A PLEA FOR HELP... please help me to leave the past in the past

 

REPOSTED   ...    

Thursday, 10 March 2016

A PLEA FOR HELP... please help me to leave the past in the past

A PLEA FOR HELP...  please help me to leave the past in the past

Munch's THE SCREAM  ... just sums up my despair

Okay, I'm a proud guy. But sometimes the macho image must be put aside. I know I have a big problem and I must deal with it before it ruins me.

Readers of this blog will know that I have often referred to my first marriage and how I just can't forget and move on. My 'marriage' lasted a brief six months and I went through hell almost every day. But that is so long in the past  ... the early Eighties. My marriage was annulled and I have remarried - to the most wonderful woman in the world and I have three wonderful children whom I adore.

I've had Cognitive Behavioural Therapy about fifteen years ago and it did help but it didn't mean I was free of all the baggage.

Why can't I forget the evil bitch and all the hurt she inflicted on me? Things resurface with an intensity now and again and right now is a bad period. One day last week I locked myself in the Sixth Form office and ended up punching a cushion around the room.

If anyone can point me in the right direction I will be eternally grateful. Detters in the past you did proffer some advice - not that you were sympathetic to me - and your advice was along the lines that if I did not free myself from this it would destroy me. You have a background in counselling Detters and if you can offer anything further I would be appreciative - although we are not exactly buddies at the moment. Truth is I would appreciate anything from anyone.

Things are so bad at the moment I don't think I can face the Good Yarn tomorrow night. And for me that's a measure of how serious things are.

Marianne has been a rock but even she can do no more.

 

Canterbury Fails

DAMIAN THOMPSON OCTOBER 27, 2025

This article will appear in the upcoming December issue of First Things magazine.

---

When it was announced in October that the next archbishop of Canterbury would be a woman with progressive views on homosexuality and abortion, social media erupted with a combination of outrage, congratulations, derision, and triumph. A few days later, an even noisier eruption was caused by the news of subway-style graffiti plastered over Canterbury Cathedral, which prompted even the vice president of the United States to express disgust. The consensus among the loudest Christian voices on X was that the most ancient see in England had been desecrated: spiritually, by its impending occupation by Dame Sarah Mullally, a former nursing administrator fast-tracked into the post of bishop of London by her public-sector allies; and physically, by the graffiti “workshopped” in consultation with “Punjabi, black and brown diaspora, neurodivergent, and LGBTQIA+ groups.”

In fact the graffiti were merely stickers, a temporary art installation commissioned by a dean and chapter anxious to get down with the kids—a preoccupation of liberal Anglicans since the 1960s, when “with-it” bishops fawned over hippies in debates on BBC Two. Also, under English law, cathedrals are effectively owned by their chapters: The bishop’s role as visitor gives him or her no authority over what happens inside them. Even if Dame Sarah were already occupying the chair of St. Augustine, she could do nothing about the graffiti.

Yet it is understandable that the two events should be linked in the minds of commentators. We’re not in Barchester anymore. We’re not even in the era when television viewers would spend an hour on Sunday nights listening to a bishop waffle about current events. In the 1960s about 1.5 million people attended weekly Church of England services; now it is a little over half a million. Factor in population growth, and the proportion of the population attending Anglican parishes on Sundays has fallen by three-quarters. About 20 percent of Sunday worshippers didn’t return after Covid. The Canterbury graffiti project, a farcical attempt to seem “relevant,” ironically underlines the Church’s loss of relevance.

Clearly this is a denomination in decline—but that decline is hard to quantify. Since the Reformation, England’s established Church has enjoyed affectionate but lukewarm public support. Down the centuries its clergy have been portrayed as pompous, dull, or endearingly dotty. During the industrial revolution, Anglican social reformers alleviated the squalor of the slums while failing to evangelize the new working class. As an institution, the “C of E” experienced neither anticlericalism nor mass religious fervor. The pews were occupied—if rarely filled—by churchgoers more interested in parish fetes than calendar feasts, except on Christmas and Easter. Weekly attendance was never a sacramental obligation like that imposed on Catholics. Until well into the twentieth century, the main Sunday service in a typical parish was the “hymn sandwich” of Matins.

The Oxford Movement did not leave much of a mark on the countryside. Even in the Anglo-Catholic pockets, the finer points of ritual and apostolic succession were a preoccupation of the clergy. Hilaire Belloc once dismissed the Catholic fantasy of the conversion of England as “humanly speaking, impossible”; English religion was so bound up with Protestant national identity that not a single village had been reconciled to Rome. After the General Synod voted for women priests in 1992, most clerical leaders of the Anglo-Catholic faction became Catholics. So did lay people, but individually or in small groups. No congregation, however Anglo-Papalist its liturgy, swam the Tiber en masse. The pragmatic cultural Protestantism that characterizes most parishes, tolerant of (and often indifferent to) High and Low varieties of churchmanship, is a more resilient feature of the Church of England than attachment to specific doctrines. This fact explains why social media predictions that the appointment of a female archbishop of Canterbury will kill the established Church are so wide of the mark.

