They represent what Liverpolitanus will hopefully reflect. This substantial initial post, therefore, can fulfil this blog's "About" section.
First things first, a description of the events they depict:
The sepia image is from newsreel footage of the 1934 Corpus Christi procession on the site of the, then unbuilt, Metropolitan Cathedral in the centre of Liverpool, England. It's the see at the heart of the Archdiocese and Ecclesiastical Province of Liverpool (founded in 1850 under H.H. Pope Pius IX's bull Universalis Ecclesiae), which covers much of north west England along the Irish Sea coastline, and the Isle of Man.
The colour image shows "Liturgical Dance". It's from Gloria TV's footage of the hosting, in January 2013, of the relics of St John Bosco inside the, then 46-year-old, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.
It may not seem so, but both images depict events, 77 years apart, on the very same spot.
However, as even an untrained eye may see, it's not just a near eight decade gap and the existence of walls and a roof that distinguishes the contrasting worlds of these images.
For viewed in stark juxtaposition, they illustrate how the Catholic Church - generally in the cultural west and north, certainly in Britain, and most definitely across the Archdiocese of Liverpool (Archidioecesis Liverpolitanus) - has depressingly lost its senses.
The Corpus Christi image from 1934 - the year St John Bosco was canonised (on Easter Sunday, April 1st) - shows an ad-hoc outdoor canopied sanctuary (baldachinum) fit for the celebration of Pontifical High Mass and Benediction, on May 31st, attended by 300 priests and 500 altar servers. Before a congregation of some 30,000 souls, the Blessed Sacrament was also carried in solemn procession (see the genuflected reverence - and the ease with which it is adopted - of those in the footage at 0.55 secs as the Lord Jesus Himself, canopied by a regal baldachin, passes).
At that point, in 1934, the Archdiocese of Liverpool faithful had been anticipating for a year, since the laying of its foundation stone, the construction – on that same sprawling land that the 30,000-strong congregation gathered – of one of the most majestic cathedrals the world would ever witness. No exaggeration. The intended cathedral, whose design – by Sir Edwin Lutyens – and construction was approved by H.H. Pope Pius XI in 1933, was to be the world's second largest, with a dome to be 510ft high, taller than St Peter’s (450ft) and St Paul’s, London (250ft). Furthermore, it would sit atop a plateau (Brownlow Hill) already proudly standing 70m (230ft) above sea level, looking out towards the River Mersey estuary, Liverpool Bay and the Irish Sea. That you'd have been able to see it for miles is an understatement. Fitting that His Holiness decreed that it should be dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ the King.
It's easy to say that Mr Hitler's antics during the next decade put paid to the dream – but for ease of argument (at this point) let's just concede that the World War II effects were indeed a factor in the shelving, sadly forever, of Lutyens' magnificent plans. Liverpool – then regarded as the Second City of the Empire and arguably Britain's most strategic port – had sustained the nation's heaviest Luftwaffe bombardment outside of London. The blitzed city was battered materially, economically and attitudinally. Ironically, amidst the negative post-war admix, there lay the feeling that the last thing the city then needed was the construction of a costly (no doubt) magnificent structure – that would likely take decades to complete – built Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam (for the Greater Glory of God) in honour of His Son, Christ the King. Meanwhile, half a mile away at the end of the very same thoroughfare (Hope Street), the construction of the Protestant-Anglican Liverpool Cathedral – which would eventually become the world's longest – continued. For the sake of balance, it must also be conceded that its construction had long since commenced, in 1904 to be precise (completed in 1978) and so, yes, it would have been silly to have left a half-finished cathedral scarring the skyline. We will never know, though, that had Lutyens' vision already arisen above ground level, as the Protestant monolith at Hope Street's other end had already done, whether its superstructure would have similarly continued simply because it had to (n.b. work on Lutyens' Crypt was well underway by the time war broke out, but crucially that could be conveniently contained below ground level eyesight when post-war attention returned to the cathedral project).
 |
| A mid-C-20th postcard showing the original Lutyens plan for Liverpool's Catholic cathedral (foreground) and its proximity to the eventually completed, as per plans, Anglican cathedral. Though Lutyens' design was replaced by a different plan, the situation of each cathedral, as shown above, at either end of Hope Street, is the case today. |
After the ravages of war had settled – by the late 1950s – the Archdiocese of Liverpool finally revisited the subject of the unbuilt Catholic cathedral, but not, sadly, Lutyens' grand plan. Instead, a new design competition was held. It was "won" by Sir Frederick Gibberd and the resulting construction – consecrated in 1967 – was the "futuristic" (what does that ever mean?) Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King that now sits where Pope Pius XI envisaged Lutyens' masterpiece would one day grace, and where that glorious Corpus Christi procession of 1934 was staged.
And so it was, 77 years later, on the "sanctuary" of that "spirit of the 1960s" cathedral, that the "Liturgical Dance" pictured above took place (a reminder that the fourth paragraph link, above, shows video footage of that scandal). Let's leave aside (again for now) the revisionism that many involved with Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral still peddle (and do also see that "spirit of the 1960s" link just above) about the apparent need to choose the Protestant Gibberd's bizarre design: namely that the Archdiocese, in 1960, felt it had to select his plans in order to meet the liturgical changes of Vatican II...an event which didn't commence for another two-and-a-half-years but never called for any such reform in any case!). Such foresight! And it was on that very sanctuary, that a girl in a ballerina skirt, with only a leotard beneath, cavorted to an Emeli Sandé pop song (ironically entitled "Read All About It" – as used at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics just five months earlier...so it was hardly an original inspiration, indeed the ways of Modernism rarely are). And this sacrilege happened in front of the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle – just 50 yards away.
A point of note: the originally intended and uninterrupted sightline to the tabernacle, immediately upon entering the circular Metropolitan Cathedral – one of the few theologies Gibberd got right – has now been obscured by two choir stalls, two enormous speakers, and what is termed as the raised "presbyterium", which is now directly placed in front of it, rather than to the side of the sanctuary. It is upon this platform that, since the 1970s, the Archbishop's Throne and other clergy seats have sat.
Anyway, the young thing frisked openly before a seated bishop (that white blur you can see in the picture, atop the "presbyterium", is the seated archdiocesan Auxiliary, Rt Rev. Bishop Thomas Williams). And without being unnecessarily lewd – rather, let's be honest and adult – she writhed on the floor, regularly spread her legs, and left almost nothing to the imagination (see the video at 1 min 59 secs). We must be so pointed – and make no apologies – simply because enough local Catholics these last two years (from surprising quarters, too) have either brushed this aside as "something and nothing", not worth getting "het up" about, or have actually sought to defend it by suggesting that "you had to be there" (presumably because somehow the video is misleading and therefore anyone not physically present is prevented from correctly judging what is plainly visible). Such thinking could be classed, most generously, as relativist. Truthfully, though, there can only be two reasons as to why anyone would approve of, or excuse, the caper shown in the video (and there are plenty of other female "dancers", also, prancing around the sanctuary, and several blokes bafflingly waving blocks and flags around, although they're off-sanctuary [hey, no place for a chap is a Catholic sanctuary!]). For either they haven't the first clue about the Truth of the Blessed Sacrament, the reverence due to Our Lord Truly Present in His house, and what – and Who – a Catholic church (a cathedral mother church at that) is for...or perhaps they do understand all of that but are either hell-bent on disregarding it or maddeningly fixated on denying the grievous insult afforded to Christ for their own convoluted reasons. There is no third way. No middle-ground. You either fully understand why the utmost reverence, always, should be afforded Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament...or, well, you don't. If you do, and for whatever reason remain determined to deny local sacrilege when it cavorts half-nakedly before you, then you have – whether you admit it or not – bought into the Modernism-on-steroids that has bled into virtually every part of the ailing Church body that is the Archdiocese of Liverpool over the last half century or so.
So, on the very spot where – comfortably less than 100 years earlier – some 30,000 had instinctively lowered a knee before Our Lord, a Catholic sanctuary was given over to Salome. The Baptist's severed head must have dripped further tears of blood that day almost two years ago to the date of this post. It's easy to understand how it happened. For if you build a cathedral like that, you will get non-liturgy like that – but with rows and rows of tellingly empty pews. One begets the other. It's not difficult to figure. Although who, really, could blame the (presumably) un-catechised souls for enjoying their performance (because that's what it was) with such fervour? For they saw the open "sanctuary in the round", without any physical barriers demarcating a sacred space, as simply a raised platform. And they clearly concluded, again without effort, that it was simply...well, a stage. And they behaved accordingly. Give someone a stage, they'll give you a show. And why not? And the open applause at the end? Well, again, that's natural for humans when they appreciate a staged performance. As Gloria TV neatly included at the end of its footage after the applause:
"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment." - Pope Benedict XVI
They might have added the Pope Emeritus' immediately preceding quote for good measure:
"Dancing is not a form of expression for the Christian liturgy. In about the third century, there was an attempt in certain Gnostic-Docetic circles to introduce it into the liturgy. For these people, the Crucifixion was only an appearance. . . . Dancing could take the place of the liturgy of the Cross, because, after all, the Cross was only an appearance. The cultic dances of the different religions have different purposes - incantation, imitative magic, mystical ecstasy - none of which is compatible with the essential purpose of the liturgy as the 'reasonable sacrifice'. It is totally absurd to try to make the liturgy 'attractive' by introducing dancing pantomimes (wherever possible performed by professional dance troupes), which frequently (and rightly, from the professionals' point of view) end with applause."
