Oxburgh Hall

Me down a priest's hole

On Sunday I went over to Cambridge to see friends Ryan Day (who is currently working there) and Phil Cunnah (who was visiting him). Upon arrival, I was told the day had already been planned out - we were going to a place called Oxburgh Hall - and I was driving!

After a spot of lunch and watching a bit of the cricket at the pub, we picked up Kamilla Klepacka (a medical student at Cambridge) and set off. It was a good 40 miles from Cambridge. The lads told me that the hall was home to a wealthy recusant family and featured in book they had read, "God's Secret Agents" (which I have tonight ordered on Amazon). It follows the story of the Jesuit martyrs during penal times, how they were pursued by the priest catchers, and how and where they hid. One of the locations they sought refuge was Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, the home of the Bedingfeld family. Fr John Gerard, leader of the Jesuits during penal times, was one of the priests that stayed and hid there after landing on the Norfolk coast in 1588 to minister to recusants. The house has one priest hole that has been found, with others almost certainly in place. They were built by Saint Nicholas Owen, a carpenter only slightly taller than a dwarf who suffered from a hernia.

Our visit was nothing short of fascinating, especially in light of my current series on the 40 martyrs (which is progressing, regrettably, as slow as ever), which I kicked off with St Nicholas. There are lots to explore in the house itself, such as Mary Queen of Scots' embroideries, various different paintings and a stunning Tudor gatehouse. There are little hints of Catholicity you can spot throughout the house before getting upstairs to the priest's hole near to the King's and Queen's chambers in the gatehouse tower. I spotted a portrait (copy) of St Phillip Howard to name but one of the subtle hints. When reaching the hole, you get an idea of how cleaver Nicholas Owen was and how his role was one of the most significant of the English mission, the hiding of the priests who brought Christ to the faithful in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Father Tanner, writing in 1675, said: "With incomparable skill he knew how to conduct priests to a place of safety along subterranean passages,to hide them between walls and bury them in impenetrable recesses,and to entangle them in labyrinths and a thousand windings."

Climbing down into the hole was a job in itself. You have to slide yourself down to the bottom then duck your head to bring yourself up into the hole. (Pictured is Phil climbing down) Once in there, you can see how cramped it was for the priest(s) to hide there, perhaps for days on end. Once the entrance was shut and covered there can't have been much air and the smell can't have stayed pleasant for long. It was an incredible feeling to sit in the same spot as those brave priests, some of whom are now saints.

As well as the extortionate prices to get into the hall (about £7), unfortunately, many of the volunteers and staff were a little annoying, keen to tell every single visitor that walked by them about the wallpaper etc. If you didn't know a little more about the significance of the place, a visit to the hall could be just like another, run-of-the-mill stately home. But going there as English Catholics, discovering first hand a bit about those who made it possible for us to celebrate Mass today through their efforts and martyrdom, really blows you away. Just before tea and hot scones, dripping with butter, myself and Ryan agreed that one of our top five saints was St Nicholas Owen, even though we had only discovered he existed in the last two years. As I've said before, it's scandalous how little we known and are taught about our own saints. We have a huge amount to thank them for. As for Sunday's visit, I think I will be keen to discover similar places to visit to build up a picture of how the Catholic faith was saved in England.

We made it back to Cambridge just in time for Mass in Latin at Our Lady and the English Martyrs. A fitting day.

Vox populi

On Friday, it was my turn again to do one of the most demoralising jobs for a journalist - the dreaded vox pop. Here's what you do - go into the town with a camera and persuade five people to give you their name, street name, age and occupation - and have a picture taken - as well as give you their comments about some random question on the issue of the day. It might seem easy but, believe me, it's not. We all dread doing it and most of us think it's a pointless exercise. It's having the motivation to get out there that's the main thing. And if it's raining of its a Monday, you're stuffed.

And it's particularly hard when it's a difficult question. Imagine, then, my heart sinking when I got into the office on Friday morning and found an email saying that so and so was busy this morning and you had to do the vox on the following question - Do you think there should be sex education for children as young as four? To be honest, although it's a subject I am interested in and something I'm frankly sickened by, I didn't fancy asking it to the average Joe Bloggs. I tried to change the question but they weren't having it. So out I went.

