Securus judicat orbis terrarum (The whole world judges right)

Carle Van Loo (1705-1765)

Saint Augustin confond les évêques donatistes à Carthage/ Saint Augustine defeats the Donatist Bishops at Carthage 1753

La Basilique de Notre-Dame des Victoires, Paris

André Dutertre 1753-1842

Saint Augustin disputant contre les donatistes au Concile de Carthage/ St Augustine debating against the Donatists at the Council of Carthage (Inspired Copy of composition by Carle Van Loo)

Pen, brown ink, lead pencil, whitening and brown wash on paper

00,600 m ; L. 00,785 m

Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, Paris

The Donatist Schism is not readily remembered by most today.

It began in Africa in AD 311 and flourished until condemned by the Council of Carthage in AD 411

It was St Augustine of Hippo who established the Catholic thesis that the Church, as long as it is upon earth, can, without losing its holiness, tolerate sinners within its pale for the sake of converting them

His thoughts in his writings in the Donatist controversy on the Church, its authority, its essential marks, and its mission in the economy of grace and the administration of the sacraments have wider application.

John Rogers Herbert (1810-1890)

Portrait of Nicholas Wiseman, then Rector of English College, Rome 1828-40

Oil on canvas

The Venerable English College - Rome

In Nineteenth century England, it was this same controversy and the debates about it which led to that "Tolle legi" moment for John Henry Newman, which started him down the final road to leave the Anglican Church for the Roman Catholic Church. Perhaps it is this debt which Newman owed to St Augustine is one of the features of his life which makes him  attractive to Pope Benedict XVI

In July 1839 the then Bishop Nicholas Wiseman published in The Dublin Review an Essay which made a great impression both in Oxford and throughout the theological world in England.

Its theme was St. Augustine and the Donatists but with an application to Anglicanism.

During the Long Vacation of 1839, when Newman was studying the history of the Monophysite heresy, a doubt as to the tenableness of Anglicanism first flashed across his mind.

Then Newman read Wiseman`s Essay a month after its appearance, and described it as " the first real hit from Romanism which has happened to me. . . . I seriously think it,.. a most uncomfortable article on every account."

The Essay made "a great impression " at Oxford, he writes in the same letter.

And to another friend he wrote, " It [the Essay] made me for a while very uncomfortable in my own mind."

Wilfrid Ward, Cardinal Wiseman`s biographer describes the matter:

"In the article on the Donatists he [Wiseman] suddenly passed, as he himself expressed it, ' to a higher level.'

He dealt no longer with technical points of doctrine, but with the idea of the Church—which Rome alone perpetuates—as the one organised spiritual society, which claims to expound with authority the revelation of our Lord.

He pointed out that the question of a Church in a state of schism was regarded by the Fathers not as a question of antiquarian research, but as a great practical case of conscience for each individual.

The facts on which the technical controversy depended might become obscured ; but this did not leave individual persons or individual Churches free to say, ' I see no convincing proof on either side ; therefore I will do as I like.'

Such a plea had been advanced in the fifth century ; and the very Fathers to whom Newman was appealing as his mainstay had emphatically disallowed it.

Briefly, St. Augustine had shown that in a matter so vital to the continued existence of the Church as an organic society, a simple and incontrovertible guiding principle was needed for individual persons and Churches—a principle capable of being applied by the unlearned as well as by the learned.

Cases were constantly arising, and would arise, of schism on the part of a local or national Church. Each party - the schismatics and their opponents—would profess to represent the ancient Catholic faith, and would call itself Catholic.

If the individual Church or the individual member of the Church were to be allowed to judge for itself or himself, all hope of Catholic unity would be gone.

The local Church must, therefore, in the nature of the case, be amenable to the judgment of its peers. If the rest of the Catholic Church acknowledged the bishop of a local Church, and interchanged letters of communion with him, then he and those who were his spiritual subjects formed part of the Church Catholic.

If the rest of the Church refused to communicate with him, and judged his claim to be invalid, then he was thereby ruled to be in schism.

This simple but pregnant rule was essential to the very existence of the Church Catholic ; and St. Augustine sums it up in the sentence which was destined to ring in Newman's ears for many a day :

' Quapropter securus judicat orbis terrarum, bonos non esse qui se dividunt ab orbe terrarum, in quacumque parte orbis terrarum.' "

(Wilfrid Ward, The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman Volume I (2nd edition, 1897), pages 322 - 323 ; Longmans Green and Co, London)

The Tractarian High Church claimed the title "Catholic". So had the Donatists. They rejected the term "Protestant". Donatists rejected the term "Donatist" for them. The Tractarians accepted the title of "Anglican Church" on the basis of hereditary local possession and the traditions of a local Church. On similar grounds the Donatists accepted the title "the African Church".

Ward goes on, summarising Wiseman`s argument:

"Once more, the Fathers, in their final analysis of the great guiding principle, gave as the real and simple test of communion with the Catholic Church throughout the world, communion with the See of Peter.

Thus St. Ambrose asks the schismatic Lucifer 'whether he agreed with the Catholic bishops—that is, with the Roman Church '; St. Augustine gives as the mark of the true vine on which all Churches should be engrafted, the successive occupants of the ' Chair of Peter,' and John, Patriarch of Constantinople, writes to Pope Hormisdas of those who are ' separated from the communion of the Catholic Church — that is, who consent not in all things with the Apostolic See.'

This last stage of the argument had its effect in completing the wonderfully close parallel between certain aspects of the Donatist and Anglican schisms....