In the years before the ordination of women priests, there were many warnings that such a heretical departure from tradition would split the Church of England. It did not. Conservative Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals were provided with bishops untainted by female orders, several of whom ­eventually threw in the towel and became Roman Catholic priests. Those Anglican ­laity who were culturally opposed to the sight of a woman in the pulpit either died out or were won over. (“I wasn’t happy when Sally became our vicar, but she’s actually­ ­jolly good.”) Likewise, the ordination of women bishops in 2014 caused no great disruption.

Nor will the enthronement of a woman as primate of all England. Members of the Church of England, most of whom are only casually affiliated with it, find the concept of a woman archbishop of Canterbury no more disturbing than that of a woman prime minister. As for more devout churchgoers, including opponents of female bishops, they understand that the spiritual authority of the leader of the Church of England is that of a diocesan bishop writ large. As an innovation, a female successor of St. Augustine is much less theologically significant than was the introduction of women bishops more than a decade ago.

If there is damage to unity, it will be caused by the issue of homosexuality, and most of that damage will be to the nebulous concept of “global Anglicanism.” In 2023, the General Synod voted to permit blessings of same-sex couples already in civil partnerships or marriages, though it stopped short of allowing those marriages to be solemnized in church. Thirty-six bishops voted in favor, four were opposed, and two abstained. Justin Welby did not reveal how he voted (almost certainly in favor); Sarah Mullally publicly supported the measure. This October, however, the House of Bishops decided that the introduction of stand-alone same-sex blessings would require two-thirds majority approval by the whole General Synod, a hurdle that it is unlikely to clear. Meanwhile, clergy are free to conduct church blessings of same-sex couples, including those who are civilly married, as part of other services. In other words, the situation is utterly chaotic. Yet, despite the bishops’ latest move—a response to threats by wealthy evangelical parishes to withdraw funding from their ­dioceses—the ultimate direction of travel is clear: toward services that, at the very least, are hard to distinguish from homosexual weddings.

Church blessings of gay couples are such a drastic departure from Christian tradition that it seems odd to argue that their effect will be limited. But never underestimate the Church of England’s ability to accommodate new secular orthodoxies while containing conservative dissent. The same does not apply, however, to the Anglican Communion. After the General Synod vote on same-sex blessings, the archbishops of ten out of forty-­two provinces, including the 13 million–strong Church of Uganda, repudiated the spiritual leadership of Welby, though they insisted that they still belonged to the Anglican Communion—a dubious position, given that since 1868 the defining feature of that body has been the primus inter pares status of the archbishop of Canterbury.

There was a more spectacular fracture after Sarah Mullally’s appointment. On October 16, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON)—a conservative Anglican network that includes the provinces of Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, and Chile—announced that not only was it out of communion with the Church of England, but it had replaced the existing Anglican Communion and wished to be known henceforth as the “Global Anglican Communion.” Statements by GAFCON’s leaders made clear that the immediate casus belli was Archbishop-designate Mullally’s stance on homosexuality. According to Archbishop Henry Ndukuba, primate of the Church of Nigeria—whose 22 million members make it the second-largest in the Anglican world—Mullally’s appointment was “devastating” because she had described the 2023 vote for blessing gay married couples as “a moment of hope,” demonstrating that she was “a strong supporter of same-sex marriage.”

Another leading conservative, Bishop Mouneer Anis, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, argued in  First Things in October that conservative global Anglicans now have “a historic opportunity to reform and redesign the Anglican Communion.” Significantly, however, Bishop Anis is not part of GAFCON and, at the time of writing, had not endorsed its claim to be the new Anglican Communion. He is aligned with the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), an older body that includes all members of ­GAFCON alongside some other bishops.

Such is the fog of confusion that, at the moment, no one can definitively explain the differences between GAFCON and the GSFA, and there have been many online jokes about the rival Judean resistance groups in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. But two points need to be made. First, Mullally’s appointment has killed off the Anglican Communion centered on the Lambeth Conference, which had been on life support for years. Second, despite the grandiose claims of GAFCON and the GSFA, it is hard to see how the Anglican Communion can be replaced by any African-dominated fellowship of conservative Anglicans—and it seems unlikely that the new “Global Anglican Communion” will stay intact for long. Its members may be united in their belief that homosexual activity is sinful. But on crucial theological questions they are divided.

