Walsingham, Oh farewell!

Pray for the conversion of England.

From the Walsingham Project

Weep, weep, O Walsingham
Whose days are nights,
Blessings turned to blasphemies,
Holy deeds to despites.
Sin is where Our Lady sat,
Heaven turned into hell,
Satan sits where Our Lord did sway,
Walsingham, oh farewell!

England was not to remain merry for long. In 1538, twenty years after his last visit, Henry VIII saw to the proclamation of his Oath of Supremacy, thereby tearing England from the Holy See of Rome. The Protestant Revolution exploded on the continent. Needing funds, Henry turned and crushed any opposition from the monasteries and religious orders. Walsingham was one of the first to capitulate to the king's commands, and the canons who surrendered the Walsingham lands were awarded generous pensions. Only two canons refused. They were promptly martyred.

But Henry and Cranmer were not satisfied. Accusing the shrines of idolatry, the soldiers of the king pillaged the holy places of England and Wales, carting the statues and sacred articles back to London. In 1538, military divisions were sent into Walsingham to destroy it. The canons and Grey-Friars tried to defend the shrine, desperately pleading their immunity. All in vain. The priory was torn down, the buildings ravaged. The monks and canons who continued to resist were hung, drawn and quartered on a field now known as Martyr's Field.

* ~ * ~ *

In a happier vein:

Mary in Monmouth is a blog I've just discovered about the Christian history of Wales.

A site tracing the Catholic life and history of the Ancient Kingdom of Gwent, now known as Monmouthshire,UK from Silurian times. Linked to Mary in Monmouth download free from iTunes Store or RSS feed at end of this blog.Also MaryinMonmouth Group of Face book. Photographs of interesting places. Some Catechesis. Strength of site is in tracing obscure Gwentian saints and martyrs and digging out gems from forgotten sites.

New nuns

My Norbie friends have just gone to check up on those new nuns who came over the Tiber a few weeks back from Walsingham.


They look like they're doing OK, which is good.

Today some of the confreres had the great joy of welcoming to the Priory Sr Jane Louise, Sr Carolyne Joseph and Sr Wendy Renate, who have joined the newly established Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. The Ordinariate, set up by the Holy See to welcome former Anglicans into communion with the Catholic Church, also allows for communities of religious to come under its jurisdiction.

I would go into all the cosmic implications of three nuns, women consecrated to pray for the things that Walsingham is supposed to be about, coming over to the Religion of the Real, but really, I'm just too lazy and generally fed up with the whole business. So, I'll let y'all work it out for yourselves.

Weep, weep, O Walsingham
Whose days are nights,
Blessings turned to blasphemies,
Holy deeds to despites.
Sin is where Our Lady sat,
Heaven turned into hell,
Satan sits where Our Lord did sway,
Walsingham, oh farewell!

The English Reformation was a Crime Against Humanity

Bit bored today. Tried to take a nap, but kept waking up cause I couldn't breathe properly. Always happens when the weather shifts to damp.

What do you do?

Start a Facebook Group:

The so-called English Reformation, and Acts of Supremacy
and Settlement, were the original disasters that have
resulted in the current calamitous state of decay and
degradation suffered by the British nation. It was one of
the great calamities of western civilisation and the
errors of the English Reformation have infected the whole
of the formerly Christian world.

England was known as one of the most devoutly Catholic
nations on earth, Mary's Dowry, the home of one of the
four great pilgrimage shrines of Christendom, Walsingham
and her Catholicism was the reason she was called "merrie".

Henry and his usurper, tyrant, bastard daughter destroyed
the native English religion and the entire social order.
They replaced it, out of greed and demonic lust for
power, with a state-sponsored tyranny and state theft on
an unprecedented scale. They installed a totalitarian
police state in which the common people were bullied,
priests and devout laymen murdered, the welfare of the
people abandoned by the destruction of the monastic system
and the robber barons fattened on the lacerated backs
of Christ's poor.

What has replaced it has been five hundred years of denial
and a tea-party quasi- religion that has finally
collapsed under the weight of its own internal contradictions
and self-deceptions.

Thanks to Henry and Elizabeth, England has been a state of
denial for centuries in which none dare to love God or
ask questions about Truth.

Restoration of the Catholic Faith is the only choice now
between total social collapse and a new tyranny of
relativistic secularist dictatorship.

Free the English people: Bring Back the True English Faith.

Pray to Our Lady of Walsingham, Queen of our islands.

One commenter has already offered:

Q: A bit harsh, don't you think?

A: NO, NO, NO, NON, NEIN, NYET, NEVER, NOT A BIT OF IT!!!!

Looming Islamicisation is only the latest in a series of conquests of national character to which the British are doing a slow surrender. As charming a people as they have always been, one begins to wonder if it was Churchill who was the freak and Chamberlain who was embodiment of the national soul. I grieve for this nation which I have regarded as a second home (even as I stuff cheesy St. Joseph medals into secret corners of their most valued Anglican [occupied] sacred real estate -- bwahahahahaha!!!!). Thank God they were subjected to a Churchill-mandated reverse spinectomy when the Barbarians were at the gate in '39, but sadly the relapse is almost complete. Our Lady of Walsingham, get out your bitter withy!

The Walsingham Project

In 1854, the famous Curé d’Ars was talking to Archbishop Ullathorne, of Birmingham, England, when suddenly the saintly curé interrupted him and said:

"Mais, Monseigneur, je crois que l’Eglise d’Anglaterre retournera à son ancienne splendeur."

"But, Monsignor, I believe that the Church in England will recover her ancient splendour."

This region is England

"One morning, while I was doing my thanksgiving after Holy Communion, I was taken by a strong distraction. It seemed that I was on a very vast flat land surface, full of people surrounded by thick darkness. They were walking, but did so as though they had lost their way and could not see where they set their feet. Someone beside me said, 'This region is England'.

"Then I saw the Supreme Pontiff, Pius IX. He was dressed in a majestic fashion, carrying in his hands a splendorous light, and advancing amidst the multitude of people. As He advanced, the darkness gradually disappeared and the people were bathed with so much light that it seemed noon time.

"The friend said, 'This light is the Catholic Religion, which must illuminate England'."

Join the Walsingham Project

Pray for the conversion of England.

Took a little trip to Manchester yesterday

to visit with the Norbertines, a very jolly bunch.

They're moving in a week or so down to Chelmsford, but will be keeping someone at St. Chads to keep things going.

Got to go to Mass, and was very kindly invited to a nice lunch and a very pleasant chin-wag after. I do so miss shop-talk.


St. Chads is a lovely church, in one of the nastiest neighbourhoods of Manchester. Fr. Hugh told me that it had been a Catholic neighbourhood back in the day. The same day when the mills were still open and the labourers were Irish.

I was told that there had once been a very beautiful Gothic rood screen, but that it had been the first to go in the '60s. It is indicative of the quality of education given to priests of the previous generation that the reason it was destroyed was that a rood screen was "too Protestant", because, of course, all the old English parishes churches retained them after the Anglicans stole our churches and started murdering our priests.

Fortunately, the parish was too poor for very much more VaticanII-mandated vandalism and they satisfied themselves with mere liturgical terrorism and bullying after that. But it is in lovely shape and the Norbies have used it to good purpose.


The real treat though is the side chapel where statues of Norbertine saints keep watch with Our Lady of Walsingham.






Br. Rupert serving


...and tidying up after




At least some people don't mind having their picture taken.