Draven Savory Supernova wrote: » So-called? So it was not horrendous discrimination? How sad, that you persist in trying to downplay and equivocate about the treatment of Catholics in Britain and England. With your comments you are engaging in what was and is one of the common traits of the bigot, holding an entire group of people responsible for actions and statements of their leaders. (of course, the date you chose to start your trip down history lane is interesting). But, leaving aside and rights or wrongs of who done what; commentary holding Jews, Muslims etc. collectively responsible and justifying collective punishment of them, or even equivocating about it is horrendous and objectionable. Yet you are doing the same about Catholics here? So you think it is ok to treat a group of people a certain way because of their religion? It is not clear that you are engaging in your "explanation" of "so-called" horrendous discrimination as a means to illustrate how the English and British went wrong and were terribly wrong in what they did Eh, I'm not the one trying to "explain" and equivocate about persecutions here. That is you. Have a look in the mirror. Do I need to make a comment on the misdeeds of the Catholic church because I am a Catholic? Why? If a Muslim rightly points out issues of religious discrimination and treatment do you say to them, "What about jihad? What about 9/11, what about x"? If it were a Muslim who became PM (an interesting prospect as Smacl says) and a fellow Muslim said it was interesting, or whatever, given the past treatment of Muslims would you criticise them for not mentioning x, y and z? Would you equivocate, downplay and "explain" their past treatment? A certain group of people would do exactly that, you are in terrible company. The reason why it is noteworthy is the previous treatment of Catholics. It's amazing really what you are doing here. A Catholic observes that it is interesting and noteworthy that a fellow Catholic is now PM of Britain given the historic treatment of Catholics and you seek to "explain" and downplay the suffering and experience of my fellow religious. Well more than that really, you are bordering on outright justification here. Horrendous. I can only hope that, on reflection, you will realise that you have misspoke here (it happens to everyone) and have gone about this in totally the wrong way (again, this happens us all). Despite our disagreements I certainly have respect for your opinions, but this has been a rather poisonous display which I hope is the product of misspeaking, rather than a true reflection of your thoughts.
Draven Savory Supernova wrote: » the Catholic faith of the PM
Bannasidhe wrote: » Yes, it is noteworthy if the UK has a Roman Catholic PM - and it will be interesting to see how his Unionist allies react.
Bannasidhe wrote: From a strictly security of the realm perspective there were serious issues with Papal interference.
Edward Gibbon wrote: it must still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, the bishops of the Imperial city extended their dominion over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who, from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, assumed the popular character of reformers. The church of Rome defended by violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud; a system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by the proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the holy office. And as the reformers were animated by the love of civil as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual censures. In the Netherlands alone more than one hundred thousand of the subjects of Charles V. are said to have suffered by the hand of the executioner; and this extraordinary number is attested by Grotius, [...] If we are obliged to submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be allowed that the number of Protestants who were executed in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and of the Roman empire.
robindch wrote: » Any time I hear one or other of the various christian sects claim a unique victimhood at the hands of one or other of another christian sect, I'm reminded of the forlorn, final paragraph of Chapter 16 of Decline and Fall:
smacl wrote: » Interesting that two years after its publication, Waugh converted to Catholicism.
Draven Savory Supernova wrote: » That's interesting. It is said that Blair felt it expedient to wait until he was out of office before he converted, because of potential issues (perceived or otherwise) a Catholic PM would result in. Opinion on Boris aside, it is a very welcome development, historically noteworthy, that a Catholic is and can be PM, given the horrendous discrimination and persecution that the English and British state inflicted on Catholics for hundreds of years.
smacl wrote: » I'm not sure Catholicism is an issue for many if any British people in this day and age. Now if the elected a Muslim PM on the other hand, that would be more rather more interesting.
. . . if any such person shall offend in the premises he shall, being thereof convicted by due course of law, be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and disabled for ever from holding any office, civil or military, under the Crown.
