I guess the next time I head across the pond to England (after Christmas, by the way, if everything works out the way I hope – blognic?) and have the chance to make supper for priest friends, I won’t be picking up my supplies at Tesco.
I saw this on the blog of my friend Fr. Blake, the great p.p. of Brighton.
Christians are “evil” if they resist the redefinition of marriage to allow for same-sex marriage, the Head of Research and Development at Tesco.com has said.
The company has already faced criticism for dumping its support for the Cancer Research ‘Race for Life’ and sponsoring London’s gay pride festival.
The “evil Christians” comment was made by Nick Lansley, Head of Research and Development for the Tesco website. read more
The Chief Executive, Philip Clarke, can be contacted here. Tell him you are not shopping at Tesco anymore.
Christians are “evil” if they resist the redefinition of marriage to allow for same-sex marriage, the Head of Research and Development at Tesco.com has said.Is there any group in England similar to the Catholic League?
A lot more of this is headed out way, friends.
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Tesco’s has a reputation for this sort of thing and all Catholics in Great Britain should boycott them. However, the type of grass-roots activism, which Americans have done since the days of Paul Revere, are simply not part of the English psyche. One must remember that the Church was outlawed in politics until 1829 and remained an quiet movement and an immigrant movement for years. One should not be surprised at the lack of organization which we take for granted in the United States. Having said all of this, I will pass on this information to my Catholic friends in England and at least start a mini-boycott.
Email sent, not expecting much in response so I will offer up my prayers instead. Mary’s Immaculate Heart will triumph.
We do not have a Catholic League in the UK but we need one. I have complained twice in two weeks to the BBC about anti-Catholic bias.
In defence of Tesco they have removed the comment and say its does not represent official Tesco policy. However I do think taking money from away from Breast Cancer and sending it to Gay pride is evil.
Merry Christmas Father
For what it’s worth, the Fresh & Easy chain here in the southwestern U.S. is a subsidiary of Tesco.
“Is there any group in England similar to the Catholic League?”
Sometimes one wonders if there is any group in England similar to the Catholic Church. But that’s not really fair, because the fundamental problem is that Britain seems to be an entirely post-secular culture where religion is outre to the extent it isn’t outright kooky. To be sure, I haven’t lived there in almost a decade, but when Blair became Prime Minister, it was thought utterly bizarre for someone to have religious views. There were no high-profile Christian athletes—no Tim Tebow, and if there was he would be mocked not embraced. There were no high-profile Christian singers or artists, and there was no Christian cultural scene. One could easily get the impression that whatever vestiges of religion one encountered were simply the habits and monuments of a long-forgotten society whose external forms were preserved by lip service to tradition, much as members of parliament refer to each other as “the right honorable gentleman” in debates despite regarding one another as neither honorable nor gentlemen. In such a wasteland, it’s no surprise that contempt for Christianity (as for anything else standing athwart “progress”) would breed uncontrollably. I must confess to being almost entirely despondent about the prospect of reconverting Britain, and hope that someone can supply a ray of hope by correcting what I hope to be my misimpression.
I have emailed Mr Clarke to let him know that we will no longer be shopping at Tescos, and pointing out that as traditional Catholic families are larger than the average, they will lose significant trade, as we continue to spread the word…
Actually, his comment consists of two parts:
(1) I’m also campaigning against evil Christians who think that gay people should not lead happy lives
(2) I’m also campaigning against evil Christians who think that gay people should not get married to their same-sex partners.
Part (1) is against Catholic teaching, though the Catholic would add that homosexual happiness can only be achieved through chastity.
Part (2) is equivalent to saying he’s against anyone who is against married bachelors. Same sex married is as much a contradiction in terms as married bachelors. A bachelor can pretend he’s married or someone that’s married can pretend that he’s a bachelor, but in either case, it’s still make believe. If explaining basic logic makes you evil, then any sane person is evil by his definition, not just Christians.
