word in his pontificate, and it’s an idea that comes to him from the Gospels but filtered through his thinking about a quotation that he likes from the Venerable Bede, the famous English historian. The Pope told me to look up the Office of Readings for the day and to find his motto, the words “miserando atque eligendo”, where Christ mercifully looks upon Matthew and chooses him.

“But he explained that being merciful doesn’t mean being soft. It means being gentle but also firm at the same time. This is what the Pope asked me to be for all of you. It is also Pope Francis’s proposal for the way we priests ought to be with each other: firmly resolved to be merciful, to forgive, to be humble, to re-build, to dialogue.

“The Holy Father proposed this in his own gentle and fraternal way, but also with the strength of loving conviction and experience.”

It is worth, I think, pointing out that Pope Francis when he was Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires was loath to grant interviews with the Press. It may well be either he knew of, or, had learned from those who knew of, the fact that in February of 1959, Good Pope John released for publication part of the text of a speech that Pope Pius XI had intended to deliver to his cardinals twenty years earlier, on 11 February 1939, the day after he died. It read in part:

“You know how badly the Pope’s words are treated. People read our allocutions or addresses — not only in Italy — in order to falsify their meaning, sometimes inventing altogether and attributing to us the most utter nonsense and absurdities. Recent and past history are so perverted in a certain press that it is said that there is no persecution in Germany, and this denial is accompanied by false and calumnious allegations of mixing in politics, just as Nero’s persecution used the charge of setting fire to Rome.

“Take care, dearest brothers in Christ, and never forget that there are observers and tale-bearers (call them “spies” and you will be nearer the truth) who will listen to you in order to denounce you, having understood nothing of the matter in hand or got it all wrong. They have in their favour – one must remember how Our Lord thought of His executioners – only the good sovereign excuse of ignorance.”

This, according to some controversial, interview granted by Pope Francis was conducted by Fr Antonio Spadaro SJ, editor in chief of La Civiltà Cattolica on behalf of several Jesuit journals from across the world. As always, Jorge Mario Bergoglio was paying his debts. As Pope, canonically he is no longer “SJ” but at heart he is.

And that word “canonically” and that word “heart” lead us directly to the pastoral, evangelical impulse behind Papa Bergoglio’s advice to Archbishop Leo (as revealed at his consecration/induction) and to the Catholic Church more generally (as revealed in his interview).

One of the great teachers of Canon Law in the Twentieth Century at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome was Servant of God Fr Felice Maria Cappello SJ, Confessor and Canonist. Professor at the Greg 1920-1959, he daily heard the confessions of brother Jesuits, secular priests, bishops, archbishops and cardinals as well as of the laity of all walks of life at the nearby Church of Saint Ignatius until shortly before his death on March 25, 1962.

Dr Edward Peters, a lay American canon lawyer, has asked the followers of his Blog to invoke Fr Cappello’s intercession for the recovery of his son, Thomas Peters, who was recently very seriously injured in a swimming accident. He makes note of the good confessor’s advice to the student priests whom he taught: “Principles are principles, and they remain firm and are always to be defended. But all consciences are not the same. In applying principles to consciences, we must do it with great prudence, much common sense, and much goodness. In your opinions and decisions never be severe. The Lord does not want that. Be always just, but never severe. Give the solution that offers the soul some room in which to breathe.”

Never be severe, always be merciful! Exactly what Pope Francis has said to Archbishop Leo and to his brother bishops and fellow priests is, then, really nothing new. Indeed, William Shakespeare said it long ago in The Merchant of Venice (Act IV, Scene1):

The quality of mercy is not strained

It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven

Upon the place beneath

It is twice blessed:

It blesseth him that gives and him that receives.

If you take the time and go to the trouble of reading Pope Francis’s interview, this is the key to understanding what he is all about: be merciful. Or, since there is nothing new under the Roman sun, as Cardinal Winning always put it: Hate the sin; but love the sinner! 

