As usual, our first edition of this year is a double number for the first two months. After the nostalgia of our December issue which showed the long and interesting history of Tradition here in South Africa, we start the new year with truly something new and old.

Some of you may have read the writings of Mr. Christopher Pryor in the Angelus magazine. It is hoped that Fr. Daniels' edited extract from something he wrote on the basis of our struggle in Tradition may reach our local readership.

The Anglo-Saxon countries, as they are often called, have shown a varied response to the crisis in the Church. The faithful of the United States have responded with vigour and generosity to the calls of the Society of St. Pius X and now boast the largest seminary in the world together with many flourishing parishes. The English response has always been rather different because of the national character and the intervention of the then primate, Cardinal Heenan, at the introduction of the new mass. The presence of the Latin Mass Society, whose aim it eponymously was to preserve the Tridentine rite of Mass in Latin has certainly aided in the preservation of the old Mass but has arguably led to the idea that the actual battle is for the Mass, and that principally if not exclusively on Sunday only.

The consequence in the countries where this mentality has prevailed has been that priests travel great distances on Sunday to help as many people as possible to fulfill their Sunday obligation but during the week, when the priests do not travel, Mass attendance is limited to three or four elderly people. After 40 years' tyranny of the new order it should now, however, have become clear that our fight is indeed not exclusively to preserve an admittedly very beautiful rite of Mass but for the very survival of the Catholic Faith in Christ's Church. That was certainly how our venerated founder saw things and Mr. Pryor's article should help show this.

Otherwise, there is a look at St. Valentine, surely the world's next festival now Christmas is over. News of the Society in Africa adds the final ingredient to what I hope is an entertaining and instructive issue.