These “orthodox Anglicans” disagree on whether women can be bishops or priests, the number and nature of the sacraments, and even the nature of the Holy Trinity, treating the filioque clause in the Creed as optional. Despite the huge gulf between the most Catholic and Protestant congregations within the Church of England, the glue of establishment has held them together. By contrast, the history of “continuing” Anglican denominations is one of furious fissiparous rivalry. If a post-Mullally “revived Communion” is to survive, then the ties among churches will have to be so loose as to render global Anglicanism not so much nebulous as meaningless.

If they were honest about it, many Church of England bishops would concede that the Anglican Communion is no great loss; placating its members is more trouble than it’s worth. Their focus will be on maintaining the unity of the mother Church as it moves away from the messy holding position that same-sex marriages can be blessed but not solemnized. That progression is inevitable. The Synod will eventually vote to allow gay weddings in church, a change already supported by a small majority of its clergy and a much larger proportion of laity. The Church of England never distances itself from bien pensant secular opinion for long. It has never held strong views on abortion, and Mullally’s vaguely pro-choice opinions have provoked little comment. On the other hand, Evangelical objections to homosexual marriage, although expressed less crudely than those of African or American conservatives, are as uncompromising as, and less susceptible to change than, the objections of 1990s Anglo-Catholics to women’s ordination.

This is where the choice of Sarah Mullally as archbishop of Canterbury may be vindicated. She does not have the intellect of Rowan Williams or the elite education and social connections of Justin Welby, but her track record in London—a diocese full of spiky Anglo-Catholic parishes that do not recognize the orders of women bishops—evinces impressive pastoral dexterity.

One of her suffragans, Jonathan Baker, bishop of Fulham, oversees a non-territorial jurisdiction whose parishes do not allow women to minister the sacraments to them. Yet they have grown unexpectedly close to “Bishop Sarah,” stressing at every opportunity that they acknowledge her legal authority as bishop and inviting her to attend their Solemn Masses in choir dress. Precisely how the Fulham jurisdiction squares the circle of recognizing the leadership of a (supposedly) invalidly ordained bishop is something of a mystery, but it does seem that the nature of Anglo-Catholic objections to female ordination has quietly shifted. Whereas once most London traditionalists agreed with Pope John Paul II that women cannot be bishops, now many regard Bishop Sarah as possibly or probably validly ordained. They reluctantly decline her sacramental ministry on the grounds that the Church of England should not bestow orders on women without the agreement of Rome and Constantinople—but they are moving closer to the point where alternative episcopal oversight will be required only by scattered hard-liners and therefore withdrawn by the Synod.

The question now is whether Mullally, a former director of nursing at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital who has expertly bandaged the limbs of Anglo-­Catholics in London, can heal the more severe injuries of opponents of homosexual blessings. It will be a terrific challenge, not least because at times of crisis the primate of all England is expected to produce national solutions while lacking the power to overrule diocesan bishops or the General Synod. If ­Mullally decides to throw her weight behind same-sex church weddings, then she can probably rely on the support of the English public and any future British government, even one led by Nigel Farage. But that may not be enough to avert the first schism in the history of the Church of England, as wealthy evangelical parishes represented by top-flight lawyers search for ways of breaking communion with Lambeth while holding on to their benefices and buildings. One can hardly blame Dame Sarah if she tries to kick the eventual Synod vote on formal church weddings of gay couples into the long grass of her compulsory retirement at the age of seventy in 2032.

Finally, there is another danger lurking for the next Archbishop of Canterbury. Unlike the issue of homosexuality, it may be one that she does not recognize. Mullally is a formidable woman with the skills of a public-­sector administrator but also the limited imagination and the political prejudices that come with them. For more than fifty years, public opinion on certain subjects that have preoccupied the Church of England—race relations, immigration, the role of women in society, the normalization of homosexuality, and unlimited access to public services—has been molded by the liberal consensus in government, academia, and the legacy media. Recently, however, there has been a divergence of elite and popular opinion on both sides of the Atlantic. Digital media are highlighting the destructive consequences of unrestricted immigration, together with the sinister restrictions on free speech (and especially religious free speech) demanded by the transgender lobby that has been performing biological experiments on children while allowing men to intrude into women’s bathrooms and changing rooms.

