50 Years Ago: The Beatles Write ‘She Loves You’

 

It went on to become the Beatles‘ biggest-selling U.K. single and arguably their defining song, but in the summer of 1963, ‘She Loves You’ was just the latest bid for worldwide success from a band whose music had yet to take over the world.

The song started coming together on June 26, 1963, a day in which, as Paul McCartney later recalled, “We were in a van up in Newcastle somewhere, and we’d just gone over to our hotel. I originally got an idea of doing one of those answering songs, where a couple of us sing about ‘she loves you’ and the other one sort of says the ‘yes, yes’ bit. You know, ‘yeah, yeah’ answering whoever who is saying it. But we decided that was a crummy idea anyway. But we had the idea of writing a song called ‘She Loves You’ then. And we just sat up in the hotel bedroom for a few hours and wrote it.”
Continued McCartney, “I suppose the most interesting thing about it was that it was a message song, it was someone bringing a message. It wasn’t us any more, it was moving off the ‘I love you, girl’ or ‘Love me do,’ it was a third person, which was a shift away. ‘I saw her, and she said to me, to tell you, that she loves you’ so there’s a little distance we managed to put in it which was quite interesting.”

After finishing it the next day at McCartney’s house (where his father reportedly wondered why they couldn’t sing “She loves you, yes, yes, yes” instead of “yeah, yeah, yeah”), the band headed into the studio on July 1, where they recorded ‘She Loves You’ (as well as its eventual B-side, ‘I’ll Get You’) during a five-hour session. Looking back, engineer Norman Smith admitted to not thinking much of the song at first — or at least the lyrics, anyway.
“I was setting up the microphone when I saw the lyrics on the music stand,” Smith recalled. “I thought I’ll just have a quick look. ‘She loves you yeah yeah yeah, she loves you yeah yeah yeah, she loves you yeah yeah yeah yeah.’ I thought ‘Oh my God, what a lyric! This is going to be one that I do not like.’ But when they started to sing it — bang, wow, terrific. I was up at the mixer jobbing around.”

Smith would eventually have plenty of company in that regard, but as it happened, ‘She Loves You’ didn’t take off right away in America; in fact, the band’s manager, Brian Epstein, had to do a fair amount of legwork just to secure a U.S. distribution deal for the single, even though it was already a hit in England. Turned down by Capitol, the American arm of their U.K. label, EMI, Epstein turned to a small Philadelphia-based outfit named Swan Records.

Swan initially had no luck with ‘She Loves You,’ but the song took on a new life after Capitol turned a subsequent single, ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand,’ into a Number One hit; reissued by Swan, it followed ‘Hand’ to the top of the charts, where it stayed until ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ took over two weeks later. Beatlemania was in full swing, and the rest was history

Keep up battle against same-sex marriage, urges Catholic leader

By Jonathan Luxmoore on Monday, 10 June 2013

 

Protesters against same-sex marriage in Paris last month (AP)

 

 

A French Catholic campaigner has urged Church leaders not to give up opposition to same-sex marriage, despite the spread of laws allowing the practice across Europe.
Antoine Renard, president of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe, said: “The message from France is the campaign isn’t over – these laws rely on a big lie, and no lie can survive.
“Our own government has succeeded in its goal of dividing opinion in the Catholic Church, so the Church’s authorities need to be prudent. But there’s a lot of teaching to be done, and I hope our pastors will provide it,” he told the American Catholic News Service.
France’s same-sex marriage law, which allows gay and lesbian couples to marry and adopt children, was signed by French president François Hollande on May 18.
Mr Renard said Catholic groups would step up their campaign against the law before municipal and European Parliament elections in early 2014 and would try to block the government’s “gender-based reforms” in education and family life.
“Although this law has been adopted, we can still fight against its application and pressure political parties to show stronger commitment,” he said. “Although it will be difficult to repeal or revise it, we’re determined to try and will be encouraging campaigners in other countries to do the same.”
The Catholic La Croix daily has reported that France is seeing a “multiplication of initiatives” against the law, with new groups springing up nationwide.
The paper said one organisation, Founding Tomorrow, had been set up by young professionals from various parties to combat “the failure of Christians to engage long-term in politics”, while another, Actors for the Future, had been formed by a priest from the Church’s Versailles diocese.
Mr Renard said opponents of same-sex marriage would seek to invalidate the law by having marriage inscribed in France’s constitution as “the union of a man and woman”.
He added that lawyers also were checking whether the law violated France’s international commitments, including the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which enshrines a child’s rights “to know and be cared for by his or her parents”.
He said France’s constitutional council ruled that marriage can be modified by law, “so we can use this in our own fight”.
Same-sex marriage is also allowed in Belgium, Denmark, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden, and legislation is under consideration in Britain.
Same-sex adoption is expected to become legal in traditionally Catholic Austria on July 1, to comply with a February ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, while the highest constitutional court in Germany, where same-sex adoption is allowed, strengthened the fiscal rights of gay people on June 6.
The French law has been firmly opposed by the Catholic bishops’ conference, whose outgoing president, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois of Paris, told a plenary meeting at Lourdes in April that France was witnessing “an organized and militant invasion by gender theory”.
On June 4, the French bishops’ family and society council said “radicalisation” caused by the law had been felt “even within Catholic communities and those responsible for family pastoral work”.
“Some believe this reform doesn’t modify marriage at all, since it recognizes love between two beings, whereas others think it deprives marriage of its substance by making light of sexual difference,” the Church report said.
“Some deny the Church any right to intervene in questions facing society, whereas others want it to be the focus for a political struggle. Some invoke the merciful love of God to plead for the law, while others invoke God’s creative love to oppose it.”
Mr Renard said his federation and other groups would “concentrate on raising awareness, and then on a program of renewal to change how political parties behave”.
“People around Europe have seen how unexpectedly strong the opposition to same-sex marriage has been in France. We’ll now try to capitalize on this and export our resistance to the rest of Europe,” he said.

Waxing lyrical: David Lynch on his new passion - and why he may never make another movie

 Waxing lyrical: David Lynch on his new passion - and why he may never make another movie

For several years in the late 2000s, David Lynch used to post an almost-daily weather report on his website from his hometown, Los Angeles. I guess he finds something brilliantly surreal about the meteorological stasis of Southern California, and on the day I drive to meet him at his studio, the weather is the same as it is virtually every other day in the Hollywood Hills. Blue skies, golden sunshine, a gentle breeze.

