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Post by hibernicus on May 15, 2012 20:44:21 GMT
Today's IRISH TIMES has a rant by the ex-priest Michael Harding in which he denounces clerical celibacy. What is interesting is that he quite clearly expresses the rationale for celibacy - to give up some of the consolations of this life so as to more effectively bear witness to the Kingdom of Heaven - and declares that his hostility to it derives quite simply from the fact that he doesn't believe in the Kingdom of Heaven. For him, the hope which Jesus offered is a delusion, as Jesus Himself realised on the Cross (he has obviously never read the full Psalm from which Jesus was quoting), this life is all there is and we should enjoy it as much as we can because it ends in nothingness. He compares celibates to eunuchs and suicide bombers. First of all, this is a striking example of what John Waters has noted as the conventional modern wisdom on the subject, as seen in RTE and the IRISH TIMES - the assumption that despair is a virtue, that life is self-evidently meaningless except in aesthetic terms and that the Christian hope is self-evidently delusional. (I have a nasty feeling that this will sooner or later be used to suppress the preaching of that hope on the grounds that it leads to self-damage and false comfort.) The second thing is that this is someone who went through MAynooth in the 1970s. I strongly suspect that his teachers are to blame for his currrent plight - that instead of building on his naive childhood faith and giving him a sense of what underpins it and how it is understood, they undermined it and presented it as justified only by the extent to which it would be speedily abolished/rethought. HArding has a vicious contempt for John PAul II (in last week's column he speaks of hearing his "mahogany voice" at the Phoenix Park in 1979) and blames him for dispelling his dream of a "liberal church" but I suspect what was revealed to Harding by that "mahogany voice" is that he didn't believe in Catholicism or Christianity at all; when he sneers at his existential question having been pushed under the carpet in the "superstar papacy" he is saying that only the negative answer is believable and that no other answer can be entertained for a moment. Does anyone wonder how much of the outcry against clerical celibacy reflects, not dissent in detail, but this sort of fundamental disbelief? www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2012/0515/1224316120034.htmlEXTRACT And although I value solitude very highly, I’m not at all convinced about celibacy. I tried it once. But it was too public for me; I felt I was a puppet in a bizarre choreography of the unconscious mind. I suspect the practice will eventually be abandoned, like castration was in opera circles. Not that celibacy is merely a psychic castration; there’s more to it than curtailing the libido. Celibacy is a declaration that one will remain without a wife; ergo without a companion, ergo without children, ergo without all the consequent tenderness and intimacy that such family ties nurture in a human being. (You can see I was well schooled in Latin.) Like suicide bombers, celibates are a sign of paradise and the afterlife. They say no to the flesh in slow motion; bombers do it with a bang. These acts of renunciation are made in the name of Heaven, signifying a defiant confidence in a future realm, in contrast to which all pleasures and comforts on Earth pale into insignificance. The black-robed, sterile male has carried this sign of contradiction in unconscious societies for centuries. And he will continue to do so until, eventually, society wakes up, becomes more conscious, and comes to terms with humanity’s brief existential moment on Earth. We are beings for death. We carry our own death within us. We no longer need a costumed player to console us with the possibility of heaven or frighten us with the proximity of hell. The male celibate has lighted fools the way to dusty death for centuries. But Shakespeare’s wisdom prevails: life is “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. And the question remains: what did Jesus signify, as he died on the cross in an existential moment of obliteration, after admonishing God for abandoning him? And how might the concept of a crucified God sustain us now in these times of anxiety? Those philosophical conundrums, like a lot of other things, were brushed under the carpet during the superstar papacy of John Paul II, when the intellectual elite of the church were ordered to be silent, or else leave the building... END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on May 16, 2012 15:01:54 GMT
And of course, sure as night follows day, the ACPI have put up the Harding piece on their website as a legitimate subject for reflection - even though if you accept Harding's view of the world being a priest, or even a Christian, is a destructive delusion. www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2012/05/i-want-to-be-alone-but-not-lonely-michael-harding/ It will be interesting to see what sort of comments it attracts UPDATE There are currently six comments - one is an indescribably bad piece of "poetry" and two are eulogies to the "poetry" in question. Here are the three others - one pro-HArding, and two anti; both of the latter from Eric Conway who has been fighting the good fight on the inhospitable terrain of the IRISH TIMES letters page for quite a while: EXTRACTS Eric Conway May 18th, 2012 at 4:11 pm It seems to me that Mr. Harding has a very distorted, sexually obsessed view of human nature. One can only speak from experience. Some of the most grounded, compassionate, decent men & women I have met have been celibate, while some of the most obnoxious, sexually deviant individuals I have encountered have been married individuals. To get real, the stats in relation to sex abuse clearly show that non-celibates are the real problem. In another sense Mr. Harding’s analysis & use of such terms as sterile male are very offensive to married couples who cannot have children. I know many such couples who take great solace from the pastoral support provided by their clergy in these circumstances. Paddy Ferry May 19th, 2012 at 12:00 pm Eric, rather than Michael Harding having a very distorted, sexually obsessed view of human nature, I think he is simply acknowledging what psychologists tell us and that is that our sexuality is the primary font of our humanity. Eric Conway May 20th, 2012 at 2:04 pm Thank you Paddy. Many psychologists I’m aware of would disagree. Just to elaborate. There has alway’s been a very close complementarity between the sacraments of Marriage/Holy Orders. The precious elements of fidelity to vows, unconditional love, etc., resonate in both sacraments. And as I have indicated, many couples I know (including yours truly) have drawn great comfort in times of marital trial from the fidelity of our Pastors to their vows; one lends solidarity to the other. The alternatives to the Catholic concept of marital love/fidelity are either a joyless puritanism or a form of paganism (a la Michael Harding ), which reduces marriage exlusively to its procreational/sexual function. Both alternatives are inadequate/unfulfilling. END