Until now, Sarah Mullally’s public voice has been indistinguishable from those of other left-leaning bishops in the House of Lords. Does she realize that the pent-up anger that swept Donald Trump to a second term in America and may produce a Reform government in Britain is shared not only by the general public but also by communicant members of the Church of England, whose slightly right-of-center views have traditionally been ignored by the clergy?Mullally’s published sermons are dense with liberal platitudes. That is not surprising: This has been the lingua franca of the Anglican ­hierarchy for decades. But it is more perilous for her than for any of her predecessors in the See of Canterbury, because such boilerplate now provokes fury from members of the public, newly empowered by social media. She may have no formal authority to stop the dean of Canterbury from plastering columns with graffiti, but she should note the intensity of the anger provoked by an infantile stunt that, until recently, would have merited no more than a mocking headline in the Daily Mail. If one day that sort of anger is directed at her, it will not be because the Church marries gay couples but because it is tone-deaf to the plight of ordinary people trapped by the collapse of civil ­society. Earlier this year Bishop ­Mullally, to her credit, opposed parliamentary legislation that ­encourages vulnerable people to explore the option of “assisted dying.” Now we wait to see whether she can persuade the Church of England not to commit suicide.

 DETTERLING GOES TO CONFESSION...

In preparation no doubt for the falling of the final curtain Detterling attends confession. His confessor is Archdeacon J.C. Flannel of the C of E parish of Blaydon Races.

Detterling: Bless me Father for I have sinned,

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: How long has it been since your last confession my son?

Detterling: Actually I have not been since 1972. Which was also the last year that I shaved. Have had a beard since then.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: So you haven't been shaved or haven't been shriven since 1972? Tee! Hee! Hee! Hee! It's the way I tell 'em.

Detterling: Very good Archdeacon.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: And what sins do you wish to confess my son?

Detterling: The Sin of Onan. Yes over the years endless masturbation. 

Archdeacon J.C Flannel: Well, in your case I figured as much. One can always tell. And my son is this masturbation still continuing?

Detterling: No, it ended when I developed erectile dysfunction.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: And you are truly sorry for all those years of masturbation?

Detterling: Well, I guess so.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Any other sins my son?

Detterling: Yes, I have a life-long fear and loathing of gays and lesbians.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Really! This is most strange.

Detterling: Yes, I know. Publicly I am a committed supporter of  the Gay Lobby but the truth is that I hate and despise all gays.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: How has this come about my son?

Deterrling: It's a long story Father but I will encapsulate it. Back in my school days when I was in the Sixth Form I was accused by my fellow students of engaging in masturbation. I was hauled before the Student Council and the charge was substantiated. I was sentenced to be sent to Coventry. The Chairman of the Student Council who communicated the sentence to me was gay. Ever since then I have hated gays. But of course I pretend the opposite. To protect my pinko-liberal, Left-wing credentials I pretend to support the Gay Lobby. I know that it's so hypocritical. Recently a gentleman named Swashbuckling Mulligan wrote a devastating satire on my hypocrisy in this. I was knocked for six.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Hypocrisy is a terrible sin. Remember Jesus was harsh only with hypocrites.

Detterling: I know. I know. Mea culpa.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel:  Just a thought. To make reparation here perhaps you could make a clean breast of it and write an article giving your true feelings on all things Gay Lobby? Perhaps you could publish this in one of the Tyneside newspapers? Perhaps The Chronicle, The Northumberland Gazette, The Northern Echo? I think you may find this a wonderful catharsis my son.

Detterling: That'd a good idea. I will certainly consider it.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Now, anything else to confess my son?

Detterling: Well yes, my envy, jealousy of and deep-seated resentment to Gene Vincent.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: How long have these feelings towards Mr. Vincent existed?

Detterling: Over twenty years now Father.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Oh! dear! Oh! Dear!

Detterling: It all began with eight and a half inches. Gene is blessed with a male member measuring eight and a half inches in length - girth in proportion no doubt. Now when I compare my pathetic three and a half inches (when in maximum tumescence) I feel so inadequate.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Well, I think it best for you to leave this aside. None of us can compete with Gene Vincent in this respect.

Detterling: Not easy Father but I guess I will try. However there is much more troubling me as regards Gene. He and I have had so many battles over the past twenty years. Some on the TES website, some on Gene's blog. I always lose. Gene always gets the better of me and I have built up such anger and hatred towards him.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Oh! dear! anger and hatred gets us nowhere my son. You must forgive Gene Vincent.

Detterling: Forgive Gene??? I would find that so hard to do. This man has even boasted about mounting my wife Delia Doggy-style.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Oh! dear! Oh! dear! This is serious. This soul is heading for the bottomless pit. You must pray for Gene - that such a fate may never befall him. 

Detterling: Well, if my salvation depends on it I will try and forgive Gene. Not easy. He has torn me to shreds on so many occasion. He has mocked and guffawed at me. He has made me a laughingstock. He has a rapier-like wit. On one occasion I wrote to him:

'Gene I know that you probably despise me.' He wrote back, 'Well, if I ever gave it any thought I probably would.'

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Yes, I know how easy it is to build up hatred. I have fallen into that myself. How I detested and loathed that creeping Jesus Runcie and his self-basting pietism. And I absolutely abhorred Rowan Williams with his silky voice and superior attitude. Oops! What have I said? You didn't hear any of that!

