promised, this week's guest diarist to our columns is none other than the irrepressible Boofy Arran. I feel I need hardly repeat last week's caveat against presuming that such contributions from the country's leading journalistic diarists are fabrications or our own.
Indeed, only the other day Lord Arran was telling me how he had dreamed all his life of the opportunity of writing in the Catholic Herald. Here 'then, fulfilling a lifelong ambition, are some spirited lines from his peerful pen: "How kind of you, dear boy, to ask the outrageous Earl of Arran to scribble a word or two for your esteemed journal. I might have been shy about accepting had I not seen something from Auheron Waugh in your last issue.
"iread what he had to say with great interest. Rather odd. I thought, but then Bron's an odd bird. Decent enough chap, mind you, don't get roe wrong. Member of my club, in fact. But I hope he hasn't inherited his lather's obsessive preoccupation about whether people thought he came out of the top drawer or not. As if anyone cared. (I hope I'm not being too outrageous.) But I never could stand middle-class snobs.
"And just in case anyone should question my qualifications for writing in a Roman Catholic journal, I can confidently assert that some of my best friends are Irish. Of course, I realise that not all Roman Catholics are Irish, though I don't think I've actually met any who aren't.
"Oh, yes. So sorry. I did once know a Roman Catholic who was completely English. A splendid man with vast estates in the north somewhere. I used to shoot grouse there. We called him 'Recusant Reggie.' I expect he's dead now (Everyone seems to he dead.) "But I'm glad to have this opportunity Of paying him a public tribute. His priest's hole (which he used as a wine cellar) contained some unforgettable Warre '04, Or was it Taylor's '112 Do wish I could remember ..."
Next week: Jean Rook interviews Archbishop Dwyer.
I was hardly surprised that Mr Michael Davies should, in his letter to the editor, try to defend himself against the exposure of a fallacy in his recent irticle in Fr Paul Crane's "Christian Order"; hut I was a hit surprised that Fr Crane should have accused me of saying something I didn't say at all. He really should be a bit more careful about rushing to his iypewriter before properly reading what he is about to attee*.
As for Mr Davies, his defence is that Justin Martyr was little more than a public relations man fobbing off the pagan critics of the Church with a lot of misleading information about what was going on inside it. (Not the view taken by more learned traditionalists.) 1 note, moreover, that in his remarks introducing the article in the relevant issue of "Christian Order," Fr Crane invites anyone who can refute its arguments to get in touch with him. Fr Crane need surely look no further than Mr Davies himself, whose inconsistencies would seem to provide a readymade refutation. Mr Davies, in fact, is hoist on his own petard — if not crushed by his own Fr Crane.
I really can't help noticing in conclusion, that Fr Crane, in View of his vituperative final paragraph, obviously believes that, when your case is weak. argument is no substitute for innuendo!
1 went down to Tooting Bec in South London, to take part in last month's Day of Renewal organised by the National Service Committee for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.
Mass was preceded by a moving spiritual conference given by Fr Michael !vans, Si, on how to react to those moments when God seems to withdraw Iliniself for a time from our lives.
It was at such moments that the greatest of uncanonised saints Thomas a Kempis could feel closest to God by loving Him for Himself alone, and not for the consolations He brought.
Mass, as is usual on such occasions, allowed for some extempore prayer, in the . form of Spontaneous bidding prayers, and for the Holy Spirit to come to each of those present in whatever degree they were receptive and as it pleased Him so to come.
The question may well remain for some: What exactly is this Pentecostalism which is • growing so quickly within the realms of orthodoxy and tradition?
Part of the answer will be found in two particularly interesting articles appearing in the Catholic Herald, written by Fr Michael Simpson, Si.
It was officially , announced last week that my old and good friend, Joan Lawrence, would be succeeded at the end of the year in her dual jobs as Publications Officer of the Council of Christians and Jews and Secretary of the Religious Weekly Press Group.
would be tempted to say she was irreplaceable were it not for the star-studded credentials of her successor, Mr Leonard Goss, His title, as far as the CCJ goes, will be Or,ganising Secretary, and he will start his new work early in 1975 alongside the newly. appointed General Secretary, the Rev Peter Jennings.
"Len" Goss is already well known in a variety of spheres, being at present Information Officer of the University College of Swansea. As honorary educatiOn of Swansea Hebrew Congregation, he has been a frequent lecturer on Jewish, international and other subjects at church and chapel groups in South Wales, occupations he has successfully combined with travelling to dozens of foreign countries.
GEN