The degree to which Rome was explicitly and universally recognised in the fifth century as neccessarily the embodiment of the voice of the orbis terrarum, and to which communion with Rome and communion with the orbis terrarum were necessarily identical, was a question over and above St. Augustine's central argument, which created so profound an impression when brought before the Oxford of the nineteenth century ...

Consequently Wiseman, with a true instinct as to the strength of his position, assigns the first place and a separate place to the one principle that a local Church must be judged by the aggregate of Catholic Churches which may impart or refuse communion as they choose ; proceeding afterwards to the consideration that that aggregate is kept together in virtue of communion with the Apostolic See.

The simplicity and directness of St. Augustine's argument, its express purpose of superseding such intricate controversy as might plausibly divert a man from complying with the duty of submitting to the judgment of the Catholic world, gave it special urgency.

' It has given me a stomach-ache,' Newman wrote ; and from the day on which Newman read the article he never again looked at the Roman Church with the same eyes as before. ...

Wiseman thus sums up the principle laid down by St. Augustine and other Fathers as incontrovertible:

' By the Fathers the question was essentially considered one of fact rather than of right : that is to say, the very fact of one particular Church being out of the aggregation of other Churches, constituted these judges over the other, and left no room for questioning the justice of the condemnation.' ...

The Oxford leaders [the Tractarians] had begun as antiquarian historians, and this aspect of their work had fixed itself deeply in the minds of many Englishmen. The importance of the points at issue appeared infinitesimal, and the movement seemed an unreal attempt to galvanise into a life which in the climate of that day was foredoomed, institutions and ideas proper to an entirely different state of civilisation.

But Wiseman's article, a voice from the fifth century with a startling and close application to the nineteenth, arrested attention in a moment, as claiming to deal with points not special to one time, but applicable to entirely different epochs ; and the more it was read the more this view of the case was confirmed.

It hinged on the necessity of one great spiritual organisation—the civitas Dei,in St. Augustine's own phrase. It was no contention for minute points of ritual, or for the spiritual efficacy of detailed ceremonial, or for what Arnold was wont to call the ' magical ' gifts of a privileged caste of priests.

It dealt with the principle of union and organisation, and consequently of strength for good work, among the Christian body.

However little the broad thinkers accepted conclusions which were based on High Church premises, here they found food for thought. The Roman Catholic Church as a widely extended practical institution, as a corporate body to safeguard morality, to preserve a definite ethical ideal, to succour the poor by its religious orders, to stem revolution by its embodiment of the principle of Authority, was a real force for practical good, to be dealt with, and well worth considering. ...

The City of God has remained immutable in its nature amid all the tremendous changes which have passed over the world ; scarce a word of his counsel stands in need of change. Such a fact could not but make the Church stand out as sustaining her claim to embody something sacred belonging to all times ; to be above the general rule that an organisation is integrally bound up with the conditions of a given age, and ceases to be a living force when those conditions have passed away.

Wiseman may claim to have been among the first effectually to remind Englishmen in our own day of that historical significance of the Catholic Church which so much impressed Macaulay, which affected permanently such a man as Comte ...

While Wiseman's article owes much of its permanent value to this placing anew before the public mind the actuality of the Catholic polity, and severing it from unpractical antiquarianism, and even from merely theological controversy, the effect on Newman and his friends was necessarily more ' all round.'

Its bearing, indeed, on the idea of the Church as one society touched them at every turn : but it was the destruction, by the most absolute decision of the greatest of the Fathers themselves, of a via media that claimed to be true before all things to the Fathers, which was most urgent in its effect at Oxford."

In his Apologia pro sua Vita , Newman described the effect of the article on him:

" But my friend, an anxiously religious man, now, as then, very dear to me, a Protestant still, pointed out the palmary words of St. Augustine, which were contained in one of the extracts made in the Review, and which had escaped my observation. Securus judicat orbis terrarum, ['the whole world judges right'--that is., the Universal Church must be right against one local body]

He repeated these words again and again, and, when he was gone, they kept ringing in my ears. "Securus judicat orbis terrarum;" they were words which went beyond the occasion of the Donatists: they applied to that of the Monophysites.

They gave a cogency to the Article, which had escaped me at first.

They decided ecclesiastical questions on a simpler rule than that of Antiquity; nay, St. Augustine was one of the prime oracles of Antiquity; here then Antiquity was deciding against itself.

What a light was hereby thrown upon every controversy in the Church! not that, for the moment, the multitude may not falter in their judgment,—not that, in the Arian hurricane, Sees more than can be numbered did not bend before its fury, and fall off from St. Athanasius,—not that the crowd of Oriental Bishops did not need to be sustained during the contest by the voice and the eye of St. Leo; but that the deliberate judgment, in which the whole Church at length rests and acquiesces, is an infallible prescription and a final sentence against such portions of it as protest and secede.

Who can account for the impressions which are made on him?

For a mere sentence, the words of St. Augustine, struck me with a power which I never had felt from any words before.

To take a familiar instance, they were like the "Turn again Whittington" of the chime; or, to take a more serious one, they were like the "Tolle, lege,—Tolle, lege," of the child, which converted St. Augustine himself.

"Securus judicat orbis terrarum!" By those great words of the ancient Father, interpreting and summing up the long and varied course of ecclesiastical history, the theory of the Via Media was absolutely pulverized.

I became excited at the view thus opened upon me.

I was just starting on a round of visits; and I mentioned my state of mind to two most intimate friends: I think to no others.

After a while, I got calm, and at length the vivid impression upon my imagination faded away. What I thought about it on reflection, I will attempt to describe presently. I had to determine its logical value, and its bearing upon my duty.