Detterling: Gene's forte is Theology and how I have repeatedly come a cropper when I tangled with him on theological issues. For example, aging woke fool that I am, I once wrote that the Holy Spirit is a woman. My word! How Gene tore me to shreds for such jackassery. He wrote:

'Putting aside the obvious point that God the Holy Spirit transcends physicality, based on biblical texts the gender of the Holy Spirit as male is a core tenet of Church belief. Denying it would heresy.

While Holy Spirit’s power and influence is often expressed in Scripture with feminine imagery (e.g., the word “ruach … spirit“ in Hebrew is feminine), Scripture consistently refers to the Holy Spirit using masculine pronouns. Jesus himself referred to the Holy Spirit as “He” (Greek ekeînos as in John 14:26, 15:26, 16:13).'

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: So he is quite a learned man this Gene?

Detterling: Yes he is. And the irony is that despite me losing in every showdown I have had with him on theological issues I have learned so much about the Faith - about the Church teaching on homosexual acts, about the Church teaching on Original sin, about the heresy of Pelagianism, about the theology of Saint Paul and even about the Thirty-nine Articles.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Well, it is marvellous that you can see Gene's correction of you in such a positive light. But, I have a feeling that there is more to be confessed about your relationship with Gene.

Detterling: Indeed there is Father. I have been consumed with envy at Gene's success as a writer. I am a writer myself and have completed a memoir entitled Journeyman. It will be published posthumously. Gene has long claimed that he was working on a major opus that would be a ground-breaking new literary form. I regularly dismissed his claims as fantasy and was adamant that his work would never be published. Then, lo and behold, his book came out in late 2023. It is entitled Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's. I was devastated at its publication. Gene has beat me to the punch. And to make matters worse it received great acclaim from figures such as A.N. Wilson and Arianna Huffington. I am just totally consumed with envy, jealousy and resentment.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: My son envy, jealousy and resentment constitute great sin. My suggestion is that you take steps to expiate this sin. Have one of those old-style human sandwich boards made - you know the kind that straps over the shoulders. Have an advert for Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's emblazoned back and front. Walk for, say, two hours a day up and down the Scotswood Road promoting Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's. It will do you a power of good.

Detterling: Now Father there is something else. Something terrible.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: It's not bestiality is it? Please let it not be.

Detterling: No Father it is not bestiality - but it is a terrible sin.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Well, the old adage applies. 'Confession is good for the soul'. So it is best to confess it my son.

Detterling: Well, here goes. I have a nephew Cuthbert. Cuthbert is gay. Nothing I can do about that but I think the world of him. Back around fifteen years ago I was engaged in a heated argument with Gene Vincent on the Times Educational Supplement website. I was losing of course. I thought I would seek the sympathy vote. (One of my worst weaknesses is playing the sympathy card. Once I did a John Stonehouse and faked my own death. I was rumbled by Gene of course.)

Anyhow at the time I had a nephew who tragically committed suicide. I tried by slight of hand to pretend it was my gay nephew Cuthbert. Gene rumbled me of course. And most unfortunately Cuthbert discovered my deceit and we have been estranged since.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: This kind of deceit can cause such hurt and pain. You must repent. You must try and reconcile with your nephew. Maybe you could find someone to act as an intermediary?

Detterling: As a matter of fact Gene Vincent did offer to act as a go between. But I turned him down.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: I am coming to believe that this Gene fellow isn't all bad. In some ways he comes across as a loveable rogue, a rapscallion.  I think he might make a good stand-up comedian. 

I myself have a bit of a reputation as a stand-up comedian. At archdeacon convocations I usually finish the sessions with my version of a Frank Carson routine. It goes like this:

"Have you heard the one about the Irishman who broke into a betting shop? He lost two thousand quid.

Have you heard the one about the Irishman who went to live in China? He died out there and is buried in the paddy fields.

If you come across a man who was born in the town of Nancy in northern France would it be okay to refer to him as a Nancy boy?"

Tee! Hee! Hee! It's the way I tell 'em.

 Detterling: Very good Archdeacon but could we return to my confession?

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: There is more to confess my son?

Detterling: Indeed there is. I confess that I have been a pseud all my adult life. And conceited, pompous and arrogant with it. Yes, an incorrigible pseud. Gene Vincent has said that I should have my own resident slot on Private Eye's Pseuds Corner.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Being a pseud is certainly sinful. Amongst other things it includes the sin of pride. The attitude that you are superior in understanding and comprehension. Superior than other mere mortals. Pride: that was the sin of Lucifer the fallen angel. You must move away from being a pseud.