In fact, after a few people scooted passed me before I got to the question, I found five helpful people. Interestingly, three out of the five were genuinely shocked by the suggestion by two sexual health charities. They said that the family should deal with teaching their kids about those matters and one said that the innocence of children would be taken away. They, and one of the others who said it was a good idea (boo), said sex education at four would do nothing to cut the numbers of teenage pregnancies. I completely agree!

Pro-hybrid embryo charity meets at Westminster Cathedral Hall

A charity that supports destructive research on human embryos and the creation of human-animal hybrids held an event at Westminster Cathedral hall yesterday(Friday).

The Parkinson’s Disease Society (PDS) – that is actively campaigning in favour of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill – was allowed to hold its Mervyn Peake (a photography, poetry, and art competition) Awards Reception 2008 in the cathedral’s hall.

It follows the society holding its 26th Christmas Carol Concert on Wednesday December 12 last year in the Cathedral Church.
The organisation’s website states: "We have been lobbying Parliamentarians to ensure they support human/animal research in any votes on this issue in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill."

I don’t know about you, but I think the fact that the Diocese of Westminster allowed a reception to be hosted in the cathedral from an organisation that dismisses human embryos as mere experimentation tools is baffling. The Church and its bishops has quite rightly been vocal in opposing this pernicious piece of legislation that blurs the boundaries of what is human and what is animal. How, then, can it be right for the mother church of England and mother church of the Roman Catholic community in England and Wales to open its doors to those who want to manipulate and destroy human life for the purpose of speculative research? It’s a major own goal. It doesn’t make sense.

It’s not just recently that the PDS has decided to advocate destructive research - it is one of the leading campaigners in favour of it. In its evidence to the House of Lords select committee inquiry into stem cell research in 2001, the organisation said: "The Parkinson’s Disease Society was actively involved in the campaign to allow the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Research Purposes) Regulations 2000 to proceed to law… It is accepted that there will always be embryos created through in vitro fertilisation which are not implanted. These embryos do not have any chance of life – the only choices are destruction or their use in research." (written evidence to the House of Lords select committee on stem cell research, June 2001) . PDS also supports the use of cells from foetuses (chair of the Parkinson’s Disease Society, Daily Mail, 1 December 1998). These two comments make it clear that the PDS has a history of supporting the research even before the recent lobbying on the HFE Bill. Yet the society were permitted to host their carols in the church.

Of course, Parkinson’s disease is a terrible illness. None of us are denying that. It is so sad to see the health of those who suffer from the degenerative disease deteriorate, particularly in old age. Our beloved Holy Father Pope John Paul the Great suffered greatly from it as have countless others. The late pope would have encouraged and supported (and no doubt prayed) for an ethical cure to Parkinson’s. But we can see from his clear teachings that 'the killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act' (Evangelium Vitae). Essentially, the ends does not justify the means. I imagine he would be horrified that those who promote this research would be allowed to hold an event on the cathedral premises even if the event was not directly associated with this issue.

In a recent article in the Guardian newspaper, Geraldine Peacock, the vice-president of the Parkinson's Disease Society, said: "…what makes me really angry is when this kind of research becomes a political or religious issue. Of course it has to be an ethical one, but there should be a civic debate and we should ask the public, especially those who are currently affected.
"I just wish that some of the squabbling scientists and the scaremongers could spend a day inside my body and see if they still held the same views at the end of it."

How clear can the message be that the PDS dismisses the Catholic Church’s teaching as "scaremongering"? Not only that, Geraldine Peacock’s view seems to be that people with a religious conviction have no say in the matter.

"Scandal-mongering and ignorant interpretations of complex scientific work have left the average person with huge misconceptions about what is actually going on," she adds.

