Don't Drop the Coffin

Dear Stan and Pam,

I enclose some more material on our wonderful Douai Abbey and hope that it persuades you to make a persona visit. North Atlantic airfares and falling through the floor; one of the maverick airline owners, Mr. Ryan of Ryanair fame, is promising NY-London fares of #7 ($13) one way. What the taxes and additional charges will be is anyone's guess.

(I check, Bill, nothing on RyanAir's website except EU travel, and Northwest's cheapest is $1,107 US. - sw) (Yeah, you're right. Ryanair only do European flights at present. They were the European equivalent of South Western for dirt cheap flights; mind you, customer service and safety are also at a discount. Horror stories abound. Friends of mine have found themselves abandoned abroad without support when flights were cancelled. On one infamous emergency landing, with an engine on fire, the cabin crew didn't know how to work the emergency exits. This is hardly surprising when Ryannair staff are expected to pay for their own safety training - the cheapest English-language training is in Poland, so you can imagine the scope for misunderstanding. I am typing this from the idyllic island of Aegina, about 15 miles west of Athens. I am staying with friends in the southern suburb of Glyfada (where Jackie O's Greek in-laws have a villa). It is a 50 minute trip by hydrofoil from Piraeus to Aegina. I came here by Easyjet, the dearer but safer alternative to Ryanair. I wish Easyjet would start long-distant flights. -- Bill)

I thought you might enjoy the biography of Barry Albin-Dyer, Britain's most famous funeral director and a Catholic convert (p. 156/7). I bought the book after my Father's death in 2003, when I had to arrange his funeral, and shortly after the death of a friend who died without any traceable family. So, I ended up organizing Brian's funeral as well as my Dad's, and had considerable dealings with local funeral directors, nearly all of whom are branches of large national companies -- even though some retain the names of the local family from which was taken over by the giant company years ago.

Of course, any book on funerals could not help but be riotously funny places. But skip pages 49-74 if you are all squeamish, as he does not evade the gruesome aspects of this profession. Music at funerals is always controversial. My dad's funeral director, Carole, told me about a young widow who was arranging her 34-year old husband's funeral. She was utterly clueless, as most British people are when arranging funerals, and struggled to choose appropriate music. Eventually, she suggested Freddy Mercury's song "Who wants to live forever?"

I remember a visit to the magnificent Ely Cathedral (near Cambridge, about 80 miles North of London). The cathedral staff kept tourists out of one of the chapels while a funeral was in progress. I visited other parts o this wonderful building while speakers at the funeral droned on about the virtues of the deceased — teacher at the local grammar school, pillar of the community, etc. Then the funeral came to an end and the coffin was carried out at the head of the procession of solemn-faced mourners. The vaulted ceiling of this peerless building resonated to a recording of Ravel's Bolero -- which is a musical depiction of an orgasm. I wondered if this was a none-to-subtle hint that the dear departed was a b it of a goat in his spare time.

Barry's book contains fascinating comments on American funerals, though he omits the funniest funeral director in movies — Liberace advising a young couple on the choice of lining for their uncle's casket. The movie is "The Loved One," that parody of the American way of death which Barry Albin-Dyer detests. The unctious funeral director is counselling the young couple as to whether they want a nylon or a real silk lining for their uncle's casket. He enquires: "Your uncle was a sensitive person, was he not?" They say "Oh, yes, yes." He advises "Nylon chafes." Just imagine - you're lying in a dark box for all eternity and your neck's itching like crazy because your cheapskate nephew wouldn't fork out a few more lousy bucks for a decent lining. — Detroit gets honorable mention as a pioneering centre of cryonics.

Even Princess Diana gets into the book, though I doubt that she spent much time n S.E. London. Also, in view of the current demonstrations of Iran, p. 82 ff is interesting. (No kidding, Bill, I couldn't put the book down.) I remember the boycotting of the Iranian rebels and the portrayals of Ayatollah Khomeini as a dangerous demagogue — but the British government was quietly trading with Iran behind the scenes (and sending the Ayatollah heart specialists, I read in Barry's book - sw)

Best wishes.

Bill

(Reader: Mr. Albin-Dyer has other great books. Here are a few, including Don't Drop the Coffin 2.)

Amazing Grace, Modern Slavery, Easter Triduum

Dear Stan,

I was delighted to see your review of "Amazing Grace" posted on the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com, alongside all the "big name" movie reviewers from the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, etc. I hope you become a regular presence on what must be the best movie site on the Web.

