A Short Swinburnian Ode Adressed to a Shiten Shepherd

I make no claims for the following as poetry: it is simply angry verse, and the first line and metre are an imitation of A. C. Swinburne's poem Hymn to Proserpine ("Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean"), regretting the triumph of Christianity, and the decay of paganism. The words are said to have been spoken by the Julian the Apostate on his death-bed.


Please note the older pronunciation of 'victuals' as 'vittles', and you will get the reference.


Thou hast conquered, O pasty-faced *******!
The Church has grown weak, suffers scorn.
Our Faith that was manlier victuals
Has dwindled to muesli and quorn.

Of our Church Catholics once lived for, died for,
Now little's left here but the name.
The Light that your flock yearn and cry for,
Starved of fuel, is a weak, guttering flame.

You offer Our Lady's due: flowers 
On altars to strange heathen gods,
Fudge Doctrine, misusing your powers,
To affirm pagans, heretics, S**s.

A Bedtime Story - Not for Those of a Nervous Disposition

It was seven o'clock on a cold, dark, rainy autumn night. The Gladsome family, Treesgood, the father, Boudicca, the mother, and the six-month old twins were having an ecologically friendly vegan high tea.

Boudicca, sick of tofu, had just gone out to the kitchen for a quick bite at a dolphin steak she had hidden in the refrigerator, when the doorbell rang.

Treesgood answered it, leaving the twins in their high-chairs.

He returned, preceded by a heavily built man brandishing a meat-cleaver.

"Kids!" he bellowed. "Kids! Two kids! Too many kids! Don't think about the environment and all those poor little pandas, dolphins and grizzly bears, do you? Don't you know there are too many people? You need educating!"

"Sorry," murmered Treesgood, "I didn't think...."

"You lot never do! Read this, and you'll understand why it's my public duty to terminate one of your kids."

He handed a pamphlet to Treesgood, who hastily started reading.

At that moment, Boudicca returned from the kitchen, carrying her beloved shotgun. 

She fired, blowing half the man's head off. He fell to the floor, still clutching the meat-cleaver.

"My dear," said Treesgood, "I'm sure we could have resolved this in a reasonable fashion without resorting to violence. The man was entitled to his point of view which is shared by many ecolog... I think I'm going to be sick."

Ad Hominem Attacks

Did I mention that I love ad hominem attacks, as it seems did St Thomas More, whose diatribes against Luther are a joy to read? Gladstone and Churchill were also masters of this now unfashionable weapon.

Targets must be fair game.

But I won't print any which might land me in court, or which are directed against good people, living or dead.

All Souls' Night in Poland

All over Poland this week, and especially at the weekend, whole families have been toiling in Catholic cemeteries, scrubbing headstones, planting flowers, and making everything tidy and ready for All Souls'.

Every shop and supermarket sells cheap, beautifully-coloured glass lamps, lit by a candle, to be placed on family graves.

As I drove home in the dark tonight, in village after village, the graveyards were twinkling with brightly coloured lights.

A couple of years ago, when I asked a matura (like 'A' level) class where they had been on All Souls' night, they told me "The Cemetery. At midnight."

"Why?" I asked, fearing halloweenism.

Pityingly, those teenagers smiled at me. "To pray and sing hymns, of course. Are you really a Catholic, or only in Poland?"

Tonight, I have been to Benediction (packed), Mass (packed) and left my lamps burning.



Psalm 130



Out of the depths I cry to Thee, O Lord, Lord, hear my voice! O let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.

If Thou, O Lord, shouldst mark our guilt, Lord, who would endure it? But with Thee is found forgiveness: for this we revere Thee.

My soul is waiting for the Lord, I count on His word. My soul is longing for the Lord more than watchman for daybreak. Let the watchman count on daybreak and Israel on the Lord.

Because with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption; Israel indeed He will redeem from all its iniquity.

Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine on them

May they rest in peace.

Amen.

May the souls of the faithful departed, throught the Mercy of God, rest in peace + Amen.

