How the other half works machinery of canon law

46Charterhouse
It Chronicle
FROM ROME to the Vatican City is a long way. It is one of the most closed frontiers in the world. So having attended a bit of the last Synod in Rome — from afar — it was interesting to attend the first session of the third General synod of the Church of England in London — which was as open as ancient Athens.
You must not think of any Catholic Synod in comparison with this. This is a legislative body, not claiming infallibility or any sort, but a particle of the authority of Parliament.
At their most august, they pass "measures" that are administratively binding, as, for instance, the madly complicated, but very wise and responsible one that covers what they must do with the churches for which a parish has no further use, i.e. that are "redundant".
It's a bit complicated, but then so are all our national pastimes, except mugging, and being rude about Mr Wedgwood Benn. The Synod consists of the Convocations of Canterbury and York. Each of those has Houses of Bishops and Clergy. All of them come together in this legislative body to which a House of Laity is added. These are elected by their deaneries (St Francis de Sales, patron of journalists, pray that I've got that bit right), They tend to meet in a humble and eclectic complex in Church House,• which is hidden away in the back streets of Westminster.
Westminster Cathedral sits now splendid behind its piazza. That one is ringed by public houses where a sinner might examine his conscience and pluck up courage before going to the perpetual daytime round of confessions in the Cathedral. Church House is in an urban and utter desert.
It is the Vatican of the Established Church, but small by Roman standards. It would scarcely even contain the offices of what used to be the Holy Office. But it has lifts that work, more blond wood than marble, and apparently an almost free entr6 to its debates and offices. Distracted secretaries run from telephone to telephone as if this were a party political headquarters in crisis. There are portraits of recent archbishops.
The Synod meets three times a year for two years before the clergy and laity are re-elected. And they meet for five slogging days at a time.
This year it assembled at the bottom of a wide and circular well with galleries. Here the decorous swirl of Anglicans is enclosed in those expensively carpentered and exquisitely uncomfortable boxes and benches that our law courts find necessary. It is bishops to the centre, a special compartment for the Presidents, Canterbury and York, microphones all round and not quite enough room for all the 550 delegates. But then, except when the Queen opened it last Wednesday with an air of homely gaity, the members come and go — probably looking for those watering holes which charterhouse has never found.
The Reformation bears its own proper penalties though I did see Four bottles of claret going upstairs in a lift to a private room. With sandwiches. And they went with my parched blessings. Except in Brighton, Our Separated Brethren are less hospitable than we. There is here only an earthly . authority. No Papal thunders are permitted from the box reserved for Canterbury and York. But their measures are as true and as strong as Acts of Parliament.
Sometimes, indeed often, Anglicans look upon the Catholics with envy for their authority. Charterhouse sometimes looks upon them with jealousy for this passionate individuality, Under God, it was civilised and tolerant.
It made the sweet music of ecumenism even if we were not the prime objects at that time of their love and longing. They seek a sort of sacramental understanding with the Methodists, the Churches of Christ, the Moravian and the United Reform Church.
If this were achieved. which is unlikely, then reunion between Us and Them will be moved still further from my failing eyes. 0, well! But the goodness and greatness and decorum and the pursuit of the pursuing God must he saluted even if where it be done in other halls and santuaries than ours. To tell the truth, unless you looked carefully for the purple dickies and the dog collars. it looked like the meeting of an unusually literate County Council. And it sounded like one — except they kept talking about God.
More tea Father?
I HAVE always been on the side of priests' housekeepers. They get the most raw deal in the Church. They live in a heavily male
ambience which it is impossible ever completely to dust or polish. The place reeks of pipe tobacco. The telephone rings incessantly. with queries about the times of Mass.
Then if there he curates there are not only likely to be relays of cooked breakfasts, hut there'll he trouble — if only because you can't serve two masters. And L iirates do not know their places ,is they used to.
There is all the washing for the household and I bet she gets landed with mending the altar linen. She is excluded from the priestly jollities of the presbytery and eats a lone. She will have to perform miracles of tact to get on with the embattled ladies of the parish.
She will have to face beggars and, if she is good at her job, she will have to be a sort of private ladies' advice bureau over cups of instant coffee at the formica in the kitchen. And for all this, she will be grossly underpaid and probably have no pension rights.
Really fortunate clerics have nuns somewhere in the back yard who produce exquisite, if rather, large meals. But this is not a Good Presbytery Guide.
Myself, I believe they are dying out in the South. Priests have taken to dressing like 1935 unpublished poets — well stretched polo neck sweaters, corduroys, hacking jackets with leather patches, even suede shoes —they have also taken to fending for themselves in usually rather well appointed kitchens from which emerges a stream of convenience foods which are extremely bad for them.
Still their unbalanced diets seem to lead to shorter sermons as well as a slightly rebellious attitude to the magisterial?, of the Church. Many have sunk to employing "dailies" twice a week. However. I have reason to believe that priests' housekeepers flourish in the North where the priest is still a power in the land. Indeed he keeps a certain state under the picture of the Pope and the statue from Lourdes and among the litter of unread magazines and the paraphernalia of smoking.
Up she comes to answer the front door. "I'll see if Father is in," when you can hear the sports commentary full blast on the television. Or, "He's after hearing confessions, but he said to help yourself." Or, "You'll not keep him up too late will you? He's got the bishop tomorrow." Or, "Oh! It's •you! Well. come in." Or, "Who did you say you were and what did you want?" Or, "He's out and you never know when that one will he back."
Someone sent me a cutting about a priest's housekeeper. She was appealing to an industrial tribunal after being sacked by her elderly priest. (You used to be automatically excommunicated if you sued the clergy.)
It appeared she listened in to telephone calls and wrote poison pen letters. She threw a cup of tea at the priest during a row. She locked the house so that he had to climb in through a window. She refused to cook a meal for the bishop and nine other priests. She locked herself in her room for nine days, broke five windows with a golf club. She refused to cook or wash. She lasted eight months before being declared redundant. The tribunal rejected her claim that she had been unfairly dismissed.
As I said, I am all on the side of priests' housekeepers for much the same reason that my instincts lie with Martha rather than Mary. But I think this lady was going too far on the whole.
Death and the Cardinal
CARDINAL VAUGHAN (18321 903) was the man who succeeded Manning at Westminster — there was a lobster salad side to the Cardinal. He is chiefly remembered for founding the Mill Hill Mission Fathers and starting Westminster Cathedral. His requiem was one of the first services held in it. He was also a friendly soul and a prodigious letter writer. Here is an exerpt from one he wrote to his life long friend. Lady Herbert of Lea—
March 22nd, 1903 I received the Last Sacraments on