Annulment and Cardinal Heard

On Friday, January 22, 2010, I published a post on Cardinal Heard which was simply an explanation of how I had come to do a wee bit of research into the life of the only Oxford Rowing, or any other, Blue to be admitted to the Sacred College. Sadly, I did not follow it up with other extracts from my essay. This morning, reading an interesting post on Fr Ray Blake’s Blog “A Greek Practice” (http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/a-greek-practice.html)  brought to mind how Fr Theo Heard, assistant priest of Most Holy Trinity, Dockhead, Bermondsey, Diocese of Southwark, came to be called to Rome to replace Mgr John Prior on the Sacred Roman Rota. And it was all to do with one of the most astonishing annulment cases heard by the Rota in the Twentieth Century. Indeed, the details foxed the readers of The Times.

Oxford Blue, Roman Purple

An auditor

Almost inevitably, a man — Rev Fr Dr William Theodore Heard MA (Oxon), PhD, DD, JCD (all the Greg, all summa cum laude) — could not for long escape the call to Rome. Although possessed of such manifest talents, for a priest happy and fulfilled in his lot, serving in a parish and among people whom he clearly loved, and happily doing the job for which he had been ordained, it was perhaps not so much a “call”, more of an unwanted summons. Either way, in Rome, on September 30, 1927, Pope Pius XI named him a domestic prelate with the title and style of the Right Reverend Monsignor and on the following day, October 1, 1927, appointed him as an uditore di Rota, an auditor, that is judge, of the Sacred Roman Rota Appeals Tribunal.

The vacancy on the Tribunal for an Enlish language auditor had come about as the result of the death in Darlington after a long illness of Mgr John Prior, the English Dean of the Sacred Roman Rota, a former vice-Rector of the Beda College, Rome (who had worked with Mgr, later Cardinal, Merry del Val on preparing the Bull Apostilicae Curae for Pope Leo XIII in which Anglican orders were decreed to be “absolutely null and utterly void”). The Church authorities in Rome, according to Cardinal Heard’s obituarist, “looked around for some distinguished jurist from the British Empire” to replace Mgr Prior. However, language alone would not have been the only consideration. And, after appointment, because of the way that judges are allotted cases there could have been no question of his being responsible solely, or even mainly, with appeals from the English-speaking world.

The Rota’s working language, of course, was Latin, but witness statements and evidence might even in those days have been given or presented originally in other languages. Mgr Heard was fluent in English, obviously, Latin, Italian and French. It was the recollection of Cardinal Winning (who inspired my essay), who knew Cardinal Heard well, that there were also another couple of languages he would have been able to get by in, but he was not sure which. Post-Vatican II, or to be more precise post-1967, dioceses were allowed to present documents to the Vatican in the vernacular. Cardinal Heard was a member of the commission of three cardinals appointed by Pope Paul VI, in response to the earnest entreaties of the Council Fathers, to investigate the workings of the curia and to propose reforms which would make the Vatican more accessible to, and more responsive to, the world-wide, universal Church. His Eminence was a party to this recommendation on the use of the vernacular. However, in 1927, when he was appointed to the Rota, although auditors and advocates conducted their business in Latin, lay witnesses were not required to be fluent in its use.

Mgr Heard was well known within the Catholic Church in England at that time for three reasons. Many younger priests knew him as a result of his having acted as Confessor to the students of the Venerabile; he would also have been known within the Diocese of Southwark and further afield through his work on the Diocesan Court; and of course he would have stood out because of his triple doctorates in canon law, divinity and philosophy. And that Rowing Blue, making it four. The Southwark Diocesan Court, with such expertise at its disposal in the body of one person, must have been the envy of every other Bishop in the country. But that notwithstanding, how did he come to the notice of the Vatican authorities? Obviously the English hierarchy would have been eager to advance the cause of one of their own (albeit he was a proud Scotsman) when Mgr Prior died and a vacancy arose in the Rota, but there was more to it than that.