The studio, which he has occupied for almost 20 years, is in the house where Bill Pullman lived with Patricia Arquette in Lynch's brilliantly surreal 1997 noir, Lost Highway: a cluster of geometric patterns in poured concrete, spread across a slope in a quiet neighbourhood just below Mulholland Drive. Los Angeles may be the capital of the mainstream, but it's also the home of the weird, which makes it an ideal habitat for the director and his unique brand of bizarre Americana.
"I always say people should find a place where they feel good, and I feel good here," he says. "I like LA because of the light. The light makes me feel so good. It's really beautiful. And there's something about LA being so spread out that gives you a feeling of freedom. Light and freedom."
That LA sunlight streams uninterrupted through the large windows into Lynch's workspace, which is not so much an office as an artist's studio. Large canvasses recline against the walls; an apparently unfinished abstract drawing lies flat on a table; the desk is cluttered with art tools and creative detritus, leaving just enough empty space to accommodate his modest Apple laptop.
Now 67, Lynch still wears his signature white shirt buttoned to the neck, a pair of paint-spotted old khakis and a dark sports jacket with at least one elbow worn through. He still styles his grey quiff like a rockabilly. He smokes from a pack of Natural American Spirit cigarettes ("100% Additive-Free Natural Tobacco"), deftly flicking the spent butts on to the concrete floor around the desk. He drinks from a vast cup of coffee, a beverage he loves so much that he recently put his name to three "David Lynch Signature Cup" organic coffee blends.
"I must have a very high tolerance for caffeine," he says. "I always associated smoking and drinking coffee with the art life. They go hand in hand. There's something about drinking coffee and smoking that makes me happy and facilitates thinking. I just really love those things."
Lynch may be best known for his movies, but the last time he made a feature – the epically odd Inland Empire – was in 2006. So we're here to talk not about his filmmaking, nor his art, nor his signature coffee blends, but instead about his burgeoning music career. In the bowels of the house beneath us is the well-appointed recording studio where he recently recorded his second solo album, The Big Dream. And tinkering at the mixing desk is his collaborator and engineer "Big" Dean Hurley – who is, in fact, relatively small.
Lynch released his debut LP, Crazy Clown Time, in 2011. As you might expect from the director of Blue Velvet, the album's blues- infused electronica was angst-inducing and atmospheric. The Big Dream is more of the same: dark, layered soundscapes, marked by the lyrical and musical motifs of early rock'n'roll. Lynch plays guitar and sings, and, once again, accentuates the dreamlike atmosphere by distorting and processing his vocals to unsettling effect. In the absence of any new movies, the records make an intriguing addition to his oeuvre.
The director was born in Montana in 1946, and, during the first 10 years of his life, he recalls, "I would hear a lot of music on the radio, classical and popular, but I wasn't choosing the stations. Then Elvis Presley came along and, for me and about 10 trillion other people, he changed the face of music. It was just so fantastic, so powerful, so beautiful."
Over the years, Lynch's sound design has become almost as celebrated as his imagery – indeed, he once said that although "people call me a director, I really think of myself as a sound man" – and his films contain several renowned music cues, such as the tiny woman in the radiator serenading Jack Nance in Eraserhead (1977); or Dean Stockwell (aka Al from Quantum Leap) miming Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" as Dennis Hopper gurns violently in Blue Velvet (1986). He's also enjoyed an enduring working relationship with film composer Angelo Badalamenti, who wrote the unmistakable synth theme for his influential early 1990s television drama, Twin Peaks.
Lynch didn't cut a record himself until 1997, when he was put in contact with the Scottish vocalist and fiddle-player Jocelyn Montgomery, and produced her LP Lux Vivens: The Music of Hildegard von Bingen (a 12th century German Benedictine nun). It was after that project, unlikely as it sounds, that Lynch found his current, electro-blues groove. "I started to make sound effects with the guitar. That's what got it going, right there. I've always loved the electric guitar: to hold it and work it and hear what it does is unreal. All of the songs on both of my albums started with a jam, pretty much. Dean and I jam. If we're lucky we catch something in a certain sound or beat. And that's our point of departure."
There is, however, one non-original song on The Big Dream, a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Ballad of Hollis Brown". It has a simple plot – in contrast with Lynch's own cryptic narratives elsewhere – but a characteristically unsettling one: a man kills his family and himself out of despair at their grinding poverty. "That was Dean's idea," says Lynch. "We covered a cover: Nina Simone's version of the Dylan song. It's a great song, but also what Hollis Brown is going through is, unfortunately, really timely right now."
He goes on: "I love Bob Dylan. Who doesn't? He tapped into some kind of vein and it keeps on keeping on. There's nobody like him. He's unique, and just… way out cool."
He could almost be talking about himself. Like Dylan, Lynch has acolytes of all ages, and certain music critics have even identified a "Lynchian" strain in recent pop, exemplified most prominently by Lana Del Rey, of whom he professes to be a fan. Another case in point is band du jour Bastille: they recently released a single named "Laura Palmer", after the teen victim at the heart of Twin Peaks, while the cover of their k debut album featured Lynch-like headlamps playing across a road at night.
The esteem in which Lynch is held in the pop world is also evident in the hip vocal collaborators he has attracted, from Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Swedish singer Lykke Li, who appears on The Big Dream's spine-chilling bonus track, "I'm Waiting Here".
As for his audience, not so long ago Lynch made a spoof iPhone ad that went viral, in which he railed against the phenomenon of people watching films on their phones. Many people will likely hear his music the same way. Is he comfortable with that possibility?
"Headphones mean that the sound is right in your head, and that's OK – although it does seem that if someone's really into the music they shouldn't be driving or even walking, because they could get killed. But I can't listen to music and do other things. I hate it. Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music."
"It's the same with cinema: if you have a chance to enter another world, then you need a big picture in a dark room with great sound. It's a spiritual, magic experience. If you have the same movie on a little computer screen with bad sound – and this is the way people are seeing films now – it's such a shame. It's a shameful, shameful thing. It's so pathetic."
Lynch hasn't directed a movie in almost a decade, and though there are occasional rumours of a script in the works, he seems doubtful that he'll ever make a feature film again. In 2011, he told another interviewer, "I don't know what's happening to cinema. It hasn't settled into what it's going to be next." Now, he says, it is settling – and he doesn't like what he sees.
"It's a very depressing picture. With alternative cinema – any sort of cinema that isn't mainstream – you're fresh out of luck in terms of getting theatre space and having people come to see it. Even if I had a big idea, the world is different now. Unfortunately, my ideas are not what you'd call commercial, and money really drives the boat these days. So I don't know what my future is. I don't have a clue what I'm going to be able to do in the world of cinema."
To many, Lynch's masterpiece was Twin Peaks, and he has attempted to return to the small(ish) screen since: his much-admired 2001 movie Mulholland Drive was initially planned as a television pilot. Last year, he and his fourth wife, actress Emily Stofle, had a baby daughter, who currently keeps him from watching much television, but he admits to enjoying Mad Men and Breaking Bad. He doesn't count out the prospect of making another show himself, and the economic models of AMC, HBO or Netflix might prove more amenable to his vision than the movie studios. "I like the idea of a continuing story," he says. "And television is way more interesting than cinema now. It seems like the art-house has gone to cable."
While his followers await further screen work, Lynch is happy to continue focusing on "small projects": evangelising about transcendental meditation via his David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness- Based Education and World Peace; appearing in a very funny recurring cameo role in the FX sitcom Louie; waiting for a new, 18-tonne press to be delivered to his favourite printing workshop in Paris, so that he can get to work on some vast lithographs. He also has an exhibition of paintings and drawings coming up in LA this autumn. Lynch started his career as a fine artist, and for now he seems content to end it the same way.
There will most likely be a third album, too. "Dean will say to me, 'David, you know this is the ninth song we've done since the last album?' I'll say, 'You're kidding me. So if we do three more, we'll have another album?' It's so much fun to experiment and find something that feels good. It's like painting: you get on one thing and that's what keeps coming out. But pretty soon it becomes boring to you, and it leads to something else. There's a transition, when you're sick of what you're doing and yearning for the next thing. And the only way to get there is to just keep trying and not be afraid to destroy something. And eventually an idea for the next thing will come out of it."