I emailed Tesco a while back about this and got a dismissive standard reply, and after my follow-up email was assured my comments would be noted. I also emailed this other dude mentioned in Fr Ray’s blogpost. Tesco is a great shop, we shop there regularly, but this latest episode stinks. I’d find it really hard to boycott ’em. I asked my mum and she said no, she won’t be boycotting Tesco.
They must have a very militant homosexual agenda. Otherwise, it makes no sense to purposely alienate customers like that.
Americans,
Please be kind to the Brits. You have never had your family members murdered by being drawn and quartered. You have never lost all your lands and homes due to fines over centuries. You have never had your career thwarted because you were a Papist.
There is no comparison to the American experience of religious freedom and that of Great Britain. I know many people whose ancestors were harassed for centuries and yet stood firm for the Faith. That the people do not respond as Americans do in such cases is a historical fact of persecution, underdeveloped activism and a lack of community.
That we Americans have so much personal and communal power for such things as boycotts is a great blessing. I suggest a healthy reading of the lives of the Martyrs of England and Wales before bemoaning the lack of a Catholic culture in Great Britain.
Having said this, I have emailed several Brits who are going to boycott Tesco.
As to Tebow, there is only one in the entire world…
As someone who was a regular customer at Tesco’s I will now be doing my shopping at either Sainsbury’s or ASDA, they may be further away (roughly a mile as opposed to 300 odd meters) but I could use the exercise.
This was posted on his personal Flickr page, nothing to do with Tesco’s except that he happens to work there.
Should we really boycott a company with 472,000 employees because one of them has nasty personal opinions?
More importantly, do we want to establish a society where people are sacked because of their personal opinions? Isn’t it more likely to be us being sacked?
Supertradmum, many British people, myself included, find the term “Brit” offensive to some degree, just as “Paki” is an offensive word to denote a Pakistani. “Briton” is the correct demonym for people from Great Britain. As I understand it, the word “Brit” originated from Nationalists/Republicans in Ireland as a term of abuse for British people. The Nationalist politician from Northern Ireland, Gerry Fitt (later Lord Fitt), who took his seat as an M.P. in the United Kingdom parliament when he was elected, unlike Sinn Fein candidates who declined to do so because that would have entailed swearing allegiance to the British Crown, was the subject of a taunt chanted by Nationalist children “Gerry Fitt is a Brit”.
It’s worth a mention that the founder of Tesco was a Jew, Jack Cohen. I’ve no idea if he was an observant, religious Jew, but, if he was, surely he would have been familiar with the scriptural teaching that homosexual acts are inherently wrong. Mr Cohen may even now be turning in his grave at the support the company he founded now gives to homosexual causes and interests.
Simon_GNR says “many British people, myself included, find the term “Brit” offensive”
I don’t, and have never come across a fellow Englishman who is offended by it.
It’s a mildly irritating slang that is common in expat circles and in Anglophone business circles, but surely not offensive.
Now I know some Yanks dislike being called Yanks (although I continue to use it unless I know I’m addressing a true Confederate), but I’ve never heard of an Englishman being offended at being called a Brit.
Is it perhaps an Ulster thing?
Simon, you must be a very sensitive soul. No Englishman is remotely offended by any term foreigners may choose to use for him, since he knows they are merely envious of him. To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life. Those who are indigenous to the British Isles are English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish (more often than not a mixture of at least two of the above). The term ‘Briton’ was in vogue in the 18th century following the Union of 1707, when it was deemed desirable to downplay national allegiance (Scotland being referred to as North Britain). It now sounds quaint. Racial insults only work if the recipient has an already existing inferiority complex.
For my part I am English in England (unless I choose to be Irish) and Irish in Ireland (unless I choose to be English). Most importantly I belong to a European Catholic culture which transcends nationality, and indeed geographical limits.
For what it’s worth, the Fresh & Easy chain here in the southwestern U.S. is a subsidiary of Tesco.
Thanks for sharing that.
I’m glad there are no Tesco subsidiaries in the Mid Atlantic & Northeast (so it appears).