[Thanks, Bill. All my reviews from the Moral Premise blog have been submitted to imdb, but it takes weeks sometimes for them to appear.]

I saw "Amazing Grace" last night and loved it. Apart from anything else, it reminded me of a lecture on drug abuse I attended years ago, where the speaker pointed out that just about every "problem" drug on the illicit market today was originally prescribed by the medical profession as a wonder cure for some ailment or other. Poor Wilberforce was yet another victim of the 18th century quacks who were so wonderfully caricatured in "The madness of King George".

Also, it reminded me of the comments of the makers of "Chariots of Fire" on the character of Eric Lidell, the Scottish missionary and Olympic gold medalist who was so memorably immortalized in the movie. (I was willing to forgive the countless liberties the filmmakers took with the facts). It was so difficult for everyone (writer, director and actor) to portray a truly good person without making him slightly unreal and unworldly in the eyes of a cynical modern audience. The makers of "Amazing Grace" do not fully escape that problem. I felt that their William Wilberforce had too much of the innocence of the lamb and not enough of the cunning of the serpent which would be necessary to push through such a radical change in the snakepit of British politics.

Also, as people in the UK have been very loudly celebrating the 200th anniversary of Wilberforces's triumph, others have pointed out that there are more slaves in the world today than in the 18th century. The modern slave trade is back in Britain with a vengeance; only instead of being centered on the great seaports, such as Liverpool and Bristol, it is based at the major airports such as Heathrow. The modern slaves are mainly female, often from Eastern Europe and tend to be coerced into the sex trade. One estimate claimed that up to 80% of prostitutes in the UK are from Eastern Europe and are as mercilessly bound to their vile masters as the plantation workers in the 18th century. One aspect of the recent serial murders of prostitutes in Ipswich, which surprised me was that all five victims were British girls, born and raised within a small radius of the town. Not surprisingly, all five were victims of another slavery - drug addiction- and plied their desperate and dangerous trade to feed their habit. Unlike Wilberforce, they lacked the strength to break their addiction. The modern British police have the legal powers to pursue the modern slavers, but they seem to lack the resources or the political will to hound them out of business.

One possible suspect in the Ipswich case was Volker Eckert, a German long-distance truck driver suspected of killing up to 19 women across Europe between 1974 and 2006 before the Cologne police arrested him last November. His victims in France and Spain were not French or Spanish girls, but East European sex workers, yet more modern slaves. Half the police forces in Europe are dusting off their unsolved murders and queuing up to question him. The Ipswich police have arrested a local man and no more murders have happened, which suggests that they caught the right guy. I can only hope that the ferocious media pressure to catch someone has not lead to yet another miscarriage of justice; we have a grim collection of those already to the discredit of various British police forces and prosecuting authorities.

On a happier note, I have been going to the Easter Triduum services at our wonderful local Benedictine Abbey, Douai, which is about 10 miles west of Reading. The abbey bears the name of the northern French town from which the monks were exiled in 1903 as a result of anti-clerical legislation. The French loss was our gain, as the music (under Doctor John Rowntree) is sublime and the monks offer huge spiritual enrichment to the diocese, with retreats, lectures and wonderful liturgies galore. The abbey has recently reestablished a foothold in Douai by sending two monks to live for the long term in a house in the town. This "mini-monastery" has been warmly welcomed by local people and the two "anglais" monks are making heroic efforts to preach and pray in French.

Happy Easter to all your family

Bill

A VISIT TO LONDON

February 2, 2007

Dear San and Pam:

See page 48 of the enclosed Jan/Feb 2007 "FAITH" magazine! And the rest of it makes pretty good reading also. [FAITH is a UK journal that promotes the synthesis of faith and reason. On page 48 was this movie review:]

MOVIES THAT INSPIRE
Those who attended the Faith summer Session might have seen Fishers of Men, the powerful and moving new vocations film commissioned by the American bishops' conference. It was produced by this state-of-the-art company, based in Brooklyn, New York. The website quotes Pope John Paul II on the influence of film and continues: "The mission of Grassroots films is to give the audience what it is already starving for: Truth".

Nineveh's Crossing has been selling copies of Fishers of Men to British and U.S. customers for about a year now. A clip of the film can be found at http://www.NinevehsCrossing.com.]

Bill continues...