'The Big Dream' is released on 15 July on Sunday Best records

Francis says he didn’t want to become Pope – and I truly believe him

You have to go back centuries to find the last ambitious schemer to be elected pope

By Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith on Friday, 7 June 2013

Pope Francis told children he had no ambition to lead the Church (AP)

The Pope has revealed, if that is the right phrase, in a meeting with schoolchildren, that he did not want the job. It is, of course, the case that when a cardinal gets the necessary two thirds plus one votes, he is approached by the cardinal chamberlain, who asks him: “Acceptasne electionem?” This is in Latin, a language that all cardinals know, so there can be no mistake. Being willing to accept election, Cardinal Bergoglio would have answered “Accepto”, and in that moment, he became Pope.
There have been cases where a cardinal has declined election, or so it is thought. One such may have been Cardinal Pole; though, as conclaves are secret matters, no one can be sure.
But, while Pope Francis did not refuse election, and indeed gave a positive acceptance, in another sense what he says is true. He did not want the job. Unlike, let us say, Pope Alexander VI, he did not spend his every waking moment as a cardinal desperately hoping to be elected Pope and working towards that end. Pope Francis strikes me as someone who is quite free from the taint of ambition. It is my guess (and it cannot be more than a guess) that this may have been one of the reasons he was elected. The other cardinals saw his lack of ambition as a good quality in a Pope; and they saw perhaps, among their more ambitious brethren, shall we say, the sort of thing that should not be elevated to the throne of Peter.
While on this subject, the same must have been true of Cardinal Ratzinger some eight years ago. He, like Cardinal Bergoglio, had reached an age where most of life’s ambitions had been satisfied. As with Cardinal Bergoglio, I am sure all his ambitions were good ones.
Ambition, or the desire to get to the top, or just to ascend to a position of greater power, is a serious sin. It is the one thing that Our Lord condemns again and again in the gospels. Indeed, Christians are supposed to vie for the lowest place, and in being crucified, Jesus showed us just what the lowest place looked like. This was his true glory. The glory that the ambitious seek is the tawdry glory of self-love and self-aggrandisement, not the love of others, which is our true glory.
If ambition is a serious sin, it is particularly foul in the clergy and the upper clergy in particular. All the truly great prelates of the Church have been humble men. It is particularly interesting to see what the Pope says about clerical ambition.
We read: “‘Someone who wants to be pope does not really like themselves,’ the pontiff said laughing.” But there is a serious point here. The cleric who falls into the sin of ambition really wants to be what he is not; he wants to be a power in the land rather than a servant to all; therefore he does not really love or even like his vocation as a priest. He cannot be very happy. Indeed, there are few sadder or more ridiculous sights than an ambitious cleric.
Thank the Lord for Pope Francis! Indeed, thanks the Lord for all the good popes we have had. One has to go back many centuries to find the last ambitious schemer to be elected pope – almost as far back as the infamous Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI. But let us not be too tough on him: he really didn’t like himself; and as it turned out he was not a bad Pope in many respects.

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

 "I promise you in the excessive mercy of my Heart that my all-powerful love will grant to all those who receive Holy Communion on the First Fridays in nine consecutive months the grace of final perseverance; they shall not die in my disgrace, nor without receiving their sacraments. My divine Heart shall be their safe refuge in this last moment" (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675).  Sixteenth century Calvinism and seventeenth century Jansenism preached a distorted Christianity that substituted for God's love and sacrifice of His Son for all men the fearful idea that a whole section of humanity was inexorably damned.The Church always countered this view with the infinite love of our Savior who died on the cross for all men. The institution of the feast of the Sacred Heart was soon to contribute to the creation among the faithful of a powerful current of devotion which since then has grown steadily stronger. The first Office and Mass of the Sacred Heart were composed by St. John Eudes, but the institution of the feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675. The celebration of the feast was extended to the general calendar of the Church by Pius IX in 1856.