Detterling: Everything you say is true Father but is so difficult. Being a pseud is built into my very DNA.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: I know all about pseuds. I went to Newcastle University as a young man in the early 1970s. It was wall-to-wall pseudery. Pseuds in sandals reading Sartre and Foucault. Pseuds in kaftans listening to Iron Butterfly, Barclay James Harvest, John Cage. Pseuds here, there and everywhere all talking bollocks. Oh! yes. I have lived through it.

Detterling: Thank you Father. Now there is something else that weighs so heavily on my conscience. For some years I was a counsellor. I didn't have any real qualifications, just a Readers Digest knowledge of psychology. Some of the individuals I counselled were pregnant women considering having an abortion. At that time I was fully into this evil of 'A woman's right to choose'. So on many occasions I counselled them to make up their own minds as to whether to have an abortion. I now realise how wrong I was. I should have been clear, adamant and unequivocal. I should have instructed them to never have an abortion. I am so troubled by conscience. 

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Oh! dear. Oh! dear. Oh! dear. You must beg God's mercy and forgiveness for giving those ladies such a bum steer. The Church of England teaches that there must never be an abortion - except in the very rare case of danger of death to the mother. The Catholic Church teaches exactly the same. This is no doubt the most serious sin you have confessed. Remember you bear a portion of responsibility for the deaths of any of those children aborted. You must get down on your knees and beg God's forgiveness.

Detterling: Yes Father I know my guilt. Mea culpa. If only I could turn back the clock.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Well, in many ways you have turned back the clock. Following this confession you are shriven and forgiven. Well done!

Now some advice: firstly on your antipathy to homosexuals and the Gay Lobby, please be realistic. It seems the gay agenda is here to stay. Mark my words soon in the C of E we will have gay marriage of C of E priests and gay marriage ceremonies taking place in C of E churches. Disgraceful I know but there we are.

Detterling: Yes Father but it is so hard to stomach. The Gay Lobby is promoting its agenda everywhere - especial in the media and the entertainment industry. Take that beloved programme Coronation Street. It has got gay and lesbian storylines everywhere. It has even had a gay storyline featuring a C of E parish priest and a bit of rough from the local council estate. An abomination! And I need hardly remind you about the Bulls, the Christian guest house proprietors, who were so cruelly prosecuted and persecuted by the Gay Lobby.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: I so agree with you over Coronation Street. It is deplorable. It is the Gay Lobby at its most pernicious. The object is to make gay and lesbian relationships appear normal and natural. And to even challenge Church teaching that homosexual acts are sinful. Bastards! 

Is there anything else you wish to confess my son?

Detterling:  Yes, I have been leaving this the end as I am so ashamed of myself. When I was a young teacher there was a young lady, a French language teacher, that I lusted after. To make things worse I was married and she was married. Oh my! What Onanistic fantasies I engaged in over that young lady! I took to writing her anonymous erotic letters - these were the days long before emails. I called myself Seamus O'Touchfanny. These letter were pornographic in the extreme. Truly appalling. I ceased because I began to think that she suspected me.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Don't beat yourself up so much over this. We have all fallen in this area. I remember that when I was a young man I had an obsession with Kate O'Mara's Triangle. Oh! the wicked thoughts I had about Kate O'Mara's Triangle. But I outgrew it. When she died a few years back I wrote a poem in her memory. It went like this:

So farewell then Kate O'Mara

You were famous for your Triangle

And much more besides

In my heart for you

A place always resides

Detterling: Very good Archdeacon. Now Father I think that is everything I need to confess.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel:  Well my son you have been very brave in your confession. You will feel so unburdened.

As for what happens now, you must reconcile with your nephew Cuthbert. And you must reconcile with Gene Vincent. What I have suggested that you walk up and down the Scotswood Road advertising Gene's book Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's you will find so helpful here. And, by the way, you mentioned that Arianna Huffington wrote a great review of Gene's book. I remember Arianna well back in the day when she was Arianna Stassinopoulos. I always thought that she was a gorgeous bit of stuff. Oops! Sorry. You didn't hear that.

Detterling: Well, it's possible that I could reconcile with my nephew Cuthbert. I was so wrong to try that slight of hand and pretend it was he, not my other nephew, that had committed suicide. Totally my fault.

But reconciling with Gene - now that is going to be difficult. Remember this is a man who over the years has baited me, scoffed at me, guffawed at me, humiliated me... just one example: he once posted on the TES website describing me as the 'greatest asshole in the history of the universe'.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Yes, it's going to be tough but nobody has said that the Faith promises a rose garden.

