|
Post by Account Deleted on Jul 25, 2018 18:19:36 GMT
Surprised by this - Accord's capitulation that is, not Tulsa's pre-emptive aggression. (How many gay couples have been seeking counselling from a Catholic marriage agency, and how many of those been refused, I wonder.) Seems particularly surprising response, given the firm stance made in other areas (such as the closure of Cura and the Irish Bishops ethics code to ban abortions in Catholic hospitals). I note the quotes are all from Tulsa's side - no quotes from Accord, or the Irish Bishops. There's more to this than meets the eye, and I doubt we've heard the totality, or end of it yet. Edit: On reflection, Accord distinguishes its Catholic Marriage Preparation courses from its relationship and domestic abuse counselling services, which are open to all (incl. non-Catholics or unmarried). It would seem appropriately Christian to provide, in charity, the latter services to all in need of them, especially if gay couples are most in need of such counselling*. Since gay couples won't be undergoing a Catholic Marriage, the former service (marriage preparation) is moot for them anyway. * www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29994648
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 27, 2018 21:14:22 GMT
I don't think the closure of Cura marked a firm stance - just the opposite. A firm stance would have been to carry on its work, disregard the regulations and challenge the authorities to sue.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jul 31, 2018 20:50:45 GMT
Just when I thought I knew how creepy John Zmirak could get, he gets creepier. His illustrations are chosen to reinforce the point he wants to make, so I can only conclude that he sees the Latino couple trudging through the desert on the US border,carrying their child, as the Evil Enemy who must be kept out at all costs: stream.org/will-trump-cave-open-borders-asylum-policy-gop-house/It's not as if he couldn't have chosen some other illustration to highlight the darker aspects of immigration to the US: www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2018/6/29/are-the-satanists-of-the-ms-13-gang-an-under-covered-religion-beat-storyThe satanism of the Mara Salvatrucha seems to combine the pagan undercurrents of traditional Mexican culture with the deliberate elements of transgression and desecration you'll find among criminal subcultures (like the Italian mafia or the Russian vory) and the nastier side of American popular culture (in this case heavy metal's invocations of the demonic).
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Jul 31, 2018 21:06:59 GMT
Just when I thought I knew how creepy John Zmirak could get, he gets creepier. His illustrations are chosen to reinforce the point he wants to make, so I can only conclude that he sees the Latino couple trudging through the desert on the US border,carrying their child, as the Evil Enemy who must be kept out at all costs: stream.org/will-trump-cave-open-borders-asylum-policy-gop-house/It's not as if he couldn't have chosen some other illustration to highlight the darker aspects of immigration to the US: www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2018/6/29/are-the-satanists-of-the-ms-13-gang-an-under-covered-religion-beat-storyThe satanism of the Mara Salvatrucha seems to combine the pagan undercurrents of traditional Mexican culture with the deliberate elements of transgression and desecration you'll find among criminal subcultures (like the Italian mafia or the Russian vory) and the nastier side of American popular culture (in this case heavy metal's invocations of the demonic). I don't think he's saying they're evil. He's saying that there are far more people who want to come to America than America can handle, and that they bring many social problems with them. It's quite honest to show the same sort of photo CNN usually show; I presume he does so with the same sense of intellectual honesty that leads me to use the word "foetus" rather than "baby" in abortion debates. I know nothing about John Zmirak. I'm not necessarily saying he's right that people with social problems shouldn't be taken in as asylum seekers or immigrants.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 3, 2018 22:10:31 GMT
I look at John Zmirak a lot because he's a real curate's egg. The good parts are his dissection of the lies and propaganda of pro-abortionists etc and some of his comments on the weaknesses and follies of the traditional-Catholic subculture. The bad bits are that he is primarily interested in winning at any cost, so that he always assumes an opponent's fundamental dishonesty (during the 2016 presidential election he ALWAYS assumed that anyone who considered voting for the execrable Hillary Clinton was an apostate looking for an excuse to sell the pass, rather than being genuinely concerned about Trump's long record of swinishness) and he thinks that anyone who sees problems with Anglo-American laissez-faire must be a fascist, a communist or an Inquisition-nostalgic. The "no immigrants, build the wall now" shtick is part of the latter. I particularly shudder at two posts in close proximity on his site - one complaining about trad Catholics who marry young and, being "open to life" (a phrase he recounts as if it's a disease) rear large families with the help of state welfare; the other proudly describing how he moved house recently because his landlord refused to allow him to keep beagles in his apartment. I guess you could say he's "open to beagles". Actually, now that I think of it, there's another juxtaposition of his that really gets my goat. In between his "keep out the immigrants for the sake of America" posts, he complained when Trump put pressure on a motor firm not to close down one of its American factories and move the jobs overseas. Zmirak protested that this contravened the right of investors to place their money wherever in the world it gets the best return - but if he believes in international laissez-faire for capital he should believe in laissez-faire for labour, and if he asks consumers to make sacrifices in the name of economic nationalism,he should ask investors to make sacrifices too. Americanism for thee but not for me.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Aug 25, 2018 19:57:23 GMT