There have been similar scandals aplenty in the Archdiocese these last 20 or so years but that day in January 2013 was for many the final dead straw. That such sacrilege could happen in the Archdiocesan mother church – where, incidentally, the Traditional Rite of Mass (as celebrated in 1933 at the laying of its foundation stone, and in 1934 on that glorious Feast of Corpus Christi) is effectively banned – was a cavorting too far, for far too many. Very little has happened in the Archdiocese in the two years since that shameful day to suggest that things will improve – although many, including some Traditionally-inclined folk, believe the opposite will be the case with a little patience. So let's see. But at the time of writing, both the Archbishop of Liverpool, the Most Rev. Malcolm McMahon OP and his Auxiliary, Bishop Williams, believe that the Traditional Latin Mass can be (note: not is) "divisive" (but really the distinction is too sophistic to bother parsing it).
Hence Liverpolitanus.
Born of desperation. In head-shaking bewilderment at the ongoing denial of a toxic reality. It's here to provide, when appropriate, a locally-based online witness about the mess a once great Archdiocese has become. Perhaps also, though (we pray and hope), it will be a blog to generously chart any signs of the good eclipsing the bad. It will also hopefully (as perhaps this opening post has signalled) be rich on Catholic history – certainly locally, but also nationally and further afield if appropriate. Liverpolitanus is unashamedly Traditional – put that up front. Furthermore, it won't dance around sensitivities regarding labels like "Traditional", "Conservative", "Neo-Con(servative)", "Progressive", "Liberal", "Modernist" etc.. The objection to such is well understood and appreciated but, when all is said and done, they are useful handles to assist the commentary of our age. And let's face it, it's not the usage of mere labels that hampers Church unity. Liverpolitanus will also seek, as much as possible, to be rooted in a form of resigned pragmatism (however unseemly). There are those – plenty, in fact the majority – who simply do not "get" Catholic Traditionalism and perhaps never will. Also, very many practising Catholics – certainly in the Archdiocese of Liverpool – simply don't understand what could be wrong with a girl snaking her way suggestively across a Catholic sanctuary. This blog could exhaust all the cyber-ink in the virtual world trying to convince them of their error. We won't bother. Better to just accept that God is in charge, and that maybe the veil has been drawn across their sight for now and just be thankful that the rest of us can see things for what they are. If anyone regards that as arrogance – please spare the accusation. That said, certainly one can and should highlight error(s). Having done so, though, Liverpolitanus will simply trust in the converting grace of the Holy Ghost, and pray, and hope (hence there is no intention to open the blog to comments – but there is an e-mail that can be used for items of note or information).
If only one soul, ever, perhaps even by reading this intro, is converted, then this blog will have served well. Yes, Liverpolitanus is very jaded – but not to the point of the great sin of despair. No, it's just a realistic acceptance that Traditional Catholics are where we are, and others are where they are. Sad but also reality. In any case, there are other great blogs out there to present the polemics far better than this one could (and if you want to read into, or assume anything about, Liverpolitanus' outloook based purely on the side-bar links then you're probably bang on the money).
So, in a nutshell (yes, we know!), this blog will have a Liverpool-centric flavour – but also commentary on matters beyond. It will support Tradition. There will be history of interest, and hopefully lots (there are some rich and rare sources within our easy access). We will tell honestly of the bad. But also the good – we pray and hope. It will tell the Truth and the truth.
Finally, there is a view – and we are sympathetic – that the cause of Tradition and Truth in these parts will only be harmed by highlighting the myriad errors in our midst too publicly, especially online; that any repair must be done stealthily. Taken to its logical conclusion that could only mean that those attached to Church Tradition and Truth (the minority) are at risk of being punished for speaking out.
Possibly.
Probably, even.
But honestly?
We're genuinely past caring about such fear.
For what can they do? Try and suppress Tradition and impose the madness of Modernism on us?
Well let them. And then scroll back to the top of this post and tell us what the difference would be.
You see, as we stated above, Liverpolitanus is indeed jaded...but not beyond belief!
