26. To the Clergy of Stamford Diocese.
Ad clerum 77–3
Monday, January 31st, 1977.
Right Reverend, Very Reverend and Reverend Fathers,
I apologize for bombarding you with circulars. Doubtless I started it but I am not solely responsible for its continuation.
You received an anonymous and undated circular on Wednesday which purported to prove that I had no right to permit the Immemorial Mass in this diocese. This, you are well aware, is nonsense, as can be seen from the general law of the Church, article 22 of Constitution of November 1963, article 6 of the General Instruction to the New Ordo of 1969, etc. . . . and by common sense, all of which commit the liturgy to the pastoral care of the chief pastor, the bishop, so long as he is acting within the General Law of the Church.
The circular, however, gives me the opportunity of going into the question of the licitness of the Immemorial Mass in some detail. It has all been said before by Professors Louis Salleron and Neri Capponi and by Father Bryan Houghton among others, but it is more likely that your attention has not been drawn to their publications and, if it has, you have not had time to read them. As you will see, I am attempting to do much more than answer the circular. I am trying to guide you through the labyrinth of documents in which the Mass has been lost, so that you will know how you stand in the event of my death.
I. THE SITUATION BEFORE VATICAN II
It should be remembered that until 1570 no Pope and no Council had ever legislated over the rite in which Mass was celebrated. The astonishing similarity between the rites in the Western Church arose from the fact that no bishop or priest dared to innovate in anything so sacred. If in doubt, they discovered what was the common practice in Rome. The attitude was notably different from that of some contemporary priests who seem to imagine that the Eucharist would be invalid if they failed to tinker with it. Actually, the only attempt to unify the rite came from civil, not ecclesiastical authority. After the conquest of Old Saxony, completed in A.D. 785, Charlemagne was faced with the problem of its evangelization. To facilitate and integrate the missioners’ work he instructed the Anglo-Saxon, Alcuin of York, to unify the rites current in the Empire.
It was the Protestant reformers who first dared to touch the rite of the Sacred Mysteries. Eucharistic forms multiplied with the same rapidity that they do today. It was to restore order in the existing chaos that the Council of Trent called upon the Pope to establish the norm for the celebration of Mass. Hence the first Papal legislation on the subject, the Bull
Quo Primum of St Pius V of July 19th, 1570. What did this Bull do?
1. It consolidated and codified (
statuimus et ordinamus are the operative words) the Immemorial Roman Rite.
2. It made its use compulsory throughout the Latin Church, except
3. when other rites had a continuous usage of over two hundred years, such as those of Sarum, Lyons, Toledo, Milan, the Dominicans, the Carthusians, etc.
4. It granted a perpetual Indult to all priests under any circumstances to celebrate according to the Immemorial Roman Rite thus codified.
It is to be observed, therefore, that the so-called “Tridentine Rite” does not exist by the positive law of one Pope which the next is at liberty to undo. It exists by immemorial custom to which the laity who attend have as much right as the clergy who celebrate it. Is it not possible that this point has been overlooked? Anyway, an immemorial right can be extinguished by two means:
a) by a solemn pronouncement of the Sovereign Pontiff abrogating the customary right on the grounds that its continuance would be contrary to the common good;
b) by the customary right falling into desuetude—along with the custom the right lapses.
On the other hand, what is of positive law in the Bull
Quo Primum is the exclusivity granted to the Immemorial Roman Rite, apart from rites over two hundred years old. This exclusivity can clearly be modified by a succeeding Pope without any appeal to “reasonableness” and “the common good.”
II. THE COUNCIL
Such was the position on which we were all agreed, Pope, bishops, priests, and laity, up to and including the Council.
In November 1963 the Council promulgated its Constitution on the liturgy,
Sacrosanctum Concilium. It should be noted that this document is a Constitution, the most solemn form of legislation of which a Council is capable. What does it do? Does it abrogate (=abolish), obrogate (=substitute) or derogate (=make exceptions to) previous legislation and notably the Bull
Quo Primum? Not a bit of it; it takes it all for granted. It merely speaks of
instauratio. The Latin
instaurare does not mean to restore in the sense of restoring a ruined building. It means to restore in the way we restore our tissues in a restaurant. In fact it means to refresh. Even the refreshment was to be pretty abstemious as we learn from article 36: “The use of the Latin language shall be maintained (servetur) in the Latin rites.” Article 54 allows for the local dialects “above all for the lessons and community prayers . . . also in the responses of the people.” In fact a vernacular dialogued Mass was permitted although not made compulsory. Please re-read
Sacrosanctum Concilium without hindsight: what it says, not what it has been made to say.