Meanwhile, so far as this was certain,—I had seen the shadow of a hand upon the wall. It was clear that I had a good deal to learn on the question of the Churches, and that perhaps some new light was coming upon me. He who has seen a ghost, cannot be as if he had never seen it.

The heavens had opened and closed again. The thought for the moment had been, "The Church of Rome will be found right after all;" and then it had vanished." "

St. George's Cathedral, Southwark 2

Pugin, A. Welby, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England and some remarks relative to Ecclesiastical Architecture and Decoration, (February 1842) Plate 2

Pugin, A. Welby, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England and some remarks relative to Ecclesiastical Architecture and Decoration, (February 1842) Plate 5

Pugin, A. Welby, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England and some remarks relative to Ecclesiastical Architecture and Decoration, (February 1842) Plate 12: The Great Rood Screen

You may have seen the webpage of The Pugin Society on St. George’s Cathedral, Southwark: 1841-1848

It has some interesting photographs of the Cathedral as built and the remnants of original Pugin which have survived. (especially the Petre Chantry)

On 4th July 1848 the Church was consecrated. The then co-adjutor Vicar-Apostolic of the London District Nicholas Patrick Stephen Wiseman (1802–1865) delivered the homily. It was a unique occasion: the first time since the Reformation, when 14 bishops and 240 priests were present, and six religious orders of men also being represented

Wiseman`s biographer described the occasion thus:

"On July 4, 1848, Dr. Wiseman assisted at the solemn opening of St. George's Church, Southwark, now known as St. George's Cathedral, in St. George's Fields, the chief centre of the Gordon rioters of 1780. This event was a landmark in the history of the Catholics of London. St. George's was no ' Mass house ' on whose faÇade the architect was afraid even to trace a cross, but a Gothic church of ample proportions, designed by Pugin.

Two hundred and forty priests were present at the opening. Fourteen bishops attended, among them several from France—the Bishops of Tournai, Liege, Luxembourg, and Treves. The Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Affre, had been invited, but a week before the event he was shot on the barricades, in his courageous endeavour to induce the Paris mob to lay down their arms.

Great interest was excited in London by the opening of St. George's, and the interest was not unfriendly. 'The Illustrated London News' sent an artist to sketch the function, and large crowds of spectators were present in the church. ' Strange indeed,' said a writer in the journal just named, ' are the mutations of localities in this vast metropolis, and not the least remarkable of them is that the location of the " No Popery " riots of 1780 should within a lifetime become the site of a Roman Catholic church—the largest erected in England since the Reformation.'

In the procession, besides the secular clergy, were representatives of the Benedictines, the Cistercians, the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Passionists, and the Oratorians. Wiseman preached the sermon, and among those assisting at the function were the present Archbishop of Trebizond (Monsignor Stonor), as acolyte, and the present Lord Acton (then Sir John Acton) as incense-bearer."

(Wilfrid Ward, The Life and Times of Cardinal Wiseman (1897) Volume I)

However, it was not until two years later, when the English Hierarchy was restored, that St George’s was known as a cathedral.

Until Westminster Cathedral opened some fifty years later, St George’s was the centre of Catholic worship in London

But controversy about the building was not slow in coming

One controversy arose from the construction of the Church was Pugin`s rood-screen.

The issue was first raised by The Rambler on 29th July 1848 in an unsigned letter. It opposed Pugin`s practice of building rood-screens on "Theological-artistic grounds" essentially because it obstructed the congregation`s view.

Pugin and the Gothic revivalists were suported by old English Catholics as part of the "national style". Converts favoured "Italian" styles of decoration which had developed in mainland Europe after the Reformation.

Josef L. Altholz in Chapter 1 of The Liberal Catholic Movement in England: The "Rambler" and its Contributors, 1848-1864, Burns and Oates (London) (1962) described the dispute in this way:

"The first major controversy of the Rambler was on a question of architecture. It opened on 29 July 1848, with a letter by "X" on "Rood- Screens," opposing Pugin's practice of building rood-screens on " theologico- artistic" grounds, arguing that screens obstructed the congregation's view of the sacramental acts (I, 292-7). All correspondence in the Rambler was anonymous, the correspondents arbitrarily choosing letters to identify themselves.

Only one correspondent in this controversy identified himself by name: W. G. Ward, who later acknowledged that he was "H." Most articles were unsigned, including all those for which the editor considered himself responsible; some of the "communicated" articles were signed by initials. The editor desiring to stir up some interest, invited discussion on the subject, and promptly found himself flooded with letters.

The Rambler, in raising the question, had unwarily trod on a very sensitive area of feeling among Catholics.

The Gothic revival led by Pugin had found particular support among the old Catholics, who regarded it as the appropriate national style. The converts, who wished to follow Roman models as closely as possible, favoured "Italian" styles of decoration and devotion which had developed on the Continent after the end of the Middle Ages.

Thus the architectural conflict merged with other conflicts between converts and old Catholics; at the same time, by becoming a battle between the "national" and the "Roman" tendencies in the Church, it took on quasi-theological overtones.

The Rambler took the "Roman" side, partly because Capes at that time shared the general attitude of the converts, but even more because he found that the Gothic style could not meet the actual needs of the English Catholics for numerous cheap churches, built among the poor, and suited to those devotions which they found most congenial. The controversy became embittered because of the tone and language of Pugin, who regarded Gothic as the only truly Catholic style, which it was almost a dogma of faith to support and heresy to oppose.

