The Essence of Patriotism

No apologies.

I just love this Chesterton quote.

And I'm sharing the love! :)

Glib Lies & Terror Tactics: It Must be the "Gay Marriage" Campaign

Big Business celebrates "gay marriage" in Vermont, USA.

There is something in the air. And it's not just the foul smell of David Cameron's messing about with marriage to try and 'do a Blair' (cement his place in history, blah blah).

It is the smell of repression, bullying and scare tactics.

Last night's Newsnight had all the balance of a Transvestite's new wardrobe party. The BBC has from time to time interviewed opponents of Cameron's unwanted, unneeded and mandate-less bill, but virtually everyone within the BBC has taken the stance of showing their colours in favour of the ultimate oxymoron.

The Twittersphere has been awash of course, with all manner of comedians and minor-celebs tweeting their extreme joy at "equality." This has left me wondering - are there no similar celeb-style people who are against "gay marriage?"

If we are to believe the stats and polls, roughly half of people are for it, half against (the number against rises significantly if they are told it gives homosexuals no new rights they don't already have). So where are the 50% of people opposed in the BBC? Amongst the comedians and celebs?

Either they are too afraid to speak out, for fear of losing their job/work, or the BBC (etc.) is truly unrepresentative of the people of these islands. Neither possibility is particularly welcoming.

We know the MPs do not represent the population. As often as they waffle on about "equality" still too many of them went to posh fee-paying schools, and so many of them are (ex) lawyers or went straight from university into politics; certainly far too many of them have no experience of struggling to pay for the basics or of manual labour. I am reminded of when GK Chesterton said that those in favour of population control never want to start with themselves. Similarly the public-schoolboys and well-off MPs try and tell us, with our two-up two-down houses, struggling to pay bills and run-of-the-mill jobs, about equality!

Today a number of people have said how Sarah Teather MP, the Lib Dem who is a Catholic and voted against the bill, has come under attack from the "tolerance" brigade who like to pour bile and hatred on anyone who proffers a different worldview to theirs. Their tolerance seems somewhat stunted and their talk of "love" somewhat empty as they come down on this MP like a ton of bricks.

Of course I was somewhat tempted by the arguments of the likes of David Cameron who says, quite simply, that if two people love each other and want to show a lifelong commitment to each other, who are we (if not "bigots!") to stand in their way? That was until I snapped out of my miasma and realised that by those empty and meaningless words, a mother and son, brother and sister, or similar could get married.

Let's not even go down the road of how "gays" cannot legally consummate a marriage, because marriage is of course based entirely on the willingness and openness to procreation. Those of us who know the story of Abraham know that the many liberals who whine about those who "cannot conceive" need a little more... erm... Faith. As for those who say they "do not want kids" - well we all know they can still conceive, and even those who say they would abort a child, there is still the chance of a changed mind, a softened heart and the love of a life given, kicking in.

Still, David Cameron knows best and now the minuscule number of Civil Partnerships will mean an even tinier number of "gay weddings" and all the nightmares resulting (the homosexual lifestyle being well known for its multiple "partners," violence, short-term relationships etc.) After all if mankind can make as much of a mess of marriage as it has, we daren't even imagine what horrors are in stall for the future with this monstrosity in the offing.

Perhaps open and honest blogs like this will be removed -- Facebook already took down a Spanish language Catholic page for "hatred," while extreme anti-Catholic, pornographic and/or homosexual pages remain safely in situ?

Perhaps Catholic bodies will find themselves in court, mirroring the way Catholic adoption agencies were already closed down (leaving more children in council run homes - those places so well known for creating dysfunctional teens)?

Perhaps Catholic teachers in state schools who refuse to teach that homosexuals can marry will face the sack? Perhaps Catholics who write in fora, on blogs, on Twitter or Facebook against "gay marriage" will face the sack or get that 5am knock at the door?

Certainly one friend of mine has already told me he dare not write anything against it for fear of work reprisal by bosses -- and he works for the Post Office!

And that brings us back to the silent comedians and celebs, who dare not speak their minds amidst a storm of celebratory messages from the empty vessels busy making the most noise. We are told we have freedom, democracy, etc... yet in a country where people are already fearful to speak out in defence of marriage: there is clearly something very, very wrong.

• In 2004 the politicians pushing for Civil Partnership PROMISED there would be no push for "gay marriage." They lied.
• In 2013 the politicians are promising churches wont be forced to carry out "gay marriages" and that teachers and others will not suffer for speaking their minds. They are lying again.

Homosexuality = anti-culture

The militant homosexual lobby (who do not even speak out for all homosexuals*) are already pushing for the age of consent to be lowered. The next stage in their campaign will work towards a quasi-acceptance of paedophilia. Peter Tatchell has already publicly written in defence of sex with 9-year-old children** And we Catholics should know better. The entryism of homosexuals into the seminaries (the pre-60s hidden trickle has become a post-Vatican 2 flood***) had a direct role in the explosion of child abuse that has dragged the Catholic Church through the mud: the Church a victim of the very forces that now screech at it for defending the family. It is ironic that the secularists who hold up the clerical abuse scandals as a means to bash all Catholics, will never say that the role of homosexuals was paramount in this dreadful episode. If the Church had kept its strict rules re. Seminarians and kept its internal policy the same as its public pronouncements then the scandals would never have happened.

If one thing is as sure as eggs is eggs it's that random and kooky CofE vicars and vicaresses will eventually start doing "gay marriages" (God is luv) and pressure will mount - and that's the danger of heresies: they lead to error and the next thing the dull, the ignorant and the just plain evil will say "the Jesus I know would have celebrated homosexuality" and then they'll point at the bizarre churchlets already carrying out these monstrous affronts to God, and the handful of CofE vicars (called Jeff n Tracey) who are doing rebellious "gay weddings" (and the CofE Bishops who will, by then, already be saying "maybe this isn't so bad...") and bingo: Guy n Wayne will be walking up the aisle at some Minster or other.

And it all began with some glib politician's lies, and the campaign of intimidation and fear by the uber-politically correct. I wonder if the war in heaven started in the same way...

St David - pray for us
St George - pray for us
St Andrew - pray for us
St Patrick - pray for us.
Our Lady, Help of Christians - pray for us.





*On yesterdays Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2, they invited on two elderly homosexuals to "celebrate" the changes in the law, from the days (pre-1967) when homosexuality was outlawed. When asked at the end of the interviews how they felt about this wonderful bill (Jeremy Vine could barely conceal his joy, seems a BBC rule!) one said he did not favour it and that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. The other said he saw no need for it and was perfectly content with a Civil Partnership. Ooops. The BBC slipped up, and Mr Vine quickly moved on...

**In a letter he had published in The Guardian in 1997.

***Christian Order magazine has documented this very well, including the role of Cardinals in shielding known homosexuals, and attacking/demoting any priest who dares to speak out.

All Roads lead to Rome - via G.K. Chesterton

I read this in an old email received from the American Chesterton Society (ACS), who are organising a pilgrimage to Rome:

November 12-20, 2012, I have the privilege of leading a group in Chesterton's footsteps through Rome. We will visit all the important holy sites such as the Catacombs, St. John Lateran, and St. Peter's, and we will attend a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Raymond Burke in the Vatican. We will also visit the beautiful coastal town of San Benedetto where there is a Chesterton school! We will attend a general audience with Pope Benedict XVI, and to top it off, a two-day international Chesterton Conference with speakers from all over the world.

 

This will be a once-in-a-lifetime trip that will also be Chestertonian in every sense: spiritual, educational, and gastronomical. We will be walking in the footsteps of the martyrs and the saints. "Moments filled with eternity" in the Eternal City. 

Wow. 

If you are an American, unlucky. You're not Welsh. Well we can't have everything.

Nonetheless, you can donate $100 to the ACS, which will then be doubled by a kind benefactor. What's more for every $100 you donate, you get a chance in the draw to win two tickets to the Rome ACS Pilgrimage.