On 2nd Feb I visited London for the first time in years and called at Brompton Oratory, a magnificent Italianate church next to the equally magnificent Victoria and Albert Museum. It is my favorite Catholic church in London. On Sundays sit tends to be filled with London's upper middle class Italian and Spanish families. to my amazement, on Friday 2nd, I entered it in the middle of 10:00 am Mass and it was almost full to the doors. Mass went until 11:15am and people did not rush to leave after the final hymn; they stayed for a dignified recessional procession. Admittedly, there were a lot of boys from the associated school, but it was an amazing sight for the feat of the Presentation (not a holy day of obligation).

I visited the Victoria and Albert immediately after Mass, mainly because: 1) I desperately needed the bathroom, 2) Admission is free, and 3) I figured I was less likely to catch an unpleasant disease there than in numerous other London public washrooms I could name.

But it was a reminder of what a truly extraordinary world-class museum the V+A is. You might compare it with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in N.Y., but with a wider range of exhibits. It has been hugely updated since my last visit. Check out www.vam.ac.uk for a virtual holiday! The European galleries in particular contain countless Catholic artifact, statues, frescoes, altar pieces, chalices, monstrances, Paten's, etc.

Best wishes,

Bill

The Frivolity of Evil

Dear Stan,

I do not know if you are acquainted with the writings of Theodore Dalrymple, a retired British doctor, who must be one of the best essayists in the English language. He follows in a long line of wonderful doctor writers, such as Checkhov and A J Cronin. His favourite theme is the ongoing cultural decay of British society. As a former doctor in a prison and the grim inner city area of Birmingham, he gives you a view on British society which you don't get from Tony Blair or the tourist brochures. Here is a link to his The Frivolity of Evil at the excellent New York magazine "City Journal", which has a large library of his previous articles.

Sadly, he is an atheist, but his deeply moral perspective is so close to the traditional Catholic approach to evil that I hope he might enter the fold eventually. In view of the highly suspect basic American "right" proclaiming "the pursuit of happiness", he correctly senses that you cannot separate happiness from the virtuous life. If you think his descriptions of the depravity of the British underclass (and some "higher" sections of society) are exaggerated, you don't know the half of it.

In 2005, we in boring, prosperous Reading had a truly disgusting glimpse of the underside of the criminal activity around us when a 16 year old girl was kidnapped by a drug dealing gang, then tortured, sexually abused and murdered in Prospect Park on the west side of town, about 2 miles west of St James and 200 yards from English Martyrs' Church. Even by British standards, it was one of the worst killings in decades. (BBC Story)

In the last three weeks the citizens of boring, prosperous Ipswich, 70 miles north-east of London, have been swamped by hundreds of police and media people chasing the killer(s) of five prostitutes, all heroin addicts. It is a re-run of "Jack the Ripper", but in utterly different economic and moral circumstances. The only remotely interesting thing I ever heard about Ipswich until three weeks ago is that Eric Blair, who loved that region of England, adopted the River Orwell, which flows through the town, as part of his pen name - George Orwell. Now it is on the news 24 hours a day for all the wrong reasons.

Best wishes

Bill

An Unhappily Apt Time

July 6, 2006

Dear Stan

Many thanks for your ever enteresting emails. Fishers of Men (the DVD) looks like a valuable asset for parishes. It was an unhappily apt time to produce such a DVD on the priesthood as far as our local Church is concerned. We keep hitting one disaster after another.

I went into the newspaper shop today and there was Father Tony on the front pages of both our local newspapers. He conducted my father's funeral three years ago. Last year he moved to another parish 70 miles to the north in Leamington Spa near Coventry. Now he is due to appear in court in Leamington Spa on 14th July charged with downloading child pornography. The Warwickshire police have been busy examining the parish computers both in Leamington and here in Reading.

The trouble is that in October 2002 Fr O'Kelly at English Martyrs, two miles west of my parish church and 4 miles from Fr Tony's church, was arrested after a dawn raid on the presbytery and served prison time for downloading child pornography. A truly miserable end to English Martyrs' celebrating the 75th anniversary of the parish foundation.

A few months before that Fr O'Kelly, wearing his cap as Dean, had been in the local press when he consoled the parishioners at St John Bosco (4 miles east of my church) after their priest left the priesthood for undisclosed personal reasons. Given that there are only 10 priests in the Reading area, this is one heck of a casualty rate in a short time.