Indeed, he was not above impugning the orthodoxy of his opponents. Pugin published a strong letter in The Tablet on 2 September 1848, warning against "a system of deadly enmity to the fundamentals of Church architecture and Christian art" (cited Ward, Sequel, II. 270). and a pamphlet, An Earnest Appeal for the Revival of the Ancient Plain Song in 1850 denouncing "this miserable system of modern degeneracy" as a subversive attempt "to change the whole nature of the divine services of the Catholic Church" and as a display of "Methodism" (pp. 3-4).

This brought forth a response from Capes, who was shocked and somewhat disillusioned by this style of controversy among Catholics, but who was quite capable of replying in kind. In "Mr. Pugin and the 'Rambler'," Capes charged Pugin with speaking more as an Anglican than as a Catholic, implying that the Church had fallen in perfection since the Middle Ages, and fostering "a belief that the Church has actually done wrong in adopting the peculiar externals which characterise her in modern times" (V (April 1850), 374). Newman took much the same position as Capes in his remarks on architecture in the Idea of a University (1854): "an obsolete discipline may be a present heresy."

Pugin defended himself, and assailed the "architectual heresies" of the Rambler -- "a body of mutineers" who were "exciting this insane, I may almost say impious, movement against the restoration of old Catholic solemnity" in a new pamphlet (Some Remarks, pp. 8, 24-5); and the small war between "Goths" and "anti-Goths" continued. Only Pugin's death in 1852 put an end to the controversy."

Plus Ça change.

Pugin was not happy himself with the building. In 1850 he wrote:

"St. George s was spoilt by the very instructions laid down by the committee, that it was to hold 3000 people on the floor at_a limited price; in consequence, height, proportion, every thing, was sacrificed to meet these conditions."

The critic Ruskin did not like it either.

But he thought the fault was Pugin`s. But one wonders if the difference between the two was ideological and personal rather than aesthetic. He wrote:

"St. George s was not high enough for want of money ? But was it want of money that made you put that blunt, overloaded, laborious ogee door into the side of it ? Was it for lack of funds that you sunk the tracery of the parapet in its clumsy zigzags ? Was it in parsimony that you buried its paltry pinnacles in that eruption of diseased crockets ? or in pecuniary embarrassment that you set up the belfry foolscaps, with the mimicry of dormer windows, which nobody can ever reach nor look out of? Not so, but in mere incapability of better things.

I am sorry to have to speak thus of any living architect ; and there is much in this man, if he were rightly estimated, which one might both regard and profit by. He has a most sincere love for his profession, a heartily honest enthusiasm for pixes and piscinas ; and though he will never design so much as a pix or a piscina thoroughly well, yet better than most of the experimental architects of the day. Employ him by all means, but on small work. Expect no cathedrals of him ; but no one, at present, can design a better finial. That is an exceedingly beautiful one over the western door of St. George s ; and there is some spirited impishness and switching of tails in the supporting figures at the imposts. Only do not allow his good designing of finials to be employed as an evidence in matters of divinity, nor thence deduce the incompatibility of Protestantism and art."

(Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, Volume I, Appendix 12)

Finally a bitter and very sad irony. Pugin was last hospitalised at the Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam) [now the home of the Imperial War Museum] in sight of St George's, the cathedral for which he had had such high hopes and in which he and his third wife, Jane had exchanged vows only a few years before

St George's Cathedral, Southwark

Near the Imperial War Museum in South London stands the Cathedral of St George the Martyr,

The present structure of the Cathedral of St George the Martyr in Southwark dates only from its re-consecration in 1958.

It was bombed almost to destruction in 1941 in a German bombing raid over South London. The adjoining hall 'Archbishop Amigo Hall' was used in place of the Cathedral until it was rebuilt and re-opened in 1958.

The pictures below are from The Imperial War Museum`s collection of photographs from the Second World War.

Father Frederick Dixon surveys the damage as he looks towards what was once the altar of St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral, on the corner of St George's Road and Lambeth Road in Southwark, South East London. The Cathedral became a roofless shell, following an incendiary bomb attack which gutted the building on 16 April 1941.

A priest, probably Father Dixon, stands in the roofless shell of St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral, on the corner of St George's Road and Lambeth Road in Southwark, South East London

Father Dixon stands on the site of what was once the school attached to St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral, on the corner of St George's Road and Lambeth Road, Southwark.

The original building, opened in 1848, and the first Catholic Cathedral in the UK since the Reformation, was the work of the great Victorian Architect, Pugin.

A great deal of his design remains, and is incorporated into the rebuilt Cathedral.

Pugin was determined to revive the Medieval Church in all its glory. The scale of this ambition is best demonstrated in this drawing, one of the finest Victorian drawings in the RIBA collection.

Cathedral of St George, Southwark

Architect: A.W.N. Pugin (1838)

Drawing: A.W.N. Pugin (1838)

Source: RIBA British Architectural Library Drawings ; Archives Collection

Here is a photograph of the interior prior to the destruction and reconstruction:

St. George's Cathedral, the Sanctuary, 1936', Survey of London: volume 25: St George's Fields (The parishes of St. George the Martyr Southwark and St. Mary Newington) (1955), pp. 47. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65507  Date accessed: 13 June 2010. >

It is now generally agreed that St. George's was not one of the best products of Pugin's genius, but in view of its size, the limitations imposed by the site and the small funds available, it was a remarkable achievement.

Here is an extract of the history of the Cathedral:

"In 1788, in anticipation of the passing of the Catholic Relief Bill, Roman Catholics in Southwark started collecting subscriptions for a chapel to replace the inadequate accommodation in a house in Bandyleg Walk with which they had previously been forced to be content. The chapel in London Road , an unimposing building whose site is now occupied by the South London Palace of Varieties, was blessed and opened in March, 1790, and finished in 1793.

