The Tale of Joseph Bevan: A Trad Godfather’s Memoir

Mr Jones reviews a recently published book that "peels back the curtain on one family’s devastating encounter with liturgical revolution, and another’s inspiring emergence from the ruins."

From One Peter Five

By Anthony Jones

In Two Families: A Memoir of English Life During and After the Council, Joseph Bevan peels back the curtain on one family’s devastating encounter with liturgical revolution, and another’s inspiring emergence from the ruins. Both of these families are his own, considered in each direction of the family tree: he begins by recounting life with his parents and twelve siblings and leads readers along the winding path that led to his wife and ten children.

Throughout the book, Bevan’s introspective humility shines through. He does not shy away from admitting his own faults, either with respect to how he handled relationships or his interior struggles with vice. It’s as if the saying “hindsight is 20/20” were applied to one’s entire life, insofar as he describes past events simultaneously through two lens: what the event was like to experience in the moment, and what Bevan currently thinks about the event in light of a lifetime of experience and development. These two perspectives are seamlessly interwoven, with the effect of making the book feel like listening to a grandfather meander through a recollection of his life story over a fireside chat. For instance, consider this vivid account of Bevan’s childhood choir, which gave him a first-hand understanding of the beauty of the old Roman Rite and the disarray brought on by its postconciliar transformation:

The lasting benefits of the choir school on my life were a love of the liturgy and a love of prayer. I learned to pray, and this stayed with me even during my non-churchgoing period. I never completely lost touch with Our Lady and the Saints, and this saved me from disaster, I think….

We [the Bevans] were the official choir at St Michael’s Church in Shepton Mallet, and every Sunday in the holidays we sang the Mass. My father was the conductor and organist, and he laid out treats for the congregation in the form of plainchant and polyphony. With the closing of the old Catholic church in Shepton we moved to a spick-and-span affair of concrete and glass, which had been built by the diocese to accommodate the new springtime in the Church anticipated by the recent Second Vatican Council. With the new building came the New Mass. I was first made aware that something wasn’t right when, during the Canon, I received a dig in the back from Neville Dyke, who was sitting just behind me. I turned round in surprise and said, “Hello, Neville!” I received the reply, “Peace be with you!” I answered, “Talk to you later.” I can still see the Catholic families of Shepton Mallet sitting in their habitual pews: the Tullys, the Dykes, the Quins, the Dampiers, the Todds, and many others with lots of young children. With the advent of the New Mass in December 1969, the services became chaotic. The parish priest, Father Carol, wrestled with the new liturgy; he would suddenly break into Latin and correct himself.

The music we sang as a family in church was becoming irrelevant to the goings-on at the altar, and the congregation became restless for more change. Mrs Todd, the wife of the owner of Darton, Longman & Todd, which was a leading Catholic publisher, became an agitator for change in the music. One Sunday, as we struck up with some William Byrd, she simply marched out of Mass in full view of the whole congregation.

Pa, like the Elizabethan composers before him, adapted to the demand for change and started writing “congregational Masses” to be sung by everybody at Mass. I have to say that these compositions were so trite and turgid that we got thoroughly bored with them. In actual fact, Mass on Sunday became a frightful bore with its “sweet nothings” prayers, “hello children everywhere” readings, and faulty microphones. It took a great personal effort to rise on Sunday morning and go to church. As it dawned on our new parish priest, Father Meehan, that the reformed liturgy was turning out to be a bit of a flop, he decided upon a more “energetic” approach to the liturgy. As a result, we were made to endure all kinds of humiliating displays, such as parading the children in the sanctuary and the priest quizzing them over the microphone.

We all hated it, but Pa said, “If you live at home you go to church!” I think Pa liked the changes. In fact, he did say in an unguarded moment—following a session with the gin and martini bottles—that it was like coming home to his Church of England past. Ma endured the revolution patiently and, much later, embraced Catholic Tradition again.

In those days we were witnessing the changes in the Mass, which were bad enough. Little did we know that there was a wholesale offensive against the Catholic faith going on at the highest levels, and the New Mass was just a symptom of this attack. My mother has testified to the gradual meltdown in Catholic moral theology amongst her own teenage daughters, who were only following the example of their friends.[1]

For all his firm convictions, Bevan often tries to give others the benefit of the doubt and clearly expresses his desire for their welfare and salvation—even those who may not seem like they deserve the solicitude.

The most interesting thread to follow is his eventual liturgical journey from

1. a teenager dissatisfied with modernized liturgy to
2. a fallen away Catholic to
3. an adult dissatisfied with modernized liturgy to
4. a bitter traditionalist and finally to
5. a gentle traditionalist (à la Roger Buck).[2]

I’d like to hope I would have reacted better to the fast-changing downward spiral of culture and religious institutions, but at the end of the day, Bevan’s story testifies to the real consequences of that downward spiral and offers real hope for emerging from it—not unscathed, but spiritually alive.

In doing so, his story did not leave me with the impression that life before the 1960s revolutions was all in order. His large Catholic family lacked a regular prayer life, which partly explains why the revolutions were able to take hold and cause such familial and personal disintegration.

In many respects, our day is similar to the era in which Bevan came of age. Modern liturgy is being forced onto the laity, sexual perversion is widespread, and large swaths of Catholics are abandoning the faith. However, similar to Bevan’s later years as well, our time is replete with formidable efforts to reclaim liturgical and doctrinal traditions, to share them with others, and to advance in genuine holiness amidst attacks from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Hence, his life story is immensely instructive. Where broken families and personal pride abound, grace abounds all the more. This has been true for Bevan, and his reliance upon divine providence reminds us to likewise submit our joys and struggles to the Prince of Peace.

The primary virtue Bevan has cultivated, and that we ought to cultivate as well, is charity:

I was once accused of using my religion as a stick to beat people I didn’t like or disapproved of over the head. This does have a ring of truth about it, and I am constantly vigilant so as to be charitable and kind at all times, in thought as well as deeds and words—even though this has often been a struggle.[3]

The temptation to succumb to bitterness in the face of cultural and liturgical malaise has persisted—and perhaps increased—since Bevan was mired in it decades ago. Learning how one man cooperated with God’s invitation to escape that bitterness can teach us what it means to love Catholic tradition as a real good in daily service to God and his Church.

In the words of Dom Alcuin Reid, OSB, Prior of Monastère Saint-Benoît and friend of OnePeterFive, “This is an inspiring book that grittily teaches a perennial truth which we ignore at our peril: genuine charity is ‘the only defence’ against all that assails us. Whatever our state in life, Two Families challenges us to return to its daily practice whilst there is still time.”

I heartily concur and encourage you to pick up a copy today.

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[1] Joseph Bevan, Two Families: A Memoir of English Life During and After the Council (Os Justi Press: 2024), 27, 33–35.

[2] See Buck’s The Gentle Traditionalist: A Catholic Fairy-tale from Ireland (Angelico Press, 2015) and The Gentle Traditionalist Returns: A Catholic Knight’s Tale from Ireland (Angelico Press, 2019).

[3] Bevan, Two Families, 145.