On their website:
“Tesco is a growth company because we work to build teams which create more value than others. One of the ways we do this is by taking an inclusive approach to talent development across the Group – Everyone is Welcome at Tesco. The “Women on Boards” report (often referred to as the Davies report) asked companies to set out their aspirational goals on gender diversity.”
Beware the use of the word “inclusive”. :O
Supertradmum, if your comment above was aimed at me, as it appears to have been, please note that I was born in Britain and lived there for 23 years, and while I am very happy to now be an American, I am adequately familiar with the history of religion in the old country before the modern era. Also, note that my comment bemoaned the nonexistence of a substantial Christian culture of any kind, Catholic or otherwise.
For the record, Richard and John are right about “Brit.” Simon_GNR’s comment’s the first time I’ve ever encountered someone being offended by the term, and personally, I didn’t find it offensive when it was applied to me accurately and I don’t find it offensive now when it’s applied to me inaccurately.
I have British people in my immediate family and no one is offended by Brit. Interesting. However, the fact is that one cannot and should not make comparisons between countries and cultures, as the histories are so dissimilar. As to the culture, I have seen a distinct improvement since the early 1980s, when I first went to Britain and now. There are more pro-life advocates and more Catholics willing to be open about their beliefs. One must be patient and evangelize according to the culture and people of various places Again, Americans and the British do not react to people or events alike, which those on this blog know. I worked with youth for years in England, Canada, and America, and my approach was very different in each country. Missionaries learn how to accommodate themselves to their surroundings.
By the way, my friends from Massachusetts and New Hampshire love being called “Yank”. And, my dad, a World War II Veteran was called a Yankee in Europe and was proud of the term. I am never offended by the term abroad and was called a Yankee as lately as in October. It is great to be an American, or British or whatever, if one is proud of one’s country.
@Supertradmom
Whilst there are more Catholics willing to be Catholics at the moment, the culture as a whole has gone down hill. To give you an example back when I was a child (1990’s) It was practically unheard of for polliticians to be openly homosexual, much less to support unnatural unions, now every political party is courting the homosexual vote and Christians are being sacked from their jobs in municipal government and denied the chance to be foster parents if they don’t conform to the new tyranny and refuse to endorse homosexualiity.
Ironically it is a openly homosexual historian (David Starky) rather than the ‘catholic’ MP’s who is making a stand against this monstrosity.
Also I think it would be accurate to say that the majority of our young people (non trads) apostasize within a few years of leaving secondary school; the ones who stay think that going to Sunday Mass once a month (plus Christmas and Easter) qualifies them as ‘devout’ and routinely ignore the Church’s teaching on sexual morality.
“No Englishman is remotely offended by any term foreigners may choose to use for him, since he knows they are merely envious of him. ”
That settles it, then: the bloody Limeys aren’t offended by the term “Brit” anymore than we Yanks are bothered by that affectionate slur, with the possible exception of certain Rednecks who still regard themselves as Rebs (but we won’t count them). Being a Mick on top of being a Yank, I know that Irish-Americans aren’t bothered by the former term of endearment any longer, but I wonder if our distant relations in the Emerald Isle are (although I suspect they’re too inebriated, for the most part, to begin to care much about what Wasps and Limeys might call them). I know that my Canadian friends take no offense when we Yanks call them “Hosers” (although I think the current Canadian slur for Americans is “Barbarian”) and I’ve never heard a Kiwi recoil at that word, so it seems that, by and large, we Anglophone wot-wots have pretty broad shoulders when it comes to derisive ethnic monickers. It’s just as well because in this combox, when you think about it, we’re all just a big bunch of mackerel-snappers, anyhow.
Meanwhile, boycott Tesco.
Supertradmum says:
“As to the culture, I have seen a distinct improvement since the early 1980s, when I first went to Britain and now. There are more pro-life advocates and more Catholics willing to be open about their beliefs.”