Temporary chapels were opened in Southwark for refugees from the French Revolution between 1799 and 1805, but the large influx of Irish Catholics into the rapidly expanding working-class districts of Walworth and St. George's during the first quarter of the 19th century, created a greater problem.

In the 1830's a committee, in which Father Doyle was the moving spirit, was set up to discuss the possibility of building a large church to accommodate the overflowing congregation of the London Road Chapel.

A. W. Pugin, who was informed of the project by the Earl of Shrewsbury, with his usual expedition produced elaborate and detailed plans for a cathedral with chapter-house, cloisters, and conventual buildings. The plans were much admired by the committee, but on a member inquiring how much it would cost to put them into execution Pugin, resenting so mundane a question, rolled up his drawings, "took his hat, wished the gentlemen good day, and walked out."

In 1839 a new committee was formed which asked the architects, J. Buckler, E. M. Foxhall, A. W. Pugin, and J. J. Scoles, to send in competing designs for the church. Forewarned by previous experience the committee laid down that the buildings, which were to include a church with accommodation for 2,500 on the ground floor, a house for four clergy, and schools for 300 boys and 200 girls, were not to exceed an estimated cost of £20,000. The "style of pointed Architecture" was to be chosen but "solidity of construction" was required rather than "ornamental Architecture."

Pugin's designs were selected, mainly because his plan for the church contained the greatest space.

Public feeling against the Catholics still ran high and Father Doyle encountered difficulties in buying land.

His first application to the City of London for the triangle of land opposite Bethlem Hospital was refused, but in April, 1840, the City authorities agreed to sell him a plot of land in St. George's Road for £3,200 provided that the buildings were erected to Pugin's design, were completed within six years, and had no "ecclesiastical Ornament" on the outside. Parliamentary sanction for the transfer had been obtained in the previous year. It was thought inadvisable to have any public ceremony at the laying of the foundation stone and it was laid privately at 7 o'clock in the morning of 26th May, 1841.

Most of Pugin's working drawings have unfortunately been lost, but an elevation, sketch, and plan made in 1839 and now preserved at the cathedral is reproduced on

Pugin, writing before the building was well begun, in 1841, declared his intention of carrying out every detail "in the style of the time of Edward III. A great part of the church will be left open, without seats, and three thousand persons may be easily accommodated on the floor. No galleries of any description will be introduced, but all the internal arrangements will be strictly a revival of those which were anciently to be found in the large parochial churches of England."

Pugin supervised the building to the last detail and even wished to dispense with the services of a clerk of the works, saying that the saving of his wages would be sufficient "to finish three altars." The building contractors were Messrs. Myers & Wilson, and the contract specified that the foundations and all inside walling was to be of "good hard burnt common stocks … the masonry … of Bath stone … [and] The foundations of concrete … 5 feet thick." The stained glass was by Wailes of Newcastle.

By 1843 work on the church was so well advanced that the school and clergy house were begun, but in spite of the persuasive tongue and pen of Father Doyle, completion of the buildings was delayed by lack of funds and the church was not formally opened until 4th July, 1848.

It is interesting to note that the first marriage to be celebrated in St. George's was that of A. W. Pugin to Jane Knill, his third wife, on 10th August, 1848.

Cardinal Wiseman, the first Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, was inducted at St. George's in December, 1850, and in the following year Dr. Thomas Grant was installed as the first bishop of the newly-established diocese of Southwark.

Two early additions to the fabric were the chantries in memory of Edward Petre (1849), and George Talbot (1854). The latter was never finished and endowed as intended, owing to the death of Talbot's kinsman, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had undertaken to pay for its erection, but it was later made into a Relic chapel. The Knill chantry, designed by Edward Pugin, was completed in 1857.

Major alterations to the cathedral and its ancillary buildings were carried through in 1886–90 by Bishop Butt. The schools were removed to a new site in 1887 and the old site was used for a new clergy house designed by Frederick A. Walters (1888).

In 1889 Pugin's rood screen, which had always aroused controversy among his co-religionists, was removed so that the congregation could have a clear view of the Sanctuary.

In 1890 a new chapel in honour of St. Joseph was erected on the south side of the cathedral in memory of Samuel Weld. In 1894 the long-delayed consecration of the cathedral took place.

Archbishop Amigo Jubilee Hall, built from money collected when Bishop Amigo became Archbishop after occupying the see of Southwark for thirty-four years, was opened in 1940 and, since April, 1941, when the cathedral was burnt out, it has been used for services. The architect was Robert Sharp.

St. George's was 240 feet in length and 72 feet in width and filled practically the whole of the restricted site allowed for it, so that the north-east and north-west sides have always been obscured by other buildings. The 8-foot thick walls at the base of the tower were made to support a lofty tower and spire, but they were never carried higher than 64 feet.

Pugin's design was based on that of the church of the Austin Friars near Old Broad Street and had the same plan, three parallel aisles without triforium or clerestory.

The chancel, 40 feet long and about the same in height, was short in proportion to the length of the nave, but this and the lack of a clerestory were not considered as serious defects until after the elevation of the building to the dignity of a cathedral.