So far we have two laws, both duly promulgated in the most solemn form of which the Church is capable:
1. A Papal Constitution, the Bull
Quo Primum of 1570;
2. A Conciliar Constitution,
Sacrosanctum Concilium of 1963. The second confirms the first, merely permitting certain specific derogations in the matter of language by its article 54.
III. THE SEQUENCE
1. Two months later, on January 25th, 1964, Pope Paul VI issued a
motu proprio called
Sacrum Liturgiam. A
motu proprio is a binding Papal document, be it legislative, judicial or administrative. What passes belief is that this is the only one on the liturgy which the pope has issued to date, that is in thirteen years. This unique document fixes the parts of the Mass to be said in the native dialect as recommended by article 54 of
Sacrosanctum Concilium: the introductory psalm, epistle and gospel, etc. Unfortunately, it also announced the creation of a special Consilium (with an ‘s’ in the middle, consequently an advisory body) to put into effect the Council’s recommendations. This was duly established on February 29th under the chairmanship of Cardinal Lercaro.
2. It took a little time for the Consilium to warm to its work and its first publication, the Institution
Inter Oecumenici of September 26th, 1964, could, with a pit of pushing and pulling, be fitted into the Council’s Constitution. It permitted (but did not enjoin) the whole of the Mass apart from the Preface and Canon to be said in the vernacular. It reintroduced the bidding-prayers, which the Council had never demanded. It also delegated liturgical powers to bishops.
It was from this moment onwards that serious opposition began to be felt. For instance, I think the Latin Mass Society was founded early in 1965. Several perfectly reasonable priests rang the alarm. Myself, being neither a theologian nor a Canon Lawyer but a clerical accountant, thought
Inter Oecumenici unwise but not impossible. I became your bishop.
3. Owing perhaps to the opposition, the Consilium remained reasonably inactive for nearly three years. Then, on May 4th, 1967, it produced its
Tres Abhinc Annos, better known as the
Instructio Altera. This, my dear Fathers, was the revolution. Permission was granted for the whole Mass, including the Canon and the Consecration, to be said aloud and in the vernacular. This is clean contrary to paragraphs 1 and 2 of article 36 of
Sacrosanctum Concilium. It was, of course, a derogation from the law, a pure permission, but we were all made to realize that laws were no longer meant to be obeyed whereas permissions were obligatory.
What is the legal value of such an Instruction? It is not easy to determine. The Consilium, as its name implied, was a counselling body. It should therefore have induced either the Pope to issue a
motu proprio or the Ministry concerned, the Congregation of Rites, to send out a Notification. It did neither but issued its own Instruction. Whatever its value, one thing is quite certain: it cannot derogate from any existing law, in the particular case from the Pope’s
motu proprio of January 25th, 1964 and from the Council’s Constitution. It was a try-on.
The trouble is that it worked. Neither the Pope nor the episcopate questioned the
Instructio Altera. From that moment onwards the progressive bureaucracy knew that it was master. The bishops, from Rome to Stamford, had abdicated.
4. The extent of the abdication became almost immediately evident. In October of the same year, 1967, the Consilium produced its
Missa Normativa at the Synod of Bishops. It was rejected by 104 votes to 72. What did that matter? It has become law as the New Ordo.
IV. THE NEW ORDO
A. THE CONSTITUTION MISSALE ROMANUM
This has the most puzzling history of all. May I remind you, Fathers, that we already have two documents of the highest conceivable authority: the Bull
Quo Primum and the Constitution
Sacrosanctum Concilium, which are, moreover, in line with each other. What happens next?
On April 3rd, 1969, a Papal Constitution entitled
Missale Romanum was promulgated purporting to be the law governing the New Order of Mass, as yet unpublished. In this original version it is not a law at all but an explanatory introduction to a permission. Even the word
Constitutio is nowhere to be found in the text, merely in the title. There is no abrogation of previous legislation and no clause ordering the use of the new rite. There is no sentence to show that it is obligatory, let alone exclusive. There is no dating clause to show when it should come into effect.