I converted to Catholicism after being surprised by what Catholics were actually like

I expected to find a self-absorbed clique. Instead I found humility, openness, and a striving to do better

By Anja Habekost Oliveira on Monday, 3 June 2013

 

A family pictured with Archbishop Nichols after a Rite of Election (Photo: Mazur)

Three years ago when I announced to my family that I had followed my Latin American husband’s lead and converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, my intellectual-atheist brother immediately proclaimed that I had joined “the Evil Empire”. The jokes and ridicule have never stopped coming. Just yesterday he sent me the Epicurean paradox and asked how my priest and I intend to explain it. (“When there is evil in the world, how can God be good?” – To put it simply).
My family and friends’ reactions to my conversion have ranged from disgust to pity, to a mysterious type of curiosity: “So, do you hate gay people now?” “Are you going to have lots of children then?” And of course: “Has your priest ever abused anyone?” Really?
As it happened, I didn’t have a big moment where I was “called” to the Church, there was no white dove fluttering down on my shoulders, whispering the word of the Lord in my ear. I was as much a Protestant hater as the next person. And my decision to go into the RCIA course (after which you decide to either walk away or receive Holy Communion and join) was initially a fact-finding mission because I knew that my husband wanted our children to go to a Catholic school.
I expected to find a cliquey, self-absorbed group of elderly nuns and priests handing out rules I was supposed to live by. I expected to be met with blind denial of the child abuse scandal that was raging at the time, and I definitely expected no discussion of the Catholic “absolutes” regarding homosexuality, contraception and celibacy for men in the cloth.
But what I found was humility and an honest willingness to debate how the Church and its doctrines fit into the modern world. At one of the first meetings the priest in session asked: “No contraception? Is it really doable? Do people really live by it?” Rather than preaching blind acceptance, we were invited to examine the historical and philosophical reasoning behind the traditions, and it all made so much more sense.
What struck me most was that nobody purported to hold the truth about anything. Catholics have been accused of a sense of dogmatic holiness that puts everyone who is not in the fold to shame. What I found was a group of people who know that they constantly fail at reaching the high standards they set for themselves, but who try their best.
Yes, this clashes blatantly with recent developments in the Church. The speculations surrounding the Pope’s resignation coupled with Cardinal O’Brien’s admission of sexual misconduct all add to the longstanding indignation against the Church.
But the Catholic Church is much more than this, and it is in my opinion widely and deliberately misunderstood. We all need an enemy, and the Church lends itself so easily to that role.
But I think it’s a testament to the humility of the Catholic community that it hasn’t mobilised in a violent defence of itself. Instead it has bowed its head in recognition of its sins and is constantly reflecting on how it can do better.
TS Eliot once wrote: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.” If any religion can make us do that, I think we are doing OK.

The Triumph motorcycle that Bob Dylan crashed

These photos from 1964-’65 show Bob Dylan on his 1964 Triumph Tiger. Dylan infamously crashed this bike and stopped touring for eight years. “When I had that motorcycle accident…I woke up and caught my senses,” he said. “I realized that I was just workin’ for all these leeches. And I didn’t want to do that. Plus I had a family and I just wanted to see my kids.”
The Vintagent has the full story:

 

HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED...ON A TRIUMPH

These photos of Bob Dylan date from 1964/5, when he rode a Triumph on the leafy roads surrounding his home in Woodstock, New York. This charming young folk singer, a man of unpredictable habits, was a charismatic figure on his red-and-silver '64 Tiger 100. He was often accompanied by a lovely young lady named Joan Baez, who was his early defender, lover, and co-performer, notably at the August 28, 1963 March on Washington, in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his 'I have a Dream' speech. Dylan's music, implicitly political during this period, became anthemic to a generation seeking change.

 The Triumph must have given him a needed break from his resounding fame at the age of 23; we all know the curative effects of a ride through the woods on a scintillating and well-balanced motorcycle. He had recently released his third album, The Times They Are A'Changin', which had gone double Platinum. His second album, Freewheelin Bob Dylan, had gone Platinum, and included the single 'Blowin in the Wind'. His first album, 1962's Bob Dylan, sold a mere 5000 copies. By 1964, many other artists were covering his songs and scoring hits with them as well. During the two years he owned his Tiger, Dylan had recorded four more albums; Another Side of Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde, all of which went gold, platinum, or double-platinum. Added to the recording dates were incessant US and European tours, appearances, and photo opportunities; a punishing schedule. 

On July 29, 1966, it was announced that he had suffered injuries after 'locking up the brakes' on his Tiger 100, not far from his manager Alan Grossman's house in Woodstock. Though no hospital data records an entry from Bob Dylan, he claimed to have suffered facial lacerations and 'several broken vertebrae in his neck'. Quite an injury, yet no ambulance was summoned.

Dylan had this to say about his crash: "When I had that motorcycle accident ... I woke up and caught my senses, I realized that I was just workin' for all these leeches. And I didn't want to do that. Plus, I had a family and I just wanted to see my kids." (Cott, Dylan on Dylan, 2006) In the months after his 'accident', Bob Dylan withdrew from what had been a frenetic touring, recording, and appearance schedule, and didn't play much in public for 8 long years. His music became more personal, less political, as he explored blues and country music in later years, much to the chagrin of his fans. Nowadays he rejects political interpretations of his lyrics, but his presence at events like the March on Washington tell a different story.

He certainly cut a stylish figure on his Triumph, although it's a shame the motorcycle took the rap for a man who clearly needed a break. Above is the cover of his 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited; peeking out from his psychedelic blue satin shirt is a Triumph tee, which surely boosted sales amongst the young and hip. An early example of 'product placement'!