The lukewarm description of the church given in The Times' account of the consecration is typical of contemporary opinion:

"The external appearance is not remarkably striking, and, if it provokes no censure, certainly challenges no extraordinary praise … Within, the nave and aisles are equally unpretending, the pillars which support them being light in structure and fluted; the roof, of plain oak; the side walls and windows perfectly plain … The elevation of the pointed Gothic arches on which the roof rests seems too low for a sublime effect and too high for elegance of detail. The side windows, which are six in number on each side, have not yet been filled with stained glass, and their blank and cheerless appearance, no doubt, added to the naked and hungry aspect of the aisles. A few paintings hung on the walls at intervals scarcely relieved this expression, which may have been designedly introduced by the architect to set off by contrast the extraordinary beauty of the great window and organ gallery at the western entrance, of the stone pulpit in the centre, and of the chancel and chapels of the sacrament and the blessed Virgin on the east … The screen which separates the chancel from the nave is formed on three arches, which rest, like those of the stone pulpit, on highly-polished marble pillars … [It] is in the style of the ancient 'rood lofts'."

The Builder gave a detailed description of the chancel with its carved oak panelling and desks, the decorated stonework of the Sanctuary, and the High Altar of Caen stone with a richly gilt Tabernacle, consisting of four clusters of pinnacles supporting a canopy. It praised the design and workmanship of the altar furniture and suggested that it was in such matters that Pugin's chief excellence lay. "

(From St George's Cathedral', Survey of London: volume 25: St George's Fields (The parishes of St. George the Martyr Southwark and St. Mary Newington) (1955), pp. 72-75. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65446  Date accessed: 13 June 2010.)

Some images of The Cathedral Today:

Roof and nave

Memorial to Provost Thomas Doyle

The Installation of Archbishop Peter Smith at Southwark

Archbishop Peter Smith was installed as Archbishop of Southwark at St George's Cathedral on Thursday, 10th June 2010

The ceremony was attended by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishops of Westminster, Birmingham and Liverpool and most of the Bishops of England and Wales and Bishops from further afield, ecumenical and civic dignitaries, the priests and deacons of the diocese, with many from Archbishop Peter's previous diocese of Cardiff, and religious and laity from around Southwark.

For more pictures see the Archdiocese website here.

The homily had a number of themes but here is an extract of one passage which has more than contemporary relevance:

"There are those in our own times who would like to see people of faith thrown down too. We are living at a moment in our history when our society is marked by deep struggles about its identity, values and purpose. It’s a society in which religion and religious faith are increasingly under attack from the philosophers and the “worldly wise” of our times.

Religious faith, and all that flows from it, is all too often perceived at best to be simply a legally permissible but private eccentricity; allowable only behind closed doors, but not in any way to be given expression in public life, the workplace or in the field of education.

The historic, present, and future value of religion to the secular and spiritual life of the country has come under increasing criticism, and is often summarily dismissed as irrelevant and even dangerous.

At the extreme, there are those who represent an aggressive secularism or an anti-theism, which asserts a vision of a secular society completely free of religion and its influence.

In the words of the Jesuit theologian, Fr. James Hanvey:

“Part of this approach is to construct a version of religion, especially Catholicism, that not only makes it strange to the secular mind but presents it as a threat. . . Religion in general, but the Church in particular, comes to stand for all the deepest fears and demons of a liberal secularism: it is prejudiced, oppressive, irrational, authoritarian, and capable of inspiring fanatical violence and abusing power.”

However, the reality is that the Church is not a threat to the legitimate independence and proper role of the secular State. The ambition of the Church is to see every person flourish and achieve his or her full potential, irrespective of race, religion, colour or creed.

And, in the light of the Gospel, she has a clear vision of what religion and faith can offer to a confused and fragmented society and world. The Church, and by Church I mean all the baptised, by virtue of her God-given mission, must be passionately engaged in expressing that vision, because she wants humanity to succeed, not fail.

That mission is to shed the light of Christ in the world of our times and to bring people to the knowledge of the truth - the truth of what it means to be human, the truth about the purpose of human life, the truth of God’s unconditional love for everyone without exception. That was the mission of Christ; that is the mission he passed on to all of us, when we received the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation."

66 Years Ago

This month 66 years ago, the Allied Forces liberated Rome. Here are some photographs of this time from The Imperial War Museum in London

Pope Pius XII addressing the crowd in St Peter's Square, Rome, from the balcony of St Peter's Cathedral at 6 o'clock in the evening of 5 June 1944 when Allied troops entered Rome

The band of the Irish Brigade plays in front of St Peter's Church in the Vatican City, Rome, 12 June 1944.

Autumn 1944: Leading Aircraftman John Healy, Royal Air Force standing in St Peter's Square in Rome before playing the organ in St Peter's Cathedral. At this time a member of the RAF played the organ in St Peter's Cathedral every Sunday

Source: The Imperial War Museum, London

The Sacred Hearts of Christ and the Virgin Mary

Vitus Felix Rigl (German, active 1743 - 1779)

A Study for a Frontispiece: The Trinity and Saints surrounding the Sacred Hearts of Christ and the Virgin Mary, a Coastal Landscape Below

Black chalk, pen and gray ink, brush and gray wash, highlighted with lead white (partly oxidized)

16 1/4 x 11 1/8 in. (41.3 x 28.3 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"We see symbolised in the heart of Mary her maternal love, her singular sanctity and her central role in the redemptive mission of her Son.

It is with regard to her special role in her Son’s mission that devotion to Mary’s Heart has prime importance, for through love of her Son and of all of humanity she exercises a unique instrumentality in bringing us to him.

The act of entrusting to the Immaculate Heart of Mary that I solemnly performed at Fatima on May 13, 1982, and once again on March 25, 1984 at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Holy Year of the Redemption, is based upon this truth about Mary’s maternal love and particular intercessory role.

If we turn to Mary’s Immaculate Heart she will surely help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths towards the future.

Our act of consecration refers ultimately to the heart of her Son, for as the Mother of Christ she is wholly united to his redemptive mission.