Detterling: Well, maybe there is one thing I could apologize to Gene over. Gene has always, whatever his many faults, displayed searing honesty. Some time back he wrote about a little picadillo - the little picadillo of giving an avuncular pat on the backside to attractive young female teacher colleagues. I several times accused him of groping these young ladies. Of course it wasn't groping. I would like to apologize to Gene for these false accusations.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Well, that's a start. A journey of 1,000 miles starts with the first step. Quite gallant of you.

Detterling: But Father I don't think you realise how fraught with danger this could be. Gene may seize on this to further humiliate me. His put downs are totally devastating. An example: some years back he posted on his blog about an act of revenge he carried out on a teaching colleague. Apparently this man, a HOD of English at Gene's school at the time, greatly offended Gene over some matter or other. Gene seized the opportunity to take revenge. And what revenge he took! It seems that this HOD of English at the time had a book review published in the magazine Time Out. Gene wrote to him anonymously via Time Out. This is what he wrote:

"What an asshole! How could you write such arse-licking drivel about this rubbish book? Get stuffed you asshole."

Gene wrote that he took great delight in imagining this man face as he read these comments.

So you see Father why I am nervous about making any contact with Gene.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: I see what you mean. This Gene has certainly 'a talent to abuse'.

Detterling: He certainly has. He often accomplishes this by the most cruel and cunning satires. Some years ago he wrote a 'SWEENEY' pastiche lampooning my gay nephew and his partner. It was entitled: 'They look a bit ginger to me Guv.' Very clever but very cruel.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Where does this man Gene live?

Detterling: Uxbridge.

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: Could anything good come out of Uxbridge?

Detterling: Well something good came out of Nazareth but I doubt if anything good could ever come out of Uxbridge. 

And I don't know why I bring this up at this juncture, but one of Gene's repeated claims has been that only Catholics shall ever enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Do you have any views on this Father?

Archdeacon J.C. Flannel: The only view I have on this is that if it's true then it's bad news for me.

But to get back to a reconciliation betwixt you and Gene - surely Gene can't be all bad. Surely over the past twenty years he must have displayed some good qualities?

Detterling: Oh! yes for sure. I, for example, have learned so much about Theology from Gene. Gene is a first class theologian. Plus he has some surprisingly kind qualities. For example each Easter and Christmas he sends me a card. A card to all my family. The card is always dedicated to:

'Dear old Detters, Delia, Sebastian, Cuthbert, Julian, Lucretia and fFiona'.

I appreciate this very much. 

(By the way Lucretia and fFiona are my grand daughters. Lucretia is seventeen. What a pair of knockers that girl has!)

Also each Christmas he publishes on his blog the following:

Shall we have an encore of this heart-warming description of Christmas 2018 at Chez Detterling, Tyneside? Well, yes, I think we shall.

JUST LOVE THIS DEPICTION OF CHRISTMAS ON TYNESIDE

I posted this on the TES website prior to Christmas 2020. It was met with derision from many TESSERS.  Nevertheless, I love this wholesome glimpse of Christmas at Chez Detters. 

I RATE IT UP THERE WITH DESCRIPTIONS OF CHRISTMAS BY DICKENS, LAURIE LEE et al.

(It was sent to me by Detterling  on Christmas Day 2018)

Detterling 25 December 2018 at 14:58

CHRISTMAS 2018 

Saturday, a warm and hilarious family gathering with mother-in-law, brother-in-law and partner.

.....Sunday, daughters, husbands and grand-daughters convene at our house for a loud and happy afternoon culminating in acapella carol- singing round the piano which brought the neighbours round with requests for Silent Night and The Angel Gabriel, then all the family to Nine Lessons and Carols at our local church, where my son read a lesson with aplomb, understanding and relish.

.....yesterday, final preparations for the festival and in the evening, playing the organ at a carol service for an old friend whom I have known since she was six weeks old and who is now a vicar in the next parish but two.

.....and today, an early start with our son opening his presents, an afternoon with in-laws and nieces, and tonight Christmas dinner with the family, cooked by me and enjoyed by everyone.

Wishing a happy and holy Christmas to all my readers.

GENE

I so much love this being published each year.

(To be continued)

 

 

‘A voice told me not to be afraid’: The story of Lourdes’ 72nd recognized miracle

By Solène Tadié

CNA Newsroom, Jul 26, 2025 / 11:15 am

Antonia Raco, a 67-year-old Italian woman long affected by an incurable neurodegenerative illness, was officially introduced to the press on July 25 in Lourdes, where her healing was recognized as the 72nd miracle attributed to the intercession of the Virgin Mary since the apparitions of 1858.  

In a moment of great joy, the 72nd miracle of Lourdes Antonia Raco spoke about her miracle. An incredible experience for many to witness on our pilgrimage and a great reminder that we are all pilgrims of hope. pic.twitter.com/Y0Ahj4zOcN

— Archdiocese of Liverpool (@lpoolcatholic) July 25, 2025

Diagnosed in 2006 with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — a progressive and fatal condition — Raco experienced a recovery that defied medical explanation.