That isn’t what I mean by culture. What I had said was that in England, there were (and perhaps are) “no high-profile Christian athletes—no Tim Tebow, … no high-profile Christian singers or artists, and … no Christian cultural scene.” As a result, young people can reach adulthood without ever being accosted by the notion that people are Christians—real people, that is, not a bunch of superstititious oldies held in something approaching contempt. Before one can aspire to something, one must first conceive of it, and when I was a kid, faith was not even on the radar. It sounds weak to suggest that there must be Christian role models, but the fact is that as kids grow up, they do pick role models, and in the absence of viable role models who are Christians, they will at best pick non-Christian role models and give faith no thought at all, and at worst be reinforced in their notion that faith is not something any person worth looking up to requires. In America, there is a Christian culture and a Chrisitian cultural scene—christian athletes, Christian artists, etc.—that reinforces the faithful in their faith and helps socialize children into the notion that faith is something to take seriously. If it exists in England today, it has either grown up in the decade since I left or it escaped the notice of myself and almost everyone I knew while I was there.
The first time I heard the term ‘Brit’ to describe someone from Great Britain was during the 1982 Falkland Islands war with Argentina. The newspaper which I read a lot of at the time, the New York Daily News (a tabloid) called the combatants ‘The Brits’ and ‘The Argies’.
I’ve also used the term ‘Brit’ in letters to my priest-friend in the north of England, and he has never objected to it. And heck, I’ve sometimes used the word ‘Yank’ to describe myself as an American!
Back to the topic at hand–if I were living in England, I would boycott Tesco.
SimonDodd.
It is the duty of parents to be the Christian role models for their children. We also have the lives of the saints, which I mentioned above. For centuries, before television or other media, all the role models had to be local, family members, priests, nuns, teachers, etc. That some people seem to need the public, popular face of Christianity is a mystery to me, but I never watch television. However, I do read the Internet and like Tebow, but I would never imagine being influenced to Christianity by such a person. Maybe this is a generational difference. My role models are Aquinas, Augustine, Anselm, Clairvaux, More, Campion, Fisher, Linn, Clitherow, Escriva, the Martins, Molla, and so on…
Centristian: LOL. Thank you. Although, myself as a combination of lots of minorities…call me anything you want, just don’t call me late for the Feast.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
JackHughes,
I agree with a young priest I know, ordained three years ago, that the culture wherein a youth must make a decision for Christ, where the lines of black and white, sin and salvation are more clearly drawn leads to a healthier Church. In other words, those youth who leave religion after secondary school would be mediocre Catholics, and now, one must decide to go against the pagan society as a whole,whether in Britain, Ireland, Malta, (where the young priest made the statement), or even the United States. When I say things has improved, I mean that those who profess to be Christians really are, as there is no longer any cultural necessity or modus vivendi for such. Good thing, too, as the Church is strongest when it is lean and mean…
Father Z,
How about a blognic on the West Coast of England, or are all the Catholic Brits in the London area?
Mr. Nolan,
“Those who are indigenous to the British Isles are English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish…”
Respectfully, some of us are indigenous to the British Isles and neither English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish. Some of us are Jersiais(e), Dguernsiais(e), Aurignais(e), Serquais(e), or, for that matter, Manx. Well, admittedly Alderney, Sark and the minor islands fall under the Baliwick of Guernsey…
(trop cool piece of random info: Sark is the last remaining feudal state in existence)
Precentrix, (your name always reminds me of Asterix)
Any Latin Masses in those places? Any Tescos?
Precentrix,
“Haro! Haro! Haro! à l’aide Mon Prince, on me fait tort.”
Precentrix, sadly Sark ceased to be feudal in 2008.
Supertradmum, living in the south west of England myself, there aren’t many Catholics round here.
There are a few semi-feudal pockets where a Catholic landowning family protected and funded a Catholic life through the dark times. But generally the last major Catholic activity in the West of England was the Prayer Book Rebellion.
Supertradmum said:
“It is the duty of parents to be the Christian role models for their children.”
