Saturday 23 June 2012

A fine priest...


This splendid photo is of Fr Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton, 1874-1959, a prominent Anglican Papalist, who was from 1922 unto his death rector of St Magnus the Martyr at London Bridge (which he beautified extensively). Coeval with the great Dr Adrian Fortescue, Fr Fynes-Clinton was very interested in the Eastern churches, and in the spirit of his catholicism re-founded the Fraternity of Our Lady de Salve Regina in 1922. There is a reasonable wikipedia article on his life here. I am privileged to know a few good men who knew Fr Fynes-Clinton personally.

5 comments:

  1. A very interesting post. A young Peter Morgan knew Fr. F-C and used to attend weekday Masses at St. Magnus before he, later, undertook theological studies and was ordained by Abp. Lefebvre in 1971. When he returned to the Realm after ordination Fr. Morgan set about arranging for the publication of an Ordo using the skills of John Tyson - the fruit of this first appeared in 1973. Fr. Morgan told me that his liturgical views had been formed by his experience of Fr. Fynes-Clinton and in a certain way Fr. F-C is the 'grand-father' of the Ordo. A truly great and holy man, his kind are sadly very rare in our modern world.

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  2. Thank you, Rubricarius, for your informative comment. Of course Fr Fynes-Clinton was also contemporary with a very unholy man, the bishop of Rome inaptly named Pius, whose mission, it seems to me, was quite the opposite of the great Fr Fynes-Clinton.

    I wonder how many Roman Catholics, besotted with this ''ordinariate,'' know anything about Fr Fynes-Clinton, or his church?

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  3. We know nothing of him, Patricius, because contrary to what you might like to believe, Roman Catholics cannot recognise Anglican Churches as possessing valid orders. You know, it would be like expecting me to know any rabbis outside of Jonathan Sacks.

    Tangentially, however, I might add that there are many Catholics who are not at all besotted with the ordinariate. If it continues to use calked-together ugly "liturgies", it's no better than the "Pastoral Provision"

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  4. I wouldn't recognize that clown as a priest if I was drunk

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  5. Cerdic, thank you for your informed contribution. I'm sure Fr Fynes-Clinton, who was an educated man, would have thought as much of the prejudiced and ignorant.

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