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Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 5, 2013 16:13:19 GMT
As they say, you wouldn't hang a dog on that evidence.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Mar 5, 2013 21:27:27 GMT
This actually has a contemporary ring to it, now that I look at it again:
Antichrist, Or The Reunion Of Christendom: An Ode G. K. Chesterton
‘A Bill which has shocked the conscience of every Christian community in Europe.’ —Mr. F.E. Smith, on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill.
ARE they clinging to their crosses, F.E. Smith, Where the Breton boat-fleet tosses, Are they, Smith? Do they, fasting, trembling, bleeding, Wait the news from this our city? Groaning ‘That’s the Second Reading!’ Hissing ‘There is still Committee!’ If the voice of Cecil falters, If McKenna’s point has pith, Do they tremble for their altars? Do they, Smith?
Russian peasants round their pope Huddled, Smith, Hear about it all, I hope, Don’t they, Smith? In the mountain hamlets clothing Peaks beyond Caucasian pales, Where Establishment means nothing And they never heard of Wales, Do they read it all in Hansard With a crib to read it with — ‘Welsh Tithes: Dr Clifford Answered.’ Really, Smith?
In the lands where Christians were, F.E. Smith, In the little lands laid bare, Smith, O Smith! Where the Turkish bands are busy And the Tory name is blessed Since they hailed the Cross of Dizzy On the banners from the West! Men don’t think it half so hard if Islam burns their kin and kith, Since a curate lives in Cardiff Saved by Smith.
It would greatly, I must own, Soothe me, Smith! If you left this theme alone, Holy Smith! For your legal cause or civil You fight well and get your fee; For your God or dream or devil You will answer, not to me. Talk about the pews and steeples And the Cash that goes therewith! But the souls of Christian peoples . . . Chuck it, Smith!
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 9, 2013 22:38:27 GMT
Garry O'Sullivan claims in the IRISH CATHOLIC to have met an Irish seminarian, very given to lace and rubrical correctness who sneered at Pope Francis for spending time "in some ghetto with the poor". IMHO if this gentleman really exists and has not been invented by Mr O'Sullivan as a sort of parable (or misunderstood by him) he should seriously examine his vocation lest he end up like the Priest and the Levite in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Concern for liturgy and for the poor are not and should not be mutually exclusive: www.irishcatholic.ie/20130627/feature/100-days-of-gospel-and-ghetto-S34792.html
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 13, 2016 18:56:34 GMT
Have been reading Alastair Kerr's apologia for the late Captain Robert Nairac, which defends him against claims of implication in paramilitary murders in Northern Ireland. Does have some reasonable points (e.g. when providing alibi evidence that he was elsewhere when certain incidents took place) but gives the impression overall that he protests too much. One striking point of the description of Nairac's time at Ampleforth (where he was abused by older boys, which fed his darker traits) is the extent to which certain upper-and-middle class British Catholics identify with the British military, both as an assertion of patriotism against the view that Papists are not real Brits, partly because identification with the recusant tradition can involve a fascination with deception and undercover work. (Sir Mark Sykes, the author of the Sykes-Picot Line which caused and is causing so much trouble in the middle East, was a North Yorkshire gentry Catholic of this type.) BTW one of Nairac's aliases was "Buckley", apparently derived from Fr Sigebert Buckley, the last surviving monk of Westminster who in 1607 formally incorporated some of the Continental English monks into the mediaeval English Benedictine congregation, providing a link between old and new Englsih Benedictinism. Ampleforth has a sort of shrine to some of its military old boys, in which Nairac has been incorporated as a sort of preux chevalier. Not an aspect of the British Catholic self-image for which I have much sympathy, but it may be just as well to bear its existence in mind when encountering British trads.
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jaykay
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Post by jaykay on Mar 15, 2016 16:18:21 GMT
What you say about the late Captain Nairac doesn't surprise me, hibernicus, insofar as most of those public schools had (possibly still have?) "OTCs" - "Officer Training Corps" - basically a sort of in-house FCA/Territorial Army unit where the boys would receive military drill and firearms training, to equip them to be the Officer class of the future. Cousins of mine went to Stoneyhurst in the 60s and 70s, and OTC was still very much part of the scene then, even up to the late 70s. They used Lee-Enfields and had an actual firing range. I can understand that the Catholics, particularly in the 70s, would have been more than anxious to seem "on-side" or, as we might say over here, "sound on the national question" My cousins are basically third-generation at this stage, and certainly identify more as English than Irish, but because of their surname they might have been that bit more anxious than "native" Catholics to fit-in. I'm quite close to them, as it happens, we're far from out of touch, but we've only ever tangentially touched on this particular subject. Still, from what they've said about their schooldays it does seem to have been quite militaristic - who said the Jesuits got all "peace and lurve" after VII?
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 16, 2016 20:38:24 GMT
Many British public schools, not just Catholic ones, have Cadet Corps for boys thinking of pursuing army careers - oddly enough, Nairac was not in the Cadets at Ampleforth (which is Benedictine not Jesuit BTW) - he got involved with the Army when he was at Oxford. I suspect they still exist but are more marginal than they used to be, as the British upper classes are less interested in the army these days, and the schools have a much larger contingent of wealthy non-nationals (who can afford to pay the fees) and are generally less spartan. Apparently it has now become very unusual for graduates of British Catholic public schools to join the associated religious communities, though this was a major source of recruitment in the past. Nairac was not from a recusant background BTW; his mother was Anglican and his father Franco-Mauritian, but he bought into the recusant mystique via the school (the English Benedictines and Jesuits traditionally emphasised their connection with the recusant era; the Benedictines have been much more influential within the English Church than any religious order in Ireland).