Don't Waste Your Time Reading This Rubbish.

Don't waste your time reading the spasmodocally half-intelligent outpourings of insecure, intolerant, Catholic bigots like me. Go to Francis Davis's blog here , and read the deep and tolerant thoughts of a true Olympian, above the vulgar strife of anti-abortionistas and anti-condomistas.

He seems to like flexible Catholicism, so I guess he's got class.

I wish I could get some!

Apologies

My apologies for the lack both of activity here and of replies to comments. I have had a bad toothache for three days, and have existed on three hours sleep a night.

Off to the doctor for antibiotics, and dentist on Thursday (I hope).

Uneasy Reading about Sexual Offences by Teachers in Schools. H/T to OTSOTA

A very disturbing story unfolds on Sceptical Thoughts Blog about the way the Catholic Church in England and Wales is said to deal with sexual offences against children.

I cannot take sides, because I know nothing of the facts.

Quote of the week, from C.E.R.C.

"Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand. It is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." - Wendell Berry

Discourteous Thoughts from the Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) to remember before trying to communicate with pro-aborts

Sir 22:13 Talk not much with a fool, and go not to him that hath no understanding: beware of him, lest thou have trouble, and thou shalt never be defiled with his fooleries: depart from him, and thou shalt find rest, and never be disquieted with madness.



Sir 22:14 What is heavier than lead? and what is the name thereof, but a fool?


Sir 22:15 Sand, and salt, and a mass of iron, is easier to bear, than a man* without understanding.

* or woman

Polite Discourse with the Unspeakable Part II

I claim no poetic merit for these verses which I posted nearly a year ago, but am re-posting them only as a tailpiece to my last post, and because St Nicholas's heart, (and fist) were in the right place.


Saint Nicholas was my kind of Saint,
If sometimes short of temper.
Though pacifism was not his bent;
He was fidelis semper.

When Arius denied his Lord's
Divinity, Nick felt sore;
Decided acts speak more than words,
Felled Arius to the floor.


His kind of knock-down plagologue*
Is now not to our taste.
We value courteous dialogue
Above such wordless haste.


And yet there is a time, one feels
To strike and not to speak.
When Reason with Unreason deals,
It's reason which is weak.


For who can mould a brain of mud
With philosophic lore?
Better to thump the stupid crud.
His place is on the floor.



Note: Plagologue = arguing or reasoning with blows. This word does not appear in any dictionary. It is my own coinage, being derived from Latin 'plagus' = a blow, 'plagosus' = full of blows, violent, cognate with Greek 'plegein = to beat, and logos = reason.

Polite Discourse with the Unspeakable

Several blogs, among them Countercultural Father , have recently pointed out a perceived need for respect and courtesy when arguing with those who support abortion. It has been suggested that they will never be convinced of the rightness of the pro-life cause if they are vilified with insulting slogans or expressions like 'murderer'. Polite persuasion will work better. Their correspondents seem to agree.

They have, it seems, like racists, nazis, proponents of legalised pederasty, slave-traders and holocaust deniers, a right to their point of view.

With me so far? Good!

Pornography, contraception, and abortion are big business. Abortion feeds off unreliable contraception, the demand for which is stimulated by pornography. Nice little earners.

As to slavery, William Cowper wrote a poem in which he decried slavery, but said he felt bound to support it, as he liked plantation sugar in his tea, as did so many of his compatriots. A source of comfort for the evil men who were able to profit from cheaper sugar, and cotton. Slavery helped make Britain richer. Dulwich College was founded with the pofits of slavery. Cui bono indeed.

Nazism, too, was big business, supported by German tycoons who could smell a fast buck a mile off, and had a gluttonous appetite for slave labour. If there is a moral distinction to be made between between the enslavement and murder of innocent Jews and the very profitable murder of unborn children, someone should perhaps explain it to me, for it is beyond my feeble powers of comprehension.