Pope Francis is under attack for saying that outside the Church there is no salvation: it’s a “poke in the eye” says one Presbyterian. Here is why he’s wrong

It’s hardly a personal opinion: these people seem to think that Popes just spend their time spouting their own prejudices

By William Oddie on Monday, 3 June 2013

During a homily in May Pope Francis said: "The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone." Photo: PA

Here we go again: a new Pope says something that all his predecessors have said because it is what the Church has always taught, and some Protestant accuses him of personally adopting (I quote a Prebyterian minister writing in the National Catholic Reporter (aka fishwrap) a “dicey position”, as though he had a choice in the matter. According to the Reverend Bill Tammeus, when Pope Francis recently quoted Pope Paul saying “It’s an absurd dichotomy to think one can live with Jesus, but without the Church, to follow Jesus outside the Church, to love Jesus and not the Church”, he is “intentionally (my emphasis) offering a poke in the eye to people outside [his] faith tradition”.
“Is Francis ”, asks this reverend person, “(through Paul) saying that I, as a Presbyterian, cannot follow Jesus outside of Catholicism? That’s what he appears to be claiming”. Well, IS it it? It might have occurred to this chap that Pope Paul of all people was hardly an enemy of ecumenism; this is the Pope, after all, who called Anglicanism “our sister Church”.
The doctrine is deceptively simple: that “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus”: outside the Church there is no salvation. Does that mean in fact that unless you are in communio sacris with the Roman Catholic Church you will be damned, that Christ will not save you however, you live your life? Does that sound at all likely? So what does the doctrine mean?
This is what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about it:
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
“Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door.
“Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
“847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
“Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience – those too may achieve eternal salvation.”
According to this, we enter the Church by baptism. Salvation is what God gives to those who “seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience”. The Orthodox Bishop and Oxford theologian, Kallistos Ware, puts it in this way:
“Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. All the categorical strength and point of this aphorism lies in its tautology. Outside the Church there is no salvation, because salvation is the Church” …. Does it therefore follow that anyone who is not visibly within the Church is necessarily damned? Of course not; still less does it follow that everyone who is visibly within the Church is necessarily saved. As Augustine wisely remarked: “How many sheep there are without, how many wolves within!” (Homilies on John, 45, 12) While there is no division between a “visible” and an “invisible Church”, yet there may be members of the Church who are not visibly such, but whose membership is known to God alone. If anyone is saved, he must in some sense be a member of the Church; in what sense, we cannot always say.”
While we are about it, are the Orthodox, is Bishop Kallistos, according to the Catholic Church “extra ecclesiam”? Hardly: the Catholic Church allows its clergy to administer the sacraments of Penance, the Eucharist and Anointing of the Sick to members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, if these spontaneously ask for the sacraments and are properly disposed. It also allows Catholics who cannot approach a Catholic minister to receive these three sacraments from clergy of the Eastern Orthodox Church, whenever necessity requires or a genuine spiritual advantage commends it.
Even Pio Nono, who of course insisted [Allocution Singulari Quadem ] that “it must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood” nevertheless goes on to say that “on the other hand, it is necessary to hold for certain that they who labour in ignorance of the true religion, if this ignorance is invincible, will not be held guilty of this in the eyes of God. Now, in truth, who would arrogate so much to himself as to mark the limits of such an ignorance, because of the nature and variety of peoples, regions, innate dispositions, and of so many other things? For, in truth, when released from these corporeal chains ‘we shall see God as He is’ (1 John 3.2), we shall understand perfectly by how close and beautiful a bond divine mercy and justice are united; but as long as we are on earth, weighed down by this mortal mass which blunts the soul, let us hold most firmly that, in accordance with Catholic teaching, there is “one God, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4.5).
To say that unless you are in FULL COMMUNION with the Roman Catholic Church you cannot know Jesus is to place limits on Our Lord’s capacity to make himself known outside it, a manifest absurdity. This is NOT a form of universalism; nor is it to deny that only within the Roman Catholic Church is the fullness of faith to be found. Back to the CCC:
“851 It is from God’s love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigour of her missionary dynamism, ‘for the love of Christ urges us on.’ Indeed, God ‘desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’; that is, God wills the salvation of everyone through the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in the truth. Those who obey the prompting of the Spirit of truth are already on the way of salvation. But the Church, to whom this truth has been entrusted, must go out to meet their desire, so as to bring them the truth.”
So, Reverend Tammeus, NO, Pope Francis is NOT offering you a “poke in the eye”, as I’m quite sure you are perfectly well aware. But he does undoubtedly think that you would be further along the road to salvation as a Catholic. Are you really absolutely certain he’s wrong?

Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno honors victims of 1948 Coalinga plane crash

Published: June 3, 2013 

2013-06-04T15:03:42Z                

            

This is the Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery grave site, where 32 people who died in an immigration plane crash near Coalinga in 1948 are buried. Twenty-eight were migrant farmworkers. None of the names are listed at the grave site. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno is currently trying to raise funds to build a memorial with the names of all 32 victims.

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/06/03/3326195/roman-catholic-diocese-of-fresno.html#storylink=cpy

         

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno is trying to right a wrong for 28 Mexican citizens who died in a plane crash 65 years ago near Coalinga.
The group of migrant farmworkers -- employed in a program that allowed Mexican citizens to enter the United States to perform seasonal work and then return to Mexico -- never made it home. The chartered immigration plane they boarded out of Oakland for their return trip to Mexico lost its left wing and fell from the sky. Everyone aboard -- the farmworkers, three crew members and an immigration guard -- died.
The crew members and guard were buried at various cemeteries. The farmworkers were buried in a mass grave at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery in Fresno -- with a bronze grave marker bearing the words "airplane accident" and no names.
The Diocese of Fresno, which operates Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, has spearheaded an effort with author and former Valley resident Tim Z. Hernandez to install a new memorial at the grave site, bearing the names of the 28 Mexican citizens.
The diocese is planning a special Mass and dedication of an 8-foot by 4-foot memorial at 10 a.m. Sept. 2 at the cemetery.
Bishop Armando X. Ochoa, of the Diocese of Fresno, said the Mass and dedication will help correct a past wrong.
In a statement, the bishop said, "In death, those 28 lives were changed, with all the circumstances and aspects of their lives."
A plane plunges
The last evidence of the tragedy is a 4-foot-long pipe from the plane's wreckage that sits on a window sill in the Military Room at the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum in Coalinga. More than half of the pipe is smashed pancake-flat.
According to information at the display -- Fresno County's Biggest Air Disaster Happened Here in 1948 -- the plane was a war surplus twin-engine DC-3, designated C-47 by the military. It was owned by Air Transport Carriers, which was under contract with the federal immigration service.
The plane left Oakland Airport bound for Burbank on Jan. 28, 1948. The company had been making routine flights for about a year.
Inmates from the Fresno County Industrial Road Camp near Coalinga were working about a mile east of the camp and described smoke coming from the plane's left wing. The left wing separated and the plane plunged from about 5,000 feet into the canyon.
Area residents volunteered to help with a cleanup mission, burying a few scattered human remains at the scene.
That might've been the final chapter of the tragedy if not for Woodie Guthrie. The internationally known folk musician heard a media report about the crash and paid particular attention to the description of the passengers -- no names, just "deportees."
Guthrie wrote a protest song, "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)" in 1948. The likes of Pete Seeger, the Byrds, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen covered it over the years, but it wasn't until a man with Valley ties uncovered the story that the effort to name the nameless was born.
Hernandez, an author and poet who was born in Dinuba but now lives in Boulder, Colo., was researching a new book and came across microfilm of The Bee's front-page stories and photos of the disaster.
In July 2012, Hernandez asked Carlos Rascon, director of cemeteries for the Diocese of Fresno, for the names. Rascon, who was new on the job, couldn't find them. In September, Hernandez came to Fresno to visit the grave site.
They worked together to get the names from the Fresno County Hall of Records.
Rascon said the effort pays long-overdue respect to the Mexican victims.
"To us, it's about the dignity, the respect and the treatment of them," he said. "The primary thing is making things right. But it affects people in many different ways."
Hernandez returned to the Valley in April to take part in fundraising for the memorial. He visited Dinuba High School, where a bake sale raised $200. Hernandez also spoke at a benefit concert at Fulton 55, where musician Lance Canales and others performed another rendition of "Deportee."
Hernandez is chronicling the story in a book, "All They Will Call You."
"When that accident happened, it took the media to get the word out, but it took musicians to turn it into a song," Hernandez says. "Now, an author is turning it into a book.
"Art has a way of sustaining history -- and closing history. Sixty-five years have gone by. It just needs to happen for them to find their closure."
About $9,000 has been raised to pay for the memorial ledger and expenses in staging the Mass and dedication. Rascon estimates total costs to be $10,000.
Honoring the 28
On a recent day at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Rascon reached down to clean the grave marker.
It reads, "28 Mexican citizens who died in an airplane accident near Coalinga, California, on Jan. 28, 1948. R.I.P."
That's all.
Rascon said the new memorial, weighing about 4,000 pounds, will feature a picture of San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of farmworkers, as well as the names of the 28 farmworkers. It's modeled after the one installed for Bishop John T. Steinbock at St. Peter's Cemetery.
The names of the crew members and guard also will be inscribed.
Rascon said he is overwhelmed by the generosity of people wanting to help with the effort.
Bell Memorials and Granite Works in Clovis donated inscription work and will bring it to the cemetery. Berry Construction of Madera donated the footing and the foundation work to bear the weight of the memorial.
The Woodie Guthrie Foundation in Mt. Kisco, N.Y., a nonprofit organization that serves as administrator and caretaker of the Woodie Guthrie archives, also is helping with fundraising.
Stephanie McHaney, curator at the R.C. Baker Memorial Museum in Coalinga, said she is grateful for the effort to honor the 28 Mexican citizens.
"It's special," she said. "For many years, you didn't hear about them other than the old stories. Now, it has come back to the surface. They're known now. There are names to go with the people.
"It's about respecting them. There are actual names for people who lost their lives. They're not just forgotten. They're not just lost like some people might have thought."
REMEMBERING THE DEAD
The 28 Mexican citizens whose names will be inducted on a news memorial at their mass grave site at Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery:
Miguel Negroros Alvarez
Francisco Llamas Duram
Santiago Garcia Elizondo
Rosalio Padilla Estrada
Tomasa Avena De Garcia
Bernabe Lopez Garcia
Salvador Sandoval Hernandez
Severo Medina Lara
Elias Trujillo Macias
Jose Rodriguez Macias
Tomas Padilla Marquez
Luis Lopez Medina
Manuel Calderon Merino
Luis Cuevas Miranda
Martin Razo Navarro
Ygnacio Perez Navarro
Roman Ochoa Ochoa
Ramon Ramirez Paredes
Apolonio Ramirez Placencia
Guadalupe Laura Ramirez
Alberto Carlos Raygoza
Guadalupe Hernandez Rodriguez
Maria Santana Rodriguez
Juan Valenzuela Ruiz
Wencealado Ruiz
Jose Valdivia Sanchez
Jesus Meza Santos
Baldomero Marcas Torres
Others aboard the flight:
Francis "Frank" Atkinson, Long Beach, pilot
Marion Harlow Ewing, Balboa, co-pilot
Lillian "Bobbie" Atkinson (married to Frank), Long Beach, stewardess
Frank E. Chaffin, Berkeley, immigration guard
Source: Diocese of Fresno Catholic Cemeteries

Read more here: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/06/03/3326195/roman-catholic-diocese-of-fresno.html#storylink=cpy

Corrupt Christians cause grave harm to Church, says Pope

 

The Pope says we should pray for 'grace of not becoming corrupt' (AP)

“Corrupt” Christians cause grave damage to the Church, Pope Francis said at Mass this morning.
In his homily in the chapel of his residence, the Domus Sanctae Marthae, he said there were “three types of Christians in the Church: sinners, the corrupt and saints”.

Reflecting on the Parable of the Tenants in today’s readings, he said that the corrupt were represented by those in the parable who want to “take possession of the vineyard and have lost their relationship with the Lord of the vineyard”.
According to AsiaNews, he said: “These, slowly, slipped on that autonomy, autonomy in their relationship with God: ‘We do not need that Master, he better not bother us!’ And we will go ahead with this. These are the corrupt! Those who were sinners like all of us, but who have taken one more step forward, as if they had consolidated themselves in their sin: they do not need God! It seems this way, because this relationship with God is in their genetic code. And because they cannot deny it, they make a special god: they themselves are god. These are the corrupt.”
He continued: “The road of self-autonomy is a dangerous one: the corrupt are extremely forgetful, they have forgotten the love with which the Lord has made the vineyard, He made them! They cut off their relationship with this love! And they become worshippers of themselves. How bad are the corrupt in the Christian community! May the Lord deliver us from sliding down this road of corruption.”
He concluded: “Let us ask the Lord today for the grace to know that we are sinners, but really sinners, not generic sinners, but sinners in this, this and this, concrete, with the concreteness of sin. The grace not to become corrupt: sinful yes, corrupt, no! And the grace to travel the path of holiness. So be it.”

Gay marriage is not a faith issue, says Archbishop of Canterbury. That sounds like a pretty big concession to me.

