The Latin Mass in Cork

Is he a practising Catholic today? This is really interesting! could you expand on what you have said?

It's not that strange. I think quite a lot of Marxists are drawn to Marxism because they think capitalism and consumerism destroy high culture. I'm no fan of the USSR, but it does seem to have had a high regard for high culture, and tried to make it available to the masses.

Yes, the Soviet attempt to bring High Culture (of the right ideological kind, of course) plus their attempt to provide social housing for all strike me as the only redeeming features of the USSR experiment.

My friend has a two year old son, whom he is instructing in French, English, Latin and Gaeilge!

In response to my question about faith, he has just replied to me: "Politically, I am a Catholic Stalinist!"

Funny to recall that Stalin was a top student in his seminary:

"He had already spent five years at the religious school of his home town, Gori. Here he was known already for his devoutness, attending all church services, even leading the singing in the choir. At the seminary, the earlier years of study included both ‘secular’ and theological subjects: Russian literature; secular history; mathematics; Latin; Greek; Church Slavonic singing; Georgian Imeretian singing; Holy Scripture. By the final years, the subjects became distinctly theological: ecclesiastical history; liturgy; homiletics; comparative theology; moral theology; practical pastoral work; didactics; church singing; Holy Scripture. Some subjects may have changed, but throughout Holy Scripture and Church singing were constants."

www.politicaltheology.com/blog/stalin-as-a-theological-student/

A friend of mine is involved with teaching Latin to regular attendees. He says the numbers are slowly growing and the congregation is an interesting mix of Traditional Catholics, Latin enthusiasts, Traditionalists, eccentrics etc.

There is also an SSPX service in Cork city, although I gather a while back one of the priests resigned because he felt that that organisation was becoming too liberal.

Traditional Masses get an interesting mix everywhere.
This particular lady did attend St Pius X for a while, her sister told me. She left them largely because nobody conversed, something she's extra fond of doing. She claimed that there was indeed a cup of tea offered after, but that everybody sat there over their tea saying nothing,I can only wonder at the strong opinions they were keeping to themselves. Her butcher asked her why she was no longer at that Mass; she told him why. He said that no one there had introduced themselves to him in decades.
There are definitely some very NON-liberal people in Cork,apparently Fr Villa's writings get sold there, I'm not sure where. Also there was an all-night vigil there (don't know if it was in a church) on the eve of the canonisation of Pope John XXIII and John Paul II, that it would NOT go ahead.