With the shortage of priests throughout Britain, my diocese is undergoing a massive reorganisation. The parishes will be amalgamated into Large Pastoral Areas. (Can't you just sense the BScs in Management Science behind such grisly phrases?). So the 7 parishes in Reading will disappear into 2 LPAs. How priests will work between churches and where ecclesial authority will reside are mysteries beyond the understanding of the laity and, I suspect, of the Bishop as well. The whole fiasco has of course been accompanied by mountains of glossy consultation documents full of maps, flowcharts, statistical tables and management-speak. To inflate the expenses still further, there was a large consultation conference at Reading University in July 2005.

On a happier note, last month I went to an entralling talk staged by our local branch of these Council of Christians and Jews. These are usually excellent, but the guest speaker, Roger Bolton, surpassed even the normal standard. Roger presents the regular religious program at 700 A.M. every Sunday on BBC Radio 4. (There is no separation of "church and State" in the UK). He has worked in TV and radio for 40 years, including the BBC's flagship current affairs program "Panorama". He enjoys the distinction of being fired TWICE by the BBC, probably for telling the truth about Northern Ireland. He really knows his stuff on religion and broadcasting.

He noted how the BBC executives are typically very heavily agnostic/atheist, with very little sympathy for religious attitudes. They tend to be young, with few life-altering experiences (marriage, children, death of a close relative) to enrich their understanding of life. Thus they tend to be clueless when it comes to connecting with the 70% of the British public who believe in a divine dimension to life. They are even more at sea in interpreting events in the huge areas of the world (Middle East, India, Africa, etc) where religion is literally a matter of life and death. This fits very closely with Michael Medved's description of the utterly secular Hollywood elite's attitude to religion in contrast to the deeply religious American public (See "Hollywood versus America").

Roger noted how the Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster (pictured) has benefited from a really effective media strategy. Much of the credit must go to his very astute press officer Austin Iveragh. They have gone to the length of installing a small studio inside Archbishops' House in Westminster; thus Cormac is available for instant soundbites on radio and TV and is the most visible Christian presence on many nationwide broadcasts. It was a happy relief to get a completely unsolicited compliment on something the Catholic Church has got right.

This is all the more amazing as Cormac got off to a very shakey start at Westminster. Shortly after his promotion to Cardinal, a paedophile priest scandal surfaced in his old diocese Aundel and Brighton. Cormac had reassigned the priest to the chaplaincy at Gatwick Airport, obviously assuming that he would be "safe" in an all-adult environment. Of course, he went on to molest an adolescent boy at Gatwick. Yet Cormac survived that debacle, unlike poor Cardinal Law in Boston, and has reestablished his reputation.

In contrast, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has suffered one media mishap after another. Like Cormac, Rowan came from a provincial post (Wales in his case) straight into the national and international media lions' den in London. Here he faced twenty ravenous beasts eager to eat him for breakfast every morning. And they had plenty to chew on. Gay bishops, women bishops, doctrinal disintegration, threatened expulsion of the dissident American church, the African churches up in arms at all the American sodomites, breakdown of unity talks with the Catholics... The poor man has been bitten so many times that he has "retreated into a laager" and is suspicious and defensive in dealing with the media. "He is surrounded by poor advice", Roger observed diplomatically.

One of my acid-tongued fellow parishioners said this means Rowan and his entourage are morons. This may well be true, judging from some of the fatuous ideas I have seen coming from the top of the Anglian community, but unfortunately it confirmed another of Roger's regretful observations about the sheer bitchiness and ill will he frequently encounters among religious leaders.

Roger suggested that one way out of such media calamities is to develop a positive media strategy, taking the initiative on serious issues where the Anglicans could make an invaluable contribution, e.g. prison reform. But I suspect that they will remain immersed in idiotic debates such the proposed distinction between "Associate churches" (i.e. the Americans) and those in "full communion".

The point of my ramblings which may be relevant to you is that you ought to have Roger in your contact list for any religious project you are developing. His experience and in-depth religious knowledge are amazing and his enthusiasm for exploring new avenues and new projects undiminished by decades in the business. One idea he wants to explore is the development of the status of the Virgin Mary over 2000 years. She gets a handful of references in Scripture and is now promoted as Coredemptoress.... Roger's discourse on Mary was unfortunately interrupted by a local Catholic priest whose Marian knowledge is suspect to put it mildly. I hope he is not the next priest to fall off the wagon as we can't afford to lose any more.

Best wishes

Bill