As at the marriage feast of Cana, when she said "Do whatever he tells you", Mary directs all things to her Son, who answers our prayers and forgives our sins.

Thus by dedicating ourselves to the heart of Mary we discover a sure way to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, symbol of the merciful love of our Saviour."

Pope John Paul II (Friday, 26 September 1986): Address to the Participants of the Study Week of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences

A Meditation on the Good Shepherd

As you know, today, Friday, June 11, 2010, the Pope concelebrated Mass on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the conclusion of the Year for Priests.

There were over 15,000 priests in St Peters Square. It is thought that this is the largest number of priests who have ever concelebrated.

Reporting of the occasion has been overshadowed by the Pope tendering a further apology and declaration of sorrow in regard to the priests` "pedophilia scandal"

His homily is reported in full in Sandro Magister

It is well worth reading in its entirety

The homily is not all about the pedophilia scandal.

Those parts of his speech can be commented on by others.

Important that those sections of the speech may be, the Pope touched on many more topics in is homily. In all it is an important meditation on the role of the priesthood.

Included in the homily there is an extended meditation by the Pope on Psalm 23.

The psalm is popular and well-known. Perhaps through over-familiarity we do not really appreciate its significance. The Pope attempted to remedy this in a homily which appeared to be ex tempore at times.

He described the Psalm as "[t]he most important of those texts in today’s liturgy ... in which Israel at prayer received God’s self revelation as shepherd, and made this the guide of its own life."

Here are the relevant sections of the homily:

"The most important of those texts in today’s liturgy is Psalm 23 (22) – “The Lord is my shepherd” – in which Israel at prayer received God’s selfrevelation as shepherd, and made this the guide of its own life.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”: this first verse expresses joy and gratitude for the fact that God is present to and concerned for humanity.

The reading from the Book of Ezechiel begins with the same theme: “I myself will look after and tend my sheep” (Ez 34:11).

God personally looks after me, after us, after all mankind.

I am not abandoned, adrift in the universe and in a society which leaves me ever more lost and bewildered.

God looks after me. He is not a distant God, for whom my life is worthless.

The world’s religions, as far as we can see, have always known that in the end there is only one God. But this God was distant. Evidently he had abandoned the world to other powers and forces, to other divinities. It was with these that one had to deal.

The one God was good, yet aloof. He was not dangerous, nor was he very helpful. Consequently one didn’t need to worry about him. He did not lord it over us. Oddly, this kind of thinking re-emerged during the Enlightenment.

There was still a recognition that the world presupposes a Creator. Yet this God, after making the world, had evidently withdrawn from it. The world itself had a certain set of laws by which it ran, and God did not, could not, intervene in them. God was only a remote cause. Many perhaps did not even want God to look after them. They did not want God to get in the way.

But wherever God’s loving concern is perceived as getting in the way, human beings go awry.

It is fine and consoling to know that there is someone who loves me and looks after me. But it is far more important that there is a God who knows me, loves me and is concerned about me."

After digressing on “I know my own and my own know me” (Jn 10:14), he continued:

"Let us return to our Psalm.

There we read: “He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me” (23 [22]:3ff.).

The shepherd points out the right path to those entrusted to him. He goes before them and leads them. Let us put it differently: the Lord shows us the right way to be human. He teaches us the art of being a person. What must I do in order not to fall, not to squander my life in meaninglessness?

This is precisely the question which every man and woman must ask and one which remains valid at every moment of one’s life. How much darkness surrounds this question in our own day!

We are constantly reminded of the words of Jesus, who felt compassion for the crowds because they were like a flock without a shepherd.

Lord, have mercy on us too! Show us the way! From the Gospel we know this much: he is himself the way. Living with Christ, following him – this means finding the right way, so that our lives can be meaningful and so that one day we might say: “Yes, it was good to have lived”.

The people of Israel continue to be grateful to God because in the Commandments he pointed out the way of life.

The great Psalm 119 (118) is a unique expression of joy for this fact: we are not fumbling in the dark. God has shown us the way and how to walk aright. The message of the Commandments was synthesized in the life of Jesus and became a living model.

Thus we understand that these rules from God are not chains, but the way which he is pointing out to us. We can be glad for them and rejoice that in Christ they stand before us as a lived reality. He himself has made us glad.

By walking with Christ, we experience the joy of Revelation, and as priests we need to communicate to others our own joy at the fact that we have been shown the right way."

He continued:

"Then there is the phrase about the “darkest valley” through which the Lord leads us. Our path as individuals will one day lead us into the valley of the shadow of death, where no one can accompany us.

Yet he will be there.

Christ himself descended into the dark night of death. Even there he will not abandon us. Even there he will lead us. “If I sink to the nether world, you are present there”, says Psalm 139 (138).

Truly you are there, even in the throes of death, and hence our Responsorial Psalm can say: even there, in the darkest valley, I fear no evil.

When speaking of the darkest valley, we can also think of the dark valleys of temptation, discouragement and trial through which everyone has to pass.

Even in these dark valleys of life he is there. Lord, in the darkness of temptation, at the hour of dusk when all light seems to have died away, show me that you are there.

Help us priests, so that we can remain beside the persons entrusted to us in these dark nights. So that we can show them your own light."

He went on:

"“Your rod and your staff – they comfort me”: the shepherd needs the rod as protection against savage beasts ready to pounce on the flock; against robbers looking for prey. Along with the rod there is the staff which gives support and helps to make difficult crossings.

Both of these are likewise part of the Church’s ministry, of the priest’s ministry.

The Church too must use the shepherd’s rod, the rod with which he protects the faith against those who falsify it, against currents which lead the flock astray. The use of the rod can actually be a service of love.