Sure, but they aren’t doing that. That’s not a strategy for the new evangelization. You can’t convert a country by insisting that someone else should already have done it! Similarly, how can you possibly think that the lives of the saints are going to capture the interests of cynical, hard-bitten children in a cynical, hard-bitten secularized culture? With all respect, there’s something disconnected from reality in what you’re saying—you’re trying to convert the already converted. Children choose role models from the ranks of things they’re already interested in; in a secularized society, where parents are not being Christian role models for their children (indeed, are generally not Christians themselves), children need to see credible Christian role models in the ranks of those they are already inclined to idealize. Cf. 1 Cor 3:2.
RichardT,
I lived in the southwest of England for years. I taught Theology and Literature at the University of Bristol. There were and are still some strong Latin Mass people in the area. However, I know Catholicism was almost destroyed there, knowing the history of that area, Devon and Cornwall, quite well. As you know, many of the old families lost leaders in the Civil War. Pray for a revival through the Latin Mass. I believe it can happen. Oh, I do love Somerset and Dorset, old Wessex. We lived in Sherborne as well, and there were no trads there. May have changed…I taught RCIA there for my sins. There are some TLM people in Poole.
SimonDodd,
The New Evangelization is partly your generation passing on the Faith to your children. Yes, you will be in a minority, but strong Catholic families produce strong Catholics. Blessed John Paul II’s call was not a plea to have Christian rock music or Christian sport heroes, but a call to meet people everywhere, much in the same way that St. JoseMaria Escriva called for changing the market place via example and prayer. Leadership begins at a very early age. and young people who are cynical are the ones we pray for, as they are not necessarily open to the Gospel message. Love and patience are also part of the New Evangelization. I do not believe in youth rallies, or even WYD as the main ways to evangelize. Such things are ephemeral. Evangelization happens in relationships. I was relating to gays and a transvestite for the last two months. That is evangelizing. Talking, listening, praying. If by love and concern the cynicism melts away, great. Boycott Tesco.
“Yankee” …. Being from Georgia, I learned from my great-grandmother that all northerners were “damyankees” … which I thought for years was a single word. And although I am not a redneck or “rebel”, it really galled me to be referred to as a “yank” when I was in the UK and Europe. But now, in my dottage, I take it in stride.
“Yankee” …. I’m reminded of the late Mr. Ted Mogey of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne who retired from the Royal Navy in 1948; he served before the mast when they still had daily cutlass practice and the daily tot of rum (which he said tasted terrible). One of his favorite jokes — related in a broad Geordie accent — began with: “There was these three yankee sailors, see ….” sure wish I remembered the rest of the joke.
–Guy
Supertradmum, there are a few glimmers of tradition around here, but not very much.
An SSPX priest says Mass about 5 miles south of Sherborne. I haven’t been for a few years, but it was a very small community with a priest travelling down from (if I remember correctly) Bristol to say it. Even that I think is only 2 Sundays per month.
Possibly in response, the Bishop of Plymouth has approved very occasional (3 or 4 times a year, mid-week) TLMs at Marnhull, a small village not far from the SSPX place, to which I have also been a couple of times.
I was not aware of the Poole group. Thank you; I shall try to find out more.
Supertradmum says:
“The New Evangelization is partly your generation passing on the Faith to your children.”
That isn’t “new evangelization.” That is, as you’ve already said, what Christian parents are supposed to do (although I must admit that despite our best efforts it doesn’t seem to have taken with my son—St. Monica, ora pro nobis).
But please try to realize that we aren’t talking about you and me, or what you or I might prefer, or what you and I might now think would have converted us. It has nothing to do with whom we might cite as our role models. Rather, it is about how we can (as you well-put it) “meet people everywhere”: How can we reach people who do not share our tastes, faith, and cultural assumptions? How can we kindle even so much as an interest in faith in young people who have no point of reference for it at all?