This, of course, did not prevent the powers that be from saying that it was a binding law. To do so they had recourse to a mistranslation. What is so curious is that this mistranslation was common to all languages. I have read it myself in English, French and Italian; I am told that it is the same in German and Spanish. How can this possibly come about? How can all these expert translators make the identical howler? Your guess is as good as mine.
Here is the sentence, the fourth before the end of the original version, the fifth in the
Acta:
Ad extremum, ex iis quae hactenus de novo Missali Romano exposuimus quiddam nunc
cogere et efficere placet. . . .
I have underlined the mistranslated words.
Cogere et efficere is a well-known Ciceronian phrase to be found in most dictionaries. Even if the translators could not be bothered to look it up, it is perfectly clear that
quiddam cogere breaks down into
agere quiddam con = to work something together, which is in the context “to sum up.” Equally,
quiddam efficere breaks down into
facere quiddam ex = to make something out, which is in the context “to draw a conclusion.” The sentence therefore means: “Lastly, from what we have so far declared concerning the New Roman Missal, we should now like to sum up and draw a conclusion.” And what did all the translators make of it? “In conclusion, We now wish to give the force of law to all We have declared . . .”; and in French, Pour terminer, Nous voulons donner force de loi à tout ce que Nous avons exposé . . .” and in Italian, etc. . . . It is strange my dear Fathers, but such is the truth: “to sum up and draw a conclusion” becomes “to give the force of law.”
And what did I do about it? Absolutely nothing for the simple reason that I did not bother to read the Latin until two or three years later. Do not judge me too severely. Have you read it?
But that is not the end. Worse is to come. The Acta for June 1969 were published as usual about two months later. When it appeared a brand new clause had been inserted into the original document as the penultimate paragraph. It reads: “
Quae Constitutione hac Nostra praescripsimus vigere incipient a XXX proximi mensis Novembris hoc anno, id est a Dominica 1 Adventus.” That is: “What We have ordered by this Our Constitution will begin to take effect as from November 30th of this year (1969), that is the First Sunday of Advent.” You will notice that for the first and only time the word
Constitutio appears in the text, For the first time, too, a word signifying “to order” is introduced—
praescripsimus. For the first time a date is given on which the order is to become effective. Thus is a permission turned into a law.
Actually, there are a couple of snags even about this insertion. The word
praescripsimus—We have ordered—is not the proper term in Latin, but I shall not bother you with such refinements. More important, it is in the wrong tense. Up to this point the legislator has prescribed nothing at all. It is precisely in this clause that he claims to do so. The verb, therefore, should be in the present tense,
praescribimus—“what We are ordering by this our Constitution”: not in the perfect, “what We have prescribed.” The only explanation I can think of for this howler is recognition by its author that he is tampering with a pre-existing text. Moreover, the logical conclusion from the use of the wrong tense can scarcely be what is author intended: since nothing was prescribed, nothing is prescribed; and the legislator, to boot, is still prescribing nothing. What a mess! I wonder how long a civil government would last which thus tampered with its own laws?
There is a last remark I wish to make about this strange document. It winds up with the usual
clause de style: “We wish, moreover, that these decisions and ordinances of ours should be stable and effective now and in future, notwithstanding—in so far as may be necessary—Constitutions and Apostolic Regulations published by Our Predecessors and all other ordinances, even those requiring special mention and derogation." At long last—indeed it is the last word—there is a technical term in the Constitution, so we know exactly where we stand: “derogation.” The New Ordo is therefore only a permission after all. It is merely a licit exception, a derogation, to the previous laws which are still in force. They have not been abrogated. But surely it is only a mistake? The author of the praescripsimus clause forgot to alter the
clause de style? Maybe, but it proves three things: 1. one’s sins always finds one out; 2. the author has a highly efficient Guardian Angel; 3. it is nonsense to claim that the Bull
Quo Primum has been abrogated.
Mistranslation, insertion, error: it is all highly distasteful. Needless to say there has been no apology, explanation or withdrawal. It is those who point out these irregularities who are accused of being disloyal and divisive.
Do these irregularities invalidate the Constitution? Of course not; it is a valid law in the terms published in the
Acta. At most it could be maintained that the wrong tense of praescripsimus makes its meaning doubtful and
lex dubia non obligat—but it does not much matter as it is only a permission anyway. No, the irregularities do not invalidate the law. All they do is to make me highly suspicious of the present administration.
To sum up:
1. The Constitution
Missale Romanum of April 3rd, 1969 has been duly promulgated. That is why I permit the use of the New Ordo in this diocese.
2. It has derogated from the exclusive use of the Immemorial Mass but has not abrogated the Bull Quo Primum. That is why I permit the use of the Tridentine Rite.
3. It has not abrogated the Conciliar Constitution
Sacrosanctum Concilium. That is why I permit: a) the “hybrid” Mass; b) the reintroduction of the Offertory etc., into the New Ordo—since these are in line with the said Constitution.
B. THE INSTITUTIO GENERALIS AND THE NEW PRECES
1. One of the reasons why the all-important Constitution received such scant attention was that on April 6th (consequently two months before its publication in the
Acta) the New Mass forms were released, preceded by a theological-rubrical introduction called the
Institutio Generalis. I am ashamed to say that it was received with unctuous enthusiasm by us bishops, although the Mass rites were practically identical with what our synod had rejected in October 1967. You priests were marginally better; you received it with glum gloom but little protest. Opposition was left to the laity. It became highly vociferous and found expression in the Critical Study presented by Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci to the Pope on September 25th of the same year. If you have kept a copy of the Critical Study, please re-read it. You will notice that it does not merely criticize the theology of the introduction but the Mass rites which give expression to that theology.
2. This opposition did in fact have some effect. On October 20th, less than a month after the Critical Study had been presented to the Pope, the Consilium issued a Instruction, Constitutione Apostolica, delaying the introduction of the New Ordo from November 30th, 1969 to November 28th, 1971, nominally to give time to prepare vernacular translations. In the meantime the New Ordo could be said in Latin. On the other hand, in this document also we hear for the first time that the Immemorial Mass may only be said by aged priests sine populo, without a congregation. This is pure usurpation of power and has no basis in law.
3. On the following March 26th, 1970, a new edition of the Institutional Generalis was issued. The heretical clause 7—“The Mass is the sacred synaxis or congregation of the People of God”—was made merely ambiguous and clauses 48, 55, 56 and 60 were amended. So much for the permanent value of the most solemn Roman documents under the present administration. Not only is there tampering with the basic law governing the New Ordo, but its theological justification has to be amended within a year of publication. This certainly calls for blind obedience since it is difficult to obey with eyes open. What remains quite inexplicable, however, is that the Mass forms themselves have not been changed. Their theological justification has gone; they are unaltered.
Incidentally, it is in the same year, the year of opposition, that the English Martyrs were canonized and Cardinal Heenan of blessed memory secured his Indult.
V. THE NEW ORDO IN OPERATION
1. As I have said, the opposition was almost exclusively lay. The powers that be could not deal with it as summarily as they could with the clergy. There was over a year of patient waiting to see if the laity could organize themselves. It became clear that with an inadequate supply of priests and no bishop they could not. Hence we got the second revolutionary document. You will remember that the first was the
Instructio Altera of May 4th, 1967, which decided, contrary to the law, that the whole of the Mass, including the consecration, should be said aloud and in the vernacular. Well, this time it is a bit worse. On June 14th, 1971, the Congregation for Worship issued a Notification granting to Episcopal Conferences the right to impose the exclusive use of the vernacular in the New Ordo, once the translations had been approved. It thus became illicit to celebrate the New Ordo in Latin. So much for the Constitution
Sacrosanctum Concilium. It also repeated the provision in the instruction of October 20th, 1969 that the Old Mass could only be said by aged priests
sine populo.
Be it noted that a Notification is a purely administrative document and has no legislative authority whatsoever. Moreover, this particular one was itself undated and unsigned. It is therefore worth less than the paper on which it was printed. The bishops, from Rome to Stamford, remained mute.
2. Of course, the inevitable result of this particular piece of administrative folly was to throw all Latinists into the arms of the Tridentiners. There was no alternative if the New Ordo was illicit in Latin. It became imperative to divide the opposition, especially as Archbishop Lefebvre had cropped up in the meantime. The laity had thus found a bishop with the promise of future priests. Hence the Notification of October 28th, 1974. This document reverses the previous ruling: the New Ordo may now be said in Latin or vernacular with equality of esteem. The New Ordo, however, is obligatory “notwithstanding the pretext of any custom whatsoever even immemorial”. The importance of this last remark is that for the first time the establishment admitted the existence of immemorial rights, even if only to brush them aside.