The Times of Monday, November 15, 1926, in its “Telegrams in brief” column on page 13 carried a small item which was to precipitate a great storm of controversy. And the Rev Fr Dr William Theodore Heard, Officialis of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Southwark, was right in the eye of that storm. The item read:

“Reuter’s Rome correspondent says that the Sacred Roman Rota has confirmed the decree of the Diocesan Court of Southwark annulling the marriage of the Duke of Marlborough with Miss Consuela Vanderbilt.”

On the following day, Tuesday, November 16, on page 14, The Times carried a report from Reuters, New York, under the banner headline “U.S. BISHOP’S CRITICISM OF ANNULMENT” which read:

“New York, Nov.15. The report that the Sacred Roman Rota had confirmed the decree of the Diocesan Court of Southwark annulling the Duke of Marlborough’s first marriage to Miss Consuela Vanderbilt was described as ‘amazing and incredible’ by Bishop Manning in the course of a sermon yesterday.

Speaking as the Bishop of the diocese in which the marriage originally took place, Dr Manning declared that the action of the Roman Catholic Church in this case was most serious, and likely to have far-reaching consequences. The Bishop added: ‘One of the ways in which our witness for Christ is called for to-day is in regard to the sacredness and permanence of marriage.’

Dr Manning, who is Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York, is one of the leading High Churchmen of the Episcopal denomination, and is well known for his leaning towards Rome. Reuter”

On Friday, November 26, The Times reported further on Bishop Manning’s fury. From Reuters’s New York bureau:

“In the course of a Thanksgiving sermon in the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, Bishop Manning, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York, again criticized the Roman Catholic Church for its annulment of the Marlborough-Vanderbilt marriage as an ‘unwarranted intrusion and impertinence’.”

If the working man on the upper deck of the Clapham omnibus had little or nothing to say on the matter, the readers of The Times had plenty. Over the weeks following the announcement of the confirmation by the Sacred Roman Rota of the decree of nullity, To the Editor of The Times became an oft-used phrase as pen was put furiously to paper.

Naturally enough, while the Episcopalians were on the one hand incandescent with rage at Roman interference in an Anglican marriage, or, more correctly, an American Protestant Episcopalian one, the Catholics on the other were quite content that the Church had done no wrong. After all, firstly, it was hardly the Church’s fault that it had never been a canonically valid marriage in the first place and, secondly, the Church only became involved when one of the parties to the marriage contract wished to convert to Rome and so sought to regularise her position. It could be argued that the Church in fact paid the American Protestant Episcopalian hierarchy a compliment by treating the matter as if the original marriage ceremony had been carried out by a cleric in good standing with Rome, one whose claim to holy orders was unimpeachable. This almost certainly would not have happened had the case come before the Rota only a few years earlier.

It is clear that the Rota were suitably impressed by Fr Heard’s handling of the whole matter. Even more lustre must have been added to his reputation with both his English superiors and Rome when the following appeared on page 15 of The Times dated February 2, 1927:

The Duke of Marlborough

The Duke of Marlborough was received into the Roman Catholic Church in the chapel of Archbishop’s House Westminster by the Reverend CC Martindale SJ at noon yesterday. The Duchess of Marlborough, the Countess of Abington, Lady Gwendeline Spencer-Churchill, and Lord Lovat were present. Cardinal Bourne received the Duke and Duchess immediately afterwards and gave them his blessing.

And so it was that Mgr Heard came to take up residence once more in the Venerabile, although only temporarily until such time as he could establish his own apartment in the city. It is not known whether any students remained in the English College, in whatever capacity, who had been there when, as an ordained postgraduate student, Theodore Heard had functioned as confessor prior to his return to England in 1921. However, even if there were none, he nonetheless received a rousing welcome from both staff and students when the Rector, Mgr Arthur Hindsley, who would later become Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, officially welcomed him back to the College.

Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.

“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.” 
― Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching

As a former science teacher, I have always had mixed feelings about this particular quote from Tao Teh Chin. Pondering the troubles which have befallen Fr Ray Blake I could come to but only one conclusion: Someone, somewhere — it may, of course, be a lot of people a lot of wheres — wants to shut him up; to undermine him; to subvert all the good work he is doing, firstly in Brighton, and, secondly, in his Blog. And it isn’t Bill Gardner.

No. Brighton and Hove Argus’s disreputable scumbag doesn’t have the brains to produce an attack like this. Somebody put him up to it.

As a Catholic, I have always been confident that a son of the Church, particularly when that son is a priest in good standing, faces being unjustly, unfairly traduced in the public square, then he can be confident of the full support of the leader of the local Church.

Apparently this is NOT the case in the Diocese of Arundel and Brighten where Bishop Kieran Conry is deafeningly silent.

Vatican News: Changes afoot at the Secretariat of State

At the same time as it was officially reported that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of Cardinal Secretary of State Bertone, but putting its execution on hold to October 15, and appointing Mgr Parolin to succeed him, with the same condition applied, he was also reported to have confirmed in their offices the other superiors of the Secretariat of State. These were listed as: Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, sostituto, that is Secretariat of State Substitute for General Affairs; Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, secretary for Relations with States; Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the Papal Household; Msgr. Peter B. Wells, assessor for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State (and President of the Financial Security Committee); and, Msgr. Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for Relations with States (and a Member of the Financial Security Committee).

Although they were not mentioned in the announcement as their positions, although senior, do not strictly qualify as “superiors”, it may be assumed that Archbishop Luciano Suriani (a classmate of Mgr Pater Magee, President of our Scottish Catholic National (Marriage) Tribunal at the Pontifical Eccesiastcal Academy), Delegate for Pontifical Representations, and, Msgr. José Avelino Bettencourt, Head of Protocol, have also been confirmed in position.

The important point here is that he has included in this group Archbishop Ganswein as if the Papal Household were part of the Secretariat of State. IT ISN’T. At least not yet. This may well indicate that in any rearrangement to come of the Secretariat, the Papal Household will be formally incorporated into the Secretariat, or rather into its remnant based on the First Section. Incorporating the Papal Household into the First Section does not make any sense other than in the context of the First and Second Sections being formally separated.

Visitors to Fr Ray Blake's excellent Blog will be aware that I had reached this conclusion very shortly after the announcements were made. Subsequent to that it was announced that Pope Francis had issued a summons to all the dicastery heads to meet with him. The letter was sent by Archbishop Ganswein, not Cardinal Bertone or Archbishop Becciu.

Irish MPs at Westminster and The Oath of Allegiance

Thanks to the kindness of a friend, I have been able to retrieve many notes locked in old floppy disks. I shall publish some of them as I manage to render them into a readable form.

There is to me something absurdly funny about the idea of the Westminster parliament requiring an Irishman to swear an oath of allegiance to the Crown. After all, this is the same parliament which for over a hundred years passed, year in year out, Tory, Whig, or Liberal government in office, measures “for the better governance of Ireland” and officially called them “coercion Acts”! I would have thought that it stands to reason that if you accept that you have to coerce a people whom you claim to have the right to govern, you are explicitly accepting that that people owe you no debt of loyalty, nor duty of allegiance.