Gay marriage is not a faith issue, says Archbishop of Canterbury. That sounds like a pretty big concession to me.
 

By Damian Thompson      

     

Archbishop Justin Welby has been speaking in the Lords against the Government's same-sex marriage Bill, but unless I'm very much mistaken he's made an enormous concession to its supporters:

This is not a faith issue, although we are grateful for the attention that government and the other place have paid to issues of religious freedom – deeply grateful. But it is not, at heart, a faith issue; it is about the general social good.

The Archbishop's speech argues, in measured but deadly language, that no social good can come of a Bill that is so badly drafted: "Marriage is abolished, redefined and recreated, being different and unequal for different categories. The new marriage of the Bill is an awkward shape with same gender and different gender categories scrunched into it, neither fitting well." All of which is no doubt (a) true and (b) a useful line of attack for a Church that does not want to dwell on the core of its opposition to gay marriage.
But are we now to infer from the Archbishop's speech that there is no theological core to its opposition? I thought the Church of England opposed gay marriage because it believed that it was against God's plan for humanity. Now we discover that it is "not, at heart, a faith issue". And so a very significant gulf opens up between the Church of England and the Catholic Church, which – like it or not – most certainly does believe that this is fundamentally, even exclusively, "a faith issue".
Update: Several Catholics have corrected me on the last point, pointing out that Catholic rejection of gay marriage is based on natural law and reason. Fair enough, but for the Catholic Church to say that gay marriage is "not, at heart, a faith issue" would be disingenuous in the extreme. Let me quote Pope Francis on the Argentinian gay marriage bill: "Let's not be naive: this isn't a simple political fight, it's an attempt to destroy God's plan."

QUITE BRILLIANT DAMIAN!

Primrose Hill isn't looking its best these days

From Saturday's Daily Telegraph


It’s the summer of 2043. A father and his eight-year-old son trudge across the tundra of north London. Despite the watery August sun, the frozen grass crackles under their heavy boots.
“Look!” says the man. “Do you see the ruins on top of that hill?”
Silhouetted against the sky are the remnants of grand houses. The roofs have fallen in, the grey stucco has buckled and crumbled. It’s hard to imagine that these villas and terraces were once a visual feast of pastel pink and yellow.
“You’re looking at the remains of Primrose Hill,” says the father.
“Daddy, what’s a primrose?”
“A lovely creamy yellow flower.” He sighs wistfully. “They all disappeared in the Great Freeze. Like so much else.”
“And who lived on Primrose Hill?”
“They were a tribe called the liberals, but they don’t exist any more.
“Do you remember me telling you about the Mayans, who disappeared almost overnight? It was a bit like that. Things started going really badly for the liberals in about 2013…”
The boy perks up. “Did they do human sacrifices like the Mayans? Did they worship savage gods?”
“No human sacrifices,” chuckles his father. “But, yes, they had some very bizarre religious beliefs.
“For example, they thought the centre of the earth was in a place called Brussels in Belgium. Like the primroses, it doesn’t exist any more, but it was a mixture of Holland and France and it printed toy money that no one wanted.
“Brussels was famous for its nosey parkers who bossed everyone around. They pretended they were emperors of Europe. Everyone hated them – except the liberals. Eventually the ordinary people rose up and destroyed the empire.”
“Was it as bad as the fall of the Roman Empire?”
“Oh, much worse. And the liberals were doubly upset because, at the same time, they were proved wrong about something called global warming.
“You see, they thought the planet was getting very, very hot and the only way to stop it exploding into flames was to pay extremely high taxes.”
“Global warming? That’s just crazy. It’s never warm,” says the boy, shivering in his duffle coat. “Why did the liberals think those things?”
“Has your history teacher taught you about the BBC? It was a government broadcaster that took everyone else’s money to make programmes specially for the liberals.
“According to the BBC, the North Pole was just about to melt and you’d see camels in Greenland. Also, it encouraged children to spy on their parents in case they were naughty and wasted energy.
“But then some of the global warming prophets – scary rich men with names like Yeo – suddenly changed their minds. They said the planet wasn’t getting hot after all, that the scientists had been tricking them – and of course they were right.”
“Daddy, were the liberals terribly upset when they were proved wrong?”
The man pauses as he surveys the ghostly ruins of Primrose Hill. Should he mention the sudden rush to the Dignitas clinics?
Best not. “Well, they cried a lot and did this strange thing called wringing your hands.” He gives a demonstration.
“How funny,” says the boy. He copies the gesture and makes a mental note to teach it to his school chums. It will be like a secret handshake!
“Anyway, that’s enough about the liberals,” says the father. “Let’s get back in the snowmobile and go home for tea. Mummy’s toasting some crumpets. And the Prime Minister is giving a talk on the wireless.”
“Oh goody,” says his son. “I do like Lord Farage.”
Where’s wally? Anywhere but No 10
Ed Miliband often gets a easy ride from his opponents. Although they berate him for a lack of policies and the uncanny ability to murder a scripted joke, they don’t want to seem to mock the afflicted.
But this is sheer wimpishness: the guy could end up in No 10, for God’s sake. So thank goodness for Michael Gove, who used these pages yesterday to cover the Labour leader in blancmange and, such is his genial cunning, make it stick. His criticism of Miliband was full of sly Goveian touches, but its message was simple. This man is a wally. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. If the Tories keep drawing our attention to it, they’ll win.
Now the Church is truly split
The Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Nicholas Holtam, not only favours gay marriage but compares its opponents to Christians who supported slavery or apartheid. Worshippers are furious: how dare “Bishop Nick” tell the Archbishop of York and millions of Africans that they are, in effect, the heirs to slave owners and racists?
But the offence caused isn’t the main story here. All dioceses were not created equal: if the Bishop of Guildford were to back “equal marriage” it wouldn’t matter. Salisbury, on the other hand, traces its roots back to St Aldhelm and has a breathtaking cathedral. Now that its bishop has endorsed Dave’s legislation, the C of E is properly split on the question. Eventually it will cave in to the secular consensus. It always does.
Hate comes in many forms
Peter Wilby, former editor of the New Statesman, writes a regular diary in the magazine couched in muddled but toxic prose. This week, he tried to pin the blame for the Woolwich atrocity on his colleagues in the media: “Some young men don’t need many excuses for going to war; think of how Britons were prepared to enlist in 1914. Politicians and the media are as culpable as the dreaded 'hate preachers’ in providing excuses for Lee Rigby’s killers.”
It’s true that the subject of terrorism inspires some vile articles. Consider the following, published immediately after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre: “American bond traders, you may say, are as innocent and as undeserving of terror as Vietnamese or Iraqi peasants. Well, yes and no.” Yes and no? Who wrote that? Answer: the anonymous leader writer of the New Statesman, widely believed to be its then editor, Peter Wilby. You can’t help wondering: who exactly is the hate preacher here?
Cream under, over and on the side
What a fascinating week in the world of scones. A Sheffield mathematician has calculated that the ideal thickness of cream on a scone is 4mm, in the process reviving a dispute between Devon and Cornwall over whether the cream goes underneath the jam (Devon) or above it (Cornwall). Fortunately there’s no such dilemma in the No 10 kitchens. “We put clotted cream under the jam and whipped cream on top of it,” confides my source. “Plus a jug of single cream on the side in case the scone is a little bit dry.” Isn’t that rather too rich? “You must be kidding,” she laughs. “In fact, when the plate and the jug come back, they’re so clean that it’s hardly worth putting them in the dishwasher.”

