THE TAOS TATLER.

Anything but the Gospell and Church teachings

According to England’s Telegraph, Church of England officials have sponsored, and apparently are pinning great hopes on a book for children titled, Heroes of Hope, which encapulates 20 people in church history and their blackness.

From the Telegraph:

Heroes of Hope was co-written by The Rev Dr Sharon Prentis, the deputy director of the Church of England’s racial justice unit.

The unit was set up in 2022, in the wake of Black Lives Matter  protests (!), to accomplish the Church’s commitments to achieving racial justice.

Dr Prentis’s co-author was Alysia-Lara Ayonrinde, the Church’s national education lead for racial justice.

The Church’s work on on racial justice has included efforts to make Christian artwork more diverse, while clergy have declared that “God is not a white man” and worked to make images of Jesus more diverse.

And making images of Jesus, Augustus, et al., more “diverse” will somehow bring more people into empty churches, when nothing else has worked for the past half-century? Do tell how, won’t you?

Augustine is a “hero” of the Church, not because of whatever color he happened to be, rather because he gave us, through his teachings, the Church, nothing less. His race pales by comparison, whatever the color.

We must wonder then which is more important to the Rev Dr Sharon Prentis and Alysia-Lara Ayonrinde, “the Church’s national education lead for racial justice” when it comes to Augustine: his skin color or his many teachings, which make make for difficult, even unpleasant reading for many, including, possibly, those two scholars. A few of those teachings, chosen at random:

Human beings once good, were corrupted by the original sin of Adam, disobedience, which has resulted in our predisposition towards sin, especially, to use that grand old word, concupiscence.

Or

Salvation is dependent on God’s grace alone. It is unmerited and cannot be earned.

Or

The just war theory, i.e., when it is permisible to take up arms against a foe.

Or

Predestination—enough said with that one.

This latest straw-grasping by C of E officials makes a big deal of Augustine of Hippo being a black man (or tan, or whatever), and acknowledgement of that will somehow make England’s national  church appealing to all similarly-hued people to rise and shine Sunday mornings, troop into church and fill up those empty pews.

Here is the bold prediction of a former Anglican (Episcopalian) on the latest stunt of a dying institution. It will flop. Why? Because the color of St Augustine’s skin has nothing to with why England’s national church is a dead letter, rather, it is the lack of discussion and adhering to the vital teachings of the first doctor of the church. Most non-church going Brits, who vastly outnumber those who do go (ca 90%) will not admit as much, but their actions speak for themselves.

Things will only improve for liberal churches when these institutions stop asking, what can we do to make you happy, and start asking, what can we do to make you squirm. If that seems overly harsh, even ridiculous, take a look around you and compare those churches flush with parishioners with those whose parking lots are empty on Sundays.

Delbarton School

(From the Bergen Record)

These sordid events never seem to stop: ordained men who vowed to love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ and His Church, instead loved themselves, and served their penisis at the expense of young boys who trusted them implicitly. Those boys’s lives are now shattered, and the man who might have put a stop to these foul criminal acts, but did not, Auxiliary Bishop Elias R Lorenzo, may instead be rewarded with a cardinalate.

Pope Leo, what will you do about this wretched scandal, and all the others, past, present, and future? We still have high hopes for you, even if they’re waning a bit, but generally, they are still intact. Will your response be like so many of your predecessors: condemn the heinous acts, then move along?

The New York Post provides the gory details and may our Lord bless them for it.

Decades of disturbing clergy abuse at elite NJ Catholic school set to be exposed — and its former leader could be state’s next cardinal . . .

Disturbing details of clergy abuse at the elite Delbarton school in New Jersey could be made public thanks to a recent court decision — placing the spotlight on a former top church leader who could be the state’s next cardinal, The Post has learned.

Auxiliary Bishop Elias R. Lorenzo — a potential successor to Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who will reach the mandatory retirement age in May 2027 — served for three decades as a teacher and clergy leader at the all-boys Catholic school in Morristown.

During his time, at least 30 students came forward with sexual abuse allegations against Delbarton clergy, the Survivors Network of those Abused By Priests said — some with lurid claims of being brutally abused hundreds of times by Benedictine monks.

In June, the state’s top court ruled that a new grand jury investigation into clerical abuse across the state can move forward — which insiders say will include examining claims of a cover-up at the exclusive school.

All the while, the Diocese of Camden (see below), home of the Delbarton Academy displayed its integrity by fighting tooth and nail for seven years to prevent the Supreme Court of New Jersey, the highest appellate court in the state, from investigating the matter until finally, perhaps at the urging of counsel (and if so, showing greater wisdom than Diocesen officials), that they were digging themselves closer to where they might spend eternity, they capitulated. Of course, that was seven years too late for many of the poor boys to see justice done promptly, not delayed. Naturally, that causes this layman, thousands of others, and, of course, anti-Catholics everywhere, to interpret the seven-year cover-up of the Diocese as its personnel covering their asses instead of doing something, anything about the horrors taking place behind the dignified walls of Delbarton School. May God have mercy on their souls. They’re not likely to find it anywhere else.

Revelation 16:1

And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.

***

Errata: According to the school’s website, Delbarton is located in the Diocese of Paterson, not Camden. As it is a Benedictine organìzation, it is run by the internal rules of the order itself and is not subject to the Diocese. Your Tatler regrets the error.

However, we do not know now for certain who resisted the New Jersey Supreme Court’s desire to investigate the terrible wrongdoings of the school for seven years. Was it the Benedictines? If so, that does not reflect well on the order at all.

Which doesn’t lessen the wrong committed, but face it, it’s a welcome change from depressing accounts of priests having their ways with girls‐-or boys, yes?

Chevrolet C8 Corvette Stingray–one of the highest performing American-made sports cars on the road today.

A bizarre account from Road & Track, one of the most respected auto journals and one your Tatler has been reading off and on since his youth, tells the tale of an underhanded Catholic priest, who rigged the outcome of a church raffle to alter the winner of the top prize, a 2025 Corvette C8.

A pastor is reportedly the subject of a county attorney general’s investigation stemming from a church raffle that offered a new C8-generation Chevrolet Corvette Stingray as the grand prize. According to a report from the Erie Times-News, the pastor fabricated the name of the raffle winner, as well as the winners of several other smaller prizes.

The Erie County District Attorney’s Office is investigating Miceli on allegations that the 42-year-old rigged the Corvette raffle, tampered with its records and committed theft. According to the Erie Times-News, Miceli “admitted to publicly falsifying the results of the grand prize winner” during the investigation.

Miceli allegedly also made up some of the winners for the $500 prizes, according to affidavits for some of the search warrants. In an interview with detectives, Miceli reportedly admitted to making up the names of four of the $500 winners where no name was associated with the winning number — so, he personally chose the winners, who were allegedly either family friends or his favorite parishioners.

As for the $50,000 grand prize, Miceli admitted to moving the money from the car raffle account to another account, according to the Erie Times-News; he claims this other account is an interest-bearing account that is under the church’s name.

Miceli is leaving the St. Jude the Apostle Church as the investigation continues. He will reportedly be heading to two smaller churches in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania.

I suppose Father’s intention was a good one, winning the car and presumably converting it to cash to benefit the parish, but regardless his good intentions (and we can speculate the road and destination to which the ‘Vette would have been driven, with Fr Miceli behind the wheel), the priest violated the trust of his parishioners. Using deceit to raise funds for his parish, however needed, doesn’t lessen the deed, as the priest would surely admit when pressed.

Fr Miceli seems to have gotten off lightly, being sent to smaller parishes, but I can’t imagine parishioners at those parishes are too thrilled having him there. Presumably, he has confessed his sins and made restitution, but church officers may wish to keep Fr Miceli far away from church coffers until he has proved himself redeemed.

Meanwhile, someone is driving a ’25 Chevy Corvette with a most interesting past.

*The 2025 Chevrolet Corvette C8 boasts impressive performance, especially in its Stingray and ZR1 trims. The Stingray features a naturally aspirated 6.2L V8 producing 490-495 horsepower and 465-470 lb-ft of torque, achieving 0-60 mph in under 3 seconds and a top speed of 194 mph. 

Pope Leo XIV recently named Cardinal John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church, a singular honor. As he was a convert to Catholicism, your Tatler, a convert also, cannot help having particular regard for, and admittedly, certain pride, in those Anglicans who make the often difficult journey to Rome. This blogger was received into Holy Church (by a wonderful priest who was a convert himself), and like so many others, made his decision only after much internal debate and deliberation.

That is not to say your Tatler dares stand among the august company of the Church’s greatest converts like Cardinal Newman, Fr Michael-Nazir Ali, and Cardinal Edward Manning, plus a slew of great authors. To name but a few, we have Robert Hugh Benson, Ronald Knox, Muriel Spark, G. K. Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, and the wildly eccentric Frederick Rolfe, who gave the world Hadrian the Seventh.

Newman, I posit, stands above all other Anglican converts. He was England’s greatest theologian and contributed greatly to church doctrine. Rather than this non-theologian clumsily attempting to explain what those contributions were, I refer you, gentle reader, to this excellent website, found by happenstance, calling itself Oratorian Wisdom.  f I have posted a short excerpt from its fine essay on the importance of Newman, but it should, of course, be read in its entirety.

John Henry Newman is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in Catholic theology. His groundbreaking work on the development of doctrine has profoundly shaped the Church’s understanding of how its teachings can evolve while staying true to their foundational truths. Newman proposed that doctrine is not static but grows organically, reflecting the Church’s deeper understanding of divine revelation as it faces new historical and cultural challenges. His ideas laid the groundwork for a more dynamic, yet faithful, approach to doctrine. Today, Newman’s theological contributions continue to influence how the Church navigates contemporary issues, offering a way to remain rooted in tradition while engaging with modernity. His work has provided a framework for addressing the challenges of the modern world, helping to preserve the integrity of the faith while allowing for its natural growth. Newman’s influence remains essential for understanding the Church’s ongoing doctrinal development.

To close on a subject which this blogger has greater knowledge of, I commend a great synthesis of the arts by two geniuses, Sir Edward Elgar, one of England’s greatest 20th-century composers, and the only Catholic composer of stature, and his musical setting of Newman’s epic poem, The Dream of Gerontius (modestly claimed by the author, “written by accident – and it was published by accident”). There are many superb recordings of Elgar’s magnificent setting of it, but if permitted to name only one, Sir John Barbirolli’s recording gets your Tatler’s nod. In addition to a second-to-none performance of it, this edition contains all of Elgar’s major works.

It’s been a while since this blog published a heartwarmer, and this one can hardly be improved upon.

From Guinness:

A soft-spoken yet resolute 112 year-old woman from Long Island, New York, USA officially became the Guinness World Records title holder for oldest nun living, after serving the Catholic Church for over 94 years.

Resolute, indeed, and Sister Francis Dominici Piscatella’s explanation for living so long, above, is heartening.

“Teach until you die,” she said, also adding: “You have to be a saint before you get to heaven . . . When she was just two years old, an accident with a passing train caused her to lose the majority of her left forearm – and in 1931 many convents were concerned that her amputation would be a hindrance to her service. But she didn’t give up easily.

A priest did the right thing by her.

When she was 17 years old, Francis finally got a teaching post with the Amityville Dominicans after a nun left a vacancy – and Sister Francis Kammer knows the story well, as Piscatella’s close friend, former student, and roommate for 45 years.

“The priest said, ‘Well, can she teach?’ And the sister said, ‘Oh, she’s a great teacher, ‘said Francis Kammer.’

‘And he said, ‘Then she stays.” And she never looked back.

We can learn from Sister Francis, and her priest.

The killer, Shane Tamura, calmly walks to work, unstopped

There was another senseless tragedy in New York yesterday, in a city grown weary of them. A lunatic who should have been locked up long ago walked into a Park Avenue skyscraper carrying an AR-15 and started shooting up the lobby. When finished, he took an elevator up to NFL headquarters and started shooting up people there. Still not satisfied, he took another elevator up to the offices of Rudin Properties and shot even more people before mercifully shooting himself in the head. When he had finished four people were dead, including an NYPD officer, and many more were injured.

The killer had a note on him blaming his actions on CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive brain disorder resulting from injuries to the head, which eventually leads to dementia. It is fairly common among athletes but is not known to cause its sufferers to become violent. In other words, the fellow was stark, raving mad, CTE or not, but still allowed complete freedom of movement.

After the carnage, the usual suspects started their shrieks for stricter gun control, which has never stopped those who should not be armed from getting hold of weapons. Nonetheless, it is always  called for after incidents like these.

Senator John Kennedy, by far this blogger’s favorite politician, had a pithy but on-the-mark response to the control advocates, suggesting the City return to stop-and-frisk tactics (and why were they ever stopped? They worked). In  typical manner, Senator Kennedy then said to Sean Hannity on Fox, “On Capitol Hill, probably beginning in the morning, there’ll be the inevitable call by some of my colleagues for more gun control laws . . . We’ve got hundreds of gun control laws, Sean. Maybe thousands. We don’t need more gun control, we need more idiot control, and I don’t know exactly how to do that.”

A good start would be recognizing that people showing signs of becoming non compos mentis, should have their civil rights reduced in proportion to their encroaching insanity. At a certain point, they should be committed to institutions where they are cared for, always humanely, but not a threat to society, nor themselves. That doesn’t seem like an impossible task, if the radical “civil rights” activists are not regarded seriously when their ideas are a danger to the public.

This blog doesn’t usually cover the goings on in the Church of England, but this item proved irresistible.

From the Times

The Right Rev Jonathan Baker, who appeared at the event wearing a dressing gown, described it as a ‘terrible racket’ and told the singers and audience to leave.

At first, this struck your Tatler, and, I presume, at least some readers of this blog as awfully mean-spirited of His Grace, but continue reading and you, like me, may reconsider.

The City Academy Voices Choir was midway through a Motown medley when the lights suddenly went off.

A man wearing a light blue dressing gown, black trousers and no shoes appeared at the microphone, interrupting the choir’s summer concert at St Andrew Holborn, London.

Ah, now it becomes clearer. One would gather from the description of His Grace’s garb that he was either kept from sleeping or woken, by the less-than-dulcet tones of an amateur British choir attempting pop classics originally recorded by singers rather different from the ensemble in question here. In fact, your Tatler will venture that the only thing this choir had in common with the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Supremes, et al., was amplifiers turned up loud. One shudders to imagine what those amplifiers were amplifying, but it certainly mustn’t have been pleasant for the poor bishop.

Our sympathies lie with His Grace.

R.I.P.

1928-2025

The late Tom Lehrer figured largely in our family when I was growing up. We had all his records and memorized a good many of his songs.

One of Lehrer’s most notorious songs was his infamous Vatican Rag. Many people were deeply offended by it, but not I. Of course, when first hearing it, I was decades from embracing the fullness of the faith, but now, as a Catholic, I still don’t find it offensive, simply hilarious, for this reason.

If you listen to not just the song alone, but to Lehrer’s spoken introduction to it, as well (he introduced nearly all his songs that way), you will quickly understand Lehrer was satirizing not the Catholic Church or the Mass, but rather the post-conciliar reforms [sic], which were as deserving of ridicule when introduced as they are today. Listen to the lyric of Vatican Rag, you will not hear errors in the text, Lehrer is correct on his details. It was the just-introduced Vatican II reforms he was ridiculing, as he makes clear in his introduction. I loved the song long ago, when an Episcopalian, and still love it, even after embracing the full Catholic Faith.

Listen to Vatican Rag yourself and see if you don’t agree with me. Yes, it is outrageous, but outrageous isn’t necessarily offensive.

Rod Dreher in the Free Press:

On a cool, wet June morning on the Left Bank of the River Seine, cheerful throngs of young adults are padding along the streets with packs on their backs. They are converging on Saint-Sulpice, the bulky 17th-century stone church that dominates the Saint-Germain neighborhood of Paris. From the giddiness of the kids, you might think there was a pop concert planned in the large square in front of the old church. Non.

“We’re here to pray,” says Cyriaque, 25, who came to the capital from the country’s southwest. “It will be fun.”

One thing inspiring about pieces of this kind is that young Latin Mass enthusiasts have developed their affinity for it mostly on their own. There have been few priests or higher that encouraged their interest in it and, especially after Francis became pope, churches where Usus Antiquior was celebrated became even fewer and farther between, save for in certain big cities, New York in particular, and their number was decreasing, not increasing. Even today, perhaps as a memorial to the late Pope Francis, archbishops in two states recently severely restricted the celebration of TLM. Happily, with the large and increasing number of young people embracing the old Mass, the two archbishops, who seem to loathe it, are finding themselves sailing in the wind, with the tide carrying them in the opposite direction.

Pope Leo seems to be approaching the TLM matter cautiously, not wishing to rush things,  which is probably wise. A sudden decision to allow once again the free celebration of the Latin Mass could cause as much upheaval as its proscription over half a century ago.

Still, things appear to be looking up for the Latin Mass. We’d best be patient now.

Interesting, hopeful news regarding Usus Antiquior, the Latin Mass, as reported in The Catholic Thing. They have posted a video featuring veteran EWTN reporter Raymond Arroyo, who is

joined by canon lawyer Father Gerald Murray and TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal to unpack Pope Leo’s surprising decision to grant a rare exemption to the ban on the Traditional Latin Mass for a Texas parish—and whether it signals a broader shift.

Since your Tatler embraced the full faith of the Catholic Church 17 years ago, coming from the rich Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Episcopal Church, I have been praying for full restoration of the Latin Mass. To put it simply, what the 1662 (or 1962) book of Common Prayer is to Anglican worship, the Latin Mass is to Catholic worship. It must be restored and this bit of news coming from Texas is most encouraging.

Note: there is also in this video an outrageous account of a sex-offender priest somehow landing a job in the Vatican.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there is still a long way to go. Pray for Holy Church.