A VERY THEORETICAL MORAL QUESTION

In the days before global villagism, there was a tired old moral question expressed thus:

If there was a button on your desk, and every time you pressed it, you would be a million pounds richer, and someone would die in far-away China, how often would you press the button?

I've never found money very interesting, but change the results a little, and my ears do indeed prick up.

If I had a button on my desk, and every time I pressed it a child would be saved from abortion, and lightning would strike and kill an abortionist, or pro-abortion legislator, or facilitator, or vociferous and effectual promoter, or someone who legislates or agitates to forcibly teach my grandchildren the rightness of intrinsically immoral acts, then what would I do?

And what would you do?

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.

John Lennon or Joan of Arc? Gandhi or Don John of Austria? Lytton Strachey or Churchill?

You're in a foxhole.

Choose!

HURRAH ME SOUL, SAYS I. ME SHILLELAGH I LET FLY

Over at The Catholic Whistle, Paul Mallinder's excellent and ever-interesting blog, he speculates about why the Tatchells of this world direct their spleen against the Catholic Church, but say little or nothing about Islam, or Mohammedanism, as we used to call it.

His answer - and I think the right one - is fear.

I prefer 'cowardice'.

Muslims strike back. Catholics don't any more. Why not?

Is this non-violence of Christ and so truly Christian, or Catholic? If it were, I would have to admire it. But I suggest that it is not always from Jesus. He, too, could be violent, as witness the apisode when He drove the money-changers from the Temple.

In fact, most soi-disant liberal Catholics, who are flipsy-flopsy on abortion and contraception, are hard-line against violence whether to people or animals. They don't fight, they don't hunt, but they vociferously support the killing of the unborn.

Why? Because they have married the liberal, sentimental spirit of the age and, as someone said, will soon, thank God, be widowed. They haven't the guts to stand up for the Truth. The approval of liberal windbags is enough for them.

Catholic Europe survived because of people who thought differently. To protect what they loved and believed, they went to war.

Victory at Lepanto, at the Battle of Vienna, on the Vistula in 1920, and in the Second World War was not brought about by passive resistance, but by people who fought, killed, died, and won.

I'm glad that we had Churchill, not Gandhi.

We still, some of us, as Catholics, celebrate Lepanto. But would we follow its example?

A SUBJECT OF BEELZEBUB IS DRIVING ME TO DISTRACTION

One of the surprises of living in Poland, out of town, is the size of the wildlife. A friend killed a viper which was curled up in his outide loo. English vipers are usually small, less than a foot long. His was three feet long (he showed the dead body to me) and about 5 inches thick. He's a Pole, and said that its bite could be fatal.

Insect are big, too, and grasshoppers two or three inches long which bite if picked up, hornets two inches, and mosquitos big and aggressive. Mosquito nets are normal here.

Worst are the flies, the small type, about half the size of a normal house fly. There is one in the room with me now, flying as expertly as a Spitfire pilot with one injured wing. He's been my evening companion for about a week, homing in to bite if I am less than vigilant. The bite is quite painful, and dirty.

Yes I have fly spray, and have given him point-blank bursts so he spirals away like a stricken Messerschmitt, but flies back, unharmed and sneering, to land on my face. He's an enemy of useful work, noisy, a night-biter, and indestructible.

He's a corrupter of morals. I want to design a tiny rack to rack him with, boil him in (sunflower) oil, return him to his lord, Beelzebub. I'm angry, uncharitable and, unless I can get him with the fly-swatter, defenceless.

Muslims believe that flies, rats, and mice are Satan's work. My favourite Jesuit, 20 years dead, Father Tracy of Farm Street, believed that Satan had infected Creation, and even evolution, to produce tigers, crocodiles, HIV and the like.

Makes sense to me.

Stalin Joke No 4

Early on a beautiful summer morning Stalin gets out of bed, goes to the window, and draws the curtains back.

The Sun is shining, and, to Stalin's surprise, says, "Good morning, Comrade Stalin."

"Good morning," replies Stalin, wondering about the strength and quality of the previous night's vodka.

In the afternoon, taking a break from his work, Stalin goes into the garden. The Sun again greets him, "Good afternoon, Comrade Stalin, Great Teacher!"

"Good afternoon, and thank you," replies Stalin.

In the evening, at the end of a glorious day, Stalin is again in the garden and looks up at the setting Sun. "Good evening, he says, tentatively.