3. From this moment onwards the assault against the old rite slightly changed tack. At the beginning of this
Ad clerum I wrote: “An immemorial right can be extinguished by two means:
a) by a solemn pronouncement of the Sovereign Pontiff abrogating the customary right on the grounds that its continuance would be contrary to the common good;
b) by the customary right falling into desuetude—along with the custom the right lapses."
It would not be easy to prove that the Immemorial Mass had been contrary to the common good. Who would believe it? Moreover, by 1974 it was a bit late to start saying so, especially as the Council had said nothing of the sort. The alternative was to crush the custom as rapidly as possible, preferably under the existing administration.
This explains the extraordinary animosity against Archbishop Lefebvre: he is busy perpetuating the immemorial custom. It also explains the astonishing pressure brought to bear on the English hierarchy to petition for the withdrawal of Heenan’s Indult. In its humble way, the Indult too is preserving the custom. I may add that, if it still exists, it is thanks to Heenan’s successor.
4. Great tragedies are heightened by farcical interludes. Four days after the Notification of October 28th, on November 1st, 1974 the Congregation promulgated its two little Eucharists for Reconciliations and three for kiddies.
VI. PAPAL INTERVENTION
You may well ask, in this plethora of Constitutions, Institutions, Instructions and Notifications, has the Pope done or said nothing? The two questions are rather different. What he has done is restricted to: a) the
motu proprio,
Sacram Liturgiam, of January 25th, 1964, which in practice was rendered nugatory by the Consilium’s
Instructio Altera; b) the Constitution,
Missale Romanum, of April 3rd, 1969, presumably along with the clause inserted into the
Acta. What he has said is a very different matter. In 1969, there is the Allocution of April 28th, of November 19th, and again of November 26th. As the years roll by, so do the Allocutions. However, they are all summed up in the Consistorial Allocutions of May 24th, 1976, to which the anonymous Canon Lawyer refers. It is a little more harsh than the rest because it was directed against Archbishop Lefebvre. I translate the relevant passage.
It is in the name of tradition itself that We require all our sons and all Catholic communities to celebrate the liturgy according to the renewed rite with dignity and fervour. The use of the New Ordo is by no means left to the discretion of priests and faithful. The Instruction of June 14th, 1971, has provided that the celebration of Mass according to the Old Rite should only be allowed, with the permission of the Ordinary, to aged and sick priests when celebrating with nobody present. The New Ordo has been promulgated to replace the Old after mature deliberation and in order to fulfill the Council’s decisions. It is in exactly the same way that Our predecessor St. Pius V made obligatory the Missal recognized by his authority after the Council of Trent. By the same supreme authority, which We have received from Christ, We decree the same prompt obedience to all the other reforms, be they liturgical, disciplinary or pastoral, which in recent years have grown up out of the decrees of the Council.
And what is one to say to that?
Well, in the first place the translators have been at it again. In the passage concerning Pius V, the Latin has: “. . . St. Pius V made obligatory the Missal recognized (
recognitum) by his authority” —which is perfectly correct; whereas the Italian has “. . . reformed (
riformato) by his authority”—which is perfectly incorrect but suits the argument better. The whole point is that Pius V reformed nothing at all: he codified the Immemorial Rite; whereas a little later in the same passage Paul VI admits that “the New Ordo has been promulgated to replace the Old.” So the New Ordo is not even a reform but a “replacement” or substitution—for which the technical term is obrogation. But not even a Pope can obrogate an immemorial custom—unless there are two or more immemorial customs running concurrently and one is substituted for the other. A new usage cannot obrogate an immemorial custom unless the latter is first abrogated, abolished; only then can the new usage fill the void. Therein, I think lies the real importance of the text: the admission that the New Ordo is not a reform of the Mass but a substitute for the Mass. Anyway, the statement is nonsense: Pius V did not make the old Ordo exclusive since he allowed all rites over two hundred years old to continue. Neither has Paul VI made the New exclusive since only eighteen months previously he had permitted the rites for Reconciliations and kiddies.