Peregrinus wrote: » (I don't think Robin was talking about the novel by Waugh, published in 1928, but about the six-volume history by Edward Gibbon, published between 1776 and 1789.)
Peregrinus wrote: » It's ripping stuff, but it's fair to point that Gibbons' interpretation of events, particularly in relation to the role played by Christianity, are not widely shared by modern historians.
Peregrinus wrote: » It's ripping stuff [...]
robindch wrote: » Indeed
Draven Savory Supernova wrote: » Taking an oath to God is serious business. Taking such an oath and not upholding it is even more serious.
smacl wrote: » Yikes! Backs slowly away from the keyboard....
Peregrinus wrote: » The guidelines are that the ceremonies should be deferred. The Department has apparently suggested that the bishops they should defer them, but McNamara is saying the bishops should refer the decision to priests. This is not McNamara urging what the decision should be; he is urging who should make the decision — priests rather than bishops. "The State should not interfere with the church's internal decision making"; i.e. it's not for the State to say who, within the churches, should make decisions about the deferral of ceremonies. And he's not "clearly saying that they should do what they want". He suggests who should make the decision, but he says nothing about how they should go about making it. In particular, he doesn't suggest that priests would or should attach any less weight to advice from the Department than Bishops would or should. As for McNamara saying "saying the Sacraments are special and should go ahead", (a) he doesn't say the second bit, and (b) why would he? By his own reasoning, it's not for him to say whether the sacraments should go ahead or not. If the State should not interfere with the church's internal decision making, then neither should a TD.
Peregrinus wrote: » He doesn't believe that the government, the priests and the bishops are all going to have the same ideas - he doesn't say anything of the kind. And he may well be motivated to suggest that the decision should be delegated to priests because - for whatever reason - he thinks the priests are most likely to make the decision that he, personally, would approve of. But that's the opposite of urging the priests to do what he wants them to do. On that view, he doesn't need to urge priests to do that; he's advocating that the decision be left to them because he thinks they are already minded to do that.
Peregrinus wrote: » Suggesting that bishops should defer to priest is suggesting this decision should be made, not what the decision should be. Your really can't see the distinction here?
Investigative Project wrote: "We should engage in continuous interpretation of Quranic texts," bin Salman said, "and the same goes for the Sunnah of the Prophet PBUH, and all fatwas should be based on the time, place, and mindset in which they are issued." Saudis should not idolize any scholar, even Mohamed Abdel Wahab, the Muslim theologian and founder of Wahhabism, bin Salman said. The changes are vital if Saudi Arabia is to remain economically vibrant, he said. "Now, we cannot grow, we cannot attract capital, we cannot have tourism, we cannot progress with such extremist thinking in Saudi Arabia. If you want millions of jobs, if you want unemployment to decline, if you want the economy to grow, if you want your income to improve, you must eradicate these projects for the other interest." This change could open the door to Saudi Arabia nullifying a majority of the hadiths on which many Islamists base their doctrine. "When we commit ourselves to following a certain school or scholar, this means we are deifying human beings," bin Salman said. [... ] It could be years before these religious and social reforms take root in full Saudi society. But if bin Salman's pledge to back away from Wahhabism takes root, radical Islamists have lost a key component used to spread their ideology.
Thread on the links between the SSPX catholic fundamentalist sect, and its variants, and various far-right actors and organizations. Includes the two hermit nuns in West Cork and some of their nearby friends.
https://twitter.com/IsAntifascist/status/1418525069001826315
Now the Gardai have arrested an activist critical of SSPX Resistance for "hate speech". You couldn't make it up.
https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40344509.html
Interesting to compare the tone of the Irish Times report from Saturday 17th July with the rather less deferential report from a week later:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/woman-to-be-arrested-over-allegations-from-ultra-conservative-religious-group-1.4622651
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/cork-activist-questioned-over-allegations-of-harassment-by-christian-fundamentalists-1.4629871
Bishop talks bollox
“It is not uncommon to find the coverage of religion per se and religious affairs generally viewed through a political prism and treated in political terms,” he told his congregation.
