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Post by loughcrew on Jul 9, 2010 12:27:26 GMT
If the passing of the Civil Partnership Bill with ease through the Oireachtas has done one thing for me it has been to kill off the last vestige of support I ever had for any of the political parties represented there in. I wonder if other Catholics have thoughts on the increased amount of legislation passed in the Dail in contravention of Church policy by an elected parliament consisting in the most part of nominal Catholics.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 12, 2010 15:52:45 GMT
It's the natural consequence of the blunders and bungling of active Catholics, with or without collars, you and me included.
The really worrying thing is the absolute opposition to any sort of conscientious objection clause, on the grounds that it would involve tolerating "discrimination". (Discrimination against people on grounds of religious belief doesn't count, apparently.) If/when full gay marriage is legalised, expect this to be used to pressurise clergy (who are of course state registrars) to celebrate gay "weddings". This concern is not of course confined to Catholics; the strongest statement in the Dail on the subject came from Seymour Crawford, who is a Presbyterian. We now see how much respect Protestant sensibilities get when they clash with the "liberal agenda" (as distinct from when they can be used to advance it).
What we are seeing here and elsewhere in the western world is a drive to equate advocacy of traditional Christian sexual morality (i.e. monogamous heterosexual marriage as the norm) with racism and banish its advocacy from the public sphere.
Note that Bacik and Norris proclaimed in the debates that since civilisation didn't collapse immediately after the introduction of divorce, those who opposed it were mere scaremongers. Give it time; the collapse of marriage is well under way.
Anyone here who is in Cavan-Monaghan should consider giving Seymour Crawford a high preference and explaining why you are doing so if approached by canvassers. Since the Green Party is claiming "credit" for this legislation, give their candidate your very lowest preference (i.e. after voting for all the other candidates in order of preference) and explain why you are doing this, unless the candidate has some specific virtue strong enough to offset their party's "achievement". If you're in Louth, give Dermot Ahern the same treatment. Praise is due to the three FF senators who resigned the whip over this issue; Jim Walsh has been particularly strong on this. Overall, I think the outlook is poor.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 12, 2010 15:55:19 GMT
One other thing, BTW, I thought some of the protestors' tactics outside the Dail (I actually saw them, I'm not going by the TV coverage whose bias was predictable) were misplaced. The "Nobody likes us and we dont care" attitude really springs from despair, and it should be avoided because that sort of venting of anger is bad for the soul anddoes nothing to achieve its objective.
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Post by loughcrew on Jul 12, 2010 17:08:34 GMT
It was ironic that the only dissenting voice raised in the Dail was that of our only Dissenter TD Seymour Crawford who still had no backing from his Fine Gael party for his position. The parties are all courting the pink vote like crazy but they neglect their traditional vote at their peril.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 12, 2010 19:24:18 GMT
They face very little peril because efforts to mobilise the "traditional vote" over the last 18 years have been a fiasco, and other church-related scandals have compounded that fiasco, while the secularist vote is increasingly confident and vocal. As Osama bin Laden put it, most people will bet on the strong horse - but it's not just a mater of strength. We are really facing a new secularist religion and we haven't come to terms with its full implications.
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Post by loughcrew on Jul 13, 2010 7:31:51 GMT
I suppose that you are right and that the Irish electorate is more or less brain dead.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 13, 2010 19:02:43 GMT
David Quinn has a lot of interesting material on his IRISH CATHOLIC blog. This is particularly striking www.irishcatholic.ie/site/blog/1948EXTRACT Ronan Mullen tabled a lengthy series of amendments to the Civil Partnership Bill in the Seanad yesterday. An experienced political reporter told me that he had never before witnessed any TD or senator being subjected to the level of interruptions, bullying and harassment that Mullen was subjected to by some of his fellow senators... What I found extremely worrying about the Seanad debate on this matter, apart from the bullying of Ronan Mullen, was the fact that so many of our politicians now regard belief in traditional marriage and sexual morality as a form of bigotry, pure and simple. Clearly they think there is no rational ground for belief in either. The implications of this are stunning. If belief in traditional marriage is simply a product of prejudice then that belief should be stamped out or at least actively discouraged. This is happening already in other jurisdictions... The question isn’t whether you agree with these statements or not, or whether they are offensive or not. The question is whether you believe people have a right to express them without being punished, and in the case of Spanish schools, whether the teaching of non-traditional sexual morality should be compulsory. We are not yet at the point in Ireland where other countries already find themselves, but we are getting there. If it is unlawful ‘discrimination’ to refuse to rent out a church hall to a lesbian couple, then this logic surely propels us along the path being followed by Sweden, Spain, France, Canada etc? An attempt is being made to bury traditional sexual morality alive. It is to be seen as form of bigotry, and nothing more. We are entering a new era of State-imposed political correctness. A new morality is abroad that will brook no rivals, and as Senator Ronan Mullen discovered yesterday, no dissent either. END OF EXTRACT For a generally hostile view of Quinn's comments, see this thread on politics.ie: www.politics.ie/current-affairs/133601-ronan-mullen-alleged-bullying.htmlNote the following post by "Verhofstadt": Mullen is going to have his work cut out to get re-elected on the NUI panel, I've already got e-mails about working to ensure he loses his seat. END OF POST Anyone with a NUI Seanad vote on this board should make sure to vote for Ronan Mullen at the next election and do their best to influence others to do the same.