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on May 22, 2012 8:13:52 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on May 22, 2012 19:48:23 GMT
The IRISH TIMES as usual is presenting current developments in the US Church as Saint Barack and his Angels being persecuted by the eevil "conservatives" who object to being made to pay for other people's contraceptives. Here is a piece by LAra Marlowe on the rows over the fanatically pro-abort Health and human Services Secretary Katherine Sebelius being invited to give the commencement address at Georgetown University ("in the Jesuit tradition"). As usual she regurgitates all the Democrat talking-points while demonising the foes of St Barack. A few choice snippets will be analysed below: www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0519/1224316358906.htmlEXTRACTS ...Sebelius, née Gilligan, is an Irish-American Catholic who was denied Communion during her two terms as governor of Kansas because she supported the right to abortion... [PRO-ABORTS ALWAYS MENTION THE WORD "RIGHT" OR "RIGHTS" IN THE SAME BREATH AS ABORTION, TO PRESENT IT AS A CIVIL RIGHT. SEBELIUS DIDN'T JUST SUPPORT ABORTION - SHE OPPOSED ALL RESTRICTIONS ON IT WHATSOEVER, AND VETOED A BAN ON PARTIAL-BIRTH ABORTION] Sebelius quoted John F Kennedy’s reassurance to Protestant leaders seven weeks before his election. Kennedy said he believed in an America “where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials – and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against us all.” [INDEED - THAT IS WHY PROTESTANT AND JEWISH GROUPS HAVE SUPPORTED THE BISHOPS ON THIS ONE. AND SEBELIUS USES THIS PHRASE TO SUPPORT REFUSING CONSCIENCE EXCEPTIONS TO CATHOLIC EMPLOYERS AND INSTITUTIONS BECAUSE SHE INSISTS CONTRACEPTION AND ABORTION ARE JUST "FORMS OF HEALTHCARE"] EJ Dionne, a professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute [AND A NOTORIOUS WATER-CARRIER FOR OBAMA AND CO], called Sebelius’s speech yesterday “a victory for freedom of speech on Catholic campuses”. Dionne, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a former Vatican correspondent and now a columnist for the Washington Post, says relations between liberal and conservative Catholics have reached historic lows... Catholics were united in their initial opposition to the directive on contraception, Dionne says, but when Obama decided that insurance companies would be required to provide free contraception coverage to all clients, with zero involvement by church institutions, liberal Catholics SUCH AS DIONNE HIMSELF accepted the compromise. [OF COURSE IT IS NOT A COMPROMISE AT ALL AS THE INSURERS WILL PASS ON THE COST TO THE EMPLOYERS] The bishops framed the contraception issue as a question of religious liberty [WHICH IT IS, JUST LIKE IT WOULD BE A QUESTION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IF IT WERE MADE COMPULSORY FOR KOSHER SUPLIERS TO SELL PORK] and rejected the compromise [BECAUSE IT IS NOT A COMPROMISE AT ALL], then attacked the Obama administration on same-sex marriage. [THE INSINUATION IS THAT THEY ARE DOING IT AS A POLITICAL GESTURE TO DAMAGE THE ADMINISTRATION, AND THAT THEIR OBJECTIONS ARE NOT REALLY RELIGIOUS, EITHER ON THE CONTRACEPTIVE MANDATE OR ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE] A recent Vatican statement condemning the US Leadership Conference of Women Religious for statements that “disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops” particularly shocked liberal Catholics. The nuns had dared to support healthcare reform in 2010. [IMPLIES THIS IS WHY THEY WERE DISCIPLINED, NOT FOR SUCH LITTLE FAUX PAS AS SUGGESTING THAT WE NEED TO MOVE BEYOND JESUS] Dionne sees the Catholic right’s campaign to silence dissent as a breach in “the great intellectual tradition” of the Catholic Church. “The bishops are mounting a campaign for religious liberty; it’s certainly a mistake to say ‘certain people are barred from our campuses’.”[THEY ARE NOT BARRED FROM THE CAMPUS - IF THEY WANT TO COME AND DEBATE THEIR POSITION THEY CAN. THEY SHOULD BE BARRED FROM BEING INVITED TO GIVE THE COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS, WHICH IS AN HONOUR AND WHICH HAS THE TACIT APPROVAL OF THE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION, AND WHERE THEIR CRITICS CANNOT ANSWER BACK] Here is a dissection by Fr Z of some of the twaddle produced by Dionne on this subject and so lovingly parroted by Ms Marlowe: wdtprs.com/blog/2012/05/the-most-recent-rubbish-from-the-wapos-e-j-dionne-fr-z-responds/Along with their own designated bilge suppliers on this issue, the IRISH TIMES imports the specialist variety produced by the NEW YORK TIMES. Yesterday they treated their readers to a Maureen Dowd rant on how the clerical abuse scandal means the bishops have no right to "bully nuns" www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0430/1224315364286.htmlEXTRACTS ...Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns. Who thinks it’s cool to bully nuns? LIBERAL NUNS WHEN THEY'RE DEALING WITH CONSERVATIVE SISTERS While continuing to heal and educate, the community of sisters is ageing and dying out because few younger women are willing to make such sacrifices for a church determined to bring women to heel. FUNNY HOW MANY MORE WERE WILLING TO MAKE SUCH SACRIFICES BEFORE THE LIBERALS GOT CONTROL AND STARTED PUSHING THEIR OWN PARTY LINE Yet the nuns must be yanked into line by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the Catholic Church. “It’s not terribly unlike the days of yore when they singled out people in the rough days of the Inquisition,” FRIGHTFULLY CALM AND BALANCED, AREN'T WE? said Kenneth Briggs, author of Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns. How can the church hierarchy be more offended by the nuns’ impassioned advocacy for the poor THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY'RE OFFENDED BY than by priests’ sordid