The Succession to the Crown Act of 1707, “An Act for the Security of her Majesty’s Person and Government, and of the Succession to the Crown of Great Britain in the Protestant Line”, does not apply to Ireland and, therefore, since I have as yet not got round to looking at the detail of the Treaty and Act of Union of 1800 and the associated and consequential legislation, I can only assume that there is some other basis for the presumption on the part of the Westminster parliament that there is a requirement for Irish Members to swear an Oath of Allegiance. If for no other reason they might simply aver that there is a general, and almost entirely universally held, legal and moral principle that if you join the club you accept the rules of the club, AS THEY STAND. The problem with the Westminster parliament, from the Irish point of view, is, of course, that even British Prime Ministers have accepted that for Irishmen there is the problem of the legality of the Treaty and Act of Union, and therefore of Irish membership of the Westminster club. This arises because of Irish membership being predicated on the abolition of their own College Green club and, thereafter, enforced merger with that dominated by England at Westminster.

On May 10, 1886 when Gladstone spoke in the House of Commons at Westminster on the Second Reading of his first Irish Home Rule Bill, he never mentioned “champetry”, but he did give eloquent testament to its malign influence in the dealings between the parliaments of England and Ireland prior to the Treaty and Act of Union. Champetry, I should explain, though a lawyer might better advise, is the act of illegally entering into a contract, and, you might be interested to know, one consequence of champetry being involved in a contract is that such a contract will find no friend in the English courts. Under English Common Law a party to a contract can go to court seeking an order requiring “specific performance” of part or of all of that contract by the other party or parties involved. In the case of what is held to be a champetrous contract the court must decline to issue such an order.

In that Second Reading debate, amongst other things, Gladstone had these to say of the wheeling and dealing which led to the Treaty and Act of Union:

“A Union of which I will not say anything more than that I do not desire to rake up the history of that movement ― a horrible and shameful history, for no epithets weaker than these can in the slightest degree describe or indicate ever so faintly the means by which in defiance of the national sentiment of Ireland, consent to the Union was attained ― it was in rank opposition to all the national and patriotic sentiment of Ireland…The Union, whatever may be our opinion with regard to the means by which it was obtained…They [Whig statesmen] said it was in opposition to all that was honourable and upright, most respected, and most disinterested in Ireland, and nothing but mischief, nothing but disorder, nothing but dishonour, could come from a policy founded upon the overriding of all those noble qualities, and by means which would not bear the face of day, imposing the arbitrary will of the Legislature upon the nation, in spite of its almost unanimous opposition.”

Those ‘means which would not bear the face of day’ were, as you no doubt well know, bribery, coercion and corruption on such a grand scale as had not been witnessed since the Scottish Treaty and Act of Union almost a hundred years before. So, since there is such a strong prima facie case that Irish membership of the Westminster parliament is illegal, champetry seeming to void the contract, the Treaty of Union in this case, there must be a presumption that an Oath of Allegiance can only, from a British parliamentarian’s point of view, be a hopeful request of a pressed Irish member and not an, in default, excluding prerequisite

Section XVIII of the 1707 Act shows how seriously the Crown takes the requirement to swear an Oath of Allegiance by expressly stating who are all required to take it in the event of the death of the monarch:

“...All the members of both Houses of Parliament, and every member of the Privy Council, and all Officers or Persons in any Offices, Places, or Employments, Civil or Military, who are or shall be by this Act continued as aforesaid, shall take the said Oaths, and do all other Acts requisite by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm, to qualify themselves to be and continue in their respective Places, Offices, and Employments within such Time, and in such Manner, and under such Pains, Penalties, and Disabilities, as they should or ought to do, had they been newly elected, appointed, constituted, or put into such Offices, Places, or Employments in the usual or ordinary way.”

Section XX of the Act sets out the form the Oath must take and it begins:

“I (name) do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare IN MY CONSCIENCE, BEFORE GOD AND THE WORLD..."(my emphasis)

It ends:

“And I do make this Recognition, Acknowledgement, Abjuration, Renunciation, and Promise heartily, willingly and truly, upon the true Faith of a Christian.”

This, then, is not, and is not meant to be, an Oath to be given or taken lightly.