The only ways that I can see are (as you again well-put it) example and prayer. But whose example? If you were trying to convert me to atheism, what good would it do you to cite the example of Richard Dawkins? I care nothing about Dawkins’ example, even if it was a good one. He is nothing to me. Likewise, you must realize that the examples of the saints that we cherish is nothing to the people we must reach. We’re talking about people for whom the Second Vatican Council is as distant in the haze of time as the Second Council of Constantinople. If they have heard of St. Thomas Aquinas, they think him of as much relevance to their lives as an ant in Annaheim is to yours. These are people who grow bored reading a one page summary of a hundred page book, and you want to convert them by suggesting they read an enormous, dense, multi-volume work by a dead white guy who lived, like, literally millions of years ago? You and I might think Aquinas brilliant and Lewis witty and concise, but this isn’t about us.
The people that we’re trying to reach aren’t like us. To involve them, to reach them, we are going to need people about whom they already care to serve as models and examples, and that is where the importance of a Christian culture comes in, as I’ve already said. I think they need to conceive of the notion that real people—not just benighted oldies like us—are Christians before they can consider becoming one themselves. We have to get God on their radar before we can draw them in. We have to get them to show up for the Alpha Course before they can benefit from taking the Alpha Course, for example. And how do we do that? Example and prayer, yes, but again, whose example? No matter how virtuous a life I might live, I feel quite confident that my example will never move a single young “soft atheist” to faith, but I feel quite confident that at least some young people who idolize [insert rock star here] might be exposed to Christianity for the first time through him (or her), and might at least begin to contemplate the question of religion, were that rock star to live a virtuous and outspoken example of Catholic life. And strange as this will sound, for the peculiar purpose of evangelization, it seems to me that the most critical link in that chain is not the rock star’s faith and example, but rather the interest in their faith and example that they have gained. Again, as I’ve said above, people choose role models from the ranks of something they’re already interested in and only later become interested in the other things the person has to say.
The new evangelization will fail if we don’t realize that the people we’re trying to convert aren’t already Christians and comprehend the implications of that fact.
I was born in Massachusetts but have spent a good part of my life working with British colleagues here, in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
If I were going with a British colleague to a meeting with an American client, I would advise avoiding the terms “Yank” or “Yankee.” Those identifiers haven’t been applied to Americans in general since the nineteenth century. Among Americans, they tend to be used to refer, jokingly, to people who are “quaint” or, occasionally, to members of a “an old yankee family” (the Cabots, the Lodges, the Saltonstalls, etc).
As the American writer E. B. White supposedly put it:
“To foreigners, a Yankee is an American.
To Americans, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To Northerners, a Yankee is an Easterner.
To Easterners, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To New Englanders, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
And in Vermont, a Yankee is somebody who eats pie for breakfast.”
There’s also a less polite version of the last line, but I won’t repeat it here.
SimonDodd,
I taught pagans for years in colleges and universities, and I can assure you that some atheists are interested in Catholic philosophy and Catholic teaching. There are universal questions all people must ask, like what is death, what happens when I die, do I have a soul, etc. There is not one way to evangelize and evangelization is personal-one or one. Your gifts for evangelization are not mine, for example, and when I try an evangelize people in business or on the street, in restaurants, I do not quote Aquinas, but I have tried to incorporate his ideas of how to become virtuous, or how to cleanse the imagination in myself so that I can be holy in the world. These saints are not dead story book characters, but give us, through their lives and works, ways to become holy and therefore, light, in a world of darkness. When the time is right, I can pass on a book, or a video, or speak over a pizza about Maximillian Kolbe, for example. I shared the story of St Joseph Cupertino to several classes of students who had never prayed for examination success before and when it happened, when their little first time prayers were answered, they got interested in deeper things. When I talked to an atheist about the sacrifice of St. Damien the Leper, he was interested. Why not? If someone is so cynical not to hear of heroism, that person is not open to the new evangelization yet and it takes more prayer and fasting. If I purposefully go to the restaurant run by a gay, and I am kind and talk about myself as a Christian in the world, that is evangelization. Most people are desperate for kindness and disinterested love, and that is part of the new evangelization.,
If I am joyful, yet poor, if I am happy, yet single, if I am content, yet without material success, that is evangelization. And, the word “new” means that your and my generation use whatever is given to us to bring people to Christ. including marriage and child-bearing, which is getting more rare in the world and, therefore, is a new way to evangelize.