paedophilia? How do you take spiritual direction from a church that seems to be losing its soul? It has become a habit for the church to go after women. A bishop from Worcester, Massachusetts, successfully fought to get a commencement speech invitation taken away from Vicki Kennedy, widow of Teddy Kennedy, because of her positions on some social issues...THAT'S ABORTION IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING The stunned sisters are debating how to respond after the Vatican’s scorching reprimand to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the main association of American Catholic nuns. IT'S NOT AS IF THE FAITHFUL HADN'T BEEN COMPLAINING FOR YEARS ABOUT THE NEW AGE SPIRITUALITY AND WOMEN'S ORDINATION PROPAGANDA, AND GETTING NOWHERE The bishops were obviously peeved that some nuns had the temerity to speak out in support of President Barack Obama’s healthcare plan, including his compromise on contraception for religious hospitals. IMPLIES THE VATICAN'S ONLY MOTIVE IS POLITICAL OPPOSITION TO ST BARACK - IT'S NOT AS IF THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVED ALL THAT GOSPEL STUFF The Vatican ACCURATELY accused the nuns of pushing “radical feminist themes” and said they were not vocal enough in parroting IMPLIES NO-ONE CAN REALLY BELIEVE IT church policy THAT'S DOCTRINE TO YOU against the ordination of women as priests and against abortion, contraception and homosexual relationships. In a blatant “shut up and sit down, sisters” moment LIKE MAUREEN DOWD DEALS OUT EVERY WEEK TO EVERYONE WHO DISAGREES WITH HER, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted: “Occasional public statements by the LCWR that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.” Pope Benedict, who became known as “God’s Rottweiler” when he was the cardinal conducting the office’s loyalty tests, assigned Archbishop J Peter Sartain of Seattle to crack down on “corporate dissent” among the poor nuns. When the sisters’ push for social justice, they’re put into stocks. Yet Sartain has led a campaign in Washington to reverse the state’s newly enacted law allowing same-sex marriage, and he’s a church hero. Sr Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic lobbying group slapped in the Vatican report, said it scared the hierarchy to have “educated women form thoughtful opinions and engage in dialogue”. DIALOGUE IN WHICH THEY EXPECT EVERYONE TO AGREE WITH THEM FIRST, AND IF I FORMED THE SORT OF "THOUGHTFUL OPINIONS" SOME OF THEM HAVE EXPRESSED, I WOULD BE HONEST ENOUGH TO GO JOIN THE EPISCOPALIANS She told National Public Radio that it was ironic that church leaders were mad at sisters over contraception when the nuns had committed to a celibate life with no families or babies. THE QUESTION IS WHAT THEY PREACH, NOT WHAT THEY PRACTICE. THE BISHOPS WHO ARE RIGHTLY CRITICISED ELSEWHERE IN THE ARTICLE FOR TOLERATING CLERICAL CHILD ABUSE DIDN'T PRACTICE IT THEMSELVES - THAT DOESN'T EXCUSE THEM... END Lest we forget, here's an example of what certain American nuns have been up to: wdtprs.com/blog/2012/05/dissecting-a-hells-bible-op-ed-defense-of-the-magisterium-of-nuns/EXTRACT Meanwhile, allow me to remind you of one of the Nuns Gone Wild: Margaret Farley: over the years, she has taken positions favorable to abortion, same-sex “marriage,” sterilization of women, divorce and the “ordination” of women to the priesthood. Farley, who taught Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, is well known for her radical feminist ideas and open dissent from Church teaching. In 1982, when the Sisters of Mercy sent a letter to all their hospitals recommending that tubal ligations be performed in violation of Church teaching against sterilization, Pope John Paul II gave the Sisters an ultimatum, causing them to withdraw their letter. Farley justified their “capitulation” on the ground that “material cooperation in evil for the sake of a ‘proportionate good’” was morally permissible. In other words, she declared that obedience to the Pope was tantamount to cooperation in evil, and that the Sisters were justified in doing it only because their obedience prevented “greater harm, namely the loss of the institutions that expressed the Mercy ministry.” In her presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America in 2000 she attacked the Vatican for its “overwhelming preoccupation” with abortion, calling its defense of babies “scandalous” and asking for an end to its “opposition to abortion” until the “credibility gap regarding women and the church” has been closed. In her book Just Love she offers a full-throated defense of homosexual relationships, including a defense of their right to marry. She admits that the Church “officially” endorses the morality of “the past,” but rejoices that moral theologians like Charles Curran and Richard McCormick embrace “pluralism” on the issues of premarital sex and homosexual acts. She says that sex and gender are “unstable, debatable categories,” which feminists like her see as “socially constructed.” She has nothing but disdain for traditional morality, as when she remarks that we already know the “dangers” and “ineffectiveness of moralism” and of “narrowly construed moral systems.”.. END See also: wdtprs.com/blog/2012/04/nuns-gone-wild-a-trip-down-memory-lane/
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Post by hibernicus on May 25, 2012 17:21:27 GMT
Here is a takedown from CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT of another recent Maureen Dowd rant (which, as sure as night follows day, was reproduced in the IRISH TIMES for the worshippers of the Tara Street Magisterium. I will merely add that it is unintentionally hilarious that Dowd, having eulogised legislation which forces Catholic employers to pay for their employees' contraceptives, signs off by proclaiming "This is America. We don't hunt heresies here. We welcome them." Er, perhaps this applies to heresies against boring old Catholicism or Christianity, but announce that you dissent from the teachings of the First Church of Moloch and Hefner and you will soon find yourself subjected to something that makes the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's treatment of liberal theologians resemble a slap with a wet noodle.) www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/1362/maureen_dowd_marks_the_day_with_a_sputtering_feast_of_condescension.aspx
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jul 25, 2012 8:27:34 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 27, 2012 19:56:56 GMT