You lucky people. Almost makes me wish I was an American.

I said almost... ;-)

Songs of Praise on Pugin, Newman and Chesterton

An almost Catholic edition of Songs of Praise tonight, centring on the great 19th Century Gothic architect Pugin, and also featuring Bl Cardinal Newman and G.K. Chesterton. Probably because it was free of "official" Catholic hierarchy and so many of our roller-disco churches, it lifted one's soul to what might have been had not "the Spirit of Vatican 2" let the smoke of Satan into the church.

Medievalism in architecture, like Medievalism in liturgy, can strengthen Catholicism as it reflects the buildings, the altars, the Mass, the Sacraments that so many Saints fought and died for; from the wonderful Welsh and English recusants (known and unknown) who suffered so much, to the European heroes of the Counter-Reformation.

Right: Pugin, like Cobbett, Chesterton and others compared the post-Reformation Capitalist treatment of the poor (as cogs in wheels to be used and discarded) with the pre-Reformation Catholic treatment of the poor (as made in the image of God, to receive Catholic Charity).

Compare the churches of Pugin, with their beautiful carvings, statues, altars, windows -- all things that make one think of heaven, and make you focus on Heaven -- to the 1960s breeze-block, soulless, kum-by-ya 'churches' with office block windows, a plain table, and the feel of a new-town council waiting room.

I'm sorry but there is no comparison. One is of Heaven; one is of the world. One is beautiful; one is ugly. One raises one's mind and spirit to God; one lowers one spirit and morale. One is a place of prayer, sacrifice and edification; one is a meeting place to chat, gossip, clap and hug.

What I most want to ask is: "why."

Why was a church which attracted and kept great men like Pugin, Newman and Chesterton changed beyond measure? Why were hundreds and hundreds of years of fine-tuning liturgy, architecture and faith jettisoned for an experiment which, within just a few years saw tabernacles, altars, altar rails, pews, statues and more ripped out of churches?

Now the Pope seems to want to reverse the decline, yet all one seems to read is that there are forces opposing him - opposing even his slight changes to the English-language liturgy (as in the case of a few hundred Irish priests) to get it a bit closer to the original Latin text, especially in the words of Our Lord when the Blessed Sacrament is Consecrated. And one dreads to think of the battles the Pope is fighting within Rome...

Oh well, I suppose all we can do is pray and take comfort from the beauty of Catholic (and ex-Catholic) buildings, hymns, statues and liturgy. I think I'll put some Gregorian Plainchant on tonight. It is wonderfully calming and a joy to drift off to sleep listening to it.

Better than a kum-by-ya tambourine shaking cacophony anyway.

A Big Thanks to a Kind American

A big thanks to the American Catholic writer and fellow Chestertonian who has sent me details on publishing online! He's been really helpful and I shall be following his leads in the coming weeks.

It just goes to show that we, as Catholics, can help each other in the sphere of culture and (dare I say) entertainment, fields given over to the enemies of the Faith for far too long.

Matthew d'Ancona Misuses GKC to Undermine Marriage

Ready for revolutionary liberalism as petty politics?

The 'wild and violent changes' GK Chesterton warned of are those espoused by d'Ancona and the Conservative spin machine.


GK Chesterton told us that in the topsy turvey world, the traditionalist is revolutionary. As usual he was way before his time.

All the main political parties are falling over themselves to legislate for 'gay marriage.' An oxymoron looks like it will become "law." A public consultation has just begun. One thing can be sure about public consultation is that the public will not be consulted. It would make GK Chesterton laugh! What this is all about is which pressure group can shout the loudest, what the media says, and who has the ear of the party leaders, party ideologues (if they still exist) and party spinmeisters (they sure do exist!).

In an hedonistic, ruptured world the politicos think the answer is to deliver up yet more hedonism, more rupture. The chaos, the relativism, the anarchy, the lawlessness will not change, because the politicians are not capable of grasping the nettle and solving the problems, rather it is set to worsen.

I almost choked on my toast (co-op bran - that should win my brownie points with the "right on" crowd) this morning when I read the Sunday Telegraph. The influential media Conservative, Matthew d'Ancona (who has worked for/edited the Spectator, Telegraph and Evening Standard) quotes Chesterton in his op-ed piece calling for gay marriage! He says that GKC says that if a thing is left alone "you are leaving it to wild and violent changes." What d'Ancona spins wildly out of control is that GKC is advocating the constant protection, guard and watchfulness over institutions (like the Church) because if we are blasé then people will gradually attack it, erode it or undermine it. GKC recognised that conservatism was fatally flawed because it assumes that leaving something alone (whether it be the Church, childbirth, marriage, family etc.) will leave it adequately protected against the wild and violent changes of liberalism (lessons we should have learnt since the 60s on all counts).

GKC knew that Pope Pius X did not leave the Church alone, he actively defended it against Modernism via his Syllabus of Errors. Pope Leo XIII did not leave society alone in the face of rampant exploitation and poverty, he actively defended the Common Good via Rerum Novarum. Pope Pius XI did not leave Europe alone in the face of Communism, he actively defended it with Divini Redemptoris.

It is never enough to leave a thing alone. If we love something, we guard it, we defend it, we protect it from error and evil influence.

We would never leave our young child(ren) alone in a busy town centre and hope for the best. We would be defensively pro-active. We would stay with them or leave them in the charge of a trustworthy adult, and even when they are older we would ensure they have a mobile phone, follow certain procedures etc. etc. so as to be assured that their safety is not left to whim or chance.

We Catholics, Christians and all 'men of goodwill' must do the same with marriage. Marriage is a beautiful institution. Our Lord chose a wedding to enact His first public miracle. This was no accident. Our Lord spoke forcefully (he was no liberal!) in defence of marriage. He condemned divorce and remarriage (unless adultery was committed) in absolute terms as breaking the Commandment against adultery.

Of course society can never be perfect, what can be this side of Heaven? Men are flawed. We are concupiscent, we are infected by Original Sin. Yet it should be the duty of public servants to work within the law (and enact good laws), to make society as stable and protected (for the Common Good) as possible. People will always cheat. People will always steal. People will always lie. The job of any government is to create a society where Christian values of duty, Common Good, right v wrong, family, patriotism etc. are instilled so that people feel they 'belong' and have a set of ideals that act as the cement that holds everything together and act as a bulwark against any inclination to do bad.

That is the duty of the government, the political leaders. It is a great burden because one day that will have to answer to God for the decisions they make for society. In the sense that leaders must lead, Matthew d'Ancona is right. Even if 51% of the population were to think that cannabis should be legalised (for example), a true leader has to assemble the facts, understand the Truth, look at everything through the prism of Christianity, the Common Good and common sense; and say no: because cannabis leads to sloth, more drug use, immorality and the break up of families. Legalising cannabis undermines the message that taking harder drugs is wrong, undermines the ethic of work as a duty, as a moral obligation, as an offering to God.

It is incumbent on leaders to point out that 'gay marriage' will also undermine marriage, just as divorce has done. It will lead to even less couples choosing to marry, with all the (well documented!) damage that does to the whole of society.

Matthew d'Ancona thinks the leaders have a duty to push through "gay marriage" despite what the people may say, to choose to lead, rather than follow. He is advocating an extreme liberalism that fits neither his Conservative politics nor his presumed Catholic heritage from his Maltese father. He does not believe in Christianity. He is seen as a "Neo Con" by some and his wife, Sarah Schaefer is (was?) an adviser to David Milliband. His ideals seem to be shared by those who think the Conservatives should be seen publicly to be "gay friendly" when the public see no need for "gay marriage" and certainly no need to push through such a law in these times of austerity.


By using GK Chesterton to justify "gay marriage" - an aberration that will undermine and erode marriage and not reinvigorate or refresh it - d'Ancona can be seen as the twisted spinmeister and liberal-Neo Con ideologue that he is.


Catholics will well remember the heady post-Vatican 2 days when a 'spirit of renewal' was promised, only for them to witness altars and alter rails ripped out, churches empty, and relativism and liberalism seep into the thinking of pew Catholics, resulting in a period of terrible and awful destruction: from the paedophile scandals to the declining number of vocations. By entering into a Faustian Pact with the modern world, the Church was not protected nor renewed, it was decimated. In fact a 1 in 10 loss would have been preferable.


What d'Ancona and the Tory spinmeisters are proposing with "gay marriage" will do exactly the same to the institution of marriage, purely so that can claim the Conservative Party has changed! They are playing politics with an institution that has always been between a man and a woman, and always should be.


In Catholic terms, marriage needs a Council of Trent. A fighting Council that takes on the enemies of marriage, the defends marriage, that codifies marriage as it exists, taking away some errors that have crept in. Marriage needs to be strengthened, just as GKC said the White Horse needs to be updated by being protected, repainted, defended from (political) erosion and the (liberal) winds that would change it.


To state otherwise, to (excuse the pun) paint GK Chesterton as arguing for liberalism rather than in active defence of Tradition and its institutions, shows that Matthew d'Ancona is being as disingenuous as when David Cameron says he backs "gay marriage" because he is a conservative.


As the winds of liberalism and political spin seek to erode the institution of marriage we Catholics (and all men of goodwill) must spring to its defence as surely as the men with the whitewash defend the Uffinton White Horse from the winds that erode it.


In his epic poem, The Ballad of the White Horse, G.K. Chesterton has King Alfred of the Saxons visited by the Virgin Mary before he faces the heathen Danes in battle. The Mother of God reveals to King Alfred of Wessex the essence of Christian life, part of which is the necessity of fighting against tremendous odds.

"Out of the mouth of the Mother of God
Like a little word come I;
For I go gathering Christian men
From sunken paving and ford and fen,
To die in battle, God knows when,
By God, but I know why."

King Alfred the Great of Wessex,
The Ballad of the White Horse by GK Chesterton 
(II: 74-79)

Let us then "go gathering Christian men" (Saxon, Roman and Celt, as in GKC's epic poem) to fight against the odds of the political parties wanting to overturn marriage. Our Catholic leaders have shown the way. The Pope has spoken out. There can be no reason for Catholics not to spread the word and take up our Rosaries.

For every miracle Our Lord insisted that man should do the donkey work before He worked His miracle. At the wedding feast at Cana He insisted the jars be filled with water. He didn't need to. He could have just created wine in the empty vessels, just as He could have put out and filled the disciples' nets, or could have created and fed the 5000 with food He obtained out of nothing (as when the world was created ex nihilo).

Yet Our Lord insisted that the jars be filled, the nets be cast out, and the fish and loaves be distributed. So it is our duty today to go out amidst the people and positively defend marriage. If we do the hard work, the manual labour, Our Lord can perform His miracle. If the 'men of goodwill' stay at home then nothing will come of nothing, and the battle will be lost.

If King Alfred stayed at home in Winchester the Danes would have overun all of England and the Churches would have been sacked and the altars and tabernacles overturned.

Whether we see ourselves as painting the White Horse or riding out past it like King Alfred to face the heathens, let us pick up the banner of Our Lady and Our Lord. There is much to be done, let us go about it cheerfully!

Link:
Liar liar pants on fire - d'Ancona says 'gay marriage' will strengthen social fabric

Catholicism in the Media: Do We Need New Tactics?

With GKC's Fr Brown being on the BBC almost daily, could it get much better?

Well, we have a back-up: the Welsh Benedictine medieval monk detective Brother Cadfael.

I have long believed that outside of the Spiritual, the main battlefield, and the one in which we have surrendered the Catholic World to the modernist world, is the cultural.

When the Latin Mass was done away with, Agatha Christie (the famous detective writer, but not a Catholic) wrote that a jewel of European culture was being killed off. And how right she was, writing as a non-Catholic.

The Church can be many things (made up as it is of sinful men), but it was never foolish. Inspired by the Holy Spirit and refined over the centuries, the Latin Mass was (correct me if I'm wrong) codified during the Council of Trent, during that glorious time known as the Counter Reformation.

The errors and terrors of the Reformation gave rise to the glories and jewels of the Catholic Church during the Counter Reformation. The Catholic Church knew that the Mass was the centre of all, bringing Salvation to the peoples of the world, and it was glorious! Spiritually and culturally - it was magnificent. The humble could have their hearts, minds and souls lifted by the Mass in all its beauty.

But in the modern world... well, as the 60s brought about so many harmful revolutions, so the Mass was changed. So many errors and trends came about. Pews empties. Souls were lost.

Now we have the modern(ist) world, wherein the rabid secularists and atheist zealots seem to hold sway. The people retain what Faith they have had the Grace to have been left with. Yet what assaults us all most of all? The atheist activists have no High Mass to rally their troops around, for they are anti-spiritual. Their battle is won through the goggle-box and the internet.

Oh back in the day the enemies of the Church printed bad books, and they still do. Fox's Martyrs or the cartoons against the Inquisition have given way to Dan Brown and Richard Dawkins' tomes. And they have done damage.

But the real damage is done through other media, and it is in these media that the Catholic Church and we, the Church Militant, should look to fight back, for souls are being lost.

I have long believed that Catholics have given up the "entertainment" to our enemies. So when our sons, daughters, cousins, nephews, grandchildren,mums, dads, neighbours (etc.) watch TV, listen to the radio, go to the cinema... they are more likely to experience something anti-Catholic than pro-Catholic, that harms their soul rather than elevates their soul, that undermines their Faith rather than reinforces their Faith.

We might wish that Catholics didn't interact with these things (and they range from the outright evil to the subtly undermining), but they do. Most of us move about in the world as we work, as we relax, as we socialise etc. And whilst many of may try not to watch crud like Eastenders or read trash like the tabloid media; we are all assaulted - even from advertising hoardings.

So what's my point?

Listening to GKC's Father Brown stories or Ellis Peter's Brother Cadfael mysteries, makes me think of what we could have had! A media that gives us enjoyable stories that help us grow in our Faith... The sad thing is that good radio, good TV (such as the Treasures of Heaven programme about saints' relics and the recent BBC4 programme Catholics - which I admit I haven't seen yet) and good films (such as The Rite and The passion of the Christ) are a woefully, pitifully small drop in an ocean of goo, junk and evil.

I suppose the thing is that Catholics need to use whatever means we have at our disposal to produce and promote good works, in print, radio and TV/film. Not just overtly religious (e.g. on EWTN), but crime series, comedy, travel programmes, historic programmes, romcoms, radio shows, music - the whole gamut of entertainment.

The enemies of Catholicism have done so much damage by taking over the entertainment media and using them to promote things that damage Catholicism, society, the Common Good, etc.

I don't have all the answers. I don't have the talent necessary to write a screenplay or produce a film. But there must be Catholics out there that do.

I have a vague recollection of an acquaintance many years ago in London who was a member of a Catholic actors' guild. And a friend once told me that many decades ago the Church (in America I think - but I may be wrong) bankrolled some quite successful films. I also know there is a members' body (guild?) for Catholic solicitors, perhaps they could offer their services for media contracts etc...

I know I'm clutching at straws here in my amateurish and fumbling way (as always!), but I hope I'm making a serious point. If we as Catholics, as the Church Militant, leave the entertainment media to the enemies of the Church then we will lose Catholics to the atheism and relativism of the world every single day.

Our Lord will come to our aid through prayer, the Rosary and the Mass. But just as Our Lord always had everyone do as much as they could before He acted (throwing out the nets, filling the vessels with water etc.) so He requires us Catholics to act in the spheres of the media before He will bless our endeavours and help us not only to save souls, but to convert souls.

In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church won hearts and souls through the beauty of the Mass, but also through agriculture, food production, medicine, healthcare, education and so on. It was never just the Mass. Catholics were never just Chapel Catholics or Sunday Catholics.

Surely if we want to bring Catholic ideals, promotion of the family, the Common Good, against greed, against indifference to the masses, then we have to be working in the media, promoting good works.

Look at the impact the Passion of the Christ had. We, as Catholics, could be doing that and much more. On issues of great importance, or subtly to promote the family... there are 1001 things to do, to promote, to defend and to attack.

Sorry for warbling on. I hope you can pass on the gist of this message to Catholics with the means and the talents to do something. Who knows then what might be achieved. If we as Catholics do not try then we will never know, and with the support of Our Lord, Our Lady and the Holy Spirit, surely all would become achievable.

Listen to a Catholic Priest Detective!

GKC - larger than life

GK Chesterton's Fr Brown Mysteries hits the airwaves (again).

Radio 4 Extra is broadcasting the Fr Brown Mysteries by GK Chesterton. The first two stories featuring GKC's clerical 'detective' are online now at the BBC iplayer and the next few will feature soon.

If you have never read or heard the stories do give them a try, they are imbued with a subtle theology and GKC's wit and defence of common sense.

Also on the  BBC's iplayer you'll find the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries (a few have come and gone of late) by Dorothy L Sayers who, I seem to recall, was a friend of GKC's.

Moral Relativism: Have We All Gone Gaga?

In the latest issue of Private Eye there is a review of a new "book" (I use the term lightly) "by" (ditto) "Lady" (thrice ditto) Gaga. It can come across as a form of snobbishness, but I do often wonder who watches Eastenders, and on reading that Lady Gaga has brought out a book, I found myself wondering who would hand over ready cash for such turgid offerings?

Is this the generation that has no idea of history? That misspells its way to 'better than ever before' exam results only to take Media Studies at University, only to fail to get employment thereafter? I have dealt with people in my working life whose grasp of grammar and spelling leaves one wondering how they ever got the job in the first place. Teachers' assistants who cannot spell. History-related employees who know nothing of St Thomas More, Cromwell, Bonnie Prince Charlie, William of Orange or even Montgomery and Rommel's duel in the desert (or should that be dessert? A mere trifle!)

But let's return (like a dog to his vomit) to the servant of public decency, Lady Gaga. The reviewer of the book makes it plain that as with her public shows, her stage act and her music videos, the book is full of gratuitous semi-nudity. He says that the reader (with, one suspects more than a couple of brain cells) quickly gets bored of what he terms "Bum here, bum there, bum everywhere." The very gratuitous nature of the supposedly erotic photographs becomes tedious.

As ever I was drawn to the wise insight of GK Chesterton, for he wrote that in the topsy turvey world it is the traditionalist that is revolutionary. So proved Lady Gaga's book.

In an age when nudity, sex, promiscuity, etc. etc. are the staple fare of prime time TV and the daily newspapers, this stuff simply fails to shock anymore. The question is, where will society head. It seems to me we have three choices:

1. More of the same.
2. Return to sane values.
3. Extreme nudity, pornography etc.

The first choice isn't an option really as society rarely stands still in this age of 24 hour rolling news and the constant need for something "new."

The second option is the truly revolutionary one and the one that will help heal society's wounds. Sink estates of single parent families where amorality reigns supreme are just one example of where sensible values could help (but where endless sums of money poured in by governments will achieve relatively little in comparison - as it deals with the symptoms, not the cause).

Worryingly we might say that option three is the more likely, as the modern media is run by people (including pink and rabidly atheist mafias) to whom the idea of morality, Christianity and the family are poison. And so we start to see ever more questionable and X-rated material appear on TV, from the plot-lines in (the soap opera) Eastenders, to the writhing soft-porn of the X Factor (singing competition) and I dread to think what Channels 4 and 5 are spewing out.

Chesterton, as ever, was right. Traditionalism is revolutionary because the porn, violence and swearing that litters the airwaves does fail to shock. It becomes boring. Why do the talking heads heap praise on TV shows that "push boundaries" (media-talk for promote homosexuality, drug taking and the like) yet when a popular grass-roots movement that promotes chastity until marriage comes along the usual suspects are lined up to heap bile and hatred on it, as if these people fighting the modern world are somehow assaulting them and their drug-addled "rights."

A friend of mine told me his theory on the reformation the other week. He said that Catholics who want to be more liberal, who want to "run their own lives" or who want to be free of the "restrictions" of marriage and so on, give succour to the 'reformers' and so undermine the Church and her dogmas. In his words, the first Protestants were bad Catholics. Maybe like Henry VIII they too wanted easier divorces.

Now I'm sure there were also those people who are just anti-Church, anti-Christ, anti-sanity who jump on any bandwagon too, but one only has to look at the modern world to see that as sexual norms crumble, as divorce grows, as re-married, step-children families and all the rest of it grow, the media (urged on by the pink and atheist mafias) urges these people to see the Church as "out-dated"

And so we have two realistic choices as a society. We can reject the chaos of moral relativism, of the post-family age, of the "do what thou wilt" generation, of the drugs, promiscuity and non-marriage media-led types. Or we can go further down that road which will lead to yet more crime and rioting, more rootless and "worthless" generations.

Some think David Cameron is playing to the stalls in calling for "British" Christianity and against moral relativism. Maybe he is. But it reminds me of the words of Pope Benedict in his recent visit to these isles. perhaps some of that has sunk in? Perhaps the recent riots acted us a 'wake-up call' to the Tory leader?

Lady Gaga has, like the singer Madonna before her, an Italian name, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. She studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart.

This goes to show that this kind of degenerate anti-culture can infect our own families, our own communities, and that we can still churn out 'bad Catholics' today - who will go on to fuel the enemies of the Church and provide the cultural strike force of moral relativism.

Will there be a backlash against the amorality that rules the TV screen, the music charts, and infects our cities and towns on weekend evenings? Or will we all - Catholics included - churn out yet more fodder to erode away our Christian heritage and advance the cause of those intent on creating moral chaos?

It could be a time of great hope. It could also be a time of great fear.

Our Hope is in the Lord, Who made Heaven and Earth.

Give GKC This Christmas

Give the Gift of Chesterton this Christmas.

GKC is the perfect gift for a non-Catholic friend. He is perhaps one of the writers most responsible for a great number of converts to the Faith (and common sense!) in 20th Century Britain (and long may that continue).

G.K. Chesterton on Sola Scriptura

He could be a little more 'rotund' and the sound is a bit computerised.... but this is glorious nonetheless.

Enjoy!

GKC Warns on Treating Trade as an Absolute

As usual, across the decades, GKC speaks to us with so much Catholic good sense.

Even after the collapse, the bail-out and the billions poured in to a black whole of debt, the leaders of nations are still treating banks and "the markets" as something sacrosanct.

Money, a means to facilitate trade and commerce has become an end in and of itself, and we all know what the love of money results in, as our Faith warns us:

For the desire of money is the root of all evils; which some coveting have erred from the faith, and have entangled themselves in many sorrows.

1 Timothy 6:10

An Interview with GKC

GKC: larger than life

Do read this fun interview with GKC: it is very amusing (with some pearls of wisdom thrown in, as usual):

Necessary Therapy.

Just heard GKC quoted on Radio 5 Live on the matter of drugs (as taken by Louise Mensch MP) and the legalisation of dangerous narcotics, to the effect that it is the ignorance of experts that imperils men.

When the widespread misuse of drugs are destroying communities and a good percentage of a generation, how can making them any more widespread be any kind of answer? But then we Catholics have heard all these failed arguments before when it comes to more extensive and gratuitous sex education, increased availability of contraceptives and the increase in teenage single mums and abortion.

As Peter Hitchens has said, the anti-drug policy has not failed, it has not been implemented (rather akin to GKC's quote on Christianity).

Oh for a GKC today to pop the balloons of pomposity of today's experts!

Original Sin: On Concupiscence, Jesus Christ and Evolutionist Heresy

I have a tendency towards sin. I am not proud of it. Quite often when I hear a holy man's sermon my ears burn.I suppose you have the same problem. So does everyone up to and including the Pope.

Concupiscence - the tendency to sin - is something that every human being in history (bar Adam, Eve, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ) were and are born with.

It's a result of Original Sin.

Now there's two issues I'd like to chew over with you on that subject, if you'll permit me.

The first is that I am a Catholic, that I have all the weaknesses associated with Original Sin. Therefore as with all those before me (and after!) I need the help of Holy Mother Church to stay on the straight and narrow. My very concupiscent nature makes me susceptible to fall off that road, all too often.

Thus I need the "props" that Our Faith provides, not least the Confessional. Regular Communion fortifies and strengthens us all. But there is also the example, "rules" and order laid out by the Church.

Heaven knows (yes, it really does) that without these I would be like a blob of jelly, spineless and weak.

That is why I am convinced we all need the help of the Church. Our Lord was not stupid. He left us His Church, with His Sacraments, for exactly this reason. His Love, His Charity, meant that as well as suffering His Passion and dying for us all, he left behind all we need to attain Heaven.

The world says that the Church must become "softer." The Church must become more "realistic" and (I shudder as the word enters my mind!) "relevant."

What "the world" really wants is a Church that is powerless to help us, that is as jelly-like, weak and floppy as we are. They want an emasculated Church, that would result in the blind leading the blind. Why does the world want this?

Never forget that the devil offered Our Lord the whole world if he would fall on His knees and worship him. The world today is a conglomeration of media-men, politicians and other opinion-formers, most of whom are anti-Catholic in nature if not in fact. Through omission or commission they seek to make the Church relativist.

Behind this herd of cats lies Satan. He wants a Church that is powerless to help us avoid sin, and certainly powerless to help us get up, dust ourselves off and get back on the narrow way. He wants the pews emptied - less bums on pews means less souls saved (as Linen on the Hedgerow blog wrote the other day, not attending Mass on Sundays and Days of Obligation is a Mortal Sin, and that is a victory for Satan).

The more Catholics are turned away from the Church, via false pride, sloth, greed - whatever the perceived motivation ("right" or "wrong") - then the more souls are in danger of falling away, forever. Didn't Our Lady show the children at Fatima the many souls falling into Hell?

God knows (yes, He really does!) that without His Church I would have fallen away too. There are 101 reasons for not going to Church, and the devil will always find the one that most appeals to you, dripping honey words in your ears that appeal to your pride.

The response to the paedophile scandal has been more souls lost. I know this because I hear this from family members, friends and acquaintances. The Church, to many (via the world's media) has become synonymous with this scandal, with hypocrisy, with absolute evil.

These people are human of course. They are concupiscent. They are open to the devil's honeyed-words. Souls are being lost.

The first job of the Princes of the Church is to save souls. One day they, like we parents, will have to answer for the souls under their charge.

So why is this scandal being allowed to go on and on and on? Certainly the media is milking it, but there can be no doubt that their ability to do so is the fault of the Church in not acting like Catholics in the first instance.

And why is the Church putting Pope John Paul II on the road to canonisation via the "fast track" system, when it must be said that most of this scandal happened under his watch? This does not sit well with people outside the Catholic bubble. Not addressing the issue smacks of the same cover-up that hit us in the face after the years and years of this abuse scandal.

I am sorry if I have genuinely offended any good and faithful Catholics, but I think we need to wake up and smell the coffee. The truth is that the paedophile scandal (which correct me if I'm wrong but happened primarily through the 70s, 80s and 90s?) has destroyed the image of the Church in the eyes of many -- including many Catholics.

Now maybe they are weak Catholics, but so am I! So are we all. There but for the Grace of God... etc.

The only way the Catholic Church can get to the bottom of this is to grasp the nettle. The acts and the nature of the people involved must, of course, be absolutely condemned, as I'm sure it has been. But the dualistic approach to moral relativism, immoral acts etc. such as has happened in Westminster Archdiocese viz the (homosexual) Soho Masses must be nipped in the bud by the Church authorities. It was this cowardice and relativism, this 'looking the other way' that allowed the paedophile scandal to go and grow underground.

I am reminded of a priest friend who went back to his Seminary a few years back only to exclaim "it is full of homosexuals" in a most dejected way. Catholics must learn from the ills that have befallen Anglicanism. You cannot be one thing and say another. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. If we say that homosexuality is an abomination, a disorder, then the priesthood and seminaries must be gone through with a fine-tooth comb.

Sounds harsh? Indeed. But when it comes to souls, Salvation, Heaven and Hell I do not think we can cut corners. Of course anyone with homosexual tendencies can and should be helped in a most charitable manner; but the priesthood must be closed off to them (as it should to people with other disorders such as alcoholism, an adulterous nature, etc.)

The fact that Catholic children were sexually assaulted by men with the indelible character of Christ's priesthood on their soul should fill us all with horror, grief, terror, remorse and shame.

Pussyfooting around issues when it comes to the Church, its moral character, its nature etc. has let too many souls fall away and let a tiny percentage [but one was too many!] of the priesthood become outright evil.

Let us learn the lesson and have a thoroughly Catholic Church run on Catholic principles, promoting the Sacraments and defending Catholic dogma and tradition.

The second issue is the issue of Original Sin itself.

A few months back I was at a local lecture on the Faith and the Salvific nature of Christ's Incarnation came up. It set me to thinking at the time, and its an issue addressed in the latest Christian Order (CO)mag too, that if one does not believe in Creation, in Adam and Eve, in our First Parents' fall from grace, then the Incarnation becomes meaningless.

A friend told me he overheard someone at his Church muttering that Creationism was ridiculous. Now if Creation is a "myth" then so is Christ's mission. His Death on the Cross in turn becomes meaningless because by their rationale there was no break between man and God, no rift, no loss of Heaven for Christ to remedy via His Passion and Death on the Cross.

Furthermore, as CO magazine makes clear, Creation is a Catholic Dogma. In other words if you do not believe that God created the entire world and all things in it ex nihilo (out of nothing) in an instant, then you are officially an heretic. I'm not a cannon lawyer but I think that means you should not receive Communion.

It is not a moot point. It is not open for debate. It is not an issue where there can be movement. Church Dogma is that God Created the earth and the beasts on it. Furthermore he created man; not a bit of slime that became a cell, that became a fish, that became a reptile, that became a mammal, that become a monkey, that became a man.

If you do not believe in Genesis (no, not Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel) and its account of Creation, then you cannot believe in Christ's Incarnation to break us free from the bonds of sin.



When Christ uttered the words "it is done/accomplished" He was surely referring to His Salvific mission to restore Heaven to mankind. Yet the very idea that we come from [soulless] monkeys and therefore cannot have lost Paradise through the actions of Adam and Eve, means that Jesus cannot have been the second Adam come to our rescue, nor Mary the second Eve conceived without sin to bring Our saviour into this world.

This heresy reduces Jesus to a "nice bloke" like we here atheists prattle on about on the telly. They tell us he was just a 'good guy' amongst many others (Buddha, Gandhi etc.) and we can pick n choose because really we're just talking soulless monkeys.

The Church has dogmas for a reason. It is not be constrain us, anymore than the need to breath oxygen constrains us or the laws of gravity constrain us. It is so that we my know, understand and dwell on the Truth.

"We call a man a bigot or a slave of dogma because he is a thinker who has thought thoroughly and to a definite end." G. K. Chesterton

So what am I asking for? As usual I guess I am asking for a Catholic Church, i.e. for Our Faith, for the Pope and for the Bishops to be Catholic, to be dogmatic, to fight for the Truth and above and beyond all else, in all they say and do, to fight for every soul!

To do all you can in your power to keep a soul on the narrow path to Heaven and to lose is a great sadness, but it is not your fault. But to be lukewarm, to let your sheep go wandering off the track and be lost in mists, in quagmire, in thorns and be torn apart by wolves, then their fate rests on your shoulders, whether you are Catholic parents, priests or Bishops.

Please God let us all be watchful and do our Catholic duty.

I am sorry that I have 'gone on' so much, but this something I feel strongly about, and not out of pride, for I am a very weak Catholic, like all of us far too prone to sin. It is because I need so much help and I do not want to fall away (and I wish others not to, and yet more to come back to the Faith, let alone be converted) that I really desire a strong, dogmatic Catholic Church.

I feel we have gone without it for 50 odd years and the pews have emptied as a result. Please. I am not, to quote Basil Fawlty, asking for an elephants ear on a bun. I just want my Catholic Church to be Catholic! It's not too much to ask is it?

Please Pray to GKC

This was a comment left to my last piece, by Ecumenical Diablogger (a fellow Welsh Catholic):

I just saw this comment on the American Chesterton Society website, from Daniel Collins, "Please, everyone who reads this, please pray to Chesterton for a miraculous healing of my Grandmother. She is very ill, and there is a problem in doing surgery.

Chesterton once said that he believed in miracles even though he could not perform any. But I think that he can and he will, if we ask him. Please pray for my Grandmother, and also try to make this date a real Feast day for Chesterton."

God Our Father, Thou didst fill the life of Thy servant Gilbert Keith Chesterton with a sense of wonder and joy, and gave him a faith which was the foundation of his ceaseless work, a charity towards all men, particularly his opponents, and a hope which sprang from his lifelong gratitude for the gift of human life. May his innocence and his laughter, his constancy in fighting for the Christian faith in a world losing belief, his lifelong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and his love for all men, especially for the poor, bring cheerfulness to those in despair, conviction and warmth to lukewarm believers and the knowledge of God to those without faith. We beg Thee to grant the favours we ask through his intercession, [and especially for……] so that his holiness may be recognized by all and the Church may proclaim him Blessed. We ask this through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

www.catholicgkchestertonsociety.co.uk

Portillo, Elizabeth I, Scottish Independence & Catholicism

Come on laddie: paint your face!!!

I have never really liked Michael Portillo. Not because his father was a supporter of the anti-Catholic forces in Spain. Nor because he is a homosexual. Nor even because he flipped from being a "right-winger" to being a liberal (around the time he was forced out of the closet).

I believe he is the breed of politician who is always the "system's man." Not strictly a careerist, though he clearly wanted to be the Tory leader before being 'outed,' moreover he is well-connected amidst the politicos, bankers and media-luvvies.

It is that breed of people who will never rock the boat, will always come out on the side of the ruling class, whilst pushing from the inside for the very worst kind of laws viz morality, public decency, the family and so on.

They will never be openly hostile to the Catholic Church, but they will always say that Catholics should keep their opinions inside the Church. Like Alistair Campbell, the one-time (some might say all-time) porno-fiction writer, this breed of politico "don't do God."

The very idea of God is anathema to this breed. To them, religion should not encroach on politics (whilst their politics forever encroaches on our religion). They, like Nietzsche before them, believe that "God is dead" or at least is in His retirement home (reserved for visiting hours on Sundays) with the other 'deities of your choice' so we are free to pick n choose from Buddhism to witchcraft, Baptist to Islam.

The Catholic Faith is an anachronism to these breed, one of many beliefs to pick n choose as long as you keep it to yourself. They are free to ram their constructs and beliefs down our throats via the school system, the mass media and the political system, so that we believe in "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." 


Over the years, they have used this Masonic hydra to make the majority believe that contraception was acceptable, then that abortion on demand was acceptable, then that homosexuality was acceptable. Now they are all pushing for the acceptance of euthanasia.

Of course we will be told this will be "for love." Or "to stop suffering." The modern god "choice" won't be far behind. And so eventually, through BBC docudramas, through Eastenders plot-lines and via the Chinese water torture of political and media pressure, the majority will go with the flow. Oh they will lie, tweak, fabricate and concoct "surveys" and even use very sad individual examples (in that Roe Vs Wade style). But the end result will be euthanasia on demand. Mass murder.

They'll get us coming and going! Both ends of the hospital will be death mills; with one end seeing sad women pressurised into killing babies by uncaring boyfriends, husbands, married lovers etc., whilst the other end sees sad old people who think they are a "burden" signing their lives away whilst relatives rub their hands with glee and flick through holiday brochures and paperwork from car showrooms.

The only people with "yooman rights" will be hardened criminals. The rapists, paedophiles  -- all will have their rights enshrined; whilst the innocent unborn and the pressurised elderly will be killed by the thousands.

We can see it happening a mile off. Abortion was meant to be for a small number of women. Their lives would be in danger. Two doctors would have to sign off the "procedure." All manner of checks and balances would be in place.

Now we have abortion on demand with abortion profiteers (sorry, 'providers') advertising their referral or confidential helpline services as if they do not have a vested interest (or profit motive) in promoting abortion as the pain-free option with no physical, mental or moral ramifications.


Do the people now pushing euthanasia not realise that the same thing will happen again? The Death Clinics will advertise "helplines" and suchlike, where they will present suicide as a "valid lifestyle choice" and those who bother to protest outside the clinics will see doddery old men and ladies taken in by relatives with pound-signs in their eyes.

So why pick on Michael Portillo?

Well he thinks that none of this is "extreme." He thinks we live in a wonderful land where everything that is liberal and free is accepted by the majority. I have no doubt his own twisted proclivities colour his judgement, as is the case with so many people embroiled in the political sphere.

The other evening he was involved in a discussion on the BBC's Newsnight about "Britishness" and "Englishness," which were being discussed in the shadow of the SNP's victory in Holyrood and the prospect of Scotland going independent.

Mr. Portillo painted a bizarre picture of English/British history, wherein Britishness was essentially an all-embracing liberalness that avoids extremes. This was, for him, rooted in Elizabeth I's stance against Catholics and Protestants, choosing instead the "centre ground."

Excuse me? Methinks Mr. Portillo needs a history lesson. Bloody Bess was a tyrant. She murdered many  Catholics in the most gruesome manner. This is an ample example of the re-writing of history in which Mary I is painted as "Bloody Mary" for killing circa 500 Protestants in the legal manner of the day, whereas the Protestants: Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I killed many, many times more - in the multiple of thousands. Men, women and children often killed in reprisal attacks for mass movements in defence of Catholicism such as the Pilgtrimage of Grace and the Northern Rising.

You see what Portillo and his ilk do not tell you is that England was a thoroughly Catholic country. The Protestants were small in number, but agitated to control the State. And so Elizabeth, who swore an Oath to be a Catholic queen, turned against her people. She put a rift between England and Europe for centuries. She put the country at risk from Spanish/Imperial armies. And she ruined the beliefs of the whole country, forcing people to go underground to celebrate Mass as their parents and grandparents had done, openly.

Splitting the country between the "pro-Catholic" and "pro-Protestant" factions in turn led to the disastrous Civil War, with the forces of Cromwell all but raping Ireland. Cromwell the mad Protestant who banned Christmas is, of course, a darling of the politicos because he was an extreme anti-Catholic nutter. Despite banning parliament and replacing a King with himself as Lord Protector, he remains the darling of "democrats."

It had (and has!) nothing to do with democracy. If a popular vote was taken the population of England would have remained Catholic through all the turmoil. The people loved their Church, and their devotions.

What Portillo and his ilk believe Britishness to be (and here I concur) is a worship of the State and the State's religion (Anglican hotch-potch at first, and now "tolerance" of goodness knows what).

The SNP spokesman on the programme did interject in Portillo's ramblings of Britain being against "Catholic extremism" at one stage by stating that the British Union was a construct to keep the State Protestant and for the benefit of the Hanoverians.

Of course to Portillo regicide and overthrowing the lawful King to replace him with a Dutch or German puppet is a great example of Britishness and not "extreme" in any way! Just as it is not extreme to have an Anglican Queen sign off laws that go against her Oath of Office to uphold the law of the land and the Bible, in particular laws which legalised homosexuality, abortion and which will legalise euthanasia.

Britishness and Anglicanism are State worship. That is why the head of the Anglican church is the queen (also head of the Protestant, Presbytarian Church of Scotland), and so Britishness has always been about being anti-Papist; as such one could argue that Britain was the first Masonic State (whose regicide led the way for the French revolutionaries).

Certainly John Dee, the man who is said to be the founding  father of the British Empire and Elizabeth I's right-hand man was a known occultist. Then we have Cromwell the murderer who was the nuttiest Brit to rule the country. Then there is William of Orange (the "King Billy" so beloved of Protestants), a usurper who sold England to unending debt by establishing the Bank of England.

Portillo thinks all of this and more proves that Britain is all about tolerance and fairness. Tell that to the Irish circa 1845. Tell that to the Scottish circa 1746. Tell that to the Welsh children banned from speaking their mother-tongue. Tell that to the Boers who were put in the first ever concentration camps. Tell that to the English forced from the land and into slums.

Britain is a construct designed to promote worship of the state and money (coming together in the Empire), which is why the City of London has been the centre of finance for many centuries. Anglicanism is state worship with a healthy dose of anti-Catholicism at its head. They have bent over backwards (Houses of Orange, Hanover and Saxe-Coburg/Gotha - aka Windsor) to stop Catholic rule, hence we still have anti-Catholic legislation on the statute books.

I know it's hard - and many Catholics have fought and died under the Union Jack, not least in my own family - but I believe Scottish independence will be a good thing, because it will make us all re-evaluate patriotism, who rules us, and the means of ruling us.

There is no hard and fast rule for Catholics, but when the law was recently changed to give the Welsh Assembly more law-making powers, the Catholic Bishops put out a statement broadly welcoming it, as the nearer to people power is held, the more accountable it is (very Chetsertonian of them).

I do not think "splitting up" (as the likes of Portillo so manically portray it) the UK will end the hegemony of Mammon, Freemasonry and other anti-Catholic forces, any more than it will change the day-to-day lives of all of us, whether we are Welsh, English, Scottish or Irish. There will be no barbed-wire borders. I do not even think the moral-framework of the laws (let along the Social Reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ) will come into force.

But might the Scottish, Welsh and English nations look to their Catholic roots as well as their futures in all this political change?

I doubt it somehow, but the end of the British Union may yet give Catholics hope for the future and be part of God's plan. With the Euro stumbling and even America unable to "pay its bills" the era of small nations may take us back to a more Catholic way of doing things...

The Bible's Buried Secrets: Old Heresies Dressed Up As New

Francesca Stavrakopoulou, the smiling face of anti-Christ atheism

I caught two things today by unhappy chance. The first was one of the happy clappy crowd, that sing-song tribe that infest the airwaves at certain times of the morning intent on putting you off your corn flakes, and via their syrupy forced happiness seem to induce a depression over the fact that religion can descend into a Kum-ba-ya meets Eastenders mentality/theology-lite.

This one was akin to the Sisters of Perpetual M&S, the cardigan-clad nuns, only worse: a CofE priestess. She was busy telling the millions listening (to Radio 2) how great a BBC2 TV series about the Bible is and how great it is that the presenter is an atheist.

How typical. How could anyone, claiming to be a Christian, find solace that a soul is (temporarily, I hope) lost to God, let alone someone with access to a prime time TV show which, no doubt, would be busy trying to "prove" the Bible was so much hogwash,so many fairy tales that no-one in the 'modern world' could take seriously?

No doubt so many vicars, vicaresses, priests and priestesses will celebrate, for they too are atheists, they too do not believe in the Bible. They too do not accept the Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord, they too do not accept the Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Incarnation of God-made-man, and so much more. They certainly do not believe in Transubstantiation and the Real Presence of Our Lord.

Welcome to the world of the social-worker-priest(ess). Oh yes, you see, Jesus was a great man. He loved the poor, he preached a brand of socialism, and he loved his neighbour. I use a small "h" because he, the cuddly Jesus, is not God to these people, he is the good guy. This is the cult of "Jesus hearts U" so beloved of yuchy modern tapestries, in yuchy modern roller-disco churches: all Godless, all soulless, all empty.

Then this evening I just about remembered this programme was on, and so I switched on the TV to catch the last 5 minutes of "the Bible's Buried Secrets." What I heard was nothing new (is anything new under Heaven?) but a miasma of old lies and old anti-Christian propaganda as insideous as the whisperings of the serpent in Paradise (which, next week, we'll be told didn't exist).

Some years ago I read Hilaire Belloc's superb book The Great Heresies. Get yourself a copy or read it online (see below). This wonderful defender of all things Catholic makes it clear that there is indeed nothing new under Heaven, that all heresies are just repeats of old lies, woven anew, presented in new form, designed to attack the Faith from left, then from right, on a new front here, then from a different angle there. So it was with this BBC2 series tonight.

Oh the Jews weren't monotheists but invented this later, the angels were pagan deities reinvented, other pagan gods became demons (I always thought they were demons), and the oldest lie of all (repeated by Jews, gnostics, pagans, protestants, atheists and all the enemies of Christ for almost 2000 years), that the Virgin Mary was a reinvention of a pagan fertility goddess (take your pick of which one) and so Christians venerate a pagan deity.

You see the presenter of the BBC programme, Hebrew scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou, is giving us nothing new. This is classic Sanhedrin propaganda, reinvented by the mass murderer and Church desecrator Cromwell, spread anew by Communist commissars by the point of the gun, and now promoted by the BBC in the age of multi-format media.

The sad thing, in the post-Dan Brown Da Vinci Code era, these old lies of the enemies of the Church have become the stock-in-trade of the media luvees. Those too busy in their drug-addled media world, enveloped in a world full of sin and debauchery, have picked up the oldest of lies, dressed them up in 21st Century garb, and spoon fed them to people who think they are individualists by following this "new" religion.

That a CofE priestess rejoices in this TV series and its atheist presenter with an anti-Bible and anti-Christ agenda is, in and of itself shocking. Yet I am not surprised in the least. Ever since St Cuthbert's heretical "descendant," the layman Jenkins, dressed in Bishop's garb in Durham presented the world with his Resurrection-doubting beliefs in the 1980s (the same man went onto bless one of the first to "bless" a civil partnership in 2005), the empty vessel that is the post-Reformation State religion has been all too obvious.

Belloc was right. The Church has always been, and will always be under attack. His good friend GK Chesterton once described the Church's history as an adventure, as exciting because it swerves one way to avoid one heresy (that the Church is too worldly), then swerves the other way to avoid another heresy (that the Church is too spiritual) and so the history of the Church is not one long boring 'plod' but rather a breath-taking escapade to avoid the errors of the world.

That Radio 2's trendy CofE priestess could find any comfort in yet another assault on the Church, on Christ, on the angels and saints, and on the Holy Mother of God speaks volumes about the CofE. Any pretence that it is in any way Apostolic is out the window. This "church" of priestesses, of homosexuals, of Bible burning is a whited sepulchre, seemingly  'Christian' on the outside, yet internally is little more than an empty vessel making a lot of noise. It has become so "inclusive" that whilst it is busy, at its front door, hugging a world that is debauched, atheist and anti-Christ, it cannot see that at the side door its faithful, with any remnant of that Apostolic tradition, are leaving in droves to join the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

That the BBC is putting out this gnostic-pagan nonsense, dressed up in modern media clothes, and then promoting it on another outlet tells us all we need to know about the BBC, that is if we had any doubts about its agenda to begin with. Its idea of religious output is Songs of Praise. Puuurrrlease!

Let us hope and pray that the modernist heretics inside the Catholic Church do not put-off the Anglicans finding their home-in-Rome. The last thing these many thousands of souls need is to escape one nest of vipers dressing up atheism, gnosticism, goddess-worship feminism, social-worker vicars and priestesses, and kum-ba-ya meats Eastenders theology as Christianity, only to find the small but vocal heretics in the Catholic Church that the holy pope St Pius X warned us about in his Syllabus of Errors.