You can argue that abortion is not murder because it is legal. So were the massacre, destruction, ruin and enslavement of nations which Germany wrought on Europe. The Nuremberg Laws and the diktats of Hitler were, after all, German law.

Would you have conducted your dealings with the unspeakable - people like Hans Frank, Joseph Mengele, Marie Stopes, or Margaret Sanger, with courtesy? I think and hope not.  What would be the point? The hope that through courteous discussion you might change what they were pleased to call their minds? I don't think so. Better speak the noble truth and tell them to their face what they were. It might even have served a secondary purpose and forced them to try to think.

In the UK, the end of the slave trade, one of the vilest blots on the nation's history, came about through the work of abolitionists like Wilberforce and his supporters, who were fortunate and successful because the country they addressed with reason, passion, and rhetoric was still receptive to reason, passion, and rhetoric, and still to an extent a Christian nation.

The modern UK, with its wrecked education, its addiction to sensation, fatuous television, catchpenny lying newspapers, and in possession of the powers of reasoning of an imbecile, would be immune to Wilberforce. Britain is forever largely a prey to slogans, catchphrases, advertising, the tenth rate, and the comfortable, and incapable of recognising, not just the truth, but the possibility that the truth can be ascertained.

In the USA, the end of slavery came about through heroes like John Brown, and through civil war.

Polite discourse will not stop the evil of abortion.

Sadly, I do not know what will.

Back to my normal nasty self

When I was young, I lived in a properly organic West Country village. I refer not to the food, but the population, which ranged from retired army officers, judges and the like to ordinary oiks like me. There were three pubs, one frequented by a transvestite, usually highly rouged and dressed in a crinoline. He looked totally conventional at work.

The other two were where old Etonians and farm labourers rubbed shoulders and drank: The Commercial and The Ring of Bells.

Local streets, too, had organic names: Smith Hill, Bread Street, Heddy's Cross (a lonely and spooky crossroads, reputed burial place of a suicide).

Then, in the late 1950s, a new breed arrived. Residents - retired minor civil servants, bank managers, openly describing themselves as the "patron class", they made their way on to the village council, and things started to change. The Commercial became The Admiral Grandison. Smith Hill became Exe View Gardens. Grandison Drive appeared, to be locally nicknamed Grandiose Drive.

Forever complaining of farmyard smells, barking dogs and the like, they were not greatly loved. They made me smell blood at the back of my nose.

Years later, in that very organic town, Winchester, new, expensive housing estates appeared. One which particularly enraged me was "Teg Down Meads" (a teg is apparently some kind of sheep, as if the residents of the road would know that). 

I hate tweeness, in language, manners, art, and, most of all, in religion.

Two Songs by Schubert

The Erl-King  and Der Koenig in Thule, both beautiful, and both wrong. Schubert the Austrian is irresistable. When he dips into Nordic or Teutonic mythology with its pessimism, gloom, and darkness, however, I prefer to concentrate on the sound, and try to ignore the sense.

Music. Competence and Artistry. Faith Too!

About 15 years ago, I used to play Irish music (one of my passions) at a local pub which had sessions on Sunday afternoons. I played flute, competently, and fiddle feebly. The 20 or so very middle-class people who came and played were largely highly competent, but not Irish. There was a very good uilleann (Irish pipes) player. I thought that their playing tended to lack passion.

One day, I arrived early to find only two men waiting, each with his pipes in a box. It turned out that they were the real thing - Irish navvies who were brothers, working on a local road. They asked me to play something on the fiddle, and I obliged with "Boulavogue". Their over-generous comment was, "It's fine - just needs a bit more elbow."

When the session started, they unpacked their pipes, and revealed themselves to be absolute maestros on that most difficult instrument. I have never heard anyone play with such grace and passion.

The other players were very put out. The English uilleann player most of all. Musical navvies? There was something wrong here. They fell silent

For the English players, folk music was something whose perfection they could only, with rather joyless determination, strive towards. For the two Irishmen, it was a lark. They were doing something they loved, and with the joy which springs from love. Their playing was full of beef and wit, as it should be. One of them even played a shortened version of Bach's Cantata and Fugue in B minor. It was a tour de force.