"Sod off, you stupid commie bastard!" replies the Sun.

"Why are you so rude now, when you were so polite before?" asks Stalin.

"Ha! Ha! I'm in the West now."

HAVIN' IT LARGE

Yup, it's me, Ol' Smirky, and I'm back, much to Leftfooter's chagrin. Poor guy thinks I'm a hacker, but he hasn't cottoned on that I'm just his liberal alter ego! Heh! Heh!

When I was at school, our R.E. teacher told us that Jesus wasn't talking about Heaven, pie in the sky, and all that stuff. No!

He was talking about having life abundantly - here and now, on Planet Earth! Talking about -

HAVIN' IT LARGE!

Not the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Rule of God.

And was that schoolteacher right? Right on!

Sooo, that's what we Catholic Christians should be doing - having it Large!

The Big Vision. The Big Society!

Tony Blair and his Faith Foundation really hit the nail on the head when they opined that all Faiths have a part to play in forging a better, fairer, Britain.

Catholic Voices too. They really smacked down John Smeaton and his hardline 'prolife' bunch of reactionaries.

Talk about Taleban Catholics!

On second thought, no, please don't. We've all had about enough of them, from Pio Nono to anti-Semite Pius XII, not to mention all the other Catholic nutters.

We should be proud to play our part, as a really inclusive church, in creating a bigger, better Britain.

So, let's be a really Catholic Church (Catholic = universal = inclusive), and open our doors and break bread with all who sincerely seek the Truth, whether our Muslim brethren, or Hindus, or Wiccans, or Uncle Tom Cobbley and All.

And, maybe, the next Pope will be a Unitarian.

Remember - THINK BIG!

I'M BEING HACKED INTO

It seems that a dissenting Bishop called Smirk has hacked into my blog. He seems to be hinting that he is backed by "circular magicians", whoever they may be (Plese see previous blog).

How do I rid my blog of this dysrational poltroon?

Exorcism?

From Bishop Smirk - Bats in My Belfry!!!

Well, how's that for fast-track promotion, eh? Priest to bishop in a year! Banzai!

Thanks, you circular magicians!!

We're Catholic, ok, and Catholics are logical and reasonable, so let's be logical and reasonable.

OK by you, Papa B16? Yup? Sorry, jawohl? Ok so here goes.

God made everything, ok so far?

That includes lions, tigers, sharks, bats - you still with me?

Bats are cute, great. I got bats in the belfry, as they say. And I listen to my bats. They squeak pure common sense to me!

God made gays, right? Everything He made is good, ok B16?

So gays are good! QED!

But gays are better than good. They're ECOLOGICAL!

The world's biggest problem? Too many people! And LGBT folk don't tend to have kids - so,....great for Our World.

AND, a bonus point! Gay adoption is great. Konrad Lorenz showed 60 years ago, that young animals and birds imprint on whoever or whatever they see as their parents.

So LGTB adopted kids will I guess be LGTB as well. So fewer people in the world.

Bingo!

OK, MAYBE I'M THICK, BUT I REALLY WANT TO KNOW

1 Is it a truth that, as we pray, so we believe (lex orendi lex credendi)?

2 If it isn't true, why did those early, headstrong, bigoted, un-nuancing, bloody-minded Christians choose death rather than burn a pinch of incense on Caesar's altar?

3 If it is true, how would Archbishop Nichols explain, or nuance, the flowers he laid on a Hindu altar in Willesden?

4 Is the Pope infallible when he speaks ex cathedra on matters of Faith and morals?

4 If he isn't infallible, and the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church are a bit, shall we say, dodgy in places, will I still get to Heaven (if there is one) if I start my own church of Diogenes (no, not the Saint) and retire to a sunny barrel somewhere? (Yes, I know what he did in the barrel)

5 If he is, Why don't you rejecters of infallible Papal teaching go and...found you own church of saint Diogenes and.....?

6 I know there are groups for Catholic homosexuals, homosexualists, leathermen (in San Francisco, apparently ok'd by the Jesuits), for Catholics supporting female ordination, and so on.

What I want to know is: is there a group for lazy Catholics like me who don't want to have to go to Mass and all that boring stuff?

7 If not, isn't it time I started one? Isn't it time, that the Church, as Tony Blair said, caught up with what the people in the pew really believe?

8 If there is such a group, what does Vincent Nichols have to say about it.