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What do the following people have in common? (Multiple Choice)
Jim Crud-Ass
Craig Poop
Bishop Piquant Pickles
Pope Polypistis
Sister Betsy Necrosis
Dr Krimpleane Phabbs
Bishop Everly Mainchance
Justin De Groot, D.Phil
Professor Dino Nonevero
Sister Pestilentia Quiche
Grant Thrust
Answers:
a They are all imaginary
b They are all real people
c They have all appeared in The Hermeneutic of Cool
d They are the scum of the earth
e They are evidence of the morbid imagination of Left-footer, and the poor man should be sectioned.
PLEASE WRITE THE LETTER FOR THE CORRECT ANSWER IN THE COMMENT-BOX
The winner (whoever posts the first correct answer within seven days) can choose a subject on which I must, within seven days, write a sonnet or a set of Sapphic verses (my choice).
I have lifted all of the following from the heroic and much scoffed-at SPUC blog of John Smeaton, not because I am too lazy to write my own stuff, but because his words cannot be improved on.
Yesterday was the 75th anniversary of Mit brennender sorge ("With burning sorrow", against Nazism), in which Pius XI wrote:
"Parents who are earnest and conscious of their educative duties, have a primary right to the education of the children God has given them in the spirit of their Faith, and according to its prescriptions. Laws and measures which in school questions fail to respect this freedom of the parents go against natural law, and are immoral.
"We address Our special greetings to the Catholic parents. Their rights and duties as educators, conferred on them by God, are at present the stake of a campaign pregnant with consequences. The Church cannot wait to deplore the devastation of its altars, the destruction of its temples, if an education, hostile to Christ, is to profane the temple of the child's soul consecrated by baptism ... Then the violation of temples is nigh, and it will be every one's duty to sever his responsibility from the opposite camp, and free his conscience from guilty cooperation with such corruption. The more the enemies attempt to disguise their designs, the more a distrustful vigilance will be needed, in the light of bitter experience ... [D]o not forget this: none can free you from the responsibility God has placed on you over your children. None of your oppressors, who pretend to relieve you of your duties can answer for you to the eternal Judge, when he will ask: 'Where are those I confided to you?' May every one of you be able to answer: 'Of them whom thou hast given me, I have not lost any one' (John xviii. 9)."
And next Monday will be the 75th anniversary of Divini Redemptoris (against Communism), in which Pius XI wrote:
"Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted ... [T]he right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right."
Reflecting on these great, prophetic words, I am painfully reminded of the unresolved scandal of the appointment of Greg Pope as deputy director of the Catholic Education Service (CES), an organ of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. Here is but a small sample of Mr Pope's lengthy record of opposing Catholic pro-life/pro-family teaching during his time as a member of parliament. Mr Pope:
voted against a bill which would have required practitioners providing contraception or abortion services to a child under the age of 16 to inform his or her parent or guardian (14 Mar 2007)
signed a parliamentary motion praising a condom manufacturer for helping schools host “National Condom Week” (11 May 2004)
voted against measures (popularly known as “section 28”) preventing local councils from promoting homosexuality, including the teaching in schools of “the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship” (5 Jul 2000) (10 Mar 2003) (10 Mar 2003). He also signed a parliamentary motion in the same vein (24 Mar 2004).
voted against amendments restricting adoption to heterosexual couples (20 May 2002) and married couples (4 Nov 2002). He also signed a parliamentary motion in the same vein (24 Mar 2004).
In other words, Mr Pope has voted for or otherwise publicly supported the anti-life and anti-family ideas which Pope Pius XI found and condemned in Nazism and Communism. So, will the Catholic bishops' conference of England and Wales sack Mr Pope, or do they prefer totalitarianism?
My comments:
I think, John, that they shamelessly prefer a quiet life.
My own Left-footed view is that Catholics who are aware of the situation and continue to support the CES are collaborating in the worst evil of all: the corruption of children. I regard such support as a mortal sin, but then I am no theologian.