The purpose of this post is not to rebuff the arguments against this type of research – I’ve posted extensively on them and I’m sure many of you have been using them to write letters to MPs etc. The point here is a matter of principle. Surely our churches have got to be more careful about who they let use their facilities?

Hull Faith Forum: Fr Tim Finigan

This weekend just gone, I managed to get Monday off as well as Saturday and Sunday so I tootled up to Hull for a few days. It was great that it coincided with the Hermeneutic's first ever visit to the banks of the Humber to deliver a first-class Hull Faith Forum talk on why the Church is right on contraception.

On Monday afternoon, myself and friend, Phil Cunnah, picked him up from Paragon Station. As it was Fr's first trip to Hull, we took him for a brief visit to the oldest (and by a country mile the best) Catholic Church in the city - St Charles Borromeo, Jarrat Street.

Its history, pulled from the parish's website reads: "Around 1774 Fr. Charles Howard came from Marton to serve the small number of Catholics in Hull. In 1779 a chapel was established in Posterngate but it was destroyed in the Gordon Riots of 1780. Following the loss of the chapel Catholics were forced to meet in private until in 1798 when Fr Pierre Foucher arrived in Hull, fleeing the French Revolution. He was a wealthy man, possibly an aristocrat. He paid for a small chapel in North Street to be built from his own funds. He returned to France in 1820.Fr. John Smith was appointed to replace Fr Foucher. He obtained a site in Jarratt Street and began the construction of the present church. The church opened on 29 July 1829. The building of the church was begun by the architect John Earle (b. 1778- d. 1863). It was remodelled soon afterward by J.J. Scholes (b. 1798 - d. 1863).In later years the aisles were added and the present decor seen in the church was undertaken in 1899 under the stewardship of Canon Sullivan."

We then went on to Fr William Massie's presbytery in west Hull for a lovely home-made spaghetti carbonara.

Then it was onto the Endsleigh Centre in the north of the city for the talk. There was an excellent attendance, with many there being of teenage years or in their early 20s. Fr's talk was pitched at a level that could be understood by the Secondary school pupils - and therefore by everybody else. Despite the rather direct title (Why the church is right on contraception), he tackled the wider subject of chastity. Recounting some of the things he had picked up from the Good Counsel Network, he explained that many women who find themselves in a "crisis pregnancy" are already on one form or another of contraception - completely crushing the theory that there is such a think as so-called "safe sex". He also said that research showed the divorce rate in the UK is way higher among couples who lived together before they were married compared with those who didn't. Fr Tim emphasised that this was not his or the Church's assumption - it was fact.

The Hermeneutic went onto explore the difference between love and infatuation, the vocation of mothers and fathers, the sanctity of marriage and the purpose of sex - i.e. for procreation. Infatuation is an emotion, it's something you "fall into", an unreasoned passion based on physical attraction and popularity. This kind of relationship is temporary. But love is a devotion, it's something you "grow into". It is a lasting relationship, one that is a growing experience based on mutually shared interests, beliefs, attitudes and goals.

Based on his years of experience of pro-life work, of various families in his south London parish, of theology and of marriage preparation to name but a few, Fr Tim was able to give sound advice to the youngsters present, who clearly took to heart what he was saying. He encouraged us to pray for chastity on a daily basis, asking God to teach us to love others with the purity of His holy Mother. After the talk and a break for refreshments, Fr answered some often delicate questions from the teenagers very well.

After the forum finished with night prayer, I took Fr to the pub and stayed for a quick drink before heading back down to Northamptonshire for work the next day. Little did I know until I got to Derbyshire that I had Fr Tim's bag in the back of the car! All of us had forgotten about it being in the boot and the first I knew of it was when I stopped at a motorway service station and found I had 11 missed calls from Fr Massie. I arranged to drive back towards Yorkshire and meet one of Fr William's parishioners, Michelle Robertson, along with Phil, at Doncaster services to get the bag (which contained Fr Tim's train ticket for the following morning) back to its rightful owner. Despite being grumpy at the time by the faffing around, I think I have just about managed to see the slightly amusing side of it by now! Apologies once again Fr Tim. One of those things...