Well stfu when there's a referendum on, then. Because telling people which way to vote is being political.
It had “become standard today to adopt and embrace a form of ‘group-think’ which allows some to believe they can determine our outlook and reactions to various situations and realities, and not least, our attitude to religion and matters of faith and morals,” he said.
Irony meter exploded, bits everywhere. Brought to you by an organisation which ruthlessly suppresses internal dissent. They used to suppress external dissent, too, until burning people on stakes became frowned upon.
Now I know not everyone here is a big fan of Michael McDowell 😉, but he penned a riposte to the above guff:
It could be argued with greater force, I venture to suggest, that the failures of the churches to deal with such matters and with the status of women and gay people is the result of a far more obvious and dubious non-gospel based groupthink on their part. Those who argue for infallibility and moral magisterium might well ponder whether they are in any strong position to single out groupthink among others as the real cause of their present marginalisation.
Worth reading in full if you can, and perhaps that's not the most telling extract from it. However it assumes you take it as read that "gospel values" are all well and good. (What really grates on me is when "christian" is used as a synonym for "good" or "decent" or "civilised" when it's very frequently been the opposite of all of the above.)
The co-founder of the Association of Catholic Priests has warned the decision of a number of Catholic bishops to allow First Communions and Confirmations to go ahead will “inevitably” contribute to the spread of the Delta variant.
Fr Tony Flannery said he could not understand the decision by the bishops given that the matter would no longer be an issue within five or six weeks.
Current Covid-19 measures say First Holy Communions and Confirmations should not take place at this time.
However, some Catholic bishops are allowing such ceremonies to take place in their dioceses this month, in defiance of public health advice.
Predictably, Kevin Doran and Phonsie Cullen are among the bishops in question.
Fr Flannery told RTÉ Radio’s Today Show the bishops had missed an opportunity to “relocate” the preparation for sacraments from schools to parishes so ceremonies would be for only those who “really want it”.
For many children and their families it was not the sacrament that was important, it was the social events after “and the money they will get”, he said, adding there was a commercial side to such events that had “cheapened” the ceremonies.
Cardinal Burke, one of the RCC's main US-based hardliners, a Trump supporter and a vaccine and covid-denier, has - unfortunately - come down with a dose of covid.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/vaccine-sceptic-cardinal-confirms-he-has-covid-19-virus-1.4645692
Several words come to mind, but none of them printable...
***** the ***** ***** with a **** karmic stocking of ****
Are those just asterisks you typed? Haven't given the swear filter on the new site a proper try yet 😉
In other news:
The Archbishop of Dublin has advised Catholics against going around with “a funeral face”, a “sourpuss” or “a grimace that would stop a clock”.
“Our bitter thoughts and actions seep into our faces and infuse our words with a caustic bite; people notice when they look at us at Mass that we are a bunch of sour and dour faces,” Dermot Farrell said.
“Don’t forget to ask yourself this question: Am I a joyful person? Or, are am I one whose face is downcast, bitter and, at times, a grimace that would stop a clock? God loves someone who can give with joy, the cheerful giver.”
Speaking during a Mass at St Dominic’s Church in Tallaght, the archbishop said: “St Dominic can teach us that cheerfulness and kindliness, reflected in our faces, is a better witness to the gospel than the ‘funeral face’ sometimes mentioned by Pope Francis in his homilies.
“When Christians have more of a ‘sourpuss’ than a face that communicates the joy of being loved by God, they harm the mission and witness of the church.”
Scripture speaks “primarily to the heart, not to our intellect,” he said.
“It is not there to be understood, but to be approached as the threshold of mystery,” he continued.
That bit in bold had me howling with laughter 🤪 🤪 🤪
Hmm. Sky fairy not listening: https://www.thedailybeast.com/vaccine-skeptic-cardinal-raymond-l-burke-breathing-via-ventilator-after-testing-positive-for-coronavirus
