Mid-week blues

A report here from France 24 about a foiled Islamist terror attack on Christian churches in Paris (indications at present seem to be of a rogue 'radicalised' individual with possible Syrian back-up rather than a local network ) 

"French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Wednesday said “terrorists are targeting France to divide us” but that the country was “determined to stay united”.
Valls visited two churches in Villejuif that were the apparent focus of the foiled plot. He said the suspect planned to target "the Christians, the Catholics of France".
"To target a church is to target a symbol of France, the very essence of France," the prime minister said, adding that this was “the first time” Christians were specifically targeted by suspected jihadists in France.
Valls said his government would take appropriate measures to guarantee the safety of worshippers and church visitors.
“France has an exceptional Christian heritage – its cathedrals, churches and chapels attract tourists and pilgrims,” he said. “This heritage must be protected but also remain open.”

Word of mouth reports emanating from the last meeting of the Church in Wales' Governing Body  have hinted at more than the usual ghastly treatment meted out to those possessing anything approaching traditional views.  They seem to be confirmed by this report from Ancient Briton.
It's instructive, too, that what seems to excite many of the clergy representatives on that august synod is a potential hit to their bank accounts, rather than the ever-accelerating retreat from orthodoxy and apostolicity...
As for Wales now being described theologically (in a throw-away line from the commentators of Anglican Unscripted) as numbered among "the hard left," we should possibly avoid the tombs of previous Welsh diocesans unless we are the possessors of a firm sense of balance and a set of industrial earmuffs.
Wales, the ecclesial equivalent of Orwell's Airstrip One in a world perpetually at war .... ironically, no female bishops appointed yet, however ....

Fr John Hunwicke of the Ordinariate has a typically (and waspishly) erudite piece about the hasty evolution of the modern Roman rite's 'Hippolytan' Eucharistic Prayer II, un"oeuvre d’un trio de maniaques”... [here]
However, compare it to most (if not all) 'modern' Anglican eucharistic prayers (usually approved after a slower and bloodier process of theological horse-trading) and it actually seems rather good...

And, before we get too carried away with the costumes -  from First Things, a couple of articles [here and here] on the en vogue literary / historical  revisionism which is the dramatisation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (currently screening in the USA) What a lovely modern character her Master Cromwell is, much like the author herself, "one of nature’s Protestants." 
I look forward in a few years to seeing the box sets 'remaindered' in my local garden centre...