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jaykay
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Post by jaykay on Mar 22, 2016 16:55:26 GMT
"Many British public schools, not just Catholic ones, have Cadet Corps for boys thinking of pursuing army careers -"
Oh absolutely, in fact I'm thinking of that film "If" which subverts the whole public school/OTC thing. Great music, mind you - the Sanctus from the "Missa Luba" features prominently. I think that was where I first heard it, in fact.
As to Captain Nairac, that's interesting about him "buying into" the recusant mystique. Without any disrespect to the unfortunate man, he does seem to have lived in a bit of a fantasy world. I mean, trying to pose as a republican in Dromintee, of all places! Coming from Dundalk, I know it well.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 23, 2016 23:10:40 GMT
Indeed; part of the point of this thread is that certain aspects of English Catholicism have a strong fantasy air about them. The fluffy monarchism of some English trad bloggers is an example, glossing over the harder and darker side of any serious monarchy. At the same time, to be fair, this also reflects a yearning for beauty, civility and intellectual sophistication, which are good things if pursued seriously and not just on the fantasy level. BTW the Bridesheads in Waugh's novel are not a recusant family, though often assumed to be so - the father converted after marrying a Catholic of decidedly unromantic bent.
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jaykay
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Post by jaykay on Mar 24, 2016 21:13:21 GMT
Yes, Lady M. is, in my view, a decidedly unattractive character. Waugh's own behaviour in his undergrad days had some pretty unsavoury aspects. He really threw himself into the whole "Greek" thing, if one could put it that way. Much more so than Sebastian and Ryder are alleged to do in the book, even given that at the time of its publication one could only hint, of course, although such would have been generally understood by those of that class. He's also said to have been reckless - "suicidally brave" in one description - in action during the war. Was he trying to prove something? To himself, probably, yes. Always trying to live up to some ideal.
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jaykay
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Post by jaykay on Mar 25, 2016 1:29:34 GMT
Well worth reading: Paula Bryne. "Evelyn Waugh and the secrets of Brideshead".
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jaykay
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Post by jaykay on Mar 25, 2016 1:32:48 GMT
Idiot that I am- it's actually "Mad world: Evelyn Waugh...etc"
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Post by maolsheachlann on Mar 25, 2016 11:29:33 GMT
Brideshead Revisited is a book I read twice in my life. The first time I read it I was bitterly disappointed, perhaps because I was looking for the quintessential 'university novel', and very little of it is set in university. The second time I read it, I was much more impressed. In fact (although this connection will hardly make sense to anyone else), one section of the book inspired me to keep a daily journal which I have been keeping since June. (It is the section set on board the ocean liner. I was very much struck by the 'flavour' of that particular passage of time in his protagonists' life that Waugh caught, and felt a powerful desire to replicate this.)
Homosexual acts don't seem to be treated as a particularly egregious sin in the book, or even (unless I misunderstand this) by the observant Bridesheads themselves.
By the way, Jaykay, Waugh's courage seems to have been entirely natural and spontaneous. I read his own diary, and physical bravery seems to have characterised him from a very young age. As someone who can't even imagine walking towards gunfire, this fascinates me.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 9, 2016 19:48:20 GMT
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Post by sacredheart on Jun 2, 2017 11:15:32 GMT
It recently struck me firstly, that the history of English Catholicism seems to be much better documented and more subject to scholarly research than that of Irish Catholicism; secondly, that part of the reason for the popularity of English apologists like Chesterton, Belloc, Ronald Knox etc in early twentieth-century Ireland and of past and present English Catholics among present-day conservative American Catholics is that things English are seen as classy (this is not confined to US Catholics; it also relates to the CS Lewis cult among evangelicals, and Peter Hitchens has suggested it helps to explain why his brother Christopher was so popular with US atheists); thirdly, that this sense of articulate Catholicism as a West British and upper/middle-class phenomenon has contributed to Irish anti-clericalism and anti-Catholicism. I'm opening this thread for discussion of this phenomenon, and of English Catholicism and its relationship to Ireland more generally. Feel free to try out your ideas on the subject, or anything related to it. Just a quick thought which came into my head as I start to read through these comments, thank you to Young Ireland for linking it in another thread for me to find. I, as an English Catholic, grew up being told by some family members how much more pious the Irish were than the English, we would often like to get publications and religious material, if we could get hold of, which was Irish, I'm thinking of earlier copies of the Sacred Heart Messenger. English Catholicism was seen as not being as fervent as the Irish. I've never been to Ireland before, but we went to Italy on honeymoon, and I was struck by the difference in amount of churches and religious things you see in a Catholic country rather than Protestant England, the little shrines to Our Lady for one, something which I thought was so special and such a reminder of faith outside of the home. Does Ireland have these street and road shrines? Is Ireland like Italy in terms of the quantity of churches around?
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Post by maolsheachlann on Jun 2, 2017 14:29:51 GMT
I don't know if we have as many in Italy, but we have a lot. My American wife was particularly struck by the sight of chapels in supermarkets. That doesn't happen anymore but existing ones are still there.
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