Bullies and Victims

When I was at school, and later as a teacher, it was plain that nobody bullied the strong, the dangerous, the vociferous, or the bully. Life after school is no different. Stalin famously said that God is on the side of the big batallions, and, express it as you will, strength, determination, courage, and a certain recklessness can be very useful worldly weapons, whether faced with a physical, a moral, or a spiritual enemy.

Backed by religion, as history shows, they can be nigh on invincible.

Christian civilisation and the Church are faced with physical, moral and spiritual enemies, and I would include the state (with its temporal powers of coercion, imprisonment, fines, compulsory miseducation, and assaults on the family) as a physical, as well as a spiritual and moral, enemy.

The supine passivity of the Hierarchy in England with its mealy-mouthed approach to a hostile government which seems bent on the Frankfurt School's aim of changing society by detroying the family, is a prime example of how not to do it.

We are told that we should, as Christians, be courteous and gentle in debate. Were Jesus, John the Baptist, St Thomas More, always courteous and gentle in debate?

Veritas in caritate? No, truth IS charity.

The employment of Greg Pope by the C.E.S., symptomatic of the tolerance and even promotion of dissent and disloyalty of our spiritual shepherds, is just a straw in the wind. Jon Snow's inexplicable presence at Cafod's celebrations is another. The faithful are bewildered.

The camel's back, to mix metaphors, is the Faith, moral fibre, and guts of believers, which are being constantly weakened by the lack of those qualities in their spiritual Leaders.

Christian Europe owes so much to those who preached, missionised, witnessed, were martyred, and fought the good fight, whether with words or weapons.

Let us not forget our history. Christianity, civilisation and justice were preserved by people prepared to confront, fight, die - and win.