Today we can see that it has nothing to do with love when conduct unworthy of the priestly life is tolerated. Nor does it have to do with love if heresy is allowed to spread and the faith twisted and chipped away, as if it were something that we ourselves had invented.

As if it were no longer God’s gift, the precious pearl which we cannot let be taken from us. Even so, the rod must always become once again the shepherd’s staff – a staff which helps men and women to tread difficult paths and to follow the Lord."

He concluded his meditation on the Psalm thus:

"At the end of the Psalm we read of the table which is set, the oil which anoints the head, the cup which overflows, and dwelling in the house of the Lord.

In the Psalm this is an expression first and foremost of the prospect of the festal joy of being in God’s presence in the temple, of being his guest, whom he himself serves, of dwelling with him.

For us, who pray this Psalm with Christ and his Body which is the Church, this prospect of hope takes on even greater breadth and depth.

We see in these words a kind of prophetic foreshadowing of the mystery of the Eucharist, in which God himself makes us his guests and offers himself to us as food –as that bread and fine wine which alone can definitively sate man’s hunger and thirst.

How can we not rejoice that one day we will be guests at the very table of God and live in his dwelling-place? How can we not rejoice at the fact that he has commanded us: “Do this in memory of me”?

How can we not rejoice that he has enabled us to set God’s table for men and women, to give them his Body and his Blood, to offer them the precious gift of his very presence.

Truly we can pray together, with all our heart, the words of the Psalm:

“Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” (Ps 23 [22]:6).""

Cadell

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937)

Crème de Menthe 1917

Oil on canvas

107 x 84cm

McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock.

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937)

Black and Gold 1920-25

Oil on canvas

103 x 92cm

McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883-1937)

Interior - The Orange Blind, c.1928

OIl on canvas

33.86 inch x 44.02 inch

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, R.S.A., R.S.W. (1883-1937)

Figure and Kirk, Iona

signed 'F.C.B. Cadell' (lower left)

Pencil and watercolour

6¾ x 9¾ in. (17 x 24.7 cm.)

Private collection

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell, R.S.A., R.S.W. (1883-1937)

North Wind, Iona (The Bather)

signed 'FCB Cadell.' (lower right), signed again and inscribed 'NORTH WIND. IONA./(THE BATHER.)/by F.C.B. Cadell./F.C.B.C.' (on the reverse)

oil on panel

14½ x 17¾ in. (36.8 x 45 cm.)

Private collection

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell R.S.A. (1883-1937)

The Sound of Iona c. 1928

signed 'F.C.B. Cadell' (lower left)

oil on canvas laid down on board

14¾ x 17¼in. (37.5 43.8cm)

Private collection

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell R.S.A. (1883-1937)

Iona: Ben More

signed 'F.C.B. Cadell' (lower left)

Oil on panel

38 by 46 cm., 15 by 18 in.

Private collection

Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell R.S.A. (1883-1937)

Still Life with a Lacquer Screen c.1932

Oil on canvas

59.5 by 49.5 cm., 23 1/2 by 19 1/2 in

Private collection

Francis Cadell was a member of the so-called 'Scottish Colourists', a loose-knit group which included the artists S.J. Peploe (1871-1935), J.D. Fergusson (1874-1961) and G.L. Hunter. Of the Scottish Colourists, Cadell was perhaps the most versatile, painting landscapes, seascapes, still-lifes and portraits with equal facility.

The group's paintings were noted for their freedom of handling, and richness of colour

Cadell spent three years in Paris at the turn of the century. Such experience exposed the young artist to the progressive ideas of the avant-garde and immersed him in the inspirational legacy of the Impressionists and their circle.

Cadell was a close friend of the Scottish architect Reginald Francis Joseph Fairlie (1883-1952) who was the architect of a number of notable Catholic buildings in Scotland.

He painted many portraits with wonderful Edinburgh interiors, frequently varied in effect with harmonious colour, animation and lightness in touch.

Iona became his second home. Each year he would visit the island, spending all his time painting the beauty of the white beaches and green seas.

Iona Cathedral is the burial place of the early Scottish kings. The first Christian settlement on the island was founded by St Columba over fourteen hundred years ago. The Cathedral has been an important Christian centre for over 800 years, with its architecture changing and evolving over the centuries.

According to Roger Billcliffe, Cadell was a well-know figure on the island which was a continuous source of inspiration, 'its great attraction was its light and the rapidly changing colours of sand, sea and sky caused by the wind blowing in the clouds from the Atlantic. The fields, hills, farms and beaches of Iona never failed to offer Cadell some new subject ... he became a 'weel-kent' figure ... remarked upon as much for his eccentricity as his talents as an artist' (see R. Billcliffe, The Scottish Colourists, London, 1989, p. 41).

In 1913 Cadell wrote the following verse wich he entitled One Sunday in Iona:

Warmed by the sun, blown by the wind I sat

Upon the hill top looking at the sound.

Down in the church beneath, the people sat

On chairs and laughed and frowned.

No Chairs for me when I can lie

And air myself upon the heather

And watch the fat bees buzzing by

And smell the smell of summer weather.

Let them bow down to God unfound

For me the sound that stretches round

For me the flowery scented ground

Upon the hilltop looking at the sound.

No church for me to worship in

Confined by walls of dank dark stone.

For rather can I worship him

When I am out in his fair world.

Whistler

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

The Doorway 1880

Etching with drypoint on paper

30.5 x 20.6cm

McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)

The Bead Stringers 1880

Etching with drypoint on paper

22.3 x 15cm

McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock.