THE TAOS TATLER.

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.

Your Tatler turns a ripe (overripe?) three score and ten soon, and as is common among doddery old men, I have been thinking back to the major events occurring in my life. One that stands out lately is the Watergate scandal, which brought down Richard Nixon’s presidency 51 years ago.

Watergate is brought to mind owing to the present scandal brewing in Washington. Surprisingly, I have yet to hear any quid pro quo references to Watergate by Dems, seeking to deflect attention from the present morass, but the likely explanation is, unlike Watergate, which received non-stop coverage from the media, this present scandal, unsurprisingly, receives scarcely any attention at all from the usual media suspects.

With Watergate, other than Democrat leadership accomplishing their single goal of attaining the head of the Baptist, via the forced resignation of hapless President Nixon, little else was accomplished. Vice President Gerald Ford, an honest and decent man, assumed the presidency and things returned to normal relatively quickly, though the Republicans did suffer losses at the polls for a few cycles.

With Watergate, President Nixon may or may not have been aware of plans for a band of bungling Cuban-American burglars, hirees of the so-called White House Plumbers, to break into Democratic headquarters and dig around for secrets to use against the Republicans. The burglars were quickly caught, tried, and convicted.

The present scandal is far worse. There is increasingly strong evidence, with more added everyday, that President Barack Obama conspired with his cohorts, holy terror Hillary Clinton, his closest advisors, and all the major intelligence agencies, to severely discredit the newly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump, by planting false evidence that he was in league with President Putin of Russia; that his loyalties were divided. As a result, President Trump’s first term was greatly hampered by his having to defend his integrity every day, and fend off accusations that he was Vladimir Putin’s puppet. It lowered his reputation so badly that when he ran for re-election, he lost to the least qualified presidential candidate in our country’s history, Sen. Joseph Biden.

Already seriously hampered by dementia, which only got worse, this country was instead in the charge of dubious shadow characters hand-picked by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They did much damage, beginning immediately by having Biden remove all barriers from our borders, opening our country to millions of miscreants from Latin and South America, The Dem’s obvious plan was, after granting the illegals quick citizenship, to reverse the party’s decline by making them voters  With more Dem votes, the more Dems elected [sic] and with the millions of illegals as voters, the party could well have had a solid, veto-proof majority in both Houses of Congress for years to come.

To judge the efficacy of the Obama, Clinton, et al conspirators’s plot against Donald Trump, one need only compare the President’s successes in his first term with those of his second term. Now that he is free from the sea anchor imposed on him in the first term he is on fire, accomplishing more, whether you approve of them or not, in his first half year than in his entire first term, much of it reversing the damage done in the Biden administration.

That measure of difference in Trump’s performance is the measure of damage President Obama’s sabotage of Trump’s presidency caused. It does not seem out of line for your Tatler to refer to Obama’s, Hillary’s, and their co-conspirators’s evil actions as anything less than a coup d’etat, albeit a slow one. They must be tried for treason.

Or

A figure from New York City’s past, Curtis Sliwa, is running for mayor and was considered an also-ran until now. NY Post columnist Charles Gasparino provides the details but the upshot is, with the other candidates looking so dismal, Sliwa stands out by comparison and, with a 22% approval rate in a recent poll, stands a good chance of winning in a four-way race. Once regarded as somewhat the buffoon, Sliwa may now be regarded as a serious candidate.

Sliwa is not an extremist, as Gasparino explains, only, shall we say, out of the mainstream, which he has been for decades. As the founder and head of the Guardian Angels, he is no radical and holds generally sound opinions.

Charles Gasparino:

Ever the showman, [Sliwa] once staged his own kidnapping to drum up publicity.

He was once really kidnapped and shot three times, allegedly as payback for repeatedly attacking the mob for drug dealing.

He should be applauded for that.

He will cut taxes and eliminate swaths of government, like the city’s education bureaucracy that does a horrible job educating kids and does a good job employing loads of bureaucrats. 

Sliwa’s pro-business policies are why he insists it “behooves” the fat cats . . .  “to treat me with a modicum of respect. I am here to support small and medium-sized businesses, as well as the Fortune 500 guys and gals who pay the bulk of our taxes.”

You don’t hear many New York politicos talking like that.

By default, Sliwa has become a viable candidate for mayor, and with a grossly unsatisfactory choice among the major candidates, he might just pull it off.

Update: a friend writes that Sliwa has been married four times and keeps fifteen cats in his small studio apartment. Admittedly, that is a little unsettling, to say the least.