So to what would you as an Irish Member be committing yourself should you decide to take the Oath of Allegiance? Well, of course you would not be required to swear the Oath in the words prescribed in the 1707 Act for that was replaced by the form contained in the Parliamentary Oaths Act 1866, which itself was replaced two years later by the form given in the Promissary Oaths Act 1868. This reads:

“I (name) do swear that I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His/Her Majesty (name), His/Her Heirs and Successors, according to Law, so help me God.”

The “according to Law” does not simply mean your acceptance of, or even acquiescence in, an English Queen having dominion over the country and the people of Ireland for, although the form of the Oath has been modernised, the 1707 Act’s commitments remain unaffected and undiluted by the later adaptations. That is, whereas everything was spelled out in laborious detail in the original Act, according to the parliamentary draftsmanship habits of the day, they are implied in the modern version by their presence in the original which has NOT been repealed, and therefore in effect what you would be implicitly saying and explicitly swearing to is all that was contained in the stylised words of the original Oath:

“I (name) do truly and sincerely acknowledge, profess, testify, and declare in my Conscience, before God and the World, that our Sovereign (name) is lawful and rightful King/Queen of this Realm, and of all other His/Her Majesty’s Dominions and Countries thereunto belonging. And I do solemnly and sincerely declare, that I do believe in my Conscience that the Person pretended to be the Prince of Wales during the life of the late King James, and since his Decease pretending to be, and taking upon himself the Style and Title of King of England by the name of James the Third, hath not any Right or Title whatsoever to the Crown of this Realm, or any other the Dominions thereunto belonging: And I do renounce, refute and abjure any Allegiance or Obedience to him. And I do swear that I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to (name) and (name of His/Her spouse) and I will defend to the utmost of my Power against all traitorous Conspiracies and Attempts whatsoever which shall be made against (name’s) Person, Crown, or Dignity. And I will do my utmost Endeavour to disclose and make known to His/Her Majesty and His/Her Successors, all Treasons and traitorous Conspiracies which I shall know to be against (name) or any of them. And I do faithfully promise to the utmost of my Power to support, maintain, and defend the Succession of the Crown against him the said James, and all other persons whatsoever as the same by an Act entitled ‘An Act for the further Limitation of the Crown, and better Securing the Rights and Liberties of the Subject’, and stands limited to the Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Heirs of her Body being Protestants. And all these Things I do plainly and sincerely acknowledge and swear, according to the express Words by me spoken, and according to the plain and common Sense and understanding of the same Words, without any Equivocation, mental Evasion, or secret Reservation whatsoever. And I do make this Recognition, Acknowledgement, Abjuration, Renunciation, and Promise, heartily, willingly and truly, upon the true Faith of a Christian.”

You would, then, be solemnly swearing allegiance to a queen descended not from King James and his issue, but from a foreign, Hanoverian family, whose only qualification and attraction was their separation from the Roman Catholic Church to which most of Nationalist Ireland adhere. You, as an Irish Member and a Catholic, would in effect be accepting that, by your profession of the Catholic faith of your fathers, you are a part of a ‘traitorous Conspiracy’, namely the Church of Rome. You, as an Irish Member and a Republican, would be giving a commitment to ‘support, maintain, and defend the Succession of the Crown’. For you as a practising Catholic to take such an oath, knowing that in your heart you did not believe or mean a word of it, would be to commit a sin; probably, though I am not sure, a mortal one. For you as a Republican to take such an Oath, having been elected on the traditional Irish Republican abstentionist ticket, by an electorate quite well aware of the history behind that Republican commitment to abstentionism, would be a bad joke. Moreover, for you to swear the oath as worded would be, according to the law of England, a crime. The crime would, I think, be high treason. But then I am no jurist, so maybe it would just be low treason. But, either way, such a fine thing for the Speaker of the House of Commons to be encouraging!