Let us hope and pray, for our hope is in God, and the Saints that will guide the Church and keep her loyal to the Magisterium and to her Traditions, so that we can (in the imagery of GKC) swerve to avoid the heresies of this age and thus embark on another adventure with our beloved Church.

Link:
The Great Heresies by Hilaire Belloc

GK Chesterton on neighbourly Love

As is usually the case GKC manages to encompass so much, so witily, in just a few words:

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbours, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."

G.K. Chesterton

Redemptorists Promote Horoscopes and Buddhist Prayer to Catholic Youth

I think, and I am sure that many will agree with me, that one of the biggest 'turn offs' for young Catholics in the last 40 years has been the kind of "happy clappy" catholicism (with a small c) which has deliberately played down the unique nature of the Catholic Faith and like some comprehensive school's social studies class has tried to hug all 'faiths,' nuclear disarmament, lets 'understand' the hatred homosexuals have to put up with, etc.

Believe me I know, having sat through those very lessons, put off by that very church, not truly understanding my Catholic heritage, Faith and morality.

Often in the guise of appealing to the youth, the worst kind of social worker garbage and rainbow-coloured tapestry covered church walls outrages have been allowed to occur.

I sometimes wonder if more young people would be in our churches, attending Mass, learning their catechisms, if the hierarchy/clergy left well alone when it comes to "youth initiatives."

Am I just an old cynic recalling the worst examples of past personal experiences? Perhaps we will see things change for the better, but reading personal accounts of events like the World Youth day in Australia, I am worried that lessons aren't being learnt.

Let me show you an example of what I mean by the 'social worker catholicism' which I find so disruptive (if not outright heretical!).

The bulletin 'Sunday Plus' is published by the Redemptorists (Redemptorist Publicatiuons, Alphonsus House, GU34 3HQ - www.rpbooks.co.uk) and is designed so parish priests can use it as a useful colourful page on the reverse side of which to publish their own parish weekly newsletter.

All well and good so far (I have seen some very uplifting varieties of this kind of affair, with stories of the Saints etc.).

This issue of Sunday Plus (30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 24th October 2010) has a section "Meet Amy..." with a picture of a trendy looking young person, we assume (rightly?) is a Catholic.

So that I don't spoil the enjoyment for you, or get accused of partial editing, let me give you the whole text of the 'Meet Amy' bit, including the emboldened quote placed at the front so it stands out amongst the whole page:

"I think that Catholics would benefit from hearing more about what other religions have to offer."

Amy's mum is a Catholic and Amy was baptised as a baby, but she does not have a sense of a Catholic identity now. Although she is open to different religions and beliefs, she really rejects the prescriptive nature of Catholicism. Amy doesn't believe in a personal God, but believes in a higher power which binds living things together on earth. She reads her horoscopes every day and has recently started trying Buddhist prayer.

What are the Redemptorists trying to prove with this Grade A guff?

• That horoscopes are fine and dandy?
• That Buddhist prayers are fine?
• That losing one's Catholic identity is de rigueur?
• That being open to  'different beliefs' is welcome?
• That Catholicism is "prescriptive" and hence bad?
• That vague belief in a 'higher power' is sufficient?

All this is put out there by this Redemptorist publication without qualification, and so is being promoted by "Catholics" in Catholic churches to the Faithful, including young, impressionable Catholics,

And we wonder why so many youngsters are losing their Faith?

Click on the images here and read the piece for yourself.

Personally I think it is scandalous.

If someone told me this piece was written by a New Ager, an aggressive atheist or a homosexual militant as a means to draw young Catholics away from the Church by overwhelming them with meaningless goo, I would readily believe them.

Yet this was published by - if not written by! - Catholic priests with a duty of care to many Catholic souls.

It shows the terrible state of our Church that not one iota of outrage is expressed at this kind of material (never mind that it was published in the first place).

If we and our children really had to "Meet Amy" in the weekly newsletter (and I wonder how many parishes took this tripe) might we not have met her in the format of being instructed by a thoroughly Catholic priest? Could we have had right opposing wrong? Might we have expected some guidelines for Catholic children and teenagers on how to be loyal to the 'Faith of their Fathers' -- instead of what was dished up in the form of an uncritical advert for what GK Chesterton warned us of all so many decades ago:

When a Man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything.

...including horoscopes.

We Must Celebrate the Ordinariate, But Be Watchful

John Broadhurst, ex-Anglican Bishop of Fulham, now a Catholic

Of course like every Catholic in England & Wales I am very excited about the conversion of Anglicans to our Faith.

As the Catholic Herald reported here the largest steps to date were taken by three ex-Anglican bishops, who converted to become, as I understand it, simple Catholics [like me - I'm a simple Catholic ;-)].

Now I have had all manner of opinions on this thrust at me by friends, but let me put my own out there.

I have to say that I am pleased at events, because it shows many Anglicans that their real home is in the Catholic Church. It also reminds more people that Anglicanism is a very strange heresy started by a Catholic king who wanted a divorce, and later taken over by Protestants (hence the Heinz 57 Varieties of Anglicans available!).

At the same time, my worry is that 'liberals' (maybe quasi-Catholics or media hirelings) who are always trying to nibble away at authentic Catholicism, will try and use these events to apply pressure for a married clergy, planned family mentality, etc. - in short to move the Catholic Church closer to the former Anglicanism of the converts, than bringing all the Anglican converts over to Catholicism as outlined in our catechisms (which kind of undermines the point of them converting in the first place!).

Of course we all know of the Eastern (Greek, Russian, Ukrainian) Uniat Churches that keep their own liturgies but moved back to recognise the Pope. Do some see the Ordinariate, established by the Pope, as being a version of this? But then I believe I'm right in saying that the Orthodox Mass is legitimate, whereas no Catholic seriously believes that transubstantiation takes place under Anglican auspices.

So is this a clever way to get Anglicans to convert en masse (but with free will) to the Faith of Our Fathers? Or a way to try and validate Anglican liturgy in a Catholic setting?

One friend of mine has said he is worried that the conversions are being 'fast tracked' and that the Anglican converts therefore won't know their Catholicism, possibly bringing heretical ideas with them (thus bolstering heretical ideas held by a vocal minority within the Church)

Another has said that the Ordinariate is a clever move by the Vatican to keep the Anglican converts under the direct control of the Vatican, and thus free of the "ecumania" of the Bishops Conference.

We have to be ecstatic at the turn of events that has brought more souls to our Church, and the fact that it is women 'bishops' and homosexual 'clergy' that has pushed Anglicans in recent years into the Catholic fold should be a warning to all Catholics to keep our Faith orthodox on the issues of married clergy, female clergy, homosexuals etc. because we have all seen the damage such moves have made to the Anglicans.

As the Catholic Herald article says:

We all received Communion (five of our new brethren, including all three former bishops, on the tongue) and, lo, it was done. We are in communion.

Perhaps more Catholics receiving Communion on the tongue, together with the demand that Papal Masses can only have Communion on the tongue, might see a move for more Catholics to move away from the horrifying and unedifying sight that is Communion being placed in unconsecrated hands (which Mother Theresa said is the worst thing in the world!).

In short we as Catholics must receive our formerly separated brethren with great joy and charity, hope for many positives, yet be watchful as always, certainly against ecumaniac suggestions as this.

I think the advent of the Ordinariate will give the many millions of Catholics in Britain renewed vigour in their Faith (following on from the Pope's visit) and a sharp lesson that what GK Chesterton would have labelled as 'fads' in churches only lead to people losing their beliefs or walking out of their church. If anyone tries to use it as a fop to more ecumaniacal behaviour then it will only lead to Catholics (of the 'old' or 'new' type) losing their Faith.

These good people wanted to join the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: not to see the Catholic Church become another variant of the liberal, all-things-to-all-men/women/transgenders mess they left behind.