One of them sang. I forget the song, a sad one, but the delivery was perfect.

Sadly, the very English welcome they received was too much for them. They left after about 40 minutes, never to return.

As Chesterton remarked, "a job worth doing is worth doing badly". If it's worth doing, do it, as best you can, but with joy and enthusiasm.

This is as true, I believe, of our Faith as it is of music.

A Hundred Years of Tinpot Culture?

Matthew Arnold wrote in 1869 of his book Culture and Anarchy that:

The whole scope of [this book] is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically …

I have a question. Which writers, thinkers, philosphers over the last 100 years would you consider as having produced 'the best which has been thought and said in the world'?

I must admit that I have some difficultiy thinking of even one: perhaps, in English, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling (I am thinking here of Kim), Evelyn Waugh, and G.K.Chesterton; in French, Georges Bernanos.

Who would you nominate?

NO MALWARE DETECTED - BLOG SAFE AND CLEAN

Beware of "Investigating Obama" and "Pro-life.pl" which I had linked to and reportedly contained malware.

Previous post deleted.

Sorry.

Ministry of Truth Strikes Again? Who's Next?

I have been looking for vincentnichols.blogspot. and it seems to have disappeared.

Perhaps to the Birmingham gułag?

Who's next?

Quest For The Holy Grail from Redneck Reflections

Another fine post, on the Eucharist, which can be read here

Quote of the Week

"I've had enough of exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence." - St. Catherine of Siena.

H/T to C.E.R.C.

We Did'nae Ken!

I have read on other blogs that clergy who preach heresy, or fail properly to teach the laity the truth about mortal sin and Hell, are endangering the souls of their flocks. I have thought and said the same myself.

I cannot, I am glad to say, maintain this position, because I cannot believe that God is less merciful than we are.

Would I condemn to eternal torment someone who had sinned in ignorance of the nature of what he had done? Of course not. Or condemn someone whose heretical beliefs had been taught him by a heretical Bishop, or Priest, or teacher? A thousand times, no!

Long ago I heard an old Scottish joke about a Calvinist minister's sermon:

It'll be no use crying out to the Lord on the terrible Day of Judgment, "Lord, we did'nae ken! We did'nae ken!" 

For the Lord, in His infinite Mercy and Compassion will look down on ye and say, "Ye ken the noo!"

If we are indeed made in God's image, then our better yearnings, such as love and compassion must be a pale reflection of His.

False Bishops and Priests, and other correctly formed Catholics may well be destined for Hell if they lie to the ignorant about the Faith, but not lost little people who have never had access to the Truth.

"Better a millstone...."

Pruned

I have removed the most uncharitable of the posts here (assuming I located all of them).

I fear that hate and rage may well have made this blog an occasion of sin. I retract nothing I have written, but question my own motives. 

Another Fine Post From Richard Collins

You can read it here. It's about the importance of brand image for Heinz baked beans, and the Church.

Witty and well argued, as usual.

Bishop Everly Mainchance and Father Pliable

Redneck Reflections has an excellent post today, about a problem faced by all thinking Catholics: the large number of Bishops and Priest whom it is difficult to trust.

The situation was not much diferent over 600 years ago when Chaucer decribed the senior clergy of his time.

Thank God, the Church has survived and will survive, in spite of the shiten shepherds.

Accepting Diversity

Picture it: the valley of Elah and the two opposing armies, of the Israelites and of the Philistines. Between them stand the two champions, David and Goliath. There is a hush, punctuated only by the the cries of the waiting vultures.

David steps forward. He throws his sling and stones to the ground and speaks.

"I had it in mind to say, 'This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that God saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is God’s, and he will give you into our hand.'"


A vulture sharpens its beak.


"Come on, I thought, this is no way to resolve diversity between two cultures. I have an idea that each of us, Philistine and Israelite, has spiritual riches to share with the other.