There are indeed people for whom ritualism and traditionalism represent desire to retreat into a little fantasy world of their own and shut out a world they find threatening. We should constantly be seeking to understand and develop our knowledge of the faith, rather than sticking to the sort of rote practice that was recognised as a significant problem well before Vatican II and which Pope Benedict mentioned in his closing address to the Eucharistic Congress. The problem would be if those assessing candidates and running seminaries were to operate on the assumption that traditional beliefs and practices per se were indications of psychological disorder and unfitness for ordination, and set themselves to weed out such views and practices as harmful in themselves.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jul 27, 2012 20:19:22 GMT
The quotation in the Irish Catholic is a little more complete on what the Archbishop said:
This is much more positive than the Irish Times report. But I agree with Hibernicus' observations.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 28, 2012 8:42:09 GMT
Fr Gabriel Burke has a post on this which also incidentally reveals just what sort of Paper of Record the IRISH TIMES IS (i.e. by omitting the middle sentence "I would have greater anxieties regarding priests or candidates who simply go with the trends of the day..." it gives the impression Archbishop Martin is saying that all the church's problems stem from traditionalism and omits any suggestion that trendyism might cause problems also). I think Fr Burke is a bit naive in thinking that if the Archdiocese had been run on more "traditional" lines the clerical abuse crisis would not have arisen because canon law would have been enforced. (I would bet my bottom dollar that the religious order members and superiors whose commissions and omissions were responsible for the industrial schools horrors were pretty "traditional", for example.) He does however point to another worrying feature of the Archbishop's speech; his view that new-model catechesis through the parish rather than the school is the answer to all our problems. Those who attended Eanna Johnson's paper at the BRANDSMA REVIEW seminar last Monday week will have rather a different view of what the Archbishop calls "the excellent and stimulating National Directory of Catechesis "Share the Good News"". EXTRACT While not neglecting good relationship with our separated brethren the Archbishop should focus on building up the Archdiocese. Yes one gets good headlines preaching in Christ church but there are no headlines for doing hard graft in returning your diocese to a bedrock of evangelisation. How does the Archbishop see evangelisation for the future."The excellent and stimulating National Directory of Catechises Share the Good News was launched some years ago now but its application has been very slow and it has not yet made the inroads into popular catechetics and parish life that it needs to. " As John McEnroe used to say -you cannot be serious. This document is more of the same. The framework actually states that the Alive O is a terrific religious education programme. Good grief any document that holds up such a failed programme cannot be taken seriously. I wonder has His Grace actually read the document, has he gone through the Alive O programme. If he has and he can still make such comments then I am afraid he is running away from reality. His Grace has stated on a number of occasions the lack of catechesis of our youth and adults, in the business world this would lead to a review of the programmes. But the Archbishop's solution is more of the same. END OF EXTRACT www.frgabrielburke.com/2012/07/the-archbishop-of-dublin-and-macgill.html
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 28, 2012 19:42:50 GMT
Damian Thompson's post on the IRISH TIMES as more politically correct than even the GUARDIAN, and the Irish intelligentsia as more secularist than their Brit counterparts has a tinge of his usual fondness for Paddy-bashing, with a characteristic touch of misogyny as well, but it does have a good deal of truth: EXTRACT Here’s a trenchant headline for you: “Transgender community celebrates 'great diversity of gender identity’ in new book.” And another: “President tells youth groups to be vigilant against racist attitudes and to value diversity in society.” Care to guess which venerable organ published them? Here’s a clue: “Multicultural awards take place in Dublin following three-year break.” Actually, that last one is a bit of a scoop. To anyone who knows modern Ireland, the notion that Dublin went a whole three years without multicultural awards is frankly incredible. Somebody really screwed up. They’re supposed to happen every month at least. The newspaper is the Irish Times, which these days makes the Guardian look like the bulletin of the Prayer Book Society [CONSERVATIVE ANGLICAN GROUP WHICH PROMOTES THE OLD BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER IN PREFERENCE TO NEWER TRENDY LITURGIES]. Rumour has it that it employs a special nurse to soothe joints sprained by marathon sessions of finger-wagging. This week was a good one for the finger-waggers. The Irish parliament passed a law stripping political parties of state funding unless 30 per cent of their candidates are women; in later elections the quota will rise to 40 per cent. This means that bright men will be dissuaded from entering politics because the system will fill the Dáil with dim hectoring feminists with DIY Sinéad O’Connor haircuts. (Incidentally, did you know that eight out of the past 10 World Hectoring Champions have been lady members of the Irish Green party? It’s called Comhaontas Glas. Don’t ask me how it’s pronounced: the bizarre vagaries of Gaelic pronunciation were designed to trip up the English.) Anyway, my point is not that rigged elections will destroy the democratic mandate of the Dáil, though they will. It’s that an especially toxic strain of political correctness has infected almost the entire Irish intelligentsia. Small-government conservatives are treated like lepers – something that, the Guardian/BBC axis notwithstanding, isn’t true of British public life . Meanwhile, the sucking up to minorities is beyond parody: a recent Irish Times profile of the travellers made them sound like latter-day Athenians. How long before there’s a transvestite traveller quota in the Dáil? Admittedly, the programme of thought reform is not complete: the Irish working class is still instinctively socially conservative. But it is, unsurprisingly, increasingly anti-clerical, and that takes us to the heart