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Post by loughcrew on Jul 14, 2010 8:05:45 GMT
There is something quite pathetic in the cultural revolution being imposed upon the Irish people by a left\liberal political front. At the back of it all they are just a bunch of hicks playing at being trendy commentators, they really should look at themselves sometime.
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Post by loughcrew on Jul 14, 2010 8:40:18 GMT
In today's edition of the Irish Examiner there is a good letter written from Nora Bennis on the subject of the CPB but unfortunately I cannot find a link to the letters page on the web edition of the newspaper.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 14, 2010 12:35:36 GMT
I don't think the "bunch of hicks" description is helpful. The fact is, we are the hicks and they are the ones running the place, and their veneer of confidence and sophistication is very attractive. Society has become so secularised that a lot of people when brought into contact with hte Faith respond like the young St Jerome, inwardly feeling that te polished prose of Cicero was more attractive than the demotic Greek of the Gospels, and having a dream in which te Lord rebuked him - "You're not a christian but a Ciceronian!"
This doesn't mean polish and sophistication are bad in themselves, but we do need to know how to address those who are being lured by it. Namecalling doesn't help.
BTW if Nora Bennis had been better at subordinating her own ego to the task of building a political organisation which was more than just a vehicle for personal grandstanding, we might not be in quite such a mess. The disastrous record of the attempts to form a "Christian" party has helped to convince the politicians that they have nothing to fear from appeasing the secularists.
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Post by loughcrew on Jul 24, 2010 7:05:41 GMT
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 26, 2010 11:04:53 GMT
Loughcrew, part of the tragedy is that Madame President is still a friend of the hierarchy and Maynooth. You could argue that this whole expensive farce has its origins in ecclesiastical weakness.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 26, 2010 11:15:27 GMT
Re: politics after the CPB: If I did not say this before, someone else did. We have to be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.
I am an elector on the NUI panel. That means though I personally think Ronan Mullen is a clown, I am going to give him a first preference vote next time round.
I am also a Louth constituent. This means though I will be casting an FF ballot (ie not giving FF the first preference but ensuring the vote goes their way rather than towards FG, Lab, SF or the Greens - least of many evils), it will not benefit Dermot Ahern and will say that to FF canvassers. If an FG candidate in Louth was to come out like Seymore Crawford, I might make an exception - but this is unlikely.
I will try to enumerate the so-called 'Christian parties' since c. 1990:
1. Emmanuel Sweeney's 'Christian Democrats', who wanted to cut pub opening hours and open embassys in Cardiff and Edinburgh;
2. The Christian Principles Party which bombed at the same time;
3. The Christian Centrist Party which was a continuation of the CPP;
4. Richard Greene's Muintir na hÉireann;
5. Nóra Bennis' National Party; and
6. The Christian Solidarity Party which under Ger Casey seemed to be heading in some direction but has since gone down a cul de sac.
If I have left any out, please remind me. But basically the pattern is that of far left groups like the various Irish communist parties.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 30, 2010 15:25:23 GMT
The Christian Principles Party was founded in response to the X Case, I think. It became the CCP which then merged with Nora Bennis's party as Christian Solidarity. Ger Casey was not really that effective. I remember his high-profile and very expensive by-election campaign in Dublin West where he predicted he would get elected and got only 900 votes. In some respects I think the whole sorry story is worse than the far-left groups. These at least have an awareness of ideology which means they try to justify their actions in terms of Marxist philosophy (however self-serving), have a certain awareness of the need to explain to their members and recruits what they do, why they are doing it, and what they have done in the past, and they also have a sense of party discipline. The "Christian" groupuscules generally operate on the basis that every decent person is really on their side (cf the name of Greene's party), so they don't need to explain themselves, and that those who do not support them are so bad they cannot be won over, so there is no need to try to understand how they see the world or make any attempt to see them over. The result is that they turn into little personality cults in which whatever fad comes into the leader's head is treated as gospel and not open to debate, and because they make little attempt to record or understand their own history they keep on making the same mistakes over and over again. What is needed is some way of thinking things through and addressing the situation in which we find ourselves, and that is what this website and outlets like the BRANDSMA are for.
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