Satan gets booted out in Medjugorje

Satan gets booted out  in Medjugorje

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

THE voice was an eerie guttural, horrible sound, ferociously angry.

By Louise Roseingrave

The body was thrashing; it took six men to control its charged strength. The crowd was praying feverishly in Italian, ‘Santa Maria, prega per noi.’ Those words now etched in my memory. I had gone with an open mind to Medjugorje, Bosnia Herzegovina, where Our Lady has been appearing to six visionaries for the past 32 years. But I wasn’t expecting to meet the devil.

I was wandering by St James’ Church, where millions of pilgrims attend beautiful masses and prayer services, when I stumbled upon an exorcism.

I pushed my head in through the crowd. It was a horror show I will never forget.

The priest was bent over an Italian woman, aged in her 30s, whose face was contorted in rage.

Her lips were pulled back as she bared her teeth, hissing, straining, snarling and writhing. The priest had the bible in one hand, reciting scripture.

With his other hand, the priest repeatedly made the sign of the cross on the woman’s forehead. Another, younger priest was administering holy water for the woman to drink.

Her pupils were so dilated that her eyes were pools of black. Her hands were clawing at the air, the fingers curled and poised to scratch.

The scene was so grotesque and disturbing that a number of those praying were crying.

I had to fight back the tears myself. As if to rally each other against this diabolical enemy, the crowd formed a circle of prayer, holding hands.

There I was, in the middle of it, frightened out of my wits, yet utterly intrigued by this ancient ritual in action.

The demon inside hissed and seethed every time the crowd blessed the woman with holy water. The demon alternated that frightening sound with abusive cursing of its tormentors, the priests, uttered through its diabolical, other-worldly gurgling.

The woman’s face relaxed a little and she joined in the recital of the Rosary with those around her. The tension eased slightly.

We were all praying, literally, for her deliverance. “Prega per noi,” she said.

And then, out of nowhere, the woman’s neck muscles stretched and strained, pushing her head right into the priest’s face, the lips curled back, the teeth bared and this blood-curdling, hideous laugh emerged as if to say ‘fooled you.’
I found the whole thing so disturbing that I wondered what would become of this woman. How long would this process take? After 30 minutes or so (I had missed the previous two hours), the demon subsided, the woman’s body went limp, and the priests placed her in a seated position on a nearby bench. She looked dazed and confused, like someone coming-to after fainting. Exhausted, she began to cry.

Among the crowd, a teenage boy was so traumatised he burst into tears.

The rest of us departed slowly, shocked and deeply disturbed by what we had seen.

All that night, I couldn’t remove those images from my head. Recalling the screeching voice sent shivers down my spine.

There has been much speculation that the Pope performed an exorcism on a wheelchair-bound boy, at St Peter’s Square, earlier last week. It may have been a deliverance. Any kind of blessing serves the purpose of driving away evil. The Vatican and the Church play down the ritual of exorcism, perhaps to not frighten believers and not attract more bad press.

But in Medjugorje, where Our Lady is welcomed with respectful silence everyday at 6.40pm, instances of possession and deliverance are common.

“Wherever Our Lady is present, so is the devil,” I’m told by experienced visitors to Medjugorje. Demons in pilgrims become enraged in the holy presence of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, as if they cannot bear the sanctity.

Some forms of exorcism are straightforward, such as deliverance, perhaps from a chronic addiction or other, debilitating behaviour. Instances of demonic possession can be drawn out and dramatic and can continue for days. When I ask what a person may have done to attract a demonic infestation, the answers vary, but the occult, I am told, particularly ouija boards, are significant dangers.
This sends me scurrying to confession. I believe in God and I go to mass. I pray and live a good life, though I am not always successful.

But stumbling into the midst of something so disturbing changes a person’s perspective.

Experiencing the hellish wrath of that demon had a profound effect.

I went to Medjugorje for one week and stayed for three. I had previously travelled the world seeking spiritual truth, staying at a Hindu ashram in Nepal, with Buddhist monks in the Himalayas, and lapping up the generous ethos of Islam in the Middle East and Indonesia.

I trained as a yoga teacher in India, moved to a cottage in the countryside in West Cork, and took part in some punishing pilgrimages at Lough Derg.

But nowhere else have I found the sense of peace, light and love that exists in Medjugorje.

Miracles abound every day there; personal, life-changing miracles.

Catholicism, with all its sacraments and sacred rituals, is celebrated.

Thousands kneel and pray before the Blessed Sacrament during the outdoor ‘holy hour’ in the basilica, yet you can hear a pin drop, such is the level of reverence.

Adults are routinely reduced to tears, sometimes great wracking sobs, as an understanding of years of pent-up pain and frustration is realised, the first step in healing.

I became a junkie for holy hour in Medjugorje, watching siblings, couples, friends, and families embrace in love as the 60 minutes drew to a close. In a world brimful of lies and deceit, I found the truth in Medjugorje.

And the truth is that the devil does exist, he’s just very good at duping people into thinking he doesn’t.

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