If you work with mostly non-intellectuals, that is your way. If I work in the world, and discuss politics and issues with gays and transvestites, that is where I must evangelize. God puts people in our paths daily and those are the personal relationships which can lead to conversion. If you are holy, people will notice. If you go to daily Mass, people will notice. If you fast and pray, people will change in your life just by you being holy. I have seen this happen. I know a 21 year old man who lives the Faith in a sea of unbelief. He is taunted for being pure and good, but his peers are interested, as he is convicted and peaceful. He fasts on bread and water for nine days at a time and talks to atheists about God. There are more quiet saints in the Church, praying daily, talking and listening, standing up for the Truth, than there are Tebows. You may never hear the name of my young friend, but I can assure you he will convert some of his peers through his life.
American Mother,
It still gets used. I’m studying random local history at the moment (mainly the trans-atlantic link) and there’s a book on the Clameur in the library…
Richard,
I was out of the loop when that happened, then (discerning vocation stuff). Deeply irritating. The obscure feudal laws were fun!
Supertradmum:
We are technically part of the Diocese of Portsmouth. Someone seems to have managed to arrange for one of the FSSP priests to come over every now and again, but we need to fund his flights which is a little difficult since most of us on this end of the spectrum are young and don’t have much spare cash – he is also very busy! The SSPX used to have a priest come across from France about once a month for a while, I think, but were denied use of the churches. The nearest regular EF centre in Britain is probably Reading – but it would be easier for us to get across to London in practical terms. The FSSP have houses in Vannes and Séez (Brittany and Normandy respectively) and there are probably SSPX places nearer, in France, but I don’t have much contact with the SSPX and it would make things even harder for our rapport with the local clergy.
I don’t think we currently have a Tesco in Caesarea, but we have many of the standard English chains these days and a lot of our young people study in the UK. It’s only a matter of time.
Precentrix,
Get in touch with my son at St. Josephs in Dorking. He is doing his parish placement there with Father Dominic. There are priests in the A and B Diocese who say the TLM, as well as in Southwark. You would not have to go to London. Brighton must be much closer for you. There is a regular one in Ramsgate with Father Marcus. I do not know how hard it is for you to travel. I would love to visit your island. God bless the fssps and I hope you do not get a Tesco.
Supertradmum,
Yes, Brighton is geographically closer, however it is harder to get to – there are direct flights to London and good, if expensive, public transport there. Flying to London would also actually be cheaper.
But it’s something that I can’t afford to do on a regular basis. At least if we can arrange to fly Father across we only have to pay for one flight between us!
p.s. I know Fr. Marcus. I’m glad he took that step. He always said that the only reason he didn’t celebrate the EF before was that the people in his former parish didn’t want it. Those who did could walk 10min to the infamous diocese….
Precentrix, the loss of feudalism in Sark came out of the row with the Barclay brothers; a very sad situation. I’m no expert, but I think it started with their desire for their daughters to inherit a share in Brecqhou (under the old law it could only pass to sons) and ended up in the European Court of Human Rights.
Are you claiming Caesarea for Jersey? That’s the one I’ve heard, but isn’t it uncertain which of the Roman names applies to which of the islands?
My experience of Catholic Masses on both Jersey and Guernsey is limited (mostly feast days when I’ve been working over there) but consistently dire. I also remember some vague reports in the JEP a few years ago about a priest without faculties being shut out of the churches, which I assume was the SSPX visitor you mentioned.
Well done you for working to bring a bit of Tradition over there; I suspect you have a long road.
Brighton might be a good place for Mass; from Gatwick it’s as easy to get there on the train as it is to London. I wonder if Fr Blake would like an occasional trip out to the free remnants of the Duchy of Normandy?
Richard,
To my knowledge, Caesarea and Augia both refer to Jersey. Guernsey would be Sarnia. If the smaller islands have names in Latin, I don’t know them (there was a priory or something on Lihou, so maybe it has a name).