MaryR wrote:musicus wrote:Could an SSG Trustee please confirm (or otherwise) that Mgr Wadsworth has, in fact, been invited to deliver the Crichton Lecture this year?
Msgr Wadsworth has indeed been invited to give the James Crichton Memorial Lecture at our Conference this year. The title of his lecture has yet to be confirmed. Msgr Wadsworth is fully briefed on the the Society and its objects. I don't anticipate that he will temper his views on certain things but I, for one, would agree with a great deal of what he says about the need for good, worthy liturgy. I anticipate a frank exchange of views and lively discussion following the lecture.
Full details of the Conference will be posted shortly. It will take place at the Cathedral Church of Ss Peter and Paul, Clifton, Bristol and will include a workshop, led by Fr Michael McAndrew on 'The Word of God in Advent'. This year, we are encouraging delegates to arrive on Friday evening when a guided tour of the Cathedral and talk on its history will take place, followed by dinner. The dates for your diaries are 9th and 10th November. I hope that you'll all come along and take advantage of this opportunity to hear Msgr Wadsworth in person, and to take part in the discussion
I think this is a mistake. It's all very well hoping that people will come along and engage in discussion, but the vast majority of people won't in fact be there to hear it. For them,
it will look as if the SSG is endorsing Mgr Wadsworth's ideas, publicly visible as they are elsewhere on the internet, even though this is actually far from the case, I think.
If this were to be an open discussion in another forum, there would be no problem; but given that this is the J D Crichton memorial lecture, one would expect each lecturer's contribution to be broadly in line with Crichton's own scholarship and the vision which he worked for during his long and distinguished life.
It's the same case as the Alcuin Reid paper in the SSG's journal
Music and Liturgy a couple of years ago, which gave completely the wrong message. A significant number of people thought that the Society had gone bonkers by giving a platform to Reid's bizarre views, divergent as they are from the Society's own aims and sense of direction. Others assumed that the Society endorsed what Reid thinks. The signals were very confusing, and will be again in the case we are discussing.
There is certainly a place for debate and discussion on the points that Mgr Wadsworth will doubtless raise, but I would suggest that the Society's AGM and Crichton Memorial Lecture are not an appropriate context for this and would encourage the Trustees to rethink this course of action.
.