of the matter. Churchgoing in Ireland has fallen off a cliff, thanks IN PART to the clergy’s dreadful record of committing and covering up paedophile crimes. The moral vacuum at the top of a hierarchical society has been filled by political correctness, much of it imported from the European Union at the height of Ireland’s Brussels-worship WHICH GOES BACK TO THE EARLY 70S. PC ideology flowers on the ruins of religion. It’s not just Ireland: in Australia, Canada and metropolitan America, the Catholic Church is paralysed by scandal and the old Protestant denominations have turned into gibbering pantheists or angry sects. Secularism is spreading incredibly fast. And Britain? Here the Church of England is finally losing its grip on public affection. As I say, bien pensant ideas don’t have quite the learnt-by-rote quality that they have in Ireland, but the colonisation of institutions by secular campaigners has gathered pace. The Government’s tired green doctrines don’t resonate with voters; nor does the redefinition of marriage. But political correctness isn’t about voters. These top-down initiatives may be post-religious, but they nevertheless perform a historic function of religion: to make our rulers feel good about themselves. END blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100172978/irish-bores-a-scottish-bigot-and-the-worst-piece-of-classical-music-ever-written/
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 1, 2012 18:00:45 GMT
Here's a thought. Several commentators in the media (including Fintan O'Toole in yesterday's IRISH TIMES) and on the Politics.ie discussion boards have picked up on Fr Brian D'Arcy's recent appearance at the Co. Cavan rally in support of Sean Quinn and his family and are claiming It means "the church is supporting the Quinns" and criticising the Church accordingly. Now it is quite clear that Fr D'Arcy was making a purely personal appearance in what he sees as a matter of local patriotism (however misguided); but if he is going to be treated as speaking or acting on behalf of the Church whenever he makes a public statement, wasn't it ridiculous of the very same commentators to cry out that he was being "silenced" when the church leadership demanded some control over his theological statements? How would Fintan O'Toole like to be held responsible for someone else's statements without being able to control what that person said?
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 1, 2012 20:03:53 GMT
Yesterday the IRISH TIMES published the following editorial about the trial of members of the Russian feminist rock group Pussy Riot, who performed a so-called "punk prayer" in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow as a protest against the support of the Orthodox Church for Vladimir Putin (which has included a statement by Patriarch Kirill that only those who vote for Putin are entitled to call themselves Orthodox). The IRISH TIMES prides itself on the thought that if a similar performance were to be staged by protestors on the altar of the Pro-Cathedral, this would be seen as entirely legitimate and it would be inappropriate to take action against the protestors. (I hope this does not give Sinead O'Connor any ideas.) What do we think of this? To begin with, let me say that the current trial in Moscow is an outrageous travesty, that Vladimir Putin is a criminal and a dictator, and that I utterly dissociate myself from those foolish Irish persons (I am afraid they do exist) who think that what Ireland needs is a powerful nationalist leader like Putin to crack down on the "cosmopolitans" and restore traditional Irish values. It is quite clear to any unbiased observer that these women are primarily being tried for opposing Putin, and that their sentence is likely to be much more severe than the crime warrants. It is also the case that the alliance of the Orthodox Church with the Putin government is quite disgraceful and likely to end badly for both parties. Let me also state, as a general principle, that anyone should be entitled to attempt to convert their fellow-citizens to their own beliefs - be those Baptist, Zoroastrian, Tengrist Shamanism, or whatever - and that it is wrong for the Church to call in the government to hinder them. My beef with the IRISH TIMES is this. First, it does seem to me that Pussy Riot's performance was offensive by just about any standard. Here is a YouTube video which they themselves released after the incident, with an English translation of the lyrics of the song which they performed (though how much they actually sang in the cathedral is not clear). It will be noted, firstly that they went inside the altar rails (though they did not go into the iconostasis), secondly that their actions deliberately mocked and parodied the actions of prayer and prostration (the latter is somewhat more "normal" in Orthodox than in Latin-rite worship), thirdly that the lyrics of their song are not limited to the specific issue of the Church's collaboration with Putin but attack various aspects of Orthodox doctrine, mostly on feminist issues, and use foul and offensive language. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALS92big4TY Perhaps it may be argued that offense is not grounds for prosecuting people, and I would certainly be opposed to any prosecution if they had staged their unpleasant performance in a private meeting of their own supporters, or even in a public space. But the point is that they invaded the cathedral and disrupted worship there - and in its complacent view that such actions should never be subject to legal sanction, the IRISH TIMES is effectively saying that there is no right to hold and attend religious services in peace if a group of demonstrators wish to disrupt them. Surely the IRISH TIMES has not thought this one out. Are they really saying, for example, that if Protestant fundamentalists were to run onto the altar at the Pro-Cathedral during Mass to denounce the "evils" of Rome - if Catholic demonstrators were to disrupt Protestant services to protest against Evangelical proselytism (which I am sorry to say did happen in the past)- if Anti-Israel demonstrators break into synagogues or anti-Islamist demonstrators disrupt mosques, that they should just be allowed to do so? For that matter, I wonder how the editorial writer of the IRISH TIMES would react if demonstrators were to invade the IRISH TIMES offices and disrupt production of the paper because they disagreed with certain editorial policies. I suspect he would call the Gardai quicker than you could say "sauce for the gander". Furthermore, in