Wednesday, April 18, 2012

". . . a great cheek of the Germans"

 Fr. Charles Davis
(He eventually left the Church and married in an Anglican ceremony)

From a letter of Evelyn Waugh to Lady Daphne Acton, commenting on Liturgy and Doctrine, by Fr. Charles Davis, and liturgical changes generally:

"Some people, like Penelope Betjeman, like making a row in church and I don't see why they shouldn't; just as the Abyssinians dance and wave rattles.  I should feel jolly shy dancing and I feel shy praying out loud.  Every parish might have one rowdy mass a Sunday for those who like it.  But there should be silent ones for those who like quiet.

. . . . I think it a great cheek of the Germans to try and teach the rest of the world anything about religion.  They should be in perpetual sackcloth and ashes for all their enormities from Luther to Hitler. 

The worst mistake of your Fr Davis is his almost blasphemous degadation of the conception of the mystical Body into a parish meeting. You and I and the dancing Abyssinians and the saints in glory are, as you well know, integral parts of the Mystical Body.  We don't have to be shouting one another down in the next pew."

Elizabethan martyrs, pray for us.

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