The Holy Innocents

A fine and very informative post from Redneck Reflections on the persecution of Christians by Muslims.

Boże Narodzenie Po Polsku - Polish Christmas

On television, live, a crowd of thousands in Kraków is at an open-air concert of carols.

The rock group which is playing is composed entirely of Franciscan Friars, in their habits.

Go Down Fighting!

Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
Mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað.

From the old English poem The Battle of Maldon, uttered when the English realise that the Danes will win. Translates as:

Courage must be firmer, heart the keener,
Mind the greater, as our strength grows less.

A good motto, I think, for oppression, feelings of helplessness, old age, and sickness.

Go down fighting.

Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam.....

Tennyson's description of the wind in Morte d'Arthur:

And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down
By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
Came on the shining levels of the lake.

would also describe some of the invective from the anti Catholic, pro-abortion, or pro-homosexualist coteries, slavering with hate like rabid chihuahas.

Just a thought.

Seems they're at it again, them doggone "Catholic Voices"!

Yes, those lovable guys and gals at "Catholic Voices" seem to be at it again, if it's true as SPUC reports.

Shrill they ain't!

The Dignity of Labour

A Polish Coal-Miner in Ceremonial Uniform

Those are real ostrich feathers.

Miners wear their uniforms for parades, special occasions, like this fair in Frombork, and when they go to Church in an official group.

Chimney-sweeps wear a top hat and a black suit, and police and firemen, too, have splendid ceremonial uniforms.

I'm all for the dignity of labour.

I'm thinking of designing a uniform for international bankers - something shapeless and made of sackcloth, printed with vomit and blood stains.

Intending Organ-Donors Beware!

LifeNews carries a horrifying report on a young man who awoke from a coma just as his organs were about to be "harvested" (horrible expression - ugh!).

There's a popular rear-window car-sticker in Poland (and perhaps in the UK too) which reads:

Go on! Overtake! The transplant unit is waiting for your kidneys.

I have not bequeathed my organs, mainly for fear of being killed so as to prolong the life of someone whose existence on Earth I deplore. No names, but you can probably guess some of the people I have in mind.

Wishing You a very Happy Christmas, with three of my favourite Carols

First, the Czech carol "We will rock You", which my choir at the Liceum sang beautifully this year, and nearly reduced me to tears. Here it is sung, too artfully in my view, by the choir of New College, Oxford. It needs the simple touch. Wither's Rocking Hymn , as set by Vaughan Williams, and lastly, a Polish carol sung by a child, with male chorus, Oj Maluśki. It is concerned with clothing the little Jesus, and worrying that he is not with His Daddy in Heaven. Three students sang it to me last year, and by the end, there wasn't a dry eye between us.

Oj Maluśki is in Old Polish, and Old Highland (Górale) Polish at that, and Google Translate got nowhere with it. I am working on it.

Dinner in Hell

The lords of Pandemonium, when at dinner
Have choice of every kind of deadly sinner.
Who knows what most delights their debased palate,
The bloody tyrant, or perverted prelate?

Said Satan seated at the nightly feast,
"I'll have the Bishop, Beelzy, you the Priest."
Beelzebub replied with face downcast,
"You get the heretic, I the pederast."

From Belial, "Think how Bodily Ressurection
"Will so enhance our great House of Correction.
The shrieking soul, with cringing flesh complete,
Basted, crisped, quivering on a piping plate."

Polish Walruses

On a totally different tack, I went swimming with the local Walrus club in the Baltic at Stegnie yesterday morning, and still got to Mass. If you really want to know, I'm the crouching character in the left foreground with the black woolly cap.

Air temperature 4 c., sea temperature 3 c., so only 15 minutes in the water.



A nasty draught around the shirt-tails

Perhaps you know the feeling. At a meeting, you are defending what you understand to be an official line, when someone demonstrates that the official line is something quite different and you have got it all wrong.

It's bad enough when the issue at stake is merely business or politics, but disastrous when we are talking about Catholic teaching.

How can parents bring up chidren in a Catholic ethos when Catholic schools 'nuance', disparage, sidestep, or subvert Catholic morality as it relates to sex and marriage; when the Hierarchy apparently accepts (or certainly does not vigorously attack and demolish) wicked government-sponsored sex-education  training programmes which are being used in Catholic schools?

I would like to know what Austen Ivereigh's apparent innuendo on Twitter is all about. Can anyone, please, help?

The following exchange is verbatim from Twitter,

A. Ivereigh, a "Catholic Voice", tweeted today "if only those little old ladies duped into believing SPUC is Catholic knew what their money is being spent on ...."

When I tweeted back, asking for an explanation,   "@austeni @blondpidge @PeterDCXW What does SPUC spend their money on?"
 Blondpidge replied,  "very good question. As they are a lobby group & not a charity we'll never know."

I replied, "If we'll never know, why the innuendo about how old ladies' money spent? Seeking clarification as someone who workes (my typo. Should be worked) with SPUC."


Blondpidge: "Well how does pursuing campaign against archbishops & catholic voices further pro-life cause? Please tell me?"

I replied, "If ++s in question were soft on abortion, or immoral sex-ed, campaign would help."

I would like to know what Austen Ivereigh's apparent innuendo is all about. Can anyone, please, help?

Fame at Last! My Verse Filmed! (Well, almost.)

My verses on St Nicholas the plagologist have prompted The Maysdays Blog to make a short film which you can watch here.

The film is much more fun than the verse.

Saint Nicholas was my kind of Saint,

Shamelessly reblogged, because I still like it.



Saint Nicholas was my kind of Saint,
If sometimes short of temper.
Though pacifism was not his bent;
He was fidelis semper.

When Arius denied his Lord's
Divinity, Nick felt sore;
Decided acts speak more than words,
Felled Arius to the floor.

His kind of knock-down plagologue*
Is now not to our taste.
We value courteous dialogue
Above such wordless haste.


And yet there is a time, one feels
To strike and not to speak.
When Reason with Unreason deals,
It's reason which is weak.

For who can mould a brain of mud
With philosophic lore?
Better to thump the stupid crud.
His place is on the floor.




Note: Plagologue = arguing or reasoning with blows. This word does not appear in any dictionary. It is my own coinage, being derived from Latin 'plagus' = a blow, 'plagosus' = full of blows, violent, cognate with Greek 'plegein = to beat, and logos = reason

Please read before you dismiss this - I thought I was pro-life, but perhaps I'm not.

As I have noted before, I hate labels. They are inaccurate and their use is often mere laziness. Call someone a Catholic, a fascist, a liberal, or a socialist, and you are saying a lot or very little, and only if others are familiar with you and your opinions will they know what you mean.

In spite of my abhorrence, I have been using 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' with the glib abandon of a woolly-minded idiot, until someone brought me up short with the perfectly understandable (although I disagree with it) statement that:

"If the Church is to be PRO-LIFE, it must be so for all, not just the unborn, but also those who may deserve to forfeit their lives."

I am not opposed to killing in self-defence, or in the defence of the weak, or harmless, or innocent. If it were not for the horrible certainty of miscarriages of justice, I would support the death penalty for murder, rape, and for arson and drunk driving if they resulted in death.

But I am totally opposed to abortion and euthanasia under any circumstances.

So how should I describe myself and those like me? Not, I think, as pro-life. Perhaps -

Anti-abortion?
Anti-euthanasia?
Pro-innocent life?

Mislabel yourself, and you may find you are in the wrong camp.

Muddlecombe Fair

Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your gray mare
Us likes nuancing, not black and white, where we'm from;
For us wants to go to Muddlecombe Fair
With Tina Beattie, Ma Pepsi,
Jon Cruddas, Cliff Longley,
Cherie Blair, Greg Pope,
Old Uncle Vince Wobbly and all,
Old Uncle Vince Wobbly and all.

It's Always the Details That Worry Me

Perhaps I ask too many questions. St Anselm said that theology is faith seeking understanding and, while I am no theologian, I do want to understand.

So, thinking about Heaven, as I do a lot as I get older, I wonder about the perfect happiness which reigns there, and have questions.

If the people whom we (presumption of going to Heaven) loved and left behind on earth are going through appalling suffering, or are destined by their behaviour for Hell, do we

1. not care, because heaven is a great party where nothing interrupts the general bliss, and earth, the material world, Hell, and Purgatory will have been brought to an end by the time that we get to Heaven, so there will be no discordant grief or suffering?
2. pray for them, and rejoice that (a) we have done all we can, and that (b) Divine Justice, in all its perfection, will be done, and therefore rejoice in their well-deserved damnation?
3. not care overmuch, because everyone will end up in Heaven, and in the context of eternal happiness, cancer, torture, abject misery, and purgatory are no worse that an unpleasant visit to the dentist?
4. suffer constant anxiety and grief over those we love as we do on Earth?

Hitching the Barque of Peter to the Liberal Handcart - His Holiness & the Death Penalty

Before the XX century, and even now in Muslim countries, religion was to a great extent what informed the public conscience. Together, Christianity and the public conscience informed British legislation of a social kind, such as Catholic Emancipation, the abolition of slavery, and the Factory Acts.

The process is now largely reversed. Laws passed have changed the public conscience about matters like the death penalty, abortion, and sexual deviation. After a decent period of reflection (or weathercock-gazing) religious leaders, Catholic Bishops amngst them, also change their consciences.

Last Wednesday, Pope Benedict, catching up with secular fashions in morality, asked that countries work towards abolition of the death penalty where it still persists.

His rather more robust predecessors in the Papal States maintained the death penalty until Pius IX, one of my favourite Popes, unfortunately abolished it in 1869, and retired the last executioner Battista Bugatti on a pension. Among the methods in use up to the 1860s were hanging, beheading, and the mazatello , a long-handled pole-axe with which the condemned was first stunned before having his throat cut. Charles Dickens witnessed and disapprovingly described an execution by Bugatti.

There is an appealing moral symmetry about the death penalty when applied to murderers. Kill and be killed. Its use prevents further murderous activity by the party executed, and to an extent repairs or restores the injured honour of both those closest to the person murdered and society at large. It also enrages post-freudian twerps who cannot distinguish between cruelty and sadism.

Opposition to capital punishment in principle is founded upon either religious, but not Catholic, morality, or upon mere squeamishness. A society which accepts abortion but cringes from execution is not prepared to kill the guilty who are visible, but quite sanguine over killing the invisible innocent child in the womb. Sentimental hypocrisy.

Opposition on practical grounds - the risk of wrongful conviction - is another matter, but not one that Benedict seems to have mentioned. He seems less concerned about more than a thousand years of practical Catholic wisdom, than conforming the Church to the fickle spirit of the age: hitching the Barque of Peter to the liberal handcart.

And when clergy, be they never so high, adopt secular morality, dissent may well be a duty, and one which I heartily embrace.

Or have I missed something?




 

Pinkquisition

Countercultural Father has a sad story about the legality of prayers before meeting of Bideford Town Council. The matter is being taken to the High court by the nATIONAL sECULAR sOCIETY, whose chief executive and president (both men) are in a civil partnership.

Common Sense Morality: Paper I

Question 1.


The abolition of the death penalty, far from being a step towards a more compassionate society, displays a disturbing lack of horror and outrage at the unjust taking of human life. Discuss.

Newly Elected M.P. Hackney Snoutintroff Interviewed by The Talbot

I cannot divulge how this recording of an interview between Hackney Snoutintroff, newly elected M.P. (Con) for Goovno North, and journalist Brunhilde Maynstreem, from The Talbot Britain's leading intellectual Catholic periodical, came into my possession, but can vouch for its authenticity.

B.M. Thank you Mr Snowtintroff for finding the time to talk to us. First, as a devout Catholic, how do you react to other Catholics who object to your support for abortion?

H.S. Well, Brun, I was elected to represent the fine people of Goowno North in the House, and that is what I will do. If I disappoint them, and don't get re-elected, how can I serve their best interests and those of the nation?

We are a democracy, and the People want abortion - the number of terminations speaks for itself. I'm not going against that. The kind of backwoods Catholics who disagree with me can go f - and I mean read what the more enlightened of our clergy have to say on the matter. End of story. You got a problem with that?

B.M. No, of course not. We at the Talbot, Britain's leading intellectual Catholic magazine - we've been there, done that, and we understand. But what about gay marriage?

H.S. The Church is against discrimination - read the Catechism - and gay marriage is all about equality and justice. The kind of backwoods Catholics who disagree with me can go - er, well, ya!

Look, Brun, I have to represent my constituents, and keep on the right site of party whips and my fellow M.P.s. That's how my bread gets buttered. You have to remember, I'm an M.P. first, and a Catholic second, and privately. The good people of Goovno North elected someone to fight for their interests. They didn't choose me because I was a Catholic. My private religion just doesn't - and shouldn't concern them. It's a private matter. End of story.

B.M. Some Catholics claim that your support of euthanasia is not in line with Catholic teaching..

H.S. Nit-pickers, who just don't see the big picture. No vision. End of story.

B.M. And lastly, how does your Faith inform the way you live?

H.S. Is that the time? Call me a taxi will you? I've a speaking engagement in 20 minutes at Ogle, the new men's lifestyle magazine. There's a good girl!

A pox on't! Clifford Longley fears that the illegalisation of abortion could endanger democracy

H/T for picture to John Smeaton

So the Olympian mind of brain-and-a-half Clifford Longley fears that the illegalisation of abortion could endanger respect for democracy and the rule of law. As he writes, with Cruddas, MP in mind:

Would it not be reasonable for Catholic MPs to want to take into account the damage to respect for democracy and the rule of law that would follow if the criminalisation of all abortion had somehow been forced through Parliament in defiance of public opinion?

If democracy was perfect, and a wise electorate elected a good government, it would, even so, not be worth the life of one innocent unborn child.

An imperfect political system that has delivered abortion, Thatcherism, Blairism, Homosexualism, poltroons like Crossland, education ministers like Shirley Williams, and the ruin of state education is not worth the life of a maggot.

A pox on't!

A Polish child, Whose Ancestors Hitler Did Not Get Round to Aborting, Sings to the Infant Jesus

Just a reminder of what Clifford Longley seems to think is worth sacrificing to preserve democracy: a Polish child, whose ancestors Hitler did not get round to aborting, sings to the Infant Jesus.

Am I too shrill? Should I 'nuance' this?

Longley, Cruddas, Old Uncle Vince Wobbly and all!

I beg you, provided your blood pressure is low and stable, to read John Smeaton's excellent post here which contains his letter to the Tablet in reply to Clifford Longley's article, which I reproduce below.

I find it hard to comment on Longley's piece without recourse to foul language, but will offer the following observations:

1. Longley's tendentious arguments might equally be advanced in defence of not making slavery illegal.

He argues that public opinion would never accept the criminalisation of abortion, and that judges and juries would work to make such legislation ineffective. The G.B.P. (Great British Public), with honorourable exceptions, swallowed Dirty Harry's stealthily introduced so-called reformation and Bloody Betsy's anti Catholicism, as they swallowed Cromwell, slavery, the Test Acts, the Abortion Act, and the more recent pro-homosexualist legislation, even though the majority were probably not in favour. As any fool knows, but not Longley, public opinion is fickle.

Unfortunately, the G.B.P. will swallow nearly anything, just as there are Catholics who swallow the Tablet, Cruddas, Longley, ++Uncle Vin Wobbly and all.

2. He attempts to draw a parallel between the defensive killing of an enemy and the killing of an innocent unborn child, an argument beneath contempt.

3. He suggests that respect for democracy trumps morality.

I shall stop here, as I feel a surge of expletives coming on.

A candidate, perhaps, for this.

Here is Longley's piece:

Is it plausible for a Catholic MP to be “pro-choice”? The issue is raised once more by the case of Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham and a practising Catholic, who has incurred church disapproval for saying that he thinks abortion should be – to quote President Bill Clinton – “safe, legal and rare”.
Cruddas has also said he is happy with the law as it stands in Britain, which is not quite a standard pro-choice position because of the 24-week time limit and because two doctors have to confirm that the statutory criteria have been met. But Cruddas’ views were nonetheless described by a spokesman from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales as “significantly at variance with the Church’s position”.

That position is set forth in general in the 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, that “direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, always constitutes a grave moral disorder”. It therefore follows, it goes on to argue, that the law must protect all unborn human life, from the moment of conception, from deliberate harm. It would not surprise me if a Catholic MP held the first of these two points, yet hesitated about the second. Indeed the first of these two positions is probably not far from what most people feel.

Even Ann Furedi, director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and therefore a major lobbyist on the pro-choice side of the argument, has said abortion is “always a personal tragedy”. She and many like her, however, would say it is sometimes the lesser of two evils. I have heard her liken a woman who seeks an abortion to a hunted animal caught in a trap, which gnaws off its own foot in terror in order to escape.
The argument that the criminal law must in all respects mirror the moral law – and specifically the moral law as interpreted by the Catholic Church – is surely not tenable. Almost nobody thinks adultery, for instance, should be a crime. And while it is characteristic of the Catholic way of thinking about morality to say that ends can never justify means, there are instances where the “lesser of two evils” – killing an enemy in war, for instance – is regarded as acceptable.

Nor can we ignore the political reality. The present UK abortion law is supported by a large majority of public opinion and a large majority of MPs. The absolutist position – that every abortion from the moment of conception onwards should be punished as a crime – has minimal support. As far as I am aware, no attempt has ever been made in the House of Commons to repeal the Abortion Act, and the probability of such an attempt succeeding is zero.

Were such a law by some undemocratic means ever to be passed, with public opinion in its present state, the difficulties would be insuperable. Would juries ever convict anyone under a law they so strongly disagreed with? Would judges, similarly ill-disposed, ever pass deterrent sentences? If not, where would be the law’s protection of the unborn? And what would this do for respect for the law, not to mention democracy?
This picture presents real dilemmas for a conscientious Catholic MP. He or she cannot simply advocate repeal of the Abortion Act without saying what should be put in its place. Repealing it would simply make all abortion legal. Yet the only option the Catholic Church would approve of on the basis of its teaching cited above, complete criminalisation, is in practice unrealistic. Are any Catholic MPs who would not support complete criminalisation for such reasons as these, therefore, to be deemed “pro-choice”?
This is the heart of the problem. Anything less than complete criminalisation would involve someone having to decide which abortions to allow and which to prohibit. The “choice” of the pregnant woman would necessarily figure in that decision. MPs in this situation would naturally prefer them to be as few as possible – or “rare”, to use one of Mr Cruddas’ terms. They would be bound to prefer them to be “safe”, to use another, rather than unsafe; and “legal”, to use the third, rather than illegal.

Would it not be reasonable for Catholic MPs to want to take into account the damage to respect for democracy and the rule of law that would follow if the criminalisation of all abortion had somehow been forced through Parliament in defiance of public opinion? Is that course of action really “the Church’s position” with which Mr Cruddas is said to be “significantly at variance”? Catholic MPs are not the only ones with a moral dilemma – it seems the bishops face one too.

PUBLIC HYGIENE NOTICE: NOW WASH YOUR HANDS!

What Can You Buy for Ł680? - Linen on the Hedgerow

Linen on the Hedgerow's powerful post: What Can You Buy for Ł680? puts the sickness of modern society into horrible perspective.

Recommended reading.

Wise and profoundly disturbing post from Blithe Spirit

Wise and profoundly disturbing post from Jim Bowman on Blithe Spirit , about irresponsible moral decisions. It's well-worth following the link he gives.

An Indelicate Question

Whose obituary, assuming that you survive the person or persons in mind, would you like to have printed on your hygienic bathroom paper?

Sorry. My blood-pressure is up, and with it my N.Q (nastiness quotient).

Which Great Living Statesman Did Not Say This, But Might Well Have?

Well, look {little gasp} I mean I'm a Christian {extends hands forward, palms up} and I think - well what I want to say is - I mean - AIDS is a terrible problem, and let's face it {little gasp} it's a real, well, tragedy for Africa {little gasp} and for gays everywhere, and {extends hands forward, palms up} I know most Catholics are with me and my wife on this - I - well - you know - I think that condoms {little gasp} really are the answer.

Well, look {little gasp} I mean I'm a Christian {extends hands forward, palms up} and I think - well what I want to say is - I mean - unwanted pregnancy is a terrible problem, and let's face it {little gasp} it's a real, well, tragedy for Africa {little gasp} and for women everywhere, and {extends hands forward, palms up} I know most Catholics are with me and my wife on this - I - well - you know - I think that condoms abortion {little gasp} really is the answer.

Soi-Disant Catholic Voices: Kindly Wise Up, or Pipe Down

That the Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill has an excellent piece on Resisting Catholic Voices.

As quoted, they certainly do not speak for me, or for the Pope, for that matter. Perhaps they haven't done their homework.

Wise up, or shut up!

That The Bones You Have Crushed May Thrill - Songs

The Bones has produced some fine songs, which you can listen to here

Cretinous Hymnal Sausage-Machines, Please Take Note

God has blotted them out (Author: Unknown)


God has blotted them out,
I'm happy and glad and free;
God has blotted them out -
I'll turn to Isaiah and see:
Chapter forty four, twenty two and three;
He's blotted them out,
and now I can shout -
For that means me!

This was not written by me, or by Smirk. It compares well with the drivel to which Catholics are too often subjected.

It is memorable. I heard it sung, only once, at the age of 11, in a local Gospel Hall, and have never forgotten it. I checked the words  here, and I had remembered them perfectly, no credit to me, but to the unknown author..

It is doctrinal, perhaps a bit iffy and heretical in its failure to mention the need for repentance, but it teaches.

It refers to a sciptural text.

The tune, pure music-hall, is memorable.

Cretinous hymnal sausage-machines, please take note.

Hilarious post from Acts of the Apostasy - Apparition of Martin Luther

Hilarious post from Acts of the Apostasy, but don't read it while drinking tea or coffee over the keyboard.

Ode to a Scrupulous Jansenist

I wrote this some time ago, during the controversy about lying to save life, and deceiving Planned Parenthood to expose their practices.

After six months in escrow, it can perhaps, be given an airing.





The child ripped from its mother's womb,
The mother disembowelled,
The weeping, raped, dishonoured girl,
The widow, unconsoled -
You would not kill, or lie, to save,
But preened your conscience cold.

If butchering barbarians came
You'd never, never lie.
You'd tell them where and whom to find.
Better your kin should die,
Than you should risk your cautious soul
And sacred truth deny.

Truth is, for you, a holy Whole
Never to be defiled
With lies. To save your spotless soul
You sold the guiltless child,
The Jew, the Pole, The Czech, the Greek.
You never once reviled

Your quivering coward heart that prized
Abstractions, truth and such
Above life, honour, innocence,
And love, nor pondered much
On others' grief, and loss, and shame.
Your heart they could not touch.

When now, to expose a wrong, one lied,
To those who have no claim
On truth, exposing foeticide,
Where do you place the blame?
You quack your platitudes, "Two wrongs
Don't make a right." Oh shame!

So it's a wrong to save the just,
The weak, pure, innocent?
I call you coward to your face,
Propped up by logic bent.
The soldier, spy, Priest, blink at truth
To lie with good intent.

Your careful, scrupulous, timorous soul,
I'll never understand,
Your truthful tongue that licks the axe 
Which slays the helpless band
Of innocents. The enemy, once you're used?
They'll shoot you out of hand.

Some Clown Will Take This out of Context

The Holy father has told scientists, referring to stem-cell research,

"The destruction of even one human life can never be justified in terms of the benefit that it might conceivably bring to another."

One human life - Hitler's, Heydrich's, any enemy soldier's? Not what he meant, of course, but I am waiting for some clown to take this out of context, in order to justify pacifism. Perhaps it has been done already.

I wish he had said, or hope that he said,

"The destruction of even one innocent human life can never be justified in terms of the benefit that it might conceivably bring to another."

That I heartily and loyally accept. If His Holiness's remark applied equally to all killing, including that of the guilty and evil, I would find myself, along with the usual suspects including Saint Joan of Arc, loyally disagreeing with the Pope.

And I have no wish to disagree with him.

The Fourteen Holy Helpers by Puff's Blog About Stuff

Wonderful, and you can read it here .

Mundabor on Atheocracy, Democracy, Freedom - Bishop Conley and Ronald Reagan

Excellent post from Mundabor here.

Does Anyone Know if DePaul UK is still Catholic?

It was formerly the de Paul Trust.

Does anyone know, please?

An LOD Inspector Calls - and is Made Mincemeat Of

It is eight o'clock on a Sunday evening at the house of Mr and Mrs Innocenti, somewhere in rural England. In a comfortable, not very tidy room, the Innocentis, who are probably in their seventies, are playing Blue Monk (listen to the original here) by Thelonious Monk, he on alto saxophone, she on piano. A bottle of Jack Daniels stands on top of the piano. There is a crucifix on the wall. The doorbell rings.

Mrs I: I'll go! You can change your reed. 

[exit. Returns with a man and a woman. He is aged about 40, with no hair, a rather low-cut t-shirt, shorts, knee-socks, and big suede boots. He is carrying a clipboard. The woman is also about 40 years old, tall, with short hair, glasses, a permanent thin-lipped beatific smile, and is dressed in baggy denims and Mongolian tractor-tyre sandals. She carries a fat briefcase.]

Petronella Gaskammer: Good evening. Mr and Ms Innocenti?

Mr I: And who the bloody hell are you pair of freaks?

PG: Mr Innocenti. Swearing and personal insults are unacceptable. Do not speak to us like that. I am Inspector Petronella Gaskammer, and my colleague is Mr Dwane Totenlager. We are from LOD, the Lifetime Options Directorate. Have you heard of LOD, Ms Innocenti?

Mrs I: The euthanasia gang? Get out! We're busy. And I'm Mrs, not Ms, you dingy, rebarbative baggage.

DT: Ms Innocenti (or can I call you Maria?) we are here to help.

MrI: No you may bloody not! You and your grotesque sidekick can get your repulsive selves out of here now.....

PG If you persist in being disruptive and abusive, this meeting cannot continue. You are both senior citizens occupying a very large house with five bedrooms and a very big garden..

Mrs I: Which is ours, paid for years ago out of our hard work.

PG: Of course, but there are other families who need accomodation, Maria, and they need it more than you do.

DT: And your medical records (reads from clipboard) show that you, Peter Innocenti, are suffering from prostate cancer as well as degeneration of two prosthetic hips, while Maria has had three operations for ...

Mrs I: And what makes that your business?

PG: It is our job to help people make the right end-of-life decisions. We are both trained counsellors. We are here to explain the options you have.

If you choose euthanasia now, your five children will inherit your home, which is worth over a million pounds, without inheritance tax or capital gains tax. Your cremation and multi-faith funeral will be at the state's expense, and you will have the satisfaction of helping your family, relieving them and the state of the burden of looking after you, and enabling the large pensions you both receive..

Mrs I: Which we paid for...

DT: To be spent on projects and enterprises for the Common Good.

Mr I: And if we don't choose to be put down?

PG: Then your home will be subject to a compulsory purchase order. The price, taking into account your ages, both nearly eighty, will be reduced actuarily to about fifty thousand pounds. You will be rehoused in a Seniors' Facility. You will not, once you have made your decision, be entitled to any free medical treatment, other than euthanasia at such time as our medical experts deem fit, usually on your 85th birthdays. Perhaps you would like to make a cup of tea and consider your decision.

DT: But please don't take too long. We have two more calls to make.

Mr I: [to Mrs I] You'd better sit down, my love, and think about it. I'll make us a coffee. [exit to kitchen. Sounds of kettles etc.]

DT: It's quite painless you know, and think how much better life will be for your family. The facility is waiting outside.

[A minute passes. Sounds from kitchen. Mr Innocenti returns carrying a chainsaw.]

Mr I: Damn you both to Hell! [He starts the chainsaw and makes shrieking mincemeat of the LOD personnel.]

I would like to have finished by saying that the Innocentis were rescued after their heroic last stand, but I fear that in the insane and bleak future which we face, there will be no rescue. 

God help us!

Eternity Waits.

At Mass today a sign near the Sanctuary read:

CZAS UCIEKA

WIECZNOŚĆ CZEKA

(TIME FLIES

ETERNITY WAITS)

Perhaps unoriginal, but it still scared me. I hope that, after reading it, I made an adequate confession.

Croissants and Coffee - on a Lighter Note

Croissants (with butter and jam) and coffee together make my ideal breakfast, even more so now that I know their origin.

King Jan Sobieski III found coffee amongst the baggage left behind by the Turks after his victory at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, and introduced it to Poland.

The Poles celebrated the victory by baking croissants so they could eat the Turkish and Islamic crescent.

Sad News from Ttony at The Muniment Room

Ttony is thinking of posting no more on The Muniment Room - I sincerely hope he decides to continue. It's one of the blogs I visit whenever I'm on line.

Please read the post I've linked to above. His wise, temperate, and always very readable blog would be a real loss.

Imbeciles or Worse

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlan's Razor (posted by an anonymous commentator on an earlier blog).

So, the question arises: is the Catholic Church in England being run by imbeciles, or worse?

Badger Catholic - Why Death Became Part of Nature

Badger Catholic has a fine post explaining the reasons why death is necessary.

Well worth reading.

Did Bonfire Night Trump SPUC? We Want the Truth

The ever-vigilant Linen on the Hedgerow points out that a SPUC fund-raising event on 5th November in Bath will probably not take place, since no reply has been received from Bishop Declan Lang to a request to use the city's main church hall.

What are we to think?

We know that in "thinking Catholic" circles of the Blairite persuasion SPUC is an object of scorn, but has the disease infected the hierarchy as well?

Or perhaps the hall has already been ear-marked for a Guy Fawkes night party?

My mind is weary from boggling.

A Short Swinburnian Ode Adressed to a Shiten Shepherd

I make no claims for the following as poetry: it is simply angry verse, and the first line and metre are an imitation of A. C. Swinburne's poem Hymn to Proserpine ("Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean"), regretting the triumph of Christianity, and the decay of paganism. The words are said to have been spoken by the Julian the Apostate on his death-bed.


Please note the older pronunciation of 'victuals' as 'vittles', and you will get the reference.


Thou hast conquered, O pasty-faced *******!
The Church has grown weak, suffers scorn.
Our Faith that was manlier victuals
Has dwindled to muesli and quorn.

Of our Church Catholics once lived for, died for,
Now little's left here but the name.
The Light that your flock yearn and cry for,
Starved of fuel, is a weak, guttering flame.

You offer Our Lady's due: flowers 
On altars to strange heathen gods,
Fudge Doctrine, misusing your powers,
To affirm pagans, heretics, S**s.

A Bedtime Story - Not for Those of a Nervous Disposition

It was seven o'clock on a cold, dark, rainy autumn night. The Gladsome family, Treesgood, the father, Boudicca, the mother, and the six-month old twins were having an ecologically friendly vegan high tea.

Boudicca, sick of tofu, had just gone out to the kitchen for a quick bite at a dolphin steak she had hidden in the refrigerator, when the doorbell rang.

Treesgood answered it, leaving the twins in their high-chairs.

He returned, preceded by a heavily built man brandishing a meat-cleaver.

"Kids!" he bellowed. "Kids! Two kids! Too many kids! Don't think about the environment and all those poor little pandas, dolphins and grizzly bears, do you? Don't you know there are too many people? You need educating!"

"Sorry," murmered Treesgood, "I didn't think...."

"You lot never do! Read this, and you'll understand why it's my public duty to terminate one of your kids."

He handed a pamphlet to Treesgood, who hastily started reading.

At that moment, Boudicca returned from the kitchen, carrying her beloved shotgun. 

She fired, blowing half the man's head off. He fell to the floor, still clutching the meat-cleaver.

"My dear," said Treesgood, "I'm sure we could have resolved this in a reasonable fashion without resorting to violence. The man was entitled to his point of view which is shared by many ecolog... I think I'm going to be sick."

Ad Hominem Attacks

Did I mention that I love ad hominem attacks, as it seems did St Thomas More, whose diatribes against Luther are a joy to read? Gladstone and Churchill were also masters of this now unfashionable weapon.

Targets must be fair game.

But I won't print any which might land me in court, or which are directed against good people, living or dead.

All Souls' Night in Poland

All over Poland this week, and especially at the weekend, whole families have been toiling in Catholic cemeteries, scrubbing headstones, planting flowers, and making everything tidy and ready for All Souls'.

Every shop and supermarket sells cheap, beautifully-coloured glass lamps, lit by a candle, to be placed on family graves.

As I drove home in the dark tonight, in village after village, the graveyards were twinkling with brightly coloured lights.

A couple of years ago, when I asked a matura (like 'A' level) class where they had been on All Souls' night, they told me "The Cemetery. At midnight."

"Why?" I asked, fearing halloweenism.

Pityingly, those teenagers smiled at me. "To pray and sing hymns, of course. Are you really a Catholic, or only in Poland?"

Tonight, I have been to Benediction (packed), Mass (packed) and left my lamps burning.



Psalm 130



Out of the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice! O let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

If Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark our guilt, Lord, who would endure it? But with Thee is found forgiveness: for this we revere Thee.

My soul is waiting for the Lord, I count on His word. My soul is longing for the Lord more than watchman for daybreak. Let the watchman count on daybreak and Israel on the Lord.

Because with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption; Israel indeed He will redeem from all its iniquity.

Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine on them

May they rest in peace.

Amen.

May the souls of the faithful departed, throught the Mercy of God, rest in peace + Amen.

Don't Waste Your Time Reading This Rubbish.

Don't waste your time reading the spasmodocally half-intelligent outpourings of insecure, intolerant, Catholic bigots like me. Go to Francis Davis's blog here , and read the deep and tolerant thoughts of a true Olympian, above the vulgar strife of anti-abortionistas and anti-condomistas.

He seems to like flexible Catholicism, so I guess he's got class.

I wish I could get some!

Apologies

My apologies for the lack both of activity here and of replies to comments. I have had a bad toothache for three days, and have existed on three hours sleep a night.

Off to the doctor for antibiotics, and dentist on Thursday (I hope).

Uneasy Reading about Sexual Offences by Teachers in Schools. H/T to OTSOTA

A very disturbing story unfolds on Sceptical Thoughts Blog about the way the Catholic Church in England and Wales is said to deal with sexual offences against children.

I cannot take sides, because I know nothing of the facts.

Quote of the week, from C.E.R.C.

"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry

Discourteous Thoughts from the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) to remember before trying to communicate with pro-aborts

Sir 22:13 Talk not much with a fool, and go not to him that hath no understanding: beware of him, lest thou have trouble, and thou shalt never be defiled with his fooleries: depart from him, and thou shalt find rest, and never be disquieted with madness.



Sir 22:14 What is heavier than lead? and what is the name thereof, but a fool?


Sir 22:15 Sand, and salt, and a mass of iron, is easier to bear, than a man* without understanding.

* or woman

Polite Discourse with the Unspeakable Part II

I claim no poetic merit for these verses which I posted nearly a year ago, but am re-posting them only as a tailpiece to my last post, and because St Nicholas's heart, (and fist) were in the right place.


Saint Nicholas was my kind of Saint,
If sometimes short of temper.
Though pacifism was not his bent;
He was fidelis semper.

When Arius denied his Lord's
Divinity, Nick felt sore;
Decided acts speak more than words,
Felled Arius to the floor.


His kind of knock-down plagologue*
Is now not to our taste.
We value courteous dialogue
Above such wordless haste.


And yet there is a time, one feels
To strike and not to speak.
When Reason with Unreason deals,
It's reason which is weak.


For who can mould a brain of mud
With philosophic lore?
Better to thump the stupid crud.
His place is on the floor.



Note: Plagologue = arguing or reasoning with blows. This word does not appear in any dictionary. It is my own coinage, being derived from Latin 'plagus' = a blow, 'plagosus' = full of blows, violent, cognate with Greek 'plegein = to beat, and logos = reason.

Polite Discourse with the Unspeakable

Several blogs, among them Countercultural Father , have recently pointed out a perceived need for respect and courtesy when arguing with those who support abortion. It has been suggested that they will never be convinced of the rightness of the pro-life cause if they are vilified with insulting slogans or expressions like 'murderer'. Polite persuasion will work better. Their correspondents seem to agree.

They have, it seems, like racists, nazis, proponents of legalised pederasty, slave-traders and holocaust deniers, a right to their point of view.

With me so far? Good!

Pornography, contraception, and abortion are big business. Abortion feeds off unreliable contraception, the demand for which is stimulated by pornography. Nice little earners.

As to slavery, William Cowper wrote a poem in which he decried slavery, but said he felt bound to support it, as he liked plantation sugar in his tea, as did so many of his compatriots. A source of comfort for the evil men who were able to profit from cheaper sugar, and cotton. Slavery helped make Britain richer. Dulwich College was founded with the pofits of slavery. Cui bono indeed.

Nazism, too, was big business, supported by German tycoons who could smell a fast buck a mile off, and had a gluttonous appetite for slave labour. If there is a moral distinction to be made between between the enslavement and murder of innocent Jews and the very profitable murder of unborn children, someone should perhaps explain it to me, for it is beyond my feeble powers of comprehension.

You can argue that abortion is not murder because it is legal. So were the massacre, destruction, ruin and enslavement of nations which Germany wrought on Europe. The Nuremberg Laws and the diktats of Hitler were, after all, German law.

Would you have conducted your dealings with the unspeakable - people like Hans Frank, Joseph Mengele, Marie Stopes, or Margaret Sanger, with courtesy? I think and hope not.  What would be the point? The hope that through courteous discussion you might change what they were pleased to call their minds? I don't think so. Better speak the noble truth and tell them to their face what they were. It might even have served a secondary purpose and forced them to try to think.

In the UK, the end of the slave trade, one of the vilest blots on the nation's history, came about through the work of abolitionists like Wilberforce and his supporters, who were fortunate and successful because the country they addressed with reason, passion, and rhetoric was still receptive to reason, passion, and rhetoric, and still to an extent a Christian nation.

The modern UK, with its wrecked education, its addiction to sensation, fatuous television, catchpenny lying newspapers, and in possession of the powers of reasoning of an imbecile, would be immune to Wilberforce. Britain is forever largely a prey to slogans, catchphrases, advertising, the tenth rate, and the comfortable, and incapable of recognising, not just the truth, but the possibility that the truth can be ascertained.

In the USA, the end of slavery came about through heroes like John Brown, and through civil war.

Polite discourse will not stop the evil of abortion.

Sadly, I do not know what will.

Back to my normal nasty self

When I was young, I lived in a properly organic West Country village. I refer not to the food, but the population, which ranged from retired army officers, judges and the like to ordinary oiks like me. There were three pubs, one frequented by a transvestite, usually highly rouged and dressed in a crinoline. He looked totally conventional at work.

The other two were where old Etonians and farm labourers rubbed shoulders and drank: The Commercial and The Ring of Bells.

Local streets, too, had organic names: Smith Hill, Bread Street, Heddy's Cross (a lonely and spooky crossroads, reputed burial place of a suicide).

Then, in the late 1950s, a new breed arrived. Residents - retired minor civil servants, bank managers, openly describing themselves as the "patron class", they made their way on to the village council, and things started to change. The Commercial became The Admiral Grandison. Smith Hill became Exe View Gardens. Grandison Drive appeared, to be locally nicknamed Grandiose Drive.

Forever complaining of farmyard smells, barking dogs and the like, they were not greatly loved. They made me smell blood at the back of my nose.

Years later, in that very organic town, Winchester, new, expensive housing estates appeared. One which particularly enraged me was "Teg Down Meads" (a teg is apparently some kind of sheep, as if the residents of the road would know that). 

I hate tweeness, in language, manners, art, and, most of all, in religion.

Two Songs by Schubert

The Erl-King  and Der Koenig in Thule, both beautiful, and both wrong. Schubert the Austrian is irresistable. When he dips into Nordic or Teutonic mythology with its pessimism, gloom, and darkness, however, I prefer to concentrate on the sound, and try to ignore the sense.

Music. Competence and Artistry. Faith Too!

About 15 years ago, I used to play Irish music (one of my passions) at a local pub which had sessions on Sunday afternoons. I played flute, competently, and fiddle feebly. The 20 or so very middle-class people who came and played were largely highly competent, but not Irish. There was a very good uilleann (Irish pipes) player. I thought that their playing tended to lack passion.

One day, I arrived early to find only two men waiting, each with his pipes in a box. It turned out that they were the real thing - Irish navvies who were brothers, working on a local road. They asked me to play something on the fiddle, and I obliged with "Boulavogue". Their over-generous comment was, "It's fine - just needs a bit more elbow."

When the session started, they unpacked their pipes, and revealed themselves to be absolute maestros on that most difficult instrument. I have never heard anyone play with such grace and passion.

The other players were very put out. The English uilleann player most of all. Musical navvies? There was something wrong here. They fell silent

For the English players, folk music was something whose perfection they could only, with rather joyless determination, strive towards. For the two Irishmen, it was a lark. They were doing something they loved, and with the joy which springs from love. Their playing was full of beef and wit, as it should be. One of them even played a shortened version of Bach's Cantata and Fugue in B minor. It was a tour de force.

One of them sang. I forget the song, a sad one, but the delivery was perfect.

Sadly, the very English welcome they received was too much for them. They left after about 40 minutes, never to return.

As Chesterton remarked, "a job worth doing is worth doing badly". If it's worth doing, do it, as best you can, but with joy and enthusiasm.

This is as true, I believe, of our Faith as it is of music.

A Hundred Years of Tinpot Culture?

Matthew Arnold wrote in 1869 of his book Culture and Anarchy that:

The whole scope of [this book] is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically …

I have a question. Which writers, thinkers, philosphers over the last 100 years would you consider as having produced 'the best which has been thought and said in the world'?

I must admit that I have some difficultiy thinking of even one: perhaps, in English, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling (I am thinking here of Kim), Evelyn Waugh, and G.K.Chesterton; in French, Georges Bernanos.

Who would you nominate?

NO MALWARE DETECTED - BLOG SAFE AND CLEAN

Beware of "Investigating Obama" and "Pro-life.pl" which I had linked to and reportedly contained malware.

Previous post deleted.

Sorry.

Ministry of Truth Strikes Again? Who's Next?

I have been looking for vincentnichols.blogspot. and it seems to have disappeared.

Perhaps to the Birmingham gułag?

Who's next?

Quest For The Holy Grail from Redneck Reflections

Another fine post, on the Eucharist, which can be read here

Quote of the Week

"I've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence." - St. Catherine of Siena.

H/T to C.E.R.C.

We Did'nae Ken!

I have read on other blogs that clergy who preach heresy, or fail properly to teach the laity the truth about mortal sin and Hell, are endangering the souls of their flocks. I have thought and said the same myself.

I cannot, I am glad to say, maintain this position, because I cannot believe that God is less merciful than we are.

Would I condemn to eternal torment someone who had sinned in ignorance of the nature of what he had done? Of course not. Or condemn someone whose heretical beliefs had been taught him by a heretical Bishop, or Priest, or teacher? A thousand times, no!

Long ago I heard an old Scottish joke about a Calvinist minister's sermon:

It'll be no use crying out to the Lord on the terrible Day of Judgment, "Lord, we did'nae ken! We did'nae ken!" 

For the Lord, in His infinite Mercy and Compassion will look down on ye and say, "Ye ken the noo!"

If we are indeed made in God's image, then our better yearnings, such as love and compassion must be a pale reflection of His.

False Bishops and Priests, and other correctly formed Catholics may well be destined for Hell if they lie to the ignorant about the Faith, but not lost little people who have never had access to the Truth.

"Better a millstone...."

Pruned

I have removed the most uncharitable of the posts here (assuming I located all of them).

I fear that hate and rage may well have made this blog an occasion of sin. I retract nothing I have written, but question my own motives. 

Another Fine Post From Richard Collins

You can read it here. It's about the importance of brand image for Heinz baked beans, and the Church.

Witty and well argued, as usual.

Bishop Everly Mainchance and Father Pliable

Redneck Reflections has an excellent post today, about a problem faced by all thinking Catholics: the large number of Bishops and Priest whom it is difficult to trust.

The situation was not much diferent over 600 years ago when Chaucer decribed the senior clergy of his time.

Thank God, the Church has survived and will survive, in spite of the shiten shepherds.

Accepting Diversity

Picture it: the valley of Elah and the two opposing armies, of the Israelites and of the Philistines. Between them stand the two champions, David and Goliath. There is a hush, punctuated only by the the cries of the waiting vultures.