the Russian context the performance had overtones which we may not easily grasp in Ireland - since it will inevitably remind worshippers of the state-sponsored campaigns of desecration and blasphemy conducted against the churches in the 1930s by the Soviet regime, and which included the demolition of the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour for which the current one is a replacement. Thus we certainly should not assume that the outrage expressed by Russian Orthodox commentators is entirely political and got up by the Putin regime (though much of it is plainly opportunistic.) Let me reiterate; I oppose the trial of these wretched women for the same reason that I would object to deporting even a hardened criminal to a country where the police force routinely practiced torture. But that wouldn't mean the criminal was not a criminal. www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0731/1224321156418.htmlEXTRACT Punk and Putin In this section » Professional excesses IT’S LIKELY that if three young women in balaclavas marched up uninvited to the altar of the ProCathedral to then perform a crude punk ballad lambasting the church and the Virgin Mary there would be calls for their prosecution. Disturbing the peace, blasphemy . . . Such appeals might well have prevailed a couple of decades ago. Not so, one hopes, today. We have as a society developed an understanding that the sometimes-uncomfortable price of democracy and free speech is the tolerance of speech of which we may disapprove, which may offend, which may be blasphemous – we’re even thinking of removing the offence from the Constitution. Not so in Russia. The trial opened yesterday of three young women members of the punk band Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina (24), Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (22), and Yekaterina Samutsevich (29). Their offence, an “unsanctioned” performance on the altar of Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February when they called on the Virgin Mary to “throw Putin out!” and castigated the Orthodox Church for its support for and close links to him. The three, two of whom have small children, have since spent four months in jail and now face the possibility of up to seven years inside. The prosecution, which alleges that the performance incited religious hatred, is a result, it appears, of an irate response to the protest by the head of the church, Patriarch Kirill. Disappointingly, it has found wide support in society, including, only this week, from a group of conservative Russian writers who on Monday called for tough punishment. The performance had crossed the line that separated political speech from blasphemy, Andrei Damer, an Orthodox missionary and one of the many demonstrators outside the courthouse recently, insisted, reflecting a widely held view. To make its case the church, which accuses the trio of being Satanists, has assembled 10 “victims” to give evidence. They include, for example, a cathedral security guard who “had trouble sleeping after the crime in the cathedral,” according to his lawyer. But the deplorable decision to allow the prosecution to proceed must be seen in a wider context. The cathedral event came at a time when up to 100,000 people were on the streets protesting against Vladimir Putin’s re-election as president. The latter’s nod to the prosecuting authorities over Pussy Riot was also very much at one with the regime’s paranoia about dissent, and will be seen as a test case over how Putin intends to rule in his second term. He does not come out well. END
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 2, 2012 9:20:27 GMT
After my posts yesterday about some particularly bizarre elements in the IRISH TIMES of 31 July, I find that Thirsty Gargoyle has picked up on exactly the same points in a blogpost which he published before I did. Great minds think alike... thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.ie/2012/07/the-freedom-of-press.htmlFIRST, we have Fintan O'Toole's treatment of Fr Brian D'Arcy's support for Sean Quinn as implying that the Church as a whole is backing Quinn (see my post on this thread). Thirsty gargoyle shows that O'Toole's position on this is even more hypocritical than I realised: EXTRACT Here's Fintan O'Toole, for instance, talking about Seán Quinn: 'Fr Brian D'Arcy, who is supposed to be in the morality business, addressed the Ballyconnell rally and essentially credited Quinn with the creation of peace in our time: “He brought peace to the country by creating thousands of jobs.” Senior GAA figures such as Mickey Harte, Jarlath Burns, Seán Boylan and Colm O’Rourke threw that organisation’s considerable authority behind Quinn’s outright defiance of the courts and determination to hang on to public money. Thus, a formidable if unofficial nexus of Sinn Féin, the GAA and the church is giving Quinn comfort. This desire to kiss the rod inflicting the pain is surely rooted in something older than the current fad for designer masochism – some twisted notion of ethnic and religious solidarity in which Quinn has to be protected because he’s one of us – a Catholic, nationalist, GAA man.' [END OF O'TOOLE QUOTATION] This is after lots of valid stuff, it should be said, but still. Is it really right to say Brian D'Arcy supports Seán Quinn, therefore the Church is part of an unofficial triumvirate of forces supporting Quinn? Brian D'Arcy? Remember what Fintan said about Brian D'Arcy a few months ago, when he took the view that D'Arcy having -- at his own discretion -- to have a fellow priest glance over his writings to make sure they weren't completely off the wall was the worst thing that had ever happened? Fintan saw D'Arcy as being part a powerless priest, being sadistically humiliated -- no, really -- by a heartless and clueless hierarchy. D'Arcy, more to Fintan's point perhaps, was a decent and admirable man, somebody who stood apart from the institutional Church. But now? Well, now that D'Arcy's saying something that Fintan (rightly) disagrees with, he's been elevated in Fintan's eyes to an official spokesman for the Church. This is the kind of inconsistent, hypocritical nonsense that's rendering the Irish Times less relevant by the day. END OF EXTRACT I might add that O'Toole is overplaying the "ethnic solidarity" point - my understanding is that quite a few Protestants in the area also support Quinn. Essentially Quinn's local supporters believe (a) that Quinn deserves their gratitude because he brought thousands of well-paid jobs to a poor and remote part of the