A topic which may be related - the current CATHOLIC HERALD has a piece by John Selwyn Gummer expressing outrage that the Benedictine monks who were vacating their former monastery at Ramsgate in KEnt (founded by the architect Pugin) put up numerous Communion vessels for public auction rather than keeping them for the community's new home or disposing of them privately to Catholic parishes/institutions. HEre is a blog by William Oddie on the outrage:
www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2012/02/13/the-monks-of-ramsgate-have-shockingly-put-on-the-secular-market-sacred-vessels-given-by-generations-of-the-faithful/ This comment on the post above says a good deal about the mindset behind this - and, I think, behind wreckovation also:
Edmund Burke
This move by the Benedictines of Ramsgate appears typical of religious orders and dioceses in recent decades, when many have forgotten that morally they hold so much of what they have inherited in trust, rather than as unfettered property. This irresponsibility extends to churches which have been abandoned as quickly as possible, even where alternative courses might have been pursued, as well as educational foundations. The closure of Ushaw College, historic jewel of northern Catholicism is a manifestation of this, as was the recent abandonment by the Capuchins of the hard-won licence of Greyfriars Hall in the University of Oxford, which had been founded by Franciscans in the thirteenth century. Religious orders, like regiments, are modelled on the family, the basic unit of society which links generations profoundly in a web of inheritance and obligations, a universal instinct and process Edmund Burke so vividly described centuries ago. Orders and regiments are links in a chain linking those who are dead, those who are living and those who will follow. The fact that so many members of religious orders behave as atomised individuals with duties neither to the past nor to posterity, but an absolute "entitlement to sell", demonstrates how far these have lost the most basic natural feeling, let alone their historic duty to the Church. Although such religious bodies often plead that selling off their inheritance is necessary due to rising running costs, in practice they are behaving like the worst of materialistic individualists in the secular world, and are thus providing a very bad example indeed to society at large. Anyone bequeathing money to such bodies should think twice about how they safeguard their bequests against being sold off in the marketplace. Find good solicitors to draw up conditions which prevent such betrayals of trust.
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This is the dark side of criticism of excessive focus on "institutions". Institutions are supposed to mediate between the living and the dead; in the most obvious sense through the prayers of the living for the dead who came before, but also in that the continuity of the institution is meant to provide meaning for the sacrifices of the past and strengthen the labours of the present. The post-Vatican II cult of newness has the effect of retrospectively making the past appear meaningless and weakening the self-understanding of its present day successors. (There is of course a mirror-error of thinking nothing can ever be changed even when it no longer fulfils its original purpose or when better ways of doing it have become possible - I fear many of the abusive CAtholic industrial schools etc were kept alive precisely by the espirit de corps of the religious orders which ran them).
marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2012/02/hale-chalice-and-pugin-bequest-saved.htmlEXTRACT
The Carologianian Chalice which had been in use at Masses for the now extinct Hale family from Canterbury along with various items that were definitely left Pugin to St Augustines Church have had at least a temporary reprieve from the hands of the auctioneer. A great deal of embarassment has been caused to the auctioneers but still, lesser objects are up for sale like the ciborium inscribed on the underside:
"Pray for the Soul of Patrick John Brady R.A.F. Killed in Action 9th August 1941",
or the chalice illustrated below simply asking for prayer for "H.L." with the date.
There are numerous other ex voto objects with similiar inscription, collectively they probably wont raise more than a few thousand pounds but they were given for a particular purpose, to be at service of the altar. They are not significant, not important, simply the gifts of the ordinary people.
Possibly amonst the other objects are bits and pieces of Pugin's gift to the Abbey Church, St Augustine's which itself was a ex voto offering, there is no proof, just the probability that other Hardman made and Pugin designed aricles were intended as gifts to the Church, now they are going under the hammer.
The Abbot of Chilworth has consented to withdraw some of the "significant" items but it strikes me that all the items are significant, yes even chalices given to the monastery for now no longer remembered monks. Families who have given ex voto a son, would give the monastery ex voto a chalice for his use.Now the sacred object, the holy and venerable chalice he had held in hands is to be sold. The monastery through necessity has had to move from Ramsgate to Chilworth, they left the bodies of their dead behind, now another link has been cast off.
The Fifth Commandment says, "Honour your mother and father, and you will live long in the land". It is not just about parents it is about rootedness and belonging. We have a future, if we have a past. That which was counted holy by previous generation cannot suddenly be discarded - or sent to the auctioneers.
Monks of old knew the importance of remembering and it was for this reason they were entrusted with memories; the bodies of the dead, the writining of the Chronicles and the preservation of book and treaties, wills and laws; in many places even the instruments of Royalty and king-making. The reason was that they were trusted, trusted to value the past so that their might be a future.
It is quite significant that in Rome at the moment a conference about child abuse is going on,. Over that issue what we have lost is "trust", the result of the scandal is that Bishops and Priests and the heads of religious orders have shown themselves to betray trust.
Over this auction we have lost trust. For people called to proclaim the Gospel "trust" is essential, if we are to be credible witnesses to Christ. If things given to us on trust are treated as trivial and discarded easily, then we break trust and show ourselves untrustworthy.
If we are not trustworthy then we have nothing of value to say.
The great crisis of the Church today is simply that we have lost our credibility as witnesses. If we cannot be trusted in small things we cannot be trusted in great.
Let us pray for those who have given us things on trust.
Posted by Fr Ray Blake
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marymagdalen.blogspot.com/2012/02/dominic-winter-auctioneers-on-fence.html