Gardinal Gasper and the Concrete Boots

Homo? Straight? What's the problem? It's love, innit?

Catholic Household has an interesting article on the egregious Kasper and his ludicrous application of German "form criticism" to the Gospels. 

They quote from his writings:

“A number of miracle stories turn out in the light of form criticism to be projections of the experiences of Easter back into the earthly life of Jesus, or anticipatory representations of the exalted Christ. Among these epiphany stories we should probably include the stilling of the storm, the transfiguration, Jesus’ walking on the lake, the feeding of the four (or five) thousand and the miraculous draught of fishes. The clear purpose of the stories of the raising from the dead of Jairus’s daughter, the widow’s son at Naim and Lazarus is to present Jesus as Lord over life and death. It is the nature miracles which turn out to be secondary accretions to the original tradition.

“The result of all this is that we must describe many of the gospel miracle stories as legendary. Legends of this sort should be examined less for their historical than for their theological content. They say something, not about individual facts of saving history, but about the single saving event which is Jesus Christ. To show that certain miracles cannot be ascribed to the earthly Jesus does not mean that they have no theological or kerygmatic significance…The probability is that we need not take the so-called ‘nature miracles’ as historical.” (Jesus the Christ, p. 90-91)

“The almost universal opinion today is that in their present form at least these passages are prophecies after the event. They are post-Easter interpretations of Jesus’ death and not authentic sayings. That applies particularly to the third prophecy, which gives very precise details of the actual course of the Passion. If Jesus had foretold his death and Resurrection as clearly as that, the flight of the disciples, their disappointment and their initial refusal to accept the evidence of the Resurrection would have been completely incomprehensible.” (Jesus the Christ, p. 114-115)

This kind of Biblical exegesis was hilariously lampooned a hundred and more years ago by Chesterton in The Flying Inn, a book which is always worth a read.

A Cardinal of the Catholic Church? The Devil's mouthpiece. St Nicholas, I think, would have dealt him a quick smack in the teeth.

The concrete boots? I could find a use for them, strengthening my kicking muscles.

A Discussion of Chesterton on Poland

http://youtu.be/Oq-Y2pdoOrA

A Voiceless People

The Secret People by G. K. Chesterton

SMILE at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget.

For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.

There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,

There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.

There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.

There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;

You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:

Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.

We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.

The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down;

There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.

And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way,

And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day.

They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind.

Till there was not bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find.

The inns of God where no main paid, that were the wall of the weak,

The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

And still they do not speak (my note). 

Chesterton and Hitchens

I've just read this, from The Catholic Thing. Aware as I am of Craig Prostak's accusation that I deride those cleverer than I, and reasonably happy with the way the author deals with Chesterton, I yet can only wonder that so much ink is still being spilled over Hitchens. In an age when most journalism is ill-written and slipshod, I suppose one can expect even a moderate talent to be hailed as brilliant. 

The author of the article, Robert Royal writes,

I knew Hitchens only slightly. He was a charming rogue, especially to the ladies, from a certain British epoch – the passing of the great English dominance. That, plus his obvious brilliance earned him a prominent place in Washington journalism.

Ah! A 'charming rogue'! And there we have it - the almost universal admiration for the successful womaniser. One wonders whether, had Hitchens been an unattractive figure like Alexander Pope, or from a less privileged background, his brilliance would have been so obvious, and whether he would have enjoyed such universally adulation.

Perhaps, as with the serpent in Eden, charm got him a very long way.

Having wasted time reading a few articles by Hitchens which would have been better spent changing the month on the garage calendar, my regrets concern only his wasted talents, the appalling effect such a literary popinjay had on his uncritical admirers, and the fact that his siren voice, if it could not sing a different song, was not silenced earlier.

Will that do, Mr Prostak?

Chesterton on German "higher" Biblical criticism

I am working on my contribution to Mulier-Fortis's meme (hate that word, coined by Dorkins) and, if no one else has already done so, will propose one of the most re-readable books I know, Chesterton's The Flying Inn. Written over a hundred years ago, it describes an ultimately unsuccessful Muslim takeover of England. 

If you are as sceptical as I am of the value of German "higher" Biblical criticism, and are not already familiar with it, read Chapter IX of Chesterton's book. It reflects my views entirely. It is also extremely funny.

Cowardice in the Face of the Enemy

As a very small, insignificant, oldish, impotently angry, would-be-good Catholic, I am terrified by the madness which has engulfed the world I once thought I knew. In this I know that I am not alone.

Rage and satire can be powerful weapons against a rational enemy who is equipped to subject his own acts and opinions to reasonable scrutiny. However, we are now faced by an irrational enemy against whom such weapons are virtually powerless.

What should we, or more to the point, I, do?

Not, certainly not, accept defeat as I have been tempted to do and, like a petrified rabbit, wait to be devoured. That is sheer animal cowardice, and I confess freely to having often been guilty of it.

The enemy are big, powerful, and morally stupid. We Catholic bloggers have one advantage over them: thanks to the Holy Spirit, if we follow His promptings and His Church, we have the Truth, and we must not cease from proclaiming it in the face of ridicule, indifference, state oppression, the treason of our own clergy, or sheer world-weariness.

Chesterton, too, lived in a moral madhouse. Cleverly, wittily, eloquently, he never surrendered his weapons to the enemy.

I, we, with but a shadow of his talents, weary and stale as we may often feel, must also never give up.

As the slogan went in my childhood, "Don't you know there's a war on?"

This is no time to surrender and hang up our keyboards.

Bash on regardless!

A FAVOURITE POEM BY G. K. CHESTERTON

Curiously topical: "From all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men..."

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honour and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord.

Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall,
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to Thee.