David steps forward. He throws his sling and stones to the ground and speaks.

"I had it in mind to say, 'This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that God saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is God’s, and he will give you into our hand.'"


A vulture sharpens its beak.


"Come on, I thought, this is no way to resolve diversity between two cultures. I have an idea that each of us, Philistine and Israelite, has spiritual riches to share with the other.


"Let's talk about this. I can see that you are hurting. Your body-language tells me that. I propose that we sit down together, share a flask of wine, speak openly of our perceived differences, and resolve them.


"Then, if you wish, I can personally arrange for your circumcision. We will set up a commission for inter-faith dialogue, make a covenant of brotherhood, and our two peace-loving peoples will live peaceably together as the multicultural Nation of Phisrael."


The waiting jackals look bored and begin to fight amongst themselves.


And Goliath spake.


"%$#$%&!" he roared. And he smote David and laid him low. And the army of the Philistines slew the army of the Israelites, their women, their children, old and young, until there was none left."

And how do you feel about that, Best-Beloved?

Profanation - A Fine Post by Ancient Briton

A fine post from Ancient Briton about the proposed profanation of a memorial in London to British merchan seamen who died on the Atlantic convoys which fed us in the last war.

Patrick Button on Femanazis

A nicely argued post from Patrick Button on the outcry against male-only altar boys.

Enjoy!

Bring Back the Inquisition, from Redneck Reflections

Redneck Reflections has a post - Bring Back the Inquisition - which is excellent, although, perhaps, a little moderate for my tastes (tee! hee!).

If You Were Pope for a Week

What would you do?

Be totally confrontational?

Excomunicate all known heretical Priests and Religious?

Excommunicate "Catholics" who publicly support abortion or same-sex unions?

Re-promulgate the Syllabus of Errors?

Re-introduce the Oath Against Modernism?

End all kinds of silly Ecumenism which suggest that all religions are "true", and go instead for all-out conversion?

Clean out the Augean stables of pseudo-Catholic schools and colleges?

Forcibly retire most of the English Hierarchy?

Forcibly re-introduce Ad Orientem Mass as the only permitted form?

Anything else? I'd love to hear.

A Great Read from the Heresy-Hunter

His latest - You too can write like a post-modern philosopher here is very witty. Enjoy!

In the Service of the Cause of Peace - Not Me, Guv! A Plague on All Abstractions!

Am I the only person to feel uneasy about the following utterance by Pope Benedict, on the third Asissi joint prayer meeting?


"It will aim to commemorate the historical action desired by my Predecessor and to solemnly renew the commitment of believers of every religion to live their own religious faith as a service to the cause of peace."


And why am I uneasy?


Firstly, I do not, shall not, will not, and have no wish to, "live my religion as a service to the cause of peace", since I do not know what is meant by 'peace', and can imagine "peace" only in the context of Heaven.  Is peace the absence or end of war? tranquility of mind? the "peace" of Islam? just not causing trouble? Sometimes war is preferable to peace.


The problem with peace is that it is an abstraction, like Truth, Justice, Liberty, Equality, and so many others. Abstractions are cold, cruel, and without humanity. A plague on all abstractions!


Secondly, I do not live my religion in the service of something greater, because there is nothing greater. My religion is a Fact, awkward, uncomfortable, even at times to some people, rebarbative. Like gravity, it IS, even though at times, when I am working on a ladder and it starts to wobble, I might wish that there were no gravity. The Catholic faith is the Road to Salvation, no more, no less: and that is enough.


A long-dead Jesuit, Fr John Tracy, gave me a nice Latin tag, which I can remember only in English - The drink takes the shape of the cup which it fills. It is used to explain the need for inculturation, and the fact that a vision either will be culturally acceptable to the recipient, or will be rendered so by the recipient. I does not mean that the differences between God, Buddha, the Big Thumb, and Allah are merely cultural.


Our Church does not exist to serve some greater end, such as the Big Society, or the Ecology, or Justice. I exists to serve God and to save souls, no more, no less. And we sons and daughters of the Church serve her by serving other people, not abstractions.

Do Bears Read Schopenhauer in the Woods?

Thanks to that great champion of the truth Marco for this piece of insane news from the Christian Institute .

Have the English Catholic Bishops said anything yet?

Do bears read Schopenhauer in the woods?

Sorry I asked!

Watch This!

On Laodicia link to long but excellent video on Hitler and abortion.

Patriotic Problem

I have a problem, for me a very sad problem, in which I may not be alone. I would love to be a patriot, but find it impossible to be a patriotic Englishman or Britisher. The landscape of Britain is beautiful and still has many of the lovely buildings built by our forefathers, but since 1967 and the abortion act I have not been able to recognise the land of my legal nationality as the country my fathers fought for, and sometimes died for.

Since then, thanks to Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, and their progressively dingy successors, Britain has become a byword for I know not what - certainly little that is good. For me, Gladstone, Churchill, and Macmillan were the last decent Prime Ministers.

Living in patriotic Poland as a very patriotic pseudo-Polak, I greatly enjoy her war films, for example Ogniem i Mieczem (with Fire and the Sword)  directed by Jerzy Hoffman. Here is a short clip, with a magnificent Ukrainian song Hej Sokołe! sung frequently in Poland. And in this clip , you can see the steel wings worn by the Polish cavalrymen, which terrified the Turks at Vienna, who thought they were being attacked by angels.  If you get a chance to see the film, it is full of fantazja ułańska.

Don't Get Taken In!

When I was 16, and studying for 'O' Level, a relative gave me a second-hand copy of T.S.Eliot's early poems, and I fell upon them like a ravening er... jackass. They were hard, or even impossible, to understand. 'The Waste Land' was full of quotations in Greek, Latin, French, German, and even Sanskrit, and was obviously, therefore, so profoundly cultured and intellectual, that my lack of understanding revealed only my own inadequacy. Away with Shakespeare, Miton, Pope, Tennyson, and all the other versifying nobodies! Here was poetry! I had to learn to understand and appreciate it.

And then, about 20 years ago, I read a remark by The Great Man, which I cannot track down, but which went something like this:

Many people have tried to understand 'The Waste Land', and worried about its meaning, but really, it doesn't mean very much. It was just a sort of generalised moan.

The confession of yet another plausible and empty fraud, like so many others - Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Ted Hughes, Louis McNiece, et al who never came clean. At least Eliot confessed.

Once, I had tried to like them, shamelessly bogus as I was. It was an illness.

I think I am healthier now.