For the benefit of my overseas readers, I should point out hat the middle of July is the peak of what is called in parts of Britain the marching season. This means that Protestant groups celebrate vehemently the defeat of the forces of King James II in 1689 by William II, with the appearance of marching bands usually accompanied by flutes. Students of Paradise Lost will of course be aware that Satan led his minions out of Heaven ‘In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood, Of flutes’ but they would be well advised to forget about that. Much more interesting is that this ultimate Protestant victory was also celebrated at the time by the Pope, who ordered a Te Deum for the purpose. This is a historical fact which it would be also unwise to mention, but less importantly , since each side ‘staunchly’- a key word in this area- refuses to believe it exists. The fact that such a march takes place in the almost entirely Catholic Irish county of Donegal is celebrated with even more enthusiasm by both sides, for different reasons,.
The Orange March is a colourful spectacle, reminding one of Chesterton’s bon mot that the adverts in Piccadilly Circus would be truly wonderful if one could not read. For ‘read’, substitute’ hear’ in this case. I have always had reservations about it since a Protestant with whom I was watching such a march observed, ’You see, this is our Christmas . ‘ It is interesting that Teilhard de Chardin at no point mentions this in his description of how we move to Omega Point.
Many of these marches take place in Glasgow and its environs ; apparently one took place at midnight on the day of a recent Pope’s death. It must be obvious to anyone that this is a social phenomenon with distinctly anti-Catholic connotations. Just last week, as such a march was moving past a Catholic church, when one of the many amateur theologians who follow such marches assaulted a priest who was standing at a church door which faces on to the road on which the march was taking place. I am told that a marching member of the Orange Order which organises these marches ‘broke ranks’ to approach the priest and shook his hand. The assault was carried out by what is known locally as ‘a follower’, and not a member of the Order.
I mention this because of the alacrity with which the Catholic Church locally has insisted on meetings with politicians to prevent such an event reoccurring. This has to be compared with the lack of alacrity with which the Catholic Church has approached the suggestion of Pope Francis that it is time the Church got down to looking at the shortage of people validly ordained to provide the Eucharist . The Scots novelist and journalist Neil Munro noted along ago the propensity of Glasgow people to celebrate a public holiday by ‘drugging themselves with drams’. It is well known that this process would appear to be an essential part of the ‘follower’ celebration of the Incarnation, nowadays, of course, with the addition of chemical substances of various kinds, or indeed of all kinds.
One of the good things about an Orange March is the fact that it can be heard coming for some time before its arrival , sometimes for several miles away if the participants , especially the man with the big drum is religious-minded enough. London Road where the assault took place is narrow at that point and the ‘followers’ are perforce funnelled on to a narrow pavement.
To sum up, was it really the time and place for a Catholic priest to come out and stand on the pavement ? Yes, I know about democratic rights , and the irony in the circumstances, but was it the time and place ?
Even more interestingly, the priest was referred to as a Fenian bastard and a paedophile. He is certainly not the latter. He is highly unlikely to be `a member of a rambunctious 19th century Irish political movement which once tried to invade the United States , and is yet another example of the mystery by which illegitimacy , although doubtless mistakenly applied here, is considered an insult. I am told that in Australia the word ‘bastard’ is, if anything, a term of mild endearment.
In a Catholic newspaper, the Fenian bastard comment was sympathised with, but the ‘paedophile’ comment was ignored. Ah yes.
If the paedophile scenario is ignored , it will just go away . People will forget it, and the secular priesthood can carry on, `shaking the thing away as a dog does fleas.
Unfortunately for some, the loss of two generations of Catholics and the consequent emptying churches , makes it clear that it has not and will not go away . The hungry sheep look up , and are not merely baffled by the lack of the Eucharist but also why It is still more or less exclusively in the hands of a defunct provider. Why?

Sometimes we are stopped in our tracks. Sometimes we just have to stand open-mouthed. Sometimes we wonder if we have wandered into an alternative universe. Such was the effect of the most recent edition of the Glasgow Archdiocese newspaper ‘Flourish’.