country (b) that it would be in the interests of the area that Quinn should retain control of at least part of his business empire, because as a local man he is committed to maintaining a presence in the borderland whereas outside owners will be less reluctant to rationalise operations in the area. I don't see that the Quinn supporters have any hope of achieving their aims, and I think they are blind to the extent to which Quinn caused his own problems (not to mention his asset-concealing activities, which are quite another kettle of fish) but O'Toole's attitude to them is a good example of his arrogance, his belief that he alone is rational and everyone he disagrees with is delusional. O'Toole presents the protestors as acting against their own best interests and blinded by religio-ethnic solidarity because everyone in the country will have to pay extra tax as a result of Quinn's activities - but the point is that the protestors believe they, and their particular region, stand to benefit from Quinn's survival to an extent which outweighs the cost (to them). Put it this way - if everyone in the country has to pay X hundred extra in tax every year, but in return I and hundreds of my friends, relatives and neighbours get well-paid long-term employment, it is quite rational for me and the said friends, relatives and neighbours to support such a deal. It may be both immoral and naive to expect the rest of the country to accept it, but that's another matter. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theoryEXTRACT Special interests Public choice theory is often used to explain how political decision-making results in outcomes that conflict with the preferences of the general public. For example, many advocacy group and pork barrel projects are not the desire of the overall democracy. However, it makes sense for politicians to support these projects. It may make them feel powerful and important. It can also benefit them financially by opening the door to future wealth as lobbyists. The project may be of interest to the politician's local constituency, increasing district votes or campaign contributions. The politician pays little or no cost to gain these benefits, as he is spending public money. Special-interest lobbyists are also behaving rationally. They can gain government favors worth millions or billions for relatively small investments. They face a risk of losing out to their competitors if they don't seek these favors. The taxpayer is also behaving rationally. The cost of defeating any one government give-away is very high, while the benefits to the individual taxpayer are very small. Each citizen pays only a few pennies or a few dollars for any given government favor, while the costs of ending that favor would be many times higher. Everyone involved has rational incentives to do exactly what they're doing, even though the desire of the general constituency is opposite. Costs are diffused, while benefits are concentrated. The voices of vocal minorities with much to gain are heard over those of indifferent majorities with little to individually lose.[4][5] END OF EXTRACT Returning from this digression on the never-failing arrogance and intellectual pretensions of Fintan O'Toole, we next have SECOND Thirsty Gargoyle rightly points out that the IRISH TIMES editorial on the trial of the anti-Putin "punk protestors" who disrupted worship at an Orthodox cathedral in Moscow (see my post above) essentially says that protestors should be allowed to disrupt religious services whenever they feel like it without being subject to any penalty at all, and that in taking this position the editorial writer is dismissing the right of the faithful to freedom of worship: EXTRACT The Freedom to Disturb Religious Ceremonies It seems only fitting that [FINTAN O'TOOLE'S ARTICLE] it's sitting in an edition of the paper where an editorial begins by absurdly saying that a clear instance of disturbing the peace wouldn't be considered an offence in modern Ireland if it took place in a church, since we've all moved on from that auld religion hogwash now, thank God: 'It's likely that if three young women in balaclavas marched up uninvited to the altar of the ProCathedral to then perform a crude punk ballad lambasting the church and the Virgin Mary there would be calls for their prosecution. Disturbing the peace, blasphemy . . . Such appeals might well have prevailed a couple of decades ago. Not so, one hopes, today. We have as a society developed an understanding that the sometimes-uncomfortable price of democracy and free speech is the tolerance of speech of which we may disapprove, which may offend, which may be blasphemous – we’re even thinking of removing the offence from the Constitution.' Yes, the Irish Times editorial line now seems to be that it would be okay to do this. I'm not saying that the Russian Orthodox Church's reaction to Pussy Riot's actions in a Moscow cathedral isn't a tad over the top, but really, is it really okay to interrupt a religious ceremony in this fashion? Does freedom of speech really mean a freedom to interrupt other's worship? Does the Irish Times believe that freedom of religion so irrelevant that people should be allowed to interfere with it whenever they want? END OF EXTRACT THIRDLY AND FINALLY, Thirsty Gargoyle points out that the article by Kenneth Houston in the same piece defending the ban on infant male circumcision imposed by a German provincial court amounts to saying that Jews are not entitled to be Jews (nor Muslims Muslims, for that matter) - I have a more detailed analysis on the piece as an example of secularist anti-semitism on the "Catholics and anti-semitism" thread. In fairness to the IRISH TIMES, I should point out that as an opinion-piece by a visiting writer the article is not in the same category as the editorial (which represents the view of the whole paper) or the O'Toole column (written by a member of the paper's staff, albeit as his personal opinion). Nonetheless, as I point out in my own comment, the author's conspiratorial mindset (for example, he refuses to engage with any argument that male circumcision is not the same as female genital mutilation, he refuses to accept that anyone can possibly be sincere - even if mistaken - in opposing the ban, and he treats opposition to the ban as simply a matter of religious leaders, ignoring the role of parents) is very disturbing: EXTRACT The Freedom to Drive Out Jews Oh, and then there's another piece about circumcision, which describes one of the defining Jewish and Muslim practices as barbaric, wonders whether