First announced by the Sanctuary of Lourdes on April 16, the recognition marked the culmination of 16 years of medical, canonical, and pastoral inquiry. Raco, a mother and active parishioner from Basilicata in southern Italy, had been living with the disease for several years when she traveled to Lourdes in 2009.

“I had wanted to go to Lourdes since I was a child,” she recalled. That wish came true that summer, when she and her husband, Antonio, traveled to the shrine with the Italian pilgrimage association Unitalsi.

The experience, however, was not exactly as she had once imagined: She arrived in a wheelchair, already struggling to breathe and swallow.

On the second day, sanctuary volunteers brought her to the baths. “We prayed together. That’s when I heard a beautiful young female voice say three times: ‘Don’t be afraid!’” she recounted during the press conference in Lourdes, held in the presence of religious and medical authorities.  

Raco wore the white veil and uniform of the Hospitallers of Lourdes — the volunteer caregivers she now joins each year, assisting the sick with the same compassion once shown to her.  

“At that moment, I burst into tears and prayed for the intentions I had brought with me.” 

She described a sudden, sharp pain in her legs during immersion, as though “they were taken away from me.” She did not disclose what had happened to anyone during her stay and returned home in a wheelchair.

It was there, in her living room with her husband, that she again heard the same voice urging her, “Tell him! Call him!” Obeying the voice, she called out to her husband, who had just stepped into the kitchen. “Something has happened,” she told him.

In that moment, she stood unaided for the first time in years. Overcome with emotion, the couple embraced, crying together as they realized she was cured.

Though overjoyed, Raco was initially unsure of how to speak about her experience. She eventually confided in a parish priest in her diocese of Tursi-Lagonegro in Basilicata, who urged her to undergo medical evaluation.

Soon after, the local archbishop who had accompanied the pilgrimage that year, Francesco Nolè, visited her and, after hearing her story, told her: “Antonietta, the Lord has entered your home and given you a gift — but it is not for you alone. It is for all of us.” 

The road to recognition took more than a decade of thorough medical evaluation and expert review. “There is no cure for ALS,” noted Professor Vincenzo Silani, a leading neurologist involved in the investigation. He was among those who confirmed both the diagnosis and the inexplicability of Raco’s recovery. “Patients are doomed to get a little worse every day.” 

Dr. Alessandro de Franciscis, the permanent doctor at the Lourdes Sanctuary, reminded the audience that the Church considers a healing miraculous only if it is sudden, complete, lasting, medically inexplicable, and not attributable to treatment or gradual recovery.

These criteria, which continue to guide the Church’s discernment today, were first established by Cardinal Prospero Lambertini, later Pope Benedict XIV.

Debate within the International Medical Committee of Lourdes (CMIL) was initially inconclusive when the case was first presented in 2019. But a new international consensus on the diagnosis of ALS, published in 2020, provided the framework for reassessment. In 2023, Silani reevaluated Raco in Milan and confirmed the definitive cure. 

Finally, in November 2024, a secret vote was held among 21 members of the International Medical Committee of Lourdes: 17 voted in favor of an unexplained, complete, and lasting cure — meeting the two-thirds majority required by Church criteria. 

Following the positive medical vote, the case was referred to the current bishop of Raco’s home diocese, Vincenzo Carmine Orofino, who formally recognized the miracle on April 16 of this year.

Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes, who participated in the scientific process without voting, praised the rigor and transparency of the medical discussions. “What impressed me most,” he said, “was the freedom of the experts. They are not there to defend a cause but to seek the truth.”

He also reminded the participants that miracles never impose faith. “Even the Resurrection did not force anyone to believe,” he said. “A miracle is a sign — a gift to be received in the light of faith.” 

Closing the press briefing, the rector of the sanctuary, Father Michel Daubanes, expressed deep emotion and gratitude as he recalled the honor of announcing the miracle during the 6 p.m. rosary on Holy Thursday, April 17, just minutes before it was proclaimed at the cathedral of Tursi-Lagonegro.

“We often say: ‘If I saw a miracle, I would believe.’ But the truth is: If I believe, I can see miracles,” he reflected. “This healing is not just a story from the past. It is a living testimony that continues to bear fruit.”

Solène Tadié is the Europe Correspondent for the National Catholic Register. She is French-Swiss and grew up in Paris. After graduating from Roma III University with a degree in journalism, she began reporting on Rome and the Vatican for Aleteia. She joined L’Osservatore Romano in 2015, where she successively worked for the French section and the Cultural pages of the Italian daily newspaper. She has also collaborated with several French-speaking Catholic media organizations. Solène has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas.