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Post by Hemingway on Apr 20, 2009 10:26:45 GMT
now that Tony Blair has converted to Catholicsim does anyone have any feelings on this issue either way? He converted but does not share the Popes stance on homosexuality. What do people feel regarding this? www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6055696.eceIs he a good catholic if he doesnt accept the popes views on this issue?
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Post by Michael O'Donovan on Apr 20, 2009 12:21:56 GMT
This probably belongs in the When is a Catholic not a Catholic thread. It is typical of Blair's arrogance that he is barely in the door when he starts to tell the Pope how to run things.
But I would be more concerned about his record, as prime minister, on abortion.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Apr 22, 2009 11:46:24 GMT
Somehow, I find it hard to take the conversions of either Tony Blair or Newt Gingrich seriously. I know people who have converted, in adverse circumstances and who have had a struggle with Catholicism when they were in the Church. I don't see that in the case of either.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Apr 23, 2009 10:17:37 GMT
If he was openly gay would he be welcomed in such a high profile way if at all. Well, Oscar Wilde was allowed in. And if you believe the Black Diaries to be authentic, Roger Casement was another. Tim McVeigh got taken in while on death row after the Oklahoma bombing. Mgr Hugh O'Flaherty personally baptised the imprisoned former SS Colonel Kappler who had put a price on his head during the German occupation of Rome - O'Flaherty being Kappler's only visitor in prison. Contance Markiewicz was received into the Church after being sentenced to death in the 1916 rising, but before election to parliament - the Church had condemned the rising. I am trying to think up of more conversions to the Catholic Church of that ilk, but there are many. John Wayne was brought up a Catholic, but stayed away until he was dying. According to documentation in Maynooth College Museum, Edward VII of England was received into the Church on his death bed and he led a far from exemplary life. I don't know - the Catholic or universal church has room for everyone.
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Apr 23, 2009 11:33:25 GMT
Is this just a case of Vatican hypocrisy? Blairs stance on abortion is one thing but what about the fact he's responsible for millions of dead and displaced in Iraq? The Vatican has always had one law for the poor and one law for the rich and powerful. If he was openly gay would he be welcomed in such a high profile way if at all. No, the Catholic Church is just for sinners. Holy people don't need to sign up.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 24, 2009 11:26:19 GMT
Personally, I dislike Blair intensely but I would be very dubious about judging the state of his soul or his subjective sincerity. His public actions and statements are another thing, and on that basis I think he should have been kept out until he had made some sort of public reparation (e.g. for his views/actions on abortion). Anyone who has read Damien Thompson's blog will know that there was a perception that Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor was unduly enthusiastic about having Blair as a convert and let him through very lightly. (Ezigbotutu seems to think that the Vatican handles these things directly; in fact they are handled by the local bishop - since Blair lives in London Murphy O'Connor, as archbishop of Westminster, would be his diocesan. The Bishops of England and Wales since Cardinal Hume's time have shown a strong tendency to pay as little attention to Rome as they can and aspire to resemble the Church of England as much as possible - Hume is alleged to have threatened to resign if the Vatican appointed bishops who were in Opus Dei or whom he considered too aggressively orthodox for comfort, and to have blocked any attempt to create an "Anglican Use" structure to accommodate High Church Anglican converts.) So far as I can tell the big problems with Blair are (a) He has a legalist view of Catholic doctrine; that is, he sees it as arbitrarily enacted by the Church and open to change or revocation in the same way that a political party changes its policies, rather than statements/claims about the inner nature and realities of creation which may or may not be revised on reflection but can't simply be changed by an arbitrary action of the will - as with much else, he sees everything as spin. Since he sees it all as the arbitrary creation of power, he is not interested in enquiring into its truth; like his favourite personality from the Gospel stories, Pontius Pilate, he thinks truth is basically irrelevant when you are making political decisions (b)He is heavily influenced by Hans Kung, who basically wants to reconcile all the major world religions on the basis of a sort of Kantian theism (i.e. general belief in a God of some sort and in the existence of a moral law accessible to reason as defined in Kantian terms, but with claims to special revelation basically treated as stories within faith-traditions which may claim respect as encapsulating spiritual insights but which cannont be universally binding). (c) his wife is I think basically a "tribal Catholic" someone who sees being Catholic as bound up with her background and her local Liverpudlian identity and is genuinely attached to it on that basis, but who is quite prepared to ignore any of its doctrines which she finds inconvenient and to go chasing after any New Age rubbish that strikes her fancy - because she sees religion not in terms of submission to an external discipline in order to perfect oneself in the craft of soul-making, but as a form of therapy aimed at her own psychological well-being. This sort of mindset is pretty common in the TABLET and similar liberal Catholic circles. My own personal opinion, on the basis of my limited knowledge, is that Kung should have been excommunicated long ago and that Blair should never have been let in. The fact that the Vatican takes a different view does not mean, as Ezigbototutu says, that they are hypocrites. They may have a different interpretation of Kung's thought, or they may think he woul do more harm outside the Church than inside, or that people would not understand strong action against him.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 24, 2009 11:41:51 GMT
As for Newt Gingrich, I do not know enough about his spiritual state to have an opinion, as he does not to my knowledge set himself up as an amateur theology lecturer as Blair has done. From what I know of him he strikes me as a very American type of technocratic tinkerer, who is fascinated by ideas but sees them as tools to attain power rather than as guides to be followed. I confess I have a certain instinctive scepticism about a man who has betrayed two wives turning to the Church and getting his third union validated by the Petrine privilege, but this can be no more than instinctive scepticism. Maybe he is getting older and wants to come to terms with his life and whatever is waiting in eternity; maybe he sincerely regrets his past misdeeds and wants to lead a better life hereafter. I don't know. I should add that some Catholic blogs have expressed concern that some recent conversions to Catholicism by prominent American political conservatives may have been motivated at least in part by a sense that Catholicism is somehow the proper religion for political conservatives, and that they do not seem fully aware of the tensions between American conservatism and Catholic teaching on such issues as laissez-faire economics. I will not mention any names and I am not suggesting that this is necessarily the case with Mr. Gingrich, but I have seen this concern voiced by bloggers who are themselves political conservatives and who do not belong to either the liberal or palaeocon "Amen corners".
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