The other Acts relevant to the taking of the Oath of Allegiance (the Parliamentary Oaths Act of 1866, the Promissary Oaths Act of 1868,and the Oaths Act of 1978) in no way alter the absurdity of requiring a republican, any republican, not simply or exclusively an Irish Republican, to take an Oath involving paying homage to, and pledging continuing allegiance to, the Crown. Even the facility of being allowed to ‘affirm’ affects by not one whit the position of a republican since you simply substitute the appropriate replacement words to avoid a religious connotation.

Of course, in other times, and in other ways, the British Crown has demonstrated how seriously it regards the swearing, or administering, of oaths by Irishmen. Two hundred years ago, on October 14, 1797 the United Irishman William Orr stood trial at Carrickfergus on the trumped up charge that he did administer the oath of the United Irishmen to the soldier Wheatly contrary to that recently introduced law of which the authors of Speeches from the dock said: “One of the first blows aimed by the Government against the United Irishmen was the passing of the Act of Parliament (36 George III) which constituted the administration of their oath a felony.”

That Orr was entirely innocent was of no avail in his defence for, in this as sadly in so many other instances: “the bloodthirsty agents of the Crown did not look in vain for Irishmen to co-operate with them in their infamy.”

They go on to tell us that: “Hardly had sentence of death been passed on William Orr when compunction seemed to seize on those who had aided in securing that result. The witness Wheatly, who subsequently became insane, and is believed to have died by his own hand, made an affidavit before a magistrate acknowledging that he had sworn falsely against Orr. Two of the jury made depositions setting forth that they had been induced to join in the verdict of guilty while under the influence of drink; two others swore that they had been terrified into the same course by threats of violence.”

Needless to say that when these sworn depositions were laid before the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Camden, they were of no avail. As Orr himself observed, the government, using the oath as a pretext, had “laid down a system having for its object murder and devastation.”

All in all one might think that there has been too much swearing in Ireland.

deValera and Irish neutrality

Thanks to the kindness of a friend, I have been able to retrieve many notes locked in old floppy disks. I shall publish some of them as I manage to render them into a readable form.

History teaches that neutrality was ever the position adopted by small European nations in the face of belligerence involving the larger ones. It was, of course, in no small measure due to the actions of the Westminster Parliament and the government of the United Kingdom that as war loomed in the late 1930s Ireland found herself to be, both in terms of population and the size of her economy, a much smaller nation than she ought to have by then been.

Less than a generation after the craven partition of the country following the Anglo-Irish war, which is characterised in the minds of the Irish by the brutal excesses of the Black and Tans; only a few generations after the Great Famine, which saw millions condemned to death by starvation and disease, or to essentially forced migration in the most Hellish, and often fatal, conditions; with the bitter memories of how they were abandoned on the high altars of both laissez faire economics and Disraeli’s vaulting ambition still an open sore; with all this borne in mind could anyone in their right senses honestly have expected an Irish government to exhort its people to come to the aid of the colonial oppressor?

And yet on 6 October 1937 Malcolm MacDonald, son of Ramsay and at the time Dominions Secretary, could cable London from Dublin and reassure the Prime Minister that de Valera “would guarantee that in any case the Irish Free State would NOT be used to embarrass us in war.” Dev had first given this assurance in the Dail on May 29, 1935 when he said “Our territory will NEVER be permitted to be used as a base for attack upon Britain.” (My emphasis, but he has been reported as having given the same emphasis in his speech.)

With so many in Ireland enjoying the closest ties of kinship with the diaspora on John Bull’s only island, how could Dev do, or even contemplate, otherwise?

Did de Valera, as has often been asserted by Ulster Unionist-suppporting right-wingers on this side of the Irish Sea, frustrate the extension of conscription to the six counties? No, but he did point out the utter hypocrisy which would be involved in seeking to force Irish Catholics in the six counties to fight for the freedom to self-determination of other small nations in Europe when they themselves were denied that self-same right.

Even without Dev intervening,  the Catholics in the north east corner of Ireland remembered well the lessons to be drawn from Redmond’s and wee Joe Devlin’s betrayal by Her Majesty’s Imperial Government after they had exhorted their followers to enlist at the outset of the First World War!

