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Post by hibernicus on Feb 22, 2015 19:12:57 GMT
Eccles suggests another narrative for Hilary Mantel's WOLF HALL treatment ecclesandbosco.blogspot.ie/2015/02/hilary-mantel-rewrites-new-testament.htmlJust to put it on record; the objection to WOLF HALL is not that it portrays St Thomas More as supporting and participating in the burning of people for heresy (which he did, unfortunately). It is her systematic glamourisation of Thomas Cromwell as a Good Thing, however ruthless, because he leads to the modern omnicompetent secular state, and her equally systematic demonisation of More on the grounds that anyone with loyalties transcending the state is too dangerous to be tolerated, and we must have no king but Caesar so long as Caesar is a properly trained bureaucrat. Then nothing can possibly go wrong: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference [BTW if anyone is thinking this only applies to lefties, just look at Dick Cheney's all-out defence of torture on the basis of necessity knowing no law when it comes to national security.] Additional BTW - I wonder if Hilary Mantel will include the burning alive of Bl. John Forest OFM in 1538 for refusing to swear an oath demanded from him by that great humanitarian, Thomas Cromwell. Somehow I doubt if we'll see THAT on our TV screens. Selective indignation works both ways: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forest
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Post by Ranger on Feb 23, 2015 10:06:04 GMT
On another humourous note regarding the prophecies of St. Malachy, since the previous Pope was meant to be the 'Pope of the Olive Branch' there was much speculation in certain quarters that the next Pope would be the liberal favourite Cardinal Martini.
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Post by Ranger on Apr 30, 2015 18:45:23 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 3, 2015 20:14:05 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 5, 2015 22:35:47 GMT
This is another nice one from Eccles, which requires some knowledge of current English personnel, controversies and scandals - the bit attributed to Damian Thompson is particularly apt, and no doubt would be considered highly reactionary by certain cheerleaders for the ACP: ecclesandbosco.blogspot.ie/2015/07/arundel-and-brightons-festival-50.html#comment-formEXTRACT Damian Thompson of the Spectator spoke on "Attending Mass - an old Catholic tradition revived". He explained that - contrary to popular belief - attending mass was not forbidden by Vatican II, and that many traddies were trying to revive the custom. END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 16, 2015 13:43:51 GMT
This one, alas, is more plausible than the public statements of Endanias and our other Beloved Leaders: EXTRACT This is Plutonian Astronaut Buzz Weeblezog reporting back on my recent mission to Earth. Following a recent visit to our beloved Pluto by a craft sent by the Earhlings, we took a trip to Earth to see whether intelligent life had started to develop there. When we last visited the planet, 50 Earth-years ago, the world was under the control of hippies, liberals, communists, and the Spirit of Vatican II, so we decided to come back later when their civilisation had developed beyond this. I regret to say that the Earth is still as barbarous as ever it was. I discovered an organization called Planned Parenthood whose sole purpose is to enable Earthwomen to destroy their young. These are then sold to distinctly dubious organizations: I could not determine whether the young were used for experiments, evil rituals, or simply cooked and eaten, but it seemed that all these are considered to be legitimate activities... Elsewhere, we observed a strange tendency for male humans to attempt to breed with other males, or females with females, sometimes using a courtship ritual that involves waving a striped flag. Perhaps their knowledge of biology is not as advanced as we thought. This was just a short visit, and unfortunately we mostly observed the Earthlings engaged in wickedness. Still, it is not all mass murder, although this does seem to be one of their most popular customs. Conclusion: the planet is not yet sufficiently developed for us to wish to make contact with its inhabitants. Except, perhaps, the cats. END OF EXTRACTS ecclesandbosco.blogspot.ie/2015/07/a-plutonian-visits-earth.html
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Post by Young Ireland on Aug 3, 2015 16:16:20 GMT
Here's one:
Q: Did you hear about the numerary who went to Nobber on pilgrimage?
A: He thought it was named after Opus Dei!
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Post by hibernicus on Aug 14, 2015 19:23:17 GMT
Eccles comments on the recent statement by the (Conservative) MP for Sherwood that holding the view that marriage is only between a man and a woman should make you a target for anti-extremism orders, as Robin Hood tries to explain to the Merry Men why they are now officially classified as terrorists. Admittedly, using a photo of Errol Flynn as Robin Hood when portraying Robin as an upholder of traditional marriage is a bit of an own goal, but even Homer nods: ecclesandbosco.blogspot.ie/2015/08/robin-hood-defends-traditional-marriage.html
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 3, 2015 22:35:06 GMT
Another nice one from Eccles - note how it skewers assumptions about what gets described as "extreme" and what parts of world opinion get taken into account when they are "shocked" ecclesandbosco.blogspot.ie/2015/10/pope-meets-gay-marriage-bigot.htmlEXTRACT The world was in a state of shock today, after it was revealed that during his American trip Pope Francis had had a personal meeting with someone whose extreme views on same-sex marriage have made them a hate-figure throughout the civilised world. Said one commentator, "I was really looking forward to the pope's visit to the USA, and in fact I thought that this might even be a good occasion to become a Catholic. But after I heard about Pope Francis's meeting with Barack Obama, I realized that I could not be a member of a church led by someone who was capable of talking to people like that."... Meanwhile, everyone agrees that it was a good move for the pope to have met Kim Davis, the heroine of Kentucky. She was clearly a much more interesting person than Obama, who had spent his entire meeting with the pope in droning on about golf and taking selfies. END OF EXTRACTS
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Post by maolsheachlann on Oct 5, 2015 7:23:49 GMT
I have to admit I find Eccles (who I've only read this morning) quite strained and unfunny.
But it's good that he's doing what he's doing, and the Eye of the Tiber site is also doing good work. It struck me today that there are so many Irish sites like Broadsheet.ie, Politics.ie, gaire.ie, and Waterford Whispers making fun of Catholicism that an Irish site making fun of liberal pieties might be a good idea. I mean a "community" rather than a blog. (I put the word community in inverted commas because I really think it should be restricted to people physically living in the same place, but it seems to be the accepted word at this stage.)
Getting a critical mass of people posting is the difficulty, though. Even on a straight Catholic forum like this we have so few contributors. So I'm not sure this is a runner.
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Post by Ranger on Oct 5, 2015 10:12:32 GMT
I have to admit I find Eccles (who I've only read this morning) quite strained and unfunny. But it's good that he's doing what he's doing, and the Eye of the Tiber site is also doing good work. It struck me today that there are so many Irish sites like Broadsheet.ie, Politics.ie, gaire.ie, and Waterford Whispers making fun of Catholicism that an Irish site making fun of liberal pieties might be a good idea. I mean a "community" rather than a blog. (I put the word community in inverted commas because I really think it should be restricted to people physically living in the same place, but it seems to be the accepted word at this stage.) Getting a critical mass of people posting is the difficulty, though. Even on a straight Catholic forum like this we have so few contributors. So I'm not sure this is a runner. There are so many good initiatives we could be doing like this if only we had the manpower and training. Unfortunately I think it's a case of having to decide which things are more important than others. I had an idea a while back about an online group of 'keyboard warriors' who could descend on a particular website whenever there was an attack on the Church and try to shed some light in a non-confrontational way, but you'd need a good number of people involved and where would you get together such a team that was all internet-savvy, had the time and would be able to articulately speak truth in charity to a wide variety of people? (I know that most posters here would be able to do the latter, but time and availability would be problematic I assume). (You could do something international, I guess, but that would mean that local issues and nuances would be lost on many of those posting on blogs run in other countries). I think that Eccles is up and down; some of his posts can be brilliant but there's a lot in between that fits your description. I definitely prefer Eye of the Tiber but even then it has its poor pieces.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 5, 2015 14:49:11 GMT
be able to articulately speak truth in charity to a wide variety of people? (I know that most posters here would be able to do the latter I have read a few things from Eccles in the past and thought they were kind of funny, but I'm not really into his posts were he purposely misspells words. I've never found those "memes" particularly funny; actually they're kind of annoying.
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Post by Young Ireland on Oct 5, 2015 16:01:50 GMT
Regarding Eccles, I think that part of it might be the fact that much of his posts refer to happenings in British Catholicism and society in general, and so the humour might be lost for a non-Briton, since he presupposes that people know what he's talking about.
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Post by Young Ireland on Oct 5, 2015 16:17:15 GMT
be able to articulately speak truth in charity to a wide variety of people? (I know that most posters here would be able to do the latter I have read a few things from Eccles in the past and thought they were kind of funny, but I'm not really into his posts were he purposely misspells words. I've never found those "memes" particularly funny; actually they're kind of annoying. What's so funny Anatine?
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 5, 2015 20:09:03 GMT
I tend to look at Eccles regularly because he has links to a lot of Catholic blogs, so his site is useful in locating them quickly. I have never really got into the habit of looking at Eye of the Tiber, but what I see of it has been funny. I get most of the references in Eccles (I wouldn't be posting links to him if I didn't think he was funny). My problem with him is that there are times when he seems a bit lacking in Christian charity (sometimes towards Pope Francis, sometimes even towards Richard Dawkins) which I suppose is an occupational hazard for a satirist.
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