I suppose I should mention briefly a few other points. A Consistorial Allocution is a speech. It is not a law. In the present case it illustrates Paul VI’s deep affection for the New Ordo. This is perfectly natural: most parents believe that they beget nothing but swans. More significant is that His Holiness should make no appeal to the only laws on the subject to which have been duly promulgated: his own Constitution of 1969 and the Council’s of 1963. Concerning the latter he uses a euphemism: “the reforms . . . which in recent years have grown up out of the decrees of the Council.” But one has has every right to question a “growth” which, in his own words, is a “substitution.” His Holiness is therefore led to appeal to what he calls the “Instruction” of June 14th, 1971. This is most unfortunate. As we have seen, the document issued on that date was a mere Notification, itself undated and unsigned. Its legal value is nil. It does, however, contain the gratuitously cruel clause that aged and infirm priests may (with permission, of course) say the immemorial Mass provided nobody is present. This His Holiness does not blush to repeat. Lastly, the emotional appeal of the passage consists in calling upon the faithful to discard the tradition of worship in the name of the tradition of obedience. Does His Holiness not realize that the tradition of obedience is even more delicate than that of worship? He complains bitterly that he is no longer obeyed. No wonder: tradition as such having been undermined, the tradition of obedience has vanished. It is all terribly sad.
VII. THE PROOF OF PUDDING
At this point, Fathers, I can well imagine you saying: “The old Bishop naturally makes out a good case in his own cause. But how can I tell that his opponents could not do as much? I certainly have no time to verify the documents he mentions, let alone the ones he does not. It is beyond me. I shall just obey, even if I am called a weathercock.”
Well, I think you can judge the truth of my contention from the least expected of sources: the Lefebvre affair.
Everyone knows that the real trouble with Archbishop Lefebvre is that he sticks to the Immemorial Mass and is training priests to do the like. Agreed? Of course.
Then, why is it that he was not suspended for that? Wasn’t he? No, he was not.
A devious way was found. He is not a diocesan bishop and consequently has no title, no right, to ordain priests. To get round this difficulty he founded the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X as a diocesan congregation in the diocese of Fribourg. Thus, as bishop-superior of his congregation he could ordain his own subjects. Rome then suppressed his congregation (legally or illegally is beside the point), so that he no longer had the right to ordain. He did ordain. He was suspended.
You see the point? It is precisely because Archbishop Lefebvre could not be suspended for saying the Immemorial Mass that a devious means had to be employed. The Establishment is determined to crush the Old Mass: it cannot do it straight so it will do it crooked.
VIII. TO SUM UP AND CONCLUDE
Nunc quiddam cogere et efficere placet.
A. The summing up.
1. You will have noticed that in all the documents I have quoted it is taken for granted that the Mass is the private property of priests. It is not. The priest is the executor of the Testament of God Incarnate but the faithful are just as much beneficiaries under the will as he. It is they, the faithful, who have the right to the Immemorial Mass. They can demand that the legacy be paid in a currency which has held its value from time immemorial. They are aware that we live in an age of inflation and bright new notes are soon devalued.
2. The Immemorial Mass has not been abrogated—even if it could be. Its use is therefore licit as well as valid.
3. The attack against it is devious: to suppress the custom thanks to the abject conformism of bishops and the servile obedience of priests.
B. Conclusion
1. What I ask of you is to maintain the custom of the Immemorial Mass. You need not say it exclusively so long as you say it sometimes—always mindful, however, that the faithful have a right to it.
2. This would not require much heroism but a little organization might help. The diocese would be unmanageable if about twenty priests were excluded from the ministry. If rather more, say thirty priests, were willing to join a Secular Institute of which one of the objects were the maintenance of the Immemorial Rite, nothing much could be done against you.
3. Our Administrator, Mgr Defew, has accepted to found such an Institute. I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to him. I enclose a form which you will kindly return to him if you are willing to join the Institute.
4. If fewer than thirty diocesan priests have joined the Institute by April 1st, the project will be abandoned and I shall rely on the courage and integrity of individual priests to preserve the custom of the Mass of Ages.
I have written this
Ad clerum on Wednesday and Thursday, January 26/7th. I shall not post it, however, until I have decided whether or not to reopen the diocesan seminary. If I find this practical it is clear that the Institute will be heavily reinforced.
P.S. Monday, January 31st. I have decided to reopen the diocesan seminary. The Rector will be Mgr Charles Bouverie, ex-Vice-Rector of the English College. The five existing students are willing to attend it. Mgr Bouverie and I have accepted five applicants for the Summer Term and a further six for September. The new students understand that their acceptance for the diocese is conditional on their joining Mgr Defew’s Secular Institute.
The only other substantial letter written by Bishop Forester during the week was that to the Mother Provincial of the Veronican sisters in connection with the Sludge affair on Friday, January 28th. It has already appeared as Letter 14.
— Bryan Houghton,
Mitre and Crook, 1979, pp. 87
–102.