In the event it was not deValera, nor was it the weight of American public opinion, but rather JM Andrews, the Stormont Prime Minister, who towards the end of May 1941 persuaded Churchill to abandon any thoughts of conscription in the six counties.

Did de Valera “minimise co-operation with the Allies’ D-Day vital (contiguous) security clampdown” as one correspondent of the editor of The (Glasgow) Herald dared to suggest? Certainly not! In point of fact when the American General Jacob L Devers crash landed in Ireland late in 1943, his briefcase contained all the details of the proposed Operation Overlord. General Devers, his briefcase and the secrets of the D-Day landing were promptly repatriated safely, intact and secretly to Britain.

Not only that, as the D-Day landings approached, the Irish Government decided that the Curragh Interment Centre was too overcrowded. The Allied pilots who were transferred out to ease the problem somehow found themselves inexplicably delivered into the safekeeping of the military authorities in the six counties contrary to the Geneva Convention, but perfectly in tune with the spirit of Irish pro-British neutrality!

As for the old chestnut about de Valera’s call upon the German Ambassador, Dr Edward Hempel, the protocols covering diplomatic relations were largely worked out at the Court of St James, London. Since in Europe Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Ireland were non-belligerents, English devised protocol dictated that they formally extend their condolences to the German people, via the Ambassador, on the death of the Head of State, irrespective of whomsoever or whatsoever that person be.

Eamon de Valera fully realised that he could, and perhaps should, have delegated this task to an underling. However, de Valera took the view, and I think rightly, that Dr Hempel had been a good friend to Ireland — and without betraying his own country, a good friend also to the American and British governments. In the only comment, at least that I am aware of, he ever volunteered on the matter, Dev said that he personally determined that he “certainly was not going to add to his humiliation in the hour of defeat.”

It had, to put it mildly, bugger at all to do with any liking for, or admiration of, Hitler!

In the course of the Clydebank Blitz, the Luftwaffe also bombed and damaged other areas in West-Central Scotland. Presumably by accident, they managed to hit the premises belonging to the German Consulate at 9 Park Circus, Charing Cross, Glasgow.

Dr Werner Grecor, the German Consul, had departed Glasgow, ostensibly on holiday, in August of 1939 before hostilities broke out. He left an envelope containing a contact address to be opened in case of emergency with the Consulate’s lawyers: Chalk, Bertram & Anderson, Solicitors, 38 Bath Street, Glasgow. In the event, when Mr George Chalk instructed his apprentice, Willie McAfee — who was in his 80s was still the proud possessor of the longest continuously held Practising Certificate at the Glasgow Bar when he informed me of all this — to check the contents of this envelope, it was found to contain the name and address of an hotel at Scappa Flow!

When hostilities did duly break out, in accordance with the rules governing the conduct of diplomatic relations, the Rules of the Court of St James, Switzerland was nominated as the “friendly power” to represent the German government’s interests in Britain. When the Swiss Embassy learned of the damage done to the German Consulate in Glasgow, Messrs Chalk & Co were instructed to ascertain the extent and value of the damage done to the German government’s property and to submit a claim for compensation in that amount to the Foreign Office in Whitehall.

In accordance with those diplomatic rules, Winston Churchill’s War Cabinet settled this claim from Hitler’s Nazi regime promptly and in full. Nazi Germany was reimbursed for the damage done to its premises in Glasgow by its own air force in the course of the Luftwaffe’s attempts to destroy the Clyde shipbuilding industry.

In effect Churchill authorised the British exchequer to help fund, at least in part, the Nazi war effort!

Obviously had this not been effectively hushed up, Churchill could not have sought to so grotesquely misrepresent deValera’s later act of personal kindness Dr Edward Hempel when that good man suddenly found himself in a parlous situation.