Millstones and necks, anyone?
T E Hulme is reported to have written, “An institution is only finally overthrown when it has taken into itself the ideas of its opponents".
Am I the only Catholic feeling uncomfortable with this thought?
CNA reports that the Lesbian woman denied Communion at her mother's Requiem Mass is a Buddhist.
CNA reports that After being denied Communion last month, Johnson wrote a letter to Fr. Guarnizo, warning him that he would “pay dearly” for what he had done. She has said that she will not be satisfied until he is removed from parish ministry.
TEE HEE!
Richard Collins in his always well worth reading blog Linen on the Hedgerow covers this abominable possible new development which has driven me into more than my usual rage and uncharity.
If you have not read Richard's post, please do. It highlights once again the silent weakness of the Catholic Hierarchy, compared with Lord Carey, in protesting against this further anti-Catholic or anti-Christian discrimination.
Apparently the cretins who run the country are of the opinion that while the Sikh dagger, Muslim hijab, etcetera are religious requirements, the Cross is not.
Have they never heard (no, of course not) of Sacramentals?
I wear a visible Crucifix and a Miraculous Medal on a chain round my neck, as do most people in Poland, male and female, but not for adornment.
They are Sacramentals, blessed by a Priest (the Miraculous Medal was blessed by Blessed John Paul II) and a statement, not jewellery, and (I hope) will ensure that, when I am seriously ill or injured, a Priest will be called.
Every school classroom, every shop, every doctor's surgery, every hospital ward and waiting or consulting room here has a Crucifix on the wall.
I am waiting for some pestillentially ignorant, theologically clueless mud-brain to challenge this practice in The Hague or wherever.
Please check it out if you haven't already done so. It's on the side-bar.
Voices From Russia has an interesting post, with photographs, about a paradrop Russian Orthodox Church. The author, Varvara, writes'
Official sources told us that, since last fall, the number of Orthodox Christians in the VDV (Airborne Forces) grew 10 percent to reach 90 percent of all paratroopers.
What is the Orthodox getting right, which the Catholic Church is getting less right?
teresaamerica has a piece about Kirk Cameron's views on homosexuality, which is well worth reading. Her last paragraph has a brilliant analogy about screwdrivers and light sockets.
You're bored, at a loose end. You've cut the canary's toenails, pruned the aspidistra, changed the garage calendar, bleached the poodle, and read to your goldfish. Life seems empty, without significance, futile.
Despair not, but visit dotCommonweal, which contains some of the most interesting (in a clinical sense) would-be Catholic thinking I have come across.
Their latest piece here rebukes (Archbishop?) Dolan, referred to only as 'Dolan", for his arrogance in thinking that Bishops, not lay intellectuals, have authority in matters of faith and Morals, and especially in matters of same-sex 'marriage' and abortion.
If that doesn't raise your blood-pressure and pulse-rate, you should see your doctor.
H/T thelarryd (Acts of the Apostasy)
When, in the late 1950s, I attended Mass in a small local Church, the Tridentine rite was all that was available. What struck me was the courtly ceremony of what was happening at the Altar, and the diverse private devotions of the conregation (rosaries, private prayer etc.) The Priest's face was expressionless. He was doing something very serious which needed no underlining by his facial expression or chummy interjections.
I read a lot of C.T.S. booklets at the time and they all seemed agreed that the Mass was an act. Transubstantiation took place, regardless of the convictions, intentions, distractions, or plain unbelief of those present.
One simply heard Mass. The Act was the essential, and the Latin (which was translated into English on the right-hand page of the Missal was no distraction. One was there, at the re-presentaion of the Sacrifice at Calvary. What could be more awe-inspiring?
The language used in the Mass, so long as it worthy of the Occasion (and Latin is very worthy), is unimportant. What matters is what is happening, and not how we feel about it.