|
|
|
Post by maolsheachlann on Aug 27, 2018 8:40:20 GMT
Good video from a young Asian-American criticizing the concept of white privilege. If white privilege is a real thing, why are Asians so successful? He also makes the argument that affirmative action, and the victim mentality, hurts minorities. I'm not saying I love this guy's attitude. He uses the phrase "getting ahead" about ten times or more, I'd say. Should the goal of life really be to "get ahead"? Getting ahead means getting ahead of others, but someone's always going to be at the back, even if everyone was working very hard. But the points he makes about race are very valid.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Oct 11, 2018 21:31:21 GMT
Today's IRISH TIMES reports that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin is selling off the former seminary land and buildings for social use. Another sign of the times.
|
|
|
Post by Young Ireland on Dec 16, 2018 12:48:37 GMT
In light of the recent revelations surrounding President Trump, I am increasingly of the opinion that the best course of action is for him to resign and for Mike Pence to take his place. As long as he clings on to the levers of power he will taint the Republican Party (and conservatism in general) with the stain of his wrongdoing.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 20, 2018 19:20:04 GMT
I've always thought Trump was unfit to be president (though if I was an American I couldn't have brought myself to vote for Hillary either). The problem is that association with him has ALREADY stained Republicans and conservatives with his wrongdoing, and that he still appeals to a significant body of people who wouldn't vote for Pence or other "mainstream" Republicans. These people will end up being more comprehensively swindled by Trump than they have been already. (The fact BTW that significant sections of the civil service are sabotaging Trump for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons also provides him with a scapegoat which he can use to explain the non-delivery of his promises.) Trump has already produced a new crop of leftie Democrats in response, and I suspect there is more mischief to come.
|
|
|
Post by assisi on Dec 21, 2018 19:42:19 GMT
I've always thought Trump was unfit to be president (though if I was an American I couldn't have brought myself to vote for Hillary either). The problem is that association with him has ALREADY stained Republicans and conservatives with his wrongdoing, and that he still appeals to a significant body of people who wouldn't vote for Pence or other "mainstream" Republicans. These people will end up being more comprehensively swindled by Trump than they have been already. (The fact BTW that significant sections of the civil service are sabotaging Trump for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons also provides him with a scapegoat which he can use to explain the non-delivery of his promises.) Trump has already produced a new crop of leftie Democrats in response, and I suspect there is more mischief to come. It may be that Trump has contributed somewhat to a new crop of leftie Democrat, but there is also an argument that the new lefties would be an inevitable product of the their obsession with identity politics. The rising star of the new left is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a young female latina, a contrast to the older white democrats like Biden, Clinton, Pelosi and Sanders. She also comes with a shiny new political stance, Democratic Socialism, whatever that is. She is pretty, photogenic and ticks lots of 'right on' boxes. Unfortunately for her, she isn't very bright (although that may be an advantage in modern politics).
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Dec 21, 2018 22:14:36 GMT
The new lefties partly reflect a sense that Trump's success reflects his appeal to the economically disadvantaged and that the Democrats need to become more economically radical to combat this. It's a reaction against the "new Democrat" mindset associated with the Clintons, who were socially liberal and economically conservative like Blair (except that Gordon Brown expanded welfare whereas the Clintons joined the Republicans in slashing it.) There is a long-standing "Democratic Socialist" association within/ allied with the Democrats; New York has been a historic base for it. Sanders actually spent most of his career as a Socialist and only registered as a Democrat so he could contest the presidential nomination (he was born in NY but represents Vermont; a lot of hippie types moved to Vermont for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they could influence it more easily because of its small population). Pelosi and Biden are from old machine-politics backgrounds (bluecollar Catholic) plated with some shiny new liberal policies (Pelosi more so than Biden as she represents an ultra-liberal area of California). They're both long in the tooth. One reason Ocasio-Cortez won was because the Democrat incumbent she opposed was so complacent he didn't bother turning up to the campaign debates but sent his secretary instead. Ocasio-Cortez has already shown signs of quarrelling with Pelosi, and if she's not careful she will find herself assigned to the House Committees on Better Outhouse Construction and on Diplomatic Relations with Wagga Wagga.
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Jun 9, 2019 18:58:07 GMT
This article is a reminder that one of the characteristic figures of American culture is the charismatic salesman, shading into the grifter (con-man). The particular theme of the article is "conservative" political fundraising organisations which raise money from vulnerable sympathisers and spend it largely on themselves, but we should bear in mind that similar figures/groups can be found in the religious sphere, both evangelical and Catholic (including traditionalist). America can provide valuable resources for orthodox Catholics, but we need to be discerning about what comes out of America. www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-real-problem-conservatism-faces-today/
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on May 14, 2020 22:25:46 GMT
Rod Dreher discusses the history of the monthly FIRST THINGS, founded with the aim of reviving the "Protestant, Catholic, Jew" form of civil religion as a moral basis for US society, based on post-Vatican II Catholic thought and encapsulated in the witness of St John Paul II, and how that project can be seen to have failed and what that means. He sees its decline encapsulated in the current editor's anti-lockdown rants, which include denouncing people who wear masks in public for the sake of the general good as cowards. As I've often said in this thread, a lot of useful resources for understanding our faith in the context of contemporary society, including the problems which beset us, come from America (though they must be read with critical understanding), so it is bad news when US conservative believers go off the deep end. Expect this to continue, partly because of the susceptibility of many US conservative Catholics to Francis Derangement Syndrome (encouraged by some of Pope Francis's own blunders, but also by his correct refusal to treat the USA as the Fifth Gospel) and partly because the Democrats are becoming more secularist and therefore make a point of bashing the social conservatives whenever they are in power, partly from ideology and partly to weaken an elment of the Republicans' base - just as Republicans in power bash the trade unions for the same reasons. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/first-things-the-future-of-religious-conservatism/
|
|
|
Post by hibernicus on Nov 5, 2020 3:23:49 GMT
I don't retract anything I have said about Trump's utter swinishness and unfitness for office, but if I were an American I'd have voted for him on Tuesday because of the alternative. I came to this decision at the last minute, and it makes me sick. It looks as if we are about to see the alternative, which is that under President Biden the forces of political correctness will control crucial agencies which are run by the executive branch, and will use these agencies to enforce at home and abroad forms of political correctness which would have been universally regarded as madness a few decades ago. The fact that US society in the past tolerated or upheld other forms of grievous injustice will be used to deny that these new injustices are injustices at all. Jonathan van Maren's column linked below addresses a question which is worth considering - why is there still a resistance to the sexual revolution and to the secularisation of society in the US when most European Christians seem to have tacitly accepted the "new normal" even when they have not fallen away themselves? Even allowing that the American Religious Right has always been susceptible to frauds and grifters, that a great deal of American evangelicalism is so emotion-driven and ignorant that it is like the famous politician once compared to a certain river in his state "an inch deep and nine miles wide at the mouth" and that even the most committed American believers are often more secular than they think, there is still a contrast with the European churches' more or less placid deference to cultured godless officials with babies' blood on their hands. Part of this does I think relate to the Constantinian legacy in Europe and the populist non-establishment religious traditions in America (there is a downside to this; Cardinal Manning, for instance, was quite right in saying that the attempt to create a Christian society and state was a necessary outgrowth of the Incarnation, and it is often said that American culture is deeply influenced by Gnosticism with its emphasis on the ability of the mind to escape and reshape the constraints of the body). The higher clergy have a certain tendency to identify with civil servants and administrators. Part of it also is a certain distrust of the vulgar believer who is seen as simple-minded and forcing simplifications on their betters. The way in which certain spokesmen of the ACP, for example, seem to believe that everybody is saved already and the Great Commission is therefore redundant, except when it comes to converting those benighted few who actually believe in traditional Catholicism - the contempt for Marianism and traditional devotions (not just excesses, butthe whole thing) is very striking. They don't want to demean themselves. Is this comment of mine unfair? thebridgehead.ca/2020/11/03/why-america-is-different-there-is-still-a-battle-for-her-soul-underway/
|
|