Germany should hold a referendum on children's rights, and insists that in a secular society the rights of children -- as the author sees them -- should always trump religious freedom. He's basically saying that the right of a child to retain its foreskin is more important than the right of a child to be Jewish. I'm not sure what thought he's given to what Jews and Muslims should do in any country where children cannot be circumcised. Sure, there's much more to Judaism, say, than circumcision, but then there's more to bread than flour; it's still an essential ingredient. Maybe he'd just rather there were no more Jews. I do wonder if the author, the Thailand-based Kenneth Houston, is aware that Germany doesn't do referendums, mainly because of Germany's bad experiences with Nazi demagoguery using them to steer the mob. Or maybe he just doesn't care. That said, I'd be curious to see some serious large-scale surveys asking people, simply, whether they'd been circumcised, and whether infant circumcision should be illegal. I've a very strong feeling that the vast majority of those who'd been circumcised would have no problem whatsoever with the practice continuing, while those opposing it would probably be, in the main, people who've merely heard about it. As for those who'd ban it, what do they think Jews should do in a country where infant circumcision is illegal? Leave altogether? Engage in circumcision tourism, ensuring their children are born in countries where infant circumcision is practiced? Arrange for backstreet circumcisions? Or just abandon their ancestral faith? (Illustrations [to TG's post- not reproduced here], for what it's worth, are from the anti-circumcision, anti-semitic, and deeply improbable comic Foreskin Man. He's a bit of an advert for Aryan supremacy, really. He's also neither well-written nor well-drawn. Offensive on so many levels...) END To be fair, I believe the Foreskin Man comic is produced by a Jew who regrets his own circumcision as an infant, and the hero's blond good looks reflect comic-book convention. That doesn't affect the point that the comic's portrayal of circumcision as carried out by "Monster Mohel", who imposes his will with the assistance of armed bodyguards and is presented as inspired by sadistic desire to inflict pain, is straight out of the repertoire of anti-semitic stereotype: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_ManWhat interesting company our Paper of Record is keeping, to be sure, to be sure.
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 4, 2012 11:19:12 GMT
Since Archbishop Martin's comments about excessively traditionalist seminarians, as (mis) reported by the IRISH TIMES, were discussed earlier on this, thread, I'll link to the McCamleys' blog comment on it here: www.mccamley.org/blog/fragile-traditional-external-nothing-s-changedEXTRACT Aside from the fact that these people are relatively easy to identify (how many students and applicants does Dublin have?) and really it was bad form to talk about them, it's sad that after all that has happened, after two pontificates with Popes who clearly value tradition, we're still getting this sort of rubbish. We used to say jokingly in seminary "there's no smoke without fire and if you can't find the smoke the fire's well hidden". A few historical memories occurred to me: Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, a priest involved in condemning witches, wrote in 1631 the Cautio Criminalis ('prudence in criminal cases') in which he bitingly described the decision tree for condemning accused witches: If the witch had led an evil and improper life, she was guilty; if she had led a good and proper life, this too was a proof, for witches dissemble and try to appear especially virtuous. After the woman was put in prison: if she was afraid, this proved her guilt; if she was not afraid, this proved her guilt, for witches characteristically pretend innocence and wear a bold front. Or on hearing of a denunciation of witchcraft against her, she might seek flight or remain; if she ran, that proved her guilt; if she remained, the devil had detained her so she could not get away... END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 20, 2012 21:47:25 GMT
Today's dose of nausea from the IRISH TIMES aka MOLOCH'S HERALD: (1) A snarky editorial about the proposal of the current Spanish government to "turn the clock back" by restricting the availability of abortion, concluding with the smug remark that EXTRACT a poll last month in El Pais recorded 81 per cent voter oppositon to banning abortion in cases of foetal deformity. Catholic Spain is as nuanced in its view of abortion as Catholic Ireland. END www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0820/1224322498309.html So killing the handicapped is "nuanced"? (2) Maureen Dowd, having devoted so much time to denouncing the bishops and praising President Obama's attacks on the liberty of Catholic institutions, now starts quoting the bishops (along with the Nuns on the Bus) to support her views on Paul Ryan's lack of "compassion" in economic policy. (For the record, I don't care for Ryan's invoking Ayn Rand either, but if Ms Dowd wants to argue against him she could do it on the merits rather than suddenly coming over all Catholic and pontificating as if she was Pope Maureen I). Among her evidence for Ryan's alleged lack of compassion is, natcher'lly, his opposition to abortion: www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2012/0820/1224322497062.htmlEXTRACT Just as Cheney was always willing to cough up money to guerrillas in Nicaragua and Angola but not to poor women whose lives were endangered by their pregnancies, so Ryan helped pay for Bush’s endless wars while pushing anti-abortion Bills, like one undercutting an exemption from the ban on using federal money for abortions in cases of rape or incest, and narrowing the definition of rape to “forcible rape”. What on earth is nonforcible rape? It’s like saying nonlethal murder. Why redefine acts of aggression against women as non-acts of aggression? END OF EXTRACT This of course is relayed to us by the Paper of Record as the most natural thing in the world. "Forcible rape" is of course an example of the belt-and-braces language used in legislation for lawyer-proofing purposes, though the criminal blatherumskite Senate candidate in Missouri who has just suggested women don't get pregnant from "real" rape will make it harder to convince people of this. Expect plentiful IRISH TIMES coverage of his idiocy tomorrow,
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