The headline in very large letters is a quotation from Archbishop Tartaglia :’ This is what I long for people to read and understand and act upon. To receive Holy Communion is everything…’
Now I don’t know if the Archbishop has read ‘To Feed The Flock’ .I do know he –well, at least had in his hand the statement we made to the Scottish bishops a few years ago- because he was the only one who had the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of it , if they all actually received it; I don’t know if he has kept up with many other websites who think like us and make the same point. I don’t know if he reads the small Catholic magazine ,Open House, in which we have made the same points: apparently only one Scottish bishop knows it.
So much happens in our world on a daily basis that one is spoiled for choice in speculating what future Catholics will make the subject of Ph.Ds. A certainty, however, is ‘What Happened to the Bishops? ‘
What happened to a lot of them was St Pope John Paul II. The hissing sound of the Big Bang which started the Universe was detected by Robert Wilson and his associate not very long ago in the Bell Laboratory in New Jersey, and can still be heard on websites. The effect of the Big Bang which was S PJPII can still presumably be heard in the brains of those who were his appointments as bishop.(This does not apply in full to Archbishop Tartaglia, who was selected by Pope Benedict before he sensibly decided he would rather step down than be associated much longer with SPJPII, in our opinion)
Many possible candidates for bishoprics presumably thought SPJPII was the cat’s pyjamas. Many others made sure SPJPII heard they thought he was the cat’s pyjamas. There were certainly plenty of them. The Curia certainly seems to have thought he was an example of this remarkable image. After 30 years or so, it became difficult to avoid thinking as he might have thought. To follow his thinking could be difficult. At one point, celibacy was all, where the priesthood was concerned. At another, one could permit Anglicans with wives and families to join the priesthood. He could be a confusing old chap to follow. His confusing relationship with another man’s wife –chaste though it was- was a particularly confusing scenario, so confusing that it was considered better to tiptoe around it.
What we were left with – and it was obviously genuinely felt – was that for many reasons it was better to try to do what he might have wished us to do , while ignoring the Gospel, of course. After all he was now a saint, however precipitately , according to at least one great Catholic thinker ,, his canonisation may have taken place.
Anyway, thanks to the paedophile scandals , their cover-up and perhaps a natural evolutionary process based on the much misunderstood idea of the survival of the fittest, the secular or Tridentine priesthood declined, deteriorated and became ultimately defunct, with 50000 parishes left without a priest .
Now, everybody knows this, especially in those parishes where Catholics are born, live and die without the Eucharist. It’s very simple. For a part of the Church’s existence- a mere thousand years or so- the provision of the Eucharist was largely in the hands of the secular priesthood, for the silly purpose of protecting Church bits and pieces of stone. Now that the secular priesthood has no credibility, another way has to be found of providing the Eucharist.
Pope Francis asked very early in his papacy that bishops consult him about extending the /function of providing the Eucharist to others, in particular married laymen in parishes.
The world’s bishops know this, but if any bishops have consulted him about this, it is news to us.
So what are the consequences?
Do Bishops think the Pope doesn’t know what he is talking about, even when he suggests a way in which Christ’s Eucharistic imperative at the last Supper may be implemented., even when the alternative is for it not to be implemented at all ?
Do Bishops not accept that married laymen , although validly ordained , are part of the Apostolic Succession ,and therefore deny the Apostolic Succession ?
Do Bishops not see that a change from the defunct secular priesthood to a different method of providing the Eucharist gives them a unique position in the transformation of the Church in a transformed world, under the guidance of the Paraclete ?
We must remember that individual Bishops have only one vote in a Bishops Conference or whatever it’s called. Elderly Bishops for physical, mental or even a distorted kind of intellectual reason or simply because of the natural human tendency to fear and suspect any kind of change, crippled even by the kind of mental cancer which we call nostalgia, are obviously a problem.
Admittedly we carry our treasure in frail vessels.
But why can’t we all get the Eucharist as Christ asked?