"Let's talk about this. I can see that you are hurting. Your body-language tells me that. I propose that we sit down together, share a flask of wine, speak openly of our perceived differences, and resolve them.


"Then, if you wish, I can personally arrange for your circumcision. We will set up a commission for inter-faith dialogue, make a covenant of brotherhood, and our two peace-loving peoples will live peaceably together as the multicultural Nation of Phisrael."


The waiting jackals look bored and begin to fight amongst themselves.


And Goliath spake.


"%$#$%&!" he roared. And he smote David and laid him low. And the army of the Philistines slew the army of the Israelites, their women, their children, old and young, until there was none left."

And how do you feel about that, Best-Beloved?

Profanation - A Fine Post by Ancient Briton

A fine post from Ancient Briton about the proposed profanation of a memorial in London to British merchan seamen who died on the Atlantic convoys which fed us in the last war.

Patrick Button on Femanazis

A nicely argued post from Patrick Button on the outcry against male-only altar boys.

Enjoy!

Bring Back the Inquisition, from Redneck Reflections

Redneck Reflections has a post - Bring Back the Inquisition - which is excellent, although, perhaps, a little moderate for my tastes (tee! hee!).

If You Were Pope for a Week

What would you do?

Be totally confrontational?

Excomunicate all known heretical Priests and Religious?

Excommunicate "Catholics" who publicly support abortion or same-sex unions?

Re-promulgate the Syllabus of Errors?

Re-introduce the Oath Against Modernism?

End all kinds of silly Ecumenism which suggest that all religions are "true", and go instead for all-out conversion?

Clean out the Augean stables of pseudo-Catholic schools and colleges?

Forcibly retire most of the English Hierarchy?

Forcibly re-introduce Ad Orientem Mass as the only permitted form?

Anything else? I'd love to hear.

A Great Read from the Heresy-Hunter

His latest - You too can write like a post-modern philosopher here is very witty. Enjoy!

In the Service of the Cause of Peace - Not Me, Guv! A Plague on All Abstractions!

Am I the only person to feel uneasy about the following utterance by Pope Benedict, on the third Asissi joint prayer meeting?


"It will aim to commemorate the historical action desired by my Predecessor and to solemnly renew the commitment of believers of every religion to live their own religious faith as a service to the cause of peace."


And why am I uneasy?


Firstly, I do not, shall not, will not, and have no wish to, "live my religion as a service to the cause of peace", since I do not know what is meant by 'peace', and can imagine "peace" only in the context of Heaven.  Is peace the absence or end of war? tranquility of mind? the "peace" of Islam? just not causing trouble? Sometimes war is preferable to peace.


The problem with peace is that it is an abstraction, like Truth, Justice, Liberty, Equality, and so many others. Abstractions are cold, cruel, and without humanity. A plague on all abstractions!


Secondly, I do not live my religion in the service of something greater, because there is nothing greater. My religion is a Fact, awkward, uncomfortable, even at times to some people, rebarbative. Like gravity, it IS, even though at times, when I am working on a ladder and it starts to wobble, I might wish that there were no gravity. The Catholic faith is the Road to Salvation, no more, no less: and that is enough.


A long-dead Jesuit, Fr John Tracy, gave me a nice Latin tag, which I can remember only in English - The drink takes the shape of the cup which it fills. It is used to explain the need for inculturation, and the fact that a vision either will be culturally acceptable to the recipient, or will be rendered so by the recipient. I does not mean that the differences between God, Buddha, the Big Thumb, and Allah are merely cultural.


Our Church does not exist to serve some greater end, such as the Big Society, or the Ecology, or Justice. I exists to serve God and to save souls, no more, no less. And we sons and daughters of the Church serve her by serving other people, not abstractions.

Do Bears Read Schopenhauer in the Woods?

Thanks to that great champion of the truth Marco for this piece of insane news from the Christian Institute .

Have the English Catholic Bishops said anything yet?

Do bears read Schopenhauer in the woods?

Sorry I asked!